CHAPTER XLIX.

FROM THE BEGINNING OE THE SECOND YEAR DOWN TO THE END OF THE THIRD

YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

At the close of one year after the attempted surprise of Platæa

by the Thebans, the belligerent parties in Greece remained in an

unaltered position as to relative strength. Nothing decisive had

been accomplished on either side, either by the invasion of Attica,

or by the flying descents round the coast of Peloponnesus: in spite

of mutual damage inflicted,—doubtless, in the greatest measure

upon Attica,—no progress was yet made towards the fulfilment of

those objects which had induced the Peloponnesians to go to war.

Especially, the most pressing among all their wishes—the relief

of Potidæa—was noway advanced; for the Athenians had not found it

necessary to relax the blockade of that city. The result of the

first year’s operations had thus been to disappoint the hopes of

the Corinthians and the other ardent instigators of war, while it

justified the anticipations both of Periklês and of Archidamus.

A second devastation of Attica was resolved upon for the commencement

of spring; and measures were taken for carrying it all over that

territory, since the settled policy of Athens not to hazard a battle

with the invaders was now ascertained. About the end of March, or

beginning of April, the entire Peloponnesian force—two-thirds from

each confederate city, as before—was assembled under the command of

Archidamus, and marched into Attica. This time they carried the work

of systematic destruction, not merely over the Thriasian plain and

the plain immediately near to Athens, as before; but also to the

more southerly portions of Attica, down even as far as the mines of

Laurium. They traversed and ravaged both the eastern and the western

coast, remaining not less than forty days in the country. They found

the territory deserted as before, all the population having retired

within the walls.[271]

[271] Thucyd. ii, 47-55.

In regard to this second invasion, Periklês recommended the same

defensive policy as he had applied to the first; and, apparently,

the citizens had now come to acquiesce in it, if not willingly, at

least with a full conviction of its necessity. But a new visitation

had now occurred, diverting their attention from the invader, though

enormously aggravating their sufferings. A few days after Archidamus

entered Attica, a pestilence, or epidemic sickness, broke out

unexpectedly at Athens.

It appears that this terrific disorder had been raging for some

time throughout the regions round the Mediterranean; having begun,

as was believed, in Æthiopia,—thence passing into Egypt and Libya,

and overrunning a considerable portion of Asia under the Persian

government: about sixteen years before, too, there had been a similar

calamity in Rome and in various parts of Italy. Recently, it had been

felt in Lemnos and some other islands of the Ægean, yet seemingly not

with such intensity as to excite much notice generally in the Grecian

world: at length it passed to Athens, and first showed itself in the

Peiræus. The progress of the disease was as rapid and destructive as

its appearance had been sudden; whilst the extraordinary accumulation

of people within the city and long walls, in consequence of the

presence of the invaders in the country, was but too favorable

to every form of contagion. Families crowded together in close

cabins and places of temporary shelter,[272]—throughout a city

constructed, like most of those in Greece, with little regard

to the conditions of salubrity,—and in a state of mental chagrin

from the forced abandonment and sacrifice of their properties in

the country, transmitted the disorder with fatal facility from one

to the other. Beginning as it did about the middle of April, the

increasing heat of summer farther aided the disorder, the symptoms of

which, alike violent and sudden, made themselves the more remarked

because the year was particularly exempt from maladies of every other

description.[273]

[272] Thucyd. ii, 52; Diodor. xii, 45; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 34.

It is to be remarked, that the Athenians, though their persons

and movable property were crowded within the walls, had not

driven in their sheep and cattle also, but had transported them

over to Eubœa and the neighboring islands (Thucyd. ii, 14). Hence

they escaped a serious aggravation of their epidemic: for in the

accounts of the epidemics which desolated Rome under similar

circumstances, we find the accumulation of great numbers of

cattle, along with human beings, specified as a terrible addition

to the calamity (see Livy, iii, 66; Dionys. Hal. Ant. Rom. x, 53:

compare Niebuhr, Römisch. Gesch. vol. ii, p. 90).

[273] Thucyd. ii, 49. Τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἔτος, ὡς ὡμολογεῖτο, ἐκ πάντων

μάλιστα δὴ ἐκεῖνο ἄνοσον ἐς τὰς ἄλλας ἀσθενείας ἐτύγχανεν ὄν.

Hippokratês, in his description of the epidemic fever at Thasos,

makes a similar remark on the absence of all other disorders at

the time (Epidem. i, 8, vol. ii, p. 640, ed. Littré).

Of this plague,—or, more properly, eruptive typhoid fever,[274]

distinct from, yet analogous to, the smallpox,—a description no less

clear than impressive has been left by the historian Thucydidês,

himself not only a spectator but a sufferer. It is not one of the

least of his merits, that his notice of the symptoms, given at so

early a stage of medical science and observation, is such as to

instruct the medical reader of the present age, and to enable the

malady to be understood and identified. The observations, with which

that notice is ushered in, deserve particular attention. “In respect

to this distemper (he says), let every man, physician or not, say

what he thinks respecting the source from whence it may probably

have arisen, and respecting the causes which he deems sufficiently

powerful to have produced so great a revolution. But I, having myself

had the distemper, and having seen others suffering under it, will

state _what it actually was_, and will indicate, in addition, such

other matters, as will furnish any man, who lays them to heart, with

knowledge and the means of calculation beforehand, in case the same

misfortune should ever again occur.”[275] To record past facts,

as a basis for rational prevision in regard to the future,—the

same sentiment which Thucydidês mentions in his preface,[276] as

having animated him to the composition of his history,—was at that

time a duty so little understood, that we have reason to admire

not less the manner in which he performs it in practice, than the

distinctness with which he conceives it in theory. We may infer from

his language that speculation in his day was active respecting the

causes of this plague, according to the vague and fanciful physics

and scanty stock of ascertained facts, which was all that could then

be consulted. By resisting the itch of theorising from one of those

loose hypotheses which then appeared plausibly to explain everything,

he probably renounced the point of view from which most credit and

interest would be derivable at the time: but his simple and precise

summary of observed facts carries with it an imperishable value, and

even affords grounds for imagining, that he was no stranger to the

habits and training of his contemporary, Hippokratês, and the other

Asklepiads of Cos.[277]

[274] “La description de Thucydide (observes M. Littré, in his

introduction to the works of Hippokratês, tom. i, p. 122),

est tellement bonne qu’elle suffit pleinement pour nous faire

comprendre ce que cette ancienne maladie a été: et il est fort à

regretter que des médecins tels qu’Hippocrate et Galien n’aient

rien écrit sur les grandes épidémies, dont ils ont été les

spectateurs. Hippocrate a été témoin de cette peste racontée par

Thucydide, et il ne nous en a pas laissé la description. Galien

vit également la fièvre éruptive qui désola le monde sous Marc

Aurèle, et qu’il appelle lui-même la longue peste. Cependant

excepté quelques mots épars dans ses volumineux ouvrages, excepté

quelques indications fugitives, il ne nous a rien transmis sur

un événement médical aussi important; à tel point que si nous

n’avions pas le récit de Thucydide, il nous seroit fort difficile

de nous faire une idée de celle qu’a vue Galien, et qui est

la même (comme M. Hecker s’est attaché à le démontrer) que la

maladie connue sous le nom de Peste d’Athènes. C’était une fièvre

éruptive différente de la variole, et éteinte aujourdhui. On a

cru en voir les traces dans les _charbons_ (ἄνθρακες) des livres

Hippocratiques.”

Both Krauss (Disquisitio de naturâ morbi Atheniensium. Stuttgard,

1831, p. 38) and Hæser (Historisch. Patholog. Untersuchungen.

Dresden 1839, p. 50) assimilate the pathological phenomena

specified by Thucydidês to different portions of the Ἐπιδημίαι of

Hippokratês. M. Littré thinks that the resemblance is not close

or precise, so as to admit of the one being identified with the

other. “Le tableau si frappant qu’en a tracé ce grand historien

ne se réproduit pas certainement avec une netteté suffisante dans

les brefs détails donnés par Hippocrate. La maladie d’Athènes

avoit un type si tranché, que tous ceux qui en ont parlé ont du

le réproduire dans ses parties essentielles.” (Argument aux 2me

Livre des Epidémies, Œuvres d’Hippocrate, tom. v. p. 64.) There

appears good reason to believe that the great epidemic which

prevailed in the Roman world under Marcus Aurelius—the Pestis

Antoniniana—was a renewal of what is called the Plague of Athens.

[275] Thucyd. ii, 48. λεγέτω μὲν οὖν περὶ αὐτοῦ, ὡς ἕκαστος

γιγνώσκει, καὶ ἰατρὸς καὶ ἰδιώτης, ἀφ᾽ ὅτου εἰκὸς ἦν γενέσθαι

αὐτὸ, καὶ τὰς αἰτίας ἅστινας νομίζει τοσαύτης μεταβολῆς ἱκανὰς

εἶναι δύναμιν ἐς τὸ μεταστῆσαι σχεῖν· ἐγὼ δὲ οἷόν τε ἐγίγνετο

λέξω, καὶ ἀφ᾽ ὧν ἄν τις σκοπῶν, εἴ ποτε καὶ αὖθις ἐπιπέσοι,

μάλιστ᾽ ἂν ἔχοι τι προειδὼς μὴ ἀγνοεῖν, ταῦτα δηλώσω, αὐτός τε

νοσήσας καὶ αὐτὸς ἰδὼν ἄλλους πάσχοντας.

Demokritus, among others, connected the generation of these

epidemics with his general system of atoms, atmospheric effluvia,

and εἴδωλα: see Plutarch, Symposiac. viii, 9, p. 733; Demokriti

Fragment., ed. Mullach, lib. iv, p. 409.

