satisfactory; nor do they seize the spirit of the argument
between the Athenian herald and the Bœotian officers, which
will be found perfectly consistent as a piece of diplomatic
interchange.
In particular, they do not take notice that it is the _Athenian_
herald who first raises the question, what is Athenian territory
and what is Bœotian: and that he defines Athenian territory to
be that in which the force of Athens is superior. The retort of
the Bœotians refers to that definition; not to the question of
rightful claim to any territory, apart from actual superiority of
force.
[642] Thucyd. iv, 97.
But if the Athenian herald, instead of raising the incidental point
of territorial property, combined with an incautious definition of
that which constituted territorial property, as a defence against the
alleged desecration of the temple of Delium, had confined himself
to the main issue, he would have put the Bœotians completely in the
wrong. According to principles universally respected in Greece, the
victor, if solicited, was held bound to grant to the vanquished
a truce for burying his dead; to grant and permit it absolutely,
without annexing any conditions. On this, the main point in debate,
the Bœotians sinned against the most sacred international law of
Greece, when they exacted the evacuation of the temple at Delium
as a condition for consenting to permit the burial of the Athenian
dead. Ultimately, after they had taken Delium, we shall find that
they did grant it unconditionally; and we may doubt whether they
would have ever persisted in refusing it, if the Athenian herald had
pressed this one important principle separately and exclusively; and
if he had not, by an unskilful plea in vindication of the right
to occupy and live at Delium, both exasperated their feelings, and
furnished them with a collateral issue as a means of evading the main
demand.[643]
[643] Thucydidês, in describing the state of mind of the
Bœotians, does not seem to imply that they thought this a good
and valid ground, upon which they could directly take their
stand; but merely that they considered it a fair diplomatic way
of meeting the alternative raised by the Athenian herald; for
εὐπρεπὲς means nothing more than this.
Οὐδ᾽ αὖ ἐσπένδοντο ~δῆθεν~ ὑπὲρ τῆς ἐκείνων (Ἀθηναίων)· τὸ δὲ ἐκ
τῆς ἑαυτῶν (Βοιωτῶν) ~εὐπρεπὲς~ εἶναι ἀποκρίνασθαι, ἀπιόντας καὶ
ἀπολαβεῖν ἃ ἀπαιτοῦσιν.
The adverb δῆθεν also marks the reference to the special
question, as laid out by the Athenian herald.
To judge this curious debate with perfect impartiality, we ought
to add, in reference to the conduct of the Athenians in occupying
Delium, that for an enemy to make special choice of a temple, as
a post to be fortified and occupied, was a proceeding certainly
rare, perhaps hardly admissible, in Grecian warfare. Nor does the
vindication offered by the Athenian herald meet the real charge
preferred. It is one thing for an enemy of superior force to overrun
a country, and to appropriate everything within it, sacred as well
as profane: it is another thing for a border enemy, not yet in
sufficient force for conquering the whole, to convert a temple of
convenient site into a regular garrisoned fortress, and make it
a base of operations against the neighboring population. On this
ground, the Bœotians might reasonably complain of the seizure of
Delium: though I apprehend that no impartial interpreter of Grecian
international custom would have thought them warranted in attaching
it as a condition to their grant of the burial-truce when solicited.
All negotiation being thus broken off, the Bœotian generals prepared
to lay siege to Delium, aided by two thousand Corinthian hoplites,
together with some Megarians and the late Peloponnesian garrison of
Nisæa, who joined after the news of the battle. Though they sent
for darters and slingers, probably Œtæans and Ætolians, from the
Maliac gulf, yet their direct attacks were at first all repelled
by the garrison, aided by an Athenian squadron off the coast,
in spite of the hasty and awkward defences by which alone the
fort was protected. At length they contrived a singular piece of
fire-mechanism, which enabled them to master the place. They first
sawed in twain a thick beam, pierced a channel through it long-ways
from end to end, coated most part of the channel with iron, and then
joined the two halves accurately together. From the farther end of
this hollowed beam they suspended by chains a boiler, full of pitch,
brimstone, and burning charcoal; lastly, an iron tube projected from
the end of the interior channel of the beam, in a direction so as to
come near to the boiler. Such was the machine, which, constructed at
some distance, was brought on carts and placed close to the wall,
near the palisading and the wooden towers. The Bœotians then applied
great bellows to their own end of the beam, blowing violently with
a close current of air through the interior channel, so as to raise
an intense fire in the boiler at the other end. The wooden portions
of the wall, soon catching fire, became untenable for the defenders,
who escaped in the best way they could, without attempting farther
resistance. Two hundred of them were made prisoners and a few slain;
but the greater number got safely on shipboard. This recapture of
Delium took place on the seventeenth day after the battle, during
all which interval the Athenians slain had remained on the field
unburied. Presently, however, arrived the Athenian herald to make
fresh application for the burial-truce; which was now forthwith
granted, and granted unconditionally.[644]
[644] Thucyd. iv, 100, 101.
Such was the memorable expedition and battle of Delium, a fatal
discouragement to the feeling of confidence and hope which had
previously reigned at Athens, besides the painful immediate loss
which it inflicted on the city. Among the hoplites who took part in
the vigorous charge and pushing of shields, the philosopher Sokratês
is to be numbered. His bravery both in the battle and the retreat was
much extolled by his friends, and doubtless with good reason: he had
before served with credit in the ranks of the hoplites at Potidæa,
and he served also at Amphipolis: his patience under hardship and
endurance of heat and cold being not less remarkable than his
personal bravery. He and his friend Lachês were among those hoplites,
who, in the retreat from Delium, instead of flinging away their
arms and taking to flight, kept their ranks, their arms, and their
firmness of countenance; insomuch that the pursuing cavalry found it
dangerous to meddle with them, and turned to an easier prey in the
disarmed fugitives. Alkibiadês also served at Delium in the cavalry,
and helped to protect Sokratês in the retreat. The latter was thus
exposing his life at Delium nearly at the same time when Aristophanês
was exposing him to derision in the comedy of the Clouds, as a
dreamer alike morally worthless and physically incapable.[645]
[645] See Plato (Symposion, c. 36, p. 221; Lachês, p. 181;
Charmidês, p. 153; Apolog. Sokratis, p. 28), Strabo, ix, p. 403.
Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 7. We find it mentioned among the
stories told about Sokratês in the retreat from Delium, that his
life was preserved by the inspiration of his familiar dæmon, or
genius, which instructed him on one doubtful occasion which of
two roads was the safe one to take (Cicero, de Divinat. i, 54;
Plutarch, de Genio Sokratis, c. 11, p. 581).
The skepticism of Athenæus (v, p. 215) about the military service
of Sokratês is not to be defended, but it may probably be
explained by the exaggerations and falsehoods which he had read,
ascribing to the philosopher superhuman gallantry.
Severe as the blow was which the Athenians suffered at Delium,
their disasters in Thrace about the same time, or towards the close
of the same summer and autumn, were yet more calamitous. I have
already mentioned the circumstances which led to the preparation of a
Lacedæmonian force intended to act against the Athenians in Thrace,
under Brasidas, in concert with the Chalkidians, revolted subjects of
Athens, and with Perdikkas of Macedon. Having frustrated the Athenian
designs against Megara (as described above),[646] Brasidas completed
the levy of his division,—seventeen hundred hoplites, partly Helots,
partly Dorian Peloponnesians,—and conducted them, towards the close
of the summer, to the Lacedæmonian colony of Herakleia, in the
Trachinian territory near the Maliac gulf. To reach Macedonia and
Thrace, it was necessary for him to pass through Thessaly, which was
no easy task; for the war had now lasted so long that every state in
Greece had become mistrustful of the transit of armed foreigners.
Moreover, the mass of the Thessalian population were decidedly
friendly to Athens, nor had he any sufficient means to force a
passage: while, should he wait to apply for formal permission, there
was much doubt whether it would be granted, and perfect certainty
of such delay and publicity as would put the Athenians on their
guard. But though such was the temper of the Thessalian people,
yet the Thessalian governments, all oligarchical, sympathized with
Lacedæmon; and the federal authority or power of the tagus, which
bound together the separate cities, was generally very weak. What was
of still greater importance, the Macedonian Perdikkas, as well as the
Chalkidians, had in every city powerful guests and partisans, whom
they prevailed upon to exert themselves actively in forwarding the
passage of the army.[647]
[646] See above, page 378.
