over the Persians, as well as by the tutelary consecration received
from Pausanias, was the scene of this unforeseen enterprise. It stood
in Bœotia, immediately north of Kithæron; on the borders of Attica
on one side, and of the Theban territory on the other, from which it
was separated by the river Asôpus: the distance between Platæa and
Thebes being about seventy stadia, or a little more than eight miles.
Though Bœotian by descent, the Platæans were completely separated
from the Bœotian league, and in hearty alliance, as well as qualified
communion of civil rights, with the Athenians, who had protected
them against the bitter enmity of Thebes, for a period of time now
nearly three generations. But in spite of this long prescription,
the Thebans, as chiefs of the Bœotian league, still felt themselves
wronged by the separation of Platæa: and an oligarchical faction
of wealthy Platæans espoused their cause,[200] with a view of
subverting the democratical government of the town, of destroying
its leaders, their political rivals, and of establishing an
oligarchy with themselves as the chiefs. Naukleidês, and others
of this faction, entered into a secret conspiracy with Eurymachus
and the oligarchy of Thebes: to both it appeared a tempting prize,
since war was close at hand, to take advantage of this ambiguous
interval, before watches had been placed, and the precautions of a
state of war commenced, and to surprise the town of Platæa in the
night: moreover, a period of religious festival was chosen, in order
that the population might be most completely off their guard.[201]
Accordingly, on a rainy night towards the close of March 431
B.C.,[202] a body of rather more than three hundred Theban hoplites,
commanded by two of the Bœotarchs, Pythangelus, and Diemporus, and
including Eurymachus in the ranks, presented themselves at the gate
of Platæa during the first sleep of the citizens: Naukleidês and his
partisans opened the gate and conducted them to the agora, which they
reached and occupied in military order without the least resistance.
The best part of the Theban military force was intended to arrive at
Platæa by break of day, in order to support them.[203]
[200] Thucyd. ii, 2. βουλόμενοι ἰδίας ἕνεκα δυνάμεως ἄνδρας τε
τῶν πολιτῶν τοὺς σφίσιν ὑπεναντίους διαφθεῖραι, καὶ τὴν πόλιν τοῖς
Θηβαίοις προσποιῆσαι: also iii, 65. ἄνδρες οἱ πρῶτοι καὶ χρήμασι
καὶ γένει, etc.
[201] Thucyd. iii, 56.
[202] Thucyd. ii, 2. ἅμα ἦρι ἀρχομένῳ—seems to indicate a period
rather before than after the first of April: we may consider
the bisection of the Thucydidean year into θέρος and χείμων as
marked by the equinoxes. His summer and winter are each a half
of the year (Thucyd. v, 20), though Poppo erroneously treats the
Thucydidean winter as only four months (Poppo, Proleg. i, c. v,
p. 72, and ad Thucyd. ii, 2: see F. W. Ullrich, Beiträge zur
Erklärung des Thukydidês, p. 32, Hamburg, 1846).
[203] Thucyd. ii, 2-5. ~θέμενοι δὲ ἐς τὴν ἀγορὰν τὰ ὅπλα~ ... καὶ
ἀνεῖπεν ὁ κήρυξ, εἴτις βούλεται κατὰ τὰ πάτρια τῶν πάντων Βοιωτῶν
ξυμμαχεῖν, ~τίθεσθαι παρ᾽ αὑτοὺς τὰ ὅπλα~.
Dr. Arnold has a note upon this passage, explaining τίθεσθαι, or
θέσθαι τὰ ὅπλα, to mean, “piling the arms,” or getting rid of
their spears and shields by piling them all in one or more heaps.
He says: “The Thebans, therefore, as usual on a halt, proceeded
to pile their arms, and by inviting the Platæans to come and pile
theirs with them, they meant that they should come in arms from
their several houses to join them, and thus naturally pile their
spears and shields with those of their friends, to be taken up
together with theirs, whenever there should be occasion either to
march or to fight.” The same explanation of the phrase had before
been given by Wesseling and Larcher, ad Herodot. ix, 52; though
Bähr on the passage is more satisfactory.
Both Poppo and Göller also sanction Dr. Arnold’s explanation: yet
I cannot but think that it is unsuitable to the passage before
us, as well as to several other passages in which τίθεσθαι τὰ
ὅπλα occurs: there may be other passages in which it will suit,
but as a general explanation it appears to me inadmissible. In
most cases, the words mean “_armati consistere_,”—to ground
arms,—to maintain rank, resting the spear and shield (see Xenoph.
Hellen. ii, 4, 12) upon the ground. In the incident now before
us, the Theban hoplites enter Platæa, a strange town, with the
population decidedly hostile, and likely to be provoked more
than ever by this surprise, add to which, that it is pitch dark,
and a rainy night. Is it likely, that the first thing which they
do will be to pile their arms? The darkness alone would render
it a slow and uncertain operation to resume the arms: so that
when the Platæans attacked them, as they did, quite suddenly
and unexpectedly, and while it was yet dark, the Thebans would
have been—upon Dr. Arnold’s supposition—altogether defenceless
and unarmed (see ii, 3. ~προσέβαλόν τε εὐθὺς~—οἱ Πλαταιῆς—καὶ ἐς
χεῖρας ᾔεσαν ~κατὰ τάχος~) which certainly they were not. Dr.
Arnold’s explanation may suit the case of the soldier in camp,
but certainly not that of the soldier in presence of an enemy, or
under circumstances of danger: the difference of the two will be
found illustrated in Xenophon, Hellenic. ii, 4, 5, 6.
Nor do the passages referred to by Dr. Arnold himself bear
out his interpretation of the phrase τίθεσθαι τὰ ὅπλα. That
interpretation is, moreover, not conveniently applicable either
to Thucyd. vii, 3, or viii, 25,—decidedly inapplicable to iv,
68 (θησόμενον τὰ ὅπλα), in the description of the night attack
on Megara, very analogous to this upon Platæa,—and not less
decidedly inapplicable to two passages of Xenophon’s Anabasis, i,
5, 14; iv, 3, 7.
Schneider, in the Lexicon appended to his edition of Xenophon’s
Anabasis, has a long but not very distinct article upon τίθεσθαι
τὰ ὅπλα.
Naukleidês and his friends, following the instincts of political
antipathy, were eager to conduct the Thebans to the houses of their
opponents, the democratical leaders, in order that the latter might
be seized or despatched. But to this the Thebans would not consent:
believing themselves now masters of the town, and certain of a
large reinforcement at daylight, they thought they could overawe
the citizens into an apparently willing acquiescence in their
terms, without any actual violence: they wished, moreover, rather
to soften and justify, than to aggravate, the gross public wrong
already committed. Accordingly their herald was directed to invite,
by public proclamation, all Platæans who were willing to return to
their ancient sympathies of race, and to the Bœotian confederacy,
that they should come forth and take station as brethren in the
armed ranks of the Thebans. And the Platæans, suddenly roused from
sleep by the astounding news that their great enemy was master of
the town, supposed amidst the darkness that the number of assailants
was far greater than the reality: so that in spite of their strong
attachment to Athens, they thought their case hopeless, and began
to open negotiations. But as they soon found out, in spite of the
darkness, as the discussion proceeded, that the real numbers of the
Thebans were not greater than could be dealt with,—they speedily took
courage and determined to attack them; establishing communication
with each other by breaking through the walls of their private
houses, in order that they might not be detected in moving about in
the streets or ways,[204]—and forming barricades with wagons across
such of these ways as were suitable. A little before daybreak, when
their preparations were fully completed, they sallied forth from
their houses to the attack, and immediately came to close quarters
with the Thebans. The latter, still fancying themselves masters of
the town, and relying upon a satisfactory close to the discussions
when daylight should arrive, now found themselves surprised in their
turn, and under great disadvantages: for they had been out all night
under a heavy rain,—they were in a town which they did not know,
with narrow, crooked, and muddy ways, such as they would have had
difficulty in finding even by daylight. Nevertheless, on finding
themselves suddenly assailed, they got as well as they could into
close order, and repelled the Platæans two or three times: but the
attack was still repeated, with loud shouts, while the women also
screamed, and howled, and threw tiles from the flat-roofed houses,
until at length the Thebans became dismayed and broken. But flight
was not less difficult than resistance; for they could not find their
way out of the city, and even the gate by which they entered, the
only one open, had been closed by a Platæan citizen, who thrust into
it the point of a javelin in place of the peg whereby the bar was
commonly held fast. Dispersed about the city, and pursued by men who
knew every inch of the ground, some ran to the top of the wall, and
jumped down on the outside, most of them perished in the attempt,—a
few others escaped through an unguarded gate, by cutting through the
bar with a hatchet which a woman gave to them,—while the greater
number of them ran into the open doors of a large barn or building
in conjunction with the wall, mistaking these doors for an approach
to the town-gate. They were here blocked up without the chance of
escape, and the Platæans at first thought of setting fire to the
building: but at length a convention was concluded, whereby they, as
well as all the other Thebans in the city, agreed to surrender at
discretion.[205]
[204] Thucyd. ii, 3. ἐδόκει οὖν ἐπιχειρητέα εἶναι, καὶ
ξυνελέγοντο διορύσσοντες τοὺς κοινοὺς τοίχους παρ᾽ ἀλλήλους, ὅπως
μὴ διὰ τῶν ὁδῶν φανεροὶ ὦσιν ἰόντες, ἁμάξας δὲ ἄνευ τῶν ὑποζυγίων
ἐς τὰς ὁδοὺς καθίστασαν, ἵν᾽ ἀντὶ τείχους ᾖ, καὶ τἄλλα ἐξήρτυον,
etc.
I may be permitted to illustrate this by a short extract from the
letter of M. Marrast, mayor of Paris, to the National Assembly,
written during the formidable insurrection of June 25, 1848, in
that city, and describing the proceedings of the insurgents:
“Dans la plupart des rues longues, étroites et couvertes de
barricades qui vont de l’Hôtel de Ville à la Rue St. Antoine,
la garde nationale mobile, et la troupe de ligne, ont dû faire
le siège de chaque maison; et ce qui rendait l’œuvre plus
périlleuse, c’est que les insurgés avaient établi, de chaque
maison à chaque maison, des communications intérieures qui
reliaient les maisons entre elles, en sorte qu’ils pouvaient se
rendre, comme par une allée couverte, d’un point éloigné jusqu’au
centre d’une suite de barricades qui les protégeaient.” (Lettre
publiée dans le journal, le National, June 26, 1848).
[205] Thucyd. ii, 3, 4.
