FROM THE END OF THE PERSIAN WARS TO THE BEGINNING OF THE PELOPONNESIAN
WAR, B.C. 479-431.
The Athenians, on their return to Attica, after the defeat of the
Persians, found their city ruined and their country desolate. They
began to rebuild their city on a larger scale than before, and to
fortify it with a wall. Those allies to whom the increasing maritime
power of Athens was an object of suspicion, and especially the
AEginetans, to whom it was more particularly formidable, beheld her
rising fortifications with dismay. They endeavoured to inspire the
Lacedaemonians with their fears, and urged them to arrest the work.
But though Sparta shared the jealousy of the allies, she could not with
any decency interfere by force to prevent a friendly city from
exercising a right inherent in all independent states. She assumed
therefore the hypocritical garb of an adviser and counsellor.
Concealing her jealousy under the pretence of zeal for the common
interests of Greece, she represented to the Athenians that, in the
event of another Persian invasion, fortified towns would serve the
enemy for camps and strongholds, as Thebes had done in the last war;
and proposed that the Athenians should not only desist from completing
their own fortifications, but help to demolish those which already
existed in other towns.
The object of the proposal was too transparent to deceive so acute a
statesman as Themistocles. Athens was not yet, however, in a condition
to incur the danger of openly rejecting it; and he therefore advised
the Athenians to dismiss the Spartan envoys with the assurance that
they would send ambassadors to Sparta to explain their views. He then
caused himself to be appointed one of these ambassadors; and setting
off straightway for Sparta, directed his colleagues to linger behind as
long as possible. At Sparta, the absence of his colleagues, at which
he affected to be surprised, afforded him an excuse for not demanding
an audience of the ephors. During the interval thus gained, the whole
population of Athens, of both sexes and every age, worked day and night
at the walls, which, when the other ambassadors at length arrived at
Sparta, had attained a height sufficient to afford a tolerable defence.
Meanwhile the suspicions of the Spartans had been more than once
aroused by messages from the AEginetans respecting the progress of the
walls. Themistocles, however, positively denied their statements; and
urged the Spartans to send messengers of their own to Athens in order
to learn the true state of affairs, at the same time instructing the
Athenians to detain them as hostages for the safety of himself and
colleagues. When there was no longer any motive for concealment,
Themistocles openly avowed the progress of the works, and his intention
of securing the independence of Athens, and enabling her to act for
herself. The walls being now too far advanced to be easily taken, the
Spartans found themselves compelled to acquiesce, and the works were
completed without further hindrance.
Having thus secured the city from all danger of an immediate attack,
Themistocles pursued his favourite project of rendering Athens the
greatest maritime and commercial power of Greece. He erected a town
round the harbour of Piraeus, distant between four and five miles from
Athens, and enclosed it with a wall as large in extent as the city
itself, but of vastly greater height and thickness. Meanwhile an event
occurred which secured more firmly than ever the maritime supremacy of
Athens, by transferring to her the command of the allied fleet.
In the year after the battle of Plataea a fleet had been fitted out and
placed under the command of the Spartan regent, Pausanias, in order to
carry on the war against the Persians. After delivering most of the
Grecian towns in Cyprus from the Persians, this armament sailed up the
Bosporus and laid siege to Byzantium, which was garrisoned by a large
Persian force. The town surrendered after a protracted siege; but it
was during this expedition that the conduct of the Spartan commander
struck a fatal blow at the interests of his country.
