FROM THE BATTLES OF PLATÆA AND MYKALE DOWN TO THE DEATHS OF
THEMISTOKLES AND ARISTEIDES.
After having in the last chapter followed the repulse of the
Carthaginians by the Sicilian Greeks, we now return to the central
Greeks and the Persians,—a case in which the triumph was yet more
interesting to the cause of human improvement generally. The
disproportion between the immense host assembled by Xerxes, and the
little which he accomplished, naturally provokes both contempt for
Persian force and an admiration for the comparative handful of men
by whom they were so ignominiously beaten. Both these sentiments are
just, but both are often exaggerated beyond the point which attentive
contemplation of the facts will justify. The Persian mode of making
war (which we may liken to that of the modern Turks,[493] now that
the period of their energetic fanaticism has passed away) was in a
high degree disorderly and inefficient: the men indeed, individually
taken, especially the native Persians, were not deficient in the
qualities of soldiers, but their arms and their organization were
wretched,—and their leaders yet worse. On the other hand, the Greeks,
equal, if not superior, in individual bravery, were incomparably
superior in soldier-like order as well as in arms: but here too the
leadership was defective, and the disunion a constant source of
peril. Those who, like Plutarch (or rather the Pseudo-Plutarch) in
his treatise on the Malignity of Herodotus, insist on acknowledging
nothing but magnanimity and heroism in the proceedings of the Greeks
throughout these critical years, are forced to deal very harshly
with the inestimable witness on whom our knowledge of the facts
depends,—and who intimates plainly that, in spite of the devoted
courage displayed, not less by the vanquished at Thermopylæ than
by the victors at Salamis, Greece owed her salvation chiefly to
the imbecility, cowardice, and credulous rashness, of Xerxes.[494]
Had he indeed possessed either the personal energy of Cyrus or the
judgment of Artemisia, it may be doubted whether any excellence of
management, or any intimacy of union, could have preserved the Greeks
against so great a superiority of force; but it is certain that all
their courage as soldiers in line would have been unavailing for that
purpose, without a higher degree of generalship, and a more hearty
spirit of coöperation, than that which they actually manifested.
[493] Mr. Waddington’s Letters from Greece, describing the Greek
revolution of 1821, will convey a good idea of the stupidity of
Turkish warfare: compare also the second volume of the Memoirs of
Baron de Tott, part iii.
[494] Thucyd. i, 69. ἐπιστάμενοι καὶ τὸν βάρβαρον αὐτὸν περὶ αὑτῷ
τὰ πλείω σφαλέντα, etc.: compare Thucyd. vi, 33.
One hundred and fifty years after this eventful period, we shall
see the tables turned, and the united forces of Greece under
Alexander of Macedon becoming invaders of Persia. We shall find
that in Persia no improvement has taken place during this long
interval,—that the scheme of defence under Darius Codomannus labors
under the same defects as that of attack under Xerxes,—that there
is the same blind and exclusive confidence in pitched battles with
superior numbers,[495]—that the advice of Mentor the Rhodian, and of
Charidemus, is despised like that of Demaratus and Artemisia,—that
Darius Codomannus, essentially of the same stamp as Xerxes, is
hurried into the battle of Issus by the same ruinous temerity as
that which threw away the Persian fleet at Salamis,—and that the
Persian native infantry (not the cavalry) even appear to have lost
that individual gallantry which they displayed so conspicuously at
Platæa. But on the Grecian side, the improvement in every way is
very great: the orderly courage of the soldier has been sustained
and even augmented, while the generalship and power of military
combination has reached a point unexampled in the previous history
of mankind. Military science may be esteemed a sort of creation
during this interval, and will be found to go through various stages:
Demosthenês and Brasidas, the Cyreian army and Xenophon, Agesilaus,
Iphikratês, Epaminondas, Philip of Macedon, Alexander:[496] for the
Macedonian princes are borrowers of Greek tactics, though extending
and applying them with a personal energy peculiar to themselves,
and with advantages of position such as no Athenian or Spartan ever
enjoyed. In this comparison between the invasion of Xerxes and that
of Alexander we contrast the progressive spirit of Greece, serving as
herald and stimulus to the like spirit in Europe, with the stationary
mind of Asia, occasionally roused by some splendid individual, but
never appropriating to itself new social ideas or powers, either for
war or for peace.
[495] Thucyd. i, 142. πλήθει τὴν ἀμαθίαν θρασύνοντες, etc.
[496] See a remarkable passage in the third Philippic of
Demosthenês, c. 10, p. 123.
It is out of the invasion of Xerxes that those new powers of
combination, political as well as military, which lighten up Grecian
history during the next two centuries, take their rise. They are
brought into agency through the altered position and character of
the Athenians—improvers, to a certain extent, of military operations
on land, but the great creators of marine tactics and manœuvring in
Greece,—and the earliest of all Greeks who showed themselves capable
of organizing and directing the joint action of numerous allies and
dependents,—thus uniting the two distinctive qualities of the Homeric
Agamemnon,[497]—ability in command, with vigor in execution.
[497]
Ἀμφότερον, βασιλεύς τ’ ἀγαθὸς, κρατερός τ’ αἰχμήτης.
Homer, Iliad, iii, 179.
In the general Hellenic confederacy, which had acted against Persia
under the presidency of Sparta, Athens could hardly be said to occupy
any ostensible rank above that of an ordinary member: the post of
second dignity in the line at Platæa had indeed been adjudged to
her, but only after a contending claim from Tegea. But without any
difference in ostensible rank, she was in the eye and feeling of
Greece no longer the same power as before. She had suffered more,
and at sea had certainly done more, than all the other allies put
together: even on land at Platæa, her hoplites had manifested a
combination of bravery, discipline, and efficiency against the
formidable Persian cavalry superior even to the Spartans: nor had
any Athenian officer committed so perilous an act of disobedience
as the Spartan Amompharetus. After the victory of Mykalê, when the
Peloponnesians all hastened home to enjoy their triumph, the Athenian
forces did not shrink from prolonged service for the important object
of clearing the Hellespont, thus standing forth as the willing and
forward champions of the Asiatic Greeks against Persia. Besides
these exploits of Athens collectively, the only two individuals
gifted with any talents for command, whom this momentous conquest had
thrown up, were both of them Athenians: first, Themistoklês; next,
Aristeidês. From the beginning to the end of the struggle, Athens
had displayed an unreserved Pan-Hellenic patriotism, which had been
most ungenerously requited by the Peloponnesians; who had kept within
their isthmian walls, and betrayed Attica twice to hostile ravage;
the first time, perhaps, unavoidably,—but the second time a culpable
neglect, in postponing their outward march against Mardonius. And the
Peloponnesians could not but feel, that while they had left Attica
unprotected, they owed their own salvation at Salamis altogether to
the dexterity of Themistoklês and the imposing Athenian naval force.