[647] Thucyd. iv, 78.
To these men Brasidas sent a message at Pharsalus, as soon as he
reached Herakleia; and Nikonidas, of Larissa, with other Thessalian
friends of Perdikkas, assembling at Melitæa, in Achaia Phthiôtis,
undertook to escort him through Thessaly. By their countenance
and support, combined with his own boldness, dexterity, and rapid
movements, he was enabled to accomplish the seemingly impossible
enterprise of running through the country, not only without the
consent but against the feeling of its inhabitants, simply by
such celerity as to forestall opposition. After traversing Achaia
Phthiôtis, a territory dependent on the Thessalians, Brasidas began
his march from Melitæa through Thessaly itself, along with his
powerful native guides. Notwithstanding all possible secrecy and
celerity, his march became so far divulged, that a body of volunteers
from the neighborhood, offended at the proceeding, and unfriendly
to Nikonidas, assembled to oppose his progress down the valley of
the river Enipeus. Reproaching him with wrongful violation of an
independent territory, by the introduction of armed forces without
permission from the general government, they forbade him to proceed
farther. His only chance of making progress lay in disarming their
opposition by fair words. His guides excused themselves by saying
that the suddenness of his arrival had imposed upon them as his
guests the obligation of conducting him through, without waiting
to ask for formal permission: to offend their countrymen, however,
was the farthest thing from their thoughts and they would renounce
the enterprise if the persons now assembled persisted in their
requisition. The same conciliatory tone was adopted by Brasidas
himself. “He protested his strong feeling of respect and friendship
for Thessaly and its inhabitants: his arms were directed against
the Athenians, not against them: nor was he aware of any unfriendly
relation subsisting between the Thessalians and Lacedæmonians, such
as to exclude either of them from the territory of the other. Against
the prohibition of the parties now before him, he could not possibly
march forward, nor would he think of attempting it; but he put it
to their good feeling whether they ought to prohibit him.” Such
conciliatory language was successful in softening the opponents and
inducing them to disperse. But so afraid were his guides of renewed
opposition in other parts, that they hurried him forward still
more rapidly,[648] and he “passed through the country at a running
pace without halting.” Leaving Melitæa in the morning, he reached
Pharsalus on the same night, encamping on the river Apidanus: thence
he proceeded on the next day to Phakium, and on the day afterwards
into Perrhæbia,[649] a territory adjoining to and dependent on
Thessaly, under the mountain range of Olympus. Here he was in safety,
so that his Thessalian guides left him; while the Perrhæbians
conducted him over the pass of Olympus—the same over which the army
of Xerxes had marched—to Dium, in Macedonia, in the territory of
Perdikkas, on the northern edge of the mountain.[650]
[648] Thucyd. iv, 78. Ὁ δὲ, κελευόντων τῶν ἀγωγῶν, πρίν τι πλέον
ξυστῆναι τὸ κωλῦσον, ἐχώρει οὐδὲν ἐπισχὼν δρόμῳ.
[649] The geography of Thessaly is not sufficiently known
to enable us to verify these positions with exactness. That
which Thucydidês calls the Apidanus, is the river formed by
the junction of the Apidanus and Enipeus. See Kiepert’s map of
ancient Thessaly (Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, ch.
xlii, vol. iv, p. 470; and Dr. Arnold’s note on this chapter of
Thucydidês).
We must suppose that Brasidas was detained a considerable time
in parleying with the opposing band of Thessalians. Otherwise,
it would seem that the space between Melitæa and Pharsalus would
not be a great distance to get over in an entire day’s march,
considering that the pace was as rapid as the troops could
sustain. The much greater distance between Larissa and Melitæa,
was traversed in one night by Philip king of Macedon, the son
of Demetrius, with an army carrying ladders and other aids for
attacking a town, etc. (Polyb. v, 97.)
[650] Thucyd. iv, 78.
The Athenians were soon apprized of this stolen passage, so ably
and rapidly executed, in a manner which few other Greeks, certainly
no other Lacedæmonian, would have conceived to be possible. Aware
of the new enemy thus brought within reach of their possessions
in Thrace, they transmitted orders thither for greater vigilance,
and at the same time declared open war against Perdikkas;[651] but
unfortunately without sending any efficient force, at the moment when
timely defensive intervention was imperiously required. Perdikkas
immediately invited Brasidas to join him in the attack of Arrhibæus,
prince of the Macedonians, called Lynkestæ, or of Lynkus; a summons
which the Spartan could not decline, since Perdikkas provided half
of the pay and maintenance of the army,—but which he obeyed with
reluctance, anxious as he was to commence operations against the
allies of Athens. Such reluctance was still farther strengthened by
envoys from the Chalkidians of Thrace, who, as zealous enemies of
Athens, joined him forthwith, but discouraged any vigorous efforts
to relieve Perdikkas from embarrassing enemies in the interior,
in order that the latter might be under more pressing motives to
conciliate and assist them. Accordingly Brasidas, though he joined
Perdikkas, and marched along with the Macedonian army towards the
territory of the Lynkestæ, was not only averse to active military
operations, but even entertained with favor propositions from
Arrhibæus, wherein the latter expressed his wish to become the ally
of Lacedæmon, and offered to refer all his differences with Perdikkas
to the arbitration of the Spartan general himself. Communicating
these propositions to Perdikkas, Brasidas invited him to listen to
an equitable compromise, admitting Arrhibæus into the alliance of
Lacedæmon. But Perdikkas indignantly refused: “He had not called in
Brasidas as a judge, to decide disputes between him and his enemies,
but as an auxiliary, to put them down wherever he might point them
out: and he protested against the iniquity of Brasidas in entering
into terms with Arrhibæus, while the Lacedæmonian army was half
paid and maintained by him,” (Perdikkas.[652]) Notwithstanding such
remonstrances, and even a hostile protest, Brasidas persisted in his
intended conference with Arrhibæus, and was so far satisfied with
the propositions made that he withdrew his troops without marching
over the pass into Lynkus. Too feeble to act alone, Perdikkas
loudly complained, and contracted his allowance for the future so
as to provide for only one-third of the army of Brasidas instead of
one-half.
[651] Thucyd. iv, 82.
[652] Thucyd. iv, 83.
To this inconvenience, however, Brasidas submitted, in haste to
begin his march into Chalkidikê, and his operations jointly with the
Chalkidians, for seducing or subduing the subject-allies of Athens.
His first operation was against Akanthus, on the isthmus of the
peninsula of Athos, the territory of which he invaded a little before
the vintage, probably about the middle of September; when the grapes
were ripe, but still out, and the whole crop of course exposed to
ruin at the hands of an enemy superior in force: so important was it
to Brasidas to have escaped the necessity of wasting another month
in conquering the Lynkestæ. There was within the town of Akanthus a
party in concert with the Chalkidians, anxious to admit him, and to
revolt openly from Athens. But the mass of the citizens were averse
to this step: and it was only by dwelling on the terrible loss from
exposure of the crop without, that the anti-Athenian party could
persuade them even to grant the request of Brasidas to be admitted
singly,[653] so as to explain his purposes formally before the
public assembly, which would take its own decision afterwards. “For
a Lacedæmonian (says Thucydidês) he was no mean speaker:” and if
he is to have credit for that which we find written in Thucydidês,
such an epithet would be less than his desert. Doubtless, however,
the substance of the speech is genuine: and it is one of the most
interesting in Grecian history; partly as a manifesto of professed
Lacedæmonian policy, partly because it had a great practical effect
in determining, on an occasion of paramount importance, a multitude
which, though unfavorably inclined to him, was not beyond the reach
of argument. I give the chief points of the speech, without binding
myself to the words.
[653] Thucyd. iv, 84. Οἱ δὲ ~περὶ τοῦ δέχεσθαι αὐτὸν κατ᾽
ἀλλήλους ἐστασίαζον, οἵ τε μετὰ τῶν Χαλκιδέων ξυνεπάγοντες καὶ ὁ
δῆμος~· ὅμως δὲ, ~διὰ τοῦ καρποῦ τὸ δέος ἔτι ἔξω ὄντος~, πεισθὲν
τὸ πλῆθος ὑπὸ τοῦ Βρασίδου δέξασθαί τε αὐτὸν μόνον καὶ ἀκούσαντας
βουλεύσασθαι, δέχεται, etc.