The immense booty, as well as the renown, which Pausanias had acquired
at Plataea, had filled him with pride and ambition. After the capture
of Byzantium he despatched a letter to Xerxes, offering to marry the
king's daughter, and to bring Sparta and the rest of Greece under his
dominion. Xerxes was highly delighted with this letter, and sent a
reply in which he urged Pausanias to pursue his project night and day,
and promised to supply him with all the money and troops that might be
needful for its execution. But the childish vanity of Pausanias
betrayed his plot before it was ripe for execution. Elated by the
confidence of Xerxes, and by the money with which he was lavishly
supplied, he acted as if he had already married the Great King's
daughter. He assumed the Persian dress; he made a progress through
Thrace, attended by Persian and Egyptian guards; and copied, in the
luxury of his table and the dissoluteness of his manners, the example
of his adopted country. Above all, he offended the allies by his
haughty reserve and imperiousness. His designs were now too manifest to
escape attention. His proceedings reached the ears of the Spartans,
who sent out Dorcis to supersede him. Disgusted by the insolence of
Pausanias, the Ionians serving in the combined Grecian fleet addressed
themselves to Aristides, whose manners formed a striking contrast to
those of the Spartan leader, and begged him to assume the command.
This request was made precisely at the time when Pausanias was
recalled; and accordingly, when Dorcis arrived, he found Aristides in
command of the combined fleet (B.C. 478).
This event was not a mere empty question about a point of honour. It
was a real revolution, terminated by a solemn league, of which Athens
was to be the head. Aristides took the lead in the matter, for which
his proverbial justice and probity eminently qualified him. The league
obtained the name of "the Confederacy of Delos," from its being
arranged that deputies of the allies belonging to it should meet
periodically for deliberation in the temple of Apollo and Artemis
(Diana) in that island. Each state was assessed in a certain
contribution, either of money or ships, as proposed by the Athenians
and ratified by the synod. The assessment was intrusted to Aristides,
whose impartiality was universally applauded. Of the details, however,
we only know that the first assessment amounted to 460 talents (about
106,000L sterling), that certain officers called Hellenotamiae were
appointed by the Athenians to collect and administer the contributions,
and that Delos was the treasury.
Such was the origin of the Confederacy of Delos. Soon after its
formation Aristides was succeeded in the command of the combined fleet
by Cimon, the son of Miltiades.
Pausanias, on his return to Sparta, seems to have been acquitted of any
definite charges; but he continued his correspondence with Persia, and
an accident at length afforded convincing proofs of his guilt. A
favourite slave, to whom he had intrusted a letter to the Persian
satrap at Sardis, observed with dismay that none of the messengers
employed in this service had ever returned. Moved by these fears, he
broke the seal and read the letter, and finding his suspicions of the
fate that awaited him confirmed, he carried the document to the ephors.
But in ancient states the testimony of a slave was always regarded with
suspicion. The ephors refused to believe the evidence offered to them
unless confirmed by their own ears. For this purpose they directed him
to plant himself as a suppliant in a sacred grove near Cape Taenarus,
in a hut behind which two of their body might conceal themselves.
Pausanias, as they had expected, anxious at the step taken by his
slave, hastened to the spot to question him about it. The conversation
which ensued, and which was overheard by the ephors, rendered the guilt
of Pausanias no longer doubtful. They now determined to arrest him on
his return to Sparta. They met him in the street near the temple of
Athena Chalcioecus (of the Brazen House), when Pausanias, either
alarmed by his guilty conscience, or put on his guard by a secret
signal from one of the ephors, turned and fled to the temple, where he
took refuge in a small chamber belonging to the building. From this
sanctuary it was unlawful to drag him; but the ephors caused the doors
to be built up and the roof to be removed, and his own mother is said
to have placed the first stone at the doors. When at the point of
death from starvation, he was carried from the sanctuary before he
polluted it with his corpse. Such was the end of the victor of
Plataea. After his death proofs were discovered among his papers that
Themistocles was implicated in his guilt. But in order to follow the
fortunes of the Athenian statesman, it is necessary to take a glance at
the internal history of Athens.
The ancient rivalry between Themistocles and Aristides had been in a
good degree extinguished by the danger which threatened their common
country during the Persian wars. Aristides had since abandoned his
former prejudices, and was willing to conform to many of the
democratical innovations of his rival. The effect of this was to
produce, soon after their return to Attica, a still further
modification of the constitution of Clisthenes. The Thetes the lowest
of the four classes of Athenian citizens, were declared eligible for
the magistracy, from which they had been excluded by the laws of Solon.