The causes of the Athenian epidemic as given by Diodorus (xii,

58)—unusual rains, watery quality of grain, absence of the

Etesian winds, etc., may perhaps be true of the revival of the

epidemic in the fifth year of the war, but can hardly be true

of its first appearance; since Thucydidês states that the year

in other respects was unusually healthy, and the epidemic was

evidently brought from foreign parts to Peiræus.

[276] Thucyd. i, 22.

[277] See the words of Thucydidês. ii, 49. καὶ ἀποκαθάρσεις χολῆς

πᾶσαι, ~ὅσαι ὑπὸ ἰατρῶν ὠνομασμέναι εἰσὶν~, ἐπῄεσαν,—which would

seem to indicate a familiarity with the medical terminology:

compare also his allusion to the speculations of the physicians,

cited in the previous note; and c. 51—~τὰ πάσῃ διαίτῃ

θεραπευόμενα~, etc.

In proof how rare the conception was, in ancient times, of the

importance of collecting and registering particular medical

facts, I transcribe the following observations from M. Littré

(Œuvres d’Hippocrate, tom. iv, p. 646, Remarques Retrospectives).

“Toutefois ce qu’il importe ici de constater, ce n’est pas

qu’Hippocrate a observé de telle ou telle manière, mais c’est

qu’il a eu l’idée de recueillir et de consigner des faits

particuliers. En effet, rien, dans l’antiquité, n’a été plus rare

que ce soin: outre Hippocrate, je ne connois qu’Erasistrate qui

se soit occupé de relater sous cette forme les résultats de son

expérience clinique. Ni Galien lui-même, ni Arétée, ni Soranus,

ni les autres qui sont arrivés jusqu’à nous, n’ont suivi un aussi

louable exemple. Les observations consignées dans la collection

Hippocratique constituent la plus grande partie, à beaucoup près,

de ce que l’antiquité a possédé en ce genre: et si, en commentant

le travail d’Hippocrate, on l’avait un peu imité, nous aurions

des matériaux à l’aide desquels nous prendrions une idée bien

plus précise de la pathologie de ces siècles reculés.... Mais

tout en exprimant ce regret et en reconnaissant cette utilité

relative à nous autres modernes et véritablement considérable,

il faut ajouter que l’antiquité avoit dans les faits et la

doctrine Hippocratiques un aliment qui lui a suffi—et qu’une

collection, même étendue, d’histoires particulières n’auroit pas

alors modifié la médecine, du moins la médecine scientifique,

essentiellement et au delà de la limite que comportoit la

physiologie. Je pourrai montrer ailleurs que la doctrine

d’Hippocrate et de l’école de Cos a été la seule solide, la seule

fondée sur un aperçu vrai de la nature organisée; et que les

sectes postérieures, méthodisme et pneumatisme, n’ont bâti leurs

théories que sur des hypothèses sans consistance. Mais ici je me

contente de remarquer, que la pathologie, en tant que science,

ne peut marcher qu’à la suite de la physiologie, dont elle n’est

qu’une des faces: et d’Hippocrate à Galien inclusivement, la

physiologie ne fit pas assez de progrès pour rendre insuffisante

la conception Hippocratique. Il en résulte, nécessairement, que

la pathologie, toujours considérée comme science, n’auroit pu,

par quelque procédé que ce fût, gagner que des corrections et des

augmentations de détail.”

It is hardly within the province of an historian of Greece to repeat

after Thucydidês the painful enumeration of symptoms, violent in the

extreme, and pervading every portion of the bodily system, which

marked this fearful disorder. Beginning in Peiræus, it quickly passed

into the city, and both the one and the other was speedily filled

with sickness and suffering, the like of which had never before been

known. The seizures were perfectly sudden, and a large proportion

of the sufferers perished, after deplorable agonies, on the seventh

or on the ninth day: others, whose strength of constitution carried

them over this period, found themselves the victims of exhausting and

incurable diarrhœa afterwards: with others again, after traversing

both these stages, the distemper fixed itself in some particular

member, the eyes, the genitals, the hands, or the feet, which were

rendered permanently useless, or in some cases amputated, even

where the patient himself recovered. There were also some whose

recovery was attended with a total loss of memory, so that they

no more knew themselves or recognized their friends. No treatment

or remedy appearing, except in accidental cases, to produce any

beneficial effect, the physicians or surgeons whose aid was invoked

became completely at fault; while trying their accustomed means

without avail, they soon ended by catching the malady themselves

and perishing: nor were the charms and incantations[278] to which

the unhappy patient resorted, likely to be more efficacious. While

some asserted that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns of

water, others referred the visitation to the wrath of the gods,

and especially to Apollo, known by hearers of the Iliad as author

of pestilence in the Greek host before Troy. It was remembered

that this Delphian god had promised the Lacedæmonians, in reply to

their application immediately before the war, that he would assist

them whether invoked or uninvoked,—and the disorder now raging was

ascribed to the intervention of their irresistible ally: while the

elderly men farther called to mind an oracular verse sung in the time

of their youth: “The Dorian war will come, and pestilence along with

it.”[279] Under the distress which suggested, and was reciprocally

aggravated by, these gloomy ideas, prophets were consulted, and

supplications with solemn procession were held at the temples, to

appease the divine wrath.

[278] Compare the story of Thalêtas appeasing an epidemic at

Sparta by his music and song (Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1146).

Some of the ancient physicians were firm believers in the

efficacy of these charms and incantations. Alexander of Tralles

says, that having originally treated them with contempt, he had

convinced himself of their value by personal observation, and

altered his opinion (ix, 4)—ἔνιοι γοῦν οἴονται τοῖς τῶν γραῶν

μύθοις ἐοικέναι τὰς ἐπῳδὰς, ὥσπερ κἀγὼ μέχρι πολλοῦ· τῷ χρόνῳ δὲ

ὑπὸ τῶν ἐναργῶς φαινομένων ἐπείσθην εἶναι δύναμιν ἐν αὐταῖς. See

an interesting and valuable dissertation, Origines Contagii, by

Dr. C. F. Marx (Stuttgard, 1824, p. 129).

The suffering Hêraklês, in his agony under the poisoned

tunic, invokes the ἀοιδὸς along with the χειροτέχνης ἰατοριάς

(Sophoklês, Trachin. 1005).

[279] Thucyd. ii, 54.

Φάσκοντες οἱ πρεσβύτεροι πάλαι ᾄδεσθαι—

Ἥξει Δωριακὸς πόλεμος, καὶ λοιμὸς ἅμ᾽ αὐτῷ.

See also the first among the epistles ascribed to the orator

Æschinês, respecting a λοιμὸς in Delos.

It appears that there was a debate whether, in this Hexameter

verse, λιμὸς (famine) or λοιμὸς (pestilence) was the correct

reading: and the probability is, that it had been originally

composed with the word λιμὸς,—for men might well fancy beforehand

that _famine_ would be a sequel of the Dorian war, but they

would not be likely to imagine _pestilence_ as accompanying it.

Yet, says Thucydidês, the reading λοιμὸς was held decidedly

preferable, as best fitting to the actual circumstances (οἱ γὰρ

ἄνθρωποι πρὸς ἃ ἔπασχον τὴν μνήμην ἐποιοῦντο). And “if (he goes

on to say) there should ever hereafter come another Dorian war,

and famine along with it, the oracle will probably be reproduced

with the word λιμὸς as part of it.”

This deserves notice, as illustrating the sort of admitted

license with which men twisted the oracles or prophecies, so as

to hit the feelings of the actual moment.

When it was found that neither the priest nor the physician could

retard the spread, or mitigate the intensity, of the disorder, the

Athenians abandoned themselves to utter despair, and the space within

the walls became a scene of desolating misery. Every man attacked

with the malady at once lost his courage,—a state of depression,

itself among the worst features of the case, which made him lie down

and die, without the least attempt to seek for any preservatives. And

though, at first, friends and relatives lent their aid to tend the

sick with the usual family sympathies, yet so terrible was the number

of these attendants who perished, “like sheep,” from such contact,

that at length no man would thus expose himself; while the most

generous spirits, who persisted longest in the discharge of their

duty, were carried off in the greatest numbers.[280] The patient was

thus left to die alone and unheeded: sometimes all the inmates of a

house were swept away one after the other, no man being willing to go

near it: desertion on one hand, attendance on the other, both tended

to aggravate the calamity. There remained only those who, having

had the disorder and recovered, were willing to tend the sufferers.

These men formed the single exception to the all-pervading misery

of the time,—for the disorder seldom attacked any one twice, and

when it did, the second attack was never fatal. Elate with their own

escape, they deemed themselves out of the reach of all disease, and

were full of compassionate kindness for others whose sufferings were

just beginning. It was from them, too, that the principal attention

to the bodies of deceased victims proceeded: for such was the state

of dismay and sorrow, that even the nearest relatives neglected the

sepulchral duties, sacred beyond all others in the eyes of a Greek.

Nor is there any circumstance which conveys to us so vivid an idea

of the prevalent agony and despair, as when we read, in the words of

an eye-witness, that the deaths took place among this close-packed

crowd without the smallest decencies of attention,[281]—that the

dead and the dying lay piled one upon another, not merely in the

public roads, but even in the temples, in spite of the understood

defilement of the sacred building,—that half-dead sufferers were

seen lying round all the springs, from insupportable thirst,—that

the numerous corpses thus unburied and exposed, were in such a

condition, that the dogs which meddled with them died in consequence,

while no vultures or other birds of the like habits ever came near.

Those bodies which escaped entire neglect, were burnt or buried[282]

without the customary mourning, and with unseemly carelessness. In

some cases, the bearers of a body, passing by a funeral pile on which

another body was burning, would put their own there to be burnt

also;[283] or perhaps, if the pile was prepared ready for a body not

yet arrived, would deposit their own upon it, set fire to the pile,

and then depart. Such indecent confusion would have been intolerable

to the feelings of the Athenians, in any ordinary times.

