Cyrus who fought with his brother for the empire of Persia, called his
favourite concubine Aspasia, though she had before been named Milto. She
was a Phokaean by birth, the daughter of Hermotimus. After the death of
Cyrus in battle, she was taken into the king's harem, and acquired great
influence with him. These particulars about Aspasia occurred to my
memory, and I thought that perhaps I might please my readers by relating
them.
XXV. Perikles is accused of going to war with Samos to save the
Milesians, at the request of Aspasia. These States were at war about the
possession of the city of Priéne, and the Samians, who were victorious,
would not lay down their arms and allow the Athenians to settle the
matter by arbitration, as they ordered them to do. For this reason
Perikles proceeded to Samos, put an end to the oligarchical form of
government there, and sent fifty hostages and as many children to
Lemnos, to ensure the good behaviour of the leading men. It is said that
each of these hostages offered him a talent for his own freedom, and
that much more was offered by that party which was loth to see a
democracy established in the city. Besides all this, Pissuthnes the
Persian, who had a liking for the Samians, sent and offered him ten
thousand pieces of gold if he would spare the city. Perikles, however,
took none of these bribes, but dealt with Samos as he had previously
determined, and returned to Athens. The Samians now at once revolted, as
Pissuthnes managed to get them back their hostages, and furnished them
with the means of carrying on the war. Perikles now made a second
expedition against them, and found them in no mind to submit quietly,
but determined to dispute the empire of the seas with the Athenians.
Perikles gained a signal victory over them in a sea-fight off the Goats'
Island, beating a fleet of seventy ships with only forty-four, twenty of
which were transports.
XXVI. Simultaneously with his victory and the flight of the enemy he
obtained command of the harbour of Samos, and besieged the Samians in
their city. They, in spite of their defeat, still possessed courage
enough to sally out and fight a battle under the walls; but soon a
larger force arrived from Athens, and the Samians were completely
blockaded.
Perikles now with sixty ships sailed out of the Archipelago into the
Mediterranean, according to the most current report intending to meet
the Phoenician fleet which was coming to help the Samians, but,
according to Stesimbrotus, with the intention of attacking Cyprus, which
seems improbable. Whatever his intention may have been, his expedition
was a failure, for Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a man of culture, who
was then in command of the Samian forces, conceiving a contempt for the
small force of the Athenians and the want of experience of their leaders
after Perikles's departure, persuaded his countrymen to attack them. In
the battle the Samians proved victorious, taking many Athenians
prisoners, and destroying many of their ships. By this victory they
obtained command of the sea, and were able to supply themselves with
more warlike stores than they had possessed before. Aristotle even says
that Perikles himself was before this beaten by Melissus in a sea-fight.
The Samians branded the figure of an owl on the foreheads of their
Athenian prisoners, to revenge themselves for the branding of their own
prisoners by the Athenians with the figure of a _samaina_. This is a
ship having a beak turned up like a swine's snout, but with a roomy
hull, so as both to carry a large cargo and sail fast. This class of
vessel is called _samaina_ because it was first built at Samos by
Polykrates, the despot of that island. It is said that the verse of
Aristophanes,
"The Samians are a deeply lettered race,"
alludes to this branding.
XXVII. When Perikles heard of the disaster which had befallen his army,
he returned in all haste to assist them. He beat Melissus, who came out
to meet him, and, after putting the enemy to rout, at once built a wall
round their city, preferring to reduce it by blockade to risking the
lives of his countrymen in an assault. As time went on the Athenians
became impatient and eager to fight, and it was hard to restrain their
ardour. Perikles divided the whole force into eight divisions, and made
them all draw lots. The division which drew the white bean he permitted
to feast and take their ease, while the rest did their duty. For this
reason those who are enjoying themselves call it a "white day," in
allusion to the white bean. Ephorus tells us that Perikles made use of
battering engines in this siege, being attracted by their novelty, and
that Artemon the mechanician was present, who was surnamed Periphoretus
because he was lame, and carried in a litter to see such of the works as
required his superintendence. This story is proved to be false by
Herakleides of Pontus, he quoting Anakreon's poems, in which Artemon
Periphoretus is mentioned many generations before the revolt and siege
of Samos. He tells us that Artemon was an effeminate coward who spent
most of his time indoors, with two slaves holding a brazen shield over
his head for fear that anything should fall upon it, and if he was
obliged to go out, used to be carried in a hammock slung so low as
almost to touch the ground, from which he received the name of
Periphoretus.
