THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
I. THE FORTIFICATIONS OF ATHENS
The Persian had been defeated, and Greece was free. The Athenians
had suffered more than any other state, for they had been forced to
leave their city to be occupied by the enemy, and twice it had been
burnt to the ground. Now, however, they were free to return. The
city was utterly destroyed, but a great hope for the future filled
their hearts when they found that the sacred olive tree on the
Acropolis, which had been burnt by the Persians, was not dead after
all, but had sent up fresh green shoots. Athena had not deserted
them.
Themistocles was now the acknowledged leader of Athens, and the hero
of all Greece.
At the next Olympic Games, when he entered the course, the
spectators took no further heed of those who were contesting for
the prizes, but spent the whole day in looking at him, showing
him to the strangers, admiring him, and applauding him by
clapping their hands, and other expressions of joy, so that he
himself, much {172} gratified, confessed to his friends that he
then reaped the fruit of all his labours for the Greeks.[1]
He was by nature a great lover of honours and glory, and he liked to
appear superior to other people. After the battle of Salamis when
numbers of the Persian dead were washed ashore, "he perceived
bracelets and necklaces of gold about them, yet passed on, only
showing them to a friend that followed him, saying, 'Take you these
things, for you are not Themistocles.'"[2]
It was this man who had given Athens her navy by means of which she
had defeated the Barbarian, and he now realized that if she was to
keep her independence, the city must be well fortified. The
Athenians were more than willing to follow his advice, and everyone
in the city, men, women and even children worked hard to rebuild the
walls. Now the Spartans were becoming more and more jealous of the
increasing power of the Athenians, and when they heard of the new
walls that were rising all round Athens, they sent envoys there to
tell the Athenians that they held any such fortification of their
city unnecessary. They thought it wiser that there should be no
strongly-walled city in Attica, for should an enemy ever capture it,
the citadel could be used as a base from which the enemy would go out
and conquer other places. If war should come again, and the
Athenians should feel insecure in their city, Sparta would gladly
welcome them in the {173} Peloponnesus. Themistocles suggested that
he should go to Sparta and talk everything over with the Spartan
leaders, and he set out accordingly. He left instructions that
during his absence the work on the walls should go on with all
possible speed and that messengers were to be sent to tell him when
the work was finished. But the Spartans were not satisfied with the
excuses and explanations given them by Themistocles, so he suggested
that they should send messengers to Athens to find out the truth for
themselves. They had hardly started when the Athenian messengers
arrived with the news that the walls were built. Themistocles then
told the whole truth to the Spartans, telling them that Athens was in
every way the equal of Sparta and would take no orders from her as to
what she should do or not do in her own land. The Spartans were
angry, but they did not show it at that time, and Themistocles
returned home to Athens.
Themistocles next set to work to fortify the harbour of the Peiraeus.
Athens is a few miles inland from the sea, and the Peiraeus is her
harbour. It is a peninsula with a deep bay on one side, in which
ships can lie safely at anchor. A strong wall was built all round
this peninsula, and the narrow entrance to the harbour was made
secure by chains which could easily be drawn across in such a way as
to prevent, whenever necessary, the entrance of any ships. The city
and the harbour were then connected by Long Walls, which practically
formed a fortified road down to the sea. This gave Athens all the
advantages of a seaport, and an enemy would {174} find it as
difficult to take Athens as it had been to take Miletus.
The Persians had been defeated in Greece, but the Ionian Greeks in
Asia Minor were still subject to the Great King. Now that the war
was over, these Greeks appealed to the states on the mainland to help
them. Athens took a special interest in these Ionian colonies as
they had been settled by men of close kinship to the Athenians. So
the
Hellenes deliberated about removing the inhabitants of Ionia, and
considered where they ought to settle them in those parts of
Hellas of which they had command, leaving Ionia to the
Barbarians: for it was evident to them that it was impossible on
the one hand for them to be always stationed as guards to protect
the Ionians, and, on the other hand, if they were not stationed
to protect them, they had no hope that the Ionians would escape
from the Persians. Therefore it seemed good to these of the
Peloponnesians who were in authority that they should remove the
inhabitants of the trading ports which belonged to those peoples
of Hellas who had taken the side of the Medes, and give that land
to the Ionians to dwell in; but the Athenians did not think it
good that the inhabitants of Ionia should be removed at all, nor
that the Peloponnesians should consult about Athenian colonies;
and as these vehemently resisted the proposal, the Peloponnesians
gave way.[3]
The Spartans not only gave way, but when an Athenian fleet set sail
for the Hellespont, the Spartans sent twenty ships with Pausanias,
the general who had commanded at Plataea, to join the {175}
expedition. The combined fleets took Sestos and then in the
following year Byzantium. Pausanias was left in command at
Byzantium, and soon after a strange change was observed in him. His
manner became overbearing and proud, and he gave up his Spartan
habits of simple living, and adopted Persian ways, even dressing as a
Persian. All this was so suspicious that he was recalled to Sparta,
but as nothing was proved against him, he returned to Byzantium.