[280] Compare Diodor. xiv, 70, who mentions similar distresses

in the Carthaginian army besieging Syracuse, during the terrible

epidemic with which it was attacked in 395 B.C.; and Livy, xxv,

26, respecting the epidemic at Syracuse when it was besieged by

Marcellus and the Romans.

[281] Thucyd. ii, 52. Οἰκιῶν γὰρ οὐχ ὑπαρχουσῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν καλύβαις

πνιγηραῖς ὥρᾳ ἔτους διαιτωμένων, ὁ φθόρος ἐγίγνετο οὐδενὶ κόσμῳ,

ἀλλὰ καὶ νεκροὶ ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοις ἀποθνήσκοντες ἔκειντο, καὶ ἐν ταῖς

ὁδοῖς ἐκαλινδοῦντο καὶ περὶ τὰς κρήνας ἁπάσας ἡμιθνῆτες, τοῦ

ὕδατος ἐπιθυμίᾳ. Τά τε ἱερὰ ἐν οἷς ἐσκήνηντο, νεκρῶν πλέα ἦν,

αὐτοῦ ἐναποθνῃσκόντων· ὑπερβιαζομένου γὰρ τοῦ κακοῦ οἱ ἄνθρωποι,

οὐκ ἔχοντες, ὅ,τι γένωνται, ἐς ὀλιγωρίαν ἐτράποντο καὶ ἱερῶν καὶ

ὁσίων ὁμοίως.

[282] Thucyd. ii, 50: compare Livy, xli, 21, describing the

epidemic at Rome in 174 B.C. “Cadavera, intacta à canibus et

vulturibus, tabes absumebat: satisque constabat, nec illo, nec

priore anno in tantâ strage boum hominumque vulturium usquam

visum.”

[283] Thucyd. ii, 52. From the language of Thucydidês, we see

that this was regarded at Athens as highly unbecoming. Yet a

passage of Plutarch seems to show that it was very common, in his

time, to burn several bodies on the same funeral pile (Plutarch,

Symposiac. iii, 4, p. 651).

To all these scenes of physical suffering, death, and reckless

despair, was superadded another evil, which affected those who were

fortunate enough to escape the rest. The bonds both of law and

morality became relaxed, amidst such total uncertainty of every man

both for his own life, and that of others. Men cared not to abstain

from wrong, under circumstances in which punishment was not likely

to overtake them,—nor to put a check upon their passions, and endure

privations in obedience even to their strongest conviction, when

the chance was so small of their living to reap reward or enjoy

any future esteem. An interval short and sweet, before their doom

was realized—before they became plunged in the wide-spread misery

which they witnessed around, and which affected indiscriminately the

virtuous and the profligate—was all they looked to enjoy; embracing

with avidity the immediate pleasures of sense, as well as such

positive gains, however ill-gotten, as could be made the means of

procuring them, and throwing aside all thought both of honor or of

long-sighted advantage. Life and property were alike ephemeral, nor

was there any hope left but to snatch a moment of enjoyment, before

the outstretched hand of destiny should fall upon its victims.

The melancholy picture of society under the pressure of a murderous

epidemic, with its train of physical torments, wretchedness, and

demoralization, has been drawn by more than one eminent author,

but by none with more impressive fidelity and conciseness than

by Thucydidês,[284] who had no predecessor, and nothing but the

reality to copy from. We may remark that, amidst all the melancholy

accompaniments of the time, there are no human sacrifices, such as

those offered up at Carthage during pestilence to appease the anger

of the gods,—there are no cruel persecutions against imaginary

authors of the disease, such as those against the Untori (anointers

of doors) in the plague of Milan in 1630.[285] Three years altogether

did this calamity desolate Athens: continuously, during the entire

second and third years of the war,—after which, followed a period

of marked abatement for a year and a half: but it then revived

again, and lasted for another year, with the same fury as at first.

The public loss, over and above the private misery, which this

unexpected enemy inflicted upon Athens, was incalculable. Out of

twelve hundred horsemen, all among the rich men of the state,

three hundred died of the epidemic; besides four thousand and four

hundred hoplites out of the roll formerly kept, and a number of the

poorer population so great as to defy computation.[286] No efforts

of the Peloponnesians could have done so much to ruin Athens, or

to bring the war to a termination such as they desired: and the

distemper told the more in their favor, as it never spread at all

into Peloponnesus, though it passed from Athens to some of the more

populous islands.[287] The Lacedæmonian army was withdrawn from

Attica somewhat earlier than it would otherwise have been, for fear

of taking the contagion.[288]

[284] The description in the sixth book of Lucretius, translated

and expanded from Thucydidês,—that of the plague at Florence in

1348, with which the Decameron of Boccacio opens,—and that of

Defoe, in his History of the Plague in London, are all well known.

[285] “Carthaginienses, cum inter cetera mala etiam peste

laborarent, cruentâ sacrorum religione, et scelere pro remedio,

usi sunt: quippe homines ut victimas immolabant; pacem deorum

sanguine eorum exposcentes, pro quorum vitâ Dii rogari maximè

solent.” (Justin, xviii, 6.)

For the facts respecting the plague of Milan and the Untori,

see the interesting novel of Manzoni, Promessi Sposi, and the

historical work of the same author, Storia della Colonna Infame.

[286] Thucyd. iii, 87. τοῦ δὲ ἄλλου ὄχλου ἀνεξεύρετος ἀριθμός.

Diodorus makes them above 10,000 (xii, 58) freemen and slaves

together, which must be greatly beneath the reality.

[287] Thucyd. ii, 54. τῶν ἄλλων χωρίων τὰ πολυανθρωπότατα. He

does not specify what places these were: perhaps Chios, but

hardly Lesbos, otherwise the fact would have been noticed when

the revolt of that island occurs.

[288] Thucyd. ii, 57.

But it was while the Lacedæmonians were yet in Attica, and during the

first freshness of the terrible malady, that Periklês equipped and

conducted from Peiræus an armament of one hundred triremes, and four

thousand hoplites to attack the coasts of Peloponnesus: three hundred

horsemen were also carried in some horse-transports, prepared for

the occasion out of old triremes. To diminish the crowd accumulated

in the city, was doubtless of beneficial tendency, and perhaps those

who went aboard, might consider it as a chance of escape to quit an

infected home. But unhappily they carried the infection along with

them, which desolated the fleet not less than the city, and crippled

all its efforts. Reinforced by fifty ships of war from Chios and

Lesbos, the Athenians first landed near Epidaurus in Peloponnesus,

ravaging the territory, and making an unavailing attempt upon the

city: next, they made like incursions on the more southerly portions

of the Argolic peninsula,—Trœzen, Halieis, and Hermionê; and lastly

attacked and captured Prasiæ, on the eastern coast of Laconia. On

returning to Athens, the same armament was immediately conducted,

under Agnon and Kleopompus, to press the siege of Potidæa, the

blockade of which still continued without any visible progress. On

arriving there, an attack was made on the walls by battering engines,

and by the other aggressive methods then practised; but nothing

whatever was achieved. In fact, the armament became incompetent for

all serious effort, from the aggravated character which the distemper

here assumed, communicated by the soldiers fresh from Athens, even to

those who had before been free from it at Potidæa. So frightful was

the mortality, that out of the four thousand hoplites under Agnon,

no less than ten hundred and fifty died in the short space of forty

days. The armament was brought back in this melancholy condition to

Athens, while the reduction of Potidæa was left, as before, to the

slow course of blockade.[289]

[289] Thucyd. ii, 56-58.

On returning from the expedition against Peloponnesus, Periklês

found his countrymen almost distracted[290] with their manifold

sufferings. Over and above the raging epidemic, they had just gone

over Attica and ascertained the devastations committed by the

invaders throughout all the territory—except the Marathonian[291]

Tetrapolis and Dekeleia; districts spared, as we are told, through

indulgence founded on an ancient legendary sympathy—during their long

stay of forty days. The rich had found their comfortable mansions and

farms, the poor their modest cottages, in the various demes, torn

down and ruined. Death,[292] sickness, loss of property, and despair

of the future, now rendered the Athenians angry and intractable to

the last degree; and they vented their feelings against Periklês,

as the cause, not merely of the war, but also of all that they were

now enduring. Either with or without his consent, they sent envoys

to Sparta to open negotiations for peace, but the Spartans turned a

deaf ear to the proposition. This new disappointment rendered them

still more furious against Periklês, whose long-standing political

enemies now doubtless found strong sympathy in their denunciations

of his character and policy. That unshaken and majestic firmness,

which ranked first among his many eminent qualities, was never more

imperiously required, and never more effectively manifested. In his

capacity of stratêgus, or general, he convoked a formal assembly of

the people, for the purpose of vindicating himself publicly against

the prevailing sentiment, and recommending perseverance in his line

of policy. The speeches made by his opponents, assuredly very bitter,

are not given by Thucydidês; but that of Periklês himself is set

down at considerable length, and a memorable discourse it is. It

strikingly brings into relief both the character of the man and the

impress of actual circumstances,—an impregnable mind, conscious not

only of right purposes, but of just and reasonable anticipations,

and bearing up with manliness, or even defiance, against the natural

difficulty of the case, heightened by an extreme of incalculable

misfortune. He had foreseen,[293] while advising the war originally,

the probable impatience of his countrymen under its first hardships,

but he could not foresee the epidemic by which that impatience had

been exasperated into madness: and he now addressed them, not merely

with unabated adherence to his own deliberate convictions, but also

in a tone of reproachful remonstrance against their unmerited change

of sentiment towards him,—seeking at the same time to combat that

uncontrolled despair which, for the moment, overlaid both their pride

and their patriotism. Far from humbling himself before the present

sentiment, it is at this time that he sets forth his titles to their

esteem in the most direct and unqualified manner, and claims the

continuance of that which they had so long accorded, as something

belonging to him by acquired right.

