•T' 7 “^ • 
 
 no i 0 
 
A^icient Classics for English Readers 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 \^UPPLEMENTARY SERIES.) 
 
 THUCYDIDES 
 
 V. ‘ ' 
 
CONTENTS OF THE SERIES 
 
 HOMER: THE ILIAD, 
 HOMER: THE ODYSSEY, 
 HERODOTUS, 
 
 C^SAR, • , , • 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 HORACE, 
 iESCHYLUS, 
 
 XENOPHON, 
 
 CICERO, 
 
 SOPHOCLES, 
 
 , , , By the Editor 
 
 , . . By the Same. 
 
 , , . By George C. Svvayne, M.A. 
 
 , , , , By Anthony Trollope. 
 
 By the Editor 
 
 .By Theodok-' Martin. 
 
 By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Colombo. 
 , . By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D. 
 
 .By the Editor 
 
 . , , By Clifton W. Collins, M.A. 
 
 PLINY, By a. Church, M.A., and W. J. Brodribb, M.Ar 
 EURIPIDES 
 JUVENAL, . 
 
 ARISTOPHANES,. 
 
 HESIOD AND THEO' 
 
 PLAUTUS AND 
 TACITUS, . 
 
 By William Bodham Donne, 
 By Edward Walford M.A. 
 . . . By the Editor. 
 
 Rev. Tames Davies, M.A. 
 CE, Cf. . . By the Editor. 
 
 William Bodham Donne. 
 
 By the Editor. 
 
 PLATO. . 
 
 THE GREEK 
 LIVY, . 
 
 OVID. . . ^ 
 
 CATULLUS, TIB^Lu's, & PRQPERTIUS, ByJ. Davies, M.A. 
 
 LUCIAN, . 
 
 
 BOLOC^Y,, • 
 
 Cliffon W. Collins. 
 
 By Lord Neaves. 
 . By the Editor 
 
 'r ' 
 
 THE Rev. a. Church, M.A. 
 
 •4 
 
 if 
 
 DEMOSTHENES. . 
 ARISTOTLE,. 
 THUCYDIDES, . 
 LUCRETIUS, 
 PINDAR, 
 
 . By the Rev. W. J. Bhodribb, M.A. 
 , By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D. 
 , .... By the Editor. 
 
 , . . By W. H. Mali.ock, M.A, 
 
 , By the Rev. F. D. Morice, M.A. 
 
THUCYDIDES 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EEV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A.d 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ‘etoniana,’ ‘the public schools,’ etc. 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS, 
 
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 NOTE 
 
 The chapter on the Plague at Athens has had the 
 advantage of revision by the writer’s friend, Dr 
 W. A. Greenhill. 
 
 The translations are all original; but a word or 
 phrase has sometimes been gladly adopted from 
 !Mr Dale’s version, and from Mr Wilkins’s para¬ 
 phrase of the speeches. 
 
 W. L. C. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 1. INTRODUCTORY, . 
 
 II II. PRELIMINARY HISTORY, 
 
 II III. CAUSES OF THE WAR, 
 
 II IV. OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES, 
 
 II V. THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS, 
 
 V 
 
 II VI. THE SIEGE OF PLAT^A, 
 
 II VII. THE FATE OF MITYLENE, 
 
 II VIII. THE TERROR AT CORCYRA, . 
 II IX. DEMOSTHENES AND CLEON, . 
 II X. THUCYDIDES AT AMPHIPOLIS, 
 II XI. ARGOS, .... 
 
 II XII. THE FATE OF MELOS, . 
 
 II XIII. THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY, 
 
 II XIV. THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE, 
 M XV. CONCLUDING REMARKS, 
 
 PAOB 
 . 1 
 
 . 12 
 . 21 
 . 82 
 . 53 
 
 . 69 
 
 . 82 
 . 98 
 
 . 108 
 . 123 
 . 137 
 . 143 
 
 . 149 
 
 . 167 
 . 185 
 
THUCYDIDES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 It has been remarked already, in one of the earlier 
 volumes of this series, that when we use the word 
 “ ancient ” of the Greek and Eoman writers, we are 
 employing a term which, from one point of view, has 
 a very unequal application. It is not altogether a ques¬ 
 tion of date which makes a writer ancient or modern. 
 It is the position which he occupies in the cycle of the 
 national literature, if his country has ever reached a 
 high pitch of civilisation, which marks his thoughts and 
 diction as recent or archaic. Our Anglo-Saxon historians 
 and the Arthurian romances are in this sense far more 
 ancient than Horace or Cicero. “ There is, in fact,” 
 says Dr Arnold, “ an ancient and a modern period in 
 the history of every people : the ancient differing, and 
 the modern in many essential points agreeing with, 
 that in which we now live. Thus the largest portion 
 of that history which we commonly call ancient is 
 A.c.s.s. vol. vi. A 
 
2 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 practically modern, as it describes society in a stage 
 analogous to that in which it now is ; while on the 
 other hand, much of what is called modern history is 
 practically ancient, as it relates to a state of things 
 which has passed away. Thucydides and Xenophon, 
 the orators of Athens, and the philosophers, speak a 
 wisdom more applicable to us politically than the wis¬ 
 dom of even our own countrymen who lived in the 
 middle ages ; and their position, both intellectual and 
 political, more nearly resembles our oivn.” More than 
 this, there are cases in the literature of the same 
 people, in which a single generation marks the step 
 from the old to the new. Herodotus and Thucydides 
 were almost contemporaries: between the probable 
 dates of their birth there was an interval of scarcely 
 thirteen years. Hut the distance between them, as 
 writers of history, is not to be measured by a chrono¬ 
 logical table. In Herodotus we have the ancient chro¬ 
 nicler, with all his charms and with all his defects. 
 He is at once story-teller, geographer, antiquarian, and 
 traveller; at times he seems to assume the licence 
 allowed to story-tellers, and attributed somewhat un¬ 
 fairly to travellers, of preferring the picturesque and 
 the marvellous to the baldness of fact. Eut we have to 
 remember that the readers (or, perhaps, to speak more 
 correctly, the hearers) of his day looked for this kind 
 of intellectual entertainment, and had a far more ready 
 appreciation of the legend which magnified the national 
 heroes, and the tale which described the Avonders of 
 strange lands and peoples, than of the painfid accuracy 
 of impartial history. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 3 
 
 Wlien we turn from the pages of Herodotus to those 
 of Thucydides, the change is wonderful. The latter 
 writer is fuUy conscious of it himself; he feels that 
 he is the teacher of a new school. The progress of 
 thought in Greece during a single generation had been 
 greater perhaps than ever before or since. Philosophy, 
 rhetoric, and the drama, had all made vast and rapid 
 strides. And with Thucydides, history, properly so 
 called, began. He treats his predecessors in this line 
 with even scantier courtesy than is usual in such cases. 
 He classes the “ story-writer ”—there was no word as 
 yet for “historian”—with the poet, as both equally 
 mythical and untrustworthy. He speaks of the “ won¬ 
 derfully small amount of pains with which the inves¬ 
 tigation of the truth is pursued by most men, who com¬ 
 monly avail themselves of what they find ready to 
 their hand.” “ Men accept from one another the cur¬ 
 rent report of past events, without putting them to the 
 test of examination, even when they have taken place 
 in their own country.” * His own method, he assures 
 his readers, shall be something very different indeed. 
 We might well be inclined to smile at the confident 
 seK-assertion of the following language, if we did 
 not know that the promise was largely justified by 
 the performance:— 
 
 “If, from the evidence here advanced, the reader 
 should conclude that the course of events was on the 
 whole as I have traced it, he would not be far wrong; 
 instead of trusting rather to what poets have sung about 
 
 * 1 . 20 . 
 
4 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 them, dressing them out to make them grander than 
 they were, or to what the chroniclers have put together, 
 rather with a view to make their tale pleasant to the 
 ear than accurate in its facts; hearing in mind that such 
 matters cannot he subjected to strict examination, in¬ 
 asmuch as most of them through lapse of time have 
 won their way into the region of fahle so as to lose all 
 credit; hut holding that they have heen traced with 
 sufficient accuracy, allowing for their antiquity, from 
 the best data at our command. And though men 
 always think the war of their OAvn times the most 
 important, so long as they are engaged in it, hut when 
 it is over bestow their admiration rather on the wars 
 of the past; still, the war of which I write, if we con¬ 
 template its operations and results, will appear the 
 most important of any. 
 
 “iN’ow, as to the language used by the several speakers, 
 either when they were preparing for the war or were 
 actually engaged in it, it would have heen difficult for 
 me, as to what I heard in person, or for other parties 
 who reported to me from various quarters, to record ex¬ 
 actly what was said. But I have set down what each 
 seemed likely to have said as most to the purpose 
 under the circumstances, while adhering as closely as 
 possible to the general sense of the words used. But 
 as to the actions of the war, I have not been content 
 to report them on the authority of any chance inform¬ 
 ant, or from my own conception of them; but either 
 from personal knowledge where I was present, or after 
 the most careful investigation possible in every case 
 where I gained my information fmm others. Very 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 5 
 
 laborious were these inquiries; since those who were 
 present in the several actions did not all give the same 
 account of the same affair, but as they were swayed by 
 favour to one side or the other, or as their memory 
 served them. Possibly this avoidance of any fabulous 
 embellishment may make my work less entertaining; 
 but I shall be well content if those shall pronounce 
 my history useful, who deshe to gain a view of events 
 as they really did happen, and as they are very likely, 
 in accordance with human nature, to repeat themselves 
 at some future time,—if not in exactly the same, yet 
 in very similar fashion. And it is designed rather as a 
 possession for ever than as a mere prize composition to 
 be listened to for the moment.”—(I. 21, 22.) 
 
 The claim which the writer makes on behalf of his 
 great work, boastful as it might seem, rested on a con¬ 
 sciousness of power. He did but anticipate the calm 
 judgment of posterity. Lord Lytton has called it 
 “the eternal manual of statesmen,” and the great Earl 
 of Chatham insisted on it as the one Greek book with 
 which, whatever else might be neglected, his son must 
 make himself familiar. Macaulay, who read and re¬ 
 read it while he was writing his own great history, 
 pronounces the author to be, “on the whole, the first 
 of historians : ” and his biographer tells us that “ the 
 sense of his own inferiority to Thucydides did more 
 to put him out of conceit with himself than all the 
 unfavourable comments bestowed upon him by the 
 newspapers and reviews.” * The ‘ History ’ of Thucy- 
 * Life and Letters, ii. 237. 
 
6 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 dides is irideed one of those “ possessions for ever ” in 
 the great ^storehouse of literature which has never lost 
 its value It may be doubted whether even thn critical 
 Athenian audience who first heard his manuscript read, 
 were as much impressed by the genius of the author as 
 the world af modern scholars is now, after the lapse of 
 above two thousand years. 
 
 It is time to inquire who this great writer was, whose 
 own confidence as to his future rank amongst historians 
 was so largely justified. But here, as is so commonly 
 the case with the early writers with whose names and 
 works we are so familiar, the personality of the man 
 himself escapes us. The days when every author, great 
 or small, was to have his voluminous biography, had 
 not yet come. Two so-called ‘ Lives ’ of Thucydides, of 
 comparatively modern date, have come down to us; but 
 they may both be referred to that class of “ fabulous ” 
 narrative, “ constructed to be pleasant,” for which he 
 had himself such keen contempt. This much only 
 we can be said to know with any approach to accuracy 
 as to his early life: that he was born about the year 
 471 B.c. ; and that he was of Thracian descent (for his 
 father’s name, Olorus, is Thracian), though he was a 
 citizen of Athens. We gather from his own pages that 
 he possessed some hereditary property in gold-mines, 
 in the district of Thrace known as ScaptAHyl^ (“ the 
 excavated wood ”), and that he saw considerable service 
 himself as a divisional commander, in the great war of 
 which he became the historian. He is said to have taken 
 lessons in rhetoric, the popular study of the day, from 
 Antiphon of Khamnus, the inventor of oratory, as his 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 7 
 
 admirers termed him; and competent critics have 
 traced a correspondence of idioms, which is at lea^ 
 curious, in the extant orations of the master when 
 compared with the set speeches which the pupil intro¬ 
 duces so freely into his narrative of the war. He 
 was certainly one of the great orator’s warm admirers, 
 f(*r he characterises the defence made by Antiphon, 
 when accused of treason to the State, as the ablest 
 on record. The young Thucydides is also said to have 
 sat with Pericles at the feet of the great philosopher 
 Anaxagoras, the boldest free-thinker of the day; and 
 some hints occur here and there in his history of a con¬ 
 tempt for the national superstitions, which are thought 
 to savour of those unpopular opinions which led to 
 Anaxagoras’s fine and banishment. He was a sufferer 
 —one of the few who completely recovered—from the 
 great plague which almost depopulated Athens in the 
 second year of the war, and of which he has left us 
 such a full account. 
 
 The personal share which he took in the operations 
 of the war, and his conduct as a general, tvill come 
 before us in their proper place in the course of the his¬ 
 tory. His failure in the campaign in Thrace against 
 Brasidas, whether it was his fault or only his misfortune, 
 resulted in his banishment from Athens (or perhaps his 
 voluntary exile to avoid a worse sentence) for twenty 
 years. The locality of his exile is uncertain; probably 
 he moved from place to place. Part of the time seems, 
 from some of his own expressions, to have been passed 
 in the Peloponnese, within the borders of his enemies 
 the Spartans; and this gave him the opportunity of 
 
8 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 judging the remaining operations of the war from the 
 enemy’s point of view. “ It was my fate,” he says, 
 “to he an exile from my country for twenty years after 
 the campaign against Amphipolis; and thus having 
 been cognisant of the operations of both parties, and 
 more especially of those of the Peloponnesians, by reason 
 of my exile, I could calmly and at my leisure learn all 
 I wanted about them.” * Possibly this kind of neutral 
 position which, as a banished man, the writer held 
 between friend and foe, may have contributed to the 
 impartiality as well as to the accuracy of his narrative. 
 It was no doubt during that long period of enforced 
 leisure that he digested the materials which, as appears 
 from his own statement just quoted, he had ah?eady 
 collected, and expanded his original notes (if we may 
 use so modern a term) into a methodical history. But 
 it was probably not completed in its present form until 
 after his return from exile—when Athens had seen her 
 Long Walls destroyed by the Spartans, and these suc¬ 
 cessful rivals had wrested from her the leadership of 
 Greece. Thucydides possibly returned with Thrasy- 
 bulus when he freed Athens from the tyranny of the 
 Thirty : certainly, from his own expressions, it was 
 after the great war v/as ended. He is said to have met 
 his death by assassination, either at Athens or in his 
 own domain at Scapte-Hyl^. His tomb, with the brief 
 inscription in a single line of verse,—“Here lies Thucy¬ 
 dides the son of Olorus, of Halimus,”—was for some 
 time shown at Athens. His age at the time of his 
 death is left uncertain—probably about seventy. 
 
 * V. 26. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 9 
 
 He left bis work unfinished, after all. Something 
 like a fourth part of the period which he intended it 
 to embrace is left untouched. We know it as the 
 ‘ History of the Peloponnesian War; ’ hut the author 
 did not live even to give it a name. Of the eight 
 “ hooks ” into which his early editors have divided it, 
 the seventh is thought never to have received his final 
 corrections—if indeed this does not apply in less degree 
 to the preceding books as well—and the eighth is left 
 imperfect. So imperfect, that ancient literary gossip 
 asserted that the daughter had put it together from her 
 father’s notes; whilst in other quarters the authorship 
 was assigned to Xenophon, who has carried on the 
 history where this eighth hook leaves it, in his ‘ Hel¬ 
 lenics.’ One remarkable point in which the last hook, 
 as we have it, differs from the others, is in the total 
 absence of those rhetorical and argumentative speeches 
 which form so important a feature in Thucydides’s 
 work. It seems very probable that in all cases the 
 speeches were composed and inserted by the author 
 after the body of the history had been completed, and 
 therefore are not to he found in this last and incom¬ 
 plete portion. It has indeed been asserted that they 
 were here purposely omitted by Thucydides, because 
 the public had pronounced them to he tedious: hut 
 such a verdict would scarcely have been in accordance 
 with Athenian taste. It is evident that Thucydides 
 himself, supposing him to have possessed the physical 
 qualifications, would have made a consummate orator. 
 Demosthenes must have held him to have been a 
 master in the art, if there be any truth in the ti'adition 
 
10 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 that for his own improYement he had copied out the 
 historian’s great work no less than eight times. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that Thucydides nowhere 
 mentions or alludes to—unless it he under cover of his 
 general strictures on the writers of the past—his great 
 predecessor Herodotus. A story is briefly referred to 
 by Suidas of the boy Thucydides having been present 
 when Herodotus read his history in public at the 
 Olympian games, and that he shed tears of emulation, 
 with the tacit resolve to follow in his steps. But 
 modern criticism has gone so far as to doubt whether 
 he ever read, or heard of, Herodotus’s researches. His 
 own death probably very soon followed that of the 
 earlier historian. 
 
 Whence he drew his materials, independent of 
 personal memoranda and verbal information from co¬ 
 temporaries, we can very imperfectly guess. The 
 written authorities must have been few. He mentions 
 only Hellanicus, and of him he has no high opiuion. 
 The text of existing treaties, some of which he gives at 
 length, and the memoirs of Cimon and Pericles, would 
 probably be his most trustworthy authorities. It is 
 possible that he may have met with his fellow-exile 
 Alcibiades, and gained personal information from him. 
 
 The only division which he has himself made of his 
 work is not into ‘ books,’ as we now have it, but into 
 those periods into which the story of the great struggle 
 between Athens and Sparta, which distracted all Greece 
 for twenty-seven years, naturally falls: First, the ten 
 years from the attack on Platsea by the Thebans (b.g. 
 431) to the “Peace of Nicias” (b.c. 421); seconfily, 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 11 
 
 tlie next seven years of comparative suspension of 
 hostilities; and lastly, the remaining period of the 
 war—of which, however, he has left the last six 
 years untouched. His work might perhaps he more 
 fitly styled ‘ Annals ’ than ‘ History: ’ he gives the 
 events of each year separately, dating them by the 
 successive summers and winters. This plan spoils in 
 some degree the effect of the narrative; the scene of 
 operations is continually shifting; and he leaves a 
 campaign or a siege at the very crisis of the interest, 
 in order to bring up his arrears in other quarters. 
 This arrangement has not been strictly adhered to in 
 the following pages. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 It will be best to let the historian, open his subject in 
 his own words. He gives us no laboured introduction, 
 but announces his theme and purpose, and his motives 
 for undertaking his task, with a dignified simplicity. 
 
 “ Thucydides of Athens has written the story of the 
 war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, how 
 they warred with each other; having begun his record 
 from the very outset, expecting it to prove an import¬ 
 ant war, and more worthy of relation than any that 
 had been before it; forming this opinion both from the 
 fact that both parties were perfectly equipped for it in 
 every way, and seeing all the rest of Greece gathering 
 to one side or the other, either by immediate action or 
 by manifest intention. For this was the most import¬ 
 ant movement which had yet affected the Greeks, and 
 indeed a large portion of the barbarian nations, and 
 one might even say a great part of the world. For as 
 to the wars which preceded this, and those of still 
 earlier times, to ascertain the facts with any certainty 
 seems impossible through lapse of time. But from such 
 evidence as we have, so far as I am led to believe after 
 
PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 13 
 
 carrying my investigations as far back as possible, I 
 do not think they could have been on a very extensive 
 scale, either as to military operations or anything else.” 
 
 He proceeds to give a brief summary of the early 
 and half-mythical history of Greece—the first instance 
 of an attempt to apply anything like critical examina¬ 
 tion to the mass of current legend. That the result 
 should be quite satisfactory is not to be expected : that 
 it should display so much of the true spirit of historical 
 criticism is the wonder. If Thucydides accepts the 
 story of the great Trojan war in all its essentials as an 
 historical fact, he admits no more than all students of 
 history have done until quite a modern date, and what 
 many whose authority is by no means to be despised 
 admit now. He holds that there was a great united 
 expedition of Greeks, led by a real Agamemnon against 
 a real Troy, and that this it was which first drew 
 together the various tribes who occupied the Pelopon- 
 nese and its neighbourhood, and gave them some kind 
 of national cohesion. He even accepts the muster-roll 
 of ships and men, as given in the Iliad, as an authentic 
 record, and explains the length of the siege by the 
 difficulty of maintaining so numerous a force without 
 detaching a large portion to obtain supplies. But the 
 importance of the expedition and of its operations has 
 been magnified, he has no doubt, by the poets, and he 
 considers it not worthy of comparison with the greater 
 imdertakings of later times. 
 
 The sketch which he gives of the ages before the 
 Trojan expedition cannot be accepted as much more 
 
14 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 than a clever guess, to be corrected by later investiga¬ 
 tions. It was impossible for him, as later historians 
 with their greater advantages have found it, to sift 
 with any very satisfactory result what Mommsen has 
 happily termed “the rubbish-heap of tradition.” 
 He regards the Hellas, or Greece, of early times 
 as overrun by migratory and restless tribes, who 
 settled in such districts as they could conquer and 
 hold, until driven out by a stronger people. They 
 occupied, according to his view, rude hill-forts amongst 
 the mountains, difi&cult of access, while they avoided 
 the plain and the sea-shore, as liable at any moment to 
 the attack of an enemy from land or sea. The most 
 fertile lands—Boeotia, Thessaly, and the Peloponnese 
 generally—were subject to the most frequent changes 
 of inhabitants, because they held out stronger tempta¬ 
 tion to the invader : while Attica, with its poor and 
 unproductive soil, was left in comparative quiet, and 
 always in the occupation of the same people. Such, 
 as is well known, was always the popular boast of the 
 Athenians—that they were “ sons of the soil.” Hellen, 
 the son of Deucalion, whence came the name of Hel¬ 
 lenes—Pelops, the foreign chief who came from Asia 
 and gave his name to the peninsula—and Minos, king 
 of Crete, who established a navy, put down piracy, and 
 colonised the islands, — are all treated as historical 
 personages, though the distinctly fabulous elements of 
 their story are passed over in silence. It is very pos¬ 
 sible that Thucydides, like the Eoman historian Livy 
 at a much later date, found the existing national belief 
 in these rather mythical heroes too strong for him to 
 
PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 15 
 
 venture upon destructive criticism. To reject them 
 altogether would have been to reject articles of the 
 Greek faith. He may himself have retained a sort of 
 half-conventional belief not only in their personality 
 but in the legends with which it was surrounded. 
 
 It is from the return of the Greeks from the expedi¬ 
 tion to Troy that Thucydides would seem to date, the 
 historical annals of Greece. It was eighty years after¬ 
 wards, according to his reckoning, that the great Dorian 
 migration into the Peloponnese under the “sons of 
 Hercules ” took place: then Athens, the headquarters of 
 the Ionian race, sent out her colonies, bearing their 
 generic name, into the coasts and islands of the Archi¬ 
 pelago, and so settled the district which went by the 
 name of Ionia; while the Dorians from the Pelopon¬ 
 nese threw off their companies of adventurers into 
 Italy, Sicily, and the coasts of further Greece. Then 
 came, as he considers, the advance of civilisation by 
 the founding of navies—notably by the Corinthians, 
 who by their position on the isthmus made their city 
 the natural emporium of Greece; the increase of wealth, 
 and the consequent rise of despotic governments, by 
 the usurpation of some one powerful individual— 
 “Tyrants,” as the name went—in the several cities, in¬ 
 stead of the old patriarchal and hereditary kings; until 
 the great Dorian state of Sparta, or Lacedaemon, rising 
 to a commanding position by reason of her long-estal> 
 lished government, took upon her to vindicate tlie 
 cause of liberty amongst her neighbours, and “ put 
 down the tyrants” in the several weaker states—Athens 
 included. Then came the great Persian war, which 
 
IG 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 had already found its own historian in Herodotus, and 
 on which his successor does not linger. But it was, 
 as he notes, out of the results of this earlier war that 
 the present, of which he is to write, had arisen. 
 Lacedsemon had taken the lead in the second act of 
 the Persian invasion (for the Athenians had abandoned 
 their city at the Persians’ approach), and she had thus 
 become, from circumstances perhaps even more than 
 from ambition, the chief of a kind of informal con¬ 
 federacy which embraced most of the Greek states. 
 But Athens was as decidedly superior at sea as Lace¬ 
 dsemon w^as on land. Hence arose that bitter jealousy 
 of each other—a jealousy strengthened by difference of 
 race, of character, and of national habits—which led to 
 a perpetual condition of hostilities more or less open 
 between themselves and their several allies, from the 
 final repulse of the Persians, b.c. 480, to the breaking 
 out of the Peloponnesian war in 431. 
 
 Tliucydides will presently give us what he notes as 
 the actual causes of the rupture. But its roots lay 
 deeper than any overt act. Lacedsemon had lost her 
 supremacy over Greece and the islands; and Athens 
 had won it. The history of this momentous change 
 in the international relations of the several Greek 
 states is reserved by our historian for a later page of 
 his work but it will find its place more conveniently 
 
 * I. c. 89. “ To follow the history in chronological order, a 
 
 reader, after finishing Herodotus, should take up Thucydides 
 at this 89th chapter, and read to the 117th inclusive : he should 
 then go back to the 24th, and read on from thence to the 88tb 
 inclusive: after which he should proceed directly to the 118th. 
 
 •—Arnold. 
 
PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 17 
 
 here, when we are considering the remoter causes of 
 the war. 
 
 ^ \ 
 
 When the Athenians had returned to their deserted 
 city, they naturally proceeded to rebuild the fortifica¬ 
 tions which the enemy had destroyed. The Lacedae¬ 
 monians were jealous. Walled towns, they said, were 
 dangerous things: they might serve an enemy for a 
 base of operations (as Thebes had in the late war), as 
 well as protect their occupants; rather than rebuild 
 their own walls, let the Athenians join in levelling 
 the rest throughout Greece. But the leading man at 
 Athens was still the Themistocles who had laid such 
 stress upon the “ wooden walls ” in the first Persian 
 invasion : and he was as determined upon retaining 
 the stone walls now. Lacedaemon had no navy, but 
 her infantry were the best in the world, and Athens 
 was not to lie at their mercy—good friends as they 
 seemed just now. He contrived that some months 
 should be occupied in diplomatic messages to and fro : 
 the Lacedaemonian commissioners were feted and en¬ 
 tertained at Athens, but on one pretence or other not 
 allowed to return home with their report. Themis¬ 
 tocles himself went as representative of Athens to 
 Lacedaemon, and waited there—“expecting his col¬ 
 leagues,” he said—until he heard that the walls were 
 nearly completed. Then he appeared before the Lace¬ 
 daemonian authorities, and told them plainly how' 
 matters stood:— 
 
 “ Their city was now put in a sufficient state of 
 defence, he said, to protect its occupants : and if the 
 
 A.C.S.S. voL VL B 
 
18 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 Lacedaen onians or their allies had occasion to send any 
 embassies there in future, let them understand that 
 they were sending them to people who knew what was 
 good for their own interests, as well as for the general 
 interests of Greece. When it had seemed expedient 
 to abandon their city and go aboard their ships, they 
 had found the spirit to do so—without consulting their 
 friends. And in whatever steps they had taken in 
 concert with them, they had shown themselves to have 
 as much sense, they thought, as other people. And at 
 this present time they held it best for their city to have 
 a wall round it, and more to the advantage both of their 
 own citizens and of the allies in general; for it was 
 impossible to give an independent or straightforward 
 vote in council for the public interests unless they stood 
 on equal terms. Either all the confederate cities, then, 
 ought to be unfortified, or they were bound to hold what 
 the Athenians had done to be right.”—(I. 91.) 
 
 Thucydides does not take upon himself in this place, 
 as in so many others, to give us anything like the 
 actual words of the speaker. He could not do so, of 
 course, from any good authority—unless the speech had 
 been recorded, which is improbable—for Themistocles 
 was long before the writer’s own day : and it may per¬ 
 haps be some testimony to the general faithfulness of 
 his reports of cotemporary speakers, that here he is 
 content with giving us only the general sense. 
 miss a good deal by not having the shrewdness and 
 irony ol the speaker more elaborately conveyed to us 
 in the polished phrases of Thucydides. Heed we 
 
PRELIMIXA R Y HISTOR Y. 
 
 19 
 
 wonder that the Lacedsemonians, though “ they did not 
 give vent to their wrath against Athens openly at the 
 time,” never forgot or forgave the quiet mode in which 
 their jealousy had been baffled 1 
 
 The breach grew gradually wider from other causes. 
 The Lacediemonian Pausanias, who followed up the 
 campaign by some operations with the combined fleet 
 against the coasts of Asia, was accused of abusing his 
 powers, and even of a leaning to the Persian interests, 
 and was deposed from the command. Many of the 
 allies would not acknowledge his successor, and turned 
 to Athens, with her powerful navy, as the natural leader 
 of Greece, and its protector against foreign invaders. 
 Athens was ready; and their rivals seem to have accepted 
 the change with a good grace, which, under the circum¬ 
 stances, was hardly to be expected, and may be taken 
 as a proof that Pausanias’s conduct had become over¬ 
 bearing, and that the feeling against the continuance of 
 the Spartan rule was strong and general. 
 
 The Athenians soon arranged that all the allied 
 states should be taxed, either in ships or in money, 
 for the maintenance of a navy for the defence of 
 Greece. Such defence was still a strong necessity; 
 for (though the writer before us does not mention it) 
 we know that the Persian, though driven from Greece 
 itself, still maintained strong garrisons in the coast- 
 towns of Thrace and the Hellespont. This money they 
 took charge of, under the title of “ Treasurers of Greece,” 
 depositing it in the temple at Delos; whence it was 
 afterwards, and apparently without remonstrance, 
 transferred to the treasury at Athens. Gradually those 
 
20 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 smaller states whicli were allies in name became subjects 
 in reality. If they failed to appear with their con¬ 
 tingent when summoned,—if they declined to pay 
 arrears of ships or money,—if they gave any cause of 
 offence to their new leaders,—they were declared con¬ 
 tumacious, and reduced to a state of undisguised 
 dependency. The islands of I^axos, Thasos, and 
 Euboea successively revolted and were reduced; and 
 every reduction of an independent ally to the position 
 of a mere tributary increased the power of Athens. 
 And from time to time the sufferers appealed to Lace¬ 
 daemon for aid, which was given—willingly enough, it 
 may be conceived—whenever there appeared a fair 
 opening for regaining their own ascendancy; so that an 
 intermittent succession of hostilities went on for twenty 
 years. There had grown up in Greece by degrees two 
 great rival interests and systems, of which Athens and 
 Lacedaemon were the centres, each claiming a kind of 
 rule over the subordinate states, and even the right 
 to punish any breach of such relation on their parts. 
 But Athens met with her reverses in turn, when she 
 took part in the internal feuds of the Peloponnese: 
 and when a truce of thirty years was agreed upon 
 between the two great rivals, Athens had to give up 
 the ports she had acquired on the Corinthian gulf, and 
 to lose alb:)gether her hold on the peninsula. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CAUSES OF THE WAR. 
 
 The truce which bore the name of the “ Thirty Years** 
 lasted barely fourteen. They were years of activity 
 and prosperity, and of accumulating wealth and power, 
 for Athens, all which was watched with natural alarm 
 by her neighbour and rival. Samos, perhaps the most 
 powerful of all the states in the Athenian league, re¬ 
 volted and was reduced, and another island fleet thus 
 added to the Athenian navy. The tribute paid by the 
 several dependent states was gradually increased, and 
 they had to go to Athens for arbitration in all cases of 
 dispute among themselves. Her rule, from that of a 
 leader amongst equals, had become an imperial govern¬ 
 ment, but there is nothing to show that it was oppres¬ 
 sive or unjust. The master-mind in the city was Pericles, 
 who had large views for the future of his country. He 
 had raised the material grandeur of the city itself to such 
 a pitch, that Thucydides says that if the stranger of some 
 distant future should come to look upon her ruins, 
 “ he would estimate her power to have been even double 
 what it was.” 
 
 Perhaps the ablest and bitterest enemy of the 
 
22 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 Athenian rule was Corinth. She was the earliest naval 
 power in Greece, and Athens had eclipsed her. Her 
 position on “ the two seas ” gave her great commer¬ 
 cial opportunities, and Athens, by her occupation of 
 Megara and its ports (though she had had to give these 
 up), had interfered with her. From Corinth one of 
 the overt causes of me nreaking-out of the great war 
 arose. Settlers from Corinth had colonised the island 
 of Corcyra (Corfu); and Corcyra in its turn had 
 thrown off a fresh swarm of colonists to Epidamnus, on 
 the coast of Illyria.* In this new settlement, one of 
 the usual feuds between nobles and commons led to an 
 appeal on the one side to Corcyra, and on the other 
 to Corinth as their common ancestress: and Corinth, 
 already jealous of the Corcyraeans as having shown too 
 little deference to the mother state, at once prepared 
 for war against her refractory daughter. After some 
 vain attempt at negotiations, a severe engagement took 
 place between the two fleets, in which the colonists 
 (who mustered no less than a hundred and twenty 
 sail) were victorious. But they felt that, standing 
 alone as they did, belonging to neither of the great 
 confederacies, they should he no match for Corinth 
 in a prolonged struggle: they appealed for aid to 
 Athens, and asked to he admitted into her confeder¬ 
 acy. The Athenians were unwilling, by an act of 
 overt hostility, to break the thirty years’ truce with the 
 Peloponnesians; and this they thought to avoid by 
 concluding with Corcyra a defensive alliance only. 
 “ They foresaw,” says Thucydides, “ that in any case 
 * Called by the Romans Dyrrhachium —the modern Durazzo. 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR. 
 
 a war with, the Peloponnesians they must have; and 
 they did not care to let Corcyra, with so large a naval 
 force, fall into the hands of the Corinthians, but pre¬ 
 ferred that the two powers should wear themselves out 
 as much as possible against each other, that so they 
 might find the Corinthians and other naval states all 
 the weaker when they went to war with them, if such 
 necessity should arise.” 
 
