Chapter XXX: The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (1)

No admirer of Greek civilisation can turn from the peaceful age of Pericles and follow the next step in Grecian history without a feeling of sadness, for he has to see the most cultured people of antiquity torn by internal dissensions and interstate jealousies; he has to see the people who represent the acme of culture harassed for a generation by an imbecile strife, which shall leave it so weakened that it will become an easy prey to outside foes. In every succeeding generation, when men have studied the history of classical times, the same feeling of amazement has prevailed, and has often found expression in contemplating this period of the Peloponnesian War; but it remained for John Ruskin to invent the vivid phrase which in three words epitomises the entire story, when he speaks of this amazing conflict as the “suicide of Greece.” It was in truth nothing less than that.

There was no great question at issue between the Athenian and Spartan peoples that must be decided by the arbitrament of arms or otherwise. There was no reason outside the temperament of the people themselves why the Athenians on the one hand, and the Spartans on the other, might not have gone on indefinitely, each people pre-eminent in its own territory, and each standing aloof from the other; but that interstate jealousy which was responsible for so many things in Grecian history came as a determining influence which at last could not longer be controlled. Persian might, which dared not re-enter Greece, but which longed for the overthrow of an old enemy, urged on one side or the other, as seemed for the moment best to serve that end. The remaining Grecian cities took sides with Athens or Sparta according to their predilections, or their own personal enmities and jealousies, and there resulted a war which involved practically all the cities of Greece, and which, after continuing for a full generation, brought Hellas as a whole to destruction.

OUR SOURCES

The history of this war has been preserved to posterity in far greater detail than has the history of any preceding conflict anywhere in the world. The Athenian general Thucydides, who himself took an active part in the earlier stages of the war, commanding forces in the field until finally he suffered the displeasure of the Athenians, determined from the outset, as he himself tells us, to write a complete history of the conflict which he believed would be the most memorable of all in the annals of history. The work which he produced has probably been more widely celebrated and more universally applauded than any other piece of historical composition that was ever written. All manner of extravagant things have been said about it. Every one has heard, for example, of Macaulay’s saying that he felt he might perhaps equal any other piece of historical writing that had ever been done except the seventh book of Thucydides, before which he felt himself helpless. This eulogy is of a piece with much more that has been said in similar kind by a multitude of other critics. It has even been alleged that no historian of a later period has ever dealt out such impartial judgment as is to be found in the pages of Thucydides. Seemingly forgetful of the meaning of words, critics have even assured us that no period of like extent of the world’s history, ancient or modern, is so fully known to us as this period of the Peloponnesian War through the history of Thucydides.

To any one, who himself will take up the history of Thucydides, either in the original or in such a translation as the admirable one of Dale, two things will at once be apparent; in the first place it will not long be open to doubt, to any one who is familiar with the literature of antiquity, that this work of Thucydides, considered in relation to the time in which it was written, is really an extraordinary production; but, in the second place, it will be equally clear that if we are to consider the work not in comparison with the writings of ancient authors but as a part of world-literature, then much that has been said of it must be regarded as fulsome eulogy.

To say that this work covers the period of the Peloponnesian War as no modern period of history has been covered; to say that no modern historian has dealt with his topic with the calm impartiality of Thucydides; to say that no writer can hope to produce an historical narrative comparable to the seventh book, or to any other book, of Thucydides--to say such things as these is to abandon the broad impartial view from which alone criticism worthy of the name is possible, and to come under the spell of other minds. _The History of the Peloponnesian War_ is a great book; as an historical composition it is one of the greatest ever written: but when one has said that one has said enough. Its style, by common consent, is not such as to make it a model, and its matter is very largely the recital of bald facts with evidence of an insight into the political motives beneath the surface, which seems extraordinary only because the predecessors of Thucydides and some of his successors had seemed so woefully to lack such insight. As to the impartiality of the narrative, we must not overlook the significance of Professor Mahaffy’s remark, that for most of the period covered in the history of Thucydides this history itself is our sole authority. That it does, nevertheless, evince a high degree of impartiality and a broad sweep of intellect on the part of its author will not be questioned; but Professor Mahaffy makes an estimate, which no one who is not fully under the spell of antiquity would think of disputing, when he asserts his belief that such modern historians as, for example, Thirlwall, must be accredited with at least as high a degree of impartiality as Thucydides can claim.

But all this must not be taken as in any sense denying that the work of Thucydides is a marvellous production. Considering the time when it was written, and that its author was a participant in many of the events which he describes, it is astonishing that his work should be measurably free from partiality. That it is so was, perhaps, at least in some measure, due to the fact that Thucydides was banished from Athens, and hence wrote his history not so much from the Athenian standpoint, as from the standpoint of a man without a country, who was at enmity with both Spartans and Athenians. But, partial or impartial, the history of Thucydides remains, and presumably must always remain, the sole contemporary record open to posterity of that great struggle through which Greece, as it were, voluntarily threw away her prestige and her power.

