EIGHTH YEAR OF THE WAR.
The eighth year of the war, on which we now touch, presents events of
a more important and decisive character than any of the preceding.
In reviewing the preceding years, we observe that though there
is much fighting, with hardship and privation inflicted on both
sides, yet the operations are mostly of a desultory character, not
calculated to determine the event of the war. But the capture of
Sphakteria and its prisoners, coupled with the surrender of the whole
Lacedæmonian fleet, was an event full of consequences and imposing
in the eyes of all Greece. It stimulated the Athenians to a series
of operations, larger and more ambitious than anything which they
had yet conceived; directed, not merely against Sparta in her own
country, but also to the reconquest of that ascendency in Megara and
Bœotia which they had lost on or before the thirty years’ truce. On
the other hand, it intimidated so much both the Lacedæmonians, the
revolted Chalkidic allies of Athens in Thrace, and Perdikkas, king of
Macedonia, that between them the expedition of Brasidas, which struck
so serious a blow at the Athenian empire, was concerted. This year is
thus the turning-point of the war. If the operations of Athens had
succeeded, she would have regained nearly as great a power as she
enjoyed before the thirty years’ truce: but it happened that Sparta,
or rather the Spartan Brasidas, was successful, gaining enough to
neutralize all the advantages derived by Athens from the capture of
Sphakteria.
The first enterprise undertaken by the Athenians in the course of the
spring was against the island of Kythêra, on the southern coast of
Laconia. It was inhabited by Lacedæmonian Periœki, and administered
by a governor, and garrison of hoplites, annually sent thither. It
was the usual point of landing for merchantmen from Libya and Egypt;
and as it lay very near to Cape Malea, immediately over against
the gulf of Gythium,—the only accessible portion of the generally
inhospitable coast of Laconia,—the chance that it might fall into
the hands of an enemy was considered as so menacing to Sparta, that
some politicians are said to have wished the island at the bottom of
the sea.[589] Nikias, in conjunction with Nikostratus and Autoklês,
conducted thither a fleet of sixty triremes, with two thousand
Athenian hoplites, some few horsemen, and a body of allies, mainly
Milesians. There were in the island two towns,—Kythêra and Skandeia:
the former having a lower town close to the sea, fronting Cape Malea,
and an upper town on the hill above; the latter, seemingly, on the
south or west coast. Both were attacked at the same time by order of
Nikias; ten triremes and a body of Milesian[590] hoplites disembarked
and captured Skandeia; while the Athenians landed at Kythêra, and
drove the inhabitants out of the lower town into the upper, where
they speedily capitulated. A certain party among them had indeed
secretly invited the coming of Nikias, through which intrigue easy
terms were obtained for the inhabitants. Some few men, indicated by
the Kytherians in intelligence with Nikias, were carried away as
prisoners to Athens: but the remainder were left undisturbed, and
enrolled among the tributary allies under obligation to pay four
talents per annum; an Athenian garrison being placed at Kythêra
for the protection of the island. From hence Nikias employed seven
days in descents and inroads upon the coast, near Helos, Asinê,
Aphrodisia, Kotyrta, and elsewhere. The Lacedæmonian force was
disseminated in petty garrisons, which remained each for the defence
of its own separate post, without uniting to repel the Athenians, so
that there was only one action, and that of little importance, which
the Athenians deemed worthy of a trophy.
[589] Thucyd. iv, 54; Herodot. vii, 235. The manner in which
Herodotus alludes to the dangers which would arise to Sparta from
the occupation of Kythêra by an enemy, furnishes one additional
probability tending to show that his history was composed before
the actual occupation of the island by Nikias, in the eighth year
of the Peloponnesian war. Had he been cognizant of this latter
event, he would naturally have made some allusion to it.
The words of Thucydidês in respect to the island of Kythêra are,
the Lacedæmonians πολλὴν ἐπιμέλειαν ἐποιοῦντο· ἦν γὰρ αὐτοῖς
τῶν τε ἀπ᾽ Αἰγύπτου καὶ Λιβύης ὁλκάδων προσβολὴ, καὶ λῃσταὶ ἅμα
τὴν Λακωνικὴν ἧσσον ἐλύπουν ἐκ θαλάσσης, ᾗπερ μόνον οἷον τ᾽ ἦν
κακουργεῖσθαι· ~πᾶσα γὰρ ἀνέχει~ πρὸς τὸ Σικελικὸν καὶ Κρητικὸν
πέλαγος.
I do not understand this passage, with Dr. Arnold and Göller, to
mean, that Laconia was unassailable by land, but very assailable
by sea. It rather means that the only portion of the coast of
Laconia where a maritime invader could do much damage, was in the
interior of the Laconic gulf, near Helos, Gythium, etc., which
is in fact the only plain portion of the coast of Laconia. The
two projecting promontories, which end, the one in Cape Malea,
the other in Cape Tænarus, are high, rocky, harborless, and
afford very little temptation to a disembarking enemy. “The whole
Laconian coast is _high projecting cliff_, where it fronts the
Sicilian and Kretan seas,”—~πᾶσα ἀνέχει~. The island of Kythêra
was particularly favorable for facilitating descents on the
territory near Helos and Gythium. The ἀλιμενότης of Laconia is
noticed in Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 8, 7, where he describes the
occupation of the island by Konon and Pharnabazus.
See Colonel Leake’s description of this coast, and the high
cliffs between Cape Matapan—Tænarus—and Kalamata, which front the
Sicilian sea, as well as those eastward of Cape St. Angelo, or
Malea, which front the Kretan sea (Travels in Morea, vol. i, ch.
vii, p. 261: “tempestuous, rocky, unsheltered coast of Mesamani,”
ch. viii, p. 320; ch. vi, p. 205; Strabo, viii, p. 368; Pausan.
iii, c. xxvi, 2).
[590] Thucyd. iv, 54. δισχιλίοις Μιλησίων ὁπλίταις. It seems
impossible to believe that there could have been so many as
two thousand _Milesian_ hoplites: but we cannot tell where the
mistake lies.
In returning home from Kythêra, Nikias first ravaged the small strip
of cultivated land near Epidaurus Limêra, on the rocky eastern
coast of Laconia, and then attacked the Æginetan settlement at
Thyrea, the frontier strip between Laconia and Argolis. This town
and district had been made over by Sparta to the Æginetans, at the
time when they were expelled from their own island by Athens, in
the first year of the war. The new inhabitants, finding the town
too distant from the sea[591] for their maritime habits, were now
employed in constructing a fortification close on the shore; in which
work a Lacedæmonian detachment under Tantalus, on guard in that
neighborhood, was assisting them. When the Athenians landed, both
Æginetans and Lacedæmonians at once abandoned the new fortification.
The former, with the commanding officer, Tantalus, occupied the
upper town of Thyrea; but the Lacedæmonian troops, not thinking
it tenable, refused to take part in the defence, and retired to
the neighboring mountains, in spite of urgent entreaty from the
Æginetans. The Athenians, immediately after landing, marched up to
the town of Thyrea, and carried it by storm, burning or destroying
everything within it: all the Æginetans were either killed or made
prisoners, and even Tantalus, disabled by his wounds, became prisoner
also. From hence the armament returned to Athens, where a vote was
taken as to the disposal of the prisoners. The Kytherians brought
home were distributed for safe custody among the dependent islands:
Tantalus was retained along with the prisoners from Sphakteria; but
a harder fate was reserved for the Æginetans; they were all put to
death, victims to the long-standing apathy between Athens and Ægina.
This cruel act was nothing more than a strict application of admitted
customs of war in those days: had the Lacedæmonians been the victors,
there can be little doubt that they would have acted with equal
rigor.[592]
[591] Thucyd. iv, 56. He states that Thyrea was ten stadia, or
about a mile and one-fifth, distant from the sea. But Colonel
Leake (Travels in the Morea, vol. ii, ch. xxii, p. 492), who has
discovered quite sufficient ruins to identify the spot, affirms
“that it is at least three times that distance from the sea.”
This explains to us the more clearly why the Æginetans thought it
necessary to build their new fort.
[592] Thucyd. iv, 58; Diodor. xii, 65.