 A squadron of ten ships was sent to Corcyra, with 
 orders not to act against the Corinthians except in 
 defence of the island. Such orders are seldom very 
 strictly obeyed. In a sea-fight which followed, the 
 Athenian contingent ranged itself in line of battle 
 with the Corcyraeans, and when they saw their friends 
 hard pressed, fairly charged the victorious enemy. 
 
 Such was the first ground of rupture between the 
 Corinthians and Athenians — that the latter had, in 
 time of truce, fought against them on the side of the 
 Corcyraeans.” 
 
 Another act of aggression was charged against them 
 in the matter of Potidaea, a Corinthian settlement on 
 the Isthmus of Pallene in Thrace, but now in alliance 
 with Athens. The Athenians had reason to know 
 that this doubtful ally, at the instigation of the king 
 of Macedon (and they believed of the Corinthians 
 also), was meditating revolt; and they anticipated the 
 danger which-might have involved the defection of 
 all their dependencies in that quarter by a peremptory 
 summons to pull down part of their wall, dismiss the 
 Corinthian magistrates, and give hostages for their 
 fidelity. A strong naval and land force was sent to 
 
24 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 enforce these demands. The Potidseans refused them, 
 and declared their independence. Aid was sent to 
 them at once from Corinth; hut the Athenian com¬ 
 mander drove the relieving force inside the walls, and 
 strictly blockaded Potidsea by land and sea. And 
 hence arose a second case, alleged by both parties, of a 
 direct breach of the existing treaties: the Corinthians 
 making it ground of complaint that the Athenians had 
 attacked a colony of theirs; and Athens on her part 
 asserting that the Peloponnesians had tampered with 
 one of their allies and tributaries, excited them to 
 revolt, and aided them with force of arms. “ But not 
 yet,” says the historian, “ had war actually broken out; 
 there was still a pause before the conflict, for the Corin¬ 
 thians had acted on their own independent account.” 
 
 But now they appeared by their envoys at Lacedae¬ 
 mon, and there, in a general congress to which the 
 representatives of all the confederate states were sum¬ 
 moned, publicly accused Athens of having broken the 
 terms of the truce. Megara and ^gina were equally 
 loud in complaint. An embassy had also just arrived 
 from Athens on other business, and was allowed to be 
 present at the debate. Our author gives at some length 
 Uie orations delivered, or which might have been de¬ 
 livered, by the representatives of both interests. The 
 deputies from Corinth reserved their special act of 
 accusation until the last, after the other complainants 
 had been heard, in order to give full effect to their 
 denunciation. Their exordium is an example of the 
 acknowledged rule in rhetoric—to begin by gaining, if 
 possible, the favour of the court;—> 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR. 
 
 25 
 
 “ Your own good faith, men of Lacedaemon, in your 
 internal politics and in your dealings with your neigh¬ 
 bours, makes you naturally inclined to give less credit 
 to any accusation we have to prefer against others; 
 and this same character, while it makes you temperate 
 in your judgment, leaves you more ignorant than you 
 ought to be of what is going on elsewhere.” 
 
 The encroachments of Athens upon the liberties of 
 Greece, they went on to say, had long been notorious. 
 They were bold to assert that for this Lacedaemon 
 herself was somewhat to blame, as having allowed 
 Athens to rebuild her walls, and tacitly permitted her 
 to override her w’eaker neighbours. The orator is 
 very plain-spoken as to the duties of strong neutral 
 powers:— 
 
 “ It is not the state which actually destroys the 
 liberty of others, but the state which has the power to 
 prevent this and will not use it, which is really guilty; 
 especially when it enjoys an honourable reputation as 
 the deliverer of Greece. . . .We know well by 
 what roads and with what gradual approaches Athens 
 moves upon her neighbours. So long as she fancies 
 she can escape detection owing to your apathetic nature, 
 she will not venture too far; but when she feels that 
 though you see her designs you take no notice, then 
 she will urge them forward with the strong hand. 
 For you, Lacedasmonians, are the only power in all 
 Greece who sit inactive, defending yourselves against 
 your enemies not by prompt exercise of strength but 
 
26 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 by mere demonstration, and who proceed to crush the 
 groMdh of a hostile power, not in its early stages but 
 in its fidl development. Yet you used to be reckoned 
 men to be depended on, whereas this character rests 
 rather on repute than on fact. For we know our¬ 
 selves that the Mede had marched from the ends of the 
 earth upon the Peloponnese, before you were ready to 
 meet him in any adequate force : and now these Athe¬ 
 nians, who are not, like the Mede, far away, but close at 
 hand, you take no heed of; but instead of taking the 
 first step against them, you prefer waiting to defend 
 yourselves when they attack you, and to risk everything 
 by postponing the struggle until they shall have become 
 far stronger than they are now. . . . Let no one 
 think this language is spoken in enmity—it is in re¬ 
 monstrance : we may remonstrate even with our friends, 
 when they make mistakes; accusation is for the enemies 
 who have wronged us.” 
 
 If the Corinthian spokesman really “ dealt so faith¬ 
 fully” with his hearers, and if the Lacedsemonians 
 listened to his utterances as to the wise words of a 
 friend, it was creditable to the honesty of both, and 
 stands out in favourable contrast with very much of 
 modern political oratory. But it may be possible for a 
 reader, without incurring the charge of needless scep¬ 
 ticism, to fancy that he discerns the strictures of an 
 Athenian statesman put into the mouth of the Corin¬ 
 thian envoy. So when, a little further on, the orator 
 goes on to estimate and criticise the dangerous enemies 
 with whom they would soon have to deal, we might 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR. 
 
 fancy that we detect the subtle irony which implies 
 praise under cover of censure. The Athenians, says 
 their accuser— 
 
 “ Are bold beyond their strength, venturous even 
 against their judgment, sanguine in the midst of dan¬ 
 ger ; while your wont is to let your deeds fall below 
 your powers, in judgment scarcely to trust even to cer¬ 
 tainties, and in danger never to entertain a hope of 
 escape. Verily they are as prompt as you are dilatory, 
 as fond of foreign expeditions as you are of home ; for 
 they think they may gain somewhat by going abroad, 
 you fancy that by such expeditions you may even risk 
 what you have. When they are victorious over their 
 enemy, they follow up their success to the utmost, and 
 when beaten they least lose heart. . . . When they 
 fail in a design, they look upon themselves as robbed 
 of their just due; when they succeed in making an 
 acquisition, they hold it trifling compared with what 
 they intend shall follow. . . . They have little enjoy¬ 
 ment of what they have, because they are always busy 
 getting more; their only idea of a festival is the dis¬ 
 charge of a duty, and they consider inactive leisure a 
 greater infliction than laborious occupation. In short, 
 one might very fairly sum up their character by 
 saying that they were born to have no rest them¬ 
 selves, nor to allow their neighbours to have any.”—• 
 (I. 68-71.) 
 
 The speaker ended by calling on the Lacedaemonians 
 to deliver Potidaea, and thus maintain their high posi- 
 
28 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 tion in Greece—“tlie noble inheritance which their 
 fathers had bequeathed to them.” 
 
 Then the Athenian envoys asked permission to speak. 
 Xot in reply to the accusation, they said—for they did 
 not admit the jurisdiction of that court—but on the 
 general question. Greece had no need to fear them— 
 and much reason to be proud of them. Had they all 
 forgotten Marathon and Salamisl Were the Lacedae¬ 
 monians jealous of their dominion? It was a greatness 
 that Lad been thrust upon them in the first instance ; 
 they had but accepted the leadership of Greece at the 
 request of the Greeks themselves. But, granted that 
 they did not care to retire from this position, now that 
 they had once attained it,—was there anything un¬ 
 natural in that ? And if the states now dependent on 
 Athens were to change their masters, and come under 
 the power of some others they could name, would their 
 position be improved ? 
 
 “ Do not resolve, then, hastily, for this is no mere 
 question of the moment; do not be led away by other 
 people’s fancies and complaints, and so bring trouble 
 on yourselves; but consider, before you involve your¬ 
 selves in it, how very apt war is to disappoint all cal¬ 
 culations, and how, when protracted, its results come 
 to depend mainly upon fortune, which is beyond the 
 control of either party, and whose event both have to 
 risk in the dark. When men have to contend with an 
 enemy, they are too apt to begin with action, which 
 should be the last resort; and only when they get into 
 .difficulties they apply themselves to negotiation. But 
 we have not yet taken this false step, nor do we see 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR. 
 
 29 
 
 that you have; and we adjure you, while prudent 
 counsels are still within the choice of both, not to 
 violate the treaty or break your oaths, but to let the 
 points in dispute be settled by arbitration, in accord¬ 
 ance with the terms. Or else, calling to witness the 
 gods who received our oaths, we will try to meet you 
 if you begin hostilities, on whatever path you lead the 
 way.”—(I. 78.) 
 
 The representatives of the confederate states were 
 ordered to withdraw, that the Lacedaemonians might 
 deliberate among themselves in council.* The majority 
 of the voices were for immediate war; but Archidamus, 
 second of that name, who was then one of the two 
 kings, urged upon them milder counsels. He was old 
 enough, he said, to have seen something of war, and 
 he knew what it was. He knew also the strength of 
 Athens. They were no match for her in resources— 
 especially in ships and money. In heavy infantry, no 
 doubt, they were superior; but heavy infantry could 
 not be employed everywhere. “ Let us not buoy 
 ourselves up,” he warns them, “with that delusive 
 hope that, if we do but lay waste their lands, the 
 war will soon be over; I rather fear that we may 
 leave it as a heritage to our children.” Let them try 
 negotiation first; meanwhile, let them improve their 
 revenue, and make good preparation for war if it must 
 come. 
 
 * The subordinate states in the Spartan confederacy seem to 
 have been allowed only to give their several votes in these 
 conventions either in confirmation or rejection of a measure 
 proposed by Sparta. 
 
30 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 The debate was closed by Sthenilaidas, one of the 
 Ephors, and who in that capacity had to take the 
 votes, in a speech of true Spartan brevity, which we 
 may well conceive as having been actually spoken. 
 It is perhaps the only instance in which any distinct 
 peculiarity of style, national or individual, appears in 
 any of these orations : — 
 
 “The long harangue of the Athenians I do not 
 understand: they praised themselves a good deal, but 
 they never denied they had wronged our allies and the 
 Peloponnese generally. And if they did show them¬ 
 selves good men and true in past days against the 
 Medes, yet show themselves bad men towards us now, 
 why, they deserve double punishment, for having 
 turned from good to bad. Put we are the same men 
 now that we were then; and if we be wise, we shall 
 not see our allies wronged, or put off avenging them; 
 for they cannot put off their suffering. Others may 
 have plenty of money, and ships, and horses; we have 
 trusty allies, whom we are not to sacrifice to the 
 Athenians, or leave the question to arbitration and 
 talk—it is not by talk that we are being injured—^but 
 avenge them at once with all speed and with all our 
 might. And let no man tell me that, when we are 
 wronged, we must consider about it: it is more fitting 
 for people to consider—and consider a long time, too 
 —before they do a wrong. Vote for war, then, 
 Lacedaemonians, as befits the honour of Sparta; and 
 do not let the Athenians increase their power, nor let 
 us desert our allies, but put our trust in the gods, and 
 march at once against these wrong-doers.”—(I. 86.) 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR. 
 
 31 
 
 "War was voted, by a large majority—“ not so much,” 
 says Thucydides, “ because they had been convinced 
 by the arguments of their allies, as because they feared 
 the growing power of Athens.” They next sent to 
 Delphi to consult the oracle; and the answer, as re¬ 
 ported, ran to this effect: “If thev made war with all 
 their might, the victory shuida oe theirs; and that the 
 god himself would help them, whether they summoned 
 him or not.” 
 
 In accordance with the constitution of the Spartan 
 League, the subject-allies were now called upon to con¬ 
 firm or reject the decision. They were convoked at 
 Delos; and again envoys came from Corinth to reiterate 
 their appeal. Again they inveighed against the growing 
 ambition of Athens, and prophesied success if all did 
 but co-operate against her vigorously; but operations 
 must be immediate to be effectual, for Potidaea was 
 in danger of falling every day. 
 
 The votes of the confederate states were taken in 
 succession, and the majority were for war. They were 
 unprepared for immediate action, but they undertook 
 to provide their several contingents with as little delay 
 as might be.* 
 
 * It may be well to note in this place the chief allies and 
 dependants of both parties during the war. On the side of 
 Athens—the islands of the Archipelago and its neighbourhood 
 generally (except Melos and Thera, which were neutral), and 
 of Corcyra and Zacynthus ; the Ionian colonies on the coast 
 of Asia Minor; and the towns of Platsea and Naupactus in 
 Greece itself. On the side of Lacedaemon—the whole of the 
 Peloponnese except Argos and Achaia (neutral), Megara, Bceotia, 
 Locris, Phocis, &c., in Greece proper. 
 
CHAPTER rV. 
 
 OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 It was full a year after the Lacedsemonians had de¬ 
 cided upon war that hostilities actually began. They 
 sent repeated embassies to Athens with complaints; 
 not so much, says the historian, with a view to ar¬ 
 ranging the dispute, as “in order that they might 
 show as good cause as possible for going to war, if 
 the Athenians would not listen to them.” 
 
 Both parties had invoked the aid of the gods in 
 what each protested was the cause of right and justice. 
 Both now sought to put their adversaries in the wrong 
 on the religious ground. The Lacedsemonians sent a 
 solemn demand to the Athenians “ to purge themselves 
 from the breach of sanctuary in the matter of Cylon.” 
 It was an old story, dating back nearly two hundred 
 years. This Cylon, with a body of partisans, had seized 
 the Acropolis of Athens with the view of setting up 
 a despotism; had failed, and made his escape. But 
 some of his adherents had taken sanctuary at the altar 
 of Minen’^a in the citadel, had been tempted from 
 there by the promise of safety, and afterwards put to 
 death. The parties implicated in this sacrilegious 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 33 
 
 proceeding had been banished, but afterwards allowed 
 to return; and the demand now was—avowedly in 
 deference to the national religious feeling of Greece— 
 that the descendants of this accursed race should at 
 once be expelled from Athens. But the real object of 
 disinterring such a question at this moment was, no 
 doubt, as Thucydides considers it to have been, to caU 
 upon Athens for the expulsion of her ablest citizen 
 and most earnest advocate of resistance. Pericles, by 
 his mother’s side, was descended from the great house 
 of Alcm^eon, who were implicated in the charge. It 
 was not probable that Athens would comply with the 
 demand; and here would be another pretext for war, 
 under a religious sanction. 
 
 The Athenians were not slow in retorting. They had 
 even a double-edged weapon of the kind to bring to bear 
 against their enemies. There was the notorious case 
 of Sparta’s great hero, Pausanias, whom—guilty or not 
 guilty of the treason imputed to him—his countrymen 
 had starved to death in the “ Brazen House ” of Min- 
 erva. There was the case, too, of the rebel Helots who 
 had been forcibly dragged from the shrine of Heptune 
 at Tsenarus and put to death—an act which the Spar¬ 
 tans themselves confessed had been punished by an 
 earthquake, sent by the great “ Earth-shaker; ” let 
 them now drive out of their city the families of all 
 concerned in these notorious acts of sacrilege, if they 
 would go to war with clean hands. 
 
 The I.acedsemonians sent an embassy to offer terms 
 to Athens. If they would raise the siege of Potidaea 
 —if they would restore the independence of Hfgma— 
 
 A.c.s.s. voi. vi. o 
 
34 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 if they would rescind the decree which excluded tdl 
 Megareans, on pain of death, from Athenian ports and 
 markets—and if they would undertake in the future 
 to respect the independence of the weaker allies,— 
 then peace might he still maintained. This was re¬ 
 fused ; and then they sent their ultimatum, couched 
 in the briefest and most haughty terms—Let Athens 
 declare the independence of all the Greeks, and there 
 might yet he peace. 
 
 These terms were discussed in full assembly at 
 Athens. Opinions were divided, until Pericles, son of 
 Xanthippus, “the foremost man in Athens at that time, 
 both in eloquence and practical ability,” came forward 
 and spoke. It may be here observed that Thucydides 
 gives us scarcely anything that can be called a char¬ 
 acter, or even the briefest biographical notice, of the 
 great men who play such important parts in his history* 
 He introduces them to us, as in this passage, in the 
 fewest possible words; and he dismia^e^j them sometimes 
 —notably in this case of Pericles—-’^rith even less for¬ 
 mality. This may be partly owuig to the fact that he 
 was writing, in the first instance, /ci a generation co¬ 
 temporary with the events he i./rrates, and to Avhom 
 the characters in the story, their personal history and 
 their habits of life, were all well known. But the 
 omission of such notices, absolutely necessary as they 
 are in order to appreciate the influence of such men 
 upon the domestic and foreign history of their coun¬ 
 try, and which the modern reader has to gather as 
 he may from other sources, is especially remarkable 
 in an author who declares at the outset that he is 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 35 
 
 writing not for cotemporaries only, but for all pos¬ 
 terity. 
 
 Pericles, of whom he tells us at once so much and 
 so little, had now been the virtual ruler of the Athe¬ 
 nian people for above thirty years, and was to hold 
 that position, with only what may be called accidental 
 interruptions, for yet some few years more. Virtual 
 ruler,—for his power, which was at one period greater 
 than that of any man before or since in Athens, rested 
 only on a tacit recognition of his supremacy, and not 
 on any legal or constitutional grounds. He was neither 
 archon nor member of the great Court of Areopagus : 
 he was but a young man of good family who had 
 gained an ascendancy in the state, partly at first by 
 the popularity and influence inherited from his father 
 Xanthippus, but mainly by his own consummate abili¬ 
 ties. His position in the state may be not inaptly, 
 though not quite accurately, compared with that of an 
 English commoner who, with a good introduction to 
 public life, has been raised by the voice of the nation 
 to the Premiership—and who may at any time, by 
 a sudden change in that voice, have to retire into the 
 ranks again. All authorities are agreed in describing 
 the personal qualifications of Pericles as having been 
 remarkable. In person he was compared to the god¬ 
 like Peisistratus : his head was said to be as beautiful 
 as that of the statues of Bacchus, or even as Jupiter 
 himself—though his enemies, alluding to some slight 
 deformity, said that it must, then, be an “onion¬ 
 headed ” Jupiter. Statesman, soldier, and philosopher, 
 a man of highly cultivnted tastes and varied accom- 
 
36 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 plislunents, he represented well the Athens which he 
 “ had found of brick and left of marble.” And, how¬ 
 ever he may be indebted to Thucydides for much of 
 the oratory put into his mouth in this ‘ History of 
 the War,’ it is certain that his own eloquence was of 
 the most commanding order. 
 
 It was he who now came forward to urge upor 
 the wavering Assembly an uncompromising refusal of 
 the Peloponnesian demands, as the only course con¬ 
 sistent with the honour of Athens. To arbitration 
 they might have consented; but this was sheer dicta¬ 
 tion. “Any demand which an equal insists upon 
 enforcing on a neighbour, before offering to submit 
 it to arbitration, means nothing more or less than 
 subjection, be such demand great or small.” They had 
 the advantage of their adversaries in wealth, in unity 
 of counsels, and above all in their fleet. Only let no 
 exasperation which they might feel at the probable 
 devastation of their territory tempt them to meet the 
 enemy’s land forces in a general engagement: there, 
 they would be no match for them. Let them look 
 upon themselves in the light of islanders, and guard 
 well the sea and their capital. He foresaw more 
 danger from their own schemes of foreign conquest than 
 from the present enemy. 
 
 This warlike speech was received with acclamation, 
 and the Lacedaemonian ultimatum rejected. And soon 
 the war began in earnest, though as yet hostile opera¬ 
 tions were strictly local. The town of Plataea lay 
 within the territory of Boeotia, of which Thebes was 
 the leading state : but ever since the great day of 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 37 
 
 the battle to which it gave its name, it had continued 
 the faithful and honoured ally of Athens, but with 
 its independence guaranteed by the national gratitude 
 of all the Greek states. But it was only natural that 
 the Thebans should have been always jealous of this 
 little “state within a state;” especially since the fact 
 of this independence and alliance with Athens was 
 a standing memorial of Theban weakness—or worse 
 —in betraying the interest of Greece in her struggle 
 with Persia. An attempt was now made by Thebes 
 to detach Plataea forcibly from the Athenian protec¬ 
 torate, and absorb it into the Boeotian league. A 
 party of three hundred Thebans, admitted under cover 
 of night by some friends within, tried to make them¬ 
 selves masters of the place : they failed, the majority 
 were taken prisoners, and put to death in cold blood. 
 The cruelty was nothing very exceptional in those 
 times; but in this particular case, a breach of faith 
 was alleged against the men of Plataea, and the 
 Athenians (to whom, on the first alarm, an appeal 
 for aid had been despatched) had even sent — too 
 late—to desire that the prisoners might not be dealt 
 with till their arrival. They at once garrisoned the 
 to^vn, as a siege by the enraged Thebans was im¬ 
 minent. 
 
 Both confederacies now prepared for a war whose 
 area and proportions none could undertake to limit. 
 The Peloponnesian Greeks even thought of sending to 
 ask aid of the national enemy—“the King,” as the 
 Persian monarch was always termed by those who 
 had little acquaintance with monarchies. Thucydides 
 
38 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 dtiscribes the intense expectation which prevailed 
 throughout peninsular and continental Greece:— 
 
 “1^0 operations on a small scale Were in the thought 
 of either party, hut they braced themselves for war 
 in earnest. And not unnaturally; for men are always 
 most eager at starting, and at that date there was a 
 large body of youth growing up in the Peloponnese, 
 and in Athens too, who took to war enthusiastically, 
 as having had no experience of it. And all the rest 
 of Greece looked on in anxious expectation at this 
 conflict between its two principal states. Many pro¬ 
 phecies were quoted, and the soothsayers gave out a 
 great many oracular verses, both in the states which 
 were going to war and in the others. There had been 
 an earthquake in Delos, moreover, a little before, 
 though the island had never previously felt a shock 
 within the memory of the Greeks; and this was said 
 —and indeed it so seemed—to be a warning of what 
 was to happen. And anything else of the kind 
 which took place was all hunted up for the occasion. 
 The public feeling all ran in favour of the Lacedae¬ 
 monians, especially as they gave themselves out as the 
 liberators of Greece. Individuals and states alike, 
 all did their best to help them, both by word and 
 deed, in every way they could: and every one thought 
 matters were going all wrong where he could not be 
 present in person. So exasperated were almost all 
 of them against the Athenians, some from the desire 
 to be freed from their rule, others from fear of being 
 brought under it.”—(II. 8.) And they all thought, 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 39 
 
 as the writer tells us in a later part of his work,* that 
 two or three campaigns at most would see the end 
 of that hated dominion, if the allied troops ravaged, 
 as they could easily do, her territory season after 
 season. 
 
 Is it because Athens appears to have been thus 
 singly matched against almost all Greece in arms, or 
 is it from an unconscious sympathy with the Athe¬ 
 nian historian, fairly impartial as he is acknowledged 
 to be—or because of the final result of the struggle, 
 or from something of that “ insularity ” of feeling 
 in ourselves which Pericles tried to impress on his 
 countrymen,—that as we read, we nearly all of us 
 become partisans cf Athens! 
 
 Two-thirds of the regular contingent from each of 
 the Peloponnesian confederates were under orders to 
 assemble at the Isthmus for an invasion of Attica, 
 where they were briefly harangued by the Spartan 
 king Archidamus. A herald was sent in the last 
 resort to Athens, but was escorted back to the fron¬ 
 tier that same evening without an audience,—“ the 
 Athenians would listen to an envoy when the enemy 
 had quitted their soil.” He turned to his escort, as 
 he crossed the border, with the ominous words, adapted 
 from the great national poet,—“ This day will be the 
 beginning of much woe to the Greeks.”! 
 
 Archidamus, after aU, proceeded with almost more 
 than Spartan caution; dilatoriness, many of his allies 
 called it. The real explanation, as Thucydides thinks, 
 was that he still believed that, in view of the imme- 
 * VII. 28. t Homer, Iliad, I. 2 
 
40 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 diate ravaging of their lands, the Athenians wonld 
 give way. He wasted precious time before the little 
 stronghold of CEnoe, waiting for some message to this 
 effect. They had no such thought; or, if any of them 
 had, they were overborne by the strong sphit of 
 Pericles. He laid before them the statistics of their 
 resources: a yearly income from the tribute paid by 
 the allies of say <£140,000; a reserve in the Acropolis 
 of a million and a quarter; in public possessions of 
 uncoined gold and silver, something like £130,000. 
 A very small revenue in the eyes of a modern finan¬ 
 cier, but doubtless considerable for a Greek state in 
 those early times. Their army—including what we 
 should call the ‘‘ reserve ” forces, fit only for garrison 
 duty—amounted to barely 32,000. A small German 
 principality in our own times would have boasted a 
 larger force. But we must remember that this estimate 
 may safely be doubled in the actual number of men; 
 for each heavy-armed foot-soldier had his shield-bearer, 
 and each horseman his groom. Military strength is 
 relative, in aU ages; and perhaps no modern state 
 maintains so large a force, in proportion to its popula¬ 
 tion, as Athens at this time. They had a fleet of 300 
 war-galleys (each carrying about 300 men), and on 
 those they chiefly depended.* 
 
 The Athenian rural population prepared at once to 
 quit their farms and homesteads, and abandon to the 
 invader all the property which could not be carried 
 away. Their cattle and sheep they sent across to 
 
 * The population of Athens at this period has been esti¬ 
 mated roughly at 600,000. She had something like 60,000 
 men, in all, on foreign service in the early part of the war. 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 .41 
 
 Euboea and the adjacent islands; their wives and 
 children, their portable chattels—even the framework 
 of their houses—they carried with them into the city. 
 How far this was an act of national self-devotion, so 
 far as the masses were concerned, or how far they 
 acted under a kind of moral compulsion from Pericles 
 and the more powerful and influential urban residents, 
 it is impossible to say. There is abundant evidence 
 that it was a grievous trial. “ They had been accus¬ 
 tomed always to a country life, much more than the 
 other Greeks,” says our historian; “ they suffered great 
 hardship in the removal, especially as they had but 
 lately restored their tenements after the Persian 
 war.” 
 
 “ They went with heavy hearts, and took it hard to 
 have to leave their homes and holy places, which had be¬ 
 longed to their fathers before them, time out of mind, 
 under the old constitution; having to change all their 
 habits of life, and thus to leave what was to each one 
 of them nothing less than their native country. And 
 when they had got into the city, some few had houses 
 there, or found refuge with friends or relatives; but 
 the great number of them had to seek quarters in the 
 vacant parts of the city, and in the precincts of temples 
 
 and shrines of heroes, except the Acropolis and the 
 •»> 
 
 temple of Eleusinian Ceres, and other places that were 
 rigidly closed.” CL 16, 17.) 
 
 * For some humorous details of the shifts to which the new¬ 
 comers were reduced, the reader may refer to the “ Knights ’ of 
 Aristophanes, where some are represented as liaving to take up 
 their abode in hen-coops and pigeon-holes. 
 
42 
 
 TUUCYDIDES. 
 
 One forbidden portion of ground was built upon by 
 these new immigrants, in spite of the warning of an 
 ancient oracle that “the Pelasgicon were best unin¬ 
 habited.” This is the only instance, except that of an 
 old prediction popularly quoted at the beginning of 
 this war,—that it should last thrice nine years,*—in 
 which the writer seems to admit any genuine corre¬ 
 spondence between the prediction and the event; and 
 even here he philosophically traces the result not to 
 the occupation of forbidden ground, but to the gen¬ 
 eral overcrowding. 
 
 It was nearly three months after the failure of the , 
 Thebans at Platsea that Archidamus led his forces into 
 Athenian territory; and by that time the country people 
 had seciu'od all their movable property within the city 
 walls. But the corn was just ripe, and the crop of 
 olives coming on, and all were destroyed, almost within 
 sight of the owners. The invaders lingered some time 
 in the district of Acharnse, less than eight miles from 
 Athens, in the hope either of drawing out the Athenian 
 forces to defend one of their richest and strongest out- 
 settlements, or of driving the Acharnians themselves to 
 disaffection, when they saw the apparent apathy shown 
 by their countrymen to their personal sufferings. But 
 Pericles held the Athenians well in hand. Though the 
 younger men chafed and clamoured to be led into 
 the field, he would not permit an Assembly to be 
 called even to deliberate on the question of marching 
 out, and was content to hear himself now called “ the 
 author of all their calamities.” It was not till their 
 
 * V. 26. 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 43 
 
 commissariat failed that the invading force withdrew, 
 and disbanded to their several cities. 
 
 The Athenians in their turn entered upon the 
 aggressive, sending a powerful fleet of a hundred and 
 fifty galleys to make descents upon the coast of the 
 peninsula. Amongst other places they attacked the 
 strong position at Methone (Modon), on the south¬ 
 west corner of Laconia, hut which was at this time 
 hut weakly fortified and garrisoned. But a Lacedae¬ 
 monian officer happened to he in the neighbourhood 
 who was to play a short hut brilliant part in this war; 
 who was soon to he personally matched in the field 
 against Thucydides himself; and whose conduct was 
 to have no little influence on the historian’s future 
 fortunes. Brasidas,—the favourite hero of one of our 
 most successful students of ancient history, Arnold of 
 Rugby—and who seems a favourite with Thucydides 
 also, so far as that feeling can he said to exist in his 
 cold judgment,—Brasidas cut his way with a hundred 
 men through the besiegers, and saved the place; the 
 first man, says Thucydides, who received the public 
 thanks of Sparta (not much given to such recognitions) 
 for good service in this war. The Athenians took 
 signal vengeance on the islanders of .^gina, whose 
 demand for independence they regarded as one of the 
 chief causes of the war. They cleared them all off, 
 and settled the island with colonists of their own; and 
 the unfortunate natives had to migrate into a territory 
 assigned them by the Lacedaemonians on the frontier 
 between themselves and that of Argolis. The other 
 hated neighbour of Athens, Megara, was swept by an 
 
44 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 overwlielming land and sea force under Pericles in 
 person; and for some years afterwards the visit was 
 repeated by the Athenians year by year, as regularly 
 as the enemy’s forces made their raid upon the corn¬ 
 fields and olive-grounds of Attica. 
 
 Early in the winter of this year, at the close of the 
 campaign, the Athenians held their public funeral of 
 those citizens who had fallen in the war. It was a 
 striking national ceremony, probably dating as far 
 hack as the close of the great Persian wars. Here 
 is the description of it;— 
 
 They lay out the hones of the slain three days 
 previously in a tent erected for the purpose, and each 
 family bring for their own dead any offering they 
 please. When the time comes for carrying them 
 forth to burial, sarcophagi made of cypress-wood are 
 placed on cars, one for each tri))e; in these are laid 
 the hones of each man, according to the tribe to which 
 he belonged; and one hier is carried empty, spread 
 with funeral garments, for the missing, whose hones 
 could not he collected to be brought home. Any one 
 who will, citizen or sojourner, joins in the procession; 
 and the women of the family are present at the funeral, 
 to make their lament for the dead. So they lay them 
 in the public cemetery, which is in the fairest suburb 
 of the city; and there do they always bury those who 
 fait in battle, excepting those who died at Marathon 
 > heroes they buried there, where they fell, as 
 thci^. valour to have been exceptional. And 
 
 when they.laydihem in the ground, some citizen selected 
 
 ■ ^ -4 ’ 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 45 
 
 by the state, as of proved ability and distinguished 
 reputation, pronounces over them a fitting panegyric; 
 after which all withdraw. In such fashion do they 
 bury them; and all through this war, whenever they 
 had the opportunity, they observed this custom.”— 
 (II. 34.) 
 
 The speaker chosen on this occasion was Pericles 
 himself. We know, from other sources, that he had 
 performed this duty at least once before—after the 
 reduction of Samos. He now mounted the platform 
 arranged for the purpose, so that his voice might be 
 heard as far as possible by the assembled multitude, 
 and delivered an oration which, as it stands in the 
 pages of Thucydides, is admitted to be one of the 
 finest of those grand rhetorical declamations which 
 were the glory of Athenian orators and the delight of 
 their audience. The arrangement and structure of the 
 sentences, and much of the language, are no doubt the 
 historian’s own. But it may be safely assumed that 
 he was present at the delivery, that his admiration of 
 the speaker would have held him in rapt attention, 
 and that his preconceived determination to become the 
 historian of the war would lead him to preserve as 
 much as possible both of the argument and the lan¬ 
 guage—possibly in the shape of notes, certainly from 
 his own recollection and that of others. And 
 it must be allowed, is always most retent^e' 
 written records are scarce. We are told, indebd|;^ 
 may trust the authority of Cicero, whose 
 rest upon accurate tradition, that Peri^s wrot^ hk 
 
46 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 speeclies. If tliis were the case, the historian might 
 have had in his hands a copy. The speaker begins hy 
 declaring that no words—certainly not Ms words—can 
 do justice to the actions of the dead; they are beyond 
 all praise of men. Nor will he dwell now on that 
 well-worn topic, the glories of their ancestors. He will 
 speak rather of their internal polity. 
 
