Athenians on the expedition in their ships, men kept dying of the
plague both in the armament and in Athens. Indeed it was actually
asserted that the departure of the Peloponnesians was hastened by fear
of the disorder; as they heard from deserters that it was in the city,
and also could see the burials going on. Yet in this invasion they
remained longer than in any other, and ravaged the whole country, for
they were about forty days in Attica.
The same summer Hagnon, son of Nicias, and Cleopompus, son of Clinias,
the colleagues of Pericles, took the armament of which he had lately
made use, and went off upon an expedition against the Chalcidians in
the direction of Thrace and Potidæa, which was still under siege. As
soon as they arrived, they brought up their engines against Potidæa and
tried every means of taking it, but did not succeed either in capturing
the city or in doing anything else worthy of their preparations. For
the plague attacked them here also, and committed such havoc as to
cripple them completely, even the previously healthy soldiers of the
former expedition catching the infection from Hagnon’s troops; while
Phormio and the sixteen hundred men whom he commanded only escaped by
being no longer in the neighbourhood of the Chalcidians. The end of it
was that Hagnon returned with his ships to Athens, having lost one
thousand and fifty out of four thousand heavy infantry in about forty
days; though the soldiers stationed there before remained in the
country and carried on the siege of Potidæa.
After the second invasion of the Peloponnesians a change came over the
spirit of the Athenians. Their land had now been twice laid waste; and
war and pestilence at once pressed heavy upon them. They began to find
fault with Pericles, as the author of the war and the cause of all
their misfortunes, and became eager to come to terms with Lacedaemon,
and actually sent ambassadors thither, who did not however succeed in
their mission. Their despair was now complete and all vented itself
upon Pericles. When he saw them exasperated at the present turn of
affairs and acting exactly as he had anticipated, he called an
assembly, being (it must be remembered) still general, with the double
object of restoring confidence and of leading them from these angry
feelings to a calmer and more hopeful state of mind. He accordingly
came forward and spoke as follows:
“I was not unprepared for the indignation of which I have been the
object, as I know its causes; and I have called an assembly for the
purpose of reminding you upon certain points, and of protesting against
your being unreasonably irritated with me, or cowed by your sufferings.
I am of opinion that national greatness is more for the advantage of
private citizens, than any individual well-being coupled with public
humiliation. A man may be personally ever so well off, and yet if his
country be ruined he must be ruined with it; whereas a flourishing
commonwealth always affords chances of salvation to unfortunate
individuals. Since then a state can support the misfortunes of private
citizens, while they cannot support hers, it is surely the duty of
every one to be forward in her defence, and not like you to be so
confounded with your domestic afflictions as to give up all thoughts of
the common safety, and to blame me for having counselled war and
yourselves for having voted it. And yet if you are angry with me, it is
with one who, as I believe, is second to no man either in knowledge of
the proper policy, or in the ability to expound it, and who is moreover
not only a patriot but an honest one. A man possessing that knowledge
without that faculty of exposition might as well have no idea at all on
the matter: if he had both these gifts, but no love for his country, he
would be but a cold advocate for her interests; while were his
patriotism not proof against bribery, everything would go for a price.
So that if you thought that I was even moderately distinguished for
these qualities when you took my advice and went to war, there is
certainly no reason now why I should be charged with having done wrong.
“For those of course who have a free choice in the matter and whose
fortunes are not at stake, war is the greatest of follies. But if the
only choice was between submission with loss of independence, and
danger with the hope of preserving that independence, in such a case it
is he who will not accept the risk that deserves blame, not he who
will. I am the same man and do not alter, it is you who change, since
in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for misfortune to
repent of it; and the apparent error of my policy lies in the infirmity
of your resolution, since the suffering that it entails is being felt
by every one among you, while its advantage is still remote and obscure
to all, and a great and sudden reverse having befallen you, your mind
is too much depressed to persevere in your resolves. For before what is
sudden, unexpected, and least within calculation, the spirit quails;
and putting all else aside, the plague has certainly been an emergency
of this kind. Born, however, as you are, citizens of a great state, and
brought up, as you have been, with habits equal to your birth, you
should be ready to face the greatest disasters and still to keep
unimpaired the lustre of your name. For the judgment of mankind is as
relentless to the weakness that falls short of a recognized renown, as
it is jealous of the arrogance that aspires higher than its due. Cease
then to grieve for your private afflictions, and address yourselves
instead to the safety of the commonwealth.
“If you shrink before the exertions which the war makes necessary, and
fear that after all they may not have a happy result, you know the
reasons by which I have often demonstrated to you the groundlessness of
your apprehensions. If those are not enough, I will now reveal an
advantage arising from the greatness of your dominion, which I think
has never yet suggested itself to you, which I never mentioned in my
previous speeches, and which has so bold a sound that I should scarce
adventure it now, were it not for the unnatural depression which I see
around me. You perhaps think that your empire extends only over your
allies; I will declare to you the truth. The visible field of action
has two parts, land and sea. In the whole of one of these you are
completely supreme, not merely as far as you use it at present, but
also to what further extent you may think fit: in fine, your naval
resources are such that your vessels may go where they please, without
the King or any other nation on earth being able to stop them. So that
although you may think it a great privation to lose the use of your
land and houses, still you must see that this power is something widely
different; and instead of fretting on their account, you should really
regard them in the light of the gardens and other accessories that
embellish a great fortune, and as, in comparison, of little moment. You
should know too that liberty preserved by your efforts will easily
recover for us what we have lost, while, the knee once bowed, even what
you have will pass from you. Your fathers receiving these possessions
not from others, but from themselves, did not let slip what their
labour had acquired, but delivered them safe to you; and in this
respect at least you must prove yourselves their equals, remembering
that to lose what one has got is more disgraceful than to be balked in
getting, and you must confront your enemies not merely with spirit but
with disdain. Confidence indeed a blissful ignorance can impart, ay,
even to a coward’s breast, but disdain is the privilege of those who,
like us, have been assured by reflection of their superiority to their
adversary. And where the chances are the same, knowledge fortifies
courage by the contempt which is its consequence, its trust being
placed, not in hope, which is the prop of the desperate, but in a
judgment grounded upon existing resources, whose anticipations are more
to be depended upon.
“Again, your country has a right to your services in sustaining the
glories of her position. These are a common source of pride to you all,
and you cannot decline the burdens of empire and still expect to share
its honours. You should remember also that what you are fighting
against is not merely slavery as an exchange for independence, but also
loss of empire and danger from the animosities incurred in its
exercise. Besides, to recede is no longer possible, if indeed any of
you in the alarm of the moment has become enamoured of the honesty of
such an unambitious part. For what you hold is, to speak somewhat
plainly, a tyranny; to take it perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is
unsafe. And men of these retiring views, making converts of others,
would quickly ruin a state; indeed the result would be the same if they
could live independent by themselves; for the retiring and unambitious
are never secure without vigorous protectors at their side; in fine,
such qualities are useless to an imperial city, though they may help a
dependency to an unmolested servitude.
“But you must not be seduced by citizens like these or angry with
me—who, if I voted for war, only did as you did yourselves—in spite of
the enemy having invaded your country and done what you could be
certain that he would do, if you refused to comply with his demands;
and although besides what we counted for, the plague has come upon
us—the only point indeed at which our calculation has been at fault. It
is this, I know, that has had a large share in making me more unpopular
than I should otherwise have been—quite undeservedly, unless you are
also prepared to give me the credit of any success with which chance
may present you. Besides, the hand of heaven must be borne with
resignation, that of the enemy with fortitude; this was the old way at
Athens, and do not you prevent it being so still. Remember, too, that
if your country has the greatest name in all the world, it is because
she never bent before disaster; because she has expended more life and
effort in war than any other city, and has won for herself a power
greater than any hitherto known, the memory of which will descend to
the latest posterity; even if now, in obedience to the general law of
decay, we should ever be forced to yield, still it will be remembered
that we held rule over more Hellenes than any other Hellenic state,
that we sustained the greatest wars against their united or separate
powers, and inhabited a city unrivalled by any other in resources or
magnitude. These glories may incur the censure of the slow and
unambitious; but in the breast of energy they will awake emulation, and
in those who must remain without them an envious regret. Hatred and
unpopularity at the moment have fallen to the lot of all who have
aspired to rule others; but where odium must be incurred, true wisdom
incurs it for the highest objects. Hatred also is short-lived; but that
which makes the splendour of the present and the glory of the future
remains for ever unforgotten. Make your decision, therefore, for glory
then and honour now, and attain both objects by instant and zealous
effort: do not send heralds to Lacedaemon, and do not betray any sign
of being oppressed by your present sufferings, since they whose minds
are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet
it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities.”
Such were the arguments by which Pericles tried to cure the Athenians
of their anger against him and to divert their thoughts from their
immediate afflictions. As a community he succeeded in convincing them;
they not only gave up all idea of sending to Lacedaemon, but applied
themselves with increased energy to the war; still as private
individuals they could not help smarting under their sufferings, the
common people having been deprived of the little that they were
possessed, while the higher orders had lost fine properties with costly
establishments and buildings in the country, and, worst of all, had war
instead of peace. In fact, the public feeling against him did not
subside until he had been fined. Not long afterwards, however,
according to the way of the multitude, they again elected him general
and committed all their affairs to his hands, having now become less
sensitive to their private and domestic afflictions, and understanding
that he was the best man of all for the public necessities. For as long
as he was at the head of the state during the peace, he pursued a
moderate and conservative policy; and in his time its greatness was at
its height. When the war broke out, here also he seems to have rightly
gauged the power of his country. He outlived its commencement two years
and six months, and the correctness of his previsions respecting it
became better known by his death. He told them to wait quietly, to pay
attention to their marine, to attempt no new conquests, and to expose
the city to no hazards during the war, and doing this, promised them a
favourable result. What they did was the very contrary, allowing
private ambitions and private interests, in matters apparently quite
foreign to the war, to lead them into projects unjust both to
themselves and to their allies—projects whose success would only
conduce to the honour and advantage of private persons, and whose
failure entailed certain disaster on the country in the war. The causes
of this are not far to seek. Pericles indeed, by his rank, ability, and
known integrity, was enabled to exercise an independent control over
the multitude—in short, to lead them instead of being led by them; for
as he never sought power by improper means, he was never compelled to
flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed so high an estimation that
he could afford to anger them by contradiction. Whenever he saw them
unseasonably and insolently elated, he would with a word reduce them to
alarm; on the other hand, if they fell victims to a panic, he could at
once restore them to confidence. In short, what was nominally a
democracy became in his hands government by the first citizen. With his
successors it was different. More on a level with one another, and each
grasping at supremacy, they ended by committing even the conduct of
state affairs to the whims of the multitude. This, as might have been
expected in a great and sovereign state, produced a host of blunders,
and amongst them the Sicilian expedition; though this failed not so
much through a miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was
sent, as through a fault in the senders in not taking the best measures
afterwards to assist those who had gone out, but choosing rather to
occupy themselves with private cabals for the leadership of the
commons, by which they not only paralysed operations in the field, but
also first introduced civil discord at home. Yet after losing most of
their fleet besides other forces in Sicily, and with faction already
dominant in the city, they could still for three years make head
against their original adversaries, joined not only by the Sicilians,
but also by their own allies nearly all in revolt, and at last by the
King’s son, Cyrus, who furnished the funds for the Peloponnesian navy.
