Chapter LIII: Eighth Year of the War (2)

Finding his exhortations favorably received, Pagondas conducted the army by a rapid march to a position close to the Athenians. He was anxious to fight them before they should have retreated farther; and, moreover, the day was nearly spent,—it was already late in the afternoon. Having reached a spot where he was only separated from the Athenians by a hill, which prevented either army from seeing the other, he marshalled his troops in the array proper for fighting. The Theban hoplites, with their dependent allies, ranged in a depth of not less than twenty-five shields, occupied the right wing: the hoplites of Haliartus, Korôneia, Kôpæ, and its neighborhood, were in the centre: those of Thespiæ, Tanagra, and Orchomenus, on the left; for Orchomenus, being the second city in Bœotia next to Thebes, obtained a second post of honor at the opposite extremity of the line. Each contingent adopted its own mode of marshalling the hoplites, and its own depth of files: on this point there was no uniformity, a remarkable proof of the prevalence of dissentient custom in Greece, and how much each town, even among confederates, stood apart as a separate unit.[627] Thucydidês specifies only the prodigious depth of the Theban hoplites; respecting the rest, he merely intimates that no common rule was followed. There is another point also which he does not specify, but which, though we learn it only on the inferior authority of Diodorus, appears both true and important. The front ranks of the Theban heavy-armed were filled by three hundred select warriors, of distinguished bodily strength, valor, and discipline, who were accustomed to fight in pairs, each man being attached to his neighbor by a peculiar tie of intimate friendship. These pairs were termed the heniochi and parabatæ, charioteers and companions; a denomination probably handed down from the Homeric times, when the foremost heroes really combated in chariots in front of the common soldiers, but now preserved after it had outlived its appropriate meaning.[628] This band, composed of the finest men in the various palæstræ of Thebes, and enjoying a peculiar training for the defence of the kadmeia, or citadel, was in after-days detached from the front ranks of the phalanx, and organized into a separate regiment under the name of the Sacred Lochus, or Band: we shall see how much it contributed to the short-lived military ascendency of Thebes. On both flanks of this mass of Bœotian hoplites, about seven thousand in total number, were distributed one thousand cavalry, five hundred peltasts, and ten thousand light-armed or unarmed. The language of the historian seems to imply that the light-armed on the Bœotian side were something more effective than the mere multitude who followed the Athenians.

[627] Thucyd. iv, 93. ἐπ᾽ ἀσπίδας δὲ πέντε μὲν καὶ εἴκοσι Θηβαῖοι
ἐτάξαντο, οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι ὡς ἕκαστοι ἔτυχον.

What is still more remarkable, in the battle of Mantincia, in 418
B.C. between the Lacedæmonians on one side and the Athenians,
Argeians, Mantincians, etc., on the other, the different lochi or
divisions of the Lacedæmonian army were not all marshalled in the
same depth of files. Each lochage, or commander of the lochus,
directed the depth of his own division (Thucyd. v, 68).

[628] Diodor. xii, 70. Προεμάχοντο δὲ πάντων οἱ παρ᾽ ἐκείνοις
Ἡνίοχοι καὶ Παραβάται καλούμενοι, ἄνδρες ἐπίλεκτοι τριακόσιοι....
Οἱ δὲ Θηβαῖοι διαφέροντες ταῖς τῶν σωμάτων ῥώμαις, etc.

Compare Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 18, 19.

Such was the order in which Pagondas marched his army over the hill, halting them for a moment in front and sight of the Athenians, to see that the ranks were even, before he gave the word for actual charge.[629] Hippokratês, on his side, apprized while still at Delium, that the Bœotians had moved from Tanagra, first sent orders to his army to place themselves in battle array, and presently arrived himself to command them; leaving three hundred cavalry at Delium, partly as garrison, partly for the purpose of acting on the rear of the Bœotians during the battle. The Athenian hoplites were ranged eight deep along the whole line,—with the cavalry, and such of the light-armed as yet remained, placed on each flank. Hippokratês, after arriving on the spot, and surveying the ground occupied, marched along the front of the line briefly encouraging his soldiers; who, as the battle was just on the Orôpian border, might fancy that they were not in their own country, and that they were therefore exposed without necessity. He, too, in a strain similar to that adopted by Pagondas, reminded the Athenians, that on either side of the border they were alike fighting for the defence of Attica, to keep the Bœotians out of it; since the Peloponnesians would never dare to enter the country without the aid of the Bœotian horse.[630] He farther called to their recollection the great name of Athens, and the memorable victory of Myronidês, at Œnophyta, whereby their fathers had acquired possession of all Bœotia. But he had scarcely half-finished his progress along the line, when he was forced to desist by the sound of the Bœotian pæan. Pagondas, after a few additional sentences of encouragement, had given the word: the Bœotian hoplites were seen charging down the hill; and the Athenian hoplites, not less eager, advanced to meet them at a running step.[631]

[629] Thucyd. iv, 93. Καὶ ἐπειδὴ καλῶς αὐτοῖς εἶχεν, ὑπερεφάνησαν
(the Bœotians) τοῦ λόφου καὶ ~ἔθεντο τὰ ὅπλα~ τεταγμένοι ὥσπερ
ἔμελλον, etc.

I transcribe this passage for the purpose of showing how
impossible it is to admit the explanation which Dr. Arnold,
Poppo, and Göller give of these words ἔθεντο τὰ ὅπλα (see Notes
ad Thucyd. ii, 2). They explain the words to mean, that the
soldiers “piled their arms into a heap,” disarmed themselves for
the time. But the Bœotians, in the situation here described,
cannot possibly have parted with their arms, they were just on
the point of charging the enemy: immediately afterwards, Pagondas
gives the word, the pæan for charging is sung, and the rush
commences. Pagondas had, doubtless, good reason for directing
a momentary halt, to see that his ranks were in perfectly good
condition before the charge began. But to command his troops to
“pile their arms” would be the last thing that he would think of.

