Chapter XLVII (1)

FROM THE THIRTY YEARS’ TRUCE, FOURTEEN YEARS BEFORE THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, DOWN TO THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA, IN THE YEAR BEFORE THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

The judicial alterations effected at Athens by Periklês and Ephialtês, described in the preceding chapter, gave to a large proportion of the citizens direct jury functions and an active interest in the constitution, such as they had never before enjoyed; the change being at once a mark of previous growth of democratical sentiment during the past, and a cause of its farther development during the future. The Athenian people were at this time ready for personal exertion in all directions: military service on land or sea was not less conformable to their dispositions than attendance in the ekklesia or in the dikastery at home. The naval service especially was prosecuted with a degree of assiduity which brought about continual improvement in skill and efficiency, and the poorer citizens, of whom it chiefly consisted, were more exact in obedience and discipline than any of the more opulent persons from whom the infantry or the cavalry were drawn.[1] The maritime multitude, in addition to self-confidence and courage, acquired by this laborious training an increased skill, which placed the Athenian navy every year more and more above the rest of Greece: and the perfection of this force became the more indispensable as the Athenian empire was now again confined to the sea and seaport towns; the reverses immediately preceding the thirty years truce having broken up all Athenian land ascendency over Megara, Bœotia, and the other continental territories adjoining to Attica.

[1] Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 5, 18.

The maritime confederacy,—originally commenced at Delos, under the headship of Athens, but with a common synod and deliberative voice on the part of each member,—had now become transformed into a confirmed empire on the part of Athens, over the remaining states as foreign dependencies; all of them rendering tribute except Chios, Samos, and Lesbos. These three still remained on their original footing of autonomous allies, retaining their armed force, ships, and fortifications, with the obligation of furnishing military and naval aid when required, but not of paying tribute: the discontinuance of the deliberative synod, however, had deprived them of their original security against the encroachments of Athens. I have already stated generally the steps, we do not know them in detail, whereby this important change was brought about, gradually and without any violent revolution,—for even the transfer of the common treasure from Delos to Athens, which was the most palpable symbol and evidence of the change, was not an act of Athenian violence, since it was adopted on the proposition of the Samians. The change resulted in fact almost inevitably from the circumstances of the case, and from the eager activity of the Athenians contrasted with the backwardness and aversion to personal service on the part of the allies. We must recollect that the confederacy, even in its original structure, was contracted for permanent objects, and was permanently binding by the vote of its majority, like the Spartan confederacy, upon every individual member:[2] it was destined to keep out the Persian fleet, and to maintain the police of the Ægean. Consistently with these objects, no individual member could be allowed to secede from the confederacy, and thus to acquire the benefit of protection at the cost of the remainder: so that when Naxos and other members actually did secede, the step was taken as a revolt, and Athens only did her duty as president of the confederacy in reducing them. By every such reduction, as well as by that exchange of personal service for money-payment, which most of the allies voluntarily sought, the power of Athens increased, until at length she found herself with an irresistible navy in the midst of disarmed tributaries, none of whom could escape from her constraining power,—and mistress of the sea, the use of which was indispensable to them. The synod of Delos, even if it had not before become partially deserted, must have ceased at the time when the treasure was removed to Athens,—probably about 460 B.C., or shortly afterwards.

[2] Thucyd. v. 30: about the Spartan confederacy,—εἰρημένον,
κύριον εἶναι, ὅ,τι ἂν τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ξυμμάχων ψηφίσηται, ἢν μή τι
θεῶν ἢ ἡρώων κώλυμα ᾖ.

The relations between Athens and her allies were thus materially changed by proceedings which gradually evolved themselves and followed one upon the other without any preconcerted plan: she became an imperial or despot city, governing an aggregate of dependent subjects, all without their own active concurrence, and in many cases doubtless contrary to their own sense of political right. It was not likely that they should conspire unanimously to break up the confederacy, and discontinue the collection of contribution from each of the members: nor would it have been at all desirable that they should do so: for while Greece generally would have been a great loser by such a proceeding, the allies themselves would have been the greatest losers of all, inasmuch as they would have been exposed without defence to the Persian and Phenician fleets. But the Athenians committed the capital fault of taking the whole alliance into their own hands, and treating the allies purely as subjects, without seeking to attach them by any form of political incorporation or collective meeting and discussion,—without taking any pains to maintain community of feeling with the idea of a joint interest,—without admitting any control, real or even pretended, over themselves as managers. Had they attempted to do this, it might have proved difficult to accomplish,—so powerful was the force of geographical dissemination, the tendency to isolated civic life, and the repugnance to any permanent extramural obligations, in every Grecian community: but they do not appear to have ever made the attempt. Finding Athens exalted by circumstances to empire, and the allies degraded into subjects, the Athenian statesmen grasped at the exaltation as a matter of pride as well as profit:[3] nor did even Periklês, the most prudent and far-sighted of them, betray any consciousness that an empire without the cement of some all-pervading interest or attachment, must have a natural tendency to become more and more burdensome and odious, and ultimately to crumble in pieces. Such was the course of events which, if the judicious counsels of Periklês had been followed, might have been postponed but could not have been averted.

[3] Thucyd. ii, 63. τῆς τε πόλεως ὑμᾶς εἰκὸς τῷ τιμωμένῳ ἀπὸ τοῦ
ἄρχειν, ᾧπερ ἅπαντες ἀγάλλεσθε, βοηθεῖν, καὶ μὴ φεύγειν τοὺς
πόνους, ἢ μηδὲ τὰς τιμὰς διώκειν, etc.