Nor did they finally succumb till they fell the victims of their own
intestine disorders. So superfluously abundant were the resources from
which the genius of Pericles foresaw an easy triumph in the war over
the unaided forces of the Peloponnesians.
During the same summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies made an
expedition with a hundred ships against Zacynthus, an island lying off
the coast of Elis, peopled by a colony of Achaeans from Peloponnese,
and in alliance with Athens. There were a thousand Lacedaemonian heavy
infantry on board, and Cnemus, a Spartan, as admiral. They made a
descent from their ships, and ravaged most of the country; but as the
inhabitants would not submit, they sailed back home.
At the end of the same summer the Corinthian Aristeus, Aneristus,
Nicolaus, and Stratodemus, envoys from Lacedaemon, Timagoras, a Tegean,
and a private individual named Pollis from Argos, on their way to Asia
to persuade the King to supply funds and join in the war, came to
Sitalces, son of Teres in Thrace, with the idea of inducing him, if
possible, to forsake the alliance of Athens and to march on Potidæa
then besieged by an Athenian force, and also of getting conveyed by his
means to their destination across the Hellespont to Pharnabazus, who
was to send them up the country to the King. But there chanced to be
with Sitalces some Athenian ambassadors—Learchus, son of Callimachus,
and Ameiniades, son of Philemon—who persuaded Sitalces’ son, Sadocus,
the new Athenian citizen, to put the men into their hands and thus
prevent their crossing over to the King and doing their part to injure
the country of his choice. He accordingly had them seized, as they were
travelling through Thrace to the vessel in which they were to cross the
Hellespont, by a party whom he had sent on with Learchus and
Ameiniades, and gave orders for their delivery to the Athenian
ambassadors, by whom they were brought to Athens. On their arrival, the
Athenians, afraid that Aristeus, who had been notably the prime mover
in the previous affairs of Potidæa and their Thracian possessions,
might live to do them still more mischief if he escaped, slew them all
the same day, without giving them a trial or hearing the defence which
they wished to offer, and cast their bodies into a pit; thinking
themselves justified in using in retaliation the same mode of warfare
which the Lacedaemonians had begun, when they slew and cast into pits
all the Athenian and allied traders whom they caught on board the
merchantmen round Peloponnese. Indeed, at the outset of the war, the
Lacedaemonians butchered as enemies all whom they took on the sea,
whether allies of Athens or neutrals.
About the same time towards the close of the summer, the Ambraciot
forces, with a number of barbarians that they had raised, marched
against the Amphilochian Argos and the rest of that country. The origin
of their enmity against the Argives was this. This Argos and the rest
of Amphilochia were colonized by Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus.
Dissatisfied with the state of affairs at home on his return thither
after the Trojan War, he built this city in the Ambracian Gulf, and
named it Argos after his own country. This was the largest town in
Amphilochia, and its inhabitants the most powerful. Under the pressure
of misfortune many generations afterwards, they called in the
Ambraciots, their neighbours on the Amphilochian border, to join their
colony; and it was by this union with the Ambraciots that they learnt
their present Hellenic speech, the rest of the Amphilochians being
barbarians. After a time the Ambraciots expelled the Argives and held
the city themselves. Upon this the Amphilochians gave themselves over
to the Acarnanians; and the two together called the Athenians, who sent
them Phormio as general and thirty ships; upon whose arrival they took
Argos by storm, and made slaves of the Ambraciots; and the
Amphilochians and Acarnanians inhabited the town in common. After this
began the alliance between the Athenians and Acarnanians. The enmity of
the Ambraciots against the Argives thus commenced with the enslavement
of their citizens; and afterwards during the war they collected this
armament among themselves and the Chaonians, and other of the
neighbouring barbarians. Arrived before Argos, they became masters of
the country; but not being successful in their attacks upon the town,
returned home and dispersed among their different peoples.
Such were the events of the summer. The ensuing winter the Athenians
sent twenty ships round Peloponnese, under the command of Phormio, who
stationed himself at Naupactus and kept watch against any one sailing
in or out of Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf. Six others went to Caria
and Lycia under Melesander, to collect tribute in those parts, and also
to prevent the Peloponnesian privateers from taking up their station in
those waters and molesting the passage of the merchantmen from Phaselis
and Phoenicia and the adjoining continent. However, Melesander, going
up the country into Lycia with a force of Athenians from the ships and
the allies, was defeated and killed in battle, with the loss of a
number of his troops.
The same winter the Potidæans at length found themselves no longer able
to hold out against their besiegers. The inroads of the Peloponnesians
into Attica had not had the desired effect of making the Athenians
raise the siege. Provisions there were none left; and so far had
distress for food gone in Potidæa that, besides a number of other
horrors, instances had even occurred of the people having eaten one
another. In this extremity they at last made proposals for capitulating
to the Athenian generals in command against them—Xenophon, son of
Euripides, Hestiodorus, son of Aristocleides, and Phanomachus, son of
Callimachus. The generals accepted their proposals, seeing the
sufferings of the army in so exposed a position; besides which the
state had already spent two thousand talents upon the siege. The terms
of the capitulation were as follows: a free passage out for themselves,
their children, wives and auxiliaries, with one garment apiece, the
women with two, and a fixed sum of money for their journey. Under this
treaty they went out to Chalcidice and other places, according as was
their power. The Athenians, however, blamed the generals for granting
terms without instructions from home, being of opinion that the place
would have had to surrender at discretion. They afterwards sent
settlers of their own to Potidæa, and colonized it. Such were the
events of the winter, and so ended the second year of this war of which
Thucydides was the historian.
CHAPTER VIII
Third Year of the War—Investment of Plataea—Naval Victories of
Phormio—Thracian Irruption into Macedonia under Sitalces
The next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies, instead of
invading Attica, marched against Plataea, under the command of
Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. He had
encamped his army and was about to lay waste the country, when the
Plataeans hastened to send envoys to him, and spoke as follows:
“Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, in invading the Plataean territory, you
do what is wrong in itself, and worthy neither of yourselves nor of the
fathers who begot you. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, your countryman,
after freeing Hellas from the Medes with the help of those Hellenes who
were willing to undertake the risk of the battle fought near our city,
offered sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator in the marketplace of Plataea,
and calling all the allies together restored to the Plataeans their
city and territory, and declared it independent and inviolate against
aggression or conquest. Should any such be attempted, the allies
present were to help according to their power. Your fathers rewarded us
thus for the courage and patriotism that we displayed at that perilous
epoch; but you do just the contrary, coming with our bitterest enemies,
the Thebans, to enslave us. We appeal, therefore, to the gods to whom
the oaths were then made, to the gods of your ancestors, and lastly to
those of our country, and call upon you to refrain from violating our
territory or transgressing the oaths, and to let us live independent,
as Pausanias decreed.”
The Plataeans had got thus far when they were cut short by Archidamus
saying: “There is justice, Plataeans, in what you say, if you act up to
your words. According, to the grant of Pausanias, continue to be
independent yourselves, and join in freeing those of your fellow
countrymen who, after sharing in the perils of that period, joined in
the oaths to you, and are now subject to the Athenians; for it is to
free them and the rest that all this provision and war has been made. I
could wish that you would share our labours and abide by the oaths
yourselves; if this is impossible, do what we have already required of
you—remain neutral, enjoying your own; join neither side, but receive
both as friends, neither as allies for the war. With this we shall be
satisfied.” Such were the words of Archidamus. The Plataeans, after
hearing what he had to say, went into the city and acquainted the
people with what had passed, and presently returned for answer that it
was impossible for them to do what he proposed without consulting the
Athenians, with whom their children and wives now were; besides which
they had their fears for the town. After his departure, what was to
prevent the Athenians from coming and taking it out of their hands, or
the Thebans, who would be included in the oaths, from taking advantage
of the proposed neutrality to make a second attempt to seize the city?
Upon these points he tried to reassure them by saying: “You have only
to deliver over the city and houses to us Lacedaemonians, to point out
the boundaries of your land, the number of your fruit-trees, and
whatever else can be numerically stated, and yourselves to withdraw
wherever you like as long as the war shall last. When it is over we
will restore to you whatever we received, and in the interim hold it in
trust and keep it in cultivation, paying you a sufficient allowance.”
When they had heard what he had to say, they re-entered the city, and
after consulting with the people said that they wished first to
acquaint the Athenians with this proposal, and in the event of their
approving to accede to it; in the meantime they asked him to grant them
a truce and not to lay waste their territory. He accordingly granted a
truce for the number of days requisite for the journey, and meanwhile
abstained from ravaging their territory. The Plataean envoys went to
Athens, and consulted with the Athenians, and returned with the
following message to those in the city: “The Athenians say, Plataeans,
that they never hitherto, since we became their allies, on any occasion
abandoned us to an enemy, nor will they now neglect us, but will help
us according to their ability; and they adjure you by the oaths which
your fathers swore, to keep the alliance unaltered.”
On the delivery of this message by the envoys, the Plataeans resolved
not to be unfaithful to the Athenians but to endure, if it must be,
seeing their lands laid waste and any other trials that might come to
them, and not to send out again, but to answer from the wall that it
was impossible for them to do as the Lacedaemonians proposed. As soon
as he had received this answer, King Archidamus proceeded first to make
a solemn appeal to the gods and heroes of the country in words
following: “Ye gods and heroes of the Plataean territory, be my
witnesses that not as aggressors originally, nor until these had first
departed from the common oath, did we invade this land, in which our
fathers offered you their prayers before defeating the Medes, and which
you made auspicious to the Hellenic arms; nor shall we be aggressors in
the measures to which we may now resort, since we have made many fair
proposals but have not been successful. Graciously accord that those
who were the first to offend may be punished for it, and that vengeance
may be attained by those who would righteously inflict it.”
After this appeal to the gods Archidamus put his army in motion. First
he enclosed the town with a palisade formed of the fruit-trees which
they cut down, to prevent further egress from Plataea; next they threw
up a mound against the city, hoping that the largeness of the force
employed would ensure the speedy reduction of the place. They
accordingly cut down timber from Cithaeron, and built it up on either
side, laying it like lattice-work to serve as a wall to keep the mound
from spreading abroad, and carried to it wood and stones and earth and
whatever other material might help to complete it. They continued to
work at the mound for seventy days and nights without intermission,
being divided into relief parties to allow of some being employed in
carrying while others took sleep and refreshment; the Lacedaemonian
officer attached to each contingent keeping the men to the work. But
the Plataeans, observing the progress of the mound, constructed a wall
of wood and fixed it upon that part of the city wall against which the
mound was being erected, and built up bricks inside it which they took
from the neighbouring houses. The timbers served to bind the building
together, and to prevent its becoming weak as it advanced in height; it
had also a covering of skins and hides, which protected the woodwork
against the attacks of burning missiles and allowed the men to work in
safety. Thus the wall was raised to a great height, and the mound
opposite made no less rapid progress. The Plataeans also thought of
another expedient; they pulled out part of the wall upon which the
mound abutted, and carried the earth into the city.