XXVIII. In the ninth month of the siege the Samians surrendered.
Perikles demolished their walls, confiscated their fleet, and imposed a
heavy fine upon them, some part of which was paid at once by the
Samians, who gave hostages for the payment of the remainder at fixed
periods. Douris, of Samos, makes a lamentable story of this, accusing
Perikles and the Athenians of great cruelty, no mention of which is to
be found in Thucydides, Ephorus, or Aristotle. He obviously does not
tell the truth when he says that Perikles took the captains and marine
soldiers of each ship to the market-place at Miletus, bound them to
planks, and after they had been so for ten days and were in a miserable
state, knocked them on the head with clubs and cast out their bodies
without burial. But Douris, even in cases where he has no personal bias,
prefers writing an exciting story to keeping to the exact truth, and in
this instance probably exaggerated the sufferings of his countrymen in
order to gratify his dislike of the Athenians.
Perikles, after the reduction of Samos, returned to Athens, where he
buried those who had fallen in the war in a magnificent manner, and was
much admired for the funeral oration which, as is customary, was spoken
by him over the graves of his countrymen. When he descended from the
rostrum the women greeted him, crowning him with garlands and ribbons
like a victorious athlete, and Elpinike drawing near to him said, "A
fine exploit, truly, Perikles, and well worthy of a crown, to lose many
of our brave fellow-citizens, not fighting with Persians or Phoenicians,
as my brother Kimon did, but in ruining a city of men of our own blood
and our own allies." At these words of Elpinike, Perikles merely smiled
and repeated the verse of Archilochus--
"Too old thou art for rich perfumes."
Ion says that his victory over the Samians wonderfully flattered his
vanity. Agamemnon, he was wont to say, took ten years to take a
barbarian city, but he in nine months had made himself master of the
first and most powerful city in Ionia. And the comparison was not an
unjust one, for truly the war was a very great undertaking, and its
issue quite uncertain, since, as Thucydides tells us, the Samians came
very near to wresting the empire of the sea from the Athenians.
XXIX. After these events, as the clouds were gathering for the
Peloponnesian war, Perikles persuaded the Athenians to send assistance
to the people of Korkyra, who were at war with the Corinthians, and thus
to attach to their own side an island with a powerful naval force, at a
moment when the Peloponnesians had all but declared war against them.
When the people passed this decree, Perikles sent only ten ships under
the command of Lacedaemonius, the son of Kimon, as if he designed a
deliberate insult; for the house of Kimon was on peculiarly friendly
terms with the Lacedaemonians. His design in sending Lacedaemonius out,
against his will, and with so few ships, was that if he performed
nothing brilliant he might be accused, even more than he was already, of
leaning to the side of the Spartans. Indeed, by all means in his power,
he always threw obstacles in the way of the advancement of Kimon's
family, representing that by their very names they were aliens, one son
being named Lacedaemonius, another Thessalus, another Eleius. Moreover,
the mother of all three was an Arcadian.
