THE AGE OF PERICLES 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 THE AGE OF PERICLES 
 
 A HISTORY OP THE 
 
 POLITICS AND ARTS OF GREECE 
 
 FKOM THE 
 
 PERSIAN TO THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WATKISS LLOYD 
 
 ts TOVTO r\v TO \u>piov. THUCYD. I. 97. 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1875 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 OXFORD : 
 
 BY B. PICKABD HALL AND J. H. STACT, 
 PRIHTEB8 TO THB UNIVERSITY.
 
 
 Sfltulj 0f JiUttanti 
 
 (ANN. soc. CENT. QUAD. SEC.) 
 
 AND 
 
 TO THEIR TREASURER AND SECRETABT 
 THE BIGHT HON. SIB EDWABD BYAN 
 
 THIS HISTORY 
 
 OP THE MOST FLOUBISHING PERIOD OF 
 THE ARTS OP GREECE 
 
 IS INSCRIBED 
 (IN THE TWENTY-FIRST YEAB OF HIS OWN MEMBERSHIP) 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM WATKISS LLOYD 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 PEEFACE, 
 
 THE story of the period that intervened between the Persian 
 and the Peloponnesian wars had been so far neglected when 
 Thucydides commenced his history of the latter, as to elicit 
 an observation that the records of its incidents and the 
 determination of their sequence were alike incomplete. He 
 supplied in consequence a connecting summary, the section 
 known to the ancients as the Pentecontaeteris or Pentecon- 
 taetia, from the number of years embraced, such as appeared 
 sufficient for his own purpose ; compared however with our 
 present rational requirements, it is, as might be expected, 
 jejune and unsatisfactory. The history of the arts, which is 
 for us one of the main interests of the period, escapes his 
 notice entirely; and yet at this particular time a work of 
 art was apt to have the significance of a political incident, as 
 its purport and vicissitudes had no unfrequent bearing on 
 political feeling. The life of the people during this happier 
 and more tranquil period, was as much engrossed by poetry 
 and the arts as by politics ; of the two interests, at present so 
 distinct, each is found among Greeks reacting on the other, 
 and it is often difficult to determine which is predominant. 
 Notices dispersed and incidental doubtless, are fortunately 
 recoverable from other sources, that go some way to supply 
 what did not fall within the plan of the historian ; it is in 
 the belief that these have not hitherto had full justice done to 
 them as illustrations of the progressive Hellenic story, that
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 attention is invited to yet another English presentation of 
 the history of Hellas. 
 
 Again, as even Thucydides somewhat deviates in his sum- 
 mary, brief as it is, from his declared intention to adhere to 
 chronological sequence, the moderns have for the most part 
 carried the deviation further, and declining to deal with what 
 hints of order of time are salient, to say nothing of others 
 that if obscure are discoverable and are ever the more valu- 
 able as more scanty, have been content to supplement political 
 narrative a little at random by chapters that group and 
 classify rather than arrange historically the characteristics of 
 the age. 
 
 My own endeavours have been directed to make the most, 
 but ever under control of sober consideration, of every help 
 available to determine the order of incidents, and to dis- 
 entangle confusion that was indifferent to biographers intent 
 exclusively on the illustration of character, to compilers who 
 were more concerned to be comprehensive than critical, to 
 theorists who cared more for general philosophy than its 
 particular development, to say nothing of writers only on the 
 look-out for opportunities to be smart in the first place and 
 in the next picturesque. That the very varied evidence that 
 comes under consideration renders necessary an occasional 
 and even a frequent shifting of point of view, is an incon- 
 venience which must be accepted if we would survey with an 
 approach to comprehensiveness the contrasted yet ever im- 
 portantly connected movements of human activity, as they 
 proceed contemporaneously over a very extended field ; nor is 
 it amiss that the student should be thrown upon some expe- 
 rience which will only be irksome at first, in combining con- 
 trasted observations ; only so indeed may we acquire the 
 instructive apprehension of the life Hellenic, in all the multi- 
 fariousness of interests that was consistent with its unrivalled 
 concentration of power. 
 
 Into every history and all history conjecture enters of
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 necessity very largely indeed, and even when testimonies and 
 materials are most abundant, the writer who deals with them 
 has a sufficient hurden of responsibility ; an attempt to evade 
 it will only condemn him to overload his pages with discus- 
 sions and rejoinders, to conclude nothing and vex his readers 
 by leaving them the very work happy if not further con- 
 fused which they justly look to him to set well in advance. 
 Even this, however, is perhaps more tolerable than the tyranny 
 of a quiet dogmatism, which silently tightens every knot 
 while assuming to untie it, or the facile scepticism that cuts 
 all indiscriminately and destroys the web at once, by dis- 
 allowing the ' historical character ' of every incident of 
 which the record can by any possibility, however remote, 
 involve an element of error. 
 
 It would be strange indeed if the materials of ancient 
 history could be relied on more positively than has been 
 justified in such cases as the Waterloo campaign and the 
 diplomatic and military incidents of the Crimean war ; and 
 an admission of not mere liability to error, but of general 
 uncertainty in history, must be taken once for all as standing 
 in lieu of constantly intercalated hesitations. The utmost 
 positiveness of the writer's expressions will then be under- 
 stood to mark in any case only his appreciation of highest 
 probability, and any less positive tones must be estimated 
 relatively to this primary intimation. If appropriate gra- 
 duations of conviction have been marked as recognisably as 
 it is hoped, the writer may claim to be credited conditionally 
 with having regulated them with reference to comparisons 
 and enquiries which he often spares to set down in tedious 
 detail, whether or not he is so happy as to gain confidence 
 further for a portion of that sagacity which it should be the 
 great aim of one who is bound to estimate human motives, 
 faculties and dispositions, to acquire. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, the reader is entitled to full liberty of 
 judgment ; to the same that he is driven upon perforce when
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 he has to arbitrate betweeen the representations of Cromwell 
 by Carlyle and by Pope, not to say Hutchinson and Ludlow ; 
 of Henry VIII, as reported by Froude, or by Cavendish and 
 Shakespeare; of the character and designs of Julius Caesar, 
 as seen by Cicero, or as conceived by Mommsen; the utmost 
 the author can claim of him is that in questioning a decision 
 he will not be too hastily credulous of his own. 
 
 To return to Thucydides : the same liability that he knew 
 and repudiated of a history of the past to be written with 
 less consideration for either past or future than for a bearing 
 on present politics, has been and is a besetting liability of 
 Greek history still ; in a certain qualified sense the liability 
 must be admitted, for it cannot be escaped from. Some of 
 the strongest light that falls on ancient history, is ever 
 reflected for us from modern contemporary politics, and 
 modern eyes are of necessity attracted to these most highly 
 illuminated spots. It is however the opprobrium of the 
 historian if he regards such accidental lights alone, and 
 worse if he is so misled as to accept as realities the colours 
 which may be thrown by them, but are only due to the 
 passions and the prejudices of the day.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 Introductory- 
 
 Limits of the present history. The interval of fifty years between those 
 of Herodotus and Thucydides. Preliminary survey of earlier history 
 of Greece. The Homeric epos as an historical monument. Antiquity 
 and development of Hellenic language. Change from Homeric to his- 
 toric Hellas. Contrasts of Achaian and Hellenic periods. B. 0. 1066 (?). 
 Epoch of migrations and revolutions. Return of the Heracleids. Cen- 
 turies of colonisation East and West. Grouping of Aeolian, Ionian, 
 and Dorian tribes. B.C. 800-700. The century of cyclic poets and 
 poetry. B.C. 776. Epoch of first Olympiad : its significance. B.C. 775. 
 Arctinus author of Aethiopis. B.C. fo8. Archilochus of Paros. 
 B.C. 700-600. Century of elegiac and lost lyric poetry : the age of the 
 tyrants. B.C. 594. The legislation of Solon : republics throughout 
 Hellas. Development of plastic arts and architecture. B.C. 540. 
 Extension of Persian empire over Asia Minor. B.C. 499. Ionian 
 revolt : the Athenians burn Sardis. B.C. 490. Invasion of Attica by 
 the Persians : battle of Marathon. B.C. 480. Second invasion of Attica : 
 battle of Salamis ........... I 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The results of Salamis. The stratagem of Themistooles. 
 
 B.C. 480; Ol. 75. r. 
 
 Council of Xerxes after the battle. Disappearance of Persian fleet. 
 Policy and stratagem of Themistocles. Dedications and division of the 
 spoils. Dissensions of Mardonius and Artabazus. Xerxes in Thessaly 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The retreat of Xerxes. Artabazus in Thrace. Themistocles at Sparta. 
 
 B.C. 480; 01. 75. i. 
 Retreat of Xerxes to the Hellespont. Distress of his escort in Thrace. 
 
 Return of Artabazus. His capture of Olynthus. Repulse at Potidaea. 
 
 Rivalry of Athens and Aegina. Themistocles slighted by the allies. 
 
 Extraordinary honours to Themistocles at Sparta . . . .30
 
 zu 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Mardordua in Boeotia and Attica. Spirit and temper of Athenians 
 and Spartans. 
 
 B.C. 479, Spring; Ol. 75. i, 2. 
 
 Ionian envoys to Sparta and the fleet. Persian fleet at Samoa. Plans of 
 Mardonius for a land campaign. Attempted negotiations with Athens. 
 Alexander the Macedonian. Mardonius re-enters Attica. Renews 
 negotiations with Athenians. Athenian pressure on the Spartans. 
 Their force at last put in motion. Death of Lycides in tumult at 
 Salamis ............ 4* 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The patriotic army in Boeotia. The death of Masistius. Persian 
 
 preparations for final conquest. 
 
 B.C. 479, September ; 01. 75. 2. 
 
 Halt of Greeks at the isthmus. Mardonius retires to Boeotia. Encamps 
 on the Asopus. Episode of Medising Phocians. The entertainment of 
 Persians by Attaginus at Thebes; Greek army appears on slopes of 
 Cithaeron. Athenian bowmen opposed to Persian cavalry. Death 
 of Masistius. Station of the Greeks. They move towards Plataea. 
 Their order of battle and estimated numbers. Relative advantages of 
 Greeks and Persians. The seer Tisamenus. Impatience of Mardonius 
 and jealousy of Artabazus. Preparations for battle on both sides . 59 
 
 CHAPTER V (VI). 
 
 The decisive battle of Flataea. The death of Mardonius. 
 
 B.C. 479, September : 01. 75. a. 
 
 Embarrassment of the Greek forces. Proposed change of ground. Obsti- 
 nacy of Amompharetus. The Greek army separated. Elation of Mar- 
 donius at their supposed flight. Disorderly Persian attack. Conflict 
 with the Lacedaemonians. Death of Mardonius. Conflict of Athenians 
 and Thebans. Retirement of Artabazus with large force without 
 engaging. Capture of the Persian camp. Immense slaughter and 
 poil 84 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The spoils of Plataea. The glory of Pausanias. 
 
 B.C. 479, Autumn; Ol. 75. a. 
 
 Distribution of spoils and honours. Wealth and Sparta. Irony of Pau- 
 sanias on Persian luxury. Sacrifices for deliverance with fire from 
 Delphi. Neutralisation of Plataea. Surrender of Thebes. Institution 
 . of commemorative festival at Plataea 100
 
 CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 
 The battle of Mycale. The final retirement of Xerxes. 
 B.C. 479 ; 01. 75. i and 2. 
 
 The decisive results of the battle of Plataea. Greek fleet renews activity. 
 Envoys from Samos urge assistance to revolt of Ionia. Leotychides 
 assents. Debarkation of Greeks at Mycale. Decisive Greek victory. 
 General liberation of Greeks of Asian coast and the islands. Dissen- 
 sions among defeated commanders. Xerxes finally retires from Sardis 
 to Susa. . . t 114 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The capture of Sestos. Xanthippus and Artayctes. 
 B.C. 479 ; 01. 75. 2. 
 
 Prospects of lonians as to future defence. Discouraging views of Lace- 
 daemonians. Zeal of the Athenians. Greek fleet to the Hellespont. 
 Leotychides retires with the Peloponnesian allies. Siege of Sestos. 
 Local legend of Protesilaus. Sestos surrenders to Xanthippus. Cruel 
 treatment of Artayctes 128 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Athens rewallcd. The conceptions and conduct of Themistocles. 
 B.C. 478 ; 01. 75. i and 3. 
 
 Conclusion of history of Herodotus. Authorities for the interval of fifty 
 years the Pentecontaeteris before the commencement of Thucydides. 
 Athens reoccupied ; Themistocles resumes his earlier plans for fortifi- 
 cation and enlargement of Piraeus. Dorian jealousy of the fortification 
 of Athens. Representations of Sparta. Astute diplomacy of Themis- 
 tocles. The Lacedaemonians foiled 139 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Leotychides in Thessaly. The conditions of kingship at Sparta. 
 B.C. 478 ; Ol. 75. 2 and 3. 
 
 Leotychides acts against the Aleuadae in Thessaly. The Athenian fleet 
 in the Pagasaean gulf. Uncertain results of the expedition. Leoty- 
 chides exiled on charge of accepting bribes, and never recalled. Preca- 
 rious position of Spartan kings 152
 
 xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Pausanias and Aristides at Byzantium. Athenian acceptance of the 
 
 active leadership of Hellas. 
 
 B.C. 477 ; Ol. 75. 3 and 4. 
 
 Combined Lacedaemonian and Athenian fleet before Byzantium. Its 
 capture. Second great success of Pausanias. Arrogance of Pausanias 
 disgusts the allies. His intrigues with Persia. Correspondence with 
 Xerxes. Contrasted demeanour of Aristides. Samians and Chians 
 break with Pausanias. He is recalled through complaints of allies. 
 Athens assumes the hegemony of Hellas as committed to continued 
 hostilities against Persia 160 
 
 CHAPTER XIH. 
 
 Dorian and Ionian genius and genealogy. 
 
 Characteristics of Sparta moulded by circumstances and institutions. In 
 contrast to those of commercial Dorians and of the earlier stock. 
 Dorian, Aeolian, and Ionian tribal distinctions. Language as clue to 
 earlier relations. Dorism a qualified Aeolism, as Attic dialect a quali- 
 fied Ionic. Meaning of the assertion of Herodotus that the Athenians 
 were a Pelasgic race as contrasted with the Hellenic Lacedaemonians. 
 Pelasgism the basis of both Ionian and Aeolian antiquity. Hel- 
 lenism expresses the predominant influence of a peculiarly gifted 
 section. By varied receptiveness of thid influence, other sections became, 
 in the phrase of Herodotus, Hellenised. Contingencies which favoured 
 the distinguished development of the Athenians 171 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The confederation under leadership of Athens. The assessment of 
 Aristides. The final recall and disgrace of Pausanias. 
 
 B.C. 476 ; 01. 75. 4, and 76. 
 
 The early rivalry of Aristides and Themistocles. Subsequent alliance. 
 Characteristics of Cimon. Institution of a common treasure for the 
 allies under presidency of Athens. Contributions assessed by Aristides 
 with general approval. Restlessness of Pausanias. Reappears at the 
 fleet. Is again summarily recalled to Sparta. Is charged and ac- 
 quitted, but deprived of public influence 184 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Athenian prosecution of the war. Cimon in Thrace. 
 
 B.C. 476 ; 01. 75. 4, and 76. i. 
 
 Operations of Cimon in Thrace. Capture of Eion. Traditional Athenian 
 claims in this quarter. Thracian connections of Peisistratun, Miltiadeo, 
 and the historian Thucydidea 197
 
 CONTENTS. xv 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The development of Athenian democracy. 
 
 Authority and services of the Areopagus during the Persian war. The 
 elements of democratical constitution in the legislation of Solon. Con- 
 tests of class interests gave opportunity for the tyranny of Peisistratua. 
 More fundamental reform of the democracy by Cleisthenes. The 
 Persian war rendered extension of the full franchise to every freeman 
 inevitable. A germ of oligarchical aud even tyrannous reaction always 
 ineradicable. Claims of Eupatrids to heroic ancestry .... 207 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Poetry, lyrio and dramatic, in the age of Themistocles : Pindar, Phry- 
 niohus, Aeschylus. 
 
 6.0.476; 01. 76. i. 
 
 First recurrence of Olympic games after the Persian war. Hiero of Syra- 
 cuse and Themistocles. The acme of Pindar and Simonides. The 
 principle of liturgies and corrective taxation in reference to the arts. 
 Themistocles a choragus. Earlier progress of the drama. Epicharmus, 
 Phormis, Thespis. The drama, tragic and satyric. The Phoenissae of 
 Phrynichus. Innovations of Aeschylus 220 
 
 CHAPTER XVni. 
 
 Architecture and sculpture in the age of Themistocles. 
 The first properly constructed Greek theatre, B.C. 499. Its distribution in 
 relation to the represented drama. Temple architecture. Earlier Doric 
 style of Aegina and Corinth. Characteristics of Doric architecture. 
 Hellenic obligations to Aegypt. Analogies and contrasts of Doric and 
 Ionic orders. Early appreciation of the value and principles of archi- 
 tectural proportion. Coloured architectural members. Archaic schools 
 of sculpture. Colossal statues. Portrait statues of athletes. Sculptural 
 compositions of the Aeginetan pediments. Innovations of Pythagoras 
 of Rhegium and Myron. Importance of Ageladas of Argos . . . 339 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 A decade of political and party developments. 
 
 B.C. 476-466. 
 
 Dearth of records of particular incidents during this period. The period 
 to be interpreted by its sequel. Gradual subordination of allies to 
 Athenian authority. Hellenic passion for civic autonomy. The trea- 
 sury of the confederacy removed from Delos to Athens. Cordial alliance 
 with Sparta promoted by Cimon. The previsions of Themistocles. His 
 policy inherited and administered by Pericles 257
 
 xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The political and poetical scope of the Fersae of Aeschylus. 
 
 B.C. 473-47 2 - 
 
 The relation of the Persae to the Phoenissae of Phrynichus. Inevitable 
 reference of the play to the glory though not to the name of Themis- 
 tocles. Revival of interest by recent defeat of Carthaginians by Hiero. 
 The Phineus, the first play of the tetralogy, involved a reference to 
 the victory at Artemisium. Recognised obligations of Athens on that 
 occasion to the Boreads, the rescuers of Phineus (Herod, vii. 189). 
 Glaucus of Potniae, the third play, had reference to the final battle of 
 Plataea, in its purport and in site of Potniae, covered by the battle- 
 field. The satyric play, Prometheus, the fire-bringer. Its reference to 
 renewal of pure fire after the defeat of the Persians. The warnings 
 of the poet 269 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Ostracism of Themistocles. Cixnon at Soyros. 
 
 B.C. 471-470. 
 
 Influence of Cimon and his party becomes preponderant at Athens. 
 Themistocles is ostracised. Ostracism and its abuse. Pride and inde- 
 pendence of Themistocles. Popular arts of his rival. Cimon occupies 
 Scyros. Modern appreciation of the statesmanship applicable to annex- 
 ations. Recovery of the relics of Theseus. The Theseum and its 
 artistic enrichments. The Triptolemus of Sophocles and its purport. 
 First public activity of Pericles. Death of Aristides. Interpretation 
 of an allusion in the 'Seven against Thebes' of Aeschylus . . .276. 
 
 CHAPTER XXH. 
 
 Painting, rudimentary and advanced. Polygnotus. 
 
 B.C. 467. 
 
 Subordinate position of painting in Hellas relatively to sculpture. Traces 
 of coloured design in Homeric poetry. Independent development of art 
 by the Greeks. Traditional commencement of painting as illustrated 
 by the vases. Painting proper begins with Polygnotus. His style 
 simple, severe and refined. His great compositions at Delphi, their 
 ordination and significance. Micon, Panaenus 393 
 
 CHAPTER XXHI. 
 
 Themistocles in Peloponnesus. 
 
 Uneasinem at Sparta from restlessness of Pausanias. Themistocles at 
 Argofl. Hia probable connection with opposition to Sparta developed 
 in Peloponnesus. The recovery of Argos. Subversion of Mycenae . 308
 
 CONTENTS. xvii 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The Seven against Thebes of Aeschylus. 
 467 B.C. 
 
 The tetralogy Laius, Oedipus, the Seven against Thebes, the Sphinx a 
 Satyric drama. The principle of continuous hereditary disposition in 
 Greek tragedy. Its interpretation as fate. The warlike drama an echo 
 of recommencing intestine dissensions in Hellas. The spirit of Theban 
 mythology 315 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The catastrophe of Pausanias and flight of Themistoclea. 
 8.0.467-466; 01. 78. 2. 
 
 Sparta regains control of Peloponnesus. Intrigues of Pausanias among 
 helots and with Persia. Themistocles declines participation. Ephors 
 detect and destroy Pansanias. Endeavour to implicate Themistocles. 
 He flies to Corcyra. The grounds of his interest in the island . .321 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Themistocles the Prometheus Desmotes of Aeschylus. 
 
 ' The Prometheus Bound,' the most characteristic of the plays of Aeschylus. 
 Its date unrecorded. Presumable reflection of the services and re- 
 quital of Themistocles. Contrasted with Faust. The theology of 
 Aeschylus. The more comprehensive scope of the Prometheus . . 329 
 
 CHAPTER XXVH. 
 
 The first contumacy of Athenian allies. Administration of Cimon. 
 B.C. 465 ; 01. 78. 3-4. 
 
 The story of the flight of Themistocles. Takes refuge at Epirus. Pur- 
 sued by Lacedaemonians, again disappears. Simultaneous revolt of 
 Thasos and Naxos. Athenian colony to Nine-ways on the Strymon. 
 Earlier story of Naxos. Probability that the revolt had been concerted 
 with Pausanias. Naxos captured forfeits autonomy. Cimon before 
 Phaselis in Lycia. Great victory over the Persians on the Eurymedon. 
 The Strymonian colony destroyed by conflict with the Thracians at 
 Drabescus. Cimon establishes the siege of Thasos after destruction of 
 its fleet 339
 
 xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Themistocles in Persia. His death. 
 B.C. 464. 
 
 Xerxes murdered. Authority of Artabanus as regent. He is killed by 
 Artaxerxes. Arrival of Theinistocles at Susa. Story of his escape 
 from Epirus. His reception and cordial entertainment by Artaxerxes. 
 His characteristics according to Thucydides. IB established at Mag- 
 nesia. Probable adviser of the Persian policy on Greek frontier. 
 Regard for his memory at Athens 353 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 The seventy-ninth Olympiad. Corinthian and Rhodian victors. 
 B.C. 464. 
 
 Odes written by Pindar for a Corinthian victor. Characteristics of 
 Corinth, as wealthy commercial port and as seat of an oligarchy. 
 Aristocratic athleticism. Diagoras of Rhodes, and victors of his family. 
 Their statues at Olympia. Change of opinion supervening relatively 
 to exaggerated athleticism 365 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 The rise of Pericles. Revolt of the Helots. Surrender of Thasos. 
 B.O. 464-3. 
 
 Pericles becomes conspicuous in politics. Continued development of 
 Athenian democracy. The ambiguous attitude of Cimon. The institu- 
 tion of the theoricon. Spartans promise aid to Thasos. Prevented by 
 earthquake and revolt of the helots. Thasos surrenders. Cimon ac- 
 cused on account of his conduct in the war 371 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Ephialtes and the democracy. Athenians before Ithome. Cimon 
 
 ostracised. 
 
 B.C. 461. 
 
 Acquittal of Cimon. la unable to countervail democratic policy of Ephi- 
 altes. Succeeds in proposal to assist Sparta with auxiliary force. 
 Jealousy of the force conceived by Lacedaemonians who dismiss it. 
 Indignation at Athens. Cimon returns and is ostracised . . . 381
 
 THE AGE OF PERICLES. 
 
 B.C. 480-461.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE subject-matter of the ensuing history is comprised 
 in the fifty years that intervene between the repulse of 
 the invasion of Greece by Xerxes and the outbreak of the 
 Peloponnesian War the interval therefore between the 
 closing events of the history of Herodotus and the opening 
 of that of Thucydides. A certain overlap is admitted at 
 either end for the sake of more distinctly marking the 
 connection with the two great continuous histories. 
 
 The political events that occupied these years, though 
 anything but unimportant, were yet, even in antiquity, 
 not made the subject of any special narrative, the more 
 momentous struggles and wars of the adjacent periods 
 withdrawing attention from them. The quarrels that oc- 
 curred within this period and led to open conflicts were, 
 though all under a main drifting influence, short and dis- 
 connected ; and it may therefore be considered as, on the 
 whole, an oasis of peace in the midst of surrounding 
 devastation and disorder. 
 
 But it was within this period that all the germs were 
 deposited which sprang into such rank vitality afterwards. 
 The predominance of Athens was then advancing to con- 
 solidation, and already giving signs of that vigour which 
 was to be shown in conflict with the animosities and dis- 
 contents among which it was growing up, and the growth 
 
 B
 
 2 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 of which, however latent, was an historical event as im- 
 portant as their manifestation in virulent activity, or even 
 more so. 
 
 The most salient manifestation of human activity how- 
 ever within that period was the marvellous attainment to 
 unrivalled perfection of the most refined arts and culture 
 of civilised life, the acme of the plastic, poetic, and 
 generally intellectual arts, and the securing- of the con- 
 ditions of continued progress to the abstract sciences and 
 speculative philosophy. 
 
 A material exponent of this full bloom of the best faculties 
 of man is the single building of the temple of Athene 
 the Parthenon; the description of this and all its adjuncts, 
 together with the actual remains, attest that sculpture 
 and architecture then reached a perfection that has never 
 been rivalled since, even singly, not to say conjointly, in 
 respect of touching the utmost point of which either is 
 susceptible. The consent of antiquity adjudged the palm 
 to Pheidias above all other sculptors, and sufficient frag- 
 ments of his works are preserved to happily attest the 
 truth and value of such an assignment. If all evidence of 
 the characteristics of the age were lost but these memorials, 
 they would be sufficient to indicate a pitch of civilised re- 
 finement that has never since been surpassed; which may 
 have been more or less partial and exclusive, but which 
 to have been reached at all, especially in the midst of a 
 democracy, is sufficient to preclude despair for the capabili- 
 ties and progressive hopes of humanity. 
 
 And, as if grouped around this central symbol, we have 
 no insufficient portraitures of the statesmen who prepared for 
 and perfected such achievements of Aristides, Themistocles, 
 K|ihialtes, Cimon, Pericles; we have lively delineations of 
 the Athenians themselves the demus so highly and ener- 
 getically endowed, whatever the defects, the miserable follies, 
 the shameful faults with which the entire people, as if repre-
 
 ATHENS THE CENTRE OF HISTORIC HELLAS. 3 
 
 sentative of the character of so many an individual man of 
 genius, was at the same time chargeable. 
 
 We have then, preserved most happily, a body of literature 
 invaluable, however relatively small a salvage from a 
 wreck of incomparable abundance which gives us the still 
 living words that rung in the ears of those generations, to 
 amuse or to elevate, for encouragement or rebuke. Eupolis 
 and Cratinus are lost, but Aristophanes remains to tell us, 
 and to exemplify to us also, the best and the worst of the 
 times. The last echoes of lyric poetry, dying out in the 
 remoter odes of Pindar, are renewed in the choruses of the 
 theatre ; and, while other inferior dramatists still live only 
 in renown, though not inconsiderable renown, the great 
 triad of tragic dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euri- 
 pidesare not unworthily, however scantily, represented in 
 their extant tragedies. 
 
 To Athens in this age, as to a centre, was attracted all 
 that profound reflection had been maturing throughout 
 Hellas, and her claim to be the host of the best foreign 
 wits was approved by her constant production among her 
 own citizens of the crowning intelligence. The crude, 
 inaccurate, or sophisticated speculations of Ionia and Italy 
 found their correction here ; and already the genius of 
 Socrates was abroad, which was to mould for all time the 
 acutest and noblest exercise of human thought. 
 
 The rapidity with which human faculties at this period 
 pushed forward into bloom is as remarkable as the perfection 
 which they attained. Accordingly, as is usual in such cases, 
 the characteristics of the anterior time are by no means 
 utterly obliterated in the new. We must accustom ourselves 
 to regard the sculptures of Aegina and of the Parthenon as 
 possibly contemporary works even as Perugino not merely 
 preceded and taught but survived Rafael for the contrast 
 is scarcely so great as between the almost childlike playfulness 
 and devoutness of Herodotus, and the tone of his contemporary, 
 
 B 2
 
 4 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 the sedate and statesmanlike Thucydides. Herodotus is in 
 many respects more near to the people than Thucydides, in 
 his fondness for the picturesque, which disinclines him to 
 reject a fabulous story too expressive of his purpose to be 
 put very strictly to the test, and in his willingness to wander 
 somewhat far afield to obtain it; but he is at the same 
 time distinguished by a larger and more general geogra- 
 phical and chronological scope, and seems to belong to a 
 period when Greece was still only in course of assuming its 
 absolute and separate individuality. His history collects the 
 scattered rays of historic interest which, when it concludes, 
 are for a period to be restricted within Hellenic limits, and 
 ultimately brought to a focus at Athens. 
 
 If we are to understand the period which we are about to 
 consider in detail, we must first take a somewhat wider 
 preliminary survey. This could only be done with complete- 
 ness by the aid of histories equally detailed for the antecedent 
 periods ; but it may, as indeed it must, suffice here to give 
 an introductory sketch of the more remotely anterior inci- 
 dents, so far as these will not offer themselves more readily 
 for recapitulation afterwards, and those from which our 
 narrative actually starts. 
 
 Even more necessary is it to adduce some notice of the 
 previous developments of Greek genius, as demonstrating the 
 native endowments of the race ; of what had been already 
 achieved and long in familiar possession, and of what early 
 promise the achievements of this period were the maturity. 
 Surprising and brilliant as our period is, it is but one in 
 succession to several others in many respects still more 
 surprising; and conspicuous as Athens now appears, the city 
 does but come forward as continuing a line of glories to which 
 she had heretofore scarcely contributed, and during the course 
 of which she was lost in a crowd, or all but nameless. 
 
 The Homeric epos the Iliad and Odyssey conjoined 
 stands at the very commencement of Greek monumental
 
 THE HOMERIC EPOS AN HISTORIC MONUMENT. 5 
 
 records, and is not only the greatest of all Greek, but, it 
 must be said, the greatest of all works of art whatever. 
 There are two questions of date concerned with it, and both 
 lie far back in indefinite centuries, beyond the commence- 
 ment of even plausible history. The question of the date of 
 the poetry is one, and that of the time when the state of 
 Greece most nearly corresponded to the general aspect 
 given by the poems, is another. That such a general 
 correspondence did once exist, and even in respect of 
 confederacies more or less comprehensive warring against 
 the north-eastern districts of Asia Minor, I do not doubt, 
 though I cannot pause to argue it at length ; that the poem 
 was reduced to the form in which we now have it by the 
 genius of one man a single Homer being conceivable, but 
 scarcely a multitude I doubt as little; but the question 
 remains still as to what stores of scattered materials, more 
 or less extensive, may not have been prepared to his hand ; 
 nay, whether the latest poet may not have been under the 
 same obligations, or something like them, that Berni or 
 Dryden owed to Boiardo or Chaucer, or that Goethe owed to 
 the epic fable of the middle ages. 
 
 As the work has been so happily handed down to us, it 
 is unrivalled in expressiveness of language and rhythm, and 
 in beauty of versification; a perfect model of construction; 
 unsurpassed in natural description by sea and land ; while in 
 personal portraiture, in variety and distinctness of characteri- 
 sation, in the definition of sentiment and all the shades and 
 colours of moral good and evil, Homer may have a rival in 
 Shakespear, but in Shakespear alone. In this poem we have 
 all the conditions anticipated in epithet or description, of the 
 perfection of plastic and imaginative art ; and finally, a 
 mastery of the problem of raising all natural incidents and 
 characteristic human endowments to a height of more than 
 experienced idealisation, without "ever withdrawing the action 
 from our closest and liveliest sympathies.
 
 6 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The mere language by which all this is preserved has 
 itself the characteristics of a work of consummate art. 
 For anything that has yet been discovered, we may con- 
 sider the proximate roots of the Greek of Homer to be as 
 near the origin of language as any others, though doubt- 
 less still very remote. If we were to give in to the exclusive 
 influence arrogated to so-called phonetic corruption and decay 
 in changing and modelling language as applicable to ancient 
 Greek, we should indeed forfeit the most valuable lesson of 
 etymology. Originally the urgent need of language was to 
 express to express feeling as well as thought and it is for 
 expression that it is ever struggling. Between the varieties 
 due to the eagerness of those muscular sensations which are 
 incident to the production of sounds, and the visible facial 
 movements by which they are accompanied, and with which 
 they are connected in the mind of the listener, there is large 
 opportunity for indirect intimation, and direct mimesis by 
 sound, of physical accidents, changes, and actions. Man 
 possesses organs formed as specifically for speech, as others 
 are for grasping or locomotion, and there is no mystery in 
 the multiplication and appropriation of these signs for the 
 sake of convenience ; while analogy and metaphor insensibly 
 transfer these material signs to mental and moral expe- 
 riences ; thus, in time, ' understanding ' is applied to ' intel- 
 lect' as readily as to the leg of a chair; 'sweet' becomes a 
 common epithet for a ripe fruit, a feminine smile, and the 
 disposition which inspires the smile. No doubt dialectic 
 change is influenced by special powers of producing certain 
 combinations of sound, but phonetic change can only be pro- 
 perly called corruption or decay when it clings to the posi- 
 tively disagreeable, or destroys expressiveness. Even with 
 the most uncultured, the struggle to express governs the 
 direction and degree of change; and such forms as 'squirrel' 
 or ' queer ' are no casual results of mere disintegration, but, 
 like 'thunder' and other words of the same nature, have
 
 GREEK LANGUAGE AND CHARACTERISTICS. 7 
 
 been gradually modified and fixed at last in virtue of this 
 constant aim and influence ; poetry would have expired 
 long ago if language had not chiefly grown out of and 
 by mimetic expressiveness. The degree of elegance with 
 which this expressiveness is finally attained is the measure 
 of the natural refinement and taste of the people among 
 whom it has grown up. The same influence may be traced 
 in the rejection of various forms for the sake of avoiding 
 discords in combinations of frequent recurrence, or in coarse 
 and careless disregard of them. Extrusion of clumsiness, 
 that is, the rejection of unnecessary syllables and cumbrous 
 combinations, is above all, and in the first place, characteristic 
 of the Greek language. Beyond this, what grace, elegance, 
 and euphony were attained, as the language proceeded, not 
 through corruption and decay, but through healthy and 
 vigorous growth, must be studied in other pages; but it 
 is important to bear the fact in mind here. 
 
 With regard to the political condition of Greece as exhibited 
 in the poems, its relations to grand exterior empires is much 
 the same as we find it at the dawn of history. It is in 
 contact occasionally, and no more, with Phoenicia, Egypt, 
 and northern tribes ; enough so to make the transfer of arts 
 and the course of mercantile exchange familiar probabilities, 
 but not to induce important hostile collisions. Within the 
 limits of European Greece, the divisions of states are almost 
 identical with the lines of boundaries during the war with 
 Xerxes, lines determined by the physical character of the 
 mountain-traversed land, and further by the susceptibility of 
 the people for tribal influences and attachment to distinct 
 local centres. Still there is the same sense of unity of race, 
 and sympathy in language, customs, maxims, religion, among 
 these independent communities, as in later times ; and they 
 are exhibited, also, as having a capacity for joint action 
 under one predominant state, just as when they adhered to 
 the hegemony, or leadership of Sparta or Athens ; and the
 
 8 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 great moral of the whole is, that if ever Greece was to be 
 ruined, it would be by her incapacity to take to heart and 
 profit by the poet's lesson of necessity for concord in con- 
 federation as a condition of national safety. 
 
 But there are two great differences between the Greece of 
 Homer and that of the opening of regular and authentic 
 history. The Homeric states are not in a single instance 
 republican, whatever the indications of a vigorous public 
 opinion which has to be managed, cajoled, or even some- 
 times cowed ; they are all under the sway of kings, and 
 kings who claim by divine right, and indeed, for the most 
 part, by divine descent, a title which dates beyond the memoiy 
 of man. The germ of the later development is there espe- 
 cially of that republican condition which admitted the pre- 
 dominant influence of the Eupatrid but at present it gives 
 only feeble and occasional signs of vitality. 
 
 Another great distinction is that the leading tribe which 
 now gives general title to the nation is Achaian, whereas, 
 when history opens in full light, Achaian has sunk or receded 
 into the title of a very secondary district, or even into a third 
 rank ; the nation at large calls itself Hellenic, and its leading- 
 subdivisions, comprising groups of states not especially asso- 
 ciated in Homeric times, are Aeolians, lonians, and Dorians. 
 Dorian Sparta is now the most powerful, and asserts some- 
 what of the comprehensive control of the regal Agamemnon, 
 though in every respect the most distinct and abnormal in 
 habits and institutions, and in rudest contrast to the luxu- 
 rious home of Menelaus and Helen. The identity of the 
 race at large, however, is certified not less by language 
 than by the continuance of all earlier characteristics ; energy 
 by land and sea ; admiration of beauty in all things, espe- 
 cially in what is susceptible of most beauty, the human 
 form and character; enthusiasm for lofty ideals, however 
 often unrealised in practice; the love of poetry, of art, of 
 athletic exercises; the assertion of free action and free
 
 CHANGE FROM HOMERIC TO HISTORIC HELLAS. 9 
 
 speech ; a sense of the dignity and power of the race, espe- 
 cially as contrasted with the enervated or slavish tribes to 
 the east of the Aegean. 
 
 The social contrast, therefore, is as great as between the 
 sculpture of the gate of Mycenae and that of the Aeginetan 
 pediments ; as great, and as certainly marking an inter- 
 mediate period of active revolutions, with movements and 
 collisions of tribes and populations. 
 
 And if such changes took place after the Homeric epoch, 
 surely we are entitled to ask, whether the like, and even yet 
 more violent, did not probably take place before? The 
 poetry, for good poetic reasons, makes no mention of any 
 forcible origin of the Achaian power in Southern Greece ; but 
 traditions, the more trustworthy because independent of each 
 other, told how the Achaians had descended from Thessaly 
 and original seats at Phthiotis which continued to retain 
 the name of Achaia. Thus is explained how it was that 
 the chief hero of the Achaian epic is Achilles, who belongs 
 to these original seats, and not the more powerful Agamem- 
 non of the later seats, and who, moreover, was traditionally of 
 foreign lineage. 
 
 Tradition, borne out again by corroborations which it is idle 
 to extenuate, told further how, after the period of Achaian 
 domination in Southern Greece, and the collision with Asia in 
 the Troad, a great movement of tribes was urged southward 
 upon Peloponnesus, which displaced or subdued the former 
 occupants, and gradually established the system of tribal 
 distribution as represented in history. A. significant threat 
 in the Iliad, of the subversion of Mycenae, Argos, and Sparta, 
 has been fairly held to intimate that the poet lived after, or 
 during the course of, these revolutions ; the conjecture may 
 be confirmed by a similar hint to a future reign of de- 
 scendants of Aeneas in the Troad. 
 
 It must have been in the course and as a consequence 
 of these convulsions whose evidence is absolute, however ob-
 
 10 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 scure their dates and details that the distinction of Dorians 
 and lonians took definite form. Of this more must be said 
 hereafter; at present we have to note that it constitutes 
 a main feature in a further contrast between this later 
 epoch and the earlier Homeric. 
 
 The epos exhibits the coast of Asia Minor as uncolonised 
 by Greeks, except for some occasional connection, as in Lycia; 
 but we now find it fringed with Greek cities, active, power- 
 ful, populous, and grouped in marked agreement with rela- 
 tionship. There is an Asiatic Aeolis, Ionia, and Doris. 
 
 The Aeolian cities earliest and oldest are settled about 
 the islands and districts that were the reputed seats of the 
 Achaian warfare of Homer. The poetic war is not waged 
 for territory, but for plunder ; not for established settlement, 
 but in retaliation for something like piracy: but here never- 
 theless it must be observed, that the poet seems to carry back 
 to the earlier period of his subject the conditions of his own 
 time ; the Achaians, from their mountainous peninsula, are 
 made to fight habitually in chariots, a mode of warfare only 
 suitable for the extensive plains of Lydia or about the coast ; 
 and that women are among the most valued spoil, seems a 
 glaring transference from the later time, when, according, 
 to other notices, the immigrants systematically arrived as 
 warriors alone, and trusted to their arms to gain the wives 
 with whom they commenced a new race in a new country. 
 
 Tradition, then, is borne out by manifest facts in establish- 
 ing that the Achaian domination was superseded by violent 
 changes in the seats of Greek tribes, due to the so-called 
 return of the Heracleid dynasty to assert ancestral claims in 
 Peloponnesus, and that thereafter ensued a long period of 
 active colonisation both east and west. 
 
 Particular chronology here must always be disputable ; let 
 it be enough to state a conviction, founded on the tenacious 
 adherence of the Greeks to certain ceremonious forms in 
 founding colonies and their heroic estimate of the honour of
 
 THE FIRST OLYMPIADS CYCLIC POETRY. 11 
 
 leading such enterprises, that there is no reason to set down 
 all traditional names, and even dates, as ' unhistoric.' The 
 return of the Heracleids was currently dated in a year 1066 
 B.C., precisely at the distance anterior to our epoch that the 
 Norman Conquest, to which it is in many respects a parallel, 
 occurred after it. Three centuries lie between it and 776 B.C., 
 the epoch of the first Olympiad, when Coroebus was a victor; 
 of whom, it is true, we know nothing else, in a period that 
 is equally unknown. And yet the commencement of that 
 reckoning was itself an important historical fact. It marks 
 generally, and must mark, the attachment to celebrations 
 which became so expressive of the sympathetic self-con- 
 sciousness of the Hellenic race. The Olympic truce was 
 an occasion of suspended enmities, of meetings in joyful 
 amity; the olive crown, the coveted prize, was taken from 
 the tree which can only arrive at profitable fruit-bearing 
 through years exempt from devastation, and hence was 
 the accepted symbol of peace, as it also provided the oil 
 that gave vigour in noble games ; and all comparisons point 
 to this date as one from which the settlement of Hellas 
 became recognised as permanent. 
 
 In these intervening centuries lay the plantation of the 
 numerous colonies, which attained to such prosperity, that 
 they themselves became mother-cities and planted .colonies 
 far and wide again, at cited dates posterior to 776 B.C., and 
 probably in many instances authentic. 
 
 To the century 800-700 B.C. is referred, with every assur- 
 ance of correctness, the origin of a vast mass of heroic poetry, 
 the work of what were known as the Cyclic poets, which 
 was extant through the classic ages. It was in the style of 
 the Homeric epos, and some long poems were even ascribed 
 very currently to the same poet. Others of the poems were 
 attached to names of other poets; some were anonymous. 
 Regarded as a whole, they gained their title of Cyclic from 
 completing, when taken together, with more or less inter-
 
 12 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 ference of subjects, a poetical account of all events from the 
 creation, or even before it, down to the death of Ulysses. 
 At this point mythological story closed, and the blank that 
 then intervenes before a more simply pragmatical story re- 
 commences with the return of the Heracleids, is strong 
 evidence of a new spirit having supervened on national 
 thought at a period that followed this crowning revolution. 
 Mythology does not take its subject very near to the time of 
 the mythologist; History is shy of an immediate attachment 
 to a series of events with which its own are incongruous, and 
 a break is inevitable. 
 
 Dionysius of l Halicarnassus fixes the date of Arctinus, the 
 author of the Aethiopis, one of these poems, and the most 
 ancient poet, as he believed, of whose historical existence dis- 
 tinct trace could be recognised, as 775 B.C. But the general 
 period alone is of consequence, and it is limited and certi- 
 fied by the unquestionable fact that this poetry was the pro- 
 duction of a period anterior to that of the Iambic poets, who 
 can be far more accurately dated. 
 
 Distinct authentic history, we have said, only begins two 
 centuries after the assigned date of Arctinus, with the usurpa- 
 tion of Peisistratus, or at most the legislation of Solon, 594 B.CX; 
 but the preceding century, which followed the age of the 
 Cyclic poetry, was most brilliant and fertile of Greek genius, 
 and bequeathed productions that were the admiration and 
 delight of the best ages of antiquity, and down to the very 
 establishment of Christianity. 
 
 The poems of this period, lyric, iambic, elegiac, melic, 
 were full of personal and passionate allusions, and re- 
 sponsive hints, that would certify at least their order of 
 succession. Archilochus of Paros dates as early as 708 B.C. 
 The consent of antiquity adjudged him a fame only second to 
 that of Homer ; the earliest of the lyric poets, he is credited 
 with exhaustless fertility in invention of new metrical com- 
 
 1 i. 68.
 
 THE CENTURY OF LOST LYRIC POETRY. 13 
 
 binations : this style of poetry, imbued with the passions of 
 the moment, so different from the genius of epic poetry, 
 had thus a definite historic as well as poetic value ; it is 
 not too much to say that the personality of Archilochus 
 was as salient in his works as that of Horace or Ben 
 Jonson ; and in various degrees the case was the same with 
 all his successors with Simonides of Amorgos, Tyrtaeus 
 especially, Anacreon, Alcman, Arion, Alcaeus and Sappho, 
 Erinna and Stesichorus, until Mimnermus, lastly, conies 
 into direct relation with Solon. 
 
 The cultivation of music was pursued not less enthusiasti- 
 cally during this age, but here we are of necessity at greater 
 disadvantage in forming a judgment, though we cannot 
 hesitate to accept the ancient renown as well deserved, 
 and do homage to the antecedents of the odes of Pindar 
 and the choruses of the dramatic poets, both comic and 
 tragic. 
 
 Thus it is that beyond the limits of the broad light of 
 Herodotus a sort of historical twilight extends, and even 
 as it settles into darkness we see reflected in the sky the 
 splendours of works that unhappily have all but perished ; 
 we gather faint echoes of music and song from a succession 
 of singers as gifted as those who made the glory of the 
 age of Pericles, and still more numerous in their succes- 
 sion. Pushed back certainly by this unbroken series to the 
 very commencement of the Olympiads, was the age which 
 had transmitted the vast mass of Cyclic poetry, afterwards 
 to be subjected to the criticism of Aristotle, but only to be 
 found wanting as compared with the unequalled art of the 
 Homeric epos, descending from a still more remote and 
 obscurer Beyond. Even in a summary so largely compre- 
 hensive we omit the important class of hymns both poetic 
 and properly sacred, and the peculiar compositions of" the 
 Hesiodic cycle. 
 
 Such was the wealthy heritage of literary art and beauty
 
 14 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 which Hellas had long enjoyed before the age of Peisistratus, 
 barely a century before the birth of Herodotus, when at 
 last the obscurity clears away from the historic field, and 
 we can follow with confidence a series of connected events and 
 the actions of identifiable characters. It is certain that the 
 plastic arts and architecture had already made advances scarcely 
 less important; technical processes had been mastered, the 
 principle of constant and ever-renewed reference to nature 
 had been combined with the aspiration to correct the indi- 
 vidual model by 'an idea within the mind,' by study per- 
 severing and yet so sensitive that it caught exactly the 
 moment to resign itself to the free guidance of imagination. 
 It must remain doubtful whether any of the statuary of 
 this period could hold its ground in comparison with the 
 Pheidian period in the same sense in which works of Archi- 
 lochtis or Sappho took equal rank with Sophocles, but at 
 least the preliminary conditions of the later development were 
 mastered. The case was certainly the same in architecture ; 
 the vast temple of Samos, and the earlier Parthenon, had 
 already decided all the leading members of the style, and the 
 remains, archaic as they are, of the temple at Corinth, evince 
 that the application of proportion to building, the counter- 
 point of architecture, had already become matter of theoretic 
 study, of which the marvellous results were to be fully 
 manifest later on. 
 
 Government also, in its best sense, as the systematic 
 conciliation of Force and Order with individual freedom, 
 had made corresponding advances, when all the accumulated 
 preparations for human culture were threatened by Asiatic 
 despotism. The age of divinely-descended and authorised 
 kings had been succeeded, after years of compromise or 
 convulsion, by constitutional order, oligarchical doubtless in 
 most cases, but still tempered, destined to yield in its turn, 
 however, to an age of Tyrants; but with the fall of the 
 sons of Peisistratus at Athens the last traces of this latter
 
 SUCCESSION OF MONARCHY TYRANNY. 15 
 
 period also had passed away. The vigorous constitution 
 of Sparta had retained the form of royalty with much 
 outward ceremony, but under severe control ; and the 
 dominant oligarchs had taken care to secure the power 
 of their fellows throughout the length and breadth of 
 Hellas, by suppressing all the tyrannies one after l an- 
 other. The last of their achievements in this way was the 
 expulsion from Athens of the son of Peisistratus, who took 
 refuge in Persia, and there exerted himself, only too 
 effectually, to bring the scourge of Oriental invasion upon 
 his native land. Tyranny at Athens, however, was only 
 superseded by another force scarcely less repugnant to 
 Sparta. The spirit of democracy, native here, was inimical 
 alike to oligarch and to tyrant ; and with hands free, 
 and aided by a remarkable manifestation of individual 
 genius, it made the next great chapter of Hellenic story 
 a conflict of democracy with Oriental despotism in the 
 first place, but with Hellenic, and especially Spartan, 
 oligarchy immediately and constantly thereafter. 
 
 The same date marks the power of Peisistratus at Athens 
 and the accession of the Median Cyrus ; and the extraordinary 
 development of Persian power absorbed, in its movement 
 westward, the recently consolidated Lydian kingdom, 
 together with all the Hellenic cities on the sea-board, which 
 after centuries of independence had only just succumbed 
 to Lydia when they were transferred to a still more powerful 
 master, and under his son Cambyses subjugated the pri- 
 maeval civilisation of Egypt. The growth of this great 
 power proceeded even still more formidably when it was 
 wielded by the organising energy of Darius Hystaspes, 
 about thirty years after the conquest of Lydia. Darius in 
 person led armies into Europe as far as the Danube, his 
 lieutenants Mardonius and Megabazus secured permanent 
 hold on many parts of Macedonia and Thrace, and an 
 1 Herod, v. 92.
 
 - 
 
 16 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 attempt was made (501 B.C.) as far to the west, and as 
 near to Athens and Sparta, as the island of Naxos. 
 
 The time was now at last once more at hand when the 
 comparative mettle of Greek and Oriental, Western and 
 Eastern tribes, which had met in such unequal conflict in the 
 Homeric epos, was to be tried in mortal combat for life or 
 death to liberty, and to civilised and progressive culture. 
 
 Ionia rose in revolt against the Persian, Sparta withheld 
 the solicited aid, but Athens was roused by the peril of 
 cities which owned her as their metropolis ; even her effort, 
 however, was but single and spasmodic, and she withdrew 
 entirely, after giving mortal affront by assisting the in- 
 surgents in the burning of Sardis. 
 
 Within ten years she found herself exposed to a retaliatory 
 attack upon her own ground. The valour of the unassisted 
 Athenians, and the conduct of their general Miltiades, inflicted 
 on the host of Datis and Artaphernes on the field of Mara- 
 thon a defeat which brought that expedition to a disgraceful 
 end. The Spartans arrived too late for the battle, and 
 afterwards, with characteristic sluggishness, left the more 
 acute and alert Athenians to anticipate and prepare for a 
 renewal of the conflict. For three years Asia was stirred 
 from end to end by a single resistless mandate to prepare 
 for the subjugation of this little group of independent 
 communities, while Xerxes, in the pride of youthful sway, 
 and heir to his father's animosity, prepared to make the 
 progress of triumph and revenge in person. 
 
 At Athens at least the impending danger was not un- 
 prepared for ; though that it was not so even here was due 
 chiefly to the foresight and energetic genius of one man 
 Themistocles. He read the lesson of the past, that the 
 salvation of the Athenians, if not of Athens, must, under a 
 renewed attack, depend on their possession of ships, and that 
 the severest stroke which could be dealt against an invader, 
 however he arrived, would be the annihilation of his fleet.
 
 DESPOTIC PERSIA AND DEMOCRA TIC A THENS. 1 7 
 
 On this occasion at least the Spartans set one grand 
 example, which was probably due to the personal spirit 
 of their king Leonidas. The embattled nations of the 
 Persians crossed the Hellespont and wound round through 
 Thessaly, embarrassed only by their own encumbering 
 numbers, to encounter opposition at the first spot under 
 the circumstances even moderately defensible, the pass of 
 Thermopylae. There is no need to recount the circum- 
 stances of the conflict ; but whatever may be thought 
 of the strategic insight of the Spartan, there is no reason 
 to condemn the exploit as heroism thrown away ; from 
 the result of it Sparta may have learnt to be cautious in 
 committing her fortunes to entire sacrifice on a point 
 of honour ; but the approval at home of the steadfastness 
 of the three hundred, the proof they gave before they 
 were destroyed of the efficiency of Hellenic against Persian 
 arms, and the moral impression created upon the Persians 
 themselves, were not without most important influence 
 upon the later conflicts. 
 
 In the meantime Themistocles was labouring to keep the 
 ships of the various Greek states together, and to unite 
 them in well-concerted action, by persuasion, self-control, 
 and bribery. He inflicted severe losses on the hostile navy 
 as they advanced towards the shores of Attica, and was 
 happily seconded by the elements. He then carried the 
 resolution for the general evacuation, not only of Attica, 
 but of Athens itself, transported the entire population to 
 the islands and opposite peninsulas, and watched with 
 vig-ilant anxiety for the opportunity to strike his long- 
 expected blow. 
 
 The confederate fleet was mustered in the Saronic Gulf 
 about the island of Salamis, as the Persians rendezvoused in 
 the roadstead of Phaleron ; while Xerxes had already occupied 
 Athens and Attica, and might at any time move forward 
 upon the Peloponnesus. In such a confined position the 
 
 c
 
 18 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 smaller fleet had everything to hope from an engagement, 
 but the Greek commanders of the Peloponnesian states had 
 neither the confidence of Themistocles, nor trusting in the 
 blockade of the Isthmus did they conceive that their stake 
 was equally emperilled. 
 
 The rest is, for our present purpose, soon and briefly told. 
 Themistocles sent a private message to the Persian king, 
 which was too like many another communication from 
 Greek traitors to be suspected, and which determined him to 
 commence the attack at once. While the allied commanders 
 were still proposing immediate departure and separation, 
 they found that retreat was already cut off, that the enemy 
 were advancing, and that the only alternative accepted then 
 for the most part with unhesitating courage was to fight at 
 once. 
 
 Such were the circumstances that brought on the battle", 
 and, with the battle, the victory, of Salamis.
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE RESULTS OF SALAMIS. THE STRATAGEM OF THEMISTOCLES. 
 
 480 B.C. ; Olym. 75. i. 
 
 WHEN night closed upon the scene of the battle of 
 Salamis, the victorious Greeks were unaware of the full 
 extent and value of their success ; the enormous land army 
 of Xerxes was, they knew, entirely uninjured, except by the 
 loss of a trifling detachment cut off by Aristides on the islet 
 Psyttaleia, and of some leading officers who had taken part 
 in the sea-fight ; and even at sea the ships that had never 
 been engaged at all, or had escaped with little damage 
 to the station at Phalerum, were so numerous that the 
 allied commanders fully anticipated a renewed attack. The 
 moral victory, however, proved to have been more decisive 
 than the material itself not unimportant. It was not 
 so much that the troops and mariners of the invader 
 were seriously demoralised, as that Xerxes himself had 
 looked on in surprise and agitation at all the incidents 
 of the conflict. Even if the loss of his brother and the 
 slaughter of his personal friends before his eyes might not 
 have affected the nerves of the Great King to the degree 
 described by Aeschylus (Pers. 4/4), he could not but ob- 
 serve at what disadvantage his forces, for all their superior 
 numbers, fighting bravely as they might in the con- 
 sciousness of his immediate presence, had contended with 
 the patriotic enthusiasm, the order and skill of their op- 
 ponents. It might indeed seem that with power at his 
 
 c 2
 
 20 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 command which was still so preponderant, he could well 
 afford to strike another blow even at equal cost, a blow 
 which must have fallen with decisive disastrousness on the 
 smaller force of the Greeks. But the stanchness of his 
 Phoenician and Cilician forces was thoroughly discredited 
 by their behaviour in the battle ; the lonians could not 
 be trusted at a turn of fortune, and the better troops 
 whom he had embarked, having no opportunity for their 
 valour in a form of contest unknown to them, were 
 simply thrown away. The superiority of the Greeks on 
 their own element was too manifest and too serious for 
 the repetition of a venture that might jeopardize his own 
 personal safety; by one more such battle his. fleet might 
 be utterly disorganised and dispersed, and then the enemy, 
 established in full command of the sea and the straits, 
 could cut off his retreat from Europe, and even interpose 
 an obstacle to his return beyond, by inciting a general 
 Ionian insurrection. It was not because his private resolve 
 was not fixed at once, that his immediate commands implied 
 a purpose to remain and prosecute the enterprise without 
 intermission; preparation was to be made for another sea- 
 fight, and a project that had been mooted and perhaps 
 commenced before the battle, a familiar and favourite 
 Oriental expedient, was again spoken of; Phoenician trans- 
 port vessels were to be fastened together to form a bulwark 
 and floating pier, and a causeway was to be completed from 
 the mainland to the island of Salamis, the refuge of the 
 Athenian families and the storeplace of their property. 
 
 A show of consultation was then made with Mardonius, 
 son of Gobryas, the most eager instigator of the expedition, 
 and separately with the Carian Queen Artemisia, who had 
 already commanded the confidence of the King by the frank 
 independence of her counsel no less than by its wisdom. 
 
 1 Ctesios; and Strabo, ix. 573.
 
 i.] THE RESULTS OF SAL A MIS. 21 
 
 Both were forward to minister the desired advice. Mar- 
 donius especially had motives of his own for pressing 
 what he might easily divine was the only recommendation 
 that would be listened to; he had little inclination to be 
 responsible at home for the entire and disastrous failure of 
 his policy a failure which in truth it was as yet premature 
 to admit. The prospect of being left with a brilliant in- 
 dependent command, in the conduct of which he was not 
 unnaturally or unfairly still sanguine of success, was tempt- 
 ing; the more speedy and alarmed the flight of Xerxes the 
 larger the proportion of the army that he would be both 
 disposed and obliged to leave behind as an obstacle between 
 himself and the possible pursuit of the Greeks. As for Ar- 
 temisia, she had distinguished herself by remarkable bravery 
 in the battle; and even without insisting on the feminine 
 liability to excessive reaction after displays of unfeminine 
 vigour, we need not hesitate to infer that she was well 
 content to be now dismissed in honour. The Great King 
 consigned to her charge some of his illegitimate offspring, 
 and she loosed at once for Ephesus, where it was said 
 that primaeval Amazons had founded the great temple for 
 the goddess from whom this modern Amazon derived her 
 name. 
 
 The speeches which Herodotus assigns to the two coun- 
 sellors are excellent examples of his apt dramatic invention, 
 and curiously display how thoroughly a republican Greek of 
 his time could enter into the spirit of an absolute monarchy. 
 Xerxes is flattered and capable of being flattered by the sug- 
 gestion of an option, although the necessity for his flight 
 is a foregone conclusion, since both to his own conviction, 
 and to that of his advisers, an alternative of any kind is 
 out of the question. To soothe or seem to soothe his pride, 
 the losses that have been incurred are made light of when 
 set against the glorious and literal fulfilment of the purpose 
 of the expedition ; Athenian insolence and sacrilege at Sardis
 
 22 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 had found its threatened retribution in the capture of 
 Athens and the smoking ruins of its most sacred temples ; 
 losses, of whatever magnitude, that might ensue to the 
 avenging army, are treated as of little consequence in com- 
 parison with the all-important safety of the King ; Arte- 
 misia, with something different from the abasement of 
 sycophancy, in all the sympathetic candour of royalty in 
 secluded conference with royalty, adverts to the possible 
 destruction of Mardonius and his host as comparatively 
 of little consequence. 
 
 Among the ostensible reasons for the departure of the 
 King were some which told with equal cogency against the 
 further prosecution of the war; and these were made the 
 most of, especially by Artabazus son of Pharnaces, who had 
 opposed it from the very beginning. Mardonius however 
 carried his purpose by skilfully connecting it with conditions 
 of self-complacent comfort for the disheartened Xerxes, and 
 with the propriety and security of his speedy return. 
 
 Accordingly, at daybreak of apparently the day but one 
 after the l battle, the Persian army indeed was still seen 
 across the gulf in its place on land, but the Greeks discovered 
 that the hostile fleet had vanished from the harbour and 
 roadstead of Phalerum. Its destination and the full signifi- 
 cance of the move were at once divined. It had in fact 
 started during the night, and though dispersed for a time 
 off Cape Zoster, where jutting rocks so it was afterwards 
 believed were mistaken in the darkness for Greek ships, 
 had reassembled and was already in full course northwards 
 to secure the Hellespont. The Greek fleet put off in pursuit 
 with the utmost alacrity, and proceeded as far as the island 
 of Andros, where the sea-line was open northwards, but as 
 the chase was still not in sight, the commanders paused to 
 consider their further movements. 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 107.
 
 i.] THE RESULTS OF SALAMIS. 23 
 
 The Athenian crews in all the elation of success were 
 exasperated at the escape, and eager to go on, even against 
 the opinion of the allies, and even by themselves. Themis- 
 tocles was not likely to be less confident, or less eager 
 to make the most of the superiority of the fleet which he 
 had himself created ; and, as something more than their 
 mouthpiece, he was urgent in the same direction. He 
 pressed with all his influence for continuing the pursuit of 
 the fugitive navy, the annihilation of which was certainly 
 important, and in its present state of dispersion and demo- 
 ralisation presumably easy; and he held out the prospect of 
 intercepting the retreat of Xerxes and the land army by 
 breaking the much-talked-of bridge across the Hellespont, 
 and so remaining in command of the channel. The appa- 
 rently more astute policy of declining to offer an impediment 
 to the flight of a formidable enemy is assigned to the Spartan 
 Eurybiades, though Plutarch, writing with Herodotus before 
 him, prefers some other authority in ascribing it to Aristides. 
 To a Spartan at that time the mere remoteness of such an 
 expedition, and that by sea, would in itself be a sufficient 
 objection, even though not reinforced by the national maxim 
 which discouraged prolonged pursuit after a victory, or by 
 more refined considerations. The majority of the allies fell 
 in easily with the resolution to give no hindrance to the 
 evacuation of Europe by an army which, as they prematurely 
 flattered themselves, was as ready to retire as the fleet had 
 been, but which, if obliged to remain, must be driven, by the 
 necessity of obtaining subsistence, to perilous activity, and 
 had still sufficient force in reserve to overawe or subdue all 
 the cities and tribes of Hellas one after another. ' With the 
 command of the sea lost, retire he must, and it were best 
 to allow him to do so now, and continue the contest after- 
 wards on his ground instead of on our own. Plausible 
 as the project of crushing Asia in Europe might sound, 
 the King at the head of such an army would, if driven
 
 24 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 to extremity, rouse himself, and would not be content a 
 second time merely to look on, sitting in state under a gold 
 umbrella.' 
 
 Themistocles, constrained if not convinced, gave an ex- 
 ample of loyal deference to the alliance by bringing over 
 his reluctant countrymen. He quoted to them the proverbial 
 danger of provoking desperate men, hinted that as the dis- 
 aster of Xerxes was a manifestation of the angry grudge 
 of the gods at his impious over-confidence, so it would be 
 well for the Athenians and he touched here one of the most 
 sensitive of their superstitions to avoid giving like perilous 
 and presumptuous affront by assuming to be invincible ; it 
 was also urgent to attend to families, houses were to be 
 rebuilt and resettled, the harvest of next year at least to 
 be secured the present being lost by getting seed into 
 the ground, and after all spring would come round, and then 
 would be the time to deal with the Hellespont and Ionia. 
 
 But in fact the retreat of the Persian army was not yet 
 declared ; and it was not certain that Attica might not con- 
 tinue to be occupied as a base of further operations. It was 
 not many days however after the battle of Salamis before 
 this immediate apprehension found relief ; the confined and 
 closed-in Attica was not a district for such a host to remain 
 in now that failure of supplies and support by sea had put 
 further advance out of the question ; and its departure by 
 the same route that it came, in the direction of ' Boeotia, 
 revived in the Greeks the illusive hope of speedy and finnl 
 deliverance. 
 
 Xerxes himself, had he even been inclined to linger, 
 might have been hastened away by a secret message that 
 reached him from the Athenian commander. Themistocles, 
 overruled in his plan to cut off the retreat, fell back on the 
 next best policy to hasten it. With some reliance it would 
 seem on the simplicity of tho barbarian, he sent to him again 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 1 13.
 
 i.] TEE STRATAGEM OF THEMISTOCLES. 25 
 
 the same Sicinnus who had before carried the treacherous 
 warning- that precipitated a naval engagement just in time 
 for the salvation of the Greeks. The instrument was no doubt 
 well chosen, as his dexterous service was richly rewarded 
 afterwards, when Themistocles made the former pedagogue 
 of his children a well-endowed citizen of the resettled and 
 repeopled Thespiae. The liberation moreover at the same 
 time of a captured royal eunuch, Arnaces, was a personal 
 favour to the King, and supplied an independent witness 
 of the sincerity of the message and the reality of the peril 
 with which he had doubtless been sedulously impressed. 
 A boat's crew of faithful adherents, who might be fully 
 relied on to keep the secret of the mission, even under 
 torture, conveyed the agent to the shore of Attica. The 
 communication which he bore was to the effect that The- 
 mistocles, the Athenian commander, out of desire to be 
 serviceable to the King, had succeeded in restraining the 
 Greeks from their eagerness to pursue his fleet and cut the 
 bridge of the Hellespont, and that he could now draw off in 
 perfect security. We may assume that this tranquillizing 
 assurance was qualified by some intimation of the precarious 
 nature of the restraint which Themistocles could exercise, 
 and would thus be calculated rather to enhance the appre- 
 hension of the King. The Persian was only too well accus- 
 tomed to receive very valuable aid from Greek treachery, but 
 had not learnt to suspect still further treachery beneath. 
 
 So far therefore, Athenians and allies, Spartans and Per- 
 sians, believed alike that they had reason to applaud The- 
 mistocles, who, himself a serviceable friend, had too lively 
 a sense of the advantages which he and his country might 
 derive from enthusiastic and powerful friends, to neglect 
 to provide them beforehand, or to use or abuse them pre- 
 maturely. That he may have designed to confirm the previous 
 confidence of the Great King in his sympathy, for future as 
 well as present use. as it did indeed afterwards stand him
 
 26 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 in good stead, is probable enough; but his caution in ren- 
 dering his country this service only implies that he knew 
 how his countrymen, if it came to their knowledge, might 
 misunderstand or misrepresent it; that the establishment 
 of a personal claim was his sole or his main object, it were 
 absurd to suppose. 
 
 In a cruise with his victorious fleet among the islands, 
 Themistocles now commenced a system of requisitions, in- 
 dependent, not merely, of the participation, but even of the 
 knowledge of the commanders of the allies, and, as Herodo- 
 tus implies, very considerably also for his private advantage. 
 No time was lost therefore in giving notice of the lofty 
 pretensions of maritime Athens ; his demands were made 
 in the name of Athens, and Athens alone ; and whether 
 simply on the ground of fitting contribution to the common 
 cause, or as penalty for aid rendered to the Mede by the cities 
 or by individual citizens, and for the delivery at his summons, 
 by almost all, of earth and water, as tokens of submission 
 those demands were backed by threats which his Authority 
 and the force at his command made in most cases imme- 
 diately effectual. The Andrians were curtly informed by his 
 messenger, that the Athenians had with them two potent" 
 divinities, Persuasion and Compulsion, and that on the terms 
 of one or the other they must needs pay. The Andrians, 
 however, felt themselves secure enough within their walls 
 to retort that these goddesses, serviceable as they were, 
 would avail nothing against a pair not less unserviceable, 
 Poverty and Inability impersonations already coupled in 
 the poetry of Alcaeus as 1 sisters and that pay they would 
 not. The island was beset by the fleet, and the demon- 
 stration at least brought in considerable sums from other 
 quarters, from Pares and Euboea certainly, and, as He- 
 rodotus believed, from elsewhere. The Parians thus bought 
 themselves off, but the Carystians of Euboea were less 
 
 ' aeuc, xcvii. 17 ; Bergk, 90.
 
 i.] THE STRATAGEM OF THEMISTOCLES. 27 
 
 fortunate, and, by what ^disarrangement does not appear, 
 incurred devastation of their territory all the same, when 
 the fleet, relinquishing the attempt against Andros, was on 
 its return to Salamis. 
 
 It is perfectly consistent with what is known of The- 
 mistocles that his own fortune was increased by the proceeds 
 of these exactions ; it would be less than justice to assume 
 that no larger share of the benefit accrued to the service 
 of the state, of which the necessities consequent on cost of 
 war, on devastation and expatriation, must have been most 
 urgent. It was quite in his way, as he had shown before 
 the battle of 1 Artemisium, to take bribes with the left hand 
 for patriotic services with the right. 
 
 Re-assembled at Salamis, the first care of the Greeks was 
 to select three of the captured Phoenician vessels for dedica- 
 tion to the gods, to whom by vicinity or special appeal their 
 victory was peculiarly ascribed. One was dedicated at the 
 Isthmus, presumably to Poseidon, and was seen there by 
 Herodotus ; another to Athene, on the promontory of Sunium ; 
 and a third to Ajax, but this not at Aegina, whence the 
 Aeacid had been summoned to aid, but at Salamis, closer 
 to the scene of victory, and the town from which the hero 
 had led twelve ships against Troy, and there ' stationed them,' 
 according to the line suspected of being interpolated for 
 a political intent, 'alongside the Athenians.' 
 
 The divine share of the spoil was then distributed ; from 
 the prime of it the Greeks dedicated at Delphi a statue of 
 2 Apollo, twelve cubits high, holding the prow of a ship. 
 It stands, says Herodotus, with a particularity that marks 
 the already crowded state of the precinct, near the golden 
 Alexander of Macedon. This Delphic statue was probably 
 of bronze, like the Zeus at Olympia, which Pausanias men- 
 tions in the same passage as another dedication of which we 
 shall hear more from the Medica. 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 4. 2 Pausan. x. 14. 3.
 
 28 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 The silver-footed throne from which Xerxes had watched 
 the battle on the height above the shore was catalogued 
 among the treasures of the Athenian acropolis under Pericles, 
 but probably was spoil of a later conflict. 
 
 Meanwhile, whatever sanguine hopes might have been 
 formed that the retirement of the invadeis implied their final 
 departure, were speedily undeceived, and the news of the halt 
 of the main body was promptly followed by that of renewed 
 preparations to complete the subjugation of the Greeks. 
 
 There is no appearance that the Persian hold even on 
 Boeotia was relaxed, and a pause which was made by the King 
 in Thessaly, and his departure northwards shortly afterwards 
 with a strong escort, would not be known much sooner than 
 the sure signs that the principal danger was still impending 
 over Hellas, ' like the stone of 2 Tantalus.' 
 
 It was during this halt, if we are to believe Herodotus, as 
 I doubt not that we may, that an application was made to 
 Xerxes which, strange as it sounds to modern ears, would not 
 have been recorded had it seemed so extravagant to a Greek 
 of the time ; and that is not more strange than many of the 
 old world notions that are perfectly authenticated as then still 
 lingering, especially at Sparta. A herald of the Spartans 
 presented himself at Larissa, and formally demanded of the 
 Great King satisfaction for the slaughter of their King 
 Leonidas, ' slain by Medes while defending Hellas.' Xerxes 
 not unnaturally laughed, and at first made no reply ; then 
 presently, pointing to Mardonius, who was standing by him, 
 he said, ' Here is the man, Mardonius, who shall render them 
 satisfaction of such kind as is fitting.' The herald accepted 
 the answer, and returned to report it. He had been despatched 
 in haste in obedience to a Delphic oracle, which was afterwards 
 believed to have enjoined acquiescence in whatever reply the 
 application provoked, and was credited with anticipating an 
 
 1 Schol. Time. ii. 13. a Pindar, Isth. vii. 11.
 
 i.] THE STRATAGEM OF THEMISTOCLES. 29 
 
 involuntary and significant presage of the defeat and death of 
 Mardonius at Plataea. 
 
 The ample powers committed to Mardonius might reason- 
 ably make him confident of ultimate success in the enter- 
 prise of which, in the face of ardent opposition, he had 
 originally been the chief adviser. He was allowed to retain 
 all the best troops, consisting for the most part of Persians 
 and Medes in equal numbers the latter, however, of inferior 
 account ; he retained all the Sakae, Bactrians, and Indians, 
 both horse and foot, and picked men from all the other tribes, 
 including Aethiopians and Egyptians whom he had with- 
 drawn at Phalerum from the fighting armament of the Phoe- 
 nician l galleys. The Persian Immortals all remained with 
 him, though their commander Hydarnes declined to quit the 
 King. Of the retained army as many as 60,000 men were 
 to be detached to accompany Xerxes until he was safe in Asia, 
 and then rejoin. This important body was under command 
 of Artabazus son of Pharnaces, previously named as a leader 
 of the Parthians and Chorasmians, who would fain have made 
 the withdrawal from Southern Hellas definitive and total, and 
 was now submitting only perforce and most reluctantly to 
 the superior influence of Mardonius. The later consequences 
 of this disagreement, combined with his military influence, 
 which would of necessity be confirmed by so important an 
 independent command, were momentous. 
 
 The resumption of operations southwards was necessarily 
 deferred until the ensuing spring; by that time the troops 
 that conducted Xerxes could return, and Thessaly meanwhile, 
 where the Aleuad Thorax of Larissa was still zealous for the 
 expedition that he had done so much to invite, and the 
 nearer district of 2 Macedonia, afforded undisturbed winter 
 quarters, and the best opportunity of providing subsistence 
 for a renewed campaign. 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 31. 3 Id. via. 126.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE RETREAT OF XERXES. ARTABAZUS IN THRACE. 
 
 THEMISTOCLES AT SPARTA. 
 
 480 B.C. ; 01. 75. I. 
 
 XERXES, we are told, reached the Hellespont in five and forty 
 days, and as the term is manifestly mentioned to emphasise 
 his precipitate haste, it seems that we must reckon it from 
 Attica and the day of Salamis. The date of this can only 
 be fixed generally as in the autumn, but the retreat appears 
 to have been late enough in the year for at least some of the 
 fugitives to suffer considerably by the incipient, perhaps pre- 
 mature, inclemency of the Thracian winter. 
 
 On arriving at Siris in Paeonia, Xerxes found that the 
 sacred chariot, which he had deposited there on his way 
 south, was not again forthcoming. The historian, finding, 
 as usual with him, a Greek name for a foreign divinity, calls 
 it the chariot of Zeus ; he notes l elsewhere that the Zeus 
 of the Persians was the general circle of the heavens. It was 
 never ascended by man, but in the pomp of the army was 
 drawn vacant before the King by eight white Nisaean horses 
 and preceded by ten others. Doubtless it is to be regarded as 
 properly the chariot of the sun ; and this sacred character 
 explains its disappearance in this particular locality as due to 
 something beyond common sacrilegious rapine. The traces 
 of a native solar and planetary worship are peculiarly per- 
 sistent in this region, and among them this very symbol of a 
 chariot with white horses is at home. 
 
 1 Herod, i. 131.
 
 THE RETREAT OF XERXES. 31 
 
 In Homer the Paeonians, of a somewhat more western seat 
 on the Axius, appear under the leadership of Asteropaeus and 
 Pyraechmes, significant names when we read in independent 
 authorities that the Paeonians worshipped the sun, of which 
 their symbol was a small disk on a high l rod. 
 
 If there could be any doubt as to the original source of 
 the legend of the chariot and white horses of Thracian 
 Rhesus, son of Ei'on, E'ion at the mouth of the Strymon, 
 it should be dispelled by Nestor's comparison of the steeds, 
 as Diomed and Ulysses are bringing them in through the 
 night, to the solar 2 beams. The Magians of the expedi- 
 tion of Xerxes, by sacrificing white horses to the Strymon, 
 had recognised the genius and traditions of the 3 locality. 
 
 The Thracians gave the sun the name or the epithet Zeux- 
 ippus, and it is as ' lovers of horses ' that the Thracians of the 
 Tereus of Sophocles invoke the ' holy radiance of the sun/ 
 
 Thracians were now in any case in surreptitious possession 
 of the Persian sacred chariot and its white horses, stolen from 
 their custody, as the Paeonians professed, by the remoter 
 tribes about the sources of the Strymon, but purposely 
 transferred to them according to the belief of Herodotus. 
 
 The persistence of local characteristics seems curiously 
 illustrated by an anecdote of barbarism that the historian 
 next details the blinding by a Thracian king of his dis- 
 obedient sons. We are checked in an inclination to disallow 
 it as a mere reflection from the mythical atrocities of Thracian 
 Phineus, by remembering how unnatural cruelty of the like 
 type repeats itself afterwards, as if ineradicably native to the 
 region, in the chambers of Byzantine emperors. 
 
 Xerxes, then, reached the Straits with extraordinary speed, 
 and it may be, as regards his immediate escort, with compa- 
 rative immunity ; but the route was marked by the falling-out 
 of the stragglers and the sick, whom it was a mere formality 
 
 1 Max. Tyr. Dies. viii. c. 8. 2 /Had, x. 547. 
 
 3 Herod, vii. 113.
 
 32 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 to command the exhausted cities on the line of march to tend 
 and nourish. It fared necessarily still worse with the vast 
 crowds that had been mustered originally in a spirit of 
 barbaric display of power, and that Mardonius neither cared 
 to retain nor to provide for the least effective, the least 
 healthy, with whatever supernumeraries and camp followers 
 could only remain as an encumbrance. The sufferings of these 
 had commenced even before Thessaly was attained. The diffi- 
 culty of feeding the effective force and of filling its magazines 
 for the prospective campaign was relieved by abandoning the 
 ineffective to what chances they had of providing for them- 
 selves unaided against such competitors for failing food and 
 forage. 
 
 Herodotus tells how, when all stores were exhausted, the 
 growing crops were snatched from the ground, and the 
 famished hordes were at length driven to devour grass 
 and the bark and leaves of trees without distinction, culti- 
 vated or wild, ' and they left nothing ; ' the work of famine 
 being followed up, as ever in such cases, by dysentery and 
 pestilence. 
 
 Not poetry itself can heighten the horrors of such a 
 retreat. Imagination indeed, drawing from its own re- 
 sources, is even more likely to match the truth than are 
 the prosaic details gathered by an historian. According to 
 Aeschylus, scarcity of water was already fatal in Boeotia, 
 and even insufficiency of clothing during inclement and un- 
 sheltered nights, no doubt especially with the tribes coming 
 from such climates as that of India, and even others. Still 
 more fatal were the combined effects of hunger and thirst in 
 Thessaly, and even more deadly pestilence as they went on. 
 By the time Thrace was reached, at least by some lagging 
 portion of the wretched fugitives, the nights were cold 
 enough to cover the Strymon, or possibly some other river 
 eastward of l Pangaeus, with ice strong enough to bear an 
 
 1 Aeflch. Pereae.
 
 ii.] THE RETREAT OF XERXES. 33 
 
 assistance for the moment ; but the very sun-god of the 
 locality seemed in league against the unhappy train upon 
 the way so treacherously shortened. Those who passed early 
 were saved ; but, as day advanced, ' the bright circle of the 
 sun, ablaze with beams, warmed the ford with fire, and split 
 it in the midst happiest then he who was first to perish.' 
 Of those left behind, and who had to make a long circuit 
 through Thrace, few ever reached their native land. Hasty 
 and uncontrolled indulgence in more abundant food as soon 
 as it was obtainable, and it is especially noticed substitu- 
 tion of other drink for water, caused large fatality even after 
 Asia was regained. 
 
 Another story, in itself improbable enough, was current, 
 that Xerxes embarked for Asia in a Phoenician ship at E'ion 
 on the Strymon ; it was told apparently for the sake of an 
 illustration, one out of several of the kind, of the cruel and 
 irrational punctilios of the court of an Asiatic despot. The 
 ship, so went the tale, was endangered by a storm, overladen 
 as it was with Persians of high rank. The ship-master, 
 appealed to by the alarmed Xerxes, declared that the only 
 hope of escape was to lighten it of passengers. The Per- 
 sians were at once advertised by the King of the opportu- 
 nity for their services, and at once making their parting 
 prostrations, they one after another, as if still with observ- 
 ance of due precedence, leaped into the sea. The first act 
 of Xerxes upon landing in safety was to reward the ship- 
 master for saving the royal life, and the next to have his 
 head struck off for causing the destruction of so many 
 Persians. The conditions of giving wise advice to a tyrant 
 here are essentially the same as are illustrated in the subject 
 of the Council of Darius on the Naples vase. The counsellor 
 there stands on the golden plinth which he will receive as 
 reward for his advice with, however, a scourging for his 
 presumption in offering 1 it. Herodotus discredits the story, 
 
 1 Aelian and Ctesias. 
 D
 
 34 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 on the ground that the Phoenician rowers would have been 
 sacrificed in preference ; and so leaves us to debate whether 
 he could have overlooked the enhanced peril of a storm-tossed 
 galley when reft of oarsmen, or what escape he could imagine 
 from it. A more reasonable objection, provided in his refer- 
 ence to the local tradition of the Abderites, that Xerxes passed 
 through their city on his return, only invalidates the statement 
 of his port of embarkation. The further tradition of Abdera, 
 that it was there that the King first loosened zone after 
 quitting Athens, may be taken as expressing at least the state 
 of discomposure in which he arrived. The fleet which had 
 retired, or rather escaped, from Salamis and the Saronic 
 Gulf, duly reached the Hellespont, where it was the more 
 needed as the bridge had already been carried away by storms, 
 and there aided the transit of the King and some incon- 
 siderable bodies of troops and stragglers. It then retired for 
 the winter to the coast of Asia Minor most of the ships to 
 Cumae, the rest to the harbour of Samos, where the Samian 
 Theomestor, son of Androdamas, in requital of good service 
 done at Salamis, was established by the Persian in the autho- 
 rity of Tyrant that is, under such circumstances, of Satrap. 
 
 Artabazus, having so far accomplished his task and seen 
 the King in safety, turned his face, however unwillingly, 
 again westward, along with his large force, to rejoin Mar- 
 donius and the main army. On his way he halted at the 
 Chalcidic peninsula, on the eastern side of the Thermaic gulf. 
 From thence he could move south in time for operations in 
 spring, and could meanwhile more conveniently obtain sub- 
 sistence for his forces; he had there also the opportunity to 
 repress in the interval some examples of defection which, if 
 neglected, might spread, and compromise communications of 
 which he best knew the precariousness, and was well disposed 
 to forbode the coming need. 
 
 Potidaea, on the isthmus of the fertile peninsula of Pallene, 
 was already in declared, and Olynthus, in less secure position,
 
 ii.] ARTABA.ZUS IN THRACE. 35 
 
 suspected as on the verge of revolt. The latter town was 
 occupied by Bottiaeans, who had been driven eastward from 
 the Thermaic gulf by Macedonian encroachment, and as a 
 lately Hellenised, or at best semi-Hellenic l tribe, and perhaps 
 from the circumstances of their settlement, seem to have 
 been out of sympathy with their immediate neighbours. 
 Olynthus was in consequence attacked by Artabazus, and on 
 its capture the inhabitants were carried out into an adjacent 
 marsh and there massacred, as a measure preparatory to the 
 delivery of the town into the keeping of Critobulus of Torone, 
 on the adjacent Sithonian peninsula, and to the introduction 
 of a Chalcidic population. In this manner, says Herodotus, 
 Olynthus which was destined to a conspicuous place in later 
 history became, like its neighbours, Chalcidic. 
 
 With Potidaea the Persians had far different fortune. This 
 city which also we shall soon hear of again was a Co- 
 rinthian colony, and named from the god Poseidon, who, in 
 colony as in metropolis, could look down from his temple 
 upon a sea on either hand. The towns within the peninsula 
 contributed to the defence of Potidaea, which, by its position 
 as a bar to the Isthmus, was the bulwark of their own im- 
 munity. But the severity of the treatment of Olynthus, 
 while it nerved resistance generally, was calculated to make 
 some timid traitors. In the course of the siege a citizen was 
 struck in the shoulder by an arrow, and the bystanders who 
 hastened to his assistance found that the shaft was laden 
 with a missive, which had been intended for traitorous hands. 
 It was at once taken to the generals, who were thus put on 
 their guard against a clandestine correspondence carried on 
 by Timoxeinus, commander of their Scionaean allies, which 
 might otherwise have had serious consequences. The warning 
 had its value, though, for some unexplained politic tenderness 
 to Scione, the matter was hushed up. At last, after three 
 
 1 Plut. Thcscns, 6 ; Graec. Q. 35 : Strabo, vi. 3 ; ii. 6. 
 D 2
 
 36 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 months of urgent but vain siege, an unusually low ebb of 
 the sea appeared to furnish Artabazus with an opportunity 
 of turning the defences and penetrating into Pallene by land. 
 Two out of five divisions intended for the service had passed 
 through the shoal water, and the others were on their way, 
 when the sea returned in flood of a volume which natives said 
 was of the very rarest occurrence. Those who were unable to 
 swim perished at once, the remainder fell by the hands of the 
 besieged, who sallied upon them in boats. The Potidaeans 
 naturally recognised a special interposition of their god to 
 avenge the desecration of his temple and statue by the Per- 
 sians in the suburbs ; ' and so saying,' adds Herodotus, ' to 
 my mind they say well.' Upon this failure Artabazus drew 
 off, and marched in due time with the survivors of his forces 
 to join Mardonius in Thessaly. 
 
 Meanwhile the confederate Greeks had been occupied in 
 the partition of the spoils, and, which was a far more delicate 
 matter, the honours, of their victory. In the division of the 
 spoil the Aristeia were assigned to the Aeginetans as a 
 nation, the Athenians obtaining only the second place; of 
 Aeginetan individuals, Polycritus was placed first, of Athe- 
 nians, Eumenes and Ameinias (of the deme Pallene accord- 
 ing to 1 Herodotus, of Decelea according to Plutarch), 
 whom Diodorus affirms to have been a brother of Aes- 
 chylus. The poet in the 2 Persae marks the exploit of 
 Ameinias in commencing the battle with noteworthy em- 
 phasis ; his suppression of the name cannot be taken as an 
 argument either way. For this pre-eminence of Aegina the 
 Delphic oracle afterwards demanded a special acknowledg- 
 ment, which was rendered by the island in the form of a 
 dedicated bronze mast with three golden stars, symbolical 
 perhaps of Apollo, Artemis, and Latona, though with equal 
 probability of Dionysus, Apollo, and Artemis. The animus 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 84. a 415 417.
 
 ii.] ARTABAZUS IN THRACE. 37 
 
 of the inspirers of the oracle to confer divine sanction on 
 a questionable adjudication is less equivocal. A further 
 illustration of Delphic partisanship occurred in the rejection 
 of a dedication of Median spoils offered by Themistocles on 
 his own account. 
 
