FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
DOWN TO THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMOTIONS AT KORKYRA.
The second and third years of the war had both been years of great
suffering with the Athenians, from the continuance of the epidemic,
which did not materially relax until the winter of the third
year (B.C. 429-428). It is no wonder that, under the pressure of
such a calamity, their military efforts were enfeebled, although
the victories of Phormio had placed their maritime reputation
at a higher point than ever. To their enemies, the destructive
effects of this epidemic—effects still felt, although the disorder
itself was suspended during the fourth year of the war—afforded
material assistance as well as encouragement to persevere; and the
Peloponnesians, under Archidamus, again repeated during this year
their invasion and ravage of Attica, which had been intermitted
during the year preceding. As before, they met with no serious
resistance: entering the country about the beginning of May, they
continued the process of devastation until their provisions were
exhausted.[370] To this damage the Athenians had probably now
accustomed themselves: but they speedily received, even while the
invaders were in their country, intelligence of an event far more
embarrassing and formidable,—the revolt of Mitylênê and of the
greater part of Lesbos.
[370] Thucyd. iii, 1.
This revolt, indeed, did not come even upon the Athenians wholly
unawares; but the idea of it was of longer standing than they
suspected, for the Mitylenæan oligarchy had projected it before the
war, and had made secret application to Sparta for aid, but without
success. Some time after hostilities broke out, they resumed the
design, which was warmly promoted by the Bœotians, kinsmen of the
Lesbians in Æolic lineage and dialect. The Mitylenæan leaders appear
to have finally determined on revolt during the preceding autumn or
winter; but they thought it prudent to make ample preparations before
they declared themselves openly: and, moreover, they took measures
for constraining three other towns in Lesbos—Antissa, Eresus,
and Pyrrha—to share their fortunes, to merge their own separate
governments, and to become incorporated with Mitylênê. Methymna,
the second town in Lesbos, situated on the north of the island, was
decidedly opposed to them and attached to Athens. The Mitylenæans
built new ships, put their walls in an improved state of defence,
carried out a mole in order to narrow the entrance of their harbor,
and render it capable of being closed with a chain, despatched
emissaries to hire Scythian bowmen and purchase corn in the Euxine,
and took such other measures as were necessary for an effective
resistance. Though the oligarchical character of their government
gave them much means of secrecy, and above all, dispensed with the
necessity of consulting the people beforehand,—still, measures of
such importance could not be taken without provoking attention.
Intimation was sent to the Athenians by various Mitylenæan citizens,
partly from private feeling, partly in their capacity of _proxeni_
(or _consuls_, to use a modern word which approaches to the meaning)
for Athens,—especially by a Mitylenæan named Doxander, incensed with
the government for having disappointed his two sons of a marriage
with two orphan heiresses.[371] Not less communicative were the
islanders of Tenedos, animated by ancient neighborly jealousy towards
Mitylênê; so that the Athenians were thus forewarned both of the
intrigues between Mitylênê and the Spartans and of her certain
impending revolt unless they immediately interfered.[372]
[371] Aristotel. Politic. v, 2, 3. The fact respecting Doxander
here mentioned is stated by Aristotle, and there is no reason to
question its truth. But Aristotle states it in illustration of a
general position,—that the private quarrels of principal citizens
are often the cause of great misfortune to the commonwealth. He
represents Doxander and his private quarrel as having brought
upon Mitylênê the resentment of the Athenians and the war with
Athens—Δόξανδρος—ἦρξε τῆς στάσεως, καὶ παρώξυνε τοὺς Ἀθηναίους,
πρόξενος ὢν τῆς πόλεως.
Having the account of Thucydidês before us, we are enabled to
say that this is an incorrect conception, as far as concerns the
_cause_ of the war,—though the fact in itself may be quite true.
[372] Thucyd. iii, 2.
This news seems to have become certain about February or March
428 B.C.: but such was then the dispirited condition of the
Athenians,—arising from two years’ suffering under the epidemic,
and no longer counteracted by the wholesome remonstrances of
Periklês,—that they could not at first bring themselves to believe
what they were so much afraid to find true. Lesbos, like Chios,
was their ally, upon an equal footing, still remaining under those
conditions which had been at first common to all the members of
the confederacy of Delos. Mitylênê paid no tribute to Athens: it
retained its walls, its large naval force, and its extensive landed
possessions on the opposite Asiatic continent: its government was
oligarchical, administering all internal affairs without the least
reference to Athens. Its obligations as an ally were, that, in
case of war, it was held bound to furnish armed ships, whether in
determinate number or not, we do not know: it would undoubtedly be
restrained from making war upon Tenedos, or any other subject-ally
of Athens: and its government or its citizens would probably be
held liable to answer before the Athenian dikasteries, in case of
any complaint of injury from the government or citizens of Tenedos
or of any other ally of Athens,—these latter being themselves also
accountable before the same tribunals, under like complaints from
Mitylênê. That city was thus in practice all but independent, and
so extremely powerful that the Athenians in their actual state
of depression were fearful of coping with it, and therefore loth
to believe the alarming intelligence which reached them. They
sent envoys with a friendly message to persuade the Mitylenæans
to suspend their proceedings, and it was only when these envoys
returned without success that they saw the necessity of stronger
measures. Ten Mitylenæan triremes, serving as contingent in the
Athenian fleet, were seized, and their crews placed under guard;
while Kleïppidês, then on the point of starting, along with two
colleagues, to conduct a fleet of forty triremes round Peloponnesus,
was directed to alter his destination and to proceed forthwith to
Mitylênê.[373] It was expected that he would reach that town about
the time of the approaching festival of Apollo Maloeis, celebrated in
its neighborhood,—on which occasion the whole Mitylenæan population
was in the habit of going forth to the temple: so that the town,
while thus deserted, might easily be surprised and seized by the
fleet. In case this calculation should be disappointed, Kleïppidês
was instructed to require that the Mitylenæans should surrender their
ships of war and raze their fortifications, and, in case of refusal,
to attack them immediately.
[373] Thucyd. iii, 3.
But the publicity of debate at Athens was far too great to allow
such a scheme to succeed. The Mitylenæans had their spies in the
city, and the moment the resolution was taken, one of them set off
to communicate it at Mitylênê. Crossing over to Geræstus in Eubœa,
he got aboard a merchantman on the point of departure, and reached
Mitylênê with a favorable wind on the third day from Athens: so that
when Kleïppidês arrived shortly afterwards, he found the festival
adjourned and the government prepared for him. The requisition
which he sent in was refused, and the Mitylenæan fleet even came
forth from the harbor to assail him, but was beaten back with
little difficulty: upon which, the Mitylenæan leaders, finding
themselves attacked before their preparations were completed, and
desiring still to gain time before they declared their revolt,
opened negotiations with Kleïppidês, and prevailed on him to suspend
hostilities until ambassadors could be sent to Athens,—protesting
that they had no serious intention of revolting. This appears to
have been about the middle of May, soon after the Lacedæmonian
invasion of Attica. Kleïppidês was induced, not very prudently, to
admit this proposition, under the impression that his armament was
insufficient to cope with a city and island so powerful; and he
remained moored off the harbor at the north of Mitylênê until the
envoys, among whom was included one of the very citizens of Mitylênê
who had sent to betray the intended revolt, but who had since changed
his opinion, should return from Athens. Meanwhile the Mitylenæan
government, unknown to Kleïppidês, and well aware that the embassy
would prove fruitless, took advantage of the truce to send secret
envoys to Sparta, imploring immediate aid: and on the arrival of
the Lacedæmonian Meleas and the Theban Hermæondas, who had been
despatched to Mitylênê earlier, but had only come in by stealth since
the arrival of Kleïppidês, a second trireme was sent along with them,
carrying additional envoys to reiterate the solicitation. These
arrivals and despatches were carried on without the knowledge of the
Athenian admiral, chiefly in consequence of the peculiar site of the
town, which had originally been placed upon a little islet divided
from Lesbos by a narrow channel, or _euripus_, and had subsequently
been extended across into the main island,—like Syracuse, and so
many other Grecian settlements. It had consequently two harbors, one
north, the other south of the town: Kleïppidês was anchored off the
former, but the latter remained unguarded.[374]
[374] Thucyd. iii, 3, 4: compare Strabo, xiii, p. 617; and Plehn,
Lesbiaca, pp. 12-18.
Thucydidês speaks of the spot at the mouth of the northern harbor
as being called Malea, which was also undoubtedly the name of the
southeastern promontory of Lesbos. We must therefore presume that
there were two places on the seaboard of Lesbos which bore that
name.
The easternmost of the two southern promontories of Peloponnesus
was also called Cape Malea.
