Local Copy of http://eserver.org/history/peloponesian-war.txt
431 BC
by Thucydides
translated by Richard Crawley
The First Book.
THUCYDIDES,
an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the
Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it
would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it.
This belief was not without its grounds. The preparations of both the
combatants were in every department in the last state of perfection; and he
could see the rest of the Hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel; those who
delayed doing so at once having it in contemplation. Indeed this was the
greatest movement yet known in history, not only of the Hellenes, but of a
large part of the barbarian world- I had almost said of mankind. For though the
events of remote antiquity, and even those that more immediately preceded the
war, could not from lapse of time be clearly ascertained, yet the evidences
which an inquiry carried as far back as was practicable leads me to trust, all
point to the conclusion that there was nothing on a great scale, either in war
or in other matters.
For
instance, it is evident that the country now called Hellas had in ancient times
no settled population; on the contrary, migrations were of frequent occurrence,
the several tribes readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of
superior numbers. Without commerce, without freedom of communication either by
land or sea, cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life
required, destitute of capital, never planting their land (for they could not
tell when an invader might not come and take it all away, and when he did come
they had no walls to stop him), thinking that the necessities of daily
sustenance could be supplied at one place as well as another, they cared little
for shifting their habitation, and consequently neither built large cities nor
attained to any other form of greatness. The richest soils were always most
subject to this change of masters; such as the district now called Thessaly,
Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the most fertile parts
of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement of
particular individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile source
of ruin. It also invited invasion. Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its
soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction, never changed its
inhabitants. And here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that
the migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other
parts. The most powerful victims of war or faction from the rest of Hellas took
refuge with the Athenians as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming
naturalized, swelled the already large population of the city to such a height
that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and they had to send out
colonies to Ionia.
There
is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction of
the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan war there is no indication of
any common action in Hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the
name; on the contrary, before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such
appellation existed, but the country went by the names of the different tribes,
in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong
in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one
they gradually acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long
time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. The best proof of
this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls
all of them by that name, nor indeed any of them except the followers of
Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes: in his poems they are
called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does not even use the term barbarian,
probably because the Hellenes had not yet been marked off from the rest of the
world by one distinctive appellation. It appears therefore that the several
Hellenic communities, comprising not only those who first acquired the name,
city by city, as they came to understand each other, but also those who assumed
it afterwards as the name of the whole people, were before the Trojan war
prevented by their want of strength and the absence of mutual intercourse from
displaying any collective action.
Indeed,
they could not unite for this expedition till they had gained increased
familiarity with the sea. And the first person known to us by tradition as
having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now
called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he
sent the first colonies, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons
governors; and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a
necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use.
For
in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast and islands, as
communication by sea became more common, were tempted to turn pirates, under
the conduct of their most powerful men; the motives being to serve their own
cupidity and to support the needy. They would fall upon a town unprotected by
walls, and consisting of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it;
indeed, this came to be the main source of their livelihood, no disgrace being
yet attached to such an achievement, but even some glory. An illustration of
this is furnished by the honour with which some of the inhabitants of the
continent still regard a successful marauder, and by the question we find the
old poets everywhere representing the people as asking of voyagers- "Are they
pirates?"- as if those who are asked the question would have no idea of
disclaiming the imputation, or their interrogators of reproaching them for it.
The same rapine prevailed also by land.
And
even at the present day many of Hellas still follow the old fashion, the
Ozolian Locrians for instance, the Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and that region
of the continent; and the custom of carrying arms is still kept up among these
continentals, from the old piratical habits. The whole of Hellas used once to
carry arms, their habitations being unprotected and their communication with
each other unsafe; indeed, to wear arms was as much a part of everyday life
with them as with the barbarians. And the fact that the people in these parts
of Hellas are still living in the old way points to a time when the same mode
of life was once equally common to all. The Athenians were the first to lay
aside their weapons, and to adopt an easier and more luxurious mode of life;
indeed, it is only lately that their rich old men left off the luxury of
wearing undergarments of linen, and fastening a knot of their hair with a tie
of golden grasshoppers, a fashion which spread to their Ionian kindred and long
prevailed among the old men there. On the contrary, a modest style of dressing,
more in conformity with modern ideas, was first adopted by the Lacedaemonians,
the rich doing their best to assimilate their way of life to that of the common
people. They also set the example of contending naked, publicly stripping and
anointing themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises. Formerly, even in
the Olympic contests, the athletes who contended wore belts across their
middles; and it is but a few years since that the practice ceased. To this day
among some of the barbarians, especially in Asia, when prizes for boxing and
wrestling are offered, belts are worn by the combatants. And there are many
other points in which a likeness might be shown between the life of the
Hellenic world of old and the barbarian of to-day.
With
respect to their towns, later on, at an era of increased facilities of
navigation and a greater supply of capital, we find the shores becoming the
site of walled towns, and the isthmuses being occupied for the purposes of
commerce and defence against a neighbour. But the old towns, on account of the
great prevalence of piracy, were built away from the sea, whether on the
islands or the continent, and still remain in their old sites. For the pirates
used to plunder one another, and indeed all coast populations, whether
seafaring or not.
The
islanders, too, were great pirates. These islanders were Carians and
Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized, as was proved by the
following fact. During the purification of Delos by Athens in this war all the
graves in the island were taken up, and it was found that above half their
inmates were Carians: they were identified by the fashion of the arms buried
with them, and by the method of interment, which was the same as the Carians
still follow. But as soon as Minos had formed his navy, communication by sea
became easier, as he colonized most of the islands, and thus expelled the
malefactors. The coast population now began to apply themselves more closely to
the acquisition of wealth, and their life became more settled; some even began
to build themselves walls on the strength of their newly acquired riches. For
the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger,
and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller
towns to subjection. And it was at a somewhat later stage of this development
that they went on the expedition against Troy.
What
enabled Agamemnon to raise the armament was more, in my opinion, his
superiority in strength, than the oaths of Tyndareus, which bound the suitors
to follow him. Indeed, the account given by those Peloponnesians who have been
the recipients of the most credible tradition is this. First of all Pelops,
arriving among a needy population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such
power that, stranger though he was, the country was called after him; and this
power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the hands of his descendants.
Eurystheus had been killed in Attica by the Heraclids. Atreus was his mother's
brother; and to the hands of his relation, who had left his father on account
of the death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus, when he set out on his expedition, had
committed Mycenae and the government. As time went on and Eurystheus did not return,
Atreus complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans, who were influenced by fear
of the Heraclids- besides, his power seemed considerable, and he had not
neglected to court the favour of the populace- and assumed the sceptre of
Mycenae and the rest of the dominions of Eurystheus. And so the power of the
descendants of Pelops came to be greater than that of the descendants of
Perseus. To all this Agamemnon succeeded. He had also a navy far stronger than
his contemporaries, so that, in my opinion, fear was quite as strong an element
as love in the formation of the confederate expedition. The strength of his
navy is shown by the fact that his own was the largest contingent, and that of
the Arcadians was furnished by him; this at least is what Homer says, if his
testimony is deemed sufficient. Besides, in his account of the transmission of
the sceptre, he calls him
Of many an isle, and of all Argos king.
Now
Agamemnon's was a continental power; and he could not have been master of any
except the adjacent islands (and these would not be many), but through the
possession of a fleet.
And
from this expedition we may infer the character of earlier enterprises. Now
Mycenae may have been a small place, and many of the towns of that age may
appear comparatively insignificant, but no exact observer would therefore feel
justified in rejecting the estimate given by the poets and by tradition of the
magnitude of the armament. For I suppose if Lacedaemon were to become desolate,
and the temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as
time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to refuse to
accept her fame as a true exponent of her power. And yet they occupy two-fifths
of Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak of their numerous allies
without. Still, as the city is neither built in a compact form nor adorned with
magnificent temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after the old
fashion of Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Whereas, if
Athens were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference from
the appearance presented to the eye would make her power to have been twice as
great as it is. We have therefore no right to be sceptical, nor to content
ourselves with an inspection of a town to the exclusion of a consideration of
its power; but we may safely conclude that the armament in question surpassed
all before it, as it fell short of modern efforts; if we can here also accept
the testimony of Homer's poems, in which, without allowing for the exaggeration
which a poet would feel himself licensed to employ, we can see that it was far
from equalling ours. He has represented it as consisting of twelve hundred
vessels; the Boeotian complement of each ship being a hundred and twenty men, that
of the ships of Philoctetes fifty. By this, I conceive, he meant to convey the
maximum and the minimum complement: at any rate, he does not specify the amount
of any others in his catalogue of the ships. That they were all rowers as well
as warriors we see from his account of the ships of Philoctetes, in which all
the men at the oar are bowmen. Now it is improbable that many supernumeraries
sailed, if we except the kings and high officers; especially as they had to
cross the open sea with munitions of war, in ships, moreover, that had no
decks, but were equipped in the old piratical fashion. So that if we strike the
average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of those who sailed will
appear inconsiderable, representing, as they did, the whole force of Hellas.
And this was due not so much to scarcity of men as of money. Difficulty of
subsistence made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army to a point at
which it might live on the country during the prosecution of the war. Even
after the victory they obtained on their arrival- and a victory there must have
been, or the fortifications of the naval camp could never have been built-
there is no indication of their whole force having been employed; on the
contrary, they seem to have turned to cultivation of the Chersonese and to
piracy from want of supplies. This was what really enabled the Trojans to keep
the field for ten years against them; the dispersion of the enemy making them
always a match for the detachment left behind. If they had brought plenty of
supplies with them, and had persevered in the war without scattering for piracy
and agriculture, they would have easily defeated the Trojans in the field,
since they could hold their own against them with the division on service. In
short, if they had stuck to the siege, the capture of Troy would have cost them
less time and less trouble. But as want of money proved the weakness of earlier
expeditions, so from the same cause even the one in question, more famous than
its predecessors, may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to have
been inferior to its renown and to the current opinion about it formed under
the tuition of the poets.
Even
after the Trojan War, Hellas was still engaged in removing and settling, and
thus could not attain to the quiet which must precede growth. The late return
of the Hellenes from Ilium caused many revolutions, and factions ensued almost
everywhere; and it was the citizens thus driven into exile who founded the
cities. Sixty years after the capture of Ilium, the modern Boeotians were
driven out of Arne by the Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the
former Cadmeis; though there was a division of them there before, some of whom
joined the expedition to Ilium. Twenty years later, the Dorians and the
Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese; so that much had to be done and many
years had to elapse before Hellas could attain to a durable tranquillity
undisturbed by removals, and could begin to send out colonies, as Athens did to
Ionia and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and
Sicily and some places in the rest of Hellas. All these places were founded
subsequently to the war with Troy.
But
as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth became more an
object, the revenues of the states increasing, tyrannies were by their means
established almost everywhere- the old form of government being hereditary
monarchy with definite prerogatives- and Hellas began to fit out fleets and
apply herself more closely to the sea. It is said that the Corinthians were the
first to approach the modern style of naval architecture, and that Corinth was
the first place in Hellas where galleys were built; and we have Ameinocles, a
Corinthian shipwright, making four ships for the Samians. Dating from the end
of this war, it is nearly three hundred years ago that Ameinocles went to
Samos. Again, the earliest sea-fight in history was between the Corinthians and
Corcyraeans; this was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from the
same time. Planted on an isthmus, Corinth had from time out of mind been a
commercial emporium; as formerly almost all communication between the Hellenes
within and without Peloponnese was carried on overland, and the Corinthian
territory was the highway through which it travelled. She had consequently
great money resources, as is shown by the epithet "wealthy" bestowed
by the old poets on the place, and this enabled her, when traffic by sea became
more common, to procure her navy and put down piracy; and as she could offer a
mart for both branches of the trade, she acquired for herself all the power
which a large revenue affords. Subsequently the Ionians attained to great naval
strength in the reign of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of his son
Cambyses, and while they were at war with the former commanded for a while the
Ionian sea. Polycrates also, the tyrant of Samos, had a powerful navy in the
reign of Cambyses, with which he reduced many of the islands, and among them
Rhenea, which he consecrated to the Delian Apollo. About this time also the
Phocaeans, while they were founding Marseilles, defeated the Carthaginians in a
sea-fight. These were the most powerful navies. And even these, although so
many generations had elapsed since the Trojan war, seem to have been
principally composed of the old fifty-oars and long-boats, and to have counted
few galleys among their ranks. Indeed it was only shortly the Persian war, and
the death of Darius the successor of Cambyses, that the Sicilian tyrants and
the Corcyraeans acquired any large number of galleys. For after these there
were no navies of any account in Hellas till the expedition of Xerxes; Aegina,
Athens, and others may have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally
fifty-oars. It was quite at the end of this period that the war with Aegina and
the prospect of the barbarian invasion enabled Themistocles to persuade the
Athenians to build the fleet with which they fought at Salamis; and even these
vessels had not complete decks.
The
navies, then, of the Hellenes during the period we have traversed were what I
have described. All their insignificance did not prevent their being an element
of the greatest power to those who cultivated them, alike in revenue and in
dominion. They were the means by which the islands were reached and reduced,
those of the smallest area falling the easiest prey. Wars by land there were
none, none at least by which power was acquired; we have the usual border
contests, but of distant expeditions with conquest for object we hear nothing
among the Hellenes. There was no union of subject cities round a great state,
no spontaneous combination of equals for confederate expeditions; what fighting
there was consisted merely of local warfare between rival neighbours. The
nearest approach to a coalition took place in the old war between Chalcis and
Eretria; this was a quarrel in which the rest of the Hellenic name did to some
extent take sides.
Various,
too, were the obstacles which the national growth encountered in various
localities. The power of the Ionians was advancing with rapid strides, when it
came into collision with Persia, under King Cyrus, who, after having dethroned
Croesus and overrun everything between the Halys and the sea, stopped not till
he had reduced the cities of the coast; the islands being only left to be
subdued by Darius and the Phoenician navy.
Again,
wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing simply for themselves, of
looking solely to their personal comfort and family aggrandizement, made safety
the great aim of their policy, and prevented anything great proceeding from
them; though they would each have their affairs with their immediate
neighbours. All this is only true of the mother country, for in Sicily they
attained to very great power. Thus for a long time everywhere in Hellas do we
find causes which make the states alike incapable of combination for great and
national ends, or of any vigorous action of their own.
But
at last a time came when the tyrants of Athens and the far older tyrannies of
the rest of Hellas were, with the exception of those in Sicily, once and for
all put down by Lacedaemon; for this city, though after the settlement of the
Dorians, its present inhabitants, it suffered from factions for an unparalleled
length of time, still at a very early period obtained good laws, and enjoyed a
freedom from tyrants which was unbroken; it has possessed the same form of
government for more than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of the late
war, and has thus been in a position to arrange the affairs of the other
states. Not many years after the deposition of the tyrants, the battle of
Marathon was fought between the Medes and the Athenians. Ten years afterwards,
the barbarian returned with the armada for the subjugation of Hellas. In the
face of this great danger, the command of the confederate Hellenes was assumed
by the Lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior power; and the Athenians,
having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke up their homes, threw
themselves into their ships, and became a naval people. This coalition, after
repulsing the barbarian, soon afterwards split into two sections, which
included the Hellenes who had revolted from the King, as well as those who had
aided him in the war. At the end of the one stood Athens, at the head of the
other Lacedaemon, one the first naval, the other the first military power in
Hellas. For a short time the league held together, till the Lacedaemonians and
Athenians quarrelled and made war upon each other with their allies, a duel
into which all the Hellenes sooner or later were drawn, though some might at
first remain neutral. So that the whole period from the Median war to this,
with some peaceful intervals, was spent by each power in war, either with its
rival, or with its own revolted allies, and consequently afforded them constant
practice in military matters, and that experience which is learnt in the school
of danger.
The
policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies, but merely to
secure their subservience to her interests by establishing oligarchies among
them; Athens, on the contrary, had by degrees deprived hers of their ships, and
imposed instead contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos. Both
found their resources for this war separately to exceed the sum of their
strength when the alliance flourished intact.
Having
now given the result of my inquiries into early times, I grant that there will
be a difficulty in believing every particular detail. The way that most men
deal with traditions, even traditions of their own country, is to receive them
all alike as they are delivered, without applying any critical test whatever.
The general Athenian public fancy that Hipparchus was tyrant when he fell by
the hands of Harmodius and Aristogiton, not knowing that Hippias, the eldest of
the sons of Pisistratus, was really supreme, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus
were his brothers; and that Harmodius and Aristogiton suspecting, on the very
day, nay at the very moment fixed on for the deed, that information had been
conveyed to Hippias by their accomplices, concluded that he had been warned,
and did not attack him, yet, not liking to be apprehended and risk their lives
for nothing, fell upon Hipparchus near the temple of the daughters of Leos, and
slew him as he was arranging the Panathenaic procession.
There
are many other unfounded ideas current among the rest of the Hellenes, even on
matters of contemporary history, which have not been obscured by time. For
instance, there is the notion that the Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each,
the fact being that they have only one; and that there is a company of Pitane,
there being simply no such thing. So little pains do the vulgar take in the
investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.
On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may,
I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by
the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the
compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the
subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having
robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of
legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied with having proceeded upon
the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be
expected in matters of such antiquity. To come to this war: despite the known
disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate its importance, and when it
is over to return to their admiration of earlier events, yet an examination of
the facts will show that it was much greater than the wars which preceded it.
With
reference to the speeches in this history, some were delivered before the war
began, others while it was going on; some I heard myself, others I got from
various quarters; it was in all cases difficult to carry them word for word in
one's memory, so my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my
opinion demanded of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as
closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said. And with
reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it
from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own
impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others
saw for me, the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe
and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labour from the
want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different
eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue
partiality for one side or the other. The absence of romance in my history
will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by
those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the
interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble
if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work,
not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession
for all time.
The
Median War, the greatest achievement of past times, yet found a speedy decision
in two actions by sea and two by land. The Peloponnesian War was prolonged to
an immense length, and, long as it was, it was short without parallel for the
misfortunes that it brought upon Hellas. Never had so many cities been taken
and laid desolate, here by the barbarians, here by the parties contending (the
old inhabitants being sometimes removed to make room for others); never was
there so much banishing and blood-shedding, now on the field of battle, now in
the strife of faction. Old stories of occurrences handed down by tradition, but
scantily confirmed by experience, suddenly ceased to be incredible; there were
earthquakes of unparalleled extent and violence; eclipses of the sun occurred
with a frequency unrecorded in previous history; there were great droughts in
sundry places and consequent famines, and that most calamitous and awfully
fatal visitation, the plague. All this came upon them with the late war, which
was begun by the Athenians and Peloponnesians by the dissolution of the thirty
years' truce made after the conquest of Euboea. To the question why they broke
the treaty, I answer by placing first an account of their grounds of complaint
and points of difference, that no one may ever have to ask the immediate cause
which plunged the Hellenes into a war of such magnitude. The real cause I
consider to be the one which was formally most kept out of sight. The growth of
the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war
inevitable. Still it is well to give the grounds alleged by either side which
led to the dissolution of the treaty and the breaking out of the war.
THE
city of Epidamnus stands on the right of the entrance of the Ionic Gulf. Its
vicinity is inhabited by the Taulantians, an Illyrian people. The place is a
colony from Corcyra, founded by Phalius, son of Eratocleides, of the family of
the Heraclids, who had according to ancient usage been summoned for the purpose
from Corinth, the mother country. The colonists were joined by some
Corinthians, and others of the Dorian race. Now, as time went on, the city of
Epidamnus became great and populous; but falling a prey to factions arising, it
is said, from a war with her neighbours the barbarians, she became much
enfeebled, and lost a considerable amount of her power. The last act before the
war was the expulsion of the nobles by the people. The exiled party joined the
barbarians, and proceeded to plunder those in the city by sea and land; and the
Epidamnians, finding themselves hard pressed, sent ambassadors to Corcyra
beseeching their mother country not to allow them to perish, but to make up
matters between them and the exiles, and to rid them of the war with the
barbarians. The ambassadors seated themselves in the temple of Hera as
suppliants, and made the above requests to the Corcyraeans. But the Corcyraeans
refused to accept their supplication, and they were dismissed without having
effected anything.
When
the Epidamnians found that no help could be expected from Corcyra, they were in
a strait what to do next. So they sent to Delphi and inquired of the God
whether they should deliver their city to the Corinthians and endeavour to
obtain some assistance from their founders. The answer he gave them was to
deliver the city and place themselves under Corinthian protection. So the
Epidamnians went to Corinth and delivered over the colony in obedience to the
commands of the oracle. They showed that their founder came from Corinth, and
revealed the answer of the god; and they begged them not to allow them to
perish, but to assist them. This the Corinthians consented to do. Believing the
colony to belong as much to themselves as to the Corcyraeans, they felt it to
be a kind of duty to undertake their protection. Besides, they hated the
Corcyraeans for their contempt of the mother country. Instead of meeting with
the usual honours accorded to the parent city by every other colony at public
assemblies, such as precedence at sacrifices, Corinth found herself treated
with contempt by a power which in point of wealth could stand comparison with
any even of the richest communities in Hellas, which possessed great military
strength, and which sometimes could not repress a pride in the high naval
position of an, island whose nautical renown dated from the days of its old
inhabitants, the Phaeacians. This was one reason of the care that they lavished
on their fleet, which became very efficient; indeed they began the war with a
force of a hundred and twenty galleys.
All
these grievances made Corinth eager to send the promised aid to Epidamnus.
Advertisement was made for volunteer settlers, and a force of Ambraciots,
Leucadians, and Corinthians was dispatched. They marched by land to Apollonia,
a Corinthian colony, the route by sea being avoided from fear of Corcyraean interruption.
When the Corcyraeans heard of the arrival of the settlers and troops in
Epidamnus, and the surrender of the colony to Corinth, they took fire.
Instantly putting to sea with five-and-twenty ships, which were quickly
followed by others, they insolently commanded the Epidamnians to receive back
the banished nobles- (it must be premised that the Epidamnian exiles had come
to Corcyra and, pointing to the sepulchres of their ancestors, had appealed to
their kindred to restore them)- and to dismiss the Corinthian garrison and
settlers. But to all this the Epidamnians turned a deaf ear. Upon this the
Corcyraeans commenced operations against them with a fleet of forty sail. They
took with them the exiles, with a view to their restoration, and also secured the
services of the Illyrians. Sitting down before the city, they issued a
proclamation to the effect that any of the natives that chose, and the
foreigners, might depart unharmed, with the alternative of being treated as
enemies. On their refusal the Corcyraeans proceeded to besiege the city, which
stands on an isthmus; and the Corinthians, receiving intelligence of the
investment of Epidamnus, got together an armament and proclaimed a colony to
Epidamnus, perfect political equality being guaranteed to all who chose to go.
Any who were not prepared to sail at once might, by paying down the sum of
fifty Corinthian drachmae, have a share in the colony without leaving Corinth.
Great numbers took advantage of this proclamation, some being ready to start
directly, others paying the requisite forfeit. In case of their passage being
disputed by the Corcyraeans, several cities were asked to lend them a convoy.
Megara prepared to accompany them with eight ships, Pale in Cephallonia with
four; Epidaurus furnished five, Hermione one, Troezen two, Leucas ten, and
Ambracia eight. The Thebans and Phliasians were asked for money, the Eleans for
hulls as well; while Corinth herself furnished thirty ships and three thousand
heavy infantry.
When
the Corcyraeans heard of their preparations they came to Corinth with envoys
from Lacedaemon and Sicyon, whom they persuaded to accompany them, and bade her
recall the garrison and settlers, as she had nothing to do with Epidamnus. If,
however, she had any claims to make, they were willing to submit the matter to
the arbitration of such of the cities in Peloponnese as should be chosen by
mutual agreement, and that the colony should remain with the city to whom the
arbitrators might assign it. They were also willing to refer the matter to the
oracle at Delphi. If, in defiance of their protestations, war was appealed to,
they should be themselves compelled by this violence to seek friends in
quarters where they had no desire to seek them, and to make even old ties give
way to the necessity of assistance. The answer they got from Corinth was that,
if they would withdraw their fleet and the barbarians from Epidamnus,
negotiation might be possible; but, while the town was still being besieged,
going before arbitrators was out of the question. The Corcyraeans retorted that
if Corinth would withdraw her troops from Epidamnus they would withdraw theirs,
or they were ready to let both parties remain in statu quo, an armistice being
concluded till judgment could be given.
Turning
a deaf ear to all these proposals, when their ships were manned and their
allies had come in, the Corinthians sent a herald before them to declare war
and, getting under way with seventy-five ships and two thousand heavy infantry,
sailed for Epidamnus to give battle to the Corcyraeans. The fleet was under the
command of Aristeus, son of Pellichas, Callicrates, son of Callias, and
Timanor, son of Timanthes; the troops under that of Archetimus, son of
Eurytimus, and Isarchidas, son of Isarchus. When they had reached Actium in the
territory of Anactorium, at the mouth of the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia,
where the temple of Apollo stands, the Corcyraeans sent on a herald in a light
boat to warn them not to sail against them. Meanwhile they proceeded to man
their ships, all of which had been equipped for action, the old vessels being
undergirded to make them seaworthy. On the return of the herald without any
peaceful answer from the Corinthians, their ships being now manned, they put
out to sea to meet the enemy with a fleet of eighty sail (forty were engaged in
the siege of Epidamnus), formed line, and went into action, and gained a
decisive victory, and destroyed fifteen of the Corinthian vessels. The same day
had seen Epidamnus compelled by its besiegers to capitulate; the conditions
being that the foreigners should be sold, and the Corinthians kept as prisoners
of war, till their fate should be otherwise decided.
After
the engagement the Corcyraeans set up a trophy on Leukimme, a headland of
Corcyra, and slew all their captives except the Corinthians, whom they kept as
prisoners of war. Defeated at sea, the Corinthians and their allies repaired
home, and left the Corcyraeans masters of all the sea about those parts.
Sailing to Leucas, a Corinthian colony, they ravaged their territory, and burnt
Cyllene, the harbour of the Eleans, because they had furnished ships and money
to Corinth. For almost the whole of the period that followed the battle they
remained masters of the sea, and the allies of Corinth were harassed by
Corcyraean cruisers. At last Corinth, roused by the sufferings of her allies,
sent out ships and troops in the fall of the summer, who formed an encampment
at Actium and about Chimerium, in Thesprotis, for the protection of Leucas and
the rest of the friendly cities. The Corcyraeans on their part formed a similar
station on Leukimme. Neither party made any movement, but they remained
confronting each other till the end of the summer, and winter was at hand
before either of them returned home.
Corinth,
exasperated by the war with the Corcyraeans, spent the whole of the year after
the engagement and that succeeding it in building ships, and in straining every
nerve to form an efficient fleet; rowers being drawn from Peloponnese and the
rest of Hellas by the inducement of large bounties. The Corcyraeans, alarmed at
the news of their preparations, being without a single ally in Hellas (for they
had not enrolled themselves either in the Athenian or in the Lacedaemonian
confederacy), decided to repair to Athens in order to enter into alliance and
to endeavour to procure support from her. Corinth also, hearing of their
intentions, sent an embassy to Athens to prevent the Corcyraean navy being
joined by the Athenian, and her prospect of ordering the war according to her
wishes being thus impeded. An assembly was convoked, and the rival advocates
appeared: the Corcyraeans spoke as follows:
"Athenians!
when a people that have not rendered any important service or support to their
neighbours in times past, for which they might claim to be repaid, appear
before them as we now appear before you to solicit their assistance, they may
fairly be required to satisfy certain preliminary conditions. They should show,
first, that it is expedient or at least safe to grant their request; next, that
they will retain a lasting sense of the kindness. But if they cannot clearly
establish any of these points, they must not be annoyed if they meet with a
rebuff. Now the Corcyraeans believe that with their petition for assistance
they can also give you a satisfactory answer on these points, and they have
therefore dispatched us hither. It has so happened that our policy as regards
you with respect to this request, turns out to be inconsistent, and as regards
our interests, to be at the present crisis inexpedient. We say inconsistent,
because a power which has never in the whole of her past history been willing
to ally herself with any of her neighbours, is now found asking them to ally
themselves with her. And we say inexpedient, because in our present war with
Corinth it has left us in a position of entire isolation, and what once seemed
the wise precaution of refusing to involve ourselves in alliances with other
powers, lest we should also involve ourselves in risks of their choosing, has
now proved to be folly and weakness. It is true that in the late naval
engagement we drove back the Corinthians from our shores single-handed. But
they have now got together a still larger armament from Peloponnese and the
rest of Hellas; and we, seeing our utter inability to cope with them without
foreign aid, and the magnitude of the danger which subjection to them implies,
find it necessary to ask help from you and from every other power. And we hope
to be excused if we forswear our old principle of complete political isolation,
a principle which was not adopted with any sinister intention, but was rather
the consequence of an error in judgment.
"Now
there are many reasons why in the event of your compliance you will
congratulate yourselves on this request having been made to you. First, because
your assistance will be rendered to a power which, herself inoffensive, is a
victim to the injustice of others. Secondly, because all that we most value is
at stake in the present contest, and your welcome of us under these
circumstances will be a proof of goodwill which will ever keep alive the
gratitude you will lay up in our hearts. Thirdly, yourselves excepted, we are
the greatest naval power in Hellas. Moreover, can you conceive a stroke of good
fortune more rare in itself, or more disheartening to your enemies, than that
the power whose adhesion you would have valued above much material and moral
strength should present herself self-invited, should deliver herself into your
hands without danger and without expense, and should lastly put you in the way
of gaining a high character in the eyes of the world, the gratitude of those
whom you shall assist, and a great accession of strength for yourselves? You
may search all history without finding many instances of a people gaining all
these advantages at once, or many instances of a power that comes in quest of
assistance being in a position to give to the people whose alliance she
solicits as much safety and honour as she will receive. But it will be urged
that it is only in the case of a war that we shall be found useful. To this we
answer that if any of you imagine that that war is far off, he is grievously
mistaken, and is blind to the fact that Lacedaemon regards you with jealousy
and desires war, and that Corinth is powerful there- the same, remember, that
is your enemy, and is even now trying to subdue us as a preliminary to
attacking you. And this she does to prevent our becoming united by a common
enmity, and her having us both on her hands, and also to ensure getting the
start of you in one of two ways, either by crippling our power or by making its
strength her own. Now it is our policy to be beforehand with her- that is, for
Corcyra to make an offer of alliance and for you to accept it; in fact, we
ought to form plans against her instead of waiting to defeat the plans she
forms against us.
"If
she asserts that for you to receive a colony of hers into alliance is not
right, let her know that every colony that is well treated honours its parent
state, but becomes estranged from it by injustice. For colonists are not sent
forth on the understanding that they are to be the slaves of those that remain
behind, but that they are to be their equals. And that Corinth was injuring us
is clear. Invited to refer the dispute about Epidamnus to arbitration, they
chose to prosecute their complaints war rather than by a fair trial. And let
their conduct towards us who are their kindred be a warning to you not to be
misled by their deceit, nor to yield to their direct requests; concessions to
adversaries only end in self-reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided
the greater will be the chance of security.
"If
it be urged that your reception of us will be a breach of the treaty existing
between you and Lacedaemon, the answer is that we are a neutral state, and that
one of the express provisions of that treaty is that it shall be competent for
any Hellenic state that is neutral to join whichever side it pleases. And it is
intolerable for Corinth to be allowed to obtain men for her navy not only from
her allies, but also from the rest of Hellas, no small number being furnished
by your own subjects; while we are to be excluded both from the alliance left
open to us by treaty, and from any assistance that we might get from other quarters,
and you are to be accused of political immorality if you comply with our
request. On the other hand, we shall have much greater cause to complain of
you, if you do not comply with it; if we, who are in peril and are no enemies
of yours, meet with a repulse at your hands, while Corinth, who is the
aggressor and your enemy, not only meets with no hindrance from you, but is
even allowed to draw material for war from your dependencies. This ought not to
be, but you should either forbid her enlisting men in your dominions, or you
should lend us too what help you may think advisable.
"But
your real policy is to afford us avowed countenance and support. The advantages
of this course, as we premised in the beginning of our speech, are many. We
mention one that is perhaps the chief. Could there be a clearer guarantee of
our good faith than is offered by the fact that the power which is at enmity
with you is also at enmity with us, and that that power is fully able to punish
defection? And there is a wide difference between declining the alliance of an
inland and of a maritime power. For your first endeavour should be to prevent,
if possible, the existence of any naval power except your own; failing this, to
secure the friendship of the strongest that does exist. And if any of you
believe that what we urge is expedient, but fear to act upon this belief, lest
it should lead to a breach of the treaty, you must remember that on the one
hand, whatever your fears, your strength will be formidable to your antagonists;
on the other, whatever the confidence you derive from refusing to receive us,
your weakness will have no terrors for a strong enemy. You must also remember
that your decision is for Athens no less than Corcyra, and that you are not
making the best provision for her interests, if at a time when you are
anxiously scanning the horizon that you may be in readiness for the breaking
out of the war which is all but upon you, you hesitate to attach to your side a
place whose adhesion or estrangement is alike pregnant with the most vital
consequences. For it lies conveniently for the coast- navigation in the
direction of Italy and Sicily, being able to bar the passage of naval
reinforcements from thence to Peloponnese, and from Peloponnese thither; and it
is in other respects a most desirable station. To sum up as shortly as
possible, embracing both general and particular considerations, let this show
you the folly of sacrificing us. Remember that there are but three considerable
naval powers in Hellas- Athens, Corcyra, and Corinth- and that if you allow two
of these three to become one, and Corinth to secure us for herself, you will
have to hold the sea against the united fleets of Corcyra and Peloponnese. But
if you receive us, you will have our ships to reinforce you in the
struggle."
Such
were the words of the Corcyraeans. After they had finished, the Corinthians
spoke as follows:
"These
Corcyraeans in the speech we have just heard do not confine themselves to the
question of their reception into your alliance. They also talk of our being
guilty of injustice, and their being the victims of an unjustifiable war. It
becomes necessary for us to touch upon both these points before we proceed to
the rest of what we have to say, that you may have a more correct idea of the
grounds of our claim, and have good cause to reject their petition. According
to them, their old policy of refusing all offers of alliance was a policy of
moderation. It was in fact adopted for bad ends, not for good; indeed their
conduct is such as to make them by no means desirous of having allies present
to witness it, or of having the shame of asking their concurrence. Besides,
their geographical situation makes them independent of others, and consequently
the decision in cases where they injure any lies not with judges appointed by
mutual agreement, but with themselves, because, while they seldom make voyages
to their neighbours, they are constantly being visited by foreign vessels which
are compelled to put in to Corcyra. In short, the object that they propose to
themselves, in their specious policy of complete isolation, is not to avoid
sharing in the crimes of others, but to secure monopoly of crime to themselves-
the licence of outrage wherever they can compel, of fraud wherever they can
elude, and the enjoyment of their gains without shame. And yet if they were the
honest men they pretend to be, the less hold that others had upon them, the
stronger would be the light in which they might have put their honesty by
giving and taking what was just.
"But
such has not been their conduct either towards others or towards us. The
attitude of our colony towards us has always been one of estrangement and is
now one of hostility; for, say they: 'We were not sent out to be ill-treated.'
We rejoin that we did not found the colony to be insulted by them, but to be
their head and to be regarded with a proper respect. At any rate our other
colonies honour us, and we are much beloved by our colonists; and clearly, if
the majority are satisfied with us, these can have no good reason for a
dissatisfaction in which they stand alone, and we are not acting improperly in
making war against them, nor are we making war against them without having
received signal provocation. Besides, if we were in the wrong, it would be honourable
in them to give way to our wishes, and disgraceful for us to trample on their
moderation; but in the pride and licence of wealth they have sinned again and
again against us, and never more deeply than when Epidamnus, our dependency,
which they took no steps to claim in its distress upon our coming to relieve
it, was by them seized, and is now held by force of arms.
"As
to their allegation that they wished the question to be first submitted to
arbitration, it is obvious that a challenge coming from the party who is safe
in a commanding position cannot gain the credit due only to him who, before
appealing to arms, in deeds as well as words, places himself on a level with
his adversary. In their case, it was not before they laid siege to the place,
but after they at length understood that we should not tamely suffer it, that
they thought of the specious word arbitration. And not satisfied with their own
misconduct there, they appear here now requiring you to join with them not in
alliance but in crime, and to receive them in spite of their being at enmity
with us. But it was when they stood firmest that they should have made
overtures to you, and not at a time when we have been wronged and they are in
peril; nor yet at a time when you will be admitting to a share in your
protection those who never admitted you to a share in their power, and will be
incurring an equal amount of blame from us with those in whose offences you had
no hand. No, they should have shared their power with you before they asked you
to share your fortunes with them.
"So
then the reality of the grievances we come to complain of, and the violence and
rapacity of our opponents, have both been proved. But that you cannot equitably
receive them, this you have still to learn. It may be true that one of the
provisions of the treaty is that it shall be competent for any state, whose
name was not down on the list, to join whichever side it pleases. But this
agreement is not meant for those whose object in joining is the injury of other
powers, but for those whose need of support does not arise from the fact of
defection, and whose adhesion will not bring to the power that is mad enough to
receive them war instead of peace; which will be the case with you, if you
refuse to listen to us. For you cannot become their auxiliary and remain our
friend; if you join in their attack, you must share the punishment which the
defenders inflict on them. And yet you have the best possible right to be
neutral, or, failing this, you should on the contrary join us against them.
Corinth is at least in treaty with you; with Corcyra you were never even in
truce. But do not lay down the principle that defection is to be patronized.
Did we on the defection of the Samians record our vote against you, when the
rest of the Peloponnesian powers were equally divided on the question whether
they should assist them? No, we told them to their face that every power has a
right to punish its own allies. Why, if you make it your policy to receive and
assist all offenders, you will find that just as many of your dependencies will
come over to us, and the principle that you establish will press less heavily
on us than on yourselves.
"This
then is what Hellenic law entitles us to demand as a right. But we have also
advice to offer and claims on your gratitude, which, since there is no danger
of our injuring you, as we are not enemies, and since our friendship does not
amount to very frequent intercourse, we say ought to be liquidated at the
present juncture. When you were in want of ships of war for the war against the
Aeginetans, before the Persian invasion, Corinth supplied you with twenty
vessels. That good turn, and the line we took on the Samian question, when we
were the cause of the Peloponnesians refusing to assist them, enabled you to
conquer Aegina and to punish Samos. And we acted thus at crises when, if ever,
men are wont in their efforts against their enemies to forget everything for
the sake of victory, regarding him who assists them then as a friend, even if
thus far he has been a foe, and him who opposes them then as a foe, even if he
has thus far been a friend; indeed they allow their real interests to suffer
from their absorbing preoccupation in the struggle.
"Weigh
well these considerations, and let your youth learn what they are from their
elders, and let them determine to do unto us as we have done unto you. And let
them not acknowledge the justice of what we say, but dispute its wisdom in the
contingency of war. Not only is the straightest path generally speaking the wisest;
but the coming of the war, which the Corcyraeans have used as a bugbear to
persuade you to do wrong, is still uncertain, and it is not worth while to be
carried away by it into gaining the instant and declared enmity of Corinth. It
were, rather, wise to try and counteract the unfavourable impression which your
conduct to Megara has created. For kindness opportunely shown has a greater
power of removing old grievances than the facts of the case may warrant. And do
not be seduced by the prospect of a great naval alliance. Abstinence from all
injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than
anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquillity for an
apparent temporary advantage. It is now our turn to benefit by the principle
that we laid down at Lacedaemon, that every power has a right to punish her own
allies. We now claim to receive the same from you, and protest against your
rewarding us for benefiting you by our vote by injuring us by yours. On the
contrary, return us like for like, remembering that this is that very crisis in
which he who lends aid is most a friend, and he who opposes is most a foe. And
for these Corcyraeans- neither receive them into alliance in our despite, nor
be their abettors in crime. So do, and you will act as we have a right to
expect of you, and at the same time best consult your own interests."
Such
were the words of the Corinthians.
When
the Athenians had heard both out, two assemblies were held. In the first there
was a manifest disposition to listen to the representations of Corinth; in the
second, public feeling had changed and an alliance with Corcyra was decided on,
with certain reservations. It was to be a defensive, not an offensive alliance.
It did not involve a breach of the treaty with Peloponnese: Athens could not be
required to join Corcyra in any attack upon Corinth. But each of the
contracting parties had a right to the other's assistance against invasion,
whether of his own territory or that of an ally. For it began now to be felt
that the coming of the Peloponnesian war was only a question of time, and no
one was willing to see a naval power of such magnitude as Corcyra sacrificed to
Corinth; though if they could let them weaken each other by mutual conflict, it
would be no bad preparation for the struggle which Athens might one day have to
wage with Corinth and the other naval powers. At the same time the island
seemed to lie conveniently on the coasting passage to Italy and Sicily. With
these views, Athens received Corcyra into alliance and, on the departure of the
Corinthians not long afterwards, sent ten ships to their assistance. They were
commanded by Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, Diotimus, the son of Strombichus,
and Proteas, the son of Epicles. Their instructions were to avoid collision
with the Corinthian fleet except under certain circumstances. If it sailed to
Corcyra and threatened a landing on her coast, or in any of her possessions,
they were to do their utmost to prevent it. These instructions were prompted by
an anxiety to avoid a breach of the treaty.
Meanwhile
the Corinthians completed their preparations, and sailed for Corcyra with a
hundred and fifty ships. Of these Elis furnished ten, Megara twelve, Leucas
ten, Ambracia twenty-seven, Anactorium one, and Corinth herself ninety. Each of
these contingents had its own admiral, the Corinthian being under the command
of Xenoclides, son of Euthycles, with four colleagues. Sailing from Leucas,
they made land at the part of the continent opposite Corcyra. They anchored in
the harbour of Chimerium, in the territory of Thesprotis, above which, at some
distance from the sea, lies the city of Ephyre, in the Elean district. By this
city the Acherusian lake pours its waters into the sea. It gets its name from
the river Acheron, which flows through Thesprotis and falls into the lake.
There also the river Thyamis flows, forming the boundary between Thesprotis and
Kestrine; and between these rivers rises the point of Chimerium. In this part
of the continent the Corinthians now came to anchor, and formed an encampment.
When the Corcyraeans saw them coming, they manned a hundred and ten ships,
commanded by Meikiades, Aisimides, and Eurybatus, and stationed themselves at
one of the Sybota isles; the ten Athenian ships being present. On Point
Leukimme they posted their land forces, and a thousand heavy infantry who had
come from Zacynthus to their assistance. Nor were the Corinthians on the
mainland without their allies. The barbarians flocked in large numbers to their
assistance, the inhabitants of this part of the continent being old allies of
theirs.
When
the Corinthian preparations were completed, they took three days' provisions
and put out from Chimerium by night, ready for action. Sailing with the dawn,
they sighted the Corcyraean fleet out at sea and coming towards them. When they
perceived each other, both sides formed in order of battle. On the Corcyraean
right wing lay the Athenian ships, the rest of the line being occupied by their
own vessels formed in three squadrons, each of which was commanded by one of
the three admirals. Such was the Corcyraean formation. The Corinthian was as
follows: on the right wing lay the Megarian and Ambraciot ships, in the centre
the rest of the allies in order. But the left was composed of the best sailers
in the Corinthian navy, to encounter the Athenians and the right wing of the
Corcyraeans. As soon as the signals were raised on either side, they joined
battle. Both sides had a large number of heavy infantry on their decks, and a
large number of archers and darters, the old imperfect armament still
prevailing. The sea-fight was an obstinate one, though not remarkable for its
science; indeed it was more like a battle by land. Whenever they charged each
other, the multitude and crush of the vessels made it by no means easy to get
loose; besides, their hopes of victory lay principally in the heavy infantry on
the decks, who stood and fought in order, the ships remaining stationary. The
manoeuvre of breaking the line was not tried; in short, strength and pluck had
more share in the fight than science. Everywhere tumult reigned, the battle
being one scene of confusion; meanwhile the Athenian ships, by coming up to the
Corcyraeans whenever they were pressed, served to alarm the enemy, though their
commanders could not join in the battle from fear of their instructions. The
right wing of the Corinthians suffered most. The Corcyraeans routed it, and
chased them in disorder to the continent with twenty ships, sailed up to their
camp, and burnt the tents which they found empty, and plundered the stuff. So
in this quarter the Corinthians and their allies were defeated, and the
Corcyraeans were victorious. But where the Corinthians themselves were, on the
left, they gained a decided success; the scanty forces of the Corcyraeans being
further weakened by the want of the twenty ships absent on the pursuit. Seeing
the Corcyraeans hard pressed, the Athenians began at length to assist them more
unequivocally. At first, it is true, they refrained from charging any ships;
but when the rout was becoming patent, and the Corinthians were pressing on,
the time at last came when every one set to, and all distinction was laid
aside, and it came to this point, that the Corinthians and Athenians raised
their hands against each other.
After
the rout, the Corinthians, instead of employing themselves in lashing fast and
hauling after them the hulls of the vessels which they had disabled, turned
their attention to the men, whom they butchered as they sailed through, not
caring so much to make prisoners. Some even of their own friends were slain by
them, by mistake, in their ignorance of the defeat of the right wing For the
number of the ships on both sides, and the distance to which they covered the
sea, made it difficult, after they had once joined, to distinguish between the
conquering and the conquered; this battle proving far greater than any before
it, any at least between Hellenes, for the number of vessels engaged. After the
Corinthians had chased the Corcyraeans to the land, they turned to the wrecks
and their dead, most of whom they succeeded in getting hold of and conveying to
Sybota, the rendezvous of the land forces furnished by their barbarian allies.
Sybota, it must be known, is a desert harbour of Thesprotis. This task over,
they mustered anew, and sailed against the Corcyraeans, who on their part
advanced to meet them with all their ships that were fit for service and
remaining to them, accompanied by the Athenian vessels, fearing that they might
attempt a landing in their territory. It was by this time getting late, and the
paean had been sung for the attack, when the Corinthians suddenly began to back
water. They had observed twenty Athenian ships sailing up, which had been sent
out afterwards to reinforce the ten vessels by the Athenians, who feared, as it
turned out justly, the defeat of the Corcyraeans and the inability of their
handful of ships to protect them. These ships were thus seen by the Corinthians
first. They suspected that they were from Athens, and that those which they saw
were not all, but that there were more behind; they accordingly began to
retire. The Corcyraeans meanwhile had not sighted them, as they were advancing
from a point which they could not so well see, and were wondering why the Corinthians
were backing water, when some caught sight of them, and cried out that there
were ships in sight ahead. Upon this they also retired; for it was now getting
dark, and the retreat of the Corinthians had suspended hostilities. Thus they
parted from each other, and the battle ceased with night. The Corcyraeans were
in their camp at Leukimme, when these twenty ships from Athens, under the
command of Glaucon, the son of Leagrus, and Andocides, son of Leogoras, bore on
through the corpses and the wrecks, and sailed up to the camp, not long after
they were sighted. It was now night, and the Corcyraeans feared that they might
be hostile vessels; but they soon knew them, and the ships came to anchor.
The
next day the thirty Athenian vessels put out to sea, accompanied by all the
Corcyraean ships that were seaworthy, and sailed to the harbour at Sybota,
where the Corinthians lay, to see if they would engage. The Corinthians put out
from the land and formed a line in the open sea, but beyond this made no further
movement, having no intention of assuming the offensive. For they saw
reinforcements arrived fresh from Athens, and themselves confronted by numerous
difficulties, such as the necessity of guarding the prisoners whom they had on
board and the want of all means of refitting their ships in a desert place.
What they were thinking more about was how their voyage home was to be
effected; they feared that the Athenians might consider that the treaty was
dissolved by the collision which had occurred, and forbid their departure.
Accordingly
they resolved to put some men on board a boat, and send them without a herald's
wand to the Athenians, as an experiment. Having done so, they spoke as follows:
"You do wrong, Athenians, to begin war and break the treaty. Engaged in
chastising our enemies, we find you placing yourselves in our path in arms
against us. Now if your intentions are to prevent us sailing to Corcyra, or
anywhere else that we may wish, and if you are for breaking the treaty, first
take us that are here and treat us as enemies." Such was what they said,
and all the Corcyraean armament that were within hearing immediately called out
to take them and kill them. But the Athenians answered as follows:
"Neither are we beginning war, Peloponnesians, nor are we breaking the
treaty; but these Corcyraeans are our allies, and we are come to help them. So
if you want to sail anywhere else, we place no obstacle in your way; but if you
are going to sail against Corcyra, or any of her possessions, we shall do our
best to stop you."
Receiving
this answer from the Athenians, the Corinthians commenced preparations for
their voyage home, and set up a trophy in Sybota, on the continent; while the
Corcyraeans took up the wrecks and dead that had been carried out to them by
the current, and by a wind which rose in the night and scattered them in all
directions, and set up their trophy in Sybota, on the island, as victors. The
reasons each side had for claiming the victory were these. The Corinthians had
been victorious in the sea-fight until night; and having thus been enabled to
carry off most wrecks and dead, they were in possession of no fewer than a
thousand prisoners of war, and had sunk close upon seventy vessels. The
Corcyraeans had destroyed about thirty ships, and after the arrival of the
Athenians had taken up the wrecks and dead on their side; they had besides seen
the Corinthians retire before them, backing water on sight of the Athenian
vessels, and upon the arrival of the Athenians refuse to sail out against them
from Sybota. Thus both sides claimed the victory.
The
Corinthians on the voyage home took Anactorium, which stands at the mouth of
the Ambracian gulf. The place was taken by treachery, being common ground to
the Corcyraeans and Corinthians. After establishing Corinthian settlers there,
they retired home. Eight hundred of the Corcyraeans were slaves; these they
sold; two hundred and fifty they retained in captivity, and treated with great
attention, in the hope that they might bring over their country to Corinth on
their return; most of them being, as it happened, men of very high position in
Corcyra. In this way Corcyra maintained her political existence in the war with
Corinth, and the Athenian vessels left the island. This was the first cause of
the war that Corinth had against the Athenians, viz., that they had fought
against them with the Corcyraeans in time of treaty.
Almost
immediately after this, fresh differences arose between the Athenians and
Peloponnesians, and contributed their share to the war. Corinth was forming
schemes for retaliation, and Athens suspected her hostility. The Potidaeans,
who inhabit the isthmus of Pallene, being a Corinthian colony, but tributary
allies of Athens, were ordered to raze the wall looking towards Pallene, to
give hostages, to dismiss the Corinthian magistrates, and in future not to
receive the persons sent from Corinth annually to succeed them. It was feared
that they might be persuaded by Perdiccas and the Corinthians to revolt, and
might draw the rest of the allies in the direction of Thrace to revolt with
them. These precautions against the Potidaeans were taken by the Athenians
immediately after the battle at Corcyra. Not only was Corinth at length openly
hostile, but Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had from an
old friend and ally been made an enemy. He had been made an enemy by the
Athenians entering into alliance with his brother Philip and Derdas, who were
in league against him. In his alarm he had sent to Lacedaemon to try and
involve the Athenians in a war with the Peloponnesians, and was endeavouring to
win over Corinth in order to bring about the revolt of Potidaea. He also made
overtures to the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace, and to the Bottiaeans,
to persuade them to join in the revolt; for he thought that if these places on
the border could be made his allies, it would be easier to carry on the war
with their co-operation. Alive to all this, and wishing to anticipate the
revolt of the cities, the Athenians acted as follows. They were just then
sending off thirty ships and a thousand heavy infantry for his country under
the command of Archestratus, son of Lycomedes, with four colleagues. They
instructed the captains to take hostages of the Potidaeans, to raze the wall,
and to be on their guard against the revolt of the neighbouring cities.
Meanwhile
the Potidaeans sent envoys to Athens on the chance of persuading them to take
no new steps in their matters; they also went to Lacedaemon with the
Corinthians to secure support in case of need. Failing after prolonged
negotiation to obtain anything satisfactory from the Athenians; being unable,
for all they could say, to prevent the vessels that were destined for Macedonia
from also sailing against them; and receiving from the Lacedaemonian government
a promise to invade Attica, if the Athenians should attack Potidaea, the
Potidaeans, thus favoured by the moment, at last entered into league with the
Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and revolted. And Perdiccas induced the Chalcidians
to abandon and demolish their towns on the seaboard and, settling inland at
Olynthus, to make that one city a strong place: meanwhile to those who followed
his advice he gave a part of his territory in Mygdonia round Lake Bolbe as a
place of abode while the war against the Athenians should last. They
accordingly demolished their towns, removed inland and prepared for war. The
thirty ships of the Athenians, arriving before the Thracian places, found
Potidaea and the rest in revolt. Their commanders, considering it to be quite
impossible with their present force to carry on war with Perdiccas and with the
confederate towns as well turned to Macedonia, their original destination, and,
having established themselves there, carried on war in co-operation with
Philip, and the brothers of Derdas, who had invaded the country from the
interior.
Meanwhile
the Corinthians, with Potidaea in revolt and the Athenian ships on the coast of
Macedonia, alarmed for the safety of the place and thinking its danger theirs,
sent volunteers from Corinth, and mercenaries from the rest of Peloponnese, to
the number of sixteen hundred heavy infantry in all, and four hundred light
troops. Aristeus, son of Adimantus, who was always a steady friend to the
Potidaeans, took command of the expedition, and it was principally for love of
him that most of the men from Corinth volunteered. They arrived in Thrace forty
days after the revolt of Potidaea.
The
Athenians also immediately received the news of the revolt of the cities. On
being informed that Aristeus and his reinforcements were on their way, they
sent two thousand heavy infantry of their own citizens and forty ships against
the places in revolt, under the command of Callias, son of Calliades, and four
colleagues. They arrived in Macedonia first, and found the force of a thousand
men that had been first sent out, just become masters of Therme and besieging
Pydna. Accordingly they also joined in the investment, and besieged Pydna for a
while. Subsequently they came to terms and concluded a forced alliance with
Perdiccas, hastened by the calls of Potidaea and by the arrival of Aristeus at
that place. They withdrew from Macedonia, going to Beroea and thence to
Strepsa, and, after a futile attempt on the latter place, they pursued by land
their march to Potidaea with three thousand heavy infantry of their own
citizens, besides a number of their allies, and six hundred Macedonian
horsemen, the followers of Philip and Pausanias. With these sailed seventy
ships along the coast. Advancing by short marches, on the third day they
arrived at Gigonus, where they encamped.
Meanwhile
the Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians with Aristeus were encamped on the side
looking towards Olynthus on the isthmus, in expectation of the Athenians, and
had established their market outside the city. The allies had chosen Aristeus
general of all the infantry; while the command of the cavalry was given to
Perdiccas, who had at once left the alliance of the Athenians and gone back to
that of the Potidaeans, having deputed Iolaus as his general: The plan of
Aristeus was to keep his own force on the isthmus, and await the attack of the
Athenians; leaving the Chalcidians and the allies outside the isthmus, and the
two hundred cavalry from Perdiccas in Olynthus to act upon the Athenian rear,
on the occasion of their advancing against him; and thus to place the enemy
between two fires. While Callias the Athenian general and his colleagues
dispatched the Macedonian horse and a few of the allies to Olynthus, to prevent
any movement being made from that quarter, the Athenians themselves broke up
their camp and marched against Potidaea. After they had arrived at the isthmus,
and saw the enemy preparing for battle, they formed against him, and soon
afterwards engaged. The wing of Aristeus, with the Corinthians and other picked
troops round him, routed the wing opposed to it, and followed for a
considerable distance in pursuit. But the rest of the army of the Potidaeans
and of the Peloponnesians was defeated by the Athenians, and took refuge within
the fortifications. Returning from the pursuit, Aristeus perceived the defeat
of the rest of the army. Being at a loss which of the two risks to choose,
whether to go to Olynthus or to Potidaea, he at last determined to draw his men
into as small a space as possible, and force his way with a run into Potidaea.
Not without difficulty, through a storm of missiles, he passed along by the
breakwater through the sea, and brought off most of his men safe, though a few
were lost. Meanwhile the auxiliaries of the Potidaeans from Olynthus, which is
about seven miles off and in sight of Potidaea, when the battle began and the
signals were raised, advanced a little way to render assistance; and the
Macedonian horse formed against them to prevent it. But on victory speedily declaring
for the Athenians and the signals being taken down, they retired back within
the wall; and the Macedonians returned to the Athenians. Thus there were no
cavalry present on either side. After the battle the Athenians set up a trophy,
and gave back their dead to the Potidaeans under truce. The Potidaeans and
their allies had close upon three hundred killed; the Athenians a hundred and
fifty of their own citizens, and Callias their general.
The
wall on the side of the isthmus had now works at once raised against it, and
manned by the Athenians. That on the side of Pallene had no works raised
against it. They did not think themselves strong enough at once to keep a
garrison in the isthmus and to cross over to Pallene and raise works there;
they were afraid that the Potidaeans and their allies might take advantage of
their division to attack them. Meanwhile the Athenians at home learning that
there were no works at Pallene, some time afterwards sent off sixteen hundred
heavy infantry of their own citizens under the command of Phormio, son of
Asopius. Arrived at Pallene, he fixed his headquarters at Aphytis, and led his
army against Potidaea by short marches, ravaging the country as he advanced. No
one venturing to meet him in the field, he raised works against the wall on the
side of Pallene. So at length Potidaea was strongly invested on either side,
and from the sea by the ships co-operating in the blockade. Aristeus, seeing
its investment complete, and having no hope of its salvation, except in the
event of some movement from the Peloponnese, or of some other improbable
contingency, advised all except five hundred to watch for a wind and sail out
of the place, in order that their provisions might last the longer. He was
willing to be himself one of those who remained. Unable to persuade them, and
desirous of acting on the next alternative, and of having things outside in the
best posture possible, he eluded the guardships of the Athenians and sailed
out. Remaining among the Chalcidians, he continued to carry on the war; in
particular he laid an ambuscade near the city of the Sermylians, and cut off
many of them; he also communicated with Peloponnese, and tried to contrive some
method by which help might be brought. Meanwhile, after the completion of the
investment of Potidaea, Phormio next employed his sixteen hundred men in
ravaging Chalcidice and Bottica: some of the towns also were taken by him.
THE
Athenians and Peloponnesians had these antecedent grounds of complaint against
each other: the complaint of Corinth was that her colony of Potidaea, and
Corinthian and Peloponnesian citizens within it, were being besieged; that of
Athens against the Peloponnesians that they had incited a town of hers, a
member of her alliance and a contributor to her revenue, to revolt, and had
come and were openly fighting against her on the side of the Potidaeans. For
all this, war had not yet broken out: there was still truce for a while; for
this was a private enterprise on the part of Corinth.
But
the siege of Potidaea put an end to her inaction; she had men inside it:
besides, she feared for the place. Immediately summoning the allies to
Lacedaemon, she came and loudly accused Athens of breach of the treaty and
aggression on the rights of Peloponnese. With her, the Aeginetans, formally
unrepresented from fear of Athens, in secret proved not the least urgent of the
advocates for war, asserting that they had not the independence guaranteed to
them by the treaty. After extending the summons to any of their allies and
others who might have complaints to make of Athenian aggression, the
Lacedaemonians held their ordinary assembly, and invited them to speak. There
were many who came forward and made their several accusations; among them the
Megarians, in a long list of grievances, called special attention to the fact
of their exclusion from the ports of the Athenian empire and the market of
Athens, in defiance of the treaty. Last of all the Corinthians came forward,
and having let those who preceded them inflame the Lacedaemonians, now followed
with a speech to this effect:
"Lacedaemonians!
the confidence which you feel in your constitution and social order, inclines
you to receive any reflections of ours on other powers with a certain
scepticism. Hence springs your moderation, but hence also the rather limited
knowledge which you betray in dealing with foreign politics. Time after time
was our voice raised to warn you of the blows about to be dealt us by Athens,
and time after time, instead of taking the trouble to ascertain the worth of
our communications, you contented yourselves with suspecting the speakers of
being inspired by private interest. And so, instead of calling these allies
together before the blow fell, you have delayed to do so till we are smarting
under it; allies among whom we have not the worst title to speak, as having the
greatest complaints to make, complaints of Athenian outrage and Lacedaemonian
neglect. Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been made in the
dark, you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be our duty to
enlighten you. As it is, long speeches are not needed where you see servitude
accomplished for some of us, meditated for others- in particular for our
allies- and prolonged preparations in the aggressor against the hour of war. Or
what, pray, is the meaning of their reception of Corcyra by fraud, and their
holding it against us by force? what of the siege of Potidaea?- places one of
which lies most conveniently for any action against the Thracian towns; while
the other would have contributed a very large navy to the Peloponnesians?