 The precedence assigned in such a manner to Aegina 
 above its ancient rival, and of late threatening and en- 
 croaching enemy, Athens, could not but tend to strengthen 
 and revive the acerbity of a party feeling to which the Athe- 
 nians afterwards take credit to themselves for being Superior. 
 The Spartans, whose influence was also predominant at Delphi, 
 might naturally be inclined towards Aeginetans as fellow- 
 Dorians, rather than to Ionian Athens ; but to indulge such, 
 feelings now, and under such relative circumstances, was to 
 take sides in a quarrel that had been nobly set aside in a 
 moment of common peril, and which it would have been well 
 to consider as extinguished for ever. Themistocles had been 
 earnest before the war in urging his countrymen to establish 
 a decided naval predominance over Aegina, with ulterior views 
 that were not less alarming because undefined ; and he had 
 made the most of every pretext, and some fair ones had not 
 been wanting, to impute to the commercial islanders a dispo- 
 sition to Medism ; Aeginetan citizens had certainly struggled 
 nobly to purge their country of the charge, but, as there was 
 a serious slight implied to Athens in subordinating her ser- 
 vices to those of Aegina, so the selection for the personal prize 
 of valour of precisely that Aeginetan who in the midst of the 
 fight had upbraided Themistocles as a false 2 accuser, was not 
 likely to soften the sentiments of the powerful Athenian 
 towards his country. 
 
 Themistocles was to experience another rebuff, when the 
 Greeks, after the division of the spoil, sailed to the Isthmus 
 solemnly to adjudge the prize to him who had deserved best, 
 
 1 Tbuc. i. 74. 2 Herod, viii. 93.
 
 38 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CIIAP. 
 
 not in the recent battle, but in the war at large. There 
 on the altar of Poseidon the assembled generals of the con- 
 federate states deposited votes for the first and second in 
 desert. Examination of the ballots showed that each voter 
 had received one, presumably his own, for the first prize ; as 
 none had the requisite majority, the ballot for this was void, 
 and with it, apparently as a consequence, that for the second, 
 which by a large majority was due to Themistocles. And so 
 the congress separated. Themistocles, however, immediately 
 on its breaking up, proceeded direct to Sparta, and there, by 
 a strangely sudden revulsion, of which we look in vain for 
 an explanation, received compensation for the slight inflicted 
 by the general congress, in honours such as Sparta had never 
 before conferred on a l foreigner. 
 
 The most indulgent conclusion to draw from this vehement 
 demonstration would seem to be, either that the sentiments 
 of Sparta, however declared, had not told upon votes when 
 delivered by secret ballot, or that the result of it was in fact 
 arranged on account of the difficulty of bringing into com- 
 parison the claims of Themistocles and Eurybiades, and in 
 order to avoid preferring either before the other. At Sparta 
 the same difficulty did not exist ; there, at home and among 
 his own countrymen, Eurybiades had the first and rightful 
 claim to the olive crown which he was the first to receive 
 from them ; a like crown was then assigned to Themistocles ; 
 and so exceptional was such an honour from Sparta to a 
 stranger, that no derogation was implied in his receiving it 
 after their own countryman. That it was distinctly assigned 
 in recognition of sagacity and dexterous management might 
 enhance its value to him, and would carry no offence to the 
 Spartan. 
 
 But, making all allowance for a truly enthusiastic and 
 generous recognition of the services of Themistocles, some- 
 
 1 Thuc. i. 74.
 
 ii.] THEMISTOCLES AT SPARTA, 39 
 
 thing still remains to be accounted for by the ordinary 
 laws of unusual and extravagant gratitude, when we read 
 that he received at his departure the handsomest chariot 
 Sparta could provide, and, after abundant eulogiums, was 
 conducted to the frontiers an honour entirely without pre- 
 cedent by the chosen troop of three hundred mounted 
 Spartans. It had, in fact, become apparent by this time that 
 the liberation of Greece was not completed by the victory 
 of Salamis. The fleet of Athens, not to say the talent of 
 her general, could ill be spared if the conflict, the gravity 
 of which had now been brought home, was to go on ; and 
 the influence of Themistocles with his countrymen, unless 
 his sympathies, irritated like theirs by the invidious pre- 
 cedence voted to Aegina, were soothed and conciliated to 
 Greece by the glory he loved, might be diverted to a project 
 which, already significantly mooted, had probably found some 
 serious reception, namely, the entire withdrawal of the fleet, 
 and the transference of the population of Attica, dispossessed 
 and insulted as it now was, to new seats in Italy. 
 
 At a less critical time serious danger might have been in- 
 curred among jealous fellow-citizens by Athenians, who could 
 harbour permanent resentment against the appearance of very 
 moderate assumption even in Miltiades. As it was, the cavil 
 that was one day to ruin him came from an insignificant 
 quarter, and was lightly thrown aside with his ever prompt 
 facility of sharp retort. Timodemus, of the deme Aphidnae, 
 gained little by his carping sneer, that it was on account of 
 Athens, and not of himself, that he had been so honoured in 
 Lacedaemon. ' Exactly so,' was the reply ; ' and had I be- 
 longed to the islet Belbinis I should have had as little respect 
 from the Spartans as you and men like you command, Athe- 
 nian though you 1 are.' Certain however it is that the name 
 of Themistocles does for a time somewhat unexpectedly lapse 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 125.
 
 40 HISOTRY OF GREECE. 
 
 from the story ; though the fact that Xanthippus, father of 
 Pericles, next appears in command of the fleet may be simply 
 due to the Athenian rule of succession in command, and not 
 in itself be any confirmation of the statement of Diodorus, 
 which may only express an inference, that Themistocles was 
 superseded through popular discontent at these personal 
 glories.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MARDONIUS IN BOEOTIA AND ATTICA. SPIRIT AND TEMPER 
 OF ATHENIANS AND SPARTANS. 
 
 B.C. 479, Spring ; 01. 75. I. 
 
 THE approach of spring-, says Herodotus, and the presence 
 of Mardonius in Thessaly, roused the Greeks to renewed 
 activity. The mustering of their land force was a matter of 
 time; but no ships were assembled early at Aegina under 
 the Spartan Heracleid king Leotychides, as General Com- 
 mander and Admiral Xanthippus, son of Ariphron, being 
 Commander of the Athenians. The first incident here was 
 the arrival of envoys from Ionia, eager to concert an imme- 
 diate attempt for its liberation. The envoys themselves were 
 men who had planned to revolutionize Chios by the assassin- 
 ation of Strattis, who had been established there as tyrant by 
 the Persians since the time of the expedition of Darius to the 
 1 Danube. Foiled by the treachery of an associate, the con- 
 spirators escaped and made straight for Sparta, and now came 
 on to the fleet to urge an instant movement on Ionia. One 
 of their number, says the historian, was Herodotus, the son 
 of Basilei'des, who is evidently distinguished in this way from 
 the rest for some particular reason. It is plausibly conjectured 
 that he was a relative of the writer, his namesake; it may 
 be said, perhaps as plausibly, that from him may have come 
 direct the pettish complaint and sarcasm that it was with 
 great difficulty they could induce the fleet to advance even 
 
 1 Herod, iv. 138.
 
 42 U 1 STORY OF GREECE. [CIIAP. 
 
 as far as Delos, ' for everything beyond was alarming to the 
 Hellenes, who, unacquainted with the localities, fancied that 
 all were crowded with hostile forces; and as to Samos, the 
 station of the Persian fleet, conceived it to be as distant as the 
 Pillars of Hercules. So that it came to this : the barbarians 
 were too much out of heart to sail further westward than 
 Samos, and the Hellenes would not move at the solicitation 
 of the Chians further eastward than Delos, and fear occu- 
 pied the interval between them.' In every word we catch 
 the tones of the desperate and disappointed exile. The im- 
 putation attaches principally to the Spartan as Admiral, and, 
 thus read, glances fairly at the home-keeping habits of the 
 Lacedaemonians, and their systematic aversion so strange to 
 the maritime lonians to enterprises beyond the sea. The 
 wild projects of Aristagoras might not unreasonably be dis- 
 missed by Spartans upon mere statement of their geographical 
 1 scope, but even the Mitylenians, though much later, and 
 more moderate in their request, have to apologise, in soliciting 
 their aid, for the remoteness of 2 Lesbos. 
 
 This is one of the occasions when Herodotus seems to speak 
 of the Dorians as the Hellenes distinctively, and so far in 
 consistency with his explicit theory, that that term as com- 
 monly applied comprised a number of tribes, which had only 
 become secondarily hellenised by constant intercourse or sub- 
 jugation, and included even the Athenians who were in truth 
 principally a contrasted Pelasgian stock, and others far less 
 cognate than they. 
 
 There was now, however, sufficient reason why both the 
 Athenian and Spartan commanders should be content not to 
 proceed beyond an intermediate position of guard and ob- 
 servation, and to consider a movement upon Ionia premature. 
 No success in this quarter could affect the impending conflict 
 between the land forces, which must needs be decided on 
 
 1 Herod, v. 50. 3 Thuc. iii. 13.
 
 in.] MARDONIUS IN BOEOTIA AND ATTICA. 43 
 
 Grecian soil. The mere weakening of the fleet, even in a 
 successful conflict, would be disastrous, and might leave the 
 coasts of Peloponnesus exposed to a descent. The Persian 
 fleet seemed inclined to keep quiet at present, and nothing 
 better could be desired. The enemy were, in fact, concen- 
 trated at Samos with 300 ships, including some lonians ; the 
 fighting crews of most were Persians and Medes, and so, to 
 judge by their names, were the commanders also Mardontes 
 son of Bagaius, Artayntes son of Artachaeus, and his relative 
 Ithamitres. On their part they were chiefly concerned to 
 overawe Ionia, were quite indisposed to risk another collision 
 by moving westward, having indeed received neither summons 
 nor command to do so, and only discussed plans and pro- 
 jects while they waited with impatience for news of the more 
 hopeful action of Mardonius. 
 
 In the council of Mardonius there was a mixture of 
 native Greek and Persian elements less divided in interests 
 than in opinions and predilections, as to the policy that 
 would best promote them. 
 
 Mardonius himself, as we have seen, was perfectly out of 
 sympathy with Artabazus, the next most important Persian 
 in the expedition, and leaned in preference on the Theban or 
 Thessalian oligarchs, who, however they might differ as to 
 the mode of prosecuting the war, were at least as eager for 
 success as himself, and had a knowledge of the country and 
 of the characteristics of his opponents, to which, since he had 
 learned to distinguish and respect them, he found himself 
 under obligation to defer. But he did so still with some 
 impatience and some wavering. His own desire was for 
 instant, dashing, brilliant action. He had all the barbarian 
 confidence in masses, he was proud of his position at the 
 head of an army splendidly equipped, which, numerous as 
 it l was, and recently increased by levies from Thrace, 
 
 1 Diod. xi. 38.
 
 44 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Macedonia, and the Medising cities, comprised selections of 
 all arms from an immensely larger number. He had as 
 yet witnessed no fair defeat of the veterans of his own race, 
 and had sincerely represented his own conviction when he 
 assured Xerxes that Salamis was lost by landsmen being 
 set to cope on the sea with sailors, and by the cowardice 
 of a mob of Phoenicians, Egyptians, Syrians, and Cilicians. 
 The Thebans, on the other hand, had serious mistrust 
 of even the best of the Orientals as opposed to the Greek 
 hoplite, and had seen enough to judge well the material 
 of which each was made. Preponderant as the numbers of 
 the Persians therefore might be in any case, they knew that 
 the fewer their opponents the better ; they would deem no 
 delay tedious that might serve to divide them, and had their 
 own opinions how this was to be done : they especially urged 
 Mardonius to be lavish in bribes to the men in power in the 
 several states ; he would in this way break Hellas asunder, be 
 in possession of all their counsels without trouble, and easily 
 subdue the obstinate by aid of the factious. To this party 
 of councillors we may also trace the politic skill with which 
 the machinery of oracles and prophecies was set in motion to 
 act upon the general Greek mind, and indeed with a certain" 
 degree of effect to control and hamper Mardonius himself. So 
 the Pisistratids had, in the first instance, made use of the 
 prophetic reputation of the soothsayer Onomacritus to decide 
 Xerxes for the expedition, and had found the man not the less 
 fit for their purposes because in earlier days he had been ex- 
 pelled by Hipparchus from Athens as a detected forger, a 
 fraudulent interpolator of the oracles of Musaeus, which he 
 was professing to arrange. The Athenians were of all the 
 Greeks peculiarly apt to be worked upon by superstition pre- 
 sented in this form, their orators continued to appeal in all 
 gravity to the prejudice, even while it was a standing joke 
 upon the comic stage, and it was upon the Athenians that 
 the first attempts were to be 'made towards breaking up the
 
 in.] MARDONIUS IN BOEOTIA AND ATTICA. 45 
 
 confederation. The Theban oracles of Ismenian Apollo and of 
 Amphiaraus were consulted, the first by the medium of priests, 
 interpreters of sacrifices, the latter through dreams invited by 
 sleep upon skins of victims within the sacred precincts. At 
 the temple of Ptoau Apollo, on lake Copais, three citizens were 
 chosen to accompany the Carian agent of the Persian into the 
 fane and write down the response ; it was a tale of the The- 
 ban s which proves at any rate a sense of mystification in the 
 transactions, that the oracle was delivered in a language un- 
 intelligible to them, and that the Carian, snatching the tablet 
 from their hands, wrote it hastily down, and carried it off 
 to Thessaly. Trophonius was consulted in his cave, even as 
 he was by the traveller Pausanias long after the Christian 
 aera, and the Phocian oracle at Abae. Herodotus never 
 heard the particular enquiries or responses, and he says 
 nothing in this place of an application to Delphi ; but 
 at a fitting time Mardonius had a Delphic oracle also to 
 propound, couched in terms which, but that the instincts 
 of impostors have ever the same source of inspiration, might 
 have been imitated by an astrologer of Louis the Eleventh. 
 
 The reception of oracles from such sources was followed 
 naturally by the initiation of intrigues in the spirit of the 
 Medising Greeks. Money, destined for the hands of men 
 in power in the various cities, found its way into the l Pe- 
 loponnesus; but there is no positive evidence that it was 
 to be credited with any of the dilatoriness which caused 
 so much difficulty later, but might be due to other familiar 
 causes. Against the Argives alone, who had all along refused 
 to give aid to Hellas against the Mede, being jealous of 
 Sparta on much the same grounds as the Thebans of Athens, 
 is there any charge of directly abetting the later attempt of 
 the invader. Even they only send information of but little 
 value, although certainly in terms which imply that they had 
 
 1 Diod. si. 28.
 
 46 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 engaged, and no doubt had been paid for engaging, to do 
 much more. 
 
 The temptations which were held out to the Athenians to 
 desert the cause were more substantial and important ; and 
 to men who were incapable of understanding the enthusiasm 
 of free nationality and honour, might well seem to promise 
 a result. Attica had been ravaged once, and renewed invasion 
 threatened the loss of a second, probably in any case but 
 scanty, harvest, and the country was now again exposed to 
 the first attack of overwhelming forces, and might expect to 
 remain the cross-road and intermediate fighting-ground of all 
 the l armies. The heartburnings caused by the votes at Salamis 
 and the Isthmus could not be unknown northwards, any more 
 than the high hand and ambitious pretensions of the city, 
 which were not only unchecked, but even still further ex- 
 cited, by recent events. Some hints of covert intimations to 
 Xerxes from Greek commanders may have helped to make 
 the project seem more practicable. And a good price might 
 well be offered and even paid, though that might be optional 
 afterwards, if Athens could be drawn to make common cause 
 with Persia ; for, even if the Isthmus could be forced, it would 
 manifestly be perilous to occupy Peloponnesus with no com- 
 mand of the sea to secure supplies or retreat by any other 
 route. It was indeed too late to revert to the rejected counsel 
 of Demaratus and threaten Sparta from the sea with a 
 detachment of the Persian fleet, but an Athenian alliance 
 would restore the lost opportunity. Communication was 
 therefore opened through Alexander, King of Macedon, who 
 was known to be recognised by the Athenians as their prox- 
 enus, or national host and guest. He was trusted by Mar- 
 donius from his intimate Persian connections, which read 
 like the presage of some later Macedonian history ; his sister 
 Gygaia had married a Persian noble named Bonbares, and her 
 
 1 Ilcrod. viii. 140.
 
 in.] MARDONIUS IN BOEOTIA AND ATTICA, 47 
 
 son Amyntas was established by the King as lord of Alabanda 
 in Phrygia ; but true to the policy of double-dealing which 
 was the enduring characteristic of his dynasty, it was by his 
 warning of Persian movements that Themistocles had been 
 enabled to withdraw in time from the too advanced position 
 that he had taken up at the opening of the war, on the 
 northern frontier of Thessaly. 
 
 The message was delivered to the Athenians, probably by 
 way of flattery, as coming direct from Xerxes. Mardonius 
 had been commanded to pass over all former injuries, the 
 rankling Sardis no less than Salamis, and, on condition of 
 an alliance with him, was commissioned to restore their terri- 
 tory, with any addition they might desire, and their inde- 
 pendence ; and, furthermore, to re-erect all sacred structures 
 that he had burnt. The offer ' of freedom with no fraud or 
 deception ' was of course backed by formidable statements of 
 Persian power, and, with rather less judgment, by emphasis 
 on the distinction of the Athenians being selected by the 
 Great King from the rest of the Greeks, for condonation of 
 offences and a proposal of friendship. The news of this com- 
 munication caused the greatest alarm at Sparta, especially 
 in connection with the currency of a prophecy, which Hero- 
 dotus says they called to mind, but which was probably 
 promulgated for the nonce, to the effect that Medes and 
 Athenians in alliance were destined to expel the Spartans 
 and all other Dorians from Peloponnesus. The Athenians 
 could not be unwilling to foster the panic by a temporary 
 suspense, if only to stimulate the Lacedaemonians to more 
 decided engagements than they had yet seemed disposed 
 to commit themselves to or to entertain. It is difficult to 
 suppose that the true scope of the crisis was not now 
 appreciated by the most influential men among them, but 
 their national maxim, to decline sustained efforts at a distance 
 from their frontiers, was notorious ; and their inveterate 
 reticence, which could not but favour apprehensions of infirmity
 
 48 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 of purpose, if not of faithlessness, was most exasperating to 
 the Athenians, even had they no reason to suspect that there 
 still existed a jealousy of Athens, and an unwillingness to 
 give her premature, or too hearty, support. But, for once, 
 the urgency of the situation made the Spartan appeal distinct 
 enough, and even oblivious for a moment, of the narrower 
 affectations of Laconic brevity. ' Desertion of the cause of 
 Hellas,' they represented, 'by those who had, by their own 
 action and for ends of their own, provoked the invasion, 
 would neither be just nor decorous; that servitude should 
 be brought upon Hellas by the Athenians of all others, who 
 had from the earliest days been champions of liberty, was 
 intolerable. That they suffered by peculiar exposure in the 
 contest was lamented by the Lacedaemonians and their allies, 
 who would gladly contribute to the support of their families 
 so long as the war should continue. Alexander was himself 
 a tyrant, and, as the natural accomplice of a tyrant, had 
 softened down the message of Mardonius, whose terms as 
 delivered to others were imperious and insulting in the 
 last degree: but the Athenians, if indeed in their right 
 senses, Alexander had begun with " how can you be 
 so mad ? " would know that neither faith nor truth are 
 to be found in the barbarians, and would accede to no such 
 proposals.' 
 
 Thus far the Spartans, who characteristically did not 
 spend a word upon the ultimate chances of success in the 
 noble resistance they recommended, though they may have 
 given offence by assuming the attraction of Persian gold 
 for Athens under the pinch of her present destitution. In 
 the same spirit the Athenians replied to Alexander that the 
 numerical superiority of the Persian forces was known to 
 them before, and in any case had nothing whatever to do 
 with the matter in question, their resolution to fight in 
 defence of their liberty to the very last. With an image 
 which glanced not only at the sun-worship of Persia, but at
 
 in.] MARDON1US IN BOEOTIA AND ATTICA. 49 
 
 the tradition of the kingly rise of Alexander's own l family, 
 he was commissioned to reply to Mardonius ' So long as the 
 sun travels by the same path in which it is now moving, the 
 Athenians will never come to accord with Xerxes, but will 
 perseveringly resist him, putting trust for allies in the gods 
 and the heroes, whose temples and images he has irreverently 
 2 burnt. 
 
 Alexander himself was warned, friend and well-wisher as 
 the Athenians would willingly retain him, to come no more 
 on such an unworthy and ignoble errand. It were handsome 
 at least to think that such an expostulation, and the example 
 of a resolution so contrasted with that of the Thessalians, 
 who had frankly announced that unless supported in bearing 
 the brunt of the Persian approach, they should as a matter of 
 course make terms with him for themselves, and had actually 
 done 3 so, may possibly have roused or strengthened the 
 more generous though latent sympathies of the Macedonian, 
 who claimed Hellenic and even Heracleidan descent, and 
 have had influence on the circumstances under which he 
 reappears in history. 
 
 To the decree which embodied this reply, and which was 
 framed by Aristides, there was appended an instruction to 
 the priests most probably the Eleusinian, reputed descen- 
 dants of Kerux and Eumolpus to denounce curses against 
 whosoever should make truce with the Medes or desert the 
 Hellenic confederacy. 
 
 The reply to the Lacedaemonians was in as lofty a tone. 
 It was excusable in the enemy, who knew no better, to believe 
 that everything was purchaseable by money ; but Lacedae- 
 monians were justly to be quarrelled with for being capable 
 of assuming, at sight of the present penury of the Athenians, 
 that their resolution was likely to be decided by a promise of 
 aid towards subsistence, rather than by their sense of duty 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 137. * Ib. viii. 143. 3 Ib. vii. 172. 
 

 
 50 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 towards the gods of their profaned sanctuaries, and by their 
 Hellenic sympathies of common blood and language, of sacred 
 institutions and sacrifices, of conformity in moral principles. 
 ' Know then now, if it has been unknown to you hitherto, 
 that never, so long as one Athenian survives, will we come to 
 terms with Xerxes. We acknowledge your good intentions 
 towards us with respect to maintaining our families in the 
 event of our homes being destroyed ; and so far your kind- 
 ness has its full effect. For ourselves, we will get on as best 
 we may, and will not burden you. That which is really 
 urgent now is that you should send forward your army with 
 the utmost promptitude. The barbarian, upon learning the 
 failure of his envoy, will forthwith be upon us. Now there- 
 fore is the time, before he enters Attica, to advance with your 
 aid, and oppose him in Boeotia.' This the Lacedaemonians 
 engaged to do with a readiness that proved how great had 
 been their anxiety. 
 
 The terms of these Athenian replies might well, under 
 the circumstances, seem to savour of extravagance, did we 
 not know how well the brave words were acted up to 
 when the storm again broke. And if we consider what was 
 the ensuing history of liberated Athens, we shall recognise 
 from how worthy and profound a self-consciousness her enun- 
 ciations proceeded. Attica was now nourishing, with an 
 abundant population a population that contained the men 
 who had conquered at Marathon and Salamis, and the fathers 
 of those who were to realise the best glories of the age of 
 Pericles. Past achievements and future resources were poten- 
 tially concentrated at a crisis when barbarism was threatening 
 all the results and all the germs of the noblest development 
 of humanity in its last refuge in the southernmost peninsulas 
 of Greece. A single generation had seen the glories of Ionia 
 brought to a bloody and stupefying catastrophe, and the 
 homes of the best Arts and the best Literature both how 
 glorious 1 which Hellas had up to this time originated on
 
 in.] M A EDO N I US IN BOEOTIA AND ATTICA. 51 
 
 her coasts and amidst her islands, ravaged by a vulgar, 
 tawdry, brutalised military power. The free speech of free 
 men in assembly and agora was proscribed, and for the inde- 
 pendent bearings of equals, who only admitted reverence for 
 legal authority, for honourable age, or for moral excellence, 
 was substituted companionship in degrading prostrations 
 before the satraps of a king. The Greeks, then, were not re- 
 sisting overwhelming power out of a blind obstinacy which 
 but for the turn of a chance or two would have been fatal, 
 and which no trust in, such unhopeful chance could make 
 wise ; they were not the unconscious guardians of a deposit 
 whose full value they did not appreciate. The last possibility 
 of saving Hellas was in their hands, and it was no mere 
 egotism on their part that made them regard this as iden- 
 tified with the saving of mankind, and therefore to be vin- 
 dicated at any cost, at any risk, vindicated in trust on the 
 gods even when no possibility of success was discernible, for 
 was not death under any circumstances preferable to any life 
 that could continue after the obliteration from the world of 
 all the distinctive excellences of the life Hellenic ? 
 
 The tone in which the Athenians had responded to the 
 envoys from Sparta intimated no disposition on their part to 
 withdraw from those pretensions to influence which had already 
 excited jealousy, and were in consequence scarcely calculated 
 to assist the endeavours of any partisans of Athens there who 
 might be anxious to hurry forward assistance. The positive 
 terms, again, of the defiance which was returned to Mardonius 
 by Alexander, had so far committed them, that apprehension 
 of their making terms was in a great degree set at rest. 
 Under these circumstances a Spartan politician might be 
 easily reconciled to the re-occupation of Attica, where after 
 all there was not much left to save ; the pride of the Athe- 
 nians, as he would think, might be a little reduced with no 
 general disadvantage ; their fleet would remain as serviceable 
 to the cause as ever, and secure the coasts of Peloponnesus, 
 
 E 2
 
 52 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 while no more favourable conditions could be desired for a 
 conflict with the Persian, than resistance to his numbers at 
 the narrow neck of the Isthmus, which was now fortified, 
 and the entanglement of his cavalry his most formidable 
 arm among the passes and declivities of the mountains 
 to the south. The entrenchment and fortification of the 
 Isthmus had been commenced, upon the news of the death 
 and defeat of Leonidas, immediately after the Olympic and 
 Carneian festivals were l over. Every state of Peloponnesus 
 then lent aid to the work, except the Argives and Achaeans, 
 of whom Herodotus says that they ' kept neutral, or, to 
 speak frankly, by their very neutrality Medised.' The Sci- 
 ronian road, which was always difficult, was destroyed or 
 obstructed, and across the Isthmus a wall was completed of 
 stones, bricks, timber, and gabions, combined more or less 
 effectually and regularly, and by labour that went on without 
 intermission night and day. Nothing but the stratagem of 
 Themistocles, by which he succeeded in bringing on the sea- 
 fight against the intentions of the Peloponnesians, had pre- 
 vented them, when they heard that this safeguard was so near 
 completion and the Persian land-force advancing upon it, 
 from breaking up from the Saronic gulf and leaving Aegma, 
 Megara, and the refugees at Salamis to their own resources 
 or rather to what seemed their certain fate. After the naval 
 victory, and still more after the retirement of the Persians 
 from Athens, the work had slackened, and the Spartan regent 
 Cleombrotus, who superintended it, found sufficient cause for 
 alarm in an eclipse of the sun, that occurred as he was sacri- 
 ficing, to make him withdraw home with his forces and leave 
 it at last unfinished. The work had therefore to be renewed 
 in the spring, and was still in progress when the envoys to 
 Athens were labouring to countervail the proposals of Alex- 
 ander, and to its state of incompleteness at that time the 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 71.
 
 in.] MARDONIUS IN BOEOTIA AND ATTICA. 53 
 
 historian ascribes the great anxiety as to their reception. 
 But it is difficult to suppose, as he intimates, that even 
 the blindest Spartan could think that the defection of 
 Athens to Persia would be of little consequence if once 
 the fortification of the Isthmus were complete. The trans- 
 fer of naval power and command of the sea would still 
 have been as damaging as ever to the defenders of the 
 Peloponnesus; if they were less eager to keep, or even to 
 make, promises of sending their forces forward into Attica, 
 it was sufficient that the promises already made had had 
 their desired effect, and that they regarded the breach of the 
 negotiations with Persia as irreparable. Subsequent events 
 give us no right to suppose that Sparta was neglecting in the 
 meantime the equipment of her own military power, or that she 
 was less resolved than Athens to resist the invader, on her 
 own part and on her own ground at least, to the last man. 
 
 The report which the Macedonian carried back to Thessaly 
 had its anticipated effect, and the Persian army was at once 
 set in motion upon Attica. Mardonius had proposed to com- 
 mence operations in the spring, but it was 1 about the middle 
 of July when he reached Athens, ten months after its occu- 
 pation by Xerxes. Considerable time had been consumed in 
 the negotiations, and even afterwards, when he arrived at 
 Thebes, the temporising policy of that state embarrassed him 
 more than ever. The leaders of the oligarchical party there in 
 power were with the Persians heart and soul, and prepared 
 even to sacrifice the independence of their country in order 
 to secure themselves in that irresponsible supremacy allowed 
 by Persia to faithful tributary princes, whether tyrants or 
 satraps, though they knew that such a position, obnoxious 
 as it was to their fellow-citizens, was still more so to 
 their Athenian and Lacedaemonian neighbours, who would 
 therefore be always ready to subvert it. The sincerity 
 
 1 01. 75.2 = 8.0.479.
 
 54 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 of their counsel could not be doubted, and their voice 
 was still to corrupt and to divide the Greeks, who when 
 firmly united were invincible ; and, in the meantime, to ad* 
 Tanee as fir as Boeotia, of all places most suited for the 
 encampment of such an army, and there await a victory 
 -.:.: . . :.:;>: .,'-.:: mfhaai BfOB ;, kaftfla, T:.-::r HgB* 
 meats told in some degree, but could not in the end restrain 
 the Persian from moving on into Attica. Xerxes was still at 
 Sardis, and Mardonius was impatient to despatch to him the 
 news that he was again in possession of the hated Athens ; 
 and he could not rest until a system of pre-arranged beacons 
 had transmitted, from island to island across the Aegean, 
 the announcement which was to vindicate the assurance of 
 complete success which he had given to the Great 
 
 is little doubt that Aeschylus had this train of 
 in mind, and purposely recalled it to the Athenians, 
 in his grand description of such a flight of fire in the ' Aga- 
 memnon.' The circumstances of time and space, which are 
 reasonable enough in this historical instance, have to be 
 strained not a little for the ten years' expectancy of Clytem- 
 nestra, and the provision of a series of telegraphic stations 
 finai Troy by the line of Athos. 
 
 Tne Athenians had only quitted their city and country 
 at the last moment, trusting that in spite of deferments 
 and delays the Peloponnesian army would yet arrive accord- 
 :':._: :._-:. _" :-.::.:- Hal -; -.:-. HfcVft S> SBOBd n;:jrat: n : Vut 
 
 nemy --..- ::.-';. ;.- mm m Boaotia, Hai M r.-.-re 
 time waa to be lost ; without farther delay they again moved 
 with all their property that could be hastily 
 to Sl*tiiM and Troezene ; and in pursuance 
 of a uaeyliiaut of Aristidea, Cimon Xanthippus and Myro- 
 nides, affninnanifd also by representatives of 'Megara and 
 Flataea, were despatched to Sparta, with fresh protest- 
 
 1 Herod, iz. to.
 
 in.] MARDONIUS IN BOEOTIA AND ATTICA. 55 
 
 ations and l complaints. That Xanthippus, who was now 
 commander of the fleet, should have been spared for this 
 mission, is not so much improbable as suggestive of 
 the consideration that it was on the movements and des- 
 tination of this fleet that the interest of the Spartans 
 turned. The immediate excuse for delay given to the com- 
 missioners was the sacred obligation to attend to the cele- 
 bration of the Hyacinthia ; the customs of the nation, rigid 
 and narrow, and adapted only for a limited range of rela- 
 tions, would in ordinary cases have caused this to be received 
 as a consistent if not reasonable apology. But the Lace- 
 daemonians, who had appealed, so glibly for them, to what 
 was just and becoming, were now reminded of their broken 
 promises ; they were reproached with the same insincerity 
 which they had imputed to the barbarian bidder for alliance, 
 in having only promised in order to gain time for com- 
 pleting the wall at the Isthmus, which was just fitted with 
 its battlements. However, let them now, though late, send 
 on their army, and, if not in Boeotia, fight the enemy at 
 least in the Thriasian plain, otherwise the Athenians on 
 their part too would have to look out for a ' shelter ' (TIV& 
 aAewpTjj. 1 ) ; an enigmatical allusion to the Isthmian wall, 
 made somewhat in their own laconic way, and to be in- 
 terpreted by them in their own fashion. 
 
 When Mardonius had reached Athens, and was again 
 within a march or two of the difficult Isthmus, he thought 
 it worth while to make one more attempt to detach the 
 Athenians. We cannot wonder that the persistency pro- 
 fessed by them should appear to him inconceivable ; his 
 agents of corruption had made some reports, true or false, 
 of success, another and that a third year of fields with- 
 out a harvest was in prospect for them, perhaps the 
 permanent hostile occupation of the country, and lastly, 
 
 1 Plut. Aristid. 10.
 
 56 II I STORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 the support which their selfish allies had notoriously pro- 
 mised, and which, from the circumstances of their return, 
 they had certainly counted on, had failed them, and failing 1 , 
 had left them without confidence thereafter. Accordingly, 
 he ostentatiously refrained from doing further damage to 
 the country, and re-opened, or endeavoured to re-open, nego- 
 tiations with Athens by despatching to the Council of the 
 Athenians at Salamis a new envoy, one Murychides of 
 the Hellespont. This was news that of itself would fly 
 through the Peloponnesus like wildfire, and there is no 
 reason to suppose that the Athenians were less averse now 
 than before to the policy of holding over an audience or 
 a decision until the contingencies of the incident had told 
 with full effect at Sparta. For ten successive days the 
 Athenian envoys there had been put off, till they were 
 wrought to the height of impatience. It was known that 
 the fortification in the meantime was being strengthened, 
 and it was natural to apprehend that the ephors would, at 
 a convenient moment, put forward some pretext for break- 
 ing off their engagement. A final audience was therefore 
 now demanded by the envoys before quitting to report at 
 home the failure of the mission ; they were, in fact, in 
 possession of the renewed proposals of the Persian to treat, 
 and were prepared to declare, as a final argument, that further 
 delay must lead inevitably to their acceptance, and thence 
 to joint action against Sparta. The ephors listened calmly 
 to the taunt that they were occupied with the Hyacinthia, 
 and trifling, not to say amusing themselves, while their ally 
 was in extremity, and then announced, with the by no 
 means superfluous guarantee of an oath, that their force 
 was already despatched against the ' strangers,' and must 
 by that time in the early morning be already well forward 
 beyond the frontiers. The news of the reopened negotiation 
 so it was believed had wrought this change over-night. 
 If a certain Chileus of Tegea, who was credited with having
 
 in.] MARDONIUS IN BOEOTIA AND ATTICA. 57 
 
 had most influence after Themistocles in originally uniting 
 Hellas against the l Mede, and was, of all foreigners, in the 
 highest credit with the Lacedaemonians, really contributed to 
 their decision now, it must have been by the expression of 
 his belief that there was imminent danger of the negotiation 
 resulting in an alliance. That the consequence of this must 
 be ' to throw open wide portals into Peloponnesus, however 
 strongly the Isthmus might be barred,' the ephors did not 
 require to be told. 
 
 The large force which was despatched so suddenly must 
 necessarily have been under preparation for emergencies all 
 along, with the secrecy that was an established maxim of 
 Spartan policy ; and this is adverted to by Pericles later 
 as a contrast to the fearless publicity of Athenian politics. 
 It consisted of 5,000 Spartiats, each attended by seven 
 Helots (5,000 + 35,000=40,000 men). Cleombrotus had 
 died soon after his withdrawal from the Isthmus, and 
 the splendid command devolved, with most important his- 
 torical consequences, on his son Pausanias, as regent in 
 the place of his cousin Pleistarchus, son of Leonidas, who 
 was still a minor. He chose as his own second in com- 
 mand, Euryanax son of Dorieus, of the same royal house. 
 This army by far the largest that we ever read of as 
 sent forth by Sparta was complemented by 5,000 more 
 heavy-armed Lacedaemonians, or perioeci (citizens of other 
 Lacedaemonian towns than Sparta), and with them started 
 the well-satisfied envoys from Salamis, in all haste to over- 
 take the first columns. An untoward but natural conse- 
 quence of the reserve, if not hesitation, of Sparta, was the 
 lateness in the field of some of the other Peloponnesian 
 contingents. 
 
 The negotiations at Salamis, which there was now no 
 further motive or even means for protracting, concluded 
 
 1 Plut. Them. 6.
 
 58 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 with a tragic incident. The Hellespontian Murychides was 
 dismissed unharmed after delivering his message to the 
 Council, but when Lycides, a member of it, whether influenced 
 or not by Persian gold, proposed that the offer of the 
 Persian should be submitted to the popular assembly, indig- 
 nation rose instantly to its height among his assessors, and 
 out of doors also as soon as the occasion was known. Lycides 
 was set upon and stoned to death ; the tumult presently 
 roused the Athenian women, and in contagious excitement 
 they rushed to his dwelling and stoned to death his family 
 also both wife and children. 
 
 It is probable that this fury had in part a religious 
 origin, and that Lycides had brought himself and his family 
 within the bitter and comprehensive terms of the curse 
 that had been solemnly denounced against favourers of the 
 Mede.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PATRIOTIC ARMY IN BOEOTIA. THE DEATH OF MASISTIUS. 
 PERSIAN PREPARATIONS TOR FINAL CONQUEST. 
 
 B.O. 479, September; Ol. 75. 2. 
 
 THE Lacedaemonians made halt at the Isthmus, where 
 they were joined by forces from other states of Pelopon- 
 nesus. Here terms and resolutions were adopted in a Hel- 
 lenic congress, as well for the concentration of troops and 
 supplies from various quarters both without and within the 
 Isthmus, as for the purpose of encouraging or, let us rather 
 say, giving expression to a spirit of common enthusiasm 
 and mutual reliance. The usual promises were made to the 
 gods in the event and expectation of victory; their assist- 
 ance was claimed with confidence against the profaners of 
 their desolated sanctuaries assistance which should be fitly 
 acknowledged and recompensed, though the ruins were to 
 remain in ashes for all time as memorials of barbarian 
 sacrilege. The terms of an oath that was to be a bond of 
 present and future unity ran thus : ' I will not regard 
 life as of any value in comparison with liberty ; I will not 
 desert my leaders either living or dead ; I will procure 
 burial for whoever of the allies may fall in battle ; and 
 when the barbarian is overcome I will not afterwards sub- 
 vert any city that has taken part in the struggle against 
 him/ 
 
 The last clause is significant of the apprehensions that 
 were haunting some of the weaker and more exposed members
 
 60 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 of the Hellenic community in presence of the growing am- 
 bition of stronger powers. The Argives, unconciliated by 
 this guarantee, held entirely aloof, avowedly on the ground 
 that their population had been too seriously reduced by their 
 defeat in a recent conflict with Sparta for them to risk the 
 loss of more blood at present, especially as such loss would 
 only leave them at the mercy of the protagonist whom they 
 were invited to strengthen ; a further unavowed motive lay in 
 the fact that the strength of Sparta was the main obstacle to 
 certain ambitious projects of their own. That the Athenians 
 had very distinct views of encroachment was notorious, and 
 this notoriety had been ominously emphasised by the offer 
 of Mardonius to help them to whatever additional territory 
 they wished to acquire. Thus the threatened states of 
 Mycenae and Aegina had forebodings that were too well 
 justified in the event, and naturally claimed and clung to 
 the guarantee of a solemn sanction, the concession of which 
 at this crisis was probably due to the prevailing spirit of 
 high-wrought patriotic enthusiasm, as much as to any sug- 
 gestion of policy. 
 
 As soon as the omens were favourable, and the requisite 
 arrangements and musters complete, the Peloponnesian force 
 was at last really set in motion to cross the Isthmus and 
 the Megarid. By this time Mardonius had determined to 
 evacuate Attica, after being kept in suspense by the Athe- 
 nians till the very last l moment. A swift messenger from 
 the Argives now brought him the advice, perhaps not much 
 earlier than the bootless return of Murychides, that the 
 Lacedaemonians would certainly appear forthwith beyond 
 the Isthmus ; so that any wild hopes of effective obstruction 
 that they might have encouraged the barbarian to expect 
 on their part, had to be renounced, and it remained for him 
 to take his own measures. 
 
 1 Herod, iz. 13.
 
 iv.] THE PATRIOTIC ARMY IN BOEOTIA. 61 
 
 The unfitness of Attica for the action and evolutions of 
 cavalry, and, ravaged as it had been, for furnishing supplies, 
 as well as the difficulties of a retreat by a large force, in case of 
 a reverse, through the northern passes, determined him to with- 
 draw at once to the more open plains and accessible resources 
 of Boeotia and the neighbourhood of the strong and friendly 
 city of Thebes. His last days in Attica were spent in de- 
 stroying whatever could be destroyed and had hitherto been 
 politicly spared, and in throwing down, so far as time allowed, 
 whatever still remained standing of the walls and temples of 
 the city. The Boeotarchs, his zealous quartermasters, fur- 
 nished him with guides for the eastern route by Decelea and 
 Sphendale, across Parnes to Tanagra a considerable circuit, 
 but affording more easy passes, and avoiding any risk of 
 molestation from the Isthmus to which the western might be 
 exposed. He was already on the road, when a report that a 
 body of not more than 1000 Lacedaemonians had advanced 
 to Megara tempted him to check his march and make an 
 attempt to snatch a victory, however trifling, before he retired. 
 Turning back his army, he despatched a cavalry force in 
 advance, which rapidly overran the Megarid without encoun- 
 tering opposition; and this was the furthest point of Europe 
 towards the setting-sun that a Persian invader ever reached. 
 One of his detachments, however, became entangled among 
 the mountains and was cut x off; and upon this check, and 
 receipt of more formidable accounts of the muster at the 
 Isthmus, he turned once more, and finally resumed the route 
 to Decelea. 
 
 The dedication of a bronze statue to Artemis Soteira was 
 in later days ascribed by the Megarians to the occasion of 
 this incident, which, as it came to be related, wanted not 
 mythic embellishment. It was, they said, by device of 
 Artemis that night overtook the retiring Persians, who first 
 
 1 Paus. i. 40. 2.
 
 62 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 lost their way among the mountains, and then, when they 
 discharged arrows to test the proximity of an enemy, were so 
 far beguiled by the echoes of the rock, which they mistook 
 for groans, that they exhausted their quivers and fell an easy 
 prey at daybreak to the Megarian hoplites. 
 
 Mardonius remained at Tanagra only a night, and the next 
 day turned westward and reached Scolus on Theban territory, 
 about forty stadia four miles and a half down the Asopus 
 on the road between Thebes and 'Plataea. The Lacedae- 
 monians on their part advanced to the Thriasian plain as far 
 as Eleusis, and then made halt. The sacrifices were again to 
 be scanned for a suggestion to proceed ; and, as at the 
 Isthmus they had waited for the other Peloponnesians, who 
 ' affected the better things/ to make an effort, in spite of 
 the shortness of the notice, not to be behindhand in the 
 field, so here also time was to be allowed for further pre- 
 paration, and for a junction with an important reinforce- 
 ment of the Athenians, who were to cross from Salamis, 
 under command of Aristides, son of Lysimachus, elected 
 2 autocrator, and thus independent of the association of col- 
 leagues which had hampered Miltiades. Then at last the 
 combined army started direct for Boeotia. It crossed 
 Mount Cithaeron by the western passes and emerged above 
 Erythrae. The Persian host was full in view, encamped 
 on the plain between the line of the Asopus, here flowing 
 eastward and parallel to the main ridge of Cithaeron, 
 and Erythrae and Hysiae on the higher ground opposite 
 to the verge of the Plataean territory. In the rear of this 
 position and beyond the Asopus a vast enclosure had been 
 formed and strengthened by a timber palisade, for which 
 all trees within reach were felled indiscriminately necessity, 
 says Herodotus, compelling disregard of the friendliness of 
 the country. The enclosure, though over a mile square (ten 
 
 1 Paus. ix. 4. 3. Plut. Arittid. n.
 
 iv.] THE PATRIOTIC ARMY IN BOEOTIA. 63 
 
 stadia), was not intended for occupation by the army unless 
 in the event of aught falling out untowardly in the expected 
 battle ; in the meantime it was a repository of the vast neces- 
 sary stores, as well as of the general baggage and appliances 
 that were always required by Persian luxury even in the 
 midst of a campaign. 
 
 In this position the Persian army received a lagging re- 
 inforcement of 1000 Phocian hoplites, under command of 
 Harmocydes, a citizen of marked reputation. The Medism 
 of the Phocians was most reluctant, but less so, Herodotus 
 thought, from Hellenic sympathy than out of hatred to the 
 Thessalians ; and it was only under compulsion of their neigh- 
 bourhood to Thessaly and Thebes that this dilatory aid was 
 rendered at all. They had not joined early enough to take 
 part in the invasion of Attica, and were the more mistrusted 
 from the direct hostility of a part of their population. These 
 had taken refuge in considerable numbers on Mount Par- 
 nassus, and found a place of security for themselves and their 
 property at Tithora, a steeply-scarped rocky, position from 
 whence they had seriously harassed the Persians and their 
 1 confederates. 
 
 Mardonius sent orders to the new arrival to take up a 
 position on the open plain, and then a scene ensued of which 
 Herodotus did not pretend to know the exact explanation. 
 A sudden suspicion a <?/JU,TJ or unaccountable sympathetic 
 impression ran through all the Greek allies, including the 
 Phocians themselves, that mischief was intended towards them. 
 Harmocydes apprehended the ill offices of the Thessalians as 
 much as the anger of the Persian, and called on his company 
 to show their mettle by selling their lives dearly. His appeal 
 was scarcely made when a cloud of horsemen were upon them, 
 charged close up to them, now wheeled round and now sur- 
 rounded them, ever with threatening weapons, though only 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 32 ; Plut. Vit. Sullae, 14 ; Paus. x. 32.
 
 64 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 one or two darts may have been, as if accidentally, discharged. 
 The intention probably was not so much to provoke attack 
 as to cause alarm, and then, when the expected dispersion and 
 flight began, to slaughter the fugitives. The Phocians how- 
 ever coolly stood to their arms, closed their ranks to the 
 utmost, and faced to every threatened attack ; and Mardonius 
 was fain to turn the matter off with a compliment to the 
 courage which he said had been impugned, but which, so 
 tested, commanded his absolute confidence. 
 
 It was during these days that an incident occurred which, 
 as recorded by Herodotus, has all the interest of an autobio- 
 graphical notice : it brings home to us how near he himself 
 was in time to the events his history had reached, and to 
 authentic information respecting them ; and by its implica- 
 tions adds great value to his general testimony as to the 
 present crisis of the Persian expedition. A magnificent 
 entertainment was provided in Thebes for the Persians and 
 their Hellenic allies by Attaginus son of Phrynou, who 
 together with Timegenidas was in control of the whole power 
 and policy of the state. Mardonius and fifty of the most 
 distinguished Persians were invited to meet fifty Thebans 
 at dinner, where the two nations were not only arranged 
 alternately but in pairs a Theban and a Persian sharing 
 a single couch between them. The dinner over, wine 
 circulated according to universal Greek rather than earlier 
 Persian manners ; and it was then that a Persian who con- 
 versed in Greek opened his mind to the guest with whom 
 he was associated. This was a certain Thersander, a man of 
 much note at Orchomenus, and Herodotus received the par- 
 ticulars from Thersander himself, who assured him that he 
 had given the same account to others at the time, before 
 the catastrophe that was so painfully apprehended arrived. 
 Having assured himself by an enquiry that his companion 
 was not an actual Theban, and possibly of something more, 
 ' With you, now,' said the Persian, ' as my partner at meat
 
 iv.] THE PATRIOTIC ARMY IN BOEOTIA. 65 
 
 and in libation, I would fain leave remembrance of what is 
 my conviction; that you may be forewarned on your own 
 account, and take counsel for the best. You see these Persians 
 feasting here ; you saw the army that we left encamped down 
 by the river ; let a short time have gone by and of all these 
 men you will behold but some few survivors.' The words were 
 spoken with the sincerity attested by abundant tears. The 
 Greek in surprise suggested (and we must assume that some 
 grounds were indicated for his conviction) that surely in this 
 case it was incumbent to communicate with Mardonius and 
 those of the Persians who were in credit with him. ' Stranger,' 
 was the reply, ' what God has determined shall be, man is 
 incompetent to avert ; for none will give attention to any, 
 however credible their statements. Of all that I tell you 
 abundance of our Persians are conscious ; but we go on 
 fettered by necessity; and the bitterest pang of all it is for 
 man to see and know what circumstances demand and yet 
 to be destitute of power.' 
 
 These are words of which the full import will only be 
 recognised by one who has been near enough to head-quarters 
 to see interests of great importance with which his own are 
 inextricably involved, going to rack and ruin through the 
 obstinate self-conceit and blind jealousy of managers alike 
 unassailable by their position and insensible to truth whether 
 bluntly demonstrated, or adroitly suggested. Whether the 
 dejected Persian was an adherent of the unhopeful and dis- 
 contented Artabazus, or dreaded how Mardonius might 
 be hampered by his half-hearted support, it matters little ; 
 more probably he had discovered that the organisation 
 and order requisite for so vast an army were wanting, 
 and that the supreme direction lay where decisive action 
 might be precipitated at any moment by the worst 
 advisers, the excitement of a moment, blind refusal to 
 modify a judgment once announced, or to accept inform- 
 ation, much less a conclusion, from a subordinate though 
 
 F
 
 66 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 sagacious associate. As we read the account of the final 
 conflict, the elements of danger seem so rife on the other 
 side within the Hellenic councils, that we can scarcely con- 
 ceive the case to have been worse in the Persian. The dif- 
 ference lay in the fact that there was a germ of healthy 
 vigour underneath the dissensions and heart-burnings of the 
 Greeks, which counteracted great mischiefs, and assured a 
 survival of their cause through embarrassments that would be 
 fatal to their enemies. 
 
 The Persian commander had made no attempt to dispute 
 or harass the passage of the mountains ; his expectation and 
 hope was, to be attacked, or to have opportunity of attacking, 
 in the position he had taken up in the plain, where his ex- 
 cellent cavalry, Persian and Thessalian an arm of which the 
 Greeks were entirely destitute would operate with most 
 effect ; the rugged and contracted passes being trusted to com- 
 plete the confusion when the troops were flying in disorder. 
 As the Greek forces emerged from the passes and took up 
 their position along the higher slopes of Cithaeron, in the 
 direction of Erythrae, eastward of the roads that ran direct 
 to Thebes, they were out of reach of the enemy's cavalry. 
 But there was scarcity of water from the first, and afterwards, 
 as the rendezvous was completed, they were so far cramped 
 for room, from the proximity of the enemy, that some detach- 
 ments the Megarians especially had to occupy ground that 
 was considerably exposed. Upon the Megarians accordingly 
 Mardonius, after waiting in vain for the descent of the general 
 army, gave orders for an attack by the entire division of 
 cavalry, of which a large proportion at least were bowmen, 
 under the command cf Masistius, one of the most important 
 of the Persians. This was executed by the wheeling of succes- 
 sive squadrons on the same system that was to be employed 
 long after, with historic results, on the plains of Parthia ; 
 and had so much effect, that the Megarians, while still main- 
 taining their ground courageously, sent word to the generals
 
 iv.] THE DEATH OF MASISTIUS. 67 
 
 that unless relieved they must break line and retire. An 
 epigram collected among- those of Simonides celebrates this 
 resistance without the qualification. That the authority of 
 the general-in-chief of the allied Greeks was limited, appears 
 from the fact that Pausanias left it *to their option who 
 among them should undertake this duty ; and Herodotus 
 puts it unreservedly to the credit of the Athenians that they 
 were the first to volunteer to the front. But the Athenians 
 had in fact profited by their experience at Marathon to 
 adjust their equipments in some degree to the special re- 
 quirements of conflict with the Median archers. At Mara- 
 thon they had been forced to rush to the attack heavy- 
 armed as they were with no protection from skirmishers, 
 either bowmen or cavalry, whereas we now find them provided 
 with a force of bowmen whose special duty was to co-operate 
 with hoplites ; l Ctesias even states that they had been pro- 
 cured by Aristides and Themistocles from Crete. In the 
 present case they accompanied three hundred select hoplites 
 under the command of Olympiodorus, son of Lampon. The 
 contest still continued for some time after their arrival, the 
 Persian horsemen constantly careering past, and as they dis- 
 charged their weapons adding taunts of womanishness, to 
 provoke, if possible, an advance. At last, in the return 
 of one charge, the Nisaean horse of Masistius was pierced 
 in the flank by a happy arrow, and rearing in frantic pain, 
 shook off its splendidly-accoutred rider. The Athenians were 
 upon him instantly, the horse, golden-bitted and superbly 
 caparisoned, was captured, and Masistius himself, though 
 saved for a time by the accurate completeness of his armour 
 a mailed shirt of golden scales hid below his purple vest 
 which disappointed the strokes of his assailants, was at 
 length killed as he lay prostrate, by a weapon which 
 pierced him through his eye. In the speed and confusion 
 of the wheeling horsemen this catastrophe was unobserved 
 
 1 ap. Phot. 
 F 3
 
 68 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 until the troop, drawing up at a distance to re-form, 
 found themselves without a leader. As soon as the loss was 
 known the word was given, and the entire force at once 
 came on, no longer in detachments but in mass, resolved at 
 least to rescue the body. 
 
 It was now the turn of the Athenians, as they saw the 
 coming shock, to send for assistance, and, till it arrived, they 
 had to sustain, and did sustain, a desperate conflict. Though 
 compelled to retire from the dead body, they did not allow 
 it to be secured by the enemy, before the arrival of the rein- 
 forcements obliged the latter to retire in their turn and leave 
 it with more of their numbers in the hands of the Greeks. At 
 the distance of two stadia they again drew up, but were soon 
 seen, after a short consultation, returning to their camp. 
 
 The elation of the Greeks at this success was boundless. 
 It was much to have sustained unflinchingly the detached 
 onsets of this redoubted cavalry, but how much more to have 
 repulsed it in a body ! The enthusiasm rose to its height 
 when the corpse of Masistius was placed upon a cart and 
 carried through the army, where all as it passed quitted 
 their ranks to behold it, and gazed at it with the peculiar 
 gratification of Greeks. It was well worth seeing, says 
 Herodotus, so large it was and so beautiful. And soon 
 a clamour from the Persian camps revealed how severe a 
 blow was admitted in the death of Masistius, a man second 
 only to Mardonius in the estimation of the Persians them- 
 selves as well as of the Great King. The barbarians, in a 
 frenzy of grief, were cutting off not only their own hair 
 but even that of horses and beasts of burden, while ' the 
 echo of their lamentations ' faintly represented to us by 
 the prolonged waitings of the Persians of Aeschylus ' filled 
 all l Boeotia.' The cries as they were re-echoed from the 
 cliffs of Cithaeron confirmed the courage and enhanced the 
 confidence of the defenders of their native land. 
 1 Herod, ix. 34.
 
 iv.] THE DEATH OF MASISTIUS. 69 
 
 The elation of their own army and the dismay of the enemy 
 now enabled the Greek generals to effect a change of position, 
 which had indeed become urgent ; and a descent of their 
 entire force was at once made without molestation from the 
 Erythraean to the Plataic district, the lower level of which 
 afforded freer space for encamping, and access to water. The 
 line of march inclined to the north-west, across the spurs of 
 Cithaeron, past Hysiae ; and the army, in its divisions of 
 tribes or nations, ultimately occupied a line of intermixed 
 plain and low hillocks, extending as is distinctly implied 
 in the phrase of 1 Herodotus from another branch of the 
 river on the west to a copious fountain called Gargaphia, 
 eastward. 
 
 The formal order of array was not assumed without inter- 
 ruption from a tribal claim to precedence, which was asserted 
 and set aside in a manner premonitory of the dying out of 
 some other more important traditions. The right wing in the 
 Greek army was the post of honour possibly from mere sym- 
 bolical dignity as right, or because, as exposing the unshielded 
 side of the hoplites to a flank attack, it was a post of more 
 peculiar danger than the left and otherwise equally uncovered 
 extremity. This was conceded as a matter of course to the 
 Lacedaemonians, but the Tegeans contested the left wing with 
 the Athenians, to whom it had been assigned. With a certain 
 Arcadian hebetude they pleaded before the Lacedaemonians a 
 title based on the slaying of Hyllus, a Heracleid ancestor of 
 their kings in mythical times, and many not unsuccessful con- 
 tests against the present arbiters later on. The Athenians 
 replied that they had come out to fight and not to argue ; 
 but for themselves, if antiquity is to be considered, they might 
 say that if the Tegeans killed Heracleids, their ancestors took 
 arms victoriously in defence of them, besides other exploits 
 which they mentioned, but did not insist on. ' Courage or 
 cowardice in one age is no warrant for the next ; what is 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 31.
 
 70 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 more to the purpose in approving our title, apart from these 
 later achievements, is our single-handed victory at Marathon 
 against this same enemy. No difficulty however shall arise 
 on our part at such a time ; place us where you please, 
 Lacedaemonians, and opposed to whomsoever ; in any post 
 we shall do our very best ; give the command and you will 
 be at once obeyed.' A general shout from the Lacedae- 
 monian ranks in favour of the Athenians a transference to 
 camp of the vote by acclamation customary at Sparta was 
 accepted as a decision, and so this question was decided in 
 accordance with the first intentions of Pausanias. In com- 
 pleting his general dispositions, he placed the Lacedaemonian 
 force which was under his direct command at the extreme 
 right, and consoled the Tegeans by giving them the position 
 immediately next in succession. 
 
 The original order of array of heavy- and light-armed 
 together then follows according to this enumeration : 
 
 Hoplites. 
 
 Lacedaemonians 10,000, of whom 5,000 were Spartiats, each 5,000 
 
 attended by 7 helots 5,000 
 
 Total from Sparta 10,000 
 
 Tegeans 1,500 
 
 Corinthians 5,000, with whom, by special permission of 
 Pausanias, were 300 Potidaeans from their colony at 
 
 Pallene 5,300 
 
 Arcadians of Orchomenus, 600 ; Sicyonians, 3,000 3,6oo 
 
 Epidaurians, 800 ; Troezenians, 1,000 1,800 
 
 Lepreans, 200 ; Mycenians and Tirynthians, 400 600 
 
 Phliasians, 1,000 ; Hermionians, 300 1,300 
 
 Total Peloponnesians 24,100 
 
 From Euboea Eretrians and Styrians, 600 ; Chalcidians, 
 
 400 1,000 
 
 Ambracians, 500 ; Leucadians and Anactorians, 800 1,300 
 
 Paliana from Cephallene, 200; Aeginetans, 500 700 
 
 Megaraeans 3,000 
 
 Plataeans 600 
 
 Athenians 8,000 
 
 Totals 38,700 
 
 Light- 
 armed. 
 5,000 
 35,000 
 
 40,000 
 1,500 
 
 5-300 
 3-6oo 
 i, 800 
 600 
 1,300 
 
 54,100 
 
 1,000 
 1,300 
 
 700 
 3,ooo 
 
 600 
 8,000 
 
 68,700
 
 iv.] PERSIANS PREPARE FOR FINAL CONQUEST. 71 
 
 This catalogue of names is verified by that copied by Pau- 
 sanias the traveller from the base of a dedicated statue at 
 Olympia, which contains them all except the l Palians. The 
 names of islands of the group of Cyclades Ceos, Melos, 
 Tenos, Naxos, Cythnos included at Olympia may have been 
 omitted in the history solely from the trifling numbers they 
 could contribute. The omission, in the inscription, of Andros 
 and Paros, the only other important islands of the group, 
 agrees with the pressure applied to them in the history, 
 for Medism. Of the force of hoplites, in full defensive 
 armour, the best the Athenians and Plataeans 8,600, and 
 Lacedaemonians 10,000 do not together amount to a full 
 half, but their entire forces, heavy and light, including 
 the vast proportion of helots, make up more than half the 
 army. 
 
 The entire array as given by Herodotus comprised of 
 heavy-armed men, 38,700, to whom he adds the light-armed, 
 69,500, made up of 35,000 helots (7 to each Spartiat), 
 and 34,500 for the rest of the Lacedaemonians and Greeks 
 (' about one to each man ') ; giving a total number of com- 
 batants 108,200. 
 
 The light-armed, as given in his grand total, are 800 in 
 excess of the reckoning of one to each hoplite, but the differ- 
 ence as indeed the expression of the historian only in- 
 dicates a variation from a general proportion, which must 
 have occurred in one direction or the other. A muster of 
 the round number of 110,000 is completed by reckoning in 
 i, 800 Thespian refugees from their burnt city, who were 
 ' without arms,' that is, equipped irregularly. 
 
 As soon as the ceremonial mourning for the death of 
 Masistius was concluded, Mardonius moved his forces west- 
 ward, so as to confront the Greeks in their new position. 
 A branch of the Asopus now separated the two armies; 
 the stream at this season late in summer must have been 
 1 Pausanias, .23.
 
 72 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 fordable all along its course, as it is not taken into consider- 
 ation as a serious military obstacle ; even in spring it could 
 be easily crossed between Plataea and Thebes, unless when 
 swollen by sudden heavy 2 rain. His own forces, like those 
 of the Greeks, were now disposed with reference to an im- 
 pending conflict. The Persians, whom he accounted his best 
 soldiers, he opposed to the Greek left wing, and the best of 
 them again, by instruction of the Thebans, to the Lacedae- 
 monians ; the others to the Tegeans, whose array they were 
 numerous enough to overlap, though drawn up in deep ranks. 
 Assuming that the helots and light-armed soldiers throughout 
 were in proximity to their respective nations, the Persians would 
 be opposed to 50,000 Lacedaemonians and 3,000 Tegeans, 
 or little under one half the numerical Greek force, though 
 to less than a third of the heavy-armed. The Medes were 
 next, opposed to 17,800 Corinthians, Arcadians, and Sicyon- 
 ians ; the Bactrians were opposed to Epidaurians, Troezenians, 
 Lepreans, Tirynthians, Mycenians, and Phliasians ; the Indians 
 to the Hermionians, who from their Dryopian relationship 
 were ranged, not with their neighbours of Troezene, but with 
 Eretrians, Styrians, and Chalcidians from Euboea ; the Sakae 
 opposed the Ambracians, Anactorians, Leucadians, Palians, 
 and Aeginetans. The Bactrians, Indians, and Sakae for the 
 most part a miserably armed and undisciplined mob had thus 
 to match 1 3,400 men. Lastly, the strong force and approved 
 quality of the Athenians, together with the Plataeans and Me- 
 garaeans 23,000 of all arms were to be encountered by the 
 Medising Greeks, the Boeotians, Locrians, Melians, Thessa- 
 lians, and neighbouring tribes, and the 1000 Phocians; and 
 here also were the Macedonians. Other troops, whose places 
 are not noted, were Phrygians, Thracians, Mysians, Paeonians 
 and others, besides the Aethiopians and Egyptians, who had 
 been withdrawn from the fleet. The total barbarian forces of 
 Marlonius, at least at their original 2 muster, are numbered 
 
 1 Thucyd. ii. 1-5. ' Herod, ix. 32 ; cf. viii. 113.
 
 iv.] PERSIANS PREPARE FOR FINAL CONQUEST. 73 
 
 at 300,000 horse and foot. Of his Hellenic allies the number 
 had never been taken, and was not known at a guess it 
 might be 50,000, exclusive of horsemen ; and for these figures 
 Herodotus is responsible. 
 
 The most formidable superiority of the Persians however 
 lay not in their numbers at large, but in the numbers and 
 excellence of their cavalry, both of their zealous Thessalian 
 supporters and of the Sakae and their own mounted bowmen 
 (hippotoxatae] in many respects the equivalents of modern 
 field-artillery. The Greeks, on the other hand, had the ad- 
 vantage of armoured as opposed to unarmoured men, with 
 that corresponding superiority in offensive weapons which 
 Aristagoras had urged on Cleomenes as an encouragement 
 to the Greeks to strike for the conquest of Susa l itself, 
 in terms as ominously significant as the conviction put into 
 the mouth of Xerxes, that the quarrel between Greece and 
 Persia was to the death, and would only be concluded by 
 the entire subjugation of Greece by Persia or of the Persian 
 empire by 2 Greece. The short spear and bow of the 
 Persian foot-soldier prevented his carrying a shield of any 
 strength and magnitude, and the want of such defence was 
 poorly supplied by gerrha, a kind of wicker hurdles covered 
 with hides, and fixed into the ground by spikes as a fence 
 before the line. With no body armour whatever, nor 
 effective helmet, he was but a poor match at close quarters 
 for the Greek, of sedulously strengthened and exercised 
 frame, protected yet not encumbered by the shield and 
 panoply of the hoplite, and still equal to wielding a 
 stouter and longer spear. Any advantage that the Persian 
 might hope for and even be encouraged in by his Theban 
 allies, from the unity of a despotic command as opposed to 
 a confederacy of commanders, mutually and not without 
 reason jealous and distrustful of each other, was just 
 now materially counteracted by the withdrawal of Xerxes, 
 
 1 Herod, v. 49. a Ib. vii. 1 1.
 
 74 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 and is at best always dependent on the co-existence with 
 irresponsible power of military genius, or at least of a 
 spirit that would repudiate reliance on the lash as the 
 leading motive of concerted l energy. 
 
 As regards the Lacedaemonians, it was most true, as De- 
 maratus warned 2 Xerxes, that freemen as they were, in one 
 sense they were not free, for Law (6 vo'/xos) was to them a master 
 who exacted obedience more implicit than was ever rendered 
 to the Great King himself; obedient to this master in all re- 
 spects, they were especially so in this, that they were under 
 obligation when battle once was joined never to fly before 
 any number of enemies, but standing their ground either to 
 prevail or perish. For the rest, a still nobler self-conscious- 
 ness was animating the Athenians, the rivals of the Lace- 
 daemonians by their achievements at Marathon, and especially 
 at Salamis. With them individual genius was of more avail 
 than rigour of technical discipline ; and even among the 
 minor states a spirit of enthusiastic emulation in patriotism 
 went far to obliterate for the time the jealousies that were 
 being nobly set aside by their leaders. 
 
 The two armies were now within easier reach of each other, 
 and yet the collision was delayed. The Greeks were still 
 receiving reinforcements and supplies, and had taken up 
 ground where they were content to await an attack, but 
 which they could not quit without seriously exposing them- 
 selves to the formidable flights of horsemen, especially about 
 the banks and channel of the river should they attempt 
 to cross it. The conclusions of the generals were duly 
 reflected in the entrails of the sacrifices, which on either side 
 were interpreted so as to promise success in repelling attack, 
 but failure in case of commencing it. Such was the report 
 made to the Hellenic generals on the second day after the 
 army had taken up its new position. Their soothsayer was 
 Tisamenus, son of Antiochus, an lamid of Elis, and as such 
 1 Herod, vii. 103. a Ib. vii. 102.
 
 iv.] PERSIANS PREPARE FOR FINAL CONQUEST. 75 
 
 a member of a highly-reputed family of hereditary diviners ; 
 the origin of their ancestor and his art furnishes the mythical 
 adornment of an ode of Pindar for a mule-car victory at 
 Olympia gained by a relative of the clan some ten years 
 after the present date. Tisamenus had been engaged by 
 the Spartans for this war under circumstances calculated 
 we may probably say literally so to raise confidence in 
 him to the highest degree. They had made a concession 
 unparalleled since the mythical instance of Melampus, which 
 it mimicked of adopting him and his brother also the 
 latter on raised terms after their first hesitation as a Spartan 
 citizen ; for it had been promised to him by the Delphic oracle 
 that he should preside as diviner at five first-class victories, 
 and of these not one was as yet accomplished. Tisamenus 
 so much for the consciousness of the prophetic faculty had 
 first interpreted the oracle as promising a victory in the pen- 
 tathlon, but missed it through failure in the wrestling-match 
 against Hieronymus the Andrian at Olympia. Pausanias saw 
 the statue of the victor athlete there centuries after. The 
 credit of the oracle was saved, apparently without damage 
 to that of the merely instrumental diviner, by the alter- 
 native reference to military victories. Herodotus catalogues 
 its fulfilments in this sense, with a simplicity of faith 
 that vindicates the prudence of the politicians who, what- 
 ever their own faith, and the survival of dread is not 
 inconsistent with mistrust, could not prudently forgo any 
 influence either for encouragement or restraint. Aristides, 
 according to Plutarch, had obtained a Pythian response which 
 was inconveniently or conveniently equivocal. It might 
 even have sanctioned a present retreat or renewed contest 
 in Attica. As matters stood, means were afterwards found 
 for reconciling it with a station near an ancient fane of 
 Eleusinian goddesses, which, if not the best strategically, 
 was at least unavoidable. Near such a fane, we learn from 
 Herodotus, the battle raged at last, so that Plutarch appears
 
 76 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 to be in error in placing it in proximity to Hysiae, the 
 earlier Athenian * station. 
 
 Like ceremonies with like result were proceeding in the 
 Persian camp, where Mardonius chafed impatiently under 
 the restraint they imposed upon him. His soothsayer, Hege- 
 sistratus, was also of Elis and of the Telliad branch of the 
 lamid clan ; but to him no good fortune is ascribed. He 
 had once escaped death at Spartiat hands by breaking from 
 prison, where he had slipped bond by mutilating his foot; 
 he was now by his own hatred and a heavy price engaged 
 against the Spartans on the side of the Mede, but to little 
 purpose, as he was doomed to be caught and put to death by 
 them at last, when again as vainly exercising his function 
 at Zacynthus. 
 
 The Medising Greeks had also their diviner, Hippomachus, 
 a Leucadian, who naturally told the same tale as Hegesistra- 
 tus, and as day drew on tediously after day, forbade joining 
 battle, and so aided the temporising policy of the Thebans, 
 who still urged upon the fretting Persian that corruption, if 
 but sufficiently unsparing, and combined with delay, must 
 infallibly break up the Greek confederacy. 
 
 Herodotus, though assuming throughout that in the Greek 
 cities without distinction there were men in influential posi- 
 tions so susceptible of bribery as to make such a policy by far 
 the most natural and promising, yet warns us not to disallow 
 the existence of a healthy patriotism which he asserts 
 with enthusiasm in the very communities most liable to be 
 weakened and disabled by the selfish treachery of a class. 
 It was not without some special encouragement that the 
 Medising Greeks beyond the Asopus promised speedy fruits 
 from such intrigues. Treachery had obtained some footing 
 even in the Athenian camp, and, however serious in itself, 
 would certainly be magnified by agents with the treasures 
 of Persia at command. The head-quarters of the inchoate 
 
 1 Ariel, la.
 
 iv.] PERSIANS PREPARE FOR FINAL CONQUEST. 77 
 
 conspiracy were in a house at Plataea, the haunt of dis- 
 contented men, whose importance was originally based on 
 family and wealth, and was now reduced both by the 
 impoverishing- ravages of the war, and by the emergence 
 of new men at the requirement of the country for the 
 service of more genuine personal endowments. Even the 
 democratic innovations of Cleisthenes were not likely to be 
 held irreversible, when the tone of the embattled combatants 
 by land and sea already threatened their extension. An 
 attempt at oligarchical if not tyrannous reaction was always 
 ready to arise amidst the difficulties of a Greek democracy ; 
 it was only by promptitude that Athens had been saved from 
 such a crisis, when Miltiades was afield with her citizens at 
 Marathon. The leaven was still within the lump, and every 
 Athenian politician knew it be there, and the apprehension 
 of it was never so justifiable, or so soon likely to be con- 
 firmed by events, as while it was being made a stock jest 
 against Demus by Aristophanes. The first step towards the 
 ' dissolution of the demus ' was to play into the hands of the 
 Persians, and it would be no matter of surprise if the Delphic 
 oracle, which seemed to counsel retreat to Eleusis, and which 
 Aristides could only with difficulty strain into an equivoca- 
 tion compatible with strategic requirements, were procured 
 by the bribes of Medising Athenians. The ears of statesmen 
 worthy of the name, like the eyes of physicians, are quick 
 for symptoms that ought to be expected. Aristides was on 
 the alert, but took measures rather to disperse the germs 
 of mischief than to attempt to extirpate radically what he 
 was well aware could never be absolutely destroyed ; and 
 at the present conjuncture especially it was better tho- 
 roughly to overawe the discontented than to reveal to them 
 their own strength and thus drive them into more com- 
 plete intercommunication, or to risk a panic by publishing 
 the existence of treachery at such a moment. He seized 
 eight only in the camp, brought two of these as the
 
 78 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 most compromised Aeschines of the deme of Lampriae, 
 and Agesias an Acharnian to immediate trial, and on 
 being, perhaps purposely, rid of these by flight, had a 
 pretext for moderate treatment of the rest. To the ac- 
 cessories left in uncertainty whether they might or might 
 not be known he indicated the field of the coming battle 
 as the true court in which it was open to them to clear 
 themselves of all imputations. The secret of this policy 
 appears to be the same as that of the tenderness of the 
 Potidaeans to the traitors of Scione. 
 
 For eight days the two armies were thus confronted in 
 inaction, when Timegenidas son of Herpys, the colleague of 
 Attaginus at Thebes, suggested to Mardonius a stroke which 
 inflicted serious loss and embarrassment on the Greeks. By 
 their movement westward the latter had left unguarded a 
 road that led direct from Thebes to the same pass over 
 Mount Cithaeron by which their chief supplies reached 
 Plataea, along a branch road from the Pass of Three Heads 
 as the Boeotians, or of Oak-heads as the Athenians called 
 it. A body of horse despatched at night swooped upon 
 a train of five hundred beasts of burden laden with provisions 
 for the Greek camp; in a fierce onslaught they killed ^a 
 number of the animals as well as the men conducting them, 
 and carried off the remainder beyond the Asopus. Nor 
 was the Greek army in the position it now occupied able 
 to secure the passage for the future, and their supplies 
 were in consequence blocked up in the l mountains. 
 
 Two days more were marked by no further hostilities than 
 harassing annoyance to the Greeks from the enemy's horse, 
 which, constantly incited but not much aided by the Thebans, 
 skirmished to the right of their line in the direction of the 
 pass. The barbarians also came down as far as the Asopus, 
 and there annoyed the Greeks with missiles; but neither 
 crossed the channel. 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 39-50.
 
 iv.] PERSIANS PREPARE FOR FINAL CONQUEST. 79 
 
 By the eleventh day the impatience of Mardonius under 
 the restraint to which he had subjected himself by deference 
 to the diviners of his Greek allies, and in a degree to Arta- 
 bazus, who was among the few Persians whose authority was 
 conferred by a personal hold on the Great King, became no 
 longer endurable. Remonstrance served but to precipitate 
 his resolution. The only effect of their delay had been that 
 the Greek army had been growing stronger and stronger, 
 and would continue to do so. The Persian army must act 
 at once, before their vast superiority, which now assured to 
 them the victory, was further impaired; they must not 
 force Hegesistratus and his victims by continued pertinacity, 
 but just leave them alone, and join battle, employing simply 
 the old Persian forms. His resolution had only been confirmed 
 by the plain-spoken objections of Artabazus, who, in terms 
 that could not but be offensive, and intentionally so to a 
 sanguine chief who saw victory before him, urged that the 
 entire army should fall back at once and, relying on Theban 
 fortifications, remain on the defensive ; they would there 
 be within easy reach of abundant stores and forage, the 
 exhaustion of which in their advanced position must no 
 doubt have weighed with Mardonius ; they could resort to 
 intrigue and bribery, as recommended by the Thebans, and 
 wait tranquilly for a result that must come about without 
 any battle of importance. 
 
 But against the absolute determination of the appointed 
 head of the expedition who was not only brother-in-law 
 to Xerxes, as having married his sister ] Artazostres, but 
 also at once son-in-law and nephew, both by blood and mar- 
 riage, of 2 Darius nothing was to be said ; a very short 
 leading question silenced the patrons of the diviners. The 
 Persian officers and Hellenic commanders were assembled ; 
 to the demand, Were they aware of any oracle predicting 
 the destruction of the Persians in Greece, they could only 
 
 1 Herod, vi. 43. 3 Ib. vii. 2 ; vii. 5.
 
 80 HISTORY OF GREECE, [CHAP. 
 
 say No, or be silent. ' Well then, 1 he resumed, ' I will 
 tell you that such an oracle there is ; but it declares the 
 catastrophe to be contingent on our sacking Delphi. This, 
 forewarned, we have neither done nor attempted, and there- 
 fore let all who are friends to the Persians know that our 
 victory over the Greeks is certain.' 
 
 Herodotus takes upon himself to say that he knew what 
 oracle Mardonius had in mind, but that it was entirely mis- 
 applied by him not an unusual accident with prophecies. He 
 himself knew prophecies, both of Bacis and Musaeus, much more 
 to the purpose, and quotes one which is certainly as explicit 
 as could be desired whenever it may have been composed. 
 
 The council, if it can be so called, broke up with a command 
 to have all in readiness for action the next morning 1 . 
 
 In the depth of that night a horseman from the Median 
 camp rode over secretly to the Athenian outposts, and, obtain- 
 ing an interview with the commanders, gave warning of 
 what was to be expected on the morrow, that they might not 
 be taken unawares. He added the encouraging information 
 that the sacrifices were still adverse to the Persians, and that 
 Mardonius, who had been long ago eager for battle, and had 
 done all he could to get more favourable omens, was no\v 
 going to fight, notwithstanding their adverseness, at break of 
 day ; he counselled them to stand their ground even should 
 the onset be deferred, as their enemies would run short of sup- 
 plies within a few days at farthest. 'And should this war 
 have the event that you desire, let some thought be taken of 
 me and of my liberation, who a Greek by descent have 
 run this risk from sympathy with general Greece ; I am 
 Alexander of Macedon.' 
 
 This news was immediately communicated by the Athenian 
 commanders to Pausanias at the other extremity of the line, 
 and elicited a proposal to which the Athenians at once as- 
 sented, professing indeed that only delicacy prevented their 
 own suggestion of it at first as the most reasonable plan.
 
 iv.] PERSIA NS PREP A RE FOR FINAL CONQ UEST. 8 1 
 
 It was that the Athenians should change places with the 
 Lacedaemonians from the left wing to the right so as to be 
 opposed to the Persians, of whose mode of fighting they had 
 had experience at Marathon, while the Lacedaemonians would 
 be opposed to familiar enemies Boeotians and Thessalians. 
 The readiness with which Pausanias, Spartan as he is, resigns 
 the traditional post of honour is to his credit as a general, 
 if in truth the change had a sound military motive. The 
 explanation of this, though passed in silence by Herodotus, 
 lies no doubt in the fact already noticed, of the large propor- 
 tion of bowmen in the Athenian armament, adapting it pecu- 
 liarly for resisting troops, especially cavalry, equipped witli 
 the same weapon. The surmounting or uptearing of such 
 a fence as the Persians were wont to place before them was 
 again manifestly a feat more easy for Athenians than for 
 Lacedaemonians, whose drill, however perfect in itself, left 
 them always at a loss before a fortification which compelled 
 them to break line and rely on individual activity. That 
 the Greeks the Boeotian hoplites especially whom they 
 took in exchange as opponents were in any degree less formid- 
 able is not to be thought of, and indeed, if they had been, 
 the consideration would certainly not have been entertained. 
 
 A greater difficulty lies in the relative numbers of the 
 interchanged. The Athenians and Plataeans numbered only 
 8,600 against 10,000 Lacedaemonian hoplites; and, still more 
 important, their light-armed were again only 8,600, while 
 those of the Lacedaemonians were 40,000 ; and no doubt, if 
 they moved at all, they moved in a body. The interchange 
 therefore involved much more than an alteration of mere 
 extremities ; the extremities of the array constituted the bulk 
 of it, and the Lacedaemonians by far the larger proportion. 
 Their movement therefore would throw the Corinthians, 
 Sicyonians, and Troezenians and their associates much more 
 to the right, and bring them as well as the Athenians into 
 contact with the Persians.
 
 82 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 The change agreed upon was made at daybreak, but 
 the Boeotians recognised their new antagonists and ap- 
 prised Mardonius, who on his side again brought round the 
 Persians to confront them. Pausanias, finding that the 
 movement was observed, carried back the Spartiats Aristides 
 overcoming some reluctance among the Athenians to be 
 marched and countermarched, as they said, like helots; and, 
 Mardonius on his side countermanding the Persians, the 
 original positions were maintained unaltered. 
 
 That there is no hint in Herodotus of an attempt of the 
 enemy to use their numbers to outflank the Greeks is in favour 
 of the fact stated in the otherwise wretched account of the 
 battle by Diodorus, that the left wing was protected by 
 high ground ; the deep formation of the Persians noticed by 
 Herodotus may, however, have been according to customary 
 tactics, and not from any necessity. Otherwise, as at Mara- 
 thon, the chief Greek strength was, stationed on the wings. 
 
 The pride of Mardonius interpreted this attempted change 
 as due to fear on the part of the Spartans to encounter his 
 vaunted Persians; he was at least surprised at movements 
 apparently so inconsistent with notorious Spartan tenacity 
 of position on the field of battle the point of honour to 
 which Leonidas had so lately approved his loyalty ; and he 
 took the opportunity to taunt them with renouncing a 
 maxim, from their unreasoning reverence for which he would 
 fain have profited He is represented as having promised 
 Xerxes an easy victory over tribes who in their quarrels 
 amongst themselves had not the wit to employ their common 
 language to settle disputes without fighting ; and who, 
 when they fought, were too stupid to take advantage of 
 opportunities or position, but had no other thought than 
 to appoint a meeting in a fair field and fight it out pre- 
 cisely where the vanquished had no chance of escape and the 
 victors must needs purchase victory at the very dearest price. 
 Taunts had been before employed without effect to overcome
 
 iv .] PERSIA XS PREPARE FOR FIN A L CO NQ UEST. 8 3 
 
 the disappointing appreciation by the Greeks of the com- 
 parative value of positions ; and he now despatched a herald 
 with a formal challenge in terms that might well wound 
 the feelings of Spartans of the ancient rigid school, already 
 bewildered by the frank manoeuvring of their general. A 
 dead silence however was the only greeting which the Persian 
 herald received when he taunted the Lacedaemonians with 
 being false to their principles in deserting their post, with 
 flying from Persians, whom they set the Athenians to 
 encounter while they went themselves to combat the Per- 
 sians' slaves ; if they would vindicate their renown let 
 them come down, Spartans alone opposed to Persians alone, 
 in equal numbers, whether the victory as between the 
 armies were to be decided by the result, if so they pleased, 
 or the rest still left to fight it out afterwards. 
 
 Between marchings, countermarchings, and messages the 
 day had already worn on ; but when the herald returned with 
 the report that he had been left unnoticed after waiting a 
 considerable time, Mardonius was more than ever confirmed 
 in his belief that Greek valour had been over-estimated, and 
 elated at the prospect of a 'cool victory/ He at once delivered 
 his most effective force of mounted archery against the two 
 ;idv;mced wings of the Greeks, and then in flying clouds 
 against the intermediate bodies. The Athenians on the left 
 had been constantly harassed from the opposite side of the 
 Asopus, and were now driven back and excluded from further 
 access to the water of the river. The supply for the entire 
 army thus became dependent on the fount Gargaphia, near 
 the Lacedaemonian position ; and this also was cut off in the 
 progress of the contest by the enemy's horse, who succeeded 
 in choking it and rendering it unavailable an occasion on 
 which we see the important service that might have been 
 rendered by the bowmen of the Athenians. 
 
 G 2
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF PLATAEA. THE DEATH OF MARDONIUS. 
 
 B.C. 479, September; 01. 75. 2. 
 
 THE position of the Greeks, already embarrassed by the 
 blockade of their supplies in the defiles of the mountains, 
 was thus made finally untenable. The generals assembled 
 in council with Pausanias at the right wing, and it was 
 determined that if the Persians, as was likely and as proved 
 to be the case, deferred their general attack over the day, 
 the entire line should be drawn back under cover of the 
 night to the so-called Island, some ten stadia, or less than a 
 mile and a half, distant from the fount Gargaphia, in front 
 of the city of Plataea; this was ground lying between 
 streams that flowed from Cithaeron for some distance about 
 three stadia apart, till they united in one channel forming 
 the Oeroe, that flowed westward to an inlet of the Corinthian 
 gulf. On the usual principle of geographical personification, 
 still too spontaneous to be distinguished from matter of fact, 
 Oeroe was said by the natives not merely obliquely to 
 have been, but to be the daughter of the more important 
 eastward -flowing Asopus. Here there was abundance of 
 water ; and some degree of protection from the horse which 
 during the day had inflicted unceasing loss and worry was 
 afforded by interposed marshy ' ground, and roughness or 
 steepness of approach : moreover from such a station a full 
 
 1 Sir Wm. Cell, Itin. Or.
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF PLATAEA. 85 
 
 half of the force could be spared to effect the reopening of 
 the communications through the passes. 
 
 Night fell, and at the appointed hour the numerous bodies 
 of troops, from the Corinthians to the Megarians inclusive, 
 who had been drawn up under their own leaders in the 
 interval between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians, 
 commenced their march. In the loose coherence of the army, 
 however, their destination was as much a matter of l agree- 
 ment as of imperative command, and with a hurry which 
 amounted to flight from the dreaded horse they retired 
 almost double the appointed distance, not stopping till they 
 reached the temple of Here, under the walls of Plataea, 
 twenty stadia some two miles and a half from the fount 
 Gargaphia. Here they took up a regular station. It is most 
 probable that it was this portion of the army the least 
 homogeneous and proved that was intended to march to 
 the relief of the passes; but in any case the commanders, 
 whether acting on their own discretion or carried away by 
 their troops in spite of it, by retiring to such a distance 
 ceased to be available as a reserve, and were disabled from 
 supporting either one or the other of the wings in case of 
 an attack during their convergence to a new position. 
 
 The centre having thus, according to agreement, moved off 
 the ground first, Pausanias gave the word for the Lacedae- 
 monians to follow ; while the Athenians, whose route would 
 be shorter and easier, awaited notice of their progress to 
 move in concert with them. This notice was, however, both 
 strangely and alarmingly delayed. The fact was, that when 
 all the taxiarchs of Pausanias were prepared to march, there 
 was one Amompharetus, son of Poliathes, the lochagus of a 
 troop (the troop of Pitana according to Herodotus, though 
 Thucydides, with an emphasis not quite explained, denies that 
 there was such a troop) who positively refused to budge. 
 
