Κᾆτ᾽ ἀνὴρ ἔδοξεν εἶναι, τἀλλότριον ἀμὼν θέρος, etc.,
and 740-1197.
So far from cunningly thrusting himself into the post as general,
Kleon did everything he possibly could to avoid the post, and
was only forced into it by the artifices of his enemies. It is
important to notice how little the jests of Aristophanês can be
taken as any evidence of historical reality.
If we intend fairly to compare the behavior of Kleon with that of his
political adversaries, we must distinguish between the two occasions:
first, that in which he had frustrated the pacific mission of the
Lacedæmonian envoys; next, the subsequent delay and dilemma which has
been recently described. On the first occasion, his advice appears
to have been mistaken in policy, as well as offensive in manner:
his opponents, proposing a discussion by special commissioners as a
fair chance for honorable terms of peace, took a juster view of the
public interests. But the case was entirely altered when the mission
for peace (wisely or unwisely) had been broken up, and when the
fate of Sphakteria had been committed to the chances of war. There
were then imperative reasons for prosecuting the war vigorously,
and for employing all the force requisite to insure the capture of
that island. And looking to this end, we shall find that there was
nothing in the conduct of Kleon either to blame or to deride; while
his political adversaries, Nikias among them, are deplorably timid,
ignorant, and reckless of the public interest; seeking only to turn
the existing disappointment and dilemma into a party opportunity for
ruining him.
To grant the reinforcement asked for by Demosthenês was obviously
the proper measure, and Kleon saw that the people would go along
with him in proposing it: but he had at the same time good grounds
for reproaching Nikias, and the other stratêgi, whose duty it was
to originate that proposition, with their backwardness in remaining
silent, and in leaving the matter to go by default, as if it were
Kleon’s affair and not theirs. His taunt: “This is what _I_ would
have done, if _I_ were general,” was a mere phrase of the heat of
debate, such as must have been very often used, without any idea
on the part of the hearers of construing it as a pledge which the
speaker was bound to realize: nor was it any disgrace to Kleon to
decline a charge which he had never sought, and to confess his
incompetence to command. The reason why he was forced into the
post, in spite of his own unaffected reluctance, was not, as some
historians would have us believe, because the Athenian people loved
a joke, but from two feelings, both perfectly serious, which divided
the assembly,—feelings opposite in their nature, but coinciding
on this occasion to the same result. His enemies loudly urged him
forward, anticipating that the enterprise under him would miscarry,
and that he would thus be ruined: his friends, perceiving this
manœuvre, but not sharing in such anticipations, and ascribing
his reluctance to modesty, pronounced themselves so much the more
vehemently on behalf of their leader, and repaid the scornful cheer
by cheers of sincere encouragement. “Why do you not try your hand at
this enterprise, Kleon, if you think it so easy? You will soon find
that it is too much for you;” was the cry of his enemies: to which
his friends would reply: “Yes, to be sure, try, Kleon: by all means,
try: do not be backward; we warrant that you will come honorably out
of it, and we will stand by you.” Such cheer and counter-cheer is
precisely in the temper of an animated multitude, as Thucydidês[540]
states it, divided in feeling; and friends as well as enemies thus
concurred to impose upon Kleon a compulsion not to be eluded. Of
all the parties here concerned those whose conduct is the most
unpardonably disgraceful are Nikias and his oligarchical friends;
who force a political enemy into a supreme command against his own
strenuous protest, persuaded that he will fail so as to compromise
the lives of many soldiers, and the destinies of the state on an
important emergency,—but satisfying themselves with the idea that
they shall bring him to disgrace and ruin.
[540] Thucyd. iv, 28. οἷον ὄχλος φιλεῖ ποιεῖν, etc.
It is to be remarked, that Nikias and his fellow stratêgi were
backward on this occasion, partly because they were really afraid of
the duty. They anticipated a resistance to the death at Sphakteria,
such as that at Thermopylæ: in which case, though victory might
perhaps be won by a superior assailant force, it would not be won
without much bloodshed and peril, besides an inexpiable quarrel with
Sparta. If Kleon took a more correct measure of the chances, he ought
to have credit for it, as one “bene ausus vana contemnere.” And it
seems probable, that if he had not been thus forward in supporting
the request of Demosthenês for reinforcement,—or rather, if he had
not been so placed that he was compelled to be forward,—Nikias and
his friends would have laid aside the enterprise, and reopened
negotiations for peace, under circumstances neither honorable nor
advantageous to Athens. Kleon was in this manner one main author of
the most important success which Athens obtained throughout the whole
war.
On joining Demosthenês with his reinforcement, Kleon found every
preparation for attack made by that general, and the soldiers at
Pylus eager to commence such aggressive measures as would relieve
them from the tedium of a blockade. Sphakteria had become recently
more open to assault in consequence of an accidental conflagration of
the wood, arising from a fire kindled by the Athenian seamen, while
landing at the skirt of the island, and cooking their food: under the
influence of a strong wind, most of the wood in the island had thus
caught fire and been destroyed. To Demosthenês this was an accident
especially welcome; for the painful experience of his defeat in the
forest-covered hills of Ætolia had taught him how difficult it was
for assailants to cope with an enemy whom they could not see, and
who knew all the good points of defence in the country.[541] The
island being thus stripped of its wood, he was enabled to survey
the garrison, to count their number, and to lay his plan of attack
on certain data. He now, too, for the first time, discovered that
he had underrated their real number, having before suspected that
the Lacedæmonians had sent in rations for a greater total than was
actually there. The island was occupied altogether by four hundred
and twenty Lacedæmonian hoplites, out of whom more than one hundred
and twenty were native Spartans, belonging to the first families
in the city. The commander, Epitadas, with the main body, occupied
the centre of the island, near the only spring of water which it
afforded:[542] an advanced guard of thirty hoplites was posted not
far from the sea-shore, in the end of the island farthest from
Pylus; while the end immediately fronting Pylus, peculiarly steep
and rugged, and containing even a rude circuit of stones, of unknown
origin, which served as a sort of defence, was held as a post of
reserve.[543]
[541] Thucyd. iv, 30.
[542] Colonel Leake gives an interesting illustration of these
particulars in the topography of the island which may even now be
verified (Travels in Morea, vol. i, p. 408).
[543] Thucyd. iv, 31.
Such was the prey which Kleon and Demosthenês were anxious to grasp.