Discovering this the Peloponnesians twisted up clay in wattles of reed
and threw it into the breach formed in the mound, in order to give it
consistency and prevent its being carried away like the soil. Stopped
in this way the Plataeans changed their mode of operation, and digging
a mine from the town calculated their way under the mound, and began to
carry off its material as before. This went on for a long while without
the enemy outside finding it out, so that for all they threw on the top
their mound made no progress in proportion, being carried away from
beneath and constantly settling down in the vacuum. But the Plataeans,
fearing that even thus they might not be able to hold out against the
superior numbers of the enemy, had yet another invention. They stopped
working at the large building in front of the mound, and starting at
either end of it inside from the old low wall, built a new one in the
form of a crescent running in towards the town; in order that in the
event of the great wall being taken this might remain, and the enemy
have to throw up a fresh mound against it, and as they advanced within
might not only have their trouble over again, but also be exposed to
missiles on their flanks. While raising the mound the Peloponnesians
also brought up engines against the city, one of which was brought up
upon the mound against the great building and shook down a good piece
of it, to the no small alarm of the Plataeans. Others were advanced
against different parts of the wall but were lassoed and broken by the
Plataeans; who also hung up great beams by long iron chains from either
extremity of two poles laid on the wall and projecting over it, and
drew them up at an angle whenever any point was threatened by the
engine, and loosing their hold let the beam go with its chains slack,
so that it fell with a run and snapped off the nose of the battering
ram.
After this the Peloponnesians, finding that their engines effected
nothing, and that their mound was met by the counterwork, concluded
that their present means of offence were unequal to the taking of the
city, and prepared for its circumvallation. First, however, they
determined to try the effects of fire and see whether they could not,
with the help of a wind, burn the town, as it was not a large one;
indeed they thought of every possible expedient by which the place
might be reduced without the expense of a blockade. They accordingly
brought faggots of brushwood and threw them from the mound, first into
the space between it and the wall; and this soon becoming full from the
number of hands at work, they next heaped the faggots up as far into
the town as they could reach from the top, and then lighted the wood by
setting fire to it with sulphur and pitch. The consequence was a fire
greater than any one had ever yet seen produced by human agency, though
it could not of course be compared to the spontaneous conflagrations
sometimes known to occur through the wind rubbing the branches of a
mountain forest together. And this fire was not only remarkable for its
magnitude, but was also, at the end of so many perils, within an ace of
proving fatal to the Plataeans; a great part of the town became
entirely inaccessible, and had a wind blown upon it, in accordance with
the hopes of the enemy, nothing could have saved them. As it was, there
is also a story of heavy rain and thunder having come on by which the
fire was put out and the danger averted.
Failing in this last attempt the Peloponnesians left a portion of their
forces on the spot, dismissing the rest, and built a wall of
circumvallation round the town, dividing the ground among the various
cities present; a ditch being made within and without the lines, from
which they got their bricks. All being finished by about the rising of
Arcturus, they left men enough to man half the wall, the rest being
manned by the Boeotians, and drawing off their army dispersed to their
several cities. The Plataeans had before sent off their wives and
children and oldest men and the mass of the non-combatants to Athens;
so that the number of the besieged left in the place comprised four
hundred of their own citizens, eighty Athenians, and a hundred and ten
women to bake their bread. This was the sum total at the commencement
of the siege, and there was no one else within the walls, bond or free.
Such were the arrangements made for the blockade of Plataea.
The same summer and simultaneously with the expedition against Plataea,
the Athenians marched with two thousand heavy infantry and two hundred
horse against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace and the
Bottiaeans, just as the corn was getting ripe, under the command of
Xenophon, son of Euripides, with two colleagues. Arriving before
Spartolus in Bottiaea, they destroyed the corn and had some hopes of
the city coming over through the intrigues of a faction within. But
those of a different way of thinking had sent to Olynthus; and a
garrison of heavy infantry and other troops arrived accordingly. These
issuing from Spartolus were engaged by the Athenians in front of the
town: the Chalcidian heavy infantry, and some auxiliaries with them,
were beaten and retreated into Spartolus; but the Chalcidian horse and
light troops defeated the horse and light troops of the Athenians. The
Chalcidians had already a few targeteers from Crusis, and presently
after the battle were joined by some others from Olynthus; upon seeing
whom the light troops from Spartolus, emboldened by this accession and
by their previous success, with the help of the Chalcidian horse and
the reinforcement just arrived again attacked the Athenians, who
retired upon the two divisions which they had left with their baggage.
Whenever the Athenians advanced, their adversary gave way, pressing
them with missiles the instant they began to retire. The Chalcidian
horse also, riding up and charging them just as they pleased, at last
caused a panic amongst them and routed and pursued them to a great
distance. The Athenians took refuge in Potidæa, and afterwards
recovered their dead under truce, and returned to Athens with the
remnant of their army; four hundred and thirty men and all the generals
having fallen. The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans set up a trophy, took up
their dead, and dispersed to their several cities.
The same summer, not long after this, the Ambraciots and Chaonians,
being desirous of reducing the whole of Acarnania and detaching it from
Athens, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to equip a fleet from their
confederacy and send a thousand heavy infantry to Acarnania,
representing that, if a combined movement were made by land and sea,
the coast Acarnanians would be unable to march, and the conquest of
Zacynthus and Cephallenia easily following on the possession of
Acarnania, the cruise round Peloponnese would be no longer so
convenient for the Athenians. Besides which there was a hope of taking
Naupactus. The Lacedaemonians accordingly at once sent off a few
vessels with Cnemus, who was still high admiral, and the heavy infantry
on board; and sent round orders for the fleet to equip as quickly as
possible and sail to Leucas. The Corinthians were the most forward in
the business; the Ambraciots being a colony of theirs. While the ships
from Corinth, Sicyon, and the neighbourhood were getting ready, and
those from Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia, which had arrived before,
were waiting for them at Leucas, Cnemus and his thousand heavy infantry
had run into the gulf, giving the slip to Phormio, the commander of the
Athenian squadron stationed off Naupactus, and began at once to prepare
for the land expedition. The Hellenic troops with him consisted of the
Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians, and the thousand
Peloponnesians with whom he came; the barbarian of a thousand
Chaonians, who, belonging to a nation that has no king, were led by
Photys and Nicanor, the two members of the royal family to whom the
chieftainship for that year had been confided. With the Chaonians came
also some Thesprotians, like them without a king, some Molossians and
Atintanians led by Sabylinthus, the guardian of King Tharyps who was
still a minor, and some Paravaeans, under their king Oroedus,
accompanied by a thousand Orestians, subjects of King Antichus and
placed by him under the command of Oroedus. There were also a thousand
Macedonians sent by Perdiccas without the knowledge of the Athenians,
but they arrived too late. With this force Cnemus set out, without
waiting for the fleet from Corinth. Passing through the territory of
Amphilochian Argos, and sacking the open village of Limnaea, they
advanced to Stratus the Acarnanian capital; this once taken, the rest
of the country, they felt convinced, would speedily follow.
The Acarnanians, finding themselves invaded by a large army by land,
and from the sea threatened by a hostile fleet, made no combined
attempt at resistance, but remained to defend their homes, and sent for
help to Phormio, who replied that, when a fleet was on the point of
sailing from Corinth, it was impossible for him to leave Naupactus
unprotected. The Peloponnesians meanwhile and their allies advanced
upon Stratus in three divisions, with the intention of encamping near
it and attempting the wall by force if they failed to succeed by
negotiation. The order of march was as follows: the centre was occupied
by the Chaonians and the rest of the barbarians, with the Leucadians
and Anactorians and their followers on the right, and Cnemus with the
Peloponnesians and Ambraciots on the left; each division being a long
way off from, and sometimes even out of sight of, the others. The
Hellenes advanced in good order, keeping a look-out till they encamped
in a good position; but the Chaonians, filled with self-confidence, and
having the highest character for courage among the tribes of that part
of the continent, without waiting to occupy their camp, rushed on with
the rest of the barbarians, in the idea that they should take the town
by assault and obtain the sole glory of the enterprise. While they were
coming on, the Stratians, becoming aware how things stood, and thinking
that the defeat of this division would considerably dishearten the
Hellenes behind it, occupied the environs of the town with ambuscades,
and as soon as they approached engaged them at close quarters from the
city and the ambuscades. A panic seizing the Chaonians, great numbers
of them were slain; and as soon as they were seen to give way the rest
of the barbarians turned and fled. Owing to the distance by which their
allies had preceded them, neither of the Hellenic divisions knew
anything of the battle, but fancied they were hastening on to encamp.
However, when the flying barbarians broke in upon them, they opened
their ranks to receive them, brought their divisions together, and
stopped quiet where they were for the day; the Stratians not offering
to engage them, as the rest of the Acarnanians had not yet arrived, but
contenting themselves with slinging at them from a distance, which
distressed them greatly, as there was no stirring without their armour.
The Acarnanians would seem to excel in this mode of warfare.
As soon as night fell, Cnemus hastily drew off his army to the river
Anapus, about nine miles from Stratus, recovering his dead next day
under truce, and being there joined by the friendly Oeniadae, fell back
upon their city before the enemy’s reinforcements came up. From hence
each returned home; and the Stratians set up a trophy for the battle
with the barbarians.
Meanwhile the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the confederates in
the Crissaean Gulf, which was to have co-operated with Cnemus and
prevented the coast Acarnanians from joining their countrymen in the
interior, was disabled from doing so by being compelled about the same
time as the battle at Stratus to fight with Phormio and the twenty
Athenian vessels stationed at Naupactus. For they were watched, as they
coasted along out of the gulf, by Phormio, who wished to attack in the
open sea. But the Corinthians and allies had started for Acarnania
without any idea of fighting at sea, and with vessels more like
transports for carrying soldiers; besides which, they never dreamed of
the twenty Athenian ships venturing to engage their forty-seven.
However, while they were coasting along their own shore, there were the
Athenians sailing along in line with them; and when they tried to cross
over from Patrae in Achaea to the mainland on the other side, on their
way to Acarnania, they saw them again coming out from Chalcis and the
river Evenus to meet them. They slipped from their moorings in the
night, but were observed, and were at length compelled to fight in mid
passage. Each state that contributed to the armament had its own
general; the Corinthian commanders were Machaon, Isocrates, and
Agatharchidas. The Peloponnesians ranged their vessels in as large a
circle as possible without leaving an opening, with the prows outside
and the sterns in; and placed within all the small craft in company,
and their five best sailers to issue out at a moment’s notice and
strengthen any point threatened by the enemy.
The Athenians, formed in line, sailed round and round them, and forced
them to contract their circle, by continually brushing past and making
as though they would attack at once, having been previously cautioned
by Phormio not to do so till he gave the signal. His hope was that the
Peloponnesians would not retain their order like a force on shore, but
that the ships would fall foul of one another and the small craft cause
confusion; and if the wind should blow from the gulf (in expectation of
which he kept sailing round them, and which usually rose towards
morning), they would not, he felt sure, remain steady an instant. He
also thought that it rested with him to attack when he pleased, as his
ships were better sailers, and that an attack timed by the coming of
the wind would tell best. When the wind came down, the enemy’s ships
were now in a narrow space, and what with the wind and the small craft
dashing against them, at once fell into confusion: ship fell foul of
ship, while the crews were pushing them off with poles, and by their
shouting, swearing, and struggling with one another, made captains’
orders and boatswains’ cries alike inaudible, and through being unable
for want of practice to clear their oars in the rough water, prevented
the vessels from obeying their helmsmen properly. At this moment
Phormio gave the signal, and the Athenians attacked. Sinking first one
of the admirals, they then disabled all they came across, so that no
one thought of resistance for the confusion, but fled for Patrae and
Dyme in Achaea. The Athenians gave chase and captured twelve ships, and
taking most of the men out of them sailed to Molycrium, and after
setting up a trophy on the promontory of Rhium and dedicating a ship to
Poseidon, returned to Naupactus. As for the Peloponnesians, they at
once sailed with their remaining ships along the coast from Dyme and
Patrae to Cyllene, the Eleian arsenal; where Cnemus, and the ships from
Leucas that were to have joined them, also arrived after the battle at
Stratus.