[290] Thucyd. ii, 59. ἠλλοίωντο τὰς γνώμας.

[291] Diodor. xii, 45; Ister ap. Schol. ad Soph. Œdip. Colon.

689; Herodot. ix.

[292] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ὁ μὲν δῆμος, ὅτι ἀπ᾽ ἐλασσόνων ὁρμώμενος,

ἐστέρητο καὶ τούτων· οἱ δὲ δυνατοὶ, καλὰ κτήματα κατὰ τὴν χώραν

οἰκοδομίαις τε καὶ πολυτελέσι κατασκευαῖς ἀπολωλεκότες.

[293] Thucyd. i, 140.

His main object, throughout this discourse, is to fill the minds of

his audience with patriotic sympathy for the weal of the entire city,

so as to counterbalance the absorbing sense of private woe. If the

collective city flourishes, he argues, private misfortunes may at

least be borne: but no amount of private prosperity will avail, if

the collective city falls; a proposition literally true in ancient

times, and under the circumstances of ancient warfare, though less

true at present. “Distracted by domestic calamity, ye are now angry

both with me, who advised you to go to war, and with yourselves, who

followed the advice. Ye listened to me, considering me superior to

others in judgment, in speech, in patriotism, and in incorruptible

probity,[294]—nor ought I now to be treated as culpable for giving

such advice, when in point of fact the war was unavoidable, and there

would have been still greater danger in shrinking from it. I am the

same man, still unchanged,—but ye, in your misfortunes, cannot stand

to the convictions which ye adopted when yet unhurt. Extreme and

unforeseen, indeed, are the sorrows which have fallen upon you: yet,

inhabiting as ye do a great city, and brought up in dispositions

suitable to it, ye must also resolve to bear up against the utmost

pressure of adversity, and never to surrender your dignity. I have

often explained to you that ye have no reason to doubt of eventual

success in the war, but I will now remind you, more emphatically than

before, and even with a degree of ostentation suitable as a stimulus

to your present unnatural depression,—that your naval force makes you

masters, not only of your allies, but of the entire sea,[295]—one

half of the visible field for action and employment. Compared with so

vast a power as this, the temporary use of your houses and territory

is a mere trifle,—an ornamental accessory not worth considering; and

this, too, if ye preserve your freedom, ye will quickly recover. It

was your fathers who first gained this empire, without any of the

advantages which ye now enjoy; ye must not disgrace yourselves by

losing what they acquired. Delighting as ye all do in the honor and

empire enjoyed by the city, ye must not shrink from the toils whereby

alone that honor is sustained: moreover, ye now fight, not merely

for freedom instead of slavery, but for empire against loss of

empire, with all the perils arising out of imperial unpopularity. It

is not safe for you now to abdicate, even if ye chose to do so; for

ye hold your empire like a despotism,—unjust perhaps in the original

acquisition, but ruinous to part with when once acquired. Be not

angry with me, whose advice ye followed in going to war, because the

enemy have done such damage as might be expected from them; still

less on account of this unforeseen distemper: I know that this makes

me an object of your special present hatred, though very unjustly,

unless ye will consent to give me credit also for any unexpected

good luck which may occur. Our city derives its particular glory

from unshaken bearing up against misfortune: her power, her name,

her empire of Greeks over Greeks, are such as have never before been

seen: and if we choose to be great, we must take the consequence

of that temporary envy and hatred which is the necessary price of

permanent renown. Behave ye now in a manner worthy of that glory:

display that courage which is essential to protect you against

disgrace at present, as well as to guarantee your honor for the

future. Send no farther embassy to Sparta, and bear your misfortunes

without showing symptoms of distress.”[296]

[294] Thucyd. ii, 60. καίτοι ἐμοὶ τοιούτῳ ἀνδρὶ ὀργίζεσθε, ὃς

οὐδενὸς οἴομαι ἥσσων εἶναι γνῶναί τε τὰ δέοντα, καὶ ἑρμηνεῦσαι

ταῦτα, φιλόπολίς τε καὶ χρημάτων κρείσσων.

[295] Thucyd. ii, 62. δηλώσω δὲ καὶ τόδε, ὅ μοι δοκεῖτε οὔτ᾽

αὐτοὶ πώποτε ἐνθυμηθῆναι ὑπάρχον ὑμῖν μεγέθους πέρι ἐς τὴν ἀρχὴν,

οὔτ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐν τοῖς πρὶν λόγοις· οὐδ᾽ ἂν νῦν ἐχρησάμην κομπωδεστέραν

ἔχοντι τὴν προσποίησιν, εἰ μὴ καταπεπληγμένους ὑμᾶς παρὰ τὸ εἰκὸς

ἑώρων. Οἴεσθε μὲν γὰρ τῶν ξυμμάχων μόνον ἄρχειν—ἐγὼ δὲ ἀποφαίνω

δύο μερῶν τῶν ἐς χρῆσιν φανερῶν, γῆς καὶ θαλάττης, τοῦ ἑτέρου

ὑμᾶς παντὸς κυριωτάτους ὄντας, ἐφ᾽ ὅσον τε νῦν νέμεσθε, καὶ ἢν

ἐπιπλέον βουληθῆτε.

[296] Thucyd. ii, 60-64. I give a general summary of this

memorable speech, without setting forth its full contents, still

less the exact words.

The irresistible reason, as well as the proud and resolute bearing

of this discourse, set forth with an eloquence which it was not

possible for Thucydidês to reproduce,—together with the age and

character of Periklês,—carried the assent of the assembled people;

who, when in the Pnyx, and engaged according to habit on public

matters, would for a moment forget their private sufferings in

considerations of the safety and grandeur of Athens: possibly,

indeed, those sufferings, though still continuing, might become

somewhat alleviated when the invaders quitted Attica, and when it

was no longer indispensable for all the population to confine itself

within the walls. Accordingly, the assembly resolved that no farther

propositions should be made for peace, and that the war should be

prosecuted with vigor. But though the public resolution thus adopted

showed the ancient habit of deference to the authority of Periklês,

the sentiments of individuals taken separately were still those of

anger against him, as the author of that system which had brought

them into so much distress. His political opponents—Kleon, Simmias,

or Lakratidas, perhaps all three in conjunction—took care to provide

an opportunity for this prevalent irritation to manifest itself in

act, by bringing an accusation against him before the dikastery. The

accusation is said to have been preferred on the ground of pecuniary

malversation, and ended by his being sentenced to pay a considerable

fine, the amount of which is differently reported,—fifteen, fifty,

or eighty talents, by different authors.[297] The accusing party

thus appeared to have carried their point, and to have disgraced,

as well as excluded from reëlection, the veteran statesman. But the

event disappointed their expectations: the imposition of the fine

not only satiated all the irritation of the people against him, but

even occasioned a serious reaction in his favor, and brought back as

strongly as ever the ancient sentiment of esteem and admiration. It

was quickly found that those who had succeeded Periklês as generals,

neither possessed nor deserved in an equal degree, the public

confidence, and he was accordingly soon reëlected, with as much power

and influence as he had ever in his life enjoyed.[298]

[297] Thucyd. ii, 65: Plato, Gorgias, p. 515, c. 71: Plutarch,

Periklês, c. 35; Diodor. xii, c. 38-45. About Simmias, as the

vehement enemy of Periklês, see Plutarch, Reipub. Ger. Præcept.

p. 805.

Plutarch and Diodorus both state that Periklês was not only

fined, but also removed from his office of stratêgus. Thucydidês

mentions the fine, but not the removal: and his silence leads me

to doubt the reality of the latter event altogether. For with

such a man as Periklês, a vote of removal would have been a

penalty more marked and cutting than the fine; moreover, removal

from office, though capable of being pronounced by vote of the

public assembly, would hardly be inflicted as penalty by the

dikastery.

I imagine the events to have passed as follows: The stratêgi,

with most other officers of the commonwealth, were changed or

reëlected at the beginning of Hekatombæon, the first month of

the Attic year; that is, somewhere about midsummer. Now the

Peloponnesian army, invading Attica about the end of March or

beginning of April, and remaining forty days, would leave the

country about the first week in May. Periklês returned from his

expedition against Peloponnesus shortly after they left Attica;

that is, about the middle of May (Thucyd. ii, 57): there still

remained, therefore, a month or six weeks before his office of

stratêgus naturally expired, and required renewal. It was during

this interval (which Thucydidês expresses by the words ἔτι δ᾽

ἐστρατήγει, ii, 59) that he convoked the assembly and delivered

the harangue recently mentioned.

But when the time for a new election of stratêgi arrived, the

enemies of Periklês opposed his reëlection, and brought a charge

against him, in that trial of accountability to which every

magistrate at Athens was exposed, after his period of office.

They alleged against him some official misconduct in reference

to the public money, and the dikastery visited him with a fine.

His reëlection was thus prevented, and with a man who had been

so often reëlected, this might be loosely called “taking away

the office of general:” so that the language of Plutarch and

Diodorus, as well as the silence of Thucydidês, would, on this

supposition, be justified.

[298] Thucyd. ii, 65.