Now Perikles was much reproached for sending these ten ships, which
were of little value to the Korkyreans, and gave a great handle to his
enemies to use against him, and in consequence sent a larger force after
them to Korkyra, which arrived there after the battle. The Corinthians,
enraged at this, complained in the congress of Sparta of the conduct of
the Athenians, as did also the Megarians, who said that they were
excluded from every market and every harbour which was in Athenian
hands, contrary to the ancient rights and common privileges of the
Hellenic race. The people of Aegina also considered themselves to be
oppressed and ill-treated, and secretly bemoaned their grievances in the
ears of the Spartans, for they dared not openly bring any charges
against the Athenians. At this time, too, Potidaea, a city subject to
Athens, but a colony of Corinth, revolted, and its siege materially
hastened the outbreak of the war. Archidamus, indeed, the king of the
Lacedaemonians, sent ambassadors to Athens, was willing to submit all
disputed points to arbitration, and endeavoured to moderate the
excitement of his allies, so that war probably would not have broken out
if the Athenians could have been persuaded to rescind their decree of
exclusion against the Megarians, and to come to terms with them. And,
for this reason, Perikles, who was particularly opposed to this, and
urged the people not to give way to the Megarians, alone bore the blame
of having begun the war.
XXX. It is said, that when an embassy arrived at Athens from Lacedaemon
to treat upon these matters, Perikles argued that there was a law which
forbade the tablet, on which the decree against the Megarians was
written, to be taken down. "Then," said Polyalkes, one of the
ambassadors, "do not take it down, but turn it with its face to the
wall; for there is no law against that!"
Clever as this retort was, it had no effect on Perikles. He had, it
seems, some private spite at the Megarians, though the ground of quarrel
which he put publicly forward was that the Megarians had applied to
their own use some of the sacred ground; and he passed a decree for a
herald to be sent to the Megarians, and then to go on to the
Lacedaemonians to complain of their conduct. This decree of Perikles is
worded in a candid and reasonable manner; but the herald,
Anthemokritus, was thought to have met his death at the hands of the
Megarians, and Charinus passed a decree to the effect that Athens should
wage war against them to the death, without truce or armistice; that any
Megarian found in Attica should be punished with death, and that the
generals, when taking the usual oath for each year, should swear in
addition that they would invade the Megarian territory twice every year;
and that Anthemokritus should be buried near the city gate leading into
the Thriasian plain, which is now called the Double Gate.
Now, the Megarians say that they were not to blame for the murder of
Anthemokritus, and lay it upon Perikles and Aspasia, quoting the
hackneyed rhymes from the 'Acharnians,' of Aristophanes:
"Some young Athenians in their drunken play,
From Megara Simaetha stole away,
The men of Megara next, with angered soul,
Two of Aspasia's choicest harlots stole."
XXXI. How the dispute originated it is hard to say, but all writers
agree in throwing on Perikles the blame of refusing to reverse the
decree. Some attribute his firmness to a wise calculation, saying that
the demand was merely made in order to try him, and that any concessions
would have been regarded as a sign of weakness; while others say that he
treated the Lacedaemonians so cavalierly through pride and a desire to
show his own strength. But the worst motive of all, and that to which
most men attribute his conduct, was as follows: Pheidias, the sculptor,
was, as we have related, entrusted with the task of producing the statue
of the tutelary goddess of Athens. His intimacy with Perikles, with whom
he had great influence, gained for him many enemies, who, wishing to
experiment on the temper of the people towards Perikles himself, bribed
Menon, one of Pheidias's fellow-workmen, to seat himself in the
market-place as a suppliant who begged that he might receive protection
while he denounced and prosecuted Pheidias. The people took this man
under its protection, and Pheidias was prosecuted before the Senate. The
alleged charges of theft were not proved, for Pheidias, by the advice of
Perikles, had originally fashioned the golden part of the statue in
such a manner that it could all be taken off and weighed, and this
Perikles bade the prosecutor do on this occasion. But the glory which
Pheidias obtained by the reality of his work made him an object of envy
and hatred, especially when in his sculpture of the battle with the
Amazons on the shield of the goddess he introduced his own portrait as a
bald-headed old man lifting a great stone with both hands, and also a
very fine representation of Perikles, fighting with an Amazon. The
position of the hand, which was holding a spear before the face of
Perikles, was ingeniously devised as if to conceal the portrait, which,
nevertheless, could plainly be seen on either side of it. For this,
Pheidias was imprisoned, and there fell sick and died, though some say
that his enemies poisoned him in order to cast suspicion upon Perikles.
