Chapter XXXVI: Close of the Peloponnesian War (2)

Since the decisive action at Cyzicus, the Peloponnesians, unable to resist the enemy, had been employed in preparing ships on the coast of their own peninsula, as well as in the harbours of their Persian and Grecian allies. The most considerable squadrons had been equipped in Cos, Rhodes, Miletus, and Ephesus; in the last of which the whole armament, amounting to ninety sail, was collected by Lysander. But the assembling of such a force was a matter of little consequence, unless proper measures should be taken for holding it together, and for enabling it to act with vigour. It was necessary, above all, to secure pay for the seamen; for this purpose, Lysander, accompanied by several Lacedæmonian ambassadors, repaired to Sardis, to congratulate the happy arrival of Cyrus, a generous and valiant youth of seventeen, who had been entrusted by his father Darius with the government of the inland parts of Lesser Asia. Lysander excited the warmest emotions of friendship in the youthful breast of Cyrus, who drinking his health after the Persian fashion, desired him to ask a boon, with full assurance that nothing should be denied him. Lysander replied, with his usual address, “That he should ask what it would be no less useful for the prince to give, than for him to receive: the addition of an obolus a day to the pay of the mariners; an augmentation which, by inducing the Athenian crews to desert, would not only increase their own strength, but enfeeble the common enemy.” Struck with the apparent disinterestedness of this specious proposal, Cyrus ordered him immediately ten thousand darics (above five thousand pounds sterling); with which he returned to Ephesus, discharged the arrears due to his troops, gave them a month’s pay in advance, raised their daily allowance, and seduced innumerable deserters from the Athenian fleet.

While Lysander was usefully employed in manning his ships, and preparing them for action, Alcibiades attacked the small island of Andros. The resistance was more vigorous than he had reason to expect; and the immediate necessity of procuring pay and subsistence for the fleet, obliged him to leave his work imperfect. With a small squadron he sailed to raise contributions on the Ionian or Carian coast, committing the principal armament to Antiochus, a man totally unworthy of such an important trust. Even the affectionate partiality of Alcibiades seems to have discerned the unworthiness of his favourite, since he gave him strict orders to continue, during his own absence, in the harbour of Samos, and by no means to risk an engagement. This injunction, as it could not prevent the rashness, might perhaps provoke the vain levity of the vice-admiral, who after the departure of his friend, sailed to Notium near Ephesus, approached Lysander’s ships, and with the most licentious insults challenged him to battle. The prudent Spartan delayed the moment of attack, until the presumption of his enemies had thrown them into scattered disorder. He then commanded the Peloponnesian squadrons to advance. His manœuvres were judicious, and executed with a prompt obedience. The battle was not obstinate, as the Athenians, who scarcely expected any resistance, much less assault, sunk at once from the insolence of temerity into the despondency of fear. They lost fifteen vessels, with a considerable part of their crews. The remainder retired disgracefully to Samos; while the Lacedæmonians profited by their victory by the taking of Eion and Delphinium. Though fortune thus favoured the prudence of Lysander, he declined to venture a second engagement with the superior strength of Alcibiades, who, having resumed the command, employed every artifice and insult that might procure him an opportunity to restore the tarnished lustre of the Athenian fleet.

(In the British Museum)]

ALCIBIADES IN DISFAVOUR AGAIN

[Sidenote: [407-406 B.C.]]

But such an opportunity he could never again find. The people of Athens, who expected to hear of nothing but victories and triumphs, were mortified to the last degree, when they received intelligence of such a shameful defeat. As they could not suspect the abilities, they distrusted the fidelity, of their commander. Their suspicions were increased and confirmed by the arrival of Thrasybulus, who, whether actuated by a laudable zeal for the interest of the public service, or animated by a selfish jealousy of the fame and honours that had been so liberally heaped on a rival, formally impeached Alcibiades in the Athenian assembly. “His misconduct had totally ruined the affairs of his country. A talent for low buffoonery was a sure recommendation to his favour. His friends were, partially, selected from the meanest and most abandoned of men, who possessed no other merit than that of being subservient to his passions. To such unworthy instruments the fleet of Athens was entrusted; while the commander-in-chief revelled in debauchery with the harlots of Abydos and Ionia, or raised exorbitant contributions on the dependent cities, that he might defray the expense of a fortress on the coast of Thrace, in the neighbourhood of Byzantium, which he had erected to shelter himself against the just vengeance of the republic.”

In the assembly, Alcibiades was accused, and almost unanimously condemned; and that the affairs of the republic might not again suffer by the abuse of undivided power, ten commanders were substituted in his room; among whom were Thrasyllus, Leon, Diomedon; Conon, a character as yet but little known, but destined, in a future period, to eclipse the fame of his contemporaries; and Pericles, who inherited the name, the merit, and the bad fortune, of his illustrious father. The new generals immediately sailed to Samos; and Alcibiades sought refuge in his Thracian fortress.