Instead of trying to cherish or restore the feelings of equal alliance, Periklês formally disclaimed it. He maintained that Athens owed to her subject allies no account of the money received from them, so long as she performed her contract by keeping away the Persian enemy, and maintaining the safety of the Ægean waters.[4] This was, as he represented, the obligation which Athens had undertaken; and, provided it were faithfully discharged, the allies had no right to ask questions or institute control. That it was faithfully discharged no one could deny: no ship of war except that of Athens and her allies was ever seen between the eastern and western shores of the Ægean. An Athenian fleet of sixty triremes was kept on duty in these waters, chiefly manned by Athenian citizens, and beneficial as well from the protection afforded to commerce as for keeping the seaman in constant pay and training.[5] And such was the effective superintendence maintained, that in the disastrous period preceding the thirty years’ truce, when Athens lost Megara and Bœotia, and with difficulty recovered Eubœa, none of her numerous maritime subjects took the opportunity to revolt.

[4] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 12.

[5] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11.

The total of these distinct tributary cities is said to have amounted to one thousand, according to a verse of Aristophanês,[6] which cannot be under the truth, though it may well be, and probably is, greatly above the truth. The total annual tribute collected at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, and probably also for the years preceding it, is given by Thucydidês at about six hundred talents; of the sums paid by particular states, however, we have little or no information.[7] It was placed under the superintendence of the Hellenotamiæ; originally officers of the confederacy, but now removed from Delos to Athens, and acting altogether as an Athenian treasury-board. The sum total of the Athenian revenue,[8] from all sources, including this tribute, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, is stated by Xenophon at one thousand talents: customs, harbor, and market dues, receipts from the silver-mines at Laurium, rents of public property, fines from judicial sentences, a tax per head upon slaves, the annual payment made by each metic, etc., may have made up a larger sum than four hundred talents; which sum, added to the six hundred talents from tribute, would make the total named by Xenophon. But a verse of Aristophanês,[9] during the ninth year of the Peloponnesian war, B.C. 422, gives the general total of that time as “nearly two thousand talents:” this is in all probability much above the truth, though we may well imagine that the amount of tribute-money levied upon the allies may have been augmented during the interval: I think that the alleged duplication of the tribute by Alkibiadês, which Thucydidês nowhere notices, is not borne out by any good evidence, nor can I believe that it ever reached the sum of twelve hundred talents.[10] Whatever may have been the actual magnitude of the Athenian budget, however, prior to the Peloponnesian war, we know that during the larger part of the administration of Periklês, the revenue, including tribute, was so managed as to leave a large annual surplus; insomuch that a treasure of coined money was accumulated in the acropolis during the years preceding the Peloponnesian war,—which treasure, when at its maximum, reached the great sum of nine thousand seven hundred talents (equal to two million two hundred and thirty thousand pounds), and was still at six thousand talents, after a serious drain for various purposes, at the moment when that war began.[11] This system of public economy, constantly laying by a considerable sum year after year,—in which Athens stood alone, since none of the Peloponnesian states had any public reserve whatever,[12]—goes far of itself to vindicate Periklês from the charge of having wasted the public money in mischievous distributions for the purpose of obtaining popularity; and also to exonerate the Athenian Demos from that reproach of a greedy appetite for living by the public purse which it is common to ascribe to them. After the death of Kimon, no farther expeditions were undertaken against the Persians, and even for some years before his death, not much appears to have been done: so that the tribute-money remained unexpended, though it was the duty of Athens to hold it in reserve against future attack, which might at any time be renewed.

[6] Aristophan. Vesp. 707.

[7] The island of Kythêra was conquered by the Athenians from
Sparta in 425 B.C., and the annual tribute then imposed upon
it was four talents (Thucyd. iv, 57). In the Inscription No.
143, ap. Boeckh, Corp. Inscr., we find some names enumerated of
tributary towns, with the amount of tribute opposite to each,
but the stone is too much damaged to give us much information.
Tyrodiza, in Thrace, paid one thousand drachms: some other towns,
or junctions of towns, not clearly discernible, are rated at one
thousand, two thousand, three thousand drachms, one talent, and
even ten talents. This inscription must be anterior to 415 B.C.,
when the tribute was converted into a five per cent. duty upon
imports and exports: see Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, and his
Notes upon the above-mentioned Inscription.

It was the practice of Athens not always to rate each tributary
city separately, but sometimes to join several in one collective
rating; probably each responsible for the rest. This seems to
have provoked occasional remonstrances from the allies, in some
of which the rhetor, Antipho, was employed to furnish the speech
which the complainants pronounced before the dikastery: see
Antipho ap. Harpokration, v. Ἀπόταξις—Συντελεῖς. It is greatly
to be lamented that the orations composed by Antipho, for the
Samothrakians and Lindians,—the latter inhabiting one of the
three separate towns in the island of Rhodes,—have not been
preserved.

[8] Xenophon, Anab. vii, 1, 27. οὐ μεῖον χιλίων ταλάντων: compare
Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, b. iii, ch. 7, 15, 19.

[9] Aristophan. Vesp. 660. τάλαντ᾽ ἐγγὺς δισχίλια.

[10] Very excellent writers on Athenian antiquity (Boeckh, Public
Econ. of Athens, c. 15, 19, b. iii; Schömann, Antiq. J. P. Att.
sect. lxxiv; K. F. Hermann, Gr. Staatsalterthümer, sect. 157:
compare, however, a passage in Boeckh, ch. 17, p. 421, Eng.
transl., where he seems to be of an opposite opinion) accept
this statement, that the tribute levied by Athenians upon her
allies was doubled some years after the commencement of the
Peloponnesian war,—at which time it was six hundred talents,—and
that it came to amount to twelve hundred talents. Nevertheless,
I cannot follow them, upon the simple authority of Æschinês, and
the Pseudo-Andokidês (Æschin. De Fals. Legat. c. 54, p. 301;
Andokidês, De Pace, c. 1, and the same orator cont. Alkibiad.
c. 4). For we may state pretty confidently, that neither of the
two orations here ascribed to Andokidês is genuine: the oration
against Alkibiadês most decidedly not genuine. There remains,
therefore, as an original evidence, only the passage of Æschinês,
which has, apparently, been copied by the author of the Oration
De Pace, ascribed to Andokidês. Now the chapter of Æschinês,
which professes to furnish a general but brief sketch of Athenian
history for the century succeeding the Persian invasion, is so
full of historical and chronological inaccuracies, that we can
hardly accept it, when standing alone, as authority for any
matter of fact. In a note on the chapter immediately preceding,
I have already touched upon its extraordinary looseness of
statement,—pointed out by various commentators, among them
particularly by Mr. Fynes Clinton: see above, chap. xlv, note 2,
pp. 409-411, in the preceding volume.