“Myself and my soldiers have been sent, Akanthians, to realize the
purpose which we proclaimed on beginning the war; that we took arms
to liberate Greece from the Athenians. Let no man blame us for
having been long in coming, or for the mistake which we made at the
outset in supposing that we should quickly put down the Athenians by
operations against Attica, without exposing you to any risk. Enough,
that we are now here on the first opportunity, resolved to put them
down if you will lend us your aid. To find myself shut out of your
town, nay, to find that I am not heartily welcomed, astonishes me.
We, Lacedæmonians, undertook this long and perilous march, in the
belief that we were coming to friends eagerly expecting us; and
it would indeed be terrible if you should now disappoint us, and
stand out against your own freedom as well as that of other Greeks.
Your example, standing high as you do both for prudence and power,
will fatally keep back other Greeks, and make them suspect that I
am wanting either in power to protect them against Athens, or in
honest purpose. Now, in regard to power, my own present army was
one which the Athenians, though superior in number, were afraid to
fight near Nisæa; nor are they at all likely to send an equal force
hither against me by sea. And in regard to my purpose, it is not
one of mischief, but of liberation, the Lacedæmonian authorities
having pledged themselves to me by the most solemn oaths, that every
city which joins me shall retain its autonomy. You have therefore
the best assurance both as to my purposes and as to my power; still
less need you apprehend that I am come with factious designs, to
serve the views of any particular men among you, and to remodel your
established constitution to the disadvantage either of the many or
of the few. That would be worse than foreign subjugation, so that
we Lacedæmonians should be taking all this trouble to earn hatred
instead of gratitude. We should play the part of unworthy traitors,
worse even than that high-handed oppression of which we accuse the
Athenians: we should at once violate our oaths and sin against our
strongest political interests. Perhaps you may say, that though you
wish me well, you desire for your parts to be let alone, and to
stand aloof from a dangerous struggle. You will tell me to carry my
propositions elsewhere, to those who can safely embrace them, but
not to thrust my alliance upon any people against their own will.
If this should be your language, I shall first call your local gods
and heroes to witness that I have come to you with a mission of
good, and have employed persuasion in vain; I shall then proceed to
ravage your territory and extort your consent, thinking myself justly
entitled to do so, on two grounds. First, that the Lacedæmonians may
not sustain actual damage from these good wishes which you profess
towards me without actually joining,—damage in the shape of that
tribute which you annually send to Athens. Next, that the Greeks
generally may not be prevented by you from becoming free. It is only
on the ground of common good, that we Lacedæmonians can justify
ourselves for liberating any city against its own will; but as we
are conscious of desiring only extinction of the empire of others,
not acquisition of empire for ourselves, we should fail in our duty
if we suffered you to obstruct that liberation which we are now
carrying to all. Consider well my words, then: take to yourselves
the glory of beginning the era of emancipation for Greece, save your
own properties from damage, and attach an ever-honorable name to the
community of Akanthus.”[654]
[654] Thucyd. iv, 85, 86, 87.
Nothing could be more plausible or judicious than this language of
Brasidas to the Akanthians, nor had they any means of detecting the
falsity of the assertion, which he afterwards repeated in other
places besides,[655] that he had braved the forces of Athens at Nisæa
with the same army as that now on the outside of the walls. Perhaps
the simplicity of his speech and manner may even have lent strength
to his assurances. As soon as he had retired, the subject was largely
discussed in the assembly, with much difference of opinion among
the speakers, and perfect freedom on both sides: and the decision,
not called for until after a long debate, was determined partly by
the fair promises of Brasidas, partly by the certain loss which
the ruin of the vine-crop would entail. The votes of the citizens
present being taken secretly, a majority resolved to accede to the
propositions of Brasidas and revolt from Athens.[656] Exacting the
renewal of his pledge and that of the Lacedæmonian authorities, for
the preservation of full autonomy to every city which should join
him, they received his army into the town. The neighboring city of
Stageirus, a colony of Andros, as Akanthus also was, soon followed
the example.[657]
[655] Thucyd. iv, 108.
[656] Thucyd. iv, 88. Οἱ δὲ Ἀκάνθιοι, πολλῶν λεχθέντων πρότερον
ἐπ᾽ ἀμφότερα, κρύφα διαψηφισάμενοι, διά τε τὸ ἐπαγωγὰ εἰπεῖν τὸν
Βρασίδαν καὶ περὶ τοῦ καρποῦ φόβῳ, ἔγνωσαν οἱ πλείους ἀφίστασθαι
Ἀθηναίων.
[657] Thucyd. iv, 88; Diodor. xii, 67.
There are few acts in history wherein Grecian political reason and
morality appear to greater advantage than in this proceeding of
the Akanthians. The habit of fair, free, and pacific discussion;
the established respect to the vote of the majority; the care to
protect individual independence of judgment by secret suffrage; the
deliberate estimate of reasons on both sides by each individual
citizen, all these main laws and conditions of healthy political
action appear as a part of the confirmed character of the Akanthians.
We shall not find Brasidas entering other towns in a way so
creditable or so harmonious.
But there is another inference which the scene just described
irresistibly suggests. It affords the clearest proof that the
Akanthians had little to complain of as subject-allies of Athens, and
that they would have continued in that capacity, if left to their
own choice, without the fear of having their crop destroyed. Such is
the pronounced feeling of the mass of the citizens: the party who
desire otherwise are in a decided minority. It is only the combined
effect of severe impending loss, and of tempting assurances held out
by the worthiest representative whom Sparta ever sent out, which
induces them to revolt from Athens: nor even then is the resolution
taken without long opposition, and a large dissentient minority, in
a case where secret suffrage insured free and genuine expression
of preference from every individual. Now, it is impossible that
the scene in Akanthus at this critical moment could have been of
such a character, had the empire of Athens been practically odious
and burdensome to the subject-allies, as it is commonly depicted.
Had such been the fact; had the Akanthians felt that the imperial
ascendency of Athens oppressed them with hardship or humiliation,
from which their neighbors, the revolted Chalkidians in Olynthus and
elsewhere, were exempt, they would have hailed the advent of Brasidas
with that cordiality which he himself expected and was surprised
not to find. The sense of present grievance, always acute and often
excessive, would have stood out as their prominent impulse: nor would
they have needed either intimidation or cajolery to induce them to
throw open their gates to the liberator, who, in his speech within
the town, finds no actual suffering to appeal to, but is obliged to
gain over an audience evidently unwilling by alternate threats and
promises.
As in Akanthus, so in most of the other Thracian subjects of
Athens, the bulk of the citizens, though strongly solicited by
the Chalkidians, manifest no spontaneous disposition to revolt
from Athens. We shall find the party who introduce Brasidas to be
a conspiring minority, who not only do not consult the majority
beforehand, but act in such a manner as to leave no free option to
the majority afterwards, whether they will ratify or reject: bring in
a foreign force to overawe them and compromise them without their own
consent in hostility against Athens. Now that which makes the events
of Akanthus so important as an evidence, is, that the majority is not
thus entrapped and compressed, but pronounces its judgment freely
after ample discussion: the grounds of that judgment are clearly set
forth to us, so as to show that hatred of Athens, if even it exists
at all, is in no way a strong or determining feeling. Had there
existed any such strong feeling among the subject-allies of Athens in
the Chalkidic peninsula, there was no Athenian force now present to
hinder them all from opening their gates to the liberator Brasidas
by spontaneous majorities, as he himself, encouraged by the sanguine
promises of the Chalkidians, evidently expected that they would do.
But nothing of this kind happened.
That which I before remarked in recounting the revolt of Mitylênê,
a privileged ally of Athens, is now confirmed in the revolt of
Akanthus, a tributary and subject-ally. The circumstances of both
prove that imperial Athens inspired no hatred, and occasioned no
painful grievance, to the population of her subject-cities generally:
the movements against her arose from party-minorities, of the
same character as that Platæan party which introduced the Theban
assailants into Platæa at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war.
There are of course differences of sentiment between one town and
another; but the conduct of the towns generally demonstrates that
the Athenian empire was not felt by them to be a scheme of plunder
and oppression, as Mr. Mitford and others would have us believe. It
is indeed true that Athens managed her empire with reference to her
own feelings and interests, and that her hold was rather upon the
prudence than upon the affection of her allies, except in so far as
those among them who were democratically governed sympathized with
her democracy: it is also true that restrictions in any form on
the autonomy of each separate city were offensive to the political
instincts of the Greeks: moreover, Athens took less and less pains
to disguise or soften the real character of her empire, as one
resting simply on established fact and superior force. But this
is a different thing from the endurance of practical hardship and
oppression, which, had it been real, would have inspired strong
positive hatred among the subject-allies, such as Brasidas expected
to find universal in Thrace, but did not really find, in spite of the
easy opening which his presence afforded.
