In the populous and extensive kingdoms of modern Europe, the revolutions
of public affairs seldom disturb the humble obscurity of private life;
but the national transactions of Greece involved the interest of
every family, and deeply affected the fortune and happiness of every
individual. Had the arms of the Athenians proved successful in Sicily,
each citizen would have derived from that event an immediate accession
of wealth, as well as of power, and have felt a proportional increase
of honour and security. But their proud hopes perished forever in the
harbour of Syracuse. The succeeding disasters shook to the foundation the
fabric of their empire.
In one rash enterprise they lost their army, their fleet, the prudence
of their experienced generals, and the flourishing vigour of their manly
youth--irreparable disasters which totally disabled them to resist the
confederacy of Peloponnesus, reinforced by the resentment of a new and
powerful enemy. While a Lacedæmonian army invested their city, they
had reason to dread that a Syracusan fleet should assault the Piræus;
that Athens must finally yield to these combined attacks, and her once
prosperous citizens destroyed by the sword, or dragged into captivity,
atone by their death or disgrace for the cruelties which they had
recently inflicted on the wretched republics of Melos and Scione.
ATHENS AFTER THE SICILIAN DÉBACLE
The dreadful alternative of victory and defeat, renders it little
surprising that the Athenians should have rejected intelligence, which
they must have received with horror. The first messengers of such
sad news were treated with contempt; but it was impossible long to
withhold belief from the miserable fugitives, whose squalid and dejected
countenances too faithfully attested the public calamity. Such evidence
could not be refused; the arrogance of incredulity was abashed, and
the whole republic thrown into consternation, or seized with despair.
The venerable members of the Areopagus expressed the majesty of silent
sorrow; but the piercing cries of woe extended many a mile along the
lofty walls which joined the Piræus to the city; and the licentious
populace raged with unbridled fury against the diviners and orators,
whose blind predictions, and ambitious harangues, had promoted an
expedition eternally fatal to their country.
The Athenian allies, or rather subjects, scattered over so many coasts
and islands, prepared to assert their independence; the confederates of
Sparta, among whom the Syracusans justly assumed the first rank, were
unsatisfied with victory, and longed for revenge: even those communities
which had hitherto declined the danger of a doubtful contest, meanly
solicited to become parties in a war, which they expected must finally
terminate in the destruction of Athens. Should all the efforts of such
a powerful confederacy still prove insufficient to the ruin of the
devoted city, there was yet another enemy behind, from whose strength and
animosity the Athenians had everything to fear.
[Sidenote: [425-413 B.C.]]
The long and peaceful reign of Artaxerxes expired four hundred and
twenty-five years before the Christian era. There followed a rapid
succession of kings, Xerxes, Sogdianus, Ochus; the last of whom assumed
the name of Darius, to which historians have added the epithet of Nothus,
the bastard, to distinguish this effeminate prince from his illustrious
predecessor. But in the ninth year of his reign Darius was roused from
his lethargy by the revolt of Egypt and Lydia. The defection of the
latter threatened to tear from his dominion the valuable provinces of
Asia Minor; a consequence which he determined to prevent by employing
the bravery of Pharnabazus, and the policy of the crafty Tissaphernes,
to govern respectively the northern and southern districts of that
rich and fertile peninsula. The abilities of these generals not only
quelled the rebellion in Lydia, but extended the arms of their master
towards the shores of the Ægean, as well as of the Hellespont and
Propontis; in direct opposition to the treaty which forty years before
had been ratified between the Athenians, then in the height of their
prosperity, and the unwarlike Artaxerxes. But the recent misfortunes of
that ambitious people flattered the Persian commanders with the hope
of restoring the whole Asiatic coast to the Great King, as well as of
inflicting exemplary punishment on the proud city, which had resisted the
power, dismembered the empire, and tarnished the glory of Persia.
The terror of such a formidable combination might have reduced the
Athenians to despair. Their disasters and disgrace in Sicily destroyed
at once the real and the ideal supports of their power; the loss of
one-third of their citizens made it impossible to supply, with fresh
recruits, the exhausted strength of their garrisons in foreign parts; the
terror of their fleet was no more; and their multiplied defeats, before
the walls of Syracuse, had converted into contempt that admiration in
which Athens had been long held by Greeks and barbarians.
But in free governments there are many latent resources which public
calamities alone can bring to light; and adversity, which to individuals
endowed with inborn vigour of mind is the great school of virtue and
of heroism, furnishes also to the enthusiasm of popular assemblies the
noblest field for the display of national honour and magnanimity. Had the
measures of the Athenians depended on one man, or even on a few, it is
probable that the selfish timidity of a prince, and the cautious prudence
of a council, would have sunk under the weight of misfortunes, too heavy
for the unsupported strength of ordinary minds. But the first spark of
generous ardour, which the love of virtue, of glory, and the republic, or
even the meaner motives of ambition and vanity, excited in the assembled
multitude, was diffused and increased by the natural contagion of
sympathy; the patriotic flame was communicated simultaneously to every
breast. With one mind and resolution the Athenians determined to brave
the severity of fortune, and to withstand the assaults of the enemy.
[Sidenote: [412 B.C.]]
In the year following the unfortunate expedition into Sicily, the
Spartans prepared a fleet of a hundred sail, of which twenty-five
galleys were furnished by their own seaports. This armament was destined
to encourage and support the revolt of the Asiatic subjects of the
Athenians. The islands of Chios and Lesbos, as well as the city Erythræ
on the continent, solicited the Spartans to join them with their naval
force. Their request was enforced by Tissaphernes, who promised to pay
the sailors, and to victual the ships. At the same time, an ambassador
from Cyzicus, a populous town situate on an island of the Propontis,
entreated the Lacedæmonian armament to sail to the safe and capacious
harbours which had long formed the wealth and the ornament of that city,
and to expel the Athenian garrisons, to which the Cyzicenes and their
neighbours reluctantly submitted. The Persian Pharnabazus seconded
their proposal; offered the same conditions with Tissaphernes; and so
little harmony subsisted between the lieutenants of the Great King,
that each urged his particular demand with a total unconcern about the
important interests of their common master. The Lacedæmonians held many
consultations amongst themselves, and with their allies; hesitated,
deliberated, resolved, and changed their resolution; and at length were
persuaded by Alcibiades to prefer the overture of Tissaphernes and the
Ionians to that of the Hellespontines and Pharnabazus.
The delay occasioned by this deliberation was the principal, but not the
only cause which hindered the allies from acting expeditiously, at a time
when expedition was of the utmost importance. A variety of private views
diverted them from the general aim of the confederacy; and the season
was far advanced before the Corinthians, who had been distinguished by
excess of antipathy to Athens, were prepared to sail. The Athenians
anticipated the designs of the rebels of Chios, and carried off seven
ships as pledges of their fidelity. The squadron which returned from this
useful enterprise, intercepted the Corinthians as they sailed through
the Saronic Gulf; and having attacked and conquered them, pursued and
blocked them up in their harbours. Meanwhile the Spartans sent to the
Ionian coast such squadrons as were successively ready for sea, under
the conduct of Alcibiades, Chalcideus, and Astyochus. The first of
these commanders sailed to the isle of Chios, which was distracted by
contending factions. The Athenian partisans were surprised and compelled
to submit; and the city, which possessed forty galleys, and yielded in
wealth and populousness to none of the neighbouring colonies, became an
accession to the Peloponnesian confederacy. The strong and rich town
of Miletus followed the example: Erythræ and Clazomenæ surrendered to
Chalcideus; several places of less note were conquered by Astyochus.
When the Athenians received the unwelcome intelligence of these events,
they voted the expenditure of a thousand talents, which in more
prosperous times, they had deposited in the citadel, under the sanction
of a decree of the senate and people, to reserve it for an occasion of
the utmost danger. This seasonable supply enabled them to increase the
fleet, which sailed under Phrynichus and other leaders, to the isle
of Lesbos. Having secured the fidelity of the Lesbians, who were ripe
for rebellion, they endeavoured to recover their authority in Miletus,
anciently regarded as the capital of the Ionic coast. A bloody battle
was fought before the walls of that place, between the Athenians and
Argives on one side, and the Peloponnesians, assisted by the troops of
Tissaphernes and the revolted Milesians, on the other. The Athenian
bravery defeated, on this occasion, the superior number of Greeks and
barbarians to whom they were opposed; but their Argive auxiliaries
were repulsed by the gallant citizens of Miletus so that in both parts
of the engagement, the Ionic race, commonly reckoned the less war-like,
prevailed over their Dorian rivals and enemies. Elevated with the joy
of victory, the Athenians prepared to assault the town, when they were
alarmed by the approach of a fleet of fifty-five sail which advanced
in two divisions, the one commanded by the celebrated Hermocrates, the
other by Theramenes the Spartan. Phrynichus prudently considered, that
his own strength only amounted to forty-eight galleys, and refused to
commit the last hope of the republic to the danger of an unequal combat.
His firmness despised the clamours of the Athenian sailors, who insulted,
under the name of cowardice, the caution of their admiral; and he calmly
retired with his whole force to the isle of Samos, where the popular
faction having lately treated the nobles with shocking injustice and
cruelty, too frequent in Grecian democracies, were ready to receive with
open arms the patrons of that form of government.
The retreat of the Athenian fleet acknowledged the naval superiority of
the enemy; a superiority which was alone sufficient either to acquire
or to maintain the submission of the neighbouring coasts and islands.
In other respects too, the Peloponnesians enjoyed the most decisive
advantages. Their galleys were victualled, their soldiers were paid by
Tissaphernes, and they daily expected a reinforcement of a hundred and
fifty Phœnician ships. But, in this dangerous crisis, fortune seemed
to respect the declining age of Athens, and, by a train of accidents,
singular and almost incredible, enabled Alcibiades, so long the
misfortune and the scourge, to become the defence and the saviour of his
country.
[Illustration: GREEK SANDALS]
ALCIBIADES AGAIN TO THE FORE
[Sidenote: [415-412 B.C.]]
During his long residence in Sparta, Alcibiades assumed the outward
gravity of deportment, and conformed himself to the spare diet, and
laborious exercises, which prevailed in that austere republic; but his
character and his principles remained as licentious as ever. His intrigue
with Timæa, the spouse of king Agis, was discovered by an excess of
female levity. The queen, vain of the attachment of so celebrated a
character, familiarly gave the name of Alcibiades to her son Leotychides;
a name which, first confined to the privacy of her female companions,
was soon spread abroad in the world. Alcibiades punished her folly by
a most mortifying but well-merited declaration, boasting that he had
solicited her favours from no other motive but that he might indulge the
ambitious desire of giving a king to Sparta. The offence itself, and the
shameless avowal, still more provoking than the offence, excited the
keenest resentment in the breast of the injured husband. The magistrates
and generals of Sparta, jealous of the fame, and envious of the merit of
a stranger, readily sympathised with the misfortune, and encouraged the
revenge of Agis; and, as the horrid practice of assassination was still
disgracing the manners of Greece, orders were sent to Astyochus, who
commanded in chief the Peloponnesian forces in Asia, secretly to destroy
Alcibiades, whose power defied those laws which in every Grecian republic
condemned adulterers to death. But the active and subtile Athenian had
secured too faithful domestic intelligence in the principal families of
Sparta to become the victim of this execrable design. With his usual
address he eluded all the snares of Astyochus: his safety, however,
required perpetual vigilance and caution, and he determined to escape
from the situation, which subjected him to such irksome restraint.