The occupation of Kythêra, in addition to Pylus, by an Athenian
garrison, following so closely upon the capital disaster in
Sphakteria, produced in the minds of the Spartans feelings of alarm
and depression such as they had never before experienced. Within
the course of a few short months their position had completely
changed from superiority and aggression abroad to insult and
insecurity at home. They anticipated nothing less than incessant
foreign attacks on all their weak points, with every probability of
internal defection, from the standing discontent of the Helots: nor
was it unknown to them, probably, that even Kythêra itself had been
lost partly through betrayal. The capture of Sphakteria had caused
peculiar sensations among the Helots, to whom the Lacedæmonians had
addressed both appeals and promises of emancipation, in order to
procure succor for their hoplites while blockaded in the island; and
if the ultimate surrender of these hoplites had abated the terrors
of Lacedæmonian prowess throughout all Greece, this effect had been
produced to a still greater degree among the oppressed Helots. A
refuge at Pylus, and a nucleus which presented some possibility of
expanding into regenerated Messenia, were now before their eyes;
while the establishment of an Athenian garrison at Kythêra opened a
new channel of communication with the enemies of Sparta, so as to
tempt all the Helots of daring temper to stand forward as liberators
of their enslaved race.[593] The Lacedæmonians, habitually cautious
at all times, felt now as if the tide of fortune had turned decidedly
against them, and acted with confirmed mistrust and dismay, confining
themselves to measures strictly defensive, and organizing a force of
four hundred cavalry, together with a body of bowmen, beyond their
ordinary establishment.
[593] Thucyd. iv, 41, 55, 56.
But the precaution which they thought it necessary to take in regard
to the Helots, affords the best measure of their apprehensions
at the moment, and exhibits, indeed, a refinement of fraud and
cruelty rarely equalled in history. Wishing to single out from the
general body such as were most high-couraged and valiant, the ephors
made proclamation, that those Helots, who conceived themselves to
have earned their liberty by distinguished services in war, might
stand forward to claim it. A considerable number obeyed the call;
probably many who had undergone imminent hazards during the preceding
summer, in order to convey provisions to the blockaded soldiers
in Sphakteria.[594] They were examined by the government, and two
thousand of them were selected as fully worthy of emancipation; which
was forthwith bestowed upon them in public ceremonial, with garlands,
visits to the temples, and the full measure of religious solemnity.
The government had now made the selection which it desired; presently
every man among these newly-enfranchized Helots was made away
with, no one knew how.[595] A stratagem at once so perfidious in
the contrivance, so murderous in the purpose, and so complete in
the execution, stands without parallel in Grecian history,—we might
almost say, without a parallel in any history. It implies a depravity
far greater than the rigorous execution of a barbarous customary law
against prisoners of war or rebels, even in large numbers. The ephors
must have employed numerous instruments, apart from each other, for
the performance of this bloody deed; yet it appears that no certain
knowledge could be obtained of the details; a striking proof of the
mysterious efficiency of this Council of Five, surpassing even that
of the Council of Ten at Venice, as well as of the utter absence of
public inquiry or discussion.
[594] Thucyd. iv, 80.
[595] Thucyd. iv, 80. Καὶ προκρίναντες ἐς δισχιλίους, οἱ μὲν
ἐστεφανώσαντό τε καὶ τὰ ἱερὰ περιῆλθον ὡς ἠλευθερωμένοι· οἱ δὲ
οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον ἠφάνισάν τε αὐτοὺς, καὶ οὐδεὶς ᾔσθετο ὅτῳ τρόπῳ
ἕκαστος διεφθάρη: compare Diodor. xii, 67.
Dr. Thirlwall (History of Greece, vol. iii. ch. xxiii, p. 244,
2d edit. _note_) thinks that this assassination of Helots by the
Spartans took place at some other time unascertained, and not
at the time here indicated. I cannot concur in this opinion. It
appears to me, that there is the strongest probable reason for
referring the incident to the time immediately following the
disaster in Sphakteria, which Thucydidês so especially marks (iv,
41) by the emphatic words: Οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἀμαθεῖς ὄντες ἐν
τῷ πρὶν χρόνῳ λῃστείας καὶ τοῦ τοιούτου πολέμου, τῶν τε Εἱλώτων
αὐτομολούντων καὶ φοβούμενοι μὴ καὶ ἐπὶ μακρότερον σφίσι τι
νεωτερισθῇ τῶν κατὰ τὴν χώραν, οὐ ῥᾳδίως ἔφερον. This was just
after the Messenians were first established at Pylus, and began
their incursions over Laconia, with such temptations as they
could offer to the Helots to desert. And it was naturally just
then that the fear, entertained by the Spartans of their Helots,
became exaggerated to the maximum, leading to the perpetration
of the act mentioned in the text. Dr. Thirlwall observes, “that
the Spartan government would not order the massacre of the Helots
at a time when it could employ them on foreign service.” But
to this it may be replied, that the capture of Sphakteria took
place in July or August, while the expedition under Brasidas was
not organized until the following winter or spring. There was
therefore an interval of some months during which the government
had not yet formed the idea of employing the Helots on foreign
service. And this interval is quite sufficient to give a full and
distinct meaning to the expression καὶ τότε (Thucyd. iv, 80) on
which Dr. Thirlwall insists; without the necessity of going back
to any more remote point of antecedent time.
It was while the Lacedæmonians were in this state of uneasiness
at home, that envoys reached them from Perdikkas of Macedonia and
the Chalkidians of Thrace, entreating aid against Athens; who
was considered likely, in her present tide of success, to resume
aggressive measures against them. There were, moreover, other
parties, in the neighboring cities[596] subject to Athens, who
secretly favored the application, engaging to stand forward in open
revolt as soon as any auxiliary force should arrive to warrant their
incurring the hazard. Perdikkas (who had on his hands a dispute with
his kinsman Arrhibæus, prince of the Lynkestæ-Macedonians, which he
was anxious to be enabled to close successfully) and the Chalkidians
offered at the same time to provide the pay and maintenance, as well
as to facilitate the transit, of the troops who might be sent to
them; and what was of still greater importance to the success of the
enterprise, they specially requested that Brasidas might be invested
with the command.[597] He had now recovered from his wounds received
at Pylus, and his reputation for adventurous valor, great as it was
from positive desert, stood out still more conspicuously, because
not a single other Spartan had as yet distinguished himself. His
other great qualities, apart from personal valor, had not yet been
shown, for he had never been in any supreme command. But he burned
with impatience to undertake the operation destined for him by the
envoys; although at this time it must have appeared so replete with
difficulty and danger, that probably no other Spartan except himself
would have entered upon it with the smallest hopes of success. To
raise up embarrassments for Athens, in Thrace, was an object of great
consequence to Sparta, while she also obtained an opportunity of
sending away another large detachment of her dangerous Helots. Seven
hundred of these latter were armed as hoplites and placed under the
orders of Brasidas, but the Lacedæmonians would not assign to him any
of their own proper forces. With the sanction of the Spartan name,
with seven hundred Helot hoplites, and with such other hoplites as he
could raise in Peloponnesus by means of the funds furnished from the
Chalkidians, Brasidas prepared to undertake this expedition, alike
adventurous and important.
[596] Thucyd. iv, 79.
[597] Thucyd. iv, 80. προὐθυμήθησαν δὲ καὶ οἱ Χαλκιδῆς ἄνδρα ἔν
τε τῇ Σπάρτῃ δοκοῦντα δραστήριον εἶναι ἐς τὰ πάντα, etc.
Had the Athenians entertained any suspicion of his design, they
could easily have prevented him from ever reaching Thrace. But they
knew nothing of it until he had actually joined Perdikkas, nor did
they anticipate any serious attack from Sparta, in this moment of
her depression, much less an enterprise far bolder than any which
she had ever been known to undertake. They were now elate with hopes
of conquests to come on their own part, their affairs being so
prosperous and promising that parties favorable to their interests
began to revive, both in Megara and in Bœotia; while Hippokratês and
Demosthenês, the two chief stratêgi for the year, were men of energy,
well qualified both to project and execute military achievements.
