FROM THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE
PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
Even before the recent hostilities at Korkyra and Potidæa, it had
been evident to reflecting Greeks that the continued observance of
the thirty years’ truce was very uncertain, and that the mingled
hatred, fear, and admiration, which Athens inspired throughout
Greece, would prompt Sparta and the Spartan confederacy to seize
the first favorable opening for breaking down the Athenian power.
That such was the disposition of Sparta, was well understood among
the Athenian allies, however considerations of prudence and general
slowness in resolving might postpone the moment of carrying it into
effect. Accordingly, not only the Samians when they revolted had
applied to the Spartan confederacy for aid, which they appear to
have been prevented from obtaining chiefly by the pacific interests
then animating the Corinthians,—but also the Lesbians had endeavored
to open negotiations with Sparta for a similar purpose, though
the authorities—to whom alone the proposition could have been
communicated, since it remained secret and was never executed—had
given them no encouragement.[123] The affairs of Athens had been
administered under the ascendency of Periklês, without any view to
extension of empire or encroachment upon others, though with constant
view to the probabilities of war, and with anxiety to keep the city
in a condition to meet it: but even the splendid internal ornaments,
which Athens at that time acquired, were probably not without their
effect in provoking jealousy on the part of other Greeks as to her
ultimate views. The only known incident, wherein Athens had been
brought into collision with a member of the Spartan confederacy
prior to the Korkyræan dispute, was the decree passed in regard to
Megara,—prohibiting the Megarians, on pain of death, from all trade
or intercourse as well with Athens as with all ports within the
Athenian empire. This prohibition was grounded on the alleged fact,
that the Megarians had harbored runaway slaves from Athens, and
had appropriated and cultivated portions of land upon the border;
partly land, the property of the goddesses of Eleusis,—partly a
strip of territory disputed between the two states, and therefore
left by mutual understanding in common pasture without any permanent
inclosure.[124] In reference to this latter point, the Athenian
herald, Anthemokritus had been sent to Megara to remonstrate, but
had been so rudely dealt with, that his death shortly afterwards was
imputed as a crime to the Megarians.[125] We may well suppose that
ever since the revolt of Megara, fourteen years before, which caused
to Athens an irreparable mischief, the feeling prevalent between the
two towns had been one of bitter enmity, manifesting itself in many
ways, but so much exasperated by recent events as to provoke Athens
to a signal revenge.[126] Exclusion from Athens and all the ports in
her empire, comprising nearly every island and seaport in the Ægean,
was so ruinous to the Megarians, that they loudly complained of it at
Sparta, representing it as an infraction of the thirty years’ truce;
though it was undoubtedly within the legitimate right of Athens to
enforce,—and was even less harsh than the systematic expulsion of
foreigners by Sparta, with which Periklês compared it.
[123] Thucyd. iii, 2-13. This proposition of the Lesbians at
Sparta must have been made before the collision between Athens
and Corinth at Korkyra.
[124] Thucyd. i, 139. ἐπικαλοῦντες ἐπεργασίαν Μεγαρεῦσι τῆς γῆς
τῆς ἱερᾶς καὶ τῆς ἀορίστου, etc. Plutarch, Periklês, c. 30;
Schol. ad Aristophan. Pac. 609.
I agree with Göller that two distinct violations of right are
here imputed to the Megarians: the one, that they had cultivated
land, the property of the goddesses at Eleusis,—the other, that
they had appropriated and cultivated the unsettled pasture land
on the border. Dr. Arnold’s note takes a different view, less
correct, in my opinion: “The land on the frontier was consecrated
to prevent it from being inclosed: in which case the boundaries
might have been a subject of perpetual dispute between the
two countries,” etc. Compare Thucyd. v, 42, about the border
territory round Panaktum.
[125] Thucydidês (i, 139), in assigning the reasons of this
sentence of exclusion passed by Athens against the Megarians,
mentions only the two allegations here noticed,—wrongful
cultivation of territory, and reception of runaway slaves. He
does not allude to the herald, Anthemokritus: still less does
he notice that gossip of the day, which Aristophanês and other
comedians of this period turn to account in fastening the
Peloponnesian war upon the personal sympathies of Periklês,
namely, that first, some young men of Athens stole away the
courtezan, Simætha, from Megara: next, the Megarian youth
revenged themselves by stealing away from Athens “two engaging
courtezans,” one of whom was the mistress of Periklês; upon
which the latter was so enraged that he proposed the sentence
of exclusion against the Megarians (Aristoph. Acharn. 501-516;
Plutarch, Periklês, c. 30).
Such stories are chiefly valuable as they make us acquainted with
the political scandal of the time. But the story of the herald,
Anthemokritus, and his death, cannot be altogether rejected.
Though Thucydidês, not mentioning the fact, did not believe that
the herald’s death had really been occasioned by the Megarians;
yet there probably was a popular belief at Athens to that effect,
under the influence of which the deceased herald received a
public burial near the Thriasian gate of Athens, leading to
Eleusis: see Philippi Epistol. ad Athen. ap. Demosthen. p.
159, R.; Pausan. i, 36, 3; iii, 4, 2. The language of Plutarch
(Periklês, c. 30) is probably literally correct,—“the herald’s
death _appeared_ to have been caused by the Megarians,”—αἰτίᾳ τῶν
Μεγαρέων ἀποθανεῖν ἔδοξε. That neither Thucydidês, nor Periklês
himself, believed that the Megarians had really caused his
death, is pretty certain: otherwise, the fact would have been
urged when the Lacedæmonians sent to complain of the sentence of
exclusion,—being a deed so notoriously repugnant to all Grecian
feeling.
[126] Thucyd. i, 67. Μεγαρῆς, δηλοῦντες μὲν καὶ ἕτερα οὐκ ὀλίγα
διάφορα, μάλιστα δὲ, λιμένων τε εἴργεσθαι τῶν ἐν τῇ Ἀθηναίων
ἀρχῇ, etc.
These complaints found increased attention after the war of Korkyra
and the blockade of Potidæa by the Athenians. The sentiments of the
Corinthians towards Athens had now become angry and warlike in the
highest degree: nor was it simply resentment for the past which
animated them, but also the anxiety farther to bring upon Athens so
strong a hostile pressure as should preserve Potidæa and its garrison
from capture. Accordingly, they lost no time in endeavoring to rouse
the feelings of the Spartans against Athens, and in inducing them to
invite to Sparta all such of the confederates as had any grievances
against that city. Not merely the Megarians but several other
confederates, appeared there as accusers; while the Æginetans, though
their insular position made it perilous for them to appear, made
themselves vehemently heard through the mouths of others, complaining
that Athens withheld from them that autonomy to which they were
entitled under the truce.[127]
[127] Thucyd. i, 67. λέγοντες οὐκ εἶναι αὐτόνομοι κατὰ τὰς
σπονδάς. O. Müller (Æginet. p. 180) and Göller in his note, think
that the _truce_ (or _covenant_ generally) here alluded to is,
not the thirty years’ truce, concluded fourteen years before
the period actually present, but the ancient alliance against
the Persians, solemnly ratified and continued after the victory
of Platæa. Dr. Arnold, on the contrary, thinks that the thirty
years’ truce is alluded to, which the Æginetans interpreted
(rightly or not) as entitling them to independence.
The former opinion might seem to be countenanced by the allusion
to Ægina in the speech of the Thebans (iii, 64): but on the
other hand, if we consult i, 115, it will appear possible that
the wording of the thirty years’ truce may have been general,
as,—Ἀποδοῦναι δὲ Ἀθηναίους ὅσα ἔχουσι Πελοποννησίων: at any rate,
the Æginetans may have pretended that, by the same rule as Athens
gave up Nisæa, Pegæ, etc., she ought also to renounce Ægina.
However, we must recollect that the one plea does not exclude
the other: the Æginetans may have taken advantage of _both_ in
enforcing their prayer for interference. This seems to have been
the idea of the Scholiast, when he says—κατὰ τὴν συμφωνίαν τῶν
σπονδῶν.
According to the Lacedæmonian practice, it was necessary first that
the Spartans themselves, apart from their allies, should decide
whether there existed a sufficient case of wrong done by Athens
against themselves or against Peloponnesus,—either in violation of
the thirty years’ truce, or in any other way. If the determination
of Sparta herself were in the negative, the case would never even
be submitted to the vote of the allies; but if it were in the
affirmative, then the latter would be convoked to deliver their
opinion also: and assuming that the majority of votes coincided with
the previous decision of Sparta, the entire confederacy stood then
pledged to the given line of policy,—if the majority was contrary,
the Spartans would stand alone, or with such only of the confederates
as concurred. Each allied city, great or small, had an equal right
of suffrage. It thus appears that Sparta herself did not vote as
a member of the confederacy, but separately and individually as
leader,—and that the only question ever submitted to the allies
was, whether they would or would not go along with her previous
decision. Such was the course of proceeding now followed: the
Corinthians, together with such other of the confederates as felt
either aggrieved or alarmed by Athens, presented themselves before
the public assembly of Spartan citizens, prepared to prove that the
Athenians had broken the truce, and were going on in a course of
wrong towards Peloponnesus.[128] Even in the oligarchy of Sparta,
such a question as this could only be decided by a general assembly
of Spartan citizens, qualified both by age, by regular contribution
to the public mess, and by obedience to Spartan discipline. To the
assembly so constituted the deputies of the various allied cities
addressed themselves, each setting forth his case against Athens.
The Corinthians chose to reserve themselves to the last, after the
assembly had been previously inflamed by the previous speakers.
[128] Thucyd. i, 67. κατεβόων ἐλθόντες τῶν Ἀθηναίων ὅτι σπονδάς
τε λελυκότες εἶεν καὶ ἀδικοῖεν τὴν Πελοπόννησον. The change of
tense in these two verbs is to be noticed.
Of this important assembly, on which so much of the future fate of
Greece turned, Thucydidês has preserved an account unusually copious.
First, the speech delivered by the Corinthian envoys. Next, that of
some Athenian envoys, who happening to be at the same time in Sparta
on some other matters, and being present in the assembly so as to
have heard the speeches both of the Corinthians and of the other
complainants, obtained permission from the magistrates to address
the assembly in their turn. Thirdly, the address of the Spartan king
Archidamus, on the course of policy proper to be adopted by Sparta.
Lastly, the brief, but eminently characteristic, address of the ephor
Stheneläidas, on putting the question for decision. These speeches,
the composition of Thucydidês himself, contain substantially the
sentiments of the parties to whom they are ascribed: neither of them
is distinctly a reply to that which has preceded, but each presents
the situation of affairs from a different point of view.
The Corinthians knew well that the audience whom they were about to
address had been favorably prepared for them,—for the Lacedæmonian
authorities had already given an actual promise to them and to the
Potidæans at the moment before Potidæa revolted, that they would
invade Attica. So great was the revolution in sentiment of the
Spartans, since they had declined lending aid to the much more
powerful island of Lesbos, when it proposed to revolt,—a revolution
occasioned by the altered interests and sentiments of Corinth.
