and water, which many had given; but to Athens and Sparta he had not
sent, because there the heralds of his father Darius had been evilly
entreated. And if it had not been for the resolution of the Athenians at
this time, all Hellas would have been forced to submit to the Great
King; for they, in despite of threatening oracles, held fast to their
defiance, being urged thereto by Themistocles, who showed them how those
oracles must mean that, although they would suffer evil things, they
would be victorious by means of wooden bulwarks, which is to say, ships;
and thus they were encouraged to rely upon building and manning a mighty
fleet. And all the other cities of Greece resolved to stand by them,
except the Argives, who would not submit to the leadership of the
Spartans. And in like manner Gelon, the despot of Syracuse in Sicily,
would not send aid unless he were accepted as leader. Nor were the men
of Thessaly willing to join, since the other Greeks could not help them
to guard Thessaly itself, as the pass of Tempe could be turned.
Therefore the Greeks resolved to make their stand at Thermopylæ on land,
and at the strait of Artemisium by sea. But at the strong pass of
Thermopylæ only a small force was gathered to hold the barbarians in
check, there being of the Spartans themselves only 300, commanded by the
king Leonidas. And when the Persians had come thither and sought to
storm the pass, they were beaten back with ease, until a track was found
by which they might take the defenders in the rear. Then Leonidas bade
the rest of the army depart except his Spartans. But the Thespians also
would not go; and then those Spartans and Thespians went out into the
open and died gloriously.
_V.--Destruction of the Persian Hosts_
During these same days the Greek fleet at Artemisium fought three
several engagements with the Persian fleet, in which neither side had
much the better. And thereafter the Greek fleet withdrew, but was
persuaded to remain undispersed in the bay of Salamis. The
Peloponnesians were no longer minded to attempt the defence of Attica,
but to fortify their isthmus, so that the Athenians had no choice but
either to submit or to evacuate Athens, removing their families and
their goods to Troezen or Aegina or Salamis. In the fleet, their
contingent was by far the largest and best, but the commanding admiral
was the Spartan Eurybiades. Then the Persians, passing through Boeotia,
but, being dispersed before Delphi by thunderbolts and other portents,
took possession of Athens, after a fierce fight with the garrison in the
Acropolis.
Then the rest of the Greek fleet was fain to withdraw from Salamis, and
look to the safety of the Peloponnese only. But Themistocles warned them
that if they did so, the Athenians would leave them and sail to new
lands and make themselves a new Athens; and thus the fleet was persuaded
to hold together at Salamis. Yet he did not trust only to their
goodwill, but sent a messenger to the Persian fleet that the way of
retreat might be intercepted. For the Persian fleet had gathered at
Phalerum, and now looked to overwhelm the Grecian fleet altogether,
despite the council of Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus, who would have
had them not fight by sea at all. When Aristides, called the Just, the
great rival of Themistocles, came to the Greeks with the news that their
retreat by sea was cut off, then they were no longer divided, but
resolved to fight it out.
In the battle, the Aeginetans and the Athenians did the best of all the
Greeks, and Themistocles best among the commanders; nor was ever any
fleet more utterly put to rout than that of the Persians, among whom
Queen Artemisia won praise unmerited. As for King Xerxes, panic seized
him when he saw the disaster to his fleet, and he made haste to flee. He
consented, however, to leave Mardonius behind with 300,000 troops in
Thessaly, he being still assured that he could crush the Greeks. And it
was well for him that Themistocles was over-ruled in his desire to
pursue and annihilate the fleet, then sail to the Hellespont and destroy
the bridge.
When the winter and spring were passed, Mardonius marched from Thessaly
and again occupied Athens, which the Athenians had again evacuated, the
Spartans having failed to send succour. But when at length the
Lacedæmonians, fearing to lose the Athenian fleet, sent forth an army,
the Persians fell back to Boeotia. So the Greek hosts gathered near
Platæa to the number of 108,000 men, but the troops of Mardonius were
about 350,000. Yet, by reason of doubtful auguries, both armies held
back, till Mardonius resolved to attack, whereof warning was brought to
the Athenians by Alexander of Macedon. But when the Spartan Pausanias,
the general of the Greeks, heard of this, he did what caused no little
wonder, for he proposed that the Athenians instead of the Lacedæmonians
should face the picked troops of the Persians, as having fought them at
Marathon. But Mardonius, seeing them move, moved his picked troops also.