Publicly banished from Athens, secretly persecuted by Sparta, he
had recourse to the friendship of Tissaphernes, who admired his
accomplishments, and respected his abilities, which, though far superior
in degree, were similar in kind to his own. Tissaphernes was of a temper
the more readily to serve a friend, in proportion as he less needed
his services. Alcibiades, therefore, carefully concealed from him the
dangerous resentment of the Spartans. In the selfish breast of the
Persian no attachment could be durable unless founded on interest; and
Alcibiades, who had deeply studied his character, began to flatter his
avarice, that he might insure his protection. He informed him, that by
allowing the Peloponnesian sailors a drachma, or sevenpence sterling, of
daily pay, he treated them with a useless and even dangerous liberality:
that the pay given by the Athenians, even in the most flourishing times,
amounted only to three oboli. Should the sailors prove dissatisfied
with this equitable reduction, the Grecian character afforded an easy
expedient for silencing their licentious clamours. It would be sufficient
to bribe the naval commanders and a few mercenary orators, and the
careless and improvident seamen would submit, without suspicion, the rate
of their pay, as well as every other concern, to the influence and the
authority of those who were accustomed to govern them.
Tissaphernes heard this advice with all the attention of an avaricious
man to every proposal for saving his money; and so true a judgment had
Alcibiades formed of the Greeks, that Hermocrates the Syracusan was
the only officer who disdained, meanly and perfidiously, to betray the
interest of the men under his command: yet through the influence of his
colleagues, the plan of economy was universally adopted.
The intrigues of Alcibiades sowed jealousy and distrust in the
Peloponnesian fleet: they alienated the minds of the troops both from
Tissaphernes and from their commanders: the Persian was ready to forsake
those whom he had learned to despise; and Alcibiades profited by this
disposition to insinuate that the alliance of the Lacedæmonians was
equally expensive and inconvenient for the Great King and his lieutenants.
These artful representations produced almost an open breach between
Tissaphernes and his confederates. The advantage which Athens would
derive from this rupture might have paved the way for Alcibiades to
return to his country: but he dreaded to encounter that popular fury,
whose effects he had fatally experienced, and whose mad resentment no
degree of merit could appease; he therefore applied secretly to Pisander,
Theramenes, and other persons of distinction in the Athenian camp. To
them he deplored the desperate state of public affairs, expatiated on
his own credit with Tissaphernes, and insinuated that it might be yet
possible to prevent the Phœnician fleet from sailing to assist the enemy.
Assuming gradually more boldness, he finally declared that the Athenians
might obtain not merely the neutrality, but perhaps the assistance of
Tissaphernes, should they consent to abolish their turbulent democracy,
so odious to the Persians, and to entrust the administration of
government to men worthy to negotiate with so mighty a monarch.
When the illustrious exile proposed this measure, it is uncertain whether
he was acquainted with the secret cabals which had been already formed,
both in the city and in the camp, for executing the design which he
suggested. One man, the personal enemy of Alcibiades, alone opposed the
general current. But this man was Phrynichus. The courage with which he
invited dangers many have equalled, but none ever surpassed the boldness
with which he extricated himself from difficulties. When he perceived
that his colleagues were deaf to every objection against recalling
the friend of Tissaphernes, he secretly informed the Spartan admiral
Astyochus, of the intrigues which were carrying on to the disadvantage of
his country. Daring as this treachery was, Phrynichus addressed a traitor
not less perfidious than himself. Astyochus was become the pensioner
and creature of Tissaphernes, to whom he communicated the intelligence.
The Persian again communicated it to his favourite Alcibiades, who
complained in strong terms to the Athenians of the baseness and villainy
of Phrynichus.
The latter exculpated himself with address; but as the return of
Alcibiades might prove fatal to his safety, he ventured, a second
time, to write to Astyochus, gently reproaching him with his breach of
confidence, and explaining by what means he might surprise the whole
Athenian fleet at Samos; an exploit that must forever establish his fame
and fortune. Astyochus again betrayed the secret to Tissaphernes and
Alcibiades; but before their letters could be conveyed to the Athenian
camp, Phrynichus, who, by some unknown channel, was informed of this
second treachery, anticipated the dangerous discovery, by apprising
the Athenians of their enemy’s design to surprise their fleet. They
had scarcely employed the proper means to counteract that purpose when
messengers came from Alcibiades to announce the horrid perfidy of a
wretch who had basely sacrificed to private resentment the last hope of
his country. But the messengers arrived too late; the prior information
of Phrynichus, as well as the bold and singular wickedness of his design,
which no common degree of evidence was thought sufficient to prove, were
sustained as arguments for his exculpation; and it was believed that
Alcibiades had made use of a stratagem most infamous in itself, but not
unexampled among the Greeks, for destroying a man whom he detested.
The opposition of Phrynichus, though it retarded the designs of
Alcibiades, prevented not the measures of Pisander and his associates for
abolishing the democracy. The soldiers at Samos were induced, by reasons
above mentioned, to acquiesce in the resolution of their generals. But a
more difficult task remained; to deprive the people of Athens of their
liberty which, since the expulsion of the family of Pisistratus, they
had enjoyed a hundred years. Pisander headed the deputation which was
sent from the camp to the city to effect this important revolution. He
acquainted the extraordinary assembly, summoned on that occasion in the
theatre of Bacchus, of the measures which had been adopted by their
soldiers and fellow-citizens at Samos. The compact band of conspirators
warmly approved the example; but loud murmurs of discontent resounded in
different quarters of that spacious theatre. Pisander asked the reason of
this disapprobation. “Had his opponents anything better to propose? If
they had, let them come forward and explain the grounds of their dissent:
but, above all, let them explain how they could save themselves, their
families, and their country, unless they complied with the demand of
Tissaphernes. The imperious voice of necessity was superior to law; and
when the actual danger had ceased, they might re-establish their ancient
constitution.” The opponents of Pisander were unable or afraid to reply:
and the assembly passed a decree, investing ten ambassadors with full
powers to treat with the Persian satrap.
[Sidenote: [412 B.C.]]
Soon after the arrival of the Peloponnesian fleet on the coast of Asia,
the Spartan commanders had concluded, in the name of their republic,
a treaty with Tissaphernes; in which it was stipulated, that the
subsidies should be regularly paid by the king of Persia, and that the
Peloponnesian forces should employ their utmost endeavours to recover,
for that monarch, all the dominions of his ancestors, which had been long
unjustly usurped, and cruelly insulted, by the Athenians. This treaty
seemed so honourable to the Great King, that his lieutenant could not
venture openly to infringe it. Alarmed at the decay of his influence with
the Persians, on which he had built the flattering hopes of returning
to his country, Alcibiades employed all the resources of his genius to
conceal his disgrace. By solicitations, entreaties, and the meanest
compliances, he obtained an audience for his fellow-citizens. As the
agent of Tissaphernes, he then proposed the conditions on which they
might obtain the friendship of the Great King. Several demands were
made, demands most disgraceful to the name of Athens: to all of which
the ambassadors submitted. They even agreed to surrender the whole coast
of Ionia to its ancient sovereign. But when the artful Athenian (fearful
lest they should, on any terms, admit the treaty which Tissaphernes was
resolved on no terms to grant) demanded that the Persian fleets should
be allowed to sail, undisturbed, in the Grecian seas, the ambassadors,
well knowing that should this condition be complied with, no treaty
could hinder Greece from becoming a province of Persia, expressed their
indignation in very unguarded language, and left the assembly in disgust.
This imprudence enabled Alcibiades to affirm, with some appearance
of truth, that their own anger and obstinacy, not the reluctance of
Tissaphernes, had obstructed the negotiation, which was precisely
the issue of the affair most favourable to his views. His artifices
succeeded, but were not attended with the consequences expected from
them. The Athenians, both in the camp and city, perceived, by this
transaction, that his credit with the Persians was less than he
represented it; and the aristocratical faction were glad to get rid of
a man, whose restless ambition rendered him a dangerous associate. They
persisted, however, with great activity, in executing their purpose; of
which Phrynichus, who had opposed them only from hatred of Alcibiades,
became an active abettor. When persuasion was ineffectual, they had
recourse to violence. Androcles, Hyperbolus, and other licentious
demagogues, were assassinated. The people of Athens, ignorant of the
strength of the conspirators, and surprised to find in the number
many whom they least suspected, were restrained by inactive timidity,
or fluctuated in doubtful suspense. The cabal alone acted with union
and with vigour; and difficult as it seemed to subvert the Athenian
democracy, which had subsisted a hundred years with unexampled glory, yet
this design was undertaken and accomplished by the enterprising activity
of Pisander, the artful eloquence of Theramenes, the firm intrepidity of
Phrynichus, and the superintending wisdom of Antiphon.
He it was who formed the plan, and regulated the mode of attack, which
was carried on by his associates. Pisander and his party boldly declared,
that neither the spirit nor the forms of the established constitution
(which had recently subjected them to such a weight of misfortunes)
suited the present dangerous and alarming crisis. That it was necessary
to new-model the whole fabric of government; for which purpose five
persons (whose names he read) ought to be appointed by the people, to
choose a hundred others; each of whom should select three associates;
and the four hundred thus chosen, men of dignity and opulence, who would
serve their country without fee or reward, ought immediately to be
invested with the majesty of the republic. They alone should conduct the
administration uncontrolled, and assemble, as often as seemed proper,
five thousand citizens, whom they judged most worthy of being consulted
in the management of public affairs. This extraordinary proposal was
accepted without opposition: the partisans of democracy dreaded the
strength of the cabal; and the undiscerning multitude, dazzled by the
imposing name of five thousand, a number far exceeding the ordinary
assemblies of Athens, perceived not that they surrendered their liberties
to the artifice of an ambitious faction.[b]
THE OVERTHROW OF THE DEMOCRACY: THE FOUR HUNDRED
[Sidenote: [411 B.C.]]
Full liberty being thus granted to make any motion, however
anti-constitutional, and to dispense with all the established
formalities, such as preliminary authorisation by the senate, Pisander
now came forward with his substantive propositions to the following
effect:
(1) All the existing democratical magistracies were suppressed at once,
and made to cease for the future. (2) No civil functions whatever were
hereafter to be salaried. (3) To constitute a new government, a committee
of five persons were named forthwith, who were to choose a larger body of
one hundred; that is, one hundred including the five choosers themselves.
Each individual out of this body of one hundred, was to choose three
persons. (4) A body of Four Hundred was thus constituted, who were to
take their seat in the senate house, and to carry on the government with
unlimited powers, according to their own discretion. (5) They were to
convene the Five Thousand, whenever they might think fit. All was passed
without a dissentient voice.
The invention and employment of this imaginary aggregate of Five Thousand
was not the least dexterous among the combinations of Antiphon. No one
knew who these Five Thousand were: yet the resolution just adopted
purported--not that such a number of citizens should be singled out and
constituted, either by choice, or by lot, or in some determinate manner
which should exhibit them to the view and knowledge of others--but
that the Four Hundred should convene the Five Thousand, whenever they
thought proper: thus assuming the latter to be a list already made
up and notorious, at least to the Four Hundred themselves. The real
fact was that the Five Thousand existed nowhere except in the talk
and proclamations of the conspirators, as a supplement of fictitious
auxiliaries. They did not even exist as individual names on paper,
but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate. The Four Hundred, now
installed, formed the entire and exclusive rulers of the state. But the
mere name of the Five Thousand, though it was nothing more than a name,
served two important purposes for Antiphon and his conspiracy. First, it
admitted of being falsely produced, especially to the armament at Samos,
as proof of a tolerably numerous and popular body of equal, qualified,
concurrent citizens, all intended to take their turn by rotation in
exercising the powers of government; thus lightening the odium of
extreme usurpation to the Four Hundred, and passing them off merely as
the earliest section of the Five Thousand, put into office for a few
months, and destined at the end of that period to give place to another
equal section. Next, it immensely augmented the means of intimidation
possessed by the Four Hundred at home, by exaggerating the impression
of their supposed strength. For the citizens generally were made to
believe that there were five thousand real and living partners in the
conspiracy; while the fact that these partners were not known and could
not be individually identified, rather aggravated the reigning terror and
mistrust; since every man, suspecting that his neighbour might possibly
be among them, was afraid to communicate his discontent or propose means
for joint resistance. In both these two ways, the name and assumed
existence of the Five Thousand lent strength to the real Four Hundred
conspirators. It masked their usurpation, while it increased their hold
on the respect and fears of the citizens.