In the interpretation of τεταγμένοι ὥσπερ ἔμελλον, I agree with
the Scholiast, who understands μαχέσασθαι or μαχεῖσθαι after
ἔμελλον (compare Thucyd. v, 66), dissenting from Dr. Arnold and
Göller, who would understand τάσσεσθαι; which, as it seems to me,
makes a very awkward meaning, and is not sustained by the passage
produced as parallel (viii, 51).

The infinitive verb, understood after ἔμελλον, need not
necessarily be a verb actually occurring before: it may be a verb
suggested by the general scope of the sentence: see ἐμέλλησαν,
iv, 123.

[630] Thucyd. iv, 95.

[631] Thucyd. iv, 95, 96. Καθεστώτων δ᾽ ἐς τὴν τάξιν καὶ
ἤδη μελλόντων ξυνιέναι, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ στρατηγὸς ἐπιπαριὼν τὸ
στρατόπεδον τῶν Ἀθηναίων παρεκελεύετό τε καὶ ἔλεγε τοιάδε....
Τοιαῦτα τοῦ Ἱπποκράτους παρακελευομένου, καὶ μέχρι μὲν μέσου τοῦ
στρατοπέδου ἐπελθόντος, τὸ δὲ πλέον οὐκέτι φθάσαντος, οἱ Βοιωτοὶ,
παρακελευσαμένου καὶ σφίσιν ὡς διὰ ταχέων καὶ ἐνταῦθα Παγώνδου,
παιωνίσαντες ἐπῄεσαν ἀπὸ τοῦ λόφου, etc.

This passage contradicts what is affirmed by Dr. Arnold, Poppo,
and Göller, to have been a _general practice_, that the soldiers
“piled their arms and _always_ attended the speeches of their
generals without them.” (See his note ad Thucyd. iv, 91.)

At the extremity of the line on each side, the interposition of ravines prevented the actual meeting of the two armies: but throughout all the rest of the line, the clash was formidable and the conduct of both sides resolute. Both armies, maintaining their ranks compact and unbroken, came to the closest quarters; to the contact and pushing of shields against each other.[632] On the left half of the Bœotian line, consisting of hoplites from Thespiæ, Tanagra, and Orchomenus, the Athenians were victorious. The Thespians, who resisted longest, even after their comrades had given way, were surrounded and sustained the most severe loss from the Athenians; who in the ardor of success, while wheeling round to encircle the enemy, became disordered and came into conflict even with their own citizens, not recognizing them at the moment: some loss of life was the consequence.

[632] Thucyd. iv, 96. καρτερᾷ μάχῃ καὶ ὠθισμῷ ἀσπίδων
ξυνεστήκει, etc. Compare Xenophon, Cyropæd. vii, 1, 32.

While the left of the Bœotian line was thus worsted and driven back for protection to the right, the Thebans on that side gained decided advantage. Though the resolution and discipline of the Athenians was noway inferior, yet as soon as the action came to close quarters and to propulsion with shield and spear, the prodigious depth of the Theban column (more than triple of the depth of the Athenians, twenty-five against eight) enabled them to bear down their enemies by mere superiority of weight and mass. Moreover, the Thebans appear to have been superior to the Athenians in gymnastic training and acquired bodily force, as they were inferior both in speech and in intelligence. The chosen Theban warriors in the front rank were especially superior: but apart from such superiority, if we assume simple equality of individual strength and resolution on both sides,[633] it is plain that when the two opposing columns came into conflict, shield against shield, the comparative force of forward pressure would decide the victory. This motive is sufficient to explain the extraordinary depth of the Theban column, which was increased by Epameinondas, half a century afterwards, at the battle of Leuktra, from a depth of twenty-five men to the still more astonishing depth of fifty: nor need we suspect the correctness of the text, with some critics, or suppose, with others, that the great depth of the Theban files arose from the circumstance that the rear ranks were too poor to provide themselves with armor.[634] Even in a depth of eight, which was that of the Athenian column in the present engagement,[635] and seemingly the usual depth in a battle, the spears of the four rear ranks could hardly have protruded sufficiently beyond the first line to do any mischief. The great use of all the ranks behind the first four, was partly to take the place of such of the foremost lines as might be slain, partly, to push forward the lines before them from behind. The greater the depth of the files, the more irresistible did this propelling force become: hence the Thebans at Delium, as well as at Leuktra, found their account in deepening the column to so remarkable a degree, to which we may fairly presume that their hoplites were trained beforehand.

[633] The proverbial expression of Βοιωτίαν ὗν, “the Bœotian
sow,” was ancient even in the town of Pindar (Olymp. vi, 90, with
the Scholia and Boeckh’s note): compare also Ephorus, Fragment
67, ed. Marx: Dikæarchus, Βίος Ἑλλάδος, p. 143, ed. Fuhr; Plato,
Legg. i, p. 636; and Symposion, p. 182, “pingues Thebani et
valentes,” Cicero de Fato, iv, 7.

Xenophon (Memorab. iii, 5, 2, 15; iii, 12, 5: compare Xenoph. de
Athen. Republ. i, 13) maintains the natural bodily capacity of
Athenians to be equal to that of Bœotians, but deplores the want
of σωμασκία, or bodily training.

[634] See the notes of Dr. Arnold and Poppo, ad Thucyd. iv, 96.

[635] Compare Thucyd. v, 68; vi, 67.