 “ First, let me set forth, before I proceed with my 
 oration, what has been the course of training hy which 
 we gained our present position, and what the political 
 constitution and habits of life which have made our 
 greatness. For I think this is a topic not unbefitting 
 the occasion, and one which this whole assembly, 
 citizens and strangers alike, will do well to listen to. 
 
 “ The constitution we enjoy is no imitation from our 
 neighbours—we claim to he rather a model to others 
 than a copy from them. It hears the name of democracy, 
 because our institutions are for the good of the many, 
 not of the few. In the matter of legal rights, every 
 man stands on the same footing in all private suits in 
 our courts: in the matter of position and reputation, 
 according as a man distinguishes himself in any line of 
 life, so he rises to public honours, not by social caste 
 BO much as by merit. Nor is any man excluded on the 
 ground of poverty, by the obscurity of his rank, so he 
 be able to do the state good service. As we live under 
 froe institutions in our public life, so in our private 
 daily intercourse with each other we cultivate no spirit 
 of jealousy, nor quarrel with our neighbour because he 
 follows his own tastes, nor cast looks at him intended 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 47 
 
 to annoy if they cannot punish. While Ave thus prao 
 tise forbearance in private intercourse, in public matters 
 we have a thorough fear of licence, hearkening to the 
 constituted authorities and to the laws, especially such 
 as are ordained for the protection of the injured, and 
 to those which, though never formally enacted, all men 
 hold it shame to violate. 
 
 “ Yet amidst our graver occupations Ave provide 
 abundant relaxation for the spirits, in the public games 
 and sacrifices Avhich we hold year by year, and in the 
 splendour of our private establishments, in the daily 
 enjoyment of Avhich we banish care. And because of 
 the greatness of this our city, all abundance from all 
 lands comes in to us ; and it is our happy lot to enjoy 
 the good things of foreigners not less familiarly than 
 the products of our OAvn soil. 
 
 ‘‘ In our military training we present a contrast to our 
 opponents in these points. We throw our city open 
 to all the world. AYe have no regulations Avhich 
 exclude the foreigner from full investigation and in¬ 
 spection, for fear lest an enemy may profit by the 
 knowledge; * for we trust not so much to crafty pre¬ 
 cautions as to our intrinsic valour in action. In our 
 educational training, while some nations aim at forming 
 a warlike spirit by laborious discipline from the earli¬ 
 est years, we, with all our easy life, can face dangers 
 as great, and as boldly, as they can. The facts proA^e 
 it: the Lacedaimonians never venture on an expedition 
 against our territory Avith a division only of their army, 
 
 * Refeiring to the Alien Acts (if they may be so termed) 
 by wliich Sparta, jealously guarded herself. 
 
48 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 but with their whole force; but when we Atheniani? 
 unsupported invade, our neighbours’ territory, we com¬ 
 monly get the best of it, and that easily, though on a 
 hostile soil and against men who are fighting for their 
 homes. Indeed, our collective force no enemy has ever 
 yet engaged, because we have at once to maintain our 
 naval armament and to despatch our troops to so many 
 different quarters on land. But whenever they engage 
 a division of our army, if they beat a detachment they 
 claim to have repulsed our whole force, and to have 
 been defeated by our whole force if they get the worst 
 of it. And surely, if we are willing to face the perils of 
 war out of our careless ease rather than after a painful 
 training, and with a courage that springs from character 
 rather than from regulation, we have this advantage : 
 we never distress ourselves beforehand about perils to 
 come, yet we show ourselves, when we have to face 
 them, fully as brave as others who are always toiling. 
 
 “ I say our state is to be admired for this, and yet 
 for more than this. We cultivate refinement without 
 extravagance, and philosophy without effeminacy; we 
 value wealth for its practical advantages, not as a thing 
 for boastful display; and it is not the confession of 
 poverty that we hold disgraceful, but rather the not 
 setting ourselves to work to escape from it. 
 
 “ With us, men are expected to attend to their public 
 as well as to their private duties; even those engaged 
 in manual labour have a competent knowledge of polit¬ 
 ical questions; and we alone, if a man takes no part in 
 such questions, instead of excusing him as being ‘ no 
 meddler,’ despise him as being no good citizen. As a 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 40 
 
 body, we can all judge, of public measures at least, if 
 we cannot originate them; and we do not hold that 
 discussion hinders action, but that the greater hindrance 
 is not to have discussed and understood a measure 
 b-.fore we have to carry it out. For I consider we 
 possess in an eminent degree this characteristic,—we 
 are at once bold in conception and careful in the calcu¬ 
 lation of our plans; whereas in general, ignorance leads 
 men to venture, while calculation makes them hesitate. 
 And those may be rightly adjudged most courageous in 
 spirit, who, with the fullest,appreciation of all that is 
 pleasant as well as all that is hard, yet never for that 
 reason shrink from danger. In our estimate of merit, 
 too, we differ from the world in general; we make our 
 friends not by receiving benefits but by conferring 
 them. Th'e party who confers a kindness is like to 
 prove the more constant friend : he seeks by kindness 
 to keep alive the sense of obligation in the party 
 benefited; while he who lies under the obligation is 
 not so eager about it, feeling that all he does in return 
 will be reckoned matter of debt and not of favour. 
 And we are the only people who unhesitatingly give 
 aid where needed, not so much from ealculations of in¬ 
 terest as from the confidence of a liberal spirit. 
 
 I assert, in short, that our whole polity is a school 
 for Greece; while, if we come to individuals, it is 
 amongst us that the same man shows all personal 
 qualifications for the most varied parts in life, with the 
 most accomplished versatility. That this is no mere 
 vaimting talk for the occasion, but the simple truth 
 of facts, the very power which this state enjoys, and 
 A.C.S.S. vol. vi. D 
 
50 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 which it has reached through such a line of conduct, 
 gives proof enough. For ours is the only state which, 
 when brought to the test, rises higher than its reputa¬ 
 tion ; the only one which leaves an invading enemy no 
 mortification at having been worsted at such hands, and 
 gives no subject room to complain that he is governed 
 by unworthy masters. AVe have given abundant 
 justification for our supremacy: we have not left our¬ 
 selves without witness; we shall win the admiration 
 both of our o-wn and future generations. We need no 
 Homer to praise us, nor any poet to charm by his verse 
 for the moment, whilst plain facts will afterwards 
 belie the impression thus formed of our deeds. AVe 
 shall have made every sea and every shore accessible 
 to our daring, and shall have founded everywhere im¬ 
 perishable memorials of our power alike to benefit and 
 to punish. Such is the state for which our friends 
 have fought and died, determined that she should never 
 be wrested from them: and we their survivors will 
 surely be ready, every one of us, to suffer for her 
 too.”—(II. 36-41.) 
 
 This public funeral must, from the necessity of 
 things, have been rather a commemorative service for 
 those who had fallen in battle, in the majority of 
 cases, than an actual mterment of their ashes. Few 
 comparatively were the cases in which the remains 
 of the slain could in any shape have been brought 
 back to Athens. The very boast of the orabu, 
 that every known sea and shore bore witness to 
 
OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 51 
 
 Athenian enterprise, tells where she had burred her 
 dead;— 
 
 “ Their graves were severed far and wide, 
 
 By mount, and stream, and sea.” 
 
 The orator makes use of this fact as he goes on. 
 
 “ They gave their lives for their country, and gained 
 for themselves a glory that can never fade, a tomb 
 that shall stand as a mark for ever. I do not mean 
 that in which their bodies lie, but that in which their 
 renown lives after them, to be remembered for ever on 
 every occasion of speech or action which calls it to 
 mind. For the whole earth is the grave and mon¬ 
 ument of heroes; it is not the mere graving upon 
 marble in their native land which sets forth their deeds, 
 but even in lands where they were strangers, there lives 
 an unwritten record in every heart, felt though never 
 embodied.” 
 
 The orator concludes with words of condolence for 
 the sorrowing relatives. They do not rise perhaps 
 much above the unavoidable commonplace of all con¬ 
 dolences, and are not free from the artificial rhetoric 
 which he and his hearers loved. Yet there are fine 
 touches here and there. 
 
 “ I call those fortunate whose death, like theirs, or 
 whose sorrow, like yours, has the fullest portion of 
 honour, and whose end comes at the moment they are 
 happiest. Yet I feel how hard it is to persuade you 
 
52 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 of this, when in the triumphs of their comrades— 
 triumphs in which you once used to rejoice—you will so 
 oft^n be reminded of those you have lost: and sorrow 
 is felt not for the blessings we have never tasted, but 
 for those to which we have been accustomed and of 
 which we are deprived. . . . 
 
 “ i\.nd for you, their children or their brothetrs who 
 are here present, I see an arduous struggle before you. 
 Eor all are wont to praise those who are no more, and 
 hardly, even though your own deserts be extraordinary, 
 will you be held to have equalled or approached theirs. 
 There is ever a jealousy of the living, as rivals; it is ' 
 only those who stand no longer in our path that we 
 honour with an ungrudging affection.”—(II. 44, 45.) 
 
 So, with the promise that the orphans of those who 
 had fallen should be regarded as the children of the 
 state, to be educated and maintained at the public cost, 
 Pericles dismisses the assembly. The winter had now 
 set in, and this public funeral marks the close of the 
 first year of the war. 
 
\ 
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 
 
 . y * » 
 
 The second summer of the war began miserably for 
 Ath(}ns. The Pelopoimesians in full force invaded the 
 coimtry a second time on the west and north, and for 
 forty days cut, burned, and destroyed far more exten¬ 
 sively and completely than in their former raid. They 
 had lost all fear of interruption from the Athenian 
 forces, who kept within their walls as formerly, in 
 accordance with the policy of Pericles. But before 
 they had been many days in the country, a far more 
 terrible enemy had made its appearance there, which 
 was lilcely to spare neither of the parties in the con¬ 
 test, and.whose presence, as soon as it was fully re¬ 
 cognised, made the invaders hastily mthdraw. 
 
 A pestilence broke out in the overcrowded streets 
 and suburbs of Athens. Whatever it was—and its 
 exact identification seems impossible—it was said to 
 have begun in Ethiopia, and after passing through 
 Libya, and thence through a great part of the Persian 
 empire, to have crossed the Archipelago, visiting espe¬ 
 cially the island of Lemnos, and so to have been 
 conveyed, by the usual channel of some merchant 
 
54 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 trader, to the harbour of Piraeus, which was the 
 quarter where it first broke out within the Athenian 
 walls. At once there arose the cry—to he repeated 
 so often in subsequent history—that the enemy had 
 “ poisoned the wells.” That in a city crowded beyond 
 all sanitary rules, the wells, or rather tanks, were 
 “poisoned” is highly probable — hut hardly by the 
 Peloponnesians. Prom the description given here by 
 Thucydides, the disease appears to have been a viru¬ 
 lent eruptive fever—of what precise type it is impos¬ 
 sible to say.* The historian was himself attacked 
 by it, and had also, he tells us, watched the cases of 
 other sufferers. The careful details which he has set 
 down of the symptoms and general course of the 
 disease are considered, by competent medical author¬ 
 ities, remarkable for their clearness and intelligence, 
 when we take into account not only the very imper¬ 
 fect state of medical science, hut the fact that the 
 writer cannot he supposed to have had any techni¬ 
 cal knowledge in such matters. Pemarkahle, too, is 
 the calm practical foresight which led him to note the 
 particulars, in order that, as he says, by reference to 
 them it might he possible to recognise the disease in 
 case of its recurrence. 
 
 “ That year, as was generally remarked, was particu¬ 
 larly free from cases of ordinary sickness; and if any 
 
 * M. Littr^, in his Introduction to the works of Hippocrates 
 (tome i. p. 122), pronounces it to have been “an eruptive fever, 
 differing from smallpox, and now extinct.”—See Grote, Hist, 
 of Greece, iv. 278, note. 
 
TUE PLAGUE AT ATHENE. 
 
 55 
 
 one liad been suffering from a previous attack of any 
 kind, all such cases terminated in this. But in general 
 persons were attacked by it suddenly, while in full 
 health, without ostensible cause. First they were 
 seized with violent flushings about the head, and red¬ 
 ness and turgescence of the eyes; within, the fauces 
 and the tongue became all at once blood-red, and 
 the breath unnatural and fetid. After this came on 
 sneezing and hoarseness; and in a short time the 
 suffering extended down into the chest, with violent 
 cough; and when it settled on the heart, it disturbed 
 its action, and produced bilious discharges of all kinds 
 known to medical language, accompanied by great 
 distress.* In most cases a dry hiccup came on, causing 
 violent spasms, which sometimes ceased soon, and in 
 other cases lasted a long time. The surface of the 
 body was neither very hot to the touch nor pallid, but 
 rather red, livid, and covered with an eruption of 
 small blisters and sores; while the internal heat was 
 so great, that the patients could not bear upon them 
 the thinnest garment or the finest linen, or to lie any 
 other way than naked, and had a longing to throw 
 themselves into cold water. Nay, many who were not 
 carefully watched actually did so, into the tanks, urged 
 by an insatiable thirst; and it made no difference what 
 they drank, much or little. They suffered severely from 
 a distressing restlessnesS*‘and want of sleep through- 
 
 * It is difficult to ascertain the exact meaning of the quasi 
 medical words used in this passage by Thucydides; far more 
 difficult tlian it would be in a medical writer, such as Hippo¬ 
 crates. 
 
THUCYDIDES. 
 
 5G 
 
 out. Yet during the whole time the disease was at 
 its height, the body was not sensibly emaciated, hut 
 held out against all this suffering in a way be¬ 
 yond belief; so that most died about the seventh or 
 ninth day, of inward fever, still retaining considerable 
 strength. Or, if they survived this crisis, when the 
 disease passed into the abdomen, severe ulceration 
 supervening, with profuse diarrhoea, the majority died 
 of this last, from sheer exhaustion. For the disease; 
 which had its first seat in the head, passed doAvn 
 gradually through the whole body; and if any one got 
 through the worst stages, it was apt to leave its 
 marks upon him by seizing the extremities, for it 
 lighted on the fingers and toes; and many only 
 escaped with the loss of these, and, in some few cases, 
 of their eyes as well. Some, when they rose from 
 their sick-bed, had. lost all at once their recollection 
 of everything, and did not even know who they were, 
 or recognise their nearest friends. 
 
 “For the character of this disease was terrible 
 beyond description: and it attacked its victims in a 
 way which human nature could not endure. And 
 one point in which it showed itself distinct from all 
 known maladies was this—that the birds and beasts 
 which commonly prey on human bodies, either refused 
 to touch the many dead who lay unburied, or, if they 
 tasted them, died. As a proof of this, there was a 
 remarkable disappearance of such birds of prey, and 
 they were not seen either about these places or any¬ 
 where else: but the dogs, owing to their domestica- 
 
THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 
 
 57. 
 
 tion, afforded a better opportunity of noting the result . 
 in such cases.* 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 “ Some of the sufferers died untended, and some 
 after receiving all care and medical treatment. And 
 then was no one approved mode of treatment, so to 
 speak which could be had recourse to in the hope of 
 benefit; for what did good in one case did harm in' 
 another. ISTor was a good constitution any proof of 
 strength to resist it, or of weakness; but it seized all 
 alike, even such as were under dietetic treatment 
 previously. And the most terrible feature of all in 
 this disease was the despondency when any one felt 
 himself sickening (for they betook themselves to 
 despair at once, and gave up morally even more than 
 physically, and so offered no resistance), and the way 
 in which they imbibed infection from attending each 
 other, and died like sheep. And this it was that 
 caused the greatest mortality. For if out of fear they 
 were unwilling to come near one another, then the 
 sufferers died from being left untended; and many 
 households were swept entirely away, from lack of any 
 to nurse them. Or, if any did go near the sick, they 
 
 * Livy (Ixi. 21) make.s the same remark as to these natural 
 scavengers, in his notice of the pestilence in Italy, b.c. 174. 
 In England, in 1348, the “ Black Death” was accompanied by 
 a murrain among the cattle, and it was remarked that the birds 
 of prey would not touch the carcases. (The cattle of the 
 Athenians, it may be remembered, had mostly been carried 
 over to the islands, and therefore probably escaped.) 
 
58 
 
 Til UCYDI]> ES. 
 
 lost tlieir lives, and especially those who had a charac¬ 
 ter for goodness; for they, for honour’s sake, would 
 not spare themselves, but went in and out among their 
 friends, whereas even the very members of the family 
 grew tired of mourning over the dying, so utterly 
 beaten were they by the overwhelming misery. How¬ 
 ever, those who had recovered showed more compas¬ 
 sion for the sick and dying, because they knew what 
 it was, and stood in no fear now for themselves ; for 
 it never attacked the same person twice, at least so 
 as to be fatal. And such persons were thought very 
 fortunate by their neighbours, and felt a kind of 
 hope themselves, in the joy of their present escape, 
 of immunity for the future, and that they should 
 never now fall victuns to any other disease.”—(II. 
 49-51.) 
 
 There was a great physician living at this time, 
 quite within reach of Athens, who must have heard of 
 this terrible epidemic, and it seems hardly possible but 
 that some cases must have come under his hands. 
 Hippocrates of Cos was probably then resident either 
 in the island of Thasos, or at Abdera in Thrace; but 
 though he has left us a body of cases, and though he 
 speaks of a “malignant year,” which may or may not 
 (for he gives no date) be the year in which this pesti¬ 
 lence was prevalent, he has not put on record any case 
 which can be safely referred to this terrible epidemic. 
 It has been thought possible that Thucydides, in his 
 exile, may have seen and conversed with the great 
 physician, and submitted to his correction his notes on 
 
THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 
 
 59 
 
 the disease, which would account for their almost 
 technical minuteness. 
 
 The fatal character of the pestilence was aggravated, 
 as the historian observes, by the crowded state of the 
 city, which rendered impossible the observance of even 
 such imperfect sanitary regulations as we may conceive 
 then existing in Athens. His picture of the sight 
 which the plague-stricken city presented is given in 
 few but emphatic words :— 
 
 “ Living as they did in close stifling cabins in the 
 hot time of the year, the mortality raged among them 
 in horrible fashion. The bodies lay dying one upon 
 another, rolling in agony in the public streets and 
 round all the fountains, in their eagerness after water. 
 Even the sacred precincts, in which some had pitched 
 tents, were full of the dead bodies of those who had 
 expired there; for in their overwhelming misery, not 
 knowing what would become of them, men grew care 
 less of all distinctions sacred or profane ”—(II. 52.) 
 
 He goes on to speak of the disregard of all the 
 decent rites of burial, to which a Greek mind attached 
 perhaps even more value than we do ourselves. He 
 tells us how corpses were thrown by the bearers upon 
 funeral piles which had already been lighted for 
 another family; and how even sometimes a pile was 
 suiTeptitiously set fire to and made to do its office for 
 a stranger, before its proper corpse could be carried 
 out for burial. But more striking than all is the 
 description which he gives of the utter depravation of 
 
60 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 morals, and “recklessness of living,” which followed 
 upon these daily spectacles of sudden and horrible 
 death. It was the complete carrying out into practice 
 of the heathen motto, “ Let us eat and drink, for to¬ 
 morrow we die.” 
 
 “ Deeds which men did before in secret, not daring 
 to give full rein to their lusts, they now did with all 
 freedom, as seeing the sudden change which came in a 
 moment between the rich who died suddenly, and the 
 poor who came into their wealth instead. So they 
 determined upon swift enjoyment and instant grati¬ 
 fication, holding life aiid riches alike things of a day. 
 As for wearying themselves in the pursuit of what was 
 honourable, it was what no man cared to do, for he 
 held it uncertain whether he might not he carried off 
 before he attained it; but whatever was pleasant for 
 the moment, and whatever led to that by any means, 
 this stood for honourable and expedient. Fear of the 
 gods, or respect for man, there was none to restrain 
 them: in the one case, because they judged it to be 
 all the same whether they gave them worship or not, 
 from seeing that all perished alike; and in the case of 
 crimes against man, none expected that they should 
 live to be brought to trial and suffer the penalty for 
 them; but thata'far heavier sentence had already been 
 passed upon them, and was hanging over their heads, 
 and that it was but fair they should have some enjoy¬ 
 ment of life before it fell.”—(II. 53.) 
 
 A similar result, with regard to public morality, is 
 
THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 
 
 61 
 
 said to have accompanied the great plague at Florence 
 in 1348. Boccaccio says, in his account of it, that 
 “ when the evil had become universal, the hearts of all 
 the inhabitants were closed to feelings of humanity; ” 
 and that, “ amid the general lamentation and woe, the 
 influence and authority of every law human and 
 divine vanished.” * The same was the case to some 
 extent durmg the prevalence of the “ Black Death ” in 
 England, in the same year. 
 
 The oracle of Apollo, it may be remembered, had 
 promised the Peloponnesians, at the beginning of the 
 war, that the god himself would help them, “ invited 
 or uninvited.” It was to the influence of the Sun-god 
 that the Greeks, not altogether without reason, at¬ 
 tributed visitations of pestilence. He was the sender of 
 such diseases, as he was also emphatically the “Healer.” 
 The Peloponnesians might well have recognised his 
 aid when they heard of the terrible sufferings of their 
 enemies; and it is somewhat remarkable that their 
 own army, considering its immediate proximity, seems 
 wholly to have escaped. The Athenians on their part 
 bethought themselves of a half-forgotten oracular verse 
 which warned them of a Dorian war to come, “and 
 with it a pestilence.” There was considerable doubt 
 as to this latter word; for while some insisted that 
 it was pestilence (loimos), others said it was famine 
 (limos) which had been predicted. The ambiguity 
 was natural enough, for the pronunciation of the two 
 words in the Greek was exactly the same^— lemos. The 
 comment of the historian himself is curiously modern in 
 * Hecker, Epidera. of Middle Ages, p. 47. ' 
 
62 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 its scepticism. I^’aturally, he says, that reading of the- 
 oracle was universally adopted which fitted in best 
 with present circumstances; people’s memory is apt to 
 adapt itself to notorious facts. “ I suppose, however,” 
 he goes on to say, “if another Dorian war were to 
 come after this, and a famine happened to accompany 
 it, in all probability the verse would be made to run 
 accordingly.” 
 
 It had been part of the deliberate policy of Pericles 
 to allow the invaders to work their will upon the fields 
 of Attica; but he was taking energetic measures to 
 carry on the Avar against them where Athens had ahvays 
 the advantage—by sea. While the enemy’s troops were 
 still quartered in Athenian territory, he Avas sweeping 
 the southern coast of the Peloponnese with a fleet of 
 a hundred and fifty sail; landing here and there, and 
 employing his heavy infantry, and even a body of 
 cavalry (which Ave read of now for the first time as 
 being conveyed over sea in horse-transports), against the 
 maritime toAvns, Avith considerable success. Another 
 effort Avas made also against Potidaea, Avhich Avas stiU 
 holding out. But the plague accompanied the rein¬ 
 forcements Avhich were sent to Thrace, and Hagnon, 
 AA’^ho comnianded them, after losing in one month 
 one-fourth of his 4000 men, had to put to sea again to 
 save the remainder. 
 
 In this season of distress, the commons of Athens 
 turned upon the man whom they regarded as the author 
 of it all—Pericles, who had advocated tlie Avar, and 
 promised them certain victory. They accused him, 
 openly and secretly, of being the ruin of his country, 
 
THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 
 
 63 
 
 and clamoured loudly for peace at any price with 
 Sparta. The great statesman was neither surprised nor 
 alarmed at the turn of popular opinion. It was the 
 very thing he had expected, says the historian. By 
 virtue of his office of general, which he still held, he 
 summoned a public Assembly. He told them plainly 
 that nothing of the kind surprised him : it was the way 
 of the world; but surely, unworthy of Athenians. Bor 
 himself, he scorned to qualify his original advice, or 
 admit that he had been mistaken 
 
 “I am the same that 1 was then, and I am not 
 going to retreat from my position: it is you who are 
 changed; for the fact is, you were ready to follow my 
 advice when danger had not touched you, and you 
 repent now that you have begim to suffer; and my 
 counsel seems to you to be wrong, owing to your own 
 weakness of resolution : because the suffering comes 
 home to each man’s feelinf^s at once, while the advan- 
 tages do not as yet make themselves clear to any. 
 Because a great reverse, and that on the sudden, has 
 befallen you, you are too utterly dispirited to persevere 
 in the course you chose. Yes—the sudden and the 
 unexpected, and what befaUs us contrary to all reason¬ 
 able calculation, has a tendency to enslave the spirit; 
 and this is your case, especially as regards this pestilence, 
 coming as it has in addition to our other misfortunes. 
 Still, citizens as you are of a great city, and brought up 
 in principles corresponding to this greatness, it were 
 your duty to stand up cheerfully against great reverses 
 too, and never tarnish your high name. For the world 
 
64 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 claims the same right to censure those who from lack 
 of spirit fail to maintain the reputation they have won, 
 as to hate those who impudently grasp at that to 
 which they have no claim. Your duty is to check 
 your grief for your private sufferings, and hold fast to 
 the maintenance of the public weal.” 
 
 There are passages in this speech which would seem 
 to show that even Pericles had sometimes before him 
 that vision of a widespread empire which had already 
 begun to dazzle some of the leading minds at Athens. 
 
 “You look upon your empire as extending only over 
 your subject-allies: I can show you that of the two 
 realms open to men’s use—land and sea—you are 
 already wholly masters of the one as far as you reach 
 now, and as much further as you may choose to reach. 
 With the force you have, there is no king nor any 
 nation existing at this present who can hinder you from 
 sailing whither you will. So that this power is not to 
 be put in comparison with your property in lands and 
 houses, which you think it so much to lose. It is not 
 reasonable that you should take the loss of these things 
 so hardly : you should regard them rather with in- 
 dilFerence, as the mere appanages and embellishments 
 of a wealthy estate, when weighed against that power 
 I speak of. Be sure that if we only cling to and 
 maintain our freedom, that will easily recover for us 
 all the rest; whilst if once we bow to the power of 
 others, all we possess will be likely to crumble away. 
 Show that you have not degenerated in two great 
 
THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 
 
 65 
 
 points from your fathers: through toil and danger 
 they acquired this dominion — they did not receive 
 it as an inheritance from others moreover, they main¬ 
 tained it and handed it down to you: and it were 
 baser to let what we have be taken from us, than to 
 have been unsuccessful m’ its acquisition. 
 
 • ••••• t 
 
 “Do not suppose that you are fighting on this 
 single question—whether it shall be vassalage or in¬ 
 dependence ; it is also whether you will be stripped of 
 your empire, and so incur all the danger arising from the 
 hatred your rule has provoked. And you cannot give 
 it up now—if any man under present circumstances, 
 because he is afraid, should propose to. play the mag¬ 
 nanimous by so doing, and would have us as a nation 
 retire into private life. This power you hold has 
 already become a despotism, which, however it may 
 have been unrighteous to usurp, it is very dangerous to 
 lay down. Such counsellors would very soon ruin a 
 state if they could persuade their fellow-citizens, or if 
 they were to occupy an independent colony anywhere 
 by themselves; for the peacemonger is only safe so 
 long as he has a fighting friend to stand by him ; and 
 it cannot be good policy for a sovereign state, whatever 
 it may be for a subject one, to seek its safety in loss of 
 independence.”—(II. 61-63.) 
 
 The effect of this speech upon the Athenians was that, 
 so far as any change in their public policy went, they 
 followed the advice of Pericles, and gave up the project 
 of making terms with Sparta. But so bitterly did they 
 
 A.C.S.S. vol. vi. B 
 
66 
 
 THUCYDIDES, 
 
 feel the pressure of the war upon them as individuals, 
 so personally angry were they with him as its author, 
 that they called upon him to furnish a statement of his 
 expenditure of the public treasure, and on some pretence 
 of malversation, fined him a sum of money—“ and not 
 long after,” says our historian, “chose him general 
 again, and put everything into his hands.” They had 
 made trial, it would seem, of some weaker instruments 
 meanwhile, and found them wanting. 
 
 And here—restored to his old supremacy—the 
 great Athenian disappears from the pages of our his¬ 
 torian. He lived about a year longer; just long 
 enough to see the termination of the long blockade 
 of Potidaea, which capitulated to the Athenians on terms 
 that the sovereign people thought far too easy,—the 
 garrison and inhabitants being allowed to evacuate 
 the place with something like the honours of war. 
 But the death of Pericles is only briefly mentioned 
 by the way. Thucydides is emphatically the his¬ 
 torian of the war, and he seldom turns aside to 
 dwell upon the personal history or characters of even 
 the most illustrious of those who took part in it. In 
 the case of Pericles, however, his earnest admiration 
 of the man finds expression even in the brief record 
 which, with exceptional favour, he pauses here for a 
 moment to give of his services to the state 
 
 “ So long as he stood at the head of state in time 
 of peace, he governed with moderation and maintained 
 it in safety, and under him it rose to its highest power. 
 And when the war broke out, ho proved that he had 
 
THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 
 
 G7 
 
 well calculated the state’s resources. He lived through 
 two years and a half of it; and when he died, his 
 foresight as to its conduct became even more generally 
 admitted. For he always said that if they kept quiet, 
 and paid due attention to their navy, and did not 
 grasp at extension of empire during the war, or 
 expose their city to danger, they would he the victors. 
 But they did the very contrary to all this; and in 
 matters which seemed to have no reference to the war, 
 they followed an evil policy as to their own interests 
 and those of their allies, in accordance with their 
 private jealousies and private advantage; measures 
 which, when successful, brought honour and profit 
 to individuals only, while if they failed, the disadvan¬ 
 tage was felt by the state in its results on the war. 
 The reason lay in this; that Pericles, powerful by his 
 influence and ability, and manifestly incorruptible by 
 bribes, exercised a control over the masses combined 
 with excellent tact, and rather led them than allowed 
 them to lead him. For since he did not gain his 
 ascendancy by unbecoming means, he never used lan¬ 
 guage to humour them, but was able, on the strength 
 of his high character, even to oppose their passions. 
 That is, when he saw them overweeningly confident 
 without just grounds, he would speak so as to inspire 
 them with a wholesome fear; or wh«n they were un¬ 
 reasonably alarmed, he would raise their spirits again 
 to confidence. It was a nominal democracy, but in fact 
 the government of the one foremost man.”—(II. 65.) 
 
 All the authorities Avhich we have for the history 
 
68 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 of the times fully bear out this estimate of the posi¬ 
 tion of Pericles in the Athenian state. Por the private 
 sorrows which marked the close of his life, and which 
 may have helped to shorten it, we have to turn to 
 the—not always veracious—pages of Plutarch. He 
 had lost by the prevailing epidemic two sons, a sister, 
 and many of his dearest political friends. He died 
 of some lingering malady; Plutarch says it was one 
 form of the same disease. True patriot to the end, 
 when the friends who stood round his deathbed were 
 speaking of his glorious career, he checked them by 
 remarking that none had yet named what he held to 
 he his chief glory—“that no fellow-citizen had ever 
 had cause to put on mourning through him.” 
 
 The plague continued its ravages in Athens for two 
 whole years, and then, after an interval of twelve 
 months, broke out again b.c. 427, and lasted another 
 year. It carried off altogether 4400 of the heavy 
 infantry, 300 cavalry (all of whom would be citizens 
 of some position), and of the lower classes “ a number 
 never ascertained: ” of women and children the his¬ 
 torian seems to take no account. The total loss of life 
 probably exceeded the number of those slain in battle 
 during the whole war. 
 
CHAPTEE VT. 
 
 THE SIEGE OP PLATiEA. 
 
 The confederate Peloponnesians now sought aic Irom 
 a quarter any appeal to which, we might have the aght, 
 would have been held treason to Greece, did we not 
 know that Athens had done the same early in the war. 
 They sent an embassy to the king of Persia, to ask 
 for a subsidy and for troops. Their envoys took Thrace 
 in their way, endeavouring to detach Sitalces, king of 
 a large part of Thrace, from the interests of Athens, 
 and to induce him to make an attack on their colony 
 of Potidsea. The negotiation was more than unsuccess¬ 
 ful ; for the son of Sitalces, who had received the 
 freedom of Athens, put the visitors into the hands 
 of the Athenians. They were carried at once to Athens, 
 and there put to death without a hearing—in retaliation^ 
 the Athenians said, for similar cruel treatment of their 
 own merchant-sailors and others who had been captured 
 by the enemy on their coasts. But the barbarities 
 which marked this war in general were so great on both 
 sides, that Thucydides might have spared here, as he 
 commonly does, any apology or explanation. 
 
 In the chronicle of this year we get one of the few 
 
70 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 notices which occur in oitr author’s pages of Athenian 
 commerce; and here only because it falls into the 
 history of the war. They sent a squadron of six ships 
 to watch the coast of Lycia and Caria, both for the 
 purpose of getting subsidies of money from the sea-coast 
 towns, and also to hinder the enemy’s privateers 
 (Thucydides roundly calls them “ pirates,” but we must 
 remember that even up to this date piracy had scarcely 
 lost its credit as a profession for “gentlemen adventur¬ 
 ers ”) “ from making those harbours their rendezvous 
 for attacking the merchant - vessels on their voyage 
 from Phaselis and Phoenicia.” 
 