They had scarcely assumed the command, when an important alteration took place in the Peloponnesian fleet. Lysander’s year had expired, and Callicratidas, a Spartan of a very opposite character, was sent to succeed him.

Lysander reluctantly resigned his employment; but determined to render it painful, and if possible, too weighty for the abilities of his successor. For this purpose he returned to the court of Cyrus, to whom he restored a considerable sum of money still unexpended in the service of the Grecian fleet, and to whom he misrepresented, under the names of obstinacy, ignorance, and rusticity, the unaffected plainness, the downright sincerity, and the other manly, but uncomplying, virtues of the generous Callicratidas. When that commander repaired to Sardis to demand the stipulated pay, he could not obtain admission to the royal presence.

But Callicratidas could not, with honour or safety, return to the fleet at Ephesus, without having collected money to supply the immediate wants of the sailors. He proceeded, therefore, to Miletus and other friendly towns of Ionia; and having met the principal citizens, in their respective assemblies, he explained openly and fully the mean jealousy of Lysander, and the disdainful arrogance of Cyrus. By those judicious and honourable expedients, Callicratidas, without fraud or violence, obtained such considerable, yet voluntary contributions, as enabled him to gratify the importunate demands of the sailors, and to return with honour to Ephesus, in order to prepare for action. His first operations were directed against the isle of Lesbos, or rather against the strong and populous towns of Methymna and Mytilene, which respectively commanded the northern and southern divisions of that island. Methymna was taken by storm, and subjected to the depredations of the Peloponnesian troops.

CONON WINS AT ARGINUSÆ

Meanwhile Conon, the most active and enterprising of the Athenian commanders, had put to sea with a squadron of seventy sail, in order to protect the coast of Lesbos. But this design was attempted too late; nor, had it been more early undertaken, was the force of Conon sufficient to accomplish it. Callicratidas observed his motions, discovered his strength, and, with a far superior fleet, intercepted his retreat to the armament of Samos. The Athenians fled towards the coast of Mytilene, but were prevented from entering the harbour of that place by the resentment of the inhabitants, who rejoiced in an opportunity to punish those who had so often conquered, and so long oppressed, their city. In consequence of this unexpected opposition, the Athenian squadron was overtaken by the enemy. The engagement was more sharp and obstinate than might have been expected in such an inequality of strength. Thirty empty ships (for the most of the men swam to land) were taken by the Peloponnesians. The remaining forty were hauled up under the walls of Mytilene; Callicratidas recalled his troops from Methymna, received a reinforcement from Chios, and blocked up the Athenians by sea and land.

[Sidenote: [406 B.C.]]

The Athenians reinforced their domestic strength with the assistance of their allies; all able-bodied men were pressed into the service; and, in a few weeks, they had assembled at Samos a hundred and fifty sail, which immediately took the sea, with a resolution to encounter the enemy.

Callicratidas did not decline the engagement. Having left fifty ships to guard the harbour of Mytilene, he proceeded with a hundred and twenty to Cape Malea, the most southern point of Lesbos. The Athenians had advanced, the same evening, to the islands or rather rocks, of Arginusæ, four miles distant from that promontory. The night passed in bold stratagems for mutual surprise, which were rendered ineffectual by a violent tempest of rain and thunder. The fight was long and bloody; passing, successively, through all the different gradations, from disciplined order and regularity to the most tumultuous confusion. The Spartan commander was slain charging in the centre of the bravest enemies. The hostile squadrons fought with various fortune in different parts of the battle, and promiscuously conquered, pursued, surrendered, or fled. Thirteen Athenian vessels were taken by the Peloponnesians; but, at length, the latter gave way on all sides: seventy of their ships were captured, the rest escaped to Chios and Phocæa.

The Athenian admirals, though justly elated with their good fortune, cautiously deliberated concerning the best means of improving their victory. Several advised that the fleet should steer its course to Mytilene, to surprise the Peloponnesian squadron which blocked up the harbour of that city. Diomedon recommended it as a more immediate and essential object of their care to recover the bodies of the slain, and to save the wreck of twelve vessels which had been disabled in the engagement. Thrasybulus observed, that by dividing their strength, both purposes might be effected. His opinion was approved. The charge of preserving the dying, and collecting the bodies of the dead, was committed to Theramenes and Thrasybulus. Fifty vessels were destined to that important service, doubly recommended by humanity and superstition. The remainder sailed to the isle of Lesbos, in quest of the Peloponnesians on that coast, who narrowly escaped destruction through the well-conducted stratagem of Eteonicus, the Spartan vice-admiral.