Considering that the Peloponnesians had sustained little or no
mischief by the invasion, while the Athenians had lost for the
time even their city and country, with a large proportion of their
movable property irrecoverably destroyed,—we might naturally expect
to find the former, if not lending their grateful and active aid
to repair the damage in Attica, at least cordially welcoming the
restoration of the ruined city by its former inhabitants. Instead
of this, we find the same selfishness again prevalent among them;
ill-will and mistrust for the future, aggravated by an admiration
which they could not help feeling, overlays all their gratitude and
sympathy. The Athenians, on returning from Salamis after the battle
of Platæa, found a desolate home to harbor them. Their country was
laid waste,—their city burnt or destroyed; so that there remained
but a few houses standing, wherein the Persian officers had taken
up their quarters,—and their fortifications for the most part razed
or overthrown. It was their first task to bring home their families
and effects from the temporary places of shelter at Trœzen, Ægina,
and Salamis. After providing what was indispensably necessary
for immediate wants, they began to rebuild their city and its
fortifications on a scale of enlarged size in every direction.[498]
But as soon as they were seen to be employed on this indispensable
work, without which neither political existence nor personal safety
was practicable, the allies took the alarm, preferred complaints
to Sparta, and urged her to arrest the work: in the front of these
complainants, probably, stood the Æginetans, as the old enemies of
Athens, and as having most to apprehend from her might at sea. The
Spartans, perfectly sympathizing with the jealousy and uneasiness
of their allies, were even disposed, from old association, to carry
their dislike of fortifications still farther, so that they would
have been pleased to see all the other Grecian cities systematically
defenceless like Sparta itself.[499] But while sending an embassy
to Athens, to offer a friendly remonstrance against the project of
re-fortifying the city, they could not openly and peremptorily forbid
the exercise of a right common to every autonomous community,—nor
did they even venture, at a moment when the events of the past
months were fresh in every one’s remembrance, to divulge their real
jealousies as to the future. They affected to offer prudential
reasons against the scheme, founded on the chance of a future
Persian invasion; in which case it would be a dangerous advantage
for the invader to find any fortified city outside of Peloponnesus
to further his operations, as Thebes had recently seconded
Mardonius. They proposed to the Athenians, therefore, not merely to
desist from their own fortifications, but also to assist them in
demolishing all fortifications of other cities beyond the limits of
Peloponnesus,—promising shelter within the isthmus, in case of need,
to all exposed parties.
[498] Thucyd. i. 89.
[499] Thucyd. i, 90. τὰ μὲν καὶ αὐτοὶ ἥδιον ἂν ὁρῶντες μήτε
ἐκείνους μητ’ ἄλλον μηδένα τεῖχος ἔχοντα, τὸ δὲ πλέον, τῶν
ξυμμάχων ἐξοτρυνόντων καὶ φοβουμένων τοῦ τε ναυτικοῦ αὐτῶν τὸ
πλῆθος, ὃ πρὶν οὐχ ὑπῆρχε, καὶ τὴν ἐς τὸν Μηδικὸν πόλεμον τόλμαν
γενομένην.
A statesman like Themistoklês was not likely to be imposed upon
by this diplomacy: but he saw that the Spartans had the power of
preventing the work if they chose, and that it could only be executed
by the help of successful deceit. By his advice, the Athenians
dismissed the Spartan envoys, saying that they would themselves
send to Sparta and explain their views. Accordingly, Themistoklês
himself was presently despatched thither, as one among three envoys
instructed to enter into explanations with the Spartan authorities;
but his two colleagues, Aristeidês and Abronichus, by previous
concert, were tardy in arriving,—and he remained inactive at Sparta,
making use of their absence as an excuse for not even demanding
an audience, but affecting surprise that their coming was so long
delayed. But while Aristeidês and Abronichus, the other two envoys,
were thus studiously kept back, the whole population of Athens
labored unremittingly at the walls. Men, women, and children, all
tasked their strength to the utmost during this precious interval:
neither private houses, nor sacred edifices, were spared to furnish
materials; and such was their ardor in the enterprise, that, before
the three envoys were united at Sparta, the wall had already
attained a height sufficient at least to attempt defence. Yet the
interval had been long enough to provoke suspicion, even in the
slow mind of the Spartans, while the more watchful Æginetans sent
them positive intelligence that the wall was rapidly advancing.
Themistoklês, on hearing this allegation, peremptorily denied the
truth of it; and the personal esteem entertained towards him was at
that time so great, that his assurance[500] obtained for some time
unqualified credit, until fresh messengers again raised suspicions
in the minds of the Spartans. In reply to these, Themistoklês urged
the ephors to send envoys of their own to Athens, and thus convince
themselves of the state of the facts. They unsuspectingly acted
upon his recommendation, while he at the same time transmitted a
private communication to Athens, desiring that the envoys might
not be suffered to depart until the safe return of himself and
his colleagues, which he feared might be denied them when his
trick came to be divulged. Aristeidês and Abronichus had now
arrived,—the wall was announced to be of a height at least above
contempt,—and Themistoklês at once threw off the mask: he avowed
the stratagem practised,—told the Spartans that Athens was already
fortified sufficiently to insure the safety and free will of its
inhabitants,—and warned them that the hour of constraint was now
past, the Athenians being in a condition to define and vindicate for
themselves their own rights and duties in reference to Sparta and the
allies. He reminded them that the Athenians had always been found
competent to judge for themselves, whether in joint consultation, or
in any separate affair, such as the momentous crisis of abandoning
their city and taking to their ships: they had now, in the exercise
of this self-judgment, resolved upon fortifying their city, as
a step indispensable to themselves and advantageous even to the
allies generally. Nor could there be any equal or fair interchange
of opinion unless all the allies had equal means of defence: either
all must be unfortified, or Athens must be fortified as well as the
rest.[501]
[500] Thucyd. i. 91, τῷ μὲν Θεμιστοκλεῖ ἐπείθοντο διὰ φιλίαν
αὐτοῦ.
[501] Thucyd. i. 91, Οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε εἶναι μὴ ἀπὸ ἀντιπάλου
παρασκευῆς ὁμοῖόν τι ἢ ἴσον ἐς τὸ κοινὸν βουλεύεσθαι. Ἢ πάντας
οὖν ἀτειχίστους ἔφη χρῆναι ξυμμαχεῖν ἢ καὶ τάδε νομίζειν ὀρθῶς
ἔχειν.
Mortified as the Spartans were by a revelation which showed that they
had been not only detected in a dishonest purpose, but completely
outwitted,—they were at the same time overawed by the decisive tone
of Themistoklês, whom they never afterwards forgave. To arrest
beforehand erection of the walls would have been practicable,
though not perhaps without difficulty; to deal by force with
the fact accomplished, was perilous in a high degree: moreover,
the inestimable services just rendered by Athens became again
predominant in their minds, so that sentiment and prudence for the
time coincided. They affected therefore to accept the communication
without manifesting any offence, nor had they indeed put forward any
pretence which required to be formally retracted. The envoys on both
sides returned home, and the Athenians completed their fortifications
without obstruction,[502]—yet not without murmurs on the part of the
allies, who bitterly reproached Sparta afterwards for having let slip
this golden opportunity of arresting the growth of the giant.[503]
[502] We are fortunate enough to possess this narrative,
respecting the rebuilding of the walls of Athens, as recounted by
Thucydidês. It is the first incident which he relates, in that
general sketch of events between the Persian and Peloponnesian
war, which precedes his professed history (i, 89-92). Diodorus
(xi, 39, 40), Plutarch (Themistoklês, c. 19), and Cornelius Nepos
(Themist. c. 6, 7), seem all to have followed Thucydidês, though
Plutarch also notices a statement of Theopompus, to the effect
that Themistoklês accomplished his object by bribing the ephors.