Thucydides, to be sure, did not complete his history of the war, or, if he did, his later chapters have not been preserved to us. The former supposition is doubtless the correct one, because the thread of the narrative, which Thucydides dropped so abruptly, was taken up by Xenophon, also a contemporary. It was a not unusual custom among the ancient authors to write important works as explicit continuations of the works of other writers. Xenophon’s narrative of the events of the later years of the Peloponnesian War is such a work. Like the history of Thucydides it is practically our sole authority for the period that it covers, but, by common consent of critics, it takes a much lower level than the work which it supplements.

Xenophon was also an exile from Athens; but he differed from Thucydides in being an ardent friend of Sparta, and his prejudices are well known to readers of his works. One must suppose, however, that the favourite pupil of Socrates may be depended upon for reasonable impartiality when he deals with matters of fact. But, be this as it may, it is Xenophon, and Xenophon alone, who tells us most that we know at first hand, not alone of the closing years of the Peloponnesian War, but of many in the period succeeding. We shall constantly support our narrative of the events of this period, therefore, by references to the pages of Xenophon, as well as to those of Thucydides.[a]

THE ORIGIN OF THE WAR

Even before the recent hostilities at Corcyra and Potidæa, it had been evident to reflecting Greeks that prolonged observance of the Thirty Years’ Truce was becoming uncertain, and that the mingled hatred, fear, and admiration which Athens inspired throughout Greece would prompt Sparta and the Spartan confederacy to seize any favourable opening for breaking down the Athenian power. That such was the disposition of Sparta was well understood among the Athenian allies, however considerations of prudence and general slowness in resolving might postpone the moment of carrying it into effect. Accordingly not only the Samians when they revolted had applied to the Spartan confederacy for aid, which they appear to have been prevented from obtaining chiefly by the pacific interests then animating the Corinthians--but also the Lesbians had endeavoured to open negotiations with Sparta for a similar purpose, though the authorities to whom alone the proposition could have been communicated, since it long remained secret and was never executed--had given them no encouragement.

The affairs of Athens had been administered, under the ascendency of Pericles, without any view to extension of empire or encroachment upon others, though with constant reference to the probabilities of war, and with anxiety to keep the city in a condition to meet it. But even the splendid internal ornaments, which Athens at that time acquired, were probably not without their effect in provoking jealousy on the part of other Greeks as to her ultimate views. The only known incident, wherein Athens had been brought into collision with a member of the Spartan confederacy prior to the Corcyræan dispute, was her decree passed in regard to Megara, prohibiting the Megarians, on pain of death, from all trade or intercourse as well with Athens as with all ports within the Athenian empire. This prohibition was grounded on the alleged fact, that the Megarians had harboured runaway slaves from Athens, and had appropriated and cultivated portions of land upon her border; partly land, the property of the goddesses of Eleusis; partly a strip of territory disputed between the two states, and therefore left by mutual understanding in common pasture without any permanent enclosure. In reference to this latter point, the Athenian herald Anthemocritus had been sent to Megara to remonstrate, but had been so rudely dealt with, that his death shortly afterwards was imputed to the Megarians. We may reasonably suppose that ever since the revolt of Megara fourteen years before--which caused to Athens an irreparable mischief--the feeling prevalent between the two cities had been one of bitter enmity, manifesting itself in many ways, but so much exasperated by recent events as to provoke Athens to a signal revenge. Exclusion from Athens and all the ports in her empire, comprising nearly every island and seaport in the Ægean, was so ruinous to the Megarians, that they loudly complained of it at Sparta, representing it as an infraction of the Thirty Years’ Truce; though it was undoubtedly within the legitimate right of Athens to enforce, and was even less harsh than the systematic expulsion of foreigners by Sparta, with which Pericles compared it.

(From a vase)]

[Sidenote: [432 B.C.]]

These complaints found increased attention after the war of Corcyra and the blockade of Potidæa by the Athenians. The sentiments of the Corinthians towards Athens had now become angry and warlike in the highest degree. It was not simply resentment for the past which animated them, but also the anxiety farther to bring upon Athens so strong a hostile pressure as should preserve Potidæa and its garrison from capture. Accordingly they lost no time in endeavouring to rouse the feelings of the Spartans against Athens, and in inducing them to invite to Sparta all such of the confederates as had any grievances against that city. Not merely the Megarians, but several other confederates, came thither as accusers; while the Æginetans, though their insular position made it perilous for them to appear, made themselves vehemently heard through the mouths of others, complaining that Athens withheld from them the autonomy to which they were entitled under the truce.

According to the Lacedæmonian practice, it was necessary first that the Spartans themselves, apart from their allies, should decide whether there existed a sufficient case of wrong done by Athens against themselves or against Peloponnesus--either in violation of the Thirty Years’ Truce, or in any other way. If the determination of Sparta herself were in the negative, the case would never even be submitted to the vote of the allies; but if it were in the affirmative, then the latter would be convoked to deliver their opinion also: and assuming that the majority of votes coincided with the previous decision of Sparta, the entire confederacy stood then pledged to the given line of policy--if the majority was contrary, the Spartans would stand alone, or with such only of the confederates as concurred. Even in the oligarchy of Sparta, such a question as this could only be decided by a general assembly of Spartan citizens, qualified both by age, by regular contribution to the public mess, and by obedience to Spartan discipline. To the assembly so constituted the deputies of the various allied cities addressed themselves, each setting forth his case against Athens. The Corinthians chose to reserve themselves to the last, after the assembly had been inflamed by the previous speakers.