"For
all this you are responsible. You it was who first allowed them to fortify
their city after the Median war, and afterwards to erect the long walls- you
who, then and now, are always depriving of freedom not only those whom they
have enslaved, but also those who have as yet been your allies. For the true
author of the subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as
the power which permits it having the means to prevent it; particularly if that
power aspires to the glory of being the liberator of Hellas. We are at last
assembled. It has not been easy to assemble, nor even now are our objects
defined. We ought not to be still inquiring into the fact of our wrongs, but
into the means of our defence. For the aggressors with matured plans to oppose
to our indecision have cast threats aside and betaken themselves to action. And
we know what are the paths by which Athenian aggression travels, and how
insidious is its progress. A degree of confidence she may feel from the idea
that your bluntness of perception prevents your noticing her; but it is nothing
to the impulse which her advance will receive from the knowledge that you see,
but do not care to interfere. You, Lacedaemonians, of all the Hellenes are
alone inactive, and defend yourselves not by doing anything but by looking as
if you would do something; you alone wait till the power of an enemy is
becoming twice its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy. And
yet the world used to say that you were to be depended upon; but in your case,
we fear, it said more than the truth. The Mede, we ourselves know, had time to
come from the ends of the earth to Peloponnese, without any force of yours
worthy of the name advancing to meet him. But this was a distant enemy. Well,
Athens at all events is a near neighbour, and yet Athens you utterly disregard;
against Athens you prefer to act on the defensive instead of on the offensive,
and to make it an affair of chances by deferring the struggle till she has
grown far stronger than at first. And yet you know that on the whole the rock
on which the barbarian was wrecked was himself, and that if our present enemy
Athens has not again and again annihilated us, we owe it more to her blunders
than to your protection; Indeed, expectations from you have before now been the
ruin of some, whose faith induced them to omit preparation.
"We
hope that none of you will consider these words of remonstrance to be rather
words of hostility; men remonstrate with friends who are in error, accusations
they reserve for enemies who have wronged them. Besides, we consider that we
have as good a right as any one to point out a neighbour's faults, particularly
when we contemplate the great contrast between the two national characters; a
contrast of which, as far as we can see, you have little perception, having
never yet considered what sort of antagonists you will encounter in the
Athenians, how widely, how absolutely different from yourselves. The Athenians
are addicted to innovation, and their designs are characterized by swiftness
alike in conception and execution; you have a genius for keeping what you have got,
accompanied by a total want of invention, and when forced to act you never go
far enough. Again, they are adventurous beyond their power, and daring beyond
their judgment, and in danger they are sanguine; your wont is to attempt less
than is justified by your power, to mistrust even what is sanctioned by your
judgment, and to fancy that from danger there is no release. Further, there is
promptitude on their side against procrastination on yours; they are never at
home, you are never from it: for they hope by their absence to extend their
acquisitions, you fear by your advance to endanger what you have left behind.
They are swift to follow up a success, and slow to recoil from a reverse. Their
bodies they spend ungrudgingly in their country's cause; their intellect they
jealously husband to be employed in her service. A scheme unexecuted is with
them a positive loss, a successful enterprise a comparative failure. The
deficiency created by the miscarriage of an undertaking is soon filled up by
fresh hopes; for they alone are enabled to call a thing hoped for a thing got,
by the speed with which they act upon their resolutions. Thus they toil on in
trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little opportunity for
enjoying, being ever engaged in getting: their only idea of a holiday is to do
what the occasion demands, and to them laborious occupation is less of a
misfortune than the peace of a quiet life. To describe their character in a
word, one might truly say that they were born into the world to take no rest
themselves and to give none to others.
"Such
is Athens, your antagonist. And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still delay, and fail
to see that peace stays longest with those, who are not more careful to use
their power justly than to show their determination not to submit to injustice.
On the contrary, your ideal of fair dealing is based on the principle that, if
you do not injure others, you need not risk your own fortunes in preventing
others from injuring you. Now you could scarcely have succeeded in such a
policy even with a neighbour like yourselves; but in the present instance, as
we have just shown, your habits are old-fashioned as compared with theirs. It
is the law as in art, so in politics, that improvements ever prevail; and
though fixed usages may be best for undisturbed communities, constant
necessities of action must be accompanied by the constant improvement of
methods. Thus it happens that the vast experience of Athens has carried her
further than you on the path of innovation.
"Here,
at least, let your procrastination end. For the present, assist your allies and
Potidaea in particular, as you promised, by a speedy invasion of Attica, and do
not sacrifice friends and kindred to their bitterest enemies, and drive the
rest of us in despair to some other alliance. Such a step would not be
condemned either by the Gods who received our oaths, or by the men who
witnessed them. The breach of a treaty cannot be laid to the people whom
desertion compels to seek new relations, but to the power that fails to assist
its confederate. But if you will only act, we will stand by you; it would be
unnatural for us to change, and never should we meet with such a congenial
ally. For these reasons choose the right course, and endeavour not to let
Peloponnese under your supremacy degenerate from the prestige that it enjoyed
under that of your ancestors."
Such
were the words of the Corinthians. There happened to be Athenian envoys present
at Lacedaemon on other business. On hearing the speeches they thought themselves
called upon to come before the Lacedaemonians. Their intention was not to offer
a defence on any of the charges which the cities brought against them, but to
show on a comprehensive view that it was not a matter to be hastily decided on,
but one that demanded further consideration. There was also a wish to call
attention to the great power of Athens, and to refresh the memory of the old
and enlighten the ignorance of the young, from a notion that their words might
have the effect of inducing them to prefer tranquillity to war. So they came to
the Lacedaemonians and said that they too, if there was no objection, wished to
speak to their assembly. They replied by inviting them to come forward. The
Athenians advanced, and spoke as follows:
"The
object of our mission here was not to argue with your allies, but to attend to
the matters on which our state dispatched us. However, the vehemence of the
outcry that we hear against us has prevailed on us to come forward. It is not
to combat the accusations of the cities (indeed you are not the judges before
whom either we or they can plead), but to prevent your taking the wrong course
on matters of great importance by yielding too readily to the persuasions of
your allies. We also wish to show on a review of the whole indictment that we
have a fair title to our possessions, and that our country has claims to
consideration. We need not refer to remote antiquity: there we could appeal to
the voice of tradition, but not to the experience of our audience. But to the
Median War and contemporary history we must refer, although we are rather tired
of continually bringing this subject forward. In our action during that war we
ran great risk to obtain certain advantages: you had your share in the solid
results, do not try to rob us of all share in the good that the glory may do
us. However, the story shall be told not so much to deprecate hostility as to
testify against it, and to show, if you are so ill advised as to enter into a
struggle with Athens, what sort of an antagonist she is likely to prove. We
assert that at Marathon we were at the front, and faced the barbarian
single-handed. That when he came the second time, unable to cope with him by
land we went on board our ships with all our people, and joined in the action at
Salamis. This prevented his taking the Peloponnesian states in detail, and
ravaging them with his fleet; when the multitude of his vessels would have made
any combination for self-defence impossible. The best proof of this was
furnished by the invader himself. Defeated at sea, he considered his power to
be no longer what it had been, and retired as speedily as possible with the
greater part of his army.
"Such,
then, was the result of the matter, and it was clearly proved that it was on
the fleet of Hellas that her cause depended. Well, to this result we
contributed three very useful elements, viz., the largest number of ships, the
ablest commander, and the most unhesitating patriotism. Our contingent of ships
was little less than two-thirds of the whole four hundred; the commander was
Themistocles, through whom chiefly it was that the battle took place in the
straits, the acknowledged salvation of our cause. Indeed, this was the reason
of your receiving him with honours such as had never been accorded to any
foreign visitor. While for daring patriotism we had no competitors. Receiving
no reinforcements from behind, seeing everything in front of us already
subjugated, we had the spirit, after abandoning our city, after sacrificing our
property (instead of deserting the remainder of the league or depriving them of
our services by dispersing), to throw ourselves into our ships and meet the
danger, without a thought of resenting your neglect to assist us. We assert,
therefore, that we conferred on you quite as much as we received. For you had a
stake to fight for; the cities which you had left were still filled with your
homes, and you had the prospect of enjoying them again; and your coming was
prompted quite as much by fear for yourselves as for us; at all events, you
never appeared till we had nothing left to lose. But we left behind us a city
that was a city no longer, and staked our lives for a city that had an
existence only in desperate hope, and so bore our full share in your
deliverance and in ours. But if we had copied others, and allowed fears for our
territory to make us give in our adhesion to the Mede before you came, or if we
had suffered our ruin to break our spirit and prevent us embarking in our
ships, your naval inferiority would have made a sea-fight unnecessary, and his
objects would have been peaceably attained.
"Surely,
Lacedaemonians, neither by the patriotism that we displayed at that crisis, nor
by the wisdom of our counsels, do we merit our extreme unpopularity with the
Hellenes, not at least unpopularity for our empire. That empire we acquired by
no violent means, but because you were unwilling to prosecute to its conclusion
the war against the barbarian, and because the allies attached themselves to us
and spontaneously asked us to assume the command. And the nature of the case
first compelled us to advance our empire to its present height; fear being our
principal motive, though honour and interest afterwards came in. And at last,
when almost all hated us, when some had already revolted and had been subdued,
when you had ceased to be the friends that you once were, and had become
objects of suspicion and dislike, it appeared no longer safe to give up our
empire; especially as all who left us would fall to you. And no one can quarrel
with a people for making, in matters of tremendous risk, the best provision
that it can for its interest.
"You,
at all events, Lacedaemonians, have used your supremacy to settle the states in
Peloponnese as is agreeable to you. And if at the period of which we were
speaking you had persevered to the end of the matter, and had incurred hatred
in your command, we are sure that you would have made yourselves just as
galling to the allies, and would have been forced to choose between a strong
government and danger to yourselves. It follows that it was not a very
wonderful action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind, if we did
accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up under the
pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honour, and interest. And it
was not we who set the example, for it has always been law that the weaker
should be subject to the stronger. Besides, we believed ourselves to be worthy
of our position, and so you thought us till now, when calculations of interest
have made you take up the cry of justice- a consideration which no one ever yet
brought forward to hinder his ambition when he had a chance of gaining anything
by might. And praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human nature as
to refuse dominion, yet respect justice more than their position compels them
to do.
"We
imagine that our moderation would be best demonstrated by the conduct of others
who should be placed in our position; but even our equity has very unreasonably
subjected us to condemnation instead of approval. Our abatement of our rights
in the contract trials with our allies, and our causing them to be decided by
impartial laws at Athens, have gained us the character of being litigious. And
none care to inquire why this reproach is not brought against other imperial
powers, who treat their subjects with less moderation than we do; the secret
being that where force can be used, law is not needed. But our subjects are so
habituated to associate with us as equals that any defeat whatever that clashes
with their notions of justice, whether it proceeds from a legal judgment or
from the power which our empire gives us, makes them forget to be grateful for
being allowed to retain most of their possessions, and more vexed at a part
being taken, than if we had from the first cast law aside and openly gratified
our covetousness. If we had done so, not even would they have disputed that the
weaker must give way to the stronger. Men's indignation, it seems, is more
excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being
cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior. At all
events they contrived to put up with much worse treatment than this from the
Mede, yet they think our rule severe, and this is to be expected, for the
present always weighs heavy on the conquered. This at least is certain. If you
were to succeed in overthrowing us and in taking our place, you would speedily
lose the popularity with which fear of us has invested you, if your policy of
to-day is at all to tally with the sample that you gave of it during the brief
period of your command against the Mede. Not only is your life at home
regulated by rules and institutions incompatible with those of others, but your
citizens abroad act neither on these rules nor on those which are recognized by
the rest of Hellas.
"Take
time then in forming your resolution, as the matter is of great importance; and
do not be persuaded by the opinions and complaints of others to bring trouble
on yourselves, but consider the vast influence of accident in war, before you
are engaged in it. As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances,
chances from which neither of us is exempt, and whose event we must risk in the
dark. It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act
first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter. But we are not yet by any
means so misguided, nor, so far as we can see, are you; accordingly, while it
is still open to us both to choose aright, we bid you not to dissolve the treaty,
or to break your oaths, but to have our differences settled by arbitration
according to our agreement. Or else we take the gods who heard the oaths to
witness, and if you begin hostilities, whatever line of action you choose, we
will try not to be behindhand in repelling you."
Such
were the words of the Athenians. After the Lacedaemonians had heard the
complaints of the allies against the Athenians, and the observations of the
latter, they made all withdraw, and consulted by themselves on the question
before them. The opinions of the majority all led to the same conclusion; the
Athenians were open aggressors, and war must be declared at once. But
Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian king, came forward, who had the reputation of
being at once a wise and a moderate man, and made the following speech:
"I
have not lived so long, Lacedaemonians, without having had the experience of
many wars, and I see those among you of the same age as myself, who will not
fall into the common misfortune of longing for war from inexperience or from a
belief in its advantage and its safety. This, the war on which you are now
debating, would be one of the greatest magnitude, on a sober consideration of
the matter. In a struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbours our strength is of
the same character, and it is possible to move swiftly on the different points.
But a struggle with a people who live in a distant land, who have also an
extraordinary familiarity with the sea, and who are in the highest state of
preparation in every other department; with wealth private and public, with
ships, and horses, and heavy infantry, and a population such as no one other
Hellenic place can equal, and lastly a number of tributary allies- what can
justify us in rashly beginning such a struggle? wherein is our trust that we
should rush on it unprepared? Is it in our ships? There we are inferior; while
if we are to practise and become a match for them, time must intervene. Is it
in our money? There we have a far greater deficiency. We neither have it in our
treasury, nor are we ready to contribute it from our private funds. Confidence
might possibly be felt in our superiority in heavy infantry and population,
which will enable us to invade and devastate their lands. But the Athenians
have plenty of other land in their empire, and can import what they want by
sea. Again, if we are to attempt an insurrection of their allies, these will
have to be supported with a fleet, most of them being islanders. What then is
to be our war? For unless we can either beat them at sea, or deprive them of
the revenues which feed their navy, we shall meet with little but disaster.
Meanwhile our honour will be pledged to keeping on, particularly if it be the
opinion that we began the quarrel. For let us never be elated by the fatal hope
of the war being quickly ended by the devastation of their lands. I fear rather
that we may leave it as a legacy to our children; so improbable is it that the
Athenian spirit will be the slave of their land, or Athenian experience be
cowed by war.
"Not
that I would bid you be so unfeeling as to suffer them to injure your allies,
and to refrain from unmasking their intrigues; but I do bid you not to take up
arms at once, but to send and remonstrate with them in a tone not too
suggestive of war, nor again too suggestive of submission, and to employ the
interval in perfecting our own preparations. The means will be, first, the
acquisition of allies, Hellenic or barbarian it matters not, so long as they
are an accession to our strength naval or pecuniary- I say Hellenic or
barbarian, because the odium of such an accession to all who like us are the
objects of the designs of the Athenians is taken away by the law of
self-preservation- and secondly the development of our home resources. If they
listen to our embassy, so much the better; but if not, after the lapse of two
or three years our position will have become materially strengthened, and we
can then attack them if we think proper. Perhaps by that time the sight of our
preparations, backed by language equally significant, will have disposed them
to submission, while their land is still untouched, and while their counsels
may be directed to the retention of advantages as yet undestroyed. For the only
light in which you can view their land is that of a hostage in your hands, a
hostage the more valuable the better it is cultivated. This you ought to spare
as long as possible, and not make them desperate, and so increase the
difficulty of dealing with them. For if while still unprepared, hurried away by
the complaints of our allies, we are induced to lay it waste, have a care that
we do not bring deep disgrace and deep perplexity upon Peloponnese. Complaints,
whether of communities or individuals, it is possible to adjust; but war
undertaken by a coalition for sectional interests, whose progress there is no
means of foreseeing, does not easily admit of creditable settlement.
"And
none need think it cowardice for a number of confederates to pause before they
attack a single city. The Athenians have allies as numerous as our own, and
allies that pay tribute, and war is a matter not so much of arms as of money,
which makes arms of use. And this is more than ever true in a struggle between
a continental and a maritime power. First, then, let us provide money, and not
allow ourselves to be carried away by the talk of our allies before we have
done so: as we shall have the largest share of responsibility for the
consequences be they good or bad, we have also a right to a tranquil inquiry
respecting them.
"And
the slowness and procrastination, the parts of our character that are most
assailed by their criticism, need not make you blush. If we undertake the war
without preparation, we should by hastening its commencement only delay its
conclusion: further, a free and a famous city has through all time been ours.
The quality which they condemn is really nothing but a wise moderation; thanks
to its possession, we alone do not become insolent in success and give way less
than others in misfortune; we are not carried away by the pleasure of hearing
ourselves cheered on to risks which our judgment condemns; nor, if annoyed, are
we any the more convinced by attempts to exasperate us by accusation. We are
both warlike and wise, and it is our sense of order that makes us so. We are
warlike, because self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and
honour bravery. And we are wise, because we are educated with too little
learning to despise the laws, and with too severe a self-control to disobey
them, and are brought up not to be too knowing in useless matters- such as the
knowledge which can give a specious criticism of an enemy's plans in theory,
but fails to assail them with equal success in practice- but are taught to
consider that the schemes of our enemies are not dissimilar to our own, and
that the freaks of chance are not determinable by calculation. In practice we
always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans
are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders,
but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is
much difference between man and man, but to think that the superiority lies
with him who is reared in the severest school. These practices, then, which our
ancestors have delivered to us, and by whose maintenance we have always
profited, must not be given up. And we must not be hurried into deciding in a
day's brief space a question which concerns many lives and fortunes and many
cities, and in which honour is deeply involved- but we must decide calmly. This
our strength peculiarly enables us to do. As for the Athenians, send to them on
the matter of Potidaea, send on the matter of the alleged wrongs of the allies,
particularly as they are prepared with legal satisfaction; and to proceed
against one who offers arbitration as against a wrongdoer, law forbids.
Meanwhile do not omit preparation for war. This decision will be the best for
yourselves, the most terrible to your opponents."
Such
were the words of Archidamus. Last came forward Sthenelaidas, one of the ephors
for that year, and spoke to the Lacedaemonians as follows:
"The
long speech of the Athenians I do not pretend to understand. They said a good
deal in praise of themselves, but nowhere denied that they are injuring our
allies and Peloponnese. And yet if they behaved well against the Mede then, but
ill towards us now, they deserve double punishment for having ceased to be good
and for having become bad. We meanwhile are the same then and now, and shall
not, if we are wise, disregard the wrongs of our allies, or put off till
to-morrow the duty of assisting those who must suffer to-day. Others have much
money and ships and horses, but we have good allies whom we must not give up to
the Athenians, nor by lawsuits and words decide the matter, as it is anything
but in word that we are harmed, but render instant and powerful help. And let
us not be told that it is fitting for us to deliberate under injustice; long
deliberation is rather fitting for those who have injustice in contemplation.
Vote therefore, Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honour of Sparta demands, and
neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens, nor betray our allies to
ruin, but with the gods let us advance against the aggressors."
With
these words he, as ephor, himself put the question to the assembly of the
Lacedaemonians. He said that he could not determine which was the loudest
acclamation (their mode of decision is by acclamation not by voting); the fact
being that he wished to make them declare their opinion openly and thus to
increase their ardour for war. Accordingly he said: "All Lacedaemonians
who are of opinion that the treaty has been broken, and that Athens is guilty,
leave your seats and go there," pointing out a certain place; "all
who are of the opposite opinion, there." They accordingly stood up and
divided; and those who held that the treaty had been broken were in a decided
majority. Summoning the allies, they told them that their opinion was that
Athens had been guilty of injustice, but that they wished to convoke all the
allies and put it to the vote; in order that they might make war, if they
decided to do so, on a common resolution. Having thus gained their point, the
delegates returned home at once; the Athenian envoys a little later, when they
had dispatched the objects of their mission. This decision of the assembly,
judging that the treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of the
thirty years' truce, which was entered into after the affair of Euboea.
The
Lacedaemonians voted that the treaty had been broken, and that the war must be
declared, not so much because they were persuaded by the arguments of the
allies, as because they feared the growth of the power of the Athenians, seeing
most of Hellas already subject to them.
THE
way in which Athens came to be placed in the circumstances under which her power
grew was this. After the Medes had returned from Europe, defeated by sea and
land by the Hellenes, and after those of them who had fled with their ships to
Mycale had been destroyed, Leotychides, king of the Lacedaemonians, the
commander of the Hellenes at Mycale, departed home with the allies from
Peloponnese. But the Athenians and the allies from Ionia and Hellespont, who
had now revolted from the King, remained and laid siege to Sestos, which was
still held by the Medes. After wintering before it, they became masters of the
place on its evacuation by the barbarians; and after this they sailed away from
Hellespont to their respective cities. Meanwhile the Athenian people, after the
departure of the barbarian from their country, at once proceeded to carry over
their children and wives, and such property as they had left, from the places
where they had deposited them, and prepared to rebuild their city and their
walls. For only isolated portions of the circumference had been left standing,
and most of the houses were in ruins; though a few remained, in which the
Persian grandees had taken up their quarters.
Perceiving
what they were going to do, the Lacedaemonians sent an embassy to Athens. They
would have themselves preferred to see neither her nor any other city in
possession of a wall; though here they acted principally at the instigation of
their allies, who were alarmed at the strength of her newly acquired navy and
the valour which she had displayed in the war with the Medes. They begged her
not only to abstain from building walls for herself, but also to join them in
throwing down the walls that still held together of the ultra-Peloponnesian
cities. The real meaning of their advice, the suspicion that it contained
against the Athenians, was not proclaimed; it was urged that so the barbarian,
in the event of a third invasion, would not have any strong place, such as he
now had in Thebes, for his base of operations; and that Peloponnese would
suffice for all as a base both for retreat and offence. After the
Lacedaemonians had thus spoken, they were, on the advice of Themistocles,
immediately dismissed by the Athenians, with the answer that ambassadors should
be sent to Sparta to discuss the question. Themistocles told the Athenians to
send him off with all speed to Lacedaemon, but not to dispatch his colleagues
as soon as they had selected them, but to wait until they had raised their wall
to the height from which defence was possible. Meanwhile the whole population
in the city was to labour at the wall, the Athenians, their wives, and their
children, sparing no edifice, private or public, which might be of any use to
the work, but throwing all down. After giving these instructions, and adding
that he would be responsible for all other matters there, he departed. Arrived
at Lacedaemon he did not seek an audience with the authorities, but tried to
gain time and made excuses. When any of the government asked him why he did not
appear in the assembly, he would say that he was waiting for his colleagues,
who had been detained in Athens by some engagement; however, that he expected
their speedy arrival, and wondered that they were not yet there. At first the
Lacedaemonians trusted the words of Themistocles, through their friendship for
him; but when others arrived, all distinctly declaring that the work was going
on and already attaining some elevation, they did not know how to disbelieve
it. Aware of this, he told them that rumours are deceptive, and should not be
trusted; they should send some reputable persons from Sparta to inspect, whose
report might be trusted. They dispatched them accordingly. Concerning these
Themistocles secretly sent word to the Athenians to detain them as far as
possible without putting them under open constraint, and not to let them go
until they had themselves returned. For his colleagues had now joined him,
Abronichus, son of Lysicles, and Aristides, son of Lysimachus, with the news
that the wall was sufficiently advanced; and he feared that when the
Lacedaemonians heard the facts, they might refuse to let them go. So the
Athenians detained the envoys according to his message, and Themistocles had an
audience with the Lacedaemonians, and at last openly told them that Athens was
now fortified sufficiently to protect its inhabitants; that any embassy which
the Lacedaemonians or their allies might wish to send to them should in future
proceed on the assumption that the people to whom they were going was able to
distinguish both its own and the general interests. That when the Athenians thought
fit to abandon their city and to embark in their ships, they ventured on that
perilous step without consulting them; and that on the other hand, wherever
they had deliberated with the Lacedaemonians, they had proved themselves to be
in judgment second to none. That they now thought it fit that their city should
have a wall, and that this would be more for the advantage of both the citizens
of Athens and the Hellenic confederacy; for without equal military strength it
was impossible to contribute equal or fair counsel to the common interest. It
followed, he observed, either that all the members of the confederacy should be
without walls, or that the present step should be considered a right one.
The
Lacedaemonians did not betray any open signs of anger against the Athenians at
what they heard. The embassy, it seems, was prompted not by a desire to
obstruct, but to guide the counsels of their government: besides, Spartan
feeling was at that time very friendly towards Athens on account of the
patriotism which she had displayed in the struggle with the Mede. Still the
defeat of their wishes could not but cause them secret annoyance. The envoys of
each state departed home without complaint.
In
this way the Athenians walled their city in a little while. To this day the
building shows signs of the haste of its execution; the foundations are laid of
stones of all kinds, and in some places not wrought or fitted, but placed just
in the order in which they were brought by the different hands; and many
columns, too, from tombs, and sculptured stones were put in with the rest. For
the bounds of the city were extended at every point of the circumference; and
so they laid hands on everything without exception in their haste. Themistocles
also persuaded them to finish the walls of Piraeus, which had been begun
before, in his year of office as archon; being influenced alike by the fineness
of a locality that has three natural harbours, and by the great start which the
Athenians would gain in the acquisition of power by becoming a naval people.
For he first ventured to tell them to stick to the sea and forthwith began to
lay the foundations of the empire. It was by his advice, too, that they built
the walls of that thickness which can still be discerned round Piraeus, the stones
being brought up by two wagons meeting each other. Between the walls thus
formed there was neither rubble nor mortar, but great stones hewn square and
fitted together, cramped to each other on the outside with iron and lead. About
half the height that he intended was finished. His idea was by their size and
thickness to keep off the attacks of an enemy; he thought that they might be
adequately defended by a small garrison of invalids, and the rest be freed for
service in the fleet. For the fleet claimed most of his attention. He saw, as I
think, that the approach by sea was easier for the king's army than that by
land: he also thought Piraeus more valuable than the upper city; indeed, he was
always advising the Athenians, if a day should come when they were hard pressed
by land, to go down into Piraeus, and defy the world with their fleet. Thus,
therefore, the Athenians completed their wall, and commenced their other
buildings immediately after the retreat of the Mede.
Meanwhile
Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, was sent out from Lacedaemon as
commander-in-chief of the Hellenes, with twenty ships from Peloponnese. With
him sailed the Athenians with thirty ships, and a number of the other allies.
They made an expedition against Cyprus and subdued most of the island, and
afterwards against Byzantium, which was in the hands of the Medes, and
compelled it to surrender. This event took place while the Spartans were still
supreme. But the violence of Pausanias had already begun to be disagreeable to
the Hellenes, particularly to the Ionians and the newly liberated populations.
These resorted to the Athenians and requested them as their kinsmen to become
their leaders, and to stop any attempt at violence on the part of Pausanias.
The Athenians accepted their overtures, and determined to put down any attempt
of the kind and to settle everything else as their interests might seem to
demand. In the meantime the Lacedaemonians recalled Pausanias for an
investigation of the reports which had reached them. Manifold and grave accusations
had been brought against him by Hellenes arriving in Sparta; and, to all
appearance, there had been in him more of the mimicry of a despot than of the
attitude of a general. As it happened, his recall came just at the time when
the hatred which he had inspired had induced the allies to desert him, the
soldiers from Peloponnese excepted, and to range themselves by the side of the
Athenians. On his arrival at Lacedaemon, he was censured for his private acts
of oppression, but was acquitted on the heaviest counts and pronounced not
guilty; it must be known that the charge of Medism formed one of the principal,
and to all appearance one of the best founded, articles against him. The
Lacedaemonians did not, however, restore him to his command, but sent out
Dorkis and certain others with a small force; who found the allies no longer
inclined to concede to them the supremacy. Perceiving this they departed, and
the Lacedaemonians did not send out any to succeed them. They feared for those
who went out a deterioration similar to that observable in Pausanias; besides,
they desired to be rid of the Median War, and were satisfied of the competency
of the Athenians for the position, and of their friendship at the time towards
themselves.
The
Athenians, having thus succeeded to the supremacy by the voluntary act of the
allies through their hatred of Pausanias, fixed which cities were to contribute
money against the barbarian, which ships; their professed object being to
retaliate for their sufferings by ravaging the King's country. Now was the time
that the office of "Treasurers for Hellas" was first instituted by
the Athenians. These officers received the tribute, as the money contributed
was called. The tribute was first fixed at four hundred and sixty talents. The
common treasury was at Delos, and the congresses were held in the temple. Their
supremacy commenced with independent allies who acted on the resolutions of a
common congress. It was marked by the following undertakings in war and in
administration during the interval between the Median and the present war,
against the barbarian, against their own rebel allies, and against the
Peloponnesian powers which would come in contact with them on various
occasions. My excuse for relating these events, and for venturing on this
digression, is that this passage of history has been omitted by all my
predecessors, who have confined themselves either to Hellenic history before
the Median War, or the Median War itself. Hellanicus, it is true, did touch on
these events in his Athenian history; but he is somewhat concise and not
accurate in his dates. Besides, the history of these events contains an
explanation of the growth of the Athenian empire.
First
the Athenians besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon from the Medes, and
made slaves of the inhabitants, being under the command of Cimon, son of
Miltiades. Next they enslaved Scyros, the island in the Aegean, containing a
Dolopian population, and colonized it themselves. This was followed by a war
against Carystus, in which the rest of Euboea remained neutral, and which was
ended by surrender on conditions. After this Naxos left the confederacy, and a
war ensued, and she had to return after a siege; this was the first instance of
the engagement being broken by the subjugation of an allied city, a precedent
which was followed by that of the rest in the order which circumstances
prescribed. Of all the causes of defection, that connected with arrears of
tribute and vessels, and with failure of service, was the chief; for the
Athenians were very severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive by
applying the screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact not
disposed for any continuous labour. In some other respects the Athenians were
not the old popular rulers they had been at first; and if they had more than
their fair share of service, it was correspondingly easy for them to reduce any
that tried to leave the confederacy. For this the allies had themselves to
blame; the wish to get off service making most of them arrange to pay their
share of the expense in money instead of in ships, and so to avoid having to
leave their homes. Thus while Athens was increasing her navy with the funds
which they contributed, a revolt always found them without resources or experience
for war.
Next
we come to the actions by land and by sea at the river Eurymedon, between the
Athenians with their allies, and the Medes, when the Athenians won both battles
on the same day under the conduct of Cimon, son of Miltiades, and captured and destroyed
the whole Phoenician fleet, consisting of two hundred vessels. Some time
afterwards occurred the defection of the Thasians, caused by disagreements
about the marts on the opposite coast of Thrace, and about the mine in their
possession. Sailing with a fleet to Thasos, the Athenians defeated them at sea
and effected a landing on the island. About the same time they sent ten
thousand settlers of their own citizens and the allies to settle the place then
called Ennea Hodoi or Nine Ways, now Amphipolis. They succeeded in gaining
possession of Ennea Hodoi from the Edonians, but on advancing into the interior
of Thrace were cut off in Drabescus, a town of the Edonians, by the assembled
Thracians, who regarded the settlement of the place Ennea Hodoi as an act of
hostility. Meanwhile the Thasians being defeated in the field and suffering
siege, appealed to Lacedaemon, and desired her to assist them by an invasion of
Attica. Without informing Athens, she promised and intended to do so, but was
prevented by the occurrence of the earthquake, accompanied by the secession of
the Helots and the Thuriats and Aethaeans of the Perioeci to Ithome. Most of
the Helots were the descendants of the old Messenians that were enslaved in the
famous war; and so all of them came to be called Messenians. So the
Lacedaemonians being engaged in a war with the rebels in Ithome, the Thasians
in the third year of the siege obtained terms from the Athenians by razing
their walls, delivering up their ships, and arranging to pay the moneys
demanded at once, and tribute in future; giving up their possessions on the
continent together with the mine.
The
Lacedaemonians, meanwhile, finding the war against the rebels in Ithome likely
to last, invoked the aid of their allies, and especially of the Athenians, who
came in some force under the command of Cimon. The reason for this pressing
summons lay in their reputed skill in siege operations; a long siege had taught
the Lacedaemonians their own deficiency in this art, else they would have taken
the place by assault. The first open quarrel between the Lacedaemonians and
Athenians arose out of this expedition. The Lacedaemonians, when assault failed
to take the place, apprehensive of the enterprising and revolutionary character
of the Athenians, and further looking upon them as of alien extraction, began
to fear that, if they remained, they might be tempted by the besieged in Ithome
to attempt some political changes. They accordingly dismissed them alone of the
allies, without declaring their suspicions, but merely saying that they had now
no need of them. But the Athenians, aware that their dismissal did not proceed
from the more honourable reason of the two, but from suspicions which had been
conceived, went away deeply offended, and conscious of having done nothing to
merit such treatment from the Lacedaemonians; and the instant that they
returned home they broke off the alliance which had been made against the Mede,
and allied themselves with Sparta's enemy Argos; each of the contracting
parties taking the same oaths and making the same alliance with the
Thessalians.
Meanwhile
the rebels in Ithome, unable to prolong further a ten years' resistance,
surrendered to Lacedaemon; the conditions being that they should depart from
Peloponnese under safe conduct, and should never set foot in it again: any one
who might hereafter be found there was to be the slave of his captor. It must
be known that the Lacedaemonians had an old oracle from Delphi, to the effect
that they should let go the suppliant of Zeus at Ithome. So they went forth
with their children and their wives, and being received by Athens from the
hatred that she now felt for the Lacedaemonians, were located at Naupactus,
which she had lately taken from the Ozolian Locrians. The Athenians received
another addition to their confederacy in the Megarians; who left the
Lacedaemonian alliance, annoyed by a war about boundaries forced on them by
Corinth. The Athenians occupied Megara and Pegae, and built the Megarians their
long walls from the city to Nisaea, in which they placed an Athenian garrison.
This was the principal cause of the Corinthians conceiving such a deadly hatred
against Athens.
Meanwhile
Inaros, son of Psammetichus, a Libyan king of the Libyans on the Egyptian
border, having his headquarters at Marea, the town above Pharos, caused a
revolt of almost the whole of Egypt from King Artaxerxes and, placing himself
at its head, invited the Athenians to his assistance. Abandoning a Cyprian
expedition upon which they happened to be engaged with two hundred ships of
their own and their allies, they arrived in Egypt and sailed from the sea into
the Nile, and making themselves masters of the river and two-thirds of Memphis,
addressed themselves to the attack of the remaining third, which is called White
Castle. Within it were Persians and Medes who had taken refuge there, and
Egyptians who had not joined the rebellion.
Meanwhile
the Athenians, making a descent from their fleet upon Haliae, were engaged by a
force of Corinthians and Epidaurians; and the Corinthians were victorious.
Afterwards the Athenians engaged the Peloponnesian fleet off Cecruphalia; and
the Athenians were victorious. Subsequently war broke out between Aegina and
Athens, and there was a great battle at sea off Aegina between the Athenians
and Aeginetans, each being aided by their allies; in which victory remained
with the Athenians, who took seventy of the enemy's ships, and landed in the
country and commenced a siege under the command of Leocrates, son of Stroebus.
Upon this the Peloponnesians, desirous of aiding the Aeginetans, threw into
Aegina a force of three hundred heavy infantry, who had before been serving
with the Corinthians and Epidaurians. Meanwhile the Corinthians and their
allies occupied the heights of Geraneia, and marched down into the Megarid, in
the belief that, with a large force absent in Aegina and Egypt, Athens would be
unable to help the Megarians without raising the siege of Aegina. But the
Athenians, instead of moving the army of Aegina, raised a force of the old and
young men that had been left in the city, and marched into the Megarid under
the command of Myronides. After a drawn battle with the Corinthians, the rival
hosts parted, each with the impression that they had gained the victory. The
Athenians, however, if anything, had rather the advantage, and on the departure
of the Corinthians set up a trophy. Urged by the taunts of the elders in their
city, the Corinthians made their preparations, and about twelve days afterwards
came and set up their trophy as victors. Sallying out from Megara, the
Athenians cut off the party that was employed in erecting the trophy, and
engaged and defeated the rest. In the retreat of the vanquished army, a
considerable division, pressed by the pursuers and mistaking the road, dashed
into a field on some private property, with a deep trench all round it, and no
way out. Being acquainted with the place, the Athenians hemmed their front with
heavy infantry and, placing the light troops round in a circle, stoned all who
had gone in. Corinth here suffered a severe blow. The bulk of her army
continued its retreat home.
About
this time the Athenians began to build the long walls to the sea, that towards
Phalerum and that towards Piraeus. Meanwhile the Phocians made an expedition
against Doris, the old home of the Lacedaemonians, containing the towns of
Boeum, Kitinium, and Erineum. They had taken one of these towns, when the
Lacedaemonians under Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, commanding for King
Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, who was still a minor, came to the aid of the
Dorians with fifteen hundred heavy infantry of their own, and ten thousand of
their allies. After compelling the Phocians to restore the town on conditions,
they began their retreat. The route by sea, across the Crissaean Gulf, exposed
them to the risk of being stopped by the Athenian fleet; that across Geraneia
seemed scarcely safe, the Athenians holding Megara and Pegae. For the pass was
a difficult one, and was always guarded by the Athenians; and, in the present instance,
the Lacedaemonians had information that they meant to dispute their passage. So
they resolved to remain in Boeotia, and to consider which would be the safest
line of march. They had also another reason for this resolve. Secret
encouragement had been given them by a party in Athens, who hoped to put an end
to the reign of democracy and the building of the Long Walls. Meanwhile the
Athenians marched against them with their whole levy and a thousand Argives and
the respective contingents of the rest of their allies. Altogether they were
fourteen thousand strong. The march was prompted by the notion that the
Lacedaemonians were at a loss how to effect their passage, and also by
suspicions of an attempt to overthrow the democracy. Some cavalry also joined the
Athenians from their Thessalian allies; but these went over to the
Lacedaemonians during the battle.
The
battle was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia. After heavy loss on both sides,
victory declared for the Lacedaemonians and their allies. After entering the
Megarid and cutting down the fruit trees, the Lacedaemonians returned home
across Geraneia and the isthmus. Sixty-two days after the battle the Athenians
marched into Boeotia under the command of Myronides, defeated the Boeotians in
battle at Oenophyta, and became masters of Boeotia and Phocis. They dismantled
the walls of the Tanagraeans, took a hundred of the richest men of the Opuntian
Locrians as hostages, and finished their own long walls. This was followed by
the surrender of the Aeginetans to Athens on conditions; they pulled down their
walls, gave up their ships, and agreed to pay tribute in future. The Athenians
sailed round Peloponnese under Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus, burnt the arsenal of
Lacedaemon, took Chalcis, a town of the Corinthians, and in a descent upon
Sicyon defeated the Sicyonians in battle.
Meanwhile
the Athenians in Egypt and their allies were still there, and encountered all
the vicissitudes of war. First the Athenians were masters of Egypt, and the
King sent Megabazus a Persian to Lacedaemon with money to bribe the
Peloponnesians to invade Attica and so draw off the Athenians from Egypt.
Finding that the matter made no progress, and that the money was only being
wasted, he recalled Megabazus with the remainder of the money, and sent
Megabuzus, son of Zopyrus, a Persian, with a large army to Egypt. Arriving by
land he defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a battle, and drove the
Hellenes out of Memphis, and at length shut them up in the island of
Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year and six months. At last, draining
the canal of its waters, which he diverted into another channel, he left their
ships high and dry and joined most of the island to the mainland, and then
marched over on foot and captured it. Thus the enterprise of the Hellenes came
to ruin after six years of war. Of all that large host a few travelling through
Libya reached Cyrene in safety, but most of them perished. And thus Egypt
returned to its subjection to the King, except Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes,
whom they were unable to capture from the extent of the marsh; the marshmen
being also the most warlike of the Egyptians. Inaros, the Libyan king, the sole
author of the Egyptian revolt, was betrayed, taken, and crucified. Meanwhile a
relieving squadron of fifty vessels had sailed from Athens and the rest of the
confederacy for Egypt. They put in to shore at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile,
in total ignorance of what had occurred. Attacked on the land side by the
troops, and from the sea by the Phoenician navy, most of the ships were
destroyed; the few remaining being saved by retreat. Such was the end of the
great expedition of the Athenians and their allies to Egypt.
Meanwhile
Orestes, son of Echecratidas, the Thessalian king, being an exile from Thessaly,
persuaded the Athenians to restore him. Taking with them the Boeotians and
Phocians their allies, the Athenians marched to Pharsalus in Thessaly. They
became masters of the country, though only in the immediate vicinity of the
camp; beyond which they could not go for fear of the Thessalian cavalry. But
they failed to take the city or to attain any of the other objects of their
expedition, and returned home with Orestes without having effected anything.
Not long after this a thousand of the Athenians embarked in the vessels that
were at Pegae (Pegae, it must be remembered, was now theirs), and sailed along
the coast to Sicyon under the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus. Landing
in Sicyon and defeating the Sicyonians who engaged them, they immediately took
with them the Achaeans and, sailing across, marched against and laid siege to
Oeniadae in Acarnania. Failing however to take it, they returned home.
Three
years afterwards a truce was made between the Peloponnesians and Athenians for
five years. Released from Hellenic war, the Athenians made an expedition to
Cyprus with two hundred vessels of their own and their allies, under the
command of Cimon. Sixty of these were detached to Egypt at the instance of
Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes; the rest laid siege to Kitium, from which,
however, they were compelled to retire by the death of Cimon and by scarcity of
provisions. Sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought with the Phoenicians,
Cyprians, and Cilicians by land and sea, and, being victorious on both elements
departed home, and with them the returned squadron from Egypt. After this the
Lacedaemonians marched out on a sacred war, and, becoming masters of the temple
at Delphi, it in the hands of the Delphians. Immediately after their retreat,
the Athenians marched out, became masters of the temple, and placed it in the
hands of the Phocians.
Some
time after this, Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and some other places in Boeotia being
in the hands of the Boeotian exiles, the Athenians marched against the above-mentioned
hostile places with a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and the allied
contingents, under the command of Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus. They took
Chaeronea, and made slaves of the inhabitants, and, leaving a garrison,
commenced their return. On their road they were attacked at Coronea by the
Boeotian exiles from Orchomenus, with some Locrians and Euboean exiles, and
others who were of the same way of thinking, were defeated in battle, and some
killed, others taken captive. The Athenians evacuated all Boeotia by a treaty
providing for the recovery of the men; and the exiled Boeotians returned, and
with all the rest regained their independence.
This
was soon afterwards followed by the revolt of Euboea from Athens. Pericles had
already crossed over with an army of Athenians to the island, when news was
brought to him that Megara had revolted, that the Peloponnesians were on the
point of invading Attica, and that the Athenian garrison had been cut off by
the Megarians, with the exception of a few who had taken refuge in Nisaea. The
Megarians had introduced the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians into the
town before they revolted. Meanwhile Pericles brought his army back in all
haste from Euboea. After this the Peloponnesians marched into Attica as far as
Eleusis and Thrius, ravaging the country under the conduct of King Pleistoanax,
the son of Pausanias, and without advancing further returned home. The
Athenians then crossed over again to Euboea under the command of Pericles, and
subdued the whole of the island: all but Histiaea was settled by convention;
the Histiaeans they expelled from their homes, and occupied their territory
themselves.
Not
long after their return from Euboea, they made a truce with the Lacedaemonians
and their allies for thirty years, giving up the posts which they occupied in
Peloponnese- Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and Achaia. In the sixth year of the
truce, war broke out between the Samians and Milesians about Priene. Worsted in
the war, the Milesians came to Athens with loud complaints against the Samians.
In this they were joined by certain private persons from Samos itself, who
wished to revolutionize the government. Accordingly the Athenians sailed to
Samos with forty ships and set up a democracy; took hostages from the Samians,
fifty boys and as many men, lodged them in Lemnos, and after leaving a garrison
in the island returned home. But some of the Samians had not remained in the
island, but had fled to the continent. Making an agreement with the most
powerful of those in the city, and an alliance with Pissuthnes, son of
Hystaspes, the then satrap of Sardis, they got together a force of seven
hundred mercenaries, and under cover of night crossed over to Samos. Their
first step was to rise on the commons, most of whom they secured; their next to
steal their hostages from Lemnos; after which they revolted, gave up the
Athenian garrison left with them and its commanders to Pissuthnes, and
instantly prepared for an expedition against Miletus. The Byzantines also
revolted with them.
As
soon as the Athenians heard the news, they sailed with sixty ships against
Samos. Sixteen of these went to Caria to look out for the Phoenician fleet, and
to Chios and Lesbos carrying round orders for reinforcements, and so never
engaged; but forty-four ships under the command of Pericles with nine
colleagues gave battle, off the island of Tragia, to seventy Samian vessels, of
which twenty were transports, as they were sailing from Miletus. Victory
remained with the Athenians. Reinforced afterwards by forty ships from Athens,
and twenty-five Chian and Lesbian vessels, the Athenians landed, and having the
superiority by land invested the city with three walls; it was also invested
from the sea. Meanwhile Pericles took sixty ships from the blockading squadron,
and departed in haste for Caunus and Caria, intelligence having been brought in
of the approach of the Phoenician fleet to the aid of the Samians; indeed
Stesagoras and others had left the island with five ships to bring them. But in
the meantime the Samians made a sudden sally, and fell on the camp, which they
found unfortified. Destroying the look-out vessels, and engaging and defeating
such as were being launched to meet them, they remained masters of their own
seas for fourteen days, and carried in and carried out what they pleased. But
on the arrival of Pericles, they were once more shut up. Fresh reinforcements
afterwards arrived- forty ships from Athens with Thucydides, Hagnon, and
Phormio; twenty with Tlepolemus and Anticles, and thirty vessels from Chios and
Lesbos. After a brief attempt at fighting, the Samians, unable to hold out,
were reduced after a nine months' siege and surrendered on conditions; they
razed their walls, gave hostages, delivered up their ships, and arranged to pay
the expenses of the war by instalments. The Byzantines also agreed to be
subject as before.
AFTER
this, though not many years later, we at length come to what has been already
related, the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea, and the events that served as a
pretext for the present war. All these actions of the Hellenes against each
other and the barbarian occurred in the fifty years' interval between the
retreat of Xerxes and the beginning of the present war. During this interval
the Athenians succeeded in placing their empire on a firmer basis, and advanced
their own home power to a very great height. The Lacedaemonians, though fully
aware of it, opposed it only for a little while, but remained inactive during
most of the period, being of old slow to go to war except under the pressure of
necessity, and in the present instance being hampered by wars at home; until
the growth of the Athenian power could be no longer ignored, and their own
confederacy became the object of its encroachments. They then felt that they
could endure it no longer, but that the time had come for them to throw
themselves heart and soul upon the hostile power, and break it, if they could,
by commencing the present war. And though the Lacedaemonians had made up their
own minds on the fact of the breach of the treaty and the guilt of the
Athenians, yet they sent to Delphi and inquired of the God whether it would be
well with them if they went to war; and, as it is reported, received from him
the answer that if they put their whole strength into the war, victory would be
theirs, and the promise that he himself would be with them, whether invoked or
uninvoked. Still they wished to summon their allies again, and to take their
vote on the propriety of making war. After the ambassadors from the
confederates had arrived and a congress had been convened, they all spoke their
minds, most of them denouncing the Athenians and demanding that the war should
begin. In particular the Corinthians. They had before on their own account
canvassed the cities in detail to induce them to vote for the war, in the fear
that it might come too late to save Potidaea; they were present also on this
occasion, and came forward the last, and made the following speech:
"Fellow
allies, we can no longer accuse the Lacedaemonians of having failed in their
duty: they have not only voted for war themselves, but have assembled us here
for that purpose. We say their duty, for supremacy has its duties. Besides
equitably administering private interests, leaders are required to show a
special care for the common welfare in return for the special honours accorded
to them by all in other ways. For ourselves, all who have already had dealings
with the Athenians require no warning to be on their guard against them. The
states more inland and out of the highway of communication should understand
that, if they omit to support the coast powers, the result will be to injure
the transit of their produce for exportation and the reception in exchange of
their imports from the sea; and they must not be careless judges of what is now
said, as if it had nothing to do with them, but must expect that the sacrifice
of the powers on the coast will one day be followed by the extension of the
danger to the interior, and must recognize that their own interests are deeply
involved in this discussion. For these reasons they should not hesitate to
exchange peace for war. If wise men remain quiet, while they are not injured,
brave men abandon peace for war when they are injured, returning to an
understanding on a favourable opportunity: in fact, they are neither
intoxicated by their success in war, nor disposed to take an injury for the
sake of the delightful tranquillity of peace. Indeed, to falter for the sake of
such delights is, if you remain inactive, the quickest way of losing the sweets
of repose to which you cling; while to conceive extravagant pretensions from
success in war is to forget how hollow is the confidence by which you are
elated. For if many ill-conceived plans have succeeded through the still
greater fatuity of an opponent, many more, apparently well laid, have on the
contrary ended in disgrace. The confidence with which we form our schemes is
never completely justified in their execution; speculation is carried on in
safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.
"To
apply these rules to ourselves, if we are now kindling war it is under the
pressure of injury, with adequate grounds of complaint; and after we have
chastised the Athenians we will in season desist. We have many reasons to
expect success- first, superiority in numbers and in military experience, and
secondly our general and unvarying obedience in the execution of orders. The
naval strength which they possess shall be raised by us from our respective
antecedent resources, and from the moneys at Olympia and Delphi. A loan from
these enables us to seduce their foreign sailors by the offer of higher pay.
For the power of Athens is more mercenary than national; while ours will not be
exposed to the same risk, as its strength lies more in men than in money. A
single defeat at sea is in all likelihood their ruin: should they hold out, in
that case there will be the more time for us to exercise ourselves in naval
matters; and as soon as we have arrived at an equality in science, we need
scarcely ask whether we shall be their superiors in courage. For the advantages
that we have by nature they cannot acquire by education; while their
superiority in science must be removed by our practice. The money required for
these objects shall be provided by our contributions: nothing indeed could be
more monstrous than the suggestion that, while their allies never tire of
contributing for their own servitude, we should refuse to spend for vengeance
and self-preservation the treasure which by such refusal we shall forfeit to
Athenian rapacity and see employed for our own ruin.
"We
have also other ways of carrying on the war, such as revolt of their allies,
the surest method of depriving them of their revenues, which are the source of
their strength, and establishment of fortified positions in their country, and
various operations which cannot be foreseen at present. For war of all things proceeds
least upon definite rules, but draws principally upon itself for contrivances
to meet an emergency; and in such cases the party who faces the struggle and
keeps his temper best meets with most security, and he who loses his temper
about it with correspondent disaster. Let us also reflect that if it was merely
a number of disputes of territory between rival neighbours, it might be borne;
but here we have an enemy in Athens that is a match for our whole coalition,
and more than a match for any of its members; so that unless as a body and as
individual nationalities and individual cities we make an unanimous stand
against her, she will easily conquer us divided and in detail. That conquest,
terrible as it may sound, would, it must be known, have no other end than
slavery pure and simple; a word which Peloponnese cannot even hear whispered
without disgrace, or without disgrace see so many states abused by one.
Meanwhile the opinion would be either that we were justly so used, or that we
put up with it from cowardice, and were proving degenerate sons in not even
securing for ourselves the freedom which our fathers gave to Hellas; and in
allowing the establishment in Hellas of a tyrant state, though in individual
states we think it our duty to put down sole rulers. And we do not know how
this conduct can be held free from three of the gravest failings, want of
sense, of courage, or of vigilance. For we do not suppose that you have taken
refuge in that contempt of an enemy which has proved so fatal in so many instances-
a feeling which from the numbers that it has ruined has come to be called not
contemptuous but contemptible.
"There
is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service
to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present
gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as
the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should
have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what
was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly advance to the war
for many reasons; the god has commanded it and promised to be with us, and the
rest of Hellas will all join in the struggle, part from fear, part from
interest. You will be the first to break a treaty which the god, in advising us
to go to war, judges to be violated already, but rather to support a treaty
that has been outraged: indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance but by
aggression.
"Your
position, therefore, from whatever quarter you may view it, will amply justify
you in going to war; and this step we recommend in the interests of all,
bearing in mind that identity of interest you have taken refuge in that
contempt of an enemy which has proved so fatal in so many instances- a feeling
which from the numbers that it has ruined has come to be called not
contemptuous but contemptible.
"There
is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of
service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the
present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win
virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though
you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right
that what was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly advance
to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and promised to be with
us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the struggle, part from fear, part
from interest. You will be the first to break a treaty which the god, in
advising us to go to war, judges to be violated already, but rather to support
a treaty that has been outraged: indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance
but by aggression.
"Your
position, therefore, from whatever quarter you may view it, will amply justify
you in going to war; and this step we recommend in the interests of all,
bearing in mind that identity of interest you have taken refuge in that
contempt of an enemy which has proved so fatal in so many instances- a feeling
which from the numbers that it has ruined has come to be called not
contemptuous but contemptible.
"There
is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of
service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the
present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win
virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though
you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right
that what was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly advance
to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and promised to be with
us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the struggle, part from fear, part
from interest. You will be the first to break a treaty which the god, in
advising us to go to war, judges to be violated already, but rather to support
a treaty that has been outraged: indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance
but by aggression.
"Your
position, therefore, from whatever quarter you may view it, will amply justify
you in going to war; and this step we recommend in the interests of all,
bearing in mind that identity of interest is the surest of bonds, whether
between states or individuals. Delay not, therefore, to assist Potidaea, a
Dorian city besieged by Ionians, which is quite a reversal of the order of
things; nor to assert the freedom of the rest. It is impossible for us to wait
any longer when waiting can only mean immediate disaster for some of us, and,
if it comes to be known that we have conferred but do not venture to protect
ourselves, like disaster in the near future for the rest. Delay not, fellow
allies, but, convinced of the necessity of the crisis and the wisdom of this
counsel, vote for the war, undeterred by its immediate terrors, but looking
beyond to the lasting peace by which it will be succeeded. Out of war peace
gains fresh stability, but to refuse to abandon repose for war is not so sure a
method of avoiding danger. We must believe that the tyrant city that has been
established in Hellas has been established against all alike, with a programme
of universal empire, part fulfilled, part in contemplation; let us then attack
and reduce it, and win future security for ourselves and freedom for the
Hellenes who are now enslaved."
Such
were the words of the Corinthians. The Lacedaemonians, having now heard all,
give their opinion, took the vote of all the allied states present in order,
great and small alike; and the majority voted for war. This decided, it was
still impossible for them to commence at once, from their want of preparation;
but it was resolved that the means requisite were to be procured by the
different states, and that there was to be no delay. And indeed, in spite of
the time occupied with the necessary arrangements, less than a year elapsed
before Attica was invaded, and the war openly begun.
This
interval was spent in sending embassies to Athens charged with complaints, in
order to obtain as good a pretext for war as possible, in the event of her
paying no attention to them. The first Lacedaemonian embassy was to order the
Athenians to drive out the curse of the goddess; the history of which is as
follows. In former generations there was an Athenian of the name of Cylon, a
victor at the Olympic games, of good birth and powerful position, who had
married a daughter of Theagenes, a Megarian, at that time tyrant of Megara. Now
this Cylon was inquiring at Delphi; when he was told by the god to seize the
Acropolis of Athens on the grand festival of Zeus. Accordingly, procuring a
force from Theagenes and persuading his friends to join him, when the Olympic
festival in Peloponnese came, he seized the Acropolis, with the intention of
making himself tyrant, thinking that this was the grand festival of Zeus, and
also an occasion appropriate for a victor at the Olympic games. Whether the
grand festival that was meant was in Attica or elsewhere was a question which
he never thought of, and which the oracle did not offer to solve. For the
Athenians also have a festival which is called the grand festival of Zeus
Meilichios or Gracious, viz., the Diasia. It is celebrated outside the city,
and the whole people sacrifice not real victims but a number of bloodless
offerings peculiar to the country. However, fancying he had chosen the right
time, he made the attempt. As soon as the Athenians perceived it, they flocked
in, one and all, from the country, and sat down, and laid siege to the citadel.
But as time went on, weary of the labour of blockade, most of them departed;
the responsibility of keeping guard being left to the nine archons, with
plenary powers to arrange everything according to their good judgment. It must
be known that at that time most political functions were discharged by the nine
archons. Meanwhile Cylon and his besieged companions were distressed for want
of food and water. Accordingly Cylon and his brother made their escape; but the
rest being hard pressed, and some even dying of famine, seated themselves as
suppliants at the altar in the Acropolis. The Athenians who were charged with
the duty of keeping guard, when they saw them at the point of death in the
temple, raised them up on the understanding that no harm should be done to
them, led them out, and slew them. Some who as they passed by took refuge at
the altars of the awful goddesses were dispatched on the spot. From this deed
the men who killed them were called accursed and guilty against the goddess, they
and their descendants. Accordingly these cursed ones were driven out by the
Athenians, driven out again by Cleomenes of Lacedaemon and an Athenian faction;
the living were driven out, and the bones of the dead were taken up; thus they
were cast out. For all that, they came back afterwards, and their descendants
are still in the city.
This,
then was the curse that the Lacedaemonians ordered them to drive out. They were
actuated primarily, as they pretended, by a care for the honour of the gods;
but they also know that Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was connected with the
curse on his mother's side, and they thought that his banishment would
materially advance their designs on Athens. Not that they really hoped to
succeed in procuring this; they rather thought to create a prejudice against
him in the eyes of his countrymen from the feeling that the war would be partly
caused by his misfortune. For being the most powerful man of his time, and the
leading Athenian statesman, he opposed the Lacedaemonians in everything, and
would have no concessions, but ever urged the Athenians on to war.
The
Athenians retorted by ordering the Lacedaemonians to drive out the curse of
Taenarus. The Lacedaemonians had once raised up some Helot suppliants from the
temple of Poseidon at Taenarus, led them away and slain them; for which they
believe the great earthquake at Sparta to have been a retribution. The
Athenians also ordered them to drive out the curse of the goddess of the Brazen
House; the history of which is as follows. After Pausanias the Lacedaemonian
had been recalled by the Spartans from his command in the Hellespont (this is
his first recall), and had been tried by them and acquitted, not being again
sent out in a public capacity, he took a galley of Hermione on his own responsibility,
without the authority of the Lacedaemonians, and arrived as a private person in
the Hellespont. He came ostensibly for the Hellenic war, really to carry on his
intrigues with the King, which he had begun before his recall, being ambitious of
reigning over Hellas. The circumstance which first enabled him to lay the King
under an obligation, and to make a beginning of the whole design, was this.
Some connections and kinsmen of the King had been taken in Byzantium, on its
capture from the Medes, when he was first there, after the return from Cyprus.
These captives he sent off to the King without the knowledge of the rest of the
allies, the account being that they had escaped from him. He managed this with
the help of Gongylus, an Eretrian, whom he had placed in charge of Byzantium
and the prisoners. He also gave Gongylus a letter for the King, the contents of
which were as follows, as was afterwards discovered: "Pausanias, the
general of Sparta, anxious to do you a favour, sends you these his prisoners of
war. I propose also, with your approval, to marry your daughter, and to make
Sparta and the rest of Hellas subject to you. I may say that I think I am able
to do this, with your co-operation. Accordingly if any of this please you, send
a safe man to the sea through whom we may in future conduct our
correspondence."
This
was all that was revealed in the writing, and Xerxes was pleased with the
letter. He sent off Artabazus, son of Pharnaces, to the sea with orders to
supersede Megabates, the previous governor in the satrapy of Daskylion, and to
send over as quickly as possible to Pausanias at Byzantium a letter which he
entrusted to him; to show him the royal signet, and to execute any commission
which he might receive from Pausanias on the King's matters with all care and
fidelity. Artabazus on his arrival carried the King's orders into effect, and
sent over the letter, which contained the following answer: "Thus saith
King Xerxes to Pausanias. For the men whom you have saved for me across sea
from Byzantium, an obligation is laid up for you in our house, recorded for
ever; and with your proposals I am well pleased. Let neither night nor day stop
you from diligently performing any of your promises to me; neither for cost of
gold nor of silver let them be hindered, nor yet for number of troops, wherever
it may be that their presence is needed; but with Artabazus, an honourable man
whom I send you, boldly advance my objects and yours, as may be most for the
honour and interest of us both."
Before
held in high honour by the Hellenes as the hero of Plataea, Pausanias, after
the receipt of this letter, became prouder than ever, and could no longer live
in the usual style, but went out of Byzantium in a Median dress, was attended
on his march through Thrace by a bodyguard of Medes and Egyptians, kept a
Persian table, and was quite unable to contain his intentions, but betrayed by
his conduct in trifles what his ambition looked one day to enact on a grander
scale. He also made himself difficult of access, and displayed so violent a
temper to every one without exception that no one could come near him. Indeed,
this was the principal reason why the confederacy went over to the Athenians.
The
above-mentioned conduct, coming to the ears of the Lacedaemonians, occasioned
his first recall. And after his second voyage out in the ship of Hermione,
without their orders, he gave proofs of similar behaviour. Besieged and
expelled from Byzantium by the Athenians, he did not return to Sparta; but news
came that he had settled at Colonae in the Troad, and was intriguing with the
barbarians, and that his stay there was for no good purpose; and the ephors,
now no longer hesitating, sent him a herald and a scytale with orders to
accompany the herald or be declared a public enemy. Anxious above everything to
avoid suspicion, and confident that he could quash the charge by means of
money, he returned a second time to Sparta. At first thrown into prison by the
ephors (whose powers enable them to do this to the King), soon compromised the
matter and came out again, and offered himself for trial to any who wished to
institute an inquiry concerning him.