This would not be improbable in itself,—nor is it inconsistent
with the narrative of Thucydidês; but the latter either had not
heard or did not believe it.
[503] Thucyd. i, 69. Καὶ τῶνδε ὑμεῖς αἴτιοι (says the Corinthian
envoy addressing the Lacedæmonians), τό τε πρῶτον ἐάσαντες αὐτοὺς
(the Athenians) τὴν πόλιν μετὰ τὰ Μηδικὰ κρατῦναι, καὶ ὕστερον τὰ
μακρὰ στῆσαι τείχη, etc.
If the allies were apprehensive of Athens before, the mixture of
audacity, invention, and deceit, whereby she had just eluded the
hindrance opposed to her fortifications, was well calculated to
aggravate their uneasiness. On the other hand, to the Athenians,
the mere hint of intervention to debar them from that common right
of self-defence which was exercised by every autonomous city except
Sparta, must have appeared outrageous injustice,—aggravated by the
fact that it was brought upon them by their peculiar sufferings in
the common cause, and by the very allies who, without their devoted
forwardness, would now have been slaves of the Great King. And the
intention of the allies to obstruct the fortifications must have
been known to every soul in Athens, from the universal press of
hands required to hurry the work and escape interference; just as it
was proclaimed to after-generations by the shapeless fragments and
irregular structure of the wall, in which even sepulchral stones and
inscribed columns were seen imbedded.[504] Assuredly, the sentiment
connected with this work, performed as it was alike by rich and
poor, strong and weak,—men, women, and children,—must have been
intense as well as equalizing: all had endured the common miseries
of exile, all had contributed to the victory, all were now sharing
the same fatigue for the defence of their recovered city, in order to
counterwork the ungenerous hindrance of their Peloponnesian allies.
We must take notice of these stirring circumstances, peculiar to the
Athenians and acting upon a generation which had now been nursed in
democracy for a quarter of a century, and had achieved unaided the
victory of Marathon,—if we would understand that still stronger burst
of aggressive activity, persevering self-confidence, and aptitude as
well as thirst for command,—together with that still wider spread of
democratical organization,—which marks their character during the age
immediately following.
[504] Thucyd. i, 93. Cornelius Nepos (Themist. c. 7) exaggerates
this into a foolish conceit.
The plan of the new fortification was projected on a scale not
unworthy of the future grandeur of the city. Its circuit was sixty
stadia, or about seven miles, with the acropolis nearly in the
centre: but the circuit of the previous walls is unknown, so that we
are unable to measure the extent of that enlargement which Thucydidês
testifies to have been carried out on every side. It included within
the town the three hills of the Areopagus, the Pnyx, and the Museum;
while on the south of the town it was carried for a space even on
the southern bank of the Ilissus, thus also comprising the fountain
Kallirhoê.[505] In spite of the excessive hurry in which it was
raised, the structure was thoroughly solid and sufficient against
every external enemy: but there is reason to believe that its very
large inner area was never filled with buildings. Empty spaces, for
the temporary shelter of inhabitants driven in from the country with
their property, were eminently useful to a Grecian city-community;
to none more useful than to the Athenians, whose principal strength
lay in their fleet, and whose citizens habitually resided in large
proportion in their separate demes throughout Attica.
[505] For the dimensions and direction of the Themistoklean
walls of Athens, see especially the excellent Treatise of
Forchhammer—Topographie von Athen—published in the Kieler
Philologische Studien. Kiel, 1841.
The plan of Athens, prepared by Kiepert after his own researches
and published among his recent maps, adopts for the most part the
ideas of Forchhammer, as to the course of the walls.
The first indispensable step, in the renovation of Athens after her
temporary extinction, was now happily accomplished: the city was
made secure against external enemies. But Themistoklês, to whom the
Athenians owed the late successful stratagem, and whose influence
must have been much strengthened by its success, had conceived plans
of a wider and more ambitious range. He had been the original adviser
of the great maritime start taken by his countrymen, as well as of
the powerful naval force which they had created during the last few
years, and which had so recently proved their salvation. He saw in
that force both the only chance of salvation for the future, in
case the Persians should renew their attack by sea,—a contingency
at that time seemingly probable,—and boundless prospects of future
ascendency over the Grecian coasts and islands: it was the great
engine of defence, of offence, and of ambition. To continue this
movement required much less foresight and genius than to begin it,
and Themistoklês, the moment that the walls of the city had been
finished, brought back the attention of his countrymen to those
wooden walls which had served them as a refuge against the Persian
monarch. He prevailed upon them to provide harbor-room at once safe
and adequate, by the enlargement end fortification of the Peiræus.
This again was only the prosecution of an enterprise previously
begun: for he had already, while in office two or three years
before,[506] made his countrymen sensible that the open roadstead
of Phalêrum was thoroughly insecure, and had prevailed upon them
to improve and employ in part the more spacious harbors of Peiræus
and Munychia,—three natural basins, all capable of being closed and
defended. Something had then been done towards the enlargement of
this port, though it had probably been subsequently ruined by the
Persian invaders: but Themistoklês now resumed the scheme on a scale
far grander than he could then have ventured to propose,—a scale
which demonstrates the vast auguries present to his mind respecting
the destinies of Athens. Peiræus and Munychia, in his new plan,
constituted a fortified space as large as the enlarged Athens, and
with a wall far more elaborate and unassailable. The wall which
surrounded them, sixty stadia in circuit,[507] was intended by him to
be so stupendous, both in height and thickness, as to render assault
hopeless, and to enable the whole military population to act on
shipboard, leaving only old men and boys as a garrison.[508] We may
judge how vast his project was, when we learn that the wall, though
in practice always found sufficient, was only carried up to half
the height which he had contemplated.[509] In respect to thickness,
however, his ideas were exactly followed: two carts meeting one
another brought stones which were laid together right and left on
the outer side of each, and thus formed two primary parallel walls,
between which the interior space—of course, at least as broad as the
joint breadth of the two carts—was filled up, “not with rubble, in
the usual manner of the Greeks, but constructed, throughout the whole
thickness, of squared stones, cramped together with metal.”[510] The
result was a solid wall, probably not less than fourteen or fifteen
feet thick, since it was intended to carry so very unusual a height.