The acquisition of Akanthus and Stageirus enabled Brasidas in no very
long time to extend his conquests; to enter Argilus, and from thence
to make the capital acquisition of Amphipolis.
Argilus was situated between Stageirus and the river Strymon, along
the western bank of which river its territory extended. Along the
eastern bank of the same river,—south of the lake which it forms
under the name of Kerkinitis, and north of the town of Eion at
its mouth, was situated the town and territory of Amphipolis,
communicating with the lands of Argilus by the important bridge there
situated. The Argilians were colonists from Andros, like Akanthus
and Stageirus, and the adhesion of those two cities to Brasidas
gave him opportunity to cultivate intelligences in Argilus, wherein
there had existed a standing discontent against Athens, ever since
the foundation of the neighboring city of Amphipolis.[658] The
latter city had been established by the Athenian Agnon, at the head
of a numerous body of colonists, on a spot belonging to the Edonian
Thracians, called Ennea Hodoi, or Nine Ways, about five years prior
to the commencement of the war (B.C. 437), after two previous
attempts to colonize it,—one by Histiæus and Aristagoras, at the
period of the Ionic revolt, and a second by the Athenians about 465
B.C., both of which lamentably failed. So valuable, however, was
the site, from its vicinity to the gold and silver mines near Mount
Pangæus and to large forests of ship-timber, as well as for command
of the Strymon, and for commerce with the interior of Thrace and
Macedonia, that the Athenians had sent a second expedition under
Agnon, who founded the city and gave it the name of Amphipolis. The
resident settlers there, however, were only in small proportion
Athenian citizens; the rest of mixed origin, some of them Argilian,
a considerable number Chalkidians. The Athenian general Euklês was
governor in the town, though seemingly with no paid force under his
command.
[658] Thucyd. iv, 103. μάλιστα δὲ οἱ Ἀργίλιοι, ἐγγύς τε
προσοικοῦντες καὶ ἀεί ποτε τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ὄντες ὕποπτοι καὶ
ἐπιβουλεύοντες τῷ χωρίῳ (Amphipolis).
Among these mixed inhabitants a conspiracy was organized to betray
the town to Brasidas, the inhabitants of Argilus as well as the
Chalkidians each of them tampering with those of the same race
who resided in Amphipolis; and the influence of Perdikkas, not
inconsiderable, in consequence of the commerce of the place with
Macedonia, was employed to increase the number of partisans. Of
all the instigators, however, the most strenuous as well as the
most useful were the inhabitants of Argilus. Amphipolis, together
with the Athenians as its founders, had been odious to them from
its commencement; and its foundation had doubtless abridged their
commerce and importance as masters of the lower course of the
Strymon. They had been long laying snares against the city, and the
arrival of Brasidas now presented to them an unexpected chance of
success. It was they who enabled him to accomplish the surprise,
deferring proclamation of their own defection from Athens until they
could make it subservient to his conquest of Amphipolis.
Starting with his army from Arnê in the Chalkidic peninsula, Brasidas
arrived in the afternoon at Aulon and Bromiskus, near the channel
whereby the lake Bolbê is connected with the sea: from hence, after
his men had supped, he began his night-march to Amphipolis, on a
cold and snowy night of November, or the beginning of December. He
reached Argilus in the middle of the night, where the leaders at once
admitted him, proclaiming their revolt from Athens. With their aid
and guidance, he then hastened forward without delay to the bridge
across the Strymon, which he reached before break of day.[659] It
was guarded only by a feeble piquet,—the town of Amphipolis itself
being situated on the hill at some little distance higher up the
river;[660] so that Brasidas, preceded by the Argilian conspirators,
surprised and overpowered the guard without difficulty. Thus master
of this important communication, he crossed with his army forthwith
into the territory of Amphipolis, where his arrival spread the utmost
dismay and terror. The governor Euklês, the magistrates, and the
citizens, were all found wholly unprepared: the lands belonging to
the city were occupied by residents, with their families and property
around them, calculating upon undisturbed security, as if there had
been no enemy within reach. Such of these as were close to the city
succeeded in running thither with their families, though leaving
their property exposed,—but the more distant became in person as
well as in property at the mercy of the invader. Even within the
town, filled with the friends and relatives of these victims without,
indescribable confusion reigned, of which the conspirators within
tried to avail themselves in order to get the gates thrown open. And
so complete was the disorganization, that if Brasidas had marched
up without delay to the gates and assaulted the town, many persons
supposed that he would have carried it at once. Such a risk, however,
was too great even for his boldness, the rather as repulse would
have been probably his ruin. Moreover, confiding in the assurances
of the conspirators that the gates would be thrown open, he thought
it safer to seize as many persons as he could from the out-citizens,
as a means of working upon the sentiments of those within the walls;
lastly, this process of seizure and plunder was probably more to the
taste of his own soldiers, and could not well be hindered.
[659] Thucyd. iv, 104. Κατέστησαν τὸν στρατὸν πρὸ ἕω ἐπὶ τὴν
γέφυραν τοῦ ποταμοῦ.
Bekker’s reading of πρὸ ἕω appears to me preferable to πρόσω. The
latter word really adds nothing to the meaning; whereas the fact
that Brasidas got over the river before daylight is one both new
and material: it is not necessarily implied in the previous words
ἐκείνῃ τῇ νυκτί.
[660] Thucyd. iv, 104. Ἀπέχει δὲ τὸ πόλισμα πλέον τῆς διαβάσεως,
καὶ οὐ καθεῖτο τείχη ὥσπερ νῦν, φυλακὴ δέ τις βραχεῖα
καθειστήκει, etc.
Dr. Arnold, with Dobree, Poppo, and most of the commentators,
translates these words: “The town (of Amphipolis) is farther
off (from Argilus) than the passage of the river.” But this
must be of course true, and conveys no new information, seeing
that Brasidas had to cross the river to reach the town. Smith
and Bloomfield are right, I think, in considering τῆς διαβάσεως
as governed by ἀπέχει and not by πλέον,—“the city is at some
distance from the crossing:” and the objection which Poppo makes
against them, that πλέον must necessarily imply a comparison
with something, cannot be sustained: for Thucydidês often uses
ἐκ πλείονος (iv, 103; viii, 83), as precisely identical with ἐκ
πολλοῦ (i, 68; iv, 67; v, 69); also περὶ πλείονος.
In the following chapter, on occasion of the battle of
Amphipolis, some farther remarks will be found on the locality.
But he waited in vain for the opening of the gates. The conspirators
in the city, in spite of the complete success of their surprise and
the universal dismay around them, found themselves unable to carry
the majority along with them. As in Akanthus, so in Amphipolis,
those who really hated Athens and wished to revolt were only a
party-minority; the greater number of citizens, at this critical
moment, stood by Euklês and the few native Athenians around him in
resolving upon defence, and in sending off an express to Thucydidês
(the historian) at Thasos, the colleague of Euklês, as general
in the region of Thrace, for immediate aid. This step, of course
immediately communicated to Brasidas from within, determined him to
make every effort for enticing the Amphipolitans to surrender before
the reinforcement should arrive; the rather, as he was apprized
that Thucydidês, being a large proprietor and worker of gold mines
in the neighboring region, possessed extensive personal influence
among the Thracian tribes, and would be able to bring them together
for the relief of the place, in conjunction with his own Athenian
squadron. He therefore sent in propositions for surrender on the most
favorable terms, guaranteeing to every citizen who chose to remain,
Amphipolitan or even Athenian, continued residence with undisturbed
property and equal political rights, and granting to every one who
chose to depart, five days for the purpose of carrying away his
property.
