Xerxes reigned in his stead. But still the slave stood behind the royal
chair to whisper every day at dinner, “Master, remember the Athenians.”
In 480 he had time to remember them. This time there were to be no
miscalculations; no mere raid this time, but the hugest armament in
history. No shipwrecks this time: where the army had to cross the sea at
the Dardanelles a bridge was constructed; where the fleet had to round
the promontory a canal was dug.
The host was on the same scale. Herodotus and Æschylus alike delight to
parade the outlandish names of the Oriental leaders, to display the
numbers of that mighty host of all the nations of the earth, how they
drank the rivers dry as they marched, to dwell on the strange equipment
of the remote barbarians of Thrace, India, and the Soudan, the wealth
and magnificence of the Great King, how he lashed the sea when it broke
his bridge, how he questioned the exiled Spartan king Demaratus, unable
to believe that these little people should dare to stand up against him.
Even more than the life and death of Crœsus, this immortal story of the
Persian monarch’s great Armada and its fall, with the tragic contrast
between his glorious setting out and miserable return, stirred the
imagination of the Greeks for ever afterwards. Did it not illustrate
their favourite philosophy of “No excess” and “Know thyself”? All their
art was based on this motive: “Know thyself; practise Reverence, because
Wealth and Prosperity lead to Insolence, and that arouses Envy in gods
and men. Wrath (Nemesis) follows on the heels of Insolence, beguiling
with false Hope, and finally leading into Ruin.” That is the doctrine of
all Greek tragedy; both Herodotus and Thucydides illustrated it in
history, the former taking Persia and the latter Athens for its examples
and victims. But it governed their art also; it is the secret of the
self-restraint that characterises all the best of their work. That
virtue of Aidôs ruled their spirits. That is why it is so absurd to
think of the Greeks as happy pagans. They walked in the fear of the
Lord, in the shadow of tragedy.
The news of that marshalling of the host found Greece in a state of
disunion and terror. Some states submitted at the first summons. All
sent for advice to the Delphic oracle. Apollo, I regret to say, was
panic-stricken. He told the Cretans not to interfere, he told the
Argives to guard their own head; to Athens in particular he sent the
most terrible menaces: “O wretched men, why sit ye here? Fly to the ends
of the earth, leaving your houses and the high citadel of your
wheel-shaped city.... For fire and swift Ares, driving the Syrian
chariot, destroyeth it. And he will destroy many other castles, and not
yours alone; and he will deliver many temples of the immortals to
devouring fire, which now stand dripping with sweat and shaken with
terror; black blood trickles from the topmost roofs, foretelling
inevitable ruin. Go from the sanctuary, and steel your hearts to meet
misfortunes.” Conceive the effect of such an oracle at such a time, and
conceive the courage of Athens in preparing to resist! Thessaly
submitted; Gelo of Syracuse, the most powerful Greek ally they could
have, had declined to help, being in reality fully occupied with the
Carthaginian invasion of Sicily; Corcyra was sitting on the fence.
Thebes was supposed to be traitorous, but there is little doubt that
history has been unfair to Thebes. Nevertheless, the Persian was invited
to do his worst. The Spartan plan was to draw strong lines across the
Isthmus of Corinth and to fight there in defence of the Peloponnese,
which was all the Greece that Sparta cared about. This meant the
desertion of all the northern parts. Eventually she was persuaded to try
resistance at the northern passes, but she did so half-heartedly. Tempe
was found to be indefensible, for the invaders were pouring over another
pass to the west of it. The first resistance was therefore made at
Thermopylæ, where the mountains left only a narrow track along the
shore.