The first opportunity presented itself in regard to Megara. The
inhabitants of that city had been greater sufferers by the war
than any other persons in Greece: they had been the chief cause
of bringing down the war upon Athens, and the Athenians revenged
upon them all the hardships which they themselves endured from the
Lacedæmonian invasion. Twice in every year they laid waste the
Megarid, which bordered upon their own territory; and that too with
such destructive hands throughout its limited extent, that they
intercepted all subsistence from the lands near the town, at the
same time keeping the harbor of Nisæa closely blocked up. Under such
hard conditions the Megarians found much difficulty in supplying
even the primary wants of life.[598] But their case had now, within
the last few months, become still more intolerable by an intestine
commotion in the city, ending in the expulsion of a powerful body of
exiles, who seized and held possession of Pegæ, the Megarian port
in the gulf of Corinth. Probably imports from Pegæ had been their
chief previous resource against the destruction which came on them
from the side of Athens; so that it became scarcely possible to
sustain themselves, when the exiles in Pegæ not only deprived them
of this resource, but took positive part in harassing them. These
exiles were oligarchical, and the government in Megara had now become
more or less democratical: but the privations in the city presently
reached such a height, that several citizens began to labor for a
compromise, whereby the exiles in Pegæ might be readmitted. It was
evident to the leaders in Megara that the bulk of the citizens could
not long sustain the pressure of enemies from both sides, but it was
also their feeling that the exiles in Pegæ, their bitter political
rivals, were worse enemies than the Athenians, and that the return of
these exiles would be a sentence of death to themselves. To prevent
this counter-revolution, they opened a secret correspondence with
Hippokratês and Demosthenês, engaging to betray both Megara and Nisæa
to the Athenians; though Nisæa, the harbor of Megara, about one mile
from the city, was a separate fortress occupied by a Peloponnesian
garrison, and by them exclusively, as well as the Long Walls, for the
purpose of holding Megara fast to the Lacedæmonian confederacy.[599]
[598] The picture drawn by Aristophanês (Acharn. 760) is a
caricature, but of suffering probably but too real.
[599] Thucyd. iv, 66. Strabo (ix, p. 391) gives eighteen stadia
as the distance between Megara and Nisæa; Thucydidês only eight.
There appears sufficient reason to prefer the latter: see
Reinganum, Das alte Megaris, pp. 121-180.
The scheme for surprise was concerted, and what is more remarkable,
in the extreme publicity of all Athenian affairs, and in a matter
to which many persons must have been privy, was kept secret, until
the instant of execution. A large Athenian force, four thousand
hoplites and six hundred cavalry, was appointed to march at night
by the high road through Eleusis to Megara: but Hippokratês and
Demosthenês themselves went on shipboard from Peiræus to the island
of Minôa, which was close against Nisæa, and had been for some time
under occupation by an Athenian garrison. Here Hippokratês concealed
himself with six hundred hoplites, in a hollow space out of which
brick earth had been dug, on the mainland opposite to Minôa, and not
far from the gate in the Long Wall which opened near the junction
of that wall with the ditch and wall surrounding Nisæa; while
Demosthenês, with some light-armed Platæans and a detachment of
active young Athenians, called Peripoli, and serving as the movable
guard of Attica, in their first or second year of military service,
placed himself in ambush in the sacred precinct of Arês, still closer
to the same gate.
To procure that the gate should be opened, was the task of the
conspirators within. Amidst the shifts to which the Megarians had
been reduced in order to obtain supplies, especially since the
blockade of Minôa, predatory exit by night was not omitted. Some of
these conspirators had been in the habit, before the intrigue with
Athens was projected, of carrying out a small sculler-boat by night
upon a cart, through this gate, by permission of the Peloponnesian
commander of Nisæa and the Long Walls. The boat, when thus brought
out, was carried down to the shore along the hollow of the dry
ditch which surrounded the wall of Nisæa, then put to sea for some
nightly enterprise, and was brought back again along the ditch before
daylight in the morning; the gate being opened, by permission, to let
it in. This was the only way by which any Megarian vessel could get
to sea, since the Athenians at Minôa were complete masters of the
harbor. On the night fixed for the surprise, this boat was carried
out and brought back at the usual hour. But the moment that the
gate in the Long Wall was opened to readmit it, Demosthenês and his
comrades sprang forward to force their way in; the Megarians along
with the boat at the same time setting upon and killing the guards,
in order to facilitate his entrance. This active and determined band
were successful in mastering the gate, and keeping it open until the
six hundred hoplites under Hippokratês came up, and got into the
interior space between the Long Walls. They immediately mounted the
walls on each side, every man as he came in, with little thought
of order, to drive off or destroy the Peloponnesian guards; who,
taken by surprise, and fancying that the Megarians generally were in
concert with the enemy against them,—confirmed, too, in such belief
by hearing the Athenian herald proclaim aloud that every Megarian who
chose might take his post in the line of Athenian hoplites,[600]—made
at first some resistance, but were soon discouraged, and fled into
Nisæa. By a little after daybreak, the Athenians found themselves
masters of all the line of the Long Walls, and under the very gates
of Megara,—reinforced by the larger force which, having marched by
land through Eleusis, arrived at the concerted moment.
[600] Thucyd. iv, 68. Ξυνέπεσε γὰρ καὶ τὸν τῶν Ἀθηναίων κήρυκα
ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ γνώμης κηρύξαι, τὸν βουλόμενον ἰέναι Μεγαρέων μετὰ
Ἀθηναίων θησόμενον τὰ ὅπλα.
Here we have the phrase τίθεσθαι τὰ ὅπλα employed in a case where
Dr. Arnold’s explanation of it would be eminently unsuitable.
There could be no thought of _piling arms_ at a critical moment
of actual fighting, with result as yet doubtful.
Meanwhile, the Megarians within the city were in the greatest tumult
and consternation. But the conspirators, prepared with their plan,
had resolved to propose that the gates should be thrown open, and
that the whole force of the city should be marched out to fight
the Athenians: when once the gates should be open, they themselves
intended to take part with the Athenians, and facilitate their
entrance,—and they had rubbed their bodies over with oil in order
to be visibly distinguished in the eyes of the latter. Their plan
was only frustrated the moment before it was about to be put in
execution, by the divulgation of one of their own comrades. Their
opponents in the city, apprized of what was in contemplation,
hastened to the gate, and intercepted the men rubbed with oil as
they were about to open it. Without betraying any knowledge of the
momentous secret which they had just learned, these opponents loudly
protested against opening the gate and going out to fight an enemy
for whom they had never conceived themselves, even in moments of
greater strength, to be a match in the open field. While insisting
only on the public mischiefs of the measure, they at the same time
planted themselves in arms against the gate, and declared that they
would perish before they would allow it to be opened. For this
obstinate resistance the conspirators were not prepared, so that they
were forced to abandon their design and leave the gate closed.
The Athenian generals, who were waiting in expectation that it would
be opened, soon perceived by the delay that their friends within
had been baffled, and immediately resolved to make sure of Nisæa,
which lay behind them; an acquisition important not less in itself,
than as a probable means for the mastery of Megara. They set about
the work with the characteristic rapidity of Athenians. Masons and
tools in abundance were forthwith sent for from Athens, and the army
distributed among themselves the wall of circumvallation round Nisæa
in distinct parts. First, the interior space between the Long Walls
themselves was built across, so as to cut off the communication
with Megara; next, walls were carried out from the outside of both
the Long Walls down to the sea, so as completely to inclose Nisæa,
with its fortifications and ditch. The scattered houses which formed
a sort of ornamented suburb to Nisæa, furnished bricks for this
inclosing circle, or were sometimes even made to form a part of it as
they stood, with the parapets on their roofs; while the trees were
cut down to supply material wherever palisades were suitable. In a
day and a half the work of circumvallation was almost completed,
so that the Peloponnesians in Nisæa saw before them nothing but a
hopeless state of blockade. Deprived of all communication, they
not only fancied that the whole city of Megara had joined the
Athenians, but they were moreover without any supply of provisions,
which had been always furnished to them in daily rations from the
city. Despairing of any speedy relief from Peloponnesus, they
accepted easy terms of capitulation offered to them by the Athenian
generals.[601] After delivering up their arms, each man among them
was to be ransomed for a stipulated price; we are not told how much,
but doubtless a moderate sum. The Lacedæmonian commander, and such
other Lacedæmonians as might be in Nisæa, were, however, required
to surrender themselves as prisoners to the Athenians, to be held
at their disposal. On these terms Nisæa was surrendered to the
Athenians, who cut off its communication with Megara, by keeping
the intermediate space between the Long Walls effectively blocked
up,—walls, of which they had themselves, in former days, been the
original authors.[602]
[601] Thucyd. iv, 69.
[602] Thucyd. i, 103; iv, 69. Καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, τὰ μακρὰ τείχη
ἀποῤῥήξαντες ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν Μεγαρέων πόλεως καὶ τὴν Νίσαιαν
παραλαβόντες, τἄλλα παρεσκευάζοντο.
I cannot think, with Poppo and Göller, that the participle
ἀποῤῥήξαντες is to be explained as meaning that the Athenians
PULLED DOWN the portion of the Long Walls near Megara. This
may have been done, but it would be an operation of no great
importance; for to pull down a portion of the wall would not
bar the access from the city, which it was the object of the
Athenians to accomplish. “They broke off” the communication
along the road between the Long Walls from the city to Nisæa, by
building across or barricading the space between: similar to what
is said a little above,—~διοικοδομησάμενοι~ τὸ πρὸς Μεγαρέας,
etc. Diodorus (xii, 66) abridges Thucydidês.