 The first movement in the third campaign was made 
 by the Peloponnesians, not by a raid as before into 
 the Athenian borders, but by an expedition in full force, 
 under the Spartan king Archidamus, against the inde¬ 
 pendent town of Platsea, which enjoyed the intimate 
 alliance and protection of Athens. The Thebans had 
 not forgotten their ill-fated attempt upon the city two 
 years before, and the massacre of the prisoners; and they 
 were no doubt clamorous among the allies for revenge. 
 When the invaders had pitched their camp and sent 
 out their plundering parties, the Platteans earnestly 
 remonstrated. They reminded the Spartan king that 
 the independence of their little state had been guar¬ 
 anteed to them for ever by his own countryman Pau- 
 sanias, in gratitude for that memorable victory gained 
 within sight of their walls, when he with their help 
 had liberated Greece from the Medes; and they adjured 
 him not to violate so solemn an engagement. There is 
 some sophistry in the Spartan’s answer:— 
 
THE SIEGE OF PLATjEA. 
 
 “Ye speak fair enough, men of Plataea, if ye do but act 
 as ye speak. Enjoy your independence yourselves, even 
 as Pausanias gave it, and assist us in giving indepen¬ 
 dence to your neighbours,—to all who shared the danger 
 then and swore the same oaths, and are now under the 
 power of the Athenians. It is to free them and others 
 from this yoke, that this warlike array has been set on 
 foot. So take your part in it,—so will you best abide 
 by your sworn faith. Or if you cannot do this, then 
 remain quiet, as we at first invited you, occupy your 
 own borders, and take part with neither side, admitting 
 both as friends, but for military operations neither. 
 And this will content us.”—(II. 72.) 
 
 The Platseans held a public council before they gave 
 their answer. They could do nothing, they said, with¬ 
 out consulting Athens, for there they had bestowed 
 their wives and children; nor, even should they adopt 
 the neutral policy proposed, could they depend on the 
 Thebans respecting it. Archidamus made them another 
 proposal: let them migrate from Platsea, and give up 
 their lands and their projDerty into the hands of the 
 Lacedaemonians, who would maintain them so long as 
 the war should last wherever they chose to fix them¬ 
 selves, and restore all to them when it was over. The 
 Platseans asked leave to refer this proposition to Athens; 
 and there they received assurances of support, so long 
 as they maintained their fealty. Then, speaking from 
 their walls, as not trusting themselves in any further 
 negotiation, they made answer to the Spartans that to 
 accept their terms was “ impossible.” 
 
72 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 Thereupon, after an appeal to the gods to defend the 
 right, Archidamus began the memorable siege of Platsea: 
 the earliest of which we possess any details that can 
 he called historical. It is described by the writer with 
 the minutest particulars, which he must have heard from 
 some one who took part in it. How the enemy sur¬ 
 rounded the city with a wooden palisade made out of 
 the fruit-trees which had already been cut down: how 
 they brought larger timber from the forests of the 
 neighbouring Mount Cithaeron, and built an inclined 
 plane, into which earth was rammed, against a part of 
 the town-wall, in order to enter the place by storm, 
 working at it in relays for seventy days and seventy 
 nights : how the besieged on their part raised their 
 wall higher from the inside at the point where the 
 danger threatened, pulling down houses to obtain 
 material, and prdtecting the face of the work with raw 
 hides against the fire-arrows armed with lighted tow: 
 how they undermined the mound that was rising against 
 them, by boring into it through the bottom of their own 
 wall and carrying away the earth inside: and how, 
 when this device was discovered, and the mound still 
 rose higher and higher, they began a new wall, in an 
 inverted segment of a circle, within the old one, so 
 that the enemy would gain nothing even when this 
 latter was won. The Peloponnesians made a final 
 effort, which had nearly succeeded, by throwing lighted 
 fagots and other combustibles over into the to^vn: but 
 a heavy thunderstorm came at the critical moment (at 
 least, “ it is so reported ”) to the aid of the beseiged. 
 
 Part of the army then left, and the siege became an 
 
THE SIEGE OF PLAT^A, 
 
 73 
 
 investment. The wooden palisade was replaced by a 
 double wall with a covered - way between, and con¬ 
 necting watch-towers at intervals, and a ditch on either 
 side : it was well understood that the blockade was 
 likely to be a long one. Inside the place were four 
 hmidred Platjnans and eighty Athenians—-all fighting 
 men : the non-combatants had been sent away long 
 before, excepting a hundred and ten women to make 
 bread. Our author leaves them in this position for 
 eighteen months, in order to preserve his yearly tabu¬ 
 lation of events; but this interrupts too much the 
 reader’s interest in his story. 
 
 The close investment did its work effectually; and 
 the troops within the walls, few as they were, began to 
 suffer from the want of provisions, and saw little hope 
 of aid from without. They determined on an attempt 
 to escape. The double wall of circumvallation which 
 their enemies had drawn round them, in order to be 
 effectual for its purpose, had to be strictly guarded 
 and patrolled \ and the Plataeans had found out 
 that in the wet and cold nights the patrols were 
 in the habit of retiring under cover of the towers. 
 Their plans were formed accordingly: scaling-ladders 
 were prepared, and they watched an opportunity to 
 make an attempt to pass over the double fortification 
 under cover of a stormy night. Half of them lost 
 their taste afterwards for so desperate an attempt; two 
 hundred and twenty persevered in their resolution, and 
 succeeded. It is one of the historian’s most graphic 
 narratives, well-known in substance, but scarcely better 
 told than in his own words:— 
 
74 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 “When all was ready, they waited for a stormy 
 night with wind and rain, and when there was no 
 moon, and so set out, the contrivers of the attempt 
 leading the way. And first they crossed the ditch 
 which girdled them on their own side, and got to the 
 enemy’s wall, without attracting the notice of the 
 watch, since these could not see far through the dark¬ 
 ness, and did not hear the sound of their approach 
 because the noise of the wind drowned it. They 
 moved, too, at careful distance from each other, that 
 their arms might not clash together and so make their 
 movements heard. They were in very light marching 
 order, with the left foot only shod, so as to give them 
 safe footing m the mud. So they made for the battle¬ 
 ments in the mid-space between two of the towers, satis¬ 
 fied that they should find these deserted. First came 
 those who bore the ladders, and planted them; then 
 twelve of the light company mounted, armed with 
 dagger and breastplate only, led by Ammias son of Co 
 raebus, who was the first to mount; after him the rest 
 followed and reached the top, making for each of the 
 towers. Other light-armed soldiers followed, with 
 nothing but short spears,—their shields, in order that 
 they might mount the quicker, being carried by others 
 behind them, who were to pass them to their owners 
 when they engaged the enemy. When a good many 
 had got up, the guard from within the towers heard 
 them; for one of the Plataeans, in laying hold of the 
 battlement, displaced a tde from it, which rattled as it 
 fell. At once the alarm was shouted, and the enemy 
 rushed from their lines to the walls; for they did not 
 
THE SIEGE OF PLATjEA. 
 
 75 
 
 know what the alarm meant, in the dark night and in 
 the storm. At the same moment the Platseans who 
 had been left in the town sallied out, and attacked the 
 enemy’s line of circumvallation on the side opposite to 
 that where their comrades were climbing over, to divert 
 attention as much as possible from them. The enemy 
 were bewildered, therefore, and remained at their seve¬ 
 ral quarters ; and no man ventured to leave his own 
 station to support the others, but all were at a loss 
 to make out what was going on. Even the three 
 hundred who had been told off to give support at any 
 point where it was required, went outside their works 
 to the quarter whence the shouts proceeded. Fire- 
 signals of alarm were made to Thebes; but the 
 Platseans lighted several beacons on their walls which 
 had been prepared for the purpose, so that the signals 
 might be unintelligible to the enemy, and they might 
 not march to the aid of their friends, but might fancy 
 the state of affairs to be anything but what it really 
 was, until the fugitives shall have got clear away and 
 reached a place of safety. 
 
 “ Meanwhile, as to the Plataeans who were scaling 
 the wall, as soon as the foremost of them had got up 
 and made themselves masters of both the towers, and 
 slain the guard, they posted themselves at the thorough¬ 
 fare at each of the towers, so as to let no one pass 
 through to the rescue. They then planted ladders 
 from the wall against the towers, and so sent up a 
 good many of their men. Those on the towers and 
 under them kept off any that were coming to the 
 rescue; while the main body, having planted addi- 
 
76 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 bional ladders, and also pulled down some of the 
 battlements, were climbing over the works in the 
 space between the towers. Each man, as he got OA^er, 
 took his place on the edge of the ditch, and from that 
 position they kept off with arrows and javelins any 
 who might come along the side of the wall to hinder 
 the crossing. When all had crossed over, then the 
 men from the towers — the hindmost not without 
 difficulty—descended and got on the ditch. Mean¬ 
 while the guard of three hundred were coming up with 
 torches, x^^ow the Platseans, standing in the shadow 
 on the edge of the ditch, got a good sight of them, and 
 launched their arrows and javelins against them as 
 they stood exposed; while, keeping in the dark as 
 they did themselves, they were all the less visible for 
 the torch-light, so that even the last of their party 
 succeeded in passing the ditch; not, however, without 
 much toil and difficulty, for there was ice formed on 
 it, not strong enough to bear, but somewhat slushy, as 
 is commonly the case with an easterly wind; and as 
 there was snow falling that night with this wind, it 
 produced a great deal of water in the ditch, which 
 they had to cross up to their necks. Still, it was in 
 great measure owing to the violence of the storm that 
 they succeeded in escaping.”—(III. 23.) 
 
 The attempt was carried out with the same com 
 bination of daring and forethought to the end. The 
 fugitives made straight for Thebes, “ thinking that the 
 Peloponnesians would never dream of their taking that 
 road into an enemy’s country; ” and it must have been 
 
THE SIEGE OF PLAT Hi A. 
 
 77 
 
 with a grim satisfaction that they “ saw theh pursuers 
 moving with torches along the road to Athens,” which 
 they naturall}’’ were supposed to have taken, and which 
 place they did reach eventually by striking off into the 
 mountains. Two hundred and twelve got clear away, 
 out of two hundred and twenty who had left the town. 
 Some few had lost heart at the outset, and turned hack ; 
 one had been taken prisoner; hut not a single life 
 appears to have been lost in the gallant adventure. 
 Those whose courage had failed them told their 
 comrades in the town that all the rest of the party 
 had been slain; and it was not until the garrison sent 
 into the enemy’s lines next morning for the usual 
 permission to “bury their dead,” that they learned 
 they had no dead to bury. 
 
 The investment was continued, and still the de¬ 
 fenders held out; hut though the gallant exploit 
 which has been related had left fewer mouths to he 
 fed, the stock of provisions within the walls was at last 
 exhausted. The escape of the two himdred had also 
 weakened the little garrison ; and the commander of 
 the Lacedaemonian forces was well aware that he could 
 take the place any day by storm. He would not do so, 
 for a curious strategic reason. It was usual, in Greek 
 negotiations at the close of a war, to agree to restore 
 aU conquests on both sides, but not such places as had 
 come over by voluntary capitulation: and the Lace¬ 
 daemonians hoped by this means to retain the town of 
 Plattea as a permanent acquisition. 
 
 Driven thus to extremities, at the end of two years 
 of close blockade, the few remaining defenders at last 
 
78 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 surrendered at discretion. Tliat is, they agreed to leave 
 the decision of their fate to judges sent from Lace- 
 dtemon, who should “ punish the guilty, hut no one 
 contrary to justice.” What the Lacedaemonian ideas 
 of justice were they soon learnt by terrible experience, 
 rive special commissioners arrived from Lacedaemon. 
 No charge was brought forward against the garrison : 
 they were simply asked, “ Had they, during the present 
 war, done any service in any way to the Lacedaemonians 
 or their allies % ” There could be only one answer : the 
 question meant a judicial murder : and the prisoners 
 asked leave to defend themselves. One of the earliest 
 critics of Thucydides--Dionysius of Halicarnassus—- 
 reckons this defence as one of the finest specimens of 
 his oratory. 
 
 They feared—they said—that their fate was deter¬ 
 mined already : they were to be sacrificed to the ven¬ 
 geance of Thebes. Yet they would remind the allies 
 of their good service done to Greece in old times, when 
 Tliebes had betrayed it. If they found themselves now 
 ranged on the side of Athens, it was because Lacedae¬ 
 mon had rejected their application for aid when hard 
 pressed by their enemies the Thebans : and it was 
 the Thebans who had now attacked them first, and 
 that in a time of peace. It would be a monstrous 
 thing to blot from the community of Greece a to^vn 
 whose name had been inscribed, by the national grati¬ 
 tude, on the votive tripod at Delphi. Such a deed 
 would be a stain on the character of Lacedaemon for 
 ever. There is much pathos in their concluding 
 words:— 
 
THE SIEGE OF PLATTE A. 
 
 79 
 
 “ But we must bring this pleading to a close—hard 
 its that is, when we feel our lives are in peril of closing 
 with it. We have done : only protesting, that it was 
 not to the Thebans we surrendered our city—rather 
 than that, we would have preferred to die by famine, 
 most wretched as -it is of all deaths; it was to you 
 we trusted, when we gave in. It were but fair, then, 
 if we fail to persuade you, to put us back in the 
 position in which we were, and let us take our choice 
 of the fate that may await us. We adjure you not 
 to let us Platseans, once so zealous in the defence of 
 Greece, now suppliants here before you, Lacedaemonians, 
 be delivered up out of your hands and your pledged 
 honour to our bitterest enemies, the Thebans : nay, 
 be our preservers rather, and do not, while giving 
 freedom to the other Greeks, leave us to destruc¬ 
 tion.”—(III. 59.) 
 
 The Thebans feared the effect of this appeal. They 
 replied—or Thucydides replies—at considerable length. 
 How far these speeches, as we have them, represent 
 what was actually said, can be only matter of con¬ 
 jecture. Mitford holds, with good reason, that they 
 are “not likely to have been very exactly reported;” 
 Grote places “ fuU confidence in them, so' far as the 
 substance goes.” The form and arrangement of both 
 the defence and the rejoinder show that the historian 
 would himself have made an admirable pleader. 
 
 The Platseans had claimed credit, said their accusers, 
 for not “ Medising ” at the time of the great war : 
 but they would have joined the Medes if the 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBKAiiY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
80 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 Athenians had. And they (the Thebans) had not 
 “ Medised ” as a state—it was the act only of a small 
 despotic faction. They had shown their regard for 
 the liberties of Greece by their steadfast opposition 
 to the encroachments of Athens—as dangerous an 
 enemy to liberty as ever the Persian was. The real 
 traitors to Greece were those who, like the Platseans, 
 followed willingly the lead of Athens in all her am¬ 
 bitious designs, instead of joining the general league 
 against her, or preserving neutrality as they had been 
 urged to do. As to the attack made on their city, 
 of which they complained, the Thebans had come 
 there on the invitation of some of the chief men in 
 Plataea itself, who were desirous of joining the Boeo¬ 
 tian confederacy : they had come in peace, to pro¬ 
 claim a new constitution ; they had been received as 
 enemies, and ‘their men, in violation of a solemn 
 promise, treacherously massacred. For this they now 
 demanded vengeance—“ in order that men might learn 
 in future not to seek fair excuses for evil deeds.” 
 
 The Lacedaemonian commission decided that the 
 men of Plataea, having rejected the position of neutrals 
 which had been repeatedly and formally offered them, 
 had placed themselves outside the laws of war—• 
 such as they were. They put to each man singly 
 the hopeless question, “ Had he done any service to 
 them or to their allies And as each made the only 
 answer that was possible, he was led away to death. 
 Two hundred Plateaus and twenty-five Athenians who 
 formed part of the garrison were thus killed in cold 
 blood. The Athenians, in whose cause they died, 
 
THE SIEGE OF PL ATM A. 
 
 81 
 
 seem to have made no effort to save them, nor to have 
 entered any special protest against the deed. Thucy¬ 
 dides narrates the hare fact here, as he does the 
 slaughter of the citizens of Mitylen^, in a few words, 
 without an expression of censure in either case. It 
 seems quite possible that public opinion, among the 
 Greeks of those days, saw in such treatment of their 
 prisoners of war nothing to call for exceptional repro¬ 
 bation. The women who had remained within the 
 walls were sold as slaves, the town itself razed to the 
 ground, and the name of Platsea was for the present, 
 as its citizens had so pathetically foreboded, “ blotted 
 out of the national family of Greeks.”* It was all 
 done, says Thucydides, to gratify the unrelenting en 
 mity of the Thebans, whose support in this war was 
 felt to be of the utmost importance by their Pelopon¬ 
 nesian allies. 
 
 * It was restored and garrisoned by the Spartans forty years 
 afterwards, as a blow to the pride of Thebes, with which state 
 they were then at war; was again destroyed utterly by the 
 Thebans, and restored again by Alexander. 
 
 A.C.S.S. voL vi. 
 
 F 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE FATE OF MITYLENE. 
 
 In the same year in which the siege of Plataca was 
 begun (b.c. 429) the Athenians met with a serious 
 reverse in an expedition against the revolted Chalci- 
 dians in Thrace, in which they lost above 400 of their 
 best men and all their generals. It was far more than 
 compensated by the two brilliant victories won for 
 them in the Corinthian gulf by Phormio (unquestion¬ 
 ably the ablest of all their admirals in this war) over 
 the confederate fleet—chiefly made up from Corirdh 
 and Sicyon. This was the first serious trial of naval 
 strength between the two parties since the affair off 
 Corcyra. In the first of the two sea-fights the con¬ 
 federates (who had forty-five ships against twenty) 
 adopted a singular formation to await the attack of the 
 Athenians. They formed their ships into a circle, with 
 their prows outwards and their sterns in, as wide as 
 they could without giving the enemy room to sail 
 through. Inside they stationed all the small craft 
 which accompanied the expedition, and also five of 
 their fastest war-galleys, which were to move out at 
 once and give support at any point where the enemy 
 
THE FATE OF MITYLENE. 
 
 83 
 
 might attack. N’either this ingenious plan, nor their 
 great superiority in numbers, saved them from an utter 
 defeat. In fact, in the position they had taken up, 
 their numbers did but hamper them in a rough sea. 
 Phormio, with his faster galleys and better - trained 
 crews, kept moving round the outside of their circle, 
 “knowing that he could choose his own moment for 
 attack,” and waiting for the increased breeze which 
 generally came with the dawn. It came, and the con¬ 
 federate ships were unable to keep their distances: the 
 circle grew narrower and narrower, and their vessels 
 fouled each other. Then Phormio saw his opportunity, 
 and won an easy victory. Thereupon the confederate 
 admirals were practically superseded by having “coun¬ 
 sellors ” (like the French republican “ commissioners ”) 
 sent to them from Sparta. But, in spite of commission¬ 
 ers and strong reinforcements, the result of a second 
 engagement, under even a greater disparity of strength 
 than before, was equally disastrous. It was in vain 
 that the Spartan commissioners made an earnest ha¬ 
 rangue to the fleet,—introducing a point which, as 
 Grote has well observed, “was rarely touched upon by 
 generals on the eve of battle,” and which showed a 
 consciousness that their men had but little heart to 
 fight the Athenians again. “We shall make at least 
 as good dispositions for battle as your late command¬ 
 ers, and we will give no man an excuse for being a 
 coward : if any choose so to be, he shall be punished 
 as he deserves.” The vicissitudes of this second en¬ 
 gagement were remarkable, and are told in the his¬ 
 torian’s most lucid style. Phormio had still but hia 
 
84 
 
 THUCYDIDES, 
 
 twenty galleys, while the enemy had now collected 
 seventy-five. It was therefore his object to avoid a 
 battle—especially where he had not much sea-room— 
 until his own reinforcements could come up. The 
 manoeuvres continued for six days. Then the con¬ 
 federates made a feint against Naupactus, an Athenian 
 settlement within the gulf, which was quite undefended. 
 This drew Phormio into the narrower water, in his 
 anxiety to protect the town : and then the Pelopon¬ 
 nesians suddenly changed their course, cut off nine of 
 his ships, and drove them ashore. 
 
 “ Meanwhile their own twenty ships of the right 
 wing [these were the fastest sailers] went in chase 
 of the eleven Athenian galleys which had made their 
 escape, when the sudden change of course took place, 
 into the wider channel. But all except one succeeded 
 in making Naupactus before they were overtaken, 
 and ranged themselves in line, with their prows out¬ 
 wards, off the temple of Apollo, prepared for action in 
 case the enemy should follow them under the land. 
 They came up presently, and were singing the paean as 
 they sailed, considering that they had won a victory, 
 and the one Athenian galley that lagged behind the 
 others was being chased by a Leucadian, which was 
 far ahead of her consorts. hTow there chanced to he 
 a merchant-vessel riding at anchor in deep water, round 
 which the Athenian, being sufficiently in advance, 
 made a sharp turn, struck the Leucadian that was 
 chasing her amidships, and so sank her. There fell 
 a panic on the Peloponnesians at this sudden and un- 
 
THE FATE OF MITYLENE. 
 
 85 
 
 looked-for exploit; so much so, that running in chase 
 as they were without much order, in all the confidence 
 of victory, some of their galleys even stopped rowing 
 and did not continue their course, waiting for the 
 main squadron—the worst thing they could have 
 done, with the enemy at such close quarters—and 
 some, ^froni want of knowmg the coast, got into shoal- 
 water. When the Athenians saw all this, their cour¬ 
 age rose, and with one unanimous shout they raised 
 their battle-cry and made at them. What with their 
 unlucky mistakes, and the confusion they had now 
 got into, the enemy stood their ground hut a very little 
 while, and then turned and made for Panormus, whence 
 they had started. The Athenians followed in chase, 
 took six of the nearest galleys, and recovered their own 
 which the enemy had driven ashore at the beginning 
 of the battle, and taken in tow. Of the men, they 
 killed some, and some few they made prisoners. Now 
 on board the Leucadian galley, which was sunk by 
 the turn round the merchantman, was Timocrates the 
 Lacedaemonian: when the ship was sinking, he stab¬ 
 bed himself, and his body was washed ashore in the 
 harbour at Naupactus.”—(II. 91, 92.) 
 
 The confederate admirals now sought to retrieve 
 their defeat by a bold stroke in another direction. 
 So confident were the Athenians, according to their 
 historian, of their superiority at sea, that their port 
 and arsenal at Piraeus had been left wholly unpro¬ 
 tected. It was resolved to make a sudden dash upon 
 it. As the siege of Plataea had been undertaken to 
 
86 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 gratify the Thebans, so this stab at the very heart 
 of Athens was suggested by the bitterest of her ene¬ 
 mies and the greatest sufferer in her home market by 
 the Athenian blockading ships. It was from Megara 
 the suggestion came. The crews from the allied fleet 
 marched overland to Nisaea, the Megarian port, manned 
 forty vessels which lay there, and set sail—hut not 
 direct for Athens; they stopped to sack the island of 
 Salamis by the way. They said it was an unfavour¬ 
 able wind that delayed them : but they might have 
 sailed into the harbour of Athens easily enough—“ if 
 they had had the spirit not to hesitate, and the wind 
 would not have hindered it”—is the contemptuous 
 criticism of the military historian. As it was, the fire- 
 signals from Salamis gave warning to Athens of the 
 danger; at dawn the home fleet moved out to meet the 
 enemy at Salamis, while the land-troops mounted guard 
 at the harbour. 
 
 The confederates contented themselves with their 
 plunder, and returned in all haste to Nissea, whence 
 they had started. “Their galleys also caused them 
 some uneasiness, as they had been lying high and dry 
 for some time, and were anything but water-tight.” 
 So little did their admirals seem to have known of 
 the very essentials of naval warfare. The Athenians 
 took the warning, and secured their harbour by a 
 boom, or something of the kind, and took other pre¬ 
 cautions for its future defence. 
 
 Towards the winter of the year, Sitalces of Thrace 
 made an important expedition against Perdiccas of 
 Macedonia, partly as a diversion in favour of his 
 
THE FATE OF MITYLENE. 
 
 87 
 
 allies the Athenians. He led with hiin an enormous 
 force, swelled on the march, by the contingents of the 
 various tribes who more or less acknowledged his 
 sovereignty, till it reached 150,000 men. An Athe¬ 
 nian naval squadron was to have co-operated on the 
 coast: but, as is the case so often with combined 
 operations, the dispositions failed. The expedition 
 was undertaken so late in the year, that the Athenians 
 ■—not believing, says Thucydides, that their allies 
 would undertake it at all—never despatched a fleet, 
 but only envoys and complimentary presents. The 
 Thracian king entered into negotiations with the INlace- 
 donian, and the invading host returned as it came, 
 after thirty days of ravaging and plunder. 
 
 Phormio and his victorious fleet returned to Athens 
 at the close of the winter with the captured ships and 
 prisoners. The freemen among them, we are told, 
 we.-e exchanged by regular cartel with the enemy. 
 The slaves would be reckoned with the other materials 
 of war, and their condition would not be much affected, 
 whether they worked for Athens or Sparta. 
 
 The following campaign began as usual. “ As soon 
 as the corn was ripe,” Archidamus and his allies made 
 their third inroad on the flelds of Attica. The Athe¬ 
 nian cavalry kept them somewhat in check, and pre¬ 
 vented them from carrying their destruction into the 
 immediate neighbourhood of the city. 
 
 This year was marked by the revolt from Athenian 
 rule of the important island of Lesbos (b.c. 428). 
 Its powerful capital, Mitylene, had long been impa¬ 
 tient of a dependent position, and had contemplated 
 
88 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 such a movement even before the waTj but was waiting 
 to be better prepared. Events Avere somewhat hastened 
 in consequence of the Athenians receiving warning 
 of the design from Methymna, the one town in the 
 island which remained faithful to its allegiance. At 
 first they were loath to believe in such an alarming 
 addition to their difficulties, “crippled as they Aveie 
 already by the war and the pestilence;” but they 
 found the news was too true, and sent to demand of 
 the islanders to give up their fleet and dismantle their 
 new fortifications. They flatly refused, and even 
 risked a battle with the Athenian fleet sent to enforce 
 the demand. As Avas to be expected, their raAv sailors 
 were easily beaten; and then—anxious to save their 
 fleet, if possible — the Mityleneans asked for terms, 
 Avhich the Athenian commanders Avere willing to grant, 
 “having fears on their OAvn part that they Avere not 
 strong enough to carry on hostilities against all Lesbos 
 united.” The Lesbians sent delegates to Athens to 
 negotiate; but, at the same time, having no great 
 confidence in the result, they sent an embassy to ask 
 help from Sparta. 
 
 Their envoys were admitted to an audience at Olym¬ 
 pia, at the great national festival of Greece. Their 
 spokesman is reported as defending his countrymen 
 against any charge Athens might bring against them 
 of a breach of faith. They were conscious that their 
 case might have an ugly look, even in the eyes of the 
 enemies of Athens; that “it might possibly seem some¬ 
 what base, after being treated honourably in time of 
 peace, to revolt from her in her hour of danger.” But 
 
THE FATE OF MITYLENE. 
 
 89 
 
 they professed to he alarmed at the prospect of the 
 future. They had admitted the suzerainty of Athens, 
 in order to defend the liberties of Greece against the 
 Persians ; but Athens had gradually reduced all her 
 weaker allies under as complete a despotism as the 
 Persian. Were they to wait until, when their possible 
 allies had all been reduced to this state, they should 
 themselves be the last to be absorbed? The only chance 
 for Lesbos was to anticipate their would-be tyrants, 
 and strike a blow for liberty before their chance grew 
 desperate. Naturally, they said, they were speaking 
 for their own interests; but none the less was it for the 
 interest of Sparta to embrace the opportunity, and at¬ 
 tack her great enemy where she was most vulnerable, 
 in and by the means of one of her most important 
 colonies. There is no word of real complaint as to the 
 treatment of the islanders by the sovereign state. True, 
 it may be said that, though the defence is put into the 
 mouth of a IMitylenean, the language is really that of 
 Thucydides the Athenian; but there is no reason here 
 or elsewhere to suspect him of unfairness, and there is 
 nothing on record to show that the bearing of Athens 
 towards her subject-allies was not exercised for theii 
 interests as well as for her own. When the catastrophe 
 of the revolt comes to be considered, it is well to bear 
 all its circumstances in mind. 
 
 The arguments of the Mitylenean envoys, whatever 
 they were worth, fell upon very willing ears. The 
 island was received into the confederation, and the 
 Lacedaemonians took occasion of the supposed Athe¬ 
 nian difficulties to order an invasion of Attica by the 
 
90 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 several contingents in strong force. But Athens made 
 an immense effort to meet the occasion. Without 
 moving a galley from Lesbos, they raised a levy eji 
 masse of all except the very highest rank of citizens, 
 and equipped a fleet of a hundred sail to face the 
 astonished Lacedaemonians. The latter found their 
 allies not nearly so forward as themselves. “They 
 were busy gathering in their harvest; they were sick 
 of expeditions into Attica;” and so the appointed 
 gathering at the Isthmus proved a failure, and the 
 Lacedaemonians went home. At the same time, the 
 Mityleneans made an unsuccessful attempt to reduce 
 their impracticable neighbour, ISIethymna, which main¬ 
 tained a stubborn loyalty to Athens. But they were 
 soon themselves closely invested by the Athenian ad¬ 
 miral, Baches, who was sent there with a large force, 
 and who drew a line of circumvallation round the 
 town, while his fleet strictly blockaded their harbour. 
 A Lacedaemonian envoy nevertheless succeeded in 
 creeping in through a water-course, and bade them hold 
 out, for that the allies would make a strong diversion 
 in their favour by an invasion of Attica in force. 
 
 The invasion of the Athenian territory, which the 
 Lacedaemonians had promised should soon distract the 
 attention and the forces of their enemy from the siege 
 of Mitylen^, took place in the spring. It was headed 
 by the Spartan Cleomenes, now acting as regent for his 
 nephew Pleistoanax, who was yet a minor. “ They 
 ravaged,” says our author, “not only the districts which 
 they had laid waste before, wherever anything had 
 grown again, but all that they had left unvisited in 
 
THE FATE OF MITYLENE. 
 
 91 
 
 their former incursions: and this was the sorest raid 
 of all for the Athenians, except the second.” Eut 
 nothing could force Athens to relax her grasp upon her 
 revolted dependency; and the garrison of Mitylene, 
 suffering now from famine, and still seeing no aid from 
 Sparta, made such terms as they could with Paches. 
 They opened their gates to his army, and only bar¬ 
 gained that he should put none of them to death or 
 sell them for slaves, till they should have had an 
 opportunity of pleading their cause at Athens. Thither 
 the leading citizens, who had taken an active part in the 
 movement for independence, were sent for public trial. 
 Seven days too late, the Lacedaemonian fleet, so long 
 expected, but which had been wasting the days so 
 precious to the Mityleneans in some minor operations, 
 arrived in the neighbourhood only to find the city in 
 the hands of the enemy. 
 
 There was no hesitation at Athens as to the punish¬ 
 ment of the men whom they looked upon in the light 
 of the most ungrateful of all their dependants. The 
 public vote was for death, not only to the citizens 
 whom Paches had selected and sent home as most 
 deeply imiDlicated in the revolt, but to all Mityleneans 
 who were able to bear arms—probably not less than 
 six thousand—and slavery to their women and chil¬ 
 dren. But this hasty popular vote was followed, as is 
 not unfrequently the case, by something like a popular 
 repentance; and the Mitylenean deputies and their 
 few friends at Athens took advantage of the feeling to 
 get the question brought forward afresh. And here 
 Thucydides first brings into view a man who played 
 
92 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 a leading part in the commons of Athens—who was 
 better abused, probably, than any man of his day, 
 figuring not merely in the pages of history, but as 
 the never-failing subject of satirical comedy—with 
 whom the fortunes of Thucydides himseK are thought 
 to have been very closely connected, and as to whose 
 real character historians and scholars widely differ to 
 this day. He is introduced to us with an abruptness 
 more common with early than with recent historians, 
 simply by name—Cleon, son of Cleaenetus—as the 
 uncompromising supporter, from first to last, of a 
 policy of extermination towards revolted subjects. 
 Such character as Thucvdides here gives of him is 
 summed up in a very few words—“ One of the most 
 violent of the citizens in every way, and at that time 
 possessing unbounded influence with the commons.” 
 He speaks of him again, in a subsequent passage, as a 
 dishonest politician and a reckless slanderer; * but, as 
 will be seen hereafter, there are reasons for receiving 
 the historian’s judgment in this particular case with 
 some degree of caution. This Cleon was a man of the 
 people in every sense—he, or at least his father, was 
 said to have been a tanner—and he undoubtedly pos¬ 
 sessed, as would be admitted both by his enemies and 
 his apologists, the popular gifts of a strong voice and 
 a fluent tongue; to which might be added the no less 
 popular qualifications of abundant self-confidence, un¬ 
 qualified opinions, and unscrupulous dealing with oppo¬ 
 nents. Hot what either Athenian or English politicians 
 would call a “ gentleman,” by any means; but an able 
 
 * V. 16 . 
 
THE FATE OF MITYLESE. 
 