The Thebans on the right thus pushed back[636] the troops on the left of the Athenian line, who retired at first slowly, and for a short space, maintaining their order unbroken, so that the victory of the Athenians on their own right would have restored the battle, had not Pagondas detached from the rear two squadrons of cavalry; who, wheeling unseen round the hill behind, suddenly appeared to the relief of the Bœotian left, and produced upon the Athenians on that side, already deranged in their ranks by the ardor of pursuit, the intimidating effect of a fresh army arriving to reinforce the Bœotians. And thus, even on the right, the victorious portion of their line, the Athenians lost courage and gave way; while on the left, where they were worsted from the beginning, they found themselves pressed harder and harder by the pursuing Thebans: so that in the end, the whole Athenian army was broken, dispersed, and fled. The garrison of Delium, reinforced by three hundred cavalry, whom Hippokratês had left there to assail the rear of the Bœotians during the action, either made no vigorous movement, or were repelled by a Bœotian reserve stationed to watch them. Flight having become general among the Athenians, the different parts of their army took different directions: the right sought refuge at Delium, the centre fled to Orôpus, and the left took a direction towards the high lands of Parnês. The pursuit of the Bœotians was vigorous and destructive: they had an efficient cavalry, strengthened by some Lokrian horse who had arrived even during the action: their peltasts also, and their light-armed, would render valuable service against retreating hoplites.[637] Fortunately for the vanquished, the battle had begun very late in the afternoon, leaving no long period of daylight: this important circumstance saved the Athenian army from almost total destruction.[638] As it was, however, the general Hippokratês, together with nearly one thousand hoplites, and a considerable number of light-armed and attendants, were slain; while the loss of the Bœotians, chiefly on their defeated left wing, was rather under five hundred hoplites. Some prisoners[639] seem to have been made, but we hear little about them. Those who had fled to Delium and Orôpus were conveyed back by sea to Athens.

[636] Thucyd. iv, 96. Τὸ δὲ δεξιὸν, ᾗ οἱ Θηβαῖοι ἦσαν, ἐκράτει τε
τῶν Ἀθηναίων, καὶ ~ὠσάμενοι~ κατὰ βραχὺ τὸ πρῶτον ἐπηκολούθουν.

The word ὠσάμενοι (compare iv, 35; vi, 70), exactly expresses the
forward pushing of the mass of hoplites with shield and spear.

[637] Thucyd. iv, 96; Athenæus, v, p. 215. Diodorus (xii, 70)
represents that the battle began with a combat of cavalry, in
which the Athenians had the advantage. This is quite inconsistent
with the narrative of Thucydidês.

[638] Diodorus (xii, 70) dwells upon this circumstance.

[639] Pyrilampês is spoken of as having been wounded and taken
prisoner in the retreat by the Thebans (Plutarch, De Genio
Socratis, c. 11, p. 581). See also Thucyd. v, 35, where allusion
is made to some prisoners.

The victors retired to Tanagra, after erecting their trophy, burying their own dead, and despoiling those of their enemies. An abundant booty of arms from the stripped warriors, long remained to decorate the temples of Thebes, and the spoil in other ways is said to have been considerable. Pagondas also resolved to lay siege to the newly-established fortress at Delium: but before commencing operations,—which might perhaps prove tedious, since the Athenians could always reinforce the garrison by sea,—he tried another means of attaining the same object. He despatched to the Athenians a herald, who, happening in his way to meet the Athenian herald, coming to ask the ordinary permission for burial of the slain, warned him that no such request would be entertained until the message of the Bœotian general had first been communicated, and thus induced him to come back to the Athenian commanders. The Bœotian herald was instructed to remonstrate against the violation of holy custom committed by the Athenians in seizing and fortifying the temple of Delium; wherein their garrison was now dwelling, performing numerous functions which religion forbade to be done in a sacred place, and using as their common drink the water especially consecrated to sacrificial purposes. The Bœotians therefore solemnly summoned them in the name of Apollo, and the gods inmates along with him, to evacuate the place, carrying away all that belonged to them: and the herald gave it to be understood, that, unless this summons were complied with, no permission would be granted to bury the dead.

Answer was returned by the Athenian herald, who now went to the Bœotian commanders, to the following effect: “The Athenians did not admit that they had hitherto been guilty of any wrong in reference to the temple, and protested that they would persist in respecting it for the future as much as possible. Their object in taking possession of it had been no evil sentiment towards the holy place, but the necessity of avenging the repeated invasions of Attica by the Bœotians. Possession of the territory, according to the received maxims of Greece, always carried along with it possession of temples therein situated, under obligation to fulfil all customary obligations to the resident god, as far as circumstances permitted. It was upon this maxim that the Bœotians had themselves acted when they took possession of their present territory, expelling the prior occupants and appropriating the temples: it was upon the same maxim that the Athenians would act in retaining so much of Bœotia as they had now conquered, and in conquering more of it, if they could. Necessity compelled them to use the consecrated water—a necessity not originating in the ambition of Athens, but in prior Bœotian aggressions upon Attica,—a necessity which they trusted that the gods would pardon, since their altars were allowed as a protection to the involuntary offender, and none but he who sinned without constraint experienced their displeasure. The Bœotians were guilty of far greater impiety in refusing to give back the dead, except upon certain conditions connected with the holy ground, than the Athenians, who merely refused to turn the duty of sepulture into an unseemly bargain. Tell us unconditionally (concluded the Athenian herald) that we may bury our dead under truce, pursuant to the maxims of our forefathers. Do not tell us that we may do so on condition of going out of Bœotia, for we are no longer in Bœotia; we are in our own territory, won by the sword.”

The Bœotian generals dismissed the herald with a reply short and decisive: “If you are in Bœotia, you may take away all that belongs to you, but only on condition of going out of it. If on the other hand you are in your own territory, you can take your own resolution without asking us.”[640]

[640] See the two difficult chapters, iv, 98, 99, in Thucydidês.