Such easy conditions, when made known in the city, produced
presently a sensible change of opinion among the citizens, proving
acceptable both to Athenians and Amphipolitans, though on different
grounds.[661] The properties of the citizens without, as well as many
of their relatives, were all in the hands of Brasidas: no one counted
upon the speedy arrival of reinforcement; and even if it did arrive,
the city might be preserved, but the citizens without would still
be either slain or made captive: a murderous battle would ensue,
and perhaps, after all, Brasidas, assisted by the party within,
might prove victorious. The Athenian citizens in Amphipolis, knowing
themselves to be exposed to peculiar danger, were perfectly well
pleased with his offer, as extricating them from a critical position
and procuring for them the means of escape, with comparatively little
loss; while the non-Athenian citizens, partakers in the same relief
from peril, felt little reluctance in accepting a capitulation which
preserved both their rights and their properties inviolate, and
merely severed them from Athens, towards which city they felt, not
hatred, but indifference. Above all, the friends and relatives of
the citizens exposed in the out-region were strenuous in urging on
the capitulation, so that the conspirators soon became bold enough
to proclaim themselves openly, insisting upon the moderation of
Brasidas and the prudence of admitting him. Euklês found that the
tone of opinion, even among his own Athenians, was gradually turned
against him, nor could he prevent the acceptance of the terms, and
the admission of the enemy into the city, on that same day.
[661] Thucyd. iv, 106. Οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ ἀκούσαντες ~ἀλλοιότεροι~
ἐγένοντο τὰς γνώμας, etc.
The word ἀλλοιότεροι seems to indicate both the change of view,
compared with what had been before, and new divergence introduced
among themselves.
No such resolution would have been adopted, had the citizens been
aware how near at hand Thucydidês and his forces were. The message
despatched early in the morning from Amphipolis found him at Thasos
with seven triremes; with which he instantly put to sea, so as to
reach Eion at the mouth of the Strymon, within three miles of
Amphipolis, on the same evening. He hoped to be in time for saving
Amphipolis, but the place had surrendered a few hours before. He
arrived, indeed, only just in time to preserve Eion; for parties
in that town were already beginning to concert the admission of
Brasidas, who would probably have entered it at daybreak the next
morning. Thucydidês, putting the place in a condition of defence,
successfully repelled an attack which Brasidas made both by land and
by boats on the river. He at the same time received and provided for
the Athenian citizens who were retiring from Amphipolis.[662]
[662] Thucyd. iv, 105, 106; Diodor. xii, 68.
The capture of this city, perhaps the most important of all the
foreign possessions of Athens, and the opening of the bridge over the
Strymon, by which even all her eastern allies became approachable by
land, occasioned prodigious emotion throughout all the Grecian world.
The dismay felt at Athens[663] was greater than had been ever before
experienced: hope and joy prevailed among her enemies, and excitement
and new aspirations became widely spread among her subject-allies.
The bloody defeat at Delium, and the unexpected conquests of
Brasidas, now again lowered the _prestige_ of Athenian success,
sixteen months after it had been so powerfully exalted by the capture
of Sphakteria. The loss of reputation which Sparta had then incurred,
was now compensated by a reaction against the unfounded terrors since
conceived about the probable career of her enemy. It was not merely
the loss of Amphipolis, serious as that was, which distressed the
Athenians, but also their insecurity respecting the maintenance of
their whole empire: they knew not which of their subject-allies might
next revolt, in contemplation of aid from Brasidas, facilitated by
the newly-acquired Strymonian bridge. And as the proceedings of that
general counted in part to the credit of his country, it was believed
that Sparta, now for the first time shaking off her languor,[664] had
taken to herself the rapidity and enterprise once regarded as the
exclusive characteristic of Athens. But besides all these chances
of evil to the Athenians, there was another yet more threatening,
the personal ascendency and position of Brasidas himself. It was not
merely the boldness, the fertility of aggressive resource, the quick
movements, the power of stimulating the minds of soldiers, which
lent efficiency to that general; but also his incorruptible probity,
his good faith, his moderation, his abstinence from party-cruelty or
jobbing, and from all intermeddling with the internal constitutions
of the different cities, in strict adherence to that manifesto
whereby Sparta had proclaimed herself the liberator of Greece. Such
talents and such official worth had never before been seen combined.
Set off as they were by the full brilliancy of successes such as
were deemed incredible before they actually occurred, they inspired
a degree of confidence and turned a tide of opinion towards this
eminent man which rendered him personally one of the first powers in
Greece. Numerous solicitations were transmitted to him at Amphipolis
from parties among the subject-allies of Athens, in their present
temper of large hopes from him and diminished fear of the Athenians:
the anti-Athenian party in each was impatient to revolt, the rest of
the population less restrained by fear.[665]
[663] Thucyd. iv, 108. Ἐχομένης δὲ τῆς Ἀμφιπόλεως, οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐς
μέγα δέος κατέστησαν, etc.
The prodigious importance of the site of Amphipolis, with its
adjoining bridge forming the communication between the regions
east and west of the Strymon, was felt not only by Philip of
Macedon, as will hereafter appear, but also by the Romans after
their conquest of Macedonia. Of the four regions into which the
Romans distributed Macedonia, “pars prima (says Livy, xlv, 30)
habet opportunitatem Amphipoleos; quæ objecta claudit omnes ab
oriente sole in Macedoniam aditus.”
[664] Thucyd. iv, 108. Τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, διὰ τὸ ἡδονὴν ἔχον
ἐν τῷ αὐτίκα, καὶ ὅτι ~τὸ πρῶτον Λακεδαιμονίων ὀργώντων
ἔμελλον πειρᾶσθαι~, κινδυνεύειν παντὶ τρόπῳ ἑτοῖμοι ἦσαν (the
subject-allies of Athens).
[665] Thucyd. iv, 108.
Of those who indulged in these sanguine calculations, many had yet to
learn by painful experience that Athens was still but little abated
in power: but her inaction during this important autumn had been such
as may well explain their mistake. It might have been anticipated
that, on hearing the alarming news of the junction of Brasidas with
the Chalkidians, and Perdikkas so close upon their dependent allies,
they would forthwith have sent a competent force to Thrace, which,
if despatched at that time, would probably have obviated all the
subsequent disasters. So they would have acted at any other time,
and perhaps even then, if Periklês had been alive. But the news
arrived just at the period when Athens was engaged in the expedition
against Bœotia, which ended very shortly in the ruinous defeat of
Delium. Under the discouragement arising from the death of the
stratêgus, Hippokratês, and one thousand citizens, the idea of a
fresh expedition to Thrace would probably have been intolerable to
Athenian hoplites: the hardships of a winter service in Thrace, as
experienced a few years before in the blockade of Potidæa, would
probably also aggravate their reluctance. In Grecian history, we
must steadfastly keep in mind that we are reading about citizen
soldiers, not about professional soldiers; and that the temper of the
time, whether of confidence or dismay, modifies to an unspeakable
degree all the calculations of military and political prudence. Even
after the rapid successes of Brasidas, not merely at Akanthus and
Stageirus, but even at Amphipolis, they sent only a few inadequate
guards[666] to the points most threatened, thus leaving to their
enterprising enemy the whole remaining winter for his operations,
without hindrance. Without depreciating the merits of Brasidas, we
may see that his extraordinary success was in great part owing to
the no less extraordinary depression which at that time pervaded the
Athenian public: a feeling encouraged by Nikias and other leading
men of the same party, who were building upon it in order to get the
Lacedæmonian proposals for peace accepted.
[666] Thucyd. iv, 108. Οἱ μὲν Ἀθηναῖοι φυλακὰς ὡς ἐξ ὀλίγου καὶ
ἐν χειμῶνι, διέπεμπον ἐς τὰς πόλεις etc.
But while we thus notice the short-comings of Athens, in not sending
timely forces against Brasidas, we must at the same time admit, that
the most serious and irreparable loss which she sustained, that of
Amphipolis, was the fault of her officers more than her own. Euklês,
and the historian Thucydidês, the two joint Athenian commanders in
Thrace, to whom she had confided the defence of that important town,
had means amply sufficient to place it beyond all risk of capture,
if they had employed the most ordinary vigilance and precaution
beforehand. That Thucydidês became an exile immediately after this
event, and remained so for twenty years, is certain from his own
statement: and we hear, upon what in this case is quite sufficient
authority, that the Athenians condemned him, probably Euklês also, to
banishment, on the proposition of Kleon.[667]
[667] Thucyd. v, 26. See the biography of Thucydidês by
Marcellinus, prefixed to all the editions, p. 19, ed. Arnold.
In considering this sentence, historians[668] commonly treat
Thucydidês as an innocent man, and find nothing to condemn except the
calumnies of the demagogue along with the injustice of the people.