Had the reinforcements from Thebes arrived at the expected hour,
this disaster would have been averted. But the heavy rain and dark
night retarded their whole march, while the river Asôpus was so
much swollen as to be with difficulty fordable: so that before they
reached the gates of Platæa, their comrades within were either slain
or captured. Which fate had befallen them, the Thebans without could
not tell: but they immediately resolved to seize what they could
find, persons as well as property, in the Platæan territory,—no
precautions having been taken as yet to guard against the perils
of war by keeping within the walls,—in order that they might have
something to exchange for such Thebans as were prisoners. Before this
step could be executed, however, a herald came forth from the town
to remonstrate with them upon their unholy proceeding in having so
flagrantly violated the truce, and especially to warn them not to
do any wrong without the walls. If they retired without inflicting
farther mischief, their prisoners within should be given up to
them; if otherwise, these prisoners would be slain immediately. A
convention having been concluded and sworn to on this basis, the
Thebans retired without any active measures. Such at least was the
Theban account of what preceded their retirement: but the Platæans
gave a very different statement; denying that they had made any
categorical promise or sworn any oath,—and affirming that they had
engaged for nothing, except to suspend any decisive step with regard
to the prisoners until discussion had been entered into to see if a
satisfactory agreement could be concluded.
As Thucydidês records both of these statements, without intimating
to which of the two he himself gave the preference, we may presume
that both of them found credence with respectable persons. The Theban
story is undoubtedly the most probable: but the Platæans appear to
have violated the understanding, even upon their own construction
of it. For no sooner had the Thebans retired, than they (the
Platæans) hastily brought in their citizens and the best of their
movable property within the walls, and then slew all their prisoners
forthwith; without even entering into the formalities of negotiation.
The prisoners thus put to death, among whom was Eurymachus himself,
were one hundred and eighty in number.[206]
[206] Thucyd. ii, 5, 6; Herodot. vii, 233. Demosthenês (cont.
Neæram, c. 25, p. 1379) agrees with Thucydidês in the statement
that the Platæans slew their prisoners. From whom Diodorus
borrowed his inadmissible story, that the Platæans gave up their
prisoners to the Thebans, I cannot tell (Diodor. xii, 41, 42).
The passage in this oration against Neæra is also curious,
both as it agrees with Thucydidês on many points, and as it
differs from him on several others: in some sentences, even
the words agree with Thucydidês (ὁ γὰρ Ἀσωπὸς ποταμὸς μέγας
ἐῤῥύη, καὶ διαβῆναι οὐ ῥᾴδιον ἦν, etc.: compare Thucyd. ii,
2); while on other points there is discrepancy. Demosthenês—or
the Pseudo-Demosthenês—states that Archidamus, king of Sparta,
planned the surprise of Platæa,—that the Platæans only
discovered, when morning dawned, the small real number of the
Thebans in the town,—that the larger body of Thebans, when they
at last did arrive near Platæa after the great delay in their
march, were forced to retire by the numerous force arriving from
Athens, and that the Platæans then destroyed their prisoners
in the town. Demosthenês mentions nothing about any convention
between the Platæans and the Thebans without the town, respecting
the Theban prisoners within.
On every point on which the narrative of Thucydidês differs from
that of Demosthenês, that of the former stands out as the most
coherent and credible.
On the first entrance of the Theban assailants at night, a messenger
had started from Platæa to carry the news to Athens: a second
messenger followed him to report the victory and capture of the
prisoners, as soon as it had been achieved. The Athenians sent back
a herald without delay, enjoining the Platæans to take no step
respecting the prisoners until consultation should be had with
Athens. Periklês doubtless feared what turned out to be the fact:
for the prisoners had been slain before his messenger could arrive.
Apart from the terms of the convention, and looking only to the
received practice of ancient warfare, their destruction could not be
denounced as unusually cruel, though the Thebans, when fortune was
in their favor, chose to designate it as such,[207]—but impartial
contemporaries would notice, and the Athenians in particular would
deeply lament, the glaring impolicy of the act. For Thebes, the best
thing of all would of course be to get back her captured citizens
forthwith: but next to that, the least evil would be to hear that
they had been put to death. In the hands of the Athenians and
Platæans, they would have been the means of obtaining from her much
more valuable sacrifices than their lives, considered as a portion of
Theban power, were worth: so strong was the feeling of sympathy for
imprisoned citizens, several of them men of rank and importance,—as
may be seen by the past conduct of Athens after the battle of
Korôneia, and by that of Sparta, hereafter to be recounted, after the
taking of Sphakteria. The Platæans, obeying the simple instinct of
wrath and vengeance, threw away this great political advantage, which
the more long-sighted Periklês would gladly have turned to account.
[207] Thucyd. iii, 66.
At the time when the Athenians sent their herald to Platæa, they also
issued orders for seizing all Bœotians who might be found in Attica;
while they lost no time in sending forces to provision Platæa, and
placing it on the footing of a garrison town, removing to Athens
the old men and sick, with the women and children. No complaint
or discussion, respecting the recent surprise, was thought of by
either party: it was evident to both that the war was now actually
begun,—that nothing was to be thought of except the means of carrying
it on,—and that there could be no farther personal intercourse
except under the protection of heralds.[208] The incident at Platæa,
striking in all its points, wound up both parties to the full pitch
of warlike excitement. A spirit of resolution and enterprise was
abroad everywhere, especially among those younger citizens, yet
unacquainted with the actual bitterness of war, whom the long truce
but just broken had raised up; and the contagion of high-strung
feeling spread from the leading combatants into every corner of
Greece, manifesting itself partly in multiplied oracles, prophecies,
and religious legends adapted to the moment:[209] a recent earthquake
at Delos, too, as well as various other extraordinary physical
phenomena, were construed as prognostics of the awful struggle
impending,—a period fatally marked not less by eclipses, earthquakes,
drought, famine, and pestilence, than by the direct calamities of
war.[210]
[208] Thucyd. ii, 1-6.
[209] Thucyd. ii. 7, 8. ἥ τε ἄλλη Ἑλλὰς ~πᾶσα μετέωρος ἦν~,
ξυνιουσῶν τῶν πρώτων πόλεων.
[210] Thucyd. i, 23.
An aggression so unwarrantable as the assault on Platæa tended
doubtless to strengthen the unanimity of the Athenian assembly, to
silence the opponents of Periklês, and to lend additional weight
to those frequent exhortations,[211] whereby the great statesman
was wont to sustain the courage of his countrymen. Intelligence
was sent round to forewarn and hearten up the numerous allies of
Athens, tributary as well as free: the latter, with the exception
of the Thessalians, Akarnanians, and Messenians at Naupaktus, were
all insular,—Chians, Lesbians, Korkyræans, and Zakynthians: to the
island of Kephallênia also they sent envoys, but it was not actually
acquired to their alliance until a few months afterwards.[212] With
the Akarnanians, too, their connection had only been commenced a
short time before, seemingly during the preceding summer, arising
out of the circumstances of the town of Argos in Amphilochia. That
town, situated on the southern coast of the Ambrakian gulf, was
originally occupied by a portion of the Amphilochi, a non-Hellenic
tribe, whose lineage apparently was something intermediate between
Akarnanians and Epirots. Some colonists from Ambrakia, having been
admitted as co-residents with the Amphilochian inhabitants of this
town, presently expelled them, and retained the town with its
territory exclusively for themselves. The expelled inhabitants,
fraternizing with their fellow tribes around as well as with the
Akarnanians, looked out for the means of restoration; and in order
to obtain it, invited the assistance of Athens. Accordingly, the
Athenians sent an expedition of thirty triremes, under Phormio, who,
joining the Amphilochians and Akarnanians, attacked and carried
Argos, reduced the Ambrakiots to slavery, and restored the town to
the Amphilochians and Akarnanians. It was on this occasion that the
alliance of the Akarnanians with Athens was first concluded, and
that their personal attachment to the Athenian admiral, Phormio,
commenced.[213]
[211] Thucyd. ii, 13. ἅπερ καὶ πρότερον, etc., ἔλεγε δὲ καὶ ἄλλα,
~οἷάπερ εἰώθει~, Περικλῆς ἐς ἀπόδειξιν τοῦ περιέσεσθαι τῷ πολέμῳ.
[212] Thucyd. ii, 7, 22, 30.
[213] Thucyd. ii, 68. The time at which this expedition of
Phormio and the capture of Argos happened, is not precisely
marked by Thucydidês. But his words seem to imply that it was
before the commencement of the war, as Poppo observes. Phormio
was sent to Chalkidikê about October or November 432 B.C. (i,
64); and the expedition against Argos probably occurred between
that event and the naval conflict of Korkyræans and Athenians
against Corinthians with their allies, Ambrakiots included,—which
conflict had happened in the preceding spring.
The numerous subjects of Athens, whose contributions stood embodied
in the annual tribute, were distributed all over and around the
Ægean, including all the islands north of Krete, with the exception
of Melos and Thera.[214] Moreover, the elements of force collected
in Athens itself, were fully worthy of the metropolis of so great
an empire. Periklês could make a report to his countrymen of three
hundred triremes fit for active service; twelve hundred horsemen and
horse-bowmen; sixteen hundred bowmen; and the great force of all,
not less than twenty-nine thousand hoplites,—mostly citizens, but
in part also metics. The chosen portion of these hoplites, both as
to age and as to equipment, were thirteen thousand in number; while
the remaining sixteen thousand, including the elder and younger
citizens and the metics, did garrison-duty on the walls of Athens
and Peiræus,—on the long line of wall which connected Athens both
with Peiræus and Phalêrum,—and in the various fortified posts both
in and out of Attica. In addition to these large military and naval
forces, the city possessed in the acropolis, an accumulated treasure
of coined silver amounting to not less than six thousand talents,
or about one million four hundred thousand pounds, derived from
annual laying by of tribute from the allies and perhaps of other
revenues besides: the treasure had at one time been as large as nine
thousand seven hundred talents, or about two million two hundred
and thirty thousand pounds, but the cost of the recent religious
and architectural decorations at Athens, as well as at the siege of
Potidæa, had reduced it to six thousand. Moreover, the acropolis
and the temples throughout the city were rich in votive offerings,
deposits, sacred plate, and silver implements for the processions
and festivals, etc., to an amount estimated at more than five
hundred talents; while the great statue of the goddess recently
set up by Pheidias in the Parthenon, composed of ivory and gold,
included a quantity of the latter metal not less than forty talents
in weight,—equal in value to more than four hundred talents of
silver,—and all of it go arranged that it could be taken off from the
statue at pleasure. In alluding to these sacred valuables among the
resources of the state, Periklês spoke of them only as open to be so
applied in case of need, with the firm resolution of replacing them
during the first season of prosperity, just as the Corinthians had
proposed to borrow from Delphi and Olympia. Besides the hoard thus
actually in hand, there came in a large annual revenue, amounting,
under the single head of tribute from the subject allies, to six
hundred talents, equal to about one hundred and thirty-eight thousand
pounds; besides all other items,[215] making up a general total of at
least one thousand talents, or about two hundred and thirty thousand
pounds.
[214] Thucyd. ii, 9.
[215] Thucyd. ii, 13; Xenophon, Anabas. vii, 4.