Here he entered into correspondence with Xerxes and offered, in
return for gold and the Great King's daughter as his bride, to betray
Greece to the Persians. Though this was not known in Sparta till
later, his conduct became sufficiently suspicious for the Spartans to
recall him a second time, but at first they could find no definite
proofs of his treachery. At last one of his slaves gave evidence
against him. For some time Pausanias had been sending messengers to
Asia Minor, and this particular slave had noticed that none of these
messengers ever returned. When in time it became his turn to be
sent, instead of bearing the message to the East, he took it to one
of the Ephors, who opened it and found in it proofs of treachery and
betrayal of Greece to the Barbarian, with instructions to kill the
slave who brought the message. The news that his messenger had been
intercepted reached Pausanias, who immediately fled from his house
and took refuge in a chamber adjoining the shrine in one of the
temples. Here he was secure, but the Ephors, in order to prevent his
escape, gave orders that the doorway should be blocked up, and,
imprisoned in the little chamber, {176} Pausanias slowly starved to
death. He was only taken out when he was just at the point of death,
in order that the body of a traitor might not profane the temple.
Whilst these things had been taking place in Sparta, Themistocles had
been at the head of affairs in Athens. He had many enemies amongst
the Athenians, and they accused him of many wrong acts. These were
never definitely proved against him, and the records of the end of
his career are so scanty that it is difficult to know how much truth
there was in the accusations, but there were undoubtedly a number of
suspicious facts of which his enemies made use. Amongst other things
he was accused of taking bribes. He denied it, yet when he left
Athens, he possessed a strangely large fortune, the sources of which
were never explained. Themistocles had a very biting tongue, and
when his enemies attacked him, he would remind them, much oftener
than was necessary, of the great services he had performed for Greece
and for Athens in particular, and this arrogant boasting made him
hated by many people who might otherwise have been his friends. A
last serious accusation brought against him was that he was in
communication with the Persians and was about to play the traitor.
There was no proof of this, but Themistocles believed in the policy
of making peace with the Persians. There was no fear that they would
again attack the Greeks, and Themistocles saw that wealth and
prosperity would most surely come to Athens through her trade, and so
he advocated peaceful relations with {177} the great empire of the
East, in order that Athenian merchants might go safely in and out of
her trading ports, and so add to the wealth and importance of Athens.
But this was a very unpopular policy to hold in Athens, and feeling
grew more and more bitter against Themistocles, until at last he was
ostracized. He left Athens and wandered from place to place. No
city would give him a welcome, partly because he was feared, and
partly because Athens was now a powerful state, and no one wanted to
offend her by giving shelter to one of her exiles. Sometimes he was
forced to flee for his life, and once the only way in which he could
safely be sent out of a city was to hide him in a litter which was
placed in a closed carriage in the manner in which ladies usually
travelled, and so "he was carried on his journey, and those who met
or spoke with the driver upon the road were told that he was
conveying a young Greek woman out of Ionia to a nobleman at court."[4]
After this and similar adventures, homeless, a wanderer from city to
city, Themistocles the man who had saved Greece, who had laid the
foundations of the greatness of Athens, who had been the bitterest
and most relentless enemy of the Persians, this man came to Susa, and
prostrating himself before Artaxerxes, who had succeeded Xerxes as
King, he said to him:
"O King, I am Themistocles the Athenian, driven into banishment
by the Greeks. The evils that I have done {178} to the Persians
are numerous, but I come with a mind suited to my present
calamities; prepared alike for favours or for anger. If you save
me, you will save your suppliant; if otherwise, you will destroy
an enemy of the Greeks."[5]
The King rejoiced greatly over the arrival of Themistocles, and he
"was so well pleased, that in the night, in the middle of his sleep,
he cried out for joy three times, 'I have Themistocles the
Athenian.'"[6] The courtiers around the King were less pleased, and
they spoke of Themistocles as "a subtle Greek serpent."