Such interruption of communication by the Long Walls indicated in
the minds of the Athenian generals a conviction that Megara was
now out of their reach. But the town in its present distracted
state, would certainly have fallen into their hands,[603] had it
not been snatched from them by the accidental neighborhood and
energetic intervention of Brasidas. That officer, occupied in the
levy of troops for his Thracian expedition, was near Corinth and
Sikyon, when he first learned the surprise and capture of the Long
Walls. Partly from the alarm which the news excited among these
Peloponnesian towns, partly from his own personal influence, he got
together a body of two thousand seven hundred Corinthian hoplites,
six hundred Sikyonian and four hundred Phliasian, besides his own
small army, and marched with this united force to Tripodiskus, in
the Megarid, half-way between Megara and Pegæ, on the road over
Mount Geraneia; having first despatched a pressing summons to the
Bœotians to request that they would meet him at that point with
reinforcements. He trusted by a speedy movement to preserve Megara,
and perhaps even Nisæa; but on reaching Tripodiskus in the night, he
learned that the latter place had already surrendered. Alarmed for
the safety of Megara, he proceeded thither by a night-march without
delay. Taking with him only a chosen band of three hundred men, he
presented himself, without being expected, at the gates of the city;
entreating to be admitted, and offering to lend his immediate aid for
the recovery of Nisæa. One of the two parties in Megara would have
been glad to comply; but the other, knowing well that in that case
the exiles in Pegæ would be brought back upon them, was prepared for
a strenuous resistance, in which case the Athenian force, still only
one mile off, would have been introduced as auxiliaries. Under these
circumstances the two parties came to a compromise, and mutually
agreed to refuse admittance to Brasidas. They expected that a battle
would take place between him and the Athenians, and each calculated
that Megara would follow the fortunes of the victor.[604]
[603] Thucyd. iv, 73. εἰ μὲν γὰρ μὴ ὤφθησαν ἐλθόντες (Brasidas
with his troops) οὐκ ἂν ἐν τύχῃ γίγνεσθαι σφίσιν, ἀλλὰ σαφῶς ἂν
ὥσπερ ἡσσηθέντων στερηθῆναι εὐθὺς τῆς πόλεως.
[604] Thucyd. iv, 71.
Returning back without success to Tripodiskus, Brasidas was joined
there early in the morning by two thousand Bœotian hoplites and six
hundred cavalry; for the Bœotians had been put in motion by the same
news as himself, and had even commenced their march, before his
messenger arrived, with such celerity as to have already reached
Platæa.[605] The total force under Brasidas was thus increased to
six thousand hoplites and six hundred cavalry, with whom he marched
straight to the neighborhood of Megara. The Athenian light troops,
dispersed over the plain, were surprised and driven in by the Bœotian
cavalry; but the Athenian cavalry, coming to their aid, maintained a
sharp action with the assailants, wherein, after some loss on both
sides, a slight advantage remained on the side of the Athenians. They
granted a truce for the burial of the Bœotian officer of cavalry,
who was slain with some others. After this indecisive cavalry
skirmish, Brasidas advanced with his main force into the plain,
between Megara and the sea, taking up a position near to the Athenian
hoplites, who were drawn up in battle array, hard by Nisæa and the
Long Walls. He thus offered them battle if they chose it; but each
party expected that the other would attack and each was unwilling
to begin the attack on his own side, Brasidas was well aware that,
if the Athenians refused to fight, Megara would be preserved from
falling into their hands,—which loss it was his main object to
prevent, and which had in fact been prevented only by his arrival. If
he attacked and was beaten, he would forfeit this advantage,—while,
if victorious, he could hardly hope to gain much more. The Athenian
generals on their side reflected, that they had already secured a
material acquisition in Nisæa, which cut off Megara from their sea;
that the army opposed to them was not only superior in number of
hoplites, but composed of contingents from many different cities, so
that no one city hazarded much in the action; while their own force
was all Athenian, and composed of the best hoplites in Athens, which
would render a defeat severely ruinous to the city: nor did they
think it worth while to encounter this risk, even for the purpose
of gaining possession of Megara. With such views in the leaders on
both sides, the two armies remained for some time in position, each
waiting for the other to attack: at length the Athenians, seeing that
no aggressive movement was contemplated by their opponents, were the
first to retire into Nisæa. Thus left master of the field, Brasidas
retired in triumph to Megara, the gates of which were now opened
without reserve to admit him.[606]
[605] Thucyd. iv, 72.
[606] Thucyd. iv, 73.
The army of Brasidas, having gained the chief point for which it was
collected, speedily dispersed,—he himself resuming his preparations
for Thrace; while the Athenians on their side also returned home,
leaving an adequate garrison for the occupation both of Nisæa and
of the Long Walls. But the interior of Megara underwent a complete
and violent revolution. While the leaders friendly to Athens, not
thinking it safe to remain, fled forthwith and sought shelter with
the Athenians,[607] the opposite party opened communication with
the exiles at Pegæ and readmitted them into the city; binding them
however, by the most solemn pledges, to observe absolute amnesty of
the past and to study nothing but the welfare of the common city.
The new-comers only kept their pledge during the interval which
elapsed until they acquired power to violate it with effect. They
soon got themselves placed in the chief commands of state, and
found means to turn the military force to their own purposes. A
review and examination of arms, of the hoplites in the city, having
been ordered, the Megarian lochi were so marshalled and tutored as
to enable the leaders to single out such victims as they thought
expedient. They seized many of their most obnoxious enemies, some of
them suspected as accomplices in the recent conspiracy with Athens:
the men thus seized were subjected to the forms of a public trial,
before that which was called a public assembly; wherein each voter,
acting under military terror, was constrained to give his suffrage
openly. All were condemned to death and executed, to the number of
one hundred.[608] The constitution of Megara was then shaped into an
oligarchy of the closest possible kind, a few of the most violent men
taking complete possession of the government. But they must probably
have conducted it with vigor and prudence for their own purposes,
since Thucydidês remarks that it was rare to see a revolution
accomplished by so small a party, and yet so durable. How long it
lasted, he does not mention. A few months after these incidents,
the Megarians regained possession of their Long Walls, by capture
from the Athenians,[609] to whom indeed they could have been of no
material service, and levelled the whole line of them to the ground:
but the Athenians still retained Nisæa. We may remark, as explaining
in part the durability of this new government, that the truce
concluded at the beginning of the ensuing year must have greatly
lightened the difficulties of any government, whether oligarchical or
democratical, in Megara.
[607] We find some of them afterwards in the service of Athens,
employed as light-armed troops in the Sicilian expedition
(Thucyd. vi, 43).
[608] Thucyd. iv, 74. οἱ δὲ ἐπειδὴ ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς ἐγένοντο, καὶ
ἐξέτασιν ὅπλων ἐποιήσαντο, διαστήσαντες τοὺς λόχους, ἐξελέξαντο
τῶν τε ἐχθρῶν καὶ οἵ ἐδόκουν μάλιστα ξυμπρᾶξαι τὰ πρὸς τοὺς
Ἀθηναίους, ἄνδρας ὡς ἑκατόν· καὶ ~τούτων πέρι ἀναγκάσαντες τὸν
δῆμον ψῆφον φανερὰν διενεγκεῖν~, ὡς κατεγνώσθησαν, ἔκτειναν,
καὶ ἐς ὀλιγαρχίαν τὰ μάλιστα κατέστησαν τὴν πόλιν. καὶ πλεῖστον
δὴ χρόνον αὕτη ὑπ᾽ ἐλαχίστων γενομένη ἐκ στάσεως μετάστασις
ξυνέμεινεν.
[609] Thucyd. iv, 109.
The scheme for surprising Megara had been both laid and executed
with skill, and only miscarried through an accident to which such
schemes are always liable, as well as by the unexpected celerity
of Brasidas. It had, moreover, succeeded so far as to enable the
Athenians to carry Nisæa,—one of the posts which they had surrendered
by the thirty years’ truce, and of considerable positive value
to them: so that it counted on the whole as a victory, leaving
the generals with increased encouragement to turn their activity
elsewhere. Accordingly, very soon after the troops had been brought
back from the Megarid,[610] Hippokratês and Demosthenês concerted a
still more extensive plan for the invasion of Bœotia, in conjunction
with some malcontents in the Bœotian towns, who desired to break
down and democratize the oligarchical governments, and especially
through the agency of a Theban exile named Ptœodôrus. Demosthenês,
with forty triremes, was sent round Peloponnesus to Naupaktus, with
instructions to collect an Akarnanian force, to sail into the inmost
recess of the Corinthian or Krissæan gulf, and to occupy Siphæ, a
maritime town belonging to the Bœotian Thespiæ, where intelligences
had been already established. On the same day, determined beforehand,
Hippokratês engaged to enter Bœotia, with the main force of Athens,
at the southeastern corner of the territory near Tanagra, and to
fortify Delium, the temple of Apollo, on the coast of the Eubœan
strait: while at the same time it was concerted that some Bœotian
and Phocian malcontents should make themselves masters of Chæroneia
on the borders of Phocis. Bœotia would thus be assailed on three
sides at the same moment, so that the forces of the country would be
distracted and unable to coöperate. Internal movements were farther
expected to take place in some of the cities, such as perhaps to
establish democratical governments and place them at once in alliance
with the Athenians.