 93 
 
 and vigrorous debater, and a party cliief of unquestion¬ 
 able power. He had already, before our historian 
 introduces him, worked his way into public notice as 
 an opponent of Pericles, and probably was one of the 
 many who, without that great statesman’s qualifications, 
 aimed at succeeding to his place in Athens. He now 
 came forward to denounce in the strongest terms the 
 w.3iik-minded policy which would reverse the merciless 
 but (as he argued) just decree which had been passed 
 against MitylenA How far his speech on the second 
 discussion, which Thucydides gives at length, is real 
 or imaginary, we cannot tell; but it may at least be 
 received as setting forth the view taken of the case 
 by a large party at Athens. 
 
 Very much of his harangue sounds like a succession 
 of ironical paradoxes, from the mouth of such a speaker. 
 We might believe that it embodied rather the opin¬ 
 ions of Thucydides himself than those of the popular 
 demagogue. Cleon sets forth the danger of allowing 
 eloquent speakers to turn the Assembly from their 
 sober judgment: he puts before them a picture of 
 themselves which was not far from the truth, but 
 which we should not expect to find thus drawn by the 
 hand of a popular leader. Then he proceeds:— 
 
 “ You conduct these political debates on false prin¬ 
 ciples. You attend such discussions as you would 
 a theatre, — as a mere audience, and you take your 
 facts from hearsay; deciding on the feasibility of any 
 enterprise from the language of some plausible orator, 
 and for your view of past events depending not so 
 
94 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 nmch on the evidence of your own eyes as on the 
 criticisms of clever theorists : readier than any men I 
 know to he taken in by a specious paradox, and to 
 shrink from carrying out what you have solemnly de¬ 
 termined; ever the slaves of the last new whim, scorners 
 of sober use and wont. What each would like best is to 
 be an orator himself; or, if that cannot be, then you 
 vie, as it were, with the orators so far as not to seem to 
 be following their lead in thought, but to anticipate 
 any clever turn by your applause, and to be quick in 
 catching the sense of what is suggested before the words 
 are spoken,—as you are slow to foresee their possible 
 consequences. You are always seeking for something 
 grander, if I may so express it, than the facts of daily 
 life, yet lack common-sense to judge of the facts before 
 your eyes. In short, you are taken captive by the 
 pleasures of the ear, and you are more like an audience 
 sitting at a disputation of rhetoricians, than men gravely 
 consulting on affairs of state.”—(III. 38.) 
 
 It is Thucydides, surely — the grave and caustic 
 aristocratical politician—who delivers himself of these 
 home truths to his countrymen; not the demagogue 
 whom he at least represents as the mob-orator, swaying 
 their passions by violent language, and reckless of all 
 political morality. This portion of Cleon’s reputed 
 speech reads almost like a passage from Aristophanes 
 paraphrased into sounding prose,—where that wonder¬ 
 ful satirist is sketching the character and habits of this 
 very same commons of Athens, as led away and deluded 
 by this man Cleon and others of his type. However, 
 
THE FATE OF MITYLENE. 
 
 95 
 
 after this remarkable exordium, the speaker goes on to 
 state the case very forcibly, and with no manifest un¬ 
 fairness, against the unhappy Mityleneans. They had 
 no excuse: they had no complaint to make against 
 Athens, by their own confession; they had been livmg 
 in practical independence, under their own laws, treated 
 with all honour and consideration; if Athens had done 
 wrong at all, it was in treating them better than her 
 other dependencies; “for it is the common trick of 
 human nature to despise those who pay us court, and 
 to look up with respect to those who never stoop an 
 inch to us.” He contends that justice, as well as the 
 interest of Athens, called for signal punishment of these 
 wanton rebels. “ By a weaker course you will fail to 
 conciliate them, while you will condemn yourselves; for 
 if they did right to revolt, then you had no right to 
 rule. And if you are determined, even without such 
 right, to maintain your dominion, you must also so far 
 disregard right, and punish these men from expediency; 
 or else throw up your dominion, and adopt the high 
 moral tone when you can do so in safe obscurity.”— 
 “ Punish them, then, as they deserve, and make of them 
 an unmistakable example to your other dependencies, 
 that the penalty for revolt, in any case, is death. If 
 once they feel this, you will not so often have to hold 
 your hands from your enemies in order to defend your¬ 
 selves against your allies.” 
 
 Cleon’s speech was answered by one Diodotus—of 
 whom we know nothing besides. Even he, while he 
 strongly urges on his countrymen some modification 
 of the terrible decree, does so on the ground of political 
 
96 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 expediency,—not of mercy. “ As for pity or indul¬ 
 gence,” he says, “ I would not have you swayed at all 
 by such considerations.” So comparatively modern 
 a feeling is mercy, as a general rule, to a conquered 
 enemy, especially when that enemy had once stood in 
 the position of a friend. But a mistaken severity 
 in this case, Diodotus argues, far from stamping out 
 rebellion, might defeat its own object: it might drive 
 to desperation any dependency which might possi¬ 
 bly revolt in the future. Again, if they included the 
 commons of Mitylene in the punishment, as had been 
 decreed, they would be sacrificing the immense advan¬ 
 tage which Athens now possessed, of being looked upon 
 more or less as a friend by the commons of every state : 
 she would lose the support in such cases of the masses, 
 now almost always inclined to her interests. Let them 
 put the leading citizens, whom Baches had sent home 
 as the most guilty, formally on their trial, and let the 
 rest live unharmed.—(III. 40.) 
 
 By a very small majority, the milder proposal of 
 Diodotus was carried in the Assembly. But the order 
 for the summary execution of all the citizens had been 
 despatched the evening before to the admiral at Mity¬ 
 lene, and the galley which carried it was already far 
 on her way. Then began a race for life and death. 
 
 “ At once they despatched another vessel in all haste, 
 fearing that unless this second outstripped the other, it 
 would find the town and its inhabitants already de¬ 
 stroyed : for the first had the start by about a day and 
 a night. The Mitylenean delegates had supplied the 
 
THE FATE UF Mil l LEXE. 
 
 97 
 
 second galley liberally with meal and wine, and 
 promised large bounties to the rowers if they reached 
 the island first; the men ate, as they sat at thfir 
 oars, a mixture of meal with wine and oil, rowing and 
 sleeping by relays. And as there chanced to be no 
 wind against them, and the first galley made no great 
 haste, as upon a hateful errand, while the other pressed 
 on in this fashion, the one arrived only just so much 
 in advance that Paches had read the letter containing 
 the decree, and was about to put the order into execu¬ 
 tion, when the second reached shore after it, and stopped 
 the massacre. So narrowly did Mitylen^ escape from 
 peril.”—(III. 49.) 
 
 Even the tender mercies of this war were cruel. 
 The main population of Mitylen^ was spared ; but those 
 who had been sent prisoners to Athens as having led 
 the revolt were put to death—upwards of a thousand 
 of the most influential citizens. The fortifications of 
 the place were dismantled, and its ^ fleet confiscated. 
 The whole island of Lesbos, except the one faithful 
 town of Methymna, was divided into lots, which were 
 assigned to Athenian citizens, who let them out to be 
 farmed by the natives. If a terrible example could 
 have bound the allies of Athens to their allegiance, the 
 fate of Lesbos might well have afibrded it. 
 
 4.C.S.8. voL vi. 
 
 a 
 
CHAPTEE Yin. 
 
 THE TERROR AT CORCYRA. 
 
 The island of Corcyra was again to be the scene of 
 troubles in which both the great contending Powers 
 were concerned. Corinth had not lost sight of her 
 ambitious and refractory daughter. Her fleet had 
 carried off from the island, after the sea-fight at the 
 beginning of the war, some 8000 prisoners.* Of 
 these, 250 belonged to the highest families; and 
 these, probably to their own surprise, while their 
 meaner countrymen were all sold for slaves, found 
 themselves well treated, and held in a kind of honour¬ 
 able safe-custody at Corinth. The Corinthians had 
 their own object in view. In the fifth year of the war 
 these men were sent home to their island, nominally 
 on bail for a large promised ransom, but really, says 
 Thucydides, “ on condition of their undertaking to 
 bring over the island to the Corinthians.” They began 
 by diplomatic intrigues; but they found the demo¬ 
 cratic party strong in the interests of Athens. Then 
 followed a succession of the most bloody revolutions 
 and counter-revolutions. The aristocrats had recourse 
 
 * See p. 22. 
 
THE TERROR AT CORCYRA. 
 
 99 
 
 to the “ gospel of the dagger; ” and having got rid in 
 this fashion of their leading opponents, maintained 
 themselves for a while in power. The arrival of 
 envoys from Corinth encouraged the commons to rise 
 upon their new masters ] slaves were armed and pro¬ 
 mised liberty by both parties; street-fighting went on 
 from day to day, with all the bitter ferocity which 
 marks the struggles of men of the same blood when 
 divided into hostile factions, the women of the pro¬ 
 letariat taking their share in the fight, and hurling 
 tiles from the houses on the heads of the aristocrats 
 below. These latter, to cut off the approach to the 
 arsenal which they held, set the town on fire. Fleets 
 arrived both from Athens and the Peloponnese, to 
 watch the turn of events, and take such measures as 
 they might in support of their own partisans amongst 
 the Corcyrscans. But the Athenians were in too small 
 force to do more than save the Corcyraean fleet from 
 utter destruction in a fight which ensued against an over¬ 
 whelming Peloponnesian force which drove them back 
 into their harbour. But when a new admiral was sent 
 out from Athens, the confederates—not daring to meet 
 the naval strength of Athens upon anything like equal 
 terms—sailed off towards home, leaving their un- 
 happy friends of the aristocratical party to the mercy 
 of their political enemies. Then, while the Athenian 
 admiral Eurymedon coldly looked on from the har¬ 
 bour, for seven days a reign of terror prevailed at 
 Coreyra. The commons, aided by foreign mercenaries, 
 massacred every man whom they chose to consider an 
 “ aristocrat.” 
 
 boston college libuaky 
 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
100 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 “ They denounced them,” says the historian, “ as 
 conspirators against the people; hut many lost their 
 lives owing to some private grudge, and others because 
 money was owed them by their captors. And death 
 was inflicted in all varieties of form; and no one 
 horrible detail was omitted of all that is wont to 
 happen in such a state of things,—and even more than 
 this, for father killed son, and men were dragged from 
 sanctuaries, or murdered in them: some even were 
 walled up in the temple of Bacchus, and died there, 
 So savage had the feud become.”—(III. 81.) 
 
 It has been said with some truth of this history in 
 general that its tone is cold and cynical—that, as a rule, 
 the historian seems to occupy the position of a looker 
 on at the deadly strife that is rending the very heart 
 of Greece, studying and describing its features some¬ 
 thing after the fashion in which a modern lecturer in 
 anatomy is supposed to watch the struggles of some 
 animal on whom he is making an experiment,—inter¬ 
 ested only in the demonstrations of his science, and 
 insensible to, or careless of, the sufierings of its victims. 
 It may be that to such an impassive and philosophical 
 spirit we owe much of the admitted truthfulness of 
 the narrative. But when Thucydides comes to record 
 these days of terror at Corcyra, he checks the steady 
 current of his narrative to draw a picture of the times 
 which becomes all the more impressive because it comes 
 from the hand of a keen observer who was not carried 
 away by any sentimental enthusiasm, or tempted to 
 write for sensational effect. In the remarkable chapters 
 
THE TERROR AT CORCYRA. 
 
 101 
 
 ■which follow, and to which any translation can do hut 
 scant justice, though he has Corcyra and its factions 
 before him as his immediate subject and example, it 
 is plain that he speaks of a phase of national character 
 which was fast being developed throughout all Greece 
 by this civil war—for such, in many of its most de¬ 
 plorable features, was this struggle between Hellenic 
 states which claimed a common origin, spoke a com¬ 
 mon language, and appealed to a common religion. 
 The factions at Corcyra, which furnish the text of 
 these chapters, have been not inaptly compared to 
 the revolutionary “ Clubs ” of Paris ; but this great 
 difference must be borne in mind, that they were not 
 peculiar to the democratic party. 
 
 “ The states thus torn by faction displayed beyond 
 all precedent a novelty of invention both in elaborat¬ 
 ing plots and in monstrous acts of vengeance. And 
 men changed at will the ordinary meaning of words, 
 to suit their actions. Por unscrupulous daring was 
 termed brave and good comradeship; a prudent hesita¬ 
 tion was but specious cowardice; a general moderation 
 was a general uselessness. A mad impetuosity was 
 the proof of a manly spirit; caution in any enterprise 
 was a sign of drawing back. The man who urged to 
 cruelty was a trusty citizen ; the man who would dis¬ 
 suade from it became himself suspeoted. He who 
 plotted and succeeded was clever; he who suspected 
 plots was cleverer still: while he who would have so 
 ordered matters as that no plot should be necessary, 
 was charged with breaking up his party, and being 
 
102 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 afraid of his opponents. In short, the man who could 
 forestall others in the commission of a crime, and he 
 who incited to crime another who had never thought of 
 it, were alike commended. Moreover, the ties of blood 
 were not so close as the ties of party, because this latter 
 bond found men readier for the most unscrupulous 
 action. Tor such associations are formed not under 
 the protection of ordinary laws, but in defiance of all 
 established law, in the interests of selfish ambition: 
 and fidelity between their members rests not on any 
 sacred principle, but on the fact of having been accom¬ 
 plices in crime. Any fair proposal from an adversary 
 was received with a cautious eye to his possible future 
 action, not in any generous spirit.* Eevenge upon 
 an enemy was more highly valued than the having re¬ 
 ceived no injury to avenge. And if oaths were em¬ 
 ployed at any time to ratify a convention, they were 
 taken by either party only because there was no alterna¬ 
 tive at the moment, and held good just so long as that 
 party gained no new strength; but as soon as a chance 
 offered, whichever had the boldness first to seize it, if 
 he could catch the other unprepared, wreaked his 
 vengeance on him with more relish, on account of the 
 pledge between them, than if it had been after fair 
 warning; and congratulated himself not only on the 
 safe opportunity he had found for an attack, but 
 
 * Arnold, in a note on this passage, appositely quotes a 
 modern illustration : “ ‘Ne vous fiez-vous pas k la parole du 
 roi V lui disait M. de Lionne dans une conference. ‘ J’ignore ce 
 queveut leroi,’ dit Van Brunnig ; ‘je considkre ce qu’il pent."’ 
 —Voltaire, Sikcle de Louis XLV., ch. 9. 
 
THE TERROR AT CORCYRA. 
 
 103 
 
 on the credit he should gain for cleverness besides, 
 in having so cunningly overreached him. ... So 
 no party recognised any religious obligation, but those 
 who succeeded in effecting some odious purpose under 
 fair pretences were held in all the higher esteem. 
 They who stood neutral became the victims of both 
 parties—either because they would not join them, or 
 out of jealousy that they should so escape. Thus, 
 in consequence of these party factions, every species 
 of baseness began to obtain throughout Greece, and 
 simplicity, which goes most commonly with a noble 
 nature, was ridiculed, and disappeared; and the general 
 habit was for men to stand on their guard against each 
 other in a mutual distrust. Tor in settling a quarrel 
 no man’s word could be trusted, and no oath was held 
 in awe.”—(III. 82, 83.) 
 
 % 
 
 The chapter which follows, and in which the state of 
 morals induced by such revolutions as that in Corcyra 
 is still further discussed, has given rise to a curious 
 and interesting question. The old commentators de¬ 
 tected peculiarities in its style and expressions which 
 satisfied them of its not being the work of Thucydides 
 himself, but only a clever imitation. Their opinion is 
 endorsed by modern scholars: Arnold even calls it 
 “ a caricature of his style and manner.” It seems pro¬ 
 bable that it was inserted by a Christian student of 
 Thucydides, of whom there were very many at Con¬ 
 stantinople between the fourth and seventh centuries. 
 
 It may be convenient once more to break through 
 the historian’s arrangement into years, to get a clear 
 
104 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 view of the end. The aristocrats of Corcyra were not 
 yet finally disposed of. Some five hundred of them 
 escaped, and with some hired mercenaries fortified 
 themselves on a hill in the island called Iston^. Thence 
 they commanded the country round, cut off supplies 
 from the town, and otherwise harassed their enemies 
 considerably. They asked support in vain from 
 the Corinthians, who had sent them on their for¬ 
 lorn hope of regaining the island, and from the rest 
 of the Peloponnesians whose cause they were serving; 
 but they maintained themselves there for nearly two 
 years, when the place was stormed by an Athenian 
 force, Avho were landed on the island to relieve their 
 friends in the town from this continual state of local 
 warfare. The little garrison of Iston^ retired still 
 higher up the mountain, but were at last obliged to 
 surrender at discretion, agreeing “ to abide the judg¬ 
 ment of the people of Athens.” Such terms did not 
 meet the views of their relentless enemies at home. 
 Emissaries from the democrats enticed some of the 
 prisoners secretly to break their parole, and to make an 
 attempt to escape; told them that the Athenian generals 
 meant to give them up to the mob ; and offered them 
 a vessel to escape in. They fell into the snare; were of 
 course taken and brought back: the terms of capitu¬ 
 lation were declared to have been violated, and the 
 Athenian commanders gave them up to the tender 
 mercies of their countrymen. Thucydides tells us what 
 followed :— 
 
 “ When the Corcyraeans got them into their hands, 
 
THE TERROR AT CORCYRA. 
 
 - 105 
 
 they shut them up in a large building ; and afterwards 
 bringing them out by twenty at a time made them pass, 
 fettered together, through two rows of armed . soldiers 
 ranged on either side, while they were struck and 
 stabbed by those in the ranks, wherever any man espied 
 a personal enemy; and men walked by the side carry¬ 
 ing whips, with which they quickened the pace of any 
 who seemed to move too slowly. As many as sixty 
 they brought out and massacred in this fashion, with¬ 
 out its coming to the knowledge of the others inside 
 (for these fancied they were only removing them to 
 some other quarter). But when they discovered the fact, 
 from some one telling them, then they called aloud on 
 the Athenians, and begged that they would slay them, 
 if they willed it so to be. And they would not come 
 out of the building any more, and said they would 
 allow none to enter it so long as they could strike a 
 blow. The Corcyraeans had no mind themselves to forc(3 
 the doors, but climbed on the roof of the place, pulled 
 off the tiling, and hurled tiles and shot arrows down 
 on those within. These protected themselves as well 
 as they could, and at the same time the majority began 
 to despatch themselves, by thrusting into their throats 
 the arrows which their enemies had discharged, or 
 hanging themselves with the cordage of some beds 
 which happened to be inside, or cutting strips from 
 tlieir clothes for the purpose. So, through the greater 
 part of the night (for the night came on during this 
 tragedy), they were making away with themselves in 
 one fashion or other, or being shot down by the men on 
 the roof. When it was day, the Corcyraeans threw the 
 
lOG 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 bodies, one upon the other, on drays, and carried them 
 outside the town. All the women taken in the fort 
 were sold for slaves. In such fashion were the Corcy- 
 raeans from the mountain slaughtered by the popu¬ 
 lace, and the feud which had lasted so long was thus 
 brought to a termination—for of one of the two parties 
 there was scarcely a remnant left worth reckoning.”— 
 (IV. 47, 48.) 
 
 Eurymedon—the same Athenian admiral who had 
 lain quiet with his fleet in the harbour while a similar 
 scene was enacted two years before—again looked on 
 passively from his ships until his savage allies had 
 glutted their revenge, and then moved off on his way 
 to Sicily. 
 
 It is somewhat startling to turn from the calm and 
 dispassionate account which Thucydides gives of the 
 horrors which marked the conduct of both parties in 
 these deadly struggles for power, to the remarks which 
 Mr Grote has made upon them in what he calls “ a 
 discriminative criticism.” Everything which falls from 
 such an authority is weighty, and must be received 
 with respect. But when we find that he can see little 
 in these Corcyrsean horrors but “ the work of a selfish 
 oligarchical party, playing the game of a foreign en¬ 
 emy—aiming to subvert the existing democracy and 
 acquire power for themselves, and ready to employ 
 any measure of violence for the attainment of these 
 objects”—^when he speaks of the democratic faction 
 as being “thrown upon the defensive,” and says that 
 “their conduct as victors is only such as we might 
 
THE TERROR AT CORCYRA. 
 
 107 
 
 expect in siicli maddening circumstances,”—we feel 
 that we are not listening to the historian hut to the 
 politician. It is fair at least to the ordinary reader 
 to warn him that such a judgment cannot justly be 
 gathered from the pages of 'Thucydides. He has 
 set before us clearly the bitter fruits of political 
 faction carried to extremes by a fierce and crafty 
 people; the recklessness of human life, the revenge, 
 the cruelty, which marked the age, and which we 
 know was not confined, as Thucydides would seem 
 almost disposed to think, to Greece and its neigh 
 bourhood, under the pressure of intestine war. But 
 he nowhere gives us reason to suppose that the guilt 
 could be laid exclusively or mainly to the charge of 
 either party in the struggle,—noble or plebeian, demo¬ 
 crat or aristocrat, islander or Athenian. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES AND CLEON. 
 
 These sixth and seventh years of the war bring into 
 the foreground one of the Athenian “ generals at sea ” 
 (for this old English appellation perhaps best serves to 
 express the real position of a naval commander of the 
 Greeks) who is to play a considerable part in future 
 operations both by sea and land. Demosthenes first 
 distinguished himself in the summer of B.c. 426, by 
 an attempt at the reduction of some of the AEtolian 
 tribes, in the hope of making his way thence by land 
 into Boeotia, and eventually breaking up altogether 
 the Lacedaemonian interest in Northern Greece. But 
 his attempt was very unfortunate: he was weak in 
 archers and light troops generally, and his regular 
 infantry could make no head against the harassing 
 attacks of the swarms of mountaineers. Their guide 
 was killed, and they lost their way. The main body 
 found itself surrounded in a forest, which was set on 
 fire by the enemy; and besides great loss amofig the 
 auxiliaries, half the Athenian force fell there, together 
 with the other general. Erodes—“ the most valuable 
 lives,” says Thucydides, “ that were lost in all this 
 
DEMOSTHENES AND CLEON. 
 
 109 
 
 war.” So much did Demosthenes blame himself for 
 the disaster, that though his ships carried the sur¬ 
 vivors of the expedition home to Athens, he preferred 
 himseK to find some employment at the foreign station 
 of Naupactus, “ fearing to face the Athenians after all 
 that had happened.” 
 
 He retrieved his lost credit by degrees. Eirst, he 
 succeeded in saving Haupactus itself from projected 
 attack by throwing into it reinforcements obtained by 
 his influence with the neighbouring tribes. He was 
 elected commander-in-chief of the native levies of 
 Acarnanians, who had an old grudge to work out 
 against their neighbours the Ambraciots, who were in 
 the opposite interest, and defeated these latter in two 
 important battles, from one of which such heaps of 
 spoil were carried off that three hundred complete 
 suits of armour fell to the share of Demosthenes 
 alone. 
 
 He had no fear now of the verdict of his country¬ 
 men. When a fleet was under orders next year for 
 Corcyra (as we have seen), and thence for Sicily, 
 Demosthenes, though we are expressly told that he 
 was living quietly as a private citizen since his return, 
 had influence enough to obtain leave to accompany it, 
 with extraordinary powers. He was to make such use 
 of it as he saw occasion on the coasts of the peninsula. 
 Ho wonder that such an anomalous authority was not 
 cordially recognised by the officers in actual command. 
 He had fixed his heart upon an uninhabited bluff on 
 the south-west coast, some forty-five miles from Sparta, 
 in the old Messenia, called Pylos, overhanging the 
 
110 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 harbour well known in the history of modern warfare 
 as Navarino. This point he had a desire to fortify; 
 and there—within their ancestral territory—he had 
 the design of planting some of his friends, the de¬ 
 scendants of Messenian exiles in ISTaupactus, to he a 
 permanent menace and annoyance to their hereditary 
 enemies of Sparta. The actual commanders, Eury- 
 medon and Sophocles, protested against such delay 
 as tending to defeat the great objects of the expedi¬ 
 tion, and against the project itself as a wild one. But 
 it so happened that a storm drove them into that very 
 harbour; and now Demosthenes again put forward 
 his idea, and again in vain. “ There were plenty of 
 unoccupied headlands on the peninsula,” said the 
 commanders, “if he wanted to waste the public 
 money in building forts upon them.” But Demos¬ 
 thenes, who evidently had the art of making him¬ 
 self popular, abroad or at home, persuaded the infe¬ 
 rior officers and the men, who had nothing to do 
 while detained in harbour, to begin the fortification 
 by way of amusement. Very soon, in a rough 
 way, by taking advantage of the natural ruggedness 
 of the place, a fort was completed; and there Demos¬ 
 thenes, at his own request, was left with a guard 
 of five ships, while the rest proceeded on their voyage. 
 His little garrison was soon strengthened by the ar¬ 
 rival of two Messenian galleys with a few regular 
 troops. 
 
 The Lacedaemonians heard of the occupation, and 
 were at first inclined to treat the affair with ridicide, 
 as the Athenian adinhals had done. But Agis, the 
 
DEMOSTHENES AND CLEON 
 
 111 
 
 Spartan king, took a more serious view of the matter. 
 He was away in Attica, in command of the confederate 
 force, which was engaged, now for the fifth season, 
 in burning and destroying the crops of the unhappy 
 farmers of Attica. The invaders themselves were suffer¬ 
 ing there in some degree; the corn was not so forward 
 as usual, for the spring had been cold, and they had 
 hard work to maintain themselves. The king evac¬ 
 uated the country after the comparatively short stay 
 of fifteen days, and hurried back to meet the new 
 emergency. The fleet was recalled from Corcyra; 
 and as soon as possible an attack was made in strong 
 force by land and sea upon Demosthenes’s new strong¬ 
 hold. He had received sufficient warning, however, 
 to send off for help to the Athenian admirals, and 
 meanwhile made the best dispositions he could. 
 
 Across and in front of the harbour, forming its 
 natural protection, lay the little island of Sphakteria 
 (Sphagia). This was at once occupied by the Spar¬ 
 tans, whde they prepared to close the two narrow 
 entrances to the harbour on each side of the island 
 by galleys strongly lashed together with their beaks 
 outwards, so as to keep off the expected Athenian 
 fleet, and block up the garrison of Pylos.* Then they 
 made their attack from within. Demosthenes drew 
 up his little force at the landing-place—narrow and 
 
 * The present geography of ISTavariuo and Sphagia can hardly 
 be reconciled with this description. “ There is no alternative,” 
 says Grote, “ except to suppose that a great alteration has 
 taken place in the two passages which se{)arate Sphagia from 
 the mainland, during the interval of 2400 years.” 
 
112 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 difificiilt—and fought at their head. The enemy at¬ 
 tacked in divisions, for only a few galleys could take 
 the shore at the same time; hut attempt after attempt 
 was repulsed. In vain did the historian’s favourite 
 hero, Brasidas—foremost here as always—do all that 
 a hero could. 
 
 “Most conspicuous of all was Brasidas. He was in' 
 command of a galley; and when he saw the other 
 captains and their steersmen hesitating because the 
 landing was difficult, and cautious of wrecking their 
 vessels, even where it did seem possible to take the 
 shore, he shouted aloud that ‘ it did not become them 
 to be sparing of their timbers where the enemy had 
 built a stone wall,’ and hade them even stave their 
 galleys in, if need were, and force a landing. And 
 he hade the allies not grudge to sacrifice their ships 
 for the Lacedaemonians, in this hoiu* of need, in 
 return for their many obligations; but to run them 
 ashore, and land at all hazards, and make themselves 
 masters of the place and the garrison. Thus did he 
 upbraid the others; and so, having forced his own 
 helmsman to run his galley ashore, stepped on the 
 gangway, and, as he was in the act of landing, was 
 cut down by the Athenians, and fell apparently life¬ 
 less, covered with wounds. His shield slipped from 
 his arm and fell into the sea; and when it was after¬ 
 wards cast ashore, the Athenians picked it up, and 
 used it in forming the trophy which they set up after 
 repulsing the attack. Eager as the rest were to land, 
 they could not do it; so difficult was the place, and so 
 
DEMOSTHENES AND CLEON. 
 
 113 
 
 firmly did the Athenians stand their ground and never 
 give back.”—(lY. 11, 12.) 
 
 Thucydides remarks on the reversal of parts on this 
 occasion,—the Athenians, whose pride was in their 
 naval superiority, fighting so well on land, while the 
 Lacedaemonians were now the attacking party by sea. 
 These resolved, however, that their next attempt should 
 be from the land side. But now the Athenian fleet re¬ 
 turned to the rescue of the garrison, and all at once 
 matters were entirely changed. They sailed into the 
 harbour before the enemy had carried out their purpose 
 of blockading the entrances, ' captured and destroyed 
 some portion of their fleet, became themselves masters 
 of the harbour, and so cut off the Lacedaemonian de¬ 
 tachment who had been landed on the island from 
 all intercourse with their friends on the mainland. 
 The blockading party had in their turn become the 
 blockaded. 
 
 The liacedaemonians were in consternation. Their 
 men on the island seemed to have only the choice 
 between starvation and surrender. The Ephors—the 
 high council of State, superior in some respects even 
 to the kings—came in person to Pylos to advise. They 
 obtained an armistice, and sent ambassadors to Athens 
 to try to negotiate a peace. Before even the armistice 
 was granted, they had to put their entire naval force 
 of sixty galleys into the hands of the Athenians as a 
 guarantee of good faith, that so they might be allowed 
 to supply their men in Sphakteria with daily rations 
 
 A.C.S.S. vol. vl H 
 
114 
 
 THVGYBIBkS. 
 
 SO long as the armistice should last, until the return of 
 their ambassadors from Athens. 
 
 There is a proud hmnility in the language in which 
 Thucydides has embodied the overtures made by the 
 envoys of Lacedaemon. They appeal to the common 
 experience of all men as to the fickleness of fortune. 
 “ We, who stand first in reputation of aU Greeks, are 
 come here to you,—we who aforetime thought our¬ 
 selves rather in a position to bestow what we now 
 come to ask : simply because we have failed in cal¬ 
 culations which would have been justified under ordi¬ 
 nary circumstances.” Let them beware, continued the 
 speaker, of dreaming that fortune would always 
 favour one side, or that war would always take the 
 course which the belligerents expected or desired. 
 Athens had now an excellent opportunity of showing 
 moderation in her hour of triumph, and of leaving to 
 posterity a lasting reputation for true wisdom as well 
 as power. Bitter as their enmity had been, generosity 
 might make them friends,—the driving men to ex¬ 
 tremities never would. The speaker adds a word, as 
 well he might, on behalf of the unfortunate smaller 
 states of each confederacy, “who were now fighting 
 without clearly knowing which party was the ag¬ 
 gressor.” But he belies this unusual show of con¬ 
 sideration for weaker powers by the selfish policy 
 more than hinted at in his conclusion — that “if 
 Athens and Lacedaemon were hut agreed, they might 
 he sure that the rest of Greece would know its own 
 weakness too well not to show them the greatest 
 deference.” 
 
DEMOSTHENES AND CLEON. 
 
 115 
 
 The Athenian Assembly was too triumphant to be 
 moderate. “ They thought,” says their historian, 
 “ that they could now have peace whenever they 
 chose, and they were greedy after further advantage.” 
 Toremost of those who expressed this feeling loudly 
 was Cleon, still as powerful as ever with the multitude. 
 He persuaded them to insist on the restoration of the 
 forts of the JMegarians, Pegse and Nissea—dear to the 
 hearts of the Athenian commons as Calais was to the 
 English queen—with certain other acquisitions which 
 they had been compelled to give up by the terms of 
 that “ Tliirty Years’ Peace ” which had so lately been 
 broken. The Lacedsemonians were not as yet suffi¬ 
 ciently humbled to accept such conditions, and their 
 envoys went back to Pylos. 
 
 The Athenians still retained possession of the 
 enemy’s fleet, regardless of all protest, on the real or 
 pretended ground of some violation of the terms of ar¬ 
 mistice; and their own gaUeys cruised round Sphakteria 
 day and night, giving no chance of relief or escape to 
 the unfortunate prisoners there. But this constant 
 blockade grew wearisome; the Athenians suffered from 
 scarcity of water; in spite of all precautions, slaves 
 were found who swam over from the mainland with 
 scanty supplies of corn to the men on the island, or 
 crossed from various points in small boats on stormy 
 nights, tempted by large rewards; and Athens grew 
 impatient. “Why was not a landing effected, and the 
 men made prisoners at once % ” 
 
 Then followed a curious episode in the war—a half- 
 , ludicrous triumph for the favourite of the Athenian 
 
116 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 commons, and an endless subject of jest for tlie politi¬ 
 cal satirists of tlie day. Cleon said, in one of bis 
 harangues, that “ if their generals were but men, they 
 would run their vessels in, and capture the people 
 on the island; and if he were in command, he would 
 do it.” 
 
