^ I'PliX^-^J LIBRARY 1 SAN d;ego V / lo. ^ ^t^'""' i^V v\a(..( lU^ ■ 2)F Mi (7 ... / Vu XIII. The Greeks OF Asia, and the Lydian Monarchy .. , 119 XIV. Rise of the Achaemenian Empire — Cyrus and Darius — Commencement of the Per.sian Wars, 549-520 B c , 124 XV, Darius and the Greeks— The Ionian Revolt 138 XVI. Events in Greece after the Fall of the Peisis- tratidae — The Constitution op Cleisthenes, 510-509 B.c 148 XVII. Events in European Greece down to the Battle of Marathon. 509-490 b.c > . . 1G3 vni Contents. CirAl'TICre PAGE XVIII. FuoM THE Battle of Marathon to the Invasion OF Xerxes, 490-480 b.c 175 XIX. The Invasion of Xerxes — Thermopylae and Artemisium 192 XX. The Invasion op Xekxes— Salamis and Plataea 208 XXI. The Greeks of Italy and Sicily down to the end of the Tyranny at Syracuse, 600-465 b.c. 228 XXII. Events in Asia Minor and Greece, 479-4GG b.c. — Origin of the Confederacy of Delos 2H6 XXIII. The Building up of the Athenian Empire, 471-458 B.c 247 XXIVo Athens at the Height of her Power, 458- 445 b.c 257 XXV. The Years of Peace, 445-432 b.c — Pericles and THE Athenian Empire 2G8 XXVI. The Outbreak op the Peloionnesian War and ITS Causes, 435-432 b.c 280 XXVII. The Early Years of the Peloponnesian War DOWN TO the Death of Pericles, 431-429 b.c. 293 XXVIII. FuoM THE Death op Pericles to the Fall of Plataea, 429-427 b.c 300 XX rX. Sphacteria AND Deltum, 427-424 b.c 320 XXX. Brasidas in Thrace— The Peace of Nicias, 424- 421 B.c 335 XXXI. The Years of the Truce, 421-416 b.c 342 XXXII. The Expedition of the Athenians to Sicily, 415-413 B.c 351 XXXIII. The Decline of the Power of Athens, down to the Fall of the Four Hundred, 413- 411 B.c 374 XXXIV. The Fall of Athens, 411-404 b.c. — End of the Peloponnesian War 389 XXXV. Sparta supreme in Greece, 401-396 b.c 407 XXXVI. Attempts to overthrow the Spartan Supre- macy, 395-387 B.c 425 XXXVIl- The Geeeks of the West, 413-338 b.c 437 Contents. ix CIIAPTEP. PAGE XXXVIir. The Last Years of the Si'aktan Hegsmowy, 387-379 B.c o 450 XXXIX. The Uprising OF Thebes, 379-371 B.c loS XL. Thebes predominant in. Greece, 371-362 b.c. . . 4G9 XLI. From the Peace of 362 b.c. to Philip's First Invasion of Greece, 362-352 b.c 487 XLII. Philip and Demosthene.s, 352-344 b.c 499 XLIIL The End of Grecian Freedom, 314-338 b.c. , . 508 XLIV. Alexander the Great, 336-323 b.c 521 Tables : Kings of Sparta 517 Kings of Persia 548 LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS, PAGE ASIA IN 600 B.c 128 Asia in 510 B.C., showing the Satkapies of Darius ........ 1.37 Battle of Marathon , . » , o c . . 178 Plan of the Pass of Thermopylae , 200 Plan of Salamis , 214 The Three Positions of the Greek army before the Battle of Plataea 0. 223 The Athenian Empire, circa 445 b.c, with its Divisions as shown in the Tribute Lists , . . . . , , . 275 Pylos and Sphacteria r ...... , „ 324 The Siege op Syracuse ,...., c . . . ^ 359 Battle of Leuctra .... . = c 4G7 Battle of Mantinea 484 Greece in the Fifth Century before Christ .. .At end of hook. Chief Sites op Greek Colonization „ CHAPTER I. THE GEOGEAPHY OF GKEECE. When we can first discern through the mists of antiquity the race who called themselves Hellenes — though we, following the ancient Romans, know them better as Greeks — we find them dwelling in the southern region of the Balkan Peninsula. That they must at some remote date have wandered into that land from Asia we may surmise, but cannot prove. There is a great mountain range, which under many names forms the backbone of the Balkan Peninsula. Starting from the Alps, it runs from north to south, forming the watershed between the streams which flow west into the Adriatic, and those which run north-east or south-east to seek the Danube or the Aegean. Of this great chain the southernmost link is a range called PIndus. From the broad square tract which forms the bulk of the peninsula this range of Pindus strikes out boldly into the Mediterranean, and with its spurs and dependent ranges forms a great mountainous mass projecting for more than two hundred and fifty miles from its base, and almost touching the thirty-sixth degree of latitude with its southernmost cape. It is this southern extension of the Balkan Peninsula which has been since the earliest dawn of history the home of the Hellenic race. Here alone could the Greek claim that he was the first inhabitant of the land, the true child of the soil. His cities were built on every shore from Gaul to Colchis, but in all lands save this he was a stranger and a sojourner, maintaining a precarious hold on a fortified haven or a strip of coastland won from some earlier possessor. The Hellenic Peninsula— if we may so name the southern pro- B 2 21ie Geography of Greece. jection of the Balkan region — is not large. It is about equal to Size of Scotland in size,* and may be aptly compared to that Greece. country in many other things than mere extent. Both are almost entirely surrounded by the sea ; both possess a wildly irregular coast-line, seamed with countless bays and inlets ; both are fringed by a widespreading chain of islands great and small ; both own a soil not over-fertile for the greater part of its surface ; and above all, both are pre-eminently mountain-lands. In Greece, as in Scotland, it is almost impossible to get out of sight of the hills ; no spot in the whole land is more than fifteen miles from some considerable range. The three plains of any size which it contains do not together form one-sixth of its surface. The mountains of Greece, then, give the land its special character. They are not remarkable for their great height — Olympus, the The Greek loftiest summit, falls short of ten thousand feet — but mountains, ^-^q peculiarly wild, rugged, and barren. The sharp bare limestone peaks and ridges stand out with surprising distinct- ness in the bright dry atmosphere of the South. Their summits do not reach the region of perpetual snow, nor are their outlines softened by forests ; all is clear-cut and hard. Moreover, there is so much sheer cliff and impassable ravine in their structure that they constitute much more effective barriers between valley and valley than might be inferred from their mere height, which generally ranges between three thousand and seven thousand feet above the sea. The paths from one district to another are few and difficult, winding at the bottom of beetling crags or climbing precipitous gorges in their tortuous course. Hence each tribe was well protected from its neighbours ; the points at which it could be assailed were well known, and could in most cases be obstructed with ease, and firmly held by a handful of resolute men. Greece was framed by Nature for the home of small independent com- munities. Not the least characteristic feature of the Greek mountains is their chaotic complexity. There is no general system or order in their course ; sometimes they remind us of the ribs starting from * Scotland contains 29,800 square miles ; the modern kingdom of Greece, including the Cyclades and Thessal)-, 24,900 ; Southern Albania, the old Epirus, makes up some 4000 or 5000 more. Motmtains and Rivers. 3 a backbone, sometimes of the diverging arms of a star-fish, some- times of the complicated meshes of a spider's web. Ranges turn sharply at right angles to themselves, or divide into parallel chains, only to meet again ; bold ridges, whose height promises a long course, end suddenly in a sea-beaten cliff. Deep, narrow, unexpected gorges, torn open by some convulsion of nature, sunder apparently continuous lines of crest. At one point an upland valley is lost in some recess of the hills, with no natural outlet for its waters ; at another an arm of the sea comes creeping up a tortuous cleft far into the heart of the mountains. Everything is present except system, order, and regularity. Although the summits of the mountains of Greece are invariably bare and bleak, their spurs and slopes were in ancient days not entirely destitute of forest tracts. In Northern Greece extensive woods of ash, beech, and pine were to be found on the sides of Pelion and Parnassus, and, in the Peloponnesus, Arcadia was renowned for its widespreading oak-groves. But on the whole the land was not abundantly timbered ; it had no broad, untrodden stretches of tangled woodland such as formed the primitive boun- daries of Germany or England — its wildness was always the wildness of the cliff, and not of the forest. ' The character of the mountains of a country determines that of its rivers. Gentle slopes and wide plains produce broad navigable streams ; rocks and ravines breed unmanageable x^e rivers of torrents. The course of the rivers of Greece is so Greece, short, and their descent to the sea from the hills so rapid, that not one of them can bear a boat. But if incapable of use they are not incapable of mischief; swollen with the winter rains, they become broad dangerous floods which sweep away all that impedes their passage to the sea, and often spread destruction through the cultivated land along their lower course. The Greeks represented the gods of their rivers as mixed shapes, with the body of a bull and the head of a man ; the meaning is not difficult to seize — the figure combines the headlong rush and brute-strength of the animal with that almost human ingenuity for mischief which a stream in flood displays. Four or five rivers in Greece possess a course of some length, and bear a considerable volume of water to the sea through all the seasons of the year. Largest of these was the Acbelous, the 4 The Geography of Greece. king of Grecian waters, wliicli hurries for more than a hundred miles through the gloomy gorges of Epirus and Aetolia, and ends its obscure course opposite the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf. Smaller but more famous were Peneus, which drains Thessaly, the one great Grecian plain ; and Alj^heus, the sole river which succeeds in forcing its way out of the mountain barriers of Arcadia, and reaching the Ionian Sea. The other streams of Greece, though famous enough in story, are little better than winter torrents ; for one half of the year they rush tumultuously down to the sea ; for the other half they show a narrow thread of water barely connecting a chain of isolated pools, or even shrink away altogether and disappear. The bed of a dried-up river has always been during the summer months the most obvious, and often the only, road for the Greek wayfarer. The lakes of Greece are almost without exception the result of the accumulation of water in upland valleys without any natural The lakes of exit for drainage. The Lake of Pambotis in Epirus, Greece. ti;,a,t of Copai's in Boeotia, and that of Stymphalus in Arcadia, are all fair examples of this. There would be no limit to the increase of their extent were it not for the existence of a phenomenon common in all limestone countries. The water, unable to find its way above ground, pierces itself a subterranean passage, a " swallow," which the Greeks called fidpaepou or evav\os, and reappears in some lower valley. If the " swallow " is choked, the lake increases and inundates the whole valley. If it is naturally or artificially enlarged, the sheet of water may dry up entirely. The ancient kings of Orchomenus turned the large lake Copai's into grassy meadows by cutting a tunnel four miles long into the Euboean Strait; a few centuries of neglect, however, choked the issue, and reproduced a broad expanse of marsh which exists till this day. What Greece lacks in navigable rivers is more than compensated for by her numerous gulfs. These arms of the sea run up into the The Greek heart of the land, and make almost every district sea-coast, readily accessible from the water. The Corinthian Gulf is but the largest example of a long series of land-locked inlets which jDcnetrate Greece from all sides ; so deeply is the coast indented that even the inmost recesses of Thessaly or Arcadia are not more than forty miles from the nearest sea. The depth of Climate of Greece. 5 her bays and gulfs produces the surprising result that Greece has as many miles of sea-coast as Spain and Portugal, though its superficial area is only one-tenth of that of the Iberian Peninsula. As a land of mountain and shore, Greece possesses a more temperate climate than might have been expected from her southern latitude. The greater part of the surface is upland, tjj^g cumate where the summer heat is appreciably moderated by ^^ Greece, the elevation. Moreover, the sea-breeze penetrates almost evcr}^' where to cool and refresh. So it comes to pass that 'J'hessaly, for example, though further south than Naples, has a climate no warmer than that of Lombardy ; and that the southernmost plains of Messenia are the only part of the country where anything approaching semi-tropical vegetation can be found. The temperature of Greece was probably even milder in ancient days than now, for the hand of man has cleared away the forest tracts which once equalized the rainfall and saved the land from drought. The Greek held that the excellence of his climate quite compensated for the richness of soil which was denied to his home by nature, and pointed out Hellas as owning the happy mean between the cold of the North and the heat of the South. Greece may be divided into three main parts, each separated from the others by an isthmus. The first includes Thessaly and Epirus, the lands which lie between the northern boundary „ . •' Main of the country, and the Malian and Ambracian gulfs divisions of — two land-locked sheets of water which cut into the peninsula at the thirty-ninth degree of latitude, and reduce its breadth to sixty-five miles. To the south of these inlets Greece broadens out again into its middle region, the district to which the late geographers some- times restricted the name of " Hellas," opposing it alike to Peloponnesus and to the Northern lands. This tract contains the countries of Acarnania, Aetolia, Doris, Locris, Phocis, Boeotia, Attica, and Megaris. Lastly, beyond the Isthmus of Corinth lies the disconnected mass of Peloponnesus, a mountainous peninsula only joined to Central Greece by a low-lying spit of land three miles and a half across. The northern third of Greece is divided into two widely dis-^ 6 The Geography of Greece. similar halves by tho great range of Pindus. Westward lies Epims, a land never fully recognized as Greek, for the inhab- itants were alien in race and language, though in the course of time they took upon themselves a varnish of Hellenic culture and civilization. It is composed of a number of mountain valleys, some running parallel with Pindus, some at right angles to it, according as the spurs of the great range strike south or west. The northern half of its coast is sheer cliff, where the Ceraunian Mountains run close by the seaside ; further south the shore is less impracticable, and shows a narrow coast-plain and one or two fair harbours. Epirus was divided between three kindred tribes — the Chaonians, Thesprotians, and Molossians. The last- named occupied the inland valleys under the w^estern slope of Pindus; the Chaonians and Thesprotians shared the coast — the former holding the more rugged northern tract, the latter the smaller and southern half of the shore-lands. Epirus only con- tains one place of importance, the ancient oracular seat of Dodona. Here, in a secluded upland valley among the bills of the Molossian territory, the priestesses of Zeus dwelt in their oak-groves, and gave responses to inquirers from all parts of Greece. Opposite Epirus lies the long and rugged island of Corcyra, whose ridge runs parallel with the coast of the mainland, and looks like one more Epirot mountain range parted from its fellows by the inter- vention of a narrow arm of the sea. Thessaly, the land east of Pindus, is very different in character from Epirus. It is not divided by mountain ranges, but sur- rounded by them, forming a single great plain shut in on every side by hills. To the north it is separated from Macedonia by the Cambunian Mountains — a chain which runs out at right angles from Pindus, and culminates near the sea in Olympus, the highest of Greek mountains, on whose cloud-capped summit primaeval tradition placed the inaccessible abodes of the gods. The southern shoulder of Olympus turns south and almost touches the Magnesian range, the eastern wall of Thessaly, whose highest summit — Mount Ossa — faces Olj^mpus across the narrow gorge of Tempe. Legends told how the mountains had once formed a continuous barrier, and how Poseidon had split Ossa asunder from Olympus by a blow of his trident, and opened an Thessaly. 7 outlet for the laud-locked waters of Thessaly into the Aegean. Tempe forms a picturesque defile four miles and a half long, buried in foliage and bordered by rampart-like walls of grey limestone. Through its midst runs the Peneus, a vigorous stream even in the heat of summer, for it receives the drainage of the whole Thessalian plain. Southward from Ossa, the Magnesian hills run hard by the sea, rising into a secondary peak in the well-wooded Pelion, and ending in the surf-beaten promontory of Sepias. A chain of islands — Sciathos, Icos, and several more — carry the general direction of the range out into the open sea. Southward Thessaly is bounded by Othrys — " the Brow," as its name betokens — a ridge five thousand feet high, which runs out at right angles from Pindus, much in the same way as the Cambuuian chain does m the north. It ajiproaches to within two miles of the southern point of the Magnesian range, and is then broken by a strait, the outlet of the Gulf of Pagasae. This great land-locked sheet of water lies along the western base of Pelion, and reaches far inland up to lolcos, the oldest haven of Thessaly, where the famous ship " Argo " was said to have been built. The region to the west of the gulf formed the district of Phthiotis, one of the earRest seats of Grecian life, the home of Hellen, the mythical founder of the Hellenic name, and Achilles, the hero of the war of Troy. It is separated from the Thessalian plain by a minor range of hills,' through which the Enipeus alone finds its way northward to join the Peneus ; the other streams of Phthiotis seek the Pagasaean Gulf. Shut in by its four mountain walls, Thessaly forms a little world apart. Its fertile slopes and green water-meadows were studded by more than twenty cities small and great, whose relations with each other form one of the most obscure chapters of Greek history. Three places deserve mention as more important than their neigh- bours — Pharsalus, in the southern angle of the plain ; Pherae, which lies at the foot of the hills which separate Thessaly from Phthiotis and the Pagasaean Gulf; and Larissa, the largest town of all, which commands the middle course of the Peneus, the choicest land of the whole country. Thessaly was even more celebrated for its pastures than its ccrn- ' Narthacius and Titanus. 8 The Geography of Greece. fields. The 'cattle which fed in its water-meadows were highly esteemed ; but still more so were its horses, which gave mounts to the famous Thessalian cavalry, the one really important force of horsemen that Greece could put into the field. The only drawback to which the country is subject is the liability of its lower parts to inundation. After the winter storms the Peneus cannot carry off the rainfall fast enough, and a long backwater, covering many square miles, forms itself in the lowland below the spurs of Ossa. When the rains have ceased, the flood shrinks back into the two deepest hollows of the plain, and forms the lakes of Boebe and Nessonis, which gradually decrease till they are replenished again in winter by the next inundation. • South of Othrys, we come to the second great section of Greece — the lands which lie between the Malian and Ambracian gulfs to the north, and those of Aegina and Corinth to the south. After sending off Othrys eastward, the great range of Pindus loses the comparatively simple character which it has up to that point preserved. It no longer continues a single chain, but breaks up into a quantity of diverging ridges. A mountain-mass called Tj'-phrestus is the centre from which these spurs start. To the south-west it sends out two ranges whose complexities form the rugged land of Aetolia, a district so far from the high- ways of civilization that its inhabitants always remained two or three hundred years behind the rest of the Greek races in their development. As late as the Persian wars there were still Aetolian tribes who lived entirely by rapine, always went armed, and ate their meat raw. The lower course of the Achelous — the Epirot river of which we have before spoken — divides Aetolia from Acar- nania, another highland country, but one less wild and remote than its neighbour. Its coast presents many havens, notably the great Gulf of Ambracia, a land-locked sea, not unlike the Pagasaean Gulf of Thessaly. It is approached by a narrow strait a mile broad, almost blocked by the promontory of A.ctium; then it broadens out and runs inland for twenty miles between Acarnania and Epirus. At its end lay Argos, the city of the Amphilochi, a tribe closely akin to the Acarnanians ; a few miles from its northern shore stood the more important town of Ambracia, a Corinthian colony, whose inhabitants had driven the Mountains of Central Greece. 9 Epii'ots out of the southernmost angle of their land. The coast of Acarnania is fringed with islands ; 4hose at its southern end, the Echinades, are gradually being absorbed by the mud-flats deposited by the Achelous, which brings down vast quantities of silt from its upper course, and builds up islands opposite its mouth. Further out to sea lie Leucas, Ithaca, and Cephallenia, three The western rocky crests of a submerged mountain chain. Of islands, these Leucas, " the White Island," a tract of grey limestone cliffs, v/as once united by a sandspit to the Acarnanian mainland, but a canal cut across the neck turned it from a peninsula into an island. Ithaca, a narrow and rugged mountain-top, is only famous as the home of the much-wandering Odysseus. Cephallenia, the largest of the three islands, faces the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth; it was broad enough to contain four cities, and possessed some fertile patches on its coast. The mountain ranges which run eastward from Typhrestus are somewhat less chaotic in their structure than those which go towards Aetolia and the west. Two main chains can be dis- tinguished. The flrst is formed by Oeta and the heights which continue it. These mountains run close to the shore of the Malian Gulf and the Straits of Euboea. Oeta forms the western part of the range, and contains the highest peaks. In the scanty space left between its declivities and the opposite slopes of -phe sper- Othrys lies the valley of the Spercheius, along whose ciieius vaUey. upper course dwelt the Aenianes, while the Malians occupied the narrow coast-plain at its mouth. Eastward of Malis the cliffs of Mount Callidromus, a shoulder of Oeta, come right down to the water's edge, so that there was only room for a single waggon to pass in the road which lies between the sea and the overhanging rocks. This forms the culminating point of the defile Thermopylae. along the coast known as the Pass of Thermopylae, and is famous for all time as the spot which Leonidas and his Spartans held for so long against the overwhelming hosts of Persia. After Thermopylae, the mountains retire a few miles from the coast ; they are now no longer known as Oeta, but bear the names first of Cnemis, then of Ptoum, then of Messapium. After the last-named height, they sink down to insignificance opposite to Chalcis and the narrows of the Euripus. The land between this TO The Geography of Greece. mountain range and the Euboean Strait was held by the Locrians, known sometimes as Hypocnemidian, from the moun- tain Cnemis under which they dwelt, sometimes as Opuntian, from the name of their chief town.^ The qualifying epithet was necessary to distinguish them from their kindred, the Ozolian Locrians, who lived further to the south on the shores of the Corinthian Gulf. Parallel on the whole to Oeta and its daughter ranges lies the other great mountain-system of Central Greece. This is the chain of which Parnassus, Helicon, and Cithaeron are the three chiet links. It runs along the shore of the Corinthian Gulf, to which, however, it never approaches so closely as does Oeta to the Gulf of Malls. By far the most important height in this range is Par- nassus, a great mountain mass, rising to eight thousand feet above the sea, whose buttresses spread far out on every side, and make an almost impassable barrier between Phocis, the land to its east, and Ozolian Locris, the country which faces its western slopes. Parnassus is the most central peak in Greece ; the Mount ^ ' Parnassus view from its summit is by far the widest that can be ^"^ e p . Qijt^^j^ji^g(3^ jj^ i(^Q whole country, embracing as it does everything that lies between Thessaly and Arcadia, the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf and the southern heights of Attica. Tn one of the recesses of the southern face of Parnassus lay the site of the great oracle of Delphi, the spot which the Greeks regarded as the centre of the whole world (6fj.^a\hs yr/s). The sanctity of the place gathered round a mysterious cave, overhung by beetling rocks and with a rugged gorge at its feet. Here dwelt the power of Apollo, and here the richest, if not the most magnificent, temple of Greece rose in his honour. From Parnassus the Phocian hills run eastward till they rise again into the height of Helicon, a mountain less vast and rugged than Parnassus, though it attains the respectable height of 5700 The Boeotian f^et. Helicon was noted for the pleasant groves and mountains, springs which diversify its eastern slopes, and its green recesses were fabled to be the favourite haunt of the Muses. ' Geographers have erred in distinguishing the Locrians into separate tribes of Hypocnemidians and Opuntians, The names were used indiffer- ently for the same people. PJiocis and Boeotia. ii The spurs which Helicon sends out rise on the east into the ridge of Cithaeron, a long line of crest which continues the general direction of the chain of which it forms part, but no longer runs along the side of the Gulf of Corinth ; striking inland, it forms the boundary between Attica to the south and Boeotia to the north. Pent in between Oeta, Cnemis, and Ptoum on the one side, and Parnassus, Helicon, and Cithaeron on the other, lies the second largest plain of Greece. It is composed of the valleys of the rivers Cephissus and Asopus, and runs from north-west to south- east, with a length of some thirty miles, and a breadth that varies from two to ten. The Cephissus valley was held by three different races. At its source among the roots of Oeta dwelt the littie tribe of the Dorians in their four villages. Its central course flowed through the land of the Phocians, whose towns studded the slopes on either side of its banks. Phocis also included the rugged country to the south of the °° •' . Phocis. Cephissus valley, taking in Delphi and the spurs of Parnassus, and reaching to the Corinthian Gulf. But its heart and strength lay in the Cephissus valley, the only part of its territory which was fertile enough to support a considerable popuk' tion. After leaving the land of the Phocians, the Cephissus valley is contracted for a moment by spurs which run south from Cnemis. In the narrowest part of its course, where it is no more than two miles broad and almost deserves the name of a pass, lies Chaeronea, the first town in Boeotia ; it is almost as truly the gate of Central Greece as Thermopylae, and has always formed the natural spot at which an invader coming from the north has been resisted. Behind Chaeronea lies the great Boeotian plain, divided boeotia between the basins of the Cephissus and the Asopus. It is a fertile region, whose soil consists of a rich mould, and pro- duces the most abundant crops in Greece. Boeotia could almost compete with Thessaly in the number and size of its cities, of which seven of larger and seven of smaller size ^ formed the national league, a body whose union contrasts strongly enough with the discord that always prevailed among the Thessalians. Therefore • These were Thebes, Orchomenus, Thespiae, Tanagra, IlaliarLus, Coronea, and Lebadea, aud the smaller towns of Copae, Pharae, Mvcalessus, Acraephium, Anthedon, Chaeronea, and Plalaea. 12 The Geography of Greece. the Boeotian League was generally powerful, the Tliessalians nearly always weak. Orchomenus dominates in the valley of the Cephissus, Thebes in that of the Asopus ; in early times the former was the most important town in the country ; but from the seventh century B.C. Thebes exerted a marked predominance over all her neighbours. The Asopus succeeds in reaching the sea, but the Cephissus and all the other minor rivers of Boeotia fall into Lake Copai^, a broo.d swamjiy exi^anse of water, possessing no natural outlet save some subterranean "swallows" which communicate with the Eubcean Strait. In spite of the labours of the early kings of Orchomenrj, who for a while drained the swamp by artificial tunnels, Copais was the bane of Boeotia. Not only did it inundate the meadows of Haliartus and Orchomenus, but its marshy exhalations made the air of the whole plain thick and heavy. In summer the climate was sultry and sweltering, for the surrounding mountains penned in the warm vapours from the lake ; in winter the fogs and mists lay low on the surface of the land, kept off the sun, and caused a degree of cold unknown in neighbouring districts. The inhabitants of the breezy upland of Attica held, probably not without reason, that the oppressive climate of Boeotia made those who dwelt in it dull, heavy, and stupid. Nevertheless, the land produced Hesiod, second only to Homer among early poets, Pindar, the greatest of lyric poets, and Epaminondas, the noblest patriot of Greece. The ranges of Cithaeron and Parnes, which are practically con- tinuous, extend right across the peninsula from sea to sea, running due east and west. From their western end projects a bold mountain mass named Gereneia, which forms the sole barrier between the Gulf of Corinth and that of Aegina, and stands out towards the isthmus, and the Peloponnese. At its southern end Gereneia sinks suddenly down from five thousand feet to the sea-level, and looks across to Oneium, the nearest Peloponnesian height, which faces it at a distance of about six miles. Between them lies the low spit of land, three miles and a half broad, which forms the actual Isthmus of Corinth. On each side of Gereneia there is just room for a road to crawl between the hills and the sea : thes3 two paths, the one overhanging the Corinthian, the other the Aeginetan Gulf, meet at the isthmus, Attica. 13 From the base formed by the line of Cithaeron and Parnes a triangular tract of mountain land runs due south into the sea. Its western side is washed by the gulf of Ae3;iaa, its Attica, eastern by the Aegean. This is the district of Attica,^ " the shore-land," the most famous though not the most favoured of the regions of Greece. Its backbone is formed by the ranges of Pentelicus and Hymettus, but a quantity of minor heights cross it in all directions. Attica is mainly composed of sloping uplands, with a thin ungrateful soil and a great deficiency of water. All its streams, with one exception, shrink away and disai3pear in the summer. But the air is dry, fresh, and breezy, and the country includes two coast-plains whose fertility almost redeems the barren- ness of the highlands. These are the Thriasian plain in the western corner of the land, and the jjlain of Athens which lies around the capital, and is watered by Cephissus, the one perennial river of Attica. The little country of Megaris, named from Megara, its one town, is practically a part of Attica : it was severed from the rest by a political and not a natural boundary ; it consisted of that portion of the slopes of Cithaeron and Gereneia ^e*"s. which was detached from Attica by the Dorian invasions of the tenth century b.c. Before proceeding to describe Peloponnesus, it is necessary to mention the great island of Euboea, which lies like a breakwater in front of Locris, Boeotia, and Attica, separating them from the open Aegean. The island is formed by a great mountain ridge, which prolongs the range of Othrj'^s beyond the waters of the Straits of Artemisium. Euboea presents to that sea an unbroken line of iron-bound crags without a single harbour ; but its inner face has a very different character, containing some fertile coast-plains, and affording safe anchorage in numerous bays. It was on this sheltered western side of the island that Chalcis and Eretria, two flourishing commercial cities famed for their activity in colonizing, w-ere situated. Opposite Chalcis was the Euripus, a narrow passage where the width of the Euboean Strait shrinks down to forty yards, and could be spanned by a bridge thrown out from the Boeotian mainland. ' From uKT.';, broken shore. 14 TJie Geography of Greece, Peloponnesus, whicli the geograplicr Strabo happily described as " the citadel of Greece," the innermost and strongest of the suc- cessive lines of defence which the Hellenic lands p)resent to an invader, is very distinct in character from the lands to its norlli. The barrier which the Gulfs of Corinth and Aegina interpose be- tween it and central Greece corresponds to an entire change in the mountain system of the country. The isthmus which Corinthian joius it to Mcgaris is not a link connecting the main isthmus, j-aages of the two districts ; it is a mere spit of flat land not rising to more than two hundred feet above sea-level at its highest point. Hence it has been from the earliest days the ambition of engineers to bridge this neck by a ship-portage or to pierce it by a canal. The two chief mountain chains which give Peloponnesus its shape run at right angles to each other. The first lies close to its northern coast, and forms the boundary between The mountains of Achaia ou the shore and Arcadia in the upland. The Peloponnesus, i^^gggj ^-^^^^ ^f ^i^jg ^^^^^ jg i5;nowu as Erymanthus, but its highest point was Cyllene, which rises to 7700 feet. No common name exists for the whole chain, which we may, however, call the mountains of Northern Arcadia. High up on the southern declivity of one of its crests was the only important waterfall of Greece, the mysterious Styx. Plunging from an inaccessible cliff into an equally inaccessible chasm, it was regarded with wonder and awe by the Greeks, who fabled that it fell straight into the underworld, and became the river of Hades. Starting from the centre of the North Arcadian Eange and running at right angles to it, north and south, was the second great mountain chain of Peloponnesus. This forms the watershed between the rivers which flow west to the Ionian Sea, and those which run east to the Aegean or lose themselves in the limestone clefts of the Arcadian plateau. The range is known as Maenalus in its central, and Taygetus in its southern, course. The culminating peak of Taygetus is the highest summit of Peloponnesus ; it slightly surpasses Cyllene, and reaches 7900 feet. This range runs far out into the sea, and its final preci- pice, the rocky promontory of Taenarum, forms the southernmost point of Peloponnesus. All along its course the chain of Maenalus and Taygetus is Mountains of Peloponnesus, 15 accomjmuied by a parallel rauge not much inferior to it in impor- tance, which faces it at a distance varying from ten to fifteen miles to the east. The dominating heights of this range are Parthenium and Paruon, of which the latter reaches 6400 feet. Like Taygetus, this mountain throws out a long headland into the sea, the point of which was Cape Malea, whose gusty cliffs were long the terror oi Greek seamen. Three cross ranges join the range of Maenalus and Taygetus to that of Parthenium and Parnon at three different points. Each of these cuts off a highland valley, between the main chains, from its natural exit to the sea. Hence are formed the isolated upland hollows of Pheneus, Stymphalus, and Mantinea, whose only drain- age is by " swallows" which discharge their waters on to the slope above the Aegean. Peloponnesus falls into seven main divisions. The first of these, starting from the north-east, is the district just within the isthmus, where the hills are still low, and are only commencing to rise up towards the great chain of Northern Arcadia. Corinth, a town perched on a height just within the isthmus, gives its name to the hilly country around its base ; a few miles further to the west, Sicyon and its territory occupy the valley of the little river Asopus.' The slopes above Corinthia and Sicyonia were owned by two yet smaller states, the cities of Phlius and Cleonae, each occupying a mere hollow in the hills. Southward of Phlius and Cleonae, a mountain range running east and west forms the boundary of Argolis. This country falls into two parts : round the town of Argos, a few miles inland from the Aegean, lies a small coast-jDlain forming the territory of that place. East of this tract a bold peninsula runs out into the sea, broad enough to hold three considerable cities, Epidaurus, Troezen, and Hermione, which were generally independent of Argos and maintained a vigorous life of their own. Over against Epidaurus, a few miles out in the Saronic Gulf, lay Aegina, a rugged island, but long the abode of a race of bold and enterprising seamen who made their narrow home well- nigh the greatest of the commercial marts of Greece. South of Argolis lay Laconia, a region completely bisected by • To be carefully distinguished from its Boeotian namesake. 1 6 The Geography of Greece. the range of Pamon and dominated by that of Taygetus. The land between Parnon and the sea is rough hillside, barely fit for habitation; but the valley between Parnon and Taygetus, the basin of the Eurotas, the " hollow Lace- daemon" of Homer, is of a very different character. It abounds in rich corn-land and plantations of vines and mulberries, and is well-nigh the most fertile region of Peloponnesus. Spreading over four low mounds in the middle of the plain, lay the straggling and unfortified town of Sparta, before whose citizens the rest of the inhabitants of Laconia bowed in subjection. The lofty and well-wooded spurs of Taygetus divide Laconia from Messenia, the south-western angle of Peloponnesus. Like Laconia, it consists of a rocky coast-land and a central plain. The valley of the Pamisus, the river of Messenia, is even more fertile than that of the Eurotas ; facing full to the south, it bears trees and fruits of an almost tropical character, such as no other part of Greece can rear to maturity. Above it rises the peak of Ithome, the citadel of Messenia. The moun- tainous seaboard of the country is mainly notable as possessing the only good port of the western coast of Peloponnesus, the land- locked bay of Pylos, famous in the Peloponnesian war, and yet more famous in our own century for the sea-fight of Navarino. A little river called the Neda divides Messenia from the triple region known as Elis. This land consists, firstly, of Triphylia, the district between the Neda and the Alpheus, a tract into which the hills of Arcadia run out westward, and which served as a refuge to the broken remnants of several tribes who had lost their original homes. Secondly, of Pisatis, the plain along the northern bank of the Alpheus, a fertile region which contained the great national sanctuary of Olympia. Thirdly, of Elis proper, the western slopes of Mount Erymanthus and its offshoot Pholoe, a land of flocks and herds, whose inhabitants lived in scattered villages, ignorant of the city life which was habitual in Greece. The Eleians at an early date conquered their neigh- l)ours of the Pisatis and Triphylia, and in spite of many revolts held them in constant subjection. The coa«t of Elis is a long and almost harbourless stretch of sand-hill and lagoon, a fact which explains why a people possessing many miles of seaboard never became Arcadia. 17 seamen. Twelve miles from its westernmost cape lies Zac3mthus, a considerable it^land whose mountains prolong the chain which Lad started in Leucas and Cephallenia. North-east of Elis, and running eastward as far as the boundaries of Sicyon, lay Achaia, pressed in between the Corinthian Gulf and the mountains of Northern Arcadia. It was com- posed of a number of small coast-plains, each containing its own town. Offshoots of the great range to the south cut off valley from valley, so that communication was easier by sea than by land. Nevertheless, the Achaians were a united people; they weie bound together by an ancient league, and did not in- dulge in the internecine wars too common in other parts of Greece. The only Pelopounesian district remaining to be described is Arcadia. This region forms the centre of the peninsula, and is the only part of it which does not own an outlet to the sea. Arcadia falls into two halves. Its eastern side is composed of the three upland hollows, pent in between the ranges of Maenalus and Parthenium, of which we have already spoken in describing the mountain system of Peloponnesus. Of these isolated valleys the southernmost is by far the most im- portaut: it contained the twin cities of Mantinea and Tegea, famous throughout Greek history for their bitter quarrels and constant warfare ; they were by far the largest and most civilized of the Arcadian states. The western half of Arcadia consists of a number of valleys drained by the tributaries of the Alpheus, the largest river of Peloponnesus. These streams, sej)arated from each other by a multitude of small ranges in their upper course, run together from all sides to meet at Heraea, the westernmost Arcadian town, whose territory overlooks the plain of Olympia. The land drained by them forms a rough hilly platoau, about tv/o thousand feet above sea-level, intersected by wooded hills in all directions. Here dwelt a number of small tribes, some of which had built themselves towns, while others lived scattered in isolated villages. All were equally jealous of their independence, and impatient of any closer union with their neighbours. They were by far the poorest and least civilized of the inhabitants of Pelojoonnesus, and from an early date are found leaving their mountain homes in bands, to serve as mercenary soldiers in more favoured countries. c 1 8 The Geography of Greece. Facing the eastern coast of Greece, a multitude of islands rise from the Aegean. They are the mountain-tops of two lost ranges, which once prolonged the Euboeaa and Attic hills out into the open sea. Andros, Tenos, and Myconos are isolated continuations of Euboea ; Ceos, Cythnos, and Seriphos are links starting from the Attic promontory of Sunium. A little furlher south the twc chains become confused, and meet in Naxos and Paros, the most important islands of the whole group. The Greeks called this The archipelago the Cyclades, conceiving of them as lying cyciades. j^ ^ circle around Delos, an island-sanctuary only less famous than Delphi as a home of Apollo. South of the Cyclades lay the Sporades, " the scattered ones," composed of the volcanic islands of Melos, Thera, and Cimolos, with the more distant Astypalea and Carpathus. Sporades and Cyclades alike are " mountain-tops afloat at sea ; " each of them has its peak rising to two thousand or three thousand feet in height, and sinking down into the water in more or less steep slopes. All the islands were devoted to the culture of the vine, and well-nigh all possessed safe harbours to tempt the cautious mariner of early times to push on from point to point till he found himself in Asia. Last of all Greek lauds we reach the long island of Crete. It lies across the mouth of tlie Aegean like a great breakwater, Avith one face looking out on Cyrene and Africa, while the Crote. ° •' ' other fronts toward the Cyclades. It is a true Greek land in its geographical character ; mountains starting from the central peak of Ida cut it up into countless valleys, where more than forty independent towns found space to exist. Political union was never established among them except perhaps in the prehistoric empire of Minos ; they were always occupied in ignoble civil wars, and when Cretans arc heard of outside their own island during historical times, it is always in the character of mercenaries, and generally in that of traitors to their emj^loyer. CHAPTER II. THK ORIGINS OF THE GREEK XATIOXALITY. There was once a time when Greece, mainland and island, plain and mountain, was peopled by a multitude of small uncivilized tribes, who lived in a state of constant war and jhe first anarchy. They had dwelt there for long ages, and mtabitants. no tradition survived to tell from whence they had come. But everything leads us to believe that they had passed into the land from the east and the north-east, some of them by pressing forward along the Hellespont and the coast of the Aegean, others by coasting from island to island through the archipelago which connects the harbours of Asia Minor with those of Greece, — a way so easy as to tempt even the most unskilful and unenterprising of seafarers to westward exploration, for the whole space of water can be traversed without losing sight of land for an hour. Of the life of these primitive inhabitants we know but little, either from tradition or from the traces which they left behind them above or below the ground. They were possessed of flocks and herds; they tilled the earth in some primitive fashion ; they were acquainted with the use of certain of the metals, notably copper and gold, and had mastered the rudiments of navigation. But, living in an endless state of war with each other, they knew nothing of trade by sea or land. Their villages were built inland, because the dweller on the coast was always exposed to the piratical incursions of his neighbours. Inland, too, in positions carefully chosen tor their strength, on isolated hills or rock-girt plateaus, rose the citadels of the tribes, surrounded by rude but massive walls of unhewn stone, piled up without the aid of mortar. Their religion consisted in the worship of the supreme power of the heavens — a god without a 20 The Origins of the Greek Nationality. name, whom they adored at altars erected on the highest hills. Temples or images they had not thought of framing, though some- times the presence of the divinity was typified by a massive stone or a sacred tree. The crowd of divinities who in after-days divided the rule of the world with Zeus, the great god of the firmament, were as yet unknown. Such a state of society can remain long without development. The ceaseless wars in which the tribes were engaged prevented the accumulation of permanent wealth, the source of all civilization. The land, especially the more fertile districts, was continually passing from tribe to tribe by the chance of war ; the herds of sheep and oxen were always at the mercy of a successful foray. Therefore men lived rudely and sparingly, because they had no temptation and no opportunity to gather round them any store of wealth. Long ages had probably elapsed since the arrival of the primitive inhabitants of Greece, before any tendency to the evolution of a nationality or the growth of civilization became evident. Later still came the time when the name of Hellene became known and accepted, and when Hellenic civilization began to develop into a form unlike anything that had gone before it — the unique and unparalleled product of the most gifted nation that the world has ever seen. In the dim epoch to which the earliest memories or imaginings of the Greeks carry us back, we learn that the Pelasgi were ThePeiaseic Occupying the land. The name of that mysterious ^&®- people is found not only in the Hellenic districts of Europe, but spread far and wide in Italy and Asia Minor. The myths in which the Greek embodied his conceptions of ancient history make Pelasgus, the eponymous hero of the race, now a king of Argos, now a dweller in Thessaly ; but Attica and Arcadia also claimed a Pelasgic ancestry, and the coast-land on the Hellespont and the islands of the north-eastern Aegean were full of Pelasgic traditions : even the Messapians and Oenotrians of Southern Italy were ascribed to the same kinship. So widely scattered is the name, so different were the tribes of historic days to whom a Pelasgic origin was attributed, that it is safer on the whole to believe that the name represents an epoch rather than a nationality. The Pelasgian is the dimly remembered predecessor whose existence The Pelasgic Age. 21 was brought home to the Greek by the barrows and hill-altars which dotted his land, by the cyclopean walls of prehistoric citadels and the unintelligible names of ancient sites. If he was akin to them, he hardly knew. The most clear-sighted of Greek historians held that his ancestors were a certain section of the Pelasgi, who had develoi^ed into a separate nationality by falling imder a special set of influences, which we call Hellenic because tradition associated them with the name of Hellen the Thessalian and his sons. But if this was so, it is strange that Athenian legends speak of a time when the Ionian and the Pelasgian dwelt together in Attica, occupying the same land but sharply divided by racial differences. Moreover, the scattered fragments of races witli whom the Pelasgian name lingered as late as the fifth century, the islanders of Lemnos and Imbros, the Crestonians on the coast of Macedon, the hillmen of the Hellespontine Olympus, were distinctly " Barbarians ; " their language and customs were unintelligible to the Greek, and yet they had been dwelling beside liim for centuries, and experienced the influence of continual con- tact with him. They differed from the Hellene not as a civilized and an uncivilized member of the same nation differ — not as an Athenian differed from an AetoUan, for example — but wholly and entirely, as much as did a Theban from a Lydian, Taking " Pelasgian," therefore, to cover in a vague way all the races which dwelt in prehistoric days in the Aegean lands, we must conclude that those tribes with whom the name lingered longest were not necessarily allied in blood to the whole of the primitive population of Greece. They rather survived as a separate people, because they were the least akiu to the newly developing nationality of the Hellenes of all the early inhabitants of the land. How many and various these inhabitants were it is easy to see, yet by far the larger number of them finally amalgamated into a single nationality. Although in many parts of Greece the local legends claimed that the ancestor of the tribe was no stranger coming from afar, but " autochthonous," sprung from the land itself, the child of one of the gods by some nymph of the neighbouring spring or mountain, yet the majority of them bear witness to the existence of the time when the population was not fixed to the soil, and when an 22 The Orighis of the Greek Nationality. eddying stream of different tribes was constantly in motion throughout the Aegean countries. Some of the restless clans Mixture of were of races which we must recognize as distinctly races. "Barbarians;" tales reach us of days when the Thracian dwelt in Phocis,^ and the Carian built cities for himself in the Megarid. Others were of less decidedly alien character, such as the much-wandering Leleges, who, though they dwelt on both sides of the sea, and are found united with the Phrygians in Asia, are in the West reckoned akin to races who were accepted as the ancestors of undoubted Greeks, Others, again, such as the Minyae and Teleboans, afterwards disappear from sight by being absorbed into later tribal unions, but were clearly of Hellenic stock. Comparatively few were the clans who, like the Arcadians, could claim that their ancestors had dwelt on from time immemorial, tilling the same valleys and worshipping the same gods from Pelasgic days down to the clearly known times of the sixth century. As yet the great names of the historic races of Greece do not appear, for none of the units of later Hellenic life had been formed. We hear notliing of Dorian or Aeolian, Ionian or Achaian, Some, indeed, of the tribes Avere nearer akin than others, but they had not as yet evolved any common names to distinguish between their different groups. When all were strange and hostile, shades of distinction passed as unimportant. There was no vestige as yet of the feeling which afterwards drew sucli a clear line between " Hellene " and " Barbarian," and the ancestors of the various Greek tribes mixed as much or as little with the alien as with each other. Among this chaos of contending tribes there at last arose, according to the most accepted legends, a great family of rulers HeUenand ^^"^ unifiers — the children of Hellen the Thessalian. his sons, ffj^g Greek mind loved to personify periods and movements in concrete human form, therefore the first steps taken out of the dim Pelasgic anarchy are ascribed to a single prince, the founder of the Hellenic name ; and the groups of kindred clans which at last began to draw together are said to have been called from his descendants, Aeolus and Dorus, Ion and Achaeus. J See Thuc. ii. 29, § 3. The Sons of Hellen. 23 Similarly a still more transparently my-thical son of Hellen, the hero Amphictyou, was said to have been the first to teach tribe to dwell peacefully by tribe, by instituting " Amphictyouies," associations of neighbouring clans for trade and mutual protection. The names of the four mythical descendants of Hellen of whom legend has most to tell deserve especial notice. Ion seems to typify the union of the maritime tribes who had come by sea from Asia Minor, and who, though they dwelt beside many alien races, Carians Tyrrhenians and others, may be roughly defined as occupying the islands and the coast-land of Greece. Dorus is the representative of the tribes of the northern mountains — the latest comers among the wandering races — who were still dwelling in the uplands of Macedon and Epirus. Achaeus and Aeolus were the supposed types of the bulk of the Hellenic race, who dwelt scattered up and down the peninsula from Thessaly to Taenarum ; but of the two the sons of Achaeus are represented as the more warlike and enterprising : they build up the first iwwerful states, and undertake the first great national expedition of Hellas. The name of Aeolus covers a vast number of obscure Pelasgic tribes ; all, in fact, of the later dwellers in Greece who were neither Ionian, Dorian, nor Achaean claimed Aeolus as their progenitor, and he was ascribed as father to races as distinct as the Thessalian and the Aetolian, the Phocian and the Boeotian. All the more back- ward and uncivilized Hellenic tribes were said to bs of his kin, though with them were joined some of the most famous clans, the primitive inhabitants of Corinth and Orchomenus, Messene and Sparta. No less important than the legends which tell of the foundation of tribal unity by the native-born sons of Hellen, are another cycle of tales which deal with foreign heroes who passed into Greece from the East. Argos, Athens, and Thebes, the three proudest cities of the land, all ascribed their foundation to Oriental princes. To the valley of the Inachus, one of the oldest seats of popula- tion in the Peloponnese, where a Pelasgic tribe had built their citadel Larissa on the height above the coast-plain, came Danaus, the founder of the Achaian state of Argos. Legend made him an Egyptian, but knowing as we do that the natives of Egypt never settled abroad, . we must con- iJ4 ^/'^ Origins of ilic Greek Nationality. elude that his myth typifies Phoeuiciaa rather than E^^yptian settlement ; and as he is said to have been akin to Belus the Sidonian and Ninus the Assyrian, it is evident that his influence has no distinctly Egyptian character. The kings who descended from Danaus were said to have made Argos the centre of civiliza- tion for the Peloponnese : one of them taught the rude tribes the use of the horse and chariot ; another brought from the East the first masons who taught the Achaian Pelasgi the use of hewn stone. When the house of Danaus split up into hostile families, the heads of different sections built for themselves the hill-towns of Tiryns and Mycenae, the last of which was to be even greater than Argos in the heroic age which is reflected in the poems of Homer, Quite distinct from the cycle of legends which deal with the house of Danaus is another group, which tells of Cecrops, the founder of Athens. Once upon a time Attica was sparsely inhabited by tribas of very diS'erent race. Cranao-Pelasgi, who afterwards recognized themselves as being Hellenes of Ionic kin, were mixed with other tribes of apparently barbarian blood. Cecrops, who, like Danaus, is called an Egyptian, appeared among them and fixed his abode on the altar-shaped rock which rises from the plain above the Phaleric Bay, and was after- wards known as the Acropolis of Athens. His descendants built up a power which soon took the lead among the petty tribes of Attica, though long generations elapsed before it succeeded in absorbing them all. This foreign race of princes taught their Pelasgic subjects to worship Poseidon and Atlicne. The god gave Attica the horse, and the goddess planted the olive-tree, whose cultivation was the first source of wealth for Athens. The Cecro- pidae received Ion into their house, so that, in the words of Herodotus, " the Athenians became lonians," and, like the Achaians of Argos, ceased to be mere Pelasgi governed by foreign princes. Finally, they subdued or expelled their barbarian neighbourp, and at last a king arose who united all the twelve tribes of Attica into a single state, with Athens at its head. This king was Theseus, the last of the great mythical line of Cecroj^s — a personage who approaches so near the bounds of real history, that the Athenians of after-days fixed upon him as the true founder of The PJioenicians in Greece, 25 their city, and worshipped him as a far more truly national hero than Cecrops and his misty line of descendants. In the plains of Boeotia another cycle of legends was told about a stranger from the East who became the founder of a great city. Cadmus the Phoenician, wandering in search of his , „ ,,..., , Cadmus. lost sister Europa, came under divme guidance to the spring of Dirce and the Aonian meadow, and built there a town long famous as Thebes. He instructed his neighbours in the art of mining, and taught them how to read and write, whence it came to pass that the earliest alphabet of the Greeks was known as " the Cadmean letters." Cadmus was the ancestor of a royal race cele- brated for the misfortunes which dogged them for generation after generation. Nevertheless, in spite of their troubles, and thougli Thebes was more than once taken and sacked by a foreign foe, the house of Cadmus held their own till that great convulsion when all the lowlands of Greece changed masters at the period of the immigration of the Dorians. There can be no doubt that a germ of truth lies at the bottom of all these legends about Eastern heroes who settled in Greece. In them is enshrined the fact that the barbarous inhabitants of the land learnt the rudiments of civilization from intercourse with the Phoenicians, the great nation of traders T^e whose vessels were already coasting around the Pboemcians. Aegean at the earliest moment when the mists of antiquity begin to lift. Pushing on by Cyprus and Asia Minor to the Cyclades and the Grecian mainland, this enterprising race searched out every bay and mountain for their natural products. On the coasts of Laconia and Crete they dredged up the shell-fish which gave them the much-prized purple dye. In Thasos they discovered silver, and turned up whole mountains from top to bottom by their mining operations. Where the land had no mineral riches to develop, they opened up trade with the inhabitants, and exchanged the fine fabrics of Eastern looms and the highly wrought metal work of the Levant for corn and slaves and timber, and such other commodities as the rude natives could produce. To facilitate their traffic they built fortified factories on well-placed islands and promontories. They did not usually penetrate far from the coast, but the legends of the foundation of Thebes seem to show at least 26 The Origins of the Greek Nationality. one case in wbich the Phoenician trader pushed boldly inland, and built his settlement twelve or fifteen miles from the sea. On the coast-line, however, the names of Phoenician trading-posts are found in every district ; the eastern shore of Greece is more thickly sown with them than the western, but even in distant Epirus and at the furthest recess of the Gulf of Corinth we find conclusive proofs of the presence of these ubiquitous merchants. The strongest settle- ments of the Phoenicians were always on the islands. Crete was particularly haunted by them ; the names of its towns, of Itanus, Leben, and Aradus, betray their Eastern origin at the first glance. Cythera, too, the island which lay opposite Laconia, and formed the centre of the purple-fishery, was entirely in their hands. So was Melos in the Sporades, and Thasos in the northernmost bay of the Aegean. The goods which the Phoenician brought to Greece were ere long copied by the inhabitants of the land, so far as their ability Influence Served them. Tiie jewellery of gold and silver, the of the bronze utensils and armour, the painted vases and Phoenicians ' ^ on the Greeks, terra-cotta figures which the primitive Greek pro- cured from the Sidonian merchant, served him as models for his earliest manufactures. Phoenicia had borrowed her art from Egypt ; Greece, therefore, borrowed from Egypt at second hand, but the Egyptian influence is quite traceable. Many centuries were to elapse before the borrowers succeeded in ridding themselves of the stiff and conventional style which they had copied from the work of their instructors. It was not only in the field of arts and handicrafts that the Phoenicians left their impress on Greece. The religion of the Phoenician Country bears distinct traces of Phoenician influence, deities. r^'bg primitive worship of the Pelasgi, with its rude cult of nature-powers, or sacred stocks and stones, was ready to bear any amount of modification and addition. To the vague native deities the Phoenicians added Aphrodite and Heracles — the goddess of fertility and reproduction, and the god of laborious endeavour. Aphrodite is a modification of the Eastern Ashtaroth, Heracles of Melcarth. Greek fable told how the goddess rose from the sea opposite the Phoenician island of Cythera, and how the god was born in the Phoenician town of Thebes. Ashtaroth was worshipped Early Connecliofi of the Greeks ivith Egypt. 27 in the East with grossly licentious rites, and the trace of her sensual character was never eliminated from the Greek goddess, who was ever the patroness of lust rather than of love. Melcarth, the city- god of Tyre, a deity who was worshipped as an inventor and civilizer, was turned by the Greeks into an ever-toiling hero, who purged the land from wild beasts and robbers, and wrought mighty works of drainage or road-making. How long the Phoenicians were able to keep the whole of the sea-going trade of the Aegean in their own hands we cannot tell. But certainly as early as the thirteenth century B.C. ^ tGr ek tlie Greeks were beginning to take to the water. The maritime earliest trace of them which we find in any authentic ^^^^ history comes from a monument of the Egyptian king Menephthah, a Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, which tells how the piratical fleets of the Akaioushi (Achaians) and Turshena (Tyrrheno-Pelasgi) harried the coast of the Delta. The next mention of them is from a similar monument of Rameses III., which speaks of incursions by sea of the Danaau (Danai) and Teucrians.' We must suppose that after some centuries of sole possession in the Aegean the Phoe- nicians had first of all to submit to rivalry from Greek shipping, and then to see themselves entirely driven out of Greek waters. In the day of Homer their vessels were still well known on the Hellenic coasts, but by the end of the eighth century they had ceased to visit the Aegean, and had to confine themselves to their native Levant and to the waters of Italy and Spain, where their great colony of Carthage secured them a long monopoly of commerce. Whether any other foreign influence than that of the Phoenicians affected the early inhabitants of the Hellenic peninsula, it is hard to say. The vast Cyclopean walls and domed vaults other of the prehistoric cities of Greece, such as Mycenae, influences ki or Tiryns, or Orchomenus, seem due to an influence Greece, which was neither Phoenician nor yet of native bii th. Many of the objects which are dug up in the ruins of those places are equally difBcult to explain. Possibly they may be traced to some independent centre of civilization in Asia Minor with which the • !Much has been written to prove that these peoples were not the Achaeans and Danai of Greece, but the balance lies in favour of the identification. 28 The Origins of the Greek N'ationality. early Hellenes were in contact. It is suggestive to note that the legends of the Argives told of a race of princes from Phrygia who appeared among them long after the first coming of the house of Danaus, and established a powerful kingdom. Pelops was the progenitor of this family, whose capital was not the old town of Argos, but a newer foundation, Mycenae, built further inland on the slopes of Mount Argeia. From Pelops, we are assured, the peninsula which had previously no common name was called Peloponnesus. His grandson Agamemnon established a predomi- nance over all the neighbouring princes, and was powerful enough to combine all Greece for the famous expedition against Troy. Whether the legend of this great family points to any real con- nection between the Hellenes and Plirygia, it is impossible to determine. This much is certain, that when Mycenae was excavated in our own generation, its soil waj found to be full of the relics of a primitive race, whose connection with the Greeks of historic times is hardly to be traced. Equally hard is it to say whether the obscure empire of the Hittites in Asia Minor and Syria had or had not any influence on the art, or culture, or religion of the inhabitants of Greece. Further researches may clear up the subject, but at present it is unwise to formulate any aiithoritativo statement concerning it. CHAPTER III. THE HOMERIC POEMS, AND THE GREEKS OF THE HEROIC AGE. Long before the authentic history of the Hellenes begins, we can catch glimpses of their manner of life from the evidence of monu- ments and excavations, from ancient customs which survived into later times, and — though here the greatest caution must be used — from their inexhaustible store of myths and legends. But the twilight glimmer which these researches shed upon the prehistoric age in Greece is sheer darkness compared with the flood of light which is thrown upon it by the immortal works which pass under the name of Homer. The Iliad and the Odyssey are a pair of lengthy epic poems, which deal with two episodes in a great war. The Greek princes, we read, were once gathered together by Agamemnon _. ^,. ^ ' ° o J o Tlig Iliad King of Mycenae, the greatest sovereign in the land, to and the aid him in an expedition to Asia, Paris, sou of Priam yssey. the Teucrian, had stolen Helen, the wife of Agamemnon's brother Menelaus, and borne her off to his father's city of Troy. The Greeks accordingly sailed to punish the seducer, and beleaguered Troy for ten long years. But it is not the whole of the war with which the Iliad deals. "Achilles, a prince of Phthiotis, was the bravest and most beautiful of the whole Greek host, but he was proud and headstrong, and was drawn into a bitter quarrel with King Agamemnon. He retired from the battle, and sat sullenly brooding in his tent till the Greeks were driven back to the water's edge, and his own bosom friend Patroclus had been killed by the Trojan prince Hector. Then Achilles arose in wrath, hunted down and slew Hector, and shut up the Trojans within the walls 30 The Homeric Poems. of their city." Such is the plot of the Iliad ; for, though abound- ing ia digressions, it takes the wrath of Achilles as its main subject, and it ends when that wrath has been dissipated. Similarly, the Odyssey tells how, when Troy had been taken, Odysseus of Ithaca King of the Cephallenians was driven from his home-course by storms, wandered for years lost in the waste of waters, but returned at last to reclaim his kingdom, and save his wife from the horde of suitors who had laid claim to her hand. For the last century critics have been disputing whether there was ever an individual named Homer; whether the Iliad and the The Homeric Odyssey are the work of the same author ; whether question. gj^Q}^ of these pocms might not itself be broken up into separate and independent lays ; whether the poems were written in Asia or in Europe ; whether their date lies as early as the fourteenth century before Christ, or as late as the sixth; whether editors and commentators have tampered much or little with their text. With these questions we need not trouble ourselves to deal at length. The internal evidence of the poems tells on the whole in favour of regarding them as unities, not as patchwork compositions of varying date. Small inconsistencies may here and there be pointed out between two books of the Iliad, or between the Iliad and the Odyssey ; but the results in that direction of the assiduous research of three generations of critics are ludicrously scanty. Probably additions have been made to the original bulk of the poems, but they were certainly not built up by a dozen different poets, of various shades of intelligence and taste, writing separate lays which were then pieced together. We are bound to confess that we have no authentic traditions concerning the biography of Homer ; nevertheless, it is quite rational Date of the ^'^ ^^'"'^'^ *'^^^*' ^ single author of transcendent genius Homeric composed the Iliad and the Odyssey. We may con- cede that the poems were not committed to writing until a very late date ; yet, remembering the portentous powers of memory of the " rhapsodist " in days ere writing existed, we need not therefore believe that interpolations and gaps are to be found in every section of the two works. Corruptions of the text may exist, but it is not necessary for that reason to give up the whole of the poems as valuable authority for the prehistoric age. But Date of the Homeric Poems. 31 it is most important to arrive at some notion of the date of their composition. Before we can use tliem as authorities for the life of early Greece, we must indicate the reasons which tell in favour of their extreme antiquity. It is scarcely necessary to demonstrate that they were in existence in the sixth century, though one modern critic^ at least was prepared to put them down to the age of Pericles and the Athenian supremacy I It is more to the point to state that a succession of other poems, obviously written as supplements and continuations of the Iliad and Odyssey, were already current by the end of the seventh century. These works, known as the " Cyclic " poems, because they rounded off the tale of Troy into a perfect whole (KvKXoi), were very different in character from their prototypes. They have unfortunately been lost without excejition, so that we cannot minutely examine their contents, but enough is known of them to show that they were deliberately written to bridge the period between the Iliad and the Odyssey, and to provide a suitable preface and epilogue to them. Greek literary tradition placed Lesches and Arctinus and the other " Cyclic " authors between 800 B.C. and 650 b.c. ; but though the dates are very probably correct, we have no means of corroborating them. Still, whenever the Cyclic poems weie written, we know that their authors had already the Iliad and the Odyssey before them as established standards and models. The internal evidence is, after all, the one safe criterion for assigning a date to the Iliad and the Odyssey. The authentic stage of Greek history commences with the conquest of internal evi- Peloponnesus by the Dorians, and the colonization dence for date, of the coasts of Asia by Ionian and Aeolian settlers. Of neither of these all-important series of events is there the slightest trace in Homer. Of course, we cannot venture to take it for granted that he would have dwelt upon them largely, if he had lived and written after they had happened. But we may safely say that he would have betrayed himself by some casvial allusions which implied a knowledge of them. An unsophisticated bard, singing to an uncritical audience in a primitive time, could not possess such a keen historical and archaeological sense as to avoid all anachron- isms. Vergil, a learned and careful author in a literary age, con- ' See the preface to Dr. Paley's " Iliad." 32 The Homeric Poems. tiriually indulged ia them. The Greek tragedians, though using the form of composition where it is most important to preserve accuracy of surroundings, were constantly betraying their modern knowledge.^ Is it possible that Homer alone should have been preserved from this failing? Could he have reconstructed from tradition the political geography of a Greece which had long passed away, and was replaced in his own day by an utterly different arrangement of tribes and cities ? " The Homeric map of Greece," as has been happily observed,^ " is so different from the map of the country at any later time, that it is inconceivable that it should have been invented at any later time." If Mycenae, for example, had not been a very important town in prehistoric days, nothing that ever happened in tangible times would have induced an author to describe it as a seat of empire. Who in any century after chro- nology begins would have had occasion to use the names Dorian and Ionian only once each in forty-eight long books, while he spoke of Achaians seven hundred and fourteen limes? Who, in describing the incidents of war in the Troad, could have refrained from all indications of the fact that in his own day the Troad was to become Greek territory — the one event in its history that would have interested his hearers above any other ? Yet, in spite of this silence, it is now a common thing to say that the Homeric poems were written to encourage chiefs who claimed a descent from Aga- memnon to persevere in a war against the Trojans of a later age. It is hard, therefore, to believe that the Iliad and OJyssey were written at any date after the great migrations of the eleventh century. Yet already, when the poet was writing, the war of Troy was ancient history, which he might freely adorn with the flowers of his imagination. He does not write as a contemporary, but as a distant spectator. In his own day, as he complains, a degenerate race had not a tithe of the strength of the ancestors whose deeds he celebrated. If there ever was a siege of Troy, then we neeJ not go to Homer for its details. All is too unreal in those poems, where 1 Take as obvious examples Sophocles, Oed. Col., 605, which makes Peloponnesus alreadj' Dorian a generation before the Trojan war ; or Euri- pides, Ale, 285, -which puts Thessalians in the Peneus valley at a still earlier date. 2 By Professor Freeman, in his "Historical Gcograph}'." The Homeric States. 33 the gods walk the earth in mortal form, and a single hero can put to flight a whole army. The real and unique value of the Homeric poems lies in the picture of the social life of Greece whicli they jjlace before us. The picture may be somewhat idealized, but we cannot doubt that it fairly reproduces the general characteristics of the age which preceded the Dorian migration. For the j)oet of a primitive age, though he may frame from his imagination both his plot and his characters, cannot falsify the social atmosphere in which they move. If we strip from them their purely magical and supernatural episodes, romances of the heroic cast such as the " Morte Arthur," or the " Nibelungenlicd," or the " Chanson de Eoland," are valuable authority for both the thought and the customs of the days in which their authors lived ; they may idealize the contemporary morals and manners, but they do not contradict them. So is it with Homer : he painted the state of society which was natural and habitual to his hearers, though he may have drawn his indi- vidual characters to a more heroic scale than the men of his own day could attain. In Homer's day, then, Greece was occupied by a number of tribes who recognized each other as kinsmen, though they had not yet found any distinctive national title for themselves. The name " Hellene " was as yet only applied to the nationauty in inhabitants of Phthiotis, and was not employed to omer. describe the whole Greek race ; there is, too, no correlative word " barbarian " to express that which is not Hellenic. The con- federate Greeks, if mentioned together, are usually called Achaians, from the name of their most celebrated tribe ; much less frequently they are called Argeians and Danai — words properly apj^licable only to the contingent of King Agamemnon. It will be noticed that Achaian and Danaan are precisely the names applied to the Greek invaders of the Delta by the Egyptian monuments The most distinguished states in Homer's poems may be briefl> mentioned. Agamemuon, the grandson of Pelops, was the greatest sovereign, and possessed an undisputed pre-eminence among his fellows. lie ruled Argolis, but dwelt not at Argos but at "wealthy Mycenae," a newer city on the hills above the Argive Plain. All Northern and Eastern Peloponnesus more or less clearly acknow- 34 The Greeks of the Heroic Age. lodged him as suzerain. Chief among his vassals was Diomedes, who ruled the old town of Argos and the small district immediately around it. Menelaus, Agamemnon's brother and second self, held a realm composed of Laconia and Eastern Messeuia. Nestor of Pylos ruled the Caucones, whose state embraced Western Mes- senia and Southern Elis. Northern Eiis formed the far less impor- tant and celebrated kingdom of the Epeians. Beyond the isthmus the most distinguished state was Phthiotis, ruled by Achilles, the hero of the Iliad. The Cadmeians of Thebes and the Minyae of Orchomenus had also a prominent position ; so had the Cephallenians of the Western Islands, whose king was Odysseus of Ithaca. On the other hand, some of the greatest Greek states of later days take a very inferior part in the Iliad : Corinth and Athens are especially unimportant. Megara, Larissa, Delphi, Olympia, are apparently as yet non-existent places. The Cyclades are not in Greek hands; but Crete and Ehodes contain a wholly or partially Greek population, and form the outposts of the race. We need not, of course, take seriously the names and individualities of the kings of the Iliad; but, on the other hand, there is good reason to believe that their states represent the existing realities of Homer's day. I The Homeric kingdoms were " patriarchal monarchies with well- deBned prerogatives," as Thucydides happily observes.' The kingly The Homeric house was always believed to descend more or less kiag- remotely from the gods, and to derive its power from the gift of Heaven. So Homer sings of the royal sceptre, the symbol of Agamemnon's sovereignty : " Hephaestus wrought it for Zeus, and Zeus gave it to his messenger Hermes, to deliver to Pelops the tamer of steeds, and Pelops again gave it to Atreus the shepherd of the people, but Atreus dying left it to Thyestes rich in flocks ; and from Thyestes, again, it passed to be borne by Agamemnon, that he might rule over many islands and all Argos." The kingly power was not strictly hereditary as in a modern state ; it passed from father to son when there was an heir of full age and approved worth to succeed to the throne. But if a king at his death left only infant children, or if the natural inheritor was notoriously incompetent, the succession might pass to a brother * n«Tp(/caJ ^9,jTO?j Yepoci.— -Thuc, i. 13. The Homeric King. 35 or any other near relative. And, again, if a king lived to sucli a great old age that he could not any longer discharge his functions, he would often surrender them to his heir during his own lifetime ; if he did not, there was a considerable chance of his being despoiled of them iu consequence of popular discontent. The king received from the tribe a royal palace, an ample share of public land, and certain fixed dues and payments. These went with the office, and were kept distinct from the ancestral property of the royal family. His functions fell into three heads — he was leader, priest, and judge. As leader, he headed the host of the tribe on all important expeditions; a king who shirked fighting would not have been tolerated for a moment. Arrayed in brazen armour, he rode out before his army in a light war-chariot, driven by a chosen squire. His nobles attended him in similar guise, while all the freemen of the land followed on foot, armed as each could provide himself. Cavalry was as yet unknown— a feature equally observable on the monuments of contemporary Egypt, and a clear mark of the early date of the Homeric poems. As judge, the king sat in the market-place with the elders around him, and heard all the cases which his people brought before him. He gave decision, not in accordance with law, for laws did not yet exist, but following the acknowledged principles of right and equity. Each suitor spoke on his own behalf, and brought forward his witnesses ; the elders delivered their opinions, and then the king rose, sceptre in hand, and gave sentence. As priest, the king was the natural intermediary between his people and Heaven. He embodied the unity of the tribe, and offered sacrifice in its behalf as being its representative. Other priests existed, but there was no priestly caste, and they took part like other men in the ordinary business of peace and war. They were attached to the services of particular deities, and presided at the temple or sacred glebe of their patron. The king kept no great state ; his personal attendants were few, and no gorgeous trappings distinguished him from his nobility. He might be seen supervising the labours of the harvest-field, perhaps even turning his own hand to a task of carpentry or smith- craft ; for manual dexterity was as esteemed among the Greeks of Homer as it was amoni' our own Norse ancestors. The degrada- 36 The Greeks of the Heroic Age. tion of the artisan was the development of a later age. As the kiug might be his own bailiff, so might his wife be seen acting as the housekeeper of the palace, bearing rule over the linen-closet and larder. One of the most charming episodes of the Odyssey intro- duces us to a princess engaged in the homely task of superintending her maids wlule they wash the soiled clothes of the palace. Yet the dignity of the royal house did not suffer in the least from the way in which it shared in the toil of its dependents. Next below the king in the Homeric stata were the nobility, who are often called ySoo-iA^es, " princes," just as was their sove- The Homeric reign. They were composed of the younger branches nobles. ^f ^j-^g j-Qyal house and of the great landowners of the tribe. The kiug summoned them to take counsel with him before any event of national importance ; but, though he listened to their advice, he was not necessarily bound to follow it. Still a wise prince, seeing how all his power rested on the general loyalty of his subjects, and not on his own personal strength and resources, would be very chary of running counter to his nobility. When the king and his BoulS of chiefs had come to a decision, the whole body of freemen were summoned to the market-place ; the nobles declared their views, and the king promulgated his decree. The crowd might manifest its approval by shouts, or its discontent by silence ; but no other political privilege was in its power. The main body of freemen was composed of small landowners, tilling their own farms; but there was already a landless class, Thetes, who worked for hire on the estates of others. The bard, the seer, and the physician formed a profes- sional class, with an established position, and moved about freely from state to state. The wayfarer was entitled to fair treatment and hospitality ; the suppliant was harboured and j^rotected — to maltreat him was one of the blackest crimes in the eyes of gods and men. Public amusements were simple and healthy; promi- nent among them appear already the athletic sports which were the delight of historic Greece. Slavery was known, and the kings and cobles possessed a certain number of slaves captured in war or bought from foreign countries ; but they were not many, nor was society as yet debauched by the evils that beset a slave-holding state. The class itself seems to have been well treated, and the Homeric Morality. 37 most affectionate relations are often found existing between master and slave. To complete the general picture of the state of societj', it remains to state that in domestic life the family had become the base of organization. Monogamy was universal. It is only among Trojans and other aliens that polygamy can be found. A high ideal of female virtue had been formed ; and the wives and sisters of the heroes come far more prominently forward, are encompassed with greater respect, and play a larger part in life than did the secluded women of historic Greece. In spite of the way in which all ranks in society share in the same toils and pleasures, a strong aristocratic tone pervades the Homeric atmosphere. It appears in the importance attached to high birth, in the manner in which a single armed noble can drive whole crowds of common folk before him in battle, in the dislike felt to the interference of the masses in politics. Tliersltes, the one demagogue of the Iliad, is represented as a mean and despicable creature, and soundly thrashed as a reward for his impertinence. But Homer no doubt sang for the banquets of the noble and wealthy. In contemplating the many pleasing features of the prehistoric age in Greece, we must not forget that all its society was pervaded with the feeling that might was right. The plunder ^^^ of weaker neighbours was the habitual employment character of of the noblest chiefs. We hear of gross brutalities eage. in the treatment of the widow and the orphan even iu the highest families. The king's prerogative was often used for the purpose of selfish plunder. Piracy was so habitual that it was no insult to ask a seafaring stranger whether he was a pirate or a merchant. Homicide was frequent, and un resented save by the kin of the slain, and they were usually to be propitiated by a fine paid as the price of blood. Quarter was seldom given in war, and the bodies of slain enemies were mishandled with every degrading form of insult. Human sacrifices, if not frequent, were not unknown. It was only a limited number of crimes, such as ill treatment of a suppliant, gross perjury, or the murder of a very near relative, that were held to be really offensive to the gods. It was, then.no golden age that Homer painted, but th--' idealized 38 The Greeks of t/ie Heroic Age. picture of the actual political and social life of his own day. Its exact date it does not concern us to determine; suffice it to say that it was long previous to tlie composition of any of the other existing literary monuments of the Hellenic race. The Iliad and the Odyssey are as far removed from later works by their antique methods of thought and expression, as they arc by their superior excellence. CHAPTER IV. TIIK RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS: OLTMPIA AND DELrill. Homer and Hesiod — a poet of a much later age, and a much less lofty flight — are credited with having collected and codified in their works the religious system of the Hellenes. " It was they," writes Herodotus, " who settled the relationships of the gods to each other, and fixed their names, and defined their attributes and occupations, and described their visible form.s : all was vague before." By this we are to understand that, in the fifth century, men held that Homer and Hesiod had formed the standard collec- tions of myths and legends concerning the gods, to which divergent local beliefs were afterwards assimilated. la all probability there is much truth in this view. The inhabitants of Greece in the Pelasgic age, as Herodotus continues, were accustomed to offer sacrifice on hill-tops to tho god of the sky, whom after-generations called Zeus ; primitive they also believed in many vague nature-divinities reiig-ion. for whom they had no individual names, though they called them 0eo\, or " ordainers." Whether such a state of pure nature- worship ever existed we have no real evidence, for it is certain that the Greek religion, when first we catch a glimpse of it, was already a medley of many divergent elements. There were in it, it is true, abundant traces of nature-worship, but many other systems were fused with it. Some of these were low forms of fetish-worsbip ; we find stocks and stones adored, or sacred trees and aerolites that fell from heaven. The cult of deified ancestors also prevailed. Moreover, as early as research can penetrate, a strong foreign element, borrowed from the Phoeniciaas, was already incorporated 4© 2'he Religion of the Greeks. with the misty creed of Greece; not improtahly other nations too have, unknown to us, left their mark upon it. The widest divergences existed between the worship of the different tribes. Sometimes they knew the same god by different Diversity of i^^'^'^^^^j ^'^ others they gave the same name to two erods. tribal deities whose characters were really distinct. The horse-headed Demeter of Phigaleia had little to do with the wheat-crowned Demeter of Eleusis ; the Zeus of Arcadia had very different attributes from the Zeus of Crete ; Dionysus the wine- god, and Dionysus the god of the under-world, were once distinct enough ; Poseidon the patron of the lonians, who presided over the sea, had nothing in common save the name with the Poseidon of Mantinea, who shook the world with his earthquakes. The more we inquire into local legends, the more do we find one deity assuming the shape and attributes which Homer, and literary tradition following him, have attributed to another. Moreover, in importing foreign gods, the Greeks were often quite reckless in identifying the new-comer with one of their own divinities. When, for example, they came across the great nature -goddess of Asia Minor, it appeared to be a mere matter of chance whether they called her Hera, or Artemis, or Aphrodite. Familiar as we are with " Diana of the Ephesiaus," we can never cease to wonder at the curious accident that identified Artemis, the virgin huntress of Arcadia, with the many-breasted " Mother of all things " whom Asia worshipped. The superficial assimilation of the tribal gods must have been one of the first consequences of the growing feeling of nationality among the primitive peoples of Greece. How it came to pass that the Arcadian learnt to call his patroness " Despoina," by the name of his neighbour's deity Demeter; how the Epidaurian came to identify his local Auxesia with Persephone ; how the Cretan acknowledged that the Britomartis whom he worshipped was the same as Artemis ; — we cannot trace in detail. But the fusion and identification of the local divinities into a limited number of clear, definite divine figures, certainly took place. By the time of Homer the personal identities of the various gods were growing clearer, and his poems enshrined a version of their characters and relatioris with each other which became the accepted The Olympian Deities. 41 mythological standard for future ages. Even in Homer's poems the personalities of the gods are still not entirely worked out ; but Hesiod filled up Homer's gaps in a lengthy " Thcogony," which gave a genealogical table of the divinities, and summed up the whole origin of the universe. Of course, neither Homer nor Hesiod was in any sense the inventor of the mythology of the Greeks. They merely codified the creations of the national spirit. Out of a mass of ^ cter's- hcterogeneous beliefs, some of them childish, some tics of Greek hideous, some immoral, the Greek mind built up the ^^ i&ion. beautiful structure of the Olympian religion. The anthropo- morphism which saw a god or a goddess in every grove and stream and hill, the gross worship of stocks and stones, the cruel and licentious cults borrowed from the Phoenician, the orgies of Phrygia, were all shaped into a beautiful, if complex, whole by the genius of the Hellenic race. The gods as we find them in Homer and his successors form a polity modelled to the similitude of an earthly kingdom. Zeus is their father and lord, who exercises over his brethren rj-j^g Olympian and offsj^ring the same sort of predominance that a divinities, mortal ruler enjoyed among his nobles. He summons the gods to council, and promulgates his decrees in their assembly just as Agamemnon did among the princes of the host before Troy. Like the great ones of earth, the gods enjoy the banquet and the wine- cup, the song and dance. Though they are immortal, and possessed of superhuman beauty power and knowledge, they are but " men writ large," with all men's passions, evil as well as good, reflected in them. They are liable to jealousy, lust, and anger ; they stoop to deceit and fraud. In short, they are copies on a vast scale of the Greeks who worshipped them. The gods of a primitive nation always reflect the national character. The peculiar feature of the Greek mind, which expressed itself in the national mythology, was the love of beautiful and noble forms. Egypt and Assyria might worship strange allegorical shapes, half-man, half-beast ; the savages of the North might adore demons and hobgoblins ; but the Greek set himself to reverence the perfection of human beauty. In Homer's time the Greek religion was still in that primitive stage where frankly immoral conduct can be attributed to the gods 42 The Religion of the Greeks. without their worshippers being shocked. After-age?, when ethics had been developed, were ashamed of the actions of their deities, and explained or allegorized them away. Yet already in the Iliad and the Odyssey we can trace the beginning of the connection between religion and morality. Perjury, parricide, oppression of the stranger, rejection of the suppliant, move the wrath of the gods, or of some dim power behind the gods, which hates evil and makes for good. The two characteristically Hellenic divinities in the Olympian circle were Athena and Apollo. They are not nature-powers, but impersonations in the most beautiful human forms of At ena. ^^ perfection of human nature. Athena represents the triumph of intellect over chaos. She is the warrior-goddess, ■who slays the earth-born giants who strove to overturn creation. She is the patroness of the arts and handicrafts which rescue mankind from savagery, and surround it with comeliness and comfort ; she taught the husbandman to plant the olive, and the weaver to ply the shuttle. As the protector of city -life, she fosters the arts of eloquence and good counsel. Unlike the majority of the heavenly host, who bear about them the stain of Phoenician licence or aboriginal grossness, Athena is severely pure and chaste ; she is intellect tmraoved by fleshly lust, the perfection of serene unclouded wisdom. Apollo represents another side of idealized human nature — the moral and emotional, as opposed to the intellectual. He is the patron of music and poetry, the arts which raise and ApoUo. inspire tiie soul; he has the gift of prophecy, the intuitive vision into the future which comes to the inspired mind. His votaries are not guided by keen intellectual insight, as are the favourites of Athena, but by a divine afflatus which carries them out of themselves, and iills them with superhuman knowledge. Above all, he is the god of purification ; he has the power of healing body and mind. Not only can he ward off disease, but he can cleanse the conscience- stricken suppliant from pollution and blood-guiltiness, and send him home purified. As the prophet, the healer, the inspired singer, he represents those aspects of perfected humanity which are omitted in the purely intellectual excellence of Athena. Olyinpia. 43 The presence of the gods followed tlie Greek wTierevcr lie went. Not only were the rivers and mountains and forests among which he dwelt haunted each by its particular deity, but the occupations of daily life were carried out under the supervision of the gods. To sow or reap, to build or to set sail, to commence a campaign or a banquet, without having first propitiated by sacrifice or libation the proper divinity, would have been both impious and unlucky. A religious sanction was required for the pleasures and relaxations no less than for the toils and duties of life. Hence it came to pass that such public amusements as theatrical representations and gymnastic contests, which in modern days have no religious con- nection whatever, were in Greece under the direct patronage of the gods. The Greek tragedy was the development of the choral dances and recitations which accompanied the worship of Dionysus ; the Greek games were established to commemorate some achieve- ment of a god or hero in ancient days. Of these games — one of the most characteristic features of the life of Greece — a short account must be given. It was deeply im- pressed on the Hellenic mind that the display of the The games of strength and beauty of the human frame in the Greece, service of the gods was eminently pleasing to Heaven. Hence came the institution of gymnastic contests in the honour of various divinities. Poseidon was propitiated by the Isthmian Games at Corinth, Apollo by the Pythian at Delphi. But the greatest of the contests of Greece was that which was held in honour of the Olympian Zeus, the supreme national deity, on the banks of the Alpheus, by the sandy shore of Eiis. ympia. At first the stadium of Olympia only witnessed foot-races, in which the youth of Elis and Pisatis met to run over a course of about two hundred yards, and to contend for a simple crown of wild olive. But gradually the festival became more widely known ; competitors — first from other districts of Peloponnesus, then from the whole Greek world, — began to appear, and the number and variety of the games were increased, till they included all kinds of running, wrest- ling, boxing, leaping, quoit and spear play, and contests for the horseman and the charioteer. From the year 776 b.c. the names and fatherland of the victors were carefully preserved in official lists, and at last the dates of the Olympic festivals became the 44 The Religion of the Greeks. favourito basis for the calculation of historical dates. The games were held in every fifth year, so that the " Olympiad " comprised a space of forty-eight months. The imit of time was inconveniently large, but as there was no other common Hellenic era by which all Greeks could calculate dates, the " Olympiad " was almost imiversally accepted, and the year 776 B.C. forms the first date in historical chronology. The victor only received from the judges a wreath cut from the sacred olive-grove of Zeus on the Altis, but his native state always hastened to load him with prizes, honours, and immunities ; the man who had won the foot-race or the chariot-race at the great contest was a considerably more important person at home than most of the magistrates. It is most characteristic of the Hellenic nation to find that this festival was held so important that a sacred armistice between states that were at war was established during the month of the games. This suspension of arms (or " truce of God," as the Middle Ages would have called it) permitted all Greeks alike to appear as competitors. The territory of Elis itself was held peculiarly sacred during the holy month, and any armed force which entered it incurred the guilt of gross sacrilege. Nothing offended Greek feeling more than the two or three armed attempts to interfere with the games which are to be found in historical times. The oracles of Greece formed a less peculiar and unique produc- tion of the bent of the national character than did the games. Other peoples have very frequently sought to gain a knowledge of the future by sacrifice and divination, by casting lots, or inquiring of priests and seers. Yet the Greek oracles are well worth notice as illustrating the development of the Greek mind. " They drew their origin," as has been very happily said,^ " from that belief in the existence of disembodied spirits around us which almost all races share. Afterwards, closely con- nected both with the idea of supernatural possession and the name of Apollo, they exhibit a singular fusion of nature-worship with sorcery. Then as the non-moral and naturalistic conception of the deity yields to the moral conception of him as an idealized man, the oracles reflect the change, and the Delphian god becomes in a certain sense the conscience of Greece." It would seom that ' Seo Myers's "Classical Studies," p, 8. Delphi, 45 at first the Hellene sought to gain access to the gods by seeking them in some wild and awesome spot far in the depths of the forests or the bosom of the mountains. Zeus at Dodona gave men answers by the sound of the wind that moaned through his oak-groves. At Lebadeia the inquirer descended into a long sub- terranean cave; by the river of Acheron he went down into a gloomy gorge to consult the oracle of departed souls ; at Delos he stood by a volcanic cleft in the mountain-side. Delphi, as much without a peer among the oracles of Greece as was Olympia among its homes of athletic contest, may serve as the per- fected type of them all. It lies among barren and lonely hills in the fulds of Parnassus, shut in by an amphi- theatre of rocks. The power of the god centred in a cave in the cliff, where a mephitic vapour arose from a chasm and intoxicattd those who breathed it. Seated on her tripod above the cleft, the priestess of Apollo drank in inspiration, and chanted wild and whirling words which were instinct with prophecy. Her saymgs were taken dovrn, and delivered, generally in hexameter verses, to the supphants for whom she was making inquiry. At first men came to Delphi for predictions alone, but ere long they came also for advice on every occupation of human life. The temple, which was built in front of the cave, became rich with the offerings of votaries from every Grecian tribe, and even from the barbarian kings of foreign lands. Statesmen came to consult Apollo about their political schemes ; both Lycurgus and Solon are said to have received his approval. Ambassadors took advice as to weighty matters of peace and war. Above all, the colonist came to seek from the oracle a functions of direction as to the land to which his migration would *^® oracle, most profitably be directed. Some of the noblest cities of the Greek world, Cyrene and Byzantium for example, had their sites fixed by the guidance of Apollo, " the god of ways." That the prophecies were often useful and intelligent, we may well believe. The priests had an unrivalled knowledge of men and lands, gained by constant converse with travellers from every known shore. But when the problem was hard, Apollo often took refuge in sounding platitudes or obscure riddles. Every one has heard of the dishonest evasions in which the god indulged in the cases of Croesus and Pyrrhus. But the moral utterances of the oracle were, perhaps, its most 46 The Religion of the Greeks. noteworthy sayings. They mark the growth in Greece of the instinctive distinction between right and wrong, and show how Apollo, the god of light and purification, represented the highest aspect of contemporary thought. Typical of them all is the striking story of Glaucus the Spartan. He consulted the god whether he might safely deny to the heirs of a deceased friend tke gold with which the dead man had entrusted him. Apollo re- plied that " if he swore falsely, he would be able to retain the money ; but that an awful vengeance awaited the perjurer and all his line." Glaucus then besought the god to pardon his inquiry ; but the priestess cried out that " it was as wicked to have tempted Apollo with such a question as it would have been to have retained the gold." The wish was punished like a deed, and Glaucus with all his race came to an evil end. Other answers of the oracle might be quoted inculcating mercifulness to the conquered, respect for the life of slaves, the strict fulfilment of treaties, obedience to parents, the granting of compensation to the weak when they have been injured, and other moral obligations, whose recognition marks the progress of a nation's moral being. It is sad, however, to think that the oracle which could at one moment make itself the mouthpiece of the highest and best thoughts of the age, might at the next sink to the use of paltry evasions and senseless jingles, and send the inquirer away with a riddle which was worse than no answer at all. But the inconsistencies of the oracle are not uncharacteristic of the whole of the Hellenic religious system. If that religion often succeeded in inspiring noble and beautiful ideas, it might as often be found lapsing into mere childishness or crude immorality. CHAPTER T. THE GKEAT MIGRATIONS. If there is any point in the annala of Greece at which we can draw the line between the days of myth and legend and the beginnings of authentic history, it is at the moment of the great migrations. Just as the irruption of the Teutonic tribes into the Roman empire in the fifth century after Christ marks the com- mencement of an entirely new era in modern Europe, so does the invasion of Southern and Central Greece by the Dorians, and the other tribes whom they set in motion, form the first landmark in a new period of Hellenic history. Before these migrations we are still in an atmosphere which we cannot recognize as that of the historical Greece that we know. The states have different boundaries, some of the most famous cities have not yet been founded, tribes who are destined to vanish occupy prominent places in the land, royal houses of a foreign stock are established everywhere, the distinction between Hellene and Barbarian is yet unknown. We cannot realize a Greece where Athens is not yet counted as a great city, while Mycenae is a seat of empire; where the Achaian element is everywhere pre- dominant, and the Dorian element is as yet unknown. When, however, the migrations are ended, we at once find our- selves in a land which we recognize as the Greece of history. The tribes have settled into the districts which are to be their per- manent abodes, and have assumed their distinctive characters. The old royal houses of mythical descent have passed away ; both socially and politically the Hellenes are fast developing into a people whom we recognize as the ancestors of the men of the great fifth and fourth centuries. 48 The Great Migrations The original impetus vvliich set the Greek tribes in motion came from the uortli, and tlie wliole movement rolled southward and The Thessa- eastward. It started with the invasion of the valley lian invasion, of the Peneus by the Thessalians, a warlike but hitherto obscure tribe, who had dwelt about Dodona in the uplands of Epirus. They crossed the passes of Pindus, and flooded down into the great plain to which they were to give their name. The tribes which had previously held it were either crushed and enslaved, or pushed forward into Central Greece by the wave of invasion. Two of the displaced races found new homes for themselves by conquest. The Arnaeans, who had dwelt in the southern lowlands along the courses of Apidanus and Enipeus, came through Thermopylae, pushed the Locrians aside to right and left, and descended into the valley of the "Cephissus, where they subdued the Minyae of Or- chomenus, and then, passing south, utterly expelled the Cadmeians of Thebes. The plain country which they had conquered recaived a single name. Boeotia became the common title of the basins of the Cephissus and the Asopus, which had previously been in the hands of distinct races. Two generations later the Boeotians en- deavoured to cross Cithaeron, and add Attica to their conquests; but their king Xanthus fell in single combat with Melauthus, who fought in behalf of Athens, and his host gave up the enter- prise. In their new country the Boeotians retained their national unity under the form of a league, in which no one city had authority over another, though in process of time Thebes grew so much greater than her neighbours that she exercised a marked preponderance over the other thirteen members of the confedera- tion. Orchomenus, whose Minyan inhabitants had been subdued but not exterminated by the invaders, remained dependent on the league without being at first amalgamated with it. A second tribe who were expelled by the irruption of the Thessalians were the Dorians, a race whose name is hardly heard in Homer, and whose early history had been obscure Til© Doridiis. and insignificant. They had till now dwelt along the eastern slope of Pindus. Swept on by the invaders, they crossed Mount Othrys, and dwelt for a time in the valley of the Spcrcheius and on the shoulders of Oeta. But the land was too The Doiians conquer Peloponnesus. 49 narrow for them, and, after a generation had passed, the bulk of the natioij moved southward to seek a wider home, while a small fraction only remained in the valleys of Oeta. Legends tell us that their first advance was made by tha Isthmus of Corinth, and was repulsed by the allied states of Peloponnesus, Ilyllus the Dorian leader falling in single combat by the hand of Echemus, King of Tcgea. But the grandsons of Hyllus resumed his enter- prise, and met with greater success. Their invasion was made, as we are told, in conjunction v/ith their neighbours the Aetolians, and took the Aetolian port of Naupactus as its base. Pushing across the narrow strait at the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf, the allied hordes landed in Pelo- ponnesus, and forced their way down the level country on its western coast, then the land of the Epeians, but afterwards to be known as Ells and Pisatis. This the Aetolians took as their share, while the Dorians pressed further south and east, and conquered at one blow Mcssenia, Laconia, and Argolis, destroying the Ciiuconian kingdom of Pylos and the Achaian states of Sparta and Argos. There can be little doubt that the legends of the Dorians pressed into a single generation the conquests of a long series of years. When they told how Temcnus, Aristodemus, and xhe Dorians in Cresphontes, the three grandsons of Hyllus, drew lots Peloponnesus, for the Pelopounesian lands, and gained respectively Argos, Lace- daemon, and Messenia as their shares, they were simply disguising the fact that three Dorian war-bands at one time or another got j)Ossession of those districts. It is highly probable that Messenia was the first seized of the three regions, and Argos the latest, for tradition spoke of the resistance of that great city as having lasted so long that King Temenus died before his allotted portion was subdued , but of the details or dates of the Dorian conquests we know absolutely nothing. Of the tribes whom the Dorians supplanted, some remained in the land as subjects to their newly found masters, while others took ship and fled over sea. The stoutest-hearted of the Achaians of Argoli>:, under Tisamenus, a grandson of Agamemnon, retired northward when the contest became hopeless, and threw themselves on the coast cities of the Corinthian Gulf, where up to this time 5© The Great Migrations. the Ionic tribe of the Aegialeans had dwelt. Tlie louians were worsted, and fled for refuge to their kindred in Attica, while the conquerors created a new Achaia between the Arcadian Mountains and the sea, and dwelt in the twelve cities which their predecessors had built. The rugged mountains of Arcadia were the only part of Pelo- ponnesus which were to escape a change of masters resulting from the Dorian invasion. A generation after the fall of Argos, new war- bands thirsting for land pushed on to the north and east, led. by- descendants of Temenus. The Ionic towns of Sicyon and Phlius, Epidaurus and Troezen, all fell before them. Even the inaccessible Acropolis which protected the Aeolian settlement of Corinth could not preserve it from the hands of the enterprising Alute?. Nor was it long before the conquerors pressed on from Corinth beyond the isthmus, and attacked Attica. Foiled in their endeavour to subdue the land, they at least succeeded in tearing from it its western districts, where the town of Megara was made the capital of a new Dorian state, and served for many generations to curb the power of Athens. From Epidaurus a short voyage of fifteen miles took the Dorians to Aegiua, where they formed a settlement which, first as a vassal to Epidaurus, and then as an independent community, enjoyed a high degree of commercial prosperity. It is not the least curious feature of the Dorian invasion that the leaders of the victorious tribe, who, like most other royal houses, The Dorians claimed to descend from the gods and boasted that and their kings. JJeracles was their ancestor, should have asserted that they were not Dorians by race, but Achaians. Whether the rude northern invaders were in truth guided by princes of a ditferent blood and higher civilization than themselves, it is impossible to say. It has been suggested that the names of the three Dorian tribes found in every state, the Hylleis, Pamphyli, and Dymanes, point to the mixed origin of the invading horde. If the " Pamphyli," as their name would seem to indicate, were a " mixed multitude," who followed the Dorian banner, and the " Hylleis " — who derived their name from Hyllus, the first Heracleid king — were the personal retainers of Achaian chiefs who had placed themselves at the head of the invasion, then the pure Dorian element among the invaders must have been much more slight than is generally imagined. Effects of the Dorian Conquest. 5 t In all probability the Dorian invasion was to a considerable extent a check in the history of tlie development of Greek civiliza- tion, a supplanting of a richer and more cultured by a poorer and wilder race. The ruins of the prehistoric cities, which were replaced by new Dorian foundations, point to a state of wealth to which the country did not again attain for manj' generations. The ornaments and tools which are found among their debris are HO different from those used in historic Greece, that we should hardly have suspected that their inhabitants were of the Hellenic stock, if the voice of tradition had not indicated IMycenae, Tiryus, and Orchoraenus as among the earliest centres of Hellenic wealth and power. When they were destroyed, much civilization perished wnth them. On the other hand, the invasion brouglit about an increase in vigour and moral earnestness. The Dorians throughout their history were the sturdiest and most manly of the Greeks. The god to whose worship they were especially devoted was Apollo, the purest, the noblest, the most Hellenic member of the Olympian flimily. By their peculiar reverence for this noble conception of divinity, the Dorians marked themselves out as the most moral of the Greeks. CHAPTER VL TIIK GREEK COLONIES IX ASIA. The stir and movement which were caused by the intrusion of Dorians and Aetolians. Thessalians and Boeotians, into their new homes were destined to make their effects felt far beyond the limits of the Hellenic peninsula. There was now a vast body of displaced population seeking a new home ; every mountain and promontory was crowded with broken remnants of the worsted tribes, who had escaped being reduced to serfdom, and had taken refuge in the remoter corners of the laud. In many cases tlie conquerors had allowed the conquered to depart under a treaty ; in others a tribe had fled before the storm, and taken refuge with those of its kinsmen who were still unsubdued. Everywhere there were to be found masses of population which had been cut loose from their moorings, and were ready to drift in any direction to which the current of the times might bear them. Gradually this heterogeneous crowd began to show a tendency to move eastward by sea. The North was held by wild and hardy races with whom they did not dare to measure themselves ; the West was a mysterious waste of waters known only to the Phoenician, But to the East lay Asia Minor — a land with which the ecaigrants had a considerable acquaintance, whose tribes they had met both in war and in commerce, and whose fertility, as they knew, exceeded by far that of their own mountainous land. That the inhabitants of the Hellenic peninsula had for long ages been in constant intercourse with the people of the opposite shore we can be certain. When the Achaians ravaged the Egyptian Delta in the thirteenth century, their vessels were accompanied by those of Lycians and other tribes from the south-west pf Asia The Races of Asia Minor. 53 Minor, When the Danai aiBicted the subjects ot Rameses III., they brought with them Teucrians and Dardanians from the Troad. The poems of Homer preserve some dim memory of a hostile contact with these same Teucrians in days long before the Hellenes dreamed of settling in Asia. When once they had mastered the art of navigation, and discovered the natural bridge which the Cyclades form between the two continents, it would have been strange indeed if the Greeks had refrained from constant visits to the opiDosite coast. Asia Minor consists of a great central plateau with a fertile coast- plain lying below it, and forming, as has been happily said, " a fringe of u diflerent material woven on to the garment." rn, • 1 1 , . . 1., /-, 1 1 i- Asia Minor. Ihis seaboard on the Aegean is, like Greece, a land 01 gulfs and harbours and promontories, but it possesses a succession of rich plains and valleys to which the more rugged Western land can afford no parallel. At the moment of the coming of the Greeks, most of the plateau was part of the widespreading posses- sions of the Hittites, while the shore was held by a number of tribes of very varying blood. The Teucrians and Phrygians lay to the north in the direction ot the Hellespont ; the Lycians were in the extreme south ; the Carians and the minor tribe of the Lelegcs dwelt between the others, in the valleys of the Maeander, Hermus, and Cayster, and on the islands which lie in front of them. These tribes possessed a civilization of their own, different in character bi'.tnot very different in degree from that of the Greeks, rolygainy prevailed among some of the races, polyandry in others, — both practices abhorrent to Greek custom. Most of the peoples wor- shipped as their supreme deity a great nature-goddess, mother and nourlsher of all living things, whom the Greeks called Artemis (as at Ephesus), or Hera (as at Samos), or Aphrodite (as at Cnidus), though, in truth, she had nothing to do with any of those Hellenic divinities. The Teucrians or Carians did not seem to the Hellenes utterly alien and savage, as did a Thracian or a Scythian, or pos- sessed of siuh an utterly different civilization as to bo incompre- hensible, as did an Egyptian. They were perhaps not very dis- tant kinsmen, and were certainly near enough to mix readily with the Greek and adopt much of his civilization. It was, accordingly, on th^se of their neighbours with whose land 54 The Greek Colonies in Asia. they were best acquainted, and whose strength and weakness they were best able to gauge, that the expelled tribes of Thessaly and Boeotia, Ionia and Achaia, determined to throw themselves. Three main streams of invasion can be traced, each drawing the greater part of its resources from a different group of peoples. The first is that pursued by the emigrants, who called them- selves by the general name of Aeolians. Their main body was The Aeolian composed of raccs escaping from the northern parts of migration. Gj-ecce, of Magnetes and Minyae who fled from the Thessalians, and of Orchomenians Cadmeians and Locrians, who had been displaced by the Boeotians. But mixed with these were Achaians, who had been driven out of Peloponnesus by the Dorian invasion, and were led by chiefs who claimed to be the descendants of Agamemnon. Not impossibly the name Aeolian, " the varie- gated," was first invented to express the mixed character of this multitude, and only afterwards aiiplicd as a common name to the original peoples who had sent forth the emigrants — races who had previously had little to do with each other. The port which tradition pointed out as the starting-point of the Aeolian adven- turers was Aulis, hard by the Euripus in the Euboean Strait. Hence it came to pass that Boeotia was vaguely spokea of as the mother-country of the Aeolis in Asia Minor, where the emigrants settled. The point at which the first pioneers of this exodus made their descent was the great and fertile island of Lesbos. They drove out from it an early race vaguely called Pelasgic, i.e. aboriginal, and founded on its shores five flourishing towns, of which the chief was Mitylene. These places were themselves ere long the parents of new settlements on the mainland. Another band, largely com- posed of Locrians, but led by Cleues and Malaus who are called jmnces of the house of Agamemnon, landed in Mysia, at the estuary of the Caicus, and seized a native town, whose name they turned to Cyme. This place became the largest continental settlement of the Aeolians, and was reckoned second only to Mitylene among their cities. Gradually, as new settlers came flocking in, town after town was founded, till the coast opposite Lesbos was fringed by a con- tinuous belt of Aeolian states. Further to the north, in the Troad, the adventurers who lauded at Assos and Antandrus had haider The Ionic Migration. 55 work to win themselves a territory, and were forced to maintain a loDg and doubtful war with the warlike Teucrians or Dardanians, before they could settle down in peace. At last the natives were driven up into the recesses of Ida, and the coast-land remained to the Greeks. Altogether, between the mouth ot the Hellespont and the Bay of Smyrna, the Aeolians founded more than thirty cities. None of them, however, save Mitylene and Cyme, became places of any great importance. They lay close together all along the shore, with the exception of the single town of Magnesia, which the exiled Magnetes of Thessaly built at a distance of thirty miles from the sea some way up the valley of the Hermus. Another stream of emigration, starting from a different base, affected the Carian and Lelegian lands to the south of Aeolis. In this district the invaders were mainly lonians, the The Ionian tribes who had been expelled from the north coast of mieration. Peloponnesus by the Achaians, and from Epidaurus Troezen and Phlius by the Dorians. These exiles had taken refuge with their kindred in Attica, but that barren peninsula could not long support them. To Attica, too, had wandered broken remnants of other tribes — Cadmeians Euboeaus and Phocians from the north, and Pylians from Peloponnesus. Some of these strangers stayed in the peninsula, and the Pylian house of Melanthus even became kings at Athens when the descendants of Theseus died out. But the large majority joined in the migration, and were merged among their Ionian comrades. Their leaders were sometimes Athenian princes, sometimes exiled chiefs from Peloponnesus. The Ionic migration differed from the Aeolian by being more military and less national. The invaders did not, we are told, bring wife and child with them, but were rather bands of adventurers unencumbered with useless mouths. Hence we find them, after the first moment of struggle, taking wives from the conquered, and mixing freely with the Carians and Leleges whom they found on the spot. " Those who say that they started from the Prytaneiura of Athens, and claim to have the purest blood of all lonians," says Herodotus, " ignore the fact that their ancestors took to wives the Carian women whose fathers they had slain." There was, therefore, from the first a large Asiatic and non-Hellenic element in the blood of the Ionian colonists of Asia — an element which had a large share in making 56 The Greek Colonies in Asia. them the least tenacious and most luxurious of the Greeks. The Aeolian invaders of Mysia and the Troad had on their way to cross the Aegean at the point where it is least thickly studded with islands. The lonians who started from Attica, on the other hand, found their path lying through the midst of the Cyclades. Many of the emigrants halted by the way and settled down on these islands, where they must have found a scattered Ionian population already existing, mixed, it would appear, with Carians, Cretans, and Leleges. The new-comers so far modified and influenced the popu- lation, that for the future nearly all the islands named chiefs of the migration as their oekists, and looked to Attica as their mother- country. Wave after wave of Ionic adventurers swept on by the Cyclades to the spacious islands of Chios and Samos, the broad peninsula of Mimas, and the fertile valleys of the Cayster and the Maeauder. To Phocaea in the north, hard by the Aeolian Cyme, the Athenian Philogenes led a mixed band in which Phocians predominated. Further south, Chios was occupied by settlers who were mainly of Euboean race ; Amphiclus of Histiaea, who was their commander, after defeating the Carians and Leleges of the island, allowed them to quit it under an oath never to return. In Samos Procles, who led the exiled lonians of Epidaurus, was yet more merciful to the natives, and incorporated them with his followers as a single com- munity. Neleus, son of the Athenian King Codrus, who seized the territory at the mouth of the Maeander, was more ruthless, and slew off all the Carians who dwelt about his city of Miletus, whence it was said that the Milesians were less tainted with aboriginal blood than the other lonians. At Ephesus, however, which held in the valley of the Cayster the same predominant position that Miletus enjoyed in that of the Maeander, a Greek town founded by the Codrid Androckis rose side by side with an ancient Carian settlement, that centred round the temple of the great nature-goddess whom the Ionian new-comers chose to call Artemis. After a time, the Hellenes and the aborigines blended into one community. Between Phocaea on the north and Miletus on the south there The Ionian g^ew up, in the course of a few generations, a con- cities, tinuous chain of ten Ionian cities ; the island states of Chios and Samos made their total number twelve. In spite of The Dorian Colonies in Asia. 57 tteir difference in origin and population, they were sufficiently akin to unite for the common worship of the Ionian Poseidon at a sanctuary on Mount Mycale, which they called the Pauionium. After a time, religious union led to a certain political connection, and a loose confederacy was formed, whose delegates met at the Panionium to discuss their common affairs. But far into the fifth century the ethnic difference between the several towns was shown by the fact that four distinct dialects were still spoken in Ionia.' It was not only the conquered races of Greece that were to take part in the great movement toward Asia. After a time, the con- querors too found themselves under the same impulse, The Dorian and began to push across the Aegean. The Dorians niigration. of Peloponnesus, overflowing from their new home, sent out several swarms of colonists. Their largest band made - Crete, for Crete, where, if legends can be trusted, Jlinos had long ago built up a powerful state. But the island was peopled by various races without cohesion, a Dorian element was already to be found in a corner of the island, and no common resibtance was offered. The new emigrants reduced to villeinage the other races ot the island, Achaians Carians and possibly Phoenicians, and organized themselves under a strict discipline as a military aristocracy among a people of serfs. Melos and Thera among the Sporades were colonized by Dorians from Laconia, mixed with their subjects from the same land, whom they brought with them and o.draitted ^j^^ j)Qj.j^jjgin to a shc-e in the colony. Further to the east the Asia Minor. spacious Rhodes — equalled in size by Lesbos only among the Asiatic islands— was occupied by three groups of settlers from Argos, who built the towns of Lindus, lalysus, and Cameirus. In the south-western corner of Caria, where two long peninsulas jut out into the sea, the Laconians founded Cnidus, and the Troezetiians Ilalicarnassus. Finally, the large island of Cos, which lies off the peninsula of Halicarnassus, was also settled by emigrants from Troezen. The people of Cos Cnidus and Halicarnassus, together with those of the three towns of Rhodes, formed a Doric " Hexa- • One was peculiar to Samos ; one was spoken at Chios and Erytbrae ; a third at Epbesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomenae and Phocaca ; a fourth at Miletus, Myus, and Priene. SS The Greek Colonies in Asia. polls," who joined in a common worship ot Apollo at Cape Tri- opium. The power and organization of their league was a faint reflection of that of the far more important Ionian confederacy which united to reverence Poseidon at the Panionium. The Hexa- Ijolis, together with a few neighbouring Dorian settlements of smaller importance, Myndus Nisyrus and others, was often called Doris, just as the larger groups of colonies to the north were respectively known as Ionia and Acolis. What was the exact date of the establishment of the eastern- most group of Greek colonies, those which were founded in Cyprus, The Greeks in it is hard to say. Tradition ascribed their settlement Cyprus. f^j ^jjg heroes of the Trojan War ; but we may safely conclude that Cyprus was not approached by the Greeks till the nearer lauds in Asia Minor had already been seized. That the emigration to Cyprus, howevei', was at an early date may be judged from the fact that the Cypriot Greeks are found using a more primitive form of writing, borrowed from the East, than any other brancli of the Hellenic race. While every other tribe used the " Cadmeian alphabet," the Cypriots employed an archaic and complicated syllabary ; it is hard to see why they adopted it rather than the much more convenient Phoenician symbols which the majority of their countrymen knew. We are, at any rate, certain that the Greeks were thoroughly rooted down in Cyprus long before the eighth century before Christ, as the Assyrian conquerors of the island in that age name several Greek kings among their vassals. The chief Greek colonies of the island were Salamis, Paphos, and Curium, which maintained a constant struggle for supremacy with the older Phoenician towns of Amathus, Citium, Golgos, and Tamassus. The founders of the Greek towns were of very various descent. We hear of Achaians, under Teucer of Salamis the brother of the hero Ajax, cf Argives, Laconians, and even of Arcadians from the inland of Peloponnesus. The mixture of races would certainly seem to point to the period of the colonization of Cyprus as being the same as that of Asia Minor, for at a later date some of these races had entirely ceased to go on maritime expeditious. The period, then, which covered the migration of nations in the Hellenic peninsula, and the colonization of the Asiatic shores, is difficult to determine with accuracy. That the movements lasted Date of the Migrations. 59 tlirough a considerable number of generations we may be certain. But the genealogies which the later Greeks constructed and used as a basis of calculation for the dates of this period are quite worthless, and any deductions drawn from them are useless for chronology. If any limits must be given for the length of the age of migration, it may perhaps be said that the period between 1100 and 950 n.c. must have seen the greater part of the wander- ings of the Greeli races. CHAPTER VIL THE DORIANS IN PELOPONNESUS — THE LEGISLATION OF LYCURGU3, For more than three hundred years after the probable era ot ttie Dorian migration the history of Peloponnesus is obscure, and its chronology vague and inaccurate. The Greeks themselves did not pretend to give exact dates till the first Olympiad (770 B.C.), and even after this great uncertainty exists, and we cannot be said to be moving in a really clear and historical atmosphere till the com- mencement of the sixth century. For the first two centuries our only landmarks are the lists of Spartan, Argive, Messenian, and Oorinthian kings, most of whom are mere names to us, while others have connected with them stories that are utterly impos- sible. Still, royal genealogies are undoubtedly the first things that a nation commits to memory, and, in default of written history, are not without their value. Of the three greater Dorian states which were established in Peloponnesus by the Heracleid chiefs who led the invasion, that The Argive ^f Argos was for a long time the most important. alliance. Including its dependent states, it may be defined as holding the whole eastern coast of the peninsula. The descend- ants of Temenus held as their own domain the coast-plain of the Inachus and the slopes above it. Here they would seem to have admitted pirt of the old Achaian inhabitants to a share in the citizenship, for besides the three Dorian tribes of Hylleis, Pamphyli, and Dymanes, the Argives were divided into a fourth called Hyrnethians, who seem to represent the Achaian element. Outside the immediate territory of the city of Argos were other communities both Dorian and non-Dorian, which acknowledged the supremacy of their greater neighbour. Of these some were actually circ. 675B.CJ Pheidou of Argos. 6x vassal states closely bound to Argos as to a mistress. Such were the AchaiaQs of the little town of Onieae and the lonians of Cynuria, who inhabited that rocky strij? of coast, between Mount Parnon and the sea, which runs down as far as Cape Malea and even includes the island of Cythera. Less closely connected were the new Dorian states of Epidaurus, Troczen, Phlius, Cleonae, and Sicyon, whose conquerors had started from Argos, and were bound to pay a certain deference to their mother-city The once-famous Achaian town of Mycenae prolonged an obscure existence on its hillside under the same conditions. The first nine kings of Argos are mere names to us. All that has come down to us concerning them is a series of dim legends about their wars with their kinsmen of Sparta, which sound like a reflection back into an early age of the real wars of the sixth and seventh centuries. The first Argive sovereign who is more than a name to us is King Pheidon, of whose deeds many tales are related. He succeeded to a kingly power which had become weakened, owing to the encroachments of the Dorian oligarchy on the rights and prerogatives of the crown. But by armed force lie put down this oligarchy, and freed himself from all constitutional restraints. Then he turned to enlarge the bounds of the empire of Argos; not only did he reduce Sicyon and his other Dorian neighbours to a closer dependence, but he added to his client states the important towns of Corinth and Aegina, which had already become the greatest marts and seaports of Southern Greece. He is even credited with the design of reducing the whole Peloponnesus to vassalage ; he repressed the Spartans, and, marching into the west of the peninsula, aided the Pisatans, who were in revolt against Elis, and supported them in their claim to celebrate the Olympic games, of which we now find the first authentic mention. Pheidon was, moreover, a legisktor ; he fixed a new standard of weights and measures, which was almost universally accepted among the Dorian and Aeolian states of Greece, and had coined for him by his Aeginetan vassals the first silver money which was ever known west of the Aegean. He consecrated, we are told, in the temple of Hera at Argos, samples of the rude currency of long silver nails which his round obols and drachmae superseded. Pheidon died in battle, having first, however, seen his scheme of empire frus- 62 The Dorians in Peloponnesus. 075 e.g.- trated. Untler his son the royal power was at once brought back to its old insignificance, though Argive sovereigns continued to rule in name down to the sixth, perhaps even to the fifth, century. The sole permanent result of the great king's reign was to break down the Dorian oligarchy at Argos, so that democracy became possible in that state before it was established in other Dorian communities. When so much is known of Phoidon, it is strange to realize lliat his date is uncertain. While the received text of Pausanias^ tells us that the Olympic games which he assisted the Pisatans to cele- brate were the eighth since the commencement of those contests (i.e. those of 748 B.C.), there are other facts which seem to bring Pheidon's date much lower, and it is on the whole probable that his real date was about 675-665 b.c. When the reign of a king whose name was the most celebrated of his age cannot be fixed within a hundred years, regular history can hardly be said to have begun While Argos was holding the primacy in the Peloponncse, her sister states of Mcssenia and Laconia were going through two oppo- site courses of development, which brought them first into rivalry and then into a life-and-death struggle. In Messene, as in Argos, the Dorian conquerors had not alto- gether expatriated or extermined the earlier inhabitants of the land. Legends speak of Cresphontes, the brother of Temenus and first Dorian king of Messenia, as having granted full citizenship in his new state to those of the Pylian Caucones and the Achaians who did not emigrate, and as having married, not one of his own race, but the daughter of a neighbouring prince of Arcadia. His anti-national tendencies provoked the Dorians to revolt and murder their king ; but his son Aepytus revenged his father, slew Polyphontes the leader of the rebels, and brought back peace to the land. Under the rule of Aepytus and his line, Dorian Caucon and Achaean became thoroughly fused, and Llcssenia, though ruled by a Heracleid family, retained few of the charac- teristics of a Dorian state. ' It is probable that the text of Pausanias has been corrupted, and that Pheidon's Olympiad was the twenty-eighth not the eighth — 668, not 748 B.C. This view is corroborated especiallj- b}' the recorded fact of his striking mone}^ ; for the internal evidence of the Greek coinage seems to fix about 680-650, as the date of the earliest Acginetan staters. 6G5 B.C. Early History of Sparta. ' 6^ In Laconia the condition of things was entirely different. Tlie band of Dorian invaders that had settled round Sparta in the Eurotas vallej'- was weak, and the territory v.hich it had seized was narrow, bounded to the north by the Arcadian hills, and to the south by the Achaian fortress of Amyclae, which stood only three miles from the capital of the invaders, and com- pletely blocked their way down the valley of the Eurotas, just as Fidenae, in a later day, blocked the Eomans from tlie valley of the Tiber. The Dorians of Sparta enjoyed the constitutional anomaly of having two kings to reign over them. Two royal houses, calling themselves Agidae and EuryiDontidae respectively, were seated together on the throne, and from the first date of their appearance distracted the state by their quarrels. The Spartans said that Aristodemus, the original leader ot their horde, had died, leaving twin sons, and that an oracle had bidden them " to take both as kings, but to give greater honour to the elder." Modern historians*, discontented with the legend, have tried to prove — with very doubt- fid success — that the coexistence of two royal houses represented the amalgamation of the conquering Dorian with the conquered Achaian, or of two separate Dorian bands settled one in the valley of the Eurotas, and the other in that of the Oenus. It may be so, but proof is impossible ; the double kingship must be taken as an accepted fact, whose explanation is beyond our power. The very weakness and isolation of the Dorians of Sparta account for the fact that they retained their national identity to a far greater degree than their brethren of Argos and .^. .^ ^ o o o Diversity of Messene. They were not strong or numerous enough the Dorian to conquer and incorporate their neighbours, but were compelled to fight hard with them for every foot of land they won. Just as the Angles and Saxons in Britain retained their language and their customs because they could not sweep over the whole island and subdue its inhabitants, but had to push forward slowlj', rooting out the Britons ; so the Spartans remained uninfluenced by the older people of Laconia. On the other hand, the Argives and Messenians in Greece, just like the Franks and Lombards in modern Europe, were strong enough to win a broad realm at a single blow, and were ere long either absorbed or at least largely influenced by the preponderating mass of subjects whom they suddenly acquired. 64 The Dorians in Peloponnesus. leoo b.cj. All authorities agree in describing the state of early Sparta as one of weakness and anarchy. Her dominion did not extend ; her two royal houses were incessantly at variance ; her wars both with her Dorian neighbours of Argolis and with the Arcadians on her northern frontier were usually disastrous ; her people were discon- tented. Such was the condition of things when her great legislator Lycurgus appeared, to rescue her from herself, and send her forth armed for the conquest of the whole Peloponnese. Of the existence of Lycurgus we need have no doubt, though modern writers have reduced him, in common with most other great men of early history, to the inevitable sun- Ijycurgus. , tt i i i /» 1 , , myth. He belonged to one of the two royal houses, and in all probability lived about the year 800 b.c. We need not accept, unless we choose, the legends which tell how he was the younger son of King Eunomus of the Eurypontid line ; how he exiled himself from Sparta in order to avoid the suspicion that he would usurp the throne of his infant nephew Charilaiis ; how he travelled in Greece, in Asia, in Egypt, and perhaps yet further afiekl, and finally returned, full of wisdom and experience, when Charilaiis had grown up to manhood, only to find the state in a wors3 plight than ever. The kings were quarrelling with each other, and at the same time striving to cast off constitutional checks and rule despotically. Charilaiis is even called one of the "tyrants" of Greece. Meanwhile a disastrous war was proceeding, the Arcadians of Tegea had just inflicted on Sparta the greatest defeat she ever knew, taken one of her kings prisoner, and set hundreds of Spartan captives to work as slaves on their upland farms. In this emergency the Lacedaemonians, we are told, were ready to accept any sacrifice necessary to preserve their state. Their eyes turned to Lycurgus, and when he came out into the market- place, followed by twenty-eight of the wisest and noblest of the citizens, and laid his schemes before the people, they met with high approval. The legend adds that, after a time of violent opposition by the minority, which resulted in brawls and riots, during one of which the legislator had his eye struck out, the new code was accepted. What the institutions of Lycurgus did and did not include it The " Rheira " of Lycurgus. 