But that life—long, honorable, and useful—had already been prolonged

considerably beyond the sixtieth year, and there were but too many

circumstances, besides the recent fine, which tended to hasten as

well as to embitter its close. At the very moment when Periklês

was preaching to his countrymen, in a tone almost reproachful, the

necessity of manful and unabated devotion to the common country, in

the midst of private suffering,—he was himself among the greatest of

sufferers, and most hardly pressed to set the example of observing

his own precepts. The epidemic carried off not merely his two sons,

the only two legitimate, Xanthippus and Paralus, but also his sister,

several other relatives, and his best and most useful political

friends. Amidst this train of domestic calamities, and in the funeral

obsequies of so many of his dearest friends, he remained master of

his grief, and maintained his habitual self-command, until the last

misfortune,—the death of his favorite son Paralus, which left his

house without any legitimate representative to maintain the family

and the hereditary sacred rites. On this final blow, though he strove

to command himself as before, yet, at the obsequies of the young man,

when it became his duty to place a garland on the dead body, his

grief became uncontrollable, and he burst out, for the first time of

his life, into profuse tears and sobbing.[299]

[299] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 36.

In the midst of these several personal trials he received the

intimation, through Alkibiadês and some other friends, of the

restored confidence of the people towards him, and of his re-election

to the office of stratêgus: nor was it without difficulty that

he was persuaded to present himself again at the public assembly,

and resume the direction of affairs. The regret of the people

was formally expressed to him for the recent sentence,—perhaps,

indeed, the fine may have been repaid to him, or some evasion of it

permitted, saving the forms of law,[300]—in the present temper of

the city; which was farther displayed towards him by the grant of

a remarkable exemption from a law of his own original proposition.

He had himself, some years before, been the author of that law,

whereby the citizenship of Athens was restricted to persons born both

of Athenian fathers and Athenian mothers, under which restriction

several thousand persons, illegitimate on the mother’s side, are

said to have been deprived of the citizenship, on occasion of a

public distribution of corn. Invidious as it appeared to grant, to

Periklês singly, an exemption from a law which had been strictly

enforced against so many others, the people were now moved not less

by compassion than by anxiety to redress their own previous severity.

Without a legitimate heir, the house of Periklês, one branch of the

great Alkmæônid gens by his mother’s side, would be left deserted,

and the continuity of the family sacred rites would be broken,—a

misfortune painfully felt by every Athenian family, as calculated

to wrong all the deceased members, and provoke their posthumous

displeasure towards the city. Accordingly, permission was granted to

Periklês to legitimize, and to inscribe in his own gens and phratry

his natural son by Aspasia, who bore his own name.[301]

[300] See Plutarch, Demosthen. c. 27, about the manner of

bringing about such an evasion of a fine: compare also the letter

of M. Boeckh, in Meineke, Fragment. Comic. Græcor. ad Fragm.

Eupolid. ii, 527.

[301] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 37.

It was thus that Periklês was reinstated in his post of stratêgus,

as well as in his ascendency over the public counsels,—seemingly

about August or September, 430 B.C. He lived about one year longer,

and seems to have maintained his influence as long as his health

permitted. Yet we hear nothing of him after this moment, and he

fell a victim, not to the violent symptoms of the epidemic, but to

a slow and wearing fever,[302] which underminded his strength as

well as his capacity. To a friend who came to ask after him when in

this disease, Periklês replied by showing a charm or amulet which

his female relations had hung about his neck,—a proof how low he was

reduced, and how completely he had become a passive subject in the

hands of others. And according to another anecdote which we read, yet

more interesting and equally illustrative of his character,—it was

during his last moments, when he was lying apparently unconscious and

insensible, that the friends around his bed were passing in review

the acts of his life, and the nine trophies which he had erected

at different times for so many victories. He heard what they said,

though they fancied that he was past hearing, and interrupted them

by remarking: “What you praise in my life, belongs partly to good

fortune,—and is, at best, common to me with many other generals. But

the peculiarity of which I am most proud, you have not noticed,—no

Athenian has ever put on mourning on my account.”[303]

[302] Plutarch (Perik. c. 38) treats the slow disorder under

which he suffered as one of the forms of the epidemic: but this

can hardly be correct, when we read the very marked character of

the latter, as described by Thucydidês.

[303] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 38.

Such a cause of self-gratulation, doubtless more satisfactory to

recall at such a moment than any other, illustrates that long-sighted

calculation, aversion to distant or hazardous enterprise, and economy

of the public force, which marked his entire political career; a

career long, beyond all parallel, in the history of Athens,—since

he maintained a great influence, gradually swelling into a decisive

personal ascendency, for between thirty and forty years. His

character has been presented in very different lights, by different

authors, both ancient and modern, and our materials for striking

the balance are not so good as we could wish. But his immense and

long-continued ascendency, as well as his unparalleled eloquence, are

facts attested not less by his enemies than by his friends,—nay, even

more forcibly by the former than by the latter. The comic writers,

who hated him, and whose trade it was to deride and hunt down every

leading political character, exhaust their powers of illustration in

setting forth both the one and the other:[304] Telekleidês, Kratinus,

Eupolis, Aristophanês, all hearers and all enemies, speak of him

like Olympian Zeus, hurling thunder and lightning,—like Hêraklês

and Achilles,—as the only speaker on whose lips persuasion sat, and

who left his sting in the minds of his audience: while Plato the

philosopher,[305] who disapproved of his political working, and

of the moral effects which he produced upon Athens, nevertheless

extols his intellectual and oratorical ascendency: “his majestic

intelligence,”—in language not less decisive than Thucydidês.

There is another point of eulogy, not less valuable, on which the

testimony appears uncontradicted: throughout his long career, amidst

the hottest political animosities, the conduct of Periklês towards

opponents was always mild and liberal.[306] The conscious self-esteem

and arrogance of manner with which the contemporary poet Ion

reproached him,[307] contrasting it with the unpretending simplicity

of his own patron Kimon,—though probably invidiously exaggerated,

is doubtless in substance well founded, and those who read the

last speech given above out of Thucydidês, will at once recognize

in it this attribute. His natural taste, his love of philosophical

research, and his unwearied application to public affairs, all

contributed to alienate him from ordinary familiarity, and to make

him careless, perhaps improperly careless, of the lesser means of

conciliating public favor.

[304] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 4, 8, 13, 16; Eupolis. Δῆμοι,

Fragm. vi. p. 459, ed. Meineke. Cicero (De Orator. iii, 34;

Brutus, 9-11) and Quintilian (ii, 16, 19; x, 1, 82) count only as

witnesses at second-hand.

[305] Plato, Gorgias, c. 71, p. 516; Phædrus, c. 54. p. 270.

Περικλέα, τὸν οὕτω μεγαλοπρεπῶς σοφὸν ἄνδρα. Plato, Mens. p. 94,

B.

[306] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 10-39.

[307] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 5.

But admitting this latter reproach to be well founded, as it seems

to be, it helps to negative that greater and graver political

crime which has been imputed to him, of sacrificing the permanent

well-being and morality of the state to the maintenance of his

own political power,—of corrupting the people by distributions of

the public money. “He gave the reins to the people (in Plutarch’s

words[308]), and shaped his administration for their immediate

favor, by always providing at home some public spectacle, or

festival, or procession, thus nursing up the city in elegant

pleasures,—and by sending out every year sixty triremes, manned

by citizen-seamen on full pay, who were thus kept in practice and

acquired nautical skill.” Now the charge here made against Periklês,

and supported by allegations in themselves honorable rather than

otherwise,—of a vicious appetite for immediate popularity, and of

improper concessions to the immediate feelings of the people against

their permanent interests,—is precisely that which Thucydidês, in

the most pointed manner denies; and not merely denies, but contrasts

Periklês with his successors in the express circumstances that

_they_ did so, while _he_ did not. The language of the contemporary

historian[309] well deserves to be cited: “Periklês, powerful from

dignity of character as well as from wisdom, and conspicuously above

the least tinge of corruption, held back the people with a free hand,

and was their real leader instead of being led by them. For not

being a seeker of power from unworthy sources, he did not speak with

any view to present favor, but had sufficient sense of dignity to

contradict them on occasion, even braving their displeasure. Thus,

whenever he perceived them insolently and unseasonably confident, he

shaped his speeches in such manner as to alarm and beat them down:

when again he saw them unduly frightened, he tried to counteract

it, and restore them confidence: so that the government was in

name a democracy, but in reality an empire exercised by the first

citizen in the state. But those who succeeded after his death, being

more equal one with another, and each of them desiring preëminence

over the rest, adopted the different course of courting the favor

of the people, and sacrificing to that object even important

state-interests. From whence arose many other bad measures, as might

be expected in a great and imperial city, and especially the Sicilian

expedition,” etc.

[308] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11. Διὸ καὶ τότε μάλιστα τῷ δήμῳ τὰς

ἡνίας ἀνεὶς ὁ Περικλῆς ἐπολιτεύετο πρὸς χάριν—ἀεὶ μέν τινα θέαν

πανηγυρικὴν ἢ ἑστίασιν ἢ πομπὴν εἶναι μηχανώμενος ἐν ἄστει, καὶ

διαπαιδαγωγῶν οὐκ ἀμούσοις ἡδοναῖς τὴν πόλιν—ἑξήκοντα δὲ τριήρεις

καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἐκπέμπων, ἐν αἷς πολλοὶ τῶν πολιτῶν ἔπλεον

ὀκτὼ μῆνας ἔμμισθοι, μελετῶντες ἅμα καὶ μανθάνοντες τὴν ναυτικὴν

ἐμπειρίαν.

Compare c. 9, where Plutarch states that Periklês, having no

other means of contending against the abundant private largesses

of his rival, Kimon, resorted to the expedient of distributing

the public money among the citizens, in order to gain influence;

acting in this matter upon the advice of his friend, Demonidês,

according to the statement of Aristotle.