Thus not only the archonship, but consequently the Council of
Areopagus, was thrown open to them; and, strange to say, this reform
was proposed by Aristides himself.
Nevertheless party spirit still ran high at Athens. Cimon and Alcmaeon
were violent opponents of Themistocles, and of their party Aristides
was still the head. The popularity of Aristides was never greater than
at the present time, owing not only to the more liberal spirit which he
exhibited, but also to his great services in establishing the
Confederacy of Delos. Themistocles had offended the Athenians by his
ostentation and vanity. He was continually boasting of his services to
the state; but worse than all this, his conduct was stained with
positive guilt. Whilst, at the head of an Athenian squadron, he was
sailing among the Greek islands for the ostensible purpose of executing
justice, there is little room to doubt that he corrupted its very
source by accepting large sums of money from the cities which he
visited. Party spirit at length reached such a height that it was
found necessary to resort to ostracism, and Themistocles was condemned
to a temporary banishment (B.C. 471). He retired to Argos, where he
was residing when the Spartans called upon the Athenians to prosecute
their great statesman before a synod of the allies assembled at Sparta,
on the ground of treasonable correspondence with Persia. Accordingly
joint envoys were sent from Athens and Sparta to arrest him (B.C. 466).
Themistocles avoided the impending danger by flying from Argos to
Corcyra. The Corcyraeans, however, not daring to shelter him, he passed
over to the continent; where, being still pursued, he was forced to
seek refuge at the court of Admetus, king of the Molossians, though the
latter was his personal enemy. Fortunately, Admetus happened to be
from home. The forlorn condition of Themistocles excited the
compassion of the wife of the Molossian king, who placed her child in
his arms, and bade him seat himself on the hearth as a suppliant. As
soon as the king arrived, Themistocles explained his peril, and adjured
him by the sacred laws of hospitality not to take vengeance upon a
fallen foe. Admetus accepted his appeal, and raised him from the
hearth; he refused to deliver him up to his pursuers, and at last only
dismissed him on his own expressed desire to proceed to Persia. After
many perils, Themistocles succeeded in reaching in safety the coast of
Asia. Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, was now upon the throne of
Persia, and to him Themistocles hastened to announce himself. The king
was delighted at his arrival, and treated him with the greatest
distinction. In a year's time, Themistocles, having acquired a
sufficient knowledge of the Persian language to be able to converse in
it, entertained Artaxerxes with magnificent schemes for the subjugation
of Greece. Artaxerxes loaded him with presents, gave him a Persian
wife, and appointed Magnesia, a town not far from the Ionian coast, as
his place of residence. After living there some time he was carried off
by disease at the age of sixty-five, without having realised, or
apparently attempted, any of those plans with which he had dazzled the
Persian monarch. Rumour ascribed his death to poison, which he took of
his own accord, from a consciousness of his inability to perform his
promises; but this report, which was current in the time of Thucydides,
is rejected by that historian.
Aristides died about four years after the banishment of Themistocles.
The common accounts of his poverty are probably exaggerated, and seem
to have been founded on the circumstances of a public funeral, and of
handsome donations made to his three children by the state. But
whatever his property may have been, it is at least certain that he did
not acquire or increase it by unlawful means; and not even calumny has
ventured to assail his well-earned title of THE JUST.
On the death of Aristides, Cimon became the undisputed leader of the
conservative party at Athens. Cimon was generous, affable,
magnificent; and, notwithstanding his political views, of exceedingly
popular manners. He had inherited the military genius of his father,
and was undoubtedly the greatest commander of his time. He employed
the vast wealth acquired in his expeditions in adorning Athens and
gratifying his fellow-citizens. It has been already mentioned that he
succeeded Aristides in the command of the allied fleet. His first
exploits were the capture of Eion on the Strymon, and the reduction of
the island of Scyros (B.C. 476). A few years afterwards we find the
first symptoms of discontent among the members of the Confederacy of
Delos. Naxos, one of the confederate islands, and the largest of the
Cyclades, revolted in B.C. 466, probably from a feeling of the growing
oppressiveness of the Athenian headship. It was immediately invested
by the confederate fleet, reduced, and made tributary to Athens. This
was another step towards dominion gained by the Athenians, whose
pretensions were assisted by the imprudence of the allies. Many of the
smaller states belonging to the confederacy, wearied with perpetual
hostilities, commuted for a money payment the ships which they were
bound to supply; and thus, by depriving themselves of a navy, lost the
only means by which they could assert their independence.