65 is difficult to define with accuracy. But some general results can be obtained by carefully excising; from the reports / ,, ■, The Constitu- or posterity those so-called parts of his legislation tionof for which we know that he cannot possibly have been y^urgus. responsible. That he did not, for example, forbid the committing of his laws to writing or the use of coined money we may be certain ; neither written codes nor current cash were known for more than a century after the latest possible date at which he can be placed. Nor can he have legislated about Helots, for the serf problem did not come before Sparta so long as she was a small jjoor state, penned in the valley of the Upper Eurotas. Neither did he invent the Ephoralty, which first appears during the Messenian wars, nor institute an equal division of property. But legend loves to pile all the details of an early constitution on to a single legislator; and, in crediting Lycurgus with every distinctive usage of the Spartan state-system, the Greeks were but illustrating the game tendency that made our own ancestors say that King Alfred invented trial by jury, or divided England into shires. The constitution of Lycurgus was primarily intended to define the position of the different parts of the state. Sparta — like all Greek states of the Homeric age — possessed kings, r^ j^g Rhetra of a council of nobles, and an assembly of freemen. But i-ycureua. it would seen^ that the nobles were now trying to dejirive the kings of their prerogatives, while the kings were endeavouring to get rid of all constitutional control. Meanwhile the general assembly ot freemen may have begun to assert a claim to some- tliing more than a right to acquiesce in all that was laid before it. Lycurgus bade the Spartans, in the curt language of his " Rhetra," "build a temple to Zeus Hellanius and Athena Hellania; arrange the people in tribes and in obes, thirty in number ; establish a Gerousia, including the two kings ; and summon the people from time to time to an assembly between Babyca and the Cuacion ; the people shall have the determining voice," ' What was the exact political meaning of the particular worship to be paid to Zeus and Athena we do not know ; perhaps the Dorian Apollo had till then been the sole god of the state. But the other clauses of • 1 For a good commentary on this, see E. Abbott's " History of Greece," i, 200. 66 The Dorians in Fdoponnesus. the Ilhotia are clearer. The ancient polity is to be systematized : the Boule of nobles is to be transformed into an elected senate of thirty elders, among whom the kings are always to find a place ; the assembly of freemen is to have a real part in the conduct of affairs, and to give a decisive vote when the Gerousia is divided. The general tendency of the laws, therefore, would be to suppress the unruliness of the aristocratic council of nobles by cutting down its numbers and restricting it to elderly men ; while the kings, on the other hand, are mulcted of their power of promulgating laws on their own authority, and incorporated as individual members of the Gerousia. The people are to be indulged with a share in the constitution, though probably they were only given enough to serve as a salve for discontent, and not enough to enable them to interfere to any effect in politics ; no one ever accused Lycurgus of being a democrat. What were the alterations made by the new ordinances in the tribes we cannot say ; at any rate, the old Hylleis, Pamphyli, and Dymanes were not abolished. The obes, again, are mysterious — whether they were grouped by families or by localities is unknown ; we can only say that they were subdivisions of which ten went to each tribe. The Gerousia consisted of thirty elders, one for each obe. The kings were ex-ojjficio members, apparently representing the obes to which their families belonged. The other Gerontes ' were elective; they held their seats for life, but as no one was eligible for the post till his sixtieth year, the average tenure of office cannot have been very long. Like the old council of nobles, which they replaced, they acted as assessors to the kings in the discussion of all public affairs. But they had this advantage over their predecessors, that the king's voice only counted as one of their own, and was no longer omnipotent, for everything was now decided by numerical majority The assembly of freemen, which was known at Sparta as the Apella, was composed of all citizens of thirty years of age and over. It met between the bridge of Babj^ca and the Cnacion, the ravine of the Oenus, once a month. As the old Homeric Agora had only been able to shout its assent or dissent, so the Spartan assembly, though given a real part in the constitution, could only vote by acclamation. The uncertain'.y of The Kingship at Sparta, 67 this method of decision niust have thrown much power into tlie hands of the presiding official, especially when such business as the election of one of the Gerontes or other magistrates from among several candidates was in hand. As Aristotle observes, " the plan was too childish." We are even assured that at some elections the matter was settled by shutting up the returning officer in a room out of sight of the assembly, and compelling him to decide which of the shouts that he heard without was loudest ! But this device must surely have been invented by a sarcastic neighbour. Before the assembly, too, were laid the subjects of debate approved by the Gerousia ; declarations of war, treaties of alliance, deposi- tions of kings, and all such weighty matters were to be within its cognizance. No one could speak in it without the invitation of the presiding officer — a feature, it is to be remarked, which was also to be found in the Eoman Comitia. In historic times the ephors presided, but in Lycurgus's day the kings and Gerontes must have convened the meeting, as they would have done with the Homeric Agora. The privileges which the new constitution left to the kings are shortly summed up by Herodotus. In peace they had the highest seat, and a double portion at all feasts, sacrifices, and The kings. banquets. Public rations of corn and wine were issued to them twice a month, and for meat they might claim the chine of every animal sacrificed in the city. Its hide was also their perquisite. They were hereditary priests of Zeus Lacedaemonius the god of the land, and Zeus Uranius the god of heaven. They were charged with choosing envoys to consult the oracles (Pythii), and with appointing consuls (Trpd^evoi) for foi'eign states. They had also the right of giving away the hands of orphan heiresses, and of sanctioning the adoption of sons by the childless. In war- time they were perpetual commanders-in-chief. When the army went forth, they marched out first, and on its return they entered the city last. A hundred chosen warriors guarded their persons. They might direct their expeditions against any foe they chose, and the Spartan who strove to turn their purpose was held accursed. When in the field they might requisition sheep and cattle according to their good pleasure. At their death, adds Herodotus, " women go round the city rattling on a cauldron, and, when the sound is 68 The Dorians in Peloponnesus. heard, two persons in every house, a male and a female, put on mourning apparel, and cut off their hair. Horsemen take the tidings round Laconia, and, on the day of the funeral, a vast multitude of the subjects and serfs of the Spartans come flocking in to join the townsfolk in the wailings which accompany the procession." A Spartan king, then, was left by the Lycurgean legislation a position of honorary distinction in the state, a high priesthood, and the command of the army in time of war. He had become a great hereditary state official, and ceased to be a sovereign. If these constitutional reforms had comprised the whole work of Lycurgus, it is probable that we should not have heard very much of Si^arta in coming years. A limited monarchy and quasi-rejire- sentative government are excellent things in themselves, and bring vast relief to a people who have been suffering under anarchy ; but they do not suffice to found a great and victorious military state. It was his social rather than his political legislation which made Lycurgus a legislator unique of his kind. The Spartans were a poor and rough people, maintaiijing, among hostile neighbours, a constant armed struggle for existence. To survive they had to be continually prepared to fight superior forces at a moment's notice ; for their enemies dwelt at their very doors, and no point in the land was a day's march from the border. Lycurgus determined to secure them victory by sacrificing every public and j^rivate end in the state to the one object of making his countrymen irresistible in battle. To do this he turned the whole social system of the state into a hateful and relentless military machine, which seized on the citizen body and soul in early boy- hood, lield him enmeshed all his life, and only let him loose when he was no longer fit to bear arms. This machine was the famous Spartan ajoiyf}, or training and discipline, of which he was the perfecter, if not the inventor. Lycurgus was fortunate in having to do with a very primitive and uncivilized people. No race which had stored up much The Spartan material wealth or mental culture would have con- training. sented for a moment to adopt his system. But the Sjiartans were a rude, perhaps almost a savage, people. AVe find surviving among them practices which mark a very low grade in The Spartan Training, 69 civilization — tlie form of marriage wliich consists in the fiction of capturing tlie bride by force from her parents, the separation of the sexes at meals, the hateful practice of polyandry. Even after their advance into Peloponnesus, the Dorians were only just beginning to come within the radius of civilization. It is a sufficient comment on the Lycurgean training to say that the nearest parallel to it in history is that strange military discipline which King Cliaka intro- duced among the Zulus in our own times. The moment a Spartan was born, the state began to take cogni- zance of him. The infant was carried before the elders, who decided on his fate: if healthy, he was given back to his parents to be reared ; if weakly, he was taken away and cast out on Taygetus, to perish by exposure. At the age of seven the boys were removed from the homes of their parents, and placed in the public training- house, where they began to undergo the series of toils which were to make up their lives. They w'ent barefoot, and were allowed only a single garment winter and summer; at night they were compelled to sleep on beds of rushes, which they gathered with their own hands from the bed of the Eurotas. They had to cook and cater for themselves: the ration allowed them was deliberately made small and unappetizing, in order that they might be en- couraged to add to it by hunting or even by theft, Yfe are assured that it was habitual for the boj's to eke out their meals by spoil from neighbouring gardens and larders, and that they were punished when caught, "not for the stealing, but the clumsiness in being found out." Any symptoms of weakness or complaining were treated as the severest of offences ; Stoic insensibility to pain was inculcated by continual floggings, tortures, and privations, till the most incredible callousness was produced. Every one has heard of the omnivorous youth who stole a young fox for dinner and hid it under his shirt, and how, when detained in comi^any, he allowed the beast to tear open his stomach rather than to escape and betray him. The training of the Spartan boy was almost entirely confined to gymnastic and military exercises. Choral music was the only refining influence of any kind which came within his observation. The central incident of his year's life was the festival of the Gymnopaidia, when he contested with his peers in exercises of music, dancing, running, and wrestling. 70 The .Dorians ui Peloponnesus, At eighteen the Spartan lad was called a Melleiren (MeAAeip?)!') ; at twenty he became au Eircn (ElfpTjy), or young man, and left the Social institu- trainiug-house for the barrack. He was now drafted tions. off into one of the public messes, which formed a l^eculiar feature of Spartan life. These messes i^virtTnia) were formed of fifteen men each, new members being coopted when a vacancy occurred. They were held in public, and consisted of fixed rations ; for no citizen till he reached the age of sixty might take his meals at home, and custom dictated the uniformity of viands. Each member was responsible for sending in his share of the food month by month; the meals consisted mainly of barley-meal, clieese, figs, and the unpalatable " black broth " which was con- sidered the characteristic dish of Laconia. Meat was only tasted on days of sacrifice. The girls of Sparta received a training similar in kind to, but less severe than, that of the boys. They were not taken from their mothers, but were formed into classes, and set to compete in run- ning, wrestling, and other gymnastic exercises, so that their bodies might be fortified by exercise. Though they stripped for the contest, their sports were freely witnessed by the men. As might have been expected, this training bred a race of buxom, coarse- minded hoydens. If the wives and daughters of the Spartans rose far above the secluded women of the rest of Greece, not only in physical beauty and vigour, but in courage and ability, they were, on the other hand, utterly destitute of all modesty and womanly feeling. A man at thirty, a woman at twenty, were expected to marry, and grave political disabilities were inflicted on the Spartan who did not enter wedlock, and take his share in rearing ■ ami y i e. ^^-j^jj^jj.gj^ ^^j. ^-j^^ state. Marriage, however, did not end the man's barrack-life ; he still dwelt for some time apart from his wife, and only visited her by stealth when his presence was not required at the Syssitia, the drill-ground, or the gymnasium. It was only after many months that he was allowed to set up a house of his own, and remove his wife to it ; even then he was not freed from his attendance at the public mealn. Spartan wedlock was a duty owed to the state rather than a voluntary union, and it is not to be wondered at if the sanctity of the marriage tie was lightly regarded. The Spartan Military System. 71 All these unnatural restrictions on the freedom of the individual were diiected to the sole end of turning him into a good soldier, hard in body, callous in mind. Undoubtedly they had the desired effect. As a sarcastic contemporary miutai-y once remarked, " The Spartan's life was made so un- ^^^ ^'^' pleasant for him, that it was no wonder that he threw it away without regret in battle." But the victories of the Lacedaemo- nians were due not less to their organization than to their unflinch- ing courage. While the hosts of the other Greek states went out to war in untrained masses, and took their orders from a single herald, who bawled out the commander-in-chief's directions, the Spartans had a well-arranged system of drill and a whole hierarchy of officers. The army was divided into bodies known as the mora and the lochos, corresponding to our battalions and companies, and was commanded by a series of officers, ranging down from the l^olemarch, or colonel who commanded a mora, to the enomotarch, who was a sergeant with tweuty-five men under him.^ The commands which were given by the king were passed down by the polemarchs and other officers with such order and rapidity, that a Spartan army could manoeuvre with a sj^eed and accuracy that no other Greek force could approach. This, as much as their courage, explains their constant successes. Life was deliberately made more pleasant for a Spartan when he took the field; his rations were improved, his disciplme somewhat relaxed; even jests and jokes were encouraged around the camp- fire. Everything was done to make him look on war-time as a relief from the horrors of peace. Such were the chief features in the legislation of Lycurgus. It is probable that the training received many developments after his death; and it is certain that, in spite of Greek belief to the contrary, his constitutional scheme suffered many alterations in later years. The chief of these came from the introduction of the Ephoralty, an office unknown to his political system. The Ephors came into being during the period of the Messenian wars, largely — as we read— in consequence of the continual absence of the kings in the field. As their name shows, ' There were several divisions belovi' the lochos, for which we cannot supply exact modern equivalents. t^ Tiie Dorians in PcIopGnnesus. they were primarily iatcuded to act as overseers or police-magis- trates, but they soon became the irresponsible ministers of the state. They were five in number, and were elected by the ApcUa for the term of one year. During that period they were the executive of the community ; they received foreign embassies, and became the convening officers and presidents of the assembly, dealing with that body as freely as did the Homan tribunes with the Comitia. On their own iniriative, without the sanction of either Gerousia or Apella, they could arrest and bring to trial any one whom they chose, without respect of persons. Even the kings were subject to their arbitrary power ; they threw Cleomenes into prison, and bade Anaxandridas divorce his wife. In historical times, two of them accompanied the king when he went out to war, so that his authority was constantly under their supervision, and became at last almost nominal. Hence it may be said that Sparta had two kings and five irresponsible despots. Owing to the ridiculous form of voting in the Apella, the ephors could practi- cally return whomsoever they chose to act as their successors in the ensuing year, and thus secured— except under very exceptional circumstances — the continuation of their own line of policy. It is now time to see how the machinery which Lycurgiis con- Btructed proceeded to work after his /^leath. CHAPTER Vlir. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SPARTAN SPPREMACY IN PELOPONNESUS, Armed and organized by the legislation of Lycui'guSj the Sp.irtans went forth conquering and to conquer. Before the death of Chari- laiis, the king whoso reign covers the period of reform, ^ ° ^ Spartan they had already fallen upon and subdued the weak conquest of Arcadian tribes who dwelt about the sources of the Eurotas, in the district of Aegys. A few years later King Teleclus succeeded in taking Amyclae, the Achaian town at the very gates of Sparta, which had blocked the progress of Dorian conquest down the valley of the Eurotas. Within the next fifty years all the dwellers in Laconia, save the Cynurians of the eastern coast, had become the subjects of Sparta. From the mountain borders of Tegea down to the southernmost points of Taonarum and Malea, all was now hers. For reasons to us unknown, the conquerors dealt out very different measures to the various districts which they subdued. While some were only reduced to vassalage and retained their local customs and certain rights of self-government, others were utterly crushed and spoiled. The inhabitants of the more perioeciand favoured places became " Perioeci," those who "dwelt Helots, around " the central D-jrian community of Sparta. Those of the less fortunate communities were reduced to the condition of " Helots," a title which the Spartans derived from Helos, the name of a city close by the sea-const which withstood them stubbornly, and had to take the consequences of its obstinacy. By these con- quests the Spartans b:came masters of a district so large that they themselves formed only a small fi action of its population. The Perioeci seem to have been about thrice as numerous as their Dorian lords ; the Helots formed an even larger body. 74 The Spartan Supremacy in Peloponnesus. 1743 b.c- The condition of the Peiioeci was very tolerable. Their only obligations were to pay a fixed tribute, and to send a contingent of heavy-armed troops to the Spartan army. Hcuce they remained loyal to their suzerain in well-nigh all the crises of her history. With the Helots it was otherwise ; they were reduced to a condi- tion of absolute serfdom, and tied down to the soil. Their land was portioned out among Spartan proprietors, who dwelt in the capital, undergoing their barrack-life, and received a fixed portion of the produce of the land. Though the individual Spartan could not sell into slavery the Helot who farmed his estate, the Spartan community could do anything that it chose with its serf. The ephors could slay Helots without trial ; and we are even told that a secret police, called the Crypteia, existed, whose sole purpose was to go through the land, privately making away with any Helot whose open discontent or great influence with his neighbours made him an object of suspicion to the government. The Helots were not kept continually under the eyes of their master?, nor were they ground down to starvation point by exorbitant rents; but they were so entirely at the mercy of the most arbitrary caprices of their rulers, and so utterly destitute of all political rights, that their life was spent in constant fear and dread. Not unnaturally they hated the Spartans with the bitterest hatred, and were always ready to revolt when a fair chance offered. Nevertheless, their masters so much despised their resentment that they armed them in times of war, and took them into the field to act as light troops. Nor do we hear of any occasion on which the Helots deserted the Lacedae- monian standard on the actual field of battle. / The conquest of Laconia was hardly completed before the Spar- / The Messenian ^aus fell to blows with their neighbours to the west — wars. tiie mixed race of Dorians, Caucones, and Achaians, who dwelt beyond the range of Mount Taygetus in the fertile valley of Messenia. Some stories say that the war arose from the cattle-liftiug which always prevails on the frontier-line of two primitive tribes. Others say that the origin of it was the slaying of the Spartan king Teleclus in a sudden brawl within the temple of Artemis Limnatis, — a border-shrioe where Laconian and Messe- nian met with equal rights of sacrifice. The Messenian wars extended over a period of some ninety 723 B.C.] Tlie First Mcsscnian War. 75 years, though a long interval breaks the continuity between the two struggles. The first war seems to have begun about 743 B.C., the second ended about G45 B.C. AVe are unfortunately destitute of any continuous narrative of this period which commands any credit whatever. Authorities for The only contemporary records of any kind which the period, have survived are the fragments of the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus,' in which he exhorts his countrymen to persevere in the second Messe- nian war, encouraging them to emulate the deeds which "their fathers' fathers "' had wrought in the first struggle. Tiie details of the history of the period which Pausanias collected from the annalist Myron and the epic poet Rhianus are quite valueless. Those authors Jived in the third century B.C., separated by five hundred years from the events they described, and were hopelessly contra- dictory as to their facts. Myron, for example, placed in the times of the first war Aristomenes, the great national hero of Messenia, while Ehianus insisted that his exploits were performed in the second war, which was divided from the first by not less than fifty years ! It is obvious that Rhianus used to the full the licence of the poet, while Myron cannot have had anything better to guide him than Messenran folk-tales, for the Spartans never wrote the history of their wars. We may imagine, as a parallel, what sort of a history of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain could be written if we had to depend entirely on Geoffrey of Monmouth and the legends of King Arthur. According to the tale which has come down to us, the Messenians did all the deeds of daring, while the Spartans were nevertheless victorious — a manifest impossibility ! If we can extract any truth from the legends, the Spartans began the war by pushing across the ridge of Taygetus, and seizing the fortress of Amphea on the Messenian side, which they FirstMessenian employed as their base of operations. From this point "*^^'^' they harried the open country, and kept the towns of the Messe- nians in a chronic state of blockade. After two indecisive battles, the Messenians abandoned their minor fortresses and concentrated themselves on the central post of Mount Ithomc, the strongest citadel as well as the holiest sanctuary in their land. Meanwhile ' The tradition which makes Tyrtaeus an Athenian settled in Sparta is probably valueless. 7 6 The Spartan Snprcinacy in Peloponnesus, ©ea b.c- the plain of the Pamisus was abandoned to the ravages of the enemy. Although the cliffs and walls of Ithome were strong, the party that was continually upon the defensive, and never took the initiative in the war, was bound to grow weaker and weaker. It was in vain that the Messenian leader Aristodemus offered up his daughter as a human sacrifice to secure the favour of Zeus Itho- mates, the national god of Messene. War and famine thinned the ranks of his followers ; and after holding out in his fastness for twelve years, Aristodemus slew himself in despair. Shortly after Ithome fell, and the Messenian resistance collapsed (723 B.C.). After the termination of the war, the majority of the noble families of Messenia went into exile, some joining in the coloniza- tion of the town of Rhegium in Italy, while others retired to Ionia. The bulk of the population remained behind, and became counted among the Perioeci of Sparta, though they seem to have had much more unfavourable terms granted to them than most of that class, being compelled to pay half the produce of their lands as rent to the conquerors. Two constitutional crises occurred in Sparta in consequence of the first Messenian war. The continual absence of the kings in the field led to a block in public business, wdiich Changes in ^ ' Spartan con- was only ended by the appointment of the Ephors, to supply the state with official heads in the place of the distant monarchs. When the war ended, the Heraclidae were unable to do away with the Ephoralty, and the new " overseers " retained their power. The wife of King Theopompus taunted him with leaving the royal prerogative to his children less than he had received it, but he is said to have replied that " it would be the more lasting for being the more limited." The second trouble arose from the fact that the constant thinning of the ranks of the Spartan youth by the long-continued campaigns led to the marriage of many women, who could find no husband of equal rank, with members of the class of the Perioeci. The Spartans, when the war was over, refused to recognize the oftspring of such unions as legitimate, and The branded them with the name of " Partheniae," or Partiaemae. fcastards. The youug men were numerous enough to unite under one Phalanthus in a conspiracy to overthrow the constitution of Lycurgus. Their plot was discovered in time to 645 E.0.1 Second Messcnian War. jy prevent its outbreak, tjut instead of taking a blocdy vengeance on their half-brothers, the Spartans compelled them to leave Laconia in a body. They sought Italy under the direction of the Delphic oracle, and Phalanthus became the founder of the great and wealthy city of Tareutum (708 B.C.), 'J'he possession of Messenia brought Sparta into contact with the afiairs of the Western Peloponnese. She is found ere long allied with Elis, and therefore as the enemy of the Pisatans, who were constantly striving to preserve their autonomy against the Eleians. Sparta also began to encroach on Western Arcadia, and got posses- sion of Phigaleia, the southern border-town of that country. She seems to have been involved at the same time in struggles with Tegea and other Arcadian states. But the next important crisis in the history of the Spartans came about when Pheidon of Argos strove to extend his supremacy over the whole Peloponnesus (probably circ. 675-660 b.c). We first hear of this struggle between Argos and Sparta when, in 669 B.C., the Lacedaemonian army was utterly beaten at Hysiae during an attempt to invade Argolis. The next year, if our date for Pheidon can be trusted, the Argive army appeared in the Western Pelo- ponnese, and assisted the Pisatans to celebrate the Olympic games, having first defeated the allied Spartans and Eleians in battle. It must have been about the same moment that the Spartans were startled by a desperate rising of their vassals in Messenia. The fact that Lacedaemon was engaged in an unsuc- second Mes cessfiil war aroused the mountaineers of the northern eenianwar. border, and soon all the country was up in arms. The Messenians found a leader in Aristomenes, a young hero of whom the most impossible exploits — all borrowed from the epic of Ehianus — are recounted. He slew, we read, three hundred enemies with his own hand ; he visited Sparta by night, and hung up a shield in the temple of Athena by way of bravado ; he was thrice taken prisoner, but always escaped ; once he was even thrown into the " Ceadas," or pit of execution at Sparta, but escaped uninjured, and found his way out by a subterranean cleft in the rocks. This second Messenian war seemed for several years likely to result in the liberation of the land. The Lacedaemonians were oppressed with many enemies, for besides the Messenians they had 78 The Spartan Supremacy in Peloponnesus, leso e.g.. to figlifc Argos and her subject states, together with a league of Arcadian tribes under Aristocrates, King of Orchoinenus. As allies they could only count on the Corinthians, who were anxious to throw off the hegemony of Argos, and the Eleiaus,' who are invariably found on the opposite side from their neighbours of Pisa. It is, therefore, not surprising that Sparta suffered heavily ; she saw the valley of the Eurotas itself ravageil, and suffered at least one great defeat in the open field. But the institutions of Lycurgus were strong enough to stand the strain ; beaten but unconquered the Spartans doggedly held on till the tide turned. At their darkest hour they were put in good heart by the poems of Tyrtaeus, who sang how the spirit of loyalty and military honour must finally triumph over the fitful energy of revolted serfs and the disunion of jealous allies. At last the league against Sparta broke up. Pheidon of Argos fell in battle ; Aristocrates the Arcadian betrayed his allies, and caused their decisive defeat by withdrawing his troops in the midst of the conflict ; Aristomenes was driven into the hill-fortress of Eira, just as Aristodemus in the earlier war had been pent up on Ithome. It was to no purpose that he maintained himself therein, and pushed his raids far afield when the blockade grew slack. After eleven years of resistance, the death, agony of the Messenian nation came to its close. The Lacedae- monians forced their way into Eira by escalade, and the remains of its garrison were lucky in obtaining a safe conduct to retire from the land. Legend ascribed the fall of the fortress to treachery; but the conquered race always consoles itself with some such cry, and it is evident that Eira had long been doomed. Aristomenes wandered away to Rhodes, and died there ; many of his chiefs found new homes in Arcadia; but the bulk of the nation were degraded to the position of Helots, and lay prostrate at the feet of Sparta for two hundred years, ere it could nerve itself to another movement {circ. 645 B.C.). The last echoes of the Messenian war did not die out till a few years later. The Arcadians, who had stoned their treachero\is king Aristocrates, and abolished the kingship of his house, joined the Pisatans in a last attempt at resistance. In 644 B.C. they even seized Olympia, ami celebrated the games in defiance of Elis and » See Grote, ii. 434, note 3, BOO B.C.I Sfnfggics with Argos. 79 Sparta, but shortly after their enemies fell upon tlietn with crushing force. The Pisataus became the vassals of Elis, a position which they retained for half a century, till a revolt in 581 B.C. gave their masters an excuse lor utterly destroying the city. Sparta now turned on Arcadia and Argolis. The history of the century which follows the second Messenian war is in Peloponnesus merely the tale of the subjugation of the whole of the strugg-ie with peninsula by the continual encroachments of the Argos. Lacedaemonians. The successes of Sparta were not, however, followed any longer by the extension of the limits of Lacouia. The victors contented themselves with reducing the vanquished to the condition of subject-allies, bound to follow their standard in war. With their internal affairs they hardly ever interfered, and therefore the hegemony of Sparta was a comparatively light burden;, and might even be said not to disturb the desire for " autonomy " which reigned in every Greek breast. Tegea bore the first brunt of the Spartan attack ; its desperate resistance won favourable terms for its citizens, who, on submission, were restored to full control of their local affairs. Tegea served as c base of attack equally against Central Arcadia and Argolis. Of the gradual subjugation of the Arcadians we have few details, but the history of the struggle with Argos is better known. That state had been terribly enfeebled by the death of Pheidon, Corinth had completely established its independence ; and Sicyoa had also fallen away from the Argive empire, and, under the tyrants of the house of Orthagoras, was rising to power and importance. Even Epidaurus, in the very peninsula of Argolis, had become completely autonomous before the end of the seventh century. Argos was therefore overweighted in the contest with Sparta, yet she held out vigorously, and did not finally lose her hold op Cynuria, the land along the Laconian coast, till as late as 547 b.c In that year was fought the famous battle of the six hundred champions, the prize being the district of Thyrea, the last external possession of Argos. Legend declares that the conflict was so fierce and bloody that only two Argives and one Spartan survived. The Argives hastened home to carry the news ot their supposed victory, for they had overlooked their sole surviving enemy. Othryades the Spartan stayed on the battle-field, and set up a 8o The Spa?ia?i StiJ>remacy in Peloponnesus. trophy of the arms of slain Argives. Each nation, therefore, con- sidered itself victorious, and the dispute was only settled by a general engagement, in which the Lacedaemonians won the day. Othryades slew himself on the battle-field, disdaining to appear in Sparta as the only one of her three hundred champions who had escaped the chances of war. Henceforth Cynuria was entirely ia the hands of Sparta ; Argos was too maimed to be able to stir fur another whole generation. The influence which would seem to have retarded the complete conquest of Peloponnesus by Sparta in the first halt of the sixth century was the alliance of the towns of its northern parts in an anti-Dorian league. Between 660 and 650 b.c. Corinth and Sicyou experienced revolts which cast out the ruling Dorian oligarchy, and placed tyrants of Ionian race on the throne. 1'hese two houses, the Cypselidae and the Orthagoridae, as they were called from the names of their founders, were strongly anti-Spartan in their policy. It was not till they were overthrown, the Corinthian family in 583 B.C. and the Sicyonian about 560 B.C., that Sparta became as supreme in Northern Peloponnesus as she was already in its southern and central portions. Corinth and Sicyon, their tyrants expelled, joined the Laconian alliance, and became some of its firmest supporters. Argos alone, now reduced to a small state in the plain of the Inachus, held aloof in sulky discontent, biding her time. All the rest of the peninsula acknowledged the hegemony of Sparta. Such, after two centuries of constant war, were the fruits of the legislation of Lycurgus. A body of Spartans, never more than ten thousand strong, had succeeded in reducing to their vassalage the whole of the states of Pelo^wnncsus. CHAPTER IX. THE AGE OF COLONIZATION. The ciglith and seventh centuries, tlie period wliicli saw Sparta lay the foundation of her supremacy in Peloponnesus, witnessed in the greater part of Greece a revival of those niigra- causes of tory impulses which had first made themselves felt migration, at the time of the Dorian invasion, But the cause of the move- ment was now changed; it was not external pressure, but internal expansion, that sent the emigrants afield. The patriarchal con- stitution of the prehistoric Greek states had never recovered the blow which was dealt it by the widespread transference of popu- lations in the eleventh century. The gradual decay of monarchy and rise of oligarchy was the main feature of the centuries which immediately followed the great migrations. The misgovernment of which the oligarchies were usually guilty made life at home intolerable for men of siiirit, and set them dreaming of escape to a freer atmosphere. Men of wealth who were excluded from a share in the government of the state by their mean birth, and men of family who were kept back by their poverty, were alike ready to depart. The lower classes were no less eager to escape from misgovernment and oppression. But this disposition of feeling might have found its vent in mere civil broils, if the time had not been propitious for emigration. Not only were the Greeks gradually becoming more adventurous seamen, but the Phoenicians, the rivals who had long divided with them the trade of the Eastern Mediterranean, ^ ,. , ' Decline or were now receiving a series of blows at home which Phoenician enfeebled their resisting power further afield. The ninth century saw the extension of the Assyrian empire across the Euphrates, which brought it into hostile contact with Phoc- Q 82 The Age of Colonizatioti. rsoo b.c- nicia. The eiglith century was a time of continued trouble for the great seaports. Aradus was caiitured by Tiglath-Pileser in 742 B.C., after a siege of three years. Shalraaneser V. compelled Tyre by force to resume a homage which she had endeavoured to cast off. Both Tyre and Sidon were constantly revolting, and as constantly being reduced to pay tribute, during the reigns of Sargon and Sennacherib (726-681 B.C.). The latter town was sacked and almost completely destroyed by Esarhaddon in 680 B.C. All these wars weakened the grasp of the Phoenicians on the great trade routes which they had so long shared with the Greek, and by the seventh century they had been completely driven out of the Aegean and the Ionian Sea. The first Greek cities on which the impulse towards emigration fell were the two Ionic seaports of Chalcis and Eretria. Both _ , . . were situated in well-protected harbours on the Colonies in '■ chaioidice, Euboean Strait ; Chalcis lay on the Euripus, and looked north ; Eretria, separated from Clialcis by twelve miles of fertile plain, looked south towards the Cyclades. The colonial energy of both these towns was stimulated by oli- garchies founded on wealth, for the Ionic states seem generally to have drifted into the hands of a plutociacy, while in the rest of Greece the oligarchies rested on birth. The point towards which the first swarm of emigrants from Chalcis and Eretria directed themselves was the north-western angle of the Aegean. Here a bold peninsula runs out from the mainland of Macedonia, and divides into three long headlands which stretch far into the sea. The region had the same mixture of promontory and gulf, mountain and shore-plain, which prevails in Greece itself. Moreover, its rocks were rich in silver ore, and the Euboeans (who had long been working copper-mines in their own island) were both eager and able to turn it to account. Within the first fifty years of the eighth century Chalcis ana Eretria had planted more than thirty towns along the three head- lands of Chalcidice, as the peninsula was ere long called from the Chalcidians who formed the larger half of the settlers. Some of these places were mere mining settlements, but others grew into important towns with considerable stretches of territory. Such a place was the Eretrian colony of Mende on Pallene — the western- 750 B.C.] Colonies in the Northern Aegean. 83 most and least mountainous of the three headlands — a town long famous for its rich vineyards. Of the colonies of Chalcis Torone and Sermyle were the largest. Speaking roughly, it may be said that the Eretrians gravitated towards the western part of Chal- cidice, while the towns founded from Chalcis occupied its central and eastern regions. Many of the original inhabitants were "Pelasgic," and seem to have amalgamated very easily with the Greek settlers. After the Euboeans had for some time been established in Chalcidice, colonies from other places came to extend the area of settlement; the Ionic islanders of Andros planted towns on the Thracian coast, north-east of Mount Athos; the Doric Corinthians established the important city of Potidaea, northward of the Eretrian settlements in Paliene. While Chalcis and Eretria were acting as pioneers to the Greeks of Europe, Miletus was playing the same part for those of Asia. A few centuries had sufliced to develope the settle- ments which the lonians had planted on the Lydian and Carian shore into great and flouiishing cities, fit to be them- selves the mothers of many colonies. Miletus, the port at the mouth of the Maeander, took the lead in maritime extension. The city had lost its royal line in the early part of the eighth century, and fallen into the hands of a plutocracy. The race for wealth became the sole occupation of its citizens, and a sea-going life was the easiest course to arrive at the goal. So numerous did the Milesian sea-traders become, that they formed a party in the state known as the Aeinautae, " the men never off the water." The first energy of the Milesians was turned to the north-eas4; angle of the Aegean, as that of the Euboeans had been to the north-west. Pushing beyond the Aeolic settlements in the Troad, they endeavoured to seize the Hellespont and the route towards the Black Sea. The Phoenicians were already in possession; their factory ^jjeujiesians of Lampsacus commanded the passage into the Sea ^^i *^® ^"^''^®- of Marmora, and their vessels had sought out the furthest, recesses of Paphlagonia and Colchis. There must have been a struggle in the straits for the monopoly of trade, but cyzicus. its details have not come down to us. The base '^ ' ' from which the Milesians operated was their first settlement Cyzicus, a town placed on the neck of a peninsula which runs out into ^4 The Age of Colonization. i70o b.c- the Propontis. When once firmly established witliin the Helles- pont, tliey proceeded to spread far and wide to the north and east. The mysterious sea which had only been known as Axeinos, " the inhospitable," and whose shores legend had peopled with wonders and perils, was ere long fringed with Greek factories, and changed its name to " Euxeinos," as its harbours became known. It would seem to have been the inexhaustible wealth of the fisheries of the Black Sea which first tempted the Greeks forward ; but other and not less valuable sources of wealth were soon discovered. The mountainous southern shore of the Euxine was rich in timber, iron, copper, and red-lead. The flat northern shore was a vast corn-land, whose breadth surprised even lonians accustomed to the fertile valley of the Maeander, Gold was to be found in Colchis, and also came down a trade route from the Urals, which ended on the shores of the " Maeotic Lake," which we know as the Sea of Azov. Between the middle of the eighth century and the end of the seventh the Euxine had become a Milesian sea. On the most Sinope, circ. projecting headland of Paphlagonia the rich colony of 720 B.C. Sinope^ had supplanted an old Asiatic settlement, and become the mart of Northern Asia Minor. To right and left other Milesian factories formed an unbroken chain between the Bosphorus and Colchis. Less than a century after her own foun- dation, Sinope was able to plant, on a table-shaped rock far to the east, her flourishing daughter-town of Trapezus (Trebizond), des- tined in ages then far distant to supplant her as the centre of the trade of the Euxine. Settlement was harder on the western shore, among the bar- barous Thracians, than it had been in Asia. But it began in Odessus, circ. ^^ seventh century, and after a time a " Pentapolis " 600 B.C. of five allied towns — Odes?us, Callatis, Tomi, Apol- lonia, and Mesembria— rose between the mouth of the Danube and the entrance of the Bosphorus. Of these places the first four were colonies of Miletus. Beyond the Danube to the north the Greek explorer found the plains of Southern Eussia held by the nomadic tribes of the Scythians — a race whc dwelt in tents and waggons, and wandered 1 The dates usuallj'giren for the foundation of Sinope and Trapezus are obviously too earlj'. T)^ey must be considerably posterior to Cj-zicus. 600 BC] The Greeks in the Euxine. 85 at large on the steppes with their flocks and herds, without pos' sessiog any fixed abode. They made no objection to the settle- ment of the new-comers on their shores, for they had enough and to spare of land, and had never thought of utilizing the bays and lagoons of their coast. In return for metal-work, clotb, linen, and wine, they sold to the settlers the hides of their oxen, and the gold and furs which came to them from the tribes of the far Nortli, Nor did they object when the Greeks took to tilling the soil, and made the lower valleys of the Dnieper and Bug the great wheat- field of the world. Some of the Scythians were even influenced by their visitors enough to make them turn their attention to hus- bandry. The chief towns in their land were Olbia, near tlie mouth of the Borysthenes (Dnieper), Panti- 045 b.o. capaeum, on the strait which joins the Euxine and Panticapaeum, the Maeotic lake, and Tannis, the last outpost of Greek civilization, which lay far off to the north-east, at the estuary of the Don. All these were colonies of Miletus. Where the Milesians worked on a grand scale, other Ionic states followed with more timid steps. Phocaea was the only town which sent a colony to the Euxine, and her settle- Various ment of Amisus was not founded till 566 b.c. But colonies in in the north-eastern Aegean and on the Propontis Thrace, several important places were established by the neighbours of Miletus. Perinthus, on the Thracian coast of the Propontis, was settled by Samos. The larger and richer town of Abdera, hard by the mouth of the Nestus, was founded by Clazomenae. Maronea, also in Thrace but further east, was a Chian colony. The islanders of Paros seized the great Phoenician stronghold of Thasos, and established a flourishing state on the resources of its silver-mines. But it was the Dorian state of Megara, in European Greece, which most nearly approached the achievements of Miletus. The misrule of the oligarchy of birth, which governed ^^e Megarian the town in the seventh century, seems to have been colonies, the fruitful source of emigration. Megarians founded Astacus and Chalcedon, in Bithyuia, and a little later seized the '' Chalcedon and all-important haven of Byzantium on the Bosphorus, Byzantium — a spot so pointed out by nature as the site for a great town, that the Delphic oracle bade the settlers " build opposite 86 Ihe Age of Colonization. [735 b.c- the city of the blind." This saying was a reflection on the discern- ment of their brethren, who had preferred to occupy the far less eligible site of Chalcedon, on the opposite shore. Some years later the Megarians found their way from Byzantium into the Euxine, and built Mesembiia, iu Thrace, and Heraclea-Chersonesus, in the Tauric Chersonese (Crimea) — a town which, twenty-five centuries later, was to be famous as Sebastopol. A second Heraclea, on the Bithynian coast of the Euxine, was also a flourishing Megarian colony. While the Aegean and the Euxine were gradually being sur- coioniesin rounded with a ring of Hellenic cities, a not less the West, important movement of colonization was taking place in the West, along the shores of the Ionian Sea. At how early a date the Greeks had begun to visit Italy and Sicily, it is hard to say. Even in the Odj'ssey there seems to be some dim knowledge of lands to the West, and tradition claimed, that Cumae in Campania, the first Greek town iu Italj'', was founded so far back as the eleventh century. This date is prob- ably erroneous, for no other city can show an origin extending beyond the middle of the eighth century. At the same time, Cumae was undoubtedly founded earlier than any other city beyond the Ionian Sea, and may have existed by the year 800 b.c. Chalcisand Eretria were the pioneers of exploration in the West just as they had been iu Thrace. Seeking for opportunities of trade, their vessels coasted round Malea and Tacna- The dial- cidians in the rum, and up the western coast of Greece. The ^^^*' foundation of Corcyra, on its island opposite Ej)irus, by an Eretrian colony, is the first landmark in this chapter of history. To cross from Corcyra to the lapygian promontory, tlie heel of Italy, is only a matter of a few hours, and then the course lies clear along the Calabrian coast. Italy and Sicily, at the moment of their discovery, were mainly occupied by a number of tribes — Messapians and Oenotrians, Sicels and Sicanians — whom the Greeks, vaguely recognizing a distant kinship with themselve.«, called " Pelasgic." But the remoter regions of both countries were held by more alien races. The Phoenicians of Carthage possessed the western extremitj' of Sicily; the mysterious people who called themselves Kasoiia — 700 B.C.I Colonies in Italy and Sicily. 87 though the Greeks knew them as "Tyrrheui," and the Eomans as "Etruscans" — were to be found in Northern and part of Central Italy. The Italian and Sicilian coasts must have been well known to the Greeks before they ventured to settle on them. It was probably the result of an extensive comparison of sites that the Chalcidians planted Cumae on the most favoured spot of Italy, the Bay of Naples. But Cumae long remained isolated in the north ; the earliest groups of cities were established not on the Cam- panian but the Oenotrian and Sicilian shores. The first place whose foundation-date has come down to us is Naxos Naxos, in Sicily, a city set between the slopes of Mount 735 b.c. Aetna and the sea. Here Theocles of Chalcis, the pioneer of all settlers in Sicily, set up the altar of " Apollo the Guider " in 735 B.C. In the very next year, Archias of Corinth^ an aristocrat exiled for an outrage by the oligarchy of his native place, dis- covered a splendid harbour fifty miles south of Naxos, and laid on the island of Ortygia the foundations of the great Syracuse, Dorian city of Syracuse. Before ten years were 734 B.C. l^assed, the space between Syracuse and Naxos had been filled by tlie foundation of the Chalcidian towns of Catana catana, and Leontmi, and the Megarian settlement of Me- '^|°ncie'' gara Hyblaea. Next the best harbour of the Sicilian 729-728 b.c. Strait was occupied by Chalcidians and Cumaeans, and became the port of Zancle, better known in later days as Messene. Meanwhile another group of colonies in Oenotria was arising. Its central points were the sister cities of Sybaris and Croton, both founded by Achaian emigrants from the north „ ^ . •' ° Sybaris and of Peloponnesus. We know nothing of th-e causes croton, which set these Achaians wandering, nor did their ' " country, either before or after, display any similar taste for colonization. But Sybaris in the rich lowlands of the Cratliis, and Croton on the breezy Laciuian promontory, were alike the settling- places of strong swarms of Achaians. They grew and flourished, reduced to vassalage the Oenotrian tribes of the inland, and estab- lished little empires which stretched right across the instep of Italy, from the Ionian to the Tyrrhenian Sea. Sybaris planted on the western waters Laiis and Poseidouia opposite her own 88 The Age of Colonization. Iiosition on the easteru sea; Croton, in a similar way, settled Teiiua and Temcsa. Of the other colonies of Italy, Tarentum owed its origin to the sedition of the Partheniae at Sparta, as we have already had to Tarentum, relate. Locri, called Epizephyrii to distinguish it 708 B.C. from its mother-country, was the fruit of a similar 700B c '^^^'^ discord among the Locrians of Central Greece. Bheeium, Tiheglum, the town which faced Zancle across the 715 B.C. -waters of the Sicilian Strait, drew the bulk of its population from the Messenian exiles who fled abroad after the fall of Iihome and the death of Aristoderaus. All three were large and flourishing towns, but Tarentum so far exceeded the others as to rival Sybaris, and became after her fall the first Greek city of Italy, Besides the places we have mentioned, many other Greek colonies studded the Oenotrian and Calabrian coasts, so that the whole district gradually acquired ihe name of '■' Greater Greece " ('H jueyaATj 'EAXoy, Magna Graecia). Meanwhile the Greek colonics in Sicily were advancing west- ward, both on the northern and the southern coasts of the islan 1. Dorians from Rhodes settled Gela, Dorians from Megara Selinus, on the shore which fronts towards Africa; while the Chalcidians of Zancle established Himera on the central point of the coast which looks out on Italy. Syracuse, a century after her own foundation, planted Camarina at the southern angle of the island, and Gela shortly after founded Acragas (Agrigentum), which ere long eclipsed its mother-city, and became the second place in Sicily. By the sixth century a continuous line of Greek colonies encircled the island, except at its western corner, where the Carthaginian strongholds of Lilybaeum and Drepanum and the native town of Segesta maintained their independence. The Sicels of Eastern and the Sicanians of Western Sicily became the vassals of the new-comers, just as their Oenotrian kinsmen in Italy had fallen a prey to the Sybarites and Crotoniates. Syracuse alone ruled over several Sicel tribes, and extended her influence far into the interior of the island.^ ' Dates of tlie Greek colonies of Sicily not given .above : Gela, G90 B.C. ; Himera, 648 B.C.; Selinus, G28 B.C. ; Cam.arina, 599 B.C.; Acragas, 580 B.o. 600 B.C.] The riwcaeans in the West. 89 Both the Italiot and Siccliot ^ Greeks owed the wealth which they soon accumulated to the raw produce of the virgin lands they cccupied, rather than to commercial or manufacturing activity. The corn of ^letapontum, the wool of the flocks of Sybaris, the timber and pitch of Croton, the oil of Acragas, the horses of Syracuse, the fisheries of Tarentum, became famous throughout the Greek world for the mighty fortunes that they bred — fortunes so large that the millionaires of the West surpassed the wildest dreams of the plutocratic oligarchs of the mother-country. Sybaris for example was, at the height of her career, probably the largest Greek city in the world, and the tasteless luxury of her wealthier classes kept the inhabitants of the older lauds supplied with a never-ending series of good stories. Miletus was the only town to the East that could vie in size or prosperity with the Western colonies ; Argos and Athens, Thebes and Sicyon, would have ajipeared povert3'-stricken in comparison with them. Two groups of colonies in the West which lay outside Italy and Sicily deserve mention. The first was the sole creation of the Phocaeans of Ionia. Instead of turning their main„^ „^ ° The Phocaeans attention to their own seas, these enterprising traders at MassiUa, 600 B C sought out the far West. Braving the competition of the Phoenician and the Etiuscan, they felt their way along the coast of Europe even to the Straits of Gibraltar. Their trade with Tartessus, the port of Southern Spain, and with the Celts who dwelt about the Ehone, brought them great wealth. About the year 600 B.C. they resolved to furnish themselves with a secure half- way house to Spain, and built the town of Massilia just beyond the most easterly of the mouths of the PJione. After many struggles with the natives, the place was firmly established, and became the centre of a number of smaller factories on the coasts of Catalonia and Provence, of which Emporiae was the most important. The second line of colonies which deserves record was as purely the creation of Corinth as those of Gaul were of Phocaea. Corinth had occasionallj^ planted colonies both in the Aegean and in Sicily ; Potidaea and Syracuse have already been cited. But the great ' Note the distinction between 'l-aAos or 2ik6A.Jis, a barbarian native of Italy or Sicily, and 'iroXicirTjj and 5i'cfAJ:oTrjs, a Greek colonist settled therein. 90 The Age of Colonization. teso b.c- fiuld of her energy was the north-western coast of Greece, and The the Illyrian shore opposite Italy. Here, both while Corinthians m j^ remained an oligarchy and when the olio;archy North-Western o j o J Greece. had fallen before the tyrant Cypselus, her settlements continued to increase. At Corcyra the earlier Eretrian colony was . swamped by the incoming, in 708 B.C., of a swarm at Corcyra, of Corinthians under the exiled oligarch Chersicrates. Along the coast of Acarnania a line of fortified ports drove the natives up into the hills. These towns — the only Greek colonies whose site was taken by force from another Greek tribe, though a barbarous one — were Sollium, Alyzia, Astacus, and Anactorium. Leucas, the island off the coast, was also taken Acarnanian ^"^^^ ^^^ Acamanians and received a Corinthian popu- coionies. lation. Similarly, the southernmost district of Epiriis was conquered and became the territory of Ambracia. Finally, Corinth and Corcyra joined to plant further north, in Illyria, the towns of ApoUonia and Epidamnus. While her Acarnanian colonies always kept up a close alliance with Corinth, and followed her political leading, Corcyra from the first took an opposite course. Perhaps the Euboean Rivalry of . , , . i i • . ■ Corinth and element in her population suceeded in estrangmg Corcyra. ^^^ Corinthian from its allegiance. At any rate, within forty years of her foundation Corcyra sot herself up as a rival for the Illyrian and Italian trade of Corinth, and engaged in war with the mother-city. The first naval battle known to Greek historians was fought between Corinth and Corcyra in 664 B.C. After maintaining her independence for the best part of a century, Corcyra was conquered by the tyrant Periander, but after his death she shook off the Corinthian yoke for ever, and remained the bitter and mischievous enemy of the older city. Only one more sphere of Greek colonial activity remains to be mentioned— the northern coast of Africa. The legends which tell Cyrene ^^^w Libya was quite unknown as late as the seventh 633 B.C. century are foolish inventions, for the Achaians of prehistoric days had already met the Libyans as allies in an attack on Egypt. But the dread of Phoenician rivalry kept the Greeks from settlement till about the middle of the seventh century. Then the Dorian islanders of Thera in the Cyclades, 550 B.C.] The Greeks in Libya and Egypt 91 strengthened by Peloponnesian exiles, sailed across to the land opposite Crete, and, after many trials and privations, succeeded in fulfilling a decree of the Delphian Apollo, which bade them "establish a city in Libya rich in fleeces." Cyrene was the fruit of their expedition. Here the emigrants mixed more freely with the people of the land than in any other Greek settlement. Aristoteles, the Theraean leader, was taken as king by the Libyans of the district, and received the royal name of Battus. His family intermarried with the natives, and his comrades followed their example, so that the blood of the whole community grew to be but half Hellenic, Cyrene became the mother-city of Barca and Euesperides — towns rather more to the west. For two centuries she continued to flouri.sh under kings who, from father to son, alternately bore the native name of Battus and the Greek name of Arcesilaiis. She grew rich on her flocks and herds, her corn- fields and her export of silphium, a medicinal drug found in no other part of the Hellenic world. Egypt had been known to the Greeks long before Greek history begins. Achaian pirate raids on the Delta we have already mentioned, and their echoes are heard in the Homeric The Greeks poems. But trade with Egypt was not established ^^^^-ypt. for many centuries. The Egyptians were the Japanese of the ancient world, and kept their kingdom absolutely sealed against Western merchants. Only the Phoenicians were allowed to trade to the mouths of the Nile. It was not till the downfall of Egyptian greatness, when the empire of the Pharaohs had sunk into a cluster of principalities sometimes subject to and sometimes free from the supremacy of the kings of Aethiopia and Assyria, that the Milesians ventured to approach the Delta and open a precarious trade with the natives. No safe traiflc was possible till the Pharaohs of the twenty-sixth dynasty reunited Egypt, and, favoured by the decline of Assyria, made her once more a strong kingdom. Psammetichus, first of these Sai'te Pharaohs, had raised himself to empire by the use of mercenaries hired from among the lonians and Cariaus. He retained them about his person, and allowed their countrymen free access to a mart near the Canopic channel of the Nile. The Milesians and other traders from Greek Asia flocked in crowds to the new emporium, which they named Naucratis. 92 The Age of Colonization. tesoB.a Ere long it grew into a Qourishing Hellenic town, and served Naucratis, ^^ ^ starting-point for numerous explorers, who circ. 650B.C. -R'andered over Ejypt, and brought back such reports of her immemorial antiquity and countless monuments as com- pletely puzzled the Greeks, who had no conception of any history that ran back more than some five or six hundred years. Indeed, Egypt so impressed the Greek mind that it imbibed a notion \\i\i everything ancient must owe its origin to that country— a belief ■which caused much confusion in the historical ideas of later days. It is necessary to remember that a Greek colony was by no means similar to the colonies of our own days. The Greek emigrants formed new states of their own, which owed nothing Character of . ° Greek except a ulial respect and certam honorary dues to CO omes. ^^ mother-city. Instances to the contrary are very rare. Corinth alone seems to liave retained some authority over her colonies ; she used even to send out annual magistrates to Potidaea, while her Acarnanian settlements were bound to her by a strict commercial league. But in the vast majority of cases a senti- mental tie alone connected the parent state with her offspring. The political development of the colony was often on very different lines from that which the mother-country would have dictated; nor was this unnatural, for it was the classes which were discon- tented at home that set out to find new abodes. From this fact, too, it resulted that the constitutions of the colonics were often unstable; there were no old local traditions to keep men steady, while the population was often composed of discordant elements, and always contained a very large proportion of men of stirring and adventurous dispositions. Hence the greatness of the colonies was brilliant rather than solid, and their power was liable to sudden changes from vigour to absolute collapse. Wealth was so exclusively their aim that the rigid political discipline, which formed the character of the citizen in the states of old Greece, was allowed to disappear. Individual interest became far more powerful in proportion to patriotic impulses than in the mother- country. "Wc have already mentioned i:i an earlier chapter the prominent The Colonies and i]ie DelpJiic Oracle. 93 part taken by the oracle of Delphi in colonization. It was always customary for the oekist, or offical leader of a swarm „^ , . '' ' The colonies of settlers, to ask for guidance from Apollo the god and the of ways, as to the best situation for the town he in- °^^^ ^^' tended to found. Sometimes the answer given was vague, but, as a rule, the advice of Apollo was shrewd and practical. No doubt the Delphic priesthood had unrivalled opportunities for acquiring geographical information from the countless pilgrims from all parts with whom they came in contact. Probably, then, the would-be settlers were merely dealing with a well-trained emigration agency where they thought they were consulting an infallible prophet. Yet still the discrimination which the oracle showed in recommend- ing sites for colonization was so great, that we cannot wonder that it acquired thereby a high reputation. Inspiration was in this case only the perfection of penetration and common sense, and it was the practical wisdom of the priesthood which won them a position of importance in all Hellenic lands such as they could not have acquired in any other way ( CHAPTER X. THE AGE OF THE TYRANTS. In the seventh and sixth centuries before Ciirist nearly all the Hellenic states went through a period of internal disorder and strife, one of whose symptoms was the widespread emigration which has been described in the last chapter. The phenomena of violent change and revolution are found no less in the colonial states of Asia Minor and Sicily than in the older cities of European Greece. The causes were not quite similar in the colonies and their mother-countries, but the symptoms were the same. Every- where old constitutional forms were disappearing, and before the state could attain to a stable form of government several genera- tions spent themselves in sedition and civil war. In most cases the period of disorder culminated in the establishment of a " Tyranny," that is, in the seizure of power by an unconstitutional and despotic sovereign. The name " Tyrant " in Greece was applied solely with reference to the way in which a ruler gained his position, not the way in ^ which he used it. It does not imply gross personal Meaning of f j o r the word depravity or political misrule; indeed, many of the s^an . ,j tyrants " were men abounding in good qualities, who used their power to the advantage of their country. The word simply implies that the ruler enjoyed an uncontrolled despotic power, not acquired by constitutional means. In the strictest sense of the word, a king who did away with all checks on his personal power, and ruled autocratically, became a " tyrant ; " and thus we find Pheidon of Argos given the name, though he was a legitimate monarch of the old stock of the Heraclidae. So also a dictator chosen by the people in time of stress, and entrusted with absolute Causes of the Rise of Tyraiaiies. 95 power, might be styled " tyrant," though he owed his elevation to the will of the state itself; such was the case with Pittacus of Mitylene. In these instances it was the abnonnal method in which the power was acquired, and its unlimited extent, which won for its holder his unenviable name. But in the majority of cases the tyrant was one who had no rights, either by hereditary succession or by election, to the position which he occupied. Sometimes he was a military adventurer ; sometimes an ambitious aristocrat; still more frequently was he the champion and leader of the proletariate ground down by an oppressive oligarchy. But whatever was the origin of his authority, or the manner in which he used it, the name clung to him if only his position was unconstitulional and his power unchecked, A certain uniformity can be traced in the political history of most Greek states, after they had got rid of their old patriarchal kings. In the majority of cases the royal power passed ^jge of into the hands of an oligarchy of birtli. Sometimes oligarchies, the direct line of the old heroic house died out; and, instead of choosing one of their own number to take the sceptre, the princes and chiefs, who had formed the council and restricted the authority of the late king, divided the power among themselves, and trans mitted it to their heirs; so that the rights and privileges formerly possessed by the monarch became the property of a limited number of great families. In other cases the kingly line continued to exist, but its head was gradually stripped of all his power and preroga- tives by the great families, and became a mere puppet in the hands of the oligarchy, only useful as officially representing the people in religious ceremonies or state pageants. " Kings" of this kind, who were little better than priests or public pensioners, existed in some cases down to the fifth century. The close oligarchic rings of noble families, among whom the royal power came to be divided, seldom succeeded in maintaining themselves for many generations. Their government „ was usually oppressive and ill-managed, and their mentofthe feuds with each other never-ending. They could never °"^"*^ gain for themselves the respect and reverence which had apper- tained to the old ])atriarchal kings. The monarchy had in its favour its immemorial antiquity ; when it was replaced by oil- 96 Tlu Age of tJie Tyrants. [656 B.C., garcliy, the new government had no traditions on wliicli to rely, and stood or fell on its own merits. These were usually small enough, and, for the bulk of the citizens, the extinction of the royal house was an unmitigated misfortune. The great families are, in the traditions of every state, accused of overweening arro- gance, open maladministration of justice, and lawless violence in dealing with their inferiors. The old kings had had every interest in holding the balance straight between the various classes of their subjects ; their successors, on the other hand, ruled entirely for the advantage of a small section of the population, and showed the most cynical disregard for the rights of the remainder. The oppressive character of their rule was, of course, even more marked than usual in those cities where the ruling classes were different in blood from the main body of the people, such, for example, as those states of Northern Peloponnesus in which a Dorian aristo- cracy domineered over an Achaian or Ionian populace. But even where a race-hatred did not embitter the situation, the relations between the rulers and the ruled were always unsatisfactory. A fair example of the history of a Greek state in its progress from kingship to tyranny through oligarchy and civil strife is pre- Thetsnrants sented by Corinth. That city had, like so many of ofcorintii. j.|-|g Peloponnesian states, been conquered by a band of Dorians, who elid not expel the former Aeolic inhabitants, but merely reduced them to a state of inferiority. The descendants of King Aletes, the Heracleid prince who had led the invaders, held the throne for some centuries ; but about the year 750 B.C. the reigning sovereign was deposed by an oligarchic conspiracy. Two hundred Dorian families, all of whom claimed a descent from Bacchis — one of the earlier kings of the house of Aletes — seized and kej^t posses- sion of the government of the state. They continued to hold the reins of power for about t-'nety years^a period of perpetual strife and unrest. Body after body of the Corinthians sought refuge front the misgovernment of the Bacchiadae by departing to found distant colonies. Corcyra and Syracuse, for example, each owed its origitl to an emigration led by a prominent citizen who had quarrelled with the oligarchs. The state was fast lajsing into anarchy when a final explosion of popular wrath broke the power of the oppressive caste. It was led by one Cypselus, a Bacchiad on his mother's side, 585 B.C. The Tyrants cf Corinth. 97 tliough his father Eetion was one of the unprivileged multitude. His mixed descent of course excluded him from poli- cypseius. tical life, hut he had enough of the blood of the Bac- 655-925 b.c. chiadae in his veins to make him resent ibis disability. Accord- ingly he took advantage of the seething discontent of the city to place himself at the head of the populace and overthrow the Bacchiadae by force. For thirty years he reigned as " tyrant " of Corinth, basing his power on his popularity with the multitude, and not even keeping an armed force at his back to guard against revolts, so firm was his position. Against the remains of the oligarchy he was stern and relentless, slaying some, banishing many, and heavily taxing all. But with the bulk of the people the relief of being delivered from anarchy made him not unpopular, his autocratic government being far better than no government at all. If the contributions which hg levied from the state were large, the use which he made of them— especially the magnificent offer- ings which he presented to the Delphian Apollo— was not much to be blamed ; and the splendour of his court reflected glory on the city. Cypseius died on the throne, and was succeeded by his son Periander, who developed all the evil sides of his periander. father's character, but otherwis3 only resembled him ^^s-sss b.c. in the masterful activity of his nature. Born in the purple, and remembering nothing of the popular origin of his father's power, he showed himself a hard master to the Corinthians. He built himself a fortress-palace on the Acropolis, and surrounded himself with a body of foreign mercenaries, for whose support he levied vast sums from the citizens. But his interference with the private fife of his subjects was the worst point of his rule. Misrule of He set himself to isolate man from man by breaking Periander. up all opportunities for intercourse. He closed the Gymnasium to prevent the young men from meeting, and prohibited the public banquets which Dorian custom had made one of the most promi- nent features of city life. His spies were always abroad, seeking to discover the elements of possible combinations against him ; and when any citizen made himself too prominent in wealth or popu- larit}'-, he was driven into exile or slain without trial by the tyrant. A legend told how Periander had learnt this policy from a brother despot, Thrasybiilus of Miletus. Soon after his accession, it was u 98 The Age of the Tyrants. said, lie sent to ask tlie advice of the Milesian as to the best way to conduct his government. Thrasybulus sent no verbal answer, but led the Corinthian messenger to a patch of corn, and then walked round it, cutting down with his staff any ears that stood above the rest of the crop. His action was duly reported to Periander, who took the hint to heart, and carried it out by relent- lessly destroying any man whose property or personal influence raised him above bis fellows, and made him a possible leader of revolt. These murders, and the occasional freaks 01 spiteful insult towards the whole body of citizens in which he indulged, made Periander the best-hated man in Greece. His private life was miserable: he was the author of his wife's death, and lived at enmity with his only surviving son, who died before him, so that the tyranny passed at his death to a nephew. Yet the lavish magnificence of his court, the crowd of poets and artists whom he maintained, his firm hand and subtle policy, won him a great name among the sovereigns of his time. The curt sayings which embodied bis views of life even caused him to be reckoned among the "Seven Sages" of Greece. He conquered Ej^idaurus and Aegina, recovered Corcyra, and reigned for forty years m unbroken power. But the main result of his life had been to make tyranny impos- sible for the future at Corinth. Periander's arbitrary violence, his oppressive taxation, and still more his insulting contempt for his subjects, were remembered for centuries, and made the Coriutliians steady enemies of tyrants for ever. His nephew and tyranny at successor Psammetichus hardly held the sceptre for a year, and fell by the daggers of conspirators at ihe moment that he was attacked by the Spartans, who were received as liberators, and won the eternal gratitude and alliance of Corinth by doing away with the last traces ot the rule of the Cypselidae. The sloryof the rise and fall of this house of tj^ants is eminently typical of the time; all over Greece similar events were taking „ . place. In town after town a popular leader delivered Tyrannies ^ ^ '■ never the people from an oppressive oligarchy, made him- ^^^^ ' self sole ruler, and left power to descendants who abused it, and ere long were driven from their thrones by the same force which had created them. In many cases the tyrants lost their authority in the second generation ; in a few a single life Effects of Tyranny. 99 sufficed to show all the vicissitudes of rise, prosperity, and fall. Sicyon was the only town where the tyranny lasted for more than a century, and where the sceptre was handed from father to son for four generations. But at Sicyon the circumstances were peculiarly favourable to the tyrants. The house of Orthagoras (6G0-560 B.C.), represented a national rising of louians against Dorians, and moreover its members were men of moderation as well as of ability, and committed none of the atrocities which disgraced the tyrants of most cities. Yet even they fell at last, and left no adherents behind them. At Megara the history of the one tyrant Theagenes sums up all the changes which took three generations at Corinth and four at Sicyon to work themselves out. At Athens the Peisistratidae ruled for two generations ; at Syracuse the three sons of Deinomenes occupied only twenty years. At no place was anything approaching to a permanent dynasty founded. It must not be supposed that democratic leaders were the only men who ever aspired to tyranny. Phalaris of Agrigentum, perhaps the most cruel of all his class, was an oligarch, who had taken advantage of his tenure of office as magistrate, and seized the supreme power. Aristodemus of Cumae was a successful general, who had saved his state from an Etruscan invasion. Pheidon of Argos, as we have already mentioned, was an hereditary king, who cast off the limits of constitutional authority, and made himself absolute. Still, in the majority of cases, tyranny was the way from oligarchy to democracy, the inevitable penalty Tyranny a which a state had to pay for ridding itself from the stage in ^ •' ° political evils of government by the great families. Con- development, sidered in this light, the tyranny was not an unmitigated evil. It crushed the pride and ended the reckless feuds of the oligarchs, and taught them to live with their fellow-citizens as equals, even though the equality only consisted in servitude to the same tyrant. A state which had once gone through the stage of tyranny never Ml back again into the worse forms of family oligarchy If we proceed to inquire into the internal administration of the tyrants, we find that their government had many favourable points. It was the stock complaint of the dispossessed oligarchy pojjcy of the that the tyrant was a lavish spender of money ; but the tyrants, objects on which the money was laid out were usually great public I oo The Age of the Tyrdnts. works of high advantage to the state. 'J'he real key to the des[:ot's financial policy was Ihat he strove to keep the poorer classes quiet, by finding them employment on works for which the price was paid by the rich — a scheme not unknown to statesmen of our own da}\ It may be noticed that the tyrants were the first to lend public patronage to art and letters, and that their reigns were everywhere a period of rapid intellectual development. Abroad they distinguished themselves by the close relations with foreign powers into which they entered. Periander was the close ally of the King of Lydia; and his successor's Egyptian name' seems to point to an equally intimate connection and alliance with the Sa'ite Pharaohs. Polyciates of Samos was bound by an offensive and defensive alliance with Amasis of Egypt. Miltiades of the Thracian Chersonese married into the royal house of the neighbouring barbarian tribe. Pcisistratus " strengthened himself by men and money drawn from the lands by the Strymon," that is, by Thracian mercenaries and gold. 'J'he tyrants, in short, taught their subjects to enter into more friendly relationship with " the barbarian " than had formerly been esteemed possible. The main result of this connection was an immediate increase in the facilities for the expansion of commerce. All the accounts of the tyrants which have come down to us are coloured by the hatred which the dispossessed di^archies bore them. The tales of their enormities should therefore be received with the greatest caution. There is no doubt that they numbered many cruel and unscrupulous men among them ; but when we remember the evils from which they delivered the mass of their countrymen, it does not seem too much to say that a perpetual freedom from the worse horrors of oligarchy was cheaply bought at the price of forty or fifty years of rule by a tyiant. * Psammetichus. CHAPTER XL THE EARLY HISTOUY OF ATTICA. The g.eatness of Athens in historical times has produced an imi)ression that in early daj's also she must have been a consider- able state. In real fact, however, the reverse would seem to have been the case . down to the sixth century Athens was a city of very fccond-rate importance, and her history was obscure and uninteresting. It has only been rescued from oblivion because the brilliancy of her after-career led men to trace back as far as possible the origins of her success. That Attica was, at the epoch of the Boeotian and Dorian m'grations, flooded by fugitives both from the north and the Peloponnesus, we have already related. But the bulk of the refugees passed on to Asia, and built up the cities of Ionia, "When the emigrants had departed, Attica relapsed into her previous obscurit}' ; tlie only trace of the stirring times of the Ionic migration which remained was the fact that many of the great Athenian families of later days drew their origin from one or other of the exiled races that had sojourned in the land. It is not impossible that the full Hellenization of the " Pelasgic " tribes of Attica runs no farther back than the time of the migrations, and that the legend which tuld how the Athenian kings "received Ion into their family " merely means that the influx of lonians from Peloponnesus absorbed the Atticans into the Hellenic nationality. When the swarms of emigrants cleared off, and Athens is again discernible, the crown had jsassed from the old royal house of the Cecropidae to a family of exiles from Peloponnesus. Melanthus, a Caucon from Pylos, had fought in monarchy at single combat— so legend tells— with Xanthus the ■^*^®'^- King of the Boeotians, when Attica was invaded from the north. I02 The Early History of Attica. 170ob.c.' and slain his enemy. Thynioetas, the aged and childless King of Athens, made the champion heir to his throne, as a mark of the gratitude of the nation. A generation later the Dorian invasion, which liad overwhelmed Corinth and torn away Mcgara from the Attic dominion, swept up to the very gates of Athens. An oracle declared that the city would never fall if its ruler perished by the hand of the invaders ; therefore King Codrus disguised himself as a peasant, set out for the Dorian camp, struck down the first man he met, and was himself slain by the second. The invasion failed, and the Athenians reverenced ever after the memory of their patriot king with peculiar veneration. But his son and successor, Medon, did not succeed to the full powers of his father. Henceforth the royal authority was limited by the creation of two new officers, the Archon and the Polemarch, one of whom took over much of the king's civil duty, while the other acted as commander-in-chief. For twelve generations the Codridae retained the titular kingship for life ; but in 752 B.C., as we are told, this tenure was abolished, and the Archon was made official head of the state ; the king — now elected every ten years from among the members of the royal house ■ — and the polemarch took rank after him. Be this as it maj^, we find that in the eighth century Attica had drifted into the same stage of constitutional development as the majority of other Greek states. The supreme magistracies were at first confined to those families only which claimed to descend from Codrus ; but about 710 B.C. these houses had to take into partner- ship all the Attic nobilitj', and the three great offices were opened to every member of the class of " Eupatridae." When, thirty years later, six junior archons were added, and the board of nine colleagues began to be elected annually, the Athenian constitution assumed the characteristics of the ordinary oligarchy. Oligarchy at Athens showed all the features which marked its rule elscAvhere. Misgovernment was miiversal, the administration of justice fell into contempt, the non-noble freeman was excluded from all share in the administration of the state, and was continually exposed to the lawlessness and insolence of the more reckless members of the governing caste. When Attic history becomes clear and continuous, somewhere 600 B.C.] Oligarchy at Athens. 103 about the middle of the seventh century, we find the government composed of the nine officers, all now called " archons," and of a council called the " Areopagus," from the place (*Apetos Ttdyos, the Hill of Ares) at which it met. This council was exclusively Eupatrid in its composition, and included all ex-archons. It chose, and exercised constant control over, the annual archons— for an oligarchy never trusts its magistrates— and was also the supreme judicial court for homicide.' Of the board of archons, the chief, now called Avclion Eponymus CApx^" eirwru/ios), gave his name to the year, and exercised an honorary presidency in the state ; the second, or King-Arclwn f'Bao-iA.eus), discharged the ancient functions of the monarch as religious head and representative of the state ; the third, or Pohmarch, was minister of war and commander- in-chief; the remaining six junior archons were called Thesmothdae, and were charged with the administration of the different branches of justice, — everything but homicide was within their competence. Below the Eupatridae lay the bulk of the population, divided from very early times into Geomori and Demiurgi, or husband- men and artisans — a rough distinction, which had The factions come to have little meaning in later days. The real °^ Attica, division by the seventh century had come to be local, and everj'- thing turned on the feelings of Uie parties known as Pedias, Diacria, and Paralia — the Plain, the Upland, and the Shore. The men of the Plain were the rich Eupatrid lando'miers who occupied the lowlands of the two fertile tracts of Attica, the Thriasian and Athenian Plains. The " Shore," the coast-slip of Western Attica, was the dwelling of a population supported partly by fishing and partly by commerce, who formed a class intermediate between the aristocratic landowners and the Diacrians of Northern and Eastern Attica. These Uplanders occupied the arid hills of the interior ; they were mostly shepherds and herdsmen, and formed the rudest and poorest class in the country.^ The first recorded outbreak of troubles in Attica belongs to the third quarter of the seventh century. > It has been much debated whether the Areojia-iis represented the primitive council of chitfs ; probably it did. 2 Those who wish to study the dry and obscure question of the exact meaning of the Naucraries, Trittyes, Phratry-S and other primitive Attic divisions of the people, are referred to purely constitutional histories. 104 The Early History of Attica. Cylun was a noble of great wealth and distinction. lie had heeir^ a victor at the Olympic games, and boasted of a nimacrous troop of J friends and dependents. Moreover, he had married of cyion. the daughter of Theagenes, tja-ant of Megara, and had the career of his father-in-law constantly before his eyes. Counting on the weakness of the oligarchic government, and the universality of public discontent with it, Cylon determined on a bold attempt to make himself tyrant of Athens. On a concerted day his friends were joined by a band of mercenaries from Megara,,i*f^ and seized the Acropolis. But he had not troubled himself to ensure the goodwill of the populace, and the majority looked on while he and his faction were blockaded in the citadel by all the forces that the government could muster. The chief conspirator ^ escaped by night, but his followers were ere long starved out. They sat down as suppliants at the altar of Athena, and threw open the gates to the besiegers. Megacles, the archon in command, induced them to quit their sanctuary by a promise that their lives should be spared ; but the moment that they had left the Acropolis he caused them to be put to death. Hence a deep stain of sacrilege and perjury was held to attach to Megacles and his descendants, the house of the Alcmaeonidae. Again and again in later times the cry was raised that the " family under the curse ]| ought to be expelled from Athens. After Cylon's failure the strugi^le between the oligarchy of Eupatridae and the nation that it oppressed grew yet more bitter. Two main sources of trouble existed : the people, like the Roman plebeians of the following century, were in a chronic state of poverty and distress, owing to misgovernment as much as to bad seasons; moreover, they were driven to despair by the arbitrary and unequal incidence of punishments. No one could ever foresee the end of a suit, for the archons varied the judgments at pleasure. Hence there was a universal cry for the publication of laws which should fix some proportion between the offence and the penalty. The demand of the citizens was at last met by the nobles con- senting to give way, and the Archon Draco in 621 b.c. published a written code of laws. An Athenian of a later day exclaimed that " the laws of Draco seemed to have been written with blood rather than with ink," It is highly probable that the aristocracy chose tq 612B0] The Laws of Draco. 105 leave themselves a power of applying very severe punishments, and stated the penalty of each offence at its possible maximum ; hut wq need not believe the legends which assert that Draco affixed the punishment of death to almost every crime. The one fragment, indeed, of his legislation which has come down to us deals with a mitigation of the law of murder, and provides that involuntary homicides should not be treated as outlaws liable to be slain by every one who met them, but be placed under the protection of the state till they could make compensation to the family of the slain man Whatever was the exact bearing of the legislation of Draco, it proved a very inadequate palliative for the evils which were troubling the state. Within a few years of its promulgation matters were as bad as ever.^ ' If a liomioide kept away from ninrkcts and games and festivals, jind yet was sought out and slain by tbe kinsmen of his victim, the men who blew him were to be hcM themselves guiltj' of murder. ' The details given in the 'sQnvaiwv noXiTc/a about some alleged [lolitical reforms of Draco, over and above his laws- seem untrustworthy. CHAPTER XII. SOLON AND PEISISTRATUS. A FEW years after the legislation of Draco Ave find Athens engaged in a long and doubtful war with Megara. The civil discords, which , the new laws had proved quite insufficient to allay, Megara. circ were aggravated by the miseries of a disastrous and ill-conducted war. The weakness of the Athenian oligarchy is shown plainly enough by the fact that they were quite unable to cope with the smaller state to the west. Even Salamis, the island which lies full in view of Athens, and is divided by less than a mile of water from the Attic shore, fell into the hands of the ]\Iegarians ; for Athens had as yet no ships to put in line against the flourishing navy which had planted the many colonies of Megara. It was during a critical period of the Megarinn war that the name of Solon is first heard. He was a Eupatrid by birth, a man of high personal integrity and attractive character, who had won from the people a respect which they paid to few of his caste. He was a practised orator and a poet: his stirring verses played at Athens the same part that the war- songs of Tyrtaeus had played at Sparta, and induced his despond- ing fellow-citizens to persevere in an apparently hopeless contest. " Eather would I be," he sang, " a man of Pholegandros or Sicinos ' than an Athenian, if I am to be pointed at as one of those who abandoned Salamis to the enemy." The sarcasm told, and the war was continued. Solon himself was put at the head of an expedition which ran the blockade of the Salaminian Strait, hastily landed on the island, and succeeded in driving out the Megarian * Obscure islands in the Cyclades. 594 B.C.] Solon. 107 garrison. He even carried the Athenian arms up to the very gates of the hostile city, and seized for a moment its harbour of Nisaca. The war had still many vicii-situdes, and Athens was ere long reduced to the defensive again ; hut her citizens never forgot the exploits of the soldier-poet, and continued to regard him as the one possible saviour of the community. Probably he might have become tyrant of Attica had he wished, but he was a loj'al servant of the state, and had no personal ambition. After some years the war with Megara was ended by the arbi- tration of Sparta, and Athens retained permanent possession of Salamis. We need not attach any importance to the legend which states that Solon influenced the Lacedaemonians in favour of Athens by quoting to them a line which he interpolated in the Iliad, to the effect that Ajax of Salamis ranged his ships on the Trojan beach beside those of Athens. The argument would have been worthless, and Solon was not a forger. A little later Solon acquired favourable notice throughout Greece for the piomi- nent part which he took in behalf of the Delphic oracle against its oppressors. The Phocians of Crissa and Cirrha had been molesting the pilgrims who came to make inquiry of Apollo. Solon took up the cause of the injured, preached a crusade against the wrong-doers, and, in conjunction with Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, succeeded in subduing the guilty towns, which received destruction as the reward of their sacrilege. About 595 B.C. the internal troubles of Athens, which had beeu growing worse since the time of Cylon's conspiracy, came to a head. The particular grievance which brought ^hedebt matters to a crisis was the question of the law of question at Athens. debt. A series of years of war and bad harvests had brought down to a condition of abject misery the poorer agricultural class in Attica, who cultivated the farms of the Eupatridae as servile tenant-farmers, paying to the landowner a rent of one-sixth of their produce, a tenure which won them the name of 'EKTrj/xopoi. These unfortunate "villeins," as thej' would In ve been called in mediaeval Europe, were deeply sunk in arrears of debt to their landlords, and by the legislation of Draco were liable to be sold as slaves if they failed in due payment, for the creditor's only security was the bodies of his debtor and his wife and children, Attica was threatened with the io8 Solon and Peisistratus. [504bc. total extinction of her poorer classes ; the Megarlan v/ar seems to have rendered the situation desperate, and every day the bankrupt debtor might be seen dragged off in chains to be exposed in the slave-markets of Lydia or Egypt. Either the ruin of the state or a bloody revolution was obviously at hand. Scared at the results of their own usurious greed, the Eupatrids were induced to entrust power to Solon, as the one man whose integrity was acknowledged both by rich and poor, and who could still stave off a collision. In 591 B.C., if our chronology is correct, Solon was elected archon, and entrusted with the duty of drafting a new constitution for the city. The first part of Solon's legislation was directed to the practical end of alleviating the miserable condition of the debtors. He forbade the lending of money on the security of the Seisachtheia, borrower's person, and cancelled not only loans so contracted, but all outstanding debts of every kind; a desperate measure which only dire need could excuse. It would seem that he even removed the feudal rent of one-sixth whicL the 'EKTrjuopot had paid, and thereby turned them from villeins into freeholders owning the land they tilled. The state renounced all sums owing to it from the poorer citizens, whether due as arrears of taxes or as fines. These measures brought about a perceptible improvement in the condition of the community; the newly manumitted debtors swelled the roll of citizens, and the growth of prosperity supplied some ground for hoping that a crisis of the same kind would not recur again. Another innovation of Solon's was destined to improve the economic condition of Athens in a much more indirect fashion. Solon and the The city had down to this time been using money coinage. struck on the Pheidonian standard, such as circulated in Peloponnesus or Boeotia. Solon made a sweeping change by striking coins based, not on this standard, but on that known as the Euboic, which was employed in the great commercial cities of C'.alcis and Eretria. This made the currency of Athens inter- changeable with that of her wealthy Ionic neighbours, though it somewhat complicated exchanges with Aegina or Thebes. Both politically and commercially this was an excellent move. The tj 694 B.C.] The Soloniaii C/assts: 109 new inone}', of which the drachma weighed only sixty-seven grains and a half, was coined into tetradrachms, while the old, whose unit had weighed about ninety-five grains, had never possessed a higher multiple than the didrachm. The constitutional reforms of Solon are even more important than his economical legislation. They were the starling-point of all political liberty in Athens, and their importance ^he constitu- was so impressed on the citizens of later years that tionofSoion. all early laws were put down to him, just as all Spartan regulations came to be ascribed to Lycurgns. Solon was a man of just and liberal soul, and a sincere friend of the people ; but he was also a noble, with a rooted dislike to democratic methods of govern- ment. His aim was to construct a constitution which should give the proletariate an ultimate control over the administration of public affairs, without allowing them the power to interfere in matters of detail. The nobles were no longer to govern at their own good will and for their own benefit; but they — reinforced by the richest of the non-noble classess — were to continue to administer the state, under due control and for the benefit of the whole community. Even before Solon's time the division of the people into classes arranged according to their wealth had perhaps been known. Pos- sibly it may have been employed as early as Draco's time, for purposes of taxation only, but Solon determined to use the system as a political instead of a merely economic institution. He abolished all the privileges of birth which the Eupatridae had enjoyed, The four substituted a " timocracy " for an " aristocracy," and classes, made wealth, not birth, the test of eligibility for ofiice. The first of the four Solonian classes was called that of the Pentekosiomedimnl, and included, as its name shows, all citizens whose annual income from land was equivalent to five hundred medimni of corn, or exceeded that amount. The second class, that of the Hippeis, or knights, comprised every one whose income ranged between five hundred and three hundred medimni. The third class, the Zeugltae ("owners of a yoke of oxen"), included those whose income was more than a hundred and fifty medimni, and less than three hundred. Finally, the fourth class, or Thetes, was composed of all whose income fell short of a hundred and fifty medimni. Landed 110 Solon and Pelsisiraius. (594 e.g. property only was assessed, not commercial gains or hoarded wealth, so that to qualify for the three higher classes a merchant or artisan had to invest in a smaller or larger plot of land. This arrangement placed the majority of the Eupatridae in the first two classes, while the bulk of the yeomen of Attica fell into the ranks of the Zeugitae, and the artisans were nearly all Thetes. But a fair proportion of wealthy merchants who had bought land, and a certain number of rich yeomen, were mixed among the Pentekosiomedimni and Hippeis, while a few ruined Enpatrid?} we may suppose, sank to the status of the Thetes. When Solon, therefore, restricted the archonship to those who were Pentekosiomedimni, he practically left the supreme magistracy of the state in the hands of the nobles. To other minor offices the Hippeis and Zeugitae were eligible, but the Thetes were excluded altogether from the public service ; as a compensation, they were also excluded from all taxation. In time of war they were to serve as light troops, while the Zeugitae fought as heavy-armed infantry and the Hippeis as horsemen. The constitutional reforms of Solon had as their main aim a rearrangement of the relations of the Archons and the Areopagus Avith the Senate and public assembly, so that each was to have its share in the guidance of the state. The archons retained their old functions, but were in future to be elected by an ingenious mixture of selection and chance. The four tribes each chose ten candidates, and from these forty men the nine archons were chosen by lot. This system was probably intended to obviate an attempt to intro- duce party government : it would be most unlikely that all the successful candidates would be of the same political faction. The archons at the end of their year of office were to pass a public examination [(vOvvn), at which they were made responsible before the assembly for all their acts during their tenure of power. The Areopagus ceded many of its functions to a Council or Senate of Four Hundred, composed of a hundred members chosen from each of the four tribes into which the Athenians (like other Ionic Tiie communities) were divided. This Senate or Boule Eouie. iqq\. qv^j. r^ii tijg more clearly political duties of the Areopagus, such as preparing measures to be put before the assembly, or receiving embassies. 694:B.ai The Areopagus. in We may perhaps compare Solon's Boule to the Roman Senate, while the Areopagus, as reformed by him, may bo likened to the Roman Censorship. It was to undertake the moral ^j^^ supervision of the state : on its own initiative and Areopagus, without incurring any responsibility it might inquire into the public or private life of any citizen, and inflict fines and forfeitures on him if it considered his conduct obnoxious. Profligacy, insolence, and idleness were punished by the Areopagus, no less than crimes which fell under the letter of the law. In addition to this wide censorial power, it had the function of trying all cases of intentional homicide • — a charge which it had exercised from time immemorial, ever since (so Attic tradition ran) Ares had been indicted before it for slaying Halirrhothius, the son of Poseidon. The court was recruited from ex-archons, as in earlier days, and therefore remained a centre of Eupatrid influence, for the majority of the archons were still cliosen from the old houses. It was, no doubt, intended to curb all citizens who showed any signs of practising demagogic arts, or aimed at establishing a tyranny. The Ecdesia, or public assembly of Athens, was hitherto nothing more than a survival of the Homeric Agora, a body convened to hear the promulgation of such decrees as the archons ^he and the oligarchy chose to publish. Solon made it Ecciesia. powerful. The most important function that it received, " the measure by which it is agi-eed that the democracy got its main power," — in the words of Aristotle — was the right of trying all magistrates, and of investigating their actions at the end of their year of office. Thus it was secured that the archons should owe their power to the people, and be kept in view of their responsibility to their constituents all through their tenure of office. The assembly was also, as we must conclude, entrusted with the supreme decision in such matters as treaties or declarations of war, and gave a final vote in favour of or against such measures as the Boule put before it. This was as far as Solon wished to go in democratizing the con- stitution ; he had no intention of handing over either administrative or legislative business to the Ecclesia. To sum up the constitution of Solon, we may say that the state was to be administered by such of the Eupatridae as the people thought worthy ; that its moral supervision was entrusted to the 112 So/i'ii and Peisisiratus. ife:oB.C.- Arcopngus; tliat the Boiilc guided its foreign and domcHtic policy, while the Ecchsia exercised an effective but indirect control over the whole of the machinery of government. The legislator him- self claimed that "he gave the people so much power as was sufficient, neither defrauding them nor awa-.ding them more thaj was their share; while as for those who had wealth and position, he was careful that they should suffer no wrong. Both classes were protected, and neither was allowed to molest the other," Besides the constitutional enactments, a large number of l.nvs of all kinds were to be found in the legislation of Solon. They MisceUaneous '"^riged ovcr all provinces of life, and to a great laws of Solon, extent did away with the previous code of Draco. A fjw of them are worth mention. He first gave the right of disposing cf property by will to citizens destitute of children : previously their kinsmen inherited everything, and the owner could not divert his property from them. He relaxed the harshness of the control which old usage had given to the father over his sons ; he forbade arbitrary disinheritance; and even enacted that a father who had not taught his son some useful trade had no claim to be mainlained bj'- that son when he arrived at old age. A number of sumptuary law^s directed the attention of the Areopagus against luxury. Trade was favoured by the permission given to foreigners to take up the citizenship, after solemnly disavowing allegiance to their old country, and swearing fealty to Athens. But perhaps the most noteworthy clause in the whole logislalion was that which imposed disfranchisement on the citizen who, in a time of civil strife, did n''t take one side or the other. Scion feared that the existence of a body of timid and cautious neutrals would be fiital to public si)irit, and favour the growth of that apathy which makes tyrannies possible. The laws of Solon were inscribed on wooden pyramids, called Kurheis^ some of them threc-s'ded, some four-sided, and all about the height of a man. They stood on the Acropolis till the Persian wars, when they were removed for safety to Salamis. Afterwards they were placed in the Prytaneum, and fragments of them were still on view in the time of Plutarch (a.d. 120). Many legends grew up around the later life of Solon. We are told that he exiled himself for ten j'ears, in order to avoid tl.e 570 B.C.] Travels of Solo fi. T13 importuuities of those who urged him to supplement his legislation with further clauses. His travels took hira far afield soion's — to Cyprus, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Everywhere travels, that he went tales grew up to illustrate his profound wisdom and practical ability. In Cyprus he fixed the site of the flouiishing city of Soli. In Lydia it was fabled that he visited King Croesus, and viewed unmoved all the splendours of an Oriental court. Then, when his host asked him who was the happiest man in the world, expecting to hear himself named, Solon first mentioned a worthy but obscure citizen of Athens, who had fallen gloriously in battle, and then two young Argives who had met their death in the per- formance of an act of filial piety. Croesus was offended at the moment, but learnt by bitter experience "to call no man happy till he was dead." Unfortunately, the legend of the interview is rendered quite impossible by the dates: it is merely one of the moral apologues with which the Greeks loved to illustrate the instability of mortal happiness. Then Solon returned to his native city, he had the disappoint- ment of discovering that his constitution, in spite of its fairness and its ingenious system of checks on the various Renewal of members of the administration, had not sufficed to "'^^^ strife, reduce the state to order. The local factions of the Plain the Shore and the Upland were still engaged in political strife. As early as 582 B.C. an archon named Damasias illegal!}^ prolonge(^ his office over a second year, and had to be deposed by armed force. The populace, having once got a taste of power in the new privilege of impeaching magistrates, was eager to extend its rights. The Eupatridae were still yearning after the old days of oligarch}'. The commercial classes found that the exclusion of all property except land from the assessment which settled the status of citizens, hindered them from taking the part in public affairs which they regarded as their due. No one was enthusiastic in defence of the Solonian constitution, for it satisfied no one. While the Eupatridae of the Plain were headed by Lycurgus and Miltiades, a kinsman of the Corinthian tyrants, the merchants of tlie Shore found a leader in Megacles the Alcmaeom'd, grandson of that Megacles who had murdered the adherents of Cylon. The poor men of the Upland had placed themselves under a young I 114 Solon and Peisistratus. reeoB.c- and energetic leader, one of those men of oligarchic birth who in every Greek city were found ready to desert their class and take up the career of a demagogue. It must have added to Solon's grief to find that this adventurer was his own kinsman, Peisistratus the son of Hijipocrates. The last years of the legislator were spent in unavailing warnings to the democracy of Atliens that Ihey were " treading in the footsteps of the fox," and preparing the way for a tyranny by attaching themselves to the train of tlie ambitious young man. Solon's denunciations of demagogic arts were quite useless. When Peisistratus persuaded the people that his life had been attempted by assassins hired by the men of the Plain, Peisistratus. the assembly voted him a body-guard of fifty club- men, in spite of the opposition of the Boule. The club-men were ere long armed with deadlier weapons, their num- bers increased, and one morning Athens woke to find them in occupation of the Acropolis. It was just seventy-two yeai's since the similar attempt of Cylon ; but the times had changed : unlike Cylon, Peisistratus had a strong following among the people, while his adversaries were divided into two hostile camps. Megacles left Athens : Miltiades accepted the offer of a barbarian tiibe in Thrace, who wanted an experienced leader in war, and departed to take over the sovereignty of the Thracian Chersonese. Peisistratus became tyrant of Athens without opposition, and when Solon, in 558 B.C. died, full of years and honours, he died as the subject of a despotic monarch. The last months of his life were not em- bittered by oppression, for his kinsman treated him with every mark of respect ; but the old man shut himself up in his house, and refused to be comforted. The work of his life seemed to have been entirely wasted. Peisistratus showed himself an able and moderate ruler : he did everything in his power to promote the material welfare of the Vi i situd 3 P^*^'^'^'' classes, who had rendered his rise possible, and in the life of did not slay or banish the rich. This mildness encouraged the men of the Shore and Plain to combine to dethrone him; the exiled Megacles and the Eupatrid Lycurgus headed a rising, and the tyrant was driven out. But the Athenian factions were not yet taught wisdom \ the merchants and the 527 B.C.] The TyraJiny of Peisistratus. 115 nobles could not learn to work together, and Megacles, enraged with Lycurgn.s, entered into treasonahle negotiations with the ex-tyrant. To spite the Plain, the Shore consented to join the Upland, This ensured the return of Peisistratus. The manner of it requires a word of notice, as one of the most characteristic and extraordinary events of the age. Megacles found a tall and stately woman named Phya, arrayed her in armour, and conducted her to the city in a chariot, giving out that Athena, the tutelary goddess of the city, had appeared in person to command the restoration of Peisistratus ! The people obeyed, the gates were thrown open, and the tyrant was once more master of Athens. If this tale is true, the Athenians, as Herodotus remarks, instead of being the wisest of the Greeks, deserved a prize for credulous simplicity. For six j^ears Megacles and Peisistratus held together, and the alliance was cemented by the tyrant's marriage to the Alcmaeonid's daughter. But at last they quarrelled, and Megacles once more led over his followers to join the men of the Plain. After a short struggle, Peisistratus was for the second time expelled from Attica. He retired to Thrace, gathered men and money there, and waited for the factions of Athens to give him a third opportunity for action. For no less than ten years he watched for the times to become ripe, keeping up communications with his party in the Upland of Attica, and looking out for men likely to aid him in an expedition. At last (535 b.c.) he landed in Attica at the head of his own following, strengthened by a band of Argive mercenaries and by a body of Xaxian exiles under Lygdamis, once tyrant of that island. The Athenian army marched on Marathon, where Peisistratus had landed. They faced the invaders at Pallene, and a battle appeared imminent, but the tyrant at first avoided an action. When, however, the Athenians had broken their ranks, and retired to take their midday meal, Peisistratus unexpectedly fell upon them, and routed them without trouble and almost without slaughter. His sons rode after the fugitives, and shouted to them that all who dispersed homewards should be granted an amnesty; after this the leaders of the citizens found themselves so deserted by their followers that no further resistance could be offered. The tyrant re-entered the city without having to strike a second blow. During his third reign Peisistratus showed himself a more strict ii6 Solon and Pdsistraius. iestb.c. and cautious, but hardly a more 02")presive, ruler than in his previous The rule of tenures of power. He kept up the forms ot tlie Peisistratus. Solonian Constitution, though he always took care to have some one of his own family at the head of the board of archons. An income-tax of 5 per cent, was the only extra- ordinary burden which he imposed upon the people, and the proceeds of this were used to strengthen and adorn the city, and not to pile up a private treasure or support private luxury. The support which he gave to the state religion was jjarticularly marked; he increased the splendour of the Panathenaea, the festival of the tutelary goddess of the city ; he instituted a new feast in honour of Dionysus ; and he commenced a temple to the Olympian Zeus on such a grand scale that it was never completed till the reign of the Eoman Emperor Hadrian, six hundred and seventy years after. He gathered literary men from all parts about his court, though the legend that he employed them to collate and edit the text of Homer is probably Avithout foundation. His foreign policy was one of peace ; he strengthened himself by alliances with the houses of tyrants which still survived in Greece and Asia Minor, but at the same time courted the favour of Sparta, the implacable enemy of tyranny in Peloponnesus. Peisistratus died in peace thirty-three years after his first, and eight years after his last, seizure of Athens. He was succeeded by his sons Hippias and Hipparchus, who ruled in Hipparchus great harmony, unlike most brother-kings. They ^' ■ persevered for some years in the benevolent despotism of their father, and only left his steps in foreign policy, where they followed a bolder line. The town of Plataea, having left the piataea. Boeotian league on account of a feud with Thebes, 519 B.C. craved the protection of Athens, and obtained it, though this alliance involved the Peisistratidao in a war with their northern neighbours. They carried it to a victorious end, and seemed likely to reign long and successfully. But ere long a catastrophe occurred to change the course of Athenian history. Hipparchus was thoroughly immoral in his private life ; he was foiled in a disreputable love-flffair which concerned the honour of a noble family, and revenged himself by a public insult. Harmodius the Gephyrean, the victim of the tyrant's anger, was driven to a 514 B.C. :i Haiiiwdms and Aristogcifon. 117 reckless revenge, and organized a conspiracy against the lives of the brother-despots. He and his fi-iend Aristogeiton joined Harojodius with a few others to fall on the Peisistratidae at Arisu>3eiion, the festival of the Panathenaea. Owing to a mis- si^^.c. conception they made their onslaught too soon, and struck down Hipparchus before Hippias had arrived on the scene. The guards slew Ilarmodius on the spot ; the rest were caught and executed. Aristogeiton sufiered fearfully before his death, as Hippias tried in vain to wring from him by torture the names of all involved in the conspiracy. This reckless act of private vengeance was the in- direct cause of the overthrow of tyranny at Athens, and for that reason the names of Harmodius and Aristogeiton were held in rather undeserved veneration at Athens down to the latest days of the republic. Maddened by his brother's death, and his own narrow escape from assassination, Hippias changed his whole sj'stem of govern- ment. He crowded the city with mercenaries, began to make away with every one that he suspected of discontent, raised arbitrary taxes, and commenced a series of petty vexations which drove the Athenians to desperation. This led to an open rising ; cieisthenea Cleisthenes the Alcmaeonid, son of Megacles the old at Delphi, leader of the faction of the Shore, returned from exile, and headed an abortive rebellion. It was crushed by the tyrant's mercenaries, but Cleisthenes then set diplomacy to work. He was in high favour at Delphi, where he had won the gratitude of the priesthood by the munificent liberality with which he had restored the great temple after a disastrous fire. Instigated by him, the Delphic priestess would give no answer when the state of Sparta sent to inquire of Apollo, except that " Athens ought to be liberated." A series of such replies screwed the superstitious Spartans up to the necessary pitch of reverent obedience. Disregarding their old friendship with Peisistratus, they invaded Attica. They were beaten in the first engagement by a desperate charge of the tyrant's Thessalian cavalry. Then their vigorous and able king Cleomenes was sent to take the command ; he defeated Hippias, and shut him up in the city. The Acropolis would have stood a long siege, but fortune interfered to crush the tyrant. His children were captured by the Spartans as they were being secretly conveyed out of Attica, and to 1 1 8 Solon and Feisis/ratus. rsio b.c. preserve their lives Hippias consented to surrender the citadel if he ^ „ , and his were allowed a safe conduct to Asia. The Fall of Hippias, Spartans consented, and in the seventeenth year of his 511 B.C. reig,;! the tyrant evacuated Athens, and sailed away with his family and his mercenaries, to seek refuge at Sigeum in the Troad, a small town which Peisistratus, foreseeing some such catas- trophe, had got into his hands many years before. Here he settled down, paid homage to the Persian king as overlord, and awaited the return of better days, much as his father had done at Eretria forty years before. Meanwhile at Athens the republic was restored, and a new era began. CHAPTER XIII. TUE GREEKS OF ASIA, AND THE LYDIAX MONARCHY. Down to the commencement, of the seventh century the Greeks of Asia had pursued their career of expansion without meeting with affy dangers from the inland. In the north the Aeolians had driven the Teucrians and Mysians away from the coast. In the south the lonians and Carians had arrived at a modus vivendi, and were often to ho found joining together in expeditions such as that which, in 656 B.C., placed Psammetichus on the throne of Egypt. In the centre, filling the upper valleys of the Hermus and Cayster, lay the kingdom of Lydia, the westernmost extension of the old empire of the Hittites, governed by a race of princes whose origin the Greeks ascribed to some Asiatic god whom they identified with Heracles. For many generations these kings seem to have had no hostile relations with their Greek neighbours on the coast, and were content to serve as middlemen in the great line of commerce, which ran through their capital of Sardis, and connected Ephesus and Miletus with the Euphrates and Assyria. The Asiatic Greeks went through much the same constitutional developments as their European brethren, with the exception that their olisrarchies were usually founded on wealth _, ...... o •' _ _ Cnaracter:stic3 rather than birth, as was inevitable in cities where of the Asiatic the population had from the first been much mixed. Tyrants appeared, in Asia no less than Europe, to sweep away the monopoly of the oligarchs, and when history becomes con- tinuous in the seventh century, we find the states of Ionia and Aeolis governed some by still-surviving oligarchies, some by tyrants, some by democracies which had risen when tyrants had been swept away. The universal opinion of Greece pro- 120 The Greeks of Asia, and the Lydian Alonarchy. 1700 bc.- nounced the lonians and their nci;4iboui-s to be the best merchants but the worst soldiers of the Plellenic world. Their feats of exploration and their activity in colonizing were unrivalled, but they did not pass as good fighting men. Their European brethren accused them of indolence and luxury, and asserted that the soft- ness and languor of the climate of Asia, and the admixture of Oriental blood which had resulted from the Carian marriages of the early settlers, had combined to v/eaken and demoralize them. Civilization and luxury developed among them long before they reached Greece. The arts of music and lyric poetry were especially their own ; the Lesbian poetess Sappho sang of love in passionate tones which no other Hellenic poet could ever equal; her country- man Alcaeus was equally celebrated for his praises of wine and beauty, and for his political poems. Anacreon of Teos was a mere jovial voluptuary, a bad specimen of the worst Ionian type, but made himself a great name by his songs. It was in Asia Minor also that philosophy — the product of a self-conscious civilization which too often marks the decay of civic virtue — made its earliest appearance among the Greeks. It took at first the com- paratively harmless form of inquiry into the phenomena of nature, and speculations as to the physical basis of life and creation ; which some philosophers sought in the primary principle of air, others in that of fire, others again in that of water. Thales of Miletus (circ. G40-550 b.c.) was the best known of the early philosophers ; in spite of his speculative bent, he was a man of great practical ability, and worked out a plan for the federation of the Greek cities of Asia, which would have saved them many a disaster if it had been carried out. There would appear to have been less political intercourse between the Greeks of Asia and those of Europe than might have been expected, when we remember the The lieiantine narrowness of the Aegean. The chief occasion on war, 700 B.C. ^yj^jgj^ ^j^gy ^^^ found in contact was the Lelantine war (circ. 700 B.C.). This was nominally a struggle to settle whether Chalcis or Eretria should own the plain of Lelas, which lay between their walls. But in real fact it was a commercial war between two bands of allied states who were bound together by their trade interests. Eretria was aided by Miletus, Chalcis by Samos, and the war raged over the Asiatic as well as the European 660 B.C.] Gys^^ of Lydiii. 1 2 1 shore of the Aegean.^ In the West Chalcis would seem to have had the better of her neighbour, but in Asia Samos was never able to shake the commercial predominance of ^Miletus. About the j'car 685 B.C., the psriod during which the Asiatic Greeks had been able to carry out their great schemes of coloniza- tion, and to fight out their civil broils undisturbed by interference from without, suddenly came to an end. The new factor intro- duced into their history was the aggressive policy of the kings of Lydia. Gyges, a noble of the house of the Mermnadae, afier slaying his master Candaules, the last of the old royal line, had usurped the throne of Lydia. He at once abandoned the peaceful policy of his predecessors, and set to work to attack LycUa, the Greek cities of the coast. The Lydians were a bold warlike race, the best horsemen of Asia, and the lonians could offer them no resistance in the field. The war became one of sieges ; Gyges took Colophon, though he failed before Smyrna and Miletus. In the midst of his career he was summoned home by a crisis which frcjed the lonians from fear for another generation. A wild race from the north, the Cimmerians, had been pushed into Asia Minor by pressure from yet more unknown tribes in their rear. They swept over the land, burning and devastating all before them. The Greek city of Sinope and the native monarchy of Phrygia were completely destroyed by them. Gyges, in spite of his energy, only succeeded in saving his kingdom by becoming the vassal of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria. This protection was withdrawn when he revolted a few years later, and the Cimmerians almost made an end of Lydia. Gyges was slain in battle, the valley of the Herraus harried, and Sardis, save its citadel, taken by the barbarians in 660 b c. Ardys, the successor of Gyges, was many years on the tlirone before he could get free from the Cimmerians. When this danger was over, he renewed his father's policy of attacking the Greeks, and captured Priene. Bnt again the inroads of the barbarians came to the rescue of the lonians; about 627 B.C. another Cim- merian invasion, whose westernmost foray resulted in the sack of • It seems probable that the two alliances wero (1) Chalcis, Samos, Thessaly, Corinth ; (2) Eretria. Miletus, Aegina. Details arc wanting. 122 The Greeks of Asia ^ and the Lydian Monafchy. [632 B.C.- the wealthy Aeolian town of Magnesia, called Ardys off to defend the limits of his own kingdom. The successors of Ardys, his son Sadyattes (622-610 B.C.), and his grandson Alyattes (610-568 B.C.), continued the traditional Warsofiiydia policy of their race by attacking the Greek cities, and Miletus, more especially Miletus, the great stronghold and bulwark of Ionia. The Milesians were easily beaten in the field, but their walls opposed an impassable barrier to the Lydian cavalry. Alyattes resolved, we are told, to starve the town into subraissioD. Every midsummer, when corn and fruit began to ripen, he marched into the Milesian territory, and beat down the corn and felled the trees to the sound of military music. After several years of assiduous raiding, he had occasion to send an embassy mto Miletus. The envoys found the Milesians feasting and traffickmg as if the ruin of their country-side was a perfectly indifferent occurrence. A seaport town can never be starved out by an enemy who is destitute of a fleet, and this fact Alyattes now realized. He made peace with Miletus, and turned to less hopeless enterprises. The Greek town of Smyrna fell into his hands, but his great conquests lay inland, where he subdued Phrygia, Bithynia, and all the lands up to the river Halys. Here he met the equally aggressive armies of the Medes, and, after a drawn battle with King Cyaxares, made a peace which laid down the Halys as the boundary between the two empires. Alyattes died in 568 B.C., and was buried in a great barrow which he had caused his subjects to pile up on the Plain of Sardis during the last years of his life. Croesus, the son and successor of Alyattes, was by far the most powerful of the race of the Mermnadae. His enteriDrises against Croesus, t^i*^ coast-land were crowned with a degree of success 568-546 B.C. which had never been granted to his ancestors. Ephesus, the second town of Ionia, fell into his hands in the very commencement of his reign, and as the various states were too jealous to unite in a league against him, one after the other was compelled to do him homage. Miletus, which had so successfully resisted his father, had now sunk into a state of decay consequent on wild civil strife. It had just got rid of a tyrant, Thrasybulus, the friend and adviser of Periander (see p. 97). To celebrate their freedom, the Milesians fell to blows with each other, and the 046 B.C.] Croesus. 123 proletariate vied with the oligarchs in deeds whose Oriental atrocity shocked the whole Greek world. The inob beat the children of the rich to death with flails on threshing-floors ; their opponents replied by burning their prisoners alive in pitch-coats. No help was found in Miletus to sustain the other states, and one after another the Ionic and Aeolic cities of the mainland submitted to Croeeus, and began to pay him tribute. The king even dreamed for a moment of building ships, and of attacking Chios, Lesbos, and the other islands off the coast. This idea he had to abandon in face of the strong fleets of the island states, and the entire ignorance of naval matters which his own warriors displayed. But on the mainland he was undisputedly supreme from the Hellespont to the Halys. The tributes of the states; that owned him as overlord, and the commercial profits which flowed into Sardis, now that the great trade-route between Asia and the West was entirely in Lj^dian hands, made Croesus wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of Greek avarice. A whole cycle of legends illustrate his boundless resources and overweening self-con- fidence, among them the well-known tale of his interview with Solon, which we have had to relate elsewhere. Croesus was no stolid Oriental, but a great admirer and patron of Greek civilization. He was particularly well known for his devo- tion to the Greek god Apollo, whose temples at Branchidae near Miletus, and at Delphi in distant Phocis, he crowded with gifts of astonishing magnificence. He gladly received Greeks at his court, and went out of his way to do favours to the more important states across the Aegean ; Sparta, in particular, he bound to his alliance by a munificent gift of gold. But while Croesus ajopeared to be at the height of wealth and power, a cloud was arising in the East which portended ruin alike to him and to his Hellenic subjects. CHAPTER XIV. RISE OF THE ACIIAEMEXIAN EMPIRE — CYKIJS AND DARIUS — COM- MENCEMENT OF THE PERSIAN WARS, 549-520 B.C. The century wliicli lay between the years G20 and 520 b.c. was fraught with changes of a more rapid and sweeping kind than had ever before been known in the East — changes, too, which were to have a direct influence on the history of Greece, such as no previous events in Asia had ever exercised. That century saw the ruin of five great empires — those of Assyria, Media, Babylon, Lydia, and Ejypt — and the rise of a sixth, which absorbed not only all lands that had obeyed the kings whom it supplanted, but vast additional tracts to east and west, regions which owe their first appearance in history to this conquest. Finally the new monarchy came into collision with the Greeks. Backed by the forces of all nations which dwelt between the Indus and the Aegean, the " Great King " of the East marched on to deal with the Hellenes of Europe as his predecessors had dealt with the Ht-llenes of Asia. But in the Strait of Salamis and on the plains of Plataea his projects came to wreck. Greece was saved, and with Greece the future of European civiliza- tion. The West repelled the invading East so thoroughly that for eleven hundred years no Oriental conqueror again approached the Hellespont to threaten the Balkan Peninsula with annexation to an Asiatic realm.' The one considerable Oriental power with which the Greeks down to the sixth century had any prolonged contact was, as we have already seen, the kingdom of L3 dia. Behind that state lay ' Battle of Salamis, 480 B.C. ; siege of Constantinople by Chosroes of Persia, (i'20 a.d. circ. 610 B.C.] Fall of N'uievch. 125 tbe great empire of Assyria, which for three hundred years had formed by far the strongest power in Asia. With the Assyrian kings the Greeks had not many direct rehitions ; the chief occasion on which they had touched Hellenic history was when, in 708 B.C., the conqueror Sargon had received the homage of the Greek princes of Cyprus. But though it was only the outlying cities of that island which experienced the weight of the hand of the kings of Nineveh, yet the power and wealth of Assyria were well known to the Greek. Wild tales of the all-conquering *' Ninus " * and the luxurious and overweening " Sardanapalus " have been preserved to attest the impression which the kings of Asshur left on the mmds of their Hellenic contemporaries. At last, in ^ the fourth quarter of the seventh century, the doom Nmeveh, of Nineveh came. A long series of successful or ' partially successful revolts began to strip Assyiia of her outlying provinces, and to wear down the strength of her armies. Revolted vassals joined with wild tribes from the north to attack the failing monarchy, and Nineveh collapsed under the weiglit of their onset. The details are lost ; we only know of the Greek legends which tell how the last king of Assyria, when his enemies had burst within the wall, collected his treasures and his gods, his wives and his sons, on a vast pyre in the court of his palace, and gave himself and them to the flames, to balk the victors of their spoil. Of an Oriental despot, mad with rage and despair, such a tale need not be false ; but, be it false or true, we know that in some not less dreadful scene of blood and fire the Assyrian monarchy passed away. Two princes had led the attack on Nineveh, and profited by its fall. Nabopolassar, the rebel viceroy of Babylon, annexed the southern and western dominions of Assyria. Cyaxares, King of the Medes, seized the northern and eastern provinces. Of Nabopolassar and his more famous son, Nebuchadnezzar, we need not speak at length. Their victories and conquests in Syria, Elam, and Egypt have no bearing on our history. AVith the Medes it is otherwise. They were a new race ana a * "Ninus " is an eponj'mous hero manufactured for the Ninevites on the ordinan' Greek system. " Sardanapalus " is a corruption of the real name Assur-baiii-jal. [2 6 Cyrus a>id Darius. [610 B.C- new kingdom, but they are important to uS as being the real The Medes founders of tliat empire — " Persian " as we call it, and Persians, though the earlier Greeks knew it better as " Median " — which came into such violent contact with the Hellenes. The Medes were a portion of that great body of Aryan tribes which migrated from the north-east, out of the land which was then known as Bactria, towards the borders of the Assyrian kingdom. Various allied clans of this race scattered themselves over the whole of the great table-land of Iran, from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean. In some districts they drove out the previous inhabitants — Turanian tribes of low civilization — in others they dwelt among them ; in others, again, they mixed with them. The most southern section of these invaders were the tribes of the Persians, over whom reigned a house descended from a certain unknown king Achaemenes. The more northern clans were the Medes, who had dwelt apart in weakness and disunion till Cyaxares, in the third quarter of the seventh century, united them into a compact monarchy. The Medes were much more mixed with the previous inhabitants of the land than were the Persians, and had adopted in a large measure the customs and religion of their jiredecessors. The Persians, a more vigorous but ruder and less numerous race, kept themselves free from such intermixture in their mountainous homes on the coast of the Erythraean Sea. They were a poor and hardy race, rough leather-clad shepherds and ploughmen, who dwelt in a land which seemed scanty and rugged to the richer inhabitants of the plains. The ten tribes which composed the nation dwelt apart, only connected by a loose subjection to the house of the Achaemenidae, and by the national religion which they had brought with them from Bactria. "While the common ancestors of Medes and Persians were still dwelling by the Oxus, they had adopted a religion called Zoro- Their astrianism, from the name of Zoroaster the great sage religion. ^^^-^^ preacher who is said to have converted his country- men to it. This faith is a " dualistic " system, which refers all the changes of the world, moral and physical, to the constant and unend- ing struggle of two opposing deities. Ormuzd, " the spirit of wisdom and light, the very great and very good, the lord of perfection and activity, of intelligence, growth, and beauty," was the creator of the 049 B.C.] The Median Empire. 127 universe, and endeavours to rule it with wisdom and benevolence. But his efforts are being continually hampered by the evil god Ahri- man, " the spirit of darkness and malice, of crime, sin, and ugliness." The whole life of a pious Persian was a crusade against Ahriman and all his works, and an endeavour to work out the purpose of Ormuzd, to whom sacrifice was made, not in temples or shrines, but on lofty heights, where a sacred fire was kept ever burning in honour of the god of light. The Medes had perverted Zoroastrianism, by endeavouring to conciliate Ahriman and his angels rather than to help Ormuzd ; and their religion had thus become a kind of "devil-worship," in which their priests, the Magians, pretended to ward off the spirits of evil by sacrifices and incan- tations. The empire which Cyaxares the Mede had founded after the fall of Nineveh, stretched from the confines of Bactria to the Lydian frontier on the Halys, where it had been fixed since the indecisive struggle with King Alyattes. Both Cyaxares and his contemporary Nebuchadnezzar, the great King of Babylon, had long been dead when a new conqueror arose to shatter both their empires. Between Babylonia and Persia lay the land of Elam, which had long been a vassal state to its Western neighbour. But after the death of Nebuchadnezzar it had apparently fallen into subjection to the Medes, under Ast3^ages, the successor of Cyaxares. Elam was now ruled by a prince of the house of the Achaemenidae, not sprung from the same line as reigned in Persia, but from a family which claimed cousinship with the older branch, and must have migrated into Elam from Persia a few generations back. Cyrus, " son of Cambyses, son of Cyrus, son of Te'ispes, son of Achacmenes, of the ancient seed-royal," now dwelt at Susa, and reigned as a vassal of Astyages the Mede. So many legends have grown up around the name of Cyrus that it is disappointing to remember how little is really known of him. The Greeks believed that he was the grandchild of Astyages the Mede, by a daughter who had been married to a Persian of middle rank, in order to avert a prophecy that threatened harm to the Median king from an over-powerful grandson. But we know that Cambyses, the father of Cyrus, was a reigning king, and have no proof that any relationship existed between Cyrus and Astyages. 128 Cy/us and Darius. ICOO B.C. 649 B.C.] The Rise of Cyrus 129 In 549 B.C. Media and Babj-lon were at war, when the King of Elam suddenly attacked his suzerain from the rear. Astyages was defeated in battle, after which his array revolted, put Kiseofcyrus their master in bonds, and delivered him up to Cyrus. S49B.o. Apparently the fact that the conqueior was an Aryan of the royal blood, and of a race nearly allied to themselves, inclined the Medcs to submission. They became the followers rather than the subjects of Cyrus, and the transference of the seat of empire from Median Ecbatana to Elamite Susa was well-nigh the only mark of the change which had taken place. The Greeks saw so little difference that they continued to call the great Asiastic power Median, as though Astyages had still been ou the throne. After his first victory Cyrus received homage from the vassal kings who had served the Mede, including his own relatives in Persia. Then he turned against nations whom the Mede had left unconquered. For twenty years he was continually passing from west to east and from east to west in his career of conquest, and seldom did he fail to add to his empire the district against which he marched. The dangerous power which Cyrus had built up brought about an alliance between the three states who were most likely to suffer from his growing strength, Croesus of Lydia ioined '^ ° . " J J War of Cyrus to himself Nabonadius of Babylon and Amasis of andcroesus, Egypt, who in a common fear suspended the incessant ' * wars which had raged between their empires since the fall of Nineveh, Besides his two royal confederates, Croesus is said to have hoped to enlist the Spartans in his cause, as he was their good friend and ally. But Avhether it be true or not that he reckoned on Greek troops to aid his army, it is certain that he went to war buoj'ed up by promises of victory from Greek oracles. His lavish gifts of massive gold ingots and vessels remained long after at Delphi, to show the honour in which he held the gods of the West, and the importance which he attached to their advice. Apollo, we are told, answered, when consulted by the Lydian ambassadors, that " Croesus, if he crossed the Halys, would destroy a great empire." Forgetting that the cautiously worded oracle would apply to his own realm as much as to that of Cyrus, the Lydiau king declared war, and invaded Cappadocia at the head of tho K 130 Cyrus and Darius. [546 b.c. forces of the Lydians and all the tribes suhjoct to him l>ct\veen tho Halys and the Aegean (546 B.C.). Tiie dominions of Cyrus stretched westward so as to cut off Babylon from Lydia, and he was thus able to prevent his two chief enemies from joining. The Egyptians were too far oft" to be promptly on the scene, and Croesus alone had to face the brunt of the contest. Neglecting Nabonadius for the moment, Cyrus threw himself on the Lydians. In the Cappadocian district of Pteria the two armies fought a bloody but indecisive combat, which re- called the similar engagement when Cyaxares and Alyattes had met on the same spot some sixty years earlier. The troops of Cyrus retired a few miles after the battle, and Croesus, who had sufiered too heavily to pursue them, concluded that the campaign was over. Accordingly he dismissed his allies and marched home, determined to raise a larger army before committing himself again to the chances of war. But Cyrus, though checked, was not beaten. When he heard of the break-up of the Lydian armament, he turned on his way and followed hard on the steps of Croesus. So rapidly did he pursue, that his enemy was compelled to turn to fight in front of his capital, the strong fortress of Sardis, long ere the dispersed contingents could rejoin him. Croesus, crushed by numbers, was routed and compelled to shut himself up in Sardis, which fell quite unexpectedly before a sudden assault, only fourteen Fau of Croesus, ^''^js ^^^^''^ the siege had commenced. Greek legend 546 B.C. ]jad much to say of the fate of Croesus ; it told how the victor condemned him to death by fire, and how, as the flames began to mount, Cyrus reflected on the vicissitudes of human fortune, and repented of his cruel orders. When no human intervention could have stayed the fire, Apollo, it was said, in- terfered to save the man who had so richly endowed his temple at Delphi, and a miraculous shower of rain extinguished the blazing pyre, and enabled Cyrus to show a tardy clemency towards his prisoner. The spectacle of a powerful and wealthy state dashed down in the midst of its glory profoundly affected the mind of the Greeks. No such catastrophe had previously taken place so closely before their eyes, or ended with such dramatic suddenness. Their theory of Nemesis, the inevitable retribution which follows on pride and 544 B.C.] The Persians conquer Ionia. 131 over-prosperity, found in Croesus a striking illustration. A hundred tales were framed to show how his self-confidence, his wealth and courage liberality and ambition, contrasted with his sudden and complete fall. Thus the outlines of his real character and the details of his real fate, come down to us blurred and exaggerated, though still recognizable, through the haze of legend which surrounded him. The vanishing of the Lydian empire brought the Greeks of Ionia and Aeolis into direct relations with Cyrus. The Milesians at once did homage to him, accepting the same semi- conquest of independent position which they had already enjoyed p'ersians.^ under Croesus. 