During the absence of the Mitylenæan envoys at Athens, reinforcements
reached the Athenian admiral from Lemnos, Imbros, and some other
allies, as well as from the Lesbian town of Methymna: so that when
the envoys returned, as they presently did, with an unfavorable
reply, war was resumed with increased vigor. The Mitylenæans, having
made a general sally with their full military force, gained some
advantage in the battle; yet, not feeling bold enough to maintain
the field, they retreated back behind their walls. The news of
their revolt, when first spread abroad, had created an impression
unfavorable to the stability of the Athenian empire: but when it
was seen that their conduct was irresolute, and their achievements
disproportionate to their supposed power, a reaction of feeling took
place,—and the Chians and other allies came in with increased zeal
in obedience to the summons of Athens for reinforcements. Kleïppidês
soon found his armament large enough to establish two separate camps,
markets for provision, and naval stations, north and south of the
town, so as to watch and block up both the harbors at once.[375] But
he commanded little beyond the area of his camp, and was unable to
invest the city by land; especially as the Mitylenæans had received
reinforcements from Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus, the other towns of
Lesbos which acted with them. They were even sufficiently strong to
march against Methymna, in hopes that it would be betrayed to them
by a party within; but this expectation was not realized, nor could
they do more than strengthen the fortifications, and confirm the
Mitylenæan supremacy, in the other three subordinate towns; in such
manner that the Methymnæans, who soon afterwards attacked Antissa,
were repulsed with considerable loss. In this undecided condition
the island continued, until, somewhere about the month of August
B.C. 428, the Athenians sent Pachês to take the command, with a
reinforcement of one thousand hoplites, who rowed themselves thither
in triremes. The Athenians were now in force enough not only to keep
the Mitylenæans within their walls, but also to surround the city
with a single wall of circumvallation, strengthened by separate forts
in suitable positions. By the beginning of October, Mitylênê was thus
completely blockaded, by land as well as by sea.[376]
[375] Thucyd. iii, 6.
[376] Thucyd. iii, 18.
Meanwhile, the Mitylenæan envoys, after a troublesome voyage, reached
Sparta a little before the Olympic festival, about the middle of
June. The Spartans directed them to come to Olympia at the festival,
where all the members of the Peloponnesian confederacy would
naturally be present,—and there to set forth their requests, after
the festival was concluded, in presence of all.[377] Thucydidês has
given us, at some length, his version of the speech wherein this was
done,—a speech not a little remarkable. Pronounced as it was by men
who had just revolted from Athens, having the strongest interest to
raise indignation against her as well as sympathy for themselves,—and
before an audience exclusively composed of the enemies of Athens,
all willing to hear, and none present to refute, the bitterest
calumnies against her, we should have expected a confident sense of
righteous and well-grounded though perilous effort on the part of the
Mitylenæans, and a plausible collection of wrongs and oppressions
alleged against the common enemy. Instead of which, the speech is
apologetic and embarrassed: the speaker not only does not allege any
extortion or severe dealing from Athens towards the Mitylenæans, but
even admits the fact that they had been treated by her with marked
honor;[378] and that, too, during a long period of peace, during
which she stood less in awe of her allies generally, and would have
had much more facility in realizing any harsh purposes towards them,
than she could possibly enjoy now that the war had broken out, when
their discontents would be likely to find powerful protectors.[379]
According to his own showing, the Mitylenæans, while they had been
perfectly well treated by Athens during the past, had now acquired,
by the mere fact of war, increased security for continuance of the
like treatment during the future. It is upon this ground of security
for the future, nevertheless, that he rests the justification of the
revolt, not pretending to have any subject of positive complaint.
The Mitylenæans, he contends, could have no prospective security
against Athens: for she had successively and systematically brought
into slavery all her allies, except Lesbos and Chios, though all had
originally been upon an equal footing: and there was every reason
for fearing that she would take the first convenient opportunity of
reducing the two last remaining to the same level,—the rather as
their position was now one of privilege and exception, offensive
to her imperial pride and exaggerated ascendency. It had hitherto
suited the policy of Athens to leave these two exceptions, as a
proof that the other allies had justly incurred their fate, since
otherwise Lesbos and Chios, having equal votes, would not have
joined forces in reducing them:[380] but this policy was now no
longer necessary, and the Mitylenæans, feeling themselves free only
in name, were imperatively called upon by regard for their own
safety to seize the earliest opportunity for emancipating themselves
in reality. Nor was it merely regard for their own safety, but a
farther impulse of Pan-Hellenic patriotism; a desire to take rank
among the opponents, and not among the auxiliaries of Athens, in her
usurpation of sovereignty over so many free Grecian states.[381] The
Mitylenæans had, however, been compelled to revolt with preparations
only half-completed, and had therefore a double claim upon the succor
of Sparta,—the single hope and protectress of Grecian autonomy. And
Spartan aid—if now lent immediately and heartily, in a renewed attack
on Attica during this same year, by sea as well as by land—could
not fail to put down the common enemy, exhausted as she was by
pestilence as well as by the cost of three years’ war, and occupying
her whole maritime force, either in the siege of Mitylênê or round
Peloponnesus. The orator concluded by appealing not merely to the
Hellenic patriotism and sympathies of the Peloponnesians, but also to
the sacred name of the Olympic Zeus, in whose precinct the meeting
was held, that his pressing entreaty might not be disregarded.[382]
[377] Thucyd. iii, 9.
[378] Thucyd. iii, 10. μηδέ τῳ χείρους δόξωμεν εἶναι, εἰ ~ἐν τῇ
εἰρήνῃ τιμώμενοι ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν~ ἐν τοῖς δεινοῖς ἀφιστάμεθα.
The language in which the Mitylenæan envoys describe the
treatment which their city had received from Athens, is
substantially as strong as that which Kleon uses afterwards
in his speech at Athens, when he reproaches them with their
ingratitude,—Kleon says (iii, 39), αὐτόνομοί τε οἰκοῦντες, καὶ
~τιμώμενοι ἐς τὰ πρῶτα ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν~, τοιαῦτα εἰργάσαντο, etc.
[379] Thucyd. iii, 12. οὐ μέντοι ἐπὶ πολύ γ᾽ ἂν ἐδοκοῦμεν
δυνηθῆναι (περιγίγνεσθαι), εἰ μὴ ὁ πόλεμος ὅδε κατέστη,
παραδείγμασι χρώμενοι τοῖς ἐς τοὺς ἄλλους. Τίς οὖν αὐτὴ ἡ
φιλία ἐγίγνετο ἢ ἐλευθερία πιστὴ, ἐν ᾗ παρὰ γνώμην ἀλλήλους
ὑπεδεχόμεθα, καὶ οἱ μὲν ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ δεδιότες ἐθεράπευον,
ἡμεῖς δὲ ἐκείνους ἐν τῇ ἡσυχίᾳ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐποιοῦμεν.
[380] Thucyd. iii, 11. Αὐτόνομοι δὲ ἐλείφθημεν οὐ δι᾽ ἄλλο τι ἢ
ὅσον αὐτοῖς ἐς τὴν ἀρχὴν εὐπρεπείᾳ τε λόγου, καὶ γνώμης μᾶλλον
ἐφόδῳ ἢ ἰσχύος, τὰ πράγματα ἐφαίνετο καταληπτά. Ἅμα μὲν γὰρ
μαρτυρίῳ ἐχρῶντο, μὴ ἂν ~τούς γε ἰσοψήφους ἄκοντας~, εἰ μή τι
ἠδίκουν οἷς ἐπῄεσαν, ~ξυστρατεύειν~.
[381] Thucyd. iii, 13.
[382] Thucyd. iii, 13, 14.
In following this speech of the orator, we see the plain confession
that the Mitylenæans had no reason whatever to complain of the
conduct of Athens towards themselves: she had respected alike their
dignity, their public force, and their private security. This
important fact helps us to explain, first, the indifference which the
Mitylenæan people will be found to manifest in the revolt; next, the
barbarous resolution taken by the Athenians after its suppression.
The reasons given for the revolt are mainly two. 1. The Mitylenæans
had no security that Athens would not degrade them into the condition
of subject-allies like the rest. 2. They did not choose to second
the ambition of Athens, and to become parties to a war, for the sake
of maintaining an empire essentially offensive to Grecian political
instincts. In both these two reasons there is force; and both touch
the sore point of the Athenian empire. That empire undoubtedly
contradicted one of the fundamental instincts of the Greek mind,—the
right of every separate town to administer its own political affairs
apart from external control. The Peloponnesian alliance recognized
this autonomy in theory, by the general synod and equal voting of all
the members at Sparta, on important occasions; though it was quite
true,[383] as Periklês urged at Athens, that in practice nothing more
was enjoyed than an autonomy confined by Spartan leading-strings,—and
though Sparta held in permanent custody hostages for the fidelity of
her Arcadian allies, summoning their military contingents without
acquainting them whither they were destined to march. But Athens
proclaimed herself a despot, effacing the autonomy of her allies not
less in theory than in practice: far from being disposed to cultivate
in them any sense of a real common interest with herself, she did not
even cheat them with those forms and fictions which so often appease
discontent in the absence of realities. Doubtless, the nature of
her empire, at once widely extended, maritime, and unconnected, or
only partially connected, with kindred of race, rendered the forms
of periodical deliberation difficult to keep up; at the same time
that it gave to her as naval chief an ascendency much more despotic
than could have been exercised by any chief on land. It is doubtful
whether she could have overcome—it is certain that she did not try
to overcome—these political difficulties; so that her empire stood
confessed as a despotism, opposed to the political instinct of the
Greek mind; and the revolts against it, like this of Mitylênê,—in
so far as they represented a genuine feeling, and were not merely
movements of an oligarchical party against their own democracy,—were
revolts of this offended instinct, much more than consequences of
actual oppression. The Mitylenæans might certainly affirm that they
had no security against being one day reduced to the common condition
of subject-allies like the rest; yet an Athenian speaker, had he
been here present, might have made no mean reply to this portion
of their reasoning;—he would have urged that, had Athens felt any
dispositions towards such a scheme, she would have taken advantage
of the fourteen years’ truce to execute it; and he would have shown
that the degradation of the allies by Athens, and the change in her
position from president to despot had been far less intentional and
systematic than the Mitylenæan orator affirmed.