In this debate, curious as an illustration of Grecian manners and feelings, there seems to have been special pleading and evasion on both sides. The final sentence of the Bœotians was good as a reply to the incidental argument raised by the Athenian herald, who had rested the defence of Athens in regard to the temple of Delium on the allegation that the territory was Athenian, not Bœotian, Athenian by conquest and by the right of the strongest, and had concluded by affirming the same thing about Oropia, the district to which the battle-field belonged. It was only this same argument, of actual superior force, which the Bœotians retorted, when they said: “If the territory to which your application refers is yours by right of conquest (_i. e._ if you are _de facto_ masters of it, and are strongest within it), you can of course do what you think best in it: you need not ask any truce at our hands; you can bury your dead without a truce.”[641] The Bœotians knew that at this moment the field of battle was under guard by a detachment of their army,[642] and that the Athenians could not obtain the dead bodies without permission; but since the Athenian herald had asserted the reverse as a matter of fact, we can hardly wonder that they resented the production of such an argument; meeting it by a reply sufficiently pertinent in mere diplomatic fencing.

[641] See the notes of Poppo, Göller, Dr. Arnold, and other
commentators, on these chapters.

Neither these notes, nor the Scholiast, seem to me in all parts
satisfactory; nor do they seize the spirit of the argument
between the Athenian herald and the Bœotian officers, which
will be found perfectly consistent as a piece of diplomatic
interchange.

In particular, they do not take notice that it is the _Athenian_
herald who first raises the question, what is Athenian territory
and what is Bœotian: and that he defines Athenian territory to
be that in which the force of Athens is superior. The retort of
the Bœotians refers to that definition; not to the question of
rightful claim to any territory, apart from actual superiority of
force.

[642] Thucyd. iv, 97.

But if the Athenian herald, instead of raising the incidental point of territorial property, combined with an incautious definition of that which constituted territorial property, as a defence against the alleged desecration of the temple of Delium, had confined himself to the main issue, he would have put the Bœotians completely in the wrong. According to principles universally respected in Greece, the victor, if solicited, was held bound to grant to the vanquished a truce for burying his dead; to grant and permit it absolutely, without annexing any conditions. On this, the main point in debate, the Bœotians sinned against the most sacred international law of Greece, when they exacted the evacuation of the temple at Delium as a condition for consenting to permit the burial of the Athenian dead. Ultimately, after they had taken Delium, we shall find that they did grant it unconditionally; and we may doubt whether they would have ever persisted in refusing it, if the Athenian herald had pressed this one important principle separately and exclusively; and if he had not, by an unskilful plea in vindication of the right to occupy and live at Delium, both exasperated their feelings, and furnished them with a collateral issue as a means of evading the main demand.[643]

[643] Thucydidês, in describing the state of mind of the
Bœotians, does not seem to imply that they thought this a good
and valid ground, upon which they could directly take their
stand; but merely that they considered it a fair diplomatic way
of meeting the alternative raised by the Athenian herald; for
εὐπρεπὲς means nothing more than this.

Οὐδ᾽ αὖ ἐσπένδοντο ~δῆθεν~ ὑπὲρ τῆς ἐκείνων (Ἀθηναίων)· τὸ δὲ ἐκ
τῆς ἑαυτῶν (Βοιωτῶν) ~εὐπρεπὲς~ εἶναι ἀποκρίνασθαι, ἀπιόντας καὶ
ἀπολαβεῖν ἃ ἀπαιτοῦσιν.

The adverb δῆθεν also marks the reference to the special
question, as laid out by the Athenian herald.

To judge this curious debate with perfect impartiality, we ought to add, in reference to the conduct of the Athenians in occupying Delium, that for an enemy to make special choice of a temple, as a post to be fortified and occupied, was a proceeding certainly rare, perhaps hardly admissible, in Grecian warfare. Nor does the vindication offered by the Athenian herald meet the real charge preferred. It is one thing for an enemy of superior force to overrun a country, and to appropriate everything within it, sacred as well as profane: it is another thing for a border enemy, not yet in sufficient force for conquering the whole, to convert a temple of convenient site into a regular garrisoned fortress, and make it a base of operations against the neighboring population. On this ground, the Bœotians might reasonably complain of the seizure of Delium: though I apprehend that no impartial interpreter of Grecian international custom would have thought them warranted in attaching it as a condition to their grant of the burial-truce when solicited.

All negotiation being thus broken off, the Bœotian generals prepared to lay siege to Delium, aided by two thousand Corinthian hoplites, together with some Megarians and the late Peloponnesian garrison of Nisæa, who joined after the news of the battle. Though they sent for darters and slingers, probably Œtæans and Ætolians, from the Maliac gulf, yet their direct attacks were at first all repelled by the garrison, aided by an Athenian squadron off the coast, in spite of the hasty and awkward defences by which alone the fort was protected. At length they contrived a singular piece of fire-mechanism, which enabled them to master the place. They first sawed in twain a thick beam, pierced a channel through it long-ways from end to end, coated most part of the channel with iron, and then joined the two halves accurately together. From the farther end of this hollowed beam they suspended by chains a boiler, full of pitch, brimstone, and burning charcoal; lastly, an iron tube projected from the end of the interior channel of the beam, in a direction so as to come near to the boiler. Such was the machine, which, constructed at some distance, was brought on carts and placed close to the wall, near the palisading and the wooden towers. The Bœotians then applied great bellows to their own end of the beam, blowing violently with a close current of air through the interior channel, so as to raise an intense fire in the boiler at the other end. The wooden portions of the wall, soon catching fire, became untenable for the defenders, who escaped in the best way they could, without attempting farther resistance. Two hundred of them were made prisoners and a few slain; but the greater number got safely on shipboard. This recapture of Delium took place on the seventeenth day after the battle, during all which interval the Athenians slain had remained on the field unburied. Presently, however, arrived the Athenian herald to make fresh application for the burial-truce; which was now forthwith granted, and granted unconditionally.[644]

[644] Thucyd. iv, 100, 101.