Nor were the Corinthians ignorant that their positive grounds of
complaint against Athens, in respect of wrong or violation of the
existing truce, were both few and feeble. Neither in the dispute
about Potidæa nor about Korkyra, had Athens infringed the truce
or wronged the Peloponnesian alliance. In both, she had come into
collision with Corinth, singly and apart from the confederacy:
she had a right, both according to the truce and according to the
received maxims of international law, to lend defensive aid to the
Korkyræans at their own request,—she had a right also, according to
the principles laid down by the Corinthians themselves on occasion of
the revolt of Samos, to restrain the Potidæans from revolting. She
had committed nothing which could fairly be called an aggression:
indeed the aggression, both in the case of Potidæa and in that of
Korkyra, was decidedly on the side of the Corinthians: and the
Peloponnesian confederacy could only be so far implicated as it was
understood to be bound to espouse the separate quarrels, right or
wrong, of Corinth. All this was well known to the Corinthian envoys;
and accordingly we find that, in their speech at Sparta, they touch
but lightly, and in vague terms, on positive or recent wrongs. Even
that which they do say completely justifies the proceedings of Athens
about the affair of Korkyra, since they confess without hesitation
the design of seizing the large Korkyræan navy for the use of the
Peloponnesian alliance: while in respect of Potidæa, if we had only
the speech of the Corinthian envoy before us without any other
knowledge, we should have supposed it to be an independent state, not
connected by any permanent bonds with Athens,—we should have supposed
that the siege of Potidæa by Athens was an unprovoked aggression upon
an autonomous ally of Corinth,[129]—we should never have imagined
that Corinth had deliberately instigated and aided the revolt of the
Chalkidians as well as of the Potidæans against Athens. It might be
pretended that she had a right to do this, by virtue of her undefined
metropolitan relations with Potidæa: but at any rate, the incident
was not such as to afford any decent pretext for charge against the
Athenians, either of outrage towards Corinth,[130] or of wrongful
aggression against the Peloponnesian confederacy.
[129] Thucyd. i, 68. οὐ γὰρ ἂν Κέρκυράν τε ὑπολαβόντες βίᾳ ἡμῶν
εἶχον, καὶ Ποτίδαιαν ἐπολιόρκουν, ὧν τὸ μὲν ἐπικαιρότατον χωρίον
πρὸς τὰ ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης ἀποχρῆσθαι, ἡ δὲ ναυτικὸν ἂν μέγιστον παρέσχε
Πελοποννησίοις.
[130] Thucyd. i, 68. ἐν οἷς προσήκει ἡμᾶς οὐχ ἥκιστα εἰπεῖν, ὅσῳ
καὶ μέγιστα ἐγκλήματα ἔχομεν, ὑπὸ μὲν Ἀθηναίων ὑβριζόμενοι, ὑπὸ
δὲ ὑμῶν ἀμελούμενοι.
To dwell much upon specific allegations of wrong, would not have
suited the purpose of the Corinthian envoy; for against such, the
thirty years’ truce expressly provided that recourse should be had
to amicable arbitration,—to which recourse he never once alludes.
He knew that, as between Corinth and Athens, war had already begun
at Potidæa; and his business, throughout nearly all of a very
emphatic speech is, to show that the Peloponnesian confederacy, and
especially Sparta, is bound to take instant part in it, not less
by prudence than by duty. He employs the most animated language to
depict the ambition, the unwearied activity, the personal effort
abroad as well as at home, the quick resolves, the sanguine hopes
never dashed by failure,—of Athens; as contrasted with the cautious,
home-keeping, indolent, scrupulous routine of Sparta. He reproaches
the Spartans with their backwardness and timidity, in not having
repressed the growth of Athens before she reached this formidable
height,—especially in having allowed her to fortify her city after
the retreat of Xerxes, and afterwards to build the long walls from
the city to the sea.[131] The Spartans, he observes, stood alone
among all Greeks, in the notable system of keeping down an enemy
not by acting, but delaying to act,—not arresting his growth, but
putting him down when his force was doubled. Falsely, indeed, had
they acquired the reputation of being sure, when they were in reality
merely slow:[132] in resisting Xerxes, as in resisting Athens, they
had always been behindhand, disappointing and leaving their friends
to ruin,—while both these enemies had only failed of complete success
through their own mistakes.
[131] Thucyd. i, 69.
[132] Thucyd. i, 69. ἡσυχάζετε γὰρ μόνοι Ἑλλήνων, ὦ
Λακεδαιμόνιοι, οὐ τῇ δυνάμει τινὰ ἀλλὰ τῇ μελλήσει ἀμυνόμενοι,
καὶ μόνοι οὐκ ἀρχομένην τὴν αὔξησιν τῶν ἐχθρῶν, διπλασιουμένην
δὲ, καταλύοντες. Καίτοι ἐλέγεσθε ἀσφαλεῖς εἶναι, ὧν ἄρα ὁ λόγος
τοῦ ἔργου ἐκράτει· τόν τε γὰρ Μῆδον, etc.
After half apologizing for the tartness of these reproofs,—which,
however, as the Spartans were now well-disposed to go to war
forthwith, would be well-timed and even agreeable,—the Corinthian
orator vindicates the necessity of plain-speaking by the urgent
peril of the emergency, and the formidable character of the enemy
who threatened them. “You do not reflect (he says) how thoroughly
different the Athenians are from yourselves. _They_ are innovators
by nature; sharp both in devising, and in executing what they have
determined: _you_ are sharp only in keeping what you have got, in
determining on nothing beyond, and in doing even less than absolute
necessity requires.[133] _They_ again dare beyond their means,
run risks beyond their own judgment, and keep alive their hopes
even in desperate circumstances: _your_ peculiarity is, that your
performance comes short of your power,—you have no faith even in
what your judgment guarantees,—when in difficulties, you despair of
all escape. _They_ never hang back,—_you_ are habitual laggards:
they love foreign service,—you cannot stir from home: for they are
always under the belief that their movements will lead to some
farther gain, while you fancy that new projects will endanger what
you have already. When successful, they make the greatest forward
march; when defeated, they fall back the least. Moreover, they task
their bodies on behalf of their city as if they were the bodies of
others,—while their minds are most of all their own, for exertion
in her service.[134] When their plans for acquisition do not come
successfully out, they feel like men robbed of what belongs to them:
yet the acquisitions when realized appear like trifles compared with
what remains to be acquired. If they sometimes fail in an attempt,
new hopes arise in some other direction to supply the want: for with
them alone the possession and the hope of what they aim at is almost
simultaneous, from their habit of quickly executing all that they
have once resolved. And in this manner do they toil throughout all
their lives amidst hardship and peril, disregarding present enjoyment
in the continual thirst for increase,—knowing no other festival
recreation except the performance of active duty,—and deeming
inactive repose a worse condition than fatiguing occupation. To speak
the truth in two words: such is their inborn temper, that they will
neither remain at rest themselves, nor allow rest to others.[135]
[133] Thucyd. i, 70. Οἱ μέν γε νεωτεροποιοὶ, καὶ ἐπιχειρῆσαι
ὀξεῖς καὶ ἐπιτελέσαι ἔργῳ ὃ ἂν γνῶσιν· ὑμεῖς δὲ τὰ ὑπάρχοντά τε
σώζειν, καὶ ἐπιγνῶναι μηδὲν, καὶ ἔργῳ οὐδὲ τἀναγκαῖα ἐξικέσθαι.
The meaning of the word ὀξεῖς—_sharp_—when applied to the latter
half of the sentence, is in the nature of a sarcasm. But this is
suitable to the character of the speech. Göller supposes some
such word as ἱκανοὶ, instead of ὀξεῖς, to be understood: but we
should thereby both depart from the more obvious syntax, and
weaken the general meaning.
[134] Thucyd. i, 70. ἔτι δὲ τοῖς μὲν σώμασιν ἀλλοτριωτάτοις ὑπὲρ
τῆς πόλεως χρῶνται, τῇ γνώμῃ δὲ οἰκειοτάτῃ ἐς τὸ πράσσειν τι ὑπὲρ
αὐτῆς.
It is difficult to convey, in translation, the antithesis between
ἀλλοτριωτάτοις and οἰκειοτάτῃ—not without a certain conceit,
which Thucydidês is occasionally fond of.
[135] Thucyd. _l. c._ καὶ ταῦτα μετὰ πόνων πάντα καὶ κινδύνων
δι᾽ ὅλου τοῦ αἰῶνος μοχθοῦσι, καὶ ἀπολαύουσιν ἐλάχιστα τῶν
ὑπαρχόντων, διὰ τὸ ἀεὶ κτᾶσθαι καὶ μήτε ἑορτὴν ἄλλο τι ἡγεῖσθαι
ἢ τὸ τὰ δέοντα πρᾶξαι, ξυμφορὰν δὲ οὐχ ἧσσον ἡσυχίαν ἀπράγμονα
ἢ ἀσχολίαν ἐπίπονον· ὥστε εἴ τις αὐτοὺς ξυνελὼν φαίη πεφυκέναι
ἐπὶ τῷ μήτε αὐτοὺς ἔχειν ἡσυχίαν μήτε τοὺς ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους ἐᾷν,
ὀρθῶς ἂν εἴποι.
“Such is the city which stands opposed to you, Lacedæmonians,—yet ye
still hang back from action.... Your continual scruples and apathy
would hardly be safe, even if ye had neighbors like yourselves in
character: but as to dealings with Athens, your system is antiquated
and out of date. In politics as in art, it is the modern improvements
which are sure to come out victorious: and though unchanged
institutions are best, if a city be not called upon to act,—yet
multiplicity of active obligations requires multiplicity and novelty
of contrivance.[136] It is through these numerous trials that the
means of Athens have acquired so much more new development than
yours.”
[136] Thucyd. i, 71. ἀρχαιότροπα ὑμῶν τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα πρὸς αὐτούς
ἐστιν. Ἀνάγκη δ᾽, ὥσπερ τέχνης, ἀεὶ τὰ ἐπιγιγνόμενα κρατεῖν· καὶ
ἡσυχαζούσῃ μὲν πόλει τὰ ἀκίνητα νόμιμα ἄριστα, πρὸς πολλὰ δὲ
ἀναγκαζομένοις ἰέναι, πολλῆς καὶ τῆς ἐπιτεχνήσεως δεῖ.
The Corinthians concluded by saying, that if, after so many previous
warnings, now repeated for the last time, Sparta still refused to
protect her allies against Athens,—if she delayed to perform her
promise made to the Potidæans, of immediately invading Attica,—they,
the Corinthians, would forthwith look for safety in some new
alliance, and they felt themselves fully justified in doing so.
They admonished her to look well to the case, and to carry forward
Peloponnesus with undiminished dignity as it had been transmitted to
her from her predecessors.[137]
[137] Thucyd. i, 71.
Such was the memorable picture of Athens and her citizens, as
exhibited by her fiercest enemy, before the public assembly at
Sparta. It was calculated to impress the assembly, not by appeal
to recent or particular misdeeds, but by the general system of
unprincipled and endless aggression which was imputed to Athens
during the past,—and by the certainty held out that the same system,
unless put down by measures of decisive hostility, would be pushed
still farther in future to the utter ruin of Peloponnesus. And to
this point did the Athenian envoy—staying in Sparta about some
other negotiation, and now present in the assembly—address himself
in reply, after having asked and obtained permission from the
magistrates. The empire of Athens was now of such standing that the
younger men present had no personal knowledge of the circumstances
under which it had grown up: and what was needed as information for
them would be impressive as a reminder even to their seniors.[138]
[138] Thucyd. i, 72.