The Lacedaemonians now sent to the fleet to Cnemus three
commissioners—Timocrates, Bradidas, and Lycophron—with orders to
prepare to engage again with better fortune, and not to be driven from
the sea by a few vessels; for they could not at all account for their
discomfiture, the less so as it was their first attempt at sea; and
they fancied that it was not that their marine was so inferior, but
that there had been misconduct somewhere, not considering the long
experience of the Athenians as compared with the little practice which
they had had themselves. The commissioners were accordingly sent in
anger. As soon as they arrived they set to work with Cnemus to order
ships from the different states, and to put those which they already
had in fighting order. Meanwhile Phormio sent word to Athens of their
preparations and his own victory, and desired as many ships as possible
to be speedily sent to him, as he stood in daily expectation of a
battle. Twenty were accordingly sent, but instructions were given to
their commander to go first to Crete. For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortys,
who was proxenus of the Athenians, had persuaded them to sail against
Cydonia, promising to procure the reduction of that hostile town; his
real wish being to oblige the Polichnitans, neighbours of the
Cydonians. He accordingly went with the ships to Crete, and,
accompanied by the Polichnitans, laid waste the lands of the Cydonians;
and, what with adverse winds and stress of weather wasted no little
time there.
While the Athenians were thus detained in Crete, the Peloponnesians in
Cyllene got ready for battle, and coasted along to Panormus in Achaea,
where their land army had come to support them. Phormio also coasted
along to Molycrian Rhium, and anchored outside it with twenty ships,
the same as he had fought with before. This Rhium was friendly to the
Athenians. The other, in Peloponnese, lies opposite to it; the sea
between them is about three-quarters of a mile broad, and forms the
mouth of the Crissaean gulf. At this, the Achaean Rhium, not far off
Panormus, where their army lay, the Peloponnesians now cast anchor with
seventy-seven ships, when they saw the Athenians do so. For six or
seven days they remained opposite each other, practising and preparing
for the battle; the one resolved not to sail out of the Rhia into the
open sea, for fear of the disaster which had already happened to them,
the other not to sail into the straits, thinking it advantageous to the
enemy, to fight in the narrows. At last Cnemus and Brasidas and the
rest of the Peloponnesian commanders, being desirous of bringing on a
battle as soon as possible, before reinforcements should arrive from
Athens, and noticing that the men were most of them cowed by the
previous defeat and out of heart for the business, first called them
together and encouraged them as follows:
“Peloponnesians, the late engagement, which may have made some of you
afraid of the one now in prospect, really gives no just ground for
apprehension. Preparation for it, as you know, there was little enough;
and the object of our voyage was not so much to fight at sea as an
expedition by land. Besides this, the chances of war were largely
against us; and perhaps also inexperience had something to do with our
failure in our first naval action. It was not, therefore, cowardice
that produced our defeat, nor ought the determination which force has
not quelled, but which still has a word to say with its adversary, to
lose its edge from the result of an accident; but admitting the
possibility of a chance miscarriage, we should know that brave hearts
must be always brave, and while they remain so can never put forward
inexperience as an excuse for misconduct. Nor are you so behind the
enemy in experience as you are ahead of him in courage; and although
the science of your opponents would, if valour accompanied it, have
also the presence of mind to carry out at in emergency the lesson it
has learnt, yet a faint heart will make all art powerless in the face
of danger. For fear takes away presence of mind, and without valour art
is useless. Against their superior experience set your superior daring,
and against the fear induced by defeat the fact of your having been
then unprepared; remember, too, that you have always the advantage of
superior numbers, and of engaging off your own coast, supported by your
heavy infantry; and as a rule, numbers and equipment give victory. At
no point, therefore, is defeat likely; and as for our previous
mistakes, the very fact of their occurrence will teach us better for
the future. Steersmen and sailors may, therefore, confidently attend to
their several duties, none quitting the station assigned to them: as
for ourselves, we promise to prepare for the engagement at least as
well as your previous commanders, and to give no excuse for any one
misconducting himself. Should any insist on doing so, he shall meet
with the punishment he deserves, while the brave shall be honoured with
the appropriate rewards of valour.”
The Peloponnesian commanders encouraged their men after this fashion.
Phormio, meanwhile, being himself not without fears for the courage of
his men, and noticing that they were forming in groups among themselves
and were alarmed at the odds against them, desired to call them
together and give them confidence and counsel in the present emergency.
He had before continually told them, and had accustomed their minds to
the idea, that there was no numerical superiority that they could not
face; and the men themselves had long been persuaded that Athenians
need never retire before any quantity of Peloponnesian vessels. At the
moment, however, he saw that they were dispirited by the sight before
them, and wishing to refresh their confidence, called them together and
spoke as follows:
“I see, my men, that you are frightened by the number of the enemy, and
I have accordingly called you together, not liking you to be afraid of
what is not really terrible. In the first place, the Peloponnesians,
already defeated, and not even themselves thinking that they are a
match for us, have not ventured to meet us on equal terms, but have
equipped this multitude of ships against us. Next, as to that upon
which they most rely, the courage which they suppose constitutional to
them, their confidence here only arises from the success which their
experience in land service usually gives them, and which they fancy
will do the same for them at sea. But this advantage will in all
justice belong to us on this element, if to them on that; as they are
not superior to us in courage, but we are each of us more confident,
according to our experience in our particular department. Besides, as
the Lacedaemonians use their supremacy over their allies to promote
their own glory, they are most of them being brought into danger
against their will, or they would never, after such a decided defeat,
have ventured upon a fresh engagement. You need not, therefore, be
afraid of their dash. You, on the contrary, inspire a much greater and
better founded alarm, both because of your late victory and also of
their belief that we should not face them unless about to do something
worthy of a success so signal. An adversary numerically superior, like
the one before us, comes into action trusting more to strength than to
resolution; while he who voluntarily confronts tremendous odds must
have very great internal resources to draw upon. For these reasons the
Peloponnesians fear our irrational audacity more than they would ever
have done a more commensurate preparation. Besides, many armaments have
before now succumbed to an inferior through want of skill or sometimes
of courage; neither of which defects certainly are ours. As to the
battle, it shall not be, if I can help it, in the strait, nor will I
sail in there at all; seeing that in a contest between a number of
clumsily managed vessels and a small, fast, well-handled squadron, want
of sea room is an undoubted disadvantage. One cannot run down an enemy
properly without having a sight of him a good way off, nor can one
retire at need when pressed; one can neither break the line nor return
upon his rear, the proper tactics for a fast sailer; but the naval
action necessarily becomes a land one, in which numbers must decide the
matter. For all this I will provide as far as can be. Do you stay at
your posts by your ships, and be sharp at catching the word of command,
the more so as we are observing one another from so short a distance;
and in action think order and silence all-important—qualities useful in
war generally, and in naval engagements in particular; and behave
before the enemy in a manner worthy of your past exploits. The issues
you will fight for are great—to destroy the naval hopes of the
Peloponnesians or to bring nearer to the Athenians their fears for the
sea. And I may once more remind you that you have defeated most of them
already; and beaten men do not face a danger twice with the same
determination.”
Such was the exhortation of Phormio. The Peloponnesians finding that
the Athenians did not sail into the gulf and the narrows, in order to
lead them in whether they wished it or not, put out at dawn, and
forming four abreast, sailed inside the gulf in the direction of their
own country, the right wing leading as they had lain at anchor. In this
wing were placed twenty of their best sailers; so that in the event of
Phormio thinking that their object was Naupactus, and coasting along
thither to save the place, the Athenians might not be able to escape
their onset by getting outside their wing, but might be cut off by the
vessels in question. As they expected, Phormio, in alarm for the place
at that moment emptied of its garrison, as soon as he saw them put out,
reluctantly and hurriedly embarked and sailed along shore; the
Messenian land forces moving along also to support him. The
Peloponnesians seeing him coasting along with his ships in single file,
and by this inside the gulf and close inshore as they so much wished,
at one signal tacked suddenly and bore down in line at their best speed
on the Athenians, hoping to cut off the whole squadron. The eleven
leading vessels, however, escaped the Peloponnesian wing and its sudden
movement, and reached the more open water; but the rest were overtaken
as they tried to run through, driven ashore and disabled; such of the
crews being slain as had not swum out of them. Some of the ships the
Peloponnesians lashed to their own, and towed off empty; one they took
with the men in it; others were just being towed off, when they were
saved by the Messenians dashing into the sea with their armour and
fighting from the decks that they had boarded.
Thus far victory was with the Peloponnesians, and the Athenian fleet
destroyed; the twenty ships in the right wing being meanwhile in chase
of the eleven Athenian vessels that had escaped their sudden movement
and reached the more open water. These, with the exception of one ship,
all outsailed them and got safe into Naupactus, and forming close
inshore opposite the temple of Apollo, with their prows facing the
enemy, prepared to defend themselves in case the Peloponnesians should
sail inshore against them. After a while the Peloponnesians came up,
chanting the paean for their victory as they sailed on; the single
Athenian ship remaining being chased by a Leucadian far ahead of the
rest. But there happened to be a merchantman lying at anchor in the
roadstead, which the Athenian ship found time to sail round, and struck
the Leucadian in chase amidships and sank her. An exploit so sudden and
unexpected produced a panic among the Peloponnesians; and having fallen
out of order in the excitement of victory, some of them dropped their
oars and stopped their way in order to let the main body come up—an
unsafe thing to do considering how near they were to the enemy’s prows;
while others ran aground in the shallows, in their ignorance of the
localities.
Elated at this incident, the Athenians at one word gave a cheer, and
dashed at the enemy, who, embarrassed by his mistakes and the disorder
in which he found himself, only stood for an instant, and then fled for
Panormus, whence he had put out. The Athenians following on his heels
took the six vessels nearest them, and recovered those of their own
which had been disabled close inshore and taken in tow at the beginning
of the action; they killed some of the crews and took some prisoners.
On board the Leucadian which went down off the merchantman, was the
Lacedaemonian Timocrates, who killed himself when the ship was sunk,
and was cast up in the harbour of Naupactus. The Athenians on their
return set up a trophy on the spot from which they had put out and
turned the day, and picking up the wrecks and dead that were on their
shore, gave back to the enemy their dead under truce. The
Peloponnesians also set up a trophy as victors for the defeat inflicted
upon the ships they had disabled in shore, and dedicated the vessel
which they had taken at Achaean Rhium, side by side with the trophy.
After this, apprehensive of the reinforcement expected from Athens, all
except the Leucadians sailed into the Crissaean Gulf for Corinth. Not
long after their retreat, the twenty Athenian ships, which were to have
joined Phormio before the battle, arrived at Naupactus.