The assertion, therefore, that the tribute from the Athenian
allies was raised to the sum of twelve hundred talents annually,
comes to us only from the orator Æschinês as an original
witness: and in him it forms part of a tissue of statements
alike confused and incorrect. But against it we have a powerful
negative argument,—the perfect silence of Thucydidês. Is it
possible that that historian would have omitted all notice of
a step so very important in its effects, if Athens had really
adopted it? He mentions to us the commutation by Athens of the
tribute from her allies into a duty of five per cent. payable
by them on their exports and imports (vii, 28)—this was in the
nineteenth year of the war, 413 B.C. But anything like the
duplication of the tribute all at once, would have altered much
more materially the relations between Athens and her allies and
would have constituted in the minds of the latter a substantive
grievance, such as to aggravate the motive for revolt in a
manner which Thucydidês could hardly fail to notice. The orator
Æschinês refers the augmentation of the tribute, up to twelve
hundred talents, to the time succeeding the peace of Nikias: M.
Boeckh (Public Econ. of Athens, b. iii, ch. 15-19, pp. 400-434)
supposes it to have taken place earlier than the representation
of the Vespæ of Aristophanês, that is, about three years before
that peace, or 423 B.C. But this would have been just before the
time of the expedition of Brasidas into Thrace, and his success
in exciting revolt among the dependencies of Athens: if Athens
had doubled her tribute upon all the allies, just before that
expedition, Thucydidês could not have omitted to mention it, as
increasing the chances of success to Brasidas, and helping to
determine the resolutions of the Akanthians and others, which
were by no means adopted unanimously or without hesitation, to
revolt.

In reference to the oration called that of Andokidês against
Alkibiadês, I made some remarks in the fourth volume of this
History (vol. iv, ch. xxxi, p. 151), tending to show it to be
spurious and of a time considerably later than that to which
it purports to belong. I will here add one other remark, which
appears to me decisive, tending to the same conclusion.

The oration professes to be delivered in a contest of ostracism
between Nikias, Alkibiadês, and the speaker: one of the three,
he says, must necessarily be ostracized, and the question is,
to determine which of the three: accordingly, the speaker
dwells upon many topics calculated to raise a bad impression of
Alkibiadês, and a favorable impression of himself.

Among the accusations against Alkibiadês, one is, that after
having recommended, in the assembly of the people, that the
inhabitants of Melos should be sold as slaves, he had himself
purchased a Melian woman among the captives, and had had a son by
her: it was criminal, argues the speaker, to beget offspring by
a woman whose relations he had contributed to cause to be put to
death, and whose city he had contributed to ruin (c. 8).

Upon this argument I do not here touch, any farther than to bring
out the point of chronology. The speech, if delivered at all,
must have been delivered, at the earliest, nearly a year after
the capture of Melos by the Athenians: it may be of later date,
but it _cannot possibly be earlier_.

Now Melos surrendered in the winter immediately preceding the
great expedition of the Athenians to Sicily in 415 B.C., which
expedition sailed about midsummer (Thucyd. v, 116; vi, 30).
Nikias and Alkibiadês both went as commanders of that expedition:
the latter was recalled to Athens for trial on the charge of
impiety about three months afterwards, but escaped in the way
home, was condemned and sentenced to banishment in his absence,
and did not return to Athens until 407 B.C., long after the death
of Nikias, who continued in command of the Athenian armament in
Sicily, enjoying the full esteem of his countrymen, until its
complete failure and ruin before Syracuse,—and perished himself
afterwards as a Syracusan prisoner.

Taking these circumstances together, it will at once be seen that
there never can have been any time, ten months or more after the
capture of Melos, when Nikias and Alkibiadês _could_ have been
exposed to a vote of ostracism at Athens. The thing is absolutely
impossible: and the oration in which such historical and
chronological incompatibilities are embodied, must be spurious:
furthermore, it must have been composed long after the pretended
time of delivery, when the chronological series of events had
been forgotten.

I may add that the story of this duplication of the tribute by
Alkibiadês is virtually contrary to the statement of Plutarch,
probably borrowed from Æschinês, who states that the demagogues
_gradually_ increased (κατὰ μικρὸν) the tribute to thirteen
hundred talents (Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 24).

[11] Thucyd. ii, 13.

[12] Thucyd. i, 80. The foresight of the Athenian people, in
abstaining from immediate use of public money and laying it up
for future wants, would be still more conspicuously demonstrated,
if the statement of Æschinês, the orator, were true, that they
got together seven thousand talents between the peace of Nikias
and the Sicilian expedition. M. Boeckh believes this statement,
and says: “It is not impossible that one thousand talents might
have been laid by every year, as the amount of tribute received
was so considerable.” (Public Economy of Athens, ch. xx. p. 446,
Eng. Trans.) I do not believe the statement: but M. Boeckh and
others, who do admit it, ought in fairness to set it against the
many remarks which they pass in condemnation of the democratical
prodigality.