To this formidable catalogue of means for war were to be added other
items not less important, but which did not admit of being weighed
and numbered; the unrivalled maritime skill and discipline of the
seamen,—the democratical sentiment, alike fervent and unanimous,
of the general mass of citizens,—and the superior development
of directing intelligence. And when we consider that the enemy
had indeed on his side an irresistible land-force, but scarcely
anything else,—few ships, no trained seamen, no funds, no powers of
combination or headship,—we may be satisfied that there were ample
materials for an orator like Periklês to draw an encouraging picture
of the future. He could depict Athens as holding Peloponnesus under
siege by means of her navy and a chain of insular posts;[216] and
he could guarantee success[217] as the sure reward of persevering,
orderly, and well-considered exertion, combined with firm endurance
under a period of temporary but unavoidable suffering; and combined
too with another condition hardly less difficult for Athenian temper
to comply with,—abstinence from seductive speculations of distant
enterprise, while their force was required by the necessities of war
near home.[218] But such prospects were founded upon a long-sighted
calculation, looking beyond immediate loss, and therefore likely to
take less hold of the mind of an ordinary citizen,—or at any rate,
to be overwhelmed for the moment by the pressure of actual hardship.
Moreover, the best which Periklês could promise was a successful
resistance,—the unimpaired maintenance of that great empire to which
Athens had become accustomed; a policy purely conservative, without
any stimulus from the hope of positive acquisition,—and not only
without the sympathy of other states, but with feelings of simple
acquiescence on the part of most of her allies,—of strong hostility
everywhere else.
[216] Thucyd. ii, 7. ὡς βεβαίως πέριξ τὴν Πελοπόννησον
καταπολεμήσοντες. vi, 90. πέριξ τὴν Πελοπόννησον πολιορκοῦντες.
[217] Thucyd. ii, 65. τοσοῦτον τῷ Περικλεῖ ἐπερίσσευσε τότε
ἀφ᾽ ὧν αὐτὸς προέγνω, καὶ πάνυ ἂν ῥᾳδίως περιγενέσθαι τῶν
Πελοποννησίων αὐτῶν τῷ πολέμῳ.
[218] Thucyd. i, 144. ἢν ἐθέλητε ἀρχήν τε μὴ ἐπικτᾶσθαι ἅμα
πολεμοῦντες, καὶ κινδύνους αὐθαιρέτους μὴ προστίθεσθαι.
On all these latter points the position of the Peloponnesian alliance
was far more encouraging. So powerful a body of confederates had
never been got together,—not even to resist Xerxes. Not only the
entire strength of Peloponnesus—except Argeians and Achæans, both
of whom were neutral at first, though the Achæan town of Pellênê
joined even at the beginning, and all the rest subsequently—was
brought together, but also the Megarians, Bœotians, Phocians,
Opuntian Lokrians, Ambrakiots, Leukadians, and Anaktorians. Among
these, Corinth, Megara, Sikyon, Pellênê, Elis, Ambrakia, and Leukas,
furnished maritime force, while the Bœotians, Phocians, and Lokrians
supplied cavalry. Many of these cities, however, supplied hoplites
besides; but the remainder of the confederates furnished hoplites
only. It was upon this latter force, not omitting the powerful
Bœotian cavalry, that the main reliance was placed; especially for
the first and most important operation of the war,—the devastation
of Attica. Bound together by the strongest common feeling of active
antipathy to Athens, the whole confederacy was full of hope and
confidence for this immediate forward march,—so gratifying at once
both to their hatred and to their love of plunder, by the hand of
destruction laid upon the richest country in Greece,—and presenting
a chance even of terminating the war at once, if the pride of the
Athenians should be so intolerably stung as to provoke them to come
out and fight. Certainty of immediate success, at the first outset, a
common purpose to be accomplished and a common enemy to be put down,
and favorable sympathies throughout Greece,—all these circumstances
filled the Peloponnesians with sanguine hopes at the beginning of the
war: and the general persuasion was, that Athens, even if not reduced
to submission by the first invasion, could not possibly hold out more
than two or three summers against the repetition of this destructive
process.[219] Strongly did this confidence contrast with the proud
and resolute submission to necessity, not without desponding
anticipations of the result, which reigned among the auditors of
Periklês.[220]
[219] Thucyd. vii, 28. ὅσον κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς τοῦ πολέμου, οἱ μὲν
ἐνιαυτὸν, οἱ δὲ δύο, οἱ δὲ τριῶν γε ἐτῶν, ~οὐδεὶς πλείω χρόνον
ἐνόμιζον περιοίσειν αὐτοὺς~ (the Athenians), ~εἰ οἱ Πελοποννήσιοι
ἐσβάλοιεν ἐς τὴν χώραν~: compare v, 14.
[220] Thucyd. vi, 11. διὰ τὸ ~παρὰ γνώμην αὐτῶν, πρὸς ἃ ἐφοβεῖσθε
τὸ πρῶτον, περιγεγενῆσθαι~, καταφρονήσαντες ἤδη καὶ τῆς Σικελίας
ἐφίεσθε. It is Nikias, who, in dissuading the expedition against
Syracuse, reminds the Athenians of their past despondency at the
beginning of the war.
But though the Peloponnesians entertained confident belief of
carrying their point by simple land-campaign, they did not neglect
auxiliary preparations for naval and prolonged war. The Lacedæmonians
resolved to make up the naval force already existing among themselves
and their allies to an aggregate of five hundred triremes; chiefly
by the aid of the friendly Dorian cities on the Italian and Sicilian
coast. Upon each of them a specific contribution was imposed,
together with a given contingent; orders being transmitted to them to
make such preparations silently without any immediate declaration of
hostility against Athens, and even without refusing for the present
to admit any single Athenian ship into their harbors.[221] Besides
this, the Lacedæmonians laid their schemes for sending envoys to the
Persian king, and to other barbaric powers,—a remarkable evidence of
melancholy revolution in Grecian affairs, when that potentate, whom
the common arm of Greece had so hardly repulsed a few years before,
was now invoked to bring the Phenician fleet again into the Ægean for
the purpose of crushing Athens.
[221] Thucyd. ii, 7. Diodorus says that the Italian and Sicilian
allies were required to furnish two hundred triremes (xii, 41).
Nothing of the kind seems to have been actually furnished.
The invasion of Attica, however, without delay, was the primary
object to be accomplished; and for that the Lacedæmonians issued
circular orders immediately after the attempted surprise at Platæa.
Though the vote of the allies was requisite to sanction any war,
yet when that vote had once been passed, the Lacedæmonians took
upon themselves to direct all the measures of execution. Two-thirds
of the hoplites of each confederate city,—apparently two-thirds of
a certain assumed rating, for which the city was held liable in
the books of the confederacy, so that the Bœotians and others who
furnished cavalry were not constrained to send two-thirds of their
entire force of hoplites,—were summoned to be present on a certain
day at the isthmus of Corinth, with provisions and equipment for an
expedition of some length.[222] On the day named, the entire force
was found duly assembled, and the Spartan king Archidamus, on taking
the command, addressed to the commanders and principal officers from
each city a discourse of solemn warning as well as encouragement.
His remarks were directed chiefly to abate the tone of sanguine
over-confidence which reigned in the army. After adverting to the
magnitude of the occasion, the mighty impulse agitating all Greece,
and the general good wishes which accompanied them against an enemy
so much hated,—he admonished them not to let their great superiority
of numbers and bravery seduce them into a spirit of rash disorder.
“We are about to attack (he said) an enemy admirably equipped in
every way, so that we may be very certain that they will come out
and fight,[223] even if they be not now actually on the march to
meet us at the border, at least when they see us in their territory
ravaging and destroying their property. All men exposed to any
unusual indignity become incensed, and act more under passion than
under calculation, when it is actually brought under their eyes: much
more will the Athenians do so, accustomed as they are to empire, and
to ravage the territory of others rather than to see their own so
treated.”
[222] Thucyd. ii, 10-12.
[223] Thucyd. ii, 11. ὥστε χρὴ καὶ πάνυ ἐλπίζειν διὰ μάχης ἰέναι
αὐτοὺς, εἰ μὴ καὶ νῦν ὥρμηνται, ἐν ᾧ οὔπω πάρεσμεν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν ἐν
τῇ γῇ ὁρῶσιν ἡμᾶς δῃοῦντάς τε καὶ τἀκείνων φθείροντας.
These reports of speeches are of great value as preserving a
record of the feelings and expectations of actors, apart from the
result of events. What Archidamus so confidently anticipated, did
_not_ come to pass.
Immediately on the army being assembled, Archidamus sent Melêsippus
as envoy to Athens to announce the coming invasion, being still in
hopes that the Athenians would yield. But a resolution had been
already adopted, at the instance of Periklês, to receive neither
herald nor envoy from the Lacedæmonians when once their army was
on its march: so that Melêsippus was sent back without even being
permitted to enter the city. He was ordered to quit the territory
before sunset, with guides to accompany him and prevent him from
addressing a word to any one. On parting from his guides at the
border, Melêsippus exclaimed,[224] with a solemnity but too
accurately justified by the event: “This day will be the beginning of
many calamities to the Greeks.”
[224] Thucyd. ii, 12.
Archidamus, as soon as the reception of his last envoy was made known
to him, continued his march from the isthmus into Attica,—which
territory he entered by the road of Œnoê, the frontier Athenian
fortress of Attica towards Bœotia. His march was slow, and he thought
it necessary to make a regular attack on the fort of Œnoê, which had
been put into so good a state of defence, that after all the various
modes of assault, in which the Lacedæmonians were not skilful, had
been tried in vain,[225]—and after a delay of several days before the
place,—he was compelled to renounce the attempt.
[225] Thucyd. ii, 18. πᾶσαν ἰδέαν πειράσαντες οὐκ ἐδύναντο ἑλεῖν.
The situation of Œnoê is not exactly agreed upon by topographical
inquirers: it was near Eleutheræ, and on one of the roads from
Attica into Bœotia (Harpokration, v, Οἰνόη; Herodot. v, 74).
Archidamus marched, probably, from the isthmus over Geraneia,
and fell into this road in order to receive the junction of the
Bœotian contingent after it had crossed Kithæron.