Such was the memorable expedition and battle of Delium, a fatal discouragement to the feeling of confidence and hope which had previously reigned at Athens, besides the painful immediate loss which it inflicted on the city. Among the hoplites who took part in the vigorous charge and pushing of shields, the philosopher Sokratês is to be numbered. His bravery both in the battle and the retreat was much extolled by his friends, and doubtless with good reason: he had before served with credit in the ranks of the hoplites at Potidæa, and he served also at Amphipolis: his patience under hardship and endurance of heat and cold being not less remarkable than his personal bravery. He and his friend Lachês were among those hoplites, who, in the retreat from Delium, instead of flinging away their arms and taking to flight, kept their ranks, their arms, and their firmness of countenance; insomuch that the pursuing cavalry found it dangerous to meddle with them, and turned to an easier prey in the disarmed fugitives. Alkibiadês also served at Delium in the cavalry, and helped to protect Sokratês in the retreat. The latter was thus exposing his life at Delium nearly at the same time when Aristophanês was exposing him to derision in the comedy of the Clouds, as a dreamer alike morally worthless and physically incapable.[645]

[645] See Plato (Symposion, c. 36, p. 221; Lachês, p. 181;
Charmidês, p. 153; Apolog. Sokratis, p. 28), Strabo, ix, p. 403.

Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 7. We find it mentioned among the
stories told about Sokratês in the retreat from Delium, that his
life was preserved by the inspiration of his familiar dæmon, or
genius, which instructed him on one doubtful occasion which of
two roads was the safe one to take (Cicero, de Divinat. i, 54;
Plutarch, de Genio Sokratis, c. 11, p. 581).

The skepticism of Athenæus (v, p. 215) about the military service
of Sokratês is not to be defended, but it may probably be
explained by the exaggerations and falsehoods which he had read,
ascribing to the philosopher superhuman gallantry.

Severe as the blow was which the Athenians suffered at Delium, their disasters in Thrace about the same time, or towards the close of the same summer and autumn, were yet more calamitous. I have already mentioned the circumstances which led to the preparation of a Lacedæmonian force intended to act against the Athenians in Thrace, under Brasidas, in concert with the Chalkidians, revolted subjects of Athens, and with Perdikkas of Macedon. Having frustrated the Athenian designs against Megara (as described above),[646] Brasidas completed the levy of his division,—seventeen hundred hoplites, partly Helots, partly Dorian Peloponnesians,—and conducted them, towards the close of the summer, to the Lacedæmonian colony of Herakleia, in the Trachinian territory near the Maliac gulf. To reach Macedonia and Thrace, it was necessary for him to pass through Thessaly, which was no easy task; for the war had now lasted so long that every state in Greece had become mistrustful of the transit of armed foreigners. Moreover, the mass of the Thessalian population were decidedly friendly to Athens, nor had he any sufficient means to force a passage: while, should he wait to apply for formal permission, there was much doubt whether it would be granted, and perfect certainty of such delay and publicity as would put the Athenians on their guard. But though such was the temper of the Thessalian people, yet the Thessalian governments, all oligarchical, sympathized with Lacedæmon; and the federal authority or power of the tagus, which bound together the separate cities, was generally very weak. What was of still greater importance, the Macedonian Perdikkas, as well as the Chalkidians, had in every city powerful guests and partisans, whom they prevailed upon to exert themselves actively in forwarding the passage of the army.[647]

[646] See above, page 378.

[647] Thucyd. iv, 78.

To these men Brasidas sent a message at Pharsalus, as soon as he reached Herakleia; and Nikonidas, of Larissa, with other Thessalian friends of Perdikkas, assembling at Melitæa, in Achaia Phthiôtis, undertook to escort him through Thessaly. By their countenance and support, combined with his own boldness, dexterity, and rapid movements, he was enabled to accomplish the seemingly impossible enterprise of running through the country, not only without the consent but against the feeling of its inhabitants, simply by such celerity as to forestall opposition. After traversing Achaia Phthiôtis, a territory dependent on the Thessalians, Brasidas began his march from Melitæa through Thessaly itself, along with his powerful native guides. Notwithstanding all possible secrecy and celerity, his march became so far divulged, that a body of volunteers from the neighborhood, offended at the proceeding, and unfriendly to Nikonidas, assembled to oppose his progress down the valley of the river Enipeus. Reproaching him with wrongful violation of an independent territory, by the introduction of armed forces without permission from the general government, they forbade him to proceed farther. His only chance of making progress lay in disarming their opposition by fair words. His guides excused themselves by saying that the suddenness of his arrival had imposed upon them as his guests the obligation of conducting him through, without waiting to ask for formal permission: to offend their countrymen, however, was the farthest thing from their thoughts and they would renounce the enterprise if the persons now assembled persisted in their requisition. The same conciliatory tone was adopted by Brasidas himself. “He protested his strong feeling of respect and friendship for Thessaly and its inhabitants: his arms were directed against the Athenians, not against them: nor was he aware of any unfriendly relation subsisting between the Thessalians and Lacedæmonians, such as to exclude either of them from the territory of the other. Against the prohibition of the parties now before him, he could not possibly march forward, nor would he think of attempting it; but he put it to their good feeling whether they ought to prohibit him.” Such conciliatory language was successful in softening the opponents and inducing them to disperse. But so afraid were his guides of renewed opposition in other parts, that they hurried him forward still more rapidly,[648] and he “passed through the country at a running pace without halting.” Leaving Melitæa in the morning, he reached Pharsalus on the same night, encamping on the river Apidanus: thence he proceeded on the next day to Phakium, and on the day afterwards into Perrhæbia,[649] a territory adjoining to and dependent on Thessaly, under the mountain range of Olympus. Here he was in safety, so that his Thessalian guides left him; while the Perrhæbians conducted him over the pass of Olympus—the same over which the army of Xerxes had marched—to Dium, in Macedonia, in the territory of Perdikkas, on the northern edge of the mountain.[650]

[648] Thucyd. iv, 78. Ὁ δὲ, κελευόντων τῶν ἀγωγῶν, πρίν τι πλέον
ξυστῆναι τὸ κωλῦσον, ἐχώρει οὐδὲν ἐπισχὼν δρόμῳ.