[309] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ἐκεῖνος μὲν (Περικλῆς) δυνατὸς ὢν τῷ

~τε ἀξιώματι~ καὶ τῇ γνώμῃ, ~χρημάτων τε διαφανῶς ἀδωρότατος

γενόμενος, κατεῖχε τὸ πλῆθος ἐλευθέρως~, καὶ οὐκ ἤγετο μᾶλλον

ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἢ αὐτὸς ἦγε, διὰ τὸ μὴ κτώμενος ἐξ οὐ προσηκόντων

τὴν δύναμιν πρὸς ἡδονήν τι λέγειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔχων ἐπ᾽ ~ἀξιώσει~ καὶ

πρὸς ὀργήν τι ἀντειπεῖν. Ὁπότε γοῦν αἴσθοιτό τι αὐτοὺς παρὰ

καιρὸν ὕβρει θαρσοῦντας, λέγων κατέπλησσεν ἐπὶ τὸ φοβεῖσθαι· καὶ

δεδιότας αὖ ἀλόγως ἀντικαθίστη πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ θαρσεῖν. Ἐγίγνετο δὲ

λόγῳ μὲν δημοκρατία, ἔργῳ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ πρώτου ἀνδρὸς ἀρχή. Οἱ δὲ

ὕστερον ἴσοι μᾶλλον αὐτοὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὄντες, καὶ ὀρεγόμενοι τοῦ

πρῶτος ἕκαστος γίγνεσθαι, ἐτράποντο καθ᾽ ἡδονὰς τῷ δήμῳ καὶ τὰ

πράγματα ἐνδιδόναι. Ἐξ ὧν, ἄλλα τε πολλά, ὡς ἐν μεγάλῃ πόλει καὶ

ἀρχὴν ἐχούσῃ, ἡμαρτήθη, καὶ ὁ ἐς Σικελίαν πλοῦς· ὃς οὐ τοσοῦτον

γνώμης ἁμάρτημα ἦν, etc. Compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 3.

Ἀξίωσις and ἀξίωμα, as used by Thucydidês seem to differ in this

respect: Ἀξίωσις signifies, a man’s dignity, or pretensions to

esteem and influence as felt and measured by himself; _his sense

of dignity_; Ἀξίωμα means his _dignity_, properly so called; as

felt and appreciated by others. See i, 37, 41, 69.

It will be seen that the judgment here quoted from Thucydidês

contradicts, in the most unqualified manner, the reproaches commonly

made against Periklês, of having corrupted the Athenian people

by distributions of the public money, and by giving way to their

unwise caprices, for the purpose of acquiring and maintaining his

own political power. Nay, the historian particularly notes the

opposite qualities,—self-judgment, conscious dignity, indifference

to immediate popular applause or wrath, when set against what was

permanently right and useful,—as the special characteristic of that

great statesman. A distinction might indeed be possible, and Plutarch

professes to note such distinction, between the earlier and the later

part of his long political career: he began, so that biographer

says, by corrupting the people in order to acquire power, but having

acquired it, he employed it in an independent and patriotic manner,

so that the judgment of Thucydidês, true respecting the later part of

his life, would not be applicable to the earlier. This distinction

may be to a certain degree well founded, inasmuch as the power of

opposing a bold and successful resistance to temporary aberrations

of the public mind, necessarily implies an established influence,

and can hardly ever be exercised even by the firmest politician

during his years of commencement: he is at that time necessarily

the adjunct of some party or tendency which he finds already in

operation, and has to stand forward actively and assiduously before

he can create for himself a separate personal influence. But while we

admit the distinction to this extent, there is nothing to warrant us

in restricting the encomium of Thucydidês exclusively to the later

life of Periklês, or in representing the earlier life as something

in pointed contrast with that encomium. Construing fairly what the

historian says, he evidently did not so conceive the earlier life of

Periklês. Either those political changes which are held by Plato,

Aristotle, Plutarch, and others, to demonstrate the corrupting effect

of Periklês and his political ascendency,—such as the limitation

of the functions of the Areopagus, as well as of the power of the

magistrates, the establishment of the numerous and frequent popular

dikasteries with regular pay, and perhaps also the assignment of pay

to those who attended the ekklesia, the expenditure for public works,

religious edifices and ornaments, the diobely (or distribution of two

oboli per head to the poorer citizens at various festivals, in order

that they might be able to pay for their places in the theatre),

taking it as it then stood, etc.,—did not appear to Thucydidês

mischievous and corrupting, as these other writers thought them; or

else he did not particularly refer them to Periklês.

Both are true, probably, to some extent. The internal political

changes at Athens, respecting the Areopagus and the dikasteries, took

place when Periklês was a young man, and when he cannot be supposed

to have yet acquired the immense personal ascendency which afterwards

belonged to him. Ephialtês in fact seems in those early days to have

been a greater man than Periklês, if we may judge by the fact that

he was selected by his political adversaries for assassination,—so

that they might with greater propriety be ascribed to the party with

which Periklês was connected, rather than to that statesman himself.

But next, we have no reason to presume that Thucydidês considered

these changes as injurious, or as having deteriorated the Athenian

character. All that he does say as to the working of Periklês on the

sentiment and actions of his countrymen, is eminently favorable. He

represents the presidency of that statesman as moderate, cautious,

conservative, and successful; he describes him as uniformly keeping

back the people from rash enterprises, and from attempts to extend

their empire,—as looking forward to the necessity of a war, and

maintaining the naval, military, and financial forces of the state in

constant condition to stand it,—as calculating, with long-sighted

wisdom, the conditions on which ultimate success depended. If we

follow the elaborate funeral harangue of Periklês, which Thucydidês,

since he produces it at length, probably considered as faithfully

illustrating the political point of view of that statesman, we shall

discover a conception of democratical equality no less rational

than generous; an anxious care for the recreation and comfort of

the citizens, but no disposition to emancipate them from active

obligation, either public or private,—and least of all, any idea of

dispensing with such activity by abusive largesses out of the general

revenue. The whole picture, drawn by Periklês, of Athens, “as the

schoolmistress of Greece,” implies a prominent development of private

industry and commerce, not less than of public citizenship and

soldiership,—of letters, arts, and recreative varieties of taste.

Though Thucydidês does not directly canvass the constitutional

changes effected in Athens under Periklês, yet everything which he

does say leads us to believe that he accounted the working of that

statesman, upon the whole, on Athenian power as well as on Athenian

character, eminently valuable, and his death as an irreparable loss.

And we may thus appeal to the judgment of an historian who is our

best witness in every conceivable respect, as a valid reply to the

charge against Periklês, of having corrupted the Athenian habits,

character, and government. If he spent a large amount of the public

treasure upon religious edifices and ornaments, and upon stately

works for the city,—yet the sum which he left untouched, ready

for use at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, was such as to

appear more than sufficient for all purposes of defence, or public

safety, or military honor. It cannot be shown of Periklês that

he ever sacrificed the greater object to the less,—the permanent

and substantially valuable, to the transitory and showy,—assured

present possessions, to the lust of new, distant, or uncertain

conquests. If his advice had been listened to, the rashness which

brought on the defeat of the Athenian Tolmidês, at Korôneia in

Bœotia, would have been avoided, and Athens might probably have

maintained her ascendency over Megara and Bœotia, which would have

protected her territory from invasion, and given a new turn to the

subsequent history. Periklês is not to be treated as the author of

the Athenian character: he found it with its very marked positive

characteristics and susceptibilities, among which, those which

he chiefly brought out and improved were the best. The lust of

expeditions against the Persians, which Kimon would have pushed

into Egypt and Cyprus, he repressed, after it had accomplished

all which could be usefully aimed at: the ambition of Athens he

moderated rather than encouraged: the democratical movement of

Athens he regularized, and worked out into judicial institutions,

which became one of the prominent features of Athenian life, and

worked, in my judgment, with a very large balance of benefit to

the national mind as well as to individual security, in spite of

the many defects in their direct character as tribunals. But that

point in which there was the greatest difference between Athens,

as Periklês found if, and as he left it, is, unquestionably, the

pacific and intellectual development,—rhetoric, poetry, arts,

philosophical research, and recreative variety. To which if we add,

great improvement in the cultivation of the Attic soil,—extension of

Athenian trade,—attainment and laborious maintenance of the maximum

of maritime skill, attested by the battles of Phormio,—enlargement

of the area of complete security by construction of the Long

Walls,—lastly, the clothing of Athens in her imperial mantle, by

ornaments, architectural and sculptural,—we shall make out a case of

genuine progress realized during the political life of Periklês, such

as the evils imputed to him, far more imaginary than real, will go

but a little way to alloy. How little, comparatively speaking, of the

picture drawn by Periklês in his funeral harangue of 431 B.C. would

have been correct, if the harangue had been delivered over those

warriors who fell at Tanagra, twenty-seven years before!

It has been remarked by M. Boeckh,[310] that Periklês sacrificed the

landed proprietors of Attica to the maritime interests and empire of

Athens. This is of course founded on the destructive invasions of the

country during the Peloponnesian war; for down to the commencement

of that war the position of Attic cultivators and proprietors was

particularly enviable: and the censure of M. Boeckh, therefore,

depends upon the question, how far Periklês contributed to produce,

or had it in his power to avert, this melancholy war, in its results

so fatal, not merely to Athens, but to the entire Grecian race. Now

here again, if we follow attentively the narrative of Thucydidês, we

shall see that in the judgment of that historian, not only Periklês

did not bring on the war, but he could not have averted it without

such concession as Athenian prudence, as well as Athenian patriotism

peremptorily forbade: moreover, we shall see, that the calculations

on which Periklês grounded his hopes of success if driven to war,

were, in the opinion of the historian, perfectly sound and safe. We

may even go farther, and affirm, that the administration of Periklês

during the fourteen years preceding the war, exhibits a “moderation,”

to use the words of Thucydidês,[311] dictated especially by anxiety

to avoid raising causes of war; though in the months immediately

preceding the breaking out of the war, after the conduct of the

Corinthians at Potidæa, and the resolutions of the congress at

Sparta, he resisted strenuously all compliance with special demands

from Sparta,—demands essentially insincere, and in which partial

compliance would have lowered the dignity of Athens without insuring

peace. The stories about Pheidias, Aspasia, and the Megarians,

even if we should grant that there is some truth at the bottom of

them, must, if we follow Thucydidês, be looked upon at worst as

concomitants and pretexts, rather than as real causes, of the war:

though modern authors, in speaking of Periklês, are but too apt to

use expressions which tacitly assume these stories to be well founded.