[610] Thucyd. iv, 76. εὐθὺς μετὰ τὴν ἐκ τῆς Μεγαρίδος ἀναχώρησιν,
etc.
Accordingly, about the month of August, Demosthenês sailed from
Athens to Naupaktus, where he collected his Akarnanian allies,—now
stronger and more united than ever, since the refractory inhabitants
of Œniadæ had been at length compelled to join their Akarnanian
brethren: moreover, the neighboring Agræans with their prince
Salynthius were also brought into the Athenian alliance. On the
appointed day, seemingly about the beginning of October, he
sailed with a strong force of these allies up to Siphæ, in full
expectation that it would be betrayed to him.[611] But the execution
of this enterprise was less happy than that against Megara. In the
first place, there was a mistake as to the day understood between
Hippokratês and Demosthenês: in the next place, the entire plot was
discovered and betrayed by a Phocian of Phanoteus (bordering on
Chæroneia) named Nicomachus,—communicated first to the Lacedæmonians
and through them to the bœotarchs. Siphæ and Chæroneia were
immediately placed in a state of defence, and Demosthenês, on
arriving at the former place, found not only no party within it
favorable to him, but a formidable Bœotian force which rendered
attack unavailing: moreover, Hippokratês had not yet begun his march,
so that the defenders had nothing to distract their attention from
Siphæ.[612] Under these circumstances, not only was Demosthenês
obliged to withdraw without striking a blow, and to content himself
with an unsuccessful descent upon the territory of Sikyon,[613] but
all the expected internal movements in Bœotia were prevented from
breaking out.
[611] Thucyd. iv, 77.
[612] Thucyd. iv, 89.
[613] Thucyd. iv, 101.
It was not till after the Bœotian troops, having repelled the attack
by sea, had retired from Siphæ, that Hippokratês commenced his
march from Athens to invade the Bœotian territory near Tanagra. He
was probably encouraged by false promises from the Bœotian exiles,
otherwise it seems remarkable that he should have persisted in
executing his part of the scheme alone, after the known failure of
the other part. It was, however, executed in a manner which implies
unusual alacrity and confidence. The whole military population of
Athens was marched into Bœotia, to the neighborhood of Delium,
the eastern coast-extremity of the territory belonging to the
Bœotian town of Tanagra; the expedition comprising all classes,
not merely citizens, but also metics or resident non-freemen, and
even non-resident strangers then by accident at Athens. Of course
this statement must be understood with the reserve of ample guards
left behind for the city: but besides the really effective force
of seven thousand hoplites, and several hundred horsemen, there
appear to have been not less than twenty-five thousand light-armed,
half-armed, or unarmed attendants accompanying the march.[614] The
number of hoplites is here prodigiously great; brought together by
general and indiscriminate proclamation, not selected by a special
choice of the stratêgi out of the names on the muster-roll, as was
usually the case for any distant expedition.[615] As to light-armed,
there was at this time no trained force of that description at
Athens, except a small body of archers. No pains had been taken to
organize either darters or slingers: the hoplites, the horsemen,
and the seamen, constituted the whole effective force of the
city. Indeed, it appears that the Bœotians also were hardly less
destitute than the Athenians of native darters and slingers, since
those which they employed in the subsequent siege of Delium were in
great part hired from the Malian gulf.[616] To employ at one and
the same time heavy-armed and light-armed, was not natural to any
Grecian community, but was a practice which grew up with experience
and necessity. The Athenian feeling, as manifested in the Persæ
of Æschylus a few years after the repulse of Xerxes, proclaims
exclusive pride in the spear and shield, with contempt for the bow:
and it was only during this very year, when alarmed by the Athenian
occupation of Pylus and Kythêra, that the Lacedæmonians, contrary
to their previous custom, had begun to organize a regiment of
archers.[617] The effective manner in which Demosthenês had employed
the light-armed in Sphakteria against the Lacedæmonian hoplites, was
well calculated to teach an instructive lesson as to the value of the
former description of troops.
[614] Thucyd. iv, 93, 94. He states that the Bœotian ψιλοὶ were
above ten thousand, and that the Athenian ψιλοὶ were πολλαπλάσιοι
τῶν ἐναντίων. We can hardly take this number as less than
twenty-five thousand ψιλῶν καὶ σκευοφόρων (iv, 101).
The hoplites, as well as the horsemen, had their baggage and
provision carried for them by attendants: see Thucyd. iii, 17;
vii, 75.
[615] Thucyd. iv, 90. Ὁ δ᾽ Ἱπποκράτης ἀναστήσας Ἀθηναίους
πανδημεὶ, αὐτοὺς καὶ τοὺς μετοίκους καὶ ξένων ὅσοι παρῆσαν, etc.:
also πανστρατιᾶς (iv, 94).
The meaning of the word πανδημεὶ is well illustrated by Nikias in
his exhortation to the Athenian army near Syracuse, immediately
antecedent to the first battle with the Syracusans,—levy
_en masse_, as opposed to hoplites specially selected (vi,
66-68),—ἄλλως τε καὶ πρὸς ἄνδρας πανδημεί τε ἀμυνομένους, καὶ οὐκ
ἀπολέκτους, ὥσπερ καὶ ἡμᾶς—καὶ προσέτι Σικελιώτας, etc.
When a special selection took place, the names of the hoplites
chosen by the generals to take part in any particular service
were written on boards according to their tribes: each of these
boards was affixed publicly against the statue of the Heros
Eponymus of the tribe to which it referred: Aristophanês,
Equites, 1369; Pac. 1184, with Scholiast; Wachsmuth, Hellen.
Alterthumsk. ii, p. 312.
[616] Thucyd. iv, 100.
[617] Thucyd. iv, 55.
The Bœotian Delium,[618] which Hippokratês now intended to occupy and
fortify, was a temple of Apollo, strongly situated and overhanging
the sea, about five miles from Tanagra, and somewhat more than a
mile from the border territory of Orôpus,—a territory originally
Bœotian, but at this time dependent on Athens, and even partly
incorporated in the political community of Athens, under the name
of the Deme of Græa.[619] Orôpus itself was about a day’s march
from Athens, by the road which led through Dekeleia and Sphendalê,
between the mountains Parnês and Phelleus: so that as the distance to
be traversed was so inconsiderable, and the general feeling of the
time was that of confidence, it is probable that men of all ages,
arms, and dispositions crowded to join the march, in part from mere
curiosity and excitement. Hippokratês reached Delium on the day after
he had started from Athens: on the succeeding day he began his work
of fortification, which was completed, all hands aiding, and tools as
well as workmen having been brought along with the army from Athens,
in two days and a half. Having dug a ditch all round the sacred
ground, he threw up the earth in a bank alongside of the ditch,
planting stakes, throwing in fascines, and adding layers of stone
and brick, to keep the work together, and make it into a rampart of
tolerable height and firmness. The vines[620] round the temple,
together with the stakes which served as supports to them, were cut
to obtain wood; the houses adjoining furnished bricks and stone: the
outer temple-buildings themselves also, on some of the sides, served
as they stood to facilitate and strengthen the defence; but there was
one side on which the annexed building, once a portico, had fallen
down: and here the Athenians constructed some wooden towers as a
help to the defenders. By the middle of the fifth day after leaving
Athens, the work was so nearly completed, that the army quitted
Delium, and began its march homeward, out of Bœotia; halting, after
it had proceeded about a mile and a quarter, within the Athenian
territory of Orôpus. It was here that the hoplites awaited the
coming of Hippokratês, who still remained at Delium, stationing the
garrison, and giving his final orders about future defence; while
the greater number of the light-armed and unarmed, separating from
the hoplites, and seemingly without any anticipation of the coming
danger, continued their return-march to Athens.[621] Their position
was probably about the western extremity of the plain of Orôpus, on
the verge of the low heights between that plain and Delium.[622]
[618] Thucyd. iv, 90; Livy, xxxv, 51.