But this view of the case cannot be sustained, when we bring together
all the facts even as indicated by Thucydidês himself. At the moment
when Brasidas surprised Amphipolis, Thucydidês was at Thasos; and
the event is always discussed as if he was there by necessity or
duty; as if Thasos was his special mission. Now we know from his own
statement that his command was not special or confined to Thasos: he
was sent as joint commander along with Euklês generally to Thrace,
and especially to Amphipolis.[669] Both of them were jointly and
severally responsible for the proper defence of Amphipolis, with
the Athenian empire and interests in that quarter such nomination
of two or more officers, coördinate and jointly responsible, being
the usual habit of Athens, wherever the scale or the area of
military operations was considerable, instead of naming one supreme
responsible commander, with subordinate officers acting under him and
responsible to him. If, then, Thucydidês “was stationed at Thasos,”
to use the phrase of Dr. Thirlwall, this was because he chose to
station himself there, in the exercise of his own discretion.
[668] I transcribe the main features from the account of Dr.
Thirlwall, whose judgment coincides on this occasion with what is
generally given (Hist. of Greece, ch. xxiii, vol. iii, p. 268).
“On the evening of the same day Thucydidês, with seven galleys
which he happened to have with him at Thasos, when he received
the despatch from Euklês, sailed into the mouth of the Strymon,
and learning the fall of Amphipolis proceeded to put Eion in
a state of defence. His timely arrival saved the place, which
Brasidas attacked the next morning, both from the river and the
land, without effect: and the refugees who retired by virtue
of the treaty from Amphipolis, found shelter at Eion, and
contributed to its security. _The historian rendered an important
service to his country: and it does not appear that human
prudence and activity could have accomplished anything more under
the same circumstances._ Yet _his unavoidable failure_ proved
the occasion of a sentence, under which he spent twenty years of
his life in exile: and he was only restored to his country in
the season of her deepest humiliation by the public calamities.
So much only can be gathered with certainty from his language:
for he has not condescended to mention either the charge which
was brought against him, or the nature of the sentence, which
he may either have suffered, or avoided by a voluntary exile.
A statement, very probable in itself, though resting on slight
authority, attributes his banishment to Cleon’s calumnies: _that
the irritation produced by the loss of Amphipolis should have
been so directed against an innocent object, would perfectly
accord with the character of the people and of the demagogue_.
Posterity has gained by the injustice of his contemporaries,” etc.
[669] Thucyd. iv, 104. Οἱ δ᾽ ἐναντίοι τοῖς προδιδοῦσι (that is,
at Amphipolis) κρατοῦντες τῷ πλήθει ὥστε μὴ αὐτίκα τὰς πύλας
ἀνοίγεσθαι, πέμπουσι μετὰ Εὐκλέους τοῦ στρατηγοῦ, ὃς ἐκ τῶν
Ἀθηναίων παρῆν αὐτοῖς φύλαξ τοῦ χωρίου, ~ἐπὶ τὸν ἕτερον στρατηγὸν
τῶν ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης, Θουκυδίδην τὸν Ὀλόρου, ὃς τάδε ξυνέγραψεν,
ὄντα περὶ Θάσον~ (ἔστι δ᾽ ἡ νῆσος, Παρίων ἀποικία, ἀπέχουσα
τῆς Ἀμφιπόλεως ἡμισείας ἡμέρας μάλιστα πλοῦν) κελεύοντες σφίσι
βοηθεῖν.
Here Thucydidês describes himself as “the other general along
with Euklês, of the region of or towards Thrace.” There cannot be
a clearer designation of the extensive range of his functions and
duties.
I adopt here the reading τῶν ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης, the genitive case of the
well-known Thucydidean phrase τὰ ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης, in preference to τὸν
ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης; which would mean in substance the same thing, though
not so precisely, nor so suitably to the usual manner of the
historian. Bloomfield, Bekker, and Göller have all introduced τῶν
into the text, on the authority of various MSS.: Poppo and Dr.
Arnold also both express a preference for it, though they still
leave τὸν in the text.
Moreover, the words of Thucydidês himself, in the passage where
he mentions his own long exile, plainly prove that he was sent
out as general, not to Thasos, but _to Amphipolis_: (v, 26) καὶ
ξυνέβη μοι φεύγειν τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ ἔτη εἴκοσι ~μετὰ τὴν ἐς Ἀμφίπολιν
στρατηγίαν~, etc.
Accordingly, the question which we have to put is, not whether
Thucydidês did all that could be done, after he received the alarming
express at Thasos, which is the part of the case that _he_ sets
prominently before us, but whether he and Euklês jointly took the
best general measures for the security of the Athenian empire in
Thrace; especially for Amphipolis, the first jewel of her empire.
They suffer Athens to be robbed of that jewel, and how? Had they a
difficult position to defend? Were they overwhelmed by a superior
force? Were they distracted by simultaneous revolts in different
places, or assailed by enemies unknown or unforeseen? Not one of
these grounds for acquittal can be pleaded. First, their position was
of all others the most defensible: they had only to keep the bridge
over the Strymon adequately watched and guarded, or to retain the
Athenian squadron at Eion, and Amphipolis was safe. Either one or
the other of these precautions would have sufficed; both together
would have sufficed so amply, as probably to prevent the scheme of
attack from being formed. Next, the force under Brasidas was in noway
superior, not even adequate to the capture of the inferior place
Eion, when properly guarded, much less to that of Amphipolis. Lastly,
there were no simultaneous revolts to distract attention, nor unknown
enemies to confound a well-laid scheme of defence. There was but
one enemy, in one quarter, having one road by which to approach; an
enemy of surpassing merit, indeed, and eminently dangerous to Athens,
but without any chance of success except from the omissions of the
Athenian officers.
Now Thucydidês and Euklês both knew that Brasidas had prevailed
upon Akanthus and Stageirus to revolt, and that too in such a way
as to extend his own personal influence materially: they knew that
the population of Argilus was of Andrian origin,[670] like that of
Akanthus and Stageirus, and therefore peculiarly likely to be tempted
by the example of those two towns. Lastly, they knew, and Thucydidês
himself tells us,[671] that this Argilian population—whose territory
bordered on the Strymon and the western foot of the bridge, and
who had many connections in Amphipolis—had been long disaffected
to Athens, and especially to the Athenian possession of that city.
Yet, having such foreknowledge, ample warning for the necessity of
a vigilant defence, Thucydidês and Euklês withdraw, or omit, both
the two precautions upon which the security of Amphipolis rested;
precautions both of them obvious, either of them sufficient. The
one leaves the bridge under a feeble guard,[672] and is caught
so unprepared everywhere, that one might suppose Athens to be in
profound peace; the other is found with his squadron, not at Eion,
but at Thasos; an island out of all possible danger, either from
Brasidas, who had no ships, or any other enemy. The arrival of
Brasidas comes on both of them like a clap of thunder. Nothing more
is required than this plain fact, under the circumstances, to prove
their improvidence as commanders.
[670] Compare Thucyd. iv, 84, 88, 103.
[671] Thucyd. iv, 103. ~μάλιστα δὲ οἱ Ἀργίλιοι, ἐγγύς τε
προσοικοῦντες καὶ ἀεί ποτε τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ὄντες ὕποπτοι καὶ
ἐπιβουλεύοντες τῷ χωρίῳ~ (Amphipolis), ἐπειδὴ παρέτυχεν ὁ
καιρὸς καὶ Βρασίδας ἦλθεν, ἔπραξάν τε ~ἐκ πλείονος~ πρὸς τοὺς
ἐμπολιτεύοντας σφῶν ἐκεῖ ὅπως ἐνδοθήσεται ἡ πόλις, etc.
[672] Thucyd. iv, 103. ~φυλακὴ δέ τις βραχεῖα καθειστήκει, ἣν
βιασάμενος ῥᾳδίως~ ὁ Βρασίδας, ἅμα μὲν τῆς προδοσίας οὔσης, ἅμα
δὲ καὶ χειμῶνος ὄντος καὶ ~ἀπροσδοκήτος προσπεσὼν~, διέβη τὴν
γέφυραν, etc.