While the prudent foresight of Eteonicus saved the Peloponnesian squadron at Mytilene, the violence of a storm prevented Theramenes and Thrasybulus from saving their unfortunate companions, all of whom, excepting one of the admirals and a few others who escaped by their extraordinary dexterity in swimming, were overwhelmed by the waves of a tempestuous sea; nor could their dead bodies ever be recovered. These unforeseen circumstances were the more disagreeable and mortifying to the commanders, because, immediately after the battle, they had sent an advice-boat to Athens, acquainting the magistrates with the capture of seventy vessels; mentioning their intended expeditions to Mytilene, Methymna, and Chios, from which they had reason to hope the most distinguished success; and particularly taking notice that the important charge of recovering the bodies of the drowned or slain had been committed to Theramenes and Thrasybulus, two captains of approved conduct and fidelity.

The joy with which the Athenians received this flattering intelligence was converted into disappointment and sorrow, when they understood that their fleet had returned to Samos, without reaping the expected fruits of victory. They were afflicted beyond measure with the total loss of the wreck, by which their brave and victorious countrymen had been deprived of the sacred rites of funeral; a circumstance viewed with peculiar horror, because it was supposed, according to a superstition consecrated by the belief of ages, to subject their melancholy shades to wander a hundred years on the gloomy banks of the Styx, before they could be transported to the regions of light and felicity. The relations of the dead lamented their private misfortunes; the enemies of the admirals exaggerated the public calamity; both demanded an immediate and serious examination into the cause of this distressful event, that the guilty might be discovered and punished.

THE TRIAL OF THE GENERALS

Amidst the ferment of popular discontents, Theramenes sailed to Athens, with a view to exculpate himself and his colleague, Thrasybulus. The letter sent thither before them had excited their fear and their resentment; since it rendered them responsible for a duty which they found it impossible to perform. Theramenes accused the admirals of having neglected the favourable moment to save the perishing, and to recover the bodies of the dead; and, after the opportunity of this important service was irrecoverably lost, of having devolved the charge on others, in order to screen their own misconduct. The Athenians greedily listened to the accusation, and cashiered the absent commanders. Conon, who during the action remained blocked up at Mytilene, was entrusted with the fleet. Protomachus and Aristogenes chose a voluntary banishment. The rest returned home to justify measures which appeared so criminal.

Archedemus, an opulent and powerful citizen, and Callixenus, a seditious demagogue, partly moved by the entreaties of Theramenes, and partly excited by personal envy and resentment, denounced the admirals to the senate. The accusation was supported by the relatives of the deceased, who appeared in mourning robes, their heads shaved, their arms folded, their eyes bathed in tears, piteously lamenting the loss and disgrace of their families, deprived of their protectors, who had been themselves deprived of those last and solemn duties to which all mankind are entitled. A false witness swore in court, that he had been saved, almost by miracle, from the wreck, and that his companions, as they were ready to be drowned, charged him to acquaint his country how they had fallen victims to the neglect of their commanders.

An unjust decree, which deprived the commanders of the benefits of a separate trial, of an impartial hearing, and of the time as well as the means necessary to prepare a legal defence, was approved by a majority of the senate, and received with loud acclamations by the people, whose levity, insolence, pride, and cruelty, all eagerly demanded the destruction of the admirals. The senators were intimidated into a reluctant compliance with measures which they disapproved, and by which they were for ever to be disgraced. Yet the philosophic firmness of Socrates disdained to submit. He protested against the tameness of his colleagues, and declared that neither threats, nor danger, nor violence, could compel him to conspire with injustice for the destruction of the innocent.

But what could avail the voice of one virtuous man amidst the licentious madness of thousands? The commanders were accused, tried, condemned, and, with the most irregular precipitancy, delivered to the executioner. Before they were led to death, Diomedon addressed the assembly in a short but ever-memorable speech: “I am afraid, Athenians, lest the sentence which you have passed on us, prove hurtful to the republic. Yet I would exhort you to employ the most proper means to avert the vengeance of heaven. You must carefully perform the sacrifices which, before giving battle at Arginusæ, we promised to the gods in behalf of ourselves and of you. Our misfortunes deprive us of an opportunity to acquit this just debt, and to pay the sincere tribute of our gratitude. But we are deeply sensible that the assistance of the gods enabled us to obtain that glorious and signal victory.” The disinterestedness, the patriotism, and the magnanimity of this discourse, must have appeased (if anything had been able to appease) the tumultuous passions of the vulgar. But their headstrong fury defied every restraint of reason or of sentiment. They persisted in their bloody purpose, which was executed without pity: yet their cruelty was followed by a speedy repentance, and punished by the sharp pangs of remorse, the intolerable pain of which they vainly attempted to mitigate by inflicting a well-merited vengeance on the detestable Callixenus.[b]

This complication of injustice and ingratitude seemed to give the finishing blow to the Athenian state; they struggled for a while, after their defeat at Syracuse; but from hence they were entirely sunk.