1'he other states of the coast made 546-544 b.c. ,a stand, and endeavoured to win back their freedom. Although the Lacedaemonians refused them help, they found allies in the warlike Carians and Lycians, and in Pactyas, a Lydian chief who endeavoured to rouse his newly conquered countrymen to revolt. Cyrus, who was set on greater projects than the subjection of a few rebellious towns, turned off to subdue his Eastern enemies, and left behind him ah army, under a Median noble named Mazares, to complete the conquest of Asia Minor. This chief put down the Lydiau revolt, and then moving against the lonians captured and sacked Priene, and wasted the whole plain of the Maeander. At this juncture he died, and was succeeded by Harpagus, another Mede, who had played a great part in the deposition of Astyages, and was much trusted by Cyrus. Ilarjiagus besieged Phocaea and Teos, whose inhabitants, when their position began to grow desperate, escaped by sea, and betook themselves to distant sliores beyond the reach of the Great King's arm. The Teians migrated to Abdera in Thrace, which ere long became the largest town on the north shore of the Aegean. The Phocaeans, sailing into the far West, landed at Alalia, a harbour in Corsica, and endeavoured to deal with that island as their Ionic kinsmen, two hundred years before, had dealt with Sicily. But Alalia was not to be to Corsica what Naxos had been to the larger island. After a hopeless struggle of five years with the united navies of Carthage and Etruria, the Phocaeans were constrained to abandon their new settlement. Some of them sailed north to join the old Phocaean colony of Massilia in Gaul, which grew largely in importance from this 132 Cyrus and Darius. [544 b.o. sudden increase of i^opulation. The rest founded the new town of Hyele (Velin) on the Lucanian coast, south of Poseidonia. The remaining Greek cities of Asia showed no such desperate determination to avoid the Persian yoke. After a certain amount of ill-combined resistance, they opened their gates to Harpagus. The islanders were no less impressed with the futility of further resistance than the inhabitants of the mainland, and Lesbos and Chios, as well as Ephesus and Smyrna, acknowledged Cyrus as their suzerain. Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, alone maintained his independence ; he owned the largest navy on the eastern shore of the Aegean, and as the Persian king had not yet become master of a fleet, hoped to retain his island and his " thalassocracy " undisturbed. His independence was no great benefit to Hellas, for his piratical galleys kept the whole eastern Aegean in awe, and had succeeded to the old maritime predominance of Miletus. Polycrates lived and flourished by plunder. He was wont to say that " he made a rule to rob every one alike, because he found that his friends were more grateful on getting their stolen wealth back, than they ever would have been if it had remained undisturbed in their possession." Harpagus did not impose onerous terms on the Greeks of Asia. They were bound to pay an annual tribute, and to supply armed contingents when the king called for them, but the internal governments of their cities were left unmolested. The state where a tyrant ruled remained under that tyrant's power ; democracies were still democratic, and oligarchies no less oligarchic than in the days of full autonomy. Aided by Ionian and Aeolian troops, Harpagus subdued the Greeks of Doris, and their barbarian neighbours the peoples of Caria and Lycia. Meanwhile Cyrus himself was Babylon, pushing his fortunes in Upper Asia, and in a series 538 B.C. ^^ campaigns brought his frontier up to India and the borders of the great central plateau of the Pamir. He even penetrated to the far north-east, and subdued many of the wild Sacae, who dwelt in the extreme limits of Tartary. lu 538 B.C. he turned back again to deliver an attack on Babylon. Crossing the Tigris, he defeated King Nabonadius in a pitched battle ; a few days later Sippara, the second town in the kingdom, fell by 529 B.C.] Death of Cyrus. 133 treachery. Then Babylon itself yielded without fighting, and its empire was at an end. The king, who fled with the remnant of his army, was pursued and taken prisoner, and Cyrus reigned wilh undisputed authority in Chaldaea, Mesopotamia, and Syria. It might now have appeared natural for Cyrus to turn Lis arms against Egypt, the last surviving power of those which had allied themselves against him in 546 B.C. But of such an endeavour wo hear nothing. On the contrary, the remaining nine years of Cyrus's life and reign would seem to have been comparatively peaceful. It is certain, however, that he continued to extend his borders eastward, and occupied the upper valley of the Indus, and wide tracts beyond the river Oxus, in the region of Sogdiana and Chorasmia. At last, in 529 B.C., he led an attack on Death of Gyrus, the Massagetae, a nomad tribe who dwelt beyond 529 b.c. Sogdiana, in what is now the south of Siberia. While engaged in battle with this race the old king was slain. His army turned back and brought his body to be buried at Pasargadae, among tlie sepulchres of the royal house of Achaemenes. Cyrus was a favourable example of a great Oriental conqueror. That he was brave, persevering, and full of resource, is evident ; it is even more to his credit that we find connected with his name none of those wholesale acts of cruelty and massacre which mark the career of a Nebuchadnezzar or an Attila. But he would seem to have been more of a general than an administrator. He could form the motley tribes of Asia into a conquering army, but he made no attempt to bind them into an organized empire. Accord- ingly disruptive tendencies lurked in every province, which only awaited the removal of the master's hand to display themselves in full vigour. Cyrus, like his Median kinsmen, had not remained faithful to the ancient faith of his race; he was not a whole- hearted worshipper of Orrauzd, but had learnt from his Elamite subjects to worship other gods, and notably Merodach, the patron of Babylon, in whose honour he was ever zealous. Cyrus was succeeded by his son Cambyses, a cruel and reckless but strong-handed tyrant, Avhose rule contmsted most cambyses cou- uufavourably with that of his father. His reign of quers Egypt, 526 B C. eight years (529-521 b.c.) is mainly memorable for the conquest of Egypt and its dependencies. Phoenicia and Cyprus 134 Cyrus and Darius. [SseB.c. submitted to him when he marched against Amasis, the Egyptian king. He was therefore able to bring up a strong fleet of Phoeni- cian, Cypriot, and Ionian vessels to aid his land armj'. In a decisive battle at Pelusium he overthrew Psammetichus II., who had just succeeded his father Amasis. Many thousands of Greek mercenaries had been serving in the ranks of the Egyptians, and the fact that they had proved utterly unable to resist the troops of Cambyses made a deep and discouraging impression on the mind of the Hellenes of Europe, who feared ere long to suffer the fate of their Asiatic brethren. Egypt needed no second blow, and its subjection was followed by that of the Libyans and their neighbours the Greek colonists of Gyrene and Barca. Cambyses tarried long in Egypt, winning an unenviable reputa- tion. He may have conciliated the Egyptians to a certain extent by the enthusiastic worship which he gave their gods, for his predilection towards polytheism was no less marked than that of his father had been.^ But among his own subjects he grew to be hated more and more. He wasted his soldiery in distant expeditions of the maddest character, while his savage and suspicious treatment of his nobles and courtiers, whose lives he was continually taking on the pretext of imaginary treasons, filled his palace with enemies. C}TUS had left a son named Bardes," a whole-brother to Cambyses, ivho was regarded with hatred by the young king. Before starting on his Egyptian expedition Cambyses had his brother secretly slain. This was not generally known, and an ambitious Magian priest named Gomates, who chanced to resemble the murdered prince, resolved to take advantage of the secret crime. Knowing that Cambyses was generally detested, he gave himself out to be Death of *^^ missing Bardes, and claimed the throne. A general Cambyses, rising in his favour took place in Persia Media and all the neighbouring provinces. Cambyses started off to suppress it, but while passing through Syria was so discouraged at the universality of the revolt that he committed suicide (521 B.C.). The Magian impostor now reigned for a few months under the name of Bardes. But his suspicious behaviour, and the anxiety with which he proceeded to seek out and slay all who had known ' All the stories about Cambyses's crusade against the Egyptian gods seem to be mere inventions. - The Greeks called him Smerdia. 613B.C.; The Early Years of Darius. 135 the prince whom he personated, provoked remark. Then Darius, son of Hystaspes, a prince of the royal house of Persia, with only six followers to back him, sought out the impostor, and slew him in the fort of Sichtachotes, by a sudden attack in the night-time. Darius was not of that branch of the house of Achaemenes which had ruled in Elam, and had produced Cyrus and Cambyses. His progenitors had borne sway in Persia Proper, and Darius, had been distmct for three generations from the 521-485 B.C. Elamite branch of the family. It was not unnatural, therefore, that the subjects of Cambyses refused to see in Darius their late master's heir. The whole empire broke up in hopeless anarchy. Babylon and Media asserted their independence under princes who claimed to represent the lines of ISTabouadius and Cyaxares. Armenia, Parthia, Sarangia, and well-nigh all the x^rovinces ot the East, followed their example. Where a native rebellion did not occur, the governors showed signs of wishing to make them- selves as little dependent as possible on the central power. But Darius was a man of genius — a greater than Cyrus himself ; for in the East it has always been far more easy to build up a new empire than to reconstruct an old one which has gone to pieces. By ceaseless activity and long-continued struggles, he suc- ceeded in crushing the eight pretenders who had dismembered the eastern provinces, and in removing or destroying the dis- obedient satraps Among Darius's victims of the second class was Oroetes, governor of Lydia, who had during the anarchy played a foul trick on Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos. Polycrates was a keen lover of money, and held no act mean and undignified which filled his treasury. Oroetes sent word to him that he was about to fly from the wrath of his master, and besought him to take his money and himself across to safety in Samos. When Polycrates came to meet the supposed wealthy fugitive on the shore of the mainland, he was kidnapped, taken inland, and cruci- fied. Thus ignominiously ended the man whose fleet swayed the Aegean, who had repelled the Lacedaemonians, preserved his independence from Cyrus, and won a reputation for wealth second only to that of Croesus himself (? 520 b.c). His realm once mastered, Darius set tD work to reorganize it (516 B.C.). As recast by him, it can now for the first time be called 136 Cyrus and Darius. [510 b.c. with accuracy the " Persian Empire," for his predecessors had not been kings of Persia, nor had they professed the national faith of that country. Darius was not only hereditary chief of Persia, but also a zealous Zoroastrian, and a fanatical foe to the debased and heretical creed of the Medes and their Magi. He called it " the Lie," and traced all the evils through which the empire had passed to its prevalence. " All that I have done," he wrote, " I have done by the help of Ormuzd; and Ormuzd brought me help because I was not heretical, nor a believer in tbe Lie, nor a tyrant." But although he broke with the religious traditions of Lis prede- cessors and recast their administrative system, Darius was in every true sense their heir. He continued to make Susa, the Elamite home of Cyrus, his capital, and did not remove his seat to his native Persepolis or Pasargadae. The system on which Darius reorganized his empire was that of satrajDies. Instead of allowing his dominions to remain a hetero- The geneous mass of vassal states and fully subjected dis- satrapies. tricts, he distributed the whole into twenty-three provinces, each govei'ned by a satiap, or civil governor, a military commander, and a royal secretary. The satrap had full authority in all things save the disposition of the troops in his territory, the one privilege which could have rendered him a dangerous subject. The general received his orders from the king, but had to look for the pay and maintenance of his troops to the satrap. The secretary was specially charged with the duty of informing the king of the conduct of his two colleagues, and all the orders of the satrap had to pass through his hands. The three rival powers created a balance which left all things ultimatelj^ depending on the king, if only the king had the industry and mental grasp required to keep the system in order. The vassal states of the empire were now placed directly under the satrap, and though they retained their internal institutions, were comj^elled to obey him with as much punctuality as if he had been the king himself. Lender Darius's new system the empire began to flourish in an unexampled manner ; his care was especially rewarded by the rapid increase of his revenue — a fact which so pleased liim that the Persians ob- served that " Cyrus had the soul of a father, Cambyses that of a master, Darius that of a shopkeeper." The Satrapies of Darius. 137 CHAPTER XV. DARIUS AND THE GREKKS — THE lOKIAN REVOLT. When Dcarius had reorganized his empire and estaUished peace and quietness within it, he showed himself no less enamoured of the delights of foreign conquest than his predecessors. North and south of his dominions lay only deserts and steppes, or tracts of sea. But to the east and west were lands worth conquering. Darius's first foreign expeditions were pushed in the direction of India ; he not only subdued the whole " land of the five rivers," which we now call the Punjaub, but built a fleet on the Upper Indus, and sent it down to the mouth of that river, and along the shores of the Erythraean Sea and the coast of Arabia, right round to Suez. His admiral, the Greek Scylax of Caryanda, wrote an account of this adventurous voyage. In about 510 B.C., however, Darius turned his attention to the west, and the Greeks of Hellas heard with terror that an expedition . . was preparing to cross the water into Europe. Samos, scythia, the last independent Greek island off the coast of Asia, circ. 512B.C. ^^^ already fallen into Darius's hands, the tyrant Maeandrius, who had succeeded the murdered Polycrates, being in no condition to withstand the Persian attack. But, on first cross- ing the Bosphorus, Darius set himself a more unprofitable task than the conquest of Hellas. After receiving the homage of the Greek towns of the coast and the numerous Thracian tribes in the valley of the Hebrus, the king did not proceed westward in the direction of Macedon and Thessaly, but set his face towards the wild north. He crossed the Balkans and arrived at the Danube. There he moored his fleet, which had followed him up the coast, in the form of a bridge of boats, and threw his army across it into Circ. 612B.C.] Darius i?i Scythia. 139 the inelaacholy treeless waste of the South Russian steppes. The Scythians were the foe at whom he struck, moved, it is said, by a fanciful desire to pay off on them the insult of invasion which they had inflicted on Asia in the reign of Cyaxares the Mede. The nomad horsemen of the steppes made no attempt to with- stand the great king in tattle. They drove off their herds into the interior, and dogged the steps of the Persian army without attacking it. For more than two months Darius marched through a desolate land, seeking an enemy who was always in sight but never in reach. At last it was evident that nothing could be done against the Scythians ; the provisions were well-nigh spent, the strength of men and animals was giving out, and Darius gave the signal for retreat. The Scythians turned and followed hard on him, picking up all his stragglers, and many sick whom he had to abandon on the way for want of transport. Thus the king returned to the Danube without any great disaster such as has attended other invaders of the Russian plain, but disgusted with an utterly fruitless and abortive expedition. It was well for Darius that he found his fleet, with its stores of provisions and material, where he had left it. When his absence had been so long protracted, many of the Greek jj^itjades and captains of the armament schemed to abandon their *^^ bridgo. post, and draw off the fleet to their homes. For Darius, of whom they had no news, might, for all they knew, have perished in the waste; and if not, that consummation might yet befall him if he were abandoned, bridgeless and foodless, on the further bank of the impassable river. Miltiades the Athenian, tyrant of the Thracian Chersonese, — who was one of the new vassals acquired by Darius since he crossed the Hellespont, — was set on sailing away; and he would have led off the whole fleet with him, had he not been resisted by Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, who pointed out to the rulers of the Ionian towns that their interest was bound up with that of their master, since the fall of the Persian rule would infallibly be followed by a democratic revolution in every Greek town. The bridge, therefore, was preserved, and by its means Darius and his army came safely back into Thrace. As was not unnatural, the king took Histiaeus into high favour, and made him one of his council. But when he showed such esteem for him that 140 Darius and the Greeks — The Ionian HeVolL {bidB.c. he insisted on the Greek remaining permanently with the court and dwelling at Susa, far from his Milesian home, Histiaeus was anything rather than contented, and set his wits to work to find some device for getting himself sent down to Ionia. When he returned home after the Scythian expedition, Darius left Megabazus with eighty thousand men in Thrace, to complete the conquest of that country, and to push the Persian border as far westward as he could. The general proved equal to the task ; he took Perinthus and several other Greek towns which refused to open their gates, subdued the Thracians of the coast, and the Paeonians of the lower Strymon valley, and reached the frontier of Macedon. Amyntas, king of that country, made no endeavour to preserve his freedom by force of arms. Ho did homage to the King of Persia, by sending him the symbolical gifts of earth and water, A tribute was imposed on Macedon, and by its submission the Achaemeniau empire was brought to the borders of 'I'hessaly, the frontier state of Greece Proper. It seemed as if the next campaign must commence with an invasion of Hellas, and so successful had the Persian arms been in their attacks on Greek states, that no one was free from the fear that invasion must necessarily mean conquest. But this wos not to be : nearly a quarter of a century more was to elapse before the hosts of the Great King forced the passes of Terape and descended into the Thessalian Plain. While Megabazus was threatening the Greeks of the mainland, Artaphernes, satrap of Lydia, was carrying out another expedition „, „ . ac;ainst the Greeks of the islands. Sedition was raging The Persians ° 00 at Naxos. at the time in Naxos, the largest and most fertile and populous of the Cyclades. Aristagoras — cousin and son-in-law of the expatriated Histiaeus — who now ruled at Miletus as regent for his kinsman, thought to gain credit with his Persian masters by winning the island for them. He persuaded Darius to authorize an expedition against Naxos, and received command of a fleet of two hundred vessels to effect the conquest. But Artaphernes, out of distrust of the Milesian, procured that Megabates, a Persian noble, should be given him as second-in- command. This man, like Aristagoras himself, was of a fiery temper, and a hot dispute broke out between the two admirals BOO B.C.] Outbreak of the Ionian Revolt. 141 concerning a private matter, ere yet the fleet had sailed. Megabates, who had the worst of it, revenged himself by sending secret intelligence of the expedition to Naxos, and when the fleet arrived it found the city so well garrisoned and stored that it could effect nothing. Aristagoras had staked all his credit at Sardis and Susa on the success of the expedition, and had rendered himself liable for large debts in equipping it. He was at his wits' end, and ready to adopt any desperate measure, when he received a message from Histiaeus, who implored him to use any means which would lead to his own recall, even if it must be by raising revolt in Ionia, Of this message a quaint tale is told. It is said that Histiaeus had so great a fear that spies would discover any letter which he sent down to his cousin, that he had the incriminating words tattooed on the shaven head of a confidential slave, and sent him down to Miletus, when his hair had grown again, with the verbal message that his head required shaviug. The private interests of these two despots fell in with the bent of popular feeling, which, as in all Greek states at all times, was set on the assertion of autonomy. The tyrant had been the „ ■^ •' Revolt m element in the state which represented acquiescence lonia, in the Persian rule, and when he declared for revolt Miletus followed him. Aristagoras did more than revolt : he declared that he laid down his despotic power, and received back from the people a commission as a constitutional magistrate. Then he led a crusade against the tyrants all down the Ionic coast : in every town when the Milesians appeared, a revolution ensued, and the local ruler was slain or banished. Internal freedom as well as external was proclaimed, and the revolt for the moment promised well. Of the Greeks of Asia, hardly a town, from Byzantium to the Lycian border, refused to proclaim war on Persia. Nor was this the full measure of success obtained by Aristagoras in the tirst moments of his activity. He went over in person to the western shore of the Aegean, and began to stir up the states ot old Greece. In Sparta he obtained no success, for Spartan ideas were well-nigh bounded by the limits of Peloponnesus, and the one expedition the Lacedaemonians had sent out by sea, that directed against Polycrates of Samos, had not been so fortunate as to encourage them to repeat the experiment. King Cleomcnes told the Milesian 142 Darius and the Greeks — The Ionian Revolt [499 b.o. that " he was mad to propose that Sparta should attack a monarch whose residence lay at Susa, three months' journey from the sea," and bade him depart home. But the rising maritime state of Ionian blood, which men already esteemed the second power in Greece, gave Aristagoras a very different reception. Touched by an appeal from the daughter-cities to the mother-city of tho The Athenians •'■oni'iii I'^ce, desirous too of keeping the Persian aid Ionia, employed far from their gates, and willing to prove the efficiency of their newly formed navy, the Athenians readily listened to the ex-tyrant, and granted him a fleet of twenty ships. To these the Eretrians added five more, moved by their old fellow- ship in arras with Miletus, which had endured since the remote days of the great Lelantine war. The moment that this squadron arrived at Ephesus, the troops it carried were joined by the levies of the neighbouring towns, and „ , ^ executed a sudden and daring attack on Sardis, the Sack of " ' Sardis, residence of the satrap of Lydia, and the centre of Persian influence in Asia Minor. The Greeks drove Artaphernes into the citadel, and sacked and burnt the town. This proved a fatal mistake. The blow told more on the Lydians than on their Persian masters. Enraged at the plunder of their chief city, and especially by the burning of the great temple of Cybele, the holiest sanctuary of the land, the provincials rose in arms and joined Artaphernes. When tho Greeks commenced their retreat to the sea, the whole country-side set on them, and a running fight ensued, in which the invaders had greatly the worse. Their army reached its ships in a very maltreated condition, and afterwards dispersed, while the Athenians and Eretrians returned home in a state of great discouragement (499 B.C.). The chief result of the sack of Sardis was disastrous : it moved the court of Susa to energetic action. Darius redoubled his armaments, and vowed vengeance not only on his revolted subjects, but on the rash states beyond the Aegean, who had called down his wrath by interfering in the affairs of Asia. For the moment, howevei-, before the full meaning of the events was known, the tidings that the capital of the Lydian satrapy had been destroyed told in favour of the lonians. They were now joined by most of the Carian tribes, and by all the cities of Cyprus, Greek and 497B.0A Disasters of the Greeks. 143 barbarian, with the single exception of the Phoenician colony of Amathus. Darius now called out against the rebels not only the disiDOsable troops of all the western satrapies, but the full naval force of his Phoenician and Cilician vassals. Fleet and army together fell first on Cyprus, the most isolated and outlying of the revolted districts. By sea the lonians andCypriots defeated the Phoenician squadron ; but the land force, which the beaten fleet had previously thrown on shore, completely crushed the Cypriot army, and the victory was followed by the submission of the island. Then the Persians pressed on against the original authors of the revolt. Three great armies came down from the central plateau of Asia Minor, and began to harry the coast-land. The Persians One sacked city after city along the Hellespont and invade lonia. Propontis ; the second marched from Sardis against the midmost towns of the Greek confederacy, and took Cyme and Clazomenae, while most of the lonians looked on in helplessness, afraid to venture an another land campaign ; the tiiiid entered Caria, but after two victories was annihilated by the Carians and Milesians at the battle of Pedasus. In spite of this isolated success, Aris- tagoras now lost heart, and despaired of the enterprise he had so lightly begun. He called together the Milesians, and proposed to them to emigrate in a body, as their kinsmen of Teos and Phocaea had done forty years before. They refused, but the ex-tyrant was so set on saving his own neck, that he got together his personal adherents and retainers, and deserted his country. Sailing to the Thracian coast with the intention of establishing a new settlement, just as the Teians had done at the neighbouring Abdcra, he landed at Myrcinus, and was promptly cut off with all his followers by the savage tribe of the Edonians, on whose territory he had trespassed (497 b.c). Such was the condition of affairs when Histiaeus, the original instigator of the revolt, at last appeared in Ionia. His influence with Darius had not proved so omnipotent as he had supposed, nor had the great king sent him down to stay the movement of insur- rection the moment it broke out. Three weary years had passed, and the backbone of the rebellion had been broken when Darius at last found some business for him at Sardis. He arrived there only 144 Darius and tJie Greeks — The Ionian Revolt. [496 b.c. to be taunted witli Lis schemes and their failure by the satr.ip Artaphernes. " You stitched this shoe," said the Persian, referring to the revolt, " and Aristagoras only put it on." Alarmed at the Persian's knowledge of his plans, Histiaeus escaped to Chios and joined the rebels. He found himself deeply suspected as an ex- tyrant, and a confidant of the king. No city offered to place him in the position of command for which he had hoped. The Chians imprisoned him for a time. Miletus refused to admit her old master within her walls, and he considered himself lucky when at last the Lesbians gave him eight ships, and allowed him to sail for the Hellespont, with a commission to reorganize the revolt in the towns which had gone back to their allegiance. Instead of doing so he stationed liimself at Byzantium, and levied extortionate tolls on the merchant-ships which passed through the Bosphorus, without making any vigorous attempt to attack the Persian^. Meanwhile the end of the war drew near. Neglecting the smaller towns, Artaphernes drew together all his land forces for an attack on INIiletus, the heart of Ionia. At the same time a great Phoenician fleet rounded the Triopiaa Cape, and cast anchor opposite the mouth of the Maeander. From the nine towns which yet kept up their hearts and hoped against hope for the retention of their autonomy, the lonians and Aeolians mustered for the final conflict, till at the little island of Lade, ia front of Miletus, three hundred and fifty-three triremes lay moored to face the six hundred vessels of the barbarians. It is greatly to the discredit of the Athenians that not a single ship of theirs appeared to aid their kinsmen and allies in their death-struggle. The confederate states placed their fleet under a single admiral, a certain Dionysius, one of the few straggling survivors -of the popu- lation of Phocaea who had drifted back to their old The battle of , . . .^ . . Lade. homc and set up an insignificant town among its ruins. 496 B.C. jjg ^^^^ ^^ excellent captain, and kept his men well to their duty, till his vigilance and strict discipline provoked the listless lonians. They refused any longer to obey a man who had no strong squadron of the ships of his own city at his back, and, as the Persians delayed their attack day after day, fell into a perilous carelessness and security. At last the enemy came down upon them, and they hastily formed a line of battle to meet him. 495 B.C.] Fall of Miletus. 145 The honour of the day was very unequally distributed. The Samians fled at a very early hour, with a precipitancy that sug- gested treachery rather than cowardice. The Lesbians gave way no long time after. The Chians, however, maintained the fight after their untrustworthy allies and all the rest of the fleet had abandoned the fray, and only succumbed after the larger number of their own ships had been sunk or taken (496 B.C.). The battle of Lade was decisive in its results. The wreck of the defeated fleet dispersed, and each city had to await its doom with- out deriving aid from its allies. Miletus was the first Sack ot to fall : Artaphernes sat down before it, and took it MUetus, after a protracted siege. He burnt the city and re- ' ' duced its inhabitants to slavery ; so thoroughly was the work done, that Miletus never appears again as possessing anything like its former importance. The pre-eminence among the Ionian towns fell to Ephesus, which had disarmed the wrath of Persia by a prompt and tame submission. The fiiU of Miletus caused bitter grief and self-reproach at Athens. AVhen the people realized that thej' had allowed their best allies against the Persian to perish unaided, they could not restrain their sorrow and shame. Next year the tragic poet Phrynichus exhibited on the stage a play called " The taking of Miletus" (MiXtitov aAoxru). At its production the whole theatre was plunged in tears, and the author was fined a thousand drachmae for recalling the unwelcome subject. After Miletus had succumbed, the turns of Samos, Chios, and Mitylene arrived. Each was subdued after more or less resistance. Their fates, though hard, were not so crushing as that of Miletus. Heavy fines were laid on them, and many of their inhabitants were deported to Asia, but no wholesale ruin or massacre ensued. Internal freedom was allowed to remain, and it was noted that the Persians, discontented with the way in which the Ionian tyrants bad failed to be a support to their masters, showed themselves moro favourable to democracy than could have been expected. Last of all, the few scattered towns on the Propontis which still held out were subdued one by one. In that part of the world End of the Ilistiaeus had for the last two years been leading a "^*'■• precarious and piratical existence, a plague to Greeks no less than Persians. He now fell into the hands of Artaphernes diu-ing an L 146 Darius and the Greeks — T/ie Ionian Ra^olt. t494P.o^ insignificant skirmish near Atarneus, and was promptly impaled by his captor, much to the displeasure of Darius, who still cherished a feeling of gratitude to the preserver of the bridge on the Danube (494 B.C.). With the exception of a few fugitives who fled to the West, all the king's subjects had now fallen or returned to their allegiance. The great Ionian revolt was now at an end, after six years of desultory warfare. Its course had brought three facts into promi- nence. The first was the incapacity of Greek states Causes of . , the failure of for combination into a close federal alliance. The the rising. jgg^^Q^gjgg 'between city and city, and the narrow patriotism which made men comparatively indifferent to the fate of the Hellenic race provided their own town was flourishing, were sufficient to prevent any efficacious common action in war. A Greek alliance, in short, could only be kept together by the power of some one state overawing the rest, as was afterwards the case during the existence of the Confederacy of Delos. And even when such a consummation had arrived, the desire for complete local autonomy was so keen that all the weaker members of a federation would be secretly longing for its disruption, in order to free them- selves from the hegemony of the leading state. The second cha- racteristic of the Ionian revolt was the slow and inefficient working of the military machinery of the Persian empire. To subdue the revolted towns of a single satrapy six years of war had been required. Unless the king himself were present in person, to compel all his satraps and commanders to act promptly and in loyal combination, there was a tendency to slackness and spas- modic effort on the part of the Persian officers in Asia. Thirdly, the prompt conclusion of the war after the battle of Lade proved that a fleet was more important than an army in attacking the Greek world. When the command of the sea had passed to the barbarian, and each state on its island or peninsula was cut off from communication with its fellows, a complete collapse of resist- ance followed. We shall see all these tendencies illustrated again, though with a difierent relative importance, in the greater struggle between Persia and the Greeks of Europe which began a few years after the end of the Ionian revolt. The share which Athens and Eretria had taken in the sack of 492 3.0.] Mardonius in Thrace. 147 Savdis had not escaped the memory of Darius, When his revolted subjects were once subdued, he was determined that there should be no delay in punishing the more distant enemy. A legend, which is true in the spirit if not in the letter, tells us how the great king bade his cup-bearer to repeat to him thrice at every banquet the words, "Master, remember the Athenians," lest the insult wrought at Sardis should ever vanish from his mind. The year after the end of the revolt was devoted to the prepara- tion of an expedition to chastise the objects of Darius's enmity. In 492 B.C. Mardonius came down from Susa to take the command. He sent. a fleet to coast round the north shore of the Aegean, and himself led an army parallel to it by the great road which runs between the sea and the spurs of the Rhodope. But fortune fought for Athens. A hurricane strewed the rocky shores of the peninsula of Athos with the wrecks of three hundred Persian galleys. A few days later a desperate battle with the wild Thracian tribes so thinned the ranks of Mardonius's army that, although victorious, he halted, and shrank from a further advance. The attack on the king's enemies had to be put off for another year. Before proceeding to relate the results of the first Persian expedi- tion which touched the shores of European Greece, we must explain the condition of affairs in that country. CHAPTER XVI. EVENTS IN GREECE AFTER THE FALL OF THE PEISISTRATIDAE — THE CONSTITUTION OF CLEISTIIENES (510-8 B.C.), Op the numerous tyrants of European Greece the son of Peisis- tratus had been the last to fall. Even before his expulsion the zeal which had led on the Spartans to attack tyrants wherever they found them had cooled down ; and it had been with a half-hearted effort that they had cast out the ruler of Athens. The danger of an anti-Dorian movement led by a league of tyrants had been removed long before, when Corinth fell ; and in crushing Hippias the Spartans had destroyed a useful ally merely to satisfy a religious scruple — a scruple which, as they soon heard, had been deliberately played upon by an unscrupulous politician and a mercenary priesthood. Apollo must have been in bad odour at Sparta when the bribery of his oracle was discovered, and his behests were never again obeyed with the single-hearted loyalty of old days. When Cleomenes had drawn off his troops, and liberated Athens was left to herself, it seemed for a moment as if the old factions Tactions at ^^^^ learnt no lesson under the strong hand of the Athens. Peisistratidae. Civil strife at once broke out; the opposing leaders being Cleisthenes the Alcmaeonid, chief of the newly returned exiles, and Isagoras, the son of Tisander. The matter was at first a personal rivalry between two powerful nobles, but ere long it took the shape of a political struggle; for when Isagoras strengthened himself by organizing a new olig^irchic party, Cleisthenes at once assumed the role of leader of the popu- lace. "He took the democracy into partnership," says Herodotus, " it having been previously excluded from all authority." Thirty 609B.0.] Ckomenes takes Athens. 149 years of the rule of the Peisistratidae had weakened the oligarchic tendencies in Athens, by breaking np the traditions of authority and influence which had belonged to the old houses. On the other hand, it had been favourable to the growth of democratic feeling ; for under the tyrants all men had been equal, though equal in slavery alone. Accordingly it was found that Isagoras had sum- moned to his aid a waning power, while Cleisthenes was backed by the rising sentiment of the majority of the nation. The oligarch was easily worsted, and had to fly, while the democrat was left in possession of the field (509 B.C.). Isagoras without delay called in foreign enemies in order to Avorst his rival, reckless of the evils he was thereby bringing on his country. Flying to Sparta, he stirred up his personal friend King Cleomenes, to expel Cleisthenes from Athens by force. So easy was the task in the king's estimation, that he marched on Athens at the head of a few hundred personal retainers only, without asking for or receiving the national army of Sparta, or the con- tingents of the numerous Peloponnesian states which looked tiy that city as their head. He sent before him a herald to bid the Athenians " expel the accursed family," using the old cieomenes scruple concerning the hereditary blood-guiltiness of ta^^es Athens, the Alcmaeonidae for their sacrilegious slaughter of the Cylonian conspirators, in order to discredit the Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes with his fellow-citizens. The reformer had either overrated the strength of the Spartan army, or resolved to do his best to deprive Cleomenes of his nominal cams helli. Immediately on the arrival of the herald he withdrew from Athens. Deprived of their leader, and not yet realizing their own or their adversaries strength, the Athenians threw open their gates to Cleomenes and Isagoras. The Spartan's retainers garrisoned the Acropolis, while the oligarch installed himself in office as archon, and mustered his partisans to overthrow the new democratic constitution by a fictitious vote of the people. Then Isagoras declared the Athenian " Senate of Four Hundred " dissolved, and replaced it by a body of three hundred oligarchs named by himself. At the same time seven hundred families of the democratic party were expelled from the city, and sent to join Cleisthenes in exile (508 B.C.). Meanwhile the people of Athens had the time to count up the 150 Constitution of Cleisthettes. [sosb.o. numbers of Cleomenes' body-guard, and to gauge the strength of cieomenes the native partisans of Isagoras. The result Avas a capitulates, sudden and spontaneous insurrection, which broke the power of the ohgarchs in a few hours. Isagoras and his followers were driven pell-mell within the gates of the Acropolis, the only spot which his Spartan friends were able to hold for him. The Senate of Four Hundred reassembled and assumed its old functions, recalling Cleisthenes and all the other exiles, and setting the full armed force of Attica to blockade the Acropolis. The crowd in the fortress was great, and no stock of provisions had been laid in, so that in a very few days the garrison were approaching a state of starvation. They were soon compelled to surrender at discretion. The Athenians, loth to drive Sparta to a war of vengeance, spared the lives of Cleomenes and his hoplites, and allowed them to depart. The king succeeded in smuggling off Isagoras in the ranks of his troops, but the rest of the oligarchs fell into the hands of the people. So gi-eat was the rage in Athens at their detestable attempt to destroy the national constitution by the aid of the foreigner, that all the prominent men, many scores in number, were put to death. The rest of the guilty party were sent into exile. Far from feeling gratitude for the preservation of his life, Cleomenes had no other sentiment in his heart, when he returned to Sparta, than hatred for the people who had brought his over- weening confidence to such an ignominious fall. News soon arrived at Athens that the king was straining every nerve to organize a second and more formidable expedition against those who had worsted him. So large was the Spartan contingent in the new army, that King Demaratus, the colleague of Cleomenes, was joined with him in command ; while the whole of the Pelo- ponnesian subject-allies had been ordered to send their troops to the Isthmus, though no information was given them as to the destination or object of the expedition. Temfied at the impending storm, the Athenians sent ambassadors to Sardis, to and beg for aid from the satrap Artaphemes and his Artaphernes. ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ j^j^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ Persian offered hard terms to the Athenian envoys. He could conceive of no relation between the Great King and a foreign people other than that of **08Ec.] Cleomenes invades Attica. 151 master and subject. Accordingly he refused to pledge the armed aid of Persia to the Athenians, unless they should make the typical offerings of earth and Avater, and acknowledge Darius as their suzerain. So great was the dread of Sparta which filled the ambassadors' minds, that they actually accepted the satrap's con- ditions, and undertook, in the name of Athens, to do homage to the king. On their return, however, they were astonished to find themselves met with the wildest indignation. Even in the worst extremity the Athenians had not dreamed of surrendering them- selves to the barbarian, but only of forming an alliance with him. The engagement was repudiated, the treaty disavowed, and the advocates of the embassy as well as the ambassadors themselves fell into discredit. Athens would have been left wholly unaided to face the attack of the Peloponnesian confederacy, if it had not been for one feeble ally whom she possessed — the little Boeotian town of Plataea. We have related in a previous chapter Jiow the Peisistratidae had undertaken, in behalf of Athens, the protection of the Plataeans agamst their Theban neighbours, and now the alliance was still preserved. But the friendship of Plataea ensured the enmity of Thebes, and Avhen Cleomenes was mustering his army the Boeotian League thought that the opportunity had come to reclaim its one recalcitrant member. The Thebans drew^ into alliance with them- selves the people of Chalcis, the great maritime town of Euboea, wdio were jealous of the rising commercial and maritime power of Athens, and were not averse to crush a city -which was beginning to supersede older marts as the emporium of the Central Aegean. Cleomenes, therefore, found it easy to concert a plan of operations with the Boeotians and Chalcidians, who undertook to fall on Attica from the north as soon as the Spartan army should have passed the Isthmus. It was, accordingly, with every prospect of success before him that Cleomenes led his army through the Megarid into the plain of Eleusis. Once aiTived there, the allies learnt tlie cieomenes purpose for which they had been assembled — a pur-^'^"^^'^^^-^"*^^ pose which many of them viewed with the highest disgust. For Cleomenes now proposed a plan far more iniquitous than that of overthrowing the democratic constitution of Athens ; he openly 152 Victories of the Athenians. [508b.c. avowed that he would make his friend Isagoras tyrant of Attica. Such an act would have been a formal repudiation of the policy which Sparta had hitherto pursued, that of expelling all the tyrants whom she met. King Demaratus, who was joined with Cleo- menes in the command of the army, was not unnaturally provoked into setting himself in opposition to his colleague, and found him- self supported by the majority of the allies. The Athenians, who had mustered in full force on the eastern skirts of the Thriasian Plain, were surprised to find that the enemy made no movement of advance. Everything, indeed, was in confusion in the Pelopon- nesian camp. The Corinthians, who remembered the ills they had suffered under the house of Cypselus, took the lead in refusing to fight merely that a tyranny might be established at Athens. Many of the contingents of the smaller states showed a similar disposition, and Demaratus backed them with his authority. At last, after a stormy council of war, the army broke up ; the allies returned to their homes, and Cleomenes was forced to retrace his steps towards Sparta without having enjoyed his revenge. While the Athenian army had been concentrated in front of the main body of invaders, the Boeotians and Chalcidians had ravaged the north-eastern demes of Attica \\athout meeting with resistance. But the moment that the Peloponnesians had departed, the Athenians hastily turned northward to check these incursions. They marched first against the Chalcidians, but, hearing that the Thebans were hurrjnng coastwards to join their confederates, threw themselves between the two forces and attacked them in detail. In one day they fought two battles. In the morning they fell on the Boeotians and routed them, taking seven hundred prisoners ; then, crossing the Eurlpus into Euboea, they encountered the Chalcidians in the afternoon and won another victory. So decisive was this second engagement, that Chalcis itself fell into the hands of the conquerors. Expelling from the city the The Athenians f^™ili6s called Hippobotac, who had ruled it as a strict take Chalcis. oligarchy, the Athenians divided their confiscated estates into four thousand farms, and bestowed them on poor citizens of Athens. This was the second of their many Clerudiies,'^ 1 The first had been the lotting out of Salamis after its conquest from the Megarians, somewhere about the year ^87 B.C. ; a fact preser\-ed in an inscription only. 008 B.C.] Cleisthenes. 153 or " lottings-out " of conquered territory. Although the lower classes m Chalcis were left unharmed to dwell among the new settlers, the state was in reality transformed into a mere dependency of Athens, as all political power rested with the permanent garrison of Cleruchs. A comparison at once suggests itself between this settlement and the system of " colonies " which the Romans found so effectual in holding down newly conquered districts in Italy. Few statesmen have found themselves in such a favourable position as Cleisthenes enjoyed at this iroment, and few have ever made a better use of their opportunities. In the short „ , . , , , Cleisthenes. tmie of his ascendancy he completely remodelJed the Athenian constitution. A taste for political reorganization, indeed, seems to have been innate in his blood ; for his grandfather, Cleis- thenes of Sicj'on, from whom ho derived his name, had been famous for the manner in which he recast the institutions of his native town ; and his brother Hippocrates was the gi-andfather of the yet greater reformer Pericles. The results of the work of Cleisthenes were not to be ephemeral ; they made themselves felt through the whole of the subsequent history of Athens, and were the foundation on which all suc- ceeding legislators built. For their plan was so well suited to the needs of the times, that it admitted with ease and safety of all those additions and modifications in a democratic direction which Aristeides, Pericles, and other statesmen afterwards devised. At the base of the new constitution lay the idea of the supreme authority of the whole body of citizens gathered in their assembly; and this being once granted, all new developments of the functions of that body were logical consequences of the original conception of its omnipotence. Cleisthenes began his reforms with the most simple elements of the state, completely recasting the Avhole of the local and tiibal divisions of the citizens. He could not, of course, constitution interfere with the ancient ties of the ^eVoj, the clan of cleisthenes. brotherhood of families who owned a common hearth and altar, a common burial-ground and common festivals, and were bound by reciprocal oaths to aid and cherish each other. But the asso- ciations larger than the clan he was determined to dissolve. Neither tribal exclusiveness nor local jealousies should keep the Athenian people from blending into a homogeneous whole, 154 Constitution of Clcisthcnes, [508b.o. Cleisthenos accordingly Biiperserlcd the four ancient Ionic tribes, whose hneages were supposed to descend from the four mythic The new ^^"^^ ^^ -^0" — ^'^® strangely named Hoples, Geleon, tribes. Argades, and Aegicores. For the four tribes he sub- stituted ten, which took their names from Attic kings and heroes.^ The new. tribesmen were to reverence their eponymous patron, but they could make no pretence of being descended from him. To bo a member of the tribe Cecropis did not imply supposed connection with the snake-footed king, nor did all who worshipped Ajax thereby claim a Salaminian pedigree. The units which com- posed the new tribal divisions were local, consisting of denies. The deme was a small township or parish — to use English terminology — whose origin could in some cases be traced back to one of the old Attic boroughs, such as Rhamnus or Sphettus, or Eleusis, which Theseus had united into the one Athenian state. In others it was the settlement of a clan, the home of the real or reputed descendants of a single ancestor ; for the deme of Echelidae or Philaidae was the settlement of the children of Echelus or Philaeus, just as in Saxon England the township of Oddington was the settlement of the children of Odda. Now, if Cleisthenes had given ten neighbouring denies of the hill- country to the tribe Antiochis, or ten sea-coast demes to the tribe Cecropis, he would have simply been opening up again opportunities for the reconstruction of the old local factions of the Hills, the Plain, and the Shore. Accordingly, he took exactly the opposite course. Except in the case of one, or at most two, tribes, he carefully gave each of them a cluster of demes in each of the three districts, so that the tribal interest should be divided equally into three. So Oenoe in the north-west, and Agra in the midland, fell to the same tribe, Hippothoontis, as did Azenia in the extreme south-east. The town of Athens itself was split up into eight demes, belonging to six different tribes, while the other four were represented in its suburbs. So well did this scheme work, that never again in the course of 1 The name of the tribe Aiantis was probably devised in order to assert the fact that Salamis, the fatherland of Ajax, had become completely part and parcel of Attica, so that Athens might claim its heroes as her own. The names of the tribes were Cecropis, Pandionis, Erectheis, Aegeis. Acamantis, Hippothoontis, Antiochis, A.iantis, Leontis, Oeneis. 508 BC] The D ernes. 155 Attic history do we find local associations giving trouble to the state. Within a few years the union of the demes of the north-east into a faction of Diacrii, or of those of the south-west into a faction of Paralii, had ceased to be conceivable. While the deme, with its demarch and local judges, dealt with the details of local administra- tion and justice, the tribe was made the unit for all state business. Into the demes and tribes Cleisthenes swept almost the whole free population of Attica, and many persons who could not even be called wholly free. He enfranchised not only such " metics " or resident aliens as desired to take np the citizenship of Athens, but even servile clients, or ^oZKoi fieroiKot, as they were called. This class consisted of slaves who dwelt apart from their masters, and possessed property of their own, though they had not yet been completely freed. By becoming citizens they were of course relieved of all their disabilities, and raised to the same status as their ex-proprietors. The new citizens went, as Cleisthenes had no doubt intended, to swell the forces of the democracy. It must have been no small blow to the pride of the old oligarchic houses to find themselves enrolled in the same tribe — perhaps even in the same deme — as their late dependents. But we do not find that the strength and vigour of the state was in the least decreased by the influx of the newly enfranchised ; indeed, for a city which was just about to step forward to compete for the hegemony in Greece, the accession of thousands of willing arms was an unmixed blessing. The tribe organization was made by Cleisthenes the basis of a reorganization of the Boule, or Senate. That body was for the future to consist of five hundred members, of whom fifty were elected from each tribe. Solon's old number of four hundred senators therefore now vanishes. The Senate formed a permanent deliberative body, charged with the duty of discussing all matters of public import, and sending down recom- mendations dealing with them to be voted on by the public assembly of the whole body of citizens. These recommendations, or ■n-pofiovXevfj.ara, had no validity in themselves, and only assumed force after they had been ratified by the Ecclesia. In this they differed from the Roman " Senatus Consultum," which, acquiring by usage an independent authority, made the Senate at Rome a 156 Constitution of Cleist'/ienes. [508b.o. power practically co-ordinate with the assembly of citizens. Besides acting as a body for preliminary deliberation, the Athenian Senate supplied presidents to the Ecclesia. The year was divided into ten periods of thirty-five or thirty-six days each, and one of these was given, in a rotation settled by lot, to the senators of each tribe. The period was called a Prytany {irpyraveia), and the fifty senators who were in office during its continuance v/ere known as Prytaneis. They were boarded and lodged in a public building, named the Prytaneium, at the expense of the state. Thus they were always on the spot, ready to act as a committee of the Senate at the shortest notice. Each Prytany was divided into five bodies of ten men each (Proedri), and each ten presided for seven days at all meetings both of Senate or Ecclesia which occurred during their term of dignity. They chose from among themselves every day a chairman called the Epistates, who was, during his twenty-four hours of oflSce, supreme president alike of Senate and public assembly. To him were handed over every morning the keys of the Acropolis and the treasury, together with the great seal of the republic, all Avhich the ephemeral dignitary i-esigned to his successor at the next dawn. By the wholesale additions which he made to the roll of fully qualified citizens, Cleisthenes largely increased the numbers of the The public assembly— a body which is now known as Ecclesia. u Ecclesia " when it meets for political purposes, " Heliaea " when it has judicial business in hand. Anything which the assembly may have lost in authority by becoming unmanageably numerous was more than compensated by its in- creased privileges and new opportunities for interference in all state business. Instead of being convoked at irregular mtervals according to the caprice of the magistrates, the Ecclesia was now given one day of meeting in each Prytany, so that it would not be summoned less than ten times in the year. But, in addition, it might be convoked at any extraordinary crisis by authority of the Senate or of the Strategi. These extra sessions grew more and more numerous, till at last, by the fifth century, the number of meetings during a Prytany was increased to four, the power to hold additional ones when necessary being still retained in spite of the multiplication of ordinary days of assembly. The Ecclesia 608 BC] The Ecdesia. I57 as we know it in the fifth century could deal with every kind of business. It heard foreign ambassadors, and after due dis- cussion decided on questions of war, peace, alliance, or treaty. It received at the end of the year an account of his stewardship from every magistrate who served the republic. It could supple- ment the constitution by passing new laws of universal application, or special decrees to meet special circumstances.^ It could exercise by its votes full authority over revenue and taxation. It dis- tributed honours and rewards to deserving citizens or strangers. In short the democracy now controlled the executive and legislative departments of government, and in another form and under another name, that of Ileliaea, it had also full possession of the judicial functions of the state. After the introducer of a measure and the privileged presidents of the assembly, the Epistates and Proedri, had spoken, it was open to any citizen to rise from his place, mount the Bema, or speaker's platform, and address the people. This much-valued right of free speech [Tro^pTjo-ia] was the proudest boast of the Athenian. Its possession led a very large number of citizens to qualify themselves as public speakers, so that oratorical power and capacity for debate were not confined to any class or profession in the city. Of course the Ecclesia had its well-known favourites, who could almost be called professional orators, but their harangues might be interspersed with those of any farmer or artisan whom enthusiasm, indignation, or impudence stirred up to speaking-point. Bad oratory found its check in the hoots and hisses with which the crowd were ready to silence the windbag or the bore, for the Ecclesia was more celebrated for liveliness than for decorum. On days of an important debate the whole Pnyx would be crammed with citizens, but when the agenda Avere of an uninteresting nature a small muster was often seen. If it was too scanty, the presidents could send out public slaves, armed with a rope smeared with red paint, to sweep the neigh- bouring streets of their loungers. Thus even a dull day in the Ecclesia was not destitute of its humours. Any one who, while • Of decrees at Athens, •i^-i\<^iody of full citizens, or, at least, of all full citizens over thirty years /f yj^' ^^ ^S^' ^^^ history is less exactly known than that of U e e laea. ^j^^ Ecclesia, but it would appear that its function as settled by Cleisthenes was to hear appeals from decisions of magis- trates, and to try persons accused of crimes against the state, such as treason. Cases between private persons still had a first hearing before the archons or other individual magistrates, while the court of the Areopagus retained its jurisdiction in cases of homicide, and its general censorial power of supervising the lives of citizens. It was probably not during the lifetime of Cleisthenes, but at some subsequent date in the first quarter of the fifth centurj^, that the Heliaea was divided into dikasteries. By later ages these courts were often ascribed to Solon, but when we find the name used in his time it probably meant the whole Heliaea, not a subdivision of it. In later times they were ten large coiu'ts each composed of many hundred sworn jurers, called Heliasts or Dicasts. When a case came on for decision, the dikastewes cast lots to see which should try it ; while the six junior archons, or Thesmothetae, also cast lots to settle which of them was to sit as president of the dikastery. These elaborate precautions were directed against the possible use of bribery or intimidation. For since a criminal would not know till the last moment which archon would be the presiding judge, or which dikastery would be the jury at his trial, he could not set to work to exert influence or corruption on them. More- over, the great size of the dikastery itself would have made it difficult to try bribery. Justice at Athens, then, might be per- verted by prejudice or party strife, but hardly ever by the coarser means of corruption. In this the Athenian courts compare very favourably with those of Rome, where during the last century of the republic bribery seems to have been the rule rather than the exception. Having discussed the Ecclesia and the Heliaea, we must now turn to the magistracy. Solon's complicated arrangements for the choice of archons had fallen into desuetude during the tyranny of the Peisistratidae, who had practically nominated such persons as 608B.C.] Ostracism. 159 they chose for the office. Cleisthenes now placed the election in the hands of the newly-developed Ecclesia, which thus became the maker as well as the judge of the chief magistrates. It will be remembered that direct popular election had never before pre- vailed; before Solon the Archons had been nominated by the Areopagus ; after him the hazard of the lot had limited the electors' choice. It was not till now that the democracy really obtained a preponderating influence over its officials. One result of this arrangement of Cleisthenes was to strengthen the Areopagus, for all archons were now men of mark, the direct choice of the Ecclesia, and as they passed on to the Areopagus after leaving office, brought it a great accession of personal influence. In the first draft of the new constitution the old military arrange- ments of the republic were left untouched, the polemarch or third archon remaining as commander-in-chief, while under him served four strategi, who had formerly represented the four old tribes. But some years later,^ Cleisthenes' new arrangement of the tribes was carried into the province of war. That measure had resulted in the division of the national army into ten bodies of approximately equal strength. To suit the change, the number of strategi was now increased to ten, each to head the hoplites of a single tribe. These strategi served under the polemarch, and seem from the first to have limited his authority to a very considerable degi'ee. Being independent officers chosen by the people, they were not so wholly or thoroughly under his control as he might have wished. He seems to have been obliged to treat them as a permanent council-of-war, and on one occasion we shall find their vote counting for as much as his. There remains for consideration one more provision of importance in the Cleisthenic constitution — the extraordinary device called Ostracism. The personal and political rivalry of gi-eat party leaders had been the curse of Athens ; it ^ ""acism. had led to the usurpation of the Peisistratidae, and had reasserted itself again the moment that the Peisistratidae had been driven out in the conflict between Cleisthenes and Isagoras. The reformer ' Aristotle's newly-discovered work gives two irreconcilable dates for this supplementary legislation— it may have been either in 504 b.c. or 601 B.C. i6o Constitution of Cleisthenes. [bosb.o cast about for a means to prevent it for the future, and found one in the institution of honourable banishment, which men called Ostracism. He j^rovided that at any political crisis a special meeting might be held, in which the people could declare by their vote that the presence of any individual in Athens was prejudicial to the state. If six thousand votes — ostralca, as they were called, from being Avritten upon a pot-sherd {6^os of the Peiracus grew ere long to be a prominent factor in Athenian politics ; for the events of the years which followed the founding of the new port were such as to bring forward in every way the importance of the naval side of the city's strength. In 493 B.C., the very year of Themistocles' archonship, the hands of the Persian satraps of Asia Minor were once more entirely free. The last throes of the Ionic revolt were over, and the Darius great king might now send forth his armies to renew ^Qreec^"^ that Westward progress which had been interrupted 493 b.c. by the rebellion. To give an opportunity for prompt submission * Some writers doubt this archonship, but it rests on good authority. 172 The Years 509-490 B.C. [403 b.o. to any states which might choose to do Iiomage without making any attempt to defend themselves, Darius sent heralds to every city in Greece to demand the customary " earth and water." After the afl'air of the burning of Sardis, the Athenians could not hope for favourable treatment at the hands of Persia ; but their indignant rejection of submission might have taken a less ferocious form. They cast the unfortunate herald into the Barathrum, or pit into which criminals were thrown, and bade him take earth therefrom. Themistocles is said to have instigated the act, nor is it out of keeping with his character. It is more surprising to find the same deed repeated by the self-contained Spartans. Indignant that the first state in Greece should be held so lightly by the king, they gave his herald water by tossing him into a well. These two desperate defiances proclaimed that it was war to the death between Persia and the two most resolute states in Greece. But in other cities the summons did not meet such an answer ; many dismissed the heralds witli scorn ; but some gave the necessary pledge, and notable among these were the Aeginetans, who were probably impelled as much by dislike of Athens as by mere dread of Darius. The submission of Aegina had an unexpected result in reconciling Athens and Sparta. Hearing of the line which the Lacedaemonians Quarrels of ^^^'^ taken up, the Athenians sent to them, ignoring cieoraenes and old grudgcs, and appealed to them to hinder the desertion of the cause of Grecian freedom which the Aeginetans meditated. Nor did they appeal in vain. King Cleomenes had lost the memory of his old wrath with Athens while engaged in the subsequent struggle with Argos, and in a long course of wrangling with his colleague Demaratus. He took up warmly the grievance against Aegina, all the more so that Demaratus did the reverse. Going in person to the island, he declared there his intention of coercing any traitorous attempt against the common weal of Greece. Acting under private advice from Demaratus, the Aeginetans took no notice of the threat, and Cleomenes returned in high dudgeon to Sparta. There he at once put into action a long-meditated scheme against his colleague and enemy. He laid against him a charge of illegitimacy, and when an appeal was made on the point to the Delphic Apollo, a bribed 492 B.C. 1 Persian Attack on Attida. ly^ oracle replied that Demaratus was no true son of King Ariston. He was dethroned and superseded by Leotychides, who had been Cleomenes' confederate in the plot. Demaratus fled to Asia, and repaired to the court of Darius, whose favour he won. From that time forward his return at the head of a Persian army was a constant source of dread to Cleomenes and every other Spartan, and its prospect did much to keep them firm in their resistance to the great king. When he had thus provided himself with a subservient colleague, Cleomenes swooped down on Aegina. So irresistible did he now appear, that the Aeginetans submitted to him without a struggle. He bound them to peace with Athens, and, to secure it, took from them ten hostages of the highest rank, whom he lianded over to the custody of the Athenians. Thus when the armies of the Mede presented themselves on Attic soil two years later, there was no hostile power ready to distract the defence by attacks in the rear. We have already related how the expedition which Mardonius launched against Greece in 492 B.C. was shattered against the rocks of Athos, and the stubborn resistance of the Thracian „ . Persian attack tribes. Eighteen months were employed to gather a on Attica, . 490 B C second army and fleet, but m the summer of 490 i;.c. all was ready. Phoenicia and Ionia had furnished six hundred war- gaheys, while the land contingents of the western satrapies mustered at Tarsus under Artaphernes, son of that satrap of Lydia of whom we have so frequently heard. Datis the Mede brought down from Susa a select force recruited in the far East. Thirty-six nations were represented in the combined army, from the Greeks of Ionia to the Sakae of Eastern Tartary. They may well have numbered the hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse which are ascribed to them. Nor were they without guidance ; besides many other Greek exiles, there sailed with them the aged Hippias, who now for the last time led a hostile force against his native country, that he might win back his long-lost tyranny. The Peisistratidae still numbered a few partisans at Athens, and the ex-tyrant hoped great things from their co- operation. It was rather late in the summer when the expedition went forth 174 ^/^^ Years 509-490 B.C. t490B.a to cany out the behests of Darius by subduing all the Greeks who had not given him earth and water, and more especially by bringing before him in chains those Eretrians and Athenians who had insulted his majesty by crossing the Aegean and burning his city of Sardis. CHAPTER XVIIT. FROM THE BATTLE OF MARATHON TO THE IXVASTOX OF XERXES, 490-480 B.C. Warned of the clangers of the Thracian coast by the great ship- Vt^reck of Mardonius's fieet in 492 B.C., Datis and Artaphernes steered straight across the Aegean through the Cyclades. The Persians Their gi-eat armament terrified the islanders, most of *^^® Eretna. whom hastened to give earth and water to the great king. The Naxians, after refusing submission, took refuge in the hill-tops, abandoning their city to the spoiler. Apparently they had for- gotten their own successful defence against Megabates and Arista- goras just twelve years before. Passing the holy island of Delos, which they left unsacked, and treated with all respect, the Persians came to Euboea, and landed not far from Eretria, the first goal at which they aimed. There was panic in the city, and although the Athenian "Cleruchs"of Chalcis came to their aid, the Eretrians dared not take the field. They shut themselves up within their walls, but, to the dismay of all freedom-loving Greeks, the town was betrayed by malcontents from within after a siege of only six days, and its citizens made prisoners en masse. Placing them on shipboard in chains, Datis and Artaphernes coasted down the Euripus to Attica. Hippias guided them to the plains of Marathon, the spot at which he himself and his father had landed fifty years before, on their last and most successful expedition against Athens. It is not quite certain whether the intention of the Persian com- manders was to march straight on Athens across the spurs of Mount Brilessus, as Peisistratus had done, or whether, after attracting the Athenian army to the extreme north-east limit of Attica, they proposed to send troops round on the fleet in order to fall upon the 1 7^ The First Persian Invasion. [490 b.c city when stripped of its defenders. 'J'hc latter scheme, at any rate, is suggested by the fact that the few traitors who existed in Athens had promised Hippias to give a signal when there was a favourable opportunity for attackiug Athens, by raising a bright shield on the summit of Mount Pentelicus. The sudden fivll of Eretria liad set Athens in a ferment : there was no thought of surrender, but very little of success. The first measure taken was to send for instant aid to Sparta. Philippides, a famous runner, took the message, and sped along with such good will that he reached Sparta in two days, though he had no less than a hundred and fifty miles to cover. A legend of the time tells how when, dazed and weary, he breasted the last Arcadian mountain •which separated him from his goal in the vale of the Eurotas, the god Pan suddenly appeared before him, spoke words of cheering import for Athens, and then vanished away. But there was no encouragement to be drawn from the immediate effect of Philippides' mission. The Spartans were honestly ready for the fight, but the summons unfortunately reached them on the eve of a great festival, and such was their reverence for tradition that they dared not move before the full moon had come. Not till five all-important days had passed did their army sat out, and then the crisis had passed. Miltiades, as we have already mentioned, was one of the ten strategi in the year 490 b.c, and his rank, military experience, and hatred of Persia gave him an undisptited pre-eminence Persian , . ,, ,^^, / i i j- Invasion of among his colleagues. \\ hen the enemy s landmg Attica. j^^^^^ \,^(t\\ reported, the polemarch summoned his council of war, to decide whether the army should take the field, or shut itself up within the walls of the city. Miltiades chose the bolder plan, but five of his coadjutors voted against it. It was long remembered how, at that council of war which practically decided the freedom of Greece, Miltiades solemnly rose when the votes seemed going against him, and adjured the archon Callimachus, who, as polemarch, had the chief command and the decisive vote, to take the side of cotirage, pointing out the opportunity which delay would give to domestic traitors, and the splendid results which immediate action woidd secure. It seemed a desperate moment at which to forecast success, but the enthusiasm of 490 B.C.] The Battle of Marathon. 1 7 7 Miltiades won over the polemarch's vote, and the army marched on Marathon. The site of the coming battle was a bare open plain, six miles long by less than two broad, which lies between the lower spurs of Mount Pentelicus and the sea. A fine bay gave The Bay of room for the numerous ships of the Persians to be Marathon, drawn on shore ; but it was not at every point that access from the beach to the plain was possible. Two marshes, of which the more northern is a full mile long, lie between the hills and the sea. Between them was the camp of the invader. Opposite him the Athenians were posted on the steep slope of the mountains, guarding the two roads which climb up from the level ground and lead to Athens. Their head-quarters were in a sacred enclosure dedicated from time immemorial to Heracles, a position from which they easily overlooked the hostile camp. They mustered about nine thousand hoplites, besides a considerable number of slaves equipped as light-armed troops. When, however, they had already reached Marathon, they received an unexpected accession to their strength by the arrival of the whole disposable force of the little town of Plataea, a thousand hoplites more. Athens had twice taken arms to defend Plataea from being swallowed up by the Boeotian League, and now, with a gratitude rare in all periods of history, but especially in Greek, the smaller state sent out its full contingent to share the fate of the Athenians in their apparently hopeless struggle with Persia. It is probable that Miltiades expected at first to be attacked by the Persians in his position ; but when the enemy stayed four or five days without an advance, probably awaiting Battle of the promised signal from the partisans of Hippias in Marathon. Athens, he determined to take the offensive himself. He quietly got his men into order and prepared for action. The Athenians were ranged in a line, of which the centre was only a few files deep, while the wings were composed of deep heavy columns. The poleraarch Callimachus headed the right wing ; Aristeides took the weak centre, which was composed of his own tribe, the Antiochis, and the Leontis; w'hile the Plataeans formed the extreme left. Then, at Miltiades' word, the whole started down the hill at a run. There was a mile to cover before the Persian camp was reached, 178 The First Persian Invasion. [490 B.O- and tliough the slope added momentum to the charge, the long distance must have disordered the ranks. Probably, as in all cases •where a line advances in haste, the flanks 'gained ground on the centre, so that the army must have assumed a crescent shape ere the moment at which it crashed into the Persian host. Datis and Artaphernes had not been expecting a battle at that moment ; it would seem that their cavalry was on shipboard, ready to start for the projected attack on Athens from the west, and that the rest of the army was preparing for embarkation. But they had not IValker CfBoutaltsc. neglected to keep watch while in presence of the enemy, and despite ot the suddenness of Miltiades' attack, were able to form up some sort of a line in front ot their camp. The Persians and Sacae held the centre, the post of honour, the subject tribes the two wings. All, however, must have been still in disarray when the moment of the shock came. At the first the enemy had regarded the Athenians as madmen, when they came storming down the hill to attack in the open a force of ten times their own number. But when the barbarians found the line of pikes rolling down upon them with all the momentum of a mile's run downhill, while they 490 B.C.] Victory of the Athenians. 179 themselves were caught hurriedly forming their array, they must have recognized that there was a method in the madness. What the decisive shock would bring no one knew. The Persian had so often worsted the Greek in battle, that the Athenians must have felt that their charge was little less than desperate. But they did not shrink from it, and they had their reward. The heavy columns which formed their wings crashed through the barbarian multitude as if it had been a flock of sheep. The light-armed Orientals were riven asunder and trodden underfoot by the mailed hoplites. The Persian right wing was thrown into the swamp at the north cud of the beach, where many perished ; the rest fled with the left wing to the ships, and began to thrust them out to sea. In the centre, indeed, the battle was for a time doubtful, and the native Persians began to push back the thin line where Aristeides commanded. But the Athenian wings turned to aid their over- matched countrymen, and when the barbarians saw themselves attacked on both flanks they gave way, and retreated victory of tha seawards like their fellows. Meanwhile most of the Athenians, ships were afloat, and the rest were being launched as the flying troops sprang on board. A severe struggle now raged along the beach, for the Athenians strove to capture the belated vessels, and the barbarians to get them out to sea. Here fell the polemarch Callimachus, and with him Cynegeirus, brother of the poet Aeschylus, whose hands were hacked off as he clung desperately to the poop-staff of a galley which was just being thrust off from the shallows. At last the contest was ended by the escape of the fleet, wbich left, however, seven vessels on shore in the power of the Athenians. Just at this moment the bright shield was hoisted on Pentc- licus by the traitors in Athens, who had promised to give Hippias information when there was a favourable opportunity for attacking the city. It was seen by Datis and Artaphernes, who in spite of their defeat resolved to make the preconcerted attempt. But Miltiades also had observed the signal, and divined its meaning. When, therefore, the Persian fleet appeared off Phalerum, after rounding the south point of Attica, it was found that the Athenians who had fought at Marathon had already returned by a forced march, and were drawn up ready for a second battle i8o The First Persian Invasion. [490 e.g. on the slope outside the southern wall of the city. They were plainly visible from the sea, and, with a routed and cowed army, Datis and Artaphernes did not care to venture on another disem- barcation. They turned back and sailed for Asia, utterly aban- doning the expedition. Their Eretrian prisoners were sent up to Susa, where they served to prove that the Greeks from beyond the sea had not gone altogether unpunished. Darius treated them more kindly than might have been expected, giving them lands in Elam, where their descendants were long afterwards to be traced. The battle of Marathon was more notable for its moral effect than its carnage. Of the Persians, 6400 had fallen, no very great loss out of an army of 100,000 men. The Athenians counted up 192 hoplites who had been slain, besides some of the Plataeaus and of the light-armed slaves. Three great tumuli were reared over the bodies of the victors, on the largest of which — the one which covered the Athenian hoplites — were erected ten pillars, one for each of the tribes, bearing the names of the fallen. To the Persians the battle had seemed nothing very extra- ordinary ; the armies of the great king had received many more Moral effect of crushing defeats, yet eveiytliing had been repaired the victory, afterwards. But to the Athenians their victory was a new revelation; like all other Greeks, they had been accus- tomed to regard the Persian power as invincible, and to look forward to almost certain disaster when facing it. Their unfor- tunate expedition to Sardis had confirmed them in this opinion, and it was only a desperate resolve to defend their cherished free- dom which bad nerved them to resistance. AVhen, therefore, they looked the danger in the face, and found it so much less than they had supposed, the revulsion of feeling was enormous. They had measured themselves with the conquerors of the East, and had found that, man for man, and army for army, they were far superior. Such a victory, coming at the end of the series of struggles against odds which they had lived through since the expulsion of the Peisistratidae, nerved the Athenians to exertions such as few states have ever known. It was the enthusiastic self-confidence which Marathon gave, that enabled them to bear so cheerfully the trials of the invasion of Xerxes, and afterwards to strike so boldly for the empire of the seas. 489 B.C.] Miltiades attacks Paroi. 18 1 The immediate consequences of the battle in Greek politics were incalculable. If the Athenians had been beaten at Marathon, there is little reason to doubt that Boeotia, Aegiua, Argos, and other Greek states, whose national traditions made them hostile to Sparta and Athens, would have submitted to the Persian. Nor can we feel any certainty that the Lacedaemonians would have been able to make a successful resistance in the Peloponnese. The freedom of Greece, therefore, had depended on the bold resolution of Miltiades and the steady onset of his devoted army. We have already mentioned the foolish superstition which had prevented the Spartans from arriving in time to join in the battle of IMarathon. When the fateful full moon came, indeed, they sent out two thousand citizens, with their usual contingents of Perioeci and Helots — a force considerable enough to have been of the greatest aid to Miltiades. But though they marched the hundred and fifty miles in three days, the Spartans came too late for the battle, and after viewing the field strewn with tlie bodies of the slain barbarians, they were constrained, as Herodotus says, to praise the Athenians and their deeds, and then to betake themselves home again. The result of the battle raised the man who had so boldly prophesied success, and won it, to a pitch of popularity such as no other Athenian ever knew. Unfortunately Miltiades j^jjitjades chose to abuse his opportunity. After no long time attacks Paros, had passed, he came before the assembly, and promised to place the state in the way of acquiring great wealth and advantage, if he was entrusted with seventy ships, and a corresponding land force, to employ as he might choose. The people blindly voted the armament, which Miltiades turned to avenge a private grudge which he owed to the inhabitants of Paros. He sailed, without declaration of war, against that fertile island, and, landing on it, demanded a hundred talents as a fine for the submission to the Persians, of which the Parians, like the other islanders, had been guilty. The blackmail was denied him, and he proceeded to lay siege to the town of Paros. All his efforts were fruitless, and, beginning to dread the reception which awaited him at Athens in the event of failure, he endeavoured to bribe the priestess ot Demeter to betray the city. While holding a secret interview 1 82 The Years 490-480 p. c. [489 esc. with her by night without the walls, he was startled, and as he hastily made off, disabled himself by tearing open his thigh on a stake. The armament returned to Athens, where Miltiades was received with wild anger for his semi-piratical expedition, and still more for the way in which he had abused the confidence of the people. He was tried before the Heliaea, though he had to be brought into court on a litter, dying from his wound, which had gangrened. His accuser was Xauthippus, the father of Pericles, Death of "^^'^^0 demanded that the penalty of death should be Miltiades.' inflicted. But, mindful of Marathon, the people con- tented themselves with inflicting a fine of fifty talents, which Miltiades did not live to pay, for he died within a few days. His son Cimon, however, afterwards discharged the debt, in order to clear the reputation of his father so far as he was able. Thus a man who seemed destined to play a great part in the affairs of Greece was suddenlj-- removed from the scene, within a few months of the splendid achievement which has for ever preserved his name. There is little doubt that the expedition which failed so egre- giously at Marathon, would have been followed up by another and a larger armament, if the hands of King Darius had been free. The first disappointment, indeed, had irritated him, without in- ducing him to reconsider his purpose of destroying Athens, and he deternrined to lead the whole force of his empire against her himself. But in 487 B.C. a revolt broke out in Egypt, which obliged him to turn his arms in that direction. After nominating as his colleague his favourite son Xerxes, the old king set out against the rebels ; but died on the way, after a reign Darius. of thirty-six yeare (521-480 B.C.). The disturbances at the end of his reign and the fruitlessness of his expedition against Scythia must not lead us to undervalue him. He preserved and made permanent an empire whicli seemed on the eve of disappearing ; he showed a genius for organization unparalleled among Eastern conquerors, and was, in addition, no mean general. Considering his position as an Oriental monarch, he must be pro- nounced moderate, just, and merciful ; the history of his son sufficiently shows the freaks of cruelty and arrogance which were natural to a Persian autocrat, but from such faults Darius was 490B.C.] Death of Cleomenes. 183 conspicuously free. With his deatli the expansion of the Achae- menian monarchy came to an end. In an Oriental state every- thing depends on the character of the sovereign, and for the nest two centuries Persia was cursed with a succession of tyrants or weaklings, who gradually ruined the excellent administrative system which their ancestor had established. Nothing, indeed, save the ingenuity of that system could have preserved their empire for the long period which intervenes between the death of Darius and the invasion of Alexander the Great. Meanwhile the Egyptian war and the decease of Darius gave Greece ten years of respite from Persian invasion — years which were all -important as covering the period during which Athens transformed herself into a predominantly naval power, during the second great struggle with the Aeginetans. This war was brought about by the fall of Cleomenes at Sparta, and the consequent cessation of the anti-Aeginetan policy which he had imposed on his countrymen. It was apparently in 490 B.C. that his bribery of the Delphic oracle in the matter of Demaratus came to light ; as a consequence of the discovery, he found himself forced to quit Sparta, like the colleague whom he had ruined so shortly before. But no such distant prospect of vengeance as was afforded by taking refuge in Persia satisfied Cleomenes. Passing into Arcadia, he began to form an anti-Spartan league among the numerous cities of that district. The success with which he met frightened the Ephors, who offered him restitution of his kingly office if he would return home. He accepted their terms and appeared again in Sparta, but within a few months perished in a somewhat mys- terious manner. His conduct had often been eccentric, and this gave the Ephors an excuse for charging him with madness, and placing him in the stocks as a raving lunatic. One day he was found dead, horribly mangled with a knife; it was Death of given out that he had committed suicide, but con- cleomenes. sidering his relations with the Ephors, his end appears decidedly su.spicious. Throughout his career he had displayed vigour and capacity, but his character was so fickle and wrong-headed that his talents brought him no final success. He is chiefly noteworthy as being the last King of Sparta who fought on equal terms with the College of Ephors, and made his own 1^4 The Years 490-4S0 b.c. I489b.c. personality a more important element in state matters than their desires. Cleomencs was no sooner dead than the Aeginetans claimed their hostages who had been interned at Athens. The Athenians, however, refused to give them up, though Leoty chides, who had joined Cleomenes in the original delivery of the prisoners, came in person to plead for their release. This conduct on the part of Athens was unjustifiable, but it was met by a still more flagrant breach of international law. An Aeginetan squadron lay in wait off Sunium, and captured a vessel which was carrying a sacred Second war of embassy from Athens. This led to a declaration of Athens and ^^.^ ^^^ g^ lively struggle at sea for the mastery of 489 B.C. the Saronic Gulf. The Athenians endeavoured to foment a civil war in Aegina, entering into a conspiracy with a prominent citizen named Nicodromus, who had formed a plot to overthrow the oligarchy which ruled in his native place, as it did in all Dorian towns. They were still too weak to face the Aegi- netan fleet unaided, so sent to ask for help from Coiinth, where a traditional hatred of Aegina prevailed. The Corinthians did not openly engage in the war, but helped the Athenians by selling them twenty war-galleys for the ridiculous price of five drachmae apiece. On a preconcerted day Nicodromus raised a democratic revolt, and endeavoured to seize Aegina at the head of his par- tisans ; but the Athenian fleet, which he expected, came too late to bring him aid, and his followers were completely defeated. A frightful massacre followed, seven hundred of the democratic party being put to death in cold blood after they had surrendered. Next day the Athenian fleet, seventy vessels strong, came up, and had the better in a naval engagement with the Aeginetan squadron, but on approaching the shore found no supporters, on account of the extermination of the party of Nicodromus Aegina now sought aid at Argos, and obtained much the same kind of informal assistance which Athens had found at Corinth. Argos was still too weak, after the frightful disaster she had sustained at the hands of Cleomenes, to engage in open war with a first-class power. But a thousand Argive volunteers joined the Aeginetan army, without any objection being raised by the Government. Shortly afterwards the Athenians made a second 487 B.C.] Archonship by Lot. 185 attack on Aegina, but though tlieir array woa a considerahle victory on shore, and slew off well-nigh all the Argive volunteers, their fleet was decidedly worsted, and was compelled to pick up the land force and retire to the Peiraeus. A war of irregular descents followed, in which each party saw its coast districts ravaged, but suffered no worse harm at the hands of the enemy. It was during the progress of this war that an important political change was introduced into the Athenian constitution, which was destined to modify to some extent the arrangements of Cleisthenes. Down to 487 B.C., the annually elected archons, the chosen of the whole people, were indisputably the greatest magistrates of the state. But in that year the archonship ceased to be elective, and was in future conferred by lot. The arrangement was not the old one which Solon had devised, that the tribes should select forty men, between whom the lot should make decision. This time there was to be no preliminary selection of candidates, and the verdict of chance was left untouched. The measure, however, was not quite so wild as it appears at first sight. It was still only the wealthy " Pentekosiomedirani " who were eligible for the office, so that there was as yet no chance of an archon being a pauper subsidized by some rich wire-puller. Moreover, the lots were not cast between the whole body of Athenians, but only between those who chose to come forward as candidates. It w^as fair to assume that any man who offered himself for an office which was laborious, responsible, and unremunerative, would be possessed of energy and public spirit. That he would not be a notorious evil- ^he arohon- liver was secured by the process known as " Doki- ^^^p '^^ ^°*' masia," or examination into the character and past life of candidates, in which all who were esteemed disreputable were struck out of the competition. In addition, the office was not now what it had once been, being cramped by the privileges of the new strategi and still more by the enlarged powers of the Ecclesia. It might be discharged fiiirly well by any one of good average intelligence, probity, and decision. For some time after the change men of high political standmg continued to present themselves to encounter the hazard of the lot. As long, in fact, as no one but politicians of some weight engaged in the struggle, there was enough proba- bility of success to encourage a man who had some regard for his 1 86 The Years 490-480 B.C. [487B.0.- flignity to cuter for it. It was not till the archonship was opened to the lower classes, and till men of no weight or standing began to come forward as candidates, that the office sank into a mere ornamental figure-head of the ship of state, while the real adminis- trative power passed to the strategi. For it was the strategi — who still were elected by the direct vote of the people — that reaped the benefit of the degradation of the archonship. As representing the choice of the voters, they naturally came to be regarded as more serious persons than the archons, who were now mere children of chance. It could not be expected, for example, that ten capable military officers would any longer obey a polemarch, who might be entirely ignorant of the rudiments of warlike experience. Hence the strategi came ere long to assume some of the functions which had been peculiar to the archonate ; they gained power to convoke the Ecclesia, and habitually con- ducted relations with foreign states before they were submitted to the Ecclesia for ratification. While the archons fell into the background, the strategi became a kind of ministry, who managed the chief departments of the state, under the constant and jealous control of the Assembly. This indecisive prolongation of the Aeginetan war occasioned much dissatisfaction at Athens, and led to a vigorous attempt to Themistociea P^^t down Aegina by swamping her navy by force and tbe navy, of numbers. Tliemistocles was the author of this scheme, as he had previously been of the fortification of the Peiraeus. It happened one year that the state had realized a very considerable surplus from the silver-mines of Laurium, which were public property. Two hundred talents lay in the treasury, and were about to be dispersed in a very primitive waj*, each adult Athenian citizen having been promised ten drachmae. Tlie- mistocles stood up in the Ecclesia, and boldly proposed that the money should not' be distributed, but api)lied entirely to tlie building of new ships of war, till the national fleet should number two hundred vessels. His eloquence persuaded the people to this piece of self-denial and far-sighted policy. New keels were at once laid down, and the richer citizens vied with each other in the rapidity and completeness with which they equipped the vessels whose construction had been imposed as a "liturgy" 4*33 B.C.] Ostracism of Aristeides. 187 on them. The energetic work of three years tripled the Athe- nian navy, and ere long Themistocles was able to view within the harbours of Peiraens a number of vessels as large as the com- bined fleets of Aegina and Corinth. The policy which aimed at turning the whole of the energies of Athens towards the sea did not pass without opposition. A considerable party in the state, headed by no less a personage than Aristeides, held that naval supremacy was a thing so fleeting and uncertain, that it was imwise to sacrifice all other ends at which the city might aim, in the endeavour to secure so problematical an advantage. It was urged that the skill of the seaman was a less firm basis for the state than the valour of the hoplite, and that the influx of foreign population and foreign manners, which would follow on a perse- verance in Themistocles' designs, would introduce an element of corruption and weakness in the city. The lavish expenditure of public money and heavy taxation which were now commencing, in spite of the surplus from the mines, frightened the more cautious of the citizens. Aristeides set himself to check it by repeatedly challenging the accounts of the public officers through whose hands the money was passing; he succeeded in proving several instances of embezzlement, and is said to have molested even Themistocles himself. At last the struggle between the two statesmen and their policies grew so hot that recourse „ , . . . . Ostracism of was had to the ostracism. A decisive majority Aristeidea, decreed the honourable exile of Aristeides, and the advocate of a quiet and conservative policy was compelled to go into banishment (483 B.C.). Themistocles had now a free hand, and was able to direct the course of the state without meeting with any opposition. Under lu"s guidance the works by the sea were carried out with the greatest energy; the Peiraeus, though but ten years since it had been a mere barren headland, was already* growing into a con- siderable town, where the sea-going and mercantile interests reigned supreme. Its population formed a body of no incon- siderable impoi-tance in politics, and a fertile field for the demo- cratic propaganda of the party in the state which was opposed to the old aristocratic doctrines of class-privilege and miaggressive foreign policy. The two hundred triremes had been built, and i88 The Years 490-480 B.C. r482B.c.- Athens was already in the possession of the strongest navy which any single Greek state had ever owned, when once more clouds Character of began to arise from the East. The young King Xerxes. Xerxes had now been sitting for five years on the tlirone of Persia; he had successfully put down the Egyptian revolt which had vexed the last days of his father, and was free to turn the undivided strength of his empire against any foe whom he might choose. The traditions of Persia pointed to foreign con- quest as the noblest occupation and truest glory of the Great King, and Xerxes was not insensible to their influence. Personally, indeed, he was but a mediocrity. The fair and stately face and form which seemed to mark him as a king of men, were belied by his intellectual feebleness and moral instability. His whole character was that of the mere harem-bred Eastern despot, and no spark of his father's genius inspired his actions. Vain and luxurious, indolently good-natiu-ed, but capable of sudden and savage outbursts of cruelty, easily swayed by a courtier or a sultana, by no means fond of exposing his sacred person to the hazards of battle, he seemed extremely unlikely to leave his name associated with one of the greatest events of history. But though the man was weak, his position was strong ; if no better motives could stir him to action, his vanity could not suffer him to fall behind the achievements of his predecessors. A warlike race of subjects ex- pected him to lead them to new conquests; an enemy who had routed his father's armies stood before him inviting chastisement and revenge ; Demaratus of Sparta, and other exiles from beyond the Aegean, thronged his court, and were continually pointing out the weakness and divisions of their land : small wonder, then, if this arrogant despot was led into his famous campaign against the Greeks. Greek legend adorned the story of the commencement of the design of Xerxes with many striking details, into the credibility of Xerxes plans '^^'bich there is no need to make inquiry. But this Invasion, niucli is Undoubted, that by the spring of 481 n.c. all Asia was astir with preparations for the invasion of the lands beyond the Aegean. The king had declared his intention of leading the armament in person, and the whole scale of the undertaking was to be very different from that of the comparatively modest expedition cf Datis and ArtapheVnes. Not only the Western 48XB.0.] The Congress of Corinth. 189 satrapies, but the remotest provinces of inner Asia were ordered to provide contingents; every maritime town in the Levant that owned the autliority of the Great King liad its quota of ships appointed. The cities of the Hellespont and Thi-ace were directed to collect magazines of every kind of provision on the largest scale for the army. The whole Persian empire had for some time been ringing with preparation, and the rumour of the coming storm must liave already reached Greece, when Xerxes despatched his heralds, to make the formal demand for earth and water which was to serve him as a casus belli. Only to Athens and Sparta was no summons sent ; the brutal treatment which the Persian messengers had received in those towns, ten years before, had put them beyond the pale of repentance. To all the other states the heralds went, nor was their mission altogether without effect. With the certain prospect of an invasion by the innumerable hordes of Asia before them, the Greeks drew together with an unwonted unanimity. The idea of a Pan-Hellenic Greek Union had already been dimly shadowed forth in the '^°co^^nth^' predominance of Sparta in the Peloponnese; and 48ib.c. Sparta, as one of the two states against whom the Persian attack was more especially directed, had now every motive to encourage her confederates to bind themselves more closely to her. Athens had even stronger reasons for endeavouring to bring about a union against the invader ; she was not only destitute of allies, but was still engaged in her protracted war with Aegina. Accordingly it is not strange to find that Themistocles was the statesman to whom, in conjunction with one Chileus of Tegea, the convocation of delegates from the greater number of the states of European Greece was due. These representatives met, late in the summer of 481 B.C., at the Isthmus of Corinth, under Spartan presidency. The gathering was larger than men of a desponding frame of mind could have hoped to see. It is true that two powers of the first magnitude, Argos and Thebes, had failed to respond to the summons — actuated, the one by her ancient rivalry with Sparta, the other by her jealousy of the rising power of Athens. But well- nigh all the other states of continental Greece appeared by their delegates on the appointed day. From the Cambunian mountains on the north, where the last free Greek district touched the Persian 190 The Years 490-480 u.c. [48ib.c. vassal-kingdom of Macedon, to Taenanim in the extreme .south, the Hellenic states had, with the two exceptions before mentioned, answered to the appeal. It was no ordinary crisis that could cause old enemies like Athens and Aegina, Thessaly and Phocis, Tegea and Mautinea, to forget their feuds and remember that all Avere sons of Hellen and lovers of freedom. But under the stress of the attack of Persia reconciliation had become possible. Some came to the meeting determined to resist at any cost; others were so deeply impressed with the might of the oncoming enemy, that comparatively little confidence was to be placed in their stead- fastness ; but even these last had not ventured to neglect the summons. ' The first step of the congress was to mediate between those of its members who were at feud with each other. In consequence of this action, Aegina and Athens, as well as sundry other states, were induced to suspend their hostilities. Next, a solemn appeal was made for assistance to all the outlying sections of the Greek race beyond the seas. This idea deserved greater success than it obtained; the Cretans excused themselves on the ground of a prohibition from the Delphic oracle ; the Corcyraeans promised aid, but by starting their squadron late, and ordering it to delay on the way, caused it to arrive long after the crisis of the war was over. Gelo, the powerful despot of SjTacuse, made most liberal offers of assistance, promising twenty thousand hoplites and two hundred triremes, but only on the preposterous condition that he should be made generalissimo of the whole confederate army, a demand which he must have known would be refused by Spartan pride. Indeed, it is most unlikely that he ever dreamed of sending help across the Ionian Sea, for he was at this very moment threatened by a fonuidable invasion of the Carthaginians from Africa, which was in all probability concerted to synchronize with Xerxes' attack on Greece. Although they had now ascertained that they would have to rely on themselves alone, the delegates of the confederate Greeks resolved to issue a bold manifesto ere they separated. Accordingly they pubhshed a solemn warning that any state which submitted to Xerxes without having been compelled by force, should, after the termination of the war, be attacked liy all the confederates, 481 B.C.] The Forebodings of the Oracles. 191 and that one-tenth of the booty obtained from it should be dedicated to the Delphic Apollo. It was now too late in the autumn to allow the Persian attack to be delivered in 481 c.c. The crisis was evidently to take place in the spring of the following year, and four months of suspense lay before the confederates. To this period belong the numerous appeals which the difterent states, in their feverish anxiety to know the unknowable, made to the Delphic oracle. Much to his discredit, Apollo showed no slight tendency to '• Medize," or take the side of the Great King. No doubt the Delphians, then as always in the possession of excellent information as to foreign parts, had fully realized the strength of Xerxes, and foresaw his success. At any rate, the oracle told the Spartans that " not even if they had the strength of bulls or of lions could they resist the Persian, and that either Sparta or a Spartan king must perish." Athens received an even more dismal reply : " She was rotten in head and body, hand and foot — fire and sword in the wake of the Syrian chariot should destroy the city of Pallas ; " while but poor consolation was given by a supplementary rhapsody, which stated that "safety should be found in the wooden wall, and divine Salamis should destroy the children of men." Argos, on the other hand, was encouraged in her policy of selfish isolation by the advice to "keep her head within her shell" like the tortoise, and let events take their course. Betwixt hopes and fears, the winter of 481-80 n.c. slipped by, and the approaching spring made the commencement of warlike operations possible. ^^ V. / V CHAPTER XIX. THE INVASION OF XEEXES — THERMOPYLAE AKD AETEMISIUM. As early as the spring of 481 B.C. the orders of Xerxes had set the contingents of the distant satrapies of the East in motion, and The host of ^7 the autiimn of the same year the whole land force Xerxes. ^f ^i^e Persian empire had gathered at its appointed meeting- place, the plain of Critalla in Cappadocia. In summoning it, the king had thought more of his own personal dignity than of any other consideration. His following was to be worthy of his greatness, and when he went forth to war he did not consider it fitting that any of his subjects should claim an immunity from its dangers. Accordingly he had demanded contingents, not only from the peoples whose military virtues were known, but from every tribe, great or small, brave or unwarlike, whom his dominions contained. It naturally resulted that his army was more fitted to serve as an ethnological museum than as an efficient machine fur conquest. His own Persians were gallant and loyal, but side by side with them marched worthless hordes drawn from nations destitute of military reputation, half-naked savages dragged from the ends of the earth, and Asiatic Greeks despatched against their will to subdue their own brethren. The muster-roll of the host of Xerxes has been preserved for us in the pages of Herodotus. Its contents go far to justify the boast of the Greeks that they had faced a whole world in arms, but at the same time explain why the seeming miracle was possible. There were, indeed, in the great king's army, beside his own ten thousand " Immortals " of the body-guard and the other native Persians, numerous contingents of value. The Bactrian horse and the archers of the Sacae could be trusted to do good service ; the Lycians and Carians were armed 480 B.C.J The Army of Xerxes. 193 after the Greek fashion, and had ere now faced Greeks in battle; but equally numerous were the masses of savages who had not even learnt the use of metals or the value of defensive armour. *' The Aethiopians from beyond Egypt," for example, as we read, *' were clad in leopard-skins, and carried bows made of the central rib of the palm leaf. Their arrows were reeds tipped with sharp fragments of stone, and they were armed in addition with spears pointed with gazelles' horns or knotted clubs. They painted half their body white and half red before going into battle." The Sagartian horsemen came bearing no weapons but a lasso and a long knife. The Libyans had no better arras than staves with their points hardened in the fire. The wild tribes of the Caucasus tried to guard their heads with wooden hats, but had no form of protection fur their bodies, and only short darts and knives as offensive weapons. It can easily be imagined how utterly useless were these half-naked barbarians when Greek hoplites had to be faced in the narrow frontage of a Greek pass. But Hiey were even worse than useless, for they increased the line of march to an unwieldy length, consumed vast quantities of provisions, and in the moment of conflict were certain to enfeeble the steadier troops who were mixed with them in the line of battle. How many fighting-men, good bad or indifferent, Xerxes took with him it is impossible to say. Report swelled their numbers to five millions, and the least exaggerated accounts speak of eiglit hundred thousand — a figure which does not seem utterly impossible when we remember the vigour with which the king had urged on the armament, and the years he had spent in preparation. But if we consider the quality of the host, its quantity becomes a matter of comparatively little importance. After meeting at Critalla, the army moved westward to Sard is, and went into winter quarters in that city and the neighbouring Lydian and Ionian towns till the spring of 480 B.C. arrived. It was during this interval that spies sent by the Greeks were detected in the Persian camp. Xerxes thought that he had everything to gain by the full number of his army being known across the Aegean, and instead of slaying the men, had them conducted through every part of his cantonments, and then dismissed them jn safety to tell all that they had seen, it)4 Thermopylae and Artimisium. [48ob.c. Early in 480 B.C. the Persian army was joined by its fleet, which safely rounded the Triopian promontory and cast anchor at Samos. • The fleet of The marine conscription had beea no less rigorous Xerxes. t^jr^Q ^j^^t on land, and every maritime people in Xerxes' dominions had been compelled to put forth its full strength — even nations, like the Egyptians, who were little habituated to the sea. The most trustworthy portion of the fleet was composed of the ships of the Phoenician cities ; the kings of Tyre Sidon and Aradus each appeared in person at the head of his contingent, and together these amounted to more than three hundred vessels ; the Egyptians Cypriots Cilicians and Greeks of Asia Minor con- tributed nine hundred more, so that the whole armada mustered twelve hundred vessels of war, in addition to numerous tenders and transports. Each trireme carried, beside its native crew, a detachment of thirty Persian soldiers, who were destined to serve ■as marines. Before fleet and army finally started on their way, the king had commanded the execution of two works of great magnitude and The HeUes- kittle utility, which he imagined would facilitate their pont bridged, progress, Lcst his ships should suffer at the stormy headland of Mount Athos a disaster similar to that which Mardonius had experienced twelve years before, he had the sandy isthmus, w^hich connects the peninsula of Acte with the mainland of Chnlcidice, pierced by a canal. This saved the fleet a few miles of sea at the cost of an incalculable amount of labour and expense. But the second engineering work was even more useless. In order that his army might be able to move straight on from Asia into Europe, without being delayed by the necessity of crossing the Hellespont on shipboard, he determined to bridge over that strait. Six hundred and seventy-four merchantmen, moored in two rows side by side, and fastened together with strong cables, formed two bridges spanning the space of somewhat less than a mile between the continents, and connecting the European shore near Sestos with the Asiatic heights above Abydos. A continuous flooring of planks w-as laid on the vessels, and earth rammed down on top of it, while hoardings were erected on each side of the gangway to hide the view of the sea from the horses and baggage animals. Not long after its completion the bridges were shattered by a storm ; thereupon 480 B.C.] Xerxes bridges the Hellespont. 195 Xerxes asserted his authorit}" by ordering the engineers who had designed them to be beheaded, and, if we may believe tradition, by inflicting three hundred lashes on the unruly sea, and causing chains to be cast into its rebellious waters. The officials to whom the rebuilding of the bridge was entrusted took warning by the fate of their predecessors, and, by doubling the strength of their fastenings, produced a more durable work, which endured the stress of all wx\atheis for nine months. Over this structure the whole Persian laud force defiled in safety, while Xerxes, seated on a marble throne on the Asiatic shore, watched the interminable line of march as it pressed forward into Europe. At the sight of such countless myriads of men even the reckless despot was touched by a feeling of common humanity : he burst into tears when he reflected that of the whole host not one man would be alive a hundred years hence. Immense mngazines of provisions had been collected during the past three years at four points on the Thracian coast — Leuce Acte, Tyrodiza, Doriscus, and Eiou — so that the expedition xerxe3 was enabled to push on westward without suffering ^rougli any privations. At Doriscus Xerxes held a review of iiirace. all his forces by land and sea ; the fleet sailed by under his eyes, while the army was numbered by the primitive method of finding how large an enclosure would hold exactly ten thousand men, and then sending the contingents one after the other into the space till all had been measured by it. Pressing on from Doriscus, the king reached the frontiers of the vassal state of Macedonia, where he was joined by the whole force of the land under its prince Alexander. In the Pangaean hills his baggage-train suffered much molestation from the lions, which then abounded in that part of Europe, though they have since entirely disappeared. Meanwhile the fleet passed through the canal on Mount Athos, and rounded the capes of the other two Chalcidic peninsulas, finally rejoin- ing the army at Therma, the town which later generations knew as the great harbour of Thessalonica. From this point Xerxes had full in his view the towering heights of Olympus, the only barrier which now intervened between him and the plain of Thessaly, There were exiled Thessalian princes of the great house of Aleuas in his camp, and from them he was able to gain information as to 196 Thermopylae and Arteinisinm. [480e.c. the disposition of the first free Greek people with whom he was to come into contact. The moment that the news of Xerxes' passage of the Hellespont reached Greece, the delegates of the preceding year had reassembled at Corinlh. The Thessalians, on whom the storm was first to break, spoke out in no hesitating terms. They placed their whole force at the disposition of the confederates, provided that adequate assistance from Southern Greece was granted them, but they insisted that they should not be left alone to face the first shock. If no army came to their aid, they would not undertake to fight alone in behalf of absent allies, and would make what terms they could with the Great King. The confederates had no thought of allowing the rich and populous Thessalian plain to pass into Persian hands without a blow being struck, and promptly collected a contingent of ten thousand hoplites and a considerable squadron of ships. The service was considered so important that Themistocles was placed in command of the Athenian troops, though the Spartan Euaenetus took charge of the whole army. They embarked at the isthmus, rounded Simiiim, and passing up the Euripus disem- barked at Halus, in Phthiutis, where the fleet remained, blocking the strait between Euboea and the mamland. The full force of the Thessalian cities, including their famous and formidable cavalrj', joined the confederates in the valley of the Peneus, and the whole advanced to the pass of Tempe, the narrow defile at the mouth of that river, through which the main road from Macedonia passes. The position was excellent for a small army designing to block the road of a much superior force, but it had the disadvantage, to which well-nigh all positions are liable, of being able to be turned by a long flank march. The Greeks had been only a few days in Tempe .„, ., , when they received secret notice from Alexander of The Greeks '' abandon Maccdon, whoj^asscd for a well-wisher to Greece, though eEsa y. ^^ ^^^ ^ Persian vassal, to the effect that Xerxes was about to use not only the main road, but also the upland passes which lead from Western Macedonia to Gonnus and the other towns of North-AVestern Thessaly. If these were once forced, the army in the defile of Tempe would be compelled to retire, and would probably be caught and trodden underfoot in the plain of Thessaly by the innumerable hosts of the Great King. Strategically this was •680 E.G.] The Greeks evacuate Thessaly. 197 true, but the danger was not yet imminent, and the political reasons for endeavouring to keep up a show of resistance on the Thessalian border were manifest. If the example was once set of deserting allies because they did not possess a thoroughly defensible frontier, there was no saying where the retreat would end, and all confidence in the action of the confederacy must cease. Nevertheless the nerve of Euaenetus and his colleagues seems to have failed them ; without waiting for the Persians to develop an attack, they hastily broke up their camp, deserted their Thessalian comrades, and hurrying down to Halus took ship back to the Isthmus. It naturally followed that the Thessalians, with all their dependent tribes — the Magnesians Malians Aenianes and Dolopes — lost not a moment in sending earth and water to Xerxes. It was not yet too late to propitiate him by a prompt submission before they had been attacked. Thus the largest Greek land in the whole peninsula was lost to the confederates before a blow had been struck. There was much wrangling and recrimination at Corinth when the fruitless expedition returned. The evil was now at the very doors of the states of Central Greece, and, to make the matter worse, it was known that Thebes and her dependents in the Boeotian League were ready to follow the example of the Thessalians, not merely from fear, — as had been the case with the latter people, — but from an active dislike to their neighbour Athens, and a wish to crush her newly risen power. The only doubt which could influence the confederate synod was whether the next stand should be made at Thermopylae or at the Corinthian Isthmus. If the latter position was chosen, Athens Phocis and Euboea must be sacrificed, as Thessaly had already been. It was, therefore, not difficult to foresee that the more advanced post would be occupied, in spite of the reluctance of some of the Peloj^onnesians to fight at such a distance from their homes. Accordingly it was determined to seize and hold Thermopylae with an army, and the straits of Euboea with a fleet, before the Persians should have crossed Thessaly. Luckily Xerxes tarried long at Therma The con- before resuming his march, and the scheme turned ^^'i®'''^*^^ ^^ • out to be feasible. A fleet of 271 ships, of which as many as 127 were Athenian, met in the Saronic Gulf and passed up the Eurfpus. It was commanded by the Spartan Eurybiades, for the Corinthians 198 Thermopylae and Artonisium. t^soB.c. and Aeginetans refused to serve unJer an Athenian admiral, although Athens contributed by far the largest contingent to the fleet, while the Athenians were equally averse to yielding pre- cedence to any one save a Spartan. Eurybiades was a man of narrow mind and hopeless obstinacy, and it required every blandish- ment of his able subordinate Themistocles to keep him from ruining the cause of Greece by his continual blunders and vagaries. The land force was placed under the command of the Spartan king Leonidas, who had succeeded his brother Cleomenes after the latter's untimely death. The space to be traversed by the land force in its march to Thermopylae was greater than that which the fleet had to cover, and the time required to collect the contingents far longer; there was, therefore, no slight danger that the army might arrive at Thermopylae only to find that it was already in the hands of the Persians. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the Spartans were on the eve of celebrating their great festival of the Carneia, and were troubled by the same ridiculous scruples as to marching in the holy season which had caused them to arrive too late at Marathon ten years before. Leonidas was unable to lead March of <^^*' ^^ ^^ ioxcQ of Lacouia, and had to depend for Leonidas. the moment on his personal following. Recognizing that he had a service of great danger before him, and, moreover, having the prophecy that " either Sparta or a Spartan king must perish " ringing in his ears, he chose as his body-guard not the three hundred youths who usually accompanied him to the field, but the same number of men who had sons living, and whose families would not be extinguished in the event of a disaster. Without delay he set out at the head of this small force, and of the usual contingent of Helots, who in all Spartan expeditions accompanied their masters in the proportion of seven or eight to each of the citizens. From the Arcadian towns which lay directly on his route he hastily collected something more than two thou- sand hoplites, while at the isthmus seven hundred Corinthians, Phliasians, and Mycenaeans joined him. With this force at his back he suddenly presented himself before the gates of Thebes, whose citizens had not yet accomplished their meditated defection to the Persians. As they were unprepared for resistance, Leouidns was able to overawe the ruling oligarchy, and to draw from its 480 B.C.] The Pass of Thermopylae. 199 ranks a coutingent of four hundred men, who, though their hearts were not in the cause, still served as hostages for the fidelity of their countrymen. From Thespiae, on the other hand, the town which had always taken the lead in opposing the centralizing policy of Thebes, came of their own accord a body of seven hundred hoplites, who proved in the subsequent operations that some at least of the Boeotians were true to the cause of Hellas. Giving out that his force was but the vanguard of the full levy of the Peloponnese, Leonidas pressed forward to Thermopylae, and arrived there long before the Persians had crossed Thessaly. The troops of Phocis and of the Locrians of Opus joined him in the pass, and raised his total numbers to nearly ten thousand men, a body quite sufficient to occupy the narrow defile. The first step for the defence of Central Greece had been successfully carried out, but it was rendered of no avail by the delay of the Peloponnesian con- federates in bringing up their main body. It is impossible to ascribe this merely to dilatoriness, negligence, or religious scruples; there can be no doubt that selfishness played a larger part in causing their delay than did any other motive. The celebrated pass in which Leonidas took np his position consists of a narrow slip of level ground between the sea and the cliffs of Mount Callidromus, one of the numerous off- The pass of shoots of the range of Oeta. It looks westward into Thermopylae, the little plain of Malis, while behind it to the east lies the coast-land of Locris and Phocis. As the space between the moun- tains and the water contracts, the defile becomes narrower, till at its culminating point there is barely room for a carriage-way. The whole passage, from the river Asopus on the Malian side to the Locrian village of Alpeni, is about two miles in length. In the middle of the defile lay the hot springs which give the place its name. In front of them the level ground expands for a few furlongs, so as to leave room for the temple of Demeter, at which the Amphictyouic deputies used to meet.^ In rear of this spot there lay an ancient fortification, a wall which the Phocians had once raised to restrain the inroads of their Thessalian neighbours ; it was now half-ruined, but still served to mark the line on which resistance ' At the western end of the pass, near Anthela, was another hot spring? and contraction of the road, which has been called " the False Thermopylae." soo Thermopylae and Arlemisinin, [480 E.C. to an invader coming from the nortli-west would be easiest. Here, then, Leonidas and his men fixed their camp; to their light lay the strait, some five miles broad, and beyond it the mountains of Euboea. To their left were inaccessible rocks rising in many places to sheer cliffs eight hundred feet high. So rugged was the defile, that in its whole length not one path led down from the mountain to the shore. But from Trachis, beyond the Malian end of the pnss, a winding track, curving far inland over a ridge called Anopaea, reached Alpeni in the rear of the Greek position. This was the A.k.fii.Trachof Hydarnes . -^ i B.PostofthePhocians ^ J^ ^^ ^ C.Positionofthe Hot SpHngs of Thermopylae -^^ ? 5^__12__J3 Stadia ^ " 1 ■ \ ,^ PLAN OF THE PASS THERMOPYUAE ll'alfctr Cr Bautall sc. only route by which the pass could be turned, without making an enormous detour of several days' march into the upper valleys of Mount Oeta. To guard it, Leonidas placed the whole of his Phocian allies on the hills, while his Peloponnesian forces held the pass. Meanwhile Eurybiades, with the confederate fleet, took post at the promontory of Artemisium, a point on the Euboean Strait con- siderably to the north of Thermopylae, so that it was impossible for the Persian fleet to pass by the position of Leonidas in order to land troojDS in his rear. Of this, as it happened, there was little danger. With the instinct of a barbarian utterly unused to the 480 B.C!.] The Fleets at Arteviisium. 201 sea, Xerxes never seems to have reflected that his fleet could be used to explore the way for his army, or to take the enemy in the rear. It was rather the army which pushed ahead to explore the way for the fleet. Not till twelve days after the Persian rear- guard had defiled through the gates of Therma did the armada set sail on its southern voyage. Coasting down the rocky shore of Magnesia, the ships reached Cape Sepias, where the The storm off range of Pelion abruptly ends in a sea-beaten pro- capesepias. montory. Here the fleet halted, a single row of vessels being drawn up on the narrow beach, while the rest — seven deep — rode at anchor off the harbourless coast. At midnight a sudden storm from the north-east swept down on the dangerously crowded arraj', and threw all into disorder. Some captains made for the open sea, while others endeavoured to beach their vessels on the already crowded strip of shingle. The hurricane lasted three days, and, at its end, no small part of the king's fleet was found to have been destroyed or disabled. The rocky coast for miles to the north was strewn with wrecks, and many scores of vessels were struck from the muster-roll of the Persian armament. The Greeks, meanwhile, who had remained safely moored in the harbour of Histiaea, exclaimed that Boreas — kinsman, according to a strange myth, of the Athenian kings of old — had come to the help of his relations, and sailed out to destroy the king's fleet, which was said to have been utterly shattered by the storm. They found, however, that the Persians were still nearly ^j^g Greeks at four times as numerous as themselves, and at Artemisium. once trie Peloponnesian admirals proposed to fall back on the Isthmus, and gather reinforcements there. Eurybiades was only induced to remain by a large bribe which his colleague Tlieniis- tocles administered to him. That astute statesman had just received thirty talents from the cities of Euboea, who, being covered while the fleet remained at Artemisium, were most re- luctant to see it depart. Making over about a third of the sum to his colleagues, Themistocles pocketed the rest. The talents which he spared for the Peloponnesians did their work, and the fleet kept its position. Meanwhile the Persian admirals hnd got their armada again in hand; they sent two hundred ships down the eastern coast of Euboea to round the southern point I'f the 202 Thermopylae and Artemisiiim. [48ob.c. island and block the exit of the Euilpus, and prepared with the remainder to crush the Greeks at Artemisium, A day's fighting in the strait brought no decisive result, but on the next night another storm arose, not leas dreadful than the one of the preceding week. Not only did it damage the king's fleet, which now lay in the Thessalian harbour of Aphetae, but it caught the detached squadron as it sailed down the iron-bound eastern coast of Euboea, and dashed it to pieces on the rocks of Geraestus ; it seemed as if the gods were working to bring down the Persian fleet to an equality with the Greeks. Two days more of indecisive fighting iu the strait followed, in which the weaker party held its own. The enemy was still too numerous to be crushed, but though he spread his vessels out in an enormous crescent, and endeavoured to envelop the confederates, he suffered far more damage than he Battle of inflicted. The Athenian ships were always to the Artemisium. front, and suffered a proportionately heavier loss than their allies ; but their numbers were more than sustained by the arrival of a reserve squadron of fifty-three triremes, which came up the Euripus in time for the third day's fighting. Nothing decisive had yet occurred at Artemisium, when, on the fourth day, a swift rowing-boat was seen coming up from the south. In it was Abronychus, an Athenian who had been left off the Malian coast to bear intelligence from the army to the fleet. The news which he brought from Thermopylae was so disastrous that the admirals had not a moment to lose before they retreated. AVhen the multitudes of Xerxes came pouring over the passes of Othrys into the Malian plain, they halted on finding that the defile of Thermopylae was occui^ied. The king had now before him two alternatives : he might force the pass, or he might move inland, and march round by the upland roads which pass through Doris, so as to turn Thermopylae just as he had turned Tempe. To take the inland road meant to lose many days, and to break off" communication with tlie fleet. He therefore determined to assault the Phocian wall, and trample down its presumptuous defenders. The story of the fight in the pass of Thermopylae is surrounded Xerxes before ^^ ''*' ^^^^^ ^^ legends, probable possible and impossible, Thermopylae, -whose authenticity it is useless to discuss. Most of them illustrate the utter insensibility of the Spartans in the face of 480 B.C.] The Fight in the Pass. 203 imminent death, and the bewilderment which that insensibility caused in the mind of a king accustomed to regard courage as the ofTspring of confidence in victory alone. When the Persian scouts, we are told, appeared for the first time in front of the pass, they did not find the Spartans cowering behind their wall, but carclesslj'' wandering without it, combing their long hair, or indulging in gymnastic exercises. The king laughed at them as madmen for not taking to flight, and was only amused when Demaratus, the exiled Spartan king who had attached himself to the Persian court, explained that their heedlessness was the sign of desperate resolution, and not of folly. After waiting awhile to allow the madmen time to come to their senses, Xerxes grew irritated, and sent forward a body of troops from Media and Elam, bidding them " take these presumptuous men alive, and bring them before the face of the king." Leonidas must have already realized, as the days went by without the promised succours from Peloponnesus reaching him, that he was sent on a hopeless task, for, although he might main- tain the defile and even the flanking road over Anopaea, he could Qo nothing to keep the king from the more western passes. But, like a true Spartan, he kept his orders before him, and took no thought of the consequences. He had by this time repaired the Phocian wall to serve him as a final defence, but was still holding ground in front of it, at one of the narrowest points of the pass. He had divided his men into several bodies, of which each was to take the place of danger in turn, for a few score of hoplites only could find space between the water and the cliff, and the rest had perforce to remain in reserve. The Medes came on with great confidence, pushing forward into the defile till they formed a long, deep column, with a front no broader than that of the Greeks. Then the shock ihe fight in came, and ere long the Asiatics were hurled back the pass, in disorder. In fighting hand-to-hand on equal terms, it was seen now, as it had been at Marathon ten years before, that the lightly armed Oriental, with his dart and scimitar and wicker shield, could do nothing against the hoplite cased in brass from head to foot, and armed with the long, thrusting spear. The Medes were fight- ing under the eye of their king, and would not give up the 204 Thermopylae and Arlemisinin. [48oB.o. contest; Ibey came on again and again, to be Leatcn back with fearful slaughter. Then Xerxes, thinking that it was for want of courage that they failed, called them in, and sent forward instead his own body-guard, the ten thousand chosen Persians, called " The Immortals." But though they fought gallantly enough, (he second column was dashed back with even greater loss than the first. Night then fell, but next morning the attack was renewed, for the king was beside himself with rage, and had determined to wear out the Greeks by mere force of numbers, if no other means would avail. But Leonidas, relieving each of his battalions as it grew tired by another from the reserve, kept his ground with little loss, while the road before hira was almost choked with dead Asiatics, and the Persian officers were seen endeavouring to lash their dispirited men back to the charge with whips, when no lighter j)ersuasion would induce them to tempt the dangers of the reeking pass. By the second evening it was evident that no effort from in front could possibly break through; the whole invasion was at a standstill, and although the actual loss signified little among the myriads of Xerxes' army, the moral effect of the check was growing fatal. If ten thousand Greeks could hold the king at bay, what was likely to happen when the hundred and fifty thousand men whom a national levy might at any moment produce, came up to help their comrades ? It was fortunate for Xerxes that the Peloponnesian towns were too far off to allow the news of the first days of battle to work any immediate effect. Despondency still reigned at Sparta, while eager self-confidence was felt at Ther- mopylae. It was on the night following the second conflict that a Malian named Ephialtes came before the downcast king, and offered, for a The pass large sum of gold, to guide the Persians over the turned. heights of Anopaea by the winding path which came out at the rear of the pass. Strangely enough, no previous search seems to have been made for such a road, though its existence must have been known to every inhabitant of Trachis, where Xerxes had now been tarrying for six days. The traitor's j^roposals were readily received, and at midnight the satrap Hydarnes started, with the king's " Immortals," to attempt the passage. It was in the stillness of the last hour of the night, just before the 480 3.0.) The Death of Lconidas. 205 dawn, that Ephialtes brought the Persians to the point on the ridge where lay the Phocian force which Leonidas had set to guard his flank. The Phociaus kept a careless watch ; and when the rustling of thousands of feet among the dead leaves of the oak forest smote upon their ears as they woke, they were seized with panic. Instead of holding the path, they ran back, and formed up to defend themselves on the summit of Caliidromus. But Hydarnes, paying no further attention to them, passed rapidly on, and next morning the Greelis in the pass saw, to their utter dismay, the head of the Persian column descending from the hills in their rear. There was small time for debate, and as little need, since it was evident that, if the army was not to be lost, an instant retreat must begin. Then came the crowning moment in the life of Leonidas. As a Spartan king at the head of the vanguard of the hosts of Greece, he felt that he must not desert the post committed to his charge. His orders bade him hold Thermopylae, and spoke of nothing more : Thermopylae, then, he would hold. He sent away his Arcadian and Corinthian auxiliaries ; they were not bound by the iron bonds of Spartan discipline and Spartan honour, and might retreat without disgrace from a hopeless field. The four hundred Thebans, however, he would not suffer to depart ; he knew that they were traitors at heart, and had no reason to spare them. The Thespians, with a constancy as unexpected as it was splendid, stayed behind of their own free will. Adding to them his own three hundred Spartans and their Helots, Leonidas had something like four thousand men left for the final struggle. The third day's fighting at Thermopylae was quite unlike that which had gone before. Instead of waiting to be attacked, and keeping strong reserves in hand, Leonidas determined , . , i ^ ^ Leonidas and to throw himself on the enemy in front, and do what the three hun- damagc he could, before Hydarnes came up to surround him. Accordingly, when the Persians came flooding up, as on the previous days, he ran out into the wider parts of the pass, and cut his way deep into the midst ot them. Then the Greeks turned and burst back again as far as the Phocian wall, losing heavily as their ranks grew looser in the onset, but thrusting the barbarians by hundreds into the sea, and rolling column against column till 2o6 Thermopylae and Artemisiuin. [48ob.c. more perished by being trampled down ia the press tlian fell by the edge of the sword. Ere long Leonidas was slain, but the fight went on only the more fiercely over his body, and two brothers and two uncles of Xerxes went down in the indee. Presently Ilydarnes and the " Immortals " came up from Alpeni. By this time the surviving Greeks were well-nigh wearied out ; their spears were broken, their swords blunted, their armour hacked from their limbs. But retiring on to a hillock beside the roadway, they made one final stand, till they fell under the arrows and javelins of a foe who dared not close. Only the Thebans escaped. Early in the conflict they had fallen back and surrendered to the nearest enemy ; they were led to the Persian camp, and branded with the king's mark as his slaves; but when Xerxes learnt_that they were only in arms by compulsion, and that their city was about to " Medize " on his approach, he at once set them free. Thus ended the fight in the pass of Thermopylae. It had caused the death of some four thousand Greeks and of more than twenty Moral results thousand Persians. But its effects were not to be of the battle, measured by the mere numbers of the slain. Its real importance lay in the impression which it left on the mind of the Great King and his army. Xerxes had at last begun to have doubts of his own omnipotence, and his self-confidence had been the only spring of strength in his character. Deprived of it, he would become the weakest of despots. His soldiery had imbibed an exaggerated dread of their enemies. There was but one Leonidas in Hellas, and Sparta was but a single state among a multitude ; but to the Persian spearman every Greek was in future a reckless hero, careless of life, and only bent on slaughter — an adversary who in open fight was individually superior to him- self, and could only be overpowered by numbers. There were many brave men in Xerxes' host, who in later engagements went into battle readily enough ; but they never after fought with the confidence in their own superiority which had been the strength of the Persian down to Thermopylae. This was fortunate for Greece ; for one Leonidas there were in the Greek ranks scores of weak, venal, selfish leaders, whoso inefficiency was hidden from the enemy by the glory which surrounded the name of the hero of Thermopylae. 480 B.C.] Mo7-al Effect of Thermopylae. 207 But for the moment tlie Greeks could not judge of the moral effect of the battle ou the enemy, and, looked at from the military aspect, the war had begun with a disaster. A Spartan king, the soul of the war-party, had fallen ; the vanguard of the confederate host had been cut to pieces; the strongest position in Greece had been forced by the enemy, who was now ready to pour down into the plain of the Cephissus, and to be joined by all the Medizing cities of Boeotia. The fleet, too, was compelled to fall back at once from the Euboean Strait, and where its retreat might end it was impossible to foresee. In short, no one in Greece could tell at the time that the moral gain of Thermopylae had been so tremendous as quite to outweigh the military and political loss. CHAPTER XX, THE INVASION OF XERXES — SALAMIS AND PLATAEA. The inexcusable slackness and selfishness of the Peloponnesians, which had ruined Leonidas by depriving him of his expected The Greek fleet '■^ii^f^'"'^^!