Though we do not know the exact amount of the other sources of Athenian revenue, however, we know that the tribute received from the allies was by far the largest item in it.[13] And altogether the exercise of empire abroad became a prominent feature in Athenian life, and a necessity to Athenian sentiment, not less than democracy at home. Athens was no longer, as she had been once, a single city, with Attica for her territory: she was a capital or imperial city,—a despot city, was the expression used by her enemies, and even sometimes by her own citizens,[14]—with many dependencies attached to her, and bound to follow her orders. Such was the manner in which not merely Periklês and the other leading statesmen, but even the humblest Athenian citizen, conceived the dignity of Athens; and the sentiment was one which carried with it both personal pride and stimulus to active patriotism. To establish Athenian interests among the dependent territories, was one important object in the eyes of Periklês, and while he discountenanced all distant[15] and rash enterprises, such as invasions of Egypt or Cyprus, he planted out many kleruchies and colonies of Athenian citizens, intermingled with allies, on islands, and parts of the coast. He conducted one thousand citizens to the Thracian Chersonese, five hundred to Naxos, and two hundred and fifty to Andros. In the Chersonese, he farther repelled the barbarous Thracian invaders from without, and even undertook the labor of carrying a wall of defence across the isthmus, which connected the peninsula with Thrace; since the barbarous Thracian tribes, though expelled some time before by Kimon,[16] had still continued to renew their incursions from time to time. Ever since the occupation of the elder Miltiadês, about eighty years before, there had been in this peninsula many Athenian proprietors, apparently intermingled with half-civilized Thracians: the settlers now acquired both greater numerical strength and better protection, though it does not appear that the cross-wall was permanently maintained. The maritime expeditions of Periklês even extended into the Euxine sea, as far as the important Greek city of Sinôpê, then governed by a despot named Timesilaus, against whom a large proportion of the citizens were in active discontent. He left Lamachus with thirteen Athenian triremes to assist in expelling the despot, who was driven into exile along with his friends and party: the properties of these exiles were confiscated, and assigned to the maintenance of six hundred Athenian citizens, admitted to equal fellowship and residence with the Sinôpeans. We may presume that on this occasion Sinôpê became a member of the Athenian tributary alliance, if it had not been so before: but we do not know whether Kotyôra and Trapezus, dependencies of Sinôpê, farther eastward, which the ten thousand Greeks found on their retreat fifty years afterwards, existed in the time of Periklês or not. Moreover, the numerous and well-equipped Athenian fleet, under the command of Periklês, produced an imposing effect upon the barbarous princes and tribes along the coast,[17] contributing certainly to the security of Grecian trade, and probably to the acquisition of new dependent allies.

[13] Thucyd. i. 122-143; ii, 13. The πεντηκοστὴ, or duty of two
per cent. upon imports and exports at the Peiræus, produced to
the state a revenue of thirty-six talents in the year in which
it was farmed by Andokidês, somewhere about 400 B.C., after
the restoration of the democracy at Athens from its defeat and
subversion at the close of the Peloponnesian war (Andokidês de
Mysteriis, c. 23, p. 65). This was at a period of depression in
Athenian affairs, and when trade was doubtless not near so good
as it had been during the earlier part of the Peloponnesian war.

It seems probable that this must have been the most considerable
permanent source of Athenian revenue next to the tribute; though
we do not know what rate of customs-duty was imposed at the
Peiræus during the Peloponnesian war. Comparing together the two
passages of Xenophon (Republ. Ath. 1, 17, and Aristophan. Vesp.
657), we may suppose that the regular and usual rate of duty
was one per cent. or one ἑκατοστὴ,—while in case of need this
may have been doubled or tripled.—τὰς πολλὰς ἑκατοστάς, (see
Boeckh, b. iii, chs. 1-4, pp. 298-318, Eng. Trans.) The amount of
revenue derived even from this source, however, can have borne no
comparison to the tribute.

[14] By Periklês, Thucyd. ii, 63. By Kleon, Thucyd. iii, 37. By
the envoys at Melos, v, 89. By Euphemus, vi, 85. By the hostile
Corinthians, i, 124 as a matter of course.

[15] Plutarch, Periklês. c. 20.

[16] Plutarch, Kimon. c. 14.

[17] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 19, 20.

It was by successive proceedings of this sort that many detachments of Athenian citizens became settled in various portions of the maritime empire of the city,—some rich, investing their property in the islands as more secure—from the incontestable superiority of Athens at sea—even than Attica, which, since the loss of the Megarid, could not be guarded against a Peloponnesian land invasion,[18]—others poor, and hiring themselves out as laborers.[19] The islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros, as well as the territory of Estiæa, on the north of Eubœa, were completely occupied by Athenian proprietors and citizens,—other places partially so occupied. And it was doubtless advantageous to the islanders to associate themselves with Athenians in trading enterprises, since they thereby obtained a better chance of the protection of the Athenian fleet. It seems that Athens passed regulations occasionally for the commerce of her dependent allies, as we see by the fact, that shortly before the Peloponnesian war, she excluded the Megarians from all their ports. The commercial relations between Peiræus and the Ægean reached their maximum during the interval immediately preceding the Peloponnesian war: nor were these relations confined to the country east and north of Attica: they reached also the western regions. The most important settlements founded by Athens during this period were Amphipolis in Thrace, and Thurii in Italy.

[18] Xenophon, Rep. Ath. ii, 16. τὴν μὲν οὐσίαν ταῖς νήσοις
παρατίθενται, πιστεύοντες τῇ ἀρχῇ τῇ κατὰ θάλασσαν· τὴν δὲ
Ἀττικὴν γῆν περιορῶσι τεμνομένην, γιγνώσκοντες ὅτι εἰ αὐτὴν
ἐλεήσουσιν, ἑτέρων ἀγαθῶν μειζόνων στερήσονται.

Compare also Xenophon (Memorabil. ii, 8, 1, and Symposion, iv,
31).

[19] See the case of the free laborer and the husbandman at
Naxos, Plato, Euthyphro, c. 3.