Of this important assembly, on which so much of the future fate of Greece turned, Thucydides has preserved an account unusually copious. First, the speech delivered by the Corinthian envoys. Next, that of some Athenian envoys, who happening to be at the same time in Sparta on some other matters, and being present in the assembly so as to have heard the speeches both of the Corinthians and of the other complainants, obtained permission from the magistrates to address the assembly in their turn. Thirdly, the address of the Spartan king Archidamus, on the course of policy proper to be adopted by Sparta. Lastly, the brief, but eminently characteristic, address of the ephor, Sthenelaidas, on putting the question for decision. These speeches, the composition of Thucydides himself, contain substantially the sentiments of the parties to whom they are ascribed. Neither of them is distinctly a reply to that which has preceded, but each presents the situation of affairs from a different point of view.

To dwell much upon specific allegations of wrong, would not have suited the purpose of the Corinthian envoy; for against such, the Thirty Years’ Truce expressly provided that recourse should be had to amicable arbitration--to which recourse he never once alludes. He knew that, as between Corinth and Athens, war had already begun at Potidæa; and his business, throughout nearly all of a very emphatic speech, is to show that the Peloponnesian confederacy, and especially Sparta, is bound to take instant part in it, not less by prudence than by duty. He employs the most animated language to depict the ambition, the unwearied activity, the personal effort abroad as well as at home, the quick resolves, the sanguine hopes never dashed by failure--of Athens, as contrasted with the cautious, home-keeping, indolent, scrupulous routine of Sparta. He reproaches the Spartans with their backwardness and timidity, in not having repressed the growth of Athens before she reached this formidable height, especially in having allowed her to fortify her city after the retreat of Xerxes and afterwards to build the Long Walls from the city to the sea. The Spartans (he observes) stood alone among all Greeks in the notable system of keeping down an enemy, not by acting, but by delaying to act--not arresting his growth, but putting him down when his force was doubled. Falsely indeed had they acquired the reputation of being sure, when they were in reality merely slow. In resisting Xerxes, as in resisting Athens, they had always been behindhand, disappointing and leaving their friends to ruin; while both these enemies had only failed of complete success through their own mistakes.

After half apologising for the tartness of these reproofs--which however, as the Spartans were now well disposed to go to war forthwith, would be well-timed and even agreeable--the Corinthian orator vindicates the necessity of plain-speaking by the urgent peril of the emergency and the formidable character of the enemy who threatened them. “You do not reflect” he says “how thoroughly different the Athenians are from yourselves. They are innovators by nature, sharp both in devising, and in executing what they have determined: you are sharp only in keeping what you have got, in determining on nothing beyond, and in doing even less than absolute necessity requires. They again dare beyond their means, run risks beyond their own judgment, and keep alive their hopes in desperate circumstances: your peculiarity is, that your performance comes short of your power, you have no faith even in what your judgment guarantees, when in difficulties you despair of all escape. They never hang back, you are habitual laggards: they love foreign service, you cannot stir from home: for they are always under the belief that their movements will lead to some further gain, while you fancy that new products will endanger what you already have. When successful, they make the greatest forward march; when defeated, they fall back the least. Moreover they task their bodies on behalf of their city as if they were the bodies of others, while their minds are most of all their own, for exertion in her service. When their plans for acquisition do not come successfully out, they feel like men robbed of what belongs to them: yet the acquisitions when realised appear like trifles compared with what remains to be acquired. If they sometimes fail in an attempt, new hopes arise in some other direction to supply the want; for with them alone the possession and the hope of what they aim at are almost simultaneous, from their habit of quickly executing all that they have once resolved. And in this manner do they toil throughout all their lives amidst hardship and peril, disregarding present enjoyment in the continual thirst for increase, knowing no other festival recreation except the performance of active duty, and deeming inactive repose a worse condition than fatiguing occupation. To speak the truth in two words, such is their inborn temper that they will neither remain at rest themselves nor allow rest to others.

“Such is the city which stands opposed to you, Lacedæmonians--yet ye still hang back from action. Your continual scruples and apathy would hardly be safe, even if ye had neighbours like yourselves in character: but as to dealings with Athens, your system is antiquated and out of date. In politics as in art, it is the modern improvements which are sure to come out victorious; and though unchanged institutions are best, if a city be not called upon to act, yet multiplicity of active obligations requires multiplicity and novelty of contrivance. It is through these numerous trials that the means of Athens have acquired so much more new development than yours.”

The Corinthians concluded by saying, that if, after so many previous warnings, now repeated for the last time, Sparta still refused to protect her allies against Athens, if she delayed to perform her promise made to the Potidæans of immediately invading Attica, they (the Corinthians) would forthwith look for safety in some new alliance, which they felt themselves fully justified in doing. They admonished her to look well to the case, and to carry forward Peloponnesus, with undiminished dignity, as it had been transmitted to her from her predecessors.