He began by disclaiming all intention of defending his native city
against the charges of specific wrong or alleged infractions of the
existing truce: this was no part of his mission, nor did he recognize
Sparta as a competent judge in disputes between Athens and Corinth.
But he nevertheless thought it his duty to vindicate Athens against
the general character of injustice and aggression imputed to her,
as well as to offer a solemn warning to the Spartans against the
policy towards which they were obviously tending. He then proceeded
to show that the empire of Athens had been honorably earned and
amply deserved,—that it had been voluntarily ceded, and even pressed
upon her,—and that she could not abdicate it without emperiling her
own separate existence and security. Far from thinking that the
circumstances under which it was acquired needed apology, he appealed
to them with pride as a testimony of the genuine Hellenic patriotism
of that city which the Spartan congress now seemed disposed to run
down as an enemy.[139] He then dwelt upon the circumstances attending
the Persian invasion, setting forth the superior forwardness and
the unflinching endurance of Athens, in spite of ungenerous neglect
from Sparta and the other Greeks,—the preponderance of her naval
force in the entire armament,—the directing genius of her general
Themistoklês, complimented even by Sparta herself,—and the title of
Athens to rank on that memorable occasion as the principal saviour of
Greece. This alone ought to save her empire from reproach: but this
was not all,—for that empire had been tendered to her by the pressing
instance of the allies, at a time when Sparta had proved herself both
incompetent and unwilling to prosecute the war against Persia.[140]
By simple exercise of the constraining force inseparable from her
presidential obligations, and by the reduction of various allies who
revolted, Athens had gradually become unpopular, while Sparta too
had become her enemy instead of her friend. To relax her hold upon
her allies would have been to make them the allies of Sparta against
her; and thus the motive of fear was added to those of ambition and
revenue, in inducing Athens to maintain her imperial dominion by
force. In her position, no Grecian power either would or could have
acted otherwise: no Grecian power, certainly not Sparta, would have
acted with so much equity and moderation, or given so little ground
of complaint to her subjects. Worse they _had_ suffered, while under
Persia; worse they _would_ suffer, if they came under Sparta, who
held her own allies under the thraldom of an oligarchical party in
each city; and if they hated Athens, this was only because subjects
always hated the _present_ dominion, whatever that might be.[141]
[139] Thucyd. i, 73. ῥηθήσεται δὲ οὐ παραιτήσεως μᾶλλον ἕνεκα ἢ
μαρτυρίου, καὶ δηλώσεως πρὸς οἵαν ὑμῖν πόλιν μὴ εὖ βουλευομένοις
ὁ ἀγὼν καταστήσεται.
[140] Thucyd. i, 75. Ἆρ᾽ ἄξιοί ἐσμεν, ὦ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, καὶ
προθυμίας ἕνεκα τῆς τότε καὶ γνώμης συνέσεως, ἀρχῆς γε ἧς ἔχομεν
τοῖς Ἕλλησι μὴ οὕτως ἄγαν ἐπιφθόνως διακεῖσθαι; καὶ γὰρ αὐτὴν
τήνδε ἐλάβομεν οὐ βιασάμενοι, ἀλλ᾽ ὑμῶν μὲν οὐκ ἐθελησάντων
παραμεῖναι πρὸς τὰ ὑπόλοιπα τοῦ βαρβάρου, ἡμῖν δὲ προσελθόντων
τῶν ξυμμάχων, καὶ αὐτῶν δεηθέντων ἡγεμόνας καταστῆναι· ἐξ αὐτοῦ
δὲ τοῦ ἔργου κατηναγκάσθημεν τὸ πρῶτον προαγαγεῖν αὐτὴν ἐς τόδε,
μάλιστα μὲν ὑπὸ δέους, ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ τιμῆς, ὕστερον καὶ ὠφελείας.
[141] Thucyd. i, 77.
Having justified both the origin and the working of the Athenian
empire, the envoy concluded by warning Sparta to consider calmly,
without being hurried away by the passions and invectives of others,
before she took a step from which there was no retreat, and which
exposed the future to chances such as no man on either side could
foresee. He called on her not to break the truce mutually sworn to,
but to adjust all differences, as Athens was prepared to do, by the
amicable arbitration which that truce provided. Should she begin
war, the Athenians would follow her lead and resist her, calling to
witness those gods under whose sanction the oaths were taken.[142]
[142] Thucyd. i, 78. ἡμεῖς δὲ ἐν οὐδεμίᾳ πω τοιαύτῃ ἁμαρτίᾳ
ὄντες, οὔτ᾽ αὐτοὶ οὔτε ὑμᾶς ὁρῶντες, λέγομεν ὑμῖν, ἕως ἔτι
αὐθαίρετος ἀμφοτέροις ἡ εὐβουλία, σπονδὰς μὴ λύειν μηδὲ
παραβαίνειν τοὺς ὅρκους, τὰ δὲ διάφορα δίκῃ λύεσθαι κατὰ τὴν
ξυνθήκην· ἢ θεοὺς τοὺς ὁρκίους μάρτυρας ποιούμενοι, πειρασόμεθα
ἀμύνεσθαι πολέμου ἄρχοντας ταύτῃ ᾗ ἂν ὑφηγῆσθε.
The facts recounted in the preceding chapters will have shown, that
the account given by the Athenian envoy at Sparta, of the origin
and character of the empire exercised by his city, though doubtless
the account of a partisan, is in substance correct and equitable;
the envoys of Athens had not yet learned to take the tone which
they assumed in the sixteenth and seventeenth years of the coming
war, at Melos and Kamarina. At any time previous to the affair of
Korkyra, the topics insisted upon by the Athenian would probably
have been profoundly listened to at Sparta. But now the mind of the
Spartans was made up. Having cleared the assembly of all “strangers,”
and even all allies, they proceeded to discuss and determine the
question among themselves. Most of their speakers held but one
language,[143]—expatiating on the wrongs already done by Athens, and
urging the necessity of instant war. There was, however, one voice,
and that a commanding voice, raised against this conclusion: the
ancient and respected king Archidamus opposed it.
[143] Thucyd. i, 79. καὶ τῶν μὲν πλειόνων ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ αἱ γνῶμαι
ἔφερον, ἀδικεῖν τε Ἀθηναίους ἤδη, καὶ πολεμητέα εἶναι ἐν τάχει.
The speech of Archidamus is that of a deliberate Spartan, who,
setting aside both hatred to Athens and blind partiality to allies,
looks at the question with a view to the interests and honor of
Sparta only,—not, however, omitting her imperial as well as her
separate character. The preceding native speakers, indignant
against Athens, had probably appealed to Spartan pride, treating
it as an intolerable disgrace that almost the entire land-force
of Dorian Peloponnesus should be thus bullied by one single Ionic
city, and should hesitate to commence a war which one invasion of
Attica would probably terminate. As the Corinthians had tried to
excite the Spartans by well-timed taunts and reproaches, so the
subsequent speakers had aimed at the same objects by panegyric
upon the well-known valor and discipline of the city. To all these
arguments Archidamus set himself to reply. Invoking the experience
of the elders his contemporaries around him, he impressed upon the
assembly the grave responsibility, the uncertainties, difficulties,
and perils, of the war into which they were hurrying without
preparation.[144] He reminded them of the wealth, the population,
greater than that of any other Grecian city, the naval force, the
cavalry, the hoplites, the large foreign dominion of Athens,—and
then asked by what means they proposed to put her down?[145] Ships,
they had few; trained seamen, yet fewer; wealth, next to none. They
could indeed invade and ravage Attica, by their superior numbers and
land-force: but the Athenians had possessions abroad sufficient to
enable them to dispense with the produce of Attica, while their great
navy would retaliate the like ravages upon Peloponnesus. To suppose
that one or two devastating expeditions into Attica would bring
the war to an end, would be a deplorable error: such proceedings
would merely enrage the Athenians, without impairing their real
strength, and the war would thus be prolonged, perhaps, for a whole
generation.[146] Before they determined upon war, it was absolutely
necessary to provide more efficient means for carrying it on; and
to multiply their allies, not merely among the Greeks, but among
foreigners also: while this was in process, envoys ought to be sent
to Athens to remonstrate and obtain redress for the grievances of
the allies. If the Athenians granted this,—which they very probably
would do, when they saw the preparations going forward, and when
the ruin of the highly-cultivated soil of Attica was held over
them _in terrorem_ without being actually consummated,—so much the
better: if they refused, in the course of two or three years war
might be commenced with some hopes of success. Archidamus reminded
his countrymen that their allies would hold _them_ responsible for
the good or bad issue of what was now determined;[147] admonishing
them, in the true spirit of a conservative Spartan, to cling to that
cautious policy which had been ever the characteristic of the state,
despising both taunts on their tardiness and panegyric on their
valor. “We, Spartans, owe both our bravery and our prudence to our
admirable public discipline: it makes us warlike, because the sense
of shame is most closely connected with discipline, as valor is with
the sense of shame: it makes us prudent, because our training keeps
us too ignorant to set ourselves above our own institutions, and
holds us under sharp restraint so as not to disobey them.[148] And
thus, not being overwise in unprofitable accomplishments, we Spartans
are not given to disparage our enemy’s strength in clever speech,
and then meet him with short-comings in reality: we think that the
capacity of neighboring states is much on a par, and that the chances
in reserve for both parties are too uncertain to be discriminated
beforehand by speech. We always make real preparations against our
enemies, as if they were proceeding wisely on their side: we must
count upon security through our own precautions, not upon the chance
of their errors. Indeed, there is no great superiority in one man
as compared with another: he is the stoutest who is trained in the
severest trials. Let us, for our parts, not renounce this discipline,
which we have received from our fathers, and which we still continue,
to our very great profit: let us not hurry on, in one short hour,
a resolution upon which depend so many lives, so much property, so
many cities, and our own reputation besides. Let us take time to
consider, since our strength puts it fully in our power to do so.
Send envoys to the Athenians on the subject of Potidæa, and of the
other grievances alleged by our allies,—and that too, the rather
as they are ready to give us satisfaction: against one who offers
satisfaction, custom forbids you to proceed, without some previous
application, as if he were a proclaimed wrong-doer. But, at the same
time, make preparation for war; such will be the course of policy at
once the best for your own power and the most terror-striking to your
enemies.”[149]
[144] Thucyd. i, 80.
[145] Thucyd. i, 80. πρὸς δὲ ἄνδρας, οἳ γῆν τε ἑκὰς ἔχουσι καὶ
προσέτι πολέμου ἐμπειρότατοί εἰσι, καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν ἄριστα
ἐξήρτυνται, πλούτῳ τε ἰδίῳ καὶ δημοσίῳ καὶ ναυσὶ καὶ ἵπποις
καὶ ὅπλοις, καὶ ὄχλῳ, ὅσος οὐκ ἐν ἄλλῳ ἑνί γε χωρίῳ Ἑλληνικῷ
ἐστὶν, ἔτι δὲ καὶ ξυμμάχους πολλοὺς φόρου ὑποτελεῖς ἔχουσι, πῶς
χρὴ πρὸς τούτους ῥᾳδίως πόλεμον ἄρασθαι, καὶ τίνι πιστεύσαντας
ἀπαρασκεύους ἐπειχθῆναι.