On the very day of the arrival of the former, they sent a herald to
the Lacedæmonian generals on the mainland, inviting the surrender of
the hoplites on the island, on condition of being simply detained
under guard without any hardship, until a final pacification should
take place. Of course the summons was refused; after which, leaving
only one day for repose, the two generals took advantage of the night
to put all their hoplites aboard a few triremes, making show as if
they were merely commencing the ordinary nocturnal circumnavigation,
so as to excite no suspicion in the occupants of the island. The
entire body of Athenian hoplites, eight hundred in number, were thus
disembarked in two divisions, one on each side of the island, a
little before daybreak: the advanced guard of thirty Lacedæmonians,
completely unprepared, were surprised even in their sleep and all
slain.[544] At the point of day, the entire remaining force from
the seventy-two triremes was also disembarked, leaving on board
only the thalamii, or lowest tier of rowers, and reserving only a
sufficient number to man the walls of Pylus. Altogether, there could
not have been less than ten thousand troops employed in the attack of
the island,—men of all arms: eight hundred hoplites, eight hundred
peltasts, eight hundred bowmen; the rest armed with javelins, slings,
and stones. Demosthenês kept his hoplites in one compact body, but
distributed the light-armed into separate companies of about two
hundred men each, with orders to occupy the rising grounds all round,
and harass the flanks and rear of the Lacedæmonians.[545]
[544] Thucyd. iv, 32.
[545] Thucyd. iv, 32.
To resist this large force, the Lacedæmonian commander Epitadas had
only three hundred and sixty hoplites around him; for his advanced
guard of thirty men had been slain, and as many more must have been
held in reserve to guard the rocky station in his rear: of the Helots
who were with him, Thucydidês says nothing, during the whole course
of the action. As soon as he saw the numbers and disposition of his
enemies, Epitadas placed his men in battle array, and advanced to
encounter the main body of hoplites whom he saw before him. But the
Spartan march was habitually slow:[546] moreover, the ground was
rough and uneven, obstructed with stumps, and overlaid with dust and
ashes, from the recently burnt wood, so that a march at once rapid
and orderly was hardly possible: and he had to traverse the whole
intermediate space, since the Athenian hoplites remained immovable
in their position. No sooner had his march commenced, than he found
himself assailed both in rear and flanks, especially in the right
or unshielded flank, by the numerous companies of light-armed.[547]
Notwithstanding their extraordinary superiority of number, these men
were at first awe-stricken at finding themselves in actual contest
with Lacedæmonian hoplites:[548] still, they began the fight, poured
in their missile weapons, and so annoyed the march that the hoplites
were obliged to halt, while Epitadas ordered the most active among
them to spring out of their ranks and repel the assailants. But
pursuers with spear and shield had little chance of overtaking men
lightly clad and armed, who always retired, in whatever direction
the pursuit was commenced, had the advantage of difficult ground,
redoubled their annoyance against the rear of the pursuers as soon as
the latter retreated to resume their place in the ranks, and always
took care to get round to the rear of the hoplites.
[546] Thucyd. v, 71.
[547] Thucyd. iv, 33.
[548] Thucyd. iv, 33. ὥσπερ ὅτε πρῶτον ἀπέβαινον ~τῇ γνώμῃ
δεδουλωμένοι~ ὡς ἐπὶ Λακεδαιμονίους, etc.
After some experience of the inefficacy of Lacedæmonian pursuit, the
light-armed, becoming far bolder than at first, closed upon them
nearer and more universally, with arrows, javelins, and stones,
raising shouts and clamor that rent the air, rendering the word of
command inaudible by the Lacedæmonian soldiers, who at the same time
were almost blinded by the thick clouds of dust, kicked up from the
recently spread wood-ashes.[549] Such method of fighting was one
for which the Lykurgean drill made no provision, and the longer it
continued the more painful did the embarrassment of the exposed
hoplites become: their repeated efforts to destroy or even to reach
nimble and ever-returning enemies, all proved abortive, whilst their
own numbers were incessantly diminished by wounds which they could
not return. Their only offensive arms consisted of the long spear and
short sword usual to the Grecian hoplite, without any missile weapons
whatever; nor could they even pick up and throw back the javelins
of their enemies, since the points of these javelins commonly broke
off and stuck in the shields, or sometimes even in the body which
they had wounded. Moreover, the bows of the archers, doubtless
carefully selected before starting from Athens, were powerfully
drawn, so that their arrows may sometimes have pierced and inflicted
wounds even through the shield or the helmet,—but at any rate, the
stuffed doublet, which formed the only defence of the hoplite on his
unshielded side, was a very inadequate protection against them.[550]
Under this trying distress did the Lacedæmonians continue for a
long time, poorly provided for defence, and altogether helpless for
aggression,—without being able to approach at all nearer to the
Athenian hoplites. At length the Lacedæmonian commander, seeing that
his position grew worse and worse, gave orders to close the ranks
and retreat to the last redoubt in the rear: but this movement was
not accomplished without difficulty, for the light-armed assailants
became doubly clamorous and forward, and many wounded men, unable to
move, or at least to keep in rank, were overtaken and slain.[551]
[549] Thucyd. iv, 34: compare with this the narrative of the
destruction of the Lacedæmonian mora near Lechæum, by Iphikratês
and the Peltastæ (Xenophon. Hellen. iv, 5, 11).
[550] Thucyd. iv, 34. Τό τε ἔργον ἐνταῦθα χαλεπὸν τοῖς
Λακεδαιμονίοις καθίστατο· οὔτε γὰρ οἱ πῖλοι ἔστεγον τὰ τοξεύματα,
δοράτιά τε ἐναποκέκλαστο βαλλομένων, εἶχον δὲ οὐδὲν σφίσιν
αὐτοῖς χρήσασθαι, ἀποκεκλῃμένοι μὲν τῇ ὄψει τοῦ προορᾷν, ὑπὸ δὲ
τῆς μείζονος βοῆς τῶν πολεμίων τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς παραγγελλόμενα οὐκ
ἐσακούοντες, κινδύνου δὲ πανταχόθεν περιεστῶτος, καὶ οὐκ ἔχοντες
ἐλπίδα καθ᾽ ὅ,τι χρὴ ἀμυνομένους σωθῆναι.
There has been doubt and difficulty in this passage, even from
the time of the Scholiasts. Some commentators have translated
πῖλοι _caps_ or _hats_,—others, _padded cuirasses_ of wool or
felt, round the breast and back: see the notes of Duker, Dr.
Arnold, Poppo, and Göller. That the word πῖλος is sometimes used
for the helmet, or head-piece, is unquestionable,—sometimes even
(with or without χαλκοὺς) for a brazen helmet (see Aristophan.
Lysis. 562; Antiphanês ap. Athenæ. xi, p. 503); but I cannot
think that on this occasion Thucydidês would specially indicate
the head of the Lacedæmonian hoplite as his chief vulnerable
part. Dr. Arnold, indeed, offers a reason to prove that he
might naturally do so; but in my judgment the reason is very
insufficient.