[619] Dikæarch. Βίος Ἑλλάδος. Fragm. ed. Fuhr, pp. 142-230;
Pausan. i, 34, 2; Aristotle ap. Stephan. Byz. v, Ὠρωπός. See
also Col. Leake, Athens and the Demi of Attica, vol. ii, sect.
iv, p. 123; Mr. Finlay, Oropus and the Diakria, p. 38; Ross, Die
Demen von Attika, p. 6, where the Deme of Græa is verified by an
inscription, and explained for the first time.
The road taken by the army of Hippokratês in the march to Delium,
was the same as that by which the Lacedæmonian army in their
first invasion of Attica had retired from Attica into Bœotia
(Thucyd. ii, 23).
[620] Dikæarchus (Βίος Ἑλλάδος, p. 142, ed. Fuhr) is full of
encomiums on the excellence of the wine drunk at Tanagra, and of
the abundant olive-plantations on the road between Orôpus and
Tanagra.
Since tools and masons were brought from Athens to fortify Nisæa
about three months before (Thucyd. iv, 69), we may be pretty sure
that similar apparatus was carried to Delium, though Thucydidês
does not state it.
[621] Thucyd. iv, 90. That the vines round the temple had
supporting-stakes, which furnished the σταυροὺς used by the
Athenians, we may reasonably presume: the same as those χάρακες
which are spoken of in Korkyra, iii, 70: compare Pollux, i, 162.
[622] “The plain of Oropus (observes Col. Leake) expands from
its upper angle at _Oropó_ towards the mouth of the Asopus, and
stretches about five miles along the shore, from the foot of the
hills of Markópulo on the east to the village of Khalkúki on
the west, where begin some heights extending westward towards
Dhilisi, the ancient Delium.”—“The plain of Oropus is separated
from the more inland plain of Tanagra by rocky gorges through
which the Asopus flows.” (Leake, Athens and the Demi of Attica,
vol. ii. sect. iv, p. 112.)
During these five days, however, the forces from all parts of Bœotia
had time to muster at Tanagra: and their number was just completed
as the Athenians were beginning their march homeward from Delium.
Contingents had arrived, not only from Thebes and its dependent
townships around, but also from Haliartus, Korôneia, Orchomenus,
Kôpæ, and Thespiæ: that of Tanagra joined on the spot. The government
of the Bœotian confederacy at this time was vested in eleven
bœotarchs,—two chosen from Thebes, the rest in unknown proportion
by the other cities, immediate members of the confederacy,—and in
four senates, or councils, the constitution of which is not known.
Though all the bœotarchs, now assembled at Tanagra, formed a sort
of council of war, yet the supreme command was vested in Pagondas
and Aranthidês, the bœotarchs from Thebes; either in Pagondas as the
senior of the two, or perhaps in both, alternating with each other
day by day.[623] As the Athenians were evidently in full retreat,
and had already passed the border, all the other bœotarchs, except
Pagondas, were unwilling to hazard a battle[624] on soil not Bœotian,
and were disposed to let them return home without obstruction. Such
reluctance is not surprising, when we reflect that the chances of
defeat were considerable, and that probably some of these bœotarchs
were afraid of the increased power which a victory would lend to
the oppressive tendencies of Thebes. But Pagondas strenuously
opposed this proposition, and carried the soldiers of the various
cities along with him, even in opposition to the sentiments of
their separate leaders, in favor of immediately fighting. He called
them apart and addressed them by separate divisions, in order that
all might not quit their arms at one and the same moment.[625] He
characterized the sentiment of the other bœotarchs as an unworthy
manifestation of weakness, which, when properly considered, had not
even the recommendation of superior prudence. For the Athenians
had just invaded the country, and built a fort for the purpose of
continuous devastation; nor were they less enemies on one side of the
border than on the other. Moreover, they were the most restless and
encroaching of all enemies; and the Bœotians, who had the misfortune
to be their neighbors, could only be secure against them by the most
resolute promptitude in defending themselves, as well as in returning
the blows first given. If they wished to protect their autonomy and
their property against the condition of slavery under which their
neighbors in Eubœa had long suffered, as well as so many other
portions of Greece, their only chance was to march onward and beat
these invaders, following the glorious example of their fathers and
predecessors in the field of Korôneia. The sacrifices were favorable
to an advancing movement, and Apollo, whose temple the Athenians had
desecrated by converting it into a fortified place, would lend his
cordial aid to the Bœotian defence.[626]
[623] Thucyd. iv, 93; v, 38. Akræphiæ may probably be considered
as either a dependency of Thebes, or included in the general
expression of Thucydidês, after the word Κωπαιῆς—οἱ περὶ τὴν
λίμνην. Anthêdon and Lebadeia, which are recognized as separate
autonomous townships in various Bœotian inscriptions, are not
here named in Thucydidês. But there is no certain evidence
respecting the number of immediate members of the Bœotian
confederacy: compare the various conjectures in Boeckh, ad Corp.
Inscript. tom. i, p. 727; O. Müller, Orchomenus, p. 402; Kruse,
Hellas, tom. ii, p. 548.
[624] Thucyd. iv, 91. τῶν ἄλλων Βοιωταρχῶν, οἵ ~εἰσιν ἕνδεκα~, οὐ
ξυνεπαινούντων μάχεσθαι, etc.
The use of the present tense εἰσιν marks the number eleven as
that of _all the bœotarchs_; at this time, according to Boeckh’s
opinion, ad Corp. Inscript. i, vol. i, p. 729. The number,
however, appears to have been variable.
[625] Thucyd. iv, 91. προσκαλῶν ἑκάστους κατὰ λόχους, ὅπως μὴ
ἁθρόοι ἐκλίποιεν τὰ ὅπλα, ἔπειθε τοὺς Βοιωτοὺς ἰέναι ἐπὶ τοὺς
Ἀθηναίους καὶ τὸν ἀγῶνα ποιεῖσθαι.
Here Dr. Arnold observes: “This confirms and illustrates what
has been said in the note on ii, 2, 5, as to the practice of the
Greek soldiers piling their arms the moment they halted in a
particular part of the camp, and always attending the speeches of
their general without them.”
In the case here before us, it appears that the Bœotians did
come by separate lochi, pursuant to command, to hear the words
of Pagondas, and also that each lochus left its arms to do so;
though even here it is not absolutely certain that τὰ ὅπλα does
not mean _the military station_, as Dukas interprets it. But Dr.
Arnold generalizes too hastily from hence to a customary practice
as between soldiers and their general. The proceeding of the
Athenian general Hippokratês, on this very occasion, near Delium,
to be noticed a page or two forward, exhibits an arrangement
totally different. Moreover, the note on ii, 2, 5, to which Dr.
Arnold refers, has no sort of analogy to the passage here before
us, which does not include the words τίθεσθαι τὰ ὅπλα; whereas
these words are the main matters in chapter ii, 2, 5. Whoever
attentively compares the two, will see that Dr. Arnold, followed
by Poppo and Göller, has stretched an explanation which suits
the passage here before us to other passages where it is no way
applicable.
[626] Thucyd. iv, 92.
Finding his exhortations favorably received, Pagondas conducted the
army by a rapid march to a position close to the Athenians. He was
anxious to fight them before they should have retreated farther;
and, moreover, the day was nearly spent,—it was already late in the
afternoon. Having reached a spot where he was only separated from
the Athenians by a hill, which prevented either army from seeing the
other, he marshalled his troops in the array proper for fighting.
The Theban hoplites, with their dependent allies, ranged in a depth
of not less than twenty-five shields, occupied the right wing:
the hoplites of Haliartus, Korôneia, Kôpæ, and its neighborhood,
were in the centre: those of Thespiæ, Tanagra, and Orchomenus, on
the left; for Orchomenus, being the second city in Bœotia next to
Thebes, obtained a second post of honor at the opposite extremity
of the line. Each contingent adopted its own mode of marshalling
the hoplites, and its own depth of files: on this point there was
no uniformity, a remarkable proof of the prevalence of dissentient
custom in Greece, and how much each town, even among confederates,
stood apart as a separate unit.[627] Thucydidês specifies only the
prodigious depth of the Theban hoplites; respecting the rest, he
merely intimates that no common rule was followed. There is another
point also which he does not specify, but which, though we learn it
only on the inferior authority of Diodorus, appears both true and
important. The front ranks of the Theban heavy-armed were filled by
three hundred select warriors, of distinguished bodily strength,
valor, and discipline, who were accustomed to fight in pairs, each
man being attached to his neighbor by a peculiar tie of intimate
friendship. These pairs were termed the heniochi and parabatæ,
charioteers and companions; a denomination probably handed down
from the Homeric times, when the foremost heroes really combated in
chariots in front of the common soldiers, but now preserved after
it had outlived its appropriate meaning.[628] This band, composed
of the finest men in the various palæstræ of Thebes, and enjoying a
peculiar training for the defence of the kadmeia, or citadel, was
in after-days detached from the front ranks of the phalanx, and
organized into a separate regiment under the name of the Sacred
Lochus, or Band: we shall see how much it contributed to the
short-lived military ascendency of Thebes. On both flanks of this
mass of Bœotian hoplites, about seven thousand in total number, were
distributed one thousand cavalry, five hundred peltasts, and ten
thousand light-armed or unarmed. The language of the historian seems
to imply that the light-armed on the Bœotian side were something more
effective than the mere multitude who followed the Athenians.
