In a former volume we have traced the course of events which ended in
the complete overthrow of Xerxes and his great army. Our present task
is to describe the chief incidents in the cruel and devastating war,
commonly known as the Peloponnesian War, which lasted for twenty-seven
years, and finally broke up the Athenian Empire. The cause of that war
was the envy and hatred excited in the other states of Greece by the
power and greatness of Athens; and in order to make our story
intelligible we must indicate briefly the steps by which she rose to
that dangerous eminence, and drew upon herself the armed hostility of
half the Greek world.
We take up our narrative at the point of time when the Athenians
returned to their ruined homes after the defeat of the Persians at
Plataea. Of their ancient city nothing remained but a few houses which
had served as lodgings for the Persian grandees, and some scattered
fragments of the surrounding wall. Their first task was to restore the
outer line of defence, and by the advice of Themistocles the new wall
took in a much wider circuit than the old rampart which had been
destroyed by the Persians. The whole population toiled night and day to
raise the bulwark which was to guard their temples and their homes,
using as materials the walls of the houses which had been sacked and
burnt by the Persians, with whatever remained of public buildings,
sacred or profane, and sparing not even the monumental pillars of
graves in the urgency of their need.
But jealous eyes were watching them, and busy tongues were wagging
against that gallant race of Attica which had been foremost in the
common cause against the barbarian invader. "These Athenians are
dangerous neighbours," was the cry. "Let us stop them from building
their wall, or Athens will become a standing menace to ourselves."
Before long these murmurs reached the ears of the Spartans, and they
sent envoys to dissuade the Athenians from fortifying their city. Their
real purpose was disguised under the mask of anxiety for the general
safety of Greece. "It is not expedient," they urged, "that the
Persians, when next they come against us, should find fencéd cities
which they may make their strongholds, as they have lately done in
Athens and in Thebes. Cease, therefore, from building this wall, and
help us to destroy all such defences, outside of Peloponnesus. If we
are attacked again, we will unite our forces within the isthmus, and
meet the invader from there."
But Themistocles was not the man to be hoodwinked by the simple cunning
of the Spartans. By his advice the Athenians dismissed the envoys,
promising to send an embassy to discuss the matter at Sparta. As soon
as they were gone, Themistocles caused himself to be appointed as head
of the embassy, and set out at once for Sparta, instructing the
Athenians to keep his colleagues back until the wall had been raised to
a sufficient height for purposes of defence. Arrived at Sparta, he kept
himself close in his lodging, and declined all conference with the
authorities, alleging that he could do nothing without his colleagues.
Meanwhile the Athenians were making incredible efforts to carry on the
work which was essential to their liberty and prosperity. Men, women,
and children toiled without intermission, and the wall was rapidly
approaching a defensible height. The clamour of their enemies grew
louder and louder, and angry messages reached the Spartans everyday,
reproaching them with their supineness and procrastination. Being asked
the meaning of these reports, Themistocles professed total ignorance,
and bade the Spartans send men to Athens to see for themselves. The
Spartans did so, and when the men arrived at Athens the Athenians, who
had been privately warned by Themistocles, kept them in custody, as
hostages for their own representatives at Sparta. Themistocles had
meanwhile been joined by his partners in the embassy, and learning from
them that the wall was now of sufficient height, he spoke out plainly,
and let the Spartans understand what his true purpose was. "Athens," he
said, "is once more a fortified city, and we are able to discuss
questions of public or private interest on a footing of equality. When
we forsook all, and took to our ships to fight for the common weal, it
was done without prompting of yours; and that peril being past, we
shall take such measures as concern our safety, without leave asked of
you. And in serving ourselves, we are serving you also; for if Athens
is not free, how can she give an unbiased vote in questions which
concern the general welfare of Greece?"
It was impossible for the Spartans to express open resentment at a plea
so moderate and so reasonable. But they were secretly annoyed to find
that their malice had been detected and exposed; and by this incident
was sown the first seed of ill-will which was afterwards to bear such
bitter fruit for Athens and for Greece. For the present, however, the
affair was ended, and the first step secured for the Athenians in their
career of glory and power.