Amphipolis was planted by a colony of Athenians and other Greeks, under the conduct of the Athenian Agnon, in 437 B.C. It was situated near the river Strymon, in Thrace, on the eastern bank, and at the spot where the Strymon resumes its river-course after emerging from the lake above. It was originally a township or settlement of the Edonian Thracians, called Ennea Hodoi, or Nine Ways,—in a situation doubly valuable, both as being close upon the bridge over the Strymon, and as a convenient centre for the ship-timber and gold and silver mines of the neighboring region,—and distant about three English miles from the Athenian settlement of Eion at the mouth of the river. The previous unsuccessful attempts to form establishments at Ennea Hodoi have already been noticed,—first, that of Histiæus the Milesian, followed up by his brother Aristagoras (about 497-496 B.C.), next, that of the Athenians about 465 B.C., under Leagrus and others,—on both these occasions the intruding settlers had been defeated and expelled by the native Thracian tribes, though on the second occasion the number sent by Athens was not less than ten thousand.[20] So serious a loss deterred the Athenians for a long time from any repetition of the attempt: though it is highly probable that individual citizens from Eion and from Thasus connected themselves with powerful Thracian families, and became in this manner actively engaged in mining, to their own great profit,—as well as to the profit of the city collectively, since the property of the kleruchs, or Athenian citizens occupying colonial lands, bore its share in case of direct taxes being imposed on Athenian property generally. Among such fortunate adventurers we may number the historian Thucydidês himself; seemingly descended from Athenian parents intermarrying with Thracians, and himself married to a wife either Thracian or belonging to a family of Athenian colonists in that region, through whom he became possessed of a large property in the mines, as well as of great influence in the districts around.[21] This was one of the various ways in which the collective power of Athens enabled her chief citizens to enrich themselves individually.

[20] Thucyd. i. 100.

[21] Thucyd. iv, 105; Marcellinus, Vit. Thucyd. c. 19. See
Rotscher, Leben des Thukydides, ch. i, 4, p. 96, who gives a
genealogy of Thucydidês, as far as it can be made out with any
probability. The historian was connected by blood with Miltiadês
and Kimon, as well as with Olorus, king of one of the Thracian
tribes, whose daughter Hegesipylê was wife of Miltiadês, the
conqueror of Marathon. In this manner, therefore, he belonged to
one of the ancient heroic families of Athens, and even of Greece,
being an Ækid through Ajax and Philæus (Marcellin. c. 2).

The colony under Agnon, despatched from Athens in the year 437 B.C., appears to have been both numerous and well sustained, inasmuch as it conquered and maintained the valuable position of Ennea Hodoi in spite of those formidable Edonian neighbors who had baffled the two preceding attempts. Its name of Ennea Hodoi was exchanged for that of Amphipolis,—the hill on which the new town was situated being bounded on three sides by the river. The settlers seem to have been of mixed extraction, comprising no large proportion of Athenians: some were of Chalkidic race, others came from Argilus, a Grecian city colonized from Andros, which possessed the territory on the western bank of the Strymon, immediately opposite to Amphipolis,[22] and which was included among the subject allies of Athens. Amphipolis, connected with the sea by the Strymon and the port of Eion, became the most important of all the Athenian dependencies in reference to Thrace and Macedonia.

[22] Thucyd. iv, 102; v, 6.

The colony of Thurii on the coast of the gulf of Tarentum in Italy, near the site and on the territory of the ancient Sybaris, was founded by Athens about seven years earlier than Amphipolis, not long after the conclusion of the thirty years’ truce with Sparta, B.C. 443. Since the destruction of the old Sybaris by the Krotoniates, in 509 B.C., its territory had for the most part remained unappropriated: the descendants of the former inhabitants, dispersed at Laus and in other portions of the territory, were not strong enough to establish any new city; nor did it suit the views of the Krotoniates themselves to do so. After an interval of more than sixty years, however, during which one unsuccessful attempt at occupation had been made by some Thessalian settlers, these Sybarites at length prevailed upon the Athenians to undertake and protect the recolonization; the proposition having been made in vain to the Spartans. Lampon and Xenokritus, the former a prophet and interpreter of oracles, were sent by Periklês with ten ships as chiefs of the new colony of Thurii, founded under the auspices of Athens. The settlers were collected from all parts of Greece, and included Dorians, Ionians, islanders, Bœotians, as well as Athenians. But the descendants of the ancient Sybarites procured themselves to be treated as privileged citizens, and monopolized for themselves the possession of political powers, as well as the most valuable lands in the immediate vicinity of the walls; while their wives also assumed an offensive preëminence over the other women of the city in the public religious processions. Such spirit of privilege and monopoly appears to have been a frequent manifestation among the ancient colonies, and often fatal either to their tranquillity or to their growth; sometimes to both. In the case of Thurii, founded under the auspices of the democratical Athens, it was not likely to have any lasting success: and we find that after no very long period, the majority of the colonists rose in insurrection against the privileged Sybarites, either slew or expelled them, and divided the entire territory of the city, upon equal principles, among the colonists of every different race. This revolution enabled them to make peace with the Krotoniates, who had probably been unfriendly so long as their ancient enemies, the Sybarites, were masters of the city, and likely to turn its powers to the purpose of avenging their conquered ancestors. And the city from this time forward, democratically governed, appears to have flourished steadily and without internal dissension for thirty years, until the ruinous disasters of the Athenians before Syracuse occasioned the overthrow of the Athenian party at Thurii. How miscellaneous the population of Thurii was, we may judge from the denominations of the ten tribes,—such was the number of tribes established, after the model of Athens,—Arkas, Achaïs, Eleia, Bœotia, Amphiktyonis, Doris, Ias, Athenaïs, Euboïs, Nesiôtis. From this mixture of race they could not agree in recognizing or honoring an Athenian œkist, or indeed any œkist except Apollo.[23] The Spartan general, Kleandridas, banished a few years before for having suffered himself to be bribed by Athens along with king Pleistoanax, removed to Thurii, and was appointed general of the citizens in their war against Tarentum. That war was ultimately adjusted by the joint foundation of the new city of Herakleia, half-way between the two,—in the fertile territory called Siritis.[24]

[23] Diodor. xii, 35.