The want of enthusiasm on the part of the Spartan king,—his
multiplied delays, first at the isthmus, next in the march, and
lastly before Œnoê,—were all offensive to the fiery impatience of the
army, who were loud in their murmurs against him. He acted upon the
calculation already laid down in his discourse at Sparta,[226]—that
the highly cultivated soil of Attica was to be looked upon as a
hostage for the pacific dispositions of the Athenians, who would be
more likely to yield when devastation, though not yet inflicted, was
nevertheless impending, and at their doors. In this point of view,
a little delay at the border was no disadvantage; and perhaps the
partisans of peace at Athens may have encouraged him to hope that it
would enable them to prevail. Nor can we doubt that it was a moment
full of difficulty to Periklês at Athens. He had to proclaim to all
the proprietors in Attica the painful truth, that they must prepare
to see their lands and houses overrun and ruined; and that their
persons, families, and movable property, must be brought in for
safety either to Athens, or to one of the forts in the territory,—or
carried across to one of the neighboring islands. It would, indeed,
make a favorable impression when he told them that Archidamus was his
own family friend, yet only within such limits as consisted with duty
to the city: in case, therefore, the invaders, while ravaging Attica,
should receive instruction to spare his own lands, he would forthwith
make them over to the state as public property: nor was such a case
unlikely to arise, if not from the personal feeling of Archidamus,
at least from the deliberate manœuvre of the Spartans, who would
seek thus to set the Athenian public against Periklês, as they had
tried to do before by demanding the banishment of the sacrilegious
Alkmæônid race.[227] But though this declaration would doubtless
provoke a hearty cheer, the lesson which he had to inculcate, not
simply for admission as prudent policy, but for actual practice,
was one revolting alike to the immediate interest, the dignity, and
the sympathies of his countrymen. To see their lands all ravaged,
without raising an arm to defend them,—to carry away their wives
and families, and to desert and dismantle their country residences,
as they had done during the Persian invasion,—all in the confidence
of compensation in other ways and of remote ultimate success,—were
recommendations which, probably, no one but Periklês could have
hoped to enforce. They were, moreover, the more painful to execute,
inasmuch as the Athenian citizens had very generally retained the
habits of residing permanently, not in Athens, but in the various
demes of Attica; many of which still preserved their temples, their
festivals, their local customs, and their limited municipal autonomy,
handed down from the day when they had once been independent of
Athens.[228] It was but recently that the farming, the comforts,
and the ornaments, thus distributed over Attica, had been restored
from the ruin of the Persian invasion, and brought to a higher pitch
of improvement than ever; yet the fruits of this labor, and the
scenes of these local affections, were now to be again deliberately
abandoned to a new aggressor, and exchanged for the utmost privation
and discomfort. Archidamus might well doubt whether the Athenians
would nerve themselves up to the pitch of resolution necessary
for this distressing step, when it came to the actual crisis; and
whether they would not constrain Periklês against his will to make
propositions for peace. His delay on the border, and postponement of
actual devastation, gave the best chance for such propositions being
made; though as this calculation was not realized, the army raised
plausible complaints against him for having allowed the Athenians
time to save so much of their property.
[226] Thucyd. i, 82; ii, 18.
[227] Thucyd. ii, 13: compare Tacitus, Histor. v, 23. “Cerealis,
insulam Batavorum hostiliter populatus, agros Civilis, _notâ arte
ducum_, intactos sinebat.” Also Livy, ii, 39.
Justin affirms that the Lacedæmonian invaders actually did leave
the lands of Periklês uninjured, and that he made them over to
the people (iii, 7). Thucydidês does not say whether the case
really occurred: see also Polyænus, i, 36.
[228] Thucyd. ii, 15, 16.
From all parts of Attica the residents flocked within the spacious
walls of Athens, which now served as shelter for the houseless, like
Salamis, forty-nine years before: entire families with all their
movable property, and even with the woodwork of their houses; the
sheep and cattle were conveyed to Eubœa and the other adjoining
islands.[229] Though a few among the fugitives obtained dwellings or
reception from friends, the greater number were compelled to encamp
in the vacant spaces of the city and Peiræus, or in and around the
numerous temples of the city,—always excepting the acropolis and
the eleusinion, which were at all times strictly closed to profane
occupants; but even the ground called _the Pelasgikon_, immediately
under the acropolis, which, by an ancient and ominous tradition,
was interdicted to human abode,[230] was made use of under the
present necessity. Many, too, placed their families in the towers
and recesses of the city walls,[231] or in sheds, cabins, tents, or
even tubs, disposed along the course of the long walls to Peiræus.
In spite of so serious an accumulation of losses and hardships,
the glorious endurance of their fathers in the time of Xerxes was
faithfully copied, and copied too under more honorable circumstances,
since at that time there had been no option possible; whereas,
the march of Archidamus might, perhaps, now have been arrested by
submissions, ruinous indeed to Athenian dignity, yet not inconsistent
with the security of Athens, divested of her rank and power. Such
submissions, if suggested as they probably may have been by the party
opposed to Periklês, found no echo among the suffering population.
[229] Thucyd. ii, 14.
[230] Thucyd. ii, 17. καὶ τὸ Πελασγικὸν καλούμενον τὸ ὑπὸ τὴν
ἀκρόπολιν, ὃ καὶ ἐπάρατόν τε ἦν μὴ οἰκεῖν καί τι καὶ Πυθικοῦ
μαντείου ἀκροτελεύτιον τοιόνδε διεκώλυε, λέγον ὡς ~τὸ Πελασγικὸν
ἀργὸν ἄμεινον~, ὅμως ὑπὸ τῆς παραχρῆμα ἀνάγκης ἐξῳκήθη.
Thucydidês then proceeds to give an explanation of his own for
this ancient prophecy, intended to save its credit, as well as
to show that his countrymen had not, as some persons alleged,
violated any divine mandate by admitting residents into the
Pelasgikon. When the oracle said: “The Pelasgikon is better
unoccupied,” it did not mean to interdict the occupation of that
spot, but to foretell that it would never be occupied until a
time of severe calamity arrived. The necessity of occupying it
grew only out of national suffering. Such is the explanation
suggested by Thucydidês.
[231] Aristophanês, Equites, 789. οἰκοῦντ᾽ ἐν ταῖς πιθάκναισι
κἀν γυπαρίοις καὶ πυργιδίοις. The philosopher Diogenês, in taking
up his abode in a tub, had thus examples in history to follow.
After having spent several days before Œnoê without either taking
the fort or receiving any message from the Athenians, Archidamus
marched onward to Eleusis and the Thriasian plain,—about the middle
of June, eighty days after the surprise of Platæa. His army was of
irresistible force, not less than sixty thousand hoplites, according
to the statement of Plutarch,[232] or of one hundred thousand,
according to others: considering the number of constituent allies,
the strong feeling by which they were prompted, and the shortness
of the expedition combined with the chance of plunder, even the
largest of these two numbers is not incredibly great, if we take
it to include not hoplites only, but cavalry and light-armed also:
but as Thucydidês, though comparatively full in his account of this
march, has stated no general total, we may presume that he had
heard none upon which he could rely. As the Athenians had made no
movement towards peace, Archidamus anticipated that they would come
forth to meet him in the fertile plain of Eleusis and Thria, which
was the first portion of territory that he sat down to ravage: but
no Athenian force appeared to oppose him, except a detachment of
cavalry, who were repulsed in a skirmish near the small lakes called
Rheiti. Having laid waste this plain without any serious opposition,
Archidamus did not think fit to pursue the straight road which from
Thria conducted directly to Athens across the ridge of Mount Ægaleos,
but turned off to the westward, leaving that mountain on his right
hand until he came to Krôpeia, where he crossed a portion of the
line of Ægaleos over to Acharnæ. He was here about seven miles from
Athens, on a declivity sloping down into the plain which stretches
westerly and northwesterly from Athens, and visible from the city
walls: and he here encamped, keeping his army in perfect order for
battle, but at the same time intending to damage and ruin the place
and its neighborhood. Acharnæ was the largest and most populous of
all the demes in Attica, furnishing no less than three thousand
hoplites to the national line, and flourishing as well by its corn,
vines, and olives, as by its peculiar abundance of charcoal-burning
from the forests of ilex on the neighboring hills: moreover, if
we are to believe Aristophanês, the Acharnian proprietors were
not merely sturdy “hearts of oak,” but peculiarly vehement and
irritable.[233] It illustrates the condition of a Grecian territory
under invasion, when we find this great deme, which could not have
contained less than twelve thousand free inhabitants of both sexes
and all ages, with at least an equal number of slaves, completely
deserted. Archidamus calculated that when the Athenians actually saw
his troops so close to their city, carrying fire and sword over their
wealthiest canton, their indignation would become uncontrollable, and
they would march out forthwith to battle. The Acharnian proprietors
especially, he thought, would be foremost in inflaming this temper,
and insisting upon protection to their own properties,—or, if the
remaining citizens refused to march out along with them, they would,
after having been thus left undefended to ruin, become discontented
and indifferent to the general weal.[234]
[232] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 33.
[233] See the Acharneis of Aristophanês, represented in the sixth
year of the Peloponnesian war, v, 34, 180, 254, etc.
πρεσβῦταί τινες
Ἀχαρνικοὶ, στιπτοὶ γέροντες, πρίνινοι,
ἀτεράμονες, Μαραθωνομάχαι, σφενδάμνινοι, etc.
[234] Thucyd. ii, 20.
Though his calculation was not realized, it was, nevertheless,
founded upon most rational grounds. What Archidamus anticipated
was on the point of happening, and nothing prevented it, except
the personal ascendency of Periklês, strained to its very utmost.
So long as the invading army was engaged in the Thriasian plain,
the Athenians had some faint hope that it might—like Pleistoanax,
fourteen years before—advance no farther into the interior: but
when it came to Acharnæ, within sight of the city walls,—when the
ravagers were actually seen destroying buildings, fruit-trees, and
crops, in the plain of Athens, a sight strange to every Athenian
eye except to those very old men who recollected the Persian
invasion,—the exasperation of the general body of citizens rose
to a pitch never before known. The Acharnians first of all, next
the youthful citizens generally,—became madly clamorous for arming
and going forth to fight. Knowing well their own great strength,
but less correctly informed of the superior strength of the enemy,
they felt confident that victory was within their reach. Groups of
citizens were everywhere gathered together,[235] angrily debating
the critical question of the moment; while the usual concomitants of
excited feeling,—oracles and prophecies of diverse tenor, many of
them, doubtless, promising success against the enemy at Acharnæ,—were
eagerly caught up and circulated.
[235] Thucyd. ii, 21. κατὰ ξυστάσεις δὲ γιγνόμενοι ἐν πολλῇ ἔριδι
ἦσαν: compare Euripidês, Herakleidæ, 416; and Andromachê, 1077.
In this inflamed temper of the Athenian mind, Periklês was naturally
the great object of complaint and wrath. He was denounced as the
cause of all the existing suffering: he was reviled as a coward for
not leading out the citizens to fight, in his capacity of general:
the rational convictions as to the necessity of the war and the only
practicable means of carrying it on, which his repeated speeches
had implanted, seemed to be altogether forgotten.[236] This burst
of spontaneous discontent was, of course, fomented by the numerous
political enemies of Periklês, and particularly by Kleon,[237] now
rising into importance as an opposition-speaker; whose talent for
invective was thus first exercised under the auspices of the high
aristocratical party, as well as of an excited public. But no
manifestations, however violent, could disturb either the judgment
or the firmness of Periklês. He listened, unmoved, to all the
declarations made against him, and resolutely refused to convene
any public assembly, or any meeting invested with an authorized
character, under the present irritated temper of the citizens.[238]
It appears that he, as general, or rather the board of ten generals,
among whom he was one, must have been invested constitutionally with
the power, not only of calling the ekklesia when they thought fit,
but also of preventing it from meeting,[239] and of postponing even
those regular meetings which commonly took place at fixed times,
four times in the prytany. No assembly, accordingly, took place,
and the violent exasperation of the people was thus prevented from
realizing itself in any rash public resolution. That Periklês should
have held firm against this raging force, is but one among the many
honorable points in his political character; but it is far less
wonderful than the fact, that his refusal to call the ekklesia was
efficacious to prevent the ekklesia from being held. The entire body
of Athenians were now assembled within the walls, and if he refused
to convoke the ekklesia, they might easily have met in the Pnyx,
without him; for which it would not have been difficult at such a
juncture to provide plausible justification. The inviolable respect
which the Athenian people manifested on this occasion for the forms
of their democratical constitution—assisted doubtless by their
long-established esteem for Periklês, yet opposed to an excitement
alike intense and pervading, and to a demand apparently reasonable,
in so far as regarded the calling of an assembly for discussion,—is
one of the most memorable incidents in their history.