Themistocles was the first who clearly saw that the future of Athens
lay on the sea. But if Athens was to hold and extend her position as
the first naval power in Greece, it was above all things necessary that
she should have a strong and fortified station for her fleets, her
arsenals, and her dockyards. Nature had provided her with what she
needed, in the peninsula of Peiraeus, which juts out into the Saronic
Gulf, about five miles south-west of the inland town. As soon as the
city-wall was completed, fortifications of immense strength were
carried round the whole of Peiraeus; and within this vast rampart rose
a second city, equal in size to the old one, with streets laid out in
straight lines, and filled with the stir and bustle of a maritime
population. Three land-locked harbours gave ample room for the fleets
of Athens to lie in shelter and safety; and this great sea-port town
was afterwards united to the original city by two long walls, which met
the sea, one at the north-western corner of Peiraeus, and the other at
the south-eastern point of the Bay of Phalerum. Between these, at a
later period, a third wall was built, running parallel to the northern
wall at a distance of about two hundred feet, and known as the Southern
or Middle Wall.
Many years elapsed before these important works were completed; and in
the meantime great events had been happening in other parts of the
Greek world, tending more and more to realise the dream of
Themistocles, and make his beloved city the undisputed mistress of the
sea. After the defeat of the Persian armies and fleets at Salamis,
Plataea, and Mycale, much hard work remained to be done, in reducing
the outlying cities on the coasts of Thrace and in the eastern corners
of the Aegaean, which held out for the Great King. The Spartans were
still nominal leaders of the allied Greek navy; but after a year of
service they resigned this position, which they owed to their
acknowledged supremacy in land warfare, to the Athenians. They were
induced to take this step, partly by their own aversion to foreign
enterprises, and partly by the misconduct of their general Pausanias,
who had disgusted the allies serving under him in the fleet by his
intolerable arrogance and tyranny. The field was thus left open to the
Athenians, who willingly assumed the command offered them by the
maritime cities of Greece, with the object of prosecuting the war
vigorously against Persia. Each city was assessed to furnish a fixed
contribution of ships or money, and the sacred island of Delos was
appointed as the common treasury and meeting-place of the league. Thus
was formed the famous Delian Confederacy, with the avowed purpose of
making reprisals on the Great King's territory for the havoc which he
had wrought in Greece. For a time all went smoothly, and the various
members of the league fought under Athens as her independent allies.
But by degrees the Greeks from the islands and coast-lands of Asia
began to weary of their arduous duties, and murmured against the
Athenians, who proved hard task-masters, and compelled them by force to
perform their part in the bargain. One by one the cities revolted from
the leadership of Athens, were attacked by her navies, and reduced to
the position of subjects and tributaries. Others voluntarily withdrew
from all active co-operation in the war, agreeing to pay a fixed annual
sum as a substitute for service in the fleet. And before the outbreak
of the Peloponnesian War the two powerful islands of Lesbos and Chios
were the only members of the original league who still retained their
independence.
Such were the circumstances which led to the foundation of the Athenian
Empire, which grew up, by the force of necessity, out of the decay of a
confederacy born of a common need, and organised for the special
benefit of the Asiatic Greeks. For the names of the Greek cities on the
coasts of Asia Minor still figured in the Persian tribute-lists; and
the moment that the grasp of Athens relaxed on the confines of the
King's dominions, after the ruinous defeat in Sicily, Persian
tax-gatherers came knocking at the gates of Ephesus and Miletus,
demanding the arrears of tribute. So urgent was the need supplied by
the energy of Athens, and so blind were these Greeks of Asia Minor to
their own interests.