[383] Thucyd. i, 144. Καὶ ὅταν κἀκεῖνοι (the Lacedæmonians) ταῖς
αὐτῶν ἀποδῶσι πόλεσι, μὴ ~σφίσι τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις ἐπιτηδείως
αὐτονομεῖσθαι, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἑκάστοις, ὡς βούλονται~.
About the hostages detained by Sparta for the fidelity of her
allies, see Thucyd. v, 54, 61.
To the Peloponnesian auditors, however, the speech of the latter
proved completely satisfactory; the Lesbians were declared members
of the Peloponnesian alliance, and a second attack upon Attica was
decreed. The Lacedæmonians, foremost in the movement, summoned
contingents from their various allies, and were early in arriving
with their own at the isthmus: they there began to prepare carriages
or trucks for dragging across the isthmus the triremes which had
fought against Phormio, from the harbor of Lechæum into the Saronic
gulf, in order to employ them against Athens. But the remaining
allies did not answer to the summons, remaining at home occupied
with their harvest; and the Lacedæmonians, sufficiently disappointed
with this languor and disobedience, were still farther confounded
by the unexpected presence of one hundred Athenian triremes off the
coast of the isthmus. The Athenians, though their own presence at
the Olympic festival was forbidden by the war, had doubtless learned
more or less thoroughly the proceedings which had taken place there
respecting Mitylênê. Perceiving the general belief entertained of
their depressed and helpless condition, they determined to contradict
this by a great and instant effort, and accordingly manned forthwith
one hundred triremes, requiring the personal service of all men,
citizens as well as metics; and excepting only the two richest
classes of the Solonian census, _i. e._ the pentakosiomedimni, and
the hippeis, or horsemen. With this prodigious fleet they made a
demonstration along the isthmus in view of the Lacedæmonians, and
landed in various parts of the Peloponnesian coast to inflict damage.
At the same time, thirty other Athenian triremes, despatched sometime
previously to Akarnania, under Asôpius, son of Phormio, landed at
different openings in Laconia, for the same purpose; and this news
reached the Lacedæmonians at the isthmus while the other great
Athenian fleet was parading before their eyes.[384] Amazed at so
unexpected a demonstration of strength, they began to feel how much
the Mitylenæans had misled them respecting the exhaustion of Athens,
and how incompetent they were, especially without the presence of
their allies, to undertake any joint effective movement by sea and
land against Attica. They therefore returned home, resolving to send
an expedition of forty triremes, under Alkidas, to the relief of
Mitylênê itself; at the same time transmitting requisitions to their
various allies, in order that these triremes might be furnished.[385]
[384] Thucyd. iii, 7-16.
[385] Thucyd. iii, 15, 16.
Meanwhile, Asôpius, with his thirty triremes, had arrived in
Akarnania, from whence all the ships except twelve were sent home.
He had been nominated commander as the son of Phormio, who appears
either to have died, or to have become unfit for service, since his
victories of the preceding year; and the Akarnanians had preferred
a special request that a son, or at least some relative of Phormio,
should be invested with the command of the squadron; so beloved was
his name and character among them. Asôpius, however, accomplished
nothing of importance, though he again undertook conjointly with the
Akarnanians a fruitless march against Œniadæ. Ultimately, he was
defeated and slain, in attempting a disembarkation on the territory
of Leukas.[386]
[386] Thucyd. iii, 7.
The sanguine announcement made by the Mitylenæans at Olympia, that
Athens was rendered helpless by the epidemic, had indeed been
strikingly contradicted by her recent display; since, taking numbers
and equipment together, the maritime force which she had put forth
this summer, manned as it was by a higher class of seamen, surpassed
all former years; although, in point of number only, it was inferior
to the two hundred and fifty triremes which she had sent out during
the first summer of the war.[387] But the assertion that Athens was
impoverished in finances was not so destitute of foundation: for
the whole treasure in the acropolis, six thousand talents at the
commencement of the war, was now consumed, with the exception of
that reserve of one thousand talents which had been solemnly set
aside against the last exigences of defensive resistance. This is not
surprising, when we learn that every hoplite engaged for near two
years and a half in the blockade of Potidæa, received two drachmas
per day, one for himself and a second for an attendant: there were
during the whole time of the blockade three thousand hoplites engaged
there,—and for a considerable portion of the time, four thousand six
hundred; besides the fleet, all the seamen of which received one
drachma per day per man. Accordingly the Athenians were now for the
first time obliged to raise a direct contribution among themselves,
to the amount of two hundred talents, for the purpose of prosecuting
the siege of Mitylênê: and they at the same time despatched Lysiklês
with four colleagues, in command of twelve triremes, to collect
money. What relation these money-gathering ships bore to the regular
tribute paid by the subject-allies, or whether they were allowed to
visit these latter, we do not know: in the present case, Lysiklês
landed at Myus, near the mouth of the Mæander, and marched up the
country to levy contributions on the Karian villages in the plain of
that river: but he was surprised by the Karians, perhaps aided by the
active Samian exiles at Anæa in the neighborhood, and slain, with a
considerable number of his men.[388]
[387] Thucyd. iii, 17. Καὶ κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον, ὃν αἱ νῆες
ἔπλεον, ἐν τοῖς πλεῖσται δὴ νῆες ἅμ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἐνεργοὶ κάλλει
ἐγένοντο, παραπλήσιαι δὲ καὶ ἔτι πλείους ἀρχομένου τοῦ πολέμου.
Τήν τε γὰρ Ἀττικὴν καὶ Εὔβοιαν καὶ Σαλαμῖνα ἑκατὸν ἐφύλασσον, καὶ
περὶ Πελοπόννησον ἕτεραι ἑκατὸν ἦσαν, χωρὶς δὲ αἱ περὶ Ποτίδαιαν
καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις χωρίοις, ὥστε αἱ πᾶσαι ἅμα ἐγίγνοντο ἐν ἑνὶ
θέρει διακόσιαι καὶ πεντήκοντα. Καὶ τὰ χρήματα τοῦτο μάλιστα
ὑπανάλωσε μετὰ Ποτιδαίας, etc.
I have endeavored to render as well as I can this obscure and
difficult passage; difficult both as to grammar and as to sense,
and not satisfactorily explained by any of the commentators,—if,
indeed, it can be held to stand now as Thucydidês wrote it.
In the preceding chapter, he had mentioned that this fleet of
one hundred sail was manned largely from the hoplite class of
citizens (iii, 16). Now we know from other passages in his
work (see v, 8; vi, 31) how much difference there was in the
appearance and efficiency of an armament, according to the class
of citizens who served on it. We may then refer the word κάλλος
to the excellence of outfit hence arising: I wish, indeed, that
any instance could be produced of κάλλος in this sense, but we
find the adjective κάλλιστος (Thucyd. v, 60) στρατόπεδον γὰρ δὴ
τοῦτο ~κάλλιστον~ Ἑλληνικὸν τῶν μέχρι τοῦδε ξυνῆλθεν. In v, 8,
Thucydidês employs the word ἀξίωμα to denote the same meaning;
and in vi, 31, he says: παρασκευὴ γὰρ αὑτὴ πρώτη ἐκπλεύσασα μιᾶς
πόλεως δυνάμει Ἑλληνικῇ πολυτελεστάτη δὴ καὶ εὐπρεπεστάτη τῶν
εἰς ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ἐγένετο. It may be remarked that in that
chapter too, he contrasts the expedition against Sicily with two
other Athenian expeditions, equal to it in number, but inferior
in equipment: the same comparison which I believe he means to
take in this passage.
[388] Thucyd. iii, 19.