^'^^^*'^' reacted at once on the fleet at at saiamis. Artemisium. In order to avoid being cut off, Eurybiades had to weigh anchor on the night after the ill news arrived. He retired down the EurTpus, leaving Themistocles and a detachment of the Athenian squadron to bring up the rear, and, after rounding Sunium, halted opposite Athens in the bay of Saiamis. The Athenian admiral is said to have employed himself during the retreat in painting up, on the rocks near the watering- places of the Euboean coast, appeals to the lonians in the Persian fleet not to destroy the land of their ancestors. If this tale be true, he was probably aiming at making Xerxes suspicious of his Greek subjects, rather than at inducing them to come over ; for he must have known well enough that the lonians were not the men to desert a winning for a losing cause. In consequence of the retreat of the Greek squadron, the Euboeans found that their bribes to Themistocles had availed them but for a few days. Their leading men took refuge on the Euboean ships in the confederate fleet, and followed its fortunes, but the towns themselves made their peace with Xerxes. On the mainland the loss to the cause of independence was even greater. When Thermopylae was clear, Xerxes began to Xerxes in push his army forward, using not only the pass he Boeotia. j^ad forced, but the more circuitous inland road through Doris and the Upper Cephissus valley, which he had previously left unessayed. The Phocians, who refused to submit 480 B.C.] Xerxes in Boeotia. 209 to hiiu, were compelled to take to the bills, and to see all tbeir townships harried by the Persian, to whom tbeir hereditary enemies the Thessalians acted as willing guides. The Locrians of Opus, and the oligarchies who governed the majority of tbe Boeotian towns, took tbe opposite course, and promptly made tbeir sub- mission to tbe king, who received them graciously enough, and contented himself witb incorporating their contingents in bis army. Plataea Thespiae and Haliartus alone refused to join in tbe general surrender, and bad to face tbe consequences of tbeir patriotism. Tbe last-named town suffered complete destruction, but from tbe others, which lay further from tbe enemy, tbe in- habitants bad time to escape. Tbe Thespians, though they bad suffered so severely at Thermopylae, were in nowise shaken in tbeir devotion to the national cause, but took refuge at Corinth. The Plataeans retired to their old friends at Athens, wbose fortunes now, as ten years before, they bad determined to follow. Now that the Great King was already in Boeotia, and bis vanguard might at any moment reach the foot of the passes of Cithaeron, the Athenians had to face the whole danger of their position. Ot defending Attica by land there could be no question : if Ther- mopylae could not beheld, it would be madness to attempt to block tbe four comparatively easy roads which converge on Athens from the north. Three alternatives only were possible : to submit to Xerxes; to man tbe walls and stand a siege ; or to abandon tbe city and retire on the Peloponnese, as the Thespians bad already done. Eacb opinion had its advocates — even the first and most dishonour- able. But Themistocles, in the moment of crisis, carried everything before him by bis ready eloquence. He pointed out tbe hopeless- ness of surrender for the city, which was beyond all others tbe pepuliar object of the hatred of tbe Great King, and so incensed the people against Cyrsilus, an orator who pleaded in favour of that mean and witless step, that we hear that the traitor was stoned on the spot. He bad in2,enious arguments to urge against those who bade Athens stand at bay behind her ramparts, on the spot hallowed by tbe traditions of centuries. He pointed to tbe fleet, his own creation, as the true hope and safety of the people ; in it was to be found tbe " wooden wall " of which the Delphic oracle bad spoken as tbe sole refuge in the day of disaster. To abandoQ P 2IO Sala?nis and Plataea. f480B.c. without a struggle the temples of their national deities and the tombs of their ancestors, required a pitch of patriotic exaltation which it was hard for the Athenians to attain, when ultimate snccess was so problematic. Nevertheless Themistocles roused his couutrymen to stake everything on tbo fleet, to deliberately Evacuation Gvacuate Attica and Athens, place the aged, the of Athens, women, and children in safety, and then man every available vessel and stand for the mastery in the waters of the Attic Strait. There can be no doubt that his plan was the only feasible one. The experience of Thermopylae had shown that the land army of Xerxes would probably fail at the Isthmus, where it would be met, not by a scant ten thousand men, but by the national levy of the Peloponnese. Now, if the position at the Isthmus could be turned by the Persians from the side of the sea, and troops landed in its rear, the previous disaster would onlj' be repeated on a larger scale. But if the great king's fleet could be driven back, and kept from assisting his army, the whole expedition would be brought to a check ; for the Corinthiau Isthmus offered no facilities for a flank movement by land such as had settled the day at Thermopylae. The battles of Artemisium had made it clear that the Persian fleet could be harassed and insulted by a squadron of far inferior numbers, and at those engagements the Greeks had brought up little more than half of their available strength. Themistocles, therefore, was convinced that in a vigorous assault on the sea-power of the enemy lay the only hope of salvation ; and it was fortunate for Athens, for Greece, and for the whole world, that his fiery eloquence won over his countrymen to accept his views. It was not every Athenian who could be convinced by the orator. A small but obstinate party refused to find the " wooden wall," which was to save the city, anywhere but in the palisades of the Acropolis, and shut themselves up therein, relying on divine aid. But the vast majority set to work to transport their families and their portable goods to a place of safety. For several days every available ship was pressed into service to ferry the exiled multitude over the Saronic Gulf. Troezeu, a town connected with Athens both by traditional ties and close commercial intercourse, M'as the chosen point of refuge, and its hospitablp citizens not only 480 B.C.) Evacuation of Athens. 211 received the fugitives with ls:iudncss, but oven assisted them with a considerable allowance from the public revenue. Some of the Athenians also retired to Aegina, and a few went no further than Salamis, but the great bulk of them sought the more distant and secure haven in the Peloponnesus. It is said tliat the departing multitude were in no small degree comforted by the disappearance of the snored snake of the Acropolis on the first day of embarkation — a portent which was taken to imply that Athena and her visible representative had quitted the city in company with her worshippers. Probably Themistocles could have explained the marvel had he so chosen. The last act of the Athenians before deserting their home was to pass an act of indemnity for all exiles, inviting them to return and help their brethren in the day of adversity. Of the many who took advantage of this decree, and prepared to join the fleet, by far the most important was Aristeides, who, since his ostracism four years ago, had been living in retirement in the Peloponnese. The moment that he reappeared in the Athenian ranks his old influence returned to him, and he was not the man to use it amiss in the time of danger. AVhile the embarkation was proceeding at the quays of Peiraeus and Phalerum, the armies of the great king were hurrying through the plains of Boeotia on their southward march, and Tije Persians before it was completed the passes of Cithaeron must ^"^^k Delphi, have already fallen into their hands. "While the main body pressed on for Athens, a considerable detachment marched west to seize Delphi, whose vast temple-treasures were enough to tempt the invader, even if he had no conception of the shock which he could inflict on Greek national feeling by the destruction of the greatest sanctuary of the Hellenic world. But this expedition came to nought ; its end is so shrouded with wild legends that it is hard to ascertain the facts. We hear of great falls of rock in the passes of Parnassus which slew many of the Asiatics, and of a x)anic fear which fell upon them when the holy place was almost in their grasp, and sent them crowding back in groundless terror into the Boeotian plain. The Delphiaus maintained that Apollo had interfered in person to save his temple, though the god had shown himself apathetic enough when his " loved Didymean dwelling " at Branchidae had been sacked by the same enemy, at tl:c time of the 212 Said mis a fid Flaiaed. [480 b.o. Ionian I'LVolt. At any rate the treasures of Del^ihi remained un* spoiled, and the fact of their preservation went far to rescue the repute of the oracle from the discredit cast upon it by the dismal Medizing prophecies which it had been venting during the previous year. If the sanctuary of Apollo remained unscathed, the liome of Pallas on the Athenian Acropolis had a very ditierent fate. The Xerxes takes heads of the Persian columns converged on Athens, Athens. ^^^ entered the city only to find it completely deserted, save for the few fanatics who were still holding out behind the palisades of the Acropolis. They made a longer defence than might have been expected, but finally a body of Persians, scram- bling up the almost impracticable cliff below the temple of Aglaurus, carried the place by escalade, and slew the remnant of the garrison in the very temple of Athene. Xerxes was determined to make an example of the city which bad so long and so successfully defied his father and himself. Contrary to the custom of the Persians, he not only burnt all private dwellings, but levelled to the ground the sacred buildings on the Acropolis, as if determined to drive the gods of Athens as well as her citizens from their ancient stronghold. So thoroughly did he do his work, and so completely was every- thing overturned, that many of the statues which he then cast down remained buried in the fragments of the edifices which had contained them, only to be unearthed by the explorers of our own day. The destruction of Athens was carried out under the very eyes of her citizens, for the flames of the city were plainly visible from Salamis, where the Greek fleet was still lying. The vessels which fought at Artemisium had now been largely reinforced by fresh detachments from various localities ; the Sicyonians had doubled their contingent, and the ships of the Corinthian colonies on the west coast of Greece had at last arrived. But except Athens no city had exerted itself to its utmost. Aegina, for example, kept more than half her fleet at home, to provide for her safety in the event of defeat; and Corinth only put forty ships into the confederate squadron. Then it came to pass that Athens, in spite of consider- able losses at Artemisium, still supplied almost half the total — 180 triremes out of the 378 which lay.- in the S.ilamiaiau Bay. The 430 B.0.3 The Greek Admirals at Salamis. 213 Spartan Eurybiades still held nominal command of the wliolc, but his personal incompetence threw the settlement of every important question into the hands of stormy councils of war. Tlie admirala of the various squadrons were hopelessly at variance ; re ♦ Adeimantus the Corinthian and the majority of the the Greek Peloponnesians were for retiring to the Isthmus, and acting in close concert with the land army, wliich had now gathered there in strength, and was commencing to build a wall from sea to sea for the defence of the peninsula. Eurybiades, in his vacillating way, inclined to favour this course. But Themistocles was deter- mined to attack the Persian ships the moment they appeared in Attic waters, and before they could commence any movement against the rear of the Greeks. The Aeginetan and Megarian admirals adhered to his opinion, for the position at Salamis protected their cities, which would be exposed to attack from the sea the moment the confederate fleet retreated to Corinth. The contention was brought to a crisis by the appearance of the Persian armada, which rounded Sunium and appeared in the harbour of Phalerum. After a fruitless discussion many of the Peloponnesians were actually preparing to weigh anchor, Avhen Themistocles, bringing all the iniluence of his vehement personality to bear on Eurybiades, pro- cured a final meeting of the admirals at midnight. Here words grew hot and furious. Adeimantus bade Themistocles, " a man who had no longer a country," hold his peace and obey. The Athenian replied that the admiral who had a hundred and eighty war-ships at his back could choose himself a countr}' wiierever he wished, and swore that if the Peloponnesians retired to the Isthmus, the Athenian squadron should separate itself from them, take on board the fugitives at Troezen, and sail for Italy, there to found a new Athena. This threat so disturbed Eurybiades that he threw all his influence into the scale, and ere daybreak the council of war resolved (0 stand firm and offer battle in the strait. The chosen battle-field was the space of land-locked water whoso northern portion forms the Strait of Salamis. A deep curve in the Attic coast is faced for the gi-eater part of its length by the eastern shore of the rugged and irregularly shaped island of Salamis, which leaves in the centre a considerable expanse of sea, but sends out to Qast and west long promontories which approach the mainland, 214 Salaiiu's cvid Plataea. (480 B.C. ami contract the bay m'.o a atrait. In the eaSi^cvn exif of this island sea lie the harbour and town of Salamis, where the Grecian fleet was moored. Further out, beyond the strait, and round an angle of the Attic coast, lay the Persian fleet in the harbour of Phalerum. As long as this remained the relative position of the two armaments, the eastern passage was practically barred to the confederates, but they had full opportunity to retire on Megara and Corinth by the western exit. A Grech Line of Battle CD- B Persian ,, ,, ,, Ci*. ^«^J CSeat of Xerxes ■ "> ll'dlkcr &■ Bai'la.11 sc. Iir the vehemence of his desire to precij^itate a collision, Themistocles now had recourse to one of those ingenious but uu- Themistocies scrupulous manoeuvres which give the key to his communicates character. He sent by night a confidential Asiatic ■ slave to the Persian camp ; the man bore letters to the king which protested that the Athenian admiral was anxious to serve him, and would have him know that the Greek commanders were about to retire under cover of the darkness. If, therefore, he wished to crush his enemies, he must make haste to seize both entries of the bay of Eleusis, or the confederate fleet would escape westward.' Themistocles thus provided for himself, whatever the course of events might be. If, as he hoiked, the Persians should proceed to attack, the battle for which he yearned would take place, and victory would probably follow ; but if Xerxes either should r'=!fus8- 480 B.C.) The Persians surround Salainis. 215 to advance, or should attack and be successful, he would at any rate be personally well disposed to a man who had endeavoured to do something in his behalf. The events fell out exactly as the ingenious plotter desired. The Great King, in fear that his enemies might escape, determined to render their flight impossible. Before dawn his vessels were already filing out from the Phaleric harbour, and pushing on to the north and west so as to completely encircle the anchorage where the confederates lay. He even ordered land troops to be trans- ported across to the small island of Psyttaleia, which lies off the south-east exit of the bay, in order that they might seize any Greeks whose vessels might run ashore upon that island — an excess of precaution which was soon to appear ludicrous enough during the battle. The confederate admirals w'cre thrown into a new fever of indecision by the advance of the Persian fleet, and spent the day in inconclusive debates, during which several of the Peloponnesians showed that their old design of absconding was not even now forgotten. But meanwhile the horns of the crescent into which the hostile squadron had formed itself were slowly contracting, till retreat had grown impossible. At nightfall the exiled Aristides made his appearance among the Athenians, to announce that he had only just found it possible to slip between the nearest ships of the enemy and the shore, while his news w-ere soon confirmed by deserters, who reported that a complete blockade of the Strait of Salamis had been established. A battle next day was inevitable. The Persian king had still about a thousand vessels, in spite of all his losses by war and shipwreck. He had enclosed his enemies in a position where defeat must mean destruction, and felt strength of no doubt of the result. His crews were roused to *^^ fleets, unusual excitement by the fact that they were to fight under his own royal eye. For on the slope of Mount Aegialeus, over- looking the bay, a splendid throne had been erected, and on it the king took his seat, surrounded by his princes and courtiers, and well furnished with scribes, who were to take down the names and actions of all who distinguished themselves in the coming en- gagement. Not a soul had ventured to raise a doubt as to the policy of fighting, save Artemisia, the widowed Queen of nalicarnassus. 2 1 6 Sala/iils and Flataea. (48o b.c. wlio had headed her own squadron on the expedition, and more than once displayed prudence and foresight which should have Lien in- valuable to the king. But Xerxes treated her advice, to attack the Isthmus by land before joining battle by sea, with quiet disregard, and no one else had the temerity to run counter to the royal will. By the desertion of two vessels, a Lemnian and a Tenian, from the enemy, the Greek armament had been raised to 380 sail. Eetreat was completely cut off, so that it Avas for every man a question of victory or destruction ; and there was no opportunity for faint-hearted captains to edge away and make for the open sea, as the Samians had done with such fatal result fifteen years before, at the battle of Lade. The Athenians and Aeginetans, who formed the majority of the combatants, were ready enough for the fight ; while the Peloponnesians, though they had wished to avoid an engagement, had no temptations to slackness now that one had become inevitable. The generals did their best to cncourag3 their men by citing such prophecies and oracles as seemed to portend a victory for Greece, and even fetched out and placed on shipboard th? images of Ajxx and his kinsmen, the tutelary heroes of Salarais, as if to make them their leaders in a fight which seemed to reproduce the old struggle with Asia in the mythic days of Troy. But no less important than the moral advantages of the Greeks was the character of the waters in which they were about to fight. The sea-room was so confined, and so hampered with reefs, promontories, and islands, that the king's admirals could not make full use of their overwhelming numbers, while their inferior seamanship and want of knowledge of the localities led to overcrowding, stranding, and other small mishaps long before the battle began. Next morning each fleet discerned the other drawn up in battle array. On the side of the confederates the Athenian squadron held the left wing, the Euboeans and Aeginetans the centre, the Corinthians and other Peloponnesian contingents the right, the l.lace of honour: here, too, Eurybiades, the commander-in-chief, with his sixteen ships from Liconia, took his station. Among the barbarians the Phoenicians were on the right, facing the Athe- nians, the Cilicians and Pamphylians in the centre and the Ionian squadrons on the left. 480 B.C.] Batlle of Salaviis. 217 The flay was rough, a south-west wind was blowing across the breadth of the bay, and the surf ran high. Nevertheless, it was the king's fleet which made the first movement. Rowing against wind and tide, and suffering much from overcrowding, they slowly and laboriously advanced. For a moment the Greeks hung back, close to the land and their anchorage ; then Ameinias of Pallene, an Athenian trierarch, shot out from the line and rammed a Sidonian vessel. Ship after ship followed him, and Battle of soon battle had been joined all along the strait, and saiamis. the water was covered by a confused medley of galleys, circling round each other, and seeking opportunity to ram, or locked in close combat, where the press was thicker and no room for manoeuvring remained. On neither side was much strategy displayed; the day was decided by the superior seamanship and determination of the confederates, not by the ability of their admirals. Before long it was evident that the barbarians were gaining no advantage, but their confidence la gross numbers kept them from panic, and there were ships unnumbered ready to press forward into the fighting line to replace disabled consorts. Even the lunians, on whose desertion many of the Greeks had been relying, sliowed no reluctance to engage, and took their full share of the action. For manj^ hours the conflict showed no signs of slacken- ing, and the king, as he sat on Aegialeus, with his scribes at his feet, gazing on the vast panorama in the bay, had time enough to note down many a bold deed of friend and foe. But at last the current of the fight began to set markedly toward the south and east; numbers of Persian ships dropped out of the line disabled, and r.in ashore, or drifted down the coast ; the rest fell more and more into confusion, huddling into helpless masses, and fighting purely on the defensive. Finally their losses began to tell on them. The king's brother, Ariabignes, who held the supreme command, fell as he was attempting to board an Athenian vessel, and about nightfall the broken fleet reeled slowly back to the Attic coast and took refuge with the land army, which had moved down to the beach to assist it. Most of its rearmost vessels were cut off by the Athenians and Aeginetans, who pressed their victory home, and chased the enemy till he was absolutely out of reach. To crown the daj', Aristides embarked some Athenian hoplite? 2 1 8 Sa/ainis and Flataea. (480 b.c. from the town of Salauiis, and putting them ashore on Psyttaleia cut to pieces the Persian detachment which had landed there, and was now completely isolated by the falling back of the fleet. So ended the battle of Salamis. Balancing the mere loss of ships, we find that the king's fleet had been diminished by some Results of two hundred vessels, while the Greeks were only the battle, weakened by forty. The victory, therefore, though decisive enough, was far from being a crushing one, and the bar- barians still outnumbered the Hellenes by more than two to one. But all spirit had been taken out of the vanquished. The Phoe- nicians accused the lonians of having lost the battle by their slackness ; while the lonians fully made up their minds that they were on the losing side, and resolved to quit it as soon as possible. Xerxes was profoundly disgusted with his fleet, and began to deem that uncertain element the sea unworthy of his royal notice. At the same time he realized that, if he was no longer master of the Aegean, his homeward route by the long circuit back to the bridge on the Hellespont was in no small danger. When once his self-confidence was abated, regard for his own valuable person began to assume the most prominent place in his thoughts, and those of his courtiers who could read the signs of the times were quick to fall in with his new disposition. On the Greek side the revulsion of feeling was no less great. There were few who, with Themistocles, had foreseen a victory from the first; the majority, even among the Athenians, had accepted the battle as the last desperate chance in a hazardous game ; many had not fought voluntarily at all, but merely because their retreat was cut off, and no other alternative remained. The success which they had won with, such small loss completely changed their spirit, and for the future the Greeks by sea were inclined to recklessness rather than fear, and thought of nothing but taking the offensive. More than any others did the Athenians rise to this pitch of elation : they had staked everything on the battle ; they alone, by the numbers of their contingent, had made victory possible ; their general had been the one consistent prophet of good fortune, and they rightly felt that the credit of the day was almost entirely their own. The council of admirals, indeed, awaided the prize of valour to an Aeginetan, and presented Eurybiades with 480 Bc, Xerxes rchirns io Asia. 219 A wreath of honour, but their partial decision deceived nobody ; Athens and Themistocles were entitled to the glory of having saved Greece. For a few days after the battle Xerxes kept up a show of pcr- S3verance; his army commenced to construct a broad mole out from the mainland, as if he were determined to win Sal amis by military if not by naval operations. But this was only a cover io his real design ; he had made up his mind to return home. Mardoniut;, who had been the most prominent supporter of the expedition, aud still hoped to bring it to a successful end, supplied him with a plausible excuse. Athens, he said, had been the city at which the great king's wrath had been directed, and now that Athens was a mass cf smoking ruins, the object of the invasion had been fulfilled. The minor task of finishing the campaign might be left to inferior hands. Let the king, therefore, return to Susa, and leave some satrap with an adequate force to complete the subjection of Hellas. Xerxes eagerly accepted this view; he bade Mardonius chose what troops he wished, and announced his intention of returning home with the remainder, xerxes rettims His departure is said to have been hastened by a to Asia, secret message from Themistocles, who again despatched his con- fidential slave to the mainland, to inform the king that he had with great difficulty induced the admirals to postpone sailing to the Hellespont to destroy the bridge of boats, and that it would undoubtedly be attacked ere long. As a matter of fact Themis- tocles himself had advised this step, but Eurybiades had found it too rash, and prevented any such design from being takea in hand. Accordingly Mardonius chose the best troops of the army — all the Persians, including the king's body-guard, together with the Median Sacan and Bactrian contingents, and many smaller bodies from other nations. The rest of the host set out with the king, to retrace the long road through Boeotia Thessaly and Macedonia by which they had advanced. The satrap Artabazus, with sixty thousand picked men, brought up the rear, and after coveiing the march of the main body as far as the Hellespont, remained behind to overawe the Macedonians and keep up communications between Mardonius and Asia. The Persians are said to have suffered severs privations on their return journey; for the mngazincs which had 2?o Salami's and Plataea. r48o b.c- suppUed them during their advance were no longer full, and tho season had grown late and was now verging on winter. It was with ranks much thinned by dysentery and exposure to the bleak Thracian climate that Xerxes reached Abj'^dos. There he found the bridge broken by the storms of the equinox, and was compelled to cross on shipboard. His army was slowly ferried over, and followed him back to Sardis in a sufficiently depressed and dis* consolate frame of mind. Meanwhile the Persian fleet had left the ports of Athens at the same time that Xerxes set out on his return. Sailing by night, The Persian ^^^ defeated avmada ingloriously made off for the fleet departs. Hellespont. It reached Abj'dos long before the land army, and protected the passage of the kin?, which was not molested by the Greeks. Then part of it, apparently the Phoenician squadrons, went home ; while the western contingents wintered at the harbour of Cyme in Aeolis. The Greek admirals, with a vague dread of the power of Persia still hanging about them, made no attempt to pursue the enemy. They contented themselves with failing to the nearer Cyclades and compelling the islanders to throw off their lately sworn allegiance to Persia. The Andrians alone made resistance, and had their land ravaged; the Parians and some others got their submission more easily accepted by sending large bribes in secret to Themistocles, who readily made their peace for them with the other confederate admirals. After a solemn visit to the Isthmus, where the booty of Salamis was divided up, and large offerings made to the national gods — not even the Medizing Apollo of Delphi being omitted — the various squadrons dispersed to their native cities. The winter of 480-479 b.c. was long protracted, and more than six months elapsed before warlike operations recommenced. Mardonius ■Winter of drew back his army far to the north, cantoning the 480-479 B.C. greater part of it in the towns of Thessaly. His Boeotian allies kept to their own territories north of the range of Cithaeron, and Attica was therefore left unoccupied. This emboldened the Athenians to return to their ruined city, and to bring over their families from Troezen. They were already beginning to restore their dilapidated dwellings, when they received r, warning that their troubles were not yet ended. In the early 479 fl.o.] Mardonius in Attica. 22 1 spring Alexander the Macedonian appeared among them, bearing a message from Mardonius. The Persiao, anxious to detach the Athenians from the league of Greece, proposed to them terms sucli as the great king had never before deigned to proffer to an ally. In return for withdrawing from their opposition, they were not only to retain complete independence, but to be allowed to annex as much of their neighbours' territory as they might choose, and to receive from Xerxes a sum large enough to enable them to restore all the ruins of their temples and dwellings. Eefusal was to be punished by a second occujiation of the city, when the campaigning season came round. But it was not likely that, after Salamis, the Athen'ans would desert a cause to which they had been faithful in the darkest hour. They sent away the Macedonian prince with a defiant reply, and stoically awaited the chances of war. Mardonius was as good as his word. When spring arrived his army came flooding southward from Thessaly, and then, swollen by the contingents of Boeotia, swept over the crest Mardonius re- of Cithaeron and into the Thriasian plain. The ^^^^^ *° -^-ttica. Athenians had been hoping that their allies from Peloponnesus would come out in full force from the Isthmus and help them to hold the passes of Cithaeron against the Persian. But the Spartans had not yet given up their old scheme of making the wall in front of Corinth, now completed into a substantial fortification, their line of defence. Not a hoplite appeared to defend Attica, and the Athenians were constrained once more to put their families on shipboard and escape to Troezen and Salamis. Exactly ten months after Xerxes had first entered Athens, Mardonius appeared m front of its deserted walls and occupied them without resistance. The Athenians were in high dudgeon at the isolation ^^^ Athenians in which they were left ; they sent ambassadors to and spartana Sparta to upbraid their selfish confederates, and to endeavour to drive them forward by hinting that they still had before them the proposals made by Alexander of Macedon, and might be driven to accept them it no help came. This threat secretly moved the ephors, but they determined to conceal their perturbation from the Athenians, and put oft the ambassadors some days before giving them an answer, alleging aa an excuse the fact that their great festival, the Hyacinthia, was at that moment 222 Salami's and Plataca. [479 b.c. being celebrated. They then collected iivc thousana Spartans, — more than half the available force of the state ; — placed Pausanias, thenephewof Leonidas, in command, and started them off by night to inarch northward. Thus, when the Athenian ambassadors received their audience, they learnt to their surprise that the Spartan army was already far advanced towards the Isthmus, and had its orders to go beyond it. Five thousand hoplites of the Perioeci accompanied the ambassadors on their return journey, and soon it became apparent that the whole of the Pelopounese was on the march. All the contingents of the states that owned the hegemony of Sparta came flocking in to Corinth ; then advance from the whole body, an army such as Greece had never Corinth, -^gfoi-e put in the field, advanced to Megara and Eleusis. At the latter place they were joined by eight thousand A.thenian hoplites, who crossed the strait from Salamis. But they did not find Mardonius in front of them and offering battle, as they had expected. On their approach the satrap, after directing a cavalry reconnaissance as far as the gates of Megara — the furthest point to the west which the Persian arms reached — had evacuated Athens. He carefully destroyed any remains of the temples and walls that had escaped the first occupation, and levelled the new buildings which had been commenced in the winter. Then he marched across the front of the advancing Greek army, passed Cithaeron, and settled down in the valley of the Asopus. Here he offered battle in the plain of Southern Boeotia. His camp, surrounded by an earthen rampart which formed a square of ten furlongs, was pitched by the river, facing towards Plataea, the spot The armies ^* which the roads leading from Megara and the at Plataea. Peloponnese into Boeotia converge. The Greeks lay above on the hillside, for they did not dare to come down into the plain on account of the large bodies of horse which Mardonius could put into the field. As the two armies were posted, the Persian threatened equally the pass into the Megarid and that which led by the shore of the Corintluan Gulf towards the Isthmus. Similarly the Greeks were posted so that they could attack Mardonius at advantage in the hilly ground, if he moved forward on either of these lines of communication. For some time the two armies faced each other, each expecting the other lo make the j 479 B.C. The Greek Army in Boeotia. 223 decisive move. !Mardonius was determined not to attack the Greeks on billy gromid, remembering Thermopj'lae. Pausanias, though a brave and ambitious man, had no military judgment or power of initiative, and feared that the morale of many of his troops was bad. TheThree Positions OF THE GrtEEK Army before the Battle OF Plataea I. Original Position II. Second Position during 10 days of waiting \\\.Position at momentof Battle A. A. Battlefield Walker e:- Ho. The G-reek army had now swelled to more than a hundred thousand men, of whom nearly forty thousand were troops ot the line, hoplites in full brazen panoply, such as no Asiatic torce of anything like equal numbers could nope to resist.* Yet thero ' Herodotus gives, in ix. 28, 29, the full muster-roll of tbe Greeks. 224 Scilamls and Plataca. [479 b.o. were still many contingents due; the ElcianS and Mantineans alone, who were expected every day, were bringing up at least five or six thousand hoplites more. The strength of Mardonius we cannot so easily calculate ; but, including his Greek allies, he must have had at least twice or three times the numbers of Pausanias. After some days Mardonius sent bodies of cavalry up the gentler part of the slopes of the Greek position, to annoy the confederates Preliminary ^'^^ tempt them to advance. There was hot skir- skirmishes. wishing in the centre of the Greek army, but it terminated in the complete repulse of the Persians, who left Masistius, commander of the cavalry of the whole army, dead on the field within the Greek lines. This emboldened Pausanias to come down more into the plain : the first dread of the Persian cavalry had passed away, now that it was discovered to be by no means invincible. Accordingly the Greeks marched westward, and drew up upon a line of hillocks which run out from Cithaeron some two miles and a half in front of Piataea, behind the fountain of Gargaphia. The Spartans held the right wing, nearest to the mountains ; the other Peloponnesians formed the centre ; while the Athenians on the left wing lay furthest out in the plain. For ten days they lay in this position, with the Asopus between them and the enemy. They were, however, much annoyed by the Persian cavalry, who stopped up the fountain in front from which they drew their water, and sometimes rode round their flanks and intercepted the convoys which brought up provisions from Megara. Pausanias was still unable to make up his mind to attack, and had the tameness of spirit to determine on drawing his army back nearer to Piataea, to a position where water was more abundant and the slopes less exposed to cavalry raids. Accordingly the army commenced its retreat by night ; but everything went wrong with the movement. The Peloponnesians of the centre started oif in a hurry, and did not halt in the chosen position, but a mile too far to the rear. The Spartans delayed till nearly day ; for one commander of a brigade obstinately refused to believe in a retreat, and had to be convinced by Pausanias himself before he would move. The Athe- nians waited for the Lacedaemonians to retire before they them- 473 B.c] £attle of Plaiaea, 225 selves went back. Ilciice it came to pass that when day broke the Persians saw that the Greek centre had disappeared, while the two wings were retreating across the rolling ground towards Plataea, without any connection between their movements. Mardonius thought his opportunity had come, and sallied forth with horse and foot, taking no trouble to form a line of battle, but hurrying on to catch the enemy before they could Battle of 1 take up a poiition. It looked as if the Greeks Piataea. were lost, but despair gave Pausanias the necessary courage ; he fronted up the portion of the army that was with him — tea thousand Spartan and Laconian hoplites, fifteen hundred Arcadians of Tegea, and a mass of some thirty-five thousand Helots and other light troops. Then, after sending off to tell the Athenians that he was going to fight, he dashed at the confused mass of pursuers that was streaming after him. Here the Persians were in front, while the rest of the army was hurrying up from the camp in great disorder, and was not yet on the field. The Persians set their large wicker shields on the ground before them, and began to ply their bows, but after they had let fly a few volleys the Greek line came crashing down upon them, rolled over the barrier of shields, and fell to work at close quarters with sword and lance. There was half an hour of hard fighting, for the picked troops of the army of Mardonius stood their ground like men. But their short swords and quilted tunics were not a fair match for the heavy pike and complete mail of the Spartans. They began to fall back towards the river, and rolled in upon the hordes that were advancing to join them. Mardonius was struck down by a stone ; no officer came forward to take his place, and the whole vast body of Asiatics broke up in disorder. Artabazus, who led the rear, drew off his forty thousand men and retired in safety on the road which led to the north-west. He started off with all speed, and marched day and night, everywhere preceding the rumour of the disaster, so that he got safely away to Thessaly, and finally reached Asia. No doubt he was fullowed by many other scattered bodies. But the mass of the Asiatics fell back on their fortified camp beyond the Asopus, and then turned to bay. Meanwhile, far to the left, a separate battle had been going on between the Athenians and the Boeotian contingent of the Persian Q 2 26 Salcunis and Plataea. l479B.c. army. It raged until the Boeotians saw that their main body was routed ; then they gave way and retreated on Thebes. The Athenians did not pursue them, but marched on the Persian camp, where they found the Spartans vainly endeavouring to force an entrance. Presently the Greek centre also a]ipeared, too late to take any part in the main battle. It had not seen an enemy, except one stray body of Thebau horse, which caught the Megarian contingent on the march, and slew six hundred men before it was driven off. After some severe fighting at the palisades of the entrenched camp, the Athenians and Tegeans burst their way in. The rest Capture of the followed, and then the resistance of the Orientals Persian camp. su(Jdenly collapsed. 'I'hey let themselves be butchered without a struggle, till the corpses lay massed in heaps in every corner of the camp. Nothing put an end to the slaughter but the weariness of the conquerors. The spoil which fell into the hands of the Greeks was enormous ; the camp equipage of the Persian ofBcers comprised cups and dishes of silver and gold, rich stuffs and hangings, and troops of slaves and concubines ; even their inlaid weapons and armour were of very considerable value ; horses, camels, and mules in countless numbers were also captured. It was a booty such as no Greeks had ever divided before. . Plataea was fought and won in the most unscientific way ; not even at lukerman was the generalship more wanting on both sides. But the victory was none the less decisive : while the victors only lost thirteen hundred men, the Persian army was annihilated ; nothing was left of it save broken bands flying northward towards the Hellespont. All that remained to be done was to punish the traitors in Greece. A few days after the battle the army marched on Thebes and laid siege to it ; ere long the town had to surrender. It was punished by the public execution of the leaders of its oligarchy, and deprived of its presidency in the Boeotian League, which seems to have fallen for a time to Tanagra. The other allies of Persia submitted without striking a blow. On the very day on which the battle of Plataea had been fought. The Greek fleet another engagement of great importance had taken off Asia. place on the other side c^ the Aegean. At the same time that the QreelJ army marched for Boeotia, a confederate 479 B.C.] Battle of Alycale. 227 fleet of oue hundred and ten ships had been collected at Aegina, under the Spartan King Leotychides and the Athenian Xanthippus. This squadron was destined to create a diversion in Asiatic waters, and to watch the remnant of the Persian fleet, of which three hundred vessels still lay off the coast of louia. Moreover, there was some hope that the Greeks of Asia, especially the islanders, would rise in revolt when they saw the confederate fleet at hand. Accordingly the Greeks advanced as far as Delos; here they received emissaries from Samos promising active assistance, and heard that an outbreak had already taken place at Chios. This emboldened them to push out and search for the Persian fleet. They found it drawn ashore on the promontory of Mycale, Battle of not far from Miletus. A considerable land force, sent Mycaie. down from Sardis, lay encamped beside the fleet. With a prompt- ness and decision which contrasts very strongly with the slo^vness and timidity of Pausanias at Plataea, Leotychides and Xanthippus determined on an immediate attack. They landed on the main- land and marched straight on the Persian camp. The enemy came out to meet them, and a protracted struggle was fought on the shore, which ended in the retreat of the Asiatics towards their entrenched camp. Here a second contest raged, but it was short, for the Athenians and Corinthians got in at the gates along with the flying foe. Then the Persians dispersed and took to the hills, leaving both their camp and their three hundred ships on the shore in the hands of the victors. Tiie loss of the Greeks was heavy, that of their enemies enormous, and many of the fugitives were cut off by the Milesians, who now rebelled openly, and beset the passes through which the Persians fled. Such was the end of the Persian dominion in Ionia ; for the moment that the battle was known all the islands threw oft' their allegiance to Xerxes, and as many of the mainland towns as dared followed their example. The Great King made his way home to Susa, not only without having gained the new provinces he had coveted, but having actually lost the greater part of one of his owii satrapies. \ ^ u^ CHAPTER XXI. THE GUEEKS OF ITALY AXD SICILY DOWN TO THE END OF THE TYKAKNY AT SYRACUSE, G00-4G5 B.C. While the recorded history of the states of Greece becomes foiny continuous in the seventli century, that of the colonies of Sicily and Magna Graecia remains very fragmentary till the end of the sixth. This is but natural; the earlier years of the existence of these cities must have been occupied with little more than monotonous increase and expansion, and obscure wars with the tribes of the inland. It would not be until they had arrived at their full maturity, and found leisure for other things than mere growth, that their annals were likely to become important. Of the relations of the Greeks of Italy and Sicily with their barbarian neighbours there is little to tell before the fifth century. The Oenotrians and Messapians of the one country, the Sicels and Sicaniaus of the other, gave little trouble to the immigrants. But behind these feeble tribes there loomed in the distance two great powers with whom the Greeks were one day to be engaged in desperate struggles. The colonists of Cumae and Neapolis dwelt hard by the Etruscan ; those of Sellnus and Himera were the immediate neighbours of the Carthaginian merchants of Panormus and Lilybaeum. But it would seem that these nations were very seldom provoked to war by the growth of the Greek states till the commencement of the fifth century. Nor was it till the end of that period that the warlike Sabellian tribes came wandering down Central Italy, and commenced to cut short the dominions of the states of Magna Graecia ; then only do the names of the Samnite or the Lucanian begin to be heard. 620 B.C.] The Pythagoreans in Italy. 229 Among the Italiot Greeks the most import;int events of the sixth century are connected with the curious story of the Pythagorean brotherhoods. Pythagoras was a celebrated philo- The Py-thago- sophcr, a Samian by birth, but a resident in Italy by J^eans m Italy, choice. His tenets were strange and fanciful — including such beliefs as the transmigiation of souls and the mystic meaning of arithmetical numbers ; but he imported a moral earnestness and a religious fervour into his teaching which secured him many disciples. These followers were formed into societies, and bound themselves by oath to assist each other as well in temporal matters as in the diffusion of the Pythagorean philosophy. No member was admitted without long probation, and the societies were divided into a hierarchy of grades, through which the aspirant had to pass before becoming fully initiated. It may, therefore, be said that the organization of these brotherhoods had a considerable resemblanca to that of the Freemasons of our own daj\ But they were far from preserving the character of societies for mutual benevolence and philosophic life, and verj' soon took to interfering in politics. They fostered such a feeling of clanship, and such con- tempt for the unphilosophic multitude, that the Pythagoreans were ore long found acting as an organized party in the Italiot cities. Their strongest seat was at Croton, where the philosopher himself had settled, and where many of the leading men had become his disciples. Everywhere they are found on the side of oligarchy ; the teaching of Pythagoras was too subtle to attract the ignorant masses, and lent a sanction to the contempt which the upper classes nourished for the proletariate. When, as happened at Croton, the Pythagorean brotherhoods secured a hold on the magis- tracy and the conduct of public affairs, they worked in favour of autocratic government by the initiated, and the exclusion of the democracy from power. Croton, while under the rule of the Pythagoreans, became involved in a war with her wealthy and luxurious neighbours of Sybaris. The stniggle was fought out on a larger scale and carried to a more bitter end than was usual in the contests of Greek states. When each town had called in its allies and armed its native Italian subjects, Sybaris is said to have put three hundred thousand, and Croton a hundred thousand men into the field. The numbers are 230 The Greeks of Italy and Sicily. [siob.c. no doubt exaggerated, but they bear witness to tlie size and wealtli of the cities of Magna Graecia. Milo the famous athlete, a dis- tinguished follower of Pythagoras, commanded the Crotoniatc army and triumphed over the enemy, whose tyrant Tclys — Avith thousands ^ ^ ^. of his followers — was slain in the battle. The Destruction of Sybaris, couqucred city itself fell into the hands of the victors, wdio granted no terms, but expelled the whole of the inhabitants, and divided up their land among themselves. Tlic exiled Sybarites wandered far and wide, but the majority settle45 Moreover, he had the bad taste to be continually reminding the Athenians of the services he had done them — the worst way to keep the favour of the multitude, for repetition sickens the hearer.^ It is also probable that the influence of Themistocles was weakened by the fact that his political antagonists no longer showed themselves such foes to democratic reforms Reforms of in the constitution as they had been before the Aristeides. Persian war. The result of Salamis had convinced even the most conservative statesmen that the future career of Athens was to be found on the sea, and that her true strength lay in the arms of her sailors. Nothing marks this change of opinion better than the fact that it was Aristeides, the old opponent of naval expansion, who founded the Confederacy of Delos. He is also said in his later years to have advised the concentration of the whole population of Attica in Athens, a step which he would have opposed fifteen years earlier. About the year 471 B.C., the strife of political parties became so keen that recourse was once more had to ostracism, the expedient which had been fatal to Aristeides twelve years before. ^ •' Ostracism of But this time it was Themistocles who was its victim ; Tiiemistocies, he was sent into honorary banishment, and took up his abode at Argos. While he was staying there, Pausanias, then deep in his treasonable schemes, sounded him as to his willingness to join in the plot against the liberties of Greece. With more firmness than might have been expected of him, Themistocles refused to take part in the intrigue but he did not reveal the plans of Pausanias to any one. AVhen the ephors seized the traitor's jiapers after his death, they found traces of this cor re* spondence with Themistocles, though there was nothing which actually proved the Athenian's implication in the plot. However, his countrymen showed an intention of bringing the exiled states- man to trial, and sent to fetch him from Argos. Themistocles resolved to fly rather than to face his political opponents ; he reached Corcyra, but such a hue-and-cry after him proscription of was raised throughout Greece, that he could find no Themistocles. safe refuge, and, after a series of hair-breadth escapes, which lasted ' The story in tbe IToAiTeia twv ^ KQ-r\va[mv about Themistocles' intrigues against the Areopagus in -1G3 is impossible ; he was in exile long before. 246 Rise of the Delian League. i460 b.c. ? for more than two years, was compelled to take refuge in Asia, on Persian ground (4GG B.C.), All chance of an honourable career in Athens was now gone from Themistocles. In sheer disgust he turned to his old enemies, Themistocies and craved the protection of the Great King. Xerxes ^^ death. ^^ "^^^ J"st dead, slain by a domestic conspiracy, and it 460 B.C. ? .^as to his young son Artaxerxes that the exile made his petition. The name of Themistocles was so dreaded at Susa, that his offers of service produced all the effect he could have desired. It is even said that Artaxerxes was so affected with joy, that he was heard at night to cry thrice in his dreams, " Themistocles the Athenian is mine." The king received his suppliant with the greatest favour, listened with attention to his schemes for the subjugation of Greece, and sent him down to Asia Minor furnished with ample resources. He was allotted considerable revenues for his support, and made tyrant of Magnesia, where he dwelt in great state. Here he was joined by his family, and his friends in Attica con- trived to remit him the greater part of his fortune. Eighty talents had been seized by the state, yet this was only the smaller half of the wealth of a man who at the moment he entered public life had not three talents of his own. Themistocles ruled at Magnesia for a few years, and then died, without having fulfilled any of the promises which he had made to the Persian. It is probable that he never had the heart to injure Athens, and resigned himself to ending his life in exile as the pensioner of the barbarian. If he had really intended to forward the intrigues of Artaxerxes, there is little doubt that he might have done much against the liberties of Greece ; that he failed in his promise argues want of will rather than want of power. Perhaps his last years may have been made less unbearable to him by the sight of the rapid expansion of the naval power of Athens, a power of which he had himself been the sole founder. 07 I. . j affairs, of Cimon, and partly to the condition of affau's in ~ " ' Peloponnesus. Since the fall of Pausanias, Sparta had been undergoing many troubles at home. Her old rival Argos had at last recovered from the blow which had been dealt her by Cleomenes in the previous generation. In 4G8 B.C. she began to bestir himself, and to reclaim her old dominion over her nearest neighbours. One of her expeditions ended in the final destruction of Mycenae, the little Achaian state in the hills which had survived so many vicissitudes of fortune. It last appears in history as having sent a small contingent to Plataea, in marked contrast to the selfish in.'lifference of Argos. Now at last it met its fate, and was left an empty ring of Cyclopean walls on its lonely hillside (468 B.C.). This activity of the Argives soon brought down on them the anger of Sua'ta; and a war broke out, in which many of the Arcadian states ioiit their aid to Argos. The Spartans fought two severe battles — one in front of Tegta against the allied Tegeans and Argives; the other at Dipaea with the full force of Arcadia, except the Mantineans, who, out of hatred to Tegea, clung to their old masters. In both conflicts the Lacedaemonians were victorious, and Argos had once more to sink back into her usual sullen apathy, while the Arcadians returned to their allegiance. It was soon after the termination of this war that the overtures of the Thasians were made at Sparta. The event which prevented them from receiving attention was the great earthquake of 464 b.c. Such a terrific shock had never 462 B.C.I The Third Messeniafi J Far. 253 visited Peloponnesus before ; its worst force was felt in the valley of the Eurotas. The earth was cleft asunder into chasms ; Earthquake fearful landslips occurred on the slopes of Taygetus; 464B^c'^*and while in the town of Sjmrta hardly a house or temple Heiot rising. was left standing, and the loss of life was enormous. This disaster emboldened the Helots to attempt a rising. They had been more suspected and oppressed than ever since the conspiracy of Pausanias, and were ready for any desperate treason. All Messenia rose as one man, and much of Laconia followed its example. The Spartans, backed by their Perioeci, had great difticulty in making head against the rebels, who fortified as their base of operations the old Messenian citadel and sanctuary on Mount Ithome. The Spartans were still engaged in a desperate struggle with their revolted subjects, when the siege of Thasos came to an end. Cimon, who was now at the height of his reputation 1 .11. > 1, ^1 Clmon helps and power, saw with distress the troubles of the city sparta. he so much admired. Pie set himself to persuade ' ' the Athenians that they ought to forget old grudges, and save from destruction the state which had shared with them the glory of the Persian war. " Would they," he asked, " consent to see Hellas lamed of one leg, and Athens drawing without her yoke- fellow ? " His pleading was bitterly opposed by the anti-Spartan party at Atliens, headed by two statesmen, Ephialtes and Pericles, who had already come into notice as antagonists of Cimon. But the more generous and unwise policy prevailed, and four thousand hoplitcs were sent to the aid of Sparta. This army was pursued by misfortune ; it was so unsuccessful in attacking Ithoaie, that the Spartans attributed its failure to ill will rather than ill luck. They therefore began to treat their allies with marked dis- courtesy, and at last sent them home without a word of thanks, merely stating that their services could be of no further use. This rudeness and ingratitude fully justified the anti- Spartan party at Athens for their opposition to the projects of Cimon, and gave them a power with the assembly which they had not previously enjoyed. Cimon was now no longer able to deal with the policy of the state as he chose, and the conduct of affairs began to pass into the hands of men whose foreign and domestic policy were alike 254 T]ie Building t(p of tJie Athenian Empire. t46iB.c. opposed to all Lis views. Epliialtes and Pericles proceeded to form alliances abroad with all the states which were ill disposed toward Sparta^ and at home to commence a revision of the constitution. They were determined to carry out to its furthest logical development the democratic tendency which Cleisthenes had introduced into the Athenian polity. Of Ephialtes, the son of Sophonides, comparatively little is known. Although he at first appears as the recognized leader of the popular and anti-Spartan party at Athens, he was destined to be cut off so early in his career that we have little record of his character and doings. He seems to have been an eloquent and fiery speaker, and an extreme democrat. But Pericles was a man of very diflerent importance. He was the son of Xanthippus, the accuser of Miltiades in 489 B.C., and the victor of Mycale and Sestos ; while, on his mother's side, he came of the blood of the Alcmaeonidae. Pericles was staid, self-contained, and haughty — a strange chief for the popular party. But his reiatiuuship to Cleisthenes, and the enmity which existed between his house and that of Cimon, urged him to espouse the cause of democracy. More- over, the foreign policy to which he was devoted was the one Avhich had commended itself to the populace. He wished to con- tinue the schemes of Theraistocles, and to extend the Athenian power in all directions, without any regard for the susceptibilities of Sparta. The war with Persia he was ready to abandon, now that all danger from that side had passed away, while he designed to strengthen and enlarge the confederacy of Delos in every l^ossible way, and to make use of its power to the west as well as the east of the Aegean. While Cimon had Greece in his mind, Pericles could only think of Athens, and the temper of the times was favourable to the narrower policy. Pericles wms a man of grave and noble presence ; his friends in admiration and his enemies in jest alike compared him to Zeus. He lived a reserved, secluded life, and was seldom to be seen except on great public occasions. His eloquence was all the more effective for not being heard every day ; for he always withheld himself, and only appeared to speak on affairs of high moment. But though the man was better fitted to command respect than affection from his followers, his policy was one which was so well 462 B.C.] Ephialtes and Pericles. 255 suited to the spirit of the times, that the populace was quite enthusiastic in his favour. The first aim which Ephialtes and Pericles set before them- selves was the cutting down of the power of the Areopagus. That bod\' had since the Persian war been the strong- 1 n r- T ^ . , , ., ^ . ^ Attack on the Jiold 01 the Conservative and philo-Laconian part\'. Areopagus. Though it had no longer any important political power by the strict letter of the constitution, its patriotic efforts during the Persian wars had enabled it to retain much influence. Moreover, it was the one political corporation at Athens whose members held office for life, and were not responsible for their votes to the people. This by itself sufficed to give the Areopagus a conservative tendency, like that which may be remarked in such bodies as our own House of Lords. Ephialtes took the lead in the attack on the Areopagus. He chose a moment when Cimon was away in the field, assisting the Spartans against the revolted Helots. After a violent struggle, he succeeded in caiTj'^ing a law which deprived the Areopegus of its ancient censorial power, and reduced it to a mere court to try homicide. As a sign that the guardianship of the laws was thereby taken from the ancient corporation and i^laced in the hands of the people, he brought down from the Acropolis the tablets inscribed with the laws of Solon, and set them up before the Prytaneium in the market-place. The prerogatives of the Areopagus wei'e divided among the Council of Five Hundred, the Ecclesia and the Dicasterics. The Law courts took over its moral supervision of the private lives of the citizens, while the Nomopliylaces undertook its other function of guarding the con- stitution. These officers were given a seat of honour in the public assembly, and instructed to interfere with a veto, whenever a legislative proposal was made which transgressed one of the fundamental principles of the constitution. When Cimon came home from the war, he was wildly enraged at the advantage that had been taken of his absense, and actu- ally endeavoured to repeal the decree of Ephialtes on a technical point of law. This brought matters to a crisis, and, in the confusion, recourse was had to the test of ostracism. It decided 256 The Building up of the Athenian Empire. (468 B.r against Cimon, who therefore went into banishment. But thi wrong against the gi'eatest general of Athens was, n^, of Cimon, long after, avenged by an over-zealous and unscrupu- lous friend. Ephialtes was slain by assassins in his own house, and though no one could accuse Cimon himself, it was Murder of Certain that his party were responsible for the deed. Epbiaites. "jj^g immediate result of this murder was to leave Pericles in sole and undivided command of the democratic party. The foreign policy of Pericles soon began to involve Athens in troubles at home. He concluded alliances with Argos and Thessaly, both states at variance with Sjmrta, and thereby made a collision with the Lacedaemonian confederacy inevitable. He gave still more direct offence to Corinth, one of the most powerful members of that conftderacy, by concluding a close alliance witli Megara. That state had been engaged in unsuccessful war with Corinth, and had placed herself under the protection of Athens to save her existence. In Boeotia, too, he stirred up enmity, by giving an active support to the democratic party in that countrj'', which was at this moment endeavouring to subvert the oligarchies which prevailed in most of its cities. These provocations mac^o war inevitable. In 458 B.C. the storm burst; the Corinthians formed an alliance with the Aeginetans, whose jealousy of Athens was as great as War of Athens it had been in the earlier years of the century, and with Corinth ^,jj^i^ ^|^(3j^ Dorian kinsmen at Epidaurus. They and Aegina, ^ •' 458 B.C. were encouraged by the fact that a fleet of no less than two hundred Athenian ships had just been sent to Egypt, to continue the help which Cimon had afforded to the rebel prince Inartis in his revolt against Persia. The allies had also the secret goodwill of Sparta, but as that state had not yet succeeded in putting down its revolted Helots, it could not spare any aid to its confederates, and did not even declare war on Athens. / '^ CHAPTER XXIV. ATHEXS AT THE HEIGHT OF HER POWER, 458— i-45 B.C. At the moment of the outbreak of the fii-st important naval war which she had to wage with a Greek enemy since the formation of her empire, Athens took two important steps. The , . , . , . , p . . TheDelian fii-st was destnied to guard agauist the risk of misfor-League and ita tunes by sea; it consisted in the transference from "^e^sury. Delos to Athens of the central treasury of the confederacy.^ The Samians pointed out the exposed situation of the sacred island, and the gi-eat hoard was moved to Athens. If they had been more wary the Samians would have refrained from proposing this motion, which helped Athens forward one more stage in the process of turning her " hegemony " into an empire. By the removal of the common funds of the league from the sanctuary of Delos, the oiiginal religious and patriotic pui-pose of the confederates was obscured ; by their storage at Athens it began to appear that the allies were paying tribute to their powerful protectress. It was not long before the Athenians came to regard the treasury as their own, and to draw upon it for purely Attic needs, which liad no connection with the welfare of the other confederates. Pericles and his party were not at a loss for arguments to justify this misappropriation of the funds of the league. They represented that Athens had for some time had the entire supervision of the war in her hands, and that the other cities had practically abandoned their share in the undertaking : Chios, Lesbos, and Samos were the only states which continued to supply ships to the confederate fleet ; all the others had commuted their galleys for money. Athena ' Some, however, place the date of the transference in 455 or 454. S 258 Athens at the Height of her Fozver. r458B.a had continued the struggle with Persia in the most energetic way, and spent so much of her own money on it, that, if she trespassed on the surplus in the common chest of the league, she was but repaying herself for her losses. Moreover, no one could dispute that she had carried out the purposes of the league with perfect success; she had liberated all the Hellenic subjects of the Great King, and was now giving him such trouble in Egypt that he would never be able to stir against Hellas. If tins could be done at less expense than was originally calculated, it was due to her, and she deserved the surplus as her reward. The second important event of the year 458 b.c. was the com- mencement of the famous " Long Walls " of Athens. They had The "Long ^"^^ suggested by a much smaller work of the same ■WaUs" built, kind at Megara. After forming their alliance with that city, the Athenians had connected the old town, which lay on a hill not quite a mile from the sea, with its seaport of Nisaea, by building two walls which secured a safe passage between them. But the Megarian " Long Walls " were only seven stadia from end to end, while Athens was divided from Phalerum and Peiraeus by thirty-five and forty stadia respectively. The gigantic scheme of constructing walls for the whole four miles which lie between the old city and the water's edge could only have been formed when a war with an enemy overwhelmingly powerful on land was in view. It must have been the dread of Spartan interference which led to the building of these great works. When they were finished, Athens, Peiraeus, and Phalerum formed the angles of avast fortified triangle, while the space between them, a considerable expanse of open country, could be utilized as a place of refuge for the population of Attic and even for their flocks and herds. Some years afterwards a second wall (ri Sia ixitrov reTxos) was erected close to and parallel with the original wall running to Peiraeus. This gave an additional security to the communication between the city and its ports ; even if the Phaleric wall were forced, there would still be free access from the upper city to Peiraeus. The war with Corinth and Aegina commenced by two severe naval engagements in the Saronic Gulf. The first, fought off the island of Cecryphaleia near the coast of Argolis, had no decisive 468 B.CJ J Far 7C'///i Corinth and Aegina. 259 result. But when the fleets met for the second time opposite to the to'mi of Aegina itself, the Athenians gained a war with crushing victory. No less than seventy Corinthian ^°]^^g^l^^ and Aeginetan vessels fell into their hands. The 458 B.C. astonishing part of this success was the fact that two hundred Athenian galleys were at that moment in Egypt, so that it was with less than half her resources that Athens succeeded in beating the two navies which were reckoned the second and third in Greece. After their victory the Athenians landed and laid siege to Aegina with the ful) force of hoplites that was at that moment at home. The Corinthians determined to do all they could to save their ally, and resolved to create a diversion by attacking Megara. They calculated that, as the whole force of Athens was either in Egypt or at Aegina, no army could be put into the field against them, unless the siege of Aegina was raised. But they had not reckoned on the indomitable spirit of their enemies. Since all the men of military age were absent, Athens determined to call out those who had not yet reached it, or had long passed it. „^ . ^ . '' ' =" ^ The victories Myronides raised an army exclusively composed of ofMyronides. boys and old men, and marched to relieve Megara. He took up a defensive position and repulsed the attack which was made on him ; although not very severely handled, the Corin- thians retired home and Megara was saved. But when the defeated soldiery learnt the nature of the force which had beaten them, they found the taunts of their fellow-citizens unbearable, and returned to take their revenge. Myronides again went out to meet them, probably reinforced by the troops of Megara. This time the battle was decisive ; the Corinthians were routed, and their loss was heavy, for a large body were surrounded in a walled enclosure and shot down to a man. As an assertion of the courage of her citizens, Athens regarded these battles as only inferior to Marathon. In commemoration of the achievements of this season monumental pillars were erected in the Cerameicus, recording that " in one and the same year the soldiers of Athens had fallen off Cyprus, in Egypt, Phoenicia, Argolis, Aegina, and Megara." ^ A > The fighting in Egypt, Aegina, and Megara we have already men- tioned, That in Argoli.s was an Athenian descent on the Halieis, which failed ; that in Cyprus and Phoenicia was dependent on the great expedi- tion to Egypt. 26o Athens at the Height of her Power. [457 b.c. fragment of this inscription still survives, to recall the energy of the Athenians at the highest moment of their glory. Meanwhile a second war had broken out in Central Greece, between two ancient enemies, the Phocians and the Boeotian .^ . League. The ruling oligarchies in Boeotia were so Warm f _ o o Boeotia. anti-Athenian in their sentiments, that the Phocians were felt to be fighting the battle of Athens by keep- ing employea an enemy who would otherwise have joined Corinth and Aegina. During this war the Phocians fell upon and occupied the little district to their north, the home of the four Dorian communities who had remained behind in their original seats, when the rest of the nation invaded Peloponnesus (see p. 49). The conquered Dorians made a piteous appeal to Sparta, the natural protector of all states of kindred blood. The Spartans were at this moment beginning to make some headway in their long struggle with the revolted Helots; and though Ithome was not yet taken, felt that they were in honour bound to aid their compatriots. Making a gi-eat effort, they despatched an army of eleven thousand men, partly Laconians, partly Peloponnesian allies, by sea across the gulf of Corinth into Boeotia. Here they were joined by the Thebans and their friends, and marched into Phocis. After completely defeating the Phocians and driving them out of Doris, they set forth homeward. But their way lay through the territory of Megara, and when they arrived on its borders they were refused a passage. The Athenians had seen with suspicion a Spartan army in Boeotia, and, regarding war as inevitable, had determined to face its dangers at once, and to prevent the returning army from joining the Corin- thians. They had obtained a thousand hoplites from Argos, and a considerable body of horse from Thessaly, and, joining these to the levies of Megara and Plataea and such force as Athens could spare, had posted themselves in front of the passes which led from Boeotia towards the Isthmus. It was said that some of the oligarchic party at Athens had been making overtures to the Spartans, but the traitors were few; Cimon, though in exile, appeared in the Athenian army as soon as it had passed the border, and earnestly begged that he might fight as a volunteer in the ranks of his own tribe. The Strategi refused him the favour, but ere he departed he adjured his friends to prove by their conduct in battle 456B.C.J Myronides conquers Boeotia. 261 that their party contained no traitors. The armies met near Tanagra, and a hard-fought engagement ensued ; for ^ ^^, ^ ° 000 1 Battle of a long time the day was doubtful, but in the heat of Tanagra, the fight the Thessalian cavalry deserted their allies, and lost the Athenians the victory. No less than a hundred of the friends of Cimon fell in the forefront of the battle, proving by their reckless courage that the Conservative party was unjustly accused of treason. The Spartans were never skilful at improv- ing the results of a success, and their commander, the regent Nicomedes,' contented himself with ravaging the Megarid, and then returned to Peloponnesus across the now unguarded passes of Geraneia. By her last stroke of policy Athens had now added Sparta and the Boeotian League to the list of her enemies. It was necessary to act quickly and promi)tly, or she would be crushed, „ , Z ^ , Conquest of when the full force of Boeotia and Peloponnesus was Boeotia, put into the field. The first step taken was to mark the suspension of party-feuds at Athens ; the party of Cimon had behaved so well at Tanagra that their conduct had won the con- fidence of their very opponents. Pericles himself proposed the decree which revoked the ostracism of his great rival. Then, long before the campaigning season had arrived, Myronides, with the full force of Athens at his back, burst into Boeotia, The inroad was quite unexpected, for the winter was not yet done. No aid from Corinth or Sparta was at hand, but the Thebans and their supporters from the other Boeotian cities met the invaders at Oenophyta in the valley of the Asopus. After a hard struggle they were beaten, and the land lay exposed to the conqueror. The successes of Myronides were rapid and startling ; a discontented party existed in every Boeotian town, which regarded the rule of their oligarchs with hatred. These partisans of democracy joined the Athenians, and town after town threw open its gates. Even Thebes, the centre of the oligarchic party, fell into the hands of the invaders. Myronides then set up democratic constitutions in every city, and handed over the government to the partisans of Athens ; the great families, for the most part, retired into exile. It would ' Nicomedes was regent in behalf of the young king Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias. 262 Athens at the Height of her Poiver. [456 b.c. seem probable that tbe Boeotiaa League was dissolved, and a sejxarate treaty concluded by Athens with each individual state ; at any rate, the complete autonomy of all towns, small and great, Avas secured, and the paramount influence of Thebes in the district destroyed. When Boeotia fell into the hands of Athens, the Locrians of Opus also cast off their oligarchy, and sent a hundred hostages from their leading families to be kept at Athens. The Phocians, who had been at war with Thebes, were also glad to enter the Athenian alliance. Thus at a single blow Athens had become a great land power, and secured dominion over all the districts as far as Mount Oeta. Moreover, she was well backed by a party in each state, who regarded their predominance at home as bound up with her success. Meanwhile the siege of Aegina was arawmg to a close ; in spite of all their operations on the mainland, the Athenians had stead- FaUof fastly kept up the blockade, and, after nine months of Aegina. waiting, the provisions of the garrison began to fail. Except one reinforcement of three hundred hoplites, they had received no helj) from Peloponnesus, and their own resources were quite exhausted. The ancient rivals of Athens were obliged to sue for peace, which they only obtained on condition of destroying their walls, giving up their war-galleys, and entering the Con- federacy of Delos as tribute-paying ra mbers, Sparta seems to have taken little trouble to support her allies outside Peloponnesus, but within it her efforts were at last drawing Sparta to a successful end. After ten years of revolt the the Helots, Helots Were driven to bay; their last bands were 455B.C. besieged in Ithome, and finally permitted to depart under an agreement never to return to Peloponnesus. An Athenian fleet under Tolmides was at that moment ravaging the coasts of Messenia, and the defeated rebels were taken on board. Tolmides soon after captured the town of Naupactus on the Aetolian coast, and here he settled the exiled Messenians with their families, to serve as an outpost for Athens on the Corinthian Gulf. It would seem that not even the capture of Ithome could give Sparta sufficient breathing-space to recover her strength and to strive for the hegemony of continental Greece. For the next three years she made no attempt to force the passes of the Megarid and 455 B.C.] Athenian Disaster in Egypt. 263 attack Athens. Nor could she even defend Peloponnesus ; she had to see her own naval arsenal at Gythium. burnt, and to hear of the ravaging of the territories of her Dorian dependents of Sicyon and Epidaurus. She could not even prevent Troezen and the coast cities of Achaia from openly joining the Athenian alliance ; it would seem, indeed, that Argos alone suSBced to keep her in check while Athens was extending her dominion to right and left. There is no knowing where the extension of the Athenian power would have stopped, if a fearful disaster had not intervened to weaken its growth. In 454 b.c. a large Athenian Defeat 01 the expedition, not less than two hundred galleys, '^vas "^^^^^ ^* again despatched to Egypt to aid King Inarus. But 454 b.c. at that moment the satrap Megabj-zus invaded that country with a stronger army than the Great King had previously devoted to its conquest. The Athenian fleet sailed up the Nile as far as Memphis, and got so far from the sea that they were finally cut off from their retreat, and besieged with their Egyptian allies in the isle of Prosopltis. Megabyzus diverted one of the branches of the Nile which encircles the island, and crossed over on foot ; a desperate struggle ensued, and, after burning their ships, the main body of Athenians were cut to pieces. The survivors defended themselves so vigorously that the Persian granted them quarter, and thus a few scattered fugitives escaped across the desert to Gyrene, and brought the news to Athens. By the end of 452 B.c. the belligerents in Greece had arrived at a standstill, and by the mediation of Cimon a truce for five years was brought about between Sparta and Athens, „^ ,,„. o i ' The "Five together with their respective allies. That no defini- Years' Truce," . 451 B C tive peace was concluded was due to the action of Corinth, who would not consent to recognize the new position of Athens on her borders. The agreement, therefore, only amounted to a prolonged armistice, based upon the actual position of the various powers. This moment marks the highest tide in the fortunes of Athens. Her influence was predominant in Megaris, Boeotia, Locris, Phocis, Achaia, and Troezen, while Argos was her firm ally. Her empire on land covered as large an expanse as 264 Athens at the Height of her Power. [449 b.c. that of Sparta, while at sea every city in the Aegean and Pro- pontis from Aegina to Byzantium did her homage.^ Freed from their war with Sparta, the Athenians turned to revenge their defeat in Egypt. Cimon was once more at home, liastcam- and had regained no small portion of his old power. c1mon°^ He found it easy to persuade his fellow-citizens that 449 B.C. the massacre of Prosopitis called for vengeance, and obtained a fleet of two hundred vessels and a free commission to attack wliat portion of the Persian empire he might choose. He determined to fall on the Phoenician cities of Cyprus, which still maintained their allegiance to Artaxerxes. Accordingly he laid siege to Citium : while lying before its walls he was stricken down by disease, and felt his end approaching. But on his very death- bed he was able to give the directions which resulted in two brilliant victories ; the Phoenician fleet which came to raise the blockade of Citium was defeated off the neighbouring port of Salamis, and shortly after a land army was routed on the shore. The expedition, thus deprived of its leader, returned to Athens, and made no further attack on Asia. Cimon's untimely death — he was still in the full vigour of man- hood — preserved him from seeing the commencement of a series of disasters which were about to befall his country. The Revolt in '' Boeotia, Athenian land empire was to be lo?t as rapidly as it 447 B C was won. It was an impossibility that such old ene- mies as the Boeotians should ever be faithful allies to Athens ; the democratic governments which had been set up in the various cities of that land grew more and more unpopular. Not only were they hated by patriotic Boeotians as the tools of Athens, but they made themselves odious by their misgovernment. At last, in 447 B.C., an insurrection broke out against the democratic party in the towns of Northern Eoeotia. All the oligarchic exiles hastenel home to join the rebels, who ma'le their stronghold at Orchomenus. The Athenians despatched Tolrnides with not more than a thousand Battle cf hoplites to support the Boeotian democrats. But Coroneia ag \q marched along the shore of Lake Copai's be- tween Haliartus and Coroneia, he was surprised by the oligarchic > A district on the Bay of Adramyttium in Aeolis was the only piece of land that interrupted the continuous line of Athenian allies in Asia. 446 B.C.] Revolt of Euboea. 265 army, who fell on him and routed him by the force of superior numbers. Tolmides himself fell on the field, but several hundreds of his soldiery were taken prisoners, and to secure their lives the Athenians were forced to conclude a treaty with the victors, by which they engaged not to interfere any more in Boeotian affairs. They were therefore compelled to look on while their democratic partisans were expelled from the various cities, and the old con- stitution was reiatroduced. Once more oligarchy was restored, and Thebes took up her old position as managing partner in the league. Locris immediately followed the example of Boeotia, and disclaimed her dependence on Athens. Nor was this all ; the cities of Euboea, who had long been quiet and obedient members of the Delian confederacy, now thought that a favourable opportunity for freeing themselves from .„ ,, ^ ^ ^ '' ° Revolt of their tribute and their dependence on Athens had Euboea. come. Histiaea, Eretria, Styra, Carystus, and the other towns of the island rose in concert. So pressing was the emergency considered, that Pericles himself took the command of an army which hastened across to reconquer the island ; but scarcely had he reached it when he was recalled by the equally disastrous news that Megara had revolted. That city had entered the Athenian alliance of her own free will, and had been saved by it from falling under the power of Corinth. But with signal perfidy her inhabi- tants not only broke off their connection with Athens, but surprised and massacred a body of Athenian troops which lay within their walls. It was a small consolation that their port of Nisaea remained in the hands of Athens. Corinth, Epidaurus, and Sicyon lent their encouragement to their revolted Dorian kinsmen. Nor was this the end of the misfortunes of Athens ; it was remembered that the five years' truce with Sparta was on the eve _ ^ Renewed war of expirmg, and ominous preparations fur war were with spana, being made in Peloponnesus. The expectation was *'*^^"^- well-grounded ; Athens' extremity was Sparta's opportunity, and when the five years were over war was promptly declared. In the spring of 446 B.C. the young king Pleistoanax and his guardian Cleandridas led an overwhelming force from Pelopon- nesus into the Megarid, and prepared to attack Attica. They had reached Eleusis when they suddenly halted, and after a few daya 266 Athens at the Height of her Poiver. [446 b.c. returned home. It was soon rumoured abroad that bribery had been at work. Spartan generals were notoriously venal, and it is probable that the report was true, which related that Pericles had entered into secret relations with the enemy, and paid a vast sum to Cleandridas, perhaps to Pleistoanax also, on the condition that they should find excuses for causing the expedition to fail. This at least is certain, that when the Peloponnesian army returned, the Ephors apprehended and tried both the king and his guardian, convicted them, and sent both into banishment. When this danger was passed, Pericles took fifty ships and five thousand hoplites, and hastened across to Euboea. The main force of Athens, both by land and sea, was left behind Euboea re- -,%. r~, i -n i conquered, to guard against attack from Cormth or Peloponnesus. **** • • "With the force that was entrusted to him, Pericles carried out a most brilliant campaign ; he retook city after city till the whole island was subdued, and finally strengthened the hold of Athens on the land across the Euripus by planting a second Cleruchy therein. The land for this settlement was taken from the exiled oligarchs of Histiaea. But Euboea was the only one of her numerous losses which Athens was destined to recover. The odds against her were so great that Pericles himself shrank from the idea of continuing the contest. He let it be known at Sparta that Athens was ready to treat for peace on the basis of abandoning her claim to any empire by land. When negotiations were found to be feasible, an embassy headed by Callias was sent to negotiate with the The "Thirty '' ° Years' Peace."ephors. They conceded everything on land that ^ ' ■ Sparta and her allies could ask, and a " Thirty Years' Peace" was concluded between the belligerents. Athens recognized the hegemony of Sparta in Peloponnesus, while Sparta undertook not to interfere with the confederacy of Delos. All Athenian alliances with outlying states, such as Achaia or Troezen, were abrogated, and the garrisons which she maintained in Nisaea and certain other outlying fortresses withdrawn. Megara and Boeotia were recognized as free and autonomous states, and enrolled among the allies of Sparta. To sum up the conditions of the peace, we may say that Athens gave up everything on land, asking in return nothing but that her naval supremacy should be left untouched 445 B.C.] Peace ivith Persia. 267 Not long after the conclusion of the " Thirty Years' Peace," Athens concluded another important piece of negotiation. Now that Cimon was dead there was no one among her End of the statesmen who desired to prosecute the never-ending ^^r^a**^ war with Persia. The campaigns in Egypt had failed 445 B.C. so signally and cost so many lives that no further laud operations were likely to be undertaken, while by sea Persia had nothing more to lose. Accordingly Callias, the successful negotiator at Sparta, was sent up to Susa to propose conditions of peace to King Artaxerxos. Athenian vanity in after years fabled that Callias extorted such conditions as he chose from the Persian, even so ft\r as to make him promise to send no war-vessels west of the Cyanean rocks at the mouth of the Bosphorus, and the Chelidonian Cape in Lycia. But, as a matter of fact, no formal treaty seems to have been concluded, and Callias on his return was prosecuted for wilful mismanagement of the negotiation. However, by a working agree- ment with the satraps of Asia Minor, a modus vivendi was established. The Athenians and their confederates abstained from any further attacks on Persian territory, while the satraps remained contented with the inland and made no attempt to regain the coast. Nevertheless the names of the lost cities of Ionia and Caria still remained inscribed on the tribute-roll of the Great King, and the Persian power awaited its opportunity to reassert all its old rights. ^^^^'^^^ }1 ,\..Z.^-^c.,U-^ -l .-t-Cy / CHAPTER XXV. THE YEARS OF PEACE, 445-431 B.C. — PERICLES AND THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE. The "Thirty Years' Peace " concluded between Athens and Sparta in 445 B.C., though not destined to endure for half of its appointed time, gave Greece some fourteen years of comparative quiet. The war which it terminated had not brought about any final balance of power; it had merely settled that Sparta should retain a hegemony on land, and that Athens should confine her empire to the sea. Which was the stronger had not yet been decided, and till this was known it was impossible that any permanent peace should be established. Nevertheless, the two great powers having made trial of each other's strength, and discovered that the final struggle for mastery would be long and exhausting, were in no hurry to recommence hostilities. It required the accumulated giievances of fourteen years to bring them again into collision. At Athens these years coincided with the zenith of the power and influence of Pericles, who was practically first minister of the Omnipotence '^^P'lblic for the whole period, though he had several of Pericles, times to undergo attacks on his policy and to suffer temporary eclipses of his popularity. Now that Cimon was dead there was no one in the state who could hope to vie in personal Influence with Pericles. The conservative party could only oppose to him Thucydides son of Melesias, a statesman of far iuferior capacity and power. In the democratic pirty there was no one since the murder of Ephialtes, who in any measure approachea the importance of the great leader. He was, in fact, so pre- eminently the leading man in the state that his enemies did not scruple to call him its tyrant, and to insinuate that his appearance, 446 B.C. Domestic Policy of Pericles. 269 demeanour, and oratory bore a marked resemblance to those of Peisistratus. In his domestic policy Pericles set himself to work out to its full extent the movement which he had begun by his attack on the Areopagus, He set to work to thoroughly democratize all the institutions of the state, to do away with all the checks which limited the omnipotence of the Ecclesia in political and the Dicasteries in judicial matters. While he himself was alive the consequences of this policy were not immediately apparent, for the people was so habitually ready to follow him, that its decrees seldom lacked the unity of purpose which marks the action of a single mind. As long as the Ecclesia let itself be guided by one leader the real effects of a purely democratic constitution did not make themselves felt. It was only after his death, when the assembly found itself urged in many different directions by a crowd of statesmen who agreeed in nothing but their mediocre ability, that the defects of " government by plebiscite " became visible, and measures that indicated energy or vacillation, desire for war or desire for peace, were passed in chaotic succession, according as the passion of the moment decreed. One of the first measures of Pericles was the complete ^'ulgarization of the archonship. In 456 B.C. it was opened to the Zeugitae, having been up to that time confined to the wealthier classes. Nor was this all. Very soon men who were not even possessed of the modest income of a Zeugites, appeared as candidates, and were not refused. The only formality retained was that when the lot fell on them they were not registered as Thetes, but as Zeugitae. Among the most characteristic of the features of the policy of Pericles were the laws which subsidized the poorer citizens for their trouble in attending to the affairs of the state. Payment of Instead of holding that only those who interested Dicasteries. themselves in such matters should be encouraged to take part in pubhc business, Pericles desired to attract every citizen to the Ecclesia and the law courts, and used the most direct means to secure their attention by providing them with pay out of the public purse. At some date early in the fifth century the Heliaea, which Cleisthenes had instituted as the supreme court of justice for the state, had been divided into the smaller bodies known as 270 The Age of Pericles. Dicasteries. It was probably because of the large increase of business which came before it, — as the archonship gradually lost credit and men ceased to be satisfied to take their lawsuits before the six junior archons for trial, — that this division took place. The work of the Dicasteries was still more increased when Pericles and ICphialtes stripped the magistrates of well-nigh all their judicial powers. But the largest rise in the number of suits needing a court to decide them, must have resulted from the gradual increase of the custom of sending cases pending between members of the Confederacy of Delos to be tried at Athens. It was but natural that legal disputes between two of her subject allies should be settled by the head of the league ; but not only these, but all cases in which an Athenian was either plaintiff or defendant, and finally, as it would appear, all important suits — even though they were between citizens of the same city — were called up to the supreme court of justice. The vast number of trials on hand must have proved a heavy tax on the time and patience of those citizens who were drawn as jurymen, and found themselves set down for a year's work in the Dicasteries. But Pericles changed the face of affairs by paying the Dicast, and thereby made his position one to be sought rather than avoided. The sum given was at first one obol — an amount which seems small to us, but was enough to be of consequence to a poor Athenian ; it was afterwards raised to three, nearly the same as the hoplites daily pay. From this time forward the Dicasteries became the almost permanent abode of many citizens, particularly of those of the poorer classes who were past the age of military service, and therefore had no other duty which could override the liability to act as jurymen. Forty years later the leaders of the democracy began to pay the Ecclesia as well as the Dicasteries, a step which was a logical carrying out of Pericles' idea. The Athenian democrats boasted that by means of these subsidies a knowledge of law and politics was diffused through the whole body of citizens, and a level of political intelligence reached with which no other state in Greece could vie. This was to a certain extent true ; but there is a limit to the educating influence of politics or lawsuits, and it may well be doubted whether that country was likely to be well governed where every citizen aspired Pericles and State Doles. 271 to be a professional statesman and judge, and was paid for his aspirations. The enemies of Pericles summed up the results of his legislation by saying that it made the Athenians idle, loquacious, and money-loving. It led men, they complained, to spend more time than was right in hanging about the Pnyx and the law- courts ; it set every one practising public oratory or judicial plead- ing ; it induced Athenians to think that they ought to be paid for carrying out the primary duties of citizenship — liabilities which ought to be regarded as sacred trusts rather than as work, deserving remuneration. Probably the opponents of Pericles had the greater share of reason on their side ; it is likely that the state suffered more from the encouragement of amateur statesmanship than it gained by the increased amoimt of political intelligence which prevailed in the multitude. The system of subsidizing the poor did not stop short in the Ecclesia and the Dicasteries; it was carried by Pericles himself into other spheres of life. He was the author of laws state by which the state charged itself with numerous I'oies. doles and payments on the occasion of public festivals. It is said that these measures originated in his opposition to Cimon : the wealthy conservative statesman had been accustomed to throw open his parks and gardens to the multitude, and to keep free house for his demesmen. Pericles' private means did not permit him to practise bribery on such a magnificent scale, and he is said to have adopted the idea of supplying from the public i)urse what was not forthcoming from his own. He is recorded as having been the proposer of a number of grants of public money made at festivals, in order that the poor might not only witness state pageants, but might even buy themselves meat and wine at the public expense whenever days of public rejoicing came round. It was, in short, an anticipation of the system whereby Rome in a later age was demoralized bj'^ the doles and games of her emperors. The worst feature of such gi-ants and of all kindred institutions was that the money did not really come out of the treasury of the Attic state, but out of that of her allies, the confederates of the league of Delos, for without their accumulated tribute the dis tributions would have been impossible. A not less efficacious method for draining the treasury was 272 The Age of Pericles. [440 b.c- discovered when Pericles set to work to streDgthea and beautify The buildings Athens out of the commoa fuuds of the league. Wo of Pericles, have already spoken of the third Long Wall which he built between the upper city and the Peiraeus ; but this was one of the least ambitious of his ventures in stone and mortar. Far more important among his achievements were the noble public buildings with which he adorned Athens. Some of these lay in the level parts of the city ; such was the Odeum at the foot of the south-eastern cliff of the Acropolis, whose roof — copied, according to legend, from the vast and gorgeous tent of Xerxes — sheltered musical performances. Others lay in the Peiraeus, such as the great Corn Hall and the Deigma, or exchange for merchants. Even outside Athens magnificent temples were commenced at Rhamnus, Eleasis, and Sunium. But by far the most important group of buildings which Pericles took in hand were those situated on the Acropolis. At its western end, where alone the slope was Tjjg accessible, the architect Mnesicles was set to build Propyiaea. the Propylaea, or entrance halls of the citadel. These works alone cost two thousand talents. They consisted of a magnificent flight of marble steps, seventy feet broad, leading up to a double colonnade, through which the visitor entered the Acro- polis. This central colonnade was flanked by two projecting wings carried along the edge of the cliff, and opening with smaller rows of columns on to the central staircase. The northern wing con- tained a celebrated chamber called the Pinacotheca, from its being covered with frescoes of the great painter Polygnotus. After passing through the Propylaea, the visitor found himself facing the colossal bronze statue of Athene Promachos, which Athene represented the guardian goddess of the city in full Promachos. armour, with outstretched spear and shield. This great work of Pheidias was more than fifty feet in height, and was raised t\yenty feet more by its pedestal, till it overtopped the temple roofs ; the golden plume of Athene's helmet was to be seen far out at sea, and formed a well-known landmark to the sailors of the Gulf of Aegina. Beyond the statue of Athene Promachos stood the greatest oi the works which Pericles called into being — the famous Parthenon, the largest and most beautiful, though not the most revered, of the 438 B.C.] Building of the Parthenon. 273 temples on the Acropolis, The neighbouring temple of Athene Polias ' contained the sacred wooden image of im- i^e memorial antiquity which was the Palladium of the Parthenon, city, the holy olive tree which had sprouted forth again after it had been felled by the axe of the Persian, and the living snake which symbolized the presence of the goddess. But if the Parthenon did not gather around it any of the old superstitious awe which the neighbouring building called forth, it symbolized to every Athenian the imperial greatness of his city. Not only was its glorious decoration paid for out of the funds of the subject allies, but its walls themselves served as the treasury for the hoarded tribute money which gave Athens her strength, while the inscrip- tions which set forth the amount that each member of the Delian League paid to the central power were engraved without. The architecture of the Parthenon was the work of Ictinus, its sculptures and reliefs that of Pheidias. Not only did the great sculptor place in the "pediments," or eastern and western gable-ends of the temple, elaborate groups representing the birth of Athene and the strife of Athene and Poseidon, but he filled the ninety-two " metopes," or square spaces which lay above the capitals of the columns and beneath the edge of the roof, with as many separate compositions, showing the battles of the ancient heroes with the Amazons and the Centaurs. Moreover, within the outer colonnade of the Parthenon he traced along the upper portion of the wall of the temple itself an endless procession of graceful figures, repre- senting the ceremonies of the Panathenaic festival — the setting forth of the priests and magistrates, the maidens and knights of Athens, to do honour to Athene on the day of her greatest festival. No less than four thousand square feet of surface were covered by the works of the sculptor's untiring hand. While the hinder part of the temple, called the Opisthodomos, served as a vast strong- room for the treasures of the state, the front half formed the actual sanctuary. Here was placed the most gorgeous of the works of Pheidias — a colossal figure of Athene, wrought not in marble or bronze, but in ivory and gold. Her robes alone contained forty talents' weight of gold (£9750), and her armour was studded with precious stones of great price. But the mere monetary worth • Better known as the Erechthoum. T 2 74 '^^^^ -^S^ ^f Pericles. of this imposing figure was as nothing compared with its artistic value, as the masterpiece of the greatest sculptor of the ancient world ; there was nothing in Greece which could compare with it, save the colossal Zeus at Olympia whi^h Pheidias constructed a few years later. If Pericles sinned against international morality in using the treasures of the Delian League for the adornment of Athens, it must at any rate be confessed that he applied the embezzled talents to no unworthy end. The final developments of Pericles' constitutional changes did not come about till the party which opposed them had been completely swept out of the field. We have already mentioned Ostracism of ^ '' Thucydides, that after the death of Cimon the leadership of the conservative and Philo-Spartan party fell into the hands of his kinsman, Thucydides the son of Melesias. This states- man kept up a bitter opposition to all the proposals of Pericles ; he taught his followers to sit close together in the assembly, and compensate for their lack of numbers by their simultaneous shouts and well-drilled applause. But this custom of herding together also served to betray to their enemies their decided inferiority in voting strength. The democrats nicknamed them " the Few," and were encouraged to persevere by the manifest majority which they possessed. It was in vain that Thucydides denounced all the measures of Pericles in terms of warm moral indignation, declaring that he had brought dishonour on Atliens by inducing her to turn to her private use moneys that were contributed for the public benefit of Greece ; and that all the world would consider it the act of a tyrant city to use the gold of the allies in subsidizing her proletariate and adorning her streets with temples and monu- ments : " when Athens wasted talents by the thousand from the Delian treasury in gilding her statues and carving her shrines, she was but acting like a light and vain woman decking herself with ill-gotten jewels." Pericles made his usual reply — that as long as Athens kept off Persian invasions she was entitled to spend what she chose out of the funds of the Delian League, and suppressed the fact that all operations against Persia had been abandoned since he came into power. The continual bickering between the democrats and the followers of Thucydides lasted till the year 443 b.c , when the persistent but fruitless opposition of 443 B.C.J Osh-acism of Thucydides, Son of Melesias. 275 Thucydides was brouglit to an end by a recourse to ostracism. The stronger party voted his exile, and Pericles was left without any opponent of importance. ^r\h^ TRIBUTE Walker & BoutalUc. The foreign policy which was pursued by Athens under the direction of Pericles was directed to vigorous extension of her power in all direction^, except indeed in those continental districts 276 The Age of Pericles. [443 b.o. close at hand, where interference would have brought about an immediate war with Sparta or Thebes. The organization of the Delian League had now been perfected. It embraced all the coast-cities of Asia Minor from Artane, just outside the Bosphorus in Bithynia, down to Calydna the Athenian in Lycia. Similarly in Europe an unbroken chain of empire. ^^tj^gnian tributaries stretched along the Thracian and Chalcidian shores from Byzantium to Aeneia. All the islands of the Aegean, except the insignificant Dorian states of Melos and Thera, were also numbered among the confederates. Even outside these limits there were many cities which had joined the league ; Nymphaeum in the distant Tauric Chersonese (Crimea), and Celenderis in Cilicia, were members of the Athenian alliance no less than Eretria or Aegina. Among the two hundred and forty-nine cities whose names appear on the tribute lists which have been dug out from the ruins of Alliens, only three — Samos, Lesbos, and Chios — had refused to compound their original contingents of ships for a money payment, and still possessed a war-navy. The remaining two hundred and forty-six were divided for financial purposes into five groups, known as the Thracian, Insular, Helles- pontine, Ionian, and Cariau tribute-districts. At fixed times tax-collecting galleys sailed round the Aegean and Hellespont and gathered in the contributions due from each city, which were finally paid over to the Hellenotamiae and stored in the Acropolis of Athens. The synodic meetings seem to have dropped entirely out of use ; if any occurred they were mere formal assemblies, at which no one except Athenian deputies appeared. The total annual sum which the tribute brought in during the ascendancy of Pericles was about six hundred talents ; the only outgoings for league purposes were the moneys required to keep sixty Athenian galleys constantly cruising in the Aegean. Hence it was possible for no less than nine thousand seven hundred talents to accumulate m the Acropolis, in spite of the large sums which were spent on Athenian state-doles, pageants, and public edifices. The amount due from each city was carefully revised every four years, and that justice on the whole prevailed in the assessment appears from the fact that places like Aegina or Naxos, against which Athens might have been expected to feel a grudge, are not 443 B.C.I Foundation of Atnphipolis and Thurii. 277 rated on a heavier scale than their more docile fellow-subjects. It was not the fact that they were over-taxed, but the fact that they were taxed at all for Athenian objects, which made the tribute so hateful to the allies. We have already spoken of the Chruchies which were planted by Pericles in Euboea after the rebellion of the year 446 B.C. Similar garrisons of Athenian citizens were also placed by him in other localities, notably in the Thracian Chersonese, the old patrimony of Militiades. Bat such settlements were not the only means which he devised for extending the influeoce of Athens; actual colonies were also sent forth to well-choseu spots. Amisus and Sinope in Paphlagonia were strengthened by bands of emigrants despatched under Athenian guidance. The site of Ennea Hodoi on the Strymon, so fatal to the arms of Athens twenty-nine years before (see p. 251), was seized for a third time, and fortified, in 437 B.C. This time the Thracians proved unable to dislodge the settlers, and Hagnon became the oekist of the new town of Amphipolis. The Athenian element among the population was in this case but small, but the nationality of the ofBcial founder served to constitute Amphipolis a nominal dau2;hter-state of Athens. The „ , . J- ^ •^ Colonies at same was the case in another colony of equal impor- Amphipolis tance in the far West. For seventy years ihe site of the great city of Sybaris on the lapygian shore had been lying desolate, and the surviving families of Sybarite origin had been dwelling scattered through Italy, Pericles now collected them, associated with them a certain number of Athenian emigrants and a much larger body of lonians and other Greeks, and planted a new Sybaris close to the ruins of the old city. Several very dis- tinguished men joined in the colonization of Sybaris ; among them were the historian Herodotus, the philosopher Protagoras, and the orator Lysias, After a short time quarrels arose between the citizens of old Sybarite blood and the settlers from the East : the attempt of the former to form themselves into an oligarchy was put down, and, to mark the changed character of the state, the victorious party changed its name to Thurii (443 b.c). The administration of Pericles was not disturbed by more than one important campaign during the fourteen years which followed the peace of 445 b.c. This isolated struggle resulted from the revolt 278 The Age of Pericles. (440 b.c. of Samos — one of the last three states of the Delian League which had maintained their war-navies, and kept themselves The revolt i • . i . i of Samos, from falhug into the complete subjection which 440 B.C. j^^^ befallen their neighbours. Samos had engaged in a dispute with Miletus about the boundaries of her territory on the mainland. The decision of the question was referred to the Athenians, who awarded the land to Miletus. But the oligarchy of Samos refused to give up their claim to the territory, and remained obdurate till a fleet of forty ships sailed across from Athens and entered their harbour. The commander was Pericles, who promptly put down the oligarchic government, established a democracy, and took off a hundred hostages, whom he deposited at the Athenian Cleruchy of Lemnos, This high-handed action pro- voked the national sentiment of the Samians; the remaining oligarchs called in the aid of the satrap Pissuthnes, overturned the new democratic constitution, and disavowed their membership of the Delian League. A few ships sailed hastily across to Lemnos and liberated the hostages, and then open war on Athens was proclaimed. Undeterred by the memory of the fates of Naxos and Thasos, the Samians thought that they could regain their complete autonomy, and called on the other members of the Delian confederacy to join them in revolt. Of the whole body of allies, however, only Byzantium was bold enough to declare its secession and face the wrath of Athens. The moment that the news of the Samian lising arrived at Athens an expedition was sent off to attack the rebels, A fleet of sixty ships, among whose ten commanders Pericles held the chief place and the poet Sophocles was also numbered, crossed the Aegean, met the Samian fleet off the island of Tragia, and defeated it. Soon after Pericles was largely reinforced from Athens, Chios, and Lesbos, till he had a hundred and twenty-five vessels with him, and was able to blockade Samos by sea and land. But a false rumour that the satrap Pissuthnes had ordered up the Phoenician fleet, induced hitn to detach half his force to watch for its approach along the Lycian coast. The Samians seized this opportunity, came boldly out of their harbour with seventy ships, and engaged the blockading squadron, which they completely routed. For fourteen days they held the mastery of the sea, and 439 B.C.J Revolt and Reconquest of Samos. 279 were able to send out messengers to beg for aid from all quarters, and especially from the Spartans. But soon Athenian reinforce- ments came flocking from all directions, and the blockade was renewed. The Samians held out with desperate energy ; in spite of a number of new siege-engines which were constructed for Pericles by Artemon, the most celebrated engineer of the time, they main- tained their defence with complete success. It was not till nine months were passed, and it had become completely „ ^. i^ > . Subjugation certain that no help from without was approaching ofSamos, them, that the islanders capitulated. They were treated in accordance with the precedents of Naxos ana Tnasos ; being compelled to raze their walls, give up their war-ships, and pay an indemnity of a thousand talents. Strangely enough, the Athenians did not reimpose a democratic government on them, but allowed the oligarchy to survive. Byzantium surrendered the moment that the fate of Samos was known. The appeal of the Samians to Sparta had nearly brought about a general war in European Greece. The ephors had summoned together a congress of their allies, and many states had deemed the opportunity favourable for an attack on Athens. But the Corinthians prevailed on the Spartan government to hold back, induced, it is said, by the fact that they themselves were in diffi- culties with their subject allies, and dreaded the precedent of encouraging revolt. It was to be another series of grievances, and not the wrongs of Samos, that was to cause the renewal of war in Greece. c^oJ^J^ CHAPTER XXVI. THE OUTBREAK OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR AND ITS CAUSES, 435-432 B.C. As late as the year of the revolt of Samos the balance of opinion among the allies of Si>arta was still in favour of preserving peace FeeUngat with Athens; but very shortly after the scales had Sparta. ijegun to incline in the opposite direction. The causes which led to this change of feeling were very various. In Sparta itself a new generation was now coming to the front, which had grown up since the truce of 445 b.c. These younger men did not remember the dangers and difficulties of the time that had followed the great earthquake of 464 b.c. and the revolt of the Helots. Moreover, a dozen years of unbroken peace had sufficed to restore the power of Sparta, and to consolidate once more her ancient hegemony in Peloponnesus. There was no longer any fear of seeing a renewal of those Athenian attempts to vrin territory within the Isthmus which the elder men could remember. In the depth of his heart well-nigh every Spartan felt a grudge against Athens, for having built up an empire which — even since the loss of her dominion on land— was sufHcient to overshadow the comparatively loose and ill-defined hegemony which his own city possessed in Peloponnesus. He was jealous that any Grecian state should be able to vie with Sparta, and anxious to fight out to a final decision the question whether that state or Sparta were really the stronger. It was remembered that the Spartan dis- cipline and the Spartan constitution existed for the sole object of producing warlike efficiency, yet for more than a dozen years no war had been waged. Nevertheless, some further impulse from without was reijuired to induce the slow-movmg Lacedaemonians 435 B.c] lU-tvill for At/iens in Boeotia and Megara. 281 to plunge into war. They needed the pressure of circumstance tf> drive them to take the decisive step. Among the allies of Sparta there were several states which had standing grievances against Athens. The Thebans could never forget the ten years of Athenian supremacy in Boeotia, V 1 IP,- , , I Grievances of and longed fur their revenge ; moreover, they had Boeotia and always before their eyes the town of Plataea, once Megara. a member of their own confederacy, but now an Athenian outpost pushed forward beyond Cithaeron. The Megarians had a more recent and a more tangible grievance. Athens had never forgiven them their revolt m 446 B.C., and the treacherous massacre of their Athenian garrison. Though compelled to make peace with them. In common with the other allies of Sparta, in 445 B.C., she had taken the first opportunity to do them an ill turn. Utilizing as excuses some disputes about fugitive slaves and debatable lands on the frontier, she had picked a quarrel with Megara. Then, covering her designs with one cf those superstitious pleas which were so well-known in Greek diploraac}', she had accused the Megarians of sacrilege, for tilling some frontier-land dedicated to Demeter. Finally, as a punishment for this alleged sacrilege, she had closed her ports and markets to Megarian merchants, and compelled all her subject allies to do the same. These proceedings inflicted a deep wound on her Dorian neighbour. Megara had always been a naval state, with a considerable trade both to east and west. The prohibition to visit the harbours of any of the members of the Delian confederacy destroyed half her commerce at a blow. The whole state languished and decayed in conse- quence; again and again embassies were sent to beg the aid of Sparta, and to beseech her to compel the Athenians to rescind the obnoxious decree. But for some time no result followed these petitions. There was yet another state, not far from Megara, whose con- dition was likely to provoke discontent at Sparta. Aegina, once the equal and the rival of Athens, and for many years a member of the Peloponnesian alliance, had been compelled, in the days of Sparta's weakness, to become a mere dependency of Athens and to join the Delian confederac}'. Though no formal embassy could be sent by her, there can be little doubt that her Dorian oligarchy 282 Origin of the Peloponnesian War. '4353.0. contrived to keep her unhappy condition b. fore the eyes of the cphors, and to make private petition for release from the Athenian yoke. But in spite of all their grievances, it was neither Thebes, Megara, nor Aegina which was to play the chief part in driving Sparta into a new struggle with Athens. Corinth, the state which in 439 B.C. had been the strongest partisan of peace, was destined to become, under the stress of circumstances, the chief advocate of war. AVe have already had occasion to mention the fact that Corinth was far more successful than other Greek states in keeping her Corinth and colonies in a state of dependence. The chaia of cities corcyra. -^vhich she had founded along the western coast of Greece was, with one exception, retained under her power. Am- bracia, Leucas, Auactorium, and the other colonies were united by a close alliance to their mother-city ; they formed a commercial union whose currency was interchangeable, and a political con- federacy whose resources were always used in common. Corinth was the managing partner in the alliance, and her colonies were content to follow her guidance. But to the north of the other Corinthian cities lay one colony which had always taken a different line. Corcyra had from her first foundation been hostile to her mother-city. After a severe struggle she had made herself inde- pendent in the seventh century ; the tyrant Periander had once reduced her to obedience, but after his death she had again torn herself free from the Corinthian alliance. Lying as she did full in the course of the trade route from Corinth to Tarentum and Syracuse, she was frequently able to interfere with the commerce of her mother-country, and used her power to the full. It was not unnatural, then, that Corinth and Corcyra were bitter enemies. On the Illyrian shore, some distance to the north, lay the town of Epidamnus, better known in later days as Dyrhachium. The Corcyraeans had founded the place, but, in accordance with the universal usage of Greece, had taken a Corinthian, the Heracleid Phallus, as the official oekist of the settlement. Epidamnus was m 435 B.C. engaged in one of those fierce civil wai's between the oli- garchy and the democracy to which every Greek state was liable. The populace finally expelled their opponents, who took refuge with the neighbouring Illyrian tribe of the Taulantii, and stirred tJiem 435 B.C.) The Troubles at Epidavtnus. 283 up to attack the city. Being cooped up within their walls by thu barbarians, and prevented from cultivating their ter- The troubles ritory, the Epidamnian democrats were reduced to ^* Epidamnus. great straits ; accordingly they made application for help to the Corcyvaeans, as their nearest neighbours and kinsmen. The Corcyraean government, however, refused to interfere in the party quarrel, and would not grant assistance. It then occurred to the Epidamnians that they were connected with Corinth also, from the fact that their oekist had been a Corinthian. Accordingly they sent an embassy to beg from the mother-city for the aid which they had been unable to obtain from the daughter. The Corinthians were delighted to have the opportunity of doing Corey ra an ill turn, by obtaining her nearest neighbour as an ally, and extending their influence up the Illyrian G-iilf. If Epidamnus were incUided in their commercial league, the harm that Corcyia could do them would be much diminished. Accordingly they received the Epidamnian ambassadors with effusion, and promised them prompt assistance. Not only did they equip a small fleet, and place on board of it a garrison for Epidamnus, but they invited emigrants to come forward to reinforce the thinned population of the place, and guaranteed them the protection of Corinth. This expedition reached Epidamnus, and greatly strengthened its power of resistance ; but at the same time it called down on the town the wrath of Corcyra. The Corcyraeans were indignant that Corinth should trespass in waters which they considered to be their own, and resolved to put an end to the alliance of Corinth and Epi- damnus by force. Accordingly they sent a fleet of forty ships to blockade the town from the side of the sea, and entered into an alliance with the Epidamnian oligarchs and the Taulantii, who were besieging it on land. This action on the part of Corcyra was certain to lead to open war. The Corinthians took up the challenge, equipped thirty ships of their own, called out contingents from their Leu- -vp-arof Oorinth cadian and Ambraciot colonists, and obtained aid and Corcyra, also from Megara, whose citizens — debarred by Athens from eastern trade — were eager to find new outlets to the west. Late in the year 435 B.C. a combined fleet of seventy-five galleys, under the Corinthian Aristeus, set sail to raise the blockade 284 Origin of the Peloponnesian lV(f>'. 433 b.c of Epidamnus. They were met off the promontory of Actium by eiglity Corcyraean vessels, who completely defeated them, with the loss of fifteen ships. On the same day Epidamnus surrendered, the native population consenting to receive back their exiled oligarchy, while the Corinthian garrison were made prisoners of war. This check caused the wildest wrath at Corinth, and extensive preparations were at once set on foot to repair the disaster. The Corinthians spent the whole of 434 B.C. in strengthening and equipping their fleet, and by the spring of the next year had ninety galleys ready for sea. They bade their subject allies follow their example, and raised thirty-eight ships from them. This armament, strengthened by a dozen Megarian and ten Eleian vessels, composed a fleet which Corcyra could not hope to withstand, although she was accounted the second naval power of Greece, and owned not less than a hundred and twenty triremes. The Corcyraeans had up to this moment held themselves aloof from Grecian politics; not even such a crisis as the invasion of corcjrraasks Xerxes had been able to induce them to interest Athens^ themselves in anything that went on to the east of 433 B.C. Cape Malea. But when they had drawn upon them- selves such a storm as was now impending, they were constrained to look around for allies. All the naval states of Western Greece were leagued with Corinth ; their Italiot neighbours across the sea had no war- fleets of importance. JSTowhere could they discover any power except Athens which could afford them the help they needed. After many searchings of heart, and with great reluctance, the Corcyraeans resolved to apply to be admitted into the alliance of Athens, although they thereby sacrificed the comjilete indepen- dence which had hitherto been their pride. In the early spring of 433 B.C. they despatched envoys to solicit the conclusion of an offensive and defensive alliance. The moment that the news of this move arrived at Corinth, the government of that city sent a counter-embassy to persuade the Athenians to refuse the i^etition of their enemies. Thus it came to pass that on the day on which the Corcyraean ambassadors appeared before the Ecclesia with their propositions, the Corinthians were also present to set forth the arguments against the conclusion of the alliance. Thucydides has -oreserved for us the substance of the speeches 433B.C.J Quarrel of Corinth and Corcyra. 285 made by the rival envoys on this occasion ; though expressed in his own language, they fairly represent the arguments employed during the debate, at which the historian himself was probably present. The Corcyraeans appealed entirely to the self-interest of Athens \. they acknowledged that they had no moral claim for her assistance, but pointed out that they possessed the second largest navy in Greece, and that, if they were allowed to fall under the power of Corinth, that navy might at any time be turned against Athens. They declared that war between Athens and the Peloponnesian alliance, of whicb Corinth was such a prominent member, was cer- tain to break out ere long, and asked whether it was better that the Corcyraean fleet should be found on that day on the side of Athens? or on that of her enemies. As to the idea that the conclusion of an alliance with themselves would bring on an immediate war with Corinth and Sparta, they declared that the reverse would be the case ; for the Athenian and Corcyraean navies, if united, would be so powerful that the Peloponnesians would not dare to attack them. While the Corcyraeans spoke of profit and expediency, the Corinthian envoys in their reply took a higher tone. They pointed out that Corcyra had always pursued a selfish and false policy, that she bad been equally careless of the common interests of Greece and of the respect due to her mother-city, and that in the case of Epidamuus she had been actuated by mean jealousy. If any state might make an appeal for the friendship of Athens, it was Corinth, who had not only doue her gooi.1 services in past days,'- but had only a few years before restrained Sparta from declaring war at the moment of the revolt of Samos. On that occasion Corinth had vindicated the rights of every sovereiga state to punish its own subject allies, and now she expected that Athens would do as much for her. If the treaty which the Corcyraeans desired was now concluded, there would be full precedent for the Peloponnesian alliance helping the next member of the Delian Confederacy that revolted. As to the plea that war was inevitable, and that even if Corcyra did not furnish a casus belli some other must ere long arise, they declared that unless Athens provoked ' As, for example, during the invasion of Attica by Cleomene3 in 609, and the Acginetan war of 489. 286 Origin of the Peloponnesian War. [432 b.c. them they had no intention of attacking her, and that the majority of the members of the Peloponnesian alliance were of the same mind. After the ambassadors had spoken, Athenian orators took up tlie debate, which was protracted far into the second day. It was Athens aUied the speech of Pericles which decided the vote of the tocorcyra. Ecclesia : the great statesman had fully made up his mind that war must come sooner or later, and threw his weight on to the side of the Corcyraeans. In accordance with his advice a defensive alliance was concluded with them, which bound Athens to lend them ber help if they were attacked. As an earnest of the protection which was thereby granted, Lacedaemonius, the son of the great Cimon, was sent with a small squadron of ten ships to cruise in Corcyraean waters. There can be no doubt that Athens put herself in the wrong by this action. The treaty with Corcyra was virtually a declara- tion of war on Corinth, whose fleet was just about to sail against that city. Of all the allies of Sparta, Corinth deserved the best treatment from Athens, and was the state which could be most easily conciliated, for the lines of Corinthian and Athenian commerce did not cross each other to any great extent. Even if war was really inevitable, it was not worth while to precipitate it by high-handed action which obviously broke the spirit of the Thirty Years' Truce. Nor was Corcyra an ally whose pa-t history gave much promise of future good faith; she had always played a purely selfish game, and as a matter of fact gave Athens very little assistance in the coming struggle. During the twenty-eight years of the war not a single Corcyraean galley rounded Cape Malea to help Athens in her struggle to maintain the empire of the Aegean. Though fully aware of the meaning of the new treaty, Corinth persisted in her intention of chastising her undutiful daughter-city. A few days after the ten Athenian ships under Lace- Battle of •' , /. 1 Sybota. daemouius had reached Corcyra, the approach of the 433 B.C. Coi-inti^ian fleet was signalled. Now that all its reinforcements had come in, from Megara, Leucas, and elsewhere, the armament mustered one hundred and fifty sail; the Corcy- raeans put out to meet it with one hundred and ten vessels. With them sailed Lacedaemonius and his ten ships; but the 432 B.C.J Battle of Sybota. 287 Athenian commander had determined to take no active part in the coming fight unless compelled, for he was under orders not to attack the Corinthians, and only to resist if circumstances com- pelled him. The fleets met off the coast of Epirus, at the island of Sybota, and battle was joined along the whole line, except at the extreme left flank of the Corcyraean squadron, where the ten Athenian ships kept manoeuvring without coming to close quarters. After a hard fight, carried on with more courage than naval skill, the Corinthian right wing broke through the opposing line, and, although the Corcyraeans had some advantage at other points, decided the fate of the battle. More than half of the Corcyraean fleet were sunk, taken, or disabled ; and Lacedaemonius, who only took an active part in the fight when liis allies were already beaten, could not do much to protect their retreat. After pausing to rearrange their disordered line of battle and to capture or slay the crews of the disabled Corcyraean ships, the Corinthians came on for a second attack, that must have been fatal to the defeated fleet, which did not now muster more than fifty or sixty seaworthy ships. But after advancing to within a short distance of the enemy, the victorious squadron was suddenly seen to back water, go about, and retreat down the Epirot coast. The cause of this manoeuvre was the sudden appearance of a second Athenian squadron, which had been sent out to reinforce Lacedaemonius. It only mustered twenty ships, but the Corinthians took them for the mere vanguard of a large fleet, and cautiously drew back. When the new-comers had joined the Corcyraean fleet, the Corinthian admiral sent out an officer in a small boat to denounce the conduct of the Athenian commander, and to ask him whether he was intending to break the peace existing between Corinth and Athens. Lacedaemonius answered that he was not about to begin offensive hostilities, but intended to protect Corcyra. Thereupon the Corinthian, resolved not to precipitate a general war by hasty action, gave orders for his armament to steer homeward. Before starting he set up a trophy on the Epirot coast as a testimony to his victory in the battle ; the Corcyraeans also, we learn to our surprise, claimed a success because their enemies had retired, and set up another trophy on the southernmost headland of their island. Except the capture of a thousand prisoners from the 288 Origm of I he Peloponnesian War. i43sb.o. conquered fleet, the Coriathians had made no gain from their carefully prepared expedition. The battle of Sybota made war between Athens aud the Pelopon- nesian alliance practically certain, but the movements of Sparta Kevoitof ^^"^^ so slow that events were able to develop them- Potidaea. selves for some months before the actual rupture came. 432 S G The chief interest during this jjeriod lay in a series of events which took place in the north-western Aegean. Peidiccas, King of Macedonia, the successor of that Alexander who took part in the invasion of Xerxes, had for some time been at variance with Athens. He endeavoured to harm her by inducing the tributary cities of Chalcidice to revolt. Among the most important of these places was Potidaea, a Corinthian colony, which, in spite of its membership in the Delian Confederacy, was still so closely connected with its mother-country as to receive its annual magistrates from her. The Potidaeans were induced to lend a favourable ear to the proposals of Perdiccas by the encouragement which they received from Corinth. To revenge the Corcyraean treaty the Corinthians were ready to molest Athens in any way they could ; and secretly prepared an expedition of two thousand men, under their favourite general Aristeus. When this force arrived at Potidaea the town openly revolted, as did many of the smaller places in its neigh- bourhood. However, an Athenian force which was then operating against Perdiccas was at once diverted against the rebel towns. In a battle fought in front of the walls of Potidaea the Athenians were victorious, though their general Callias was slain. They then laid siege to the town ; but it had been amply provisioned in preparation fur the revolt, and proved able to resist for many months. Athens and Corinth were now virtually at war, though no open declaration of hostilities had yet been published. Before definitely Sparta decides committing herself to the struggle, Corinth had deter- on war. mined to make certain of the assistance of Sparta, her ancient protector. The Spartans had long been contemplating the approach of war, and were not unprepared for the appeal of their allies. Late in the year 432 B.C. the ephors allowed the Corinthians to set forth their grievances before a meeting of the Apella. The Megarlans and other states who were at odds with Athens also 432 B.C] Congress at Sparta. 289 appeared to make their wrongs known. The general drift of all the speeches was the same : Athens had become haughty and high- handed ; she was an intolerably bad neighbour, whose one aim was to reduce and impoverish every state which was not numbered among her subject allies ; the empire which she had built up was kept together m violation of the natural law which made autonomy the sacred right of every Hellenic community ; if her restless activity were not checked, the liberty of Greece was in danger. Some Athenian ambassadors, who chanced to be in Sparta on another mission, spoke before the Apella in defence of the conduct of their country ; but they could not deny the charge which was at the bottom of the accusations— the fact that Athens had turned her hegemony over the states of the Aegean into an imperial dominion, where no pretence was made of granting her allies a share in the control of affairs. The Spartan king Archi- damus also spoke against an immediate declaration of war, on the ground that the Peloponnesian states were as yet ill-prepared for a struggle with an enemy whose main power lay on the sea. But the large majority of the Sjmrtans had long made up their minds : their opmion was curtly stated by the ephor Sthenelai'das, when he told the assembly " they must not suffer the Athenians to become any greater, nor sit still when their allies were being wronged, but march with the aid of the gods against these wrong- doers." So certain was SthenelaKdas of the numerical superiority of his party, that he actually took the step, unheard of before, of bidding the assembly divide, instead of merely listening to its tumultuous cries ot assent or dissent.^ As he had foreseen, an enormous majority voted in favour of war. A formal congress ot all the allies of Sparta was then held, to ratify the decision of the Apella. It was well known that the greater part ot the states were quite ready to follow the lead of their suzerain. Many places besides Corinth, Megara, and Thebes had their own private grudges against Athens ; Elis, Epidaurus, and Phlius, for example, had been interested in the success of the campaign against Corcyra, to whose expenses they had contributed. The Arcadian tribes were always ready for a war which gave a promise of plunder, and yet was never likely to extend to the ' See pp. 6G, 67, as to the voting in the Spartan assembly. 290 Origin of the Felopoiwesian War. r432B.c.- neighbourliood of their own inland mountains. Accordingly the congress of allies proceeded to conBrm the decision of the Spartan assembly; if any votes were given in favour of peace, they were so unimportant that no record of them has been preserved. ' Two diplomatic episodes occurred before the actual outbreak of hostilities. The Spartans first sent a message designed to shake the credit of Pericles with the more superstitious of his fellow- citizens. It bade the Athenians, in the old formula (see p. 105), "expel the accursed family of the Alcmaeonidae." To this no reply was made except by a contemptuous tu quoque, in which the Spartans were told to " expiate the pollution they had brought on themselves by the starving of Pausanias in the temple of Athene, and by putting to death certain Helots who had taken refuge in the sanctuary of Taenarum." The Peloponnesian alliance then presented a peremptory note to Athens which contained three points. It required that the The Spartan decrees against the Megarians should be repealed, demands, tji^t Aegina should be restored to her autonomy, and that the blockade of Potidaea should be raised. The first demand was one which might possibly have been granted; but the two last struck at the whole principle of the Athenian naval dominion, bidding Athens permit secessions from the Confederacy of Delos, — a proceeding which her conduct in the Cases of Naxos, Thasos, and Samos showed that she would never sufler. Naturally the demands were refused. A few days after the Spartans sent in an ultimatum, couched in the form of a demand that Athens should "restore their autonomy to the states of Greece." The Spartan ambassadors who came as bearers of the ultimatum expected a peremptory refusal of these demands, and must have been some- what surprised when the Athenian peace-party proved strong enough to raise a lively debate in the Ecclesia, for the purpose of taking the three points into consideration. During the seven or eight months which had elapsed since the battle of Sybota, the power of Pericles had been suffering a tem- „ porary eclipse. Now that war had become certain, Temporary •!•'■'■ unpopularity all the classes which were likely to suffer from it felt ill disposed towards the statesman whose advice had brought it on. The ill will shown against Pericles was so general 431B.CJ Attacks on Pericles. 291 that his enemies thought that a favourable opportunity had arrived for molesting him. Their attacks took the form of accusations against his friends and confidants. The philosopher Anaxagoras was accused of impiety, and the sculptor Pheidias of embezzlement, merely because they were honoured with the friendship of Pericles. The former was obliged to leave Athens, the latter — though he successfully proved by the test of the scales that he had not made away with any of the gold which had been given him for the statue of Athene Parthenos — was retained in prison on another charge. He had introduced portraits of Pericles and himself among the ancient heroes represented in the " metopes " of the Parthenon, and this was imputed to him as sacrilege. Before his second trial the unfortunate sculptor died in prison. The musician Damon, an intimate friend of Pericles since his youth, was accused of having spoken in favour of tyranny as a form of government, and suffered ostracism. A fourth attack was aimed at a personage still nearer and dearer to Pericles. The great statesman had been unhappy in his married life, and after divorcing his wife had been living in a connection not hallowed by the tie of wedlock with a Milesian lady named Aspasia. The equivocal position of the mistress of Pericles made her an easy mark for slander, and she was indicted for impiety and evil-living. When she appeared before the dicas- tery, Peiicles for once broke through his habitual reserve, and appeared in court to plead the cause of Aspasia. His biographers relate that during his oration he was seen to shed tears, for the first time on record during his public life : his evident emotion had its effect, and the trial resulted in a verdict of acquittal. At the moment that the Spartan ambassadors appeared in Athens to lay their ultimatum before the Ecclesia, the discontent felt against Pericles was still high, and it was this fact ,^^ ^ ° ' Athens that led to the discussion of the three points. But rejects the after many speeches had been made, Pericles was able ""* ^"^ once more to assert his mastery over the assembly. He showed clearly enough that it was not the IMegarian decrees or the siege of Potidaea that were the real causes of the hostility of the Pelopon- nesiaus. The true reason for the hatred which Sparta felt towards Athens was her jealousy at the formation of the Athenian empire, which so much overshadowed her own local pre-eminence in PelO' 292 Origifi of the Peloponnesian War. [431 b.c. ponnesus. The Corinthians and other maiitime allies of Sparta were envious of the commercial prosperity of Athens. Neither Sparta nor her allies would ever be satisfied as long as the Con- federacy of Delos continued to exist ; if the three points now brought forward were conceded, it would only cause the appearance of another and more stringent set ot demands. The force of these arguments was soon felt; it was recognized that for the last year war had been inevitable, and the Spartan ambassadors were sent back with the refusal that they had expected. A few days later the actual outbreak of hostilities occurred, apparently in the mouth of March, 431 b.c. CHAPTER XXVIL THE EARLY TEARS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR DOWN TO THE DEATH OF PERICLES, 431-429 B.C. Before passing on to describe the opening of the Peloponnesian war, it will not be out of place to recapitulate the resources of the two confederacies which were pitted against each other. The Spartans had enlisted in their cause the full force of their Peloponnesian allies ; that is, they were supported by Elis, Corinth, Sicyon, all the Arcadian states, Epidaurus, Hermione, m 1 -ni !