Thus the summer ended. Winter was now at hand; but dispersing the
fleet, which had retired to Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf, Cnemus,
Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian captains allowed themselves to be
persuaded by the Megarians to make an attempt upon Piraeus, the port of
Athens, which from her decided superiority at sea had been naturally
left unguarded and open. Their plan was as follows: The men were each
to take their oar, cushion, and rowlock thong, and, going overland from
Corinth to the sea on the Athenian side, to get to Megara as quickly as
they could, and launching forty vessels, which happened to be in the
docks at Nisaea, to sail at once to Piraeus. There was no fleet on the
look-out in the harbour, and no one had the least idea of the enemy
attempting a surprise; while an open attack would, it was thought,
never be deliberately ventured on, or, if in contemplation, would be
speedily known at Athens. Their plan formed, the next step was to put
it in execution. Arriving by night and launching the vessels from
Nisaea, they sailed, not to Piraeus as they had originally intended,
being afraid of the risk, besides which there was some talk of a wind
having stopped them, but to the point of Salamis that looks towards
Megara; where there was a fort and a squadron of three ships to prevent
anything sailing in or out of Megara. This fort they assaulted, and
towed off the galleys empty, and surprising the inhabitants began to
lay waste the rest of the island.
Meanwhile fire signals were raised to alarm Athens, and a panic ensued
there as serious as any that occurred during the war. The idea in the
city was that the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus: in Piraeus it
was thought that they had taken Salamis and might at any moment arrive
in the port; as indeed might easily have been done if their hearts had
been a little firmer: certainly no wind would have prevented them. As
soon as day broke, the Athenians assembled in full force, launched
their ships, and embarking in haste and uproar went with the fleet to
Salamis, while their soldiery mounted guard in Piraeus. The
Peloponnesians, on becoming aware of the coming relief, after they had
overrun most of Salamis, hastily sailed off with their plunder and
captives and the three ships from Fort Budorum to Nisaea; the state of
their ships also causing them some anxiety, as it was a long while
since they had been launched, and they were not water-tight. Arrived at
Megara, they returned back on foot to Corinth. The Athenians finding
them no longer at Salamis, sailed back themselves; and after this made
arrangements for guarding Piraeus more diligently in future, by closing
the harbours, and by other suitable precautions.
About the same time, at the beginning of this winter, Sitalces, son of
Teres, the Odrysian king of Thrace, made an expedition against
Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the Chalcidians in
the neighbourhood of Thrace; his object being to enforce one promise
and fulfil another. On the one hand Perdiccas had made him a promise,
when hard pressed at the commencement of the war, upon condition that
Sitalces should reconcile the Athenians to him and not attempt to
restore his brother and enemy, the pretender Philip, but had not
offered to fulfil his engagement; on the other he, Sitalces, on
entering into alliance with the Athenians, had agreed to put an end to
the Chalcidian war in Thrace. These were the two objects of his
invasion. With him he brought Amyntas, the son of Philip, whom he
destined for the throne of Macedonia, and some Athenian envoys then at
his court on this business, and Hagnon as general; for the Athenians
were to join him against the Chalcidians with a fleet and as many
soldiers as they could get together.
Beginning with the Odrysians, he first called out the Thracian tribes
subject to him between Mounts Haemus and Rhodope and the Euxine and
Hellespont; next the Getae beyond Haemus, and the other hordes settled
south of the Danube in the neighbourhood of the Euxine, who, like the
Getae, border on the Scythians and are armed in the same manner, being
all mounted archers. Besides these he summoned many of the hill
Thracian independent swordsmen, called Dii and mostly inhabiting Mount
Rhodope, some of whom came as mercenaries, others as volunteers; also
the Agrianes and Laeaeans, and the rest of the Paeonian tribes in his
empire, at the confines of which these lay, extending up to the Laeaean
Paeonians and the river Strymon, which flows from Mount Scombrus
through the country of the Agrianes and Laeaeans; there the empire of
Sitalces ends and the territory of the independent Paeonians begins.
Bordering on the Triballi, also independent, were the Treres and
Tilataeans, who dwell to the north of Mount Scombrus and extend towards
the setting sun as far as the river Oskius. This river rises in the
same mountains as the Nestus and Hebrus, a wild and extensive range
connected with Rhodope.
The empire of the Odrysians extended along the seaboard from Abdera to
the mouth of the Danube in the Euxine. The navigation of this coast by
the shortest route takes a merchantman four days and four nights with a
wind astern the whole way: by land an active man, travelling by the
shortest road, can get from Abdera to the Danube in eleven days. Such
was the length of its coast line. Inland from Byzantium to the Laeaeans
and the Strymon, the farthest limit of its extension into the interior,
it is a journey of thirteen days for an active man. The tribute from
all the barbarian districts and the Hellenic cities, taking what they
brought in under Seuthes, the successor of Sitalces, who raised it to
its greatest height, amounted to about four hundred talents in gold and
silver. There were also presents in gold and silver to a no less
amount, besides stuff, plain and embroidered, and other articles, made
not only for the king, but also for the Odrysian lords and nobles. For
there was here established a custom opposite to that prevailing in the
Persian kingdom, namely, of taking rather than giving; more disgrace
being attached to not giving when asked than to asking and being
refused; and although this prevailed elsewhere in Thrace, it was
practised most extensively among the powerful Odrysians, it being
impossible to get anything done without a present. It was thus a very
powerful kingdom; in revenue and general prosperity surpassing all in
Europe between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine, and in numbers and
military resources coming decidedly next to the Scythians, with whom
indeed no people in Europe can bear comparison, there not being even in
Asia any nation singly a match for them if unanimous, though of course
they are not on a level with other races in general intelligence and
the arts of civilized life.
It was the master of this empire that now prepared to take the field.
When everything was ready, he set out on his march for Macedonia, first
through his own dominions, next over the desolate range of Cercine that
divides the Sintians and Paeonians, crossing by a road which he had
made by felling the timber on a former campaign against the latter
people. Passing over these mountains, with the Paeonians on his right
and the Sintians and Maedians on the left, he finally arrived at
Doberus, in Paeonia, losing none of his army on the march, except
perhaps by sickness, but receiving some augmentations, many of the
independent Thracians volunteering to join him in the hope of plunder;
so that the whole is said to have formed a grand total of a hundred and
fifty thousand. Most of this was infantry, though there was about a
third cavalry, furnished principally by the Odrysians themselves and
next to them by the Getae. The most warlike of the infantry were the
independent swordsmen who came down from Rhodope; the rest of the mixed
multitude that followed him being chiefly formidable by their numbers.
Assembling in Doberus, they prepared for descending from the heights
upon Lower Macedonia, where the dominions of Perdiccas lay; for the
Lyncestae, Elimiots, and other tribes more inland, though Macedonians
by blood, and allies and dependants of their kindred, still have their
own separate governments. The country on the sea coast, now called
Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas,
and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos. This was effected by
the expulsion from Pieria of the Pierians, who afterwards inhabited
Phagres and other places under Mount Pangaeus, beyond the Strymon
(indeed the country between Pangaeus and the sea is still called the
Pierian Gulf); of the Bottiaeans, at present neighbours of the
Chalcidians, from Bottia, and by the acquisition in Paeonia of a narrow
strip along the river Axius extending to Pella and the sea; the
district of Mygdonia, between the Axius and the Strymon, being also
added by the expulsion of the Edonians. From Eordia also were driven
the Eordians, most of whom perished, though a few of them still live
round Physca, and the Almopians from Almopia. These Macedonians also
conquered places belonging to the other tribes, which are still
theirs—Anthemus, Crestonia, Bisaltia, and much of Macedonia proper. The
whole is now called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of
Sitalces, Perdiccas, Alexander’s son, was the reigning king.
These Macedonians, unable to take the field against so numerous an
invader, shut themselves up in such strong places and fortresses as the
country possessed. Of these there was no great number, most of those
now found in the country having been erected subsequently by Archelaus,
the son of Perdiccas, on his accession, who also cut straight roads,
and otherwise put the kingdom on a better footing as regards horses,
heavy infantry, and other war material than had been done by all the
eight kings that preceded him. Advancing from Doberus, the Thracian
host first invaded what had been once Philip’s government, and took
Idomene by assault, Gortynia, Atalanta, and some other places by
negotiation, these last coming over for love of Philip’s son, Amyntas,
then with Sitalces. Laying siege to Europus, and failing to take it, he
next advanced into the rest of Macedonia to the left of Pella and
Cyrrhus, not proceeding beyond this into Bottiaea and Pieria, but
staying to lay waste Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Anthemus.
The Macedonians never even thought of meeting him with infantry; but
the Thracian host was, as opportunity offered, attacked by handfuls of
their horse, which had been reinforced from their allies in the
interior. Armed with cuirasses, and excellent horsemen, wherever these
charged they overthrew all before them, but ran considerable risk in
entangling themselves in the masses of the enemy, and so finally
desisted from these efforts, deciding that they were not strong enough
to venture against numbers so superior.
Meanwhile Sitalces opened negotiations with Perdiccas on the objects of
his expedition; and finding that the Athenians, not believing that he
would come, did not appear with their fleet, though they sent presents
and envoys, dispatched a large part of his army against the Chalcidians
and Bottiaeans, and shutting them up inside their walls laid waste
their country. While he remained in these parts, the people farther
south, such as the Thessalians, Magnetes, and the other tribes subject
to the Thessalians, and the Hellenes as far as Thermopylae, all feared
that the army might advance against them, and prepared accordingly.
These fears were shared by the Thracians beyond the Strymon to the
north, who inhabited the plains, such as the Panaeans, the Odomanti,
the Droi, and the Dersaeans, all of whom are independent. It was even
matter of conversation among the Hellenes who were enemies of Athens
whether he might not be invited by his ally to advance also against
them. Meanwhile he held Chalcidice and Bottice and Macedonia, and was
ravaging them all; but finding that he was not succeeding in any of the
objects of his invasion, and that his army was without provisions and
was suffering from the severity of the season, he listened to the
advice of Seuthes, son of Spardacus, his nephew and highest officer,
and decided to retreat without delay. This Seuthes had been secretly
gained by Perdiccas by the promise of his sister in marriage with a
rich dowry. In accordance with this advice, and after a stay of thirty
days in all, eight of which were spent in Chalcidice, he retired home
as quickly as he could; and Perdiccas afterwards gave his sister
Stratonice to Seuthes as he had promised. Such was the history of the
expedition of Sitalces.
In the course of this winter, after the dispersion of the Peloponnesian
fleet, the Athenians in Naupactus, under Phormio, coasted along to
Astacus and disembarked, and marched into the interior of Acarnania
with four hundred Athenian heavy infantry and four hundred Messenians.
After expelling some suspected persons from Stratus, Coronta, and other
places, and restoring Cynes, son of Theolytus, to Coronta, they
returned to their ships, deciding that it was impossible in the winter
season to march against Oeniadae, a place which, unlike the rest of
Acarnania, had been always hostile to them; for the river Achelous
flowing from Mount Pindus through Dolopia and the country of the
Agraeans and Amphilochians and the plain of Acarnania, past the town of
Stratus in the upper part of its course, forms lakes where it falls
into the sea round Oeniadae, and thus makes it impracticable for an
army in winter by reason of the water. Opposite to Oeniadae lie most of
the islands called Echinades, so close to the mouths of the Achelous
that that powerful stream is constantly forming deposits against them,
and has already joined some of the islands to the continent, and seems
likely in no long while to do the same with the rest. For the current
is strong, deep, and turbid, and the islands are so thick together that
they serve to imprison the alluvial deposit and prevent its dispersing,
lying, as they do, not in one line, but irregularly, so as to leave no
direct passage for the water into the open sea. The islands in question
are uninhabited and of no great size. There is also a story that
Alcmaeon, son of Amphiraus, during his wanderings after the murder of
his mother was bidden by Apollo to inhabit this spot, through an oracle
which intimated that he would have no release from his terrors until he
should find a country to dwell in which had not been seen by the sun,
or existed as land at the time he slew his mother; all else being to
him polluted ground. Perplexed at this, the story goes on to say, he at
last observed this deposit of the Achelous, and considered that a place
sufficient to support life upon, might have been thrown up during the
long interval that had elapsed since the death of his mother and the
beginning of his wanderings. Settling, therefore, in the district round
Oeniadae, he founded a dominion, and left the country its name from his
son Acarnan. Such is the story we have received concerning Alcmaeon.