While the Athenians thus held Mitylênê under siege, their faithful
friends, the Platæans, had remained closely blockaded by the
Peloponnesians and Bœotians for more than a year, without any
possibility of relief. At length, provisions began to fail, and
the general, Eupompidês, backed by the prophet Theænetus,—these
prophets[389] were often among the bravest soldiers in the
army,—persuaded the garrison to adopt the daring but seemingly
desperate resolution of breaking out over the blockading wall, and
in spite of its guards. So desperate, indeed, did the project seem,
that at the moment of execution, one half of the garrison shrank from
it as equivalent to certain death: the other half, about two hundred
and twelve in number, persisted and escaped. Happy would it have been
for the remainder had they even perished in the attempt, and thus
forestalled the more melancholy fate in store for them!
[389] Thucyd. iii, 20. Compare Xenophon, Hellen. ii, 4, 19;
Herodot. ix, 37; Plutarch, Aratus, c. 25.
It has been already stated, that the circumvallation of Platæa was
accomplished by a double wall and a double ditch, one ditch without
the encircling walls, another between them and the town; the two
walls being sixteen feet apart, joined together, and roofed all
round, so as to look like one thick wall, and to afford covered
quarters for the besiegers. Both the outer and inner circumference
were furnished with battlements, and after every ten battlements
came a roofed tower, covering the whole breadth of the double
wall,—allowing a free passage inside, but none outside. In general,
the entire circuit of the roofed wall was kept under watch night
and day: but on wet nights the besiegers had so far relaxed their
vigilance as to retire under cover of the towers, and leave the
intermediate spaces unguarded: and it was upon this omission that
the plan of escape was founded. The Platæans prepared ladders of a
proper height to scale the blockading double wall, ascertaining its
height by repeatedly counting the ranges of bricks, which were quite
near enough for them to discern, and not effectually covered with
whitewash. On a cold and dark December night, amidst rain, sleet, and
a roaring wind, they marched forth from the gates, lightly armed,
some few with shields and spears, but most of them with breastplates,
javelins, and bows and arrows: the right foot was naked, and the left
foot alone shod, so as to give to it a more assured footing on the
muddy ground.[390] Taking care to sally out with the wind in their
faces, and at such a distance from each other as to prevent any
clattering of arms, they crossed the inner ditch and reached the foot
of the wall without being discovered: the ladders, borne in the van,
were immediately planted, and Ammeas, son of Korœbus, followed by
eleven others, armed only with a short sword and breastplate, mounted
the wall: others, armed with spears, followed him, their shields
being carried and handed to them when on the top by comrades behind.
It was the duty of this first company to master and maintain the two
towers, right and left, so as to keep the intermediate space free for
passing over. This was successfully done, the guards in both towers
being surprised and slain, without alarming the remaining besiegers:
and many of the Platæans had already reached the top of the wall,
when the noise of a tile accidently knocked down by one of them,
betrayed what was passing. Immediately a general clamor was raised,
alarm was given, and the awakened garrison rushed up from beneath
to the top of the wall, yet not knowing where the enemy was to be
found; a perplexity farther increased by the Platæans in the town,
who took this opportunity of making a false attack on the opposite
side. Amidst such confusion and darkness, the blockading detachment
could not tell where to direct their blows, and all remained at
their posts, except a reserve of three hundred men, kept constantly
in readiness for special emergencies, who marched out and patrolled
the outside of the ditch to intercept any fugitives from within.
At the same time, fire-signals were raised to warn their allies at
Thebes,—but here again the Platæans in the town had foreseen and
prepared fire-signals on their part, which they hoisted forthwith,
in order to deprive this telegraphic communication of all special
meaning.[391]
[390] Thucyd. iii, 22. Dr. Arnold, in his note, construes this
passage as if the right or bare foot were the _least_ likely to
slip in the mud, and the left or shod foot the _most_ likely.
The Scholiast and Wasse maintain the opposite opinion, which is
certainly the more obvious sense of the text, though the sense
of Dr. Arnold would also be admissible. The naked foot is very
liable to slip in the mud, and might easily be rendered less
liable, by sandals, or covering particularly adapted to that
purpose. Besides, Wasse remarks justly, that the warrior who is
to use his _right_ arm requires to have his _left_ foot firmly
planted.
[391] Thucyd. iii, 22. φρυκτοί τε ᾔροντο ἐς τὰς Θήβας πολέμιοι,
etc. It would seem by this statement that the blockaders must
have been often in the habit of transmitting intelligence to
Thebes by means of fire-signals; each particular combination of
lights having more or less of a special meaning. The Platæans
had observed this, and foresaw that the same means would be used
on the night of the outbreak, to bring assistance from Thebes
forthwith. If they had not observed it _before_, they could
not have prepared for the moment when the new signal would be
hoisted, so as to confound its meaning—ὅπως ἀσαφῆ τὰ σημεῖα ᾖ....
Compare iii, 80. I agree with the general opinion stated in Dr.
Arnold’s note respecting these fire-signals, and even think that
it might have been sustained more strongly.
“Non enim (observes Cicero, in the fifth oration against
Verres, c. 36), sicut erat nuper consuetudo, prædonum adventum
significabat _ignis è speculà sublatus aut tumulo_: sed flamma
ex ipso incendio navium et calamitatem acceptam et periculum
reliquum nuntiabat.”
Meanwhile, the escaping Platæans, masters of the two adjoining
towers,—on the top of which some of them mounted, while others
held the doorway through, so as to repel with spears and darts
all approach of the blockaders,—prosecuted their flight without
interruption over the space between, shoving down the battlements in
order to make it more level and plant a greater number of ladders.
In this manner they all successively got over and crossed the outer
ditch; every man, immediately after crossing, standing ready on the
outer bank, with bow and javelin, to repel assailants and maintain
safe passages for his comrades in the rear. At length, when all had
descended, there remained the last and greatest difficulty,—the
escape of those who occupied the two towers and kept the intermediate
portion of wall free: yet even this was accomplished successfully and
without loss. The outer ditch was, however, found embarrassing,—so
full of water from the rain as to be hardly fordable, yet with
thin ice on it also, from a previous frost: for the storm, which
in other respects was the main help to their escape, here retarded
their passage of the ditch by an unusual accumulation of water. It
was not, however, until all had crossed except the defenders of the
towers,—who were yet descending and scrambling through,—that the
Peloponnesian reserve of three hundred were seen approaching the spot
with torches. Their unshielded right side was turned towards the
ditch, and the Platæans, already across and standing on the bank,
immediately assailed them with arrows and javelins,—in which the
torches enabled them to take tolerable aim, while the Peloponnesians
on their side could not distinguish their enemies in the dark, and
had no previous knowledge of their position. They were thus held in
check until the rearmost Platæans had surmounted the difficulties
of the passage: after which the whole body stole off as speedily as
they could, taking at first the road towards Thebes, while their
pursuers were seen with their torch-lights following the opposite
direction, on the road which led by the heights called Dryos-Kephalæ
to Athens: after having marched about three quarters of a mile on the
road to Thebes, leaving the chapel of the Hero Androkratês on their
right hand, the fugitives quitted it, and striking to the eastward
towards Erythræ and Hysiæ, soon found themselves in safety among
the mountains which separate Bœotia from Attica at that point; from
whence they passed into the glad harbor and refuge of Athens.[392]
[392] Thucyd. iii, 24. Diodorus (xii, 56) gives a brief summary
of these facts, without either novelty or liveliness.
Two hundred and twelve brave men thus emerged to life and liberty,
breaking loose from that impending fate which too soon overtook the
remainder, and preserving for future times the genuine breed and
honorable traditions of Platæa. One man alone was taken prisoner
at the brink of the outer ditch, while a few, who had enrolled
themselves originally for the enterprise, lost courage and returned
in despair even from the foot of the inner wall; telling their
comrades within that the whole band had perished. Accordingly, at
daybreak, the Platæans within sent out a herald to solicit a truce
for burial of the dead bodies, and it was only by the answer made
to this request, that they learned the actual truth. The description
of this memorable outbreak exhibits not less daring in the execution
than skill and foresight in the design; and is the more interesting,
inasmuch as the men who thus worked out their salvation were
precisely the bravest men, who best deserved it.
Meanwhile, Pachês and the Athenians kept Mitylênê closely blocked
up, the provisions were nearly exhausted, and the besieged were
already beginning to think of capitulation,—when their spirits were
raised by the arrival of the Lacedæmonian envoy Salæthus, who had
landed at Pyrrha on the west of Lesbos, and contrived to steal in
through a ravine which obstructed the continuity of the blockading
wall,—about February 427 B.C. He encouraged the Mitylenæans to hold
out, assuring them that a Peloponnesian fleet under Alkidas was on
the point of setting out to assist them, and that Attica would be
forthwith invaded by the general Peloponnesian army. His own arrival,
also, and his stay in the town, was in itself no small encouragement:
we shall see hereafter, when we come to the siege of Syracuse by the
Athenians, how much might depend upon the presence of one single
Spartan. All thought of surrender was accordingly abandoned, and
the Mitylenæans awaited with impatience the arrival of Alkidas, who
started from Peloponnesus at the beginning of April, with forty-two
triremes; while the Lacedæmonian army at the same time invaded
Attica, in order to keep the attention of Athens fully employed.
