Archelaus, a general of Mithridates, king of Pontus, entered Athens
by means of a sophist named Aristion, to whom he gave the principal
authority of the place. The Athenians claimed the assistance of the
Romans, and Sylla took the matter upon his own hands.
Upon Sylla’s arrival in Greece, all the cities opened their gates to
him, with the exception of Athens, which, subject to Aristion, was
obliged unwillingly to oppose him. When the Roman general entered
Attica, he divided his forces into two bodies, the one of which he
sent to besiege Aristion, in the city of Athens, and with the other he
marched in person to the port Piræus, which was a kind of second city,
where Archelaus had shut himself up, relying upon the strength of the
place, the walls being sixty feet high, and all of hewn stone. This
had been the work of Pericles, during the Peloponnesian war.
The height of the walls did not amaze Sylla. He employed all kinds of
engines in battering them, and made continual assaults. If he would
have waited a little, he might have taken the higher city without
striking a blow, for it was reduced to the last extremity by famine;
but being in haste to return to Rome, where he apprehended changes
might happen in his absence, he spared neither danger, attacks, nor
expense, to hasten the conclusion of this war. Without enumerating the
rest of the warlike stores and equipage, twenty thousand mules were
perpetually employed in working the machines alone. Wood falling short,
from the great consumption of it in the machines, which were constantly
being broken, in consequence of the vast weight they carried, or burnt
by the enemy, he did not spare the sacred groves. He cut down the
beautiful avenues of the Academy and the Lycæum, and caused the high
walls which joined the port to the city to be demolished, for the sake
of the ruins, which were useful to him in the works he was carrying
on. Having occasion for a great deal of money, both for the expenses
of the war, and as a stimulus to the soldiers, he had recourse to the
hitherto inviolable treasures of the temples, and caused the finest and
most precious gifts, consecrated at Epidamus and Olympia, to be brought
thence. He wrote to the Amphyctions, assembled at Delphi, “That they
would act wisely in sending him the treasures of the god, because they
would be more secure in his hands; and that if he should be obliged to
make use of them, he would return the value after the war.” At the same
time he sent one of his friends, named Caphis, a native of Phocis, to
Delphi, to receive all those treasures by weight. When Caphis arrived
at Delphi, he was afraid, through reverence for the god, to meddle
with the consecrated gifts, and bewailed with tears, in the presence
of the Amphyctions, the necessity imposed upon him. Upon which some
person there having said that he heard the sound of Apollo’s lyre from
the interior of the sanctuary, Caphis, whether he really believed it
or not, was willing to take advantage of the circumstance to impress
Sylla with a religious awe, and wrote him an account of it. Sylla,
deriding his simplicity, replied, “That he was surprised he should
not comprehend that singing was a sign of joy, and by no means of
anger and resentment; and, therefore, he had nothing to do but to take
the treasures boldly, and be assured that the god saw him do so with
pleasure, and gave them to him himself.” Plutarch, on this occasion,
notices the difference between the ancient Roman generals and those
of the times we now speak of. The former, whom merit alone had raised
to office, and who had no other views from their employments but the
public good, knew how to make the soldiers respect and obey them,
without descending to use low and unworthy methods for that purpose.
They commanded troops that were steady, disciplined, and well enured
to execute the orders of their generals, without reply or delay. Truly
kings, says Plutarch, in the grandeur and nobility of their sentiments,
but simple and modest private persons in their train and equipage, they
put the state to no other expense, in the discharge of their offices,
than was reasonable and necessary, conceiving it more shameful in
a captain to flatter his soldiers than to fear his enemies. Things
were much changed in the time we now speak of. The Roman generals,
abandoned to insatiable ambition and luxury, were obliged to make
themselves slaves to their soldiers, and to buy their services by gifts
proportioned to their avidity, and often by the toleration and impunity
of the greatest crimes.
Sylla was exceedingly anxious about this siege, and was, as we have
said, in great want of money. He was desirous of depriving Mithridates
of the only city he held in Greece, which might almost be considered
as a key to Asia, whither the Romans were eager to follow the king of
Pontus. If he returned to Rome without achieving this conquest, he
would find Marius and his faction more formidable than ever. He was
besides sensibly galled by the keen raillery which Aristion vented
every day against him and his wife Metella.
It is difficult to say whether the attack or defence was conducted with
the most vigour; for both sides behaved with incredible courage and
firmness. The sallies were frequent, and were, in character, almost
battles, in which the slaughter was great, and the loss generally
not unequal. The besieged were supported by several seasonable
reinforcements by sea.