As soon as the public assembly at Colonus had, with such seeming
unanimity, accepted all the propositions of Pisander, they were
dismissed; and the new regiment of Four Hundred were chosen and
constituted in the form prescribed. It now only remained to install
them in the senate house. But this could not be done without force,
since the senators were already within it; having doubtless gone
thither immediately from the assembly, where their presence, at least
the presence of the prytanes, or senators of the presiding tribe, was
essential as legal presidents. They had to deliberate what they would do
under the decree just passed, which divested them of all authority. Nor
was it impossible that they might organise armed resistance; for which
there seemed more than usual facility at the present moment, since the
occupation of Decelea by the Lacedæmonians kept Athens in a condition
like that of a permanent camp, with a large proportion of the citizens
day and night under arms. Against this chance the Four Hundred made
provision. They selected that hour of the day when the greater number of
citizens habitually went home, probably to their morning meal, leaving
the military station, with the arms piled and ready, under comparatively
thin watch. While the general body of hoplites left the station at this
hour, according to the usual practice, the hoplites--Andrian, Tenian, and
others--in the immediate confidence of the Four Hundred, were directed,
by private order, to hold themselves prepared and in arms, at a little
distance off; so that if any symptoms should appear of resistance being
contemplated, they might at once interfere and forestall it.
The Four Hundred then marched to the senate house, each man with a dagger
concealed under his garment, and followed by their special bodyguard
of 120 young men from various Grecian cities, the instruments of the
assassinations ordered by Antiphon and his colleagues. In this array
they marched into the senate house, where the senators were assembled,
and commanded them to depart; at the same time tendering to them their
pay for all the remainder of the year--seemingly about three months
or more down to the beginning of _Hecatombæon_, the month of new
nominations--during which their functions ought to have continued. The
senators were no way prepared to resist the decree just passed under
the forms of legality, with an armed body now arrived to enforce its
execution. They obeyed and departed, each man as he passed the door
receiving the salary tendered to him. That they should yield obedience
to superior force, under the circumstances, can excite neither censure
nor surprise; but that they should accept, from the hands of the
conspirators, this anticipation of an unearned salary, was a meanness
which almost branded them as accomplices, and dishonoured the expiring
hour of the last democratical authority. The Four Hundred now at last
found themselves triumphantly installed in the senate house, without the
least resistance, either from within its walls or even from without, by
any portion of the citizens.
Thus perished, or seemed to perish, the democracy of Athens, after
an uninterrupted existence of nearly one hundred years since the
revolution of Clisthenes. So incredible did it appear that the numerous,
intelligent, and constitutional citizens of Athens should suffer their
liberties to be overthrown by a band of four hundred conspirators, while
the great mass of them not only loved their democracy, but had arms in
their hands to defend it, that even their enemy and neighbour Agis, at
Decelea, could hardly imagine the revolution to be a fact accomplished.
The ulterior success of the conspiracy--when all prospect of Persian
gold, or improved foreign position, was at an end--is due to the
combinations, alike nefarious and skillful, of Antiphon, wielding and
organising the united strength of the aristocratical classes at Athens;
strength always exceedingly great, but under ordinary circumstances
working in fractions disunited and even reciprocally hostile to each
other--restrained by the ascendent democratical institutions--and
reduced to corrupt what it could not overthrow. Antiphon, about to
employ this anti-popular force in one systematic scheme, and for the
accomplishment of a predetermined purpose, keeps still within the same
ostensible constitutional limits. He raises no open mutiny: he maintains
inviolate the cardinal point of Athenian political morality--respect
to the decision of the senate and political assembly, as well as to
constitutional maxims.
He knows, however, that the value of these meetings, depends upon
freedom of speech; and that, if that freedom be suppressed, the assembly
itself becomes a nullity, or rather an instrument of positive imposture
and mischief. Accordingly, he causes all the popular orators to be
successively assassinated, so that no man dares to open his mouth on that
side; while on the other hand, the anti-popular speakers are all loud
and confident, cheering one another on, and seeming to represent all the
feeling of the persons present. By thus silencing each individual leader,
and intimidating every opponent from standing forward as spokesman, he
extorts the formal sanction of the assembly and the senate to measures
which the large majority of the citizens detest. That majority, however,
are bound by their own constitutional forms; and when the decision of
these, by whatever means obtained, is against them, they have neither
the inclination nor the courage to resist. In no part of the world has
this sentiment of constitutional duty, and submission to the vote of
a legal majority, been more keenly and universally felt, than it was
among the citizens of democratical Athens.[57] Antiphon thus finds means
to employ the constitutional sentiment of Athens as a means of killing
the constitution: the mere empty form, after its vital and protective
efficacy has been abstracted, remains simply as a cheat to paralyse
individual patriotism.
As Grecian history has been usually written, we are instructed to believe
that the misfortunes, and the corruption, and the degradation of the
democratical states are brought upon them by the class of demagogues, of
whom Cleon, Hyperbolus, Androcles, etc., stand forth as specimens. These
men are represented as mischief makers and revilers, accusing without
just cause, and converting innocence into treason. Now the history of
this conspiracy of the Four Hundred presents to us the other side of the
picture. It shows that the political enemies, against whom the Athenian
people were protected by their democratical institutions, and by the
demagogues as living organs of those institutions, were not fictitious
but dangerously real. It reveals the continued existence of powerful
anti-popular combinations, ready to come together for treasonable
purposes when the moment appeared safe and tempting. It manifests the
character and morality of the leaders, to whom the direction of the
anti-popular force naturally fell. It proves that these leaders, men of
uncommon ability, required nothing more than the extinction or silence
of the demagogues, to be enabled to subvert the popular securities and
get possession of the government. We need no better proof to teach us
what was the real function and intrinsic necessity of these demagogues in
the Athenian system, taking them as a class, and apart from the manner
in which individuals among them may have performed their duty. They
formed the vital movement of all that was tutelary and public spirited
in democracy. Aggressive in respect to official delinquents, they were
defensive in respect to the public and the constitution.
If that force, which Antiphon found ready made, had not been efficient,
at an earlier period in stifling the democracy, it was because there were
demagogues to cry aloud, as well as assemblies to hear and sustain them.
If Antiphon’s conspiracy was successful, it was because he knew where to
aim his blows, so as to strike down the real enemies of the oligarchy
and the real defenders of the people. We here employ the term demagogue
because it is that commonly used by those who denounce the class of
men here under review: the proper neutral phrase, laying aside odious
associations, would be to call them popular speakers, or opposition
speakers. But, by whatever name they may be called, it is impossible
rightly to conceive their position in Athens, without looking at them
in contrast and antithesis with those anti-popular forces against which
they formed the indispensable barrier, and which come forth into such
manifest and melancholy working under the organising hands of Antiphon
and Phrynichus.[c]
[Illustration: GREEK SEALS]
THE REVOLT FROM THE FOUR HUNDRED
The conduct of the Four Hundred tyrants (for historians have justly
adopted the language of Athenian resentment) soon opened the eyes and
understanding of the most thoughtless. They abolished every vestige
of ancient freedom; employed mercenary troops levied from the small
islands of the Ægean, to overawe the multitude, and to intimidate, in
some instances to destroy, their real or suspected enemies. Instead of
seizing the opportunity of annoying the Peloponnesians, enraged at the
treachery of Tissaphernes, and mutinous for want of pay and subsistence,
they sent ambassadors to solicit peace from the Spartans on the most
dishonourable terms. Their tyranny rendered them odious in the city,
and their cowardice made them contemptible in the camp at Samos. Their
cruelty and injustice were described and exaggerated by the fugitives
who continually arrived in that island. Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, two
officers of high merit and distinction, though not actually entrusted
with a share in the principal command, gave activity and boldness to
the insurgents. The abettors of the new government were attacked by
surprise: thirty of the most criminal were put to death, several others
were banished, democracy was re-established in the camp, and the soldiers
were bound by oath to maintain their hereditary government against the
conspiracy of domestic foes, and to act with vigour against the public
enemy.
Thrasybulus, who headed this successful and meritorious sedition, had a
mind to conceive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute the most
daring designs. He exhorted the soldiers not to despair of effecting
in the capital the same revolution which they had produced in the
camp. Their most immediate concern was to recall Alcibiades, who had
been deceived and disgraced by the tyrants, and who not only felt with
peculiar sensibility, but could resent with becoming dignity, the wrongs
of his country and his own. The advice of Thrasybulus was approved; soon
after he sailed to Magnesia, and returned in company with Alcibiades.
[Illustration: GREEK SEALS]
Though the army immediately saluted him general, Alcibiades left the care
of the troops to his colleagues Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, and withdrew
himself from the applauses of his admiring countrymen, on pretence of
concerting with Tissaphernes the system of their future operations. But
his principal motive was to show himself to the Persian, in the new and
illustrious character with which he was invested; for having raised
his authority among the Athenians by his influence with the satrap, he
expected to strengthen this influence by the support of that authority.
Before he returned to the camp, ambassadors had been sent by the tyrants,
to attempt a negotiation with the partisans of democracy, who, inflamed
by continual reports of the indignities and cruelties committed in
Athens, prepared to sail thither to protect their friends and take
vengeance on their enemies. Alcibiades judiciously opposed this rash
resolution which must have left the Hellespont, Ionia, and the islands,
at the mercy of the hostile fleet. But he commanded the ambassadors to
deliver to their masters a short but pithy message: “That they must
divest themselves of their illegal power, and restore the ancient
constitution. If they delayed obedience, he would sail to the Piræus, and
deprive them of their authority and their lives.”
When this message was reported at Athens, it added to the disorder and
confusion in which that unhappy city was involved. The Four Hundred who
had acted with unanimity in usurping the government, soon disagreed
about the administration, and split into factions, which persecuted
each other as furiously as both had persecuted the people. Theramenes
and Aristocrates condemned and opposed the tyrannical measures of their
colleagues. The perfidious Phrynichus was slain: both parties prepared
for taking arms; and the horrors of a Corcyrean sedition were ready to
be renewed in Athens, when the old men, the children, the women, and
strangers, interposed for the safety of a city which had long been the
ornament of Greece, the terror of Persia, and the admiration of the world.
Had the public enemy availed themselves of this opportunity to assault
the Piræus, Athens could not have been saved from immediate destruction.
But the Peloponnesian forces at Miletus, long clamorous and discontented,
had broken out into open mutiny, when they heard of the recall of
Alcibiades, and the hostile intentions of Tissaphernes. They destroyed
the Persian fortifications in the neighbourhood of Miletus; they put the
garrisons to the sword; their treacherous commander, Astyochus, saved his
life by flying to an altar; nor was the tumult appeased until the guilty
were removed from their sight, and Mindarus, an officer of approved
valour and fidelity, arrived from Sparta to assume the principal command.
The dreadful consequences which must have resulted to the Athenians,
if, during the fury of their sedition, the enemy had attacked them with
a fleet of a hundred and fifty sail, may be conceived by the terror
inspired by a much smaller Peloponnesian squadron of only forty-two
vessels commanded by the Spartan Agesandridas. The friends of the
constitution had assembled in the spacious theatre of Bacchus. The most
important matters were in agitation, when the alarm was given that some
Peloponnesian ships had been seen on the coast. All ranks of men hastened
to the Piræus; and prepared thirty-six vessels for taking the sea. When
Agesandridas perceived the ardent opposition which he must encounter
in attempting to land, he doubled the promontory of Sunium, and sailed
towards the fertile island of Eubœa, from which, since the fortification
of Decelea, the Athenians had derived far more plentiful supplies than
from the desolated territory of Attica. To defend a country which formed
their principal resource, they sailed in pursuit of the enemy, and
observed them next day near the shore of Eretria, the most considerable
town in the island.