Now
the Spartans had no tangible proof against him- neither his enemies nor the
nation- of that indubitable kind required for the punishment of a member of the
royal family, and at that moment in high office; he being regent for his first
cousin King Pleistarchus, Leonidas's son, who was still a minor. But by his
contempt of the laws and imitation of the barbarians, he gave grounds for much
suspicion of his being discontented with things established; all the occasions
on which he had in any way departed from the regular customs were passed in
review, and it was remembered that he had taken upon himself to have inscribed
on the tripod at Delphi, which was dedicated by the Hellenes as the
first-fruits of the spoil of the Medes, the following couplet:
The Mede defeated, great Pausanias
raised
This monument, that Phoebus might be
praised.
At
the time the Lacedaemonians had at once erased the couplet, and inscribed the
names of the cities that had aided in the overthrow of the barbarian and
dedicated the offering. Yet it was considered that Pausanias had here been
guilty of a grave offence, which, interpreted by the light of the attitude which
he had since assumed, gained a new significance, and seemed to be quite in
keeping with his present schemes. Besides, they were informed that he was even
intriguing with the Helots; and such indeed was the fact, for he promised them
freedom and citizenship if they would join him in insurrection and would help
him to carry out his plans to the end. Even now, mistrusting the evidence even
of the Helots themselves, the ephors would not consent to take any decided step
against him; in accordance with their regular custom towards themselves,
namely, to be slow in taking any irrevocable resolve in the matter of a Spartan
citizen without indisputable proof. At last, it is said, the person who was
going to carry to Artabazus the last letter for the King, a man of Argilus,
once the favourite and most trusty servant of Pausanias, turned informer.
Alarmed by the reflection that none of the previous messengers had ever
returned, having counterfeited the seal, in order that, if he found himself
mistaken in his surmises, or if Pausanias should ask to make some correction,
he might not be discovered, he undid the letter, and found the postscript that
he had suspected, viz., an order to put him to death.
On
being shown the letter, the ephors now felt more certain. Still, they wished to
hear Pausanias commit himself with their own ears. Accordingly the man went by
appointment to Taenarus as a suppliant, and there built himself a hut divided
into two by a partition; within which he concealed some of the ephors and let
them hear the whole matter plainly. For Pausanias came to him and asked him the
reason of his suppliant position; and the man reproached him with the order
that he had written concerning him, and one by one declared all the rest of the
circumstances, how he who had never yet brought him into any danger, while
employed as agent between him and the King, was yet just like the mass of his
servants to be rewarded with death. Admitting all this, and telling him not to
be angry about the matter, Pausanias gave him the pledge of raising him up from
the temple, and begged him to set off as quickly as possible, and not to hinder
the business in hand.
The
ephors listened carefully, and then departed, taking no action for the moment,
but, having at last attained to certainty, were preparing to arrest him in the
city. It is reported that, as he was about to be arrested in the street, he saw
from the face of one of the ephors what he was coming for; another, too, made
him a secret signal, and betrayed it to him from kindness. Setting off with a
run for the temple of the goddess of the Brazen House, the enclosure of which
was near at hand, he succeeded in taking sanctuary before they took him, and
entering into a small chamber, which formed part of the temple, to avoid being
exposed to the weather, lay still there. The ephors, for the moment distanced
in the pursuit, afterwards took off the roof of the chamber, and having made
sure that he was inside, shut him in, barricaded the doors, and staying before
the place, reduced him by starvation. When they found that he was on the point
of expiring, just as he was, in the chamber, they brought him out of the
temple, while the breath was still in him, and as soon as he was brought out he
died. They were going to throw him into the Kaiadas, where they cast criminals,
but finally decided to inter him somewhere near. But the god at Delphi
afterwards ordered the Lacedaemonians to remove the tomb to the place of his
death- where he now lies in the consecrated ground, as an inscription on a monument
declares- and, as what had been done was a curse to them, to give back two
bodies instead of one to the goddess of the Brazen House. So they had two
brazen statues made, and dedicated them as a substitute for Pausanias. the
Athenians retorted by telling the Lacedaemonians to drive out what the god
himself had pronounced to be a curse.
To
return to the Medism of Pausanias. Matter was found in the course of the
inquiry to implicate Themistocles; and the Lacedaemonians accordingly sent
envoys to the Athenians and required them to punish him as they had punished
Pausanias. The Athenians consented to do so. But he had, as it happened, been
ostracized, and, with a residence at Argos, was in the habit of visiting other
parts of Peloponnese. So they sent with the Lacedaemonians, who were ready to
join in the pursuit, persons with instructions to take him wherever they found
him. But Themistocles got scent of their intentions, and fled from Peloponnese
to Corcyra, which was under obligations towards him. But the Corcyraeans
alleged that they could not venture to shelter him at the cost of offending
Athens and Lacedaemon, and they conveyed him over to the continent opposite.
Pursued by the officers who hung on the report of his movements, at a loss
where to turn, he was compelled to stop at the house of Admetus, the Molossian
king, though they were not on friendly terms. Admetus happened not to be
indoors, but his wife, to whom he made himself a suppliant, instructed him to
take their child in his arms and sit down by the hearth. Soon afterwards
Admetus came in, and Themistocles told him who he was, and begged him not to
revenge on Themistocles in exile any opposition which his requests might have
experienced from Themistocles at Athens. Indeed, he was now far too low for his
revenge; retaliation was only honourable between equals. Besides, his
opposition to the king had only affected the success of a request, not the
safety of his person; if the king were to give him up to the pursuers that he
mentioned, and the fate which they intended for him, he would just be
consigning him to certain death.
The
King listened to him and raised him up with his son, as he was sitting with him
in his arms after the most effectual method of supplication, and on the arrival
of the Lacedaemonians not long afterwards, refused to give him up for anything
they could say, but sent him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in
Alexander's dominions, as he wished to go to the Persian king. There he met
with a merchantman on the point of starting for Ionia. Going on board, he was
carried by a storm to the Athenian squadron which was blockading Naxos. In his
alarm- he was luckily unknown to the people in the vessel- he told the master
who he was and what he was flying for, and said that, if he refused to save
him, he would declare that he was taking him for a bribe. Meanwhile their
safety consisted in letting no one leave the ship until a favourable time for
sailing should arise. If he complied with his wishes, he promised him a proper
recompense. The master acted as he desired, and, after lying to for a day and a
night out of reach of the squadron, at length arrived at Ephesus.
After
having rewarded him with a present of money, as soon as he received some from
his friends at Athens and from his secret hoards at Argos, Themistocles started
inland with one of the coast Persians, and sent a letter to King Artaxerxes,
Xerxes's son, who had just come to the throne. Its contents were as follows:
"I, Themistocles, am come to you, who did your house more harm than any of
the Hellenes, when I was compelled to defend myself against your father's
invasion- harm, however, far surpassed by the good that I did him during his
retreat, which brought no danger for me but much for him. For the past, you are
a good turn in my debt"- here he mentioned the warning sent to Xerxes from
Salamis to retreat, as well as his finding the bridges unbroken, which, as he
falsely pretended, was due to him- "for the present, able to do you great
service, I am here, pursued by the Hellenes for my friendship for you. However,
I desire a year's grace, when I shall be able to declare in person the objects
of my coming."
It
is said that the King approved his intention, and told him to do as he said. He
employed the interval in making what progress he could in the study of the
Persian tongue, and of the customs of the country. Arrived at court at the end
of the year, he attained to very high consideration there, such as no Hellene
has ever possessed before or since; partly from his splendid antecedents,
partly from the hopes which he held out of effecting for him the subjugation of
Hellas, but principally by the proof which experience daily gave of his
capacity. For Themistocles was a man who exhibited the most indubitable signs
of genius; indeed, in this particular he has a claim on our admiration quite
extraordinary and unparalleled. By his own native capacity, alike unformed and
unsupplemented by study, he was at once the best judge in those sudden crises
which admit of little or of no deliberation, and the best prophet of the
future, even to its most distant possibilities. An able theoretical expositor
of all that came within the sphere of his practice, he was not without the
power of passing an adequate judgment in matters in which he had no experience.
He could also excellently divine the good and evil which lay hid in the unseen
future. In fine, whether we consider the extent of his natural powers, or the
slightness of his application, this extraordinary man must be allowed to have
surpassed all others in the faculty of intuitively meeting an emergency.
Disease was the real cause of his death; though there is a story of his having
ended his life by poison, on finding himself unable to fulfil his promises to
the king. However this may be, there is a monument to him in the marketplace of
Asiatic Magnesia. He was governor of the district, the King having given him
Magnesia, which brought in fifty talents a year, for bread, Lampsacus, which
was considered to be the richest wine country, for wine, and Myos for other
provisions. His bones, it is said, were conveyed home by his relatives in
accordance with his wishes, and interred in Attic ground. This was done without
the knowledge of the Athenians; as it is against the law to bury in Attica an
outlaw for treason. So ends the history of Pausanias and Themistocles, the
Lacedaemonian and the Athenian, the most famous men of their time in Hellas.
To
return to the Lacedaemonians. The history of their first embassy, the
injunctions which it conveyed, and the rejoinder which it provoked, concerning
the expulsion of the accursed persons, have been related already. It was
followed by a second, which ordered Athens to raise the siege of Potidaea, and
to respect the independence of Aegina. Above all, it gave her most distinctly
to understand that war might be prevented by the revocation of the Megara
decree, excluding the Megarians from the use of Athenian harbours and of the
market of Athens. But Athens was not inclined either to revoke the decree, or
to entertain their other proposals; she accused the Megarians of pushing their
cultivation into the consecrated ground and the unenclosed land on the border,
and of harbouring her runaway slaves. At last an embassy arrived with the
Lacedaemonian ultimatum. The ambassadors were Ramphias, Melesippus, and
Agesander. Not a word was said on any of the old subjects; there was simply
this: "Lacedaemon wishes the peace to continue, and there is no reason why
it should not, if you would leave the Hellenes independent." Upon this the
Athenians held an assembly, and laid the matter before their consideration. It
was resolved to deliberate once for all on all their demands, and to give them
an answer. There were many speakers who came forward and gave their support to
one side or the other, urging the necessity of war, or the revocation of the
decree and the folly of allowing it to stand in the way of peace. Among them
came forward Pericles, son of Xanthippus, the first man of his time at Athens,
ablest alike in counsel and in action, and gave the following advice:
"There
is one principle, Athenians, which I hold to through everything, and that is
the principle of no concession to the Peloponnesians. I know that the spirit
which inspires men while they are being persuaded to make war is not always
retained in action; that as circumstances change, resolutions change. Yet I see
that now as before the same, almost literally the same, counsel is demanded of
me; and I put it to those of you who are allowing yourselves to be persuaded, to
support the national resolves even in the case of reverses, or to forfeit all
credit for their wisdom in the event of success. For sometimes the course of
things is as arbitrary as the plans of man; indeed this is why we usually blame
chance for whatever does not happen as we expected. Now it was clear before
that Lacedaemon entertained designs against us; it is still more clear now. The
treaty provides that we shall mutually submit our differences to legal
settlement, and that we shall meanwhile each keep what we have. Yet the
Lacedaemonians never yet made us any such offer, never yet would accept from us
any such offer; on the contrary, they wish complaints to be settled by war
instead of by negotiation; and in the end we find them here dropping the tone of
expostulation and adopting that of command. They order us to raise the siege of
Potidaea, to let Aegina be independent, to revoke the Megara decree; and they
conclude with an ultimatum warning us to leave the Hellenes independent. I hope
that you will none of you think that we shall be going to war for a trifle if
we refuse to revoke the Megara decree, which appears in front of their
complaints, and the revocation of which is to save us from war, or let any
feeling of self-reproach linger in your minds, as if you went to war for slight
cause. Why, this trifle contains the whole seal and trial of your resolution.
If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having
been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will
make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals. Make your
decision therefore at once, either to submit before you are harmed, or if we
are to go to war, as I for one think we ought, to do so without caring whether
the ostensible cause be great or small, resolved against making concessions or
consenting to a precarious tenure of our possessions. For all claims from an
equal, urged upon a neighbour as commands before any attempt at legal
settlement, be they great or be they small, have only one meaning, and that is
slavery.
"As
to the war and the resources of either party, a detailed comparison will not
show you the inferiority of Athens. Personally engaged in the cultivation of
their land, without funds either private or public, the Peloponnesians are also
without experience in long wars across sea, from the strict limit which poverty
imposes on their attacks upon each other. Powers of this description are quite
incapable of often manning a fleet or often sending out an army: they cannot
afford the absence from their homes, the expenditure from their own funds; and
besides, they have not command of the sea. Capital, it must be remembered,
maintains a war more than forced contributions. Farmers are a class of men that
are always more ready to serve in person than in purse. Confident that the
former will survive the dangers, they are by no means so sure that the latter
will not be prematurely exhausted, especially if the war last longer than they
expect, which it very likely will. In a single battle the Peloponnesians and
their allies may be able to defy all Hellas, but they are incapacitated from
carrying on a war against a power different in character from their own, by the
want of the single council-chamber requisite to prompt and vigorous action, and
the substitution of a diet composed of various races, in which every state
possesses an equal vote, and each presses its own ends, a condition of things
which generally results in no action at all. The great wish of some is to avenge
themselves on some particular enemy, the great wish of others to save their own
pocket. Slow in assembling, they devote a very small fraction of the time to
the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their
own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that
it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so,
by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause
imperceptibly decays.
"But
the principal point is the hindrance that they will experience from want of
money. The slowness with which it comes in will cause delay; but the
opportunities of war wait for no man. Again, we need not be alarmed either at
the possibility of their raising fortifications in Attica, or at their navy. It
would be difficult for any system of fortifications to establish a rival city,
even in time of peace, much more, surely, in an enemy's country, with Athens
just as much fortified against it as it against Athens; while a mere post might
be able to do some harm to the country by incursions and by the facilities
which it would afford for desertion, but can never prevent our sailing into
their country and raising fortifications there, and making reprisals with our
powerful fleet. For our naval skill is of more use to us for service on land,
than their military skill for service at sea. Familiarity with the sea they
will not find an easy acquisition. If you who have been practising at it ever
since the Median invasion have not yet brought it to perfection, is there any
chance of anything considerable being effected by an agricultural, unseafaring
population, who will besides be prevented from practising by the constant
presence of strong squadrons of observation from Athens? With a small squadron
they might hazard an engagement, encouraging their ignorance by numbers; but
the restraint of a strong force will prevent their moving, and through want of
practice they will grow more clumsy, and consequently more timid. It must be kept
in mind that seamanship, just like anything else, is a matter of art, and will
not admit of being taken up occasionally as an occupation for times of leisure;
on the contrary, it is so exacting as to leave leisure for nothing else.
"Even
if they were to touch the moneys at Olympia or Delphi, and try to seduce our
foreign sailors by the temptation of higher pay, that would only be a serious
danger if we could not still be a match for them by embarking our own citizens
and the aliens resident among us. But in fact by this means we are always a
match for them; and, best of all, we have a larger and higher class of native
coxswains and sailors among our own citizens than all the rest of Hellas. And
to say nothing of the danger of such a step, none of our foreign sailors would
consent to become an outlaw from his country, and to take service with them and
their hopes, for the sake of a few days' high pay.
"This,
I think, is a tolerably fair account of the position of the Peloponnesians; that
of Athens is free from the defects that I have criticized in them, and has
other advantages of its own, which they can show nothing to equal. If they
march against our country we will sail against theirs, and it will then be
found that the desolation of the whole of Attica is not the same as that of
even a fraction of Peloponnese; for they will not be able to supply the
deficiency except by a battle, while we have plenty of land both on the islands
and the continent. The rule of the sea is indeed a great matter. Consider for a
moment. Suppose that we were islanders; can you conceive a more impregnable
position? Well, this in future should, as far as possible, be our conception of
our position. Dismissing all thought of our land and houses, we must vigilantly
guard the sea and the city. No irritation that we may feel for the former must
provoke us to a battle with the numerical superiority of the Peloponnesians. A
victory would only be succeeded by another battle against the same superiority:
a reverse involves the loss of our allies, the source of our strength, who will
not remain quiet a day after we become unable to march against them. We must
cry not over the loss of houses and land but of men's lives; since houses and
land do not gain men, but men them. And if I had thought that I could persuade
you, I would have bid you go out and lay them waste with your own hands, and
show the Peloponnesians that this at any rate will not make you submit.
"I
have many other reasons to hope for a favourable issue, if you can consent not
to combine schemes of fresh conquest with the conduct of the war, and will
abstain from wilfully involving yourselves in other dangers; indeed, I am more
afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy's devices. But these matters shall
be explained in another speech, as events require; for the present dismiss
these men with the answer that we will allow Megara the use of our market and
harbours, when the Lacedaemonians suspend their alien acts in favour of us and
our allies, there being nothing in the treaty to prevent either one or the
other: that we will leave the cities independent, if independent we found them
when we made the treaty, and when the Lacedaemonians grant to their cities an
independence not involving subservience to Lacedaemonian interests, but such as
each severally may desire: that we are willing to give the legal satisfaction
which our agreements specify, and that we shall not commence hostilities, but
shall resist those who do commence them. This is an answer agreeable at once to
the rights and the dignity of Athens. It must be thoroughly understood that war
is a necessity; but that the more readily we accept it, the less will be the
ardour of our opponents, and that out of the greatest dangers communities and
individuals acquire the greatest glory. Did not our fathers resist the Medes
not only with resources far different from ours, but even when those resources
had been abandoned; and more by wisdom than by fortune, more by daring than by
strength, did not they beat off the barbarian and advance their affairs to
their present height? We must not fall behind them, but must resist our enemies
in any way and in every way, and attempt to hand down our power to our
posterity unimpaired."
Such
were the words of Pericles. The Athenians, persuaded of the wisdom of his
advice, voted as he desired, and answered the Lacedaemonians as he recommended,
both on the separate points and in the general; they would do nothing on
dictation, but were ready to have the complaints settled in a fair and
impartial manner by the legal method, which the terms of the truce prescribed.
So the envoys departed home and did not return again.
These
were the charges and differences existing between the rival powers before the
war, arising immediately from the affair at Epidamnus and Corcyra. Still
intercourse continued in spite of them, and mutual communication. It was
carried on without heralds, but not without suspicion, as events were occurring
which were equivalent to a breach of the treaty and matter for war.
The Second Book.
THE
war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians and the allies on either side now
really begins. For now all intercourse except through the medium of heralds
ceased, and hostilities were commenced and prosecuted without intermission. The
history follows the chronological order of events by summers and winters.
The
thirty years' truce which was entered into after the conquest of Euboea lasted
fourteen years. In the fifteenth, in the forty-eighth year of the
priestess-ship of Chrysis at Argos, in the ephorate of Aenesias at Sparta, in
the last month but two of the archonship of Pythodorus at Athens, and six
months after the battle of Potidaea, just at the beginning of spring, a Theban
force a little over three hundred strong, under the command of their
Boeotarchs, Pythangelus, son of Phyleides, and Diemporus, son of Onetorides,
about the first watch of the night, made an armed entry into Plataea, a town of
Boeotia in alliance with Athens. The gates were opened to them by a Plataean
called Naucleides, who, with his party, had invited them in, meaning to put to
death the citizens of the opposite party, bring over the city to Thebes, and
thus obtain power for themselves. This was arranged through Eurymachus, son of
Leontiades, a person of great influence at Thebes. For Plataea had always been
at variance with Thebes; and the latter, foreseeing that war was at hand,
wished to surprise her old enemy in time of peace, before hostilities had
actually broken out. Indeed this was how they got in so easily without being
observed, as no guard had been posted. After the soldiers had grounded arms in
the market-place, those who had invited them in wished them to set to work at
once and go to their enemies' houses. This, however, the Thebans refused to do,
but determined to make a conciliatory proclamation, and if possible to come to
a friendly understanding with the citizens. Their herald accordingly invited
any who wished to resume their old place in the confederacy of their countrymen
to ground arms with them, for they thought that in this way the city would
readily join them.
On
becoming aware of the presence of the Thebans within their gates, and of the
sudden occupation of the town, the Plataeans concluded in their alarm that more
had entered than was really the case, the night preventing their seeing them.
They accordingly came to terms and, accepting the proposal, made no movement;
especially as the Thebans offered none of them any violence. But somehow or
other, during the negotiations, they discovered the scanty numbers of the
Thebans, and decided that they could easily attack and overpower them; the mass
of the Plataeans being averse to revolting from Athens. At all events they
resolved to attempt it. Digging through the party walls of the houses, they
thus managed to join each other without being seen going through the streets,
in which they placed wagons without the beasts in them, to serve as a
barricade, and arranged everything else as seemed convenient for the occasion.
When everything had been done that circumstances permitted, they watched their
opportunity and went out of their houses against the enemy. It was still night,
though daybreak was at hand: in daylight it was thought that their attack would
be met by men full of courage and on equal terms with their assailants, while
in darkness it would fall upon panic-stricken troops, who would also be at a
disadvantage from their enemy's knowledge of the locality. So they made their
assault at once, and came to close quarters as quickly as they could.
The
Thebans, finding themselves outwitted, immediately closed up to repel all
attacks made upon them. Twice or thrice they beat back their assailants. But
the men shouted and charged them, the women and slaves screamed and yelled from
the houses and pelted them with stones and tiles; besides, it had been raining
hard all night; and so at last their courage gave way, and they turned and fled
through the town. Most of the fugitives were quite ignorant of the right ways
out, and this, with the mud, and the darkness caused by the moon being in her
last quarter, and the fact that their pursuers knew their way about and could
easily stop their escape, proved fatal to many. The only gate open was the one
by which they had entered, and this was shut by one of the Plataeans driving
the spike of a javelin into the bar instead of the bolt; so that even here
there was no longer any means of exit. They were now chased all over the town.
Some got on the wall and threw themselves over, in most cases with a fatal
result. One party managed to find a deserted gate, and obtaining an axe from a
woman, cut through the bar; but as they were soon observed only a few succeeded
in getting out. Others were cut off in detail in different parts of the city.
The most numerous and compact body rushed into a large building next to the
city wall: the doors on the side of the street happened to be open, and the
Thebans fancied that they were the gates of the town, and that there was a
passage right through to the outside. The Plataeans, seeing their enemies in a
trap, now consulted whether they should set fire to the building and burn them
just as they were, or whether there was anything else that they could do with
them; until at length these and the rest of the Theban survivors found
wandering about the town agreed to an unconditional surrender of themselves and
their arms to the Plataeans.
While
such was the fate of the party in Plataea, the rest of the Thebans who were to
have joined them with all their forces before daybreak, in case of anything
miscarrying with the body that had entered, received the news of the affair on
the road, and pressed forward to their succour. Now Plataea is nearly eight
miles from Thebes, and their march delayed by the rain that had fallen in the
night, for the river Asopus had risen and was not easy of passage; and so,
having to march in the rain, and being hindered in crossing the river, they
arrived too late, and found the whole party either slain or captive. When they
learned what had happened, they at once formed a design against the Plataeans
outside the city. As the attack had been made in time of peace, and was
perfectly unexpected, there were of course men and stock in the fields; and the
Thebans wished if possible to have some prisoners to exchange against their
countrymen in the town, should any chance to have been taken alive. Such was
their plan. But the Plataeans suspected their intention almost before it was
formed, and becoming alarmed for their fellow citizens outside the town, sent a
herald to the Thebans, reproaching them for their unscrupulous attempt to seize
their city in time of peace, and warning them against any outrage on those outside.
Should the warning be disregarded, they threatened to put to death the men they
had in their hands, but added that, on the Thebans retiring from their
territory, they would surrender the prisoners to their friends. This is the
Theban account of the matter, and they say that they had an oath given them.
The Plataeans, on the other hand, do not admit any promise of an immediate
surrender, but make it contingent upon subsequent negotiation: the oath they
deny altogether. Be this as it may, upon the Thebans retiring from their
territory without committing any injury, the Plataeans hastily got in whatever
they had in the country and immediately put the men to death. The prisoners
were a hundred and eighty in number; Eurymachus, the person with whom the traitors
had negotiated, being one.
This
done, the Plataeans sent a messenger to Athens, gave back the dead to the
Thebans under a truce, and arranged things in the city as seemed best to meet
the present emergency. The Athenians meanwhile, having had word of the affair
sent them immediately after its occurrence, had instantly seized all the
Boeotians in Attica, and sent a herald to the Plataeans to forbid their
proceeding to extremities with their Theban prisoners without instructions from
Athens. The news of the men's death had of course not arrived; the first
messenger having left Plataea just when the Thebans entered it, the second just
after their defeat and capture; so there was no later news. Thus the Athenians
sent orders in ignorance of the facts; and the herald on his arrival found the
men slain. After this the Athenians marched to Plataea and brought in
provisions, and left a garrison in the place, also taking away the women and
children and such of the men as were least efficient.
After
the affair at Plataea, the treaty had been broken by an overt act, and Athens
at once prepared for war, as did also Lacedaemon and her allies. They resolved
to send embassies to the King and to such other of the barbarian powers as
either party could look to for assistance, and tried to ally themselves with
the independent states at home. Lacedaemon, in addition to the existing marine,
gave orders to the states that had declared for her in Italy and Sicily to
build vessels up to a grand total of five hundred, the quota of each city being
determined by its size, and also to provide a specified sum of money. Till
these were ready they were to remain neutral and to admit single Athenian ships
into their harbours. Athens on her part reviewed her existing confederacy, and
sent embassies to the places more immediately round Peloponnese- Corcyra,
Cephallenia, Acarnania, and Zacynthus- perceiving that if these could be relied
on she could carry the war all round Peloponnese.
And
if both sides nourished the boldest hopes and put forth their utmost strength
for the war, this was only natural. Zeal is always at its height at the
commencement of an undertaking; and on this particular occasion Peloponnese and
Athens were both full of young men whose inexperience made them eager to take up
arms, while the rest of Hellas stood straining with excitement at the conflict
of its leading cities. Everywhere predictions were being recited and oracles
being chanted by such persons as collect them, and this not only in the
contending cities. Further, some while before this, there was an earthquake at
Delos, for the first time in the memory of the Hellenes. This was said and
thought to be ominous of the events impending; indeed, nothing of the kind that
happened was allowed to pass without remark. The good wishes of men made
greatly for the Lacedaemonians, especially as they proclaimed themselves the
liberators of Hellas. No private or public effort that could help them in
speech or action was omitted; each thinking that the cause suffered wherever he
could not himself see to it. So general was the indignation felt against
Athens, whether by those who wished to escape from her empire, or were
apprehensive of being absorbed by it. Such were the preparations and such the
feelings with which the contest opened.
The
allies of the two belligerents were the following. These were the allies of
Lacedaemon: all the Peloponnesians within the Isthmus except the Argives and
Achaeans, who were neutral; Pellene being the only Achaean city that first
joined in the war, though her example was afterwards followed by the rest.
Outside Peloponnese the Megarians, Locrians, Boeotians, Phocians, Ambraciots,
Leucadians, and Anactorians. Of these, ships were furnished by the Corinthians,
Megarians, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians; and
cavalry by the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians. The other states sent
infantry. This was the Lacedaemonian confederacy. That of Athens comprised the
Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, the Messenians in Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians,
the Corcyraeans, Zacynthians, and some tributary cities in the following
countries, viz., Caria upon the sea with her Dorian neighbours, Ionia, the
Hellespont, the Thracian towns, the islands lying between Peloponnese and Crete
towards the east, and all the Cyclades except Melos and Thera. Of these, ships
were furnished by Chios, Lesbos, and Corcyra, infantry and money by the rest.
Such were the allies of either party and their resources for the war.
Immediately
after the affair at Plataea, Lacedaemon sent round orders to the cities in
Peloponnese and the rest of her confederacy to prepare troops and the
provisions requisite for a foreign campaign, in order to invade Attica. The
several states were ready at the time appointed and assembled at the Isthmus:
the contingent of each city being two-thirds of its whole force. After the
whole army had mustered, the Lacedaemonian king, Archidamus, the leader of the
expedition, called together the generals of all the states and the principal
persons and officers, and exhorted them as follows:
"Peloponnesians
and allies, our fathers made many campaigns both within and without
Peloponnese, and the elder men among us here are not without experience in war.
Yet we have never set out with a larger force than the present; and if our
numbers and efficiency are remarkable, so also is the power of the state
against which we march. We ought not then to show ourselves inferior to our
ancestors, or unequal to our own reputation. For the hopes and attention of all
Hellas are bent upon the present effort, and its sympathy is with the enemy of
the hated Athens. Therefore, numerous as the invading army may appear to be,
and certain as some may think it that our adversary will not meet us in the
field, this is no sort of justification for the least negligence upon the
march; but the officers and men of each particular city should always be
prepared for the advent of danger in their own quarters. The course of war
cannot be foreseen, and its attacks are generally dictated by the impulse of
the moment; and where overweening self-confidence has despised preparation, a
wise apprehension often been able to make head against superior numbers. Not
that confidence is out of place in an army of invasion, but in an enemy's
country it should also be accompanied by the precautions of apprehension:
troops will by this combination be best inspired for dealing a blow, and best
secured against receiving one. In the present instance, the city against which
we are going, far from being so impotent for defence, is on the contrary most
excellently equipped at all points; so that we have every reason to expect that
they will take the field against us, and that if they have not set out already
before we are there, they will certainly do so when they see us in their
territory wasting and destroying their property. For men are always exasperated
at suffering injuries to which they are not accustomed, and on seeing them
inflicted before their very eyes; and where least inclined for reflection, rush
with the greatest heat to action. The Athenians are the very people of all
others to do this, as they aspire to rule the rest of the world, and are more
in the habit of invading and ravaging their neighbours' territory, than of
seeing their own treated in the like fashion. Considering, therefore, the power
of the state against which we are marching, and the greatness of the reputation
which, according to the event, we shall win or lose for our ancestors and
ourselves, remember as you follow where you may be led to regard discipline and
vigilance as of the first importance, and to obey with alacrity the orders
transmitted to you; as nothing contributes so much to the credit and safety of
an army as the union of large bodies by a single discipline."
With
this brief speech dismissing the assembly, Archidamus first sent off
Melesippus, son of Diacritus, a Spartan, to Athens, in case she should be more
inclined to submit on seeing the Peloponnesians actually on the march. But the
Athenians did not admit into the city or to their assembly, Pericles having
already carried a motion against admitting either herald or embassy from the
Lacedaemonians after they had once marched out.
The
herald was accordingly sent away without an audience, and ordered to be beyond
the frontier that same day; in future, if those who sent him had a proposition
to make, they must retire to their own territory before they dispatched
embassies to Athens. An escort was sent with Melesippus to prevent his holding
communication with any one. When he reached the frontier and was just going to
be dismissed, he departed with these words: "This day will be the
beginning of great misfortunes to the Hellenes." As soon as he arrived at
the camp, and Archidamus learnt that the Athenians had still no thoughts of
submitting, he at length began his march, and advanced with his army into their
territory. Meanwhile the Boeotians, sending their contingent and cavalry to
join the Peloponnesian expedition, went to Plataea with the remainder and laid
waste the country.
While
the Peloponnesians were still mustering at the Isthmus, or on the march before
they invaded Attica, Pericles, son of Xanthippus, one of the ten generals of
the Athenians, finding that the invasion was to take place, conceived the idea
that Archidamus, who happened to be his friend, might possibly pass by his
estate without ravaging it. This he might do, either from a personal wish to
oblige him, or acting under instructions from Lacedaemon for the purpose of
creating a prejudice against him, as had been before attempted in the demand
for the expulsion of the accursed family. He accordingly took the precaution of
announcing to the Athenians in the assembly that, although Archidamus was his
friend, yet this friendship should not extend to the detriment of the state,
and that in case the enemy should make his houses and lands an exception to the
rest and not pillage them, he at once gave them up to be public property, so
that they should not bring him into suspicion. He also gave the citizens some
advice on their present affairs in the same strain as before. They were to
prepare for the war, and to carry in their property from the country. They were
not to go out to battle, but to come into the city and guard it, and get ready
their fleet, in which their real strength lay. They were also to keep a tight
rein on their allies- the strength of Athens being derived from the money
brought in by their payments, and success in war depending principally upon
conduct and capital. had no reason to despond. Apart from other sources of
income, an average revenue of six hundred talents of silver was drawn from the
tribute of the allies; and there were still six thousand talents of coined
silver in the Acropolis, out of nine thousand seven hundred that had once been
there, from which the money had been taken for the porch of the Acropolis, the
other public buildings, and for Potidaea. This did not include the uncoined
gold and silver in public and private offerings, the sacred vessels for the
processions and games, the Median spoils, and similar resources to the amount
of five hundred talents. To this he added the treasures of the other temples.
These were by no means inconsiderable, and might fairly be used. Nay, if they
were ever absolutely driven to it, they might take even the gold ornaments of
Athene herself; for the statue contained forty talents of pure gold and it was
all removable. This might be used for self-preservation, and must every penny
of it be restored. Such was their financial position- surely a satisfactory
one. Then they had an army of thirteen thousand heavy infantry, besides sixteen
thousand more in the garrisons and on home duty at Athens. This was at first
the number of men on guard in the event of an invasion: it was composed of the
oldest and youngest levies and the resident aliens who had heavy armour. The
Phaleric wall ran for four miles, before it joined that round the city; and of
this last nearly five had a guard, although part of it was left without one,
viz., that between the Long Wall and the Phaleric. Then there were the Long
Walls to Piraeus, a distance of some four miles and a half, the outer of which
was manned. Lastly, the circumference of Piraeus with Munychia was nearly seven
miles and a half; only half of this, however, was guarded. Pericles also showed
them that they had twelve hundred horse including mounted archers, with sixteen
hundred archers unmounted, and three hundred galleys fit for service. Such were
the resources of Athens in the different departments when the Peloponnesian invasion
was impending and hostilities were being commenced. Pericles also urged his
usual arguments for expecting a favourable issue to the war.
The
Athenians listened to his advice, and began to carry in their wives and
children from the country, and all their household furniture, even to the
woodwork of their houses which they took down. Their sheep and cattle they sent
over to Euboea and the adjacent islands. But they found it hard to move, as
most of them had been always used to live in the country.
From
very early times this had been more the case with the Athenians than with
others. Under Cecrops and the first kings, down to the reign of Theseus, Attica
had always consisted of a number of independent townships, each with its own
town hall and magistrates. Except in times of danger the king at Athens was not
consulted; in ordinary seasons they carried on their government and settled
their affairs without his interference; sometimes even they waged war against
him, as in the case of the Eleusinians with Eumolpus against Erechtheus. In
Theseus, however, they had a king of equal intelligence and power; and one of
the chief features in his organization of the country was to abolish the
council-chambers and magistrates of the petty cities, and to merge them in the
single council-chamber and town hall of the present capital. Individuals might
still enjoy their private property just as before, but they were henceforth
compelled to have only one political centre, viz., Athens; which thus counted
all the inhabitants of Attica among her citizens, so that when Theseus died he
left a great state behind him. Indeed, from him dates the Synoecia, or Feast of
Union; which is paid for by the state, and which the Athenians still keep in
honour of the goddess. Before this the city consisted of the present citadel
and the district beneath it looking rather towards the south. This is shown by
the fact that the temples of the other deities, besides that of Athene, are in
the citadel; and even those that are outside it are mostly situated in this
quarter of the city, as that of the Olympian Zeus, of the Pythian Apollo, of
Earth, and of Dionysus in the Marshes, the same in whose honour the older
Dionysia are to this day celebrated in the month of Anthesterion not only by
the Athenians but also by their Ionian descendants. There are also other
ancient temples in this quarter. The fountain too, which, since the alteration
made by the tyrants, has been called Enneacrounos, or Nine Pipes, but which,
when the spring was open, went by the name of Callirhoe, or Fairwater, was in
those days, from being so near, used for the most important offices. Indeed,
the old fashion of using the water before marriage and for other sacred
purposes is still kept up. Again, from their old residence in that quarter, the
citadel is still known among Athenians as the city.
The
Athenians thus long lived scattered over Attica in independent townships. Even
after the centralization of Theseus, old habit still prevailed; and from the
early times down to the present war most Athenians still lived in the country
with their families and households, and were consequently not at all inclined
to move now, especially as they had only just restored their establishments
after the Median invasion. Deep was their trouble and discontent at abandoning
their houses and the hereditary temples of the ancient constitution, and at
having to change their habits of life and to bid farewell to what each regarded
as his native city.
When
they arrived at Athens, though a few had houses of their own to go to, or could
find an asylum with friends or relatives, by far the greater number had to take
up their dwelling in the parts of the city that were not built over and in the
temples and chapels of the heroes, except the Acropolis and the temple of the
Eleusinian Demeter and such other Places as were always kept closed. The
occupation of the plot of ground lying below the citadel called the Pelasgian
had been forbidden by a curse; and there was also an ominous fragment of a
Pythian oracle which said:
Leave the Pelasgian parcel desolate,
Woe worth the day that men inhabit it!
Yet
this too was now built over in the necessity of the moment. And in my opinion,
if the oracle proved true, it was in the opposite sense to what was expected. For
the misfortunes of the state did not arise from the unlawful occupation, but
the necessity of the occupation from the war; and though the god did not
mention this, he foresaw that it would be an evil day for Athens in which the
plot came to be inhabited. Many also took up their quarters in the towers of
the walls or wherever else they could. For when they were all come in, the city
proved too small to hold them; though afterwards they divided the Long Walls
and a great part of Piraeus into lots and settled there. All this while great
attention was being given to the war; the allies were being mustered, and an
armament of a hundred ships equipped for Peloponnese. Such was the state of
preparation at Athens.
Meanwhile
the army of the Peloponnesians was advancing. The first town they came to in
Attica was Oenoe, where they to enter the country. Sitting down before it, they
prepared to assault the wall with engines and otherwise. Oenoe, standing upon
the Athenian and Boeotian border, was of course a walled town, and was used as
a fortress by the Athenians in time of war. So the Peloponnesians prepared for
their assault, and wasted some valuable time before the place. This delay
brought the gravest censure upon Archidamus. Even during the levying of the war
he had credit for weakness and Athenian sympathies by the half measures he had
advocated; and after the army had assembled he had further injured himself in
public estimation by his loitering at the Isthmus and the slowness with which
the rest of the march had been conducted. But all this was as nothing to the
delay at Oenoe. During this interval the Athenians were carrying in their
property; and it was the belief of the Peloponnesians that a quick advance
would have found everything still out, had it not been for his procrastination.
Such was the feeling of the army towards Archidamus during the siege. But he,
it is said, expected that the Athenians would shrink from letting their land be
wasted, and would make their submission while it was still uninjured; and this
was why he waited.
But
after he had assaulted Oenoe, and every possible attempt to take it had failed,
as no herald came from Athens, he at last broke up his camp and invaded Attica.
This was about eighty days after the Theban attempt upon Plataea, just in the
middle of summer, when the corn was ripe, and Archidamus, son of Zeuxis, king
of Lacedaemon, was in command. Encamping in Eleusis and the Thriasian plain,
they began their ravages, and putting to flight some Athenian horse at a place
called Rheiti, or the Brooks, they then advanced, keeping Mount Aegaleus on
their right, through Cropia, until they reached Acharnae, the largest of the
Athenian demes or townships. Sitting down before it, they formed a camp there,
and continued their ravages for a long while.
The
reason why Archidamus remained in order of battle at Acharnae during this
incursion, instead of descending into the plain, is said to have been this. He
hoped that the Athenians might possibly be tempted by the multitude of their
youth and the unprecedented efficiency of their service to come out to battle
and attempt to stop the devastation of their lands. Accordingly, as they had
met him at Eleusis or the Thriasian plain, he tried if they could be provoked
to a sally by the spectacle of a camp at Acharnae. He thought the place itself
a good position for encamping; and it seemed likely that such an important part
of the state as the three thousand heavy infantry of the Acharnians would
refuse to submit to the ruin of their property, and would force a battle on the
rest of the citizens. On the other hand, should the Athenians not take the
field during this incursion, he could then fearlessly ravage the plain in
future invasions, and extend his advance up to the very walls of Athens. After
the Acharnians had lost their own property they would be less willing to risk
themselves for that of their neighbours; and so there would be division in the
Athenian counsels. These were the motives of Archidamus for remaining at
Acharnae.
In
the meanwhile, as long as the army was at Eleusis and the Thriasian plain,
hopes were still entertained of its not advancing any nearer. It was remembered
that Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, had invaded Attica with
a Peloponnesian army fourteen years before, but had retreated without advancing
farther than Eleusis and Thria, which indeed proved the cause of his exile from
Sparta, as it was thought he had been bribed to retreat. But when they saw the
army at Acharnae, barely seven miles from Athens, they lost all patience. The
territory of Athens was being ravaged before the very eyes of the Athenians, a
sight which the young men had never seen before and the old only in the Median
wars; and it was naturally thought a grievous insult, and the determination was
universal, especially among the young men, to sally forth and stop it. Knots
were formed in the streets and engaged in hot discussion; for if the proposed
sally was warmly recommended, it was also in some cases opposed. Oracles of the
most various import were recited by the collectors, and found eager listeners
in one or other of the disputants. Foremost in pressing for the sally were the
Acharnians, as constituting no small part of the army of the state, and as it
was their land that was being ravaged. In short, the whole city was in a most
excited state; Pericles was the object of general indignation; his previous
counsels were totally forgotten; he was abused for not leading out the army
which he commanded, and was made responsible for the whole of the public
suffering.
He,
meanwhile, seeing anger and infatuation just now in the ascendant, and of his
wisdom in refusing a sally, would not call either assembly or meeting of the
people, fearing the fatal results of a debate inspired by passion and not by
prudence. Accordingly he addressed himself to the defence of the city, and kept
it as quiet as possible, though he constantly sent out cavalry to prevent raids
on the lands near the city from flying parties of the enemy. There was a
trifling affair at Phrygia between a squadron of the Athenian horse with the
Thessalians and the Boeotian cavalry; in which the former had rather the best
of it, until the heavy infantry advanced to the support of the Boeotians, when
the Thessalians and Athenians were routed and lost a few men, whose bodies,
however, were recovered the same day without a truce. The next day the
Peloponnesians set up a trophy. Ancient alliance brought the Thessalians to the
aid of Athens; those who came being the Larisaeans, Pharsalians, Cranonians,
Pyrasians, Gyrtonians, and Pheraeans. The Larisaean commanders were Polymedes
and Aristonus, two party leaders in Larisa; the Pharsalian general was Menon;
each of the other cities had also its own commander.
In
the meantime the Peloponnesians, as the Athenians did not come out to engage
them, broke up from Acharnae and ravaged some of the demes between Mount Parnes
and Brilessus. While they were in Attica the Athenians sent off the hundred
ships which they had been preparing round Peloponnese, with a thousand heavy
infantry and four hundred archers on board, under the command of Carcinus, son
of Xenotimus, Proteas, son of Epicles, and Socrates, son of Antigenes. This
armament weighed anchor and started on its cruise, and the Peloponnesians,
after remaining in Attica as long as their provisions lasted, retired through
Boeotia by a different road to that by which they had entered. As they passed
Oropus they ravaged the territory of Graea, which is held by the Oropians from
Athens, and reaching Peloponnese broke up to their respective cities.
After
they had retired the Athenians set guards by land and sea at the points at
which they intended to have regular stations during the war. They also resolved
to set apart a special fund of a thousand talents from the moneys in the
Acropolis. This was not to be spent, but the current expenses of the war were
to be otherwise provided for. If any one should move or put to the vote a
proposition for using the money for any purpose whatever except that of
defending the city in the event of the enemy bringing a fleet to make an attack
by sea, it should be a capital offence. With this sum of money they also set
aside a special fleet of one hundred galleys, the best ships of each year, with
their captains. None of these were to be used except with the money and against
the same peril, should such peril arise.
Meanwhile
the Athenians in the hundred ships round Peloponnese, reinforced by a
Corcyraean squadron of fifty vessels and some others of the allies in those
parts, cruised about the coasts and ravaged the country. Among other places
they landed in Laconia and made an assault upon Methone; there being no
garrison in the place, and the wall being weak. But it so happened that
Brasidas, son of Tellis, a Spartan, was in command of a guard for the defence
of the district. Hearing of the attack, he hurried with a hundred heavy
infantry to the assistance of the besieged, and dashing through the army of the
Athenians, which was scattered over the country and had its attention turned to
the wall, threw himself into Methone. He lost a few men in making good his
entrance, but saved the place and won the thanks of Sparta by his exploit,
being thus the first officer who obtained this notice during the war. The
Athenians at once weighed anchor and continued their cruise. Touching at Pheia
in Elis, they ravaged the country for two days and defeated a picked force of
three hundred men that had come from the vale of Elis and the immediate
neighbourhood to the rescue. But a stiff squall came down upon them, and, not
liking to face it in a place where there was no harbour, most of them got on
board their ships, and doubling Point Ichthys sailed into the port of Pheia. In
the meantime the Messenians, and some others who could not get on board, marched
over by land and took Pheia. The fleet afterwards sailed round and picked them
up and then put to sea; Pheia being evacuated, as the main army of the Eleans
had now come up. The Athenians continued their cruise, and ravaged other places
on the coast.
About
the same time the Athenians sent thirty ships to cruise round Locris and also
to guard Euboea; Cleopompus, son of Clinias, being in command. Making descents
from the fleet he ravaged certain places on the sea-coast, and captured
Thronium and took hostages from it. He also defeated at Alope the Locrians that
had assembled to resist him.
During
the summer the Athenians also expelled the Aeginetans with their wives and
children from Aegina, on the ground of their having been the chief agents in
bringing the war upon them. Besides, Aegina lies so near Peloponnese that it
seemed safer to send colonists of their own to hold it, and shortly afterwards
the settlers were sent out. The banished Aeginetans found an asylum in Thyrea,
which was given to them by Lacedaemon, not only on account of her quarrel with
Athens, but also because the Aeginetans had laid her under obligations at the
time of the earthquake and the revolt of the Helots. The territory of Thyrea is
on the frontier of Argolis and Laconia, reaching down to the sea. Those of the
Aeginetans who did not settle here were scattered over the rest of Hellas.
The
same summer, at the beginning of a new lunar month, the only time by the way at
which it appears possible, the sun was eclipsed after noon. After it had
assumed the form of a crescent and some of the stars had come out, it returned
to its natural shape.
During
the same summer Nymphodorus, son of Pythes, an Abderite, whose sister Sitalces
had married, was made their proxenus by the Athenians and sent for to Athens.
They had hitherto considered him their enemy; but he had great influence with
Sitalces, and they wished this prince to become their ally. Sitalces was the
son of Teres and King of the Thracians. Teres, the father of Sitalces, was the
first to establish the great kingdom of the Odrysians on a scale quite unknown
to the rest of Thrace, a large portion of the Thracians being independent. This
Teres is in no way related to Tereus who married Pandion's daughter Procne from
Athens; nor indeed did they belong to the same part of Thrace. Tereus lived in
Daulis, part of what is now called Phocis, but which at that time was inhabited
by Thracians. It was in this land that the women perpetrated the outrage upon
Itys; and many of the poets when they mention the nightingale call it the
Daulian bird. Besides, Pandion in contracting an alliance for his daughter
would consider the advantages of mutual assistance, and would naturally prefer
a match at the above moderate distance to the journey of many days which
separates Athens from the Odrysians. Again the names are different; and this
Teres was king of the Odrysians, the first by the way who attained to any
power. Sitalces, his son, was now sought as an ally by the Athenians, who
desired his aid in the reduction of the Thracian towns and of Perdiccas. Coming
to Athens, Nymphodorus concluded the alliance with Sitalces and made his son
Sadocus an Athenian citizen, and promised to finish the war in Thrace by
persuading Sitalces to send the Athenians a force of Thracian horse and
targeteers. He also reconciled them with Perdiccas, and induced them to restore
Therme to him; upon which Perdiccas at once joined the Athenians and Phormio in
an expedition against the Chalcidians. Thus Sitalces, son of Teres, King of the
Thracians, and Perdiccas, son of Alexander, King of the Macedonians, became
allies of Athens.
Meanwhile
the Athenians in the hundred vessels were still cruising round Peloponnese.
After taking Sollium, a town belonging to Corinth, and presenting the city and
territory to the Acarnanians of Palaira, they stormed Astacus, expelled its
tyrant Evarchus, and gained the place for their confederacy. Next they sailed
to the island of Cephallenia and brought it over without using force.
Cephallenia lies off Acarnania and Leucas, and consists of four states, the
Paleans, Cranians, Samaeans, and Pronaeans. Not long afterwards the fleet
returned to Athens. Towards the autumn of this year the Athenians invaded the
Megarid with their whole levy, resident aliens included, under the command of
Pericles, son of Xanthippus. The Athenians in the hundred ships round
Peloponnese on their journey home had just reached Aegina, and hearing that the
citizens at home were in full force at Megara, now sailed over and joined them.
This was without doubt the largest army of Athenians ever assembled, the state
being still in the flower of her strength and yet unvisited by the plague. Full
ten thousand heavy infantry were in the field, all Athenian citizens, besides
the three thousand before Potidaea. Then the resident aliens who joined in the
incursion were at least three thousand strong; besides which there was a
multitude of light troops. They ravaged the greater part of the territory, and
then retired. Other incursions into the Megarid were afterwards made by the
Athenians annually during the war, sometimes only with cavalry, sometimes with
all their forces. This went on until the capture of Nisaea. Atalanta also, the
desert island off the Opuntian coast, was towards the end of this summer
converted into a fortified post by the Athenians, in order to prevent
privateers issuing from Opus and the rest of Locris and plundering Euboea. Such
were the events of this summer after the return of the Peloponnesians from
Attica.
In
the ensuing winter the Acarnanian Evarchus, wishing to return to Astacus,
persuaded the Corinthians to sail over with forty ships and fifteen hundred
heavy infantry and restore him; himself also hiring some mercenaries. In
command of the force were Euphamidas, son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus, son of
Timocrates, and Eumachus, son of Chrysis, who sailed over and restored him and,
after failing in an attempt on some places on the Acarnanian coast which they
were desirous of gaining, began their voyage home. Coasting along shore they
touched at Cephallenia and made a descent on the Cranian territory, and losing
some men by the treachery of the Cranians, who fell suddenly upon them after
having agreed to treat, put to sea somewhat hurriedly and returned home.
In
the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost to those who
had first fallen in this war. It was a custom of their ancestors, and the
manner of it is as follows. Three days before the ceremony, the bones of the
dead are laid out in a tent which has been erected; and their friends bring to
their relatives such offerings as they please. In the funeral procession
cypress coffins are borne in cars, one for each tribe; the bones of the
deceased being placed in the coffin of their tribe. Among these is carried one empty
bier decked for the missing, that is, for those whose bodies could not be
recovered. Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins in the procession: and
the female relatives are there to wail at the burial. The dead are laid in the
public sepulchre in the Beautiful suburb of the city, in which those who fall
in war are always buried; with the exception of those slain at Marathon, who
for their singular and extraordinary valour were interred on the spot where
they fell. After the bodies have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by the
state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation, pronounces over them an
appropriate panegyric; after which all retire. Such is the manner of the
burying; and throughout the whole of the war, whenever the occasion arose, the
established custom was observed. Meanwhile these were the first that had
fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their
eulogium. When the proper time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an
elevated platform in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and
spoke as follows:
"Most
of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made this speech part
of the law, telling us that it is well that it should be delivered at the
burial of those who fall in battle. For myself, I should have thought that the
worth which had displayed itself in deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by
honours also shown by deeds; such as you now see in this funeral prepared at
the people's cost. And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave
men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or
fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a
subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking
the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the
story may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which
he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the
matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above
his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they
can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions
recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.
However, since our ancestors have stamped this custom with their approval, it
becomes my duty to obey the law and to try to satisfy your several wishes and
opinions as best I may.
"I
shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should
have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like the present. They
dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to
generation, and handed it down free to the present time by their valour. And if
our more remote ancestors deserve praise, much more do our own fathers, who
added to their inheritance the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains
to be able to leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation. Lastly,
there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by those of
us here, who are still more or less in the vigour of life; while the mother
country has been furnished by us with everything that can enable her to depend
on her own resources whether for war or for peace. That part of our history
which tells of the military achievements which gave us our several possessions,
or of the ready valour with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of
Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my hearers for me to
dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by. But what was the road by which we
reached our position, what the form of government under which our greatness
grew, what the national habits out of which it sprang; these are questions
which I may try to solve before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since
I think this to be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may
properly dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or
foreigners, may listen with advantage.
"Our
constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a
pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many
instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the
laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no
social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity,
class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does
poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by
the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government
extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous
surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our
neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks
which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.
But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens.
Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates
and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured,
whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which,
although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.
"Further,
we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We
celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our
private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the
spleen; while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our
harbour, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar
a luxury as those of his own.
"If
we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We
throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners
from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy
may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy
than to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals
from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens
we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every
legitimate danger. In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedaemonians
do not invade our country alone, but bring with them all their confederates;
while we Athenians advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbour, and
fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending
their homes. Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy, because
we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our citizens by land
upon a hundred different services; so that, wherever they engage with some such
fraction of our strength, a success against a detachment is magnified into a
victory over the nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of
our entire people. And yet if with habits not of labour but of ease, and
courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter danger, we
have the double advantage of escaping the experience of hardships in
anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly as those who
are never free from them.
"Nor
are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration. We
cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy;
wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of
poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our
public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our
ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still
fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who
takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians
are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking
on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an
indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. Again, in our enterprises
we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to
its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually
decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of
courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the
difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink
from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by
conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the favour
is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness to keep the
recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly from the very
consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment, not a free gift. And
it is only the Athenians, who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits
not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.
"In
short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I doubt if the
world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal
to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian.
And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but plain matter of
fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone
of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation,
and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by
whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit
to rule. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be
ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty
proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft
whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave
to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the
highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left
imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the Athens for which these men, in
the assertion of their resolve not to lose her, nobly fought and died; and well
may every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.
"Indeed
if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our country, it has been
to show that our stake in the struggle is not the same as theirs who have no
such blessings to lose, and also that the panegyric of the men over whom I am
now speaking might be by definite proofs established. That panegyric is now in
a great measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what
the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame, unlike that
of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate with their deserts. And
if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be found in their closing scene, and
this not only in cases in which it set the final seal upon their merit, but
also in those in which it gave the first intimation of their having any. For
there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles
should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good
action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed
his demerits as an individual. But none of these allowed either wealth with its
prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of
a day of freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that
vengeance upon their enemies was more to be desired than any personal
blessings, and reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully
determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to let
their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of final
success, in the business before them they thought fit to act boldly and trust
in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting,
they fled only from dishonour, but met danger face to face, and after one brief
moment, while at the summit of their fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but
from their glory.
"So
died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must determine to
have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may
have a happier issue. And not contented with ideas derived only from words of
the advantages which are bound up with the defence of your country, though
these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive
to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and
feed your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts;
and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it
was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honour in action that men
were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise
could make them consent to deprive their country of their valour, but they laid
it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer. For
this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them
individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre,
not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of
shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every
occasion on which deed or story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes
have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the
column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a
record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These
take as your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and
freedom of valour, never decline the dangers of war. For it is not the
miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these have
nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring
reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous
in its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of
cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which
strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!
"Comfort,
therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to the parents of the dead
who may be here. Numberless are the chances to which, as they know, the life of
man is subject; but fortunate indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so
glorious as that which has caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so
exactly measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed.
Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are in question
of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the homes of others blessings
of which once you also boasted: for grief is felt not so much for the want of
what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we have been long
accustomed. Yet you who are still of an age to beget children must bear up in
the hope of having others in their stead; not only will they help you to forget
those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a reinforcement and
a security; for never can a fair or just policy be expected of the citizen who
does not, like his fellows, bring to the decision the interests and
apprehensions of a father. While those of you who have passed your prime must
congratulate yourselves with the thought that the best part of your life was
fortunate, and that the brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of
the departed. For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and
honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age
and helplessness.
"Turning
to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous struggle before you. When
a man is gone, all are wont to praise him, and should your merit be ever so
transcendent, you will still find it difficult not merely to overtake, but even
to approach their renown. The living have envy to contend with, while those who
are no longer in our path are honoured with a goodwill into which rivalry does
not enter. On the other hand, if I must say anything on the subject of female
excellence to those of you who will now be in widowhood, it will be all
comprised in this brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not falling
short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked
of among the men, whether for good or for bad.
"My
task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my ability, and in
word, at least, the requirements of the law are now satisfied. If deeds be in
question, those who are here interred have received part of their honours
already, and for the rest, their children will be brought up till manhood at
the public expense: the state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of
victory in this race of valour, for the reward both of those who have fallen
and their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are
found the best citizens.
"And
now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your relatives, you
may depart."
SUCH
was the funeral that took place during this winter, with which the first year
of the war came to an end. In the first days of summer the Lacedaemonians and
their allies, with two-thirds of their forces as before, invaded Attica, under
the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, King of Lacedaemon, and sat down
and laid waste the country. Not many days after their arrival in Attica the
plague first began to show itself among the Athenians. It was said that it had
broken out in many places previously in the neighbourhood of Lemnos and
elsewhere; but a pestilence of such extent and mortality was nowhere
remembered. Neither were the physicians at first of any service, ignorant as
they were of the proper way to treat it, but they died themselves the most
thickly, as they visited the sick most often; nor did any human art succeed any
better. Supplications in the temples, divinations, and so forth were found
equally futile, till the overwhelming nature of the disaster at last put a stop
to them altogether.
It
first began, it is said, in the parts of Ethiopia above Egypt, and thence
descended into Egypt and Libya and into most of the King's country. Suddenly
falling upon Athens, it first attacked the population in Piraeus- which was the
occasion of their saying that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the reservoirs,
there being as yet no wells there- and afterwards appeared in the upper city,
when the deaths became much more frequent. All speculation as to its origin and
its causes, if causes can be found adequate to produce so great a disturbance,
I leave to other writers, whether lay or professional; for myself, I shall
simply set down its nature, and explain the symptoms by which perhaps it may be
recognized by the student, if it should ever break out again. This I can the better
do, as I had the disease myself, and watched its operation in the case of
others.
That
year then is admitted to have been otherwise unprecedentedly free from
sickness; and such few cases as occurred all determined in this. As a rule,
however, there was no ostensible cause; but people in good health were all of a
sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in
the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and
emitting an unnatural and fetid breath. These symptoms were followed by
sneezing and hoarseness, after which the pain soon reached the chest, and
produced a hard cough. When it fixed in the stomach, it upset it; and
discharges of bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, accompanied by very
great distress. In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed, producing
violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in others much later.
Externally the body was not very hot to the touch, nor pale in its appearance,
but reddish, livid, and breaking out into small pustules and ulcers. But
internally it burned so that the patient could not bear to have on him clothing
or linen even of the very lightest description; or indeed to be otherwise than
stark naked. What they would have liked best would have been to throw
themselves into cold water; as indeed was done by some of the neglected sick,
who plunged into the rain-tanks in their agonies of unquenchable thirst; though
it made no difference whether they drank little or much. Besides this, the
miserable feeling of not being able to rest or sleep never ceased to torment
them. The body meanwhile did not waste away so long as the distemper was at its
height, but held out to a marvel against its ravages; so that when they
succumbed, as in most cases, on the seventh or eighth day to the internal
inflammation, they had still some strength in them. But if they passed this
stage, and the disease descended further into the bowels, inducing a violent
ulceration there accompanied by severe diarrhoea, this brought on a weakness
which was generally fatal. For the disorder first settled in the head, ran its
course from thence through the whole of the body, and, even where it did not
prove mortal, it still left its mark on the extremities; for it settled in the
privy parts, the fingers and the toes, and many escaped with the loss of these,
some too with that of their eyes. Others again were seized with an entire loss
of memory on their first recovery, and did not know either themselves or their
friends.
But
while the nature of the distemper was such as to baffle all description, and
its attacks almost too grievous for human nature to endure, it was still in the
following circumstance that its difference from all ordinary disorders was most
clearly shown. All the birds and beasts that prey upon human bodies, either
abstained from touching them (though there were many lying unburied), or died
after tasting them. In proof of this, it was noticed that birds of this kind
actually disappeared; they were not about the bodies, or indeed to be seen at
all. But of course the effects which I have mentioned could best be studied in
a domestic animal like the dog.
Such
then, if we pass over the varieties of particular cases which were many and
peculiar, were the general features of the distemper. Meanwhile the town
enjoyed an immunity from all the ordinary disorders; or if any case occurred,
it ended in this. Some died in neglect, others in the midst of every attention.
No remedy was found that could be used as a specific; for what did good in one
case, did harm in another. Strong and weak constitutions proved equally
incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted with the
utmost precaution. By far the most terrible feature in the malady was the dejection
which ensued when any one felt himself sickening, for the despair into which
they instantly fell took away their power of resistance, and left them a much
easier prey to the disorder; besides which, there was the awful spectacle of
men dying like sheep, through having caught the infection in nursing each
other. This caused the greatest mortality. On the one hand, if they were afraid
to visit each other, they perished from neglect; indeed many houses were
emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse: on the other, if they ventured to
do so, death was the consequence. This was especially the case with such as
made any pretensions to goodness: honour made them unsparing of themselves in
their attendance in their friends' houses, where even the members of the family
were at last worn out by the moans of the dying, and succumbed to the force of
the disaster. Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the
sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from
experience, and had now no fear for themselves; for the same man was never
attacked twice- never at least fatally. And such persons not only received the
congratulations of others, but themselves also, in the elation of the moment,
half entertained the vain hope that they were for the future safe from any
disease whatsoever.