The visible sign of this momentous change, by which the Delian
Confederacy became merged in the Athenian Empire, was the removal of
the treasury from Delos to Athens. The Athenians now undertook the
whole administration of the common fund, using the surplus for the
adornment of Athens by magnificent public buildings. This appropriation
seems reasonable enough, when we consider that the whole burden of
defending the eastern Greeks against Persia, and keeping the barbarian
out of Greek waters, now lay upon Athens. This great public duty, which
had been thrown upon her by the indifference of Sparta, and the unmanly
sloth of her own allies, was faithfully performed; and she might well
ask why she should be called upon to lavish the blood of her own
citizens for nothing. That Athens should be great, splendid, and
powerful, was not only a reward due to her public spirit and devotion
to the common cause, but also a guarantee for the general dignity and
liberty of Greeks. And we, who have still before us the remnants of her
temples and statues, and learn from them what man can accomplish under
the inspiration of great ideals, need not scan too closely her claim to
appropriate the funds which she employed for so noble a purpose. For
this was the great age of Grecian art, the age of Phidias, Polycletus,
Myron, and Polygnotus. The greatest of these was Phidias; and in the
Parthenon, or Temple of the Virgin Goddess, [Footnote: Athene, the
patron goddess of Athens.] built under his direction on the Acropolis
at Athens, he has left the most enduring monument of his fame. He also
designed the Propylaea, a magnificent columned vestibule, fronting the
broad flight of steps which led up to the western entrance of the
Acropolis. But the most renowned of his works was the gigantic statue
of the Olympian Zeus, wrought in gold and ivory, which was the chief
glory of the temple at Olympia. Of this sublime creation, the highest
expression of divinity achieved by the ancients, only the fame
survives. These triumphs of art were not brought to completion until
nearly the close of the period of forty-eight years which separates the
Persian from the Peloponnesian War; and it is now necessary to glance
backward, and touch briefly on the principal events which occurred
after the formation of the Delian Confederacy. The war was carried on
with energy against Persia, and hostilities continued at intervals for
thirty years after the battle of Plataea. [Footnote: B.C. 479-449.]
The chief leader in these enterprises was the heroic Cimon, leader of
the conservative party at Athens, and the great rival of Pericles; and
his most brilliant exploit was a crushing defeat inflicted on the
Persian army and fleet at the mouth of the river Eurymedon in
Pamphylia. But the victorious career of the Athenians received a severe
check twelve years later in Egypt, where a large force of ships and men
was totally destroyed by the Persian general Megabyzus. The war dragged
on for five years longer, and peace was then concluded on terms highly
advantageous to the Greeks. Shortly before this, Cimon, who had been
the chief promoter of the war, died at Cyprus.
The same years which brought to a successful issue the long struggle
with Persia witnessed a renewal of those internal conflicts by which
the energies of Greece were finally exhausted, leaving her an easy prey
to the arms of Macedon. The guilt of renewing these suicidal quarrels
lies with the Spartans, who had long been nursing their grudge against
Athens, and were waiting for the opportunity to inflict on her a fatal
blow. Fifteen years [Footnote: B.C. 464. ] after the battle of Plataea
they seized the occasion when the Athenians were engaged with a large
part of their forces in carrying on operations against the revolted
island of Thasos to prepare an invasion of Attica. But at the very
moment when they were meditating this act of perfidy a double disaster
fell upon them at home, demanding all their exertions to save them from
ruin. Sparta was levelled to the ground by a terrible earthquake, in
which twenty thousand of her citizens perished; and in the midst of the
panic caused by this awful calamity the Helots rose in arms against
their oppressors, and forming an alliance with the Messenian subjects
of Sparta, entrenched themselves in a strong position on Mount Ithome.
Here they maintained themselves for two years, defying all the efforts
of the Spartans to drive them from their stronghold. In spite of their
recent treachery, the Spartans were not ashamed to apply to Athens for
help: and chiefly through the influence of Cimon, whose laurels from
the Eurymedon were still fresh, four thousand Athenian hoplites
[Footnote: Heavy-armed foot-soldiers.] were sent under his command to
aid in dislodging the Helots. The Athenians were famous for their skill
in attacking fortified places; but on this occasion they were
unsuccessful, and the Spartans, whose evil conscience made them prone
to suspicion, at once began to doubt the honesty of their intentions,
and dismissed them with scant ceremony. This unfriendly act helped to
embitter the relations between the two leading cities of Greece; and
two years later, when the Messenians were expelled from Ithome, and
driven into exile, the Athenians settled them with their families at
Naupactus, an important strategic position on the north of the
Corinthian Gulf, which has recently fallen into the hands of Athens.
Deeply offended by the affront received at Ithome, the Athenians now
formed an alliance with Argos, the ancient rival and bitter enemy of
Sparta. Thessaly, connected with Athens by old ties of friendship,
joined the league; and Megara, now suffering from the oppressions of
Corinth, made a fourth.
Within sight of the shores of Attica lies the island of Aegina, famous
in legend as the home of Aeacus, grandfather of Achilles, and
distinguished for its school of sculpture, and for its mighty breed of
athletes, whose feats are celebrated in the laureate strains of Pindar.