 “ He aimed his words at Nicias, son of N’iceratus, 
 who was then general, and whom he hated,” says the 
 historian; for bTicias was the very opposite of Cleon, 
 the representative of all that was moderate and respect¬ 
 able. Nicias at once bade him—so far as he was con¬ 
 cerned—take what force he chose with him, and at¬ 
 tempt it. How far either was in earnest at the outset 
 seems doubtful. Cleon would have drawn back from 
 his first challenge; but the more he seemed to try to 
 escape from the position, the more strongly did both 
 his supporters and his enemies insist on his carrying 
 it out. Then he changed his mood : give him merely 
 a body of auxiliaries—he would not ask to risk an 
 Athenian’s life in the service — and within twenty 
 days he would bring these Spartans prisoners to 
 Athens, or die in the attempt. ‘‘There was a good 
 deal of merriment among the Athenians,” says Thucy¬ 
 dides, “ at his boastful talk; all the moderate party, 
 however, were delighted, calcidating that one of two 
 -gopd’things must be the result—they would either get 
 rid^pf Cleon (which was what they rather hoped and 
 ‘ " 'jex;^ctedW^^ if they were disappointed in that opinion, 
 ..v';-:' -they'^ould'^t the Lacedaemonians into their hands.” 
 It 'is not: difficult to understand that such a challenge 
 
 '*•»*'* * ♦ * ■ * ••’V * 
 
 . from Clebn*. would be received by the Athenian mob 
 
 
DEMOSTJIEN^ES AND CLEON. 
 
 117 
 
 with a keen appreciation of the joke against the 
 “moderates,” and a half-humorous and half-serious 
 encouragement to carry it out. But it is seldom that a 
 practical jest is carried out on so grand a scale, or at 
 such risk of national honour. 
 
 Cleon set out for Pylos; and, probably to the sur¬ 
 prise of friends and foes alike, made good his words. 
 He had asked to have Demosthenes associated with him 
 in the command, because he was aware, the historian 
 thinks, that he was already meditating a descent upon 
 the island. A strong force of heavy-armed infantry 
 were landed before daybreak in two divisions, at two 
 separate points, who cut to pieces the enemy’s out¬ 
 post; and at dawn the light troops followed them, 
 took advantage of all rising ground, and thence 
 showered arrows and javelins on the enemy. The 
 whole force thrown upon the island must have been 
 near 10,000 men. Por a while the Lacedaemonians 
 maintained themselves in an old rude fortification at 
 one end of the island, though their men were falling 
 fast, and they were all weak from long privation; but 
 at last they were taken in rear, their commander was 
 killed, and his lieutenant mortally wounded; and the 
 survivors lowered their shields and bowed their heads 
 towards their assailants in token of submission. Within 
 the twenty days, Cleon brought home his prisoners to 
 
 Athens—two hundred and ninety-two nij^n; of 
 one hundred and twenty were citizens. of /S-p^^ta. 
 Hearly one-third of the detachment had faU^i 
 obstinate defence. U’' v. . -. 
 
 It is perhaps the most remarkable^^^fsode'in'^the/ 
 
118 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 whole war; and one does not feel sure that the story, 
 well told as it is, is told quite fairly for Cleon. All that 
 Thucydides says of his success is, “So Cleon’s promise, 
 insane as it was, was fulfilled.” He would make it ap¬ 
 pear that Cleon was a mere braggart—that he was driven 
 to carry out his boast quite against his will—and that 
 he was favoured unexpectedly by circumstances; and 
 that the credit of the capture was due, after all, to 
 Demosthenes and not to him. It is quite impossible 
 to discuss, in these brief pages, a question which has 
 interested and divided great historical authorities, and 
 as to which we have very few facts, and very strong 
 assertions; but Mr Grote’s defence of Cleon is at least 
 well worth reading. He is clearly right on one point: 
 if Cleon was a mere idle boaster, and not a competent 
 soldier, it was a gross breach of trust in Hicias to resign 
 his command to him so readily. That Cleon was violent 
 and boastful may be readily believed, without impugn¬ 
 ing his military capacity; and at Athens every politi¬ 
 cal leader was almost of necessity a soldier also, and 
 must be ready to take responsibility upon himself in 
 the field as well as in the council. There is undoubt¬ 
 edly an exceptional bitterness, whether it be of prejudice 
 or of honest contempt, in Thucydides’s language about 
 Cleon ; and this has led to the belief that Cleon was 
 his personal enemy, and the chief agent in his banish¬ 
 ment from Athens. Yet we have to remember, when 
 we begin to suspect the historian of having for a 
 moment forgotten his usual impartiality, that his 
 narrative of the affair of Sphakteria was drawn up 
 
DEMOSTHENES AND CLEON. 
 
 119 
 
 in tlie first instance for a public who were cotempo¬ 
 rary with the event itself; and that the satirists of 
 the day—who are valuable witnesses if not always to 
 facts, yet to the popular judgment of facts—more than 
 endorse the historian’s estimate of Cleon’s exploit. 
 
 This passage in Greek history has a very curious 
 parallel in our own. Our West India merchant-ships 
 had long been harassed by the Spaniards, who made 
 Porto Bello in New Granada their chief station. Ad¬ 
 miral Hosier was sent with a fleet to cruise off that coast 
 for the protection of British trade, but with orders not 
 to attack the place. During a long inaction he lost 
 his best officers and half his crews by disease, while he 
 felt himself a laughing-stock to the Spaniards; and the 
 chagrin and mortification are said to have finally broken 
 his heart. Meanwhile, in 1739, Admiral Vernon, an 
 Opposition member of the House of Commons—who 
 seems to have been not unlike Cleon in character, 
 fierce and not ineloquent in debate, the delight of his 
 own party,” and with a considerable share of “ blunt 
 impudence”—said that Porto Bello might easily be 
 taken : nay, that he would undertake to do so with six 
 ships, if he were given the command. Sir Eobert 
 Walpole, wlio was then Minister, “ hoping to appease 
 the popular clamour, and to get rid for a time of Ver¬ 
 non’s busy opposition,” closed with the offer. Vernon 
 went out, took the place, razed its* fortifications, and 
 returned to receive a popular ovation and the formal 
 thanks of both Houses. The parallel holds good even 
 further: Vernon failed afterwards, when put in com- 
 
120 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 niand on the West India station, as Cleon did in 
 Thrace.* 
 
 The surrender of a Lacedaemonian force, consist¬ 
 ing in large proportion of citizens of Sparta, caused a 
 profound sensation throughout the Greek communities. 
 “ Their opinion of the Lacedaemonians had always 
 been that neither for famine nor for any other strait 
 would they stoop to lay down their arms, hut that 
 they would die with their weapons in their hands, 
 fighting to the last.” Some professed not to believe, 
 he goes on to say, that the men who surrendered were 
 of true Spartan blood, like those who fell. “One 
 inquirer asked, by way of insult, whether those who 
 had been killed were all real Spartan gentlemen?” 
 and was answered by one of the prisoners “that it 
 would be a valuable arrow indeed which knew how to 
 pick out the best men.” 
 
 The occupation of Pylos was made permanent, by 
 planting there a garrison of Messenians from Haupac- 
 tus, who were admirably fitted, from their knowledge 
 of the Lacedaemonian language and habits, to annoy 
 and harass the surrounding district; the place would 
 serve, too, as an asylum to such of the Lacedaemonian 
 slaves (the Helots, consisting mainly of the descendants 
 of the conquered Messenians) as might take the op¬ 
 portunity to desert. Mcias succeeded also in occupy- 
 mg another very important station on their enemy’s 
 
 * This remarkable parallel was first noticed by a writer in the 
 ‘Philological Museum,’vol. ii. p. 704. The story is perhaps best 
 known by Glover’s (or Lord Bath’s) ballad, “ Hosier’s Ghost,” 
 which seems to have been really written as a political squib. 
 
DEMOSTHENES AND CLEON. 
 
 121 
 
 coast—tlie island of Cytliera (Cerigo)—and made this 
 the base of his operations against the maritime towns. 
 He retorted upon the Lacedaemonians their own strat¬ 
 egics by a seven days’ raid upon crops and cattle; 
 while they on their part were forced to omit their 
 us ial invasion in the early summer of the year that fol¬ 
 lowed the disaster at Sphakteria, because the Athenians 
 had given warning that they would put the prisoners 
 who had been taken there to death, if the enemy 
 marched over their border. It was probably at this 
 time that the Lacedaemonians carried out perhaps the 
 most cruel and treacherous act of policy which history 
 records. Many of these Helots had done them faithful 
 service in the war; but now, with these new places of 
 refuge open for them at Pylos and Cythera, they were 
 under strong temptation to throw off their yoke. Let 
 Thucydides tell the story, though he does it in the 
 coldest words, and with no note of reprobation :— 
 
 “They made proclamation that they would select 
 [from the Helots] those who could show that they had 
 done them the best service in war, in order to give 
 them their freedom; applying a sort of test, as think¬ 
 ing that those who had the spirit to come forward first 
 to claim their freedom were the very men who were 
 most likely to rise upon their masters. So they picked 
 out two thousand, who crowned themselves with gar¬ 
 lands and made the round of all the temples as freed- 
 men: and soon afterwards they got rid of them all, 
 and yet no man knew in what fashion they were 
 severally made away with.”—{IV. 80.) 
 
122 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 So utterly disheartened were the Lacedjemonian. 
 leaders, that they sent again to negotiate a peace, hut 
 again in vam. Athens was determined to push her 
 good fortune to the uttermost, and to dictate her own 
 terms; and she thus lost an opportunity of terminat¬ 
 ing the war with honour and advantage which never 
 occurred to her under such favourable circumstances 
 
 again. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THUCYDIDES AT AMPHIPOLIS. 
 
 In the eighth year of the war, there came an appeal to 
 the Lacedaemonians from Thrace. The subject-allies 
 of Athens in that quarter were always restless, and 
 only wanted some external support to break out into 
 open revolt against her rule. Perdiccas of Macedonia, 
 too, having a ^quarrel of his own on hand with a 
 neighbouring prince, offered to join the Chalcidians 
 of Thrace in paying and maintaining a body of troops 
 from Lacedaemon, if they could be sent; and they 
 specially asked that Brasidas, as knowing the country 
 and being highly popular, should be sent out in com¬ 
 mand. He had by this time recovered from his wounds 
 at Pylos, and was ready enough to go. But the enter¬ 
 prise was not much favoured by his government. He 
 seems to have undertaken it very much on his own 
 responsibility. All that he could obtain was the 
 arming of 700 of the Helots—whom, under present 
 circumstances, the authorities at Sparta were glad 
 enough to spare—and leave to raise volunteers in 
 the country. With these—some 1700 men in all— 
 he set out by forced marches through Thessaly' 
 
124 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 favoured by some of the chiefs, and escaping all 
 opposition (though most of the tribes were friendly 
 to the Athenians), alike by the rapidity of his move¬ 
 ments and the tact with which he persuaded them of 
 the harmless character of his expedition. So he safely 
 reached Dium, under Mount Olympus, and there 
 effected a junction with Perdiccas, against whom the 
 Athenians, hearing of this movement, had already 
 declared war. But the objects of Perdiccas and of 
 Brasidas were different, and their co-operation did not 
 last long. 
 
 His first operation was against the colony of 
 Acanthus, where a party was ready to receive him. 
 Our author says that “ for a Lacedaemonian, Brasidas 
 was not a bad speaker.” He made a speech on this 
 occasion which at least showed tact and good sense. 
 He began with the popular assertion thkt he was come 
 “ to liberate Greece.” He expressed his surprise that 
 they were not unanimous in welcoming him; he had 
 come a long way, and at much risk, for their sakes; he 
 was not there as a partisan of the oligarchical party; all 
 should be guaranteed their rights and liberties, if they 
 accepted the alliance of Sparta. But he could not 
 allow so important a city to damage the great cause of 
 independence by its cowardice in not accepf ing such 
 an offer, or permit Acanthus to continue to contribute 
 revenue to the enemy: if they declined his overtures, 
 he must, very reluctantly, use force. 
 
 Either his first or his last arguments had the desired 
 effect. Acanthus changed its allegiance, and Brasidas 
 occupied the town. Some of its weaker neighbours 
 
THUCYDIDES AT AMPHIPOLIS. 
 
 125 
 
 followed its example, and others were reduced by 
 force. 
 
 But the great stronghold of Athenian power and 
 influence in those quarters was Amphipolis — “ the- 
 city - looking - both - ways ”— which, with its adjacent 
 port at Eion, commanded the passage of the river 
 Strymon, and was the key to the commerce of the 
 interior, and the depot for ship-timber from the neigh¬ 
 bouring forests of Thrace. Thucydides tells us that 
 the town of his own day was the second attempt 
 which the Athenians had made to form a settlement 
 there; and the importance attached to the position 
 may be gathered from the fact that a body of no less 
 than 10,000 colonists had gone out from Athens to 
 occupy it in the first instance, all of whom were cut 
 off by the native tribes. 
 
 Amphipolis was destined to be a fateful name to 
 three of the best-known actors in this war. It was 
 the scene of our historian’s first campaign, so far as we 
 know, and certainly of his last. He gives a very brief, 
 and scarcely a satisfactory, account of it. His personal 
 history and military reputation depend so much upon 
 it, that it is fair, in the first place, to give his own few 
 words. Brasidas had hoped to take the place by sur¬ 
 prise, with the aid of a jDarty inside the walls who 
 were prepared to betray it to hiim 
 
 “Meanwhile, the party opposed to these tiaitors 
 in conjunction with Eucles, the commander who had 
 come to them from Athens to defend the place, 
 sent off to the other officer who was in command in 
 
126 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 Thrace and its neighbourhood,—Thucydides, son of 
 Olorus, who 'wrote this history, and who was then at 
 Thasos, an island about half a day’s sail from Am- 
 phipolis,—urging him to come to their relief. As soon 
 as he heard it, he set sail at once with seven ships 
 which happened to be there, hoping to reach Am- 
 phipolis before any capitulation took place, or in any 
 case to save Eion. Brasidas meanwhile, fearing the 
 arrival of this naval reinforcement from Thasos, and 
 hearing that Thucydides had a property in the work¬ 
 ing of the gold-mines in that part of Thrace, and from 
 that circumstance possessed great influence amongst 
 the inhabitants, made every effort to be beforehand 
 with him, if possible, in making himself master of the 
 town; lest, if Thucydides arrived, the commons of 
 Amphipolis, expecting that he would raise succours 
 for them both by sea and from Thrace, and so secure 
 them, would not surrender.”—(lY. 104.) 
 
 Brasidas offered freedom and an independent govern¬ 
 ment to all who chose to remain at Amphipolis, and 
 liberty to withdraw, with all their property, to those 
 who preferred to do so; and his terms were at once 
 accepted. The author proceeds :— 
 
 “ So on these terms they surrendered the city; and 
 late that evening Thucydides and his galleys reached 
 Eion. Brasidas had just taken possession of Amphi¬ 
 polis, and was within one night of taking Eion; for 
 had not the fleet come promptly to its relief, he must 
 have had it in the morning. Subsequently, Thucy- 
 
THUCYDIDES AT AMPIIIPOLIS. 
 
 127 
 
 dides so ordered matters as to secure Eion, not only 
 for the present, in case Erasidas should attack it, hut 
 for the future as well; receiving there all who chose to 
 come in from the town above, in accordance with the 
 terms. Erasidas made a sudden descent hj the river 
 with a considerable number of boats, on the chance of 
 seizing the point of land which reached out from the 
 fortifications, and of so commanding the entrance, and 
 made an attack at the same time by land, but was re¬ 
 pulsed in both.”—(lY. 107.) 
 
 It was for his conduct on this occasion that the 
 writer was either banished from Athens, or expatriated 
 . himself to avoid a public sentence. He has mentioned 
 this fact in as cold and brief terms as those in which 
 he describes the events which led to it. He only al¬ 
 ludes to it incidentally, when speaking of the oppor¬ 
 tunities he had of watching and recording the issue of 
 the struggle at his leisure. “ It was my fate to be an 
 exile from my country for twenty years, after the oper¬ 
 ations at Amphipolis.”* There is no word here of com¬ 
 plaint or of self-excuse; and this reticence has been 
 noted as a silent admission of culpability. It might be 
 observed, on the other hand, that there was no neces¬ 
 sity for his thus placing on record, in a work which 
 he hoped would be to his countrymen “a heritage for 
 ever,” the cause of his exile, if he felt it to have been 
 discreditable to himself. The question of the degree 
 of blame to be attached to Thucydides for the loss of 
 Amphipolis has been keenly discussed; and it has 
 
 * V. 26. 
 
128 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 been assumed tbat be was in fact occupied in looking 
 after his own mining interests in Thasos, and that this 
 was why the ships “ happened to he there,” when they 
 ought to have been at Eion. But the difficulty of 
 forming a just estimate of military operations even 
 when all the facts are recently before us, and the 
 mistakes continually made by civilian criticism, arc 
 so notorious, that few sensible readers will be disposed 
 to sit in judgment upon a campaign which took place 
 more than two thousand years ago, and as to the de¬ 
 tails of which we have really no information. It is 
 asserted by one of the biographers of the historian 
 that Cleon was instrumental in his banishment, and 
 that personal feeling on that account explains much of 
 the exceptional severity with which Cleon’s character 
 is handled in tliis history of the war. It is at least 
 very probable that Cleon, wielding as he did a strong 
 popular influence, did bring it to bear against an un¬ 
 successful commander whose political views were the 
 opposite to his own. But nearly all that is certain in 
 the matter is this—that had Thucydides been more 
 successful as a soldier, we might have seen nothing of 
 this history. 
 
 Thucydides disappears altogether from the scene, 
 after playing this brief and unsuccessful part. He 
 had to leave others to work out the fortunes of Athens, 
 while they were to owe to his pen much of the interest 
 which they retain to this day for the modern student 
 and reader. 
 
 He candidly and simply admits that the news of the 
 loss of Amphipolis was received at Athens with “ great 
 
THUCYDIDES AT AMPUIPOLIS. 
 
 129 
 
 dismay.” They saw in it the prelude to a general de¬ 
 fection of their allies on the Thracian border. In a great 
 measure it was so. Everywhere Brasidas announced 
 himself as the liberator of those to whom he appealed. 
 Uniting in his own character all the best qualities of an 
 officer, gentleness and moderation combined with the 
 most daring personal courage, he inspired confidence in 
 all with whom he had to do; and town after town either 
 listened to his proposals, or even sent secret messages 
 to invite him to organise and support a revolution. 
 ISTews had reached Thrace, too, of the disastrous defeat 
 of the Athenians by the combined forces of Boeotia at 
 the battle of Delium*—of which the historian gives 
 a full account, but on which we must not linger—and 
 they came to the rash conclusion that this was the begin¬ 
 ning of the end. “ The extent of their miscalculation of 
 the power of Athens only became evident to them by 
 her subsequent achievements,” says Thucydides, in one 
 of his most obscure sentences ; “ they judged rather 
 from their own groundless wishes, than from any safe 
 calculation. Eor when men earnestly desire a thing, 
 they are wont to indulge their hope of it without much 
 consideration, and to put aside what is disagreeable by a 
 process of reasoning which admits no argument on the 
 other side.” As fast as they could, the Athenians threw 
 garrisons into the toAvns which still retained their 
 allegiance; while Brasidas on his part sent home for 
 reinforcements. He saw all the advantages of Amphi- 
 polis as a naval station, and would at once have begun 
 to build a fleet of war-galleys in the river, but was foiled 
 
 A.c.s.s. vol. vi 
 
 * IV. 90, &c. 
 
 1 
 
130 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 in his scheme for a great foreign campaign by the 
 jealousy—so Thucydides very briefly tells us—of “some 
 of the great men at home.” With the spring came an 
 armistice for a year, mainly on the principle of the 
 uti possidetis; both parties being now desirous of peace, 
 the one to check the rapid course of Brasidas’s conquests, 
 the other to recover their valuable prisoners taken on 
 Sphakteria, connected as they doubtless were with the 
 leading families in Sparta. 
 
 The armistice was not altogether strictly kept on 
 either side, and the war, though suspended in other 
 quarters, went on in Thrace. Reinforcements were sent 
 thither by both the contending powers.^ And Nicias, 
 who will be remembered as the antagonist of Cleon in 
 Athenian politics, makes his first prominent appearance 
 in a military capacity, as one of the commanders of a 
 strong Athenian force which was landed on the coast 
 to relieve or recover some of the towns which had been 
 attacked by Brasidas. When the year of truce had ex¬ 
 pired without any step having been taken on either side 
 towards a lasting peace, the war was resumed; though 
 at first, as it would appear, somewhat reluctantly and 
 slackly on both sides. The piiblic feeling both at 
 Athens and Lacedaemon was in favour of negotiation; 
 but, if we may trust Thucydides, there was one man in 
 each state whom the circumstances of the time had 
 raised to a commanding position—though the circum¬ 
 stances were very different in the two cases—and to 
 whom peace was unpalatable. “ Cleon and Brasidas,” 
 says the historian, “ were both strongly opposed to 
 peace : the latter because he owed all his success and 
 
THUCYDIDES AT AMPIIIPOLIS. 
 
 131 
 
 his honours to war; the former because, when times 
 were quiet, he thought he should be more readily 
 detected in his malpractices, and find his calumnies not 
 so greedily believed.” * There seems an unfairness here 
 not only to Cleon, whom Thucydides may have been 
 inclined always to judge hardly, but to Brasidas as 
 well, to whom he is so evidently disposed to do full 
 justice. It is surely quite possible, and quite in ac 
 cordance with all we know of Brasidas, that besides 
 the personal ambition and love of distinction which 
 mark every able soldier, he may also have had larger 
 and more patriotic aspirations; he may have longed to 
 carry the war to a triumphant conclusion, to destroy the 
 Athenian supremacy in Thrace, now that he had made 
 so promising a breach in it, and to make his own city, 
 and not Athens, once more the centre of the power 
 and influence of the Hellenic name. It is not easy, 
 again, to see why war should in itself have such at^ 
 tractions for a man like Cleon. If he lacked, as 
 Thucydides would have us think, and as even his 
 advocate Mr Grote thinks, the abilities of a com¬ 
 mander, he was risking his own reputation daily in a 
 state where not to be a soldier was to be nothing: and 
 it is needless to say that a desire for national glory, 
 and even a sensitiveness to national honour, are not 
 unfrequently found in the most violent of popular 
 demagogues. 
 
 Be this as it may, if Brasidas and Cleon were really . 
 the foremost advocates of the renewed war, they were 
 also amongst its very first victims. Whether by his 
 
 * V. 16. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBUxiUY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
132 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 own w'isli or not,—whether the office was thrust upon 
 him, as in some sense it was in the matter of Sphakteria, 
 or whether he sought it for himself, as Thucydides 
 asserts,—Cleon went out, soon after the termination of 
 the armistice, with an imposing force to grapple with 
 Brasidas in Thrace. He began successfully. He took 
 the town of Torone, which Brasidas had wrested from 
 Athenian rule—that general, like Thucydides at Amphi- 
 polis, was now too late to save it—sent the Pelopon¬ 
 nesian garrison and its citizens, 700 iu all, prisoners to 
 Athens, and sold its women and children for slaves. 
 The capture of another town followed: and then Cleon 
 took up his quarters at Eion, watching his opportunity 
 for Amphipolis, and waiting for reinforcements which 
 he hoped to get from Perdiccas, who had once more 
 transferred his fickle friendship to the Athenians. 
 Brasidas meanwhile had been strengthening his army 
 with Thracian mercenaries, and now' threw himself into 
 Amphipolis. 
 
 Cleon, says the historian, waited till his army grew 
 impatient, and almost forced him to move upon the 
 town : so long as that was in the hands of the enemy, 
 the honour of Athens was unavenged, and her Thracian 
 interests in danger. He advanced near enough to 
 reconnoitre the town and its position, and to regret 
 that he had not brought engines with him to take it. 
 He had made up his mind to retire his forces for the 
 ^ time, to wait for his expected reinforcements, and 
 then to surround the place on all sides, and sweep 
 down all resistance by force of numbers: in fact, 
 says Thucydides, to repeat the tactics of Sphakteriaj 
 
THUCYDIDES AT AMPHIPOLIS. 
 
 133 
 
 though it is not easy to see exactly the force of the 
 comparison. 
 
 Brasidas determined on a sudden dash, at the head 
 of a picked detachment, right upon the centre of the 
 enemy’s line, as they were on the point of retiring, not 
 dreaming of any sally from the town. Before he 
 delivered his attack, he made his last speech to his 
 lieutenant, Clearidas, and the whole body of troops, 
 Spartans and allies, drawn up within the walls. His 
 
 9 
 
 oration was soldier-like, and to the point. He told 
 them his plan: after he had made his dash, Clearidas 
 was to throw open the gates on the other side, and 
 charge with the main body. He and his Spartans 
 were to behave—as Spartans always did; and the 
 allies were to choose between proving themselves 
 worthy to fight by the side of freemen, or remaining 
 the “slaves of Athens.” 
 
 From the higher ground where Cleon was now halt¬ 
 ing, the interior of the town was plainly visible. The 
 movements now going on within attracted his attention: 
 scouts who had ventured close up to the walls—for no 
 defenders showed themselves—could see under the 
 gates the close-packed feet of men and horses as if 
 prepared for a saUy in force. Cleon had no mind for 
 a general engagement until reinforced, and gave orders 
 to withdraw to the old position at Eion. The change 
 of movement was made in haste; and at that critical 
 moment Brasidas and his party made their sally, taking 
 their enemy’s line in flank as they moved off. Clear¬ 
 idas followed up the attack. The Athenian left wing, 
 which was leading towards Eion, broke at once and 
 
THUCYDIDES. 
 
 fled. The right re-formed on the hill, and made a stout 
 resistance for some time; hut the light-armed Thracians 
 showered missiles upon them from all sides, and at 
 last they too broke their ranks, and the survivors made 
 their way by various mountain-paths hack to their 
 quarters at Eion. Cleon was with the right wing, hut 
 took to flight at once, and met with an ignominious 
 death at the hands of a native targeteer. 
 
 The Athenians had lost six hundred of their best 
 men; the victors only seven. But their "sdctory that 
 day was turned into mourning. Among the seven, 
 carried off the field early in the action, mortally 
 wounded, was Brasidas. “ They bore him, still alive, 
 into the city: he lived to hear that his side was vic¬ 
 torious, but soon after became unconscious, and ex¬ 
 pired.” He was buried with unusual honours—“at 
 the public expense, within the city, in front of the 
 present market-place; and from that day forth the 
 men of Amphipolis, havmg fenced his tomb, sacrifice 
 to him as a hero, and honour him with games and 
 offerings every year.” They even adopted him for 
 their founder, instead of the Athenian Hagnon, who 
 had 'been the original leader of the colony: Hagnon 
 had but built them walls; Brasidas had laid the foimda- 
 tions of their liberty. Unanimous consent of friends 
 and foes alike has pronounced Brasidas the hero of the 
 war: he is almost the only Spartan suice the days of 
 Leonidas round whom anything like a halo of romance 
 has gathered; and there was probably something of 
 the old heroic type in his person and bearing as well 
 
THUCYDIDES AT AMPHIPOLIS. 
 
 135 
 
 as in liis character, since Plato, in his ‘Symposium,* 
 has compared him with the “ perfect knight ” of classi¬ 
 cal legend—the faultless Achilles. 
 
 Thucydides considers that the deaths of Cleon and 
 Brasidas removed the great obstacle to the peace which 
 had been so long talked of. The majority on both 
 sides were anxious for it, each having their special 
 :easons for uneasiness, and both being tired of the 
 long war. The Lacedjemonians knew that their Helot 
 population was restless: their long truce with Argos 
 (which had been neuter in this war) was on the point 
 of expiring, and they had a not unfounded suspicion that 
 Argos might seek to form a new confederacy, of which 
 she herself should be the head. Repeated conferences 
 were held during the winter. At a convention of the 
 confederate Peloponnesians, the votes of the large 
 majority were for immediate negotiations—Corinth and 
 Megara being among the few dissentients, the former 
 still implacably jealous, and the latter dreading the 
 final result when Athens should find leism-e and op- 
 portimity to deal with her alone. At the beginning of 
 the following spring, just ten years after the first 
 invasion of Attica, the treaty known as the Peace of 
 Nicias was concluded, for fifty years. Conquests and 
 prisoners on both sides were to be given up, except 
 such places as had accepted terms of capitulation; so 
 that the Thebans would still hold Platsea, w'hile Athens 
 retained possession of Nissea, the port of the Megarians. 
 But its stipulations were never carried into effect. 
 The Tliracians refused to give up Amphipolis, though 
 
136 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 the Lacedaemonians did all they could to secure its 
 restoration to Athens, withdrawing their own garrison 
 at once. The other more powerful allies of Lacedae¬ 
 mon repudiated the terms altogether, and the general 
 treaty was superseded by a defensive alliance, for the 
 same term of fifty years, between Athens and Sparta 
 only. 
 
CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 ARGOS. 
 
 The Peace of Xicias, as it was called, concluded pro¬ 
 spectively for fifty years, lasted somewhat less than 
 seven. Even during that period, the state of things 
 was not really peace at all, as Thucydides remarks, 
 but merely a suspension of active hostilities between 
 Athens and Sparta, and that disturbed by mutual 
 suspicions and discontent. Athens had restored the 
 prisoners of Sphakteria—the hostages who had been 
 so valuable to her as a material guarantee; but she 
 had not got back—for Sparta had declared herself not 
 in a position to give back—^her own town of Amphi- 
 polis; and her dissatisfaction was intense. A.s to the 
 rest of the Peloponnesian confederacy, so many states 
 had refused to accept the original treaty, and their 
 confidence in Sparta as a head had been so materially 
 shaken, that they began to turn their eyes towards 
 Argos as a possible new leader for Greece. With hei 
 resources fresh and unexhausted, having been resting 
 while others were fighting, and with all live prestige ol 
 a traditional supremacy as old as the Gcge of Troy, 
 she formed a natural rallying-point for the ?maller states. 
 
138 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 Corinth, the leader of the malcontents, had sent her 
 envoys to Argos straight from the last congress of the 
 confederates; and, after some secret negotiations, a 
 new league was formed, of which Argos was to he the 
 head, and Corinth, Elis, and others of less importance, 
 were to be members. The Spartans became alarmed, 
 and a party there endeavoured to make a separate 
 alliance for their own state with Argos; but, owing to 
 a misunderstanding, the project failed. In fact, Argos 
 for the time seemed mistress of the situation, for all 
 Greece was suing for her favours. Advances were 
 made to her from Athens, where a young man had 
 just come forward into public life who was to play 
 a brilliant but mischievous part among his fellow- 
 citizens. Alcibiades is introduced to us by the his¬ 
 torian with the same abruptness as Pericles; he 
 considers him, no doubt (as he must here be con¬ 
 sidered), already well known to his readers by name 
 and repute. Connected with Pericles by the mother’s 
 side through the same great house of Alcmseon, he was 
 a very different man from his great relative. Strik¬ 
 ingly handsome and accomplished like.him, clever and 
 ambitious, he was utterly devoid of moral principle 
 and of anything like earnest patriotism. He now 
 warmly advocated a renunciation of the treaty with 
 Sparta, and an immediate alliance with Argos. Partly, 
 Thucydides thinks, because he really thought such a 
 course was best for the interests of Athens; “ but,” con¬ 
 tinues the historian, “ also because he was opposed to 
 the late treaty from a feeling of jealousy, because the 
 Lacedaemonians had negotiated it through the agency 
 
ARGOS. 
 
 139 
 
 of Nicias and Laches, while they passed him over on 
 account of his youth, and did not treat him with 
 the respect due to the old public connection of his 
 family with their city—a connection which, though 
 his grandfather had renounced it, he had himself 
 thought to renew by his attention to their prisoners 
 from the island.” Alcibiades asserted that the real 
 object which Sparta had in view, in proposing the 
 existing treaty, was to prevent Athens from obtaining 
 Argos as an ally. He induced this latter state to send 
 proposals to Athens, which he supported by the most 
 unscrupulous stratagem. Sparta, thoroughly alarmed, 
 had sent her own envoys to Athens at the same time 
 to remonstrate against this new confederacy. In a 
 private interview, Alcibiades represented himself as the 
 supporter of Spartan interests, won their confidence, 
 and suggested to them a line of dissimulation which 
 he was immediately the first to denoimce in the public 
 assembly. In spite of the strong opposition of Hicias 
 and others, a treaty between Athens and Argos, in 
 which Elis was also included—“ for a hundred years ” 
 —was finally arranged; though it was not construed 
 as necessarily putting an end to the existing peaceful 
 relations with Sparta. 
 
 Some minor hostilities, during which a fruitless 
 effort was made by Athens to open negotiations for a 
 general peace, were followed by an invasion of the 
 territory of Argos by the Lacedaemonians in fidl force, 
 supported by large contingents of their Corinthian and 
 other allies. They succeeded in throwing themselves 
 r^tween the Argive army and the city of Argos, and, 
 
140 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 in fact, nearly surrounding them in their position. 
 The Argives, however, obtained an armistice from 
 Agis, the Spartan king, who was commander-in-chief, 
 and he withdrew from his position of advantage. 
 “ The Lacedaemonians followed him,” says our author, 
 “ because he was in command, in obedience to law, hut 
 they blamed him loudly amongst each other : for this 
 was the finest army of Greeks which up to that time 
 had ever been assembled; and it presented that ap¬ 
 pearance thoroughly while it was in full strength at 
 Nemea—all picked men of their respective nationali¬ 
 ties, and a match apparently not only for the Argive 
 league, hut for another added to that.”* But, as a 
 remarkable instance how little military tactics and 
 positions are understood, in all times, except by the 
 few experts, the mass of the Argives, Thucydides tells 
 us, were equally angry with their generals for allowing 
 (as they supposed) the enemy to escape. There can 
 be little doubt that the historian was in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of Mantineia at the time of the battle, 
 and had seen the array of the confederated forces with 
 his own eyes. 
 