Πῖλοι means stuffed clothing of wool or felt, whether employed
to protect head, body, or feet: and I conceive, with Poppo
and others, that it here indicates the body-clothing of the
Lacedæmonian hoplite; his body being the part most open to be
wounded on the side undefended by the shield, as well as in the
rear. That the word πῖλοι will bear this sense may be seen in
Pollux, vii, 171; Plato, Timæus, p. 74; and Symposion, p. 220,
c. 35: respecting πῖλος as applied to the foot-covering,—Bekker,
Chariklês, vol. ii, p. 376.
[551] Thucyd. iv, 35.
A diminished remnant, however, reached the last post in safety, and
they were here in comparative protection, since the ground was so
rocky and impracticable that their enemies could not attack them
either in flank or rear: though the position at any rate could not
have been long tenable separately, inasmuch as the only spring of
water in the island was in the centre, which they had just been
compelled to abandon. The light-armed being now less available,
Demosthenês and Kleon brought up their eight hundred Athenian
hoplites, who had not before been engaged; but the Lacedæmonians
were here at home[552] with their weapons, and enabled to display
their well-known superiority against opposing hoplites, especially
as they had the advantage of higher ground against enemies charging
from beneath. Although the Athenians were double their own numbers
and withal yet unexhausted, they were repulsed in many successive
attacks. The besieged maintained their ground in spite of all their
previous fatigue and suffering, harder to be borne from the scanty
diet on which they had recently subsisted. The struggle lasted so
long that heat and thirst began to tell even upon the assailants,
when the commander of the Messenians came to Kleon and Demosthenês,
and intimated that they were now laboring in vain; promising at
the same time that if they would confide to him a detachment of
light troops and bowmen, he would find his way round to the higher
cliffs, in the rear of the assailants.[553] He accordingly stole
away unobserved from the rear, scrambling round over pathless crags,
and by an almost impracticable footing on the brink of the sea,
amidst approaches which the Lacedæmonians had left unguarded, never
imagining that they could be molested in that direction. He suddenly
appeared with his detachment on the higher peak above them, so that
their position was thus commanded, and they found themselves, as at
Thermopylæ, between two fires, without any hope of escape. Their
enemies in front, encouraged by the success of the Messenians,
pressed forward with increased ardor, until at length the courage of
the Lacedæmonians gave way, and the position was carried.[554]
[552] Thucyd. iv, 33. τῇ σφετέρᾳ ἐμπειρίᾳ χρήσασθαι, etc.
[553] Thucyd. iv, 36.
[554] Thucyd. iv, 37.
A few moments more, and they would have been all overpowered and
slain, when Kleon and Demosthenês, anxious to carry them as prisoners
to Athens, constrained their men to halt, and proclaimed by herald
an invitation to surrender, on condition of delivering up their
arms and being held at the disposal of the Athenians. Most of them,
incapable of farther effort, closed with the proposition forthwith,
signifying compliance by dropping their shields and waving both
hands above their heads. The battle being thus ended, Styphon the
commander—originally only third in command, but now chief, since
Epitadas had been slain, and the second in command, Hippagretês,
was lying disabled by wounds on the field—entered into conference
with Kleon and Demosthenês, and entreated permission to send across
for orders to the Lacedæmonians on the mainland. The Athenian
commanders, though refusing this request, sent themselves and
invited Lacedæmonian heralds over from the mainland, through whom
communications were exchanged twice or three times between Styphon
and the chief Lacedæmonian authorities. At length the final message
came: “The Lacedæmonians direct you to take counsel for yourselves,
but to do nothing disgraceful.”[555] Their counsel was speedily
taken; they surrendered themselves and delivered up their arms; two
hundred and ninety-two in number, the survivors of the original
total of four hundred and twenty. And out of these, no less than
one hundred and twenty were native Spartans, some of them belonging
to the first families in the city.[556] They were kept under guard
during that night, and distributed on the morrow among the Athenian
trierarchs to be conveyed as prisoners to Athens; while a truce was
granted to the Lacedæmonians on shore, in order that they might carry
across the dead bodies for burial. So careful had Epitadas been
in husbanding the provisions, that some food was yet found in the
island; though the garrison had subsisted for fifty-two days upon
casual supplies, aided by such economies as had been laid by during
the twenty days of the armistice, when food of a stipulated quantity
was regularly furnished. Seventy-two days had thus elapsed, from the
first imprisonment in the island to the hour of their surrender.[557]
[555] Thucyd. iv. 38. Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι κελεύουσιν ὑμᾶς αὐτοὺς
περὶ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν βουλεύεσθαι, μηδὲν αἰσχρὸν ποιοῦντας.
[556] Thucyd. iv, 38; v, 15.
[557] Thucyd. iv, 39.
The best troops in modern times would neither incur reproach, nor
occasion surprise, by surrendering, under circumstances in all
respects similar to this gallant remnant in Sphakteria. Yet in Greece
the astonishment was prodigious and universal, when it was learned
that the Lacedæmonians had consented to become prisoners:[558] for
the terror inspired by their name, and the deep-struck impression of
Thermopylæ, had created a belief that they would endure any extremity
of famine, and perish in the midst of any superiority of hostile
force, rather than dream of giving up their arms and surviving as
captives. The events of Sphakteria, shocking as they did this
preconceived idea, discredited the military prowess of Sparta in the
eyes of all Greece, and especially in those of her own allies. Even
in Sparta itself, too, the same feeling prevailed,—partially revealed
in the answer transmitted to Styphon from the generals on shore,
who did not venture to forbid surrender, yet discountenanced it by
implication: and it is certain that the Spartans would have lost less
by their death than by their surrender. But we read with disgust
the spiteful taunt of one of the allies of Athens (not an Athenian)
engaged in the affair, addressed in the form of a question to one of
the prisoners: “Have your best men then been all slain?” The reply
conveyed an intimation of the standing contempt entertained by the
Lacedæmonians for the bow and its chance-strokes in the line: “That
would be a capital arrow which could single out the best man.” The
language which Herodotus puts into the mouth of Demaratus, composed
in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, attests this same belief
in Spartan valor: “The Lacedæmonians die, but never surrender.”[559]
Such impression was from henceforward, not indeed effaced, but
sensibly enfeebled, and never again was it restored to its former
pitch.
[558] Thucyd. iv, 40. παρὰ γνώμην τε δὴ μάλιστα τῶν κατὰ τὸν
πόλεμον τοῦτο τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἐγένετο, etc.