The same year was marked by a memorable action against the Persians.
Cimon at the head of 200 Athenian triremes, and 100 furnished by the
allies, proceeded to the coast of Asia Minor. The Persians had
assembled a large fleet and army at the mouth of the river Eurymedon in
Pamphylia. After speedily defeating the fleet, Cimon landed his men
and marched against the Persian army which was drawn up on the shore to
protect the fleet. The land-force fought with bravery, but was at
length put to the rout.
The island of Thasos was the next member of the confederacy against
which the Athenians directed their arms. After a siege of more than
two years that island surrendered, when its fortifications were razed,
and it was condemned to pay tribute (B.C. 463).
The expedition to Thasos was attended with a circumstance which first
gives token of the coming hostilities between Sparta and Athens. At an
early period of the blockade the Thasians secretly applied to the
Lacedaemonians to make a diversion in their favour by invading Attica:
and though the Lacedaemonians were still ostensibly allied with Athens,
they were base enough to comply with this request. Their treachery,
however, was prevented by a terrible calamity which befel themselves.
In the year B.C. 461 their capital was visited by an earthquake which
laid it in ruins and killed 20,000 of the citizens. But this was only
part of the calamity. The earthquake was immediately followed by a
revolt of the Helots, who were always ready to avail themselves of the
weakness of their tyrants. Being joined by the Messenians, they
fortified themselves in Mount Ithome in Messenia. Hence this revolt is
sometimes called the Third Messenian War (B.C. 464). after two or three
years spent in a vain attempt to dislodge them from this position, the
Lacedaemonians found themselves obliged to call in the assistance of
their allies, and, among the rest, of the Athenians. It was with great
difficulty that Cimon persuaded the Athenians to comply with this
request; but he was at length despatched to Laconia with a force of
4000 hoplites. The aid of the Athenians had been requested by the
Lacedaemonians on account of their acknowledged superiority in the art
of attacking fortified places. As, however, Cimon did not succeed in
dislodging the Helots from Ithome the Lacedaemonians, probably from a
consciousness of their own treachery in the affair of Thasos, suspected
that the Athenians were playing them false, and abruptly dismissed
them, saying that they had no longer any occasion for their services.
This rude dismissal gave great offence at Athens, and annihilated for a
time the political influence of Cimon. The democratical party had from
the first opposed the expedition; and it afforded them a great triumph
to be able to point to Cimon returning not only unsuccessful but
insulted. That party was now led by Pericles. A sort of hereditary
feud existed between Pericles and Cimon; for it was Xanthippus, the
father of Pericles, who had impeached Miltiades, the father of Cimon.
The character of Pericles was almost the reverse of Cimon's. Although
the leader of the popular party, his manners were reserved. He
appeared but little in society, and only in public upon great
occasions. His mind had received the highest polish which that period
was capable of giving. He constantly conversed with Anaxagoras,
Protagoras, Zeno, and other eminent philosophers. To oratory in
particular he had devoted much attention, as an indispensable
instrument for swaying the public assemblies of Athens.
Pericles seized the occasion presented by the ill success of Cimon,
both to ruin that leader and to strike a fatal blow at the
aristocratical party. He deprived the Areopagus of its chief
functions, and left it a mere shadow of its former influence and power.