The Eubœans, who had long watched an opportunity to revolt, supplied the
Peloponnesian squadron with all necessaries in abundance; but instead
of furnishing a market to the Athenians, they retired from the coast on
their approach. The commanders were obliged to weaken their strength
by despatching several parties into the country to procure provisions;
Agesandridas seized this opportunity to attack them: most of the ships
were taken; the crews swam to land; many were cruelly murdered by the
Eretrians, from whom they expected protection; and such only survived as
took refuge in the Athenian garrisons scattered over the island.
The news of this misfortune were most alarming to the Athenians. Neither
the invasion of Xerxes, nor even the defeat in Sicily, occasioned such
terrible consternation. They dreaded the immediate defection of Eubœa;
they had no more ships to launch; no means of resisting their multiplied
enemies: the city was divided against the camp, and divided against
itself. Yet the magnanimous firmness of Theramenes did not allow the
friends of liberty to despair. He encouraged them to disburden the
republic of its domestic foes, who had summoned, or who were at least
believed to have summoned, the assistance of the Lacedæmonian fleet,
that they might be enabled to enslave their fellow citizens. Antiphon,
Pisander, and the most obnoxious, seasonably escaped; the rest submitted.
A decree was passed, recalling Alcibiades, and approving the conduct of
the troops at Samos. The sedition ceased. The democracy, which had been
interrupted four months, was restored; and such are the resources of a
free government, that even this violent fermentation was not unproductive
of benefit to the state.
THE TRIUMPHS OF ALCIBIADES
[Sidenote: [411-409 B.C.]]
The Spartans, who formerly rejected the friendship, now courted the
protection of Pharnabazus; to whose northern province they sailed with
the principal strength of their armament, proceeded northwards in
pursuit of the enemy; and the important straits, which join the Euxine
and Ægean seas, became, and long continued, the scene of conflict. In
the twenty-first winter of the war, a year already distinguished by the
dissolution and revival of their democracy, the Athenians prevailed in
three successive engagements, including Cynossema, the event of which
became continually more decisive.
The Spartans yielded possession of the sea, which they hoped soon to
recover, and retired to the friendly harbours of Cyzicus, to repair
their shattered fleet; while the Athenians profited by the fame of their
victory, and by the terror of their arms, to demand contributions from
the numerous and wealthy towns in that neighbourhood. It was determined,
chiefly by the advice of Alcibiades, to attack the enemy at Cyzicus; for
which purpose they sailed, with eighty galleys, to the small island of
Proconnesus, near the western extremity of the Propontis, and ten miles
distant from the station of the Peloponnesian fleet. Alcibiades surprised
sixty vessels on a dark and rainy morning, as they were manœuvring at
a distance from the harbour, and skilfully intercepted their retreat.
As the day cleared up, the rest sailed forth to their assistance; the
action became general; the Athenians obtained a complete victory, and
their valour was rewarded by the capture of the whole Peloponnesian
fleet, except the Syracusan ships, which were burned, in the face of a
victorious enemy, by the enterprising Hermocrates. The Peloponnesians
were assisted by Pharnabazus in equipping a new fleet; but were deprived
of the wise counsels of Hermocrates, whose abilities were well fitted
both to prepare and to employ the resources of war. The success of the
Asiatic expedition had not corresponded to the sanguine hopes of his
countrymen; the insolent populace accused their commanders of incapacity;
and a mandate was sent from Syracuse, depriving them of their office, and
punishing them with banishment.
Meanwhile Thrasyllus obtained at Athens the supplies which he had gone to
solicit; supplies far more powerful than he had reason to expect. With
these forces, Thrasyllus sailed to Samos. He took Colophon, with several
places of less note, in Ionia; penetrated into the heart of Lydia,
burning the corn and villages; and returned to the shore, driving before
him a numerous body of slaves, and other valuable booty. His courage was
increased by the want of resistance on the part of Tissaphernes, whose
province he had invaded; of the Peloponnesian forces at Miletus; and of
the revolted colonies of Athens. He resolved, therefore, to attack the
beautiful and flourishing city of Ephesus, which was then the principal
ornament and defence of the Ionic coast. The Athenians were defeated,
with the loss of three hundred men; and retiring from the field of
battle, they sought refuge in their ships, and prepared to sail towards
the Hellespont.
During the voyage thither, they fell in with twenty Sicilian galleys,
of which they took four, and pursued the rest to Ephesus. Having soon
afterwards reached the Hellespont, they found the Athenian armament at
Lampsacus, where Alcibiades thought proper to muster the whole military
and naval forces. They made a conjunct expedition against Abydos.
Pharnabazus defended the place with a numerous body of Persian cavalry.
The disgraced troops of Thrasyllus rejoiced in an opportunity to retrieve
their honour. They attacked, repelled, and routed the enemy.
[Sidenote: [408-407 B.C.]]
For several years the measures of the Athenians had been almost uniformly
successful; but the twenty-fourth campaign was distinguished by peculiar
favours of fortune. The Athenians returned in triumph to attack the
fortified cities, which still declined submission; an undertaking in
which Alcibiades displayed the wonderful resources of his extraordinary
genius. By gradual approaches, by sudden assaults, by surprise, by
treason, or by stratagem, he in a few months became master of Chalcedon,
Selymbria, and at last of Byzantium itself. His naval success was
equally conspicuous. The Athenians again commanded the sea. The small
squadrons fitted out by the enemy successively fell into their power.
It was computed by the partisans of Alcibiades, that, since assuming
the command, he had taken or destroyed two hundred Syracusan and
Peloponnesian galleys; and his superiority of naval strength enabled him
to raise such contributions, both in the Euxine and Mediterranean, as
abundantly supplied his fleet and army with every necessary article of
subsistence and accommodation.
While the Athenian arms were crowned with such glory abroad, the Attic
territory was continually harassed by King Agis, and the Lacedæmonian
troops posted at Decelea. Their bold and sudden incursions frequently
threatened the safety of the city itself; the desolated lands afforded
no advantage to the ruined proprietors; nor could the Athenians
venture without their walls, to celebrate their accustomed festivals.
Alcibiades, animated by his foreign victories, hoped to relieve the
domestic sufferings of his country; and after an absence of many years,
distinguished by such a variety of fortune, eagerly longed to revisit
his native city, and enjoy the rewards and honours usually bestowed by
the Greeks on successful valour. This celebrated voyage, which several
ancient historians studiously decorated with every circumstance of
naval triumph, was performed in the twenty-fifth summer of the war.
Notwithstanding all his services, the cautious son of Clinias, instructed
by adversity, declined to land in the Piræus, until he was informed that
the assembly had repealed the decrees against him, formally revoked
his banishment, and prolonged the term of his command. Even after this
agreeable intelligence he was still unable to conquer his well-founded
distrust of the variable and capricious humours of the people; nor would
he approach the crowded shore, till he observed, in the midst of the
multitude, his principal friends and relations inviting him by their
voice and action. He then landed amidst the universal acclamations of
the spectators, who, unattentive to the naval pomp, and regardless of
the other commanders, fixed their eyes only on Alcibiades. Next day an
extraordinary assembly was summoned, by order of the magistrates, that
he might explain and justify his apparent misconduct, and receive the
rewards due to his acknowledged merit.
Before judges so favourably disposed to hear him, Alcibiades found no
difficulty to make his defence. He was appointed commander-in-chief
by sea and land. A hundred galleys were equipped, and transports were
prepared for fifteen hundred heavy-armed men, with a proportional body of
cavalry.
Several months had passed in these preparations, when the Eleusinian
festival approached; a time destined to commemorate and to diffuse the
temporal and spiritual gifts of the goddess Ceres, originally bestowed on
the Athenians, and by them communicated to the rest of Greece.
Besides the mysterious ceremonies of the temple, the worship of that
bountiful goddess was celebrated by vocal and instrumental music, by
public shows, and exhibitions, which continued during several days, and
above all, by the pompous procession, which marched for ten miles along
the sacred road leading from Athens to Eleusis. This important part of
the solemnity had formerly been intermitted, because the Athenians,
after the loss of Decelea, were no longer masters of the road, and were
compelled, contrary to established custom, to proceed by sea to the
temple of Ceres. Alcibiades determined to wipe off the stain of impiety
which had long adhered to his character, by renewing, in all its lustre,
this venerable procession. After sufficient garrisons had been left to
defend the Athenian walls and fortresses, the whole body of heavy-armed
troops were drawn out to protect the Eleusinian procession, which marched
along the usual road to the temple, and afterwards returned to Athens,
without suffering any molestation from the Lacedæmonians; having united,
on this occasion alone, all the splendour of war with the pomp of
superstition.
[Sidenote: [407 B.C.]]
Soon after this meritorious enterprise, Alcibiades prepared to sail for
Lesser Asia, accompanied by the affectionate admiration of his fellow
citizens, who flattered themselves that the abilities and fortune of
their commander would speedily reduce Chios, Ephesus, Miletus, and the
other revolted cities and islands. The general alacrity, however, was
somewhat abated by the reflection, that the arrival of Alcibiades in
Athens coincided with the anniversary of the _plynteria_, a day condemned
to melancholy idleness, from a superstitious belief that nothing
undertaken on that day could be brought to a prosperous conclusion.
While the superstitious multitude trembled at the imaginary anger of
Minerva, men of reflection and experience dreaded the activity and valour
of Lysander, who, during the residence of Alcibiades at Athens, had taken
the command of the Peloponnesian forces in the East. Years had added
experience to his valour, and enlarged the resources, without abating
the ardour, of his ambitious mind. In his transactions with the world,
he had learned to soften the harsh asperity of his national manners;
to gain by fraud what could not be effected by force; and, in his own
figurative language, to “eke out the lion’s with the fox’s skin.” This
mixed character admirably suited the part which he was called to act.
Since the decisive action at Cyzicus, the Peloponnesians, unable to
resist the enemy, had been employed in preparing ships on the coast of
their own peninsula, as well as in the harbours of their Persian and
Grecian allies. The most considerable squadrons had been equipped in Cos,
Rhodes, Miletus, and Ephesus; in the last of which the whole armament,
amounting to ninety sail, was collected by Lysander. But the assembling
of such a force was a matter of little consequence, unless proper
measures should be taken for holding it together, and for enabling it
to act with vigour. It was necessary, above all, to secure pay for the
seamen; for this purpose, Lysander, accompanied by several Lacedæmonian
ambassadors, repaired to Sardis, to congratulate the happy arrival of
Cyrus, a generous and valiant youth of seventeen, who had been entrusted
by his father Darius with the government of the inland parts of Lesser
Asia. Lysander excited the warmest emotions of friendship in the youthful
breast of Cyrus, who drinking his health after the Persian fashion,
desired him to ask a boon, with full assurance that nothing should be
denied him. Lysander replied, with his usual address, “That he should ask
what it would be no less useful for the prince to give, than for him to
receive: the addition of an obolus a day to the pay of the mariners; an
augmentation which, by inducing the Athenian crews to desert, would not
only increase their own strength, but enfeeble the common enemy.” Struck
with the apparent disinterestedness of this specious proposal, Cyrus
ordered him immediately ten thousand darics (above five thousand pounds
sterling); with which he returned to Ephesus, discharged the arrears due
to his troops, gave them a month’s pay in advance, raised their daily
allowance, and seduced innumerable deserters from the Athenian fleet.