[146] Thucyd. i, 81. δέδοικα δὲ μᾶλλον μὴ καὶ τοῖς παισὶν αὐτὸν
ὑπολίπωμεν, etc.
[147] Thucyd. i, 82, 83.
[148] Thucyd. i, 84. Πολεμικοί τε καὶ εὔβουλοι διὰ τὸ εὔκοσμον
γιγνόμεθα, τὸ μὲν, ὅτι αἰδὼς σωφροσύνης πλεῖστον μετέχει,
αἰσχύνης δὲ εὐψυχία· εὔβουλοι δὲ, ἀμαθέστερον τῶν νόμων τῆς
ὑπεροψίας παιδευόμενοι, καὶ ξὺν χαλεπότητι σωφρονέστερον ἢ ὥστε
αὐτῶν ἀνηκουστεῖν· καὶ μὴ, τὰ ἀχρεῖα ξυνετοὶ ἄγαν ὄντες, τὰς
τῶν πολεμίων παρασκευὰς λόγῳ καλῶς μεμφόμενοι, ἀνομοίως ἔργῳ
ἐπεξιέναι, νομίζειν δὲ τάς τε διανοίας τῶν πέλας παραπλησίους
εἶναι, καὶ τὰς προσπιπτούσας τύχας οὐ λόγῳ διαιρετάς.
In the construction of the last sentence, I follow Haack and
Poppo, in preference to Göller and Dr. Arnold.
The wording of this part of the speech of Archidamus is awkward
and obscure, though we make out pretty well the general sense.
It deserves peculiar attention, as coming from a king of Sparta,
personally, too, a man of superior judgment. The great points
of the Spartan character are all brought out. 1. A narrow,
strictly-defined, and uniform range of ideas. 2. Compression of
all other impulses and desires, but an increased sensibility to
their own public opinion. 3. Great habits of endurance as well as
of submission.
The way in which the features of Spartan character are
deduced from Spartan institutions, as well as the pride which
Archidamus expresses in the ignorance and narrow mental range
of his countrymen, are here remarkable. A similar championship
of ignorance and narrow-mindedness is not only to be found
among those who deride the literary and oratorical tastes of
the Athenian democracy (see Aristophanês, Ran. 1070: compare
Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 9-49), but also in the speech of Kleon
(Thucyd. iii, 37).
[149] Thucyd. i, 84, 85.
The speech of Archidamus was not only in itself full of plain
reason and good sense, but delivered altogether from the point
of view of a Spartan; appealing greatly to Spartan conservative
feeling and even prejudice. But in spite of all this, and in spite
of the personal esteem entertained for the speaker, the tide of
feeling in the opposite direction was at that moment irresistible.
Stheneläidas—one of the five ephors, to whom it fell to put the
question for voting—closed the debate; and his few words mark at
once the character of the man, the temper of the assembly, and the
simplicity of speech, though without the wisdom of judgment, for
which Archidamus had taken credit to his countrymen.
“I don’t understand (he said) these long speeches of the Athenians.
They have praised themselves abundantly, but they have never rebutted
what is laid to their charge,—that they are guilty of wrong against
our allies and against Peloponnesus. Now, if in former days they
were good men against the Persians, and are now evil-doers against
us, they deserve double punishment, as having become evil-doers
instead of good.[150] But _we_ are the same now as we were then:
we know better than to sit still while our allies are suffering
wrong: we shall not adjourn our aid while they cannot adjourn
their sufferings.[151] Others have in abundance wealth, ships,
and horses,—but _we_ have good allies, whom we are not to abandon
to the mercy of the Athenians: nor are we to trust our redress to
arbitration and to words, when our wrongs are not confined to words.
We must help them speedily and with all our strength. Nor let any
one tell us that we can with honor deliberate when we are actually
suffering wrong,—it is rather for those who intend to do the wrong,
to deliberate well beforehand. Resolve upon war then, Lacedæmonians,
in a manner worthy of Sparta: suffer not the Athenians to become
greater than they are: let us not betray our allies to ruin, but
march, with the aid of the gods, against the wrong-doers.”
[150] Compare a similar sentiment in the speech of the Thebans
against the Platæans (Thucyd. iii, 67).
[151] Thucyd. i, 86. ἡμεῖς δὲ ὁμοῖοι καὶ τότε καὶ νῦν ἐσμὲν, καὶ
τοὺς ξυμμάχους, ἢν σωφρονῶμεν, οὐ περιοψόμεθα ἀδικουμένους, οὐδὲ
μελλήσομεν τιμωρεῖν· οἱ δὲ οὐκέτι μέλλουσι κακῶς πάσχειν.
There is here a play upon the word μέλλειν, which it is not easy
to preserve in a translation.
With these few words, so well calculated to defeat the prudential
admonitions of Archidamus, Stheneläidas put the question for the
decision of the assembly,—which, at Sparta, was usually taken neither
by show of hands nor by deposit of balls in an urn, but by cries
analogous to the Aye or No of the English House of Commons,—the
presiding ephor declaring which of the cries predominated. On
this occasion the cry for war was manifestly the stronger:[152]
yet Stheneläidas affected inability to determine which of the two
cries was the louder, in order that he might have an excuse for
bringing about a more impressive manifestation of sentiment and a
stronger apparent majority,—since a portion of the minority would
probably be afraid to show their real opinions as individuals
openly. He accordingly directed a division, like the Speaker of the
English House of Commons, when his decision in favor of aye or no
is questioned by any member: “Such of you as think that the truce
has been violated, and that the Athenians are doing us wrong, go to
_that_ side; such as think the contrary, to the other side.” The
assembly accordingly divided, and the majority was very great on the
warlike side of the question.
[152] Thucyd. i, 87. βουλόμενος αὐτοὺς φανερῶς ἀποδεικνυμένους
τὴν γνώμην ἐς τὸ πολεμεῖν μᾶλλον ὁρμῆσαι, etc.
The first step of the Lacedæmonians, after coming to this important
decision was, to send to Delphi and inquire of the oracle whether it
would be beneficial to them to undertake the war: the answer brought
back (Thucydidês seems hardly certain that it was really given[153])
was,—that if they did their best they would be victorious, and that
the god would help them, invoked or uninvoked. They at the same
time convened a general congress of their allies at Sparta, for the
purpose of submitting their recent resolution to the vote of all.
[153] Thucyd. i, 118. ὁ δὲ ἀνεῖλεν αὐτοῖς, ~ὡς λέγεται~, etc.
To the Corinthians, in their anxiety for the relief of Potidæa, the
decision of this congress was not less important than that which
the Spartans had just taken separately: and they sent round envoys
to each of the allies, entreating them to authorize war without
reserve. Through such instigations, acting upon the general impulse
then prevalent, the congress came together in a temper decidedly
warlike: most of the speakers were full of invective against Athens,
and impatient for action, while the Corinthians, waiting as before to
speak the last, wound up the discussion by a speech well calculated
to insure a hearty vote. Their former speech had been directed to
shame, exasperate, and alarm the Lacedæmonians: this point had now
been carried, and they had to enforce, upon the allies generally,
the dishonor as well as the impolicy of receding from a willing
leader. The cause was one in which all were interested, the inland
states not less than the maritime, for both would find themselves
ultimately victims of the encroaching despot city: whatever efforts
were necessary for the war, ought cheerfully to be made, since it was
only through war that they could arrive at a secure and honorable
peace. There were good hopes that this might soon be attained, and
that the war would not last long,—so decided was the superiority of
the confederacy, in numbers, in military skill, and in the equal
heart and obedience of all its members.[154] The naval superiority
of Athens depended chiefly upon hired seamen,—and the confederacy,
by borrowing from the treasuries of Delphi and Olympia, would soon
be able to overbid her, take into pay her best mariners, and equal
her equipment at sea: they would excite revolt among her allies, and
establish a permanent fortified post for the ruin of Attica. To make
up a common fund for this purpose, was indispensably necessary; for
Athens was far more than a match for each of them single-handed, and
nothing less than hearty union could save them all from successive
enslavement,—the very supposition of which was intolerable to
Peloponnesian freemen, whose fathers had liberated Greece from the
Persian. Let them not shrink from endurance and sacrifice in such a
cause,—it was their hereditary pride to purchase success by laborious
effort. The Delphian god had promised them his coöperation; and the
whole of Greece would sympathize in the cause, either from fear of
the despotism of Athens, or from hopes of profit. They would not be
the first to break the truce, for the Athenians had already broken
it, as the declaration of the Delphian god distinctly implied.
Let them lose no time in sending aid to the Potidæans, a Dorian
population now besieged by Ionians, as well as to those other Greeks
whom Athens had enslaved. Every day the necessity for effort was
becoming stronger, and the longer it was delayed, the more painful it
would be when it came. “Be ye persuaded then, (concluded the orator),
that this city, which has constituted herself despot of Greece, has
her position against all of us alike, some for present rule, others
for future conquest; let us assail and subdue her, that we may dwell
securely ourselves hereafter, and may emancipate those Greeks who are
now in slavery.”[155]
[154] Thucyd. i, 120, 121. Κατὰ πολλὰ δὲ ἡμᾶς εἰκὸς ἐπικρατῆσαι,
πρῶτον μὲν πλήθει προὔχοντας καὶ ἐμπειρίᾳ πολεμικῇ, ἔπειτα
~ὁμοίως~ πάντας ἐς τὰ παραγγελλόμενα ἰόντας.
I conceive that the word ~ὁμοίως~ here alludes to the equal
interest of all the confederates in the quarrel, as opposed to
the Athenian power, which was composed partly of constrained
subjects, partly of hired mercenaries: to both of which points,
as weaknesses in the enemy, the Corinthian orator goes on
to allude. The word ὁμοίως here designates the same fact as
Periklês, in his speech at Athens (i, 141), mentions under the
words πάντες ἰσόψηφοι: the Corinthian orator treats it as an
advantage to have all confederates equal and hearty in the cause:
Periklês, on the contrary, looking at the same fact from the
Athenian point of view, considers it as a disadvantage, since it
prevented unity of command and determination.
Poppo’s view of this passage seems to me erroneous.
The same idea is reproduced, c. 124. εἴπερ βεβαιότατον τὸ ταὐτὰ
ξυμφέροντα καὶ πόλεσι καὶ ἰδιώταις εἶναι, etc.
[155] Thucyd. i, 123, 124.
If there were any speeches delivered at this congress in opposition
to the war, they were not likely to be successful in a cause wherein
even Archidamus had failed. After the Corinthian had concluded,
the question was put to the deputies of every city, great and
small, indiscriminately and the majority decided for war.[156] This
important resolution was adopted about the end of 432 B.C., or the
beginning of January 431 B.C.: the previous decision of the Spartans
separately may have been taken about two months earlier, in the
preceding October or November 432 B.C.
[156] Thucyd. i, 125. καὶ τὸ πλῆθος ἐψηφίσαντο πολεμεῖν. It seems
that the decision was not absolutely unanimous.
Reviewing the conduct of the two great Grecian parties at this
momentous juncture, with reference to existing treaties and positive
grounds of complaint, it seems clear that Athens was in the right.