Such was the memorable picture of Athens and her citizens, as exhibited by her fiercest enemy before the public assembly at Sparta. It was calculated to impress the assembly, not by appeal to recent or particular misdeeds, but by the general system of unprincipled and endless aggression which was imputed to Athens during the past, and by the certainty held out that the same system, unless put down by measures of decisive hostility, would be pushed still farther in future, to the utter ruin of Peloponnesus. And to this point did the Athenian envoy (staying in Sparta about some other negotiation and now present in the assembly) address himself in reply, after having asked and obtained permission from the magistrates. The empire of Athens was now of such standing that the younger men present had no personal knowledge of the circumstances under which it had grown up, and what was needed as information for them would be impressive as a reminder even to their seniors.

In her position, he asserted, no Grecian power either would or could have acted otherwise--no Grecian power, certainly not Sparta, would have acted with so much equity and moderation or given so little ground of complaint to her subjects. Worse they had suffered, while under Persia; worse they would suffer, if they came under Sparta, who held her own allies under the thraldom of an oligarchical party in each city; and if they hated Athens this was only because subjects always hated the present dominion, whatever that might be.

Having justified both the origin and the working of the Athenian empire, the envoy concluded by warning Sparta to consider calmly, without being hurried away by the passions and invectives of others, before she took a step from which there was no retreat, and which exposed the future to chances such as no man on either side could foresee. He called on her not to break the truce mutually sworn to, but to adjust all differences, as Athens was prepared to do, by the amicable arbitration which that truce provided. Should she begin war, the Athenians would follow her lead and resist her, calling to witness those gods under whose sanction the oaths were taken. At any time previous to the affair of Corcyra, the topics insisted upon by the Athenian would probably have been profoundly listened to at Sparta. But now the mind of the Spartans was made up. Having cleared the assembly of all “strangers,” and even all allies, they proceeded to discuss and determine the question among themselves. Most of their speakers held but one language--expatiating on the wrongs already done by Athens, and urging the necessity of instant war. There was however one voice, and that a commanding voice, raised against this conclusion: the ancient and respected king Archidamus opposed it.

The speech of Archidamus is that of a deliberate Spartan, who, setting aside both hatred to Athens and blind partiality to allies, looks at the question with a view to the interests and honour of Sparta only. He reminded them of the wealth, the population (greater than that of any other Grecian city), the naval force, the cavalry, the hoplites, the large foreign dominion of Athens--and then asked by what means they proposed to put her down. Ships, they had few; trained seamen, yet fewer; wealth, next to none. They could indeed invade and ravage Attica, by their superior numbers and land-force. But the Athenians had possessions abroad sufficient to enable them to dispense with the produce of Attica, while their great navy would retaliate the like ravages upon Peloponnesus. To suppose that one or two devastating expeditions into Attica would bring the war to an end, would be a deplorable error; such proceedings would merely enrage the Athenians, without impairing their real strength, and the war would thus be prolonged, perhaps for a whole generation. Before they determined upon war, it was absolutely necessary to provide more efficient means for carrying it on; and to multiply their allies not merely among the Greeks, but among foreigners also. While this was in process, envoys ought to be sent to Athens to remonstrate and obtain redress for the grievances of the allies. If the Athenians granted this--which they very probably would do, when they saw the preparations going forward, and when the ruin of the highly-cultivated soil of Attica was held over them _in terrorem_ without being actually consummated--so much the better: if they refused, in the course of two or three years, war might be commenced with some hopes of success. Archidamus reminded his countrymen that their allies would hold them responsible for the good or bad issue of what was now determined; admonishing them, in the true spirit of a conservative Spartan, to cling to that cautious policy which had been ever the characteristic of the state, despising both taunts on their tardiness and panegyric on their valour.

The speech of Archidamus was not only in itself full of plain reason and good sense, but delivered altogether from the point of view of a Spartan; appealing greatly to Spartan conservative feeling and even prejudice. But in spite of all this, and in spite of the personal esteem entertained for the speaker, the tide of feeling in the opposite direction was at that moment irresistible. Sthenelaidas, one of the five ephors to whom it fell to put the question for voting, closed the debate. His few words mark at once the character of the man, the temper of the assembly, and the simplicity of speech, though without the wisdom of judgment, for which Archidamus had taken credit to his countrymen.

“I don’t understand,” he said, “these long speeches of the Athenians. They have praised themselves abundantly, but they have never rebutted what is laid to their charge--that they are guilty of wrong against our allies and against Peloponnesus. Now if in former days they were good men against the Persians, and are now evil-doers against us, they deserve double punishment as having become evil-doers instead of good. But we are the same now as we were then: we know better than to sit still while our allies are suffering wrong: we shall not adjourn our aid, while they cannot adjourn their sufferings. Others have in abundance wealth, ships, and horses--but we have good allies, whom we are not to abandon to the mercy of the Athenians: nor are we to trust our redress to arbitration and to words, when our wrongs are not confined to words. We must help them speedily and with all our strength. Nor let any one tell us that we can with honour deliberate when we are actually suffering wrong--it is rather for those who intend to do the wrong, to deliberate well beforehand. Resolve upon war then, Lacedæmonians, in a manner worthy of Sparta. Suffer not the Athenians to become greater than they are: let us not betray our allies to ruin, but march with the aid of the gods against the wrong-doers.”