While Lysander was usefully employed in manning his ships, and preparing
them for action, Alcibiades attacked the small island of Andros. The
resistance was more vigorous than he had reason to expect; and the
immediate necessity of procuring pay and subsistence for the fleet,
obliged him to leave his work imperfect. With a small squadron he sailed
to raise contributions on the Ionian or Carian coast, committing the
principal armament to Antiochus, a man totally unworthy of such an
important trust. Even the affectionate partiality of Alcibiades seems
to have discerned the unworthiness of his favourite, since he gave him
strict orders to continue, during his own absence, in the harbour of
Samos, and by no means to risk an engagement. This injunction, as it
could not prevent the rashness, might perhaps provoke the vain levity
of the vice-admiral, who after the departure of his friend, sailed to
Notium near Ephesus, approached Lysander’s ships, and with the most
licentious insults challenged him to battle. The prudent Spartan delayed
the moment of attack, until the presumption of his enemies had thrown
them into scattered disorder. He then commanded the Peloponnesian
squadrons to advance. His manœuvres were judicious, and executed with a
prompt obedience. The battle was not obstinate, as the Athenians, who
scarcely expected any resistance, much less assault, sunk at once from
the insolence of temerity into the despondency of fear. They lost fifteen
vessels, with a considerable part of their crews. The remainder retired
disgracefully to Samos; while the Lacedæmonians profited by their victory
by the taking of Eion and Delphinium. Though fortune thus favoured the
prudence of Lysander, he declined to venture a second engagement with
the superior strength of Alcibiades, who, having resumed the command,
employed every artifice and insult that might procure him an opportunity
to restore the tarnished lustre of the Athenian fleet.
[Illustration: GREEK BUCKLES
(In the British Museum)]
ALCIBIADES IN DISFAVOUR AGAIN
[Sidenote: [407-406 B.C.]]
But such an opportunity he could never again find. The people of Athens,
who expected to hear of nothing but victories and triumphs, were
mortified to the last degree, when they received intelligence of such a
shameful defeat. As they could not suspect the abilities, they distrusted
the fidelity, of their commander. Their suspicions were increased and
confirmed by the arrival of Thrasybulus, who, whether actuated by a
laudable zeal for the interest of the public service, or animated by
a selfish jealousy of the fame and honours that had been so liberally
heaped on a rival, formally impeached Alcibiades in the Athenian
assembly. “His misconduct had totally ruined the affairs of his country.
A talent for low buffoonery was a sure recommendation to his favour. His
friends were, partially, selected from the meanest and most abandoned of
men, who possessed no other merit than that of being subservient to his
passions. To such unworthy instruments the fleet of Athens was entrusted;
while the commander-in-chief revelled in debauchery with the harlots of
Abydos and Ionia, or raised exorbitant contributions on the dependent
cities, that he might defray the expense of a fortress on the coast
of Thrace, in the neighbourhood of Byzantium, which he had erected to
shelter himself against the just vengeance of the republic.”
In the assembly, Alcibiades was accused, and almost unanimously
condemned; and that the affairs of the republic might not again suffer
by the abuse of undivided power, ten commanders were substituted in his
room; among whom were Thrasyllus, Leon, Diomedon; Conon, a character as
yet but little known, but destined, in a future period, to eclipse the
fame of his contemporaries; and Pericles, who inherited the name, the
merit, and the bad fortune, of his illustrious father. The new generals
immediately sailed to Samos; and Alcibiades sought refuge in his Thracian
fortress.
They had scarcely assumed the command, when an important alteration
took place in the Peloponnesian fleet. Lysander’s year had expired,
and Callicratidas, a Spartan of a very opposite character, was sent to
succeed him.
Lysander reluctantly resigned his employment; but determined to render
it painful, and if possible, too weighty for the abilities of his
successor. For this purpose he returned to the court of Cyrus, to whom
he restored a considerable sum of money still unexpended in the service
of the Grecian fleet, and to whom he misrepresented, under the names
of obstinacy, ignorance, and rusticity, the unaffected plainness, the
downright sincerity, and the other manly, but uncomplying, virtues of the
generous Callicratidas. When that commander repaired to Sardis to demand
the stipulated pay, he could not obtain admission to the royal presence.
But Callicratidas could not, with honour or safety, return to the fleet
at Ephesus, without having collected money to supply the immediate
wants of the sailors. He proceeded, therefore, to Miletus and other
friendly towns of Ionia; and having met the principal citizens, in their
respective assemblies, he explained openly and fully the mean jealousy
of Lysander, and the disdainful arrogance of Cyrus. By those judicious
and honourable expedients, Callicratidas, without fraud or violence,
obtained such considerable, yet voluntary contributions, as enabled him
to gratify the importunate demands of the sailors, and to return with
honour to Ephesus, in order to prepare for action. His first operations
were directed against the isle of Lesbos, or rather against the strong
and populous towns of Methymna and Mytilene, which respectively commanded
the northern and southern divisions of that island. Methymna was taken by
storm, and subjected to the depredations of the Peloponnesian troops.
CONON WINS AT ARGINUSÆ
Meanwhile Conon, the most active and enterprising of the Athenian
commanders, had put to sea with a squadron of seventy sail, in order to
protect the coast of Lesbos. But this design was attempted too late; nor,
had it been more early undertaken, was the force of Conon sufficient
to accomplish it. Callicratidas observed his motions, discovered his
strength, and, with a far superior fleet, intercepted his retreat to the
armament of Samos. The Athenians fled towards the coast of Mytilene, but
were prevented from entering the harbour of that place by the resentment
of the inhabitants, who rejoiced in an opportunity to punish those who
had so often conquered, and so long oppressed, their city. In consequence
of this unexpected opposition, the Athenian squadron was overtaken by
the enemy. The engagement was more sharp and obstinate than might have
been expected in such an inequality of strength. Thirty empty ships (for
the most of the men swam to land) were taken by the Peloponnesians. The
remaining forty were hauled up under the walls of Mytilene; Callicratidas
recalled his troops from Methymna, received a reinforcement from Chios,
and blocked up the Athenians by sea and land.
[Sidenote: [406 B.C.]]
The Athenians reinforced their domestic strength with the assistance of
their allies; all able-bodied men were pressed into the service; and, in
a few weeks, they had assembled at Samos a hundred and fifty sail, which
immediately took the sea, with a resolution to encounter the enemy.
Callicratidas did not decline the engagement. Having left fifty ships
to guard the harbour of Mytilene, he proceeded with a hundred and
twenty to Cape Malea, the most southern point of Lesbos. The Athenians
had advanced, the same evening, to the islands or rather rocks, of
Arginusæ, four miles distant from that promontory. The night passed in
bold stratagems for mutual surprise, which were rendered ineffectual by
a violent tempest of rain and thunder. The fight was long and bloody;
passing, successively, through all the different gradations, from
disciplined order and regularity to the most tumultuous confusion.
The Spartan commander was slain charging in the centre of the bravest
enemies. The hostile squadrons fought with various fortune in different
parts of the battle, and promiscuously conquered, pursued, surrendered,
or fled. Thirteen Athenian vessels were taken by the Peloponnesians; but,
at length, the latter gave way on all sides: seventy of their ships were
captured, the rest escaped to Chios and Phocæa.
The Athenian admirals, though justly elated with their good fortune,
cautiously deliberated concerning the best means of improving their
victory. Several advised that the fleet should steer its course to
Mytilene, to surprise the Peloponnesian squadron which blocked up the
harbour of that city. Diomedon recommended it as a more immediate and
essential object of their care to recover the bodies of the slain,
and to save the wreck of twelve vessels which had been disabled
in the engagement. Thrasybulus observed, that by dividing their
strength, both purposes might be effected. His opinion was approved.
The charge of preserving the dying, and collecting the bodies of the
dead, was committed to Theramenes and Thrasybulus. Fifty vessels were
destined to that important service, doubly recommended by humanity and
superstition. The remainder sailed to the isle of Lesbos, in quest of the
Peloponnesians on that coast, who narrowly escaped destruction through
the well-conducted stratagem of Eteonicus, the Spartan vice-admiral.
While the prudent foresight of Eteonicus saved the Peloponnesian
squadron at Mytilene, the violence of a storm prevented Theramenes and
Thrasybulus from saving their unfortunate companions, all of whom,
excepting one of the admirals and a few others who escaped by their
extraordinary dexterity in swimming, were overwhelmed by the waves of a
tempestuous sea; nor could their dead bodies ever be recovered. These
unforeseen circumstances were the more disagreeable and mortifying to
the commanders, because, immediately after the battle, they had sent
an advice-boat to Athens, acquainting the magistrates with the capture
of seventy vessels; mentioning their intended expeditions to Mytilene,
Methymna, and Chios, from which they had reason to hope the most
distinguished success; and particularly taking notice that the important
charge of recovering the bodies of the drowned or slain had been
committed to Theramenes and Thrasybulus, two captains of approved conduct
and fidelity.
The joy with which the Athenians received this flattering intelligence
was converted into disappointment and sorrow, when they understood that
their fleet had returned to Samos, without reaping the expected fruits of
victory. They were afflicted beyond measure with the total loss of the
wreck, by which their brave and victorious countrymen had been deprived
of the sacred rites of funeral; a circumstance viewed with peculiar
horror, because it was supposed, according to a superstition consecrated
by the belief of ages, to subject their melancholy shades to wander a
hundred years on the gloomy banks of the Styx, before they could be
transported to the regions of light and felicity. The relations of the
dead lamented their private misfortunes; the enemies of the admirals
exaggerated the public calamity; both demanded an immediate and serious
examination into the cause of this distressful event, that the guilty
might be discovered and punished.
THE TRIAL OF THE GENERALS
Amidst the ferment of popular discontents, Theramenes sailed to Athens,
with a view to exculpate himself and his colleague, Thrasybulus. The
letter sent thither before them had excited their fear and their
resentment; since it rendered them responsible for a duty which they
found it impossible to perform. Theramenes accused the admirals of having
neglected the favourable moment to save the perishing, and to recover the
bodies of the dead; and, after the opportunity of this important service
was irrecoverably lost, of having devolved the charge on others, in order
to screen their own misconduct. The Athenians greedily listened to the
accusation, and cashiered the absent commanders. Conon, who during the
action remained blocked up at Mytilene, was entrusted with the fleet.
Protomachus and Aristogenes chose a voluntary banishment. The rest
returned home to justify measures which appeared so criminal.
Archedemus, an opulent and powerful citizen, and Callixenus, a seditious
demagogue, partly moved by the entreaties of Theramenes, and partly
excited by personal envy and resentment, denounced the admirals to the
senate. The accusation was supported by the relatives of the deceased,
who appeared in mourning robes, their heads shaved, their arms folded,
their eyes bathed in tears, piteously lamenting the loss and disgrace of
their families, deprived of their protectors, who had been themselves
deprived of those last and solemn duties to which all mankind are
entitled. A false witness swore in court, that he had been saved, almost
by miracle, from the wreck, and that his companions, as they were ready
to be drowned, charged him to acquaint his country how they had fallen
victims to the neglect of their commanders.
An unjust decree, which deprived the commanders of the benefits of a
separate trial, of an impartial hearing, and of the time as well as the
means necessary to prepare a legal defence, was approved by a majority
of the senate, and received with loud acclamations by the people,
whose levity, insolence, pride, and cruelty, all eagerly demanded
the destruction of the admirals. The senators were intimidated into a
reluctant compliance with measures which they disapproved, and by which
they were for ever to be disgraced. Yet the philosophic firmness of
Socrates disdained to submit. He protested against the tameness of his
colleagues, and declared that neither threats, nor danger, nor violence,
could compel him to conspire with injustice for the destruction of the
innocent.