[24] Diodor. xii, 11, 12; Strabo. vi, 264: Plutarch, Periklês, c.
22.

The most interesting circumstance respecting Thurii is, that the rhetor Lysias, and the historian Herodotus, were both domiciliated there as citizens. The city was connected with Athens, yet seemingly only by a feeble tie; nor was it numbered among the tributary subject allies.[25] From the circumstance that so large a proportion of the settlers at Thurii were not native Athenians, we may infer that there were not many of the latter at that time who were willing to put themselves so far out of connection with Athens,—even though tempted by the prospect of lots of land in a fertile and promising territory. And Periklês was probably anxious that those poor citizens for whom emigration was desirable should become kleruchs in some of the islands or ports of the Ægean, where they would serve—like the colonies of Rome—as a sort of garrison for the insurance of the Athenian empire.[26]

[25] The Athenians pretended to no subject allies beyond the
Ionian gulf, Thucyd. vi, 14: compare vi, 45, 104; vii, 34.
Thucydidês does not even mention Thurii, in his catalogue of
the allies of Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war
(Thucyd. ii, 15).

[26] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11.

The fourteen years between the thirty years’ truce and the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war, are a period of full maritime empire on the part of Athens,—partially indeed resisted, but never with success. They are a period of peace with all cities extraneous to her own empire; and of splendid decorations to the city itself, from the genius of Pheidias and others, in sculpture as well as in architecture. Since the death of Kimon, Periklês had become more and more the first citizen in the commonwealth: his qualities told for more the longer they were known, and even the disastrous reverses which preceded the thirty years’ truce had not overthrown him, since he had protested against that expedition of Tolmidês into Bœotia out of which they first arose. But if the personal influence of Periklês had increased, the party opposed to him seems also to have become stronger and better organized than it had been before; and to have acquired a leader in many respects more effective than Kimon,—Thucydidês, son of Melêsias. The new chief was a near relative of Kimon, but of a character and talents more analogous to that of Periklês: a statesman and orator rather than a general, though competent to both functions if occasion demanded, as every leading man in those days was required to be. Under Thucydidês, the political and parliamentary opposition against Periklês assumed a constant character and an organization such as Kimon, with his exclusively military aptitudes, had never been able to establish. The aristocratical party in the commonwealth,—the “honorable and respectable” citizens, as we find them styled, adopting their own nomenclature,—now imposed upon themselves the obligation of undeviating regularity in their attendance on the public assembly, sitting together in a particular section, so as to be conspicuously parted from the Demos. In this manner, their applause and dissent, their mutual encouragement to each other, their distribution of parts to different speakers, was made more conducive to the party purposes than it had been before, when these distinguished persons had been intermingled with the mass of citizens.[27] Thucydidês himself was eminent as a speaker, inferior only to Periklês,—perhaps hardly inferior even to him. We are told that in reply to a question put to him by Archidamus, whether Periklês or he were the better wrestler, Thucydidês replied: “Even when I throw him, he denies that he has fallen, gains his point, and talks over those who have actually seen him fall.”[28]

[27] Compare the speech of Nikias, in reference to the younger
citizens and partisans of Alkibiadês sitting together near the
latter in the assembly,—οὓς ἐγὼ ὁρῶν νῦν ἐνθάδε τῷ αὐτῷ ἀνδρὶ
~παρακελευστοὺς καθημένους~ φοβοῦμαι, καὶ τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις
ἀντιπαρακελεύομαι μὴ καταισχυνθῆναι, εἴ τῴ τις παρακάθηται τῶνδε,
etc. (Thucyd. vi, 13.) See also Aristophanês, Ekklesiaz. 298,
_seq._, about partisans sitting near together.

[28] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 8. Ὅταν ἐγὼ καταβάλω παλαίων, ἐκεῖνος
ἀντιλέγων ὡς οὐ πέπτωκε, νικᾷ, καὶ μεταπείθει τοὺς ὁρῶντας.

Such an opposition made to Periklês, in all the full license which a democratical constitution permitted, must have been both efficient and embarrassing; but the pointed severance of the aristocratical chiefs, which Thucydidês, son of Melêsias, introduced, contributed probably at once to rally the democratical majority round Periklês, and to exasperate the bitterness of party-conflict.[29] As far as we can make out the grounds of the opposition, it turned partly upon the pacific policy of Periklês towards the Persians, partly upon his expenditure for home ornament. Thucydidês contended that Athens was disgraced in the eyes of the Greeks, by having drawn the confederate treasure from Delos to her own acropolis, under pretence of greater security, and then employing it, not in prosecuting war against the Persians,[30] but in beautifying Athens by new temples and costly statues. To this Periklês replied, that Athens had undertaken the obligation, in consideration of the tribute-money, to protect her allies and keep off from them every foreign enemy,—that she had accomplished this object completely at the present, and retained a reserve sufficient to guarantee the like security for the future;—that, under such circumstances, she owed no account to her allies of the expenditure of the surplus, but was at liberty to expend it for purposes useful and honorable to the city. In this point of view it was an object of great public importance to render Athens imposing in the eyes both of the allies and of Hellas generally, by improved fortifications,—by accumulated ornaments, sculptural and architectural,—and by religious festivals,—frequent, splendid, musical, and poetical.

[29] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11. ἡ δ᾽ ἐκείνων ἅμιλλα καὶ φιλοτιμία
τῶν ἀνδρῶν βαθυτάτην τομὴν τεμοῦσα τῆς πόλεως, τὸ μὲν δῆμον, τὸ
δ᾽ ὀλίγους ἐποίησε καλεῖσθαι.