The enemy, after their last defeat, had once more recourse to Lysander, who had so often led them to conquest: on him they placed their chief confidence, and ardently solicited his return. The Lacedæmonians, to gratify their allies, and yet to observe their laws, which forbade that honour being conferred twice on the same person, sent him with an inferior title, but with the power of admiral. Thus appointed, Lysander sailed towards the Hellespont, and laid siege to Lampsacus: the place was carried by storm, and abandoned by Lysander to the mercy of the soldiers. The Athenians, who followed him close, upon the news of his success, steered forward towards Sestus, and from thence, sailing along the coast, halted over against the enemy at Ægospotami, a place fatal to the Athenians.

THE BATTLE OF ÆGOSPOTAMI

[Sidenote: [405 B.C.]]

The Hellespont is not above two thousand yards broad in that place. The two armies seeing themselves so near each other, expected only to rest the day, and were in hopes of coming to a battle on that next. But Lysander had another design in view: he commanded the seamen and pilots to go on board their galleys, as if they were in reality to fight the next morning at break of day, to hold themselves in readiness, and to wait his orders in profound silence. He ordered the land army, in like manner, to draw up in battle upon the coast, and to wait the day without any noise. On the morning, as soon as the sun was risen, the Athenians began to row towards them with their whole fleet in one line, and to bid them defiance. Lysander, though his ships were ranged in order of battle, with their heads towards the enemy, lay still without making any movement. In the evening, when the Athenians withdrew, he did not suffer his soldiers to go ashore, till two or three galleys, which he had sent out to observe them, were returned with advice that they had seen the enemy land. The next day passed in the same manner, as did the third and fourth. Such a conduct, which argued reserve and apprehension, extremely augmented the security and boldness of the Athenians, and inspired them with a high contempt for an army, which fear prevented from showing themselves or attempting anything.

(After Hope)]

Whilst this passed, Alcibiades, who was near the fleet, took horse, and came to the Athenian generals, to whom he represented, that they came upon a very disadvantageous coast, where there were neither ports nor cities in the neighbourhood; that they were obliged to bring their provisions from Sestus, with great danger and difficulty; and that they were very much in the wrong to suffer the soldiers and mariners of the fleet, as soon as they were ashore, to straggle and disperse themselves at their pleasure, whilst the enemy’s fleet faced them in view, accustomed to execute the orders of their general with instant obedience, and upon the slightest signal.

He offered also to attack the enemy by land, with a strong body of Thracian troops, and to force a battle. The generals, especially Tydeus and Menander, jealous of their command, did not content themselves with refusing his offers, from the opinion, that, if the event proved unfortunate, the whole blame would fall upon them, and, if favourable, that Alcibiades would engross the whole honour of it; but rejected also with insult his wise and salutary counsel: as if a man in disgrace lost his sense and abilities with the favour of the commonwealth. Alcibiades withdrew.

The fifth day, the Athenians presented themselves again, and offered battle, retiring in the evening according to custom, with a more insulting air than the days before. Lysander, as usual, detached some galleys to observe them, with orders to return with the utmost diligence when they saw the Athenians landed, and to put a bright buckler[58] at each ship’s head, as soon as they reached the middle of the channel. Himself, in the meantime, ran through the whole line in his galley, exhorting the pilots and officers to hold the seamen and soldiers in readiness to row and fight on the first signal.

As soon as the bucklers were put up in the ships’ heads, and the admiral’s galley had given the signal by the sound of trumpet, the whole fleet set forwards, in good order. The land army, at the same time, made all possible haste to the top of the promontory, to see the battle. The strait that separates the two continents in this place is about fifteen stadia, or two miles in breadth, which space was presently cleared, through the activity and diligence of the rowers. Conon, the Athenian general, was the first who perceived from shore the enemy’s fleet advancing in good order to attack him, upon which he immediately cried out for the troops to embark. In the height of sorrow and perplexity, some he called to by their names, some he conjured, and others he forced to go on board their galleys: but all his endeavours and emotion were ineffectual, the soldiers being dispersed on all sides. For they were no sooner come on shore, than some were run to the sutlers, some to walk in the country, some to sleep in their tents, and others had begun to dress their suppers. This proceeded from the want of vigilance and experience in their generals, who, not suspecting the least danger, indulged themselves in taking their repose, and gave their soldiers the same liberty.