 The armistice was tacitly annulled by both com¬ 
 batants ; and the Argives, now strongly reinforced by 
 a division of Athenians (which was accompanied by 
 Alcibiades himself in some civil capacity), marched 
 into the central plain of the Peloponnese, known as a 
 district by the name of Arcadia, but where the two 
 powerful towns of Mantineia and Tegea were now at 
 feud—the latter adhering to Lacedaemon, while Man- 
 
 * V. 60. 
 
ARGOS. 
 
 141 
 
 tineia had joined tlie new Argive league. The Lacedae¬ 
 monians hurried with all the troops they could muster, 
 Helots included, and “by a more rapid march than 
 they had ever been known to make before,” to defend 
 their Arcadian ally; and before Mantineia the armies 
 of the two confederacies met at last in a bloody and 
 decisive battle. Each commander of the allies on both 
 sides harangued his own troops before the engagement, 
 excepting only the Spartan king. His men, singing their 
 national war-songs, “ exhorted each other to remember 
 all their cunning, as brave men should, knowing that 
 long training in action is a better security than an 
 extempore exhortation, however well expressed in 
 words.” The historian tells us how “the Argives 
 and their allies moved forward rapidly and with ex¬ 
 citement, while the Lacedaemonians marched slowly, 
 to the music of a number of pipers, as is their estab¬ 
 lished custom, not from any religious feeliug, but 
 that they may advance in even line and keeping step, 
 and that their ranks may not be broken—as is very 
 much wont to be the case with large armies when they 
 advance.” * The writer gives us here also a short 
 professional criticism on the military tactics of the 
 day. All armies, he says, thrust out the line too much 
 by their right when they close; because every man 
 tries to protect his right (where he has no shield) by 
 the shield of his right-hand man. The Lacedcemonians 
 gained a complete victory, and piled arms and erected 
 a trophy on the field of battle. The enemy lost in all 
 1100 men, including both the Athenian commanders: 
 
 * V. 70- 
 
142 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 the loss of the Lacedaemonians was supposed to have 
 been not more than 300. 
 
 This victory restored at once the honour and prestige 
 of the Lacedaemonian name. Men now began to argue, 
 says the historian, “that they had been worsted by 
 accident, but in spirit they had been always the same.” 
 To Argos the immediate result was curious, and prob¬ 
 ably unexpected. In that state there was a party which 
 had always been in favour of alliance with Lacedae¬ 
 mon. The picked body of 1000 heavy-armed infantry, 
 a kind of garde noble composed exclusively of young 
 men of the higher classes, had been victorious in their 
 own quarter of the battle, had broken the left wing of 
 the enemy, and maintained the honour of their native 
 city. They seem now to have had influence enough 
 with their feUow-citizens to effect a bloodless revolu¬ 
 tion, to put down the democracy, to break with demo¬ 
 cratic Athens, and to join their late conquerors, the 
 more aristocratic and conservative Lacedaemonians, with 
 whom an alliance was concluded for the favourite term 
 of fifty years. It lasted some few months. Then the 
 commons of Argos rose against the oligarchy, regained 
 their power, and put their city again in alliance with 
 Athens. They even began to build long walls down 
 from the city to the harbour, so as to be able in future 
 to communicate easily with their powerful friends by 
 sea; but these works the Lacedaemonians succeeded in 
 destroying. 
 
CHAPTER XIL 
 
 THE FATE OF MELOS. 
 
 The ^gean Sea (or, as we now call it, the Archi¬ 
 pelago) has been fairly described as being at this 
 period “an Athenian lake.” But the island of Melos 
 formed a striking exception. It was a Lacedaemonian 
 —f.e., a Dorian—colony, alien in race and habits from 
 its neighbours of Ionian descent, and had at first been 
 neutral in this contest. The Athenians had sent a small 
 squadron there in the sixth year of the war, and tried 
 to enforce submission by ravaging their lands, but 
 without making any impression on their stubborn in¬ 
 dependence. They now sent a stronger force, but 
 with orders to treat with the inhabitants before com¬ 
 mitting any act of hostility. This led to a curious’ 
 conference, which the author professes to report in 
 full, between the Melian authorities and the Athenian 
 envoys, who were not admitted to an audience in the 
 popular assembly of the island. The dialogue, too 
 long for reproduction here, is almost dramatic. The 
 Athenians request that they may be allowed to state 
 their propositions and arguments seriatim, and to meet 
 any objections in detail. After some preliminary 
 
144 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 fencing, the Athenian spokesman is made to use the 
 following language, to which no objection could pos¬ 
 sibly he made on the ground of ambiguity or lack of 
 plain dealing:— 
 
 ‘‘Well, we have no intention on our part to set 
 forth a long story (to which you would give no 
 credit), with plausible assertions of our right to assume 
 this supremacy after we had broken the power of 
 the Mede, or of our coming against you now because 
 we are the injured party; nor do we want to hear 
 from you that, though colonists from Lacedaemon, you 
 have not joined her in this war, or that you have done 
 us no harm—that would not affect our determination. 
 But we advise you to act in accordance with the real 
 sentiments of both parties, and to make the best terms 
 you can under the circumstances; for you know, and 
 we know, that, in men’s dealings with each other, ab¬ 
 stract right is considered only when both stand on 
 equal terms: in other cases, the stronger party exact all 
 they can, and the weaker have to give way.”—(V. 89.) 
 
 ■ The Melians submit that, even as a question of ex¬ 
 pediency, it is not well for the stronger to be too over¬ 
 hearing : the Athenians would he setting a precedent 
 which might some day he turned against themselves, in 
 case of a reverse of fortune. The Athenians, in reply, 
 beg the islanders not to trouble themselves on that point 
 — the future of Athens they are content to risk for them¬ 
 selves. For the present, the submission of the Melians 
 is for the advantage of both parties : it will save them- 
 
THE FATE OF MELOS. 
 
 145 
 
 selves much suffering, and Athens will thereby gain a 
 subject instead of having to destroy an enemy. The 
 Melians ask why they may not be allowed to remain in 
 a state of friendly neutrality? ]^o,—to recognise such a 
 position would be a confession of weakness on the part 
 of the Athenians : it would .imply an inability to reduce 
 them by force; The Melians argue that if Athens will 
 risk so much for empire, they themselves are surely 
 justified in risking something for independence : they 
 are answered,—it is a question for them not of honour, 
 but of life or death. They remind the Athenians that, 
 after all, the fortune of war is always uncertain; the 
 reply is, that nothing is so ruinous to men and states 
 as hqpe, when hope means only dependence on the 
 chapter of accidents; let them “ not show the folly 
 of those who, when they might save themselves by 
 human prudence, take refuge in visionary dreams, like 
 soothsaying and oracles, which only ruin those who 
 trust them.” The Melians contend that they have 
 reasonable ground of hope, in their own case ] the gods 
 will aid the right, and the Lacedgemonians will not fail 
 to succour them—from a sense of honour, if for no 
 other reason. The Athenian answers something in the 
 IS'apoleonic spirit, that the gods are on the whole “ in 
 favour of strong battalions: ” being much given to 
 maintain their own dominion by the strong hand. As 
 to the notion that the Lacedaemonians will help them 
 out of a sense of honour,—“ we bless your innocent 
 hearts,” says the speaker, “ but we don’t envy your 
 ■common-sense; ” the Lacedaemonians have too shrewd 
 A.C.8.S. VoL VL K 
 
146 
 
 THUCYDIDES. . 
 
 a regard for their own interests to encounter Athens 
 by sea in defence of a colony. The colonists—whose 
 argument grows sensibly weaker and less confident— 
 reply that the Lacedaemonians could avenge themselves 
 on Athens by land. The Athenians close the discussion 
 by strongly advising the Melians to reconsider seriously 
 their intention of resistance. The latter continued re¬ 
 solute, however, in their refusal of submission, though 
 they still offered to remain neutral: and the Athenian 
 envoys retired to their own lines, after an ominous 
 warning that “ men who staked their confidence on 
 such things as Lacedaemonians, and fortune, and hope,” 
 and suchlike broken reeds, were like to find themselves 
 bitterly disappointed. So it proved in the result. 
 Works of circumvallation were immediately begun, and 
 the place was closely invested by land and sea; the 
 Lacedaemonians never stirred to save them; and although 
 the Melians twice broke through the besiegers’ lines and 
 carried in provisions, they were reduced in the course 
 of the following winter to surrender at discretion. The 
 Athenians slaughtered all the men in cold blood, and 
 made slaves of the women and children : and their 
 historian relates the fact without a word of reprobation. 
 There does not appear to have been, in this case, even 
 a reference to the decision of the Assembly at Athens. 
 Atrocious as such an act would appear to us, in the 
 case of prisoners of war who had surrendered at dis¬ 
 cretion, it was not repugnant to the savage war-code of 
 the day. The islanders had their fate, in case of re¬ 
 sistance, set before them in very plain words by the 
 
THE FATE OF MELOS. 
 
 147 
 
 Athenian speaker; they knew what had been done by 
 the Lacedaemonians at Plataea, and by the Athenians 
 at Mitylen^; and though they remonstrate strongly 
 against the whole proceeding as an unwarrantable 
 aggression, they enter no special protest against the 
 cruelty of the alternative, and make their election with 
 all the consequences before their eyes.* 
 
 The insolent frankness with which the Athenian in 
 the dialogue is made to put forward the principle that 
 “ might makes right ” has led a very early critic to 
 suspect that Thucydides, writing in the bitterness of 
 exile, chose to set forth the policy of Athens in the most 
 invidious colours.! Such a charge is highly improb¬ 
 able : there was nothing to have prevented the historian 
 from doing the same in other passages of his work 
 which internal evidence shows to have been written 
 under the same circumstances. But though the prin¬ 
 ciple is here asserted in language almost brutal in its 
 directness, it is the principle which, veOed in a soph¬ 
 istry more or less transparent, appears in some shape 
 on every occasion when the Athenians come forward 
 
 *Bp. Thirlvvall’s remark upon the massacre at Melos is sufR- 
 ciently caustic : “The milder spirit of modern manners would 
 not have punished men, who had heen guilty of no offence 
 but the assertion of their rightful independence, more severely 
 than by tearing them from their families, and locking tJiem up 
 in a fortress, or transporting them to the wilds of Scythia. But 
 our exultation at the progress of humanity may be consistent 
 with a charitable indulgence for the imperfections of a lower 
 stage of civilisation.” 
 
 t Dionysius, Judicium de Thucyd., pp. 37-42. 
 
U8 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 either as complainants or apologists. They had gained 
 their empire fairly,—they meant to keep it: it was a 
 despotism, which admitted no resistance; and the laws 
 of justice and humanity had force only amongst equals 
 under equal circumstances : they had no place in the 
 relations of weak states to the stronger. 
 
CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 
 
 With his sixth hook, Thucydides begins what might 
 he called the history of the decline and fall of Athens. 
 In this and the following book the interest of his story 
 culminates; and at the conclusion of the seventh he 
 brings us, with a rapidity of narration which is per¬ 
 haps intentional, to the collapse (for it is little less) of 
 that remarkable empire whose growth and strength he 
 has been tracing. The tale of the Athenian expedition 
 against Syracuse becomes in his hands one of the most 
 perfect dramas in history, and is told, from introduc¬ 
 tion to catastrophe, with the most consummate ’skill. 
 
 We must go back some ten years, in order to trace 
 the first interference of Athens in the affairs of Sicily, 
 which was to exercise so fatal an influence upon her 
 fortunes in the sequel. That island was largely occu¬ 
 pied, especially on the southern and eastern coasts, by 
 prosperous colonies from Greece; and of these, some 
 were of Dorian and others of Ionian race. The same 
 division of sympathies existed, therefore, among the 
 Greeks in Sicily as in the mother country. At the 
 beginning of the war, Sparta had sent a requisition to 
 
150 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 the Dorian sea-coast towns, the chief of which were 
 Syracuse and Agrigentum, to furnish a contingent of 
 war-galleys: but they seem to have contented them¬ 
 selves with taking the opportunity of attacking their 
 Ionian neighbours on the island. One of these, 
 Leontini, in the fifth year of the war, had appealed 
 for aid to Athens against the aggressions of Syracuse. 
 A small squadron was sent with the further important 
 object of stopping the exportation of corn from Sicily 
 into the Peloponnese, and of ascertaining what chance 
 there might be of reducing the whole island. There 
 was not much result either from this or from a sub¬ 
 sequent expedition, beyond a temporary occupation of 
 Mess^ne, at that time a town of not much importance. 
 Athenian and Syracusan squadrons had occasional in¬ 
 decisive engagements in Sicilian waters; but the more 
 important expedition sent out under Eurymedon had 
 been diverted, as may be remembered, by the descent 
 upon Pylos, and arrived on the coast of Sicily too late 
 in the season for any large operations.* 
 
 In the eighth year of the war, the internal feuds of 
 the island being for the time in abeyance, a congress 
 of representatives from most of the Sicilian towns was 
 held, with a view to a general pacification. The lead¬ 
 ing spirit in the congress was Hermocrates of Syracuse, 
 a man of eminent abilities and high personal character, 
 representing, hoAvever, only one political interest in 
 his native city—the oligarchical. In the speech with 
 which the historian has furnished him (we can hardly 
 suppose that, in the case of a Sicilian speaker, any- 
 
 * See p. 110. 
 
THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 
 
 151 
 
 thing bcyojid the merest outline of liis argument can 
 have been preserved), he urges strongly upon all his 
 countrymen—Dorians, lonians, or others—the para¬ 
 mount necessity of union among themselves in the 
 presence of a foreign enemy, always on the watch to 
 take advantage of their internal quarrels.* He warns 
 them that the ultimate aim of Athens is not the sup¬ 
 port of Ionian colonists, hut nothing less than the sub¬ 
 jugation of the island. He bids them all remember 
 that, whether Dorians or lonians, they were Sicilians 
 first. “ I make considerable allowance,” he says, for 
 the Athenians, in these ambitious designs and schemes 
 of conquest: it is not those who aspire to empire that 
 I blame, hut those who are only too ready to make 
 submission. It is the nature of men, everywhere and 
 <ilways, to lord it over those who yield, hut to have a 
 tare of those who hold their own.” The advice was 
 taken—for the time; and the Athenian commanders, 
 naving assented to the general treaty of pacification, 
 left the coasts of Sicily. But the Athenian Assembly, 
 indignant at the disappointment of their projects, and 
 believing, or pretending to believe, that their officers 
 had been bribed, punished them by exile on their 
 retinn. Am attempt was subsequently made on the 
 part of Athitis to support an attack on Syracuse by 
 some of her neighbours, but without success. 
 
 But now, in the sixteenth winter of the war, an 
 expedition on. a large scale, with the scarcely veiled 
 design of a complete subjugation of the island, was 
 proposed and debated at Athens. A deputation from 
 
 * IV. 59-65 
 
152 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 the town of Segest^, asking aid against Syracuse, and 
 promising money for the war, furnished the pretext 
 But the real object of its chief promoters, among whom 
 Alcihiades stood foremost, was the extension of their 
 foreign dominion—it might he, not only to Sicily hut 
 to Carthage. It was determined to send a fleet of sixty 
 galleys under Alcihiades, ISTicias, and Lamachus, not 
 only to succour their Ionian allies, hut with the wide 
 instructions “to do what seemed best for Athenian 
 interests in Sicily.” Few of the Athenians, as their 
 historian admits, knew much about the extent and 
 resources of the island, or were aware “ that they were 
 undertaking a war of hardly less proportions than that 
 against the Peloponnesians.” But one man at least in 
 Athens had a true conception of the magnitude of the 
 risk. This was Hicias, appointed to the command, we 
 are told, “ against his will.” Prudent and cautious— 
 his opponents called him over-cautious—perhaps of a 
 somewhat despondent temperament for an Athenian, 
 hut of sterling honesty of purpose and undoubted per¬ 
 sonal courage, he took upon himself to set before his 
 countrymen the unpopular side of the question. In 
 an Assembly summoned for the purpose of voting the 
 necessary supplies for the expedition, he raised afresh 
 the whole question of the expedition itself. 
 
 He begins by confessing that he knew the temper 
 of his fellow-citizens too well to entertain any hope of 
 persuading them “ not to risk the secure enjoyment of 
 the present in grasping at a visionary future; ” but he 
 would try to show them that, in this case, at any rate, 
 the risks were too grave. With so many subject-allies, 
 
THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 
 
 153 
 
 in Thrace and elsewhere, already wavering in their 
 allegiance—with Sparta burning to revenge her late 
 disaster—with an exchequer and a population greatly 
 in need of recruiting,—they were going to take up the 
 burden of a new and distant war. While they were 
 leaving active enemies behind in Greece, they were 
 going to tempt new ones to cross the sea against them. 
 Even if they conquered Sicily, they could not retain 
 it. Then he turns and makes a personal attack on 
 Alcibiades, who probably was sitting close by, and 
 who had been from the first one of the loudest ad¬ 
 vocates of the enterprise—an attack strangely bitter 
 and vehement, when we consider they were to go out 
 in joint command of the expeditionary forces :—• 
 
 “ If there be any one here who, elated at being 
 appointed to a command, is urging you to set sail, 
 looking to his own interest only,—especially as being 
 somewhat young for such high office,—in the hope of 
 winning admiration for his stud of horses and chariots, 
 and of recouping himself somewhat for an extravagant 
 expenditure out of the profits of his appointment, do 
 not give him the opportunity of making a brilliant 
 personal figure at the cost of national peril; but be 
 assured that such men not only waste their own sub¬ 
 stance, but wrong the state; and that this business is 
 a weighty one, and no fit matter for a youngster either 
 to discuss in council or to be so hasty to take in hand. 
 I have grave fears when I see those who sit there by 
 his side and cheer his sentiments; and I appeal in my 
 turn to the elder citizens among you, if any of you 
 
154 
 
 TIIUCVDIDES. 
 
 chance to he sitting next to the men I mean, not to 
 he shamed out of yonr opinion, nor fear to be thouglit 
 cowards because you will not vote for war, nor be 
 seized, like them, with a mad passion for far-off possi 
 bilities ; remembering that the lust of ambition rarely 
 achieves success, while a thoughtful policy commonly 
 does.”—(VI. 12, 13.) 
 
 Ko wonder that Alcibiades, proud and impulsive, 
 backed by the younger spirits of whom he was the 
 admired leader, and confident that he carried the popu¬ 
 lar feeling with him in favour of the enterprise, turned 
 round upon his older and more cautious colleague with 
 a haughty and contemptuous frankness. He was 
 young, he confessed: men called him extravagant in 
 his expenditure. Eut youth had its place in the 
 state as well as old age. The very magnificence of his 
 late display at the Olympic games had tended to the 
 honour not only of his ancestors and himself, but of 
 his country:— 
 
 “ Seven chariots did I enter—a number which no 
 private individual ever reached before—and I won 
 the crown, and was second and fourth besides, and 
 entertained liberally in every way, as such a triumph 
 deserved. To such things honour attaches, by common 
 consent; but they also give an impression of power 
 by their performance. So, again, whenever I make 
 a gallant show in my office of Choragus * at home, it 
 
 * Certain public offices at Athens—notably the furnishing 
 the Chorus for the drama and equipping the war-galleys— wei-e 
 
THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 
 
 155 
 
 may raise envy in my fellow-citizens, very naturally; 
 but in the eyes of foreigners this also implies strength. 
 And this folly that they charge me with is not without 
 its use, when a man by his private expenditure raises 
 not himself only to distinction, but his country. Nor 
 is it unfair that those who have high aspirations should 
 hold themselves above the ordinary level, since the less 
 fortunate find none who claim to stand on their level 
 in their distress. If we are none of us courted in 
 adversity, let us lay our account to be slighted by 
 those in prosperity; or else behave to all alike, and 
 then claim the like treatment from others. I know, 
 however, that men like myself, and all who outshine 
 others in splendour of life, are objects of jealousy in 
 their own day, to their equals especially, and also 
 to the general public among whom they live. But 
 none the less, they leave future generations eager-to 
 claim kindred with them, even where no such claim 
 exists; while their country makes its boast of them, 
 as no aliens or misdoers, but as her own genuine 
 children, and children who have done gallant deed«.” 
 —(VI. 16.) 
 
 He scoffs at the idea of any effectual resistance on 
 the part of the Sicilians—“ a mixed rabble, distracted 
 by faction in every town, and eager for change.” He 
 protests against refusing aid to an ally merely because 
 he is distant and apparently unprofitable. Such never 
 
 discharged by the richest citizens at their own expense ; and 
 they sometimes vied with each other in their liberal expenditure 
 on such occasions. 
 
156 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 had been — such never should he — the policy ol 
 Athens 
 
 Nicias made one more attempt to dissuade his 
 countrymen from the enterprise, by representing to 
 the Assembly the large scale on which preparations 
 would have to be made. Ajq. overwhelming naval 
 force, a strong body of heavy and light armed infantry, 
 archers and slingers, plentiful supplies both of corn 
 and of money, all must be provided as for those who 
 would have to maintain themselves, from the first, in 
 an enemy’s country. If he was thought to be re¬ 
 quiring too much, he would readily resign his com¬ 
 mand. The only reply was to bid him name his 
 wants. A hundred three-banked war-galleys, 5000 
 heavy infantry, and light troops in proportion, Avere 
 voted at once, and full powers given to the three 
 generals who were to go out in command:— 
 
 “An eager longing for this expedition had fallen 
 upon all alil?:e. The elder thought they must surely 
 conquer those against whom they were sailing, or that 
 so large an armament could at least meet with no 
 disaster. Those who were yet young Avere longing to 
 see and explore a foreign country, and sanguhie of 
 coming home again safe. The mass of the people, 
 and the soldiery, thought they should make money 
 for the immediate present, and gain an accession of 
 dominion which would supply a never-failing fund for 
 pay. So that, OAving to the intense eagerness of the 
 majority, any man who did not regard the enterprise 
 with favour held his peace, for fear lest, if he A^oted 
 
THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 
 
 157 
 
 against it, lie should he reckoned disaffected to the 
 state.”—(VI. 24.) 
 
 So, at dawn on a midsummer day, the Athenians 
 and their allies went on hoard their galleys in the 
 harbour of the Pirceus. It was the most splendidly 
 equipped force, though not the largest, which ever 
 went out of a Greek city. The captains had vied with 
 each other in the liberality with which they armed and 
 manned their galleys. It was the most distant expedi¬ 
 tion, too, which Athens had undertaken, and with the 
 most ambitious hopes. The historian, concise and 
 unimpassioned almost to a fault on most occasions, 
 here warms into vivid description:— 
 
 “ The whole population of the city, one might say, 
 natives and sojourners alike, went down in a body to 
 accompany them, the citizens escorting each their own 
 immediate friends,—some their comrades, some their 
 kinsmen, others their sons,—with mingled hopes and 
 lamentations ; hopes of new acquisitions abroad, 
 lamentations as for those they might never see 
 again, rememberiug on what a long voyage from 
 their native country they were setting forth; and at 
 this moment, when they were on the point of taking 
 leave of each other with all the perils before them, 
 the darker view was more present to them than when 
 they had voted for the expedition. Yet nevertheless 
 they took courage when they saw their actual strength, 
 from the completeness of the force in every detail. 
 The foreigners and the general crowd had come as to 
 
158 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 a spectacle, to look upon an armament well worth 
 seeing, and even surpassing belief. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 “ Now when the crews had embarked, and every¬ 
 thing was got on board which they were to take with 
 them, silence was proclaimed by sound of trumpet, 
 and they offered the stated prayers before piitting to 
 sea, not separately ship by ship, but all together, at 
 the leading of a herald; and they mixed bowls of 
 wine throughout the whole force, officers and men 
 pouring libations from gold and silver cups. And the 
 whole multitude on shore joined in the prayers, both 
 citizens and all who were present, and wished them 
 good speed. And when they had sung their hymn to 
 ApoUo, and finished their libations, they cast off their 
 moorings and sailed out in line at first, and then raced 
 each with the other as far as Angina, and so made 
 haste to reach Corcyra, where the rest of the allied 
 forces were assembling.”—(VI. 30, 32.) 
 
 The Syracusans were for some time imwilling to 
 believe the reports which reached them of the sailing 
 of the expedition. At a general congress held to 
 deliberate on the question, Hermocrates again put 
 before his countrymen the imminence of the danger, 
 and the necessity for union among themselves. He pro¬ 
 fessed to have received accurate information of tlie 
 Athenian movements, and had no doubt as to their 
 real designs. They were coming, not to aid their 
 allies, but to conquer Sicily. He advised that an 
 appeal for aid should be made to the Greek towns 
 
THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY, 
 
 151? 
 
 on the coast of Italy, to Lacedaemon, to Corinth, and 
 even to Carthage, whose own interests might he in 
 danger, Above all, let them man a fleet at once, meet' 
 the Athenians off Tarentum on their way, and dispute 
 the passage of the Gulf. 
 
 This counsel was strongly opposed by Athenagoras, 
 the leader of the democratical party—the Cleon of 
 Syracuse. The Athenians would not come, he said; 
 it was only a report spread by a faction for their 
 own purposes, to raise themselves to power. If they 
 did come, Syracuse would prove more than a match 
 for them: he doubted whether they would even succeed 
 in effecting a landing on the island. Syracuse stood 
 much more in danger from oligarchs at home than 
 from the Athenians. 
 
 News reached Syracuse at last that the armada, 
 swelled by the junction of the allies to a hundred and 
 thirty - four war - galleys, and accompanied by five 
 hundred smaller craft, had actually reached the coast 
 of Italy, and serious preparations were made for de¬ 
 fence. The Athenians had already met with some 
 discouragement. The colonists at Rhegium, on whose 
 aid they had depended, had refused to join them; and 
 it was found that the citizens of Segest^, who had 
 offered to defray the expense of the expedition, were 
 in no position to do so. The commanders of the force 
 were divided in opinion. Nicias advised that they 
 should confine their operations to Selinus, and then 
 return. Alcibiades was for opening negotiations with 
 all the towns except Selinus and Syracuse, and then, 
 in conjunction with such native allies as they could 
 
ICO 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 thus obtain, attacking Syracuse, unless it would agree 
 to their terms. Lamachus, with a soldier-like direct¬ 
 ness which was in accordance with his general char¬ 
 acter, urged the bolder course of an immediate descent 
 on Syracuse, while the alarm in the city was fresh, 
 and before they had time to make preparation : a first 
 successful blow, he said, would soon win them allies 
 in the island. 
 
 The plan of Alcibiades was adopted; but he was 
 not to do much himself towards carrying it out. A 
 state-galley had been sent out from Athens to carry 
 him home as a prisoner, on a charge of sacrilege. It 
 had been hanging over his head when the expedition 
 sailed, and he had asked to be at once put upon his 
 trial. ■ But his enemies feared his popularity at the 
 moment, and hoped to complete their evidence against 
 him more easily in his absence. The little square stone 
 pillars bearing the head of Hermes (Mercury), the 
 genius of social and political life, which were set up in 
 the street-corners and other places in Athens, were dis¬ 
 covered to have been all mutilated during one night. 
 The excitement at Athens was profound. It was, says 
 Grote, as though “ all the images of the Virgin had 
 been defaced during the same night in a Spanish or 
 Italian town.” Rewards were offered for the discovery 
 of the perpetrators, and information was given by slaves 
 of its having been a drunken frolic of certain young 
 citizens of rank, of whom Alcibiades was said to have 
 been the ringleader. He and his friends were also 
 now accused of having held a mock celebration in 
 private houses of the awful Eleusinian mysteries. 
 
THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 
 
 161 
 
 These acts were supposed to be in some way con¬ 
 nected with a conspiracy against the democratic con¬ 
 stitution, though it is not easy to understand how. 
 Alcibiades was allowed to return to Athens in his own 
 galley, to avoid the odium and possible danger of 
 the public arrest of so popular an officer. He landed 
 at Thurii on the way, gave his escort the slip, crossed 
 in a boat to the Peloponnese, and went straight to 
 Lacedaemon. Sentence of death was passed against 
 him by default in the Assembly at Athens; but, in 
 recalling him, they had taken the life out of the expe¬ 
 dition; and they left the chief control of it in the 
 hands of a commander who, however high his personal 
 character, had from the first no sympathy with its 
 objects, and no faith in its success. 
 
 Hicias and Lamachus now divided the fleet into 
 two squadrons, and undertook some operations against 
 a few of the coast-towns with indifferent success. 
 The Syracusans grew bold, and determined on taking 
 the offensive. Acting on information from a native 
 who was really in the interest of the Athenians, they 
 marched out in force to attack their position at Catana. 
 The Athenians meanwhile re-embarked their forces, set 
 sail by night, and, entering the Great Harbour of Syra¬ 
 cuse, effected a landing close to the city itself, and for¬ 
 tified their position. They repulsed an attack made 
 on them by the Syracusans, inflicting on them con¬ 
 siderable loss. But the enemy was too strong in 
 cavalry to allow them to push their advantage, and 
 they withdrew to winter quarters in the harbours of 
 Catana and Haxos, the only two settlements where 
 
 A.C.S.S. vol. vi. L 
 
162 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 they had secured a favoiirahle reception. The Syra¬ 
 cusans employed the interval in strengthening the de¬ 
 fences of their city; and both parties sought alliances 
 both in the towns of Sicily and on the Italian coast. 
 In one of these towns, Camarina, the Athenian envoy 
 was met in the public assembly by Hermocrates, who 
 had been sent there on the part of Syracuse. The 
 latter urged his old argument, that this was not really 
 the cause of Syracuse, but of aU Sicily; if Syracuse 
 were allowed to fall, it would be too late for any town 
 in the island to resist the ambitious designs of Athens. 
 The Athenian retorts the charge against Syracuse: he 
 asserts that her object is to make use of others to 
 repel the attack of Athens, only in order to make her¬ 
 self sovereign in the island when the Athenian fleet 
 was gone; and he warns his hearers that the ambition 
 of a neighbour at home was far more to be dreaded 
 than that of a foreign state beyond sea. 
 
 The Syracusans sent embassies also to Corinth and 
 to Sparta. At the latter place their appeal was sup¬ 
 ported by Alcibiades, now exasperated into bitterness 
 against his own city and people. He is represented as 
 making a clever speech there in apology for his new 
 position; but Thucydides fails, as might be expected, 
 to make out a good case for his renegade countryman. 
 He makes Alcibiades endeavour to explain that a demo¬ 
 crat at Athens meant one who was opposed to tyrants 
 —whom the Spartans, oligarchical though their consti¬ 
 tution was, held equally in abhorrence. Besides, he 
 had been a democrat at Athens because the constitu¬ 
 tion was democratic; though, he says, “all we who 
 
THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 
 
 163 
 
 liave any sense know what a democracy is, and no one 
 better than myself, who could find it in my heart to 
 abuse it heartily, only that nothing new can be said of 
 a confessed absurdity.” In fact, he protests he had 
 been banished from Athens because he was not good 
 democrat enough. The real aim of Athens in fitting 
 out her armada (and he spoke, he said, as one who 
 knew) was to subjugate Sicily first, then the Greek 
 colonies on the coast of Italy, then Carthage, and then, 
 with a gathered force from every quarter, Greek and 
 barbarian, to attempt the conquest of the whole Pelo- 
 ponnese. He advised the Lacedaemonians by all means 
 to send a body of their heavy infantry to Sicily, and 
 above all, a Spartan general to organise the Syracusan 
 forces; and at the same time to occupy Deceleia, a 
 strong position fifteen miles from Athens, whence its 
 communications and supplies could most readily be 
 intercepted. He concludes as follows:— 
 
 “ And I claim that none of you should think the 
 worse of me because, after having seemed hitherto* a 
 lover of my country, I now act with all my energies 
 against her in conjunction with her bitterest enemies, 
 or distrust my suggestions as merely the zealous malice 
 of a banished man. I am an exile—true : I have put 
 myself beyond the power of their malice—not beyond 
 the power of aiding you, if you will listen to me. 
 And a man’s worst enemies are not those who attack 
 him in fair warfare, like you, but those who compel 
 their friends to become their enemies. Loyalty I hold 
 to be really due, not to the city which treats me with 
 
164 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 injustice, but to that in which I once had my consti¬ 
 tutional rights secured to me. hTor do I count that 
 country now my fatherland which I am acting against; 
 rather, I am preparing to reclaim a fatherland which 
 is mine no longer. The true patriot is not he who 
 shrinks from attacking his native land when he has 
 been unjustly driven from it, but he who, out of his 
 ardent longing for it, tries every means to regain it. 
 I ask you, then, Lacedaemonians, to make use of me 
 fearlessly, for whatever perilous service or hard work 
 you will; remembering the argument so common in 
 the mouths of all men, that if I have done you griev¬ 
 ous harm as an enemy, I can surely do you important 
 service as a friend.”—(VI. 92.) 
 
 The accession to the Lacedaemonian interests of 
 the renegade Athenian was of great importance to 
 the result of the struggle. His advice was at once 
 followed. A Spartan officer, Gylippus, was straight¬ 
 way despatched to Syracuse to organise their army, 
 with promise of ships and soldiers to follow in the 
 spring. A fortress was built on Deceleia, and its 
 effects upon Athens were harassing in the extreme. 
 Its occupation by the enemy lasted until the termi¬ 
 nation of the war, and the people of Attica suffered 
 all the evils of a perpetual invasion. 
 