The battle of Thermopylæ and the death of Leonidas with his three
hundred Spartans are often represented as a forlorn hope and a gallant
suicide. It was, on the contrary, a reasonable plan of defence, though
intended only as a first line of resistance. Six thousand Greek hoplites
marched with Leonidas, and they should have been sufficient to hold that
narrow pass, and the mountain track, which alone could turn it, against
a great force. Of course, the Persians were coming by land and sea, but
Themistocles, with the Greek fleet, was to hold their fleet in check at
a parallel point. The plan failed, because the Phocians, who were
guarding the mountain track, were caught napping and fled. The
Peloponnesian allies who were then sent back by Leonidas were not being
dismissed because the case was hopeless, but despatched to defend the
point where the mountain track debouches into the main pass. This they
failed to do. Leonidas was caught between two fires, and perished
valiantly with all his men. It was not the less glorious because it was
reasonable. Meanwhile a great storm had inflicted serious loss on the
Persian fleet.
Now the strategy of defending the isthmus seemed the only hope, and
that, of course, meant the abandonment of Athens. Sadly the Athenians
saw the necessity; they removed their wives and children to the island
of Salamis, and put all their fighting men on board their fleet, which
amounted to nearly two hundred vessels. Dr. G. B. Grundy, the modern
investigator of these wars, believes that the defence of the Acropolis
was a serious attempt, rather than a fanatical misinterpretation of that
second oracle which bade Athens trust to wooden walls. The Persians
swept on irresistibly, wrecked and ruined Attica, and burnt the city of
Athens and her citadel--not, however, so completely as to destroy all
the old sculptures there.
The great sea-fight of Salamis[46] needs no describing here
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII. THE BAY OF SALAMIS
_English Photo Co., Athens_]
It was Themistocles’ victory. He had cajoled, threatened, and finally
deceived the Spartan admiral into remaining there instead of retiring to
the isthmus. He craftily persuaded the Persian monarch to attack the
Greeks in narrow waters where numbers were only an obstacle; the fleet
which won the day was his creation. The battle has gained its deathless
glamour from the picture of Xerxes sitting on the hill above, enthroned
on marble, to watch the engagement taking place at his feet. In that
narrow strait between Salamis and the mainland, and in that lucid
atmosphere, every detail of the fight must have been visible to the
monarch, and his courtiers, his eunuchs, and his concubines. There was
no smoke or dust; the manœuvre was simply “full speed ahead and ram,”
steering, if you could, so that the metal prow of your ship struck the
enemy obliquely, and sheared off the whole row of protruding oars on one
side. Then, unless the enemy sank under the impact, it was a case of
hand-to-hand fighting with spear and shield against arrows and
scimitars.
Thus there was no need of the lines at the isthmus. Athens had conquered
at sea as she had conquered on land at Marathon. Xerxes fled home with
the bulk of his army in mighty dread lest his bridge over the Hellespont
should be broken.
He left behind him a great force under Mardonius, a force of picked
Persian cavalry and infantry, which for some time devastated Northern
Greece and perpetrated a second sack of Athens. At last it came to the
great campaign of Platæa (479). Here the Spartan infantry got its
opportunity and proved worthy of it, though the Athenian hoplites slew
their thousands also. So at length the Persian peril rolled away and
Greece was able to breathe again.
This whole episode was the great achievement of the Greeks in the field
of action. It passed into the realm of heroic history. It is almost the
only historical episode which the drama, usually devoted to heroic and
epic subjects, was permitted to use. No public oration was complete
without a reference to it. Vase-painters also depicted the story of
Darius and Xerxes as they did that of Hector and Priam. It remained on
the border-line of the permissible, however, for when temple sculptors
wished to allude to it they generally did so under cover of Homeric
contests between Greeks and Trojans or mythological battles between gods
and giants or Lapithæ and Centaurs. The memory of this united action had
some influence in counteracting the local separatism of the Greeks.