What did them most damage was the secret treachery of two Athenian
slaves, who were in the Piræus. These slaves, whether out of affection
for the Roman interest, or desirous of providing for their own safety
in case the place were taken, wrote upon leaden balls all that was
going forward within, and threw them from slings to the Romans; so
that, how prudent soever were the measures adopted by Archelaus, none
of them succeeded. He resolved to make a general sally; the traitor
slung a leaden ball, inscribed, “To-morrow, at such an hour, the fort
will attack your works, and the horse your camp.” Sylla laid ambushes,
and repulsed the besieged with loss. A convoy of provisions, sadly
wanted, was to be thrown into the city by night; upon advice, conveyed
in the same way, the provisions were intercepted.
Notwithstanding all these disappointments, the Athenians defended
themselves bravely. They found means either to burn most of the
machines erected against their walls, or, by undermining them, to throw
them down, and break them to pieces. The Romans, on their side, behaved
with no less vigour. By means of mines, they made a way to the bottom
of the walls, under which they hollowed the ground; and having propped
the foundation with beams of wood, they afterwards set fire to the
props, with a great quantity of pitch, sulphur, and tar. When these
beams were burnt, part of the wall fell down with a horrible noise, and
a large breach was opened, through which the Romans advanced to the
assault. This battle was contested with great obstinacy, but at length
the Romans were obliged to retire.
The next day they renewed the attack. The besieged had built a fresh
wall during the night, in the form of a crescent, in the place of that
which had been destroyed, and the Romans found it impossible to force
it.
Sylla, discouraged by so obstinate a defence, resolved to make no more
assaults, but to take the place by famine. The city, on the other
hand, was at the last extremity. A bushel of barley had been sold for
a thousand drachmas (about £25 sterling). The inhabitants did not only
eat the grass and roots which they found about the citadel, but the
flesh of horses, and the leather of their shoes, which they boiled
soft. In the midst of the public misery, the tyrant passed his days and
nights in revelling. The senators and priests went to throw themselves
at his feet, imploring him to have pity on the city, and to obtain a
capitulation from Sylla; he had them dispersed with a shower of arrows,
and in that brutal manner drove them from his presence.
He did not demand a cessation of arms, or send a deputation to
Sylla, till reduced to the last extremity. As those deputies made no
proposals, and asked nothing of him to the purpose, but ran on in
praise of Theseus, Eumelpus, and the exploits of the Athenians against
the Medes, Sylla was annoyed by their discourse, and interrupted
them by saying:--“Gentlemen orators, you may go back, and keep your
rhetorical flourishes for yourselves; for my part, I was not sent to
Athens to be made acquainted with your ancient prowess, but to chastise
your modern revolt.”
During this audience, some spies having entered the city by chance,
overheard some old men talking in the Ceramicus, and blaming the tyrant
exceedingly for not guarding a part of the wall, which was the only
place where the enemy might easily take the city by escalade. At their
return to the camp, they related what they had heard to Sylla. The
parley had been to no purpose. Sylla did not neglect the intelligence
given him. The next night he went in person to take a view of the
place, and finding the wall actually accessible, he ordered ladders to
be raised against it, began the attack there, and having made himself
master of the walls, after a weak resistance, he entered the city. He
would not suffer it to be set on fire, but abandoned it to be plundered
by the soldiers, who in several houses found human flesh, which had
been dressed to be eaten. A dreadful slaughter ensued. The following
day all the slaves were sold by auction, and liberty was granted to the
citizens who had escaped the swords of the soldiers, but their numbers
were but few. Sylla at once besieged the citadel, where Aristion, and
those who had taken refuge there, were soon so much reduced by famine
that they were forced to surrender. The tyrant, his guards, and all
who had been in any office under him, were put to death. Some few days
after, Sylla made himself master of the Piræus, and burnt all its
fortifications, especially the arsenal, which had been built by Philo,
the celebrated architect, and was a wonderful fabric. Archelaus, by
means of his fleet, had retired to Munichia, another port of Attica.
To do this commander justice, he deserved to have conquered, for he had
failed in neither courage nor skilful exertions during the siege. With
his own hand he set fire to one of the Roman galleries, and destroyed
all the machines upon it. On another occasion, his soldiers being
repulsed, took to flight, and he in vain endeavoured to rally them. He
was soon left so completely alone, that he had to be drawn up the wall
by ropes. His bravery formed a strong contrast with the cowardice and
infamous debaucheries of Aristion.
Sylla restored the Athenians their liberty, but not that consideration
generally the companion of power. During several ages Athens was
still considered the common country of tasteful knowledge; people
went thither for the purpose of instructing themselves in the arts
of thinking and speaking correctly. By degrees her talents were
extinguished, and her renown was eclipsed. Succumbing by turn to all
the barbarians who invaded the Roman empire, she changed masters as
often as she saw enemies at her gates. The Turks destroyed what were
left of her splendid edifices. Twice the Venetians paid the honours of
a siege to Setine, built upon its ruins. After so much destruction and
so many sieges, the traveller can scarcely discover the ruins of Athens
upon the soil where formerly stood that celebrated city.