With these few words, so well calculated to defeat the prudential admonitions of Archidamus, Sthenelaidas put the question for the decision of the assembly--which at Sparta was usually taken neither by show of hands, nor by deposit of balls in an urn, but by cries analogous to the ay or no of the English House of Commons--the presiding ephor declaring which of the cries predominated. On this occasion the cry for war was manifestly the stronger. Yet Sthenelaidas affected inability to determine which of the two was the louder, in order that he might have an excuse for bringing about a more impressive manifestation of sentiment and a stronger apparent majority--since a portion of the minority would probably be afraid to show their real opinions as individuals openly. He therefore directed a division--like the speaker of the English House of Commons when his decision in favour of ay or no is questioned by any member--“Such of you as think that the truce has been violated and that the Athenians are doing us wrong, go to that side; such as think the contrary, to the other side.” The assembly accordingly divided, and the majority was very great on the warlike side of the question.

The first step of the Lacedæmonians, after coming to this important decision, was to send to Delphi and inquire of the oracle whether it would be beneficial to them to undertake the war. The answer brought back (Thucydides seems hardly certain that it was really given) was--that if they did their best they would be victorious, and that the gods would help them, invoked or uninvoked. They at the same time convened a general congress of their allies to Sparta, for the purpose of submitting their recent resolution to the vote of all.

[Sidenote: [432-431 B.C.]]

If there were any speeches delivered at this congress in opposition to the war, they were not likely to be successful in a cause wherein even Archidamus had failed. After the Corinthian had concluded, the question was put to the deputies of every city, great and small indiscriminately: and the majority decided for war. This important resolution was adopted about the end of 432 B.C., or the beginning of January 431 B.C.: the previous decision of the Spartans separately, may have been taken about two months earlier, in the preceding October or November 432 B.C.

Reviewing the conduct of the two great Grecian parties at this momentous juncture, with reference to existing treaties and positive grounds of complaint, it seems clear that Athens was in the right. She had done nothing which could fairly be called a violation of the Thirty Years’ Truce: while for such of her acts as were alleged to be such, she offered to submit them to that amicable arbitration which the truce itself prescribed. The Peloponnesian confederates were manifestly the aggressors in the contest; and if Sparta, usually so backward, now came forward in a spirit so decidedly opposite, we are to ascribe it partly to her standing fear and jealousy of Athens, partly to the pressure of her allies, especially of the Corinthians. Thucydides, recognising these two as the grand determining motives, and indicating the alleged infractions of truce as simple occasions or pretexts, seems to consider the fear and hatred of Athens as having contributed more to determine Sparta than the urgency of her allies. That the extraordinary aggrandisement of Athens, during the period immediately succeeding the Persian invasion, was well-calculated to excite alarm and jealousy in Peloponnesus, is indisputable. But if we take Athens as she stood in 432 _B.C._, it deserves notice that she had neither made, nor (so far as we know) tried to make, a single new acquisition during the whole fourteen years which had elapsed since the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ Truce--and moreover that that truce marked an epoch of signal humiliation and reduction of her power. The triumph which Sparta and the Peloponnesians then gained, though not sufficiently complete to remove all fear of Athens, was yet great enough to inspire them with the hope that a second combined effort would subdue her. This mixture of fear and hope was exactly the state of feeling out of which war was likely to grow.

Moreover the confident hopes of the Peloponnesians were materially strengthened by the widespread sympathy in favour of their cause, proclaiming as it did the intended liberation of Greece from a despot city.

To Athens, on the other hand, the coming war presented itself in a very different aspect; holding out scarcely any hope of possible gain, and the certainty of prodigious loss and privation--even granting that at this heavy cost, her independence and union at home, and her empire abroad, could be upheld. By Pericles, and by the more long-sighted Athenians, the chance of unavoidable war was foreseen even before the Corcyræan dispute. But Pericles was only the first citizen in a democracy, esteemed, trusted, and listened to, more than any one else by the body of citizens, but warmly opposed in most of his measures, under the free speech and latitude of individual action which reigned at Athens--and even bitterly hated by many active political opponents. The formal determination of the Lacedæmonians, to declare war, must of course have been made known at Athens, by those Athenian envoys who had entered an unavailing protest against it in the Spartan assembly. No steps were taken by Sparta to carry this determination into effect until after the congress of allies and their pronounced confirmatory vote. Nor did the Spartans even then send any herald, or make any formal declaration. They despatched various propositions to Athens, not at all with a view of trying to obtain satisfaction, or of providing some escape from the probability of war; but with the contrary purpose--of multiplying demands, and enlarging the grounds of quarrel. Meanwhile the deputies retiring home from the congress to their respective cities carried with them the general resolution for immediate warlike preparations to be made with as little delay as possible.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT

The first requisition addressed by the Lacedæmonians to Athens was a political manœuvre aimed at Pericles, their chief opponent in that city. His mother Agariste belonged to the great family of the Alemæonids, who were supposed to be under an inexorable hereditary taint, in consequence of the sacrilege committed by their ancestor Megacles nearly two centuries before, in the slaughter of the Cylonian suppliants near the altar of the Venerable Goddesses. Ancient as this transaction was, it still had sufficient hold on the mind of the Athenians to serve as the basis of a political manœuvre: about seventy-seven years before, shortly after the expulsion of Hippias from Athens, it had been so employed by the Spartan king Cleomenes, who at that time exacted from the Athenians a clearance of the ancient sacrilege, to be effected by the banishment of Clisthenes (the founder of the democracy) and his chief partisans. This demand, addressed by Cleomenes to the Athenians at the instance of Isagoras, the rival of Clisthenes, had been then obeyed, and had served well the purposes of those who sent it. A similar blow was now aimed by the Lacedæmonians at Pericles (the grand-nephew of Clisthenes), and doubtless at the instance of his political enemies: religion required, it was pretended, that “the abomination of the goddess should be driven out.” If the Athenians complied with this demand, they would deprive themselves, at this critical moment, of their ablest leader. But the Lacedæmonians, not expecting compliance, reckoned at all events upon discrediting Pericles with the people, as being partly the cause of the war through family taint of impiety; and this impression would doubtless be loudly proclaimed by his political opponents in the assembly.

The influence of Pericles with the Athenian public had become greater and greater as their political experience of him was prolonged. But the bitterness of his enemies appears to have increased along with it; and not long before this period, he had been indirectly assailed, as we have seen, through the medium of accusations against three different persons, all more or less intimate with him--his mistress Aspasia, the philosopher Anaxagoras, and the sculptor Phidias. It is said also that Dracontides proposed and carried a decree in the public assembly, that Pericles should be called on to give an account of the money which he had expended, and that the dicasts, before whom the account was rendered, should give their suffrage in the most solemn manner from the altar: this latter provision was modified by Agnon, who, while proposing that the dicasts should be fifteen hundred in number, retained the vote by pebbles in the urn according to ordinary custom.

If Pericles was ever tried on such a charge, there can be no doubt that he was honourably acquitted: for the language of Thucydides respecting his pecuniary probity is such as could not have been employed if a verdict of guilty on a charge of peculation had been publicly pronounced. But we cannot be certain that he ever was tried; indeed, another accusation urged by his enemies, and even by Aristophanes in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War, implies that no trial took place: for it was alleged that Pericles, in order to escape this danger, “blew up the Peloponnesian War,” and involved his country in such confusion and peril as made his own aid and guidance indispensably necessary to her, especially that he passed the decree against the Megarians by which the war was really brought on. We know enough, however, to be certain that such a supposition is altogether inadmissible. The enemies of Pericles were far too eager, and too expert in Athenian political warfare, to have let him escape by such a stratagem. Moreover, we learn from the assurance of Thucydides that the war depended upon far deeper causes--that the Megarian decree was in no way the real cause of it; that it was not Pericles, but the Peloponnesians, who brought it on, by the blow struck at Potidæa.

All that we can make out, amidst these uncertified allegations, is that, in a year or two immediately preceding the Peloponnesian War, Pericles was hard pressed by the accusations of political enemies--perhaps even in his own person, but certainly in the persons of those who were most in his confidence and affection. And it was in this turn of his political position, that the Lacedæmonians sent to Athens the above-mentioned requisition, that the ancient Cylonian sacrilege might be at length cleared out; in other words, that Pericles and his family might be banished. Doubtless his enemies, as well as the partisans of Lacedæmon at Athens, would strenuously support this proposition. And the party of Lacedæmon at Athens was always strong, even during the middle of the war; to act as proxenus to the Lacedæmonians was accounted an honour even by the greatest Athenian families. On this occasion, however, the manœuvre did not succeed, nor did the Athenians listen to the requisition for banishing the sacrilegious Alcmæonids. On the contrary, they replied that the Spartans too had an account of sacrilege to clear off: for they had violated the sanctuary of Poseidon at Cape Tænarus, in dragging from it some helot suppliants; and the sanctuary of Athene Chalciœcus at Sparta, in blocking up and starving to death the guilty regent Pausanias. To require that Laconia might be cleared of these two acts of sacrilege, was the only answer which the Athenians made to the demand sent for the banishment of Pericles. Probably the actual effect of that demand was to strengthen him in the public esteem--very different from the effect of the same manœuvre when practised before by Cleomenes against Clisthenes.

Other Spartan envoys shortly afterwards arrived with fresh demands. The Athenians were now required: (1) to withdraw their troops from Potidæa; (2) to replace Ægina in its autonomy; (3) to repeal the bill of exclusion against the Megarians.