An
aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the
city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals. As there were no houses
to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in
stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint. The bodies of
dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the
streets and gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water. The sacred
places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of corpses of
persons that had died there, just as they were; for as the disaster passed all
bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became utterly careless of
everything, whether sacred or profane. All the burial rites before in use were
entirely upset, and they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want
of the proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died already,
had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start of
those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon the stranger's
pyre and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse which they were carrying
on the top of another that was burning, and so went off.
Nor
was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its origin to the
plague. Men now coolly ventured on what they had formerly done in a corner, and
not just as they pleased, seeing the rapid transitions produced by persons in
prosperity suddenly dying and those who before had nothing succeeding to their
property. So they resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding
their lives and riches as alike things of a day. Perseverance in what men
called honour was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they would be
spared to attain the object; but it was settled that present enjoyment, and all
that contributed to it, was both honourable and useful. Fear of gods or law of
man there was none to restrain them. As for the first, they judged it to be
just the same whether they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike
perishing; and for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for
his offences, but each felt that a far severer sentence had been already passed
upon them all and hung ever over their heads, and before this fell it was only
reasonable to enjoy life a little.
Such
was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the Athenians;
death raging within the city and devastation without. Among other things which
they remembered in their distress was, very naturally, the following verse
which the old men said had long ago been uttered:
A Dorian war shall come and with it death.
So
a dispute arose as to whether dearth and not death had not been the word in the
verse; but at the present juncture, it was of course decided in favour of the
latter; for the people made their recollection fit in with their sufferings. I
fancy, however, that if another Dorian war should ever afterwards come upon us,
and a dearth should happen to accompany it, the verse will probably be read
accordingly. The oracle also which had been given to the Lacedaemonians was now
remembered by those who knew of it. When the god was asked whether they should
go to war, he answered that if they put their might into it, victory would be
theirs, and that he would himself be with them. With this oracle events were
supposed to tally. For the plague broke out as soon as the Peloponnesians
invaded Attica, and never entering Peloponnese (not at least to an extent worth
noticing), committed its worst ravages at Athens, and next to Athens, at the
most populous of the other towns. Such was the history of the plague.
After
ravaging the plain, the Peloponnesians advanced into the Paralian region as far
as Laurium, where the Athenian silver mines are, and first laid waste the side
looking towards Peloponnese, next that which faces Euboea and Andros. But
Pericles, who was still general, held the same opinion as in the former
invasion, and would not let the Athenians march out against them.
However,
while they were still in the plain, and had not yet entered the Paralian land,
he had prepared an armament of a hundred ships for Peloponnese, and when all
was ready put out to sea. On board the ships he took four thousand Athenian
heavy infantry, and three hundred cavalry in horse transports, and then for the
first time made out of old galleys; fifty Chian and Lesbian vessels also
joining in the expedition. When this Athenian armament put out to sea, they
left the Peloponnesians in Attica in the Paralian region. Arriving at Epidaurus
in Peloponnese they ravaged most of the territory, and even had hopes of taking
the town by an assault: in this however they were not successful. Putting out
from Epidaurus, they laid waste the territory of Troezen, Halieis, and
Hermione, all towns on the coast of Peloponnese, and thence sailing to Prasiai,
a maritime town in Laconia, ravaged part of its territory, and took and sacked
the place itself; after which they returned home, but found the Peloponnesians
gone and no longer in Attica.
During
the whole time that the Peloponnesians were in Attica and the Athenians on the
expedition in their ships, men kept dying of the plague both in the armament
and in Athens. Indeed it was actually asserted that the departure of the
Peloponnesians was hastened by fear of the disorder; as they heard from
deserters that it was in the city, and also could see the burials going on. Yet
in this invasion they remained longer than in any other, and ravaged the whole
country, for they were about forty days in Attica.
The
same summer Hagnon, son of Nicias, and Cleopompus, son of Clinias, the
colleagues of Pericles, took the armament of which he had lately made use, and
went off upon an expedition against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace
and Potidaea, which was still under siege. As soon as they arrived, they
brought up their engines against Potidaea and tried every means of taking it,
but did not succeed either in capturing the city or in doing anything else
worthy of their preparations. For the plague attacked them here also, and
committed such havoc as to cripple them completely, even the previously healthy
soldiers of the former expedition catching the infection from Hagnon's troops;
while Phormio and the sixteen hundred men whom he commanded only escaped by
being no longer in the neighbourhood of the Chalcidians. The end of it was that
Hagnon returned with his ships to Athens, having lost one thousand and fifty
out of four thousand heavy infantry in about forty days; though the soldiers
stationed there before remained in the country and carried on the siege of
Potidaea.
After
the second invasion of the Peloponnesians a change came over the spirit of the
Athenians. Their land had now been twice laid waste; and war and pestilence at
once pressed heavy upon them. They began to find fault with Pericles, as the
author of the war and the cause of all their misfortunes, and became eager to
come to terms with Lacedaemon, and actually sent ambassadors thither, who did
not however succeed in their mission. Their despair was now complete and all
vented itself upon Pericles. When he saw them exasperated at the present turn
of affairs and acting exactly as he had anticipated, he called an assembly,
being (it must be remembered) still general, with the double object of
restoring confidence and of leading them from these angry feelings to a calmer
and more hopeful state of mind. He accordingly came forward and spoke as
follows:
"I
was not unprepared for the indignation of which I have been the object, as I
know its causes; and I have called an assembly for the purpose of reminding you
upon certain points, and of protesting against your being unreasonably
irritated with me, or cowed by your sufferings. I am of opinion that national
greatness is more for the advantage of private citizens, than any individual
well-being coupled with public humiliation. A man may be personally ever so
well off, and yet if his country be ruined he must be ruined with it; whereas a
flourishing commonwealth always affords chances of salvation to unfortunate
individuals. Since then a state can support the misfortunes of private
citizens, while they cannot support hers, it is surely the duty of every one to
be forward in her defence, and not like you to be so confounded with your
domestic afflictions as to give up all thoughts of the common safety, and to
blame me for having counselled war and yourselves for having voted it. And yet
if you are angry with me, it is with one who, as I believe, is second to no man
either in knowledge of the proper policy, or in the ability to expound it, and
who is moreover not only a patriot but an honest one. A man possessing that
knowledge without that faculty of exposition might as well have no idea at all
on the matter: if he had both these gifts, but no love for his country, he
would be but a cold advocate for her interests; while were his patriotism not
proof against bribery, everything would go for a price. So that if you thought
that I was even moderately distinguished for these qualities when you took my
advice and went to war, there is certainly no reason now why I should be
charged with having done wrong.
"For
those of course who have a free choice in the matter and whose fortunes are not
at stake, war is the greatest of follies. But if the only choice was between
submission with loss of independence, and danger with the hope of preserving
that independence, in such a case it is he who will not accept the risk that
deserves blame, not he who will. I am the same man and do not alter, it is you
who change, since in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for
misfortune to repent of it; and the apparent error of my policy lies in the
infirmity of your resolution, since the suffering that it entails is being felt
by every one among you, while its advantage is still remote and obscure to all,
and a great and sudden reverse having befallen you, your mind is too much
depressed to persevere in your resolves. For before what is sudden, unexpected,
and least within calculation, the spirit quails; and putting all else aside,
the plague has certainly been an emergency of this kind. Born, however, as you
are, citizens of a great state, and brought up, as you have been, with habits
equal to your birth, you should be ready to face the greatest disasters and
still to keep unimpaired the lustre of your name. For the judgment of mankind
is as relentless to the weakness that falls short of a recognized renown, as it
is jealous of the arrogance that aspires higher than its due. Cease then to
grieve for your private afflictions, and address yourselves instead to the
safety of the commonwealth.
"If
you shrink before the exertions which the war makes necessary, and fear that
after all they may not have a happy result, you know the reasons by which I
have often demonstrated to you the groundlessness of your apprehensions. If
those are not enough, I will now reveal an advantage arising from the greatness
of your dominion, which I think has never yet suggested itself to you, which I
never mentioned in my previous speeches, and which has so bold a sound that I
should scarce adventure it now, were it not for the unnatural depression which
I see around me. You perhaps think that your empire extends only over your
allies; I will declare to you the truth. The visible field of action has two
parts, land and sea. In the whole of one of these you are completely supreme,
not merely as far as you use it at present, but also to what further extent you
may think fit: in fine, your naval resources are such that your vessels may go
where they please, without the King or any other nation on earth being able to
stop them. So that although you may think it a great privation to lose the use
of your land and houses, still you must see that this power is something widely
different; and instead of fretting on their account, you should really regard
them in the light of the gardens and other accessories that embellish a great
fortune, and as, in comparison, of little moment. You should know too that
liberty preserved by your efforts will easily recover for us what we have lost,
while, the knee once bowed, even what you have will pass from you. Your fathers
receiving these possessions not from others, but from themselves, did not let
slip what their labour had acquired, but delivered them safe to you; and in
this respect at least you must prove yourselves their equals, remembering that
to lose what one has got is more disgraceful than to be balked in getting, and
you must confront your enemies not merely with spirit but with disdain.
Confidence indeed a blissful ignorance can impart, ay, even to a coward's
breast, but disdain is the privilege of those who, like us, have been assured
by reflection of their superiority to their adversary. And where the chances are
the same, knowledge fortifies courage by the contempt which is its consequence,
its trust being placed, not in hope, which is the prop of the desperate, but in
a judgment grounded upon existing resources, whose anticipations are more to be
depended upon.
"Again,
your country has a right to your services in sustaining the glories of her
position. These are a common source of pride to you all, and you cannot decline
the burdens of empire and still expect to share its honours. You should
remember also that what you are fighting against is not merely slavery as an
exchange for independence, but also loss of empire and danger from the
animosities incurred in its exercise. Besides, to recede is no longer possible,
if indeed any of you in the alarm of the moment has become enamoured of the
honesty of such an unambitious part. For what you hold is, to speak somewhat
plainly, a tyranny; to take it perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is unsafe.
And men of these retiring views, making converts of others, would quickly ruin
a state; indeed the result would be the same if they could live independent by
themselves; for the retiring and unambitious are never secure without vigorous
protectors at their side; in fine, such qualities are useless to an imperial
city, though they may help a dependency to an unmolested servitude.
"But
you must not be seduced by citizens like these or angry with me- who, if I
voted for war, only did as you did yourselves- in spite of the enemy having
invaded your country and done what you could be certain that he would do, if
you refused to comply with his demands; and although besides what we counted
for, the plague has come upon us- the only point indeed at which our
calculation has been at fault. It is this, I know, that has had a large share in
making me more unpopular than I should otherwise have been- quite undeservedly,
unless you are also prepared to give me the credit of any success with which
chance may present you. Besides, the hand of heaven must be borne with
resignation, that of the enemy with fortitude; this was the old way at Athens,
and do not you prevent it being so still. Remember, too, that if your country
has the greatest name in all the world, it is because she never bent before
disaster; because she has expended more life and effort in war than any other
city, and has won for herself a power greater than any hitherto known, the
memory of which will descend to the latest posterity; even if now, in obedience
to the general law of decay, we should ever be forced to yield, still it will
be remembered that we held rule over more Hellenes than any other Hellenic
state, that we sustained the greatest wars against their united or separate
powers, and inhabited a city unrivalled by any other in resources or magnitude.
These glories may incur the censure of the slow and unambitious; but in the
breast of energy they will awake emulation, and in those who must remain
without them an envious regret. Hatred and unpopularity at the moment have
fallen to the lot of all who have aspired to rule others; but where odium must
be incurred, true wisdom incurs it for the highest objects. Hatred also is
short-lived; but that which makes the splendour of the present and the glory of
the future remains for ever unforgotten. Make your decision, therefore, for
glory then and honour now, and attain both objects by instant and zealous
effort: do not send heralds to Lacedaemon, and do not betray any sign of being
oppressed by your present sufferings, since they whose minds are least
sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the
greatest men and the greatest communities."
Such
were the arguments by which Pericles tried to cure the Athenians of their anger
against him and to divert their thoughts from their immediate afflictions. As a
community he succeeded in convincing them; they not only gave up all idea of
sending to Lacedaemon, but applied themselves with increased energy to the war;
still as private individuals they could not help smarting under their
sufferings, the common people having been deprived of the little that they were
possessed, while the higher orders had lost fine properties with costly
establishments and buildings in the country, and, worst of all, had war instead
of peace. In fact, the public feeling against him did not subside until he had
been fined. Not long afterwards, however, according to the way of the
multitude, they again elected him general and committed all their affairs to
his hands, having now become less sensitive to their private and domestic
afflictions, and understanding that he was the best man of all for the public
necessities. For as long as he was at the head of the state during the peace,
he pursued a moderate and conservative policy; and in his time its greatness
was at its height. When the war broke out, here also he seems to have rightly
gauged the power of his country. He outlived its commencement two years and six
months, and the correctness of his previsions respecting it became better known
by his death. He told them to wait quietly, to pay attention to their marine,
to attempt no new conquests, and to expose the city to no hazards during the
war, and doing this, promised them a favourable result. What they did was the
very contrary, allowing private ambitions and private interests, in matters apparently
quite foreign to the war, to lead them into projects unjust both to themselves
and to their allies- projects whose success would only conduce to the honour
and advantage of private persons, and whose failure entailed certain disaster
on the country in the war. The causes of this are not far to seek. Pericles
indeed, by his rank, ability, and known integrity, was enabled to exercise an
independent control over the multitude- in short, to lead them instead of being
led by them; for as he never sought power by improper means, he was never
compelled to flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed so high an estimation
that he could afford to anger them by contradiction. Whenever he saw them
unseasonably and insolently elated, he would with a word reduce them to alarm;
on the other hand, if they fell victims to a panic, he could at once restore
them to confidence. In short, what was nominally a democracy became in his
hands government by the first citizen. With his successors it was different.
More on a level with one another, and each grasping at supremacy, they ended by
committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the multitude.
This, as might have been expected in a great and sovereign state, produced a
host of blunders, and amongst them the Sicilian expedition; though this failed
not so much through a miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was
sent, as through a fault in the senders in not taking the best measures
afterwards to assist those who had gone out, but choosing rather to occupy
themselves with private cabals for the leadership of the commons, by which they
not only paralysed operations in the field, but also first introduced civil
discord at home. Yet after losing most of their fleet besides other forces in
Sicily, and with faction already dominant in the city, they could still for
three years make head against their original adversaries, joined not only by
the Sicilians, but also by their own allies nearly all in revolt, and at last
by the King's son, Cyrus, who furnished the funds for the Peloponnesian navy.
Nor did they finally succumb till they fell the victims of their own intestine
disorders. So superfluously abundant were the resources from which the genius
of Pericles foresaw an easy triumph in the war over the unaided forces of the
Peloponnesians.
During
the same summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies made an expedition with a
hundred ships against Zacynthus, an island lying off the coast of Elis, peopled
by a colony of Achaeans from Peloponnese, and in alliance with Athens. There
were a thousand Lacedaemonian heavy infantry on board, and Cnemus, a Spartan,
as admiral. They made a descent from their ships, and ravaged most of the
country; but as the inhabitants would not submit, they sailed back home.
At
the end of the same summer the Corinthian Aristeus, Aneristus, Nicolaus, and
Stratodemus, envoys from Lacedaemon, Timagoras, a Tegean, and a private
individual named Pollis from Argos, on their way to Asia to persuade the King
to supply funds and join in the war, came to Sitalces, son of Teres in Thrace,
with the idea of inducing him, if possible, to forsake the alliance of Athens
and to march on Potidaea then besieged by an Athenian force, and also of getting
conveyed by his means to their destination across the Hellespont to
Pharnabazus, who was to send them up the country to the King. But there chanced
to be with Sitalces some Athenian ambassadors- Learchus, son of Callimachus,
and Ameiniades, son of Philemon- who persuaded Sitalces' son, Sadocus, the new
Athenian citizen, to put the men into their hands and thus prevent their
crossing over to the King and doing their part to injure the country of his
choice. He accordingly had them seized, as they were travelling through Thrace
to the vessel in which they were to cross the Hellespont, by a party whom he
had sent on with Learchus and Ameiniades, and gave orders for their delivery to
the Athenian ambassadors, by whom they were brought to Athens. On their arrival,
the Athenians, afraid that Aristeus, who had been notably the prime mover in
the previous affairs of Potidaea and their Thracian possessions, might live to
do them still more mischief if he escaped, slew them all the same day, without
giving them a trial or hearing the defence which they wished to offer, and cast
their bodies into a pit; thinking themselves justified in using in retaliation
the same mode of warfare which the Lacedaemonians had begun, when they slew and
cast into pits all the Athenian and allied traders whom they caught on board
the merchantmen round Peloponnese. Indeed, at the outset of the war, the
Lacedaemonians butchered as enemies all whom they took on the sea, whether
allies of Athens or neutrals.
About
the same time towards the close of the summer, the Ambraciot forces, with a
number of barbarians that they had raised, marched against the Amphilochian
Argos and the rest of that country. The origin of their enmity against the
Argives was this. This Argos and the rest of Amphilochia were colonized by
Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus. Dissatisfied with the state of affairs at home
on his return thither after the Trojan War, he built this city in the Ambracian
Gulf, and named it Argos after his own country. This was the largest town in Amphilochia,
and its inhabitants the most powerful. Under the pressure of misfortune many
generations afterwards, they called in the Ambraciots, their neighbours on the
Amphilochian border, to join their colony; and it was by this union with the
Ambraciots that they learnt their present Hellenic speech, the rest of the
Amphilochians being barbarians. After a time the Ambraciots expelled the
Argives and held the city themselves. Upon this the Amphilochians gave
themselves over to the Acarnanians; and the two together called the Athenians,
who sent them Phormio as general and thirty ships; upon whose arrival they took
Argos by storm, and made slaves of the Ambraciots; and the Amphilochians and
Acarnanians inhabited the town in common. After this began the alliance between
the Athenians and Acarnanians. The enmity of the Ambraciots against the Argives
thus commenced with the enslavement of their citizens; and afterwards during
the war they collected this armament among themselves and the Chaonians, and
other of the neighbouring barbarians. Arrived before Argos, they became masters
of the country; but not being successful in their attacks upon the town,
returned home and dispersed among their different peoples.
Such
were the events of the summer. The ensuing winter the Athenians sent twenty
ships round Peloponnese, under the command of Phormio, who stationed himself at
Naupactus and kept watch against any one sailing in or out of Corinth and the
Crissaean Gulf. Six others went to Caria and Lycia under Melesander, to collect
tribute in those parts, and also to prevent the Peloponnesian privateers from
taking up their station in those waters and molesting the passage of the
merchantmen from Phaselis and Phoenicia and the adjoining continent. However,
Melesander, going up the country into Lycia with a force of Athenians from the
ships and the allies, was defeated and killed in battle, with the loss of a
number of his troops.
The
same winter the Potidaeans at length found themselves no longer able to hold
out against their besiegers. The inroads of the Peloponnesians into Attica had
not had the desired effect of making the Athenians raise the siege. Provisions
there were none left; and so far had distress for food gone in Potidaea that,
besides a number of other horrors, instances had even occurred of the people
having eaten one another. in this extremity they at last made proposals for
capitulating to the Athenian generals in command against them- Xenophon, son of
Euripides, Hestiodorus, son of Aristocleides, and Phanomachus, son of
Callimachus. The generals accepted their proposals, seeing the sufferings of
the army in so exposed a position; besides which the state had already spent
two thousand talents upon the siege. The terms of the capitulation were as
follows: a free passage out for themselves, their children, wives and
auxiliaries, with one garment apiece, the women with two, and a fixed sum of
money for their journey. Under this treaty they went out to Chalcidice and
other places, according as was their power. The Athenians, however, blamed the
generals for granting terms without instructions from home, being of opinion
that the place would have had to surrender at discretion. They afterwards sent
settlers of their own to Potidaea, and colonized it. Such were the events of
the winter, and so ended the second year of this war of which Thucydides was
the historian.
THE
next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies, instead of invading Attica,
marched against Plataea, under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus,
king of the Lacedaemonians. He had encamped his army and was about to lay waste
the country, when the Plataeans hastened to send envoys to him, and spoke as
follows: "Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, in invading the Plataean
territory, you do what is wrong in itself, and worthy neither of yourselves nor
of the fathers who begot you. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, your countryman,
after freeing Hellas from the Medes with the help of those Hellenes who were
willing to undertake the risk of the battle fought near our city, offered
sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator in the marketplace of Plataea, and calling all
the allies together restored to the Plataeans their city and territory, and
declared it independent and inviolate against aggression or conquest. Should
any such be attempted, the allies present were to help according to their
power. Your fathers rewarded us thus for the courage and patriotism that we
displayed at that perilous epoch; but you do just the contrary, coming with our
bitterest enemies, the Thebans, to enslave us. We appeal, therefore, to the
gods to whom the oaths were then made, to the gods of your ancestors, and
lastly to those of our country, and call upon you to refrain from violating our
territory or transgressing the oaths, and to let us live independent, as
Pausanias decreed."
The
Plataeans had got thus far when they were cut short by Archidamus saying:
"There is justice, Plataeans, in what you say, if you act up to your
words. According, to the grant of Pausanias, continue to be independent
yourselves, and join in freeing those of your fellow countrymen who, after
sharing in the perils of that period, joined in the oaths to you, and are now
subject to the Athenians; for it is to free them and the rest that all this
provision and war has been made. I could wish that you would share our labours
and abide by the oaths yourselves; if this is impossible, do what we have
already required of you- remain neutral, enjoying your own; join neither side,
but receive both as friends, neither as allies for the war. With this we shall
be satisfied." Such were the words of Archidamus. The Plataeans, after
hearing what he had to say, went into the city and acquainted the people with
what had passed, and presently returned for answer that it was impossible for
them to do what he proposed without consulting the Athenians, with whom their
children and wives now were; besides which they had their fears for the town.
After his departure, what was to prevent the Athenians from coming and taking
it out of their hands, or the Thebans, who would be included in the oaths, from
taking advantage of the proposed neutrality to make a second attempt to seize
the city? Upon these points he tried to reassure them by saying: "You have
only to deliver over the city and houses to us Lacedaemonians, to point out the
boundaries of your land, the number of your fruit-trees, and whatever else can
be numerically stated, and yourselves to withdraw wherever you like as long as
the war shall last. When it is over we will restore to you whatever we
received, and in the interim hold it in trust and keep it in cultivation,
paying you a sufficient allowance."
When
they had heard what he had to say, they re-entered the city, and after
consulting with the people said that they wished first to acquaint the
Athenians with this proposal, and in the event of their approving to accede to
it; in the meantime they asked him to grant them a truce and not to lay waste
their territory. He accordingly granted a truce for the number of days
requisite for the journey, and meanwhile abstained from ravaging their
territory. The Plataean envoys went to Athens, and consulted with the
Athenians, and returned with the following message to those in the city:
"The Athenians say, Plataeans, that they never hitherto, since we became
their allies, on any occasion abandoned us to an enemy, nor will they now
neglect us, but will help us according to their ability; and they adjure you by
the oaths which your fathers swore, to keep the alliance unaltered."
On
the delivery of this message by the envoys, the Plataeans resolved not to be
unfaithful to the Athenians but to endure, if it must be, seeing their lands
laid waste and any other trials that might come to them, and not to send out
again, but to answer from the wall that it was impossible for them to do as the
Lacedaemonians proposed. As soon as he had received this answer, King
Archidamus proceeded first to make a solemn appeal to the gods and heroes of
the country in words following: "Ye gods and heroes of the Plataean
territory, be my witnesses that not as aggressors originally, nor until these
had first departed from the common oath, did we invade this land, in which our
fathers offered you their prayers before defeating the Medes, and which you
made auspicious to the Hellenic arms; nor shall we be aggressors in the
measures to which we may now resort, since we have made many fair proposals but
have not been successful. Graciously accord that those who were the first to
offend may be punished for it, and that vengeance may be attained by those who
would righteously inflict it."
After
this appeal to the gods Archidamus put his army in motion. First he enclosed
the town with a palisade formed of the fruit-trees which they cut down, to
prevent further egress from Plataea; next they threw up a mound against the
city, hoping that the largeness of the force employed would ensure the speedy
reduction of the place. They accordingly cut down timber from Cithaeron, and
built it up on either side, laying it like lattice-work to serve as a wall to
keep the mound from spreading abroad, and carried to it wood and stones and
earth and whatever other material might help to complete it. They continued to
work at the mound for seventy days and nights without intermission, being
divided into relief parties to allow of some being employed in carrying while
others took sleep and refreshment; the Lacedaemonian officer attached to each
contingent keeping the men to the work. But the Plataeans, observing the
progress of the mound, constructed a wall of wood and fixed it upon that part
of the city wall against which the mound was being erected, and built up bricks
inside it which they took from the neighbouring houses. The timbers served to
bind the building together, and to prevent its becoming weak as it advanced in
height; it had also a covering of skins and hides, which protected the woodwork
against the attacks of burning missiles and allowed the men to work in safety.
Thus the wall was raised to a great height, and the mound opposite made no less
rapid progress. The Plataeans also thought of another expedient; they pulled
out part of the wall upon which the mound abutted, and carried the earth into
the city.
Discovering
this the Peloponnesians twisted up clay in wattles of reed and threw it into
the breach formed in the mound, in order to give it consistency and prevent its
being carried away like the soil. Stopped in this way the Plataeans changed
their mode of operation, and digging a mine from the town calculated their way
under the mound, and began to carry off its material as before. This went on
for a long while without the enemy outside finding it out, so that for all they
threw on the top their mound made no progress in proportion, being carried away
from beneath and constantly settling down in the vacuum. But the Plataeans,
fearing that even thus they might not be able to hold out against the superior
numbers of the enemy, had yet another invention. They stopped working at the
large building in front of the mound, and starting at either end of it inside
from the old low wall, built a new one in the form of a crescent running in
towards the town; in order that in the event of the great wall being taken this
might remain, and the enemy have to throw up a fresh mound against it, and as
they advanced within might not only have their trouble over again, but also be
exposed to missiles on their flanks. While raising the mound the Peloponnesians
also brought up engines against the city, one of which was brought up upon the
mound against the great building and shook down a good piece of it, to the no
small alarm of the Plataeans. Others were advanced against different parts of
the wall but were lassoed and broken by the Plataeans; who also hung up great
beams by long iron chains from either extremity of two poles laid on the wall
and projecting over it, and drew them up at an angle whenever any point was
threatened by the engine, and loosing their hold let the beam go with its
chains slack, so that it fell with a run and snapped off the nose of the
battering ram.
After
this the Peloponnesians, finding that their engines effected nothing, and that
their mound was met by the counterwork, concluded that their present means of
offence were unequal to the taking of the city, and prepared for its
circumvallation. First, however, they determined to try the effects of fire and
see whether they could not, with the help of a wind, burn the town, as it was
not a large one; indeed they thought of every possible expedient by which the
place might be reduced without the expense of a blockade. They accordingly
brought faggots of brushwood and threw them from the mound, first into the space
between it and the wall; and this soon becoming full from the number of hands
at work, they next heaped the faggots up as far into the town as they could
reach from the top, and then lighted the wood by setting fire to it with
sulphur and pitch. The consequence was a fire greater than any one had ever yet
seen produced by human agency, though it could not of course be compared to the
spontaneous conflagrations sometimes known to occur through the wind rubbing
the branches of a mountain forest together. And this fire was not only
remarkable for its magnitude, but was also, at the end of so many perils,
within an ace of proving fatal to the Plataeans; a great part of the town
became entirely inaccessible, and had a wind blown upon it, in accordance with
the hopes of the enemy, nothing could have saved them. As it was, there is also
a story of heavy rain and thunder having come on by which the fire was put out
and the danger averted.
Failing
in this last attempt the Peloponnesians left a portion of their forces on the
spot, dismissing the rest, and built a wall of circumvallation round the town,
dividing the ground among the various cities present; a ditch being made within
and without the lines, from which they got their bricks. All being finished by
about the rising of Arcturus, they left men enough to man half the wall, the
rest being manned by the Boeotians, and drawing off their army dispersed to
their several cities. The Plataeans had before sent off their wives and
children and oldest men and the mass of the non-combatants to Athens; so that
the number of the besieged left in the place comprised four hundred of their
own citizens, eighty Athenians, and a hundred and ten women to bake their
bread. This was the sum total at the commencement of the siege, and there was
no one else within the walls, bond or free. Such were the arrangements made for
the blockade of Plataea.
The
same summer and simultaneously with the expedition against Plataea, the
Athenians marched with two thousand heavy infantry and two hundred horse
against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace and the Bottiaeans, just as
the corn was getting ripe, under the command of Xenophon, son of Euripides,
with two colleagues. Arriving before Spartolus in Bottiaea, they destroyed the
corn and had some hopes of the city coming over through the intrigues of a
faction within. But those of a different way of thinking had sent to Olynthus;
and a garrison of heavy infantry and other troops arrived accordingly. These
issuing from Spartolus were engaged by the Athenians in front of the town: the
Chalcidian heavy infantry, and some auxiliaries with them, were beaten and
retreated into Spartolus; but the Chalcidian horse and light troops defeated
the horse and light troops of the Athenians. The Chalcidians had already a few
targeteers from Crusis, and presently after the battle were joined by some
others from Olynthus; upon seeing whom the light troops from Spartolus,
emboldened by this accession and by their previous success, with the help of
the Chalcidian horse and the reinforcement just arrived again attacked the
Athenians, who retired upon the two divisions which they had left with their
baggage. Whenever the Athenians advanced, their adversary gave way, pressing
them with missiles the instant they began to retire. The Chalcidian horse also,
riding up and charging them just as they pleased, at last caused a panic
amongst them and routed and pursued them to a great distance. The Athenians
took refuge in Potidaea, and afterwards recovered their dead under truce, and
returned to Athens with the remnant of their army; four hundred and thirty men
and all the generals having fallen. The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans set up a
trophy, took up their dead, and dispersed to their several cities.
The
same summer, not long after this, the Ambraciots and Chaonians, being desirous
of reducing the whole of Acarnania and detaching it from Athens, persuaded the
Lacedaemonians to equip a fleet from their confederacy and send a thousand
heavy infantry to Acarnania, representing that, if a combined movement were
made by land and sea, the coast Acarnanians would be unable to march, and the
conquest of Zacynthus and Cephallenia easily following on the possession of
Acarnania, the cruise round Peloponnese would be no longer so convenient for
the Athenians. Besides which there was a hope of taking Naupactus. The
Lacedaemonians accordingly at once sent off a few vessels with Cnemus, who was
still high admiral, and the heavy infantry on board; and sent round orders for
the fleet to equip as quickly as possible and sail to Leucas. The Corinthians
were the most forward in the business; the Ambraciots being a colony of theirs.
While the ships from Corinth, Sicyon, and the neighbourhood were getting ready,
and those from Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia, which had arrived before, were
walting for them at Leucas, Cnemus and his thousand heavy infantry had run into
the gulf, giving the slip to Phormio, the commander of the Athenian squadron
stationed off Naupactus, and began at once to prepare for the land expedition.
The Hellenic troops with him consisted of the Ambraciots, Leucadians, and
Anactorians, and the thousand Peloponnesians with whom he came; the barbarian
of a thousand Chaonians, who, belonging to a nation that has no king, were led
by Photys and Nicanor, the two members of the royal family to whom the
chieftainship for that year had been confided. With the Chaonians came also
some Thesprotians, like them without a king, some Molossians and Atintanians
led by Sabylinthus, the guardian of King Tharyps who was still a minor, and
some Paravaeans, under their king Oroedus, accompanied by a thousand Orestians,
subjects of King Antichus and placed by him under the command of Oroedus. There
were also a thousand Macedonians sent by Perdiccas without the knowledge of the
Athenians, but they arrived too late. With this force Cnemus set out, without
waiting for the fleet from Corinth. Passing through the territory of
Amphilochian Argos, and sacking the open village of Limnaea, they advanced to
Stratus the Acarnanian capital; this once taken, the rest of the country, they
felt convinced, would speedily follow.
The
Acarnanians, finding themselves invaded by a large army by land, and from the
sea threatened by a hostile fleet, made no combined attempt at resistance, but
remained to defend their homes, and sent for help to Phormio, who replied that,
when a fleet was on the point of sailing from Corinth, it was impossible for
him to leave Naupactus unprotected. The Peloponnesians meanwhile and their
allies advanced upon Stratus in three divisions, with the intention of
encamping near it and attempting the wall by force if they failed to succeed by
negotiation. The order of march was as follows: the centre was occupied by the
Chaonians and the rest of the barbarians, with the Leucadians and Anactorians
and their followers on the right, and Cnemus with the Peloponnesians and
Ambraciots on the left; each division being a long way off from, and sometimes
even out of sight of, the others. The Hellenes advanced in good order, keeping
a look-out till they encamped in a good position; but the Chaonians, filled
with self-confidence, and having the highest character for courage among the
tribes of that part of the continent, without waiting to occupy their camp,
rushed on with the rest of the barbarians, in the idea that they should take
the town by assault and obtain the sole glory of the enterprise. While they
were coming on, the Stratians, becoming aware how things stood, and thinking
that the defeat of this division would considerably dishearten the Hellenes
behind it, occupied the environs of the town with ambuscades, and as soon as
they approached engaged them at close quarters from the city and the
ambuscades. A panic seizing the Chaonians, great numbers of them were slain;
and as soon as they were seen to give way the rest of the barbarians turned and
fled. Owing to the distance by which their allies had preceded them, neither of
the Hellenic divisions knew anything of the battle, but fancied they were
hastening on to encamp. However, when the flying barbarians broke in upon them,
they opened their ranks to receive them, brought their divisions together, and
stopped quiet where they were for the day; the Stratians not offering to engage
them, as the rest of the Acarnanians had not yet arrived, but contenting
themselves with slinging at them from a distance, which distressed them
greatly, as there was no stirring without their armour. The Acarnanians would
seem to excel in this mode of warfare.
As
soon as night fell, Cnemus hastily drew off his army to the river Anapus, about
nine miles from Stratus, recovering his dead next day under truce, and being
there joined by the friendly Oeniadae, fell back upon their city before the
enemy's reinforcements came up. From hence each returned home; and the
Stratians set up a trophy for the battle with the barbarians.
Meanwhile
the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the confederates in the Crissaean Gulf,
which was to have co-operated with Cnemus and prevented the coast Acarnanians from
joining their countrymen in the interior, was disabled from doing so by being
compelled about the same time as the battle at Stratus to fight with Phormio
and the twenty Athenian vessels stationed at Naupactus. For they were watched,
as they coasted along out of the gulf, by Phormio, who wished to attack in the
open sea. But the Corinthians and allies had started for Acarnania without any
idea of fighting at sea, and with vessels more like transports for carrying
soldiers; besides which, they never dreamed of the twenty Athenian ships
venturing to engage their forty-seven. However, while they were coasting along
their own shore, there were the Athenians sailing along in line with them; and
when they tried to cross over from Patrae in Achaea to the mainland on the
other side, on their way to Acarnania, they saw them again coming out from
Chalcis and the river Evenus to meet them. They slipped from their moorings in
the night, but were observed, and were at length compelled to fight in mid
passage. Each state that contributed to the armament had its own general; the
Corinthian commanders were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas. The
Peloponnesians ranged their vessels in as large a circle as possible without
leaving an opening, with the prows outside and the sterns in; and placed within
all the small craft in company, and their five best sailers to issue out at a
moment's notice and strengthen any point threatened by the enemy.
The
Athenians, formed in line, sailed round and round them, and forced them to contract
their circle, by continually brushing past and making as though they would
attack at once, having been previously cautioned by Phormio not to do so till
he gave the signal. His hope was that the Peloponnesians would not retain their
order like a force on shore, but that the ships would fall foul of one another
and the small craft cause confusion; and if the wind should blow from the gulf
(in expectation of which he kept sailing round them, and which usually rose
towards morning), they would not, he felt sure, remain steady an instant. He
also thought that it rested with him to attack when he pleased, as his ships
were better sailers, and that an attack timed by the coming of the wind would
tell best. When the wind came down, the enemy's ships were now in a narrow
space, and what with the wind and the small craft dashing against them, at once
fell into confusion: ship fell foul of ship, while the crews were pushing them
off with poles, and by their shouting, swearing, and struggling with one
another, made captains' orders and boatswains' cries alike inaudible, and
through being unable for want of practice to clear their oars in the rough
water, prevented the vessels from obeying their helmsmen properly. At this
moment Phormio gave the signal, and the Athenians attacked. Sinking first one
of the admirals, they then disabled all they came across, so that no one
thought of resistance for the confusion, but fled for Patrae and Dyme in
Achaea. The Athenians gave chase and captured twelve ships, and taking most of
the men out of them sailed to Molycrium, and after setting up a trophy on the
promontory of Rhium and dedicating a ship to Poseidon, returned to Naupactus.
As for the Peloponnesians, they at once sailed with their remaining ships along
the coast from Dyme and Patrae to Cyllene, the Eleian arsenal; where Cnemus,
and the ships from Leucas that were to have joined them, also arrived after the
battle at Stratus.
The
Lacedaemonians now sent to the fleet to Cnemus three commissioners- Timocrates,
Bradidas, and Lycophron- with orders to prepare to engage again with better
fortune, and not to be driven from the sea by a few vessels; for they could not
at all account for their discomfiture, the less so as it was their first
attempt at sea; and they fancied that it was not that their marine was so
inferior, but that there had been misconduct somewhere, not considering the
long experience of the Athenians as compared with the little practice which
they had had themselves. The commissioners were accordingly sent in anger. As
soon as they arrived they set to work with Cnemus to order ships from the
different states, and to put those which they already had in fighting order.
Meanwhile Phormio sent word to Athens of their preparations and his own
victory, and desired as many ships as possible to be speedily sent to him, as
he stood in daily expectation of a battle. Twenty were accordingly sent, but
instructions were given to their commander to go first to Crete. For Nicias, a
Cretan of Gortys, who was proxenus of the Athenians, had persuaded them to sail
against Cydonia, promising to procure the reduction of that hostile town; his
real wish being to oblige the Polichnitans, neighbours of the Cydonians. He
accordingly went with the ships to Crete, and, accompanied by the Polichnitans,
laid waste the lands of the Cydonians; and, what with adverse winds and stress
of weather wasted no little time there.
While
the Athenians were thus detained in Crete, the Peloponnesians in Cyllene got
ready for battle, and coasted along to Panormus in Achaea, where their land
army had come to support them. Phormio also coasted along to Molycrian Rhium,
and anchored outside it with twenty ships, the same as he had fought with
before. This Rhium was friendly to the Athenians. The other, in Peloponnese,
lies opposite to it; the sea between them is about three-quarters of a mile
broad, and forms the mouth of the Crissaean gulf. At this, the Achaean Rhium,
not far off Panormus, where their army lay, the Peloponnesians now cast anchor
with seventy-seven ships, when they saw the Athenians do so. For six or seven
days they remained opposite each other, practising and preparing for the
battle; the one resolved not to sail out of the Rhia into the open sea, for
fear of the disaster which had already happened to them, the other not to sail
into the straits, thinking it advantageous to the enemy, to fight in the
narrows. At last Cnemus and Brasidas and the rest of the Peloponnesian
commanders, being desirous of bringing on a battle as soon as possible, before
reinforcements should arrive from Athens, and noticing that the men were most
of them cowed by the previous defeat and out of heart for the business, first
called them together and encouraged them as follows:
"Peloponnesians,
the late engagement, which may have made some of you afraid of the one now in
prospect, really gives no just ground for apprehension. Preparation for it, as
you know, there was little enough; and the object of our voyage was not so much
to fight at sea as an expedition by land. Besides this, the chances of war were
largely against us; and perhaps also inexperience had something to do with our
failure in our first naval action. It was not, therefore, cowardice that
produced our defeat, nor ought the determination which force has not quelled,
but which still has a word to say with its adversary, to lose its edge from the
result of an accident; but admitting the possibility of a chance miscarriage,
we should know that brave hearts must be always brave, and while they remain so
can never put forward inexperience as an excuse for misconduct. Nor are you so
behind the enemy in experience as you are ahead of him in courage; and although
the science of your opponents would, if valour accompanied it, have also the
presence of mind to carry out at in emergency the lesson it has learnt, yet a
faint heart will make all art powerless in the face of danger. For fear takes
away presence of mind, and without valour art is useless. Against their
superior experience set your superior daring, and against the fear induced by
defeat the fact of your having been then unprepared; remember, too, that you
have always the advantage of superior numbers, and of engaging off your own
coast, supported by your heavy infantry; and as a rule, numbers and equipment
give victory. At no point, therefore, is defeat likely; and as for our previous
mistakes, the very fact of their occurrence will teach us better for the
future. Steersmen and sailors may, therefore, confidently attend to their
several duties, none quitting the station assigned to them: as for ourselves,
we promise to prepare for the engagement at least as well as your previous
commanders, and to give no excuse for any one misconducting himself. Should any
insist on doing so, he shall meet with the punishment he deserves, while the
brave shall be honoured with the appropriate rewards of valour."
The
Peloponnesian commanders encouraged their men after this fashion. Phormio,
meanwhile, being himself not without fears for the courage of his men, and
noticing that they were forming in groups among themselves and were alarmed at
the odds against them, desired to call them together and give them confidence
and counsel in the present emergency. He had before continually told them, and
had accustomed their minds to the idea, that there was no numerical superiority
that they could not face; and the men themselves had long been persuaded that
Athenians need never retire before any quantity of Peloponnesian vessels. At
the moment, however, he saw that they were dispirited by the sight before them,
and wishing to refresh their confidence, called them together and spoke as
follows:
"I
see, my men, that you are frightened by the number of the enemy, and I have
accordingly called you together, not liking you to be afraid of what is not
really terrible. In the first place, the Peloponnesians, already defeated, and
not even themselves thinking that they are a match for us, have not ventured to
meet us on equal terms, but have equipped this multitude of ships against us.
Next, as to that upon which they most rely, the courage which they suppose
constitutional to them, their confidence here only arises from the success
which their experience in land service usually gives them, and which they fancy
will do the same for them at sea. But this advantage will in all justice belong
to us on this element, if to them on that; as they are not superior to us in
courage, but we are each of us more confident, according to our experience in
our particular department. Besides, as the Lacedaemonians use their supremacy
over their allies to promote their own glory, they are most of them being
brought into danger against their will, or they would never, after such a
decided defeat, have ventured upon a fresh engagement. You need not, therefore,
be afraid of their dash. You, on the contrary, inspire a much greater and
better founded alarm, both because of your late victory and also of their
belief that we should not face them unless about to do something worthy of a
success so signal. An adversary numerically superior, like the one before us,
comes into action trusting more to strength than to resolution; while he who
voluntarily confronts tremendous odds must have very great internal resources
to draw upon. For these reasons the Peloponnesians fear our irrational audacity
more than they would ever have done a more commensurate preparation. Besides,
many armaments have before now succumbed to an inferior through want of skill
or sometimes of courage; neither of which defects certainly are ours. As to the
battle, it shall not be, if I can help it, in the strait, nor will I sail in
there at all; seeing that in a contest between a number of clumsily managed
vessels and a small, fast, well-handled squadron, want of sea room is an
undoubted disadvantage. One cannot run down an enemy properly without having a
sight of him a good way off, nor can one retire at need when pressed; one can
neither break the line nor return upon his rear, the proper tactics for a fast
sailer; but the naval action necessarily becomes a land one, in which numbers
must decide the matter. For all this I will provide as far as can be. Do you
stay at your posts by your ships, and be sharp at catching the word of command,
the more so as we are observing one another from so short a distance; and in
action think order and silence all-important- qualities useful in war
generally, and in naval engagements in particular; and behave before the enemy
in a manner worthy of your past exploits. The issues you will fight for are
great- to destroy the naval hopes of the Peloponnesians or to bring nearer to
the Athenians their fears for the sea. And I may once more remind you that you
have defeated most of them already; and beaten men do not face a danger twice
with the same determination."
Such
was the exhortation of Phormio. The Peloponnesians finding that the Athenians
did not sail into the gulf and the narrows, in order to lead them in whether
they wished it or not, put out at dawn, and forming four abreast, sailed inside
the gulf in the direction of their own country, the right wing leading as they
had lain at anchor. In this wing were placed twenty of their best sailers; so
that in the event of Phormio thinking that their object was Naupactus, and
coasting along thither to save the place, the Athenians might not be able to
escape their onset by getting outside their wing, but might be cut off by the
vessels in question. As they expected, Phormio, in alarm for the place at that
moment emptied of its garrison, as soon as he saw them put out, reluctantly and
hurriedly embarked and sailed along shore; the Messenian land forces moving
along also to support him. The Peloponnesians seeing him coasting along with
his ships in single file, and by this inside the gulf and close inshore as they
so much wished, at one signal tacked suddenly and bore down in line at their
best speed on the Athenians, hoping to cut off the whole squadron. The eleven
leading vessels, however, escaped the Peloponnesian wing and its sudden
movement, and reached the more open water; but the rest were overtaken as they
tried to run through, driven ashore and disabled; such of the crews being slain
as had not swum out of them. Some of the ships the Peloponnesians lashed to
their own, and towed off empty; one they took with the men in it; others were
just being towed off, when they were saved by the Messenians dashing into the
sea with their armour and fighting from the decks that they had boarded.
Thus
far victory was with the Peloponnesians, and the Athenian fleet destroyed; the twenty
ships in the right wing being meanwhile in chase of the eleven Athenian vessels
that had escaped their sudden movement and reached the more open water. These,
with the exception of one ship, all outsailed them and got safe into Naupactus,
and forming close inshore opposite the temple of Apollo, with their prows
facing the enemy, prepared to defend themselves in case the Peloponnesians
should sail inshore against them. After a while the Peloponnesians came up,
chanting the paean for their victory as they sailed on; the single Athenian
ship remaining being chased by a Leucadian far ahead of the rest. But there
happened to be a merchantman lying at anchor in the roadstead, which the
Athenian ship found time to sail round, and struck the Leucadian in chase
amidships and sank her. An exploit so sudden and unexpected produced a panic
among the Peloponnesians; and having fallen out of order in the excitement of
victory, some of them dropped their oars and stopped their way in order to let
the main body come up- an unsafe thing to do considering how near they were to
the enemy's prows; while others ran aground in the shallows, in their ignorance
of the localities.
Elated
at this incident, the Athenians at one word gave a cheer, and dashed at the
enemy, who, embarrassed by his mistakes and the disorder in which he found
himself, only stood for an instant, and then fled for Panormus, whence he had
put out. The Athenians following on his heels took the six vessels nearest
them, and recovered those of their own which had been disabled close inshore
and taken in tow at the beginning of the action; they killed some of the crews
and took some prisoners. On board the Leucadian which went down off the
merchantman, was the Lacedaemonian Timocrates, who killed himself when the ship
was sunk, and was cast up in the harbour of Naupactus. The Athenians on their
return set up a trophy on the spot from which they had put out and turned the
day, and picking up the wrecks and dead that were on their shore, gave back to
the enemy their dead under truce. The Peloponnesians also set up a trophy as
victors for the defeat inflicted upon the ships they had disabled in shore, and
dedicated the vessel which they had taken at Achaean Rhium, side by side with
the trophy. After this, apprehensive of the reinforcement expected from Athens,
all except the Leucadians sailed into the Crissaean Gulf for Corinth. Not long
after their retreat, the twenty Athenian ships, which were to have joined
Phormio before the battle, arrived at Naupactus.
Thus
the summer ended. Winter was now at hand; but dispersing the fleet, which had
retired to Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other
Peloponnesian captains allowed themselves to be persuaded by the Megarians to
make an attempt upon Piraeus, the port of Athens, which from her decided
superiority at sea had been naturally left unguarded and open. Their plan was
as follows: The men were each to take their oar, cushion, and rowlock thong,
and, going overland from Corinth to the sea on the Athenian side, to get to
Megara as quickly as they could, and launching forty vessels, which happened to
be in the docks at Nisaea, to sail at once to Piraeus. There was no fleet on
the look-out in the harbour, and no one had the least idea of the enemy attempting
a surprise; while an open attack would, it was thought, never be deliberately
ventured on, or, if in contemplation, would be speedily known at Athens. Their
plan formed, the next step was to put it in execution. Arriving by night and
launching the vessels from Nisaea, they sailed, not to Piraeus as they had
originally intended, being afraid of the risk, besides which there was some
talk of a wind having stopped them, but to the point of Salamis that looks
towards Megara; where there was a fort and a squadron of three ships to prevent
anything sailing in or out of Megara. This fort they assaulted, and towed off
the galleys empty, and surprising the inhabitants began to lay waste the rest
of the island.
Meanwhile
fire signals were raised to alarm Athens, and a panic ensued there as serious
as any that occurred during the war. The idea in the city was that the enemy
had already sailed into Piraeus: in Piraeus it was thought that they had taken
Salamis and might at any moment arrive in the port; as indeed might easily have
been done if their hearts had been a little firmer: certainly no wind would
have prevented them. As soon as day broke, the Athenians assembled in full
force, launched their ships, and embarking in haste and uproar went with the
fleet to Salamis, while their soldiery mounted guard in Piraeus. The
Peloponnesians, on becoming aware of the coming relief, after they had overrun
most of Salamis, hastily sailed off with their plunder and captives and the
three ships from Fort Budorum to Nisaea; the state of their ships also causing
them some anxiety, as it was a long while since they had been launched, and
they were not water-tight. Arrived at Megara, they returned back on foot to
Corinth. The Athenians finding them no longer at Salamis, sailed back
themselves; and after this made arrangements for guarding Piraeus more
diligently in future, by closing the harbours, and by other suitable
precautions.
About
the same time, at the beginning of this winter, Sitalces, son of Teres, the
Odrysian king of Thrace, made an expedition against Perdiccas, son of
Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the Chalcidians in the neighbourhood of
Thrace; his object being to enforce one promise and fulfil another. On the one
hand Perdiccas had made him a promise, when hard pressed at the commencement of
the war, upon condition that Sitalces should reconcile the Athenians to him and
not attempt to restore his brother and enemy, the pretender Philip, but had not
offered to fulfil his engagement; on the other he, Sitalces, on entering into
alliance with the Athenians, had agreed to put an end to the Chalcidian war in
Thrace. These were the two objects of his invasion. With him he brought
Amyntas, the son of Philip, whom he destined for the throne of Macedonia, and
some Athenian envoys then at his court on this business, and Hagnon as general;
for the Athenians were to join him against the Chalcidians with a fleet and as
many soldiers as they could get together.
Beginning
with the Odrysians, he first called out the Thracian tribes subject to him
between Mounts Haemus and Rhodope and the Euxine and Hellespont; next the Getae
beyond Haemus, and the other hordes settled south of the Danube in the
neighbourhood of the Euxine, who, like the Getae, border on the Scythians and
are armed in the same manner, being all mounted archers. Besides these he
summoned many of the hill Thracian independent swordsmen, called Dii and mostly
inhabiting Mount Rhodope, some of whom came as mercenaries, others as
volunteers; also the Agrianes and Laeaeans, and the rest of the Paeonian tribes
in his empire, at the confines of which these lay, extending up to the Laeaean
Paeonians and the river Strymon, which flows from Mount Scombrus through the
country of the Agrianes and Laeaeans; there the empire of Sitalces ends and the
territory of the independent Paeonians begins. Bordering on the Triballi, also
independent, were the Treres and Tilataeans, who dwell to the north of Mount
Scombrus and extend towards the setting sun as far as the river Oskius. This
river rises in the same mountains as the Nestus and Hebrus, a wild and
extensive range connected with Rhodope.
The
empire of the Odrysians extended along the seaboard from Abdera to the mouth of
the Danube in the Euxine. The navigation of this coast by the shortest route
takes a merchantman four days and four nights with a wind astern the whole way:
by land an active man, travelling by the shortest road, can get from Abdera to
the Danube in eleven days. Such was the length of its coast line. Inland from
Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the Strymon, the farthest limit of its extension
into the interior, it is a journey of thirteen days for an active man. The
tribute from all the barbarian districts and the Hellenic cities, taking what
they brought in under Seuthes, the successor of Sitalces, who raised it to its
greatest height, amounted to about four hundred talents in gold and silver.
There were also presents in gold and silver to a no less amount, besides stuff,
plain and embroidered, and other articles, made not only for the king, but also
for the Odrysian lords and nobles. For there was here established a custom
opposite to that prevailing in the Persian kingdom, namely, of taking rather
than giving; more disgrace being attached to not giving when asked than to
asking and being refused; and although this prevailed elsewhere in Thrace, it
was practised most extensively among the powerful Odrysians, it being
impossible to get anything done without a present. It was thus a very powerful
kingdom; in revenue and general prosperity surpassing all in Europe between the
Ionian Gulf and the Euxine, and in numbers and military resources coming
decidedly next to the Scythians, with whom indeed no people in Europe can bear
comparison, there not being even in Asia any nation singly a match for them if
unanimous, though of course they are not on a level with other races in general
intelligence and the arts of civilized life.
It
was the master of this empire that now prepared to take the field. When
everything was ready, he set out on his march for Macedonia, first through his
own dominions, next over the desolate range of Cercine that divides the
Sintians and Paeonians, crossing by a road which he had made by felling the
timber on a former campaign against the latter people. Passing over these
mountains, with the Paeonians on his right and the Sintians and Maedians on the
left, he finally arrived at Doberus, in Paeonia, losing none of his army on the
march, except perhaps by sickness, but receiving some augmentations, many of
the independent Thracians volunteering to join him in the hope of plunder; so
that the whole is said to have formed a grand total of a hundred and fifty
thousand. Most of this was infantry, though there was about a third cavalry,
furnished principally by the Odrysians themselves and next to them by the
Getae. The most warlike of the infantry were the independent swordsmen who came
down from Rhodope; the rest of the mixed multitude that followed him being
chiefly formidable by their numbers.
Assembling
in Doberus, they prepared for descending from the heights upon Lower Macedonia,
where the dominions of Perdiccas lay; for the Lyncestae, Elimiots, and other
tribes more inland, though Macedonians by blood, and allies and dependants of
their kindred, still have their own separate governments. The country on the
sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of
Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos. This was effected
by the expulsion from Pieria of the Pierians, who afterwards inhabited Phagres
and other places under Mount Pangaeus, beyond the Strymon (indeed the country
between Pangaeus and the sea is still called the Pierian Gulf); of the
Bottiaeans, at present neighbours of the Chalcidians, from Bottia, and by the
acquisition in Paeonia of a narrow strip along the river Axius extending to
Pella and the sea; the district of Mygdonia, between the Axius and the Strymon,
being also added by the expulsion of the Edonians. From Eordia also were driven
the Eordians, most of whom perished, though a few of them still live round
Physca, and the Almopians from Almopia. These Macedonians also conquered places
belonging to the other tribes, which are still theirs- Anthemus, Crestonia,
Bisaltia, and much of Macedonia proper. The whole is now called Macedonia, and
at the time of the invasion of Sitalces, Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the
reigning king.
These
Macedonians, unable to take the field against so numerous an invader, shut
themselves up in such strong places and fortresses as the country possessed. Of
these there was no great number, most of those now found in the country having
been erected subsequently by Archelaus, the son of Perdiccas, on his accession,
who also cut straight roads, and otherwise put the kingdom on a better footing
as regards horses, heavy infantry, and other war material than had been done by
all the eight kings that preceded him. Advancing from Doberus, the Thracian
host first invaded what had been once Philip's government, and took Idomene by
assault, Gortynia, Atalanta, and some other places by negotiation, these last
coming over for love of Philip's son, Amyntas, then with Sitalces. Laying siege
to Europus, and failing to take it, he next advanced into the rest of Macedonia
to the left of Pella and Cyrrhus, not proceeding beyond this into Bottiaea and
Pieria, but staying to lay waste Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Anthemus.
The
Macedonians never even thought of meeting him with infantry; but the Thracian
host was, as opportunity offered, attacked by handfuls of their horse, which
had been reinforced from their allies in the interior. Armed with cuirasses,
and excellent horsemen, wherever these charged they overthrew all before them,
but ran considerable risk in entangling themselves in the masses of the enemy,
and so finally desisted from these efforts, deciding that they were not strong
enough to venture against numbers so superior.
Meanwhile
Sitalces opened negotiations with Perdiccas on the objects of his expedition;
and finding that the Athenians, not believing that he would come, did not
appear with their fleet, though they sent presents and envoys, dispatched a
large part of his army against the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and shutting
them up inside their walls laid waste their country. While he remained in these
parts, the people farther south, such as the Thessalians, Magnetes, and the
other tribes subject to the Thessalians, and the Hellenes as far as
Thermopylae, all feared that the army might advance against them, and prepared
accordingly. These fears were shared by the Thracians beyond the Strymon to the
north, who inhabited the plains, such as the Panaeans, the Odomanti, the Droi,
and the Dersaeans, all of whom are independent. It was even matter of
conversation among the Hellenes who were enemies of Athens whether he might not
be invited by his ally to advance also against them. Meanwhile he held
Chalcidice and Bottice and Macedonia, and was ravaging them all; but finding
that he was not succeeding in any of the objects of his invasion, and that his
army was without provisions and was suffering from the severity of the season,
he listened to the advice of Seuthes, son of Spardacus, his nephew and highest
officer, and decided to retreat without delay. This Seuthes had been secretly
gained by Perdiccas by the promise of his sister in marriage with a rich dowry.
In accordance with this advice, and after a stay of thirty days in all, eight
of which were spent in Chalcidice, he retired home as quickly as he could; and
Perdiccas afterwards gave his sister Stratonice to Seuthes as he had promised.
Such was the history of the expedition of Sitalces.
In
the course of this winter, after the dispersion of the Peloponnesian fleet, the
Athenians in Naupactus, under Phormio, coasted along to Astacus and
disembarked, and marched into the interior of Acarnania with four hundred
Athenian heavy infantry and four hundred Messenians. After expelling some
suspected persons from Stratus, Coronta, and other places, and restoring Cynes,
son of Theolytus, to Coronta, they returned to their ships, deciding that it
was impossible in the winter season to march against Oeniadae, a place which,
unlike the rest of Acarnania, had been always hostile to them; for the river
Achelous flowing from Mount Pindus through Dolopia and the country of the
Agraeans and Amphilochians and the plain of Acarnania, past the town of Stratus
in the upper part of its course, forms lakes where it falls into the sea round
Oeniadae, and thus makes it impracticable for an army in winter by reason of
the water. Opposite to Oeniadae lie most of the islands called Echinades, so
close to the mouths of the Achelous that that powerful stream is constantly
forming deposits against them, and has already joined some of the islands to
the continent, and seems likely in no long while to do the same with the rest.
For the current is strong, deep, and turbid, and the islands are so thick
together that they serve to imprison the alluvial deposit and prevent its
dispersing, lying, as they do, not in one line, but irregularly, so as to leave
no direct passage for the water into the open sea. The islands in question are
uninhabited and of no great size. There is also a story that Alcmaeon, son of
Amphiraus, during his wanderings after the murder of his mother was bidden by
Apollo to inhabit this spot, through an oracle which intimated that he would
have no release from his terrors until he should find a country to dwell in
which had not been seen by the sun, or existed as land at the time he slew his
mother; all else being to him polluted ground. Perplexed at this, the story
goes on to say, he at last observed this deposit of the Achelous, and
considered that a place sufficient to support life upon, might have been thrown
up during the long interval that had elapsed since the death of his mother and
the beginning of his wanderings. Settling, therefore, in the district round
Oeniadae, he founded a dominion, and left the country its name from his son
Acarnan. Such is the story we have received concerning Alcmaeon.
The
Athenians and Phormio putting back from Acarnania and arriving at Naupactus,
sailed home to Athens in the spring, taking with them the ships that they had
captured, and such of the prisoners made in the late actions as were freemen;
who were exchanged, man for man. And so ended this winter, and the third year
of this war, of which Thucydides was the historian.
The Third Book.
THE
next summer, just as the corn was getting ripe, the Peloponnesians and their
allies invaded Attica under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king
of the Lacedaemonians, and sat down and ravaged the land; the Athenian horse as
usual attacking them, wherever it was practicable, and preventing the mass of
the light troops from advancing from their camp and wasting the parts near the
city. After staying the time for which they had taken provisions, the invaders
retired and dispersed to their several cities.
Immediately
after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos, except Methymna, revolted
from the Athenians. The Lesbians had wished to revolt even before the war, but
the Lacedaemonians would not receive them; and yet now when they did revolt,
they were compelled to do so sooner than they had intended. While they were
waiting until the moles for their harbours and the ships and walls that they
had in building should be finished, and for the arrival of archers and corn and
other things that they were engaged in fetching from the Pontus, the Tenedians,
with whom they were at enmity, and the Methymnians, and some factious persons
in Mitylene itself, who were proxeni of Athens, informed the Athenians that the
Mitylenians were forcibly uniting the island under their sovereignty, and that
the preparations about which they were so active, were all concerted with the
Boeotians their kindred and the Lacedaemonians with a view to a revolt, and
that, unless they were immediately prevented, Athens would lose Lesbos.