[559] To adopt a phrase, the counterpart of that which has been
ascribed to the Vieille Garde of the Emperor Napoleon’s army;
compare Herodot. vii, 104.
But the general judgment of the Greeks respecting the capture
of Sphakteria, remarkable as it is to commemorate, is far less
surprising than that pronounced by Thucydidês himself. Kleon and
Demosthenês returning with a part of the squadron and carrying all
the prisoners, started from Sphakteria on the next day but one after
the action, and reached Athens within twenty days after Kleon had
left it. Thus, “the promise of Kleon, _insane as it was_, came true,”
observes the historian.[560]
[560] Thucyd. iv, 39. Καὶ τοῦ Κλέωνος ~καίπερ μανιώδης οὖσα ἡ
ὑπόσχεσις ἀπέβη~· ἐντὸς γὰρ εἴκοσιν ἡμερῶν ἤγαγε τοὺς ἄνδρας,
ὥσπερ ὑπέστη.
Mr. Mitford, in recounting these incidents, after having
said, respecting Kleon: “In a _very extraordinary train of
circumstances_ which followed, _his impudence and his fortune_
(if, in the want of another, we may use that term) wonderfully
favored him,” goes on to observe, two pages farther:—
“It however soon appeared, that though for a man like Cleon,
unversed in military command, the undertaking was rash and the
bragging promise abundantly ridiculous, yet the business was not
so desperate as it was in the moment generally imagined: and
in fact the folly of the Athenian people, in committing such a
trust to such a man, far exceeded that of the man himself, whose
impudence seldom carried him beyond the control of his cunning.
He had received intelligence that Demosthenês had already formed
the plan and was preparing for the attempt, with the forces upon
the spot and in the neighborhood. Hence, his apparent moderation
in the demand for troops; which he judiciously accommodated to
the gratification of the Athenian people, by avoiding to require
any Athenians. He farther showed his judgment, when the decree
was to be passed which was finally to direct the expedition, by
a request which was readily granted, that Demosthenês might be
joined with him in the command.” (Mitford, Hist. of Greece, vol.
iii, ch. xv, sect. vii. pp. 250-253.)
It appears as if no historian could write down the name of Kleon
without attaching to it some disparaging verb or adjective. We
are here told in the same sentence that Kleon was an _impudent
braggart_ for _promising the execution of the enterprise_,—and
yet that the enterprise itself was _perfectly feasible_. We
are told in one sentence that he was rash and ridiculous for
promising this, _unversed as he was in military command_: a few
words farther, we are informed that he expressly requested that
the most competent man to be found, Demosthenês, might be named
his colleague. We are told of the _cunning of Kleon_, and that
_Kleon had received intelligence from Demosthenês_,—as if this
were some private communication to himself. But Demosthenês had
sent no news to Kleon, nor did Kleon know anything which was not
equally known to every man in the assembly. _The folly of the
people in committing the trust to Kleon_ is denounced,—as if
Kleon had sought it himself, or as if his friends had been the
first to propose it for him. If the folly of the people was thus
great, what are we to say of the knavery of the oligarchical
party, with Nikias at their head, who impelled the people into
this folly, for the purpose of ruining a political antagonist,
and who forced Kleon into the post against his own most
unaffected reluctance? Against this manœuvre of the oligarchical
party, neither Mr. Mitford nor any other historian says a word.
When Kleon judges circumstances rightly, as Mr. Mitford allows
that he did in this case, he has credit for nothing better than
_cunning_.
The truth is, that the people committed no folly in appointing
Kleon, for he justified the best expectations of his friends. But
Nikias and his friends committed great knavery in proposing it,
since they fully believed that he would fail. And, even upon Mr.
Mitford’s statement of the case, the opinion of Thucydidês which
stands at the beginning of this note is thoroughly unjustifiable;
not less unjustifiable than the language of the modern historian
about the “extraordinary circumstances,” and the way in which
Kleon was “favored by fortune.” Not a single incident can
be specified in the narrative to bear out these invidious
assertions.
Men with arms in their hands have always the option between death
and imprisonment, and Grecian opinion was only mistaken in assuming
as a certainty that the Lacedæmonians would choose the former. But
Kleon had never promised to bring them home as prisoners: his promise
was disjunctive,—that they should be either so brought home, or
slain, within twenty days: and no sentence throughout the whole of
Thucydidês astonishes me so much as that in which he stigmatizes
such an expectation as “insane.” Here are four hundred and twenty
Lacedæmonian hoplites, without any other description of troops to
aid them,—without the possibility of being reinforced,—without
any regular fortification,—without any narrow pass, such as that
of Thermopylæ,—without either a sufficient or a certain supply
of food,—cooped up in a small open island less than two miles in
length. Against them are brought ten thousand troops of diverse arms,
including eight hundred fresh hoplites from Athens, and marshalled
by Demosthenês, a man alike enterprising and experienced: for the
talents as well as the presence and preparations of Demosthenês
are a part of the data of the case, and the personal competence
of Kleon to command alone, is foreign to the calculation. Now if,
under such circumstances, Kleon engaged that this forlorn company of
brave men should be either slain or taken prisoners, how could he
be looked upon, I will not say as indulging in an insane boast, but
even as overstepping the most cautious and mistrustful estimate of
probability? Even to doubt of this result, much more to pronounce
such an opinion as that of Thucydidês, implies an idea not only of
superhuman power in the Lacedæmonian hoplites, but of disgraceful
cowardice on the part of Demosthenês and the assailants. Nor was the
interval of twenty days, named by Kleon, at all extravagantly narrow,
considering the distance of Athens from Pylus: for the attack of this
petty island could not possibly occupy more than one or two days at
the utmost, though the blockade of it might by various accidents have
been prolonged, or might even, by some terrible storm, be altogether
broken off. If, then, we carefully consider this promise made by
Kleon in the assembly, we shall find that so far from deserving
the sentence pronounced upon it by Thucydidês, of being a mad boast
which came true by accident, it was a reasonable and even a modest
anticipation of the future:[561] reserving the only really doubtful
point in the case, whether the garrison of the island would be
ultimately slain or made prisoners. Demosthenês, had he been present
at Athens instead of being at Pylus, would willingly have set his
seal to the engagement taken by Kleon.
[561] The jest of an unknown comic writer (probably Eupolis or
Aristophanês, in one of the many lost dramas) against Kleon:
“that he showed great powers of prophecy after the fact,” (Κλέων
Προμηθεύς ἐστι μετὰ τὰ πράγματα, Lucian, Prometheus, c. 2), may
probably have reference to his proceedings about Sphakteria: if
so, it is certainly undeserved.