At the end of a year Themistocles was able to speak the Persian
language quite easily and he became very intimate with the King, who
honoured him above all strangers who came to the court.
There are no records to tell us of all the many things that must have
passed through the heart and mind of Themistocles, exiled from Greece
and living with the Persian, but tradition has handed down to us the
hope that at the end his ancient love and loyalty to Athens
triumphed, for it is said that the Great King summoned him to help
the Persians in an expedition against Greece, but that Themistocles,
rather than sink to such a depth of shame, drank poison, and so put
an end to his own life. It was a tragic end to a great man, who had
done great deeds for his country. But his character was not strong
{179} enough to stand the strain of the continued accusations,
insults and injustices of his enemies, and in the hour of testing he
failed and turned his back upon his country. Though almost certainly
innocent of the worst of that of which he was accused while still in
Athens, his later actions place him, if not with those who became
actual traitors to their country, at least with those whose loyalty
and honour have been indelibly stained.
This flaw in the character of Themistocles was one that was very
common in Greece. The Greeks were not a grateful people. They, and
the Athenians in particular, were always afraid that too much power
in the hands of one man would lead them back to a Tyranny, and so
they frequently failed to recognize or reward in a way that was
fitting or lasting those who had done great deeds for them. The
Greek patriot loved his state passionately, yet it was a love that
not uncommonly turned to hate, if it was met by ingratitude, and the
saddest pages in Greek history are those on which are recorded the
names of Greek traitors.
Athens could never have become the great state she did, but for the
work of Themistocles, and in spite of all that he did in the closing
years of his life, one would like to believe that the story preserved
by Plutarch is true. He tells us that long years after the death of
Themistocles, there was a tomb near the haven of Peiraeus, where the
sea is always calm, which was reputed to be that of the great
Athenian statesman, and that it was said of it:
{180}
Thy tomb is fairly placed upon the strand,
Where merchants still shall greet it with the land;
Still in and out 'twill see them come and go,
And watch the galleys as they race below.[7]
Was it, perhaps, possible that the Athenians of a later generation,
recognizing what Themistocles had done for Athens, forgave him, and
brought his body home to rest near the great harbour which he himself
had made?
II. THE CONFEDERACY OF DELOS
The recall of Pausanias from Byzantium left the Spartans in Asia
Minor with no commander. Sparta had never been very much in earnest
about freeing the Ionians, and the Ionians, very naturally, felt more
confidence in a sea-power than in one whose strength lay chiefly in
her army, and so they turned to Athens for leadership.
Themistocles was in exile, and his old rival Aristeides was now the
most powerful leader in Athens. He believed that it was the duty of
the Athenians to do all in their power to free their kinsmen in the
Ionian cities from the Persian rule, and to this end, he and the
Ionian leaders formed a league, known as the Confederacy or League of
Delos. It took its name from the island of Delos where the meetings
were held, and where the treasury of the League was kept. Delos was
chosen because it could easily be reached by all the members of the
League, and also because it was a place specially honoured by Apollo,
{181} for legend said he had been born there, and before Delphi had
become so important, his chief sanctuary had been in his island
birthplace.