He rendered the election to magistracies dependent simply upon lot, so
that every citizen however poor, had an equal chance of obtaining the
honours of the state. Other changes which accompanied this
revolution--for such it must be called--were the institution of paid
DICASTERIES or jury-courts, and the almost entire abrogation of the
judicial power of the Senate of Five Hundred. It cannot be supposed
that such fundamental changes were effected without violent party
strife. The poet AEschylus, in the tragedy of the EUMENIDIES, in vain
exerted all the powers of his genius in support of the aristocratical
party and of the tottering Areopagus; his exertions on this occasion
resulted only in his own flight from Athens. The same fate attended
Cimon himself; and he was condemned by ostracism (B.C. 461) to a ten
years' banishment. Nay, party violence even went the length of
assassination. Ephialtes, who had taken the lead in the attacks upon
the Areopagus, fell beneath the dagger of a Boeotian, hired by the
conservative party to dispatch him.
It was from this period (B.C. 461) that the long administration of
Pericles may be said to have commenced. The effects of his accession
to power soon became visible in the foreign relations of Athens.
Pericles had succeeded to the political principles of Themistocles, and
his aim was to render Athens the leading power of Greece. The
Confederacy of Delos had already secured her maritime ascendency;
Pericles directed his policy to the extension of her influence in
continental Greece. She formed an alliance with the Thessalians,
Argos, and Megara. The possession of Megara was of great importance,
as it enabled the Athenians to arrest the progress of an invading army
from Peloponnesus, AEgina, so long the maritime rival of Athens, was
subdued and made tributary. The Athenians marched with rapid steps to
the dominion of Greece. Shortly afterwards the battle of OEnophyta
(B.C. 456), in which the Athenians defeated the Boeotians, gave Athens
the command of Thebes, and of all the other Boeotian towns. From the
gulf of Corinth to the straits of Thermopylae Athenian influence was
now predominant. During these events the Athenians had continued to
prosecute the war against Persia. In the year B.C. 460 they sent a
powerful fleet to Egypt to assist Inarus, who had revolted against
Persia; but this expedition proved a complete failure, for at the end
of six years the revolt was put down by the Persians, and the Athenian
fleet destroyed (B.C. 455). At a later period (B.C. 449) Cimon, who
had been recalled from exile, sailed to Cyprus with a fleet of 200
ships. He undertook the siege of Citium in that island; but died during
the progress of it, either from disease or from the effects of a wound.
Shortly afterwards a pacification was concluded with Persia, which is
sometimes, but erroneously, called "the peace of Cimon." It is stated
that by this compact the Persian monarch agreed not to tax or molest
the Greek colonies on the coast of Asia Minor, nor to send any vessels
of war westward of Phaselis in Lycia, or within the Cyanean rocks at
the junction of the Euxine with the Thracian Bosporus; the Athenians on
their side undertaking to leave the Persians in undisturbed possession
of Cyprus and Egypt. During the progress of these events, the states
which formed the Confederacy of Delos, with the exception of Chios,
Lesbos, and Samos, had gradually become, instead of the active allies
of Athens, her disarmed and passive tributaries. Even the custody of
the fund had been transferred from Delos to Athens. The purpose for
which the confederacy had been originally organised disappeared with
the Persian peace; yet what may now be called Imperial Athens
continued, for her own ends, to exercise her prerogatives as head of
the league. Her alliances, as we have seen, had likewise been extended
in continental Greece, where they embraced Megara, Boeotia, Phocis,
Locris, together with Troezen and Achaia in Peloponnesus. Such was the
position of Athens in the year 448 B.C., the period of her greatest
power and prosperity. From this time her empire began to decline;
whilst Sparta, and other watchful and jealous enemies, stood ever ready
to strike a blow.
In the following year (B.C. 447) a revolution in Boeotia deprived
Athens of her ascendency in that country. With an overweening contempt
of their enemies, a small band of 1000 Athenian hoplites, chiefly
composed of youthful volunteers belonging to the best Athenian
families, together with a few auxiliaries, marched under the command of
Tolmides to put down the revolt, in direct opposition to the advice of
Pericles, who adjured them to wait and collect a more numerous force.