At the instance of Glykon, the people voted to Menon, the informer, an
immunity from public burdens, and ordered the generals of the State to
provide for the wretch's safety.
XXXII. About the same time Aspasia was prosecuted for impiety, at the
suit of Hermippus, the comic playwright, who moreover accused her of
harbouring free-born Athenian ladies, with whom Perikles carried on
intrigues. Also Diopeithes proposed a decree, that prosecutions should
be instituted against all persons who disbelieved in religion, and held
theories of their own about heavenly phenomena. This was aimed at
Perikles through the philosopher Anaxagoras. As the people adopted this
decree, and eagerly listened to these slanderous accusations, another
decree was carried by Drakontides, that Perikles should lay the accounts
of his dealings with the public revenue before the Prytanes, and that
the judges should carry their suffrage from the altar in the Acropolis,
and go and determine the cause in the city. At the motion of Hagnon this
part of the decree was reversed, but he succeeded in having the action
conducted before fifteen hundred judges, in a form of trial which one
might call either one for theft, or taking of bribes, or for public
wrong-doing. Aspasia was acquitted, quite contrary to justice, according
to Aeschines, because Perikles shed tears and made a personal appeal to
the judges on her behalf. He feared that Anaxagoras would be convicted,
and sent him out of the city before his trial commenced. And now, as he
had become unpopular by means of Pheidias, he at once blew the war into
a flame, hoping to put an end to these prosecutions, and to restore his
own personal ascendancy by involving the State in important and
dangerous crises, in which it would have to rely for guidance upon
himself alone.
These are the causes which are assigned for his refusal to permit the
Athenians to make any concession to the Lacedaemonians, but the real
history of the transaction will never be known.
XXXIII. Now, as the Lacedaemonians knew that if he could be removed from
power they would find the Athenians much more easy to deal with, they
bade them, "drive forth the accursed thing," alluding to Perikles's
descent from the Alkmaeonidae by his mother's side, as we are told by
Thucydides the historian. But this attempt had just the contrary effect
to that which they intended; for, instead of suspicion and dislike,
Perikles met with much greater honour and respect from his countrymen
than before, because they saw that he was an object of especial dislike
to the enemy. For this reason, before the Peloponnesians, under
Archidamus, invaded Attica, he warned the Athenians that if Archidamus,
when he laid waste everything else, spared his own private estate
because of the friendly private relations existing between them, or in
order to give his personal enemies a ground for impeaching him, that he
should give both the land and the farm buildings upon it to the State.
The Lacedaemonians invaded Attica with a great host of their own troops
and those of their allies, led by Archidamus, their king. They
proceeded, ravaging the country as they went, as far as Acharnae (close
to Athens), where they encamped, imagining that the Athenians would
never endure to see them there, but would be driven by pride and shame
to come out and fight them. However, Perikles thought that it would be a
very serious matter to fight for the very existence of Athens against
sixty thousand Peloponnesian and Boeotian[A] heavy-armed troops, and so
he pacified those who were dissatisfied at his inactivity by pointing
out that trees when cut down quickly grow again, but that when the men
of a State are lost, it is hard to raise up others to take their place.