The Athenians and Phormio putting back from Acarnania and arriving at
Naupactus, sailed home to Athens in the spring, taking with them the
ships that they had captured, and such of the prisoners made in the
late actions as were freemen; who were exchanged, man for man. And so
ended this winter, and the third year of this war, of which Thucydides
was the historian.
BOOK III
CHAPTER IX
Fourth and Fifth Years of the War—Revolt of Mitylene
The next summer, just as the corn was getting ripe, the Peloponnesians
and their allies invaded Attica under the command of Archidamus, son of
Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat down and ravaged the
land; the Athenian horse as usual attacking them, wherever it was
practicable, and preventing the mass of the light troops from advancing
from their camp and wasting the parts near the city. After staying the
time for which they had taken provisions, the invaders retired and
dispersed to their several cities.
Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos, except
Methymna, revolted from the Athenians. The Lesbians had wished to
revolt even before the war, but the Lacedaemonians would not receive
them; and yet now when they did revolt, they were compelled to do so
sooner than they had intended. While they were waiting until the moles
for their harbours and the ships and walls that they had in building
should be finished, and for the arrival of archers and corn and other
things that they were engaged in fetching from the Pontus, the
Tenedians, with whom they were at enmity, and the Methymnians, and some
factious persons in Mitylene itself, who were proxeni of Athens,
informed the Athenians that the Mitylenians were forcibly uniting the
island under their sovereignty, and that the preparations about which
they were so active, were all concerted with the Boeotians their
kindred and the Lacedaemonians with a view to a revolt, and that,
unless they were immediately prevented, Athens would lose Lesbos.
However, the Athenians, distressed by the plague, and by the war that
had recently broken out and was now raging, thought it a serious matter
to add Lesbos with its fleet and untouched resources to the list of
their enemies; and at first would not believe the charge, giving too
much weight to their wish that it might not be true. But when an
embassy which they sent had failed to persuade the Mitylenians to give
up the union and preparations complained of, they became alarmed, and
resolved to strike the first blow. They accordingly suddenly sent off
forty ships that had been got ready to sail round Peloponnese, under
the command of Cleippides, son of Deinias, and two others; word having
been brought them of a festival in honour of the Malean Apollo outside
the town, which is kept by the whole people of Mitylene, and at which,
if haste were made, they might hope to take them by surprise. If this
plan succeeded, well and good; if not, they were to order the
Mitylenians to deliver up their ships and to pull down their walls, and
if they did not obey, to declare war. The ships accordingly set out;
the ten galleys, forming the contingent of the Mitylenians present with
the fleet according to the terms of the alliance, being detained by the
Athenians, and their crews placed in custody. However, the Mitylenians
were informed of the expedition by a man who crossed from Athens to
Euboea, and going overland to Geraestus, sailed from thence by a
merchantman which he found on the point of putting to sea, and so
arrived at Mitylene the third day after leaving Athens. The Mitylenians
accordingly refrained from going out to the temple at Malea, and
moreover barricaded and kept guard round the half-finished parts of
their walls and harbours.
When the Athenians sailed in not long after and saw how things stood,
the generals delivered their orders, and upon the Mitylenians refusing
to obey, commenced hostilities. The Mitylenians, thus compelled to go
to war without notice and unprepared, at first sailed out with their
fleet and made some show of fighting, a little in front of the harbour;
but being driven back by the Athenian ships, immediately offered to
treat with the commanders, wishing, if possible, to get the ships away
for the present upon any tolerable terms. The Athenian commanders
accepted their offers, being themselves fearful that they might not be
able to cope with the whole of Lesbos; and an armistice having been
concluded, the Mitylenians sent to Athens one of the informers, already
repentant of his conduct, and others with him, to try to persuade the
Athenians of the innocence of their intentions and to get the fleet
recalled. In the meantime, having no great hope of a favourable answer
from Athens, they also sent off a galley with envoys to Lacedaemon,
unobserved by the Athenian fleet which was anchored at Malea to the
north of the town.
While these envoys, reaching Lacedaemon after a difficult journey
across the open sea, were negotiating for succours being sent them, the
ambassadors from Athens returned without having effected anything; and
hostilities were at once begun by the Mitylenians and the rest of
Lesbos, with the exception of the Methymnians, who came to the aid of
the Athenians with the Imbrians and Lemnians and some few of the other
allies. The Mitylenians made a sortie with all their forces against the
Athenian camp; and a battle ensued, in which they gained some slight
advantage, but retired notwithstanding, not feeling sufficient
confidence in themselves to spend the night upon the field. After this
they kept quiet, wishing to wait for the chance of reinforcements
arriving from Peloponnese before making a second venture, being
encouraged by the arrival of Meleas, a Laconian, and Hermaeondas, a
Theban, who had been sent off before the insurrection but had been
unable to reach Lesbos before the Athenian expedition, and who now
stole in in a galley after the battle, and advised them to send another
galley and envoys back with them, which the Mitylenians accordingly
did.
Meanwhile the Athenians, greatly encouraged by the inaction of the
Mitylenians, summoned allies to their aid, who came in all the quicker
from seeing so little vigour displayed by the Lesbians, and bringing
round their ships to a new station to the south of the town, fortified
two camps, one on each side of the city, and instituted a blockade of
both the harbours. The sea was thus closed against the Mitylenians,
who, however, commanded the whole country, with the rest of the
Lesbians who had now joined them; the Athenians only holding a limited
area round their camps, and using Malea more as the station for their
ships and their market.
While the war went on in this way at Mitylene, the Athenians, about the
same time in this summer, also sent thirty ships to Peloponnese under
Asopius, son of Phormio; the Acarnanians insisting that the commander
sent should be some son or relative of Phormio. As the ships coasted
along shore they ravaged the seaboard of Laconia; after which Asopius
sent most of the fleet home, and himself went on with twelve vessels to
Naupactus, and afterwards raising the whole Acarnanian population made
an expedition against Oeniadae, the fleet sailing along the Achelous,
while the army laid waste the country. The inhabitants, however,
showing no signs of submitting, he dismissed the land forces and
himself sailed to Leucas, and making a descent upon Nericus was cut off
during his retreat, and most of his troops with him, by the people in
those parts aided by some coastguards; after which the Athenians sailed
away, recovering their dead from the Leucadians under truce.
Meanwhile the envoys of the Mitylenians sent out in the first ship were
told by the Lacedaemonians to come to Olympia, in order that the rest
of the allies might hear them and decide upon their matter, and so they
journeyed thither. It was the Olympiad in which the Rhodian Dorieus
gained his second victory, and the envoys having been introduced to
make their speech after the festival, spoke as follows:
“Lacedaemonians and allies, the rule established among the Hellenes is
not unknown to us. Those who revolt in war and forsake their former
confederacy are favourably regarded by those who receive them, in so
far as they are of use to them, but otherwise are thought less well of,
through being considered traitors to their former friends. Nor is this
an unfair way of judging, where the rebels and the power from whom they
secede are at one in policy and sympathy, and a match for each other in
resources and power, and where no reasonable ground exists for the
rebellion. But with us and the Athenians this was not the case; and no
one need think the worse of us for revolting from them in danger, after
having been honoured by them in time of peace.
“Justice and honesty will be the first topics of our speech, especially
as we are asking for alliance; because we know that there can never be
any solid friendship between individuals, or union between communities
that is worth the name, unless the parties be persuaded of each other’s
honesty, and be generally congenial the one to the other; since from
difference in feeling springs also difference in conduct. Between
ourselves and the Athenians alliance began, when you withdrew from the
Median War and they remained to finish the business. But we did not
become allies of the Athenians for the subjugation of the Hellenes, but
allies of the Hellenes for their liberation from the Mede; and as long
as the Athenians led us fairly we followed them loyally; but when we
saw them relax their hostility to the Mede, to try to compass the
subjection of the allies, then our apprehensions began. Unable,
however, to unite and defend themselves, on account of the number of
confederates that had votes, all the allies were enslaved, except
ourselves and the Chians, who continued to send our contingents as
independent and nominally free. Trust in Athens as a leader, however,
we could no longer feel, judging by the examples already given; it
being unlikely that she would reduce our fellow confederates, and not
do the same by us who were left, if ever she had the power.
“Had we all been still independent, we could have had more faith in
their not attempting any change; but the greater number being their
subjects, while they were treating us as equals, they would naturally
chafe under this solitary instance of independence as contrasted with
the submission of the majority; particularly as they daily grew more
powerful, and we more destitute. Now the only sure basis of an alliance
is for each party to be equally afraid of the other; he who would like
to encroach is then deterred by the reflection that he will not have
odds in his favour. Again, if we were left independent, it was only
because they thought they saw their way to empire more clearly by
specious language and by the paths of policy than by those of force.
Not only were we useful as evidence that powers who had votes, like
themselves, would not, surely, join them in their expeditions, against
their will, without the party attacked being in the wrong; but the same
system also enabled them to lead the stronger states against the weaker
first, and so to leave the former to the last, stripped of their
natural allies, and less capable of resistance. But if they had begun
with us, while all the states still had their resources under their own
control, and there was a centre to rally round, the work of subjugation
would have been found less easy. Besides this, our navy gave them some
apprehension: it was always possible that it might unite with you or
with some other power, and become dangerous to Athens. The court which
we paid to their commons and its leaders for the time being also helped
us to maintain our independence. However, we did not expect to be able
to do so much longer, if this war had not broken out, from the examples
that we had had of their conduct to the rest.
“How then could we put our trust in such friendship or freedom as we
had here? We accepted each other against our inclination; fear made
them court us in war, and us them in peace; sympathy, the ordinary
basis of confidence, had its place supplied by terror, fear having more
share than friendship in detaining us in the alliance; and the first
party that should be encouraged by the hope of impunity was certain to
break faith with the other. So that to condemn us for being the first
to break off, because they delay the blow that we dread, instead of
ourselves delaying to know for certain whether it will be dealt or not,
is to take a false view of the case. For if we were equally able with
them to meet their plots and imitate their delay, we should be their
equals and should be under no necessity of being their subjects; but
the liberty of offence being always theirs, that of defence ought
clearly to be ours.