Then Mardonius sent some light horse against the Greeks by a fountain
whence flowed the water for the army; which, becoming choked, it was
needful to move to a new position. But the move being made by night,
most of the allies withdrew into the town. But the Spartans, and Tegeans
and Athenians, perceiving this, held each their ground till dawn.
Now, in the morning the picked Persian troops fell on the Spartans, and
their Grecian allies attacked the Athenians. But, Mardonius being slain,
the Persians fled to their camp, which was stormed by the Spartans and
Tegeans, and the Athenians, who also had routed their foes; and there
the barbarians were slaughtered, so that of 300,000 men not 3,000 were
left alive. But Artabazus, who, before the battle, had withdrawn with
40,000 men, escaped by forced marches to the Hellespont.
And on that same day was fought another fight by sea at Mycale in Ionia,
where also the barbarians were utterly routed, for the fleet had sailed
thither. And thence the Greeks sailed to Sestos, captured the place, and
so went home.
* * * * *
THUCYDIDES
The Peloponnesian War
The Athenian historian, Thucydides, was born about 471 B.C.,
within ten years of the great repulse of the Persian invasion.
Before he was thirty, the great political ascendancy of
Pericles was completely established at Athens, and the
ascendancy of Athens among the Greek states was unchallenged,
except by Sparta. He was forty at the beginning of the
Peloponnesian War. Thucydides was appointed to a military
command seven years later, but his failure in that office
caused his banishment. From that time he remained an exiled
spectator of events; the date of his death is uncertain. His
great work is the history of the Peloponnesian War to its
twentieth year, where his history is abruptly broken off. To
Herodotus, history presented itself as a drama; Thucydides
views it with the eyes of a philosophical statesman, but
writes it also with extraordinary descriptive power, not only
in pregnant sentences which have never been effectively
rendered in translation, but in passages of sustained
intensity, of which it would be vain to reproduce fragments.
The abridged translation given here has been made direct from
the Greek.
_I.--The Beginning of the War_
I have written the account of the war between Athens and Sparta, since
it is the greatest and the most calamitous of all wars hitherto to the
Greeks. For the contest with the Medes was decided in four battles; but
this war was protracted over many years, and wrought infinite injury and
bloodshed.
Of the immediate causes of the war the first is to be found in the
affairs of Epidamnus, Corcyra, and Corinth, of which Corcyra was a
colony. Of the Greek states, the most were joined either to the Athenian
or the Peloponnesian league, but Corcyra had joined neither. But having
a quarrel with Corinth about Epidamnus, she now formed an alliance with
Athens, whose intervention enraged the Corinthians.
They then helped Potidæa, a Corinthian colony, but an Athenian
tributary, to revolt from Athens. Corinth next appealed to Sparta, as
the head of Hellas, to intervene ere it should be too late and check the
Athenian aggression, which threatened to make her the tyrant of all
Greece. At Sparta the war party prevailed, although King Archidamus
urged that sufficient pressure could be brought to bear without actual
hostilities.
The great prosperity and development of Athens since the Persian war had
filled other states with fear and jealousy. She had rebuilt her city
walls and refortified the port of Piræus after the Persian occupation;
Sparta had virtually allowed her to take the lead in the subsequent
stages of the war, as having the most effective naval force at command.
Hence she had founded the Delian league of the maritime states, to hold
the seas against Persia. At first these states provided fixed
contingents of ships and mariners; but Athens was willing enough to
accept treasure in substitution, so that she might herself supply the
ships and men.
Thus the provision of forces by each state to act against Persia was
changed in effect into a tribute for the expansion of the Athenian
fleet. The continuous development of the power of Athens had been
checked only momentarily by her disastrous Egyptian expedition. Her
nominal allies found themselves actually her tributary dependencies, and
various attempts to break free from her yoke had made it only more
secure and more burdensome.
Hence the warlike decision of Sparta was welcomed by others besides
Corinth. But diplomatic demands preceded hostilities. Sparta and Athens
sent to each other summons and counter-summons for the "expulsion of the
curse," that is of all persons connected with certain families which lay
under the curse of the gods.