[236] Thucyd. ii, 21. παντί τε τρόπῳ ἀνηρέθιστο ἡ πόλις καὶ τὸν
Περικλέα ἐν ὀργῇ εἶχον, καὶ ὧν παρῄνεσε πρότερον ἐμέμνηντο οὐδὲν,
ἀλλ᾽ ἐκάκιζον ὅτι στρατηγὸς ὢν οὐκ ἐπεξάγοι, αἴτιόν τε σφίσιν
ἐνόμιζον πάντων ὧν ἔπασχον.
[237] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 33.
[238] Thucyd. ii, 22.
[239] See Schömann, De Comitiis, c. iv, p. 62. The prytanes (_i.
e._ the fifty senators belonging to that tribe whose turn it was
to preside at the time), as well as the stratêgi, had the right
of convoking the ekklesia: see Thucyd. iv, 118, in which passage,
however, they are represented as convoking it in conjunction with
the stratêgi: probably a discretion on the point came gradually
to be understood as vested in the latter.
While Periklês thus decidedly forbade any general march out for
battle, he sought to provide as much employment as possible for the
compressed eagerness of the citizens. The cavalry were sent out,
together with the Thessalian cavalry their allies, for the purpose
of restraining the excursions of the enemy’s light troops, and
protecting the lands near the city from plunder.[240] At the same
time, he fitted out a powerful expedition, which sailed forth to
ravage Peloponnesus, even while the invaders were yet in Attica.[241]
Archidamus, after having remained engaged in the devastation of
Acharnæ long enough to satisfy himself that the Athenians would not
hazard a battle, turned away from Athens in a northwesterly direction
towards the demes between Mount Brilêssus and Mount Parnês, on the
road passing through Dekeleia. The army continued ravaging these
districts until their provisions were exhausted, and then quitted
Attica by the northwestern road near Orôpus, which brought them into
Bœotia. The Oropians were not Athenians, but dependent upon Athens,
and the district of Græa, a portion of their territory, was laid
waste; after which, the army dispersed and retired back to their
respective homes.[242] It would seem that they quitted Attica towards
the end of July, having remained in the country between thirty and
forty days.
[240] Thucyd. ii, 22. The funeral monument of these slain
Thessalians, was among those seen by Pausanias near Athens, on
the side of the Academy (Pausan. i, 29, 5).
[241] Diodorus (xii, 42) would have us believe, that the
expedition sent out by Periklês, ravaging the Peloponnesian
coast, induced the Lacedæmonians to hurry away their troops out
of Attica. Thucydidês gives no countenance to this,—nor is it at
all credible.
[242] Thucyd. ii, 23. The reading Γραϊκὴν, belonging to Γραία,
seems preferable to Πειραϊκὴν. Poppo and Göller adopt the
former, Dr. Arnold the latter. Græa was a small maritime place
in the vicinity of Orôpus (Aristotel. ap. Stephan. Byz. v.
Τάναγρα),—known also now as an Attic deme belonging to the tribe
Pandionis: this has been discovered for the first time by an
inscription published in Professor Ross’s work (Ueber die Demen
von Attika, pp. 3-5). Orôpus was not an Attic deme; the Athenian
citizens residing in it were probably enrolled as Γραῆς.
Meanwhile, the Athenian expedition under Karkinus, Prôteas, and
Sokratês, joined by fifty Korkyræan ships, and by some other
allies, sailed round Peloponnesus, landing in various parts to
inflict damage, and among other places, at Methônê (Modon) on the
southwestern peninsula of the Lacedæmonian territory.[243] The
place, neither strong nor well-garrisoned, would have been carried
with little difficulty, had not Brasidas the son of Tellis,—a
gallant Spartan now mentioned for the first time, but destined
to great celebrity afterwards,—who happened to be on guard at a
neighboring post, thrown himself into it with one hundred men by
a rapid movement, before the dispersed Athenian troops could be
brought together to prevent him. He infused such courage into the
defenders of the place that every attack was repelled, and the
Athenians were forced to reëmbark,—an act of prowess which procured
for him the first public honors bestowed by the Spartans during this
war. Sailing northward along the western coast of Peloponnesus,
the Athenians landed again on the coast of Elis, a little south of
the promontory called Cape Ichthys: they ravaged the territory for
two days, defeating both the troops in the neighborhood and three
hundred chosen men from the central Eleian territory. Strong winds
on a harborless coast now induced the captains to sail with most
of the troops round Cape Ichthys, in order to reach the harbor of
Pheia on the northern side of it; while the Messenian hoplites,
marching by land across the promontory, attacked Pheia and carried
it by assault. When the fleet arrived, all were reëmbarked,—the full
force of Elis being under march to attack them: they then sailed
northward, landing on various other spots to commit devastation,
until they reached Sollium, a Corinthian settlement on the coast
of Akarnania. They captured this place, which they handed over to
the inhabitants of the neighboring Akarnanian town of Palærus,—as
well as Astakus, from whence they expelled the despot Euarchus, and
enrolled the town as a member of the Athenian alliance. From hence
they passed over to Kephallênia, which they were fortunate enough
also to acquire as an ally of Athens without any compulsion,—with its
four distinct towns, or districts, Palês, Kranii, Samê, and Pionê.
These various operations took up near three months from about the
beginning of July, so that they returned to Athens towards the close
of September,[244]—the beginning of the winter half of the year,
according to the distribution of Thucydidês.
[243] Thucyd. ii, 25; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 34; Justin, iii, 7,
5.
[244] Thucyd. ii, 25-30; Diodor. xii, 43, 44.
Nor was this the only maritime expedition of the summer: thirty
more triremes, under Kleopompus, were sent through the Euripus to
the Lokrian coast opposite to the northern part of Eubœa. Some
disembarkations were made, whereby the Lokrian towns of Thronium
and Alopê were sacked, and farther devastation inflicted: while a
permanent garrison was planted, and a fortified post erected, in the
uninhabited island of Atalanta, opposite to the Lokrian coast, in
order to restrain privateers from Opus and the other Lokrian towns
in their excursions against Eubœa.[245] It was farther determined
to expel the Æginetan inhabitants from Ægina, and to occupy the
island with Athenian colonists. This step was partly rendered prudent
by the important position of the island midway between Attica and
Peloponnesus; but a concurrent motive, and probably the stronger
motive, was the gratification of ancient antipathy and revenge
against a people who had been among the foremost in provoking the
war and in inflicting upon Athens so much suffering. The Æginetans
with their wives and children were all put on shipboard and landed
in Peloponnesus,—where the Spartans permitted them to occupy the
maritime district and town of Thyrea, their last frontier towards
Argos: some of them, however, found shelter in other parts of Greece.
The island was made over to a detachment of Athenian kleruchs, or
citizen proprietors, sent thither by lot.[246]
[245] Thucyd. ii, 26-32; Diodor. xii, 44.
[246] Thucyd. ii, 27.
To the sufferings of the Æginetans, which we shall hereafter find
still more deplorably aggravated, we have to add those of the
Megarians. Both had been most zealous in kindling the war, but upon
none did the distress of war fall so heavily. Both probably shared
the premature confidence felt among the Peloponnesian confederacy,
that Athens could never hold out more than a year or two,—and were
thus induced to overlook their own undefended position against her.
Towards the close of September, the full force of Athens, citizens
and metics, marched into the Megarid under Periklês, and laid waste
the greater part of the territory: while they were in it, the hundred
ships which had been circumnavigating Peloponnesus, having arrived
at Ægina on their return, went and joined their fellow-citizens in
the Megarid, instead of going straight home. The junction of the
two formed the largest Athenian force that had ever yet been seen
together: there were ten thousand citizen hoplites, independent of
three thousand others who were engaged in the siege of Potidæa,
and three thousand metic hoplites,—besides a large number of light
troops.[247] Against so large a force the Megarians could of course
make no head, and their territory was all laid waste, even to the
city walls. For several years of the war, the Athenians inflicted
this destruction once, and often twice in the same year: a decree was
proposed in the Athenian ekklesia by Charinus, though perhaps not
carried, to the effect that the stratêgi every year should swear, as
a portion of their oath of office,[248] that they would twice invade
and ravage the Megarid. As the Athenians at the same time kept the
port of Nisæa blocked up, by means of their superior naval force and
of the neighboring coast of Salamis, the privations imposed on the
Megarians became extreme and intolerable.[249] Not merely their corn
and fruits, but even their garden vegetables near the city, were
rooted up and destroyed, and their situation seems often to have been
that of a besieged city hard pressed by famine. Even in the time of
Pausanias, so many centuries afterwards, the miseries of the town
during these years were remembered and communicated to him, being
assigned as the reason why one of their most memorable statues had
never been completed.[250]
[247] Thucyd. ii, 31; Diodor. xii, 44.
[248] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 30.
[249] See the striking picture in the Acharneis of Aristophanês
(685-781) of the distressed Megarian selling his hungry children
into slavery with their own consent: also Aristoph. Pac. 432.
The position of Megara, as the ally of Sparta and enemy of
Athens, was uncomfortable in the same manner,—though not to the
same intense pitch of suffering,—in the war which preceded the
battle of Leuktra, near fifty years after this (Demosthen. cont.
Neær., p. 1357, c. 12).
[250] Pausan. i, 40, 3.
To these various military operations of Athens during the course
of this summer, some other measures of moment are to be added;
and Thucydidês also notices an eclipse of the sun which modern
astronomical calculations refer to the third of August: had this
eclipse happened three months earlier, immediately before the
entrance of the Peloponnesians into Attica, it might probably have
been construed as an unfavorable omen, and caused the postponement of
the scheme. Expecting a prolonged struggle, the Athenians now made
arrangements for placing Attica in a permanent state of defence,
both by sea and land; what these arrangements were, we are not told
in detail, but one of them was sufficiently remarkable to be named
particularly. They set apart one thousand talents out of the treasure
in the acropolis as an inviolable reserve, not to be touched except
on the single contingency of a hostile naval force about to assail
the city, with no other means at hand to defend it. They further
enacted, that if any citizen should propose, or any magistrate
put the question, in the public assembly, to make any different
application of this reserve, he should be punishable with death.
Moreover, they resolved every year to keep back one hundred of their
best triremes, and trierarchs to command and equip them, for the
same special necessity.[251] It may be doubted whether this latter
provision was placed under the same stringent sanction, or observed
with the same rigor, as that concerning the money, which latter was
not departed from until the twentieth year of the war, after all the
disasters of the Sicilian expedition, and on the terrible news of the
revolt of Chios. It was on that occasion that the Athenians first
repealed the sentence of capital punishment against the proposer of
this forbidden change, and next appropriated the money to meet the
then imminent peril of the commonwealth.[252]
[251] Thucyd. ii, 24.