In the exhortations whereby he animated the people to this fatiguing
and costly work, he labored to impress upon them that Peiræus was
of more value to them than Athens itself, and that it afforded a
shelter into which, if their territory should be again overwhelmed
by a superior land-force, they might securely retire, with full
liberty of that maritime action in which they were a match for all
the world.[511] We may even suspect that if Themistoklês could have
followed his own feelings, he would have altered the site of the city
from Athens to Peiræus: the attachment of the people to their ancient
and holy rock doubtless prevented any such proposition. Nor did he at
that time, probably, contemplate the possibility of those long walls
which in a few years afterwards consolidated the two cities into one.
[506] Thucyd. i. 93. ἔπεισε δὲ καὶ τοῦ Πειραιέως τὰ λοιπὰ ὁ
Θεμιστοκλῆς οἰκοδομεῖν (ὑπῆρκτο δ’ αὐτοῦ πρότερον ἐπὶ τῆς ἐκείνου
ἀρχῆς, ἧς κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν Ἀθηναίοις ἦρξε).
Upon which words the Scholiast observes (Κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν)—κατά τινα
ἐνιαυτὸν ~ἡγεμὼν~ ἐγένετο· πρὸ δὲ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἦρξε Θεμιστοκλῆς
ἐνιαυτὸν ἕνα.
It seems hardly possible, having no fuller evidence to proceed
upon, to determine to which of the preceding years Thucydidês
means to refer this ἀρχὴ of Themistoklês. Mr. Fynes Clinton,
after discussing the opinions of Dodwell and Corsini (see Fasti
Hellenici, ad ann. 481 B. C. and Preface, p. xv), inserts
Themistoklês as archon eponymus in 481 B. C., the year before
the invasion of Xerxes, and supposes the Peiræus to have been
commenced in that year. This is not in itself improbable: but
he cites the Scholiast as having asserted the same thing before
him (πρὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἦρξε Θεμιστοκλῆς ~ἐνιαυτὸν ἕνα~), in which
I apprehend that he is not borne out by the analogy of the
language: ἐνιαυτὸν ἕνα, in the accusative case, denotes only
the duration of the ἀρχὴ, not the position of the year (compare
Thucyd. iii, 68).
I do not feel certain that Thucydidês meant to designate
Themistoklês as having been archon eponymus, or as having been
one of the nine archons. He may have meant, “during the year when
Themistoklês was stratêgus (or general),” and the explanation of
the Scholiast, who employs the word ἡγεμὼν, rather implies that
he so understood it. The stratêgi were annual as well as the
archons. Now we know that Themistoklês was one of the generals in
480 B. C., and that he commanded in Thessaly, at Artemisium, and
at Salamis. The Peiræus may have been begun in the early part of
480 B. C., when Xerxes was already on his march, or at least at
Sardis.
[507] Thucyd. ii, 13.
[508] Thucyd. i, 93.
[509] Thucyd. i, 93. Τὸ δὲ ὕψος ἥμισυ μάλιστα ἐτελέσθη οὗ
διενοεῖτο· ἐβούλετο γὰρ τῷ μεγέθει καὶ τῷ πάχει ἀφιστάναι τὰς
τῶν πολεμίων ἐπιβουλάς, ἀνθρώπων δὲ ἐνόμιζεν ὀλίγων καὶ τῶν
ἀχρειοτάτων ἀρκέσειν τὴν φυλακὴν, τοὺς δ’ ἄλλους ἐς τὰς ναῦς
ἐσβήσεσθαι.
[510] Thucyd. i, 93. The expressions are those of Colonel Leake,
derived from inspection of the scanty remnant of these famous
walls still to be seen—Topography of Athens, ch. ix, p. 411: see
edit. p. 293, Germ. transl. Compare Aristophan. Aves, 1127, about
the breadth of the wall of Nephelokokkygia.
[511] Thucyd. i, 93 (compare Cornel. Nepos, Themistok. c. 6) ταῖς
ναυσὶ πρὸς ἅπαντας ἀνθίστασθαι.
Forty-five years afterwards, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian
war, we shall hear from Periklês, who espoused and carried out the
large ideas of Themistoklês, this same language about the capacity
of Athens to sustain a great power exclusively or chiefly upon
maritime action. But the Athenian empire was then an established
reality, whereas in the time of Themistoklês it was yet a dream,
and his bold predictions, surpassed as they were by the future
reality, mark that extraordinary power of practical divination which
Thucydidês so emphatically extols in him. And it proves the exuberant
hope which had now passed into the temper of the Athenian people,
when we find them, on the faith of these predictions, undertaking
a new enterprise of so much toil and expense; and that too when
just returned from exile into a desolated country, at a moment of
private distress and public impoverishment. However, Peiræus served
other purposes besides its direct use as a dockyard for military
marine: its secure fortifications and the protection of the Athenian
navy, were well calculated to call back those metics, or resident
foreigners, who had been driven away by the invasion of Xerxes, and
who might feel themselves insecure in returning, unless some new and
conspicuous means of protection were exhibited. To invite them back,
and to attract new residents of a similar description, Themistoklês
proposed to exempt them from the metoikion, or non-freeman’s annual
tax:[512] but this exemption can only have lasted for a time, and the
great temptation for them to return must have consisted in the new
securities and facilities for trade, which Athens, with her fortified
ports and navy, now afforded. The presence of numerous metics was
profitable to the Athenians, both privately and publicly: much of
the trading, professional, and handicraft business was in their
hands: and the Athenian legislation, while it excluded them from the
political franchise, was in other respects equitable and protective
to them. In regard to trading pursuits, the metics had this advantage
over the citizens,—that they were less frequently carried away for
foreign military service. The great increase of their numbers, from
this period forward, while it tended materially to increase the
value of property all throughout Attica, but especially in Peiræus
and Athens, where they mostly resided, helps us to explain the
extraordinary prosperity, together with the excellent cultivation,
prevalent throughout the country before the Peloponnesian war.
The barley, vegetables, figs, and oil, produced in most parts of
the territory,—the charcoal prepared in the flourishing deme of
Acharnæ,[513]—and the fish obtained in abundance near the coast,—all
found opulent buyers and a constant demand from the augmenting town
population.
[512] Diodor. xi, 43.
[513] See the lively picture of the Acharnian demots in the
comedy of Aristophanês so entitled.
Respecting the advantages derived from the residence of metics
and from foreign visitors, compare the observations of Isokratês,
more than a century after this period, Orat. iv, De Pace, p. 163,
and Xenophon, De Vectigalibus, c. iv.
We are farther told that Themistoklês[514] prevailed on the Athenians
to build every year twenty new ships of the line,—so we may designate
the trireme. Whether this number was always strictly adhered to, it
is impossible to say: but to repair the ships, as well as to keep
up their numbers, was always regarded among the most indispensable
obligations of the executive government.
[514] Diodor. xi, 43.
It does not appear that the Spartans offered any opposition to the
fortification of the Peiræus, though it was an enterprise greater,
more novel, and more menacing, than that of Athens. But Diodorus
tells us, probably enough, that Themistoklês thought it necessary to
send an embassy to Sparta,[515] intimating that his scheme was to
provide a safe harbor for the collective navy of Greece, in the event
of future Persian attack.