The side of this great contest which chiefly concerns us is its effect
in promoting Athenian civilisation. Salamis and Platæa had pushed Athens
forward into the front rank of Greece, to a position almost on a level
with Sparta herself. It is true that she still had to ask Sparta’s
permission, or to trick her into acquiescence, before she could build
the walls she desired. But above all it was a triumphant vindication of
the policy of Themistocles. Even Aristeides, who had come home to help
his country in her hour of trial, had to admit that. Henceforth he seems
to be working with Themistocles on the democratic side. For Salamis had
outshone even Marathon. The “nautical rabble” had justified itself. The
party of cautious hoplites, who feared democracy, no longer controlled
the policy of the state. Instead, they remained on their devastated
farms, grumbling at the “demagogues,” and issuing forth to support
conservative politicians like Kimon and Nikias. Their great champion in
literature is Aristophanes, who loves to depict the old Marathon men as
the real bulwark of the state. When Athens was rebuilt Themistocles saw
to it that the Peiræus should henceforth be part of the city, connected
with it by long walls. The Peiræus stood for naval interests and naval
empire, for commerce (though not for peace), and for democracy. It was
not so far off but that the voters could flock up to Athens when an
Assembly was to be held. It contained a large population of resident
foreigners.
This was how Athens became a democratic city-state.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII. PERICLES
_Mansell & Co._]
Democracy advanced in various stages: the poorest were made eligible for
the magistracies; the encroaching power of the Areopagus was reduced;
the magistrates (archons) and the Councillors were no longer leaders
elected for merit, but ordinary burgesses chosen by lot; the Assembly
became actually sovereign over administration within the terms of the
constitution. Themistocles himself was presently ostracised, being far
too great and clever to be a comfortable companion in a democratic
city-state. Curiously enough, time has spared one of the very “ostraka,”
or potsherds, bearing his name by which he was condemned to banishment.
[Illustration: Ostrakon of Themistocles]
Then an empire fell into their lap. It began, as most ancient empires
did begin, with an alliance gradually transformed into a tyranny. Most
Ionian cities had already won their freedom on the defeat of the Persian
navy, but some had still to be liberated, and all needed protection for
the future. The year after Platæa was spent by the Greek fleets in
cruising about the Ægean, doing the work of liberation. At first Spartan
admirals were in command, but the Ionians disliked Dorian discipline,
and Pausanias, the victor of Platæa, was puffed up with pride and power.
So they turned to Athens, whose commanders were Kimon, the rich and
generous son of Miltiades, Aristeides the Just, and Xanthippus, the
father of Pericles, all men of the aristocracy, but loyal servants of
Athens and capable seamen. Thus they formed the Confederacy of Delos, a
league of maritime states, Ionians who worshipped the Delian Apollo. On
his sacred island was to be the treasury of the league, and there the
common synods were to meet. This league Athens soon transformed into an
empire. From the first some of its members were too poor to supply the
normal unit of subscription, the trireme galley. These, then,
contributed money on the assessment of Aristeides. Athens built the
ships for them in her own dockyards and sent her collectors round for
the money. Soon, with true Ionian slackness, all the states except
Chios, Samos, and Lesbos converted their naval contribution into a money
payment. States were coerced into joining the league, garrisons and
magistrates were sent from Athens to hold them in subjection. Often
colonies of Athenian citizens were planted on their territory. When the
Persian danger was finally removed by the destruction of the Phœnician
fleet at Eurymedon the allies began to contemplate withdrawal. They were
very soon taught that membership was not a voluntary privilege. Now the
empire of Athens was a naked despotism, only mitigated by the fact that
many of the states were permitted to manage their own internal affairs.
The treasury of the league was removed from Delos to Athens, and the
money was spent at her discretion. Meanwhile the ambitions of Athens had
extended with success. She was no longer content with a naval empire.
She began to cherish plans of a great colonial dominion in the west; she
wanted to eat up her shrunken neighbour, Megara, in order to have an
outlet to the Corinthian Gulf; she took Naupactus on those waters as a
base, and sent reconnoitring expeditions to Sicily and planned a great
Panhellenic colony at Thurii, in South Italy. Moreover, she mixed in the
affairs of great foreign Powers like Egypt. She attacked Cyprus and
overran Bœotia.