[30] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 12. διέβαλλον ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις
βοῶντες, ὡς ὁ μὲν δῆμος ἀδοξεῖ καὶ κακῶς ἀκούει τὰ κοινὰ τῶν
Ἑλλήνων χρήματα πρὸς αὑτὸν ἐκ Δήλου μεταγαγών, ἣ δ᾽ ἔνεστιν αὐτῷ
πρὸς τοὺς ἐγκαλοῦντας εὐπρεπεστάτη τῶν προφάσεων, δείσαντα τοὺς
βαρβάρους ἐκεῖθεν ἀνελέσθαι καὶ φυλάττειν ἐν ὀχυρῷ τὰ κοινά,
ταύτην ἀνῄρηκε Περικλῆς, etc.

Compare the speech of the Lesbians, and their complaints against
Athens, at the moment of their revolt in the fourth year of the
Peloponnesian war (Thucyd. iii, 10); where a similar accusation
is brought forward,—ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἑωρῶμεν αὐτοὺς (the Athenians)
τὴν μὲν τοῦ Μήδου ἔχθραν ἀνιέντας, τὴν δὲ τῶν ξυμμάχων δούλωσιν
ἐπαγομένους, etc.

Such was the answer made by Periklês in defence of his policy against the opposition headed by Thucydidês. And as far as we can make out the ground taken by both parties, the answer was perfectly satisfactory. For when we look at the very large sum which Periklês continually kept in reserve in the treasury, no one could reasonably complain that his expenditure for ornamental purposes was carried so far as to encroach upon the exigences of defence. What Thucydidês and his partisans appear to have urged, was, that this common fund should still continue to be spent in aggressive warfare against the Persian king, in Egypt and elsewhere,—conformably to the projects pursued by Kimon during his life.[31] But Periklês was right in contending that such outlay would have been simply wasteful; of no use either to Athens or her allies, though risking all the chances of distant defeat, such as had been experienced a few years before in Egypt. The Persian force was already kept away, both from the waters of the Ægean and the coast of Asia, either by the stipulations of the treaty of Kallias, or—if that treaty be supposed apocryphal—by a conduct practically the same as those stipulations would have enforced. The _allies_, indeed, might have had some ground of complaint against Periklês, either for not reducing the amount of tribute required from them, seeing that it was more than sufficient for the legitimate purposes of the confederacy, or for not having collected their positive sentiment as to the disposal of it. But we do not find that this was the argument adopted by Thucydidês and his party, nor was it calculated to find favor either with aristocrats or democrats, in the Athenian assembly.

[31] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 20.

Admitting the injustice of Athens—an injustice common to both the parties in that city, not less to Kimon than to Periklês—in acting as despot instead of chief, and in discontinuing all appeal to the active and hearty concurrence of her numerous allies, we shall find that the schemes of Periklês were at the same time eminently Pan-Hellenic. In strengthening and ornamenting Athens, in developing the full activity of her citizens, in providing temples, religious offerings, works of art, solemn festivals, all of surpassing attraction,—he intended to exalt her into something greater than an imperial city with numerous dependent allies. He wished to make her the centre of Grecian feeling, the stimulus of Grecian intellect, and the type of strong democratical patriotism combined with full liberty of individual taste and aspiration. He wished not merely to retain the adherence of the subject states, but to attract the admiration and spontaneous deference of independent neighbors, so as to procure for Athens a moral ascendency much beyond the range of her direct power. And he succeeded in elevating the city to a visible grandeur,[32] which made her appear even much stronger than she really was,—and which had the farther effect of softening to the minds of the subjects the humiliating sense of obedience; while it served as a normal school, open to strangers from all quarters, of energetic action even under full license of criticism,—of elegant pursuits economically followed,—and of a love for knowledge without enervation of character. Such were the views of Periklês in regard to his country, during the years which preceded the Peloponnesian war, as we find them recorded in his celebrated Funeral Oration, pronounced in the first year of that war,—an exposition forever memorable of the sentiment and purpose of Athenian democracy, as conceived by its ablest president.

[32] Thucyd. i, 10.

So bitter, however, was the opposition made by Thucydidês and his party to this projected expenditure,—so violent and pointed did the scission of aristocrats and democrats become,—that the dispute came after no long time to that ultimate appeal which the Athenian constitution provided for the case of two opposite and nearly equal party-leaders,—a vote of ostracism. Of the particular details which preceded this ostracism, we are not informed; but we see clearly that the general position was such as the ostracism was intended to meet. Probably the vote was proposed by the party of Thucydidês, in order to procure the banishment of Periklês, the more powerful person of the two, and the most likely to excite popular jealousy. The challenge was accepted by Periklês and his friends, and the result of the voting was such that an adequate legal majority condemned Thucydidês to ostracism.[33] And it seems that the majority must have been very decisive, for the party of Thucydidês was completely broken by it: and we hear of no other single individual equally formidable as a leader of opposition, throughout all the remaining life of Periklês.

[33] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11-14. Τέλος δὲ πρὸς τὸν Θουκυδίδην
~εἰς ἀγῶνα~ περὶ τοῦ ὀστράκου καταστὰς ~καὶ διακινδυνεύσας~,
ἐκεῖνον μὲν ἐξέβαλε, κατέλυσε δὲ τὴν ἀντιτεταγμένην ἑταιρείαν.
See, in reference to the principle of the ostracism, a remarkable
incident at Magnesia, between two political rivals, Krêtinês and
Hermeias: also the just reflections of Montesquieu, Esprit des
Loix, xxvi, c. 17; xxix, c. 7.