 Early in the following summer the Athenians had 
 got together a tolerably efficient cavalry force, mounted 
 on native horses, which made them more a match for 
 their enemies in that particular arm; and they com¬ 
 menced operations afresh against Syracuse. Their 
 
TEE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 
 
 165 
 
 fleet took up a position in the harbour of Thapsus, 
 a small peninsula, which they fortified with a stockade. 
 Above the city of Syracuse was a steep range of hill 
 called Epipolae (as “ overhanging the town ”), and of 
 this it was necessary for the besiegers to get possession, 
 in order to carry out their design of building lines of 
 circumvallation—the usual process in a regular siege- 
 while a strict blockade was to be maintained by sea. 
 The Syracusans were well aware of the value of this 
 position, and were taking measures to secure it, when 
 the Athenians carried it by surprise, defeating the 
 enemy, who hurried in disorder to defend it, with 
 considerable loss. They began their investing works 
 at once, drawing the line across from the Great 
 Harbour to the smaller one at Trogilus. A cross 
 wall,J;o cut this line, was commenced on the part of 
 the enemy; it was destroyed by the Athenians : they 
 began a second. In the course of these counter-opera¬ 
 tions, attacks were made upon the Athenian lines, and 
 repulsed,—not without some loss on their side, however. 
 In one of these engagements, Lamachus, hurrying to 
 the support of the right wing of the Athenians, which 
 had been driven in, got too far in advance, and was 
 cut olf with a few of his men, and killed. His body 
 was carried off by the enemy, but restored after their 
 defeat under the usual truce. It is disappointing to 
 find the death of so gallant an officer related in the 
 fewest and coldest words. The loss to the Athenians 
 at this juncture of a commander whose voice in coun¬ 
 cil had been given, as has been seen, in favour of a 
 bolder course of action, must have been greater than 
 
166 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 tlie historian shows. "We know little of his character 
 heyond the scanty notices in this history; hut in the 
 hurlesques of Aristophanes he figures as the rough hut 
 honest soldier, of small means and homely manners, 
 and a fair subject for a joke on those points, hut the 
 thorough “ man of war from his youth,” who braves 
 all hardships, and is never so much at home as when 
 in camp. Plutarch strongly confirms this view of his 
 character. 
 
 The Athenians had now secured the slopes of Epi- 
 polic, while their fleet held possession of the Great 
 Harbour. The to^vns on the coast, and the native 
 tribes in the interior, began to tender their allegiance 
 to the successful invaders. The situation had become 
 critical in the extreme for the Syracusans; and a party 
 in the city had even opened communications with 
 Hicias on the question of surrender. Hicias himself 
 seems to have lost his old cautious and somewhat 
 despondent temperament, and to have become con¬ 
 fident and careless. He thought Syracuse lay at 
 his feet. 
 
CHAPTEE Xnr. 
 
 THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE. 
 
 It was about the month of August b.c. 414, when the 
 actual siege of the city had been going on some five 
 months, that Gylippus the Lacedaemonian arrived at 
 Syracuse, with four galleys. After being delayed and 
 welhiigh wrecked on his voyage, he had landed at the 
 seaport of Hun era, collected a force of native allies, 
 and with them marched across country, and made his 
 appearance on the heights of Epipolae by some passes 
 left unguarded in the rear of the Athenian position. 
 He crossed their uncompleted Ime of circumvallation, 
 and entered the city, escorted by the Syi'acusan army, 
 who had come out to welcome him. By a negligence 
 on the part of Hicias which seems unaccountable, no 
 attempt appears to have been made to check either 
 his march through the island or his entrance into 
 the town. 
 
 It was only the news of his coming, which had 
 reached Syracuse a few days before, that saved it from 
 surrender. But from the moment of his arrival the 
 confidence of the citizens was restored. It was not so 
 much the relief which he brought or promised, as the 
 
1G8 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 personal weight of the man, which gave them new 
 spirit. He began by sending a herald to the Athe¬ 
 nians to say that “ he was prepared to make terms 
 with them, if they were willing to quit Sicily within 
 ' five days wdth all their belongings.” We are not.sur 
 prised to read that to such a proposal they vouchsafed 
 no reply. But we imaguie also its effect on the Syra¬ 
 cusans, to whom the warlike reputation of the Spartans 
 was well knov7n. He next captured a fort which the 
 Athenians had occupied, and put the garrison to the 
 sword. But perhaps the point in his behaviour most 
 calculated to instil respect and confidence in his new 
 allies was, that when he was defeated in an action 
 which took place between the works and counter¬ 
 works, he had the courage to tell the SjTacusans that 
 “ the fault was not theirs but his own, for having lost 
 the advantage of the cavalry and javelin-men, by 
 hampering himself too much between walls; but he 
 would lead them to the attack again.” They were 
 Dorians, all of them, he said, and were not going to 
 be beaten, surely, by those lonians, and islanders, and 
 mixed rabble of all sorts. And in the next battle he 
 drove the Athenians within their lines, carried out the 
 new counter-wall of defence beyond their works, and 
 prevented them from ever completing their intended 
 line of circumvallation. 
 
 Both sides stood in need of reinforcements. The 
 Syi'acusans sent a further appeal for aid to Corinth and 
 Lacedaemon; and Gylippus went in person through 
 the towns of Sicily collecting such auxiliaries, raAcI 
 and military, as he could. Nicias had fullon back 
 
THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE, 
 
 into his old despondency—indeed he had now perhaps 
 sufficient cause—and he despatched a pitiable letter 
 (which Thucydides probably gives verbatim from 
 some public record) to the home authorities. The 
 arrival of Gylippus, he said, had completely changed 
 the situation. The Syracusans would soon be 
 strongly reinforced. His army were obliged to give 
 up their own works of circumvallation, and had be¬ 
 come rather the besieged than the besiegers. Their 
 ships were leaky, their crews daily diminishing — 
 some even deserting. The expedition must either be 
 recalled at once, or strongly reinforced. He himself 
 was suffering from illness, and begged to be relieved 
 of his command. There is much honest pathos, if 
 some lack of dignity, in his personal appeal: “I think 
 I have a right to claim this indulgence from you, for, 
 so long as I had my health, I did you much good ser¬ 
 vice in my command.” 
 
 Either the Athenians had immense confidence in the 
 high character of their general, or they must have 
 concluded that his letter expressed only the natural 
 dejection of ill health, and unwillingness to incur 
 responsibilities. They refused to supersede him; but 
 they associated two of his officers with him in the 
 command, until Demosthenes and Eurymedon, who 
 were to be sent out as soon as possible with new 
 forces, should arrive at Syracuse. The latter officer 
 (of Corcyraean notoriety) was despatched at once, 
 though it was the middle of winter, with ten galleys 
 and a supply of money. 
 
 But the Syracusans received their reinforcements 
 
170 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 first—a picked "body of armed Helots from Lacedso 
 mon, and infantry from Boeotia, Corintli, and Sicyon. 
 Gylippns, too, had returned to the city 'with what 
 native auxiliaries he had been able to raise; and he 
 now proceeded to adopt new and holder tactics. All 
 through the winter a Syracusan fleet had been care¬ 
 fully manned and regularly exercised ; and he pro¬ 
 posed at once to attack the Athenians where they had 
 liitherto been supposed incontestably superior—by sea. 
 In this he was ably seconded by Hermocrates, who 
 maintained that this superiority rested on mere reputa¬ 
 tion, and, such as it was, had been but the result of 
 circumstances which had compelled Athens to become 
 a naval power instead of an inland one. The first 
 attempt, however, resulted in a complete defeat of the 
 new fleet in their attack on the Athenians in the 
 Great Harbour; but in a simultaneous assault made 
 by Gylippus by land upon the Athenian forts on 
 Plemmyrium, he succeeded in driving them from that 
 important position with considerable loss, and to their 
 serious distress for the future, as it gave the Syracusans 
 the command of the entrance of the harbour, and no 
 supplies could now come in to the Athenians with¬ 
 out a battle. 
 
 Hothing discouraged by their first defeat, the Syra¬ 
 cusans prepared for a second trial of strength by sea. 
 They knew that in the confined space within the hai- 
 bour the usual Athenian tactics of sweeping round 
 with their light and swift galleys and perfectly-trained 
 oarsmen, and ramming the enemy on the broadside, 
 could not well be carried out; and, acting under the 
 
THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE. 
 
 171 
 
 advice of a clever Corinthian, they strengthened the 
 beaks of their own heavier vessels with under-heams, 
 so as to give them the advantage in a direct charge, 
 how to bow. The first day’s engagement was inde¬ 
 cisive ; but the Syracusans renewed the action after a 
 day’s interval, and gained a complete victory, sinking 
 seven Athenian galleys, disabling many more, and 
 inflicting on them very considerable loss in men killed 
 and prisoners. The spirits of the besieged were raised 
 to the highest point: they were confident that they 
 had now established their superiority at sea, and they 
 had little doubt of the result of future operations by 
 land. The discouragement of the besiegers was pro¬ 
 portionate, and their fortunes from that time practically 
 hopeless. 
 
 Yet for the moment their hopes revived, when, a 
 day or two after the battle, Demosthenes and Eury- 
 medon (who had returned to meet his fellow-admiral) 
 arrived from Athens with the expected reinforcements. 
 It was an imposing force which entered the harbour 
 —almost a second armada—seventy-three war-galleys, 
 five thousand heavy infantry, with light troops of 
 various nationalities in full proportion. Even the 
 Syracusans were struck with a new dismay at this 
 addition to the strength of the enemy. And Demos¬ 
 thenes determined at least not to imitate “ the policy 
 of Hicias, whose force had been so formidable on his 
 first arrival, but who had allowed it to fall into con¬ 
 tempt by wasting the winter at Catana, instead of 
 attacking Syracuse at once.” * He saw that the one 
 
 * 
 
 VII. 42. 
 
172 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 object, if the siege was to be carried to any successful 
 issue, must be to capture and destroy the enemy’s 
 cm nter-work on Epipolse. His attempts to take it by 
 direct assault failed ; and he then resolved upon a 
 night attack in strong force by a circuitous route in its 
 rear. The most difficult part of the enterprise had 
 apparently succeeded; but then the troops seem to 
 have lost their order and got into confusion: the battle- 
 cries, where Greeks met Greeks, were not to be distin¬ 
 guished, and in the darkness and uproar friends were 
 confounded with foes. The author honestly admits 
 that he had been unable to gain from the actors on 
 either side any clear account of the action; but in the 
 end the Athenians were driven back down the hill. 
 Many were forced over the cliffs, and many lost their 
 way after the descent, and were cut off by the enemy’s 
 cavalry. The defeat was decisive, and thenceforth the 
 Syracusans assumed the aggressive, and it became only 
 a question of the Athenians holding their own. 
 
 A council of war was held, and Demosthenes urged 
 a retreat while their fleet were yet masters of the seas; 
 and in this he was supported by Eurymedon. Hicias 
 opposed it; he was afraid of dispiriting his men; 
 and he thought he had friends in the city who would 
 yet arrange for its surrender. He did not urge these 
 reasons publicly in the council. He argued that the 
 Athenians would never forgive a retreat without orders 
 from home. “ He had no wish himself, knowing well, 
 as he did, the temper of the Athenians, to die an un¬ 
 just death at the hands of his countrymen on a charge 
 of dishonour: he preferred to risk his fate, if so it 
 
THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE. 
 
 173 
 
 must bcj at the hands of the enemy, so far as he was 
 concerned.” * The resources of Syracuse, he was as¬ 
 sured from private information, were all but exhausted; 
 and he maintained that they must carry on the siege. 
 
 In divided counsels there is no safety. Demos¬ 
 thenes and Eurymedon unwillingly gave way; the 
 Syracusans received reinforcements both from the 
 island and from the Peloponnese; and then, too late, 
 Nicias ceased to oppose a general retreat. Secret 
 orders were issued for the departure of the fleet; but 
 an eclipse of the moon intervened, and Nicias—“for 
 he was much given to superstitious scruples and such- 
 hke—declared that he would not now even discuss the 
 question as to making any movement before they had 
 waited thrice nine days, as the soothsayers enjoined.” 
 
 The Syracusans had gained intelligence of the con¬ 
 templated retreat, and at once made a combined attack 
 on their enemies by land and sea. Their first attempt 
 to storm the Athenian lines was not successful; but 
 they completely defeated the Athenian fleet in the har¬ 
 bour, capturing eighteen of their galleys and killing all 
 their crews. Eurymedon was among the slain. They 
 were resolved to complete the destruction of their 
 whole armament. With this view, they began to block 
 up the mouth of the harbour with a close-packed line 
 of merchant-vessels, while they prepared for another 
 attack on the fleet within. The only hope for the 
 Athenians now was to force the passage. hTicias 
 addressed his crews, and again the captains individ¬ 
 ually, reminding them that not only their own lives. 
 
 * VII. 48. 
 
174 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 but the fortunes of Athens, hung on the coming battle. 
 Gylippus, on liis part, called on the Syracusans to fight 
 now, not only for the liberties of Sicily, but for ven¬ 
 geance on the invader. 
 
 Nicias gave the command of the fleet to Demos¬ 
 thenes, himself remaining at the head of the troops on 
 shore. The fight in the harbour was long and obsti¬ 
 nate. There were nearly two hundred galleys engaged 
 in close action, and above half of them were left mere 
 wrecks; but the result was another decisive victory for 
 the Syracusans. The Athenians had provided grap¬ 
 pling-irons, by means of which they laid their own 
 galleys aboard the enemy’s, and reduced the struggle 
 to a combat hand-to-hand. But it may well be doubted 
 whether this was not in their enemy’s favour, as they 
 would thus lose aU the advantage of their own nautical 
 skill. The historian has given a description of the 
 battle at greater length and with more picturesque de¬ 
 tail than is usual with him. The struggle took place 
 in full view of the troops on both sides, who lined the 
 shores of the harbour, and their interest in it is vividly 
 described. It is possible that the writer was himself a 
 spectator:— 
 
 “The.troops on either side who looked on from 
 shore, while the sea-fight was thus equally balanced, 
 shared largely, so far as their feelings were concerned, 
 in the struggle and the conflict; the native forces eager 
 now for increase of glory, the invaders dreading lest 
 they slioidd meet with a worse disaster than they had 
 already. . . . When any of them saw their own 
 
THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE. 
 
 17i 
 
 men victorious in any quarter, they were of good cheer, 
 and fell to invoking heaven not to disappoint them of 
 success; while those who beheld their friends getting 
 the worst of it mingled their shouts with lamentations, 
 and, because they could see aU that happened, were 
 more depressed in spirit than those actually engaged. 
 Others, who had a view of some hardly-contested scene 
 of the fight, went through the greatest distress, owing 
 to the prolonged suspense of the struggle, and in their 
 extreme anxiety made contortions of their bodies corre¬ 
 sponding to their feelings,—for they were always within 
 a little, as it seemed, either of escape or destruction. So, 
 in that one and the same body of Athenians, so long as 
 the fight at sea was equally balanced, might be heard 
 all at once loud lamentations and shouts of triumph— 
 ‘ They are winning! ’ ‘ They are beaten ! ’—and all the 
 varied utterances which would be forced from a great 
 army under great peril.”—(YII. 71.) 
 
 So utterly overwhelmed and demoralised were the 
 Athenians by this last defeat, that they had thought 
 of retreating by night, without even asking the usual 
 permission to bury their dead. Demosthenes, indeed, 
 would have made one more attempt to force the pas¬ 
 sage out next morning with the remaining ships; but 
 the men would not hear of it. 
 
 They began their retreat by land, 40,000 men who 
 were in a condition to march; leaving their dead, 
 their sick, and their wounded behind, burning such 
 of their galleys as they could, and abandoning the 
 remainder to the Syincusans. “The account of the 
 
176 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 retreat,” says Macaulay, “is among narratives tv hat 
 Vandyck’s Lord Strafford is among paintings.” 
 
 “A terrible scene it was, not only from tbe one 
 great fact that they were going off with the sacrifice 
 of all their ships, and, instead of all their high hopes, 
 in imminent peril for themselves and for their country; 
 but in the act of breaking up their quarters there oc¬ 
 curred circumstances grievous alike to their sight and 
 their feelings individually. For they were leaving 
 their dead unburied, and when any man saw one of 
 his personal friends lying among them, he was seized 
 at once with grief and with dread: while those who 
 were being left behind alive, wounded or sick, were a 
 far sadder sight than even the dead for the living to 
 look upon, and more to be pitied than those who had 
 been slain. For these, breaking out into entreaties 
 and lamentations, drove their friends almost to distrac¬ 
 tion by conjuring them to take them with them; ap¬ 
 pealing to each one by name, if they caught sight of a 
 friend or a relative, hanging on their mess-comrades as 
 they were moving off, and following them as far as they 
 could; and when their strength or their limbs failed, 
 not resigning themselves to being left behind without 
 repeated adjurations and many groans. So that the 
 whole force, reduced to weeping and in this sore dis¬ 
 traction, had much work to get away at all, though 
 they were quitting an enemy’s country, after sufferings 
 too great for tears, and in dread of suffering yet more 
 in the unseen future. Great, too, was the general de¬ 
 jection and lack of confidence in themselves; for they 
 
THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE. 
 
 177 
 
 resembled nothing so much as the population of a city 
 that has been starved out and has to be evacuated. 
 . . . It was the heaviest reverse that had ever hap¬ 
 pened to a Greek army: it had fallen to men who came 
 to make slaves of others to have to retreat for fear lest 
 such lot should rather be their own. Instead of tho 
 prayers and hymns of triumph with which they had 
 set sail, they had now to leave their quarters under 
 omens the very reverse, moving by land instead of by 
 8ea, and having to trust to their arms and not their 
 ships. Yet still, in view of the magnitude of the peril 
 which yet hung over them, all this seemed to them 
 endurable enough.”—^YII. 75.) 
 
 Nicias made his last address to his broken force, a.s 
 he passed along their lines, in a firm voice, and as 
 cheerfully as he might. He bade them hope stiU, and, 
 above all things, not lose their self-respect. 
 
 “ For my own part—there is no one of you who is 
 not at least as strong as I am (you can see to what a 
 state I am reduced by disease), and though I have as 
 much to make life valuable to me, privately and pub¬ 
 licly, as any man, yet here I am, exposed to the same 
 danger as the meanest soldier; yet I have done much 
 to live a god-fearing life, and to act justly and be with¬ 
 out reproach among men. And therefore have I yet 
 confident hope for the future, and these misfortunes do 
 not appal me so much as they well might. . . . 
 
 Look, too, what stout soldiers, and in what goodly 
 numbers, inarch in yoiu* ranks, and be not too much 
 
 A.C.S.S. vol. vi. 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 disheartened : remember that wherever you take up 
 your quarters, you will virtually form a city of your¬ 
 selves, and that there is no place in Sicily that can 
 either withstand your attack, or drive you out if once 
 you occupy it. Take only good heed yourselves that 
 your march be safe and orderly, each man reflecting 
 that in the spot for which he may be forced to fight, 
 he will find, if he is victorious, both a city and a 
 fortress. . . . 
 
 “ In brief, fellow-soldiers, make up your minds that 
 you must needs put forth ah. your valour, since there is 
 no refuge at hand to which you can escape if you turn 
 cowards; while, if you now deliver yourselves from 
 your enemies, all will regain the homes I know you 
 long to see, and we Athenians shall build up again the 
 mighty power of our native state, fallen though it 
 may be now; for it is men that make a state, and 
 not stone walls or empty galleys.”—(VII. 77.) 
 
 The retreating army marched in a kind of hollow 
 square, the camp-followers and baggage inside, harassed 
 at every step by the enemy’s horse, and galled by their 
 archers. The first day they did not make five miles. 
 The Syracusans had occupied beforehand the fords and 
 passes. The Athenians gained some little ground by a 
 stolen march the second night; but by the next mid¬ 
 day the rear-guard under Demosthenes found them¬ 
 selves surrounded in an olive plantation, and laid down 
 their arms on the promise that their lives should be 
 spared. Hicias, with the advance, struggled on some 
 
THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE. 
 
 179 
 
 distance further, till they reached the little fiver 
 Asinarius. There, rushing into the stream to quench 
 their burning thirst, they fell into irretrievable confu¬ 
 sion, and were butchered by thousands with scarcely 
 an attempt at resistance. Nicias at length surrendered 
 to Gylippus in person. Of the troops, some few made 
 their escape and reached the friendly walls of Catana; 
 some were carried off and made slaves by their in¬ 
 dividual captors; 7000 were carried to Syracuse as 
 public spoil, and after a miserable imprisonment of 
 about two months in the great stone-quarries there, 
 exposed without shelter of any kind to burning sun 
 and heavy rains, were sold as slaves: the Athenians 
 and Sicilian Greeks were kept there some time longer. 
 
 The fate of the two commanders was a subject of 
 some discussion. Gylippus would have carried them 
 home with him in triumph to Lacedaemon. But the 
 Syracusans would not even show this questionable 
 mercy: they insisted on putting both to death. Thucy¬ 
 dides thinks that the influential parties within the 
 walls, who had been in communication with hTicias, 
 feared that he might betray their secrets. The his¬ 
 torian gives him a brief and cold epitaph. “ He least 
 of all the Greeks of my time deserved such a miserable 
 fate, because of his consistent practice of every recog¬ 
 nised moral virtue.” * Yet it was better for him, per- 
 
 * Tliere is another reading of the passage,—“consistent dis¬ 
 charge of all religious duties; ” on 'which Mr Grote has founded 
 a sneering depreciation of Nicias as “such a respectable and 
 religious in an ! ”—(Hist, of Greece, V. 308.) 
 
180 
 
 THUCYDIDES, 
 
 haps, than a return to Athens Avith the broken remains 
 of that grand armament, to the failure of Avhich his 
 own incompetence had so largely contributed. 
 
 Great was the consternation at Athens, when by 
 slow degrees the whole terrible truth began to be re¬ 
 alised. They knew the fuE extent of their danger. 
 The Syracusans might sad to the Piraeus; their enemies 
 at home would gather courage; the subject-islanders 
 would seize the opportunity to revolt. But they no 
 more lost heart than the Eomans after Cannae. They 
 built a new fleet, and retrenched their expenses. The 
 reserve of a thousand talents (some X240,000), which 
 the foresight of Pericles had set aside at the commence¬ 
 ment of the war for any season of emergency, was noAV 
 called into use. But though Athens rallied thus'gal¬ 
 lantly, and maintained the struggle with varying suc¬ 
 cess for eight 3 ears longer, she never fully recovered 
 the blow which had been struck in Sicily. She had 
 found her Moscoav, says Thirlwall, in Syracuse. 
 
 And here, if completeness Avere desired, the history 
 of Thucydides should conclude. The events chronicled 
 in his eighth and last “ book ” (Avliich he never fin¬ 
 ished) are of inferior interest to the Sicilian disaster, 
 and were only preparatory to the end. The anticipated 
 revolt amongst the subject-allies of Athens soon began. 
 The important island of Chios was the first to tlirow 
 off its allegiance, supported by a Peloponnesian fleet; 
 the Ionian tovnu of Miletus followed, and the islands 
 of Teos, Lesbos, Ehodes, and later on, Euboea. An 
 alliance was concluded for the first time between the 
 Lacedaemonians and the court of Persia, from which, 
 
THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE. 
 
 181 
 
 however, they reaped no material benefit; for the king 
 had his own interests chiefly in view, and Tissaphernes, 
 the satrap who managed Persian affairs in those quar¬ 
 ters, speedily disagreed with his new friends. 
 
 The intrigues of Alcibiades, restless in his exile, 
 mistrusted by the Spartans in spite of all his ability, 
 contributed largely to the quarrel. He was endeavour- 
 ing to bring about his own restoration to Athens under 
 a change of government. “ He had taken measures,” 
 Bays Thucydides, “through some powerful friends, to 
 have it mentioned in good society that he should be 
 glad to come back—but under an oligarchy, not under 
 the rascal democracy who had driven him out—and to 
 resume his position as a citizen, after giving them Tis¬ 
 saphernes for a friend.” The plot was first concocted 
 in the Athenian camp at Samos, and the temptation of 
 making an ally of the Great King, who could have no 
 possible dealings with a democracy, and whose pecu¬ 
 niary aid would be so valuable, proved strong enough, 
 combined with the influence of the oligarchical clubs, 
 to effect a revolution at Athens. The old democratic con 
 stitution—it had existed, the author remarks, a hun¬ 
 dred years exactly—was overthrown, and an oligarchy 
 of Four Hundred seized the government. Among the 
 leaders of this movement was Antiphon the rhetori¬ 
 cian, said to have been Thucydides’s teacher. But it 
 was not by this party, after all, that Alcibiades was 
 recalled. They found that he did not possess the in¬ 
 fluence of which he had boasted with the Persian; 
 and they suspected, not unjustly, that he was at heart 
 no true partisan of any cause but his own private in- 
 
182 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 terests. The army and the fleet had continued stanch 
 to the cause of democracy, and swore at Samos a sol¬ 
 emn oath to maintain it. Generals were elected I’y 
 public vote, in whom they could have full confidence. 
 “We must not lose heart,” said one of them, Thrasy- 
 bulus, “because the city has revolted from us.” But 
 the strangest circumstance was, that Alcibiades gave in 
 his adhesion to them, and was taken into their confi¬ 
 dence. He was restored to his country by the formal 
 vote of a self-constituted Assembly held by the troops 
 at Samos; for they regarded Athens, under her new 
 oligarchical rulers, as no longer the seat of any lawful 
 authority. Within a few months the government of 
 the Four Hundred was overthrown there, and the 
 democracy in all essentials restored. Antiphon and 
 others of his fellow - revolutionists were brought to 
 trial, and condemned, in accordance with the Athenian 
 law of treason, to drink the hemlock-juice. A Lacedae¬ 
 monian fleet with which, as Thucydides admits, An¬ 
 tiphon and his party had held treasonable communi¬ 
 cations, was hovering off the Piraeus; and had .they 
 known how to use their opportunity, the fall of 
 Athens might have taken place six years earlier than 
 it did. 
 
 Bestored to all his rights, Alcibiades was at once 
 elected one of the Athenian generals. He did not 
 revisit his native city for some years; but under his 
 leading, and that of Thrasybulus and Thiu-syllus, the 
 Athenian fleet won a victory at Kynos-sCma on the 
 Hellespont, over the Peloponnesian confederates, in¬ 
 cluding a squadron from their old enemy Syracuse 
 
TEE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE. 
 
 183 
 
 (b.c. 411). It was a success not so decisive or import¬ 
 ant in itself, as in the effect it had for the time on the 
 drooping spirit of Athens. With this event, in the 
 twenty-first year of the war, the author’s unfinished 
 history concludes. 
 
 More than once before the war was ended, Athens 
 had her gleams of triumph and her chances of at least 
 an honourable peace. When the Lacedtemonian admi¬ 
 ral, Mindarus, was killed, and his whole fleet captured, 
 in the fight at Cyzicus, negotiations were proposed 
 by the enemy, and in the flush of triumph refused. 
 Overtures are said to have been again made by Lace¬ 
 daemon after the second great naval victory of the 
 Athenians at the Arginusae islands, and to have been 
 in like manner rejected. But the tide of success soon 
 turned. Athens dismissed from his command, and 
 drove again into exile, the man whom, with all his 
 faults, she could least spare at this juncture—Alci- 
 biades. He had not always been successful: he had 
 still hitter personal enemies, and his relations with the 
 Persian satraps were a continual ground of suspicion. 
 She adjudged to death, for what was at worst hut an 
 error of judgment, the commanders who had con¬ 
 quered for her at Arginusae; and she was worse served 
 hy those who (in spite of the generous warning of 
 the exiled Alcihiades against the insecurity of the 
 station) lost her navy in the crowning disaster at the 
 Goats’ River (Aigos-potami). She had to surrender to 
 
184 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 Lysander on almost his own terms; and while her 
 bitterest enemies looked on, crowned with garlands as 
 at a holiday, her Long Walls, her pride and defence, 
 were pulled down to the somid of the Lacedaemonian 
 fifes. It was only the forbearance of her great rival 
 that prevented her utter obliteration as a power in 
 Greece. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 Closely as Thucydides may he said to have approached 
 to the spirit of modern history, there are points where 
 the difference strikes the reader forcibly enough. He 
 scarcely ever vouchsafes us even a glimpse of the 
 Athens or Sparta of his day, except so far as their 
 foreign politics are concerned—that is, their relations 
 with each other and the neighbouring states in the 
 way of treaties and alliances, in operations by land 
 and sea, in the struggle for dominion and the re¬ 
 sistance it entails. We see nothing of the great 
 Pericles except as the leading spirit of the war,—the 
 commander of the Athenian forces, or the orator who 
 defends its policy. Of the internal state of Athens 
 we gain from his history no information at all. The 
 description of the great pestilence might be taken as 
 an exception, but that he plainly regards it chiefly as 
 an important episode in the war. We should have 
 known nothing from his pages of the influence over 
 the Athenian commons of men like Cleon, if the cap¬ 
 ture of Sphakteria and the fate of the Mityleneans 
 had not brought this influence into the foreground. 
 
 Yet perhaps even what we are inclined to notice aa 
 
186 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 a defect may be tbe consistency of art, which is not 
 nnfrequently too cold and severe for popular criticism. 
 Thucydides set out by professing himself the historian 
 of the war between the confederacies of Athens and 
 Sparta, and he has confined himself to his subject 
 with a unity of purpose, and perhaps some amount of 
 self-denial, which has not always been appreciated. It 
 is true that we learn from him nothing of the social 
 and domestic life of his countrymen at a most in¬ 
 teresting period: we gain more real information on 
 this point from the burlesques of Aristophanes or 
 the Dialogues of Plato. On the art, the science, the 
 literature of the times, he is absolutely silent. He has 
 no ‘‘supplementary chapters” on these subjects, like 
 his modern successors, in which the progress and de¬ 
 velopment of a nation in these respects is kept on 
 parallel lines, as it were, with its growth or decadence 
 in strength, in territory, in the achievements of war. 
 The only poet he quotes is Homer, and then rather as 
 historian than as bard; we should not know from his 
 pages that the drama, then in its highest development, 
 was a main feature in Athenian life : he mentions the 
 noblest work of Pheidias—the statue of Athen^ in the 
 Parthenon—only to calculate the amount of gold on it 
 which Pericles thought might be available in a national 
 emergency.* Much as we may regret these omissions, 
 the historian would perhaps have defended them, a-s 
 being outside the subject he had proposed to himself 
 and to his readers: he had promised us not a history 
 of Athens, but a history of the war. 
 
 The same explanation may not unfairly be suggested 
 
 * II. 13. 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 187 
 
 of a charge which has been brought against him of an 
 apparent indifference to human suffering. The cold¬ 
 blooded massacres perpetrated by both parties in this 
 war are related by him without any attempt at pallia¬ 
 tion, and at the same time without any expression of 
 horror. Even the sufferings of the Athenian citizens 
 after the great disaster in Sicily do not affect the calm 
 current of his narrative: and he leaves the wretched 
 captives in the Syracusan stone-quarries without even 
 satisfying the reader whether the majority of them 
 perished there or not. But such was the merciless 
 character of warfare even amongst the highly civilised 
 Greeks : and his is a military history, and not a moral 
 discourse. 
 
 Another characteristic feature in which the work of 
 Thucydides presents a remarkable contrast to the style 
 of modern historians has already been partly noticed. 
 The long and elaborate speeches which he introduces 
 from time to time form almost a distinct literary pro¬ 
 duction. They do not rise from the narrative, but are 
 fitted into it. So involved and difficult in their lan¬ 
 guage and construction that Cicero pronounced them 
 wellnigh unintelligible, they often serve rather as ob¬ 
 structions in the reader’s course than as aids to his 
 realisation of the story. The young student of Thucy¬ 
 dides is sometimes recommended to pass them over in 
 his first reading, and confine himself to the actual his¬ 
 tory. But they serve, no doubt, a definite purpose of 
 their own. They are essays on the political questions of 
 the times; they give the author’s view of the motives 
 which actuated the leaders of the several states engaged 
 in the great war. They form, in fact, the philosophy 
 
188 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 of the history as distinct from the facts. They may 
 have represented here and there the substance of the 
 argument—in some fuw cases even of the language— 
 actually used by the speakers named: they reflect some¬ 
 times—notably in the case of Cleon and Diodotus 
 —the divided voice of public opinion; hut we are 
 more certain to find in them the view in which the 
 great question of the hour presented itseK to the his¬ 
 torian himseK. Whether the speaker he Athenian, 
 Corinthian, or Syracusan, the voice and langiiage are 
 still those of Thucydides. A remarkable language it 
 is; reminding us now of the involved periods of St 
 Paul, and now of the speeches of Cromwell, in which 
 the expression vainly struggles with the thought. The 
 style is evidently moulded on that of the professional 
 rhetoricians to whom the Athenians loved to listen; 
 and the author addresses himself to both sides of the 
 argument with all the ability of a practised advocate. 
 If it had not been that the interest of a great war 
 called forth his powers as a historian, Thucydides 
 might have filled the chair of his teacher Antiphon, 
 instead of recording his fate. 
 
 END OP THUCYDIDES. 
 
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