[Illustration: GRECIAN GALLEY]
But what could avail the voice of one virtuous man amidst the licentious
madness of thousands? The commanders were accused, tried, condemned,
and, with the most irregular precipitancy, delivered to the executioner.
Before they were led to death, Diomedon addressed the assembly in a short
but ever-memorable speech: “I am afraid, Athenians, lest the sentence
which you have passed on us, prove hurtful to the republic. Yet I would
exhort you to employ the most proper means to avert the vengeance of
heaven. You must carefully perform the sacrifices which, before giving
battle at Arginusæ, we promised to the gods in behalf of ourselves and
of you. Our misfortunes deprive us of an opportunity to acquit this
just debt, and to pay the sincere tribute of our gratitude. But we are
deeply sensible that the assistance of the gods enabled us to obtain that
glorious and signal victory.” The disinterestedness, the patriotism, and
the magnanimity of this discourse, must have appeased (if anything had
been able to appease) the tumultuous passions of the vulgar. But their
headstrong fury defied every restraint of reason or of sentiment. They
persisted in their bloody purpose, which was executed without pity:
yet their cruelty was followed by a speedy repentance, and punished by
the sharp pangs of remorse, the intolerable pain of which they vainly
attempted to mitigate by inflicting a well-merited vengeance on the
detestable Callixenus.[b]
This complication of injustice and ingratitude seemed to give the
finishing blow to the Athenian state; they struggled for a while, after
their defeat at Syracuse; but from hence they were entirely sunk.
The enemy, after their last defeat, had once more recourse to Lysander,
who had so often led them to conquest: on him they placed their chief
confidence, and ardently solicited his return. The Lacedæmonians, to
gratify their allies, and yet to observe their laws, which forbade
that honour being conferred twice on the same person, sent him with an
inferior title, but with the power of admiral. Thus appointed, Lysander
sailed towards the Hellespont, and laid siege to Lampsacus: the place
was carried by storm, and abandoned by Lysander to the mercy of the
soldiers. The Athenians, who followed him close, upon the news of his
success, steered forward towards Sestus, and from thence, sailing along
the coast, halted over against the enemy at Ægospotami, a place fatal to
the Athenians.
THE BATTLE OF ÆGOSPOTAMI
[Sidenote: [405 B.C.]]
The Hellespont is not above two thousand yards broad in that place.
The two armies seeing themselves so near each other, expected only to
rest the day, and were in hopes of coming to a battle on that next. But
Lysander had another design in view: he commanded the seamen and pilots
to go on board their galleys, as if they were in reality to fight the
next morning at break of day, to hold themselves in readiness, and to
wait his orders in profound silence. He ordered the land army, in like
manner, to draw up in battle upon the coast, and to wait the day without
any noise. On the morning, as soon as the sun was risen, the Athenians
began to row towards them with their whole fleet in one line, and to
bid them defiance. Lysander, though his ships were ranged in order of
battle, with their heads towards the enemy, lay still without making any
movement. In the evening, when the Athenians withdrew, he did not suffer
his soldiers to go ashore, till two or three galleys, which he had sent
out to observe them, were returned with advice that they had seen the
enemy land. The next day passed in the same manner, as did the third and
fourth. Such a conduct, which argued reserve and apprehension, extremely
augmented the security and boldness of the Athenians, and inspired them
with a high contempt for an army, which fear prevented from showing
themselves or attempting anything.
[Illustration: GREEK CANDELABRUM
(After Hope)]
Whilst this passed, Alcibiades, who was near the fleet, took horse,
and came to the Athenian generals, to whom he represented, that they
came upon a very disadvantageous coast, where there were neither ports
nor cities in the neighbourhood; that they were obliged to bring their
provisions from Sestus, with great danger and difficulty; and that they
were very much in the wrong to suffer the soldiers and mariners of the
fleet, as soon as they were ashore, to straggle and disperse themselves
at their pleasure, whilst the enemy’s fleet faced them in view,
accustomed to execute the orders of their general with instant obedience,
and upon the slightest signal.
He offered also to attack the enemy by land, with a strong body of
Thracian troops, and to force a battle. The generals, especially Tydeus
and Menander, jealous of their command, did not content themselves
with refusing his offers, from the opinion, that, if the event proved
unfortunate, the whole blame would fall upon them, and, if favourable,
that Alcibiades would engross the whole honour of it; but rejected also
with insult his wise and salutary counsel: as if a man in disgrace lost
his sense and abilities with the favour of the commonwealth. Alcibiades
withdrew.
The fifth day, the Athenians presented themselves again, and offered
battle, retiring in the evening according to custom, with a more
insulting air than the days before. Lysander, as usual, detached some
galleys to observe them, with orders to return with the utmost diligence
when they saw the Athenians landed, and to put a bright buckler[58] at
each ship’s head, as soon as they reached the middle of the channel.
Himself, in the meantime, ran through the whole line in his galley,
exhorting the pilots and officers to hold the seamen and soldiers in
readiness to row and fight on the first signal.
As soon as the bucklers were put up in the ships’ heads, and the
admiral’s galley had given the signal by the sound of trumpet, the whole
fleet set forwards, in good order. The land army, at the same time, made
all possible haste to the top of the promontory, to see the battle. The
strait that separates the two continents in this place is about fifteen
stadia, or two miles in breadth, which space was presently cleared,
through the activity and diligence of the rowers. Conon, the Athenian
general, was the first who perceived from shore the enemy’s fleet
advancing in good order to attack him, upon which he immediately cried
out for the troops to embark. In the height of sorrow and perplexity,
some he called to by their names, some he conjured, and others he forced
to go on board their galleys: but all his endeavours and emotion were
ineffectual, the soldiers being dispersed on all sides. For they were no
sooner come on shore, than some were run to the sutlers, some to walk in
the country, some to sleep in their tents, and others had begun to dress
their suppers. This proceeded from the want of vigilance and experience
in their generals, who, not suspecting the least danger, indulged
themselves in taking their repose, and gave their soldiers the same
liberty.
The enemy had already fallen on with loud cries, and a great noise of
their oars, when Conon, disengaging himself with nine galleys, of which
number was the sacred ship, stood away for Cyprus, where he took refuge
with Evagoras. The Peloponnesians, falling upon the rest of the fleet,
took immediately the galleys which were empty, and disabled and destroyed
such as began to fill with men. The soldiers, who ran without order or
arms to their relief, were either killed in the endeavour to get on
board, or flying on shore, were cut in pieces by the enemy, who landed
in pursuit of them. Lysander took three thousand prisoners, with all
their generals, and the whole fleet. After having plundered the camp,
and fastened the enemy’s galleys to the sterns of his own, he returned
to Lampsacus, amidst the sounds of flutes and songs of triumph. It was
his glory to have achieved one of the greatest military exploits recorded
in history, with little or no loss, and to have terminated a war, in the
small space of an hour, which had already lasted seven-and-twenty years,
and which perhaps, without him, had been of much longer continuance.
Lysander immediately sent despatches with this agreeable news to Sparta.
The three thousand prisoners taken in this battle having been condemned
to die, Lysander called upon Philocles, one of the Athenian generals, who
had caused all the prisoners taken in two galleys, the one of Andros,
the other of Corinth, to be thrown from the top of a precipice, and had
formerly persuaded the people of Athens to make a decree for cutting off
the thumb of the right hand of all the prisoners of war, in order to
disable them from handling the pike, and that they might be fit only to
serve at the oar. Lysander, therefore, caused him to be brought forth,
and asked him what sentence he would pass upon himself, for having
induced his city to pass that cruel decree. Philocles, without departing
from his haughtiness in the least, notwithstanding the extreme danger he
was in, made answer: “Accuse not people of crimes, who have no judges;
but, as you are victors, use your right, and do by us as we had done by
you, if we had conquered.” At the same instant he went into a bath, put
on afterwards a magnificent robe, and marched foremost to the execution.
All the prisoners were put to the sword, except Adimantus,[59] who had
opposed the decree.[e]
THE FALL OF ATHENS
When he had arranged matters at Lampsacus, Lysander sailed against
Byzantium and Chalcedon; where the inhabitants admitted him, after
sending away the Athenian garrison under treaty. The party that had
betrayed Byzantium to Alcibiades, at that time fled to Pontus, and
afterwards to Athens, and became citizens there. The garrison troops of
the Athenians, and whatever other Athenians he found anywhere, Lysander
sent to Athens, giving them safe conduct so long as they were sailing
to that place alone, and to no other; knowing that the more people were
collected in the city and Piræus, the sooner there would be a want
of provisions. And now, leaving Sthenelaus as Lacedæmonian harmost
of Byzantium and Chalcedon, he himself sailed away to Lampsacus, and
refitted his ships.
[Illustration: GREEK VASE]
At Athens, on the arrival of the _Paralus_ in the night, the tale of
their disaster was told; and the lamentation spread from the Piræus up
the Long Walls into the city, one man passing on the tidings to another:
so that no one went to bed that night, not only through their mourning
for the dead, but much more still because they thought they should
themselves suffer the same things as they had done to the Melians (who
were a colony from Lacedæmon), when they had reduced them by blockade,
and to the Histiæans, Scionæans, Toronæans, Æginetans, and many others of
the Greeks. But the next day they convened an assembly, at which it was
resolved to block up the harbours, with the exception of one, and to put
the walls in order, and mount guard upon them, and in every other way to
prepare the city for a siege.
Lysander, having come with two hundred ships from the Hellespont to
Lesbos, regulated both the other cities in the island, and especially
Mytilene; while he sent Eteonicus with ten ships to the Athenian
possessions Thraceward, who brought over all the places there to the
Lacedæmonians. And all the rest of Greece too revolted from Athens
immediately after the sea-fight, except the Samians; they massacred
the notables amongst them, and kept possession of the city. Afterwards
Lysander sent word to Agis at Decelea, and to Lacedæmon, that he was
sailing up with two hundred ships. And the Lacedæmonians went out to
meet him _en masse_, and all the rest of the Peloponnesians but the
Argives, at the command of the other Spartan king, Pausanias. When they
were all combined, he took them to the city and encamped before it, in
the academy--the gymnasium so called. Then Lysander went to Ægina, and
restored the city to the Æginetans, having collected as many of them as
he could; and so likewise to the Melians, and as many others as had been
deprived of their city. After this, having ravaged Salamis, he came to
anchor off the Piræus, with a hundred and fifty ships, and prevented all
vessels from sailing into it.
The Athenians, being thus besieged by land and by sea, were at a loss
what to do, as they had neither ships, nor allies, nor provisions; and
they thought nothing could save them from suffering what they had done to
others, not in self-defence, but wantonly wronging men of smaller states,
on no other single ground, but their being allies of the Lacedæmonians.
Wherefore they restored to their privileges those who had been degraded
from them, and held out resolutely; and though many in the city were
dying of starvation, they spoke not a word of coming to terms. But when
their corn had now entirely failed, they sent ambassadors to Agis,
wishing to become allies of the Lacedæmonians, while they retained their
walls and the Piræus, and on these conditions to make treaty with them.
He told them to go to Lacedæmon, as he had himself no power to treat.
When the ambassadors delivered this message to the Athenians, they sent
them to Lacedæmon. But when they were at Sellasia, near the Laconian
territory, and the ephors heard what they proposed, which was the same
as they had done to Agis, they bade them return from that very spot, and
if they had any wish at all for peace, to come back after taking better
advice.
When the ambassadors came home, and reported this in the city, dejection
fell on all; for they thought they would be sold into slavery; and that
even while they were sending another embassy, many would die of famine.