• 11 1 • 1 . /- The Pelopon- iroezen, and rhlius: all the peninsula, in fact — nesiancon- except Argos and Achaia, which remained neutral — ^ eracy, was ranked on their side. Outside the Isthmus they could count on the zealous assistance of Megaraand the Boeotian League, while the Phocians, the Locrians, and the Corinthiaa colonies along the Acarnanian coast were also numbered among their allies. Every one of these powers could put a considerable body of hoplites into tlie field, and the Boeotians and Locrians could supply cavalry also. If the whole army of the alliance could have been mustered for a great battle, it would have amounted to more than a hundred thousand foot, with perhaps two thousand horse. But great battles on shore were very rare during the Peloponnesian war, and no such force was ever engaged at one time during the whole twenty-seven years of its course. By sea the Spartan alliance was comparatively weak ; except Corinth there was no first-class maritime power included in it. But Sicyon and Megara were each possessed of some scores ol galleys, and Elis, Epidaurus, and even Sparta and the Boeotian League were not entirely without war-vessels. It was not, however, in numbers alone that the allies of Sparta felt them- selves weak at sea ; the mQrale and the training of their seamen 294 Early Years of the Peloponnesian War. 1431 b.c. were equally deficient. Tlieir officers were unaccustomed to the management of a large fleet ; their crews, except the Corinthians, had no recent experience of naval war. Moreover, the Athenian navy had developed in the last forty years a new system of tactics and manoeuvres, while their enemies were still employing the same methods which had served at Salamis. The old school of seamen had heen accustomed to lay their vessels alongside of the enemy, and then to allow the hoplites and light troops on board to fight the matter out. The Athenians had altogether abandoned these tactics; they had cut down the number of marines whom a vessel carried, and trusted almost entirely to ramming. Their system Its weakness ^^^ ^^ secure by rapid and skilful manoeuvring a at sea. favourable moment to drive their galley's beak into the enemy's side, or to crash into and disable his long projecting line of oars. The Peloponnesian had no conception of any other way of conquering his enemy than by grappling with him, while the Athenian loved a running fight, avoided close grips, and trusted to a rapid and unexpected charge. With these tactics the old-fashioned seamen of Corinth or Megava were at first utterly unable to cope. They knew their inferiority, and refused to engage unless they found themselves in largely superior force. Next to its acknowledged inferiority at sea, the greatest weak- ness of the Spartan confederacy lay in its financial poverty. Sparta herself possessed no monetary resources, and among her allies Corinth and Thebes alone had any accumulated wealth. The rest were " ready enough with their persons, but not at all ready with their purses." ^ So obvious was the financial difficulty of maintain- ing the war, that, even before hostilities had begun, proposals were made that the league should borrow money from the temple- treasures of Olympia and Delphi — a course which those who made it would have been the first to denounce as sacrilege, had it been brought forward on any other occasion. Thus it came to pass that Sparta could summon a very large army into the field for five or six weeks, but could not keep permanently on foot more than a few thousand men, for sheer want of money to pay them. She and her allies were invincible for a single battle or a frontier raid, but com- paratively helpless in carrying on a prolonged campaign, 1 Thuc. i. Ul. 431 B.C.J The Resources at Athens. 295 The position of Atliens was very dift'erent. On land slie had few allies ; her trusty neighbours at Plataen, her dependents the Messenians of Naupactus, and the Acarnanians, who ^^^ resources joined her because of their perpetual feuds with their of Athena. Corinthian neighbours of Leucas and Ambracia, were the only friends on whom she could thoroughly rely. Corcyra, of course, •was enlisted on her side, but proved of little assistance. Some of the Thessalian cities also had concluded alliances with her, but their forces never took the field in her favour, and they practically remained neutral in the war. Her own military resources were very considerable, amounting to twelve hundred horsemen and thirteen thousand hoplites fit to take the field, beside sixteen thousand more — men past the prime of life or resident aliens — who were available only for garrison duty at home. The Athenian fleet ready for sea amounted to not less than three hundred galleys in the highest state of efficiencj'', and the well- stored arsenal of Peiraeus was able to equip a yet larger number- The two Asiatic islands which still maintained a war navy — Lesbos and Chios— could reinforce their suzerain with a considerable squadron. With this exception the Confederacy of Delos con- tributed no naval or military assistance. The states which com- posed it had long ceased to maintain a fleet, while it would seem that Athens accounted their hoplites as too wanting in spirit or loyalty to make it worth her while to call them out in large numbers. At any rate, Ionian troops were scarcely ever brought across the Aegean to reinforce the Athenian army for a campaign in Europe. The finances of Atliens were in the most flourishing condition. She was enjoying an average annual revenue of about a thousand talents, of which six hundred consisted of the tribute of the con- federacy of Delos, while the rest was obtained from various forms of domestic taxation. [Moreover, she possessed a large accumula- tion of hoarded wealth. Of the surplus of the tribute-money six thousand talents were lying in the Acropolis ready for instant use. This great treasure had a few years before amounted to as much as nine thousand seven hundred talents, but the lavish expenditure of Pericles for the adornment of Athens, together with the cost of the siege of Potidaca, had decreased it by more than a third. 2 9^ Early Years of tJie Pelopo7incsimi War. (431 e.c. In considering the relative strength of Sparta and Athens, there was another element, not less important than their military and financial resources, to be taken into account. This Feellnersof , . ,. , ,. .,. /. ^i ■ .• the allies on was the feeling and disposition of their respective each side. ^^^^^ jjere Sparta had the advantage ; the greater l^art of the members of her alliance had an active dislike and fear of Athens, and looked upon the war against her as a crusade in favour of that " autonomy " which every Greek valued so highly. Among the subjects of Athens no such feeling against Sparta existed. The members of the Confederacy of Delos had long ceased to look upon their connection with Athens as an advantage. It was only the fear of sharing the fate of Thasos or Samos that kept them quiet ; if that fear could be removed, they were for the most part ready to secede. The victory of Athens over Sparta could bring them no advantage, while the continuance of the war might very possibly cause a diminution of trade and an increase of taxation. Of active hatred for specific acts of misgovernment on the part of Athens there was little ; but, on the other hand, the yearning after autonomy was always present, to make them long for the break-up of the empire of their suzerain. The allies of Athens, therefore, were at the best passive supporters, and might easily be turned into rebels if the hardships of war bore heavily upon them, or if a fair chance of recovering their freedom was presented to them. The chief guarantee for fidelity was merely the fact that they were cut oS' from Sparta by an expanse of sea, and that while the Athenian fleet was undisputedly supreme they could not hope to obtain aid for a rebellion. The first blood shed in the struggle was spilt in Boeotia. Before the final declaration of war had taken place, while men were still The surprise awaiting it, the Thebans made a treacherous attempt °March^^' **' ^^^^^ Plataea. That town, like every Greek state, 431 B.C. owned a discontented faction within its wall-^. The majority being attached to Athens, the minority were partisans of the Boeotian League. They entered into correspondence with the Theban Government, and undertook to betray their city by opening one of its gates on the evening of a festival. On a night of wind and rain in March, three hundred Theban hoplites stole beneath the walls of Plataea, while the whole force uf the city followed them 431B.C.1 The Thehans attempt to surprise Plataea, 297 some miles behind The traitors admitted the advanced guard, who marched into the market-place and drew themselves up there, sounding their trumpets and bidding their herald proclaim that all true Boeotians should take arms and join them. But the oligarchic part}' in Plataea was not numerous, and the Thebans, instead of seizing the prominent men of the city, remained quietly waiting for their reinforcements to come up. Unluckily the showers of the night had caused the river AsGpus to rise, and the main Theban army was detained beyond it, vainly seeking for a ford. The Pla- taeans, who had awoke at midnight to find their city betrayed, were at first in desjiair ; but after a time they perceived that their enemies were but a handful, and plucked up courage. They mus- tered in the side lanes, clapped to the gates, and barricaded the issues from the market-place. In the dusk of the dawn a desperate street-fight took place, when the Thebans perceived that they were entrapped, and strove to cut their way out. A few escaped by a postern gate, many were slain, but the majority Avere driven into a large granary, whence there was no exit, and forced to lay down their arms. Some hours afterwards, when all their countrymen were taken or slain, the 'J'heban army appeared before the walls. Finding that they were too late, the Theban generals at once laid hands on all the inhabitants of the country-side, and held them as securities for the lives of their captured friends. The Plataeans then sent out a herald to upbraid their neighbours for their treacherous attack, and threatened to put their prisoners to death if the hostages were not given up and the Plataean territory evacuated. Accordingly the Thebans released the persons they had seized, and returned home across the border. The Plataeans drove off their cattle into Attica, brought all their movable property into the city, and then, with a cruel and deliberate breach of faith, slew their prisoners, to the number of nearly two hundred. Thus with treachery, perjury, and deliberate massacre, in which it is difficult to blame one party more than the other, commenced the Peloponnesian war. When the first news of the attack on Plataea reached Athens, the strategi had sent off at once to beg their allies to keep their prisoners safe, as a means of bringing pressure to bear on Thebes. The news of the massacre caused much discontent, but nothing 298 Ea7-}y Years of the Peloponnesian War. [431 B.C. could be done to repair the crime. War was now actually begun ; accordingly the frontier forts were put in a state of defence, the flocks and herds of Attica placed in safety across the water, in Salamis or Euboea, and the inhabitants received warning that they would soon have to take refuge within the walls of the city. From Plataea the women and children were removed, and only a small garrison of four hundred citizens and eighty Athenians remained behind to man its ramparts. The impending storm soon broke over Attica. A few weeks after the attempt on Plataea, the whole armed force of Peloponnesus mustered at the Isthmus, and set out on its march Invasion of i -r. i • t /■ • Attica, June, northward. Every state had sent two-thirds of its ^^^ ■ hoplitcs, and the whole amounted to some seventy or eighty thousand men. Archidamus, king of Sparta, though originally an opponent of the war, had been place 1 in command. After being joined by the contingents of Boeotia, lie halted on the Attic frontier, and sent forward an anibas?a'ior named Melesippus to offer the Athenians one final chance of submission before war was let loose upon them. But on the motion of Pericles, the Ecclesia refused the envoy a hearing, and sent him back under guard to the frontier. "When he was dismissed by his escort, the Spartan took leave of them with the solemn words, " This day will be the beginning of great evils for Greece," and returned to the camp ot Archidamus. The Spartan king had calculated that the approach of an irresist- ible iirmy would humble the spirit of the Athenians, and that when they saw that the ravaging of Attica was about to begin, they would offer terms of peace. He was so far right that there was a large party which looked with dismay on the prospect of an invasion^ and the ruin to their country-side which must follow. But the landed interest at Athens was much less powerful than the com- mercial, and Pericles had succeeded in persuading the merchants capitalists and shipmasters of Athens that the war would bring them no great loss. He had from the first foreseen that, in the case of invasion, the open country of Attica must be evacuated, and abandoned to the enemy. He had familiarized his followers with the idea, and when the invasion took place, the terror on which Archidamus reckoned had long been discounted. Some days before 431 B.C.] Archidamtis rava^res Attica. 299 the Spartan army arrived, the Athenian proprietors had retired within the walls of the city, taking with them their families, their slaves, and all their household goods. There was nothing left but empty farmsteads for the enemy to destroy. After making an ineffectual attempt to storm the frontier fort of Oenoe, Archidamus descended from the spurs of Cithaeron into the plain of Eleusis, and began to burn and harry the Attica land in the most systematic manner. It was now ravaged, early June, and crops and fruits were well advanced towards maturity. The Peloponnesians spread over the face of the country, beat down the corn, felled the orchards and olive groves, and burnt the deserted farms and villas. Working steadily south, they crossed Mount Aegialeus, entered the plain of Athens, and encamped hard by Acharnae, the richest and most populous of the Attic demes. "When the smoke of the burning town was blown towards the walls of Athens, and the bands of plunderers were seen scattered like locusts over the plain, there was great excitement in the city. Forgetful of their inferior numbers, the Athenians longed to leave the shelter of the city and to fall on the invaders. The hoplites of Acharnae and its neighbourhood, who numbered three thousand ppears, demanded a sortie. Groups of armed men mustered at the gates, and it required all the personal influence of Pericles to prevent the excited multitude from rushing out to court a certain defeat. It was the firm resolve of the great statesman to avoid all fighting in the open field, but he found a vent for the feelings of his fellow-citizens by planning two naval expeditions. Naval One consisting of thirty triremes sailed up the Eurijous, expeditions, and made predatory descents on the coasts of Boeotia and Locris. The other, mustering not less than a hundred shijis, and carrying a thousand hoplites for land service, coasted round Peloponnesus, and did all the harm possible to the seaboard of Laconia, Messenia, and Elis. Then it was joined by fifty Corcyrean galleys, and passed up the coast of Acarnania, harrying the Corinthian colonies in that quarter. The presence of this powerful fleet in Western waters drew over to the Athenian alliance the four cities of Cephal- lenia, which had hitherto remained neutral. After remaining forty days in Attica, Archidamus drew off his army from the wasted land, and returned to Peloponnesus. The 300 Early Years of the Peloponnesian War. wsib.c- moment that he was gone, Pericles sallied out from Athens with thirteen thousand men, marched into the Megarid, and paid off on the villages and farms of the Megarians all the ravages that Attica had been suffering during the last six weeks. This destruc- tive visit was regularly repeated every autumn during the first eleven years of the war : sometimes the Athenians even supple- mented it by an additional raid in the spring. The events of the first year of the war made plain to every one what had hitherto been suspected by few — the fact that under Character of existing Conditions the struggle must be prolonged the war. indefinitely, for neither party had shown the power to strike an effective blow against its enemy. If the Athenians refused to meet the Peloponnesian army in the open field, and acquiesced in the abandonment of their home territory, there was no means of bringing pressure on them. The Spartans could not dream of besieging the vast circuit of the city and its maritime suburbs ; the walls were too strong for the siege artillery of those days, and the sea was always open for the supply of new resources. On the other hand, the Athenians had almost as little power to coerce the Peloponnesians ; no amount of ravagings of the Megarid or hasty descents on the coast of Laconia would appreciably effect the policy of an inland state like Sparta. Acute misery might be inflicted on the mercantile classes io Corinth or the farmers of the Eleian seaboard, but their sufferings would not disturb the stolid Lacedaemoniaa. Unless one side or the other found some more effective way of harming its enemy, the war might go on for ever. Pericles had long foreseen that Sparta's ability to harm Athens was confined to the power of wasting Attica, and had made up his mind that after some years of ineffectual effort the enemy would be reduced to sue for peace. But he calculated that the struggle would be long, and as a measure of precaution induced the Ecclesia to vote that a thousand talents out of the treasures in the Parthenon should be put aside as a reserve fund, only to he used in the event of an attack on Athens by sea. With a similar object, a hundred triremes fully manned were always to be kept in home waters. The Spartans had not been so prescient as Pericles, and the utter failure of their first attack in bringing pressure to bear on Athens caused much discontent. It was obvious that some new method 430 B.C.I The Plague of Athens. 301 of coercing the enemy must be found, unless the war was to last for ever. Among the other events of the first year of the war was the expulsion from their native island of the Aeginetans. Aegina had been an unwilling member of the Confederacy of Delos . _ ^ , , 1 . ,. Expulsion 01 Since ner conquest in 456 b.c, but her chief men were the Aegine- known to be in correspondence with Sparta, and ^^^^' Pericles dreaded the possible results of having a city ripe for revolt at the very gates of Athens. As long as Aegina was held by dis- aflfected. allies, it remained. " the eyesore of Peiraeus," and the Athenians now took the cruel and high-handed stejD of deporting its whole population. As Aegina had not justified this arbitrary action by any open revolt, much indignation was felt throughout Greece at seeing an ancient and famous city destroyed, merely to ease the suspicions of a jealous suzerain. The Spartans granted to the expelled inhabitants the land of Thyreatis on their northern border, close to the frontiers of Argolis. At the end of the campaigning season of 431 B.C., the Athenians held a solemn funeral celebration in honour of those citizens who had fallen in the numerous, if unimportant, skirmishes of the year. The oration in honour ot the departed was spoken by Pericles ; it was accounted the highest flight of his eloquence, and contained, besides its ostensible purport, a lofty panegyric on the social and political life of Athens. When the spring of 430 B.C. arrived, the Pelopounesian confede- rates prepared to repeat their incursion into Attica. The second year of the war might have been as uneventful as the „ '' ° .11. Second inva- first, if a great national calamity had not intervened sion of Attica, 430 £ C to make it memorable. The army of Arch idamus had hardly crossed the frontier, and the hosts of fugitive country-folk had only just taken refuge within the walls of Athens, when the plague broke out in the city. There ensued a fearful outbreak of pestilence, comparable in the fierceness of its ravages, though not in their extent, to the Black Death of 1348 or the London Plague of 1665, and far more dreadful than any of the visitations of cholera which our own century has known. The infection is said to have originated in Egyiit, and to have been brought westward by merchants from inner Asia, where pestilence is almost always 302 Early Years of the Feloponnesian War. [43ob.c. raging. It might, however, have passed Athens by, if everything there had not been prepared to make a disastrous outbreak easy. The city was crowded with refugees living in the most wretched and unsanitary condition. They had quartered themselves as best they could in the towers of the fortifications ; the space between the Long Walls was crowded with them ; every open square was crammed, and even such temples as were not kept locked up. They dwelt in booths and tents, even (we are told) in tubs, without any possible provision for cleanliness or comfort, and depending on a scanty and polluted water-supply In the heat of a stifling June, the filth and overcrowding had prepared the way for the pestilence. The moment that the infection was introduced it spread like wildfire. Thucydides has given a detailed account of the symptoms of this plague, which show it to have been a kind of eruptive typhoid fever. After seven or nine days of suffering, the victims, covered with pustules and racked with continual The plague vomiting and unquenchable thirst, sank into their of Athens, graves. Kecoveries, though not infrequent (Thucy- dides himself survived an attack), were few in comparison to the deaths. Hence the earliest symptoms of the disease brought on a state of reckless despair which led to much unnecessary loss of life. The physicians had nearly all fallen victims, and when all human skill was found unavailing, a selfish panic set in. Many refused to pay the least attention to the sufferings of their nearest relatives, and left them to perish untended. Moreover, under the moral and physical strain of the epidemic, the restraints of social order broke down, and men abandoned themselves to all manner of excess and debauchery. Crime and riot ran wild through the streets, while unburied corpses lay in every corner and cross- way. The cemeteries were ghastly sights ; funeral trains might be seen fighting with each other for the possession of a pyre, and when a burning had begun the attendants fled, leaving the body half-charred to pollute the neighbouring air. At least a quarter of the population of Athens perished in this horrible calamity, nor were its ravages confined to the city alone. The plague dogged the steps of two considerable expeditions which, Pericles sent out to relieve the overcrowded citj'. A force of four thousand men, despatched on shipboard to ravage the coasts of 430 B.C.] Unpopularity of Pericles, 303 Troezen and Epidaurus, suffered heavily. The army lying before Potidaea — which was still holding out, though now in the twenty- fifth month of its siege — caught the infection from reinforcements which arrived from Athens, and fifteen hundred hoplites died in the camp. It was not till the approach of winter that the death- rate began to diminish. By an unreasoning but not unnatural impulse, many of the Athenians looked on Pericles, the author of the war, as responsible for the calamities of his country. In expression of unpopiuarity the feeling of the mob, the demagogue Cleon actually of Pericles, brought a charge of peculation against the great minister, and, to mark their anger, thedicastery found him guilty of the preposterous charge. A vote of the Ecclesia even ordered the despatch of envoys to Sparta, to sue for peace. This was, of course, refused by the enemy, and the Athenians gradually came round again to their old policy, and again elected Pericles as strategus. The plague had left the rest of Greece almost untouched; nowhere were the conditions so favourable for its spread as at Athens, and the mortality in the few places in which it appeared was therefore small. The Peloponnesians were able to harry Attica in June and July without catching the infection, and carried their incursions into every nook and corner of the land that had been left unvisited in the previous year. In the autumn of 430 B.C., after the Athenian fleets had gone home, a considerable Peloponnesian squadron collected at Corinth, and ventured out into the Ionian Sea ; but, though muster- xhe fate of ing a hundred ships, it did no more than execute a -Ansteus. hasty descent on Zacynthus, and then returned into the gulf. A more efficient method of harming Athens than such a timid excursion was devised in the same year by the Peloponnesians ; they deter- mined to endeavour to make an alliance with the Great King, and to obtain from him Persian gold to supplement their own slender resources. Aristeus the Corinthian and five others set out, to make the long land-journey to Asia which the preponderance of Athens at sea rendered necessary. On their way the envoys passed through Thrace, Avhere reigned Sitalkes, a firm ally of Athens. Apprised of their arrival in his dominions, the barbarian king laid hands on them, and made them over to the Athenian envoy at his 304 Early Years of the Feloponnesian War. [430 b.o. court. They were forwarded to Athens, and there put to death without a trial. This cold-blooded execution of non-combatants exasperated the Peloponnesians to the highest pitch of fury, all the more because Aristeus was one of the most distinguished officers of their whole confederacy. The justification which the Athenians gave of their conduct, was that the crews of several merchant vessels, which had been taken by Feloponnesian privateers, had suffered massacre : it was suspected that their real reason was personal hatred for Aristeus, arising from the trouble he had given them at Potidaea. A few months after the death of Aristeus, the town which he had induced to revolt fell into the hands of its enemies. Potidaea Fau of had now been under siege for about thirty months, November ^"^^ ^ ^''^ magazines had been exhausted. The walls 430 B.C. were still intact, but there was hardly a crumb of food left in the city : we are told that some of the inhabitants had even been reduced to feed on the bodies ot the dead. Seeing that there was no hope of help from Peloponnesus, the Potidaean leaders at last proposed a surrender. The Athenian generals Xenophon and Hestiodorus, wishing to spare their army the hard- ships of another winter in the trenches, granted easy terms, on condition that the surrender should take place at once. Accord- ingly the Potidaean s, their families, and their Corinthian auxiliaries were permitted to depart whither they chose, though no individual was to take with him more than a single change of raiment and a fixed sum of money. The Athenian assembly was much dis- contented with this capitulation ; they bore a heavy grudge against the Potidaeans, as one of the causes of the war, and had been look- ing forward to wreaking their vengeance on them when the long« expected surrender took place. A few weeks more of blockade, as was very justly observed, would have compelled Potidaea to surrender at discretion, and placed all her inhabitants at the mercy of the besiegers, to be slain or sold as slaves. More than two thou- sand talents had been spent on the siege, and many lives had been lost in the trenches ; we cannot, therefore, wonder that Xenophon and his colleagues were severely censured by the home government. The fall of Potidaea was the last mihtary event of 430 B.C., and must have occurred in the late autumn of that year. i29 B.C.I Death of Pericles. 305 The third year of the war opened with an event destined to exercise the greatest influence on the policy of Athens. In the early summer of 429 b.c, two years and six months after the outbreak of the war, Pericles died. The Pericles, great statesman was struck down by the plague, which had reappeared with the hot weather. Although he re- covered from the attack, he was left too weak to rally, and sank into his grave from sheer weakness a few weeks after. Since the previous year he had not been the same man. The plague had carried off his two sons, his sister, and most of his intimate friends. After the death of his younger son, Paralus, he shut himself up in his house, and was with difficulty induced to come abroad, or to take an interest in public business. The ingratitude of the people, which had resulted in his trial and condemnation on the charge of Cleon, must have added to his weariness of life. But down to the last he maintained his ascendency over the Ecclesia. Just before he died the Athenians gave him a signal proof of their renewed confidence. The death of his sons having left him with- out an heir, the revulsion of feeling which succeeded to their momentary anger, took the form of a decree of the Ecclesia, which legitimatized a natural son whom Aspasia had borne to him. This youth, who bore the same name as his father, was reserved for a stirring career and an unhajjpy end. Pericles viewed his approaching end with philosophic calm. As he lay dying, his surviving friends spoke by his bedside of the great achievements of his life. They thought him far gone beyond the power of hearing and speech ; but he presently raised himself and said, " I marvel that you so dwell upon and praise these acts of mine. Fortune had her share in them, and many other generals have done more. But you take no notice of that which is my real pride, that no Athenian ever wore mourning through me." CHAPTER XXVIIL FROM THE DEATH OF PERICLES TO THE FALL OF PLATAEA, 429-427 B.C. The death of Pericleo deprived the Athenian democracy of the one guiding spirit whom it was accustomed to obey, and left it exposed to the varying impulses of half a dozen statesmen of second-rate ability. As long as Pericles lived, the war had been conducted towards a definite end on one simple and rigid plan. Sparta was to be wearied out, not struck down ; therefore all action on land was to be avoided^ all distant and hazardous enterprises eschewed ; the forces of Athens were to be kept in hand, and devoted solely to preserving her supremacy at sea, and preventing any communication between her enemy and her discontented subject- allies across the Aegean. After a time — probably a very consider- able time, but still one whose coming was inevitable — the Pelo- ponnesian confederacy would despair at its inability to harm Athens, would tire of seeing its commercial navy kept under per- petual blockade and its coast-land exposed to the constant descents of an enemy who eluded any counter-blow. Sparta's allies, if not Sparta herself, would then sue for peace, and Athens would be left witli her empire unimpaired, beyond all contradiction the strongest state in Greece. The policy of Pericles, if it could have been consistently carried out, would probably have proved efficacious ; but it was a policy particularly hard to enforce in a democratic state. We may, indeed, say that no statesman save the one who had for so long exerted the influence of his master-mind on the Ecclesia could possibly have put it in practice. It involved the constant exercise of tenacity and self-restraint, the two virtues in which a democratic 4S9B.C] Archidamm at Plataea. 307 assembly is notoriously wanting. It often exacted the neglect of tempting opportunities for action on land, or promising expedi- tions to distant regions; it gave few opportunities for distinction to the ambitious military men in whom the state abounded ; it brought the most cruel suffering on the agricultural classes of Attica, who were compelled to give up their farms year by year to be ravaged by the invader. Hence it was certain that, when the guiding hand of Pericles was removed, the Ecclesia would be driven by anger, fear, or ambition into abandoning the narrow line of policy which he had marked out for it. We shall soon be able to trace the results of his removal, by noting the increasing scope and variety of the efforts of Athens during the few succeeding years. The Peloponnesian army, which marched up from the Isthmus about the time of the death of Pericles (June, 429 ?), did not repeat the ravages of the two preceding years. King Archi- Archidamus damns this time left Attica untouched — perhaps the before Plataea. renewed outbreak of the plague in Athens frightened him — and turned northward to strike at a smaller prey. Plataea had for the last two years been deserted by its inhabitants, and contained only a small garrison of some five hundred men. To oblige his Boeo- tian allies, Archidamus had determined to dislodge this outpost of Athenian power. When his army sat down before their walls, the Plataeans protested that half a century before Pausanias the Spartan, after his great victory over the Persians, had pronounced the soil of Plataea hallowed ground, and guaranteed its perpetual autonomy. They therefore begged Archidamus to remember this sacred obligation, ond to withdraw his forces. The king replied by an offer to leave them unmolested, if they would become allies of Sparta, or even if they would renounce their alliance with xVthens and stand neutral in the war. To this the Plataeans answered that as their families and their goods had been removed to Athens, and were in the custody of their allies, they were not free agents ; but that, if they were permitted, they would send an envoy to beg from the Athenian Ecclesia leave to become neutrals. Archidamus then made a very liberal offer; he promised to allow the Plataeans to depart, after handing over the town and district to the custody of Sparta, together with a list of all the buildings, orchards, planta- 3o8 Plaiaea and Mitylene. [429 b.c. tions, and so forth contained therein. They should be held in trust during the continuance of the war, kept in good order, and restored to the Plataeans on the conclusion of a general peace. He was even ready to guarantee an allowance to the exiled citizens from the proceeds of the cultivation of their land. This proposal tempted the Plataeans sorely, but they again required permission to communicate with Athens. Archidamus granted leave, and messengers went forth from the city, only to return with the answer that " Athens never deserted her allies, and would not now neglect the Plataeans, but succour them with all her might. Wherefore the alliance must stand, and the attack of the Spartans be withstood." Accordingly the pro^josals of Archi- damus were rejected, and the siege began. After running a continuous line of palisades around the little town, the Spartans commenced to throw up a mound against one siege of portion of the wall, intending to raise it until it filled Piataea. -yp the ditch and rose level with the battlements, so as to furnish a path into the city. To foil this design, the Plataeans kept raising the height of the wall as the mound grew, and, when this proved an inadequate defence, pierced through the lower course of their ramparts and ran a tunnel into the interior of the mound. Through this tunnel they removed the earth in such quantities that the mound kept crumbling and sinking in. The Spartans, however, foiled this method of defence by heaping on the mound, not loose mould, but crates and hurdles tightly wedged up with clay. Finding themselves in imminent danger, the Plataeans next built a crescent-shaped wall in rear of the threatened point, with materials taken from the deserted houses of the city. "When, therefore, the mound had accomplished its purpose, the Spartans found themselves in front of a second line of wall. They then vainly attempted to set fii-e to the town. When this expedient also failed, the season was so far advanced that Archidamus gave up all hope of capturing Plataea in the current year. He resolved to turn the siege into a blockade, and to dismiss the greater part of his army homewards. Accordingly he surrounded the city with carefully planned lines of circumvallation, consisting of two sub- stantial walls of unbaked brick, with towers at regular intervals ; they faced, the one inward and the other outward, in case any 429 B.C.] Operations in Acarnania. 309 attempts might be made by the Athenians to raise the blockade. In front of each of the faces lay a ditch, while the space between the two walls provided dwelling-space for the troops. Leaving a force, consisting half of Boeotians and half of Peloponnesians, to maintain these lines, Archidamus marched back to Corinth with the bulk of his army. During the summer, while the army of Archidamus remained in Boeotia, the Athenians had kept within their walls. But it is surprising to find that, when the main body of the enemy had departed, they made no attempt to relieve Plataea, in spite of tho solemn assurances of assistance which they had given to its in- habitants at the time of the negotiations with Archidamus. But in the whole of 429 b.c. the Athenians made no expeditions near home; the military interest of the year is centred entirely in operations in the distant land of Acarnania, At the same time that Archidamus laid siege to Plataea, a small Peloponnesian expedition under a Spartan officer named Cnemus, had crossed the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, and operations in joined the land forces of the Leucadians and Ambra- -^camama. ciots. They were bent on conquering the Acarnanians and the Messenians of Xaupactus, the only continental allies whom Athens possessed in "Western Greece. A long feud had existed between the Corinthian colonists on the shore, and the Acarnanian and Amphilochian highlanders of the inland; the former were con- tinually encroaching on the territory of the latter, and had of late brought matters to a head by seizing Argos, the capital of the Amphilochian tribe. It was owing to this local quarrel, and not to any love for Athens, that the Acarnanians are found enrolled in the Athenian alliance. When Cnemus had been joined by the troops of Leucas and the other Corinthian towns, and had further strengthened himself by summoning to his standard a number of the predatory barbarian tribes of Epirus, he advanced on Stratus, the chief city of Acarnania, At the same time a squadron of Peloponnesian ships collected at Corinth, and set sail down the gulf towards Naupactus. The only Athenian force in these waters consisted of twenty galleys under an able officer named Phormio, who was cruising off the straits of Rhium, to protect Naupactus and blockade the Corinthian Gulf. 3IO Plataea and Mitylene. r429B.c.- Both by land and by sea the operations of the Peloponnesians miscarried miserably. Cnemus collected a very considerable armj% but as he sent his men forward to attack Stratus by three separate roads, he exposed them to defeat in detail. His centre, composed of his Epirot auxiliaries, was routed by the Stratians, and the Greek troops on either flank were then compelled to retire without having struck a blow. By sea the defeat of the Peloponnesians was even more disgraceful ; the Corinthian admirals Machaon and Isocrates were so scared, when they came across the squadron of Phormio at the mouth of the gulf, that, although they mustered forty-seven ships to his twenty, they took up the defensive. Huddling together in a circle, they shrank from his attack, and allowed themselves to Phormio's ^^ hustled and worried into the Achaian harbour of sea-flghts. Patrae, losing several ships in their flight. Presently reinforcements arrived ; the Peloponnesian fleet was raised to no less than seventy-seven vessels, and three Spartan officers were sent on board, to compel the Corinthian admirals, who had behaved so badly, to do their best in future. The whole squadron then set out to hunt down Phormio. They found him with his twenty ships coasting along the Aetolian shore towards Naupactus, and at once set out in pursuit. The long chase separated the larger fleet into scattered knots, and gave the fighting a disconnected and irregular character. While the rear ships of Phormio's squadron were compelled to run on shore a few miles outside Naupactus, the eleven leading vessels reached the harbour in safety. Finding that he was now only pursued by about a score of the enemy — the rest having stayed behind to take possession of the stranded Athenian vessels — Phormio came boldly out of port again. His eleven vessels took six, and sunk one of their pursuers; and then, pushing on westward, actually succeeded in recapturing most of the nine ships which had been lost in the morning. This engage- anent, though it had no great results, was considered the most daring feat performed by the Athenian navy during the whole war. Phormio was soon after reinforced from Athens, and the Pelopon- nesians sailed back to Corinth. While they lay there, Brasidas, one of the Spartan officers serving on board the squadron, carried out a sudden and desperate feat of arms which gave earnest of his future achievements. Ever since the beginning of the war the 428 B.C.J Revolt hi Lesbos. 311 Megarian navy Lad been lying in port, without daring to venture out into the Saronic Gulf. It amounted to forty vessels, of wliicli many were old and leaky, but all could be used for a short cruise, Choosing the best of their crews, the Peloponnesian commanders marched them overland to Megara, each man carrying his oar and mat, and manned the galleys at nightfall. Then Descent on suddenly putting out to sea, they captured three Saiamis. Athenian galleys which were blockading the port of Nisaea, and afterwards landed on Saiamis. That island had been considered a secure refuge by the Athenians, and was full of cattle and property that had been removed for safety out of Attica. All this the Peloponnesians swept off, and so promptly did they act that they re-embarked unharmed with their prisoners and spoil. The Athenians, who had thronged down in rage and uproar to man the galleys that lay at Peiraeus, were too late to catch a single one of the marauders. With the exception of a fierce but fruitless inroad made by the Thracian allies of Athens into Macedonia, no other operations took place iu 429 B.C. The winter passed uneventfully, and the war seemed as far as ever from showing any signs of producing a definite result. But although the Spartan invasion of 428 B.C. had no more effect than those of the preceding years, yet in the late summer there occurred an event so fraught with evil omens for Athens, as to threaten the whole fabric of her empire. For the first time since the commencement of hostilities, an important subject state made an endeavour to free itself by the aid of the Spartan fleet. Lesbos was one of the two Aegean islands which still remained free from tribute, and possessed a considerable war-navy. Among its five towns' Mitylene was the chief, and fi\r exceeded the others in wealth and resources. It was governed by an oligarchy, who had long been yearning to revolt, and bad made careful preparation by accumulating warlike stores and enlisting foreign Revolt of mercenaries. Before their arrangements were quite Lesbos, complete, their neighbours of Tenedos and Methymna sent secret information to Athens of the intended rebellion. The Athenians at first hardly credited the news, and thought it a serious matter to have to add such a powerful state to the list of their enemies. > Mitylene, Methymna, Antissa, Eresus, Pyrrba. 312 I^^ataea and Mitylene. [428 b.c. They sent ambassadors to pacify the Mitylenaeans, but without any result. The whole island except Methymna, where a democracy ruled, rose in arms, and determined to send for aid to Sparta. The Athenians at once despatched against Mitylene a squadron of forty sliips under Clei'ppides, which had just been equipped for a cruise in Peloponnesian waters. This force had an engagement with the Lesbian fleet, and drove it back into the harbour of Mitylene. To gain time for assistance from across the Aegean to arrive, the Lesbians now pretended to be anxious to surrender, and engaged Cleippides in a long and fruitless negotiation, while they were repeating their demands at Sparta. But at last the Athenian grew suspicion?, established a close blockade of Mitylene by sea, and landed a small force of hoplites to hold a fortified camp on shore. The autumn had now arrived, and the Lesbian envoys who had been sent to Sparta were conducted to Olympia, where the represen- tatives of the various Peloponnesian states were just assembling to assist at the celebration of the games. Here they laid their grievances before the confederates, dwelling not so much on individual instances of oppression on the part of Athens, as on the fact that her empire made impossible that autonomy which was the right of every state, and complaining that though they had only entered the Delian League to aid in freeing the Aegean from the Persians, they were now employed against their wuU in every private quarrel which Athens waged with another Greek city. Believing the revolt of the Lesbians to be the earnest of a general rising of all the vassals of Athens, the Peloponnesians determined to make a vigorous effort in their favour. The land contingents of the various states were summoned to the Isthmus — though the harvest was now ripe, and the allies were loath to leave their reaping — while it was also determined to haul over the Corinthian Isthmus the fleet which had fought against Phormio, and then to despatch it to relieve Mitylene. It would seem that much of this temporary burst of activity among the Peloponnesians was due to the idea that Athens, ia consequence of the plague and the four years of costly and indecisive war, was now brought very low in resources. They were soon undeceived; the Athenians were furious at the idea that their vassals were now about to be stirred up to revolt, and strained 428-7 B.C.] Siege of Alitylene, 313 every nerve to defend themselves. While the blockade of Mitylene •was kept up, and a hundred galleys cruised in the Aegean to intercept any succours sent to Lesbos, another squadron of a hundred ships sailed round Peloponnesus and harried the coastland with a systematic ferocity that surpassed any of their previous doings. To complete the crews of the two hundred and fifty ships now afloat and in active service proved so great a drain on the military force of Athens, that not only the Thetes but citizens of the higher classes were drafted on shipboard. Nevertheless the effect which they designed by this display of power was fully pro- duced. To defend their own harvests the confederates who had met at the Isthmus went homewards, while the dismay at the strength of the Athenian fleet was so great that the plan of sending naval aid to Lesbos was put off for the present. Only a Lacedaemonian officer named Salaethus was secretly sent across to Mitylene, when winter had already arrived ; he was but a poor reinforcement when the Lesbians had been expecting a whole fleet to come to their aid. All through the winter of 428-7 B.C. the blockade of Mitylene was kept up, though its maintenance proved a great drain on the resources of Athens. On the land side a considerable siege of force of hoplites under Paches strengthened the troops Mityiene. already on the spot, and made it possible to wall the city in with lines of circumvallation. To provide funds for the siege, the Athenians, having now exhausted the greater part of the hoarded treasure of the Delian League, raised two hundred talents from among themselves by a property-tax, and also sent round galleys to collect extra contributions from their allies. When the spring of 427 B.C. arrived, the Spartans determined to make a serious attempt to send aid to Lesbos ; but the fear of imperilling all their naval resources in a single expedition kept them from despatching a fleet of sufficient size. Only forty-two galleys, under an admiral named Alcidas, were sent forth from Corinth. This squadron managed to cross the Aegean without meeting the Athenians, by steering a cautious and circuitous course among the islands. But eo much time was lost on the way, that on arriving off Embatum in Ionia, Alcidas found that Mitylene bad surrendered just seven days before. The circumstances of the fall of Mitylene were peculiar. Pro- 314 Plataea and Mitylene. \427B.c, visions had been growing scarce, and Salaethus, whom the Lesbians Fall of ^^^^ placed in command, resolved to break the Athe- Mityiene. njan lincs of investment by a sortie of the full force of the city. For this purpose he distributed full armour to all the lower classes of the city, who had previously served only as light troops. But the proletariate of Mitylene had no interest in the war, which had been entirely the work of the oligarchy. They only thought of ending the semi-starvation from which they had been suffering of late. When they were provided with arms they refused to march, mustered in the market-place, and demanded with threats that all the provisions in the town should be placed in their hands, swearing to throw the gates open to the Athenians if any delay was made. The sedition grew so hot that the magis- trates, in fear for their lives, resolved to make terms with the besiegers before the rioters anticipated them. Accordingly they merely stipulated with Paches that no one should be put to death until the Athenian Ecclesia should have come to a decision as to the fate of the city, and that when the matter was being debated they might be allowed to send envoys to speak in their defence. These terms amounted to a surrender at discretion, and were readily granted by the Athenian general. Placing the leading men of the oligarchical party in bonds at Tenedos, he let the rest of the people remain undisturbed, only throwing a strong garrison into the town. A few days after the capitulation Alcidas and his fleet arrived in Asiatic waters. Learning the fall of Mitylene, he made off south- ward, and, after intercepting many merchant vessels off the Ionian coast and brutally slaying their crews, returned to Corinth without having struck a single blow for the cause of Sparta. Paches soon reduced Antissa, Eresus, and Pyrrha, the three Lesbian towns which had joined in the revolt of Mitylene, and was then able to sail back, taking with him the Laconian general Salaethus, who had been caught in hiding at Mitylene, together with the other leaders of the revolt. When the prisoners arrived at Athens Salaethus was at once put to death without a trial. But the fate of the Lesbians was the Debate in the Subject of an important and characteristic debate in Ecclesia. the Ecclesia. Led by the demagogue Cleon, the Athenians at fii"st passed the monstrous resolution that the whole 427 B.C. Cleon. 315 of the Mitylenaeans, not merely the prisoners at Athens, but every adult male in the city, should be put to death, and their wives and faraflies sold as slaves. It is some explanation but no excuse for this horrible decree that Lesbos had been an especially favoured ally, and that its revolt had for a moment put Athens in deadly fear of a general rising of Ionia and Aeolis. Cleon the leather-seller, the author of this infamous decree, -was one of the statesmen of a coarse and inferior stamp, whose rise had been rendered possible by the democratic changes which Pericles had iatroduced into the state. We need not brand him with ignominy, as did Aristophanes, for being low-born and ill-educated, or following a distasteful trade ; but his character is sufficiently blackened by the acknowledged facts of his history. He had first made himself known as an uncompromising democrat, and a captious critic of every one who held an office ; even Pericles himself had suffered from his boisterous assaults. Cleon was one of those men who, being gifted with very moderate abilities, endeavour to thrust themselves to the front by the profession of a narrow and unscrupulous patriotism. He openly treated international morality as non-existent, and proclaimed that his country's interest overrode all considerations of right and wrong. Cleon's ability was limited to a power of gauging very accurately the varying moods of the Ecclesia. He rose to notoriety by making himself the mouthpiece of the public opinion of the moment, and by always coming forward to lead the assault on any statesman or general who made himself obnoxious to popular pre- judice. The chief victims of his invective were the remains of the old Conservative party, whom he unceasingly accused of sympa- thizing with Sparta and designedly mismanaging the war. It is unfortunate for bis reputation that his portrait has been drawn for us by two authors whom he had personally injured : he had driven the historian Thucydides into exile, and endeavoured to deprive the comic dramatist Aristophanes of his citizenship. But even when we discount the wholesale charges of cowardice, corrup- tion, cruelty, and shamelessness brought against him by those authors, it is obvious that he was a bane to his cotmtry. The statesman who preaches to the populace that they are infallible and omniscient, and at the same time encourages them to cast aside 3i6 Plataea and Mitylene. [427 b.o. principle and guide themselves by self-interest alone, is the most pernicious product of democracy. Cleon's action at the Mitylenaean debate is a fair sample of the whole of his public life. At the end of the first day of debate the motion of Cleou had been passed, and a galley sent off to Paclies at Mitylene, bidding him slay all the Lesbians; but on the next morning, when men thought over the matter in cold blood, there arose such a revulsion of feeling among the citizens of the better sort, that the prytaneis were induced to reassemble the Ecclesia, and bring forward the question of the fate of Mitylene for a second decision. The second ■* Mitylenaean CleoQ stuck to his bloodthirsty resolution ; he openly ® ^ ^" said that the Athenian empire rested on fear alone, and that the only way to keep the rest of the allies in a wholesome state of fear was to visit the Mitylenaeans with the harshest punish- ment that could be devised. If the assembly voted one thing one day and another the next, it would become the laughing-stock of Greece ; while its imbecile good-nature would encourage other states to revolt, in the expectation that, even if they were subdued, they would not fare very ill. Diodotus, the orator who came forward to answer Cleon, did not dare to appeal to the justice of the assembly, but rather strove to demonstrate that expediency required Athens to refrain from wholesale massacre. " Let the leaders be put to trial," he said, " but the rest left alone. If you condemn the common people of Mitylene, who took no part in the revolt, and as soon as they got possession of arms attacked the rebels, you are not merely slaying your benefactors, but committing a political blunder. At present the ruling classes in every allied state are ready to revolt, while the proletariate is, on the whole, well disposed towards Athens. But if you execute all the Mitylenaeans without distinction, the populace in every city will feel that their cause is the same as that of the nobles, and revolts for the future will be desperate and unanimous." Such arguments won over the Ecclesia to the side of mercy. The decree of Cleon was rescinded by a small majority, and a second galley sent off to stay Paches from the massacre which he had been directed to commence. But the first ship had now a start of a day and a night, and it was absolutely necessary to make all possible speed, or the reprieve would come too late. The friends and repre- 427B.C.] Sortie from Plata ea. 317 sentatives of the Mitylenaeans promised the crew great riswards if they would only arrive in time ; and, stimulated by their promises, the vessel made an extraordinarily rapid passage. The oarsmen took their food at the bench, and rested in relays, so that the ship's progress never slackened. By extraordinary exertions the bearers of the reprieve contrived to reach Lesbos only a few hours after Paches had received the first despatch, and before he bad time to put it into execution. Thus the majority of the Mitylenaeans were saved; but all their leaders and prominent men, not less than a thousand in number, were put to death : the mercy of the Athenian j-^^g ^^ Ecclesia would have been called reckless bloodthirsti- Lesbos, ness in most other ages. The land of the Lesbians was divided into three thousand lots, of which a tenth was consecrated to the gcds, while the rest were granted out to Athenian cleruchs, who became the landlords of the old owners, and permitted them to cultivate their own estates at a rent of two rainae per annum. Nothing can illustrate more strongly the emotional and incon- sistent character of the Athenians than the fate of Paches, the conqueror of Mitylene. On his return home he was prosecuted before the dicastery for having done violence to two Mitylenaean ladies, whose husbands he had put to death. The anger excited by this atrocity found such outspoken expression, that the criminal fell on his sword before the eyes of his judges, in order to anticipate his certain condemnation to death. Yet the mob, which howled down Paches, had contemplated an outrage on a scale a thousand- fold greater than that which their victim had committed. In the winter and spring of 427 B.C., while the siege and fall of Mitylene were in progress, another blockade had been drawing to an end, in a land nearer Athens. Plataea had now been besieged ever since the summer of 429 B.C., and as the Athenians had belied their promises, and made no attempt to relieve the place, the garrison were drawing near the end of their stores. Starvation was grow- ing so threatening by the end of the winter of 428-7 B.C., that a large part of the garrison determined to make a desperate attempt to break out. Eupomi:)idas the Plataean commander xhe sortie persuaded about fifty Athenians and a hundred and from piataea. seventy of his own countrymen to follow him, though the prospect 3i8 Plataea and Mitylene. [4a7B.c. of liaving to cross two ditches and force two separate lines of wall might have appalled the most venturesome of men. They chose a moonless night, when rain was falling, and stole out of the city carrying scaling-ladders. They crossed the inner ditch unobserved, and had mounted the first wall before they were discovered by the sentinels. Then the alarm was given, and the besiegers began to come up in disorder from their various posts. The darkness, how- ever, sent many astray, while those of the Plataeans who had not joined in the attempt made a sortie from the opposite side of the town to distract the enemy. Thus it happened that the adven- turers were already descending from the second wall before the besiegers began to appear in force. While the majority were crossing the outer ditch, which was deep and full of floating ice, the rest stood at bay and kept back the approaching Boeotians. So silently and rapidly was the matter finished that the Plataeans got away in safety almost to a man, for two hundred and twelve out of two hundred and twenty slipped through. After escaping from the outer wall they avoided the direct road to Athens, by which they knew they would be pursued, and making a detour in the plain reached a hill-road far to the east, by which they escaped unmolested. This gallant and successful sortie left Plataea very scantily manned, but enabled the reduced garrison to hold out much longer on their limited stock of provisions. The siege was pro- tracted not less than six mouths, till the summer of 427 B.C. was at its height. Then absolute starvation so weakened the Plataeans that the besiegers might have taken the place by storm, but they refrained from doing so on account of orders from Sparta, which Plataea ^^^^ them wait for a capitulation. The reason of capitviiates. tjijs was that the Ephors intended to make a dis- tinction, if ever peace with Athens became necessary, between places which had been captured by force and those which made a voluntary surrender. At last the besieged were brought so low that they surrendered at discretion, on the ominous condition " that the Lacedaemonians should be allowed to punish the guilty." Five judges were sent down from Sparta, and the survivors of the garrison, two hundred Plataeans and twenty-five Athenians, were arraigned before them. The trial proved a preposterous farce ; the 427 B.C.J Fall of Plataea. 3 19 prisoners were asked one after the other " whether during the war they had done any service to the Lacedaemonians or their allies." On making the only possible reply, they were condemned without exception to suffer death. It was to no effect that ThePiataeana their leaders pleaded in their behalf the many services executed, which Plataea had done to the cause of Greece during past times, and especially in the Persian war. The Thebans, who had never forgiven the massacre of their two hundred citizens at the out- break of the war, answered with a flood of bitter invective, and put such pressure on their Spartan allies that the sentence was at once carried out. Thus fell Plataea after two full years of siege, in the fifth summer of the war. The Thebans appropriated the territory of the conquered town, demolished its houses, and left nothing standing on the spot save the temple of Hera, and a sort of vast inn or caravanserai for strangers, which they built with the stonework of the ruined dwellings. CHAPTER XXIX. SPHACTERIA AND DELIUM, 427-424 B.C. The same summer which saw the fall of Plataea and Mitylene beheld the first grave instance of divergence from the policy of Pericles of which the Athenians had yet been guilty. Although they were conscious of the imminent danger in the Aegean which they had just escaped, they now proceeded to indulge in a rash and venturesome expedition far from home. In Sicily a war was at this moment raging between Syracuse — with whom were allied Gela, Selinus, and Acragas, together with the Italiot town of Locri — and a confederacy of the three Ionian cities of Naxos, Catana, and Leontini, joined with Camarina and the Italiots of Rhegium. We are assured that the interference of Athens in this distant strife was due to a desire to establish a footing in Sicily, and to a plan for ruining the corn trade with the West, which formed the most profitable branch of the commerce of Corinth. Twenty Athenian ships under Laches sailed round by Corcyra to Rhegium, where they joined the fleet of the Ionian cities, and next spring engaged in a desultory naval campaign which brought neither party any gain. The later months of 427 B.C. were also notable for a fierce sedition in Corcyra, where a party which favoured peace with Corinth made a desperate rising, and strove to put down the democracy, which was responsible for the alliance with Athens and the continuance of the war. The Spartans determined to strengthen their friends by sending to their aid the fleet which had failed to relieve Mitylene. But Alcidas once more arrived too late; the Corcyraean oligarchs were put down, and the victorious democratic faction took a bloodv and reckless revenge on their defeated 436 3.0.) Demosthenes in Aetolia, 321 opponents. Several hundreds, including many who were inuocout of treason, were put to death without any regular trial or con- demnation. The next year of the war, 426 b.c, was perhaps the least eventful which had passed since the outbreak of hostilities. A second out- break of the plague occurred at Athens, but it wrought no very great destruction of life in comparison with the awful visitation of 430 B.C. The most important event of the year was an expedition — as reckless though not so remote as that which had been sent to yicily — which marked once more the tendency of the Atheniaus to ensaKe in distant adventures. Demosthenes, the ^ " ° ' Demosthenes general who was now in command of the squadron m Aetoiia, in the Corinthian Gulf which had once belonged to 433 B.C. Phormio, determined to make an attack on the numerous and war- like tribes of Aetolia, who had up to this moment preserved their neutrality. The Messenians of Naupactus had persuaded him that their Aetolian neighbours were so uncivilized and so untrained to regular war, that they would yield to a bold attack, and consent to join the Athenian alliance. Accordingly Demosthenes took with him, besides his own hoplites, forces from Naupactus and Zacyn- thus, and started up into the Aetolian hills. He captured a village or two, but presently the whole country side turned oat in arni.s, and the lightly equipped mountaineers so vexed and galled the invaders that Demosthenes was obliged to fall back. When once he began to retire he was so closely pressed that his whole army broke up, and fled in disorder to Naujiactus with the loss of nearly half its numbers. It was of some solace to Athenian pride, but of little use to Athenian policy, that a few months later Demosthenes succeeded in retrieving his military reputation by a brilliant victory in Acarnania. The detachment of Pelopounesian troops, which liad been sent to that country in 429 B.C., had been once more joiucd by the hoplites of the Corinthian colonies on the coast, and was again attacking the Acarnanians. Demosthenes, massing the whole disposable forces of his allies, threw himself between the main body of the enemy and their reserves. On one day he defeated the Peloponnesians and slew their leader, Eurylochus ; on the next he fell upon the Ambraciot reinforcements which were advancing to y 32 2 Sphaderia and Delium. [426 b.c. aid tlie defeated force, and almost exterminated tliem. Tlie blow to Ambracia was so great that in the oi^inion of oipae, Thucydides it was the heaviest which fell on any city 42 B.C. jj^ j.j^g whole war, and tlie proportion of the military strength of the place which was destroyed was almost incredibly large. But the victory led to an unexpected result ; the Acarua- nians, knowing themselves to be free from any further danger from their neighbours of the sea-coast, made a separate peace with them. The Athenian alliance had served their purpose in preserving them from concxuest by the Corinthian colonists, and they had no longer any keen interest in the war. Thus Demosthenes, though he had crippled an enemy of Athens by his victory, had also taken off the edge of the devotion of a zealous and useful ally. The year 425 b.c. was destined to be more fruitful in decisive events than any which had preceded it since the opening of the war. These events, however, sprung not from the deliberate plans of either side, but from a mere chance. Early in the year the Athenians, still following their visionary scheme for establishing a foothold in Sicily, had determined to send out reinforcements to the west. A fleet of forty ships, under an officer named Eurymedon, was despatched thither. Demosthenes, too, sailed with this squadron : he had returned to Athens since his victories in Acarnania, and was now going back to his post. After Eurymedon and Demosthenes had rounded Taenarum, a storm compelled them to put into the Messenian harbour of Pylos,> and kept atPyios. them wind-bound for several days. The sailors ven- 425 B.C. ^m.gjj ashore, and, to secure themselves from sudden attacks of the Peloponnesians, threw up a light entrenchment on the rocky headland which forms the northern point of the Pylian bay. The stay of the fleet was protracted far beyond the expecta- tions of the admirals, and it presently occurred to Demosthenes that the extemporized fort might be strengthened and made a permanent base for incursions against the western shore of the Peloponnese. It was perched on an extraordinarily inaccessible spot, commanded a good harbourage, and lay in that Messenian district whose Helots had risen so often against the Spartan. Accordingly Demosthenes persuaded his men to entrench the ' Probably not the same as the Pylos of Nestor mentioned on p. 34. 425 B.C.] Demosthenes at Pylos. 323 headland as best they could, piling stone on stone into a strong though rough wall wherever it was possible to ascend the slope on the land side, till the fort was made tenable against any ordinary assault. On the sea side the cliffs allowed of approach only on one narrow slip of beach, where lay the landing-place at which the Athenians had gone ashore. When the work of fortification had been completed, Eurymedon proceeded on his way to Sicily with thirty-five ships, leaving Demosthenes with five to hold tho fort. The news of the occupation of Pylos soon reached Sparta, and the strength of the Athenian force which had landed was so exaggerated by report, that the ephors sent in hot haste to recall the Peloponnesian army, which had marched a few weeks before to carry out the usual summer raid into Attica. Accordingly, King Agis with his host quitted their ravaging, and set out homeward. At the same moment the fleet, which had been so unfortunately tardy at Mitylene and Corcyra, was summoned up to complete the blockade of Pylos on the sea-front. Demosthenes had just time to send off two vessels to report the approach of the enemy, before he was completely invested and beset on all sides. The promontory of Pylos forms the northern horn of the bay of the same name; facing it at a distance of a hundred yards, and fronting the whole expanse of the bay, lies the island of Sphacteria, a narrow rock some two miles in length, overgrown with underwood and thickets. As this island was the natural point which an Athenian force, desiring to relieve Pylos, would choose as its base of operations, the Spartans determined to occupy it. Accordingly they sent over to it four hundred and twenty hoplites, together with the usual complement of light-armed Helots in attendance on their masters — a force sufficient to make any landing difficult. The two narrow inlets to the north and south of the island they intended to bar with a close line of vessels moored across the entrance, but this design was not completed. Meanwhile the garrison at Pylos was exposed to several desperate attacks. Knowing that an Athenian fleet would probably appear ere long to aid Demosthenes, the Spartan com- The spartana manders made a vigorous attempt to take the fort ^"^'^'^ ^y^°^' by storm before it could be succoured. The land and sea fronts 324 Sphacieria and Delium. [425 B.C. were simultaueoiisly assaulted; on the former side the positioa was so strong that a small part}' of the besieged was able to keep the Peloponnesians at bay. But a desperate struggle took place on the narrow slip of beach where alone landing was possible. There Demosthenes and his hoplites stood in serried rows, while trireme after trireme tried to push itself up to the landing-place and to throw its fighting-men ashore. Only two or three vessels IVulker CrliciUallsc. could approach at a time, and the front on which fighting could take place was so narrow that superiority of numbers was of no avail. After a prolonged encounter the Peloponnesians backed water ; the difficulty of the place had been too much for them ; they had lost many men, and Brasidas, their best officer, had fallen back on his deck desperately wounded, at the moment that he was endeavouring to leap ashore. The assault, indeed, had so signally failed that the Athenians set up a trophy to commemorate 425 B.C.] Sea-fight off Fylos. 325 it, binding thereto tlie shield of Brasidas, which had fallen into the sea at the moment that its owner was struck down. Before the Spartans had time to construct siege-engines or com- mence a regular blockade of Pylos, an Athenian fleet appeared in the ofEng. Eurymedon had mot the vessels which sphacteria Demosthenes had sent off to seek him, and had turned blockaded, back to relieve his colleague, after strengthening himself with the squadron which was stationed off the Acarnanian coast. The Peloponnesian admirals, instead of endeavouring to block the two entrances of the bay of Pylos, allowed the Athenian fleet to file into the harbour, and engaged it in the space of water between Sphacteria and the mainland. The forty-three vessels under the Spartan com- mander were defeated with ease by the fifty galleys of Eurymedon. Five were taken, and the rest driven to run ashore and seek the pro- tection of their friends of the land army. The importance of this victory lay in the fact that the Spartan hoplites on Sphacteria were now completely cut off from help, and imprisoned on their island. They included some of the most important citizens of the state, and were a very appreciable part of the small body of pure-blooded Lacedaemonians. Shut up on a desolate island, with provisions for a few days only in hand, they were obviously destined to fall into the power of the Athenians, unless something could be done to deliver them. When the news from Pylos reached Sparta, the ephors at once set out for the camp, and viewed the situation with their own eyes. So little confidence did their visit bring them, that they at once proix)sed to Demosthenes and Eurymedon to conclude an armistice, and offered to send an embassy to Athens to treat for peace. The danger of four hundred of their owm citizens had brought them at once to a state of despondency and humiliation, which no amount of suffering inflicted on their allies would have produced. The Athenian commanders consented to grant a truce, and to allow the blockaded hoplites to be supplied with a bare ration of food, day by day, as long as the armistice continued. But they exacted in return that the Peloponnesian vessels, which were lying on shore by the camp, should be placed in their hands, as a security for the full observance of the terms of the truce. To this the ephors consented, and at once despatched ambassadors to Athens to treat for peace. 326 Sphaderia and Delinni. i;425B.o. This was the one opportunity wliich was presented to Ihe Athenians, daring the war, of retiring from the contest with glory Abortive ^^^ profit. The Spartans announced that they were negotiations ready to revert to the status qiio of 431 B.C., and to ratify a permanent peace ; they pointed out that the war had hitherto been inconclusive, and that, if their over- tures were now refused, the next turn of fortune might make the Athenians lament their lost chance. The proposal was one which Pericles would undoubtedly have accepted; it left Athens with her empire and the commerce unimpaired, and proved that, even when all the land-powers of Greece banded themselves to- gether, they had been unable to shake her dominion. But the firm hand and cool head of Pericles no longer swayed the Athenian assembly, and the windy demagogues who now ruled it were set ujwn pressing the advantage of Athens to the uttermost, without any regard for caution or moderation. Now, as at the time of the Mitylenean debate, Cleon made himself the mouthpiece of the ultra-patriotic party ; he declared that Athens must not throw away her chance of making a hard bargain with Sparta, and pro- posed that, in return for peace, the Peloponnesians should surrender to Athens the districts which had formed part of the Athenian land-empire twenty years before. He demanded that Troezen, Achaia, and the ports of the Megarid — Nisaea and Pegae — all of which had been given up in 445 B.C., should be made over to their former suzerain. The Laconian ambassadors replied that the terms were inadmissible, but professed themselves ready to make advantageous proposals, if the Athenians would depute com- missioners to treat with them, and not insist on the negotiations being carried on in the heated atmosphere of the Ecclesia. Cleon at once burst out with invectives. He insisted that the envoys were trifling with the people, and could have no honest intentions if they would not declare their whole mission in public. The feeling of the assembly was so obviously on his side that the Spartans withdrew in despair, and returned to report to the ephors the complete failure of their embassy. The rupture of negotiations at Athens was the signal for the resumption of hostilities at Pylos. The Spartans on the island, who had for twenty days been subsisting on the rations with 425 B.C.] Blockade of Sphaderia. ;^2'j which they were supplied in accordauce with the terms of the truce, were again thrown on their own slender resources. No help for them seemed possible, more especially since Eurymedon, alleging some slight infraction of the truce by the hostile com- manders, utterly refused to restore the Pelopounesian war-galleys which had been entrusted to him. His plea seemed to have been quite untenable, but, having the vessels in his hands, he was master of the situation. While the Athenian fleet blockaded Sphacteria, two triremes being continually kept moving up and down its coast in opposite directions, the marines strengthened the fort at Pylos. A very large Peloponnesian army now lay before that work, but proved entirely unable to master it. A few days would have sufficed to starve out the garrison of Sphacteria, had it not been for the extraordinary measures which the Spartans took to keep it supplied with food. ^ On every dark or stormy night small vessels put blockade of . P . ^ e T'T T • J Sphacteria, out from various ports of Llis or Laconia and ran the blockade; such high rewards were promised by the ephors for every sack of flour or skin of wine that could be thrown ashore, that the merchants and seamen were ready to run any risk, and though many boats were taken, others continually succeeded in reaching the island. "We are also assured that strong swimmers would frequently cross the bay at nigh': from the mainland, dragging behind them skins filled with linseed or honey, and other food that would pack close. These expedients kept the men on the island supplied with a ration sufficient to maintain them, and the blockade was therefore protracted far beyond the expectation of the Athenians, who had looked for the immediate surrender of the garrison. After two months had gone by the autumn was drawing on, and it began to appear as if the storms of the equinox would ere long drive the Athenians from their bleak and dangerous harbourage under the promontory of Pylos. The discontent felt at Athens over the miscarriage of the blockade was now growing acute, and the people began to regret their refusal of the terms of peace which Sparta had offered. This induced them to turn their anger against Cleon, who had caused those terms to be rejected. The demagogue, wishing to divert their discontent, replied that the real fault lay with the generals 328 Sphacteria and Delhcnt. '425 B.C. at Pylos, who had showed a great lack of courage and enterprise, and might have reduced the island long ago if they had possessed ordinary vigilance and energy. "I could have taken Sphacteria myself," he added, " if I had been in command." This casual remark was at once taken up by the enemies of Cleon. " If it is so easy, why not go and try it? " was shouted from the crowed. Then Cleon sent to Nicias, son of Niceiatup, one of the strategi, a rich pylos. citizen who detested Cleon's political methods, stepped on to the Bema, and formally proposed that the tanner should be sent to Pylos. This decree was only proposed at first as a piece of party sarcasm ; the conception of Cleon at the head of a fleet was too ridiculous in the eyes of his opponents to be taken seriously. An absurd scene then ensued, as the demagogue kept declining the unexpected honour, and his enemies continued to press it on him with effusion. But to many of the multitude the notion of Cleon in command did not appear so preposterous as it did to Nicias ; and those who had been accustomed to follow the tanner's political lead, cried out in earnest that he was quite able to undertake the business. The proposal which had been brought forward in jest was ere long seriously taken into consideration. Nicias was unable to withdraw his motion, and Cleon found himself constrained to stand by his first unguarded words. Thus it came to pass that in the end the demagogue plucked up his courage, declared that he did not share that panic fear of Spartan heroism which other men seemed to feel, and staked his career on a promise to capture or destroy the garrison of Sphacteria within twenty days. He asked for no Athenian troops to help him, and undertook to finish the game with four hundred archers, some hoplites from Imbros and Lemnos who were then in the city, and a body of Thracian light infantrj'. Control over these forces was granted him, and he sailed at once for Pylos. "The most sensible men at Athens," says Thucydides, " thought that they had now gained one of two good things. Either (as was most likely) Cleon would fail and be politically extinguished for ever ; or else he would succeed, and a heavy blow be inflicted on Sparta." Cleon's undertaking was not so rash and ridiculous as men thought. He was quite right in believing that Spartans were after all not invulnerable and invincible heroes, but men who could be 425 B.C.] Surrender of the Spartans in SpJiaderia 329 overwhelmed by stress of numbers like any other troops. The detachment on Sphactcria was composed of some few hundred men, and if attacked with sufficient vigour by four or five times its own force must finally succumb. It is said that Demosthenes had already been thinking of an attack on the island, and had only been prevented by the caution of his colleague. Just before Cleon arrived at Sphacteria, an accidental fire had destroyed most of the woods with which the island was overgrown, and deprived the Spartans of the greater part of their sphacteria cover. Their numbers could be more clearly seen and captured, their manoeuvres more closely followed than had hitherto been pos- sible. Cleon at once took general charge of the operations, handing over the execution of the details to Demosthenes. They resolved to overwhelm the Spartans by gross force of numbers. Eight hun- dred hoplites were landed by night, near the southern extremity of the island, and covered the disembarcation of the rest of the force. They cut off an outpost of thirty men which was posted in that direction, and were firmly established on shore before Epitadas, the Spartan commander, approached them with his main body of three hundred and fifty men. By this time eight hundred bowmen, the same number of Peltasts, a body of Messeniau light troops, and a large draft from the crews of the seventy sliips at Pylos, had been thrown on the shore. When Epitadas advanced against the hoplites, a cloud of slingers and bowmen closed in on his flanks and rear, and so beset him with a cloud of missiles, that his small body of men were gradually brought to a standstill. They were now charging over ground covered by the smouldering ashes of the burnt wood, and the dust and reek well-nigh choked and blinded them. As the Athenians would not close, but kept shooting them down from a distance, their position became unbear- able. At last, after Epitadas had been slain, his successor in command gave the signal for retreat, and the surviving Spartans cut.their way through the light troops, and threw themselves into a ruined fort of prehistoric days, which lay at the north end of the island. Here they maintained themselves for a short time ; but presently some Messenians, finding a way up a crag which over- iiung the fort, appeared on a spot which completely commanded the Spartan position, and commenced to pick off the enemy from 330 Sphaderia and Deliuvi. [425 b.c. the rear. The Spartans were now obviously doomed men, and Cleon and Demosthenes, holding back their troops for a minute, sent out a herald to bid them surrender. To the surprise of those who believed that a Spartan never would lay down his arms, the majority of the survivors lowered their shields and waved their hands to show that they accepted the proposal. Their officers asked leave to communicate with the army on the mainland, and after doing so, and receiving the despairing advice to "take such measures as they could, so long as they were not dishonourable," completed a formal capitulation. Two hundred and ninety-two hoplites still survived out of the four hundred and twenty on the island ; how many of their Helots were left is not known. No less than one hundred and twenty of the prisoners were members of the first families of Sparta. Thus had Cleon fulfilled his promise to the Athenian Ecclesia. We are told that his success was, " of all the events of the war, the one which caused most surprise in Greece." If this was so, it illustrates the exaggerated impression of Spartan valour which prevailed at the time, rather than the rashness or good luck of Cleon. He landed on the island with more thousands at his back than Epitadas had hundreds, and yet his victory was considered remarkable. After their fleet returned with the prisoners on board, the Athenians thought that the whole game was in their hands. Cleon, inflated by his exploits, was more exacting than ever ; and when a new Spartan embassy arrived to propose once more a general peace, and the restoration of their prisoners, the terms offered them were even harder than before, so that nothing could be done. The success at Sphacteria soon tempted the Athenians into action on land more dariug than any they had hitherto per- second formed. Before the year was out they landed several ^corcyM,?*' thousand hoplites near the Corinthian Isthmus, de- 435 B.C. feated the Corinthians in a pitched battle at Soly- geia, and retired unmolested to their ships. Then coasting south- ward, they again landed in the territory of Epidaurus, and seized and fortified the peninsula of Methone. About the same time the bloody scenes which had occurred at Corcyra two years before were repeated under circumstances of even greater atrocity than those 424 B.C. Second Sedition at Corey ra. 331 of 427 B.C. The democrats, aid(i(i by an Athenian force, having suppressed a second armed insurrection of the oligarchic party, allowed their defeated enemies to capitulate on promise of their lives. Then they deliberately persuaded a few of the oligarchs to break their parole, and, on pretence that this invalidated the vrhole agreement, opened the prisons and butchered such of the three or four hundred prisoners as did not seek a speedier death by suicide. The Athenian general Eurymedon made no attempt to save the unfortunates, though he had been a party to the capitula- tion, and had pledged his word that they should be given a fair trial at Athens. Cleon was now at the height of his power. His ascendancy in Athens was marked by a characteristic piece of legislation, showing his disregard for the allies. At one blow he doubled their tribute. This measure goes far to explain the revolts of the next few years. The year 424 b.c. opened with the brightest prospects for the Athenians, and for its first few months the tide of their successes continued to advance. The strategus Nicias, early in the year, captured the large but rugged island of Cythera, which lies off Cape Malea, facing towards the Laconian Gulf. It was at once enrolled as a member of the Delian League, and its harbours served as the starting-point for many raids on the opposite coast, till the truth of the old saying, " Well for Sparta if Cythera were sunk in the sea," was realized more keenly than ever. It was the darkest moment of the war for the Spartans; Athens would _ ., ^ AFdiSici&s S6ZIT grant no reasonable terms of peace, and her obstmacy ag-ainst drove them to desperate measures to defend them- selves. To prevent the general revolt of the Helots, which they expected, they set the Crypteia (see p. 74), or secret police, Avorking with even more than their usual cruelty ; it is said that as many as two thousand victims were secretly despatched by this means. In their anxiety to strike a blow which should be felt at Athens, whatever might be the cost, the ephors gave their consent to a new and hazardous scheme for sapping the foundations of the Confederacy of Delos. Athens possessed one group of snl)ject allies who dwelt on the mainland of Europe, and could be ap- proached without that sea-voyage which had become the terror of 332 Sphacteria and Dclium. [424 b.o. every Peloponnesian. But these pities, the towns of Chalcidice and the Thracian shore, were separated from Phocis, the nearest state of the Spartan alliance, by a vast stretch of land, comprising Thessaly, where most of the towns preserved a friendly neutrality towards Athens, and the barbarian kingdom of Macedonia. It had never before occurred either to the Athenian or the Spartan mind that the towns of the Thracian tribute-district might be assailed from the inland. But now the task was to be essayed. Brasidas, the most enteri:)rising officer that Sparta possessed, was commis- sioned to levy a force which should march northward, and endea- vour to rekindle the embers of war which still smouldered to the north of the Aegean. A few towns, which had revolted along with Potidaea, were still maintaining an obscure warfare against Athens, and would serve, if once they could be reached, as a base of operations. Seven hundred Helots, who had been promised their freedom if they volunteered for foreign service, formed the nucleus of Brasidas's army. So hazardous was the expedition considered, that no state was asked to supply a contingent for it, and indi- vidual recruits were collected in scanty numbers by the promise of high pay. Brasidas was at Corinth with about seventeen hundred men in hand when he was drawn northward, before he was ready, by the action of the Athenians. Still intent on their new policy of vigorous action on land, the Athenians had resolved to attempt the surprise of Megara. Brasidas at Some partisans of democracy within its walls had con- Megara. gented, in the true Greek spirit of faction, to betray their city to the enemy. One night they threw open a postern in the " Long Walls" which connected Megara with its port Nisaea, and the Athenians, rushing in, secured the long walls, and next day but one captured Nisaea. They would probably have taken Megara itself, for the factions in the place had almost fallen to blows, if Brasidas had not hurried up from the Isthmus with his own force and the levies of Corinth and Sicyon. He offered the Athenians battle in front of Megara, but they would not accept it, and, contenting themselves with the capture of Nisaea, went off homewards. Somewhat later in the summer Brasidas, having finished his preparations, started off through Boeotia and Phocis, to attempt the hazardous march which had been planned for him. 424B.C.J Battle of Delium. 333 The expedition to Megaia was only a foretaste of the energy which Athens had determined to put forth this year. She had determined to repeat the tactics of the heroic days of 456 B.C., and to endeavour to disable and overrun Boeotia by a blow struck after the ordinary campaigning season had closed, and when no aid from Peloponnesus could be readily obtained. The plan of campaign was comprehensive and complicated. Demosthenes was to land at Siphae, on the Corinthian Gulf, with all the forces he could collect from the western allies of Athens. On the same day the general Hippocrates, with the entire home-levy of Attica, was to enter north-eastern Boeotia, and strike at Tanagra. Simultaneously the town of Chaeronea was to be seized by a large body of exiled Boeo- tians of the democratic faction, wlio had undertaken to aid Athens. But the plan was far too intricate. All expeditions where forces starting from distant bases attempt to co-operate, are especially liable to the mischances of war. Thus it came to pass that the attempt to seize Chaeronea was betrayed by an informer, while in the rest of the scheme either Demosthenes was over-early or Hippo- crates over-late. The former landed at Siphae with his allies from Naupactus and the western islands, and drew out against himself the whole force of Boeotia ; for Hippocrates was yet far away, and had not crossed the border. Being too weak to fight, Demosthenes re-embarked ; but two days later Hippocrates, marching by Oropus and the shore of the Euboean Strait, appeared in the territory of Tanagra. He seized the temple and precinct of Apollo at Delium, close by the seaside, and em- Deiium. 424 S C ployed four days in fortifying it, and in waiting for news of the diversions which ought to have synchronized with his invasion. On the fifth, nothing having occurred, he de- termined to return home, but had not got two miles from Delium when the Boeotian army appeared on his flank. After watching Demosthenes depart, it had turned north-eastward, and was in full time to attack Hi^^pocrates. The forces were not very unequal in numbers. The Boeotians had brought up eight thousand hoplitcs, a thousand cavalry, and ten thousand light-armed troops; the Athenians had about the same number of hoplites, but were con- siderably weaker in horse, though they had a vastly greater multi- tude of light-troops. The majority of the eleven Boeotarchs (or 334 Sphacteria and Delium. (434 b.c. generals of the Boeotian League) had been against fighting, but Pagondas, one of the two Theban membeiss of their body, had over- ruled the majority and forced on the combat. The army of Hippo- crates had just time to form up, fronting westward and with its back to the sea, when the enemy came suddenly over the brow of a hill and charged. Kavines prevented the light-troops on the flanks from engaging, but the main bodies of each army closed and fought desperately for some time. Pagondas had drawn up his own Theban contingent in a dense column twenty-five deep ; the rest of the Boeotians fought in the usual line-formation. Hence it came to pass that while the battle went hardly for the Boeotians on their left, where the Thespians were completely routed, on their right the Theban column crushed through the Atlienian line, and rolled it downhill in disorder. An opportune cavalry charge checked the victorious Athenian right wing, and then the whole army of Hippocrates wavered and broke. A few fled northward to Delium ; the rest took to the hills, and saved themselves on the spurs of Parnes. Nearly a thousand Athenians, including Hippo- crates himself, had fallen in the conflict, while the Boeotians had lost about half that number. A fortnight after the battle the forti- fied post at Delium fell, the palisading with which the Athenians had surrounded it having been set on fire by the military engines which the Boeotians turned against it. This battle quite cured the Athenians of the taste for expedi- tions on land, which had been growing on them since the capture of Sphacteria. It also marked the limit of their good fortune. Never again did they win a considerable success, or find themselves in a position to make peace upon the terms which they had so rashly rejected at the moment of their triumph in 425 b.c. CHAPTER XXX. BRASIUAS IN THRACE — THE PEACE OE NICIAS, 424-421 B.C. Even before tlie battle of Delium had been fought, the end of the good fortune of Athens had been marked by other events. The wild and useless expedition to Sicily had come to a sudden termi- nation. The Sicilian towns had grown tired of their purposeless strife, and concluded a general peace at Gela ; when this had taken place nothing remained for the Athenian squadron but to return home. Sophocles and Eurymedon, its commanders, were prose- cuted, unjustly enough, on their return, for having failed to prolong the war ; they were condemned, the one to go into exile, and the other to pay a heavy fine. About the same time troubles appeared to be brewing in Asia Minor ; the exiled Lesbian oligarchs got together in some force, and seized the towns of Sigeum and Antan- drus in the Troad ; while at the same time a faction of the Samiaus, who had established themselves at Anaea, vexed the neighbouring Ionian towns. But these symptoms of rebellion in the eastern districts of the Athenian empire were of small consequence compared with the troubles which were now rising in the north. We have already spoken of the departure from Corinth of Brasidas and his seventeen hundred Peloponnesian adventurers. Pushing on for some time through friendly territory, they met their first difficulties on the Thessalian frontier. Here the envoys of the Thessalian towns which favoured Athens forbade the army to proceed. But Brasidas cajoled them with feigned negotiations, and then slipped past them and crossed the great plain in three marches to forced marches. He was in the Perrhaebean hills, and far on his way towards Macedonia, before his stratagem was ^;^6 Brasidas in Thrace — The Peace oj Nicias. (4S3b.c. detected. In Macedonia he joined with King Perdiccas, an old enemy of Athens, who granted him a free passage into Chalcidice. Strengthening himself with the troops of the revolted towns in that direction, Brasidas at once commenced a campaign against the allies of Athens. He met with little active resistance ; Acanthus and Stagirus fell into his hands before the winter arrived, and even after the cold weather had set in the Spartan kept the field. His next attack was directed against Amphii)olis, the new and flourish- ing Athenian colony on the Strymon, which commanded the only road that led eastwards from Chalcidice towards the cities of the Thraclan coast. If once Amphipolis and its all-important bridge were in his hands, no limit could be set to the eastward extension of the revolt. Coming unexpectedly down to the Strymon, Brasidas Brasidas seized the bridge by a daring coui[) de main during a AmphipoHs s^owstorm. He laid hands on many of the Amphi- 423 B.C. politans who dwelt without the city walls, and on all the flocks and herds of the community. Moved with fear for their property and their friends, a party in the town proposed a surrender ; the Athenian governor was unable to command obedience, and the gates were thrown open. The historian Thucydides, who was in command of a .small Athenian squadron which lay at Thasos, arrived too late to save the place. So rapidly had events gone on, that though only one day's sail from the town, he failed to come up in time, and only succeeded in preserving for Athens ETon, the port at the mouth of the Strymon. For his tardiness, which was probably more the result of ill-luck than of negligence, Thucydides was prosecuted and exiled by a decree proposed by Cleon. Brasidas had not yet completed the full measure of his successes. Before the winter was done he had gained possession of nearly all the towns which lie on the coast of Mount Athos, and also of Torone on the central headland of the Chalcidic peninsula. These surrenders struck terror into the hearts of the Athenians, not merely on account of the actual importance of the losses — though these were heavy enough — but as showing the utter disloyalty which pervaded the whole body of their subject allies. When Brasidas presented himself before the walls of a town, there was always an oligarchic party which was zealous to admit him, while 423 B.C.] Revolt of Sdone. 337 the democratic faction, wliicli should naturally have been friendly to Athens, showed at most a passive disinclinatiun to revolt, and would not strike a blow for its suzerain. Hardly a single town preserved its allegiance when attacked, unless there happened to be an Athenian garrison within its walls. The personality of Brasidas aided to no small extent in securing his successes ; he was no less distinguished for tact than for courage, and won golden opinions by his generosity, moderation, and good faith. The power of his name began to grow mighty in Chalcidice, and it soon became evident that unless he were promptly crushed, or disarmed by the conclusion of a general peace, Athens would lose every one of her tributaries to the north of the Aegean. The battle of Delium had stripped Athens of her self-confidence ; the loss of Amphipolis and Torone had made her contemplate with equanimity the prospect of a peace. Accordingly when, early in the next spring (423 B.C.), Sparta schemes for again made overtures for a pacification, the Athenian Ecclesia for once showed itself reasonable. To afford an oppor- tunity for the conclusion of a final and definitive peace, the two powers agreed to a truce for twelve mouths. For the first time for eight years the Athenians were able to put their neglected fields under the plough, with a reasonable prospect of reaping what they had sown. Nor was the boon less to the maritime states of Peloponnesus, who could now resume the coasting trade which had been forbidden to them for so long. Matters seemed in a fairway towards peace, when an unexpected complication occurred to postpone the negotiations. By the terms of the truce each party was to retain in its hands the ^ volt of places belonging to the enemy which it had captured ; scione. Thebes, for instance, still held Plataea, and Athens Cythera and Pylos. But at the very moment of the ratification of the truce, the important town of Scione, in Chalcidice, opened its gates to Brasidas ; the Athenians insisted that the place ought to be restored to them, while Brasidas maintained that, as the truce was unknown in Thrace when the place revolted, it did not come under the terms of the agreement. While this matter was in dispute, the still more important city of Mende, the third in size of the Chalcidian communities, followed the example of Scione. z 338 Brasidas in Thrace— The Peace of Nicias. ('422 b.c. These events so excited the Athenian Ecclesia, that it voted, on the motion of Cleon, that an expedition should be sent against Scione, and that, when the town was taken, its entire population should be exterminated. Thus it came to pass that although the truce was observed iu Greece, and all around the southern Aegean, war still continued in the north. Nicias sailed with a considerable armament to Thrace, and recaptured Mende ; but he failed at Scione, and his troops were still lying before its walls when the year's truce expired, early in 422 B.C. Hostilities then recommenced along the whole line of contact between Athens and her enemies ; but at home little of importance occurred, save that the fortress of Panac- tum, which commanded one of the passes of Cithaeron, fell by treachery into the hands of the Boeotians. In Chalcidice, however, the war came to its head. Early in the year Cleon appeared before Scione, at the head of a considerable army. His second venture in generalship was due to much the same causes as his first; now, as in 425 B.C., he had put himself at the head of tlie party of action, and was consequently made responsible for the conduct of the war. Probably the democracy had come to believe in his good luck, and hoped that, by some fortunate chance, he would put down Brasidas as easily as he had conquered Si)hacteria. Cleon's first operations were Cleon sent to ^ ^ i 3 • i . m Thrace, not badly planned; he succeeded in retaking iorone ' ' and Galepsus, and tlien landed at Ei'on, and sat down opposite Amphipolis, where Brasidas had concentrated the main part of his forces. There he waited, while reinforcements of light- troops were being collected from Thrace ; for he was weak in that arm, and very wisely refused to give battle till he was raised to an equality with the enemy. But the Athenian hoplites grumbled at their commander's inaction, and the tanner, who lived by following every breath of public opinion, did not dare to disregard their murmurings. Accordingly he started off with his whole force to reconnoitre the position of Brasidas, and to offer Amphipolis, him battle. Brasidas drew his army into the town, and kept perfectly quiet, allowing the Athenians to march past his front without any molestation. Cleon rashly con- cluded that the enemy would not fight, and neglected every military 42SB.CJ Battle of Amphiplis. 339 precaution; he himself went on ahead to explore the country-side to the north, while he left his army halted within a few score yards of the walls of Amphipolis, but not drawn up in battle array. Presently news was sent on to the demagogue that the streets near the gates ol the town were crowded with armed men, and that an attack was impending. He at once hurried back to join his men^ and ordered the army to retire and take ground to its left — a command which caused the Athenians to defile once more before the gates of the town. This was what Brasidas had been expect- ing. " I see," he cried, " that those troops will not stand ; I know it from the wavering of tiieir spears ; " and Avheu the Athenian centre was opposite him, he launched a column out of each gate, and charged the enemy's line of march. Cleou's men were caught while executing a hurried movement of retreat, with their shield- less side exposed to the enemy. Many of them broke at the fii'st onset : the left wing, which headed the line of march, fled back to E'ion without suffering much loss ; but the right wing and the centre, who were driven off their line of retreat by Brasidas's charge, were very severely handled. Cleon turned to fly, like the majority of his followers, and was speared as he ran by a Thracian peltast. Only tlie Athenian right wing made any attempt at resistance, and that body was soon overwhelmed by numbers, and scattered by a vigorous cavalry charge. The rout was very bloody. Six hundred Athenians had fallen, and not a dozen of their opponents ; but among the few whose loss the victors had to mourn was their general. Brasidas had received a spear-thrust in the side, and only lived long enough to hear that his victory was complete. The Amphipolitans buried him with the most splendid funeral rites, set up a temple to his memory, and vowed to honour him as their Oekist, instead of Hagnon. the original Athenian founder of the city. The deaths of Cleon and Brasidas removed the chief obstacles to a general peace. When the Spartan was gone, the revolt in Chalcidice ceased to spread, for it was his personal influence which had from tlie first been its mainstay. Nicias, 4:21 B C At home in Sparta also Brasidas had always been at the head of the party of action, and his death greatly weakened its influence. On the other hand, when Cleon was removed, the 34<:> Brasidas in Thrace — The Peace of Nicias. C421BC strongest advocate of war in the Athenian Ecclesia disappeared, and the partisans of peace could bring forward their proposals without any fear of being overwhelmed by his blustering eloquence. The negotiations which had been interrupted by the events in Thrace were soon resumed, and brought to a successful issue. The Spartan king Pleistoanax, who had lately been restored after more than tweaty years of exile (see p. 266), and the Athenian general Nicias, were mainly instrumental in the pacification, to which the latter has given his name. The treaty provided for a fifty years' peace, and enjoined a mutual restoration of prisoners and of places captured during the war, but this arrangement was not perfectly carried out ; for the Thebans refused to give up Plataea, on the ground that it had not been taken by force, but had surrendered on capitulation. On a similar plea, therefore, Athens refused to give up the Corinthian colonies of SoUium and Anactorium, and the Megarian port of Nisaea. In her anxiety to secure the evacuation of the Athenian strongholds around Peloponnesus, and the release of the prisoners of Sphacteria, Sparta sacrificed the interests of the Chalcidian cities whom she had tempted to revolt; she promised to surrender Amphipolis in return for Pylos and CythOra, and to break off her alliance with the other Thraceward cities. In their behalf she only stipulated that Athens should not coerce them by force, though she might, if she could, induce them to re-enter the Delian League of their own free will.^ Scione, which was still being invested by an Athenian army, was left to take its chance ; and when it fell, a few months later, suffered the penalty which had been decreed for it eighteen months before by the law of Cleou ; its men were slain and its women sold as slaves. Asa matter of fact, AmxAipolis was never given up to the Athenians, for Clearidas, who had succeeded Brasidas in command, declared that he was not strong enough to surrender it contrary to the will of its inhabitants, and contented himself with returning home with his Peloponnesian troops. In consequence of this infraction of the treaty, the Athenians refused to evacuate Pylos or Cythera. Thus it came to pass that although the prisoners on both sides were • The Chalcidian towns thus granted a qualified freedom were Olj'ntbus, Acanthus, Staglrus, Argilus, Sane, Singus, and a few more, Amphi- polis, being never recovered by Athens, shared their lot. 42XB.a] The Peace of Nicias. 341 restored, the other clauses of the peace of Nicias were not fully carried out, and the main result of the pacification was to leave each party in possession of just so much as it was holding at the moment of the suspension of hostilities. Several of the most im- portant allies of Sparta considered that they had been betrayed by their leader, and refused to ratify the treaty. The Thebans, there- fore, contented themselves with concluding a temporary armistice with Athens, which was renewable every ten days, and might at any moment be denounced at that short notice. The Mcgarians and Corinthians made no formal truce at all, but merely abstained from hostilities. Thus the first stage of the Peloponncsian war came to an end, just ten years after the first invasion of Attica by Archidamus in 431 B.C. Its results had been almost purely negative ; a vast quantity of blood and treasure had been wasted on each side, but to no great purpose. The Athenian naval power was unimpaired, and the Confederacy of Delos, though shaken by the successful revolt of Amphipolis and the Thraceward towns, was still left subsisting. On the other hand, the attempts of Athens to accom- plish anything on land had entirely failed, and the defensive policy of Pericles had been so far justified. Well would it have been for Athens if her citizens had taken the lesson to heart, and contented themselves with having escaped so easily from the greatest war they had ever known. C?<^ \ (k4' .^„ CHAPTER XXXI. THE YEARS OF THE TRUCE, 421-41G B.C. The period during which the truce of Nicias was more or less observed amounted to nearly seven years, but they are hardly to be reckoned as a time of peace. " It is true," says Thucydides, " that the Athenians and Lacedaemonians abstained for six years and ten months from marching against each other's territory, but with that exception they did each other as much damage as they could. They actually came into contact at Mantinea and Epi- daurus, and all the time hostilities were proceeding in Thrace just as before ; so that if any one objects to consider it a time of war, he will not be estimating it rightly."^ But though there was no actual interval of peace after the treaty of 421 B.C., yet the main action of the great drama stood still, and the events of the years 421-415 B.C. formed a strange and inco- herent interlude between the two acts of the Peloponnesian war. The parties in the struggle are grouped differently, a new set of motives influence the actors, and the original causes and objects of the war are lost sight of. One of the chief reasons which had made Sparta anxious to con- clude peace with Athens was the fact that a thirty years' truce Rupture with Argos, which had been concluded in 451 B.C., Sparta^and ^''^^ ""^^^ drawing to an end, and that it was strongly Argos, 421 B.C. suspected that the Argives were disposed to try the' fortune of war. The ephors had been anxious to end one conflict before tiiey were involved in another. Their suspicions were not misplaced. Argos had accumulated new strength in her thirty years oi rest, and thought that Sparta was so weakened and ' Thuc. V. 25,26. 421B.C.1 Jiisings against Sparta in Pelopotinesns. 343* brought down by ten years of warfare that she might be faced with ease. Moreover, the Argive government had been sounding all the Peloponnesian states which were supposed to have a grudge against Sparta, and thought that they could find several powerful allies. The Corinthians, who were grievously offended at the sacrifice of their colonies of Sollium and Anactorium to Athens ; the Mantineans, who had been frustrated by Sparta in an attempt to subdue their smaller neighbours, and tlie Eleans, who had also plunged into a quarrel with Sparta concerning the border-town of Lepreum, were all believed to be ready to join in a rising to do away with the Lacedaemonian hegemony in the Peloponnesus. Amphipolis and the states of Chalcidice were thought to cherish similar feelings, owing to the way in which they were abandoned to the mercy of Athens by the peace of Nicias. Ambassadors were soon passing from state to state, with the final result that Argos, Elis, Mantinea, and the Chalcidians entered into an offensive and defensive alliance, which soon brought them into hostile contact with Sparta. Corinth drew back, and would not commit herself to war with her old suzerain, while the majority of the smaller states of Peloponnesus showed no desire to break with their Laconian allies. Hostilities commenced, late in the summer of 421 b.c, by a raid of King Pleistoanax into Arcadia, when he took several places belonging to Mantinea. But nothing of importance had been accomplished when the coming of winter brought about a sus- pension of operations. By the outbreak of this war Athens was compelled to make her choice between two policies. It was doubtful whether she would do more wisely by standing aside from the struggle, Poiicyof and concentrating her energies on the recovery of the Athens, revolted cities of Chalcidice, or by taking advantage of Sparta's difficulties and renewing hostilities. In justification of the latter course, it could be argued that the Lacedaemonians had failed to observe the stipulations of the treaty, having neither restored Amphipolis, nor compelled their Boeotian and Corinthian allies to ratify the terms of peace. On the other side, it was urged by Nicias and the philo-Spartan party that, before engaging in another war, Athens should reconquer what she had lost, and that the state 344 The Years of the Ti'uce. (420 b.c. was above all things in need of a period of rest, to bring her ruined country-side once more into cultivation. When the summer of 420 B.C. arrived, ambassadors both from Argos and from Sparta appeared at Athens to plead respectively the causes of war and of peace. Nicias and his party would probably have prevailed, and the Argive embassy would have been dismissed, had it not been for the machinations of a young statesman who now stood forward prominently for the first time on the political stage. Alcibiades, the son of Cleinias, was at this moment still a young man. "In any other state than Athens," says Thucydides, "he would have been considered far too young to become Alcibiades . „ . ,. ./ o a serious figure m politics. But at Athens he had already made himself a name, and was a well-known figure on the Bema. He came of an ancient and wealthy stock, which traced its origin back to the old Salaminian kings, and was placed by his position among the first families of Athens. His handsome person and ready wit made him the idol of the " gilded youth " of the city, and his reckless love of adventure and mischief was con- tinually bringing him into notice. Any drunken escapade, any malicious practical joke, any ingenious piece of fooling that was perpetrated in Athens, was instantly credited to his account. He was continually indulging in freaks that put him in danger of the law courts ; but offences that would have brought fine and im- prisonment on any other citizen were visited lightly on the spoilt child of the people. His profligacy and insolence raised up many enemies, but with the masses he was immensely popular. His utter want of decorum only amused them. When he spoke before the Ecclesia with a pet quail tucked unJer his arm, it was con- sidered an excellent jest; when in the law court he casually snatched up and destroyed the indictment brought against one of his friends, he was laughed at and not prosecuted. But in his more serious moments Alcibiades frequently turned to politics, which he treated as an ingenious and amusing game, well suited for the display of his abilities. As a politician he might have been described as a second Themistocles, had not his inherent frivolity and fickleness placed him far below the great statesman of the times of the Persian war ; but he had all the readiness, ingenuity, and persuasive power of his prototype. Like Themistocles he 420 B.C.] Alcibiades. 345 was n, strong democrat. It is true that on his first entry into political life he had come forward as an oligarch and a friend of Sparta, and had put his good offices at the disposal of the prisoners of Sphacteria; but the respectable Nicias and his philo-Spartan friends were appalled at the prospect of having to co-operate with a colleague of such approved disreputability ; they rejected his advances, and advised the Siwrtans to have nothing to do with him. Alcibiades immediately performed a political somersault, and promptly appeared as an ardent democrat. It became his ambition to take up the fallen mantle of Cleon, and to be known as the people's friend and the mouthpiece of jiublic opinion. He had not only greater natural abilities than Cleon, but a double portion of his unscrupulousness. He soon became a considerable power in politics, and would have risen to the highest place if his levity and reckless vanity had not been too well known. In 420 B.C. Alcibiades was set on causing the Spartan embassy to Athens to fail, and on bringing about an alliance with Argos. His plan was characterized by shameless dllplicit3^ .,..., , He secretly visited the Lacedaemonian envoys, and intrigues. 419 S C assured them that if they acknowledged that they ' ' possessed full powers to agree to any terms of alliance which Athens might propose, they would find themselves forced to grant more than they could wish. But if they would say that they were merely authorized to report the Athenian proposals to the ephors, he would throw his personal influence on to their side, and obtain for them the restoration of Pylos, and anything else that they might desire. The unwary ambassadors believed bis protesta- tions ; and, although they had announced only a few days before that they possessed full powers to treat, declared at the next meeting of the Ecclesia that no such authority had been granted to them. Then Alcibiades arose, and to the dismay of the simi:)le Spartans proceeded to denounce them to the people as reckless deceivers, who said one thing one day and another the next, and whose overtures should be received with contempt. Tlie people shouted applause, and the embassy was wrecked. A few days later a decree was passed whereby Athens concluded an ofiensive and defensive alliance for a hundred years with Argos, Elis, and Manijnea. All that Nicias, v»-ho opposed the motion with such 346 The Years of the Irucc. [419 b.c- cnergy as he possessed, could obtain, was that war with Sparta was not actually declared, nor the truce formally denounced. But to make alliance with Argos was not very remote from entering into hostilities with Lacedaemon. The next two years were occupied by a desultory and sporadic war in Peloponnesus, in which both sides displayed an astonishing want of generalship and decision, 1"he new confederacy possessed many advantages. Mantinea almost blocked the way from Sparta to Corinth and the other towns which remained faithful to their old suzerain ; Elis and Argos threatened it on each flank ; yet, whenever the Spartans made a serious attempt to force their way northward, they invariably succeeded. The allies could never agree for a common plan of campaign ; the Eleans wished to attack Lepreum and to carry the war into Messenia, while the Argives were intent on subduing their neighbours of Epidaurus and Phlius, and the Mantineans only thought of extending their power in Central Arcadia. But this want of common purpose among the Agis at Argos ^^I'^s led to 110 immediate disaster, for the Spartan 418B.C. King Agis, who directed the movements of the enemy, was quite unequal to his position. After many indecisive moves, he at last, in the summer of 418 B.C., succeeded in bringing matters to a head. While he himself, with the forces of Laconia and his Arcadian allies, slipped past Mantinea and appeared at the mouth of the southernmost of the three passes which lead down into the Argive plain, a second column from Corinth and Phlius debouched by the central pass, and a large body from the north, mainly consisting of Boeotians and Megarians, advanced down the main road which leads by Nemea. The Argives were completely outgeneralled and outnumbered, though they had received con- siderable contingents from Elis and Mantinea. Their army was, however, bent on fighting, and would doubtless have suffered a complete disaster if two of their leaders had not opened negotia- tions for a peace with Agis. Instead of using the advantages of Ins position, the Spartan king consented to treat, on the assurance that Argos was ready to lay down her arms, and submit her dis- putes with Sparta to arbitration. He therefore dismissed his army, _ and permitted the Argives to escape. A few days later there arrived at Argos a considerable Athenian force under Laches ; 418B.CJ Athenian Expeditions to Peloponnesus. 347 and on very slight persuasion the Argive democracy was induced to disavow the agreement witli Agis, on the pretext that it liad been concluded without the consent of their allies, and to recom- mence hostilities. Thus the Sparlaus lost all the fruits of their campaign through the simplicity of their king. While the Peloponnesians were engaged in these operations, Athens had been halting between the two policies that were open to her. She had not thrown herself heart and soul Athenian into the Argive alliance, nor had she taken decisive expeditions, measures to reconquer the rebellious cities of Chalcidice. At nome she had offended Sparta, without materially harming her ; for although the peace of Nicias was still so far observed that her fleets refrained from ravaging Laconia, yet small forces were con- tinually sent to aid the Argives, and to support Athenian interests in other parts of Peloponnesus. In these operations Alcibiades made his first essays in military command, and gained some credit for establishing the Athenian party in possession of the Achaian town of Patrae. Meanwhile a desultory warfare was still going on in Chalcidice ; but since the attention of Athens was mainly directed towards the south, no adequate force was directed against Amphi- polis or Olynthus. In consequence nothing more was recovered after the capture of Scione, and several small towns joined the rebels. At last the Athenians acknowledged their weakness in this quarter, by concluding a truce, renewable every ten days, with their revolted subjects. The Spartan ephors had been greatly angered by the failure of Agis at Argos ; they had actually proposed to demolish his house and fine him ten thousand drachmae, but this punishment was not carried out; it was merely enacted that when again in command he should be bound to refer all important matters to a council of war — an infringement of the royal prerogative such as had not before been known in Sparta. In spite, however, of his unpopu- larity, he was still retained in command, owing to the general distrust felt for his colleague Pleistoanax. Burning to avenge the perjury of the Argives, Agis resolved to give them battle whenever he found them. Although he had not been joined by any of his allies except the Tegeans and Heraeans, he brought the enemy to action not far from Mantinea. The Argives and Mantineans in 348 The Years of the Truce. [413b.o.. full force, together with their subject allies aad a body of thirteen hundred Athenians, wore opposed to him ; the Eleans were absent, engaged in operations against Lopreuna The battle of Mantinea was a fair stand-iip fight between two armies of almost equal force, in which the troops met front to front without anv attempt to win tactical advanta2;es, and Battle ot - ^ ' Mantinea. settled the day in hand-to-hand fighting. Each side was found to have slightly outflanked its enemy on the right.' The Tegeans on the Spartan right stretched beyond the Athenians, who held the left wing in the Argive army ; simi- larly the Mantineans had outflanked the division of Laconian Perioeci, who formed the Spartan left. In each case the body that was outflanked suffered a disaster, but the fate of the Laconians was the worst, for Agis had contrived to cause a gap between his centre and his left wing, by ordering the latter to take ground to the left at the moment of charging. Into the interval thus opened a regiment of a thousand picked Argive troops made their way ; they turned the defeat of the Spartan left wing into a rout, and pushed on into the camp of Agis, where they cut the baggage-guard to jDieces. Meanwhile the native Spartan troops in the centre had smashed to atoms the line opposed to them, where the main body of the Argives, and the Argive Perioeci from Orneae and Cleonae, were posted. Agis then assisted the Tegeans to complete the rout of the Athenians, and fioally turned on the victorious right wing of the enemy, where he cut up the Mantineans severely, and forced the Argive thousand off the field. Though tactically beaten, through the mismanagement of Agis, the Spartans fairly won the field by hard fighting. Their ancient valour was found to be undiminished, and the unmerited disrepute into which they had fallen since the surrender at Sphacteria was at once forgotten. In the fight eleven hundred hoplites of the allied army had fallen, among whom were numbered Laches and Nicostratus, the two Athenian generals. Of the army of Agis three ' There was always a tendency in Greek armies to advance taking ground sliglitlj' to the right, bo as to outflank the enemj' at the extreme right wing. The last hoplite on the right wing pushed forward to the right, in order to avoid exposing his imshielded side to the enemy ; his neighbours carried on the movement till it went all down the line. 416B.C. The Mas^cn of MeloL 349 hundred had been slain, all of them Spartans or Perioeci, for the Tcgeans hardly lost a man. The defeat of Mantinea drove Argos into peace with Sparta ; soon afterwards the democratic government, discredited by the disasters it had broiif'ht upon the city, was overthrown ., , .. ^ i^ J ' Hevolutions by a sudden oligarchic rising, in which the regiment at Argos, . ... . 417 B.C. of the thousand, wljich had distinguished itself at Mantinea, took the chief part. But the Argive oligarcliy proved unbearably insolent and brutal ; its leaders perpetrated murders and outrages which led in a few months to a counter-revolution. The victorious democratic party soon found itself committed to a renewed war with Sparta, and was compelled to call in once more the aid of Athens. The Athenians and Argives now attempted to put Argos in safety by constructing long walls from the city to the sea. But soon a Spartan army appeared in Argolis, and they were compelled to abandon the attempt, which would have involved the building of a double wall not less than five miles in length. The new war proved as indecisive as that which had preceded it. Argos was completely overmatched, but the Spartans made no adequate use of their superiority, and contented themselves with .supporting their allies of Phlius and Epidaurus, and keeping the Argive armies at home. The Athenians despatched no large forces to Peloponnesus, and still avoided direct attacks on Laconia, though the exiled Messenians, whom they had established at Pylos, were not so forbearing. The chief event of 41G B.C. was the attack which the Atlienians made on Melos. That island, though its name is found in the tribute-iists of the Confederacy of Delos, had of late Fau of Meios, years slipped out of control, and refused to aid in the ^^^ ^^' war, because it was a colony of Sparta. With no other justifi- cation except that an autonomous island was an anomaly, the Athenians threw a strong force ashore and summoned the Melians to submission. When the islanders refused to surrender theiy independence, their city Was blockaded by sea and land. After a vigorous defence the place fell ; in brutal assertion of the right of the stronger, the Athenians slew olf the whole male population, and sold the women as slaves. This action was perhaps the most atrocious political crime committed in the whole war ; Melos was 350 The Years of the Truce. f4i6B.c. a neutral state, bad given Athens no offence, and had been attacked without any declaration of hostilities. Its destruction was the crowning achievement of Athenian lust for empire, and every right- minded man in Greece saw the vengeance of Heaven for the massacre of Melos in the unbroken series of disasters which thenceforward attended tlie Athenian arms. J CHAPTER XXXII. THE EXPEDITION OF THE ATHENIANS TO SICILY, 415-413 B.C. It might have been expected that while the Chalciclian cities were still Tinsubdiied, and while Sparta was gradually freeing herself from her home troubles, Athens would have refrained from any further indulgence in those distant and hazardous expeditions which had proved so profitless hitherto. But this was not to be ; inspired by its accustomed hopefulness, and led on by the volatile Alcibiades, the Ecclesia now proceeded to undertake an adventure which far surpassed in recklessness anything that it had previously sanctioned. Peace at home was precarious, for the Boeotians might at ten daj^s' notice renew hostilities, and Corinth and Megara were also free from any permanent engagement. The Spartans were known to have been bitterly provoked by the Athenian alliance with Argos and by the appearance of Athenian troops in the Peloponnese, and had fair grounds for repudiating at any moment the treaty of 421 B.C. The fields of Attica were only just resuming their ancient aspect of cultivation. The depleted treasury of the Delian League was far from showing the superabundant masses of bullion which it had contained before the beginning of the war. Yet, in spite of these obvious facts, Athens proceeded to stake her whole empire on a single reckless cast, and to imperil the reality of power in the Aegean while grasping at a shadow of conquest in the waters of the West. It was now eight years since the first Athenian expedition to Sicily had been brought to an ignominious end by the conclusion of peace between the belligerent states in the island xroubies in (see p. 335). Since that time new troubles had Siciiy. arisen. In Vv'estern Sicily a war had broken out between the Dorian 352 The Expedition of the Athenians to Sieity, t^isB. state of Sellmis and tlic barbaiian city of Scgcsta. In Eastei Sicily Syracuse had talccn advantage of civil strife among ^I'l (;j Ionian neighbours of Leontini, and destroyed their city ; but tl exiled Leontincs were keeping up a desultory warfare again: their oppressor from such strongholds as they could retain. Bot the Scgostans and the Leontincs had been allies of Athens, and i was natural that in tliuir hour of distress they should bethink then '.'f the great imperial city, who had before shown that her arm \va lull'' enough to reach out and deliver blows in the distant West iiffi „, „ , About the middle of the year 416 B.C., a Segcstar . The Sogestans •' . \£ send to Athens, embassy appeared at Athens to ask for assistance; and to promise lavish supplies of money and vigorous military aid to any force that should be sent to help them. The Kcclesia voted that envoys should be sent to Sicily to investigate the state of affairs; this was done, and in the spring of 415 B.C. ^ their report was laid before the assembly. They brought sixty talents of silver, as an earnest of the resources which Segesta would put at the disposal of Athens, and gave a glowing account of the wealth and strength of the city. It is said that while in Sicily they had been victimized by an elaborate scheme of deception practised by their hosts, who passed oft' on tliem all the silver-gilt vessels in their temi^les as solid gold, and made a sumptuous display of private riches, by sending round to every house at which the envoys were entertained all the plate which could be borrowed in the city. Blinded by this ostentatious show of wealth, the ambassadors held out magnificent prospects to the Ecclesia ; the Segestans who accompanied them renewed their appeal, and some of the exiled Leontincs came forward to back their petition. The ConseiTative party at Athens put forth all their power to oppose the gi'ant of aid to the Segestan envoys. Nicias, now as Debates In the '''^^^''^J'^ Acting as their spokesman, denounced the idea ^ciesia, of interfering in Sicilian affairs as preposterous. But, led ou by Aleibiades, the assembly voted that sixty ships should be sent to Sicily, in order " to assist the Segestans, to join in re-establishing Leontini, and to carry out such other measures in Sicily as should be best for the Athenians." The last clause of the decree was no idle pi'.ce of verbiage, but covered a jBisB.c.] The Sicilian E.xpcdition Voted. 553 sign — fully worked out in the mind of Alcibiades, though oniy jjgl.rtially apprehended by his followers — of reducing the whole of ( J.e Sicilian states to dependence on Athens. The idea had entered e teeming brain of Alcibiades that Sicily was so honeycombed j]j J intestine feuds that state might be systematically turned ;ainst state till all were subdued. He thought that the expe- .tion of 427 B.C. had failed merely for want of strength and Liidance, and that a large armament, used with sufficient unscru- ulousness and decision, would easily achieve his end. He got imself nominated as one of the three commanders of the expe- ition ; the other two were Lamachus, a skilful but poor and unin- uential soldier of fortune, and Nicias. The name of the latter aust have been inserted by the vote of the opponents of Alci- tiades, who would not have clogged himself with such an un^con- ;enial colleague. Appointed against his will to conduct a war which he had lenounced, Nicias cast about for means to prevent the expedition rom setting out. The bent of his mind inclined — as his conduct n 425 B.C. with reference to Cleon and Sphacteria had shown^ towards diplomacy rather than straightforwardness. Accordingly he refrained from any further open opposition to the Sicilian scheme, and only strove to disgust the people with it, by enlarging on its difficulties, and magnifying the land and sea forces which would be necessary to carry it out. But, to his horror and disgust, the Ecclesia, now as in 425 B.C., took him at his word. If sixty galleys seemed too small a squadron to him, he should be given a hun- dred ; if the force of hoplites voted in the first bill was insufficient, he should be allowed to fix the number for himself. Alcibiades completed the victory of his side by a fiery speech, in which he appealed to the national pride in the prestige of Athens, and promised his countrymen an easy victory over the mixed multi- tudes of the faction-ridden cities of Sicily. Accordingly the decree was passed that the armament should be prepared, and that its size and scope should be settled by the three generals who had been elected to command it. Alcibiades' vanity and ambition led him to ask for control over as large a force as the people would grant him, while Nicias — though he did not believe in the possibility of success— =-had corae to 2 A 354 1"^^^ Expedition of the Athenians to Sicily. [415b.c. the conclusion that a powerful armament would fail less disas- The expedition trously than a weak one. Accordingly the generals prepared, agreed la demanding the most ample resources. Besides the hundred Athenian vessels voted to them, they raised thirty-four more from the subject-allies ; two thousand two hundred Athenian hoplites formed the core of the land force ; to them were added about two thousand allies, with five hundred Argives and two hundred and fifty Mautineans, whom Alcibiades succeeded in enlisting in the Peloponnese. Of slingers and bowmen from Rhodes, Crete, and elsewhere, they hired thirteen hundred. Athens had once or twice sent out larger expeditions for some short cam- paign near home, but such a force had never been despatched on a distant adventure fully equipped for many months of service. Public opinion in the city was so thoroughly convinced of the feasibility of the conquest of Sicily and of the unlimited possi- bilities of private money-getting that would follow, that every one was eager to have a hand in the business. The trierarchs spared no expense in the fitting out of their vessels ; the hoplites who were drawn for the expedition considered themselves favoured by fortune ; numerous merchants made ready to accompany the fleet in their own ships, in order to get the first choice of the new lines of trade that were to be opened. Alcibiades, whose windy pro- mises buoyed every one up, had promised that the fall of Sellnus and Syracuse should be a mere prelude to the subjection of all Sicily, the conquest of Carthage, and the absorption of the whole commerce of the Western Mediterranean. Most men were ignorant of the size and power of the Siceliot cities, and even those who knew were carried away by the enthusiasm of the hour. In pure heedlessness and lightness of heart the Athenians committed them- fielves irrevocably to the adventure that was to be their ruin. The expedition was not, however, destined to set forth under favourable auspices. Just as the dockyards and arsenals of Athens Mutilation of were Completing the last equipments of the fleet, and the Hermae. ^]jg generals were on the eve of putting their men on shipboard, a mysterious outrage threw all Athens into perturba- tion. There were scattered throughout the citj'^, before the doors (if private houses, as well as at every street corner and in every place of public resort, quantities of Hermae, or busts of the god 415 B.C.J Mutilation of the Hermae. 355 Hermes, consisting of pillars about five or sis feet high, with their upper portions hewn into the semblance of that deity's head and shoulders. They were as common and as superstitiously reverenced as the shrines of the Madonna at the street corners of a modern continental town. In a single night unknown hands played havoc with all these images, chipping and hacking away every vestige of human shape from them. It is said that only one bust in the whole city escaped mutilation. Next morning there was a universal cry ot wrath at tne sense- less and profane outrage. It was not merely the superstition of the Athenians that was roused; the vast number of the figures that had been harmed proved that scores of persons must have been concerned in the affair, and the city was frightened to find that a large band of secret conspirators was lurking in its midst. The first cry of the public voice was that Alcibiades was the only person in Athens capable of such a wild and impious freak. But public opinion was almost certainly wrong ; there was much method in the madness of Alcibiades. Eeckless as he was, he must have been most desirous at this moment that his expe- dition should start with every favourable omen. It is far more likely that the enemies of Alcibiades did the deed, knowing that it would be laid at his door, and perhaps hoping that it might stop the expedition. Large rewards were at once offered for information as to the outrage, and a special commission was appointed to conduct the inquiry ; but the secret was well kept, and no evidence Alcibiades in was forthcoming. A quantity of information, how- danger, ever, cropped up concerning other recent pieces of sacrilege, the most prominent of which was a profane parody of the Eleusinian mysteries, in which Alcibiades had taken the leading part. At tlie next meeting of the Ecclesia, a citizen named Pythonlcus rose to charge Alcibiades with this crime, to argue that he must also have mutilated the Hermae, and to demand his instant prosecution. The young general denied the accusation, and asked for a prompt trial ; but it was refused him, for his own side thought the proposal preposterous, and his enemies preferred to bring charges against him in his absence, when he could not refute them. Accordingly AlcUnades set sail with the other generals, at tne 356 T)ie Expedition of the Athetiiam io Sicily. [415b.o. head of the expedition. Their departure was a magnificent and impressive scene, for the whole city thronged down the fleet, to Peiraeus to bid God-speed to the great arma- 415 B.C. jj-jgjjj.^ Avhich was to win Athens a new empire in the West. The heralds proclaimed silence, and public prayer waa made for the success of the expedition ; seamen and officers joined in pouring libations to the deities of the sea, and as they chanted the hymn of departure, the great multitude on shore joined in. Then all the fleet simultaneously weighed anchor, and the swifter galleys raced with each other as far as Aegina, before falling in to the column of route. The scene was long remembered. It was the last day of unalloyed hope and exultation that a whole genera- tion of Athenians was to know. The fleet rounded Malea and steered an uneventful course as far as Corcyra, w^here it picked up a large convoy of store ships and merchantmen, which had been sent on before to that place of rendezvous. Then, after despatch- ing three vessels to Sicily to warn the Segestans and Leontines of their approaching arrival, the generals crossed the Ionian Sea at its narrowest, and pushed along the Calabrian coast toward Tarentum. The Siceliots had long refused to credit the designs which Athens was entertaining. They believed that at the most a small squadron, Feeling in ^i^^ those which Laches and Eurymedon had brought sicUy. across in 427. and 425, was likely to visit their waters, and made little or no preparations to resist it. Knowing that the strong anti-Syracusan alliance, which had existed twelve years before, had now ceased to be, they thought that an Athenian army would get no foothold in the island, and would soon be constrained to return. It was not till the fleet of invasion reached Corcyra that they recognized that a real danger was impending over them, and learnt the true size and scope of the expedition. The Syra- cusans, on whom the brunt of the attack was likely to fall, then at last began to make preparations for war, sending out garrisons to the forts which kept down their Sicel subjects, and despatching envoys to all the cities in the island for the purpose of forming a Pan-Siceliot alliance to preserve their common autonomy. But if the Athenian generals had acted witli reasonable promptitude, they would have ?ound Syracuse still far from ready for an immediate struggle. 415 B.C.] The Athenians reach Sicily. 357 Nicias and his colleagues were now coasting down the shores of Italy ; they found the Italiot states determined to preserve a jealous neutrality. Towns like Thurii and Metapontum, which were bound to Athens by old ties of alliance, only granted the armament water and an anchorage ; Tarentum and Locri denied them even those small boons. It was not till they reached Rhegium that they could find a state which would allow them to purchase provisions in a market outside its walls. While they lay in the Ehegine territory they received a discouraging report from the vessels which had been sent on to Segesta. Instead of proving to be wealthy and powerful, the Segestans were found to be unable to contribute more than thirty talents to the support of the allies they had summoned. This depressing intelligence affected the generals in different ways. Nicias held that, as a cold welcome awaited them in Sicily, they should content themselves with striking pians of the a blow at Selinus, and then return home, and justify eenerais. themselves to the Ecclesia by pleading the misleading nature of their instructions. Lamachus proposed to sail straight to Syracuse before the enemy had realized the nearness of their approach, and to endeavour to capture or cripple the city by a sudden attack. Alcibiades held the first scheme pusillanimous and the second rash, and proposed to open negotiations with the various towns which had a grudge against Syracuse, to incite the Sicels to rebel, and meanwhile to endeavour to get possession of some city in the western part of the island as a place of arms and a base of opera- tions against Syracuse. This fatal " middle course " was adopted. Nicias' proposal would have brought the armament safely, if in- gloriously, home; that of Lamachus would have offered some chance of a victory, and brought matters quickly to a head. But Alcibiades' plan, by the long delays which it necessitated, ruined the purpose of the expedition. In pursuance of the plan of Alcibiades, the Athenians spent the remaining months of the summer in coasting round Sicily in search of allies, and allowed every one to learn their numbers, their objects, and their plans. They were unable to win any town to themselves, except Naxos and Catana; the latter was compelled perforce to join them, for while negotiations were going on, a party of Athenians slipped in at an unguarded postern door in the wall, 358 The Expedition of the Athenians to Sicily. r4i5B.c.