She had done nothing which could fairly be called a violation of the
thirty years’ truce: and for such of her acts as were alleged to be
such, she offered to submit them to that amicable arbitration which
the truce itself prescribed. The Peloponnesian confederates were
manifestly the aggressors in the contest; and if Sparta, usually so
backward, now came forward in a spirit so decidedly opposite, we are
to ascribe it partly to her standing fear and jealousy of Athens,
partly to the pressure of her allies, especially of the Corinthians.
Thucydidês, recognizing these two as the grand determining motives,
and indicating the alleged infractions of truce as simple occasions
or pretexts, seems to consider the fear and hatred of Athens as
having contributed more to determine Sparta than the urgency of
her allies.[157] That the extraordinary aggrandizement of Athens,
during the period immediately succeeding the Persian invasion, was
well calculated to excite alarm and jealousy in Peloponnesus, is
indisputable: but if we take Athens as she stood in 432 B.C., it
deserves notice that she had neither made, nor, so far as we know,
tried to make, a single new acquisition during the whole fourteen
years which had elapsed since the conclusion of the thirty years’
truce;[158]— and, moreover, that that truce marked an epoch of
signal humiliation and reduction of her power. The triumph which
Sparta and the Peloponnesians then gained, though not sufficiently
complete to remove all fear of Athens, was yet great enough to
inspire them with the hope that a second combined effort would subdue
her. This mixture of fear and hope was exactly the state of feeling
out of which war was likely to grow,—and we see that even before the
quarrel between Corinth and Korkyra, sagacious Greeks everywhere
anticipated war as not far distant:[159] it was near breaking out
even on occasion of the revolt of Samos,[160] and peace was then
preserved partly by the commercial and nautical interests of Corinth,
partly by the quiescence of Athens. But the quarrel of Corinth
and Korkyra, which Sparta might have appeased beforehand had she
thought it her interest to do so,—and the junction of Korkyra with
Athens,—exhibited the latter as again in a career of aggrandizement,
and thus again brought into play the warlike feelings of Sparta;
while they converted Corinth from the advocate of peace into a
clamorous organ of war. The revolt of Potidæa,—fomented by Corinth,
and encouraged by Sparta in the form of a positive promise to invade
Attica,—was, in point of fact, the first distinct violation of the
truce, and the initiatory measure of the Peloponnesian war: nor did
the Spartan meeting, and the subsequent congress of allies at Sparta,
serve any other purpose than to provide such formalities as were
requisite to insure the concurrent and hearty action of numbers, and
to clothe with imposing sanction a state of war already existing in
reality, though yet unproclaimed. The sentiment in Peloponnesus at
this moment was not the fear of Athens, but the hatred of Athens,—and
the confident hope of subduing her. And indeed such confidence
was justified by plausible grounds: men might well think that the
Athenians would never endure the entire devastation of their highly
cultivated soil,—or at least that they would certainly come forth
to fight for it in the field, which was all that the Peloponnesians
desired. Nothing except the unparalleled ascendency and unshaken
resolution of Periklês, induced the Athenians to persevere in a
scheme of patient defence, and to trust to that naval superiority
which the enemies of Athens, save and except the judicious
Archidamus, had not yet learned fully to appreciate. Moreover, the
confident hopes of the Peloponnesians were materially strengthened by
the wide-spread sympathy in favor of their cause, proclaiming, as it
did, the intended liberation of Greece from a despot city.[161]
[157] Thucyd. i, 88. Ἐψηφίσαντο δὲ οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τὰς σπονδὰς
λελύσθαι καὶ πολεμητέα εἶναι, ~οὐ τοσοῦτον τῶν ξυμμάχων
πεισθέντες τοῖς λόγοις, ὅσον φοβούμενοι τοὺς Ἀθηναίους~, μὴ ἐπὶ
μεῖζον δυνηθῶσιν, ὁρῶντες αὐτοῖς τὰ πολλὰ τῆς Ἑλλάδος ὑποχείρια
ἤδη ὄντα: compare also c. 23 and 118.
[158] Plutarch’s biography of Periklês is very misleading, from
its inattention to chronology, ascribing to an earlier time
feelings and tendencies which really belong to a later. Thus
he represents (c. 20) the desire for acquiring possession of
Sicily, and even of Carthage and the Tyrrhenian coast, as having
become very popular at Athens even before the revolt of Megara
and Eubœa, and before those other circumstances which preceded
the thirty years’ truce: and he gives much credit to Periklês
for having repressed such unmeasured aspirations. But ambitious
hopes directed towards Sicily could not have sprung up in the
Athenian mind until after the beginning of the Peloponnesian war.
It was impossible that they could make any step in that direction
until they had established their alliance with Korkyra, and this
was only done in the year before the Peloponnesian war,—done
too, even then, in a qualified manner, and with much reserve. At
the first outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians had
nothing but fears, while the Peloponnesians had large hopes of
aid, from the side of Sicily. While it is very true, therefore,
that Periklês was eminently useful in discouraging rash and
distant enterprises of ambition generally, we cannot give him the
credit of keeping down Athenian desires of acquisition in Sicily,
or towards Carthage,—if, indeed, this latter ever was included
in the catalogue of Athenian hopes,—for such desires were hardly
known until after his death, in spite of the assertion again
repeated by Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 17.
[159] Thucyd. i, 33-36.
[160] Thucyd. i, 40, 41.
[161] Thucyd. ii, 8.
To Athens, on the other hand, the coming war presented itself in a
very different aspect; holding out scarcely any hope of possible
gain, and the certainty of prodigious loss and privation,—even
granting, that, at this heavy cost, her independence and union at
home, and her empire abroad, could be upheld. By Periklês, and by
the more long-sighted Athenians, the chance of unavoidable war
was foreseen even before the Korkyræan dispute.[162] But Periklês
was only the first citizen in a democracy, esteemed, trusted, and
listened to, more than any one else by the body of the citizens,
but warmly opposed in most of his measures, under the free speech
and latitude of individual action which reigned at Athens,—and
even bitterly hated by many active political opponents. The formal
determination of the Lacedæmonians, to declare war, must of course
have been made known at Athens by those Athenian envoys, who had
entered an unavailing protest against it in the Spartan assembly. No
steps were taken by Sparta to carry this determination into effect
until after the congress of allies and their pronounced confirmatory
vote. Nor did the Spartans even then send any herald, or make any
formal declaration. They despatched various propositions to Athens,
not at all with a view of trying to obtain satisfaction, or of
providing some escape from the probability of war; but with the
contrary purpose,—of multiplying demands, and enlarging the grounds
of quarrel.[163] Meanwhile, the deputies retiring home from the
congress to their respective cities, carried with them the general
resolution for immediate warlike preparations to be made, with as
little delay as possible.[164]
[162] Thucyd. i, 45; Plutarch, Periklês. c. 8.
[163] Thucyd. i, 126. ἐν τούτῳ δὲ ἐπρεσβεύοντο τῷ χρόνῳ πρὸς τοὺς
Ἀθηναίους ~ἐγκλήματα ποιούμενοι, ὅπως σφίσιν ὅτι μεγίστη πρόφασις
εἴη τοῦ πολεμεῖν, ἢν μή τι ἐσακούωσι~.
[164] Thucyd. i, 125.
The first requisition addressed by the Lacedæmonians to Athens was a
political manœuvre aimed at Periklês, their chief opponent in that
city. His mother, Agaristê, belonged to the great family of the
Alkmæônids, who were supposed to be under an inexpiable hereditary
taint, in consequence of the sacrilege committed by their ancestor
Megaklês, nearly two centuries before, in the slaughter of the
Kylonian suppliants near the altar of the Venerable Goddesses.[165]
Ancient as this transaction was, it still had sufficient hold on the
mind of the Athenians to serve as the basis of a political manœuvre:
about seventy-seven years before, shortly after the expulsion of
Hippias from Athens, it had been so employed by the Spartan king
Kleomenês, who at that time exacted from the Athenians a clearance
of the ancient sacrilege, to be effected by the banishment of
Kleisthenês, the founder of the democracy, and his chief partisans.
This demand, addressed by Kleomenês to the Athenians, at the instance
of Isagoras, the rival of Kleisthenês,[166] had been then obeyed,
and had served well the purposes of those who sent it; a similar
blow was now aimed by the Lacedæmonians at Periklês, the grand
nephew of Kleisthenês, and doubtless at the instance of his political
enemies: religion required, it was pretended, that “the abomination
of the goddess should be driven out.”[167] If the Athenians complied
with this demand, they would deprive themselves, at this critical
moment, of their ablest leader; but the Lacedæmonians, not expecting
compliance, reckoned at all events upon discrediting Periklês with
the people, as being partly the cause of the war through family
taint of impiety,[168]—and this impression would doubtless be loudly
proclaimed by his political opponents in the assembly.
[165] See the account of the Kylonian troubles, and the sacrilege
which followed, in vol. iii, of this History, ch. x, p. 110.
[166] See Herodot. v, 70: compare vi, 131; Thucyd. i, 126; and
vol. iv, ch. xxxi, p. 163 of this History.
[167] Thucyd. i, 126. ἐκέλευον τοὺς Ἀθηναίους τὸ ἄγος ἐλαύνειν
τῆς θεοῦ.
[168] Thucyd. i, 127.
The influence of Periklês with the Athenian public had become greater
and greater as their political experience of him was prolonged.
But the bitterness of his enemies appears to have increased along
with it; and not long before this period, he had been indirectly
assailed, through the medium of accusations against three different
persons, all more or less intimate with him,—his mistress Aspasia,
the philosopher Anaxagoras, and the sculptor Pheidias. We cannot
make out either the exact date, or the exact facts, of either of
these accusations. Aspasia, daughter of Axiochus, was a native of
Milêtus, beautiful, well educated, and ambitious. She resided at
Athens, and is affirmed, though upon very doubtful evidence, to
have kept slave-girls to be let out as courtezans; whatever may
be the case with this report, which is most probably one of the
scandals engendered by political animosity against Periklês,[169]
it is certain that so remarkable were her own fascinations, her
accomplishments, and her powers, not merely of conversation, but even
of oratory and criticism,—that the most distinguished Athenians of
all ages and characters, Sokratês among the number, visited her, and
several of them took their wives along with them to hear her also.
The free citizen women of Athens lived in strict and almost oriental
recluseness, as well after being married as when single: everything
which concerned their lives, their happiness, or their rights, was
determined or managed for them by male relatives: and they seem
to have been destitute of all mental culture and accomplishments.
Their society presented no charm nor interest, which men accordingly
sought for in the company of the class of women called hetæræ, or
courtezans, literally female companions; who lived a free life,
managed their own affairs, and supported themselves by their powers
of pleasing. These women were numerous, and were doubtless of every
variety of personal character: but the most distinguished and
superior among them, such as Aspasia and Theodotê,[170] appear to
have been the only women in Greece, except the Spartan, who either
inspired strong passion or exercised mental ascendency.
[169] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 24. Respecting Aspasia, see Plato,
Menexenus, c. 3, 4; Xenophon, Memorab. ii, 6, 36; Harpokration,
v, Ἀσπασία. Aspasia was, doubtless, not an uncommon name among
Grecian women; we know of one Phokæan girl who bore it, the
mistress of Cyrus the younger (Plutarch, Artaxer. c. 26). The
story about Aspasia having kept slave-girls for hire, is stated
by both Plutarch and Athenæus (xiii, p. 570); but we may well
doubt whether there is any better evidence for it than that which
is actually cited by the latter, the passage in Aristophanês,
Acharn. 497-505:—
Κἀθ᾽ οἱ Μεγαρῆς ὀδύναις πεφυσιγγωμένοι
Ἀντεξέκλεψαν Ἀσπασίας ~πόρνα δύο~ or ~πόρνας δύο~.