The object of the League was the freeing of all Hellenes in Asia
Minor and the islands of the Aegean from the Persians, and, having
secured their liberty to help them maintain their independence. For
this purpose money and ships were needed. "By the good will of the
allies, the Athenians obtained the leadership. They immediately
fixed which of the cities should supply money and which of them ships
for the war against the Barbarians,"[8] and as they were
desirous to be rated city by city in their due proportion, they
gave Aristeides command to survey the countries and to assess
everyone according to their ability and what they were worth; and
he laid the tax not only without corruption and injustice but to
the satisfaction and convenience of all. Aristeides, moreover,
made all the people of Greece swear to keep the league, and
himself took the oath in the name of the Athenians, flinging
wedges of red-hot iron into the sea, after curses against such as
should break their vow.[9]
The contributions were collected every spring by ten specially
appointed men, called Hellenic Stewards, who brought the money to
Delos where it was placed in the treasury of the League. The League
began its work at once, and one by one the Greek cities in Asia Minor
and the islands in the Aegean were set free, until at length not one
was left under the rule of Persia. As each city became independent,
{182} it joined the League, which grew in strength and importance as
its numbers increased. Athens was its acknowledged leader; not only
did she determine the amount each member should contribute, but the
Hellenic Stewards were all Athenians, and affairs of the League were
governed by Athenian law. Slowly the relationship of Athens to the
other members of the League changed. At first the states had
regarded themselves as allies of each other and of Athens, but as the
power of Athens grew, she began to look upon these Greek states less
as allies than as subjects who were bound to follow her lead and do
her bidding. At length this relationship was so well-recognized that
in some states Athens exacted this oath of allegiance from those who
enjoyed her protection as members of the Delian League:
I will not revolt from the people of the Athenians in any way or
shape, in word or deed, or be an accomplice in revolt. If any
one revolts I will inform the Athenians. I will pay the
Athenians the tribute, and I will be a faithful and true ally to
the utmost of my power. I will help and assist the Athenian
people if anyone injures them; and I will obey their commands.[10]
In name, Athens together with all the island states in the Aegean and
the Ionian cities in Asia Minor, were allies and independent. Their
envoys still met at Delos, supposedly to take counsel with each
other, but in fact they were subject to Athens and obeyed her
commands. The League had been formed in 477 B.C. and for
twenty-three years Delos was its {183} headquarters. Then it was
suggested that the treasury should be moved to Athens, and that the
meetings should in future be held there. No longer was Athens merely
the leading state amongst her allies. The removal of the treasury
from Delos to Athens made her in name as well as in fact not simply
the leading state of a Confederation, but the Athenian Empire.
III. THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE UNDER PERICLES
Athens was now an Empire and was recognized as such. The island
states in the Aegean as well as the Ionian cities on the mainland of
Asia Minor were bound to her by ties of allegiance. The heart of the
Empire was Athens, and settlers from many different places were
welcomed there, if they brought with them something that contributed
to the welfare of the city: the sculptor, the worker in gold, silver
or other metals, the potter, the dyer, the leather-worker, and the
merchant who brought costly wares from distant lands, all these and
many more were welcomed.
[Illustration: PERICLES. British Museum.]
Themistocles had been exiled, Aristeides was dead, and a statesman
named Pericles now took the leading part in Athenian affairs. His
boyhood had been spent during some of the most thrilling years of
Athenian history. As a child he had become a hero-worshipper of the
men who had fought at Marathon; he must have been amongst the older
children who were forced to flee from Athens on the approach of
Xerxes; and though not old enough to {184} fight, he was old enough
to understand how much hung upon the outcome of the battle of
Salamis, and he probably spent that great day in sound, if not also
in sight, of the conflict between the two hostile fleets. His father
was the commander of the fleet which in the following year defeated
the Persian on the same day on which was fought the battle of Plataea
and one can imagine the youth, returning to his beloved Athens,
glorying in the deeds of his father and his countrymen, and resolved
to take his part in making Athens a great and glorious city.
Pericles belonged to a noble family, and he had been educated by some
of the great philosophers of his day. Like Thales of Miletus, these
men believed that nature was governed by laws that had nothing to do
with the good-will or anger of the gods, and one of them, though
still believing in the existence of many gods, held the belief that
the world had been created by one Mind alone, and he taught Pericles
to share this belief. This helped to free the mind of Pericles from
superstition, and on several occasions he tried to free others from
the fears which superstition brings. He was once on board his ship
when an eclipse of the sun took place. The darkness filled everyone
with terror, and it was looked upon as a sign of the wrath of the
gods.