The enemy had already fallen on with loud cries, and a great noise of their oars, when Conon, disengaging himself with nine galleys, of which number was the sacred ship, stood away for Cyprus, where he took refuge with Evagoras. The Peloponnesians, falling upon the rest of the fleet, took immediately the galleys which were empty, and disabled and destroyed such as began to fill with men. The soldiers, who ran without order or arms to their relief, were either killed in the endeavour to get on board, or flying on shore, were cut in pieces by the enemy, who landed in pursuit of them. Lysander took three thousand prisoners, with all their generals, and the whole fleet. After having plundered the camp, and fastened the enemy’s galleys to the sterns of his own, he returned to Lampsacus, amidst the sounds of flutes and songs of triumph. It was his glory to have achieved one of the greatest military exploits recorded in history, with little or no loss, and to have terminated a war, in the small space of an hour, which had already lasted seven-and-twenty years, and which perhaps, without him, had been of much longer continuance. Lysander immediately sent despatches with this agreeable news to Sparta.

The three thousand prisoners taken in this battle having been condemned to die, Lysander called upon Philocles, one of the Athenian generals, who had caused all the prisoners taken in two galleys, the one of Andros, the other of Corinth, to be thrown from the top of a precipice, and had formerly persuaded the people of Athens to make a decree for cutting off the thumb of the right hand of all the prisoners of war, in order to disable them from handling the pike, and that they might be fit only to serve at the oar. Lysander, therefore, caused him to be brought forth, and asked him what sentence he would pass upon himself, for having induced his city to pass that cruel decree. Philocles, without departing from his haughtiness in the least, notwithstanding the extreme danger he was in, made answer: “Accuse not people of crimes, who have no judges; but, as you are victors, use your right, and do by us as we had done by you, if we had conquered.” At the same instant he went into a bath, put on afterwards a magnificent robe, and marched foremost to the execution. All the prisoners were put to the sword, except Adimantus,[59] who had opposed the decree.[e]

THE FALL OF ATHENS

When he had arranged matters at Lampsacus, Lysander sailed against Byzantium and Chalcedon; where the inhabitants admitted him, after sending away the Athenian garrison under treaty. The party that had betrayed Byzantium to Alcibiades, at that time fled to Pontus, and afterwards to Athens, and became citizens there. The garrison troops of the Athenians, and whatever other Athenians he found anywhere, Lysander sent to Athens, giving them safe conduct so long as they were sailing to that place alone, and to no other; knowing that the more people were collected in the city and Piræus, the sooner there would be a want of provisions. And now, leaving Sthenelaus as Lacedæmonian harmost of Byzantium and Chalcedon, he himself sailed away to Lampsacus, and refitted his ships.

At Athens, on the arrival of the _Paralus_ in the night, the tale of their disaster was told; and the lamentation spread from the Piræus up the Long Walls into the city, one man passing on the tidings to another: so that no one went to bed that night, not only through their mourning for the dead, but much more still because they thought they should themselves suffer the same things as they had done to the Melians (who were a colony from Lacedæmon), when they had reduced them by blockade, and to the Histiæans, Scionæans, Toronæans, Æginetans, and many others of the Greeks. But the next day they convened an assembly, at which it was resolved to block up the harbours, with the exception of one, and to put the walls in order, and mount guard upon them, and in every other way to prepare the city for a siege.

Lysander, having come with two hundred ships from the Hellespont to Lesbos, regulated both the other cities in the island, and especially Mytilene; while he sent Eteonicus with ten ships to the Athenian possessions Thraceward, who brought over all the places there to the Lacedæmonians. And all the rest of Greece too revolted from Athens immediately after the sea-fight, except the Samians; they massacred the notables amongst them, and kept possession of the city. Afterwards Lysander sent word to Agis at Decelea, and to Lacedæmon, that he was sailing up with two hundred ships. And the Lacedæmonians went out to meet him _en masse_, and all the rest of the Peloponnesians but the Argives, at the command of the other Spartan king, Pausanias. When they were all combined, he took them to the city and encamped before it, in the academy--the gymnasium so called. Then Lysander went to Ægina, and restored the city to the Æginetans, having collected as many of them as he could; and so likewise to the Melians, and as many others as had been deprived of their city. After this, having ravaged Salamis, he came to anchor off the Piræus, with a hundred and fifty ships, and prevented all vessels from sailing into it.

The Athenians, being thus besieged by land and by sea, were at a loss what to do, as they had neither ships, nor allies, nor provisions; and they thought nothing could save them from suffering what they had done to others, not in self-defence, but wantonly wronging men of smaller states, on no other single ground, but their being allies of the Lacedæmonians. Wherefore they restored to their privileges those who had been degraded from them, and held out resolutely; and though many in the city were dying of starvation, they spoke not a word of coming to terms. But when their corn had now entirely failed, they sent ambassadors to Agis, wishing to become allies of the Lacedæmonians, while they retained their walls and the Piræus, and on these conditions to make treaty with them. He told them to go to Lacedæmon, as he had himself no power to treat. When the ambassadors delivered this message to the Athenians, they sent them to Lacedæmon. But when they were at Sellasia, near the Laconian territory, and the ephors heard what they proposed, which was the same as they had done to Agis, they bade them return from that very spot, and if they had any wish at all for peace, to come back after taking better advice.