In all this imperial policy from about 460 onwards the leader of the
democracy, who by his personal ascendancy was almost as powerful as a
monarch at Athens, was Pericles.[47] He was one of those aristocrats who
succeed in securing the allegiance of the masses, like Tiberius
Gracchus, or Pitt, or Salisbury, by their very aloofness. His single aim
was to make Athens free, powerful, and glorious. In Greece imperialism
was allied, as it is not with us, with radicalism. At home Pericles had
swept away the last vestiges of power from the Areopagus; he had
introduced payment of jurymen,
[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX. PEDIMENTAL FIGURES FROM THE TEMPLE OF APHAIA
AT ÆGINA
_Bruckmann_]
payment of soldiers and sailors, payment to enable the poor to attend
the theatre. He was, in short, what we should now call a Socialist.
Abroad he was the advocate of imperial expansion by land as well as sea.
He was for keeping a tight hold over the “allies,” and he justified the
appropriation of their subscriptions to the private purposes of Athens.
He had apparently come into power over Kimon’s shoulders as the advocate
of hostility to Sparta. The Peloponnesian War was of his making. There
is much in this sketch of his policy which displeases us. But there was
something in the personality of Pericles which made even critics like
Thucydides venerate his name, while they execrated the men who carried
on precisely the same line of policy after his death. This was his
idealistic patriotism, free from all sordid and selfish motives. He
believed in Athenian liberty, and he was prepared to extend it by force
if necessary. This illogical and paradoxical state of mind is common to
idealists; we ourselves have our pugnacious “pacifists,” our churches
prepared to extend the Gospel of Peace by the sword.
Conflict with Sparta was inevitable. Athens was constantly treading on
her toes in various parts of Greece. She was an upstart rival aspiring
openly to the foremost place in Hellas. That being so, we have no need
to inquire closely into the occasion of the great war which filled the
latter quarter of the century from 431 to 404, and ended in the
humiliating defeat of Athens. In any case the causes of it must be
sought much earlier in the century, since Athens and Sparta had long
been subsisting on terms of truce only.
The main features of the Peloponnesian War, which forms the theme of the
great history of Thucydides, may be briefly stated. Almost before it
began Athens had to surrender all her claims to land empire. That had
been a mistake from the first, for Athens could never turn out a hoplite
line fit to stand against the Spartan charge. The strategy of Pericles,
dictated by necessity, was to retire within the walls of the city,
relying upon the fleet to keep communications open and effect reprisals
on the enemy. The weakness of this strategy lay in the fact that no
fleet could touch Sparta, and that it put a very serious strain on the
rural population of Attica, who had to desert their homes and see their
crops ravaged in yearly forays from Sparta. That state of affairs led to
a disastrous plague at Athens, and to a feeling of bitterness against
Pericles which darkened his closing years. He died two years after the
war began, and his place was taken by Cleon, who walked in his footsteps
as democrat and imperialist, but, lacking his lofty personality and high
birth, has come very badly out of the hands of history and literature.
Aristophanes’ perpetual appellation of “tanner” directed against him
probably has its point in the fact that he openly represented commercial
interests. He was responsible for the shocking decree which condemned
all the male inhabitants of Mitylene to death in punishment of their
revolt, a decree which was repented and repealed at the eleventh hour,
and he was a frequent obstacle to peace. But there is no ground for
charging him with selfishness or dishonesty, and he was certainly not
devoid of talent. He should be credited with the most brilliant
achievement of the Athenian campaign, the taking of Sphacteria and its
Spartan garrison.
It would seem that the war might have gone on for ever, but for the
insane ambition of the Athenian democracy, which led her to despatch a
huge fleet in 415 to Sicily for the subjugation of that island. It was
the hare-brained scheme of that good-looking rascal Alcibiades. No one
except Socrates could refuse him anything, much less the mass meetings
on the Athenian Pnyx. So Athens squandered two great expeditions on an
enterprise undertaken in ignorance and entrusted to inefficient
commanders. With all her reserves, she just managed to fit out a new
fleet and gain a few more sea-fights, but the end could not be long
delayed. At last an Athenian admiral was caught napping at Ægospotami.
There were no more ships, no more money in the treasury. After a brief
siege Athens capitulated to Lysander in 404.