 1 Sir Wm. Cell, Itin. Gr. ix. 33.
 
 86 HISTORY. OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 He had executed the countermarches parallel to the enemy, 
 without making an open difficulty, though not without 
 scruples; but his old Spartan rigour had since been galled 
 by the insults of the Persian challenge, and he now declared 
 that he was ' not one to fly from the foreigners or be a party 
 to the disgrace of Sparta.' Pausanias and Euryanax ex- 
 hausted themselves in endeavours to convince him of his 
 absurdity, but arguments and commands were alike vain. 
 The dilemma was perplexing, and even dreadful. To leave 
 the man behind with his troop was to leave them to anni- 
 hilation. Such a loss in itself was serious, and moreover his 
 motive for such inopportune wrong-headed ness was one that 
 appealed and might hereafter appeal seriously to Spartan 
 sympathies. It was the great merit of Pausanias that he 
 had learned a lesson from the splendid but wasteful self- 
 sacrifice of Leonidas, and was capable of subordinating 
 Spartan scrupulousness to the urgencies of new conditions. 
 But in this host beside the Asopus was the sole survivor 
 of the three hundred of Leonidas, still fretting under the 
 ignominy with which he was marked only because he h:il 
 not, like an associate who had the equal and sufficient 
 excuse of ophthalmia for absence, thrown his life uselessly 
 away. The achievements of Aristodemus in the battle that 
 then ensued would have entitled him to the prize of pre- 
 eminent valour, had they not been the frenzied deeds of a 
 man who was only desirous to die, and moreover had 
 quitted his place in the ranks to perform them. The 
 best part of a night might well be consumed in con- 
 tending with feelings that could on such grounds exclude 
 Aristodemus from posthumous honours as a 'recreant.' In 
 the meantime the Athenians, hearing nothing of any com- 
 mencement of movement by the Laconian camp, and bearing 
 in mind former disappointments in the execution of Laeonian 
 engagements, became not only uneasy but seriously distrust- 
 ful, and despatched a mounted messenger for instructions
 
 v.J THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF PLATAEA. 8T 
 
 and information. The quarrel had reached its height when 
 he arrived, and as he stood by, Amompharetus was ex- 
 pressing his reply to the abuse of the generals by lifting 
 a great rock with both hands, and declaring as he threw 
 it at their feet, ' Thus I cast in my vote not to fly before 
 the foreigners.' 
 
 Pausanias bade the messenger report the difficulty thus 
 interposed by the obstinacy of a madman, and desired the 
 Athenian generals to incline in their march towards their 
 left, so as to co-operate more directly with the delayed 
 Lacedaemonians. Time indeed was pressing, since it was 
 absolutely imperative to move a body of fifty-three thousand 
 men Lacedaemonians and Tegeans, light and heavy armed 
 to some distance at least before daybreak. Pausanias 
 therefore set them in motion ; but even then, unwilling 
 to take all the risk of the possible obstinacy of the 
 lochagus, he resolved to halt at an intermediate position, 
 from which he could still help him if follow he would 
 not, directing the march meantime across a series of 
 low hills towards the higher ground beyond, under the 
 declivities of Cithaeron and inaccessible to the hostile 
 cavalry. It was only as morning broke that the appearance 
 of Amompharetus and his lochus enabled the march to con- 
 tinue as originally proposed. The movement of the entire 
 force had at last convinced him that he was not to have 
 his own way, and had brought him still at deliberate pace 
 to move his men. But daybreak also revealed the Persian 
 cavalry on the alert, and shewed that an immediate attack 
 was to be expected while the ranks were still on ground 
 exposed to their onset. Pausanias disposed his troops on 
 the march in the best available order, and despatched a 
 horseman to the still distant Athenian force to urge them 
 to come up to his support as speedily as possible, or if this 
 could not be done to send him their detachment of archers 
 to oppose the cavalry, the entire force of which was coming
 
 88 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 down upon him. He was in fact overtaken by the nearer 
 detachments, and in the absence of the bowmen, suffered 
 considerably before he could reach a favourable position near 
 a fane of the Eleusinian Demeter, at a place called Argiopis, 
 on the stream Moloeis, ten stadia, or about a mile, from his 
 starting-point. This is the distance assigned for the Island, 
 and of this therefore, allowing still for some indirectness 
 in the march, the Moloeis was probably one boundary, and 
 so the verge at least had been attained of the desired 
 position. That the Demetrion was intended to be included 
 in this the oracle already quoted may be taken to prove. 
 The excitement in the enemy's camp was by this time 
 intense ; the course of the Athenians from the flat ground 
 by the Asopus led them behind a ridge of low hillocks, 
 where they were altogether invisible from the Persian 
 head-quarters. The vaunted and immoveable Spartans had 
 also evacuated their position, and were already descried at 
 a distance in full retreat for the passes, while the forces of 
 the Greek centre were remoter still. The exultation and 
 confidence that now hurried Mardonius into precipitate action 
 cannot be better expressed than in the short speech assigned 
 to him by Herodotus. He summoned Thorax of Larksa 
 and his brothers Eurypylus and Thrasydeius, and in the 
 presence of Artabazus pointed to the scene beyond the 
 Asopus. ' Ye sons of Aleuas,' he said, ' what have ye to say 
 now at sight of this deserted station, ye, the neighbours of 
 the Lacedaemonians, who persisted in declaring that they 
 never fled from battle, and that they were the first of all 
 warriors ? Ye beheld before how they shifted post, and now 
 see with all the rest of us how they have run away under 
 cover of night. As soon as the time came for them to be 
 put to proof in battle against those who are really and truly 
 the bravest of men, they have exposed themselves as mani- 
 festly of no account, even when compared to Greeks who are 
 themselves of no account. For you, who praise them for
 
 v.] THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF PLATAEA. 89 
 
 what you know them to have done, and are quite without 
 experience of the Persians, I make considerable excuse; but 
 with respect to Artabazus, that he should have been fright- 
 ened by the Lacedaemonians, and yielded from fear to the 
 craven opinion that we ought to break up our encampment 
 and go to be besieged in Thebes, has indeed astonished me. 
 The King shall hear of it from me yet; though this is a 
 matter that will have to be discussed at another time and 
 elsewhere. What we have now in hand is to frustrate this 
 design of theirs and make pursuit until we overtake them, 
 and exact penalty for all that they have done to the injury 
 of the Persians/ 
 
 This threat against a haughty rival in the favour of the 
 King, who, opposing the expedition from the first, had co- 
 operated unwillingly, and, chafing at subordination, had taken 
 every opportunity to thwart his chief, might not have been 
 uttered had not Mardonius believed that no more work was 
 before him than a triumphant slaughter of disorganised fugi- 
 tives, or had he known how entirely the 40,000 seasoned 
 soldiers under Artabazus remains of the escort of 60,000 
 were by personal attachment at the disposal of their leader, 
 and withdrawn from his own command. 
 
 In wild excitement the Persian division of the army was 
 at once despatched across the Asopus to follow at a run on 
 the track of the Greeks, who were supposed to be in hasty 
 flight ; Mardonius himself on a white Nisaean charger led on 
 the mounted division of the Immortals one thousand out of 
 the ten thousand, who were all picked men ; a corps distin- 
 guished by extravagantly rich accoutrements, supplied by a 
 privileged commissariat and trains of camels, and accom- 
 panied in camp by the harems of the various officers, and by 
 all the luxuries of l peace. The sally of the Persians roused 
 the rest of the camp. The leaders of all nations, without 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 58 ; vii. 83.
 
 90 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CUAP. 
 
 waiting- for definite orders, which under the circumstances 
 were possibly not sent, let loose their multitudes, who 
 rushed on in entire neglect of ranks or array, a shouting- 
 mob, the fastest only first, with no thought but that the 
 Greeks were to be had for the snatching. 
 
 The Athenians had wheeled at the summons of Pausanias, 
 but were now threatened themselves, and indeed presently 
 engaged, while still detached, by the Medising Greeks of 
 the Persian right wing ; and the battle was thus divided in 
 the beginning into two independent conflicts. 
 
 The Lacedaemonians were overtaken first, drawn up 
 hoplites, light-armed, and helots with the Arcadian Tegeans 
 beside them. Strong in his post, where, from the nature 
 of the ground, attacks of cavalry, though present in more 
 force, would have been of less avail, and awaiting the suc- 
 cour of the Athenians, or even the central forces of which 
 the remoteness could not be known, Pausanias again held 
 his men in hand; and, galled as they were by the Persian 
 arrows, commanded them while still the sacrifices were 
 unfavourable to action to remain quiet, crouching on the 
 knee, and protected as far as possible by their shields. 
 The hostile arrows began to fall thick, and some horse- 
 approached near enough to engage; men were falling in 
 the unmoved Greek ranks. It was now that Callicrates, 
 the very stateliest and most beautiful man in the entire 
 army, was fatally struck. When he died it was with the 
 complaint on his lips, not at meeting death in the cause 
 of Greece, it was for that he left his home, but that he 
 should perish without having lifted a hand, without having 
 given proof of the qualities apart from which pride in the 
 possession of bodily beauty was admitted by the Greek to 
 l>e unauthorised and incomplete. Still the attitude of the 
 army as their confident assailants came on was perfectly 
 tranquil ; not a man started up, not a weapon stirred ; as 
 from one moment to another they expected the signal for
 
 v.] THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF PLATAEA. 91 
 
 opportune action from God and their commander. He 
 meantime stood distressed beside the discouraging- sacrifices, 
 even when the Persian foot were coming within the distance 
 where they planted in the ground the gerrha or wicker 
 shields that were to protect their formidable and systematic 
 archery, but where the closing up of their thickening ranks 
 would impede their orderly retirement and even their action, 
 and where the shock of conflict, if once successful, must be 
 decisive. 
 
 It was just when opportunity and omens had, after renewed 
 trial, been recognised by the Spartan general as still not 
 coincident, that the Tegeans, less enduring of such stern 
 control, broke the line, whether with or without command, 
 and rushed to the attack ; and now forthwith the expected 
 omen appeared at last, and with a suddenness that was after- 
 wards ascribed to a momentary prayer addressed by Pausanias 
 in his trouble to the Cithaeronian 1 Here and the other Plataean 
 gods. At his signal the whole Lacedaemonian host rose from 
 its quietude, ' like a single wild beast roused from its lair, 
 dangerous, 2 horrent.' In steady order, and shield to shield 
 (a formation known as the synaspism), they closed upon the 
 line of gerrha, which the Persians prepared to defend reso- 
 lutely, and where, their bows being useless at such close 
 quarters, they fought as from behind a breastwork, with a 
 bravery sufficient to vindicate much of the confidence of Mar- 
 donius. With naked hands they grasped the Doric spears 
 which were thrusting at their chests and faces with desperate 
 effect, broke off abundance of them across the fence, and even 
 when this gave way resisted as furiously : a sustained and 
 stubborn conflict raged by the very fane of Demeter as they 
 resorted to their knives and scimitars (acinaces), tugging at 
 the wall of shields, and hanging upon them to obtain an 
 opening for a stroke. This sustained valour, if taken alone, 
 
 1 Thucyd. ii. 75; Plut. Arist. 18. 2 Plut. Arlst. 18.
 
 92 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 would have made them no unequal foes, seeing that in 
 bodily strength they were on a par with the Greeks ; but 
 in such a conflict they fought at serious disadvantage, 
 since, compared with the hoplites, they were naked of 
 defensive armour, while they were far inferior in dexterity 
 in wielding their weapons, and their attacks upon a line 
 as solid and continuous as a wall were made in spasmodic 
 onsets; singly even or in tens, or in bands of sometimes 
 more and sometimes less, they started forward upon the 
 Spartans only to meet their death. Yet as long as Mardo- 
 nius survived, and the Thousand under his immediate ] com- 
 mand were supporting the Median battle by pressing with 
 serious effect on the Lacedaemonians, there was no sign of 
 giving way. But eveu the Thousand were gradually reduced 
 by death and wounds ; and when the leader disappeared, 
 dismay and flight at once took possession of the entire army. 
 A stone aimed by the hand of a Spartiat, Aeimnestus, struck 
 Mardonius on the head as he rode conspicuous on his white 
 charger, and broke his skull ; and then, says Herodotus, 
 the compensation was discharged which, as the oracle had 
 found means of intimating, was to be paid to the Spartans 
 by Mardonius for the slaughter of their king Leonidas. The 
 historian omits a moral to the miserable fact which he re- 
 cords on the same page, that Aeimnestus, who was now so 
 well serving the cause of united Greece, was to meet his own 
 death afterwards in an intestine quarrel among the Greeks 
 2 themselves. He pauses yet again before proceeding with 
 the incidents of the flight to note how observable it was, 
 that in the course of this battle, raging as it did about the 
 grove and fane of Demeter, not a single Persian died or 
 even penetrated within the temenos, though large numbers 
 fell in the unconsecrated ground without the precinct. ' In 
 my opinion,' he adds, ' if one is to have an opinion about 
 
 1 Herod, vii. 40. * Ib. a.. 64.
 
 v.] THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF PLATAEA. 93 
 
 divine matters at all, the goddess- herself refused to admit 
 them because they had set fire to the sacred Anactorion at 
 ^leusis.' And so the Greek mind is set at rest from an 
 apprehension that Persians who might have taken refuge 
 in a sacred precinct encircled by battle might either have 
 escaped, or not have been spared even there. 
 
 The Athenian force had only arrived within hearing of the 
 clamour of this battle when they had themselves to stand on 
 their own defence. As their Hellenic antagonists approached 
 (Plutarch, taking his figures from the collective and conjec- 
 tural muster-roll of Herodotus, quotes them as 50,000), 
 Aristides advanced in front and appealed to them in the name 
 of their common gods to abstain from battle and offer no 
 hindrance to men who were on their way to the rescue of 
 Greeks. In effect it was only the Boeotians who fought 
 with zeal and resolution on the side of Persia against Greece ; 
 they held the Athenians in check for a considerable time, 
 while the rest kept off entirely or were slack, and when 
 signs were visible of the discomfiture of the Persians, with- 
 drew entirely. The Thebans however, conscious that they 
 were fighting for life or death, had been too deeply com- 
 mitted to give up so easily. Plutarch, as a Boeotian, naturally 
 pleads that only an oligarchical faction then in power was 
 traitor to Greece, and not the nation. Three hundred of 
 their first and 2 best their aristocracy, the very sinews 
 of this faction fell before the Athenians, and then the 
 Thebans turned and fled to gain the protection of their 
 city walls. The contagion of terror had spread from the 
 scene of confusion that was now visible all down the eastern 
 valley and across the Asopus. Not only were the remoter 
 Persians in flight, but all the mingled nations of the centre 
 which had come on in disorder were crowding back in double 
 confusion without having delivered a blow, to seek the refuge 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 66. 2 Ib. ix. 67.
 
 94 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 of the entrenched and palisaded camp. The flying Thebans 
 received considerable protection from their own and the 
 Thessalian cavalry, which, though unable to rally them so 
 as to make any independent stand of their own, interposed be- 
 tween them and the Athenians and brought them off with less 
 comparative loss. But the victors of the subjects of Xerxes 
 had freer play, and followed slaughtering the helpless and 
 bewildered fugitives. 
 
 If any Persian bethought him in his terror of the help that 
 might come from the 40,000 men of Artabazus, he looked for 
 him in vain. Artabazus had anticipated the catastrophe with 
 the cynical sagacity of a man who has both the will and the 
 power to promote the conclusion that he prophesies. He 
 had carefully preserved his own command and his own 
 adherents from the impulsive onset of Mardonius. Mar- 
 shalling them accurately, he led them forth as if for the 
 battle, giving them a warning which would prepare them 
 for some sudden turn (well acquainted as they were with 
 his general discontent, and even apart from more explicit 
 confidence as to his purpose), instructing them to be watchful 
 of his personal movements, and so soon as he was seen to 
 make a direct start, to follow in whatever direction it 
 might be without hesitation. He was still only sluggishly 
 on his way towards the battle-field, when unequivocal signs 
 of defeat were apparent ; he instantly wheeled about, the 
 entire force following implicitly, neither to the Persian fort 
 nor the Theban citadel, but to the well-known and well- 
 travelled road to Phocis that marked a destination for the 
 Hellespont. 
 
 The Greeks had also fought without aid from one large 
 section of their forces, and these were now to be accounted 
 for with varied fortune, some 37,000 out of 107,000. If not 
 the din of battle, the flight of stragglers might suffice, perhaps 
 even without messengers, to apprise the camp at the Heraeum 
 of what was going on ; but the endeavour to repair the error
 
 v.] THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF PLATAEA. 95 
 
 of their distant retirement was, from whatever cause, not 
 made before the news of victory arrived. The Corinthians and 
 those next to them counted up from the muster as 22,600, 
 over three-fifths of the whole hastened, in no proper order, 
 along the hills and undercliff direct to the Demetrium; the 
 remaining two-fifths, from the Phliasians to the Megarians, 
 about 14,600, took the lower ground towards the scene of 
 conflict of the Athenians, and equally without precautionary 
 order. Here however they were caught sight of in their 
 defenceless disarray by the unbroken Theban horse under 
 Asopodorus son of Timander, who charged them and pur- 
 sued them into the mountains, with the loss of 600 slain, 
 without reason or result in any way. 
 
 The defeated Persians and the panic-stricken mob were 
 already in large numbers within the palisaded fort, and, not- 
 withstanding their confusion, were employed in manning 
 the towers and strengthening its openings (which must have 
 been left of considerable amplitude to admit of so speedy 
 a reception under such circumstances) before it could be 
 reached by the heavy-armed Lacedaemonians. A stubborn 
 battle at the walls (teichomachia) now commenced, in which 
 the Spartans, little practised in fighting either against walls 
 or behind them, had decidedly the worst. They were soon 
 joined by the more expert Athenians, who, apprised by a mes- 
 senger of the state of things before the fort, willingly left 
 their Hellenic enemies, covered as they were in retreat, to 
 make their way to Thebes. A stout contest from the wall 
 still continued for some time, but at last the Athenians, by 
 combined valour and pertinacity, established themselves on it, 
 and effected an opening through which the Greeks the 
 Tegeans again leading poured in a flood. The barrier once 
 down, there was an end among the defenders alike of orderly 
 array and of any further exhibition of valour. The mere 
 crowding of intermingled tribes and arms was enough to 
 extinguish discipline and to disable its operation if it existed,
 
 96 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 while disaster upon disaster and the loss and disappearance 
 of chiefs demoralised even the best. The fort became a 
 slaughter-house, and a carnage ensued which even the 
 entertainments presided over with satisfaction by modern 
 princes and generals after centuries of improvement in the 
 means of human destruction can scarcely hope to rival. 
 
 The spirit of vengeance for past sufferings was reinforced 
 by a sense of the danger to be incurred by sparing any con- 
 siderable proportion of such a multitude of enemies ; Pausanias 
 forbade taking prisoners, and neither supplications nor pro- 
 mises of ransom stayed the hands of Athenians and Lace- 
 daemonians, who emulated each other in the now merely 
 laborious work of massacre. Penned up within the lines 
 which they had toiled at as a refuge and protection, the 
 wretched tribes of men, swept together from all parts of 
 a vast continent to subserve without option the imperial 
 greed of a despot and the military pride of his satraps, were 
 killed in heaps like cattle, and piled in blood amongst the 
 splendid tents, costly fittings, and the other apparatus of the 
 pomp and luxury of their leaders. 
 
 Out of the enormous Persian army, which he sets down in 
 round numbers at 300,000, Herodotus avers that besides the 
 40,000 who fled with Artabazus, only 3,000 were left alive. 
 
 On the side of the Greeks he only enumerates as killed : 
 Spartiat Lacedaemonians 91 out of 5,000 
 Tegeans 16 1,500 
 
 Athenians 52 8,000. 
 
 The last are said to have all belonged to the single tribe 
 Aiantis. 
 
 The losses of the heavy-armed Lacedaemonians the 5,000 
 perioeci who were engaged, unless possibly comprised in 
 the compendious term Spartiats, and of the Plataean 
 600, are left unspecified here, and perhaps went to swell 
 the total Greek loss, given by Plutarch at 1,360. It 
 may be a question whether even this reckoning includes
 
 vi.] THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF PLATAEA. 97 
 
 the helots. The Spartiats, and the Tegeans who fought 
 with them, are thus seen to have suffered much more heavily 
 in proportion than the Athenians. In comparing the rela- 
 tive losses of opponents in ancient battles it must be borne 
 in mind that the victors had always a large number of 
 unenumerated wounded ; while of the vanquished, the 
 wounded for the most part, and often even the captives 
 when barbarians were in question, were counted among the 
 slain. Any reservation of prisoners was quite exceptional, 
 and made only with a view to ransom, hostages, or sale as 
 slaves. 
 
 The entrenchment had been encumbered, necessarily and 
 unnecessarily, with non-combatant followers purveyors of 
 supplies, attendant slaves, and women of all degrees, from the 
 favourites of the luxurious nobles downwards ; and these 
 probably constituted the majority of the spared. Herodotus 
 describes one scene, which may serve to represent the aspect 
 of mingled horrors and splendours, the rescues, recogni- 
 tions, and coincident adventures that are implied by such 
 occasions. 
 
 While Pausanias was in the midst of urging and direct- 
 ing the slaughter, a woman, in the richest Persian ornaments 
 and attire, threw herself at his feet and clasped his knees, 
 claiming rescue, as a Greek, from Persian servitude. She 
 declared that she was by birth a Coan, daughter of Hege- 
 torides son of Antagoras, and had been forcibly carried off 
 by the Persian Pharandates son of Teaspis ; an example of 
 a very extensive class of the miseries inflicted by the 
 barbarian domination on the Greeks of Asia Minor and 
 the islands, from which this victory alone had rescued the 
 Greeks of Europe. In the Spartan commander she was 
 now addressing a host of her father's ; he committed her at 
 once to the care of some of the ephors, and dismissed her 
 afterwards at her desire to Aegina, in possession of all her 
 dignified appointments and ornaments. The deliberate state
 
 98 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 in which Herodotus represents her as arriving in a closed 
 armamaxa, or covered chariot, with her gaudy attendants, 
 seems inconsistent with the moment, and if the picture is 
 to be preserved, must rather be transferred to the occasion 
 of her departure. Precisely at this time, when all barbarian 
 resistance was at an end, came in the lagging supports, 
 first of the Mantinaeans, and then of the Eleians. Their 
 regret, and still more their reproaches against their com- 
 manders, knew no bounds ; to them they ascribed their 
 non-participation in the battle, and on their return home 
 visited it iipon them in both cases by exile. The Mantinaeans 
 would fain have obtained yet one chance of service by pur- 
 suing Artabazus on his road to Thessaly, but even this was 
 refused them by Pausanias. The Corinthian and Sicyonian 
 division, Diodorus says the Phliasians l also, too late for 
 the battle, were sent forward, without further result than 
 ascertaining that the retreat was remote and probably 
 final. 
 
 Artabazus was indeed pushing on rapidly, to keep ahead, 
 if possible, even of the never-resting tongue of Rumour. 
 He told the Thessalians that he was called to Thrace by 
 matters of importance necessitating speed, assured them 
 that Mardonius and his army were close behind, and made 
 a great point of the attentions it would be prudent to 
 prepare for him. He then passed on through Macedonia 
 by the indicated road for Thrace. Here he avoided the 
 coast and took the inland roads, his numbers dwindling 
 as he passed by hunger, by fatigue, and by the hostility 
 of the native tribes who hung about his march. Herodotus 
 is silent as to hostilities against the fugitives from Plataea 
 on the part of the king of Macedonia, of which we have 
 mention by 2 Demosthenes. Even so he was driven to make, 
 not for the nearer Hellespont, but for the Thracian Bosphorus, 
 
 1 Diod. xi. 32. In Aristoc. 687 ; Epist. Phil. 164.
 
 vi.] THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF PLATAEA. 99 
 
 which, from its greater remoteness from Greece by sea, and 
 the strength of the Persian post at Byzantium, was more 
 likely to yield a secure passage. He will reappear in the 
 story in unimpaired credit with Xerxes, and, for the Greeks, 
 in ill-omened communication with Pausanias. 
 
 H 2
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SPOILS OF PLATAEA. THE GLORY OP PAUSANIAS. 
 B.C. 479, Autumn. 01. 75. 2. 
 
 Ax Plataea the Greeks were occupied with the usual sequel 
 of victory, the collection and solemn interment of their dead, 
 and the distribution of honours and spoil among both gods 
 and men. By proclamation of Pausanias all private appropria- 
 tion of spoil was forbidden, and the large force of helots was 
 employed to gather the whole together from the camp and 
 field of battle. The worth of precious metals in coined money 
 (darics), personal ornaments, and enrichments of weapons and 
 .camp furniture, in the vessels and table-services that were 
 carried about in such an expedition by the Persians^ was 
 enormous ; among the baggage- waggons gold and silver plate 
 was found in l sackfuls, so that of the abundance of merely 
 embroidered vestments which would at any other time have 
 been highly valued, no account whatever was taken. An 
 imputation upon the Aeginetans here occurs, which, though 
 possibly heightened by the historian's prejudice, still in- 
 dicates a general feeling that the tone of Hellenic thought 
 had become vulgarised among these more purely commercial 
 islanders. He accuses them of dealing illicitly with the 
 helots for treasure that should have been brought to 
 the common fund, and even ascribes to this source, if we 
 adopt the most moderate interpretation of his language, the 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 80.
 
 THE SPOILS OF PLATAEA. 101 
 
 origin of the largest Aeginetan fortunes. The district of 
 Plataea gave up long after to fortunate finders deposits of 
 plate and valuables that had been hidden away by those who 
 never had a chance of recovering them, and the Aeginetans 
 bought from the helots sometimes the secret of such stores, and 
 sometimes the purloined objects themselves, armlets, chains 
 or torques, and golden-hilted scimetars that were found upon 
 the bodies of the slain enemy all over the field. The helots, 
 fresh from their secluded servitude at Lacedaemon, were as 
 ignorant of the precious metals as the Swiss when they rifled 
 the tents and stripped the bodies of the Burgundians at 
 Granson, and were glad to get the price of brass for objects 
 of gold which in any case they would have been unable to 
 conceal or employ to any purpose. 
 
 A still more shameful fraud on the part of the Aeginetans 
 against the victors in a battle in which they themselves had 
 scarcely taken any part, was the suggestion made to Pau- 
 sanias by Lampon son of Pytheus, one of their leading men, 
 a member of a family distinguished for hereditary prowess in 
 the public games, and a participator in the glory of ^ala- 
 mis. He represented that the predicted penalty to be re- 
 covered from Mardonius still lacked completion ; it would be 
 exacted in full and the glory of Pausanias immensely enhanced 
 if the head of Mardonius were cut off and exposed, as 
 Mardonius and Xerxes had done with the remains of Leonidas. 
 Pausanias repudiated the suggestion with contemptuous dig- 
 nity ; it was barbarian, not Hellenic, in spirit, and repugnant 
 to Lacedaemonians, whatever it might be to Aeginetans. 
 Lampon was bidden to bring no more advice, and might be 
 thankful that even this time he got away with only a rebuke. 
 
 By next day the body of Mardonius was missing with- 
 drawn for burial, it was assumed ; and more than one man 
 afterwards claimed and received large rewards from his son 
 
 1 Pind. Isthm, iv.
 
 102 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Artontes for the service : there was a report that it had been 
 really performed by Dionysophanes, an Ephesian. A monu- 
 ment probably a barrow on the right of the road from 
 Eleutherae to Plataea, immediately after the junction of the 
 road to l Hysiae, was pointed out long after as that of 
 Mardonius. 
 
 And now again, as after Salamis, questions arose as to 
 the assignment of chief honours among the nations engaged. 
 Some of the Athenian leaders, Leocrates and Myronides espe- 
 cially, were indisposed to concede any exclusive distinction to 
 the Spartans for all their exploits and leadership, and Aristides 
 could only prevail on them to remit the apportionments to the 
 assembled Greeks. In the end, Athenians and Lacedaemo- 
 nians each erected a separate trophy, and each nation honoured 
 its own most deserving champions without drawing compari- 
 sons. 2 Pausanias speaks of the trophy as a single one, and 
 situated about fifteen stadia (a mile and a half) beyond the 
 city, towards Thebes. Here, as after Salamis, further heart- 
 burnings were said to have been evaded by the chief rivals 
 renouncing their claims, at. the suggestion of Megarians or 
 Corinthians, in favour of an inferior power. The gods and 
 heroes of Plataea had been specially invoked, and in con- 
 sequence eighty talents (about .2,000) were set aside for 
 the Plataeans, a sum which defrayed the cost of a temple 
 to Athene Areia, the Martial, and of the paintings which 
 adorned it, and which remained in preservation long enough 
 to be seen by Plutarch and described by Pausanias. Hero- 
 dotus however, giving voice to the common opinion of un- 
 biassed Greeks, after the generous confession that among their 
 enemies the first honours were due to the Persian foot (the 
 horse of the Sakae), and among individuals to Mardonius, 
 declares that of the Greeks, brave men as the Tegeans and 
 Athenians had approved themselves, the palm of valour belonged 
 to the Lacedaemonians, belonged by this token, that though 
 1 Paus. ix. a. Ib. ix. a. 4 .
 
 vii.] THE SPOILS OF PLATAEA. 103* 
 
 all alike had conquered their opponents, the Lacedaemonians 
 had assaulted and conquered by far the most valiant. He had 
 before stated his opinion that the one seat of strength in the 
 army of Mardonius lay in the ranks of the native Persians of 
 whom he was so proud. In place of Aristodemus, whose claims 
 he thought were wrongly set aside, Poseidonius, Philocyon, 
 and the rigid Spartiat Amompharetus were preferred ; and 
 of these again Poseidonius was chiefly honoured, honoured, 
 while Aristodemus was set aside, inasmuch as in his case daring 
 had not been urged by contempt of the life he put in peril. 
 It is highly characteristic of the Greek mind that Herodotus 
 returns to Gallic-rates, and his premature death, as explaining 
 how it was that a man so beautiful is absent from the list 
 that signalises the most brave. 
 
 Among the Athenians, renown distinguished Sophanes son 
 of Eutychides, of the deme of Decelea; the man of whom it 
 came to be told a valuable example of how fact was still 
 liable to wander away through metaphor into myth that 
 he wore in battle an iron anchor or grappling-iron attached 
 to a bronze chain, with which he moored himself to his 
 station till his enemies were in flight, when he took it up 
 again and carried it on in the pursuit. ' So the story goes ; but 
 there is another which conflicts with it, namely that the anchor 
 he carried was not formed of iron and hanging to his corselet, 
 but a painted symbol on his ever restless shield.' Oppor- 
 tunity is taken to record of this champion of Greek liberty, 
 how at the siege of Aegina by the Athenians, when Greeks 
 and Greeks, now allies, were in conflict, he challenged and 
 killed the ' Argive Eurybates, a Nemean victor in the l pent- 
 athlon,' ' another brilliant exploit.' 
 
 The mention of the Decelea, as the deme of Sophanes, is 
 fortunate, as it introduces an allusion to a later incident, the 
 invasion of Attica by 2 Archidamus, and so informs us that 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 75 ; Paus. i. 29. 4. 2 Ol. 88. 2 = BC. 431.
 
 *104 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Herodotus was finishing his history after that date ; that he 
 was in fact anachronism as it seems for his comparative 
 genius a contemporary with Thucydides at the age of 40, 
 and with Euripides when author of the Medea ; so near to- 
 gether in Greece was all that was archaic and most modern. 
 
 From the collected spoil a tithe was then reserved for the 
 god at Delphi ; and from this a golden tripod was dedicated, 
 and placed on a three-headed serpent near the altar. Pausa- 
 nias found that Phocian sacrilege had taken its way with the 
 tripod, but the bronze support was still in its place. Con- 
 stantine transferred this to the hippodrome of his new city, 
 and there by rare clemency of fortune it stands to this day 
 inscribed with a list of patriotic cities. It bore the inscrip- 
 tion : 
 
 'EAXdSo* tvpvxopov aorrTJpfs rovS* dv((h]Kav, 
 5ov\oavvi)t arvytpas pvadptvoi 
 
 Further reservation was made for a bronze statue of Poseidon, 
 seven cubits high, at the Isthmus, and for another of Zeus, 
 twelve cubits high, at Olympia. Pausanias the traveller 
 notes of the latter, apparently merely to guide the curious, 
 that it was turned towards the east, and he copied from 
 its base the catalogue of the dedicating cities already re- 
 ferred to. 
 
 Of the assignment of special trophies we are told that 
 the Tegeans, who first entered the entrenched camp, had 
 among other things from the quarters of Mardonius an elabo- 
 rate manger formed entirely of bronze, which they dedicated 
 in their ancient temple of Athene Alea, in the conflagration 
 of 2 which it probably 3 perished. 
 
 In the temple of Athene Polias at Athens was long after 
 shown the corselet of Masistius an appropriate Athenian 
 prize, and a scimitar asserted to be that of Mardonius, the 
 identity of which, however, is reasonably questioned by 
 
 1 Diod. S. xi. 33. * 01. 96. Paus. viii. 45. 3.
 
 vii.] THE SPOILS OF PLATAEA. 105 
 
 Pausanias, who refuses to believe in the resignation of such 
 a trophy by the 1 Lacedaemonians. 
 
 A metrical inscription by 2 Simonides for a bow and arrows 
 dedicated at Athens, recalls the specific services rendered by 
 that weapon at Plataea : 
 
 Too ra.Se irro\(fj.oio Trt 
 
 vrjw 'AOrjvairjs Kfirai iiiroppu<pia, 
 noXXaici 8i) arov&tvra. ttaroi K\UVOV \v 8cu <j>onSiv 
 
 The general distribution concerned a miscellaneous assem- 
 blage of booty, such as ' concubines of the Persians, gold and 
 silver, and other valuables and animals.' Whether the precise 
 principle of apportionment with reference to 3 merit was deter- 
 mined by the numbers of 4 contingents must remain uncertain, 
 but in any case the share of the Lacedaemonians could not 
 have been less than enormous. Again, we are left in the dark 
 as to the disposal of this share, whether as public or private 
 treasure, in a polity of which a professed fundamental maxim 
 was to discourage and ignore accumulated wealth and the 
 luxuries to which it could minister. Apart however from the 
 laxities that creep into all organisations founded on the basis 
 of asceticism, a populous state, of the influence and power of 
 Sparta, could never dispense with the command of some consi- 
 derable treasure or of stored wealth in some form. And even 
 ascetic disciplinarians, especially when at the head of a system, 
 can always find opportunities of expensive self-indulgence, 
 which by some means are brought within the letter of the 
 stern code. We read at this time of Spartans of great 
 wealth ; and others will speedily, and not unfrequently, come 
 before us whose common weakness is greed for that gold of 
 which their laws forbade almost the mention ; and even when 
 we look back to the reign of Darius, we find that if Cleo- 
 menes repudiated the invitations of Aristagoras to aid an 
 
 1 Paus. i. 27. i. 2 Sim. 200. 
 
 3 Herod, ix. 81. Diod. S. xi. 33.
 
 106 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Ionian revolt, it was for other reasons, and not because he 
 was shocked at having it held out as a temptation that the 
 capture of Susa was quite within possibility, Susa, the 
 treasure-house of the Great King, by acquiring which he 
 might confidently rival Ionia in l riches. The promise of 
 Aristagoras might now seem to the Spartans to have come 
 to pass; general, ephors and Spartiats, perioeci and helots, 
 might all look round as if a new world had opened upon 
 them ; and men of the stubborn antique stamp of a Leonidas 
 or an Amompharetus were blind if they had not some mis- 
 trust of the working of this sight upon all classes of visitors 
 from the Eurotas, from the helots who had loyally contributed 
 to the capture, and yet were only to share in it dangerously 
 and by stealth, to the Regent himself on whom they were 
 lavished so abundantly. For him also, as if next after the 
 gods, the several classes of spoil ' women, horses, talents, 
 camels, and all the other wealth of whatever kind ' were 
 not tithed exactly, but put under contributions expressed by 
 tens, and with him rested of necessity the disposal of whatever 
 was most princely. Mardonius, though himself only a deputy, 
 or lieutenant, had remained in possession of all the splen- 
 didly appointed establishment of the fugitive King, and while 
 Pausanias gazed on the vessels and furniture of gold and 
 silver, the luxuriously covered couches and embroidered cur- 
 tains, a thought occurred to him of a contrast that should 
 give zest to his elation in victory. He summoned the Greek 
 generals to a feast in the royal tent itself, which they 
 found set out and prepared in every detail by the Persian's 
 own train of confectioners and cooks, as if Mardonius were 
 still alive; and beside it he pointed with laughter to a sj'iirc 
 Laconian dinner that had been prepared in the usual order by 
 his own servants for himself, exclaiming with derisive scorn, 
 ' Ye men of Hellas, I have brought you together for precisely 
 
 1 Herod, v. 49.
 
 vii.] THE SPOILS OF PLATAEA. 107 
 
 this, to exhibit to you the folly of the Median general, 
 who having enjoyment of all this splendour, came here 
 to plunder an existence so wretched as ours.' The turn 
 of the moral is the same that is put into the mouth of 
 Caractacus by a Roman writer, and of the hardy Swiss by 
 1 Philip de Comines ; but in this case it strikes upon the 
 ear as involving an appreciation of the more luxurious 'fare, 
 when obtainable, that has scarcely the true Laconian ring. 
 
 The traveller Pausanias mentions finding the tombs of the 
 Greeks very near the entrance to the city of Plataea as he 
 came in from Attica, inscribed with the epitaphs of Simonides ; 
 the Athenians and Lacedaemonians having each their burial- 
 place, and the rest of the Greeks a third. The Lacedae- 
 monians made a triple division of their dead ; commanders of 
 companies among whom were Poseidonius, Amompharetus, 
 Philocyon, and Callicrates occupied one depository, the rest 
 of the Spartiats another, the helots a 2 third. But besides 
 these veritable tombs, Herodotus avers that certain fictitious 
 ones, fraudulent cenotaphs, had been afterwards raised by 
 other cities anxious to assert their participation in the vic- 
 tory. One mound especially he charges with having been 
 raised for Aeginetans in disgrace again some ten years 
 afterwards by a friendly Plataean whom he names. Nothing 
 is said of the burial of the enemies ; and indeed a notice that 
 the Plataeans found one skull without sutures a case not un- 
 known to modern physiology when they gathered the bones 
 together into one place, appears to imply that many at least 
 were left above 3 ground through autumn and winter. 
 
 It still remained to deal with Thebes. But even before 
 doing so it was incumbent to offer appropriate sacrifices for 
 the great deliverance, and on this point guidance was solicited 
 from the god at Pytho. The oracle enjoined the immediate 
 erection of an altar to Zeus Eleutheiius (the Liberator), but 
 
 1 Mem. v. i. " Herod, ix. 85. 3 Ib. ix. 83.
 
 108 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 forbade them to offer a sacrifice upon it until all fire had 
 been quenched throughout the Plataean district, as having 
 been polluted by the sacrilegious barbarians, and re-lighted 
 pure from the common hearth at Delphi. The Greek officials 
 immediately made a general visitation, and caused all fire 
 to be extinguished, and a certain Euchidas left the city, 
 engaging to bring back fire from the god with the utmost 
 possible speed. Arrived and forthwith purified at Delphi, 
 and duly besprinkled and crowned with the sacred laurel, he 
 took fire from the altar there, started again to race homeward 
 to Plataea, and came in before sunset, having accomplished 
 the double journey, so the story goes, within the day. He 
 greeted the expectant citizens, delivered over the fire, and at 
 once sank down exhausted, and died on the spot. The Pla- 
 taeans took him up and buried him in the sacred precinct of 
 Artemis Eucleia, inscribing on the tomb the following tetra- 
 meter 
 
 ' Eucbidas running hence to Pytho here returned the self-same day.' 
 
 The full distance of one thousand stadia 115 miles obliges 
 us to assign a very large interpretation to the ' single day ' of 
 the tale and the inscription. 
 
 The enthusiasm of the confederates readily extended to 
 something more than the present occasional sacrifice. It was 
 resolved, on the proposal of Aristides, that the celebration 
 should be annual, and that every fourth year a pentaeteris 
 there should be a celebration of Eleutherian games, in the 
 presence of such sacred missions from general Hellas as the 
 various cities were wont to despatch to represent them at the 
 great common festivals, and perhaps of envoys (7rpo/3ovAot) for 
 political deliberation. To the Plataeans was to be committed 
 the function of offering sacrifices on the part and for the 
 safety of Hellas, as well as performing the annual rites at the 
 graves of the dead ; and in return, and as security for these 
 institutions, they were to be declared inviolable and conse-
 
 vii.] THE SPOILS OF PLATAEA. 109 
 
 crated to the god. The Plataeans thus obtained at least a 
 nominal guarantee from Greece at large for the extension of 
 their territory to the limits of Hysiae and the Asopus, which 
 had been wrested for them from Thebes by the Athenians in 
 1 B.C. 519. The parallel between the arrangements which the 
 Greeks attempted to establish here and the sacred immunity of 
 Elis and the participation of all Hellas in its games is mani- 
 fest ; yet the suggesting influences are so natural that we may 
 less reasonably conclude that the correspondence is due to mere 
 rivalry or mimicry, than carry back the analogy, and infer that 
 the elevation of the Olympic games and territory to their 
 distinction was originally due to like combinations of events 
 to the enthusiasm of a confederacy at some great conquest 
 which was connected with the seat of the festival in origin, 
 conduct, or conclusion. 
 
 These generous resolutions, made in the first heat of sym- 
 pathy, proved of but insignificant or evanescent advantage for 
 Plataea. The site was unfavourable, to say nothing of the 
 Greek calendar being already well covered by festivals and 
 games which could not be superseded ; and, as time went 
 on, the growth in popularity of the new institution was liable 
 to be checked by the very intimate attachment of Plataea 
 to Athens. Plataea had placed itself under the protection 
 of Athens as early as B.C. 519, at the recommendation 
 of Lacedaemonians as Herodotus thought, out of no good 
 will to either; and the loyal city had approved the spirit 
 and value of its alliance at Marathon as well as in this later 
 war. It might even seem surprising that privileges should 
 now be conceded so readily which could scarcely but redound 
 to the advantage of the protecting state, whose aspirations 
 were so well known: but Athens was not then in a con- 
 dition to excite alarm at a spirit of encroachment ; patriotic 
 enthusiasm was blinding all but politicians of the most 
 special type to the still living germs of internal dissensions 
 
 1 Herod, vi. 108.
 
 110 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 and rivalries ; and, above all, the common animosity of the 
 patriotic Greek army against the especial enemies of Plataea, 
 the Medising Thebans, still contumacious within the walls 
 which had served the Mede as the fortified base of his most 
 dangerous and hardly frustrated enterprise, would cause a 
 proposition so appropriately honouring the patriotic rival to 
 be carried by acclamation. 
 
 A further resolution, also it is ] said on the motion of 
 Aristides, had reference to a future Hellenic muster for the 
 prosecution of the war ; the numbers to be raised are given 
 as io,oco shields (that is hoplites), with a like number at 
 least, we must infer, of light-armed men; 1,000 horses, to 
 supply the want so grievously experienced in the late battle, 
 and 100 ships. It is probable that these forces are to be 
 considered exclusive of the power of the Spartans, to whom 
 as directors of the whole it would be left to decide on the 
 application of their own resources, as well as to dispose of the 
 contingents of the allies. 
 
 On the eleventh day after the victory at Plataea the 
 Thebans were summoned to surrender the members of the 
 Medising faction, and especially Timegenidas and Attaginus, 
 the leaders of the leaders, with the notice that the 
 army would not remove from before the city till the de- 
 mand was complied with. Refusal was followed up by the 
 usual measures taken to reduce a fortified city in Greece; 
 attacks were made upon the walls, but the main reliance was 
 placed on the exclusion of supplies by investment, and on the 
 openly expressed intention to damage the territory to such an 
 extent that surrender would involve a less sacrifice. On the 
 twentieth day a herald announced to Pausanias that the Thebans 
 were prepared to give up the men demanded. The traveller 
 " Pausanias in Roman times is as positive as the Boeotian 
 Plutarch that the crime of Medium lay exclusively with an 
 
 1 Plut. Aritt. ai. a Paus. x. 6. i.
 
 vii.] THE SPOILS OF PLA TAEA. ill 
 
 oligarchy. Had Xerxes invaded Greece, he says, when the 
 Peisistratids ruled, the Athenians themselves would have been 
 open to the same charge. There is probably much truth' 
 in this certainly some ; and at any rate, an anti-Medising 
 faction was sure to be born, if not to revive, on the failure 
 of the earlier policy. The oligarchs had made the best terms 
 they could, weakened as were their ranks by the slaughter of 
 so many of their class by the Athenians in the battle ; and 
 Timegenidas made a patriotic virtue of the necessity of saving 
 Boeotia from further ravage, and the city from capture. A 
 futile attempt to induce the captors of Persian treasures to 
 be put off with a money ransom having failed, the utmost 
 that could be done was to appeal for such subventions from 
 the funds of the public ' that public which had in truth 
 gone along with their policy ' as would when applied in 
 bribery shrewdly help what they proposed to urge in 
 their defence. Everything was done to give the surrender 
 the air of being the voluntary act of Timegenidas and the 
 rest, and they were not without confidence that between 
 argument and corruption they might come safe through. 
 Attaginus, less sanguine or more fortunate, made his escape 
 in time. His children were given up in his place, but sent 
 back by Pausanias with the remark, in the spirit of his reply 
 to Lampon, that ' Medism was not a child's fault.' Divining 
 the calculations of the rest, he was no sooner in possession of 
 them than he cut off all opportunity of intrigues by imme- 
 diately dismissing the confederate forces home ; and then, 
 carrying the prisoners off with him to the Isthmus, he put 
 them all to death by his own authority. 
 
 Fifty-two years after this common triumph of Greece 
 the city of the Plataeans was besieged and subverted by 
 Greeks by Lacedaemonians, at the commencement of that 
 intestine quarrel which was to be the ruin of so much that 
 was best in Hellas (427 B.C.). Restored again (386 B.C.), 
 they were again expelled (374 B.C.), to await a final restoration
 
 112 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 (315 B.C.) two generations later; and yet, through all the 
 tenacity of tradition and of race, this brave people carried over 
 no insignificant traces of the institutions which had been 
 intended to inaugurate a period of Hellenic unity, from the 
 field where the blood of many tribes had been shed for one 
 common Hellenic interest and hope. Plutarch of Chaeronea, 
 who was probably an eye-witness, thus describes the ceremony 
 with which the Plataeans of his day fulfilled the engagements 
 of their ancestors at the tombs of the slain : 
 
 ' On the 1 6th of the month Maimacterion, Alalcomeneis 
 of the Boeotians, the procession is marshalled at break of day. 
 A trumpeter precedes sounding notes of war ; cars follow 
 laden with branches of myrtle and crowns, and with them 
 a black bull ; and young men of free condition carry amphorae 
 of wine and milk for the libations, and vessels of oil and 
 perfumed ointments ; no slave is permitted to give any 
 assistance in the service which is being paid to men who died 
 for freedom. Last of all comes the archon of the Plataeans, 
 who, forbidden at other times to wear any colour but white 
 and even to touch iron, is now arrayed in purple chiton and 
 girt with a sword, as, holding a hydria taken from the public 
 record office, he traverses the city on his way to the tombs.- 
 He then takes water from the fountain and washes the monu- 
 ments, and anoints them ; and after sacrificing the bull on the 
 pyraand praying to Zeus and Hermes Chthonios, he invites 
 the brave men who died for Greece to the banquet and the 
 blood ; and mixing wine in a crater, pours it on the ground, 
 exclaiming, " I drink to the men who died for the liberty 
 of the Greeks." ' 
 
 2 Thucydides adds, 'honouring the tombs larOijuaoiv 
 with robes ; ' the equivalents probably of the black scarves 
 and fillets which we see attached to tombs on vases. The 
 altar and statue of Zeus Eleutherius, both of white marble, 
 
 1 Plut. Arietidet, ai. J Tbucyd. iii. 58.
 
 vii.] THE SPOILS OF PLATAEA. 113 
 
 were erected just without the city of Plataea, near the bronze 
 monument over the slain of various tribes. In Roman times 
 as late as 1 Pausanias the Eleutherian games were still held 
 here on the anniversary of the battle, the fourth day of the 
 Attic month Boedromion. The chief prize a crown or chaplet, 
 for it was an 2 aya>v ore^az^rr/s was given for the race in 
 armour, for which the altar was the starting-point. 
 
 1 Pans. ix. a. 4. a Strabo, 412.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF MYCALE. THE FINAL RETIREMENT OF XERXES. 
 479 B.C. ; Ol. 75. i. and 2. 
 
 THE battle of Plataea was truly one of the decisive battles 
 
 of tbe world ; the victory was not only decisive in the sense 
 
 that it left the worsted army disorganised and ruined beyond 
 
 all possibility of rally, but that it precluded for all time any 
 
 renewed attempt by Persia to subjugate continental Greece. 
 
 Upon this field was jeopardied and saved, if not the last and 
 
 single chance of the survival of progressive civilisation, much 
 
 at least of the prompt development of all its best characteristics ; 
 
 the ripened display, within the next fifty years of Hellenic 
 
 independence, of that healthy and hopeful manhood of the 
 
 race that had been maturing through centuries, to be staked 
 
 at last on the turn of one day of conflict. It would be rash 
 
 to infer that the germ of Hellenic genius would necessarily 
 
 have been lost to the world, though Oriental domination had 
 
 oppressed or even exterminated Hellenism at Athens and 
 
 Sparta ; but to the happier result it is at least due that the 
 
 world inherits a history, a literature, and art through which 
 
 Hellenic genius remains so prime an influence for instruction 
 
 and delight, for refinement and dignity in art and manners, 
 
 for guidance in administration of the intellectual powers, 
 
 for elevation of purpose, to noblest patriotism, and largest 
 
 theory of humanity. A story opens before us which assuredly 
 
 is not free from many a discouraging incident; our best 
 
 hopes are indeed disappointed at every turn ; but the
 
 THE RESULTS OF PLATAEA. 115 
 
 warnings, if we fairly read them, take an important place in 
 the moral. The vices aud errors of the Greek communities 
 keep our eyes open to the imperfections which may intrude 
 among virtues, that most approve themselves to be virtues 
 when found strong enough to encourage humanity, for all its 
 shortcomings and difficulties, not to despair. 
 
 All the importance of the victory could not however be 
 seen at the moment. To many a Greek the power and 
 wealth of the Great King could never have been realised 
 so formidably as in sight of the ruin of his magnificent 
 armament. Here, in the resources which he had forfeited, 
 was apparent evidence of what he might still have in reserve ; 
 the magnitude of the danger that had been escaped, but only 
 just escaped, was brought home to the senses amid the 
 blood-stained spoil of the vast camp, with a liveliness that 
 could not but have some effect on future apprehensions, 
 while it strengthened resolution for the future. Self-confi- 
 dence rose in more than equal proportion ; the victory that 
 had shattered the aggressive power and spirit of Persia 
 animated the Greeks to prepare themselves against a revival 
 of aggression, and strengthened a decision which had before 
 been halting, to take securities against, it with all the power 
 of settled concord and alliance. 
 
 For although the host that, whether as ally or enemy, had 
 devoured the plains of Thessaly, Boeotia, and Attica, might 
 be assumed as accounted for, yet the hold of the Persians on 
 their established conquests in Thrace ; their command of the 
 Hellespont, whether for reinforcements or interruption of the 
 Euxine trade ; and the strength and designs of their fleet, 
 with all Ionia and Phoenicia to recruit from, were considera- 
 tions of sufficient weight to give spirit to those in the Plataean 
 council who advocated continued exertions and hearty adhe- 
 rence to the new-found value of confederation. The failure of 
 Darius at Marathon had not deterred Xerxes from a second 
 expedition, but had rather prompted more formidable preparu-
 
 116 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 tion ; and the defeat at Salamis had only induced the enemy 
 to change the quarter of attack with a pertinacity that might 
 still not be exhausted. On some of these points of apprehen- 
 sion the victors of Plataea were soon to be happily relieved, 
 for on the very same day, the afternoon of the day which 
 had been ushered in by the frantic onset of Mardonius, the 
 Persian fleet was finally destroyed, and a not unimportant 
 blow delivered even- upon their army in Asia. 
 
 The commanders of the Greek fleet had of necessity 
 more than reciprocated the anxieties that Pausanias and 
 Aristides might have had time to feel on their account. 
 While Mardonius was still in Thessaly they had not 
 moved beyond the advanced station of Delos, from whence 
 they could more readily obtain information about the enemy's 
 fleet and act upon it with greater promptitude. Of their 
 movements when the re-occupation of Attica drove the 
 Athenians again to Salamis, we know nothing more than that 
 the mission of the Athenian admiral Xanthippus to Sparta 
 implies that the Athenian division, as might be expected, 
 was not far from the shores of Attica. The evacuation of 
 the latter country, however, soon set it free. 
 
 The Persian fleet might now have been expected to move 
 back to the Hellespont, or still more probably to afford 
 support or supplies to Mardonius ; but in point of fact, 
 besides the necessity of overawing the rising agitations in 
 Ionia and the islands, the Phoenician mariners had not 
 only been foiled by the weather on the unknown western 
 coasts, but had forfeited all confidence by their behaviour at 
 Salamis ; their commanders were consequently discouraged 
 from attempting even short voyages, and a renewal of the 
 conflict seemed more hazardous still. Of this the Greeks 
 could not be immediately aware, and to them prepara- 
 tion against any movement on the part of the Persian fleet 
 was rightly a matter of most anxious interest. Western 
 Greece could only be secured from the transport of aid to
 
 VIIL] THE AGITATION IN IONIA. 117 
 
 Mardonius, or diversions in other directions, by complete 
 command of the sea, and the time was at hand when this 
 was to be actively asserted. The year was already far ad- 
 vanced, and the Greek force had received its last accession ; the 
 fleet of no ships all told, which we read of in the spring as 
 assembled at Aegina, was now increased to 1 250 triremes. Of 
 these the largest portion were Athenian; of the rest, besides 
 Lacedaemonians, there were contingents from Corinth, Sicyon, 
 and Troezene. The Corinthians brought in addition the highly 
 esteemed contribution of the soothsayer Deiphonus from Apol- 
 lonia, their colony on the Ionian gulf. 
 
 It was already autumn, and expectation was at its height 
 for news of the conflict in Europe, which it was certain could 
 not long be deferred, when Leotychides and the generals gave 
 audience at Delos to three envoys who had left Samos un- 
 known to Theomestor son of Androdamas, whom the Persians 
 had established there as tyrant in reward for his services at 
 Salamis. The spokesman was Hegesistratus son of Arista- 
 goras, who set forth the case in every variety of aspect and 
 with an Ionian fluency which might perhaps have damaged 
 his cause had he in truth been the sole informant (eXf ye 7ro\Aa 
 KOL Travrola). Appealing to their sympathies as venerators of 
 common gods, he supplicated them as Greeks to come to the 
 rescue of Greeks and assist in expelling the barbarian ; 
 the lonians at the first sight of them would rise in revolt, 
 and the barbai'ians would as instantly retire, or, if they did 
 not, might be pounced on as a prey. And never would there 
 be another such chance : for the ships of the enemy were ill- 
 found, wretched sea-boats, perfectly ineffective to cope with 
 those of the Greeks. Never could an exploit be more easy 
 or more certain of success. He added, as guarantee of the 
 sincerity of the advice, that the envoys were ready to accom- 
 pany the expedition as hostages. 
 
 The Spartan listened to the long-drawn pleadings and 
 
 1 DioJ. xi. 34.
 
 118 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 beseechiugs without any indication that he accepted the in- 
 formation as correct, or that he sympathised with the orator, 
 and then interposed abruptly, ' And what, Samian stranger ! 
 is your name ? ' Catching up the reply before the flow of 
 words could re-commence, ' I accept, Hegesistratus,' said he, 
 ' the appellation ' (i. e. conductor or leader of armies) ; ' do you 
 only, and these who are with you, take order to pledge your 
 faith before you sail away that the Samians will be our zealous 
 allies.' The decision thus curtly announced with true Spartan 
 affectation of suddenness and contempt for words, was as 
 promptly put in action. The Samians, says Herodotus, took 
 the oath and engagement of alliance with the Hellenes 
 that is with the Dorians, whom the historian seems here 
 again to distinguish as specifically Hellenic, in contrast to 
 the Pelasgic Athenians and lonians. The other two envoys, 
 Lampon son of Thrasycles and Athenagoras son of Archestra- 
 tides, were dismissed the same day ; and on the very next, the 
 seer Deiphonus, son, or reputed ' son, of the prophetic Euenius, 
 having announced that the victims were favourable, the fleet 
 put to sea ; Leotychides, notwithstanding his rejection of the 
 proposal of hostages, keeping by him Hegesistratus, the man 
 with the name of good omen, a hostage in reality if not in 
 2 name. They moored at Calamei on the coast of Samos, and 
 there made preparations for battle. The exact locality is un- 
 certain ; it is indicated by Herodotus to those who know the 
 spot as being ' by the Heraeum, or temple of Here, that is 
 in that place,' terms apparently intended to distinguish the 
 temple from the more celebrated Heraeum in or close to the 
 city of Samos. A more remote station, perhaps the petty 
 Tjmus, where Stephanus Byzantinus notes a temple of Here 
 l|>Muiitis. seems to be implied by the unperceived and un- 
 molested retirement of the Persian fleet through the narrow 
 rhamu'l 1 tun n Samos and the continent. 
 
 II - i ix. 95. 2 Ih. ix. 92.
 
 VIIL] ADVANCE OF THE GREEK FLEET. 119 
 
 The Persian commanders indeed were no sooner aware of 
 the advance of the Greeks than, as the envoys had predicted, 
 they gave up all thought of contending at sea, dismissed the 
 Phoenician vessels with their crews, and carried the others 
 from Samos to the opposite coast, where they .could draw 
 them ashore and have the protection of fortifications and a 
 numerous army. They passed, says Herodotus, by the fane 
 of the Potniae of Mycale on to Gaeson and Scolopoeis, where 
 there is a fane of Eleusinian Demeter, founded by Philistus 
 son of Pasieles, when he accompanied Neileus son of Codrus 
 in the settlement of Miletus. The spot c was on the coast 
 south of the mountainous promontory of Mycale, just before 
 it trends south-east to the embouchure of the Maeander and 
 the Latmian gulf. Gaeson, which is with Herodotus appa- 
 rently the name of a town, was the name also of a river that 
 discharged itself into the lake Gaesonis and so into the sea. 
 1 Ephorus spoke of the Gaeson and its lake as near Priene, 
 and another 2 author places it between Priene and 3 Miletus. 
 The ancient line of coast, owing to the accumulated deposits 
 of the Maeander, now lies, like the site of Priene, far inland ; 
 but the Gaeson is still represented by a stream which flows 
 from the mountains under the heights that are occupied by 
 the ruins of Priene. Pliny, immediately before coming to 
 Priene from the south, inserts the name Naulochus, which 
 indicates an ancient favourable station for ships. The plain 
 was here in communication with Ephesus and Sardis by the 
 road across the mountains, and again more circuitously by 
 the valley of the Maeander, past Magnesia. Here, previously 
 stationed, or rapidly concentrated, was the main body of the 
 force originally left behind by Xerxes to watch Ionia : it is 
 set down by Herodotus as 60,000 (Diodorus gives 100,000) 
 men, under Tigranes, a commander ' supereminent among the 
 
 1 ap. Athenaeum, vii. p. 311. a Ibid. 
 
 3 Mela also, i. 17 Ionia 'ciugit urbem Prieiien et Gaesi tluminis ostiuin.' 
 Cf. Pliny, H, N. v. 31.
 
 120 II I STORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Persians, like Xerxes and Mardonius, for stature and beauty.' 
 The Persian admirals drew their vessels on shore and hastened 
 to enclose them by a vast fort, of sufficient circuit to shelter 
 the army in case of a reverse. Trees were cut down indis- 
 criminately, and a wall or bulwark was formed of mixed stones 
 and timber, and strengthened by projecting stakes or palisades 
 according to Diodorus by a trench also. The probability 
 of an Ionian insurrection had been a source of anxiety ever 
 since the reverses in Greece, and preparations for a campaign 
 in the collection of stores and provisions had in consequence 
 been in a state of l forwardness. What no vigilance or fore- 
 sight could now supply was that spirit which is required to 
 give vivacity even to unbroken resolution, and to remedy 
 the despondency which comes over a multitude when under 
 misfortune, and foredooms to destruction an army which, how- 
 ever bravely, has suffered defeat after defeat, and a cause 
 which has never enjoyed one success. And then too a large 
 proportion of the muster enormous doubtless, reduce the 
 quoted numbers as we may were lonians, who were justly 
 objects of increasing mistrust. From the Samians especially 
 all confidence had been withdrawn since the discovery that 
 some 500 captives, taken by the army of Xerxes from Attica*, 
 bad been purchased by them only to be sent home free and 
 restored to his enemies. 
 
 The aspect of the enterprise was now entirely changed for 
 the Greeks, who, with all their rapidity, at last found that 
 they had moved just too late to find the ineffective navy 
 the easy prey which they had expected. The tardy alacrity 
 of the reticent Spartan was probably due to some secret 
 notice of the preparations for the Persian retreat, in case 
 the signs of an approaching attack, which they were hopeless 
 to resist, should oblige them to forego their hold on the 
 now uneasy Samos ; information evidently passed over as 
 
 xl. xi. 34.
 
 viii.] THE PERSIANS AT MYCALE. 121 
 
 rapidly in one direction as the other. A suggestion which 
 was made upon this disappointment, to return to inactivity 
 at Delos, was set aside ; and the project that still retained 
 its hold as much on the imagination of the Greeks as 
 on their reason, of making for the Hellespont and the 
 bridge, had scarcely more to recommend it now than before, 
 in comparison with the importance of striking at the 
 hostile fleet. The Samians and lonians would of course be 
 more urgent than ever, and with more effect from the 
 manifest justification of their former confident assurances. 
 It was resolved therefore, but only after discussions had 
 caused more * delay, to follow up the chase ; the ships were 
 provided with ladders and every possible preparation, to 
 enable the forces, in case they should be disappointed of a sea- 
 fight, to effect a rapid disembarkation and try the fortune of 
 a battle on laud. Not a vessel was afloat to oppose them 
 when they arrived ; all were seen drawn ashore under pro- 
 tection of the wall, while a numerous army of foot was in 
 array on land. Leotychides, in imitation of the policy of 
 Themistocles at Artemisium, passed along as near inshore 
 as possible, and by the voice of his loudest herald invited 
 the lonians to bear in mind in the coming baftle, in the 
 first place Liberty and then the password Hebe selected 
 apparently as the name of the spouse of his ancestor Hercules, 
 herself a daughter of the goddess of the Samian Heraeum : 
 those who heard were urged to inform those who did not. The 
 proclamation was made not without expectation of the effect 
 it invited, but also with the indirect intention of rousing 
 mistrust in the Persians towards the lonians, to whom the 
 herald affected to believe that his language would be alone 
 intelligible. The Spartan seems to have applied his bor- 
 rowed stratagem but clumsily, for in this case there was 
 much fairer hope of considerable desertions than in that of 
 
 1 Herod, ix. qS.
 
 122 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Artemisium ; and an immediate result of the warning was that 
 the Persians instantly disarmed the Samians, and assigned the 
 Milesians a post too distant to allow them, in case of defec- 
 tion, to interfere in the expected battle. 
 
 The Greek debarkation, as it was effected without oppo- 
 sition, must have been made at some distance from the 
 entrenched camp and army ; but by mid-day or later 
 Diodorus says the day ensuing the troops were marshalled 
 and moving forward to the attack. The Athenians, who 
 were to sustain the main burden of the battle, were com- 
 manded by the archon eponymus of the year Xanthippus, 
 son of Ariphron and father of Pericles : and together with 
 associated troops of other cities, Corinth, S icy on, Troezene, 
 they made up a full half of the entire force. These now 
 advanced direct upon the enemy over the level ground by 
 the sea-shore, while the Lacedaemonians and the other half 
 of the army made a l circuit, and having to traverse on their 
 way the rough ravines of torrents and spurs of the mountain, 
 came into action later, as if intentionally, and only with the 
 view to an effective flank attack. The spirit of emulation, 
 of which the Greek was so susceptible in its noblest forms, 
 was now *at its height among the Athenians, who had 
 recently had just cause to feel that by their warlike achieve- 
 ments they had already placed their country on a line with 
 Sparta, hitherto the recognised leading- power in Greece ; 
 while in breadth and boldness of political views and in 
 patriotic self-sacrifice alike they were far ahead. The present 
 was an opportunity for winning yet another advance, and 
 that on land the very prerogative of the Spartans ; and the 
 word passed from mouth to mouth to make such thorough 
 and speedy work with their already despised opponents as 
 should give them at least the largest share in the victory. 
 It was afterwards believed that another influence, not in- 
 dependent of the supernatural powers, was at work to heighten 
 1 Herod, ix. 102.
 
 viii.] OMENS OF VICTORY. 123 
 
 the general confidence and enthusiasm of the host. A sudden 
 and instantaneous rumour, it was said a ^M pervaded the 
 ranks, to the effect that all cause for anxiety at home 
 was happily at an end ; that battle had at last been joined 
 with Mardonius in Boeotia, and that the Greeks were com- 
 plete victors. What may have been a bold assertion of 
 the loud-voiced herald to the 1 Ionians became a belief all 
 the more exciting- from the uncertainty of its origin ; it 
 was indeed afterwards said that, as the troops marched along 
 the shore, a herald's staff confirmation unquestionable was 
 seen floating inland on a vast wave ; apparently a mythical 
 version of the incident of the coasting herald. The boldness 
 of the present attack, by only half the men that could have 
 been brought over by the Greek squadron, upon such a host 
 and its entrenchments, might well seem to demand some 
 unusual explanation. Herodotus notwithstanding his recent 
 mention of a falsified ^M * n the anecdote of the Medising 
 Phocians has no difficulty on the point ; and why then the 
 soldiers ? and is not the ' interposition of the Divinity in human 
 affairs ' to be seen in the coincidence that at Mycale again, as 
 at Plataea, the battle was fought close to a temenos of the 
 Eleusinian Demeter? That the recognition of this locality 
 may have been to Athenians as encouraging an omen as the 
 name Hegesistratus was to the Spartan, we need not doubt. 
 It was believed that during the battle of Salamis the mystic 
 cry had been heard from clouds of dust along the Thriasian 
 plain, avouching that the divinities of Eleusis were proceed- 
 ing to protect their worshippers ; and intimate indeed was 
 the connection with Athens of a fane of their own goddess 
 founded by a comrade of a son of Codrus, their own patriotic 
 king. 
 
 The incidents of the battle in the afternoon correspond 
 very closely with those of the same morning at Plataea : the 
 Persians were first attacked behind their fence of gerr/ta, and 
 
 1 Diod. xi. 34. 4.
 
 124 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 so long as it stood, maintained a not unequal war ; when it 
 fell they still fought bravely for a considerable time, but fle<J 
 at last for refuge into the fortified camp : the camp however 
 was nearer at hand to the Asiatic battle-field, and the Athenian 
 pursuers swifter than the Lacedaemonians ; so that Athenians, 
 Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Troezenians entered pell-mell 
 along with the fugitives. Resistance was still continued 
 within, though by the Persians alone. Of the other troops, 
 some took to flight ; the Samians, who had been left in the 
 camp, though disarmed, found means to assist the Greeks so 
 soon as they were encouraged by prospect of success, while 
 the other lonians, incited by their example, and forgetting at 
 once the faith of oaths and the fate of hostages, went over in 
 a body, and turned their weapons on the barbarians. The 
 contest was still undecided when the Lacedaemonians arrived 
 fresh upon the spot, but the numbers of the Persians were 
 already fast diminishing, and they fought only in knots, in 
 uncombined onsets, at points where they could still oppose 
 the entrance of the Greeks. Tigranes himself, the general of 
 the land forces, died fighting, and with him Mardontes, who 
 in the European expedition had led the islanders from the 
 Persian gulf the Erythraean sea. The admirals, Artayntes 
 and Ithamitres, with Masistes, a son of Darius, who had been 
 present at the action, were among the few men of distinction 
 who escaped. They succeeded in gaining on the heights of 
 Mycale a better refuge than the mountain afforded to many 
 of their flying troops. The mistrusted Milesians, who had 
 been posted among the defiles and declivities at the rear of 
 the army, to act ostensibly as guards of the passes, but in 
 reality in order to prevent their deserting to the Greeks 
 during the battle, now found themselves precisely upon the 
 line of communication and retreat of the routed army. As 
 treacherous guides they led the hurrying fugitives into false 
 tracks, and either deserted them in their bewilderment, or 
 brought them upon the very enemy they shunned ; at last
 
 VIIL] THE BATTLE OF MYCALE. 125 
 
 turned openly upon them, in the spot which their knowledge 
 of the localities pointed out as most advantageous, and, re- 
 membering the severities of Darius, were the most vindictive 
 of their slaughterers. To this place, if it is to have place 
 anywhere, we must transfer the l incident that the Greeks 
 were for a moment checked by an alarm that Xerxes was 
 arriving from Sardis with reinforcements by the road through 
 the defiles of Mycale, but only to be presently reassured by 
 finding that the apprehended enemies were lonians in revolt. 
 
 The battle, thus at last won, had been strenuously contested ; 
 Greeks and barbarians, says Herodotus, were animated to 
 exertion by the feeling that the islands and the Hellespont 
 were a true Greek figure set out as prizes for the victors. 
 When the slaughter of both the fighting and the flying at 
 last came to an end, the Greeks stripped the ships and camp 
 of the booty, comprising the military chest with several 
 stores of coined money, collected it on the shore, and then 
 made a general conflagration of the palisaded camp and of 
 the ships, which for some unstated reason they did not re- 
 launch. 
 
 The Greek losses were considerable, but, like their original 
 musteE, are unenumerated ; the Sicyonians are specified as 
 having lost, along with many others, their general Perilaus. 
 The chief honours of the battle were adjudged to be the right 
 of the Athenians ; after them are named in order the Corin- 
 thians, Troezenians, and Sicyonians, who fought in company 
 with them ; while the Lacedaemonians and their associates are 
 unmentioned. 
 
 Among the Athenians themselves, Hermolycus son of 
 Euthunus, a pancratiast,. was pre-eminent ; though destined 
 to perish later in an inter- Hellenic quarrel between Athens 
 and Carystus in Euboea ; he was buried, apparently in recog- 
 nition of his fame, on Geraestus, the extreme promontory of 
 the island. 
 
 1 Diod. xi. 36. 3.
 
 126 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 ' And so,' says Herodotus, ' Ionia revolted from the Persians 
 for the second time.' 
 
 In this expression we have to understand the defection 
 of the islands also, and the emancipation of Samos, Chios, 
 and Lesbos from the yoke of Persia, by a process of which 
 we have no notice or particulars. 
 
 Xerxes had lingered at Sardis since his return from 
 Europe, as if in expectation of couriers who should announce 
 the full success promised by Mardonius. Since the an- 
 nouncement by the train of beacons of the reoccupation of 
 Athens, he could have received little consolation beyond 
 renewals of too hopeful promises. The European intelligence 
 was at last to be anticipated by a disaster nearer home, as 
 Sardis was reached by the scanty and disheartened survivors 
 of Mycale. Salamis had cost him one brother, and he made the 
 most of the escape of another, Masistes, from perils that were 
 not at an end when he had eluded the Milesians. Masistes 
 in his flight had taxed his fellow-fugitive Artayntes with 
 having, by his miserable generalship, caused the entire disaster 
 and the disgrace of the royal house, to which he now added 
 the abusive charge of cowardice worse than a woman's : at 
 this, the most poignant insult to a Persian, the self-restraint 
 of Artayntes gave way ; drawing his scimitar, he rushed upon 
 the brother of the Great King, and would have killed him 
 on the spot, if he had not been seized round the body just in 
 time, even before the guards of Masistes could interpose, lifted 
 from his horse, and flung upon the ground. It was a Halicar- 
 nassian, Xeinagoras son of Praxilaus, who rendered this service, 
 and Xerxes rewarded him for it with the government of the 
 whole of Cilicia. It had been more fortunate for both Masistes 
 and Xerxes had-lhe rescue miscarried. Even the catastrophe 
 of Plataea, which must have been announced within a day 
 or two, was less fraught with misery and disgrace than 
 events, not on a distant continent, but within the royal 
 palace, not wrought by foreign hostile hands, but due directly
 
 viii.] FINAL RETIREMENT OF XERXES. 127 
 
 to the cruel passions and lust of Xerxes himself. With a 
 narrative of these, which need not be repeated, Herodotus 
 dismisses him from his history; clearly feeling, though he 
 does not phrase it in a formal moral, that public violences 
 and impieties were thus visited with retribution within the 
 home, and within the tortured, or, even more severely, the 
 seared and callous conscience of the man. With such an epi- 
 logue may be closed the story of too many a selfish scourge of 
 the race ! an Augustus Caesar, a Norman William, a Prussian 
 Frederic, a Napoleon, to take names almost at random. 
 
 On the 1 6th of February in the ensuing spring occurred 
 an eclipse of the sun, which the superstition of the time may 
 naturally have connected with the final disappointment of 
 Xerxes and his retirement from Sardis ; it was equally natural 
 that by the time the tradition reached Herodotus the omen 
 should have been carried back, as he records it, to the days 
 of the King's inauspicious departure from Sardis for Greece.
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF SESTOS. XANTHIPPUS AND AETAYCTES. 
 B.C. 479; 01. 75. a. 
 
 IT was difficult to realise that this check to the power of 
 Persia on Asian ground might prove more decisive than 
 the still severer blow inflicted in Europe. Memories were 
 still fresh of the vengeance which Persia had before inflicted 
 on Ionia for resistance or revolt ; it was not so many years 
 since the tragedian Phrynichus was fined at Athens for bring- 
 ing into too painful prominence the horrors of the fall of 
 Miletus. That disaster, and indeed the ruin and desolation 
 of all Ionia, had followed upon provocation which present 
 events seemed to repeat too exactly not to introduce like 
 consequences. Athens had then interposed to encourage and 
 abet a rising to which in the end she failed to give any 
 effective support ; while the transitory triumph of the burn- 
 ing of Sardis and the fanes of Cybele had infused into the 
 quarrel the venom of religious vindictiveness. It is not sur- 
 prising therefore that the policy of general migration before 
 vengeance should arrive, which had been partially acted on by 
 the Teians and Phocaeans at the original subjugation of Ionia, 
 and the wisdom of which, as urged by Bias of Priene, was 
 then recognised too late, should again be brought forward for 
 serious consideration. The victorious Greeks returned to 
 Samos, and there the lonians of the islands and the continent 
 had to face the question how they were to protect themselves 
 with better fortune than before against the too probable con-
 
 THE PROSPECTS OF THE IONIANS. 129 
 
 sequences of the revolt to which they were again committed. 
 Their elation at the victory of Mycale and their own parti- 
 cipation in it might well have been tempered with appre- 
 hensions from which both Athenians and Spartans beyond 
 the Aegean were naturally exempt. But the Athenians 
 themselves were at this moment without a country or a 
 city, without walls or temples, relying for re-establishment 
 on their ships, their transportable wealth, and, above all, 
 their population ; and were known to have professed an 
 intention under some contingencies of seeking new and dis- 
 tant seats. The project of abandoning the Ionian cities on 
 the mainland, and apparently on the three great islands also, 
 and of transferring their property and population to a region 
 removed from such desperate liabilities, was therefore mooted 
 with serious and even sanguine advocacy. It was the Homeric 
 story of the happy resettlement of the harassed Phaeacians, 
 or that of the later Phocaeans, over again. Leotychides, the 
 Spartan leader, gave the proposal hearty support, and even 
 affected to assume that it was decided conformably to his 
 authority, and that the next p&int to be discussed was the 
 particular destination. The lonians could have no hope of dis- 
 posing of Persian enmity without aid, and it was out of the 
 question that their defence should be undertaken by the Euro- 
 pean Greeks under the conditions of maintaining a force on 
 the spot for all time. If they were to be protected they must 
 be within easier reach ; and this might be compassed by 
 putting them in possession of the trading ports (emporia) of 
 the Greeks who had Medised, and who should now be expelled 
 to make room for them. Boeotia, Locris, and Thessaly, where 
 the Aleuad families were still to be punished, are most directly 
 indicated ; but Achaia, and more especially Argos, which had 
 acted so equivocally, might also be considered as included, and 
 in some respects affording a more tempting prospect. 
 
 This diplomacy on the part of Lacedaemon was perfectly 
 natural and characteristic for a state still at the com-
 
 130 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 mencement of its experience in remote and sustained enter- 
 prises. The traditional maxim, to limit external action in 
 respect both of time and distance, was in fact a constitutional 
 necessity when the predominant class at home was constantly 
 in an attitude of over-strained watchfulness and jealous de- 
 fence. Leotychides in truth only discouraged present reliance 
 upon support the failure of which, as far as his own country 
 was concerned, he was quite right in assuming. The strength 
 of Sparta could not long be spared from repression of the 
 helots, and was moreover dependent on a discipline which could 
 only be enforced and sustained by keeping its employment 
 ordinarily within bounds, however it might be capable of 
 striking out suddenly at well chosen times with single, 
 forcible, and decisive blows. The difficulty experienced by 
 the Chians in drawing out the Spartans even as far as Delos, 
 and by the Samians in inducing them to attack the Persian 
 fleet before it had time to escape, are but moderate symptoms 
 of that fixed habit that could satisfy them with limiting their 
 efforts against Mardonius to defence of the peninsula, cut off 
 at the Isthmus by fortifications which, after years of notice, 
 were only completed at the latest l moment. 
 
 An opposition to these proposals, however, soon gained 
 head; and was the first revelation of that declared rivalry 
 to the supremacy of Sparta in thought and action, which was 
 destined to maintain itself with enduring effects on Greece 
 for the next half century, and on all history thereafter. 
 Short as was the period not twenty years since the first 
 Ionian revolt was quenched in blood (B.C. 494), Xerxes was 
 not Darius; nay, the men of the age of Darius were 
 rapidly dying out; and it was apparent to lonians that 
 the genius of the Persian empire had undergone a degene- 
 racy, while the confidence and resolution of the Athenians 
 were what they had never before been. It was the Persian 
 command of the sea that had been fatal to Miletus ; but 
 1 Thucyd. 5. 68.
 
 ix.] THE CAPTURE OF SESTOS. 131 
 
 the fair prospect that this had now been finally wrested 
 from them altered all the conditions of the crisis for the 
 islands and cities on the sea-board. The Athenians were not 
 backward to foster, or even foment, these rising protests, and 
 at last, when the issue was distinctly joined, they came for- 
 ward with one of their own ; they disallowed the necessity 
 of leaving Ionia to desolation, and in any case repudiated 
 the title of the Peloponnesians to take order respecting 
 colonies of which Athens was the metropolis : it .was from 
 the prytaneum of Athens that the Nelid and Codrid leaders 
 started to found these cities, and Athens was prepared to 
 defend her proper relatives, as she claimed to have the sole 
 right to do. 
 
 The arrival of the news of the battle of Plataea, while 
 it added immensely to the glory and prestige of Sparta, 
 insured the restoration of the Athenians to their city and 
 country, and promised a revival of power corresponding 
 with the energies her citizens had so uniformly displayed. 
 The accession of strength to be gained for operations against 
 Persia by attaching the islands and Ionia as allies, might 
 suffice to decide Xanthippus in the assertion of an inde- 
 pendent course, whether politic jealousy of Spartan designs 
 against Argos came into consideration or no. 
 
 To the opposition thus developed the Spartans yielded with 
 a good grace ; and the Samians, Chians, Lesbians, and other 
 islanders who took part in the expedition, were admitted into 
 confederacy under an oath of steadfast l adherence. 
 
 And now at last the original passion of the Athenian fleet 
 to make for the Hellespont could be satisfied. The bridge 
 had indeed been broken by storms a year ago, before Xerxes 
 recrossed the strait ; but it might be capable of repair, and in 
 any case it was desirable, if not indispensable, to establish 
 control over the channel. 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 106-120; Thucyd. i. 89. 
 K 2
 
 132 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 The allied fleet moved northwards, past the now liberated 
 Chios and Aeolian Lesbos. Detained off the sheltering pro- 
 montory of Lectos, the westernmost prolongation of the 
 range of Ida, by the late north winds that prevail through 
 the Hellespont, they proceeded at last to Abydos. Here they 
 found that the bridge which had extended from this point to 
 Sestos was fairly gone; while the Persians remained in posses- 
 sion of the Chersonesus opposite, and in a position to threaten 
 free navigation and annoy the opposite coast, or even to assist 
 the transit either of Persian reinforcements or retreating 
 troops. The Athenians were familiar from of old with the 
 Chersonesus, where some of their citizens among them the 
 family of Miltiades had property and rights, and for them 
 the liberation of the Hellespont was only an opening for new 
 enterprise. But Leotychides, hitherto the recognised head 
 of the expedition, now declined to make further concession 
 to the zeal and urgency of his allies, and would do no more. 
 He withdrew homewards, and with him went the ships of 
 the other Peloponnesian states thus marking the future 
 breaking line of the great confederation. He probably could 
 not act otherwise under the strict limitations imposed upon 
 a Spartan king; but already, and especially after recent 
 differences, the course he took was equivalent to a temporary 
 abdication of Spartan headship, and a qualified resignation of 
 it to Athenians, who, elate in self-reliance, knew all the value 
 of the opportunity, and were secretly, if not openly, eager 
 to avail themselves of 1 it. 
 
 The words of Herodotus are very significant as to the 
 conditions under which a Greek of the time, whether as 
 member of a confederacy of states or under a separate 
 command, submitted his actions to authority. 'It was de- 
 termined by the Peloponnesian s attached to Leotychides to 
 sail away to Hellas, but by the Athenians and by Xanthip- 
 pus their commander to remain where they were and make 
 1 Herod, ix. 114; Thucyd. i. 89.
 
 ix.] THE CAPTURE OF SESTOS. 133 
 
 an attempt upon the Chersonesus.' Interpreted to the letter, 
 Peloponnesians and Athenians assert as much independence 
 of their respective commanders as these do of each other. 
 As a matter of fact no more is implied though this is 
 much than that the superior can only enforce orders which 
 are in accordance with public feeling ; the feeling being 
 sometimes liable to be swayed, not to say forced, by the re- 
 soluteness of a commander, as the commander's resoluteness 
 is sometimes by his sense of the inefficiency of obedience 
 when not rendered with good-will. 
 
 The hostile occupants of the Chersonesus were taken by 
 surprise, and hurried at the first alarm to take refuge in 
 Sestos, the only place within reach of such strength as to 
 be defensible, and which soon became over-crowded : to the 
 native Aeolians and refugees from places around were added 
 the Persians and their allies, and there, with no provi- 
 sion for enduring or repelling a siege, they were shut up 
 by the Athenian investing force by sea and land. The 
 Persian Oiobazus, who was in charge of all the tackle and 
 materials for the bridge, had come in from Cardia on the 
 northern coast, but the chief authority, both of the city and 
 the district, was Artayctes, who had obtained his appoint- 
 ment from Xerxes, and afterwards abused it, under circum- 
 stances that made him the object of most vindictive rancour : 
 a man, says Herodotus, both able and impiously unscrupulous 
 (beivus Kai araaOaXos] epithets which he justifies as follows. 
 At Elaeus on the southern point of the peninsula, within 
 a temenos or consecrated precinct, was the tomb of the 
 hero Protesilaus, the sacredness of which was avouched by 
 a large accumulation of offerings, gold, silver, brass, 
 costly robes or dressings (en-0?f?, as at Plataean tombs), and 
 so forth. The tomb apparently in form a naos, or at least a 
 naidion stood menacingly enough, a memorial and emblem 
 of the first collision between Asia and Europe in that war of 
 Troy which Herodotus recognises as the prototype of all their
 
 134 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 subsequent hostilities. Protesilaus was a leader of Thessalians 
 from Phylake', and Homer relates how he was the first to 
 leap from shipboard to land, and the first also to die, and that 
 on the spot, by a Dardan weapon ; so he perished, a youthful 
 bridegroom, leaving a bride 'in frantic grief, a house half 
 finished.' Artayctes, the story ran, begged and obtained the 
 temenos from Xerxes by the representation, ' Here is the 
 house of a Greek who met his deserts when invading your 
 territory ; give his house to me that so there may be a lesson 
 to others to keep off your ground.' He despoiled the fane 
 of its valuables and transported them to Sestos, and gave 
 up the temenos, apparently of some extent, to culture, and 
 still worse to grazing, and worst of all, insulted wantonly 
 the most sacred associations of the place. The story of 
 Protesilaus was a traditional exemplar of conjugal affection 
 most tenderly expressed, and its details point to an analogy 
 with the equally Thessalian tradition of the self-sacrifice 
 of Aleestis, which vindicates it as truly national, and not 
 a mere late poetic development. By supplications to the 
 erods, Laodameia obtained the return of her husband to earth 
 
 O ' 
 
 for a three hours' colloquy, and then died with him as he 
 died l again. This colloquy seems to have been a subject 
 of mystic representation like the groups of Aphrodite and 
 Adonis described by Theocritus the Pieta of antiquity. 
 In later accounts we read that she formed a lifelike image 
 of her husband, kissed it, embraced it, talked to it as if 
 alive and in connection with some sacred rites, and at last 
 was burnt along with it. The tender sentiment clung to 
 the locality, and gave to late Greek poetry the grief of 
 Hero of Sestos over the corpse of her Leander. This is not 
 the place to develop further the process by which a type of 
 conjugal self-devotion as given again in the story of Or- 
 pheus and Eurydice, and on the vase-paintings in a series of 
 
 1 Ovid, Tritt. i. 5. 20; Hygin. 103-4; Propert. i. 19. 7 ; Eurip. frag. Prot. ; 
 Iliad, ii. 695; Ovid, Htntidct, xiii. 150.
 
 ix.] THE CAPTURE OF SESTOS. 135 
 
 interesting illustrations became for the Greek a type for all 
 that is most solemn with reference to either the commence- 
 ment of life or the circumstances and apprehended sequel of 
 its conclusion. It is enough to note that the barbarian could 
 only read such symbolism coarsely, and find a suggestion 
 for desecrating the l adytum by choosing it for the scene of 
 wantonness and gross debauchery. 
 
 Unprovided as the city was, the Persian garrison forced 
 it to hold out to the last extremity ; so time dragged on 
 for the besiegers, the late autumn was upon them, and 
 even the Athenians, with so many motives to return 
 home, began to despair of success from seeing no sign of 
 progress, and urged the commanders again not the single 
 Xauthippus to give up and retire. In this case the will of 
 the commanders prevailed ; they would persevere, although 
 the winter was close upon 2 them, until either the city was 
 taken or an order of recall arrived from the Athenian com- 
 munity (TO 'AOrjvaLfav KOLVOV}. That we hear nothing of 
 negotiations when the besieged had really no hope but in 
 tiring out their besiegers, was possibly due to the know- 
 ledge which Artayctes had of the feelings of which he 
 was the object, though it may just as easily be due to his 
 resolution. 
 
 At last subsistence failed entirely, the very thongs of 
 the couches had been cooked and eaten, and the Persian 
 garrison, who would be the last to suffer, were reduced 
 to the only chance left to break out and escape. Early 
 one morning the besiegers observed signalling from the 
 towers, and speedily received intimation from the native 
 inhabitants that the Persians had vacated the town during 
 the night, descending from the wall and passing the 
 lines at an unwatched interval. The gates were imme- 
 diately opened, and the city occupied by a detachment, 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 1 1 6. a Thucyd. i. 89.
 