In the case of Athens, this amounted to requiring the banishment of her
greatest citizen and statesman, Pericles. To this the Spartans added the
demand that the Athenians should "restore the freedom of Hellas," and
should specifically remove certain trading disabilities imposed on the
people of Megara.
At this crisis Pericles laid down the rules of policy on which Athens
ought to act--rules which required her to decline absolutely to submit
to any form of dictation from Sparta. When a principle was at stake, it
made no difference whether the occasion was trivial or serious. Athens
could face war with confidence. Her available wealth was far greater--a
matter of vital importance in a prolonged struggle. Her counsels were
not divided by the conflicting interests of allies all claiming to
direct military movements and policy. Her fleet gave her command of the
sea, and enabled her to strike when and where she chose. If
Peloponnesian invaders ravaged Attica, still no permanent injury would
be done comparable to that which the Athenians could inflict upon them.
The one necessity was to concentrate on the war, and attempt no
extension of dominion while it was in progress.
War was not yet formally declared when the Thebans attempted to seize
Platæa, a town of Boeotia, which had long been closely allied to Athens.
The attempt failed, and the Thebans were put to death; but the Platæans
appealed to Athens for protection against their powerful neighbour, and
when the Athenian garrison was sent to them, this was treated as a
_casus belli_.
Preparations were urged on both sides; Sparta summoned her allies to
muster their contingents on the Isthmus for the invasion of Attica,
nearly all the mainland states joining the Peloponnesian league. The
islanders and the cities in Asia Minor, on the other hand, were nearly
all either actually subject to Athens or in alliance with her.
As Pericles advised, the Athenians left the country open to the ravages
of the invading forces, and themselves retired within the city. In spite
of the resentment of those who saw their property being laid waste,
Pericles maintained his ascendency, and persuaded the people to devote
their energies to sending out an irresistible fleet, and to establishing
a great reserve both of ships and treasure, which were to be an annual
charge and brought into active use only in the case of dire emergency.
The fleet sailed round the Peloponnese, and the ravages it was able to
inflict, with the alarm it created, caused the withdrawal of the forces
in Attica.
In that winter Pericles delivered a great funeral oration, or panegyric,
in memory of the Athenians who had so far fallen gloriously in defence
of their country, in which he painted the characteristic virtues of the
Athenian people in such a fashion as to rouse to the highest pitch the
patriotic pride of his countrymen, and their confidence in themselves,
in their future, and in their leader.
_II.--Early Successes of Athens_
In the second year of the war, Athens suffered from a fearful visitation
of the plague, which, however, made no way in the Peloponnese. It broke
out also among the reinforcements dispatched to Potidæa; and it required
all the skill of Pericles to reconcile the Athenians to the continuation
of the war, after seeing their territories overrun for the second time
for six weeks. By dint of dwelling on the supreme importance of their
decisive command of the sea, and on the vast financial resources which
secured their staying power, he maintained his ascendency until his
death in the following year, though he had to submit to a fine. The
events which followed his death only confirmed the profundity of his
political judgment, and the accuracy with which he had gauged the
capacities of the state. In that winter Potidæa was forced to capitulate
to the Athenians.
In the summer of the third year, the Lacedæmonians called on the
Platæans to desert the Athenian alliance. On their refusal, Platæa was
besieged by the allied forces of the Peloponnesians. With splendid
resolution, the Platæans defeated the attempt of the allies to force an
entry till they were able to complete and withdraw behind a second and
more easily tenable line of defence, when the Peloponnesians settled
down to a regular investment. The same year was marked by the brilliant
operations of the Athenian admiral Phormio in the neighbourhood of
Naupactus.
On the other hand, a Peloponnesian squadron threatened the Piræus,
caused some temporary panic, and awakened the Athenians to the necessity
of maintaining a look-out, but otherwise effected little. The year is
further noted for the invasion of Macedonia by the Thracian or Scythian
king Sitalces, who was, however, induced to retire.
In the next year, Lesbos revolted against the Athenian supremacy. As a
result, an Athenian squadron blockaded Mitylene. The Lacedaæonians were
well pleased to accept alliance with a sea-power which claimed to have
struck against Athens, not as being subject to her, but in anticipation
of attempted subjugation. The prompt equipment, however, of another
Athenian fleet chilled the naval enthusiasm of Sparta.