[649] The geography of Thessaly is not sufficiently known
to enable us to verify these positions with exactness. That
which Thucydidês calls the Apidanus, is the river formed by
the junction of the Apidanus and Enipeus. See Kiepert’s map of
ancient Thessaly (Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, ch.
xlii, vol. iv, p. 470; and Dr. Arnold’s note on this chapter of
Thucydidês).

We must suppose that Brasidas was detained a considerable time
in parleying with the opposing band of Thessalians. Otherwise,
it would seem that the space between Melitæa and Pharsalus would
not be a great distance to get over in an entire day’s march,
considering that the pace was as rapid as the troops could
sustain. The much greater distance between Larissa and Melitæa,
was traversed in one night by Philip king of Macedon, the son
of Demetrius, with an army carrying ladders and other aids for
attacking a town, etc. (Polyb. v, 97.)

[650] Thucyd. iv, 78.

The Athenians were soon apprized of this stolen passage, so ably and rapidly executed, in a manner which few other Greeks, certainly no other Lacedæmonian, would have conceived to be possible. Aware of the new enemy thus brought within reach of their possessions in Thrace, they transmitted orders thither for greater vigilance, and at the same time declared open war against Perdikkas;[651] but unfortunately without sending any efficient force, at the moment when timely defensive intervention was imperiously required. Perdikkas immediately invited Brasidas to join him in the attack of Arrhibæus, prince of the Macedonians, called Lynkestæ, or of Lynkus; a summons which the Spartan could not decline, since Perdikkas provided half of the pay and maintenance of the army,—but which he obeyed with reluctance, anxious as he was to commence operations against the allies of Athens. Such reluctance was still farther strengthened by envoys from the Chalkidians of Thrace, who, as zealous enemies of Athens, joined him forthwith, but discouraged any vigorous efforts to relieve Perdikkas from embarrassing enemies in the interior, in order that the latter might be under more pressing motives to conciliate and assist them. Accordingly Brasidas, though he joined Perdikkas, and marched along with the Macedonian army towards the territory of the Lynkestæ, was not only averse to active military operations, but even entertained with favor propositions from Arrhibæus, wherein the latter expressed his wish to become the ally of Lacedæmon, and offered to refer all his differences with Perdikkas to the arbitration of the Spartan general himself. Communicating these propositions to Perdikkas, Brasidas invited him to listen to an equitable compromise, admitting Arrhibæus into the alliance of Lacedæmon. But Perdikkas indignantly refused: “He had not called in Brasidas as a judge, to decide disputes between him and his enemies, but as an auxiliary, to put them down wherever he might point them out: and he protested against the iniquity of Brasidas in entering into terms with Arrhibæus, while the Lacedæmonian army was half paid and maintained by him,” (Perdikkas.[652]) Notwithstanding such remonstrances, and even a hostile protest, Brasidas persisted in his intended conference with Arrhibæus, and was so far satisfied with the propositions made that he withdrew his troops without marching over the pass into Lynkus. Too feeble to act alone, Perdikkas loudly complained, and contracted his allowance for the future so as to provide for only one-third of the army of Brasidas instead of one-half.

[651] Thucyd. iv, 82.

[652] Thucyd. iv, 83.

To this inconvenience, however, Brasidas submitted, in haste to begin his march into Chalkidikê, and his operations jointly with the Chalkidians, for seducing or subduing the subject-allies of Athens. His first operation was against Akanthus, on the isthmus of the peninsula of Athos, the territory of which he invaded a little before the vintage, probably about the middle of September; when the grapes were ripe, but still out, and the whole crop of course exposed to ruin at the hands of an enemy superior in force: so important was it to Brasidas to have escaped the necessity of wasting another month in conquering the Lynkestæ. There was within the town of Akanthus a party in concert with the Chalkidians, anxious to admit him, and to revolt openly from Athens. But the mass of the citizens were averse to this step: and it was only by dwelling on the terrible loss from exposure of the crop without, that the anti-Athenian party could persuade them even to grant the request of Brasidas to be admitted singly,[653] so as to explain his purposes formally before the public assembly, which would take its own decision afterwards. “For a Lacedæmonian (says Thucydidês) he was no mean speaker:” and if he is to have credit for that which we find written in Thucydidês, such an epithet would be less than his desert. Doubtless, however, the substance of the speech is genuine: and it is one of the most interesting in Grecian history; partly as a manifesto of professed Lacedæmonian policy, partly because it had a great practical effect in determining, on an occasion of paramount importance, a multitude which, though unfavorably inclined to him, was not beyond the reach of argument. I give the chief points of the speech, without binding myself to the words.

[653] Thucyd. iv, 84. Οἱ δὲ ~περὶ τοῦ δέχεσθαι αὐτὸν κατ᾽
ἀλλήλους ἐστασίαζον, οἵ τε μετὰ τῶν Χαλκιδέων ξυνεπάγοντες καὶ ὁ
δῆμος~· ὅμως δὲ, ~διὰ τοῦ καρποῦ τὸ δέος ἔτι ἔξω ὄντος~, πεισθὲν
τὸ πλῆθος ὑπὸ τοῦ Βρασίδου δέξασθαί τε αὐτὸν μόνον καὶ ἀκούσαντας
βουλεύσασθαι, δέχεται, etc.