- and left the Catananaeans no choice but alliance or destruction. Camarina and Messene, allies of Athens in -127 B.C., would have nothing to do with their old friends. Some slight forays into the territories of Syracuse and Gela failed completely. The only military achievement of the Athenians was to capture the small Sican town of Hyccara, whose inhabitants they sold as slaves — a proceeding which brought them some gain, but taught every state in the island what it had to expect in the event of an Athenian success. While this dilatory campaign was in progress, the Salaminia, one of the two Athenian state-galleys, arrived in Sicily with orders Aicibiades ^^"^ Alcibiades to consider himself under arrest, and to recaued. rctum at once to take his trial for the matter of the profanation of the mysteries. Since the departure of the fleet, the Athenian government had been making desperate efforts to unravel that mystery ; their offers of rewards and indemnity to any informers who should present themselves produced a crop of venal and untrustworthy witnesses. Scores of persons were thrown into prison on such testimony, and the unending series of ai rests led to something like a panic in the city. The whole business has been not inaptly compared to the stir in England which followed the so-called " Popish Plot" of 1679. The Titus Gates of Athens was the orator Andocides. Finding himself arrested and in danger, he proceeded to make a pretended confession, on condition that his own life should be spared. He named himself and many other persons as guilty of the sacrilege. His story was confused and im- probable, but the authorities were ready to take any evidence that presented itself. Hastily accepting the whole tale as true, the Athenians brought to trial and executed every one within their reach whom Andocides denounced. The next thing was to investi- gate the profanation of the Eleusinian mysteries in which Alcibiades had been declared to be implicated. His political enemies, the demagogues Peisander a-nd Charicles, cried loudly for his punish- ment, and he was accordingly summoned to return and appear for trial. He started homeward from Catana, with several of his friends who were also accused, but on arriving at Thurii very wisely gave his conductors the slip, went into hiding, and is next heard of as crossing the sea and appearing at Sparta to do what harm be 414 B.C.] The State of Syracuse. 359 could to his ungrateful country. He had, of course, beeu condemned to death in his absence, his flight being taken as convincing evidence of guilt. When Alcibiades was removed, we might have expected that one of the schemes whicli Nicias and Lamachus had recommended would have been put into action. But this was not to be ; all that the generals did was to land near Syracuse, defeat the Syracusan army in the plain south of the city, and then to sail back again to Catana and go into winter quarters. The descent was perfectly The Siege of Syracuse Taken from Hauerficld's Relief -Map of Syracuse Furyelus ^K_^3^ ,' .< 4' objectless, unless it was to serve as the immediate prelude to the siege. All that it did was to reveal to the Syracusans the nearness of the danger, and to induce them to take more vigorous measures for defence than they had hitherto thought necessary. Syracuse, as it then stood, consisted of two portions. The narrow-necked peninsula t)f Ortygia, the oldest part of the place, projecting into the sea on its long spit of land, Position of formed the inner and lower cit^'. The larger and Syracuse, newer quarter, the " Outer City," lay around the heads of the two harbours. The two quarters seem each to have had its separate 360 The Expediiion of /he Athenians to Sicily, f4i4B.c. wall, the one cutting off the peninsula from the mainland, and forming an inner line of defence (b on the map) ; the other, whose exact line is micertain, forming an outer circle (perhaps as A A in map). To the north lay the bare limestone plateau of Epipolae, a long spur of upland which runs down from the mountains of the interior, and overlooks the two harbours and the city around them. During the winter of 415-414 b.c. it occurred to the Syracusans that, if once the enemy seized Epipolae, they would be able to blockade the city with little difficulty, owing to the narrowness of the front of the defences. Accordingly, during the four months' respite which the inaction of the Athenians gave them, the Syracusans worked hard to construct a new wall. Starting from the sea on the north, they built a line of fortifications right across Epipolae fiom north to south, including all the eastern part of the plateau, and forming a strong line of defence, with a much longer front than that of the previous city-wall (c c in map). Nor did the Syracusans neglect other precautions. They placed in chief command Hermocrates, their best general, renewed old alliances with their neighbours, and sent for aid to Sparta and Corinth. At Corinth, their mother city, they met with a favourable -, .^. , reception, and were at once promised assistance. At Alcibiacles at -^ -^ Sparta, Sparta the ephors hesitated for some time, but were at length convinced by the arguments of Alcibiades, who had joined the Syracusan embassy, and did all in his power to further its objects. He explained to the ephors the full scope of the Athenian designs on Sicily, and pointed out how they could be most easily frustrated. He recommended that a Spartan oEBcer should be sent to Syracuse with some troops at his back to encourage the Siceliots. Moreover, he advised the open renewal of war with Athens, now that so large a part of her resources was diverted to the West. But above all he laid stress on the advan- tage of seizing and fortifying the commanding j)osition of Decelea on the brow of Mount Parnes, and of retaining it as a permanent post for the molestation of Athens, to play in Attica the part that Pylos had played in Laconia. Much of this advice the ephors were ready to take. They did not declare immediate war on Athens, but they resolved to send a force under Gylippus, an officer of distinction, to assist the Syracusans; Athenian auxiliaries 414 B.C.] Adidas and Lainachus besiege SyTacuse, 361 had been found in the Argive line of battle at Mantiuea, and Athens could not complain if Laconians and Corinthians were seen fighting in the Syracusan ranks. Four ships were ordered to be prepared for Gylippus at once, to sail from Corinth ; others were to follow. When spring came round, Nicias and Lamachus received from Athens a reinforcement of cavalry, in which arm they had hitherto been deficient. They also raised some horse from the ^ Commence- begestans, Catanaeans, and Sicels, till they had alto- ment of siege, gether six hundred and fifty. Thus strengthened, *^* '^' they landed at Leon, a village a few miles north of Syracuse, and advanced towards the town. Before them lay a line of heights, the northern slope of the plateau of Epipolac. The cliff could only be ascended at certain points, and the Syracusans had placed there a guard of six hundred men. But this force was caught unprepared, for every one had been expecting the Athenians to disembark south, not north, of the city. Accordingly, the invading army had reached the brow of Epipolae before the)' were attacked, and succeeded in driving ofif the defenders and establishing them- selves on the plateau, facing the new Syracusan wall. The fleet came to anchor at Thapsus, a little to the north of Leon. Kicias and Lamachus had resolved to wall in Syracuse witli lines of circumvallation, in the orthodox fashion of Greek siege- craft. The ground over which their lines would have to run was settled by the contour of the new wall which the Syracusans had buHt in the winter ; opposite it, at a distance just beyond bowshot, the Athenian lines were to be constructed. The northern half of their extent would cut across the high plateau of Epipolae ; the southern half would lie on the slope where Epipola? sank down towards the Great Harbour, and on the marshy plain by the sea- shore. Nicias began by constructing a fort called Labdalum at the highest point on Epipolae, and then a large circular entrenchment (k in map) somewhat furthersouth. The latter was to be the central point of the line of circumvallation, lying at an equal distance from the open sea on the north and the Great Harbour on the south. Instead of comiug out and oflering battle, the Syracusan generals had determined to endeavour to frustrate the attempt to build them in, by throwing out counter-walls from the city, across the ground 362 The Expedition of the Athenians to Sicily. (414 b.c. wliere the Athenian lines were to be drawn. They accordingly built, towards the southern brow of the plateau of Ejupolae, a stockade running east and west (h on the map), south of the central fort which Nicias had erected. The Athenian works could not be continued unless this entrenchment were captured and destroyed; accordingly a vigorous and successful attempt was made to storm it, when the Syracusans at midday were intent on their rest or their meal. The counter-wall was destroyed, and the Athenian line of circumvallation completed southward from the circular fort as far as the foot of Epipolae. The Syracusans, still persevering with the same plan of resist- ance, now builfc a second counter-wall on the low marshy ground Athenian "^ar the Great Harbour (j on the plan). This successes, ^^q \^^q Athenians assaulted, but they did not on that occasion surprise the enemy, who came out in full force into the open, and fought a general action in defence of the counter- wall. Again, however, the Athenians were victorious ; the S3Ta- cusans were scattered and routed, and their entrenchment carried by storm. But in the midst of the battle Lamachus was slain, so that the sole command of the Athenian army now devolved upon Nicias. This was an immense misfortune for Athens; the fallen general was a man of energy and decision and a practised soldier, while the survivor was more of a politician than a military man, and though tit enough for fair-weather campaigning, was prone to doubt and irresolution at critical moments. Moreover, he hated the task which had been put upon him, and believed in his own heart that it was impossible. To add to his troubles, he was suffering from a painful internal disease, which frequently confined him to his tent. Having driven the Syracusans within their walls, the Athenian army was now in a position to complete the lines of circumvalla- tion. Kicias had brought round the fleet from Thapsus to the Great Harbour, had landed all his Stores and drawn his ships ashore on its beach. He therefore thought it most important to complete the southern portion of the lines, so as to cover the fleet ; the northern section, towards the open sea, he left unfinished till he should have fully built the rest. Thus it came to pass that while the circumvallation from the brow of Epipolae to the Great Harbour 414B.C.] Gylippiis enters Syracuse. t,6t, was elaborately complete, with a double line of wall, that which ran from the central circular fort to the northern sea was full of gaps, and in places hardly even commenced. This was to prove of fatal importance during the next few weeks. The Athenians had now reached the height of their good fortune, though this only amounted to having shut up the Syracusans in their city; the real siege had yet to begin. Nevertheless the moral effect of their success was considerable : a faction in Syracuse had already commenced to talk of asking for terms of peace, and reinforcements were beginning to join the invaders from several states hitherto neutral, even from distant Etruria. Just at this moment a new factor intervened in the struggle. Gylippus had started from Corinth with his four ships when the spring came round, and had now arrived in Sicily, ©yuppus in He landed at Hiraera, hardly hoping to save Syracuse, sicuy. for rumour had reported that the city was now entirely circum- vallated. Finding that this was not yet the case, he resolved to throw himself into it. He added to the seven hundred men whom he had brought with him several thousand more from Himera, Sellnus, and Gela, and marched rapidly towards Syracuse. Coming upon the unfinished portion of the Athenian lines, on the northern side of Epipolae, he passed through one of the gaps and threw himself into the town. The whole Syracusan army o-yiippus enters came out to join him, and then offered the Athe- Syracuse. nians battle. Nicias would not accept the challenge, finding himself outnumbered now that Gylippus' army had arrived. He lay with his troops under arms near the circular fort on the south side of Epipolae,'and made no movement when Gylippus laid hands on the unfinished wall to the north, pulled it down, and began to build with its materials a counter-wall running out from the Syracusaa lines of defence toward the highest ground on Epipolae. He allowed his fort at Labdalum to be surprised and captured, and thus entirely lost command of the northern slope of the plateau. Presently the Syracusan counter-wall reached the level of tho Athenian lines, just north of the circular fort ; if it could be con- tinued any further, Nicias could not hope to recover his lost ascen- dancy, and would himself be besieged rather than besieging. It required two sharp engagements to settle the question , but in the 364 The Expedition of the Athenians to Sicily. [414b.c.- second Gylippus was wholly victorious, and the counter-wall was carried past the critical point. During the succeeding month the Syracusans prolonged it more and more to the west, till it finally reached Euryelus, the narrow and lofty western summit of Epipolae ; at the more exposed jDoints on its front it was strengthened with four forts (k k in map). The misfortunes of Nicias were only just beginning. A few days later twelve Peloponnesian triremes ran the blockade, and entered the small harbour in safety. They annoimced that more ships were to follow, a promise which encouraged the Syracusans to think of launching their own fleet; they possessed some forty or fifty vessels, which had not yet ventured out of port, for fear of the overwhelming forces of the Athenians. The stir which was soon visible in the Syracusan arsenal disturbed Nicias, for his own squadron was now in very bad condition. The galleys had been lying on the beach for some months far from any dock, and were growing leaky. The crews were out of condition, and many of the slaves and mercenaries who filled the lower benches had begun to desert since the fortune of the armament seemed at an end. Nicias now began to take defensive measures, in case Gylippus should be emboldened to take the offensive. He occupied the Nicias asks peninsula of Plemmyrium, which runs out into the for aid. ggg^ opposite Ortygia, and removed to it the greater part of nis stores, and a considerable portion of the fleet. Three forts were erected in commanding positions to protect the new depot. If the unfortunate general had possessed sufficient moral strength to carry out his own plans, he would now have put his troops on shipboard and sailed home, abandoning the whole enterprise. But Nicias was a man of irresolute nature, and terribly afraid of responsibilitJ^ He dreaded the reception which would have awaited him in Athens, and instead of departing, as his own impulse urged, contented himself with sending despatches home to describe his evil plight, and to ask for further orders. " Unless Athens," he wrote, " was rea.ly to send to his assistance a very large expedition in the shortest possible time, or to allow him to return, he foresaw a disaster." Autumn was now at hand, and the time required for sending to Athens and receiving an answer 413 B.C.] Renewal of the War in Greece. 365 was so great, that it was obvious that the spring would have arrived before any orders sent from home could be carried out. The despatches of Nicias reached Athens at a most unfavourable moment, for it had just become evident that the renewal of llie war with Sparta was at hand. Exasperated by the The war sending of Peloponnesian troops to Syracuse, the '^^or^ce^'* Athenians had, in the summer of 414 B.C., openly 414B.c. broken the truce with Sparta by sending a fleet of forty ships to harry the coast of Laconia. Prasiae, Epidaurus Limera, and other places had been sacked and burnt ; the ephors had sworn vengeance, and it was known that the great inroads into Attica, which had ceased since 421 B.C., were to recommence next spring. It might have been expected that when the old strife with Sparta was about to be renewed, the Ecclesia would have commanded the instant return of the army in Sicily for service nearer home. But, blinded by their usual over-confidence and hopefulness, the Athenians resolved to persevere in the attack on Sysacuse. They refused to recall Xicias or to bring home the army, and sent out word that he should have reinforcements sufficient to bring the siege to a successful end. Demosthenes, the most distinguished general that Athens possessed, was to head the new expedition, which was almost to rival the first in its strength and resources, Eurymedou was sent forward at midwinter with ten ships to warn Nicias of the approaching aid. Meanwhile at Syracuse the winter of 414-13 B.C. was passing by. No decisive event had happened, but the Athenian army was visibly growing weaker, while Gylippus had raised several thousand men, from the Siceliot cities allied with Syracuse, to strengthen his already superior force. He had also persuaded the Syracusaus to launch every war-vessel that could possibly be made seaworthy, and not less than eighty galleys were now lying ready for service in the two harbours. When the spring arrived, he assumed the offensive ; marching inland, he worked right round to the rear of the Athenian camp, and established himself, under cover of the night, close to their depot at Plemmyrium. When gg^gghtsat the dawn came, his ships left the harbour and oftered Syracuse, the Athenians battle ; a violent conflict took place at the mouth of the Great Harbour, which ended in the defeat 366 Tlie Expedition of the Athe?iians to Sicily. [413b.c. of the Syracusans. But while Nicias was intent on the sea- fight, Gylippus had fallen upon the forts at Plemmyrium,. stormed all three, and got possession of the vast stores which had been heaped together on that peninsula. So far, too, were the Syracusans from feeling discouraged by the result of the naval engagement, that a few days later they sent out a squadron of twelve ships to cruise in the open sea. These vessels fell in with some Athenian ships, which were conveying treasure to Nicias, and destroyed several of them. Meanwhile King Agis, with a large Peloponnesian army, nad invaded Attica in April, and ravaged the whole country. He had taken the advice of Alcibiades, and established a permanent Spartan garrison at Decelea. Nevertheless the Athenians had not slackened in their determination to send help to Nicias, and while the Spartan army was still in the land, had sent forth Demosthenes and his expedition. He had seventy-five triremes, five thousand hoplites, of whom twelve hundred were Athenians, and a large force of light-troops. On his way he obtained considerable rein- forcements from Acarnania and also from Italy ; for, owing to domestic revolutions, the states of Metapontum and Thurii had just changed their policy and concluded an alliance with Athens. About the same time that Demosthenes sailed forth, the Spartans despatched several small squadrons, with about two thousand troops on board, under orders to cross the open sea to Sicily and run the Athenian blockade. When the news of the approach of Demosthenes reached Syra- cuse, Gylippus and his Syracusan colleagues resolved to make a determined attempt to crush Nicias, before he could receive his reinforcements. The Syracusan army, divided into two bodies, attacked the Athenian camp both from the city and from the inland ; at the same time their fleet offered battle with eighty ships in the Great Harbour. The forces of Nicias were now so weakened that he could only man seventy-five ships, though forty or fifty more lay empty on the beach. The attempt on the Athenian camp failed, but by sea, after two days' hard fighting, the Syracusans had the mastery, and compelled the enemy to seek refuge on shore under the protection of his land army, leaving seven or eight galleys behind him. The victory of the Siceliots 413 B.C.] Demosthenes at Syracuse. 367 was ascribed to the manner in which they had equipped their fleet; they had cut down and strengthened the bows of each ship, and made their beaks short and strong instead of long and sharp. When a Syracusan and an Athenian vessel came into direct collision, stem to stem, it resulted that the Aveaker beak of the latter made little impression on the solid bows of the other, while the shorter but stronger beak usually broke through tlie slighter frame of the Athenian ship. These direct collisions were bound to occur veiy frequently in the confined space of the Great Harbour, which gave the Athenians little room for the skirmishing tactics in which they excelled. Within a few days of the sea-fight Demosthenes arrived with his great armament, and once more threw the balance of power on to the side of the Athenians. Being a man of vigour Demosthenes and decision, he overruled the dilatory Kicias, and at Syracuse, commenced offensive operations the moment that his men were on shore. He first brought military engines to bear on the Syracusan counter-\«all, which shut the Athenians off from the plateau of Epipolae, and then tried to storm the works. His attack was repulsed, but his resources were not at an end. Marching inland under cover of the night, he ascended the hillside beyond Euryelus, the westernmost point of Epipolae, where the Syracusan counter- wall ended. This circuitous route brought him to the rear of the enemy's position, where his attack was wholly unexpected. He captured a fort, drove back the forces left to guard the wall, and pushed on for some time, carrying all before him. But presently his troops fell into disorder, the enemy rallied, and a desperate and confused conflict was carried on in the darkness. It terminated iu the rout of the Athenians, who sufi'ered terribly as they fled along the steep clifls, and lost as many men by the precipices as by the sword of the enemy. The defeat cost so many Defeat of lives, and demoralized the army to such an extent, Demosthenes, that Demosthenes at once decided that nothing remained possible but instant retreat. Nicias, however, withstood him, and insisted that the position was not yet hopeless, and that Syracuse would ere long ask for terms from sheer inability to bear any longer the intolerable pressure of the war. But soon the reinforcements from Tcloponuesus joined CTyl)i)pus, and at the same time a fever, bred 358 The Expedition of the Athenians to Sicily. l4i3B.o. in the marsh beside the Athenian camp, began to thin the invader'a ranks. Even Nicias now consented to abandon the siege, and gave orders for embarkation. But, on the niglit before the day of departure, a total eclipse of the moon occurred. The soothsayers, who were called in to interpret the omen, proclaimed that the army must remain quiet fur thrice nine days. Nicias, who was intensely superstitious, insisted on following their advice, and the embarkation was postponed for the period named. This was the last stroke needed to complete the ruin ol tne Athenians. The obvious preparations for departure in the in- Great sea-fleht vader's camp had raised the spirits of the Syracusans in the harbour, ^q i^^ highest pitch of exultation, and they com- menced a series of attacks which made the position of Nicias and Demosthenes more and more difficult. Their fleet, though little more than half as strong in mere numbers as that of the Athenians, was incessantly active. Its vigour and daring grew so great, that at last seventy-six Syracusan vessels routed a squadron of eighty- six which Eurymedon led out against them, slew that officer, and took eighteen of his ships. The next action of Gylippus showed that he had got beyond the idea of merely driving the Athenians away, and had begun to think of annihilating them. He rapidly threw across the narrow mouth of the Great Harbour, between Ortygia and the northernmost point of Plemmyrium, a barrier composed of merchantmen moored stem to stern, so as to com- pletely shut in the Athenian fleet. This drove even Nicias to desperate and immediate action. Every seaworthy ship that the invaders could muster was drawn down to the sea ; large drafts both of hoplites and of light-armed troops were sent on board, and a sui^reme effort was made to crush the Syracusans by gross force of numbers. A hundred and ten galleys, with Demosthenes at their head, sailed forth to burst the barrier at the mouth of the harbour, while Nicias kept guard in the camp on shore. The Syracusans, though they could only send out eighty vessels, did not decline the combat. The two fleets grappled together in the confined space of the harbour, and lay locked in close conflict for hours. The whole of Syracuse crowded to the walls of Ortygia to view the fight, while the Athenian land army mounted the ramparts of their camp to 413 B.C.] The Athenians Retreat by Land. 369 watch the dicision of their fate. The stake at issue was so heavy that the victory was disputed with far greater obstinacy than had been seen in any previous engagement. The Athenians had ruin staring them in the face, if they could not burst the barrier and force their way to sea ; the Syracusans were borne up by the self- confidence which their previous successes had generated, and determined not to lose the fruits of their long struggle. There was little manoeuvring possible, and the fight resembled a land battle on the sea, for the vessels drifted into knots, and lay wedged together, while the hoplites fought hand to hand in their attempts to board. At last the resolution of the Athenians began to fail them ; in spite of their superior numbers they had made no head- way, and had not even approached the boom. With a simultaneous impulse every vessel that could get loose backed water, turned, and made for the shore. The land army, with one loud groan of despair, ran down from the camp to the beach, to aid in dragging the ships into safet3^ Sixty came safely to land, fifty were left in the power of the enemy, or lay at the bottom of the harbour. The Syracusans had sufiered almost as severely in proportion to their numbers, for nearly thirty of their vessels were sunk or utterly disabled. Demosthenes made one final appeal to the defeated armament. He pointed out that the Athenian vessels which survived still outnumbered the enemy, that the victors were completely ex- hausted, and that the only real chance for escape lay in bursting the barrier. But when he ordered the seamen once more to embark, they sullenly refused to return to the battle; nothing more could be done at sea. The only remaining course for the Athenians was to burn their fleet, evacuate their camp, start inland, and attempt to reach Catana by a march of forty miles through the hills and defiles of the Syracusan territory. Clear-headed retreat by men foresaw that the attempt must end in ruin, for laid, the army was demoralized, the roads were bad, and a victorious enemy in overwhelming numbers was ready to start in pursuit. But to give the retreat any chance of success it must be commenced id once, before the Syracusans had time to beset the passes through which the army must thread its way. Misled, however, by false 2 B 370 The Expedition of the Athenians to Sicily. [413b.c. reports of the intentions of the enemy, Nicias refused to start the night after the battle, and even the next day was occupied in sorting over the stores, packing up treasure and provisions, and setthng the details of the march. On the third morning the whole army started forth in a great hollow square, with the baggage in the centre. Nicias led the van, Demosthenes the rear. Vast quantities of stores were abandoned, and the apathy and careless- ness displayed was so great that the larger part of the fleet was left unburnt for the enemy to tow away at leisure. Not only were the corpses of those who had fallen still lying unburied on the shore, but several thousand wounded were left behind, in spite of the pitiful appeals for aid which they addressed to their depart- ing countrymen. The whole mass of combatants and non-com- batants hurried away without any thought than that of saving their own persons. " They were quite disheartened and demoralized," writes Thucydides, " and resembled nothing but a whole city starved out and endeavouring to escape; and no small city too, for, counting the whole multitude, there were not less than forty thousand on the march." Meanwhile the two days of delay had permitted the Syracusans to seize all the difficult passes, throw up works against the fords, Disasters of and break down the bridges on every road which the the retreat, jf^^ti^enians could take. Moreover, they had planted parties of cavalry wherever the ground was open and level, so that no one could straggle from the ranks of the retreating force. On the first day the army forced the passage of tlie river Anapus and advanced five miles, not without sufiiering severe losses. On the second day they reached the foot of a pass called the Acraean Cliff, and found it strongly held by the enemy. The third and fourth days were spent in attempts to force this defile, which proved entirely unavailing : while the head of the army was fighting in the j)ass, the rear was being galled by unceasing cavalry charges, and shot down from a distance by the light-armed troops of the Syracusans. Finding the Acraean Cliff impregnable, the Athenians now fronted to the rear, and started off in a new direction ; as they could not reach Catana, they would endeavour to make their way to the friendly Sicels of the interior. The march now lay south- ward; before it could begin, Nicias had to cut his way through 413 B.C.] The Athenians Surrender. 371 the Syracusau corps which had been hanging on his rear, a feat which he accomplished only with heavy loss. The food of the retreating army was now well-nigh exhausted, and there was no spirit for fighting left in them; the whole force was ready to disband, and many thousands had already deserted and taken to the hills, in the hope of finding their way to Catana. When night came, the generals ordered fires to be lighted to deceive the enemy, and led off their remaining troops with such speed as they could. Nicias, with the smaller half of the army, got clear away and gained some miles on his pursuers ; but Demosthenes, who had lost his way in the darkness, was struggling along far to the rear. Tn the morning the Syracusans found the enemy vanished, and started off in hot haste to pui'sue him. They came up with Demosthenes' corps as it was making its way through a narrow defile. The Athenians made little resistance; many were cut dovvn, the main body took refuge in a walled enclosure which they held for a few hours. Then, finding themselves entirely sur- rounded, they laid down their arms on condition that their lives should be spared. Six thousand men were taken here, a much larger number had fallen or been captured before Demosthenes the final surrender. Demosthenes threw himself captured, upon his sword when the surrender took place ; but the wound was not mortal, and he was borne back, still living, to Syracuse. Meanwhile Nicias, relieved for a day from the pressure of the enemy on his rear, had forced the passage of the river Cacyparis, and made considerable progress southward. But on the next day the Syracusan horse reappeared to molest his march, and brought him news of the capture of Demosthenes. Gylippus now bade the Athenian surrender ; but Nicias, making a final effort, pushed on as far as the river Asinarus, though his men were now so famished and weary that it was hard to get them to move. By the lime that the river was reached, the Syracusans had gone round and occupied the further bank. Hundreds of the Athenians perished in the stream, as they strove to cross ; as many were trodden down in the narrow ford by their comrades as fell by the darts of the Siceliots. Soon the resistance ceased ; Nicias gave Nicias himself up to Gylippus, and such of his followers as surrenders, were granted quarter by the exultant enemy were sent to join the 372 The Expedition of the Athenians to Sicily. [-113 b.c. trooixs of Demosthenes in captivity. A few scores at most escaped to the hills and reached Catana. " Thus ended," says Thucydides, " the greatest adventure thae the Greeks entered into during this war, and in my opinion the greatest in which Greeks were ever concerned ; the one most splendid for the conquerors and most disastrous for the conquered ; for they suffered no common defeat, but were absolutely annihilated, —land army, fleet, and all — and of many thousands only a handful ever returned home." The Syracusans used their victory in no gentle spirit. In spite of the remonstrances of Gylippus, they put to death the two un- Fateofthe fortunate generals who had fallen into their bands.^ generals. ^\\ Greece lamented Nicias, " the most respectable man of bis age," whose private virtues, moderation, and love of peace should have earned him a better fate. But in troublous times incompetence incurs a greater punishment than crime. It cannot be denied that the half-hearted and dilatory proceedings of Nicias were the chief cause of the great disaster in which he perished. It is doubtful whether the supineness with which he conducted his operations at first, or the obstinacy which he dis- played in refusing to bring the expedition home when fortune had turned against him, was the more fatal to the expedition. At any rate, this respectable man dragged down to death his able colleague Demosthenes, lost his country the largest and finest armament it had ever sent out, and ultimately brought about the downfall of its imperial power. The prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the Syracusans were hardly better treated than their generals. They were shut Misery of the up ^r ^^^6 custody in the quarries which abounded on prisoners. ^\-^q hiHsides of Epipolae, with no protection from the sun or the rain, and a very insufficient ration of bread and water, only half the ordinary dole of a slave, to keep body and soul together. Worn out by their late exertions, and exposed to absolute famine, they began to die off like flies as the unhealthy weather ' Thucydides saj's that they were actuallj' executed ; other authorities, that they slew themselves to avoid the ignominy of a public execution, having been forewarned of their fate by Gylippus, or by the Syracusan general Hermocrates. 413 B.C.] Fate of the Prisoners. 373 of the autumn set in. The Syracusans let the corpses lie unburied among the surviving prisoners, till the stench bred an infectious fever that threatened to spread into the cit3\ After seventy days, all but the native Athenians and those of their allies who were Siceliots were sold by auction as slaves. The remainder were exposed to the miseries of the quarries for eight months, till the greater portion of them perished. Those who still survived seem then to have been sold into slavery like their companions. We read that pity for their fate, and admiration for the calm courage with which they supported their misfortunes, finally led to the release of the greater number of them. But hardly one in ten of those who had sailed forth in such exuberant hopefulness to subdue Sicily ever saw his home again. CHAPTEK XXXIII. THE DECLINE OF THE POWER OF ATHENS, DOWN TO THE FALL OF THE FOUR HUNDRED, 413-411 B.C. The final disaster of the Athenians in Sicily had befallen them about the middle of the month of September ; some weeks later confused rumours of it began to spread through Greece, reaching Sparta and Corinth long before they arrived at Athens. We are assured by Plutarch that the news first came to those who were most concerned in it in the most casual way. A seafaring stranger landed at Peiraeus, and entered a barber's shop, where he began speaking of the deaths of Nicias and Demosthenes as events already known to every one. The barber no sooner heard the story than he ran up to Athens, to give information to the magistrates. But when he was brought forward, interrogated as to the particulars of the disaster and told to produce his informant, the poor man was at a loss. There was no one to corroborate his tale, and as the news seemed perfectly incredible to those who had seen the two magnificent armaments sail forth against Syracuse, he was treated as a forger of false news and sentenced to be exposed on the wheel. He had been suffering the torture some time, when several soldiers, who had escaped from Sicily before the final sur- render, appeared to bear out his tale. But even when well-known and respectable citizens, who had seen the fatal end of the expedi- tion, came straggling back to Athens with full particulars of the disaster, the people refused to credit them. It seemed impossible that so large and strong a fleet and army could perish so utterly. Nevertheless the situation had to be faced. It was of no use to Exhaustion niob the orators who had promoted the expedition, or of Athens, ^q denounce the soothsayers and diviners who had prophesied its success. What had to be done was to take stock of 413 B.C.] The Exhaustion of Athens. 375 the remaining resources of the city, and to see if the naval and commercial empire of Athens could yet be preserved. The survey did not promise well ; nearly two himdred ships out of a navy that had never numbered more than three hundred had been engulfed in the disaster. There only remained to Athens a squadron of twenty-seven vessels at Naupactus, and some thirtj' or forty more ready for service in home waters. Three thousand seven hundred hoplites had been lost out of a force that, since the great plague, did not muster more than ten or eleven thousand men fit for foreign service. Moreover, tlie finances of the state had been drained to the very bottom by the expense of sending forth the second expedition so soon after the first. Of all the funds that had been stored in the Acropolis, there only remained the thousand talents that Pericles had set aside, to be used only if Athens were to be attacked by a hostile fleet. The soil of Attica had just been ravaged by an army of overpowering strength, and the fort at Decelea showed that the Spartans were about to adopt a new and annoying method of warfare. Already some thousands of slaves had deserted to that post, which offered them a close and easy refuge from their masters. Nor was this all. At any moment a Peloponnesian squadron might insult the scantly guarded coast of Attica, and ere long the confederate fleet, which had conquered at Syracuse, ^ J ' The Athenians might be expected to appear in overwhelming force determine on in the waters of the Aegean. Athens might well '■®^'^*^'*°®- have despaired, and sent to ask from her enemies what terms they would be pleased to grant her. It is surprising to learn that she showed no signs of doing so ; on the contrary, crippled and beggared though she was, she nerved herself for a second struggle, not less lengthy and far more desperate than that which had raged between 431 B.C. and 422 b.o. The deadly fear of the moment, says Thucydides, drove the democracy into a mood of discipline and self-restraint to which it had long been a stranger. A committee of public safety was elected and entrusted with absolute power for the crisis ; every source of expenditure in the city that could be dispensed with was cut down ; the thousand talents which Pericles had laid by were voted as supply for building a new fleet ; con- tributions of money and ship-timber were requisitioned from the 376 Athens at Bay. t4i3B.c« allies, and gari'isons were seat to Euboea and certain other strategical points. All this i^reparation would have been useless if the Spartans had taken time by the forelock, and attacked Athens by sea and land the moment that the result of the fighting at Syracuse was known. But Sparta was ever dilatory ; her rulers resolved to make a great effort, but took their time to prepare it. Instead of instantly blockading Peiraeus with every vessel they could muster, they decided to spend the winter in constructing a fleet of overwhelming strength, and to defer operations till the spring. It seems not to have occurred to them that while they were building new triremes their enemies also would have time to do the same. Naturall}^ when the news arrived that the dockyards of Corinth and Gytheum and Aulis were busy, the Athenians commenced to lay down new keels in every slip that Peiraeus could provide ; by the midsummer of 412 B.C. they calculated on having a hundred vessels ready for sea. The winter of 413-412 B.C. was spent in these preparations on each side, and Athens obtained the respite that she so much „ , . needed. But meanwhile the members of the Con- The Athenian aUiesbenton federacy of Delos were realizing the position ; in well- nigh every state there was a powerful oligarchic faction eager for independence, which had long been waiting for an opportunity to revolt from Athens. The democratic party in each citj'-, on the other hand, preserved but a passive and un- enthusiastic loyaltj"- towards its suzerain, and was quite unpre- pared to make any sacrifice in her behalf. The reverses of Athens gave to the one faction a motive for instant rebellion, and laid before the other a chilling prospect of additional taxes and contributions if they adhered to their ancient mistress. Accord- ingly most of the leading states of Ionia sent secret emissaries to Sparta or Thebes, offering to cast off the Athenian yoke the moment that a Peloponnesian fleet should appear in Asiatic waters. The Chians sent emissaries to Sparta and oi^ened negotiations with the ephors through the medium of Alcibiades, who was the close friend of Endius, the most prominent member of the Ephoralty. The Lesbians and Euboeans made a similar application to King Agis, who was occupied in Northern Greece and had planted his 413 B.C.J Revolt of Chios, 377 head-quarters at Decelea. Pharnabazus, the Persian satrap of the lands on the Hellespont, sent, in behalf of himself and of several Greek cities in his neighbourhood, to beg for the despatch of a fleet to the Propontis. Tissaphernes, the satrap of Lydia, made a similar request, and supported the demand of the Chians. Each of these barbarians had come to the conclusion that the break-up of the Athenian empire would give him an opportunity of recovering some of the lost coast-land of his satrapy. They vied with each other in promising assistance, both in men and money, if once a Peloponnesian fleet should cross the Aegean. The Spartans resolved to send first to Chios, the most powerful of the disafl'ected states, and afterwards to aid Lesbos and the cities of the Hellespont. But, instead of concentrating ^^^^ ^^ their fleet, they sent out small squadrons piecemeal, Chios, just as eacii could be got ready for sea. The first which sailed consisted of twenty Corinthian ships, but this was intercepted and blockaded off the Argive coast by the Atheuiau home-fleet. However, the Spartan admiral Chalcideus slipped out from Gytheum with five vessels, taking with him Alcibiades as a volunteer, and safely reached Chios. That great city at once revolted, and placed its fleet of thirty ships at the disposal of the Spartan. Clazomenae, Erythrae, and Teos soon followed the example of Chios ; it was to no effect that the Athenians hurried off every galley that could possibly be got to sea. The mischief was done before the first of them could reach Ionia. A desultory naval campaign now began off the Asiatic coast ; it was full of unforeseen turns of fortune, for each side was alternately receiving reinforcements from home, and obtaining a precarious superiority over the enemy. The balance of success, however, lay with the Spartans. Although they failed at Mitylene, which revolted but was recaptured, they won great successes in other quarters. Miletus, still a great town, though no longer the metropolis of Ionia, joined them with enthusiasm ; lasus, which resisted them, was taken by storm. At the approach of autumn their superiority was made more marked by the arrival of a considerable fleet from Syracuse. The Siceliots had determined to repay Athens for her unprovoked aggression in 415 B.C., and sent their favourite general Hermocrates with twenty -two ships to aid in revolutionizing Ionia. 378 Athens at Bay. [412 b.c. It says more for the facility than for the Hellenic patriotism of the Spartan admirals that they entered into very humiliating terms The Spartans of alliance with the Persian satraps of the neigh- itssaphernes, hourhood. An agreement drawn up between Chalci- 412 B.C. deus and Tissaphernes actually stipulated that, in return for supplies of money, Sparta should help the Persian to take back " all that the Great King's forefathers had held in Asia;" a phrase which, if pressed to its logical meaning, would have surrendered Miletus, Clazomenae, and the other mainland towns into the power of King Darius. Astyochus, who succeeded Chalcideus, thought the wording of the treaty objectionable, and substituted for the original clause another, which merely declared that " the Lacedaemonians and their allies should not proceed to attack any city which belonged to King Darius or his ancestors." This change relieved the Spartans of the obligation to assist the Great King in recovering the Greek towns which had once been his, but bound them to stand by and permit the restoration of the Persian power, if the satraps were strong enough to effect it. Though less disgraceful in form, the second treaty was as despicable in spirit as the first. The first year of war after the Syracusan disaster had failed to ruin Athens ; it had seen the revolt of some of her most important allies, but she still kept up the fight, favoured by the dilatoriness and want of fixed purpose which the Spartan government and the Spartan commanders had alike displayed. The respite had allowed her to build and launch a formidable fleet, and she was now in a position to struggle on, putting off by her desperate efforts the final day of disaster, which was bound to arrive at no very distant date. For when once the great Ionian towns had committed themselves to revolt, there was no hope that the Athenian empire could be kept together. For the ensuing ijeriod of the war the operations of the Athenians were carried on from the base of Samos. In that island the democratic faction had just risen, and massacred some hundreds of oligarchs. This action bounei them by the tie of fear to their suzerain, for they knew that the victory of Sparta would be followed by the re-establishment of a Philo-Laconian oligarchy, which would take ample revenge for the late slaughter. Samos 411B.C.3 Alcibiades in Ionia. 379 was nearer to Athens than any other of the great Ionian ports, and lay in an advantageous position, enabling its possessors to intercept communications between the two chief areas of revolt — the northern which centred at Chios, and the southern which lay around Miletus. In the early spring of 411 B.C., a further disaster befell the Athenians by the revolt of the three cities of the great island of Ehodes, The Athenians from Saraos sailed to recover the island, but, when faced by the combined force of Rhodes, the Peloponnesian and Chian fleets, declined the battle, '*^^ ^^' on account of their decided inferiority in numbers. After this, however, the successes of the Spartans came to a standstill ; their monetary resources had been exhausted by the expense of keeping a great armada at sea for a whole year, and their chief paymaster, the satrap Tissaphernes, was beginning to slacken in his granting of subsidies. The Persian is said to have been turned from his zeal for the Spartan cause by the advice of Alcibiades. That volatile personage had sailed for Asia with the full intention of doing all ., .^. , ^ Alcibiades at in his power to spread the revolt ; but renegades are sardis. alwaj's distrusted by those they serve, and Alcibiades had, in addition, made himself personally hateful to some of the leading men in Sparta. His crowning offence is said to have been that he seduced the wife of King Agis. He soon found that he was regarded with suspicion by his colleagues, and after an unsuc- cessful engagement in front of Miletus, which had been entered into by his advice, was constrained to quit the Spartan camp, in fear for his life. He betook himself to the court of Tissaphernes, with whom he soon contrived to ingratiate himself, by the perfect knowledge both of Spartan and Athenian plans which he displayed, and by the ingenuity with which he pushed the satrap's interests. He pointed out to the Persian that if he lavished his resources on the Peloponnesian fleet, and allowed the Athenians to be crushed, he would find that he had only replaced the Athenian empire by a Spartan empire. Athens was a naval power only desirous of holding the sea-coast; but the Lacedaemonians, who had always aimed at empire on land, would be dangerous neighbours, likely to covet the conquest of the inner districts of Asia Minor. The wisest 380 Athens at Bay. t4iiB.o. course would be lo lot the two Greek powers wear down each other's resources, and meanwhile to lay hands quietly on every Ionian town that could be secured, and hold it nominally against the Athenians, but really for the Great King. Tissaphernes saw the force of this advice, and promptly cut down by half the supplies of money he had been furnishing to the Spartans. He also kept them inactive, by promising the aid of a Phoenician fleet which never arrived ; and when the commanders complained to him, put them off with personal bribes, but did not do anything for their armament. Finding Tissaphernes so ready to take his advice, Alcibiades began to think out a new method of turning his influence with the satrap to good account. A short experience of the narrow meanness of Spartan life and the soulless pomp of an Oriental court had set him longing for the free and liberal atmosphere of Athens. He began to dream of securing his return from exilo, by propitiating Athenian public opinion by some extraordinary service. Had it been only the matter of the Mysteries that stood charged to his score, the people might easily have pardoned him ; but some striking feat was needed to atone for his flight to Sparta and his too effective advice that Decelea should be fortified. It occurred to Alcibiades that if he could draw Tissaphernes over to the Athenian alliance, and induce the Persian to open his purse for the needs of the well-nigh bankrupt city, his pardon might jDOSsibly be granted. Accordingly he began to sound his private friends in the Athenian armament at Samos, to see how they liked the idea. He found Alcibiades that there was a strong party in the camp who were "the^AthenTau lodging to get rid of the democratic government at oUgarchs. Athens ; it was the democracy which had been respon- sible for the Sicilian expedition, and the wealthier and landed classes were now suffering for its sins by the ruin of their estates. Accordingly he found it easy to spread a report among the mal- contents that if the present constitution were overturned in Athens, and an oligarchic government installed in its place, he could undertake to bring over Tissaphernes to the Athenian alliance ; without a change the Persian could not be won, for he had a rooted distrust of democracies. The intrigue prospered even better than Alcibiades had ventured to hope ; many ofiBcers of note in 411 B.C.] Oligarchic Conspiracy at Savios and Athens. 381 the force at Samos furthered it with zeal, and a deputation of them, headed by the general Peisander, sailed across to Athens to enlist recruits in its favour. The only man who opposed the scheme was Phrynichus, another of the generals, and he set himself against it, not because he disliked an oligarchy, but merely because he had a personal grudge against Alcibiades. The main mass of the array was imperfectly informed about the intrigue ; and though it suspected and disliked the proposals of the conspirators, it was content to let matters take their course, if thereby the aid of Persia could be secured. Peisander and the oligarchs from Samos made no secret of their plans at Athens ; they boldly laid the proposals of Alcibiades before the Ecclesia; they pointed out that if affairs Peisander went on as they had been doing of late, the ruin at Athens, of Athens must be close at hand, while the Persian alliance would save the state. The price to be paid, the sacrifice of the cherished democratic constitution, was heavy; but was not any sacrifice preferable to destruction? One after another the enemies of Alcibiades rose to recall the misdeeds of the renegade statesman ; demagogues denounced his lawless insolence, and priests expatiated upon his sacrilegious outrages, and warned the people not to draw down the wrath of Heaven by recalling him. But of every speaker Peisander asked the same unanswerable question— Was it not true that the Spartans were superior at sea, that the allies were revolting, that the treasury of the state was empty ; if so, could they suggest any better way of staving off the impending ruin? After a long and tumultuous debate, the people, convinced against their will, voted that Peisander and ten commissioners with him should sail to Asia, and open negotiations with Alcibiades and Tissaphernes, on such terms as they could secure. Before starting, Peisander set working all the oligarchic influences which could be utilized in Athens for the overthrow of the constitution. He stirred up the numerous political ^, • 1 /> <• . n Oligarchic clubs, which existed for purposes of influencing conspiracy elections and trials, and exhorted them to unite and ^ * ^°^' act without fear or scruple when a favourable moment arrived. The rhetorician Antiphon, a skilful wire-puller who took no 382 Athens at Bay. t4iiB.c. ostensible part in politics, but was deep in all the secrets of the party, was entrusted with the management of the conspiracy. Other leaders were soon forthcoming, among them many men who had never been suspected of any disloyalty to the democratic constitution, and everything was prepared for a vigorous couj) d^etat. But when Peisander and his colleagues had returned to Asia and arrived at the court of Tissaphernes, a new complication arose. Alcibiades found that he had much less influence with the satrap than he had supposed, and could not prevail on him to take any steps towards concluding an alliance with Athens; all that the Persian would do was to stint his supplies to the Peloponuesians, and keep their fleet idle. When placed in the dilemma, and forced to confess that he was either unwilling or unable to carry out his promises, Alcibiades took refuge in evasions. He pretended that Tissaphernes was still willing to conclude a treaty, but proposed as preliminary conditions that the Athenians should surrender to him all their subject-cities on the mainland of Asia. When his exorbitant demand was reluctantly granted, he began to ask for the Asiatic islands also, and made himself so impracticable that the ambassadors in great wrath broke off the negotiations and returned to Samos. While these intrigues were in progress the war dragged itself slowly on, without any important action. As the Spartan fleet lay immovable at Ehodes, the Athenians from Samos succeeded in establishing a blockade round Chios, and even landed troops on that island, but did not make any great progress towards its reduction. Elsewhere the war stood still. The failure of Peisander's negotiations with Alcibiades placed the oligarchic party in a very difticult position. They had made „ ,.^. , all arrangements for a revolution, and gone so far Political . , » » murders at that it was difflcult to stop. At home the clubs had been hard at work; proposals had been mooted to entrust the conduct of the war to some less unwieldy body than the Ecclesia, to abolish all payments to dicasts and eccle- siasts, and to save the scanty revenue of the state to maiutaip the soldiers and seamen in active service. These proposals pro voked opposition from the democratic party; but when Androcles, the leading demagogue of the day, and several of his supporter? 411 B.C.J The Four Hundred. 383 were promptly slain by assassins, the people were cowed, and open resistance to the oligarchic agitation almost entirely ceased. Conscious that a great plot was on foot, but ignorant of its extent and objects, the mass of the citizens waited passively to sec what was going to happen. Emboldened by the impunity which they were enjoying, the oligarchs resolved to carry out their plans, even though Alcibiades had played them false. Many of them felt all the more confident from not having the over-subtile exile on their side ; and several men of importance, including the ex-general Phrjmichus, joined the party when once they knew that Alcibiades was not to have any control over its actions. It was resolved that a simultaneous attempt should be made to win over to the oligarchy the fleet at Samos and the city of Athens. At Samos the plot failed ; when the oligarchs, allied with the aristocratic party among the Samians, rose in arms under the General Charmlnos, they found themselves too weak .^ ^. ' '' Abortive for their task. After slaying a few of their opponents, rising at — among them the exiled Athenian demagogue ^-mos. Hyperbolas, who had been for some time resident at Samos — they were put down by force of numbers. The Samian democracy and the majority of the Athenians from the fleet combined against them, and crushed them without any serious fighting. The moment that the rising was suppressed, the victors sent home the state-galley called the Paralus with the news. When the Paralus anived at Athens, that city was found to have fallen into the hands of the oligarchs. The revolution at Athens had been conducted with more dexterity and less violence than that at Samos. Peisander, Antiphon, and Phrynichus had determined to avoid open fighting if possible. When they knew that the Ecclesia had been frightened and paralyzed by the sudden murder of Androcles and other democratic leaders, they brought forward a motion that ten ^ commissioners should be appointed to lay before the people a scheme of constitutional reform. This proposal was carried ; a few days after, the commissioners, who had been carefully chosen from among the oligarchs, summoned the ■ Thucj'dides says ten : the new noAireia tuiv ^AOrjualut' thirty. 384 Athens at Bay, [4iib.o. Ecclesia to meet, not on the Pnyx, but at the temple of Poseidon at Colonus, a suburb a mile without the city. The democracy, suspecting some snare — perhaps an attack from the garrison of Decelea — would not trust themselves outside the The Four walls of Athens, and a packed and scanty meeting at =?Ji°,!^«^,. Colonus was able to vote away the time-honoured seize pow^er •' at Athens, constitution of Cleisthenes. On the proposal of Peisander, a bill was carried to elect five men as presidents, who again should chose a hundred, and each of these hundred three men more, and that the whole body, four hundred strong, should assume the government of the state in place of the archons and the senate. They were to be responsible to a body of five thousand full citizens, chosen by themselves; the rest of the Athenians were practically disfranchised.^ When the assembly had dispersed, without a single voice being raised against the bill, the Four Hundred marched on the Prytaneum, followed by a body of hoplites who had been secretly got together for their assistance. They found the senate in session, and summoned it to disjierse ; the senators were no less terror-stricken than the people, and obeyed the command ; as they went out each was given the public allowance of money due to him for the remainder of his term of office. We do not hear that a single man dared to resent the insult. Having cleared out their predecessors, the Four Hundred did solemn sacrifice, and assumed all the functions of government. Their first step was to send to King Agis at Decelea, to inform him that a Philo-Spartan oligarchy was installed in power, and anxious to treat for terras of peace. Agis, however, instead of treating, made a rapid march on Athens, thinking to find it in open sedition, and easily to be captured by a vigorous coup-de- main. His plan, however, was foiled; the gates were closed and the walls manned, so that, after losing a few men in a sally, he was fain to return in haste to Decelea. When the Four Hundred again made overtures to him, he received them with greater respect, and forwarded their envoys to the ephors at Lacedaemon. The Paralus arrived at the Peiraeus, with the news of the sup- ' So Thucydides. The rather confused account in the \lo\ireia tZv ^AB-qvaltav says that the 400 were elected by the tribes, 40 by each. 411 B.C.J The Athenians at Santos. 385 pression of tho oligarchic rising in SamoH, shortly after the Four Hundred had taken over the conduct of affairs. The army Fearing lest the democracy should be encouraged to deciar^°for revolt when the events at Saraos became known, the democracy, new rulers imprisoned some of the crew of the Paralus, and sent the rest off at once to cruise round Euboea. But Chaereas, the captain of the vessel, escaped and returned at once to Samos, where he laid the news of the revolution before the army. A great burst of democratic feeling swept through the ranks of the soldiery when the tale of Peisander's intrigues was heard ; they deposed all the generals and trierarchs who were suspected of oligarchic leanings, and placed at their head two officers named Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, whose loyalty was undoubted. At a solemn assembly the whole army swore " to hold to the democracy, to live in con- cord, to zealously prosecute the war with Sparta, and to be foes to the Four Hundred, and have no intercourse with them." All the Samians of the democratic party took the same oath, being as much interested as the Athenians themselves in the suppression of oligarchic plots. Thrasybulus and his colleagues reasoned that as the whole naval force of Athens was in their hands, they would be able to rescue the mother-city from her oppressors. If the Four Hundred held out against them, they could easily make Samos, and not Athens, the seat for the time being of the Athenian empire ; for the allied states would pay their allegiance and hand over their tribute to the party which controlled the fleet of Athens, not to that which sat helpless and isolated within her walls. In short, the army claimed to represent the Athenian state, and resolved to make no account of the usurping Four Hundred. Thrasybulus and Thra.syllus now proposed the recall of Alcibiades from exile, intending to enlist his influence with Tissaphernes on the side of the democracy. Their proposal was RecaUof welcomed by the army, and, after four years of Alcibiades. banishment, Alcibiades appeared once more in the assembly of his countrymen. He came full of protestations of his goodwill, and of his ability to bring over his friend the satrap to the Athenian cause; his promises gained such credit that he was at once elected as a colleague to Thrasybfdus and Thrasyllus, and granted full powers to treat with Tissaphernes, Accordingly he sailed off 2o 386 Athene at Bay, [41ib.c. to find the satrap, who lay at this moment far southward ia the PamphyHaa city of Aspcndus. Tissaphernes had found the Peloponnesiaa admirals wrought up to a dangerous pitch of wrath by the inactivity to which he had reduced their fleet, and by his constant interviews with Alcibiades ; accordingly he had at last determined to bring up the Phronician fleet 'to their aid. There were more than a hundred Phoenician vessels lying at Aspendus when Alcibiades arrived at the place. Nevertheless, the Athenian contrived to persuade the satrap to send the ships away, though he had only just brought them on to the scene of action. The fleet returned home, and the Spartans were more than ever enraged with their faithless ally. The most important result of this diplomatic success, however, was to restore Alcibiades to the full confidence of the army at Samos, who believed that he had given conclusive proof of his absolute control over the mind of Tissaphernes — a control which he was in reality very far from possessing. Meanwhile, everything at Athens was conspiring to ruin the cause of the Four Hundred. Their authority received a desperate Civil strife shock when the news of the events at Samos became at Athens, j^nowu. Dissensions, too, broke out among their own body. The more violent party under Phrynichus and Antiphon proposed to strengthen their position by throwing themselves into the hands of the Spartans, and by calling Peloponnesian troops within the walls; for this purpose they began to construct a fort at the mole of Eetiouea in the Peiraeus, built so as to facilitate the entry of the enemy. Their desperate treason was opposed by a more moderate faction, headed by Theramenes, a supple statesman who was always to be found on the safe side. Luckily for Athens, the Spartans were still suspicious of the good faith of the Four Hundred, and were so tardy in taking advantage of the civil strife in the citj', that they once more lost their opportunity. The first blow to the oligarchy came from the assassination of Phrynichus ; as he left the Senate House he was stabbed by a young soldier, who escaped, though the deed was wrought at midday in the midst of the market-place. A few days later a body of hoplites broke into open mutiny, seized and demolished the suspected fort at Eetionea, and placed Theramenes at their head. «iB.c.] Revolt of Euboea. 387 This crisis induced the Four Hundred to take measiures to reader their j^ower more popular, by calling the assembly of the Five Thousand into existence : hitherto they had neg- sea-fleht at lected to summon it. But it was too late ; open war Eretria. seemed about to break out in the city ; the oligarchs held the Senate House, while the malcontents lay round the temple of the Diosciiri to the south of the Acropolis. Suddenly, however, the face of affairs was changed by the alarming news that a fleet of forty-two Peloponnesian ships was threatening Peiraeus. Abandoning their dissensions, both parties ran down to the harbour and commenced to launch every war-vessel that could be found. The Spartan admiral Agesandridas had come prepared to take advantage of the treachery of Phrynichus ; but Phrynichus was dead, and his fort at Eetionea destroyed. Accordingly the Spartan left Peiraeus behind, rounded Sunium, and made for Euboea, whoso malcontents had long been praying for aid to enable them to revolt. Thirty-six Athenian ships, manned in hot haste and very imperfectly fitted out, chased Agesandridas up the Euboean strait, and brought him to action off Eretria. The fight resulted in the complete rout of the ill-found and ill-handled Athenian fleet ; only fourteen vessels succeeded in escaping from the disaster. The moment that the result of the battle was known, every city in Euboea revolted to the Spartans, with the single exception of Histiaea, which was held (see j). 266) by Athenian cleruchs. To bind the island to the mainland and obviate the possibility of reconquest, the Euboeans and their continental neighbours of Boeotia combined to throw a bridge over the narrowest point of the Euripus, just opposite Chalcis. The loss of Euboea was a terrible blow to Athens ; since Attica had become unsafe, it had been customary to keep in that spacious island all the flocks and herds which supplied the city, and to utilize it as a storehouse conveniently placed at the doors of Athens. The news of its revolt almost made the Athenians despair ; even the disaster at Syracuse had caused less dismay, for that had taken place far away, while the battle of Eretria had beea fought in the home- waters of the navy of Athens, and almost under the eyes of her citizens. The immediate result of the revolt of Euboea was the final over- 388 Athens at Bay. 1411 b.c. throw of the Four Uiinrircd, for ever}' one cast the responsihility , ^ for the disaster on the shoulders of those whose FaU of the Four factious violence had thro\vn the city off her guard. An assembly once more met on the Pnyx, the ancient gathering-place of the democracy, and formally deposed the usurping government. The body of the Five Thousand was suffered nominally to exist; but as it was enacted that every citizen possessing a suit of armour should be included in the number, a modified democracy was in reality restored. The same assembly passed a decree authorizing the return of Alcibiades from exile, and approving of all the actions of the army at Samos. "When their deposition was decreed, the Four Hundred dispersed and fled. Peisander and most of his colleagues made their way to Decelea ; one of them, the general Aristarchus, signalized his defection by inducing the blockaded garrison of Oenoe, a strong fort on the northern border, to surrender to the Boeotians, on a false report of a general pacification. A few of the more notable members of the Four Hundred were caught, brought to trial, and executed. Of these the most prominent was the rhetorician Autiphon, whose speech in defence of his actions was considered the most stirring burst of eloquence ever heard in an Athenian law-court. Nevertheless he was condemned, and expiated his treason by a well-deserved death. Thus fell the Four Hundred, after a stormy and inglorious rule extending over no more than four months. The net result of their cons"piracy was a small gain — • the abolition of pay for civil duties, — and the 'great loss — the aban- donment of Euboea.^ ' In the whole matter of the Four Hundred Thucydides is here followed rather than the noXire/a rSiv 'AdijvMuy. But the latter certainly appears to be drawing from official dccuments, though quoting them in a very confused way. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FAI,L OF ATHENS, 411-401 B.C. END OF THE PELOPON- NESIAN WAR. It might have heen expected that the civil strife caused by the usurpation of the Four Hundred would have brought about tlie ruin of Athens. But once more the slackness and want of enter- prise of the Spartan commanders came to the rescue of their enemies. In the western Aegean Agesandridas, who had swept the Athenian home-fleet off the water, accomplished nothing more than the revolt of Euboea. Though completely commanding the sea, he made no attempt to blockade Athens — a feat which he could have accomplished with ease, for there were now only twenty ships ready for service at Peiraeus. After lingering some time by the Euripus, he set sail eastward, to reinforce the Peloiwnnesian fleet in Asia. "Truly," as Thucydides observes, "the Spartans were a very convenient people to be at war with ; " they generally did what their enemy most desired. ]\Ieanwhile the Athenians at Samos bad been planning an expe- dition to expel the Four Hundred from the mother-city, a design from which they were turned by Alcibiades, who persuaded them to persevere in the defence of Ionia, and to let matters at home right themselves. This advice was accepted, and the Pclopou- uesian fleet was not left to work its will unresisted, as would have been the case if the expedition to Athens had been carried out. By giving this counsel Alcibiades did a real service to his country for the first time in his whole political career. As the autumn drew near, the Peloponnesian admiral IMindarus gave up all hopes of help from Tissaphernes, and resolved to shift the scene of action northward. He knew that the Hellespontino cities were ripe for revolt, and hoped for hearty aid from Pharna- 390 The Fall of At hois. [41ib.c.- bazus, the Persian satrap of Northern Asia Minor, who had proved himself a zealous and trustworthy ally of Sparta. The Spartans had already been provided with a base of operations on the Helles- pont, for two small expeditions had been sent thither a few months before, and had brought about the rebellion of Abydos and Byzan- tium. Accordingly Mindarus, steering a westward course out into the Aegean, so as to escape the notice of the Athenian fleet at Samos, started with seventy-three ships for the Hellespont. He intended to reach the straits, seize all the cities on their shores, and block the way for the corn-sliips from the Euxine, that brought to Athens the supplies of food on which her inhabitants were mainly supported. A storm delayed the Spartan, and when he reached the Hellespont the Athenians from Samos were close on his heels. The generals Thrasybiilus and Thrasyllns had put to sea with every ship they could muster, and by calling in detachments from all sides had got together a fleet nearly as strong as tliat of Min- darus. They brought him to action in the narrow waters between Sestos and Abydos, at the promontory of Cynossema, hard by the tomb and chapel of the legendary Trojan queen Hecuba. After a hard fight Mindarus was beaten, and his fleet compelled to run ashore under the walls of Abydos, leaving twenty-one vessels in the hands of Thrasyllus. But though checked the Spartan was not crushed ; he was encouraged by the revolt of several cities on the Propontis, and he hoped to renew the struggle by the aid of Agesandridas' fleet from Euboca, now hastily summoned to his aid, and of some reinforcements from Rhodes which were on their way to him. The squadron from Euboea was caught in a storm off Mount Athos, and almost entirely destroyed ; but the force from , the south reached the Hellespont, though pursued by Battles in the x ' o i HeUespont, Alcibiades, who had collected a small fleet at Cos and 411 B.C. gfii^os. Seeing his reinforcements at hand, Mindarus put out from Abydos to join them. A battle ensued, which remained undecided till Alcibiades was seen coming up in the distance. Then the Pcloponnesians turned tail and once more sought refuge by running ashore; there they were joined b}^ a Persian force under Pharnabazus, who did his best to save the stranded ships. But the Athenians persisted, and toAved off in triumph thirty galleys, a full third of the fleet of Mindarus. 410 B.C.] Battles in the Hellespont. 391 Believing that the Spartan was now thorouglily disabled, Thra- syllus and Alcibiades dispersed their fleet and went into winter quarters. Alcibiades took the opportunity to pay a visit to his old friend Tissaphernes ; but the satrap had lately received a rebuke from Susa on account of his double-dealing policy, and was in no mood to welcome the Athenian. Instead of meeting his whilom councillor with effusion, he cast him into chains and sent him to Sardis. But a month later Alcibiades found means to escape from the citadel, rode off in safety to the coast, and rejoined the fleet. When the spring of 410 B.C. came round, Mindarus having been reinforced, again put to sea with sixty sail. But the Athenians had already begun to concentrate for his destruction. *' '^ Battle Of As he lay opposite Cyzicus, the Athenian fleet of Cyzicus, eighty-six vessels stole up, ia a day of storm and rain, which allowed them to come upon him unawares. Wliile tlie Athenian centre under Alcibiades kept Mindarus employed, the wings imder Thrasybulus and Theramenes slipped round the Spartan to cut him off from the shore. Seeing this mano3uvre Mindarus turned, and forced his way through to the land, where the army of Pharnabazus was coming to his succour. But the Athenians pressed hard on him and cut off many vessels; and when he ran the remnant ashore, Alcibiades disembarked and engaged him in a land fight. After a desperate struggle the Peloponnesiaus and Persians were completely routed ; Mindarus fell, and every single ship in his fleet was taken or sunk, except the few Syracusan vessels, and these were burnt by their own crews to prevent their capture. The victory seemed decisive of the fate of Asia Minor. In its incidents and its completeness alike it recalled to Athenian minds Cimon's triumph at the Enry- medon fifty-six years before. All the misdeeds of Alcibiades were forgiven and forgotten, now that he had won for Athens the most complete victory which had graced her arms in the whole war. For the first time since the news of the SjTacusan disaster had reached them, the Athenians were able to breath freely, and to look beyond the needs of the moment. The enemy's main armament had been destroyed ; the Hellespont was reopened ; and it seemed 392 The Fall of Alhens. (409 b.c. to require only due expenditure of time to reduce, one after another, the revolted cities of Asia. If anything could have been wanting to restore the confidence of Athens, it was supplied by a despatch from Hippocrates, the Spartan who had been second-in-command to Mindarus, which Was intercepted on its way to the ei)hors. " The ships are gone," ran the laconic document ; " Mindarus is slain ; the men are starving ; we know not what to do." The mob of shipless seamen under Hippocrates were thrown on the charity of Pharnabazus, whose subsidies alone stood between them and disbandment or destruction. It is not surprising to learn that, on the receipt of the news of the battle of Cyzicus, the Lacedaemonians thought for a moment ^ ,., of peace. Endius, the Spartan friend of Alcibiades, Futile peace ^ ' ^ . _ , . negotiations, came to Athens to sound the mind of the Ecclesia, and to lay before it proposals for a general cessation of hostilities. The terms offered were, as was but natural, founded on the actual state of affairs. Ehodes, Chios, Miletus, the Euboeans, and the other revolted allies of Athens, were to retain their independence; but Sparta was ready to evacuate Decclea, and to promise to leave undisturbed those members of the Confederacy of Delos who still clung to Athens, Endius must have felt sure that the Athenians would be glad to get rid of the war at any price. They had been living for three years on the brink of destruction, and when an honourable peace, involving no further surrender of territory or prestige, was offered them, might have been expected to accept it. But the hopefulness and light-hearted confidence of the Ecclesia was once more too strong. Led on by the demagogue Cleophon, the people voted that they would listen to no terms which left their revolted allies independent, and Endius was accordingly dismissed. This was a fatal mistake ; the resources of Athens had run so low that she should have embraced any opportunity of peace ; her success was but momen- tary, and the next turn of the Avheel of fortune was destined to render an honourable conclusion of the war impossible. But for the moment all looked well for Athens. Pharnabazus, indeed, strained his resources to the utmost in the endeavour to maintain the great body of Peloponnesian seamen who had been thrown upon his hands, and set to work at once to provide them 409 B.C.] Successes of Alcibiadcs. 393 with shijjs. But they were far from any friendly arsenal— there was none nearer than Chios — shipwriglits were few, and the timber for the vessels had actually to be felled on Mount Ida before any further measures could be taken. For more than a year the Athenians were completely free from any trouble at sea, and had full leisure for re-establishing their ancient naval dominion. Nothing, however, could have marked more strongly the utter exhaustion of Athens, and the hopelessness of the struggle in Avhich she was engaged, than the small profit she was able to draw from the victory of Cyzicus. For two years the enemy never dared to risk a naval engagement ; the officers whom the ephors des2)atched to Asia were men of little mark or ability ; the revolted allies were cowed and disheartened. On the other hand, Alcibiades and Thrasyllus were both men of energy and decision, and their troops were flushed with a splendid victory. Yet all that was accomplished in the years 410-8 b.c. was the successes of reconquest of those cities on the Hellespont and Alcibiades. Propontis which had revolted at various times during the stay of Mindarus in those parts. Perinthus and Selymbria were subdued in the autumn of 410 u.c. ; the great island of Thasos returned to its allegiance in the following winter ; in 409 B.C. Alcibiades ravaged the whole coast-land of the satrapy of Pharnabazus, and laid siege to Chalcedon, the city which commands the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. Meanwhile Thras3'llus turned south and attacked the revolted cities of Ionia ; but Colophon was the only place which he succeeded in recapturing, and in front of Ephesus he received a severe repulse from the Ephesians, joined with the Persian troops of Tissapberncs, who was once more inclining to the Spartan alliance. In the autumn of 409 B.C. Thrasyllus sailed up the Hellespont and rejoined Alci- biades ; their united force took Chalcedon in the spring of the following year, and six months later recovered Byzantium, after a long siege which lasted till the inhabitants, now at starvation point, threw open the gates in defiance of their Spartan governor. Thus the Bosphorus, Hellespont, and Propontis were at last com- pletely freed from the enemy, and the corn-shins of Athens cair.c through once more from the Euxinc without having to dread any disturbance on their voyage. After the fall of Byzantium, Pharna- 394 I'li^ F'^^l ^f Athens. [408B.c.- bazus, who had been hearing the wliole financial strain of tlie war for more than two years, felt himself so reduced that he offered to retire from the Spartan alliance and to make peace with Athens. This was the most promising sym2:)tom which the war had shown of late, but it was destined to have no ultimate effect. Further than this the successes of Alcibiades did not go. When the Hellespont was at last clear, he made no attempt against the Alcibiades Ionian cities, feeling apparently that the reduction ^AthMs!° °f Chios or Miletus was hopeless. Instead of 408 B.C. sailing south, he turned homewards, and led his fleet back to the Peiraeus. It was with some hesitation that he ventured to approach his native city; even though he had been elected general in his absence, and, though he was con- scious of having two years of good service behind him, he still dreaded the wrath of the democracy, and remembered the curses which had been heaped upon him, and the sentences which were still hanging over his head. His reception, however, was all that ho could have ventured to hope. His friends and relations thronged down to the harbour to welcome him, and escorted him in triumph to the city. The Senate and the Ecclesia gave him a solemn hearing, in which he vindicated himself from the old charge of sacrilege, and swore that he was innocent of all that had been laid to his account. His sentence was thereupon revoked, and all his civic rights restored. Not only was his term of office as general renewed, but he was entrusted with sole and absolute con- trol over a considerable armament — one hundred ships and fifteen hundred hoplites — and authorized to use it as he thought best. He first employed it to escort the procession which annually went from Athens to Eleusis for the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. Ever since the Spartans had seized Decelea, the sacred cortege had been compelled to proceed to Eleusis by sea ; but under the protection of Alcibiades' troops the procession once more marched with its ancient jwmp along the line of the Sacred Way. After making a fruitless attempt to recover the island of Andros, which had revolted to Sparta in spite of her late misfortunes, Alcibiades returned to Asia, where he found that an important change in the spirit of affairs had lately set in, and that the star of Athens was once more on the wane. Two causes co-operated 407 B.C.I Cyrus and Lysander. 395 for this end. The first was the despatch from Sparta of a really able general to take charge of the war in Ionia. Lysander in Lysander, the son of Aristoclltiis, was the most loma. remarkable man that Sparta had produced for a century. His family was impoverished; his father was one of those citizens who had forfeited from poverty part of their civic rights, and his youth had been passed in obscurity. But by sheer energy and force of character he had made his way to the front, and had at last been appointed to the office of nauarclius, or higli admiral. Lysander was not inferior in courage or ability to Brasidas, the only other Spartan of genius who appeared during the war. But his character was quite diff'erent from that of the hero of Amphipolis. Ilis ambition was wholly personal; he had no sympathy for Hellenic liberties, or care for the interests of his allies. If he served Sparta well, it was only because the growth of her power favoured his own aggrandizement. His means were as unscrupulous as his ends were selfish, and treachery and cruelty were no less prominent in his actions than acutcness and decision. Lysander would have been under any circumstances a dangerous foe to Athens, but at the moment at which he appeared in Ionia another factor was introduced into the politics of cyms Asia Minor, which made him doubly formidable, governor of The court of Siisa, resenting the endless double- ^^^^ dealing of Tissaphernes, had at last superseded that satrap, and sent down in his stead Cyrus, the second son of the reigning king, Darius II. The young prince was not only entrusted with the satrapy of Lydia, but given a general control over all the neighbouring governors. Cyrus, from his first arrival, showed himself ruled by one desii'e — the wish to pay off on Athens all the trouble she had caused to his ancestors since the days of Marathon and Salamis. He at once put a stop to Pharnabaz.us' negotiations with Athens, and summoned the Spartan commander- in-chief to Sardis. When Lysander arrived, Cyrus declared tn him that he had five hundred talents ready to assist in equipping a new fleet, and that, if these were not enough, he would provide more out of his own private means, " even though he were driven to coin into darics the golden throne on which he sat." It was at 39^ The Fall of Athens. (407 b.o.- first settled that he should subsidize the Peloponnesian fleet to the extent of paying three obols a day to each seaman ; but soon after, at the requpst of Lysander, to whom he had taken a great personal liking, he raised the sum to four obols, an allowance greater than the Athenians were then able to pay their men. Small reinforcements had gradually been crossing the Aegean during the last two years — the most considerable of them a ■D ♦*! * squadron of twenty-five Syracusan vessels — so that Notium, Lysander was ere long at the head of ninety galleys, 407 C C which he collected at Ephesus. Alcibiades, with the hundred vessels which the Athenians had given him, took his post at Notium, to prevent the Spartan from putting to sea. Presently, however, Alcibiades was called away to Phocaea, and sailed off, leaving his fleet in charge of Antiochus, a satellite and boon-companion of his own, whom he placed over the heads of all the officers of the fleet, though he had only been serving as master on board the flag-ship, and had never had any ex])erience in command. Alcibiades bade his follower avoid fighting; but the moment that he was gone Antiochus sailed, in mere bravado, into the harbour of Ephesus, and rowed past the Spartan fleet, challenging Lysander to come forth and meet him. A few vessels put out at once to chase the presumptuous intruder ; then, seeing the enemy on the move, some Athenian ships from Notium came to the rescue of their commander. Gradually the whole of both fleets were drawn into an engage- ment, in which Lysander won an easy victory over the ill- managed Athenian squadron. Antiochus was slain, and fifteen of his galleys sunk or taken ; the rest retired to Samos. Here they were rejoined by Alcibiades, who had been spending his time in a high-handed and ill-judged attempt to levy extra contiibutions from the cities of Aeolis. Lysander refused a second battle, and resumed his old position at Ephesus, so that nothing had really been lost by the recklessness of Antiochus. Nevertheless there was such a strong feeling against Alcibiades roused at Athens, on account of his criminal negligence iu entrusting his boon-companion with the command of the fleet, and of his unwise exactions in Aeolis, that liis enemies succeeded in getting him deposed by a vote of the Ecclcsia, which once more placed the conduct of the 406 B.C.] CaUicratidas in Asia. 397 war ill the hands of the ten strategi. Alcibiades sailed off to the Thracian Chersonese, where he was the owner of a large domain and a castle, and spent the remaining years of the war in retirement. Among the generals who superseded Alcibiades, the most promi- nent men were Thrasyllus, long noted as a democratic leader; Pericles, the son and namesake of the great statesman (see p. 305) ; and an officer named Conon, who now for the first time appears in high command. It was Conon, however, who took charge of the fleet at Samos, which had lately been imder the orders of Alcibiades. About the same time that the change in the Athenian com- manders took place, the Spartan fleet also received a new admiral. Lysander's year of office had run out, and the ephors, adhering to the rule that no one should be made in Asia, nauarclius twice, replaced their able servant by an officer named CaUicratidas. The system of constant change was evil, but in this particular case led to no great harm, as CaUi- cratidas was an energetic and efficient commander. But Lysander, piqued at his deposition, made his successor's task as hard as he could contrive, by prejudicing the mind of Cyrus against him, and by restoring to the Persian's treasury all that remained vmspent of the money which had been lent him for the pay and equipment of the Peloj^onnesian fleet. Thus CaUicratidas found on his arrival the military chest empty, and the seamen clamouring for their pay. When he went up to Sardis to ask Cyrus for a subsidy, he was kept so long waiting, without even obtaining an audience, that he had to depart, " cursing the necessities of the Greeks, which compelled them to fawn on barbarians for money, and declaring that if he ever got home he would do his best to reconcile Athens and Sparta." ^ However, by persuading the Chians and Milesians to grant him a small contribu- tion, CaUicratidas was able to pay his men some of their arrears, and to get his fleet to sea. The Athenians were at the moment very scattered ; some lay at Samos, while the main body, under Conon, were engaged in harrying the coasts of the revolted cities of Aeolis. CaUicratidas, after gathering in all the scattered divisions of the ■ Xenophon, HeJlcn, i. 6, § 6. 398 The Fall of Athens, [406b.c, SjiarLan fleet, had no less than a hundred and seventy galleys with him — the largest force that had yet been seen during the war. He sailed nortli and landed on Lesbos, where he took the town of Methymna by storm. There his moderation was shown by his refusal to sell the Methymnaeans and their Athenian garrison into slavery, as his allies urged him. Next day Conon, with seventy Athenian ships, came in sight; underrating the Spartan fleet, he ran right into the jaws of danger, and only turned to fly when it was too late, after his retreat on Samos had been cut off. He was compelled to take shelter in the harbour of Mitylene, after a running fight, in which he lost nearly half his ships, and only saved the remainder by hauling them ashore under the ramparts of the town. Callicratidas immediately blockaded the place by sea and land, and counted on taking it with no great difficulty, for the Athenian seamen were certain to exhaust in a few weeks the food of a town which had not been prepared to stand a siege. Conon succeeded in sending out a swift vessel, which ran tlic blockade, and arrived in Athens with the tidings of his danger. Distress at But it seemed unlikely that he could be saved, for Athens, there was no Athenian fleet in existence flt to cope with the great armament of Callicratidas. A few dozen ships were lying at Samos, but there was no otlier considerable squadron at sea. However, the Athenians, with their usual vigour and perseverance, resolved to make an attempt to rescue their general. The arsenal of the Peiraeus happened at the moment to be full of vessels undergoing repair, or far advanced in construction ; it was resolved to send out everything that was in any way seaworthy, and to give battle to Callicratidas. The Ecclesia voted that every man of full age, slave or freeman, should go on board ; even the knights, for the first time on record, were sent to sea. In less than thirty days there were a hundred and ten vessels manned, though the crews were raw and the equipment inadequate. Eight of the ten strategi took the command, and the fleet pushed across the Aegean to Samos, where it picked up nearly fifty galleys more, most of them belonging to Samos and the other loyal states of Ionia. On hearing that the Athenians had reached Asia, Callicratidas resolved to attempt to 406 B.C.] The Battle of Arginusae. 399 maintain the blockade of Mitylene, and at the same time to meet the enemy in battle. Leaving his second-in-command, Eteonlcus, with fifty ships, to keep Conou iu clieck, he took post with one hundred and twenty off the southernmost cape of Lesbos. The same night the Athenian fleet came in view, sailing northward along the mainland. Next day the battle took place Battle of off the Arginusae, a cluster of small islands which Arginusae. lie south from Lesbos. The Athenian generals were forced, by the inexperience of their crews, to adopt the tactics which had once been peculiar to their enemies — they drew up their fleet iu a dense line without intervals, and endeavoured to come to close quarters at once and to prevent the enemy from manoeuvring. Callicratidas, on the other hand, came on with his ships in open order, resolved to turn the flanks of the Athenians or to break their line. When the superior numbers of the enemy became visible, the master of his galley besought him to turn back ; but Callicratidas, buoyed up by confidence in his own bravery and in the skill of his seamen, merely replied that "flight was disgraceful, and that if he fell Sparta would be none the worse for his death." The fleets were soon locked iu close combat, and after a while the numerical superiority of the Athenians began to tell. Calli- cratidas was thrown into the sea by the shock of a hostile galley, as he stood by liis prow preparing to board, and was seen no more. No less than seventy Peloponnesian ships were destroyed or taken ; the flght had been at close quarters, and when the day went against them they were unable to get away : only fifty escaped to Chios. No more than fifteen Athenian vessels had been sunk, but a dozen more lay waterlogged, and requiring prompt assistance. There would seem to have been great confusion in the Athenian fleet after the battle was won. The generals resolved to push on at once to Mitylene, and to catch Eteonlcus and his squadron before he could escape to sea. But after they had started a gale sprang up, and induced them to put back and Jiaul their fleet ashore for the night. One consequence of this indecision was that Eteonlcus was able to slip oft' unharmed to Chios. Another was that the dozen Athenian ships which had been disabled iu the 400 The Fall of Athens. i4oe b.o. battle went down with all their crews, without having received any succour.! It might have been expected that the Athenians would have forgotten all the shortcomings of their generals in the moment of ^victory. Their hastily equipped vessels had won the Impeachment •' _ j \ i. v of the day, relieved Mitylene, and saved Conon. The con- genera s. q^el.Q^.g Qf Arginusae expected nothing but praise and glory. But the point which was seized by public opinion at Athens was that, by gross neglect on the part of some one or other, a dozen ships, manned by hundreds of citizens, had been suffered to perish unaided after the battle. The demagogues Archedemus and Timocrates brought this accusation against the generals with such effect that they were immediately deposed from office. Six of them, among whom were Thrasyllus and Pericles, returned to Athens to justify themselves before the people. But when they appeared, a general clamour was raised against them, and Theramenes — the converted oligarch who had played such a prominent part in the deposition of the Four Hundred — proposed that they should be brought to trial for their criminal negligence in failing to rescue their fellow-citizens. To this the generals replied that the storm had been too much for them, but that, as a matter of fact, they had commissioned Theramenes him- self, and Thrasybulus with ten ships, to see to the wrecks. Thera- menes and the other persons named utterly denied having received any such orders, and it seems likely that this part of the generals' defence was an after-thought ; in their first despatches they laid the blame on the storm alone. But the storm cannot have been very violent, since it did not prevent Eteonicus and his Spartan ships from putting to sea ; and it was probably the disorder and confusion into which the raw and ill-equipped fleet had fallen after a day's hard fighting that really caused the loss of the disabled galleys. After the debate as to the responsibility of the generals had pro- ' For an occurrence in modern history somewhat similar to the events at Arginusae, compare the storm on the night after Trafalgar, which sent so many ships to the bottom. But the English Government did not court- martial Coliingwood for neglecting to obey Nelson's dying words, and moor his fleet. 406 B.C.] Execution of the Generals. 401 ceeded to great length, the Ecclesia was adjourned. The next morn- ing happened to be the festival of the Apaturia, a day dedicated to solemn family gatherings. The number of persons who appeared in black at these meetings, as having lost relatives in the late battle, was- so great that the whole city was shocked and excited, and the feeling against the generals rose to boiling point. When the Ecclesia reassembled, a senator named Callixenus brought forward a decree which was not only unjust but entirely unconsti- tutional. It proposed that, *' as both the accusers and the generals had been heard at length, the people should at once proceed to vote, and that if the generals were convicted the penalty should be death." This decree not only proposed to cut short the defence of the generals, but violated one of the best known enactments in the Athenian constitution,^ which provided that accused persons should be indicted and sentenced one by one, and not condemned or acquitted by a verdict dealing with several persons simultaneously. The decree of Callixenus met with much opposition; several citizens protested against its illegality, and threatened to prosecute its author for his open disregard of the constitution. But the mob was so violent, and the threats used against the opponents of the bill so terrifying, that they finally gave way. Some of the Prytaneis refused to put the question to the vote, and were only coerced by a menace which Callixenus made, that if they perse- vered they should be included in the generals' sentence. Even then the philosopher Socrates, who happened to be serving as one of the Prytaneis, refused to assent to the proposal. But his protest was disregarded ; the question was put, and the un- Kxecution of fortunate generals condemned to instant execution, the generals. Thus perished, by a most unjust and cruel perversion of justice, Pericles the son of Pericles, Thrasyllus the victor of Cyzicus, and four more officers, Leon, Diomedon, Erasinades, and Aristocrates. No long time after the people repented of their madness, and ordered the impeachment of Callixenus and several of his sup- porters. However, the author of the infamous decree escaped without a trial, owing to the disasters which fell upon Athens at the time ; but we learn with satisfaction that ho remained an object of public execration, and finally died of hunger in the street. ' Known from its .author's name as the Psciiliism of CanOnus. 2 D 402 The fall of Athens. [405b.c. After the death of Calhcratidas the Spartan government made another attempt to come to terms with Athens, offering once more peace on the basis of " uti possidetis^ The proposal was again defeated by Cleophon, who " came into the Ecclesia drunk and with armour on, swearing that he would not allow it, unless the Spartans gave up all their gains." So the Ephors had to continue the war, and replace Lysander in command; but in order to preserve the rule that no one sliould be nauarchus twice, he was given, as a nominal superior, an officer named Aracus (405 B.C.). Lysander joined to the wrecks of the fleet of Callicratidas all the vessels he could collect from the Asiatic allies of Sparta. He also Lysander obtained large supplies of money from Cyrus, who and Cyrus, threw Open his treasury the moment that his friend was restored to command. So far did the Persian prince's enthu- siasm for the Spartan cause lead him, that when he was sum- moned up for a time to Media, to visit his sick father, he made over the administration of the revenues of his satrapy to Lysander, and bade him take all that he needed. With the funds obtained from this source many scores of new ships werQ built at Antandrus. Still the Spartan fleet was not yet equal in numbers to that which Conon, and the other ofScers who had replaced the victims of Callixenus, could put into line of battle. Accordingly the Spartan did not at once risk an engagement, but resolved to carry out the j)lan which Mindarus had attempted in 410 B.C., and to block the Hellesi^ont against the Athenian corn-ships. He slij^ped north- ward, and falling on the rich, town of Lampsacus, on the Asiatic side of the strait, took it by storm, and made it the base of his operations. The Athenians soon got the news. Conon and his colleagues called in every galley they could muster, and appeared off Lampsacus with a fleet of no less than a hundred and eighty vessels. For four days they offered Lysander battle, but the Spartan kept his ships under the shelter of the walls of Lampsacus, and refused to put out to meet them. Accordingly the Athenian generals established themselves just opposite to him, on the shore of the Thracian Chersonese, and waited for him to make some further move. The Athenian vessels were moored off a barren and uninhabited beach, at a spot called Aegospotami ; the nearest town to it was 405 B.C.] Battle of Aegospotami, 403 Sestos, two miles away, from which all the supplies for the fleet had to be procured. When Lysander kept quiet day after day, the Athenian commanders grew careless, and sufiered their men to disembark in the afternoon and to disperse to Sestos and other neighbouring places, in search of provisions. Alcibiades, whose castle lay a few miles away, marked this dangerous negligence, and came down to warn the generals, and to recommend them to remove to Sestos, a position almost as convenient for observing Lysander as was Aegospotami. But the generals Tydeus and Menander replied that they commanded the fleet and not he, and that his presence was not wanted. Accordingly he departed. The very next day Lysander, waiting till the afternoon was far spent, and the Athenian seamen scattered all over the Chersonese, suddenly put out from Lamjjsacus and rowed at full Ba,ttie of speed across the strait. When his approach was Aegospotami, observed, the Athenians began to rush on board ; but long before they were ready Lysander was upon them. Some vessels had two banks of oars manned, some one, some were still moored, when the Peloponnesian fleet ran in amongst them. There was practically no fighting ; Conon, with the few Athenian ships that were ready for sea, fled southward. The rest were taken with hardly any resistance, though the greater part of the crews escaped ashore. A hundred and seventy vessels fell into Lysander's hands, with more than four thousand prisoners, including three or four of the Athenian admirals. Lysander had the whole body of prisoners massacred on the day after the battle, alleging in excuse the cruelty with which some captured Corinthian seamen had been treated a little w^hile before. Conon, fearing, with good reason, the wrath of his countrymen, fled with eight vessels to Euagoras, King of Salamis in Cyprus, with whom he took service. But he sent home the Paralus, one of the state-galleys, which had escaped in his company, to bear the tidings to Athens. The fatal news arrived at the Peiiaeus as evening fell. " The noise of wailing," wrote Xenophon, who was probably in Athens at the time, " spread all up the Long Walls into tlie city, as one passed on the tidings to another ; that night no one slept, for not ofily were they lamenting for their dead, but they were tliiukiug 404 '^^^^ ^^^^ ^f Athens. i^osb.c- of what they themselves had done to the Melians and the Scionaeans and the Aeginetans, and many others of the Greeks, and reflecting that they must now suffer the same fiite." The situation of Athens was perfectly desperate. Her sole fleet was destroyed, her arsenals were stripped bare, her corn-supply was cut ofif. Lysander did not delay a moment after the battle, but sailed at once to Byzantium and Chalcedon, which surrendered at the first summons. After arranging for the closing of the Bosphorus against Athenian vessels, he went against Mitylene in person, while he sent Eteoulcus to Thasos and the other towns which adhered to Athens in the direction of Thrace. Nowhere was any resistance made. Each city, when the Spartans appeared, threw open its gates and gave up its Athenian garrison as prisoners. Within a few weeks after Aegospotami, Saraos was the only place which still held out for Athens. The Samian democracy, having massacred so many of their Philo-Spartan fellow-citizens (see . p. 378), were prevented from surrendering by dread of the revenge which they knew would follow. When Asia Minor was cleared of Athenian garrisons, Lysander sailed with two hundred ships into the gulf of Aegina, and estab- lished the blockade of Peiraeus. Simultaneously King Agis came down from Decelea with the full levy of Peloponnesus, and en- camped over against Athens on the land-side, pitching his tent in the Academeia, a celebrated gymnasium outside the walls. Even at this supreme moment the courage of the Athenians did not fail them. Hoping against hope, they blocked up the mouths of their harbours, manned their walls, summoned every available man under arms, and proclaimed an amnesty ^ for all political and civil criminals who would jom in the defence of the city. When the senator Archestratus advised an immediate surrender at discretion to the Spartans as the only available course, he was promptly thrown into prison. But Athens was without money, ships, allies, or corn, and the end could not long be delayed. After some months of blockade, when many had already died of starvation, they sent ambassadors to the ephors, offering to become allies of Sparta and to renounce all claims to their old naval empire, but 1 It was this amnesty which saved Callixenus from condemnation (see p. 401). 404 B.C.] Surrender of Athens. 405 requiring that tliej' should be left with the Long Walls and the fortification of Peiracus intact. The ephor.s refused to see tho envoys, and told them not to come again till they had grown wiser. A little later the Ecclesia commissioned Theraraenes to go on a private mission to Lysander, and to ascertain from him what terms the ephors were likely to grant. Theramenes, who was once more intriguing for an oligarchic revolution in the city, remained no less than three months with Lysander, waiting till the famine had grown intolerable. Then he returned, and reported that he could get no definite information, but that the ephors would receive an enibassy, if it was invested with full powers to agree to any terms. Accordingly the Ecclesia despatched Thera- menes and nine other envoys to Sparta. On their arrival the full congress of the Peloponnesian alliance was assembled, to debate on the lot of Athens. The representatives of Corinth and Thebes urged that no mercy should be shown to the tyrant city, now that she was brought low ; they would have treated her as she had treated Melos and Scione, and made an end of her altogether. But the Spartan government, with unexpected moderation, announced that it would not consent to the utter annihilation of a city -which, in spite of all its crimes, had done good service for Greece in ancient days : Athens should be rendered harmless •' _ Athens fur ever, but not destroyed. Accordingly the terms Bubmits, 404 B C which were laid before the Athenian ambassadors were that Athens should demolish the Long Walls and the fortification of Peiraeus, become a subject-ally of Sparta, swear to furnish her with a contingent of troops whenever called upon,rtcall her oligarchic exiles, and consent that her navy should be restricted to twelve vessels. Hard as these conditions were, they were at any rate better than the utter destruction which many of the Athenians had been dreading. The war-party had been melting away as the famine grew more and more dreadful, and its last leader, the demagogue Cleophon, had been killed in a riot. When Theramenes reappeared in the city, and announced that Sparta had consented to grant terms of peace, a shout of joy went up from the famishing multi- tude, and few cared to ask for the details of the treaty. Next day the Ecclesia ratified the agreement, and the gales were thrown open to the enemy. 4o6 End of the Peloponnesian War. Lysander landed with' great pomp at Peiraeus, and took posses- sion both of the upper and the lower city. He destroyed the arsenal, took away the few war-galleys which lay in the harbour, and burnt those which were upon the stocks. Then the work of demolishing the fortifications was taken in hand ; in presence of the Peloponnesian army and navy the Long Walls were breached, while triumphant music and choric dances testified to the exultation of the conquerors. A shout went up from the victorious ranks that Greece was freed of her tyrant, and that every city could at last be sure of her autonomy. Thus ended the Peloponnesian war, on the sixteenth day of the month Munychion, 404 B.C., twenty-seven years after the attempt of the Thebans on Plataea which bad marked its commencement. CHAPTER XXXV. tSPAKTA SUPREME IN GKKECE, 40i-39G B.C. From the day of Salamis to the day of Aegospotami Greek history possesses a dramatic unity which it does not display iu any other age. A great problem was worked out in those seventy-six years — whether the Greeks were capable, under favourable circumstances, of subordinating civic and tribal jealousies to the general interests of the Hellenic race, and of combining into a great federal .state. All the events of the period group themselves around the growth, culmination, and destruction of the Athenian empire. No city had ever such an opportunity of forwarding the unity of Greece as had Athens in the middle of the fifth century. Her supremacy was established, not by force, but by the free and willing accession of hundreds of states. The lonians and Islanders, in gratitude for their liberation from the Persian yoke, placed themselves entirel}' at her disposal. Half the cities of Greece were drawn within the circle of her influence, and ere long there were signs that the rest might follow. In 457 b.c. the union of the whole Hellenic race on both sides of the Aegean into a confederacy centring round Athens seemed quite possible. We have seen that this prospect was never to be realized ; the states which had once regarded Athens as their saviour and pro- tector, were found, after a while, joining eagerly with her ancient enemies, and straining every nerve in the endeavour to cut them- selves loose from their alliance. They had their wish; Athens succumbed under a series of unparalleled disasters, and sank from an imperial city to a second-rate provincial town. Was the failure of the great experiment in the direction of the unity of Greece due to the crimes and blunders of Athens, or to the inherent impossibility of the task she had undertaken ? On the one hand, there can be no doubt that Athens did not persevere 4o8 Sparta Supreme in Greece. i404b.c. in her original resolve to deal justly and fairly with the cities which had put themselves into her hands. Although her rule was not oppressive or severe, it was essentiallj' selfish ; she administered the states of the Confederacy of Delos for her own private benefit, involved them in wars with which they had no concern, and spent their money lavishly on purely Athenian objects. In short, she made herself a tyrant city, though her tyranny was after the model of Peisistratus and not of Periander. Sometimes she even indulged in acts of cruelty and oppression of the most flagrant character, as in her dealings with Aegina, Scione, and Melos. But, in spite of all the faults and crimes of Athens, it is probable that the breaking up of the Confederacy of Delos must be ascribed to another cause. The really fatal obstacle in the way of Grecian unity was the character of the Greeks. The passion for local autonomy was so deeply rooted in their breasts, that it dominated every other feeling. Neither glory nor gain could compensate them for that curtailment of their municipal liberties which a federal union made necessary. Even if every state of the Delian Con- federation had been allowed a fair share in the management of public affairs, we may be certain that discontent and secession would have followed. Much more was this bound to be the case when " repre- sentation did not accompany taxation," and when Athens made no pretence of allowing her allies to participate in the administration of the League. The Sjiartans had caught the spirit of the times when they bade Athens, at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, " to restore their liberty to the states of Greece," and pro- claimed that the struggle was a crusade in behalf of local autonomj'. This watchword rallied to the Spartan cause every discontented member of the Delian League, and to it we may fairly say that Spartan's final triumph was due, for without the aid which she received from the revolted allies she could never have guided the war to the conclusion at which it actually arrived. It remained to be seen how Sparta, after posing for so long as the enemy of tyranny and the protector of local liberties, would deal with Greece in the day of her triumph. A bitter dis- Xiysander '' i i n supreme in appointment awaited the states which had been so reece. gijjjpie as to believe that the Lacedaemonians had laid aside their ancient selfishness. Lysander soon showed them that 404 B.C.) The Spartan Harmosts. 409 they had only changed a light taskmaster for a stern one, and that the empire of Athens was to be replaced by the empire of Sparta. Some of his first measm'e?, indeed, were intended to conciliate the public opinion of Greece ; he restored the few surviving Aeginetans and Melians to the homes from which they had been expelled by Athens, and gave back Naupactus to the Locrians, driving out its Messenian inhabitants, who now took refuge in Libya. But such acts were few and far between ; the greater part of Lysander's doings were of a very different character. While the war was still raging in Asia, and the efforts of Athens were still to be feared, it had been most natural that Spartan garrisons should be placed in the cities of Ionia and . „ ° *■ The Harmosts the Hellespont, and Spartan governors put at the and the head of their military forces. These governors, or Harmosts} as they were called, were to be found everywhere at the end of the war. Their authority was backed by the support of committees chosen from among the most Philo-S[)artan citizens of each state — bodies which were known as Decarchies, from their usually consisting of ten members. When the war was ended, it was generally expected that the Decarchies would be dissolved, and the Harmosts and their troops recalled. But Lysander had no snch intention; he had taken great pains to organize the system, had selected Harmosts from among his ownjiersonal followers, and care- fully superintended the choice of the Decarchies. When Athens had long fallen, and the months were passing by, the Greeks of Asia found their cities still occupied by foreign troops, and their consti- tutional magistrates impeded in their functions by the irresponsible committees of ten. Gradually it began to dawn upon them that the system was intended to be permanent, and that, instead of the occasional visits of the Athenian tax-gatherer, they were to ex- perience the continual presence of the Spartan Harraost. The Decarchies and the Lacedaemonian governors pla^^ed into each other's hands ; the former ruled the state as a strict oligarchy, and if any democratic feeling manifested itself, promptly put it down by the swords of the garrison ; the Harmost, in return for his ' 'Apfj.o(TTi)s, organizer, had been a name origiaall}' applied to the commissioners whom Sparla kept resident among the towns of the rcrioeci io I^aconja, 41 o . Sparta Supreme hi Greece. [403 b.c. assistance, was allowed to peculate and plunder to his heart's con- tent — a gratification which most Spartans keenly appreciated. Such a form of government soon became unbearable to the cities of Asia, most of whom had long been accustomed to a democratic constitution, while all contained a strong democratic element in their population. It was not long before they discovered that Sparta's little finger was thicker than Athens' loins, and learnt to curse the day ia which they changed their masters. But the oppression of the Harmost and the Decarchy was not the worst that the cities of the Asiatic mainland had to fear. _ . Sparta had only conquered by the aid of Persia, and croachments was bouud by Stringent treaties to give her ally a free hand (see p. 378). Accordingly, Cyrus and Pharna- bazus proceeded ere long to encroach upon the Hellenic cities of the coast, while Lysander stood aside or tacitly approved their doings. Persian mercenary troops had been admitted into many places while the war was in progress, and when it was over held the town in behalf of the satrap. Even great cities like Ephesus and Miletus found themselves in danger ; the Milesians had to rise in arms and fight a battle in their own streets before they could get quit of the Persian garrison. Many of the smaller towns actually fell back into slavery to the barbarian, after seventy years of liberty under the Athenian rule. Sparta would do nothing to preserve her allies, except where she had a Harmost on the spot, and was herself in practical possession. Meanwhile Lysander, whose command had been renewed, was administering the towns of the Aegean as if he had been an absolute monarch. His satellites and flatterer's did their best to turn bis head with their fulsome applause. After he had captured Samos (the town held out a few months longer than Athens) he was actually saluted with divine honours ; altars were erected and hymns addressed to him. He ruled despotically, without making any reference to the home government, and by means of the Harmosts made his influence felt in every town ; it was the nearest approach to a personal monarchy that Greece had seen for centuries. Lysander was, in fact, repeating the career of Pausanias on the same stage where his predecessor had moved seventy years before. His fate was destined to be the same as that of the victor of 403 B.C.] Lysaiider's Quarrel with the Ephors. 411 Plataea ; after two years of domiuion he provoked the ephors to desperation by his disregard for their orders. They ' •' ° •' Lysandei- summoned him home, laid before him countless charges ms^aced by of insubordination and misgovernment, and bade him ^^^ defend himself. Lysander made no reply, but quitted the citj'', and betook himself for a time to Libya. AVhen he returned shortly after, no further attempt was made to molest him ; having become a private citizen again, he was no longer considered dangerous. But Lysander was skilled in intrigue ; finding himself unmolested, he set to work to form a party in the state with a view to the reformation of the constitution and the removal of the ephoralty ; he grounded his main hope on the assistance of Agesilaus, brother of the reigning king Agis, who was his intimate personal friend and admirer. The removal of Lysander made no difference in the character of the Spartan rule ; the ephors proved as unscrupulous as the great nauarch had been, while the Harmosts were, if anything, a tiiflo more oppressive now that they were no longer working under the eye of a master. How the cities of Greece fared while Sparta was supreme may be fairly judged from the single example of the fate of Athens. It will be remembered that when she threw open her gates to Lysander, one of the conditions which she had to accept was the return of her exiles. They were a large body, the remains of the partisans of the Four Hundred, who had fled to the Spartan camp when their conspiracy failed, and had dwelt with the enemy ever since. It was soon known that the old democracy was not to be allowed to survive, and that the Spartans were determined to put the state into the hands of men whom they could trust. No one was surprised when an oligarch named Dracontides rose in the Ecclesia, and proposed that a committee of thirty citizens should be chosen to revise the constitution. When opposition was offered, Lysander himself appeared in the assembly, reminded them that they were in his power, and bade them take counsel for their per- sonal safety, and not cavil upon points of constitutional law. This threat silenced all opposition, and the list estabushedat of thirty names which Dracontides brought forward was carried without demur. It included the names of many of 412 Sparta Supreme i?i Greece. [404b.c. the returned exiles, and was, of course, composed entirely of oligarchs. The most prominent members were Critias, an exile and an old member of the Four Hundred, and Theramenes, who had once more swerved back to oligarchy when he saw that the tide was now running in its favour — a conversion quite in keeping with his nickname of the " Turncoat." ^ The thirty commissioners, on whom later generations bestowed the name of the " Thirty Tyrants," were designed to play at Athens the part which the Decarchies carried out in the states of Asia. Tliough nominally appointed only to revise the constitution, they took possession of every function of government, and showed no intention whatever of laying down their power. Tliey abolished the Dicasteries and the Ecclesia, and placed all jurisdiction in the hands of the Boule, which they had first purged of every member who was not a declared oligarch. Having thus prepared the judicial machinery for making away with any one who should dare to oppose them, they proceeded to strengthen their position by asking Lysander to grant them a Sjiartan garrison. Accordingly seven hundred Peloponnesians entered the town under a Harmost named Callibius, and took possession of the citadel. The next step of the Thirty was to commence a systematic per- secution of prominent citizens who were noted for their democratic tendencies. Several ofiicers who had served with distinction during the late war were condemned to death on futile pretexts. Others — the most prominent of whom was Thrasybulus, the general of the democracy at Samos (see p. 385) — were driven into exile. The man, however, of whom the Thirty stood in the greatest fear was Alcibiades, who might at any time return to Athens and head a democratic rising. He was out of their own reach, but they besought Lysander to see to him ; the Spartan passed on the request to the satrap Pharnabazus, who caused Alcibiades to bo assassinated as he was travelling through Phrygia on his way to visit the court of Susa, The first proscriptions which the Thirty took in hand were purely political, but ere long they began to extend the sphere of their operations. Men who had taken no prominent part in politics, * K.6dopvos, from the name of the buskin, which would fit the right or the left foot equally well. 404 B.C.] Ride of the Thirty Tyrants at Athens. 413 but were personally objectionable to members of the Thirty, were soon included in the list of victims. Then followed , , . , , , , Misrule of the many whose only crime was that they were wealthy, Thirty and that their lands or their treasure were coveted Tyra^J^t^ by some prominent oligarch ; among these the most noted name was that of Niceratus, son of the general Nicias, who was reputed the richest man in Athens. After these atrocities many of the Thirty felt that they had gone far enough, and proposed to halt in their career of crime. Theramenes, who perceived that, in spite of the Spartan garrison, the Athenian people would be driven to a rising in sheer despair, was especially urgent on the side of modera- tion, and his colleagues soon began to suspect that he was on the eve of one of his periodical conversions. Critias, however, backed by the more desperate members of the gang, was determined to persevere. The only precaution which they took was to disarm the populace before proceeding to further extremities. Having first drawn up a list of three thousand citizens whom they thought that they could trust, they proclaimed that this body alone should enjoy full civic rights. Then they held a review of the whole armed force of the city, summoning the three thousand to meet in the market-place, while the rest of the citizens were scattered in small bodies at different posts. One after another these bodies were confronted by the Laconian hoplites of Callibius, and bidden to lay down their arms. They obeyed, and were sent away disarmed to their homes, while their weapons were stored in the Acropolis. Thus the three thousand were the only armed force left in the state. Having thus stripped the people of their arms, Critias and his faction launched out in the wildest excesses, and Athens experi- enced a perfect reign of terror. Day by day citizens were arrested, tried on the most frivolous charges, and condemned to death. No man of property could call his life his own, for the appetite of the Thirty for confiscation and plunder seemed insatiable. It was not only citizens that suffered ; the wealth of the metics, or resident aliens, marked them out as fair game, and ere long they were being imprisoned and slain by the score. The legislation of the Thirty was as despotic as their administration ; by one law they even forbade every one, except members of the Three Thousand, to dwell 414 Sparta Supreme in Greece. [404B.c. in Athens, and directed all other classes to disperse to the country denies. Every one except Critias and his immediate followers felt that the state of affairs was too monstrous to last. Theramenes grew more and more energetic in his protests against the policy of the majority, till they came to consider him as utterly unbearable. Critias then resolved to rid himself of his over-squeamish col- league ; he armed a considerable body of his friends and dependents, and brought them to the doors of the council-chamber while the senate was in session. He then propounded two decrees, one allowing the Thirty to put to death, without trial, any one who was not a member of the Three Thousand, the other expelling from the Three Thousand any one who had opposed the Four Hundred in B.C. 411. The decrees were obviously aimed at Theramenes, who sprang to his feet and began to defend himself. (Execution of When he appeared to be carrying the senate with Theramenes. j^jj^-j^ Critias ordered his armed men to enter the house, crying out that he would not allow the senate to be deceived by specious words, and that his friends were come to see that justice was done on a traitor. " It is," he added, " now enacted that no one in the list of the Three Thousand shall be put to death without a regular vote passed by you, but I hereby strike out the name of Theramenes from the list, and thus we are able to condemn him to death." Theramenes sprang to the altar which stood in the midst of the council-chamber, and clung to it, adjuring the senators by every plea, human and divine, to see that he was not made away with in this atrocious style. But the ministers of death tore him from the sanctuary, dragged him straight to prison, and compelled him to drink the fatal hemlock. He died with a courage that surprised his enemies — a bitter taunt at Critias on his lips. His fate served to show the Athenians that not even the most studious trimming and time-serving would enable a man to be sure of his life while the Thirty were in power. Even before Theramenes was dead, the storm was brewing which Thrasybiiius '^''T-S to sweep Critias and his satellites from the helm and the exiles, ^f affairs. So many citizens had by this time fled abroad, that Thebes, Megara, and the other cities near Athens 403 B.C.] Thrasyhiilus seizes Peiraeus. 415 were crowded with refugees. At Thebes they were so uumerous that after a time Thrasybulus, who had settled in that town, was able to gather a hundred men resolute enough to make a desperate attempt to free Athens, Some Boeotian friends supplied him with arms and provisions for this little band ; and he then crossed the Attic frontier and seized the deserted fort of Phyle. The Thirty at first paid little attention to the adventurers, but presently sent an expedition to storm the castle. Its first assault failed, and a heavy fall of snow drove it back to Athens. V/hen a second force was sent out, Thrasybulus, whose band had now swelled to seven hundred men, fell upon it in the night and put it to the rout. Encouraged by this success, the exiles marched boldly on, and threw themselves into Peiraeus. The walls of the harbour-city had been destroyed by Lysander, but its streets offered Battle in great facilities for defence. Thrasybulus ranged his I'eiraeus. men on the slope of the hill of Munychia, and waited to be attacked; hundreds of citizens had now joined him, but they Avere destitute of armour, and were forced to make themselves wicker shields, and to turn to account any miscellaneous weapons that came to hand. Presently the forces of the Thirty were seen coming down from Athens ; Critias himself led on the Three Thousand, while Callibius supported him with the seven hundred Pelopon- nesians of the garrison. They advanced in a solid column along the street which leads up to the hill of Munychia, and met the exiles on the slope. But their superior numbers were of no avail in the narrow way, while the missiles which were showered upon them from over the heads of Thrasybulus' men told fatally on their crowded ranks. After a few minutes of hand-to-hand fighting the oligarchs gave way, and rolled backwards toward Athens, leaving Critias and seventy more dead on the hillside. This disastrous failure led to fierce dissensions among the defeated party. The surviving members of the Thirty and the Anarchy at other partisans of Critias, finding themselves in the Athens, minority, had to fly to Eleusis, which they had already prepared as a fortress in time of need by slaying all the Eleusiaians — no less than three hundred in number — who were known to be partisans of democracy. Here they made ready to defend themselves, and sent urgent appeals for aid to Sparta'. To succeed them ten more 4i6 Sparta Supreme in Greece. (403 bc oligarchs were elected, who still refused to come to terms with Thrasybulus. Some desultory fighting took place outside the walls of Athens, but it was soon ended by the news that a Spartan array and fleet were approaching. It remained to be seen what course the Spartan government would adopt, and of this there was considerable doubt. Lysander's party were for aiding the Thirty to reconquer Athens, and Lysander himself hurried to the spot to support his proteges. But the relations between the nauarch and the ephors was at that moment drawing towards their final rupture, and, luckily for Athens, any measure that Lysander favoured was sure to be bitterly opposed. Accordingly the ephors sent out King Pausanias to take over the command of the army in Attica, knowing that he was a declared enemy of Lysander's policy. Pausanias was a man of generous sentiments and ajiproved moderation; he had the old Spartan hatred for tyi-anny, and was determined to do nothing for the detestable gang at Eleusis. Instead of falling upon the democrats at Peiraeus and crushing _, . them, he undertook to reconcile them to the party Pausanias ' ^ •' pacifies which held the city of Athens. Even when he became involved in a skirmish with the troops of Thrasybulus, and saw several Spartan officers slain, he was not to be diverted from his pacific design. With some trouble he induced both sides to accept his good offices. The ten oligarchs in the city were replaced by another board who were ready to treat for peace, and then Pausanias after settling the terms of reconciliation, took his army home. By the new agreement all the existing magistrates in the city were deposed, and superseded by regularly elected strategi ; all the exiles were restored to their property and civic rights, while the ohgarchs and their followers were to be allowed to depart to Eleusis undisturbed. To mark the end of the time of troubles, a solemn thanksgiving was held, and new archons chosen. The name of Pythodorus, who had held the post of eponymous archon under the Thirty, was solemnly expunged from the official lists of the state, and the period during which he presided was denommated " the year of anarchy." Thus sixteen months after Lysander had captured Athens the old constitution was restored to the much-tried city (September, 403 B.C.). The Thirty came to an ill end. Abandoned by Sparta, they still 401 B.C.I The Expedition of Cynis the Younger. 417 held out at Eleusis for a long time ; but at last they were reduced to ask for terms. When their leaders came into the Athenian camp to endeavour to enter hito a negotiation, they were suddenly fallen upon and slain by the infuriated soldiery. The rest escaped abroad and died in exile. Athens was now once more a democracy, but she still remained a humble vassal of Sparta, bound to follow her lead in all matters of foreign policy, and to send her contingents of men and ships when- ever called upon. Years were to elapse before the city that had once ruled the Aegean was able to exercise any influence on the affairs of Greece. The settlement of the nitevnal quarrels of the Athenians was by no means the only task that fell to the lot of Sparta in the years immediately following the Peloponnesian war. In sparta 402 B.C. she fell upon Elis, partly in revenge of the coaartan army and of his own from the coast-land. No permanent understanding, however, had been reached, when affairs suddenly took a new turn. A new reign had at this moment commenced in Sparta. King Agis, the commander of so many expeditions during the Pelopon- ^ nesian war, had lately died : he left a son, Leotychides, Accession of j ^ ■> i j ■• Agesiiaus, to whom the crown would naturally have passed. But ugly rumours prevailed about the parentage of this prince ; it was asserted by many that he was no true son of Agis, but the offspring of Alcibiades, who was known to have seduced the king's young wife during his stay at Sparta (see p. 379). Accord- ingly Agesilaus, the brother of Agis, put forward a claim to the throne. He was warmly supported by Lysander, who had long been 1 The knights at Athens had strongly supported the Thirty, and the government punished them on this occasion by selecting the whole three hundred from among the prominent oligarchs. 399 B.C.] Agesilaus, King of Sparta. 421 liis guide and comi:»anioD, and believed that he had found in him a fitting instrument for bringing about the reform of the Spartan state-system. Agesilaus had readied the age of forty, but had never yet held any command or office of importance. He was of small stature and insignificant appearance : moreover, he was lame of one foot. Though he had won considerable popularity from his courteous and kindly disposition, no one looked upon him as a man of mark ; it was universally believed that he was a mere tool cf Lysander. The contest for the throne was, therefore, a new trial of strength between the ephors and the victor of Aegospotami. It was decided before the Apella, less by inquiry into evidence than by appeals to prophecies and oracles. When the supporters of Leoty- chides produced a venerable saying which warned Sparta against "a lame reign," and referred it to Agesilaus' personal deformity, Lysander skilfully turned the argument against them by declaring that the words really meant the reign of a king of doubtful pedi- gree. Finally the vote went in favour of Agesilaus, who ascended the throne late in the year 399 b c. Lysander had in reality provided himself with a master and not with a servant, for the new king concealed beneath his insignificant exterior more energy and intelligence than any Spartan ruler since the unfortunate Cleomenes, Agesilaus had resolved to assert the old power of the royal house, and had availed himself of the support of Lysander only for his own purposes. However, he and his councillor were entirely at one in their views on foreign policy ; both were eager to push on the war against Persia, having a fixed belief that the expulsion of the Great King from the whole of Asia Minor would be a feasible task. Accordingly they used their influence in the state to secure the appointment of Agesilaus as the successor of Dercyllidas, and in 397 B.C. carried their point. The king was authorized to take with him thirty Spartans as a council of war, with Lysander at their head, and to raise two thousand Laconian perioeci and six thousand troops of the allies for service across the seas. When the contingents for this expedition were called in, the first grave symptoms of discontent against the Spartan hegemony that had yet been noted made themselves visible. Thebes, Corinth, and Athens all refused to supply the force that was demanded from 422 Sparta Supreme in Greece. iseTs.c. thcni. The Athenians alleged poverty and weakness ; the Corinthians unfavourable omens from their national gods; but the Thebans made no excuses, and simply sent a blank refusal. Nor was this all ; Agesilaus was anxious to commence his undertaking — the Aeesiiaus sets first important invasion of Asia by a Hellenic armj out for Asia ^l^J^(; ij^d occurred for ages — with a solemn and im- pressive ceremony. Before departing he went to Aulis on the Euripus, the port from which Agamemnon had set forth to the siege of Troy, and offered sacrifice to the gods of the land in imitation uf his mythical predecessor. The ceremony was hardly completed, the fires were still burning, and the victims not wholly consumed, when a party of Theban horse rode up, cast down the altars, extinguished the flames, and bade the king in the rudest way to depart from their territory. Agesilaus was constrained to go on board at once, and sailed away to meet his troop-sliii)s, which were lying oft' the southern cape of Euboea. From that day he nourished a fierce and not inexcusable hatred against the whole Theban race. When Agesilaus landed in Asia he was at once met by envoys from Tissaphernes, who made great protestations of their master's desire to satisfy the Spartan government. The satrap had taken fright at the arrival of such large reinforcements for the army of Dercyllidas, and was anxious to divert the impending attack. For a short time Agesilaus listened to his proposals, and consented to conclude a truce, but ere long he discovered the hoUowness of the negotiation into which he had been entrapped, and set to work in good earnest to subdue the Lydiaa and Mysian inland which lay behind the Greek cities of the coast. Before actual operations began, the king was compelled to engage in a trial of strength with Lysander. When the victor of Aegospotami arrived in Ionia he had at once been surrounded by crowds of his old dependents, who ignored the king and paid court to his councillor alone. Agesilaus soon showed resentment by deliberately refusing all Second petitions preferred in behalf of Lysander's friends, and disgrace of by rejecting any advice that came to him from that quarter. Ere long a stormy scene ensued ; Lysander taunted the king with ingratitude, and was bidden in return to remember that the friend who presumes too much on past services becomes unbearable. Finding Agesilaus quite _bevond his control, 396 B.C.] Campaigns of Agesilaus in Asia. 423 Lysander was driven, when he came to a cahiier mood, to solicit employment in some region where his humiliation might not be too evident. The king consented, and gave him command of the Spartan forces on the Hellespont, where he did good service against Pharnabazus, until he was called home at the end of the year. Now that he was freed from the tutelage of Lysander, Agesilaus proceeded to conduct the war on his own system. He made Ephesus his head-quarters and base of operations, and from it struck alternately north and south, carrying his incursions up to the gates of Sardis, and penetrating far into Mysia and Caria. He drove Pharnabazus out of Dascylium, the capital of his satrapy, and compelled him to migrate inland with all his family and treasures. A rapid pursuit and a fortunate engagement enabled him to seize the Persian's camp and all the wealth it contained — a sum which sufficed to maintain his army for several months. The troops of Tissaphernes also suffered such constant reverses successes of at the hands of Agesilaus, that King Artaxerxes was "tn Asia"^ fain to believe that his representative was designedly 396 395 B.C. mismanaging the war. Accordingly he had the old satrap beheaded, and appointed in his stead an officer named Tithraustes. But the new governor fared no better than his predecessor; Agesilaus refused to listen to proposals fur an accommodation, and pushed his incursions further and further inland. ^loreover, he stirred up the native tribes, especially the Paphlagonians, against their suzerain, and raised numerous auxiliary troops from among them. Even discontented Persians of rank began to pass over to his camp, and to array their retainers among the Spartan auxiliaries. The whole of Western Asia Minor seemed to be slipping out of the hands of the Great King. The Greeks of Ionia, when they saw how the war was going, were induced to view the Spartan domination Avith kinder eyes; they began to make contributions of money with some approach to enthusiasm, and even enlisted in considerable numbers in the ranks of Agesilaus. A large and efficient body of cavalry was formed from among them, by inviting their chief men to serve in that arm ; some came themselves, but the majority furnished and paid substitutes, Avho proved much more amenable to discipline than the Ionian oligarchs would have been. But the chief use to which Agesilaus intended to turn the Asiatic Greeks 424 Sparta Supreme in Greece. [395 b.c, was to make them provide him witli a fleet. By a special grant from Sparta he was given the authoritj'' of nauarcli as well as tliat of general. Then he requisitioned one himdred and twenty ships from the Ionian and Cariaa cities, and placed his brother-in-law Peisander at their head. This force was intended to fall upon the south coast of Asia Minor ; while the Spartan army, now more than twenty thousand strong, and in high spirits and efficiency, marched eastward to conquer the central districts of the peninsula. To all appearance the Persian power in Asia Minor was now doomed. But Agesilaus was not destined to forestall Alexander the Great. There was one resource still remaining to the Great King; he might stir up war in Europe to distract the attention of the Spartans from Asia. This line was now adopted. Tithraustes sent across the Aegean a Ehodian named Tiraocrates, giving him fifty talents of silver, and bidding him use it to rouse the leading men in the states that were known to. be discontented wuth the Spartan dominion. The mission was happily timed, and its success effectually stopped the operations of Agesilaus, and gave the Persian power a new lease of life for fifty years. CHAPTER XXXVI. ATTEMPTS TO OVERTHROW THE SPARTAN SUPREMACY 395-387 B.C. The emissary of Tithraustcs found the task of stirring up a diversion in Europe an easy one. Tlie states wliich had used Sparta as their instrument for the overthrow of Athens had long been chafing against the new ruler whom they had given them- selves. More especially was feeling running high in the larger .cities, which had policies and ambitions of their own, but were compelled to subordinate them to the interests of the Lacedae- monians. Adhering in one point at least to the programme which they had published at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, the ephors had set themselves to encourage local autonomy, by isolating state from state among their allies, and by sui:>porting cantonal independence, so long as it was consistent with a general deference to the commands of Sparta. It resulted that the smaller states throughout Greece looked to Sparta for protection from their larger neighbours, while the latter found the Spartan supremacy a complete bar to any farther extension of their power and influence. In Boeotia, for example, there were always two parties ; Thebes was continually striving to turn the loose league of cities into a centralized confederation dependent on herself, but Orcho- menus, Thespiae, and the other towns which clung to their local independence, could always check her by calling in the aid of Sparta. Roughly speaking, the larger states of Greece were anxious to rid themselves of their new suzerain, and obtain a free scope for their ambition, while the smaller were ready to support Sparta, oppressive though she might be, in order to guarantee themselves from the worse evils of servitude to their immediate neighbours. 