However,
the Athenians, distressed by the plague, and by the war that had recently
broken out and was now raging, thought it a serious matter to add Lesbos with
its fleet and untouched resources to the list of their enemies; and at first
would not believe the charge, giving too much weight to their wish that it
might not be true. But when an embassy which they sent had failed to persuade
the Mitylenians to give up the union and preparations complained of, they
became alarmed, and resolved to strike the first blow. They accordingly
suddenly sent off forty ships that had been got ready to sail round
Peloponnese, under the command of Cleippides, son of Deinias, and two others;
word having been brought them of a festival in honour of the Malean Apollo
outside the town, which is kept by the whole people of Mitylene, and at which,
if haste were made, they might hope to take them by surprise. If this plan
succeeded, well and good; if not, they were to order the Mitylenians to deliver
up their ships and to pull down their walls, and if they did not obey, to
declare war. The ships accordingly set out; the ten galleys, forming the
contingent of the Mitylenians present with the fleet according to the terms of
the alliance, being detained by the Athenians, and their crews placed in
custody. However, the Mitylenians were informed of the expedition by a man who
crossed from Athens to Euboea, and going overland to Geraestus, sailed from
thence by a merchantman which he found on the point of putting to sea, and so
arrived at Mitylene the third day after leaving Athens. The Mitylenians
accordingly refrained from going out to the temple at Malea, and moreover
barricaded and kept guard round the half-finished parts of their walls and
harbours.
When
the Athenians sailed in not long after and saw how things stood, the generals
delivered their orders, and upon the Mitylenians refusing to obey, commenced
hostilities. The Mitylenians, thus compelled to go to war without notice and
unprepared, at first sailed out with their fleet and made some show of
fighting, a little in front of the harbour; but being driven back by the
Athenian ships, immediately offered to treat with the commanders, wishing, if
possible, to get the ships away for the present upon any tolerable terms. The
Athenian commanders accepted their offers, being themselves fearful that they
might not be able to cope with the whole of Lesbos; and an armistice having
been concluded, the Mitylenians sent to Athens one of the informers, already
repentant of his conduct, and others with him, to try to persuade the Athenians
of the innocence of their intentions and to get the fleet recalled. In the
meantime, having no great hope of a favourable answer from Athens, they also
sent off a galley with envoys to Lacedaemon, unobserved by the Athenian fleet
which was anchored at Malea to the north of the town.
While
these envoys, reaching Lacedaemon after a difficult journey across the open
sea, were negotiating for succours being sent them, the ambassadors from Athens
returned without having effected anything; and hostilities were at once begun
by the Mitylenians and the rest of Lesbos, with the exception of the
Methymnians, who came to the aid of the Athenians with the Imbrians and
Lemnians and some few of the other allies. The Mitylenians made a sortie with
all their forces against the Athenian camp; and a battle ensued, in which they
gained some slight advantage, but retired notwithstanding, not feeling
sufficient confidence in themselves to spend the night upon the field. After
this they kept quiet, wishing to wait for the chance of reinforcements arriving
from Peloponnese before making a second venture, being encouraged by the
arrival of Meleas, a Laconian, and Hermaeondas, a Theban, who had been sent off
before the insurrection but had been unable to reach Lesbos before the Athenian
expedition, and who now stole in in a galley after the battle, and advised them
to send another galley and envoys back with them, which the Mitylenians
accordingly did.
Meanwhile
the Athenians, greatly encouraged by the inaction of the Mitylenians, summoned
allies to their aid, who came in all the quicker from seeing so little vigour
displayed by the Lesbians, and bringing round their ships to a new station to
the south of the town, fortified two camps, one on each side of the city, and
instituted a blockade of both the harbours. The sea was thus closed against the
Mitylenians, who, however, commanded the whole country, with the rest of the
Lesbians who had now joined them; the Athenians only holding a limited area
round their camps, and using Malea more as the station for their ships and
their market.
While
the war went on in this way at Mitylene, the Athenians, about the same time in
this summer, also sent thirty ships to Peloponnese under Asopius, son of
Phormio; the Acarnanians insisting that the commander sent should be some son
or relative of Phormio. As the ships coasted along shore they ravaged the
seaboard of Laconia; after which Asopius sent most of the fleet home, and
himself went on with twelve vessels to Naupactus, and afterwards raising the
whole Acarnanian population made an expedition against Oeniadae, the fleet
sailing along the Achelous, while the army laid waste the country. The
inhabitants, however, showing no signs of submitting, he dismissed the land
forces and himself sailed to Leucas, and making a descent upon Nericus was cut
off during his retreat, and most of his troops with him, by the people in those
parts aided by some coastguards; after which the Athenians sailed away,
recovering their dead from the Leucadians under truce.
Meanwhile
the envoys of the Mitylenians sent out in the first ship were told by the
Lacedaemonians to come to Olympia, in order that the rest of the allies might
hear them and decide upon their matter, and so they journeyed thither. It was
the Olympiad in which the Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory, and the
envoys having been introduced to make their speech after the festival, spoke as
follows:
"Lacedaemonians
and allies, the rule established among the Hellenes is not unknown to us. Those
who revolt in war and forsake their former confederacy are favourably regarded
by those who receive them, in so far as they are of use to them, but otherwise
are thought less well of, through being considered traitors to their former
friends. Nor is this an unfair way of judging, where the rebels and the power
from whom they secede are at one in policy and sympathy, and a match for each
other in resources and power, and where no reasonable ground exists for the
rebellion. But with us and the Athenians this was not the case; and no one need
think the worse of us for revolting from them in danger, after having been
honoured by them in time of peace.
"Justice
and honesty will be the first topics of our speech, especially as we are asking
for alliance; because we know that there can never be any solid friendship
between individuals, or union between communities that is worth the name,
unless the parties be persuaded of each other's honesty, and be generally
congenial the one to the other; since from difference in feeling springs also
difference in conduct. Between ourselves and the Athenians alliance began, when
you withdrew from the Median War and they remained to finish the business. But
we did not become allies of the Athenians for the subjugation of the Hellenes,
but allies of the Hellenes for their liberation from the Mede; and as long as
the Athenians led us fairly we followed them loyally; but when we saw them
relax their hostility to the Mede, to try to compass the subjection of the allies,
then our apprehensions began. Unable, however, to unite and defend themselves,
on account of the number of confederates that had votes, all the allies were
enslaved, except ourselves and the Chians, who continued to send our
contingents as independent and nominally free. Trust in Athens as a leader,
however, we could no longer feel, judging by the examples already given; it
being unlikely that she would reduce our fellow confederates, and not do the
same by us who were left, if ever she had the power.
"Had
we all been still independent, we could have had more faith in their not
attempting any change; but the greater number being their subjects, while they
were treating us as equals, they would naturally chafe under this solitary
instance of independence as contrasted with the submission of the majority;
particularly as they daily grew more powerful, and we more destitute. Now the
only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the
other; he who would like to encroach is then deterred by the reflection that he
will not have odds in his favour. Again, if we were left independent, it was
only because they thought they saw their way to empire more clearly by specious
language and by the paths of policy than by those of force. Not only were we
useful as evidence that powers who had votes, like themselves, would not,
surely, join them in their expeditions, against their will, without the party
attacked being in the wrong; but the same system also enabled them to lead the
stronger states against the weaker first, and so to leave the former to the
last, stripped of their natural allies, and less capable of resistance. But if
they had begun with us, while all the states still had their resources under
their own control, and there was a centre to rally round, the work of
subjugation would have been found less easy. Besides this, our navy gave them
some apprehension: it was always possible that it might unite with you or with
some other power, and become dangerous to Athens. The court which we paid to
their commons and its leaders for the time being also helped us to maintain our
independence. However, we did not expect to be able to do so much longer, if
this war had not broken out, from the examples that we had had of their conduct
to the rest.
"How
then could we put our trust in such friendship or freedom as we had here? We
accepted each other against our inclination; fear made them court us in war,
and us them in peace; sympathy, the ordinary basis of confidence, had its place
supplied by terror, fear having more share than friendship in detaining us in
the alliance; and the first party that should be encouraged by the hope of
impunity was certain to break faith with the other. So that to condemn us for
being the first to break off, because they delay the blow that we dread,
instead of ourselves delaying to know for certain whether it will be dealt or
not, is to take a false view of the case. For if we were equally able with them
to meet their plots and imitate their delay, we should be their equals and
should be under no necessity of being their subjects; but the liberty of
offence being always theirs, that of defence ought clearly to be ours.
"Such,
Lacedaemonians and allies, are the grounds and the reasons of our revolt; clear
enough to convince our hearers of the fairness of our conduct, and sufficient
to alarm ourselves, and to make us turn to some means of safety. This we wished
to do long ago, when we sent to you on the subject while the peace yet lasted,
but were balked by your refusing to receive us; and now, upon the Boeotians
inviting us, we at once responded to the call, and decided upon a twofold
revolt, from the Hellenes and from the Athenians, not to aid the latter in
harming the former, but to join in their liberation, and not to allow the
Athenians in the end to destroy us, but to act in time against them. Our
revolt, however, has taken place prematurely and without preparation- a fact
which makes it all the more incumbent on you to receive us into alliance and to
send us speedy relief, in order to show that you support your friends, and at
the same time do harm to your enemies. You have an opportunity such as you
never had before. Disease and expenditure have wasted the Athenians: their
ships are either cruising round your coasts, or engaged in blockading us; and
it is not probable that they will have any to spare, if you invade them a
second time this summer by sea and land; but they will either offer no
resistance to your vessels, or withdraw from both our shores. Nor must it be
thought that this is a case of putting yourselves into danger for a country
which is not yours. Lesbos may appear far off, but when help is wanted she will
be found near enough. It is not in Attica that the war will be decided, as some
imagine, but in the countries by which Attica is supported; and the Athenian
revenue is drawn from the allies, and will become still larger if they reduce
us; as not only will no other state revolt, but our resources will be added to
theirs, and we shall be treated worse than those that were enslaved before. But
if you will frankly support us, you will add to your side a state that has a
large navy, which is your great want; you will smooth the way to the overthrow
of the Athenians by depriving them of their allies, who will be greatly
encouraged to come over; and you will free yourselves from the imputation made
against you, of not supporting insurrection. In short, only show yourselves as
liberators, and you may count upon having the advantage in the war.
"Respect,
therefore, the hopes placed in you by the Hellenes, and that Olympian Zeus, in
whose temple we stand as very suppliants; become the allies and defenders of
the Mitylenians, and do not sacrifice us, who put our lives upon the hazard, in
a cause in which general good will result to all from our success, and still
more general harm if we fail through your refusing to help us; but be the men
that the Hellenes think you, and our fears desire."
Such
were the words of the Mitylenians. After hearing them out, the Lacedaemonians
and confederates granted what they urged, and took the Lesbians into alliance,
and deciding in favour of the invasion of Attica, told the allies present to
march as quickly as possible to the Isthmus with two-thirds of their forces;
and arriving there first themselves, got ready hauling machines to carry their
ships across from Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens, in order to make
their attack by sea and land at once. However, the zeal which they displayed
was not imitated by the rest of the confederates, who came in but slowly, being
engaged in harvesting their corn and sick of making expeditions.
Meanwhile
the Athenians, aware that the preparations of the enemy were due to his
conviction of their weakness, and wishing to show him that he was mistaken, and
that they were able, without moving the Lesbian fleet, to repel with ease that
with which they were menaced from Peloponnese, manned a hundred ships by
embarking the citizens of Athens, except the knights and Pentacosiomedimni, and
the resident aliens; and putting out to the Isthmus, displayed their power, and
made descents upon Peloponnese wherever they pleased. A disappointment so
signal made the Lacedaemonians think that the Lesbians had not spoken the
truth; and embarrassed by the non-appearance of the confederates, coupled with
the news that the thirty ships round Peloponnese were ravaging the lands near
Sparta, they went back home. Afterwards, however, they got ready a fleet to
send to Lesbos, and ordering a total of forty ships from the different cities
in the league, appointed Alcidas to command the expedition in his capacity of
high admiral. Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred ships, upon seeing the
Lacedaemonians go home, went home likewise.
If,
at the time that this fleet was at sea, Athens had almost the largest number of
first-rate ships in commission that she ever possessed at any one moment, she
had as many or even more when the war began. At that time one hundred guarded
Attica, Euboea, and Salamis; a hundred more were cruising round Peloponnese,
besides those employed at Potidaea and in other places; making a grand total of
two hundred and fifty vessels employed on active service in a single summer. It
was this, with Potidaea, that most exhausted her revenues- Potidaea being blockaded
by a force of heavy infantry (each drawing two drachmae a day, one for himself
and another for his servant), which amounted to three thousand at first, and
was kept at this number down to the end of the siege; besides sixteen hundred
with Phormio who went away before it was over; and the ships being all paid at
the same rate. In this way her money was wasted at first; and this was the
largest number of ships ever manned by her.
About
the same time that the Lacedaemonians were at the Isthmus, the Mitylenians
marched by land with their mercenaries against Methymna, which they thought to
gain by treachery. After assaulting the town, and not meeting with the success
that they anticipated, they withdrew to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus; and taking
measures for the better security of these towns and strengthening their walls,
hastily returned home. After their departure the Methymnians marched against
Antissa, but were defeated in a sortie by the Antissians and their mercenaries,
and retreated in haste after losing many of their number. Word of this reaching
Athens, and the Athenians learning that the Mitylenians were masters of the
country and their own soldiers unable to hold them in check, they sent out
about the beginning of autumn Paches, son of Epicurus, to take the command, and
a thousand Athenian heavy infantry; who worked their own passage and, arriving
at Mitylene, built a single wall all round it, forts being erected at some of
the strongest points. Mitylene was thus blockaded strictly on both sides, by land
and by sea; and winter now drew near.
The
Athenians needing money for the siege, although they had for the first time
raised a contribution of two hundred talents from their own citizens, now sent
out twelve ships to levy subsidies from their allies, with Lysicles and four
others in command. After cruising to different places and laying them under
contribution, Lysicles went up the country from Myus, in Caria, across the
plain of the Meander, as far as the hill of Sandius; and being attacked by the
Carians and the people of Anaia, was slain with many of his soldiers.
The
same winter the Plataeans, who were still being besieged by the Peloponnesians
and Boeotians, distressed by the failure of their provisions, and seeing no
hope of relief from Athens, nor any other means of safety, formed a scheme with
the Athenians besieged with them for escaping, if possible, by forcing their
way over the enemy's walls; the attempt having been suggested by Theaenetus,
son of Tolmides, a soothsayer, and Eupompides, son of Daimachus, one of their
generals. At first all were to join: afterwards, half hung back, thinking the
risk great; about two hundred and twenty, however, voluntarily persevered in
the attempt, which was carried out in the following way. Ladders were made to
match the height of the enemy's wall, which they measured by the layers of
bricks, the side turned towards them not being thoroughly whitewashed. These
were counted by many persons at once; and though some might miss the right
calculation, most would hit upon it, particularly as they counted over and over
again, and were no great way from the wall, but could see it easily enough for
their purpose. The length required for the ladders was thus obtained, being
calculated from the breadth of the brick.
Now
the wall of the Peloponnesians was constructed as follows. It consisted of two
lines drawn round the place, one against the Plataeans, the other against any
attack on the outside from Athens, about sixteen feet apart. The intermediate
space of sixteen feet was occupied by huts portioned out among the soldiers on
guard, and built in one block, so as to give the appearance of a single thick
wall with battlements on either side. At intervals of every ten battlements
were towers of considerable size, and the same breadth as the wall, reaching
right across from its inner to its outer face, with no means of passing except
through the middle. Accordingly on stormy and wet nights the battlements were
deserted, and guard kept from the towers, which were not far apart and roofed
in above.
Such
being the structure of the wall by which the Plataeans were blockaded, when
their preparations were completed, they waited for a stormy night of wind and
rain and without any moon, and then set out, guided by the authors of the enterprise.
Crossing first the ditch that ran round the town, they next gained the wall of
the enemy unperceived by the sentinels, who did not see them in the darkness,
or hear them, as the wind drowned with its roar the noise of their approach;
besides which they kept a good way off from each other, that they might not be
betrayed by the clash of their weapons. They were also lightly equipped, and
had only the left foot shod to preserve them from slipping in the mire. They
came up to the battlements at one of the intermediate spaces where they knew
them to be unguarded: those who carried the ladders went first and planted
them; next twelve light-armed soldiers with only a dagger and a breastplate
mounted, led by Ammias, son of Coroebus, who was the first on the wall; his
followers getting up after him and going six to each of the towers. After these
came another party of light troops armed with spears, whose shields, that they
might advance the easier, were carried by men behind, who were to hand them to
them when they found themselves in presence of the enemy. After a good many had
mounted they were discovered by the sentinels in the towers, by the noise made
by a tile which was knocked down by one of the Plataeans as he was laying hold
of the battlements. The alarm was instantly given, and the troops rushed to the
wall, not knowing the nature of the danger, owing to the dark night and stormy
weather; the Plataeans in the town having also chosen that moment to make a
sortie against the wall of the Peloponnesians upon the side opposite to that on
which their men were getting over, in order to divert the attention of the
besiegers. Accordingly they remained distracted at their several posts, without
any venturing to stir to give help from his own station, and at a loss to guess
what was going on. Meanwhile the three hundred set aside for service on
emergencies went outside the wall in the direction of the alarm. Fire-signals
of an attack were also raised towards Thebes; but the Plataeans in the town at
once displayed a number of others, prepared beforehand for this very purpose,
in order to render the enemy's signals unintelligible, and to prevent his
friends getting a true idea of what was passing and coming to his aid before
their comrades who had gone out should have made good their escape and be in
safety.
Meanwhile
the first of the scaling party that had got up, after carrying both the towers
and putting the sentinels to the sword, posted themselves inside to prevent any
one coming through against them; and rearing ladders from the wall, sent
several men up on the towers, and from their summit and base kept in check all
of the enemy that came up, with their missiles, while their main body planted a
number of ladders against the wall, and knocking down the battlements, passed
over between the towers; each as soon as he had got over taking up his station
at the edge of the ditch, and plying from thence with arrows and darts any who
came along the wall to stop the passage of his comrades. When all were over,
the party on the towers came down, the last of them not without difficulty, and
proceeded to the ditch, just as the three hundred came up carrying torches. The
Plataeans, standing on the edge of the ditch in the dark, had a good view of
their opponents, and discharged their arrows and darts upon the unarmed parts
of their bodies, while they themselves could not be so well seen in the
obscurity for the torches; and thus even the last of them got over the ditch,
though not without effort and difficulty; as ice had formed in it, not strong
enough to walk upon, but of that watery kind which generally comes with a wind
more east than north, and the snow which this wind had caused to fall during
the night had made the water in the ditch rise, so. that they could scarcely
breast it as they crossed. However, it was mainly the violence of the storm
that enabled them to effect their escape at all.
Starting
from the ditch, the Plataeans went all together along the road leading to
Thebes, keeping the chapel of the hero Androcrates upon their right;
considering that the last road which the Peloponnesians would suspect them of
having taken would be that towards their enemies' country. Indeed they could
see them pursuing with torches upon the Athens road towards Cithaeron and Druoskephalai
or Oakheads. After going for rather more than half a mile upon the road to
Thebes, the Plataeans turned off and took that leading to the mountain, to
Erythrae and Hysiae, and reaching the hills, made good their escape to Athens,
two hundred and twelve men in all; some of their number having turned back into
the town before getting over the wall, and one archer having been taken
prisoner at the outer ditch. Meanwhile the Peloponnesians gave up the pursuit
and returned to their posts; and the Plataeans in the town, knowing nothing of
what had passed, and informed by those who had turned back that not a man had
escaped, sent out a herald as soon as it was day to make a truce for the
recovery of the dead bodies, and then, learning the truth, desisted. In this
way the Plataean party got over and were saved.
Towards
the close of the same winter, Salaethus, a Lacedaemonian, was sent out in a
galley from Lacedaemon to Mitylene. Going by sea to Pyrrha, and from thence
overland, he passed along the bed of a torrent, where the line of
circumvallation was passable, and thus entering unperceived into Mitylene told
the magistrates that Attica would certainly be invaded, and the forty ships
destined to relieve them arrive, and that he had been sent on to announce this
and to superintend matters generally. The Mitylenians upon this took courage,
and laid aside the idea of treating with the Athenians; and now this winter
ended, and with it ended the fourth year of the war of which Thucydides was the
historian.
The
next summer the Peloponnesians sent off the forty-two ships for Mitylene, under
Alcidas, their high admiral, and themselves and their allies invaded Attica,
their object being to distract the Athenians by a double movement, and thus to
make it less easy for them to act against the fleet sailing to Mitylene. The
commander in this invasion was Cleomenes, in the place of King Pausanias, son
of Pleistoanax, his nephew, who was still a minor. Not content with laying
waste whatever had shot up in the parts which they had before devastated, the
invaders now extended their ravages to lands passed over in their previous
incursions; so that this invasion was more severely felt by the Athenians than
any except the second; the enemy staying on and on until they had overrun most
of the country, in the expectation of hearing from Lesbos of something having
been achieved by their fleet, which they thought must now have got over.
However, as they did not obtain any of the results expected, and their
provisions began to run short, they retreated and dispersed to their different
cities.
In
the meantime the Mitylenians, finding their provisions failing, while the fleet
from Peloponnese was loitering on the way instead of appearing at Mitylene,
were compelled to come to terms with the Athenians in the following manner.
Salaethus having himself ceased to expect the fleet to arrive, now armed the
commons with heavy armour, which they had not before possessed, with the
intention of making a sortie against the Athenians. The commons, however, no
sooner found themselves possessed of arms than they refused any longer to obey
their officers; and forming in knots together, told the authorities to bring
out in public the provisions and divide them amongst them all, or they would
themselves come to terms with the Athenians and deliver up the city.
The
government, aware of their inability to prevent this, and of the danger they
would be in, if left out of the capitulation, publicly agreed with Paches and
the army to surrender Mitylene at discretion and to admit the troops into the
town; upon the understanding that the Mitylenians should be allowed to send an
embassy to Athens to plead their cause, and that Paches should not imprison,
make slaves of, or put to death any of the citizens until its return. Such were
the terms of the capitulation; in spite of which the chief authors of the
negotiation with Lacedaemon were so completely overcome by terror when the army
entered that they went and seated themselves by the altars, from which they
were raised up by Paches under promise that he would do them no wrong, and
lodged by him in Tenedos, until he should learn the pleasure of the Athenians
concerning them. Paches also sent some galleys and seized Antissa, and took
such other military measures as he thought advisable.
Meanwhile
the Peloponnesians in the forty ships, who ought to have made all haste to
relieve Mitylene, lost time in coming round Peloponnese itself, and proceeding
leisurely on the remainder of the voyage, made Delos without having been seen
by the Athenians at Athens, and from thence arriving at Icarus and Myconus,
there first heard of the fall of Mitylene. Wishing to know the truth, they put
into Embatum, in the Erythraeid, about seven days after the capture of the
town. Here they learned the truth, and began to consider what they were to do;
and Teutiaplus, an Elean, addressed them as follows:
"Alcidas
and Peloponnesians who share with me the command of this armament, my advice is
to sail just as we are to Mitylene, before we have been heard of. We may expect
to find the Athenians as much off their guard as men generally are who have
just taken a city: this will certainly be so by sea, where they have no idea of
any enemy attacking them, and where our strength, as it happens, mainly lies; while
even their land forces are probably scattered about the houses in the
carelessness of victory. If therefore we were to fall upon them suddenly and in
the night, I have hopes, with the help of the well-wishers that we may have
left inside the town, that we shall become masters of the place. Let us not
shrink from the risk, but let us remember that this is just the occasion for
one of the baseless panics common in war: and that to be able to guard against
these in one's own case, and to detect the moment when an attack will find an
enemy at this disadvantage, is what makes a successful general."
These
words of Teutiaplus failing to move Alcidas, some of the Ionian exiles and the
Lesbians with the expedition began to urge him, since this seemed too dangerous,
to seize one of the Ionian cities or the Aeolic town of Cyme, to use as a base
for effecting the revolt of Ionia. This was by no means a hopeless enterprise,
as their coming was welcome everywhere; their object would be by this move to
deprive Athens of her chief source of revenue, and at the same time to saddle
her with expense, if she chose to blockade them; and they would probably induce
Pissuthnes to join them in the war. However, Alcidas gave this proposal as bad
a reception as the other, being eager, since he had come too late for Mitylene,
to find himself back in Peloponnese as soon as possible.
Accordingly
he put out from Embatum and proceeded along shore; and touching at the Teian
town, Myonnesus, there butchered most of the prisoners that he had taken on his
passage. Upon his coming to anchor at Ephesus, envoys came to him from the
Samians at Anaia, and told him that he was not going the right way to free
Hellas in massacring men who had never raised a hand against him, and who were
not enemies of his, but allies of Athens against their will, and that if he did
not stop he would turn many more friends into enemies than enemies into
friends. Alcidas agreed to this, and let go all the Chians still in his hands
and some of the others that he had taken; the inhabitants, instead of flying at
the sight of his vessels, rather coming up to them, taking them for Athenian,
having no sort of expectation that while the Athenians commanded the sea
Peloponnesian ships would venture over to Ionia.
From
Ephesus Alcidas set sail in haste and fled. He had been seen by the Salaminian
and Paralian galleys, which happened to be sailing from Athens, while still at
anchor off Clarus; and fearing pursuit he now made across the open sea, fully
determined to touch nowhere, if he could help it, until he got to Peloponnese.
Meanwhile news of him had come in to Paches from the Erythraeid, and indeed
from all quarters. As Ionia was unfortified, great fears were felt that the
Peloponnesians coasting along shore, even if they did not intend to stay, might
make descents in passing and plunder the towns; and now the Paralian and
Salaminian, having seen him at Clarus, themselves brought intelligence of the
fact. Paches accordingly gave hot chase, and continued the pursuit as far as the
isle of Patmos, and then finding that Alcidas had got on too far to be
overtaken, came back again. Meanwhile he thought it fortunate that, as he had
not fallen in with them out at sea, he had not overtaken them anywhere where
they would have been forced to encamp, and so give him the trouble of
blockading them.
On
his return along shore he touched, among other places, at Notium, the port of
Colophon, where the Colophonians had settled after the capture of the upper
town by Itamenes and the barbarians, who had been called in by certain
individuals in a party quarrel. The capture of the town took place about the
time of the second Peloponnesian invasion of Attica. However, the refugees,
after settling at Notium, again split up into factions, one of which called in
Arcadian and barbarian mercenaries from Pissuthnes and, entrenching these in a
quarter apart, formed a new community with the Median party of the Colophonians
who joined them from the upper town. Their opponents had retired into exile,
and now called in Paches, who invited Hippias, the commander of the Arcadians
in the fortified quarter, to a parley, upon condition that, if they could not
agree, he was to be put back safe and sound in the fortification. However, upon
his coming out to him, he put him into custody, though not in chains, and
attacked suddenly and took by surprise the fortification, and putting the
Arcadians and the barbarians found in it to the sword, afterwards took Hippias
into it as he had promised, and, as soon as he was inside, seized him and shot
him down. Paches then gave up Notium to the Colophonians not of the Median
party; and settlers were afterwards sent out from Athens, and the place
colonized according to Athenian laws, after collecting all the Colophonians
found in any of the cities.
Arrived
at Mitylene, Paches reduced Pyrrha and Eresus; and finding the Lacedaemonian,
Salaethus, in hiding in the town, sent him off to Athens, together with the
Mitylenians that he had placed in Tenedos, and any other persons that he
thought concerned in the revolt. He also sent back the greater part of his
forces, remaining with the rest to settle Mitylene and the rest of Lesbos as he
thought best.
Upon
the arrival of the prisoners with Salaethus, the Athenians at once put the
latter to death, although he offered, among other things, to procure the
withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Plataea, which was still under siege; and
after deliberating as to what they should do with the former, in the fury of
the moment determined to put to death not only the prisoners at Athens, but the
whole adult male population of Mitylene, and to make slaves of the women and
children. It was remarked that Mitylene had revolted without being, like the
rest, subjected to the empire; and what above all swelled the wrath of the
Athenians was the fact of the Peloponnesian fleet having ventured over to Ionia
to her support, a fact which was held to argue a long meditated rebellion. They
accordingly sent a galley to communicate the decree to Paches, commanding him
to lose no time in dispatching the Mitylenians. The morrow brought repentance
with it and reflection on the horrid cruelty of a decree, which condemned a
whole city to the fate merited only by the guilty. This was no sooner perceived
by the Mitylenian ambassadors at Athens and their Athenian supporters, than
they moved the authorities to put the question again to the vote; which they
the more easily consented to do, as they themselves plainly saw that most of
the citizens wished some one to give them an opportunity for reconsidering the
matter. An assembly was therefore at once called, and after much expression of
opinion upon both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, the same who had carried the
former motion of putting the Mitylenians to death, the most violent man at
Athens, and at that time by far the most powerful with the commons, came
forward again and spoke as follows:
"I
have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire,
and never more so than by your present change of mind in the matter of
Mitylene. Fears or plots being unknown to you in your daily relations with each
other, you feel just the same with regard to your allies, and never reflect
that the mistakes into which you may be led by listening to their appeals, or
by giving way to your own compassion, are full of danger to yourselves, and
bring you no thanks for your weakness from your allies; entirely forgetting
that your empire is a despotism and your subjects disaffected conspirators,
whose obedience is ensured not by your suicidal concessions, but by the
superiority given you by your own strength and not their loyalty. The most
alarming feature in the case is the constant change of measures with which we
appear to be threatened, and our seeming ignorance of the fact that bad laws
which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that have no
authority; that unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than quick-witted
insubordination; and that ordinary men usually manage public affairs better
than their more gifted fellows. The latter are always wanting to appear wiser
than the laws, and to overrule every proposition brought forward, thinking that
they cannot show their wit in more important matters, and by such behaviour too
often ruin their country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are
content to be less learned than the laws, and less able to pick holes in the
speech of a good speaker; and being fair judges rather than rival athletes,
generally conduct affairs successfully. These we ought to imitate, instead of
being led on by cleverness and intellectual rivalry to advise your people
against our real opinions.
"For
myself, I adhere to my former opinion, and wonder at those who have proposed to
reopen the case of the Mitylenians, and who are thus causing a delay which is
all in favour of the guilty, by making the sufferer proceed against the
offender with the edge of his anger blunted; although where vengeance follows
most closely upon the wrong, it best equals it and most amply requites it. I
wonder also who will be the man who will maintain the contrary, and will
pretend to show that the crimes of the Mitylenians are of service to us, and
our misfortunes injurious to the allies. Such a man must plainly either have
such confidence in his rhetoric as to adventure to prove that what has been
once for all decided is still undetermined, or be bribed to try to delude us by
elaborate sophisms. In such contests the state gives the rewards to others, and
takes the dangers for herself. The persons to blame are you who are so foolish
as to institute these contests; who go to see an oration as you would to see a
sight, take your facts on hearsay, judge of the practicability of a project by
the wit of its advocates, and trust for the truth as to past events not to the
fact which you saw more than to the clever strictures which you heard; the easy
victims of new-fangled arguments, unwilling to follow received conclusions;
slaves to every new paradox, despisers of the commonplace; the first wish of
every man being that he could speak himself, the next to rival those who can
speak by seeming to be quite up with their ideas by applauding every hit almost
before it is made, and by being as quick in catching an argument as you are
slow in foreseeing its consequences; asking, if I may so say, for something
different from the conditions under which we live, and yet comprehending
inadequately those very conditions; very slaves to the pleasure of the ear, and
more like the audience of a rhetorician than the council of a city.
"In
order to keep you from this, I proceed to show that no one state has ever
injured you as much as Mitylene. I can make allowance for those who revolt
because they cannot bear our empire, or who have been forced to do so by the
enemy. But for those who possessed an island with fortifications; who could
fear our enemies only by sea, and there had their own force of galleys to
protect them; who were independent and held in the highest honour by you- to act
as these have done, this is not revolt- revolt implies oppression; it is
deliberate and wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our
bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their own account
in the acquisition of power. The fate of those of their neighbours who had
already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson to them; their own
prosperity could not dissuade them from affronting danger; but blindly
confident in the future, and full of hopes beyond their power though not beyond
their ambition, they declared war and made their decision to prefer might to
right, their attack being determined not by provocation but by the moment which
seemed propitious. The truth is that great good fortune coming suddenly and
unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent; in most cases it is safer for
mankind to have success in reason than out of reason; and it is easier for
them, one may say, to stave off adversity than to preserve prosperity. Our
mistake has been to distinguish the Mitylenians as we have done: had they been
long ago treated like the rest, they never would have so far forgotten
themselves, human nature being as surely made arrogant by consideration as it
is awed by firmness. Let them now therefore be punished as their crime
requires, and do not, while you condemn the aristocracy, absolve the people.
This is certain, that all attacked you without distinction, although they might
have come over to us and been now again in possession of their city. But no,
they thought it safer to throw in their lot with the aristocracy and so joined
their rebellion! Consider therefore: if you subject to the same punishment the
ally who is forced to rebel by the enemy, and him who does so by his own free
choice, which of them, think you, is there that will not rebel upon the
slightest pretext; when the reward of success is freedom, and the penalty of
failure nothing so very terrible? We meanwhile shall have to risk our money and
our lives against one state after another; and if successful, shall receive a
ruined town from which we can no longer draw the revenue upon which our
strength depends; while if unsuccessful, we shall have an enemy the more upon
our hands, and shall spend the time that might be employed in combating our
existing foes in warring with our own allies.
"No
hope, therefore, that rhetoric may instil or money purchase, of the mercy due
to human infirmity must be held out to the Mitylenians. Their offence was not
involuntary, but of malice and deliberate; and mercy is only for unwilling
offenders. I therefore, now as before, persist against your reversing your
first decision, or giving way to the three failings most fatal to empire- pity,
sentiment, and indulgence. Compassion is due to those who can reciprocate the
feeling, not to those who will never pity us in return, but are our natural and
necessary foes: the orators who charm us with sentiment may find other less
important arenas for their talents, in the place of one where the city pays a
heavy penalty for a momentary pleasure, themselves receiving fine
acknowledgments for their fine phrases; while indulgence should be shown
towards those who will be our friends in future, instead of towards men who
will remain just what they were, and as much our enemies as before. To sum up
shortly, I say that if you follow my advice you will do what is just towards
the Mitylenians, and at the same time expedient; while by a different decision
you will not oblige them so much as pass sentence upon yourselves. For if they
were right in rebelling, you must be wrong in ruling. However, if, right or
wrong, you determine to rule, you must carry out your principle and punish the
Mitylenians as your interest requires; or else you must give up your empire and
cultivate honesty without danger. Make up your minds, therefore, to give them
like for like; and do not let the victims who escaped the plot be more
insensible than the conspirators who hatched it; but reflect what they would
have done if victorious over you, especially they were the aggressors. It is
they who wrong their neighbour without a cause, that pursue their victim to the
death, on account of the danger which they foresee in letting their enemy
survive; since the object of a wanton wrong is more dangerous, if he escape,
than an enemy who has not this to complain of. Do not, therefore, be traitors
to yourselves, but recall as nearly as possible the moment of suffering and the
supreme importance which you then attached to their reduction; and now pay them
back in their turn, without yielding to present weakness or forgetting the
peril that once hung over you. Punish them as they deserve, and teach your
other allies by a striking example that the penalty of rebellion is death. Let
them once understand this and you will not have so often to neglect your
enemies while you are fighting with your own confederates."
Such
were the words of Cleon. After him Diodotus, son of Eucrates, who had also in
the previous assembly spoken most strongly against putting the Mitylenians to
death, came forward and spoke as follows:
"I
do not blame the persons who have reopened the case of the Mitylenians, nor do
I approve the protests which we have heard against important questions being
frequently debated. I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are
haste and passion; haste usually goes hand in hand with folly, passion with
coarseness and narrowness of mind. As for the argument that speech ought not to
be the exponent of action, the man who uses it must be either senseless or
interested: senseless if he believes it possible to treat of the uncertain
future through any other medium; interested if, wishing to carry a disgraceful
measure and doubting his ability to speak well in a bad cause, he thinks to
frighten opponents and hearers by well-aimed calumny. What is still more
intolerable is to accuse a speaker of making a display in order to be paid for
it. If ignorance only were imputed, an unsuccessful speaker might retire with a
reputation for honesty, if not for wisdom; while the charge of dishonesty makes
him suspected, if successful, and thought, if defeated, not only a fool but a
rogue. The city is no gainer by such a system, since fear deprives it of its
advisers; although in truth, if our speakers are to make such assertions, it
would be better for the country if they could not speak at all, as we should
then make fewer blunders. The good citizen ought to triumph not by frightening
his opponents but by beating them fairly in argument; and a wise city, without
over-distinguishing its best advisers, will nevertheless not deprive them of
their due, and, far from punishing an unlucky counsellor, will not even regard
him as disgraced. In this way successful orators would be least tempted to
sacrifice their convictions to popularity, in the hope of still higher honours,
and unsuccessful speakers to resort to the same popular arts in order to win
over the multitude.
"This
is not our way; and, besides, the moment that a man is suspected of giving
advice, however good, from corrupt motives, we feel such a grudge against him
for the gain which after all we are not certain he will receive, that we
deprive the city of its certain benefit. Plain good advice has thus come to be
no less suspected than bad; and the advocate of the most monstrous measures is
not more obliged to use deceit to gain the people, than the best counsellor is
to lie in order to be believed. The city and the city only, owing to these
refinements, can never be served openly and without disguise; he who does serve
it openly being always suspected of serving himself in some secret way in
return. Still, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, and the
position of affairs, we orators must make it our business to look a little
farther than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your advisers, are
responsible, while you, our audience, are not so. For if those who gave the
advice, and those who took it, suffered equally, you would judge more calmly;
as it is, you visit the disasters into which the whim of the moment may have
led you upon the single person of your adviser, not upon yourselves, his
numerous companions in error.
"However,
I have not come forward either to oppose or to accuse in the matter of
Mitylene; indeed, the question before us as sensible men is not their guilt,
but our interests. Though I prove them ever so guilty, I shall not, therefore,
advise their death, unless it be expedient; nor though they should have claims
to indulgence, shall I recommend it, unless it be dearly for the good of the
country. I consider that we are deliberating for the future more than for the
present; and where Cleon is so positive as to the useful deterrent effects that
will follow from making rebellion capital, I, who consider the interests of the
future quite as much as he, as positively maintain the contrary. And I require
you not to reject my useful considerations for his specious ones: his speech
may have the attraction of seeming the more just in your present temper against
Mitylene; but we are not in a court of justice, but in a political assembly;
and the question is not justice, but how to make the Mitylenians useful to
Athens.
"Now
of course communities have enacted the penalty of death for many offences far
lighter than this: still hope leads men to venture, and no one ever yet put
himself in peril without the inward conviction that he would succeed in his
design. Again, was there ever city rebelling that did not believe that it
possessed either in itself or in its alliances resources adequate to the
enterprise? All, states and individuals, are alike prone to err, and there is
no law that will prevent them; or why should men have exhausted the list of
punishments in search of enactments to protect them from evildoers? It is
probable that in early times the penalties for the greatest offences were less
severe, and that, as these were disregarded, the penalty of death has been by
degrees in most cases arrived at, which is itself disregarded in like manner.
Either then some means of terror more terrible than this must be discovered, or
it must be owned that this restraint is useless; and that as long as poverty
gives men the courage of necessity, or plenty fills them with the ambition
which belongs to insolence and pride, and the other conditions of life remain
each under the thraldom of some fatal and master passion, so long will the
impulse never be wanting to drive men into danger. Hope also and cupidity, the
one leading and the other following, the one conceiving the attempt, the other
suggesting the facility of succeeding, cause the widest ruin, and, although
invisible agents, are far stronger than the dangers that are seen. Fortune,
too, powerfully helps the delusion and, by the unexpected aid that she
sometimes lends, tempts men to venture with inferior means; and this is
especially the case with communities, because the stakes played for are the
highest, freedom or empire, and, when all are acting together, each man
irrationally magnifies his own capacity. In fine, it is impossible to prevent,
and only great simplicity can hope to prevent, human nature doing what it has
once set its mind upon, by force of law or by any other deterrent force
whatsoever.
"We
must not, therefore, commit ourselves to a false policy through a belief in the
efficacy of the punishment of death, or exclude rebels from the hope of
repentance and an early atonement of their error. Consider a moment. At
present, if a city that has already revolted perceive that it cannot succeed,
it will come to terms while it is still able to refund expenses, and pay
tribute afterwards. In the other case, what city, think you, would not prepare
better than is now done, and hold out to the last against its besiegers, if it
is all one whether it surrender late or soon? And how can it be otherwise than
hurtful to us to be put to the expense of a siege, because surrender is out of
the question; and if we take the city, to receive a ruined town from which we
can no longer draw the revenue which forms our real strength against the enemy?
We must not, therefore, sit as strict judges of the offenders to our own
prejudice, but rather see how by moderate chastisements we may be enabled to
benefit in future by the revenue-producing powers of our dependencies; and we
must make up our minds to look for our protection not to legal terrors but to
careful administration. At present we do exactly the opposite. When a free
community, held in subjection by force, rises, as is only natural, and asserts
its independence, it is no sooner reduced than we fancy ourselves obliged to
punish it severely; although the right course with freemen is not to chastise
them rigorously when they do rise, but rigorously to watch them before they
rise, and to prevent their ever entertaining the idea, and, the insurrection
suppressed, to make as few responsible for it as possible.
"Only
consider what a blunder you would commit in doing as Cleon recommends. As
things are at present, in all the cities the people is your friend, and either
does not revolt with the oligarchy, or, if forced to do so, becomes at once the
enemy of the insurgents; so that in the war with the hostile city you have the
masses on your side. But if you butcher the people of Mitylene, who had nothing
to do with the revolt, and who, as soon as they got arms, of their own motion
surrendered the town, first you will commit the crime of killing your
benefactors; and next you will play directly into the hands of the higher
classes, who when they induce their cities to rise, will immediately have the
people on their side, through your having announced in advance the same
punishment for those who are guilty and for those who are not. On the contrary,
even if they were guilty, you ought to seem not to notice it, in order to avoid
alienating the only class still friendly to us. In short, I consider it far
more useful for the preservation of our empire voluntarily to put up with
injustice, than to put to death, however justly, those whom it is our interest
to keep alive. As for Cleon's idea that in punishment the claims of justice and
expediency can both be satisfied, facts do not confirm the possibility of such
a combination.
"Confess,
therefore, that this is the wisest course, and without conceding too much
either to pity or to indulgence, by neither of which motives do I any more than
Cleon wish you to be influenced, upon the plain merits of the case before you,
be persuaded by me to try calmly those of the Mitylenians whom Paches sent off
as guilty, and to leave the rest undisturbed. This is at once best for the
future, and most terrible to your enemies at the present moment; inasmuch as
good policy against an adversary is superior to the blind attacks of brute
force."
Such
were the words of Diodotus. The two opinions thus expressed were the ones that
most directly contradicted each other; and the Athenians, notwithstanding their
change of feeling, now proceeded to a division, in which the show of hands was
almost equal, although the motion of Diodotus carried the day. Another galley
was at once sent off in haste, for fear that the first might reach Lesbos in
the interval, and the city be found destroyed; the first ship having about a
day and a night's start. Wine and barley-cakes were provided for the vessel by
the Mitylenian ambassadors, and great promises made if they arrived in time;
which caused the men to use such diligence upon the voyage that they took their
meals of barley-cakes kneaded with oil and wine as they rowed, and only slept
by turns while the others were at the oar. Luckily they met with no contrary
wind, and the first ship making no haste upon so horrid an errand, while the
second pressed on in the manner described, the first arrived so little before
them, that Paches had only just had time to read the decree, and to prepare to
execute the sentence, when the second put into port and prevented the massacre.
The danger of Mitylene had indeed been great.
The
other party whom Paches had sent off as the prime movers in the rebellion, were
upon Cleon's motion put to death by the Athenians, the number being rather more
than a thousand. The Athenians also demolished the walls of the Mitylenians,
and took possession of their ships. Afterwards tribute was not imposed upon the
Lesbians; but all their land, except that of the Methymnians, was divided into
three thousand allotments, three hundred of which were reserved as sacred for
the gods, and the rest assigned by lot to Athenian shareholders, who were sent
out to the island. With these the Lesbians agreed to pay a rent of two minae a
year for each allotment, and cultivated the land themselves. The Athenians also
took possession of the towns on the continent belonging to the Mitylenians,
which thus became for the future subject to Athens. Such were the events that
took place at Lesbos.
DURING
the same summer, after the reduction of Lesbos, the Athenians under Nicias, son
of Niceratus, made an expedition against the island of Minoa, which lies off
Megara and was used as a fortified post by the Megarians, who had built a tower
upon it. Nicias wished to enable the Athenians to maintain their blockade from
this nearer station instead of from Budorum and Salamis; to stop the
Peloponnesian galleys and privateers sailing out unobserved from the island, as
they had been in the habit of doing; and at the same time prevent anything from
coming into Megara. Accordingly, after taking two towers projecting on the side
of Nisaea, by engines from the sea, and clearing the entrance into the channel
between the island and the shore, he next proceeded to cut off all
communication by building a wall on the mainland at the point where a bridge
across a morass enabled succours to be thrown into the island, which was not
far off from the continent. A few days sufficing to accomplish this, he
afterwards raised some works in the island also, and leaving a garrison there,
departed with his forces.
About
the same time in this summer, the Plataeans, being now without provisions and
unable to support the siege, surrendered to the Peloponnesians in the following
manner. An assault had been made upon the wall, which the Plataeans were unable
to repel. The Lacedaemonian commander, perceiving their weakness, wished to
avoid taking the place by storm; his instructions from Lacedaemon having been
so conceived, in order that if at any future time peace should be made with
Athens, and they should agree each to restore the places that they had taken in
the war, Plataea might be held to have come over voluntarily, and not be
included in the list. He accordingly sent a herald to them to ask if they were
willing voluntarily to surrender the town to the Lacedaemonians, and accept
them as their judges, upon the understanding that the guilty should be
punished, but no one without form of law. The Plataeans were now in the last state
of weakness, and the herald had no sooner delivered his message than they
surrendered the town. The Peloponnesians fed them for some days until the
judges from Lacedaemon, who were five in number, arrived. Upon their arrival no
charge was preferred; they simply called up the Plataeans, and asked them
whether they had done the Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the war then
raging. The Plataeans asked leave to speak at greater length, and deputed two
of their number to represent them: Astymachus, son of Asopolaus, and Lacon, son
of Aeimnestus, proxenus of the Lacedaemonians, who came forward and spoke as
follows:
"Lacedaemonians,
when we surrendered our city we trusted in you, and looked forward to a trial
more agreeable to the forms of law than the present, to which we had no idea of
being subjected; the judges also in whose hands we consented to place ourselves
were you, and you only (from whom we thought we were most likely to obtain
justice), and not other persons, as is now the case. As matters stand, we are
afraid that we have been doubly deceived. We have good reason to suspect, not
only that the issue to be tried is the most terrible of all, but that you will
not prove impartial; if we may argue from the fact that no accusation was first
brought forward for us to answer, but we had ourselves to ask leave to speak,
and from the question being put so shortly, that a true answer to it tells
against us, while a false one can be contradicted. In this dilemma, our safest,
and indeed our only course, seems to be to say something at all risks: placed
as we are, we could scarcely be silent without being tormented by the damning
thought that speaking might have saved us. Another difficulty that we have to
encounter is the difficulty of convincing you. Were we unknown to each other we
might profit by bringing forward new matter with which you were unacquainted:
as it is, we can tell you nothing that you do not know already, and we fear,
not that you have condemned us in your own minds of having failed in our duty
towards you, and make this our crime, but that to please a third party we have
to submit to a trial the result of which is already decided. Nevertheless, we
will place before you what we can justly urge, not only on the question of the
quarrel which the Thebans have against us, but also as addressing you and the
rest of the Hellenes; and we will remind you of our good services, and
endeavour to prevail with you.
"To
your short question, whether we have done the Lacedaemonians and allies any
service in this war, we say, if you ask us as enemies, that to refrain from
serving you was not to do you injury; if as friends, that you are more in fault
for having marched against us. During the peace, and against the Mede, we acted
well: we have not now been the first to break the peace, and we were the only
Boeotians who then joined in defending against the Mede the liberty of Hellas.
Although an inland people, we were present at the action at Artemisium; in the
battle that took place in our territory we fought by the side of yourselves and
Pausanias; and in all the other Hellenic exploits of the time we took a part
quite out of proportion to our strength. Besides, you, as Lacedaemonians, ought
not to forget that at the time of the great panic at Sparta, after the
earthquake, caused by the secession of the Helots to Ithome, we sent the third
part of our citizens to assist you.
"On
these great and historical occasions such was the part that we chose, although
afterwards we became your enemies. For this you were to blame. When we asked
for your alliance against our Theban oppressors, you rejected our petition, and
told us to go to the Athenians who were our neighbours, as you lived too far
off. In the war we never have done to you, and never should have done to you,
anything unreasonable. If we refused to desert the Athenians when you asked us,
we did no wrong; they had helped us against the Thebans when you drew back, and
we could no longer give them up with honour; especially as we had obtained
their alliance and had been admitted to their citizenship at our own request,
and after receiving benefits at their hands; but it was plainly our duty
loyally to obey their orders. Besides, the faults that either of you may commit
in your supremacy must be laid, not upon the followers, but on the chiefs that
lead them astray.
"With
regard to the Thebans, they have wronged us repeatedly, and their last
aggression, which has been the means of bringing us into our present position,
is within your own knowledge. In seizing our city in time of peace, and what is
more at a holy time in the month, they justly encountered our vengeance, in
accordance with the universal law which sanctions resistance to an invader; and
it cannot now be right that we should suffer on their account. By taking your
own immediate interest and their animosity as the test of justice, you will
prove yourselves to be rather waiters on expediency than judges of right;
although if they seem useful to you now, we and the rest of the Hellenes gave
you much more valuable help at a time of greater need. Now you are the
assailants, and others fear you; but at the crisis to which we allude, when the
barbarian threatened all with slavery, the Thebans were on his side. It is
just, therefore, to put our patriotism then against our error now, if error
there has been; and you will find the merit outweighing the fault, and
displayed at a juncture when there were few Hellenes who would set their valour
against the strength of Xerxes, and when greater praise was theirs who preferred
the dangerous path of honour to the safe course of consulting their own
interest with respect to the invasion. To these few we belonged, and highly
were we honoured for it; and yet we now fear to perish by having again acted on
the same principles, and chosen to act well with Athens sooner than wisely with
Sparta. Yet in justice the same cases should be decided in the same way, and
policy should not mean anything else than lasting gratitude for the service of
good ally combined with a proper attention to one's own immediate interest.
"Consider
also that at present the Hellenes generally regard you as a pattern of worth
and honour; and if you pass an unjust sentence upon us in this which is no
obscure cause, but one in which you, the judges, are as illustrious as we, the
prisoners, are blameless, take care that displeasure be not felt at an unworthy
decision in the matter of honourable men made by men yet more honourable than
they, and at the consecration in the national temples of spoils taken from the Plataeans,
the benefactors of Hellas. Shocking indeed will it seem for Lacedaemonians to
destroy Plataea, and for the city whose name your fathers inscribed upon the
tripod at Delphi for its good service, to be by you blotted out from the map of
Hellas, to please the Thebans. To such a depth of misfortune have we fallen
that, while the Medes' success had been our ruin, Thebans now supplant us in
your once fond regards; and we have been subjected to two dangers, the greatest
of any- that of dying of starvation then, if we had not surrendered our town,
and now of being tried for our lives. So that we Plataeans, after exertions
beyond our power in the cause of the Hellenes, are rejected by all, forsaken
and unassisted; helped by none of our allies, and reduced to doubt the
stability of our only hope, yourselves.
"Still,
in the name of the gods who once presided over our confederacy, and of our own
good service in the Hellenic cause, we adjure you to relent; to recall the
decision which we fear that the Thebans may have obtained from you; to ask back
the gift that you have given them, that they disgrace not you by slaying us; to
gain a pure instead of a guilty gratitude, and not to gratify others to be
yourselves rewarded with shame. Our lives may be quickly taken, but it will be
a heavy task to wipe away the infamy of the deed; as we are no enemies whom you
might justly punish, but friends forced into taking arms against you. To grant
us our lives would be, therefore, a righteous judgment; if you consider also
that we are prisoners who surrendered of their own accord, stretching out our
hands for quarter, whose slaughter Hellenic law forbids, and who besides were
always your benefactors. Look at the sepulchres of your fathers, slain by the
Medes and buried in our country, whom year by year we honoured with garments
and all other dues, and the first-fruits of all that our land produced in their
season, as friends from a friendly country and allies to our old companions in
arms. Should you not decide aright, your conduct would be the very opposite to
ours. Consider only: Pausanias buried them thinking that he was laying them in
friendly ground and among men as friendly; but you, if you kill us and make the
Plataean territory Theban, will leave your fathers and kinsmen in a hostile
soil and among their murderers, deprived of the honours which they now enjoy.
What is more, you will enslave the land in which the freedom of the Hellenes
was won, make desolate the temples of the gods to whom they prayed before they
overcame the Medes, and take away your ancestral sacrifices from those who
founded and instituted them.
"It
were not to your glory, Lacedaemonians, either to offend in this way against
the common law of the Hellenes and against your own ancestors, or to kill us
your benefactors to gratify another's hatred without having been wronged
yourselves: it were more so to spare us and to yield to the impressions of a
reasonable compassion; reflecting not merely on the awful fate in store for us,
but also on the character of the sufferers, and on the impossibility of
predicting how soon misfortune may fall even upon those who deserve it not. We,
as we have a right to do and as our need impels us, entreat you, calling aloud
upon the gods at whose common altar all the Hellenes worship, to hear our
request, to be not unmindful of the oaths which your fathers swore, and which
we now plead- we supplicate you by the tombs of your fathers, and appeal to
those that are gone to save us from falling into the hands of the Thebans and
their dearest friends from being given up to their most detested foes. We also
remind you of that day on which we did the most glorious deeds, by your
fathers' sides, we who now on this are like to suffer the most dreadful fate.
Finally, to do what is necessary and yet most difficult for men in our
situation- that is, to make an end of speaking, since with that ending the
peril of our lives draws near- in conclusion we say that we did not surrender
our city to the Thebans (to that we would have preferred inglorious
starvation), but trusted in and capitulated to you; and it would be just, if we
fail to persuade you, to put us back in the same position and let us take the
chance that falls to us. And at the same time we adjure you not to give us up-
your suppliants, Lacedaemonians, out of your hands and faith, Plataeans
foremost of the Hellenic patriots, to Thebans, our most hated enemies- but to
be our saviours, and not, while you free the rest of the Hellenes, to bring us
to destruction."
Such
were the words of the Plataeans. The Thebans, afraid that the Lacedaemonians
might be moved by what they had heard, came forward and said that they too
desired to address them, since the Plataeans had, against their wish, been
allowed to speak at length instead of being confined to a simple answer to the
question. Leave being granted, the Thebans spoke as follows:
"We
should never have asked to make this speech if the Plataeans on their side had
contented themselves with shortly answering the question, and had not turned
round and made charges against us, coupled with a long defence of themselves
upon matters outside the present inquiry and not even the subject of
accusation, and with praise of what no one finds fault with. However, since
they have done so, we must answer their charges and refute their self-praise,
in order that neither our bad name nor their good may help them, but that you
may hear the real truth on both points, and so decide.
"The
origin of our quarrel was this. We settled Plataea some time after the rest of
Boeotia, together with other places out of which we had driven the mixed
population. The Plataeans not choosing to recognize our supremacy, as had been
first arranged, but separating themselves from the rest of the Boeotians, and
proving traitors to their nationality, we used compulsion; upon which they went
over to the Athenians, and with them did as much harm, for which we retaliated.
"Next,
when the barbarian invaded Hellas, they say that they were the only Boeotians who
did not Medize; and this is where they most glorify themselves and abuse us. We
say that if they did not Medize, it was because the Athenians did not do so
either; just as afterwards when the Athenians attacked the Hellenes they, the
Plataeans, were again the only Boeotians who Atticized. And yet consider the
forms of our respective governments when we so acted. Our city at that juncture
had neither an oligarchical constitution in which all the nobles enjoyed equal
rights, nor a democracy, but that which is most opposed to law and good
government and nearest a tyranny- the rule of a close cabal. These, hoping to
strengthen their individual power by the success of the Mede, kept down by
force the people, and brought him into the town. The city as a whole was not
its own mistress when it so acted, and ought not to be reproached for the
errors that it committed while deprived of its constitution. Examine only how
we acted after the departure of the Mede and the recovery of the constitution;
when the Athenians attacked the rest of Hellas and endeavoured to subjugate our
country, of the greater part of which faction had already made them masters.
Did not we fight and conquer at Coronea and liberate Boeotia, and do we not now
actively contribute to the liberation of the rest, providing horses to the
cause and a force unequalled by that of any other state in the confederacy?
"Let
this suffice to excuse us for our Medism. We will now endeavour to show that
you have injured the Hellenes more than we, and are more deserving of condign
punishment. It was in defence against us, say you, that you became allies and
citizens of Athens. If so, you ought only to have called in the Athenians
against us, instead of joining them in attacking others: it was open to you to
do this if you ever felt that they were leading you where you did not wish to
follow, as Lacedaemon was already your ally against the Mede, as you so much
insist; and this was surely sufficient to keep us off, and above all to allow
you to deliberate in security. Nevertheless, of your own choice and without
compulsion you chose to throw your lot in with Athens. And you say that it had
been base for you to betray your benefactors; but it was surely far baser and
more iniquitous to sacrifice the whole body of the Hellenes, your fellow
confederates, who were liberating Hellas, than the Athenians only, who were
enslaving it. The return that you made them was therefore neither equal nor
honourable, since you called them in, as you say, because you were being
oppressed yourselves, and then became their accomplices in oppressing others;
although baseness rather consists in not returning like for like than in not
returning what is justly due but must be unjustly paid.
"Meanwhile,
after thus plainly showing that it was not for the sake of the Hellenes that
you alone then did not Medize, but because the Athenians did not do so either,
and you wished to side with them and to be against the rest; you now claim the
benefit of good deeds done to please your neighbours. This cannot be admitted:
you chose the Athenians, and with them you must stand or fall. Nor can you
plead the league then made and claim that it should now protect you. You
abandoned that league, and offended against it by helping instead of hindering
the subjugation of the Aeginetans and others of its members, and that not under
compulsion, but while in enjoyment of the same institutions that you enjoy to
the present hour, and no one forcing you as in our case. Lastly, an invitation
was addressed to you before you were blockaded to be neutral and join neither
party: this you did not accept. Who then merit the detestation of the Hellenes
more justly than you, you who sought their ruin under the mask of honour? The
former virtues that you allege you now show not to be proper to your character;
the real bent of your nature has been at length damningly proved: when the
Athenians took the path of injustice you followed them.
"Of
our unwilling Medism and your wilful Atticizing this then is our explanation.
The last wrong wrong of which you complain consists in our having, as you say,
lawlessly invaded your town in time of peace and festival. Here again we cannot
think that we were more in fault than yourselves. If of our own proper motion
we made an armed attack upon your city and ravaged your territory, we are
guilty; but if the first men among you in estate and family, wishing to put an
end to the foreign connection and to restore you to the common Boeotian
country, of their own free will invited us, wherein is our crime? Where wrong
is done, those who lead, as you say, are more to blame than those who follow.
Not that, in our judgment, wrong was done either by them or by us. Citizens
like yourselves, and with more at stake than you, they opened their own walls
and introduced us into their own city, not as foes but as friends, to prevent
the bad among you from becoming worse; to give honest men their due; to reform
principles without attacking persons, since you were not to be banished from
your city, but brought home to your kindred, nor to be made enemies to any, but
friends alike to all.
"That
our intention was not hostile is proved by our behaviour. We did no harm to any
one, but publicly invited those who wished to live under a national, Boeotian
government to come over to us; which as first you gladly did, and made an
agreement with us and remained tranquil, until you became aware of the
smallness of our numbers. Now it is possible that there may have been something
not quite fair in our entering without the consent of your commons. At any rate
you did not repay us in kind. Instead of refraining, as we had done, from
violence, and inducing us to retire by negotiation, you fell upon us in
violation of your agreement, and slew some of us in fight, of which we do not
so much complain, for in that there was a certain justice; but others who held
out their hands and received quarter, and whose lives you subsequently promised
us, you lawlessly butchered. If this was not abominable, what is? And after
these three crimes committed one after the other- the violation of your
agreement, the murder of the men afterwards, and the lying breach of your
promise not to kill them, if we refrained from injuring your property in the
country- you still affirm that we are the criminals and yourselves pretend to
escape justice. Not so, if these your judges decide aright, but you will be
punished for all together.