[310] Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, b. iii, ch. xv. p. 399,

Eng. Trans.

Kutzen, in the second Beylage to his treatise, Periklês als

Staatsmann (pp. 169-200), has collected and inserted a list of

various characters of Periklês, from twenty different authors,

English, French, and German. That of Wachsmuth is the best of the

collection,—though even he appears to think that Periklês is to

blame for having introduced a set of institutions which none but

himself could work well.

[311] Thucyd. ii, 65. ~μετρίως ἐξηγεῖτο~. i, 144. δίκας δὲ ὅτι

ἐθέλομεν δοῦναι κατὰ τὰς ξυνθήκας, πολέμου δὲ οὐκ ἄρξομεν,

ἀρχομένους δὲ ἀμυνούμεθα.

Seeing then that Periklês did not bring on and could not have averted

the Peloponnesian war,—that he steered his course in reference to

that event with the long-sighted prudence of one who knew that

the safety and the dignity of imperial Athens were essentially

interwoven,—we have no right to throw upon him the blame of

sacrificing the landed proprietors of Attica. These might, indeed, be

excused for complaining, where they suffered so ruinously; but the

impartial historian, looking at the whole of the case, cannot admit

their complaints as a ground for censuring the Athenian statesman.

The relation of Athens to her allies, the weak point of her position,

it was beyond the power of Periklês seriously to amend, probably also

beyond his will, since the idea of political incorporation, as well

as that of providing a common and equal confederate bond, sustained

by effective federal authority between different cities, was rarely

entertained even by the best Greek minds.[312] We hear that he tried

to summon at Athens a congress of deputies from all cities of Greece,

the allies of Athens included;[313] but the scheme could not be

brought to bear, in consequence of the reluctance, noway surprising,

of the Peloponnesians. Practically, the allies were not badly treated

during his administration: and if, among the other bad consequences

of the prolonged war, they, as well as Athens, and all other Greeks

come to suffer more and more, this depends upon causes with which he

is not chargeable, and upon proceedings which departed altogether

from his wise and sober calculations. Taking him altogether, with

his powers of thought, speech, and action,—his competence, civil and

military, in the council as well as in the field,—his vigorous and

cultivated intellect, and his comprehensive ideas of a community

in pacific and many-sided development,—his incorruptible public

morality, caution, and firmness, in a country where all those

qualities were rare, and the union of them in the same individual of

course much rarer,—we shall find him without a parallel throughout

the whole course of Grecian history.

[312] Herodotus (1, 170) mentions that previous to the conquest

of the twelve Ionic cities in Asia by Crœsus, Thalês had

advised them to consolidate themselves all into one single city

government at Teos, and to reduce the existing cities to mere

demes or constituent, fractional municipalities,—τὰς δὲ ἄλλας

πόλιας οἰκεομένας μηδὲν ἧσσον νομίζεσθαι κατάπερ εἰ δῆμοι εἶεν.

It is remarkable to observe that Herodotus himself bestows his

unqualified commendation on this idea.

[313] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 17.

Under the great mortality and pressure of sickness at Athens, their

operations of war naturally languished; while the enemies also,

though more active, had but little success. A fleet of one hundred

triremes, with one thousand hoplites on board, was sent by the

Lacedæmonians under Knêmus to attack Zakynthus, but accomplished

nothing beyond devastation of the open parts of the island, and then

returned home. And it was shortly after this, towards the month of

September, that the Ambrakiots made an attack upon the Amphilochian

town called Argos, situated on the southern coast of the gulf of

Ambrakia: which town, as has been recounted in the preceding chapter,

had been wrested from them two years before by the Athenians, under

Phormio, and restored to the Amphilochians and Akarnanians. The

Ambrakiots, as colonists and allies of Corinth, were at the same time

animated by active enmity to the Athenian influence in Akarnania,

and by desire to regain the lost town of Argos. Procuring aid from

the Chaonians, and some other Epirotic tribes, they marched against

Argos, and after laying waste the territory, endeavored to take the

town by assault, but were repulsed, and obliged to retire.[314] This

expedition appears to have impressed the Athenians with the necessity

of a standing force to protect their interest in those parts; so that

in the autumn Phormio was sent with a squadron of twenty triremes to

occupy Naupaktus, now inhabited by the Messenians, as a permanent

naval station, and to watch the entrance of the Corinthian gulf.[315]

We shall find in the events of the succeeding year ample confirmation

of this necessity.

[314] Thucyd. ii, 68.

[315] Thucyd. ii, 69.

Though the Peloponnesians were too inferior in maritime force to

undertake formal war at sea against Athens, their single privateers,

especially the Megarian privateers from the harbor of Nisæa, were

active in injuring her commerce,[316]—and not merely the commerce

of Athens, but also that of other neutral Greeks, without scruple

or discrimination. Several merchantmen and fishing-vessels, with

a considerable number of prisoners, were thus captured.[317] Such

prisoners as fell into the hands of the Lacedæmonians,—even neutral

Greeks as well as Athenians,—were all put to death, and their bodies

cast into clefts of the mountains. In regard to the neutrals, this

capture was piratical, and the slaughter unwarrantably cruel, judged

even by the received practice of the Greeks, deficient as that was

on the score of humanity: but to dismiss these neutral prisoners, or

to sell them as slaves, would have given publicity to a piratical

capture and provoked the neutral towns, so that the prisoners were

probably slain as the best way of getting rid of them and thus

suppressing evidence.[318]

[316] Thucyd. iii, 51.

[317] Thucyd. ii, 67-69; Herodot. vii, 137. Respecting the

Lacedæmonian privateering during the Peloponnesian war, compare

Thucyd. v, 115: compare also Xenophon, Hellen. v, 1, 29.

[318] Thucyd. ii, 67. Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ὕπηρξαν, τοὺς ἐμπόρους

οὓς ἔλαβον Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ἐν ὁλκάσι περὶ Πελοπόννησον

πλέοντας ἀποκτείναντες καὶ ἐς φάραγγας ἐσβαλόντες. Πάντας γὰρ

δὴ κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς τοῦ πολέμου οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ὅσους λάβοιεν ἐν

τῇ θαλάσσῃ, ὡς πολεμίους διέφθειρον, καὶ τοὺς μετὰ Ἀθηναίων

ξυμπολεμοῦντας καὶ τοὺς μηδὲ μεθ᾽ ἑτέρων.

The Lacedæmonian admiral Alkidas slew all the prisoners taken on

board merchantmen off the coast of Ionia, in the ensuing year

(Thucyd. iii, 32). Even this was considered extremely rigorous,

and excited strong remonstrance; yet the mariners slain were not

neutrals, but belonged to the subject-allies of Athens: moreover,

Alkidas was in his flight, and obliged to make choice between

killing his prisoners or setting them free.

Some of these Peloponnesian privateers ranged as far as the

southwestern coast of Asia Minor, where they found temporary shelter,

and interrupted the trading-vessels from Phasêlis and Phenicia to

Athens; to protect which, the Athenians despatched, in the course

of the autumn, a squadron of six triremes under Melêsander. He

was farther directed to insure the collection of the ordinary

tribute from Athenian subject-allies, and probably to raise such

contributions as he could elsewhere. In the prosecution of this

latter duty, he undertook an expedition from the sea-coast against

one of the Lykian towns in the interior, but his attack was repelled

with loss, and he himself slain.[319]

[319] Thucyd. ii, 69.

An opportunity soon offered itself to the Athenians, of retaliating

on Sparta for this cruel treatment of the maritime prisoners. In

execution of the idea projected at the commencement of the war, the

Lacedæmonians sent Anêristus and two others as envoys to Persia,

for the purpose of soliciting from the Great King aids of money

and troops against Athens; the dissensions among the Greeks thus

gradually paving the way for him to regain his ascendency in the

Ægean. Timagoras of Tegea, together with an Argeian named Pollis,

without any formal mission from his city, and the Corinthian

Aristeus, accompanied them. As the sea was in the power of Athens,

they travelled overland through Thrace to the Hellespont; and

Aristeus, eager to leave nothing untried for the relief of Potidæa,

prevailed upon them to make application to Sitalkês, king of the

Odrysian Thracians. That prince was then in alliance with Athens, and

his son Sadokus had even received the grant of Athenian citizenship:

yet the envoys thought it possible not only to detach him from the

Athenian alliance, but even to obtain from him an army to act against

the Athenians and raise the blockade of Potidæa,—this being refused,

they lastly applied to him for a safe escort to the banks of the

Hellespont, in their way towards Persia. But Learchus and Ameiniadês,

then Athenian residents near the person of Sitalkês, had influence

enough not only to cause rejection of these requests, but also to

induce Sadokus, as a testimony of zeal in his new character of

Athenian citizen, to assist them in seizing the persons of Aristeus

and his companions in their journey through Thrace. Accordingly, the

whole party were seized and conducted as prisoners to Athens, where

they were forthwith put to death, without trial or permission to

speak,—and their bodies cast into rocky chasms, as a reprisal for the

captured seamen slain by the Lacedæmonians.[320]

[320] Thucyd. ii. 67. Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. Greece, vol. iii,

ch. 20, p. 129) says that “the envoys were sacrificed chiefly

to give a decent color to the baseness” of killing Aristeus,

from whom the Athenians feared subsequent evil, in consequence

of his ability and active spirit. I do not think this is fairly

contained in the words of Thucydidês. He puts in the foreground

of Athenian motive, doubtless, fear from the future energy of

Aristeus; but if that had been the only motive, the Athenians

would probably have slain him singly without the rest: they would

hardly think it necessary to provide themselves with “any decent

color,” in the way that Dr. Thirlwall suggests. Thucydidês names

the special feeling of the Athenians against Aristeus (in my

judgment), chiefly in order to explain the extreme haste of the

Athenian sentence of execution—αὐθήμερον—ἀκρίτους, etc.: they

were under the influence of combined motives,—fear, revenge,

retaliation.