The Aeginetans had obtained the first prize for valour displayed in the
battle of Salamis, and for many years they had pressed the Athenians
hard in the race for maritime supremacy. They were now attacked by an
overwhelming Athenian force, and after a stubborn resistance were
totally defeated, and compelled to enroll themselves among the subjects
of Athens. A still harder fate was reserved for the hapless Dorian
islanders in the next generation.
In the following nine years [Footnote: B.C. 456-447.] the power of
Athens reached its greatest height, and for a moment it seemed as if
she were destined to extend her empire over the whole mainland of
Greece. By the victory of Oenophyta, gained over the Boeotians just
before the reduction of Aegina, Athens became mistress of all the
central provinces of the Greek peninsula, from the pass of Thermopylae
to the gulf of Corinth. The alliance of Megara, lately united by long
walls to its harbour of Nisaea, secured her from invasion on the side
of Peloponnesus. The great island of Euboea, with its rich pastures and
fruitful corn lands, had, since the Persian War, become an Athenian
estate, and was jealously guarded as one of her most valuable
possessions; and on the sea, from the eastern corner of the Euxine to
the strait of Gibraltar, there was none to dispute her sway.
But this rapid ascent was followed by no less speedy a fall, and one
act of indiscretion stripped the Athenians of all the advantages which
they had acquired on the mainland of Greece. In every city of Greece
there were always two parties, the wealthy and noble, called oligarchs,
and the demos, or commons; and according as Spartan or Athenian
influence was in the ascendant the balance of power in each city
wavered between the nobles and the people, the Athenians favouring the
Many, the Spartans the Few. Accordingly there was always a party living
in exile, and waiting for a turn of affairs which might enable them to
return to their city, and wrest the power from that faction which had
been the last to triumph. In the cities of Boeotia the leaders of the
oligarchs had been driven into banishment after the battle of
Oenophyta, and democracies were established under the control of
Athens. After nine years of banishment these exiles returned, and the
result was an oligarchical reaction in the chief cities of Boeotia. A
hastily equipped and ill-organised force was sent out from Athens to
put down the authors of the revolution, and in the battle which
followed, at Coronea, [Footnote: B.C. 447.] the Athenians sustained a
severe defeat, and a large number of their citizens were taken
prisoners by the Boeotians. To recover these prisoners the Athenians
consented to evacuate Boeotia, and by this surrender they lost their
hold on central Greece, as far as Thermopylae.
This heavy blow was followed two years later by the revolt of Megara
and Euboea; and in the midst of the alarm thus occasioned, the
Athenians heard that a powerful Spartan army was threatening their
borders. It was a terrible moment for Athens; but she was saved by the
prudence and energy of Pericles, whose influence in her councils was
now supreme. By some means or other--as the Spartans asserted, by a
heavy bribe--he induced the Spartan king Pleistoanax to draw off his
forces; and then crossing over into Euboea, he quickly reduced the
whole island to submission, and took severe measures to prevent any
outbreak in the future.
The exertions of the Athenians during the last thirty years had been
prodigious, and their efforts to found an empire in continental Greece
had ended in total failure. Discouraged by their reverses, they
concluded a thirty years' truce with the Spartans and their allies,
resigning the last remnant of their recent conquests, and leaving
Megara in her old position as a member of the Peloponnesian league
under Sparta. The loss of Megara was severely felt, and her conduct in
the late troubles was neither forgotten nor forgiven. The Megarians had
by their own free choice been admitted into the Athenian alliance, and
in an hour of great peril to Athens, without shadow of pretext they had
risen in arms against her. It was not long before they had to pay a
heavy penalty for their treachery and inconstancy.
The last event which we have to record, before entering into the main
current of our narrative, is the secession of Samos, the most important
member of the maritime allies of Athens. This wealthy and powerful
island had hitherto, with Chios and Lesbos, enjoyed the distinction of
serving under Athens as an independent ally. The Athenians, with a view
to their own interests, had recently set up a democracy in Samos, which
had hitherto been governed by an oligarchy. Incensed by this
interference, the Samian nobles, who had been driven into exile, hired
a mercenary force, and making a sudden attack from the mainland,
overthrew the democracy and raised the standard of revolt. The crisis
called for prompt and vigorous action on the part of Athens; for if
Samos had been successful in defying her authority, the other members
of the league would speedily have followed the example, and the whole
fabric of her empire might have been shattered to pieces. Pericles was
again equal to the emergency, and by employing the whole naval power of
Athens he was able, after a siege of nine months, to reduce the
refractory islanders to submission. The Samians were compelled to
surrender their fleet, to pull down their walls, to pay a heavy war
indemnity, and to give hostages as a security for their good conduct in
the future. And henceforward they became subjects and tributaries of
Athens.