“Myself and my soldiers have been sent, Akanthians, to realize the purpose which we proclaimed on beginning the war; that we took arms to liberate Greece from the Athenians. Let no man blame us for having been long in coming, or for the mistake which we made at the outset in supposing that we should quickly put down the Athenians by operations against Attica, without exposing you to any risk. Enough, that we are now here on the first opportunity, resolved to put them down if you will lend us your aid. To find myself shut out of your town, nay, to find that I am not heartily welcomed, astonishes me. We, Lacedæmonians, undertook this long and perilous march, in the belief that we were coming to friends eagerly expecting us; and it would indeed be terrible if you should now disappoint us, and stand out against your own freedom as well as that of other Greeks. Your example, standing high as you do both for prudence and power, will fatally keep back other Greeks, and make them suspect that I am wanting either in power to protect them against Athens, or in honest purpose. Now, in regard to power, my own present army was one which the Athenians, though superior in number, were afraid to fight near Nisæa; nor are they at all likely to send an equal force hither against me by sea. And in regard to my purpose, it is not one of mischief, but of liberation, the Lacedæmonian authorities having pledged themselves to me by the most solemn oaths, that every city which joins me shall retain its autonomy. You have therefore the best assurance both as to my purposes and as to my power; still less need you apprehend that I am come with factious designs, to serve the views of any particular men among you, and to remodel your established constitution to the disadvantage either of the many or of the few. That would be worse than foreign subjugation, so that we Lacedæmonians should be taking all this trouble to earn hatred instead of gratitude. We should play the part of unworthy traitors, worse even than that high-handed oppression of which we accuse the Athenians: we should at once violate our oaths and sin against our strongest political interests. Perhaps you may say, that though you wish me well, you desire for your parts to be let alone, and to stand aloof from a dangerous struggle. You will tell me to carry my propositions elsewhere, to those who can safely embrace them, but not to thrust my alliance upon any people against their own will. If this should be your language, I shall first call your local gods and heroes to witness that I have come to you with a mission of good, and have employed persuasion in vain; I shall then proceed to ravage your territory and extort your consent, thinking myself justly entitled to do so, on two grounds. First, that the Lacedæmonians may not sustain actual damage from these good wishes which you profess towards me without actually joining,—damage in the shape of that tribute which you annually send to Athens. Next, that the Greeks generally may not be prevented by you from becoming free. It is only on the ground of common good, that we Lacedæmonians can justify ourselves for liberating any city against its own will; but as we are conscious of desiring only extinction of the empire of others, not acquisition of empire for ourselves, we should fail in our duty if we suffered you to obstruct that liberation which we are now carrying to all. Consider well my words, then: take to yourselves the glory of beginning the era of emancipation for Greece, save your own properties from damage, and attach an ever-honorable name to the community of Akanthus.”[654]

[654] Thucyd. iv, 85, 86, 87.

Nothing could be more plausible or judicious than this language of Brasidas to the Akanthians, nor had they any means of detecting the falsity of the assertion, which he afterwards repeated in other places besides,[655] that he had braved the forces of Athens at Nisæa with the same army as that now on the outside of the walls. Perhaps the simplicity of his speech and manner may even have lent strength to his assurances. As soon as he had retired, the subject was largely discussed in the assembly, with much difference of opinion among the speakers, and perfect freedom on both sides: and the decision, not called for until after a long debate, was determined partly by the fair promises of Brasidas, partly by the certain loss which the ruin of the vine-crop would entail. The votes of the citizens present being taken secretly, a majority resolved to accede to the propositions of Brasidas and revolt from Athens.[656] Exacting the renewal of his pledge and that of the Lacedæmonian authorities, for the preservation of full autonomy to every city which should join him, they received his army into the town. The neighboring city of Stageirus, a colony of Andros, as Akanthus also was, soon followed the example.[657]

[655] Thucyd. iv, 108.

[656] Thucyd. iv, 88. Οἱ δὲ Ἀκάνθιοι, πολλῶν λεχθέντων πρότερον
ἐπ᾽ ἀμφότερα, κρύφα διαψηφισάμενοι, διά τε τὸ ἐπαγωγὰ εἰπεῖν τὸν
Βρασίδαν καὶ περὶ τοῦ καρποῦ φόβῳ, ἔγνωσαν οἱ πλείους ἀφίστασθαι
Ἀθηναίων.

[657] Thucyd. iv, 88; Diodor. xii, 67.

There are few acts in history wherein Grecian political reason and morality appear to greater advantage than in this proceeding of the Akanthians. The habit of fair, free, and pacific discussion; the established respect to the vote of the majority; the care to protect individual independence of judgment by secret suffrage; the deliberate estimate of reasons on both sides by each individual citizen, all these main laws and conditions of healthy political action appear as a part of the confirmed character of the Akanthians. We shall not find Brasidas entering other towns in a way so creditable or so harmonious.