 136 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 while the main force started at once in pursuit of the 
 fugitives. They were in two parties. Qiobazus, who was 
 in advance, succeeded in getting clear off to Thrace, but 
 only to fall, before he could reach a Persian post, into 
 the hands of the Apsinthian Thracians, ' who sacrificed him 
 to their native god Pleistoros ' a deity of whom no mention 
 has been traced elsewhere 'in their peculiar^ fashion, and 
 slaughtered those who were with him in another fashion.' 
 Artayctes and his party, who had less start, were overtaken 
 a little beyond Aegos-potami, and for a short time main- 
 tained a defence : some were killed, and the rest, among 
 whom were Artayctes and his son, were captured and led 
 back bound to Sestos. We are further told how the captive's 
 conscience was touched by the miraculous antics of some 
 pickled fish, a fact not worth alluding to but for the his- 
 torian's comment, which implies that the body, or at least 
 an effigy, of Protesilaus had been in some way l preserved. 
 His offers of ransom were declined 100 talents to the god, 
 200 to the Athenians. The Elaeuntians pressed for his well- 
 merited execution, as vengeance due to their hero Protesi- 
 laus, whose sanctuary he had defiled and desecrated, ' and the 
 disposition of Xanthippus inclined in the same direction.' 
 Elsewhere the historian, mentioning the offence by antici- 
 pation, attaches the name of Xanthippus to the 2 deed ; and 
 the impression is conveyed that he was willing to stigma- 
 tise him, from repugnance either to cruelty unworthy of a 
 Greek, or to the general character of the persecutor of Mil- 
 tiadcs. Artayctes was carried to the headland from which the 
 bridge of Xerxes had been constructed, or as some said to the 
 hill above the city Madytus, and there nailed alive to a plank 
 and raised aloft, crucified in fact, while his son was stum d 
 to death before his eyes. This refinement in cruelty would 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 1 20. The relica, too valuable to be lost, were known to P. Mela* 
 ' Sunt Froteailai ossa, consccrata delubro.' ii. a. 
 * Herod. viL 33.
 
 ix.] THE CAPTURE OF SESTOS. 137 
 
 alone have been sufficient to indicate in what direction 
 lay the motive of the hateful deed. It would scarcely be 
 a relief to think that it was to this same religious rancour, 
 and not to the cold policy of stimulating- superstition, that 
 three of his sons by Sandace sister of Xerxes had already 
 fallen victims, having been sacrificed on the prow of the 
 galley of Themistocles at Salamis to Dionysus Omestes, in 
 concession to the clamours of a crowd, led on by Euphran- 
 tides the diviner. Plutarch gives this l story on the authority 
 of Phanias, a pupil of Aristotle. 
 
 The tomb of Protesilaus was, as might be expected, re-erected 
 and re-consecrated ; and the mythical prototype of Hellenic 
 aggression on Asia was destined to be visited and invoked by 
 a more fortunate successor. When Alexander of Macedon 
 retrod the steps of Xerxes on his way to determine in what 
 sense the Great King's dictum as to the ultimate relations of 
 Europe and 2 Asia was to be fulfilled, he sacrificed to Prote- 
 silaus on his tomb at Elaeus, to obtain a happier landing; 
 then, after offerings to Poseidon and the Nereids while 
 passing the channel, which Xerxes was at least believed to 
 have scourged and chained, he reversed the omen for his army 
 by leaping on shore first of all, and in arms, and alighting 
 scatheless. It was probably not without the design of 
 counteracting a similar superstition, that at the end of his 
 first campaign he sent back from Caria to Macedonia every 
 newly married soldier every Protesilaus in his army, under 
 generals who were themselves bridegrooms, who were charged 
 to make the best of the good omen by bringing back with 
 them in spring the most numerous reinforcement possible of 
 both horse and 3 foot. 
 
 Sestos captured and Artayctes the sacrilegious punished, 
 the Athenians were at last free to make the longed-for 
 voyage homewards. Byzantium, upon the route by which 
 
 1 Plut. Tkemist. 13. 2 Herod, vii. n. s Anian. Hist. i.
 
 138 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 Artabazus had escaped, still remained to be dealt with ; but 
 this was of necessity a work left over. Conspicuous among 
 the spoils carried home were the cables of the Persian bridge, 
 the ingenious workmanship of Phoenicians and Egyptians 
 as dedications to the gods. The Ionian allies also returned 
 to their newly-liberated Cities. And so, with the winter, 
 ended this eventful year. 
 
 1 Thucyd. i. 89
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ATHENS RE- WALLED. THE CONCEPTIONS AND CONDUCT 
 OP THEMTSTOCLES. 
 
 B.C. 478 ; 01. 75. a and 3. 
 
 WE have now reached a point in the story where, but for a 
 few anticipatory hints, we are deserted by Herodotus, and 
 through the years that intervene between the fall of Sestos 
 and the Peloponnesian war have to make out a way for our- 
 selves through difficulties and contradictions which enhance, 
 if it were possible, our appreciation of the guide we have 
 parted with. Some assistance, and in certain respects the 
 most valuable of all, is given by the few pages in which 
 Thucydides summarizes the history of this very interval of 
 fifty years the Pentecontaeteris or Pentecontaetia as it was 
 called in antiquity. But though the sequence of events is 
 observed in due order, there is unfortunately a want of 
 fixed dates and precise notes of intermediate intervals. 
 Other most important and interesting details are obtainable 
 from Plutarch's lives of Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, 
 and Pericles, and even some notes of dates, though not 
 uniformly trustworthy; his narratives of incidents, again, 
 are sadly tainted with errors and contradictions too easily 
 detected not to oblige us to hesitate frequently over even 
 an unchallenged statement if it lacks corroboration. The 
 chronologised history of Diodorus Siculus is likewise of very 
 great value, but, as usual, has many drawbacks. It is even
 
 140 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 more than usually unsatisfactory for the years that we are 
 concerned with. Other confusions apart, we find some years 
 left entirely blank ; while in another a complete series is 
 inserted of events which must have extended over several 
 or even many years, and we are left to determine as we may 
 whether in the assigned year they commenced, or culminated, 
 or came to an end. Such are the limitations of our main 
 sources ; but cross-lights occasionally visit us, reflected some- 
 times from the most brilliant, sometimes the most trifling, 
 remains of Hellenic literature, poetry and prose, of its best 
 period or its most debased. Help also that is by no means to 
 be neglected in our dearth and distress is incidentally obtain- 
 able from monuments, from inscriptions, and, still more im- 
 portantly for the history of that noblest progress in which 
 resides so much of the interest of our period, from works of 
 art. 
 
 Immediately upon the retirement of the barbarians from 
 Attica, and with complete confidence after the destruc- 
 tion of the army at Plataea, the Athenians for a second 
 time returned to a devastated country and ruined city, 
 bringing back the women and children from their refuge 
 in Salamis or Troezene, together with whatever moveable 
 property had been preserved. Athens itself was found a 
 heap of ruins : except some of the better houses that had 
 served up to the last as quarters for Persian nobles, very few 
 were left entire, and of the circuit of the walls only short 
 interrupted portions remained. The emergency was however 
 energetically met by the labour of the whole population, slave 
 and free ; while Persian spoil, and fines exacted severely from 
 Medising islanders, came to the aid of the property which 
 had been rescued, in procuring means and materials. 
 
 Themistocles was the presiding genius of these opera- 
 tions, and in prosecuting them with zeal and forethought 
 he did but resume a career of which his conduct of the 
 Persian war had been only an episode ; the dangers and
 
 x.] ATHENS RE- WALLED. 141 
 
 difficulties which he there overcame were indeed only a portion 
 of what he had been preparing- to encounter, if not to provoke, 
 in furtherance of a settled design for the aggrandisement of 
 his country. According to Herodotus, Themistocles in the 
 year of the invasion of Xerxes had but recently attained to 
 eminence, and the scholiast of Thucydides l notes that his 
 archonship was in the previous year, an assertion apparently 
 corroborated by the absence of any other name in the lists for 
 that year. But the authority of the scholiast is not great, 
 nor is this interpretation of his words very satisfactory, 
 and there are considerations in the narrative of Herodotus 
 and elsewhere that oblige us to give a large interpreta- 
 tion to the limits of the phrase. The death of Themistocles 
 as recorded at the age of sixty-five must fall, as will appear, 
 about 460-459 B.C., and he would in consequence be thirty- 
 two in 493 B - c -> wnen a Themistocles was archon eponymus of 
 the 2 year, thirty-five in the year of Marathon, and forty-two 
 in 483 B.C., three years before Salamis, when it was as the 
 conclusion of a rivalry with him of considerable duration that 
 Aristides was ostracised. The removal of such an opponent 
 is quite sufficient to explain the expression of Herodotus as 
 applying to his acquirement of predominant influence, and 
 there therefore appears to be no sufficient reason for question- 
 ing the earlier date of his archonship. 
 
 It was as early, then, as his holding of this office that, ac- 
 cording to Thucydides, Themistocles had mooted the policy, 
 and even made a commencement of the plan, for fortifying 
 the promontory of the Piraeus, which he was now to resume 
 on an enormous scale. The stunning blow inflicted upon 
 Greece in the previous year by the fall of Miletus had been 
 due to the command of the sea by the Persian fleet, and 
 Chios, Lesbos, Tenedos, and the Chersonesus had succumbed 
 in rapid succession. Such disasters might well second the 
 
 1 Thucyd. {.93. 2 Dion. Hal. 6.
 
 142 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 arguments of Themistocles, who easily read in them the moral, 
 that the freedom of Western Hellas must ultimately depend 
 on maritime superiority; and his happy appreciation of the 
 position and resources of his country and the genius of his 
 fellow-citizens enabled him to discern that public confidence 
 in wise counsel was alone required to secure that superiority to 
 Athens. There is every reason to ascribe to him at this early 
 period the large conception which he was now to declare fully 
 and urge on to execution ; but in the meantime, as a still rising 
 man, he had only been able to make gradual and cautious 
 1 advances. The circumstances of the invasion of Datis and 
 Artaphernes, while they confirmed the justness of his views, 
 interfered prematurely with their realization ; and the splendid 
 victory of Marathon was certain to give temporary strength 
 to the party most disposed to thwart him. It was only after 
 a severe struggle that he succeeded, in opposition to the 
 influence and supporters of Miltiades, in diverting the exclu- 
 sive attention and resources of the citizens from the land 
 force of hoplites, to ships, and ports, and arsenals. It was 
 felt on both sides that this change could not but involve 
 some transference of power and ascendency from the settled 
 proprietors and cultivators of land to classes of more restless 
 habits and slighter local attachment, and it was contested ac- 
 cordingly. His success, such as it was, was mainly due to his 
 adroitly stimulating the jealousy and animosity of the popular 
 assembly against Aegina, while he laid the basis of a system 
 which had prospective reference to a struggle with Persia in 
 case of need, and in any case to the assumption of a prime 
 influence over Hellas. It was thus that he obtained from the 
 people their patriotic renunciation of the surplus profit from 
 the Laurium silver mines, which had previously been distri- 
 buted, and its devotion to the construction and maintenance 
 of a fleet ; and with such success, that the city, after having 
 
 1 Pint. Thcmitt.
 
 x.J ATHENS RE WALLED. 143 
 
 been beholden to Corinth for twenty triremes to complete 
 an armament of seventy against Aegina in the year before 
 Marathon, could within ten years of that event place two 
 hundred of her own in line at Salamis. Herodotus himself 
 ascribes the creation of this fleet, which ' was the salvation 
 of Greece,' to Themistocles ; a fact quite inconsistent with 
 his influence being- of recent date, even though the statement, 
 that he gained a vote for the entire number of ships at once, 
 cannot be received against other evidence. 
 
 It was only in respect of the fleet and its equipment that 
 these preparations were sufficiently advanced to be fully avail- 
 able against the invasion of Xerxes ; but now the original 
 plan, with all that it promised and all that it threatened, could 
 be resumed, and Themistocles exerted all his authority and 
 influence to hasten its fulfilment. 
 
 In former days the city had availed itself of the harbour 
 of Phalerum, which although exposed was at least spacious, 
 and had the advantage of being within the shortest distance 
 of the l city ; but on the representation of Themistocles it was 
 resolved to abandon this in favour of the three natural har- 
 bours formed by the rocky promontory of Piraeus. One of 
 these, of smaller dimensions, appears to have been situated 
 eastward, at the foot of the steeply-scarped hill of Munychia ; 
 the larger and more important lay to the westward, thoroughly 
 sheltered, and accessible only by a narrow and easily protected 
 inlet. The position of Munychia had been recognised in 
 earlier times as liable to be most dangerous for Athens if 
 held by an enemy as indeed it was to prove more than 
 once long afterwards ; but the plans of Themistocles now 
 extended to the inclusion of this in a general circuit of 
 impregnable walls, defending the entire peninsula, and of 
 sufficient extent to afford refuge for the population of the 
 city itself. He urged upon the Athenians that it was from 
 a Persian naval force that they would have most to apprehend 
 1 Pausanias, I. i. 2.
 
 144 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 in future ; that their safety depended on their own supremacy 
 at sea ; and that should the time ever come for their country 
 to be again invaded, their true policy would be to decline 
 as before to rely on the defences -of the upper city, and 
 fall back on those of the Piraeus as a citadel, where they 
 would have a refuge which would spare them the sufferings 
 of their late migrations, and be easily maintained by a few 
 of the least serviceable of the population, and give them the 
 opportunity to throw their whole able-bodied strength on 
 ship-board. 
 
 The locality itself provided stone in abundance, and 
 Thucydides refers to the walls as still existing for the 
 solidity which Themistocles proposed to give them : they 
 were sufficiently broad for two of the wagons that brought 
 materials to pass each other; they were not formed with 
 a core of rubble, nor was mortar employed, but they were 
 regularly constructed of great squared stones, the upper 
 surfaces of which were fastened with clamps of iron run 
 with lead. It was said that the height they were carried 
 to was not more than half of that originally intended, but 
 even at that height they were fully defensible. 
 
 Thus it was that Themistocles first gave shape to the prin- 
 ciple on which the maritime empire of Athens was to rest, 
 and of which the parallel long walls were but a further 
 application, until at last the metropolis itself might be con- 
 sidered as within the impregnable circuit of the ports and 
 town of the Piraeus. 
 
 In the meantime however the city was too sacred to be 
 neglected : it had indeed to be attended to in the first 
 instance, though the subject of the fortified ports is duly in- 
 troduced at a time when it was already a settled design and 
 a motive force in political action. It was in accordance with 
 these ulterior views that the walls of the city itself were 
 recommenced on a scale greatly in excess of mere repair 
 and restoration, and rather commensurable with the pre-
 
 x.] ATHENS RE-WALLED. 145 
 
 tensions of a state which had before been self-confident in 
 energy and genius, and was now resolved to maintain pre- 
 eminence as the due of its patriotic devotion and services in 
 the course of the recent, and still existing, struggle. The 
 area to be enclosed within the new walls was extended in 
 every direction, so as to include the suburbs and to admit 
 of future expansion. 
 
 The scope of these preparations was not unmarked or 
 misinterpreted by jealous eyes ; the apprehensions of Aegina 
 were at once re-awakened, and with good reason. The 
 predominance of the Athenian marine was already absolute, 
 partly from the number of its triremes, and still more from 
 the efficiency with which they were manned by a population 
 whom the exigencies of the time had transformed into trained 
 and dexterous oarsmen, whose daring and self-reliance had 
 been heightened by success. If Athens were to be secured 
 from attack by land also, the last check upon her ambition 
 would be lost. Corinth complained later of the fatal in- 
 dulgence allowed to these preparations, and might easily 
 share with Megara the jealousies of Aegina ; but it was 
 from Lacedaemon as head of the Dorian section, if not in- 
 deed of the entire confederacy that a protest first arrived by 
 the mouths of special envoys. The present relations of the 
 two states and their mutual necessities caused the objections, 
 though serious, to be couched in terms of advice rather 
 than expostulation, Spartans, who on principle repudiated the 
 protection of walls for their own city, might with a show of 
 consistency from their own point of view urge the same mag- 
 nanimous policy on others; but some other plea was necessary 
 for them as representatives of alarmed Peloponnesian allies, 
 who had fortifications of their own which they were not likely 
 to renounce. They urged therefore that to fortify Athens would 
 be but to provide the Persian, in the very probable event of a 
 renewed invasion in still greater force, with one more such 
 dangerous basis as he had already used to advantage in 
 
 L
 
 146 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Thebes ; the Peloponnesus would be a place of refuge sufficient 
 for all, and the best basis for defence or action ; it would be 
 better indeed that the Athenians, instead of adding to the 
 extra-Peloponnesian fortresses, should co-operate with them in 
 razing the walls of all the others. 
 
 Representations so moderately expressed might be as 
 moderately entertained, and meanwhile the progress of the 
 walls was not interrupted in the slightest degree. But the real 
 strength of the feelings in reserve was presently manifested 
 by the growing impatience of the Spartan envoys, who even 
 took upon themselves to interfere with the workmen by com- 
 mands and threats. Themistocles was equal to the occasion : 
 for an opposition manifestly so serious he intimated his 
 serious respect, and stopped the works at once ; and by his 
 advice the envoys were dismissed home without delay, satisfied 
 with this compliance, and with the engagement that the 
 Athenians would on their part send envoys to Sparta to de- 
 liberate further on the suggestion that had been put forward. 
 He himself in fact followed them forthwith, but for some time 
 after his arrival made no sign of bringing the business under 
 the consideration of the Spartan authorities. When questioned 
 by some of the leading men as to the cause of the delay, he 
 replied that he waited for his colleagues : he was surprised 
 that they had not arrived long ago, as promptly as him- 
 self; some hindrance must have intervened to detain them; 
 he had no doubt they would make their appearance in all 
 haste ; and so with one excuse or another he made time draw 
 on. Theopompus states that the ephors were bribed by 
 Themistocles to connive at his dilatoriness ; and such a sus- 
 picion is often found to attach as naturally to Spartan cor- 
 ruptibility as to Athenian craft; but the confidence placed 
 in the plausible negotiator needs no other explanation, 
 and possibly admitted of none, than the very frankness 
 of his plausibility, the unscrupulous positiveness of his as- 
 surances, and the reception that was appropriate to the
 
 x.] DIPLOMACY OF THEMISTOCLES. 147 
 
 comrade and colleague of Eurybiades at Artemisium and 
 Salamis ; he had before been welcomed at Sparta with honours 
 that were almost extravagant, and Hellas was even yet not so 
 secure against Persia that his friendliness could be dispensed 
 with or prudently jeopardised by unhandsome imputations. 
 But to delay thus gained there must necessarily be a term. 
 Rumours that the walls of Athens were rising all the while 
 received the positive confirmation of a message despatched 
 from the watchful Aegina by Polemarchus. In point of fact, 
 Themistocles had arranged with the Council (Boule] that the 
 work should be recommenced as soon as he had started, and 
 the departure of his colleagues delayed until the wall had 
 reached such a height that in an extreme case it would be 
 defensible. All hands accordingly fell promptly to the 
 work, men, women, and children, slave and free, resi- 
 dent and stranger ; and all available materials, whether of 
 private or public buildings, were seized and made use of 
 indiscriminately. Thucydides adverts to the appearance and 
 miscellaneous materials of the lower part of the walls in his 
 own time, as evidence of the hasty energy with which the 
 work had been executed. The stones were not properly 
 squared or fitted in courses, but laid together as they best 
 might be ; and amongst them were visible even sepul- 
 chral steles and sculptured stones, which showed that not 
 even works of art or monuments of the dead had been 
 spared. 
 
 To the direct assertion of the fact by Polemarchus, as 
 just mentioned, Themistocles opposed a flat denial of its 
 possibility ; he represented that so extraordinary a tale 
 should not be taken on trust from a source which was 
 prejudiced if not hostile ; let men be sent from Sparta 
 to Athens of such character and dignity as really to com- 
 mand credit, and it would appear how grossly Athens was 
 calumniated. 
 
 The challenge made so boldly was accepted ; and Spartan 
 
 L 2
 
 148 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 envoys of the distinction demanded arrived at Athens to 
 open their astonished eyes on an effectually walled city ; but 
 the reception that awaited them was governed by a message 
 from Themistocles to the Council, which had passed them on 
 the road. Abronichus son of Lysicles and Aristides son of 
 Lysimachus, his colleagues, had before this joined Themis- 
 tocles with news that the requisite height of the wall had 
 been accomplished ; there was no further use or motive 
 for dissimulation, but the indignation of the Spartans 
 might be dangerous ; his instructions accordingly were 
 to detain the envoys, with as little appearance of coercion 
 as possible, but effectually, until he and his colleagues were 
 released. 
 
 The Spartans expressed themselves with great violence at 
 Athens, and it was not easy to conceal from them the 
 fact that they were under detention ; but in the mean- 
 time, the hostages fairly in hand, Themistocles believed 
 that the shortest and frankest explanation at Sparta was 
 the best. His character for candour could in no case be 
 of use there again, unless indeed with the most credulous 
 and after lapse of time; he might always dispense with 
 it in dealing with those who had neither candour nor 
 scruples of their own : for the rest, he was not ill satis- 
 fied as a politician with the price for which he parted 
 with it. 
 
 He therefore presented himself to the Spartans, with the 
 plain announcement, ' that the walls of Athens were now so 
 far completed as to afford perfect shelter to its inhabitants ; 
 and that in case the Lacedaemonians or the allies had any 
 communication to make to the Athenians, they would please 
 to address them as capable of knowing their own interest 
 no less than that of the general community. Of such capa- 
 city there was proof enough and notorious ; their decision 
 that it was expedient for them to abandon their city and 
 take to the ships was a bold resolution adopted independently
 
 x.] DIPLOMACY OF THEMISTOCLES. 149 
 
 of foreign counsel ; while on the other hand it was well 
 known, and had been distinctly admitted at Sparta, that in 
 deliberating- on common business their judgment had been 
 inferior to none. They were now of opinion, that it was 
 better for their city to be walled, both for the sake of 
 their citizens independently, and for the advantage of the 
 alliance at large ; inasmuch as it was quite impossible for 
 states to deliberate fairly and equally on common objects 
 unless upon an equal basis. On this ground, either the 
 existing state of things must be acquiesced in as just, or 
 otherwise walls must be dispensed with by all members of 
 the confederacy indifferently, whether within or without the 
 Isthmus/ The Lacedaemonians suppressed their anger and 
 vexation perforce, ' they had interfered with no purpose of 
 obstruction, but had acted as public agents in communica- 
 tion of an opinion, moved indeed by a particular sense of 
 sympathy with the known zeal of the Athenians against 
 the Medes.' And so the two embassies returned to their re- 
 spective homes without further difficulty or l challenge. But 
 the displeasure rankled at Sparta, and was to rankle, and 
 the time came one day for Themistocles personally to feel 
 its effect. 
 
 To this occasion, if we are to accept them at all, we must 
 refer some proceedings which, as obviously misplaced by Dio- 
 dorus, are inconsistent with themselves, and as transformed 
 by 2 Plutarch, only reappear to be further involved in conflict 
 with most assured history. 
 
 We have seen Themistocles acting throughout with all 
 the freedom of absolute authority, though apparently un- 
 invested with any leading political office ; and this at a 
 crisis when the people must have been in the liveliest agi- 
 tation at their unprotected condition relatively to the 
 jealousies of the Peloponnesians. On no occasion could 
 
 1 Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Equ. 811. J Plut. Aristides.
 
 150 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 he have appealed with more reason to the people in public 
 assembly (ecclesia) to be allowed an interval of uncontrolled 
 action in a business of the utmost importance to the 
 state, but which in the interests of the state might not be 
 divulged. It is also perfectly consistent with the jealousy 
 of the demus, that he should be called upon to confide his 
 plan to Aristides and Xanthippus, the latter of whom would 
 have reached Athens in the course of the winter, men who 
 commanded public confidence not only from their general 
 character, but in such a contingency from their being at 
 least his rivals, if not his declared opponents. The report 
 however which was thus obtained, that the scheme was both 
 advantageous and feasible, again only excited the popular 
 mistrust of a man who, already well known as an intriguer 
 of unrivalled ingenuity, had now enlisted his very compe- 
 titors on his side and in favour of his most marked ad- 
 vancement. They therefore insisted further so the story 
 continues that he should admit the Council into the secret 
 of his policy ; and that after this, if the report were to the 
 same effect, the liberty of action which be demanded should 
 be finally conceded to him. The great advantage and 
 practicability of the plans were now affirmed; and so at" 
 last with difficulty, and with curiosity stimulated to the 
 highest pitch, Council and ecclesia gave up the control of 
 the state to a single man, who was to exercise it for a time 
 without check or supervision : and thus the stratagem ob- 
 tained a success which, whether it might or might not have 
 been gained by a more direct method, was at any rate held 
 to justify the demand of the administrator, and the con- 
 fidence, so cautiously bestowed, of the Athenian demus. 
 
 The city once walled, we hear of no further opposition or 
 protest at present from either the Lacedaemonians or their 
 immediate allies ; but the jealousy they had already displayed 
 could not but be enhanced and their animosity envenomed 
 by the consciousness of the contemptuous way in which
 
 x.] DIPLOMACY OF THEMISTOCLES. 151 
 
 such clumsy schemes of interference had been seen through 
 and set aside. To the Athenians, who were perfectly aware 
 of these sentiments, they could only act as incitements 
 to second the urgency of Themistocles to complete the 
 defensive works at the Piraeus.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 LEOTYCHIDES IN THESSALY. THE CONDITIONS OF KINGSHIP 
 AT SPAETA. 
 
 B.C. 478 ; 01. 75. a and 3. 
 
 THE Athenian fleet, as we have seen, was detained at least 
 till the near approach of winter by the siege of Sestos, after 
 the Peloponnesians had retired, and only then at last made 
 the wished-for return to Athens, where the restoration of the 
 city and the resettlement of society and domestic life awaited 
 all available assistance. On this account, and inasmuch as 
 Aristides, who is next named in command of the fleet, was 
 occupied with the prolonged negotiations about the walls of 
 Athens, we cannot safely reckon upon it as having resumed , 
 action so early as the ensuing spring of 478 B.C. 
 
 The most pressing services required of it were, first to 
 follow in the track of the Persian-Phoenician fleet, which 
 had escaped before the disaster at Mycale, and if not to 
 reach it, to provide occupation for it elsewhere; and then 
 to take Byzantium, which still insured to the Persians 
 a ready transit by the route of Artabazus from Asia to 
 Europe, either on some new expedition or to support the 
 garrisons in Thrace, and the power of interfering with the 
 trade to and from the Euxine. But the strong northern 
 winds which through the summer always set down the 
 Propontis and Hellespont, mark out the early part of the 
 year for the important expedition to Byzantium, and, under
 
 LEOTYCHIDES Itf THESSALY. 153 
 
 all the circumstances, it seems to have been deferred to 
 the spring of the next year, 477 B.C. This inference is in 
 harmony with Diodorus, who assigns it to the archonship 
 of Adeimantus. 
 
 It would be inconsistent, however, to suppose that the 
 intermediate year was entirely unemployed in the war, 
 though it may have been mainly occupied with preparations 
 for a more vigorous renewal, as soon as some past ravages 
 had been repaired. To this year accordingly we must assign 
 an expedition of great importance in its purpose, but of 
 which, in consequence of its failure to realise any important 
 results, we have but the most cursory notice. 
 
 A land force, we are told, was despatched by the Lacedae- 
 monians, under the king Leotychides, to act in Thessaly 
 against the Aleuad princes, who, replaced in authority by 
 the Persian, had rendered zealous aid against Hellas to the 
 very last. There was the best hope of native assistance, 
 as a strong party of Thessalians had originally displayed 
 hearty Hellenic ] sympathy, and promoted, as long as there 
 was reasonable chance of success, the defence of the passes 
 of Olympus. On the occasion referred to a combined Athe- 
 nian and Spartan force had been carried by the Euripus past 
 Thermopylae to disembark at Halos, on the western Achaian 
 shore of the Pagasaean gulf. The same route was probably 
 adopted in the present instance, when Lai'issa was the object 
 of attack. It is at least in harmony with this view that, 
 according to a proposed correction of a text of 2 Pausanias, 
 it was in the fourth year after the death of Leonidas (a 
 period sufficiently covered by the duration of this expedition) 
 that his remains were brought back from Thermopylae to 
 Sparta by Pausanias, who thus acted appropriately as his 
 nephew and regent for his son, and who is found the next 
 year in command of the fleet. 
 
 1 Herod, vii. 172. 2 Paus. iii. 14. I.
 
 154 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Whenever this occurred, we cannot doubt that it was done 
 in obedience to an oracle, though none is on record. The 
 unaltered text of the Periegesis, however, gives an interval 
 of forty years, which carries on the incident to the time of 
 the grandson and namesake of Pausanias. Arnold Schaefer 
 is unusually weak here, when he finds a motive for the 
 transfer at this time in the possibility of danger from the 
 Athenians to the sacred relics as at first l deposited. 
 
 It is, again, as connected with this expedition to Thessaly, 
 that we obtain an available explanation of the notice that 
 the combined fleets of Athens and Sparta were present, some 
 time after the retirement of the Persians, in the bay of 
 Pagasae, as they well might be now, for co-operating with 
 or transporting the land force. How Themistocles had a 
 private project for treacherously destroying the fleet of 
 the allies of Athens ; how Aristides, to whom the demus 
 required the plan to be divulged, reported that it was 
 advantageous but dishonourable; and how, thereupon, it 
 was refused further entertainment, this is a tale in which 
 Plutarch gives new colour and details to what we have 
 divined of the part played by Aristides in first learning 
 privately the views of Themistocles in staying the works x 
 on the walls, and then in not denouncing, but very effectively 
 furthering, the stratagem against Lacedaemon. 
 
 To the present occasion, however, we may probably refer 
 the opposition of Themistocles to a Spartan proposal for 
 forfeiting the ancient Amphictyonic rights of all cities that 
 had failed to take part against the Medes. He appre- 
 hended the preponderance that would accrue to Spartan 
 influence, but argued broadly against excommunicating all 
 Greece, except some thirty-one cities, of which the majority 
 were so small that the assembly would virtually be in the 
 control of two or three of the largest ; and to this reasoning 
 the Pylagorae gave in. 
 
 1 Am. Schaefer De rerum p. bell. Pert. p. 8.
 
 XL] LEOTYCHIDES IN EXILE. 155 
 
 A few lines of l Herodotus, which are confirmed as well as 
 copied by 2 Pausanias, apprise us further, that Leotychides 
 had a course of military success which it was believed that 
 he only failed to push to completeness because he allowed 
 himself to be corrupted by those whom it was his office to 
 chastise. He had however been mistrusted by the oligar- 
 chical ephors as likely to be too eager, king as he was, to drive 
 the Aleuad princes of Larissa to extremities. It was not so 
 long ago as to be forgotten that king Cleomenes, who had been 
 their instrument for putting an end to the tyranny of the 
 Peisistratids at Athens, had attempted for his own purposes to 
 install Isagoras in their place. Leotychides was watched in 
 his very camp, and at least declared to be detected in the 
 possession of a large bribe a gloveful of money under his 
 very seat. On his return to Lacedaemon at latest, therefore, 
 at the end of the campaign, the winter of 478 B.C. the 
 charge was pressed, and, rather than abide the result of a 
 trial, he retired to Tegea in Arcadia, his house was razed 
 to the ground, and he never was recalled. 
 
 He died at Tegea, and Diodorus, in agreement with better 
 authorities, says after a reign of twenty-two years, which was 
 succeeded by that of Archidamus of forty-two years ; but he 
 assigns his death to the archonship of Phaedon (=476-53.0.), 
 and, so far consistently, the death of 3 Archidamus to 434 B.C. 
 His own subsequent record, however, of the acts of Archi- 
 damus is at variance with this date, and in accordance with 
 both 4 Plutarch and Thucydides, who enable us to fix the term 
 of the life of Archidamus decisively in 427-6 B.C., and the 
 commencement of his reign in 469 B.C. Diodorus therefore 
 antedates the commencement of either reign by seven years. 
 
 The chronology of the succession is thus satisfactorily cor- 
 rected ; but it is not an unimportant question how Diodorus 
 was led into the error that he carried forward so persistently. 
 
 1 Herod, vi. 72. a Paus. iii. 7. 9. 
 
 3 Diod. xii. 45. * Plut, Cimon, 16.
 
 156 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 By one explanation he merely transferred an event to the 
 archonship of Phaedon from that of Apsephion by mistake in 
 the name, which in its place he certainly mis-copies ^haion. 
 Another and more satisfactory view is, that his erroneous 
 date for the death is the interchanged date of exile. The 
 exile followed immediately upon the Thessalian expedition, of 
 which no date is given either for one year or another, but 
 which is quite in its place if undertaken to punish Medism in 
 477 B.C., though not easily accommodated to the circumstances 
 of 469 B.C. The expression of Herodotus, that he did not 
 live on to old age in Sparta, conveys with sufficient distinct- 
 ness that his life was considerably prolonged after his retire- 
 ment, that he was to attain to old age, but elsewhere. 
 
 According to this supposition, therefore, the exile, or 
 rather flight, of Leotychides was not reckoned as formal de- 
 position, and it was only from his death that Archidamus, 
 whatever authority was allowed him in the interim, was 
 recorded as king. A parallel to a certain extent occurs in 
 the case of Pleistoanax, son of the regent Pausanias ; he 
 also was charged with military remissness for the sake of 
 a bribe, was in exile eighteen years, during which time 
 his son, a minor, is alluded to as 2 king ; was then recalled, . 
 and has at last his term of exile included in the full tale of 
 his fifty years of 3 reign. The tale of his son's regnal years 
 only commences from this term, his previous dignities not- 
 withstanding. 
 
 It is quite possible that Archidamus likewise was a minor 
 at the time of his grandfather's disgrace, though from 
 some considerations unlikely. It was before his exile that 
 Leotychides, in consequence of the death of his son Zeuxi- 
 damus, married a second wife; it is implied that a son by" 
 this second marriage would have superseded Archidamus, 
 the heir of his deceased son Zeuxidamus, perhaps in accord- 
 
 1 Ol. 74. 4. ' Thuc. iii. *6. ' Diod. xiii. 75.
 
 xi.] CONDITIONS OF ROYALTY AT SPARTA. 157 
 
 ance with precedent, as the eldest born during his father's 
 kingship. The only issue of this later marriage, however, 
 was a daughter, Lampito, whom he gave in marriage to 
 the presumptive heir Archidamus son of her half-brother, 
 his own grandson, and, in default of his further male issue, 
 his heir ; and this would seem more probably, though after 
 all by no means certainly, to have taken place before his 
 exile than after it. 
 
 The circumstances of royalty at Sparta about this time 
 may be taken as representing many of the contingencies and 
 consequences of its hard conditions generally. Leotychides 
 only followed into exile his predecessor Demaratus, who had 
 been supplanted by an intrigue to which he himself had 
 been a party, and which involved corruption of a Delphic 
 priestess; and the authority of the representative of tlje 
 Proclid line of Heracleids, his grandson Archidamus, could 
 scarcely be confirmed so long as his own return was a possi- 
 bility. As regards the other, the Agid line, Cleomenes, 
 the elder brother and predecessor of Leonidas, had been 
 a party to the extrusion of Demaratus, and a feeling which 
 arose from some discoveries upon the subject so far 
 alarmed him that he retired to Thessaly, was then suspi- 
 ciously busy in Arcadia, was at last and perhaps in conse- 
 quence recalled, but soon died a maniac. The present king 
 Pleistarchus, son of Leonidas, was still a minor; to what 
 stringent control his cousin and guardian, the regent Pau- 
 sanias, was amenable we shall presently see, and how soon 
 the accession of Pleistoanax, the son of the regent, was 
 superseded by an exile that was to last for some twenty 
 years. 
 
 The position and authority of the kings would thus 
 appear at this time to be about the least stable thing at 
 Sparta. The relation indeed of the ephors to the kings 
 was such, that kings and regents could scarcely but chafe 
 under interference and control, and be uneasy as to con-
 
 158 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CIIAP. 
 
 slant peril from one trumped-up charge or another ; and 
 the ephors on their side had cause, if only by their 
 knowledge of this very uneasiness, always to exert their 
 great power of self-protection early enough and vigorously 
 enough. 
 
 It is not easy to read all the stories that are told to 
 account for the setting aside, and no less for the reinstate- 
 ment, of Spartan kings, without concluding that many of 
 them can but represent pretexts for political or private ob- 
 jects, of which the true particulars are hidden far beyond 
 detection. In a state so bound to the observance of rigid 
 laws and constitution, changes of policy either requisite or 
 desired, precautions against ambition or excessive influence, 
 or even the substitution of another for the hereditary military 
 commander, seem to have been effected as systematically by 
 a charge of bribery or by a procured oracle, as they -were at 
 Athens more frankly, without any definite charge at all, by 
 the process of ostracism. 
 
 The Athenian demus could not be more jealous of the 
 independence of its command than was the Spartan oli- 
 garchy. It was in genuine aversion to tyrannies, and 
 to the contagion of their example, that the ephors, by* 
 the not always zealous hands of their own kings, had 
 rooted out the tyrants from Athens and other cities of 
 Hellas ; and now the example of Athens in rebuking Mil- 
 tiades for seeming to claim the entire credit of 1 Marathon, 
 was followed at Sparta by a severe check administered to 
 the first display of arrogance by the victor of Plataea. To 
 the basis of the tripod at Delphi, which was a common 
 Greek dedication for this victory, he had attached an in- 
 scription which Thucydides preserves, and which named him- 
 self alone, both as victor and dedicator. 
 
 The ephors had it instantly erased, and substituted 
 
 1 Plutarch, V. Aritt.
 
 XL] THE REBUKE TO PAUSANIAS. 159 
 
 another reciting only the names of the dedicating con- 
 federate cities; his position was, however, otherwise at 
 present undisturbed. The signs of the erasure have been 
 recognised beside the inscription upon the bronze basis as 
 it still exists at Constantinople.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PAUSANIAS AND ARISTIDES AT BYZANTIUM. ATHENIAN ACCEPT- 
 ANCE OF THE ACTIVE LEADERSHIP OF HELLAS. 
 
 B.C. 477; Ol. 75. 3 and 4. 
 
 BY the early spring of the next year, 477 B.C., a large 
 naval armament was afloat. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, 
 says Thucydides, was despatched from Laeedaemon as general 
 of the Hellenes, with twenty Peloponnesian ships ; and with 
 them sailed the Athenians in thirty ships, and a considerable 
 number of other allies. Diodorus seems to include the other 
 allies in the proper squadron of Pausanias, which he gives 
 at fifty ships in all. They probably mustered on the coast 
 of Asia Minor, and their first attempts were made on Cyprus/ 
 where the Persian garrisons were expelled from most of the 
 cities. The complete liberation of the entire island, however, 
 could not be effected, at least within the time available ; the 
 attempt was renounced, and the fleet, anticipating the con- 
 trary summer winds, made for the north, and reached Byzan- 
 tium, to find it probably all the more unprepared for defence, 
 from reports received of the direction of hostilities elsewhere. 
 The city was not taken without some l fighting; but we hear 
 of no considerable difficulty or prolongation of the siege. A 
 certain number of the defenders escaped ; but on the capture, 
 Pausanias found himself not only a second time in possession 
 
 1 Diod. xi. 44.
 
 PAUSANIAS CAPTOR OF BYZAXT1UM. 161 
 
 of the wealthy spoil of the chief refuge of the Persians in 
 Europe, but also of a number of important prisoners officers, 
 and even relatives of the Great King. This second success, 
 won by him at the head of the confederated naval force of 
 Hellas, as he had won Plataea in command of the united 
 land forces, seems to have filled the mind of the Spartan 
 regent with dreams of emancipation from the control of 
 his national constitution the galling interference of ephors 
 of which the peril of Leotychides was a recent and perhaps 
 an intentionally warning example, and which had but lately 
 exposed himself to so public a humiliation. 
 
 We miss throughout the story of his treason any intima- 
 tion of a really profound and promising scheme ; no exten- 
 sive connection of adherents among the allies is hinted at, no 
 apparent opportunity of turning the discontents of a powerful 
 class, the madness of many or of few, to the elevation of him- 
 self to the position of a tyrant for nothing less was the 
 project of Pausanias of universal Hellas. Absolute self- 
 contained arrogance, recalling the frequent relationship of 
 pride to madness, brings to mind also that mania was the 
 end of the wild life of his uncle Cleomenes I. Pausanias 
 not merely disgusted the lonians by injurious treatment in 
 their intercourse with the Spartans, but even the Athenians 
 and Peloponnesian allies by his superciliousness, and at last 
 took to courses that put him in the wrong as much with his 
 own countrymen as with the other Greeks, and threw him 
 into desperate intrigues with the Persians which, for aught 
 we can discern, were alike hopeless and senseless from the 
 very beginning. 
 
 The discontent of the Ionian allies had been growing for 
 some time. Unfavourably as the lonians of Asia Minor 
 contrast with those of Attica, even to an Athenian like 
 Aeschylus, they were doubtless held still cheaper in respect of 
 strength and discipline by the Spartans ; but they were now 
 under all the excitement of being consciously committed to a 
 
 M
 
 162 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 perilous quarrel, were inspired by the sense of newly-recovered 
 liberty, and by emulation with the marvellous energy of 
 the Athenians, whom they were proud to claim as their 
 relations, whether accepted as such with entire cordiality 
 or a not. To the lonians the more so because of their 
 recent enfranchisement it was galling beyond endurance 
 to be still treated like slaves ; to be interfered with in 
 watering and foraging parties, till the Lacedaemonians gave 
 leave after taking precedence ; to be subjected to arbitrary 
 punishments such as stripes, or picketing to iron anchors, 
 and even to blows from subordinates. To Dorians from 
 Peloponnesus a much smaller share of such treatment would 
 be intolerable. Expostulation was vain, and men in com- 
 mand, up to Aristides himself, who here as at Plataea might 
 claim the privilege of an associate in generalship, were refused 
 audience, and put off with studied airs of preoccupation or 
 more insulting disregard. An independent incident, of tragic 
 and shameful interest, brought on a crisis. Cleonice, a 
 daughter of a noble Byzantine family, was so unfortunate as 
 to attract the notice of Pausanias, and he forced her parents 
 by threats to surrender her to his desires. He had fallen 
 asleep when she was introduced into his apartment ; aroused 
 by the sudden noise of a falling lamp, he seized the sword 
 that was beside him, and, under the momentary impression of 
 an enemy being near, struck out in the unexpected darkness, 
 to find that he had slain the unhappy girl, who was ap- 
 proaching his bed in shame and terror. It was believed 
 afterwards that her eidolon constantly haunted him at night, 
 repeating a warning and summoning hexameter ; that, in 
 distress and excitement, he resorted to every form of atoning 
 purification, and to mystical rites at Heraclea and Phigaleia, 
 for evoking her soul and deprecating its anger ; but only to 
 obtain a response which sent him back once more to Sparta 
 with promise of speedy conclusion to his miseries a con- 
 
 1 Herod, i. 143.
 
 xii.] TREASON OF PAUSANIAS. 163 
 
 elusion that did speedily arrive, but only in a miserable death. 
 The tale, says l Plutarch, has been told by many; it was to be 
 told after him again by the traveller Pausanias, who had it, 
 he seems to suppose, as an unrecorded anecdote, from the lips 
 of a 2 Byzantine. 
 
 It was on 3 this that many of the Peloponnesian allies gave 
 up and returned home, to report how Sparta was being dis- 
 graced and the harmony of the Hellenic confederation endan- 
 gered. 
 
 Mistrust still more serious soon arose, to add alarm to the 
 indignation of the recently emancipated lonians. The satrapy 
 of Dascylitis, adjacent to the eastern coast of the Hellespont, 
 was held by the Achaemenid Megabates, who under Darius 
 had been appointed to co-operate with Aristagoras for the 
 subjugation of the 4 Cyclades, but, quarrelling with his asso- 
 ciate, gave treacherous information to the Naxians, and so 
 frustrated the enterprise. From whatever suspicious cir- 
 cumstances, the report got about that Pausanias was nego- 
 tiating for an alliance with his daughter, in combination 
 with a treasonable scheme against Hellas. This version of 
 his designs is referred to by Herodotus as merely a re- 
 port; but Thucydides could quote documents that came to 
 light at a later date not later however than when Hero- 
 dotus was writing which proved that Pausanias aimed 
 higher, and indeed was on his guard against the treacherous 
 nature which had once before been fatal to another Hellenic 
 traitor. He took an opportunity of committing the charge 
 of Byzantium to a certain Gongylus, an Eretrian, together 
 with the custody of the prisoners, including some connections 
 and relatives of the Great King, and arranged that he should 
 liberate them without communication with the allies, and 
 proceed in person to the court of Xerxes, bearing a letter 
 in terms thus literally translated: 'Pausanias, general of 
 
 1 Plut. Cimon, 6. 3 Pans. iii. 17. 8. 
 
 3 Plut. ibid. * Herod, v. 32. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Sparta, out of a desire to gratify thee, sends to tliee these 
 men, whom he took captive in war ; and I am moreover 
 minded, if it is also agreeable to yourself, to marry your 
 daughter, and to bring into subjection to you both Sparta 
 and the rest of Hellas. If then you are at all favourable 
 to this, send down to the sea a man wJio may be relied on, 
 through whom I may communicate hereafter.' 
 
 The treachery of Gongylus to Hellas was gratefully re- 
 cognised by Xerxes; such a service was least of all to be 
 expected from an Eretrian, whose country had been so merci- 
 lessly treated by Datis and Artaphernes. He was rewarded by 
 the lordship in effect hereditary of four towns in Aeolis, 
 near those which had been consigned to the equally un- 
 patriotic Demaratus, and where Xenophon knew of the de- 
 scendants of both as still established. 
 
 The proposal to negotiate was at once warmly embraced 
 by Xerxes ; it confirmed all that Artabazus had ever impressed 
 upon him as to the true policy for subjecting Greece, the 
 policy which he had advocated all along, and which Mar- 
 donius had overruled with such fatal consequences. In all 
 haste he sent down Artabazus himself to supersede Mega- 
 bates, with authority to forward a letter sealed with the royal 
 signet to Pausanias, and instructions to co-operate with him in 
 whatever he might propose to the best effect and in all good 
 faith. The reply so transmitted was in these terms : ' Thus 
 says King Xerxes to Pausanias. The act of kindness towards 
 the men whom you have preserved for me from Byzantium 
 beyond the sea, is laid up for you in record in our house 
 for all time ; and I am gratified by your further communica- 
 tions. Let neither night nor day interfere to cause you to 
 relax in setting about what you promise me; and be not 
 hindered for any expenditure of gold or silver, nor for 
 abundant forces in whatever direction they may be required ; 
 and deal in full confidence with Artabazus, a man of worth, 
 whom I have sent to you, in what is both my business and
 
 xii.] ALARM OF THE IONIANS. 165 
 
 your own, as will be best and most honourable for both of us.' 
 The custom here alluded to, of the formal registry of the 
 king's friends, is frequently l mentioned. 
 
 The receipt of this letter from the Great King seems to 
 have fairly turned the head of the Spartan regent ; and if not 
 the more, certainly none the less, from the earnest of a large 
 treasure conveyed to him by Artabazus for employment in 
 2 corruption. He at once assumed the state and the arbi- 
 trary airs of a Persian satrap. He had already abused the 
 dignity which the Greeks could not but willingly concede to 
 the head of Sparta in any case, and still more to the victor 
 of Plataea ; but he now assumed the ensigns of Persian 
 rank in dress and attendance, and adopted in serious in- 
 fatuation the display which in the Boeotian camp he had 
 sarcastically contrasted with Spartan simplicity. He left 
 Byzantium to make a round through Thrace, where there 
 were still considerable Persian garrisons, even as near as in 
 the Chersonesus, with which the royal signet would probably 
 enable him to open communications. On his return he ap- 
 peared with a body-guard of Medes and Egyptians, had his 
 table served with all the pomp and apparatus of Persia, and 
 could not restrain himself from giving hints, or rather notice, 
 in trivial matters, of the designs that he was harbouring on 
 a larger 3 scale. But he returned to find the confederates and 
 their commanders by no means in the merely irritated and 
 unsettled state in which he left them. Suspicions were 
 abroad, and general alarm at common danger had ripened 
 into a common understanding as to the means by which 
 it might be averted. Alike in demeanour and administra- 
 tion, the Athenian commander Aristides was in absolute 
 contrast to Pausanias as the steadfast to the fitful, the 
 deliberate to the capricious, the just to the arbitrary, the 
 
 1 Herod, iii. 140, viii. 85; Diod. S. xvii. 14; Joseph. Antiq. xi. 6; Esther, 
 ii. 23, vi. i. 
 
 3 Diod. xi. 44. 3 Thuc. i. 130.
 
 166 U I STORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 truly dignified to all that was supercilious, offensive, and arro- 
 gant. The lonians had had warning before the battle of 
 Mycale, and also at the siege of Sestos, that Sparta was 
 less to be relied on than Athens for rendering such aid as 
 they required to maintain their newly-recovered independ- 
 ence ; and the temper of the Athenian commander Aristides, 
 and of Cimon also if, as is possible from the tenor of some 
 accounts, he was already associated with him, gave assurance 
 that such aid would be rendered with a good faith and 
 Hellenic loyalty, which plainly could no longer be counted 
 on from Pausanias. 
 
 The crisis must have seemed dangerous to Aristides him- 
 self; and there was every reason for his readily entertaining 
 the advances of the insular and Asian allies, who were now 
 prepared definitely to transfer their recognition of leadership 
 from Sparta to Athens. It was only from patriotic con- 
 cession to the predilections of the confederacy predilec- 
 tions rooted in immemorial tradition that Athens had con- 
 ceded the leadership to Sparta at sea also, where her own 
 preponderant naval power gave her a fair claim to pre- 
 eminence. This preponderance had been gradually becoming 
 still more decided, and no one knew better than Aristides 
 the future which Themistocles was at this very time pre- 
 paring for it, by his improvements at the Piraeus. The 
 Peloponnesian allies, the peculiar adherents of Sparta, not 
 sorry perhaps (as at Sestos) to have again an excuse for 
 giving up, had already retired in disgust ; those that re- 
 mained were the lonians, whom Athens had already pro- 
 tected against Spartan interference, by assertion of her 
 metropolitan claims, and whose continued zeal could be 
 relied on. The same tradition of colonial dependence was 
 now willingly urged by the lonians themselves; and in truth, 
 whatever change of character may have supervened from 
 foreign admixture and under Asian skies, there was still 
 enough of original tribal character remaining to account
 
 xii.] PA USANIAS AND ARISTIDES. 167 
 
 for a very lively sympathy of relationship, especially as 
 compared with Spartan Dorians. The heroic traditions of 
 these cities, and their conspicuous monuments, kept ever in 
 mind that their reputed founders were of the old royal race 
 of Athens, or had carried from its prytaneum their sacred 
 1 fire ; and the motives involved in these associations were 
 ever most powerful with the Greeks at periods of excited 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 The signs of relaxation in Spartan energy, and worse 
 still, of a tendency to corruption or treachery in her 
 most powerful leader, were thus declaring themselves at 
 a time when Athenian energy, so far from exhaustion, 
 was in the first flush, of sanguine resolution. It is beside 
 the question at such a point to consider whether Aristides 
 was most influenced in his policy by ambition for the power 
 of Athens, or concern for the defence of Hellas. His course 
 could only be the same in either case ; much indeed remained 
 to be done to secure the result of past victories for the 
 benefit of Hellas at large, and only by Athens coming 
 frankly and boldly to the front could this security be taken. 
 It was on the occasion of a distinct insult being offered to 
 Aristides by Pausanias, that an opportunity seemed afforded 
 to the Ionian malcontents for gaining him over to a policy 
 which he had resolved not to precipitate, nor even to appear 
 to invite. On his seeking a hearing from Pausanias for 
 expostulations, and with intent to inform him of the offen- 
 siveness of his conduct, he had been superciliously put 
 off; the mimic satrap would not listen to him, would 
 scarcely look at him ; he was not at leisure. ^Counting on 
 his indignation, the captains and generals of the allies, 
 chiefly of the Chians, Samians, and Aeolian Lesbians, made 
 a direct proposal that he should assume the leadership 
 (kegemonia), and thus attach to himself the allies, who 
 
 1 Herod, i. 146.
 
 168 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 had long- been anxious to give up the Spartans and would 
 at once range themselves with the Athenians. They quitted 
 the interview however without having elicited either pledge 
 or proposal from Aristides to undertake what was suggested 
 to him ; and yet every word he had said was confirmatory 
 of the pressing necessity that something should be done, 
 of the justice of their complaints, of the zeal and good- 
 will of the Athenians, and even of the principles of the 
 best settlement in the event of such a change. He was 
 only cool in his expressions, when he might have been 
 expected to declare his reliance on the resolution of the 
 malcontents to encounter the consequences of a quarrel. 
 There were some among them who could interpret the 
 demand which this attitude conveyed, and Ouliades of Samos 
 and Antagoras of Chios it is noteworthy that Aeolian 
 Lesbos is not even yet included resolved to commit them- 
 selves boldly to an irreparable breach, in confidence that the 
 rest would follow them, 'and that Aristides might be relied on 
 to interpose between them and the Spartans if violence were 
 1 attempted, and so give permanence to an alliance already 
 approved in principle. As the general's trireme was moving 
 in advance on the waters of Byzantium, the conspirators 
 so they are called on a sudden brought their own vessels 
 wantonly into collision with it, catching it violently amid- 
 ships. Pausanias came forward in a rage, and seeing who 
 were the offenders, vented a threat that the time would 
 not be long before he would show them that it was not 
 his ship that they had damaged, but their own native 
 countries. They bluntly retorted ' that it was high time 
 for him to be gone ; and he might be thankful that the 
 recollection of his connection with the Greeks in the Pla- 
 taean victory restrained them from inflicting the punishment 
 he merited.' There and then they moved off to range 
 
 1 Thucyd. i. 96 ; Plut. Arist. 33.
 
 xii.] ATHENIAN LEADERSHIP OF HELLAS. 169 
 
 their squadrons in station with the Athenians, and were 
 joined at once by all the allies but the Peloponnesians. 
 Such was the first decisive rupture which marked the line 
 which, for such important consequences, whether in emula- 
 tion or collision, was to separate the Ionian and Dorian 
 confederations. 
 
 It was precisely at this juncture that further complica- 
 tions were relieved, by the recall of Pausanias to Lacedaemon, 
 there to reply to charges of wrongs against individuals, which 
 in various instances were established. On more serious public 
 charges he obtained acquittal ; but still too much was noto- 
 rious of how he had comported himself in his appointment 
 of general, as if it were a tyranny, and too much was suspected 
 of his inclination to Medism, to allow of his being again 
 entrusted with command. 
 
 It was apparently at the approach of winter 477 B.C. 
 that he returned home, and his fleet with him ; it would 
 then be, at the earliest, in the spring of 476 B.C. that 
 Dorcis was sent out in his stead, associated with others, 
 and with only an inconsiderable force. Dorcis found on 
 his arrival, as under these circumstances was probably anti- 
 cipated, that the resolution of the seceding allies to acquiesce 
 no longer in Spartan leadership was fixed ; and after a short 
 stay he returned home, ' nor did the Lacedaemonians after- 
 wards send out other commanders.' The example of Pausanias, 
 following so closely on that of Leotychides, alarmed them 
 as to the corrupting effect of prolonged absence from the 
 discipline of home; and they were in truth well content 
 to be rid of the Median war, in which they had only 
 taken part at all when it approached their doors, and 
 to leave the distant prosecution of it in the hands of 
 the Athenians, who were not only fully as competent to 
 conduct it, but were disposed especially when so engaged 
 to remain on good terms with themselves. According to 
 Plutarch they were the better satisfied with this course
 
 170 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 from the conciliatory assurances, and if so, we must infer 
 from the growing political influence, of Cimon. Diodorus 
 dates this revolution in the archonship of Adeimantus = 
 477-6 B.C. 
 
 Such was the commencement of the hegemony, or leader- 
 ship of Hellas, by the Athenians.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DORIAN AND IONIAN GENIUS AND GENEALOGY. 
 
 THE sternness and stability of the peculiar institutions 
 of Sparta had in the course of years produced a national 
 character so distinctive, that her statesmen and citizens 
 might seem to stand in almost as strong a contrast, in 
 respect of maxims and manners, and even language, to 
 other Dorians, as the Dorians at large did to the lonians. 
 The Dorian colonists of the shores of the Euxine, of Rhodes 
 and Cos and the borders of the archipelago, of Sicily and 
 Italy, were drawn of necessity into habits of general inter- 
 course and free communication with foreigners and aliens, 
 quite unknown to the Spartans, secluded as they were from 
 even the stimulant proximity of an Ionian frontier. Commerce 
 was fostered at Dorian Corinth, with all its consequences 
 of foreign haunt and intercourse, and luxury in the coarser 
 forms affected by commercial wealth; and innovation and 
 invention were promoted there as eagerly as they were 
 repressed at l Lacedaemon. At Corinth, as in her western 
 colonies, the plastic and the graphic arts flourished with a 
 vivacity that communicated no trifling reaction to Ionian 
 genius ; and Dorian Megara, besides being the home of 
 such a master of elegiac poetry as Theognis, was the 
 
 1 Pindar, 01. xiii. 15; Thucyd. i. 13, 69; Herod, ii. 168.
 
 172 IIISTOliY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 very birth-place of imaginative Comedy, of which Dorian 
 Syracuse was the nursing-mother. There is every presump- 
 tion that this contrast, at least in respect of its strongest 
 lines, was superinduced mainly by the special legislation of 
 Sparta, which, overstrained by the police requirements of 
 its institution of helotry and in the interest of military 
 prowess, carried more than military discipline into every 
 detail of domestic life. 
 
 Lacedaemon anterior to the Dorian conquest is presented 
 in the Homeric legend as a centre of refinement, or indeed of 
 luxury ; and the picture is by no means extravagantly out 
 of harmony with such intimations as reach us of its earlier 
 Doric times, in no sparse notices of archaic Spartan monu- 
 ments and art of Spartan sculpture, and poetry, and 
 music. 
 
 Bathycles, Terpander, Thaletas, Alcman, Tyrtaeus, if they 
 were not Spartans, are so associated in fame with Sparta, 
 as to prove that appreciation for art lived on with consider- 
 able pertinacity even after the germs of the native faculty for 
 creation had been ruthlessly trodden down and stamped out. 
 In later days these proper Hellenic characteristics only 
 appear in a lively devotion to certain religious and athletic 
 festivals and their accompaniments ; beyond this it seems 
 left to predominating political power alone to constitute a 
 bond between Sparta and the general Hellenic community, 
 and to preserve it from forfeiting in its isolation all sympathy 
 with the busy related tribes beyond its jealously-guarded 
 barrier. This predominance, however, was during a long 
 period sustained and decisive, uncontested and unquestioned ; 
 it was asserted intermittently, but still on occasion with such 
 promptitude and force, as to give the impression of jealous 
 watchfulness as well as power. The larger Dorian Hellas 
 in consequence, for all its varied qualifications and diver- 
 gences, never renounced a traditional regard for Sparta as 
 chief of the Dorian race, and peculiarly as chief and leader
 
 xiii.] AEOLISM AS PRIMAEVAL. 173 
 
 on all occasions of rivalry and complication with the other 
 great Hellenic section the Ionian. 
 
 The deepest line of division that we know among- the 
 people who in historical times were designated collectively 
 as Hellenes, runs between these Doric and Ionic sections ; 
 another line divides the Aeolians from both, but much less 
 decisively, for among the varied and widely-spread tribes 
 of Aeolian descent and dialect and characteristics, while 
 those on the west of the Aegean approximated very nearly 
 to the most distinctive Dorians, there were others in the 
 islands and colonies eastward that exhibited many signs of 
 Ionian sympathy. This approach, however, of Aeolians to 
 lonians is ambiguous and accidental, and historical indica- 
 tions go far to show that their distinction was all but 
 primitive ; that Dorism developed independently from an 
 Aeolism with which lonism was already in marked contrast, 
 at some point of earlier departure, rather than that lonism 
 and Dorism together were collateral shoots from an original 
 main Aeolic stem. 
 
 Strabo, who, late as he is, merits even on these points 
 especial attention, remarks, with his usual good sense, that 
 the earlier divisions of the tribes of Hellas must needs 
 have followed, and may be tracked by the broader distinc- 
 tions of dialect, the innumerable minor subdivisions being 
 left aside. Under this guidance four families are obtained, 
 which however, by the derivation that he points out, may 
 again be reduced to a primitive pair, the Ionian dialect 
 being virtually the same as the old Attic, and the Dorian 
 not to be distinguished from the old Aeolic. The specialties 
 of Attic speech of the fully-developed period were thus devia- 
 tions from primitive Ionian, and those of Sparta from primi- 
 tive Aeolian. 
 
 According to this view, the Ionian and Aeolian dialects 
 were in contrast from the beginning, and were continued 
 among certain sections of the race with less change in their
 
 174 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 forms, though still by no means exempt from slighter varia- 
 tions, than when they came to be spoken in the predominant 
 states of Attica and Sparta. Modern criticism has eluci- 
 dated in detail the diversities of Attic and Ionic, as well 
 as of Lesbian Boeotian and Thessalian Aeolic, and the purer 
 1 Doric. 
 
 The geographer supports his analysis by the remark that 
 the inhabitants of Attica at an early period were recognised 
 as lonians, and that the colonies in Asia who used the Ionic 
 dialect were notoriously of Attic origin. Even up to his 
 own time, he proceeds, all the Hellenes without the Isthmus, 
 except the Athenians, Megarians, and the Dorians about 
 Mount Parnassus, were still called Aeolians, and the dis- 
 tricts within the Isthmus were also previously in complete 
 Aeolian occupation, the Homeric Achaeans having been an 
 Aeolian tribe. Then two interferences took place ; a popu- 
 lation from Attica, who, according to his own account, were 
 already known as lonians, established themselves in the 
 district along the Corinthian gulf, that was afterwards the 
 best-known Achaia, but only to be driven back again to 
 Attica by Achaians, when the latter were expelled from 
 their more easterly seats in Peloponnesus by the intrusive 
 Dorians. The Aeolic dialect, continues Strabo, was still 
 retained after this revolution by the Eleians, who had sided 
 with the invaders, and by the Arcadians, who, safe among 
 their mountains, defied them ; though even among these, 
 despite their political independence, there was a sympathetic 
 tendency for the dialect of the dominant tribe to prevail. 
 In the case of subjection, as might be expected, the dialectic 
 modification was decisive ; even as Herodotus witnesses, that 
 lonians who were left isolated in Cynouria and fell into 
 subjection to Argos became ultimately Dorised. Allowing 
 for these influences, it is less surprising that in Strabo's time 
 
 1 Grote, ii. p. 452.
 
 XIIL] IONISM AND DORISM DERIVATIVE. 175 
 
 every town in Peloponnesus Dorised, than that most of them 
 should still retain some dialectic peculiarities of their own. 
 
 The Dorians then, according to the view of Strabo, had 
 already acquired their characteristic dialect, as well as certain 
 peculiarities of manners qualifying their primitive Aeolism, 
 before this invasion, and he ascribes these changes to the 
 special climatic and social influences that affect a tribe in 
 secluded and crowded occupation of a bleak and rugged 
 territory. Upon this view no distinctive Dorism is recog- 
 nised prior to the residence of a teeming population in the 
 rough and limited Doris. But Doris about Parnassus was 
 only the late seat of a tribe that had previously had many 
 migrations. Herodotus, who speaks with an absence of hesi- 
 tation that carries much authority, from its apparent harmony 
 with uncontested traditions, knows of it first as occupying 
 Phthiotis, to the south of the Pagasaean gulf, at that time 
 conterminal with the Thessalian l Pelasgi, and including the 
 Hellas proper of Homer ; and, in fact, in close proximity to 
 the original, or at least the primaeval Achaia. Here it would 
 be in possession of a sea-board, and hence might perhaps have 
 extended the early Dorian influence, that is afterwards declared 
 so powerfully, to Rhodes and to Crete. Hestiaeotis, which 
 Herodotus bounds by Ossa and Olympus, is given as the next 
 seat of the tribe ; expelled hence by Cadmeians, who seem to 
 be represented in mythus by the eponymn Cadmus, and 
 migrating from Thebes to Illyria, they occupy Pindus under 
 the title of Macedonians, thence pass southward to Dryopis, 
 and so at last move across the Crissaean gulf to their final 
 establishment in Peloponnesus. Such a story is by no means 
 too wild for a period of general unsettlement, and implies 
 a series of warlike enterprises and collisions, by a vigorous 
 tribe under a succession of vigorous leaders, and tribal co- 
 hesion of a fibre that, in view of numerous parallels in later 
 
 1 Herod, i. 57.
 
 176 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 history, it would be presumptuous to disallow ; but we can 
 no more circumscribe the regions successively taken possession 
 of, than we can limit times of occupation, or the possible 
 association and reaction of other tribes as such events went on. 
 
 This broad implication of Strabo, that the grand distinction 
 between Dorians and lonians was but inherited from a prior, 
 and equally marked, distinction between Ionian and Aeolian 
 (the Doric Spartans being to primitive Aeolians what the 
 Athenians were to primitive lonians), is matched by as broad, 
 and at first sight a more surprising, assertion of Herodotus, 
 that the Athenians as a Pelasgic race were contrasted in origin 
 with the Lacedaemonians as a Hellenic one. Interpreted 
 strictly and literally, this statement would exclude the Athe- 
 nians and lonians generally from the list of Hellenes, and so 
 far would agree with his habit of speaking of Dorians as 
 specifically Hellenes ; these Aeolo- Hellenic populations would 
 confront Pelasgico-Ionic in the ultimate bifurcation of the 
 race; but it is manifest that he would have admitted no 
 such extreme interpretation of his statement, and we must 
 compare other evidence before we pretend to extract from 
 what he here seems to say, what he can only in reasonable 
 consistency mean. 
 
 Pelasgic is as widely distributed an appellative in legend 
 as Aeolian in history, and though we are not justified in 
 pronouncing that they are convertible with only a difference 
 of epoch, the geographical range and the incidents ascribed 
 to both are curiously similar. Thessaly northwards is Pelas- 
 gic, is Pelasgiotis, as all Peloponnesus on the J south, in 
 legends that it were vain to set aside as nugatory, and so 
 are the islands and the eastern coast of the Aegean. Two 
 views in consequence are open to us ; either that the Aeolians 
 superseded alien Pelasgi, or, more probably, that they were 
 a vigorous overgrowth from their midst a section taking 
 
 1 Eurip., Iphiy. Aid. 1473.
 
 XIIL] ATHENS PELASGIC OR HELLENIC. 177 
 
 such a start as the Dorians afterwards took from amongst 
 themselves; and then, that the lonians were another, and 
 possibly a later, that made a separate leading shoot upon a 
 different congenial soil and under contrasted climatic and 
 social influences. The first of these tribes that rose to 
 a self - consciousness of independence and superior power 
 might well be apt to consider the differences of the races 
 left behind as little worth regard. ' When Hellas was 
 Pelasgic,' says Herodotus, ' the Athenians were distinguished 
 as Cranai Pelasgi ;' he marks other epochs in their history 
 by the titles of Cecropidae, Athenians, and, still later, 
 lonians ; each change being attached to a change of king 
 or leader Cecrops, Erechtheus, Ion in no case to an expul- 
 sion from the country of the tribe already in possession. 
 With perfect consistency so far, he again affirms that the 
 lonians of Asia were a Pelasgic race, that so also were the 
 lonians of the Cyclades, and that the Ionian colonies were 
 founded by a population which had been expelled by the 
 Achaians from Peloponnesus, where they were called Aegia- 
 lian 1 Pelasgi. Strabo, we have seen, asserts that it was from 
 Attica that they had originally passed to Aegialea, and calls 
 them even then lonians, which agrees with the story of 
 the settlement of lonians at Cynouria, where they remained 
 to be subject to the Dorian Argives. 
 
 But these statements appear to involve the consequence 
 that if the Athenian race was Pelasgic, the Pelasgic must 
 have been Hellenic; which would contradict the principle 
 of the distinction drawn by Herodotus himself. He is 
 indeed in the difficulty that the Pelasgi appeared to have 
 spoken a barbarous tongue, whereas the Athenians spoke 
 the Hellenic; but he still does not doubt that they 'broke 
 off' from the main Pelasgic stem, and is therefore driven to 
 conclude that they changed their language on becoming 
 
 1 Herod, vii. 94, 1^5. 
 
 N
 
 178 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Hellenised. In any case the opinion of Herodotus goes for 
 very little in a question as to fundamental difference of 
 language, and cannot be taken to establish a positive diver- 
 sity of race between tribes that proved themselves so happily 
 susceptible of reciprocal influence. 
 
 It must be borne in mind throughout that the name 
 Pelasgian, like Aeolian afterwards, in all probability com- 
 prised a diversity of sub-tribes which, even if upon a general 
 level of civilisation and relationship, might easily differ 
 among themselves as widely at least as Celts, Gaels, and 
 Cymri, in tendencies, dispositions, capacities, and suscepti- 
 bilities of influence, good or evil. 
 
 There is temptation to infer that Herodotus, being possessed 
 by the Athenian claim to be autochthonous to have never 
 immigrated into their country and never to have been 
 expelled and at the same time by the persistent tradition 
 of the range of the Pelasgic period, merely adopted as a 
 necessary conclusion that the Athenians so unremoved must 
 be Pelasgians, and shut his eyes to inconsistent conse- 
 quences. But how evanescent an ethnological distinction 
 he was prepared to accept as involved in Pelasgic origin 
 appears in the fact of his noticing, without serious demur, 
 that the Hellenes charged such an origin even upon the 
 Aeolians of the l archipelago ; whence it seems clear that, 
 according to his conception, Pelasgism might well lie deep 
 down at the basis of both Aeolian and Ionian antiquity. 
 
 Such a charge could mean no more than that settlers 
 of purer race and more imbued with the nobler culture 
 that was recognised as characteristic of a new epoch had 
 coalesced with a comparatively, but only comparative! v, 
 alien population. The growth and assumption of national 
 character by the nations of modern Europe after the break 
 up of the Roman empire furnish many examples of dis- 
 
 1 HcroU vii. 94, 95.
 
 xiii.] ATHENS PELASGIC AND HELLENIC. 179 
 
 proportion between the numbers and the influence of com- 
 mingling tribes, conquering or conquered. As time went 
 on, and according to the capacity of the secondary race, it 
 might well be that though contributing at first most largely 
 to the numbers of the population, it perpetuated but 
 little of its primitive unculture. Only in one sense could 
 lonians and Aeolians be conceived of as members of 
 a non-Hellenic Pelasgic race, and that is, that a large, 
 perhaps the largest proportion of the population of either 
 was of a non-Hellenic stock which had become absorbed 
 transformed by the superior energy and genius of the 
 smaller Hellenic portion, of Aeolic genius in one case, of 
 Ionian in the other. Herodotus himself gives an account 
 of the expulsion, by his own Pelasgic Athenians, of a 
 depressed tribe of Pelasgi. One version of this quarrel 
 connected it with molestation of free maidens drawing water 
 from the well Enneakrounoi. This water, we learn from 
 Thucydides, was used for sacred purposes, especially on 
 occasions of marriage, and the story which has many an 
 ancient analogue reads much like a mythic translation of 
 a dispute as to a privilege of intermarriage, a constant source 
 of disagreement between tribes and cities of antiquity. 
 
 What is most surprising in the result thus obtained from 
 analysis of the reports, is the extremely limited area, even if 
 we include Aegialia and Cynouria with Attica, which is allowed 
 for the primitive lonians, and a difficulty arises how this can 
 consist with the conditions of the grand figure that is made 
 in historic times by the Ionian race as correlative and in 
 competition with Dorian and Aeolian conjoined. But Hero- 
 dotus himself is a witness how comparatively insignificant 
 were the commencements of Ionia. ' At a time,' he says, 
 ' when the Hellenic race generally was weak, the Ionian was 
 by far the weakest of all and of least account ; for except 
 Athens there was no other Ionian city of l importance.' 
 
 1 Herod, i. 143. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 It is characteristic of a vigorous stock that it will from 
 time to time throw out a fresh shoot that is more productive 
 than any that have gone before ; and not only is a population 
 thus suddenly prolific and suddenly prosperous, but it presently 
 manifests new characteristics, assumes new energies, and, in 
 respect of civilisation, is a true birth of an original species. 
 It is likewise characteristic of the commencement of new 
 epochs of history, that a particular tribe, sometimes it may 
 be said a particular family, makes its way out of the in- 
 discriminate crowd and cluster, and by conjoint develop- 
 ment of numbers and characteristic energy moulds the 
 entire course of after history. History must usually accept 
 genius of this value as an ultimate fact ; it may trace 
 some secondary obligations to circumstances, to happiness 
 of geographical position or political surroundings; but no 
 combination of these has ever yet been competent to 
 account for the genesis of the chief motive characteristics 
 of the genius itself. Still, with nations as with men 
 individually, while the power to mould circumstances is 
 much, is energy in any case and may be genius, yet 
 for greatest results the circumstances must be such as are 
 capable of being moulded ; and moral and physical endow? 
 ments within and happy combinations and opportunity with- 
 out, nay, even what we are driven to call accident or luck, 
 must conspire, and at critical periods occasionally do con- 
 spire, that the very greatest success that is conceivable 
 may actually occur. 
 
 The situation of Attica had doubtless many advantages ; 
 and even the poverty of its soil, which rendered it a less 
 tempting prey to invaders, would help to divert industry to 
 maritime adventure, for which its spacious and well-protected 
 harbours gave aid and encouragement. Accordingly, when 
 the time arrived that moral conditions were in happy coinci- 
 dence with material opportunities, Attica became a centre of 
 most active colonisation, and the colonies she planted
 
 xm.] GENESIS. OF IONIAN NATIONALITY. 181 
 
 proved secondary centres of most active colonisation. So 
 was filled up and occupied a period all but unrecorded of 
 marvellous development and activity and prosperity ; the 
 prosperity that makes its mark by the speedy growth of a 
 few associated families into a tribe, of a tribe into a nation ; 
 growth with which the world is so familiar in the stories 
 of modern colonies and their mother countries. 
 
 We have no direct and explicit trace of this vast Ionic 
 development in the Homeric poems ; Pelasgians are noted 
 as still existing, as tribes or hordes, but of no coherence 
 or marked distinction, and seeming to have already receded 
 into almost as much obscurity as shrouds them for Hero- 
 dotus or Thucydides dwindling, dwarfed, and unprogres- 
 sive sections left behind, as poor inheritors of possibly 
 a once great name. What indeed is not implied of the 
 original greatness of the name when in the most solemn 
 and ceremonious adjuration of Zeus in the entire poem, he 
 is invoked under the titles Dodonaean, ^elasgic? The 
 Achaian nation of Homer is not yet even by name Hellenic, 
 though the fact that his chief hero Achilles belongs to the 
 district that includes Hellas proper already indicates with 
 what seat was to be associated the hearth of the ultimately 
 dominant tribe. Still though the period that the poet 
 depicts was that to which he was carried back by the 
 legends he dealt with, the characteristics of which were 
 familiar in the early scattered poems which his own work 
 was destined to supersede, it was at the same time impos- 
 sible for him not to be influenced by the interests and 
 circumstances of his own time. There is much appearance 
 that this was when the Ionic development was already in 
 active movement; and a hint has even been detected in 
 the possibly not unintentional disparagement of Athens 
 sometimes direct and sometimes by neglect that the pre- 
 
 1 Iliad, xvi. 233.
 
 182 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 dilections of the poet were engaged less for the intrusive 
 energy than for the elder races. 
 
 A single mention of lonians (laones) in the Iliad brings 
 them curiously into equivocal connexion with the l Athenians, 
 and with the characteristic epithet eA/cexfrawes but not 
 much can be made of the passage. The flowing draperies 
 of the older Athenians were in contrast to Doric costume, 
 and together with their peculiar seclusion of women seem 
 to argue Asiatic affinities or reactions, which were perhaps 
 contracted in the course of the great Ionian colonisations. 
 
 It was the great pride of the Athenians that they were 
 autochthonous, a boast which was founded on the principle 
 that neither their history nor their legends, which would 
 have been accepted as equal in authority, could tell of 
 their nation having ever been, like so many others, ejected 
 in a body from their territory. Something may have been 
 due to the defensibleness of the country on its northern moun- 
 tainous frontier, something to its occupying a position aside 
 from the route of armies, or which is the explanation of 
 Thucydides to the uncovetable poverty of its soil. Attica 
 is just such an angle of a continent as populations are apt to 
 be driven into as a last refuge in violent times like Cornwall 
 or Biscay, Wales or Scotland. Such refugees, if able or 
 allowed to maintain themselves in independence, sometimes 
 only perpetuate a dull and ineffective race, even though 
 they may not have been merely the most ready to be fugi- 
 tive, but the most resolved to resist to the last rather than 
 submit to conquerors. It may be otherwise if they accept 
 the influence of immigrant populations, or even of leaders 
 and dynasties from without; and great results ensue when 
 the original population is so endowed as not only to respond 
 to happiest stimulus, but, while accepting an influence, to 
 stamp an influence in return. In the circumstances of Attica 
 
 1 Horn. //. xiii. 685-689.
 
 xiii.] ATHENS IONIAN AND AUTOCHTHONOUS. 183 
 
 we may recognise the same process, though resulting in a 
 different form of character, that produced in England what 
 Shakespeare has called a 'happy breed of men,' from the 
 mingling of Roman, Dane, Belgian, Saxon, Norman, Flem- 
 ing, Frenchman, with the by no means homogeneous original 
 Celtic tribes. Only in later times did Attica become irre- 
 concileably jealous of aliens. Legislators even as modern 
 as Solon and Cleisthenes consolidated its power by incor- 
 porating strangers with full franchise; and it seems clear 
 that each change of dynasty in mythical story expresses 
 the reception of a new wave of foreign, and possibly cog- 
 nate, population. To these contingencies, always reserving 
 the chief value of the truly native, autochthonous genius, 
 we may fairly ascribe no little of that restless activity and 
 versatility of mind which distinguished the Athenians even 
 among the generally so restless and mobile Hellenes.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE CONFEDERATION UNDER LEADERSHIP OF ATHENS. THE 
 ASSESSMENT OF ARISTIDES. THE DISGRACE OF PAUSANIAS. 
 
 B. c. 476 ; Ol. 75. 4. and 76. 
 
 As early as 490 B.C., fourteen years before the present 
 date, Aristides had taken a position of eminence at Athens. 
 He was one of the generals who were associated with Milti- 
 ades at Marathon, where by setting the example of deference 
 to his single authority, he contributed still more to the vic- 
 tory than even by his services in the battle ; the next year 
 he was Archon Eponymus. He was related to one of the 
 richest families in Athens represented by Callias, though 
 accounted, for his position at least, a poor man ; and his 
 immediate connexion was not so much with the oligarchical 
 as the aristocratical party, and with the party perhaps even 
 less than with the class. He had been an associate of 
 Cleisthenes the Alcmaeonid, a very personification of that 
 class, who yet had discerned the necessity and the occasion 
 for giving more decision to the institutions of Solon, and 
 had effected this by original measures which caused him 
 to be celebrated as even more truly than Solon the founder 
 of Athenian * democracy. 
 
 The Cleisthenean constitution owed its birth to a sagacious 
 recognition of the requirements of new circumstances in a 
 
 1 Lwc. w. <bri8. 133 ; Herod, vi. 131.
 
 ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 185 
 
 new time. By a liberal admission of new citizens, and by 
 subdividing the tribes and redistributing them on a new 
 principle, and thus breaking up many inveterate local and 
 narrow influences, it did as much violence to sectional pre- 
 judices as had been done to the rights of property by the 
 seisachtheia of Solon, to which measure the innovations of 
 Cleisthenes acted as an appropriate complement. The ex- 
 ample so confirmed was destined to be followed again, and 
 have the further support of Aristides, though he had first 
 to overcome the general inclination in Athens to think that 
 a change which had cost so great an effort was necessarily 
 final, and could be so maintained. It was in the interval 
 between Marathon and Salamis that Themistocles entered 
 public life. He was younger than Aristides, and yet we are 
 not on that account obliged to set aside as impossible the 
 tradition that their rivalry began in a Greek competition 
 for the regards of a beautiful Ceian youth Stesilaus, to which 
 Solon himself at an earlier 1 date might have been a party. 
 Themistocles, son of Neocles, was destitute of the advantages 
 both' of fortune and family, at least of more than just suffi- 
 cient to give him an opening to a public career. Confident 
 in energy and resource, ready and incisive of speech, he 
 measured the scope of his genius against the foreseen con- 
 tingencies of a coming period, and dared to set his ambition 
 on a glory that should match even the trophy of Miltiades, 
 by which he was haunted sleeping and awake. 
 
 Politicians of this stamp, who labour under such initial 
 disadvantages, are apt, whatever may be their ultimate or 
 fundamental patriotism, not to be over-scrupulous as to the 
 persons or things which they attack in their resolve to let 
 the world know early what men it has to reckon with and 
 will have to find employment for. It was in the face of the 
 opposition of Miltiades himself that Themistocles carried his 
 
 1 Frag, 13 and 15, Bergk.
 
 1-8S HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 first great measure, the appropriation of the annual state 
 revenue from the Laurian silver mines to the increase of the 
 fleet ; and this appears to have been only one out of many of 
 his novel and adventurous propositions. He is not named 
 Xanthippus has that bad distinction among those who turned 
 the failure at Paros into a capital charge; but he was the 
 main cause (in 483 B.C.) of the ostracism of Aristides, who 
 had supported Miltiades in more partial attention to a land- 
 force. It was thus at* any rate that he secured the direction 
 of the next three years, invaluable for the timely furtherance 
 of the naval preparations which were to be effective at Salamis. 
 The opponent of his policy was honestly converted by its 
 triumph; Themistocles himself moved for his recall, and 
 thenceforward the two acted in concert to an extent truly 
 wonderful, considering the contrast of their natures. Aristides 
 is said to have been conscious, even in earlier days, that, 
 in his apprehension of the general prejudicial influence of 
 Themistocles, he had opposed him sometimes with too un- 
 fortunate effect; once he had even candidly admitted that 
 it was high time, if such contests were to go on, for the 
 Athenians to throw one or other of them into the pit ; and 
 ostracism intervened in fact as a solution of the difficulty. 
 This, however, had now gone by; he appeared to recognise 
 that the occasion had arrived for him to follow in the steps of 
 his master Cleisthenes, though as a master himself, and that 
 he could not do better service to the state than by giving 
 aid to inevitable changes with a frank cordiality which would 
 at least enable him to impress them with some character of 
 his own, and to regulate violence into ordered energy. 
 
 Another contemporary of Aristides still younger than 
 Themistocles was Cimon, son of Miltiades, who will soon 
 come before us in command of the fleet at Byzantium. 
 He possessed a large share of the best qualities of both his 
 elders, without attaining to the heroic disinterestedness of 
 Aristides, and certainly falling short of Themistocles at the
 
 xiv.] CIMON SON OF MILTIADES. 187 
 
 point where nature has set the eternal limit between en- 
 dowments however distinguished and unquestionable genius. 
 He began life under mingled conditions of hardship and bril- 
 liancy. He inherited the renown of Marathon, which could 
 not but be a power as time went on with the men who had 
 fought there. They were however for a time ungratefully 
 jealous of it as too great a power, and resented some self- 
 assertion of Miltiades by seizing the opportunity of inflicting 
 on him a monstrous fine of fifty talents, which, remaining 
 unpaid at his death, carried on the obligation and the stigma 
 to his son. The son had the buoyancy both of youth and 
 of temperament ; he was disinclined to the more finished 
 intellectual or musical culture that already distinguished the 
 Athenians above other Greeks, as it did the Greeks from 
 barbarians. In speech and manners he was more in harmony 
 with the Dorian type, and proved himself always naturally 
 more in sympathy with Sparta than even Aristides, who set 
 up as his legislative model the severity of Lycurgus. Severe, 
 in early life at least, Cimon was not. He was free of life and 
 of love, and contemporary poets told of his weakness for the 
 Salaminian Asteria, and again for a certain Mnestra; told 
 also, however, of his affection for a legitimate wife Isodice, 
 daughter of Euryptolemus, a son of Megacles, in elegies 
 written to console him in his desolation at her death. By 
 these characteristics, combined with a generous and open 
 nature and energy in public lofty aims, he was recognised 
 as bearing resemblance to the Euripidean type of Hercules : 
 
 tyavKov, aKOfa/^ov, T& ntyicrr' dyaObv. 
 
 A wealthy marriage of his half-sister Elpinice was the 
 means, it is said, of relieving him from the inherited fine, 
 and his military services at Salamis and onwards commenced 
 a popularity which was confirmed by an unaffected manner 
 which transmuted a blunt bearing into gentleness itself. In 
 Cimon we recognise an antique type of what in modern times
 
 188 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 we designate with admiration as truly ' sailor- like.' It was 
 as quite a youth that he adopted the maritime policy of 
 Themistocles, which he was to devote his life to carrying 
 out. In the midst of the dismay produced by the resolution 
 to abandon Athens for the ships, Cimon was seen in cheerful 
 style Ion described him as of noble stature, with a head 
 of abundant close and curly hair leading a troop of 
 companions through the Cerameicus to the Acropolis, and 
 holding in his hand a bridle, which he was on his way to 
 dedicate to the goddess in token that the class of knights 
 with whom his fortune was then perhaps only sufficient to 
 rank him, were for the time renouncing land service. He 
 exchanged bit and bridle for one of the shields probably 
 his father's spoils from Marathon which were suspended 
 about the temple, and then, after a prayer to the goddess, 
 descended to embark, communicating to no few the spirit 'of 
 his enthusiasm. In the actual conflict he acquitted himself 
 with such brilliant manfulness as to mark him at once for 
 a career not unworthy of his Origin. The first time that 
 his name appears afterwards is as the colleague of Aristides, 
 by anticipation possibly of his successorship, in command of 
 the fleet at Byzantium : that Cornelius Nepos, by confusion 
 with a later exploit, puts him in the place of Xanthippus at 
 Mycale, may be due and that is all that can be said to his 
 name having really occurred there in a secondary command. 
 
 Nothing is more comprehensible than the attraction which 
 is said to have been felt by Aristides towards the compara- 
 tively youthful Cimon, and to none could he resign more 
 hopefdlly the responsibilities of active warfare which he 
 now seems to have relinquished for organic statesmanship. 
 
 The lonians did not adopt Athenian leadership in place 
 of Spartan unspurred by a lively sense of their requirement 
 of aid, and of their most likely chance for obtaining it. 
 