Their ravages on this occasion were more diligent, searching, and
destructive to the country than before, and were continued the longer
because they awaited the arrival of news from Lesbos. But none
reached them, their stock of provisions was exhausted, and the army
was obliged to break up.[393]
[393] Thucyd. iii, 25, 26.
The news, when it did arrive, proved very unsatisfactory.
Salæthus and the Mitylenæans had held out until their provisions
were completely exhausted, but neither relief, nor tidings, reached
them from Peloponnesus. At length, even Salæthus became convinced
that no relief would come; he projected, therefore, as a last hope,
a desperate attack upon the Athenians and their wall of blockade.
For this purpose, he distributed full panoplies among the mass of
the people, or commons, who had hitherto been without them, having
at best nothing more than bows or javelins.[394] But he had not
sufficiently calculated the consequences of this important step.
The Mitylenæan multitude, living under an oligarchical government,
had no interest whatever in the present contest, which had been
undertaken without any appeal to their opinion. They had no reason
for aversion to Athens, seeing that they suffered no practical
grievance from the Athenian alliance: and we shall find hereafter
that even among the subject-allies—to say nothing of a privileged
ally like Mitylênê—the bulk of the citizens were never forward,
sometimes positively reluctant, to revolt. The Mitylenæan oligarchy
had revolted, in spite of the absence of practical wrongs, because
they desired an uncontrolled town-autonomy as well as security for
its continuance: but this was a feeling to which the people were
naturally strangers, having no share in the government of their own
town, and being kept dead and passive, as it was the interest of the
oligarchy that they should be, in respect to political sentiment. A
Grecian oligarchy might obtain from its people quiet submission under
ordinary circumstances, but if ever it required energetic effort,
the genuine devotion under which alone such effort could be given,
was found wanting. Accordingly, the Mitylenæan demos, so soon as
they found themselves strengthened and ennobled by the possession of
heavy armor, refused obedience to the orders of Salæthus for marching
out and imperiling their lives in a desperate struggle. They were
under the belief—not unnatural under the secrecy of public affairs
habitually practised by an oligarchy, but which, assuredly, the
Athenian demos would have been too well informed to entertain—that
their governors were starving them, and had concealed stores of
provisions for themselves. Accordingly, the first use which they
made of their arms was, to demand that these concealed stores should
be brought out and fairly apportioned to all, threatening, unless
their demand was complied with at once, to enter into negotiations
with the Athenians, and surrender the city. The ruling Mitylenæans,
unable to prevent this, but foreseeing that it would be their
irretrievable ruin, preferred the chance of negotiating themselves
for a capitulation. It was agreed with Pachês, that the Athenian
armament should enter into possession of Mitylênê; that the fate of
its people and city should be left to the Athenian assembly, and
that the Mitylenæans should send envoys to Athens to plead their
cause: until the return of these envoys, Pachês engaged that no one
should be either killed, or put in chains, or sold into slavery.
Nothing was said about Salæthus, who hid himself as well as he could
in the city. In spite of the guarantee received from Pachês, so
great was the alarm of those Mitylenæans who had chiefly instigated
the revolt, that when he actually took possession of the city, they
threw themselves as suppliants upon the altars for protection; but
being induced, by his assurances, to quit their sanctuary, were
placed in the island of Tenedos until answer should be received from
Athens.[395]
[394] Thucyd. iii, 27. ὁ Σάλαιθος, καὶ αὐτὸς οὐ προσδεχόμενος ἔτι
τὰς ναῦς, ὁπλίζει τὸν δῆμον, πρότερον ψιλὸν ὄντα, ὡς ἐπεξιὼν τοῖς
Ἀθηναίοις.
[395] Thucyd. iii, 28.
Having thus secured possession of Mitylênê, Pachês sent round some
triremes to the other side of the island, and easily captured
Antissa. But before he had time to reduce the two remaining towns
of Pyrrha and Eresus, he received news which forced him to turn his
attention elsewhere.
To the astonishment of every one, the Peloponnesian fleet of
Alkidas was seen on the coast of Ionia. It ought to have been there
much earlier, and had Alkidas been a man of energy, it would have
reached Mitylênê even before the surrender of the city. But the
Peloponnesians, when about to advance into the Athenian waters
and brave the Athenian fleet, were under the same impressions of
conscious weakness and timidity—especially since the victories of
Phormio in the preceding year—as that which beset land-troops who
marched up to attack the Lacedæmonian heavy-armed.[396] Alkidas,
though unobstructed by the Athenians, who were not aware of his
departure,—though pressed to hasten forward by Lesbian and Ionian
exiles on board, and aided by expert pilots from those Samian
exiles who had established themselves at Anæa,[397] on the Asiatic
continent, and acted as zealous enemies of Athens,—nevertheless,
instead of sailing straight to Lesbos, lingered first near
Peloponnesus, next at the island of Delos, making capture of private
vessels with their crews; until at length, on reaching the islands of
Ikarus and Mykonus, he heard the unwelcome tidings that the besieged
town had capitulated. Not at first crediting the report, he sailed
onward to Embaton, in the Erythræan territory on the coast of Asia
Minor, where he found the news confirmed. As only seven days had
elapsed since the capitulation had been concluded, Teutiaplus, an
Eleian captain in the fleet, strenuously urged the daring project
of sailing on forthwith, and surprising Mitylênê by night in its
existing unsettled condition: no preparation would have been made for
receiving them, and there was good chance that the Athenians might
be suddenly overpowered, the Mitylenæans again armed, and the town
recovered.
[396] Thucyd. iv, 34. τῇ γνώμῃ δεδουλωμένοι ὡς ἐπὶ Λακεδαιμονίους.
[397] Thucyd. iv, 75.
Such a proposition, which was indeed something more than daring,
did not suit the temper of Alkidas. Nor could he be induced by the
solicitation of the exiles to fix and fortify himself either in any
port of Ionia, or in the Æolic town of Kymê, so as to afford support
and countenance to such subjects of the Athenian empire as were
disposed to revolt; though he was confidently assured that many of
them would revolt on his proclamation, and that the satrap Pissuthnês
of Sardis would help him to defray the expense. Having been sent for
the express purpose of relieving Mitylênê, Alkidas believed himself
interdicted from any other project, and determined to return to
Peloponnesus at once, dreading nothing so much as the pursuit of
Pachês and the Athenian fleet. From Embaton, accordingly, he started
on his return, coasting southward along Asia Minor as far as Ephesus.
But the prisoners taken in his voyage were now an encumbrance to
his flight; and their number was not inconsiderable, since all the
merchant-vessels in his route had approached the fleet without
suspicion, believing it to be Athenian: a Peloponnesian fleet near
the coast of Ionia was as yet something unheard of and incredible. To
get rid of his prisoners, Alkidas stopped at Myonnêsus, near Teos,
and there put to death the greater number of them,—a barbarous
proceeding, which excited lively indignation among the neighboring
Ionic cities to which they belonged; insomuch that when he reached
Ephesus, the Samian exiles dwelling at Anæa, who had come forward so
actively to help him, sent him a spirited remonstrance, reminding him
that the slaughter of men neither engaged in war, nor enemies, nor
even connected with Athens, except by constraint, was disgraceful
to one who came forth as the liberator of Greece,—and that, if he
persisted, he would convert his friends into enemies, not his enemies
into friends. So keenly did Alkidas feel this animadversion, that he
at once liberated the remainder of his prisoners, several of them
Chians; and then started from Ephesus, taking his course across sea
towards Krete and Peloponnesus. After much delay off the coast of
Krete from stormy weather, which harassed and dispersed his fleet, he
at length reached in safety the harbor of Kyllênê in Elis, where his
scattered ships were ultimately reunited.[398]
[398] Thucyd. iii, 32, 33-69.
Thus inglorious was the voyage of the first Peloponnesian admiral
who dared to enter that _Mare clausum_ which passed for a portion
of the territory of Athens.[399] But though he achieved little, his
mere presence excited everywhere not less dismay than astonishment:
for the Ionic towns were all unfortified, and Alkidas might take and
sack any one of them by sudden assault, even though unable to hold
it permanently. Pressing messages reached Pachês from Erythræ and
from several other places, while the Athenian triremes called Paralus
and Salaminia, the privileged vessels which usually carried public
and sacred deputations, had themselves seen the Peloponnesian fleet
anchored at Ikarus, and brought him the same intelligence. Pachês,
having his hands now free by the capture of Mitylênê, set forth
immediately in pursuit of the intruder, whom he chased as far the
island of Patmos. It was there ascertained that Alkidas had finally
disappeared from the eastern waters, and the Athenian admiral, though
he would have rejoiced to meet the Peloponnesian fleet in the open
sea, accounted it fortunate that they had not taken up a position in
some Asiatic harbor,—in which case it would have been necessary for
him to undertake a troublesome and tedious blockade,[400] besides all
the chances of revolt among the Athenian dependencies. We shall see
how much, in this respect, depended upon the personal character of
the Lacedæmonian commander, when we come hereafter to the expedition
of Brasidas.