“Such, Lacedaemonians and allies, are the grounds and the reasons of
our revolt; clear enough to convince our hearers of the fairness of our
conduct, and sufficient to alarm ourselves, and to make us turn to some
means of safety. This we wished to do long ago, when we sent to you on
the subject while the peace yet lasted, but were balked by your
refusing to receive us; and now, upon the Boeotians inviting us, we at
once responded to the call, and decided upon a twofold revolt, from the
Hellenes and from the Athenians, not to aid the latter in harming the
former, but to join in their liberation, and not to allow the Athenians
in the end to destroy us, but to act in time against them. Our revolt,
however, has taken place prematurely and without preparation—a fact
which makes it all the more incumbent on you to receive us into
alliance and to send us speedy relief, in order to show that you
support your friends, and at the same time do harm to your enemies. You
have an opportunity such as you never had before. Disease and
expenditure have wasted the Athenians: their ships are either cruising
round your coasts, or engaged in blockading us; and it is not probable
that they will have any to spare, if you invade them a second time this
summer by sea and land; but they will either offer no resistance to
your vessels, or withdraw from both our shores. Nor must it be thought
that this is a case of putting yourselves into danger for a country
which is not yours. Lesbos may appear far off, but when help is wanted
she will be found near enough. It is not in Attica that the war will be
decided, as some imagine, but in the countries by which Attica is
supported; and the Athenian revenue is drawn from the allies, and will
become still larger if they reduce us; as not only will no other state
revolt, but our resources will be added to theirs, and we shall be
treated worse than those that were enslaved before. But if you will
frankly support us, you will add to your side a state that has a large
navy, which is your great want; you will smooth the way to the
overthrow of the Athenians by depriving them of their allies, who will
be greatly encouraged to come over; and you will free yourselves from
the imputation made against you, of not supporting insurrection. In
short, only show yourselves as liberators, and you may count upon
having the advantage in the war.
“Respect, therefore, the hopes placed in you by the Hellenes, and that
Olympian Zeus, in whose temple we stand as very suppliants; become the
allies and defenders of the Mitylenians, and do not sacrifice us, who
put our lives upon the hazard, in a cause in which general good will
result to all from our success, and still more general harm if we fail
through your refusing to help us; but be the men that the Hellenes
think you, and our fears desire.”
Such were the words of the Mitylenians. After hearing them out, the
Lacedaemonians and confederates granted what they urged, and took the
Lesbians into alliance, and deciding in favour of the invasion of
Attica, told the allies present to march as quickly as possible to the
Isthmus with two-thirds of their forces; and arriving there first
themselves, got ready hauling machines to carry their ships across from
Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens, in order to make their attack
by sea and land at once. However, the zeal which they displayed was not
imitated by the rest of the confederates, who came in but slowly, being
engaged in harvesting their corn and sick of making expeditions.
Meanwhile the Athenians, aware that the preparations of the enemy were
due to his conviction of their weakness, and wishing to show him that
he was mistaken, and that they were able, without moving the Lesbian
fleet, to repel with ease that with which they were menaced from
Peloponnese, manned a hundred ships by embarking the citizens of
Athens, except the knights and Pentacosiomedimni, and the resident
aliens; and putting out to the Isthmus, displayed their power, and made
descents upon Peloponnese wherever they pleased. A disappointment so
signal made the Lacedaemonians think that the Lesbians had not spoken
the truth; and embarrassed by the non-appearance of the confederates,
coupled with the news that the thirty ships round Peloponnese were
ravaging the lands near Sparta, they went back home. Afterwards,
however, they got ready a fleet to send to Lesbos, and ordering a total
of forty ships from the different cities in the league, appointed
Alcidas to command the expedition in his capacity of high admiral.
Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred ships, upon seeing the
Lacedaemonians go home, went home likewise.
If, at the time that this fleet was at sea, Athens had almost the
largest number of first-rate ships in commission that she ever
possessed at any one moment, she had as many or even more when the war
began. At that time one hundred guarded Attica, Euboea, and Salamis; a
hundred more were cruising round Peloponnese, besides those employed at
Potidæa and in other places; making a grand total of two hundred and
fifty vessels employed on active service in a single summer. It was
this, with Potidæa, that most exhausted her revenues—Potidæa being
blockaded by a force of heavy infantry (each drawing two drachmae a
day, one for himself and another for his servant), which amounted to
three thousand at first, and was kept at this number down to the end of
the siege; besides sixteen hundred with Phormio who went away before it
was over; and the ships being all paid at the same rate. In this way
her money was wasted at first; and this was the largest number of ships
ever manned by her.
About the same time that the Lacedaemonians were at the Isthmus, the
Mitylenians marched by land with their mercenaries against Methymna,
which they thought to gain by treachery. After assaulting the town, and
not meeting with the success that they anticipated, they withdrew to
Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus; and taking measures for the better
security of these towns and strengthening their walls, hastily returned
home. After their departure the Methymnians marched against Antissa,
but were defeated in a sortie by the Antissians and their mercenaries,
and retreated in haste after losing many of their number. Word of this
reaching Athens, and the Athenians learning that the Mitylenians were
masters of the country and their own soldiers unable to hold them in
check, they sent out about the beginning of autumn Paches, son of
Epicurus, to take the command, and a thousand Athenian heavy infantry;
who worked their own passage and, arriving at Mitylene, built a single
wall all round it, forts being erected at some of the strongest points.
Mitylene was thus blockaded strictly on both sides, by land and by sea;
and winter now drew near.
The Athenians needing money for the siege, although they had for the
first time raised a contribution of two hundred talents from their own
citizens, now sent out twelve ships to levy subsidies from their
allies, with Lysicles and four others in command. After cruising to
different places and laying them under contribution, Lysicles went up
the country from Myus, in Caria, across the plain of the Meander, as
far as the hill of Sandius; and being attacked by the Carians and the
people of Anaia, was slain with many of his soldiers.
The same winter the Plataeans, who were still being besieged by the
Peloponnesians and Boeotians, distressed by the failure of their
provisions, and seeing no hope of relief from Athens, nor any other
means of safety, formed a scheme with the Athenians besieged with them
for escaping, if possible, by forcing their way over the enemy’s walls;
the attempt having been suggested by Theaenetus, son of Tolmides, a
soothsayer, and Eupompides, son of Daimachus, one of their generals. At
first all were to join: afterwards, half hung back, thinking the risk
great; about two hundred and twenty, however, voluntarily persevered in
the attempt, which was carried out in the following way. Ladders were
made to match the height of the enemy’s wall, which they measured by
the layers of bricks, the side turned towards them not being thoroughly
whitewashed. These were counted by many persons at once; and though
some might miss the right calculation, most would hit upon it,
particularly as they counted over and over again, and were no great way
from the wall, but could see it easily enough for their purpose. The
length required for the ladders was thus obtained, being calculated
from the breadth of the brick.
Now the wall of the Peloponnesians was constructed as follows. It
consisted of two lines drawn round the place, one against the
Plataeans, the other against any attack on the outside from Athens,
about sixteen feet apart. The intermediate space of sixteen feet was
occupied by huts portioned out among the soldiers on guard, and built
in one block, so as to give the appearance of a single thick wall with
battlements on either side. At intervals of every ten battlements were
towers of considerable size, and the same breadth as the wall, reaching
right across from its inner to its outer face, with no means of passing
except through the middle. Accordingly on stormy and wet nights the
battlements were deserted, and guard kept from the towers, which were
not far apart and roofed in above.
Such being the structure of the wall by which the Plataeans were
blockaded, when their preparations were completed, they waited for a
stormy night of wind and rain and without any moon, and then set out,
guided by the authors of the enterprise. Crossing first the ditch that
ran round the town, they next gained the wall of the enemy unperceived
by the sentinels, who did not see them in the darkness, or hear them,
as the wind drowned with its roar the noise of their approach; besides
which they kept a good way off from each other, that they might not be
betrayed by the clash of their weapons. They were also lightly
equipped, and had only the left foot shod to preserve them from
slipping in the mire. They came up to the battlements at one of the
intermediate spaces where they knew them to be unguarded: those who
carried the ladders went first and planted them; next twelve
light-armed soldiers with only a dagger and a breastplate mounted, led
by Ammias, son of Coroebus, who was the first on the wall; his
followers getting up after him and going six to each of the towers.
After these came another party of light troops armed with spears, whose
shields, that they might advance the easier, were carried by men
behind, who were to hand them to them when they found themselves in
presence of the enemy. After a good many had mounted they were
discovered by the sentinels in the towers, by the noise made by a tile
which was knocked down by one of the Plataeans as he was laying hold of
the battlements. The alarm was instantly given, and the troops rushed
to the wall, not knowing the nature of the danger, owing to the dark
night and stormy weather; the Plataeans in the town having also chosen
that moment to make a sortie against the wall of the Peloponnesians
upon the side opposite to that on which their men were getting over, in
order to divert the attention of the besiegers. Accordingly they
remained distracted at their several posts, without any venturing to
stir to give help from his own station, and at a loss to guess what was
going on. Meanwhile the three hundred set aside for service on
emergencies went outside the wall in the direction of the alarm.
Fire-signals of an attack were also raised towards Thebes; but the
Plataeans in the town at once displayed a number of others, prepared
beforehand for this very purpose, in order to render the enemy’s
signals unintelligible, and to prevent his friends getting a true idea
of what was passing and coming to his aid before their comrades who had
gone out should have made good their escape and be in safety.
Meanwhile the first of the scaling party that had got up, after
carrying both the towers and putting the sentinels to the sword, posted
themselves inside to prevent any one coming through against them; and
rearing ladders from the wall, sent several men up on the towers, and
from their summit and base kept in check all of the enemy that came up,
with their missiles, while their main body planted a number of ladders
against the wall, and knocking down the battlements, passed over
between the towers; each as soon as he had got over taking up his
station at the edge of the ditch, and plying from thence with arrows
and darts any who came along the wall to stop the passage of his
comrades. When all were over, the party on the towers came down, the
last of them not without difficulty, and proceeded to the ditch, just
as the three hundred came up carrying torches. The Plataeans, standing
on the edge of the ditch in the dark, had a good view of their
opponents, and discharged their arrows and darts upon the unarmed parts
of their bodies, while they themselves could not be so well seen in the
obscurity for the torches; and thus even the last of them got over the
ditch, though not without effort and difficulty; as ice had formed in
it, not strong enough to walk upon, but of that watery kind which
generally comes with a wind more east than north, and the snow which
this wind had caused to fall during the night had made the water in the
ditch rise, so that they could scarcely breast it as they crossed.
However, it was mainly the violence of the storm that enabled them to
effect their escape at all.
Starting from the ditch, the Plataeans went all together along the road
leading to Thebes, keeping the chapel of the hero Androcrates upon
their right; considering that the last road which the Peloponnesians
would suspect them of having taken would be that towards their enemies’
country. Indeed they could see them pursuing with torches upon the
Athens road towards Cithaeron and Druoskephalai or Oakheads. After
going for rather more than half a mile upon the road to Thebes, the
Plataeans turned off and took that leading to the mountain, to Erythrae
and Hysiae, and reaching the hills, made good their escape to Athens,
two hundred and twelve men in all; some of their number having turned
back into the town before getting over the wall, and one archer having
been taken prisoner at the outer ditch. Meanwhile the Peloponnesians
gave up the pursuit and returned to their posts; and the Plataeans in
the town, knowing nothing of what had passed, and informed by those who
had turned back that not a man had escaped, sent out a herald as soon
as it was day to make a truce for the recovery of the dead bodies, and
then, learning the truth, desisted. In this way the Plataean party got
over and were saved.
Towards the close of the same winter, Salaethus, a Lacedaemonian, was
sent out in a galley from Lacedaemon to Mitylene. Going by sea to
Pyrrha, and from thence overland, he passed along the bed of a torrent,
where the line of circumvallation was passable, and thus entering
unperceived into Mitylene told the magistrates that Attica would
certainly be invaded, and the forty ships destined to relieve them
arrive, and that he had been sent on to announce this and to
superintend matters generally. The Mitylenians upon this took courage,
and laid aside the idea of treating with the Athenians; and now this
winter ended, and with it ended the fourth year of the war of which
Thucydides was the historian.