But with respect to the demolition of their walls, no one would advise
it: for Archestratus had been thrown into prison for saying in the
council, that it was best to make peace with the Lacedæmonians on the
terms they offered, which were, that they should demolish ten furlongs of
each of the Long Walls; and a decree was then made, that it should not
be allowed to advise on that subject. Such being the case, Theramenes
said in the assembly, that if they would send him to Lysander, he would
come back with full knowledge whether it was from a wish to enslave the
city that the Lacedæmonians held out on the subject of the walls, or to
have a guarantee for their good faith. Having been sent, he remained with
Lysander three months and more, watching to see when the Athenians, from
the failure of all their food, would agree to what any one might say. On
his return in the fourth month, he reported in the assembly that Lysander
had detained him all that time, and then told him to go to Lacedæmon.
After this he was chosen ambassador to Lacedæmon with full powers,
together with nine others. Now Lysander had sent, along with some others
who were Lacedæmonians, Aristoteles, an Athenian exile, to carry word to
the ephors that he had answered Theramenes, that it was they who were
empowered to decide on the question of peace or war. So when Theramenes
and the rest of the ambassadors were at Sellasia, being asked on what
terms they had come, they replied that they had full powers to treat
for peace; the ephors then ordered them to be called onward. Upon their
arrival they convened an assembly, at which the Corinthians and Thebans
contended most strenuously, though many others of the Greeks did so too,
that they should conclude no treaty with the Athenians, but make away
with them.
The Lacedæmonians, however, said they would not reduce to bondage a state
which had done great good at the time of the greatest dangers that had
ever befallen Greece; but they offered to make peace, on condition of
their demolishing the Long Walls and Piræus, giving up all their ships
but twelve, restoring their exiles, having the same friends and foes as
the Lacedæmonians, and following, both by land and by sea, wherever they
might lead. Theramenes and his fellow-ambassadors carried back these
terms to Athens. On their entering the city, a great multitude poured
round them, afraid of their having returned unsuccessful: for it was
no longer possible to delay, owing to the great numbers who were dying
of famine. The next day the ambassadors reported on what conditions
the Lacedæmonians were willing to make peace; and Theramenes, as their
spokesman, said that they should obey the Lacedæmonians, and destroy
the walls. When some had opposed him, but far more agreed with him, it
was resolved to accept the peace. Subsequently Lysander sailed into the
Piræus, and the exiles were restored; and they dug down the walls with
much glee, to the music of women playing the flute, considering that day
to be the beginning of liberty to Greece.
And so ended the year in the middle of which Dionysius the son of
Hermocrates, the Syracusan, became tyrant, after the Carthaginians,
though previously defeated in battle by the Syracusans, had reduced
Agrigentum.[f]
A REVIEW OF THE WAR
[Sidenote: [478-404 B.C.]]
The confederacy of Delos was formed by the free and spontaneous
association of many different towns, all alike independent; towns which
met in synod and deliberated by equal vote--took by their majority
resolutions binding upon all--and chose Athens as their chief to enforce
these resolutions, as well as to superintend generally the war against
the common enemy.
Now the only way by which the confederacy was saved from falling
to pieces, was by being transformed into an Athenian empire. Such
transformation (as Thucydides plainly intimates) did not arise from
the ambition or deep-laid projects of Athens, but from the reluctance
of the larger confederates to discharge the obligations imposed by the
common synod, and from the unwarlike character of the confederates
generally--which made them desirous to commute military service for
money-payment, while Athens on her part was not less anxious to perform
the service and obtain the money. By gradual and unforeseen stages,
Athens thus passed from consulate to empire; in such manner that no one
could point out the precise moment of time when the confederacy of Delos
ceased, and when the empire began.
But the Athenian empire came to include (between 460-446 B.C.) other
cities not parties to the confederacy of Delos. Athens had conquered
her ancient enemy the island of Ægina, and had acquired supremacy over
Megara, Bœotia, Phocis, and Locris, and Achaia in Peloponnesus. Her
empire was now at its maximum; and had she been able to maintain it--or
even to keep possession of the Megarid separately, which gave her the
means of barring out all invasions from the Peloponnesus--the future
course of Grecian history would have been materially altered. But her
empire on land did not rest upon the same footing as her empire at sea.
The exiles in Megara and Bœotia, etc., and the anti-Athenian party
generally in those places--combined with the rashness of her general
Tolmides at Coronea--deprived her of all her land-dependencies near home,
and even threatened her with the loss of Eubœa. The peace concluded in
445 B.C. left her with all her maritime and insular empire (including
Eubœa), but with nothing more; while by the loss of Megara she was now
open to invasion from the Peloponnesus.
On this footing she remained at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War
fourteen years afterwards. That war did not arise (as has been so often
asserted) from aggressive or ambitious schemes on the part of Athens,
but that, on the contrary, the aggression was all on the side of her
enemies, who were full of hopes that they could put her down with little
delay; while she was not merely conservative and defensive, but even
discouraged by the certainty of destructive invasion, and only dissuaded
from concessions, alike imprudent and inglorious, by the extraordinary
influence and resolute wisdom of Pericles. That great man comprehended
well both the conditions and the limits of Athenian empire. Athens
was now understood (especially since the revolt and reconquest of the
powerful island of Samos in 440 B.C.) by her subjects and enemies as well
as by her own citizens, to be mistress of the sea. It was the care of
Pericles to keep that belief within definite boundaries, and to prevent
all waste of the force of the city in making new or distant acquisitions
which could not be permanently maintained. But it was also his care to
enforce upon his countrymen the lesson of maintaining their existing
empire unimpaired, and shrinking from no effort requisite for that end.
Though their whole empire was now staked upon the chances of a perilous
war, he did not hesitate to promise them success, provided that they
adhered to this conservative policy.
[Sidenote: [431-413 B.C.]]
[Illustration: PART OF THE ANCIENT GREEK WALL AT FERENTINUM WITH
SUPERIMPOSED MODERN STRUCTURE]
Following the events of the war, we shall find that Athens did adhere
to it for the first seven years; years of suffering and trial, from the
destructive annual invasion, the yet more destructive pestilence, and the
revolt of Mytilene--but years which still left her empire unimpaired, and
the promises of Pericles in fair chance of being realised. In the seventh
year of the war occurred the unexpected victory at Sphacteria and the
capture of the Lacedæmonian prisoners. This placed in the hands of the
Athenians a capital advantage, imparting to them prodigious confidence
of future success, while their enemies were in a proportional degree
disheartened. It was in this temper that they first departed from the
conservative precept of Pericles.
Down to the expedition against Syracuse the empire of Athens (except
the possessions in Thrace) remained undiminished, and her general power
nearly as great as it had ever been since 445 B.C. That expedition was
the one great and fatal departure from the Periclean policy, bringing
upon Athens an amount of disaster from which she never recovered; and it
was doubtless an error of over-ambition.
After the Syracusan disaster, there is no longer any question about
adhering to, or departing from the Periclean policy. Athens is like
Patroclus in the _Iliad_, after Apollo has stunned him by a blow on the
back and loosened his armour. Nothing but the slackness of her enemies
allowed her time for a partial recovery, so as to make increased heroism
a substitute for impaired force, even against doubled and tripled
difficulties. And the years of struggle which she now went through are
among the most glorious events in her history. These years present many
misfortunes, but no serious misjudgment; not to mention one peculiarly
honourable moment, after the overthrow of the Four Hundred. And after
all, they were on the point of partially recovering themselves in 408
B.C., when the unexpected advent of Cyrus set the seal to their destiny.
The bloodshed after the recapture of Mytilene and Scione, and still
more that which succeeded the capture of Melos, are disgraceful to the
humanity of Athens, and stand in pointed contrast with the treatment of
Samos when reconquered by Pericles. But they did not contribute sensibly
to break down her power; though, being recollected with aversion after
other incidents were forgotten, they are alluded to in later times as
if they had caused the fall of the empire. Her downfall had one great
cause--we may almost say, one single cause--the Sicilian expedition.[60]
The empire of Athens both was, and appeared to be, in exuberant strength
when that expedition was sent forth; strength more than sufficient to
bear up against all moderate faults or moderate misfortunes, such as
no government ever long escapes. But the catastrophe of Syracuse was
something overpassing in terrific calamity all Grecian experience and
all power of foresight. It was like the Russian campaign of 1812 to the
Emperor Napoleon, though by no means imputable, in an equal degree, to
vice in the original project. No Grecian power could bear up against such
a death wound; and the prolonged struggle of Athens after it is not the
least wonderful part of the whole war.
GROTE’S ESTIMATE OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
[Sidenote: [460-404 B.C.]]
Nothing in the political history of Greece is so remarkable as the
Athenian empire; taking it as it stood in its completeness, from about
460-413 B.C. (the date of the Syracusan catastrophe), or still more, from
460-424 B.C. (the date when Brasidas made his conquests in Thrace). After
the Syracusan catastrophe, the conditions of the empire were altogether
changed; it was irretrievably broken up, though Athens still continued
an energetic struggle to retain some of the fragments. But if we view it
as it had stood before that event, during the period of its integrity,
it is a sight marvellous to contemplate, and its working must be
pronounced, in my judgment, to have been highly beneficial to the Grecian
world. No Grecian state except Athens could have sufficed to organise
such a system, or to hold, in partial, though regulated, continuous
and specific communion, so many little states, each animated with that
force of political repulsion instinctive in the Grecian mind. This was a
mighty task, worthy of Athens, and to which no state except Athens was
competent. We have already seen in part, and we shall see still farther,
how little qualified Sparta was to perform it: and we shall have occasion
hereafter to notice a like fruitless essay on the part of Thebes.
[Illustration: ATHENIAN WOMAN
(After Hope)]
As in regard to the democracy of Athens generally, so in regard to
her empire--it has been customary with historians to take notice of
little except the bad side. But the empire of Athens was not harsh
and oppressive, as it is commonly depicted. Under the circumstances
of her dominion--at a time when the whole transit and commerce of the
Ægean was under one maritime system, which excluded all irregular
force--when Persian ships of war were kept out of the waters, and Persian
tribute-officers away from the seaboard--when the disputes inevitable
among so many little communities could be peaceably redressed by the
mutual right of application to the tribunals at Athens--and when these
tribunals were also such as to present to sufferers a refuge against
wrongs done even by individual citizens of Athens herself (to use the
expression of the oligarchical Phrynichus)--the condition of the maritime
Greeks was materially better than it had been before, or than it will be
seen to become afterwards. Her empire, if it did not inspire attachment,
certainly provoked no antipathy, among the bulk of the citizens of the
subject-communities, as is shown by the party-character of the revolts
against her. If in her imperial character she exacted obedience, she also
fulfilled duties and insured protection--to a degree incomparably greater
than was ever realised by Sparta. And even if she had been ever so much
disposed to cramp the free play of mind and purpose among her subjects--a
disposition which is no way proved--the very circumstances of her own
democracy, with its open antithesis of political parties, universal
liberty of speech, and manifold individual energy, would do much to
prevent the accomplishment of such an end, and would act as a stimulus to
the dependent communities even without her own intention.
Without being insensible either to the faults or to the misdeeds of
imperial Athens, I believe that her empire was a great comparative
benefit, and its extinction a great loss, to her own subjects. But still
more do I believe it to have been a good, looked at with reference to
Panhellenic interests. Its maintenance furnished the only possibility of
keeping out foreign intervention, and leaving the destinies of Greece
to depend upon native, spontaneous, untrammelled Grecian agencies. The
downfall of the Athenian empire is the signal for the arms and corruption
of Persia again to make themselves felt, and for the re-enslavement of
the Asiatic Greeks under her tribute-officers. What is still worse,
it leaves the Grecian world in a state incapable of repelling any
energetic foreign attack, and open to the overruling march of “the man
of Macedon” half a century afterwards. For such was the natural tendency
of the Grecian world to political non-integration or disintegration,
that the rise of the Athenian empire, incorporating so many states
into one system, is to be regarded as a most extraordinary accident.