426 Attempts to overthrow the Spartan Supremacy. 3953.0. The Thebans had shown their discontent some years before by the insult which they had inflicted on Agcsilaus (see p. 422), and Thebes pro- were now the leaders in open revolt against Sparta. ^"^o^war^*^** Their most popular statesman, Ismenias, influenced by 395 B.C. patriotism and ambition even more than by the Persian gold of Timocrates, determined to put himself in communication with the malcontents in other states, and to bring about a collision. Having assured himself of the co-operation of Argos — who, now as always, was hungering after the lands of her neighbours of Epi- daurus and Phlius — and of Corinth, he took the decisive step. The Locrians of Opus, old dependents of Thebes, were encouraged to raid upon the lauds of the Phocians, a tribe whose loyalty to Sparta was undoubted. The injured Phocians appealed to their suzerain, while Thebes at once sent her army into the field to assist the Locrians. Sparta then declared war, without knowing that she was thereby committed to a struggle not merely with Thebes, but with Corinth and Argos, whose governments had not yet declared themselves. While King Pausanias, with the contingents of the Pelopon- nesus, was directed to cross the Isthmus and invade Boeotia from the south, Lysander was once more drawn from his retirement and placed in command of a second army. With a small Laconian contingent he crossed the Corinthian Gulf and threw himself into Phocis, where he gathered together the mountain tribes, the Malians, Phocians, and Oetaeans, for a raid into the plain of the Cephissus. The Orchomenians, too, broke away from the Boeotian League, joined the Spartan, and declared war on their Theban neighbours. Before a blow had been struck the Thebans succeeded in enlisting another ally in their cause. Athens had been for the last eight Athens since Y^ars endeavouring to live down her civil broils and 403 B.C. to fall back into her old manner of life. But the crimes of the Thirty were not easy to forget, and a bitterness per- vaded political life which exceeded anything that had prevailed in the days before the Pdoponnesian war. Prosecutions which, what- ever their form, were really inspired by political grudges were always rife. The best known among them is that Avliich led to the con- demnation and death of the philosopher Socrates. Though per- 395 B.C.] Battle of Haliarttis. 427 sonally blameless, he had been the tutor and associate of Critias, Theramenes, Pythodorus, and others of the worst of the oligarchs. Moreover, his philosophic inquiries into every sphere of morality and politics shocked conservative citizens, and his restless love of disputation had made him many personal enemies. When prose- cuted by the democratic leader Anytus for " corrupting the youth and practismg impiety," he vindicated his manner of life, but would make no further defence ; he was condemned by the dicas- tery, and drank the fatal hemlock (399 B.C.). Many of the best citizens of Athens thought that a foreign war was the best way of rousing their fellows from civil bickerings, and Thrasybiilus, the hero of B.C. 403, was zealous to repay Thebes for the assistance she had given the exiled democracy in that year. Accordingly, though her navy was non-existent and her Long Walls were still in ruins, Athens was induced to join the Theban alliance and declare war once more on her old enemy. The campaign of 395 B.C. began with an inroad by Lysander into Boeotia. Expecting to be joined on a fixed day by King Pausauias, he led his Phociaus and Malians down into the plain,, '■ Lysander slain and attacked Haliartus. But while he lay at its gates at Haiiartus, the townsmen made a sortie, a great Theban army ' ' came up in his rear, and in the sudden fray he himself was slain and his forces dispersed. Pausanias, who appeared next day, found the body of the great general lying unburied by the wall, and was constrained to ask for a truce to perform the last offices for the dead, and to consent to evacuate Boeotia if that boon was granted him. For his lateness in arriving, and his tameness in consenting to turn back without fighting, the king was impeached the moment he reached Sparta. He fled from trial, and was condemned in his absence, just as his father Pleistoanax had been fifty-one years before (see p. 266). His son Agesipolis, a youth of seventeen or eighteen, succeeded to the kingly power. In Lysander Sparta lost her ablest general, and the only man who could have rescued her from internal decay. But his personal ambition had always been such a disturbing factor „ , , ■' ° Conspiracy of in Lacedaemonian politics that the eiihors felt more cinadon, 398 B C relief than regret at his fall. Saved from the fear of his genius, they could go on in their old narrow ways, and work out 428 Attempts to overthroio the Spartan Supremacy. 1394 b.c. to the end the doom which its cast-iron constitution was preparing for Sparta. The state was already in great danger ; it was only a few years before that a general rising of the inferior citizens and Helots against the government had been frustrated by the slaying of Cinadon, who had organized the plot. But, unwarned by con- spiracy within and revolt without, the ephors went on in the old paths, and kept Spartan policy in its usual groove of selfishness and indifference to the rights of others. When the result of the battle of Haliartus was know-n, Argos and Corinth published their declaration of war, in which not long after the Acarnanians, the Euboeans, and many of the Thessalian cities joined. The Spartans found themselves forced to fight for their hegemony in Peloponnesus, as well as for their empire in Greece. Realizing the gravity of the crisis, they sent to Asia to summon back Agesilaus and his army, for every available man would be wanted at home When the spring of 394 B.C. came round, the forces of Laconia and of those allies who remained faithful were sent, under the regent Aristodemus, to march on Corinth and block the way of invaders from the north. The army, however, arrived too late; twelve thousand Boeotians and Athenians had already crossed the Isthmus, and had been joined by the levies of Corinth and Argos. The allied host, twenty thousand hoplites with a strong force of cavalry and light-anned, lay on the Corinthian border, and was about to move southward. They had been planning a sudden raid into Laconia, pursuant to the advice of the Corinthian Timolaus, who bade them "not to strike at the wasps when they are flying around, but to run in and set fire to their nest." But while they were settling the details Battle of °^ their march, the Spartan army had already reached Corinth, Sicyon, and was offering them battle. Aristodemus 394 B.C. ./ ' o had called up the levies of Arcadia, Elis, Achaia, aud the small states of the Argive penmsula ; he had nearly as many hoplites as the allies, and was determined to fight. The armies came into collision by the brook Nemea, four miles westward from Corinth. The incidents of the fight were not unlike those of the last battle which Sparta had fought in Peloponnesus. Now, as formerly at Mantinea, the Lacedaemonians themselves broke and trampled down the enemy opposed to them, while their allies 394B.C.] Battle of Coyinth. 429 fared badly aud were driven off the field. Once more llie Lacedaemonians kept tlaeir ranks and retrieved the day, while the victorious wing of their opi^onents scattered itself in reckless pursuit. Thus it came to pass that though of (he Spartans only eight full, their allies had lost eleven hundred men, while the enemy, slaughtered up to the very gates of Corinth, left nearly three thousand dead on the field. Meanwhile Agesilaus had received the orders of the ephors to return home, and had reluctantly given over his great scheme for the invasion of Asia. Leaving his brother-in-law Peisauder in charge of the fleet, and an officer named Euxenus with four thousand men to maintain the war against Tithraustcs, he assembled his army on the Hellespont, driven out of Asia, as he bitterly complained, not by force of arms, but by the ten thousand golden bowmen^ which the satrap had sent across to Thebes and Argos. Crossing the straits, he led his men homewards by the long coast-road through Thrace and Macedonia. The force he took with him was strong, confident, and well disciplined; the veteran mercenaries who had served under Cyrus, and the Pelo- ponnesians who had followed Agesilaus to Asia, were equally ■enthusiastic for their leader. Forcing his way through hostile Thessaly, in spite of the hordes of cavalry which hung around him, Agesilaus reached the friendly land of Phocis, about a month after the battle of Corinth had been fought. The Phocians and the discontented Boeotians of Orchomenus joined him, and he then advanced along the valley of the Cephissus. At Coronoa, where the Boeotian plain narrows down between the hills of Helicon and the marshes of Copais^ he found the enemy barring his further progress. In spite of their late defeat, the Thcbans were bent on fighting; they had sent in haste for their Argive and Athenian allies, and mustered in strength beneath the walls of CorouGa. Here was fought the most desperate action that Greece had seen since Thermopylae. The Theban troops, who charged — as at Delium — in a dense column on the right of the allied _ ... , " £attle or army, broke the ranks of their separatist countrymen coronea. of Orchomenus ; but on all other points of the line Agesilaus won the day. The king then threw himself between * The Persian gold Daric bore the figure of the Great King holding a bow. 430 Attempts to overthroiv the Spartan Supremacy. [394 b.c. the victorious Thebans aud their line ot retreat ; but the enemy merely closed their ranks, and pushed forward mto the midst of the Spartan host, determined to force their way through. Their column wedged itself into the hostile line, but could not break it. The fight stood still ; the front ranks on either side went down to a man, and the press grew so close that the combatants had to drop their spears and fight on with their daggers. Agesilavis himself was thrown down and well-nigh trampled to death before his body-guard could draw him out from among the corpses. At last, after a struggle of a length unprecedented in Greek battles, the survivors of the Theban column forced their way through the Spartan line, and reached the slopes of Helicon. Agesilaus had the glory of a victory — as the Thebans confessed by demanding the usual truce for the burial of the dead — but his men had suffered as severely as the enemy, and instead of pushing on into Boeotia he turned back to Delphi. There he offered Apollo the tithe of his Asiastic spoils, a sum of no less than a hundred talents (£24,000), and then crossed over to Peloponnesus by sea. On the evening before the battle of Coronea Agesilaus had received from Asia a piece of intelligence which he carefullj'' concealed from his army. It was to the effect that his brother-in law Peisander had been defeated and slain in a sea-fight off Cnidus, and that the cities of Ionia and Caria were one aft«r another revolting against Sparta. After Agesilaus had left Asia, the Persian satraps had recovered their confidence, and determined to assume the offensive. They ttieof possessed a considerable squadron of Phoenician Cnidus, vessels, which the king had placed under the 394 B C cj X command of the Athenian Conon, who had been an exile in Cyprus since the disaster of Aegospotami (see p. 403). Pharnabazus went on board ship — he was the first satrap who had taken to the sea for fifty years— and set forth with Conon to meet the Spartan fleet. They came on Peisander off" Cnidus, and found him ready to fight, for though an inexperienced seaman he had all the courage of the true Lacedaemonian. The Persians considerably outnumbered the enemy, and obtained an easy victory, for the Ionian captains in the Spartan fleet, sick of harmosts and war-taxes, made no serious resistance. They fled 394 B.C.] Ionia revolts from Sparta. 431 at the first shock, and left their admiral to his fate. Peisauder fell, and half his galleys were sunk or taken. Pharnabazus and Conon then sailed up the coast of Caria and Ionia, summoning the Greek cities to cast off the Spartan yoke and assert their autonomy. Town after town — Cos, j. ,, x. Ejjhesus, Saraos, Chios, Mitylene — expelled its har-spanan power most and threw open its gates. Only Abydos, ^^ ^*^' where the able Dercyllidas had collected the wrecks of many Spartan garrisons, held out against the victorious admirals. By the close of 394 b.c. it was the sole remaining token of all the conquests of Lysander and Agesilaus, and the Spartan empire in Asia was at an end. The war in Greece now resolved itself into a series of bickerings for the possession of the roads across the Isthmus. The Corinthians, supported by occasional assistance from Athens and Argos, en- deavoured to hold the narrow line — four miles broad from sea to sea — between Cenchreae and Lechaeum. The Lacedaemonians, from their base at Sicyon, kept sending out expeditions to burst through and to seize posts in the rear of Corinth, from which a blockade of the city would be possible. But though they broke down the "Long Walls" which connected Corinth with the sea, harried the whole Corinthian territory from end to end, and inflicted endless misery upon its inhabitants, they made little or no progress towards bringing the war to an end. The only thoroughly successful operation which they carried out in the whole war was directed at an outlying member of the Tiieban alliance, and had no influence on the main course of events. It was an expedition of Agesilaus into Acarnania, by which the tribes of that country were forced into submission, and became allies of Sparta (391 B.C.). Meanwhile the pauses in the progress of the war had brought great gain to at least one power. lu the spring of 393 B.C. Conon and Pharnabazus had brought across the Aegean a conon re- squadron of Phoenician and Ionian ships ; after harry- iio^s waus, ing the coast of Laconia they came into the gulf 393 b.c. of Aegina. As there was no Spartan fleet to fight, Conon obtained from the satrap permission to employ the seamen of his squadron and a considerable sum of money in aiding the Athenians 432 Attempts to overthroio the Spartan Supremacy, (391 b.c. to rebuild the fortifications of Peiraous and the "Long Walls," which had remained in ruins since Lysander breached them in 404 B.C. Three or four months' hard labour sufEced for their re- construction, and when this was accomplished the Athenians set to work to build war-ships in the long-deserted sli^w of their ruined arsenal. By the next year we find them able to send out a modest squadron of ten vessels, the first that had sailed out of Peiraeus for twelve years. Two years later they could put Thrasybulus in com- mand of forty, a force large enough to have some influence on the course of the war. It was not destined that the struggle — the " Corinthian war," as men called it, because its operations centred around the walls of Corinth — should be brought to an end by any events in Europe. Neither party showed any sign of reducing its enemy, and the petty warfare might apparently have gone on for ever. The only incident worth recording in these dreary years was one which had some importance in the history of Greek military art, but no influence on the coiirse of Greek politics. The Athenian general, Iphicrates, had applied himself to perfect the equipment and tactics of the light-troops called peltasts. He had endeavoured to assi- milate them to the hoplite, without loading them with the heavy armour which made quick movement impossible to the troops ot the line. Though he furnished them with corselets of quilted Imen, and small shields, instead of metal breastplates and large oval bucklers, he gave them a pike and sword even longer and stronger than those of the hoplite. After performing some minor exploits with these troops against the heavy infantry of Phlius and Mantinca, Iphicrates ventured to measure them against a body of Spartans. Iphicrates He caught a mora (battalion), four hundred strong, SpartarTmora '^^^'^^^ ^^^'^ hQQW Serving on escort duty, as it defiled 391 B.C. along the shore below the walls of Corinth, and beset it on all sides with his peltasts. When the Spartans charged, his men gave way ; but they returned when the enemy's impetus was exhausted, hung around him, galled him with missiles, and finally brought him to a standstill. Harassed and exhausted, much as their countrymen at Sphacteria had been thirty-five years before, the Lacedaemonians halted to defend themselves on an isolated hillock, where they were first worried by the peltasts, and then 391 B.C.] Iphicrates at Corinth. 433 broken by a body of Athenian hoplites \s-hicli came up from Corinth. Two hundred and fifty of them fell, the remainder escaped to Lechaeum. Thus a whole Spartan battalion had been not merely slain off — such things as that had happened before — but driven to headlong flight by the despised mercenaries of Iphi- crates. This was a fact which made the strongest impression on the mind of Greece. It induced every state to pay more attention for the future to its light-armed troops, who had previously been deemed worthy of little notice ; it won for Iphicrates a reputation which he hardly deserved, and it led to a somewhat undue deprecia- tion of Spartan courage. The real moral, that hoplites should never be sent out alone, but always accompanied by a due joroportion of light-armed troops, seems to have escaped the notice of the con- temporary observer. Twenty cases with the same moral could be quoted m the fifth and fourth centuries,' yet no general seems to have grasped their meaning before Alexander the Great. While the war had come to a standstill in Europe, really decisive events were taking place across the Aegean. The Lacedaemonians had lost all their possessions in Asia, except Abydos, spartan in- and were therefore in a position to resume their old t'^i^'^i^s with '■ Persia, alliance with Persia; having none of the Great King's 390 b.c. ancient possessions any longer in their hands, they could approach him without being required to part with anything. In 392 B.C. an officer named Antalcidas was despatched to Sardis, and obtained a hearing from Tiribazus, who had succeeded Tithraustes as satrap in Lydia. He pointed out that the war had ceased to bring the Great King profit, and that the Persian fleet under Conon was now being used, not to serve Persian interests, but merely to build up again the power of Athens, whose interests must infallibly bring her ere long into collision with the satraps. Tiribazus was con- vinced by these arguments ; tie recalled Conon, threw him into prison "^ for misusing the forces entrusted to him, and went up to Susa to persuade King Artaxerxes to make peace with Sparta. But negotiations with an Oriental power are always lengthy, and while the attitude of the Persian court was still doubtful, the ephors raised a new army and fleet and sent them across the ' C£. especially the disaster of Demosthenes in Aetolia (p. 321). * Conon escaped from prison, but died not long after, 2f 434 Attempts to overthrow the Spartan Supremacy. i389 b.c. Aegean. This force seized Ephesus, and once more gave Sparta a foothold in Ionia: shortly after an insurrection in Lesbos threw all the cities of that great island, save Mitylene, into Lacedaemo- nian hands (390 b.c). By this time the Athenians had finished building their new navy, and forty ships under Thrasybulus arrived in Asiatic waters to check the restoration of Spartan supremacy east of the Aegean. Thrasybidus performed no great military service, but he succeeded in uniting the Byzantines, Ehodians, and Chalcedouians in a naval league with Athens — a union which hopeful men trusted might prove the commencement of a new Delian League. Before the year was ended, however, he Avas slain by the people of Aspendus, on whose land he had been levying a forced contribution. For more than a year a sporadic naval warfare continued to rage over the whole Aegean, from Aegina to Ephesus, and from Abydos . , , .^ to Ehodes. But here, too, just as in the land war in Antalcidas ' ■' anieSwith Greece, the adversaries seemed to have come to a standstill. At last, in the spring of 388 B.C., Tiribazus returned from Susa — he had been absent no less than three years — with full permission from the Great King to carry out his Philo- Spartan policy. He at once made an alliance with Antalcidas, who had been his original adviser, and placed the Persian fleet at the disposition of the Lacedaemonian. Uniting it to his own, Antalcidas swept the Aegean from north to south, chased the Athenian squadron back to Peiraeus, and showed himself undisputed master of the seas. But Sparta had no longer any desire to proceed with the war; she was conscious that her momentary advantage had been gained J not by her own strength but by that of Persia, and Antalcidas, was anxious to seize a favourable opportunity to put an end to hostilities. In the spring of 387 B.C. Tiri- bazus invited all the belligerents to send deputies to a peace congress at Sardis. All accepted, for none of them had any great wish to protract the war. Athens was frightened by the prospect of the loss of her newly restored trade and the blockade of her ports ; Corinth had been nearly ruined by the harrying of her territory ; Argos had gained nothing by a long-protracted struggle ; Thebes thought that she had made an end of Spartan interference 387 B.C.) Peace of Anialcidas. 435 ia Boeotia, the main object of her declaration of war. When the envoys arrived, Tiribazus laid before them a declaration which he had drawn up in conjunction with Antalcidas. The document ran as follows : "King Artaxerxes deems it just that the cities in Asia should belong to him, and of the islands Clazomenae^ and Cyprus; the other Greek cities, both small and great, are to be independent ; only Lemuos, Imbros, and Scyros are, as of old, to belong to the Athenians. Whatsoever states shall not accept this peace, upon them I shall, in conjunction with those who accept it, make war by land and by sea, with ships and with money," By agreeing to these terms, Sjjarta gave up all pretence of posing as the defender of Hellas against the barbarian. She surrendered the cities of Asia to the Great King, because she could no longer help to keep them for herself. Resigning herself to the loss of her power east of the Aegean, she fell back on the old hegemony of Peloponnesus, which had been hers from time immemorial. This hegemony she felt herself able to maintain, but for its full re- establishment an interval of peace was necessary. If the peace could be bought only by sacrificing the lonians to Persia, they must be sacrificed ; since their rebellion in 394 b.c. Sparta felt no atom of interest in their fate — a disinterested regard for the welfare of Hellas was never her foible. The threat of having to face Persia and Sparta combined was too much for the confederates. When their envoys reported to them the terms offered by Tiribazus, one after another consented to accept them. Thebes held out longest, for her envoys refused for some time to subscribe to the treaty, unless they might sign in the name of the whole Boeotian League. The Spartans refused to allow this, alleging the terms of the treaty, which said that " all Greek cities, both small and great, should be independent " — a clause which they read into a prohi- bition of the hegemony of Thebes in Boeotia. But finding that all their allies had left them, and frightened b}'' the threats of Agesi- laus, who declared his intention of at once invading Boeotia, the Thebans signed the inglorious document. Thus ended the " Corinthian war," a struggle which wrought ' The old towa of Clazomenae was on the mainland, but a citadel .ind new quarter had been built on an island connected by a causeway with the shore. Hence Tiribazus could call it an ishind. ii^'ifi Attempts to oveyihroiu the Spartan Supremacy. {3aT:B.c. damage to llcUas at large — for it ended in tiie loss of her Ionic members — without profiting any one of the states peace of which had engaged in it. Sparta had lost her naval Anta ci as. m^p^gj^^jacy and her mastery of the Aegean, but her adversaries had not gained by her disasters. The only power which had come happily out of the business was Persia, who had at last recovered the Ionian cities, lost so long ago as 480-470 B.C., and now found herself once more mistress of the Aegean. But luckily for Greece King Artaxerxes was a most unenterprising monarch, and never cared to push to its end the opportunity which was now granted him. Antalcidas incurred the discredit of being held responsible for the treaty, and from him it took its name, " the Peace of Antal- cidas." Another but a more inglorious Lysander, he won the approval of his own countrymen, and the curses of all Greece beside, for having yoked Sparta to the barbarian, and secured her triumph by sacrificing Greek cities by the score. His ignominy was shared by the ephors; Agesilaus alone, who advocated the continuance of the war, had no part in it. But even Agesilaus looked upon the peace as profitable to the country. When it was said in his hearing that " the Lacedaemonians had played into the hands of the Medes," he replied, " No ; say i-ather that the Medes are playing into the hands of the Lacedaemonians." But whether the Medes Laconized or the Lacedaemonians Medized, Ephesus and Miletus and all their sister-towns were struck out of the list of free Hellenic communities, and incorporated once more in a Persian satrapy. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE GREEKS OF THE WEST, 413-338 B.C. When the great expedition of Nicias and Demosthenes had been shattered against the walls of Syracuse, it was universally believed that a new period of splendour and prosperity was opening for the cities of Sicily. The unprovoked attack of Athens on their liberties had shown them the danger of civil strife, had taught them to combine, and had proved that when combined they were irresistible. Seliuus, Himera, Gela, and most of the other Siceliot towns, had con- tributed their contingents to theSyracusan army, and shared in the glory of the great victory. Syracuse, who had borne the brunt of the attack, had learnt that, strong though she was, she was not strong enough to save herself without the aid of her lesser neighbours. Bound together by their late comradeship in arms, and warned by the dangers they had passed through, it might have been expected that the Siceliots would settle down to a life of peace and progress. This was not to be; within four years after the execution of Nicias, Sicily was to undergo a series of disasters which maimed her strength and. cut short her energies for ever. Half her cities were to be destroyed by the stranger, the remainder stripped of their liberty, and handed over to a tyrant whose deeds recalled the worst days of the rule of Gelo and Hiero. When the rejoicings which followed the overthrow of the Athe- nian armament had ceased, two schemes engrossed the attention of the Syracusans and their allies. To punish Athens for her inter- ference in the affairs of the West, a Siceliot fleet should sail east- ward and carry the war into the waters of tlie Aegean. Accord- ingly two squadrons were sent forth, in 412 and 411 B.C., under Hermocrates, the Syracusan general who had most distinguished himself during the siege. These vessels, as we have already seen, 438 The Greeks of the West, 413-338 r>.c. 1409 b.c. shared in the good and evil fortune of the Spartan armaments of Chalcideus and Mindarus (see pp. 377, 391). Even stronger than the desire for chastising Athens was the determination of the Siceliots to punish those traitor-cities among ,^ . themselves who had espoused the Athenian cause. Wars m ^ SicUy, Syracuse undertook the chastisement of her old enemies of Naxos and Catana ; their fields were ravaged, and their walls beleaguered, yet for two years they con- trived to hold out. Selinus meanwhile fell on the Segestans, and endeavoured to wreak her vengeance on the alien city which had so long maintained herself alone among the Greek communities. But Segesta seemed fated to bring evil after evil upon Sicily. With ruin impending over her now as in 417 b.c, she determined to call in another ally. Where the Athenian had failed the Carthaginian might succeed. Accordingly the Segestans sent message after message to Africa, to interest in their cause the great Phoenician city, whose harbour looks forth on the western shore of Sicily. The Carthaginians had avoided meddling with their Hellenic neighbours since the awful disaster which their army had suffered Carthage before the walls of Himera just seventy years ago (see interferes m p_ 232). But now they Were in a warlike mood ; the affairs. disaster of the Athenians at Syracuse had roused in them fear of the growing might of Syracuse, and their counsels were dominated at the moment by Hannibal, an ambitious general who had a grudge against the Siceliots. He was the grandson of that Hamilkar who had fallen at Himera in 480 B.C., and had sworn to avenge the fate of his ancestor. In 410 B.C. he was one of the two suffetes, or supreme magistrates, of Carthage, and he easily per- suaded his countrymen to listen to the appeal of Segesta, and to entrust him with an army destined for the invasion of Sicily. Accordingly, in the summer of 410 B.C., a Carthaginian auxiliary force landed at Segesta and drove off the Selinuntines from the environs of the town. But this was only the prelude storm of . TT Selinus. to the great invasion. In the following spring Han- * ^" ' nibal crossed over from Africa with one of those vast and miscellaneous mercenary hosts which Carthage was accustomed to gather when she went to war. Hannibal was not a general of the school of Nicias ; he did not falter for a moment in his opera- 409 B.C.] Carthaginian Invasion of Sicily. 439 tions, but marched straight on Selinus almost before his lauding was known. The battering-ram was set to work on a score of points at once, breaches were ere long broken in the walls, and a hundred thousand wild Libyans, Spaniards, and Gauls mounted to the assault. For nine days the Selinuntines held the breaches, and sent messenger after messenger to hurry on the forces of Syracuse and Acragas, whose aid had been promised them. On the tenth day the defence broke down, the enemy poured into the town, and a horrible massacre took place. The barbarians filled the streets with sixteen thousand corpses, drove off the rest of the inhabitants as captives, and swept away everything in the city that was not too hot or too heavy to be moved. The Siceliot army, which had gathered at Acragas to march to the relief of Selinus, was thunderstruck. In ten days a great and well-fortified city had been struck out of the roll _, ,, ^ •' Fall of of Greek communities. The generals were scared. Himera, 409 B C Instead of taking the field to oppose Hannibal, they dismissed their army and sent to ask for terras of peace. But the Carthaginian had not yet executed half his purpose. Before the Siceliots had guessed his purpose, he had marched across the island and laid siege to Himera. The Himeraeans, seeing the fate of Selinus impending over them, cried aloud for instant succour. But Hannibal was so prompt that no more than four thousand Syra- cusan troops had time to reach the city. The Greeks strove to keep back the enemy by a vigorous sally, but it failed, and the place in a few days became untenable. The non-combatants were hurried away by sea ; the Syracusans escaped by land, but ere the town was half evacuated the besiegers burst in. Hannibal levelled the whole place — walls, temples, and houses — to the ground, and executed three thousand captive hoplites on the spot where his grandfather had been slain in 480 d.c, as a solemn offering to the gods of Carthage. Within three months after his landing Hannibal sailed back to Carthage, his ships laden deep with captives and spoil, leaving behind him two heaps of ruins where once had stood the two westernmost Hellenic cities of Sicily. His return was anxiously looked for in the next spring, but for reasons to us unknown it was delayed. The Siceliots, free for a short space from the impending 440 The Greeks of the West, 4^3-338 B.C. t406B.c. ruin, did not emi)loy their time in getting ready to resist the next wave of invasion. They fell to mutual recriminations over the CivUwar at causes of their military failures in the preceding year. Syracuse, ^t Syracuse the factions actually came to blows. Hermocrates, the hero of the Athenian siege, had been sent into exile, but he had a large following in the city, and was able to make attempt after attempt to force his way back, and to over- throw the faction in power. In the end of 408 B.C. he was admitted within the gates by treachery, but in the street-fight that ensued he was slain, and his followers were forced out of the half-won city. The mantle of Hermocrates fell on one of his partisans, a young Syracusan named Dionysius. He was of mean birth, and owned no family wealth or influence ; but he was a man of mark, not merely a gallant soldier, but a ready speaker, and even a poet of some note. The defeated faction placed him at its head, but instead of continuing the open war, Dionysius prevailed on them to lay do\vi their arms and bide their time. In the spring of 406 b.c. the Siceliots heard to their dismay that the impending storm was about to break upon their heads. Han- nibal, with an even larger army than he had led in his ^aUof ' ,.111 , . Acragas, iirst campaign, was makmg ready to land upon their shores. This time they were somewhat better pre- pared than in 409 B.C., and when the Carthaginian marched against Acragas, the second city of the island, he found it defended by a large confederate army of thirty-five thousand men drawn from every state in Sicily. For seven months the war stood still beneath the ramparts of Acragas, and battle after battle was fought on its sloping uplands. Tlie Greeks were ill handled by their generals; the Carthaginians were held back by a plague which broke out ir their foul and crowded camp, and carried off thousands, including their commander Hannibal himself. Things were at a deadlock till the winter, when the invaders, now under the command of an officer named Himilco, succeeded in cutting off the food-supply of the Siceliots. This brought about the evacuation of the town : the whole population, a great crowd of two hundred thousand persons, stole away by night, while the army protected their retreat. The place, with all its wealth that was not portable, fell into the hands of Himilco. The exiled Acragantines scattered themselves all over 405 B.C.] Dionysi'iis, Tyrant of Syracuse. 441 Sicily, the main body settling down on the deserted site of Leontiui, ■which was made over to them by a vote of the Syracusan assembly. When the Syracusan generals led home their contingent from Acragas, they were assailed with a storm of reproaches for their mismanagement. The attack was headed by Dionysius and the other surviving chiefs of the faction of Herraocrates, who now saw that their time was arrived. Scared by the near approach of the Carthaginians, the Syracusan assembly deposed their officers, and elected in their stead Dionysius and a wholly new board. The one faction having failed to conduct the war with success, they threw themselves into the hands of the other. But Dionysius had in his mind not so much the repulse of Himilco as the seizure of supreme power at Syracuse. His conduct during the next year has many jjoints of similarity to that of Napoleon Bonaparte in a similar case. Under the pretence of strengthening the military force of the city, he hired many hundred mercenaries, whom he attached to his own person ; then he induced the Dionysius, assembly to vote him full authority over lii.s colleagues, s^acusef so that he became practically dictator. The final 405 b.c. step was taken soon after ; an alarm was raised that his life was in danger from assassins; an illegal and informal meeting of the assembly, was held, far outside the walls of the city, and packed with the partisans of Dionysius. They voted their leader a body- guard of a thousand men, and prolonged his power for an indefi- nite period. Syracuse now found herself in the hands of a tyrant, though Dionysius disclaimed the title, and made great professions of his attachment to the cause of democracy. The Syracusan s acquiesced for the moment in the loss of their liberty, because they felt that a strong hand was needed to direct the war against the oncoming Carthaginian army. Himilco was already thundering at the gates of Gela, whose territory was actually conterminous with that of Syracuse, and in a few months might present himself before the walls of their own city. The tyranny of Dionysius lasted for no less than thirty-eight years — a period of storm and convulsion, civil strife and foreign war — ■ it brought countless evils on Sicily, but on the whole character ot it served its purpose. After long struggles the tyrant dionysius. brought the Carthaginians to a standstill, and at his death left 442 TJie Greeks of the West, 4i3~338 bc [4osb.c. Acragas and all the other towns which had fallen to the enemy, save Selinus and Himera, once more in Hellenic hands. Dionysius was neither to be counted among the worst nor among the best of tyrants. He often showed unexpected clemency to a vanquished foe ; he was not personally violent, intemperate, lustful, or ava- ricious ; he took good care of all who served him well, and wrought much for Syracuse as well as for himself. He was not insensible to gratitude, or incapable of personal affection. Himself an author of some merit, the writer of tragedies which won the first prize at the Athenian Dionysiac festival, he loved to surround himself with literary men. As a builder, he was almost equal to Pericles ; as a general, he inaugurated a new epoch in the Hellenic art of war. But all these qualities were spoiled by the countervailing vices of Dionysius. His cool and steadfast determination to hold on to his tyranny led him again and again through seas of blood. The citizens of Syracuse who suffered death at his hands were numbered by thousands rather than by hundreds. The financial exigencies of his wars drove him to grinding extortion ; he is said to have taxed the Syracusans every year to th.e extent of one-fifth of their property, and his confiscations were enormous. He was capable of outbursts of cruelty which shocked the Hellenic mind — flogging prisoners to death, crucifying them, or fixing them to his military engines. His callousness to religious sentiment provoked even greater wrath : he never shrank from plundering or burning a temple, and on one occasion sold to his enemies, the Carthaginians, the most hallowed treasures of the greatest shrine of Italy. Above all, his suspicions made him hated. Driven into a state of appre- hension by continual plots and outbreaks, he came to trust no man. His spies were always at work, scenting out imaginary conspiracies; his dungeons always full of citizens imprisoned on suspicion. He grew so wary that he never stirred abroad without a mercenary guard ; he had every visitor to his palace searched for concealed weapons, even to his own nearest relations, and — such is the story — would not even allow a barber to approach his person with a razor. The well-known tale of Damocles illustrates well enough, whether it be true or false, the state of nervous tension to which the tyrant was reduced. That courtier, having expressed his envy of the prosperity of Dionysius, was invited to a banquet, placed in the seat 405 B.C.I Dionysius at War with Carthage. 443 of honour, robed like a king, and served with the choicest wines and viands. But in the midst of the feast his host bade him look upward. Damocles did so, and found a heavy sword suspended over his head by a single hair, and threatening every moment to fall. " Such," said Dionysius, " is the life of a tyrant." The reign of Dionysius was one long struggle against the power of Carthage. Four desperate wars with that state occupied his energies. His other achievements, brilliant and _. startling though they appeared, were but interludes first war with between the acts of the greater drama. It is strange ^^ ^^ to find that the first efforts of Dionysius were the least successful ; though he had been allowed to seize sovereign power precisely because the Syracusan generals had failed to hold back Himilco, yet his earliest campaign (405 B.C.) was quite as unsuccessful as that of his predecessors. He lost a battle before Gela, and was compelled to evacuate both that town and Camarina, whose inhabit- ants had to flee by night, and to join the exiled Acragantines at Leontiui. But chance came to the tyrant's aid : the plague which had laged in the Carthaginian camp in the previous year broke out again ; Himilco saw half his army stricken down, and in fear for his conquests made peace with Dionysius, restoring the territories of Gela and Camarina, and only adding that of Acragas to the Carthaginian dominions in Sicily. For the next five years Dionysius was occupied in a bitter struggle with his unwilling subjects; plots and insuricctions broke out again and again. The whole city once fell for a moment into the hands of the rebels in 404 b.c. The tyrant recovered it ; but in 403 B.C. a large force from Rhegium and Messene joined the Syra- cusan exiles, got possession of the mainland quarters of the town, and besieged Dionysius in the island-citadel of Ortygia. But the military skill and unscrupulous energy of the tyrant brought him out of the struggle stronger than ever. Not only did he make his throne firm, but he fell upon his neighbours, and in a short space conquered Naxos, Catana, and the Sicel tribes of the interior. He then felt himself strong enough to renew the war with „ ,, „ ° ° New 'waUs of Carthage, but, as a measure of precaution, first en- Syracuse. larged the fortifications of Syracuse so as to include the whole plateau of Epipolae, taking within the new wall all 444 The Greeks of the IVtst, 413-338 B.C. (397 B.C. the upland where the fighting during the Athenian siege had gone on. Thus he tripled the extent of the city; and though the new quarters were not filled with houses, they were spacious enough to serve as a place of refuge for the whole population Dionysius* of South-eastern Sicily in time of war. Dion3'sius' with Carthage second attack on Carthage opened with a series of 397 B.C. victories (397 b.c), but just as he seemed to have the whole island in his grasp, an unexpected fleet and army of the enemy fell on Messene and took it by storm. Dionysius, attacked in the rear, had to abandon his conquests in the west of Sicily, and rush back to defend Syracuse from an invasion from the north. In front of Catana he gave battle to Himilco, who again, as in 406 B.C., headed the invaders ; there he was utterly defeated, and the enemy pushed on to besiege Syracuse. But the new walls stood the city in good stead ; the tyrant had been taken by sur- prise rather than crippled, and his resources were not materially lessened. He stood firmly at bay behind his fortification for many months, till the plague that had twice before smitten the Car- thaginians again came to his rescue. So fearful was its violence that Himilco and his officers actually fled from it, leaving their army to perish wholesale by the ravages of the pest and the sword of Dionysius (395 B.C.). The tyrant then marched out of his stronghold, and took one by one every Carthaginian stronghold in the island, except the towns of Lilybaeum and Drepanum at its western extremity. Freed from the barbarian, Dionysius at once turned on his neigh- bours, and subdued every independent state in the island. By 391 B.C. he was master of the whole of Sicily save the two fortresses in the west ; and his conquests were confirmed to him by a solemn peace, in which Carthage formally resigned all she had gained since 410 B.C. Dionysius now turned his arms further afield. The Italiot Greeks were at this moment in a state of depression, owing to the Misfortunes of recent encroachments of a new enemy from the north, theitaiiots. About 420 B.C. the Sabellian tribes of Central Italy iiad begun to quit their mountain vallej's and to press southward and seaward. At the very moment that Nicias was besieging Syracuse they fell upon Cumae, the northernmost Italiot city, and 385 B.C.] Dioiiysius in Magna Graecia. 445 destroyed it (415 B.C.). They reduced Neapolis and otlier towLS of the neighbourhood to the status of tributaries, and then pushed further south. A tribe who bore the name of Lucanians headed the advance; they pressed into the southern peninsula of Italj^, took the great city of Poseidonia (circ. 395 b.c), and began to encroach on the territories of Thurii, Croton,and Metapontum. The Italiots leagued themselves together to resist the oncoming wave of barbar- ism, but with poor success. In 390 b.c. their united forces experi- enced a crushing defeat at the battle of Lalis, and the bodies of ten thousand hoplites covered the field. It was when the Hellenic cities of Italy were facing northward to resist the Lucanians that Dionysius fell upon their rear. His progress was rapid and easy ; the distracted Italiots were beaten in the open field, Dionysius their cities wxre besieged, and generally captured, '^"it^ij^! ^^® and the Syracusan yoke was extended over all the 385 b.c. states as far north as Croton, In some cases Dionysius removed the inhabitants bodily, to people the empty spaces within the new walls of Syracuse ; in others, where the resistance had angered him, he sold the whole population as slaves. Everywhere he plundered temples and private dwellings Avith perfect impartiality. Pious Greeks held that the crowning atrocity of his life was committed when he took the precious robe of Hera — a masterpiece of the embroiderer'.s art — which formed the pride of her temple near Croton, and sold it to the Carthaginians for 120 talents (£27,000). In 483 B.C. Dionysius became involved in a third war with Car- thage; it lasted but a single year, and led to no decisive results, save that Selinus fell back into the liands of the Dionysius' barbarian. But the Carthaginians could advance no fourth ^^rs further east, and it was evident that Dionysius' power with Carthag-e. formed a complete barrier to their making further conquests in Sicil}'. A fourth war, which broke out in 368 B.C., w-as equally indecisive : the Syracusans seized all the Carthaginian territoiy up to the gates of Lilybaeum, but were imable to take that fortress, so that peace had once more to be concluded on the basis of uti liossidetls, in 367 B.c, just after the decease of Dionysius. The last twenty years of Dionysius' rule were outwardly full of prosperity. Syracuse seemed the greatest and most flourish- ing city in the Greek world, and formed the centre of an empire 446 The Greeks of the West, 413-338 B.C. [sevE.c. reaching from Croton to Acragas. Twenty thousand veteran pj.gj.jjy ^j mercenaries served beneath the Syracusan banner, Dionysius. go that Dionysius was even able to interfere with events across the Ionian Sea, and is found several times influencing the course of politics in old Greece. His magnificent embassies attracted the admiration of the lovers of pomp and the hatred of the lovers of liberty when they appeared at the Olympic games. He took in hand schemes of extraordinary scope, such as that of building a wall right across the southern peninsula of Italy from sea to sea, in order to keep out the advancing Lucanians. In the midst of all his toils of state he found time to compose poems and tragedies, and wrote with sufficient merit to win the first prize at Athens, in the Dionysia of 368 B.C. But his life, if brilliant and many-sided, was anxious and wearing ; his suspicions gave him no rest, and in 367 B.C. he died, aged not much over sixty, leaving a secure throne, a full treasury, and a veteran army to his son and namesake, Dionysius IT. Dionysius the younger, though not destitute of ability, was far from possessing the restless energy and grim determination of his father. He cared little for military matters, and thought more of the splendour than the power of the tyrant's position. Vain, idle, and capricious, he was ready to hand over authority to others, pro- vided that he reaped the credit, and was not troubled with the cares of administration. But he would not trust any man for long. At first he put the government in the hands of his wife's father, Dion — a grave personage of a philosophic turn of mind, who tried to convert the Syracusan tyranny into a model monarchy, and brought over the philosopher Plato to train Dionysius into an ideal king. The young tyrant took keenly to philosophy for a short time, but found his teachers too tiresome and exacting, and ere long banished Dion and sent Plato home. For seven or eight years Dionysius held his father's empire together without any conspicuous failures ; for, although indolent and vain, he was neither cruel, reckless, nor stupid. But he was not the man either to win the loyalty or to awe the minds of his subjects ; and when Dion — who had been for Dion invades several years employed in gathering men and money Sicily, 356 B.C. jjj q\^ Greece — suddenly landed in Sicily, a general insurrection took place. First the smaller Siceliot towns threw open 356 B.C.] War of Dion and Dionysiiis II. 447 their gates to Dion, then the Syracusaiis rose, and after a sharp fight drove the tyrant's mercenaries into the citadel of Ortygia. Dionysiiis, who had been absent on an expedition to Italy, returned to find him- self master of nothing more than the island fortress. The siege of Ortygia lasted for many months, and Dion suffered several reverses before he succeeded in starving out the tyrant's garrison. Dionysius himself escaped to Locri in Italy, the only one of his father's pos- sessions which he had succeeded in retaining under his power. Dion was now master of Syracuse, and the insurgents who had aided him to expel his son-in-law eagerly waited for the grave philosopher to proclaim the liberty of his native city. But the temptations of power proved too much for Dion ; he installed him- self in the citadel, and showed no signs of dismissing his troops or re-establishing the democratic form of government. When a dema- gogue named Heracleides proposed to cast down the walls of Ortygia, Dion had him put to death. The Syracusans recognized that their efforts had merely replaced an indolent and easy-natured tyrant by an austere one. Tlie city was ripe for a rebellion, murder of when the Athenian Callippus — a follower of Plato, ■^*°'^' ^^^■^■°' who had accompanied Dion on his return from exile — treacherously slew his friend and fellow-philosopher (353 B.C.). Nine years of chaos followed in Sicilj\ A succession of militarv adventurers disputed with each other for the possession of Sj^racuse; and so far was liberty from being restored to the state, that when, in 346 B.C., the exiled tyrant Dionysius presented himself before the gates of the city, a numerous faction hastened to admit him. His rule had, at any rate, been better than the anarchy which had succeeded it. But Dionysius had taken to habits of drunkenness and debauchery, and showed himself far from being the easy-goinc prince that the Syracusans had expected. Moreover, he was unable to restore the dominion of his father over the other Sicilian cities, and his wars with them cost his subjects much blood and treasure. To add to the woes of the SiceHots, Carthage, who had kept quiet for twenty years, suddenly resumed her attacks on her Hellenic neigh- bours, and seemed likely to conquer them all, now that no vigorous central power bound the Sicilian cities into a single state. In these evil daj's the democratic party at Syracuse secretly sent to Corinth, their mother-city, to beg for aid against both the tyrant 448 The Greeks of the West, 413-338 b.c. [343 b.o. and the Carthaginitms. There was a momentary lull in Greek politics at the time — the Sacred war had just ended — and the Corinthians consented to lend their help to free their daughter- state. They fitted out a small expedition, and gave the command of it to Timoleon, a stern republican, who had taken part in the slaying of his own brother when that brother endeavoured to make himself tyrant of Corinth. Timoleon reached Sicily in safety, and in four brilliant campaigns completely liberated the island. He found Dionysius so hard pressed by his enemy Hiketas, tyrant of Leontini, that he was glad to leave Sicily under a safe-conduct, when a new enemy came to attack him. The ex-ruler of Syracuse retired to Corinth, where he long dwelt as a private citizen, an object of curiosity to the whole of Greece. He seems to have borne his fall with considerable equani- mity. He showed no vain regrets for his lost power ; and, when not engaged in a drinking-bout, employed his time in giving lectures on singing and recitation, or in instructing the boys of Corinth in the art of reading aloud. After he had expelled Dionysius, Timoleon was fiercely attacked both by the tyrant Hiketas and by the Carthaginians, who joined their forces to beleaguer Syracuse. Timoleon held Timoleon Hbe- ■,,.,,,• .,i t i rates sicUy, them m check till their ill success drove them to 340 B.C. s^gpgct each other's faith. The Carthaginians aban- doned Hiketas, who was driven off, and after a while besieged in his capital of Leontini and forced to capitulate. Then Timoleon was able to turn against the barbarian enemy. He advanced into the west of the island with a small army of twelve thousand men, and met the Carthaginians, who outnumbered him fivefold, on the banks of the Crimesus. Allowing the enemy to advance unmolested for some time, he suddenly fell upon them while their forces were divided by a ravine and the flooded river. The victory was as decisive as that which Gelo had won a hundred and forty years before under the walls of Himera. For thirty years the Cartha- ginians dared not again assail their Hellenic neighbours Timoleon laid down his power after expelling from Sicily the remaining tyrants, who had seized on the smaller towns during the years of anarchy. He spent an honoured old age in the city which he had freed, and had the happiness to die before Syracuse was 855-335 B.C.] Lucafiian Conquests in Italy. 449 again troubled by aspirants for tyranny, or molested by the enemy from Africa (336 B.C.). While Sicily had been saved by Timoleon, the Italiots had been far less fortunate. When the Dionysian dynasty fell, the cities recovered their independence, but found themselves -rrr g f th exposed to the inroads of the Lucanians, whom the itaiiots, power of Dionysius had long kept in check. The invaders gradually forced their way southward, took the towns of Terina and Hipponium (355 B.C.), and established themselves firmly in the southern peninsula of Italy, where the sub-tribe of the Bruttians, the vanguard of the oncoming host, formed themselves into a powerful state. Locri, Ehegium, and Croton were barely able to preserve for themselves a small territory close around their own walls. The Tarentines, further to the north, made a better fight, and beat off the Lucanians for some years by calling in to their aid King Archidamus of Sparta, the son of the great Agesilaus. When he fell in battle (338 n.c.) he was replaced in command of the Tarentine armies by Alexander, Prince of Epirus, a brilliant warrior, who obtained success after success against the Lucanians and Bruttians, and so broke their power that, though always dangerous, they no longer appeared irresistible to the Italiot states. It was Rome, and not the Lucanians, who was destined to extin- guish the liberty of the cities of Magna Graecia ; and the arms of Kome were still far off. 20 rji^ ^y CHAPTER XXXVIIT. THE LAST YEARS OF THE SPARTAN HEGEMONY, 387--379 B.C. The peace of Antalcidas proved quite as profitable to Sparta as the most sanguine of her statesmen had ventured to hope. By it she had deliberately sacrificed the remnant of her possessions- in Asia, but at that cost she had broken up the formidable coalition which menaced her supremacy in Europe. The terms of the treaty — which announced that " every Hellenic city w^as to be free and independent " — left her own power imtouched, because her relations with her smaller neighbours were based, not on bonds of federation, but on separate treaties with each individual state. Moreover, the allied cities were not kept to their allegiance by garrisons, or forced to pay tributes ; they were held down each by the Laconizing party within its own walls. Ostensibly, then, the allies of Sparta were " free and independent," and the treaty made no difference in their status. On the other hand, the bonds which had united the enemies of Sparta were broken by the provisions of the peace of Antalcidas. The Boeotian League, which Thebes had tried to keep together by coercing her smaller neighbours, at once flew to pieces. When the peace was proclaimed well-nigh every town in Boeotia threw over the league, asserted its complete independence, and assumed all the attributes of autonomy ^ in a way which had not been seen since 447 B.C., the year in which Thebes had reconstructed the confederacy. Not contented with seeing her enemy crippled in this way, Sparta induced the remnants of the Plataeans, who had dwelt in Attica ever since 430 b.c, to return to the site of their * For example, they all began coiniug money in their own names, which Thebes had not allowed since the league was reformed after the defeat of Athens in 447 B.C. 387 B.C.] The Chalcidian League. 451 ruined city, and to rebuild it in spite of Tliebes. It was not only in Boeotia that the peace of Antalcidas brought about changes ; in Peloponnesus, Argos and Corinth had united during the war, and fused themselves into a federal state : they were now compelled to separate, and the Lacouizing party in Corinth soon brought back their city to its old dependence on Sparta. When affairs had settled down in Greece, and the Spartans once more found themselves iirmly established in their old position, they soon showed how little they cared for the •' Siege of wording of the treaty of 387 B.C. when it affected Mantinea, themselves. Ere two years had passed they fell on their Arcadian neighbours, razed the walls of Mantinea, and com- pelled its citizens to exchange a democratic for an oligarchic form of government. Not long after they turned on Phlius, and restored its exiled aristocracy by force of arms. Such was the way in which Sparta left her neighbours " free and independent." It was Agesilaus who now directed the policy of his countrymen. He had won unbounded glory both by his Asiatic campaigns and by his later achievements in the Corinthian war ; this made him the idol of the citizens. Moreover, his ambition was not political, but purely military ; he was therefore able to avoid all conflicts v.'ith the ephors, and lived on such good terms with them that they continually lent themselves to his plans. Agesilaus continued the narrow and jealous policy of which Lysander had once been the exponent. He cared nothing for the general needs of Greece, and made it the main object of his life that no state should ever be allowed to grow strong enough to cause Sparta a moment's uneasiness. Ere long this selfish policy was put into practice on a large scale. The Greek cities on the Macedonian coast, since they had been liberated by Brasidas in 422 B.C., had preserved „v , .^. their independence amid obscure wars with each other, lieag-ue, 392-382 B C and with the barbarian kings of the inland. At last, about 392 b.c, a number of the states, headed by Olynthus, had formed themselves into a confederacy called the Chalcidian League, from the fact that nearly all its members lay within the peninsula of Chalcidice. This body was already growing powerful — it could put into the field eight thousand hoplites and a thousand horse — and appeared destined to absorb all the Greek states in its 452 The Last Years of the Spartan Hegemony. [382 b.c. neighbourhood. Frightened at its progress, the towns of Acanthus and Apollonia, which had no desire to enter the league, sent an embassy to Sparta to beg the ephors to assist them in maintaining their independence. The Chalcidian League had given no cause of offence, and was putting forth its activity in a district where Sparta had not interfered for forty years. Nevertheless, Agesilaus and his followers were quite ready to take up the quarrel, for the sole reason that they thought that the league might some day grow dangerous. There was a party at Sparta which opposed this reckless inter- vention in so distant a land, on grounds of expediency as well as Sparta de- of public morality. It was headed by the young ''^^ife chai-°'^ -^""-^^S Agesipolis; for, as was usual, the two royal cidiana houses had espoused different lines of policy. But Agesilaus and the supporters of vigorous action were far the more powerful, and carried a vote in favour of war at the next meeting of the Apella. It was resolved to raise an army of ten thousand men from among the allies of Sparta, for service against Olynthus and her sister-cities of the Chalcidian League. The main body was not to start till the following spring, but two officers, named Eudilmidas and Phoebidas, were sent forward at once — the month was now September — with about two thousand men destined to garrison Acanthus and Apollonia. The march of Phoebidas took him through Bo2otia, and he pitched his camp for one night not far from the walls of Thebes. . . , AVhile he lay there he was surprised by a visit from Civil troubles '' i. o In Thebes, Leontiades, one of the two polemarchs who were the 382 Be supreme magistrates in the Thebau constitution. Leontiades, who was a violent partisan of oligarchj% was engaged at that moment in a bitter struggle with his fellow-polemarch Ismenias, the head of the democratic and anti-Laconian party in Boeotia. With the true Greek recklessness in matters of faction, Leontiades had resolved to crush his enemy at any sacrifice, even though it involved the ruin of his country. He came to Phoebidas by night, and offered to place him in possession of the Cadmeia, the citadel of Thebes, in return for aid against Ismenias. The Spartan commander was prompt, daring, and utterly unscrupulous ; he instantly closed with the offer of Leontiades, and undertook to 382 B.C.] PJwcbidas seizes Thebes. 453 carry out his directions. The Thebaii pointed out that the next day was the festival of the Thesmophoria, during which the citadel was stripped of guards and handed over to the women of the city, who there celebrated certain rites at which men were not allowed to be present. He himself, as polemarch, was in charge of the gates, and would see that they were open at the preconcerted hour. Sparta and Thebes were at peace, no one suspected treachery, and the town would be taken completely unawares. The next day Phoebidas carried out this monstrous scheme. lie got his troops in marching order, and started as if he was about to proceed northward on his way toward Chalcidice. „^ ^., '■ . •' Phoebidas But suddenly he swerved from his route, and appeared seizes the at midday before the gates of Thebes. There he met ^ «ieia. Leontiades, who admitted him into the town. The streets were empty in the noontide heat, no man offered opposition, and in a few minutes the Spartans had entered the citidal, and seized as hostages the great crowd of women who were celebrating the festival. Before any one realized what had happened, Leontiades rode down to the senate-house, and announced to the astonished elders of Thebes that their city was in the hands of the Spartans. So great was the panic that no one dared resist the traitor ; he was allowed to seize and imprison his rival Ismenias, and to summon a packed assembly of the people, which voted submission to the ancient enemy. Three hundred prominent members of the demo- cratic party left the city at once, and fled to Athens ; but the bulk of the Thebans were so cowed that they acquiesced for the moment in the assumption of power by Leontiades and liis friends. Thus was planned and executed the most flagrant breach of international morality that Greece ever knew — a crime even more wanton than the Athenian capture of Melos (see p. „ „ ^ ^ ^ The Spartans 349), though it involved far less bloodshed than that retain the horrid deed. Men hoped for a moment that Sparta, ^ ^^^ selfish though she might be, would disown her general's action. And, indeed. King Agesipolis and his followers, when the news arrived, clamoured loudly for the punishment of Phoebidas and the evacuation of the Cadmeia. But Agesilaus promptly rose to defend the general ; he stated his views with the most repulsive and cynical frankness. " We must examine," he said, " the ten- ^54 The Last Years of the Spartan Hegemony. rssiB.c. dency of the action of Phoebidas. Let us consider whether it is advantageous to Sparta. If it is so, it was highly meritorious in him to carry it out, even though he had no authority or orders from home." The Sjmrtans proved as immoral, though not as brazen-fazod, as their king ; they passed a decree which censured Phoebidas for acting without orders, and imposed a fine on him ; but after this display of hyjoocrisy they voted in favour of the retention of the Cadmeia, and sent harmosts to Thebes to take command of the garrison. Ismenias they brought to Sparta, and put on his trial for " Medism " on account of his conduct in 395 B.C. (see p. 426). It is needless to say that the unfortunate statesman was condemned and executed. The political extinction of the second state in Greece, which perished in a time of peace, and without being able to strike a blow in self-defence, caused terror everywhere. It seemed cidian war, as if unrighteousncss was about to prosper, since no state dared take Sparta to task, and for three years everything went well with her arms. The Chalcidians, indeed, made a brave defence; they defeated and slew Teleutias, the brother of Agesilaus, who led the first army against them. But King Agesipolis then took the field, captured Torone, and laid siege to Olynthus. He died of a fever before the city fell, but Polybiades, his successor in command, received its surrender. The Chalcidian League was then dissolved, and each of its members enrolled separately as a subject-ally of Sparta (379 B.C.). The day was to come, ere that generation had passed away, when Sparta and every other state in Greece was destined to lament bitterly the destruction of that vigorous confederacy. It had served to keep back the advancing power of the kings of Macedonia — a power which was now left unchecked, and began first to encroach on its Hellenic neighbours, and then to rise into a public danger to the whole of Greece. The same year that saw the fall of Olynthus was destined to mark the end of the good fortune of Sparta. • The city which she had most deeply wronged was fated to be her bane. Conspiracy i i i at Thebes, Thebes had now been groaning for three years beneath the yoke of Leontiades and his partisans, the pole- marchs Philippus and Archias. Her citizens had hoped at first 379 B.C.] Thebes Liberated. 455 that some forlmiate chance might weaken Sparta, and free them. But when all went well with their oppressor, sheer desperation drove the most reckless of the Thebans into forming a conspiraoj'. The exiles of the democratic party, who mostly resided at Athens, got into communication with the malcontents at home, and between them a daring and hazardous plot was devised. It was to commence with the assassination of Leontiades and the two polc- marchs, and to end with an attempt to storm the citadel and expel the Spartan garrison. Seven exiles from Athens, headed by two young men named Melon and Pelopidas, were to undertake the actual slaying of the tyrants, while a citizen named Charon lent them his house as a hiding-place. Phyllidas, the secretary of the polemarchs, who, in spite of his official position, had strong sympa- thies with the exiles, undertook to forward the scheme. For this purpose he invited his employers to a supper, promising that they should not only drink deep, but enjoy the company of the most beautiful women in Thebes. He undertook to introduce the exiles into his house, muffled in female apparel, and left the rest of the business to their hands. On an appointed day the seven exiles passed into Thebes at dusk, disguised as country-folk ; they stole one by one into the house of Charon, and remained there till the ncxt^^ ^^ ^ evening, when Phyllidas was to give his supper, of the Theban .r. . , , n , . -1 , 1 polemarclas. Before the hour had arrived, however, they were startled by hearing their host receive a summons to appear before the polemarchs. Charon set out in much trei)idation, for he feared that the conspiracy had been discovered. But the magistrates had received no definite information; they merely warned him that they had news from Athens that a plot was on foot, and cautioned him against engaging in it. At nightfall the unsuspecting pole- marchs entered the house of Phyllidas, and gave themselves up to the pleasures of the table. In the midst of the feast, it is said, a courier arrived from Athens, bearing a despatch for Archias which revealed the whole plot. But the doomed man thrust the paper unopened beneath the pillow of his couch, exclaiming, " Business to-morrow " — an expression which became proverbial. When his guests were heavy with wine, Phyllidas introduced the conspirators, who entered the house shrouded in ample robes, and v/ith their 456 The Last Years of the Spartan Hegemony. [379 B.d. faces veiled. They reached the supper-room unsuspected, and were greeted by the half-drimken guests as the women whom Phyllidas had promised to introduce. Then, casting aside their disguise, they rushed, dagger in hand, on the polemarchs and slew them with repeated blows. But the leader of the oligarchs still remained. Leontiades had not been bidden to the banquet of Phyllidas, and was spending the evening at home. Pelopidas and three more rushed to his house the moment that the polemarchs were despatched, and knocked at the door. When it was opened they burst in, and found him just about to retire to rest. Leon- tiades was prompt and active ; snatching down his sword from the wall, he leapt to the threshold of his bedroom and slew the first conspirator as he entered. He fought hand to hand with the others, and was only cut down by Pelopidas after a des[)erate struggle. The tyrannicides now ran to the public prison, where they con- trived to kill the jailor, and to liberate a hundred and fifty political Thebes freed, prisoners who were lying in bonds awaiting their 379 B.C. \,ix^. These men they furnished with weapons, and then sallied out into the streets, proclaiming that the tyrants were slain, and inviting all true Thebans to take up arms and join them. So great was the detestation which the rule of Leon- tiades had inspired, that the citizens came out in hundreds to join the conspirators. But all might yet have gone wrong if tlie Spartan officers in the citadel had kept their heads, for the dis- orderly mob of Thebans might easily have been dispersed by the fifteen hundred men of whom the garrison consisted. But the harmosts, instead of sallying forth, shut the gates of the Cadmeia, and contented themselves with giving shelter to the fugitives of the oligarchic party who ran to seek their succour. When the morning dawned the whole city was in the hands of the insurgents, and several thousand men were already mustering for an attack on the citadel. An informal public assembly had elected Pelopidas, Charon, and Melon as Boeotarchs, and voted its approval of the slaughter of the previous night. Assistance soon came to the Thebans — the exiles from Athens joined them, volun- teers arrived from several of the Boeotian towns of the anti- Laconian party, and two of the Athenian strategi led an Attic force S'j^ofi.c.i TJic Cadi/ieia Recapiured. 457 across Mount Citbaerou to aid in the siege of the citadel. These officers had not obtained any formal authorization from the Ecclesia, but they knew that the bent of Athenian public opinion was strongly in favour of Thebes, and trusted to win approval by the success of their actions. The Spartan forces in the Cadmeia were now closely beset ; an attempt of the Plataeans to bring aid to them was defeated, and several assaults were delivered upon the wall. The stormers were beaten back, but their fierceness seemed to increase after each repulse, and the harmosts, who were men of utter incapacity, lost all hojje of ultimate success. After three or four days they made overtures for surrender, which were gladly accepted. Accordingly the garrison marched out of the citadel, leaving their friends the Theban oligarchs to be massacred by the mob, and took the road for the Isthmus. At Megara they met a large Peloponnesian army under King Cleombrotus, which was hastening to their succour. The Spartans were wildly enraged with the officers, who had made such a feeble defence in such a strong fortress as the Cadmeia. AVitli a severity which can hardly be blamed, they put to death two of the harmosts, and sent the third into exile. ^^y i^*cJt/u^ CHAPTER XXXIX. THE UPRISING OF THEBES, 379-371 B.C. Although Thebes had freed herself for the moment, there was no great expectation in Greece of her proving able to defend the liberty she had regained. Sparta was at the height of her strength, and unvexed by any other enemy; if Thebes, with Corintli Athens and Argos to back her, had proved unable to overthrow the Lacedaemonian power in the struggle of 395-387 B.C., what chance was there of her success when she plunged into war without the aid of even her own Boeotian neighbours ? But however dark their prospects might appear, the Thebans were resolved to fight to the bitter end ; even destruction was preferable to submission to an enemy so treacherous and hypo- critical as Sparta. Nor was tlie war so desperate as it seemed ; at this moment there was no Lacedaemonian general who possessed an atom of military genius save Agesilaus, and Agesilaus was now verging on old age — he had reached his fiftj'-ninth year — and was no longer always in the field. Thebes, on the other hand, happened to have at her disposal the two most brilliant men that she ever reared — a happy chance, for great names were always rare in Boeotia. The first of these was Pelopidas, one of the leaders of the late conspiracy — a fiery young man, possessing more than an ordinary share of military talent. He was a brilliant leader of cavalry, quick to seize an opportunity and prompt at delivering a sudden blow. From his first campaign he won the hearts of his soldiers, and never failed to make them follow wherever he might lead. But first among his merits was the fact that, unlike most Greek generals, he was as unselfish as he was brave, and never refused to co-operate zealously with a colleague, or to cany out plans which were not his own. 379 B.C.] Epaminondas. 459 Wheu Athens had owned Aiisteides and Tliemistocles, and in another generation Cimon and Pericles, those great citizens had put themselves at the head of opposing factions, and done much to neutralize each other's powers ; but, to the singular good fortune of Thebes, it chanced that Pelopidas was the bosom-friend of the warrior-statesman Epaminondas, the best man that Epaminondds. Boeotia ever reared. If Pelopidas was the right hand of Thebes, Epaminondas was her brain. He combined intellectual with moral excellence to a degree higher than was reached by any other Greek statesman in any age. Pericles only can fairly be compared with him, and the great Athenian was decidedly in- ferior to the Theban in the breadth of his sympathies ; for while Pericles worked for Athens alone, and showed no great regard for Greece, Epaminondas was as zealous in what he wrought for the general good of the Hellenic race as in his service to his own native city. Moreover, Pericles was at the best an average general, while Epaminondas showed the highest military skill, and revolu- tionized the whole art of war among his countrymen, Epami- nondas came of an ancient but impoverished family, and through all his brilliant career lived a life of honourable poverty. But though poor, he had acquired the best culture of the age ; he had studied music, rhetoric and philosophy, without becoming vain, affected or unpractical. No Greek was ever more free from the vices which beset the statesman ; ambition and self-interest never exercised the slightest influence on his actions. His sense of honour was so strong that he even refused to take an active part in the plot which freed his native city, because it involved violence, treachery and assassination. When, however, the oligarchs had been slain, he was the first citizen of Thebes that came out in aims to join the insurgents, and his eloquent pleading drew over many adherents to the cause of liberty. But Epaminondas was not merely just, patriotic, and unselfish ; he possessed the broadest political ideas of any Greek statesman that ever lived. It was his aim to induce all the Hellenic cities to live together ia unity, with- out that continual strife for pre-eminence and domination which had hitherto been the curse of the race. He did not light in order to destroy Sparta, or to make Thebes mistress of an empire; he only desired to curb the former's power of doing harm, and to place 460 The Uprising of Thebes. [378 b c. his own city first among the band of her equals. Indeed, his want of that selfish and aggressive local patriotism which characterized the average Greek was the one thing which hampered his influence at home. The Thebans sometimes complained that he loved Hellas more than his native town; and though the taunt was untrue, it serves to indicate the bent of his character. In 379 B.C. Epaminondas was merely known as a man of mark and a friend of freedom ; that he was also a great general and a great statesman the history of the succeeding years will show. Thebes had been liberated late in the year, and it was in the very depth of winter that King Cleombrotus led into Boeotia a Peloponnesian army hastily raised for the purpose of relieving the garrison of the Cadmeia. When the king found that the citadel Lad fallen, he displayed great irresolution. After penetrating into the Theban territory and stopping there sixteen days without offering battle, he suddenly disbanded his army and returned home, leaving, however, a force of several thousand men to protect Thespiae — the most friendly to Sparta of all the to^viis of Boeotia. This detachment was commanded by a rash and reckless officer named Sphodrias, who now did his best to bring trouble on Sparta. The Athenians were, on mature reflection, much frightened at their own boldness in having unofiicially aided in the liberation Sphodrias" ^^ Thebes. To disarm the wrath of Sparta they attempt on punished the two strategi who joined the Boeotians, and endeavoured to clear the state of all complicity in their actions. Sphodrias chose this moment, when Athens was anxious for peace, to mflict on her the worst of insults. He formed a wild scheme for surprising the city by night, and seizing it in the same way that Phoebidas had seized Thebes five years before. Accordingly, he secretly drew his men down to the Attic frontier, and made a forced march on Athens. But his manage- ment was as bad as his intentions ; daylight surprised him when he was in the middle of the Thriasian plain, ten miles from the city, and he then turned ignominiously and retreated to Megara. But his plan stood revealed, and roused the Athenians to the wildest wrath. They reflected that there was no use in endeavouring to conciliate a city whose generals were capable of such acts, and 377 B.C.] Agcsilaus in Boeotia. 461 boldly declared war on Sparta.^ 'J'hus Thebes was provided with a powerful ally in her hour of need. lu the early summer of 378 b.c, the ephors prevailed on Agesilaus to take the field. The old king gathered a large army and marched to crush Thebes. He found the passes Abortive of Cithaeron guarded bv a mixed force of Athenians '^^i^^^JP'^ °^ o " Agesilaus, and Thebans, but forced a way through with his usual 378-377 b.c. skill. Descending into the plain, he found that the Thebans had drawn a strong line of entrenchments along their frontier; but this hindrance, too, he succeeded in passing, and so penetrated close to Thebes. But theenemj^, though they would not give him battle, hung so closely on his heels that he could not form the siege of the city, and finally had to retire with nothing accomplished. To the Thebans this year's fighting brought one cause of exultation : in the autumn they surprised and slew their old enemy Phoebidas. Next year Agesilaus reappeared with a larger army, and again forced his way into the Theban territory; he laid it waste with the utmost barbaritj', felling fruit-trees, blocking wells, and burning every building in the district ; but once more he was unable either to make the Thebans fight or to besiege their city. In short, as a contemporary remarked, the king had only given his enemies an instructive lesson in the art of war, and done them no material harm. These two campaigns lowered the prestige of Sparta to a vast degree ; her best general, with the whole force of Peloponnesus at his back, had proved himself unable to make any impression on a foe whom he had expected to crush at the first encounter. Moreover, on his return, Agesilaus met with an accident at Megara which confined him to his bed for many mouths, and so shook his health that for several years he was not able to take the field.^ Cleombrotus replaced him at the head of the army of invasion in 376 B.C., but, having little or no military skilly was not even able 1 SjAodrias was prosecuted at Sparta for his action, but acquitted on the recommendation of Agesilaus, who now (as previously in the case of Phoebidas) pleaded that the offender had striven to do his best for Lacedaemon. " A vein in his leg causing trouble, the surgeons opened it ; a flow of blood followed, and was not staunched till he fainted with weakness and ■was at the very point of death. 462 The Uprising of Thebes. [376 b.c. to force the passes across Cithaeron, and returned without having set foot in Boeotia, Meanwhile the Athenians had been prosecuting a naval war against the allies of Sparta with some success. They had renewed The naval the maritime league with Byzantium and Rhodes league. which Thrasybulus had formed in 390 B.C., and had induced several other states, including Chios and Mitylene, to join it. The members of this alliance agreed to furnish ships and money for an attack on Peloponnesu-5, and aj^pointed a joint board to sit at Athens and direct the war. In order to avoid recalling the odious memories of tlie Confederacy of Delos, the name of the war fund was changed from " tribute " {(^6fos) to " contribution " ((Twrafis), and the Athenians solemnly swore never to send out cleruchies to any part of the Aegean. The confederacy ultimately came to number seventy cities, but it was never a very vigorous body ; the allies had a lurking fear of the ambition of Athens, which made them slack in providing ships, and still more unwilling to put money into the common treasury. Their caution grew yet Battle of iiiore marked when, in the year 376 B.C., the Athenian Naxos. admiral Chabrias completely defeated the Spartan fleet 376 B C 1 «/ i- off Naxos, and swept the enemy out of the Aegean. After this, the danger from Sparta having passed away, it was exceedingly difficult to extract either ships or contributions from the confederates. When Timotheus, the son of Conon, rounded Cape Malea and carried the war into the Ionian Sea, he was presently brought to a standstill for sheer want of monej'. Yet he had secured some brilliant successes, having beaten a Corinthian fleet off the Acarnanian coast, and enlisted Corcyra and Cephallenia in the maritime league. The campaign, however, was very costly ; tlie Athenian treasury had run dry — even after the unpopular expedient of a stringent income-tax had been adopted — and hardly an obol could be squeezed out of the allies. Athens now came to the conclusion that she had done enough to punish Sparta for the misdeed of Sphodrias, and began to think of concluding peace. Thebes, it was urged, had shown herself quite capable of defending her own borders, and there was no use in protracting the war for her benefit. Indeed, the Thebans were growing quite unpopular at Athens, owing to the rigour with which they were treating their 374 B.C.J Successes of the Thehans. 463 neighbours of the smaller Boeotian towns. After the retreat of Cleombrotus in 376 B.C., they had fallen upon the TheThebans various places which still adhered to the Spartan BoeoUa! alliance. After Pelopidas had gained a battle at Tegyra, 374 8.0. and beaten the Laconizers and their Peloponnesian allies in the open field, the separatist towns had fallen one by one. Thespiac and Tanagra had their walls destroj^ed, while Plataea was razed to the ground, and its inhabitants driven into exile. This maltreat- ment of the Plataeans roused much indignation at Athens, where a friendly feeling for the small state on their frontier had never ceased since the daj'' of Marathon. Having reduced all the neigh- bouring towns save Orchomenus, the Thebans now formally reconstituted the Boeotian League, which had been in abeyance for the thirteen years since the peace of Autalcidas, and assumed their old presidency in it.^ The Spartans were by this time disgusted at their ill success both by sea and land, and frightened by signs of growing discontent among their allies in Peloponnesus. Accordingly Abortive they professed themselves ready to treat for peace. A^®^°®' 374B.C. congress was held at Athens, and terms of accommodation drawn up, based on those of the peace of Autalcidas, and providing that " all slates should be free and independent." This formula satisfied every one except the Thebans, who wished to have some security against the secession of the cities they had coerced into joining the Boeotian League. Epaminondas, who was acting in behalf of his native city, would not sign the treaty ; but Athens and the other allied powers refused to back up his demands : they left him in the lurch, and ratified the terms of peace, thereby leaving Thebes alone at war with Sparta. But the treaty was destined to prove not partly but wholly abortive. The Athenian admiral Timotheus, being recalled on the conclusion of peace from his station in the Ionian Sea, committed on his return voyage some acts of hostility against Zacynthus, a Spartan ally. This the Spartans highly resented, and the Apella^ voted "that the Athenians had done injustice, and that * It is not quite certain whether Plataea and the other places fell in 374 B.C., just before the treaty, or in 37.3 B.C., just after IL 2 The Spartan public assembly (see p. 6G). 464 The Uprising of Thebes. 1371 b.o. war should again be declared on them." This new conflict, how- ever, was not carried on with any great vigour ; it lasted for three years without bringing about a single engagement of importance by laud or sea. Its chief incident was the siege of siege or "' ° Corcyra. Corcyra by a large Spartan armament, which failed to 3*73-372 B C take the city, and sailed away in great disorder just in lime to escape an Athenian fleet under Iphicrates which was sailing up to relieve the place (373 B.C.). Iphicrates, though he did not catch the hostile fleet, showed himself in this campaign as good a commander by sea as he had been by land in the Corinthian war (see p. 432). He laid waste the western coast of Peloponnesus, and annihilated a small squadron of ships which Dionysius of Syracuse had sent to the assistance of Sparta, f At last, in 372 B.C., the negotiations which bad failed two years before were once more renewed. A congress met at Sparta, and Athens makes drew up terms very similar to those which had been ''s'parte?'' formerly agreed upon. But again the old difficulty 371 B.C. arose. The Thebans claimed to treat and sign as representing the Boeotian League, while Sparta refused to recognize its reconstruction, and held by the provisions of the peace of Antalcidas. A stormy scene took place at the council board. King Agesilaus taunted Epaminondas with refusing to leave the cities of Boeotia their rightful liberty ; the Theban answered by sarcastically inquiring when Sparta intended to grant similar rights to the townships of Laconia. Agesilaus then lost his temper, and exclaiming that if the Thebans wanted war they should have it, snatched up the treaty and erased their name from the list of signatories. Athens and the other allies of Thebes, however, accepted the terms offered them, ratified the agreement, and sent home their fleet (summer, 371 e.g.). The war had now once more become a duel between Thebes and Sparta, and, the issues being simplified, the conflict soon came cieombrotus to a head. A few weeks after the treaty had been invades gig-ned, King Cieombrotus set out to invade Boeotia. Boeotia, & ' '^ 371B.C. at the head of an army which had been gathered in Phocis before the late negociations. He chose to advance into Boeotia, not by the valley of the Cephissus, the natural route, but by the rough hill-paths along Mount Helicon, close to the 871 B.C.] Tactics of Epamiiiondas. 465 sea-shore. Thus he was able to reach Leuctra in the Thespian territory, only eight miles from Thebes, without having been molested by the enemy. Epaminondas, who commanded the Boeotians, had been expecting him to appear further north, and had only just time to throw himself between the invaders and Thebes. The armies encamped over against each other on the slope of Helicon, and a battle was obviously imminent ; the best chance of success seemed to lie with the Spartans, for they con- siderably outnumbered the enemy,i and knew that many of the troops in the Boeotian ranks were ill-affected towards Thebes. Epaminondas, indeed, found some difficulty in inducing his colleagues the Boeotarchs to consent to give battle. They mis- trusted their army, and brought forward numerous prophecies and omens which jjortended ill success to their arms. Epaminondas was obliged, like Themistocles before Salamis, to turn oracle- monger himself. A divine saying promised that " the Spartans should be defeated at the tombs of the maidens ;" and he bade his colleagues observe that they were drawn up near the graves of two Boeotian damsels who had once slain themselves, after having suffered outrage at the hands of certain Lacedaemonians. This convinced the Boeotarchs ; but EiDaminondas' own confidence lay not in prophecies, but in his own military skill. He had grasped a new principle in the art of war, and was anxious to apply it ; it had occurred to him that there were other manners of bringing an army into action beside the orthodox method, which had prevailed in Greece from time immemorial. All generals had been wont to arrange their hoplites in a single straight line— generally of uniform depth from end to end — to place what cavalry they possessed on the flanks, and then to fling the whole at the enemy's line, aiming at striking him with a level front and bringing every man into action at the same moment. Epaminondas had deter- mined to try a new system — modern military authors would call it the attack tn echelon — which he had himself devised. He would strengthen one of his wings, place his best troops in it, and launch it at the opposite wing of the enemy before he set his centre in motion ; the centre again would start a little before the 1 Plutarch gives Cleombrotiis 11,000 men ; Diodorus gives 6000 to Epami- nondas. But these figures must be understated. 2h 466 The Uprising of Thebes. [371 b.c. remaining wiug, so that battle would be joined on the point where he was strongest long before the weaker part of his army had come into action. If the leading wing were victorious, the enemy would have no opportunity of retrieving the battle in any other part of the field, and would be in a hopeless case, even although two-thirds of his army were still intact. This was the principle which Epaminondas was about to put into practice. He therefore determined to strike hard at the right wing of the hostile line, — in which he Ivnew the native Spartans would be placed, according to the ancient usage which gave them the post of honour. If they were once routed, he was confident that their allies would not stand firm, and that the battle would be gained. Accordingly he formed his own left wing out of his Theban troops, the only part of his army which he could thoroughly trust. They were ranged in a massive column, no less than fifty men deep, instead of the usual eight or twelve. The Boeotian allies, who were not to be relied upon for any very zealous service, were drawn up in the ordinary line formation, and formed his centre and right wing. His cavalry, which was good and numerous, advanced parallel with, but in advance of the left wing. King Cleombrotus was as anxious to fight as his adversary, though for a very different reason. He had been often taunted for mismanaging his camj^aigns in 378 and 376 b.c, and wished to prove that want of fortune and not want of courage had brought about his failure. He drew up his army in the usual Greek fasliion, the line twelve deep from end to end, with the Laconian cavalry on the right wiug, and the allied cavalry on the left. He himself took his post in the middle of the right wing, surrounded by the seven hundred native Spartans who served with him, and flanked by the Laconian Perioeci. His line of battle stretched out at each end beyond the shorter front of the Boeotian army, and seemed likely to surround it when the encounter came. In the early afternoon the Spartan commanders, flushed, it is said, with wine after their midday meal, led down their army into T, .», ^ the plain. The Thebans moved out to meet them Battle of '■ Leuctra, at a rapid pace, their left wing far in advance, according to Epaminondas' new order of battle. The fighting opened by a cavalry charge on the extreme left flank, 371 B.C.] Battle of Leudra. 467 by which the Boeotian horsemen drove the Laconian off the field. Then the heavy column of Theban hoplites came into action : it bore down with perfect accuracj'' on the point where the king and his native Spartans were stationed. The first shock of the charge thrust it deep into the line of the enemy. Cleombrotus himself fell, and was borne off the field by his body-guard, but for a moment the battle stood still. The Spartan line held together like iron, and would not give back a foot, while the Perioeci beside them began to close in on the flank of the Theban column. This movement was checked by Pelopidas, Vvho had been stationed in the rc-ar of the Thebans, in command of three hundred chosen hoplites, known as " the Sacred Band," with special orders to move out and protect the main body in case of any such attempt. Meanwhile the critical moment of the fight had come; the Spartans, though they fought and fell every man in his place, could no longer resist the pressure of the massive Theban column. "Give me a step more," cried Epaminondas to his men, "and the day is ours!" AVith one final heave the Thebans burst through the enemy's line, and rolled it up to riglit and left. Tlie day was won. In the few minutes of desperate fighting four hundred out- 468 TJie Uprising of Thebes. [37i b.c. of the seven hundred Spartans had fallen, including nearly every officer in the field. Over a thousand Laconian Perioeci lay dead beside them, and the remnants of the right wing rushed back in confusion towards the Spartan camp. The result which Epami- nondas had foreseen immediately came to pass : the Peloponnesians in the centre and left wing of Cleombrotus' array would not stand firm, when they saw their dreaded masters beaten from the field. Although the Boeotian centre had hardly come into touch with them, and the right wing was still some way off, tliey gave ground and retreated in good order to the camp. The few surviving Sj^artan officers tried to make them return to the fight, pointing out that they still outnumbered the Boeotians ; but they utterly refused to face the enemy in a second struggle. Then it became necessary to acknowledge the defeat, and the heralds went forth to ask from Epaminondas a truce to bury the dead. So ended the day of Leuctra, the first battle in which a Spartan king and army had been worsted in fair fight by inferior numbers in the open field. It gave the death-blow to the military system which had ruled in Greece down to that day, and cast the whole fabric of the Spartan domination in ruins to the ground. Never again was the Peloponnesian confederacy to muster in force at the command of its suzerain for a campaign beyond the Isthmus, nor a king of the race of the Heraclidae to set a host in battle array on the plain of Boeotia. CHAPTER XL. THEBES TREDOMIXANT IN GKEECE, 371-362 R.C. The news of the battle of Leuctra set all Greece in commotion ; every city in the land began at once to cast about and reA'ise its policy in view of the altered aspect of affairs. Sparta sparta after alone affected to treat her defeat as one of the ordi- Leuctra. nary chances of war: when the fatal tidings reached the city, the ephors prohibited all public signs of grief. The festival of the Gymnopaidia was at its height, but they refused to allow it to bo interrupted. When they sent to each home the names of those who had fallen, they added an order that the women were to refrain from open lamentations. Next day the relatives of those who had been slain were to be seen in the streets with calm and serene countenances; while those whose sons and brothers sur- vived hid themselves in shame, because their kinsmen had trans- gressed Spartan custom, by escaping with their lives from a lost field. A few days later the ephors called out an army to march to the relief of the force in Boeotia, which was now blockaded in its entrenched camp. To provide an adequate corps of Spartans they were obliged to send into the field every citizen up to fifty-eight years of age. But this last levy of Lacedaemon was not fated to fight, for they met their friends already on their march home, and returned with them. Epamitioudas had refused to allow his troops to storm the camp of the defeated army. Knowing the profound discourage- ment which pervaded the Peloponnesian host, he preferred to allow it to break up, without wasting any lives in further fighting. Many of the demoralized allies deserted their comrades without 47© Thebes FredovnnaJit in Greece. [371 b.c. delay; the remainder were so ill disposed that the Spartan officers humbled themselves to ask for a free departure. The moment that it was conceded they slunk off by night, and retreated by forced marches till they met the force that had been sent out to succour them. The leniency with which the Theban general treated the enemy seems to have been caused in a large measure by the flict that, just Jason of after Leuctra had been fought, a new army had Pherae. appeared in Boeotia. This force belonged to Jason of Pherae, a personage whose movements had of late grown impor- tant. The great but faction-ridden race of the Thessalians was for the moment united under his band, and constituted a power whose attitude Thebes was bound to watch with the keenest vigi- lance. Jason was the son-in-law and successor of a citizen of Pherae, named Lycophron, who had made himself tyrant of his native town about 405 B.C. When he died he left his principality and his large army of mercenaries to Jason, who, in a chequered and eventful reign of about twenty years, gradually reduced all Thessaly under his sceptre. In 373 B.C. Pharsalus, the last inde- pendent city in the land, fell into his hands ; he then reorganized the Thessalian League, which had long been a mere name, and had himself formally created Tdgus, or generalissimo of the confedera- tion. By his firm but just rule he bound together thirty bickering cities into a powerful federal state. When united, the Thessalians were the most numerous race in Greece, so ere long Jason could take the field with eight thousand horse, twenty thousand hoplites, and a great multitude of light troops. His strength was very threatening to his neighbours, and it was all-important to Thebes to know what his intentions were with regard to the war with Sparta. He finally declared himself on the Theban side, and when the campaign of 371 B.C. opened, set out southward, announcing that he was about to join Epaminondas ; but, whether intentionally or not, he came just too late for the battle of Leuctra. When he arrived he refrained from attacking the Spartans, and advised their free dismissal. His army was so large and his intentions so doubtful that the Thebans did not breathe freely till he had departed. It did not reassure them to learn that on his return- march he had sacked the Phocian town of Hyampalis, and seized 370 B.C.] Jasoii of Pherae. 471 the strong fortress of Heraclea-Trachis, the outwork of the pass of Thermopylae. Uncertainty as to the future conduct of Jason kept the Theban government from committing itself too incautiously to the prose- cution of the war with Sparta. For the present they did notliing more than make things sure at home. Epaminondas marched against Orchomenus, which had clung to Sparta to the last, and then against Thespiae, whose contingent had been withheld from the array that fought at Leuctra. Both places submitted ; then the Thebaos, incensed at the disloyalty to Boeotia wliich each of them had displayed, talked of putting their inhabitants to the sword. But Epaminondas brought his countrymen to a better mind; Orchomenus was merely deprived of its walls, and the Thespians were banished instead of slain. Meanwhile, the states whicli bordered on Boeotia had taken the results of Leuctra to heart; the Phocians, Locrians, Euboeans, Aetolians and Acarna- nians all concluded treaties of friendship and alliance with Thebes, and promised the aid of their troops in the next campaign against Sparta. At one city only were the Theban ambassadors received with coldness, and denied a friendly hearing. The Athenians, though they had so lately been leagued with Thebes, showed marked dis- gust at the complete triumph achieved by their former allies. They would have preferred a balance of power to the complete triumph of either party. The next year (370 B.C.) was crowded with important events both in the Peloponnesus and in Northern Greece. When the spring came round, Jason of Pherae announced his _, , i o ' Murder of intention of appearing at Delphi during the approach- Jason, iug Pythian festival. Ostensibly he was merely about to do sacrifice to Apollo in honour of the union of Thessaly, and countless victims were collected for the hecatombs which were to mark his gratitude to Heaven. But he was also to be accom- panied by a large army, and the states of Central Greece were much alarmed at the prospect of his arrival. The Delphians them- selves are said to have inquired of their oracle " what they w'ere to do if Jason touched the temple-treasure;" the answer came that "the god himself would see to the matter." And, indeed, Jason never 472 Thebes Predominant in Greece. rsTOB.c. reached Delphi. As he sat in state at Pherae giving audience to petitioners, seven young men approached him in the guise of liti- gants, and while he listened to them sprang upon him and slew him with dagger-thrusts. His throne fell to his brothers, Poly- dorus and Polyphron, men of little merit or distinction, who showed no signs of carrying out his ambitious schemes. Meanwhile the Peloponnesus was full of stir and change, for the ancient state-system of the peninsula had at last broken up, and Anarchy in in many districts at once local autonomy was asserted. Peloponnesus, r^.^^ Mantineans rebuilt the walls which had been cast down in 385 B.C. (see p. 451). In Tegea civil war broke out, and the Laconizing party were massacred by their opponents. The Eleians took the field to conquer the small neighbouring states whom Sparta had jDrevented from falling into their hands. In Argos the confusion was at its worst. The rival factions, how- ever, instead of combining to declare war on Sparta, fell to blows with each other; the oligarchic party was crushed, and the demo- crats began a series of massacres, in which no less than twelve hundred citizens were slain without any pretence of trial or judgment. This slaughter, known as "the reign of Club-law" ( It must have existed in some purely formal fashion till ahout ■iPiO B.C., as coins are found bearing its title down to that date, though it is never mentioned in history after the second Messe^ian war, G4-1 b. * Son-in-law of Jason and also a distant relative. 47 S Tlu'bes Predominant in Greece. isesB.c. to be the beginning of many troubles for Thebes. Alexander never forgave it, and waited his ojiportunity for revenge. Wlien Thessaly was quiet, Pelopidas marched on into Macedonia, and compelled its monarch to conclude peace, and to give as hostages for his fidelity thirty noble youths, including his own brother Philip, destined just thirty years after to enter Thebes as a con- queror instead of a captive. While the Theban arras were occupied in the north, the war in Peloponnesus had not slackened. But its incidents had not been such as Epaminondas would have desired. The two chief allies of Thebes — Arcadia and Elis — fell to strife over the allegiance of the Triphylians, whom the former acknowledged as members of their league, while the latter claimed them as ancient subjects. The Arcadians were thus left unaided, when their general, Lycoraedes of Mantinea, took the field against the Spartans. After obtaining two considerable successes, Lycomedes found himself faced at Mitlea by a Laconian army under Archidamus, the son of King Agesilaus, a young man who possessed all the vigour and some of the genius of his father. The Arcadians sufi'ered a complete defeat, which was rendered very bloody by a body of Celts, lent "The Tearless ■' j j j Battle." to the enemy by Dionysius of Syracuse, who gave no quarter to the flying masses. Of the native Spartans not one man fell, hence they named their victory " The Tearless Battle " (368 e.g.). The Thebans did not appear to avenge the slaughter of their allies, because they had other work in hand in the north. Alex- E aminondas ^'^'^^'' °^ Pbcrae had just kidnapped Pelopidas, and in Thessaly, thrown him into prison, as he was passing through Thessaly on state business. To rescue their favourite general, the Thebans sent seven thousand men against the tyrant ; but this force suffered a check, and only escaped destruction because its leaders besought Epaminondas, who was serving in the ranks as a mere hoplite, to take the command out of their hands, and rescue the army. That great general extricated the troops, and got them safely back through the passes of Othrys. On hearing of this mismanaged business, the Theban assembly deposed the incompetent generals, fined each of them ten thousand drachmae, and gave the command to Epaminondas. After receiving rein- 367 B.C.] Pelopidas at Siisa. 479 forcements he marched again into Thessaly^ and in a few days reduced Alexander to such straits that he surrendered Pelopidas and asked for terms of peace (winter of 3G8-7). The result of the "Tearless Battle" raised the Spartans from the hopeless dejection into which they had fallen since Leuctra, and encouraged them to persevere Avith the war. peiopidasat They were also buoyed up by hopes of aid from susa, 367B.c. Persia, for Ariobarzanes, satrap of the Hellespont, had just sent them a sum of money and two thousand mercenary troops. But their expectations from this quarter were not fulfilled ; in the next year the Thebans sent Pelopidas as ambassador to Susa, and induced the Great King to withdraw his patronage from Sparta and transfer it to themselves. The sending of this embassy was one of the few unworthy steps taken by Thebes during her hegemony ; for she utilized the favour of king Artaxerxes 11. by getting him to issue a rescript, in which, as guarantor of the terras of the peace of Antalcidas, he presumed to dictate to the Greeks, and commanded the Arcadians to relinquish their pretensions against Elis, the Lacedaemonians to acknowledge the independence of Messene, and the Athenians to lay up their war- navy. Naturally the states concerned disregarded these commands ; for, as Antiochus the Arcadian indignantly remarked, " the Great King has an infinite number of bakers, cooks, cup-bearers, and door-keepers, but of men fit to foce Greek hoplites not one." But though Artaxerxes was A\eak and far awaj', the Thebans were strong and near at hand, and their arms were ready to support the terms of the rescript. In 3G7 B.C. Epaminondas, now again Boeotarch, made his third inroad into Peloponnesus. Concerting measures with the Argives, he forced the lines of Corinth by a joint attack from Epaminondas outside and from within. Then marching into Achaia mAchaia, he induced its cities — who had hitherto been neutral — to join the Theban alliance, on the understanding that their internal constitution should not be meddled with. The Theban government, however, broke these terms, and sent garrisons and harmosts into the towns, in spite of the remonstrances of Epami- nondas. This ill-faith had its deserts, for the Achaians soon rose in arms, drove out their garrisons, and joined the Spartans as 480 Thebes Predominant in Greece. [ssgb.c. zealous allies ; thus the results of the campaign of 3G7 B.C. were entirely wasted. But the Thebans were perhaps consoled by a fortunate chance, which enabled them in the same autumn to seize Oropus, the frontier town of Attica, on the Euboic strait — a pLice over which Boeotian and Athenian had waged countless conflicts. This loss greatly Irritated the Athenians, who called on their Peloponnesian allies to aid them to recover Oropus ; but the Spartans and Corinthians had too much to occupy Corinth, them at home, and refused to stir. Their apathy 866 B.C. 1 1 1 « 1 . . provoked the Athenians mto a treacJierous attempt to seize the Acropolis of Corinth, which met with a well-deserved failure. The incident, however, so frightened the Corinthians that they retired from the war, obtaining from Thebes terms which allowed them to preserve neutrality. Their neighbours of Phlius and Epidaurus at once followed their example. Sparta would have felt the defection of Corinth very deeply, if she had not succeeded in replacing her by El is, a yet more powerful ^„,. ally. The Eleians and Arcadians, after four years' WarofElis •' ' '' and Arcadia bicliering about their frontiers, had at last broken into open war. As Arcadia was violently hostile to Sparta, the Eleians immediately made peace and alliance with that power. This somewhat changed the aspect of affairs in Pelopon- nesus ; the friends of Thebes — Argos, Arcadia, and Messene — being no longer much more powerful than her enemies — Achaia, Elis, Lacedaemon. The first conflicts of the new war, however, were decidedly in favour of the Arcadians, and next year they felt them- selves so strong, that they ventured on an action which had not been attempted since the days of Pheidon of Argos, three hundred years ago. It v/as the year of the Olympic festival, and the usual multitude had gathered from every part of the Greek world to attend the great celebration. When the opening day drew near, the Arcadians marched down the Alpheus valley, and seized Olympia, proclaiming that they, and not the Eleians, should for the future preside over the games. This roused Elis „ ^ , ^ to fury; the whole force of the state, strengthened Battle of "^ /-v Olympia, by volunteers from Achaia, moved on Olympia, 364 B c. -^yijere they found a large Arcadian and Argive army waiting to oppose them. In the midst of the festival — " the 364 B.C.] Battle of Olympia. 481 chariot-race was over, and the wrestlers were coatending between the stadium and the altar" — the Eleians burst into the sacred pre- cincts, driving the routed Arcadians before them. But the latter rallied among the buildings, casting missiles from the porticoes and from the roof of the great temple of Zeus, and at last brought the Eleians to a standstill. Next day the conflict was renewed, the Arcadians defending themselves behind barricades composed of the costly tents and booths which the holiday-making public had erected. They finally drove off the enemy, and completed the interrupted festival ; but no blessing rested on a triumph which the majority of the Hellenes regarded as sacrilegious, since the Eleians were the rightful guardians of the sanctuary-. To maintain their hold on Olympia, and protect the subjects of Elis whom they had taken into their league, the Arcadians found themselves compelled to keep their standing army, the five thousand Epaviti, continually in the field. This cost so much money that the finances of the confederacy gave out, and in a moment of need the generals laid hands on the temple treasure at Olympia, and expended much of it on pay and warlike stores. The majority of the federal council voted approval of the measure, but several states— chief among them the great town of Mantinea — refused to condone the sacrilege. Thus strife aroso in Arcadia. The council ordered the imprisonment of the magistrates of Mantinea, on which that city shut its gates against the troops of the league. Public opinion, however, was so much on the side of the ^lan- tineans, that the majority submitted, and not only acknowledged their fault, but actually made peace with Elis, restoring Olympia nnd relinquishing all claims to its guardianship (363 B.C.). The Arcadians concluded this peace without asking or obtaining 'fhe consent of their allies of Thebes, although they had Boeotian .troops serving in their midst. This slight was deeply felt by the Thebans ; even the equably-minded Epaminondas denounced it as little better than treachery. But their indignation carried them into unjustifiable lengths; a Theban officer, conspiring with the magistrates of Tegea, seized and threw into prison a number of the notables of Mantinea and other places, who were visiting Tegea for a feast in commemoration of the peace with Elis. The prisoners were soon released, but the mischief was done, and the reparation 2 I 482 Thebes Predominant in Greece. [362 b.c. came too late, for Mantinea made peace with Sparta and broke away from the Arcadian League. " This crisis startled the Thebans, and roused them into sending a great army into Peloponnesus in the next spring. Epaminondas once more headed it, but his old colleague was no longer at his side : Pelopidas had fallen in battle a few months before. For the third time Alexander of Pherae had come into conflict with Thebes, and Pelopidas, burning to avenge the personal insults the tyrant had put upon him in 368 b.c, had obtained permission to lead the attack upon him. As his army left the gates of Thebes an eclipse occurred, and the soothsayers forbade the expedition to proceed. Unable to get the men to follow, Pelopidas rode off almost alone to Thessaly, and summoned the subjects of Alexander to revolt against their master. The moment that he Lad been joined by a few thousand men he marched to attack Pherae. The tyrant met him at Cynoscephalae, with a great army of mercenaries which doubled the force of the insurgents. But the vigour of Pelopidas carried all before it ; he broke the enemy, and was pressing them hard when he caught sight of Alexander endeavouring to rally his guards. Forgetting the duty of a general, Pelopidas sprang for- ward to cut the tyrant down, but he was encom- Death of -^ ' Pelopidas, passed and slain before his followers could force their ■ ■ way to his help. The Thessalians mourned him as the founder of their liberty, and buried him with great pomp on the scene of his last victory. Alexander was stripped of all his pos- sessions save Pherae, and reduced to impotence ; shortly after- wards he was murdered by his wife and his brothers-in-law. For the Peloponnesian campaign of 362 B.C. both sides mustered in great strength. Epaminondas crossed the Isthmus with a great Epaminondas'host of Boeotians, Thessalians, and Euboeans, and invask)*n of ^^^^ P™^*^ '^^ Nemea by the full force of Argos. Then Peloponnesus, turning Avest, he picked up the contingents of the Arcadian League and Messene, and advanced with thirty thou- sand men to Tegea. In that position he lay between Sparta and her new allies the Mantineans, and forced them to communicate with each other by circuitous and difficult mountain ways. How- ever, the Lacedaemonians resolved to succour Mantinea ; they placed the aged Agesilaus once more in command, and despatched 3S2B.C.] Second Attack on Sparta. 483 Lim with their whole available force to join their allies. On this movement Epamiuoudas had calculated. When he heard that Agesilaus was well started on his long march, he broke up his camp at Tegea and pounced upon Sparta. He was within an ace of taking the city without a blow, " like a nest when the parent- birds are away,"^ but his clever combination was frustrated by treachery. A deserter left the Theban camp by night and reached Agesilaus, to whom he revealed the whole scheme. The old king hurried back at full speed, and by superhuman exertions reached Sparta just before the enemy arrived. Now, as in ^ ond attack 370 B.C., he occupied the main outlets with troops, onSparta, and stood on the defensive. Epaminondas, attacking several points at once, succeeded in thrusting one column as far as the market-place ; but as the others were repelled, he was forced to withdraw, and to give up all hopes of taking the town by assault. Hastily changing his plan of operations, the Theban now resolved to make a dash at Mantinea, before the Spartans had time to reinforce it. Accordingly his army slipped away by night, and marched on the unsuspecting city. But chance again intervened ; the Athenians had despatched a considerable contingent, some six thousand men, to join the Spartans, and the cavalry at the head of this army had entered Mantinea just before the Theban horse appeared before its gates. Iliough weary with their march — they had come forty miles by mountain roads that day — the Athenians sallied out, and fell upon the enemy with such vigour that they drove them back on Tegea. The Spartans had followed Epaminondas, and now slipped past him and joined the Mantineans and Athenians. A force from Elis and Achaia also arrived, so that the allies mustered twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse — an army less by one-third than that of the Theban, yet capable, under cautious management, of keeping him in check. But rash counsels prevailed in the camp, for the Mantinean generals wished to fight, to preserve their terri- tory from plunder. Accordingly, when Epaminondas advanced from Tegea, the allied host drew itself up and offered him battle, their right wing resting on Mantinea, their left on a wooded height to the soutlnvard. The Mantineans and Spartans held the right, * Xenophon, Ildlen^ vii, 5. 8. 484 Thebes Predominant in Greece. [362 B.O. the place of honour, the Athenians the left, while the Eleians and Achaians formed the centre ; they were drawn out in a continuous line with a thousand cavalry on each flank. Epaminondas had advanced from Tegea somewhat late in the day, and when the enemy saw him holding back and halting his men beneath the hills which face Mantinea, they made the erro- ibiiB A. Mantineans and Spartans B. Eleians and Achaians C. Atlienians . 0CD^- Boeotians E. Areadiaos, Messenians etc. F.Argiues G. Euboeans^ neous but natural deduction that he was not about to fight till the morrow. Accordingly the ranks of the hoplites were broken, and the horsemen began to unbridle their horses. The Thebaa had expected something of the kind, and when he saw the enemy about to retire, suddenly flung his army upon them at a run. His order of battle was the same which had given him victory at 36P.B.C.] Battle of Afanthiea. 485 Leuctra, The bulk of the cavalry were massed on his left ; next came a heavy column of Boeotians, many shields deep, 3a.ttie of which advanced parallel with the cavalry : while the Mantmea, 362 B C centre and right wing, composed of the Arcadians, Argives, and Messenians, hung back, and moved more slowly. The Euboeans, formed in a detached body, climbed the hill on the enemy's right, and threatened the flank of the Athenians. All went as Epaminondas had wished. His cavalry on the left drove the Spartan horse out of the field ; next the Boeotian column, which he himself headed, ploughed through the jMantinean and Spartan ranks "as a war-galley ploughs through tlie waves with its beak."^ But a desperate Spartan named Anticrates, standing firm among his flying comrades, singled out the great general, and thrust him through the breast with his pike. When the news ran down the line that Epaminondas had fallen, his victorious troops halted in their career and made no attempt to complete the victory. Indeed, they allowed the Athenians to gain some advantage on the extreme right, a success on which the allies afterwards grounded a preposterous claim of victory in the main battle. Epaminondas was carried out of the fight with the broken spear still fast in his wound. His attendants bore him to a rising ground in the rear, which commanded the whole battle- Death of field. When he recovered consciousness he asked if Epammondaa, his shield was safe, and cast his dying eyes over the scene. He sent in haste for lolai'das and Daiphantus, his destined successors in command ; the answer came that both had been slain. " Then," said the dying hero, " you had better make peace." So saying, he bade the spear-head be drawn from his wound ; a flow of blood followed, and he breathed his last. So died Epaminondas, and with him the greatness of Tiiebes; never were the fortunes of a city and its leading statesman more closely bound together. The Thebans themselves seem to have looked to the future with dread, for they obeyed their general's dying words, and concluded a peace with their enemies ere the summer was over. Athens, Elis, Achaia, and Mautinea signed on ' Xenophon, Ilellcn, vij. 5. 23. 486 Thebes Predominant in Greece. [362 b.c. the one side; Thebes, Argos, and the Arcadian League on the other. Sparta had to be left out of the agreement, for the ephors obstinately refused to acknowledge the independence of Messene. The great war, however, was at an end, and the noise of arms which had sounded all over Greece died away into a petty bickering for border-forts on the slopes of Taygetus. C/ CHAPTER XLI. FROM THE PEACE OF 362 B.C. TO PHILIP'S FIRST INVASIOX OF GRKECE, 362-352 B.C. The predominance which Thebes had enjoyed in Greece for the ninej'ears which followed the battle of Leuctrahad never amounted to a formal hegemony, like that which Sparta had once exercised. Nor had it involved the organization of a large body of strictly dependent allies, such as Athens had gathered around her in the days of the Confederacy of Delos. Thebes had taken the lead merely because she was the strongest state among the enemies of Sparta, the central power on which the others leant for support. Epaminondas, the guiding spirit of the time, had deliberately accepted this position, and laboured to make his native city not a " tyrant state," but the first among many equals. When, therefore, the war came to an end, after the battle of Mantinca, the Greek states found themselves lacking an acknow- ledged leader, and went each upon its own way, without having to pay regard to the wishes of any suzerain or superior. The history of the succeeding period, therefore, was singularly destitute of unity and cohesion. In Peloponnesus the annals of the next few years are almost a blank. Since Sparta had ceased to be the centre of Greece, the tale of her petty wars with her neighbours seems to „ ^ -^ _ ° Death of have ceased to interest the historians of the ancient Agesiiaus world. Especially was this so after the death of the aged Agesilaus, the last link who connected her with the glorious past. That great warrior died not in the valley of the Eurotas, but on the sands of Libya. Sparta was in dire need of money for her war with Messene, and when Tachos — an Egyptian 2:)rince who had rebelled against Persia — offered her subsidies in return for a 488 The Social War and the Sacred War. [36ib.c. force of Greek hoplites, Agesilaus counselled the acceptance of the tender. He went to Egypt himself with the promised succours, and at the age of eighty-four conducted his last campaign on the banks of the Nile. Having quarrelled with Tachos, he deposed him in favour of his cousin Nectanebis, who thereupon presented him with two hundred and thirty talents for his services. Agesilaus set out to take the money home, but died on the way in a desert haven on the Libyan coast. In spite of all his courage and skill, he had been the evil genius of his country, and had brought upon her all the woes that the oracle had foretold ' for the " lame reign " ("winter of 361-60). Among the other Peloponnesian states the Arcadian League should have taken the first place. But that body practically went to pieces within twenty years of its foundation, owing to the jealousy which the older towns felt for Megalopolis, the new federal capital. That city was so left to itself that in 353 B.C. it succumbed to an attack of the Spartans, and was only restored to freedom by the aid of a Theban army. The elder states so systematically sapped the strength of their younger rival, that at last, as a sarcastic poet observed, "the great city became a great desert " (fprj/xia /xfydK-n 'ariv 71 MeyaXoiroAis)- With no leader or suzerain to check their bickerings, the Arcadians soon reduced themselves to a state of complete insignificance. A new evil began to appear in Peloponnesus about this time, in the form of desperate attempts at the establishment of tyrannies. The success of Dionysius of Syracuse on one side of the sea, and of Jason of Pherae on the other, set many ambitious men on the old tack, though tyrants had practically ceased out of the land for two hundred years. Euphron of Sicyon was the first who attempted to enslave his country by force of arms ; he failed and was assassi- nated (367 B.C.). Timophanes of Corinth (circ. 360 B.C.) won a greater celebrity from the circumstances of his death. After he had safely established himself in power, his brother Timoleon and two of his friends obtained an interview with him. "When they were in private, they solemnly summoned him to give up the tyranny; when he refused, Timoleon stepped aside and wrapped his face in his rflaiitle, while the other two cut his brother down. » See p. 421, 357 B.C.] The Social War. 4S9 Thus Corinth recovered her liberty. Other cities in other parts of Greece were not so fortunate ; Euboea, in particular, fell almost 2ntirely into the hands of tyrants. * Of the various states which had engaged in the war of 371-362 B.C., Athens had, with the exception of Thebes, fared the best. Although she had lost Oropus, she had made conquests of far greater worth ; in 365 B.C. she had succeeded the social war. in conquering Samos^ which had fallen into the hands of Persia, but, instead of freeing her old allies, established in the island a large cleruchy of her poorer citizens. She had also picked up a good many outlying possessions on the north coast of the Aegean, including part of the Thracian Chersonese, the Macedonian towns of Pydna and Methone, and the more important city of Potidaea. Since the final ruin of Sparla, Athens remained the only naval power in Greece; for Thebes, though so powerful on land, only once sent a fleet to sea (363 B.C.). If the Athenians had been wise, they would have admitted the towns thej' had lately conquered into the maritime league which they had founded in 378 b.c. But the old memories of the Confederacy of Delos were their bane ; they were never able to get out of their heads the idea of re-establishing an empire, and preferred ruling unwilling subjects to obtaining willing allies. The Asiatic towns which had joined with Athens to form the league of 378 b.c. looked on in disapproval as the actions of their great ally became more and more arbitrary. The planting of a cleruchy at Samos, a gross violation of one of the fundamental clauses in the treaty of confederation (see p. 462), was particularly ofiensive to them. But they did not break out into open strife with Athens till 357 B.C., Vvhen all the chief cities of the league — Chios, Byzantium, Rhodes, and Cos among them — simultaneously declared war upon her. Hoping to cow the con- federates by a vigorous attack on the strongest of them, the Athenians opened the war by an attempt to seize Chios. The veteran general Chabrias, the victor of Naxos, led sixty vessels into the harbour of that city, and endeavoured to effect a landing. But, pushing too far ahead of the main body, he was slain, and his armament retired with loss. The victorious allies then laid siege to Samos, in order to expel the Athenian cleruchs ; to relieve the place, the old generals Iphicrates and Timotheus — the former must 490 The Social War and the Sacred War [355 b.c. have been seventy years of age — led out a second fleet ; but on arriving at Samos they found the enemy too strong, and retired. For this cautious action they were impeached by their colleague Chares, and tried by the Ecclesia, which, unmindful of old services, treated them both harshly. Iphicrates, though acquitted, was deprived of his command, and Timotheus sentenced to a ruinous fine of a hundred talents. Having thus got rid of the generals of the elder generation, the Athenians put the conduct of the war into the hands of their accuser Chares, an able but volatile and untrustworthy man, whose character somewhat recalled that of Alcibiades. The new commander made no progress with the reduc- tion of the allied towns, and, finding money run short, sold the services of his army to Artabazus, satrap of the Hellespont, who had just revolted against his master. King Ochus. By successful expeditions against the Persians he filled his military chest, but meanwhile the war against the allies stood still. Presently the Athenians heard that the Great King, in wrath at the aid given to the rebel satrap, was fitting out three hundred ■^ ^ ^x^ Phoenician galleys destined to aid the allies. Struck End of the ° •' Social war. with fear at the news, they dismissed Chares, asked 355 B C. ' •! ' the pardon of the king, and made jieace with their enemies. Rhodes, Chios, and all the other revolted allies were allowed to withdraw from the league, but Athens retained Samos and the cities along the Thracian and Macedonian coasts, which were reckoned her subjects and not her confederates (353 B.C.). The newly gained independence of the states, which now threw off their connection with Athens, was not long enjoyed by two of the chief cities ; Rhodes and Cos were conquered within two years by Mausolus, prince-satrap of Caria, and thus passed into the vassalage of Persia. While Athens was engaged in the Social war, another set of troubles had been distracting her attention. She had fallen to blows with Philip, King of Macedonia, and was rapidly losing to him her scattered possessions along the north coast of the Aegean. It is strange that the Macedonian kingdom had not commenced at an earlier date to interfere with effect in the concerns of the Greek states, which lay in a straggling line along its coast. But 355BC] Macedonia. 491 though king after king had endeavoured to turn the wars and civil strifes of the Hellenic cities to account, not one had as yet made any permanent conquests. It was not from want of resources in the kingdom nor of ambition in the kings, but from the various evils which beset a semi-barbarous state at the jieriod of its development towards a higher civilization. The Macedonians, though they seem to have been not very dis- tant kinsmen of the Greeks,' had always been considered foreigners. Yet they were not savages like their neighbours to The east and west, the Thracians and Iliyrians, but lived Macedonians, in the fourth century much the same sort of life that the Hellenic tribes had lived in the tenth. They formed a limited monarchy of the ancient sort, where the king sought the counsel of the nobles, and laid his resolves for ratification before the assembly of the people. Though some of the Macedonian tribes were rough highlanders, yet those who dwelt in the plains of the Axius and Haliacmon were not unacquainted with city life, and had founded the considerable towns of Aegae and Pella. Three hundred years of contact with the Hellenic colonies on the coast had profoundly influenced the Macedonians, more especially their upper classes; they had caught from their neighbours some tincture of Greek manners, and learnt to appreciate the amenities of civilization. The majority of the nobility had adopted Greek names, such as Archc- laus, Pausanias, Lysimachus, Ptolemaeus. They had begun to call their national gods by Greek titles, and were usually acquainted with the Greek language. The royal family were the leaders in the Hellenization of Mace- donia; they laid claim to a remote descent from the Dorian princes of Argos. King Alexander (see pp. 195, 221), The Mace- who served in the army of Xerxes, so far vindicated '^o'^ian kings, his Greek pedigree that he was permitted to take part in the Olympic games, a privilege never granted to a barbarian. Arche- laus, the grandson of Alexander, was even more distinguished as a lover of things Greek ; he entertained in his court the poets Agathon, Choerilus, and Euripides, employed Zeuxis to cover the walls of his palace with frescoes, and invited — though in vain — the ' The few fragments remaining o£ the IMacedonian dialect show that it resembled Aeolic Greek, but the race must have been very mixed. 492 The Social War and the Sacred War. 339 bc. philosopher Socrates to come to Pella and instruct the youth of Macedon. After the death of Archelaus (399 B.C.), the kingdom was for many years distracted by civil wars, and during the reign of Amyntas, the father of the great Philip, it seemed likely that the Illyrians from the inland and the Chalcidian League from the coast would actually divide Macedonia between them. Sparta saved the kingdom of Amyntas by destroying the Chalcidian League, and within a few years Macedonia had so far recovered her strength that she actually made an attempt to conquer Northern Thessaly (see p. 477), which was only repulsed by the arms of Pelopidas, The weakness of Macedonia np to this time had been caused by the proneness of her people to civil wars. The succession to the crown had been settled by the sword quite as frequently as by hereditary right ; any member of the royal house, if he could find a powerful body of followers, might hope to tear the sceptre from the last king's heir. The numerous and warlike nobility of the land were as proud and captious as the baronage of the Middle Ages, and any slight might cause them to take up arms in the cause of a pretender. Hence the throne of Macedonia was a thorny seat, and happy was that king who died in his bed. We have already mentioned that Philip, the third son of Amyn- tas, was given as a hostage to Pelopidas while yet a boy, and taken Youth of ^° Thebes. He spent several years there in honour- Phiiip of able captivity, allowed to turn the time to account as he might choose, but debarred from returning home. Philip was a lad of extraordinary parts ; not only did he become versed in Greek literature and philosophy, and master the Greek tongue so thoroughly as to be reckoned one of the first orators of his age, but he gained an insight into Greek statecraft and a knowledge of the art of war such as none of his contemporaries attained. Thebes was in these years the centre of Hellenic l^olitics, and Epaminondas the first general of the age, but it was not every lad of sixteen who could have turned his opportunities of observation to such use as did the young Macedonian exile. After spending some three or four years in Thebes, Philip was called back to Macedon by the misfortunes of his house. His eldest brother. King Alexander IL, had been murdered, and Alex- ander's successor, bis second brother Periliccas, was, after a short 359 B.C.] Philip of MacedoTU 493 reign, skiu in battle with the lUyriaus. Perdiccas left a gon, but the boy was very young, and Philip was appointed his guardian and regent of the kingdom (359 B.C.). It was no easy task which Philip had to take up, at the early age of twenty-three. Two pretenders of the royal blood disputed his nephew's crown, w'hile the Illyrians, who had just slain character of his brother Perdiccas, were breaking in on the north- Pbiiip. west frontier of the kingdom. But the young regent was quite able to cope with the difSculties which beset him. Nature had endowed him with every quality which a ruler of Macedon needed. The rudest of his subjects could not but admire the prince who always led his army in person, and was the best horseman, the boldest swimmei', the keenest hunter, in the land ; nor was he liked any the worse for loving the wine-cup over well — a national foible. But Philip was not a mere soldier; from his youth up he preferred dissimula- tion to force. He had studied the subtleties of Greek state craft and took a keen intellectual pleasure in outwitting an adversary, especially when that adversary was a Greek politician. All methods of arriving at an end were equally good to him ; he disowned a treaty or broke an oath with a frank levity which astonished even the most callous of the statesmen of Greece. Corruption was his favourite weapon ; he had fathomed the depths of Greek venality, and always commenced a war by hiring some faction-leader among his enemies to lend him aid. " No town is impregnable," he said, " if once I can get a mule-load of silver passed within its gate." Philip's deep cunning was long unsuspected by his contemporaries, on account of the free, courteous and open deportment which he displayed ; it was hard to believe that a man could look so honest and mean so ill. Nor were his good qualities all assumed. He was never crael for cruelty's sake ; he was a firm friend and a liberal master ; his courtesy and good-nature were genuine and not assumed ; and if he despised Greek factiousness and venality, he had a real admiration for Greek culture and civilization. Within two years after Philip had assumed the regency of Macedonia, he had cleared away both the pretenders in Philip in who claimed the crown, and inflicted a crushing de- power, feat on the Illyrians. Having thus won unbounded ^ " populai'ity, he quietly dsposed his nephew and had himself 494 ^/'^ Social War and the Sacred War. [357 b.c. proclaimed king (358 B.C.). His next step was to reorganize the national army, wLicli had hitherto been a mere tumultuous tribal gathering. The numerous and fiery nobles were encouraged to join the king's horse-guard, and honoured with the title of his *' companions " (eVaiooj), while the picked men of the tribal levies were enregimented into light and heavy corps of infantry. Taking to heart the system of Epaminondas, the king formed the core of his army out of regiments trained to fight in deei) columns, and armed with a ponderous pike treble the length of the Greek lance • — so long, in fact, that the spear-heads of the third and fourth rank projected in front of the charging column as well as those of the first. This heavy phalanx never failed to bear down the ordinary Greek line of hoplites by sheer weight of impact. Philip's ambition, when he had firmly seated himself on the throne, was first directed towards securing Macedonia a harbour, „ . ^ the aim which so many of his predecessors had vainly Seizure of j tr j Amphipoiis, sought to attain. He determined not to molest at first the Chalcidian cities, which lay in a compact body in the centre, but to make an attempt either on one of the scat- tered Athenian possessions, or at some isolated autonomous town. Chance enabled him to do both ; he found the Athenians plotting an expedition against the city of Amphipoiis, on which they had never ceased to nourish designs since it revolted to Brasidas sixty- five years ago. Philip at once opened negotiations with them, and offered to put Amphipoiis into their hands, if they would give him in exchange their port of Pydna on the Thermaic Gulf. The Athenians agreed, for the exchange was manifestly in their favour, and looked on while Philip laid siege to Amphipoiis, which fell into his hands in a few weeks. He then presented himself before the gates of Pydna, which was surrendered to him ; when this was done he promptly disavowed his agreement, and kept both places in his own hands. Knowing that this meant instant war with Athens, he fell on Potidaea, the most important Athenian posses- sion in those parts, and seized it before any succour could arrive. Instead, however, of keeping it himself, he Landed Potidaea over to the Olynthians, the leading Chalcidian state, and thus embroiled them with Athens. Just at this moment the Social war broke out, and while the 356 EC] Origbi of the Sacred War. 495 Athenians were engaged in it they had no leisure to punish Philip or his accomplices of Olynthus. Thus the Macedonian j-oy^jj^tion of king was able for three vears to prosecute his designs Phiiippi, *' 356 S C without molestation : he soon showed that they were likely to lead him far afield. Now that he possessed Amphipolis and its all-important bridge over the Strymon, the road to Thrace was in his hands. Crossing the river, he plunged into the hills, and conquered one by one the Thracian tribes as far east as the Nestus. The main purpose of this expedition was to gain possession of the mines of Mount Pangaeus, the richest gold-producing region known to the ancient world. When the district was subdueJ, the king built in its midst a new town, named after himself, Piulippi, Avhich served at once as a centre for the mining, and as a fortress to keep down the Thracians. Within a few years the gold was coming forth so rapidly that the king derived from the mines no less than a thousand talents per annum (£244,000). Hence came the abundant coinage of staters, which first accustomed the Greeks to a national gold currency, and unlocked for Philip the gates of so many hostile towns. While Philip Avas conquering the Thracians, and Athens was contending with her recalcitrant allies, Thebes, the power which had lately been predominant in Greece, was involving herself in a maze of troubles from which she had now Phocisand no Epaminondas to deliver her. Thebes and Phocis had been bitter enemies of old, and though the Phocians joined the Theban alliance after Leuctra, they did so from necessity and not from choice. In 362 B.C. they had so far let their real feelings appear that tliey had neglected to send a contingent to the allied anny which fought at Mantinea. The Thebans bore them a grudge for this, and waited for an opportunity of repaying it. The chance came in a few years ; the Delphians accused certain Phocian land- holders of having trespassed upon and tilled waste ground dedicated to Ai^oUo, and brought the case before that venerable but effete body the Amphictyonic Assembly, which still sat from year to year, and sometimes interfered in politics. The Amphictyons, being wholly under the control of Thebes and Thessaly, voted that a heinous sacrilege had been committed, and inflicted a heavy fine on the Phocians. The fine was left unpaid ; whereupon it was 49^ The Social War and the Sacred War. [365 e.g. doubled, and the Amphictyons threatened the recalcitrant state that, unless instant satisfaction was made, its lands should be de- clared escheated to the god, and become the property of the temple. This brought matters to a crisis ; the I'hocians were a vigorous and high-spirited people, who would not endure to be bullied by Phocian ^^^"^ enemies under this hypocritical pretext of religion. seize Delphi, Led by two ambitious chiefs named Philomelus and Onomarchus, they quietly armed, and when all was ready for war, seized Delphi and its temple by a night surprise. Philomelus sought out and slew the Delphians who had been the accusers of Phocis, and then compelled the priests to set the oracle working at his dictation, so that Apollo pronounced a blessing on the captors of his sanctuary. It seemed efficacious, for when the Locrians of Amphissa, the next neighbours of Delphi, came to drive out Philomelus, they suffered a bloody defeat. The Phocian leaders were quite aware that their action involved a war with Thebes and Thessaly, and knew that their own levies Outbreak f ^^^^ quite insufficient to cope with those formidable the "Sacred powers. But the seizure of Delphi put the enormous 'temple-treasures in their hands, and the men who had £2,500,000 ^ in hard bullion at their disposal were not likely to want mercenaries. Accordingly when the Amphictyons met, and put Phocis under the ban for sacrilege, Philomelus retorted by a manifesto in which he justified his action, and promised high pay to every hoplite in Greece who would join the Phocian ranks. Then began the " Sacred War," which, in spite of its name, was not a crusade of all Greece against Phocis, but merely an attempt of the Thebans, Thessalians, and Locrians to crush their neighbour state. The Phocians, indeed, got quite as much sympathy from the outside world as their enemies. Sparta would have helped them had she been able ; and Athens, when free from troubles ci her own, was not indisposed to co-operate. When actual hostilities commenced, the Phocians proved quite able to hold their own. Philomelus, indeed, fell in battle in the first year of the war, but his successor Onomarchus kept the field with ten thousand mercenaries at his back, and not only protected 1 It is extraordinary that, out of the enormous coinage struck from the temple-monej', only a few triobols and copper pieces survive. 