In the letter which he sent to announce the capture of Sphakteria
and the prisoners to the Athenians, it is affirmed that he began
with the words—Κλέων Ἀθηναίων τῇ Βουλῇ καὶ τῷ Δήμῳ χαίρειν.
This was derided by Eupolis, and is even considered as a piece
of insolence, though it is difficult to see why (Schol. ad
Aristophan. Plut. 322; Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœdiæ Antiquæ, p.
362).
I repeat with reluctance, though not without belief, the statement
made by one of the biographers of Thucydidês,[562] that Kleon was the
cause of the banishment of the latter as a general, and has therefore
received from him harder measure than was due in his capacity
of historian. But though this sentiment is not probably without
influence in dictating the unaccountable judgment which I have just
been criticizing,—as well as other opinions relative to Kleon, on
which I shall say more in a future chapter,—I nevertheless look upon
that judgment not as peculiar to Thucydidês, but as common to him
with Nikias and those whom we must call, for want of a better name,
the oligarchical party of the time at Athens. And it gives us some
measure of the prejudice and narrowness of vision which prevailed
among that party at the present memorable crisis; so pointedly
contrasting with the clear-sighted and resolute calculations, and the
judicious conduct in action, of Kleon, who, when forced against his
will into the post of general, did the very best which could be done
in his situation,—he selected Demosthenês as colleague and heartily
seconded his operations. Though the military attack of Sphakteria,
one of the ablest specimens of generalship in the whole war, and
distinguished not less by the dextrous employment of different
descriptions of troops, than by care to spare the lives of the
assailants,—belongs altogether to Demosthenês, yet if Kleon had not
been competent to stand up in the Athenian assembly and defy those
gloomy predictions which we see attested in Thucydidês, Demosthenês
would never have been reinforced nor placed in condition to land on
the island. The glory of the enterprise, therefore, belongs jointly
to both: and Kleon, far from stealing away the laurels of Demosthenês
(as Aristophanês represents, in his comedy of the Knights), was
really the means of placing them on his head, though he at the same
time deservedly shared them. It has hitherto been the practice to
look at Kleon only from the point of view of his opponents, through
whose testimony we know him: but the real fact is, that this history
of the events of Sphakteria, when properly surveyed, is a standing
disgrace to those opponents and no inconsiderable honor to him;
exhibiting them as alike destitute of political foresight and of
straightforward patriotism,—as sacrificing the opportunities of war,
along with the lives of their fellow-citizens and soldiers, for the
purpose of ruining a political enemy. It was the duty of Nikias, as
stratêgus, to propose, and undertake in person if necessary, the
reduction of Sphakteria: if he thought the enterprise dangerous,
that was a good reason for assigning to it a larger military force,
as we shall find him afterwards reasoning about the Sicilian
expedition,—but not for letting it slip or throwing it off upon
others.[563]
[562] Vit. Thucydidis, p. xv, ed. Bekker.
[563] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 8; Thucyd. v, 7.
The return of Kleon and Demosthenês to Athens, within the twenty
days promised, bringing with them near three hundred Lacedæmonian
prisoners, must have been by far the most triumphant and exhilarating
event which had occurred to the Athenians throughout the whole war.
It at once changed the prospects, position, and feelings of both
the contending parties. Such a number of Lacedæmonian prisoners,
especially one hundred and twenty Spartans, was a source of
almost stupefaction to the general body of Greeks, and a prize of
inestimable value to the captors. The return of Demosthenês in the
preceding year from the Ambrakian gulf, when he brought with him
three hundred Ambrakian panoplies, had probably been sufficiently
triumphant; but the entry into Peiræus on this occasion from
Sphakteria, with three hundred Lacedæmonian prisoners, must doubtless
have occasioned emotions transcending all former experience; and it
is much to be regretted that no description is preserved to us of
the scene, as well as of the elate manifestations of the people when
the prisoners were marched up from Peiræus to Athens. We should be
curious, also, to read some account of the first Athenian assembly
held after this event,—the overwhelming cheers heaped upon Kleon by
his joyful partisans, who had helped to invest him with the duties of
general, in confidence that he would discharge them well,—contrasted
with the silence or retraction of Nikias, and the other humiliated
political enemies. But all such details are unfortunately denied
to us, though they constitute the blood and animation of Grecian
history, now lying before us only in its skeleton.
The first impulse of the Athenians was to regard the prisoners as a
guarantee to their territory against invasion:[564] they resolved
to keep them securely guarded until the peace, but if, at any time
before that event, the Lacedæmonian army should enter Attica, to
bring forth the prisoners and put them to death in sight of the
invaders. They were at the same time full of spirits in regard to the
prosecution of the war, and became farther confirmed in the hope, not
merely of preserving their power undiminished, but even of recovering
much of what they had lost before the thirty years’ truce. Pylus was
placed in an improved state of defence, with the adjoining island of
Sphakteria, doubtless as a subsidiary occupation: the Messenians,
transferred thither from Naupaktus, and overjoyed to find themselves
once more masters even of an outlying rock of their ancestorial
territory, began with alacrity to overrun and ravage Laconia, while
the Helots, shaken by the recent events, manifested inclination
to desert to them. The Lacedæmonian authorities, experiencing
evils before unfelt and unknown, became sensibly alarmed lest such
desertions should spread through the country. Reluctant as they were
to afford obvious evidence of their embarrassments, they nevertheless
brought themselves, probably under the pressure of the friends and
relatives of the Sphakterian captives, to send to Athens several
missions for peace; but all proved abortive.[565] We are not told
what they offered, but it did not come up to the expectations which
the Athenians thought themselves entitled to indulge.
[564] Thucyd. iv, 41.
[565] Thucyd. iv, 41: compare Aristophan. Equit. 648 with Schol.
We, who now review these facts with a knowledge of the subsequent
history, see that the Athenians could have concluded a better bargain
with the Lacedæmonians during the six or eight months succeeding
the capture of Sphakteria, than it was ever open to them to make
afterwards; and they had reason to repent that they let slip the
opportunity. Perhaps also Periklês, had he been still alive, might
have taken the same prudent measure of the future, and might have had
ascendency enough over his countrymen to be able to arrest the tide
of success at its highest point, before it began to ebb again. But if
we put ourselves back into the situation of Athens during the autumn
which succeeded the return of Kleon and Demosthenês from Sphakteria,
we shall easily enter into the feelings under which the war was
continued. The actual possession of the captives now placed Athens
in a far better position than she had occupied at a time when they
were only blocked up in Sphakteria, and when the Lacedæmonian envoys
first arrived to ask for peace. She was now certain of being able to
command peace with Sparta on terms at least tolerable, whenever she
chose to invite it,—she had also a fair certainty of escaping the
hardship of invasion. Next, and this was perhaps the most important
feature of the case, the apprehension of Lacedæmonian prowess was now
greatly lowered, and the prospects of success to Athens considered
as prodigiously improved,[566] even in the estimation of impartial
Greeks; much more in the eyes of the Athenians themselves. Moreover,
the idea of a tide of good fortune, of the favor of the gods, now
begun and likely to continue, of future success as a corollary
from past, was one which powerfully affected Grecian calculations
generally. Why not push the present good fortune, and try to regain
the most important points lost before and by the thirty years’
truce, especially in Megara and Bœotia,—points which Sparta could
not concede by negotiation, since they were not in her possession?