Athenæus reads the latter, but the reading πόρνα δύο appears
in the received text of Aristophanês. Critics differ, whether
Ἀσπασίας is the genitive case singular of Ἀσπασία, or the
accusative plural of the adjective ἀσπάσιος. I believe that it is
the latter; but intended as a play on the word, capable of being
understood either as a substantive or as an adjective—ἀσπασίας
πόρνας δύο, or Ἀσπασίας πόρνας δύο. There is a similar play on
the word, in a line of Kratinus, quoted by Plutarch, Periklês, c.
24.
At the time, if ever, when this theft of the Megarian youth took
place, Aspasia must have been the beloved mistress and companion
of Periklês; and it is inconceivable that she should have kept
slave-girls for hire _then_, whatever she may have done before.
That reading and construction of the verse above cited, which
I think the least probable of the two, has been applied by the
commentators of Thucydidês to explain a line of his history,
and applied in a manner which I am persuaded is erroneous. When
the Lacedæmonians desired the Athenians to repeal the decree
excluding the Megarians from their ports, the Athenians refused,
alleging that the Megarians had appropriated some lands which
were disputed between the two countries, and some which were
even sacred property,—and also, that “_they had received runaway
slaves from Athens_,”—καὶ ἀνδραπόδων ὑποδοχὴν τῶν ἀφισταμένων
(i, 139). The Scholiast gives a perfectly just explanation of
these last words—ὡς ὅτι δούλους αὐτῶν ἀποφεύγοντας ἐδέχοντο.
But Wasse puts a note to the passage to this effect—“_Aspasiæ
servos_, v, Athenæum, p. 570; Aristoph. Acharn. 525, et Schol.”
This note of Wasse is adopted and transcribed by the three best
and most recent commentators on Thucydidês,—Poppo, Göller, and
Dr. Arnold. Yet, with all respect to their united authority,
the supposition is neither natural, as applied to the words,
nor admissible, as regards the matter of fact. Ἀνδράποδα
ἀφιστάμενα mean naturally (not _Aspasiæ servos_, or more properly
_servas_, for the very gender ought to have made Wasse suspect
the correctness of his interpretation,—but) the runaway slaves
of proprietors generally in Attica; of whom the Athenians lost
so prodigious a number after the Lacedæmonian garrison was
established at Dekeleia (Thucyd. vii, 28: compare i, 142; and
iv, 118, about the ἀυτόμολοι). Periklês might well set forth
the reception of such runaway slaves as a matter of complaint
against the Megarians, and the Athenian public assembly would
feel it so likewise: moreover, the Megarians are charged, not
with having _stolen away_ the slaves, but with _harboring_ them
(ὑποδοχὴν). But to suppose that Periklês, in defending the decree
of exclusion against the Megarians, would rest the defence on
the ground that some Megarian youth had run away with two girls
of the _cortège_ of Aspasia, argues a strange conception both of
him and of the people. If such an incident ever really happened,
or was even supposed to have happened, we may be sure that it
would be cited by his opponents, as a means of bringing contempt
upon the real accusation against the Megarians,—the purpose for
which Aristophanês produces it. This is one of the many errors
in respect to Grecian history, arising from the practice of
construing passages of comedy as if they were serious and literal
facts.
[170] The visit of Sokratês with some of his friends to Theodotê,
his dialogue with her, and the description of her manner of
living, is among the most curious remnants of Grecian antiquity,
on a side very imperfectly known to us (Xenophon, Memorab. iii,
11).
Compare the citations from Eubulus and Antiphanês, the comic
writers, apud Athenæum, xiii, p. 571, illustrating the
differences of character and behavior between some of these
hetæræ and others,—and Athenæ. xiii, p. 589.
Periklês had been determined in his choice of a wife by those family
considerations which were held almost obligatory at Athens, and
had married a woman very nearly related to him, by whom he had two
sons, Xanthippus and Paralus. But the marriage, having never been
comfortable, was afterwards dissolved by mutual consent, according
to that full liberty of divorce which the Attic law permitted; and
Periklês concurred with his wife’s male relations, who formed her
legal guardians, in giving her a way to another husband.[171] He
then took Aspasia to live with him, had a son by her, who bore
his name, and continued ever afterwards on terms of the greatest
intimacy and affection with her. Without adopting those exaggerations
which represent Aspasia as having communicated to Periklês his
distinguished eloquence, or even as having herself composed orations
for public delivery, we may well believe her to have been qualified
to take interest and share in that literary and philosophical society
which frequented the house of Periklês, and which his unprincipled
son Xanthippus,—disgusted with his father’s regular expenditure,
as withholding from him the means of supporting an extravagant
establishment,—reported abroad with exaggerating calumnies and
turned into derision. It was from that worthless young man, who
died of the Athenian epidemic during the lifetime of Periklês, that
his political enemies and the comic writers of the day were mainly
furnished with scandalous anecdotes to assail the private habits
of this distinguished man.[172] The comic writers attacked him for
alleged intrigues with different women, but the name of Aspasia they
treated as public property, without any mercy or reserve: she was
the Omphalê, the Deianeira, or the Hêrê, to this great Hêraklês or
Zeus of Athens. At length one of these comic writers, Hermippus, not
contented with scenic attacks, indicted her before the dikastery for
impiety, as participant in the philosophical discussions held, and
the opinions professed, in the society of Periklês, by Anaxagoras
and others. Against Anaxagoras himself, too, a similar indictment
is said to have been preferred, either by Kleon or by Thucydidês,
son of Melêsias, under a general resolution recently passed in the
public assembly, at the instance of Diopeithês. And such was the
sensitive antipathy of the Athenian public, shown afterwards fatally
in the case of Sokratês, and embittered in this instance by all the
artifices of political faction, against philosophers whose opinions
conflicted with the received religious dogmas, that Periklês did
not dare to place Anaxagoras on his trial: the latter retired from
Athens, and the sentence of banishment was passed against him in his
absence.[173] But he himself defended Aspasia before the diakastery:
in fact, the indictment was as much against him as against her:
one thing alleged against her, and also against Pheidias, was, the
reception of free women to facilitate the intrigues of Periklês.
He defended her successfully, and procured a verdict of acquittal:
but we are not surprised to hear that his speech was marked by the
strongest personal emotions, and even by tears.[174] The dikasts were
accustomed to such appeals to their sympathies, sometimes even to
extravagant excess, from ordinary accused persons: but in Periklês,
so manifest an outburst of emotion stands out as something quite
unparalleled: for constant self-mastery was one of the most prominent
features in his character.[175] And we shall find him near the close
of his political life, when he had become for the moment unpopular
with the Athenian people, distracted as they were at the moment
with the terrible sufferings of the pestilence,—bearing up against
their unmerited anger not merely with dignity, but with a pride of
conscious innocence and desert which rises almost into defiance;
insomuch that the rhetor Dionysius, who criticizes the speech of
Periklês as if it were simply the composition of Thucydidês, censures
that historian for having violated dramatic propriety by a display of
insolence where humility would have been becoming.[176]
[171] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 24 Εἶτα τῆς συμβιώσεως οὐκ οὔσης
αὐτοῖς ἀρεστῆς, ἐκείνην μὲν ἑτέρῳ βουλομένην συνεξέδωκεν, αὐτὸς
δὲ Ἀσπασίαν λαβὼν ἔστερξε διαφερόντως.
[172] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 13-36.
[173] This seems the more probable story: but there are
differences of statement and uncertainties upon many points:
compare Plutarch, Periklês, c. 16-32; Plutarch, Nikias, c.
23; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 12, 13. See also Schaubach, Fragment.
Anaxagoræ, pp. 47-52.
[174] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 32.
[175] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 7, 36-39.
[176] Thucyd. ii, 60, 61: compare also his striking expressions,
c. 65; Dionys. Halikarn. De Thucydid. Judic. c. 44, p. 924.
It appears, also, as far as we can judge amidst very imperfect
data, that the trial of the great sculptor Pheidias, for alleged
embezzlement in the contract for his celebrated gold and ivory statue
of Athênê,[177] took place nearly at this period. That statue had
been finished and dedicated in the Parthenon in 437 B.C., since
which period Pheidias had been engaged at Olympia, in his last and
great masterpiece, the colossal statue of the Olympian Zeus. On
his return to Athens from the execution of this work, about 433 or
432 B.C., the accusation of embezzlement was instituted against him
by the political enemies of Periklês.[178] A slave of Pheidias,
named Menon, planted himself as a suppliant at the altar, professing
to be cognizant of certain facts which proved that his master had
committed peculation. Motion was made to receive his depositions,
and to insure to his person the protection of the people; upon which
he revealed various statements impeaching the pecuniary probity of
Pheidias, and the latter was put in prison, awaiting the day for his
trial before the dikastery. The gold employed and charged for in the
statue, however, was all capable of being taken off and weighed, so
as to verify its accuracy, which Periklês dared the accusers to do.
Besides the charge of embezzlement, there were other circumstances
which rendered Pheidias unpopular: it had been discovered that, in
the reliefs on the friese of the Parthenon, he had introduced the
portraits both of himself and of Periklês in conspicuous positions.
It seems that Pheidias died in prison before the day of trial;
and some even said, that he had been poisoned by the enemies of
Periklês, in order that the suspicions against the latter, who was
the real object of attack, might be aggravated. It is said also that
Drakontidês proposed and carried a decree in the public assembly,
that Periklês should be called on to give an account of the money
which he had expended, and that the dikasts, before whom the account
was rendered, should give their suffrage in the most solemn manner
from the altar: this latter provision was modified by Agnon, who,
while proposing that the dikasts should be fifteen hundred in number,
retained the vote by pebbles in the urn according to ordinary
custom.[179]
[177] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 31. Φειδίας—ἐργολάβος τοῦ ἀγάλματος.
This tale, about protecting Pheidias under the charge of
embezzlement, was the story most widely in circulation against
Periklês—ἡ χειρίστη μὲν αἰτία πασῶν, ἔχουσα δὲ πλείστους μάρτυρας
(Plutarch, Periklês, c. 31).
[178] See the Dissertation of O. Müller (De Phidiæ Vitâ, c. 17,
p. 35), who lays out the facts in the order in which I have given
them.
[179] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 13-32.
If Periklês was ever tried on such a charge, there can be no doubt
that he was honorably acquitted: for the language of Thucydidês
respecting his pecuniary probity is such as could never have been
employed if a verdict of guilty on a charge of peculation had ever
been publicly pronounced. But we cannot be certain that he ever
was tried: indeed, another accusation urged by his enemies, and
even by Aristophanês, in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war,
implies that no trial took place: for it was alleged that Periklês,
in order to escape this danger, “blew up the Peloponnesian war,” and
involved his country in such confusion and peril as made his own
aid and guidance indispensably necessary to her: especially that he
passed the decree against the Megarians by which the war was really
brought on.[180] We know enough, however, to be certain that such
a supposition is altogether inadmissible. The enemies of Periklês
were far too eager, and too expert in Athenian political warfare,
to have let him escape by such a stratagem: moreover, we learn from
the assurance of Thucydidês, that the war depended upon far deeper
causes,—that the Megarian decree was in no way the real cause of
it,—that it was not Periklês, but the Peloponnesians, who brought it
on, by the blow struck at Potidæa.