 1 Plut. Cimon, 5.
 
 xiv.] ATHENS AND CONFEDERATE IONIA. 189 
 
 Neither the seaports of the Asian coast nor the islands could 
 reasonably feel themselves safe from further attack and 
 cruel reprisals, sooner or later; too much cause had they to 
 remember Persian pertinacity and l vindictiveness. To secure 
 themselves against such renewals of violence by weakening- 
 or overawing the common enemy was now recognised as a 
 genuine common object in the interest of both the parties to 
 the new arrangement, with as much fervour as it was after- 
 wards believed to be a mere pretext for exaction on the 
 part of the Athenians, and with more reason. Revenge 
 for sufferings and the hope of recouping losses by conquest 
 and plunder, were no doubt also not uninfluential motives; 
 the strength of all combined is proved by the serious 
 arrangements which were not only agreed to with alacrity, 
 but realised and sustained. A permanent confederation was 
 formed for the prosecution of hostilities and the protection 
 of Hellas and her colonies against Persia. To Athens, as 
 decidedly the preponderant power, both morally and mate- 
 rially, was of necessity, and also with free good- will, con- 
 signed the headship and chief control of the affairs and 
 conduct of the alliance; a position that carried with it 
 the responsibility of the collection and administration of a 
 common fund, and the presidency of the assemblies of dele- 
 gates. As time went on and circumstances altered, the terms 
 of confederation were modified in various instances ; but at 
 first the general rule was the contribution, not only of 
 money or ships, but of actual personal service. The im- 
 portant insular communities of Lesbos, Chios, and Samos 
 occupied from the very first that position of exceptional 
 independence as compared with the smaller islands and the 
 separate cities of the coasts which they long retained. They 
 were able and willing to yield their full share of assistance to 
 the main object in manned and disciplined war-ships, and did 
 
 1 Diod. xi. 48.
 
 190 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 not make themselves liable for a money assessment, for which, 
 as time went on, both the supply of ships and service of men 
 was elsewhere willingly commuted. We have no precise 
 enumeration of the allies of Athens at this early time, but 
 the course of the history brings up the mention of many; 
 and on two occasions at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian 
 and Syracusan wars Thucydides gives lists which are com- 
 prehensive, though in disappointingly general terms. Crete 
 was never directly affected by these events, and Cyprus ^Yas 
 also soon to be left aside ; but otherwise all the Greek 
 islands of the Aegean northwards except Melos, Thera, 
 Aegina, and Cythera were contributory, including Euboea; 
 as were the cities on the coasts of Thrace and the Chalcidic 
 peninsula from the Macedonian boundary to the Hellespont ; 
 Byzantium and various cities on the coasts of the Propontis, 
 and less certainly of the Euxine; the important series of 
 cities on the western coast of Asia Minor though apparently 
 with considerable exceptions Aeolian, Ionian, Dorian, and 
 Carian, as far as Caunus at least on the borders of Lycia, if 
 not even round to the Chelidonian isles. 
 
 The sacred island of Delos was chosen as the depository 
 of the common treasure and the place of meeting of the 
 contributors. Apart from its central convenience and de- 
 fensibleness as an island, and the sanctity of the temple, 
 which had been respected, and more than respected, by 
 Datis, who even burnt lavish incense there, it was a 
 traditional centre for solemn reunions of lonians from either 
 side the Aegean. Thucydides quotes the Homeric hymn 
 as proving that these festivals in very early times were of 
 the same character as those which in his day collected the 
 entire Ionian population of every age and sex at the Ephesian 
 celebrations. Both Polycrates of Samos and Peisistratus as 
 tyrant of Athens had displayed a pious regard for the 
 seat of the nativity of Apollo and Artemis, no doubt 
 of much the same value and significance as the jealousy
 
 xiv.] . THE ASSESSMENT OF ARISTIDES. 191 
 
 which has involved modern politicians in war ostensibly upon 
 a quarrel about the keys and custody of holy places. The 
 annual theoria of the Athenians to Delos is memorised in the 
 story of the death of Socrates. 
 
 At the distinct request of the allies the Athenians ap- 
 pointed Aristides to superintend the difficult process of 
 assessing the various forms and amounts of contribution. 
 This implies that his fairness and probity must already 
 have gained general approval ; though it is possible that 
 it was his strict observance of justice in the performance of 
 the task that obtained for him that universal character under 
 which he is recognised by Herodotus, who declares him to 
 have been to his mind the very best of the Athenians and 
 the most just. We are fain, however, to admit that he 
 may have merited and obtained that title previously, for it 
 were pity to sacrifice the story that he had, necessarily at an 
 earlier date, written his own name on the oyster-shell for 
 a clown, who could give no better reason for his vote of 
 ostracism than that he was utterly tired of hearing about 
 Aristides the Just the Just. 
 
 The total annual amount of the assessment was the large 
 sum of 460 talents (^113,125), and this perhaps not inclu- 
 sive of, but only supplementary to, the costly supply of 
 equipped ships furnished by some of the cities in lieu of a 
 money payment, and exclusive again of any payment by 
 Athens, whose navy was most important of all. We know as 
 little of any basis on which the required total was calculated 
 as we do of the proportions in which it was distributed. We 
 are only assured by the satisfaction expressed in the settlement 
 perhaps heightened in its echoes from experience of later 
 changes that the total, like the distribution, was held to be 
 perfectly justified. 
 
 According to ] Plutarch, the Greeks had made payments 
 
 1 Plut. Arist. 24.
 
 192 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 towards the war even under the leadership of the Lace- 
 daemonians, but not on the principle of such a distinct 
 survey and estimate of their respective resources as was 
 now carried through by Aristides. The assessor came forth 
 from the trial a poorer man than he entered upon it to the* 
 great astonishment of Athens, and somewhat to the amuse- 
 ment of Themistocles, who professed to recognise that as but 
 poor praise for a politician which was not too extravagant 
 a merit for a money-bag. 
 
 The prospect of peace and security might well reconcile 
 these industrious cities to payments, even exceeding in 
 amount the tribute formerly exacted by Persia, which in 
 most important cases had been levied by tyrants or sa- 
 traps, who could enrich themselves with all the recklessness 
 of arbitrary power. The tax so willingly paid by auto- 
 nomous states who had joint votes in its expenditure was 
 first called the <o/>os ; it is not quite clear whether an in- 
 heritance of the former title of tribute, or a euphemistic modi- 
 fication of it on occasion of the change. Thucydides thinks 
 it necessary to explain the term as an equivalent of <f>6pa. In 
 later days the Athenians found even the term <f>6pa for a tax 
 odious, and substituted for it awrais, as implying a burden 
 not imposed but agreed upon. The immediate officials who, 
 according to Thucydides, were intrusted with the receipt of 
 the fund, and according to their title, with the dispensing of it 
 also, were the Hellenotamiae, whose appointment rested with 
 the Athenians. This title, by its very parallelism with the 
 Hellenodicae of Olympia, and indeed of Sparta l also, carries 
 with it an implied responsibility for the common interests 
 of Hellas, and we must assume that their functions were 
 supposed to be exercised under certain agreed conditions 
 of audit and control by the periodical congress. The 
 whole arrangement was based on the model of the ancient 
 
 1 Xen. Rep. Lac. xiii. n.
 
 xiv.] THE ASSESSMENT OF ARISTIDES. 193 
 
 araphictyonies, but vastly dilated both in scope and scale. 
 Themistocles may have had no hand in its organisation, 
 but he who had urged elsewhere so cogently, that the more 
 insignificant cities, whatever the theoretical equality of their 
 vote in such assemblies, would always be controlled by one 
 or other of the few more powerful, must have been well 
 satisfied with the prospect for the power of Athens in such 
 a combination, where she stood in her preponderance unrivalled 
 and alone. When assessment, collection, and distribution 
 were exclusively and immediately in Athenian hands, no 
 check of general supervision, at whatever seat of the treasury, 
 could long be counted upon, by those who knew Greece, to 
 prevent distribution being mainly biased towards Athenian 
 policy and purposes. We hear nothing directly of any 
 negotiations with Sparta with reference to this fund and 
 the further prosecution of the purpose to which it was to 
 be applied ; and yet a confederacy that was to be the common 
 bulwark of Hellas, and that proposed to itself the task of 
 so dealing with Persian power as to render her hitherto 
 periodical aggressions impossible for the future, had surely a 
 claim upon the Peloponnesians generally. The peninsula 
 that had hardly roused itself before to move its arms beyond 
 the Isthmus until alarmed for the immunity of its own 
 coasts, could scarcely but be urged now to further the 
 efficiency of the fleet on which it might again have to 
 rely for its immunity hereafter. The Spartans however 
 did not at this time naturally look very far ahead ; it was 
 enough for them and satisfied their traditions to see that 
 there was no danger immediately pressing ; in any case 
 they could not now appear as allies subordinate to Athens, 
 where they had lately been superiors; their own power and 
 that of their immediate dependents and allies Corinthians, 
 Arcadians, and the rest who had sallied with them to Plataea 
 would always be in reserve ; the conduct of Leotychides and 
 Pausanias abroad had moreover not only put them more than 
 
 o
 
 194 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 ever out of conceit with detached enterprises, but to some 
 extent had disarranged their political and military system. 
 All such difficulties and objections only operated to enhance 
 the value of the opportunity to Athens, and we may with 
 much confidence assign to this time an embassy that arrived 
 at Sparta from the Athenians to move perhaps in the common 
 Hellenic synedrion, which was still considered to meet there 
 the further consideration of the relations of Hellas to Persia. 
 Its announcements and proposals were not received without 
 producing considerable agitation. They included at least a 
 vindication, which we may suppose was rather challenged 
 than in the first instance volunteered, of the scale on which 
 the harbour of the Piraeus was being extended as necessary 
 for the security and reception of the combined Hellenic fleet 
 now so very numerous from the accession of the colonies 
 and on which the security of Jlellas would henceforward de- 
 pend. The strong argument of an oracle that commanded 
 the Spartans to beware of admitting a halting leadership was 
 urged, it is said, against their renunciation of maritime 
 hegemony, the natural complement of that which they 
 retained by land. The ambition moreover that had been 
 so fostered at Athens by glory and success could scarcely 
 but spring up under like influences among the younger 
 spirits of Lacedaemon ; the excitement that crazed Pausanias 
 was not without its effect on minds by many degrees more 
 sober. The passions however that were now so born had 
 to wait their time and their turn ; at Sparta the power of 
 the elders was supreme, and the aspiration of the new 
 generation had to survive if it could, and as in effect it did, 
 the sexagenarian predecessors in possession. To a Heracleid 
 Hetaemeridas is assigned the ingenuity of propounding 
 reasons that sounded sufficient for leaving the Athenians 
 to take their own way undisturbed, as it was clear that 
 they intended to take it in any case. Such at least is the 
 point of view from which the certainly perplexed and
 
 xiv.] THE DISGRACE OF PAUSANIAS, 195 
 
 disarranged notices of l Diodorus seem to fall naturally 
 into coherence. He concludes that the Athenians, being 
 entirely relieved from apprehension of a breach with Sparta, 
 were at undisturbed leisure to apply themselves to the ad- 
 vancefrient of their own city ; and from his last date (the 
 archonship of Dromoclides, 476-5 B.C.) there certainly ensues 
 an interval of several Olympiads the ojucuxM" 1 f 2 Thucydides, 
 a period short enough, and yet how long for Greece ! 
 within which the two great powers of land and sea, of 
 Dorian and Ionian stock, are at least not in hostile collision. 
 One transitory difficulty only was to occur, or had already 
 occurred, that bore such a semblance, and this again was due 
 to what must be called another extravagance of Pausanias. 
 He reappeared at Byzantium in a ship of Hermione, pro- 
 fessedly to take part in the war, though without any public 
 authorisation from Sparta, and in reality with intention to 
 proceed with his criminal intrigues. Between his personal 
 authority with those who could not suspect him of treason, 
 and his connections with the party which at Byzantium, as 
 in Athens itself, would through rivalry or in consideration 
 of bribes concur in such designs, he managed to establish 
 himself in the city in such a position, that when the allies 
 under the conduct of Cimon took the alarm, their ejection of 
 him is expressed by phrases implying either direct violence 
 or starving out. Plutarch, who does not here copy Thucy- 
 dides, employs the same expression. He went off southwards, 
 but only to fix himself at Colonae in the Troad, within 
 easy reach of Artabazus, if not of Demaratus and Gongylus 
 also. Information of his practices however went past him to 
 Sparta, with no favourable account of his doings; and the 
 ephors forthwith despatched the formal summons of a scytale, 
 bidding him return in company with the herald who bore it, 
 and never quit him on pain of being accounted a national 
 enemy. Unwilling to excite further suspicion, and in 
 1 Diod. xi. 43 and 50. a Time. i. 10. 
 
 O 2
 
 196 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 confidence that with the treasure at his command he could 
 escape from existing charges by bribes, he returned a 
 second time. On arrival he was placed in confinement, 
 and retained there some time by the ephors, in the exercise 
 of their independent authority even over a king, not to 
 say a regent ; and it was only by treating and management 
 that he obtained a formal trial at an opportunity for 
 bringing the accusations against him to a favourable issue. 
 Nothing was established against him, either by his enemies 
 or the state, with such positiveness as to warrant severity 
 towards one, who, himself of the royal blood, was also the 
 official governor and representative of the minority of his 
 cousin, King Plistarchus, son of Leonidas. His acquittal 
 however left him not the less under grave suspicions, on 
 account of his infringements of Spartan discipline and his 
 manifest leaning to the ways of the barbarians ; he remained 
 therefore for years unemployed, and not unwatched, until 
 impatience was again to overmaster him and hurry him 
 to a wretched catastrophe. 
 
 It must have been about this time that intrigue with 
 Persian gold from the satrapy of Artabazus, and possibly with 
 some reference to the invitations of Pausanias, was brought 
 home to an agent in Peloponnesus. This was Arthmius, 
 son of Pythonax of Zeleia, a town rather of Phrygia than 
 the Troad : he was a proxenus of Athens, and at Athens in- 
 dignation was vehement accordingly. l Demosthenes quotes 
 textually a decree, alluded to in like terms by both ?Ae- 
 schines and 3 Deinarchus, which remained inscribed on a 
 bonze stele in the Acropolis, and by which, on the motion 
 of Thucydides, Arthmius was declared ' degraded and hostile,' 
 and warned under penalty of death, not only from Athens 
 itself, but from every territory under Athenian control ; and 
 the exclusion extended to his family and his 4 descendants. 
 
 1 Demosth. Phil. iii. p. Hi. * Aesch. c. Ctet. sub fin. 
 
 1 Dinar. c. Aritt. 25, 76. * Plut. Them. 6,
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 ATHENIAN PROSECUTION OF THE WAR. CIMON IN THRACE. 
 B.C. 476; 01. 75. 4 and 76. i. 
 
 THE command of the combined fleet had in the meantime 
 been taken over at Byzantium by Cimon, who, arriving 
 from Athens with a small squadron of only four ships, had 
 nevertheless found an opportunity for a brilliant achievement 
 by the way. In the absence of the chief Greek force at 
 Byzantium, the Persians, who were not quite cleared out 
 of Chersonesus, and some garrisons further west, were giving 
 signs of renewed activity and intriguing for the co-operation 
 of Thracian allies from the north. With his four triremes, which 
 no doubt were provided with the improvements introduced 
 by l Themistocles, he successfully attacked their flotilla of 
 thirteen vessels, and then followed up his victory on land 
 by beating and driving out both Persians and auxiliaries, 
 with such effect as to set the fertile peninsula entirely 
 free for Athenian re-occupation. We can scarcely refuse 
 this exploit as related by Plutarch a place in the history, 
 and it is not easy to find a better, or indeed another, for 
 we must demur to accepting it as introductory to the re- 
 duction of the important rebellion of Thasos some years later, 
 when the fleet employed was necessarily much more numerous 
 and powerful. 
 
 1 Plut. dm. 1 2.
 
 198 HISTORY OF GREECE, [CHAP. 
 
 The full force of the Byzantine fleet being now required, 
 was directed by Cimon, energetically and without delay, 
 to unfasten the hold which the Persians, though ousted 
 from the straits, and, as we may infer, from 1 Lemnos and 
 Thasos likewise, still retained upon Thrace. Their oppor- 
 tunity for receiving reinforcements from Asia was now finally 
 cut off, and the time had come to deal with them in detail. 
 
 Far and wide over Thrace, as well as along the Hellespont, 
 the officers of the Great King had held posts ever since the 
 European expedition of Mardonius under 2 Darius. It was 
 then that the island of Thasos had been reduced by them, and 
 compelled to demolish its walls and surrender its navy, to 
 the formation of which it had devoted the profits of the 
 mines on the mainland an anticipation of the policy that 
 was to have better fortune at Athens. One chief Persian 
 stronghold was at EVon, at the mouth of the Strymon, over 
 against Thasos, commanding the access to the gold regions 
 of Mount Pangaeus, which, as worked by the Thasians, had 
 rivalled in productiveness those of their own 3 island. The 
 district, however yielded silver as well as gold, 4 and was 
 occupied partly by the Pierians, between the mountains 
 and the sea, partly by the Odomanti, and most especially 
 by the Satrian Thracians, all most warlike tribes, whose 
 seats extended northwards, among thickly-wooded or snow- 
 covered mountains, and who never had been to the know- 
 ledge of the historian otherwise than independent. On their 
 loftiest mountains they had an oracle of Dionysus, which 
 implies the culture of the vine on the lower slopes, and 
 corresponds with what might be inferred from the mytho- 
 logical aspects of the region ; it has even been conjectured, 
 not unplausibly, that the Dionysiac Satyrs were in origin 
 no other than these wild Satrae. The limits of Mace- 
 donian sway were already advanced very close up towards 
 
 1 Xen. Hellcn.v. I. 31. ' Herod, vii. 106. 
 
 1 Herod, vi. 46. Id. vii. na.
 
 xv. J ATHENIAN PROSECUTION OF THE WAR. 199 
 
 the * Strymon, between which and Mount Dysorus lay other 
 most productive mines. Herodotus had visited with marvel 
 the mines at Thasos, which he ascribes to early Phoe- 
 nician colonists ; Greeks possibly in direct intercourse with 
 Phoenicia, who had brought thence their knowledge of 
 mining, even if they had not, which is probable enough, 
 Phoenician associates. The resources which were appreciated 
 so early, were still and long after unexhausted, at least 
 on the mainland ; the Persians levied rates upon them during 
 their occupation, and Thracians, Athenians, Thasians, and 
 Macedonians fight over them down to the extinction of 
 Hellenic autonomies by the kings, who drew from them 
 the very sinews of their military power. The liberation 
 of Thasos from Persia, after the destruction of the fortifi- 
 cations by the Persians themselves, is passed over as a matter 
 of course ; but the reduction of Eion was attended by some 
 difficult and remarkable circumstances. The Persian in com- 
 mand was Boges, a man of desperate resolution, who held 
 out to the last. He relied on his fortifications, and was in 
 correspondence for supplies with friendly Thracians of the 
 upper Strymon, in the district of Siris, which had been subju- 
 gated and cleared of its earlier Paeonian inhabitants by Mega- 
 bazus, lieutenant of Darius, and in which Xerxes had de- 
 posited his sacred chariot. 
 
 It is an illustration of how far the successes of Leotychides 
 in Thessaly, incomplete as they were considered at home, had 
 transferred power to the Hellenic party, that Menon of Phar- 
 salus aided the Athenians here with a subsidy of twelve 
 talents, and a squadron of 300 Penestae mounted at his own 
 2 charge. There is only a question whether his great recom- 
 pense was citizenship or somewhat short of this ateleia. By 
 the time the armament of the allies arrived, under the com- 
 mand of Cimon, such a force had been concentrated by Boges, 
 
 1 Herod, v. 17. * Demosth. Aristoc. p. 687.
 
 200 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 either from allies and stations inland or from the garrisons 
 which controlled the numerous cities of the adjacent Chal- 
 cidic peninsula, that he was encouraged to stand a conflict in 
 open field ; he was worsted, however, and driven within the 
 walls, where his numbers only gave the besieged additional 
 embarrassment. Cimon's force was sufficient to invest the 
 city, and the hoped-for relief never made its appearance ; the 
 Athenian general had cut off all chance of it, by detaching a 
 force against the Thracians and driving them before it in all 
 directions. Famine was now imminent, but the place still held 
 out ; and the offer of conditions of surrender, including safe- 
 conduct to Asia, which was made readily by the besiegers 
 for the sake of speedier possession of their prize, the very 
 citadel, and also the treasury of the wealthy province, was 
 rejected. The difficulty of holding out, however, was not 
 dependent alone on pressure of famine, however urgent ; there 
 was a danger more urgent still. The walls of the city were 
 of unburnt brick, that would yield readily to the action of 
 water ; and Cimon, by a stratagem that was long a favourite 
 subject of celebration, and was one day to be imitated against 
 the walls of l Mantinea, so dammed and diverted the Strymon, 
 that under its action the speedy formation of a breach was. 
 unavoidable. The catastrophe that ensued has many parallels, 
 especially in Eastern history ; Butes, or Boges, slew his 
 children, wife, and concubines, on an enormous pyre, dis- 
 appointed the besiegers by scattering from the wall before 
 their sight into the Strymon all the treasure of gold and 
 silver out of the citadel, then fired the city and the pyre 
 at once, and entered himself and his friends with him into 
 the flames. ' On this account he is still to the present time 
 praised by the Persians,' says Herodotus, ' and rightly 2 too.' 
 It would be rash, however, to conclude that this immolation 
 was so complete that no spoil whatever, nor Persian prisoners 
 
 1 Paus. viii. 8. 5. Herod, vii. 107 ; Plut. Ctm. 7.
 
 xv.] ATHENIAN PROSECUTION OF THE WAR. 201 
 
 of birth available for ransom, were left over for the victors. The 
 terms of Thucydides imply a selling into slavery as consequent 
 on the l capture, and an anecdote relates how on such an occa- 
 sion, at least, Cimon enriched himself by sagaciously taking his 
 share rather in naked prisoners than their rich accoutrements. 
 Ihis conquest at once freed the Greek cities of the sea- 
 board of the westward gulfs from annoyance, and added 
 them as contributors to the Aristidean assessment; as such 
 we find distinctly enumerated Argilus, Stageirus, Acan- 
 thus, Scolus, Olynthus, and others come in by implication. 
 Thucydides names the capture of Eion as the first of the 
 exploits by which Athens advanced to empire, and so distin- 
 tinguishing it above others unnamed must, I think, be held 
 to imply that the Athenians from the first held the place 
 in their own possession. It thus became their basis for ad- 
 vancing some years later to a position higher up the river, 
 and of most admirable natural advantages. Old traditions 
 gave the Athenian, what he accepted as a title, to feel 
 himself no stranger in this region. He was accustomed to 
 the tale that the sons of Theseus, Demophon and Acamas, 
 had, one or the other, or perhaps both, touched here after the 
 taking of Troy, and close at hand was the scene of the loves 
 of 2 Demophon or of 3 Acamas and Phyllis. Phyllis is the 
 eponymous nymph or heroine of the district Phyllis, that lies 
 between the northern slopes of Mount Pangaeus and the river 
 Angites, that flows parallel to it to join the Strymon in the 
 lake Prasias above Ei'on. 4 Aeschines appeals to this my thus 
 how Acamas (his Scholiast says Demophon) had received 
 
 
 
 the site of Amphipolis in way of dowry as being notoriously 
 ancient, as well as, at any rate to the satisfaction of his hearers 
 and his argument, authentic ; and it implies an inaccurate 
 and modern apprehension of the characteristics of a period 
 given to limited variations of mythus, if one should imagine 
 
 1 Thuc. i. 98. 2 Serv. in Virg. Eel. v. 10 ; Ovid, Epist. Her. 2. 
 
 3 Lucian. de Sail. ; Schol. Aesch. de Pal. Leg. * Aesch. de Fal. Leg.
 
 202 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 that the story had its origin after this campaign of Cimon. 
 We may far more probably assume that it is a genuine, 
 though of course mythical, record of some primitive trans- 
 actions between Athens and this region ; a consequence of 
 it no less real than that hankering after power in this 
 quarter by the Athenians, a passion which returns again and 
 again, like an ineradicable impression of early youth, which 
 owed much of its force quite as probably to unconscious in- 
 heritance as to any later influence. The story of this love, as 
 fully told, was not encouraging ; Acamas was no more constant 
 as a lover than his father Theseus. Ever expected to return 
 according to his promise, he was looked for in vain, and 
 Phyllis destroyed herself. Poetry, of whatever date, told of 
 her transformation into an almond-tree, of which the prema- 
 ture blossoms await the dallying leaves ; they burst forth when 
 the belated lover arrived to throw his arms around the yet 
 warm and not yet quite unconscious stem. 
 
 In the same year as the capture of Ei'on (476 B.C., during 
 the archonship of 1 Phaedon), is given in an isolated notice, 
 and very unsatisfactory terms, the disaster of an Athenian 
 force under Lysistratus, Lycurgus, and Cratinus, said to have 
 been destroyed by the Thracians after their conquest of Ei'on. 
 If we accept this at all, it must be as a corrupt record of some 
 serious mishap, after the reduction of the place by Cimon, to 
 the land force which had at first operated successfully to 
 check Thracian attempts to raise the siege. 
 
 More disasters were to follow thereafter through a series of 
 years, until the Scholiast of Aeschines could tell how it was, 
 because Demophon had broken trysf with Phyllis in nine 
 several appointments there seems a hint of suggestion here 
 in the name of the important locality, Nine ways that the 
 nymph in bitterness had doomed the Athenians to expiation 
 by as many defeats; the Scholiast accurately reckons them up, 
 
 1 Schol. Aesch. de Pal. Leg.
 
 xv.] ATHENIAN PROSECUTION OF THE WAR. 203 
 
 and so accurately no doubt would the ascribed denunciation 
 of the nymph keep level pace with Athenian misfortunes. 
 
 Besides the general commercial advantages of such a posi- 
 tion, the precious metals of the adjacent mines were to prove 
 too tempting not to determine the Athenians to assume, as 
 time went on, the position and rights rather of conquerors of 
 the Persians, than mere liberators of their oppressed subjects, 
 Hellenic or other, the Thasians or Thracians who had pre- 
 viously shared these productive sources of revenue between 
 Hhem. It was not long before, between claims for restitution 
 and resentment at encroachment, they became very seriously 
 embroiled with both. 
 
 Herodotus makes mention of another hold of Persians on 
 Europe, respecting the fate of which there is considerable 
 difficulty. This was Doriscus, at the mouth of the Hebrus 
 eastward, opposite Samothrace, on the border of the vast plain 
 where Xerxes reviewed his army. It had remained a Persian 
 fortress since the Scythian expedition of Darius. For the 
 governor appointed by Darius, Xerxes substituted Mascames, 
 son of Megadostes, and by him the post was so stubbornly 
 maintained, that after all the other Persian officers had 
 been rooted out from Thrace and the Hellespont, he alone 
 defied all the numerous attempts to eject 2 him. This is 
 the only notice we find of the defence of Doriscus; it is 
 perhaps presumable that it came to an end at the death of 
 Mascames, for though the honours that Xerxes accorded him 
 were continued by Artaxerxes to his sons, it does not follow 
 that they succeeded to his command. The city of Ainos, 
 again, a very short distance to the east of Doriscus, was 
 certainly associated with 3 Athens. It was Mascames probably 
 who animated the movement that Cimon had countervailed 
 in the Chersonesus. 
 
 The future political position and influence of Cimon were 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 75. a Id. vii. 107. 3 Thuc. iv. 28; vii. 57.
 
 204 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 not only advanced by his success as a commander in these 
 northern wars, but also by the brilliant retrieval they induced 
 of his private fortune, so low at the time when he only 
 inherited the liability to a crushing fine. Opportunities of 
 enrichment legitimate enough, from share of spoil and so forth, 
 were doubtless open ; but these operations had moreover 
 brought under Athenian control the Chersonesus, where 
 under other circumstances Cimon might have succeeded his 
 father Miltiades as tyrant, and where the present would no 
 doubt reinstate him at least in an extensive proprietorship. 
 It is thus that, the embarrassment of the fine notwithstanding, 
 we read of him as indulging in lavishness which was accepted 
 as ungradged display in a man, if not of hereditary wealth, yet 
 of hereditary title to be wealthy. It is even inviting to con- 
 jecture that he may have had some proprietary rights in the 
 neighbourhood of Ei'on ; the notion is suggested by curious 
 hints, so significant as to demand collating, of relations and 
 relationships to each other and to this part of Thrace, of the 
 families of the tyrants Miltiades and Peisistratus and the 
 historian Thucydides. 
 
 Miltiades I colonised or obtained possession of the Cherso- 
 nesus, when he quitted Athens out of disgust at the rule of 
 Peisistratus; and there, after death, received the recognised 
 heroic honours of a 'founder' an OIKKTTTJS. As belonging to 
 the Philaid gens he claimed descent from Ajax, as the Aeacid 
 Philaeus had obtained Athenian citizenship and settled at 
 Attic J Melite. The demus Philaeus was connected with the 
 same 2 hero, and to this Peisistratus belonged. The gens, not 
 the demus of Miltiades, and the demus, not the gens of Peisi- 
 stratus, who was a Nelid, have thus a common relation to 
 Philaeus; and this is the first of several hints, individually 
 inconclusive, of their connection with each other. Peisistratus 
 may indeed have claimed to rank as a Philaid also, through 
 
 1 Herod, vi. 35 ; Etym. M. * Plut. Solon, 10.
 
 xv.] ATHENIAN PROSECUTION OF THE WAR. 205 
 
 some maternal l connections, as Pericles was attacked as an 
 Alcmaeonid, though only so by the mother's side. A half- 
 brother of Miltiades I, by the mother's side, was Cimon, to 
 whom the nickname Koalemus imputed dulness of intellect. 
 Of his father Stesagoras we have no particulars ; for any- 
 thing- that appears then, his descendants, among- them Mil- 
 tiades of Marathon, have no claim to the Aeacid descent of 
 Miltiades the first. His wealth at least is avouched by his 
 winning three Olympic chariot-races ; he gratified Peisistratus 
 by causing him to be proclaimed as victor for the second, and 
 so gained recall from banishment ; he disappointed the Peisi- 
 stratidae of like honour on the third occasion, and was assas- 
 sinated in 2 consequence. Stesagoras II succeeded his uncle 
 Miltiades I at the 3 Chersonesus, and was himself succeeded by 
 his brother Miltiades II (515 B.C.), in whom the Peisistratids 
 took such interest as to despatch him thither in a Hrireme. Of 
 the concern of the Peisistratidae with any other part of Thrace 
 we hear nothing ; but Herodotus furnishes the curious and 
 isolated factj independently of any notice of conquest, that 
 Peisistratus drew considerable revenues from the 5 Strymon. 
 
 Miltiades II, by a first and Athenian wife, had a son Metio- 
 chus, whose fortunes were remarkable : he was captured by 
 the Persians when they drove out his father, 493 B.C., and 
 Darius either restrained or gave loose to resentment, so far as 
 to give him a Persian wife and family, and so denationalise 
 him. An own sister of Metiochus was Elpinice. But their 
 brother Cimon was the son of a second wife, Hegesipyle, 
 daughter of a king of Thracians 6 Olorus. 
 
 As regards Thucydides the historian, he too, by his own 
 statement, was son of an Olorus; by that of 7 Marcellinus, 
 of a Hegesipyle also; and according to the same authority 
 and Plutarch, he was buried in the ' Cimonia,' the family 
 
 1 Plato, Hipparch, p. 288. 2 Plut. dm. 4; Herod, vi. 103; 
 
 Ael. V.H. ix. 32. 3 Herod, vi. 38. 4 Id. vi. 39. Id. 
 
 i. 121. 6 Id. vi. 39. 7 In i-U.
 
 206 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 cemetery of Cimon by the Melite Gate, close to the tomb of 
 Elpinice. Thucydides, on his own showing, had, like Peisi- 
 stratus before him, property on the Strymon ; and x Hermippus 
 explained, not implausibly, his intimation of peculiar know- 
 ledge and his rather anxious tendency concerning the Peisi- 
 stratidae, by his asserted relationship to the 2 family. 3 Plu- 
 tarch, at variance with other authorities who put the cata- 
 strophe at Athens, says that it was at Scapte-hyle that he was 
 assassinated. 
 
 1 Ap. Marcdl 18 ; Schol. Thuc. i. ao. 2 Thuc. vi. 35. 3 Cimon, 6.
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY. 
 
 AFTEE the restoration of the walls of Athens and the 
 speedy resettlement of domestic life and civil order, the- 
 ancient local influences led to a resumption of ancient habits ; 
 but along with much that reappeared unaltered from of 
 old, there came up much that was surprisingly novel, and 
 not more in the material, than in the moral and intellec- 
 tual, equipments of strenuous civilisation in the capacities and 
 aspirations of various competing classes. It was soon recog- 
 nised by some, who were by no means forward to invite 
 innovation, that changes must be admitted in the distribu- 
 tion of political power, conformably to new manifestations 
 of political energy. The exceptional powers of the crisis 
 involved in their lapse something more than mere return 
 to previous arrangements. In the difficulties of the conflict, 
 necessity had reconciled the citizens to entrusting unusual 
 discretion to a restricted body, and the vigorous tone which 
 was in consequence communicated to the action of the state 
 had for a time confirmed the authority, perhaps enhanced the 
 pretensions, of a Council which is referred to constantly in 
 general terms ; we learn by a casual notice of Aristotle 1 alone, 
 that this was not the Council of 500 to which Miltiades had 
 
 1 Arist. Polit. v. 3, p. 683 a.
 
 208 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 been responsible during the earlier invasion, but the more 
 limited Council or Court of the Areopagus. The time had 
 not yet arrived for this venerable authority to be directly 
 assailed, but otherwise all traditional respect was becoming 
 seriously weakened during the later prosecution of the war ; ti 
 spirit of proud and even arrogant self-reliance spread among 
 the mass of the population, when each man, fighting with 
 zeal as if the event depended on himself, was almost per- 
 suaded that not even the general had contributed more to its 
 result. The urgency of the times gave opportunity and pro- 
 minence to men who never before had a chance of either, but, 
 when so put to the proof, were as worthy as the best. The 
 urgency of the strain might relax, but not so the ambition of 
 the many, who were ill-content to fall back in civil life into 
 places below those with whom they had ranked in the face of 
 danger as equals or superiors and who now had only a privi- 
 lege to plead and no sufficient reason. It was a familiar 
 principle and experience with the Greek, that political fran- 
 chise should and would be co-extensive with military service ; 
 and now for the first time a victory at sea had been so im- 
 portant and so glorious, that the familiar maxim carried its 
 application to the entire nautical multitude. 
 
 The spirit, the enthusiasm, of democratical encroachment at 
 Athens was far from originating in these events, however 
 it might be revived and reinforced by them ; the germ was of 
 far earlier origin, had made good several stages of progress, 
 and to its movement was not inconsiderably due the vigour of 
 the Athenian patriotic exertions at this time as on some earlier 
 occasions; so manifestly is concentrated energy associated 
 with 1 freedom. Athenian poets were fond of dating democra- 
 tical institutions as far back as mythical times, extravagantly 
 enough, though more plausibly than when they imputed 
 Spartan characteristics to the subjects of Menelaus. But 
 
 1 Herod, v. 78.
 
 xvi.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOLON. 209 
 
 enough of Solon's institutions which, if within, are only 
 just within the scope of true historic ken survived the 
 lapse to the tyranny of Peisistratus, to attest a very positive 
 democratic tendency, and indeed intention, and, for all their 
 deficiencies, to explain how he came to be regarded in time 
 as the universal legislator and author of the Athenian free 
 constitution. 
 
 According to the conception of Aristotle, what Solon 
 founded was indeed worthy of the high title of a proper 
 polity, a politeia, which is, in modern phraseology, a ' free 
 constitution,' inasmuch as it aimed at, and to a large extent 
 effected, a harmony of diverse powers. He found and left the 
 council of the Areopagus with its general supervision of morals 
 and manners and guardianship of legality; this was the Upper 
 Council, rj aw /3ov\i] as distinguished from a second, the 
 Probouleutic or Preconsidering Council, which was elected 
 annually, and as its members held office for life, its prin- 
 ciple was strictly oligarchical. Again, the Preconsidering 
 Council, which was also of a time before Solon and of which 
 a main function was to determine and prepare what business 
 should be submitted to the popular l ecclesia, is defined by 
 Aristotle, and even in virtue of being elective, and that 
 annually, as an aristocratic institution. In fact, in the most 
 democratical of ancient societies it was well understood 
 that offices which were obtainable through election must 
 needs be gained by those who could intimidate or bribe or 
 command deference even independently of special qualifi- 
 cations, must fall to an aristocracy whether of birth or 
 of wealth. It was only a change therefore in favour of 
 aristocracy as contrasted with oligarchy, that the privilege 
 of birth was now superseded by the limit of a high pro- 
 perty qualification. The democratic element, however, but 
 for consideration of which 'the demus would be too nearly 
 
 1 Plut. Solon, 19. 
 p
 
 210 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 enslaved for any tranquillity to be Expected,' was then 
 admitted with no little decision. Of the four classes of 
 citizens upon which Solon successively imposed an advance 
 in his graduated income-tax, the lowest and most numerous, 
 although still remaining incapable of magistracy, was for the 
 first time allowed to participate in the full elective ~ franchise. 
 
 It was to his innovation at this point, and its conse- 
 quences that Solon chiefly, and with a degree of justice that 
 would perhaps have surprised himself, owed his democratic 
 fame. By the demus, thus largely interpreted, magistrates 
 and functionaries, archons and council, were elected in the 
 first instance, and to this demus they were required, at 
 conclusion of their term, to render account and apply for 
 certificate, undergoing at the same time close scrutiny. 
 As some check on the recognised aristocratical tendency 
 of the accepted conditions of election, and (so far in the 
 interests of democracy again) to take security as far as 
 possible against the exercise of undue influence by clubs 
 and associated cliques, its dicaiteria, or committees for 
 special purposes, were taken from the general number by 
 the chance of 3 lot. How vast was the power that such 
 privileges delivered over into democratical hands under able 
 guidance we shall see hereafter. 
 
 In the meantime, the liability of public interests to be 
 hampered by the factious conflicts of class interests, was still 
 overlooked and left unprovided against by these arrange- 
 ments. A pre-historic settlement which was ascribed to The- 
 seus, and due, if Theseus never existed or had no concern in 
 it, to some great organising genius, had laid deep foundations 
 for the strength if not predominance of Attica in Hellas, by 
 associating the freemen of its scattered townships in de- 
 pendence on the legislature and courts of 4 Athens. This is 
 the policy by which Thales of Miletus afterwards urged that 
 
 1 Arirt. 66 1 . Plut. Solon, 18. 
 
 1 Arist. Polit. i. Thuc. ii. 15.
 
 xvr.] THE LEGISLATION OF CLEISTHENES. 211 
 
 still one chance remained for reinvigorating 1 Ionia ; but 
 even suppression of the narrow rivalry of townships left un- 
 eradicated that of wider districts, a feeling which was perhaps 
 only more likely to burst forth amongst the enlarged con- 
 stituencies of Solon.- The political subdivisions that followed 
 the natural limits of highland, lowland, and seaboard districts, 
 were too conformable to the. groups of real or supposed 
 conflicting interests, especially between the poorer and 
 wealthier citizens, for local disagreements not to be re- 
 produced in compact parties in the assembly and there to 
 break out into political contentions. It was immediately 
 through the opportunities which these provided, that tyranny 
 a transformed pernicious demagogy found an entrance, and 
 after the opportunity had been seized by the able Peisistratus, 
 never long relaxed its grasp during thirty years ; it is diffi- 
 cult not to believe, though there is no direct evidence of the 
 fact, that aid was rendered by discontents on the part of the 
 large class of residents in Athens and Attica for whom, as 
 not being members by birth of any of the Ionic tribes, 
 there was no protection by political franchise. 
 
 When relief was at length obtained and the Peisistratids 
 were expelled, an heir to their opportunities and an aspirant 
 to their succession rose up before long in Isagoras, son of 
 Tisandros, but only to be as promptly confronted by the 
 Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes. 
 
 It was the belief at Athens that Cleisthenes, during the 
 time that he was at Delphi in exile, had contributed im- 
 portantly to their former liberation from the son of Peisis- 
 tratus by inducing the Pythia to attach to every response 
 to Lacedaemon, public or private, an injunction, which 
 was effective at last, to suppress the tyranny at Athens. 
 Himself a grandson of Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, he learnt 
 a lesson from his policy, but only so to apply it as to deprive 
 tyranny of its last chance at Athens. He got the better of 
 
 1 Herod, i. 170. 
 P 2
 
 212 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 his rival Isagoras by ' taking the demus into J partnership,' 
 and well he requited the assistance. He gave a safer and a 
 broader basis to the democratical element of the constitution 
 by liberal admission to citizenship of foreign 2 metics, that 
 is by naturalising resident foreigners, residents no doubt in 
 numerous cases of long standing or through generations, 
 and if the record may be trusted, even foreigners who, 
 though not slaves, were servants. By the latter we may 
 understand foreigners, artisans and others, vyho were free but 
 worked for hire, like many an Athenian of old stock, and 
 who often, like many metics of superior station, might only be 
 known as of foreign descent by absence from tribal registry. 
 
 Besides thus swamping the faction-infected constituency 
 by an extension of privilege that for the first time was 
 made independent of scrutiny of ancient pedigree, Cleisthenes 
 furthered his purpose of giving steadiness to the state, by 
 redistribution of electoral groups and districts. For the 
 four Ionic tribes into which traditions of worship made it 
 impossible to foist the new unrelated citizens, he substituted 
 ten, to which, following a Sicyonian precedent, he gave new 
 names, entitling them, after Attic heroes, as eponymi. Each 
 tribe comprised a certain number of demes or parishes, but as a 
 rule by no means adjoining each other, and as the tribe was 
 the electoral unit that sent its several representatives to the 
 Council, this altered arrangement naturally tended to a dis- 
 ruption of ancient partizanships and to elections on a better 
 principle than the representation of narrow local cabals. 
 What precise scheme of grouping was employed further we 
 are not told, nor how acquiescence in such a disturbance 
 of ancient associations and recent alliances was secured. 
 Traditional family and religious ties were beyond legislative 
 reach, and would and did inevitably remain in force; but 
 it appears that some simplified religious sanctions and 
 
 1 Herod. T. 66-69. * lUromm, Arist. Polit. iii. i, p. 66a.
 
 xvi.] DEMOCRACY AFTER SALAMIS. 213 
 
 celebrations, attaching- probably to the mythic associations 
 of the heroic eponymns, were appropriated to the new tribes, 
 both severally and in x common. This hint assures us that 
 the policy of Sicyonian Cleisthenes in the same direction had, 
 like that of his grandson, some motives which Herodotus, if 
 he suspected, has at least not cared to tell. 
 
 The democratic concession that was now further demanded 
 by what Aristotle calls the ' nautical multitude,' or, to 
 translate more honestly, 'rabble/ in the pride of their 
 achievements and eager for tangible advantage from the 
 splendid ascendency that Athens had won by their valour 
 and perseverance, was the eligibility to office of every -class 
 of citizens, even the hitherto excluded Thetic or very poorest. 
 The limit of this political privilege originally ruled with 
 liability to taxation and to service in war either as hoplite 
 or light-armed, but the new importance of war service afloat 
 (if only as oarsmen, still as highly-trained and disciplined 
 oarsmen) had now given the lowest class a technical right to 
 equal participation; Salamis could be cited, and was cited 
 unsparingly and for ever long after Comedy had made a 
 stock-joke of the common-place as a claim to political power 
 superior to every other to all others together. 
 
 Themistocles, it would seem, was the natural vindicator 
 of the pretensions of the crews who were the main strength 
 of his peculiar policy aboard the navy that was his own 
 creation, and with whose glory in their greatest achieve- 
 ments hitherto his own was so immediately associated. 
 That the truly revolutionary measure that gave effect to 
 their pretensions is connected immediately with the name, 
 not of Themistocles as we should expect, but of Aristides, 
 implies most naturally that it was obtained at last as 
 a concession after a more or less considerable struggle 
 of interests and parties. The world is familiar with the 
 
 1 Arist. Polit. vi. a.
 
 214 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 experience that a political party does not at once relinquish 
 the reins of power because all independent guidance is so 
 utterly lost as. no longer to leave choice between repugnant 
 alternatives. Then the veriest Eupatrid partizan, whether by 
 descent or predilection, can anticipate sagaciously at last, 
 though it may be only after prolonged resistance has proved 
 useless, that from the vantage-ground he holds the influence 
 of class may be made to tell but little less effectively in the 
 new state of things than in the old. Aristides, there can be 
 little doubt, was superior to many if not most of the Eupatrid 
 party with whom he acted and who were brought over to 
 this concession; otherwise a Eupatrid is not unfrequently 
 developed into something very like a revolutionist by well- 
 grounded confidence that his personal genius let his class 
 fare as it may will secure his own leadership all the more 
 certainly from the exaggerated violence that he volunteers 
 to hold under restraint ; and then there is the case of the 
 politician who can foresee and dares to face the fact that 
 the thing must be, accepts the risk with the resolution to 
 deal with consequences as best he may when they arrive as 
 some one must deal with them and in the meantime keenly 
 appreciates the mere exercise of power in carrying through 
 a great measure however inconsistently adopted by him, and 
 knows that popular gratitude does not look back beyond the 
 hand from which it actually takes its benefit at last. 
 
 In the case of Themistocles, it is probably not unfair to 
 ascribe some of the persistency in democratical purpose which, 
 notwithstanding his advance in fame and fortune, he con- 
 tinues to give proof of still later, to the circumstances of 
 his origin. He was comparatively to his most powerful 
 competitors a new man ; and neither by marriage nor 
 descent connected with any of the historical Eupatrid 
 families to which, notwithstanding their notorious con- 
 servative tendencies, all political parties were still accustomed 
 and best content to look in the first instance for leaders
 
 xvi.] OLIGARCHY UNDER DEMOCRACY. 215 
 
 and statesmen. He was of an old Attic race of Lycomidae, 
 but no brilliance accrued to him thence that would com- 
 pensate for some defect in Attic purity on the side of his 
 mother, whether of Thracian or Carian blood, or for the 
 limitation of his fortune, which originally did not exceed 
 three talents. These disadvantages had come home to him 
 very early in life, but only to exercise him early in breaking 
 down by force of resolution and genius some social barriers 
 that divided even the palaestra. 
 
 As regards the elements of the less eagerly innovating and 
 the conservative parties, it must always be understood and 
 borne in mind that at this period at Athens, as in other 
 important states of Hellas, there ever lived on the germ of 
 more than oligarchical even dangerous and tyrannous reac- 
 tion, confined to a few it may be, discouraged, discredited, 
 latent, vehemently disclaimed of course by many who amongst 
 themselves were consciously sympathetic, and disallowed by 
 the superficial as having any real existence ; but it was of 
 indestructible vitality nevertheless, and moreover instinctively 
 and nervously dreaded by the new inheritors of power, even 
 while they were laughing with the comedian who ridiculed it 
 as an obsolete absurdity. The intrigues at Plataea were of 
 recent memory ; but even the earlier sting of the Peisistratid 
 tyranny, so we are assured by l Thucydides, lingered in the 
 wound that shuddered at a touch, and an oligarchical tyranny 
 came round in time to justify the popular resolve that, with 
 an assignable reason or without, the experience should never 
 be forgot. 
 
 Any seeds of such desperate hope among Eupatrids could 
 only be entertained furtively, as in absolute opposition 
 to a more powerful section, which was represented now 
 by Aristides, Cimon, and Ephialtes, who honestly aimed 
 to make the oligarchical and aristocratical conditions of 
 the government work harmoniously with the democratical, 
 
 1 Thuc. vi. 53.
 
 216 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 which they strove to restrain or regulate when they might 
 not rule. Of Ephialtes son of Sophonides we know too 
 little; in his poverty and highmindedness he is a parallel 
 to his associate Aristides. He is said to have protected 
 his independence even against his own party by refusing 
 the ten talents with which they would have increased 
 his 1 means. Another colleague of Aristides, who is to 
 us but a name, is Alcmaeon, but a name that intimates 
 connection with the great Alcmaeonid family, of which 
 Xanthippus, who is not heard of in these transactions, was 
 at present the protagonist, and Pericles after a few years 
 was destined to be. With this family Cimon, who had a 
 noble pedigree of his own, was connected by marriage. 
 These were times of scrupulous records of relationships by 
 the phratries, of formal and religious celebrations of births, 
 and of commemorations of deaths in worship of remoter 
 and immediate ancestries; and records so long back were 
 so preserved as to seem to authenticate the claims by 
 which they were attached to primeval ages and heroes. 
 A descent from Ajax or from Hercules was claimed and 
 conceded in such cases with perfect faith on both sides ; 
 to the claimant it gave an ideal to emulate, an obligation 
 which Pindar's odes take for granted in every strophe, the 
 influence of which is seen in the numerous great names that 
 cluster round these associations. Such recognised descent 
 was a real power in politics ; it imparted special grace to 
 well-assumed popular manners, and the most democratical 
 accorded to it some indulgence in extravagance and even 
 licence, forgave it more and forgot for it more and more 
 readily than in other instances of merely equal desert. 
 And so in Athens, as elsewhere, democracy had a certain 
 affection a very weakness for the guidance and leadership 
 of an aristocrat by birth. 
 
 1 Aeliau, xi. 9 ; V. Max. iii. 8 ex. 4.
 
 xvi.] ARISTOCRACY IN DEMOCRACY. 217 
 
 The faith,, one might almost say the sense, of the con- 
 tinuity of mythological with historical and current times, was 
 all but universally prevalent, and few politicians of power 
 before Themistocles are found independent of it. Solon 
 himself was reputed a Codrid ; Peisistratus, said also to 
 be his relative, was a Nelid; both thus connected with 
 the families that first had reigned at Athens and then 
 given leaders and kings to the Ionian colonies. The 
 Alcmaeonids also carried up their genealogy to Neleus, 
 with Nestor, not to say Poseidon, still in the background. 
 This family furnishes Megacles, the slayer of Cylon; 
 Alcmaeon, the guest of Croesus ; Megacles, the son-in-law 
 of Cleisthenes tyrant of Sicyon, in a line that had ruled 
 there, not undeservedly, for one hundred years; Cleisthenes, 
 the founder of Athenian democracy; his sister married to 
 Peisistratus, but only to increase of discord ; Agariste, 
 wife of Xanthippus and mother of Pericles; Deinomache, 
 wife of Cleinias and mother of Alcibiades ; and Isodice, wife 
 of Cimon. 
 
 The father of Cleinias was the earlier Alcibiades, who was 
 the colleague of Cleisthenes, and on his part claimed descent 
 from Eurysaces, son of Ajax. Another traditional son of 
 Ajax and fellow-settler in Attica was Philaeus, whom the 
 first Miltiades claimed as ancestor, as, by the mother's 
 side at least, did the second also, his successor in tyranny 
 of the Chersonesus, the victor at Marathpn, and father of 
 Cimon by a daughter of a Thracian prince. 
 
 Cf the remoter ancestry of Aristides we hear nothing, 
 but he was at least related to the wealthy Callias, and 
 there can be no doubt as to the order to which the 
 colleague of the reforming Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes must 
 have belonged. 
 
 We now learn from Plutarch that l Cimon, who had acted 
 
 1 Plut. dm. 10.
 
 218 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 in harmony with Aristides at the Hellespont, made common 
 cause with him at home to resist the extreme democratic 
 measures which Themistocles was urging forward, and so 
 commenced a new rivalry that was destined to have im- 
 portant consequences. At present the command lay with 
 Themistocles ; the passion for the development of democracy 
 was ablaze, and no other public man was found to lend aid of 
 any importance to countervail it but Ephialtes. His views 
 in this direction and at the present time, as a partizan of 
 Aristides and Cimon, were probably as perfectly in harmony 
 with those of the Alcmaeonids, as when at a later date he 
 was in opposition to Cimon and promoted an assault upon 
 the time-honoured privileges of the Areopagus in concert 
 with Pericles. 
 
 To what extent the policy of Themistocles may have been 
 checked by such an opposition, what other concessions may 
 have been made to it besides the opening of the elections to 
 magistracy, or indeed whether any, it is impossible to say. 
 But the direction in which progress was being made was at 
 any rate certain and is known to us, and led, sooner or later, 
 to such further changes as the application of the demo- 
 cratic lot to the elections of Archons and even members of 
 the Council (Boule), and important reductions of the powers 
 and privileges of both. 
 
 The progress of constitutional change at Athens, the anti- 
 cipation of which is necessary for a clear apprehension of the 
 import of its present condition, is thus sketched by Aristotle : 
 ' When the power of the popular dicastery came to be fully 
 recognised, the demus received all the court that is payable to 
 a tyrant, and so the polity (the duly regulated Constitution) 
 was turned into the democracy that we are witnesses of.' One 
 demagogue after another helped a little; but the decisive 
 blow was struck when Pericles and Ephialtes ' docked ' the 
 powers of the Areopagitic Council, and habitual participation
 
 xvi.] DEMOCRACY ESTABLISHED. 219 
 
 in the dicastery was opened to the very poorest by carrying a 
 1 payment. 
 
 At present, however, the step in legislation which if not 
 promoted by Themistocles, was certainly carried by Aristides 
 in the direction of his policy, introduced a period of tran- 
 quillity, and Athens for a time had leisure from internal dis- 
 sensions, as well as from conflicts with Persia. 
 
 Questions of policy in abundance, that would open serious 
 struggles for supremacy of thought and action, were certain 
 to arise full soon, with respect to the prosecution of aggres- 
 sive war with Persia, the treatment of the lately Medising 
 states, the management of the Delian confederacy, the atti- 
 tude to be maintained relatively to Sparta and her special 
 allies, and so forth ; but in the meantime Hellas took a long 
 free breath after her unwonted effort, and, while her strength 
 and population were being insensibly restored, found vent for 
 the enthusiasm of her triumph in an outburst of energy 
 applied to Arts which, after long maturing, now suddenly 
 leapt to perfection, within the limits of a single lifetime. 
 
 1 Arist. Polit. ii. 9, p. 66 1 a.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 POETRY, LYRIC AND DRAMATIC, IN THE AGE OF THEMISTOCLES. 
 PINDAR, PHRYNICHTJS, AESCHYLUS. 
 
 476 B.C.; 01. 76. I. 
 
 AT the summer solstice of 476 B.C., under the commencing 
 archonship at Athens of Phaedon, came round the first cele- 
 bration of the Olympic games since the great victories of 
 Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale, since the time when Xerxes at 
 Thermopylae enquired how the Greeks were occupied, and 
 the reply had elicited a foreboding as to the dangerous quali- 
 ties of opponents who could strain energies to the utmost, not 
 for the sake of a prize in money, but to gain the honour of a 
 simple olive l crown. Again recurred the festival which was 
 the most expressive pledge of Hellenic unity ; when Greece 
 was free from intestine conflicts, and, moreover, in the first 
 glow of self-gratulation and pride at delivery from a foreign 
 enemy. If jealousies between her states could ever be lulled 
 at all, surely it might be now ; and, in fact, when Themisto- 
 cles appeared at the stadium, the contests that were proceeding 
 were disregarded he was hailed with a general outburst of 
 applause, and throughout the day was followed and proudly 
 pointed out to admiring strangers. His nature was peculiarly 
 susceptible of pleasure from such homage, and he professed to 
 his friends that Hellas had herein fully compensated him for 
 all his labours. He was, however, by no means a man to 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 76.
 
 POETRY IN THE AGE OF TUEMISTOCLES. 221 
 
 disregard more material compensations; and the very rapid 
 progress of his fortune showed conclusively that he knew 
 well how to opportunely help himself. A fragment of an 
 attack upon him remains which attests both his passion for 
 display, in spite perhaps of the inadequate means he once 
 could command for it, and by what dealings he was accused 
 of providing these means to an extent that had certainly 
 enabled him by this time to undertake the most chargeable 
 public offices. 
 
 Timocreon, the melopoios of Rhodes, complains in bitter 
 verses, which apparently date before the disgraces of Pausanias 
 and Leotychides, of the falsehood, injustice, and treachery of 
 Themistocles of Themistocles who, when propitiated by only 
 a moderate sum, did not care to restore him, his friend and 
 host, to his native lalysus, but for the sake of three talents 
 that he sailed away with, recalled some from exile, banished 
 others, and put others to death, without regard to justice. 
 ' Praise Pausanias, or Xanthippus, or Leotychides who will ; 
 he, for his part, applauds Aristides as the singly most excel- 
 lent man of all who came from sacred Athens. Themistocles 
 is the detestation of ^atona.' He further ridicules the shabby 
 entertainment that Themistocles had given at the Isthmus, 
 when the guests prayed that it might not be an apt omen for 
 the coming harvest. 
 
 Meagreness on this occasion, however, may have been but 
 the parsimony of an ostentatious man, who does not care to be 
 lavish when ostentation will not have the reward he chiefly 
 covets. At Olympia, but probably four years later. than our 
 present date, he made such a show of magnificence as to be 
 provocative at home of dangerous dissatisfaction. 
 
 On the other hand, I think we must assign to this present 
 Olympiad his own encouragement of popular indignation 
 against Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse. It is precisely this date 
 
 1 Plut. Them. ai.
 
 222 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 that is given for the subversion by Hiero of the Ionic city of 
 Cat ana ; he had transferred the inhabitants in a body to 
 Leontini, and was proceeding to settle in their stead a new 
 colony of Dorians in a city with a new name, Aetna, where he 
 should enjoy for all time the heroic honours which by ancient 
 cnstom were accorded to a founder an oikistes. Syracuse 
 furnished half the new population, the other half he invited 
 from Peloponnesus. It is quite intelligible that such arbitrary 
 courses at such a time should have encouraged a denunciation 
 of his ostentatious magnificence, as the offensive intrusion of a 
 tyrant among Hellenic freemen, to the ruin of his tent and 
 exclusion of his horses from the l contest. 
 
 The victory of Theron, tyrant of Acragas, with the four- 
 horse chariot, that triumph that still remained to be coveted 
 by Hiero when he was victor with the single horse in the 
 next 2 Olympiad, is usually assigned to this occasion, though 
 an argument may be combined that would transfer it to the 
 next, and is perhaps worth stating, though I have disregarded 
 it elsewhere. The testimony of the scholiast halts between 
 the two dates, and cannot be adduced as deciding for either ; 
 that Diodorus dates the death of Theron in the very year 
 of the next Olympic festival might doubtless seem incon- v 
 sistent with the elaborate poetic celebration of the victory by 
 Pindar, though not necessarily with the victory itself. But 
 the year, as reckoned by archons, commenced at the same 
 season as the games, and the terms of the ode are quite 
 susceptible of being interpreted to imply that Theron was 
 at the time declining in health, was not remote from the same 
 anticipated migration to those rewards of the just that Pindar 
 here so beautifully indicates, and that he did not deem it 
 inappropriate to promise afterwards still more, and yet scarcely 
 more pointedly, to Hiero, when he too was touching on the 
 fatal 3 term. 
 
 1 Pint. Them. Find. 01. i, sub 6n. * Find. Pgth. iii.
 
 xvii.] THE ACME OF PINDAR. 223 
 
 One short but very beautiful ode of Pindar remains to 
 us that is certified as written for a victory gained this year 
 in the stadium of boys by Asopichus, of Orchomenus in 
 1 Boeotia. 
 
 Lyric poetry had now touched its very acme in Pindar, who 
 at the age of forty-five was in the full might and glory of his 
 genius. Theban by birth, and from early years the associate, 
 as poets had ever been up to this time in Greece, of aristo- 
 cracies and tyrants, of Aleuads in Thessaly, of Alexander in 
 Macedon, of Hiero and Theron in Sicily, of Arcesilaus in 
 Gyrene, there is not a line in his preserved works that can 
 be strictly challenged as unnational, unpatriotic, unworthy of 
 a spokesman who has at heart the best interests of general 
 Hellas. Tradition retains at least a rumour that if he ever 
 offended party feeling at all, it was at his native Thebes, by 
 expression of sympathy with the Hellenic services of hostile 
 Athens. He recognised it as the function of the lyric poet 
 to shed the glow of poetry over every occasion and incident of 
 contemporary life that was worthy of a noble interest, to 
 exalt and purify the feelings it excited, to dignify motive and 
 aspiration, and represent humanity as then only verging 
 towards its natural perfection, when it tended to realise in 
 itself as far as possible the best conception it could form of 
 the divine. 
 
 The extant remains of the poet are almost exclusively odes 
 on occasion of victories in the games ; hymns, paeans, dithy- 
 rambs in honour of gods, and hymenaeals congratulatory of 
 men, and threnes or dirges that were consolatory, not without 
 promise of a better life, are lost to us but for fragments 
 fragments that enhance our regret for what has been in part 
 engulfed by the common injuries of time, but partly destroyed 
 wilfully by fanaticism. 
 
 In prolific variety of metrical arrangement and mastery of 
 
 1 Find. Olym. xiv.
 
 224 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 rhythm, Pindar was and still is without a rival; the secret 
 of his art in this direction must he considered as still, after all 
 the labour and learning bestowed upon it, very imperfectly 
 explained. The key to it is probably lost with the secret 
 of the music which originally accompanied the poetry, and 
 was indeed a very important part of the composition of the 
 poet. It was also the poet's part to train the choruses by 
 whom his odes were sung, and to instruct them in sedulous 
 rehearsals ; and what we miss now of the ' immortal man,' 
 with only the written words before us, is comparable in a 
 degree to the enhancement, lost for ever, which Shakespear 
 superadded to his dramas by direct communication to the 
 original actors of the effects he aimed at, and his conceptions 
 of how they were to be produced. 
 
 That the music did not interfere with the perfect hearing 
 of the words is most certain, so delicate are the transitions, so 
 uncompromising are the suspensions of the theme for the sake 
 of divergence, to what are in truth indispensable and height- 
 ening, although to the unintelligent unintelligibly irrelevant 
 episodes. 
 
 Simonides, who was held worthy to be a rival of Pindar, and 
 even to have surpassed him in pathos, the fragment of his 
 'Danae' approves the tradition, was now at the end of a long 
 life; but even as late as 4766.0., at the age of eighty, is recorded 
 as victor with a dithyrambic chorus. The chief remains of 
 him that we possess and however brief, at least complete in 
 themselves are the elegiac inscriptions or epigraphs, many 
 applying to the incidents of the Persian war, in which his 
 combined ingenuity, propriety, and terseness were unrivalled. 
 Simonides, like Pindar, was familiar with the courts of the 
 Sicilian tyrants, as he had previously been with those of Hip- 
 parchus at Athens and of the Thessalian dynasts. It was 
 only at a centre where wealth was abundant and willingly 
 lavished upon refined superfluities, that lyrical art, at the 
 degree of elaboration it had now attained to, could be fur-
 
 xvn.] POETRY USDER THE TYRANTS. 225 
 
 nished with means and opportunities for its fullest display. 
 A composition of Simonides might require a chorus of fifty 
 performers, who were to be carefully and expensively trained, 
 and the requirement would be vain unless such productions 
 were frequent and habitual ; it required also an audience of 
 refined sensibilities and culture, such as in any state of society 
 must be exceptional, and which during the earlier period, when 
 popular aspirations were under strong repression, was found 
 in highest perfection among those who, few or many, were 
 elevated above the general mass as an aristocracy, and en- 
 grossed participation in active government. 
 
 The almost universal sentiment for artistic beauty which at 
 this time prevailed among the Greeks of all races and classes 
 was naturally most lively amongst the families of hereditary 
 culture and wealth, the same from which, if not by virtue, 
 not slightly by the aid of their sympathy with popular 
 tendencies in the like direction, had ever come forth the 
 men who gained command of their states as tyrants. Hiero 
 was preceded in his love and patronage of art by such men 
 as Peisistratus at Athens, Cleisthenes at Sicyon, Polycrates at 
 Samos, Periander at Corinth, to mention no more men, who, 
 by their furtherance of what Greeks had so much at heart, 
 seemed almost to vindicate their position. The continuance 
 of such rule would no doubt have been presently fatal to 
 much for which the best art affords only poor compensation ; 
 and the better art itself was imperilled seriously. Under 
 such circumstances, when, in a second generation, nobler 
 impulses which can only for a time and under a deception be 
 associated with usurpation are flagging or extinct, it cannot 
 but decline to a purely personal and parasitical application. 
 Hiero and Theron are to be expedited with personal qualities 
 and patriotic services that go very far to excuse, if not to 
 vindicate the enthusiasm of Pindar; but it is well that he 
 was not committed to celebrate their immediate successors. 
 
 When tyranny was abolished throughout Greece, from end
 
 226 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 to end, the fortunes of art in its most elaborate and expensive 
 developments were rescued primarily from wreck by the care 
 and appreciation of the same class from which the tyrants had 
 sprung by such families as the Alcmaeonids, who were even 
 allied to them, whose wealth had enabled them to contend in 
 the chariot-races at Olympia, and even when they were in 
 exile to promote gratuitously the enhancement of the archi- 
 tectural splendour of Delphi. A democracy that such men 
 founded or fostered was not likely to miss them as its leaders 
 and administrators ; and they ' took the people into partner- 
 ship,' to extend the words of Herodotus, in their artistic 
 projects now, as before in their revolutionary. The guiding 
 minds might still be aristocratical, might still be in many 
 social respects an exclusive few ; but not only was the sanc- 
 tion of the people asked and obtained, but their sympathies 
 too were regarded, were appealed to, and the result left little 
 discontent at what in effect was equivalent to a delegation of 
 popular control ; and this was especially the case when the 
 fund disbursed was less immediately from the public treasury 
 than from private fortunes. 
 
 The system of the ' liturgies,' or services for the public, by 
 which this was brought about, seems to have been at least as 
 old as Solon, and may have been one of his political inven- 
 tions. It was the principle of this institution that citizens 
 of exceptional wealth were liable to be called on, out of the 
 tribes in rotation, to make exceptional contributions to the 
 public service ; for the equipment of a war vessel only occa- 
 sionally, but in usual and regular order to furnish forth public 
 spectacles and festivals and amusements. Such a demand is 
 manifestly an extension of Solon's graduated property-tax, 
 and in principle challenges a like justification. At Athens at 
 least the institution seems to have had the justification of 
 success, and there is no slight case to be made for the prin- 
 ciple as demanding even general application. It is too usually 
 the opprobrium of civilised communities that, by whose fault
 
 xvii.] LITURGIES AND CORRECTIVE TAXATION. 227 
 
 or unwisdom soever, a large mass of the population, which 
 subserves the social requirements not unimportantly, though 
 in the lowest functions, receives no more advantage from the 
 imposing result than if civilisation did not exist ; with regard 
 to this large section at least, civilisation is a failure. Count 
 up the numbers, and they are a vast nation that lags behind 
 in squalor and hopelessness ; shall it be said, as a necessary 
 condition of the grace and glory of the superior ranks, any 
 more than are their own crapulence and gaudiness or the 
 merely self-indulgent listlessness which misuses a superflux so 
 sorely missed elsewhere? What the narrower political economy 
 insists on as the natural laws of the distribution of wealth, are 
 no more to be trusted to bring out spontaneously, without any 
 adjustment of human intelligence, the fairest or the most de- 
 sirable result, than are any other natural laws. In this, as in 
 so many other cases, the opportunity and the faculty of regu- 
 lative power that is confided to us demands to be taken into 
 account, and ' the art itself is nature/ It is in perfect ac- 
 cordance with natural laws for the water-shed which is in- 
 dispensable to the fertility of a district, to form, if left to 
 itself, pestiferous marshes or desolating inundations. To say 
 nothing of disgrace, society may be threatened by dangers as 
 serious, through the aggregation of wealth by one accident or 
 another in a single or a few extravagant masses, or even by 
 such an unchecked irrational apportionment of the results of 
 labour among the labourers as constantly ensues even when 
 competition seems most free. The division even then, though 
 under all the forms of peace and legality, is sometimes of the 
 nature of a promiscuous scramble and sometimes of a lottery, and 
 the shares prove at last to be only coarsely proportionate to 
 the values of the co-operating labour, either mental or manual. 
 It is not however the sense of very palpable injustice that 
 has usually induced a legislative interference; sufferers and spec- 
 tators alike are rather apt to acquiesce in this as a hardship 
 inherent in the inevitable course of the world ; but the extreme
 
 228 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 of social contrast engenders blind discontents and violences 
 which cannot be disregarded, and the prudent dealing with 
 which at once postulates the main principle of corrective tax- 
 ation. Corrective self- taxation the dispensing of alms has 
 always been applied, however unequally, rudely, wastefully ; and 
 in modern times we are most familiar with attempts to redeem 
 wild nature by the application of funds raised by taxation to 
 the relief, somewhat indiscriminately it must be said, of the 
 destitute victims of misfortune or of vice. Further applica- 
 tions of the principle come in when the gathered gains of 
 commerce are mulcted in a poor subsidy to a genius or his 
 descendants, or the well-to-do and wealthy are taxed not only 
 to support but to educate the poor, or for the adornment 
 of parks and establishment of public galleries to afford recrea- 
 tion chiefly to classes that are much too poor to be in any 
 sense contributory. So does the prudence at least, if not the 
 obligation quite so readily, become in some degree recognised, 
 of giving more unity to the system of society by a better 
 diffusion of enjoyment as well as comfort, than is the outcome 
 of the vaunted, of the so often misstated and misunderstood, 
 law of supply and demand. 
 
 On the other hand, there is the danger of adjustment de- 
 generating in ungoverned hands into confiscation ; and the 
 historical outcry pattern et circenses is warning that justice 
 itself had need be very wise if the sinews of industry are not 
 to be relaxed and the remedy of civil discord not fordo itself. 
 
 The leiturgia was an ancient contrivance for equalising in 
 some degree the advantages of civil society, at least for dis- 
 tributing some of the best of them, and went far to reconcile 
 free poverty, if not penury, to co-existence with a class of 
 acquired or hereditary opulence. Opulence on its own part 
 had a pride which was compensated by the opportunity of 
 public display a pride which was not ignoble when its gratifi- 
 cation depended on addressing successfully the acute sense 
 and fastidious taste of such a public as the Athenians. These
 
 xvii.] THEMISTOCLES A CHORAGUS. 229 
 
 functions were no doubt often burdensome enough, though 
 only through ambitious competition ruinous ; if there were 
 some to complain, there were more to rejoice, who were eager 
 for the distinction, and prepared with hearty good-will even to 
 damage their fortunes seriously. The prize was certainly not 
 always bare renown, and sometimes the influence that ensued 
 upon a great success was counted on to more than reinstate 
 the outlay ; but even so, the renown was the basis of the 
 influence. 
 
 In England the costly entertainments of a mayoralty but 
 weakly represent, or rather parody, the Athenian tribal liturgy ; 
 and modern instances of noble employment of immense wealth 
 are not so frequent as to have ceased to be matters of surprise. 
 We have otherwise, in substitution of the ancient system, only 
 the precarious enforcement by public opinion of aids to chari- 
 ties that spare an intermediate class, or of contributing to the 
 amusement of a class still narrower by ' hunting a county.' 
 The Italian opera lives by exceptionally liberal subscriptions 
 of the wealthy, but not out of public spirit or to the relief of 
 very extended public participation ; the higher drama lan- 
 guishes, or rather is extinct, in default of unmercenary sup- 
 port and subvention. 
 
 The most chargeable of all the ordinary Athenian liturgies 
 was the dramatic the Choragia of which the first mention 
 occurs in the year 476 B.C., just preceding the present 
 Olympia, and associated with the name of Themistocles as 
 Choragus. The inscription which was read on a commemora- 
 tive tablet that he dedicated, ran thus : ' Themistocles of 
 the Phrearian tribe was Choragus, Phrynichus was Master 
 (i. e. the teacher of the chorus or poet), Adeimantus was 
 Arehon.' 
 
 The name of Phrynichus dates an epoch in the history of 
 the drama, particularly of tragedy, as standing between 
 Aeschylus, his immediate successor and younger contem- 
 porary, and Thespis, contemporary of Solon.
 
 230 II I STORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 It is the peculiar glory of Athens to have originated and 
 perfected tragedy, though not the 'drama generally, for 
 comedy had already taken birth elsewhere, taken very highly 
 developed form in Sicily certainly, if not previously at 
 Megara. 
 
 The essential characteristic of the drama may be said to 
 be the representation of human action by impersonations, 
 by assumed characters. In this barest sense it may be 
 recognised as independent of spoken language; inasmuch 
 as mere dumb show of even an individual, not to say of 
 several conjointly, suffices to tell a very complicated story. 
 Whether as mimicry of individuals or general pantomime, 
 impersonation of this kind has been in vogue everywhere 
 and always, and has sometimes been raised by men of 
 peculiarly apt endowments to the dignity of an art. In 
 its purest form it is independent even of mimicry of costume. 
 Such an exhibition is then capable of being enhanced by 
 music; predominance as between music and acting being 
 variously adjusted, accordingly as music is accompaniment to 
 acting or acting to music. In either case, whether as telling 
 a story or merely expressing a train of sentiment, there is 
 intervention of the dramatic principle. 
 
 A further modification arrives, and it would seem a demand 
 for still more distinct acting, in such a performance as we 
 read of in the Odyssey, where the bard sings the adventure 
 of Mars and Venus, including the dialogue of Hermes and 
 Apollo, Poseidon and Vulcan, and is accompanied by the 
 dancing of a chorus of youths. In other instances a pair 
 of performers, gesticulators apparently rather than dancers, 
 are associated with a chorus and the singing and playing 
 1 bard. In such exhibitions the dancing, as a visible ex- 
 pression of general sentiment, seems to have had the same 
 relation to more definite pantomime, as the accompaniment 
 
 1 Hymn. Apoll. Pyth. 15; Iliad, xviii. 590.
 
 xvn.] ORIGIN AND INFANCY OF THE DRAMA. 231 
 
 of pipe or lyre to the audible words. The genius and the 
 passion for expressive gesture manifestly conduct to the 
 completest possible development in dramatic impersonation. 
 Hellenic comedy and tragedy proper are accordingly both 
 traced by Aristotle with whose amount of knowledge we 
 may be content to developments from choral celebrations 
 of Dionysus ; tragedy from the enthusiastic dithyramb, and 
 comedy from the phallic extravagances, such as in his time 
 were still in vogue in many cities in their rudest naturalistic 
 form. Each form of the drama seems to have advanced with 
 considerable independence of the other, and even severally 
 at several centres, though it is impossible not to infer from 
 the great start which was taken so early by comedy in Sicily 
 that her more dignified sister at Athens might well have 
 some considerable obligations to own to. 
 
 When history first took note of comedy it was already 
 familiar with the use of masks, of speeches, of words spoken 
 not sung, and of plurality of actors, by whom introduced 
 was not known; nor were many names of dramatists on 
 
 1 record. It was Epicharmus however and Phormis in Sicily 
 who first advanced beyond simple dialogue or insignificant 
 incidents, and dramatised fables ( = stories) and ' from 
 Sicily therefore this first came.' Epicharmus was from 
 Megara, Phormis from Arcadia, and it was admitted that 
 comedy had its primitive commencement among the ruder, 
 the rustic and unceremonious Dorian populations, whose 
 capacity for humour is recorded and exemplified for us in 
 Theocritus. But comedy at this Sicilian epoch is drama with 
 all apparatus and capabilities full blown; Phormis attended 
 to the draping both of his actors and of the stage, and so it 
 appears certain that the plays of Epicharmus, to which 
 
 2 Plautus owed obligations, had more resemblance, as plays of 
 general character and with proper plots, to the new comedy 
 
 1 Aristot. Poet. a Hor. Epist. ii. I. 58.
 
 232 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 of Athens than to the old. An attempt of Crates as late as 
 450 B.C. to establish comedy of general character at Athens 
 seems even then to have been premature, and could not 
 compete with the stimulant personalities of Aristophanes 
 and Cratinus. 
 
 Epicharmus was still writing in 477 B.C., but apparently 
 towards the end of a very long life ; and at this time 
 Phrynichus was exhibiting what is most authentically recorded 
 as a very early form of tragedy, a form which is indeed 
 characteristic still of a play of Aeschylus the Persae 
 represented four years later. 
 
 Every manifestation of religion, however festive its general 
 character may be, has necessarily a serious a solemn side ; 
 and there are abundant proofs of this in the Dionysiac 
 elsewhere also, as for instance at 'Argos, but especially in 
 Attica, where all religious sentiments were peculiar in in- 
 tensity. The god who became associated, and not on inferior 
 terms, with Apollo at Delphi, was an assessor no less with 
 the awful goddesses of Eleusis, and shared with them in the 
 respect which is ever inspired by concern with the gravest 
 responsibilities of another world of a future 2 life. It was 
 therefore quite as natural and spontaneous a process for the 
 severest form of dramatic poetry to be engrafted on the 
 dithyramb of the god, as for the most cheerful, the most 
 extravagantly vivacious on the turbulent excitement of his 
 coarser celebrations. 
 
 To Thespis in the time of Solon was ascribed the relief 
 of the choral performers by introduction of recited speeches, 
 but as yet with no mention of dialogue. For anything that 
 appears, the chorus was uniformly composed of representatives 
 of Satyrs, the mythical train of Dionysus, a modification 
 superinduced on the ancient dithyramb by Arion at Corinth, 
 and already involving the principle of impersonation. How 
 
 1 PUB. ii. 37. 5. * Herod, ii. 123.
 
 xvn.] THESPIS, EPICHARMUS, PHORMIS. 233 
 
 rapidly the same principle extended to the exarchon, the 
 leader of the chorus, to the variation of the characters that 
 he might assume, to the substitution or addition of other 
 characters besides Satyrs for the chorus, it may be to the 
 incorporation of an independently developed system at once, 
 these are matters unrecorded; when the door was once 
 opened for innovation, the emulative spirit of gifted imagi- 
 nations at a period of high intellectual excitement did not 
 allow it to prematurely close. 
 
 To Aeschylus Aristotle ascribes the introduction, into 
 tragedy at least, if we may not with Epicharmus in mind 
 say into the drama, of a second actor, an innovation 
 equivalent to the commencement of dialogue, and then still 
 further the curtailment of the choral sections of the piece 
 in favour of extended dialogue ; and it may be asked, what 
 then remains intermediately for Phrynichus? But there 
 was abundant opportunity for variety of artistic elaboration 
 and novelty, even within the limits of composition restricted 
 to lyrical chorus and narrative speeches. It is to the value 
 which these latter now attained that we must ascribe the 
 affection with which they were retained in later Greek 
 tragedy, whether delivered by messengers or in the prologues 
 that Euripides peculiarly affects, but that were not rejected 
 by l Aeschylus or 2 Sophocles. In these we have relics, tra- 
 ditions, of the time when such narrative speeches, an epic 
 element in fact, were the sole interruptions or reliefs of 
 the choruses, but their reduction to such an extent may 
 have been but gradual. So we cannot say by whom it was 
 effected, nor whether it was by one of the many gradual 
 transitions, to which Aristotle alludes as unrecorded, or by- a 
 bold stroke, that the chorus of Satyrs was extruded from inter- 
 course with the more severe action, and relegated as from 
 tradition of hereditary claim to all it could not be denied a 
 
 1 Eumenides. 2 Trachiniae.
 
 234 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 residue to a separate and final satyric entrance or play. 
 Still less can we certify that the system of trilogic and 
 tetralogic combinations of dramas may not have had its 
 origin long before the first recorded example that comprised 
 the Persae of Aeschylus. 
 
 It is characteristic of early art to rely on repetitions in the 
 very simplest form as at once the great resource of variety and 
 composition ; to proceed from more absolute parallels to such 
 contrasts of type and antetype as Gothic art delights in, the 
 coupled subjects of the Old Testament and New, of sacred and 
 profane, and so to climb by degrees towards truly aesthetic 
 principles of composition. 
 
 From the scattered notices that are obtainable of Phryni- 
 chus we must conclude that his merits were still rather 
 distinctly poetical than specifically dramatic. A caviller at 
 Aeschylus in Aristophanes at Aeschylus who combined both 
 qualifications ascribes the effect which he produced to his 
 luck in having to take over the simple-minded auditors of 
 Phrynichus, who were easily astonished. But the poetical 
 merit of Phrynichus, in addition to his very considerable 
 1 originality, must have been very great, and the melodious- 
 ness of his versification is particularly celebrated. The careers, 
 of Phrynichus and of Aeschylus overlap, and each may have 
 borrowed from the other, the elder from the younger quite 
 as probably as the younger from the elder of natural 
 necessity. Phrynichus was said to have first brought female 
 characters on the stage, and this was more likely to occur 
 after the innovation of Aeschylus respecting dialogue than 
 before it. 
 
 The acted drama ever involves the union of several arts, 
 or draws on the resources of several; it may even be a 
 concentration of all, and as it would appear, should then 
 most nearly achieve its proper triumph, when it is most 
 
 1 Aristoph. Ran. 910, 1299; Av. 749; Vetp. 220.
 
 xvii.] THE DRAMA, TRAGIC AND SATYRIC. 235 
 
 comprehensive and when the various elements that it unites 
 are united to the best effect, are so subordinated as to give 
 best prominence to the worthiest. Every variety of poetry 
 may here find place the epic, the lyrical, the melic ; every 
 variety of rhetoric persuasive, declamatory, argumentative ; 
 chorus and song bring in music ; and scenery, costume, group- 
 ing, mien, and gesture are effective on the same conditions as 
 admit architecture, painting, sculpture. It is perfectly legi- 
 timate for an artist who is to be justified by his results, to 
 exclude from his accompaniments of impersonation either one 
 or more of the arts, to dispense with music, with scenery, 
 with lyric or with narrative poetry ; and no less so for him to 
 determine, from considerations of his capacity and his theme, 
 to which art and to which class of its resources he will 
 assign the predominance. But the best attaches to the best. 
 The aim to give the fullest expression f to high actions and 
 high passions' conducted the Attic tragedian to, not exclude, 
 but subordinate, the lyrical and musical elements of his 
 composition, as absolutely as he retained the musical and 
 dancing accompaniments in subjection to the lyric words 
 and their intelligible effect; as absolutely as he repressed 
 any tendency of scenic pomp and surprise of machinery to 
 distract attention from the main purport of the play. 
 
 In what manner another class of combinations were dealt 
 with it is less easy to determine. The drama has for its 
 general subject the entire range of human feelings, every 
 phase in every age and class, of hope and fear, of love and 
 hatred, of admiration or amusement ; and there is no feeling, 
 however dignified, that has not its relations by over-tension 
 or by lapse to the mean or the ridiculous, and none so 
 irretrievably comic that may not glide into the serious and 
 severe by very moderate variation of a circumstance. The very 
 grandest tone of sentiment and thought can therefore scarcely 
 receive its full illustration unless its divergences and limits 
 are defined by indication at least of its controlling contrasts.
 
 236 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 It is as open to the poet to make one tone or another pre- 
 dominant, as to make election among the arts that are to 
 be its vehicle ; and thus arises the grand distinction between 
 tragedy and comedy, when most unchallengeable ; and thus 
 the various graduations of either, till in certain phases and 
 proportions they meet and coalesce. But Socrates assumed, 
 as a corollary of one of his most favourite general principles 
 that perfect apprehension of one thing implied as perfect of 
 its opposite that the best appreciation of tragic and of comic 
 effect must necessarily go together ; and so the perfect 
 realisation of tragic effect seems to require concurrent 
 presentation of at least an adumbration of its comic phase. 
 Abundant illustration of this principle may be. gathered from 
 the plays of Shakespear ; we need go no further than the 
 clownish conundrums of the gravedigger, which are introduc- 
 tory to the over-curious considerings, as they seem to Horatio, 
 of Prince Hamlet over the skull. How is this requirement 
 satisfied, how was it satisfied, in the Attic drama ? Apparently 
 by the medium of the satyric drama the drama with a- 
 chorus of Satyrs which was in the time of Aeschylus, and 
 presumably of Phrynichus, the complement of a tragic 
 representation. More we can scarcely say ; we have but 
 one satyric play, and of that we know not the tragic 
 accompaniments ; we have the title of another and one of 
 the three tragedies the Persae that it followed, to which, 
 as we shall see, we can attach its subject as having a certain 
 pertinence, but beyond the confirmation of a general pre- 
 sumption we can deduce nothing more. 
 
 The Persae of Aeschylus is the only later example even 
 on record of tragic treatment of a contemporary subject, 
 and was said to be copied in a degree from the Phoenissae 
 (the Phoenician women) of Phrynichus. The Phoenissae was 
 the second such attempt of Phrynichus ; a previous, and 
 indeed the only other on record at all, was on a theme which 
 was as painful for the Athenians as his later was exultant
 
 xvii.] PHRYNICHUS AND AESCHYLUS. 237 
 
 the Capture of Miletus by the Persians, the catastrophe of Ionia 
 (B.C. 49.4). So profound was the sympathy of the Athenians 
 at that wreck of the most glorious of their colonies 
 manifested in other ways frequently that when Phrynichus 
 brought it before them on the stage, though doubtless with 
 no lack of sympathy, the whole theatre burst into a passion 
 of tears, and the people resented the public exhibition of 
 afflictions which they counted as their own by inflicting upon 
 the poet a fine of TOOO drachmas. 
 
 The title of his later play is no doubt true indication that 
 the chorus consisted of Phoenician girls or women. We 
 learn from the argument of the Persae, which was said by 
 the same authority Glaucus to be in some degree an 
 imitation of it, that the scene opened by entrance of a 
 eunuch to arrange the seats for the royal councillors; for 
 such an assembly of dignities in due order therefore, as is 
 described by Herodotus on the occasion of a council of 
 1 Xerxes, and as we see depicted around Darius on the 
 Neapolitan vase, a recognised display of Persian state. The 
 eunuch prologised by relating the defeat of Salamis a 
 precipitate discovery that is more artfully reserved by 
 Aeschylus. The poet would thus appear to have written 
 the play, upon a flattering theme, in compensation of his 
 previous offence, no less than as a gratification, a glorifica- 
 tion of the victor of Salamis his choragus. 
 
 The acceptance of such personal glorification was not 
 without its dangers at Athens, but dangers that Tliemistocles 
 seems to have made a point of carelessly provoking ; possibly 
 from simple want of self-control in this direction, possibly, on 
 the other hand, from a definite notion that by persistent 
 provocation of enviousness of a somewhat mean type he 
 could shame it to silence or blunt its faculty of offence. 
 
 Earlier in time, and by the elder and earlier poet, the 
 
 1 Herod, viii. 67.
 
 238 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 Phoenissae of Phrynichus may be certainly assumed as 
 characterised by more than the archaism that we usually 
 assume as recognisable in the Persae. Whatever innovations 
 are implied by regular dialogue, feminine interlocutor, a 
 chorus of senators, extensive adoption of the tragic senarian, 
 are found in the Persae ; but along with these, as archaic 
 residues, are not unfrequent adoption, for speeches, of the 
 tetrameter that Aristotle tells us was relinquished when a 
 measure fitted for dancing was of less consequence than 
 one which, like the trimeter, had a natural harmony with 
 the measure of discourse ; general excess of proportion of 
 lyrical element, its encroachment on or rather retention of 
 place where it is afterwards missed, as in the long prologue, 
 itself an archaism ; and the protraction, though not unre- 
 ieved by interruptions, of the messenger's narrative. 
 