But there is another inference which the scene just described irresistibly suggests. It affords the clearest proof that the Akanthians had little to complain of as subject-allies of Athens, and that they would have continued in that capacity, if left to their own choice, without the fear of having their crop destroyed. Such is the pronounced feeling of the mass of the citizens: the party who desire otherwise are in a decided minority. It is only the combined effect of severe impending loss, and of tempting assurances held out by the worthiest representative whom Sparta ever sent out, which induces them to revolt from Athens: nor even then is the resolution taken without long opposition, and a large dissentient minority, in a case where secret suffrage insured free and genuine expression of preference from every individual. Now, it is impossible that the scene in Akanthus at this critical moment could have been of such a character, had the empire of Athens been practically odious and burdensome to the subject-allies, as it is commonly depicted. Had such been the fact; had the Akanthians felt that the imperial ascendency of Athens oppressed them with hardship or humiliation, from which their neighbors, the revolted Chalkidians in Olynthus and elsewhere, were exempt, they would have hailed the advent of Brasidas with that cordiality which he himself expected and was surprised not to find. The sense of present grievance, always acute and often excessive, would have stood out as their prominent impulse: nor would they have needed either intimidation or cajolery to induce them to throw open their gates to the liberator, who, in his speech within the town, finds no actual suffering to appeal to, but is obliged to gain over an audience evidently unwilling by alternate threats and promises.

As in Akanthus, so in most of the other Thracian subjects of Athens, the bulk of the citizens, though strongly solicited by the Chalkidians, manifest no spontaneous disposition to revolt from Athens. We shall find the party who introduce Brasidas to be a conspiring minority, who not only do not consult the majority beforehand, but act in such a manner as to leave no free option to the majority afterwards, whether they will ratify or reject: bring in a foreign force to overawe them and compromise them without their own consent in hostility against Athens. Now that which makes the events of Akanthus so important as an evidence, is, that the majority is not thus entrapped and compressed, but pronounces its judgment freely after ample discussion: the grounds of that judgment are clearly set forth to us, so as to show that hatred of Athens, if even it exists at all, is in no way a strong or determining feeling. Had there existed any such strong feeling among the subject-allies of Athens in the Chalkidic peninsula, there was no Athenian force now present to hinder them all from opening their gates to the liberator Brasidas by spontaneous majorities, as he himself, encouraged by the sanguine promises of the Chalkidians, evidently expected that they would do. But nothing of this kind happened.

That which I before remarked in recounting the revolt of Mitylênê, a privileged ally of Athens, is now confirmed in the revolt of Akanthus, a tributary and subject-ally. The circumstances of both prove that imperial Athens inspired no hatred, and occasioned no painful grievance, to the population of her subject-cities generally: the movements against her arose from party-minorities, of the same character as that Platæan party which introduced the Theban assailants into Platæa at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war. There are of course differences of sentiment between one town and another; but the conduct of the towns generally demonstrates that the Athenian empire was not felt by them to be a scheme of plunder and oppression, as Mr. Mitford and others would have us believe. It is indeed true that Athens managed her empire with reference to her own feelings and interests, and that her hold was rather upon the prudence than upon the affection of her allies, except in so far as those among them who were democratically governed sympathized with her democracy: it is also true that restrictions in any form on the autonomy of each separate city were offensive to the political instincts of the Greeks: moreover, Athens took less and less pains to disguise or soften the real character of her empire, as one resting simply on established fact and superior force. But this is a different thing from the endurance of practical hardship and oppression, which, had it been real, would have inspired strong positive hatred among the subject-allies, such as Brasidas expected to find universal in Thrace, but did not really find, in spite of the easy opening which his presence afforded.

The acquisition of Akanthus and Stageirus enabled Brasidas in no very long time to extend his conquests; to enter Argilus, and from thence to make the capital acquisition of Amphipolis.

Argilus was situated between Stageirus and the river Strymon, along the western bank of which river its territory extended. Along the eastern bank of the same river,—south of the lake which it forms under the name of Kerkinitis, and north of the town of Eion at its mouth, was situated the town and territory of Amphipolis, communicating with the lands of Argilus by the important bridge there situated. The Argilians were colonists from Andros, like Akanthus and Stageirus, and the adhesion of those two cities to Brasidas gave him opportunity to cultivate intelligences in Argilus, wherein there had existed a standing discontent against Athens, ever since the foundation of the neighboring city of Amphipolis.[658] The latter city had been established by the Athenian Agnon, at the head of a numerous body of colonists, on a spot belonging to the Edonian Thracians, called Ennea Hodoi, or Nine Ways, about five years prior to the commencement of the war (B.C. 437), after two previous attempts to colonize it,—one by Histiæus and Aristagoras, at the period of the Ionic revolt, and a second by the Athenians about 465 B.C., both of which lamentably failed. So valuable, however, was the site, from its vicinity to the gold and silver mines near Mount Pangæus and to large forests of ship-timber, as well as for command of the Strymon, and for commerce with the interior of Thrace and Macedonia, that the Athenians had sent a second expedition under Agnon, who founded the city and gave it the name of Amphipolis. The resident settlers there, however, were only in small proportion Athenian citizens; the rest of mixed origin, some of them Argilian, a considerable number Chalkidians. The Athenian general Euklês was governor in the town, though seemingly with no paid force under his command.

[658] Thucyd. iv, 103. μάλιστα δὲ οἱ Ἀργίλιοι, ἐγγύς τε
προσοικοῦντες καὶ ἀεί ποτε τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ὄντες ὕποπτοι καὶ
ἐπιβουλεύοντες τῷ χωρίῳ (Amphipolis).

Among these mixed inhabitants a conspiracy was organized to betray the town to Brasidas, the inhabitants of Argilus as well as the Chalkidians each of them tampering with those of the same race who resided in Amphipolis; and the influence of Perdikkas, not inconsiderable, in consequence of the commerce of the place with Macedonia, was employed to increase the number of partisans. Of all the instigators, however, the most strenuous as well as the most useful were the inhabitants of Argilus. Amphipolis, together with the Athenians as its founders, had been odious to them from its commencement; and its foundation had doubtless abridged their commerce and importance as masters of the lower course of the Strymon. They had been long laying snares against the city, and the arrival of Brasidas now presented to them an unexpected chance of success. It was they who enabled him to accomplish the surprise, deferring proclamation of their own defection from Athens until they could make it subservient to his conquest of Amphipolis.