It was upon the latter that the greatest stress was laid; an intimation being held out that the war might be avoided if such repeal were granted. We see plainly from this proceeding that the Lacedæmonians acted in concert with the anti-Periclean leaders at Athens. To Sparta and her confederacy the decree against the Megarians was of less importance than the rescue of the Corinthian troops now blocked up in Potidæa; but on the other hand, the party opposed to Pericles would have much better chance of getting a vote of the assembly against him on the subject of the Megarians: and this advantage, if gained, would serve to enfeeble his influence generally. No concession was obtained however on either of the three points: even in respect to Megara, the decree of exclusion was vindicated and upheld against all the force of opposition. At length the Lacedæmonians--who had already resolved upon war and had sent three envoys in mere compliance with the exigencies of ordinary practice, not with any idea of bringing about an accommodation--sent a third batch of envoys with a proposition which at least had the merit of disclosing their real purpose without disguise. Rhamphias and two other Spartans announced to the Athenians the simple injunction: “The Lacedæmonians wish the peace to stand; and it may stand, if you will leave the Greeks autonomous.” Upon this demand, so very different from the preceding, the Athenians resolved to hold a fresh assembly on the subject of war or peace, to open the whole question anew for discussion, and to determine once for all on a peremptory answer.

The last demands presented on the part of Sparta, which went to nothing less than the entire extinction of the Athenian empire--combined with the character, alike wavering and insincere, of the demands previously made, and with the knowledge that the Spartan confederacy had pronounced peremptorily in favour of war--seemed likely to produce unanimity at Athens, and to bring together this important assembly under the universal conviction that war was inevitable. Such however was not the fact.

The reluctance to go to war was sincere amidst the majority of the assembly, while among a considerable portion of them it was so preponderant, that they even now reverted to the opening which the Lacedæmonians had before held out about the anti-Megarian decree, as if that were the chief cause of the war. There was much difference of opinion among the speakers, several of whom insisted upon the repeal of this decree, treating it as a matter far too insignificant to go to war about, and denouncing the obstinacy of Pericles for refusing to concede such a trifle. Against this opinion Pericles entered his protest, in an harangue decisive and encouraging, which Dionysius of Halicarnassus ranks among the best speeches in Thucydides: the latter historian may probably himself have heard the original speech.

“I continue, Athenians, to adhere to the same conviction, that we must not yield to the Peloponnesians. Now let none of you believe that we shall be going to war about a trifle if we refuse to rescind the Megarian decree--which they chiefly put forward, as if its repeal would avert the war--let none of you take blame to yourselves as if we had gone to war about a small matter. For this small matter contains in itself the whole test and trial of your mettle: if ye yield it, ye will presently have some other greater exaction put upon you, like men who have already truckled on one point from fear: whereas if ye hold out stoutly, ye will make it clear to them that they must deal with you upon a footing of equality.”

Pericles then examined the relative strength of parties and the chances of war. The Peloponnesians were a self-working population, with few slaves, and without wealth, either private or public: they had no means of carrying on distant or long-continued war: they were ready to expose their persons, but not at all ready to contribute from their very narrow means: in a border-war or a single land battle, they were invincible, but for systematic warfare against a power like Athens, they had neither competent headship, nor habits of concert and punctuality, nor money to profit by opportunities, always rare and accidental, for successful attack. They might perhaps establish a fortified post in Attica, but it would do little serious mischief; while at sea, their inferiority and helplessness would be complete, and the irresistible Athenian navy would take care to keep it so. Nor would they be able to reckon on tempting away the able foreign seamen from Athenian ships by means of funds borrowed from Olympia or Delphi. For besides that the mariners of the dependent islands would find themselves losers even by accepting a higher pay, with the certainty of Athenian vengeance afterwards, Athens herself would suffice to man her fleet in case of need, with her own citizens and metics: she had within her own walls steersmen and mariners better, as well as more numerous, than all Greece besides. There was but one side on which Athens was vulnerable: Attica unfortunately was not an island--it was exposed to invasion and ravage. To this the Athenians must submit, without committing the imprudence of engaging a land battle to avert it: they had abundant lands out of Attica, insular as well as continental, to supply their wants, and they could in their turn, by means of their navy, ravage the Peloponnesian territories, whose inhabitants had no subsidiary lands to recur to.

“Mourn not for the loss of land and house,” continued the orator: “reserve your mourning for men: houses and land acquire not men, but men acquire them. Nay, if I thought I could prevail upon you, I would exhort you to march out and ravage them yourselves, and thus show to the Peloponnesians that for them at least ye will not truckle. And I could exhibit many further grounds for confidently anticipating success, if ye will only be willing not to aim at increased dominion when we are in the midst of war, and not to take upon yourself new self-imposed risks; for I have ever been more afraid of our own blunders than of the plans of our enemy. But these are matters for further discussion, when we come to actual operations: for the present, let us dismiss these envoys with the answer--That we will permit the Megarians to use our markets and harbours, if the Lacedæmonians on their side will discontinue their summary expulsions of ourselves and our allies from their own territory; for there is nothing in the truce to prevent either one or the other: That we will leave the Grecian cities autonomous, if we had them as autonomous at the time when the truce was made; and as soon as the Lacedæmonians shall grant to their allied cities autonomy such as each of them shall freely choose, not such as is convenient to Sparta: That while we are ready to give satisfaction according to the truce, we will not begin war, but will repel those who do begin it. Such is the reply at once just and suitable to the dignity of this city. We ought to make up our minds that war is inevitable: the more cheerfully we accept it, the less vehement shall we find our enemies in their attack: and where the danger is greatest, there also is the final honour greatest, both for a state and for a private citizen. Assuredly our fathers, when they bore up against the Persians--having no such means as we possess to start from, and even compelled to abandon all that they did possess--both repelled the invader and brought matters forward to our actual pitch, more by advised operation than by good fortune, and by a daring courage greater than their real power. We ought not to fall short of them: we must keep off our enemies in every way, and leave an unimpaired power to our successors.”