 Phrynichus therefore is an apt representative of the drama 
 at the epoch of this Olympiad, as advanced to the formal 
 condition which is precisely anterior to that last effort of 
 genius which carries it to perfection, a condition which it 
 shares with several other arts.
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE IN THE AGE OF 
 THEMISTOCLES. 
 
 A NOTICE is preserved by 1 Vitruvius, that a proper theatre 
 was first constructed at Athens by Agatharcus, who described 
 it in a treatise. From 2 Suidas we learn that it was erected in 
 place of a wooden structure that gave way with the spectators 
 on an occasion when Aeschylus was exhibiting in competition 
 with Pratinas, the reputed inventor of the satyric drama, as 
 early as the joth Olympiad (499 B. c.). In the absence of 
 closer information, we are left to entertain the high proba- 
 bility that here at Athens, and in this way was originated that 
 type of the Greek uncovered theatre which was repeated with 
 only secondary variations all over Hellenic ground of vast 
 capacity usually, and, in Asia Minor especially, on colossal 
 scale. The general characteristics that agree with such an 
 origin are, the solidity that was secured by basing the con- 
 centric lines of seats, as they rose one behind the other, imme- 
 diately on the hollowed slope of, if possible, a rocky hill-side ; 
 and then the liberal extent which was allowed for the orchestra, 
 the dancing-place of the chorus, a level semicircular space 
 embraced by the arc of the lowest range of seats. The con- 
 cession of so large and central a position is in accordance with 
 
 1 Praefat. 7. a a. v. Aeschylus.
 
 240 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 the relative importance of the chorus in the earlier drama 
 as compared with the proper dialogue, and still more with 
 the traditional regard for its performance as a celebration in 
 honour of the god of Dionysus, to whom the entire structure 
 and all its purposes were sacred. At the same time, although 
 the area reserved for the chorus has its name from dancing, it 
 is not the less certain that in the execution to music of the 
 beautiful and elaborately-constructed choruses of the drama- 
 tists, as of the Odes of Pindar, the dancing was but a secondary 
 adjunct, that, so far from superseding or even interfering with 
 the interest and distinctness of the poetry, was only valued 
 for heightening its effect. 
 
 The long transverse slip of elevated stage for the dialogue 
 of the actors was more remote, on the chord of the semi- 
 circle ; the difficulty of giving effect to the voice in theatres 
 so large and under the open sky, for due delivery of speeches 
 which depended for interest and charm on refined poetical 
 expression, was resolved with as much ingenuity as daring. 
 Besides certain acoustical adjustments that are still but im- 
 perfectly understood, but were evidently directed less to 
 countervailing echoes than enhancing resonance, a contrivance 
 was employed for adding loudness to the issuing voice. The" 
 deformity which this involved was relieved by, and perhaps 
 originally suggested, the adoption of a mask that completely 
 covered both face and head. Threatened disproportion was 
 again evaded by what was considered only a further pro- 
 priety, the artificial exaggeration of the entire height and 
 bulk of the actors, sometimes representatives of gods, or in 
 any case of heroes who, by the convention of ancient art, 
 which was allowed on the frieze of the Parthenon as on the 
 shield of 1 Achilles, ever claimed superior magnitude. There 
 was thus a readily accepted contrast between the personages 
 on the bema, and the natural forms and proportions of the 
 
 1 II. xviii. 519.
 
 xvm.] ARCHITECTURE AND THE DRAMA. 241 
 
 chorus, which in the days of purer dramatic art all but in- 
 variably represented the weaker and vacillating, in fact, the 
 generally meaner minds of ordinary mortals. The thick- 
 soled cothurnus, the majestic costumes, and the masks were 
 inventions of Aeschylus, and are in striking harmony with his 
 style, with the boldness of his metaphors, the unhesitating 
 originality of his expressions ; and we need not doubt were on 
 the whole equally justified, equally admirable in result, though 
 in like manner not seldom startling, even sometimes to the 
 extent of a shock. The number and variety of characteristic 
 masks that were required by such a fertile dramatist as 
 Aeschylus alone, must have given a marvellous stimulus to 
 inventive design, and it is impossible to say how much his 
 personal influence and suggestions may not have contributed 
 to the decision of those types of divine and heroic physiog- 
 nomy that were elaborated by the sculptors. His own de- 
 scription of the aspect of his Furies evinces how forcibly 
 characteristic were the types that he accepted. 
 
 As regards the temple architecture of the Greeks, we have 
 the names of four architects of Athens who were employed on 
 the great Olympieium under Peisistratus, names only, not a 
 fragment of their work, as little of the work of Rhoecus in the 
 vast Heraeum of Samos, or of the Corinthian Spintharus at 
 Delphi. But for our immediate epoch we happily possess re- 
 mains which when closely examined discover how much careful 
 theoretical study was devoted to the original design, and even 
 throw back light upon certain more archaic fragments of un- 
 assignable date. The temple that was measured and published 
 with great completeness by Mr. Cockerell, under the title of 
 The Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina, illustrates the 
 architecture of this period and its sculpture also, and fur- 
 nishes an intermediate example between some scanty remains 
 of an earlier Parthenon and a temple at Corinth, and the 
 perfected Doric temples of the age of Pericles. 
 
 The Doric may be said to have been the common style of 
 
 R
 
 242 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Hellenic architecture at the date when building first attained 
 with the Hellenes to the dignity of a style, a point that is 
 found already attained in no imperfect sense even in the very 
 earliest examples of which fragments are preserved. The first 
 that we possess betray most clearly in their details derivation 
 from timber originals, but not more distinctly and scarcely 
 more crudely than the latest ; and the moderateness of subse- 
 quent change in this respect warns us how remote the earlier 
 may be from the epoch of original adaptation. For all their 
 archaism, they exhibit the style complete in its essential 
 members, and with far more than the rudiments of its cha- 
 racteristic beauty ; most important fact of all, they betray a 
 consciousness of the principles on which character and ex- 
 pression in architecture are dependent. 
 
 The obligations of Doric to Egyptian architecture have been 
 recognised with a circumstantiality that is not easily gain- 
 said, in the details which offer for comparison in the so-called 
 Proto-Donc of Beni-Hassan and Philae ; among them the most 
 plausible, for they are in truth too specific to be ascribed to 
 common suggestion of natural fitness, are the abacus, echinus, 
 and rudimentary annulets of the capital of the column, and 
 the facetted shaft that prepares for the all-important flutes. 
 But the most important lessons that the Greek might have 
 learnt and probably did learn among the primeval monuments 
 of Egypt, were the capabilities of beauty that reside in the 
 column as a structural member, and in extended colonnades, 
 in contrasts of columns of subordinated dimensions and pro- 
 portions, and of the cylindrical column with rectangular pier 
 or anta, the value of equalities of spacing and of symmetry in 
 elevation, the dignity of close and massive proportions and of 
 consistent adherence to trabeative construction in the span of 
 voids by the horizontal beam. To Egypt, with all its barbaric 
 limitations and sophistications and affection for extravagant 
 mass that did but dwarf the artist, must still be allowed the 
 achievement both in sculpture and architecture of a very high
 
 xviii.] EGYPTIAN AND DORIC ARCHITECTURE. 243 
 
 grade of dignity and expression, which merits recognition in 
 no slight degree as a grand style, and that at a time which 
 relatively to Greek art carry it back as far as we reasonably 
 may was remote antiquity indeed. 
 
 But whatever the Greek borrowed was first selected as the 
 most suitable, and then very speedily became his own by 
 a process equivalent to the changes of transmuting nature. 
 It was by his steady reliance on nature and recurrence to 
 nature that he had shaken himself free from many a sophistica- 
 tion that clung to him for a certain time from earlier forms 
 of Aryan language or mythology; at the utmost he retained 
 them as wild stocks on which to graft expression and poetry 
 of a perfection that goes far to reduce enquiry respecting their 
 ulterior origin to little more than vulgar antiquarianism. The 
 superseded forms may leave a certain impress, but it is as 
 vestiges of forms that have departed ; adopted forms may still 
 upon scrutiny betray their prototype, but ever concurrently 
 with the final renunciation of allegiance to such an origin. 
 So the stone architecture of the Greeks, while manifestly 
 derived in numerous details from models constructed in 
 timber, as manifestly does not minutely mimic, does not 
 studiously imitate them, and in all most important points 
 adjusts itself to new conditions. The substitution of stone 
 for timber had early enforced contracted bearings between 
 open supports, the span from column to column being con- 
 trolled by available scantling of materials ; then the composi- 
 tion, which so was of necessity closed up, betrayed of itself an 
 elementary principle of dignity that the sensibility of the 
 Greek was quick to recognise and eager and able to develope. 
 It was here that his imagination was most affected by the 
 exclusively stone architecture of Egypt ; but out of the 
 various types presented to him he selected and made chief 
 use of that which harmonised best with past associations 
 from constructions that were already in possession of his 
 sympathies. 
 
 K 2
 
 244 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 The climatic difference of a stormy as contrasted with a 
 rainless region was recognised and allowed prerogative in- 
 fluence over mouldings and profiles throughout ; responsively 
 to this consideration, a sloping roof, adapted to weather- 
 fend the interior, now descended on the cornice ; and to the 
 cornice was given a bolder horizontal projection that sheltered 
 the exterior also, and delivered rainfall clear of the members 
 below. Even to the crowning capital of the column, in 
 deference to the same idea, was assigned a spread that is quite 
 independent of reference to the bearing and breadth of the 
 architrave, the beam which it carried ; but is sympathetic 
 with the expression of ample cover to the shaft and foot 
 below. 
 
 A solid and spreading basement, the line of regularly inter- 
 spaced columns, the bracing architrave and covering and 
 repeated triglyphs of the bonding frieze, completed the ele- 
 ments of the composition, and gave occasions for telling- 
 contrasts of void and solid, of vertical and horizontal, of open 
 and enclosed. But it was by his mastery of the harmonising 
 influence of consistent and characteristic proportion that the 
 Greek attempered these contrasts, and by blending them in 
 unity knew how to elevate propriety in purpose and con- 
 struction to the charm of stateliness and beauty in highest 
 perfection. 
 
 The Aeginetan temple is but small 100 feet by 50 on 
 plan, with columns of 3^- feet in diameter against the 
 5f feet of the Corinthian. It represents the distribution 
 of larger structures by being divided in the interior even 
 to inconvenience by colonnades that, upon such a reduced 
 scale, obstruct passage ; but it is in other respects elaborate 
 in design and refined in execution and ornament, to a degree 
 that certifies it to be an example of the best advancement of 
 its period. As regards the architecture of the temple, its 
 Doric style is the same that, complete in all members and 
 details, and even in characteristic treatment and the general
 
 xviii.] EASTERN AND IONIC ARCHITECTURE. 245 
 
 proportions of the whole, had been already transported to 
 Italy and Sicily; it was there to be embodied on colossal 
 scale, but scarcely to receive any modifications that, as com- 
 pared with the primary scheme, are beyond the value of 
 provincialisms. The architecture of Paestum and of Agri- 
 gentum, and other Sicilian cities even of later date, has 
 marked analogy with Aeginetan Doric in the specimen before 
 us, and separated too early from the parent stock to parti- 
 cipate in the exactness of refinement that still remained to 
 be conferred by Attic genius. 
 
 In almost all its forms at all times Doric architecture is 
 distinguished for breadth, boldness, simplicity, majesty, and 
 its merits in these respects are already pronounced in the 
 age of Themistocles with considerable dignity; but archaism 
 even at its best never quite compasses perfect consistency, and 
 purity of style awaits the sensitiveness of a more refined and 
 fully practised age. Severity is usually the characteristic of 
 archaic art, and the remains of the Doric temple at Corinth, 
 of an earlier age than the Aeginetan, are in respect of some 
 forms more heavy, it may be said more majestic ; but in the 
 profile of the capital they demand still more stringently that 
 correction of a common weakness which was afterwards to be 
 administered by the Athenian. 
 
 Ionic architecture, or rather the Ionic style of Greek archi- 
 tecture, can scarcely be traced quite up to the age of Themis- 
 tocles, but must have been already in progress of develope- 
 ment, and may be referred to in anticipation as illustrating 
 by contrast the developement to which it supervened. It 
 stands in the same relation to Persia, from whence it derived 
 many suggestions for treatment of column in capital and 
 base, and to Assyria for ornamental details, that the Doric 
 style occupies to Egypt. Again, the Greek gave more than 
 he appropriated. Egyptian architecture was Dorised by 
 fusion with inventions drawn from systematic timber con- 
 struction ; and then this developed Doric supplied the funda-
 
 246 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 mental forms which received enrichments of Eastern origin, 
 but which it remained for Hellenic genius to render refined, 
 and to distribute with unimpeachable propriety and grace. 
 
 In leading divisions and even certain subdivisions of stylo- 
 bate, column, entablature, pediment, the Ionic style in the 
 majority of instances adheres accurately to the lines and pre- 
 cedents of the Doric. The main differences are that the 
 column as Ionic assumes for the first time a proper moulded 
 base and interpolates the peculiar Eastern form of volutes 
 below the abacus of the capital, and that the frieze becomes 
 continuous by dispensing with the intermittent series of tri- 
 glyphs. What are really more important distinctions are 
 found in the uniform adoption of slenderer proportions, in 
 harmony with the lightness of decoration, though still regu- 
 lated on the same general principles, and above all in the 
 characteristic profile of the order. 
 
 Pass the eye down the Ionic profile and it will be observed 
 that every angle is tempered by an adjacent curved moulding 
 precisely at the points as in architrave-band and abacus, and 
 at meeting of cornice and bed-moulding, of shaft and stylobate 
 where the angularity of the Doric is most unqualified ; and 
 curves of contrary flexure are admitted as frankly as the more 
 simple. In the Doric profile, the imperceptible entasis of the 
 column apart, it is only in the cymatium or gutter-rim of the 
 pediment, in the echinus or the bowl-like member of the capital 
 and the mere lip of a drip-moulding that curvature is ad- 
 mitted at all ; all other projections are bounded by right lines 
 at right angles, or at angles very acute or very obtuse. The 
 cymatium at Aegina is a curve of contrary flexure, but even 
 this indulgence was destined to be corrected in the Parthenon, 
 for a simple curve stopped by a right line ; and the curve of 
 the echinus of the capital was also to be set there more 
 severely upright and returned upon the abacus with greater 
 approximation to the vertical than in the Aeginetan and in 
 the still moro abnormal Corinthian example. So the sinking
 
 xviii.] PROPORTION IN GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 247 
 
 of the Aeginetan flute as a segment of a circle was afterwards 
 rendered more severe by the substitution of the flatter ellipse 
 that gives a sharper and steeper arris. At Aegina already, 
 the tendency to contrary flexure in a curve as continued 
 from the echinus to the shaft of the column, is qualified 
 by the deep sinkings and bold angularity of the annulets 
 and necking; but even here the Athenian was not satisfied 
 without rendering the break still more pronounced. 
 
 As regards general proportion, not only is Doric majesty 
 acknowledged and valuably realised at Aegina, but it was 
 moreover already effected by studied adjustment of exact 
 numerical proportion; and much progress had been made 
 towards discovery of the appropriate terms and appropriate 
 directions for the application of the principle. I have illus- 
 trated this point in detail in an Appendix to Mr. Cockerell's 
 work. 
 
 The Doric column, as compared with the Ionic, is shorter 
 relatively to its diameter, thicker relatively to its interval, 
 and consequently lower relatively to its spacing ; but varies in 
 different examples in a sequence that tends directly to Ionic 
 proportion. A comparison of Doric examples among them- 
 selves in the last respect gives the following progressive con- 
 traction of arrangement on plan, and illustrates this is not 
 the place for more one application of the Greek theory of 
 architectural proportion : 
 
 At Corinth Height of Column = 2 Intercolumns + ij diameters of the column. 
 At Aegina = + 2 
 
 The Theseum at 1 , 
 
 Athens J " " 
 
 The Parthenon = +3 ' 
 
 In both the Aeginetan and Corinthian Doric columns the 
 upper and lower diameters of the shaft and that of the abacus 
 have the same relative proportions of low numbers, 3:4:5; 
 a sequence that occurs in like application in some Attic 
 examples, but in others, and especially the Parthenon, was 
 superseded by further refinements. The retention of like
 
 248 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 proportions between corresponding diameters in columns that 
 differed considerably in height introduced effects of delicate 
 variety. 
 
 Lastly, the architect of the temple at Aegina had as yet no 
 more than the school that carried on the art in the West, 
 appreciated the value of giving preponderance of height to 
 the vertical member, the column, relatively to the joint 
 height of the horizontals of the rest of the fa9ade. This 
 was a discovery still reserved for Attica, and the rational 
 vindication of it goes far into the principles that govern 
 architectural design of every style and age to the extent that 
 it approaches full perfection. It was at Athens first, at Athens 
 chiefly, that the principles of the appropriate application of 
 proportion to architecture were discovered and exemplified ; 
 principles that even so far as already recovered await intel- 
 ligent recognition. 
 
 Authentic evidence fails for instituting a comparison of the 
 entire coloured enrichment with that of the Parthenon ; for 
 little more can be advanced without risk of controversy than 
 that there also the stringcourses and mouldings that framed in 
 the pediment and frieze were painted with patterns. At Aegina 
 there is more sufficient proof of the colour applied to some 
 plain broad surfaces, with manifest crudity and as lingering 
 traditions from primitive usage of timber constructions. 
 
 The sculpture of the Aeginetan temple is so far in har- 
 mony with its architecture, that in hardness of forms and 
 expressions, as distinguished from unskilfulness or rudeness, 
 it retains much of traditional archaism, together with very 
 high merits that evince capacities and promise of advance 
 to any height of excellence. The various degrees of merit 
 that are found among the figures of these compositions, 
 attest an already established and still proceeding improve- 
 ment. We cannot do them full justice as compositions, in 
 consequence of many figures being lost from each, but for- 
 tunately enough remain to illustrate the principles of com-
 
 xvm.] ARCHAIC SCHOOLS OF SCULPTURE. 249 
 
 position that were adopted, as well as to display the feeling 
 that had been acquired for truthfulness to beauty in nature 
 and technical mastery. The original marbles are at Munich, 
 restored by Thorwaldsen, and so far with a misdirected in- 
 genuity that designedly obscures the distinction of new parts 
 and old. 
 
 The chief seats of sculpture in Greece at this time and 
 for long before, as for long afterwards were Aegina, Athens, 
 Argos, Sicyon. Each city may have had peculiarities of 
 school, but their artists are found working in concert, and 
 it would seem to follow, exercising lively reaction in style 
 and interchanging instruction. Synnoon and his son Ptoli- 
 chus of Aegina are pupils of a Sicyouian ; Simon of Aegina 
 works together with Dionysius of l Argos as Ageladas of 
 Argos works with the Sicyonians Canachus and Aristocles, 
 and has for scholars Myron and Pheidias, Athenians, as well 
 as Polycletus, an Argive like himself. 
 
 The early notices of Greek sculpture defy definite chrono- 
 logy ; allusions to particular artists are scant, confused, or 
 contradictory ; notices of their comparative styles are incon- 
 clusive. So many of the most distinguished Greeks, again, 
 lived and were active to very advanced age, that this may 
 well have been the case with many artists ; and we know 
 it is a commonplace in the history of arts how rapidly at 
 certain epochs an individual artist may advance in style, and 
 also how long after art generally has passed into a totally new 
 style one of the earlier innovators may continue, persevering 
 in a style at a date when, but for biography, it would be 
 unhesitatingly declared to have been long superseded. 
 
 Pausanias refers to Gallon of Aegina as representative of 
 the same archaic style of art as Canachus of 2 Sicyon ; and 
 Latin authors, as 3 Quintilian and 4 Cicero, apply to the works 
 of both the same terms ' hard ' and ' rigid.' 
 
 1 Pans, v 27. i. a Ib. vii. 1 8. 6. 
 
 :i Quint, xii. 10. * Brut, xviii. 70.
 
 250 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Of the style of Canachus we may form a certain notion, 
 from comparison of these terms with recognised copies of 
 his celebrated Apollo, which was carried off from Miletus by 
 the Persians, to be restored loug after by Seleucus. There 
 can be little doubt that it is more or less accurately repre- 
 sented on coins, and then by the small Payne Knight bronze 
 now in the British Museum. The date of the original 
 work has been somewhat hastily assumed by Brunn and 
 others as later than 479 B.C., on the assertion of both 
 Pausanias and Strabo that it was carried off by Xerxes. 
 But it surely is clear that all these authorities transfer to 
 Xerxes the earlier outrages of Darius, who by testimony of 
 1 Herodotus plundered and burnt the temple at Didyma, 
 and transferred captives from Miletus to Ampe on the 
 Tigris. Brunn, in his . History of Greek Artists, also con- 
 fuses lonians with Aeolians and Miletus with Miletopolis 
 in 2 Mysia. 
 
 This statue was colossal; another at Thebes, a repetition 
 of it in both magnitude and design, was of cedar. To Cana- 
 chus is also ascribed a seated temple statue of Aphrodite of 
 ivory and gold chryselephantine at Corinth ; a valuable 
 notice of the early date of this sumptuous form of art. 
 
 The Aeginetan artist Gallon, who ranked with this master, 
 could not have been unimportant. 
 
 Another Aeginetan, of whose very important works we 
 have abundant notices in Pausanias, though strangely enough 
 not a single mention of him occurs elsewhere, was Onatas ; 
 and here we obtain a certified date ; he was in full repu- 
 tation Ol. 78. 3 = 496 B.C., not long after which date one 
 of his works was dedicated by Deinomenes, son of Hiero, at 
 Olympia. He wrought, at least principally, in bronze, gods 
 and heroes and victors in the games ; and in the character- 
 isation of his works by Pausanias, we find the Aeginetans 
 
 1 Herod, vi. iy. ' Brunn, p. 76.
 
 xviii.] EARLY AEGINETAN ARTISTS. 251 
 
 indicated as usually more archaic, for all their merit, than 
 the archaic school of Attica. 
 
 A contemporary of Onatas was Glaucias of Aegina ; we 
 only read of his statues of Olympic victors; of Gelon with 
 his chariot ; of Theagenes the renowned athlete of Thasos, 
 victor in boxing, Ol. 75=480 B.C., the year of Salamis, and 
 as Pancratiast in the following Olympiad ; and of Glaucus 
 of Carystus, whom he represented characteristically, in the 
 attitude of that sciamachy sparring in which he pecu- 
 liarly excelled. 
 
 The material of all the Aeginetan sculpture of which we 
 have literary record is metal, chiefly bronze ; it was perhaps 
 with a certain symbolical intention that the colossal Zeus 
 ten cubits high, erected at Plataea by the Hellenes collec- 
 tively, and work of an Aeginetan, Anaxagoras, not otherwise 
 known was formed of ' iron. The recovered sculptures of 
 the Aeginetan pediments, although of marble, seem to follow 
 a precedent or conform to a taste established by familiar use 
 of bronze. Each figure stands freely on its legs, with no 
 obligation for support to stump or attached drapery, or other 
 of the usual contrivances in marble sculpture for securing 
 against collapse by proper weight. The comparatively small 
 scale of the figures of course renders this more easy, but still 
 the feat is remarkable ; each figure rested upon its plinth, 
 that was let into the cornice and run with lead, and except 
 for some ornamental adjuncts to helmets, was formed from 
 a single piece of marble, even to the shield that in some 
 parts did not exceed three-quarters of an inch in thickness. 
 The parts of the figures that, as turned towards the tympa- 
 num, must have been always invisible from below, are finished 
 with all the scrupulous care that was bestowed on the fronts. 
 
 The subject of one composition certainly, and probably of 
 both, was a combat for possession of a slain warrior. Athene 
 
 1 Paus. v. 23. i.
 
 252 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 stands upright in the centre, represented with only a quali- 
 fication of the formality that might pertain to her archaic 
 statue, but still with so much as to vindicate her interest, 
 indeed protective interference, in the fight. This point is some- 
 what obscured by misarrangement of the grouped casts in the 
 British Museum ; the feet of the goddess ought to protrude 
 below the knees of the prostrate warrior who lay further to 
 her right. The angles are occupied by extended wounded 
 figures, of which the correspondence is heightened into a 
 blunt and over-formal antithesis; the remoter arm is bent 
 in one case, extended in the other ; the remoter leg crosses 
 over the nearer in one case, in the other is behind. Then 
 follows on either side a triplet of figures, a kneeling archer 
 in each group behind an advancing protagonist and with 
 a kneeling spearman behind him. Here contrast is chiefly 
 entrusted to some difference of costume in the archers, and 
 then to the variety that is given by the shield arms being 
 necessarily next to the tympanum on one side, and the spear 
 arm on the other. The most marked contrast of all ensues 
 between the figures that answer indeed as figure for figure 
 on either side of the goddess, but are as different as the 
 prostrate in death from the enemy who crouches forward to' 
 seize and drag him away. 
 
 In such arrangement there is recognition of the symmetry 
 appropriate for sculpture that is to be associated with 
 strictly symmetrical architecture ; but at best there is only 
 a commencing break into that bolder rhythmical distribu- 
 tion that can balance group by group, of which both the 
 elements and arrangement are contrasted, as exemplified 
 beyond all rivalry in the pediments of the Parthenon. 
 
 The drapery of the Athene is stiff and formal, and none 
 appears elsewhere to relieve the nude ; it is much if we may 
 say that there is a poor substitution attempted by interposing 
 on either side the more entirely, and closely covered and 
 accoutred archers.
 
 xviii.] THE SCULPTURES OF AEGINA. 253 
 
 Archaic formality is retained in the stiffly curled hair and 
 set smile of the combatants, even of the dying, even of the 
 spectatress goddess. One fashion however does but preserve 
 the Doric custom of a toilette of battle, as exemplified by 
 the Spartans preparing for battle at Thermopylae ; and Homer 
 ascribes such a smile to Aeginetan Ajax at the very crisis 
 of combat : 
 
 Tofo* dp' Alas wpro nfXa/ptos ep/cos 'f 
 WldStoajv @\offvpoi(n npoawira.ai' vtpOt St noaalv 
 "Hi'e [*a/<pcL <)3ds, Kpatideav 
 
 If colour was crude on the architecture, it was still more 
 so on the sculpture, where armour and eyes and lips and 
 wounds were certainly painted, as well as probably emblems 
 on the shields. 
 
 The subject of the best preserved pediment is, I do not 
 doubt, the contest over the body, not of Patroclus, but 
 of Achilles himself, the rescue of which was the great glory 
 of the Aeacid Ajax. Hector with Paris as an archer and a 
 characteristic figure, are then recognised on one side, as Ajax 
 and his constant comrade Teucer, and perhaps Ulysses, on 
 the other. The kneeling Hercules of the other pediment, an 
 archer as he is described in the Odyssey, gives sufficient assur- 
 ance that its subject was that earlier contest with Trojans in 
 which Telamon, as ally of Alcides, gained his bride Hesione ; 
 a second glorification of heroes of Aegina whom Pindar lauds 
 as unfailingly in every Aeginetan ode, and in victorious con- 
 flict in the wars against Asia, of which Herodotus himself 
 regards that with Xerxes as a continuation. 
 
 The contrast of these works to the Pheidian pediments 
 may not be greater than was that of a drama of Phrynichus 
 with one of Sophocles ; certain in any case it is that very 
 decisive archaism clung obstinately to the art. An example of 
 how it could defend its ground is seen in a bas-relief found 
 at Eleusis, where on the very same slab one figure of a group 
 1 II tad, vii. 211.
 
 254 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 is in the later, another, for no discoverable reason, in the 
 style that was all but obsolete. 
 
 The notice which has been already quoted of the statue 
 of Glaucus in the attitude of 'sparring,' by Glaucias of 
 Aegina, may be regarded as a link in history which connects 
 Aeginetan art with that of Pythagoras of Rhegium and 
 Myron of Attica, who are both celebrated as breaking 
 through ancient rigour more or less completely, and at the 
 same time venturing boldly upon characteristic dramatic 
 attitudes and gestures. The art of the Italian colony was 
 at this time capable of holding its own in competition with 
 Attic, for Pythagoras was held to have surpassed Myron 
 in a figure of a Pancratiast at * Delphi. Particularly cele- 
 brated was his statue at Syracuse of a figure painfully 
 limping from the suffering caused by an ulcer, as I have 
 elsewhere inferred, a Philoctetes ; a group of great interest 
 was ascribed to him of the Theban brothers, Eteocles and 
 Polynices, dying by mutual blows. 
 
 Myron was of Eleutherae in Attica, a town on the road 
 to Boeotia, a hint that criticism has sometimes too eagerly 
 seized on to impute to his art Boeotian characteristics that 
 would not otherwise be suspected. A vast number of his. 
 works are on record, from single and associated figures of 
 animals as well as of men and gods, in bronze, and some 
 colossal, to modelling and chasings in silver. Like his rival, 
 he is one of the artists who are signalised by innovations in art 
 together with retention of considerable archaism. By rare 
 good fortune we have certain representations of some of his 
 works, which are sufficient to avouch that, like Pythagoras, 
 he was studious of ' rhythm and symmetry,' in other words, 
 when sculpture is in question, of proportion and composition. 
 The daring attitude of his Discobolus, who bends down and 
 forwards and sideways preparatory to the delivery of his cast, 
 
 1 Plin. II. N. xxxiv. 59.
 
 xvm.] PYTHAGORAS AND MYRON. 255 
 
 is described with admiration by the ancients, and is reflected 
 for us in various copies and repetitions, one is in the British 
 Museum, which however differ too much among themselves 
 for us to accept any one as an exact reproduction. His 
 exhausted foot-racer, Ladas, represented as just winning, but 
 winning only at the expense of his last breath, was almost 
 equally celebrated. A figure in the Lateran Museum has 
 been recognised with great plausibility as representing 
 Marsyas, from his group of the Satyr in an attitude of 
 astonishment at Athene as she flung away the pipes that 
 he was to take up to be his bane. It is difficult to resist 
 an impression, on regarding this statue, that Pheidias was 
 under the same obligation to the original for the Poseidon 
 of his west pediment of the Parthenon, that Michael Angelo 
 did not disdain to owe to the Christ of Orcagna for the 
 central figure in his Last Judgment. 
 
 How far and in what manner Ageladas of Argos showed 
 the way by his own productions to the marvellous advances 
 that were made by those who are assigned to him as scholars, 
 we cannot say. Not a few of his works are recorded, but 
 unfortunately in no instance with a characterisation of style. 
 It is significant however that it is not to himself but to his 
 scholar Myron that so much merit is assigned for a decisive 
 break with archaism, from which Pheidias and Polycletus 
 were entirely emancipated. How defective are the materials 
 for a history of early art appears in the fact that we have not 
 a single notice of that grand transition in the treatment of 
 drapery which was equivalent in itself to a revolution in art. 
 Apart from this the glory must be assigned to Myron and 
 his competitors of occupying in ancient art the position of 
 the Masaccios and Mantegnas in the history of modern 
 painting. 
 
 Two Athenian artists, Critics and Nesiotes, in 1 48o B.C. 
 
 1 Mann. Par.
 
 256 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 made statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton in substitution 
 of those which were carried off by l Xerxes three years pre- 
 viously. Some records of this group have been traced on 
 coins and vases, and, it is believed, even copies in sculpture. 
 By comparison of these it is still possible to appreciate the 
 skill with which the figures of the two youths rushing forward 
 together to an attack were so composed as to display the 
 action of both in effective combination from whichever side 
 they were regarded. 
 
 1 Paus. i. 8. 5; Lucian, Phllops. 18.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A DECADE OF POLITICAL AND PAKTY DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 FROM 476 down to 466 B. c. the page of Greek history 
 presents what may seem to be a happy blank. No collisions 
 with Persia are set down within this period, and not even 
 any considerable dissensions among 1 the Greeks themselves. 
 It might be supposed that they were now enjoying the un- 
 mixed rewards of patriotic exertions and free co-operation, 
 devoting themselves entirely to the reconstruction of their 
 industries, the celebration of their festivals, the production 
 and dedication of the numerous and elaborate works of art by 
 which they commemorated their deliverance and acknow- 
 ledged their gratitude to the gods for glory, for safety, and 
 for wealth. Political feelings however, we may be sure, were 
 not in suspended animation during this interval, nor could 
 significant political events, however comparatively sparse and 
 unobtrusive, be wanting ; but historians neglected the tame- 
 ness of the time to dissert in preference on the broader and 
 more startling effects of Persian or Peloponnesian war, or 
 were diverted to fill up what seemed a gap by annals of 
 opportunely livelier events in the colonial West. Sicily and 
 lower Italy supplied some highly exciting incidents, tales of 
 the courts of Hiero and Theron, the important naval victory 
 gained by Hiero over Etruscans in the Bay of Cumae in 
 474 B.C., and the crushing defeat of the Dorians of Tarentum 
 by the lapygians 473 B.C., with its consequent supplanting of 
 Tarentiue oligarchy by a democracy. 
 
 Deserted thus by the detailed guidance that we could wish 
 
 s
 
 258 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 for in central Greece, we are left to interpret a few general 
 notices as best we may, and so elicit explanation of what 
 contrasts are discoverable between the situation of affairs' at 
 the opening- of the period and at its conclusion. 
 
 Important changes, it is certain, were gradually super- 
 vening throughout this period in the relations of Athens, not 
 only to Sparta and the Peloponnesian states, but also to her 
 own confederates in the alliance assumed as still subsisting for 
 active prosecution of hostilities against the Persian. And it 
 was impossible that differences of opinion as to the policy 
 dictated by such changes or inducing them, should not be 
 very decided at Athens itself, where the control of public 
 affairs on this extended scale offered so tempting a prize to 
 the ambitious. The value of party combination for the com- 
 passing of political power was no new discovery at Athens, 
 and the leaders of party, now that Aristides, probably through 
 age, had comparatively retired, were recognised distinctly 
 enough in Themistocles and Cimon. By the circumstances of 
 the time a large measure of popular support was enjoyed by 
 either. Themistocles, as creator of the fleet with its fortified 
 arsenal at the Piraeus, and leader in its prime glory at 
 Salamis, was the proper representative of the new democracy; 
 while Cimon, though more immediately allied with the aristo- 
 cracy, had no slight popular hold, in some degree from the 
 memory of his father Miltiades, still more from his own 
 considerable achievements, and also from the open and liberal 
 manners that are never so appreciated, even in the most 
 resolute democracy, as from a born aristocrat. Influential 
 members again of the Eupatrids of that aristocracy of de- 
 scent which comprised some who were devoted to all that was 
 desperately oligarchical, not to say tyrannical in aspiration 
 were the Alcmaeonids, who knew well how to avail them- 
 selves of the connection for the sake of aid from those of less 
 flexible principles than themselves, but had ever in view to 
 effectuate a compromise at a favourable time, and so to
 
 xix.] GRADUAL SUBORDINATION OF ALLIES. 259 
 
 acquire the guidance which by management might become 
 equivalent to the masteiy of the democracy. Of such a 
 section Cimon would naturally receive the support, but only 
 until it produced from itself a rival and a competitor. 
 
 On the great question of the treatment of the allies, there 
 can be little doubt that Themistocles was disposed to carry 
 matters with a high hand, and to forego no opportunity of 
 making the leadership of Athens stringently imperative. 
 Whether the synod of representatives met regularly and 
 debated and voted at Delos or not, would not much alter the 
 case ; the preponderance of Athens would enable her easily to 
 rule every discussion, every decision. It was therefore a con- 
 sequence in the nature of things that however, as time went 
 on, alarm at the urgency of danger from Persia might decline, 
 there was decided indisposition to admit of any question as to 
 reduction in the assessed contributions or of the rigour with 
 which they were levied. Already even while apprehension 
 was still subsisting, the same difference in respect of energy 
 and organisation that had appeared in the resistances offered 
 by Ionia and by Athens when they were tried independently, 
 had begun to tell in a manner that encouraged Athenian 
 pretensions. Already before any thought came into ques- 
 tion on the part of the allied cities of repudiating continued 
 assessment, there was a declared preference among many of 
 them to compound for exemption from personal service, to 
 furnish ships rather than their quota of men, or with still 
 more alacrity to substitute both for men and ships a contri- 
 bution in money. The Athenian population, on the other 
 hand, had fairly taken to the sea to public service afloat that 
 involved remote voyages and renunciation or suspense of 
 private occupation, and the policy of its leaders gave them 
 every encouragement in this direction. Arrangements for 
 money compositions therefore, which went to supply liberal 
 pay to Athenian crews and to fit out Athenian vessels, were 
 readily accepted. The efficiency of a war trireme depended, 
 
 S 2
 
 260 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 from the tactics that were applicable, on discipline and train- 
 ing that were not speedily acquired, and so by degrees Athens 
 became, by the habits of her population as well as the numbers 
 of her ships, not so much the preponderant as the sole naval 
 power of the Aegean. Only the larger islands of Lesbos, 
 Chios, and Samos remained in the distinct condition of pro- 
 perly autonomous allies, and still kept up war fleets, though 
 comparatively inconsiderable. 
 
 The affection however for positive autonomy in even very 
 small Greek cities was so much a part of Greek nature, that 
 the sense of subordination which qualified the relief obtained by 
 such compositions could not before very long be otherwise 
 than galling. Nor were the Athenians disposed either to 
 indulgence or tenderness in administration; they had the 
 consciousness, and did not care to conceal it, of possessing 
 qualities themselves that were proper to a superior and 
 governing race ; they assumed the tone and independence of 
 command, and took slight care to mask the fact that their 
 nominal allies were rapidly declining into the condition of 
 subjects. It is only at the conclusion of the period we are 
 now concerned with that we have notice of hostile collisions 
 induced by these growing discontents ; but the expressions of 
 Thucydides seem to authorise the l inference that outbursts of 
 contumacy were early as well as frequent, and had been 
 followed up by Athens, in instances that have escaped par- 
 ticular record, with a severity that left the offenders thereafter 
 in a perfectly different relative position. 
 
 All this implies the constant exercise and cruising of the 
 Athenian fleet, quite apart from special expeditions. In such 
 operations Themistocles was at home ; and the notice occurs, 
 among examples of his ostentation of ability and distinction, 
 how on one occasion of assuming command he put off the 
 settlement of all his matters of business, private as well as 
 
 1 Thuc. i. 99.
 
 xix.] AUTONOMY IN RELATION TO EMPIRE. 261 
 
 public, for the sake of the display of his multifarious concerns 
 and facility of despatch, on the very day of l embarcation. 
 The ambitious views which he entertained for the city that he 
 had re-created were without limit; and his faculty of poli- 
 tical insight, so celebrated by Thucydides, gave him clearest 
 perceptions of the openings that would conduct its present 
 largely extended power most directly to the limitless beyond. 
 The position that Persia seemed to be rapidly forfeiting, of a 
 vigorously organised and overwhelming empire, left a vacancy 
 for a successor who could profit by the opportunity and by 
 the examples of her glory and her decline. But for a Greek 
 state to be her successor or rival, the relations of the 
 states of Hellas could not be unchanged. The first diffi- 
 culty and the last in the way of the largest organisation, was 
 the inveterate Hellenic tendency to mere municipal, or at 
 best cantonal independencies, asserting for themselves the 
 right of war and peace, of exclusive treaties and legislation. 
 To the disorders that ensued it is due that even Herodotus 
 refers to the conquests of Ionia by the Persians with a cer- 
 tain sense of relief as pacifications pacifications, that is,- of 
 the very internal feuds and quarrels that had disabled them 
 from uniting for effective self-protection. Hellas no doubt 
 could not have been what it was, have done what it had done, 
 but for the spirit of individuality of which this tendency was 
 an outgrowth ; but its difficulties, always great, were rapidly 
 becoming inconsistent with the necessities of changed times, 
 and the true problem of politics was how to carry over the 
 best of its advantages ; the Athenian could discern that the 
 option lay between succeeding to empire or succumbing to it. 
 For such a succession the irresistible predominance of a central 
 power was a condition, and thus direct constraint or the 
 threat of it, its equivalent, was applied without remorse to the 
 minor allies, who might show impatience at demands upon 
 
 1 Plut. TJiemist.
 
 262 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CUAP. 
 
 their active services or even payments in composition. Im- 
 patience could not but spring up under such conditions among 
 communities of which the restricted limits admitted of no 
 interests so important as local distinction, local festivals and 
 festivities, and the pursuit of wealth; while they fostered 
 narrow-mindedness that would require danger to be very 
 close to them indeed such in all ages is the story of small 
 confederate republics before it roused them thoroughly, and 
 to continue very close to them if they were to remain for 
 long united and alert. 
 
 In the more important communities, such as Thebes or 
 Samos, the hold of Athens upon loyalty to alliance was 
 largely or chiefly dependent on the security given by her 
 alliance to the possession of power by the democratical party. 
 A firmly-planted democracy constituted an Athenian garrison, 
 an Athenian outpost. 
 
 Against what an opposition such a party had to strengthen 
 itself at Samos, where aristocrat ical traditions maintained 
 themselves, as at Athens, by certain traditions of the pomps 
 and indulgences of a tyranny of the court 6f Polycrates is 
 evidenced by the convulsions that ultimately led to its over- 
 throw and a very serious revolt. There is then nothing that 
 should surprise us in the fullest sympathy and co-operation of 
 democratic Samians in power with the Athenian policy, and 
 even to the extent of being the proposers of the removal of 
 the treasury of the confederation, and with it, as of course, the 
 synod, from Delos to ' Athens. The accumulation of the fund 
 after a few years might well seem to demand that a protec- 
 tion of the strongest walls should be superadded to that of 
 sanctity ; Athens, as collector and disburser of the fund, 
 could make as many difficulties and inflict as much incon- 
 venience as she chose, while appearing, if she cared to be 
 at the trouble, to be quite satisfied with the first arrange- 
 ment, which was now finally superseded. 
 1 Plut. Arutidet, 25.
 
 xix.] THE TREASURY REMOVED TO ATHENS. 263 
 
 Some more ancient authority is no doubt represented by 
 Justin when he dates this l transference several years later, 
 after the dangerous sympathy of Sparta with the revolt of 
 Thasos. But it is certain that the depth and designs of this 
 sympathy remained secret for a year or two at least ; the 
 meditated invasion of Attica on that occasion by the Lace- 
 daemonians, avouched by Thucydides, was secret at the time, 
 and not notorious enough to prevent the friendly aid of 
 Cimon's expedition to Ithome soon after. Where one authority 
 must needs be sacrificed, I adopt in preference the record of 
 Plutarch ; there is a confirmatory sentence in Deinarchus that 
 Aristides in this case, as in the extension of the democracy, 
 assented to and even promoted a measure which in itself bears 
 a certain resemblance to the less scrupulous policy of Themis- 
 tocles. The transference however may easily have had full 
 and manifest justification; and that it was passed over so 
 slightly by the historians, rather implies its adoption with 
 a facility that is in accordance with the universal confidence 
 in Aristides ; its consequence however could not but have 
 been even more important morally than materially, as con- 
 clusively expressing the sanctioned right of Athens to ex- 
 tended metropolitan control. 
 
 It is impossible not to be struck with the abstention during 
 all these years from any offensive operations against Persia, 
 of sufficient importance to enforce an historical allusion ; this 
 may well have been due on the one hand to the retirement of 
 the Persians from collisions which had so little prospered, and 
 to the comparative insignificance, whatever their number, of 
 those that might have taken place in restoring the independ- 
 ence of minor cities and territories; but indications are not 
 wanting that it was chiefly because Athens was now more 
 immediately concerned in extending, or preparing to extend, 
 her influence within the limits of Hellas. There is a tale in 
 
 1 Just. iii. 6.
 
 264 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Plutarch to which we have already adverted, inadmissible as 
 literally told, but which cannot but be noticed once again, as 
 involving elements which, however disarranged, are very dis- 
 tinctly in general harmony with the situation. Themistocles, 
 it is said, conceived a scheme for assuring the supremacy of 
 the Athenians by burning the Hellenic fleet when it was 
 stationed for the winter at Pagasae after the retreat of 
 1 Xerxes, or generally to burn the Greek naval 2 station. 
 That the story was current in more forms than one is proved 
 by a version of the project quoted by Cicero as referring to 
 Gythium, the port of the Lacedaemonians, and which was 
 destined to be burnt by Tolmides at later date ; all accounts 
 agree that the opposition of Aristides was fatal to its enter- 
 tainment. Through this haze and confusion we at least may 
 be justified in discerning that Themistocles, who had laid out 
 the walls of Athens so as to defy the land force of the 
 Spartans, was prepared to put aside every scruple, should 
 opportunity occur, to render the formation of a rival Hellenic 
 fleet, especially by Sparta, an impossibility. Even less than 
 the infallible faculty of divination that is ascribed to Themis- 
 tocles, would apprise him that rivalry alone, still more when 
 necessarily compounded with jealous apprehension, must sooner 
 or later bring on a conflict to prove which of the two powers, 
 Athenian or Spartan, Dorian or Ionian, was not merely to 
 have superior control in Greece, but to positively check and 
 overbear the other. That he was even prepared to take the 
 issue at once, in his own time and the earlier the better, may 
 not be too much to infer when we have followed his career to 
 its catastrophe. 
 
 This conflict then, for better or worse, was deferred ; but in 
 the meantime the influence of Athens might assert a still 
 wider range, and with Themistocles again are connected some 
 hints that her views were already directed westward across 
 
 J Pint. Thcmitt. ao. Ib Arisiid. 21.
 
 xix.] DORIAN ALLIANCE PRECARIOUS. 265 
 
 the Ionian sea, to Italy at least. When Cimon, his political 
 opponent, expressed the contrasted direction of his sympathies 
 by naming- his sons Thessalus, Eleus, and Lacedaemonius, it 
 cannot have been without meaning that Themistocles, after 
 adopting- such self-asserting- names for other children as 
 Archeptolis, Cleophantus, and Nicomache, named two other 
 daug-hters Italia and Sybaris; as the daughter of his exile 
 afterwards was named by him Asia. The colony to Thurium, 
 which dates under the administration of Pericles, would thus 
 be a fulfilment of his earlier abortive but definite project. 
 
 We are without information as to the precise relation to 
 Athens of those states which, having a certain dependence 
 upon her rather than on Sparta, were yet not members of the 
 Delian confederation. In this position was Thebes, where 
 democracy had been installed after the suppression of Medism; 
 and the other Boeotian towns, which the same change had re- 
 leased from Theban control, however much of Athenian, on 
 whatever terms, may have taken its place. The same remark 
 applies to Phocis in a qualified degree, and more positively to 
 Locris, the Medism of which would afford pretext for any 
 amount of interference. It is highly probable that a certain 
 command was obtained by Athens, through her present posi- 
 tion in relation to these regions, over the northern ports on 
 the Corinthian gulf, the ancient outlet of colonising lonians 
 to Sicily, Italy, and the intermediate islands. The lonians of 
 Achaia on the opposite side of the gulf were either brought 
 under Athenian control, or, which is much the same thing, 
 accepted the Athenian alliance at a later date ; but this event, 
 like the interference with the Spartan control of Delphi, seems 
 only to have given form and reality to foregone projects for 
 broadening the basis of Athenian power, which in their mere 
 existence as projects had a reality of their own, and which, 
 when they came to be surmised by the rival or the enemy, 
 had certain very serious consequences forthwith. 
 
 The policy of Themistocles to found the influence of Athens
 
 266 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 above all things on a predominant navy, and to divert to its 
 formation, and to the ports and arsenals which it required, the 
 chief resources of the State, was carried in the first instance, 
 as we have seen, against the opposition of a party which urged 
 the advantage and necessity of reliance on a land force. A 
 union of the two might indeed well seem indispensable for 
 the support of the vast project which was now more or less 
 avowedly and which, it is certain, was consciously, entertained. 
 It was by -co-operation of an army and a navy that Persia 
 had subjugated Ionia, its coast cities and the islands ; it was 
 by like concurrent action alone that the liberation commenced 
 in the Saronic gulf had been completed on the slopes of 
 Cithaeron. It was for want of a powerfully co-operating 
 land-force that the liberation of the Greeks of Asia could not 
 penetrate beyond the very fringe of the sea-coast; and if 
 Athens in the pursuit of her designs had to lay her account 
 with the possibility of a collision with Sparta, the want of a 
 countervailing heavy-armed force involved the surrender of 
 the open country of Attica to plunder and devastation. 
 
 A remnant of the old party, ever ready to take a chance for 
 reviving its fixed idea, might proudly vindicate the ability of 
 the Athenian hoplites to cope with the redoubted Spartans in 
 open field ; the less audacious might still be sanguine that the 
 support of a cavalry force would at least make the balance 
 even. When we weigh the impression however of the repu- 
 tation and achievements of the Dorian hoplites, it becomes 
 quite intelligible that a politician like Cimon should patrioti- 
 cally and in all sincerity hold at last, that while Athens was 
 bound to do her best to maintain an efficient land-force 
 a force as efficient as possible her great necessity still, 
 whether as operating against Persia or as hoping to continue 
 undisturbed at home, was to persevere in a frank and cordial 
 alliance with Sparta. Thus would the power of Hellas be a 
 truly perfect organism, and ' limp neither on one leg nor the 
 other.' So might the action against Persia go on with fullest
 
 xix.] CONDITIONS OF THE DEMOCRATIC EMPIRE. 267 
 
 effect in expeditions both lucrative and glorious, for which 
 there were still abundant opportunities ; while at home the 
 recognised obligation to retain the sympathies of Sparta by 
 deference to her principles, could not but operate to check the 
 constant encroachments of democracy. 
 
 There is much in this of 'honest general thought and 
 common good of all' the Hellenic family; but there was 
 little that Themistocles would not denounce as obsolete, or 
 deride as a dream. Athens was committed by circumstances^ 
 first, and then by all the inducements of honour and of 
 revenue, to a new career, and must make the most of it ; must 
 do her best no doubt to maintain power by land, but would 
 assuredly have to rely at last upon the navy, and might safely 
 do so, if this were only so maintained as to be crushingly 
 preponderant. 
 
 It is difficult to say that this may not have been the only 
 course that was now open to Athens, albeit involving of 
 necessity a primary defect that was liable to become more and 
 more perilous as events moved on. As the wealth and popu- 
 lation of Athens and Attica increased, the theory of Themis- 
 tocles, that the Athenians must look to their fortified port as 
 their refuge as well as the basis of their power, could only be 
 held to in virtue of a capital modification, the connection of 
 the city with the Piraeus by the long walls which in a few 
 years were to unite the earlier and later city into a single vast 
 stronghold upon the sea. By whomsoever this extension of 
 the original plan was first proposed, it was cordially adopted, 
 as we shall see, with all its implications by Pericles ; upon this 
 he based his confidence that when Lacedaemonian opposition 
 broke out into the violence which no politician believed 
 could be postponed indefinitely, Athenian activity and power 
 would make short work in rendering an account of it; how 
 his hopes were falsified in result, and mainly through the 
 catastrophe of the pestilence that decimated the over-crowded 
 city, is the moral of the story that we read in Thucydides.
 
 268 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 The policy therefore which the Athenian demus accepted with 
 all its sacrifices for the maintenance of empire, in deference 
 to the arguments and eloquence of Pericles, was the ulti- 
 mate and most resolute application of the conceptions of 
 Themistocles.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE POLITICAL AND POETICAL SCOPE OF THE PERSAE OF 
 AESCHYLUS. 
 
 IT was in the archonship of Menon, 473-472 B.C., when 
 these contrasted policies were hardening 1 into form and ripen- 
 ing for conflict, that Aeschylus produced his play of the Persae. 
 In subject it was at least the same, and it was said to have 
 some correspondence in detail, with the Phoenissae of Phryni- 
 chus, which had subserved the glorification of Themistocles 
 only four years earlier. The story of Salamis could scarcely 
 be 'presented again with enhanced dramatic force without 
 again telling to the same effect, albeit the name of Themistocles 
 is suppressed throughout, and no lines can be detected as in- 
 troduced to give occasion for a spontaneous outburst of recog- 
 nition, as little as any that tend to extenuate his merits by a 
 cavil. A more direct allusion is sometimes said to be made to 
 Aristides in the description of the exploit at the island 
 Psyttaleia ; but this was only an episode ; even so the name 
 of the commander is suppressed, and the poet is deferential 
 throughout to the jealousies of a sovereign people, who could 
 not endure that the victory of Marathon should be especially 
 connected with the name of Miltiades, or that the very in- 
 scriptions, by which as an unusual honour they commemorated 
 the highly valued successes and conquests of Cimon in Thrace, 
 should include his name. 
 
 The notion is at the same time too absurd to controvert, 
 though not to have been stated or adopted, that Aeschylus 
 in dramatising the story of Salamis, and insisting expressly
 
 270 IIISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 on the happy stratagem that determined Xerxes to engage, 
 had in view to derogate from the merits of the Athenian 
 commander, who was notoriously the author of the stratagem, 
 and in favour of Cimon, whose name never positively occurs 
 in connection with the battle at all. 
 
 The Persae was one play associated in a tetralogy with 
 three others, of which we fortunately have the titles, though 
 only scantiest fragments ; and I have now to show that it is 
 possible to recover such a drift pervading the four, as vindicates 
 for Aeschylus the merit, which Aristophanes asserts as proper 
 to the tragic poets, of being as much the political as the moral 
 monitors of their l countrymen. A poet who addressed a 
 serious play to such an audience as the Athenian, that came 
 to the theatre thrilling with all the agitated and suspended 
 interests of the politics of the time, could scarcely hope to 
 retain attention unless he so chose his theme and treated it, 
 as to affect however covertly whatever sympathies were likely 
 at the time to be most alert and sensitive ; he walked amongst 
 the hot embers of political passion, and his gait and deviations 
 were of necessity not uninfluenced. It was not only that 
 he w r as concerned to touch their very deepest sensibilities, but 
 that these could not be approached at random or with uncon*- 
 sidered directness ; according to circumstances they might for 
 the time be utterly callous to one stimulus, while susceptible, 
 as Phrynichus had found, to exasperation in another. Dis- 
 tinct allusions to current or even recent politics no doubt 
 appear henceforward resigned to the less dignified handling 
 of the comic poets, but even so the sense of a present or 
 impending crisis can be recognised in many cases as con- 
 trolling the treatment of a tragic theme. 
 
 At the present time, to the stimulus of home politics was 
 added an especial revival of self-consciousness of achievements 
 against the barbarian, from the fame of another naval victory 
 
 1 Arititoph. Ran.
 
 xx.] THE TETRALOGY OF THE PERSAE. 271 
 
 over other barbarians at the western extremity of Hellas, 
 achieved by Hiero of Syracuse. His aid had been solicited by 
 envoys from Cumae, which was threatened by the Etruscans. 
 He appears to have embarked himself, though suffering 1 at the 
 time from a painful disorder, engaged the hostile fleet in the 
 noble bay within sight of the Phlegraean fields, and inflicted 
 a total defeat. An iron helmet inscribed as his dedication at 
 Olympia from the spoils is now in -the British Museum. In 
 the same year he gained a chariot victory in the Pythian 
 games ; and the ode one of his noblest in which Pindar 
 celebrates l this, celebrates proudly the warlike achievement 
 also, reverts to his earlier victory at Himera over the 
 Phoenician, the Carthaginian barbarian, and associates the 
 rescue of Hellas here from impending slavery, with the 
 Athenian claim to Hellenic gratitude at Salami's and the 
 victory at Plataea, the conquest of the Dorian spear, below 
 Cithaeron. 
 
 The occasion was most apt for reviving at Athens the 
 memories that Athens most delighted in, and events that had 
 so many bearings on the actually impending problems of the 
 day. The complete analysis of the play, and of the tetralogy, in 
 reference to these is the subject of a special dissertation, which 
 cannot be inserted here ; but the results of the enquiry may 
 be given ; it has convinced me that the poet wrote in no party 
 temper, but as directing enthusiasm in the purest spirit of 
 patriotism to the maintenance of Ionian and Dorian alliance 
 (homai':hmia\ at the same time that he furthered domestic 
 harmony by bringing to mind the services of the politician 
 by whom this alliance might seem to be in most danger of 
 being jeopardised. 
 
 The play of the Persae, then, with the account of Salamis, was 
 introduced by the ' Phineus,' and this referred to the previous 
 and preliminary trial of Athenian strength with the Persian 
 
 1 Pijtli. i ; cf. Pyth. 3, and Hyporch. frag. i. 3.
 
 272 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 at Artemisium, and it was followed by the ' Glaucus of Potniae,' 
 a mythical subject again, but so treated as to bear immediately 
 on the decisive victory of Plataea, that is foretold in the Persae 
 by the shade of Darius. This assertion with respect to the 
 ' Phineus ' is proved by comparison of the tenor of his mythus 
 with the story of Artemisium as told by Herodotus. Phineus, 
 the blind king of Salmydessus in Thrace, is the son-in-law of 
 Boreas, the north wind, and of the Athenian nymph 
 Oreithyia, whom Boreas carried off from the scene so cele- 
 brated from Plato's description and comments in the Phaedrus. 
 Victim of the foul and violent harpies, he is rescued by the 
 winged sons of Boreas, Zetes and Calais, who drive away his 
 tormentors, pursuing them through the air. Now it was to 
 the same agencies to the happy interferences of Boreas, 
 the north wind, and on the same ground of relationship 
 that the Athenians owned their obligation for the discomfiture 
 of the Persian fleet off the coast of Magnesia and the head- 
 land of Artemisium. They averred that they had been bidden 
 by an oracle to invoke the aid of their son-in-law Boreas, who 
 responded with such vehement effect accordingly. How more 
 exactly and pointedly the two stories might be brought 
 together by the poet it were easy to conjecture ; but records 
 fail, and having now recovered for the first time the leading 
 import of the drama, we may be better contented to remain 
 in inevitable ignorance of the rest. 
 
 It is much the same with the ' Glaucus of Potniae.' The 
 German critics, to whom we owe so much, have hitherto essayed 
 to help themselves in their difficulties here by substituting, 
 with perfect arbitrariness, another recorded play of Aeschylus, 
 the ' Glaucus Pontieus,' and so have contrived an argument that 
 after all is anything but conspicuously plausible. The story 
 of Glaucus of Potniae is very variously told indeed. He ap- 
 pears sometimes as himself a daemon, Taraxippus, a ' causer of 
 horse-shying,' sometimes as a hero overthrown by such accident 
 in a chariot race, and for what impious offence is doubtful
 
 xx.] CONNECTION OF THE PLAYS. 273 
 
 torn to pieces by his horses maddened by having been watered 
 at a spring- at Potniae. Now the Potniae of this mythus 
 may be said to be on the very battle-field of Plataea ; it was 
 passed by the periegetes Pausanias on his way from that city 
 at about ten stadia from Thebes, the actual ground occupied 
 by the Persian army and passed over by the pursuing Greeks. 
 The great services of the Athenians in these encounters were 
 against the Persian cavalry, which previous to the battle had 
 choked and ruined the we may safely assume sacred fount 
 Gargaphia; and it is at least easy to see how the fate of 
 Masistius and Mardonius on their Nisaean chargers and the 
 rout and carnage of the mounted Immortals may have been 
 brought into connection with interference or desecration at 
 the maddening waters of Potniae close to their encampment. 
 
 These combinations are clinched by the peculiar pertinence 
 of the concluding Satyric play the ' Prometheus, the Fire- 
 lighter or Fire-bringer.' The advent of the element which is 
 the type as the cause of all gladness, and purity, and health, 
 might happily symbolise the restoration of Hellas after the 
 dispersion of the dark barbarian cloud. It had a further 
 specific appropriateness from the formal and ceremonious 
 renewal of pure fire from Delphi, after the Persian evacuation 
 and preparatory to the sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherius. 
 
 When we look over the single play of the trilogy that is 
 preserved in its entirety, we find very distinct characterisation 
 of the Asiatic lonians and the European Greeks, especially the 
 Dorians, and the Persians. There is then a very marked con- 
 trast effected between Xerxes as the youthful, over-confident, 
 too-widely grasping inheritor of power, and the more wise 
 and sober Darius. The contrast is indeed rather strangely 
 heightened by the ascription to Darius of a moderation in 
 conquest that belies the record of the Scythian and Thracian 
 expeditions which he conducted in person, to say nothing of 
 that which he despatched under Datis and Artaphernes, 
 and was only prevented by death from following up more 
 
 T
 
 274 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 vigorously. The suppression indeed of every allusion to 
 Marathon by Aeschylus, who himself was a Marathonomachus, 
 might so far be understood if he also had equal part at 
 Salamis, but has certainly some appearance of a declining to 
 seize an opportunity to glorify the house of Cimon. It would 
 be in accordance with such a feeling of the poet that tradition 
 ascribed his final departure from Athens to pique at an award 
 of victory given by Cimon in favour of Sophocles. 
 
 The fundamental moral however that underlies the entire 
 play, and comes forward into most definite expression over and 
 over again, is the perilousness of excessive prosperity as pro- 
 vocative to fatal insolence. The catastrophe of such a frame 
 of mind is represented as induced by the agency of a delusive 
 daemon despatched by the gods, as if in envious grudge, to 
 tempt the overweening to their downfall. Prosperity doubt- 
 less, even though most innocently or most honourably at- 
 tained, may prove scarcely less corrupting, scarcely less 
 deluding, than the achievement of a course of violence and 
 guile, and its downfall came thus to be as naturally ascribed 
 to the same grudge of Nemesis ; the warning being as useful 
 in one case as the other. Now this sense of awe at the peril 
 of great prosperity was a commonplace of popular philosophy ; 
 it is the leading moral that is constantly insisted on in the 
 history of Herodotus, and meets us again in that of Thucydides 
 in the mouth of the pietist Nicias, who in deepest disaster has 
 a last hope from the exhaustion of the fydovos of the gods. So, 
 on the one hand, it furnishes the prime motive of the drama, 
 and, on the other, it is embodied in much later times in the 
 paintings on the large Darius vase of Naples. In the play 
 no doubt the moral is pointed against national enemies, but 
 this would not blunt it in its application to the consciences 
 of the present spectators of the play. The elevation of 
 Athens, the extension of her sway, the swelling of her 
 revenues, had reached such pitch so suddenly, that never 
 could the moral of moderation be more fitly brought forward.
 
 xx.] WARNINGS OF THE POET. 275 
 
 That the example was taken in the case of a conquered enemy 
 served to secure a hearing 1 for the homily, but left its purport 
 quite as unmistakeable. Athens at the head of a confederacy 
 of numerous allies, that varied in every degree of interested- 
 ness and loyalty, might take warning if she could from the 
 fate of Xerxes, induced by blindfold elation to assume invinci- 
 bility, only to witness his motley armament shattered and 
 wrecked at collision with the very first obstacle, the 
 derision of men and gods. 
 
 In this manner the tragedian, while he gratifies to the 
 utmost the national pride of the Athenians, appeals even more 
 distinctly to the common Hellenic feeling in memories of all 
 the most glorious Hellenic achievements, rewards of the 
 united efforts of Dorian and Ionian by land and by sea ; nor 
 could this be done without reviving a sense of the merits of 
 the commanders, however their names were passed over in 
 silence, of Themistocles as well as Aristides, for they had 
 been colleagues in the war, and colleagues afterwards, or 
 certainly not rancorous rivals, in the politics of peace ; nor 
 could some sense of sympathy have been unrevived with 
 Pausanias his errors notwithstanding with the victor in 
 the last decisive battle, who was still lingering, and doomed 
 so long to linger, and to fret, in obscurity, inaction, and 
 restraint. 
 
 T 2
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 OSTRACISM OP THEMISTOCLES. CIMON AT SCYROS. 
 
 SINCERE and wise a political monitor as Aeschylus may 
 have been for the Athenians, he was not popular with them 
 in this l character; at best they left him, according to his 
 own profession, to dedicate his tragedies to 2 Chronos Time ; 
 they were quite capable of divorcing appreciation of the 
 beauty and force of his poetry from acceptance of its obvious 
 moral. So it was certainly on a later occasion, and so it 
 appears to have been on this. His was a rugged, because 
 a high-principled and a self-reliant nature, and his con- 
 sideration for the feeling of the day was sufficient to secure 
 attention and engage interest, but did not prevent him from 
 risking administration of a shock. We must not be sur- 
 prised therefore, if within less than two years after he had 
 revived so gloriously for all the memory of Salamis, the 
 Athenians were in a mood to forget to whom they chiefly 
 owed the victory, and Themistocles was driven from the city, 
 the city that he had saved, and more than resuscitated, 
 an ostracised refugee. 
 
 The leaders of the opposed party to whom he owed this 
 reverse were Cimon and Alcmaeon the most important 
 among many ; while Aristides, now advanced in age, held 
 himself honourably aloof, whether out of regard to the 
 generosity of Themistocles in his own recall, or to his later 
 
 1 Aristoph. Kan. Sao. a Athen. p. 348 E.
 
 THEHISTOCLES OSTRACISED. 277 
 
 co-operation with him as a colleague in reform. Such an insti- 
 tution as ostracism the extrusion of a citizen from the state 
 for years by secret ballot upon no definite charge does not 
 carry its own justification. According to the most plausible 
 apology, it provided a safeguard available at short notice, 
 when the overgrown influence of an individual threatened re- 
 publican institutions, and yet might countervail all ordinary 
 legal procedure, or only give a hold for charging treasonable 
 intent when the time had ripened for treason's fatal triumph. 
 By such a process a vague panic, that might or might not be 
 truly prescient, could take security with more certainty and 
 more innocently than by fictitious charges for the occasion. 
 In a less severe contingency the State could so relieve its 
 active policy from the dead-lock of a nearly even balance 
 of parties. These however were more likely to be pretexts 
 for ostracism than the principles of its application. It 
 offered too tempting a chance for the supremacy of faction 
 not to encourage faction ; and the need of such a contrivance 
 was warning of constitutional defects that demanded more 
 serious remedies. A polity strong enough to expel a mischief 
 in this manner ought to be strong enough to control it, 
 strong enough to keep a troublesome citizen in subjection, 
 and Also in reserve in case those who were so anxious for his 
 expulsion might themselves, when exempt from check, become 
 still more troublesome. Athens, that had been glad to re- 
 cover the ostracised Aristides just in time, was destined at 
 a later day to reverse another sentence, and be eager to revert 
 after a serious disaster to the counsels and services of Cimon ; 
 and at the present time the prolonged exile of Themistocles 
 did not enable his opponents to ward off a crisis which his 
 foresight had anticipated, and which he of all others was most 
 competent to grapple with. 
 
 As regards the application of ostracism in this instance, 
 nothing more may be required to account for it than the 
 weariness that will supervene in free communities of the
 
 278 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 prolonged leadership of even the most able and most suc- 
 cessful single man. This ensues no doubt in part from the 
 prejudice caused by ever-accumulating secondary lapses and 
 errors, by insolences and favouritisms, and then by misfortunes 
 merely unavoidable ; but it is also usually due not a little to 
 the volatility that would have change of tone and topics ; 
 to curiosity, especially on the part of a new generation, as to 
 proof of untried men of their own generation ; to the con- 
 current impact of class cabals overbearing, each in their own, 
 the common interest. Full force is lent to these influences 
 by the eagerness of growing and excluded talent which fairly 
 and naturally claims an opening and an opportunity, but 
 of talent also, new or old, which would mount to power by 
 any means, and can parade the contrast between a purity 
 that has never had a chance of going wrong, and sagacity 
 that must needs be sometimes right in a course of general 
 denunciation ; lastly comes in that jealousy, the weakness 
 of every sovereign power, which ever looks askance at the 
 exceeding prosperity of those to whom it owes its own, and 
 resents as an affront with all the venom of vindictiveness the 
 slightest hint of independence. 
 
 In the latter respect chiefly Themistocles was little likely 
 to escape scot-free in the state which had not been restrained 
 by either respect or gratitude for Miltiades and Aristides, 
 notwithstanding the extension of its democratical element 
 in favour of his most natural supporters. In the absence of 
 information as to how party opposition came at last to a 
 crisis, there is significance in the notice of the different 
 temper in which were regarded the displays of wealth that 
 were made by Cimon and Themistocles respectively at 
 the Olympic games. This must have been at the 77th 
 Olympiad (472-71 B.C.), the second recurrence after the 
 Medica ; for it could not have been in the year of the Medica, 
 and it was in the immediately ensuing festival that Themis- 
 tocles had been so universally popular. If we were held to
 
 xxi.] INDEPENDENCE OF THEMISTOCLES. 279 
 
 Plutarch's literal words as to the youth of Ciraon at that 
 time, we should be thrown back on another impossibility, 
 the 74th Olympiad, too early in the life of Cimon, too near 
 the death of his father Miltiades in indigence,. The splendour 
 of Themistocles in tents, and hospitalities, and apparatus, 
 was carped at as the ostentation of riches, riches that there 
 were too many to denounce, and with too much probability, 
 as ill-acquired ; belonging moreover to a new man : while in- 
 dulgence was accorded to Cimon, comparatively young and 
 of noble descent, and lavish of wealth unimpeachable in its 
 origin, as a recovered inheritance derived from an ancestry 
 renowned through Hellas. 
 
 It was not of the nature, and probably not of the policy, 
 of Themistocles to dissimulate his conception of his own 
 merits and services out of hope to deaden the inipact of 
 enviousness. On the contrary, a tone of almost perverse 
 bravado seems to have characterised both his private and his 
 public expressions. At the very time that the Athenians 
 were fretting uneasily with the sense of obligations exceed- 
 ing their power of requital, he did not hesitate to twit them 
 with their inconsistency in finding benefits burdensome only 
 because they happened to be all conferred by the same man. 
 He likened a grumbler at the large share of advantage that 
 he had secured for himself to the day after a feast, that 
 should discontentedly contrast its fare of orts and leavings 
 with the full provision of the day of the feast itself, that day 
 but for which the day after would have no provender of any 
 kind, no existence at all. He likened himself to a plane-tree 
 to which the Athenians were eager to run for shelter in 
 a storm, but, without gratitude or forethought, despoiled of 
 its bi*anches at the first change to favourable weather. It 
 is more likely to have been his observation to his own son 
 Neocles than, as we read it, that of his father Neocles to 
 himself, that one of his own galleys, open-ribbed and rotting 
 on the shore, was a fair type of the ultimate regard of
 
 280 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Athenians for their best servants. Lastly, in days when 
 his policy was being 1 vigorously impugned, he gave expres- 
 sion to his claim to unerring political insight, by erecting 
 close to his house a fane that he dedicated to Artemis Ari- 
 stoboule, Artemis of the most excellent counsel, perhaps 
 even by setting up therein that statue of himself which Plu- 
 tarch saw there, in company with one of his descendants, and 
 recognised as presenting lineaments justly expressive of his 
 heroic nature. 
 
 The storm that he provoked as probably as not in the 
 conviction that come it must, and the sooner the better for 
 his chance of dealing with it broke heavily and with the 
 consequence that we know. His ostracism apparently dates 
 under the archonship of Praxiergus, ! 47 1-70 B.C. Among 
 the means by which it was brought about, we must not, out 
 of deference to Plutarch, who is given to idealising his 
 favourites, be induced to overlook the natural tendency of 
 Cimon's employment of his wealth. Cimon and Themis- 
 tocles are both associated with Pericles as principal con- 
 tributors to the decoration of the city ; but only in the case 
 of Cimon do we hear of devotion of private fortune to such 
 public works, the devotion apparently of spoils of war an,d 
 presents of allies by which he might without positive mal- 
 versation have added to his own riches. Fame at least told 
 that he spent funds of his own on the fortifications of the 
 Acropolis, and that he directed, on the erection of porticos, 
 the planting of shady trees about the agora, and the reclaiming 
 of the Academia from drought and sterility by laying it out 
 as a well-watered grove, with cleared places of exercise and 
 shady walks. Others of his generosities wooed popularity 
 still more directly ; he scattered coin freely among the 
 paraders of poverty in the 2 agora, and on occasion would 
 bid a well-clothed attendant exchange cloaks with a citizen 
 
 1 Diod. xi. 54. Plut. dm. 10.
 
 XXL] POPULAR ARTS OF CIMON. 281 
 
 encountered in a garb unworthy of his elder years and 
 franchise. We cannot be told that he flung down the fences 
 of his gardens and orchards in order that the indigent, 
 whether native or strangers, might help themselves to the 
 grapes and olives, kept open house daily where the poorer 
 citizens, of his tribe at least if not others, might daily find a 
 modest but welcome meal, and so be able to spare time from 
 labour for public concerns, this we cannot ponder and not 
 bethink ourselves how such largesse would influence votes; 
 especially when contrasted with the disposition of Themistocles, 
 who insatiate in getting, was never extravagant as if from 
 irrepressible geniality, but rather out of the ostentation that 
 might astonish but conciliated no man. By art then or by 
 argument, by concerted intrigue or as the result of conflict on 
 a positive question of policy, Themistocles was ousted from 
 his position at Athens within about eight years after the 
 battle of Salamis, and had to consider where he would await 
 and perhaps also would be in best position to hasten the 
 reaction, which he surely counted on for his recall; the 
 independent march of events already threatening might 
 be quickened by influences that he knew how to set well 
 in train, when not only would his foresight be vindicated, 
 but his promptitude of resource be again indispensable. He 
 retired to Argos, a state not in immediate alliance with 
 either Sparta or Athens ; with Sparta it had been in such 
 relations of enmity as were its pretext for taking no part 
 in the resistance to Xerxes ; while the grave suspicion 
 of Medism under which it laboured was a present bar to 
 the sympathy of Athens. Here therefore he might seem 
 to be resident in a neutral state ; he was heard of however, 
 and necessarily with interest or apprehension, as occasionally 
 moving about in various directions in l Peloponnesus. 
 
 The absence of Themistocles is naturally signalised by 
 conspicuous activity on the part of Cimon. It is within 
 1 Thuai. 135.
 
 282 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 the next year the archonship of Demotion (470-469 B.C.) 
 that l Diodorus includes a series of his naval achievements 
 from Byzantium to the Eurymedon and Cyprus, and adds 
 to his inaccuracy a certificate in positive terms, ' Such were 
 the actions of this year.' We are able to correct this chrono- 
 logy on many points by better authorities: part of the 
 actions thus find their place earlier ; the assumption of 
 command of the Byzantine fleet and the capture of Eion, 
 as we have seen ; and the battle of Eurymedon as certainly 
 occurred four years later. Nevertheless there can be little 
 doubt that some special activity of Cimon at this time 
 the year after the exile of Themistocles left him in full power 
 must have given Diodorus the hint to insert such an assem- 
 blage of his doings under the year. That it was not aggres- 
 sive action against Persia seems manifest from the following 
 years being unmarked by any incidents pursuant to such 
 a present policy. But here Plutarch comes to our aid, who 
 states .that it was in the very next year, the archonship of 
 Apsephion or Aphepsion, that Cimon brought back to Athens 
 from Scyros the relics of 2 Theseus ; and of this assignment 
 we shall find very interesting confirmation. 
 
 The island of Scyros lies somewhat by itself off the eastern, 
 coast of Euboea ; the inhabitants, who are specified as Dolo- 
 pians along with some Pelasgic 3 admixture, appear to have 
 been of inferior Hellenisation ; even as Dolopians are included 
 in the Homeric realm of Achilles, but still only at its remotest 
 4 outskirts. The contrast that the verdant island presents 
 in our days to the now dry and naked 5 Cyclades was doubt- 
 less not so marked in antiquity, but its northern portion 
 must always have been peculiarly susceptible of cultiva- 
 tion, and it had good and safe harbours. The inhabitants, 
 hereditarily more disposed to abuse the latter advantages than 
 to apply to agriculture, made the neighbouring seas unsafe 
 
 1 Died. xi. 63. Plut. dm. 8. * Diod. xi. 60. 
 
 4 Iliad, ii. 681 ; x. 480. * Leake, N. Qretce, Hi. 3.
 
 xxi.] OCCUPATION OF SCYROS. 283 
 
 by piracy, and at last an enormity beyond the licence of 
 Homeric days did not even spare those who resorted to their 
 shores ; and among others plundered and detained some Thes- 
 salian traders. The captives escaped and brought their re- 
 clamation before the Amphictyonic council which met alter- 
 nately at Thermopylae and Delphi, and in which both the 
 Thessalians and Dolopians were represented. A fine was im- 
 posed, and contention waxed warm in the island when the 
 authors of the violence tried to shift the mulct from them- 
 selves on to the community at large ; foreseeing failure in 
 this scheme, they preferred to invite the intervention of 
 Cimon, and fulfilled their engagement to him by betrayal 
 of the city. 
 
 The fleet of Cimon was probably already in the neighbour- 
 hood ; the suppression of piracy was naturally among the 
 duties of which Athens had assumed the responsibility, and 
 might be prepared to prosecute quite independently of an 
 Amphictyonic sentence, however the occasion of this might 
 have brought matters to a crisis. The acceptance of help 
 from the traitor pirates is quite consistent with the general 
 piracy being the pretext or occasion of the severe measures 
 of the Athenian commander. He took entire possession of 
 the island, and disposed of the inhabitants as l slaves ; un- 
 fortunately not in itself a proof that they were the barbarians 
 they are called by Plutarch, though the tribe had evidently 
 little hold upon public sympathies either by habits or re- 
 lationship. 
 
 The clearance of the island was preparatory to a distribu- 
 tion of the hitherto 'ill-cultivated' lands among Athenian 
 citizens cleruchs or holders of allotments ; according to Plu- 
 tarch, this was the second benefit of the kind that they owed 
 to Oimon, the first having been connected with the capture 
 of E'ion, which agrees with the interpretation that has been 
 
 1 Time. i. 98.
 
 284 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 given to the brief notice of Thucydides. At the same time 
 a solemn search was made through the island for the remains 
 of Theseus, who, according to tradition, had been treacherously 
 murdered at Scyros by King Lycomedes. As Plutarch relates 
 in his life of l Theseus, it was as early as the arehonship of 
 Phaedon (476-5 B.C.) that the Delphic oracle had enjoined 
 the Athenians to recover these relics and deposit them 
 honourably in their city, a notice which has led to the con- 
 quest itself being frequently ante-dated. Thucydides has 
 been falsely quoted to the same effect, but his statement, 
 though following on a paragraph in which he blames Hel- 
 lanicus for inaccuracy and negligence in chronology, only 
 mentions the capture of Scyros as subsequent to that of Ei'on, 
 and does not define the interval either as long or short. We 
 may be satisfied however with the date given by Diodorus 
 (470-69 B.C.), associated as it is with whatever blunders, when 
 we find it confirmed by Plutarch's account that the com- 
 mands of the oracle, whenever asked for or given, were 
 fulfilled in the ensuing year (arehonship of Apsephion = 
 469-8 B.C.). 
 
 Pausanias rather awkwardly makes the possession of the 
 remains the condition, not the consequence, of the 2 conquest >. 
 but he may be credited for his agreement with the biographer 
 in telling how it was due to malignant concealment that the 
 discovery was a matter of difficulty and there was need of a 
 certain inspired sagacity. Such obstacles and such assistance 
 have never failed the resolute pietist from that time to our 
 own to embellish the unhoped-for recovery of sacred relics. 
 The mighty remains were found, of course ; they were re- 
 cognised by their heroic magnitude : beside them lay a spear- 
 head and sword, authenticated by the bronze material as of 
 the heroic ages. Transferred by Cimon to a trireme magnifi- 
 cently decorated, they were brought to Athens, with pomp 
 
 1 Plut. Tltes. 36. * Paus. iii. 3. 5.
 
 XXL] RELICS OF THESEUS RECOVERED. 285 
 
 and popular rejoicing-, as if for the return of the very hero 
 himself, ' after eight hundred years ;' a satire, if any cared 
 to point the moral, on the popular ingratitude that was even 
 yet not obsolete. 
 
 Among the various comments that have been made on these 
 transactions, it seems worth while to signalise the following 
 extract, though it is probably more accurately illustrative of 
 the genius of some unpleasant passages of contemporary history, 
 than of the career and character of Cimon. 
 
 ' The whole undertaking which was so successfully accom- 
 plished by Cimon,' says a German historian, ' and which so 
 firmly established his fame, was in every respect most oppor- 
 tune for him. Hence a conjecture naturally suggests itself, 
 that the opportune occurrence of its two causes, viz. the 
 Delphic oracle and the complaint of the Thessalians, was 
 occasioned by a mutual agreement : in which case we should 
 have to admire in Cimon not only the successful general, but 
 also the statesman possessed of sagacious forethought, and 
 capable of exerting a far-reaching influence by means of the 
 combinations at his l command.' 
 
 The sacred remains found a resting-place in the midst of 
 the city, close to what, in Plutarch's time at least, was the site 
 of the gymnasium. That the temple which still remains so 
 wonderfully preserved is justly called the Theseum has never 
 been questioned on reasonable grounds, though it is uncertain, 
 but uncertain only, whether its erection dates quite so early. 
 The precinct attached to it was constituted an asylum for 
 household slaves and other meaner victims of oppression, 
 recognition of an heroic career of protection extended to the 
 weakest. Pausanias indicates the locality in the same terms as 
 Plutarch, ' the hieron of Theseus near the gymnasium of the 
 agora ;' and the collocation was probably not uninfluenced by 
 the national tradition that to Theseus was due the application 
 
 1 Curtius, History of Greece, 1869 ; and compare Goethe, Reineke Fuchs, 
 sub fin.
 
 286 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 of skill to wrestling-, the proper exercise of the palaestra, 
 which had previously been a contest of mere brute * strength. 
 
 The title Theseum is fully vindicated for the structure by 
 the agreement of the still existing external sculpture with the 
 notice of 2 Plutarch, that at Athens the Theseia and the 
 Heracleia were interchangeable. The metopes of the eastern 
 front are occupied by the labours of Hercules, and those of 
 the western with such parallel exploits of Theseus as his 
 slaughter of the Minotaur, punishment of Skiron, capture 
 of the Maratbonian bull, and so forth. 
 
 The frieze of the posticum is sculptured in high relief with 
 the battle against the Centaurs, in which Theseus is ever the 
 protagonist ; the subject on the pronaos is more obscure, but 
 a battle against rock-hurling antagonists is recognisable, and 
 it would seem must represent a gigantomachia ; and in that 
 case may probably be the contest of Hercules against the 
 giants of the isthmus of 3 Pallene, and not without allusion 
 to the exploits of Athens and Cimon in the liberation of that 
 region after the fall of Ei'on. 
 
 Pausanias mentions three paintings of Micon in the interior ; 
 two of the subjects would be appropriate pendants on the 
 opposite lateral walls. One was the ever- varied, ever-repeated 
 battle of Theseus with the Centaurs, in which Theseus had 
 already killed his Centaur, while between the other combatants 
 victory was still in suspense ; the other, the battle of the 
 Athenians and Amazons, doubtless included again an exploit 
 of the hero as antagonist of Antiopa or *Hippolyta. The 
 third subject, which would be the principal, as occupying the 
 end wall opposite the entrance, was partly unfinished by the 
 painter, and partly obliterated beyond recognition. The sub- 
 ject of it so I read my author appears to have been the 
 adventure by which Theseus vindicated his descent from the 
 sea-god Poseidon from the aspersions of Minos, and ap- 
 
 1 Paus. i. 39. 3. * Plut. The*. 35. 
 
 * Apollod. i. 6. r. * Plut. The*.
 
 xxi.] DECORATIONS OF THE THESE UM. 287 
 
 parently in the presence of the youths and maidens whom he 
 had led to Crete. He brought back from the depths a ring 
 that the Cretan had thrown in to test him, and returned 
 crowned with a coral wreath, the gift of Amphitrite. 
 
 It was fully in the manner of the Greeks to assume that 
 the mythical death of Theseus at the hands of King Lycomedes 
 of Scyros was a quite available indictment against successors, 
 their own contemporaries, even apart from the late convictions 
 for piracy ; but Cimon had no indirect personal interest in 
 this ceremonial re-establishment of Theseus in his city. To 
 Theseus was ascribed a most important part in his father's 
 victory of Marathon ; the legend of the hero told how he had 
 mastered and bound the destructive bull of Marathon; 
 in origin probably it is a physical legend of the regulation of 
 the torrent that still breaks its bonds a bull being the 
 accepted type of a rushing torrent and damages agriculture 
 so far as it is at present carried 1 on. The legend may all the 
 same have reflected at another time the conclusion of a contest 
 between Attica and the Marathonian tetrapolis. In the 2 Poecile 
 Stoa, in a great" picture of the battle of Marathon, Theseus 
 was shown rising out of the earth in the very scene of his 
 traditional exploit to take part in the fight along with 
 Hercules, whose fane was on the battle-field, Athena herself, 
 and the eponymus hero Marathon. 
 
 In virtue of such familiar associations it was that this 
 dedication and pompous translation of relics revived the glory 
 of the earlier and more peculiar triumph of the Athenians over 
 the barbarians, almost as if in rejoinder to the trilogy of the 
 Persae ; and yet the son of Miltiades, well warned, and with 
 something more than the affected modesty of Shakespear's 
 Henry V, evaded the grudge that attached to the self- 
 asserting inscription of his father. 
 
 It can only be thrown out as a vague conjecture that 
 
 1 Leake, Top. Att. 2 Paus. i. 15. 3.
 
 288 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Lycomedes of Scyros may have been connected, traditionally 
 or invidiously, with the gens of Athenian Lycomidae, or 
 Lycomedae, to whom Themistocles claimed to be related. 
 They were a priestly race who administered peculiar initia- 
 tions of the Great goddesses, of Ge or Earth, of Koure 
 Protogone, and sung at their celebrations hymns of Pamphus 
 and Orpheus ; the latter few and short, and if we were dis- 
 posed to take the word of Pausanias, only inferior as poems to 
 Homer's, in sanctity far ' above. Themistocles rebuilt the 
 ielesterion of the Lycomidae at the demus Phlya which had 
 been burnt by the Medes, and adorned it with paintings. 
 We learn from a fragment of Plutarch preserved by Hippolytus 
 on Heresies, that the mysteries of the Great goddesses at 
 Phlya were at least claimed as even more ancient than those 
 of the same goddesses under other names at 2 Eleusis. 
 
 In this year the Parian marble, in accordance with Plutarch, 
 dates the first tragic victory gained by Sophocles, and Plutarch 
 says over Aeschylus, though he grossly antedates the retire- 
 ment of the latter to Sicily in final disgust with Athens as 
 taking place upon this occasion. The audience we are told 
 were balanced in preference, and the archon Aphepsion, with 
 whom it rested to determine judges by lot, remitted the* 
 decision instead to Cimon and his fellow generals, who, by 
 coincidence or otherwise, were present in the theatre to make 
 the formal libations to the gods; 'and so the custom ori- 
 ginated of judges of tragedies being ten in number, one from 
 each tribe like the generals, and so the decision passed in 
 favour of Sophocles.' The generals seem to have entered 
 when the plays were over ; their judgment must in this case 
 therefore have applied to an estimate of voices. 
 