The enterprise proved disastrous in the extreme. Tolmides was defeated
and slain near Chaeronea, a large number of the hoplites also fell in
the engagement, while a still larger number were taken prisoners. This
last circumstance proved fatal to the interests of Athens in Boeotia.
In order to recover these prisoners, she agreed to evacuate Boeotia,
and to permit the re-establishment of the aristocracies which she had
formerly overthrown. But the Athenian reverses did not end here. The
expulsion of the partisans of Athens from the government of Phocis and
Locris, and the revolt of Euboea and Megara, were announced in quick
succession. The youthful Pleistoanax, king of Sparta, actually
penetrated, with an army of Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesian allies, as
far as the neighbourhood of Eleusis; and the capital itself, it is
said, was saved only by Pericles having bribed the Spartan monarch.
Pericles reconquered Euboea; but this was the only possession which the
Athenians succeeded in recovering. Their empire on land had vanished
more, speedily than it had been acquired; and they were therefore
induced to conclude, at the beginning of B.C. 445, a THIRTY YEARS'
TRUCE with Sparta and her allies, by which they consented to abandon
all the acquisitions which they had made in Peloponnesus, and to leave
Megara to be included among the Peloponnesian allies of Sparta.
From the Thirty Years' Truce to the commencement of the Peloponnesian
war, few political events of any importance occurred. During these
fourteen years (B.C. 445-431) Pericles continued to enjoy the sole
direction of affairs. His views were of the most lofty kind. Athens
was to become the capital of Greece, and the centre of art and
refinement. In her external appearance the city was to be rendered
worthy of the high position to which she aspired, by the beauty and
splendour of her public buildings, by her works of art in sculpture,
architecture, and painting, and by the pomp and magnificence of her
religious festivals. All these objects Athens was enabled to attain in
an incredibly short space of time, through the genius and energy of her
citizens and the vast resources at her command. No state has ever
exhibited so much intellectual activity and so great a progress in art
as was displayed by Athens in the period which elapsed between the
Thirty Years' Truce and the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war. She
was the seat and centre of Grecian literature. The three great tragic
poets of Greece were natives of Attica. AEschylus, the earliest of the
three, had recently died in Sicily; but Sophocles was now at the full
height of his reputation, and Euripides was rapidly rising into notice.
Aristophanes, the greatest of the Grecian comic poets, was also born in
Attica, and exhibited plays soon after the beginning of the
Peloponnesian war. Herodotus, the Father of History, though a native
of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, resided some time at Athens, and
accompanied a colony which the Athenians sent to Thurii in Italy.
Thucydides, the greatest of Greek historians, was an Athenian, and was
a young man at this period.
Colonization, for which the genius and inclination of the Athenians had
always been suited, was another method adopted by Pericles for
extending the influence and empire of Athens. The settlements made
under his auspices were of two kinds CLERUCHIES, and regular colonies.
The former mode was exclusively Athenian. It consisted in the allotment
of land in conquered or subject countries to certain bodies of
Athenians who continued to retain all their original rights of
citizenship. This circumstance, as well as the convenience of entering
upon land already in a state of cultivation instead of having to
reclaim it from the rude condition of nature, seems to have rendered
such a mode of settlement much preferred by the Athenians. The
earliest instance which we find of it is in the year B.C. 506, when
four thousand Athenians entered upon the domains of the Chalcidian
knights (see Ch.5). But it was under Pericles that this system was
most extensively adopted. During his administration 1000 Athenian
citizens were settled in the Thracian Chersonese, 500 in Naxos, and 250
in Andros. The islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, as well as a
large tract in the north of Euboea, were also completely occupied by
Athenian proprietors.
The most important colonies settled by Pericles were those of Thurii
and Amphipolis. Since the destruction of Sybaris by the Crotoniates,
in B.C. 509, the former inhabitants had lived dispersed in the
adjoining territory along the gulf of Tarentum, In B.C. 443 Pericles
sent out a colony to found Thurii, near the site of the ancient
Sybaris. The colony of Amphipolis was founded some years later (B.C.