Pericles, therefore, perceiving the steersman seized with fear
and at a loss what to do, took his cloak and held it up before
the man's face, and, screening him with it so that he could not
see, asked him whether he imagined there was great hurt, or the
sign of any great hurt in this, {185} and he answering no,
"What," said he, "does that differ from this, only that which has
caused that darkness there, is something greater than a
cloak."[11]
Although by birth belonging to the nobles, Pericles took the side of
the people in Athens, partly, at first, because he did not want to do
anything that might make it even seem that he was aiming at the sole
power of a Tyrant. He soon became the acknowledged leader, and he
then
entered on quite a new course and management of his time. For he
was never seen to walk in any street but that which led to the
market-place and the council hall, and he avoided invitations of
friends to supper, and all friendly visiting and intercourse
whatever. He also presented himself at intervals only, not
coming at all times into the Assembly, but reserving himself for
great occasions.[12]
In many ways Pericles showed himself superior to the men around him,
and because of this superiority and for his great power in public
affairs he was given the surname of the Olympian. Like Zeus, he was
said to speak with
thundering and lightning, and to wield a dreadful thunderbolt in
his tongue. Pericles, however, was very careful what and how he
was to speak, insomuch that whenever he was to speak in the
Assembly, he prayed the gods that no one word might unawares slip
from him unsuitable to the matter and the occasion.[13]
{186}
Under the leadership of Pericles, Athens rose to be a great
state. The Age of Pericles was a short one, lasting only for
about fifty years in the last part of the fifth century B.C., but
it was a period which was great not only in material prosperity,
but also in every form of intellectual and artistic beauty. The
work of Pericles
which gave most pleasure and ornament to the city of Athens, and
the greatest admiration and even astonishment to all strangers,
and that which is now Greece's only evidence that the power she
boasted of and her ancient wealth are no romance or idle story,
was his construction of the public and sacred buildings.[14]
The story of these buildings will be told in its own place; for more
than two thousand years they have testified to the greatness of the
people who built them.
By the laws Pericles made it became possible for every free-born
Athenian citizen, no matter how poor he was, to take an active part
in the government of the State, thus completing the work of the
earlier lawgivers and making Athens a democracy, a state ruled by the
many.
It was the custom in Athens, that the bodies of Athenians who had
been slain in battle should be brought home, and buried in special
tombs which were situated in a very beautiful spot outside the walls.
Only after the battle of Marathon were the dead, in recognition of
their great valour against the Barbarian, buried on the field. All
others were {187} brought home and given a public funeral. There was
always buried with them an empty coffin, as a symbol of all those
whose bodies were missing and could not be recovered after the
battle. It was believed that this wish to do honour to the dead and
to give them fitting burial would ensure their happiness in the life
after death, which every Greek believed to be imperilled if there was
lack of proper burial. At the close of the funeral ceremonies, some
great orator was always asked to deliver a suitable oration. On one
such occasion, Pericles was the orator, and in the great Funeral
Speech he made, he set forth to the Athenians what he considered
Athens stood for in the world. There are no better words in which to
describe the greatness of Athens at this time and the ideals at which
she aimed, so listen to the words of Pericles, describing the city he
loved:
Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the
institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbours, but are
an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy,
for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the
few. But while the law secures equal justice to all alike in
their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also
recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is
preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege,
but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty a bar, but a man
may benefit his country whatever the obscurity of his
condition.... A spirit of reverence pervades our public acts; we
are prevented from doing wrong by respect for authority and for
the laws, having {188} an especial regard to those which are
ordained for the protection of the injured as well as to those
unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the
reprobation of the general sentiment.
And we have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many
relaxations from toil; we have regular games and sacrifices
throughout the year; at home the style of our life is refined;
and the delight which we daily feel in all these things helps to
banish melancholy. Because of the greatness of our city the
fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us; so that we may enjoy
the goods of other countries as freely as of our own.... We are
lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we
cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ,
not for talk and ostentation, but when there is a real use for
it. To avow poverty with us is no disgrace; the true disgrace is
in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not
neglect the state because he takes care of his own household; and
even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair
idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in
public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character;
and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of a
policy.... In doing good, again, we are unlike others; we make
our friends by conferring, not by receiving favours.... To sum
up, I say that Athens is the school of Hellas ... for in the hour
of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the
report of her.... We have compelled every land and every sea to
open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal
memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city
for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not
bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one
of us who survives should gladly toil on her {189} behalf....
Day by day fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens, until you
become filled with the love of her; and when you are impressed by
the spectacle of her glory, reflect that this empire has been
acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage to do
it....
And now, when you have duly lamented, everyone his own dead, you
may depart.[15]
[1] Plutarch: _Life of Themistocles_.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Herodotus, IX.
[4] Plutarch: _Life of Themistocles_.
[5] Plutarch: _Life of Themistocles_.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Plutarch: _Life of Themistocles_.
[8] Thucydides, I.
[9] Plutarch: _Life of Aristeides_.
[10] From W. Warde Fowler: _City-State of the Greeks and Romans_.
[11] Plutarch: _Life of Pericles_.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Plutarch: _Life of Pericles_.
[15] Thucydides, II.
{190}