Though these speculations failed, as we shall see in the coming
chapter, yet there was nothing unreasonable in undertaking them.
Probably, the almost universal sentiment of Athens was at this moment
warlike,—and even Nikias, humiliated as he must have been by the
success in Sphakteria, would forget his usual caution in the desire
of retrieving his own personal credit by some military exploit.
That Demosthenês, now in full measure of esteem, would be eager
to prosecute the war, with which his prospects of personal glory
were essentially associated, just as Thucydidês[567] observes about
Brasidas on the Lacedæmonian side, can admit of no doubt. The comedy
of Aristophanês, called the Acharnians, was acted about six months
before the affair of Sphakteria, when no one could possibly look
forward to such an event,—the comedy of the Knights, about six months
after it.[568] Now, there is this remarkable difference between the
two,—that while the former breathes the greatest sickness of war,
and presses in every possible way the importance of making peace,
although at that time Athens had an opportunity of coming even to a
decent accommodation,—the latter, running down Kleon with unmeasured
scorn and ridicule, talks in one or two places only of the hardships
of war, and drops altogether that emphasis and repetition with which
peace had been dwelt upon in the Acharnians,—although coming out at a
time when peace was within the reach of the Athenians.
[566] Thucyd. iv, 79.
[567] Thucyd. v, 16.
[568] The Acharneis was performed at the festival of the Lenæa,
at Athens, January, 425 B.C.: the Knights, at the same festival
in the ensuing year, 424 B.C.
The capture of Sphakteria took place about July, B.C. 425:
between the two dates above. See Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici,
ad ann.
To understand properly the history of this period, therefore, we
must distinguish various occasions which are often confounded.
At the moment when Sphakteria was first blockaded, and when the
Lacedæmonians first sent to solicit peace, there was a considerable
party at Athens disposed to entertain the offer, and the ascendency
of Kleon was one of the main causes why it was rejected. But after
the captives were brought home from Sphakteria, the influence of
Kleon, though positively greater than it had been before, was no
longer required to procure the dismissal of Lacedæmonian pacific
offers and the continuance of the war: the general temper of Athens
was then warlike, and there were very few to contend strenuously for
an opposite policy. During the ensuing year, however, the chances
of war turned out mostly unfavorable to Athens, so that by the end
of that year she had become much more disposed to peace.[569] The
truce for one year was then concluded,—but even after that truce was
expired, Kleon still continued eager, and on good grounds, as will
be shown hereafter, for renewing the war in Thrace, at a time when
a large proportion of the Athenian public had grown weary of it. He
was one of the main causes of that resumption of warlike operations,
which ended in the battle of Amphipolis, fatal both to himself and
to Brasidas. There were thus two distinct occasions on which the
personal influence and sanguine character of Kleon seems to have been
of sensible moment in determining the Athenian public to war instead
of peace. But at the moment which we have now reached, that is, the
year immediately following the capture of Sphakteria, the Athenians
were all sufficiently warlike without him; probably Nikias himself as
well as the rest.
[569] Thucyd. iv, 117; v, 14.
It was one of the earliest proceedings of Nikias, immediately
after the inglorious exhibition which he had made in reference
to Sphakteria, to conduct an expedition, in conjunction with two
colleagues, against the Corinthian territory: he took with him eighty
triremes, two thousand Athenian hoplites, two hundred horsemen aboard
of some horse transports, and some additional hoplites from Milêtus,
Andros, and Karystus.[570] Starting from Peiræus in the evening, he
arrived a little before daybreak on a beach at the foot of the hill
and village of Solygeia,[571] about seven miles from Corinth, and
two or three miles south of the isthmus. The Corinthian troops,
from all the territory of Corinth, within the isthmus, were already
assembled at the isthmus itself to repel him; for intelligence of
the intended expedition had reached Corinth some time before from
Argos, with which latter place the scheme of the expedition may have
been in some way connected. The Athenians having touched the coast
during the darkness, the Corinthians were only apprized of the fact
by fire-signals from Solygeia. Not being able to hinder the landing,
they despatched forthwith half their forces, under Battus and
Lykophron, to repel the invader, while the remaining half were left
at the harbor of Kenchreæ, on the northern side of Mount Oneion, to
guard the port of Krommyon, outside of the isthmus, in case it should
be attacked by sea. Battus with one lochus of hoplites threw himself
into the village of Solygeia, which was unfortified, while Lykophron
conducted the remaining troops to attack the Athenians. The battle
was first engaged on the Athenian right, almost immediately after its
landing, on the point called Chersonesus. Here the Athenian hoplites,
together with their Karystian allies, repelled the Corinthian attack,
after a stout and warmly disputed hand-combat of spear and shield:
but the Corinthians, retreating up to a higher point of ground,
returned to the charge, and with the aid of a fresh lochus, drove
the Athenians back to the shore and to their ships: from hence the
latter again turned, and again recovered a partial advantage.[572]
The battle was no less severe on the left wing of the Athenians:
but here, after a contest of some length, the latter gained a more
decided victory, greatly by the aid of their cavalry,—pursuing the
Corinthians, who fled in some disorder to a neighboring hill and
there took up a position.[573] The Athenians were thus victorious
throughout the whole line, with the loss of about forty-seven men,
while the Corinthians had lost two hundred and twelve, together with
the general Lykophron. The victors erected their trophy, stripped the
dead bodies, and buried their own dead.
[570] Thucyd. iv, 42. Τοῦ δ᾽ αὐτοῦ θέρους μετὰ ταῦτα ~εὐθὺς~, etc.
[571] See the geographical illustrations of this descent in Dr.
Arnold’s plan and note appended to the second volume of his
Thucydidês,—and in Colonel Leake, Travels in Morea, ch. xxviii,
p. 235; xxix, p. 309.
[572] Thucyd. iv, 43.
[573] Thucyd. iv, 44. ἔθεντο τὰ ὅπλα,—an expression which Dr.