During this winter the Platæans began to feel in straits from shortage
of supplies, and it was resolved that a party of them should break
through the siege lines, and escape to Athens, a feat of arms which was
brilliantly and successfully accomplished.
In the next--the fifth--summer, Mitylene capitulated; the fate of the
inhabitants was to be referred to Athens. Here Cleon had now become the
popular leader, and he persuaded the Athenians to order the whole of the
adult males to be put to death. The opposition, however, succeeded in
getting this bloodthirsty resolution rescinded. The second dispatch,
racing desperately after the first, did not succeed in overtaking it,
but was just in time to prevent the order for the massacre from being
carried out. Lesbos was divided among Athenian citizens, who left the
Lesbians in occupation as before, but drew a large rental from them.
In the same summer the remaining garrison of Platæa surrendered to the
Lacedæmonians, on terms to be decided by Lacedæmonian commissioners.
Before them the Platæans justified their resistance, but the
commissioners ignored the defence, and, on the pretext that the only
question was whether they had suffered any "wrong" at the hands of the
Platæans, and that the answer to that was obvious, put the Platæans to
death and razed the city to the ground.
Meanwhile, at Corcyra, the popular and the oligarchical parties, who
favoured the Athenians and Peloponnesians respectively, had reached the
stage of murderous hostility to each other. The oligarchs captured the
government, and were then in turn attacked by the popular party; and
there was savage faction fighting. An attempt was made by the commander
of the Athenian squadron at Naupactus to act as moderator; the
appearance of a Peloponnesian squadron and a confused sea-fight,
somewhat in favour of the latter, brought the popular party to the verge
of a compromise. But the Peloponnesians retired on the reported approach
of a fresh Athenian fleet, and a democratic reign of terror followed.
"The father slew the son, and the supplicants were torn from the temples
and slain near them." And thus was initiated the peculiar horror of this
war--the desperate civil strife in one city after another, oligarchs
hoping to triumph by Lacedæmonian and democrats by Athenian, support,
and either party, when uppermost, ruling by terror. It was at this time
also that the Ionian and Dorian cities of Sicily, headed by Leontini and
Syracuse respectively, went to war with each other, and an Athenian
squadron was first induced to participate in the struggle.
Among the operations of the next, or sixth, summer was a campaign which
the Athenian commander Demosthenes conducted in Ætolia--successful at
the outset, but terminating in disaster, which made the general afraid
to return to Athens. He seized a chance, however, of recovering his
credit by foiling a Lacedæmonian expedition against Naupactus; and in
other ways he successfully established a high military reputation, so
that he was no longer afraid to reappear at Athens.
Next year, the Athenians dispatched a larger fleet with Sicily for its
objective. Demosthenes, however, who had a project of his own in view,
was given an independent command. He was thus enabled to seize and
fortify Pylos, a position on the south-west of Peloponnese, with a
harbour sheltered by the isle of Sphacteria. The Spartans, in alarm,
withdrew their invading force from Attica, and attempted to recover
Pylos, landing over 400 of their best men on Sphacteria. The locality
now became the scene of a desperate struggle, which finally resulted in
the Spartans on Sphacteria being completely isolated.
So seriously did the Lacedæmonians regard this blow that they invited
the Athenians to make peace virtually in terms of an equal alliance; but
the Athenians were now so confident of a triumphant issue that they
refused the terms--chiefly at the instigation of Cleon. Some supplies,
however, were got into Sphacteria, owing to the high rewards offered by
the Lacedæmonians for successful blockade-running. At this moment,
Cleon, the Athenian demagogue, having rashly declared that he could
easily capture Sphacteria, was taken at his word and sent to do it. He
had the wit, however, to choose Demosthenes for his colleague, and to
take precisely the kind of troops Demosthenes wanted; with the result
that within twenty days, as he had promised, the Spartans found
themselves with no other alternatives than annihilation or surrender.
Their choice of the latter was an overwhelming blow to Lacedæmonian
prestige.
_III.--Victories of Lacedæmon_
The capture of the island of Cythera in the next summer gave the
Athenians a second strong station from which they could constantly
menace the Peloponnese. On the other hand, in this year the Sicilians
were awakening to the fact that Athens was not playing a disinterested
part on behalf of the Ionian states, but was dreaming of a Sicilian
empire. At a sort of peace congress, Hermocrates of Syracuse
successfully urged all Sicilians to compose their quarrels on the basis
of _uti possidetis,_ and thus deprive the Athenians of any excuse for
remaining. Thus for the time Athenian aspirations in that quarter were
checked.