"Such,
Lacedaemonians, are the facts. We have gone into them at some length both on
your account and on our own, that you may fed that you will justly condemn the
prisoners, and we, that we have given an additional sanction to our vengeance.
We would also prevent you from being melted by hearing of their past virtues,
if any such they had: these may be fairly appealed to by the victims of injustice,
but only aggravate the guilt of criminals, since they offend against their
better nature. Nor let them gain anything by crying and wailing, by calling
upon your fathers' tombs and their own desolate condition. Against this we
point to the far more dreadful fate of our youth, butchered at their hands; the
fathers of whom either fell at Coronea, bringing Boeotia over to you, or
seated, forlorn old men by desolate hearths, with far more reason implore your
justice upon the prisoners. The pity which they appeal to is rather due to men
who suffer unworthily; those who suffer justly as they do are on the contrary
subjects for triumph. For their present desolate condition they have themselves
to blame, since they wilfully rejected the better alliance. Their lawless act
was not provoked by any action of ours: hate, not justice, inspired their
decision; and even now the satisfaction which they afford us is not adequate;
they will suffer by a legal sentence, not as they pretend as suppliants asking
for quarter in battle, but as prisoners who have surrendered upon agreement to
take their trial. Vindicate, therefore, Lacedaemonians, the Hellenic law which
they have broken; and to us, the victims of its violation, grant the reward
merited by our zeal. Nor let us be supplanted in your favour by their
harangues, but offer an example to the Hellenes, that the contests to which you
invite them are of deeds, not words: good deeds can be shortly stated, but
where wrong is done a wealth of language is needed to veil its deformity.
However, if leading powers were to do what you are now doing, and putting one
short question to all alike were to decide accordingly, men would be less
tempted to seek fine phrases to cover bad actions."
Such
were the words of the Thebans. The Lacedaemonian judges decided that the
question whether they had received any service from the Plataeans in the war,
was a fair one for them to put; as they had always invited them to be neutral,
agreeably to the original covenant of Pausanias after the defeat of the Mede,
and had again definitely offered them the same conditions before the blockade.
This offer having been refused, they were now, they conceived, by the loyalty
of their intention released from their covenant; and having, as they
considered, suffered evil at the hands of the Plataeans, they brought them in
again one by one and asked each of them the same question, that is to say,
whether they had done the Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the war; and
upon their saying that they had not, took them out and slew them, all without
exception. The number of Plataeans thus massacred was not less than two
hundred, with twenty-five Athenians who had shared in the siege. The women were
taken as slaves. The city the Thebans gave for about a year to some political
emigrants from Megara and to the surviving Plataeans of their own party to
inhabit, and afterwards razed it to the ground from the very foundations, and
built on to the precinct of Hera an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all
round above and below, making use for this purpose of the roofs and doors of
the Plataeans: of the rest of the materials in the wall, the brass and the
iron, they made couches which they dedicated to Hera, for whom they also built
a stone chapel of a hundred feet square. The land they confiscated and let out
on a ten years' lease to Theban occupiers. The adverse attitude of the
Lacedaemonians in the whole Plataean affair was mainly adopted to please the
Thebans, who were thought to be useful in the war at that moment raging. Such
was the end of Plataea, in the ninety-third year after she became the ally of
Athens.
Meanwhile,
the forty ships of the Peloponnesians that had gone to the relief of the
Lesbians, and which we left flying across the open sea, pursued by the
Athenians, were caught in a storm off Crete, and scattering from thence made
their way to Peloponnese, where they found at Cyllene thirteen Leucadian and
Ambraciot galleys, with Brasidas, son of Tellis, lately arrived as counsellor
to Alcidas; the Lacedaemonians, upon the failure of the Lesbian expedition,
having resolved to strengthen their fleet and sail to Corcyra, where a
revolution had broken out, so as to arrive there before the twelve Athenian
ships at Naupactus could be reinforced from Athens. Brasidas and Alcidas began
to prepare accordingly.
The
Corcyraean revolution began with the return of the prisoners taken in the
sea-fights off Epidamnus. These the Corinthians had released, nominally upon
the security of eight hundred talents given by their proxeni, but in reality
upon their engagement to bring over Corcyra to Corinth. These men proceeded to
canvass each of the citizens, and to intrigue with the view of detaching the
city from Athens. Upon the arrival of an Athenian and a Corinthian vessel, with
envoys on board, a conference was held in which the Corcyraeans voted to remain
allies of the Athenians according to their agreement, but to be friends of the
Peloponnesians as they had been formerly. Meanwhile, the returned prisoners
brought Peithias, a volunteer proxenus of the Athenians and leader of the
commons, to trial, upon the charge of enslaving Corcyra to Athens. He, being
acquitted, retorted by accusing five of the richest of their number of cutting
stakes in the ground sacred to Zeus and Alcinous; the legal penalty being a
stater for each stake. Upon their conviction, the amount of the penalty being
very large, they seated themselves as suppliants in the temples to be allowed
to pay it by instalments; but Peithias, who was one of the senate, prevailed
upon that body to enforce the law; upon which the accused, rendered desperate
by the law, and also learning that Peithias had the intention, while still a
member of the senate, to persuade the people to conclude a defensive and
offensive alliance with Athens, banded together armed with daggers, and
suddenly bursting into the senate killed Peithias and sixty others, senators
and private persons; some few only of the party of Peithias taking refuge in
the Athenian galley, which had not yet departed.
After
this outrage, the conspirators summoned the Corcyraeans to an assembly, and
said that this would turn out for the best, and would save them from being
enslaved by Athens: for the future, they moved to receive neither party unless
they came peacefully in a single ship, treating any larger number as enemies.
This motion made, they compelled it to be adopted, and instantly sent off
envoys to Athens to justify what had been done and to dissuade the refugees
there from any hostile proceedings which might lead to a reaction.
Upon
the arrival of the embassy, the Athenians arrested the envoys and all who
listened to them, as revolutionists, and lodged them in Aegina. Meanwhile a
Corinthian galley arriving in the island with Lacedaemonian envoys, the
dominant Corcyraean party attacked the commons and defeated them in battle.
Night coming on, the commons took refuge in the Acropolis and the higher parts
of the city, and concentrated themselves there, having also possession of the
Hyllaic harbour; their adversaries occupying the market-place, where most of
them lived, and the harbour adjoining, looking towards the mainland.
The
next day passed in skirmishes of little importance, each party sending into the
country to offer freedom to the slaves and to invite them to join them. The
mass of the slaves answered the appeal of the commons; their antagonists being
reinforced by eight hundred mercenaries from the continent.
After
a day's interval hostilities recommenced, victory remaining with the commons,
who had the advantage in numbers and position, the women also valiantly
assisting them, pelting with tiles from the houses, and supporting the melee
with a fortitude beyond their sex. Towards dusk, the oligarchs in full rout,
fearing that the victorious commons might assault and carry the arsenal and put
them to the sword, fired the houses round the marketplace and the
lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance; sparing neither their own, nor
those of their neighbours; by which much stuff of the merchants was consumed and
the city risked total destruction, if a wind had come to help the flame by
blowing on it. Hostilities now ceasing, both sides kept quiet, passing the
night on guard, while the Corinthian ship stole out to sea upon the victory of
the commons, and most of the mercenaries passed over secretly to the continent.
The
next day the Athenian general, Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes, came up from
Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred Messenian heavy infantry. He at
once endeavoured to bring about a settlement, and persuaded the two parties to
agree together to bring to trial ten of the ringleaders, who presently fled,
while the rest were to live in peace, making terms with each other, and
entering into a defensive and offensive alliance with the Athenians. This
arranged, he was about to sail away, when the leaders of the commons induced
him to leave them five of his ships to make their adversaries less disposed to
move, while they manned and sent with him an equal number of their own. He had
no sooner consented, than they began to enroll their enemies for the ships; and
these, fearing that they might be sent off to Athens, seated themselves as
suppliants in the temple of the Dioscuri. An attempt on the part of Nicostratus
to reassure them and to persuade them to rise proving unsuccessful, the commons
armed upon this pretext, alleging the refusal of their adversaries to sail with
them as a proof of the hollowness of their intentions, and took their arms out
of their houses, and would have dispatched some whom they fell in with, if
Nicostratus had not prevented it. The rest of the party, seeing what was going
on, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of Hera, being not less than
four hundred in number; until the commons, fearing that they might adopt some desperate
resolution, induced them to rise, and conveyed them over to the island in front
of the temple, where provisions were sent across to them.
At
this stage in the revolution, on the fourth or fifth day after the removal of
the men to the island, the Peloponnesian ships arrived from Cyllene where they
had been stationed since their return from Ionia, fifty-three in number, still
under the command of Alcidas, but with Brasidas also on board as his adviser;
and dropping anchor at Sybota, a harbour on the mainland, at daybreak made sail
for Corcyra.
The
Corcyraeans in great confusion and alarm at the state of things in the city and
at the approach of the invader, at once proceeded to equip sixty vessels, which
they sent out, as fast as they were manned, against the enemy, in spite of the
Athenians recommending them to let them sail out first, and to follow
themselves afterwards with all their ships to. gether. Upon their vessels
coming up to the enemy in this straggling fashion, two immediately deserted: in
others the crews were fighting among themselves, and there was no order in
anything that was done; so that the Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion,
placed twenty ships to oppose the Corcyraeans, and ranged the rest against the
twelve Athenian ships, amongst which were the two vessels Salaminia and
Paralus.
While
the Corcyraeans, attacking without judgment and in small detachments, were
already crippled by their own misconduct, the Athenians, afraid of the numbers
of the enemy and of being surrounded, did not venture to attack the main body
or even the centre of the division opposed to them, but fell upon its wing and
sank one vessel; after which the Peloponnesians formed in a circle, and the
Athenians rowed round them and tried to throw them into disorder. Perceiving
this, the division opposed to the Corcyraeans, fearing a repetition of the
disaster of Naupactus, came to support their friends, and the whole fleet now
bore down, united, upon the Athenians, who retired before it, backing water,
retiring as leisurely as possible in order to give the Corcyraeans time to
escape, while the enemy was thus kept occupied. Such was the character of this
sea-fight, which lasted until sunset.
The
Corcyraeans now feared that the enemy would follow up their victory and sail
against the town and rescue the men in the island, or strike some other blow
equally decisive, and accordingly carried the men over again to the temple of
Hera, and kept guard over the city. The Peloponnesians, however, although
victorious in the sea-fight, did not venture to attack the town, but took the
thirteen Corcyraean vessels which they had captured, and with them sailed back
to the continent from whence they had put out. The next day equally they
refrained from attacking the city, although the disorder and panic were at
their height, and though Brasidas, it is said, urged Alcidas, his superior
officer, to do so, but they landed upon the promontory of Leukimme and laid
waste the country.
Meanwhile
the commons in Corcyra, being still in great fear of the fleet attacking them,
came to a parley with the suppliants and their friends, in order to save the
town; and prevailed upon some of them to go on board the ships, of which they
still manned thirty, against the expected attack. But the Peloponnesians after
ravaging the country until midday sailed away, and towards nightfall were
informed by beacon signals of the approach of sixty Athenian vessels from
Leucas, under the command of Eurymedon, son of Thucles; which had been sent off
by the Athenians upon the news of the revolution and of the fleet with Alcidas
being about to sail for Corcyra.
The
Peloponnesians accordingly at once set off in haste by night for home, coasting
along shore; and hauling their ships across the Isthmus of Leucas, in order not
to be seen doubling it, so departed. The Corcyraeans, made aware of the
approach of the Athenian fleet and of the departure of the enemy, brought the
Messenians from outside the walls into the town, and ordered the fleet which
they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbour; and while it was so
doing, slew such of their enemies as they laid hands on, dispatching
afterwards, as they landed them, those whom they had persuaded to go on board
the ships. Next they went to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded about fifty
men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. The mass of the
suppliants who had refused to do so, on seeing what was taking place, slew each
other there in the consecrated ground; while some hanged themselves upon the
trees, and others destroyed themselves as they were severally able. During
seven days that Eurymedon stayed with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans were
engaged in butchering those of their fellow citizens whom they regarded as
their enemies: and although the crime imputed was that of attempting to put
down the democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their
debtors because of the moneys owed to them. Death thus raged in every shape;
and, as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence
did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and suppliants dragged from the
altar or slain upon it; while some were even walled up in the temple of
Dionysus and died there.
So
bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it made was
the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later on, one may say, the
whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being every, where made by the
popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the
Lacedaemonians. In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish
to make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the command
of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding
advantage, opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to
the revolutionary parties. The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the
cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as
long as the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or milder
form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety of the particular
cases. In peace and prosperity, states and individuals have better sentiments,
because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities;
but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough
master, that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes.
Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it
arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before, carried to a
still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the
cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to
change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.
Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent
hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for
unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.
Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a
justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was always
trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to
have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide
against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your
adversaries. In fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the
idea of a crime where it was wanting, was equally commended until even blood
became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those united by
the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such associations had not in
view the blessings derivable from established institutions but were formed by
ambition for their overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other
rested less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime. The fair
proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the stronger of
the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge also was held of more
account than self-preservation. Oaths of reconciliation, being only proffered
on either side to meet an immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no
other weapon was at hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured
to seize it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious
vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of safety apart,
success by treachery won him the palm of superior intelligence. Indeed it is
generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons
honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the
first. The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed
and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once
engaged in contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the
fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the
people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in
those public interests which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no
means in their struggles for ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in
their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what
justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the
moment their only standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation
of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities
of the hour. Thus religion was in honour with neither party; but the use of
fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the
moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining
in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to escape.
Thus
every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by reason of the
troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honour so largely entered was
laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no
man trusted his fellow. To put an end to this, there was neither promise to be
depended upon, nor oath that could command respect; but all parties dwelling
rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of
things, were more intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence. In this
contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their own
deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they feared to be
worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations of their more
versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had recourse to action: while their
adversaries, arrogantly thinking that they should know in time, and that it was
unnecessary to secure by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to
their want of precaution.
Meanwhile
Corcyra gave the first example of most of the crimes alluded to; of the
reprisals exacted by the governed who had never experienced equitable treatment
or indeed aught but insolence from their rulers- when their hour came; of the
iniquitous resolves of those who desired to get rid of their accustomed
poverty, and ardently coveted their neighbours' goods; and lastly, of the
savage and pitiless excesses into which men who had begun the struggle, not in
a class but in a party spirit, were hurried by their ungovernable passions. In
the confusion into which life was now thrown in the cities, human nature,
always rebelling against the law and now its master, gladly showed itself
ungoverned in passion, above respect for justice, and the enemy of all
superiority; since revenge would not have been set above religion, and gain
above justice, had it not been for the fatal power of envy. Indeed men too
often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the
example of doing away with those general laws to which all alike can look for
salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of
danger when their aid may be required.
While
the revolutionary passions thus for the first time displayed themselves in the
factions of Corcyra, Eurymedon and the Athenian fleet sailed away; after which
some five hundred Corcyraean exiles who had succeeded in escaping, took some
forts on the mainland, and becoming masters of the Corcyraean territory over
the water, made this their base to Plunder their countrymen in the island, and
did so much damage as to cause a severe famine in the town. They also sent
envoys to Lacedaemon and Corinth to negotiate their restoration; but meeting
with no success, afterwards got together boats and mercenaries and crossed over
to the island, being about six hundred in all; and burning their boats so as to
have no hope except in becoming masters of the country, went up to Mount
Istone, and fortifying themselves there, began to annoy those in the city and
obtained command of the country.
At
the close of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty ships under the command
of Laches, son of Melanopus, and Charoeades, son of Euphiletus, to Sicily,
where the Syracusans and Leontines were at war. The Syracusans had for allies
all the Dorian cities except Camarina- these had been included in the
Lacedaemonian confederacy from the commencement of the war, though they had not
taken any active part in it- the Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian
cities. In Italy the Locrians were for the Syracusans, the Rhegians for their
Leontine kinsmen. The allies of the Leontines now sent to Athens and appealed
to their ancient alliance and to their Ionian origin, to persuade the Athenians
to send them a fleet, as the Syracusans were blockading them by land and sea.
The Athenians sent it upon the plea of their common descent, but in reality to
prevent the exportation of Sicilian corn to Peloponnese and to test the
possibility of bringing Sicily into subjection. Accordingly they established
themselves at Rhegium in Italy, and from thence carried on the war in concert
with their allies.
SUMMER
was now over. The winter following, the plague a second time attacked the
Athenians; for although it had never entirely left them, still there had been a
notable abatement in its ravages. The second visit lasted no less than a year,
the first having lasted two; and nothing distressed the Athenians and reduced
their power more than this. No less than four thousand four hundred heavy
infantry in the ranks died of it and three hundred cavalry, besides a number of
the multitude that was never ascertained. At the same time took place the
numerous earthquakes in Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia, particularly at Orchomenus
in the last-named country.
The
same winter the Athenians in Sicily and the Rhegians, with thirty ships, made
an expedition against the islands of Aeolus; it being impossible to invade them
in summer, owing to the want of water. These islands are occupied by the
Liparaeans, a Cnidian colony, who live in one of them of no great size called
Lipara; and from this as their headquarters cultivate the rest, Didyme,
Strongyle, and Hiera. In Hiera the people in those parts believe that
Hephaestus has his forge, from the quantity of flame which they see it send out
by night, and of smoke by day. These islands lie off the coast of the Sicels
and Messinese, and were allies of the Syracusans. The Athenians laid waste
their land, and as the inhabitants did not submit, sailed back to Rhegium. Thus
the winter ended, and with it ended the fifth year of this war, of which
Thucydides was the historian.
The
next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies set out to invade Attica under
the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, and went as far as the Isthmus, but
numerous earthquakes occurring, turned back again without the invasion taking
place. About the same time that these earthquakes were so common, the sea at
Orobiae, in Euboea, retiring from the then line of coast, returned in a huge
wave and invaded a great part of the town, and retreated leaving some of it
still under water; so that what was once land is now sea; such of the
inhabitants perishing as could not run up to the higher ground in time. A
similar inundation also occurred at Atalanta, the island off the Opuntian
Locrian coast, carrying away part of the Athenian fort and wrecking one of two
ships which were drawn up on the beach. At Peparethus also the sea retreated a
little, without however any inundation following; and an earthquake threw down
part of the wall, the town hall, and a few other buildings. The cause, in my
opinion, of this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake. At the point
where its shock has been the most violent, the sea is driven back and, suddenly
recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation. Without an earthquake I
do not see how such an accident could happen.
During
the same summer different operations were carried on by the different
beligerents in Sicily; by the Siceliots themselves against each other, and by
the Athenians and their allies: I shall however confine myself to the actions
in which the Athenians took part, choosing the most important. The death of the
Athenian general Charoeades, killed by the Syracusans in battle, left Laches in
the sole command of the fleet, which he now directed in concert with the allies
against Mylae, a place belonging to the Messinese. Two Messinese battalions in
garrison at Mylae laid an ambush for the party landing from the ships, but were
routed with great slaughter by the Athenians and their allies, who thereupon
assaulted the fortification and compelled them to surrender the Acropolis and to
march with them upon Messina. This town afterwards also submitted upon the
approach of the Athenians and their allies, and gave hostages and all other
securities required.
The
same summer the Athenians sent thirty ships round Peloponnese under Demosthenes,
son of Alcisthenes, and Procles, son of Theodorus, and sixty others, with two
thousand heavy infantry, against Melos, under Nicias, son of Niceratus; wishing
to reduce the Melians, who, although islanders, refused to be subjects of
Athens or even to join her confederacy. The devastation of their land not
procuring their submission, the fleet, weighing from Melos, sailed to Oropus in
the territory of Graea, and landing at nightfall, the heavy infantry started at
once from the ships by land for Tanagra in Boeotia, where they were met by the
whole levy from Athens, agreeably to a concerted signal, under the command of
Hipponicus, son of Callias, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles. They encamped, and
passing that day in ravaging the Tanagraean territory, remained there for the
night; and next day, after defeating those of the Tanagraeans who sailed out
against them and some Thebans who had come up to help the Tanagraeans, took
some arms, set up a trophy, and retired, the troops to the city and the others
to the ships. Nicias with his sixty ships coasted alongshore and ravaged the
Locrian seaboard, and so returned home.
About
this time the Lacedaemonians founded their colony of Heraclea in Trachis, their
object being the following: the Malians form in all three tribes, the
Paralians, the Hiereans, and the Trachinians. The last of these having suffered
severely in a war with their neighbours the Oetaeans, at first intended to give
themselves up to Athens; but afterwards fearing not to find in her the security
that they sought, sent to Lacedaemon, having chosen Tisamenus for their
ambassador. In this embassy joined also the Dorians from the mother country of
the Lacedaemonians, with the same request, as they themselves also suffered
from the same enemy. After hearing them, the Lacedaemonians determined to send
out the colony, wishing to assist the Trachinians and Dorians, and also because
they thought that the proposed town would lie conveniently for the purposes of
the war against the Athenians. A fleet might be got ready there against Euboea,
with the advantage of a short passage to the island; and the town would also be
useful as a station on the road to Thrace. In short, everything made the
Lacedaemonians eager to found the place. After first consulting the god at Delphi
and receiving a favourable answer, they sent off the colonists, Spartans, and
Perioeci, inviting also any of the rest of the Hellenes who might wish to
accompany them, except Ionians, Achaeans, and certain other nationalities;
three Lacedaemonians leading as founders of the colony, Leon, Alcidas, and
Damagon. The settlement effected, they fortified anew the city, now called
Heraclea, distant about four miles and a half from Thermopylae and two miles
and a quarter from the sea, and commenced building docks, closing the side
towards Thermopylae just by the pass itself, in order that they might be easily
defended.
The
foundation of this town, evidently meant to annoy Euboea (the passage across to
Cenaeum in that island being a short one), at first caused some alarm at
Athens, which the event however did nothing to justify, the town never giving
them any trouble. The reason of this was as follows. The Thessalians, who were
sovereign in those parts, and whose territory was menaced by its foundation,
were afraid that it might prove a very powerful neighbour, and accordingly
continually harassed and made war upon the new settlers, until they at last
wore them out in spite of their originally considerable numbers, people
flocking from all quarters to a place founded by the Lacedaemonians, and thus
thought secure of prosperity. On the other hand the Lacedaemonians themselves,
in the persons of their governors, did their full share towards ruining its
prosperity and reducing its population, as they frightened away the greater
part of the inhabitants by governing harshly and in some cases not fairly, and
thus made it easier for their neighbours to prevail against them.
The
same summer, about the same time that the Athenians were detained at Melos,
their fellow citizens in the thirty ships cruising round Peloponnese, after
cutting off some guards in an ambush at Ellomenus in Leucadia, subsequently
went against Leucas itself with a large armament, having been reinforced by the
whole levy of the Acarnanians except Oeniadae, and by the Zacynthians and
Cephallenians and fifteen ships from Corcyra. While the Leucadians witnessed
the devastation of their land, without and within the isthmus upon which the
town of Leucas and the temple of Apollo stand, without making any movement on
account of the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, the Acarnanians urged
Demosthenes, the Athenian general, to build a wall so as to cut off the town
from the continent, a measure which they were convinced would secure its
capture and rid them once and for all of a most troublesome enemy.
Demosthenes
however had in the meanwhile been persuaded by the Messenians that it was a
fine opportunity for him, having so large an army assembled, to attack the
Aetolians, who were not only the enemies of Naupactus, but whose reduction
would further make it easy to gain the rest of that part of the continent for
the Athenians. The Aetolian nation, although numerous and warlike, yet dwelt in
unwalled villages scattered far apart, and had nothing but light armour, and might,
according to the Messenians, be subdued without much difficulty before succours
could arrive. The plan which they recommended was to attack first the
Apodotians, next the Ophionians, and after these the Eurytanians, who are the
largest tribe in Aetolia, and speak, as is said, a language exceedingly
difficult to understand, and eat their flesh raw. These once subdued, the rest
would easily come in.
To
this plan Demosthenes consented, not only to please the Messenians, but also in
the belief that by adding the Aetolians to his other continental allies he
would be able, without aid from home, to march against the Boeotians by way of
Ozolian Locris to Kytinium in Doris, keeping Parnassus on his right until he
descended to the Phocians, whom he could force to join him if their ancient
friendship for Athens did not, as he anticipated, at once decide them to do so.
Arrived in Phocis he was already upon the frontier of Boeotia. He accordingly
weighed from Leucas, against the wish of the Acarnanians, and with his whole
armament sailed along the coast to Sollium, where he communicated to them his
intention; and upon their refusing to agree to it on account of the
non-investment of Leucas, himself with the rest of the forces, the
Cephallenians, the Messenians, and Zacynthians, and three hundred Athenian
marines from his own ships (the fifteen Corcyraean vessels having departed),
started on his expedition against the Aetolians. His base he established at
Oeneon in Locris, as the Ozolian Locrians were allies of Athens and were to
meet him with all their forces in the interior. Being neighbours of the
Aetolians and armed in the same way, it was thought that they would be of great
service upon the expedition, from their acquaintance with the localities and
the warfare of the inhabitants.
After
bivouacking with the army in the precinct of Nemean Zeus, in which the poet
Hesiod is said to have been killed by the people of the country, according to
an oracle which had foretold that he should die in Nemea, Demosthenes set out
at daybreak to invade Aetolia. The first day he took Potidania, the next
Krokyle, and the third Tichium, where he halted and sent back the booty to
Eupalium in Locris, having determined to pursue his conquests as far as the
Ophionians, and, in the event of their refusing to submit, to return to
Naupactus and make them the objects of a second expedition. Meanwhile the
Aetolians had been aware of his design from the moment of its formation, and as
soon as the army invaded their country came up in great force with all their
tribes; even the most remote Ophionians, the Bomiensians, and Calliensians, who
extend towards the Malian Gulf, being among the number.
The
Messenians, however, adhered to their original advice. Assuring Demosthenes
that the Aetolians were an easy conquest, they urged him to push on as rapidly
as possible, and to try to take the villages as fast as he came up to them,
without waiting until the whole nation should be in arms against him. Led on by
his advisers and trusting in his fortune, as he had met with no opposition,
without waiting for his Locrian reinforcements, who were to have supplied him
with the light-armed darters in which he was most deficient, he advanced and
stormed Aegitium, the inhabitants flying before him and posting themselves upon
the hills above the town, which stood on high ground about nine miles from the
sea. Meanwhile the Aetolians had gathered to the rescue, and now attacked the
Athenians and their allies, running down from the hills on every side and
darting their javelins, falling back when the Athenian army advanced, and
coming on as it retired; and for a long while the battle was of this character,
alternate advance and retreat, in both which operations the Athenians had the
worst.
Still
as long as their archers had arrows left and were able to use them, they held
out, the light-armed Aetolians retiring before the arrows; but after the
captain of the archers had been killed and his men scattered, the soldiers,
wearied out with the constant repetition of the same exertions and hard pressed
by the Aetolians with their javelins, at last turned and fled, and falling into
pathless gullies and places that they were unacquainted with, thus perished,
the Messenian Chromon, their guide, having also unfortunately been killed. A great
many were overtaken in the pursuit by the swift-footed and light-armed
Aetolians, and fell beneath their javelins; the greater number however missed
their road and rushed into the wood, which had no ways out, and which was soon
fired and burnt round them by the enemy. Indeed the Athenian army fell victims
to death in every form, and suffered all the vicissitudes of flight; the
survivors escaped with difficulty to the sea and Oeneon in Locris, whence they
had set out. Many of the allies were killed, and about one hundred and twenty
Athenian heavy infantry, not a man less, and all in the prime of life. These
were by far the best men in the city of Athens that fell during this war. Among
the slain was also Procles, the colleague of Demosthenes. Meanwhile the
Athenians took up their dead under truce from the Aetolians, and retired to
Naupactus, and from thence went in their ships to Athens; Demosthenes staying
behind in Naupactus and in the neighbourhood, being afraid to face the
Athenians after the disaster.
About
the same time the Athenians on the coast of Sicily sailed to Locris, and in a
descent which they made from the ships defeated the Locrians who came against
them, and took a fort upon the river Halex.
The
same summer the Aetolians, who before the Athenian expedition had sent an
embassy to Corinth and Lacedaemon, composed of Tolophus, an Ophionian,
Boriades, an Eurytanian, and Tisander, an Apodotian, obtained that an army
should be sent them against Naupactus, which had invited the Athenian invasion.
The Lacedaemonians accordingly sent off towards autumn three thousand heavy
infantry of the allies, five hundred of whom were from Heraclea, the newly
founded city in Trachis, under the command of Eurylochus, a Spartan,
accompanied by Macarius and Menedaius, also Spartans.
The
army having assembled at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the Ozolian
Locrians; the road to Naupactus lying through their territory, and he having
besides conceived the idea of detaching them from Athens. His chief abettors in
Locris were the Amphissians, who were alarmed at the hostility of the Phocians.
These first gave hostages themselves, and induced the rest to do the same for
fear of the invading army; first, their neighbours the Myonians, who held the
most difficult of the passes, and after them the Ipnians, Messapians,
Tritaeans, Chalaeans, Tolophonians, Hessians, and Oeanthians, all of whom
joined in the expedition; the Olpaeans contenting themselves with giving
hostages, without accompanying the invasion; and the Hyaeans refusing to do
either, until the capture of Polis, one of their villages.
His
preparations completed, Eurylochus lodged the hostages in Kytinium, in Doris,
and advanced upon Naupactus through the country of the Locrians, taking upon
his way Oeneon and Eupalium, two of their towns that refused to join him.
Arrived in the Naupactian territory, and having been now joined by the
Aetolians, the army laid waste the land and took the suburb of the town, which
was unfortified; and after this Molycrium also, a Corinthian colony subject to
Athens. Meanwhile the Athenian Demosthenes, who since the affair in Aetolia had
remained near Naupactus, having had notice of the army and fearing for the
town, went and persuaded the Acarnanians, although not without difficulty because
of his departure from Leucas, to go to the relief of Naupactus. They
accordingly sent with him on board his ships a thousand heavy infantry, who
threw themselves into the place and saved it; the extent of its wall and the
small number of its defenders otherwise placing it in the greatest danger.
Meanwhile Eurylochus and his companions, finding that this force had entered
and that it was impossible to storm the town, withdrew, not to Peloponnese, but
to the country once called Aeolis, and now Calydon and Pleuron, and to the
places in that neighbourhood, and Proschium in Aetolia; the Ambraciots having
come and urged them to combine with them in attacking Amphilochian Argos and
the rest of Amphilochia and Acarnania; affirming that the conquest of these countries
would bring all the continent into alliance with Lacedaemon. To this Eurylochus
consented, and dismissing the Aetolians, now remained quiet with his army in
those parts, until the time should come for the Ambraciots to take the field,
and for him to join them before Argos.
Summer
was now over. The winter ensuing, the Athenians in Sicily with their Hellenic
allies, and such of the Sicel subjects or allies of Syracuse as had revolted
from her and joined their army, marched against the Sicel town Inessa, the
acropolis of which was held by the Syracusans, and after attacking it without
being able to take it, retired. In the retreat, the allies retreating after the
Athenians were attacked by the Syracusans from the fort, and a large part of
their army routed with great slaughter. After this, Laches and the Athenians
from the ships made some descents in Locris, and defeating the Locrians, who
came against them with Proxenus, son of Capaton, upon the river Caicinus, took
some arms and departed.
The
same winter the Athenians purified Delos, in compliance, it appears, with a
certain oracle. It had been purified before by Pisistratus the tyrant; not
indeed the whole island, but as much of it as could be seen from the temple.
All of it was, however, now purified in the following way. All the sepulchres
of those that had died in Delos were taken up, and for the future it was
commanded that no one should be allowed either to die or to give birth to a
child in the island; but that they should be carried over to Rhenea, which is
so near to Delos that Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, having added Rhenea to his
other island conquests during his period of naval ascendancy, dedicated it to
the Delian Apollo by binding it to Delos with a chain.
The
Athenians, after the purification, celebrated, for the first time, the
quinquennial festival of the Delian games. Once upon a time, indeed, there was
a great assemblage of the Ionians and the neighbouring islanders at Delos, who
used to come to the festival, as the Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and
athletic and poetical contests took place there, and the cities brought choirs
of dancers. Nothing can be clearer on this point than the following verses of
Homer, taken from a hymn to Apollo:
Phoebus, wherever thou strayest, far or
near,
Delos was still of all thy haunts most
dear.
Thither the robed Ionians take their
way
With wife and child to keep thy
holiday,
Invoke thy favour on each manly game,
And dance and sing in honour of thy
name.
That
there was also a poetical contest in which the Ionians went to contend, again
is shown by the following, taken from the same hymn. After celebrating the
Delian dance of the women, he ends his song of praise with these verses, in
which he also alludes to himself:
Well, may Apollo keep you all! and so,
Sweethearts, good-bye- yet tell me not
I go
Out from your hearts; and if in after
hours
Some other wanderer in this world of
ours
Touch at your shores, and ask your
maidens here
Who sings the songs the sweetest to
your ear,
Think of me then, and answer with a
smile,
'A blind old man of Scio's rocky isle.'
Homer
thus attests that there was anciently a great assembly and festival at Delos.
In later times, although the islanders and the Athenians continued to send the
choirs of dancers with sacrifices, the contests and most of the ceremonies were
abolished, probably through adversity, until the Athenians celebrated the games
upon this occasion with the novelty of horse-races.
The
same winter the Ambraciots, as they had promised Eurylochus when they retained
his army, marched out against Amphilochian Argos with three thousand heavy
infantry, and invading the Argive territory occupied Olpae, a stronghold on a
hill near the sea, which had been formerly fortified by the Acarnanians and
used as the place of assizes for their nation, and which is about two miles and
three-quarters from the city of Argos upon the sea-coast. Meanwhile the
Acarnanians went with a part of their forces to the relief of Argos, and with the
rest encamped in Amphilochia at the place called Crenae, or the Wells, to watch
for Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, and to prevent their passing through and
effecting their junction with the Ambraciots; while they also sent for
Demosthenes, the commander of the Aetolian expedition, to be their leader, and
for the twenty Athenian ships that were cruising off Peloponnese under the
command of Aristotle, son of Timocrates, and Hierophon, son of Antimnestus. On
their part, the Ambraciots at Olpae sent a messenger to their own city, to beg
them to come with their whole levy to their assistance, fearing that the army
of Eurylochus might not be able to pass through the Acarnanians, and that they
might themselves be obliged to fight single-handed, or be unable to retreat, if
they wished it, without danger.
Meanwhile
Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, learning that the Ambraciots at Olpae had
arrived, set out from Proschium with all haste to join them, and crossing the
Achelous advanced through Acarnania, which they found deserted by its
population, who had gone to the relief of Argos; keeping on their right the
city of the Stratians and its garrison, and on their left the rest of
Acarnania. Traversing the territory of the Stratians, they advanced through
Phytia, next, skirting Medeon, through Limnaea; after which they left Acarnania
behind them and entered a friendly country, that of the Agraeans. From thence
they reached and crossed Mount Thymaus, which belongs to the Agraeans, and
descended into the Argive territory after nightfall, and passing between the
city of Argos and the Acarnanian posts at Crenae, joined the Ambraciots at
Olpae.
Uniting
here at daybreak, they sat down at the place called Metropolis, and encamped.
Not long afterwards the Athenians in the twenty ships came into the Ambracian
Gulf to support the Argives, with Demosthenes and two hundred Messenian heavy
infantry, and sixty Athenian archers. While the fleet off Olpae blockaded the
hill from the sea, the Acarnanians and a few of the Amphilochians, most of whom
were kept back by force by the Ambraciots, had already arrived at Argos, and
were preparing to give battle to the enemy, having chosen Demosthenes to
command the whole of the allied army in concert with their own generals.
Demosthenes led them near to Olpae and encamped, a great ravine separating the
two armies. During five days they remained inactive; on the sixth both sides
formed in order of battle. The army of the Peloponnesians was the largest and
outflanked their opponents; and Demosthenes fearing that his right might be
surrounded, placed in ambush in a hollow way overgrown with bushes some four
hundred heavy infantry and light troops, who were to rise up at the moment of
the onset behind the projecting left wing of the enemy, and to take them in the
rear. When both sides were ready they joined battle; Demosthenes being on the
right wing with the Messenians and a few Athenians, while the rest of the line
was made up of the different divisions of the Acarnanians, and of the
Amphilochian carters. The Peloponnesians and Ambraciots were drawn up pell-mell
together, with the exception of the Mantineans, who were massed on the left,
without however reaching to the extremity of the wing, where Eurylochus and his
men confronted the Messenians and Demosthenes.
The
Peloponnesians were now well engaged and with their outflanking wing were upon
the point of turning their enemy's right; when the Acarnanians from the
ambuscade set upon them from behind, and broke them at the first attack,
without their staying to resist; while the panic into which they fell caused
the flight of most of their army, terrified beyond measure at seeing the
division of Eurylochus and their best troops cut to pieces. Most of the work
was done by Demosthenes and his Messenians, who were posted in this part of the
field. Meanwhile the Ambraciots (who are the best soldiers in those countries)
and the troops upon the right wing, defeated the division opposed to them and
pursued it to Argos. Returning from the pursuit, they found their main body
defeated; and hard pressed by the Acarnanians, with difficulty made good their
passage to Olpae, suffering heavy loss on the way, as they dashed on without
discipline or order, the Mantineans excepted, who kept their ranks best of any
in the army during the retreat.
The
battle did not end until the evening. The next day Menedaius, who on the death
of Eurylochus and Macarius had succeeded to the sole command, being at a loss
after so signal a defeat how to stay and sustain a siege, cut off as he was by
land and by the Athenian fleet by sea, and equally so how to retreat in safety,
opened a parley with Demosthenes and the Acarnanian generals for a truce and
permission to retreat, and at the same time for the recovery of the dead. The
dead they gave back to him, and setting up a trophy took up their own also to
the number of about three hundred. The retreat demanded they refused publicly
to the army; but permission to depart without delay was secretly granted to the
Mantineans and to Menedaius and the other commanders and principal men of the
Peloponnesians by Demosthenes and his Acarnanian colleagues; who desired to
strip the Ambraciots and the mercenary host of foreigners of their supporters;
and, above all, to discredit the Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesians with the
Hellenes in those parts, as traitors and self-seekers.
While
the enemy was taking up his dead and hastily burying them as he could, and
those who obtained permission were secretly planning their retreat, word was
brought to Demosthenes and the Acarnanians that the Ambraciots from the city,
in compliance with the first message from Olpae, were on the march with their
whole levy through Amphilochia to join their countrymen at Olpae, knowing
nothing of what had occurred. Demosthenes prepared to march with his army
against them, and meanwhile sent on at once a strong division to beset the
roads and occupy the strong positions. In the meantime the Mantineans and
others included in the agreement went out under the pretence of gathering herbs
and firewood, and stole off by twos and threes, picking on the way the things
which they professed to have come out for, until they had gone some distance
from Olpae, when they quickened their pace. The Ambraciots and such of the rest
as had accompanied them in larger parties, seeing them going on, pushed on in
their turn, and began running in order to catch them up. The Acarnanians at
first thought that all alike were departing without permission, and began to
pursue the Peloponnesians; and believing that they were being betrayed, even
threw a dart or two at some of their generals who tried to stop them and told
them that leave had been given. Eventually, however, they let pass the
Mantineans and Peloponnesians, and slew only the Ambraciots, there being much
dispute and difficulty in distinguishing whether a man was an Ambraciot or a
Peloponnesian. The number thus slain was about two hundred; the rest escaped
into the bordering territory of Agraea, and found refuge with Salynthius, the
friendly king of the Agraeans.
Meanwhile
the Ambraciots from the city arrived at Idomene. Idomene consists of two lofty
hills, the higher of which the troops sent on by Demosthenes succeeded in
occupying after nightfall, unobserved by the Ambraciots, who had meanwhile
ascended the smaller and bivouacked under it. After supper Demosthenes set out
with the rest of the army, as soon as it was evening; himself with half his
force making for the pass, and the remainder going by the Amphilochian hills.
At dawn he fell upon the Ambraciots while they were still abed, ignorant of
what had passed, and fully thinking that it was their own countrymen-
Demosthenes having purposely put the Messenians in front with orders to address
them in the Doric dialect, and thus to inspire confidence in the sentinels, who
would not be able to see them as it was still night. In this way he routed
their army as soon as he attacked it, slaying most of them where they were, the
rest breaking away in flight over the hills. The roads, however, were already
occupied, and while the Amphilochians knew their own country, the Ambraciots
were ignorant of it and could not tell which way to turn, and had also heavy
armour as against a light-armed enemy, and so fell into ravines and into the
ambushes which had been set for them, and perished there. In their manifold
efforts to escape some even turned to the sea, which was not far off, and
seeing the Athenian ships coasting alongshore just while the action was going
on, swam off to them, thinking it better in the panic they were in, to perish,
if perish they must, by the hands of the Athenians, than by those of the
barbarous and detested Amphilochians. Of the large Ambraciot force destroyed in
this manner, a few only reached the city in safety; while the Acarnanians,
after stripping the dead and setting up a trophy, returned to Argos.
The
next day arrived a herald from the Ambraciots who had fled from Olpae to the
Agraeans, to ask leave to take up the dead that had fallen after the first
engagement, when they left the camp with the Mantineans and their companions,
without, like them, having had permission to do so. At the sight of the arms of
the Ambraciots from the city, the herald was astonished at their number,
knowing nothing of the disaster and fancying that they were those of their own
party. Some one asked him what he was so astonished at, and how many of them
had been killed, fancying in his turn that this was the herald from the troops
at Idomene. He replied: "About two hundred"; upon which his
interrogator took him up, saying: "Why, the arms you see here are of more
than a thousand." The herald replied: "Then they are not the arms of
those who fought with us?" The other answered: "Yes, they are, if at
least you fought at Idomene yesterday." "But we fought with no one yesterday;
but the day before in the retreat." "However that may be, we fought
yesterday with those who came to reinforce you from the city of the
Ambraciots." When the herald heard this and knew that the reinforcement
from the city had been destroyed, he broke into wailing and, stunned at the
magnitude of the present evils, went away at once without having performed his
errand, or again asking for the dead bodies. Indeed, this was by far the
greatest disaster that befell any one Hellenic city in an equal number of days
during this war; and I have not set down the number of the dead, because the
amount stated seems so out of proportion to the size of the city as to be
incredible. In any case I know that if the Acarnanians and Amphilochians had
wished to take Ambracia as the Athenians and Demosthenes advised, they would
have done so without a blow; as it was, they feared that if the Athenians had
it they would be worse neighbours to them than the present.
After
this the Acarnanians allotted a third of the spoils to the Athenians, and
divided the rest among their own different towns. The share of the Athenians
was captured on the voyage home; the arms now deposited in the Attic temples
are three hundred panoplies, which the Acarnanians set apart for Demosthenes, and
which he brought to Athens in person, his return to his country after the
Aetolian disaster being rendered less hazardous by this exploit. The Athenians
in the twenty ships also went off to Naupactus. The Acarnanians and
Amphilochians, after the departure of Demosthenes and the Athenians, granted
the Ambraciots and Peloponnesians who had taken refuge with Salynthius and the
Agraeans a free retreat from Oeniadae, to which place they had removed from the
country of Salynthius, and for the future concluded with the Ambraciots a
treaty and alliance for one hundred years, upon the terms following. It was to
be a defensive, not an offensive alliance; the Ambraciots could not be required
to march with the Acarnanians against the Peloponnesians, nor the Acarnanians
with the Ambraciots against the Athenians; for the rest the Ambraciots were to
give up the places and hostages that they held of the Amphilochians, and not to
give help to Anactorium, which was at enmity with the Acarnanians. With this
arrangement they put an end to the war. After this the Corinthians sent a
garrison of their own citizens to Ambracia, composed of three hundred heavy
infantry, under the command of Xenocleides, son of Euthycles, who reached their
destination after a difficult journey across the continent. Such was the
history of the affair of Ambracia.
The
same winter the Athenians in Sicily made a descent from their ships upon the
territory of Himera, in concert with the Sicels, who had invaded its borders
from the interior, and also sailed to the islands of Aeolus. Upon their return
to Rhegium they found the Athenian general, Pythodorus, son of Isolochus, come
to supersede Laches in the command of the fleet. The allies in Sicily had
sailed to Athens and induced the Athenians to send out more vessels to their
assistance, pointing out that the Syracusans who already commanded their land
were making efforts to get together a navy, to avoid being any longer excluded
from the sea by a few vessels. The Athenians proceeded to man forty ships to send
to them, thinking that the war in Sicily would thus be the sooner ended, and
also wishing to exercise their navy. One of the generals, Pythodorus, was
accordingly sent out with a few ships; Sophocles, son of Sostratides, and
Eurymedon, son of Thucles, being destined to follow with the main body.
Meanwhile Pythodorus had taken the command of Laches' ships, and towards the
end of winter sailed against the Locrian fort, which Laches had formerly taken,
and returned after being defeated in battle by the Locrians.
In
the first days of this spring, the stream of fire issued from Etna, as on
former occasions, and destroyed some land of the Catanians, who live upon Mount
Etna, which is the largest mountain in Sicily. Fifty years, it is said, had
elapsed since the last eruption, there having been three in all since the
Hellenes have inhabited Sicily. Such were the events of this winter; and with
it ended the sixth year of this war, of which Thucydides was the historian.
The Fourth Book.
NEXT
summer, about the time of the corn's coming into ear, ten Syracusan and as many
Locrian vessels sailed to Messina, in Sicily, and occupied the town upon the
invitation of the inhabitants; and Messina revolted from the Athenians. The
Syracusans contrived this chiefly because they saw that the place afforded an
approach to Sicily, and feared that the Athenians might hereafter use it as a
base for attacking them with a larger force; the Locrians because they wished
to carry on hostilities from both sides of the strait and to reduce their
enemies, the people of Rhegium. Meanwhile, the Locrians had invaded the Rhegian
territory with all their forces, to prevent their succouring Messina, and also
at the instance of some exiles from Rhegium who were with them; the long
factions by which that town had been torn rendering it for the moment incapable
of resistance, and thus furnishing an additional temptation to the invaders.
After devastating the country the Locrian land forces retired, their ships
remaining to guard Messina, while others were being manned for the same
destination to carry on the war from thence.
About
the same time in the spring, before the corn was ripe, the Peloponnesians and
their allies invaded Attica under Agis, the son of Archidamus, king of the
Lacedaemonians, and sat down and laid waste the country. Meanwhile the
Athenians sent off the forty ships which they had been preparing to Sicily,
with the remaining generals Eurymedon and Sophocles; their colleague Pythodorus
having already preceded them thither. These had also instructions as they
sailed by to look to the Corcyraeans in the town, who were being plundered by
the exiles in the mountain. To support these exiles sixty Peloponnesian vessels
had lately sailed, it being thought that the famine raging in the city would
make it easy for them to reduce it. Demosthenes also, who had remained without
employment since his return from Acarnania, applied and obtained permission to
use the fleet, if he wished it, upon the coast of Peloponnese.
Off
Laconia they heard that the Peloponnesian ships were already at Corcyra, upon
which Eurymedon and Sophocles wished to hasten to the island, but Demosthenes
required them first to touch at Pylos and do what was wanted there, before
continuing their voyage. While they were making objections, a squall chanced to
come on and carried the fleet into Pylos. Demosthenes at once urged them to
fortify the place, it being for this that he had come on the voyage, and made
them observe there was plenty of stone and timber on the spot, and that the
place was strong by nature, and together with much of the country round
unoccupied; Pylos, or Coryphasium, as the Lacedaemonians call it, being about forty-five
miles distant from Sparta, and situated in the old country of the Messenians.
The commanders told him that there was no lack of desert headlands in
Peloponnese if he wished to put the city to expense by occupying them. He,
however, thought that this place was distinguished from others of the kind by
having a harbour close by; while the Messenians, the old natives of the
country, speaking the same dialect as the Lacedaemonians, could do them the
greatest mischief by their incursions from it, and would at the same time be a
trusty garrison.
After
speaking to the captains of companies on the subject, and failing to persuade
either the generals or the soldiers, he remained inactive with the rest from stress
of weather; until the soldiers themselves wanting occupation were seized with a
sudden impulse to go round and fortify the place. Accordingly they set to work
in earnest, and having no iron tools, picked up stones, and put them together
as they happened to fit, and where mortar was needed, carried it on their backs
for want of hods, stooping down to make it stay on, and clasping their hands
together behind to prevent it falling off; sparing no effort to be able to
complete the most vulnerable points before the arrival of the Lacedaemonians,
most of the place being sufficiently strong by nature without further
fortifications.
Meanwhile
the Lacedaemonians were celebrating a festival, and also at first made light of
the news, in the idea that whenever they chose to take the field the place
would be immediately evacuated by the enemy or easily taken by force; the
absence of their army before Athens having also something to do with their
delay. The Athenians fortified the place on the land side, and where it most
required it, in six days, and leaving Demosthenes with five ships to garrison
it, with the main body of the fleet hastened on their voyage to Corcyra and
Sicily.
As
soon as the Peloponnesians in Attica heard of the occupation of Pylos, they
hurried back home; the Lacedaemonians and their king Agis thinking that the
matter touched them nearly. Besides having made their invasion early in the
season, and while the corn was still green, most of their troops were short of
provisions: the weather also was unusually bad for the time of year, and
greatly distressed their army. Many reasons thus combined to hasten their
departure and to make this invasion a very short one; indeed they only stayed
fifteen days in Attica.
About
the same time the Athenian general Simonides getting together a few Athenians
from the garrisons, and a number of the allies in those parts, took Eion in
Thrace, a Mendaean colony and hostile to Athens, by treachery, but had no
sooner done so than the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans came up and beat him out of
it, with the loss of many of his soldiers.
On
the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica, the Spartans themselves and the
nearest of the Perioeci at once set out for Pylos, the other Lacedaemonians
following more slowly, as they had just come in from another campaign. Word was
also sent round Peloponnese to come up as quickly as possible to Pylos; while
the sixty Peloponnesian ships were sent for from Corcyra, and being dragged by
their crews across the isthmus of Leucas, passed unperceived by the Athenian
squadron at Zacynthus, and reached Pylos, where the land forces had arrived
before them. Before the Peloponnesian fleet sailed in, Demosthenes found time
to send out unobserved two ships to inform Eurymedon and the Athenians on board
the fleet at Zacynthus of the danger of Pylos and to summon them to his
assistance. While the ships hastened on their voyage in obedience to the orders
of Demosthenes, the Lacedaemonians prepared to assault the fort by land and
sea, hoping to capture with ease a work constructed in haste, and held by a
feeble garrison. Meanwhile, as they expected the Athenian ships to arrive from
Zacynthus, they intended, if they failed to take the place before, to block up
the entrances of the harbour to prevent their being able to anchor inside it.
For the island of Sphacteria, stretching along in a line close in front of the
harbour, at once makes it safe and narrows its entrances, leaving a passage for
two ships on the side nearest Pylos and the Athenian fortifications, and for
eight or nine on that next the rest of the mainland: for the rest, the island
was entirely covered with wood, and without paths through not being inhabited,
and about one mile and five furlongs in length. The inlets the Lacedaemonians
meant to close with a line of ships placed close together, with their prows
turned towards the sea, and, meanwhile, fearing that the enemy might make use
of the island to operate against them, carried over some heavy infantry
thither, stationing others along the coast. By this means the island and the
continent would be alike hostile to the Athenians, as they would be unable to
land on either; and the shore of Pylos itself outside the inlet towards the
open sea having no harbour, and, therefore, presenting no point which they
could use as a base to relieve their countrymen, they, the Lacedaemonians,
without sea-fight or risk would in all probability become masters of the place,
occupied as it had been on the spur of the moment, and unfurnished with
provisions. This being determined, they carried over to the island the heavy
infantry, drafted by lot from all the companies. Some others had crossed over
before in relief parties, but these last who were left there were four hundred
and twenty in number, with their Helot attendants, commanded by Epitadas, son
of Molobrus.
Meanwhile
Demosthenes, seeing the Lacedaemonians about to attack him by sea and land at
once, himself was not idle. He drew up under the fortification and enclosed in
a stockade the galleys remaining to him of those which had been left him,
arming the sailors taken out of them with poor shields made most of them of
osier, it being impossible to procure arms in such a desert place, and even
these having been obtained from a thirty-oared Messenian privateer and a boat
belonging to some Messenians who happened to have come to them. Among these
Messenians were forty heavy infantry, whom he made use of with the rest.
Posting most of his men, unarmed and armed, upon the best fortified and strong
points of the place towards the interior, with orders to repel any attack of
the land forces, he picked sixty heavy infantry and a few archers from his
whole force, and with these went outside the wall down to the sea, where he
thought that the enemy would most likely attempt to land. Although the ground
was difficult and rocky, looking towards the open sea, the fact that this was
the weakest part of the wall would, he thought, encourage their ardour, as the
Athenians, confident in their naval superiority, had here paid little attention
to their defences, and the enemy if he could force a landing might feel secure
of taking the place. At this point, accordingly, going down to the water's
edge, he posted his heavy infantry to prevent, if possible, a landing, and
encouraged them in the following terms:
"Soldiers
and comrades in this adventure, I hope that none of you in our present strait
will think to show his wit by exactly calculating all the perils that encompass
us, but that you will rather hasten to close with the enemy, without staying to
count the odds, seeing in this your best chance of safety. In emergencies like
ours calculation is out of place; the sooner the danger is faced the better. To
my mind also most of the chances are for us, if we will only stand fast and not
throw away our advantages, overawed by the numbers of the enemy. One of the
points in our favour is the awkwardness of the landing. This, however, only
helps us if we stand our ground. If we give way it will be practicable enough,
in spite of its natural difficulty, without a defender; and the enemy will
instantly become more formidable from the difficulty he will have in
retreating, supposing that we succeed in repulsing him, which we shall find it
easier to do, while he is on board his ships, than after he has landed and
meets us on equal terms. As to his numbers, these need not too much alarm you.
Large as they may be he can only engage in small detachments, from the
impossibility of bringing to. Besides, the numerical superiority that we have
to meet is not that of an army on land with everything else equal, but of
troops on board ship, upon an element where many favourable accidents are
required to act with effect. I therefore consider that his difficulties may be
fairly set against our numerical deficiencies, and at the same time I charge
you, as Athenians who know by experience what landing from ships on a hostile
territory means, and how impossible it is to drive back an enemy determined
enough to stand his ground and not to be frightened away by the surf and the
terrors of the ships sailing in, to stand fast in the present emergency, beat
back the enemy at the water's edge, and save yourselves and the place."
Thus
encouraged by Demosthenes, the Athenians felt more confident, and went down to
meet the enemy, posting themselves along the edge of the sea. The
Lacedaemonians now put themselves in movement and simultaneously assaulted the
fortification with their land forces and with their ships, forty-three in
number, under their admiral, Thrasymelidas, son of Cratesicles, a Spartan, who
made his attack just where Demosthenes expected. The Athenians had thus to
defend themselves on both sides, from the land and from the sea; the enemy
rowing up in small detachments, the one relieving the other- it being impossible
for many to bring to at once- and showing great ardour and cheering each other
on, in the endeavour to force a passage and to take the fortification. He who
most distinguished himself was Brasidas. Captain of a galley, and seeing that
the captains and steersmen, impressed by the difficulty of the position, hung
back even where a landing might have seemed possible, for fear of wrecking
their vessels, he shouted out to them, that they must never allow the enemy to
fortify himself in their country for the sake of saving timber, but must shiver
their vessels and force a landing; and bade the allies, instead of hesitating
in such a moment to sacrifice their ships for Lacedaemon in return for her many
benefits, to run them boldly aground, land in one way or another, and make
themselves masters of the place and its garrison.
Not
content with this exhortation, he forced his own steersman to run his ship
ashore, and stepping on to the gangway, was endeavouring to land, when he was
cut down by the Athenians, and after receiving many wounds fainted away.
Falling into the bows, his shield slipped off his arm into the sea, and being
thrown ashore was picked up by the Athenians, and afterwards used for the
trophy which they set up for this attack. The rest also did their best, but
were not able to land, owing to the difficulty of the ground and the
unflinching tenacity of the Athenians. It was a strange reversal of the order
of things for Athenians to be fighting from the land, and from Laconian land
too, against Lacedaemonians coming from the sea; while Lacedaemonians were
trying to land from shipboard in their own country, now become hostile, to
attack Athenians, although the former were chiefly famous at the time as an
inland people and superior by land, the latter as a maritime people with a navy
that had no equal.
After
continuing their attacks during that day and most of the next, the
Peloponnesians desisted, and the day after sent some of their ships to Asine
for timber to make engines, hoping to take by their aid, in spite of its
height, the wall opposite the harbour, where the landing was easiest. At this
moment the Athenian fleet from Zacynthus arrived, now numbering fifty sail,
having been reinforced by some of the ships on guard at Naupactus and by four
Chian vessels. Seeing the coast and the island both crowded with heavy
infantry, and the hostile ships in harbour showing no signs of sailing out, at
a loss where to anchor, they sailed for the moment to the desert island of
Prote, not far off, where they passed the night. The next day they got under
way in readiness to engage in the open sea if the enemy chose to put out to
meet them, being determined in the event of his not doing so to sail in and
attack him. The Lacedaemonians did not put out to sea, and having omitted to
close the inlets as they had intended, remained quiet on shore, engaged in
manning their ships and getting ready, in the case of any one sailing in, to
fight in the harbour, which is a fairly large one.
Perceiving
this, the Athenians advanced against them by each inlet, and falling on the
enemy's fleet, most of which was by this time afloat and in line, at once put
it to flight, and giving chase as far as the short distance allowed, disabled a
good many vessels and took five, one with its crew on board; dashing in at the
rest that had taken refuge on shore, and battering some that were still being
manned, before they could put out, and lashing on to their own ships and towing
off empty others whosc crews had fled. At this sight the Lacedaemonians, maddened
by a disaster which cut off their men on the island, rushed to the rescue, and
going into the sea with their heavy armour, laid hold of the ships and tried to
drag them back, each man thinking that success depended on his individual
exertions. Great was the melee, and quite in contradiction to the naval tactics
usual to the two combatants; the Lacedaemonians in their excitement and dismay
being actually engaged in a sea-fight on land, while the victorious Athenians,
in their eagerness to push their success as far as possible, were carrying on a
land-fight from their ships. After great exertions and numerous wounds on both
sides they separated, the Lacedaemonians saving their empty ships, except those
first taken; and both parties returning to their camp, the Athenians set up a
trophy, gave back the dead, secured the wrecks, and at once began to cruise
round and jealously watch the island, with its intercepted garrison, while the
Peloponnesians on the mainland, whose contingents had now all come up, stayed
where they were before Pylos.
When
the news of what had happened at Pylos reached Sparta, the disaster was thought
so serious that the Lacedaemonians resolved that the authorities should go down
to the camp, and decide on the spot what was best to be done. There, seeing
that it was impossible to help their men, and not wishing to risk their being
reduced by hunger or overpowered by numbers, they determined, with the consent
of the Athenian generals, to conclude an armistice at Pylos and send envoys to
Athens to obtain a convention, and to endeavour to get back their men as
quickly as possible.
The
generals accepting their offers, an armistice was concluded upon the terms
following:
That the Lacedaemonians should bring to
Pylos and deliver up to the Athenians the ships that had fought in the late
engagement, and all in Laconia that were vessels of war, and should make no
attack on the fortification either by land or by sea.
That the Athenians should allow the
Lacedaemonians on the mainland to send to the men in the island a certain fixed
quantity of corn ready kneaded, that is to say, two quarts of barley meal, one
pint of wine, and a piece of meat for each man, and half the same quantity for
a servant.
That this allowance should be sent in
under the eyes of the Athenians, and that no boat should sail to the island
except openly.
That the Athenians should continue to
the island same as before, without however landing upon it, and should refrain
from attacking the Peloponnesian troops either by land or by sea.
That if either party should infringe
any of these terms in the slightest particular, the armistice should be at once
void.
That the armistice should hold good
until the return of the Lacedaemonian envoys from Athens- the Athenians sending
them thither in a galley and bringing them back again- and upon the arrival of
the envoys should be at an end, and the ships be restored by the Athenians in
the same state as they received them.
Such
were the terms of the armistice, and the ships were delivered over to the
number of sixty, and the envoys sent off accordingly. Arrived at Athens they
spoke as follows:
"Athenians,
the Lacedaemonians sent us to try to find some way of settling the affair of
our men on the island, that shall be at once satisfactory to our interests, and
as consistent with our dignity in our misfortune as circumstances permit. We
can venture to speak at some length without any departure from the habit of our
country. Men of few words where many are not wanted, we can be less brief when
there is a matter of importance to be illustrated and an end to be served by
its illustration. Meanwhile we beg you to take what we may say, not in a
hostile spirit, nor as if we thought you ignorant and wished to lecture you,
but rather as a suggestion on the best course to be taken, addressed to
intelligent judges. You can now, if you choose, employ your present success to
advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honour and reputation
besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary
piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something
further, through having already succeeded without expecting it. While those who
have known most vicissitudes of good and bad, have also justly least faith in
their prosperity; and to teach your city and ours this lesson experience has
not been wanting.