[399] Thucyd. v, 56. Ἀργεῖοι δ᾽ ἐλθόντες παρ᾽ Ἀθηναίους ἐπεκάλουν
ὅτι, γεγραμμένον ἐν ταῖς σπονδαῖς ~διὰ τῆς ἑαυτῶν~ ἑκάστους μὴ
ἐᾶν πολεμίους διιέναι, ἐάσειαν ~κατὰ θάλασσαν~ (Λακεδαιμονίους)
παραπλεῦσαι.
We see that the sea is here reckoned as a portion of the Athenian
territory; and even the portion of sea near to Peloponnesus,—much
more, that on the coast of Ionia.
[400] Thucyd. iii, 33.
On his return from Patmos to Mitylênê, Pachês was induced to stop at
Notium by the solicitations of some exiles. Notium was the port of
Kolophon, from which it was some little distance, as Peiræus was from
Athens.[401]
[401] The dissensions between Notium and Kolophon are noticed by
Aristot. Politic. v, 3, 2.
About three years before, a violent internal dissension had taken
place in Kolophon, and one of the parties, invoking the aid of
the Persian Itamanes (seemingly one of the generals of the satrap
Pissuthnês), had placed him in possession of the town; whereupon the
opposite party, forced to retire, had established itself separately
and independently at Notium. But the Kolophonians who remained in
the town soon contrived to procure a party in Notium, whereby they
were enabled to regain possession of it, through the aid of a body of
Arcadian mercenaries in the service of Pissuthnês. These Arcadians
formed a standing garrison at Notium, in which they occupied a
separate citadel, or fortified space, while the town became again
attached as harbor to Kolophon. A considerable body of exiles,
however, expelled on that occasion, now invoked the aid of Pachês to
reinstate them, and to expel the Arcadians. On reaching the place,
the Athenian general prevailed upon Hippias, the Arcadian captain,
to come forth to a parley, under the promise that, if nothing
mutually satisfactory could be settled, he would again replace
him, “safe and sound,” in the fortification. But no sooner had the
Arcadian come forth to this parley, than Pachês, causing him to be
detained under guard, but without fetters or ill-usage, immediately
attacked the fortification while the garrison were relying on the
armistice, carried it by storm, and put to death both the Arcadians
and the Persians who were found within. Having got possession of
the fortification, he next brought Hippias again into it, “safe and
sound,” according to the terms of the convention, which was thus
literally performed, and then immediately afterwards caused him to
be shot with arrows and javelins. Of this species of fraud, founded
on literal performance and real violation of an agreement, there are
various examples in Grecian history; but nowhere do we read of a
more flagitious combination of deceit and cruelty than the behavior
of Pachês at Notium. How it was noticed at Athens, we do not know:
but we may remark, not without surprise, that Thucydidês recounts it
plainly and calmly without a single word of comment.[402]
[402] Thucyd. iii, 34.
Notium was separated from Kolophon, and placed in possession of
those Kolophonians who were opposed to the Persian supremacy in the
upper town. But as it had been down to this time a mere appendage of
Kolophon and not a separate town, the Athenians soon afterwards sent
œkists and performed for it the ceremonies of colonization according
to their own laws and customs, inviting from every quarter the
remaining exiles of Kolophon.[403] Whether any new settlers went from
Athens itself, we do not know: but the step was intended to confer a
sort of Hellenic citizenship, and recognized collective personality,
on the new-born town of Notium; without which, neither its theôry or
solemn deputation would have been admitted to offer public sacrifice,
nor its private citizens to contend for the prize, at Olympic and
other great festivals.
[403] Thucyd. iii, 34; C. A. Pertz, Colophoniaca, p. 36.
(Göttingen, 1848.)
Having cleared the Asiatic waters from the enemies of Athens, Pachês
returned to Lesbos, reduced the towns of Pyrrha and Eresus, and
soon found himself so completely master both of Mitylênê and the
whole island, as to be able to send home the larger part of his
force; carrying with them as prisoners those Mitylenæans who had
been deposited in Tenedos, as well as others, prominently implicated
in the late revolt, to the number altogether of rather more than a
thousand. The Lacedæmonian Salæthus, being recently detected in his
place of concealment, was included among the prisoners transmitted.
Upon the fate of these prisoners the Athenians had now to pronounce,
and they entered upon the discussion in a temper of extreme wrath
and vengeance. As to Salæthus, their resolution to put him to death
was unanimous and immediate, nor would they listen to his promises,
assuredly delusive, of terminating the blockade of Platæa, in case
his life were spared. What to do with Mitylênê and its inhabitants
was a point more doubtful, and was submitted to formal debate in the
public assembly.
It is in this debate that Thucydidês first takes notice of Kleon,
who is, however, mentioned by Plutarch as rising into importance
some few years earlier, during the lifetime of Periklês. Under the
great increase of trade and population in Athens and Peiræus during
the last forty years, a new class of politicians seem to have grown
up, men engaged in various descriptions of trade and manufacture,
who began to rival more or less in importance the ancient families
of Attic proprietors. This change was substantially analogous to
that which took place in the cities of mediæval Europe, when the
merchants and traders of the various guilds gradually came to compete
with, and ultimately supplanted, the patrician families in whom the
supremacy had originally resided. In Athens, persons of ancient
family and station enjoyed at this time no political privilege,
and since the reforms of Ephialtês and Periklês, the political
constitution had become thoroughly democratical. But they still
continued to form the two highest classes in the Solonian census
founded on property,—the pentakosiomedimni, and the hippeis, or
knights: new men enriched by trade doubtless got into these classes,
but probably only in minority, and imbibed the feeling of the class
as they found it, instead of bringing into it any new spirit. Now an
individual Athenian of this class, though without any legal title
to preference, yet when he stood forward as candidate for political
influence, continued to be decidedly preferred and welcomed by the
social sentiment at Athens, which preserved in its spontaneous
sympathies distinctions effaced from the political code.[404]
Besides this place ready prepared for him in the public sympathy,
especially advantageous at the outset of political life,—he found
himself farther borne up by the family connections, associations,
and political clubs, etc., which exercised very great influence both
on the politics and the judicature of Athens, and of which he became
a member as a matter of course. Such advantages were doubtless only
auxiliary, carrying a man up to a certain point of influence, but
leaving him to achieve the rest by his own personal qualities and
capacity. But their effect was nevertheless very real, and those who,
without possessing them, met and buffeted him in the public assembly,
contended against great disadvantages. A person of such low or
middling station obtained no favorable presumptions or indulgence on
the part of the public to meet him half-way,—nor had he established
connections to encourage first successes, or help him out of early
scrapes. He found others already in possession of ascendency, and
well-disposed to keep down new competitors; so that he had to win
his own way unaided, from the first step to the last, by qualities
personal to himself; by assiduity of attendance, by acquaintance with
business, by powers of striking speech, and withal by unflinching
audacity, indispensable to enable him to bear up against that
opposition and enmity which he would incur from the high-born
politicians, and organized party clubs, as soon as he appeared to be
rising up into ascendency.
[404] Thucyd. v, 43. Ἀλκιβιάδης—ἀνὴρ ἡλικίᾳ μὲν ὢν ἔτι τότε
νέος, ὡς ἐν ἄλλῃ πόλει, ἀξιώματι δὲ προγόνων τιμώμενος. Compare
Xenophon, Memorabil. i, 2, 25; iii, 6, 1.
The free march of political and judicial affairs raised up several
such men, during the years beginning and immediately preceding
the Peloponnesian war. Even during the lifetime of Periklês, they
appear to have arisen in greater or less numbers: but the personal
ascendency of that great man,—who combined an aristocratical position
with a strong and genuine democratical sentiment, and an enlarged
intellect rarely found attached to either,—impressed a peculiar
character on Athenian politics. The Athenian world was divided into
his partisans and his opponents, among each of whom there were
individuals high-born and low-born,—though the aristocratical party,
properly so called, the majority of wealthy and high-born Athenians,
either opposed or disliked him. It is about two years after his death
that we begin to hear of a new class of politicians: Eukratês, the
rope-seller; Kleon, the leather-seller; Lysiklês, the sheep-seller;
Hyperbolus, the lamp-maker;[405] the two first of whom must have
been already well-known as speakers in the ekklesia, even during the
lifetime of Periklês. Among them all, the most distinguished was
Kleon, son of Kleænetus.
[405] Aristophan. Equit. 130, _seqq._, and Scholia; Eupolis,
Demi, Fram. xv, p. 466, ed. Meineke. See the remarks in Ranck,
Commentat. de Vitâ Aristophanis, p. cccxxxiv, _seqq._
Kleon acquired his first importance among the speakers against
Periklês, so that he would thus obtain for himself, during his early
political career, the countenance of the numerous and aristocratical
anti-Perikleans. He is described by Thucydidês in general terms as
a person of the most violent temper and character in Athens,—as
being dishonest in his calumnies, and virulent in his invective
and accusation.[406] Aristophanês, in his comedy of the Knights,
reproduces these features, with others new and distinct, as well
as with exaggerated details, comic, satirical, and contemptuous.