[515] Diodor. xi, 41, 42, 43. I mean, that the fact of such an
embassy being sent to Sparta is probable enough,—separating that
fact from the preliminary discussions which Diodorus describes
as having preceded it in the assembly of Athens, and which seem
unmeaning as well as incredible. His story—that Themistoklês
told the assembly that he had a conceived scheme of great
moment to the state, but that it did not admit of being made
public beforehand, upon which the assembly named Aristeidês
and Xanthippus to hear it confidentially and judge of it—seems
to indicate that Diodorus had read the well-known tale of the
project of Themistoklês to burn the Grecian fleet in the harbor
of Pagasæ, and that he jumbled it in his memory with this other
project for enlarging and fortifying the Peiræus.
Works on so vast a scale must have taken a considerable time, and
absorbed much of the Athenian force; yet they did not prevent
Athens from lending active aid towards the expedition which, in
the year after the battle of Platæa (B. C. 478) set sail for Asia
under the Spartan Pausanias. Twenty ships from the various cities
of Peloponnesus[516] were under his command: the Athenians alone
furnished thirty, under the orders of Aristeidês and Kimon: other
triremes also came from the Ionian and insular allies. They first
sailed to Cyprus, in which island they liberated most of the Grecian
cities from the Persian government: next, they turned to the
Bosphorus of Thrace, and undertook the siege of Byzantium, which,
like Sestus in the Chersonese, was a post of great moment, as well
as of great strength,—occupied by a considerable Persian force,
with several leading Persians and even kinsmen of the monarch. The
place was captured,[517] seemingly after a prolonged siege: it might
probably hold out even longer than Sestus, as being taken less
unprepared. The line of communication between the Euxine sea and
Greece was thus cleared of obstruction.
[516] Thucyd. i, 94; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 23. Diodorus (xi,
44) says that the Peloponnesian ships were fifty in number: his
statement is not to be accepted, in opposition to Thucydidês.
[517] Thucyd. i, 94.
The capture of Byzantium proved the signal for a capital and
unexpected change in the relations of the various Grecian cities;
a change, of which the proximate cause lay in the misconduct of
Pausanias, but towards which other causes, deep-seated as well as
various, also tended. In recounting the history of Miltiades,[518]
I noticed the deplorable liability of the Grecian leading men to be
spoiled by success: this distemper worked with singular rapidity
on Pausanias. As conqueror of Platæa, he had acquired a renown
unparalleled in Grecian experience, together with a prodigious
share of the plunder: the concubines, horses,[519] camels, and
gold plate, which had thus passed into his possession, were well
calculated to make the sobriety and discipline of Spartan life
irksome, while his power also, though great on foreign command,
became subordinate to that of the ephors when he returned home. His
newly-acquired insolence was manifested immediately after the battle,
in the commemorative tripod dedicated by his order at Delphi, which
proclaimed himself by name and singly, as commander of the Greeks
and destroyer of the Persians: an unseemly boast, of which the
Lacedæmonians themselves were the first to mark their disapprobation,
by causing the inscription to be erased, and the names of the
cities who had taken part in the combat to be all enumerated on the
tripod.[520] Nevertheless, he was still sent on the command against
Cyprus and Byzantium, and it was on the capture of this latter place
that his ambition and discontent first ripened into distinct treason.
He entered into correspondence with Gongylus the Eretrian exile (now
a subject of Persia, and invested with the property and government
of a district in Mysia), to whom he intrusted his new acquisition
of Byzantium, and the care of the valuable prisoners taken in it.
These prisoners were presently suffered to escape, or rather sent
away underhand to Xerxes; together with a letter from the hand of
Pausanias himself, to the following effect: “Pausanias, the Spartan
commander, having taken these captives, sends them back, in his
anxiety to oblige thee. I am minded, if it so please thee, to marry
thy daughter, and to bring under thy dominion both Sparta and the
rest of Greece: with thy aid, I think myself competent to achieve
this. If my proposition be acceptable, send some confidential person
down to the seaboard, through whom we may hereafter correspond.”
Xerxes, highly pleased with the opening thus held out, immediately
sent down Artabazus (the same who had been second in command in
Bœotia) to supersede Megabatês in the satrapy of Daskylium; the new
satrap, furnished with a letter of reply bearing the regal seal, was
instructed to further actively the projects of Pausanias. The letter
was to this purport: “Thus saith King Xerxes to Pausanias. Thy name
stands forever recorded in my house as a well-doer, on account of
the men whom thou hast saved for me beyond sea at Byzantium: and thy
propositions now received are acceptable to me. Relax not either
night or day in accomplishing that which thou promisest, nor let
thyself be held back by cost, either gold or silver, or numbers of
men, if thou standest in need of them, but transact in confidence thy
business and mine jointly with Artabazus, the good man whom I have
now sent, in such manner as may be best for both of us.”[521]
[518] See the volume of this history immediately preceding, ch.
xxxvi, p. 372.
[519] Herodot. ix, 81.
[520] In the Athenian inscriptions on the votive offerings
dedicated after the capture of Eion, as well as after the great
victories near the river Eurymedon, the name of Kimon the
commander is not even mentioned (Plutarch, Kimon, c. 7; Diodor.
xi, 62).
A strong protest, apparently familiar to Grecian feeling, against
singling out the general particularly, to receive the honors of
victory, appears in Euripid. Andromach. 694: striking verses,
which are said to have been indignantly repeated by Kleitus,
during the intoxication of the banquet wherein he was slain by
Alexander (Quint. Curtius, viii, 4, 29 (viii, 4); Plutarch,
Alexand. c. 51).
[521] These letters are given by Thucydidês verbatim (i,
128, 129): he had seen them or obtained copies (ὡς ὕστερον
ἀνευρέθη)—they were, doubtless, communicated along with the
final revelations of the confidential Argilian slave. As they
are autographs, I have translated them literally, retaining that
abrupt transition from the third person to the first, which is
one of their peculiarities. Cornelius Nepos, who translates the
letter of Pausanias, has effaced this peculiarity, and carries
the third person from the beginning to the end (Cornel. Nep.
Pausan. c. 2).
Throughout the whole of this expedition, Pausanias had been insolent
and domineering, degrading the allies at quarters and watering-places
in the most offensive manner as compared with the Spartans, and
treating the whole armament in a manner which Greek warriors could
not tolerate, even in a Spartan Herakleid, and a victorious general.
But when he received the letter from Xerxes, and found himself in
immediate communication with Artabazus, as well as supplied with
funds for corruption,[522] his insane hopes knew no bounds, and he
already fancied himself son-in-law of the Great King, as well as
despot of Hellas. Fortunately for Greece, his treasonable plans
were not deliberately laid and veiled until ripe for execution, but
manifested with childish impatience. He clothed himself in Persian
attire—(a proceeding which the Macedonian army, a century and a half
afterwards, could not tolerate,[523] even in Alexander the Great)—he
traversed Thrace with a body of Median and Egyptian guards,—he copied
the Persian chiefs, both in the luxury of his table and in his
conduct towards the free women of Byzantium. Kleonikê, a Byzantine
maiden of conspicuous family, having been ravished from her parents
by his order, was brought to his chamber at night: he happened to be
asleep, and being suddenly awakened, knew not at first who was the
person approaching his bed, but seized his sword and slew her.[524]
Moreover, his haughty reserve, with uncontrolled bursts of wrath,
rendered him unapproachable; and the allies at length came to regard
him as a despot rather than a general. The news of such outrageous
behavior, and the manifest evidences of his alliance with the
Persians, were soon transmitted to the Spartans, who recalled him to
answer for his conduct, and seemingly the Spartan vessels along with
him.[525]
[522] Diodor. xi, 44.