"To
be convinced of this you have only to look at our present misfortune. What
power in Hellas stood higher than we did? and yet we are come to you, although
we formerly thought ourselves more able to grant what we are now here to ask.
Nevertheless, we have not been brought to this by any decay in our power, or
through having our heads turned by aggrandizement; no, our resources are what
they have always been, and our error has been an error of judgment, to which
all are equally liable. Accordingly, the prosperity which your city now enjoys,
and the accession that it has lately received, must not make you fancy that
fortune will be always with you. Indeed sensible men are prudent enough to
treat their gains as precarious, just as they would also keep a clear head in
adversity, and think that war, so far from staying within the limit to which a
combatant may wish to confine it, will run the course that its chances
prescribe; and thus, not being puffed up by confidence in military success,
they are less likely to come to grief, and most ready to make peace, if they
can, while their fortune lasts. This, Athenians, you have a good opportunity to
do now with us, and thus to escape the possible disasters which may follow upon
your refusal, and the consequent imputation of having owed to accident even
your present advantages, when you might have left behind you a reputation for
power and wisdom which nothing could endanger.
"The
Lacedaemonians accordingly invite you to make a treaty and to end the war, and
offer peace and alliance and the most friendly and intimate relations in every
way and on every occasion between us; and in return ask for the men on the
island, thinking it better for both parties not to stand out to the end, on the
chance of some favourable accident enabling the men to force their way out, or
of their being compelled to succumb under the pressure of blockade. Indeed if
great enmities are ever to be really settled, we think it will be, not by the
system of revenge and military success, and by forcing an opponent to swear to
a treaty to his disadvantage, but when the more fortunate combatant waives
these his privileges, to be guided by gentler feelings conquers his rival in
generosity, and accords peace on more moderate conditions than he expected.
From that moment, instead of the debt of revenge which violence must entail,
his adversary owes a debt of generosity to be paid in kind, and is inclined by
honour to stand to his agreement. And men oftener act in this manner towards
their greatest enemies than where the quarrel is of less importance; they are
also by nature as glad to give way to those who first yield to them, as they
are apt to be provoked by arrogance to risks condemned by their own judgment.
"To
apply this to ourselves: if peace was ever desirable for both parties, it is
surely so at the present moment, before anything irremediable befall us and
force us to hate you eternally, personally as well as politically, and you to
miss the advantages that we now offer you. While the issue is still in doubt,
and you have reputation and our friendship in prospect, and we the compromise
of our misfortune before anything fatal occur, let us be reconciled, and for
ourselves choose peace instead of war, and grant to the rest of the Hellenes a
remission from their sufferings, for which be sure they will think they have
chiefly you to thank. The war that they labour under they know not which began,
but the peace that concludes it, as it depends on your decision, will by their
gratitude be laid to your door. By such a decision you can become firm friends
with the Lacedaemonians at their own invitation, which you do not force from
them, but oblige them by accepting. And from this friendship consider the
advantages that are likely to follow: when Attica and Sparta are at one, the
rest of Hellas, be sure, will remain in respectful inferiority before its
heads."
Such
were the words of the Lacedaemonians, their idea being that the Athenians,
already desirous of a truce and only kept back by their opposition, would
joyfully accept a peace freely offered, and give back the men. The Athenians,
however, having the men on the island, thought that the treaty would be ready for
them whenever they chose to make it, and grasped at something further. Foremost
to encourage them in this policy was Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, a popular leader
of the time and very powerful with the multitude, who persuaded them to answer
as follows: First, the men in the island must surrender themselves and their
arms and be brought to Athens. Next, the Lacedaemonians must restore Nisaea,
Pegae, Troezen, and Achaia, all places acquired not by arms, but by the
previous convention, under which they had been ceded by Athens herself at a
moment of disaster, when a truce was more necessary to her than at present.
This done they might take back their men, and make a truce for as long as both
parties might agree.
To
this answer the envoys made no reply, but asked that commissioners might be
chosen with whom they might confer on each point, and quietly talk the matter
over and try to come to some agreement. Hereupon Cleon violently assailed them,
saying that he knew from the first that they had no right intentions, and that
it was clear enough now by their refusing to speak before the people, and
wanting to confer in secret with a committee of two or three. No, if they meant
anything honest let them say it out before all. The Lacedaemonians, however,
seeing that whatever concessions they might be prepared to make in their
misfortune, it was impossible for them to speak before the multitude and lose
credit with their allies for a negotiation which might after all miscarry, and
on the other hand, that the Athenians would never grant what they asked upon
moderate terms, returned from Athens without having effected anything.
Their
arrival at once put an end to the armistice at Pylos, and the Lacedaemonians
asked back their ships according to the convention. The Athenians, however,
alleged an attack on the fort in contravention of the truce, and other
grievances seemingly not worth mentioning, and refused to give them back,
insisting upon the clause by which the slightest infringement made the
armistice void. The Lacedaemonians, after denying the contravention and
protesting against their bad faith in the matter of the ships, went away and
earnestly addressed themselves to the war. Hostilities were now carried on at
Pylos upon both sides with vigour. The Athenians cruised round the island all
day with two ships going different ways; and by night, except on the seaward
side in windy weather, anchored round it with their whole fleet, which, having
been reinforced by twenty ships from Athens come to aid in the blockade, now numbered
seventy sail; while the Peloponnesians remained encamped on the continent,
making attacks on the fort, and on the look-out for any opportunity which might
offer itself for the deliverance of their men.
Meanwhile
the Syracusans and their allies in Sicily had brought up to the squadron
guarding Messina the reinforcement which we left them preparing, and carried on
the war from thence, incited chiefly by the Locrians from hatred of the
Rhegians, whose territory they had invaded with all their forces. The Syracusans
also wished to try their fortune at sea, seeing that the Athenians had only a
few ships actually at Rhegium, and hearing that the main fleet destined to join
them was engaged in blockading the island. A naval victory, they thought, would
enable them to blockade Rhegium by sea and land, and easily to reduce it; a
success which would at once place their affairs upon a solid basis, the
promontory of Rhegium in Italy and Messina in Sicily being so near each other
that it would be impossible for the Athenians to cruise against them and
command the strait. The strait in question consists of the sea between Rhegium
and Messina, at the point where Sicily approaches nearest to the continent, and
is the Charybdis through which the story makes Ulysses sail; and the narrowness
of the passage and the strength of the current that pours in from the vast
Tyrrhenian and Sicilian mains, have rightly given it a bad reputation.
In
this strait the Syracusans and their allies were compelled to fight, late in the
day, about the passage of a boat, putting out with rather more than thirty
ships against sixteen Athenian and eight Rhegian vessels. Defeated by the
Athenians they hastily set off, each for himself, to their own stations at
Messina and Rhegium, with the loss of one ship; night coming on before the
battle was finished. After this the Locrians retired from the Rhegian
territory, and the ships of the Syracusans and their allies united and came to
anchor at Cape Pelorus, in the territory of Messina, where their land forces
joined them. Here the Athenians and Rhegians sailed up, and seeing the ships
unmanned, made an attack, in which they in their turn lost one vessel, which
was caught by a grappling iron, the crew saving themselves by swimming. After
this the Syracusans got on board their ships, and while they were being towed
alongshore to Messina, were again attacked by the Athenians, but suddenly got
out to sea and became the assailants, and caused them to lose another vessel.
After thus holding their own in the voyage alongshore and in the engagement as
above described, the Syracusans sailed on into the harbour of Messina.
Meanwhile
the Athenians, having received warning that Camarina was about to be betrayed
to the Syracusans by Archias and his party, sailed thither; and the Messinese
took this opportunity to attack by sea and land with all their forces their
Chalcidian neighbour, Naxos. The first day they forced the Naxians to keep
their walls, and laid waste their country; the next they sailed round with
their ships, and laid waste their land on the river Akesines, while their land
forces menaced the city. Meanwhile the Sicels came down from the high country
in great numbers, to aid against the Messinese; and the Naxians, elated at the
sight, and animated by a belief that the Leontines and their other Hellenic
allies were coming to their support, suddenly sallied out from the town, and
attacked and routed the Messinese, killing more than a thousand of them; while
the remainder suffered severely in their retreat home, being attacked by the
barbarians on the road, and most of them cut off. The ships put in to Messina,
and afterwards dispersed for their different homes. The Leontines and their
allies, with the Athenians, upon this at once turned their arms against the now
weakened Messina, and attacked, the Athenians with their ships on the side of
the harbour, and the land forces on that of the town. The Messinese, however,
sallying out with Demoteles and some Locrians who had been left to garrison the
city after the disaster, suddenly attacked and routed most of the Leontine
army, killing a great number; upon seeing which the Athenians landed from their
ships, and falling on the Messinese in disorder chased them back into the town,
and setting up a trophy retired to Rhegium. After this the Hellenes in Sicily
continued to make war on each other by land, without the Athenians.
Meanwhile
the Athenians at Pylos were still besieging the Lacedaemonians in the island,
the Peloponnesian forces on the continent remaining where they were. The
blockade was very laborious for the Athenians from want of food and water;
there was no spring except one in the citadel of Pylos itself, and that not a
large one, and most of them were obliged to grub up the shingle on the sea beach
and drink such water as they could find. They also suffered from want of room,
being encamped in a narrow space; and as there was no anchorage for the ships,
some took their meals on shore in their turn, while the others were anchored
out at sea. But their greatest discouragement arose from the unexpectedly long
time which it took to reduce a body of men shut up in a desert island, with
only brackish water to drink, a matter which they had imagined would take them
only a few days. The fact was that the Lacedaemonians had made advertisement
for volunteers to carry into the island ground corn, wine, cheese, and any
other food useful in a siege; high prices being offered, and freedom promised
to any of the Helots who should succeed in doing so. The Helots accordingly
were most forward to engage in this risky traffic, putting off from this or
that part of Peloponnese, and running in by night on the seaward side of the
island. They were best pleased, however, when they could catch a wind to carry
them in. It was more easy to elude the look-out of the galleys, when it blew
from the seaward, as it became impossible for them to anchor round the island;
while the Helots had their boats rated at their value in money, and ran them
ashore, without caring how they landed, being sure to find the soldiers waiting
for them at the landing-places. But all who risked it in fair weather were
taken. Divers also swam in under water from the harbour, dragging by a cord in
skins poppyseed mixed with honey, and bruised linseed; these at first escaped
notice, but afterwards a look-out was kept for them. In short, both sides tried
every possible contrivance, the one to throw in provisions, and the other to
prevent their introduction.
At
Athens, meanwhile, the news that the army was in great distress, and that corn
found its way in to the men in the island, caused no small perplexity; and the
Athenians began to fear that winter might come on and find them still engaged
in the blockade. They saw that the convoying of provisions round Peloponnese
would be then impossible. The country offered no resources in itself, and even
in summer they could not send round enough. The blockade of a place without
harbours could no longer be kept up; and the men would either escape by the
siege being abandoned, or would watch for bad weather and sail out in the boats
that brought in their corn. What caused still more alarm was the attitude of
the Lacedaemonians, who must, it was thought by the Athenians, feel themselves
on strong ground not to send them any more envoys; and they began to repent
having rejected the treaty. Cleon, perceiving the disfavour with which he was
regarded for having stood in the way of the convention, now said that their
informants did not speak the truth; and upon the messengers recommending them,
if they did not believe them, to send some commissioners to see, Cleon himself
and Theagenes were chosen by the Athenians as commissioners. Aware that he
would now be obliged either to say what had been already said by the men whom
he was slandering, or be proved a liar if he said the contrary, he told the
Athenians, whom he saw to be not altogether disinclined for a fresh expedition,
that instead of sending and wasting their time and opportunities, if they
believed what was told them, they ought to sail against the men. And pointing
at Nicias, son of Niceratus, then general, whom he hated, he tauntingly said
that it would be easy, if they had men for generals, to sail with a force and
take those in the island, and that if he had himself been in command, he would
have done it.
Nicias,
seeing the Athenians murmuring against Cleon for not sailing now if it seemed
to him so easy, and further seeing himself the object of attack, told him that
for all that the generals cared, he might take what force he chose and make the
attempt. At first Cleon fancied that this resignation was merely a figure of
speech, and was ready to go, but finding that it was seriously meant, he drew
back, and said that Nicias, not he, was general, being now frightened, and having
never supposed that Nicias would go so far as to retire in his favour. Nicias,
however, repeated his offer, and resigned the command against Pylos, and called
the Athenians to witness that he did so. And as the multitude is wont to do,
the more Cleon shrank from the expedition and tried to back out of what he had
said, the more they encouraged Nicias to hand over his command, and clamoured
at Cleon to go. At last, not knowing how to get out of his words, he undertook
the expedition, and came forward and said that he was not afraid of the
Lacedaemonians, but would sail without taking any one from the city with him,
except the Lemnians and Imbrians that were at Athens, with some targeteers that
had come up from Aenus, and four hundred archers from other quarters. With
these and the soldiers at Pylos, he would within twenty days either bring the
Lacedaemonians alive, or kill them on the spot. The Athenians could not help
laughing at his fatuity, while sensible men comforted themselves with the
reflection that they must gain in either circumstance; either they would be rid
of Cleon, which they rather hoped, or if disappointed in this expectation,
would reduce the Lacedaemonians.
After
he had settled everything in the assembly, and the Athenians had voted him the
command of the expedition, he chose as his colleague Demosthenes, one of the
generals at Pylos, and pushed forward the preparations for his voyage. His
choice fell upon Demosthenes because he heard that he was contemplating a
descent on the island; the soldiers distressed by the difficulties of the
position, and rather besieged than besiegers, being eager to fight it out,
while the firing of the island had increased the confidence of the general. He
had been at first afraid, because the island having never been inhabited was
almost entirely covered with wood and without paths, thinking this to be in the
enemy's favour, as he might land with a large force, and yet might suffer loss
by an attack from an unseen position. The mistakes and forces of the enemy the
wood would in a great measure conceal from him, while every blunder of his own
troops would be at once detected, and they would be thus able to fall upon him
unexpectedly just where they pleased, the attack being always in their power.
If, on the other hand, he should force them to engage in the thicket, the
smaller number who knew the country would, he thought, have the advantage over
the larger who were ignorant of it, while his own army might be cut off
imperceptibly, in spite of its numbers, as the men would not be able to see
where to succour each other.
The
Aetolian disaster, which had been mainly caused by the wood, had not a little
to do with these reflections. Meanwhile, one of the soldiers who were compelled
by want of room to land on the extremities of the island and take their
dinners, with outposts fixed to prevent a surprise, set fire to a little of the
wood without meaning to do so; and as it came on to blow soon afterwards,
almost the whole was consumed before they were aware of it. Demosthenes was now
able for the first time to see how numerous the Lacedaemonians really were,
having up to this moment been under the impression that they took in provisions
for a smaller number; he also saw that the Athenians thought success important
and were anxious about it, and that it was now easier to land on the island,
and accordingly got ready for the attempt, sent for troops from the allies in
the neighbourhood, and pushed forward his other preparations. At this moment
Cleon arrived at Pylos with the troops which he had asked for, having sent on
word to say that he was coming. The first step taken by the two generals after
their meeting was to send a herald to the camp on the mainland, to ask if they
were disposed to avoid all risk and to order the men on the island to surrender
themselves and their arms, to be kept in gentle custody until some general
convention should be concluded.
On
the rejection of this proposition the generals let one day pass, and the next,
embarking all their heavy infantry on board a few ships, put out by night, and
a little before dawn landed on both sides of the island from the open sea and
from the harbour, being about eight hundred strong, and advanced with a run
against the first post in the island.
The
enemy had distributed his force as follows: In this first post there were about
thirty heavy infantry; the centre and most level part, where the water was, was
held by the main body, and by Epitadas their commander; while a small party
guarded the very end of the island, towards Pylos, which was precipitous on the
sea-side and very difficult to attack from the land, and where there was also a
sort of old fort of stones rudely put together, which they thought might be
useful to them, in case they should be forced to retreat. Such was their
disposition.
The
advanced post thus attacked by the Athenians was at once put to the sword, the
men being scarcely out of bed and still arming, the landing having taken them
by surprise, as they fancied the ships were only sailing as usual to their
stations for the night. As soon as day broke, the rest of the army landed, that
is to say, all the crews of rather more than seventy ships, except the lowest
rank of oars, with the arms they carried, eight hundred archers, and as many
targeteers, the Messenian reinforcements, and all the other troops on duty
round Pylos, except the garrison on the fort. The tactics of Demosthenes had
divided them into companies of two hundred, more or less, and made them occupy
the highest points in order to paralyse the enemy by surrounding him on every
side and thus leaving him without any tangible adversary, exposed to the
cross-fire of their host; plied by those in his rear if he attacked in front,
and by those on one flank if he moved against those on the other. In short,
wherever he went he would have the assailants behind him, and these light-armed
assailants, the most awkward of all; arrows, darts, stones, and slings making
them formidable at a distance, and there being no means of getting at them at
close quarters, as they could conquer flying, and the moment their pursuer
turned they were upon him. Such was the idea that inspired Demosthenes in his
conception of the descent, and presided over its execution.
Meanwhile
the main body of the troops in the island (that under Epitadas), seeing their
outpost cut off and an army advancing against them, serried their ranks and
pressed forward to close with the Athenian heavy infantry in front of them, the
light troops being upon their flanks and rear. However, they were not able to
engage or to profit by their superior skill, the light troops keeping them in
check on either side with their missiles, and the heavy infantry remaining
stationary instead of advancing to meet them; and although they routed the
light troops wherever they ran up and approached too closely, yet they
retreated fighting, being lightly equipped, and easily getting the start in
their flight, from the difficult and rugged nature of the ground, in an island
hitherto desert, over which the Lacedaemonians could not pursue them with their
heavy armour.
After
this skirmishing had lasted some little while, the Lacedaemonians became unable
to dash out with the same rapidity as before upon the points attacked, and the
light troops finding that they now fought with less vigour, became more
confident. They could see with their own eyes that they were many times more
numerous than the enemy; they were now more familiar with his aspect and found
him less terrible, the result not having justified the apprehensions which they
had suffered, when they first landed in slavish dismay at the idea of attacking
Lacedaemonians; and accordingly their fear changing to disdain, they now rushed
all together with loud shouts upon them, and pelted them with stones, darts,
and arrows, whichever came first to hand. The shouting accompanying their onset
confounded the Lacedaemonians, unaccustomed to this mode of fighting; dust rose
from the newly burnt wood, and it was impossible to see in front of one with
the arrows and stones flying through clouds of dust from the hands of numerous
assailants. The Lacedaemonians had now to sustain a rude conflict; their caps
would not keep out the arrows, darts had broken off in the armour of the
wounded, while they themselves were helpless for offence, being prevented from
using their eyes to see what was before them, and unable to hear the words of
command for the hubbub raised by the enemy; danger encompassed them on every
side, and there was no hope of any means of defence or safety.
At
last, after many had been already wounded in the confined space in which they
were fighting, they formed in close order and retired on the fort at the end of
the island, which was not far off, and to their friends who held it. The moment
they gave way, the light troops became bolder and pressed upon them, shouting
louder than ever, and killed as many as they came up with in their retreat, but
most of the Lacedaemonians made good their escape to the fort, and with the
garrison in it ranged themselves all along its whole extent to repulse the
enemy wherever it was assailable. The Athenians pursuing, unable to surround
and hem them in, owing to the strength of the ground, attacked them in front
and tried to storm the position. For a long time, indeed for most of the day,
both sides held out against all the torments of the battle, thirst, and sun,
the one endeavouring to drive the enemy from the high ground, the other to
maintain himself upon it, it being now more easy for the Lacedaemonians to
defend themselves than before, as they could not be surrounded on the flanks.
The
struggle began to seem endless, when the commander of the Messenians came to
Cleon and Demosthenes, and told them that they were losing their labour: but if
they would give him some archers and light troops to go round on the enemy's
rear by a way he would undertake to find, he thought he could force the
approach. Upon receiving what he asked for, he started from a point out of
sight in order not to be seen by the enemy, and creeping on wherever the precipices
of the island permitted, and where the Lacedaemonians, trusting to the strength
of the ground, kept no guard, succeeded after the greatest difficulty in
getting round without their seeing him, and suddenly appeared on the high
ground in their rear, to the dismay of the surprised enemy and the still
greater joy of his expectant friends. The Lacedaemonians thus placed between
two fires, and in the same dilemma, to compare small things with great, as at
Thermopylae, where the defenders were cut off through the Persians getting
round by the path, being now attacked in front and behind, began to give way,
and overcome by the odds against them and exhausted from want of food,
retreated.
The
Athenians were already masters of the approaches when Cleon and Demosthenes
perceiving that, if the enemy gave way a single step further, they would be
destroyed by their soldiery, put a stop to the battle and held their men back;
wishing to take the Lacedaemonians alive to Athens, and hoping that their
stubbornness might relax on hearing the offer of terms, and that they might
surrender and yield to the present overwhelming danger. Proclamation was
accordingly made, to know if they would surrender themselves and their arms to
the Athenians to be dealt at their discretion.
The
Lacedaemonians hearing this offer, most of them lowered their shields and waved
their hands to show that they accepted it. Hostilities now ceased, and a parley
was held between Cleon and Demosthenes and Styphon, son of Pharax, on the other
side; since Epitadas, the first of the previous commanders, had been killed,
and Hippagretas, the next in command, left for dead among the slain, though
still alive, and thus the command had devolved upon Styphon according to the
law, in case of anything happening to his superiors. Styphon and his companions
said they wished to send a herald to the Lacedaemonians on the mainland, to
know what they were to do. The Athenians would not let any of them go, but
themselves called for heralds from the mainland, and after questions had been
carried backwards and forwards two or three times, the last man that passed
over from the Lacedaemonians on the continent brought this message: "The
Lacedaemonians bid you to decide for yourselves so long as you do nothing
dishonourable"; upon which after consulting together they surrendered
themselves and their arms. The Athenians, after guarding them that day and
night, the next morning set up a trophy in the island, and got ready to sail,
giving their prisoners in batches to be guarded by the captains of the galleys;
and the Lacedaemonians sent a herald and took up their dead. The number of the
killed and prisoners taken in the island was as follows: four hundred and
twenty heavy infantry had passed over; three hundred all but eight were taken
alive to Athens; the rest were killed. About a hundred and twenty of the
prisoners were Spartans. The Athenian loss was small, the battle not having
been fought at close quarters.
The
blockade in all, counting from the fight at sea to the battle in the island,
had lasted seventy-two days. For twenty of these, during the absence of the
envoys sent to treat for peace, the men had provisions given them, for the rest
they were fed by the smugglers. Corn and other victual was found in the island;
the commander Epitadas having kept the men upon half rations. The Athenians and
Peloponnesians now each withdrew their forces from Pylos, and went home, and
crazy as Cleon's promise was, he fulfilled it, by bringing the men to Athens
within the twenty days as he had pledged himself to do.
Nothing
that happened in the war surprised the Hellenes so much as this. It was the
opinion that no force or famine could make the Lacedaemonians give up their
arms, but that they would fight on as they could, and die with them in their
hands: indeed people could scarcely believe that those who had surrendered were
of the same stuff as the fallen; and an Athenian ally, who some time after
insultingly asked one of the prisoners from the island if those that had fallen
were men of honour, received for answer that the atraktos- that is, the arrow-
would be worth a great deal if it could tell men of honour from the rest; in
allusion to the fact that the killed were those whom the stones and the arrows
happened to hit.
Upon
the arrival of the men the Athenians determined to keep them in prison until
the peace, and if the Peloponnesians invaded their country in the interval, to
bring them out and put them to death. Meanwhile the defence of Pylos was not
forgotten; the Messenians from Naupactus sent to their old country, to which
Pylos formerly belonged, some of the likeliest of their number, and began a
series of incursions into Laconia, which their common dialect rendered most
destructive. The Lacedaemonians, hitherto without experience of incursions or a
warfare of the kind, finding the Helots deserting, and fearing the march of
revolution in their country, began to be seriously uneasy, and in spite of
their unwillingness to betray this to the Athenians began to send envoys to
Athens, and tried to recover Pylos and the prisoners. The Athenians, however,
kept grasping at more, and dismissed envoy after envoy without their having
effected anything. Such was the history of the affair of Pylos.
THE
same summer, directly after these events, the Athenians made an expedition
against the territory of Corinth with eighty ships and two thousand Athenian
heavy infantry, and two hundred cavalry on board horse transports, accompanied
by the Milesians, Andrians, and Carystians from the allies, under the command
of Nicias, son of Niceratus, with two colleagues. Putting out to sea they made
land at daybreak between Chersonese and Rheitus, at the beach of the country
underneath the Solygian hill, upon which the Dorians in old times established
themselves and carried on war against the Aeolian inhabitants of Corinth, and
where a village now stands called Solygia. The beach where the fleet came to is
about a mile and a half from the village, seven miles from Corinth, and two and
a quarter from the Isthmus. The Corinthians had heard from Argos of the coming
of the Athenian armament, and had all come up to the Isthmus long before, with
the exception of those who lived beyond it, and also of five hundred who were
away in garrison in Ambracia and Leucadia; and they were there in full force
watching for the Athenians to land. These last, however, gave them the slip by
coming in the dark; and being informed by signals of the fact the Corinthians
left half their number at Cenchreae, in case the Athenians should go against
Crommyon, and marched in all haste to the rescue.
Battus,
one of the two generals present at the action, went with a company to defend
the village of Solygia, which was unfortified; Lycophron remaining to give
battle with the rest. The Corinthians first attacked the right wing of the
Athenians, which had just landed in front of Chersonese, and afterwards the
rest of the army. The battle was an obstinate one, and fought throughout hand
to hand. The right wing of the Athenians and Carystians, who had been placed at
the end of the line, received and with some difficulty repulsed the
Corinthians, who thereupon retreated to a wall upon the rising ground behind,
and throwing down the stones upon them, came on again singing the paean, and
being received by the Athenians, were again engaged at close quarters. At this
moment a Corinthian company having come to the relief of the left wing, routed
and pursued the Athenian right to the sea, whence they were in their turn
driven back by the Athenians and Carystians from the ships. Meanwhile the rest
of the army on either side fought on tenaciously, especially the right wing of
the Corinthians, where Lycophron sustained the attack of the Athenian left,
which it was feared might attempt the village of Solygia.
After
holding on for a long while without either giving way, the Athenians aided by
their horse, of which the enemy had none, at length routed the Corinthians, who
retired to the hill and, halting, remained quiet there, without coming down
again. It was in this rout of the right wing that they had the most killed,
Lycophron their general being among the number. The rest of the army, broken
and put to flight in this way without being seriously pursued or hurried,
retired to the high ground and there took up its position. The Athenians,
finding that the enemy no longer offered to engage them, stripped his dead and
took up their own and immediately set up a trophy. Meanwhile, the half of the
Corinthians left at Cenchreae to guard against the Athenians sailing on
Crommyon, although unable to see the battle for Mount Oneion, found out what
was going on by the dust, and hurried up to the rescue; as did also the older
Corinthians from the town, upon discovering what had occurred. The Athenians
seeing them all coming against them, and thinking that they were reinforcements
arriving from the neighbouring Peloponnesians, withdrew in haste to their ships
with their spoils and their own dead, except two that they left behind, not
being able to find them, and going on board crossed over to the islands
opposite, and from thence sent a herald, and took up under truce the bodies
which they had left behind. Two hundred and twelve Corinthians fell in the
battle, and rather less than fifty Athenians.
Weighing
from the islands, the Athenians sailed the same day to Crommyon in the
Corinthian territory, about thirteen miles from the city, and coming to anchor
laid waste the country, and passed the night there. The next day, after first
coasting along to the territory of Epidaurus and making a descent there, they
came to Methana between Epidaurus and Troezen, and drew a wall across and
fortified the isthmus of the peninsula, and left a post there from which
incursions were henceforth made upon the country of Troezen, Haliae, and
Epidaurus. After walling off this spot, the fleet sailed off home.
While
these events were going on, Eurymedon and Sophocles had put to sea with the
Athenian fleet from Pylos on their way to Sicily and, arriving at Corcyra,
joined the townsmen in an expedition against the party established on Mount
Istone, who had crossed over, as I have mentioned, after the revolution and
become masters of the country, to the great hurt of the inhabitants. Their
stronghold having been taken by an attack, the garrison took refuge in a body
upon some high ground and there capitulated, agreeing to give up their
mercenary auxiliaries, lay down their arms, and commit themselves to the
discretion of the Athenian people. The generals carried them across under truce
to the island of Ptychia, to be kept in custody until they could be sent to
Athens, upon the understanding that, if any were caught running away, all would
lose the benefit of the treaty. Meanwhile the leaders of the Corcyraean
commons, afraid that the Athenians might spare the lives of the prisoners, had
recourse to the following stratagem. They gained over some few men on the
island by secretly sending friends with instructions to provide them with a
boat, and to tell them, as if for their own sakes, that they had best escape as
quickly as possible, as the Athenian generals were going to give them up to the
Corcyraean people.
These
representations succeeding, it was so arranged that the men were caught sailing
out in the boat that was provided, and the treaty became void accordingly, and
the whole body were given up to the Corcyraeans. For this result the Athenian
generals were in a great measure responsible; their evident disinclination to
sail for Sicily, and thus to leave to others the honour of conducting the men
to Athens, encouraged the intriguers in their design and seemed to affirm the
truth of their representations. The prisoners thus handed over were shut up by
the Corcyraeans in a large building, and afterwards taken out by twenties and
led past two lines of heavy infantry, one on each side, being bound together,
and beaten and stabbed by the men in the lines whenever any saw pass a personal
enemy; while men carrying whips went by their side and hastened on the road
those that walked too slowly.
As
many as sixty men were taken out and killed in this way without the knowledge
of their friends in the building, who fancied they were merely being moved from
one prison to another. At last, however, someone opened their eyes to the
truth, upon which they called upon the Athenians to kill them themselves, if
such was their pleasure, and refused any longer to go out of the building, and
said they would do all they could to prevent any one coming in. The
Corcyraeans, not liking themselves to force a passage by the doors, got up on
the top of the building, and breaking through the roof, threw down the tiles
and let fly arrows at them, from which the prisoners sheltered themselves as
well as they could. Most of their number, meanwhile, were engaged in
dispatching themselves by thrusting into their throats the arrows shot by the
enemy, and hanging themselves with the cords taken from some beds that happened
to be there, and with strips made from their clothing; adopting, in short,
every possible means of self-destruction, and also falling victims to the
missiles of their enemies on the roof. Night came on while these horrors were
enacting, and most of it had passed before they were concluded. When it was day
the Corcyraeans threw them in layers upon wagons and carried them out of the
city. All the women taken in the stronghold were sold as slaves. In this way
the Corcyraeans of the mountain were destroyed by the commons; and so after
terrible excesses the party strife came to an end, at least as far as the
period of this war is concerned, for of one party there was practically nothing
left. Meanwhile the Athenians sailed off to Sicily, their primary destination,
and carried on the war with their allies there.
At
the close of the summer, the Athenians at Naupactus and the Acarnanians made an
expedition against Anactorium, the Corinthian town lying at the mouth of the
Ambracian Gulf, and took it by treachery; and the Acarnanians themselves,
sending settlers from all parts of Acarnania, occupied the place.
Summer
was now over. During the winter ensuing, Aristides, son of Archippus, one of
the commanders of the Athenian ships sent to collect money from the allies,
arrested at Eion, on the Strymon, Artaphernes, a Persian, on his way from the
King to Lacedaemon. He was conducted to Athens, where the Athenians got his
dispatches translated from the Assyrian character and read them. With numerous
references to other subjects, they in substance told the Lacedaemonians that
the King did not know what they wanted, as of the many ambassadors they had
sent him no two ever told the same story; if however they were prepared to
speak plainly they might send him some envoys with this Persian. The Athenians
afterwards sent back Artaphernes in a galley to Ephesus, and ambassadors with
him, who heard there of the death of King Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, which took
place about that time, and so returned home.
The
same winter the Chians pulled down their new wall at the command of the
Athenians, who suspected them of meditating an insurrection, after first
however obtaining pledges from the Athenians, and security as far as this was
possible for their continuing to treat them as before. Thus the winter ended,
and with it ended the seventh year of this war of which Thucydides is the
historian.
In
first days of the next summer there was an eclipse of the sun at the time of
new moon, and in the early part of the same month an earthquake. Meanwhile, the
Mitylenian and other Lesbian exiles set out, for the most part from the
continent, with mercenaries hired in Peloponnese, and others levied on the
spot, and took Rhoeteum, but restored it without injury on the receipt of two
thousand Phocaean staters. After this they marched against Antandrus and took
the town by treachery, their plan being to free Antandrus and the rest of the
Actaean towns, formerly owned by Mitylene but now held by the Athenians. Once
fortified there, they would have every facility for ship-building from the
vicinity of Ida and the consequent abundance of timber, and plenty of other
supplies, and might from this base easily ravage Lesbos, which was not far off,
and make themselves masters of the Aeolian towns on the continent.
While
these were the schemes of the exiles, the Athenians in the same summer made an
expedition with sixty ships, two thousand heavy infantry, a few cavalry, and
some allied troops from Miletus and other parts, against Cythera, under the
command of Nicias, son of Niceratus, Nicostratus, son of Diotrephes, and
Autocles, son of Tolmaeus. Cythera is an island lying off Laconia, opposite
Malea; the inhabitants are Lacedaemonians of the class of the Perioeci; and an
officer called the judge of Cythera went over to the place annually from
Sparta. A garrison of heavy infantry was also regularly sent there, and great
attention paid to the island, as it was the landing-place for the merchantmen
from Egypt and Libya, and at the same time secured Laconia from the attacks of
privateers from the sea, at the only point where it is assailable, as the whole
coast rises abruptly towards the Sicilian and Cretan seas.
Coming
to land here with their armament, the Athenians with ten ships and two thousand
Milesian heavy infantry took the town of Scandea, on the sea; and with the rest
of their forces landing on the side of the island looking towards Malea, went
against the lower town of Cythera, where they found all the inhabitants
encamped. A battle ensuing, the Cytherians held their ground for some little
while, and then turned and fled into the upper town, where they soon afterwards
capitulated to Nicias and his colleagues, agreeing to leave their fate to the
decision of the Athenians, their lives only being safe. A correspondence had
previously been going on between Nicias and certain of the inhabitants, which
caused the surrender to be effected more speedily, and upon terms more
advantageous, present and future, for the Cytherians; who would otherwise have
been expelled by the Athenians on account of their being Lacedaemonians and
their island being so near to Laconia. After the capitulation, the Athenians
occupied the town of Scandea near the harbour, and appointing a garrison for
Cythera, sailed to Asine, Helus, and most of the places on the sea, and making
descents and passing the night on shore at such spots as were convenient,
continued ravaging the country for about seven days.
The
Lacedaemonians seeing the Athenians masters of Cythera, and expecting descents
of the kind upon their coasts, nowhere opposed them in force, but sent
garrisons here and there through the country, consisting of as many heavy
infantry as the points menaced seemed to require, and generally stood very much
upon the defensive. After the severe and unexpected blow that had befallen them
in the island, the occupation of Pylos and Cythera, and the apparition on every
side of a war whose rapidity defied precaution, they lived in constant fear of
internal revolution, and now took the unusual step of raising four hundred
horse and a force of archers, and became more timid than ever in military
matters, finding themselves involved in a maritime struggle, which their
organization had never contemplated, and that against Athenians, with whom an
enterprise unattempted was always looked upon as a success sacrificed. Besides
this, their late numerous reverses of fortune, coming close one upon another
without any reason, had thoroughly unnerved them, and they were always afraid
of a second disaster like that on the island, and thus scarcely dared to take
the field, but fancied that they could not stir without a blunder, for being
new to the experience of adversity they had lost all confidence in themselves.
Accordingly
they now allowed the Athenians to ravage their seaboard, without making any
movement, the garrisons in whose neighbourhood the descents were made always
thinking their numbers insufficient, and sharing the general feeling. A single
garrison which ventured to resist, near Cotyrta and Aphrodisia, struck terror
by its charge into the scattered mob of light troops, but retreated, upon being
received by the heavy infantry, with the loss of a few men and some arms, for
which the Athenians set up a trophy, and then sailed off to Cythera. From
thence they sailed round to Epidaurus Limera, ravaged part of the country, and
so came to Thyrea in the Cynurian territory, upon the Argive and Laconian
border. This district had been given by its Lacedaemonian owners to the
expelled Aeginetans to inhabit, in return for their good offices at the time of
the earthquake and the rising of the Helots; and also because, although
subjects of Athens, they had always sided with Lacedaemon.
While
the Athenians were still at sea, the Aeginetans evacuated a fort which they
were building upon the coast, and retreated into the upper town where they
lived, rather more than a mile from the sea. One of the Lacedaemonian district
garrisons which was helping them in the work, refused to enter here with them
at their entreaty, thinking it dangerous to shut themselves up within the wall,
and retiring to the high ground remained quiet, not considering themselves a
match for the enemy. Meanwhile the Athenians landed, and instantly advanced
with all their forces and took Thyrea. The town they burnt, pillaging what was
in it; the Aeginetans who were not slain in action they took with them to
Athens, with Tantalus, son of Patrocles, their Lacedaemonian commander, who had
been wounded and taken prisoner. They also took with them a few men from
Cythera whom they thought it safest to remove. These the Athenians determined
to lodge in the islands: the rest of the Cytherians were to retain their lands
and pay four talents tribute; the Aeginetans captured to be all put to death,
on account of the old inveterate feud; and Tantalus to share the imprisonment
of the Lacedaemonians taken on the island.
The
same summer, the inhabitants of Camarina and Gela in Sicily first made an
armistice with each other, after which embassies from all the other Sicilian
cities assembled at Gela to try to bring about a pacification. After many
expressions of opinion on one side and the other, according to the griefs and
pretensions of the different parties complaining, Hermocrates, son of Hermon, a
Syracusan, the most influential man among them, addressed the following words
to the assembly:
"If
I now address you, Sicilians, it is not because my city is the least in Sicily
or the greatest sufferer by the war, but in order to state publicly what
appears to me to be the best policy for the whole island. That war is an evil
is a proposition so familiar to every one that it would be tedious to develop
it. No one is forced to engage in it by ignorance, or kept out of it by fear,
if he fancies there is anything to be gained by it. To the former the gain appears
greater than the danger, while the latter would rather stand the risk than put
up with any immediate sacrifice. But if both should happen to have chosen the
wrong moment for acting in this way, advice to make peace would not be
unserviceable; and this, if we did but see it, is just what we stand most in
need of at the present juncture.
"I
suppose that no one will dispute that we went to war at first in order to serve
our own several interests, that we are now, in view of the same interests,
debating how we can make peace; and that if we separate without having as we
think our rights, we shall go to war again. And yet, as men of sense, we ought
to see that our separate interests are not alone at stake in the present
congress: there is also the question whether we have still time to save Sicily,
the whole of which in my opinion is menaced by Athenian ambition; and we ought
to find in the name of that people more imperious arguments for peace than any
which I can advance, when we see the first power in Hellas watching our
mistakes with the few ships that she has at present in our waters, and under
the fair name of alliance speciously seeking to turn to account the natural
hostility that exists between us. If we go to war, and call in to help us a
people that are ready enough to carry their arms even where they are not
invited; and if we injure ourselves at our own expense, and at the same time
serve as the pioneers of their dominion, we may expect, when they see us worn
out, that they will one day come with a larger armament, and seek to bring all
of us into subjection.
"And
yet as sensible men, if we call in allies and court danger, it should be in
order to enrich our different countries with new acquisitions, and not to ruin
what they possess already; and we should understand that the intestine discords
which are so fatal to communities generally, will be equally so to Sicily, if
we, its inhabitants, absorbed in our local quarrels, neglect the common enemy.
These considerations should reconcile individual with individual, and city with
city, and unite us in a common effort to save the whole of Sicily. Nor should
any one imagine that the Dorians only are enemies of Athens, while the
Chalcidian race is secured by its Ionian blood; the attack in question is not
inspired by hatred of one of two nationalities, but by a desire for the good
things in Sicily, the common property of us all. This is proved by the Athenian
reception of the Chalcidian invitation: an ally who has never given them any
assistance whatever, at once receives from them almost more than the treaty
entitles him to. That the Athenians should cherish this ambition and practise
this policy is very excusable; and I do not blame those who wish to rule, but
those who are over-ready to serve. It is just as much in men's nature to rule
those who submit to them, as it is to resist those who molest them; one is not
less invariable than the other. Meanwhile all who see these dangers and refuse
to provide for them properly, or who have come here without having made up
their minds that our first duty is to unite to get rid of the common peril, are
mistaken. The quickest way to be rid of it is to make peace with each other;
since the Athenians menace us not from their own country, but from that of
those who invited them here. In this way instead of war issuing in war, peace
quietly ends our quarrels; and the guests who come hither under fair pretences
for bad ends, will have good reason for going away without having attained
them.
"So
far as regards the Athenians, such are the great advantages proved inherent in
a wise policy. Independently of this, in the face of the universal consent,
that peace is the first of blessings, how can we refuse to make it amongst
ourselves; or do you not think that the good which you have, and the ills that
you complain of, would be better preserved and cured by quiet than by war; that
peace has its honours and splendours of a less perilous kind, not to mention
the numerous other blessings that one might dilate on, with the not less numerous
miseries of war? These considerations should teach you not to disregard my
words, but rather to look in them every one for his own safety. If there be any
here who feels certain either by right or might to effect his object, let not
this surprise be to him too severe a disappointment. Let him remember that many
before now have tried to chastise a wrongdoer, and failing to punish their
enemy have not even saved themselves; while many who have trusted in force to
gain an advantage, instead of gaining anything more, have been doomed to lose
what they had. Vengeance is not necessarily successful because wrong has been
done, or strength sure because it is confident; but the incalculable element in
the future exercises the widest influence, and is the most treacherous, and yet
in fact the most useful of all things, as it frightens us all equally, and thus
makes us consider before attacking each other.
"Let
us therefore now allow the undefined fear of this unknown future, and the
immediate terror of the Athenians' presence, to produce their natural
impression, and let us consider any failure to carry out the programmes that we
may each have sketched out for ourselves as sufficiently accounted for by these
obstacles, and send away the intruder from the country; and if everlasting
peace be impossible between us, let us at all events make a treaty for as long
a term as possible, and put off our private differences to another day. In
fine, let us recognize that the adoption of my advice will leave us each citizens
of a free state, and as such arbiters of our own destiny, able to return good
or bad offices with equal effect; while its rejection will make us dependent on
others, and thus not only impotent to repel an insult, but on the most
favourable supposition, friends to our direst enemies, and at feud with our
natural friends.
"For
myself, though, as I said at first, the representative of a great city, and
able to think less of defending myself than of attacking others, I am prepared
to concede something in prevision of these dangers. I am not inclined to ruin
myself for the sake of hurting my enemies, or so blinded by animosity as to
think myself equally master of my own plans and of fortune which I cannot
command; but I am ready to give up anything in reason. I call upon the rest of
you to imitate my conduct of your own free will, without being forced to do so
by the enemy. There is no disgrace in connections giving way to one another, a
Dorian to a Dorian, or a Chalcidian to his brethren; above and beyond this we
are neighbours, live in the same country, are girt by the same sea, and go by
the same name of Sicilians. We shall go to war again, I suppose, when the time
comes, and again make peace among ourselves by means of future congresses; but
the foreign invader, if we are wise, will always find us united against him,
since the hurt of one is the danger of all; and we shall never, in future,
invite into the island either allies or mediators. By so acting we shall at the
present moment do for Sicily a double service, ridding her at once of the
Athenians, and of civil war, and in future shall live in freedom at home, and
be less menaced from abroad."
Such
were the words of Hermocrates. The Sicilians took his advice, and came to an
understanding among themselves to end the war, each keeping what they had- the
Camarinaeans taking Morgantina at a price fixed to be paid to the Syracusans-
and the allies of the Athenians called the officers in command, and told them
that they were going to make peace and that they would be included in the
treaty. The generals assenting, the peace was concluded, and the Athenian fleet
afterwards sailed away from Sicily. Upon their arrival at Athens, the Athenians
banished Pythodorus and Sophocles, and fined Eurymedon for having taken bribes
to depart when they might have subdued Sicily. So thoroughly had the present
prosperity persuaded the citizens that nothing could withstand them, and that
they could achieve what was possible and impracticable alike, with means ample
or inadequate it mattered not. The secret of this was their general
extraordinary success, which made them confuse their strength with their hopes.
The
same summer the Megarians in the city, pressed by the hostilities of the
Athenians, who invaded their country twice every year with all their forces,
and harassed by the incursions of their own exiles at Pegae, who had been
expelled in a revolution by the popular party, began to ask each other whether
it would not be better to receive back their exiles, and free the town from one
of its two scourges. The friends of the emigrants, perceiving the agitation,
now more openly than before demanded the adoption of this proposition; and the
leaders of the commons, seeing that the sufferings of the times had tired out
the constancy of their supporters, entered in their alarm into correspondence
with the Athenian generals, Hippocrates, son of Ariphron, and Demosthenes, son
of Alcisthenes, and resolved to betray the town, thinking this less dangerous
to themselves than the return of the party which they had banished. It was
accordingly arranged that the Athenians should first take the long walls
extending for nearly a mile from the city to the port of Nisaea, to prevent the
Peloponnesians coming to the rescue from that place, where they formed the sole
garrison to secure the fidelity of Megara; and that after this the attempt
should be made to put into their hands the upper town, which it was thought
would then come over with less difficulty.
The
Athenians, after plans had been arranged between themselves and their
correspondents both as to words and actions, sailed by night to Minoa, the
island off Megara, with six hundred heavy infantry under the command of
Hippocrates, and took post in a quarry not far off, out of which bricks used to
be taken for the walls; while Demosthenes, the other commander, with a
detachment of Plataean light troops and another of Peripoli, placed himself in
ambush in the precinct of Enyalius, which was still nearer. No one knew of it,
except those whose business it was to know that night. A little before
daybreak, the traitors in Megara began to act. Every night for a long time
back, under pretence of marauding, in order to have a means of opening the
gates, they had been used, with the consent of the officer in command, to carry
by night a sculling boat upon a cart along the ditch to the sea, and so to sail
out, bringing it back again before day upon the cart, and taking it within the
wall through the gates, in order, as they pretended, to baffle the Athenian
blockade at Minoa, there being no boat to be seen in the harbour. On the
present occasion the cart was already at the gates, which had been opened in
the usual way for the boat, when the Athenians, with whom this had been
concerted, saw it, and ran at the top of their speed from the ambush in order
to reach the gates before they were shut again, and while the cart was still
there to prevent their being closed; their Megarian accomplices at the same
moment killing the guard at the gates. The first to run in was Demosthenes with
his Plataeans and Peripoli, just where the trophy now stands; and he was no
sooner within the gates than the Plataeans engaged and defeated the nearest
party of Peloponnesians who had taken the alarm and come to the rescue, and
secured the gates for the approaching Athenian heavy infantry.
After
this, each of the Athenians as fast as they entered went against the wall. A
few of the Peloponnesian garrison stood their ground at first, and tried to
repel the assault, and some of them were killed; but the main body took fright
and fled; the night attack and the sight of the Megarian traitors in arms
against them making them think that all Megara had gone over to the enemy. It
so happened also that the Athenian herald of his own idea called out and invited
any of the Megarians that wished, to join the Athenian ranks; and this was no
sooner heard by the garrison than they gave way, and, convinced that they were
the victims of a concerted attack, took refuge in Nisaea. By daybreak, the
walls being now taken and the Megarians in the city in great agitation, the
persons who had negotiated with the Athenians, supported by the rest of the
popular party which was privy to the plot, said that they ought to open the
gates and march out to battle. It had been concerted between them that the
Athenians should rush in, the moment that the gates were opened, while the
conspirators were to be distinguished from the rest by being anointed with oil,
and so to avoid being hurt. They could open the gates with more security, as
four thousand Athenian heavy infantry from Eleusis, and six hundred horse, had
marched all night, according to agreement, and were now close at hand. The
conspirators were all ready anointed and at their posts by the gates, when one
of their accomplices denounced the plot to the opposite party, who gathered
together and came in a body, and roundly said that they must not march out- a
thing they had never yet ventured on even when in greater force than at
present- or wantonly compromise the safety of the town, and that if what they
said was not attended to, the battle would have to be fought in Megara. For the
rest, they gave no signs of their knowledge of the intrigue, but stoutly
maintained that their advice was the best, and meanwhile kept close by and
watched the gates, making it impossible for the conspirators to effect their
purpose.
The
Athenian generals seeing that some obstacle had arisen, and that the capture of
the town by force was no longer practicable, at once proceeded to invest
Nisaea, thinking that, if they could take it before relief arrived, the
surrender of Megara would soon follow. Iron, stone-masons, and everything else
required quickly coming up from Athens, the Athenians started from the wall
which they occupied, and from this point built a cross wall looking towards
Megara down to the sea on either side of Nisaea; the ditch and the walls being
divided among the army, stones and bricks taken from the suburb, and the
fruit-trees and timber cut down to make a palisade wherever this seemed
necessary; the houses also in the suburb with the addition of battlements
sometimes entering into the fortification. The whole of this day the work
continued, and by the afternoon of the next the wall was all but completed,
when the garrison in Nisaea, alarmed by the absolute want of provisions, which
they used to take in for the day from the upper town, not anticipating any
speedy relief from the Peloponnesians, and supposing Megara to be hostile,
capitulated to the Athenians on condition that they should give up their arms,
and should each be ransomed for a stipulated sum; their Lacedaemonian
commander, and any others of his countrymen in the place, being left to the
discretion of the Athenians. On these conditions they surrendered and came out,
and the Athenians broke down the long walls at their point of junction with
Megara, took possession of Nisaea, and went on with their other preparations.
Just
at this time the Lacedaemonian Brasidas, son of Tellis, happened to be in the
neighbourhood of Sicyon and Corinth, getting ready an army for Thrace. As soon
as he heard of the capture of the walls, fearing for the Peloponnesians in
Nisaea and the safety of Megara, he sent to the Boeotians to meet him as
quickly as possible at Tripodiscus, a village so called of the Megarid, under
Mount Geraneia, and went himself, with two thousand seven hundred Corinthian
heavy infantry, four hundred Phliasians, six hundred Sicyonians, and such
troops of his own as he had already levied, expecting to find Nisaea not yet taken.
Hearing of its fall (he had marched out by night to Tripodiscus), he took three
hundred picked men from the army, without waiting till his coming should be
known, and came up to Megara unobserved by the Athenians, who were down by the
sea, ostensibly, and really if possible, to attempt Nisaea, but above all to
get into Megara and secure the town. He accordingly invited the townspeople to
admit his party, saying that he had hopes of recovering Nisaea.
However,
one of the Megarian factions feared that he might expel them and restore the
exiles; the other that the commons, apprehensive of this very danger, might set
upon them, and the city be thus destroyed by a battle within its gates under
the eyes of the ambushed Athenians. He was accordingly refused admittance, both
parties electing to remain quiet and await the event; each expecting a battle
between the Athenians and the relieving army, and thinking it safer to see
their friends victorious before declaring in their favour.
Unable
to carry his point, Brasidas went back to the rest of the army. At daybreak the
Boeotians joined him. Having determined to relieve Megara, whose danger they
considered their own, even before hearing from Brasidas, they were already in
full force at Plataea, when his messenger arrived to add spurs to their
resolution; and they at once sent on to him two thousand two hundred heavy
infantry, and six hundred horse, returning home with the main body. The whole
army thus assembled numbered six thousand heavy infantry. The Athenian heavy
infantry were drawn up by Nisaea and the sea; but the light troops being
scattered over the plain were attacked by the Boeotian horse and driven to the
sea, being taken entirely by surprise, as on previous occasions no relief had
ever come to the Megarians from any quarter. Here the Boeotians were in their
turn charged and engaged by the Athenian horse, and a cavalry action ensued
which lasted a long time, and in which both parties claimed the victory. The
Athenians killed and stripped the leader of the Boeotian horse and some few of
his comrades who had charged right up to Nisaea, and remaining masters of the
bodies gave them back under truce, and set up a trophy; but regarding the
action as a whole the forces separated without either side having gained a
decisive advantage, the Boeotians returning to their army and the Athenians to
Nisaea.
After
this Brasidas and the army came nearer to the sea and to Megara, and taking up
a convenient position, remained quiet in order of battle, expecting to be
attacked by the Athenians and knowing that the Megarians were waiting to see
which would be the victor. This attitude seemed to present two advantages.
Without taking the offensive or willingly provoking the hazards of a battle,
they openly showed their readiness to fight, and thus without bearing the
burden of the day would fairly reap its honours; while at the same time they
effectually served their interests at Megara. For if they had failed to show
themselves they would not have had a chance, but would have certainly been
considered vanquished, and have lost the town. As it was, the Athenians might
possibly not be inclined to accept their challenge, and their object would be
attained without fighting. And so it turned out. The Athenians formed outside
the long walls and, the enemy not attacking, there remained motionless; their
generals having decided that the risk was too unequal. In fact most of their
objects had been already attained; and they would have to begin a battle
against superior numbers, and if victorious could only gain Megara, while a
defeat would destroy the flower of their heavy soldiery. For the enemy it was
different; as even the states actually represented in his army risked each only
a part of its entire force, he might well be more audacious. Accordingly, after
waiting for some time without either side attacking, the Athenians withdrew to
Nisaea, and the Peloponnesians after them to the point from which they had set
out. The friends of the Megarian exiles now threw aside their hesitation, and opened
the gates to Brasidas and the commanders from the different states- looking
upon him as the victor and upon the Athenians as having declined the battle-
and receiving them into the town proceeded to discuss matters with them; the
party in correspondence with the Athenians being paralysed by the turn things
had taken.
Afterwards
Brasidas let the allies go home, and himself went back to Corinth, to prepare
for his expedition to Thrace, his original destination. The Athenians also
returning home, the Megarians in the city most implicated in the Athenian
negotiation, knowing that they had been detected, presently disappeared; while
the rest conferred with the friends of the exiles, and restored the party at
Pegae, after binding them under solemn oaths to take no vengeance for the past,
and only to consult the real interests of the town. However, as soon as they
were in office, they held a review of the heavy infantry, and separating the
battalions, picked out about a hundred of their enemies, and of those who were
thought to be most involved in the correspondence with the Athenians, brought
them before the people, and compelling the vote to be given openly, had them
condemned and executed, and established a close oligarchy in the town- a
revolution which lasted a very long while, although effected by a very few
partisans.
THE
same summer the Mitylenians were about to fortify Antandrus, as they had
intended, when Demodocus and Aristides, the commanders of the Athenian squadron
engaged in levying subsidies, heard on the Hellespont of what was being done to
the place (Lamachus their colleague having sailed with ten ships into the
Pontus) and conceived fears of its becoming a second Anaia-the place in which
the Samian exiles had established themselves to annoy Samos, helping the
Peloponnesians by sending pilots to their navy, and keeping the city in
agitation and receiving all its outlaws. They accordingly got together a force
from the allies and set sail, defeated in battle the troops that met them from
Antandrus, and retook the place. Not long after, Lamachus, who had sailed into
the Pontus, lost his ships at anchor in the river Calex, in the territory of
Heraclea, rain having fallen in the interior and the flood coming suddenly down
upon them; and himself and his troops passed by land through the Bithynian
Thracians on the Asiatic side, and arrived at Chalcedon, the Megarian colony at
the mouth of the Pontus.
The
same summer the Athenian general, Demosthenes, arrived at Naupactus with forty
ships immediately after the return from the Megarid. Hippocrates and himself
had had overtures made to them by certain men in the cities in Boeotia, who
wished to change the constitution and introduce a democracy as at Athens;
Ptoeodorus, a Theban exile, being the chief mover in this intrigue. The seaport
town of Siphae, in the bay of Crisae, in the Thespian territory, was to be
betrayed to them by one party; Chaeronea (a dependency of what was formerly
called the Minyan, now the Boeotian, Orchomenus) to be put into their hands by
another from that town, whose exiles were very active in the business, hiring
men in Peloponnese. Some Phocians also were in the plot, Chaeronea being the
frontier town of Boeotia and close to Phanotis in Phocia. Meanwhile the
Athenians were to seize Delium, the sanctuary of Apollo, in the territory of
Tanagra looking towards Euboea; and all these events were to take place
simultaneously upon a day appointed, in order that the Boeotians might be
unable to unite to oppose them at Delium, being everywhere detained by
disturbances at home. Should the enterprise succeed, and Delium be fortified,
its authors confidently expected that even if no revolution should immediately
follow in Boeotia, yet with these places in their hands, and the country being
harassed by incursions, and a refuge in each instance near for the partisans engaged
in them, things would not remain as they were, but that the rebels being
supported by the Athenians and the forces of the oligarchs divided, it would be
possible after a while to settle matters according to their wishes.
Such
was the plot in contemplation. Hippocrates with a force raised at home awaited
the proper moment to take the field against the Boeotians; while he sent on
Demosthenes with the forty ships above mentioned to Naupactus, to raise in
those parts an army of Acarnanians and of the other allies, and sail and
receive Siphae from the conspirators; a day having been agreed on for the
simultaneous execution of both these operations. Demosthenes on his arrival
found Oeniadae already compelled by the united Acarnanians to join the Athenian
confederacy, and himself raising all the allies in those countries marched
against and subdued Salynthius and the Agraeans; after which he devoted himself
to the preparations necessary to enable him to be at Siphae by the time
appointed.
About
the same time in the summer, Brasidas set out on his march for the Thracian
places with seventeen hundred heavy infantry, and arriving at Heraclea in
Trachis, from thence sent on a messenger to his friends at Pharsalus, to ask
them to conduct himself and his army through the country. Accordingly there
came to Melitia in Achaia Panaerus, Dorus, Hippolochidas, Torylaus, and
Strophacus, the Chalcidian proxenus, under whose escort he resumed his march,
being accompanied also by other Thessalians, among whom was Niconidas from
Larissa, a friend of Perdiccas. It was never very easy to traverse Thessaly
without an escort; and throughout all Hellas for an armed force to pass without
leave through a neighbour's country was a delicate step to take. Besides this
the Thessalian people had always sympathized with the Athenians. Indeed if
instead of the customary dose oligarchy there had been a constitutional
government in Thessaly, he would never have been able to proceed; since even as
it was, he was met on his march at the river Enipeus by certain of the opposite
party who forbade his further progress, and complained of his making the
attempt without the consent of the nation. To this his escort answered that
they had no intention of taking him through against their will; they were only
friends in attendance on an unexpected visitor. Brasidas himself added that he
came as a friend to Thessaly and its inhabitants, his arms not being directed
against them but against the Athenians, with whom he was at war, and that
although he knew of no quarrel between the Thessalians and Lacedaemonians to
prevent the two nations having access to each other's territory, he neither
would nor could proceed against their wishes; he could only beg them not to
stop him. With this answer they went away, and he took the advice of his
escort, and pushed on without halting, before a greater force might gather to
prevent him. Thus in the day that he set out from Melitia he performed the
whole distance to Pharsalus, and encamped on the river Apidanus; and so to Phacium
and from thence to Perrhaebia. Here his Thessalian escort went back, and the
Perrhaebians, who are subjects of Thessaly, set him down at Dium in the
dominions of Perdiccas, a Macedonian town under Mount Olympus, looking towards
Thessaly.
In
this way Brasidas hurried through Thessaly before any one could be got ready to
stop him, and reached Perdiccas and Chalcidice. The departure of the army from
Peloponnese had been procured by the Thracian towns in revolt against Athens
and by Perdiccas, alarmed at the successes of the Athenians. The Chalcidians
thought that they would be the first objects of an Athenian expedition, not
that the neighbouring towns which had not yet revolted did not also secretly
join in the invitation; and Perdiccas also had his apprehensions on account of
his old quarrels with the Athenians, although not openly at war with them, and
above all wished to reduce Arrhabaeus, king of the Lyncestians. It had been
less difficult for them to get an army to leave Peloponnese, because of the ill
fortune of the Lacedaemonians at the present moment. The attacks of the
Athenians upon Peloponnese, and in particular upon Laconia, might, it was
hoped, be diverted most effectually by annoying them in return, and by sending
an army to their allies, especially as they were willing to maintain it and
asked for it to aid them in revolting. The Lacedaemonians were also glad to
have an excuse for sending some of the Helots out of the country, for fear that
the present aspect of affairs and the occupation of Pylos might encourage them
to move. Indeed fear of their numbers and obstinacy even persuaded the
Lacedaemonians to the action which I shall now relate, their policy at all
times having been governed by the necessity of taking precautions against them.
The Helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who
claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that
they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was
thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high-spirited
and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly,
who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new
freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one
ever knew how each of them perished. The Spartans now therefore gladly sent
seven hundred as heavy infantry with Brasidas, who recruited the rest of his
force by means of money in Peloponnese.