[180] Aristophan. Pac. 587-603: compare Acharn. 512; Ephorus,
ap. Diodor. xii, 38-40; and the Scholia on the two passages of
Aristophanês; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 32.
Diodorus (as well as Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 7) relates another
tale, that Alkibiadês once approached Periklês when he was in
evident low spirits and embarrassment, and asked him the reason:
Periklês told him that the time was near at hand for rendering
his accounts, and that he was considering how this could be done:
upon which Alkibiadês advised him to consider rather how he could
evade doing it. The result of this advice was that Periklês
plunged Athens into the Peloponnesian war: compare Aristophan.
Nub. 855, with the Scholia,—and Ephorus, Fragm. 118, 119, ed.
Marx, with the notes of Marx.
It is probable enough that Ephorus copied the story, which
ascribes the Peloponnesian war to the accusations against
Pheidias and Periklês, from Aristophanês or other comic writers
of the time. But it deserves remark, that even Aristophanês is
not to be considered as certifying it. For if we consult the
passage above referred to in his comedy _Pax_, we shall find
that, first, Hermês tells the story about Pheidias, Periklês, and
the Peloponnesian war; upon which both Trygæus, and the Chorus,
remark that _they never heard a word of it before_: that it is
quite _new_ to them.
Tryg. Ταῦτα τοίνυν, μὰ τὸν Ἀπόλλω, ᾽γὼ ᾽πεπύσμην οὐδενὸς,
Οὐδ᾽ ὅπως αὐτῇ (Εἰρήνῃ) προσήκοι Φειδίας ἠκηκόη.
Chorus. Οὐδ᾽ ἔγωγε πλήν γε νυνί.
If Aristophanês had stated the story ever so plainly, his
authority could only have been taken as proving that it was a
part of the talk of the time: but the lines just cited make him
as much a contradicting as an affirming witness.
All that we can make out, amidst these uncertified allegations, is,
that in the year or two immediately preceding the Peloponnesian
war, Periklês was hard pressed by the accusations of political
enemies,—perhaps even in his own person, but certainly in the persons
of those who were most in his confidence and affection.[181] And it
was in this turn of his political position that the Lacedæmonians
sent to Athens the above-mentioned requisition, that the ancient
Kylonian sacrilege might be at length cleared out; in other words,
that Periklês and his family might be banished. Doubtless, his
enemies, as well as the partisans of Lacedæmon at Athens, would
strenuously support this proposition: and the party of Lacedæmon
at Athens was always strong, even during the middle of the war:
to act as proxenus to the Lacedæmonians was accounted an honor
even by the greatest Athenian families.[182] On this occasion,
however, the manœuvre did not succeed, nor did the Athenians listen
to the requisition for banishing the sacrilegious Alkmæônids. On
the contrary, they replied that the Spartans, too, had an account
of sacrilege to clear off; for they had violated the sanctuary of
Poseidon, at Cape Tænarus, in dragging from it some helot suppliants
to be put to death,—and the sanctuary of Athênê Chalkiœkus at Sparta,
in blocking up and starving to death the guilty regent Pausanias. To
require that Laconia might be cleared of these two acts of sacrilege,
was the only answer which the Athenians made to the demand sent for
the banishment of Periklês.[183] Probably, the actual effect of
that demand was, to strengthen him in the public esteem:[184] very
different from the effect of the same manœuvre when practised before
by Kleomenês against Kleisthenês.
[181] It would appear that not only Aspasia and Anaxagoras, but
also the musician and philosopher Damon, the personal friend and
instructor of Periklês, must have been banished at a time when
Periklês was old,—perhaps somewhere near about this time. The
passage in Plato, Alkibiadês, i, c. 30, p. 118, proves that Damon
was in Athens, and intimate with Periklês, when the latter was
of considerable age—καὶ νῦν ἔτι ~τηλικοῦτος~ ὢν Δάμωνι σύνεστιν
αὐτοῦ τούτου ἕνεκα.
Damon is said to have been ostracized,—perhaps he was tried and
condemned to banishment: for the two are sometimes confounded.
[182] See Thucyd. v, 43; vi, 89.
[183] Thucyd. i, 128, 135, 139.
[184] Plutarch, Perikl. c. 33.
Other Spartan envoys shortly afterwards arrived, with fresh demands.
The Athenians were now required: 1. To withdraw their troops from
Potidæa. 2. To replace Ægina in its autonomy. 3. To repeal the decree
of exclusion against the Megarians. It was upon the latter that the
greatest stress was laid; an intimation being held out that war
might be avoided if such repeal were granted. We see plainly, from
this proceeding, that the Lacedæmonians acted in concert with the
anti-Periklêan leaders at Athens. To Sparta and her confederacy the
decree against the Megarians was of less importance than the rescue
of the Corinthian troops now blocked up in Potidæa: but on the other
hand, the party opposed to Periklês would have much better chance
of getting a vote of the assembly against him on the subject of the
Megarians: and this advantage, if gained, would serve to enfeeble
his influence generally. No concession was obtained, however, on
either of the three points: even in respect to Megara, the decree
of exclusion was vindicated and upheld against all the force of
opposition. At length the Lacedæmonians—who had already resolved
upon war, and had sent these envoys in mere compliance with the
exigencies of ordinary practice, not with any idea of bringing about
an accommodation—sent a third batch of envoys with a proposition,
which at least had the merit of disclosing their real purpose without
disguise. Rhamphias and two other Spartans announced to the Athenians
the simple injunction: “The Lacedæmonians wish the peace to stand;
and it _may_ stand, if you will leave the Greeks autonomous.” Upon
this demand, so very different from the preceding, the Athenians
resolved to hold a fresh assembly on the subject of war or peace, to
open the whole question anew for discussion, and to determine, once
for all, on a peremptory answer.[185]
[185] Thucyd. i, 39. It rather appears, from the words of
Thucydidês, that these various demands of the Lacedæmonians
were made by _one_ embassy, joined by new members arriving with
fresh instructions, but remaining during a month or six weeks,
between January and March 431 B.C., installed in the house of the
proxenus of Sparta at Athens: compare Xenophon Hellenic. v, 4, 22.
The last demands presented on the part of Sparta, which went
to nothing less than the entire extinction of the Athenian
empire,—combined with the character, alike wavering and insincere,
of the demands previously made, and with the knowledge that the
Spartan confederacy had pronounced peremptorily in favor of
war,—seemed likely to produce unanimity at Athens, and to bring
together this important assembly under the universal conviction that
war was inevitable. Such, however, was not the fact. The reluctance
to go to war was sincere amidst the large majority of the assembly;
while among a considerable portion of them it was so preponderant,
that they even now reverted to the opening which the Lacedæmonians
had before held out about the anti-Megarian decree, as if that were
the chief cause of war. There was much difference of opinion among
the speakers, several of whom insisted upon the repeal of this
decree, treating it as a matter far too insignificant to go to war
about, and denouncing the obstinacy of Periklês for refusing to
concede such a trifle.[186] Against this opinion Periklês entered his
protest, in an harangue decisive and encouraging, which Dionysius of
Halikarnassus ranks among the best speeches in Thucydidês: the latter
historian may probably himself have heard the original speech.
[186] Thucyd. i, 139; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 31.
“I continue, Athenians, to adhere to the same conviction, that we
must not yield to the Peloponnesians,—though I know that men are
in one mood when they sanction the resolution to go to war, and in
another when actually in the contest,—their judgments then depending
upon the turn of events. I have only to repeat now what I have said
on former occasions,—and I adjure you who follow my views to adhere
to what we jointly resolve, though the result should be partially
unfavorable: or else, not to take credit for wisdom in the event of
success.[187] For it is very possible that the contingencies of
events may depart more from all reasonable track than the counsels
of man: such are the unexpected turns which we familiarly impute
to fortune. The Lacedæmonians have before now manifested their
hostile aims against us, but on this last occasion more than ever.
While the truce prescribes that we are to give and receive amicable
satisfaction for our differences, and each to retain what we
possess,—they not only have not asked for such satisfaction, but will
not receive it when tendered by us: they choose to settle complaints
by war and not by discussion: they have got beyond the tone of
complaint, and are here already with that of command. For they enjoin
us to withdraw from Potidæa, to leave Ægina free, and to rescind the
decree against the Megarians: nay, these last envoys are even come
to proclaim to us, that we must leave all the Greeks free. Now let
none of you believe, that we shall be going to war about a trifle,
if we refuse to rescind the Megarian decree,—which they chiefly put
forward, as if its repeal would avert the war,—let none of you take
blame to yourselves as if we had gone to war about a small matter.
For this small matter contains in itself the whole test and trial
of your mettle: if ye yield it, ye will presently have some other
greater exaction put upon you, like men who have already truckled on
one point from fear: whereas if ye hold out stoutly, ye will make it
clear to them that they must deal with you more upon a footing of
equality.”[188]
[187] Thucyd. i, 140. ἐνδέχεται γὰρ τὰς ξυμφορὰς τῶν πραγμάτων
οὐχ ἧσσον ἀμαθῶς χωρῆσαι ἢ καὶ τὰς διανοίας τοῦ ἀνθρώπου· διόπερ
καὶ τὴν τύχην ὅσα ἂν παρὰ λόγον ξυμβῇ, εἰώθαμεν αἰτιᾶσθαι. I
could have wished, in the translation, to preserve the play
upon the words ἀμαθῶς χωρῆσαι, which Thucydidês introduces into
this sentence, and which seems to have been agreeable to his
taste. Ἀμαθῶς, when referred to ξυμφορὰς, is used in a passive
sense by no means common,—“in a manner which cannot be learned,
departing from all reasonable calculation.” Ἀμαθῶς, when referred
to διανοίας, bears its usual meaning,—“ignorant, deficient in
learning or in reason.”
[188] Thucyd. i, 140.
Periklês then examined the relative strength of parties and the
chances of war. The Peloponnesians were a self-working population,
with few slaves, and without wealth, either private or public;
they had no means of carrying on distant or long-continued war:
they were ready to expose their persons, but not at all ready to
contribute from their very narrow means:[189] in a border-war, or a
single land battle, they were invincible, but for systematic warfare
against a power like Athens, they had neither competent headship,
nor habits of concert and punctuality, nor money to profit by
opportunities, always rare and accidental, for successful attack.