Nothing but the genius, energy, discipline, and democracy of Athens,
could have brought it about; nor even she, unless favoured and pushed
on by a very peculiar train of antecedent events. But having once got
it, she might perfectly well have kept it; and had she done so, the
Hellenic world would have remained so organised as to be able to repel
foreign intervention, either from Susa or from Pella. When we reflect
how infinitely superior was the Hellenic mind to that of all surrounding
nations and races; how completely its creative agency was stifled as soon
as it came under the Macedonian dictation; and how much more it might
perhaps have achieved, if it had enjoyed another century or half-century
of freedom, under the stimulating headship of the most progressive and
most intellectual of all its separate communities--we shall look with
double regret on the ruin of the Athenian empire, as accelerating,
without remedy, the universal ruin of Grecian independence, political
action, and mental grandeur.[c]
FOOTNOTES
[57] This striking and deep-seated regard of the Athenians for all the
forms of an established constitution, makes itself felt even by Mitford
(History of Greece vol. iv. sect. v. ch. xix. p. 235).
[58] [An early form of heliograph.]
[59] [He, with others, was accused of treachery, not without cause.]
[60] [Manso, in his _Sparta_ is so far from ascribing the downfall of
Athens to the Sicilian fiasco, that he sees no connection between them.
Thirlwall disagrees with this though he thinks the empire was doomed
to disintegration. He says, “Syracuse was their Moscow; but if it had
not been so they would have found one elsewhere.” He imputes the fall
to internal discord. Mitford sees in the war less a civil strife than a
contest between the oligarchical and democratical interests throughout
the Grecian commonwealths, in every one of which was a party friendly to
the public enemy. He says of the fight with Sicily, “Democracy here was
opposed to democracy,” and he credits the fate of Athens to “the ruin,
which such a government hath an eternal tendency to bring upon itself.”
He rejoices that the slaves at least of the various governments had a
little respite from cruelty. Cox, like Grote, sees in the crumbling of
the Athenian empire, in spite of all its crimes, such a cosmic misfortune
as set back the progress of the world beyond our power of estimation.]
[Illustration: GREEK CAVALRY]
[Illustration]
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
[The letter [a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]
CHAPTER I. LAND AND PEOPLE
[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[c] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.
[d] WILLIAM RIDGEWAY, _The Early Age of Greece_.
[e] GUSTAV F. HERTZBERG, _Geschichte der Griechen im Alterthum_.
[f] STRABO, _Γεωγραφικά_.
[g] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Peloponnesian War_.
[h] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.
[i] HERODOTUS, _History_.
CHAPTER II. THE MYCENÆAN AGE
[b] D. G. HOGARTH, article on “_Mycenæan Civilisation_,” in the New
Volumes of the Ninth Edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_.
[c] HENRY SCHLIEMANN, _Mycenæ_.
[d] C. TSOUNTAS and J. IRVING MANATT, _The Mycenæan Age_.
[e] PERCY GARDNER, _New Chapters of Greek History_.
[f] WOLFGANG HELBIG, _Die Italiker in der Po-Ebene_.
[g] PIGORINI, _In Atti dell’Accademia dei Lincei_.
[h] C. SCHUCHHARDT, _Schliemann’s Excavations_ (translated by E. Sellers).
[i] JULIUS BELOCH, _Griechische Geschichte_.
CHAPTER III. THE HEROIC AGE
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[d] FRIEDRICH C. SCHLOSSER, _Weltgeschichte_.
[f] PLASSMAN, quoted in _Thirlwall’s Notes_.
[h] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.
[i] L. A. PRÉVOST-PARADOL, _Essai sur l’Histoire Universelle_.
[k] FRIEDRICH AUGUST WOLF, _Prolegomena ad Homerum_.
[l] HENRY SCHLIEMANN, _Troja_.
CHAPTER IV. THE TRANSITION TO SECURE HISTORY
[c] JULIUS BELOCH, _Griechische Geschichte_.
CHAPTER V. THE DORIANS
[b] KARL O. MÜLLER, _The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race_.
[c] ERNST CURTIUS, _Griechische Geschichte_.
[d] EUGAMON, _Telegonia_.
[e] XANTHUS, _Lydiaca_.
CHAPTER VI. SPARTA AND LYCURGUS
[b] W. ASSMANN, _Handbuch der Allgemeinen Geschichte_.
[c] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[d] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.
[e] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.
[f] PHILOSTE-PHANUS, TIMÆUS, SOSIBIUS, AND DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS, as quoted
by Plutarch.
[g] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.
[h] PLATO, _Republic_.
CHAPTER VII. THE MESSENIAN WARS OF SPARTA
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.
[d] TYRTÆUS, _Fragments_, 5, 6.
[e] ISOCRATES, _Archidamus_.
[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
CHAPTER VIII. THE IONIANS
[b] GUSTAV F. HERTZBERG, _Geschichte der Griechen im Alterthum_.
[c] E. G. BULWER-LYTTON, _Athens: Its Rise and Fall_.
[d] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.
[e] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[f] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[g] STRABO, _Γεωγραφικά_.
[h] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Peloponnesian War_.
CHAPTER IX. SOME CHARACTERISTIC INSTITUTIONS
[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[c] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.
[d] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
[e] STRABO, _Γεωγραφικά_.
[f] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.
[g] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.
CHAPTER X. THE SMALLER CITIES AND STATES
[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[c] EUGÈNE LERMINIER, _Histoire des legislatures et des constitutions de
la Grèce ancienne_.
[d] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.
[e] STRABO, _Γεωγραφικά_.
[f] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.
[g] POLYBIUS, _General History_.
[h] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[i] THEOGNIS, _Poems_.
[j] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Peloponnesian War_.
CHAPTER XI. CRETE AND THE COLONIES
[b] EUGÈNE LERMINIER, _Histoire des legislatures et des constitutions de
la Grèce ancienne_.
[c] JULIUS BELOCH, _Griechische Geschichte_.
[d] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.
CHAPTER XII. SOLON THE LAWGIVER
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[d] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[e] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.
CHAPTER XIII. PISISTRATUS THE TYRANT
[b] E. G. BULWER-LYTTON, _Athens: Its Rise and Fall_.
[c] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[d] ERNST CURTIUS, _Griechische Geschichte_.
CHAPTER XIV. DEMOCRACY ESTABLISHED AT ATHENS
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.
[d] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Peloponnesian War_.
[e] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[f] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[g] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.
[h] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
CHAPTER XV. THE FIRST FOREIGN INVASION
[b] ERNST CURTIUS, _Griechische Geschichte_.
[c] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[d] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.
[e] E. G. BULWER-LYTTON, _Athens: Its Rise and Fall_.
[f] G. B. GRUNDY, _The Persian War_.
[g] GEORG BUSOLT, _Griechische Geschichte_.
[h] J. A. R. MUNRO, in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_.
[i] F. C. H. KRUSE, _Hellas_.
[j] JOHN P. MAHAFFY, _Rambles and Studies in Greece_.
[k] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
CHAPTER XVI. MILTIADES AND THE ALLEGED FICKLENESS OF REPUBLICS
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[d] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
[e] CORNELIUS NEPOS, _Lives_.
[f] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
CHAPTER XVII. THE PLANS OF XERXES
[b] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[c] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_; also his _Moralia_.
[d] P. H. LARCHER, translation of Herodotus into French.
[e] JAMES RENNEL, _The Geographical System of Herodotus_.
[f] WILLIAM BELOE, in his translation of Herodotus.
[g] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
[h] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.
CHAPTER XVIII. PROCEEDINGS IN GREECE FROM MARATHON TO THERMOPYLÆ
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[d] JAMES RENNEL, _The Geographical System of Herodotus_.
CHAPTER XIX. THERMOPYLÆ
[b] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[c] WILLIAM BELOE, in his translation of Herodotus.
[d] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.
[e] P. H. LARCHER, translation of Herodotus into French.
[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
[g] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[h] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[i] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.
CHAPTER XX. THE BATTLES OF ARTEMISIUM AND SALAMIS
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] COLONEL LEAKE, _Topography of Athens_.
[d] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[e] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
[f] WILLIAM SMITH, _History of Greece_.
[g] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[h] WILLIAM H. WADDINGTON, _Visit to Greece_.
[i] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.
CHAPTER XXI. FROM SALAMIS TO MYCALE
[b] HERODOTUS, _History_.
[c] WILLIAM BELOE, in his translation of Herodotus.
[d] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[e] P. H. LARCHER, translation of Herodotus into French.
[f] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.
[g] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
CHAPTER XXII. THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR
[b] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
[c] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[d] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[e] CORNELIUS NEPOS, _Lives_.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
[b] GEORGE W. COX, _The Athenian Empire_.
[c] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[d] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.
[e] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[f] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[g] CORNELIUS NEPOS, _Lives_.
[h] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
CHAPTER XXIV. THE RISE OF PERICLES
[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[c] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[d] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[e] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
[f] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.
[g] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
[h] HERODOTUS, _History_.
CHAPTER XXV. ATHENS AT WAR
[b] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.
[c] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[d] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[e] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
[f] HERODOTUS, _History_.
CHAPTER XXVI. IMPERIAL ATHENS UNDER PERICLES
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[d] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
[e] XENOPHON, _Hellenics_.
CHAPTER XXVII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE AGE OF PERICLES
[b] A. BOEKH, _Public Economy of the Athenians_ (translated by A. Lamb).
[c] WILLIAM MURE, _Grecian Literature_.
[d] H. GOLL, _Kulturbilder aus Hellas und Rom_.
CHAPTER XXVIII. ART OF THE PERICLEAN AGE
[b] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.
[c] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.
CHAPTER XXIX. GREEK LITERATURE
[b] ERNST CURTIUS, _Griechische Geschichte_.
CHAPTER XXX. THE OUTBREAK OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _History of Greece_.
[d] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
[e] ADOLPH HOLM, _History of Greece_.
[f] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.
[g] JOHN RUSKIN, _Præterita_.
[h] XENOPHON, _Hellenics_.
CHAPTER XXXI. THE PLAGUE; AND THE DEATH OF PERICLES
[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[c] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
[d] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.
[e] WILLIAM ONCKEN, _Athen und Hellas_.
[f] TITUS LIVIUS, _Roman History_.
[g] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
[h] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.
CHAPTER XXXII. THE SECOND AND THIRD YEARS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _History of Greece_.
[c] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
[d] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.
[e] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.
[f] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE FOURTH TO THE TENTH YEARS
[b] BARTHOLD G. NIEBUHR, _Lectures on Ancient History_.
[c] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
[d] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[e] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.
[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE RISE OF ALCIBIADES
[b] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.
[c] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
CHAPTER XXXV. THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION
[b] ADOLF HOLM, _History of Greece_.
[c] JULIUS BELOCH, _Griechische Geschichte_.
[d] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.
[e] EDWARD A. FREEMAN, article on “Sicily” in the Ninth Edition of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.
[f] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[g] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.
[h] KARL O. MÜLLER, _The Dorians_.
[i] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).
[j] JOHN GILLIES, _History of Ancient Greece_.
CHAPTER XXXVI. CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
[b] J. GILLIES, _History of Ancient Greece_.
[c] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.
[d] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.
[e] OLIVER GOLDSMITH, _History of Greece_.
[f] XENOPHON, _Hellenics_.
[g] JOHANN K. F. MANSO, _Sparta_.
[h] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.
[i] GEORGE W. COX, _The Athenian Empire_.
[Illustration: GREECE (Ancient)
Longitude East 22° from Greenwich]
[Illustration: GREECE (Ancient)
Longitude East 27° from Greenwich]