Such in briefest outline is the historical content of the Great Century,
and such is the story of the first of European empires. What bearing has
it upon our original inquiry as to the causes of the artistic and
intellectual brilliance of the fifth century? We have, to start with, a
people singularly endowed by Nature with quick intelligence and a
marvellous sense of form. The Persian wars and the rise of Athens had
added to these natural advantages a passion of pride in their city and
an almost fanatical belief in her mission. Thus all her citizens were
eager to do their utmost to increase the beauty and honour of the
violet-crowned city and her virgin goddess. A city-state makes a much
more direct appeal to the emotion of patriotism than the large modern
territorial state. Lastly, there was freedom in Athens such as no state
in history has ever enjoyed, freedom in thought as well as in politics.
This has been denied, but the attacks made upon Pheidias and Pericles,
and upon the philosophers Anaxagoras and Socrates, may all be explained
on political grounds. We have only to look at the plays of Aristophanes
to see what amazing liberty of speech prevailed at Athens. Moreover, it
was a privileged and educated equality. We must never forget the
thousands of slaves whose cruel toil in mine and factory rendered this
brilliant society possible at such an early stage in history. It must
not be forgotten that Greek liberty and communism was that of an
aristocracy, however democratic might be the relations between its
members. Thus you have at Athens a large citizen body lifted by the
state above all sordid cares and interests, living a very full social
life in the open air, with everything to stimulate intellectual
interests--the daily speeches and debates in law-court and Assembly, the
continual festivals and dramatic exhibitions, the endless conversations
in the agora, the palæstra, and the various colonnades, the daily coming
and going of ships from all quarters, constant embassies from the cities
of the League, visits from all the talent of Greece, just sufficient
intercourse with Egypt and the East--everything to stimulate the
intelligence, and yet a dominant religious or moral conviction which
tended inevitably to the austerest self-restraint and abhorrence of all
extravagance.
PHEIDIAS
In the great oration over the bodies of the dead Athenian soldiers which
Thucydides ascribes to Pericles the statesman is made to express his
ideal of Athens. She was “the instructress of Greece.” She alone, he
said, followed “culture without extravagance, and philosophy without
softness.” She alone combined daring with reflection. She alone welcomed
strangers, and, while reverencing the gods and the laws, permitted
freedom of speech and conscience to all men. He congratulated her upon
the happiness of life at Athens, the public displays and sacrificial
banquets which afforded daily delight to her inhabitants. He did not lay
much stress upon the outward magnificence of the city, for that, in a
large measure, was his own work. But it is that aspect of his policy
which we can all appreciate, whether we are democrats or imperialists or
neither or both.
Pericles himself set the example which Athens followed of encouraging
talent from all quarters to devote its abilities to the service of
Athens. Aspasia seems to have maintained a salon which was frequented by
most of the men of genius of the day. She herself was of Miletus, and
being an Ionian, was accustomed to a freedom of intellectual intercourse
denied to the cloistered women of Attica. Pericles had separated by
mutual consent from his wife, and though the laws did not allow him to
marry a foreigner, he lived with Aspasia through most of his public
career. She was a wit as well as a beauty. At her house you would meet
Pheidias the sculptor, Damon the musician, Anaxagoras the philosopher,
Alcibiades, and Socrates. There, we may presume, the plans for the
beautification of Athens were freely discussed.
It was a rare opportunity for the artists. Here was an imperial city to
be rebuilt, and plenty of money to build with.
[Illustration: PLATE XL. SCULPTURES OF THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE
PARTHENON
_Mansell & Co._]
The directors of the work were Pheidias the sculptor and Ictinus the
architect. Pheidias had learnt his craft under Agelâdas of Argos. Thus
he stands at the very beginning of the period of fine art. Technical
mastery over stone and bronze was by no means complete when he began to
work. The “archaic smile” still hovered over the lips of contemporary
sculptures, the eyes were too prominent, the eyelids were still cut to
meet at the corners instead of overlapping, hair was still
conventionally rendered by parallel grooves, or spirals, or roughly
blocked out for coloration.