Arnold explains, here as elsewhere, to mean “piling the arms:”
I do not think such an explanation is correct, even here: much
less in several other places to which he alludes. See a note on
the surprise of Platæa by the Thebans, immediately before the
Peloponnesian war.
The Corinthian detachment left at Kenchreæ could not see the battle,
in consequence of the interposing ridge of Mount Oneium: but it
was at last made known to them by the dust of the fugitives, and
they forthwith hastened to help. Reinforcements also came both
from Corinth and from Kenchreæ, and as it seemed, too, from the
neighboring Peloponnesian cities, so that Nikias thought it prudent
to retire aboard his ships, and halt upon some neighboring islands.
It was here first discovered that two of the Athenians slain had not
been picked up for burial; upon which he immediately sent a herald
to solicit a truce, in order to procure these two missing bodies. We
have here a remarkable proof of the sanctity attached to that duty;
for the mere sending of the herald was tantamount to confession of
defeat.[574]
[574] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 6.
From hence Nikias sailed to Krommyon, where he ravaged the
neighborhood for a few hours and rested for the night. On the
next day he reëmbarked, sailed along the coast of Epidaurus, upon
which he inflicted some damage in passing, and stopped at last
on the peninsula of Methana, between Epidaurus and Trœzen.[575]
On this peninsula he established a permanent garrison, drawing a
fortification across the narrow neck of land which joined it to the
Epidaurian peninsula. This was his last exploit, and he then sailed
home: but the post at Methana long remained as a centre for pillaging
the neighboring regions of Epidaurus, Trœzen, and Halieis.
[575] Thucyd. iv, 45.
While Nikias was engaged in this expedition, Eurymedon and Sophoklês
had sailed forward from Pylus with a considerable portion of that
fleet which had been engaged in the capture of Sphakteria, to the
island of Korkyra. It has been already stated that the democratical
government at Korkyra had been suffering severe pressure and
privation from the oligarchical fugitives, who had come back into
the island with a body of barbaric auxiliaries, and established
themselves upon Mount Istônê, not far from the city.[576] Eurymedon
and the Athenians joining the Korkyræans in the city, attacked and
stormed the post on Mount Istônê; while the vanquished, retiring
first to a lofty and inaccessible peak, were forced to surrender
themselves on terms to the Athenians. They abandoned their mercenary
auxiliaries altogether, and only stipulated that they should
themselves be sent to Athens, and left to the discretion of the
Athenian people. Eurymedon, assenting to these terms, deposited the
disarmed prisoners in the neighboring islet of Ptychia, under the
distinct condition that, if a single man tried to escape, the whole
capitulation should be null and void.[577]
[576] Thucyd. iv, 2-45.
[577] Thucyd. iv, 46.
Unfortunately for these prisoners, the orders given to Eurymedon
carried him onward straight to Sicily. It was irksome, therefore, to
him to send away a detachment of his squadron to convey these men to
Athens,—while the honors of delivering them there would be reaped,
not by himself, but by the officer to whom they might be confided:
and the Korkyræans in the city, on their part, were equally anxious
that the prisoners should not be sent to Athens; for their animosity
against them was bitter in the extreme, and they were afraid that the
Athenians might spare their lives, so that their hostility against
the island might be again resumed. And thus a mean jealousy on the
part of Eurymedon, combined with revenge and insecurity on the part
of the victorious Korkyræans, brought about a cruel catastrophe,
paralleled nowhere else in Greece, though too well in keeping with
the previous acts of the bloody drama enacted in this island.
The Korkyræan leaders, seemingly not without the privity of
Eurymedon, sent across to Ptychia fraudulent emissaries under the
guise of friends to the prisoners. These emissaries—assuring the
prisoners that the Athenian commanders, in spite of the convention
signed, were about to hand them over to the Korkyræan people for
destruction—induced some of them to attempt escape in a boat prepared
for the purpose. By concert, the boat was seized in the act of
escaping, so that the terms of the capitulation were really violated:
upon which Eurymedon handed over the prisoners to their enemies in
the island, who imprisoned them all together in one vast building,
under guard of hoplites. From this building they were drawn out
in companies of twenty men each, chained together in couples, and
compelled to march between two lines of hoplites marshalled on
each side of the road. Those who loitered in the march were hurried
on by whips from behind: as they advanced, their private enemies
on both sides singled them out, striking and piercing them until
at length they miserably perished. Three successive companies were
thus destroyed, ere the remaining prisoners in the interior, who
thought merely that their place of detention was about to be changed,
suspected what was passing: at length they found it out, and one
and all then refused either to quit the building or to permit any
one else to enter. They at the same time piteously implored the
intervention of the Athenians, if it were only to kill them, and thus
preserve them from the cruelties of their merciless countrymen. The
latter abstained from attempts to force the door of the building,
but made an aperture in the roof, from whence they shot down arrows,
and poured showers of tiles, upon the prisoners within; who sought
at first to protect themselves, but at length abandoned themselves
to despair, and assisted with their own hands in the work of
destruction. Some of them pierced their throats with the arrows shot
down from the roof: others hung themselves, either with cords from
some bedding which happened to be in the building, or with strips
torn and twisted from their own garments. Night came on, but the work
of destruction, both from above and within, was continued without
intermission, so that before morning all these wretched men perished,
either by the hands of their enemies or by their own. At daybreak,
the Korkyræans entered the building, piled up the dead bodies on
carts, and transported them out of the city: the exact number we are
not told, but seemingly it cannot have been less than three hundred.
The women who had been taken at Istônê along with these prisoners,
were all sold as slaves.[578]
[578] Thucyd. iv, 47, 48.
Thus finished the bloody dissensions in this ill-fated island: for
the oligarchical party were completely annihilated, the democracy was
victorious, and there were no farther violences throughout the whole
war.[579] It will be recollected that these deadly feuds began with
the return of the oligarchical prisoners from Corinth, bringing along
with them projects both of treason and of revolution: they ended
with the annihilation of that party, in the manner above described;
the interval being filled by mutual atrocities and retaliation,
wherein of course the victors had most opportunity of gratifying
their vindictive passions. Eurymedon, after the termination of these
events, proceeded onward with the Athenian squadron to Sicily:
what he did there will be described in a future chapter devoted to
Sicilian affairs exclusively.
[579] Thucyd. iv, 48.
The complete prostration of Ambrakia during the campaign of the
preceding year had left Anaktorium without any defence against the
Akarnanians and Athenian squadron from Naupaktus. They besieged and
took it during the course of the present summer;[580] expelling the
Corinthian proprietors, and repeopling the town and its territory
with Akarnanian settlers from all the townships in the country.
[580] Thucyd. iv, 49.