[627] Thucyd. iv, 93. ἐπ᾽ ἀσπίδας δὲ πέντε μὲν καὶ εἴκοσι Θηβαῖοι
ἐτάξαντο, οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι ὡς ἕκαστοι ἔτυχον.
What is still more remarkable, in the battle of Mantincia, in 418
B.C. between the Lacedæmonians on one side and the Athenians,
Argeians, Mantincians, etc., on the other, the different lochi or
divisions of the Lacedæmonian army were not all marshalled in the
same depth of files. Each lochage, or commander of the lochus,
directed the depth of his own division (Thucyd. v, 68).
[628] Diodor. xii, 70. Προεμάχοντο δὲ πάντων οἱ παρ᾽ ἐκείνοις
Ἡνίοχοι καὶ Παραβάται καλούμενοι, ἄνδρες ἐπίλεκτοι τριακόσιοι....
Οἱ δὲ Θηβαῖοι διαφέροντες ταῖς τῶν σωμάτων ῥώμαις, etc.
Compare Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 18, 19.
Such was the order in which Pagondas marched his army over the hill,
halting them for a moment in front and sight of the Athenians, to
see that the ranks were even, before he gave the word for actual
charge.[629] Hippokratês, on his side, apprized while still at
Delium, that the Bœotians had moved from Tanagra, first sent orders
to his army to place themselves in battle array, and presently
arrived himself to command them; leaving three hundred cavalry at
Delium, partly as garrison, partly for the purpose of acting on
the rear of the Bœotians during the battle. The Athenian hoplites
were ranged eight deep along the whole line,—with the cavalry, and
such of the light-armed as yet remained, placed on each flank.
Hippokratês, after arriving on the spot, and surveying the ground
occupied, marched along the front of the line briefly encouraging
his soldiers; who, as the battle was just on the Orôpian border,
might fancy that they were not in their own country, and that they
were therefore exposed without necessity. He, too, in a strain
similar to that adopted by Pagondas, reminded the Athenians, that on
either side of the border they were alike fighting for the defence
of Attica, to keep the Bœotians out of it; since the Peloponnesians
would never dare to enter the country without the aid of the Bœotian
horse.[630] He farther called to their recollection the great name
of Athens, and the memorable victory of Myronidês, at Œnophyta,
whereby their fathers had acquired possession of all Bœotia. But
he had scarcely half-finished his progress along the line, when he
was forced to desist by the sound of the Bœotian pæan. Pagondas,
after a few additional sentences of encouragement, had given the
word: the Bœotian hoplites were seen charging down the hill; and the
Athenian hoplites, not less eager, advanced to meet them at a running
step.[631]
[629] Thucyd. iv, 93. Καὶ ἐπειδὴ καλῶς αὐτοῖς εἶχεν, ὑπερεφάνησαν
(the Bœotians) τοῦ λόφου καὶ ~ἔθεντο τὰ ὅπλα~ τεταγμένοι ὥσπερ
ἔμελλον, etc.
I transcribe this passage for the purpose of showing how
impossible it is to admit the explanation which Dr. Arnold,
Poppo, and Göller give of these words ἔθεντο τὰ ὅπλα (see Notes
ad Thucyd. ii, 2). They explain the words to mean, that the
soldiers “piled their arms into a heap,” disarmed themselves for
the time. But the Bœotians, in the situation here described,
cannot possibly have parted with their arms, they were just on
the point of charging the enemy: immediately afterwards, Pagondas
gives the word, the pæan for charging is sung, and the rush
commences. Pagondas had, doubtless, good reason for directing
a momentary halt, to see that his ranks were in perfectly good
condition before the charge began. But to command his troops to
“pile their arms” would be the last thing that he would think of.
In the interpretation of τεταγμένοι ὥσπερ ἔμελλον, I agree with
the Scholiast, who understands μαχέσασθαι or μαχεῖσθαι after
ἔμελλον (compare Thucyd. v, 66), dissenting from Dr. Arnold and
Göller, who would understand τάσσεσθαι; which, as it seems to me,
makes a very awkward meaning, and is not sustained by the passage
produced as parallel (viii, 51).
The infinitive verb, understood after ἔμελλον, need not
necessarily be a verb actually occurring before: it may be a verb
suggested by the general scope of the sentence: see ἐμέλλησαν,
iv, 123.
[630] Thucyd. iv, 95.
[631] Thucyd. iv, 95, 96. Καθεστώτων δ᾽ ἐς τὴν τάξιν καὶ
ἤδη μελλόντων ξυνιέναι, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ στρατηγὸς ἐπιπαριὼν τὸ
στρατόπεδον τῶν Ἀθηναίων παρεκελεύετό τε καὶ ἔλεγε τοιάδε....
Τοιαῦτα τοῦ Ἱπποκράτους παρακελευομένου, καὶ μέχρι μὲν μέσου τοῦ
στρατοπέδου ἐπελθόντος, τὸ δὲ πλέον οὐκέτι φθάσαντος, οἱ Βοιωτοὶ,
παρακελευσαμένου καὶ σφίσιν ὡς διὰ ταχέων καὶ ἐνταῦθα Παγώνδου,
παιωνίσαντες ἐπῄεσαν ἀπὸ τοῦ λόφου, etc.
This passage contradicts what is affirmed by Dr. Arnold, Poppo,
and Göller, to have been a _general practice_, that the soldiers
“piled their arms and _always_ attended the speeches of their
generals without them.” (See his note ad Thucyd. iv, 91.)
At the extremity of the line on each side, the interposition
of ravines prevented the actual meeting of the two armies: but
throughout all the rest of the line, the clash was formidable and the
conduct of both sides resolute. Both armies, maintaining their ranks
compact and unbroken, came to the closest quarters; to the contact
and pushing of shields against each other.[632] On the left half
of the Bœotian line, consisting of hoplites from Thespiæ, Tanagra,
and Orchomenus, the Athenians were victorious. The Thespians, who
resisted longest, even after their comrades had given way, were
surrounded and sustained the most severe loss from the Athenians;
who in the ardor of success, while wheeling round to encircle the
enemy, became disordered and came into conflict even with their own
citizens, not recognizing them at the moment: some loss of life was
the consequence.
[632] Thucyd. iv, 96. καρτερᾷ μάχῃ καὶ ὠθισμῷ ἀσπίδων
ξυνεστήκει, etc. Compare Xenophon, Cyropæd. vii, 1, 32.
While the left of the Bœotian line was thus worsted and driven
back for protection to the right, the Thebans on that side gained
decided advantage. Though the resolution and discipline of the
Athenians was noway inferior, yet as soon as the action came to close
quarters and to propulsion with shield and spear, the prodigious
depth of the Theban column (more than triple of the depth of the
Athenians, twenty-five against eight) enabled them to bear down
their enemies by mere superiority of weight and mass. Moreover, the
Thebans appear to have been superior to the Athenians in gymnastic
training and acquired bodily force, as they were inferior both in
speech and in intelligence. The chosen Theban warriors in the front
rank were especially superior: but apart from such superiority, if
we assume simple equality of individual strength and resolution
on both sides,[633] it is plain that when the two opposing columns
came into conflict, shield against shield, the comparative force of
forward pressure would decide the victory. This motive is sufficient
to explain the extraordinary depth of the Theban column, which
was increased by Epameinondas, half a century afterwards, at the
battle of Leuktra, from a depth of twenty-five men to the still more
astonishing depth of fifty: nor need we suspect the correctness
of the text, with some critics, or suppose, with others, that the
great depth of the Theban files arose from the circumstance that
the rear ranks were too poor to provide themselves with armor.[634]
Even in a depth of eight, which was that of the Athenian column in
the present engagement,[635] and seemingly the usual depth in a
battle, the spears of the four rear ranks could hardly have protruded
sufficiently beyond the first line to do any mischief. The great use
of all the ranks behind the first four, was partly to take the place
of such of the foremost lines as might be slain, partly, to push
forward the lines before them from behind. The greater the depth of
the files, the more irresistible did this propelling force become:
hence the Thebans at Delium, as well as at Leuktra, found their
account in deepening the column to so remarkable a degree, to which
we may fairly presume that their hoplites were trained beforehand.