He would not call an assembly of the people, because he feared that they
would force him to act against his better judgment, but, just as the
captain of a ship, when a storm comes on at sea, places everything in
the best trim to meet it, and trusting to his own skill and seamanship,
disregarding the tears and entreaties of the sea-sick and terrified
passengers; so did Perikles shut the gates of Athens, place sufficient
forces to ensure the safety of the city at all points, and calmly carry
out his own policy, taking little heed of the noisy grumblings of the
discontented. Many of his friends besought him to attack, many of his
enemies threatened him and abused him, and many songs and offensive
jests were written about him, speaking of him as a coward, and one who
was betraying the city to its enemies. Kleon too attacked him, using the
anger which the citizens felt against him to advance his own personal
popularity, as we see from the following lines of Hermippus:
"King of Satyrs, wherefore fear you
Spear to wield, and only dare to
Talk in swelling phrase, while yet you
Cower, Teles like,
And when goaded on, past bearing,
By our Kleon's tongue so daring,
Only gnash your teeth despairing,
Still afraid to strike."
[Footnote A: The Dorians of Boeotia and Peloponnesus were accounted the
best infantry soldiers of Greece.]
XXXIV. Perikles was unmoved by any of these attacks, but quietly endured
all this storm of obloquy. He sent a fleet of a hundred ships to attack
Peloponnesus, but did not sail with it himself, remaining at home to
keep a tight hand over Athens until the Peloponnesians drew off their
forces. He regained his popularity with the common people, who suffered
much from the war, by giving them allowances of money from the public
revenue, and grants of land; for he drove out the entire population of
the island of Aegina, and divided the land by lot among the Athenians. A
certain amount of relief also was experienced by reflecting upon the
injuries which they were inflicting on the enemy; for the fleet as it
sailed round Peloponnesus destroyed many small villages and cities, and
ravaged a great extent of country, while Perikles himself led an
expedition into the territory of Megara and laid it all waste. By this
it is clear that the allies, although they did much damage to the
Athenians, yet suffered equally themselves, and never could have
protracted the war for such a length of time as it really lasted, but,
as Perikles foretold, must soon have desisted had not Providence
interfered and confounded human counsels. For now the pestilence fell
among the Athenians, and cut off the flower of their youth. Suffering
both in body and mind they raved against Perikles, just as people when
delirious with disease attack their fathers or their physicians. They
endeavoured to ruin him, urged on by his personal enemies, who assured
them that he was the author of the plague, because he had brought all
the country people into the city, where they were compelled to live
during the heat of summer, crowded together in small rooms and stifling
tents, living an idle life too, and breathing foul air instead of the
pure country breezes to which they were accustomed. The cause of this,
they said, was the man who, when the war began, admitted the masses of
the country people into the city, and then made no use of them, but
allowed them to be penned up together like cattle, and transmit the
contagion from one to another, without devising any remedy or
alleviation of their sufferings.
XXXV. Hoping to relieve them somewhat, and also to annoy the enemy,
Perikles manned a hundred and fifty ships, placed on board, besides the
sailors, many brave infantry and cavalry soldiers, and was about to put
to sea. The Athenians conceived great hopes, and the enemy no less
terror from so large an armament. When all was ready, and Perikles
himself had just embarked in his own trireme, an eclipse of the sun took
place, producing total darkness, and all men were terrified at so great
a portent. Perikles, observing that his helmsman was alarmed and knew
not what to do, held his cloak over the man's eyes and asked him if he
thought that a terrible portent. As he answered that he did not,
Perikles said: "What is the difference, then, between it and an eclipse
of the sun, except that the eclipse is caused by something larger than
my cloak?" This subject is discussed by the philosophers in their
schools.
Perikles sailed with the fleet, but did nothing worthy of so great a
force. He besieged the sacred city of Epidaurus, but, although he had
great hopes of taking it, he failed on account of the plague, which
destroyed not only his own men, but every one who came in contact with
them. After this he again endeavoured to encourage the Athenians, to
whom he had become an object of dislike. However, he did not succeed in
pacifying them, but they condemned him by a public vote to be general no
more, and to pay a fine which is stated at the lowest estimate to have
been fifteen talents, and at the highest fifty. This was carried,
according to Idomeneus, by Kleon, but according to Theophrastus by
Simmias; whilst Herakleides of Pontus says that it was effected by
Lakrateides.