The next summer the Peloponnesians sent off the forty-two ships for
Mitylene, under Alcidas, their high admiral, and themselves and their
allies invaded Attica, their object being to distract the Athenians by
a double movement, and thus to make it less easy for them to act
against the fleet sailing to Mitylene. The commander in this invasion
was Cleomenes, in the place of King Pausanias, son of Pleistoanax, his
nephew, who was still a minor. Not content with laying waste whatever
had shot up in the parts which they had before devastated, the invaders
now extended their ravages to lands passed over in their previous
incursions; so that this invasion was more severely felt by the
Athenians than any except the second; the enemy staying on and on until
they had overrun most of the country, in the expectation of hearing
from Lesbos of something having been achieved by their fleet, which
they thought must now have got over. However, as they did not obtain
any of the results expected, and their provisions began to run short,
they retreated and dispersed to their different cities.
In the meantime the Mitylenians, finding their provisions failing,
while the fleet from Peloponnese was loitering on the way instead of
appearing at Mitylene, were compelled to come to terms with the
Athenians in the following manner. Salaethus having himself ceased to
expect the fleet to arrive, now armed the commons with heavy armour,
which they had not before possessed, with the intention of making a
sortie against the Athenians. The commons, however, no sooner found
themselves possessed of arms than they refused any longer to obey their
officers; and forming in knots together, told the authorities to bring
out in public the provisions and divide them amongst them all, or they
would themselves come to terms with the Athenians and deliver up the
city.
The government, aware of their inability to prevent this, and of the
danger they would be in, if left out of the capitulation, publicly
agreed with Paches and the army to surrender Mitylene at discretion and
to admit the troops into the town; upon the understanding that the
Mitylenians should be allowed to send an embassy to Athens to plead
their cause, and that Paches should not imprison, make slaves of, or
put to death any of the citizens until its return. Such were the terms
of the capitulation; in spite of which the chief authors of the
negotiation with Lacedaemon were so completely overcome by terror when
the army entered that they went and seated themselves by the altars,
from which they were raised up by Paches under promise that he would do
them no wrong, and lodged by him in Tenedos, until he should learn the
pleasure of the Athenians concerning them. Paches also sent some
galleys and seized Antissa, and took such other military measures as he
thought advisable.
Meanwhile the Peloponnesians in the forty ships, who ought to have made
all haste to relieve Mitylene, lost time in coming round Peloponnese
itself, and proceeding leisurely on the remainder of the voyage, made
Delos without having been seen by the Athenians at Athens, and from
thence arriving at Icarus and Myconus, there first heard of the fall of
Mitylene. Wishing to know the truth, they put into Embatum, in the
Erythraeid, about seven days after the capture of the town. Here they
learned the truth, and began to consider what they were to do; and
Teutiaplus, an Elean, addressed them as follows:
“Alcidas and Peloponnesians who share with me the command of this
armament, my advice is to sail just as we are to Mitylene, before we
have been heard of. We may expect to find the Athenians as much off
their guard as men generally are who have just taken a city: this will
certainly be so by sea, where they have no idea of any enemy attacking
them, and where our strength, as it happens, mainly lies; while even
their land forces are probably scattered about the houses in the
carelessness of victory. If therefore we were to fall upon them
suddenly and in the night, I have hopes, with the help of the
well-wishers that we may have left inside the town, that we shall
become masters of the place. Let us not shrink from the risk, but let
us remember that this is just the occasion for one of the baseless
panics common in war: and that to be able to guard against these in
one’s own case, and to detect the moment when an attack will find an
enemy at this disadvantage, is what makes a successful general.”
These words of Teutiaplus failing to move Alcidas, some of the Ionian
exiles and the Lesbians with the expedition began to urge him, since
this seemed too dangerous, to seize one of the Ionian cities or the
Aeolic town of Cyme, to use as a base for effecting the revolt of
Ionia. This was by no means a hopeless enterprise, as their coming was
welcome everywhere; their object would be by this move to deprive
Athens of her chief source of revenue, and at the same time to saddle
her with expense, if she chose to blockade them; and they would
probably induce Pissuthnes to join them in the war. However, Alcidas
gave this proposal as bad a reception as the other, being eager, since
he had come too late for Mitylene, to find himself back in Peloponnese
as soon as possible.
Accordingly he put out from Embatum and proceeded along shore; and
touching at the Teian town, Myonnesus, there butchered most of the
prisoners that he had taken on his passage. Upon his coming to anchor
at Ephesus, envoys came to him from the Samians at Anaia, and told him
that he was not going the right way to free Hellas in massacring men
who had never raised a hand against him, and who were not enemies of
his, but allies of Athens against their will, and that if he did not
stop he would turn many more friends into enemies than enemies into
friends. Alcidas agreed to this, and let go all the Chians still in his
hands and some of the others that he had taken; the inhabitants,
instead of flying at the sight of his vessels, rather coming up to
them, taking them for Athenian, having no sort of expectation that
while the Athenians commanded the sea Peloponnesian ships would venture
over to Ionia.
From Ephesus Alcidas set sail in haste and fled. He had been seen by
the Salaminian and Paralian galleys, which happened to be sailing from
Athens, while still at anchor off Clarus; and fearing pursuit he now
made across the open sea, fully determined to touch nowhere, if he
could help it, until he got to Peloponnese. Meanwhile news of him had
come in to Paches from the Erythraeid, and indeed from all quarters. As
Ionia was unfortified, great fears were felt that the Peloponnesians
coasting along shore, even if they did not intend to stay, might make
descents in passing and plunder the towns; and now the Paralian and
Salaminian, having seen him at Clarus, themselves brought intelligence
of the fact. Paches accordingly gave hot chase, and continued the
pursuit as far as the isle of Patmos, and then finding that Alcidas had
got on too far to be overtaken, came back again. Meanwhile he thought
it fortunate that, as he had not fallen in with them out at sea, he had
not overtaken them anywhere where they would have been forced to
encamp, and so give him the trouble of blockading them.
On his return along shore he touched, among other places, at Notium,
the port of Colophon, where the Colophonians had settled after the
capture of the upper town by Itamenes and the barbarians, who had been
called in by certain individuals in a party quarrel. The capture of the
town took place about the time of the second Peloponnesian invasion of
Attica. However, the refugees, after settling at Notium, again split up
into factions, one of which called in Arcadian and barbarian
mercenaries from Pissuthnes and, entrenching these in a quarter apart,
formed a new community with the Median party of the Colophonians who
joined them from the upper town. Their opponents had retired into
exile, and now called in Paches, who invited Hippias, the commander of
the Arcadians in the fortified quarter, to a parley, upon condition
that, if they could not agree, he was to be put back safe and sound in
the fortification. However, upon his coming out to him, he put him into
custody, though not in chains, and attacked suddenly and took by
surprise the fortification, and putting the Arcadians and the
barbarians found in it to the sword, afterwards took Hippias into it as
he had promised, and, as soon as he was inside, seized him and shot him
down. Paches then gave up Notium to the Colophonians not of the Median
party; and settlers were afterwards sent out from Athens, and the place
colonized according to Athenian laws, after collecting all the
Colophonians found in any of the cities.
Arrived at Mitylene, Paches reduced Pyrrha and Eresus; and finding the
Lacedaemonian, Salaethus, in hiding in the town, sent him off to
Athens, together with the Mitylenians that he had placed in Tenedos,
and any other persons that he thought concerned in the revolt. He also
sent back the greater part of his forces, remaining with the rest to
settle Mitylene and the rest of Lesbos as he thought best.
Upon the arrival of the prisoners with Salaethus, the Athenians at once
put the latter to death, although he offered, among other things, to
procure the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Plataea, which was
still under siege; and after deliberating as to what they should do
with the former, in the fury of the moment determined to put to death
not only the prisoners at Athens, but the whole adult male population
of Mitylene, and to make slaves of the women and children. It was
remarked that Mitylene had revolted without being, like the rest,
subjected to the empire; and what above all swelled the wrath of the
Athenians was the fact of the Peloponnesian fleet having ventured over
to Ionia to her support, a fact which was held to argue a long
meditated rebellion. They accordingly sent a galley to communicate the
decree to Paches, commanding him to lose no time in dispatching the
Mitylenians. The morrow brought repentance with it and reflection on
the horrid cruelty of a decree, which condemned a whole city to the
fate merited only by the guilty. This was no sooner perceived by the
Mitylenian ambassadors at Athens and their Athenian supporters, than
they moved the authorities to put the question again to the vote; which
they the more easily consented to do, as they themselves plainly saw
that most of the citizens wished some one to give them an opportunity
for reconsidering the matter. An assembly was therefore at once called,
and after much expression of opinion upon both sides, Cleon, son of
Cleaenetus, the same who had carried the former motion of putting the
Mitylenians to death, the most violent man at Athens, and at that time
by far the most powerful with the commons, came forward again and spoke
as follows:
“I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable
of empire, and never more so than by your present change of mind in the
matter of Mitylene. Fears or plots being unknown to you in your daily
relations with each other, you feel just the same with regard to your
allies, and never reflect that the mistakes into which you may be led
by listening to their appeals, or by giving way to your own compassion,
are full of danger to yourselves, and bring you no thanks for your
weakness from your allies; entirely forgetting that your empire is a
despotism and your subjects disaffected conspirators, whose obedience
is ensured not by your suicidal concessions, but by the superiority
given you by your own strength and not their loyalty. The most alarming
feature in the case is the constant change of measures with which we
appear to be threatened, and our seeming ignorance of the fact that bad
laws which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that
have no authority; that unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than
quick-witted insubordination; and that ordinary men usually manage
public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. The latter are
always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every
proposition brought forward, thinking that they cannot show their wit
in more important matters, and by such behaviour too often ruin their
country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are content to
be less learned than the laws, and less able to pick holes in the
speech of a good speaker; and being fair judges rather than rival
athletes, generally conduct affairs successfully. These we ought to
imitate, instead of being led on by cleverness and intellectual rivalry
to advise your people against our real opinions.
“For myself, I adhere to my former opinion, and wonder at those who
have proposed to reopen the case of the Mitylenians, and who are thus
causing a delay which is all in favour of the guilty, by making the
sufferer proceed against the offender with the edge of his anger
blunted; although where vengeance follows most closely upon the wrong,
it best equals it and most amply requites it. I wonder also who will be
the man who will maintain the contrary, and will pretend to show that
the crimes of the Mitylenians are of service to us, and our misfortunes
injurious to the allies. Such a man must plainly either have such
confidence in his rhetoric as to adventure to prove that what has been
once for all decided is still undetermined, or be bribed to try to
delude us by elaborate sophisms. In such contests the state gives the
rewards to others, and takes the dangers for herself. The persons to
blame are you who are so foolish as to institute these contests; who go
to see an oration as you would to see a sight, take your facts on
hearsay, judge of the practicability of a project by the wit of its
advocates, and trust for the truth as to past events not to the fact
which you saw more than to the clever strictures which you heard; the
easy victims of new-fangled arguments, unwilling to follow received
conclusions; slaves to every new paradox, despisers of the commonplace;
the first wish of every man being that he could speak himself, the next
to rival those who can speak by seeming to be quite up with their ideas
by applauding every hit almost before it is made, and by being as quick
in catching an argument as you are slow in foreseeing its consequences;
asking, if I may so say, for something different from the conditions
under which we live, and yet comprehending inadequately those very
conditions; very slaves to the pleasure of the ear, and more like the
audience of a rhetorician than the council of a city.