437), under the conduct of Agnon.
But Pericles, notwithstanding his influence and power, had still many
bitter and active enemies, who assailed him through his private
connections, and even endeavoured to wound his honour by a charge of
peculation. Pericles, after divorcing a wife with whom he had lived
unhappily, took his mistress Aspasia to his house, and dwelt with her
till his death on terms of the greatest affection. She was
distinguished not only for her beauty, but also for her learning and
accomplishments. Her intimacy with Anaxagoras, the celebrated Ionic
philosopher, was made a handle for wounding Pericles in his tenderest
relations. Paganism, notwithstanding its licence, was capable of
producing bigots: and even at Athens the man who ventured to dispute
the existence of a hundred gods with morals and passions somewhat worse
than those of ordinary human nature, did so at the risk of his life.
Anaxagoras was indicted for impiety. Aspasia was included in the same
charge, and dragged before the courts of justice. Anaxagoras prudently
fled from Athens, and thus probably avoided a fate which in consequence
of a similar accusation afterwards overtook Socrates. Pericles himself
pleaded the cause of Aspasia. He was indeed indirectly implicated in
the indictment; but he felt no concern except for his beloved Aspasia,
and on this occasion the cold and somewhat haughty statesman, whom the
most violent storms of the assembly could not deprive of his
self-possession, was for once seen to weep. His appeal to the jury was
successful, but another trial still awaited him. An indictment was
preferred against his friend, the great sculptor Phidias, for
embezzlement of the gold intended to adorn the celebrated ivory statue
of Athena; and according to some, Pericles himself was included in the
charge of peculation. Whether Pericles was ever actually tried on this
accusation is uncertain; but at all events, if he was, there can be no
doubt that he was honourably acquitted. The gold employed in the
statue had been fixed in such a manner that it could be detached and
weighed, and Pericles challenged his accusers to the proof. But Phidias
did not escape so fortunately. There were other circumstances which
rendered him unpopular, and amongst them the fact that he had
introduced portraits both of himself and Pericles in the sculptures
which adorned the frieze of the Parthenon. Phidias died in prison
before the day of trial.
The Athenian empire, since the conclusion of the Thirty Years' Truce,
had again become exclusively maritime. Yet even among the subjects and
allies united with Athens by the Confederacy of Delos, her sway was
borne with growing discontent. One of the chief causes of this
dissatisfaction was the amount of the tribute exacted by the Athenians,
as well as their misapplication of the proceeds. In the time of
Aristides and Cimon, when an active war was carrying on against the
Persians, the sum annually collected amounted to 460 talents. In the
time of Pericles, although that war had been brought to a close, the
tribute had nevertheless increased to the annual sum of 600 talents.
Another grievance was the transference to Athens of all lawsuits, at
least of all public suits; for on this subject we are unable to draw
the line distinctly. In criminal cases, at all events, the allies seem
to have been deprived of the power to inflict capital punishment.
Besides all these causes of complaint, the allies had often to endure
the oppressions and exactions of Athenian officers, both military and
naval, as well us of the rich and powerful Athenian citizens settled
among them.
In B.C. 440 Samos, one of the free independent allies already
mentioned, revolted from Athens; but even this island was no match for
the Athenian power. Pericles, who sailed against the Samians in
person, defeated their fleet in several engagements, and forced the
city to capitulate. The Samians were compelled to raze their
fortifications, to surrender their fleet, to give hostages for their
future conduct, and to pay the expenses of the war.
The triumphs and the power of Athens were regarded with fear and
jealousy by her rivals; and the quarrel between Corinth and Corcyra
lighted the spark which was to produce the conflagration. On the coast
of Illyria near the site of the modern Durazzo, the Corcyraeans had
founded the city of Epidamnus. Corcyra (now Corfu) was itself a colony
of Corinth; and though long at enmity with its mother country, was
forced, according to the time-hallowed custom of the Greeks in such
matters, to select the founder of Epidamnus from the Corinthians.