[252] Thucyd. viii, 15.
The resolution here taken about this sacred reserve, and the rigorous
sentence interdicting contrary propositions, is pronounced by Mr.
Mitford to be an evidence of the indelible barbarism of democratical
government.[253] But we must recollect, first, that the sentence
of capital punishment was one which could hardly by possibility
come into execution; for no citizen would be so mad as to make
the forbidden proposition, while this law was in force. Whoever
desired to make it, would first begin by proposing to repeal the
prohibitory law, whereby he would incur no danger, whether the
assembly decided in the affirmative or negative; and if he obtained
an affirmative decision, he would then, and then only, proceed to
move the reappropriation of the fund. To speak the language of
English parliamentary procedure, he would first move the suspension
or abrogation of the standing order whereby the proposition was
forbidden,—next, he would move the proposition itself: in fact, such
was the mode actually pursued, when the thing at last came to be
done.[254] But though the capital sentence could hardly come into
effect, the proclamation of it _in terrorem_ had a very distinct
meaning. It expressed the deep and solemn conviction which the
people entertained of the importance of their own resolution about
the reserve,—it forewarned all assemblies and all citizens to come,
of the danger of diverting it to any other purpose,—it surrounded
the reserve with an artificial sanctity, which forced every man who
aimed at the reappropriation to begin with a preliminary proposition,
formidable on the very face of it, as removing a guarantee which
previous assemblies had deemed of immense value, and opening the
door to a contingency which they had looked upon as treasonable. The
proclamation of a lighter punishment, or a simple prohibition without
any definite sanction whatever, would neither have announced the
same emphatic conviction, nor produced the same deterring effect.
The assembly of 431 B.C. could not in any way enact laws which
subsequent assemblies could not reverse; but it could so frame its
enactments, in cases of peculiar solemnity, as to make its authority
strongly felt upon the judgment of its successors, and to prevent
them from entertaining motions for repeal, except under necessity at
once urgent and obvious. Far from thinking that the law now passed
at Athens displayed barbarism, either in the end or in the means, I
consider it principally remarkable for its cautious and long-sighted
view of the future,—qualities the exact reverse of barbarism,—and
worthy of the general character of Periklês, who probably suggested
it. Athens was just entering into a war which threatened to be of
indefinite length, and was certain to be very costly. To prevent the
people from exhausting all their accumulated fund, and to place them
under a necessity of reserving something against extreme casualties,
was an object of immense importance. Now the particular casualty,
which Periklês, assuming him to be the proposer, named as the sole
condition of touching this one thousand talents, might be considered
as of all others the most improbable, in the year 431 B.C. So immense
was then the superiority of the Athenian naval force, that to suppose
it defeated, and a Peloponnesian fleet in full sail for Peiræus, was
a possibility which it required a statesman of extraordinary caution
to look forward to, and which it is truly wonderful that the people
generally could have been induced to contemplate. Once tied up to
this purpose, however, the fund lay ready for any other terrible
emergency: and we shall find the actual employment of it incalculably
beneficial to Athens, at a moment of the gravest peril, when she
could hardly have protected herself without some such special
resource. The people would scarcely have sanctioned so rigorous an
economy, had it not been proposed to them at a period so early in the
war that their available reserve was still much larger: but it will
be forever to the credit of their foresight as well as constancy,
that they should first have adopted such a precautionary measure, and
afterwards adhered to it for nineteen years, under severe pressure
for money, until at length a case arose which rendered farther
abstinence really, and not constructively, impossible.
[253] Mitford, Hist. of Greece, ch. xiv, sect. 1, vol. iii, p.
100. “Another measure followed, which, taking place at the time
when Thucydidês wrote and Periklês spoke, and while Periklês
held the principal influence in the administration, strongly
marks both the inherent weakness and the indelible barbarism of
democratical government. A decree of the people directed....
But so little confidence was placed in a decree so important,
sanctioned only by the present will of that giddy tyrant, the
multitude of Athens, against whose caprices, since the depression
of the court of Areopagus, no balancing power remained,—that the
denunciation of capital punishment was proposed against whosoever
should propose, and whosoever should _concur in_ (?) any decree
for the disposal of that money to any other purpose, or in any
other circumstances.”
[254] Thucyd. viii, 15. τὰ δὲ χίλια τάλαντα, ὧν διὰ παντὸς τοῦ
πολέμου ἐγλίχοντο μὴ ἅψεσθαι, εὐθὺς ἔλυσαν τὰς ἐπικειμένας ζημίας
τῷ εἰπόντι ἢ ἐπιψηφίσαντι, ὑπὸ τῆς παρούσης ἐκπλήξεως, καὶ
ἐψηφίσαντο κινεῖν.
To display their force and take revenge by disembarking and ravaging
parts of Peloponnesus, was doubtless of much importance to Athens
during this first summer of the war: though it might seem that
the force so employed was quite as much needed in the conquest of
Potidæa, which still remained under blockade,—and of the neighboring
Chalkidians in Thrace, still in revolt. It was during the course
of this summer that a prospect opened to Athens of subduing these
towns, through the assistance of Sitalkês, king of the Odrysian
Thracians. That prince had married the sister of Nymphodôrus, a
citizen of Abdêra; who engaged to render him, and his son Sadokus,
allies of Athens. Sent for to Athens and appointed proxenus of Athens
at Abdêra, which was one of the Athenian subject allies, Nymphodôrus
made this alliance, and promised, in the name of Sitalkês, that
a sufficient Thracian force should be sent to aid Athens in the
reconquest of her revolted towns: the honor of Athenian citizenship
was at the same time conferred upon Sadokus.[255] Nymphodôrus farther
established a good understanding between Perdikkas of Macedonia and
the Athenians, who were persuaded to restore to him Therma, which
they had before taken from him. The Athenians had thus the promise
of powerful aid against the Chalkidians and Potidæans: yet the
latter still held out, with little prospect of immediate surrender.
Moreover, the town of Astakus, in Akarnania, which the Athenians had
captured during the summer, in the course of their expedition round
Peloponnesus, was recovered during the autumn by the deposed despot
Euarchus, assisted by forty Corinthian triremes and one thousand
hoplites. This Corinthian armament, after restoring Euarchus, made
some unsuccessful descents both upon other parts of Akarnania and
upon the island of Kephallênia: in the latter, they were entrapped
into an ambuscade, and obliged to return home with considerable
loss.[256]
[255] Thucyd. ii, 29.
[256] Thucyd. ii, 33.
It was towards the close of this autumn also that Periklês, chosen
by the people for the purpose, delivered the funeral oration at
the public interment of those warriors who had fallen during the
campaign. The ceremonies of this public token of respect have already
been described in a former chapter, on occasion of the conquest of
Samos: but that which imparted to the present scene an imperishable
interest, was the discourse of the chosen statesman and orator;
probably heard by Thucydidês himself, and in substance reproduced. A
large crowd of citizens and foreigners, of both sexes and all ages,
accompanied the funeral procession from Athens to the suburb called
the outer Kerameikus, where Periklês, mounted upon a lofty stage
prepared for the occasion, closed the ceremony with his address. The
law of Athens not only provided this public funeral and commemorative
discourse, but also assigned maintenance at the public expense to
the children of the slain warriors until they attained military age:
a practice which was acted on throughout the whole war, though we
have only the description and discourse belonging to this single
occasion.[257]
[257] Thucyd. ii, 34-45. Sometimes, also, the allies of Athens,
who had fallen along with her citizens in battle, had a part in
the honors of the public burial (Lysias, Orat. Funebr. c. 13).
The eleven chapters of Thucydidês which comprise this funeral speech
are among the most memorable relics of antiquity; considering
that under the language and arrangement of the historian,—always
impressive, though sometimes harsh and peculiar, like the workmanship
of a powerful mind, misled by a bad or an unattainable model,—we
possess the substance and thoughts of the illustrious statesman. A
portion of it, of course, is and must be common-place, belonging to
all discourses composed for a similar occasion. Yet this is true
only of a comparatively small portion: much of it is peculiar, and
every way worthy of Periklês,—comprehensive, rational, and full,
not less of sense and substance than of earnest patriotism. It thus
forms a strong contrast with the jejune, though elegant, rhetoric
of other harangues, mostly[258] not composed for actual delivery;
and deserves, in comparison with the funeral discourses remaining
to us from Plato, and the Pseudo-Demosthenês, and even Lysias, the
honorable distinction which Thucydidês claims for his own history,—an
ever-living possession, and not a mere show-piece for the moment.
[258] The critics, from Dionysius of Halikarnassus downward,
agree, for the most part, in pronouncing the feeble Λόγος
Ἐπιτάφιος, ascribed to Demosthenês, to be not really his. Of
those ascribed to Plato and Lysias also, the genuineness has been
suspected, though upon far less grounds. The Menexenus, if it be
really the work of Plato, however, does not add to his fame: but
the harangue of Lysias, a very fine composition, may well be his,
and may, perhaps, have been really delivered,—though probably not
delivered by him, as he was not a qualified citizen.
See the general instructions, in Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetoric. c. 6,
pp. 258-268, Reisk, on the contents and composition of a funeral
discourse,—Lysias is said to have composed several,—Plutarch,
Vit. x, Orator. p. 836.
Compare, respecting the funeral discourse of Periklês, K. F.
Weber, Über die Stand-Rede des Periklês (Darmstadt, 1827);
Westermann, Geschichte der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom.
sects. 35, 63, 64; Kutzen, Perikles, als Staatsman, p. 158, sect.
12 (Grimma, 1834).
Dahlmann (Historische Forschungen, vol. i, p. 23) seems to
think that the original oration of Periklês contained a
large sprinkling of mythical allusions and stories out of
the antiquities of Athens, such as we now find in the other
funeral orations above alluded to; but that Thucydidês himself
deliberately left them out in his report. But there seems no
foundation for this suspicion. It is much more consonant to
the superior tone of dignity which reigns throughout all this
oration, to suppose that the mythical narratives, and even
the previous historical glories of Athens, never found any
special notice in the speech of Periklês,—nothing more than
a general recognition, with an intimation that he does not
dwell upon them at length because they were well known to his
audience,—μακρηγορεῖν ἐν εἰδόσιν οὐ βουλόμενος ἐάσω (ii, 36).
In the outset of his speech, Periklês distinguishes himself from
those who had preceded him in the same function of public orator,
by dissenting from the encomiums which it had been customary to
bestow on the law enjoining these funeral harangues: he thinks that
the publicity of the funeral itself, and the general demonstrations
of respect and grief by the great body of citizens, tell more
emphatically in token of gratitude to the brave dead, when the
scene passes in silence, than when it is translated into the words
of a speaker, who may easily offend, either by incompetency or by
apparent feebleness, or perhaps even by unseasonable exaggeration.