They might, perhaps, establish a fortified post in Attica, but it
would do little serious mischief; while at sea, their inferiority and
helplessness would be complete, and the irresistible Athenian navy
would take care to keep it so. Nor would they be able to reckon on
tempting away the able foreign seamen from Athenian ships by means
of funds borrowed from Olympia or Delphi:[190] for besides that the
mariners of the dependent islands would find themselves losers even
by accepting a higher pay, with the certainty of Athenian vengeance
afterwards,—Athens herself would suffice to man her fleet in case
of need, with her own citizens and metics: she had within her own
walls steersmen and mariners better as well as more numerous than
all Greece besides. There was but one side on which Athens was
vulnerable: Attica unfortunately was not an island,—it was exposed
to invasion and ravage. To this the Athenians must submit, without
committing the imprudence of engaging a land battle to avert it: they
had abundant lands out of Attica, insular as well as continental, to
supply their wants, and they could in their turn, by means of their
navy, ravage the Peloponnesian territories, whose inhabitants had no
subsidiary lands to recur to.[191]
[189] Thucyd. i, 141. αὐτουργοί τε γάρ εἰσι Πελοποννήσιοι, καὶ
οὔτε ἰδίᾳ οὔτε ἐν κοινῷ χρήματά ἐστιν αὐτοῖς· ἔπειτα χρονίων
πολέμων καὶ διαποντίων ἄπειροι, διὰ τὸ βραχέως αὐτοὶ ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλους
ὑπὸ πενίας ἐπιφέρειν.
[190] Thucyd. i, 143. εἴτε καὶ κινήσαντες τῶν Ὀλυμπίασιν ἢ
Δελφοῖς χρημάτων μισθῷ μείζονι πειρῷντο ἡμῶν ὑπολαβεῖν τοὺς
ξένους τῶν ναυτῶν, μὴ ὄντων μὲν ἡμῶν ἀντιπάλων, ἐσβάντων αὐτῶν
τε καὶ τῶν μετοίκων, δεινὸν ἂν ἦν· νῦν δὲ τόδε τε ὑπάρχει, καὶ,
ὅπερ κράτιστον, κυβερνήτας ἔχομεν πολίτας καὶ τὴν ἄλλην ὑπηρεσίαν
πλείους καὶ ἀμείνους ἢ πᾶσα ἡ ἄλλη Ἑλλάς.
This is in reply to those hopes which we know to have been
conceived by the Peloponnesian leaders, and upon which the
Corinthian speaker in the Peloponnesian congress had dwelt (i,
121). Doubtless Periklês would be informed of the tenor of all
these public demonstrations at Sparta.
[191] Thucyd. i, 141, 142, 143.
“Mourn not for the loss of land and houses (continued the orator):
reserve your mourning for men: houses and land acquire not men, but
men acquire them.[192] Nay, if I thought I could prevail upon you, I
would exhort you to march out and ravage them yourselves, and thus
show to the Peloponnesians that, for them at least, ye will not
truckle. And I could exhibit many further grounds for confidently
anticipating success, if ye will only be willing not to aim at
increased dominion when we are in the midst of war, and not to take
upon yourselves new self-imposed risks; for I have ever been more
afraid of our own blunders than of the plans of our enemy.[193] But
these are matters for future discussion, when we come to actual
operations: for the present let us dismiss these envoys with the
answer: That we will permit the Megarians to use our markets and
harbors, if the Lacedæmonians on their side will discontinue their
(xenêlasy or) summary expulsions of ourselves and our allies from
their own territory,—for there is nothing in the truce to prevent
either one or the other: that we will leave the Grecian cities
autonomous, if we _had_ them as autonomous at the time when the truce
was made,—and as soon as the Lacedæmonians shall grant to _their_
allied cities autonomy such as each of them shall freely choose, not
such as is convenient to Sparta: that while we are ready to give
satisfaction according to the truce, we will not begin war, but will
repel those who do begin it. Such is the reply at once just and
suitable to the dignity of this city. We ought to make up our minds
that war is inevitable: the more cheerfully we accept it, the less
vehement shall we find our enemies in their attack: and where the
danger is greatest, there also is the final honor greatest, both for
a state and for a private citizen. Assuredly our fathers, when they
bore up against the Persians,—having no such means as we possess
to start from, and even compelled to abandon all that they did
possess,—both repelled the invader and brought matters forward to our
actual pitch, more by advised operation than by good fortune, and by
a daring courage greater than their real power. We ought not to fall
short of them: we must keep off our enemies in every way, and leave
an unimpaired power to our successors.”[194]
[192] Thucyd. i, 143. τήν τε ὀλόφυρσιν μὴ οἰκιῶν καὶ γῆς
ποιεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ τῶν σωμάτων· οὐ γὰρ τάδε τοὺς ἄνδρας, ἀλλ᾽ οἱ
ἄνδρες ταῦτα κτῶνται.
[193] Thucyd. i, 144. πολλὰ δὲ καὶ ἄλλα ἔχω ἐς ἐλπίδα τοῦ
περιέσεσθαι, ἢν ἐθέλητε ἀρχήν τε μὴ ἐπικτᾶσθαι ἅμα πολεμοῦντες,
καὶ κινδύνους αὐθαιρέτους μὴ προστίθεσθαι· μᾶλλον γὰρ πεφόβημαι
τὰς οἰκείας ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίας ἢ τὰς τῶν ἐναντίων διανοίας.
[194] Thucyd. i, 143, 144.
These animating encouragements of Periklês carried with them the
majority of the assembly, so that answer was made to the envoys, such
as he recommended, on each of the particular points in debate. It was
announced to them, moreover, on the general question of peace or
war, that the Athenians were prepared to discuss all the grounds of
complaint against them, pursuant to the truce, by equal and amicable
arbitration,—but that they would do nothing under authoritative
demand.[195] With this answer the envoys returned to Sparta, and an
end was put to negotiation.
[195] Thucyd. i, 145. καὶ τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις ἀπεκρίναντο τῇ
ἐκείνου γνώμῃ, καθ᾽ ἕκαστά τε ὡς ἔφρασε, καὶ τὸ ξύμπαν οὐδὲν
κελευόμενοι ποιήσειν, δίκῃ δὲ κατὰ τὰς ξυνθήκας ἑτοῖμοι εἶναι
διαλύεσθαι περὶ τῶν ἐγκλημάτων ἐπὶ ἴσῃ καὶ ὁμοίᾳ.
It seems evident, from the account of Thucydidês, that the Athenian
public was not brought to this resolution without much reluctance,
and great fear of the consequences, especially destruction of
property in Attica: and that a considerable minority took opposition
on the Megarian decree,—the ground skilfully laid by Sparta for
breaking the unanimity of her enemy, and strengthening the party
opposed to Periklês. But we may also decidedly infer from the same
historian,—especially from the proceedings of Corinth and Sparta,
as he sets them forth,—that Athens could not have avoided the war
without such an abnegation, both of dignity and power as no nation
under any government will ever submit to, and as would have even
left her without decent security for her individual rights. To
accept the war tendered to her, was a matter not merely of prudence
but of necessity: the tone of exaction assumed by the Spartan
envoys would have rendered concession a mere evidence of weakness
and fear. As the account of Thucydidês bears out the judgment of
Periklês on this important point,[196] so it also shows us that
Athens was not less in the right upon the received principles of
international dealing. It was not Athens, as the Spartans[197]
themselves afterwards came to feel, but her enemies, who broke the
provisions of the truce, by encouraging the revolt of Potidæa, and
by promising invasion of Attica: it was not Athens, but her enemies,
who, after thus breaking the truce, made a string of exorbitant
demands, in order to get up as good a case as possible for war.[198]
The case made out by Periklês, justifying the war on grounds both
of right and prudence, is in all its main points borne out by the
impartial voice of Thucydidês. And though it is perfectly true,
that the ambition of Athens had been great, and the increase of her
power marvellous, during the thirty-five years between the repulse
of Xerxes and the thirty years’ truce,—it is not less true that by
that truce she lost very largely, and that she acquired nothing to
compensate such loss during the fourteen years between the truce and
the Korkyræan alliance. The policy of Periklês had not been one of
foreign aggrandizement, or of increasing vexation and encroachment
towards other Grecian powers: even the Korkyræan alliance was noway
courted by him, and was in truth accepted with paramount regard to
the obligations of the existing truce: while the circumstances out
of which that alliance grew, testify a more forward ambition on the
part of Corinth than on that of Athens, to appropriate to herself
the Korkyræan naval force. It is common to ascribe the Peloponnesian
war to the ambition of Athens, but this is a partial view of the
case. The aggressive sentiment, partly fear, partly hatred, was on
the side of the Peloponnesians, who were not ignorant that Athens
desired the continuance of peace, but were resolved not to let her
stand as she was at the conclusion of the thirty years’ truce; it was
their purpose to attack her and break down her empire, as dangerous,
wrongful, and anti-Hellenic. The war was thus partly a contest of
principle, involving the popular proclamation of the right of every
Grecian state to autonomy, against Athens: partly a contest of power,
wherein Spartan and Corinthian ambition was not less conspicuous, and
far more aggressive in the beginning, than Athenian.
[196] In spite of the contrary view taken by Plutarch, Periklês,
c. 31: comparison of Perikl. and Fab. Max. c. 3.
[197] Thucyd. iv, 21. Οἱ μὲν οὖν Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοσαῦτα εἶπον,
νομίζοντες τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἐν τῷ πρὶν χρόνῳ σπονδῶν ἐπιθυμεῖν,
σφῶν δὲ ἐναντιουμένων κωλύεσθαι, διδομένης δὲ εἰρήνης ἀσμένως
δέξεσθαί τε καὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας ἀποδώσειν.
See also an important passage (vii, 18) about the feelings of the
Spartans. The Spartans thought, says Thucydidês, ἐν τῷ προτέρῳ
πολέμῳ (the beginning of the Peloponnesian war) σφέτερον τὸ
παρανόμημα μᾶλλον γενέσθαι, ὅτι τε ἐς Πλάταιαν ἦλθον Θηβαῖοι
ἐν σπονδαῖς, καὶ εἰρημένον ἐν ταῖς πρότερον ξυνθήκαις ὅπλα μὴ
ἐπιφέρειν ἢν δίκας θέλωσι διδόναι, αὐτοὶ οὐχ ὑπήκουον ἐς δίκας
προκαλουμένων τῶν Ἀθηναίων· καὶ διὰ τοῦτο εἰκότως δυστυχεῖν τε
ἐνόμιζον, etc.
[198] Thucyd. i, 126. ὅπως σφίσιν ὅτι μεγίστη πρόφασις εἴη τοῦ
πολεμεῖν.
Conformably to what is here said, the first blow of the war was
struck, not by Athens, but against her. After the decisive answer
given to the Spartan envoys, taken in conjunction with the previous
proceedings, and the preparations actually going on among the
Peloponnesian confederacy,—the truce could hardly be said to be still
in force, though there was no formal proclamation of rupture. A few
weeks passed in restricted and mistrustful intercourse;[199] though
individuals who passed the borders did not think it necessary to
take a herald with them, as in time of actual war. Had the excess of
ambition been on the side of Athens compared with her enemies, this
was the time for her to strike the first blow, carrying with it of
course great probability of success, before their preparations were
completed. But she remained strictly within the limits of the truce,
and the disastrous series of mutual aggressions, destined to tear
in pieces the entrails of Hellas, was opened by her enemy and her
neighbor.
[199] Thucyd. i, 146. ἐπεμίγνυντο δ᾽ ὅμως ἐν αὐταῖς καὶ παρ᾽
ἀλλήλους ἐφοίτων, ἀκηρύκτως μὲν, ἀνυπόπτως δ᾽ οὔ· σπονδῶν γὰρ
ξύγχυσις τὰ γιγνόμενα ἦν, καὶ πρόφασις τοῦ πολεμεῖν.