[523] Arrian. Exp. Alex. iv, 7, 7; vii, 8, 4; Quint. Curt. vi, 6,
10 (vi, 21, 11).
[524] Plutarch, Kimon, c. 6; also Plutarch, De Ser. Numin. Vind.
c. 10, p. 555. Pausanias, iii, 17, 8. It is remarkable that the
latter heard the story of the death of Kleonikê from the lips of
a Byzantine citizen of his own day, and seems to think that it
had never found place in any written work.
[525] Thucyd. i, 95-131: compare Duris and Nymphis apud Athenæum,
xii, p. 535.
In spite of the flagrant conduct of Pausanias, the Lacedæmonians
acquitted him on the allegations of positive and individual wrong;
yet, mistrusting his conduct in reference to collusion with the
enemy, they sent out Dorkis to supersede him as commander. But a
revolution, of immense importance for Greece, had taken place in the
minds of the allies. The headship, or hegemony, was in the hands
of Athens, and Dorkis the Spartan found the allies not disposed to
recognize his authority.
Even before the battle of Salamis, the question had been raised,[526]
whether Athens was not entitled to the command at sea, in consequence
of the preponderance of her naval contingent. The repugnance of
the allies to any command except that of Sparta, either on land or
water, had induced the Athenians to waive their pretensions at that
critical moment. But the subsequent victories had materially exalted
the latter in the eyes of Greece: while the armament now serving,
differently composed from that which had fought at Salamis, contained
a large proportion of the newly-enfranchised Ionic Greeks, who not
only had no preference for Spartan command, but were attached to the
Athenians on every ground,—as well from kindred race, as from the
certainty that Athens with her superior fleet was the only protector
upon whom they could rely against the Persians. Moreover, it happened
that the Athenian generals on this expedition, Aristeidês and
Kimon, were personally just and conciliating, forming a striking
contrast with Pausanias. Hence the Ionic Greeks in the fleet, when
they found that the behavior of the latter was not only oppressive
towards themselves but also revolting to Grecian sentiment generally,
addressed themselves to the Athenian commanders for protection and
redress, on the plausible ground of kindred race;[527] entreating
to be allowed to serve under Athens as leader instead of Sparta.
Plutarch tells us that Aristeidês not only tried to remonstrate with
Pausanias, who repelled him with arrogance,—which is exceedingly
probable,—but that he also required, as a condition of his compliance
with the request of the Ionic allies, that they should personally
insult Pausanias, so as to make reconciliation impracticable:
upon which a Samian and a Chian captain deliberately attacked and
damaged the Spartan admiral-ship in the harbor of Byzantium.[528]
The historians from whom Plutarch copied this latter statement must
have presumed in the Athenians a disposition to provoke that quarrel
with Sparta which afterwards sprung up as it were spontaneously:
but the Athenians had no interest in doing so, nor can we credit
the story,—which is, moreover, unnoticed by Thucydidês. To give
the Spartans a just ground of indignation, would have been glaring
imprudence on the part of Aristeidês: but he had every motive to
entertain the request of the allies, and he began to take his
measures for acting as their protector and chief. And his proceedings
were much facilitated by the circumstance that the Spartan government
about this time recalled Pausanias to undergo an examination, in
consequence of the universal complaints against him which had reached
them. He seems to have left no Spartan authority behind him,—even the
small Spartan squadron accompanied him home: so that the Athenian
generals had the best opportunity for insuring to themselves and
exercising that command which the allies besought them to undertake.
So effectually did they improve the moment, that when Dorkis arrived
to replace Pausanias, they were already in full supremacy; while
Dorkis, having only a small force, and being in no condition to
employ constraint, found himself obliged to return home.[529]
[526] Herodot. viii, 2, 3. Compare the language of the Athenian
envoy, as it stands in Herodotus (vii, 155) addressed to Gelo.
[527] Thucyd. i, 95. ἠξίουν αὐτοὺς ἡγεμόνας σφῶν γενέσθαι κατὰ τὸ
ξυγγενὲς καὶ Παυσανίᾳ μὴ ἐπιτρέπειν ἤν που βιάζηται.
[528] 2 Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 23.
[529] Thucyd. i, 95; Diodorus, xi, 44-47.
This incident, though not a declaration of war against Sparta, was
the first open renunciation of her authority as presiding state
among the Greeks; the first avowed manifestation of a competitor
for that dignity, with numerous and willing followers; the first
separation of Greece—considered in herself alone and apart from
foreign solicitations, such as the Persian invasion—into two distinct
organized camps, each with collective interests and projects of its
own. In spite of mortified pride, Sparta was constrained, and even
in some points of view not indisposed, to patient acquiescence: for
she had no means of forcing the dispositions of the Ionic allies,
while the war with Persia altogether,—having now become no longer
strictly defensive, and being withal maritime as well as distant from
her own territory,—had ceased to be in harmony with her home routine
and strict discipline. Her grave senators, especially an ancient
Herakleid named Hetœmaridas, reproved the impatience of the younger
citizens, and discountenanced the idea of permanent maritime command
as a dangerous innovation: they even treated it as an advantage,
that Athens should take the lead in carrying on the Persian war,
since it could not be altogether dropped; nor had the Athenians as
yet manifested any sentiments positively hostile, to excite their
alarm.[530] Nay, they actually took credit in the eyes of Athens,
about a century afterwards, for having themselves advised this
separation of command at sea from command on land.[531] Moreover, if
the war continued under Spartan guidance, there would be a continued
necessity for sending out their kings or chief men to command:
and the example of Pausanias showed them the depraving effect of
such military power, remote as well as unchecked. The example of
their king Leotychidês, too, near about this time, was a second
illustration of the same tendency. At the same time, apparently, that
Pausanias embarked for Asia to carry on the war against the Persians,
Leotychidês was sent with an army into Thessaly to put down the
Aleuadæ and those Thessalian parties who had sided with Xerxes and
Mardonius. Successful in this expedition, he suffered himself to be
bribed, and was even detected with a large sum of money actually on
his person: in consequence of which the Lacedæmonians condemned him
to banishment, and razed his house to the ground: he died afterwards
in exile at Tegea.[532] Two such instances were well calculated
to make the Lacedæmonians distrust the conduct of their Herakleid
leaders when on foreign service, and this feeling weighed much in
inducing them to abandon the Asiatic headship in favor of Athens. It
appears that their Peloponnesian allies retired from this contest at
the same time as they did, so that the prosecution of the war was
thus left to Athens as chief of the newly-emancipated Greeks.[533]
[530] Thucyd. i, 95. Following Thucydidês in his conception of
these events, I have embodied in the narrative as much as seems
consistent with it in Diodorus (xi, 50), who evidently did not
here copy Thucydidês, but probably had Ephorus for his guide.