Nevertheless, the custom having been embodied in law, and elected as
he has been by the citizens, he comes forward to discharge the duty
imposed upon him in the best manner he can.[259]
[259] Thucyd. ii, 35.
One of the remarkable features in this discourse is, its
business-like, impersonal character: it is Athens herself who
undertakes to commend and decorate her departed sons, as well as to
hearten up and admonish the living.
After a few words on the magnitude of the empire, and on the glorious
efforts as well as endurance whereby their forefathers and they
had acquired it,—Periklês proceeds to sketch the plan of life, the
constitution, and the manners, under which such achievements were
brought about.[260]
[260] Thucyd. ii, 36. Ἀπὸ δὲ οἵας τε ἐπιτηδεύσεως ἤλθομεν ἐπ᾽
αὐτὰ, καὶ μεθ᾽ οἵας πολιτείας, καὶ τρόπων ἐξ οἵων μεγάλα ἐγένετο,
ταῦτα δηλώσας πρῶτον εἶμι, etc.
In the Demosthenic or pseudo-Demosthenic Orat. Funebris, c. 8, p.
1397—χρηστῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων συνήθεια, τῆς ὅλης πολιτείας ὑπόθεσις,
etc.
“We live under a constitution such as noway to envy the laws of
our neighbors,—ourselves an example to others, rather than mere
imitators. It is called a democracy, since its permanent aim tends
towards the many and not towards the few: in regard to private
matters and disputes, the laws deal equally with every man: while
looking to public affairs and to claims of individual influence,
every man’s chance of advancement is determined, not by party-favor
but by real worth, according as his reputation stands in his own
particular department: nor does poverty, or obscure station, keep him
back,[261] if he really has the means of benefiting the city. And
our social march is free, not merely in regard to public affairs,
but also in regard to intolerance of each other’s diversity of daily
pursuits. For we are not angry with our neighbor for what he may
do to please himself, nor do we ever put on those sour looks,[262]
which, though they do no positive damage, are not the less sure
to offend. Thus conducting our private social intercourse with
reciprocal indulgence, we are restrained from wrong on public matters
by fear and reverence of our magistrates for the time being, and of
our laws,—especially such laws as are instituted for the protection
of wrongful sufferers, and even such others as, though not written,
are enforced by a common sense of shame. Besides this, we have
provided for our minds numerous recreations from toil, partly by
our customary solemnities of sacrifice and festival throughout the
year, partly by the elegance of our private establishments,—the daily
charm of which banishes the sense of discomfort. From the magnitude
of our city, the products of the whole earth are brought to us,
so that our enjoyment of foreign luxuries is as much our own and
assured as those which we grow at home. In respect to training for
war, we differ from our opponents (the Lacedæmonians) on several
material points. First, we lay open our city as a common resort: we
apply no xenêlasy to exclude even an enemy either from any lesson or
any spectacle, the full view of which he may think advantageous to
him; for we trust less to manœuvres and quackery than to our native
bravery, for warlike efficiency. Next, in regard to education, while
the Lacedæmonians, even from their earliest youth, subject themselves
to an irksome exercise for the attainment of courage, we, with our
easy habits of life, are not less prepared than they, to encounter
all perils within the measure of our strength. The proof of this is,
that the Peloponnesian confederates do not attack us one by one, but
with their whole united force; while we, when we attack them at home,
overpower for the most part all of them who try to defend their own
territory. None of our enemies has ever met and contended with our
entire force; partly in consequence of our large navy,—partly from
our dispersion in different simultaneous land-expeditions. But when
they chance to be engaged with any part of it, if victorious, they
pretend to have vanquished us all,—if defeated, they pretend to have
been vanquished by all.
[261] Thucyd. ii, 37. οὐδ᾽ αὖ κατὰ πενίαν, ἔχων δέ τι ἀγαθὸν
δρᾶσαι τὴν πόλιν, ἀξιώματος ἀφανείᾳ κεκώλυται: compare Plato,
Menexenus, c. 8.
[262] Thucyd. ii, 37. ἐλευθέρως δὲ τά τε πρὸς τὸ κοινὸν
πολιτεύομεν, καὶ ἐς τὴν πρὸς ἀλλήλους τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν
ἐπιτηδευμάτων ὑποψίαν, οὐ δι᾽ ὀργῆς τὸν πέλας, εἰ καθ᾽ ἡδονήν τι
δρᾷ, ἔχοντες, οὐδὲ ἀζημίους μὲν, λυπηρὰς δὲ, τῇ ὄψει ἀχθηδόνας
προστιθέμενοι. Ἀνεπαχθῶς δὲ τὰ ἴδια προσομιλοῦντες τὰ δημόσια
διὰ δέος μάλιστα οὐ παρανομοῦμεν, τῶν τε ἀεὶ ἐν ἀρχῇ ὄντων
ἀκροάσει καὶ τῶν νόμων, καὶ μάλιστα αὐτῶν ὅσοι τε ἐπ᾽ ὠφελείᾳ
τῶν ἀδικουμένων κεῖνται, καὶ ὅσοι ἄγραφοι ὄντες αἰσχύνην
ὁμολογουμένην φέρουσι.
“Now, if we are willing to brave danger, just as much under an
indulgent system as under constant toil, and by spontaneous courage
as much as under force of law,—we are gainers in the end, by not
vexing ourselves beforehand with sufferings to come, yet still
appearing in the hour of trial not less daring than those who toil
without ceasing.
“In other matters, too, as well as in these, our city deserves
admiration. For we combine elegance of taste with simplicity of
life, and we pursue knowledge without being enervated:[263] we
employ wealth, not for talking and ostentation, but as a real
help in the proper season: nor is it disgraceful to any one who
is poor to confess his poverty, though he _may_ rather incur
reproach for not actually keeping himself out of poverty. The
magistrates who discharge public trusts fulfil their domestic
duties also,—the private citizen, while engaged in professional
business, has competent knowledge on public affairs: for we stand
alone in regarding the man who keeps aloof from these latter, not
as harmless, but as useless. Moreover, we always hear and pronounce
on public matters, when discussed by our leaders,—or perhaps strike
out for ourselves correct reasonings about them: far from accounting
discussion an impediment to action, we complain only if we are
not told what is to be done before it becomes our duty to do it.
For, in truth, we combine in the most remarkable manner these two
qualities,—extreme boldness in execution, with full debate beforehand
on that which we are going about: whereas, with others, ignorance
alone imparts boldness,—debate introduces hesitation. Assuredly,
those men are properly to be regarded as the stoutest of heart, who,
knowing most precisely both the terrors of war and the sweets of
peace, are still not the less willing to encounter peril.
[263] Thucyd. ii, 40. φιλοκαλοῦμεν γὰρ μετ᾽ εὐτελείας, καὶ
φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας· πλούτῳ τε ἔργου μᾶλλον καιρῷ ἢ λόγου
κόμπῳ χρώμεθα, καὶ τὸ πένεσθαι οὐχ ὁμολογεῖν τινὶ αἰσχρὸν, ἀλλὰ
μὴ διαφεύγειν ἔργῳ αἴσχιον.
The first strophe of the Chorus in Euripid. Medea, 824-841, may
be compared with the tenor of this discourse of Periklês: the
praises of Attica are there dwelt upon, as a country too good to
receive the guilty Medea.
“In fine, I affirm that our city, considered as a whole, is the
schoolmistress of Greece;[264] while, viewed individually, we
enable the same man to furnish himself out and suffice to himself
in the greatest variety of ways, and with the most complete grace
and refinement. This is no empty boast of the moment, but genuine
reality: and the power of the city, acquired through the dispositions
just indicated, exists to prove it. Athens alone, of all cities,
stands forth in actual trial greater than her reputation: her
enemy, when he attacks her, will not have his pride wounded by
suffering defeat from feeble hands,—her subjects will not think
themselves degraded as if their obedience were paid to an unworthy
superior.[265] Having thus put forward our power, not uncertified,
but backed by the most evident proofs, we shall be admired not less
by posterity than by our contemporaries. Nor do we stand in need
either of Homer or of any other panegyrist, whose words may for
the moment please, while the truth when known would confute their
intended meaning: we have compelled all land and sea to become
accessible to our courage, and have planted everywhere imperishable
monuments of our kindness as well as of our hostility.
[264] Thucyd. ii, 41. ξυνελών τε λέγω, τήν τε πᾶσαν πόλιν τῆς
Ἑλλάδος παίδευσιν εἶναι, καὶ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον δοκεῖν ἄν μοι τὸν αὐτὸν
ἄνδρα παρ᾽ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ πλεῖστ᾽ ἂν εἴδη καὶ μετὰ χαρίτων μάλιστ᾽ ἂν
εὐτραπέλως τὸ σῶμα αὔταρκες παρέχεσθαι.
The abstract word παίδευσιν, in place of the concrete παιδευτρία,
seems to soften the arrogance of the affirmation.
[265] Thucyd. ii, 41. μόνη γὰρ τῶν νῦν ἀκοῆς κρείσσων ἐς πεῖραν
ἔρχεται, καὶ μόνη οὔτε τῷ πολεμίῳ ἐπελθόντι ἀγανάκτησιν ἔχει
ὑφ᾽ οἵων κακοπαθεῖ, οὔτε τῷ ὑπηκόῳ κατάμεμψιν ὡς οὐχ ὑπ᾽ ἀξίων
ἄρχεται.
“Such is the city on behalf of which these warriors have nobly died
in battle, vindicating her just title to unimpaired rights,[266]—and
on behalf of which all of us here left behind must willingly toil.
It is for this reason that I have spoken at length concerning the
city, at once to draw from it the lesson that the conflict is not for
equal motives between us and enemies who possess nothing of the like
excellence,—and to demonstrate by proofs the truth of my encomium
pronounced upon her.”
[266] Thucyd. ii. 42. περὶ τοιαύτης οὖν πόλεως οἵδε τε γενναίως
δικαιοῦντες μὴ ἀφαιρεθῆναι αὐτὴν μαχόμενοι ἐτελεύτησαν, καὶ τῶν
λειπομένων πάντα τινὰ εἰκὸς ἐθέλειν ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς κάμνειν.
I am not sure that I have rightly translated δικαιοῦντες μὴ
ἀφαιρεθῆναι αὐτὴν,—but neither Poppo, nor Göller, nor Dr. Arnold,
say anything about these words, which yet are not at all clear.
Periklês pursues at considerable additional length the same tenor
of mixed exhortation to the living and eulogy of the dead; with
many special and emphatic observations addressed to the relatives
of the latter, who were assembled around and doubtless very near
him. But the extract which I have already made is so long, that
no farther addition would be admissible: yet it was impossible to
pass over lightly the picture of the Athenian commonwealth in its
glory, as delivered by the ablest citizen of the age. The effect
of the democratical constitution, with its diffused and equal
citizenship, in calling forth not merely strong attachment, but
painful self-sacrifice, on the part of all Athenians,—is nowhere more
forcibly insisted upon than in the words above cited of Periklês,
as well as in others afterwards: “Contemplating as you do daily
before you the actual power of the state, and becoming passionately
attached to it, when you conceive its full greatness, reflect that
it was all acquired by men of daring, acquainted with their duty,
and full of an honorable sense of shame in their actions,”[267]—such
is the association which he presents between the greatness of the
state as an object of common passion, and the courage, intelligence,
and mutual esteem, of individual citizens, as its creating and
preserving causes: poor as well as rich being alike interested in the
partnership.