The envoys here slain were sons of Sperthiês and Bulis, former

Spartan heralds who had gone up to Xerxes at Susa to offer their

heads as atonement for the previous conduct of the Spartans in

killing the heralds of Darius. Xerxes dismissed them unhurt,—so

that the anger of Talthybius (the heroic progenitor of the

family of heralds at Sparta) remained still unsatisfied: it was

only satisfied by the death of their two sons, now slain by the

Athenians. The fact that the two persons now slain were sons of

those two (Sperthiês and Bulis) who had previously gone to Susa

to tender their lives,—is spoken of as a “romantic and tragical

coincidence.” But there surely is very little to wonder at. The

functions of herald at Sparta, were the privilege of a particular

gens, or family: every herald, therefore, was _ex officio_ the

son of a herald. Now when the Lacedæmonians, at the beginning

of this Peloponnesian war, were looking out for two members of

the heraldic gens to send up to Susa, upon whom would they so

naturally fix as upon the sons of those two men who had been to

Susa before? These sons had doubtless heard their fathers talk

a great deal about it,—probably with interest and satisfaction,

since they derived great glory from the unaccepted offer of their

lives in atonement. There was a particular reason why these two

men should be taken, in preference to any other heralds, to

fulfil this dangerous mission: and doubtless when they perished

in it, the religious imagination of the Lacedæmonians would

group all the series of events as consummation of the judgment

inflicted by Talthybius in his anger (Herodot. vii, 135—ὡς

λέγουσι Λακεδαιμόνιοι).

It appears that Anêristus, the herald here slain, had

distinguished himself personally in that capture of fishermen on

the coast of Peloponnesus by the Lacedæmonians, for which the

Athenians were now retaliating (Herodot. vii, 137). Though this

passage of Herodotus is not clear, yet the sense here put upon it

is the natural one,—and clearer (in my judgment) than that which

O. Müller would propose instead of it (Dorians, ii, p. 437).

Such revenge against Aristeus, the instigator of the revolt of

Potidæa, relieved the Athenians from a dangerous enemy; and that

blockaded city was now left to its fate. About midwinter it

capitulated, after a blockade of two years, and after going through

the extreme of suffering from famine, to such a degree that some

of those who died were even eaten by the survivors. In spite of

such intolerable distress, the Athenian generals, Xenophon son of

Euripidês and his two colleagues, admitted them to favorable terms

of capitulation,—permitting the whole population and the Corinthian

allies to retire freely, with a specified sum of money per head, as

well as with one garment for each man and two for each woman,—so

that they found shelter among the Chalkidic townships in the

neighborhood. These terms were singularly favorable, considering the

desperate state of the city, which must very soon have surrendered

at discretion: but the hardships, even of the army without, in the

cold of winter, were very severe, and they had become thoroughly

tired both of the duration and the expense of the siege. The cost

to Athens had been not less than two thousand talents; since the

assailant force had never been lower than three thousand hoplites,

during the entire two years of the siege, and for a portion of the

time considerably greater,—each hoplite receiving two drachmas _per

diem_. The Athenians at home, when they learned the terms of the

capitulation, were displeased with the generals for the indulgence

shown,—since a little additional patience would have constrained the

city to surrender at discretion: in which case the expense would

have been partly made good by selling the prisoners as slaves,—and

Athenian vengeance probably gratified by putting the warriors to

death.[321] A body of one thousand colonists were sent from Athens to

occupy Potidæa and its vacant territory.[322]

[321] Thucyd. ii, 70; iii, 17. However, the displeasure of the

Athenians against the commanders cannot have been very serious,

since Xenophon was appointed to command against the Chalkidians

in the ensuing year.

[322] Diodor. xii, 46.

Two full years had now elapsed since the actual commencement of war,

by the attack of the Thebans on Platæa; yet the Peloponnesians had

accomplished nothing of what they expected. They had not rescued

Potidæa, nor had their twice-repeated invasion, although assisted by

the unexpected disasters arising from the epidemic, as yet brought

Athens to any sufficient humiliation,—though perhaps the envoys

which she had sent during the foregoing summer with propositions

for peace, contrary to the advice of Periklês, may have produced an

impression that she could not hold out long. At the same time, the

Peloponnesian allies had on their side suffered little damage, since

the ravages inflicted by the Athenian fleet on their coast may have

been nearly compensated by the booty which their invading troops

gained in Attica. Probably by this time the public opinion in Greece

had contracted an unhappy familiarity with the state of war, so

that nothing but some decisive loss and humiliation on one side at

least, if not on both, would suffice to terminate it. In this third

spring, the Peloponnesians did not repeat their annual march into

Attica,—deterred, partly, we may suppose, by fear of the epidemic

yet raging there,—but still more by the strong desire of the Thebans

to take their revenge on Platæa.

To this ill-fated city, Archidamus marched forthwith, at the head of

the confederate army. But no sooner had he entered and begun to lay

waste the territory, than the Platæan heralds came forth to arrest

his hand, and accosted him in the following terms: “Archidamus, and

ye men of Lacedæmon, ye act wrong, and in a manner neither worthy of

yourselves nor of your fathers, in thus invading the territory of

Platæa. For the Lacedæmonian Pausanias, son of Kleombrotus, after he

had liberated Greece from the Persians, in conjunction with those

Greeks who stood forward to bear their share of the danger, offered

sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherius, in the market-place of Platæa; and

there, in presence of all the allies, assigned to the Platæans their

own city and territory to hold in full autonomy, so that none should

invade them wrongfully, or with a view to enslave them: should such

invasion occur, the allies present pledged themselves to stand

forward with all their force as protectors. While your fathers made

to us this grant, in consideration of our valor and forwardness in

that perilous emergency, ye are now doing the precise contrary: ye

are come along with our worst enemies, the Thebans, to enslave us.

And we on our side now adjure you, calling to witness the gods who

sanctioned that oath, as well as your paternal and our local gods,

not to violate the oath by doing wrong to the Platæan territory, but

to let us live on in that autonomy which Pausanias guaranteed.”[323]

[323] Thucyd. ii, 71, 72.

Whereunto Archidamus replied: “Ye speak fairly, men of Platæa, if

your conduct shall be in harmony with your words. Remain autonomous

yourselves, as Pausanias granted, and help us to liberate those other

Greeks, who, after having shared in the same dangers and sworn the

same oath along with you, have now been enslaved by the Athenians.

It is for their liberation and that of the other Greeks that this

formidable outfit of war has been brought forth. Pursuant to your

oaths, ye ought by rights, and we now invite you, to take active part

in this object. But if ye cannot act thus, at least remain quiet,

conformably to the summons which we have already sent to you; enjoy

your own territory, and remain neutral,—receiving both parties as

friends, but neither party for warlike purposes. With this we shall

be satisfied.”

The reply of Archidamus discloses by allusion a circumstance

which the historian had not before directly mentioned; that the

Lacedæmonians had sent a formal summons to the Platæans to renounce

their alliance with Athens and remain neutral: at what time this

took place,[324] we do not know, but it marks the peculiar sentiment

attaching to the town. But the Platæans did not comply with the

invitation thus twice repeated. The heralds, having returned for

instructions into the city, brought back for answer, that compliance

was impossible, without the consent of the Athenians, since their

wives and families were now harbored at Athens: besides, if they

should profess neutrality, and admit both parties as friends, the

Thebans might again make an attempt to surprise their city. In reply

to their scruples, Archidamus again addressed them: “Well, then,

hand over your city and houses to us Lacedæmonians: mark out the

boundaries of your territory: specify the number of your fruit-trees,

and all your other property which admits of being numbered; and then

retire whithersoever ye choose, as long as the war continues. As soon

as it is over, we will restore to you all that we have received,—in

the interim, we will hold it in trust, and keep it in cultivation,

and pay you such an allowance as shall suffice for your wants.”[325]

[324] This previous summons is again alluded to afterwards, on

occasion of the slaughter of the Platæan prisoners (iii, 68):

διότι ~τόν τε ἄλλον χρόνον~ ἠξίουν δῆθεν, etc.

[325] Thucyd. ii, 73, 74.

The proposition now made was so fair and tempting, that the general

body of the Platæans were at first inclined to accept it, provided

the Athenians would acquiesce; and they obtained from Archidamus a

truce long enough to enable them to send envoys to Athens. After

communication with the Athenian assembly, the envoys returned to

Platæa, bearing the following answer: “Men of Platæa, the Athenians

say they have never yet permitted you to be wronged since the

alliance first began,—nor will they now betray you, but will help

you to the best of their power. And they adjure you, by the oaths

which your fathers swore to them, not to depart in any way from the

alliance.”

This message awakened in the bosoms of the Platæans the full force

of ancient and tenacious sentiment. They resolved to maintain, at

all cost, and even to the extreme of ruin, if necessity should

require it, their union with Athens. It was indeed impossible that

they could do otherwise, considering the position of their wives and

families, without the consent of the Athenians; and though we cannot

wonder that the latter refused consent, we may yet remark, that, in

their situation, a perfectly generous ally might well have granted

it. For the forces of Platæa counted for little as a portion of

the aggregate strength of Athens; nor could the Athenians possibly

protect it against the superior land-force of their enemies,—in fact,

so hopeless was the attempt that they never even tried, throughout

the whole course of the long subsequent blockade.