When the ambassadors came home, and reported this in the city, dejection fell on all; for they thought they would be sold into slavery; and that even while they were sending another embassy, many would die of famine. But with respect to the demolition of their walls, no one would advise it: for Archestratus had been thrown into prison for saying in the council, that it was best to make peace with the Lacedæmonians on the terms they offered, which were, that they should demolish ten furlongs of each of the Long Walls; and a decree was then made, that it should not be allowed to advise on that subject. Such being the case, Theramenes said in the assembly, that if they would send him to Lysander, he would come back with full knowledge whether it was from a wish to enslave the city that the Lacedæmonians held out on the subject of the walls, or to have a guarantee for their good faith. Having been sent, he remained with Lysander three months and more, watching to see when the Athenians, from the failure of all their food, would agree to what any one might say. On his return in the fourth month, he reported in the assembly that Lysander had detained him all that time, and then told him to go to Lacedæmon. After this he was chosen ambassador to Lacedæmon with full powers, together with nine others. Now Lysander had sent, along with some others who were Lacedæmonians, Aristoteles, an Athenian exile, to carry word to the ephors that he had answered Theramenes, that it was they who were empowered to decide on the question of peace or war. So when Theramenes and the rest of the ambassadors were at Sellasia, being asked on what terms they had come, they replied that they had full powers to treat for peace; the ephors then ordered them to be called onward. Upon their arrival they convened an assembly, at which the Corinthians and Thebans contended most strenuously, though many others of the Greeks did so too, that they should conclude no treaty with the Athenians, but make away with them.

The Lacedæmonians, however, said they would not reduce to bondage a state which had done great good at the time of the greatest dangers that had ever befallen Greece; but they offered to make peace, on condition of their demolishing the Long Walls and Piræus, giving up all their ships but twelve, restoring their exiles, having the same friends and foes as the Lacedæmonians, and following, both by land and by sea, wherever they might lead. Theramenes and his fellow-ambassadors carried back these terms to Athens. On their entering the city, a great multitude poured round them, afraid of their having returned unsuccessful: for it was no longer possible to delay, owing to the great numbers who were dying of famine. The next day the ambassadors reported on what conditions the Lacedæmonians were willing to make peace; and Theramenes, as their spokesman, said that they should obey the Lacedæmonians, and destroy the walls. When some had opposed him, but far more agreed with him, it was resolved to accept the peace. Subsequently Lysander sailed into the Piræus, and the exiles were restored; and they dug down the walls with much glee, to the music of women playing the flute, considering that day to be the beginning of liberty to Greece.

And so ended the year in the middle of which Dionysius the son of Hermocrates, the Syracusan, became tyrant, after the Carthaginians, though previously defeated in battle by the Syracusans, had reduced Agrigentum.[f]

A REVIEW OF THE WAR

[Sidenote: [478-404 B.C.]]

The confederacy of Delos was formed by the free and spontaneous association of many different towns, all alike independent; towns which met in synod and deliberated by equal vote--took by their majority resolutions binding upon all--and chose Athens as their chief to enforce these resolutions, as well as to superintend generally the war against the common enemy.

Now the only way by which the confederacy was saved from falling to pieces, was by being transformed into an Athenian empire. Such transformation (as Thucydides plainly intimates) did not arise from the ambition or deep-laid projects of Athens, but from the reluctance of the larger confederates to discharge the obligations imposed by the common synod, and from the unwarlike character of the confederates generally--which made them desirous to commute military service for money-payment, while Athens on her part was not less anxious to perform the service and obtain the money. By gradual and unforeseen stages, Athens thus passed from consulate to empire; in such manner that no one could point out the precise moment of time when the confederacy of Delos ceased, and when the empire began.

But the Athenian empire came to include (between 460-446 B.C.) other cities not parties to the confederacy of Delos. Athens had conquered her ancient enemy the island of Ægina, and had acquired supremacy over Megara, Bœotia, Phocis, and Locris, and Achaia in Peloponnesus. Her empire was now at its maximum; and had she been able to maintain it--or even to keep possession of the Megarid separately, which gave her the means of barring out all invasions from the Peloponnesus--the future course of Grecian history would have been materially altered. But her empire on land did not rest upon the same footing as her empire at sea. The exiles in Megara and Bœotia, etc., and the anti-Athenian party generally in those places--combined with the rashness of her general Tolmides at Coronea--deprived her of all her land-dependencies near home, and even threatened her with the loss of Eubœa. The peace concluded in 445 B.C. left her with all her maritime and insular empire (including Eubœa), but with nothing more; while by the loss of Megara she was now open to invasion from the Peloponnesus.