The name of Hetœmaridas, as an influential Spartan statesman on
this occasion, is probable enough; but his alleged speech on the
mischiefs of maritime empire, which Diodorus seems to have had
before him, composed by Ephorus, would probably have represented
the views and feelings of the year 350 B. C., and not those of
476 B. C. The subject would have been treated in the same manner
as Isokratês, the master of Ephorus, treats it, in his Crat.
viii, De Pace, pp. 179, 180.
[531] Xenophon, Hellen. vi, 5, 34. It was at the moment
when the Spartans were soliciting Athenian aid, after their
defeat at Leuktra. ὑπομιμνήσκοντες μὲν, ὡς τὸν βάρβαρον κοινῇ
ἀπεμαχέσαντο—ἀναμιμνήσκοντες δὲ, ὡς Ἀθηναῖοί τε ὑπὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων
ᾑρέθησαν ἡγεμόνες τοῦ ναυτικοῦ, καὶ τῶν κοινῶν χρημάτων φύλακες,
τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων ταῦτα συμβουλομένων· αὐτοί τε κατὰ γῆν
ὁμολογουμένως ὑφ’ ἁπάντων τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἡγεμόνες προκριθείησαν,
συμβουλομένων αὖ ταῦτα τῶν Ἀθηναίων.
[532] Herodot. vi, 72; Diodor. xi, 48; Pausanias, iii, 7, 8:
compare Plutarch, De Herodoti Malign. c. 21, p. 859.
Leotychidês died, according to Diodorus, in 476 B. C.: he had
commanded at Mykalê in 479 B. C. The expedition into Thessaly
must therefore have been in one of the two intermediate years,
if the chronology of Diodorus were, in this case, thoroughly
trustworthy. But Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellenici, Appendix, ch. iii,
p. 210) has shown that Diodorus is contradicted by Plutarch,
about the date of the accession of Archidamus,—and by others,
about the date of the revolt at Sparta. Mr. Clinton places the
accession of Archidamus and the banishment of Leotychidês (of
course, therefore, the expedition into Thessaly) in 469 B. C. I
incline to believe that the expedition of Leotychidês against the
Thessalian Aleuadæ took place in the year or in the second year
following the battle of Platæa, because they had been the ardent
and hearty allies of Mardonius in Bœotia, and because the war
would seem not to have been completed without putting them down
and making the opposite party in Thessaly predominant.
Considering how imperfectly we know the Lacedæmonian chronology
of this date, it is very possible that some confusion may
have arisen in the case of Leotychidês, from the difference
between the date of his _banishment_ and that of his _death_.
King Pleistoanax afterwards, having been banished for the same
offence as that committed by Leotychidês, and having lived many
years in banishment, was afterwards restored: and the years
which he had passed in banishment were counted as a part of his
reign (Fast. Hellen. l. c. p. 211). The date of Archidamus may,
perhaps, have been reckoned in one account from the _banishment_
of Leotychidês,—in another, from his _death_; the rather, as
Archidamus must have been very young, since he reigned forty-two
years even after 469 B. C. And the date which Diodorus has given
as that of the death of Leotychidês, may really be only the date
of his banishment, in which he lived until 469 B. C.
[533] Thucyd. i, 18.
It was from these considerations that the Spartans were induced to
submit to that loss of command which the misconduct of Pausanias
had brought upon them. Their acquiescence facilitated the immense
change about to take place in Grecian politics. According to the
tendencies in progress prior to the Persian invasion, Sparta had
become gradually more and more the president of something like a
Pan-Hellenic union, comprising the greater part of the Grecian
states. Such at least was the point towards which things seemed to
be tending; and if many separate states stood aloof from this union,
none of them at least sought to form any counter-union, if we except
the obsolete and impotent pretensions of Argos. The preceding volumes
of this history have shown that Sparta had risen to such ascendency,
not from her superior competence in the management of collective
interests, nor even in the main from ambitious efforts on her own
part to acquire it,—but from the converging tendencies of Grecian
feeling, which required some such presiding state, and from the
commanding military power, rigid discipline, and ancient undisturbed
constitution, which attracted that feeling towards Sparta. The
necessities of common defence against Persia greatly strengthened
these tendencies, and the success of the defence, whereby so many
Greeks were emancipated who required protection against their
former master, seemed destined to have the like effect still more.
For an instant, after the battles of Platæa and Mykalê,—when the
town of Platæa was set apart as a consecrated neutral spot for an
armed confederacy against the Persian, with periodical solemnities
and meetings of deputies,—Sparta was exalted to be the chief of a
full Pan-Hellenic union, Athens being only one of the principal
members: and had Sparta been capable either of comprehensive policy,
of self-directed and persevering efforts, or of the requisite
flexibility of dealing, embracing distant Greeks as well as near,—her
position was now such, that her own ascendency, together with
undivided Pan-Hellenic union, might long have been maintained. But
she was lamentably deficient in all the requisite qualities, and the
larger the union became, the more her deficiency stood manifest.
On the other hand, Athens, now entering into rivalry as a sort of
leader of opposition, possessed all those qualities in a remarkable
degree, over and above that actual maritime force which was the want
of the day; so that the opening made by Spartan incompetence and
crime, so far as Pausanias was concerned, found her in every respect
prepared. But the sympathies of the Peloponnesians still clung to
Sparta, while those of the Ionian Greeks had turned to Athens: and
thus not only the short-lived symptoms of an established Pan-Hellenic
union, but even all tendencies towards it from this time disappear.
There now stands out a manifest schism, with two pronounced parties,
towards one of which nearly all the constituent atoms of the
Grecian world gravitate: the maritime states, newly enfranchised
from Persia, towards Athens,—the land-states, which had formed
most part of the confederate army at Platæa, towards Sparta.[534]
Along with this national schism and called into action by it,
appears the internal political schism in each separate city between
oligarchy and democracy. Of course, the germ of these parties had
already previously existed in the separate states, but the energetic
democracy of Athens, and the pronounced tendency of Sparta to rest
upon the native oligarchies in each separate city as her chief
support, now began to bestow, on the conflict of internal political
parties, an Hellenic importance, and an aggravated bitterness, which
had never before belonged to it.