[633] The proverbial expression of Βοιωτίαν ὗν, “the Bœotian
sow,” was ancient even in the town of Pindar (Olymp. vi, 90, with
the Scholia and Boeckh’s note): compare also Ephorus, Fragment
67, ed. Marx: Dikæarchus, Βίος Ἑλλάδος, p. 143, ed. Fuhr; Plato,
Legg. i, p. 636; and Symposion, p. 182, “pingues Thebani et
valentes,” Cicero de Fato, iv, 7.
Xenophon (Memorab. iii, 5, 2, 15; iii, 12, 5: compare Xenoph. de
Athen. Republ. i, 13) maintains the natural bodily capacity of
Athenians to be equal to that of Bœotians, but deplores the want
of σωμασκία, or bodily training.
[634] See the notes of Dr. Arnold and Poppo, ad Thucyd. iv, 96.
[635] Compare Thucyd. v, 68; vi, 67.
The Thebans on the right thus pushed back[636] the troops on the
left of the Athenian line, who retired at first slowly, and for a
short space, maintaining their order unbroken, so that the victory
of the Athenians on their own right would have restored the battle,
had not Pagondas detached from the rear two squadrons of cavalry;
who, wheeling unseen round the hill behind, suddenly appeared to
the relief of the Bœotian left, and produced upon the Athenians on
that side, already deranged in their ranks by the ardor of pursuit,
the intimidating effect of a fresh army arriving to reinforce the
Bœotians. And thus, even on the right, the victorious portion of
their line, the Athenians lost courage and gave way; while on
the left, where they were worsted from the beginning, they found
themselves pressed harder and harder by the pursuing Thebans: so
that in the end, the whole Athenian army was broken, dispersed, and
fled. The garrison of Delium, reinforced by three hundred cavalry,
whom Hippokratês had left there to assail the rear of the Bœotians
during the action, either made no vigorous movement, or were repelled
by a Bœotian reserve stationed to watch them. Flight having become
general among the Athenians, the different parts of their army took
different directions: the right sought refuge at Delium, the centre
fled to Orôpus, and the left took a direction towards the high lands
of Parnês. The pursuit of the Bœotians was vigorous and destructive:
they had an efficient cavalry, strengthened by some Lokrian horse
who had arrived even during the action: their peltasts also, and
their light-armed, would render valuable service against retreating
hoplites.[637] Fortunately for the vanquished, the battle had begun
very late in the afternoon, leaving no long period of daylight:
this important circumstance saved the Athenian army from almost
total destruction.[638] As it was, however, the general Hippokratês,
together with nearly one thousand hoplites, and a considerable number
of light-armed and attendants, were slain; while the loss of the
Bœotians, chiefly on their defeated left wing, was rather under five
hundred hoplites. Some prisoners[639] seem to have been made, but we
hear little about them. Those who had fled to Delium and Orôpus were
conveyed back by sea to Athens.
[636] Thucyd. iv, 96. Τὸ δὲ δεξιὸν, ᾗ οἱ Θηβαῖοι ἦσαν, ἐκράτει τε
τῶν Ἀθηναίων, καὶ ~ὠσάμενοι~ κατὰ βραχὺ τὸ πρῶτον ἐπηκολούθουν.
The word ὠσάμενοι (compare iv, 35; vi, 70), exactly expresses the
forward pushing of the mass of hoplites with shield and spear.
[637] Thucyd. iv, 96; Athenæus, v, p. 215. Diodorus (xii, 70)
represents that the battle began with a combat of cavalry, in
which the Athenians had the advantage. This is quite inconsistent
with the narrative of Thucydidês.
[638] Diodorus (xii, 70) dwells upon this circumstance.
[639] Pyrilampês is spoken of as having been wounded and taken
prisoner in the retreat by the Thebans (Plutarch, De Genio
Socratis, c. 11, p. 581). See also Thucyd. v, 35, where allusion
is made to some prisoners.
The victors retired to Tanagra, after erecting their trophy,
burying their own dead, and despoiling those of their enemies. An
abundant booty of arms from the stripped warriors, long remained
to decorate the temples of Thebes, and the spoil in other ways is
said to have been considerable. Pagondas also resolved to lay siege
to the newly-established fortress at Delium: but before commencing
operations,—which might perhaps prove tedious, since the Athenians
could always reinforce the garrison by sea,—he tried another means of
attaining the same object. He despatched to the Athenians a herald,
who, happening in his way to meet the Athenian herald, coming to ask
the ordinary permission for burial of the slain, warned him that no
such request would be entertained until the message of the Bœotian
general had first been communicated, and thus induced him to come
back to the Athenian commanders. The Bœotian herald was instructed
to remonstrate against the violation of holy custom committed by the
Athenians in seizing and fortifying the temple of Delium; wherein
their garrison was now dwelling, performing numerous functions
which religion forbade to be done in a sacred place, and using as
their common drink the water especially consecrated to sacrificial
purposes. The Bœotians therefore solemnly summoned them in the name
of Apollo, and the gods inmates along with him, to evacuate the
place, carrying away all that belonged to them: and the herald gave
it to be understood, that, unless this summons were complied with, no
permission would be granted to bury the dead.
Answer was returned by the Athenian herald, who now went to the
Bœotian commanders, to the following effect: “The Athenians did not
admit that they had hitherto been guilty of any wrong in reference
to the temple, and protested that they would persist in respecting
it for the future as much as possible. Their object in taking
possession of it had been no evil sentiment towards the holy place,
but the necessity of avenging the repeated invasions of Attica by
the Bœotians. Possession of the territory, according to the received
maxims of Greece, always carried along with it possession of
temples therein situated, under obligation to fulfil all customary
obligations to the resident god, as far as circumstances permitted.
It was upon this maxim that the Bœotians had themselves acted when
they took possession of their present territory, expelling the prior
occupants and appropriating the temples: it was upon the same maxim
that the Athenians would act in retaining so much of Bœotia as they
had now conquered, and in conquering more of it, if they could.
Necessity compelled them to use the consecrated water—a necessity
not originating in the ambition of Athens, but in prior Bœotian
aggressions upon Attica,—a necessity which they trusted that the
gods would pardon, since their altars were allowed as a protection
to the involuntary offender, and none but he who sinned without
constraint experienced their displeasure. The Bœotians were guilty
of far greater impiety in refusing to give back the dead, except
upon certain conditions connected with the holy ground, than the
Athenians, who merely refused to turn the duty of sepulture into an
unseemly bargain. Tell us unconditionally (concluded the Athenian
herald) that we may bury our dead under truce, pursuant to the maxims
of our forefathers. Do not tell us that we may do so on condition of
going out of Bœotia, for we are no longer in Bœotia; we are in our
own territory, won by the sword.”
The Bœotian generals dismissed the herald with a reply short and
decisive: “If you are in Bœotia, you may take away all that belongs
to you, but only on condition of going out of it. If on the other
hand you are in your own territory, you can take your own resolution
without asking us.”[640]
[640] See the two difficult chapters, iv, 98, 99, in Thucydidês.
In this debate, curious as an illustration of Grecian manners and
feelings, there seems to have been special pleading and evasion on
both sides. The final sentence of the Bœotians was good as a reply
to the incidental argument raised by the Athenian herald, who had
rested the defence of Athens in regard to the temple of Delium on the
allegation that the territory was Athenian, not Bœotian, Athenian
by conquest and by the right of the strongest, and had concluded by
affirming the same thing about Oropia, the district to which the
battle-field belonged. It was only this same argument, of actual
superior force, which the Bœotians retorted, when they said: “If
the territory to which your application refers is yours by right
of conquest (_i. e._ if you are _de facto_ masters of it, and are
strongest within it), you can of course do what you think best in
it: you need not ask any truce at our hands; you can bury your dead
without a truce.”[641] The Bœotians knew that at this moment the
field of battle was under guard by a detachment of their army,[642]
and that the Athenians could not obtain the dead bodies without
permission; but since the Athenian herald had asserted the reverse
as a matter of fact, we can hardly wonder that they resented the
production of such an argument; meeting it by a reply sufficiently
pertinent in mere diplomatic fencing.
[641] See the notes of Poppo, Göller, Dr. Arnold, and other
commentators, on these chapters.