 Without committing ourselves to accept the details of this 
 story in full, we need not doubt that the name of Cimon was 
 associated in some remarkable manner with this tragic victory 
 
 1 Paus. i. 22. 7; i. 31. 4; iv. i. 8; ii. 27. 2; iz. 30. 12. 
 * Welcker, GMterkhre, i. 322.
 
 XXL] THE TRIPTOLEMUS OF SOPHOCLES. 289 
 
 of a new poet, and not without some understanding of a party 
 feeling. 
 
 The presidency of the Archon eponymus determines the 
 representation for the greater Dionysia in his ninth month 
 (Elaphebolion), the spring of 468 B.C. The date corresponds 
 with that recorded for the Triptolemus of l Sophocles, a drama 
 the few surviving lines of which form part of a geographical 
 excursus in the antique style of those in the Prometheus, 
 Persae, and Supplicants of Aeschylus. In this extant passage 
 Demeter is describing to the hero the various countries he is to 
 visit on his beneficent errand of spreading the culture of bread- 
 corn. There is a passage in the life of Cimon by Plutarch, 
 which reads much as if it echoed some earlier comparison of 
 him to Triptolemus, and it is open to conjecture that the ori- 
 ginal praise referred less directly to his home liberalities than 
 to the colonies that had just been settled by him in what are 
 emphatically called the hitherto ' ill-cultivated } fields of Scyros. 
 ' The lavish liberality of Cimon/ he says, ' exceeded even the 
 antique hospitality and philanthropy of the Athenians ; for 
 they communicated to the Greeks, what the city justly is 
 proud of, the seed (corn) of food, and taught mankind the 
 use of spring water and the art of lighting fire ; but he made 
 his house a common prytaneum for the citizens, and by free 
 communication of the best and rarest produce of his land 
 seemed to bring back in a manner the fabled communistic 
 state of the time of ' 2 Cronus.' 
 
 It seems characteristic of the prompt succession of genius 
 in these Athenian years, that the date of the first entrance of 
 Pericles into politics is calculated to be almost coincident 
 with the death of Aristides. It is only by such reckoning, 
 not by any historical record of his earlier participation in 
 in affairs, that the fact is known. His father Xanthippus has 
 been missed from story since the victory of Mycale. It was 
 
 1 Plin. II. N. xviii. 7. 2 Pint, dm, 10.
 
 290 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 probably another member of his family, Alcmaeon, who along 
 with Cimon pressed forward the ostracism of l Themistoclea ; 
 and it was the son of Alcmaeon, Leobotes, who in concert with 
 the Laconising party and agents, would afterwards have sub- 
 stituted for admonitory ostracism either the severer penalty 
 of exile and consequent forfeiture of estate, or, even more 
 eagerly, that of death. Eleven years had elapsed since 
 Salamis, and a generation was come to maturity which had 
 grown up in an atmosphere of enthusiasm, and regarded 
 national progress as a law of nature. Some great names of 
 the past were still remaining, vigorous and even progressive 
 still both in politics and arts ; but the men who were now 
 coming into prominence had purposes and projects of their 
 own, for which all that had been done was mere preparation, 
 and were urged by an unresting consciousness of power within 
 to claim an immediate share in the guidance of national 
 energies worthy of and demanding their best services. 
 
 It must have been about this time, possibly this year, 
 that the death of Aristides occurred ; at a time when, for 
 whatever cause, he appears to have so far withdrawn from 
 active politics that his departure involved no such change 
 as to make a record of it inevitable. Later writers, whilst 
 recording the fact that he left neither portions for his 
 daughters nor enough money for his funeral expenses, contrast 
 this so-called honourable poverty, and the sordid poverty of 
 his descendants, with the worldly wisdom of Themistocles, 
 the appropriate rewards of which were enjoyed by himself 
 to the last, and transmitted to his descendants through long 
 generations. ' The Seven against Thebes ' of Aeschylus is 
 dated as produced under the next archon, Theagenides, 
 and an anecdote exists to the effect that the line in which 
 the poet characterises Amphiaraus as ' one who seeks not to 
 seem but to be really just' was greeted enthusiastically by 
 
 1 Plut. Aristid. 25.
 
 xxi.] THE LAST OF ARISTIDES. 291 
 
 the audience as applicable to Aristides. The story comes off 
 but haltingly unless the application can be understood as 
 extending to the general context, which would distinctly 
 imply that the merits of Aristides were in marked contrast to . 
 the unworthiness and unpopularity of his recent colleagues. 
 An Athenian audience is not to be lightly charged with the 
 inept perversity of catching at the terms of a single expres- 
 sion without completely apprehending its drift and purport. 
 If we are to accept the anecdote at all, we must take it as an 
 expression of regretful condemnation of a once esteemed and 
 even venerated favourite who had recently been found on the 
 wrong, that is on the then unpopular, side. This may well 
 have been the case if, during the recent unpopularity of 
 Themistocles which resulted in his ostracism, Aristides had 
 held aloof from the persecution, still more if he had loyally 
 remained by the side of one with whose character his own was 
 so contrasted, but with whom, though once in rivalry, he had 
 co-operated frankly in imperial organisation and domestic 
 1 reform. 
 
 Concurrent possibly with these transactions, but certainly 
 concluded later, was a war with Carystus in Euboea under 
 conduct of what commander is not mentioned. Carystus was 
 Dryopian, and it is therefore fair to conjecture that the quarrel 
 was connected with the arbitrary treatment of Scyros. When 
 Datis and Artaphernes had moved from Delos upon Athens 
 and Eretria, Carystus had gallantly refused to surrender 
 hostages or to take part in hostilities against her neighbour 
 cities, but was forced to give way to positive pressure. It 
 was probably due to the continued influence of a Medising 
 party then placed in power that the city became liable to the 
 penalties for which, as we have seen, it had already in vain 
 attempted to compound by bribes to Themistocles. Strength 
 of position that enabled it to resist 2 then, as it had previously 
 
 1 Plutarch; Comparison of Aristides and Cato, iii. 5. * Hes. viii. 112. 
 
 U 2
 
 292 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 encouraged resistance to the Mede, enabled it to hold out 
 again, although unsupported by other Euboean cities even 
 of the same Dryopian kinship. The besiegers had to lament 
 some losses ; here died Hermolycus, who deserved best of 
 all the Athenians at * Mycale ; but the defence, however 
 prolonged by 2 obstinacy, was hopeless of ultimate success ; 
 it ended in a capitulation, and the story brings us upon the 
 Carystians later 3 on as duly contributory to i\\e phoros. 
 
 1 Herod, tx. 105. 2 Thuc. i. 99. s Ib. vii. 57.
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 PAINTING, RUDIMENTARY AND ADVANCED. POLYGNOTUS. 
 
 IT is not easy to believe that the art of painting had 
 not as worthy and as remote an antiquity among the Greeks 
 as sculpture ; yet the almost entire absence of record of great 
 works in this art, and of great names anterior to the age of 
 Cimon and his friend Polygnotus, is in striking contrast both 
 to the traditional and the authenticated records respecting 
 works in metal and marble. Such difference no doubt does 
 but represent in a general way the relative unimportance of 
 painting throughout the whole development of Greek art. 
 There is no account of the production by Greek painting, 
 even when at its highest technical perfection, of works that 
 could range in dignity and scope with the great compositions of 
 Alcamenes and Polycletus, not to say of Pheidias ; the pictures 
 in fact that come nearest to this standard are those of 
 Polygnotus, almost the very first of which we have any 
 distinct account, and these are too near the transition from 
 earliest rudimentary forms to have a chance of reaching it. 
 It is possible that the application of colour to the great 
 chryselephantine statues of gods and goddesses and to their 
 ornamental accompaniments had in a certain degree the effect 
 of superseding the rivalry of painting ; as indeed the very 
 perfection of sculpture might] seem to render such rivalry 
 hopeless. The conditions were the reverse of those which 
 controlled the great development of Italian art, when even
 
 294 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Buonarroti, the greatest modern genius for sculpture, re- 
 nounced the chisel under the force of circumstances, in order 
 to embody his sublimest conceptions by what was to him the 
 less congenial pencil. The principle of the variegation of 
 sculpture may be recognised even on the Homeric shield 
 of Achilles, where many figures and objects which were 
 wrought in metal, and, as must be supposed, in relief, are 
 distinguished either by symbolical or by apt local colours. 
 The gods Pallas and Ares are golden and clad in golden 
 armour; and Fate, as she drags along the bodies of the 
 slaughtered, has a garment dabbled with the gore of men ; 
 the furrows are represented, 'a marvel of art,' as black- 
 ening behind the ploughs ; black clusters of grapes hang 
 from vines supported by silver props; the watery moat of 
 the vineyard is azure, the fence that encloses it is of tin; 
 the colours of the oxen are diversified by gold and tin, and 
 the dancing youths, dressed in delicate glistening chitons, 
 have swords of gold pendent from silver baldrics. For 
 other distinct applications of colour in Homer, there is 
 little to refer to, beyond the ships' sides painted red, and 
 the ornamental staining of ivory by Carian women ; but 
 there can be little hesitation in inferring that the battles 
 of Greeks and Trojans, that Helen occupies herself in 
 working, were conceived, and intended to be conceived, as 
 made out in diversified and appropriate colours. The em- 
 broideries of Phoenicia, Babylon, or Assyria are of a far 
 remoter date, and in fact allusion is made to the possession 
 of Sidonian l specimens. 
 
 In times far earlier than Greek legend even pretends to 
 refer to, drawing in outline and painting in flat tints at 
 least had been in vogue both in Assyria and Egypt, and 
 some of their advanced applications might have been first 
 borrowed directly from those sources by the Greeks at any 
 
 1 Iliad, vi. 289.
 
 xxii.] HOMERIC COLOURED DESIGN. 295 
 
 time, and taken as starting-points for further progress and 
 improvement. It is however quite consistent with historical 
 experience, that a nation which is endowed with capacity 
 for an independent start, will not easily resign a first in- 
 tention even for the benefit of something better that is to 
 be obtained by borrowing, but rather pursues pertinaciously 
 its own first idea; and when it borrows at all, and even when 
 it borrows freely, does so less by adopting what is alien, 
 than by associating and assimilating it almost beyond recog- 
 nition. Even at the present time, for all the ease and rapidity 
 of travel and transport and communication, the thought 
 of modern Europe developes for the most part in parallel 
 lines; and not only art and philosophy, but even the sciences, 
 struggle in every country to continue national, and would 
 fain assert hereditary rather than theoretical succession. The 
 Greeks, especially, loved to consider all arts and sciences as 
 having originated independently amongst themselves ; in 
 their case, if ever, a very excusable mistake and not un- 
 natural boast, for never was there a race that more positively 
 subjected all borrowings to their individual genius. 
 
 Certain incidents and epochs of the art of painting occur 
 in scattered mention as anterior to Polygnotus ; and some 
 such, even many such, there doubtless must have been ; but 
 the notices are vague and questionable, and wanting in 
 detailed individuality and historical certitude, and seem for 
 the most part merely contrived to eke out the customary 
 statement of progressive development by a succession of 
 inventors. A list, however full, of names of unknown or 
 un characterised artists, goes for nothing ; and it is much 
 if we can occasionally identify agreement of the traditions 
 with something more than mere general probabilities, and 
 connect them consistently with seats of the art in later 
 days. 
 
 The black figures upon red ground of the earliest vases 
 represent the skiagraphia, the production of monochrome
 
 296 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 drawings by the aid of shadows ; and this is given as the 
 earliest form of the art of painting as practised at S icy on 
 and Corinth and Samos. So Saurias of Samos was said to 
 have delineated a horse after the shadow cast by sunlight, 
 and the daughter of Dibutades at Corinth the profile of her 
 lover after the shadow thrown by artificial light. On the 
 vases the delineation of figures in black on lighter ground 
 is helped by interior lines scratched with a sharp point 
 through the dark paint, and it is noted as a further advance 
 when interior lines were introduced in the monochrome 
 paintings. The incised line is sometimes employed to give 
 exactness of definition even to the proper outlines or contours 
 of the black figures. With this aid and no more, groups 
 of very considerable complication are rendered perfectly dis- 
 tinct, as for instance the four horses of a chariot very 
 slightly advanced beyond each other, the attendants beside 
 and beyond them, the warrior in the chariot ; at the same 
 time very considerable taste is exercised in securing so much 
 definition of the forms by free outline, as not to throw the 
 main balance of responsibility on the interior incised lines. 
 The practice of some of the earlier vase-painters, of inscribing 
 not only the names of persons represented, 'Achilles' or 
 ' Ajax/ but also of objects that perfectly and even excellently 
 explain themselves, such as 'a fountain,' 'ahydria,' 'a seat,' 
 at least explains the origin of the tradition that the earliest 
 paintings were so rude, that man or horse or tree were 
 undistinguishable without such written hint and aid. That 
 such aid was ever really required, and thence survived by 
 habit after the necessity had gone by, is hard to think ; the 
 application of determinatives in hieroglyphics is a proof how, 
 in the earliest times, it was painting that came to the aid 
 of syllabic writing rather than the reverse. 
 
 In the next stage of vase-painting, the figures are red 
 upon a black ground; or rather they are made out by 
 the proper red ground of the vase being left untouched
 
 xxii.] PAINTING AND VASE-PAINTING. 297 
 
 within their outlines and painted black without and around 
 them; the incised line, being- no longer applicable for the 
 interior, is now superseded by painted black lines ; the colour 
 of the vase supplies a certain resemblance to the local 
 colour of the nude. So Dibutades of Corinth was said to 
 have modelled in clay the face of his daughter's lover, upon 
 the outline she had drawn, and added artificial red to the 
 material ; and Cleophantus of Corinth to have filled up 
 outline drawings with a red colour obtained by pounding 
 terra cotta. 
 
 When the vase-painter laid down the pointed tool to take 
 to the brush exclusively, he had already acquired command 
 of hand in drawing ; and very refined delineation and beau- 
 tiful lines are often found associated, however strangely at 
 variance, with the rude principle of the process. The new 
 process was soon eager to prove its own independent powers ; 
 and preferred to continue even more strictly monochrome 
 than that which it superseded, renouncing some approaches 
 that had already been made with the black figures to the 
 application of local colour, in arms and ornaments. The 
 distinguishing of female figures by white faces and flesh, 
 which had been in truth less an advance to proper local 
 colour than a supplement in the way of symbolism, was 
 given up along with irrational inscriptions, as not only 
 unnecessary, but obsolete. At this stage the Greek was 
 w*ell content for ceramic painting to make a long halt, 
 until it had perfected a style appropriate to its application 
 and opportunities ; it is simple, free, and refined, but with 
 no affectation of an exactness which must invariably have 
 failed in a process by its nature excluding not only palliation 
 of pentimenti, but, much more, their correction. 
 
 Eumarus of Athens and Cimon of Cleonae are names 
 associated by Pliny with improved skill and daring in 
 draughtsmanship, both of uncertain, but by manifest im- 
 plication of very early dates ; for to Eumarus is assigned
 
 298 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 renown for his success in distinguishing male and female 
 figures, as well as his bold imitation of varied l attitudes. 
 Cimon is credited with the further advancement of these 
 feats, by venturing to represent foreshortened 2 figures, and 
 presentations of the countenance in varied aspects looking 
 back, upwards, or downwards ; the expression of joints and 
 veins, more probably muscles ; and, very important indeed, 
 the folds and waves, the arranged or accidental convolutions, 
 of drapery. Here again we may trace upon the vases a 
 parallel advance in the direction of elegance and nature, 
 from the stiff and formal draperies of the archaic style, 
 neither swayed by air nor swung by movement, nor indi- 
 cating, by apparent capacity to sink or swell, the natural 
 modelling of the limbs 3 beneath. If these innovations could 
 really be brought home to the name, Cimon of Cleonae an 
 Homeric dependency of Mycenae would justly rank as one 
 of the best deserving masters in the history of art. 
 
 The historical notices thus far refer less to painting proper 
 than to simple draughtsmanship, which has however, at least 
 in the case of bas-relief, an equally direct application to 
 sculpture. It is only when we reach Polygnotus that we 
 encounter hints of the proper glories of painting, for even, 
 his father Aglaophon has no verified claim beyond standing 
 on the record as instructor of his son. 
 
 Polygnotus w r as of the wealthy island of Thasos, and his 
 date is fixed generally by his known relations to Cimon 
 and to Elpinice, before she was quite so old as Pericles 
 thought her in 463-2 B.C. The inscription for his Delphic 
 picture is ascribed to Simonides, who died four years earlier, 
 Ol. 78. 2=467-6 B.C., and gives perhaps a more precise 
 date. The picture was executed by him for the Cnidians ; 
 his friend Cimon was at Cnidus before the battle of the Eury- 
 medon 466-5 B.C., but as this was in the next year after the 
 
 1 Figurac omntt. Pliny, xixv. 34. * Catayrapha, cbliqiwu imaginef. Ib. 
 Cf. Aelian, F. II. viii. 8.
 
 xxn.] THE EPOCH OF POLYGNOTUS. 299 
 
 death of Simonides, the inference appears to be that this 
 dedication of the Cnidians was anterior to their participation 
 in the spoils of Eurymedon. We are thus thrown upon an 
 earlier date for the motive and occasion of the picture, 
 to the days immediately after the liberation of the Ionian 
 cities and of Thasos from the Persians, and the time of the 
 transactions of Cimon with the Amphictyons at Thermopylae, 
 relatively to Scyros, 476 B.C. 
 
 Again, Polygnotus decorated with paintings the Theseum, 
 which received the bones of the hero about 469-8 B.C. As 
 regards the style, modes, and manner of Polygnotus, Pliny 
 states that he painted the drapery of his female figures 
 as transparent ; and Lucian has a reference to the delicacy 
 with which he depicted it as either gathered naturally in 
 folds or fluttering in the wind; Aelian is another authority 
 to the same effect. ] Cicero names him as one of the 
 painters who employed only four colours, of which one 
 was 2 black ; a simplicity for which, as it seemed to Quin- 
 tilian, it could only be affectation to profess admiration. 
 Criticism therefore it seems was already known in antiquity, 
 to be given to assert peculiar insight, to be jealous of 
 the claims of beauty that condescended to be manifest to 
 unsophisticated taste, or even that reposed on the best judg- 
 ments of the past, and preferred to announce a revelation 
 of it where it must needs be a mystery to the rest of the 
 world. The better critics however, it is most certain, did 
 not err in their lo'fty estimate of the art of Polygnotus, 
 restricted as were his appliances. Nor were his resources 
 in respect of colour too narrow to admit of great variety. 
 That he was liberal in the variegation of feminine head- 
 dresses is an unimportant matter ; more to the purpose 
 are the notices that he did not content himself with flat 
 uniform tints, but compassed gradations both of tints and 
 
 1 Brut. 18. 2 Plin. xxxiii. 12; xxxv. 6.
 
 300 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 tone, and so made the first and all-important advance beyond 
 monochrome. He painted fishes as seen indistinctly in the 
 dark waters of Acheron ; the vast and mutilated form of 
 Tityus in Hades was mysteriously obscure; the daemon 
 Eurynomus was coloured like the flesh-flies; the wrecked 
 Oilian Ajax was recognised with his sea stains about him ; 
 the cheeks of the abused Cassandra bore the tender blush 
 of her situation. 
 
 As regards expression, the blush of Cassandra was in 
 harmony with the beauty of her l brows. And his Polyxena 
 was praised still more enthusiastically; he gave movement 
 to lips, exposed teeth, relieved physiognomy from archaic 
 rigidity ; he represented the tender, the pathetic, the im- 
 pulsive, the reserved, the heroic. 
 
 Hence Polygnotus is to Aristotle the ethical 2 painter, 
 the ethical artist indeed as compared either with sculptors 
 or painters, especially as compared in his own art with 
 Pauson and 3 Zeuxis. Polygnotus, says Aristotle, exceeded 
 reality in his representation of man, Pauson fell below it, 
 Dionysius was on the same level. 
 
 We have most happily a detailed description by Pau- 
 sanias of his great paintings in the Lesche, or public apart- 
 ment for conversation, at Delphi, the work already referred 
 to which he executed for the citizens of Cnidus. Like so 
 many of the early Italian painters, and under the same 
 influence of requirement to cover large architectural spaces 
 with subjects that could not appropriately be disconnected 
 with each other, he had very large views of composition, 
 both as within each separate picture and as demanding 
 certain connections and contrasts of one picture with another. 
 In such early combinations we constantly find a well-marked 
 gradation in associated dignities, so that a subordinate sub- 
 ject supports a principal, whether the secondary subject be 
 
 1 Lucian, Imayy. 7. a Ariut. Poet. vi. 15 ; Polit. viii. 5. * Ib. Poet. ii. a.
 
 xxn.] POLYGNOTUS AT DELPHI. 301 
 
 introductory or, as more frequently, a sequel, or as, perhaps 
 with equal frequency, with no pragmatical interdependence, 
 but an ideal antitype. 
 
 The subjects, disposed on opposite walls, to right and left of 
 the entrance, were the Capture of Troy and Departure of the 
 Greeks on the right ; and on the other side, scenes in Hades, 
 including the descent of Ulysses to consult Teiresias. The 
 figures in each were very numerous as many indeed as 
 seventy but disposed in groups of considerable independence, 
 so that the picture might seem made up of a system of groups 
 in separate though not harshly disconnected scenes. Names 
 were inscribed in archaic fashion, in one case even a collective 
 description is added ' The Uninitiated/ I have given l else- 
 where a detailed exposition of these pictures, group by group 
 and indeed figure by figure, with illustrative restorations for 
 which the account of Pausanias gives inviting opportunity. 
 The aim at symmetry is very marked in particular groups, and 
 still more so in their general correspondence with each other ; 
 in one degree less formally than in the Aeginetan pediments, 
 but still as decidedly in intention. In each case we see that 
 grace and variety are superinduced upon a sublying arrange- 
 ment as orderly as a pattern, and always more or less dis- 
 cernible, but not least happy in effect when least conspicuous ; 
 even as the disorder of fluttering drapery owes its gracefulness 
 considerably to the occult but still regulative fact that it is 
 order in disturbance. 
 
 Disconnected as the several groups might be in action, a 
 very considerable breadth of effect was compassed in general 
 composition, and that in spite of the still further difficulty 
 that the groups were in rows, two, three, or even more, one 
 above another, and at least so far as appears without either 
 perspective diminution or continuous landscape. The practice 
 of the Apulian vase-painters, although at a considerably later 
 
 1 Falkener's Jfuseum of Classical Antiquities.
 
 302 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 date, may be taken as exemplifying the conventions of this 
 style of painting, where disgrace of failure was precluded by 
 limitation of what was attempted ; the vase-painters judi- 
 ciously recognising the need of the limitation in their own 
 case long after painting in the larger sense had as wisely 
 asserted its emancipation. In the Capture of Troy the 
 central portion exhibited the ruthless prosecution of the 
 slaughter by Neoptolemus, the demolition of the walls, and 
 the Greek chiefs in council on the subject of an act of 
 sacrilegious violence by one of their number during the 
 sack. These groups were flanked on one side by the heaps 
 of slain, the burials in progress, the spared Trojans preparing 
 for retirement inland ; on the other by more important groups 
 of wounded and captives, and Greeks preparing to embark 
 with recaptured Helen and spoil. 
 
 The groups of this wing of the composition are more 
 weighty and numerous than those of the other, and were 
 made so not without artistic design ; it is thus intimated 
 that the first long composition is not complete in itself but 
 demands a sequel, found in fact in the opposite picture, 
 which concludes, as this commences, with a more impressive 
 mass of groups. The subjects are thus not only paired anti- 
 thetically, but knit together as one in general intention by 
 common reference to terminal inclusions, commencing the 
 first, concluding the last. 
 
 In the second subject, the general scene is indicated most 
 emphatically, no longer by the central but by the terminal 
 groups ; giving correlative representations of the punishment 
 of the irreligious and impious Tantalus, the Danaids, Sisyphus 
 at one end ; Tityus, the parricidal and sacrilegious man, at the 
 other. The intermediate space, in contrast to the first picture, 
 has no central compartment, but is divided by a comparatively 
 blank central space between two lateral systems, each in sym- 
 metry at once independent and contrasted. These intermediate 
 combinations are formed of groups of heroes and heroines, of
 
 xxii.] ARCHAIC PICTORIAL COMPOSITION. 303 
 
 the Homeric period chiefly, represented as occupants of the 
 underworld. 
 
 It was by an oversight that, in rearranging- the groups 
 of Riepenhausen, I missed the necessity for another capital 
 modification, and failed to reverse the sequence of groups in 
 the second picture. Pausanias goes through the subjects in 
 order, beginning on his right as he entered the building ; but 
 when he reached the end of one wall he naturally and pro- 
 perly enough passed over to the corresponding end of the 
 opposite wall, and so worked back towards the entrance. 
 The relative collocation of figures as opposite to each other is 
 therefore represented falsely by a drawing which follows the 
 enumeration as if both series commenced at the same end of 
 the building. 
 
 It surprises us at first to find that pictures dedicated at Delphi 
 can be so entirely without allusion to Apollo, the peculiar god 
 of this most sacred locality; but the solution of the difficulty, 
 though it carries us into remote associations, is complete, and 
 is a most remarkable exemplification of the retentiveness of 
 Hellenic memory for tribal connections. Religious allusion 
 is not and could not be omitted, but it refers to the worship 
 not of Apollo, but of divinities whom his splendour might 
 have obscured but was powerless to obliterate, to the Pelasgic 
 worship of the powers of earth and of the underworld, whose 
 seat he invaded, and only occupied at last by a compromise 
 and alliance such as he himself afterwards had to concede to 
 Dionysus. The Amphictyons who met at Delphi also as- 
 sembled on alternate occasions at Thermopylae, at the temple 
 of Demeter ; and the worship of Demeter was most affected by 
 those earlier colonists of Cnidus who, starting from the 
 neighbouring coasts, had again transmitted the worship from 
 their new seats to new colonies, and to times far later than 
 those we are now dealing with. 
 
 I have pursued this subject in detail in my historical illus- 
 trations of Pindar's Sicilian Odes.
 
 304 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Thus is accounted for the introduction, that might other- 
 wise seem intrusive here, of reference by typical incidents and 
 inscriptions to the rites and initiations of Demeter. The 
 Danaids are inscribed as contemners of her mysteries, and her 
 Thasian priestess Cleoboia crosses the Acheron holding her 
 sacred cista. 
 
 The episode of Ulysses, who consults Teiresias as to his safe 
 return to Ithaca, connects the subject of this picture with that 
 of the sack of Troy and departure of the Greeks. The suc- 
 cessful issue of the Trojan war meets us again and again at 
 this time, as an adopted mythical prototype of the recent 
 victories over the Asiatic host of Xerxes, and was probably 
 intended to be understood so here. At the same time the 
 predominant sentiment of the designs is the inculcation of 
 moderation in victory, especially in the matter of respect for 
 sanctities and sanctuaries. Neoptolemus, who had a tradi- 
 tional ill-name for sacrilege at Delphi, is conspicuous here for 
 regardless blood-thirst ; and the central subject of all is the 
 reprobation by the Hellenic kings of the unholy violence of 
 Locrian Ajax. 
 
 The recovery of Aethra, the mother of Theseus, supplies an 
 Athenian allusion which might be gratifying to Cimon. 
 
 The Peisianactian, afterwards called the Poecile Stoa, at 
 Athens was decorated with paintings, partly at least by 
 Polygnotus, and partly by Micon, who appears as his col- 
 league in another instance, and partly, as it seems, though at 
 a later date, by Panaenus, brother of Pheidias. 
 
 Pausanias, who gives no names of painters, enumerates 
 
 (1) Battle of Athenians and Lacedaemonians at Oenoe in 
 Argolis ; the battle and the painter are alike unrecorded. 
 
 (2) The battle of Theseus and Athenians with the Amazons ; 
 distinctly ascribed to l Micon. 
 
 (3) The third, which 2 Plutarch ascribes to Polygnotus, was 
 
 1 Ariatoph. Lytist. 678 ff. J Cimon, 4.
 
 xxii.] PAINTINGS OF POLYGNOTUS. 305 
 
 at least a repetition of the subject that he painted at Delphi, 
 the Capture of Troy and debate on the sacrilege of the Locrian 
 Ajax. This latter incident was painted again by an Athenian 
 at Olympia, and must have been recommended by some 
 specific application to current feelings, apparently as repro- 
 bating the sacrilege of the northern Greeks, who had abetted 
 that of the Persians, It was in this that a portrait of Elpiniee 
 was introduced as Laodice, the most beautiful of the daughters 
 of Priam. 
 
 (4) And the most celebrated the battle of Marathon, which 
 authorities ascribe variously to Micou and to Panaenus. 
 
 The subjects chosen indicate the prevailing influence of 
 Cimon, the son of the victor at Marathon. 
 
 In the temple of the Dioscuri at Athens, Polygnotus painted 
 their marriage with the daughters of Leucippus, how treated 
 the text does not enable us even to conjecture. Micon painted 
 here the Argonauts, including, no doubt, the Dioscuri, 
 though the picture was chiefly admired for the horses of 
 Acastus. 
 
 In the Pinacotheca, at the entrance of the Propylaea, 
 Pausanias saw six pictures among others of which he gives the 
 subjects, and seems to ascribe them all the more probably as 
 they seem to constitute a set to Polygnotus. 
 
 (1) Diomedes carrying off the Palladium from Ilion. 
 
 (2) Ulysses obtaining the bow of Philoctetes in Lemnos. 
 Here we have manifestly a pair ; and the common theme of 
 fraudulent capture of a charm involving the fate of a city 
 may be taken as an appropriate warning to wardens of an 
 Acropolis. 
 
 (3) Orestes slaying Aegisthus, and Pylades the sons of 
 Nauplius, who come to his rescue. 
 
 (4) Polyxena on the point of being sacrificed at the tomb of 
 Achilles. This was no doubt the Polyxena that we have 
 found cited with admiration. 
 
 These two subjects have this at least in common, that they 
 
 x
 
 306 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 are parallel examples of revenge, retributive or superstitious, 
 for the death of a father. 
 
 (5) Achilles among the virgins at Scyros, whether at the 
 moment of his discovery by Ulysses as represented in many 
 ancient works of art, especially in a very remarkable Pompeian 
 picture, does not appear. 
 
 (6) Ulysses himself, and the maidens along with Nausicaa, 
 at the river. 
 
 Here again a parallelism is palpable, in each picture a dis- 
 covered hero and scared maidens, but not so any definite 
 reference to the place or to the companion pictures. 
 
 Lastly may be noticed the pictures in the pronaos of 
 the temple raised by the Plataeans to Athene Areia, the 
 Warrior Athene, Pausanias says from their share of the spoils 
 of the victory at Marathon. 
 
 (1) By Polygnotus, Ulysses immediately after the slaughter 
 of the suitors. 
 
 (2) By Onasias, a painter otherwise unknown, the first 
 expedition of the Argives against Thebes. 
 
 The date of this temple, no doubt, can scarcely but have 
 been later than the demolition of Plataea and its sanctuaries 
 by the Persians, but even so, as peculiarly commemorative of 
 the battle of Marathon, it would be considered as built from 
 the spoils, while it might all the same receive dedications 
 in memorial of later victories. 
 
 The paintings at least have much more obvious reference to 
 Plataea than to Marathon. Plataeans restored to home and 
 territory after prolonged exile, and recovering all and more 
 than all after decisive victory and a general slaughter of their 
 enemies at their very gates, might fairly look through Homer 
 and find and wish no fairer antitype of their triumph than 
 Ulysses standing in blood amidst the heaped bodies of his 
 enemies in his own recovered palace hall. But otherwise I am 
 much disposed to question the ascription of the picture to 
 Polygnotus, and to connect the subject with the much later
 
 xxii.] PAINTINGS AT PLATAEA. 307 
 
 incident of the slaughter by the Plataeans of the treacherously 
 intrusive Thebans, the opening incident of the Peloponnesian 
 war. 
 
 The selection of the other subject as appropriately typical 
 of the position of Plataea at this time has peculiar interest, 
 because it explains how the Athenians also may have been 
 consistently disposed to read off the significance of the same 
 subject as it was treated at this time by Aeschylus in the 
 Seven against Thebes. The discomfiture of the Argives might 
 seem to represent a triumph for Thebes ; but it was evidently 
 not so regarded. The assailant himself was a Theban, and he 
 fell, like the Theban allies of Persia, while inciting and leading 
 on a host of foreign allies against those most closely united 
 with him in blood. The whole story was one of fratricidal and 
 parricidal horrors, and began and ended in the disgrace and 
 desolation of Thebes, the direst and most inveterate, but at 
 this time the disarmed enemy of Plataea and Athens. 
 
 X 2
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THEMISTOCLES IN PELOPONNESUS. 
 
 WHILE the Athenians during these years were actively 
 exercising their own powers, and arrogating more and more 
 independent control over their allies, the Spartans would 
 appear as strangely inert; but the hints which we gather 
 from Herodotus are found confirmed in general terms by 
 Thucydides, of collisions with their immediate neighbours, 
 so serious that they might well concur with certain do- 
 mestic embarrassments to hamper wider action. Brilliant as 
 had been the achievements of Leotychides and Pausanias, 
 their misconduct in foreign commands was more than 
 sufficient to confirm the national maxim of abstention from 
 remote enterprises ; and a jealous oligarchy was on its 
 guard against indulging the enthusiastic emulation of the 
 young, or affording unnecessarily a dangerous relaxation of 
 that galling restraint by which peace at home was system- 
 atically made for the Spartan more irksome than war in 
 the field. And Pausanias was still among them, humiliated 
 and kept in check he might be, but yet no inconsiderable 
 power. He seems to have had some sympathetic partisans 
 even among the ephors; but that he was not driven into 
 exile like so many of his predecessors was probably due 
 less to his personal influence as a Heracleid, or respect for 
 the victor of Plataea, than to the proof which he had already 
 given of his powers for formidable mischief when remote
 
 THEMISTOCLES IN PELOPONNESUS. 309 
 
 from direct control. In the meantime uneasy feelings of 
 danger were gathering strength in connection with his 
 discontent, and even obscure suspicions of intrigue among 
 the helots. 
 
 Under such circumstances it might well be thought ad- 
 visable by the ephors to withdraw for a time from active 
 interference in extra-Peloponnesian politics, and to be satisfied 
 with watching the movements of party at Athens and pro- 
 moting as they might so welcome a result as the extrusion 
 of the mistrusted, or certainly inimical, Themistocles, and 
 the establishment in power of the more ingenuous and ever 
 friendly Cimon. 
 
 But the Lacedaemonians were soon to discover that The- 
 mistocles ostracised might be scarcely less troublesome than 
 Themistocles supreme at Athens ; in no short time their 
 views and interests within Peloponnesus itself were thwarted 
 in a variety of transactions that had much appearance of 
 proceeding in concert. We owe to an incidental notice by 
 1 Herodotus of the official services of the seer Tisamenus, 
 our only information, that at some time between the battle 
 of Plataea (Ol. 75. i ; 479 B.C.) and the siege of Ithome 
 (Ol. 78. 4 ; 465 B.C.) two victories were gained by Sparta 
 which imply two distinct wars ; the first was over the Tegeans 
 in their own territory supported by the Argives, and the 
 second at Dipaea in the Maeualian 2 district over all the 
 Arcadians in alliance, except the Mantineans. The exception 
 is important, but conflict with such a league must still 
 have been serious. That the Mantineans stood aloof may 
 be probably accounted for less by present sympathy with 
 Sparta than by jealousy of an alliance between Argos and 
 Tegea, their neighbours on either side, or even among the 
 general Arcadian cities. Only a few years later they are 
 found annexing territory and asserting control over other 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 35. 2 Paus. iii. n. 6.
 
 310 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Arcadians, and then the course of politics turns them back 
 towards an Argive alliance for security against the jealousy 
 of * Sparta. Unless some other equally uncited authority is 
 relied on, it seems to be by misreading 1 Strabo that Curtius 
 dates at this time the fortification of Mantinea under Argive 
 influence. 
 
 We are left in ignorance as to the interval that may have 
 separated these victories, but may fairly assume that each was 
 led up to by a series of considerable disputes and difficulties. 
 We are equally left to conjecture, but not unsupported by 
 strong presumptions, as to how these complications may 
 have been dependent on some others of which Argos was 
 the centre. 
 
 Argos was the usual residence of Themistocles, and it 
 re impossible not to connect the notice of Thucydides that 
 he was in frequent movement about Peloponnesus, with the 
 changes that followed on rapidly in various directions, all 
 inimical to the influence of Sparta over even her immediate 
 neighbours or most constant allies, all tending to strengthen 
 individual states, and to dispose them to independence in 
 the choice of their alliances. 
 
 It was something, though it might not be very much, 
 that the scattered populations of Elis were now gathered 
 from smaller townships into one city. This process was 
 always justly recognised in Greece as endowing a nation 
 with the first condition of vigour and independence. There 
 is every appearance that it was by promoting such a policy, 
 at Mantinea especially, and then at other cities that became 
 afterwards of chief importance in both Arcadia and Achaia, 
 that Argos had in past centuries averted the entire absorption 
 of the Peloponnesus by the Dorian conquerors of 2 Sparta. 
 
 At Elis, which, protected by the universally recognised 
 consecration of its territory, dispensed with fortifications, 
 
 1 Thuc. v. 29. 81. Strabo, 337. C'f. 348-356.
 
 xxm.] RECOVERY OF ARGOS. 311 
 
 the chief motive may have been consciousness of enhanced 
 importance from the great accession of valuable dedications 
 after the Persian war, of which more were already preparing : 
 at the same time it must be observed, that susceptibilities 
 are developed in the future relations of Elis and Sparta which 
 could not have been unaffected by this present self-assertion. 
 The present agitations are premonitory of the occasion when 
 Elis, Argos, and Mantinea were to present a bold front to 
 Sparta, by concluding a joint alliance with Athens, offensive 
 and defensive, for one hundred J years. A like movement 
 of concentration, but carried through with violence under 
 circumstances peculiarly offensive to Sparta, was now com- 
 menced at Argos, at Argos the refuge of the restless 
 Athenian, and bearing marks of being prompted by the 
 genius who prided himself on skill to raise a small city into 
 the position of a great one. In working for the advancement 
 in power of the most jealous enemy of Sparta in Peloponnesus, 
 he was but following out in exile the policy that he had 
 consistently advocated at home. Argos certainly had re- 
 jected his proposals heretofore; had held aloof from the 
 alliance against Persia, had, as Herodotus avers, positively 
 Medised ; not only sent no force to Thermopylae, to Salamis 
 or Plataea, but promised Mardonius aid, though more than 
 she was able or could dream of being able to perform, to 
 detain the Lacedaemonians within the Isthmus, and had at 
 least given promptest and repeated notice of their move- 
 ments. Such were the sins of her policy against Hellas ; 
 but Themistocles, apart from a politician's usual tenderness 
 towards any policy that succeeds, could only witness with 
 pleasure dispositions that might be turned to the ultimate 
 advantage of Athens. Argos had avowedly spared her re- 
 sources during the Persian struggle, from the necessity of 
 recovering population which a defeat a massacre by the 
 
 1 Thuc. v. 47.
 
 312 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Lacedaemonians had seriously and dangerously reduced, and 
 this policy now looked for its reward. In the time of her 
 weakness her authority had been contemned by the adjacent 
 towns, far inferior now, whatever their proud rivalry in 
 poetry and mythology, of Tiryns, Hysiae, Orneae, Mideia, and 
 above all l Mycenae. Pausanias tells the same story as Diodorus, 
 that the pride of Argos was wounded to the quick by the 
 Mycenians having presumed, in contravention of her decree 
 of neutrality, to despatch even eighty men to Thermopylae, 
 and the oflfence had been repeated, in company with the 
 other towns, at Plataea. Their anticipation that they would 
 thus engage the protection of Sparta against Argos was 
 frustrate. Argos seized an opportunity when Sparta was 
 either fully occupied nearer home, or in one of her calculated 
 periods of seeming inaction but secret discipline and drill, 
 to attack them with all her force and with the aid of 
 2 Cleonae, a town which had a quarrel on its own account 
 respecting precedence at the Nemean games, and of the 
 Tegeans, who were ever too jealous of Spartan power to 
 be mindful at this opportunity of their solemn oath never 
 to subvert the city of a confederate against Persia. 
 
 Diodorus dates these events in the archonship of Theage- 
 nides (B.C. 468-7), and, with his habitual inexactness, *as if 
 commenced and concluded within the year; while at the 
 same time he ascribes the abstention of the Spartans from 
 interference, to difficulties consequent on the great earthquake, 
 which certainly did not occur till three years later. Mycenae 
 offered considerable resistance, but how prolonged before 
 its final catastrophe there is no means of deciding. It is 
 most natural to suppose that it was at a later and not earlier 
 date that the Spartans were roused to activity at last, or 
 chose to resume it with effective suddenness, when, under the 
 auspices of Tisamenus, they inflicted the defeat upon the 
 
 . ii. 16. 5 ; viii. 27. i ; Diod. Sic. xi. 65. Strabo, 377.
 
 xxm.] SUBVERSION OF MYCENAE. 313 
 
 Tegeans and Argives together. The defeat of the united 
 Arcadians was still later, but it is probable that the Arcadian 
 alliance was threatening trouble previously, and even that 
 it was this embarrassment that cut off the Spartans from 
 coming to the rescue of Mycenae. 
 
 Diodorus states that the inhabitants of Mycenae were 
 reduced to slavery ; but this is a mistake, or his word is 
 employed loosely as it may be on other like occasions, a 
 not unimportant warning. Pausanias informs us that it 
 was after a siege, prolonged by the strength of their 
 primaeval Cyclopean fortifications till provisions failed, that 
 some of the Mycenians it is implied but few, who were 
 probably the anti-national leaders retired to Cleonae, the 
 very ally of Argos ; so considerable a number settled at 
 Ceryneia in Achaia as to enhance its strength and import- 
 ance ; and more than half took refuge with Alexander of 
 Macedon. Their attraction to Ceryneia and reception there, 
 seem explained sufficiently by traces of some traditional con- 
 nection with the city of Agamemnon, which reflect, there 
 can be little doubt, a true connection with the ancient centre 
 of Achaian power. 1 Pausanias saw there a fane of the 
 Eumenides which was said to be a foundation of Orestes; 
 the temple statues were of wood, but well executed marble 
 statues of priestesses were about the entrance ; for those stained 
 with murder or other pollution, or sacrilege, to enter the 
 sacred precinct, involved the risk of raving madness. The 
 style of the monuments and the tone of the traditions alike 
 refer us to times long gone by for their origin. 
 
 The Alexander of Macedon who received the fugitives is 
 the same of whom Herodotus relates as within his own 
 knowledge that he presented himself as a competitor at the 
 Olympic games, was met by an objection of un-Hellenic 
 origin, but established his claim to the satisfaction of the 
 
 1 Paus. vii. 25. 6.
 
 314 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 Hellaiiodicae, and was admitted and matched in the contest 
 of the stadium. It was not merely as Hellenic but as 
 Heracleid, as descendant of the Temenid kings of Argos, 
 that the Macedonian protected refugees from the antique 
 metropolis of the realm of Danaus and Pelops and Aga- 
 memnon; so he vindicated again his semi-mythical claim 
 of descent, and afforded an example that was not lost upon 
 his successors, when the time was ripe for turning it to 
 true political account in more active interferences. It is 
 very probable that the appearance of Alexander at Olympia 
 was at that second recurrence after the Medica (Ol. 77 = 
 472-71 B.C.) when Hiero and Theron were also competitors, 
 and Themistocles and Cimon rivals in hospitality and dis- 
 play. Such congresses of the ' great ones ' do not occur 
 without the pretext of peaceful amusement being made the 
 opportunity for conferences of which results are apt to 
 become apparent within a year or two on the course of 
 politics. The interests of Athens and of Macedon, the scenes 
 of action of Alexander and of Cimon, were in close proximity 
 in Thrace and on the Strymon ; and remembrance of the 
 amenities of Olympia may easily have encouraged the Athe- 
 nian demus a few years later in their Jealousy of Cimon's 
 tenderness towards a regal guest when an opportunity was 
 neglected of gaining a political advantage for Athens by 
 despoiling 1 him. 
 
 The resistance and treatment of the Mycenians were alike 
 exceptional. The occupants of the other suppressed towns 
 and of numerous scattered villages were incorporated as 
 citizens at 2 Argos, of which we are left to infer that the 
 fortifications were at the same time correspondingly extended. 
 
 1 Plut. Cimon, 14. a Pausan. ii. 25. 5.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES OF AESCHYLUS. 
 
 IT was in the spring- of 467 B.C., the year after the victory 
 of Sophocles with his Triptolemus, that Aeschylus is now 
 known to have obtained the first prize with his Oedipodeia, a 
 tetralogy or system of four dramas, consisting of a tragic 
 trilogy, La'i'us, Oedipus, The Seven against Thebes, and a sa- 
 tyric play, The Sphinx, which had for their subject the crimes 
 and fate of the house of Lams of Thebes. The titles of the 
 tragedies show that, like those of the Oresteia, they followed 
 on in historical sequence of subjects, although, in the tetra 1 - 
 logy that comprised the Persae, the poet had already either 
 set or followed the example of a broader principle of com- 
 bination. The second prize was gained by Aristias with 
 plays of which we have only the titles, Perseus, Tantalus, 
 and The Wrestlers ; the last apparently a satyric drama of 
 his father Pratinas of Phlius, who in these compositions was 
 accounted inferior to Aeschylus l alone. The third place 
 only was granted to a tetralogy on the Thracian subject of 
 Lycurgus the Lycurgeia of Polyphradmon. 
 
 It was to the great surprise of very confident theorisers 
 that the discovery of the didascalia by Franz, in 1 850, proved 
 The Seven against Thebes, concluding as it does with the 
 announcement of the new dispute that gave Sophocles the 
 
 1 Paus. ii. 13 5. '
 
 316 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 subject for his Antigone, to be not the intermediate, but the 
 final play of a trilogy. Disconcerted criticism however finds 
 consolation in the promise that as a final play it may point 
 more unequivocally to the main drift and purport of what 
 went before, and has been lost. 
 
 Far back in the story of the first drama, as reported in the 
 argument, lie the weakness and intemperance of Theban 
 Laius, who thrice warned by Apollo that the salvation of 
 his country depends on his dying childless, gives in to false 
 counsels of friends and commencement of mischief that is to 
 be propagated to the third generation perishes by the 
 hands of his own son. Oedipus, whose deed is unconsciously 
 parricide, contracts an incestuous marriage, ignorantly still, 
 but by 2 mad folly (irapavoia), a term of which the import in 
 this place could only be explained by the preceding lost drama. 
 Maddened and humiliated by the discovery and then by the 
 undutifulness of his sons, he utters a hasty and fearful curse ; 
 it is with steel that they shall share their common kingdom 
 between them. Fraternal hatred continues horrors that parri- 
 cide and incest have not exhausted, to the third generation. 
 Eteocles in possession is assailed by his brother Polyneices 
 with six allies from Argos, each of whom advances against one 
 gate of Thebes ; he assigns opponents at six several gates, 
 elects to oppose his own brother at the seventh himself, and 
 briefly, the brothers fall, each on the spear-point of the 
 other. 
 
 Notwithstanding the nature of such a subject there is in 
 truth very little in the treatment of it by Aeschylus to assist 
 a theory which has obtained so strange an acceptation, that 
 blind immoral Fate is supreme in the tragedy of the Greeks. 
 The enunciation of this principle may be carried up to the 
 Oedipus of Seneca, which has had extraordinary influence on 
 the tlevelopement of a modern school of classical drama, but 
 
 . Sept. c. Tlicb. 740-763. * Ib. 756.
 
 xxiv.] THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES. 317 
 
 scarcely further. To affiliate it to Athenian poetry were as 
 gross an outrage as to make Aristotle answerable for the 
 three unities of the French drama. What Greek tragedy 
 does no doubt harp on, and with an impressiveness that 
 awes us now, and now engages our compassion, is the natural 
 truth that the sins of fathers are painfully visited on the 
 children; but it sets forth, not obscurely withal, that this 
 is in no slight degree because the dispositions that pro- 
 duce and repeat the sins are inherited by the children, who 
 therefore aby the consequences not more of their father's 
 nature than of their own. Familiar alike to the experience of 
 all men, and to the records of history of the Tudors and the 
 Stuarts as of the Claudian gens is the persistence of family 
 characteristics and the tendency for the mischief of one 
 generation, when happy interposition fails, to be aggravated 
 in the next, till it ends by natural exhaustion ; for cumulative 
 wrong, unless stayed at favourable 1 moment by self-sacrifice 
 and self-restraint, to hurry on ruin and annihilation. 
 
 The story of Oedipus, however treated, could scarcely but 
 involve such aspersions upon Theban national characteristics 
 as were always welcome to Athenians ; and it is even pos- 
 sible that some of those intestine quarrels in Thebes which are 
 speedily to become declared in political results, might already 
 be sufficiently malignant to remind men of the unnatural hosti- 
 lities of the sons of Oedipus. We have one hint of a certain 
 movement at Thebes at this time which cannot be without 
 significance, however difficult it may be to interpret it fully. 
 Herodotus tells us that it was twenty years after the invasion 
 of Datis and Artaphernes (490 B.C.), and therefore, allowing 
 for the round number, within a year or two of the date of the 
 Oedipodeia (467 B.C.), that the Thebans, in obedience to an 
 oracle, restored to Delium, close upon the Attic boundary, a 
 statue of Apollo that had been carried off by the fleet of 
 
 1 Aesch. Sept. c. Theb. 705-708.
 
 318 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Datis, and afterwards deposited by him, in consequence of a 
 dream, at the sacred island of Delos. This solemn reparation 
 of a Median outrage can scarcely but have had some bearing 
 on the opprobrium of Medism which one party at Thebes 
 had an interest in keeping alive. The incident may well have 
 had a party import as distinct as the recovery of the relics 
 of Theseus, which may indeed have suggested it. Still 
 it must be said that the tone of the poet is not such 
 as to turn our thoughts with distinct intention towards con- 
 temporary Boeotia. What then was the crisis that at this 
 time chiefly engaged the attention of Athenians in the larger 
 range of politics ? 
 
 There is this unexampled peculiarity in the situation of 
 affairs. From this year, 467 B.C., the Greek could look back 
 to about 475, over a happy blank, a period of about two 
 Olympiads, during which, after the subsidence of troubles due 
 to the Persian invasion, the internal peace of Hellas had had 
 no interruption by conflicts of sufficient gravity to occupy a 
 brief page of the chronicles. But an ominous change had 
 supervened, 'the noise of battle hurtles in the air,' Sparta 
 is embroiled with Tegea, ever the harbour and resort of her 
 exiled kings, and with Argives in J alliance. A victory is 
 gained, but a battle has again to be fought, if again victo- 
 riously, against all Arcadia in alliance except the Mantineans. 
 The struggle is still sustained when Argos, her youthful 
 vigour now recovered from the blow of Cleomenes, can seize 
 an opportunity to consolidate her power by the incorporation of 
 several smaller territories, and then by the siege and ultimate 
 capture and razing of Mycenae, her rival in traditional in 
 poetical claims that were of no slight value for political 
 purposes. 
 
 Thus the Hellas of the days of united glory was harshly 
 roused from a dream of tranquillity by revival of dire inter- 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 35.
 
 xxiv.] SPIRIT OF THE BAN MYTHOLOGY. 319 
 
 necine quarrel ; war desperate and vindictive was again 
 afoot extending its designs to the extrusion of nearest neigh- 
 bours, the extirpation of seats of most ancient mythical 
 renown. 
 
 The story of Thebes furnished a fable that brought into 
 visible action all the passions and excitements of this crisis ; 
 hereditary violence and crime, with Argive ambition to aid, 
 are found to reproduce themselves with ineradicable per- 
 sistency ; and even at last, when the brothers fall together, 
 it seems that from their very burial is to spring a new root 
 of domestic dissension and political misery. The warlike spirit 
 of the champion of Marathon is indulged by a welcome outlet 
 in his verse ; in the words assigned to him by Aristophanes, 
 ' it is a drama brimful of the war- god, and every beholder of 
 it would fain be a warrior himself;' but it is on a long wail 
 that the story draws to an end ; the pomp and the clatter of 
 war have passed away together ; the pride in the infliction 
 and the endurance of horrors that ever tend to reproduce more 
 crime than they destroy, leave us to make the best of the 
 moral at last, that unnatural and vindictive warfare between 
 either princes or nations allied in blood has its happiest ending 
 when both parties suffer alike, and yet even then is apt to do 
 little more effectually than enforce a pause for the maturing of 
 the dragon's teeth that it has sown anew. 
 
 The story of Oedipus was not likely to be treated by an 
 Athenian poet, and at Athens, without being turned in some 
 degree to the disparagement of Thebes; but the mythus itself 
 has a distinct appearance of being of genuine Theban origin. 
 The story which connects LaYus with Elis by his rape of a 
 beautiful youth, corresponds with the evil report that asso- 
 ciated Elis and l Boeotia in the coarse abuse of a form of 
 friendship which Homer exhibits in a still unsuspected purity, 
 and which, faintly surviving in historical times, was at least 
 
 1 Plato, Sijmpk. p. 182, et citat.
 
 320 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 believed by Plato to be even yet recoverable. The oracle 
 which LaYus disobeys in obtaining offspring 1 , points to the 
 difficulty of surplus population, so unhesitatingly countervailed 
 throughout Hellas by exposure of the newly-born ; and the 
 consequences of his disobedience seem to embody an exemplar 
 of the confusions which had ultimately led at Thebes to very 
 remarkable and exceptional legislation. The so-called Thetic 
 laws of Thebes were ascribed to a lawgiver who came like 
 Oedipus from l Corinth. They forbade the exposure or deser- 
 tion of infants, the practice which the case of Oedipus ex- 
 hibits as liable to bring about the pollution of the country, 
 however unconsciously, by incestuous unions, certain to pro- 
 voke the direst visitations of the wrath of the gods. The babe 
 that otherwise would have had to take its chance of death or 
 of rescue to an unidentified life, was, in accordance with these 
 enactments, to be brought immediately on birth, and under 
 heavy penalties, to the authorities, who consigned it to who- 
 ever offered a price, however small, and was willing to look to 
 its future services as a slave as remuneration for cost and 
 tending in the 2 meantime. 
 
 1 Aristot. Pol. xi. 9. * Aelian, V. H. ii. 7.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE CATASTROPHE OF PAUSANIAS AND FLIGHT OF 
 THEMISTOCLES. 
 
 B.C. 467-466 ; 01. 78. 2. 
 
 SPARTA then had been disabled by whatever embarrass- 
 ments from interposing- in time to arrest the progress of Argos 
 to an aggrandizement which threatened to furnish, when time 
 should be ripe, a valuable ally to Athens; but she clearly 
 vindicated her power at the first opportunity, and in the 
 double victories over Tegea and Argos first, and then over 
 the united Arcadians, the impact of her disciplined hoplites 
 told with its usual effect. It shattered opposition now as 
 effectually as when in after years Alcibiades, with diplomacy 
 rivalling that of Themistocles, at least succeeded but like his 
 predecessor no more than succeeded in forcing her to imperil 
 her supremacy upon a single field against almost the same 
 1 antagonists. Spartan influence in Peloponnesus was at once 
 fully restored, and as a valued consequence she was in a 
 position to free herself once for all from the dreaded ma- 
 chinations of Themistocles, though the opportunity only came 
 about in the course of events that involved a domestic crisis 
 of danger and disorder. 
 
 Sharply as the designs of Pausanias had been checked, he 
 had never renounced them, and when he became aware that 
 Themistocles, fallen like himself into home disgrace, was 
 
 1 Thucyd. vi. 16. 
 y
 
 322 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 fretting in his exile with impatience and discontent, he counted 
 at once on sympathetic rancour as well as ancient friendship 
 to aid him in the revolution that he was still plotting against 
 ungrateful and unworthy Hellenes. Such had before been 
 the revenge of Demaratus against one city, and of the son 
 of Peisistratus against the other ; and Leotychides, who was 
 only just dead and succeeded formally by his son Archi- 
 damus, had at least been in a position to be not more 
 patriotically employed while protected in his suspicious 
 refuge at hostile Tegea. Party was not unknown at Sparta, 
 and Pausanias may have found, if not sympathy for a pro- 
 ject which some ascribed to 1 him, the abolition of the 
 ephorate, more probably encouragement for general inno- 
 vation, among ancient comrades and ambitious spirits who 
 were ill content with the renunciation of larger Hellenic 
 hegemony, and with the elevation and pride of Athens. 
 Even the Persians are certainly found within a year or two 
 well informed of this latter root of jealousy, and prompt to 
 negotiate on the assumption of its bitterness. 
 
 Interpreting the feelings of Themistocles by his own of 
 the ill-requited victor of Salamis by his own memories of 
 Plataea and Byzantium he had communicated to him the 
 Great King's 2 letter, which seems so completely to have turned 
 his own head, and no doubt also his correspondence, which was 
 still active with Artabanus, though without the effect he hoped 
 for and relied on. Themistocles, as we might expect, shook 
 off the application, and declined to have anything to do with 
 the partnership, but as he declared afterwards, in admitting 
 the communication so far, he held it nevertheless to be no 
 part of his to denounce a friend; quite as little might he 
 think it to be his part as an Athenian, not out of hope of 
 resuming his place at Athens, to put a stop prematurely to 
 transactions that, conducted as they were, could only help to 
 
 1 Arist. Pollt. v. i. " Plut. Themist. 23.
 
 xxv.] INTRIGUES OF PAUSANIAS. 323 
 
 embarrass and weaken if not to ruin Sparta, and might 
 probably enough put events in motion that would hasten 
 his own recall. Whether Themistocles was made acquainted 
 with the domestic development of the scheme of Pausanias 
 does not appear; the plan for the intervention of Persia was 
 combined with a plot for raising the helots in rebellion ; 
 he could count on their memory of the spoils and exploits 
 of Plataea, and he held out to them the prospect of freedom 
 and of citizenship, which in later Spartan history is recognised 
 as a natural reward for their services in arms. What pro- 
 gress he had made in both directions is avouched by the 
 reappearance before long, and in formidable muster, of a 
 Perso-Phoenician fleet, and then by the still more dangerous 
 revolt of the helots that was speedily to occur, though not 
 before his own career, which would have added so much to 
 the peril, had closed for ever. 
 
 In the meantime rumours of his intrigues reached the 
 Ephors ; the helots themselves, slaves as they were, had not 
 failed to furnish even direct information ; but the maxim 
 was imperative, not to recognise obligation to such a source 
 alone in a serious charge against any Spartiat ; they could 
 only be watchful until evidence more available arrived. And 
 this was not long delayed. Pausanias had already trans- 
 mitted a series of communications to the satrap Artabanus, 
 before the time came for him to entrust one, the most im- 
 portant of all, addressed to the king and intended to be 
 conclusive, to the hands of a dependent there is no reason 
 to suppose a slave a native of Argilus in Thrace, who had 
 been his confidential favourite and even something more. 
 When thus entrusted, the Argilian called to mind, if he had 
 not cared to dwell on his suspicions earlier, that no single 
 bearer of the numerous messages of which he had been 
 cognisant had ever reappeared. He opened the packet, after 
 having prepared himself to reclose it with a counterfeit seal 
 in case all was well, but found, as he foreboded, that it con- 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 tained an instruction to put the messenger to death as usual. 
 Desperate and indignant he carried the letter at once to the 
 ephors, with whatever other information he could furnish. 
 Yet even so, action had still to wait on hesitation, and was 
 suspended for further confirmation of the evidence of a 
 foreigner, and of a letter which however damning in purport 
 had still been opened intermediately. Arrangements how- 
 ever were made at once for procuring this. 
 
 Pausanias was presently allowed to hear, and he heard with 
 alarm, that his messenger whom he supposed to be on his 
 way to death, had taken refuge as a suppliant in a hut 
 within the sacred precinct of Poseidon at the promontory of 
 Taenaron. Thither he hurried to seek an explanation, and 
 was greeted by the man with reproaches for his cruel 
 treachery, for having held him him whom he might have 
 safely trusted to take his share in any danger in the nego- 
 tiations to which he referred in detail in no better honour 
 and esteem than to consign him to death like the rest whom 
 he had sent on the service before him. Pausanias made every 
 effort to soothe and satisfy him, and, admitting the past, could 
 so far flatter himself, desperate as was the case, that he had 
 worked upon the man, between protests of regret and promise 
 of vast rewards, as to urge him to quit the protecting sanc- 
 tuary with confidence, and undertake the journey without 
 delay, and so not frustrate what was now on the point of 
 conclusion. 
 
 The confidence of the Spartan king in his success could 
 scarcely under such circumstances be very assured, and it is 
 not surprising that when the ephors approached him after 
 his return to the city he read the tokens of danger in their 
 looks ; they had in fact, by prearrangement of a double wall 
 in the hut of the suppliant, been witnesses of the entire inter- 
 view. A covert sign from one ephor who was his friend gave 
 warning of peril, and he ran at the instant, and just in time, 
 to gain the sanctuary of Athene Chalcioecus Athene of the
 
 xxv.] CATASTROPHE OF PA US AN I AS. 325 
 
 bronze house and took refuge in a small outbuilding within 
 the sacred precinct. The pursuers paused at the entrance, but 
 only to beset it. A story was current in later times, that 
 while the ephors were considering what should next be 
 done, the aged mother of the traitor came, bearing a brick, 
 which she laid down on the threshold without a word, and 
 then turned and went to her home. 
 
 We have the authority of Thucydides that the ephors did 
 in fact build up the entrance, unroof the refuge of the sup- 
 pliant of the goddess, and set a watch to await the moment 
 when famine and exposure should bring him to the last gasp ; 
 then, in deference or subjection to the base logic of super- 
 stition which however was afterwards to fail to satisfy them- 
 selves they drew him forth just in time to prevent the dese- 
 cration by his death of a holy place that was not held to be 
 desecrated by any cruelty in bringing it about. It was only 
 due to some protest that they did not cast the body into 
 the chasm Caiadas, the place of shame for malefactors, but 
 it still was put away in ground adjacent. It seems to have 
 been in unworthy imitation of this insult that Athens after- 
 wards, with less justifying provocation, assigned a spot close 
 to the proud dedication of Themistocles to Artemis Aristo- 
 boule, for the bodies and instruments of death of malefactors 
 and l suicides. In time ensuing, the Pythia, concerned for 
 the pretensions and immunities of sanctities, appended to 
 every oracle that she delivered to Lacedaemonians, on what- 
 ever subject, a command to give back her suppliant to the 
 goddess. In formal compliance with the injunction they 
 then transferred his remains to the precinct particularly to 
 the protemenisma of the temple and erected two statues of 
 him within it. Even so their enemies held themselves en- 
 titled to refer to the repeated oracles as imputing an ever 
 unexpiated 2 sacrilege, and associated it with a still less 
 
 1 Pint. Themist. 22. 2 Thucyd. i. 128.
 
 326 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 ceremonious treatment of Helot suppliants at Taenaron, 
 very probably among the implicated in the intrigues of 
 Pausanias, who were forcibly dragged from the sanctuary 
 to execution. For this sacrilegious outrage the Lacedae- 
 monians themselves could recognise divine retribution in 
 their sufferings by a desolating earthquake manifest expres- 
 sion of the anger of the god of Taenaron. 
 
 In the meantime the correspondence of Pausanias was 
 seized, and, besides the letters of the Persian king, some 
 documents were found that promised a colourable pretext 
 for implicating Themistocles in the crime of Medism ; and 
 these it was determined to make use of forthwith for com- 
 pleting if possible the ruin of their ever-dreaded enemy, to- 
 gether with the forfeiture by Athens of the services of her most 
 gifted and best deserving citizen. Envoys were accordingly 
 sent to Athens, where he had enemies enough to second them, 
 to urge on his condemnation ; he was charged in his absence 
 at Argos, and, though acquitted upon his transmitted defence, 
 the accusation was renewed at the instance of the Lacedae- 
 monians, and a proposal submitted to the Athenians, that 
 the enquiry should be referred to the common synedrion of 
 Hellas to be assembled at Sparta. Diodorus speaks of 
 an earlier accusation, rebutted by Themistocles before his 
 ostracism; but this is inconsistent with his own account, 
 that the charge was promoted by the Lacedaemonians, as 
 cognizant, which at that time they were not, of the secret 
 correspondence. Plutarch, who says that he replied to the 
 Athenians by letter from Argos, ' respecting the earlier ac- 
 cusations chiefly,' specifies a formal accusation by Leobotes, 
 son of Alcmaeon, which was also posterior to the ostracism, 
 and to which such letter must have had 1 reference. His 
 reply was in the unsubmissive unconciliatory style that the 
 Athenian demus had now unfortunately for itself to listen to 
 
 1 Plut Themist. 33.
 
 xxv.] FLIGHT OF THEMISTOCLES. 327 
 
 nearly for the last time ; ' his ambition remained what it ever 
 had been, to govern, and it was as little in his nature as his 
 desire to be subjected to rule, or therefore to surrender up 
 himself along with Hellas, to the barbarians who were their 
 common enemies.' Notwithstanding this first acquittal, such 
 a reaction occurred as the great Athenian historian is given 
 to adverting to as characteristic of a popular assembly, and 
 the proposal of the Lacedaemonians gained acceptance, 
 whether as Diodorus says by aid of bribes, or not. It 
 admitted of plausible advocacy ; it gave the hostility of 
 Cimon another chance, and was flattering to his leading 
 idea, that the action of united Hellas might continue to be 
 secured by a perfectly practicable cordial alliance with 
 Sparta. It was tempting to essay to controvert the Argive 
 policy which Themistocles had been working for, by a revival 
 of the authority of the Doro-Ioniari congress, expressly to his 
 personal ruin. A joint party was at once despatched the 
 Lacedaemonians had their men ready with authority to 
 attach him wherever he could be found ; and the implication 
 that he might have been seized even at Argos may be ac- 
 counted for by the ascendancy there of the friends of Sparta, 
 after the defeat of the allied Argives and Tegeans, as well as 
 of the united Arcadians. He knew his enemies, however, and 
 even their intentions and their movements too well, and was 
 not to be found easily. Argos was void, and when next 
 heard of he was at Corcyra ; he had personal claims on the 
 Corcyraeans for public services rendered to them, and that 
 he should have such is again characteristic of the man. He 
 had evidently already discerned that Corcyra westward was 
 as fitted to be an advantageous ally for Athens as Argos in 
 Peloponnesus ; and if we may trust Plutarch, the obligation 
 that Thucydides refers to w T as an award in their favour in 
 respect of money and jurisdiction over Leucas, a joint colony, 
 as against Corinth. To weaken Corinth by the encourage- 
 ment of its contumacious colony, Corcyra, was a policy in
 
 328 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 harmony with the consolidation of the power of Argos a 
 policy that Athens was to adopt at a future momentous crisis 
 of her rivalry with Sparta. The islanders however, whatever 
 their good-will, could not afford to provoke both the great 
 Hellenic powers, though they had held themselves proudly 
 aloof from alliance with either, and could only speed him on 
 his way in advance of the keen pursuit.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THEMISTOCLES, THE PROMETHEUS DESMOTES OP AESCHYLUS. 
 
 THE Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus is of all his extant 
 dramas most characteristic of the poet, and stands alone 
 moreover in the mysteriousness and elevation of its theme 
 among all the works of the Greek tragedians of which we 
 have remains or record. The subject goes hack even to the 
 very commencements of human civilisation, not to say of 
 settled cosmical order ; and all the actors, even the Chorus 
 with the rest, are superhuman nature-powers, gods, or 
 Titans, with the exception of Io, who in her strange trans- 
 formation is scarcely an exception. In this play Aeschylus 
 treats of the divine economy with all the epic freedom of 
 Homer, and combines, at the same time that he elevates, some 
 elements of sublimity that might have given Hesiod, but for 
 his crudity of treatment, a dignity to which even Homer 
 himself did not attain. 
 
 We have no information whatever as to the date when the 
 Prometheus was produced, though presumably from its style 
 it must have been later than both the Persae and The Seven 
 against Thebes. I now advance a further presumption with 
 some confidence ; it appears strange that the drama should 
 have been so constantly read, its passion so sedulously 
 scanned, and not have recalled the character of Themis- 
 tocles and his position as ostracised and at Argos ; the 
 agreement is such as to argue strongly that Aeschylus,
 
 328 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 harmony with the consolidation of the power of Arg-os a 
 policy that Athens was to adopt at a future momentous crisis 
 of her rivalry with Sparta. The islanders however, whatever 
 iheir good- will, could not afford to provoke both the great 
 Hellenic powers, though they had held themselves proudly 
 aloof from alliance with either, and could only speed him on 
 his way in advance of the keen pursuit.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THEMISTOCLES, THE PROMETHEUS DESMOTES OP AESCHYLUS. 
 
 THE Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus is of all his extant 
 dramas most characteristic of the poet, and stands alone 
 moreover in the mysteriousness and elevation of its theme 
 among all the works of the Greek tragedians of which we 
 have remains or record. The subject goes back even to the 
 very commencements of human civilisation, not to say of 
 settled cosmical order ; and all the actors, even the Chorus 
 with the rest, are superhuman nature-powers, gods, or 
 Titans, with the exception of lo, who in her strange trans- 
 formation is scarcely an exception. In this play Aeschylus 
 treats of the divine economy with all the epic freedom of 
 Homer, and combines, at the same time that he elevates, some 
 elements of sublimity that might have given Hesiod, but for 
 his crudity of treatment, a dignity to which even Homer 
 himself did not attain. 
 
 We have no information whatever as to the date when the 
 Prometheus was produced, though presumably from its style 
 it must have been later than both the Persae and The Seven 
 against Thebes. I now advance a further presumption with 
 some confidence ; it appears strange that the drama should 
 have been so constantly read, its passion so sedulously 
 scanned, and not have recalled the character of Themis- 
 tocles and his position as ostracised and at Argos ; the 
 agreement is such as to argue strongly that Aeschylus,
 
 330 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 L 
 
 with daring all his own, brought home to the Athenians 
 the characteristics of their rejected hero even more directly 
 than when he was among them at the height of popularity 
 and power. Sagacity, versatility, daring, unrivalled and 
 combined, have conducted the Titan, as the Athenian, to 
 the highest power and alliances in a career which never- 
 theless is suddenly arrested by a terrible reverse; but the 
 reverse, though in either case unforeseen in its severity and 
 unprepared for, is endured by the victims, if not without in- 
 dignation and impatience, yet in abiding self-confidence that 
 sooner or later reaction must come round, and their quali- 
 fications be again indispensable, and the exacted reparation 
 be at their own discretion. 
 
 Prometheus is addressed at the very commencement of the 
 1 play, in terms that seem to indicate Themistocles almost by 
 name ; the phrase and epithet of the line, 
 
 TTJ* dp6o@ov\ov StfuSot alirvfjajra irat, 
 
 ascribe the faculty of sagacious divination for which he was 
 most renowned, recall his vaunt of it in his dedication to 
 Artemis Aristoboule, and though another goddess is named, 
 it is Themis an equivalent, as said distinctly by Prometheus, 
 of Gaia, the 2 Earth, and ' known by many another name,' 
 the goddess of the Lycomidae, to whom Themistocles most 
 probably owed his own. There is a pertinence here which 
 confirms my rejection of a criticism that condemns the line as 
 spurious chiefly because too significant. 
 
 I am even inclined to recover from the story of Prome- 
 theus a hint for history, that as the Titan deserted his ori- 
 ginal and natural party, alarmed and disgusted by their 
 inability to recognise the new tactics of craft not vio- 
 lence required in a new contest against younger 3 powers, 
 so Themistocles may have entered politics like many a new man 
 
 1 Aesch. Prom. V. 18. a Il>. 209, 210; Welcker, Aetch. Trilogie, p. 40. 
 
 * Aeach. Prom. V. 206.
 
 xxvi.] THE PROMETHEUS BOUND. "331 
 
 since, by attaching himself to a party from which he ultimately 
 slipped away as unmanageably wrong-headed, or when it had 
 served his purpose. And the parallel goes on ; the original 
 spirit finds his energies cramped in the new connection as in 
 the old. Those who conquered power by the aid of fore- 
 thought 1 personified, turning incontinently to the distribution 
 amongst relatives, of functions and offices, the government of 
 the upper and the under world, the land and sea, neglected 
 would even gladly have destroyed poor human-kind, the 
 unprovided, miserable 2 demus. Prometheus alone opposed ; he 
 secured for low mortals a share of higher privileges, especially 
 the use of fire, a franchise that finally assured them from 
 annihilation, though it made their benefactor an object of 
 oligarchical and tyrannous vindictiveness. 
 
 It would be a mistake in this, as indeed in any case of the 
 kind, to ascribe to the poet an intention to run an exact and 
 proper parallel : it would be enough for him to set in action 
 before his audience all the motives that they themselves were 
 most familiar with, all the passions they had recently excited 
 or indulged. Themistocles had as much cause as Prometheus 
 to declaim, and it is consistent with his character that declaim 
 he did, against the ingratitude of the political organism which 
 he had reconstructed, whether chargeable on his own parti- 
 cular party or not ; and we might think it was the Athenian 
 himself whom we hear speaking with the proud and con- 
 temptuous tones that resound from the mask of the fettered 
 Titan. When Prometheus tells of his services to men in 
 instituting the arts, we are reminded how in the earlier 
 Satyric play of Aeschylus, the boon of fire brought by Pro- 
 metheus had already once been made directly the symbol of 
 the restoration of sacred and domestic hearths, and the 
 reappearance of civilised society after the barbaric desolation 
 left behind by the Mede. In Athens and at the Piraeus, by 
 
 1 Aesch. Prom. V. 440. 2 Ib. 228-240.
 
 332 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 land and sea, Themistocles had been the main agent and 
 leading spirit in these restorations; he if any man might 
 claim to represent a new Prometheus, as his wise counsels 
 had given him pretensions to such title in the war. The 
 Athens that rose up under the superintendence of The- 
 mistocles, might well be asserted as such an improvement 
 on the city destroyed by the Persians, as could only be 
 paralleled by the change which Prometheus asserts that 
 he introduced in the habitations of previously exposed and 
 squalid humanity; and the creation by him of a new port 
 and improvement of the war ships, might as readily be called 
 to mind by the assertion for himself by Prometheus, of the 
 invention of sailing l vessels. 
 
 The younger gods, insolent, ungrateful, encroaching, are 
 contrasted here, as in the Eumenides, with the elder Titanic 
 powers; whether we care to approximate them to the 
 newly established demus, already betraying the tendencies 
 of absolute power in an extreme democracy, as distinctly as 
 they were to be recognised by Aristotle, indeed avowed by 
 Cleon and the Athenians 2 themselves, or to the younger 
 generation of aristocrats who had discovered the secret of 
 acquiring mastery over the demus. Prometheus, Themis-* 
 tocles-like, provoked the catastrophe that he risked at least 
 if he did not fully 3 anticipate, and confident in his prescience, 
 master of a secret that is all his 4 own, cares not, now that 
 it has come, to avoid provoking its further violence. He has 
 seen two revolutions, two catastrophes of powers in highest 
 places already, and he knows that, but for his besought in- 
 tervention, a third must follow, more shameful still, and more 
 suddenly precipitate than either. Jove himself, for all his 
 thunders, is helpless against 6 necessity, of which the course 
 is cognisable if not guided, not by him, but by elder more 
 mysterious powers, by ' the Triform Fates and daemonian 
 
 1 Aech. Prom. V. 467-70. 3 Thucyd. ii. 63; iii. 37; v. 89. 
 
 Aesch. Prom. V. 268. Ib. 306. lb. 518.
 
 xxvi.] THEMISTOCLES PROMETHEUS. 333 
 
 ^rinnyes,' whose plans and purposes, communicated in pre- 
 ference to Themis-Gaia, the Titanian mother of the 2 sufferer, 
 only come to Jove at second-hand. 
 
 There is no doubt ample vindication in the theme, the fable 
 dramatised, for the episode, which is indeed not strictly an 
 episode, of lo ; lo, ancestress of Hercules, of whom it is pro- 
 phesied that he is to be the liberator of Prometheus, and 
 thus the main instrument of ultimate conciliation ; lo, whose 
 frenzied wanderings under the persecution of 3 Hera demon- 
 strate, like the enforced servitude of Hercules afterwards, the 
 limitation of the power of Jove her lover, as distinctly as does 
 his ignorance of the secret that is in the keeping of Prome- 
 theus, his enemy and victim. But the sympathy of Prometheus 
 with the persecuted Argive heroine, and his prospect of aid 
 from her demi-god descendant, coincide so markedly with the 
 Argive connections and interests of Themistocles, that we seem 
 reduced to choose between inferences ; either that Aeschylus 
 at an early date was cognisant of the advocacy by Themis- 
 tocles of the Argive alliance, or at a later date, after the 
 alliance had become a fact, was disposed to credit him with 
 having anticipated and prepared for it. 
 
 Prometheus effected his main stroke of policy by theft, by 
 such craft as Themistocles was ever ready and dexterous to 
 resort to ; and both relied too confidently on their capacity to 
 sustain, or re-establish at least, as strong a position as ever 
 after discovery. The Titan pays a penalty unexpectedly 
 severe ; but to him an immortal, with a secular term before 
 him, the ages are destined to bring back his opportunity. 
 Mortal man fallen of necessity if he lays out plans that 
 are on a scale disproportionate to the conditions of his being ; 
 events might come round in a decade or two that would vin- 
 dicate the sagacious policy recommended by Themistocles, and 
 did so, but by that time all hopes of restitution for himself, 
 
 1 Aeech. Prom. V. 511-517. 2 Ib. 874. 3 Ib. 710.
 
 334 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 chances of his being 1 seen again with his strong hand on the 
 helm of the Athenian state, were past and over. 
 
 We are unfortunately destitute of direct information as to 
 the dramas that were associated and composed with the Pro- 
 metheus Bound, no less than of the date of its production, and 
 the field is open for speculations that have proved usually Imt 
 vague and unfruitful, as to the moral or metaphysical solu- 
 tion that was finally worked out by the poet. The play as 
 we have it breaks off upon a suspense as declared as the first 
 part of Faust. In the German play, however, a difficulty is 
 mainly constituted by the poet's declared intention it ad- 
 mitted of but lame execution to exhibit how deliberate seduc- 
 tion, followed by careless desertion for coarse debauchery and 
 what he does not seem to perceive was brutal assassination, 
 could contribute naturally to the development of a gifted but 
 chiefly intellectual, into a perfect character. We might be 
 well content to leave Faust, whose reappearance in a second 
 part is an impertinence, to his companion Mephistopheles, but 
 scarcely Prometheus to the vulture. We are fain, therefore, 
 to make the most of what hints we can gather as to the further 
 design of Aeschylus, from some fragments and notices of the 
 presumed sequel, his drama of ' Prometheus Released.' "\Vhen 
 all the fragments and notices are taken together, the outcome 
 is not inconsiderable as compared with our disappointment in 
 other cases. 
 
 The Chorus consisted of Titans, who visit their relative, 
 now suffering under the secular torture of the ' winged hound 
 of Zeus/ that daily descends to tear his still renewing liver. 
 But time has brought round the contingency on which the 
 victim of sympathy with the wretchedness of humanity in 
 unprovided life, relied prophetically for deliverance. The 
 destined liberator, Hercules, of mingled divine and human 
 origin, descendant of lo in the thirteenth generation, and son 
 of Zeus himself, appears at last; the series of labours by 
 which he is to initiate the relief of struggling humanity is
 
 xxvi.] THEOLOGY OF AESCHYLUS. 335 
 
 foretold, and his shooting the ravening bird brings on in con- 
 clusion a general reconciliation, of Prometheus with Zeus, of 
 Zeus with the preservation of the once doomed and despised 
 race of mankind. A further hard and apparently hopeless 
 condition of which Hermes had given l warning, the volun- 
 tary renunciation of the privilege of immortality, is fulfilled 
 by the vicarious acceptance of death by the centaur Chiron ; 
 the sentence of the eternal chain is satisfied by the assump- 
 tion by Prometheus either of a ring set with a fragment of 
 the rock, or of a verdant crown. Conceding now to clemency 
 what he refused to compulsion, he discloses his secret that the 
 threatened fatality awaited Zeus in case he yielded to his 
 passion and married Thetis, who was fated to bear a son supe- 
 rior to his sire. The permanence of Olympic, of cosmical 
 order, is assured, when the restored Titan in festive chaplet 
 joins the assemblage of the gods at the nuptials of the sea- 
 goddess with the father of Achilles. 
 
 Whether the 2 tradition of the marriage of Zeus himself 
 with primaeval Themis was combined with this fable, as critics 
 have fondly assumed, remains more than uncertain, for informa- 
 tion fails entirely. In any case, it must be insisted on that the 
 dignity of Zeus, relatively either to Titans or to man, cannot 
 by any ingenuity be rescued as the ideal of supreme divinity. 
 Aeschylus, even like Homer before him, whom he owned as 
 his great exemplar, treats the lord of Olympus but as a 
 representative of humanity with powers inconceivably en- 
 hanced, yet only in respect of death exempt from the inhe- 
 rent weakness of humanity. In passion and in ignorance, in 
 hesitation and indiscretion, in his liability to be vexed and 
 thwarted by powers not only superior but inferior, the con- 
 ditions and qualities of humanity are mirrored, and even of 
 necessity exaggerated by scale and contrast. To Zeus himself, 
 as to the demigod and Titan, is assigned the same invincible 
 
 1 Aesch. Prom. V. 1029. 2 Pindar, Hymn. 2,
 
 336 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 consciousness of freedom of will that is part of human nature, 
 but withal the same half-acknowledged and contradictory 
 sense of its exercise under permission; the relation of this 
 consciousness to the ever-intrusive conviction of a power ex- 
 istent somewhere that must guide in any case how myste- 
 riously ! what seems an independent or a drifting 1 bark, is 
 withdrawn, and surely with no unreverential feeling, with no 
 unreasonable humility, from the ken and scrutiny of preciser 
 definition. 
 
 In Aeschylus we find the consciousness above all, and fre- 
 quently the unequivocal expression, of the noblest ideal of 
 divine attributes, of the Divinity as the supreme creative 
 and controlling energy, the centre of all material forces, and 
 no less of the highest moral power and of presiding intelli- 
 gence, which gives the rule of justice as the single norm of 
 reward and punishment, and yet with an ultimate appeal to 
 indulgence and mercifulness. That this loftier ideal is from 
 time to time confused with the agencies of a plurality of gods, 
 or with such a defective personality as the poetic Zeus, is an 
 inconsistency that runs through all Greek poetry, and was 
 not easily escaped even by Greek philosophers ; but the in- 
 consistency tended to become gradually less obtrusive, and it 
 did not hinder the development of that sense of the unity of 
 providential control of the world of matter, of life, of intelli- 
 gence, of conscience, which is the essence of monotheism, and 
 towards which the poetry of Aeschylus still doubtless marks a 
 most important stage of advance. 
 
 That this drama, then, must needs have been suggestive to 
 the original Athenian audience, of recurring applications to 
 party conflicts and impending political difficulties, it seems to 
 me impossible to doubt; it is equally clear that the poet 
 elevated his theme far above the dignity of the most pregnant 
 embodiment of contemporary passion, by touching sympathies 
 
 1 Aesch. Prom. V. 513.
 
 xxvi.] THE FABLE OF PROMETHEUS. 337 
 
 that are common to all reflecting mankind. The exciting 
 interests of a day are partly attached to and partly absorbed 
 in a larger reference that is true for all men, true for all time, 
 and that is found accordingly to be conspicuously paralleled 
 in literature of far other genius among very contrasted popu- 
 lations. The Prometheus of Aeschylus is still in the main 
 the Titan of Hesiod, of the poet who confronts the most 
 salient and perplexing contrasts of life in the simplicity of 
 earlier days, and embodies in mythus the cruder explanation 
 of men upon whom they came with the surprise of novelty. 
 In Hesiod also we have an equivalent in forms of Hellenic 
 mythology, of those opening chapters of Hebrew story which, 
 before it narrows down to the fortunes of a family or a tribe, 
 regard humanity under its largest aspects, and with a scope 
 as wide as it was destined to recur to and resume at last before 
 its canon closed. That man should be so low and yet BO high 
 is the fundamental perplexity in both narratives; so seem- 
 ingly neglected or deserted, and withal so manifestly highly 
 endowed ; possessed of faculties which in their limitless capa- 
 city of development are godlike, and yet exposed by this very 
 possession to evils from which the lower animals, who have so 
 much of life in common with him, seem happily exempt. 
 ' Unaccommodated man ' is below the level of the brutes in 
 equipment for commonest self-preservation ; his existence is 
 only endurable, or indeed entirely possible, by the opportunity 
 of art and knowledge ; these save him, but only save him at 
 first as the veriest wretch ; and are themselves dependent on 
 that faculty of looking before and after which distinguishes 
 him from the brutes indeed, and how gloriously ! but at the 
 same time gives opening for the most poignant of sufferings, 
 for all the agonies of fear and doubt, from which the brutes 
 are exempt. Endowments which however dignified are still 
 the main conditions of human labour and human grief, 
 seemed to declare themselves as no rightful apanage, and 
 their consequences too closely resembled penalties and punish-
 
 338 . HISTORY OF GREECE, 
 
 ments, not to have been acquired at first only by breach of 
 law ; and if so, how not then by aid and suggestion of some 
 ally of intellectual subtlety superior to primeval man. 
 
 The Greek mythus ascribes the rescue of foredoomed man to 
 Prometheus, the genius of Forecast, to whom he owed the 
 command of fire, chief instrument of the useful arts ; who 
 even qualified the direst consequence of the power of antici- 
 pating evil, by implanting in his breast the germ of Hope 
 independent of, and even indestructible by * reason. But such 
 wresting of a privilege for man from a grudging divinity, 
 involved difficulty in the first instance as to the attributes 
 of the divinity, and then as to a reconciliation consistently 
 with man's retention of the illicitly obtained advantage. Of 
 a problem accepted in so crude a form the solution could 
 scarcely be less crude, and the mythologist only escapes 
 from his self-made dilemma by resort to a quibble, or a 
 metaphor, or a symbol. Poetical purpose demanded that these 
 should be clothed in graceful poetical forms, and so the trage- 
 dian soothes at last by a pleasing apology for satisfaction, the 
 distress that he had taken in the first instance little pains to 
 moderate ; even when wilder agitation subsides, he of neces- 
 sity and not unwillingly leaves over some natural awe at^the 
 still abiding enigma of human life ; but awe not unallied 
 with hope from the intimation that beyond these contradic- 
 tions and controversies there exists in the order of the uni- 
 verse a remoter but a comprehensive and an over-ruling 
 influence that will bring all right at last. 
 
 1 Aesch. Prom. V. 250.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE FIRST CONTUMACY OF ATHENIAN ALLIES. ADMINISTRATION 
 
 OF CIMON. 
 