Accordingly Corinth became the metropolis of Epidamnus as well as of
Corcyra. At the time of which we speak, the Epidamnians, being hard
pressed by the Illyrians, led by some oligarchical exiles of their own
city, applied to Corcyra for assistance, which the Corcyraeans, being
connected with the Epidamnian oligarchy, refused. The Epidamnians then
sought help from the Corinthians, who undertook to assist them. The
Corcyraeans, highly resenting this interference, attacked the
Corinthian fleet off Cape Actium, and gained a signal victory (B.C.
435).
Deeply humbled by this defeat, the Corinthians spent the two following
years in active preparations for retrieving it. The Corcyraeans, who
had not enrolled themselves either in the Lacedaemonian or Athenian
alliance, and therefore stood alone, were greatly alarmed at these
preparations. They now resolved to remedy this deficiency; and as
Corinth belonged to the Lacedaemonian alliance, the Corcyraeans had no
option, and were obliged to apply to Athens. The majority of the
Athenians were ready to comply with their request; but in order to
avoid an open infringement of the Thirty Years' Truce, it was resolved
to conclude only a defensive alliance with Corcyra: that is, to defend
the Corcyraeans in case their territories were actually invaded by the
Corinthians, but beyond that not to lend them any active assistance. A
small Athenian squadron of only 10 triremes was despatched to the
assistance of the Corcyraeans. Soon after their arrival a battle
ensued off the coast of Epirus, between the Corinthian and Corcyraean
fleets. After a hard-fought day, victory finally declared in favour of
the Corinthians. The Athenians now abandoned their neutrality, and did
all in their power to save the dying Corcyraeans from their pursuers.
This action took place early in the morning; and the Corinthians
prepared to renew the attack in the afternoon, when they saw in the
distance 20 Athenian vessels, which they believed to be the advanced
guard of a still larger fleet. They accordingly sailed away to the
coast of Epirus; but finding that the Athenians did not mean to
undertake offensive operations against them, they departed homewards
with their whole fleet. These events took place in the year B.C. 432.
The Corinthians were naturally incensed at the conduct of Athens; and
it is not surprising that they should have watched for an opportunity
of revenge. This was soon afforded them by the enmity of the
Macedonian prince Perdiccas towards the Athenians. He incited her
tributaries upon the coast of Macedonia to revolt, including Potidaea,
a town seated on the isthmus of Pallene. Potidaea, though now a
tributary of Athens, was originally a colony of the Corinthians, and
received from them certain annual magistrates. Being urged as well by
the Corinthians as by Perdiccas, the Potidaeans openly raised the
standard of revolt (B.C. 432). A powerful Athenian armament was
despatched to the coast of Macedonia and laid siege to Potidaea.
Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians, urged on all sides by the complaints of
their allies against Athens, summoned a general meeting of the
Peloponnesian confederacy at Sparta. The Corinthians took the most
prominent part in the debate; but other members of the confederacy had
also heavy grievances to allege against Athens. Foremost among these
were the Megarians, who complained that their commerce had been ruined
by a recent decree of the Athenians which excluded them from every port
within the Athenian jurisdiction. It was generally felt that the time
had now arrived for checking the power of Athens. Influenced by these
feelings, the Lacedaemonians decided upon war; and the congress passed
a resolution to the same effect, thus binding the whole Peloponnesian
confederacy to the same policy. This important resolution was adopted
towards the close of B.C. 432, or early in the following year. Before
any actual declaration of war, hostilities were begun in the spring of
B.C. 431 by a treacherous attack of the Thebans upon Plataea. Though
Boeotians by descent, the Plataeans did not belong to the Boeotian
league, but had long been in close alliance with the Athenians. Hence
they were regarded with hatred and jealousy by the Thebans, which
sentiments were also shared by a small oligarchical faction in Plataea
itself. The Plataean oligarchs secretly admitted a body of 300 Thebans
into the town at night; but the attempt proved a failure; the citizens
flew to arms, and in the morning all the Thebans were either slain or
taken prisoner.