[534] Thucyd. i, 18. Καὶ μεγάλου κινδύνου ἐπικρεμασθέντος οἵ
τε Λακεδαιμόνιοι τῶν ξυμπολεμησάντων Ἑλλήνων ἡγήσαντο δυνάμει
προὔχοντες, καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, διανοηθέντες ἐκλιπεῖν τὴν πόλιν καὶ
ἀνασκευασάμενοι, ἐς τὰς ναῦς ἐμβάντες ναυτικοὶ ἐγένοντο. Κοινῇ
δὲ ἀπωσάμενοι τὸν βάρβαρον, ὕστερον οὐ πολλῷ διεκρίθησαν πρός τε
Ἀθηναίους καὶ Λακεδαιμονίους, οἵ τε ἀποστάντες βασιλέως Ἕλληνες
καὶ οἱ ξυμπολεμήσαντες. Δυνάμει γὰρ ταῦτα μέγιστα διεφάνη·
ἴσχυον γὰρ οἱ μὲν κατὰ γῆν, οἱ δὲ ναυσί. Καὶ ὀλίγον μὲν χρόνον
συνέμεινεν ἡ ~ὁμαιχμία~, ἔπειτα δὲ διενεχθέντες οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι
καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπολέμησαν μετὰ τῶν ξυμμάχων πρὸς ἀλλήλους·
καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων εἴτινές που διασταῖεν, πρὸς τούτους ἤδη
ἐχώρουν. Ὥστε ~ἀπὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἐς τόνδε ἀεὶ τὸν πόλεμον~, etc.
This is a clear and concise statement of the great revolution
in Grecian affairs, comparing the period before and after
the Persian war. Thucydidês goes on to trace briefly the
consequences of this bisection of the Grecian world into two
great leagues,—the growing improvement in military skill, and
the increasing stretch of military effort on both sides from
the Persian invasion down to the Peloponnesian war;—he remarks
also, upon the difference between Sparta and Athens in their
way of dealing with their allies respectively. He then states
the striking fact, that the military force put forth separately
by Athens and her allies on the one side, and by Sparta and her
allies on the other, during the Peloponnesian war, were each of
them greater than the entire force which had been employed by
both together in the most powerful juncture of their confederacy
against the Persian invaders,—Καὶ ἐγένετο ~αὐτοῖς~ ἐς τόνδε τὸν
πόλεμον ~ἡ ἰδία παρασκευὴ~ μείζων ἢ ὡς τὰ κράτιστά ~ποτε μετὰ
ἀκραιφνοῦς τῆς ξυμμαχίας~ ἤνθησαν (i, 19).
I notice this last passage especially (construing it as
the Scholiast seems to do), not less because it conveys an
interesting comparison, than because it has been understood by
Dr. Arnold, Göller, and other commentators, in a sense which
seems to me erroneous. They interpret thus: αὐτοῖς to mean the
Athenians only, and not the Lacedæmonians,—ἡ ἰδία παρασκευὴ
to denote the forces equipped by Athens herself, apart from
her allies,—and ἀκραιφνοῦς ξυμμαχίας to refer “to the Athenian
alliance only, at a period a little before the conclusion of the
thirty years’ treaty, when the Athenians were masters not only
of the islands, and the Asiatic Greek colonies, but had also
united to their confederacy Bœotia and Achaia on the continent
of Greece itself.” (Dr. Arnold’s note.) Now so far, as the words
go, the meaning assigned by Dr. Arnold might be admissible; but
if we trace the thread of ideas in Thucydidês, we shall see
that the comparison, as these commentators conceive it, between
Athens alone and Athens aided by her allies—between the Athenian
empire as it stood during the Peloponnesian war, and the same
empire as it _had_ stood before the thirty years’ truce—is quite
foreign to his thoughts. Nor had Thucydidês said one word to
inform the reader, that the Athenian empire at the beginning
of the Peloponnesian war had diminished in magnitude, and thus
was no longer ἀκραιφνής: without which previous notification,
the comparison supposed by Dr. Arnold could not be clearly
understood. I conceive that there are two periods, and two sets
of circumstances, which, throughout all this passage, Thucydidês
means to contrast: first, confederate Greece at the time of the
Persian war; next, bisected Greece in a state of war, under the
double headship of Sparta and Athens. Αὐτοῖς refers as much to
Sparta as to Athens—ἀκραιφνοῦς τῆς ξυμμαχίας means what had been
before expressed by ὁμαιχμία—and ποτε set against τόνδε τὸν
πόλεμον, is equivalent to the expression which had before been
used—ἀπὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἐς τόνδε ἀεὶ τὸν πόλεμον.
The departure of the Spartan Dorkis left the Athenian generals at
liberty; and their situation imposed upon them the duty of organizing
the new confederacy which they had been chosen to conduct. The Ionic
allies were at this time not merely willing and unanimous, but acted
as the forward movers in the enterprise; for they stood in obvious
need of protection against the attacks of Persia, and had no farther
kindness to expect from Sparta or the Peloponnesians. But even had
they been less under the pressure of necessity, the conduct of
Athens, and of Aristeidês as the representative of Athens, might
have sufficed to bring them into harmonious coöperation. The new
leader was no less equitable towards the confederates than energetic
against the common enemy. The general conditions of the confederacy
were regulated in a common synod of the members, appointed to meet
periodically for deliberative purposes, in the temple of Apollo
and Artemis at Delos,—of old, the venerated spot for the religious
festivals of the Ionic cities, and at the same time a convenient
centre for the members. A definite obligation, either in equipped
ships of war or in money, was imposed upon every separate city; and
the Athenians, as leaders, determined in which form contribution
should be made by each: their assessment must of course have been
reviewed by the synod, nor had they at this time power to enforce any
regulation not approved by that body. It had been the good fortune of
Athens to profit by the genius of Themistoklês on two recent critical
occasions (the battle of Salamis and the rebuilding of her walls),
where sagacity, craft, and decision were required in extraordinary
measure, and where pecuniary probity was of less necessity: it was
no less her good fortune now,—in the delicate business of assessing
a new tax and determining how much each state should bear, without
precedents to guide them, when unimpeachable honesty in the assessor
was the first of all qualities,—_not_ to have Themistoklês; but
to employ in his stead the well-known, we might almost say the
ostentatious, probity of Aristeidês. This must be accounted good
fortune, since at the moment when Aristeidês was sent out, the
Athenians could not have anticipated that any such duty would devolve
upon him. His assessment not only found favor at the time of its
original proposition, when it must have been freely canvassed by the
assembled allies—but also maintained its place in general esteem, as
equitable and moderate, after the once responsible headship of Athens
had degenerated into an unpopular empire.[535]
[535] Thucyd. v, 18; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 24. Plutarch states
that the allies expressly asked the Athenians to send Aristeidês
for the purpose of assessing the tribute. This is not at all
probable: Aristeidês, as commander of the Athenian contingent
under Pausanias, was at Byzantium when the mutiny of the Ionians
against Pausanias occurred, and was the person to whom they
applied for protection. As such, he was the natural person to
undertake such duties as devolved upon Athens, without any
necessity of supposing that he was specially asked for to perform
it.
Plutarch farther states that a certain contribution had been
levied from the Greeks towards the war, even during the headship
of Sparta. This statement also is highly improbable. The headship
of Sparta covers only one single campaign, in which Pausanias
had the command: the Ionic Greeks sent their ships to the fleet,
which would be held sufficient, and there was no time for
measuring commutations into money.