The ostracism of Thucydidês apparently took place about two years[34] after the conclusion of the thirty years’ truce,—443-442 B.C.,—and it is to the period immediately following that the great Periklêan works belong. The southern wall of the acropolis had been built out of the spoils brought by Kimon from his Persian expeditions; but the third of the long walls connecting Athens with the harbor was the proposition of Periklês, at what precise time we do not know. The long walls originally completed—not long after the battle of Tanagra, as has already been stated—were two, one from Athens to Peiræus, another from Athens to Phalêrum: the space between them was broad, and if in the hands of an enemy, the communication with Peiræus would be interrupted. Accordingly, Periklês now induced the people to construct a third or intermediate wall, running parallel with the first wall to Peiræus, and within a short distance[35]—seemingly near one furlong—from it: so that the communication between the city and the port was placed beyond all possible interruption, even assuming an enemy to have got within the Phaleric wall. It was seemingly about this time, too, that the splendid docks and arsenal in Peiræus, alleged by Isokratês to have cost one thousand talents, were constructed:[36] while the town itself of Peiræus was laid out anew with straight streets intersecting at right angles. Apparently, this was something new in Greece,—the towns generally, and Athens itself in particular, having been built without any symmetry, or width, or continuity of streets:[37] and Hippodamus the Milesian, a man of considerable attainments in the physical philosophy of the age, derived much renown as the earliest town architect, for having laid out the Peiræus on a regular plan. The market-place, or one of them at least, permanently bore his name,—the Hippodamian agora.[38] At a time when so many great architects were displaying their genius in the construction of temples, we are not surprised to hear that the structure of towns began to be regularized also: moreover, we are told that the new colonial town of Thurii, to which Hippodamus went as a settler, was also constructed in the same systematic form as to straight and wide streets.[39]

[34] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 16: the indication of time, however,
is vague.

[35] Plato, Gorgias, p. 455, with Scholia; Plutarch, Periklês, c.
13: Forchhammer, Topographie von Athen, in Kieler Philologische
Studien, pp. 279-282.

[36] Isokratês, Orat. vii: Areopagit. p. 153. c. 27.

[37] See Dikæarchus, Vit. Græciæ, Fragm. ed. Fuhr. p. 140:
compare the description of Platæa in Thucydidês, ii, 3.

All the older towns now existing in the Grecian islands are put
together in this same manner,—narrow, muddy, crooked ways,—few
regular continuous lines of houses: see Ross, Reisen in den
Griechischen Inseln, Letter xxvii, vol. ii, p. 20.

[38] Aristotle, Politic. ii, 5, 1; Xenophon, Hellen. ii, 4, 1;
Harpokration, v, Ἱπποδάμεια.

[39] Diodor, xii, 9.

The new scheme upon which the Peiræus was laid out, was not without its value as one visible proof of the naval grandeur of Athens. But the buildings in Athens and on the acropolis formed the real glory of the Periklêan age. A new theatre, termed the Odeon, was constructed for musical and poetical representations at the great Panathenaic solemnity; next, the splendid temple of Athênê, called the Parthenon, with all its masterpieces of decorative sculpture and reliefs; lastly, the costly portals erected to adorn the entrance of the acropolis, on the western side of the hill, through which the solemn processions on festival days were conducted. It appears that the Odeon and the Parthenon were both finished between 445 and 437 B.C.: the Propylæa somewhat later, between 437 and 431 B.C., in which latter year the Peloponnesian war began.[40] Progress was also made in restoring or reconstructing the Erechtheion, or ancient temple of Athênê Polias, the patron goddess of the city,—which had been burnt in the invasion of Xerxes; but the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war seems to have prevented the completion of this, as well as of the great temple of Dêmêter, at Eleusis, for the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries,—that of Athênê, at Sunium,—and that of Nemesis, at Rhamnus. Nor was the sculpture less memorable than the architecture: three statues of Athênê, all by the hand of Pheidias, decorated the acropolis,—one colossal, forty-seven feet high, of ivory, in the Parthenon,[41]—a second of bronze, called the Lemnian Athênê,—a third of colossal magnitude, also in bronze, called Athênê Promachos, placed between the Propylæa and the Parthenon, and visible from afar off, even to the navigator approaching Peiræus by sea.

[40] Leake, Topography of Athens, Append. ii and iii, pp.
328-336, 2d edit.

[41] See Leake, Topography of Athens, 2d ed. p. 111, Germ.
transl. O. Müller (De Phidiæ Vitâ, p. 18) mentions no less than
eight celebrated statues of Athênê, by the hand of Pheidias,—four
in the acropolis of Athens.

It is not, of course, to Periklês that the renown of these splendid productions of art belongs: but the great sculptors and architects by whom they were conceived and executed, belonged to that same period of expanding and stimulating Athenian democracy which called forth a similar creative genius in oratory, in dramatic poetry, and in philosophical speculation. One man especially, of immortal name,—Pheidias,—born a little before the battle of Marathon, was the original mind in whom the sublime ideal conceptions of genuine art appear to have disengaged themselves from that hardness of execution and adherence to a consecrated type, which marked the efforts of his predecessors.[42] He was the great director and superintendent of all those decorative additions whereby Periklês imparted to Athens a majesty such as had never before belonged to any Grecian city: the architects of the Parthenon and the other buildings—Iktînus, Kallikratês, Korœbus, Mnesiklês, and others—worked under his superintendence: and he had, besides, a school of pupils and subordinates to whom the mechanical part of his labors was confided. With all the great additions which Pheidias made to the grandeur of Athens, his last and greatest achievement was out of Athens,—the colossal statue of Zeus, in the great temple of Olympia, executed in the years immediately preceding the Peloponnesian war. The effect produced by this stupendous work, sixty feet high, in ivory and gold, embodying in visible majesty some of the grandest conceptions of Grecian poetry and religion, upon the minds of all beholders for many centuries successively,—was such as never has been, and probably never will be, equalled in the annals of art, sacred or profane.

[42] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 13-15; O. Müller, De Phidiæ Vitâ, pp
34-60, also his work, Archäologie der Kunst, sects. 108-113.