On this footing she remained at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War fourteen years afterwards. That war did not arise (as has been so often asserted) from aggressive or ambitious schemes on the part of Athens, but that, on the contrary, the aggression was all on the side of her enemies, who were full of hopes that they could put her down with little delay; while she was not merely conservative and defensive, but even discouraged by the certainty of destructive invasion, and only dissuaded from concessions, alike imprudent and inglorious, by the extraordinary influence and resolute wisdom of Pericles. That great man comprehended well both the conditions and the limits of Athenian empire. Athens was now understood (especially since the revolt and reconquest of the powerful island of Samos in 440 B.C.) by her subjects and enemies as well as by her own citizens, to be mistress of the sea. It was the care of Pericles to keep that belief within definite boundaries, and to prevent all waste of the force of the city in making new or distant acquisitions which could not be permanently maintained. But it was also his care to enforce upon his countrymen the lesson of maintaining their existing empire unimpaired, and shrinking from no effort requisite for that end. Though their whole empire was now staked upon the chances of a perilous war, he did not hesitate to promise them success, provided that they adhered to this conservative policy.

[Sidenote: [431-413 B.C.]]

Following the events of the war, we shall find that Athens did adhere to it for the first seven years; years of suffering and trial, from the destructive annual invasion, the yet more destructive pestilence, and the revolt of Mytilene--but years which still left her empire unimpaired, and the promises of Pericles in fair chance of being realised. In the seventh year of the war occurred the unexpected victory at Sphacteria and the capture of the Lacedæmonian prisoners. This placed in the hands of the Athenians a capital advantage, imparting to them prodigious confidence of future success, while their enemies were in a proportional degree disheartened. It was in this temper that they first departed from the conservative precept of Pericles.

Down to the expedition against Syracuse the empire of Athens (except the possessions in Thrace) remained undiminished, and her general power nearly as great as it had ever been since 445 B.C. That expedition was the one great and fatal departure from the Periclean policy, bringing upon Athens an amount of disaster from which she never recovered; and it was doubtless an error of over-ambition.

After the Syracusan disaster, there is no longer any question about adhering to, or departing from the Periclean policy. Athens is like Patroclus in the _Iliad_, after Apollo has stunned him by a blow on the back and loosened his armour. Nothing but the slackness of her enemies allowed her time for a partial recovery, so as to make increased heroism a substitute for impaired force, even against doubled and tripled difficulties. And the years of struggle which she now went through are among the most glorious events in her history. These years present many misfortunes, but no serious misjudgment; not to mention one peculiarly honourable moment, after the overthrow of the Four Hundred. And after all, they were on the point of partially recovering themselves in 408 B.C., when the unexpected advent of Cyrus set the seal to their destiny.

The bloodshed after the recapture of Mytilene and Scione, and still more that which succeeded the capture of Melos, are disgraceful to the humanity of Athens, and stand in pointed contrast with the treatment of Samos when reconquered by Pericles. But they did not contribute sensibly to break down her power; though, being recollected with aversion after other incidents were forgotten, they are alluded to in later times as if they had caused the fall of the empire. Her downfall had one great cause--we may almost say, one single cause--the Sicilian expedition.[60] The empire of Athens both was, and appeared to be, in exuberant strength when that expedition was sent forth; strength more than sufficient to bear up against all moderate faults or moderate misfortunes, such as no government ever long escapes. But the catastrophe of Syracuse was something overpassing in terrific calamity all Grecian experience and all power of foresight. It was like the Russian campaign of 1812 to the Emperor Napoleon, though by no means imputable, in an equal degree, to vice in the original project. No Grecian power could bear up against such a death wound; and the prolonged struggle of Athens after it is not the least wonderful part of the whole war.

GROTE’S ESTIMATE OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE

[Sidenote: [460-404 B.C.]]

Nothing in the political history of Greece is so remarkable as the Athenian empire; taking it as it stood in its completeness, from about 460-413 B.C. (the date of the Syracusan catastrophe), or still more, from 460-424 B.C. (the date when Brasidas made his conquests in Thrace). After the Syracusan catastrophe, the conditions of the empire were altogether changed; it was irretrievably broken up, though Athens still continued an energetic struggle to retain some of the fragments. But if we view it as it had stood before that event, during the period of its integrity, it is a sight marvellous to contemplate, and its working must be pronounced, in my judgment, to have been highly beneficial to the Grecian world. No Grecian state except Athens could have sufficed to organise such a system, or to hold, in partial, though regulated, continuous and specific communion, so many little states, each animated with that force of political repulsion instinctive in the Grecian mind. This was a mighty task, worthy of Athens, and to which no state except Athens was competent. We have already seen in part, and we shall see still farther, how little qualified Sparta was to perform it: and we shall have occasion hereafter to notice a like fruitless essay on the part of Thebes.