Throughout the maritime empire of Athens matters continued perfectly
tranquil, except that the inhabitants of Chios, during the course
of the autumn, incurred the suspicion of the Athenians from having
recently built a new wall to their city, as if it were done with
the intention of taking the first opportunity to revolt.[581] They
solemnly protested their innocence of any such designs, but the
Athenians were not satisfied without exacting the destruction of the
obnoxious wall. The presence on the opposite continent of an active
band of Mitylenæan exiles, who captured both Rhœteium and Antandrus
during the ensuing spring, probably made the Athenians more anxious
and vigilant on the subject of Chios.[582]
[581] Thucyd. iv, 51.
[582] Thucyd. iv, 52.
The Athenian regular tribute-gathering squadron circulated among the
maritime subjects, and captured, during the course of the present
autumn, a prisoner of some importance and singularity. It was a
Persian ambassador, Artaphernes, seized at Eion on the Strymon,
in his way to Sparta with despatches from the Great King. He was
brought to Athens, and his despatches, which were at some length,
and written in the Assyrian character, were translated and made
public. The Great King told the Lacedæmonians, in substance, that he
could not comprehend what they meant; for that among the numerous
envoys whom they had sent, no two told the same story. Accordingly
he desired them, if they wished to make themselves understood, to
send some envoys with fresh and plain instructions to accompany
Artaphernes.[583] Such was the substance of the despatch, conveying a
remarkable testimony as to the march of the Lacedæmonian government
in its foreign policy. Had any similar testimony existed respecting
Athens, demonstrating that her foreign policy was conducted with
half as much unsteadiness and stupidity, ample inferences would have
been drawn from it to the discredit of democracy. But there has been
no motive generally to discredit Lacedæmonian institutions, which
included kingship in double measure,—two parallel lines of hereditary
kings: together with an entire exemption from everything like
popular discussion. The extreme defects in the foreign management
of Sparta, revealed by the despatch of Artaphernes, seem traceable
partly to an habitual faithlessness often noted in the Lacedæmonian
character, partly to the annual change of ephors, so frequently
bringing into power men who strove to undo what had been done by
their predecessors, and still more to the absence of everything like
discussion or canvass of public measures among the citizens. We
shall find more than one example, in the history about to follow,
of this disposition on the part of ephors, not merely to change the
policy of their predecessors, but even to subvert treaties sworn
and concluded by them: and such was the habitual secrecy of Spartan
public business, that in doing this they had neither criticism nor
discussion to fear. Brasidas, when he started from Sparta on the
expedition which will be described in the coming chapter, could not
trust the assurances of the Lacedæmonian executive without binding
them by the most solemn oaths.[584]
[583] Thucyd. iv, 50. ἐν αἷς πολλῶν ἄλλων γεγραμμένων κεφάλαιον
ἦν, πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίους, οὐκ εἰδέναι ὅ,τι βούλονται· πολλῶν γὰρ
ἐλθόντων πρέσβεων οὐδένα ταὐτὰ λέγειν· εἰ οὖν βούλονται σαφὲς
λέγειν, πέμψαι μετὰ τοῦ Πέρσου ἄνδρας ὡς αὐτόν.
[584] Thucyd. iv, 86. ὅρκοις τε Λακεδαιμονίων καταλαβὼν τὰ τέλη
τοῖς μεγίστοις, ἦ μὴν, etc.
The Athenians sent back Artaphernes in a trireme to Ephesus, and
availed themselves of this opportunity for procuring access to the
Great King. They sent envoys along with him, with the intention that
they should accompany him up to Susa: but on reaching Asia, the news
had just arrived that King Artaxerxes had recently died. Under such
circumstances, it was not judged expedient to prosecute the mission,
and the Athenians dropped their design.[585]
[585] Thucyd. iv, 50; Diodor. xii, 64. The Athenians do not
appear to have ever before sent envoys or courted alliance with
the Great King; though the idea of doing so must have been
noway strange to them, as we may see by the humorous scene of
Pseudartabas in the Acharneis of Aristophanês, acted in the year
before this event.
Respecting the great monarchy of Persia, during this long interval
of fifty-four years since the repulse of Xerxes from Greece, we have
little information before us except the names of the successive
kings. In the year 465 B.C. Xerxes was assassinated by Artabanus and
Mithridates, through one of those plots of great household officers,
so frequent in oriental palaces. He left two sons, or at least two
sons present and conspicuous among a greater number, Darius and
Artaxerxes. But Artabanus persuaded Artaxerxes that Darius had been
the murderer of Xerxes, and thus prevailed upon him to revenge his
father’s death by becoming an accomplice in killing his brother
Darius: he next tried to assassinate Artaxerxes himself, and to
appropriate the crown. Artaxerxes however, apprized beforehand of
the scheme, either slew Artabanus with his own hand or procured him
to be slain and then reigned (known under the name of Artaxerxes
Longimanus) for forty years, down to the period at which we are now
arrived.[586]
[586] Diodor. xi, 65; Aristotel. Polit. v, 8, 3; Justin, iii,
1; Ktesias, Persica, c. 29, 30. It is evident that there were
contradictory stories current respecting the plot to which Xerxes
fell a victim: but we have no means of determining what the
details were.
Mention has already been made of the revolt of Egypt from the
dominion of Artaxerxes, under the Libyan prince Inanes, actively
aided by the Athenians. After a few years of success, this revolt
was crushed and Egypt again subjugated, by the energy of the Persian
general Megabyzus, with severe loss to the Athenian forces engaged.
After the peace of Kallias, erroneously called the Kimonian peace,
between the Athenians and the king of Persia, war had not been since
resumed. We read in Ktesias, amidst various anecdotes seemingly
collected at the court of Susa, romantic adventures ascribed
to Megabyzus, his wife Amytis, his mother Amestris, and a Greek
physician of Kos, named Apollonides. Zopyrus son of Megabyzus, after
the death of his father, deserted from Persia and came as an exile to
Athens.[587]
[587] Ktesias, Persica, c. 38-43; Herodot. iii, 80.
At the death of Artaxerxes Longimanus, the family violences incident
to a Persian succession were again exhibited. His son Xerxes
succeeded him, but was assassinated, after a reign of a few weeks or
months. Another son, Sogdianus, followed, who perished in like manner
after a short interval.[588] Lastly, a third son, Ochus (known under
the name of Darius Nothus), either abler or more fortunate, kept his
crown and life between nineteen and twenty years. By his queen, the
savage Parysatis, he was father to Artaxerxes Mnemon and Cyrus the
younger, both names of interest in reference to Grecian history, to
whom we shall hereafter recur.
[588] Diodor. xii, 64-71; Ktesias, Persica, c. 44-46.