353 B.C.] Successes of the PJwcians. 497 Phocis, but carried the war far iato the enemy's couutry. In Thessaly he bribed the tyrants of Pherae, the sue- successes of cessors of Alexander, to desert their national league, Onomarchus, and take his part; aided by liberal supplies of Delphic temple-treasure, they proved strong enough to hold the Thcssalians in check. Meanwhile Onomarchus fell on Boeotia, and — to the great surprise of those who remembered the days of Epaminondas — beat the Thebans in the open field. Then, turning on the smaller members of the Thessalo-Theban confederacy, he harried the lands of the Locrians, Dorians, and Oetaeans, till not a farmstead was left unburnt in all their valleys. Thus utterly discomfited, the enemies of Phocis took a fatal step : they asked the assistance of Philip of Macedon. It was Thcssalians, the nobility of Larissa, who actually invited him to Cioss Mount Olympus and trespass on the soil of Hellas ; but the Thebans, who did not disown the invitation, must take their share of the blame. Of late Philip had been flourishing exceedingly. Athens had been brought so low by her defeat in the Social war that she was unable to protect her outlying possessions, and saw Methone — her last port in Macedonia — taken in 354 B.C., after a long siege, in which the king lost one of his eyes by an arrow. Philii^s plans enlarged as his power grew greater ; he increased his army, com- menced to build a fleet, and strengthened his frontier against the barbarian tribes of the inland ; not least among his successes he counted the fact that his chariot had been victorious at the Olympic games. Now he was ready to take any chance that came up for obtaining a foothold in Greece. When Philip advanced against Pherae, he found himself opposed by Phayllus, the brother of Onomarchus, who had marched north in order to join the Pheraeans. This general Philip drove back, but presently Onomarchus himself came Thessaly. on the scene, with the main army of the Phocians. ^^^ ^'^' He met the Macedonians, routed them in two engagements, and drove Philip home across the mountains. Then turning back to Boeotia, he stormed Coroneia, and induced Orchomenus to desert the Thebans and declare itself independent. Tiiis was the high-water mark of Phocian success during the ten years of the Sacred war. 2 K 498 Tlie Social ]Var and the Sacred War. [352 b.c. Within a few months of his first check, Philip agaiu appeared in Thtssaly with a new army of twenty thousand men. Onotnarchns marched acfainst him, and met him hard by the port Battle of c3 ' J i. Pagasae. of Pagasae. The fortune of war had changed ; the 352 B.C. Macedonian phalanx broke through the Phocian mercenaries ; Onomarchus himself fell with six thousand of his men, and Philip then expelled the tyrants of Phcrae, and declared their city free and autonomous ; but, under the pretence of military necessity, he occupied with Macedonian garrisons the city of Pagasae and several places more on the Magncsian Peninsula, thus making himself master of the keys of Thessaly. Meanwhile Philip's success had frightened all those states in Greece who were not committed to the Theban alliance. That a barbarian king should march far into Hellenic soil, Pliihp at '^ ' Thermopylae, and plant his garrisons almost on the Euboean Strait, appeared intolerable to all who were not blinded by hatred of the Phocians. Accordingly, when Philip moved south- ward to complete his victory by occupying Phocis, he found Ther- mopylae held by an Athenian army and fleet, while troops from Achaia and Sparta joined the wrecks of the Phocian army, which had rallied round Phayllus, who had been appointed general of the Phocian League in place of his deceased brother. There were still plenty of cups and tripods unmelted in the temple-store at Delphi, so Phayllus could ere long hire and send into the field as large a mercenary host as that which had perished with Onomarchus at Pagasae. Finding Thermopylae impregnable, Philip turned back, foiled for the first and almost the last occasion in his life by an Athenian armament. Seeing that the times were not yet ripe in Central Greece, he let the Sacred war shift for itself, and went off on quite another quest. His campaign had brought him the possession of the Thessalian fortresses, and with that result he was, for the present, satisfied. ]\reanwhile there was work for him to do further north. CHAPTER XLII. PHILIP AXD DEMOSTHENES, 352-341 B.C. Foil five years after his check at Thermopylae, King Philip refrained from carrying his arms into Greece, and allowed the Sacred Avar to drag out its weary length withont his interference. Although the Phocians had lost their foothold in Thessaly, yet in the south their strength was little diminished ; Phayllus, and after his death his nephew Phalaecus, the son of Onomarchus, still contrived to hold Thebes in check, and even to maintain a hold on the captured Boeotian towns of Coroneia and Orchomenus. As long as the temple-treasure lasted, it seemed that the Phocian leaders and their mercenaries were likely to hold their own ; but after five or six years of war the great hoard was appreciably diminished, and men began to reflect that some day it would run dry. This reflection encouraged the Thebans to persist, although meanwhile they were beariiig all the brunt of the war, while the Thessalians and King Philip had slackened in their first zeal when their own immediate objects were attained. The Macedonian monarch had turned his restless mind once more to schemes of Thracian conquest. Ere the j^ear which saw liis Thessaliau campaign had reached its end, we find him pushing his border eastward along the north coast of the Aegean, and seizing now the territories of some native kinglet, now those of an isolated Greek city, now an outlying Athenian fortress. His furthest raid took him as far as the shore of the Euxine, but his power was not actually established beyond the neighbourhood of the city of Aenus. The Athenian possessions in the Thracian Chersonese and the independent cities on the Propontis were still untouched. la the following years Philip pushed far westward ; be beat the Illyrians in battle, built forts among them, compelled many of their goo Philip and Demosthenes, [352 b.o. tribes to do Lim homage, and then forced the piiuces of Epirus to acknowledge bis supremacy. Tbis rapid development of Philip's power to east and west left the Greek cities of Chalcidice — Ol^'ntbus and ber sister towns — in a perfectly isolated condition, occupying a precarious position of independence in a slip of territory enclosed between the sea and the Macedonian border. Philip had treated them with scrupulous politeness ever since Olyntbus bad joined bim against Athens, and committed herself to bis side by accepting the gift of tbe Athenian town of Potidaea. But as the king became more and more powerful, tbe Cbalcidians began to grow uneasy ; they saw bim annex city after city of their Hellenic neighbours, and began to suspect that all they had gained by allying themselves to Philip was tbe privilege of being devoured a little later than tbe rest. It was not likely that the sovereign who had so readily laid bands on Amphipolis and Pydna, Maronea and Pagasae, would refrain for ever from designs on Olyntbus. Accordingly the Cbalcidians began to retire from their friendship with Philip; they concluded a peace with Athens in 352 B.C., and a little later gave' harbourage to a rebel Macedonian prince — the king's step-brother — who fled to them for Philip refuge. These steps showed Philip that he could no '^'oiynS*^ longer rely on tbe friendship or neutrality of Olyn- 352 B.C. thus and her confederates when be made his next attack on Greece. While bis Thracian and Illyrian campaigns were in progress he left them alone, but after all had been made secure to east and west, his armies began to gather in a menacing fashion on tbe borders of Chalcidice. Seeing the end at band, tbe Olynthians sent an embassy to Athens, to beg their former enemy to lend them instant assistance. The Athenians had of late been conducting the war against Philip in the most careless and half-hearted way ; they sent a small force of mercenaries now and again to harass bis army in Thrace, but seemed to care little what successes he gained so long as tbe war lay far from the gates of Athens. While he was seizing their northern possessions they had given their whole attention to an unnecessary and futile expedition to Euboea, destined to drive out the tyrants who occupied Chalcis and Oreus. Although their general Phocion won a brilliant victory at Tamynae over tbe con- 350 B.C.] Demosthenes. 501 federate Euboeans, tlie general result of the campaign was utter failure and useless expense (350 b.c). When the Olynthian envoys reached Athens the question came before the Ecclesia whether things should he allowed to drift on, as they had done for the last ten years, or whether a vigorous offensive war should be begun against Philip. In favour of the latter alternative were made the three great orations of Demosthenes, whose name begins from this moment to be more and more closely identified with all the phases of Athenian politics, Demosthenes was a member of the wealthy middle class ; his father, who had been the owner of a shield factory, died, leaving him in the hands of guardians who mismanaged and Early life of dissipated his inheritance. When he came to years Demosthenes, of discretion, Demosthenes plunged into a series of lawsuits with the fraudulent trustees, and acquired, while urging his private wrongs, the taste for public speaking which was to make him the greatest political orator of the age. But at first his success was not equal to his energy ; his awkward bearing, over-rapid delivery, and imperfect articulation spoiled the effect of excellent discourses, and he came down from the Bema lamenting that " while any drunken sea-captain could get a hearing, he, who had really some- thing to tell the Athenians, was hooted down in a moment." His friends encouraged him to persist, assuring him that however bad his manner might be, yet the matter of his speeches was worthy of Pericles, Accordingly Demosthenes set himself to acquire the arts of the public speaker; he did not disdain hints on elocution from his friend the actor Satyrus, and practised declamation under the most unfavourable circumstances. A tradition says that ho would go down to the sea-shore during storms, and strive to make his voice heard above the roar of wind and waves, in order to learn the pitch necessary for addressing the boisterous assembly of his fellow-citizens. When he was able to set forth his views with a suitable delivery, the intrinsic merit of his speeches made itself felt at once, and he soon became the leading orator of the war-party at Athens. Demosthenes had fed his imagination on the great deeds of Athens in the previous generation; his favourite reading was the history of Thucydides, and the aim which underlay all his politicil action 502 FJiUip and DeinostJienes. i348b,c. was the restoratioa of his native city to the leading place among Hellenic states. His first important political harangues were devoted to advocating the reorganization of the fleet, which had fallen into a deplorable condition of inefficiency in the Social war (354 B.C.). A little later he is found encouraging the Athenians to send help first to Megalopolis (352 B.C.), and then to Rhodes (351 B.C.), in order to vindicate the old claim of Athens to be the friend and helper of all oppressed cities. Indeed, the chief fault of- his policy was that he often strove to induce the impoverished and languid city of his own day to carry out the schemes that would- have suited the Athens of 420 b.c. Not beinj, as the statesmen of the elder generation had been, a soldier as well as a politicianj he was prone to lose sight of military necessities in his zeal for attain- ing some cherished political end. As the character and designs of King Philip gradually grew plainer, the policy of Demosthenes tended more and more to resolve itself into an anti-Macedonian crusade. His oration on the state navy has received the name of the " First Philippic," because of the drift of its contents ; and in his later speeches the name of Philip is mentioned with ever-increasing frequency, till his misdoings became the sole burden of the orator's discourse. "When the Olynthian ambassadors begged for the assistance of Athens, Demosthenes urged not only that previous grudges should ^, ^, be forgiven, and an alliance concluded with them, but destroyed, that a large Athenian army, not mere mercenaries, but citizen hoplites, should be sent to attack Mace- donia. He only succeeded in half his project; the alliance Avas made, but the succour sent was hopelessly inadequate — first a small fleet of thirty-eight ships under the erratic Chares, then four thousand mercenary peltasts headed by Charideraus, a Euboean general taken into Attic pay, who was more than once suspected of playing his employers false. Thus insufficiently aided, the Chalcidian towns fell one by one into the hands of Philip. The Olynthians alone dared to face the king's army in the open field, but they were twice routed, and after the second battle two traitors, bought with Macedonian gold, opened the gates to the victor. Philip burnt Olynthus, and sold many of its citizens into slavery, in return for the ingratitude which he alleged that tlie 348 B.C.] Fall of Olynthits. 503 state had shown him. Some of the smaller Chalcidiaa towDS shared its fate. The Athenians seem to have been more surprised than vexed at the fall of Olynthus ; in spite of the harangues of Demosthenes it was hard to interest them in a war so far from home. A large party in the state only thought of the material interests of Athens, and were ready to sacrifice everything else, if only her trade and commerce were left mitouched, and these could best be secured by making peace with Philip on such terms as he chose to give. Another section, though not influenced by such sordid motives as the first, thought that Athens was too weak and exhausted to go crusading against Philip for the public good of Greece, and dis- couraged all vigorous action as profitless and doomed to failure. This party was headed by Phocion, the last Athenian who com- bined successfully the functions of orator and gqneral. Though brave and honest, he was a hopeless pessimist ; he was too much of a philosopher to be in harmony with the multitude, and more- over held democracy in such contempt that he believed that no good thing could ever come from the Athenian Ecclesia. He particularly detested the fiery and emotional harangues of Demos- thenes, and opposed him so bluntly, yet so efficiently, that the orator was wont to say, whenever his adversary mounted the Bema, " Here comes the cleaver that will hack my periods to pieces." The Athenians had expected, when Olynthus fell, that Philip would turn his arms against the Thracian Chersonese, the last of their northern possessions. They were afraid too that, now that so many seaports were in his hands, the king would endeavour to send out ships to molest their commerce ; on one occasion, indeed, some Macedonian privateers had actually made a descent on Attica, and carried away the Paralus, one of the two state-galleys, as it lay anchored off Marathon, But they were agreeably surpiised when Philip, instead of urging on the war, showed an unmistakable inclination to make peace. Though unable to discover the king's naotive, the majority of the Athenians were eager to humour his bent, and, on the motion of a speaker named Philocrates, an em- bassy of ten members was sent to Pella, to learn the terms on which he wished to treat. Among the envoys were Philocrates, the mover of the motion, Demosthenes, and his rival the orator 504 PJiilip and Demosthenei. [346 b.c, Aesclnnes. Philip received them with great courtesy, dazzled them with the splendour of his court and the strength of his resources, and seems to have secured the enthusiastic admiration of several of their number by the simple expedient of bribing them heavily. The embassy returned to Athens full of the king's j)raises, but unable to report that they had agreed on terms of peace. Before coming to an agreement, Philip had determined to extract all the benefit he could from the war; knowing that Athens would no longer molest him on the eve of peace, he rushed off to Thrace, and in a hurried campaign completed the subjection of the princes of that country. Meanwhile he had sent ambas- sadors to Athens, who kept his enemies amused by protracted haggling over the terms of pacification. When Thrace was con- quered his conditions were at last formulated ; they amounted to a recognition of the status quo. He was to retain all his conquests, new and old ; Athens was to give up all claim to her lost posses- _ ^ sions, and keep only what was still in her hands. Peace of ' i j Phiiocrates, Moreover, the pacification, though it was to extend to all other allies of Athens, was not to include the Phocians. The Athenians only assented to this last clause because Phiiocrates and Aeschines, who had fingered Philip's money, solemnly assured them that the stipulation was merely formal, the king having no intention of injuring Phocis, but being much more likely to turn his arms against Thebes. Under this impres- sion the Ecclesia ratified the terms of peace, and sent off the ten envoys to Pella for the second time, to administer the corresponding oath of alliance to Philip. The majority of the ambassadors, in spite of the remonstrances of Demosthenes, lingered so long on their voyage that they took three weeks in reaching the Macedonian capital; there they waited a month more, because Philip was still absent in Thrace. Finally, when he appeared, they did not insist on his ratifying the treaty at once, as Demosthenes urged them to do, but accompanied him into Thessaly, and only adminis- tered the oath to him at Pherae. For this dilatory action the ambassadors had the best of reasons ; they were carrying out their corrupt agreement with Philip, w'ho had paid them to keep his intentions hidden from the Athenian iDcople till it was too late to oppose him. S46 B.C.J Philip cotiquen Phoch. 505 The object of the king's advance to Pherae was demonstrated the momeut that the peace had been signed. Within a few days he was at Thermopylae, and had seized the pass, guT^mission which the Phocians were unable to defend now that ofPhocis. . 346 B.C. no Athenian force came to their aid. Ihe mountain- barrier once pierced, the resistance of Phocis suddenly collapsed. Phalaecus, finding himself at close quarters with the Macedonians, determined to surrender without a blow. lie obtained permission to depart with his eight thousand mercenaries, and such of the Phocians as thought it wise to follow him. Taking ship he passed away, first to Peloponnesus, then to Crete, where he fell at the siege of Cydouia. The Phocians, thus basely deserted by their leader, threw them- selves on the mercy of Philip; twenty-two cities one after another opened their gates to him when he presented himself before their walls. Piemembering the fate of Olynthus, they awaited with no small apprehension the doom that might be meted out to them as the plunderers of Delphi. The king's intentions proved to be less harsh than might have heen expected ; it was not his detestation of Phocian impiety, but his desire to hold the gates of Greece, that had brought him to Thermopylae. Advancing to Delphi, he summoned the Amphic- tyonic assembly to meet in its old seat, which it had not seen for ten years. The delegates came, burning to avenge themselves on the Phocians, and proposed the most savage measures against their conquered foes ; the Oetaean delegates, for example, wished to cast all Phocian males of military age over the precipices of Parnassus. But Philip restrained their fury, and toned down the sentence to a comparatively mild shape. The towns of Phocis, except Abae, were to be dismantled, and their inhabitants forced to dwell apart in villages of not more than fifty hearths. The whole race was disarmed, a strip of their frontier-land was made over to the Boeotians, and they were commanded to pay fifty talents a year to Apollo, till they should have restored the entire sum which they had taken from the Delphian treasure — a consummation which would arrive in about two hundred years. The other resolves of the Amphictyons were far more important than their decrees against the conquered enemy. They transferred 5o6 Philip and Demosthenes. [346 b.c. the two PLociaii votes in their assembly to King Philip, thereby making him a recognized member of the Hellenic state system, and gave him a share in the presidencj'^ of the Pythian games, a distinction which he was Greek enough to value as not much less important than a great political success.^ For the future the king was theoretically acknowledged as the equal of his Hellenic neigh- bours, and might claim a right to aspire to the same hegemony among them that Sparta, Athens, or Thebes had once enjoyed. Delphi was soon full of festal pomp, when the Thebans and Thessalians joined the king in celebrating the Pythian games. But at Athens there was wrath and dismay, for the people had now discovered why Philip had been so anxious to make peace, and were cursing their own stupidity and the treachery of the envoys who had aided the king to hoodwink them. For a moment there was actually some prospect of their renewing the war with Macedon, so bitter was their impotent rage. But Demosthenes, who was now in greater credit than ever, because he had opposed the policy of his colleagues in the embassy, set his face against a war which must be entered into without allies and without preparation, and succeeded in diverting the auger of his fellow-countrymen on to their treacherous ambassadors. Philocrates, the head of the embassy, fled from Athens the moment that he was impeached. Aeschines stood his trial, and by a most skilful defence just succeeded in escaping an adverse verdict; the dicastery was so evenly divided that a transference of sixteen votes would have entailed his condemnation. Philip was now free to extend the scope of his ambition ; the conquest of Phocis and the peace with Athens enabled him to turn his arms in new directions. His first operations tended to dis- illusionize his old friends the Thessalians, who had fondly imagined that they would be quit of him now that the Sacred war was over. Instead of withdrawing his garrisons from the places near Thermo- pylae and on the Pagasaean Gulf, the king took advantage of some slight civil disturbance, and occupied the citadels of Pherae and other cities. Then " Decarchies," after the pattern of those of Lysander (see p. 409), were i^ut in power, and Thessaly found ' Philip was so proud of the victory of his chariot at the 01\-mpic games, that he commemorated its success on the whole of his gold coinage. 344 B.C.] Intrigues in Peloponessus. 507 itself practically incorporated with the kingdom of Macedon. The free access iuto Southern Greece wliicli Philij) had gained by seizing Thermopylae was next turned to account, and the Macedonian arms were ere long seen in the Peloponnesus. The Peloponnesians had only themselves to thank for the intro- duction of the stranger into their well-guarded peninsula. It was their own appeal which gave him the chance of „ , . '■ '^ '^ Macedonian entering. The first offenders were the oligarchic influence in jiarty at Elis ; finding themselves beset by an exiled ^ opo^ieEsus. democratic faction, who had bought the services of the mercenary bands that had once followed Phalaecus, they recklessly sought aid from the king, and concluded an offensive and defensive allixnce with him. The Macedonian auxiliaries who came to their aid were soon employed elsewhere: Argos and Messene were at war with Sparta, whose able king Archidamus (the son of the great Agesilaus) was pressing them hard. They proffered them- selves as allies to Philip, borrowed his troops, and by their aid drove the Spartans back into the valley of the Eurotas (34-i e.g.). It was in vain that Demosthenes crossed into Peloponnesus and visited Argos and Messene, to wain their statesmen against alliance with the Macedonian, and to remind them what had been the fate of Philip's friends of the Olynthian League. Content with their momentary triumph over Sparta, they refused to look forward, and paid no heed to the Athenian orator. They thought that they had utilized for their own purposes the aid of the Mace- donian, and had no conception that they had bound themselves perpetually to the service of a master. 4^ ^/UaA, CHAPTER XLIII. THE END or GRECIAN FREEDOM, 344-338 B.C. The embassy of Demosthenes to Peloponnesus marks the beginning of a new struggle between Piiilip and the Athenians. It did not suit Pliilip to precipitate a rupture, till he had established a firm footing in Central and Southern Greece. The Athenians, on the other hand, had made up their minds not to fight unless they could enlist powerful allies; but although each party avoided an open declaration of war, they spent five years in constant bickerings, and endeavours to raise up troubles for each other. It cannot be said that the Athenians showed themselves a whit more scrupulous than the king ; they had learnt to meet Philip with his own weapons, and Demosthenes was always stirring them up to counter- •act every move of their enemy. His expedition to Peloponnesus, though it proved fruitless, was very offensive to Philip, who sent an envoy to complain that it was hard tliat the ambassadors of a friendly power should go about endeavouring to form alliances against him. The Athenian Ecclesia made no further reply than to send a commission to Pella, charged with the duty of demanding back some places of which they claimed to have been wrongfully deprived in the peace of 346 B.C. The king treated the com- Inissioners with studied rudeness, but took no further notice of his quarrel with Athens. Philip was too much engaged on the western side of Greece to be ready for a new war on the Aegean. He was just about to -,^.,. . invade Epirus, where he had determined to overthrow Philip m ^ ' Epirus. King Arybbas, and to place on his throne a rival claimant, Alexander, the brother of his own Epirot wife Olympias. Having accompli'^hed this, he pushed his arms 343 B.C.] Troubles on the Hellespont. 509 as far southward as the Ambracian Gulf. Meanwhile the Athe- nians were not idle ; they harboured the expelled king of Epirus, sent troops to the aid of the Acarnanians, who were threatened with invasion, and despatched emissaries into Thessaly to foment a revolt against Philip in that country. This last move brought the king home in haste ; he crossed Mount Pindua, appeared suddenly in the plain and overawed all the malcontent towns, whom he punished by placing over them as " tetrarchs " four Thcssalian nobles of his own party, whose rule was nothing more than a tyranny in disguise. It is strange that the king was not even yet provoked into declaring war on Athens ; he bore patiently with her intrigues, and even offered to surrender Halonesus, an island- ' Troubles on the off Thessaly which the Athenians claimed as their HeUespont, own. The only reward for his prudence was that in the next year he had to submit to an even more flagrant violation of neutrality. News was brought him that Diopeitlics, the Athenian general in command in the Thracian Chersonese, had not only been molesting his merchant vessels, but had actually invaded IMacedonian territory, pillaged the country, and sold his prisoners as slaves. This could not be jiassed over ; the king at once sent a peremptory demand for satisfaction to Athens, and simultaneously began moving his main army in the direction of Thrace. 'J'he moment had now arrived at which the Athenians were forced to choose between peace and war. If they recalled and punished Uiopeithes, the present troubled and insincere peace might be protracted; if they refused, they must face the consequences and arm for a long and bitter struggle. The party of material interests, and the followers of Phocion, who opposed the war on principle, joined with the corrupt friends of Philip in urging the Ecclesia to appease the king. But Demosthenes came forward, and in his tvro great speeches, the first " Concerning the ^ " -^ '^ Demosthenes' Chersonese," the other known as the "Third Phi- "Third Phnip- lippic," bore down all opposition. He recapitulated ^^^' ^ ' ' Philip's aggressions for the last fifteen years, recounted his broken oaths and agreements, and boldly bade the Athenians pay him back in his own coin. " Philip," he said, " pretends to keep 5io The End of Grecian Freedom. r340E.c. tbo peace while his armies are seizing or destroying Hellenic cities one after the otlier. Let Athens too keei^ the peace in name, but imitate the king by prosecuting a vigorous war in reality." Then he proceeded to expound plans for concluding alliances with Philip's enemies, for raising a permanent force for foreign service, and for providing funds by a stringent property tax. The orator carried the Ecclesia away with him. Diopeithes was thanked instead of being recalled, and Philip was left to do his worst. Hostilities at once broke out in Thrace, though war was not formally declared by either party. Demosthenes, whose activity during the next three years was untiring, sailed at once to Byzan- tium, and succeeded in enlisting in the Athenian alliance that important city, now threatened by Philip's Thracian conquests. His next move was to cross into Euboea and conclude an alliance with the Chalcidians, who had taken alarm at the extension of Philip's influence in their island through his partisans the tyrants of Oreus and Eretria. In the end of the year Demosthenes sailed, in company with Callias of Chalcis, to Western Greece, and obtained the promise of aid from Achaia, Acarnania and Leucas, while the more important cities of Corinth and Megara gave in their adherence a little later (winter of 3il-340 B.C.). Meanwhile Philip had turned from the conquest of Inner Thrace,^ where he had been engaged at the outbreak of hostilities, and sieges of marched against the Hellenic cities of the Propontis, ^g^^^^f^^_<^ Perinthus and Byzantium. He intended to seize 340 B.C. them, and then to block the passage of the straits to the Athenian corn-ships from the Euxine, as Lysander had done seventy years before. He first laid siege to Perinthus, a strong town seated on a rocky peninsula jutting out into the sea. Phis siege occupied him for many months ; he met with a most obstinate resistance, for, even after the walls had been stormed, the citizens resisted behind barricades built across their steep and narrow streets. Reinforcements flowed into the town from Byzantium; the Persian satraps of Asia Minor, jealous of the ' He had founded in 342 B.C. the town of Philippolis, on the Upper Strymon, as his outpost in this direction, and seems to have been in those parts for most of the year 341 n.c. 339 B.C.] Siege of Byzantium. 511 appearance of a uew power in thdr neighbourhoofl, sent men and money across the water, and an Athenian general took charge of the defence. Foiled in many attempts to break into the town, Philip suddenly raised the siege and marched on Byzantium, which he trusted to find unguarded, for its citizens had sent a large contingent to the aid of Porinthus. The Byzantines, how- ever, were on their guard ; the king found the walls manned, and discovered that he had only exchanged one siege for another. He persisted, however, in his enterprise, fixed his engines before the ramparts, threw a boom across the Golden Horn to prevent the ships of the besieged from getting out, and brought up his own fleet from the yEgean to form the blockade on the side of the sea. One desperate attempt to escalade the laud-wall on a dark night failed, it is said, owing to the sudden appearance of a light in heaven (perhaps the Aurora Borealis), which the Byzantines took as a special token of divine aid. Meanwhile the Athenians, unceasingly stirred up to action by Demosthenes, were carrying all before them in the south. With the aid of the Chalcidians, they swept the troops of phocion Philip and of the tyrants of Oreus and Eretria out of Bylantium Euboea. Then landing in Thessaly, they stormed 339 b.c, the fortress of Pagasae, and made prize of a great number of the king's merchant vessels. When the news of the siege of Byzantium arrived, they at last declared open war on Philip, and preparations were made for an expedition to the Bosphorus. A squadron sent ahead under Chares drove off the Macedonian fleet, but did not raise the siege. A larger force was then placed under Phocion, who, though he had opposed the declaration of war, was far too patriotic to refuse his best help to his native city in her hour of danger. With a hundred and twenty triremes behind him, Phocion passed up the Hellespont and sought out the Macedonians. Philip then gave up the siege in despair — his ranks were thinned and his men demoralized — and plunged inland out of the reach of the enemy. Probably he was forced in the hour of disaster to take every precaution to hold down his wild subjects in Inner Thrace. Philip for the second time in his career had suffered a humiliating check, and the joy at Athens over the defeat of the ancient enemy 512 The End of Grecian Freedom. [339 b.c. was correspondingly great. Demosthenrs, wlio had so constantly predicted the possibility of a victory which most men considered unlikely, was at the summit of his career. After the victories in Euboea, his joyful fellow-citizens had voted him a golden crown for civic virtue, and no one for the future ventured to dispute his ascendency with the Ecclesia. All the decrees he proposed passed without a question, even one which devoted to the war-chest the Theoric fund, or sum annually set apart by the state for public festivals and ceremonies. Perhaps the most useful of Demosthenes' measures was a reform in the machinery for providing the state navy, which worked so well that not a ship was lost or disabled during the whole course of the war. For nine months Philip was lost to sight after his repulse from Byzantium. Posted in the Thracian inland, he was fighting hard to jireserve his dominions from the wild Scythians and Tribalii, who lay along his northern frontier. It was not till late in the summer of 339 B.C. that he emerged from the northern darkness, victorious but well-nigh disabled for active service by a wound received in battle with the Tribalii. Meanwhile the Athenians had been harassing the coast-line of his wide possessions, but had taken no decisive measures to attack him at home. Some of their allies, among them the ungrateful Byzantines, had grown con- vinced that the war was practically over, and had actually sent home their contingents after making a declaration of neutralitj'. Unfortunately the triumph of the Athenians was destined to be short-lived, and events were rijoening for an unforeseen disaster. The new troubles sprang from an unexpected quarter. The orator Aeschines, in spite of his narrow escape from a condemna- ^ tion for treason in 343 b.c. (see p. 506), had retained Aeschmes at _ _ \ i /' Delphi. credit enough in the city to be named as one of the 339 B C *" Athenian delegates at the Amphictyonic meeting of 339 B.C. While acting in this capacity at Delphi, he had a violent altercation with the deputies of the Locrians of Amphissa. Whether carried away by the unhappy inspiration of the moment, or suborned — as his enemies declared — by Macedonian gold, Aeschines suddenly accused the Locrians of having committed sacrilege against Apollo. They had, so he declared, imitated the evil deeds of the Phocians, by trespassing on waste land sacred to '339B.C.] Philip at Elateia, 513 the god, and building houses, barns and potters' kilns upon it. Stirred \\\i by the orator's fiery periods, a great mob of Delphians, accompanied by most of the Araphictyonic deputies, went down to the debatable ground, and burnt or cast down all the buildings upon it. While they were thus engaged, the Locrians, armed and in great wrath, came up from their city of Amphissa, fell upon the mob, wounded some, captured many, and drove the rest in rout back to Delphi. Next day the Amphictyons prorogued their ordinary meeting, and called a special assembly to take mto consideration the sacrilege and violence of the Locrians. The special assembly was of a most unrepresentative kind ; Demosthenes had persuaded the Athenians to withdraw their delegates, while the Thebans stayed away because they were old friends of the Amphissians. The main part of the delegates who appeared were from the Thessalian, Oetaean, and Malian states, who Avere all more or less under Macedonian influence. They put the Locrians under the ban, declared war on them, and soon after- wards appointed King Philip their commander-in-chief, and begged him to take charge of the business. It seems likely that the whole of this comedy had been arranged beforehand, that Aeschines had been paid to stir up a disturbance, and that the Amphictyons had from the first no other purpose than to find an excuse for bringing Philip's army down into Central Greece. The king was quite ready to take up the game ; the heads of his columns were soon passing the defiles of Othrys, and he himself — the moment that his wound was healed— came Philip seizes southward to assume the command. When he Eiateia. reached Thermopylae the anxiety of the Athenians ' ' became painful ; it was quite impossible to know whether Philip would really move against Amphissa, or whether he was aiming at Athens, having secured by an agreement with the Thebans the permission to pass through the neutral territory of Boeotia. The doubt was soon solved ; one autumn evening a courier reached Athens with the news that the king's vanguard had seized and was fortifying Elateia, the dismantled Phocian city on the Boeotian frontier which commanded the road down the valley of the Cephissus. Demosthenes has left us a vivid picture of the consternation which the tidings caused. Some ran to drive 2ii 514 The End of Grecian Freedom. [339 b.c. the buyers and sellers out of the market-place, some burnt the wicker booths which encumbered it, others caused the trumpeters to sound the alarm round the city, others rushed to the houses ol the strategi to bid them assemble. The Ecclesia met almost before daybreak, but when it was gathered no man dared face the crisis, till Demosthenes stood forward and comforted the desponding crowd by a vigorous harangue. While bidding them take all possible measures for the defence of the city, he pointed out that the danger was perhaps not so close as they imagined. Everything depended on the Thebans ; if they were secretly allied with Philip the war must come into Attica, but if they were not, it might still be kept far off. He himself volunteered to set out at once, to implore the Thebans not to grant the king a free passage, or, if possible, to induce them to join the Athenian alliance. It is the greatest testimony to the power of his oratory that he actually succeeded in carrying out the more difficult of the two alternatives. Macedonian ambassadors stood forward in the Theban assembly promising all manner of bribes, the Boeotians and the Athenians had been ill neighbours to each other for the last thirty years, and a powerful army hung on the frontier ready to cross it the moment that Philip's requests were refused. Yet the orator induced the Thebans to send away the king's ambassadors and conclude an offensive and defensive alliance with Athens. Fighting at once began on the Boeotian frontier, and for several months an indecisive struggle was carried on upon each of the two main routes which lead from the Phocian hills towards Boeotia. Thebes. The Locrians of Amphissa, supported by ten thousand mercenaries hired by Athens, watched the southern route near the Gulf of Corinth — that which Cleom- brotus the Spartan had used in the campaign of Leuctra (see p. 464). The whole home-levy of Athens and Thebes held the narrow front in the valley of the Cephissus between the spurs of Cnemis and Parnassus, where so many battles had already taken place in Greek history. Ere long they were joined by large contingents from the states which Demosthjenes a year before had drawn into the Athenian alliance^Corinth, Megara, Achaia, and the rest; the whole army would seem to have numbered somevyhat oyer thirty thousand men. Philip's force 338 B.C.] Battle of Chaeroneia. 515 was about the same ; he had calculated on assistance from Pelo- ponnesus, but his allies the Eleians and Argives preferred to wait till the fortune of war ran definitely in his favour before committing themselves. In two partial engagements the confederate army- had the best of the fight, and it was with good hopes of victory that its generals — the Athenians Chares and Lysicles and the Theban Theagenes — drew up their forces in front of Chaeroneia for a decisive battle, on the 2ad of August, 338 b.c. The details of the struggle are not so well known to us as those of many less decisive conflicts in Grecian history. We gather that in the confederate host the Thebans held the Battle of right wing, the Athenians the left, while the chaeroneia, Corinthians and other smaller contingents formed ' " the centre. In the Macedonian army the king faced the Athe- nians, and his son Alexander — a youth of eighteen who now saw his first field — had the Thebans opposite him. It would seem that Philip had resolved to throw the main weight of his army upon the enemy's right; he dreaded the Boeotian phalanx which had wrought such wonders at Coroneia, Leuctra, and Mantinea, While the king fought cautiously with the Athenians, and even gave ground before their first attack, his son delivered a series of furious charges upon the Thebans. The memories of Epaminondas and Pelopidas were not dead, and the Boeotians made a gallant fight ; but their short spears were unable to cope with the enormously long pikes of the Macedonian phalanx, while their cavalry was outnumbered and driven off the field. Theagenes the Theban general was slain, the three hundred chosen hoplites of the " Sacred Band " fell to a man, and then the Boeotians broke before the cavalry of Alexander. The rout of the confederate right left the centre exposed, and ere long it was driven off the field. Finally the Athenians, who had been waging a not unsuc- cessful fight with Philip, were almost surrounded, so that to escape capture they had to disperse and fly. A thousand of them were slain, two thousand taken prisoners ; the Thebans' loss, mainly in dead, was even greater, and the allies In the centre also suffered heavily. So ended this well-fought battle, for which Greece had no cause to blame her soldiers ; but she might well ask herself in shame whj Athens, Thebes, and Corinth were left almost alone to 5 1 6 The End of Grecian Freedom. [338 bo. fight the battle of Hellenic liberty. Elis and Argos, Arcadia and Messene, were standing apart in selfish prudence; Thessaly sent her horsemen to help the Macedonian stranger. Once more the narrow spirit of local ambition had proved the evil genius of Greece; but now it was no passing trouble which it had brought upon the Hellenes, but the doom of permanent subjection to the half-barbarian kingdom in the north. Philip had now achieved the ambition of his lifetime; Athens and Greece were at his feet, and his exultation burst forth for the Athens sub- moment in the most unseemly guise. The evening mits. 338 B.C. after the victory he spent in a royal drinking bout, and at night he is said to have reeled off to the battle-field and to have danced among the corpses, while he trolled out as a song the preamble of a decree of Demosthenes which happened to have the rhythm of a verse. A bystander recalled him to his better self by reminding him that " the gods had given him the part of Agamemnon to play, though he seemed to prefer to take up that of Thersites." But when the king had sobered down, he showed an even greater moderation in the hour of victory than he had displayed in 345 B.C. after the conquest of Phocis. When Thebes surrendered to him, a few days after the battle, he only claimed from her a treaty of alliance, the recognition of the autonomy of the smaller Boeotian cities, and the right to place a Macedonian garrison in the Cadmeia. Athens fared even better ; the citizens, buoyed up by the hopeful energy of Demosthenes, who would not despair even in the hour of disaster, had prepared for a fierce resistance behind their walls. But when Philip sent back their prisoners without a ransom, and let it be known that the only thing he required was the cession of the Thracian Chersonese and the signature of a treaty acknowledging his hegemony, the desire to resist died away. When the peace had been signed Philip gave to Athens, as a pledge of his good will, the town of Oropus, which the Boeotians had taken from her thirty years ago (see p. 480). Megara and Corinth followed the example of Athens in promptly submitting to the king, and he was soon able to summon within the walls of the latter town a congress of all the states of Greece. Not a single city refused to send her delegates to do homage to 338 B.C.] Congress at Corinth. 517 the king save Sparta alone, who retained all her ancient pride, though she had now become a small and decayed state, oppressed by wars with her Argive and Messenian neighbours. There was something grand in the struggle of the Spartans against the over- whelming odds that Philip brought against them. Though all Greece followed the Macedonian banner, King Agis III. led out his little army with as much confidence, and fought with as dogged a courage, as had Leonidas or Agesilaus in the days of old.^ Sparta paid for her obstinacy by seeing Thyrea and the Scirltis, the prizes of her ancient victories in the sixth and seventh cen- turies (see p. 79), torn from her grasp and given to her Argive and Arcadian enemies. The congress which met at Corinth under King Plulip's presi- dency, in the autumn of 338 b.c, was the most representative body which Greece had ever seen. Even the great _ '' ° Congrress at assembly of 481 b.c, which had gathered on the corinth, 338 B C news of the approach of Xerxes, had counted less members. It was only the strong hand of the master that could gather together the delegates of every Hellenic state for a common end; of their own accord the blind and selfish cities would never have combined for any purpose, however great and good. The king laid before the deputies the draft of a document which practically formed Greece into one great federal state, under Macedonian presidency. Every city was to be " free and autonomous," but in the same sense that Antalcidas had used the word fifty years before (see p. 450). Each was bound to Macedon by a stringent treaty of alliance, but a very considerable degree of local freedom was allowed ; for example, Philip did not call for the banishment of Demosthenes or any other statesman who had opposed his plans, or impose new constitutions on unwilling states. A federal council was established to aid the king in administering the land, and the Amphictyons — who had twice served Philip so well — were constituted the supreme legal arbiters between state and state. All this seemed fair and wise ; but the other aspect of affairs was marked by the establishment of permanent Macedonian garrisons at Thebes, Corinth, Chalcis, and Ambracia, and by the clause ' Archidanuis, the father of Agis, was slain in Italy on the same day as the battle of Chaeroneia (see p. 449). 5i8 The End of Grecian Freedom. [337 b.c. which declared Philip supreme commander of the warlike forces of the whole confederacy, and made disobedience to him into treason. Thus Greece received a formal constitution — a thing which neither Sparta, Athens, nor Thebes had ever been able to force upon her. It was a far better one than might have been expected from the antecedents of the man who drafted it, but Philip's versatile mind was capable of unexpected acts of moderation and even of generosity. In spite of occasional outbursts of Macedonian barbarism, he had become very Hellenic in bis methods of thought, and — so far as was compatible with his own ends — paid a sincere attention to Greek prejudice in drawing up the treaty of Corinth. If fairly worked by a conscientious ruler, it would have been a far more just and promising basis for the union of Greece than were any of the arrangements which Sparta and Athens had tried to force on their reluctant neighbours. To j)rovide the new Greek federation with a common end, likely to stir up national enthusiasm but not to prove dangerous to his own hegemony, Philip gave out that he was about to take up the old plans of Cimon and Agesilaus, and to lead the whole force of Greece eastward for a grand attack on the old national enemy, the Persian king. How far the project excited genuine zeal in Greece we cannot exactly tell, but sea and land contingents were voted with alacrity by the congress, and it was calculated that, if every state did its best, two hundred thousand men could be collected to overrun Asia. The scheme was to take effect in 336 b.c, the intervening year being devoted to the necessary preparations. But Philip was never destined to cross the Hellespont. He was to enjoy the fruits of his victory for less than two years, and to die without having accomplished any of his new plans. The summer of 336 b.c. was come ; a Macedonian force under the generals Attalus and Parmenio had actually crossed into Mysia, and all Greece was filled with the preparations for the invasion, when the news suddenly arrived that Philip had been assassinated. It was not the outraged patriotism of any of the Greeks that had inspired the deed, but the private grudge of one of the king's own subjects. Philip, in violation of Hellenic usage, had married several wives, 336 B.O.] Murder of Philip. 5 1 9 both Greek aud foreign ; but his recognized consort was the Epirot princess Olympias, mother of his heir, Alexander the Great. This lady the king had just divorced and sent back to Epirus, to the great wrath of her fiery son. In her stead he had taken as his chief wife Cleopatra, the niece of his general Attains. The friends of Olympias and Alexander were much enraged with Philip, for wrecking the hopes which they had built on their favour with the late queen, and cast about for a means of revenge. They found a young Macedonian noble named Pausanias, who had just suffered an outrage at the hands of Attains, the new queen's uncle. The young man had sought justice from Philip, but it had been denied him, and he was filled with ungovernable resentment against both king and general. It required small persuasion to turn his anger into action.' Philip was celebrating at Aegae the marriage of one of his daughters. On the second day of the festival there was a splendid procession, in which, as men noted with disapproval, the king's image was j)resumptuously borne along in company with those of the twelve great gods of Olympus. He himself walked in the procession crowned and robed in white, but quite unprotected, for he had bidden his guards to keep apart, "because he had sufficient security in the good will of all Greece." Murder of As he entered the theatre, Pausanias sprang out from ^^^^P' 336 b.c. among the spectators and thrust him through with a short sword which he had hidden under his cloak. The king fell dead; the assassin tried to make off, but stumbled in his flight, and was cut down before he got to his feet. So died King Philip, in the forty-seventh year of his age and the twenty-fourth of "his reign, when all the world was expecting from him even greater exploits than he had already performed. Greece thought for the moment that she was once more free; Athenian patriots, forgetting the mercy that had been shown them two years before, began to get ready their sacrifices and libations. But a man who had grasped the real lesson of the times rebuked them. " Nothing," said Phocion, " shows greater meanness of spirit than expressions of joy on the death of an enemy. Eemember that the army you fought at Chaeroneia is lessened by only one man." He was right. Philip was dead, but Philip's army and Philip'a 520 The End of Grecian Freedom. [336 b.c. system were alive, and, what was more, the Greeks were perfectly imchanged. Their petty jealousies were as lively as ever, their border-feuds as venomous, their statesmen as venal and short- sighted. In spite of all our sympathy for individuals such as Demosthenes, we cannot feel that the chaotic state-system which had prevailed since the death of Epaminondas deserved to survive. Greece under Philip would have been happier, richer, and better governed, than that Greece, — split up into twenty bickering states, which combined with kaleidoscopic variety into new political forms every three or four years, — whose history we have been investigating. .y A \ CHAPTER XLIV. ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 336-323 B.C. The Greek world knew little of the young man whom the sudden death of Phihp had called to the throne of Macedonia. That he was fiery and headstrong no one who had seen him charge the Theban phalanx at Chaeroneia, or heard him wTangle with his imperious father, could doubt. But nothing more was known of him : he was believed to be a rash conceited boy, fit perhaps to lead a squadron of horse but for nothing more. Demosthenes congratu- lated the Athenians that " Margites " had come to the throne of Macedon, applying to the new king the name of a stupid quarrelsome boaster in a well-kno\vn comic poem ascribed to Homer. But the power of PhOip had in reality fallen into the hands of a man even greater than Philip himself — one of the most extra- ordinary characters that Europe has ever known, a man whose personality was to be impressed on the history of the world for a thousand j^ears, ' and whose biogi-aphy forms an epic poem in real life. Alexander had been brought up under influences that would have fired even a less enthusiastic soul than his. His mother. Olympias, a princess of Epirus, was a fiery ambitious woman with a dash of superstition in her mind. She taught Alexander that he was through the Epirot kings descended from Achilles, the hero of the tale of Troy, and bade him rival the great deeds of his ancestor. His first tutor is said to have won his heart by always calling him by the name of the prince in the Ihad, and styhng PhUip Peleus, and himself Phoenix — the traditionary preceptor of Achilles. ' The permanent effect of Alexander's work in the Hellenization of Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt, endured till the Mahometan conquest of those countries in the seventh century a.d. 522 Alexander the Great. t338B.o. There is no doubt that Alexander had the tale of Achilles on his brain : more than once in his life wc shall mark the effect of this ancestor-worship on his behaviour. He knew the Iliad by heart, always carried a copy of it with him on his campaigns, and modelled his own character on that of the fiery Homeric chiefs. But there were other strains in his character beside that of the generous knight errant of the old romances : he had a strong infusion of the un- scrupulous energy of Philip : those who crossed his path or merely incurred his suspicion he swept away without pity or remorse. As he grew older he grew as conscienceless as his father, and far more cruel than Philip had ever been. Alexander, however, was more than adventurous and unscrupulous — as fifty conquering kings beside him have been, — he was also imbued with a broad desire for knowledge of all sorts ; there was a taste for discovery and research in him : he sought information of all sorts for its own sake, and loved to organize almost as much as to conquer. This side of his disposition must have developed freely under the teaching of Aristotle, the great philosopher whom Philip made his tutor when he reached the age of thirteen. The omnivorous appetite for knowledge which inspired Aristotle, and ranged over every subject from botany to metaphysics and from constitutional history to morals, seems to have influenced Alexander also to no small extent. The clever, inquisitive, restless Greek mind was developed in the pupil as in the teacher. But the quality which enabled Alexander to leave his mark on history was his military talent. He was a heaven-born general, and was besides brought up with every advantage that he could have de- sired. He learnt from his father how to deal both with Greek and bar- barian enemies, and how to handle with perfection the great military machine which Philip had organized for him. Alexander was one of the generals who win by rapid strokes and daring expedients. His long marches were perhaps the most characteristic part of his career : urged on by him his armies appeared to be able to anni- hilate time and space : the rapidity of their motion was almost incredible : he was on the spot when his enemies believed him to be hundreds of miles away. And when once arrived, Alexander had an eagle eye for seizing the moment to strike : he hardly ever made a mistake : his attacks, however reckless, succeeded to a miracle. He was above all things a cavalry general ; it was the in^esistible 836 B.C.] Accession of Alexander. 523 charge of his heavy life-guards, with himself in the van leading them on, that always won his battles. The steady Macedonian phalanx, with its impenetrable hedge of spears, was only the secondary tool in the hewing out of his victories. While the great mass of infantry rolled like a hedgehog into the midst of the enemy, occupied their attention, beat off their attacks, and exhausted their energy, it was always the wild onset of the king and his " Companions " of the Macedonian horse that settled the day. But the Greeks had as yet no knowledge of the man with whom they had to deal. That he was determined and unscrupulous they soon realized, when the news came that at the moment of his accession he had executed every one likely to be a rival to him ; his father's infant son by Cleopatra, Attalus the uncle of Cleopatra, Amyntas the heir of his father's elder brother, ^ and several more. But murders were common in the Macedonian royal house, and Alexander's conduct was as yet nothing exceptional. It was his next step that made men speak of him -with respect. The moment that Philip was dead all Greece gave a sigh of relief, and prepared to forget the Macedonian and recommence its usual intrigues and wars. Sparta began to stir ; Argos and Elis armed themselves ; the Ambraciots expelled their Macedonian garrison ; the Athenians burst out into patriotic oratory, and commenced an intrigue with Persia to get money to raise a fleet. But before anything more serious was done, Alexander swooped down among them with thirty thousand men at his back. Caught unprepared, the Greek states were compelled to renew with him the treaties they had made with his father, and to elect him to the position of supreme commander of the Hellenic confederacy. After a short stay at Corinth to meet the congress of allies, and a rapid march round Peloponnesus, he hastened home again. The barbarians on the northern frontier of Macedon had broken loose and required his curbing hand. (Autumn of 336 B.C.) In six months Alexander accomplished almost as much against his wild northern neighbours as Philip had done in ten years. One short campaign crushed the Thracians and Triballi, and carried the Macedonian arms even beyond the Danube. Another subdued the warlike Illyrians, and compelled them to do homage as vassals of » See page 493. 524 Alexander the Great. [335 b.o. the Macedonian crown. But while Alexander was absent in the northern wilds, a false rumour of his death reached Greece : the Thebans at once broke out into revolt and besieged the Macedonian garrison in their citadel. They sent for aid to their neighbours of Athens. Demosthenes, now as always, urged on war with ]\Iacedon, and the temper of the Ecclesia was not unfavourable. But Athens was cautious and dilatory ; nothing positive was done, save that Demosthenes crossed into Peloponnesus, and persuaded the Arcadian League and Elis to declare in favour of Thebes. But while Demosthenes was talking Alexander acted. Before it was known that he was not dead he suddenly appeared in Boeotia. He had marched riglit through from Illyria, over countless passes and valleys, covering in thirteen days two hundred and fifty miles of indifferent road. The Thebans, unaided by any ally, boldly faced the king : they fortified an entrenched position in front of their city and fought a decisive battle outside the gates. Outnumbered and outgeneralled the Thebans were doomed to fail. They were beaten, and the Macedonians entered the gates with the flying enemy. A desperate street-fight followed, but Alexander at last cut his way to the market place. Sis thousand Thebans fell, and the whole city was in the hands of the conqueror. The king was determined to make an example of the place : he bade his Greek allies, the Phocians and other neighbours and enemies of Thebes, sit in judgment on the vanquished. They voted — as the king intended — that Thebes should be destroyed. Thirty thousand Thebans were ruthlessly sold into slavery; the walls and houses were cast down, and the territory divided among the smaller Boeotian towns. Thus perished the city of Epaminondas, the victim of its own rashness and of tlie procrastination of its allies. Alexander spared only the temples and the house of the poet Pindar: long after, however, he repented of his cruelty, and attributed to the anger of Bacchus, the tutelary god of Thebes, the drunken frenzy which sometimes disfigured his later years. The Athenians and the other Greek states of the Theban party had done nothing more than pass decrees against Alexander, and the king declared that he should require nothing more than the punishment of the leaders of the anti-Macedonian party. His demand for the instant surrender of eight leading citizens of Athens, 335 B.C.] The Asiatic Expedition. 525 including Demosthenes, was soon softened down by the intercession of Phocion into a consent that two Athenians only should be banished. The same was the case with Elis and Arcadia, who had committed themselves in much the same way as Athens; a few leaders were punished, and the states left unharmed. By the use of one severe example, followed by a display of clemency, Alexander brought the Greeks into the frame of mind in which he desired to see them — they were now convinced that they had to deal with a master-mind, and would be loth to recommence their intrigues while the ruins of Thebes lay before their eyes. The autumn of .335 B.C. was now far spent ; and the king announced that he should not till the next year take up the great scheme for the invasion of Asia which his father had begun to carry out. The Macedonian force which Philip had sent across the Hellespont in 337 B.C., was still holding on to some of the coast towns of Mysia : Alexander now began to reinforce it, but deferred the departure of his main army till the spring of the oncoming year. Nothing could be more inspiring to the enthusiastic mind of Alexander than the idea of an attack on the realm of the Great King. Such a scheme at once brought him on to the ground where his hero-ancestor, Achilles, had fought and died. It gave him the opportunity of surpassing the successful Asiatic campaigns of Agesi- laiis, who was still reckoned the greatest general that Greece had known. It also furnished him with a plausible excuse for calling upon the states of Greece for their hearty aid : was he not about to avenge on their behalf the invasion which Xerxes just a hundred and fifty years before had launched against the Hellenic fatherland ? The war was to be at once a crusade of Hellenism against Barbarism, a buccaneering adventure into the golden realm ot the fabulously wealthy " Great King," and — what was not %vithout an attraction for Alexander — a plunge into the unknown — for beyond the coast land Asia was still untrodden ground to the Greeks. The prince who sat on the Persian throne was now Darius III. There had been much murder of late in the palace of Susa, and Darius, who was only the third cousin of his predecessor, had been suddenly called from a private station to occupy the throne, owmg to the extinction of the elder branch of the royal house.^ He had ' See Genealogy on page 548. 526 Alexander the Great. [334 b.c. now been reigning for two j'ears, and had given no sign of capacity, either for good or evil ; but tried in the balance, he was found to be entirely destitute both of military ability and of moral courage. Though not absolutely a coward, he was so wanting in decision and initiative, that no one could have been more fitted to lose an empu'e. In the spring of 334 b.c. Alexander marched to the Hellespont with the veteran army which his father had organized. Some 30,000 foot and 4500 horse followed his banner, of whom about half were Macedonians, the rest consisted of twelve thousand Greeks and seven thousand barbarian auxiliaries — Thracians, Illyrians, and other wild tribes from the Balkans. They formed about two-thirds of the strength of the Macedonian monarchy ; the remaining third, 12,000 foot and 1500 horse, under Antipater, were left behind to guard the capital and overawe the unruly Greeks. For two years Persia and Macedon had already been at war, but Darius had made no adequate preparation to repel invasion ; indeed, he hardly expected it : no Asiatic could have foreseen that a young man of twenty-two, whose name he had but just learnt, was about to revolutionize the whole East. The Phoenician fleet was not called up to block the Hellespont, nor were the satraps of Asia Minor strengthened with aid from the Inland. They had to bear the storm as best they could on their own resources. To meet Alexander, Arsites of Phrygia, Mitrobarzanes of Cappadocia, and Spithridates of Lydia, had collected twenty thousand native horse, and about ten thousand Greek mercenary foot, to defend their borders. Meanwhile, Alexander crossed the Hellespont with his army, and landed near Troy, at the spot where tradition placed the harbour of the host of Agamemnon. He honoured the supposed tomb of his ancestor Achilles with solemn rites ; hanging a garland on it, and running, thrice, naked round the barrow in accordance with an ancient local custom. At Ilium he did solemn sacrifice to Athene, and hung up his arms in her temple, taking down instead some ancient armour that was said to have been dedicated by the heroes of the Trojan war. Then, full of memories of Homeric battles, he went forth to meet the hosts of Asia. The satraps were waiting for him in a position they had chosen on the river Granlcus, ten miles inland from the Propontis, near the town of Zeleia. Mentor, the leader of the Greek mercenaries, had besought the Persians to 334 B.C.) Battle of the Granicus. 527 retire before Alexander without a battle, wasting the country around them and declining to engage till they should have mustered greater strength. But the stupid satraps were bent on fighting at a dis- advantage. Instead of choosing a plain where their cavalry could act, they placed themselves on the rugged bank of a fordable river, and prepared to dispute its passage. Their infantry was in the second line ; their masses of cavalry, which were almost useless for defending a position, lined the steep slope at the water's edge. The eye of Alexander caught at once the defect in the enemy's array : his infantry advanced to the river's edge and began to cross in face of the Persian horse ; they were charged when they reached the further bank, but their long sarissas beat off the cavalry with heavy loss. Then Alexander himself plunged into the water with his horse-guards and scrambled up the steep slope in front of him. Their assault was irresistible : though the Persian nobles swarmed round him, fighting their best, and dying manfully upon the lances of the horse-guards, they could make no long stand. But for a moment the melee was hot ; one Persian noble lopped off the king's white plume ; another, the satrap Spithridates, had forced himself behind Alexander and was raising his sabre to stab him in the back, when Cleitus, a Macedonian officer, cut off his hand. The Persian leaders soon fell ; their horsemen fled in disorder, and then the Macedonians were able to surround the unfortunate Greek mercenary infantry in the rear. Alexander gave them no quarter, alleging that they were traitors in arms against the Hellenic confederacy of which he was general, and only two thousand escaped death. The whole loss of the Macedonians in the fight at the Granlcu3 was only one hundred and twenty men : on the Persian side about two thousand horsemen had fallen, and the whole body of infantry had been cut to pieces. But the most important item in their loss was that well nigh every Persian officer of rank had been slain ; two of the three satraps had fallen in the battle ; the third, Arsites, escaped alive but committed suicide next day rather than face his master. There was no one left to command in Asia ]\Iinor, and the defence of the whole peninsula was completely disorganized.; Town after to-^Ti surrendered to Alexander when he proceeded to march south from the Hellespont — first Sardis, then Ephesus, then all the other cities of Ionia. The king needed to do nothing but. 528 Alexander the Great. [384 b.o, accept the submission of their inhabitants and nominate new governors. In one quarter only was there opposition : Memnon, the captain of the Greek mercenaries of Darius, had escaped from the Granlcus and thrown himself into Miletus. He maintained himself there for some weeks, and had to be besieged in due form ere he would evacuate the place. Meanwhile a Phoenician fleet had come up, two months late : it should have arrived in the spring and blocked the Hellespont. Aided by this fleet Memnon held first Miletus and then Halicarnassus, and gave Alexander much trouble. Halicarnassus had to be stormed after a desperate defence — the first real trouble that the Macedonians had met in Asia — and even when it fell Memnon and his garrison escaped on shipboard, to give farther trouble in the Aegean. (Autumn of 334 B.C.) Alexander employed the last months of 334 B.C. in completing the subjection of western Asia Minor. Leaving his main body to winter at Ephesus, he marched with a chosen corps through Caria and received the homage of its native rulers : then he pushed in the depth of winter along the Lycian and Pamphylian shore, meeting hardly any hindrance save from the inclemency of the season. One most hazardous march took him round the sea-swept path that winds along the cliffs of Mount Climax : the road was covered, but the king refused to turn back, and made his way through water that reached to the waist, despising the waves that threatened to sweep away his whole host. He thus reached the cities of the Pamphylian coast. Perga and Side promptly submitted, and the tribes of the neigh- bouring highlands soon followed their example. The king then turned north, and crossing the snow-clad passes of the Pisidian mountain in early March, came out on to the great Phrygian plateau just as spring began. At Gordium, the old capital of Phrygia, Alexander was joined by his main army, which the veteran general Parmenio led up from Ephesus. It had been largely recruited by drafts from Macedon and Greece, and was now even stronger than when it crossed the Hellespont a year before : the marvellous success of the king had made recruiting easy, and volunteers were numerous. Alexander's stay at Gordium is mainly notable for the incident of the " Gordian knot." In the town there was preserved an ancient chariot, said to have been constructed by Gordius, the first king of Phrygia. Its 333B.C.] The Gordicm Knot. 529 pole was fastened to its yoke by a strand of cornel bark, twisted in a complex knot. Local tradition held that the man who should untie the knot was destined to be king of all Asia. Alexander heard the tale, gazed for a moment at the puzzle, and promptly solved it by drawing his sword and cutting the knot asunder. The bystanders, both Phrj'gian and Greek, raised a cry that the prophecy was now fulfilled, and were confirmed in their idea when a heavy thunderstorm followed — denoting, as they supposed, the assent of Zeus. It seemed for a short time as if Alexander might be detained in Asia Minor by the operations of Memnon and the Persian fleet in the Aegean. That enterprising chief conquered in the spring the islands of Chios and Lesbos, expelling their Macedonian garrisons. He then proposed to sail across to Greece and raise rebellion against Alexander, with the help of Agis, king of Sparta ; but just at this moment he died. With his death all energy seemed to abandon the Persian fleet, and Alexander, freed from this danger at the critical moment, was free to plunge further into Asia. King Darius had done nothing all the winter, while his restless adversary had been conquering western Asia Minor. But he had summoned the full muster of the host of all the satrapies to meet at Babjdon in the spring of 333 B.C. He was now on his march up the Euphrates with an armament almost as large as that of Xerxes. Rumour gave him six hundred thousand men, and some of the troops were good fighting material, more especially a body of nearly thirty thousand Greek mercenaries, hired from every quarter where hoplites could be found. While Darius was coming westward Alexander was hurrying to meet him. A rapid march from Gordium across the central plateau of Asia Minor brought him to the foot of the passes of Mount Taurus. It was expected that the governor of Cihcia would have manned them with all the forces of his satrapy ; but the cowardly wretch — his name was Arsames — fled at Alexander's approach, and abandoned the rugged defile of the Cilician Gates ^nthout a blow. The Macedonian army at once poured down from the hills into the fertile Cilician plain and seized Tarsus. Here Alexander was detained by a sharp fit of illness. He had plunged, at the end of a hot march, into the icy-cold mountain Btream of the Cydnus ; a chill seized him and fever followed. He 2 M 53© Alexander the Great. [333 bc. was treated by a physician named Philippus, but was long in rallying. A secret letter informed him that his doctor had been hired by Persian gold to poison him. But so great was Alexander's, confidence in Philippus that he drank off the next potion he pre- scribed, and then handed him the letter to read. After this the king rapidly recovered his strength, and was soon in the field again. Meanwhile Darius was at hand with all his host, and only Mount Amanus, the range which separates Syria from Cilicia, lay between the armies. Two main passes pierce the chain, the " Syrian Gates" to the south, leading from Myriandrus to Sochi, and the " Amanic Gates " to the north, leading from Issus to Sochi. Alexander was convinced that his enemy intended to fight in the great plain of northern SjTia, where his masses of cavalry could act freely. It never entered his head that Darius would enter the mountains and engage on ground so unfavourable to his unwieldy numbers. Accordingly, Alexander marched down the narrow coast-plain between the Amanus and the sea, and made for the " SjTian Gates " in order to cross into Syria. But, meanwhile, Darius also had set out to meet his enemy, and passing the moimtains by the "Amanic Gates," came down on Issus in Alexan- der's rear, captured the depots and sick of the Macedonian army, and threw himself across their line of communication with Asia Minor. This mattered little to Alexander ; he only rejoiced that his enemy had consented to pen up his multitudes between the sea and the hills, on the narrow shore between Issus and M^'riandrus. Abandoning the " Syrian Gates," the king faced about, and retraced his route back towards Issus. Behind the river Pinarus, ten miles south of Issus, he came upon the Persian host, ranged line behind line with a front of only ninety thousand men. The Greek merce- naries and the native Persians, both horse and foot, were in the fight- ing line ; the troops of the subject nations blocked the roads for mile on mile to the rear, quite out of the game. Alexander's army was numerous enough to fill the space of two miles between the sea and the hills without overcrowding. Placing the phalanx in the centre, leading the right wing of cavalry himself, and giving the left, on the sea-flank, in charge to the old Parmenio, Alexander advanced to attack the enemy. The battle of Lssus, though more toughly contested than that at the 333 B.C.] Battle of Issus. 531 Granlcus, was not less decisive. The phalanx pushed into the midst of the Persian line, and engaged in a fierce strife with the Greek mercenaries of Darius. Parmenio by the sea-shore waged an up-hill fight against the main bodj' of the Persian horse, and was forced to give ground. But Alexander himself in a series of fierce charges broke through the left wing of the enemy, and then turned to attack his centre from the flank and rear. When King Darius saw the Macedonian lancers pressing nearer and nearer to the lofty chariot wherein he sat, his presence of mind deserted him ; he leapt down and mounted a horse. Seeing the chariot empty the Persians imagined the king slain ; a cry ran down the ranks that all was lost, and the fighting line broke up in confusion. The subject nations in the rear did not stop to strike a blow, but promptly fled to the hills. Darius himself, almost the first among the fugitives, aban- doned his camp, his treasures, and his harem, and fled to Thapsacus on the Euphrates. There was a great slaughter of the fugitives, and of the native Persians and Greek mercenaries in the front line nearly half must have fallen. A moderate estimate placed the loss in Darius' army at tJiirty thousand men. Of the ]\Iacedonians not more than four hundred and fifty were left on the field. In the Persian camp were found three thousand -^ talents (£700,000), the first large spoil of money that had fallen into Alex- ander's hands, great stores of plate and jewels, and — a capture of far gi'eater importance — the harem of Darius, including his mother Sisj'gambis and his queen-consort Statlra. Alexander treated these ladies with great courtesy and consideration: not only did their forlorn situation appeal to his natural magnanimity, but he might also reflect that they would be most valuable hostages in any future dealings with Darius. When he stood victorious at the head of the Gulf of Issus Alexander had two paths open to him. He might strike eastward and pursue Darius to Babylon, leaving Syria unsubdued on his flank, or he might turn south and subdue Syria and Egj'pt before proceeding to attack the heart of the Persian empire. Alexander chose the latter alternative : the character of Darius was now known to him, and he thought that he might safely neglect hira for many months after the crushing defeat he had just undergone. His conjecture was correct; within a short time Darius was humbly 53^ Alexander the Great. iss2B.e. asking for peace, offering ten thousand talents as a ransom for his family, and the hand of his daughter Barsine, with all the provinces west of Euphrates as her dower. Alexander told his officers of the Persian's proposition. " I should accept, were I Alexander," exclaimed the veteran Parmenio. " And so should I, if I were Parmenio," answered the king. The Macedonian generals were already dazzled with the vastness of their conquests but their young master looked upon what he had obtained as a mere earnest of greater things to come. He sent away the Persian ambassadors, and prepared to go on with the war. It was in front of Tyre that the envoj's had found Alexander. All northern Syria had submitted to him without a blow, and of the Phoenician cities, Sidon, Byblus, and Aradus had opened their gates. But Tyre, jealous of the semi-independence it enjoyed under the Persian rule, had proffered homage, but refused to admit a Macedonian garrison within its walls. The king answered that he must enter the city, as he intended to sacrifice to Melcarth — whom the Greeks indentified with their own Heracles — in his ancient temple on the Tyrian island. To this the Tyrians replied that no foreigner could come within the walls, but that a shrine of Melcarth, yet more ancient and venerable than their own, could be found in the ruins of old Tyre on the mainland. Alexander was in no mood to brook such a reply, and announced that he would enter by force of arms. Tyi-e was a strong place — renowned for the long sieges it had undergone — one Assyrian king had blockaded it in vain for more than twenty years. It lay on an island seven hundred yards out in the sea, and was girt by walls coming down to the water's edge and rising a hundred and fifty feet above the waves. The Tyrians possessed a well-equipped fleet of a hundred ships, which had just returned from the Aegean, for the news of Issus had caused the Persian armament in the western waters to break up. Alexander had as yet no fleet with him, and strove to take Tyre by running a mole out from the mainland across the shallow strait which protected the island-city. At first the work was easy, but presently the mole reached deeper water, and began also to come within range of the military engines planted on the walls. The workmen were swept off in such numbers, that Alexander had to 332 B.o.) Siege of Tyre. 533 construct wooden towers to protect the head of the mole ; but when these were constructed tlic Tyrians set them ablaze by means of a fire-ship, and then pushed out in boats, and destroyed the greater part of the causeway. Convinced that he must command the sea if he wished to conquer Tyre, Alexander compelled the Sidonians and Cj'priots to send him their fleets, and presently sent two hundred and ten vessels to drive the Tyrians within their harbour. After this the work was simplified ; the mole was renewed on a larger scale, and driven forward to the very foot of the walls. The Tyrians fought Avith the frantic courage of which Semitic races have often shown themselves capable, — as bravely as the Cartha- ginans withstood Scipio, or the Jews the Romans of Titus. But the end was inevitable : a breach was made and the city was stormed after a siege of less than seven months. The Mace- donians lost foiu' hundred men, but eight thousand Tyrians were cut down in the streets. Two thousand prisoners were hung by the ruthless conqueror, and the rest of the population sold into slavery. (July? 332 B.C.) When Tyre fell, all the lands to its south were struck with terror. The Jews in Palestine did homage to the king, and with them all the cities of the Philistines, save Gaza alone, the southern fortress which blocked the road to Egypt. A faithful governor named Batis held this town for Darius ; he resisted for three months, and sorely angered Alexander. When the place fell the king determined to imitate his ancestor Achilles in the least praiseworthy of his actions : he had Batis bound to the tail of his chariot and dragged him along till he died, because Achilles had dealt in the same way with the corpse of Hector. Cruelty from this moment seems to have grown upon Alexander more and more. Egypt fell without a blow: its inhabitants regarded the Mace- donians as deliverers from the Persian yoke, against which they had so long striven, and welcomed them as friends. Alexander made a triumphal entry into Memphis, and then sailed down the Nile to its western mouth, where, struck with the capacities of the spot, he drew out a plan for the foundation of a great maritime city, and christened it by his own name. Thus came into being the seaport of Alexandria, by far most enduring of all the monuments which Alexander reared for himself, 534 Alexander the Great. [331 b.c. While staying at Alexandria, the king resolved to visit the famous oracle of Zeus Amnion in the Libyan desert. With a picked corps of troops he marched for five days across the sands, and came in safety to the palm groves of the fertile oasis which sheltered the temple of the god. The oracle hailed him as the son of Zeus, and bade him go forth and conquer all the world, for none should be able to withstand him till the day when he should be taken up to the gods. His companions were bidden to salute him as more than mortal, and to offer him sacrifice. This hyperbolical flattery seems to have been the first thing which turned the head of Alexander : it was noted that he took the greeting of the oracle in all seriousness, and was in future much pleased when any one saluted him as the son of Ammon. In the spring of 331 B.C. Alexander retraced his steps from Egypt through Palestine and Syria, back to the Euphrates. He crossed the great river at Thapsacus, and then, pushing yet further east, passed the Tigris also. This he did in order to avoid the Mesopo- tamian desert, and to be able to march on Babylon by a route where provisions should never fail. Darius had been granted nearly two years to assemble a new army, and had now gathered a force even greater than that which fought at Issus. He was determined this time to fight on the level plains, where his hordes would not be cramped for want of space to deploy, and awaited Alexander in the flat sandy country in front of the town of Arbela, at a spot known as Gaugamela (the house of the camel). There the whole force of the East was found drawn out in battle array— the king in the midst in his war-chariot, surrounded by his body-guard, and with the remnant of his Greek mercenaries on either side : to the north and south of him stretched long lines of Median, Bactrian, Persian, and Indian cavalry, while behind him were drawn up the infantry of the eastern satrapies, in numbers numberless. War-chariots and elephants were stationed at inter- vals in front of the army, and it was hoped that their onset might breakup the close array which was the strength of the Macedonians. To meet this great host Alexander had only forty thousand foot and seven thousand cavalry. It was evident that he must be out- flanked to right and left by the enormous numbers opposed to him. Accordingly be advanced in an order which somewhat resembled a 331 B.C.] Battle of Arbela. 535 hollow square. The phalanx made the front line, flanked on the right by Alexander and his chosen Macedonian horse, on the left by Par- menioand the cavalry of the allied Greeks. The sides of the square were formed by bodies of Greek, Thracian, and lllyrlan infantry and horse : their orders were to beat off all flank attacks, and to see that the king was not assailed from the rear. The hinder side of the square was formed by a thin line of Thracian infantry In this array the Macedonians plunged into the nu'dst of the Persian host, aiming the chief point of their impact at the king himself. The elephants and chariots gave no trouble, but when the enemy's cavalry closed in on either flank, there was very sharp fighting all over the field. Parmenio was encompassed and almost beaten by the Persian right wing. One great body of Parthian and Indian horse burst through between two brigades of the phalanx, and would have done much harm had it not fallen to plundering the Greek camp. But in the centre Alexander himself won his way forward, with the same irresistible impetus that he had displayed at Granlcus and Issus. With his body-guard and the right brigades of the phalanx, he pierced into the Persian ranks till he drew near to the chariot of Darius. Once more the imbecile Persian concluded that it was better to survive and fight another day. Though his men were still doing their best, he left his chariot, mounted his charger, and fled away. His host fled after him, and Alexander was once more the victor. He had conquered a host of a million men, and slain forty thousand of them, with no greater loss than five hundred killed and four or five thousand wounded ! When Alexander won his third and crowning victory over the Great King, the spell which had held the Persian empire together for two hundred years seemed suddenly dissolved. The rumour ran far and wide over all the eastern satrapies that the house of the Achaemenidae was doomed, and everywhere the native princes declared themselves independent, and the satraps strove to turn their provinces into petty kingdoms. It was no more with the Persian empire that Alexander had to deal; such an entity no longer existed. He had now to deal with a bewildering chaos of tribes and cities, defending, or refusing to defend, their newly acquired freedom. Darius fled to Ecbatana in Media, but he could Eot collect a new army : only a few thousand personal retainers of 536 Alexander the Great. I83ib.c. his own and of the satraps who still clung to him, mustered around his person. Moreover his life and his crown were alike in danger : his cousin Bessus, satrap of Bactria, had determined to dethrone him — as he richly deserved, — and to see whether a new sovereign could not save the heritage of the Achaemenidae. Meanwhile, Alexander marched on Babylon, where the Chaldaeans opened the gates of the city, and received him with garlands, sacri- fices, and hymns of honour. Babylon had never forgiven the two sacks it had undergone at the hands of the Persians in the sixth century, and looked upon Alexander as a liberator. It might have been expected that Susa, the home of Cyrus and the chosen abode of his successors, would have shown a different spirit. But the spell of Arbela was on the Susians ; they yielded without resistance, and placed in Alexander's hands the immense royal hoard stored in the palace of Darius— a sum amounting to no less than fifty thousand talents, or £11,500,000, the savings of nine generations of the house of Achaemenes. Alexander now halted for a short time to reorganize the empire he had won, for no one now doubted that he was the " Great King," and Darius a luckless pretender to a cro-wn that was no longer his own. The principle which the conquei'or adopted was to confirm in their civil authority all the satraps who submitted to him, but to join with the native ruler a Greek officer, who took over military charge of the district." Thus at Babylon and Susa the satraps, Mazaeus and Abulites, were left in power, but were watched by the two generals, ApoUodorus and Archelaus. The Mace- donians did not wholly approve of this arrangement ; they thought that all places of emolument should be reserved for themselves, and grudged to see their ruler taking upon him the pomp of the Great King, and acknowledging Asiatics as faithful and deserving subjects. Persia proper yet remained to be conquered: it was defended, not by the wretched Darius, who was hiding at Ecbatana, but by Ariobarzanes, the last hero that the Persian realm produced. Fighting for his own hand rather than for any master, Ariobarzanes summoned the last levy of the old royal race into the field. The remnants of the native Persian host manned the passes that lead from Sus^ to Persepolis, and for five days held Alexander in check 330 B. CI Sack of Persepolis. 537 at a defile called the " Susian Gates." But this Persian Thermopylae ended as disastrously as its Hellenic prototype. Alexander found a circuitous track which turned the pass, and came out unexpectedly in the defenders' rear. The Persian host was cut to pieces after a brave defence : only Ariobarzanes himself forced his way through with a few companions and strove to defend the gates of Persepolis. There he died as the last leader of a lost cause should die, overborne by numbers and fighting to the last. If Darius had been a man, he, and not the satrap, should have had this glorious end. (February? 330 B.C.) Alexander deliberately gave up Persepolis to fire and sword, not because it had resisted, but for cold-blooded reasons of state policy. Nothing, he deliberately wrote home, could show so well that the Persian domination was over, as the sack of the Persian ccpital and the massacre of its inhabitants. Probably in his heart Alexander rejoiced that, unlike his model Achilles, he had survived to gloat over the sack of his own Troy. To the Greek world he vouchsafed to represent the atrocity as the long-delayed retribution for the destruction of Athens by Xerxes a hundred and fifty years before. So Persepolis became even as Nineveh, and the Persian empire disappeared as completely as the Assyrian. An even greater treasure than had been captured at Susa, no less than one hundred and twenty thousand talents, was borne off in triumph from the ruined city. King Darius had survived his kingdom, but it was now the keenest desire of Alexander to see his rival at his feet begging for mercy. After the sack of Persepolis he started northward to seek Darius at Ecbatana : the Persian fled at his approach, and sought to hide himself in the lands beyond the Oxus. Disgusted at his cowardice, his few surviving followers cast him into chains, and resolved to proclaim his ambitious cousin, Bessus, King of the East. But Alexander followed hard on their heels, overtook them and almost captured the dethroned king. Bessus, however, seeing him at hand, stabbed his captive and fled. Alexander came up just in time to see his rival expire, and was careful to deal with him as Achilles had with Hector, surrendering his body for honourable burial to his aged parent. Queen Sisj'gambis. Alexander was destined to survive his rival for just seven years, a period spent, save its last fifteen months, in one long series of carH' 538 Alexander the Great. [329 b.c. paigns among the hills and plains of Tartary, Afghanistan, and tho Punjaub. Tlie man could never rest while there were landsto conquer : we cannot speculate how far to the east he might not have penetrated had not his own army at last mutinied, and refused to proceed any further. The first four years were spent in reducing to submission the eastern provinces of the Persian empire. Bessus had to be dealt with first : he had now assumed the crown, taken the royal name of Artaxerxes, and established himself as king in Bactria. It took Alexander just a year to destroy the usurper and conquer his kingdom, which extended from Artacoana (Herat) to Maracanda (Samarcand). In May, 329 B.C. the murderer of Darius was surrendered to Alexander by his own dispirited adherents. The king placed a wooden collar on his neck, flogged him in public at Bactra (Balkli), his late capital, and then executed him. Bessus had not been subdued without some hard fighting and yet harder march- ing ; one winter march across the snow-clad Paropamisus range, which divides Bactria from Aria, was long remembered for its terrors, and has been compared not unaptly to Hannibal's famous passage of the Alps. Ere yet Bessus had been slain, Alexander had wrought a deed more cruel and unjustifiable than any he had yet committed. Among his chief generals was Philotas, son of the veteran Parmenio who had served so well at Issus and Arbela. This officer was a man of a very free and outspoken disposition : he had ventured many times to cai-p at Alexander's growing vanity and recklessness, and had given great offence by saying that but for his father and himself Asia would not have been conquered. Alexander suddenly accused him of having been privy to a conspiracy against his life, and put liim to the torture. Placed on the rack Philotas broke down, and confessed that he and his father Parmenio had indeed been plotting against the king. He was then tried and executed, while a mes- senger was sent off" to Ecbatana to slay the aged Parmenio, who had been left behind as governor of Media. The old man was stabbed in the back while reading a despatch handed to him by the messenger. It is certain that he had never plotted against his master, and probable that his son was equally innocent. Alexander seems to have slain the son from offended vanity, and then to have murdered the father lest he might resent his son's cruel end. 329 RC] Death of Cleitns. 539 Tiie conquest of Bactria had taken place in 329 b.c. : in the following year Alexander subdued Sogdiaua, the last Persian Batrapy to the north-east, and carried his arms beyond the old Persian border into the land of the nomad Scythians. Having forced their king to do homage, he built the new city of Alexandro- eschata (" Alexander's furthest ") to cover the:frontier, and turned south. His next expedition was to be directed against India. Ever since his visit to the oracle of Amnion, Alexander's pride and vanity had been increasing. Of late he had taken to assuming divine honours as his right, dressed himself, to the deep disgust of his comrades, in the purple robe and tiara of an eastern king, and surrounded his person with oriental courtiers. He married, too, as his chief wife — for he had started a harem — not a Greek but the beautiful daughter of a Bactrian nobleman : the heir to his throne, men murmured, would be a half-bred Asiatic. At the same time he began to levy oriental troops in large numbers, and not only formed auxiliary regiments of them, but drafted them into the ranks of the phalanx and the horse-guard. This drove the ^Macedonian veterans to madness. One strange scene marks the character of this discontent. The king and his generals drank deep one night, celebrating the festival of the Dioscuri. Flatterers, made fluent by the wine-cup, began to beslaver the king with the fulsome praises that he loved. At last Cleitus, commander of the hoi-se-guard, could stand it no longer ; he told Alexander to the face that he owed his victories to the army that his father Philip had created, and to the generals he had trained, that Parmenio and Philotas whom he had slain had enabled him to conquer Asia, and that he would not be alive that day if his own arm had not saved him from the sabre of Spithridates at the Granlcus. The king and Cleitus were both flushed with drink, and the wrangle ended in a tragedy. Alexander sprang from his seat and seized a sword ; his friends dragged him back and hurried Cleitus from the room. But the angry general rushed back again with a fresh taunt in his mouth, and Alexander, seizing a pike, struck him dead. The king's transport of murderous frenzy was followed by a violent revulsion of feeling : he flung himself in tears on his couch, and refused to eat for three days — but he did not give up liis oriental habits or his drinking bouts. Alexander's Indian expedition added the fertile province of the 24© Alexander the Great. [327 bc. Punjaub to his dominions. It was won by force of arms from several chiefs, of whom the most noteworthy was Porus, the brave king of the land to the east of the Hydaspes (Jhelum). Confiding in his fifty thousand foot, his three hundred chariots, and his hundred and thirty war-elephants, the Indian king advanced to defend the line of the Hydaspes against the Macedonians. He was conquered, but his defeat cost a thousand men to Alexander, a greater loss than he had suffered when fighting the myriads of Darius at Issus and Arbela. Porus was wounded and taken prisoner, but Alexander, in whom generous instincts were still strong, not only pardoned him but gave him back his kingdom with a new province added to it (327 B.C.). There were other realms to conquer beyond the eastern bounds of the dominions of Porus. Accordingly we find Alexander urging on his weary battalions towards the unknown lands of the sunrising, of which no Greek had hitherto so much as heard the names. The Indian princes in the valley of the Ganges would soon have felt the weight of his arm, if an unexpected obstacle had not intervened. On the banks of the Hyphasis, easternmost of the five rivers of the Punjaub, the Macedonians broke out at last into open mutiny. For seven years the king had been dragging them further and further from their homes, and now they would go not one step more, despite his threats and promises. Unlike their master, they did hot thirst for more worlds to conquer, but yearned to rest and enjoy what they had already won. Their resolve was inflexible, and Alexander had to turn back, cloaking his disgust with a seasonable announcement that the omens for further advance had become unfavourable (326 B.C.). The king was far too restless and adventurous to return by the way he had come. He resolved to reach Babylon by a new route, following the Indus to its mouth, and then striking westward through Gedrosia (Beluchistan). He prepared a fleet on the Indus and then made his army escort it down the river. On their way fleet and army co-operated in subduing the independent tribes of the lower Punjaub and Scinde. In storming the citadel of the Malli (Mooltan) the king ran a greater personal risk than he had ever before incurred. Leading the forlorn hope of the stormers, as was often his wont, he had reached the top of the wall with only three 3&6B.C.J The Cedrosian Desef't 541 companions, when the ladder broke behind him. He leapt down among the enemy, and was received with a hail of arrows at short range: one pierced his corselet and penetrated into the region of the lungs; another slew one of his three followers. The two survivors, Peucestes and Leonnatus, fought desperately over his body against a crowd of Indians, till the storraers reared new ladders and burst in to rescue their unconscious leader, and massacre the whole garrison. The king's life was at first despaired of, but his wonderful constitution enabled him to recover, and in a few weeks he was on foot again. (November ? 326 B.C.) Alexander reached the mouth of the Indus after subduing all the princes of Scinde. He built a town, which he named Alexandria, at a well-chosen spot in the Delta, and destined it to be a great military and commercial port to command the Indian Ocean. From thence he despatched his fleet under his admiral Nearchus to explore the Erythraean Sea and the Persian Gulf, as far as the mouths of the Euphrates, for he was filled with ideas of opening up a sea route between India and Babylon. He himself determined to make a similar tour of exploration, but on land. He took a chosen body of troops, and endeavoured to pick out a road between the mountains of Gedrosia and the sea. The main body of his army marched under Craterus by the ordinary road further inland, which leads from India to Persia, by Arachosia (Candahar) and Drangiana (Seistan). Some of Alexander's luck seems to have deserted him, when once he turned back and set his face homewards. At the outset of his return journey he had received the only serious wound he ever knew, and now, in the midst of it, he made a march which was one continued disaster. He lost himself in the unexplored deserts of Beluchistan, and marched for sixty days over sterile valleys and still more sterile hills where neither food nor water were to be had. We hear of marches of forty miles between well and well, and of whole companies left stricken down by sunstroke at the roadside. All the baggage animals died, the sick and wounded were abandoned for want of transport, and the stragglers, all of whom perished, were numbered by the thousand. Before Alexander struggled through to Carraania, the border-province of Persia, he is said to have lost three-fourths of the corps which had marched with him. This was 542 Alexander the Great (325B.0. almost the first warning tliat he had ever received of the dangers of reckless exploration : it was hopeless to expect to feed an army in a desert where even a small caravan coiild only have passed with difficulty. When once the Gedrosian desert had been crossed, the march to Persepolis and Susa presented no difficulties, and by the spring of 325 B.C. the king was once more in the heart of his empire. His advent was followed by a strict investigation of the conduct of the native satraps and Greek generals, who had been governing Asia in his absence. !Many of both classes were dismissed for peculation and cruelty, and several, both Greeks and Asiatics, were actually put to death for their misconduct. Alexander survived two years only to enjoy the fmition of the empire he had created. But he lived long enough to give an earnest of what his intentions had been. He never desired to return to Pella, to dwell as a patriarchal king among the free-spoken Macedonians. It was his ambition to build up a iiewGraeco-Asiatic state, wherein the barbarians would have their share as well as the Hellenes. He set himself to be the civilizer and protector of his Oiiental subjects, and framed his whole demeanour so as to appeal to their imagination and sympathy. Nor did he fail : in Persian legends of a later age the " two-horned Iskender " as he was called (because he loved to be represented wearing the horns of his "father" Zeus Amnion) became a native hero, and was claimed as one of the glories of Persia ! One of the chief schemes which Alexander framed for teaching Greek and Asiatic to dwell peaceably together was the encouragement of mixed marriages. He gave Persian princesses with gi'eat dowries to his chief officers, and bestowed a handsome gift on each one of ten thousand soldiers who had taken Asiatic wives. He himself had already wedded the Bactrian Koxana, and now added to his harem Statira, the eldest daughter of Darius IH., and Parysatis, the daughter of Ochus, Darius' predecessor on the throne. Another method which he devised for welding Greek and Oriental was to found new cities all over his empire, in which a nucleus of disbanded Greek soldiery and adven- turous Greek merchants were encouraged to settle far afield, and mix with the native inhabitants. Some twenty of such towns, mostly called Alexandria, rose all over the eastern provinces, and many of 324 B.C.] The Mutiny at Opis. 543 them have survived as great centres to our own day, such as the Egyptian Alexandria, Candahar (Alexandria Arachotiae), and Herat (Alexandria Areion). The results of Alexander's work in this scheme were rapid and striking : a half-Hellenic race was developed all through his wide dominions, and for a century it looked as if Hellenistic civilization was destined to dominate the whole East. But this was not to be ; the Greeks were not numerous enough to raise the permanent level of oriental civilization, or to incorporate the Asiatics with themselves. Asia Minor and S3'ria only were permanently Hellenized : everywhere else the native element slowly worked out the Greek intermixture, and fell back into its old ways. But the strength of the work of Alexander, even in the furthest East, may be gauged by the fact that Greek kings survived in India down to 25 b.c, and that among the Parthians Greek was still the official language in the second century after Christ. It must not be supposed that the soldiers of Alexander appreciated his schemes, or were pleased to see the Orientals treated as their equals. Their discontent found vent in a great mutiny at Opis, near Babylon, in the summer of 324 B.C. When, after raising many new regiments of Asiatics, the king proposed to send home the bulk of his veterans to Greece, loaded with gifts and pensions, the soldiery took his conduct as a sign that he wished in future to do without Hellenic troops, and rule his Greek subjects by means of an Oriental army. The mutineers sarcastically bade him send away all his Macedonians and prosecute his wars with a following of Persians — and the invaluable aid of his father Zeus Ammon. Alexander's speech to the mutineers was long remembered as a masterpiece of fiery eloquence. He bade them go if they pleased, for he could do without them. He reminded them that his father Philip had found them poor skin-clad shepherds on the Macedonian hills, and had raised them to be rulers of Greece, while he himself had done four times as much, made them the kings of the earth, and placed all the wealth of the East at their disposal. All he had won was divided with them, and he had kept nought for himself but his purple robe and diadem — and his glory, a glory in which they appeared to have no wish to share. The king's eloquence triumphed, the mutineers were quelled, and allowed him to execute their ringleaders without a murmur. 544 Alexander the Great. tsssB.e. After the rdutlny was over Alexander planned to visit and regulate all his newly conquered provinces. He sailed down the Euphrates to the mouth, to meet the fleet of Nearchus on its arrival from India. He then marched to Ecbatana, where his favourite comrade Hephaestion died, and was honoured with the most magnificent funeral that the world has ever seen — it is said to have cost twelve thousand talents. Next he subdued the robber tribes in the hills between Susiana and Media, and returned to winter at Babylon. At the gates he was met — we are told — by the chief prophets of Chaldaea, who besought him not to enter their cit}'', as they had read in the stars that evil would follow him if he came to Babylon at that conjuncture. He disregarded the prophecy and spent some time in the city which he had chosen as his capital. But in the spring he Avent down to explore the water-ways of the marshy delta of the Euphrates, where he was planning new harbours and canals. In the marshes he caught a malarious fever, which was destined to be fatal. He despised it at first, overestimated his strength, and endeavoured to fight down the disease by hard drinking, to which he had grown all too prone. This was too much for a constitution tried by thirteen years of incessant cam- paigning. A collapse followed, and only eleven days after his first seizure the conqueror of the East expired, leaving his kingdom to an infant son and a crowd of ambitious and unscrupulous generals. (June, 323 B.C.) Alexander was taken away in the midst of his activity ; he was only thirty-two, and had been looking forward to many another year of conquest and adventure. At the moment of his death, he was planning an expedition against Arabia, and much wider schemes were running in his brain. If one of them, an expedition against Italy, had been carried into eSect, the history of the world might have been altered to an inconceivable extent. It has always been a favourite speculation with historians, both ancient and modern, to imagine what would have happened if Alexander had been brought into contact with the rising power of Rome, then in the midst of her Samnite wars. Meanwhile the outlook or (ireece tiad been completely changed. The Macedonian conquest of the East had revolutionized the 423 B.C.] Fi'tiis. 545 relations of the little Hellenic states both with each other and with the outer world. The old system of local autonomy, and constant wars to maintain the balance of power, had now become impossible. Civic patriotism had received a blow, but, in return, the ]\Iacedo- nian conquest offered many compensations, both to the state and to the individual. If a man consented to forget that he was an Athenian or a Corinthian, and merely to remember that he was a Hellene, what could afford him greater pride than to watch the great empire of the East overrun by an army which, if guided by a Macedonian prince, was largely officered by Greek generals, and composed in two-thirds of its strength of Greek hoplites and pel- tasts? What could be more inspiring than to see that tlie old Hellenic genius for colonizing was not extinct ; to behold the con- querors laying hands on every province from the Aegean to the Indus, and covering them with Greek cities as great and as vigorous as any that had ever existed in the Hellenic fatherland ? For the individual who consented to enter the service of the Macedonian the prizes were unnumbered and unlimited. For soldier and general, for poet or painter, for scribe or rhetorician, for merchant or seaman, there was instant, honourable, and lucrative employment. Those who threw themselves into the new life of the days of the conquest of Asia looked back on the old times of the " balance of power" and its endless wars as something petty and absurd. Shortly after Alexander had won his crowning victory at Arbela, news came to him of a battle in Greece. Agis, king of Sparta, nad fallen, and with him five thousand brave men more ; but Alexander turned to his generals and said, " It seems that while xoe have been conquering the Great King, there has been some ' battle of mice ' in Arcadia." When the empire of the world was being won in the East, fights between Greek and Greek at home, for a border fort or a strip of meadow-land, seemed mere ebullitions of jealous folly. In telhng the tale of Alexander we have already almost lost sight of Greece. From his time onward its history no longer stands alone, but becomes part of a larger whole. The causes which set the course of events working are no longer to be found in Greece herself, but must be sought far afield. A siege of Athens or a sack of Corinth follows in strict consequence of some political change in Asia or Egypt. The history of Greece, in 2n 546 Alexander the Great 1323 b.c- yhort, cannot be written except as a part of that of the whole Hellenized world from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Indus. The style of Polybius must replace that of Thucydides, The subject is no longer the simple chronicle of events around the Aegean that we have recorded hitherto, and needs another method and a separate volume. THE BNB. ( 547 ) KINGS OF SPARTA. (N.B. — Those whose names are not in capitals never reigned.; The first seven or eight generations are legendary rather than historic. Elder, or Aeid Line. 1. Aristodenius. Younger, or Eury- poiitid Line. I 1 2. EUUYSTUENES. 8. Agis I. 4. echestiiatus. 5. IjAbotas. g. dokyssus. 7. AoEsiLArs I. 8. Arohelaus. 9. Teleclu-s. 10. Alcamenes. ] i. polydorus. 12. ErUYCR.VTES I. ]:>. AXAXANDEU. H. EUUYCRATES II. l.j. Leon. IG. AXAXAXUKIDAS, B.C. 560-519. 2. Procles. 3. Sous. 4. ECRYPON. 5. PUYTANIS, 6. E0NOML.S. I 7. POLYDECTES. 8. CUAKILAVS. 9. NiCANDEU. 10. Theopompus. Lycurgus (The Lawgiver). 1 7. Cleomenes I., 18. Leonidas, Cleom- B.c. 519-490. B.C. 490-480, brotus. 11. Zeuxidajivs. Aiiaxandridas. 12. AxAXiDAMLS. Archidamus. 13. AncHiDAMis I. Aiiuxilaiis. 14. Agesicles. Ijfotycliidea. 15. Aristox. Ilippocratides, I Agesilaiis. IG. Demaratis, Menarc-8. B.C. 5 10-19 L I 19. P1.EISTAUCHU.S, B c. 480-458. Pausaiiias, (Victor of Platao a). 20. Pleistoanax, B.C. 458-44G, and B.C. 42G-408. I 21. Pausanias, B.C. 44G-42G, and B.C. 408-395 17. Leotychides, B.C. 491-4G9. I Zcuxidamiis. 18. Archidamus II., B.C. 469-427. I j j 19. Agis IT., 20. Agesii.aus 11., 22. Agf-SIPous I., 23. Cleombrotus, b.c. 427-399. b.c. 399-3G0. B.C. 395-380. • B.C. 380-371. I I I Tieotychides. 21. Archidamus III., I ■ i B.C. 360-338. 24. Agesipolis II., 25. Cleomenes II., B.C. 371-370. B.C. 370-309. 22. Agis III., B.C. 338-330. ( 548 ) KINGS OF PERSIA. (Ouly those whose names are in capitals were rulers of the Persian Empire.) Achaemenes. I Tei'spes. Cyrus. ■ I Cambyses. Cyrus the Great, B.C. 549-529. Cambyses, B.C. 529-521. Bardes. Ariaramues. I Arsames. I Hystaspes. Dauius I., B.C. 521-486. I Xerxes I., B.C. 486-465. I Artaxerxes I., B.C. 465-425. Xerxes IL, Sogdianus, Darius II., B.C. 425. B.C. 425. B.C. 425-404. l__ Artaxerxes II., Cyrus the Younger. Ostanes. B.C. 404-359. I OcHUS, Arsames. B.C. 359-338. Arses, Darius III., B.C. 338-336. B.C. 336-330. INDEX. Abdera founded, 85 Abydos, battle of, 390 Aciirnania, geography of, 8 ; campaigns of Demosthenes in, 321, 322; conquered by Agesilaus, 431 Achaia, geography of, 17 Achaians predominant in Heroic age, 23, 32 ; Conquered by Dorians, 49, 50 ; send colonies to Italy, 87 ; allied to Athens, 263 ; conquered by Epaminon- das, 479; join Sparta, 480 Acheloiis, river, 3, 8 Achilles, 28 Acragas founded, 88 ; tyrants of, 230 ; taken by Carthaginians, 440 Adeimantus, 213 Aegean sea, 18 Aegina, 15 ; conquered by Dorians, 50 Aeginetans, wars with Athens, 163, 184 ; at battle of Salamis, 216; third war witli Athens, 256 ; conquered, 262 ; ex- pelled from their island, 3ul ; restored by I^ysander, 409 Aegospotami, battle of, 403 Aeolian migration to Asia, 51 Aeolians, 23 Afschines, ambassador to Philip, 504; impeached, 506; stirs up the Locrian war, 512 Aetolia, geography of, 8 Aetolian campaign of Demosthenes, 321 Agamemnon, 2S, 29 Agesandridas, Spartan admiral, 387, 389 Agesilaus made Ivinjf of Sparta, 420 ; at Aiilis, 422 ; his successes in Asia, 423; returns to Europe, 429 ; at battle of Curonea, 430 ; campaigns of, round Corinth, 431 ; supports Phoebidas, 453 ; invades Boeotia, 461 ; defemls Sparta, 474; last campaign of, against Epami- nondas, 483 ; expedition to Egypt and death, 488 Agesipolis, King of Sparta, 427 ; death of, 454 Agis II., King of Sparta, invades Argol is, 346; wins battle of Mantinea, 348; besieges Athens, 404 ; dies, 420 Agls III., King of Sparta, defeated by Philip, 5l7; in arms against Alex- ander, 529 ; slain in battle, 545 Alalia, the Pliocacans colonize, 131 Alcibiades, his character, 344 ; tricks the Spartan ambassadors, 345 ; advo- cates the Sicilian expedition, 352, 353 ; accused of sacrilege, 355 ; flies to Sparta, 358 ; goes to Asia, 377 ; joins Tissaphernes, 379 ; conspires with the Athenian oligarchs, 330 : recalled from exile, 385 ; his naval victories, 390 ; 391, 393; enters Athens in triumph, 394 ; banished, 396 ; murdered, 412 Alcidas, Spartan admiral, 313, 314, 321 Alcmaeonidae banished from Athens, 105 Aleuadae call the Slacedonians into Thessaly, 477 Alexander I. of Macedon, 196 ; at Athens, 221 Alexander III., the Great, at Chaeroneia, 514; quarrels with his father, 517; his character, 521 ; campaigns in the north, 523 ; conquers Tliebes, 524 ; wins battle of the Granicus, 527 ; conquers Asia Minor. 528 ; wins Issus, 531 ; besieges Tyre, 532; in Egypt, 533; wins Arbela, 535 ; conquers fJabylon, 536 ; burns Persepolis, 537 ; invades the Eastern Satrapies, 538; slays Philotas and Cleitus, 538, 539; in India, 540; his return march, 541; plans of, 542 ; dies, 543 Ahxander of Pherae, his wars with Thebes, 477, 478 ; murdered, 482 Alexandria, in Egypt, founded, 533 Ale.xandro-cschata founded, 539 Alphabet, tlie Phoenician, 25 Alpheus, river, 4, 17 Alyattes of Lydia. 122 Atnbracia founded, 90 ; at war with Athens, 521,322; garrisoned by I'hilip, 517 ; rebels against Alexander, 523 Ameinias, 217 Amnion, oracle of, visited by Alexander, 534 Amphictyonic Council, 23; declares war on Phocis, 4S6; on the Amphi3sians,613 550 Ifukx. Ampliipolis founded, 277 ; revolts from Athens, 336 ; battle of, 338 ; taken by Philip of Macedon, 494 Anipbissian Locrians, the, 496, 512 Amj-ntas, King of Macedon, 140 Aniyntas III., 492 ; invades Thessaly, 477 Anactorium founded, 90 Anaxagcras accused of impiety, 201 Andocides, 35S Androcles assassinated, 332 Antalcidas in Asia, 433 ; peace of, 431 Antiochus, Athenian admiral, 396 Antipater, general of Alexander, 526 Antiphon, 381, 332; executed, 338 Apollo, the god, 42-45 Arbela, battle of, 535 Arcadia, geogriiphy of, 1 7 Arcadian League founded, 473 Arcadians, at war with Sparta, 78 ; con- quered by Sparta, 79 ; revolts of, 252; join Epaminondas, 474 ; found Mega- lopolis, 473; at war with Elis, 480; fall into disunion, 488 ; oppose Alex- ander, 524 Archias of Thebes murdered, 455 Archidamus, King of Sparta, 289 ; in- vades Attica, 298, 301 ; besieges Pla- taea, 308 Archons of Athens, 102, 103, 110; office made subject to the lot, 185 ; opened to Zeugitae, 209 Ardys of Lydia, 121 Areopagus, court of, 103, 111, 255 ; humbled by Pericles and Ephialtes, 255 Arginusi'e, battle of, 399 Argolis, geography of, 15 Argos, Danaus at, 23 ; kingdom of Dio- mcdes, 34 ; conquered by the Dorians, 49 ; supreme in Peloponnesus, 60, 61 ; wars with Sparta, 77, 79, 165, 252, 346, 428; allied to Epaminondas, 474; allied with Philip of Macedon, 507 Ariobarzanes, defends Persia, 536 ; slain, 537 Aristagoras, tyrant of Jliletus, 1 11 ; slain, 143 Aristeides, his character, 169, 170 ; ostra- cized, 187; atSalamis, 215; in command at sea, 238 ; starts the Confederacy of Uelos, 241 ; his political reforms, 245 Aristeus at Potidaea, 288 ; slain, 303 Aristocrates of Arcadia, 73 Aristodemus of Messenia, 76 Aristogeiton, his conspiracy, 117 Aristomenes of Messenia, 77, 78 Aristoteles of Cj-rene, 91 Aristotle, tutor of Alexander, 523 Arsames, Persian satrap, 529 Arsites Persian satrap, commands against Alexander, 526, 527 Artabazus, satrap, 219, 225 Artaphernes, satrap, 140, 162 Artaphernes the younger, 174-176 Artaxerxes I., 246, 267 Artaxerses II., 417, 435 Artemisia, queen, 215 Artemisium, battle of, 202 Asia jMinor, Greek colonies in, 52-58 Aspasia, 291 AssjTia, fall of, 125 Astyochus, Spartan admiral, 378 Athena, the goddess, her characteristics, 42 Athens, legend of its foundation, 24 ; early history of, 101-105 ; wars with Megara, 106, 107 ; Solon's reforms at, 107-112; factions at, 113; seized by Peisistratus, 114; freed from the Ij-- rants, 117; aids the lonians, 142; re- forms of Cleisthenes at, 153-161; wars with Cleomenes, 149-151 ; with Aegina and Thebes, 151 ; defeats the Persians atMarathon, 173-180; second war with Aegina, 185 ; occupied by Xerxes, 210 ; evacuated by the Persians, 219; second capture by the Persians, 221 ; heads the Ciinfederacj' of Delos, 238-241 ; re- forms of Aristeides, 245 ; building up of her empire, 247-256 ; at war with Corinth and Aegina, 259 ; with Boeotia, 260, 261; her successes, 261, 262; loses Boeotia and Euboea, 264, 265 ; at war with Sparta, 265 ; makes the Thirty Years' peace, 266; political changes of Pericles, 268-271; build- ings of, 272, 273; colonies of, 277; assists Corcyra, 286 ; engages in Pelo- ponnesian war, 291 ; her resources at that time, 295 ; plague at, 302 ; in- ternal politics at, 315; unsuccessful negotiation with Sparta, 325, 326, 337; peace with Sparta, 339 ; allied to Argos and Elis, 313, 344; sends out the Si- cilian expedition, 351 ; dismay at, after Syracusan disaster, 374 ; continues the war, 376 ; oligarchic conspiracy at, 380, 382 ; conspiracj' of the Four Hun- dred at, 334 ; their fall, 388 ; fruitless negotiation with Sparta, 392 ; distress at, in 406 B.C., 398 ; trial of the gene- rals at, 401 ; besieged by Agis and Lysander, 404 ; surrenders, 406 ; causes of her downfall, 407, 408 ; government of the thirty tyrants at, 411, 414 ; de- livered by 'Thrasybulus, 415 ; allied to Thebes and Argos, 426, 427 ; her walls rebuilt by Conon, 431 ; naval efforts of, 434 ; joins in the peace of Antalcidas, 435 ; again allied to Thebes, 460 ; forms a second naval league against Sparta, 402; her successes, 464; makes peace with Sparta, 464; joins Sparta against Thebes,476 ; designs of, on Corinth, 480; joins in the peace of 462 B.C., 485 ; her early troubles with Philip of Jlacedon, 494 ; engages in the Social war, 489 ; her possessions taken by Philip, 497 ; allied to the Phocians, 498 ; makes peace with Philip,504; second struggle with Philip. 510; war declared on him, 511; allied with Thebes, 513 ; beaten at Chaeroneia, hidex. 551 514; submits to Philip, 516; submits to Alexander, 521 Atlios, Mount, Xerxes cuts a canal through, 191 Attalus, general of Philip, 519 ; slain, 523 Attica, geography of, 13 ; early history of, 101-104 Babtlox revolts from the Assyrians, 125; tal^en by Cyrus. 132; revolts against Darius, 135 ; taken by Alex- ander, 536 Bacchiadao, oligarchy of, at Corinth, 96, 97 Bactria conquered by Alexauder, 53S Barca, foundation of, 91 Bardes niuniered by Cambyses, 134 P.atis slain by Alexauder, y33 Battus of Gyrene, 91 Bessus, slays Darius III., 537 ; executed, 538 Boeotia, geography of, 11, 12; conquered by the Aniaeans, 48 ; sends colonies to Asia, 54 ; makes war on Athens, 116- 151 ; submits to Xerxes, 209 ; campaign against the Persians in, 221-226 ; con- quered by Athens, 261 ; revolts against Athens, 264 ; Joins Sparta in Pelopon- nesian war, 231 ; unsuccessfully in- vaded by the Athenians, 333 ; invaded by Lysaudcr, 427 ; by Agesilaus, 429 ; league of, dissolved, 450 ; league recon- stituted by Thebes, 471 ; invaded by Phocians, 497 ; invaded by Philip of Macedon, 514 Boges, 242 Bosphorus, colonies on the, 8.) Boule, the Athenian, created by Solon, 111; recast by Cleisthenes, 155; ex- pelled by the Four Hundred, 384 ; re- stored, 388 Brasidas at Salamis, 310 ; wounded at Pylos, 324 ; saves Jlegara, 332 ; in- vades Chalcidice, 335 ; captures Am- phipolis and other places, 336 ; killed in battle, 339 Pruttians, conquests of the, 449 Byzantium founded, 85 ; taken by Pau- sanias, 237 ; revolts against Athens, and is retaken, 278, 279 ; revolts again, 390 ; retiken again, 393 ; joins the Athenian League, 462; engages in the social war, 489 ; besieged by Philip, 510; relieved by Phocion, 511 CADMEiA.the citadel of Thebes, seized by Phoebidas, 453 ; recovered, 457 Cadmus, legend of, 22 Calliasof Chalcis, 510 Callias, peace of, 266, 267 Callibius, 412^15 Callicratidas at Sardis, 397 ; killed at Arginusae, 399 Callimachus at Marathon, 177, 178 Callippus murders Dion, 447 Callixenus impeaches the strategi, 401 Camarina founded, 88 ; taken by Gelo, 231 ; restored, 234; taken by the Car- thaginians, 443 Cambunian Mountains, 6 Canibvses conquers Kgypt, 133 ; death of, 134 Carduchi, 418 Carians in early Greece, 22; mix with lonians, 56; conquered by Persia, 131; join Ionian revolt, 142 Carthaginians invade Sicily, 232; de- feated by Gclo, 233 ; second invasion under Hannibal, 438 ; wars with Dio- nysius, 443-445 ; war with Timoleon, 448 Catana founded, 87 ; destroyed by Gelo, 234 ; joins the Athenians, 357 ; besieged by Syracusans, 438 ; battle of, 444 Cscrops, legend of, 2 1 Cephallenia, 9 ; allied to Athens, 299 Cephissus, river, 11 Chabrias wins battle of Naxos, 462 ; slain at Chios, 489 Chaereas, 385 Chaeroneia, battle of, 515 Chalcedon founded, 85; taken by Alei- biades, 393 Chalcideus, Spartan admiral, 377, 378 Chalcidice colonized, s2 ; revolts to Bra- sidas, 332 ; league of, 451 ; league dis- solved by Sparta, 454 ; conquered by Philip, 500 Chalcis, its colonies, 82-86 ; at war with Athens, 163 ; taken by Athenians, 164 ; revolts to Sparta, 387 ; allied with Athens, 510 Chares, campaigns of, 490, 511; com- mands at Chaeroneia, 515 Ciiaridemus, 502 Charilails, King of Sparta, 64, 73 Charminus slain at Samos, 383 Charon the Theban, 455, 456 Chios colonized, 56; llistiacus at, 144; fleet of, at Lade, 145 ; revolts from Persia, 227 ; revolts from Athens, 377 ; beset by the Athenians, 3S2 ; revolts from Sparta, 431 ; joins Athenian naval alliance, 462 ; engiges in the Social war, 489 ; taken bj' Memuon, 529 Cimmerians, their wars with LyJia, 121 Cimon, Athenian general, 233 ; his vic- tories, 2 12 ; his character and policj', 247, 248 ; victorious at the Eurymedoii, 2,49; aids Sparta, 253; ostracized, 256 ; refilled, 261; last victories of, 264 Cinadon, conspiracy of, 423 Cirrha destroyed in the first Sacred war, 107 Ciihaeron, Mount, 12 Clazomenae taken by the Persians, 143 ; revolts from Athens, 377 Clearchus, 417 ; slain, 418 Clearidas, Spartan general, 540 Cleippides, Athenian general, 312 Cleisthenes of Athens, bribes the Delphic 552 Lidex. Oracle, 117; Ipade. of democrats at Athens, 148, 149; exiled, 149; recalled, 150 ; his constitutional refurms, 153-161 Cleisthenes of Sicyon, 107 Cleitus, eaves Alexander's life, 527 ; murdered by Alexander, 539 Cleombrotus, King of Sparta, invades Boeotia, 460 ; slain at Leuctra, 467 Cleomenes I., King of Sparta, at Athens, 149; invades Attica, 151 ; defeats the Argives, 165; at Aegina, 172; death of, 184 Cleon accuses Pericles, 303 ; his character, 315 ; advocates massacre of Lesbians, 316 ; opposes peace, 326 ; at Sphacteria, 328, 329; killed at Amphipolis, 339 Cleopatra, wife of Philip of Jlacedon, 519 ; slain by Alexander, 523 Cleophon opposes peace, 392, 402 ; killed, 405 Cleruchles, Athenian, 152, 266, 277 Climax, Alexander at ]\Iount, 52a Cnemus, Spartan general, 309 Cnldus, battle of, 430 Codrus, King of Athens, 102 Colonies, Greek, in Asia Jlinor, 52-59; colonies in the nortli and west, 81-93 ; of Alexander the Great, 533, 542 Colophon taken by Gyges, 121 ; taken by the Athenians, 393 Commerce in early Greece. 25-27 ; in the age of colonization, 81-93 Conin, Athenian admiral, 397; besieged in Jlitylene, 398 ; flies to Cyprus, 403 ; takes service with Persia, 430; re- builds the walls of Athens, 431 ; cast into prison, 433 Copais lake, 12 Corcyra colonized, 86 ; at war with Co- rinth, 90, 98, 282 ; asks aid of Athens, 284 ; sedition at, 320, 331 ; Spartan attack on, 464 Corinth, 15 ; conquered by Dorians, 50 ; colonies of, 89, 90 ; tyrants of, 96-98 ; aids Athens, 184; congress at, 189 ; at war with Athens, 259 ; at war with Corcyra, 282, 288 ; advocates Pelopon- nesian war, 288 ; battle near, 330 ; aids Sparta, 346 ; sends help to Syracuse, 363 ; advocates destruction of Athens, 405 ; makes war on Sparta, 428 ; com- paigns around, 432, 43J ; faithful to Sparta, 474 ; makes peace with Thebes, 480 ; sends Timoleon to Sicily, 448 ; tyranny at, 483 ; allied to Athens, 510 ; submits to Philip, 516; congress at, 517 Coroneia, first battle of, 264 ; second battle of, 429 Cranao-Pelasgi, 24 Crete, geography of, 18 ; colonized by Dorians, 57 Crimcsus, battle of the, 448 Crissa destroyed in Sacred war, 107 Critias, leader of the thirty tyrants, 412 ; bis misrule, 413; slain, 415 Croesus, his reign, 122, 123 ; conquered by Cyrus, 130 Croton founded, 87 ; Pythagoreans at, 229 ; conquers Sybaris, 230 ; taken by Diony^ius of Syracuse, 445 Crypteia, 74, 331 Cumae founded, 86 ; battle of, 233 ; taken by Sabellians, 444 1 Cunaxa, battle of, 418 Cyaxares, the Mede, 122, 125 j Cyclades, geographj' of the, 18 Cyclic poets, 31 Cydnus, Alexander at the, 529 Cylon, conspirac}- of, 104 I Cyme founded, 54 ; taken by Persians, j 143 ; besieged by Tissaphernes, 420 I Cynuria conquered by Sparta, 79 I Cyprus colonized, 58 ; submits to Persia, 133 ; joins the Ionian revolt, 142 ; sub- I dued, 143; invaded by Cimon, 264; I submits to Alexander, 532 Cj'pselus of Corinth, 96, 97 Cyrene founded, 91 ; submits to Persia, 134 Cyrus the Great, King of Elam, 127 ; con- quers Lydia and Ionia, 129, 130; con- quers Bahylon, 132 ; death of, 133 Cyrus the younger, governor of Asia Jlinor, 395 ; aias Lysander, 395 ; rebels against his brother, 417 ; killed, 418 Cytliera conquered by the Athenians, 381 Cyzicus founded, 83 ; battle of, 391 Damocles, story of, 442 Danai, early name of Greeks, 33 ; invade Egypt, 27 Dauaus, legend of, 23 Dardanians in Asia Minor, 55 Darius I. becomes king, 135 ; reorganizes his empire, 136 ; invades Scythia, 13? ; incensed with Athens, 147; sends out Datis and Artaphernes, 176 ; dies, 183 Darius II., his treaty with Sparta, 373; sends Cyrus to Asia Minor, 395; dies, 417 Darius TIT., ascends the throne, 525; at Issus, 531 ; makes proposals to Alex- ander, 532 ; at Arbela, 535, murdered by Bessus, 537 Datis, commander at Marathon, 176-180 Decarchies in Asia Minor, 409 Decelea seized bj' Spartans, 366 Delium, battle of, 333 Delos, 13 ; Confederacy of, 241 ; synod and treasury of, removed to Athens, 257 ; organization of, 276 Delphi, situation of, 11, 45 ; oracle cf, 45 ; encourages colonization, 93; bribed by Cleisthenes, 117; by Cleomenes, 172 ; prophecies of, before Persian war, 190, 191; attacked by Xerxes, 211; seized by the Phocians, 496 ; delivered by Philip, 505 } Deniaratus, King of Sparta, 152, 172, 203 Denies of Attica, 154 Index. 553 DemiuvRi, Attic class, 103 Demosthenes (.general), campaign of, in iEtolia, 321 ; victories in Acarnania, 322 ; fortifies Pylos, 323 ; takes Spliac- teria, 329 ; sent to Sicily, 366 ; captured, 371 ; slain, 372 Demosthenes (orator), his character, 501 ; Olynthiac orations of, 502; sent on emba:^sy to Pella, 504; political activity of, 506 ; travels in Peloponnesus, 507 ; urges the Athenians to war, 509: per- suades the Thebans to war, 514; stirs up Greece against Alexander, 524 Dercyllidas, Spartan general, 420, 431 Diacria, faction of, 103 Dicasteries, the Athenian, 158, 269 Diodotus opposes Cleon, 316 Dion banished, 446 ; expels Dionysius II., 447; killed, 447 Dionysius the elder, his rise, 441 ; his reign, 440-445; dies, 446 Dionysius the younger, his reign, 446 ; exiled, 447 ; returns, 447 ; at Corinth, 448 Diopeithes, Athenian genera!, 509 Dodona, oracle of, 6, 45 Dorcis, Spartan admiral, 233 Dorians invade I'eloponnesus, 48, 49 ; colonies of, in Asia Minor, 57, 58; kingdoms of, in Peloponnesus, 60, 64 Doris, geography of, 11 ; conquered by Phocians, 260 Draco, legislation of, 104 EccLEsiA, the Athenian, 104; after the reforms of Cleisthenes, 156 Edonian Thracians slay Aristagoras, 143; defeat the Athenians, 251 Eetionea, fort of, 387 Egypt, early raids of the Greeks on, 27 ; commercial intercourse with, 91 ; con- quered by Cambyses, 134 ; Athenian campaigns in, 255. 263; Agesilaus in, 487, 488 ; conquered by Alexander, 533 Eion conquered by Athenians, 242 ; Thucydides at, 336 Eleusinian mysteries profaned by Alcl- biades, 355-358 Eleusis seized by Thirty Tyrants, 415 Elis, geography of, 16; wars of, 77; makes war on Sparta, 343-340, 474; wars of, with the Arcadians, 480, 481 ; civil war in, leads to alliance with Philip of Macedon, 507 Endius the Spartan, 376 ; goes to propose peace at Athcn.-, 392 Ennea Hodoi, 251 Epaminondas, character of, 459 ; at the congress of, 371 B.C., 464 ; commands at Leuctra, 4 05 ; invades Poloponnesus, 474, 476, 479 ; inviides Thcssaly, 478 ; attempts to take .Sparta, 4 83 ; com- mands at Mantiiiea, 48 4 ; killed, 485 Eparili in Arcadia, 47,3-481 Ephesus founded, 56 ; taken by the liydians, 122 ; taken by the Persians, 132 ; recaptured after Ionian revolt, 145 ; Athenians defeated at, 393; Lysander at, 396 ; Agesilaus at, 423, submits to Alexander, 528 Ephialtes the Athenian, 254 ; murdered, 256 Ephialtes the Ulalian, 204 Ephors of .Sparta, their power, 71,72 Epidamnus founded, 90 ; civil war at, 283 Epidaurus, 15 ; taken by Dorians, 50 ; conquered by Periander, 98 ; at war with Athens, 256; allied to Sparta, 293, 346-349, 474 ; beseiged by Epami- nondas, 477 Epipolae, plateau at Sj-racuse, 360 Epirus, geography of, 6 ; colonies of Corinth in, 90 ; tribes of, attack the Acarnanians, 309 ; conquered by Philip, 508 Epistates, office of the, 157 Epitadas, Spartan general, 329 Erechtheum temple at Athens, 273 Eretria, colonies of, 82 ; war with Chalcis, 120; aids the lonians, 142; taken by the Persians, 176 ; revolts against Athens, 265 ; battle of, 387 ; tyrants of, 510 Etruscans, 87, 113; defeated at Cumae, 233 ; aid Athens, 363 Euagoras of Cyprus, 403 Euboea, geography of, 13; revolts from Athens, 265, 387 ; joins the Thebans, 471; wars in, 500, 511 Eudamidas, Spartan general, 452 Eupatridue at Athens, 102-104 Euphron, tyrant of Sicyon, 483 Eupompidas of Plataea, 317 Euripides at the court of Archelaus, 491 Eurotas, river, 16 Kury blades. Spartan admiral, 198, 213 Eurj'medon, battle of the, 249 Eurymedon the Athenian, at Corcyra, 331 ; at Pylos, 325-327 ; tried and con- demned, 335 ; killed at Syracuse, 368 Eurj-pontidae, kings of .Sparta, 63 "Five Thousand," the, at Athens, 384- 387 Foreign influence on early Greece, 23-28 Forests of Greece, 3 " Four Hundred," conspiracy of the, at Athens, 384-388 Gargapiita, fountain of, 224 (Jaza taken by Alexander, 533 Gedrosia, Alexander in, 541 Gela founded, 88; its tyrants, 231; taken by Carthaginians, 443 Gelo of Syracuse, 231, 232 Geomori, cl.iss at Athens, 103 Gercneian IMoun tains, yi Gerousia at Sparta, 66 Glaucus, legend of, 4G Gordium, Alexander cuts the knot at, 529 Granicus, battle of the, 527 554 Index. Greece, geography of, 1-18 ; early history of, 19-28. Gyges of Lydia, 121 Uylippus ill Sicily, 3G3; defeats the Athenians, 3G8 ; captures the Athenian army, 371 Gytheum taken by Athenians, 263; burnt by Thcbans, 475 H.vLiARTUS, deitroj'ed by Xerxes, 209 ; battle of, 427 Helicarnassus, siege of, 523 Hamilcar invades Sicily, 232 ; killed, 233 Hannibal ta1«s Selinus, 438; takes lli- mera, 439 ; dies, 440 llarruodius and Aristoseiton, conspiracy of, 117 Haimosts, the Spartan system of, 409 Ilarpagus the Mode, 131 Helen, the legend of, 29 Heliaea at Athens, 158, Helicon, Mount, 10 HcUas, the name, 5 Mellen, the mythical hero, 22, 23 Hellenes, tha name, 22, 23 Hellenotamiae, 242, 27G Hellespont, colonies on the, S3 ; bridged by Uarius, 138; by Xerxes, 194; war on the, 236, 390 Helots, origin of the, 73 ; their status, 74 ; conspiio with Pausanias, 243 ; great rising of', 253 ; subdued, 262 Heracles, a Phoenician god, 26 ; temple of, at Tyre, 532 Heraclidae, conquests of the, 50 Hermae, mutilation of the, 351, 355 Hermioue, 15; in the Spartan alliance, 292, 474 Hermocrates of Syracuse, 372; in Asia, 377 ; siain, 4(0 Herodotus at Thurii, 277 Heroic age, the, and its characteristics, 29-38 Hesiod, 37 Hicetas, 443 Hicro, tyrant of Syracuse, 233, 23 1 Himera founded, 8S ; victory of Gelo at, 232 ; destroyed by Hannibal, 439 Hipparchus, assassination of, 117 Hippias, tyrant of Athens, 116 ; expelled, 118 ; at Sparta, 164 ; joins the Persians, 175 ; at Marathon, 176 Hippocrates defeated at Delium, 333, 331 Histiaeus at the Danube bridge, 139 ; fosters the Ionian revolt, 141 ; slain, 146 Homer, poems of, 29 Homeric question, the, 30, 31 Hyperbolus, the Athenian demagogue, 383 ICTiNUS, architect of the Parthenon, 273 Iliad, subject of the, 28 Ilium, Alexander at, 526 Inarus, Egyptian prince, 263 India, Alexander in, 540 Ion, mythical hero, 23 Ionia, colonization of, 55, 50 ; conquered by Persia, 131; revolt of, 141-145; freed by the Athenians, 227 ; submits to Alexander, 523 lonians, the race, 23 ; expelled from Peloponnesus by the Achaians, 49, 50 ; settle in Asia Minor, 55 ; colonies of, in the Euxine, 83 Iphicrates at Corinth, 432; relieves Cor- cyra, 4G4; in Peloponnesus, 476; in the Social war, 490 Isagoras the Athenian, 148, 160, 161 Ismenias the Theban, warlike poliey of, 426 ; executed by tlie Spartans, 451 Issus, battle of, 531 Isthmian games, 43 Italiots, history of the, 223-230, 235, 444, 445, 449 Italy, colonization of, by the Greeks, 87-89 Ithaca, 9 Ithome, fortress of Aristodcmus, 76; stronghold of the revolted Helots, 253 ; taken by Sparta, 262 ; site of city of Messene, 475 Jason of Pherae, career of, 470, 472 KiNGSHrr, the Homeric, 34 Knights, the Athenian, 109 Lacedaemon and Lacedaemonians. Sea Sparta and Spartans Lacedaemonius, Alheuian.admiral, 237 Laches, Athenian admiral, 320 Lacunia, geography of, 16 ; conq\iered by the Dorians, 49 ; early liistory of, 63 ; invaded by the Thebans, 474, 483 Laconians (Ferioeci), 73, 74 Lade, battle of, 144 Lamachus, Athenian general, 353; hi3 plans in Sicily, 357 ; killed at Syracuse, 362 Lampsacus founded, S3 ; Lysander at, 402 Larissa in Thessaly, 7 ; calls in the JMacedonians, 477 ; taken by Pelopidas, 477 ; appeals to Philip, 497 Laurium, silver mines of, 186 Lelantiue war, 120 Leleges, 22 Leonidas of Sparta, 199, 203 ; slain at Thermopylae, 206 Leontiades of Thebes, his treachery, 452 453 ; murdered, 456 Leontiui founded, 87 ; taken by Hiero, 234 ; appeals to Athens, 321 ; captured by Syracusans, 352 ; resettled by Syra- cusans, 441 ; in the hands of Hiketas, ■ 448 Leotychides of Sparta made king, 172 ; at Mycale, 227 Leotychides the younger, 420 Lepreum, attacked by Elis, 343-348 Lesbos, colonization of, 54 ; poets of, 120; submits to Persia, 132; revolts Index. 555 from Athens, 311; subdued, 314; con- quered by Meranon, 529 Leucas colonized, 90; makes war on the Acarnanian.-, 309 Leuctra, battle of, 466, 467 Libya, colonies of the Greeks in, 91 Jvilybaeuin, siege of, 445 Locri Epizephyrii founded, 83 ; in hands of Dionysius II., 447 Locrians subdued by Xerxes, 209; by Athens, 262 ; make war on Plioci.-i, 426; join Thebes, 471; beaten by Philomelus, 496; at Delphi, 512 Locris, peography of, 10 Long Walls of Athens, 253; destroyid, 400; rebuilt by Conon, 431, 432 I/ycians conquered by Persia, 132 Lycomedos the Arcadian, 47S Lycurgus, legend of, 64 ; his legislation, 65-70 Lydian monarchy, 121-123 ; conquered by Persia, 129, 130 Lygdamis of Naxos, 115 Lysander made nauarchos, 395 ; wins battle of Notium, 39G ; allied with Cyrus, 402 ; wins battle of Aegospo- tarai, 403; takes Athens, 406; his in- flueuce in Greece, 409; disgraced by the ephors, 411; goes with Agesilaus to Asia, 422 ; slain at Haliartus, 427 Lysicles, Athenian general, 514 Macedoxia submits to Persia, 140 ; allied to Brasidas, 336 ; invaded by Pelopidas, 477 Macedonians, the, 491, 492 Magi, the, 127 JIagna Graeci, colonization of, 88 MaiianGulf, 9 Malis, 9 Malli oppose Alexander, 541 Mantinea, 17 ; allied to Sparta, 252 ; at war with .Sp.irta, 313; first battle of, 318; walls of, cast down by Sparta, 451; rebuilt, 472; joins Spaita, 482: second battle of, 485 Marathon, Peisistratus lands at, 115; battle of, 179, 180 Mardonius, governor of Ionia, 147 ; per- suades Xerxes to retire home, 219; occupies Athens, 221 ; fights battle of Plataea, 224 ; killed, 225 Masistius, 224 Massagetae slay Cyrus, 133 JIassilia founded, S9 Mausolus takes Rhodes, 490 ]\Iedes, rise of the, 126 ; conquered by Cyrus, 129 ; rebellion of, 135 Megabazus in Thrace, 140 Megabyzus conquers Eiypt, 263 Megacles the Alcmaeonid, 105 Megacles the younger, 113 ; his dealings with Peisistratus, 114, 115 Megalopolis founded, 473 ; its wars with Sparta, 483, 502 Megara, 13 ; conquered by the Dorians, 50 ; its colonies, 85 ; early wars with Athens, 106, 107 ; tyrants of, 104 ; allied to Athens, 258 ; at war with Athens, 265 ; foments the Pelopon- nesian war, 281 ; its lauils ravaged, 330; saved by Brasidas, 332; at war with Philip, 510 ; submits to him, 517 Jlegara Ilyblaea founded, 87 ; destroyed by Gelo, 231 Melcavth, Phoenician god, 26, 27, 532 Melos colonized by Dorians, 57 ; con- quered by Athens, 349 Memnon, general against Alexander, 527-529 Mende founded, 82 ; revolts from Athens, 337 Mcnelaus, 29 JNIessene, founded by Epaminond: IV