(After Hope)]

As in regard to the democracy of Athens generally, so in regard to her empire--it has been customary with historians to take notice of little except the bad side. But the empire of Athens was not harsh and oppressive, as it is commonly depicted. Under the circumstances of her dominion--at a time when the whole transit and commerce of the Ægean was under one maritime system, which excluded all irregular force--when Persian ships of war were kept out of the waters, and Persian tribute-officers away from the seaboard--when the disputes inevitable among so many little communities could be peaceably redressed by the mutual right of application to the tribunals at Athens--and when these tribunals were also such as to present to sufferers a refuge against wrongs done even by individual citizens of Athens herself (to use the expression of the oligarchical Phrynichus)--the condition of the maritime Greeks was materially better than it had been before, or than it will be seen to become afterwards. Her empire, if it did not inspire attachment, certainly provoked no antipathy, among the bulk of the citizens of the subject-communities, as is shown by the party-character of the revolts against her. If in her imperial character she exacted obedience, she also fulfilled duties and insured protection--to a degree incomparably greater than was ever realised by Sparta. And even if she had been ever so much disposed to cramp the free play of mind and purpose among her subjects--a disposition which is no way proved--the very circumstances of her own democracy, with its open antithesis of political parties, universal liberty of speech, and manifold individual energy, would do much to prevent the accomplishment of such an end, and would act as a stimulus to the dependent communities even without her own intention.

Without being insensible either to the faults or to the misdeeds of imperial Athens, I believe that her empire was a great comparative benefit, and its extinction a great loss, to her own subjects. But still more do I believe it to have been a good, looked at with reference to Panhellenic interests. Its maintenance furnished the only possibility of keeping out foreign intervention, and leaving the destinies of Greece to depend upon native, spontaneous, untrammelled Grecian agencies. The downfall of the Athenian empire is the signal for the arms and corruption of Persia again to make themselves felt, and for the re-enslavement of the Asiatic Greeks under her tribute-officers. What is still worse, it leaves the Grecian world in a state incapable of repelling any energetic foreign attack, and open to the overruling march of “the man of Macedon” half a century afterwards. For such was the natural tendency of the Grecian world to political non-integration or disintegration, that the rise of the Athenian empire, incorporating so many states into one system, is to be regarded as a most extraordinary accident. Nothing but the genius, energy, discipline, and democracy of Athens, could have brought it about; nor even she, unless favoured and pushed on by a very peculiar train of antecedent events. But having once got it, she might perfectly well have kept it; and had she done so, the Hellenic world would have remained so organised as to be able to repel foreign intervention, either from Susa or from Pella. When we reflect how infinitely superior was the Hellenic mind to that of all surrounding nations and races; how completely its creative agency was stifled as soon as it came under the Macedonian dictation; and how much more it might perhaps have achieved, if it had enjoyed another century or half-century of freedom, under the stimulating headship of the most progressive and most intellectual of all its separate communities--we shall look with double regret on the ruin of the Athenian empire, as accelerating, without remedy, the universal ruin of Grecian independence, political action, and mental grandeur.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[57] This striking and deep-seated regard of the Athenians for all the forms of an established constitution, makes itself felt even by Mitford (History of Greece vol. iv. sect. v. ch. xix. p. 235).

[58] [An early form of heliograph.]

[59] [He, with others, was accused of treachery, not without cause.]

[60] [Manso, in his _Sparta_ is so far from ascribing the downfall of Athens to the Sicilian fiasco, that he sees no connection between them. Thirlwall disagrees with this though he thinks the empire was doomed to disintegration. He says, “Syracuse was their Moscow; but if it had not been so they would have found one elsewhere.” He imputes the fall to internal discord. Mitford sees in the war less a civil strife than a contest between the oligarchical and democratical interests throughout the Grecian commonwealths, in every one of which was a party friendly to the public enemy. He says of the fight with Sicily, “Democracy here was opposed to democracy,” and he credits the fate of Athens to “the ruin, which such a government hath an eternal tendency to bring upon itself.” He rejoices that the slaves at least of the various governments had a little respite from cruelty. Cox, like Grote, sees in the crumbling of the Athenian empire, in spite of all its crimes, such a cosmic misfortune as set back the progress of the world beyond our power of estimation.]

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS

[The letter [a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]