The presence of Thucydidês on the station of Thrace was important
to Athens, partly because he possessed valuable family connections,
mining property, and commanding influence among the continental
population round Amphipolis.[673] This was one main reason why he was
named; the Athenian people confiding partly in his private influence,
over and above the public force under his command, and looking to
him, even more than to his colleague Euklês, for the continued
security of the town: instead of which they find that not even their
own squadron under him is at hand near the vulnerable point, at the
moment when the enemy comes. Of the two, perhaps, the conduct of
Euklês admits of conceivable explanation more easily than that of
Thucydidês. For it seems that Euklês had no paid force in Amphipolis;
only the citizen hoplites, partly Athenian, partly of other lineage.
Doubtless, these men found it irksome to keep guard through the
winter on the Strymonian bridge: and Euklês might fancy that, by
enforcing a large perpetual guard, he ran the risk of making Athens
unpopular: moreover, strict constancy of watch, night after night,
when no actual danger comes, with an unpaid citizen force, is not
easy to maintain. This is an insufficient excuse, but it is better
than anything which can be offered on behalf of Thucydidês; who had
with him a paid Athenian force, and might just as well have kept it
at Eion as at Thasos. We may be sure that the absence of Thucydidês
with his fleet, at Thasos, was one essential condition in the plot
laid by Brasidas with the Argilians.
[673] Thucyd. iv, 105. καὶ ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ δύνασθαι ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις
~τῶν ἠπειρωτῶν~, etc.
Rotscher, in his Life of Thucydidês (Leben des Thukydides,
Göttingen, 1842, sect. 4, pp. 97-99), admits it to be the
probable truth, that Thucydidês was selected for this command
expressly in consequence of his private influence in the region
around. Yet this biographer still repeats the view generally
taken, that Thucydidês did everything which an able commander
could do, and was most unjustly condemned.
To say, with Dr. Thirlwall, that “human prudence and activity
could not have accomplished more than Thucydidês did, _under the
same circumstances_,” is true as matter of fact, and creditable as
far as it goes. But it is wholly inadmissible as a justification,
and meets only one part of the case. An officer in command is
responsible, not only for doing most “under the circumstances,”
but also for the circumstances themselves, in so far as they are
under his control; and nothing is more under his control than the
position which he chooses to occupy. If the emperor Napoleon, or
the duke of Wellington, had lost, by surprise of an enemy not very
numerous, a post of supreme importance which they thought adequately
protected, would they be satisfied to hear from a responsible
officer in command: “Having no idea that the enemy would attempt any
surprise, I thought that I might keep my force half a day’s journey
off from the post exposed, at another post which it was physically
impossible for the enemy to reach; but, the moment I was informed
that the surprise had occurred, I hastened to the scene, did all
that human prudence and activity could do to repel the enemy; and
though I found that he had already mastered the capital post of all,
yet I beat him back from a second post which he was on the point of
mastering also?” Does any one imagine that these illustrious chiefs,
smarting under the loss of an inestimable position which alters
the whole prospects of a campaign, would be satisfied with such a
report, and would dismiss the officer with praises for his vigor
and bravery, “under the circumstances?” They would most assuredly
reply, that he had done right in coming back, that his conduct after
coming back had been that of a brave man, and that there was no
impeachment on his courage. But they would at the same time add,
that his want of judgment and foresight, in omitting to place the
valuable position really exposed under sufficient guard beforehand,
and leaving it thus open to the enemy, while he himself was absent
in another place which was out of danger, and his easy faith that
there would be no dangerous surprise, at a time when the character
of the enemy’s officer, as well as the disaffection of the neighbors
(Argilus), plainly indicated that there _would_ be, if the least
opening were afforded, that these were defects meriting serious
reproof, and disqualifying him from any future command of trust
and responsibility. Nor can we doubt that the whole feeling of the
respective armies, who would have to pay with their best blood the
unhappy miscalculation of this officer, would go along with such
a sentence; without at all suspecting themselves to be guilty of
injustice, or of “directing the irritation produced by the loss
against an innocent object.”
The vehement leather-seller in the Pnyx, at Athens, when he brought
forward what are called “his calumnies” against Thucydidês and
Euklês, as having caused, through culpable omission, a fatal and
irreparable loss to their country, might perhaps state his case with
greater loudness and acrimony; but it may be doubted whether he
would say anything more really galling than would be contained in
the dignified rebuke of an esteemed modern general to a subordinate
officer under similar circumstances. In my judgment, not only the
accusation against these two officers—I assume Euklês to have been
included—was called for on the fairest _presumptive_ grounds, which
would be sufficient as a justification of the leather-sell Kleon,
but the positive verdict of guilty against them was fully merited.
Whether the banishment inflicted was a greater penalty than the case
warranted, I will not take upon me to pronounce. Every age has its
own standard of feeling for measuring what is a proper intensity of
punishment: penalties which our grandfathers thought right and meet,
would in the present day appear intolerably rigorous. But when I
consider the immense value of Amphipolis to Athens, combined with the
conduct whereby it was lost, I cannot think that there was a single
Athenian, or a single Greek, who would deem the penalty of banishment
too severe.
It is painful to find such strong grounds of official censure against
a man who, as an historian, has earned the lasting admiration of
posterity,—my own, among the first and warmest. But in criticizing
the conduct of Thucydidês the officer, we are bound in common
justice to forget Thucydidês the historian. He was not known in the
latter character, at the time when this sentence was passed: perhaps
he never would have been so known, like the Neapolitan historian
Colletta, if exile had not thrown him out of the active duties and
hopes of a citizen. It may be doubted whether he ever went home
from Eion to encounter the grief, wrath, and alarm, so strongly
felt at Athens after the loss of Amphipolis. Condemned, either
with or without appearance, he remained in banishment for twenty
years;[674] nor did he return to Athens until after the conclusion
of the Peloponnesian war. Of this long exile, much is said to have
been spent on his property in Thrace: yet he also visited most parts
of Greece, enemies of Athens as well as neutral states. However much
we may deplore such a misfortune on his account, mankind in general
have, and ever will have, the strongest reason to rejoice at it. To
this compulsory leisure we owe the completion, or rather the near
approach to completion, of his history: nor is it less certain that
the opportunities which an exile enjoyed of personally consulting
neutrals and enemies, contributed much to form that impartial,
comprehensive, Pan-Hellenic spirit, which reigns generally throughout
his immortal work.
[674] Thucyd. v, 26.
Meanwhile, Brasidas, installed in Amphipolis about the beginning
of December, 424 B.C., employed his increased power only the more
vigorously against Athens. His first care was to reconstitute
Amphipolis; a task wherein the Macedonian Perdikkas, whose intrigues
had contributed to the capture, came and personally assisted.
That city was going through a partial secession and renovation of
inhabitants, and was now moreover cut off from the port of Eion and
the mouth of the river, which remained in the hands of the Athenians.
Many new arrangements must have been required, as well for its
internal polity as for its external defence. Brasidas took measures
for building ships of war, in the lake above the city, in order to
force the lower part of the river:[675] but his most important step
was to construct a palisade work,[676] connecting the walls of the
city with the bridge. He thus made himself permanently master of the
crossing of the Strymon, so as to shut the door by which he himself
had entered, and at the same time to keep an easy communication
with Argilus and the western bank of the Strymon. He also made some
acquisitions on the eastern side of the river. Pittakus, prince of
the neighboring Edonian-Thracian township of Myrkinus, had been
recently assassinated by his wife Brauro, and by some personal
enemies: he had probably been the ally of Athens, and his assassins
now sought to strengthen themselves by courting the alliance of the
new conqueror of Amphipolis. The Thasian continental colonies of
Galêpsus and Œsymê also declared their adhesion to him.
[675] Thucyd. iv, 104-108.
[676] This is the σταύρωμα, mentioned (v, 10) as existing a year
and a half afterwards, at the time of the battle of Amphipolis.
I shall say more respecting the topography of Amphipolis, when I
come to describe that battle.
While he sent to Lacedæmon, communicating his excellent position as
well as his large hopes, he at the same time, without waiting for the
answer, began acting for himself, with all the allies whom he could
get together. He marched first against the peninsula called Aktê,—the
narrow tongue of land which stretches out from the neighborhood of
Akanthus to the mighty headland called Mount Athos,—near thirty
miles long, and between four and five miles for the most part in
breadth.[677] The long, rugged, woody ridge,—covering this peninsula
so as to leave but narrow spaces for dwelling or cultivation, or
feeding of cattle,—was at this time occupied by many distinct petty
communities, some of them divided in race and language. Sanê, a
colony from Andros, was situated in the interior gulf, called the
Singitic gulf, between Athos and the Sithonian peninsula, near
the Xerxeian canal: the rest of the Aktê was distributed among
Bisaltians, Krestônians, and Edonians, all fractions of the Thracian
name; Pelasgians, or Tyrrhenians, of the race which had once
occupied Lemnos and Imbros, and some Chalkidians. Some of these
little communities spoke habitually two languages. Thyssus, Kleône,
Olophyxus, and others, all submitted on the arrival of Brasidas; but
Sanê and Dion held out, nor could he bring them to terms even by
ravaging their territory.