His comedy depicts Kleon in the point of view in which he would
appear to the knights of Athens,—a leather-dresser, smelling of the
tan-yard,—a low-born brawler, terrifying opponents by the violence
of his criminations, the loudness of his voice, the impudence of his
gestures,—moreover, as venal in his politics, threatening men with
accusations, and then receiving money to withdraw them; a robber of
the public treasury, persecuting merit as well as rank, and courting
the favor of the assembly by the basest and most guilty cajolery. The
general attributes set forth by Thucydidês (apart from Aristophanês,
who does not profess to write history), we may well accept; the
powerful and violent invective of Kleon, often dishonest, together
with his self-confidence and audacity in the public assembly. Men of
the middling class, like Kleon and Hyperbolus, who persevered in
addressing the public assembly and trying to take a leading part in
it, against persons of greater family pretension than themselves,
were pretty sure to be men of more than usual audacity. Had they
not possessed this quality, they would never have surmounted the
opposition made to them: we may well believe that they had it to
a displeasing excess,—and even if they had not, the same measure
of self-assumption which in Alkibiadês would be tolerated from his
rank and station, would in them pass for insupportable impudence.
Unhappily, we have no specimens to enable us to appreciate the
invective of Kleon. We cannot determine whether it was more virulent
than that of Demosthenês and Æschinês, seventy years afterwards,—each
of those eminent orators imputing to the other the grossest
impudence, calumny, perjury, corruption, loud voice, and revolting
audacity of manner, in language which Kleon can hardly have surpassed
in intensity of vituperation, though he doubtless fell immeasurably
short of it in classical finish. Nor can we even tell in what degree
Kleon’s denunciations of the veteran Periklês were fiercer than those
memorable invectives against the old age of Sir Robert Walpole,
with which Lord Chatham’s political career opened. The talent for
invective possessed by Kleon, employed first against Periklês, would
be counted as great impudence by the partisans of that illustrious
statesman, as well as by impartial and judicious citizens; but among
the numerous enemies of Periklês, it would be applauded as a burst
of patriotic indignation, and would procure for the orator that
extraneous support at first which would sustain him until he acquired
his personal hold on the public assembly.[407]
[406] Thucyd. iii, 36. Κλέων—ὢν καὶ ἐς τὰ ἄλλα βιαιότατος τῶν
πολιτῶν, καὶ τῷ δήμῳ παραπολὺ ἐν τῷ τότε πιθανώτατος.
He also mentions Kleon a second time, two years afterwards, but
in terms which also seem to imply a first introduction,—μάλιστα
δὲ αὐτοὺς ἐνῆγε Κλέων ὁ Κλεαινέτου, ἀνὴρ δημαγωγὸς κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον
τὸν χρόνον ὢν καὶ τῷ πλήθει πιθανώτατος, iv, 21-28, also v, 16.
Κλέων—νομίζων καταφανέστερος ἂν εἶναι κακουργῶν, καὶ ἀπιστότερος
διαβάλλων, etc.
[407] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 33. Ἐπεφύετο δὲ καὶ Κλέων, ἤδη διὰ
τῆς πρὸς ἐκεῖνον ὀργῆς τῶν πολιτῶν πορευόμενος εἰς τὴν δημαγωγίαν.
Periklês was δηχθεὶς αἴθωνι Κλέωνι—in the words of the comic
author Hermippus.
By what degrees or through what causes that hold was gradually
increased, we do not know; but at the time when the question of
Mitylênê came on for discussion, it had grown into a sort of
ascendency which Thucydidês describes by saying that Kleon was
“at that time by far the most persuasive speaker in the eyes of
the people.” The fact of Kleon’s great power of speech, and his
capacity of handling public business in a popular manner, is better
attested than anything else respecting him, because it depends upon
two witnesses both hostile to him,—Thucydidês and Aristophanês. The
assembly and the dikastery were Kleon’s theatre and holding-ground:
for the Athenian people taken collectively in their place of meeting,
and the Athenian people taken individually, were not always the
same person and had not the same mode of judgment: Demos sitting in
the Pnyx, was a different man from Demos at home.[408] The lofty
combination of qualities possessed by Periklês exercised ascendency
over both one and the other; but the qualities of Kleon swayed
considerably the former without standing high in the esteem of the
latter.
[408] Aristophan. Equit. 750.
When the fate of Mitylênê and its inhabitants was submitted to the
Athenian assembly, Kleon took the lead in the discussion. There never
was a theme more perfectly suited to his violent temperament and
power of fierce invective. Taken collectively, the case of Mitylênê
presented a revolt as inexcusable and aggravated as any revolt
could be: and we have only to read the grounds of it, as set forth
by the Mitylenæan speakers themselves before the Peloponnesians at
Olympia, to be satisfied that such a proceeding, when looked at from
the Athenian point of view, would be supposed to justify, and even
to require, the very highest pitch of indignation. The Mitylenæans
admit, not only that they have no ground of complaint against Athens,
but that they have been well and honorably treated by her, with
special privilege. But they fear that she may oppress them in future:
they hate the very principle of her empire, and eagerly instigate,
as well as aid, her enemies to subdue her: they select the precise
moment in which she has been worn down by a fearful pestilence,
invasion, and cost of war. Nothing more than this would be required
to kindle the most intense wrath in the bosom of an Athenian patriot:
but there was yet another point which weighed as much as the rest, if
not more: the revolters had been the first to invite a Peloponnesian
fleet across the Ægean, and the first to proclaim, both to Athens and
her allies, the precarious tenure of her empire.[409] The violent
Kleon would on this occasion find in the assembly an audience hardly
less violent than himself, and would easily be able to satisfy them
that anything like mercy to the Mitylenæans was treason to Athens.
He proposed to apply to the captive city the penalties tolerated by
the custom of war in their harshest and fullest measure: to kill
the whole Mitylenæan male population of military age, probably
about six thousand persons,—and to sell as slaves all the women and
children.[410] The proposition, though strongly opposed by Diodotus
and others, was sanctioned and passed by the assembly, and a trireme
was forthwith despatched to Mitylênê, enjoining Pachês to put it in
execution.[411]
[409] Thucyd. iii, 36. προσξυνεβάλετο οὐκ ἐλάχιστον τῆς ὁρμῆς,
etc.
[410] I infer this total number from the fact that the number
sent to Athens by Pachês, as foremost instigators, was rather
more than one thousand (Thucyd. iii, 50). The total of ἡβῶντες,
or males of military age, must have been (I imagine) six times
this number.
[411] Thucyd. iii, 36.
Such a sentence was, in principle, nothing more than a very rigorous
application of the received laws of war. Not merely the reconquered
rebel, but even the prisoner of war, apart from any special
convention, was at the mercy of his conqueror, to be slain, sold,
or admitted to ransom: and we shall find the Lacedæmonians carrying
out the maxim without the smallest abatement towards the Platæan
prisoners, in the course of a very short time. And doubtless the
Athenian people, so long as they remained in assembly, under that
absorbing temporary intensification of the common and predominant
sentiment which springs from the mere fact of multitude, and so
long as they were discussing the principle of the case, What had
Mitylênê deserved? thought only of this view. Less than the most
rigorous measure of war, they would conceive, would be inadequate
to the wrong done by the Mitylenæans. But when the assembly broke
up,—when the citizen, no longer wound up by sympathizing companions
and animated speakers in the Pnyx, subsided into the comparative
quiescence of individual life,—when the talk came to be, not about
the propriety of passing such a resolution, but about the details
of executing it, a sensible change and marked repentance became
presently visible. We must also recollect, and it is a principle of
no small moment in human affairs, especially among a democratical
people like the Athenians, who stand charged with so many
resolutions passed and afterwards unexecuted, that the sentiment of
wrath against the Mitylenæans had been really in part discharged by
the mere _passing_ of the sentence, quite apart from its execution;
just as a furious man relieves himself from overboiling anger by
imprecations against others which he would himself shrink from
afterwards realizing. The Athenians, on the whole the most humane
people in Greece,—though humanity, according to our ideas, cannot be
predicated of any Greeks,—became sensible that they had sanctioned
a cruel and frightful decree, and the captain and seamen,[412] to
whom it was given to carry, set forth on their voyage with mournful
repugnance. The Mitylenæan envoys present in Athens, who had probably
been allowed to speak in the assembly and plead their own cause,
together with those Athenians who had been proxeni and friends of
Mitylênê, and the minority generally of the previous assembly, soon
discerned, and did their best to foster, this repentance; which
became, during the course of the same evening, so powerful as well
as so wide-spread, that the stratêgi acceded to the prayer of the
envoys, and convoked a fresh assembly for the morrow to reconsider
the proceeding. By so doing, they committed an illegality, and
exposed themselves to the chance of impeachment: but the change of
feeling among the people was so manifest as to overbear any such
scruples.[413]
[412] Thucyd. iii, 36. Καὶ τῇ ὑστεραίᾳ μετάνοιά τις εὐθὺς ἦν
αὐτοῖς καὶ ἀναλογισμὸς, ὠμὸν τὸ βούλευμα καὶ μέγα ἐγνῶσθαι, πόλιν
ὅλην διαφθεῖραι μᾶλλον ἢ οὐ τοὺς αἰτίους.