At Megara this year the dissensions of the oligarchical and popular
factions almost resulted in its capture by the Athenians. The
Lacedæmonian Brasidas, however--who had distinguished himself at
Pylos--effected an entry, so that the oligarchical and Peloponnesian
party became permanently established in power. The most important
operations were now in two fields. Brasidas made a dash through Thessaly
into Macedonia, in alliance with Perdiccas of Macedon, with the hope of
stirring the cities of Chalcidice to throw off the Athenian yoke; and
the democrats of Boeotia intrigued with Athens to assist in a general
revolution. Owing partly to misunderstandings and partly to treachery,
the Boeotian democrats failed to carry out their programme, the
Athenians were defeated at Delium, and Delium itself was captured by the
Boeotians.
Meanwhile, Brasidas succeeded in persuading Acanthus to revolt, he
himself winning the highest of reputations for justice and moderation as
well as for military skill. Later in the year he suddenly turned his
forces against the Athenian colony of Amphipolis, which he induced to
surrender by offering very favourable terms before Thucydides, who was
in command of Thasos, arrived to relieve it. The further successes of
Brasidas during this winter made the Athenians ready to treat for peace,
and a truce was agreed upon for twelve months. Brasidas, however,
continued to render aid to the subject cities which revolted from
Athens--this being now the ninth year of the war--but he failed in an
attempt to capture Potidæa.
The period of truce terminating without any definite peace being arrived
at, the summer of the tenth year is chiefly notable for the expedition
sent under Cleon to recover Amphipolis, and for a recrudescence of the
old quarrel in Sicily between Leontini and Syracuse. Before Amphipolis,
the incompetent Cleon was routed by the skill of Brasidas; but the
victor as well as the vanquished was slain, though he lived long enough
to know of the victory. Their deaths removed two of the most zealous
opponents of the peace for which both sides were now anxious. Hence at
the close of the tenth year a definite peace was concluded.
The Lacedæmonians, however, were almost alone in being fully satisfied
by the terms, and the war was really continued by an anti-Laconian
confederation of the former Peloponnesian allies, who saw in the peace a
means to the excessive preponderance of Athens and Sparta. Argos was
brought into the new confederacy in the hope of establishing her nominal
equality with Sparta. For some years from this point the combinations of
the states were constantly changing, while Athens and Sparta remained
generally on terms of friendliness, the two prominent figures at Athens
being the conservative Nicias and the restless and ambitious young
intriguer Alcibiades.
In the fourteenth year there were active hostilities between Argos, with
which by this time Athens was in alliance, and Lacedæmon, issuing in
the great battle of Mantinea, where there was an Athenian contingent
with the Argives. This was notable especially as completely restoring
the prestige of the Lacedæmonian arms, their victory being decisive. The
result was a new treaty between Sparta and Argos, and the dissolution of
the Argive-Athenian alliance; but this was once more reversed in the
following year, when the Argive oligarchy was attacked successfully by
the popular party.
The next year is marked by the high-handed treatment of the island of
Melos by the Athenians. This was one of the very few islands which had
not been compelled to submit to Athens, but had endeavoured to remain
neutral. Thither the Athenians now sent an expedition, absolutely
without excuse, to compel their submission.
The Melians, however, refused, and gave the Athenians a good deal of
trouble before they could be subdued, when the adult male population was
put to death, and the women and children enslaved. At this time the
Athenians resolved, under colour of an appeal for assistance from the
Sicilian city of Egesta, deliberately to set about the establishment of
their empire in Sicily. The aggressive policy was vehemently advocated
by Alcibiades, and opposed by Nicias. Nevertheless, he, with Alcibiades
and Lamachus, was appointed to command the expedition, which was
prepared on a scale of unparalleled magnificence. It was on the point of
starting, when the whole city was stirred to frenzy by the midnight
mutilation of the sacred images called Hermæ, an act laid at the door of
Alcibiades, along with many other charges of profane outrages. Of set
purpose, however, the enemies of Alcibiades refused to bring him to
trial. The expedition sailed. The Syracusans were deaf to the warnings
of Hermocrates until the great fleet had actually arrived at Rhegium.