[677] See Grisebach, Reise durch Rumelien und Brura, vol. i, ch.
viii, p. 226.
He next marched into the Sithonian peninsula, to attack Torônê,
situated near the southern extremity of that peninsula, opposite
to Cape Kanastræum, the extreme headland of the peninsula of
Pallênê.[678]
[678] Thucyd. iv, 109.
Torônê was inhabited by a Chalkidic population, but had not partaken
in the revolt of the neighboring Chalkidians against Athens. A
small Athenian garrison had been sent there, probably since the
recent dangers, and were now defending it, as well as repairing
the town-wall in various parts where it had been so neglected
as to crumble down. They occupied as a sort of distinct citadel
the outlying cape called Lêkythus, joining by a narrow isthmus
the hill on which the city stood, and forming a port wherein lay
two Athenian triremes as guard-ships. A small party in Torônê,
without privity[679] or even suspicion of the rest, entered into
correspondence with Brasidas, and engaged to provide for him the
means of entering and mastering the town. Accordingly, he advanced
by a night-march to the temple of the Dioskuri, Kastor and Pollux,
within about a quarter of a mile of the town-gates, which he reached
a little before daybreak, sending forward one hundred peltasts to
be still nearer, and to rush upon the gate at the instant when
signal was made from within. His Torônæan partisans, some of whom
were already concealed on the spot, awaiting his arrival, made
their final arrangements with him, and then returned into the town,
conducting with them seven determined men from his army, armed only
with daggers, and having Lysistratus of Olynthus as their chief:
twenty men had been originally named for this service, but the danger
appeared so extreme, that only seven of them were bold enough to go.
This forlorn hope, enabled to creep in, through a small aperture in
the wall towards the sea, were conducted silently up to the topmost
watch-tower on the city hill, where they surprised and slew the
guards, and set open a neighboring postern gate, looking towards Cape
Kanastræum, as well as the great gate leading towards the agora.
They then brought in the peltasts from without, who, impatient with
the delay, had gradually stolen closely under the walls: some of
these peltasts kept possession of the great gate, others were led
round to the postern at the top, while the fire-signal was forthwith
lighted to invite Brasidas himself. He and his men hastened forward
towards the city at their utmost speed and with loud shouts, a
terror-striking notice of his presence to the unprepared citizens.
Admission was easy through the open gates, but some also clambered
up by means of beams or a sort of scaffolding, which was lying close
to the wall as a help to the workmen repairing it. And while the
assailants were thus active in every direction, Brasidas himself
conducted a portion of them, to assure himself of the high and
commanding parts of the city.
[679] Thucyd. iv, 110. καὶ αὐτὸν ~ἄνδρες ὀλίγοι ἐπῆγον κρύφα~,
ἑτοῖμοι ὄντες τὴν πόλιν παραδοῦναι, iv, 113. Τῶν δὲ Τορωναίων
γιγνομένης τῆς ἁλώσεως ~τὸ μὲν πολὺ, οὐδὲν εἰδὸς, ἐθορυβεῖτο~,
etc.
So completely were the Torônæans surprised and thunderstruck, that
hardly any attempt was made to resist. Even the fifty Athenian
hoplites who occupied the agora, being found still asleep,
were partly slain, and partly compelled to seek refuge in the
separately-garrisoned cape of Lêkythus, whither they were followed by
a portion of the Torônæan population; some from attachment to Athens,
others from sheer terror. To these fugitives Brasidas addressed a
proclamation, inviting them to return, and promising them perfect
security, for person, property, and political rights; while at the
same time he sent a herald with a formal summons to the Athenians
in Lêkythus, requiring them to quit the place as belonging to the
Chalkidians, but permitting them to carry away their property. They
refused to evacuate the place, but solicited a truce of one day for
the purpose of burying their slain. Brasidas granted them two days,
which were employed both by them and by him in preparations for the
defence and attack of Lêkythus; each party fortifying the houses on
or near the connecting isthmus.
In the mean time he convened a general assembly of the Torônæan
population, whom he addressed in the same conciliating and equitable
language as he had employed elsewhere. “He had not come to harm
either the city, or any individual citizen. Those who had let him
in, ought not to be regarded as bad men or traitors, for they had
acted with a view to the benefit and the liberation of their city,
not in order to enslave it, or to acquire profit for themselves. On
the other hand, he did not think the worse of those who had gone
over to Lêkythus, for their liking towards Athens: he wished them
to come back freely; and he was sure that the more they knew the
Lacedæmonians the better they would esteem them. He was prepared to
forgive and forget previous hostility, but while he invited all of
them to live for the future as cordial friends and fellow-citizens,
he should also for the future hold each man responsible for his
conduct, either as friend or as enemy.”
On the expiration of the two days’ truce, Brasidas attacked the
Athenian garrison in Lêkythus, promising a recompense of thirty
minæ to the soldier who should first force his way into it.
Notwithstanding very poor means of defence, partly a wooden palisade,
partly houses with battlements on the roof, this garrison repelled
him for one whole day: on the next morning he brought up a machine,
for the same purpose as that which the Bœotians had employed at
Delium, to set fire to the woodwork. The Athenians on their side,
seeing this fire-machine approaching, put up, on a building in
front of their position, a wooden scaffolding, upon which many of
them mounted, with casks of water and large stones to break it or
to extinguish the flames. At last, the weight accumulated becoming
greater than the scaffolding could support, it broke down with a
prodigious noise; so that all the persons and things upon it rolled
down in confusion. Some of these men were hurt, yet the injury was
not in reality serious; had not the noise, the cries, and strangeness
of the incident alarmed those behind, who could not see precisely
what had occurred, to such a degree, that they believed the enemy
to have already forced the defences. Many of them accordingly took
to flight, and those who remained were insufficient to prolong
the resistance successfully; so that Brasidas, perceiving the
disorder and diminished number of the defenders, relinquished his
fire-machine, and again renewed his attempt to carry the place by
assault, which now fully succeeded. A considerable proportion of
the Athenians and others in the fort escaped across the narrow gulf
to the peninsula of Pallênê, by means of the two triremes and some
merchant-vessels at hand: but every man found in it was put to
death. Brasidas, thus master of the fort, and considering that he
owed his success to the sudden rupture of the Athenian scaffolding,
regarded this incident as a divine interposition, and presented the
thirty minæ, which he had promised as a reward to the first man who
broke in, to the goddess Athênê, for her temple at Lêkythus. He
moreover consecrated to her the entire cape of Lêkythus; not only
demolishing the defences, but also dismantling the private residences
which it contained,[680] so that nothing remained except the temple,
with its ministers and appurtenances.
[680] Thucyd. iv. 114, 115. νομίσας ἄλλῳ τινὶ τρόπῳ ἢ ἀνθρωπείῳ
τὴν ἅλωσιν γενέσθαι.
What proportion of the Torônæans who had taken refuge at Lêkythus
had been induced to return by the proclamation of Brasidas, alike
generous and politic, we are not informed. His language and conduct
were admirably calculated to set this little community again in
harmonious movement, and to obliterate the memory of past feuds.
And above all, it inspired a strong sentiment of attachment and
gratitude towards himself personally; a sentiment which gained
strength with every successive incident in which he was engaged,
and which enabled him to exercise a greater ascendency than could
ever be acquired by Sparta, and in some respects greater than had
ever been possessed by Athens. It is this remarkable development of
commanding individuality, animated throughout by straightforward
public purposes, and binding together so many little communities who
had few other feelings in common, which lends to the short career of
this eminent man a romantic and even an heroic interest.
During the remainder of the winter Brasidas employed himself in
setting in order the acquisitions already made, and in laying plans
for farther conquests in the spring.[681] But the beginning of
spring—or the close of the eighth year, and beginning of the ninth
year of the war, as Thucydidês reckons—brought with it a new train of
events, which will be recounted in the following chapter.
[681] Thucyd. iv, 119.