 B.C. 465 ; 01. 78. 3-4. 
 
 THE adventures of Themistocles, from the commencement 
 of his flight till he found safety, protection, and honour at 
 the court of the Great King, are related with a fulness of 
 romantic details that enticed the attention of the historians 
 from larger public affairs, and cover pages it must be said, 
 somewhat disproportionately, when we consider what has 
 been omitted. The story to the extent that it is unques- 
 tionable is so extraordinary, that we are scarcely entitled to 
 challenge embellishment on the score of mere marvellousness, 
 and for once the cheap criticism, which in its keen pursuit of 
 the ' unhistorical ' so willingly erases the unlikely from his- 
 tory, must own itself foiled. Read it how we will, only when 
 we stumble over a positive contradiction can we be certain 
 that one version must be false; and even then no mere 
 balance of general probabilities will determine with certainty 
 which ought to give way. The tale seems to have been told 
 and retold, like that of Charles the Second fugitive from 
 Worcester, or of the young Pretender after Culloden, and 
 listened to, if not with sympathy of the same kind, with all 
 that Greeks were so capable of feeling for dexterity and 
 courage. 
 
 Even Thucydides quits larger history and condensed reflec- 
 tion for personal anecdote, when he relates how the most 
 
 z 2
 
 340 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 brilliant of Greek careers came to an end only one degree 
 less unhappily and disgracefully for Greece than that of 
 Pausanias. 
 
 There was one tradition that told how, when it was no 
 longer safe for him to remain at Corcyra, the victor of 
 Xerxes crossed over to Sicily, to Hiero, and there parodied 
 the mad schemes of Pausanias, with a proposal to marry a 
 daughter of the Syracusan tyrant, and help him to the sub- 
 jugation of central Greece. Such a story only represents the 
 conjectures of later time as to the meaning of the direction of 
 his flight, and a likely field for employment of his talents and 
 resources. Hiero was already dead (467 B.C.), and his dynasty 
 was dropping to ruin ; otherwise Themistocles might not have 
 shunned his court out of apprehension as to lingering rancour 
 for his opposition at the Olympic festival. His political 
 friends had failed in power at least, if not good-will, to 
 protect him from their common enemies ; he was now wound 
 up to throw himself into the arms of his personal or political 
 enemies, and to appeal to their credulousness, or generosity 
 or interests, to refuse to sacrifice him even to friends of their 
 own. Doubling on his pursuers he passed over to Epirus, to 
 the seat of Admetus, king of the Molossians, whose nobler 
 nature he was prepared to confide in, though in his day of 
 power he had opposed him also in some negotiations, very 
 probably connected with the dissensions of Corcyra and 
 Corinth as to territories on the mainland, which had been 
 referred to arbitration at Athens. His residence here seems 
 to have continued for some months ; and here he may have 
 had hope to remain unmolested, if it be true that at this 
 time he was joined by his wife and children from : Athens. 
 But again the strongest pressure of demands and threats was 
 applied by the Lacedaemonians upon his generous-minded 
 host, through envoys of high distinction. Admetus, however, 
 
 1 Pint. Them.
 
 xxvii.] THEMISTOCLES IN EPIRUS. 341 
 
 declared himself bound to protect his guest by the most strin- 
 gent national sanctions of hospitality ; for Themistocles had 
 claimed and appealed to them in a form which in that region 
 admitted of no denial prostrate on his hearth as a suppliant, 
 and holding in his arms the child of the house. Whatever 
 might be said or thought, that Phthia the wife of Admetus 
 had really in the absence of her husband compassionated the 
 persuasive Athenian, whose command over the sympathies 
 of women seems always assumed to be unfailing, and in- 
 structed him in the formula and ministered the opportunity, 
 or that Admetus himself had suggested the ceremony to 
 supply the pretext, the difficulty was the same ; there was 
 still no sign of it yielding to any increased urgency, when it 
 was found that Themistocles had again disappeared, and the 
 clue to the course of his retirement was broken. 
 
 In the meantime the untiring and unresisted activity by 
 which Athens was gradually wearying her confederates into 
 willingness to commute maritime service and even equipment 
 for money payments, the rigour with which these were ex- 
 acted, and the general imperiousness with which she com- 
 ported herself in administration by assumptions injurious to 
 the dignity of autonomy, were on the point of inducing colli- 
 sions premonitory of a change in history. Her authority was 
 to be almost simultaneously repudiated by the two important 
 islands, north and south, of Thasos and Naxos. These are 
 the first assertions of a right of secession of confederates from 
 a qualified union, which might now seem from the inactivity 
 of Persia to have answered its purpose, and to be maintained 
 for little else than to aggrandise a power which threatened to 
 be quite as oppressive, or certainly more arbitrary than under 
 the changed circumstances would be quietly endured. 
 
 The discontent of Thasos was brought to a head by an 
 extension which was given about this time to the establish- 
 ment on the Strymon, that had been maintained by the Athe- 
 nians ever since they wrested Eion from the Persians, after a
 
 342 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 difficult siege. They despatched a colony (465 B.C.) consisting 
 of 10,000 settlers, Athenians and general volunteers, for the 
 purpose of taking into occupation a very favourable position 
 about five-and-twenty stadia up the river, where it issues 
 from a lake, and which at the time was in the possession of 
 the Edonian Thracians. The name of the site, the Nine Ways, 
 Ennea Hodoi, indicates its importance as commanding the 
 communications between the fertile plains oP Thrace, the dis- 
 trict Phyllis to the east, and Macedonia and the Chalcidic 
 peninsulas westward. It was here that Aristagoras, thirty- 
 two yeafs before, had endeavoured to found an independent 
 settlement, and had come to the end of his turbulent and mis- 
 chievous life. A main temptation for the Athenians consisted 
 in the riches of the adjacent gold mines, which after being 
 worked for centuries remained still unexhausted, and were to 
 continue so to reward still more richly the energetic adminis- 
 tration of Philip of Macedon. The precise form of these gold 
 deposits does not seem to be recorded or explored in modern 
 times ; but the Athenians had appetising experience of the 
 profitableness of silver mines as worked at Laurium by slave 
 labour -the machinery of the ancients for these had been to 
 her the equivalents as a basis of prosperity of the coal and 
 iron deposits of England. Thrace also had its silver mines, 
 and no bait for industry or for adventurous rapine is more 
 stimulative of popular greed than pure metallic riches. The 
 Thasians seem to have shared the advantages of these mines, 
 in harmony if not in regulated partnership, with the Thracians, 
 before the Persians interfered, and not unnaturally expected 
 and claimed to re-enter upon all their privileges after their 
 expulsion. It was not so however that the Athenians inter- 
 preted their rights ; the right of conquest has been willingly 
 substituted many a time since and down to our own days, 
 for the more modest claims of reward for rescue, after 
 honourable rescue has served its purpose as a pretext for 
 interference. If the protests of Thasos were disregarded, the
 
 xxvii.] DISAFFECTION AT THASOS. 343 
 
 Thracians who were ousted at Ennea Hodoi were not likely 
 to be treated with more delicacy in further operations, and it 
 was not long 1 before the smouldering enmities burst out into 
 flame on both sides. 
 
 At the same time, as if in sympathy and probably not 
 without some intercommunication, discontent was coming to 
 a head at another centre. Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades, 
 and renowned for its productiveness, especially of wine, as 
 appropriately expressed in the mythic encounter on its shores 
 of Dionysus and Ariadne, had early connection with Athens 
 and a political story in many respects similar. Here again, as 
 so often elsewhere, the circumstances of unquestioned later 
 intercourse go some way to vindicate a much earlier mythus 
 as springing from a radical fact ; and the visit of the truant 
 Theseus on his return from Crete matches with the notice of 
 Herodotus, that the natives of Naxos, as also of Ceos, were 
 lonians of Athenian descent. Aristotle quotes Lygdamis of 
 1 Naxos as an example of the oligarch who becomes a tyrant 
 by taking up the cause of a demus, glad of any leader, against 
 his own 2 class. His rule seems to have been shaken off like 
 that of Peisistratus at Athens, by whom on his recovery of 
 power, and after a victory over the Naxians, he was reinstated, 
 and whom he requited afterwards by aid in men and money 
 to accomplish his own third and final 3 restoration. 
 
 A parallel fate still attends the Naxian tyrant when the 
 Spartans, after expelling the Peisistratids from Athens, put an 
 end to his authority also, and re-established their favourite 
 and avowed form of government, an 4 oligarchy. 
 
 About 500 B.C. the demus of Naxos gains the ascendant 
 and expels the leaders of the party of the so-called ' Sub- 
 stantial ' men ( 5 avbpes T&V Tra%fa>v), who apply forthwith to 
 Aristagoras, the despot under Persia at Miletus, and in 
 concert with him invite the interference of the Persians. 
 
 1 Pol. v. 5. i. 2 Athenaeus, 348. 3 Herod, i. 64. 
 
 4 Plut. de Mali(j. 21. 5 Herod, v. 30.
 
 344 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 We hear on this occasion a glowing and somewhat mar- 
 vellous account of the power and prosperity of the island ; 
 Paros, Andros, and others of the Cyclades, are dependent on 
 it ; it is wealthy in money and slaves, has a considerable fleet 
 of long vessels, and can muster 8,000 heavy-armed men, as 
 large a force as Athens sent to Plataea. Such a repre- 
 sentation of power corresponds with the magnitude of the 
 armament, 200 vessels with a large force of Persians and 
 lonians, which we read was assigned by the satrap Arta- 
 phernes for the expedition. A surprise was intended but 
 failed; the Naxians were found to have withdrawn, with all 
 their transportable property and abundant victual, within 
 their walls, prepared to stand a prolonged siege. They had, 
 in fact, received timely warning by contrivance of the Persian 
 commander himself, the same Megabates whom Pausanias 
 afterwards and as it seems in consequence mistrusted, who 
 had quarrelled with Aristagoras on a point of discipline and 
 authority in the conduct of the J expedition. A siege of 
 four months' duration consumed the funds of both the Per- 
 sians and the Greek adventurers, and was then given up, 
 the exiles being left behind to do the best they might, with 
 the aid of some fortifications constructed for them. 
 
 The repulse was remembered and revenged by Datis and 
 Artaphernes, who on their way to Euboea and Marathon, 
 490 B.C., burnt the city and its temples, and carried off 
 as captives all who had not taken timely refuge in the 
 mountains. After this warning all the Cyclades except the 
 westernmost, Cythnus, Seriphus, Siphnus, gave earth and 
 water, and contributed to the fleet of Xerxes, the Parians 
 only holding aloof from both sides to watch the result ; 
 Naxos was controlled by a Medising faction, but could now 
 only make the poor contribution of four ships, and these were 
 carried over to the Greeks by their commander Democritus. 
 
 1 Herod, v. 34.
 
 xxvu. J NAXOS IN REVOLT. 345 
 
 It is probable enough that the island nevertheless did not 
 escape some severity when visited afterwards by the fleet of 
 the victors. 
 
 Still it is scarcely conceivable that any treatment could 
 have goaded the islanders into defying the power of Athens 
 as now developed, and with all the confederation at command, 
 unless they had encouragement to look further for support. 
 It is scarcely to be doubted, in fact, that the ancient leaven of 
 oligarchical Medism insensibly recovering was again at work, 
 and that the expected aid was to come from the Persian fleet, 
 which now after a long interval appears again reinforced and 
 reorganised. We are thus conducted to the further inference 
 that the plans which had been just matured by Pausanias in 
 concert with Persia, when his treason was discovered, had 
 been arranged to take effect by a combination at this very 
 point. 
 
 Whatever was the offence, declared contumacy in respect of 
 subsidies or suspected intrigue with the barbarians, Naxos 
 was attacked by the Athenians as in revolt, besieged and 
 ultimately taken, after what length of resistance is not stated, 
 perhaps by surprise or l storm. This, says Thucydides, was 
 the first of the allied cities that were successively reduced to 
 subjection in contravention of compact (impa TO Ka0eorr/Kos), 
 as if in his opinion the punishment was unfairly strained 
 beyond the provocation a result ensuing for the most part 
 on refusals of assessed quotas of money or ships, or in certain 
 instances, of crews for service. The forfeiture of autonomy 
 by the Naxians probably involved in the same penalty the 
 smaller of the Cyclades that had retained connection with 
 them ; and signs of eagerness on the part of Athens to 
 make the most of a welcome opportunity may have alarmed 
 communities who had otherwise little sympathy with Naxos. 
 
 Whatever the progress of the siege, the presence of a large 
 
 1 Aristoph. Vesp. 354.
 
 346 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 fleet was not required after the investment was completed ; 
 and though Cimon may have commenced the siege, he would 
 be at liberty during its progress to proceed in search of the 
 Persian fleet, respecting which information had been re- 
 ceived, and which it must be supposed the Naxians were 
 still expecting. 
 
 The brilliant exploit that followed is thus related in the 
 summary of x Thucydides. 'After this attack on Naxos, 
 occurred the land fight and naval fight of the Athenians and 
 allies against the Medes, at the river Eurymedon in Pam- 
 phylia, when the Athenians under command of Cimon, son of 
 Miltiades, gained a victory in both on the same day, and cap- 
 tured and destroyed Phoenician triremes to the number of 
 200 in all.' Another authority which, if genuine as it appears 
 to be, is still closer to the time, is a metrical inscription of 
 dedicated spoils, says Diodorus, but apparently sepulchral 
 that has come down to us in several copies with but slight 
 variation. The double achievement is here described as the 
 slaughter of many Medes on land, and the capture or vic- 
 torious destruction of 100 Phoenician ships with their full 
 complement of men in the open sea (ei> 7re\ayet). 
 
 In both these statements it will be observed that the land . 
 victory is mentioned first; this is of importance when we 
 come to examine and compare the more detailed state- 
 ments of Plutarch and Diodorus, both of which, but the 
 latter especially, seem made up out of earlier conflicting 
 narratives. 
 
 The original fleet of Cimon consisted of 200 Athenian 
 triremes, constructed with all the latest improvements and 
 most efficiently manned. To Themistocles were due the 
 changes that had increased their speed on the one hand, 
 and then the important qualification of handiness in evolu- 
 tions, facility in turning, dependent partly on form, partly on 
 
 1 Thuc. i. ioo.
 
 xxvii.] CIMON BEFORE PHASELIS. 347 
 
 drill of the rowers, that were together essential to advan- 
 tageous manoeuvring in action. Ciraon himself had endea- 
 voured to combine with these a more ample accommodation 
 for a fighting crew by a greater breadth of beam, and the 
 addition of a certain gangway to the decks, apparently to 
 afford passage for hoplites from one end of the vessel to the 
 other without interfering with the l oarsmen. With this 
 armament he proceeded along the coast from Ionia south- 
 ward and eastward, expelling Persian garrisons wherever he 
 found them established in the maritime cities of Caria and 
 Lycia ; some of these were purely Greek and others of mixed 
 population, or at least bilingual, from commerce and inter- 
 course with such surrounding alien populations, however 
 Hellenised in manners, as the Lycian Tramilae. Every new 
 city thus acquired for the confederacy brought in of course an 
 addition to the Qopos an apportioned rate of subsidy. Ac- 
 cording to Plutarch his immediate starting-place was Cnidus, 
 on the Triopian promontory, but that the Cnidians did not 
 now for the first time join the confederacy is proved, interest- 
 ingly, as we have seen by their dedication at Delphi. The 
 only resistance in the course of these operations that we read 
 of as of any importance, occurred at Phaselis, a Lycian city 
 on the western shore of the great Pamphylian gulf. The 
 citizens were chiefly Greek, but nevertheless well content 
 with the share of quiet and prosperity that they were in 
 possession of under Persia, and declined either to revolt or 
 to give reception to the fleet of Cimon. After the usual 
 preliminary of plunder and devastation inflicted on the open 
 country, a serious attack was at once commenced upon the 
 fortified city. Extremities, which from the temper of Cimon 
 on the occasion impatient as he was for action elsewhere 
 would have been severe, were prevented by the intervention 
 of the Chian allies, who had friendly relations with the city 
 
 1 Plut. dm. 12.
 
 348 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 from of old, an interest sufficiently explained by concern in 
 the constant flow of commerce to and from Phoenicia, as well 
 as inland, which its harbour accommodated. They mollified 
 Cimon, and by shooting- missives attached to arrows over the 
 walls succeeded in opening negotiations, which ended in the 
 wealthy Phaselitans agreeing to pay ten talents and to 
 commit themselves to a breach of former connections by 
 joining actively in the enterprise against the barbarian. 
 With a fleet increased by these and other allies to 250 or 
 300 vessels, so Diodorus contradicts himself, Cimon now 
 sailed direct for the mouth of the river Eurymedon, which 
 flowing southwards enters the sea at the head of the gulf, 
 where both the fleet and army of the Persians were sta- 
 tioned. Aryomandes, son of Gobryes, is named as chief in 
 command, though the fleet was under Tithraustes, a base- 
 born son of Xerxes, and the army under Pherendates his 
 nephew. Of the number of their vessels there is no account 
 to be relied on, they were 350 in the history of Ephorus, and 
 increased to 600 in later authorities; both appear to be 
 grossly in excess, as collated with Thucydides and the in- 
 scription, perhaps even with the notice that a squadron of 
 eighty Phoenician vessels was still expected. 
 
 It was the object of Cimon to force an engagement before 
 these could join from Cyprus, and he pressed forward to the 
 attack ; the Persians were equally anxious to evade it and 
 retired into the river, but finding that conflict was unavoid- 
 able even there, were fain at last to essay a sally in con- 
 siderable force. It is probable that only a proportion of 
 their vessels were afloat, and in any case the restricted space 
 put numbers at a disadvantage; in a very short time they 
 lost heart and made for shore in order to disembark and gain 
 protection of the land army. The retreating vessels that 
 were nearest inshore discharged their crews, but of those 
 behind large numbers were either captured or sunk with all 
 hands on board. In this instance as so many others, from
 
 xxvii.] BATTLE OF THE EURTMEDON. 349 
 
 the dependence of an ancient fleet upon a camp ashore, the 
 battle repeats many circumstances of that at Mycale, which 
 no doubt furnished a model for emulation ; Cornelius 
 Nepos indeed confounds one with the other. The easy vic- 
 tory so far only excited the enthusiasm of the Greeks, 
 and Cimon, now encouraged by success and the spirit of his 
 troops, disembarked his large force of hoplites and boldly 
 attacked the army. The contest however here was vigo- 
 rously sustained by the Persians, who again vindicated the 
 courage that Herodotus credits them with in the battles in 
 Greece ; though again it was no match for the Athenian com- 
 bination of superior arms with courage and discipline. The 
 victory of Cimon was at last decisive and crowned by that 
 valuable reward, the capture of the Persian camp, replete as 
 usual with riches, in addition to prisoners who were little less 
 valuable for ransom. Plutarch agrees with the inscription 
 as to a large capture of prisoners; Diodorus records the 
 exaggerations 340 ships taken and over 20,000 men 
 slain. 
 
 This compound conflict was, according to Plutarch, the 
 double victory by sea and on land on the self-same day 
 which was celebrated as having a point of advantage in com- 
 parison with Salamis or with Plataea. He adds that the 
 expected Phoenician reinforcement did not escape. Cimon 
 had information of their rendezvous at Hydrus (? Idyrus or 
 Cyprus) , and was upon them before they had certain news of 
 the disaster of the main force. To this occasion, if any- 
 where, we must assign the stratagem by which Diodorus 
 relates that Cimon drew the enemy into the toils, approaching 
 them in the captured vessels of their friends and with crews 
 disguised in barbaric costume. This is, in fact, the order in 
 which Polyaenus introduces the stratagem. Such a later 
 engagement may have been the fight in open sea of the 
 inscription, as distinguished from that which is localised by 
 Thucydides at the embouchure of the Eurymedon, and with
 
 350 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 which, as so closely ensuing, it would afterwards easily and 
 not unnaturally be confused and combined. 
 
 Diodorus garnishes his narrative of these events with a 
 wealth of details that would be valuable indeed, but that 
 they are hopelessly discredited by his blunders in geography 
 and time. He places the expedition to the Eurymedon years 
 before events that we know from Thucydides preceded it, 
 and transfers the first battle by sea to the coast of Cyprus, 
 as also does Frontinus, following it up with a night 
 attack on the Persian camp by the Eurymedon, which 
 is aided by a double delusion on the part of the barbarians, 
 who mistaking their assailants for Pisidians fly for refuge to 
 the falsely seeming Phoenician fleet, only to perish miserably. 
 
 He appears to have been misled in part by a false reading 
 of a line of the inscription, which as he gives it specifies 
 the deslruction of 'multitudes of Medes,' not 'on the land' 
 simply, as in other copies, but ' in Cyprus.' This however 
 clears up but a small part of the confusion. Broken frag- 
 ments of history may be involved amongst it, but certainly, 
 if we make an attempt to disengage it as a merely ' tangled 
 chain nothing impaired but all disordered,' we shall fail 
 entirely. 
 
 Victories so gained we might expect to find followed up 
 energetically, and Cyprus is at hand, which before and after- 
 wards invited attempts to swell Athenian power and revenue 
 at the expense of Persia ; operations however cease here 
 suddenly ; a new danger recalls the fleet and the commander 
 northwards, a disaster of the Strymonian colonists and the 
 open defection of Thasos. The colony of 10,000 settlers, 
 Athenian and foreign volunteers, represents an enterprise on 
 an enormous scale at its commencement, and probable plans 
 for still further extension. Pausanias reckons it as a third 
 Athenian expedition that ranges with their mythical ad- 
 venture with lolaus to Sardinia, and their colonisation of 
 Ionia, and we find it rated along with the vast armament
 
 xxvii.] THE DISASTER AT DRABESCUS. 351 
 
 with which Pericles reduced Samos, and the still vaster 
 Syracusan expedition. The Thasians were threatened with 
 interference in their Continental emporia and l min.es, and 
 not only were the Edonian Thracians ejected from Nine Ways 
 but an advance was made inland as far as Drabescus. The 
 effect of this boldness, however, was to alarm and unite a 
 number of tribes, who set upon the intruders unexpectedly; 
 a storm seems to have been taken advantage of to cover the 
 
 2 surprise, and with such success as to be fatal to nearly the 
 entire force. Then perished Sophanes, son of Eutychides, 
 who had deserved best of all the Athenians at Plataea, and 
 was here in joint command with Leogrus, son of Glaucon. 
 This crushing- catastrophe raised the enthusiastic hopes of the 
 Thasians, discontented as they were and plotting already, for 
 the recovery of lost ground of their own. The opportunity 
 was the more inviting, as they had already been encouraged 
 to count upon that active sympathy at Sparta with the 
 repression of Athens which was to develope afterwards with 
 such momentous results. In preceding generations Sparta 
 had won the confidence of Hellas by her readiness to inter- 
 pose for the suppression of governments whose genius was 
 absolutely opposed to her own, and the same zeal with 
 which her oligarchy was credited in opposition to individual 
 
 3 tyranny, was now looked to with confidence as available 
 against an arbitrary democracy that threatened still more 
 seriously to become her enemy and rival. 
 
 The policy that Athens would apply to such an emergency 
 was already exemplified in the case of Naxos ; no failure of 
 loyal adherence to the confederacy as Athens chose to ad- 
 minister it would be admitted ; and an attempt to vindicate 
 infringed liberties was to be visited by their entire for- 
 feiture. Cimon, as might be expected, had no difficulty in 
 defeating the Thasians at sea. He captured or destroyed their 
 
 1 Thuc. i. ioo. 2 Paus. i. 29. 4. 3 Herod, v. 92.
 
 352 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 fleet of thirty-three l ships, and then, probably after a land 
 engagement also, as Thucydides mentions battles, commenced 
 a blockade, the usual process of reducing a strongly-fortified 
 city ; and its three years' duration in this case argues not 
 only the resoluteness of the besieged, but the well-furnished 
 premeditation of the revolt. 
 
 1 Plut. dm, 14.
 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THEMISTOCLES IN PERSIA. HIS DEATH. 
 
 IN the meantime if Persia, in consequence of this with- 
 drawal of Cimon, was indulged with a respite from annoy- 
 ance on the Greek frontier, her recent defeats had a reaction 
 at the centre that filled her palaces with discord and blood- 
 shed, and the life and reign of Xerxes came to an end under 
 circumstances that affected the relations of East and West for 
 a considerable time. Three of his sons are named, of whom 
 Darius is called the heir and still but a youth or a young 
 man, though Hystaspes, two years younger (Ctesias), is old 
 enough to be entrusted, according to Diodorus, with the 
 satrapy of Bactria ; he makes, however, no further appearance 
 by name in history, and Artaxerxes, the youngest, of an age 
 to be referred to as a boy, is assumed as the next heir after 
 Darius. Against the dynasty so represented, a plot is formed 
 by an Hyrcanian, Artabanus, commander of the royal guards, 
 himself the father of seven sons of power and ability. His 
 immediate confederate is Spamitres (Ctesias), or Mithridates 
 (Diodorus), his friend, and, though his relative, a eunuch, who 
 was at the head of the domestic establishment of the palace. 
 Possible apprehensions apart, of which hints occur in a various 
 account of the catastrophe that was known to l Aristotle, 
 there was suggestion enough for an ambitious man in the 
 
 1 Polit. v. 8. 
 A a
 
 354 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 observation of the declining energy of a self-indulgent 
 monarch and the declining reverence for a reign that had 
 been marked by a constantly recurring series of military 
 disgraces, and had lost in their course so many of its most 
 devoted supporters. Ill a night of horror and confusion, 
 Xerxes was murdered in his bed, and the young Artaxerxes, 
 roused from sleep to hear that the crime was due to the 
 impatient ambition of his elder brother Darius, beheld him 
 dragged forth, vainly protesting as he was taxed with guiltily 
 simulating sleep, and hastily despatched on the spot. For 
 seven months thereafter Artabanus, as regent, governed so 
 absolutely as to be admitted by l chronologists for that term 
 into the series of Persian monarchs. 
 
 Even so soon he was prepared to take the last step to 
 undisguised possession by the removal of the youthful Arta- 
 xerxes, relying especially on having secured, as he believed, 
 the adherence of some malcontent connections of the royal 
 house in support of his own and his sons' influence with 
 the army. 
 
 Xerxes had been considerably indebted to Megabyzus for 
 the recovery of Babylon, and had rewarded him not only \vith 
 the golden 2 plinth or flat cylinder according to 3 Ctesias 
 and as represented on the Naples vase of ten talents, with 
 which Persian kings recompensed the accepted responsibility 
 of bold and successful advice, but also with the hand of his 
 daughter Amytis. The dignity of the alliance was, however, 
 seriously qualified by the laxity of her manners ; and the 
 admonitions of Xerxes, when appealed to by the exasperated 
 husband, had been as futile as might be expected, considering 
 the shamelessness of his own intrigues. Even this check \\ as 
 removed by his death, and the brooding jealousy of the 
 brother-in-law of Artaxerxes marked him out to Oriental 
 sympathies as prepared for any extremity of revenge, even 
 
 1 Manetho ap. Syncell. Cf. Clinton, p. 314 g. * Aelian, V. II. xii. 62. 
 3 Cteaias, p. 117.
 
 XXVIIL] THE ACCESSION OF ARTAXERXES. 355 
 
 though it ruined the dynasty that had exalted him only to 
 more conspicuous disgrace. Megabyzus, however, Oriental 
 husband as he was, was still a politician, and a politician of 
 insight and experience ; he could estimate at their true value 
 the oaths by which a double traitor professed to bind him- 
 self, and set no more on whatever he was invited to give in 
 exchange. On the other hand he was not himself without 
 military following and influence, in aid of the traditions 
 of loyalty and the prestige of the house of Darius, which 
 the misconduct of only one successor and an interval of 
 twenty years had by no means cancelled. He formed a 
 just appreciation of the fundamental strength of character 
 of Artaxerxes, young as he was ; and for the rest, the risk 
 was great either way, and he could trust to his own courage 
 and promptitude to turn the balance on the side where he 
 cast in his fortunes. Artaxerxes justified his confidence, and 
 was equal to taking part in a counterplot which, by resolutely 
 suspending its execution until the very moment chosen by 
 Artabanus for the crisis of his own, brought all the leading 
 conspirators within reach together. The occasion was a 
 grand military muster, at which not only the Regent but 
 three of his sons were present, present in arms and with 
 their adherents, but ignorant of the feelings with which 
 they were watched by an associated force. A tumult, not 
 in itself surprising to many, suddenly arose in the group 
 around the person of Artaxerxes. The details of the incident 
 of course were variously related ; it was even said that it 
 began by the king complaining of the tightness of his body 
 armour, and proposing to try on that of Artabanus, who 
 proceeded to divest himself (Justin), and unarmed or embar- 
 rassed in disarming was stabbed there and then by Arta- 
 xerxes himself. Avtaxerxes was slightly wounded, and Mega- 
 byzus much more seriously, before the general conflict that 
 ensued ended in the complete suppression of the conspiracy 
 and the deaths of the three sons of Artabanus. In the 
 
 A a 2
 
 356 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 investigation that followed, the particulars of the first plot 
 came to light, and the eunuch Spamitres expiated his com- 
 plicity in the murders of Xerxes and his eldest son by a 
 death of prolonged and disgusting l torture. 
 
 The date of the death of Xerxes is one of the most happily 
 certified points in the chronology of these times, and supplies 
 a limit for the dates of several events in Greek history proper. 
 Diodorus assigns it to the archonship of Lysitheus (July 
 465 B.C. to July 464 B.C.), after a reign of over twenty years. 
 It is shown by 2 Clinton, on comparison of the canons of 
 the Persian kings, that it would fall about the first month 
 of that archon, and the proper accession of Artaxerxes seven 
 months later, about February, B.C. 464. 
 
 It was, according to Plutarch, within this interval, while 
 Artabanus was still in power, that Themistocles arrived at 
 Susa ; an assignment which is in accordance with the siege 
 of Naxos being in progress when he passed into Asia, and 
 with the revolt of Thasos, which was proceeding in the fourth 
 year of King Archidamus of 3 Sparta (464 B.C.), being still 
 later, as stated by Thucydides. 
 
 But many of the details inserted by Plutarch as to the 
 reception and demeanour of Themistocles at the Persian 
 court and his intercourse with Artabanus are manifestly 
 late inventions or hopeless exaggerations, connected as they 
 are with the untrustworthy accounts that told not only of 
 his arrival at Susa but even of his death at Magnesia, during 
 the life of Xerxes. The combination most in harmony with 
 the brief note of Thucydides, is that he arrived in Asia 
 during the power or usurpation of Artabanus, but did not 
 reach the Persian court until after the revolution that over- 
 threw him. 
 
 Such a gap as intervened between his disappearance from 
 Molottis and his reception at Susa, is the very playground of 
 
 1 Ctes. Peri.; Plut. Artax. ii. 16. * Clinton, p. 314, note b. 
 
 8 Plut. dm. 16.
 
 XXVIIL] THEMISTOCLES AT NAXOS. 357 
 
 conjecture, but of curiosity also, which may be trusted to 
 have gathered many facts that are worth the gleaning of 
 history. The conclusion of his story is warning to histo- 
 rical criticism not to reject fairly authorised tradition, on 
 the mere ground of its inconsistency with antecedent proba- 
 bility; if such a principle sufficed to guide through the 
 uncertainties of the past, there need be little mystery for 
 us even about thie future. He had known how to conciliate 
 the warm zeal of two young men of Lyncestis, a district 
 between Macedonia and Epirus, who from their engagement 
 in inland trade were fully acquainted with the obscure passes 
 and by-roads of the continent to which he might trust to 
 baffle the most vindictive pursuit. By aid of their untiring 
 guidance he made his way from sea to sea, not neglecting, as 
 it seems, to obtain a useful oracle at Dodona on his l way, 
 and arrived at Pydna in the Macedonian territory of Alex- 
 ander, where he took passage, in a false name, on board a 
 merchant ship bound for the coast of Asia Minor. Stress 
 of weather carried the vessel direct upon Naxos, where the 
 Athenians were engaged on the siege, and where to run in 
 would have involved fatal recognition, while it would require 
 much to induce a Greek skipper to forego even the rest 
 and refreshment offered by such an opportunity, to say 
 nothing of shelter from really dangerous weather. Themis- 
 tocles put himself at once so far in the man's power as to 
 declare who he was and what was his jeopardy, but appealed 
 to him at the same time in a manner to compel him to 
 the required decision. He overawed him in the first instance 
 by the distinct intimation, that to betray him would be 
 fatal to himself, as the Athenians would be given to 
 understand that his intention had been to assist the escape 
 of their enemy for a bribe ; his only chance of avoiding this 
 catastrophe was to keep the sea at any inconvenience and 
 any risk, and to permit no soul to land till the voyage 
 1 Plut. Them. 28.
 
 358 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 could be continued. When it was quite clear that intimi- 
 dation had done its work, it was time enough to clinch it by 
 a promise of rich reward, which was afterwards honourably 
 performed. After battling- with the weather and privations 
 for a whole day and night, the vessel resumed its course 
 and reached Ephesus. Asia had dangers of its own for 
 the fugitive, and he was now nearer to those who could 
 claim, it is said, an immense reward of 200 talents pro- 
 claimed by the Persian king for the capture of his most 
 mischievous enemy. Plutarch refers to the ' following of 
 Ergo teles and Pythodorus,' as to men notorious and on the look- 
 out for him ; and about Cumae, the old station of the Persian 
 fleet after Sfalamis, as if it were still in Persian occupation. 
 Xenophon long l after finds the adjacent towns under the 
 control of descendants of Demaratus and Gongylus, to whom 
 the Persian had granted them in reward for treachery to 
 Greece. He was in this neighbourhood when he moved, in 
 disguise, inland to Aegae, where he had a host Nicogenes, a 
 man of vast possessions in Aeolis ; so vast indeed that Diodorus 
 seems to confound him in consequence, under the name of 2 Lysi- 
 theides, with the magnificent and ill-requited host of Xerxes, 
 he may have been a descendant, whose tale is told by 3 Hero- 
 dotus. With resolution that astonished and alarmed his 
 friend, he proposed to avail himself of his intimacy with 
 Persians of position, to prosecute the plan of presenting him- 
 self at Susa ; and accordingly, in company with his * friend, 
 he started on the journey in a litter, which was closely cur- 
 tained and jealously watched as the conveyance of an Ionian 
 female destined for the harem of a Persian magnate. Besides 
 hints of direct personal introductions, we have in Thucydides 
 notes of a missive said to be addressed by him to the Great 
 King, which reappear in Plutarch paraph rased as a 5 speech. 
 He represents that he had strictly limited all the mischief 
 
 1 Xen. Hell. iii. 1.4. a Diod. xi. 56. Herod, vii. 79-38. 
 
 4 Thucyd. i. 137 ; Diod. xi. 56. 5 Plut. Them. 28.
 
 xxviii.] THEMISTOCLES AT SUSA. 359 
 
 that he had wrought against his father, Xerxes, to the re- 
 quirements of self-defence ; and as soon as these were satisfied 
 had seized the earliest opportunities to do him all the service 
 in his power. He claimed a balance of gratitude as due to 
 him for secret information at Salamis, and for his hindrance 
 which Thucydides takes occasion to say was none of his 
 of the disruption of the Hellespont bridge. It is on this same 
 account of friendly disposition to Persia, that he has now 
 been driven into exile ; he comes prepared and able to render 
 signal service, and only solicits the suspense of a year, that by 
 the acquisition of the Persian language he may be enabled to 
 do full justice to his plans. 
 
 The reception of Greek fugitives was the common policy of 
 the Persian court, on the usual principle of all powers that 
 seek for pretexts, or not hesitating about pretexts desire only 
 instruments, for interfering in the politics of conterminal 
 states with a view to ultimate conquest and appropriation. 
 There might seem to be somewhat of barbaric hebetude in 
 the readiness with which the subtle refugee was entertained, 
 notwithstanding experiences of double dealing, in the cases of 
 Histiaeus, or Aristagoras; but to a certain extent such 
 traitors were indispensable to Persia for administration of 
 Greek cities and districts, if they were to continue to yield 
 the tribute that was the chief reason for holding them : and 
 there were always abundant instances of able men who were 
 rendering most valuable services to Persia, and proved to be 
 quite content to advantage themselves at no greater sacrifice 
 than desertion or even betrayal of national and party connec- 
 tions. His reputation for wisdom how could it be other- 
 wise? was at Susa before him, and his arrival could not have 
 been more opportune. The young king, who had himself just 
 emerged from a sea of perils, was struck with surprise and 
 admiration at his daring and dexterity. He seemed to hold in 
 his hand a solution of those difficulties of dealing with the 
 Greek frontier which had been fatal to his father, and even it
 
 360 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 may be of others that were still surrounding him at home. 
 It is perfectly credible that, as is told, his elation found 
 vent in unusual festivity, and even his sleep was interrupted 
 as he broke out at midnight into exclamations, ' I have got 
 Themistocles the * Athenian.' 
 
 Notwithstanding his years, Themistocles mastered the 
 new language with incredible facility, and as readily ac- 
 quiring and accommodating himself to the customs of the 
 nation, came more than safely through all the jealousies or 
 animosities of the palace and court. The sister of Xerxes, 
 and aunt therefore of the king, was fain to renounce or 
 suppress her feelings against the enemy of her sons who 
 had perished at Salamis : he was received to greater favour 
 than ever was Greek refugee before him; admitted to the 
 royal huntings, to the private amusements, and even the do- 
 mestic relaxations of the king, and was taken into confidence 
 in his most important councils. At this time, says Plutarch, 
 and it may well be believed after the revolutions and violence 
 that had just passed over, there were many innovations and 
 changes in progress with respect to the court and the royal 
 friends, and considerable jealousy was felt towards Themis- 
 tocles on the part of men of dignity, as presuming to make 
 free observations respecting them to the king. It was on 
 such an occasion that the Athenian, who is characterised for 
 us by Thucydides, was in his proper element ; and the 
 characteristics indeed that are specified by the historian are 
 given as explanatory of the influence that he acquired with 
 Artaxerxes. ' For Themistocles,' he says, ' displayed most 
 absolutely what is the force of natural endowment, and was 
 in this respect conspicuously more than another worthy of 
 admiration. For by native intelligence, and independently of 
 either previous or occasional information to assist it, he formed 
 on briefest deliberation the soundest judgment respecting 
 
 1 Plut. Them. 28.
 
 xxviii.] THEMISTOCLES AT MAGNESIA. 361 
 
 affairs as they occurred at the instant, and no less with 
 respect to the future was most excellent in forecasting what 
 was likeliest to ensue. He was capable of giving account of 
 any business he had in hand, and did not fail of an apt 
 judgment as to what he was without experience in ; and as 
 to a matter that was still in a state of obscurity, he, at least, 
 foresaw what would be for the better and what for the worse. 
 To sum the whole, by the force of his genius and by rapidity of 
 study he was the ablest of men to decide on a sudden what 
 was necessary to be J done.' 
 
 How complete were the confidence and admiration he 
 commanded was proved by his dismissal ultimately to com- 
 parative independence, as governor of Magnesia on the 
 Maeander, and of its district, which extended, as it surprises 
 us to find, but perhaps only because the Persian chose 
 to assume so, even to Myus, intermediate on the seaboard 
 between revolted Miletus and adjacent Mycale. In barbaric 
 formula, Magnesia, with its revenue of fifty talents in the 
 year, was assigned to supply him with bread, and Myus, on 
 a gulf abounding in fish, with condiment, that is, with salt 
 relish, Lampsacus on the Hellespont with wine, for which 
 Thucydides implies that it was more preeminently celebrated 
 in that day than his own, scarcely a generation later, 
 Perkote in the same neighbourhood with bedding, and 
 Palaeskepsis in Aeolis with wardrobe. 
 
 There would seem to have been some particular purpose 
 in furnishing him with occasions for authoritative visits at 
 widely separated points on the frontier. Mention occurs of 
 some ill-feeling on the part of a Persian, Epixyes, Satrap of 
 Upper Phrygia, abutting on these northern grants, of such 
 rancour and so dangerous that Themistocles ascribed his escape 
 to divine favour, and founded in acknowledgment at Magnesia 
 a fane of Dindymenc, mother of the Gods, of which he made 
 
 1 Thucyd. i. 139.
 
 362 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 his daughter Mnesiptolema priestess. On another occasion 
 he was in peril at Sardis ; in the temple of the Great Mother 
 there he came upon a bronze figure of a maiden with a pitcher 
 a Kore hydrophorus two cubits high, spoil taken from 
 Athens, where he himself had dedicated it when he presided 
 over the water supply, from the fines of fraudulent abstractors. 
 His suggestion, prompted by whatever motive, an inter- 
 esting one however interpreted, that he should be allowed 
 to restore it, aroused indignation which he only pacified by 
 conciliating with the aid of bribes the indirect interposition 
 of the occupants, probably Ionian, of a Persian harem. At 
 Magnesia he remained in wealth and dignity, amidst a 
 numerous family. Much of his property in Greece had been 
 saved by timely transfer to Argos, and some was even trans- 
 mitted to him from Athens by his friends, in evasion of the 
 general confiscation of all that could be attached there still 
 an enormous sum. Such friendship was perilous, and it is 
 disagreeable to find on record that Epicrates the Acharnian 
 was even put to death, and that too at the instance of Cimon, for 
 having aided the escape of his wife and children. It would 
 be a poor extenuation that they were regarded and retained 
 as hostages for the dangerous exile. Political rancour of this 
 stamp was of bad example, and bore fatal fruits at a later 
 time, when the resentment of such an exile as Alcibiades was 
 envenomed by the execution of his adherents and friends. 
 
 So long as Themistocles was known to survive, his life and 
 possible action could scarcely be left out of political considera- 
 tion at Athens; it is observable, however, that whatever 
 promises he may once have held out at Susa, there is no hint 
 or slightest indication, between his arrival there and his 
 death, of any renewal of Persian aggressiveness, or preparation 
 for it, against Greece. The persistence of his favour notwith- 
 standing, would almost of necessity imply that his counsels had 
 been given and had weight in favour of a purely defensive 
 policy on this frontier, where attempts to recover full command
 
 xxvm.] PERSIAN FRONTIER POLICY. 363 
 
 of the coasts and islands were manifestly futile, unless all the 
 consequences were to be accepted of reviving- the disastrous 
 projects of Xerxes, not to say of Darius, against Europe. Apart 
 from such designs, which in any case demanded reconstruction 
 of a powerful fleet, there was no better frontier for Persia 
 after all than an interior line of* Hellenic and semi-Hellenic 
 towns contented, as we have found was the case with Phaselis, 
 to be at peace and to pay tribute, whether through Persian 
 or Hellenic satraps. It was by such representations that 
 Alcibiades at a later date reconciled Tissaphernes to favouring 
 the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians on the ground 
 that if they were allowed to have their way with the cities 
 on the coast they would even help the Great King to his 
 with the inland Greeks, and might be trusted to have no 
 designs to penetrate ] further. 
 
 His countrymen may be considered to have made some 
 reparation to Themistocles, when, despite his equivocal 
 position, they never brought themselves to credit him, 
 whether ostracised at Argos or exiled and proscribed in 
 Asia, with any really treasonable activity against either 
 Athens or Hellas. His death, at the age of sixty-five, is 
 assigned to about 460 B. c., at a time when Athens was again 
 resuming active hostilities at Cyprus and in Egypt, and it was 
 thought to have occurred too opportunely for his honour not 
 to have been voluntary. Thucydides concludes for his death 
 in course of nature, but still records the report that he 
 destroyed himself in despair of being able to perform what 
 he had promised to the Great King against the Greeks. 
 Another report that he places on record at the same time, 
 that it was by Themistocles' own command that his relatives 
 secretly transported his bones to the soil of Attica, harmonises 
 better with those versions of his death that ascribe it, not to 
 inability, but to unwillingness to injure his 2 country. The 
 
 1 Thuc. viii. 46. a Diod. xi. 57.
 
 364 UISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 story that the mode of his death was by a draught of bull's 
 blood at a solemn sacrifice seems derived in some recondite 
 manner from a traditional rite of his tribe of Lycomidae. 
 Such a draught was the test of the priestess of Ge ( = Gaia- 
 Themis of the Prometheus Vinctus) at Gaius in 'Arcadia, 
 where it seems implied that death ensued on a false oath. 
 Compare, however, another Persian instance, but 2 compulsory. 
 With Aristophanes, who alludes to this form of his catastrophe, 
 ' to die like Themist odes' is to imitate the noblest of 3 models. 
 That even at Magnesia he had not been inactive in his 
 boasted faculty of making cities prosperous, is intimated by 
 the magnificent monument raised for him by the citizens in 
 the midst of the agora, as if to a second founder, and by 
 the honours which were continued there to his descendants 
 through long generations. 
 
 1 Paus. vii. 25. 8. 2 Herod, iii. 15, and Creuzer's note. 
 
 3 Arist. Equit. 84.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE SEVENTY-NINTH OLYMPIAD. CORINTHIAN AND RHODIAN 
 
 VICTORS. 
 
 THE year after the death of Xerxes the second of the 
 Thasian War brought round at midsummer (464 B. c.) the 
 seventy-ninth Olympic festival, and of some of its incidents 
 we have authentic illustrations that most happily supply certain 
 social characteristics which are all-important for the apprecia- 
 tion of the period. For two of the victors on this occasion, 
 Diogoras of Rhodes and Xenophon of Corinth, Pindar com- 
 posed epinician odes that have come down to us entire, and 
 for the latter a scolion of which the fragments all that are 
 left are even more important and interesting. 
 
 Xenophon, of the noble family of Oligaethadae, gained a 
 success unprecedented the double victory of the stadium and 
 the pentathlon ; his father forty years before had been victor 
 in the foot race, and Pindar opens his ode with the proud 
 epithet for the family ' Thrice-Olympian-victoried.' This 
 instance furnishes a conspicuous example but only one among 
 abundance of others in all parts of Hellas proper and even 
 in Sicily of hereditary distinction in the games, in the case 
 of families of high social and even political importance. But 
 it is still more interesting as preserving intimations of the 
 interior characteristics of Corinth at this time, of which we 
 know too little ; as indeed how little do we know of the 
 endlessly varied characteristics of the inner life of any of the
 
 366 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 numberless Greek cities except Athens. Corinth was always 
 the most influential of the Peloponnesian allies of Sparta, by 
 true sympathy of Dorian race, though most contrasted in 
 manners and pursuits ; she was very soon to be the most 
 active of the agitators against the power of Athens to a 
 very great extent in consequence of points of agreement 
 unfortunately diverted to irritating contact and collision. 
 A gleam of light is flashed for a moment by Pindar into 
 the deep obscurity of a busy, energetic, and luxurious social 
 system, and we are bound to make the most of its revelations 
 iu the interests of history. In his two poems for the same 
 victories at different celebrations, two sides of Corinthian life 
 are presented to our view two aspects that are in more than 
 Doric and Ionic contrast. 
 
 Corinth was still at this time, as of yore, aristocratic, and 
 in the enjoyment of the prolonged tranquillity which Pindar 
 was ever disposed to associate with the predominance of ' the 
 Best.' Justice, Order, and Peace are the characteristics that 
 he asserts for her under presidency of the Seasons, the Horae, 
 which are personified by him, as they had already been by 
 Hesiod, under ethical titles Dike, Eunomia, Eirene though 
 still without forfeiting their epithet of the ' many-flowered.' 
 To the influence of these goddesses are due the wealth of the 
 city, the virtues that triumph in the games, and the ingenuity 
 that originates novelty alike in the aesthetic and the useful 
 arts. The poet cites as examples of Corinthian inventiveness, 
 such as her citizens assert the value of in their taunts to 
 the stationary 1 Spartans, the dithyramb which Arion had 
 commenced when in favour at the Court of Periander ; im- 
 provements in the harness of horses, and the decoration of the 
 expanded wing-like pediment the ae'toma of the temples 
 of the Gods. Thucydides credits them with the invention of 
 the s trireme. Intellectual, poetical, warlike, gymnic distinc- 
 
 1 Thuc. i. 70. * Ib. i. 13.
 
 xxix.] CHARACTERISTICS OF CORINTH. 367 
 
 tions are all ascribed to the inspired prompting of the 
 goddesses of all established order and beauteous develop- 
 ment. The Seasons in their conjoint natural and ethical 
 aspects are interchanged by the Greeks not unfrequently with 
 the Moirai, the Fates, or are associated with them as correla- 
 tive expressions of the ultimate energies of all change and 
 movement ; and it is therefore highly probable that they are 
 to be identified with the Moirai whom Pausanias finds asso- 
 ciated with the nature goddesses Demeter and Kore in their 
 temple on Acrocorinthus, where the priestesses had a faculty 
 of divination by dreams. 
 
 The usual mythical example of the qualities that are cele- 
 brated in the victor is in this case Bellerophon, son of the god 
 of the Isthmus. It was he who invented the bridle, or rather 
 the bit the very condition of any effective horsemanship ; 
 which in his hands was equal to controlling even the winged 
 Pegasus, the favourite type of Corinthian coins, with the 
 head of Athene on the obverse ; this knowledge came to him 
 in a dream which he invited by couching near the altar of 
 Athene the Athene Chalinitis doubtless of the fane known 
 to Pausanias on this spot. This mode of consulting the gods 
 was chiefly resorted to for suggestion of cures for diseases, 
 and hence the poet calls the bridle ' a mild medicament,' ' an 
 equestrian philtre.' After recounting the achievements and 
 then the fate of Bellerophon, Pindar recurs to the catalogue 
 of victories of the family of Xenophon, and ends with a grace- 
 fully covert injunction itself a flattery to moderation and 
 modesty. 
 
 But even so we should still miss the point as it has been 
 missed of the parallel of Bellerophon, but for regard to indi- 
 cations that survive in the fragmentary scolion. From these 
 it appears that Xenophon, like his heroic antitype, ascribed 
 his victory to suggestions of a goddess, and like him acknow- 
 ledged the favour by a sacred celebration; while that the 
 goddess was not Athene, but Aphrodite, explains a reticence
 
 368 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 that befits Epinician dignity, though the circumstances could 
 not but be notorious to the audience of the ode and be recog- 
 nised as pointing the aptness of its allusions. 
 
 Corinth was wealthy above all through the advantage of 
 her situation, where in closest connection between two seas she 
 held between East and West the gates of commerce, which 
 willingly avoided, even at the cost of some land carriage, the 
 long and dangerous sea route round Cape l Malea. The influx 
 of strangers, of mariners, of wealth on travel, of ' wayfaring 
 licentiousness,' brought into importance in this Dorian city an 
 institution which is not paralleled even at Athens the attach- 
 ment of vast numbers of female hierodules to the temple of 
 Aphrodite as consecrated ministers and contributaries to her 
 revenues. To the prayers of such a tribe to their patroness 
 did the Corinthian State resort, and not shrink from ad- 
 mitting obligation for the repulse of the Mede. Their 
 intercession and their participation at a solemn sacrifice were 
 represented in a dedicated picture, and Simonides the most 
 renowned contemporary poet in this quality furnished the 
 elegiac inscription that has come down to us. To this 
 goddess had Xenophon addressed himself, and now with his 
 double Olympic crowns evinced his gratitude by a festive 
 sacrifice, and therewith the dedicated services of one hundred 
 of these ministrants. Pindar, who is only taking the place 
 of Simonides, writes the scolion for the occasion ; not, how- 
 ever, be it said, without introducing very decided expressions 
 to the effect that, after all allowance made for those who have 
 to accept a necessity gracefully, the task he had himself 
 undertaken was embarrassing and incongruous enough, and 
 craved almost equal indulgence. 
 
 These were the contingencies that, according to Strabo, 
 explained the Greek metrical proverb, more familiar in 
 Horace, that Corinth was not a city to be visited by every 
 
 1 Strabo.
 
 xxix.] ARISTOCRATIC ATHLETICISM. 369 
 
 man. With what persistency such characteristics clung to 
 the locality, even after the desolating Roman had passed over 
 it, is well known from the injunctions and warnings which 
 were most urgently demanded by Corinth l Christianised. 
 
 The victory of the Rhodian Diagoras at the same festival 
 was gained in the pugilism of men; he was son, father, and 
 grandfather of Olympian victors his son Dorieus was even 
 victor, as pancratiast, in three successive Olympiads. Thucy- 
 dides introduces a reference to the occasion of his second 
 victory as useful for defining a date. 
 
 Diagoras belonged to the Heracleid families that had once 
 ruled at Rhodes with kingly power, and still retained certain 
 political predominance. His father Damagetus is alluded to 
 as in a leading position, and Dorieus is found in a military 
 command in the Peloponnesian war after the island had 
 joined the enemies of Athens. When fortune of war threw 
 him into the power of the exasperated and seldom lenient 
 Athenians, he owed his life so at least it was said as much 
 to the admiration of his magnificent frame in presence before 
 them as to the glory of his 2 deeds. 
 
 It is only among Dorians, as of Corinth, Rhodes, or 
 Aegina, that we still meet with men of birth, position, 
 and power taking this personal concernment in contests of 
 physical strength and skill, which seems out of place at the 
 stage of civilisation now attained by Hellas, whatever might 
 be the case in the simplicity of antiquity, in the contests at 
 the funeral games of Patroclus, or at the court of Alcinous. 
 In one respect the civilisation of Homer seems even a degree 
 more refined, for we observe that he is careful to commit to 
 the rough hazards of the pugilism in which Diagoras ex- 
 celled, only personages so utterly unimportant or secondary 
 as Epeius and Euryalus. The prizes of this contest are the 
 most insignificant of all the victor has only a mule ; and 
 
 1 i Cor. vi. 13, jo. a Paus. vi. 7. 5. 
 
 Bb
 
 370 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 in this contest alone does the poet allow sympathies to be 
 seriously disappointed, as if in rebuke for their engagement 
 about so coarse a conflict the victory being given, with a 
 certain contemptuousness, to a boaster and a bully. 
 
 Pausanias found the statue of Diagoras at Olympia, by a 
 leading sculptor, Callicles of Megara, and with it an entire 
 group of victors all of his family. Pindar composed for him 
 the beautiful seventh Olympic Ode, which was afterwards 
 seen set up in letters of gold in the temple of Athene at 
 Lindus in Rhodes. 
 
 Although at present not only popularly, but by Herodotus 
 as well as by Pindar, the cultured perfection of the bodily 
 frame could be taken as presumption of all the virtues and 
 all refinement, voices had already been raised in Greece 
 that of Xenophanes particularly against the excessive 
 glorification of athletic prowess. Training became, as on the 
 modern race-course, too much valued for the sake of the par- 
 ticular contest to have regard to any purpose beyond, and the 
 primary justification of the system fell out of view and was 
 frustrate. Euripides, who was of such age as to have been 
 born at Salamis sixteen years before our date, on the very day 
 of the battle in which Aeschylus was a warrior, and for which 
 Sophocles, as a beautiful youth, sang the paean to the lyre, 
 was soon to denounce the pride of the athlete in terms as sour 
 and severe as those which were echoed afterwards by philoso- 
 phers, statesmen, and J physicians. 
 
 1 Eurip. frag. Avtolyc. ; Plato de Rep. iii. 410 ; Arist. Pol. viii. 3 ; Galen de 
 val. tuend.
 
 CHAPTEE XXX. 
 
 THE RISE OF PERICLES. REVOLT OF THE HELOTS. 
 SURRENDER OF THASOS. 
 
 B.C. 464-3. 
 
 THE brilliant victories of Cimon, the additional subsidies 
 that he brought in from new confederates, to contribute, 
 together with the spoils of enemies, to the riches and em- 
 bellishment of the city, went far to complete an influence 
 already fostered by his popular manners and lavish employ- 
 ment of his own great wealth. So it was thatjie threatened 
 to ' l out-demagogue ' his political rivals ; and among those 
 who were driven in consequence on new demagogic arts, were 
 some who would perhaps have preferred to aid the conser- 
 vation of whatever aristocratical elements the constitution 
 still retained, might this only be done consistently with their 
 own emergence to power. Such was especially the position 
 of Pericles, of distinguished birth, but who as son of Xan- 
 thippus, the prosecutor of Miltiades, might find himself of 
 necessity on the side of the opponents of his son. He was 
 at present only gradually coming to the front, but working 
 meanwhile influentially in the councils of a party of which 
 he was content for a time to leave to others the ostensible 
 and perhaps invidious guidance. It was his policy, indeed, 
 
 1 Plut. Pericles, 9. 
 B b 2
 
 372 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 even after his eminence was declared, and partly it was be- 
 lieved from his apprehension of the catastrophe of ostracism 
 which ever threatened an Athenian statesman, to work in asso- 
 ciation with others and hold himself in reserve for special 
 occasions. Political management had now become more than 
 ever a task of delicacy and danger also. The Athenian 
 demus had assumed a self-consciousness and a self-will which 
 made it a necessity for one who hoped to rise to political 
 power to reckon with it as a personal entity of special 
 character, having its own passions, and aims that were ever 
 acquiring more positive and resolute definition. Still more 
 urgently than in the case of Solon did it now behove the 
 aspirant to legislative influence to consider what proportion 
 of the best he might venture to go for as possible ; it was 
 well if he combined with administrative ability such true 
 political insight as to extend this proportion by the force 
 of his own character, and were spared the weak descent 
 into assentation, the lazy adoption of only so much of 
 the desirable as was easiest, or unprincipled furtherance of 
 whatever would carry most favour at the hour. 
 
 Cimon, on his part, seems to have trusted too much to the 
 power of popularity when opposed to a popular movement, 
 and to have been little disposed to pursue the example which 
 had been set by his master and colleague, Aristides, of con- 
 ceding a change which had become inevitable, and so at least 
 gaining an opportunity to qualify if not to control it. En- 
 couraged by his successes and personal favour, he stood firm 
 on his political lines, and prepared to defend a policy which 
 was the reverse of popular, and a political theory that the 
 consequences of his own proceedings were naturally tending 
 to discredit. At this very time he was engaged as a com- 
 mander in promoting a change of relations between Athens 
 and her aUies which gradually impaired the cordial under- 
 standing with Sparta which he had most at heart, and at 
 the same time so stimulated the pride of the demus as to
 
 xxx.] CIMON AND THE DEMOCRACY. 
 
 make them ever more and more restive under restrictions 
 which he would himself have preferred rather to tighten than 
 relax. 
 
 As fear of the barbarian declined, the confederates began to 
 find, first the obligations and then the burdens of the assess- 
 ment of Aristides, the price of their rescue and continued 
 safety, intolerably irksome ; those who were bound to per- 
 sonal service on shipboard, to supply crews to their own or 
 Athenian ships, were especially recalcitrant, and became ever 
 more unwilling to give up the ease of life on land, and the 
 tranquil pursuit of wealth, in industries never so profitable 
 as on a recovery of security after war. To Cimon Plutarch 
 assigns the origination of the policy of accepting composi- 
 tion for personal service, first in unmanned ships and then in 
 money payments which would always provide crews, and 
 those more entirely under Athenian control. Crews were, 
 in fact, taken in rotation from among the Athenians them- 
 selves, who thus with liberal pay acquired maritime habits 
 and warlike discipline, in every way at the expense of allies 
 who sunk unawares into the position and experienced the 
 treatment of subjects and servants. Disputes as to the 
 money payments before long involved state prosecutions, and 
 compulsion which was sometimes so severely administered as 
 to aggravate the already serious discontents. In the mean- 
 time every Athenian oarsman, every artisan in the dock- 
 yards of the Peiraeus was acquiring the self-consciousness 
 of a unit in an imperial state; and every trireme that left 
 the national port carried men who had risen with the ex- 
 tension of the l marine, and indulged, as the new men of 
 new empires will and sometimes brutally, in the demeanour 
 of superiority. 
 
 The reaction on home politics at Athens of this constantly 
 advancing spirit of pride and independence, soon led to 
 
 1 Xen. Rep. Athen,
 
 374 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 agitation not merely to shake off restraints, but to share in 
 the immediate control of affairs a,nd in its appropriate rewards. 
 The efficiency of administration might be liable to become 
 impaired by the changes so induced, but in this case, from 
 the temper of the times, even any corrective policy could 
 scarcely but involve a further concession to democracy. It 
 seems to have been a conflict on some of the questions which 
 were soon to induce capital constitutional changes, that first 
 seriously affected the position which Cimon had gained by 
 his liberalities as well as his services, and so rendered a 
 single reverse in his conduct of external politics for him 
 an irretrievable disaster. 
 
 Tribute and the commutations for service were already 
 accumulating at Athens the surplus treasure which was after- 
 wards to supply a fund for her magnificent public monu- 
 ments, and Pericles, now acting in conjunction with Ephialtes, 
 was the first to declare that it might be fairly drawn upon 
 to contribute to the enjoyments of her so well-deserving 
 citizens. It was apparently by the institution of the theoricon, 
 of the payment to poorer citizens to enable them to partici- 
 pate in the national festivities of the Panathenaea and the 
 Dionysia, that a system was commenced which had the 
 most important and gravest results, and in the meantime 
 at least countervailed the private donations of Cimon, and 
 probably committed him to unpopular opposition. Since 
 the erection of a costly stone theatre in place of earlier and 
 more simple accommodation, a charge of two obols had been 
 made for seats, which, small as it may seem, was sufficient to 
 shut out many on occasions when as members of the ruling 
 body they seemed to have every right to be present. The 
 periodical theatrical entertainments were a chief part of a 
 public celebration at a sacred Dionysiac festival : whether in 
 their comic or tragic manifestations, they were addressed 
 most immediately to the same public sympathies and interests 
 that agitated the political assembly, and the democratic spirit
 
 xxx.] INSTITUTION OF THE THEORICON. 375 
 
 required that the audience should be the same. A payment 
 by the state of the admission money of the poor was in 
 reality but a circuitous form of public subvention to the 
 expenses of the theatre, the condition which in modern times 
 has too certainly proved indispensable for the prolonged 
 maintenance of either the poetical or the musical drama at the 
 highest standard. The poor citizens by this assistance were 
 in effect admitted free to the theatre, on the same principle 
 that they might participate in the sight of a costly national 
 procession through the open streets, or in the enjoyment of 
 public parks, or gardens, or porticoes, of which the expense 
 had been defrayed out of either foreign tribute or the home 
 taxation which only touched classes above them. That the 
 multitude should be allowed such an enjoyment at a reduced 
 cost, or even gratis, is in itself no more of an anomaly than 
 that they should walk cost free past a noble building or 
 through a gallery of pictures. 
 
 We are destitute of precise information as to the dates 
 of successive extensions of this principle ; but Plutarch, 
 right or wrong, distinctly states that it furnished one of the 
 instruments by which Pericles and Ephialtes were enabled to 
 make head against Cimon, and the theoricon appears to be 
 the example of its application which has least connection 
 with movements that occurred after the party victory was 
 decided. This victory was not long to be delayed, and was 
 due at last to the collapse of Cimon's policy of a close alliance 
 with Sparta ; events were already in progress to vindicate the 
 sagacity of those who mistrusted it all along as a delusion 
 and a snare. The Thasians were not reduced till 463 B.C. ; 
 in the previous year, the fourth of King Archidamus, 
 they were still sanguine of relief, on the ground, according 
 to Thucydides, that the Spartans had distinctly promised 
 to render it by the invasion of Attica, which it was believed 
 would infallibly cause the siege to be raised. The tradition 
 was still in force and was to continue for some time longer,
 
 376 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 that the delivery of one strong blow by Sparta in a short 
 expedition in the interval of her festivals would suffice to 
 redress a grievance and assert the respect due to her authority ; 
 even considerably later a mere threat, or certainly a demon- 
 stration of an intention to invade, was expected to constrain 
 a reversal of Athenian policy. The relations of Sparta and 
 Athens for still a year or two onward agree with the 
 statement of the historian, that if not the negotiations, 
 the results of them certainly, were very successfully kept 
 secret. 
 
 Whatever may have been the precise form of their promise 
 or the value of their intention now, the collision that was to 
 come more furiously, and fatally, hereafter, was deferred by a 
 catastrophe which gave the Spartans full occupation at home, 
 and which, by involving them as one of its consequences in a 
 ten years' war, within their own borders and for very exist- 
 ence, was to accustom them perforce to sustained efforts. 
 Their country was wrecked by an earthquake more terrible 
 than had ever been known, and the city of Sparta itself was 
 the centre of the convulsion : chasms opened in the valley, 
 vast masses were detached from the impending summits of 
 Taygetus ; of the city shaken down or overwhelmed by land- 
 slips, five houses at most were left standing, such is the 
 record; large numbers perished, and by one peculiarly de- 
 structive and lamentable accident a great assemblage of 
 youths were crushed to death by the fall of the building in 
 which they were exercising. Even in the midst of this dis- 
 tress and disorder, the apprehensions of the ruling class were 
 turned to a peril which was always with them, and never more 
 threateningly than of late since the treason of Pausanias 
 the helots. And with good reason : when Archidamus has- 
 tened to give the signal by trumpet that withdrew the 
 citizens at once from all occupation in salvage of lives or 
 goods, and they mustered instantly under arms, it was not a 
 moment too soon; the helots were already collecting in the
 
 xxx.] REVOLT OF THE HELOTS. 377 
 
 surrounding country, and preparing to surprise their tyrannous 
 masters in the midst of their trouble and confusion. By the 
 promptitude of the king they were foiled and had to retire, 
 but it was only to commence a struggle that was to last for 
 ten years. 
 
 The helot class were for the most part descendants of 
 the Messenians, whom the Dorian conquest had reduced to 
 1 slavery ; chiefly, it is possible, of the lower and inferior 
 classes of the Messenians, who may not have enjoyed full 
 privileges even before the conquest, while ages of studied 
 repression since had imbruted them still further : but strength 
 was infused into their cause by the sympathy and accession 
 of Messenians and the perioeci of Thouriae and Anthea espe- 
 cially. This class enjoyed a restricted franchise in their seve- 
 ral townships, but was subordinated in every respect to the 
 Spartiats, and had oppressions of its own to complain of; what 
 was most important now, they had experience and discipline 
 from having served in the Persian war not only as light- 
 armed but as hoplites. First or last the war, stamped with 
 the character of a helot insurrection as it might be in origin, 
 became a revival of the lost cause of Aristodemus, a struggle 
 for the recovery of Messenian nationality : the old Messenian 
 acropolis the precipitous hill of Ithome crowned by the 
 temple of Zeus Ithomatas, was seized and obstinately main- 
 tained ; and later history, following Thucydides, relates the 
 vicissitudes of the third Messenian war. The courage of the 
 insurgents was roused and sustained by a confidence in divine 
 support, which even the Spartans could not pretend to disallow 
 as unnatural and unauthorised. An earthquake was the 
 appropriate sign of the power and anger of Poseidon, the 
 earth-shaking god of Homer, and of this god the most 
 venerated sanctuary, at Taenaron, had been grossly violated 
 by them in the persons of vainly suppliant helots. His 
 severe visitation of the indignity was recognised through- 
 
 1 Time. i. 101.
 
 378 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 out Hellas, and while it roused the insurgents to enthu- 
 siasm, was not without effect in unnerving even Spartan 
 confidence. 
 
 To provoke the hostility of Athens at such a time was 
 out of the question ; it was much if the secret treaty could 
 be kept a secret, and the Thasians in consequence were left 
 to their fate. In 463 B.C. they surrendered on hard con- 
 ditions; their navy was given up, their walls demolished, 
 a large immediate payment was exacted, decided probably 
 by an estimate of inability to pay, without the irony, not 
 exclusively modern, of reference to formally calculated ex- 
 penses of the war; and a future annual subsidy now rather 
 a tribute was assessed : lastly, the islanders had to cede the 
 mines which were the immediate origin of the dispute, and 
 their possessions on the mainland. Of these 1 Thucydides 
 mentions Galepsus and Oesyme as Thasian, and 2 Herodotus 
 Stryme further eastward on the coast ; and Scapte Hyle, 
 renowned for all time as the retirement of Thucydides in 
 exile, is noted as especially valuable for productive gold 
 mines. Festus mentions its silver mines also, and observes the 
 derivation of the local name from mining. The exact situation 
 of Scapte Hyle, or Scaptensula of Roman writers, is uncertain ; 
 but the influence which Thucydides speaks of as possessed by 
 himself in the neighbourhood of Amphipolis, implies that his 
 gold works were not remote from the Strymon. Another 
 important station on this coast was Daton, more directly 
 over against Thasos, and which, according to Leake, com- 
 mands an eastern pass only second in importance to that 
 westward at Nine Ways (Amphipolis). A fragment of 
 3 Strabo ascribes to it advantages of which some are perhaps 
 transferred in error from Nine Ways, and Eion, its lake, 
 and rivers, and docks, made peculiarly valuable by the ship 
 timber available at hand, in addition to fertile plains and 
 
 1 Thuc. iv. 107. ' Herod, vii. 108. * Strabo, 331. 36.
 
 xxx.] SURRENDER OF THASOS. 379 
 
 lucrative gold mines. The expedition to the Strymon, which 
 had come to ruin" so disastrous at Brabescus, is connected by 
 Herodotus with Baton, and probably made this its immediate 
 base of operations in advancing 1 inland ; for it is precisely 
 between Baton and Brabescus that were situated the mines 
 which Philip of Macedon found afterwards so profitable, and 
 which gave occasion to his founding his city, so celebrated in 
 story sacred and profane, of Philippi. 
 
 It seems therefore ascertained that the Athenian scheme 
 extended to taking possession of these mines also, and gaining 
 command of the entire district between the Strymon and 
 Baton, including the beautiful and fertile valley of Phyllis. 
 The defeat at Brabescus had not only checked encroachments 
 in this direction, but crippled, if it did not for the time defeat, 
 the intended settlement at Ennea Hodoi ; and the Athenians, 
 disappointed by the failure of Leogrus at Baton, were in a 
 temper to be discontented with Cimon that he had not made 
 upTor it by acquisitions hi the neighbourhood of the Strymon, 
 at the expense not merely of Thracians but of Macedonia. 
 Whatever gains he might have brought home from the 
 subjection of Thasos, the popular greed for mines was com- 
 paratively disappointed ; it was objected to him that he had 
 neglected an opportunity of wresting from Alexander of 
 Macedon some metalliferous districts the same doubtless 
 that Herodotus speaks of as adjacent to Lake Pratinas above 
 Nine Ways. A pretext would not be wanting if it need be 
 waited for, were it only in imputed consequential damage by 
 permitted if not open aid to rebels : that he had foregone 
 such an opportunity was ascribed to his reception of bribes 
 from the Macedonian king, and upon this very serious, and 
 indeed l capital charge, he was put upon his defence. At 
 Athens then, no less than at Lacedaemon, a grudge against 
 even a successful commander found a convenient opening in 
 
 Plut. Pericles, 10.
 
 380 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 the accusation that he had held his hand too soon, and in 
 ascribing the lapse, whether truly such or not, to the influence 
 of corruption rather than of prudent moderation, or at most 
 to the astuter diplomacy of his opponents. The recoil of this 
 injustice was apt to be serious : no inconsiderable proportion 
 of the Athenian demus was in after years to be detained by 
 Nicias before Syracuse, against his own better judgment, and 
 to a miserable catastrophe, from his conviction that most of 
 those who were then loudest for the necessity of retirement 
 would, at home, be clamorous in ascribing it to his acceptance 
 of bribes from the enemy. 
 
 Pericles was at least popularly regarded as attached to the 
 party of the accusers of Cimon, if, as Plutarch records, he was 
 one of the publicly appointed prosecutors ; but we may safely 
 set down as a mere inference of the biographer convicted 
 moreover on his own showing that he was the most vio- 
 lent ; for Plutarch himself has a tale of the not ineffectual 
 intercession of Elpinice, sister of Cimon, who made a personal 
 appeal to him. She is one of the few Athenian ladies whose 
 names come up in anecdotes of any kind, much less of public 
 affairs. Her distinguished beauty and perhaps her own man- 
 ners, along with the notorious youthful laxity of Cimon, were 
 sufficient to set afloat the scandal, which the comedian Eupolis 
 found amusing, that there was more than fraternal love 
 between them : she was however only his half sister, and 
 several examples in Greek history of the time, an instance 
 comes before us in the royal family of Sparta, prove that such 
 relationship did not preclude lawful marriage, which is one 
 recorded version of the connection. The Thasian painter 
 Polygnotus, whose attachment to Cimon left many traces in 
 his art, introduced her portrait among the captive Trojan 
 women, in the picture with which he gratuitously decorated 
 the Poecile stoa. She was his model for Laodice, ' the most 
 beautiful,' says Homer, c of the daughters of Priam,' though 
 < rrtainly he pays the same compliment elsewhere to Cas-
 
 xxx.] INDICTMENT OF CIMON. 381 
 
 sandra ; but it were hard indeed if such a compliment from 
 an admiring painter is to be urged as even the support, much 
 less the ground, of a disparaging imputation. Pericles set 
 aside the appeal with a verse of rather obscure pertinence, 
 which it is to be hoped was intended and understood as a 
 compliment, though it scarcely sounds so.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 EPHIALTES AND THE DEMOCRACY. ATHENIANS BEFORE ITHOME. 
 
 CIMON OSTRACISED. 
 
 B.C. 461. 
 
 THE indictment failed and Cimon was acquitted. Pericles 
 was more indulgent than Elpinice had perhaps anticipated 
 from her reception; he supported the accusers, but by a 
 single and that a markedly perfunctory speech. What we 
 read of the defence of Cimon himself seems to imply that he 
 had had some personal intercourse with Alexander. He 
 appealed to the dicasts whether it was his known way to 
 attach to himself wealthy foreign hosts lonians or Thessa- 
 lians as was the manner of others who found their recom- 
 pense in services and gifts, and not rather to the simpler and 
 self-restrained Lacedaemonians ; the riches which he valued 
 were spoils captured from an enemy, their application, to 
 contribute to the adornment of the city. The latter refer- 
 ence was a proud allusion to the places of public resort, the 
 gardens and porticoes laid out with elegance and always open, 
 to which at his own instance the spoils of Mycale had been 
 largely devoted, which became a marked characteristic of the 
 city, and of such popularity that the love of frequenting them 
 had important influence on the habits of Athenian life, and it 
 may even be said on the development of Athenian philosophy.
 
 THE POLICY OF EPHIALTES. 383 
 
 The same fund had supplied the cost of completing the south 
 wall of the acropolis. 
 
 Satisfied with his civic victory over his accusers, Cimon 
 was before long again absent from Athens on an expedition 
 of which, as of so many others during this period, no parti- 
 culars remain. But the party of his opponents had not been 
 idle during his absence, and the success with which they 
 could avail themselves of it goes far to prove that the for- 
 bearance of Pericles in the prosecution might be due to con- 
 sciousness of strength that could afford to be magnanimous. 
 The most ardent and active promoter of change at this 
 time was Ephialtes. Under which of the many influences 
 that dissolve the alliances of politicians he had renounced 
 his former connection with Cimon does not appear; the 
 breach was certainly serious and final. He seems to have 
 been one of the first among Athenian politicians who per- 
 ceived the advantage of uninterrupted presence at the centre 
 of political action. We l read how, at some time after the 
 battle of Mycale, he sailed unmolested beyond the Cheli- 
 donian islands with a squadron of thirty ships, as Pericles 
 on another occasion with fifty, but this is the only notice that 
 occurs of his holding a command. He evidently united with 
 an energetic and even passionate character the sagacity to 
 discern at what point an old established system might be 
 assailed not only with success, but with the best promise of 
 a series of successes afterwards. 
 
 There is very strong presumption that the great attack 
 of Ephialtes upon the Areopagus dates several years later; 
 but intermediately, though at uncertain dates, very consider- 
 able reductions, probably due to his influence and exertions, 
 had been made in the authority of the archons, the council, 
 and other magistracies, especially through the substitution 
 of appointment by lot instead of by election. 
 
 1 Plut. dm. 13.
 
 384 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 Plutarch asserts that the great stroke against the Areo- 
 pagus had been delivered already, as if by one comprehensive 
 change; though this will scarcely stand against counter 
 evidence. But Cimon in any case may have recognised with 
 clearness that unless recent legislation could be turned 
 back upon its course, it must of necessity involve innova- 
 tions even still more serious, of some of which no doubt 
 there was already notice ; and he did not flinch from a 
 resolute attempt to stand in the gap. But it was without 
 avail. The spirit of the time was too strong for him, and such 
 legislation under such circumstances ever proves irreversible. 
 
 Foiled, however, in his endeavour to mould constitutional 
 policy, he had a brilliant, though as it proved only a 
 fallacious, gleam of success in foreign, the occasion of whk-h 
 seemed to arrive most opportunely. The Messenian war had 
 now reached its third year, with seven still to come, and was 
 taxing all the resources of the Spartans. Even though we 
 make very considerable deduction on the score of exaggera- 
 tion from the terms of Lysistrata in l Aristophanes, they will 
 still be evidence for the anxi.-ty and urgency with which 
 Sparta appealed to the general allies, among them to Athens, 
 for assistance: 'Know ye not how on a time the Laconbn 
 Pericleidas came hither as a suppliant of the Athenians, 
 and sat with sallow face in his scarlet cloak at the altars, 
 begging an army/ Of particular disasters we have but 
 one note, and that undated, doubtless out of many and more 
 serious. It is preserved in an anticipation of history by 
 2 Herodotus, in order to put on record the fate of Aeimnestus, 
 slayer of Mardonius at Plataea. Leading 300 men in the 
 course of this war in the plain of Stenyclerus, he was set 
 upon by the concentrated Messenian forces and perished with 
 his entire following. At present the difficulty of the Spartans 
 was of a kind that had long been among their greatest. The 
 
 1 Aristoph. Lytif. 1138. ' Herod, iz. 64.
 
 xxxi.] SPARTANS BEFORE I THOME 385 
 
 insurgents were established in Ithome, of which the natural 
 strength was aided by fortification, and defied the besiegers, 
 who repeated their past experience of the inefficiency of their 
 military system to cope with enemies- defended by works. 
 The fact that time was not patiently relied on to force a 
 surrender by the failure of food, is pretty certain proof that 
 sufficient progress had not been made in the field for the city 
 to be fully invested ; but even on account of the difficulty 
 and tediousness of this process, it may have been thought 
 more prudent and promising to risk a blow under whatever 
 disadvantages at the very head of the rebellion in its chief 
 stronghold at once. 
 
 Herodotus incidentally alludes to a victory gained by 
 the Spartans, under the auspices of the seer Tisamenus, 
 over the Messenians in the neighbourhood of Ithome; but 
 he only dates it generally, as after two previous victories, 
 over the Tegeans and Argives first, and then over the united 
 Arcadians, and before the open quarrel with Athens and 
 the battle of Tanagra. It is always possible that it was 
 only by these loosely dated victories if they are to be 
 brought down so low that Sparta had succeeded in check- 
 ing the active sympathy with the insurgents of the three 
 states within Peloponnesus which were always most jealous 
 of her power ; and that the severe cost of these victories, if 
 not also of that before Ithome, accounts for the urgent suppli- 
 cation for Athenian aid. 
 
 The sympathies of the advocates and adversaries of a Laco- 
 nizing policy at Athens were now declared in all the contrast 
 of an open debate, in which the opposed protagonists again 
 were Cimon and Ephialtes. The larger confederation of 
 entire Hellas, of Dorians and lonians conjointly, which had 
 triumphed at Salamis and Plataea, was still formally subsist- 
 ing, notwithstanding the division of states as grouped under 
 the several headships of Athens and Sparta, but with the 
 cessation of conjoint action against the barbarian had been 
 
 c c
 
 386 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 gradually sinking into ineffectiveness. Athens had had no 
 motive for repudiating it, so long as she was unmolested in 
 the course which it suited her to regard as consistent with 
 it; and at most had only recognised her obligations under 
 it, when in the revulsions of party she was found too 
 willing to co-operate with Sparta in hunting down Themis- 
 tocles. But a conflict of interests between the two great 
 divisions of the alliance had been gradually ripening, and 
 the time was come when one or the other might hesitate 
 to sacrifice a separate advantage for the sake of securing 
 what was only to be enjoyed in common. Athenians 
 were not only conscious of views as to excluding Sparta more 
 and more from leadership, and as to becoming most decidedly 
 independent of her remonstrances or interference, but were 
 well aware how much their intentions affected the pride and 
 sympathies of Spartans. Unknown as the Thasian intrigue 
 might be and that it should not have got wind within two 
 years after the surrender is extraordinary the plain-spoken 
 arguments of Ephialtes would not lack of cogency. ' Why 
 should Athens furnish an army which would simply help to set 
 on its legs again a power that was a natural rival and anta- 
 gonist to Athens ; better allow it to lie prostrate, and learn 
 to abate in pride and pretension by experience of being 
 trampled on.' There is a more generous ring about the 
 reclamations of Cimon, which come to us through Ion of 
 Chios, his contemporary and friend. ' Let us not be indif- 
 ferent/ he said, ' to seeing Hellas becoming maimed on one 
 side, nor consent that Athens in future should have to draw 
 without her yoke-fellow.' It is intimated that the assembly 
 decided to grant the prayer of Sparta rather out of deference 
 to this sentimental patriotism than from any considerations of 
 l'"liey, though in truth such were not wanting of sufficient 
 force to exert an influence even upon the popular party. 
 To sustain Sparta was for Cimon and his friends to conserve 
 a mainstay of the party throughout Hellas which wil limply
 
 xxxi.] ATHENIAN AID TO SPARTA. 387 
 
 held on to old traditions, old institutions, to the authority of 
 families of lofty claims to descent from mythical heroes, not 
 to say from demigods, and gods, to keep up a bulwark 
 against the ever-advancing inroad of limitless democracy ; 
 but support of the grand confederation was also the best 
 guarantee for that internal Hellenic harmony which was but 
 indifferently secured, and which was a condition for the pro- 
 secution even on the part of Athens alone, of attacks on the 
 barbarians as profitable as they were glorious, for which full 
 opportunities still remained on the coasts of Asia Minor, in 
 Cyprus and even possibly in Egypt. 
 
 Cimon was of all men in the best position to understand 
 what were the feelings of the allies of Athens as to their 
 state of semi-dependence, and to be assured that while nothing 
 would so much confirm the heartiness of their adherence 
 as the sense w r hich the activity of Athens would convey of 
 their safety and the extension of their commerce being due 
 to continued exertions against Persia, there could be no better 
 check to the intrigues of the seriously discontented than 
 evidence that Sparta was in such cordial alliance with 
 Athens that no assistance would come to them from that 
 quarter. On the other hand, among the usual supporters of 
 Ephialtes and his party there were those to whom a display 
 of generosity, tempting enough in itself, was even more si 
 when, besides the gratification of pride by the exhibition 
 to all Greece how superior, how indispensable was the 
 Athenian union of dexterity and skill with courage, an 
 opportunity was proffered for interference in the internal 
 politics of Peloponnesus, and a prospect of exerting such 
 influence upon the course of the war as would tell very 
 importantly on the terms of its conclusion. 
 
 According to Aristophanes, Cimon marched with the large 
 auxiliary force of 4,000 hoplites ; other succours are specified 
 incidentally of Plataeans, Aeginetans, and the 1 Mantin<>ans. 
 
 1 Thuc. i. 102 ; iii. 54; iv. 57 ; Xen. //. G. v. 2 3. 
 C C 2
 
 388 HISTORY OF GREECE. [CHAP. 
 
 who on another occasion, as we have seen, when all Arcadia 
 \\a> landed against Sparta, stood l aloof. An anecdote of his 
 march gives welcome information as to some conflicts of 
 parties and states about the Isthmus ; his unceremonious 
 passage through Corinthian territory was challenged in the 
 terms, that those who knock at strange doors should not 
 enter without the master's permission. 'Yet you Corinth- 
 ians,' was the retort, 'not only omitted to knock at the doors 
 of the Cleonaeans and Megarians, but broke them down and 
 forced your way in in arms, considering that all things have 
 to give way to the right of the stronger.' The feelings which 
 are here indicated as already existing between Corinth and 
 Megara had arrived at their state of excitement in disputes 
 about boundaries, and were to have important results before 
 long ; the interference with Cleonaeans may have been either 
 the cause or the consequence of assistance rendered by them to 
 the recent aggressions of Argos. There is something unpro- 
 mising at the outset, for the cordial co-operation of Dorians 
 and lonians, in the offhand treatment and tone thus assumed 
 by the Athenian towards the firmest allies of those whom he 
 was on his way to assist, if not to rescue. 
 
 The consequences in fact of a want of cordiality were- soon 
 manifested, and were very serious indeed. ' The chief motive 
 of the Lacedaemonians,' says Thucydides, ' for calling in the 
 Athenians was their reputation for ability in the attack of 
 fortresses, as this was the point in which they were them- 
 selves deficient; while from the tedious prolongation of the 
 siege of Ithome, they would fain take it by assault.' They 
 seem to have been quite as incompetent to estimate the diffi- 
 culty of the task as to execute it, and were disappointed to 
 find that the city did not fall at once ; disappointed and 
 alarmed likewise, as they began to recognise what might be 
 
 1 Herod, ix. 35.
 
 xxxi.] CIMON OSTRACISED. 389 
 
 contingent on the continued presence of such a force for an 
 indefinite time. The disposition of Cimon was one thing, 
 but that of Athenians under his command and drawn from 
 a community upon which he was fast losing his hold might 
 be and no doubt was something very different. The Lace- 
 daemonians were startled, we are told, and it can easily be 
 believed, at the daring spirit of innovation which they wit- 
 nessed for the first time displayed and probably paraded so 
 near to them, and were even apprehensive lest the mere anti- 
 Dorian tendencies of aliens might induce them to entertain 
 proposals from the besieged in Ithome at variance with the 
 views of those whom they came to assist. Such jealousy 
 in such a nation as the Spartans might be excited by the 
 simple ordinary demeanour of such allies as the Athenians ; 
 and any superiority in military dash and brilliancy under 
 excitement of the occasion, when other allies were looking on, 
 might reasonably enough be felt by them as impairing their 
 own dignity and authority, however little it could touch their 
 established reputation for valour. 
 
 Their resolution was taken ; Athenian assistance was being 
 purchased too dearly and desperately, and Cimon was dis- 
 missed abruptly enough, though with as handsome acknow- 
 ledgments as Spartan nature admitted, on the ground that, as 
 an assault was deferred, the aid of his force was in fact no 
 longer necessary. But other allies were still retained, and 
 on the return of the expedition, indignation at Athens re- 
 cognised a pointed slight and was roused to the highest 
 pitch ; there was indeed no escape from interpreting dismissal 
 under such circumstances as involving either an imputa- 
 tion of treachery, or scarcely if at all less galling of 
 incompetence for the task which had been undertaken with 
 such confidence. 
 
 This failure completed the reversal of Cimon 's long popu- 
 larity, and one more great Athenian turned upon the track
 
 390 HISTORY OF GREECE. 
 
 by which he had contributed to drive out another still greater 
 before him, and passed into exile under ostracism (401 B.C.), 
 doomed but for previous recall to be deprived of Athens, as 
 Athens to be self-deprived of him, for ten years. 
 
 END OP VOL. I.