These animating encouragements of Pericles carried with them the majority of the assembly, so that answer was made to the envoys, such as he recommended, on each of the particular points in debate. It was announced to them, moreover, on the general question of peace or war, that the Athenians were prepared to discuss all the grounds of complaint against them, pursuant to the truce, by equal and amicable arbitration, but that they would do nothing under authoritative demand. With this answer the envoys returned to Sparta, and an end was put to negotiation.

It seems evident, from the account of Thucydides, that the Athenian public was not brought to this resolution without much reluctance, and great fear of the consequences, especially destruction of property in Attica; and that a considerable minority took opposition on the Megarian decree--the ground skilfully laid by Sparta for breaking the unanimity of her enemy, and strengthening the party opposed to Pericles. But we may also decidedly infer from the same historian--especially from the proceedings of Corinth and Sparta as he sets them forth--that Athens could not have avoided the war without such an abnegation both of dignity and power as no nation under any government will ever submit to, and as would have even left her without decent security for her individual rights. It is common to ascribe the Peloponnesian War to the ambition of Athens, but this is a partial view of the case.

The aggressive sentiment, partly fear and partly hatred, was on the side of the Peloponnesians, who were not ignorant that Athens desired the continuance of peace, but were resolved not to let her stand as she was at the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ Truce. It was their purpose to attack her and break down her empire, as dangerous, wrongful, and anti-Hellenic. The war was thus partly a contest of principle, involving the popular proclamation of the right of every Grecian state to autonomy, against Athens: partly a contest of power, wherein Spartan and Corinthian ambition was not less conspicuous, and far more aggressive in the beginning than Athenian.

[Sidenote: [431 B.C.]]

Conformably to what is here said, the first blow of the war was struck, not by Athens, but against her. After the decisive answer given to the Spartan envoys, taken in conjunction with the previous proceedings, and the preparations actually going on, among the Peloponnesian confederacy, the truce could hardly be said to be in force, though there was no formal proclamation of rupture.

A few weeks undoubtedly passed in restricted and mistrustful intercourse; though individuals who passed the borders did not think it necessary to take a herald with them, as in time of actual war. Had the excess of ambition been on the side of Athens compared with her enemies, this was the time for her to strike the first blow, carrying with it of course greater probability of success, before their preparations were completed. But she remained strictly within the limits of the truce, while the disastrous series of mutual aggressions, destined to tear in pieces the entrails of Hellas, was opened by her enemy and her neighbour.

The little town of Platæa, still hallowed by the memorable victory over the Persians as well as by the tutelary consecration received from Pausanias, was the scene of this unforeseen enterprise which marks the opening of hostilities in the Peloponnesian war.[b]

THE SURPRISE OF PLATÆA

War had been only threatened, not declared; and peaceful intercourse, though not wholly free from distrust, was still kept up between the subjects of the two confederacies. But early in the following spring, 431 B.C., in the fifteenth year of the Thirty Years’ Truce, an event took place which closed all prospects of peace, precipitated the commencement of war, embittered the animosity of the contending parties, and prepared some of the most tragical scenes of the ensuing history. In the dead of night the city of Platæa was surprised by a body of three hundred Thebans, commanded by two of the great officers called Bœotarchs. They had been invited by a Platæan named Nauclides, and others of the same party, who hoped with the aid of the Thebans to rid themselves of their political opponents, and to break off the relation in which their city was standing to Athens, and transfer its alliance to Thebes. The Thebans, foreseeing that a general war was fast approaching, felt the less scruple in strengthening themselves by this acquisition, while it might be made with little cost and risk. The gates were unguarded, as in time of peace, and one of them was secretly opened to the invaders, who advanced without interruption into the marketplace. Their Platæan friends wished to lead them at once to the houses of their adversaries, and to glut their hatred by a massacre. But the Thebans were more anxious to secure the possession of the city, and feared to provoke resistance by an act of violence. Having therefore halted in the marketplace, they made a proclamation inviting all who were willing that Platæa should become again, as it had been in former times, a member of the Bœotian body, to join them.

The Platæans who were not in the plot, imagined the force by which their city had been surprised to be much stronger than it really was, and, as no hostile treatment was offered to them, remained quiet, and entered into a parley with the Thebans. In the course of these conferences they gradually discovered that the number of the enemy was small, and might be easily overpowered; and, as they were in general attached to the Athenians, or at least strongly averse to an alliance with Thebes, they resolved to make the attempt, while the darkness might favour them, and perplex the strangers. To avoid suspicion they met to concert their plan of operation by means of passages opened through the walls of their houses; and having barricaded the streets with wagons, and made such other preparations as they thought necessary, a little before daybreak they suddenly fell upon the Thebans.