[267] Thucyd. ii. 43. τὴν τῆς πόλεως δύναμιν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἔργῳ
θεωμένους καὶ ἐραστὰς γιγνομένους αὐτῆς, καὶ ὅταν ὑμῖν μεγάλη
δόξῃ εἶναι, ἐνθυμουμένους ὅτι τολμῶντες καὶ γιγνώσκοντες τὰ
δέοντα, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις αἰσχυνόμενοι ἄνδρες αὐτὰ ἐκτήσαντο,
etc.
Αἰσχυνόμενοι: compare Demosthen. Orat. Funebris, c. 7, p. 1396.
Αἱ μὲν γὰρ διὰ τῶν ὀλίγων δυναστεῖαι δέος μὲν ἐνεργάζονται τοῖς
πολίταις, αἰσχύνην δ᾽ οὐ παριστᾶσιν.
But the claims of patriotism, though put forward as essentially
and deservedly paramount, are by no means understood to reign
exclusively, or to absorb the whole of the democratical activity.
Subject to these, and to those laws and sanctions which protect
both the public and individuals against wrong, it is the pride
of Athens to exhibit a rich and varied fund of human impulse,—an
unrestrained play of fancy and diversity of private pursuit,
coupled with a reciprocity of cheerful indulgence between one
individual and another, and an absence even of those “black looks”
which so much embitter life, even if they never pass into enmity
of fact. This portion of the speech of Periklês deserves peculiar
attention, because it serves to correct an assertion, often far too
indiscriminately made, respecting antiquity as contrasted with modern
societies,—an assertion that the ancient societies sacrificed the
individual to the state, and that only in modern times has individual
agency been left free to the proper extent. This is preëminently true
of Sparta: it is also true, in a great degree, of the ideal societies
depicted by Plato and Aristotle: but it is pointedly untrue of the
Athenian democracy, nor can we with any confidence predicate it of
the major part of the Grecian cities.
I shall hereafter return to this point when I reach the times of the
great speculative philosophers: in the mean time I cannot pass over
this speech of Periklês without briefly noticing the inference which
it suggests, to negative the supposed exorbitant interference of the
state with individual liberty, as a general fact among the ancient
Greek republics. There is no doubt that he has present to his mind
a comparison with the extreme narrowness and rigor of Sparta, and
that therefore his assertions of the extent of positive liberty at
Athens must be understood as partially qualified by such contrast.
But even making allowance for this, the stress which he lays upon the
liberty of thought and action at Athens, not merely from excessive
restraint of law, but also from practical intolerance between man
and man, and tyranny of the majority over individual dissenters in
taste and pursuit,—deserves serious notice, and brings out one of
those points in the national character upon which the intellectual
development of the time mainly depended. The national temper was
indulgent in a high degree to all the varieties of positive impulses:
the peculiar promptings in every individual bosom were allowed
to manifest themselves and bear fruit, without being suppressed
by external opinion, or trained into forced conformity with some
assumed standard: antipathies against any of them formed no part of
the habitual morality of the citizen. While much of the generating
causes of human hatred was thus rendered inoperative, and while
society was rendered more comfortable, more instructive, and more
stimulating,—all its germs of productive fruitful genius, so rare
everywhere, found in such an atmosphere the maximum of encouragement.
Within the limits of the law, assuredly as faithfully observed at
Athens as anywhere in Greece, individual impulse, taste, and even
eccentricity, were accepted with indulgence, instead of being a mark
as elsewhere for the intolerance of neighbors or of the public. This
remarkable feature in Athenian life will help us in a future chapter
to explain the striking career of Sokratês, and it farther presents
to us, under another face, a great part of that which the censors
of Athens denounced under the name of “democratical license.” The
liberty and diversity of individual life in that city were offensive
to Xenophon,[268] Plato, and Aristotle,—attached either to the
monotonous drill of Sparta, or to some other ideal standard, which,
though much better than the Spartan in itself, they were disposed to
impress upon society with a heavy-handed uniformity. That liberty
of individual action, not merely from the over-restraints of law,
but from the tyranny of jealous opinion, such as Periklês depicts
in Athens, belongs more naturally to a democracy, where there is no
select one or few to receive worship and set the fashion, than to any
other form of government. But it is very rare even in democracies:
nor can we dissemble the fact that none of the governments of modern
times, democratical, aristocratical, or monarchical, presents any
thing like the picture of generous tolerance towards social dissent,
and spontaneity of individual taste, which we read in the speech
of the Athenian statesman. In all of them, the intolerance of the
national opinion cuts down individual character to one out of a few
set types, to which every person, or every family, is constrained
to adjust itself, and beyond which all exceptions meet either with
hatred or with derision. To impose upon men such restraints either
of law or of opinion as are requisite for the security and comfort
of society, but to encourage rather than repress the free play of
individual impulse subject to those limits,—is an ideal, which, if
it was ever approached at Athens, has certainly never been attained,
and has indeed comparatively been little studied or cared for in any
modern society.
[268] Compare the sentiment of Xenophon, the precise reverse of
that which is here laid down by Periklês, extolling the rigid
discipline of Sparta, and denouncing the laxity of Athenian life
(Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 5, 15; iii, 12, 5). It is curious that
the sentiment appears in this dialogue as put in the mouth of the
younger Periklês (illegitimate son of the great Periklês) in a
dialogue with Sokratês.
Connected with this reciprocal indulgence of individual diversity,
was not only the hospitable reception of all strangers at Athens,
which Periklês contrasts with the xenêlasy or jealous expulsion
practised at Sparta,—but also the many-sided activity, bodily and
mental, visible in the former, so opposite to that narrow range
of thought, exclusive discipline of the body and never-ending
preparation for war, which formed the system of the latter. His
assertion that Athens was equal to Sparta, even in her own solitary
excellence,—efficiency on the field of battle,—is doubtless
untenable; but not the less impressive is his sketch of that
multitude of concurrent impulses which at this same time agitated
and impelled the Athenian mind,—the strength of one not implying
the weakness of the remainder: the relish for all pleasures of
art and elegance, and the appetite for intellectual expansion,
coinciding in the same bosom with energetic promptitude as well as
endurance: abundance of recreative spectacles, yet noway abating the
cheerfulness of obedience even to the hardest calls of patriotic
duty: that combination of reason and courage which encountered
danger the more willingly from having discussed and calculated it
beforehand: lastly, an anxious interest as well as a competence of
judgment in public discussion and public action, common to every
citizen rich and poor, and combined with every man’s own private
industry. So comprehensive an ideal of many-sided social development,
bringing out the capacities for action and endurance, as well as
those for enjoyment, would be sufficiently remarkable, even if we
supposed it only existing in the imagination of a philosopher: but it
becomes still more so when we recollect that the main features of it
at least were drawn from the fellow-citizens of the speaker. It must
be taken, however, as belonging peculiarly to the Athens of Periklês
and his contemporaries; nor would it have suited either the period of
the Persian war, fifty years before, or that of Demosthenês, seventy
years afterwards. At the former period, the art, the letters, and
the philosophy, were as yet backward, while even the active energy
and democratical stimulus, though very powerful, had not been worked
up to the pitch which they afterwards reached: at the latter period,
although the intellectual manifestations of Athens subsist in full
or even increased vigor, we shall find the personal enterprise
and energetic spirit of her citizens materially abated. As the
circumstances, which I have already recounted, go far to explain the
previous upward movement, so those which fill the coming chapters,
containing the disasters of the Peloponnesian war, will be found to
explain still more completely the declining tendency shortly about to
commence. Athens was brought to the brink of entire ruin, from which
it is surprising that she recovered at all,—but noway surprising
that she recovered at the expense of a considerable loss of personal
energy in the character of her citizens.
And thus the season at which Periklês delivered his discourse lends
to it an additional and peculiar pathos. It was delivered at a time
when Athens was as yet erect and at her maximum for though her real
power was, doubtless, much diminished, compared with the period
before the thirty years’ truce, yet the great edifices and works
of art, achieved since then, tended to compensate that loss, in so
far as the sense of greatness was concerned; and no one, either
citizen or enemy, considered Athens as having at all declined. It
was delivered at the commencement of the great struggle with the
Peloponnesian confederacy, the coming hardships of which Periklês
never disguised either to himself or to his fellow-citizens, though
he fully counted upon eventual success. Attica had been already
invaded; it was no longer “the unwasted territory,” as Euripidês
had designated it in his tragedy Medea,[269] represented three or
four months before the march of Archidamus,—and a picture of Athens
in her social glory was well calculated both to rouse the pride
and nerve the courage of those individuals citizens, who had been
compelled once, and would be compelled again and again, to abandon
their country-residence and fields for a thin tent or confined hole
in the city.[270] Such calamities might, indeed, be foreseen: but
there was one still greater calamity, which, though actually then
impending, could not be foreseen: the terrific pestilence which will
be recounted in the coming chapter. The bright colors, and tone
of cheerful confidence, which pervade the discourse of Periklês,
appear the more striking from being in immediate antecedence to the
awful description of this distemper: a contrast to which Thucydidês
was, doubtless, not insensible, and which is another circumstance
enhancing the interest of the composition.
[269] Euripidês, Medea, 824. ἱερᾶς χώρας ἀπορθήτου τ᾽, etc.
[270] The remarks of Dionysius Halikarnassus, tending to show
that the number of dead buried on this occasion was so small,
and the actions in which they had been slain so insignificant,
as to be unworthy of so elaborate an harangue as this of
Periklês,—and finding fault with Thucydidês on that ground,—are
by no means well-founded or justifiable. He treats Thucydidês
like a dramatic writer putting a speech into the mouth of one of
his characters, and he considers that the occasion chosen for
this speech was unworthy. But though this assumption would be
correct with regard to many ancient historians, and to Dionysius
himself in his Roman history,—it is not correct with reference
to Thucydidês. The speech of Periklês was a real speech, heard,
reproduced, and doubtless dressed up, by Thucydidês: if therefore
more is said than the number of the dead or the magnitude of the
occasion warranted, this is the fault of Periklês, and not of
Thucydidês. Dionysius says that there were many other occasions
throughout the war much more worthy of an elaborate funeral
harangue,—especially the disastrous loss of the Sicilian army.
But Thucydidês could not have heard any of them, after his exile
in the eighth year of the war: and we may well presume that none
of them would bear any comparison with this of Periklês. Nor does
Dionysius at all appreciate the full circumstances of this first
year of the war,—which, when completely felt, will be found to
render the splendid and copious harangue of the great statesman
eminently seasonable. See Dionys. H. de Thucyd. Judic. pp.
849-851.