We have now completed our review of the chief events which occurred
between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. It was a period of rapid
development for Athens, of ceaseless activity at home and abroad, of
immense progress in all the arts of war and peace. The imperial city
had now risen to her full stature, and stood forth, supreme in
intellect and in action, the wonder and envy of mankind. Her mighty
walls bade defiance to her enemies at home, and she held in her hand
the islands and coast-districts of the Aegaean, where the last murmur
of resistance had been quelled. Her recent reverses on the mainland of
Greece had left the real sources of her power untouched; and taught
her, if she would but take the lesson to heart, the proper limits of
her empire. And she had risen to this height, not by the prevailing
force of any single mind, but by the united efforts of all her
citizens, working together for a whole generation, shunning no
sacrifice, and shrinking from no exertion, in their devotion to the
common mother of them all. Every Athenian, from the wealthiest noble to
the poorest rower in the fleet, felt that he had a stake in the
country, which to a Greek meant the city, where he was born. He gave
his vote in the Parliament [Footnote: Called the Ecclesia.] of Athens,
and served on the juries chosen by lot from the whole body of the
citizens, before whose judgment-seat, unassailable by bribery or
intimidation, the mightiest offenders trembled. He was a statesman, a
judge, a lawgiver, and a warrior, and he might even hope to climb to
the highest place in the State, and rule, like Pericles, as a prince of
democracy. Around him rose the temples and statues of the gods, fresh
from the chisel of the artist, the visible symbols of Athenian
greatness, and of the grand ideals which he served. The masterpieces of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides opened to him the boundless realms
of the imagination, taught him grave lessons of moral wisdom, and
connected the strenuous present with the heroic past; and the Old
Comedy, the most complete embodiment of the very genius of democracy,
afforded a feast of wit and fancy for his lighter hours. If he had a
taste for higher speculation, he might hear Anaxagoras discoursing on
the mysteries of the spiritual world, or Zeno applying his sharp tests
for the conviction of human error. And when the assembly was summoned
to discuss matters of high imperial policy, he felt all the greatness
and majesty of the Athenian state, as he hung entranced on the lips of
Pericles.
Such was Athens in her prime, and such were the men who raised her to
the lofty eminence which she held among the cities of Greece. But the
years which had lifted her to that unparalleled height had raised up a
host of enemies against her, and it behoved her to temper ambition with
prudence if she would maintain the proud position which the held. The
scattered units which composed the Athenian empire were held together
by no tie of loyalty or affection to their common mistress, but solely
by the dread of her overwhelming naval power. Even in the noblest
spirits of ancient Greece, the feeling of patriotism, as we understand
it, was feeble and uncertain; when we speak of our _country_, the Greek
spoke of his _city_, and his love, his hopes, his highest aspirations,
were bounded by the narrow circuit of the walls which contained the
tombs of his ancestors and the temples of his gods. This feeling, the
most deeply-rooted instinct of Greek political life, had been
grievously offended by Athens, when she compelled the islanders of the
Aegaean, and the Greek cities of Asia, to serve in her navies, and pay
tribute to her exchequer.
Turning now to the mainland of Greece we find, in most of the leading
states, a sentiment of mingled fear and hatred against Athens, which
had been steadily increasing in volume in the course of the last thirty
years. The haughty Thebans had not forgotten their defeat at Oenophyta,
and their nine years of servitude to Athens. Aegina was groaning under
her yoke, and threatened with total political extinction. Megara
complained that her commerce was ruined by a decree which excluded her
merchants from the ports in the Athenian Empire. In the heart of
Peloponnesus the Spartans were hatching mischief against their hated
rival, who had robbed them of half their dignity as the acknowledged
leaders of the Greeks. Corinth, whose commerce was chiefly in the
western sea, outside the sphere of Athenian influence, was disposed to
be friendly, and had done the Athenians good service during the revolt
of Samos.[Footnote: See below, p. 31.] But five years later [Footnote:
B.C. 435.] an event occurred which changed this feeling into bitter
hatred against Athens, and drove the Corinthians into the ranks of her
most inveterate foes. And it is at this point that we take up the main
thread of our story.