The feelings of the seamen, in the trireme appointed to carry
the order of execution, are a striking point of evidence in this
case: τῆς προτέρας νεὼς οὐ σπουδῇ πλεούσης ἐπὶ πρᾶγμα ἀλλόκοτον,
etc. (iii, 50).
[413] Thucyd. iii, 36. As to the illegality, see Thucyd. vi,
14, which I think is good evidence to prove that there was
illegality. I agree with Schömann on this point, in spite of the
doubts of Dr. Arnold.
Though Thucydidês had given us only a short summary, without any
speeches, of what passed in the first assembly,—yet as to the second
assembly, he gives us at length the speeches both of Kleon and
Diodotus, the two principal orators of the first also. We may be
sure that this second assembly was in all points one of the most
interesting and anxious of the whole war; and though we cannot
certainly determine what were the circumstances which determined
Thucydidês in his selection of speeches, yet this cause, as well
as the signal defeat of Kleon, whom he disliked, may probably be
presumed to have influenced him here. That orator came forward to
defend his proposition passed on the preceding day, and denounced
in terms of indignation the unwise tenderness and scruples of the
people, who could not bear to treat their subject-allies, according
to the plain reality, as men held only by naked fear. He dwelt upon
the mischief and folly of reversing on one day what had been decided
on the day preceding,—upon the guilty ambition of orators, who
sacrificed the most valuable interests of the commonwealth either to
pecuniary gains, or to the personal credit of speaking with effect,
triumphing over rivals, and setting up their own fancies in place
of fact and reality. He deprecated the mistaken encouragement given
to such delusions by a public “wise beyond what was written,” who
came to the assembly, not to apply their good sense in judging of
public matters, but merely for the delight of hearing speeches.[414]
He restated the heinous and unprovoked wrong committed by the
Mitylenæans,—and the grounds for inflicting upon them that maximum
of punishment which “justice” enjoined. He called for “justice”
against them; nothing less, but nothing more: warning the assembly
that the imperial necessities of Athens essentially required the
constant maintenance of a sentiment of fear in the minds of unwilling
subjects, and that they must prepare to see their empire pass away
if they suffered themselves to be guided either by compassion for
those who, if victors, would have no compassion on them,[415]—or by
unseasonable moderation towards those who would neither feel nor
requite it,—or by the mere impression of seductive discourses.
Justice against the Mitylenæans, not less than the strong political
interests of Athens, required the infliction of the sentence decreed
on the day preceding.[416]
[414] Thucyd. iii, 37. οἱ μὲν γὰρ τῶν τε νόμων σοφώτεροι
βούλονται φαίνεσθαι, τῶν τε ἀεὶ λεγομένων ἐς τὸ κοινὸν
περιγίγνεσθαι ... οἱ δ᾽ ἀπιστοῦντες τῇ ἐαυτῶν ξυνέσει ἀμαθέστεροι
μὲν τῶν νόμων ἀξιοῦσιν εἶναι, ἀδυνατώτεροι δὲ τοῦ καλῶς εἰπόντος
μέμψασθαι λόγον.
Compare the language of Archidamus at Sparta in the congress,
where he takes credit to the Spartans for being ἀμαθέστερον τῶν
νόμων τῆς ὑπεροψίας παιδευόμενοι, etc. (Thucyd. i, 84)—very
similar in spirit to the remarks of Kleon about the Athenians.
[415] Thucyd. iii, 40. μηδὲ τρισὶ τοῖς ἀξυμφορωτάτοις τῇ ἀρχῇ,
οἴκτῳ, καὶ ἡδονῇ λόγων, καὶ ἐπιεικείᾳ, ἁμαρτάνειν.
[416] Thucyd. iii, 40. πειθόμενοι δὲ ἐμοὶ τά τε δίκαια ἐς
Μυτιληναίους καὶ τὰ ξύμφορα ἅμα ποιήσετε· ἄλλως δὲ γνόντες τοῖς
μὲν οὐ χαριεῖσθε, ὑμᾶς δὲ αὐτοὺς μᾶλλον δικαιώσεσθε.
The harangue of Kleon is in many respects remarkable. If we are
surprised to find a man, whose whole importance resided in his
tongue, denouncing so severely the license and the undue influence of
speech in the public assembly, we must recollect that Kleon had the
advantage of addressing himself to the intense prevalent sentiment of
the moment,—that he could, therefore, pass off the dictates of this
sentiment as plain, downright, honest sense and patriotism; while the
opponents, speaking against the reigning sentiment, and therefore
driven to collateral argument, circumlocution, and more or less of
manœuvre, might be represented as mere clever sophists, showing
their talents in making the worse appear the better reason,—if not
actually bribed, at least unprincipled, and without any sincere moral
conviction. As this is a mode of dealing with questions both of
public concern and of private morality, not less common at present
than it was in the time of the Peloponnesian war,—to seize upon some
strong and tolerably wide-spread sentiment among the public, to treat
the dictates of that sentiment as plain common sense and obvious
right, and then to shut out all rational estimate of coming good
and evil as if it were unholy or immoral, or at best mere uncandid
subtlety,—we may well notice a case in which Kleon employs it to
support a proposition now justly regarded as barbarous.
Applying our modern views to this proposition, indeed, the prevalent
sentiment would not only not be in favor of Kleon, but would be
irresistibly in favor of his opponents. To put to death in cold
blood some six thousand persons, would so revolt modern feelings,
as to overbalance all considerations of past misconduct in the
persons to be condemned. Nevertheless, the speech of Diodotus, who
followed and opposed Kleon, not only contains no appeal to any such
merciful predispositions, but even positively disclaims appealing
to them: the orator deprecates, not less than Kleon, the influence
of compassionate sentiment, or of a spirit of mere compromise and
moderation.[417] He farther discards considerations of justice or
the analogies of criminal judicature,[418]—and rests his opposition
altogether upon reasons of public prudence, bearing upon the future
welfare and security of Athens.
[417] Thucyd. iii. 48: compare the speech of Kleon. iii, 40.
ὑμεῖς δὲ γνόντες ἀμείνω τάδε εἶναι, καὶ μήτε οἴκτῳ πλέον
νείμαντες μήτε ἐπιεικείᾳ, ~οἷς οὐδὲ ἐγὼ ἐῶ προσάγεσθαι~, ἀπ᾽
αὐτῶν δὲ τῶν παραινουμένων, etc.
Dr. Arnold distinguishes οἶκτος (or ἔλεος) from ἐπιεικεία,
by saying that “the former is a feeling, the latter a habit:
οἶκτος, pity or compassion, may occasionally touch those who are
generally very far from being ἐπιεικεῖς—mild or gentle. Ἐπιεικεία
relates to all persons,—οἶκτος, to particular individuals.” The
distinction here taken is certainly in itself just, and ἐπιεικὴς
sometimes has the meaning ascribed to it by Dr. Arnold: but in
this passage I believe it has a different meaning. The contrast
between οἶκτος and ἐπιεικεία—as Dr. Arnold explains them—would be
too feeble, and too little marked, to serve the purpose of Kleon
and Diodotus. Ἐπιεικεία here rather means the disposition to stop
short of your full rights; a spirit of fairness and adjustment;
an abatement on your part likely to be requited by abatement on
the part of your adversary: compare Thucyd. i, 76; iv, 19; v, 86;
viii, 93.
[418] Thucyd. iii, 44. ἐγὼ δὲ παρῆλθον οὔτε ἀντερῶν περὶ
Μυτιληναίων οὔτε κατηγορήσων· οὐ γὰρ περὶ τῆς ἐκείνων ἀδικίας
ἡμῖν ὁ ἀγὼν, εἰ σωφρονοῦμεν, ἀλλὰ περὶ τῆς ἡμετέρας εὐβουλίας ...
~δικαιότερος γὰρ ὢν αὐτοῦ (Κλέωνος) ὁ λόγος πρὸς τὴν νῦν ὑμετέραν
ὀργὴν ἐς Μυτιληναίους~, τάχα ἂν ἐπισπάσαιτο· ~ἡμεῖς δὲ οὐ
δικαζόμεθα πρὸς αὐτοὺς, ὥστε τῶν δικαίων δεῖν~, ἀλλὰ βουλευόμεθα
περὶ αὐτῶν, ὅπως χρησίμως ἕξουσιν.