Brasidas
himself was sent out by the Lacedaemonians mainly at his own desire, although
the Chalcidians also were eager to have a man so thorough as he had shown
himself whenever there was anything to be done at Sparta, and whose
after-service abroad proved of the utmost use to his country. At the present
moment his just and moderate conduct towards the towns generally succeeded in
procuring their revolt, besides the places which he managed to take by
treachery; and thus when the Lacedaemonians desired to treat, as they
ultimately did, they had places to offer in exchange, and the burden of war
meanwhile shifted from Peloponnese. Later on in the war, after the events in
Sicily, the present valour and conduct of Brasidas, known by experience to
some, by hearsay to others, was what mainly created in the allies of Athens a
feeling for the Lacedaemonians. He was the first who went out and showed
himself so good a man at all points as to leave behind him the conviction that
the rest were like him.
Meanwhile
his arrival in the Thracian country no sooner became known to the Athenians
than they declared war against Perdiccas, whom they regarded as the author of
the expedition, and kept a closer watch on their allies in that quarter.
Upon
the arrival of Brasidas and his army, Perdiccas immediately started with them
and with his own forces against Arrhabaeus, son of Bromerus, king of the
Lyncestian Macedonians, his neighbour, with whom he had a quarrel and whom he
wished to subdue. However, when he arrived with his army and Brasidas at the
pass leading into Lyncus, Brasidas told him that before commencing hostilities
he wished to go and try to persuade Arrhabaeus to become the ally of
Lacedaemon, this latter having already made overtures intimating his
willingness to make Brasidas arbitrator between them, and the Chalcidian envoys
accompanying him having warned him not to remove the apprehensions of
Perdiccas, in order to ensure his greater zeal in their cause. Besides, the
envoys of Perdiccas had talked at Lacedaemon about his bringing many of the
places round him into alliance with them; and thus Brasidas thought he might
take a larger view of the question of Arrhabaeus. Perdiccas however retorted
that he had not brought him with him to arbitrate in their quarrel, but to put
down the enemies whom he might point out to him; and that while he, Perdiccas,
maintained half his army it was a breach of faith for Brasidas to parley with
Arrhabaeus. Nevertheless Brasidas disregarded the wishes of Perdiccas and held
the parley in spite of him, and suffered himself to be persuaded to lead off
the army without invading the country of Arrhabaeus; after which Perdiccas,
holding that faith had not been kept with him, contributed only a third instead
of half of the support of the army.
The
same summer, without loss of time, Brasidas marched with the Chalcidians
against Acanthus, a colony of the Andrians, a little before vintage. The
inhabitants were divided into two parties on the question of receiving him;
those who had joined the Chalcidians in inviting him, and the popular party.
However, fear for their fruit, which was still out, enabled Brasidas to
persuade the multitude to admit him alone, and to hear what he had to say
before making a decision; and he was admitted accordingly and appeared before
the people, and not being a bad speaker for a Lacedaemonian, addressed them as
follows:
"Acanthians,
the Lacedaemonians have sent out me and my army to make good the reason that we
gave for the war when we began it, viz., that we were going to war with the
Athenians in order to free Hellas. Our delay in coming has been caused by
mistaken expectations as to the war at home, which led us to hope, by our own
unassisted efforts and without your risking anything, to effect the speedy
downfall of the Athenians; and you must not blame us for this, as we are now
come the moment that we were able, prepared with your aid to do our best to
subdue them. Meanwhile I am astonished at finding your gates shut against me,
and at not meeting with a better welcome. We Lacedaemonians thought of you as allies
eager to have us, to whom we should come in spirit even before we were with you
in body; and in this expectation undertook all the risks of a march of many
days through a strange country, so far did our zeal carry us. It will be a
terrible thing if after this you have other intentions, and mean to stand in
the way of your own and Hellenic freedom. It is not merely that you oppose me
yourselves; but wherever I may go people will be less inclined to join me, on
the score that you, to whom I first came- an important town like Acanthus, and
prudent men like the Acanthians- refused to admit me. I shall have nothing to
prove that the reason which I advance is the true one; it will be said either
that there is something unfair in the freedom which I offer, or that I am in
insufficient force and unable to protect you against an attack from Athens. Yet
when I went with the army which I now have to the relief of Nisaea, the
Athenians did not venture to engage me although in greater force than I; and it
is not likely they will ever send across sea against you an army as numerous as
they had at Nisaea. And for myself, I have come here not to hurt but to free
the Hellenes, witness the solemn oaths by which I have bound my government that
the allies that I may bring over shall be independent; and besides my object in
coming is not by force or fraud to obtain your alliance, but to offer you mine
to help you against your Athenian masters. I protest, therefore, against any
suspicions of my intentions after the guarantees which I offer, and equally so
against doubts of my ability to protect you, and I invite you to join me
without hesitation.
"Some
of you may hang back because they have private enemies, and fear that I may put
the city into the hands of a party: none need be more tranquil than they. I am
not come here to help this party or that; and I do not consider that I should
be bringing you freedom in any real sense, if I should disregard your
constitution, and enslave the many to the few or the few to the many. This would
be heavier than a foreign yoke; and we Lacedaemonians, instead of being thanked
for our pains, should get neither honour nor glory, but, contrariwise,
reproaches. The charges which strengthen our hands in the war against the
Athenians would on our own showing be merited by ourselves, and more hateful in
us than in those who make no pretensions to honesty; as it is more disgraceful
for persons of character to take what they covet by fair-seeming fraud than by
open force; the one aggression having for its justification the might which
fortune gives, the other being simply a piece of clever roguery. A matter which
concerns us thus nearly we naturally look to most jealously; and over and above
the oaths that I have mentioned, what stronger assurance can you have, when you
see that our words, compared with the actual facts, produce the necessary
conviction that it is our interest to act as we say?
"If
to these considerations of mine you put in the plea of inability, and claim
that your friendly feeling should save you from being hurt by your refusal; if
you say that freedom, in your opinion, is not without its dangers, and that it
is right to offer it to those who can accept it, but not to force it on any
against their will, then I shall take the gods and heroes of your country to
witness that I came for your good and was rejected, and shall do my best to
compel you by laying waste your land. I shall do so without scruple, being
justified by the necessity which constrains me, first, to prevent the
Lacedaemonians from being damaged by you, their friends, in the event of your
nonadhesion, through the moneys that you pay to the Athenians; and secondly, to
prevent the Hellenes from being hindered by you in shaking off their servitude.
Otherwise indeed we should have no right to act as we propose; except in the
name of some public interest, what call should we Lacedaemonians have to free
those who do not wish it? Empire we do not aspire to: it is what we are
labouring to put down; and we should wrong the greater number if we allowed you
to stand in the way of the independence that we offer to all. Endeavour,
therefore, to decide wisely, and strive to begin the work of liberation for the
Hellenes, and lay up for yourselves endless renown, while you escape private
loss, and cover your commonwealth with glory."
Such
were the words of Brasidas. The Acanthians, after much had been said on both
sides of the question, gave their votes in secret, and the majority, influenced
by the seductive arguments of Brasidas and by fear for their fruit, decided to
revolt from Athens; not however admitting the army until they had taken his
personal security for the oaths sworn by his government before they sent him
out, assuring the independence of the allies whom he might bring over. Not long
after, Stagirus, a colony of the Andrians, followed their example and revolted.
Such
were the events of this summer. It was in the first days of the winter
following that the places in Boeotia were to be put into the hands of the
Athenian generals, Hippocrates and Demosthenes, the latter of whom was to go
with his ships to Siphae, the former to Delium. A mistake, however, was made in
the days on which they were each to start; and Demosthenes, sailing first to
Siphae, with the Acarnanians and many of the allies from those parts on board,
failed to effect anything, through the plot having been betrayed by Nicomachus,
a Phocian from Phanotis, who told the Lacedaemonians, and they the Boeotians.
Succours accordingly flocked in from all parts of Boeotia, Hippocrates not
being yet there to make his diversion, and Siphae and Chaeronea were promptly
secured, and the conspirators, informed of the mistake, did not venture on any
movement in the towns.
Meanwhile
Hippocrates made a levy in mass of the citizens, resident aliens, and
foreigners in Athens, and arrived at his destination after the Boeotians had
already come back from Siphae, and encamping his army began to fortify Delium,
the sanctuary of Apollo, in the following manner. A trench was dug all round
the temple and the consecrated ground, and the earth thrown up from the
excavation was made to do duty as a wall, in which stakes were also planted,
the vines round the sanctuary being cut down and thrown in, together with
stones and bricks pulled down from the houses near; every means, in short,
being used to run up the rampart. Wooden towers were also erected where they
were wanted, and where there was no part of the temple buildings left standing,
as on the side where the gallery once existing had fallen in. The work was
begun on the third day after leaving home, and continued during the fourth, and
till dinnertime on the fifth, when most of it being now finished the army
removed from Delium about a mile and a quarter on its way home. From this point
most of the light troops went straight on, while the heavy infantry halted and
remained where they were; Hippocrates having stayed behind at Delium to arrange
the posts, and to give directions for the completion of such part of the
outworks as had been left unfinished.
During
the days thus employed the Boeotians were mustering at Tanagra, and by the time
that they had come in from all the towns, found the Athenians already on their
way home. The rest of the eleven Boeotarchs were against giving battle, as the
enemy was no longer in Boeotia, the Athenians being just over the Oropian
border, when they halted; but Pagondas, son of Aeolidas, one of the Boeotarchs
of Thebes (Arianthides, son of Lysimachidas, being the other), and then
commander-in-chief, thought it best to hazard a battle. He accordingly called
the men to him, company after company, to prevent their all leaving their arms
at once, and urged them to attack the Athenians, and stand the issue of a
battle, speaking as follows:
"Boeotians,
the idea that we ought not to give battle to the Athenians, unless we came up
with them in Boeotia, is one which should never have entered into the head of
any of us, your generals. It was to annoy Boeotia that they crossed the
frontier and built a fort in our country; and they are therefore, I imagine,
our enemies wherever we may come up with them, and from wheresoever they may
have come to act as enemies do. And if any one has taken up with the idea in
question for reasons of safety, it is high time for him to change his mind. The
party attacked, whose own country is in danger, can scarcely discuss what is
prudent with the calmness of men who are in full enjoyment of what they have
got, and are thinking of attacking a neighbour in order to get more. It is your
national habit, in your country or out of it, to oppose the same resistance to
a foreign invader; and when that invader is Athenian, and lives upon your
frontier besides, it is doubly imperative to do so. As between neighbours
generally, freedom means simply a determination to hold one's own; and with
neighbours like these, who are trying to enslave near and far alike, there is
nothing for it but to fight it out to the last. Look at the condition of the
Euboeans and of most of the rest of Hellas, and be convinced that others have
to fight with their neighbours for this frontier or that, but that for us
conquest means one frontier for the whole country, about which no dispute can
be made, for they will simply come and take by force what we have. So much more
have we to fear from this neighbour than from another. Besides, people who,
like the Athenians in the present instance, are tempted by pride of strength to
attack their neighbours, usually march most confidently against those who keep
still, and only defend themselves in their own country, but think twice before
they grapple with those who meet them outside their frontier and strike the
first blow if opportunity offers. The Athenians have shown us this themselves;
the defeat which we inflicted upon them at Coronea, at the time when our
quarrels had allowed them to occupy the country, has given great security to
Boeotia until the present day. Remembering this, the old must equal their
ancient exploits, and the young, the sons of the heroes of that time, must
endeavour not to disgrace their native valour; and trusting in the help of the
god whose temple has been sacrilegiously fortified, and in the victims which in
our sacrifices have proved propitious, we must march against the enemy, and
teach him that he must go and get what he wants by attacking someone who will
not resist him, but that men whose glory it is to be always ready to give
battle for the liberty of their own country, and never unjustly to enslave that
of others, will not let him go without a struggle."
By
these arguments Pagondas persuaded the Boeotians to attack the Athenians, and
quickly breaking up his camp led his army forward, it being now late in the
day. On nearing the enemy, he halted in a position where a hill intervening
prevented the two armies from seeing each other, and then formed and prepared
for action. Meanwhile Hippocrates at Delium, informed of the approach of the
Boeotians, sent orders to his troops to throw themselves into line, and himself
joined them not long afterwards, leaving about three hundred horse behind him
at Delium, at once to guard the place in case of attack, and to watch their
opportunity and fall upon the Boeotians during the battle. The Boeotians placed
a detachment to deal with these, and when everything was arranged to their satisfaction
appeared over the hill, and halted in the order which they had determined on,
to the number of seven thousand heavy infantry, more than ten thousand light
troops, one thousand horse, and five hundred targeteers. On their right were
the Thebans and those of their province, in the centre the Haliartians,
Coronaeans, Copaeans, and the other people around the lake, and on the left the
Thespians, Tanagraeans, and Orchomenians, the cavalry and the light troops
being at the extremity of each wing. The Thebans formed twenty-five shields
deep, the rest as they pleased. Such was the strength and disposition of the
Boeotian army.
On
the side of the Athenians, the heavy infantry throughout the whole army formed
eight deep, being in numbers equal to the enemy, with the cavalry upon the two
wings. Light troops regularly armed there were none in the army, nor had there
ever been any at Athens. Those who had joined in the invasion, though many
times more numerous than those of the enemy, had mostly followed unarmed, as
part of the levy in mass of the citizens and foreigners at Athens, and having
started first on their way home were not present in any number. The armies
being now in line and upon the point of engaging, Hippocrates, the general,
passed along the Athenian ranks, and encouraged them as follows:
"Athenians,
I shall only say a few words to you, but brave men require no more, and they
are addressed more to your understanding than to your courage. None of you must
fancy that we are going out of our way to run this risk in the country of
another. Fought in their territory the battle will be for ours: if we conquer,
the Peloponnesians will never invade your country without the Boeotian horse,
and in one battle you will win Boeotia and in a manner free Attica. Advance to
meet them then like citizens of a country in which you all glory as the first
in Hellas, and like sons of the fathers who beat them at Oenophyta with
Myronides and thus gained possession of Boeotia."
Hippocrates
had got half through the army with his exhortation, when the Boeotians, after a
few more hasty words from Pagondas, struck up the paean, and came against them
from the hill; the Athenians advancing to meet them, and closing at a run. The
extreme wing of neither army came into action, one like the other being stopped
by the water-courses in the way; the rest engaged with the utmost obstinacy,
shield against shield. The Boeotian left, as far as the centre, was worsted by
the Athenians. The Thespians in that part of the field suffered most severely.
The troops alongside them having given way, they were surrounded in a narrow
space and cut down fighting hand to hand; some of the Athenians also fell into
confusion in surrounding the enemy and mistook and so killed each other. In
this part of the field the Boeotians were beaten, and retreated upon the troops
still fighting; but the right, where the Thebans were, got the better of the
Athenians and shoved them further and further back, though gradually at first.
It so happened also that Pagondas, seeing the distress of his left, had sent
two squadrons of horse, where they could not be seen, round the hill, and their
sudden appearance struck a panic into the victorious wing of the Athenians, who
thought that it was another army coming against them. At length in both parts
of the field, disturbed by this panic, and with their line broken by the
advancing Thebans, the whole Athenian army took to flight. Some made for Delium
and the sea, some for Oropus, others for Mount Parnes, or wherever they had
hopes of safety, pursued and cut down by the Boeotians, and in particular by
the cavalry, composed partly of Boeotians and partly of Locrians, who had come
up just as the rout began. Night however coming on to interrupt the pursuit,
the mass of the fugitives escaped more easily than they would otherwise have
done. The next day the troops at Oropus and Delium returned home by sea, after
leaving a garrison in the latter place, which they continued to hold
notwithstanding the defeat.
The
Boeotians set up a trophy, took up their own dead, and stripped those of the
enemy, and leaving a guard over them retired to Tanagra, there to take measures
for attacking Delium. Meanwhile a herald came from the Athenians to ask for the
dead, but was met and turned back by a Boeotian herald, who told him that he
would effect nothing until the return of himself the Boeotian herald, and who
then went on to the Athenians, and told them on the part of the Boeotians that
they had done wrong in transgressing the law of the Hellenes. Of what use was
the universal custom protecting the temples in an invaded country, if the
Athenians were to fortify Delium and live there, acting exactly as if they were
on unconsecrated ground, and drawing and using for their purposes the water
which they, the Boeotians, never touched except for sacred uses? Accordingly
for the god as well as for themselves, in the name of the deities concerned,
and of Apollo, the Boeotians invited them first to evacuate the temple, if they
wished to take up the dead that belonged to them.
After
these words from the herald, the Athenians sent their own herald to the
Boeotians to say that they had not done any wrong to the temple, and for the
future would do it no more harm than they could help; not having occupied it
originally in any such design, but to defend themselves from it against those
who were really wronging them. The law of the Hellenes was that conquest of a
country, whether more or less extensive, carried with it possession of the
temples in that country, with the obligation to keep up the usual ceremonies,
at least as far as possible. The Boeotians and most other people who had turned
out the owners of a country, and put themselves in their places by force, now
held as of right the temples which they originally entered as usurpers. If the
Athenians could have conquered more of Boeotia this would have been the case
with them: as things stood, the piece of it which they had got they should
treat as their own, and not quit unless obliged. The water they had disturbed
under the impulsion of a necessity which they had not wantonly incurred, having
been forced to use it in defending themselves against the Boeotians who first
invaded Attica. Besides, anything done under the pressure of war and danger
might reasonably claim indulgence even in the eye of the god; or why, pray,
were the altars the asylum for involuntary offences? Transgression also was a
term applied to presumptuous offenders, not to the victims of adverse
circumstances. In short, which were most impious- the Boeotians who wished to
barter dead bodies for holy places, or the Athenians who refused to give up
holy places to obtain what was theirs by right? The condition of evacuating
Boeotia must therefore be withdrawn. They were no longer in Boeotia. They stood
where they stood by the right of the sword. All that the Boeotians had to do
was to tell them to take up their dead under a truce according to the national
custom.
The
Boeotians replied that if they were in Boeotia, they must evacuate that country
before taking up their dead; if they were in their own territory, they could do
as they pleased: for they knew that, although the Oropid where the bodies as it
chanced were lying (the battle having been fought on the borders) was subject
to Athens, yet the Athenians could not get them without their leave. Besides,
why should they grant a truce for Athenian ground? And what could be fairer
than to tell them to evacuate Boeotia if they wished to get what they asked?
The Athenian herald accordingly returned with this answer, without having
accomplished his object.
Meanwhile
the Boeotians at once sent for darters and slingers from the Malian Gulf, and
with two thousand Corinthian heavy infantry who had joined them after the
battle, the Peloponnesian garrison which had evacuated Nisaea, and some
Megarians with them, marched against Delium, and attacked the fort, and after
divers efforts finally succeeded in taking it by an engine of the following
description. They sawed in two and scooped out a great beam from end to end, and
fitting it nicely together again like a pipe, hung by chains a cauldron at one
extremity, with which communicated an iron tube projecting from the beam, which
was itself in great part plated with iron. This they brought up from a distance
upon carts to the part of the wall principally composed of vines and timber,
and when it was near, inserted huge bellows into their end of the beam and blew
with them. The blast passing closely confined into the cauldron, which was
filled with lighted coals, sulphur and pitch, made a great blaze, and set fire
to the wall, which soon became untenable for its defenders, who left it and
fled; and in this way the fort was taken. Of the garrison some were killed and
two hundred made prisoners; most of the rest got on board their ships and
returned home.
Soon
after the fall of Delium, which took place seventeen days after the battle, the
Athenian herald, without knowing what had happened, came again for the dead,
which were now restored by the Boeotians, who no longer answered as at first.
Not quite five hundred Boeotians fell in the battle, and nearly one thousand
Athenians, including Hippocrates the general, besides a great number of light
troops and camp followers.
Soon
after this battle Demosthenes, after the failure of his voyage to Siphae and of
the plot on the town, availed himself of the Acarnanian and Agraean troops and
of the four hundred Athenian heavy infantry which he had on board, to make a
descent on the Sicyonian coast. Before however all his ships had come to shore,
the Sicyonians came up and routed and chased to their ships those that had
landed, killing some and taking others prisoners; after which they set up a
trophy, and gave back the dead under truce.
About
the same time with the affair of Delium took place the death of Sitalces, king
of the Odrysians, who was defeated in battle, in a campaign against the
Triballi; Seuthes, son of Sparadocus, his nephew, succeeding to the kingdom of
the Odrysians, and of the rest of Thrace ruled by Sitalces.
The
same winter Brasidas, with his allies in the Thracian places, marched against
Amphipolis, the Athenian colony on the river Strymon. A settlement upon the
spot on which the city now stands was before attempted by Aristagoras, the
Milesian (when he fled from King Darius), who was however dislodged by the
Edonians; and thirty-two years later by the Athenians, who sent thither ten
thousand settlers of their own citizens, and whoever else chose to go. These
were cut off at Drabescus by the Thracians. Twenty-nine years after, the
Athenians returned (Hagnon, son of Nicias, being sent out as leader of the
colony) and drove out the Edonians, and founded a town on the spot, formerly
called Ennea Hodoi or Nine Ways. The base from which they started was Eion,
their commercial seaport at the mouth of the river, not more than three miles
from the present town, which Hagnon named Amphipolis, because the Strymon flows
round it on two sides, and he built it so as to be conspicuous from the sea and
land alike, running a long wall across from river to river, to complete the
circumference.
Brasidas
now marched against this town, starting from Arne in Chalcidice. Arriving about
dusk at Aulon and Bromiscus, where the lake of Bolbe runs into the sea, he
supped there, and went on during the night. The weather was stormy and it was
snowing a little, which encouraged him to hurry on, in order, if possible, to
take every one at Amphipolis by surprise, except the party who were to betray
it. The plot was carried on by some natives of Argilus, an Andrian colony,
residing in Amphipolis, where they had also other accomplices gained over by
Perdiccas or the Chalcidians. But the most active in the matter were the
inhabitants of Argilus itself, which is close by, who had always been suspected
by the Athenians, and had had designs on the place. These men now saw their
opportunity arrive with Brasidas, and having for some time been in
correspondence with their countrymen in Amphipolis for the betrayal of the
town, at once received him into Argilus, and revolted from the Athenians, and
that same night took him on to the bridge over the river; where he found only a
small guard to oppose him, the town being at some distance from the passage,
and the walls not reaching down to it as at present. This guard he easily drove
in, partly through there being treason in their ranks, partly from the stormy
state of the weather and the suddenness of his attack, and so got across the
bridge, and immediately became master of all the property outside; the
Amphipolitans having houses all over the quarter.
The
passage of Brasidas was a complete surprise to the people in the town; and the
capture of many of those outside, and the flight of the rest within the wall,
combined to produce great confusion among the citizens; especially as they did
not trust one another. It is even said that if Brasidas, instead of stopping to
pillage, had advanced straight against the town, he would probably have taken
it. In fact, however, he established himself where he was and overran the
country outside, and for the present remained inactive, vainly awaiting a
demonstration on the part of his friends within. Meanwhile the party opposed to
the traitors proved numerous enough to prevent the gates being immediately
thrown open, and in concert with Eucles, the general, who had come from Athens
to defend the place, sent to the other commander in Thrace, Thucydides, son of
Olorus, the author of this history, who was at the isle of Thasos, a Parian
colony, half a day's sail from Amphipolis, to tell him to come to their relief.
On receipt of this message he at once set sail with seven ships which he had
with him, in order, if possible, to reach Amphipolis in time to prevent its
capitulation, or in any case to save Eion.
Meanwhile
Brasidas, afraid of succours arriving by sea from Thasos, and learning that
Thucydides possessed the right of working the gold mines in that part of
Thrace, and had thus great influence with the inhabitants of the continent,
hastened to gain the town, if possible, before the people of Amphipolis should
be encouraged by his arrival to hope that he could save them by getting
together a force of allies from the sea and from Thrace, and so refuse to
surrender. He accordingly offered moderate terms, proclaiming that any of the
Amphipolitans and Athenians who chose, might continue to enjoy their property
with full rights of citizenship; while those who did not wish to stay had five
days to depart, taking their property with them.
The
bulk of the inhabitants, upon hearing this, began to change their minds,
especially as only a small number of the citizens were Athenians, the majority
having come from different quarters, and many of the prisoners outside had
relations within the walls. They found the proclamation a fair one in
comparison of what their fear had suggested; the Athenians being glad to go
out, as they thought they ran more risk than the rest, and further, did not
expect any speedy relief, and the multitude generally being content at being
left in possession of their civic rights, and at such an unexpected reprieve
from danger. The partisans of Brasidas now openly advocated this course, seeing
that the feeling of the people had changed, and that they no longer gave ear to
the Athenian general present; and thus the surrender was made and Brasidas was
admitted by them on the terms of his proclamation. In this way they gave up the
city, and late in the same day Thucydides and his ships entered the harbour of
Eion, Brasidas having just got hold of Amphipolis, and having been within a
night of taking Eion: had the ships been less prompt in relieving it, in the
morning it would have been his.
After
this Thucydides put all in order at Eion to secure it against any present or
future attack of Brasidas, and received such as had elected to come there from
the interior according to the terms agreed on. Meanwhile Brasidas suddenly
sailed with a number of boats down the river to Eion to see if he could not
seize the point running out from the wall, and so command the entrance; at the
same time he attempted it by land, but was beaten off on both sides and had to
content himself with arranging matters at Amphipolis and in the neighbourhood.
Myrcinus, an Edonian town, also came over to him; the Edonian king Pittacus
having been killed by the sons of Goaxis and his own wife Brauro; and Galepsus
and Oesime, which are Thasian colonies, not long after followed its example.
Perdiccas too came up immediately after the capture and joined in these
arrangements.
The
news that Amphipolis was in the hands of the enemy caused great alarm at
Athens. Not only was the town valuable for the timber it afforded for
shipbuilding, and the money that it brought in; but also, although the escort
of the Thessalians gave the Lacedaemonians a means of reaching the allies of
Athens as far as the Strymon, yet as long as they were not masters of the
bridge but were watched on the side of Eion by the Athenian galleys, and on the
land side impeded by a large and extensive lake formed by the waters of the
river, it was impossible for them to go any further. Now, on the contrary, the
path seemed open. There was also the fear of the allies revolting, owing to the
moderation displayed by Brasidas in all his conduct, and to the declarations which
he was everywhere making that he sent out to free Hellas. The towns subject to
the Athenians, hearing of the capture of Amphipolis and of the terms accorded
to it, and of the gentleness of Brasidas, felt most strongly encouraged to
change their condition, and sent secret messages to him, begging him to come on
to them; each wishing to be the first to revolt. Indeed there seemed to be no
danger in so doing; their mistake in their estimate of the Athenian power was
as great as that power afterwards turned out to be, and their judgment was
based more upon blind wishing than upon any sound prevision; for it is a habit
of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign
reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy. Besides the late severe blow
which the Athenians had met with in Boeotia, joined to the seductive, though
untrue, statements of Brasidas, about the Athenians not having ventured to
engage his single army at Nisaea, made the allies confident, and caused them to
believe that no Athenian force would be sent against them. Above all the wish
to do what was agreeable at the moment, and the likelihood that they should
find the Lacedaemonians full of zeal at starting, made them eager to venture.
Observing this, the Athenians sent garrisons to the different towns, as far as
was possible at such short notice and in winter; while Brasidas sent dispatches
to Lacedaemon asking for reinforcements, and himself made preparations for
building galleys in the Strymon. The Lacedaemonians however did not send him
any, partly through envy on the part of their chief men, partly because they
were more bent on recovering the prisoners of the island and ending the war.
The
same winter the Megarians took and razed to the foundations the long walls which
had been occupied by the Athenians; and Brasidas after the capture of
Amphipolis marched with his allies against Acte, a promontory running out from
the King's dike with an inward curve, and ending in Athos, a lofty mountain
looking towards the Aegean Sea. In it are various towns, Sane, an Andrian
colony, close to the canal, and facing the sea in the direction of Euboea; the
others being Thyssus, Cleone, Acrothoi, Olophyxus, and Dium, inhabited by mixed
barbarian races speaking the two languages. There is also a small Chalcidian
element; but the greater number are Tyrrheno-Pelasgians once settled in Lemnos
and Athens, and Bisaltians, Crestonians, and Edonians; the towns being all
small ones. Most of these came over to Brasidas; but Sane and Dium held out and
saw their land ravaged by him and his army.
Upon
their not submitting, he at once marched against Torone in Chalcidice, which
was held by an Athenian garrison, having been invited by a few persons who were
prepared to hand over the town. Arriving in the dark a little before daybreak,
he sat down with his army near the temple of the Dioscuri, rather more than a
quarter of a mile from the city. The rest of the town of Torone and the
Athenians in garrison did not perceive his approach; but his partisans knowing
that he was coming (a few of them had secretly gone out to meet him) were on
the watch for his arrival, and were no sooner aware of it than they took it to
them seven light-armed men with daggers, who alone of twenty men ordered on
this service dared to enter, commanded by Lysistratus an Olynthian. These
passed through the sea wall, and without being seen went up and put to the
sword the garrison of the highest post in the town, which stands on a hill, and
broke open the postern on the side of Canastraeum.
Brasidas
meanwhile came a little nearer and then halted with his main body, sending on
one hundred targeteers to be ready to rush in first, the moment that a gate
should be thrown open and the beacon lighted as agreed. After some time passed
in waiting and wondering at the delay, the targeteers by degrees got up close
to the town. The Toronaeans inside at work with the party that had entered had
by this time broken down the postern and opened the gates leading to the
market-place by cutting through the bar, and first brought some men round and
let them in by the postern, in order to strike a panic into the surprised
townsmen by suddenly attacking them from behind and on both sides at once;
after which they raised the fire-signal as had been agreed, and took in by the
market gates the rest of the targeteers.
Brasidas
seeing the signal told the troops to rise, and dashed forward amid the loud
hurrahs of his men, which carried dismay among the astonished townspeople. Some
burst in straight by the gate, others over some square pieces of timber placed
against the wall (which has fallen down and was being rebuilt) to draw up
stones; Brasidas and the greater number making straight uphill for the higher
part of the town, in order to take it from top to bottom, and once for all,
while the rest of the multitude spread in all directions.
The
capture of the town was effected before the great body of the Toronaeans had
recovered from their surprise and confusion; but the conspirators and the
citizens of their party at once joined the invaders. About fifty of the
Athenian heavy infantry happened to be sleeping in the market-place when the
alarm reached them. A few of these were killed fighting; the rest escaped, some
by land, others to the two ships on the station, and took refuge in Lecythus, a
fort garrisoned by their own men in the corner of the town running out into the
sea and cut off by a narrow isthmus; where they were joined by the Toronaeans
of their party.
Day
now arrived, and the town being secured, Brasidas made a proclamation to the
Toronaeans who had taken refuge with the Athenians, to come out, as many as
chose, to their homes without fearing for their rights or persons, and sent a
herald to invite the Athenians to accept a truce, and to evacuate Lecythus with
their property, as being Chalcidian ground. The Athenians refused this offer,
but asked for a truce for a day to take up their dead. Brasidas granted it for
two days, which he employed in fortifying the houses near, and the Athenians in
doing the same to their positions. Meanwhile he called a meeting of the
Toronaeans, and said very much what he had said at Acanthus, namely, that they
must not look upon those who had negotiated with him for the capture of the
town as bad men or as traitors, as they had not acted as they had done from
corrupt motives or in order to enslave the city, but for the good and freedom
of Torone; nor again must those who had not shared in the enterprise fancy that
they would not equally reap its fruits, as he had not come to destroy either
city or individual. This was the reason of his proclamation to those that had
fled for refuge to the Athenians: he thought none the worse of them for their
friendship for the Athenians; he believed that they had only to make trial of
the Lacedaemonians to like them as well, or even much better, as acting much
more justly: it was for want of such a trial that they were now afraid of them.
Meanwhile he warned all of them to prepare to be staunch allies, and for being
held responsible for all faults in future: for the past, they had not wronged
the Lacedaemonians but had been wronged by others who were too strong for them,
and any opposition that they might have offered him could be excused.
Having
encouraged them with this address, as soon as the truce expired he made his
attack upon Lecythus; the Athenians defending themselves from a poor wall and
from some houses with parapets. One day they beat him off; the next the enemy
were preparing to bring up an engine against them from which they meant to
throw fire upon the wooden defences, and the troops were already coming up to
the point where they fancied they could best bring up the engine, and where
place was most assailable; meanwhile the Athenians put a wooden tower upon a
house opposite, and carried up a quantity of jars and casks of water and big
stones, and a large number of men also climbed up. The house thus laden too
heavily suddenly broke down with a loud crash; at which the men who were near
and saw it were more vexed than frightened; but those not so near, and still
more those furthest off, thought that the place was already taken at that
point, and fled in haste to the sea and the ships.
Brasidas,
perceiving that they were deserting the parapet, and seeing what was going on,
dashed forward with his troops, and immediately took the fort, and put to the
sword all whom he found in it. In this way the place was evacuated by the
Athenians, who went across in their boats and ships to Pallene. Now there is a
temple of Athene in Lecythus, and Brasidas had proclaimed in the moment of
making the assault that he would give thirty silver minae to the man first on
the wall. Being now of opinion that the capture was scarcely due to human
means, he gave the thirty minae to the goddess for her temple, and razed and
cleared Lecythus, and made the whole of it consecrated ground. The rest of the
winter he spent in settling the places in his hands, and in making designs upon
the rest; and with the expiration of the winter the eighth year of this war
ended.
In
the spring of the summer following, the Lacedaemonians and Athenians made an
armistice for a year; the Athenians thinking that they would thus have full
leisure to take their precautions before Brasidas could procure the revolt of
any more of their towns, and might also, if it suited them, conclude a general
peace; the Lacedaemonians divining the actual fears of the Athenians, and
thinking that after once tasting a respite from trouble and misery they would
be more disposed to consent to a reconciliation, and to give back the
prisoners, and make a treaty for the longer period. The great idea of the
Lacedaemonians was to get back their men while Brasidas's good fortune lasted:
further successes might make the struggle a less unequal one in Chalcidice, but
would leave them still deprived of their men, and even in Chalcidice not more
than a match for the Athenians and by no means certain of victory. An armistice
was accordingly concluded by Lacedaemon and her allies upon the terms
following:
1. As to the temple and oracle of the
Pythian Apollo, we are agreed that whosoever will shall have access to it,
without fraud or fear, according to the usages of his forefathers. The
Lacedaemonians and the allies present agree to this, and promise to send
heralds to the Boeotians and Phocians, and to do their best to persuade them to
agree likewise.
2. As to the treasure of the god, we
agree to exert ourselves to detect all malversators, truly and honestly
following the customs of our forefathers, we and you and all others willing to
do so, all following the customs of our forefathers. As to these points the
Lacedaemonians and the other allies are agreed as has been said.
3. As to what follows, the
Lacedaemonians and the other allies agree, if the Athenians conclude a treaty,
to remain, each of us in our own territory, retaining our respective
acquisitions: the garrison in Coryphasium keeping within Buphras and Tomeus:
that in Cythera attempting no communication with the Peloponnesian confederacy,
neither we with them, nor they with us: that in Nisaea and Minoa not crossing
the road leading from the gates of the temple of Nisus to that of Poseidon and
from thence straight to the bridge at Minoa: the Megarians and the allies being
equally bound not to cross this road, and the Athenians retaining the island
they have taken, without any communication on either side: as to Troezen, each
side retaining what it has, and as was arranged with the Athenians.
4. As to the use of the sea, so far as
refers to their own coast and to that of their confederacy, that the
Lacedaemonians and their allies may voyage upon it in any vessel rowed by oars
and of not more than five hundred talents tonnage, not a vessel of war.
5. That all heralds and embassies, with
as many attendants as they please, for concluding the war and adjusting claims,
shall have free passage, going and coming, to Peloponnese or Athens by land and
by sea.
6. That during the truce, deserters
whether bond or free shall be received neither by you, nor by us.
7. Further, that satisfaction shall be
given by you to us and by us to you according to the public law of our several
countries, all disputes being settled by law without recourse to hostilities.
The Lacedaemonians and allies agree to
these articles; but if you have anything fairer or juster to suggest, come to
Lacedaemon and let us know: whatever shall be just will meet with no objection
either from the Lacedaemonians or from the allies. Only let those who come come
with full powers, as you desire us. The truce shall be for one year.
Approved by the people.
The tribe of Acamantis had the prytany,
Phoenippus was secretary, Niciades chairman. Laches moved, in the name of the
good luck of the Athenians, that they should conclude the armistice upon the
terms agreed upon by the Lacedaemonians and the allies. It was agreed
accordingly in the popular assembly that the armistice should be for one year,
beginning that very day, the fourteenth of the month of Elaphebolion; during
which time ambassadors and heralds should go and come between the two countries
to discuss the bases of a pacification. That the generals and prytanes should
call an assembly of the people, in which the Athenians should first consult on
the peace, and on the mode in which the embassy for putting an end to the war
should be admitted. That the embassy now present should at once take the
engagement before the people to keep well and truly this truce for one year.
On
these terms the Lacedaemonians concluded with the Athenians and their allies on
the twelfth day of the Spartan month Gerastius; the allies also taking the
oaths. Those who concluded and poured the libation were Taurus, son of
Echetimides, Athenaeus, son of Pericleidas, and Philocharidas, son of
Eryxidaidas, Lacedaemonians; Aeneas, son of Ocytus, and Euphamidas, son of
Aristonymus, Corinthians; Damotimus, son of Naucrates, and Onasimus, son of
Megacles, Sicyonians; Nicasus, son of Cecalus, and Menecrates, son of
Amphidorus, Megarians; and Amphias, son of Eupaidas, an Epidaurian; and the
Athenian generals Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes, Nicias, son of Niceratus, and
Autocles, son of Tolmaeus. Such was the armistice, and during the whole of it
conferences went on on the subject of a pacification.
In
the days in which they were going backwards and forwards to these conferences,
Scione, a town in Pallene, revolted from Athens, and went over to Brasidas. The
Scionaeans say that they are Pallenians from Peloponnese, and that their first
founders on their voyage from Troy were carried in to this spot by the storm
which the Achaeans were caught in, and there settled. The Scionaeans had no
sooner revolted than Brasidas crossed over by night to Scione, with a friendly
galley ahead and himself in a small boat some way behind; his idea being that
if he fell in with a vessel larger than the boat he would have the galley to
defend him, while a ship that was a match for the galley would probably neglect
the small vessel to attack the large one, and thus leave him time to escape.
His passage effected, he called a meeting of the Scionaeans and spoke to the
same effect as at Acanthus and Torone, adding that they merited the utmost
commendation, in that, in spite of Pallene within the isthmus being cut off by
the Athenian occupation of Potidaea and of their own practically insular
position, they had of their own free will gone forward to meet their liberty
instead of timorously waiting until they had been by force compelled to their
own manifest good. This was a sign that they would valiantly undergo any trial,
however great; and if he should order affairs as he intended, he should count
them among the truest and sincerest friends of the Lacedaemonians, and would in
every other way honour them.
The
Scionaeans were elated by his language, and even those who had at first
disapproved of what was being done catching the general confidence, they
determined on a vigorous conduct of the war, and welcomed Brasidas with all
possible honours, publicly crowning him with a crown of gold as the liberator
of Hellas; while private persons crowded round him and decked him with garlands
as though he had been an athlete. Meanwhile Brasidas left them a small garrison
for the present and crossed back again, and not long afterwards sent over a
larger force, intending with the help of the Scionaeans to attempt Mende and
Potidaea before the Athenians should arrive; Scione, he felt, being too like an
island for them not to relieve it. He had besides intelligence in the above
towns about their betrayal.
In
the midst of his designs upon the towns in question, a galley arrived with the
commissioners carrying round the news of the armistice, Aristonymus for the
Athenians and Athenaeus for the Lacedaemonians. The troops now crossed back to
Torone, and the commissioners gave Brasidas notice of the convention. All the
Lacedaemonian allies in Thrace accepted what had been done; and Aristonymus
made no difficulty about the rest, but finding, on counting the days, that the
Scionaeans had revolted after the date of the convention, refused to include them
in it. To this Brasidas earnestly objected, asserting that the revolt took
place before, and would not give up the town. Upon Aristonymus reporting the
case to Athens, the people at once prepared to send an expedition to Scione.
Upon this, envoys arrived from Lacedaemon, alleging that this would be a breach
of the truce, and laying claim to the town upon the faith of the assertion of
Brasidas, and meanwhile offering to submit the question to arbitration.
Arbitration, however, was what the Athenians did not choose to risk; being
determined to send troops at once to the place, and furious at the idea of even
the islanders now daring to revolt, in a vain reliance upon the power of the
Lacedaemonians by land. Besides the facts of the revolt were rather as the
Athenians contended, the Scionaeans having revolted two days after the
convention. Cleon accordingly succeeded in carrying a decree to reduce and put
to death the Scionaeans; and the Athenians employed the leisure which they now
enjoyed in preparing for the expedition.
Meanwhile Mende revolted, a town in Pallene and a colony of the
Eretrians, and was received without scruple by Brasidas, in spite of its having
evidently come over during the armistice, on account of certain infringements
of the truce alleged by him against the Athenians. This audacity of Mende was
partly caused by seeing Brasidas forward in the matter and by the conclusions
drawn from his refusal to betray Scione; and besides, the conspirators in Mende
were few, and, as I have already intimated, had carried on their practices too
long not to fear detection for themselves, and not to wish to force the
inclination of the multitude. This news made the Athenians more furious than
ever, and they at once prepared against both towns. Brasidas, expecting their
arrival, conveyed away to Olynthus in Chalcidice the women and children of the
Scionaeans and Mendaeans, and sent over to them five hundred Peloponnesian
heavy infantry and three hundred Chalcidian targeteers, all under the command
of Polydamidas.
Leaving
these two towns to prepare together against the speedy arrival of the
Athenians, Brasidas and Perdiccas started on a second joint expedition into
Lyncus against Arrhabaeus; the latter with the forces of his Macedonian
subjects, and a corps of heavy infantry composed of Hellenes domiciled in the
country; the former with the Peloponnesians whom he still had with him and the
Chalcidians, Acanthians, and the rest in such force as they were able. In all
there were about three thousand Hellenic heavy infantry, accompanied by all the
Macedonian cavalry with the Chalcidians, near one thousand strong, besides an
immense crowd of barbarians. On entering the country of Arrhabaeus, they found
the Lyncestians encamped awaiting them, and themselves took up a position
opposite. The infantry on either side were upon a hill, with a plain between
them, into which the horse of both armies first galloped down and engaged a
cavalry action. After this the Lyncestian heavy infantry advanced from their
hill to join their cavalry and offered battle; upon which Brasidas and
Perdiccas also came down to meet them, and engaged and routed them with heavy
loss; the survivors taking refuge upon the heights and there remaining
inactive. The victors now set up a trophy and waited two or three days for the
Illyrian mercenaries who were to join Perdiccas. Perdiccas then wished to go on
and attack the villages of Arrhabaeus, and to sit still no longer; but
Brasidas, afraid that the Athenians might sail up during his absence, and of something
happening to Mende, and seeing besides that the Illyrians did not appear, far
from seconding this wish was anxious to return.
While
they were thus disputing, the news arrived that the Illyrians had actually
betrayed Perdiccas and had joined Arrhabaeus; and the fear inspired by their
warlike character made both parties now think it best to retreat. However,
owing to the dispute, nothing had been settled as to when they should start;
and night coming on, the Macedonians and the barbarian crowd took fright in a
moment in one of those mysterious panics to which great armies are liable; and
persuaded that an army many times more numerous than that which had really
arrived was advancing and all but upon them, suddenly broke and fled in the
direction of home, and thus compelled Perdiccas, who at first did not perceive
what had occurred, to depart without seeing Brasidas, the two armies being
encamped at a considerable distance from each other. At daybreak Brasidas,
perceiving that the Macedonians had gone on, and that the Illyrians and
Arrhabaeus were on the point of attacking him, formed his heavy infantry into a
square, with the light troops in the centre, and himself also prepared to
retreat. Posting his youngest soldiers to dash out wherever the enemy should
attack them, he himself with three hundred picked men in the rear intended to
face about during the retreat and beat off the most forward of their
assailants, Meanwhile, before the enemy approached, he sought to sustain the
courage of his soldiers with the following hasty exhortation:
"Peloponnesians,
if I did not suspect you of being dismayed at being left alone to sustain the
attack of a numerous and barbarian enemy, I should just have said a few words
to you as usual without further explanation. As it is, in the face of the
desertion of our friends and the numbers of the enemy, I have some advice and
information to offer, which, brief as they must be, will, I hope, suffice for
the more important points. The bravery that you habitually display in war does
not depend on your having allies at your side in this or that encounter, but on
your native courage; nor have numbers any terrors for citizens of states like
yours, in which the many do not rule the few, but rather the few the many,
owing their position to nothing else than to superiority in the field.
Inexperience now makes you afraid of barbarians; and yet the trial of strength
which you had with the Macedonians among them, and my own judgment, confirmed
by what I hear from others, should be enough to satisfy you that they will not
prove formidable. Where an enemy seems strong but is really weak, a true
knowledge of the facts makes his adversary the bolder, just as a serious
antagonist is encountered most confidently by those who do not know him. Thus the
present enemy might terrify an inexperienced imagination; they are formidable
in outward bulk, their loud yelling is unbearable, and the brandishing of their
weapons in the air has a threatening appearance. But when it comes to real
fighting with an opponent who stands his ground, they are not what they seemed;
they have no regular order that they should be ashamed of deserting their
positions when hard pressed; flight and attack are with them equally
honourable, and afford no test of courage; their independent mode of fighting
never leaving any one who wants to run away without a fair excuse for so doing.
In short, they think frightening you at a secure distance a surer game than
meeting you hand to hand; otherwise they would have done the one and not the
other. You can thus plainly see that the terrors with which they were at first
invested are in fact trifling enough, though to the eye and ear very prominent.
Stand your ground therefore when they advance, and again wait your opportunity
to retire in good order, and you will reach a place of safety all the sooner,
and will know for ever afterwards that rabble such as these, to those who
sustain their first attack, do but show off their courage by threats of the
terrible things that they are going to do, at a distance, but with those who
give way to them are quick enough to display their heroism in pursuit when they
can do so without danger."
With
this brief address Brasidas began to lead off his army. Seeing this, the
barbarians came on with much shouting and hubbub, thinking that he was flying
and that they would overtake him and cut him off. But wherever they charged
they found the young men ready to dash out against them, while Brasidas with
his picked company sustained their onset. Thus the Peloponnesians withstood the
first attack, to the surprise of the enemy, and afterwards received and
repulsed them as fast as they came on, retiring as soon as their opponents
became quiet. The main body of the barbarians ceased therefore to molest the
Hellenes with Brasidas in the open country, and leaving behind a certain number
to harass their march, the rest went on after the flying Macedonians, slaying
those with whom they came up, and so arrived in time to occupy the narrow pass
between two hills that leads into the country of Arrhabaeus. They knew that
this was the only way by which Brasidas could retreat, and now proceeded to
surround him just as he entered the most impracticable part of the road, in
order to cut him off.
Brasidas,
perceiving their intention, told his three hundred to run on without order,
each as quickly as he could, to the hill which seemed easiest to take, and to
try to dislodge the barbarians already there, before they should be joined by
the main body closing round him. These attacked and overpowered the party upon
the hill, and the main army of the Hellenes now advanced with less difficulty
towards it- the barbarians being terrified at seeing their men on that side
driven from the height and no longer following the main body, who, they considered,
had gained the frontier and made good their escape. The heights once gained,
Brasidas now proceeded more securely, and the same day arrived at Arnisa, the
first town in the dominions of Perdiccas. The soldiers, enraged at the
desertion of the Macedonians, vented their rage on all their yokes of oxen
which they found on the road, and on any baggage which had tumbled off (as
might easily happen in the panic of a night retreat), by unyoking and cutting
down the cattle and taking the baggage for themselves. From this moment
Perdiccas began to regard Brasidas as an enemy and to feel against the
Peloponnesians a hatred which could not be congenial to the adversary of the
Athenians. However, he departed from his natural interests and made it his
endeavour to come to terms with the latter and to get rid of the former.
On
his return from Macedonia to Torone, Brasidas found the Athenians already
masters of Mende, and remained quiet where he was, thinking it now out of his
power to cross over into Pallene and assist the Mendaeans, but he kept good
watch over Torone. For about the same time as the campaign in Lyncus, the
Athenians sailed upon the expedition which we left them preparing against Mende
and Scione, with fifty ships, ten of which were Chians, one thousand Athenian
heavy infantry and six hundred archers, one hundred Thracian mercenaries and
some targeteers drawn from their allies in the neighbourhood, under the command
of Nicias, son of Niceratus, and Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes. Weighing from
Potidaea, the fleet came to land opposite the temple of Poseidon, and proceeded
against Mende; the men of which town, reinforced by three hundred Scionaeans,
with their Peloponnesian auxiliaries, seven hundred heavy infantry in all,
under Polydamidas, they found encamped upon a strong hill outside the city.
These Nicias, with one hundred and twenty light-armed Methonaeans, sixty picked
men from the Athenian heavy infantry, and all the archers, tried to reach by a
path running up the hill, but received a wound and found himself unable to
force the position; while Nicostratus, with all the rest of the army, advancing
upon the hill, which was naturally difficult, by a different approach further
off, was thrown into utter disorder; and the whole Athenian army narrowly escaped
being defeated. For that day, as the Mendaeans and their allies showed no signs
of yielding, the Athenians retreated and encamped, and the Mendaeans at
nightfall returned into the town.
The
next day the Athenians sailed round to the Scione side, and took the suburb,
and all day plundered the country, without any one coming out against them,
partly because of intestine disturbances in the town; and the following night
the three hundred Scionaeans returned home. On the morrow Nicias advanced with
half the army to the frontier of Scione and laid waste the country; while
Nicostratus with the remainder sat down before the town near the upper gate on
the road to Potidaea. The arms of the Mendaeans and of their Peloponnesian
auxiliaries within the wall happened to be piled in that quarter, where
Polydamidas accordingly began to draw them up for battle, encouraging the
Mendaeans to make a sortie. At this moment one of the popular party answered
him factiously that they would not go out and did not want a war, and for thus
answering was dragged by the arm and knocked about by Polydamidas. Hereupon the
infuriated commons at once seized their arms and rushed at the Peloponnesians
and at their allies of the opposite faction. The troops thus assaulted were at
once routed, partly from the suddenness of the conflict and partly through fear
of the gates being opened to the Athenians, with whom they imagined that the
attack had been concerted. As many as were not killed on the spot took refuge
in the citadel, which they had held from the first; and the whole, Athenian
army, Nicias having by this time returned and being close to the city, now
burst into Mende, which had opened its gates without any convention, and sacked
it just as if they had taken it by storm, the generals even finding some
difficulty in restraining them from also massacring the inhabitants. After this
the Athenians told the Mendaeans that they might retain their civil rights, and
themselves judge the supposed authors of the revolt; and cut off the party in
the citadel by a wall built down to the sea on either side, appointing troops
to maintain the blockade. Having thus secured Mende, they proceeded against
Scione.
The
Scionaeans and Peloponnesians marched out against them, occupying a strong hill
in front of the town, which had to be captured by the enemy before they could
invest the place. The Athenians stormed the hill, defeated and dislodged its
occupants, and, having encamped and set up a trophy, prepared for the work of
circumvallation. Not long after they had begun their operations, the
auxiliaries besieged in the citadel of Mende forced the guard by the sea-side
and arrived by night at Scione, into which most of them succeeded in entering,
passing through the besieging army.
While
the investment of Scione was in progress, Perdiccas sent a herald to the
Athenian generals and made peace with the Athenians, through spite against
Brasidas for the retreat from Lyncus, from which moment indeed he had begun to
negotiate. The Lacedaemonian Ischagoras was just then upon the point of
starting with an army overland to join Brasidas; and Perdiccas, being now
required by Nicias to give some proof of the sincerity of his reconciliation to
the Athenians, and being himself no longer disposed to let the Peloponnesians
into his country, put in motion his friends in Thessaly, with whose chief men
he always took care to have relations, and so effectually stopped the army and
its preparation that they did not even try the Thessalians. Ischagoras himself,
however, with Ameinias and Aristeus, succeeded in reaching Brasidas; they had
been commissioned by the Lacedaemonians to inspect the state of affairs, and
brought out from Sparta (in violation of all precedent) some of their young men
to put in command of the towns, to guard against their being entrusted to the
persons upon the spot. Brasidas accordingly placed Clearidas, son of Cleonymus,
in Amphipolis, and Pasitelidas, son of Hegesander, in Torone.
The
same summer the Thebans dismantled the wall of the Thespians on the charge of
Atticism, having always wished to do so, and now finding it an easy matter, as
the flower of the Thespian youth had perished in the battle with the Athenians.
The same summer also the temple of Hera at Argos was burnt down, through
Chrysis, the priestess, placing a lighted torch near the garlands and then
falling asleep, so that they all caught fire and were in a blaze before she
observed it. Chrysis that very night fled to Phlius for fear of the Argives,
who, agreeably to the law in such a case, appointed another priestess named
Phaeinis. Chrysis at the time of her flight had been priestess for eight years
of the present war and half the ninth. At the close of the summer the
investment of Scione was completed, and the Athenians, leaving a detachment to
maintain the blockade, returned with the rest of their army.
During
the winter following, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians were kept quiet by the
armistice; but the Mantineans and Tegeans, and their respective allies, fought
a battle at Laodicium, in the Oresthid. The victory remained doubtful, as each
side routed one of the wings opposed to them, and both set up trophies and sent
spoils to Delphi. After heavy loss on both sides the battle was undecided, and
night interrupted the action; yet the Tegeans passed the night on the field and
set up a trophy at once, while the Mantineans withdrew to Bucolion and set up
theirs afterwards.
At
the close of the same winter, in fact almost in spring, Brasidas made an
attempt upon Potidaea. He arrived by night, and succeeded in planting a ladder
against the wall without being discovered, the ladder being planted just in the
interval between the passing round of the bell and the return of the man who
brought it back. Upon the garrison, however, taking the alarm immediately
afterwards, before his men came up, he quickly led off his troops, without
waiting until it was day. So ended the winter and the ninth year of this war of
which Thucydides is the historian.
The Fifth Book.
THE
next summer the truce for a year ended, after lasting until the Pythian games.
During the armistice the Athenians expelled the Delians from Delos, concluding
that they must have been polluted by some old offence at the time of their
consecration, and that this had been the omission in the previous purification
of the island, which, as I have related, had been thought to have been duly
accomplished by the removal of the graves of the dead. The Delians had
Atramyttium in Asia given them by Pharnaces, and settled there as they removed
from Delos.
Meanwhile
Cleon prevailed on the Athenians to let him set sail at the expiration of the
armistice for the towns in the direction of Thrace with twelve hundred heavy
infantry and three hundred horse from Athens, a large force of the allies, and
thirty ships. First touching at the still besieged Scione, and taking some
heavy infantry from the army there, he next sailed into Cophos, a harbour in
the territory of Torone, which is not far from the town. From thence, having
learnt from deserters that Brasidas was not in Torone, and that its garrison
was not strong enough to give him battle, he advanced with his army against the
town, sending ten ships to sail round into the harbour. He first came to the
fortification lately thrown up in front of the town by Brasidas in order to
take in the suburb, to do which he had pulled down part of the original wall
and made it all one city. To this point Pasitelidas, the Lacedaemonian
commander, with such garrison as there was in the place, hurried to repel the
Athenian assault; but finding himself hard pressed, and seeing the ships that
had been sent round sailing into the harbour, Pasitelidas began to be afraid
that they might get up to the city before its defenders were there and, the
fortification being also carried, he might be taken prisoner, and so abandoned
the outwork and ran into the town. But the Athenians from the ships had already
taken Torone, and their land forces following at his heels burst in with him
with a rush over the part of the old wall that had been pulled down, killing
some of the Peloponnesians and Toronaeans in the melee, and making prisoners of
the rest, and Pasitelidas their commander amongst them. Brasidas meanwhile had advanced
to relieve Torone, and had only about four miles more to go when he heard of
its fall on the road, and turned back again. Cleon and the Athenians set up two
trophies, one by the harbour, the other by the fortification and, making slaves
of the wives and children of the Toronaeans, sent the men with the
Peloponnesians and any Chalcidians that were there, to the number of seven
hundred, to Athens; whence, however, they all came home afterwards, the
Peloponnesians on the conclusion of peace, and the rest by being exchanged
against other prisoners with the Olynthians. About the same time Panactum, a
fortress on the Athenian border, was taken by treachery by the Boeotians.
Meanwhile Cleon, after placing a garrison in Torone, weighed anchor and sailed
around Athos on his way to Amphipolis.
About
the same time Phaeax, son of Erasistratus, set sail with two colleagues as
ambassador from Athens to Italy and Sicily. The Leontines, upon the departure
of the Athenians from Sicily after the pacification, had placed a number of new
citizens upon the roll, and the commons had a design for redividing the land;
but the upper classes, aware of their intention, called in the Syracusans and
expelled the commons. These last were scattered in various directions; but the upper
classes came to an agreement with the Syracusans, abandoned and laid waste
their city, and went and lived at Syracuse, where they were made citizens.
Afterwards some of them were dissatisfied, and leaving Syracuse occupied
Phocaeae, a quarter of the town of Leontini, and Bricinniae, a strong place in
the Leontine country, and being there joined by most of the exiled commons
carried on war from the fortifications. The Athenians hearing this, sent Phaeax
to see if they could not by some means so convince their allies there and the
rest of the Sicilians of the ambitious designs of Syracuse as to induce them to
form a general coalition against her, and thus save the commons of Leontini.
Arrived in Sicily, Phaeax succeeded at Camarina and Agrigentum, but meeting
with a repulse at Gela did not go on to the rest, as he saw that he should not
succeed with them, but returned through the country of the Sicels to Catana,
and after visiting Bricinniae as he passed, and encouraging its inhabitants,
sailed back to Athens.
During
his voyage along the coast to and from Sicily, he treated with some cities in
Italy on the subject of friendship with Athens, and also fell in with some
Locrian settlers exiled from Messina, who had been sent thither when the
Locrians were called in by one of the factions that divided Messina after the
pacification of Sicily, and Messina came for a time into the hands of the
Locrians. These being met by Phaeax on their return home received no injury at
his hands, as the Locrians had agreed with him for a treaty with Athens. They
were the only people of the allies who, when the reconciliation between the
Sicilians took place, had not made peace with her; nor indeed would they have
done so now, if they had not been pressed by a war with the Hipponians and
Medmaeans who lived on their border, and were colonists of theirs. Phaeax
meanwhile proceeded on his voyage, and at length arrived at Athens.
Cleon,
whom we left on his voyage from Torone to Amphipolis, made Eion his base, and
after an unsuccessful assault upon the Andrian colony of Stagirus, took
Galepsus, a colony of Thasos, by storm. He now sent envoys to Perdiccas to
command his attendance with an army, as provided by the alliance; and others to
Thrace, to Polles, king of the Odomantians, who was to bring as many Thracian
mercenaries as possible; and himself remained inactive in Eion, awaiting their
arrival. Informed of this, Brasidas on his part took up a position of
observation upon Cerdylium, a place situated in the Argilian country on high ground
across the river, not far from Amphipolis, and commanding a view on all sides,
and thus made it impossible for Cleon's army to move without his seeing it; for
he fully expected that Cleon, despising the scanty numbers of his opponent,
would march against Amphipolis with the force that he had got with him. At the
same time Brasidas made his preparations, calling to his standard fifteen
hundred Thracian mercenaries and all the Edonians, horse and targeteers; he
also had a thousand Myrcinian and Chalcidian targeteers, besides those in
Amphipolis, and a force of heavy infantry numbering altogether about two
thousand, and three hundred Hellenic horse. Fifteen hundred of these he had
with him upon Cerdylium; the rest were stationed with Clearidas in Amphipolis.
After
remaining quiet for some time, Cleon was at length obliged to do as Brasidas
expected. His soldiers, tired of their inactivity, began also seriously to
reflect on the weakness and incompetence of their commander, and the skill and
valour that would be opposed to him, and on their own original unwillingness to
accompany him. These murmurs coming to the ears of Cleon, he resolved not to
disgust the army by keeping it in the same place, and broke up his camp and
advanced. The temper of the general was what it had been at Pylos, his success
on that occasion having given him confidence in his capacity. He never dreamed
of any one coming out to fight him, but said that he was rather going up to
view the place; and if he waited for his reinforcements, it was not in order to
make victory secure in case he should be compelled to engage, but to be enabled
to surround and storm the city. He accordingly came and posted his army upon a
strong hill in front of Amphipolis, and proceeded to examine the lake formed by
the Strymon, and how the town lay on the side of Thrace. He thought to retire
at pleasure without fighting, as there was no one to be seen upon the wall or
coming out of the gates, all of which were shut. Indeed, it seemed a mistake
not to have brought down engines with him; he could then have taken the town,
there being no one to defend it.
As
soon as Brasidas saw the Athenians in motion he descended himself from
Cerdylium and entered Amphipolis. He did not venture to go out in regular order
against the Athenians: he mistrusted his strength, and thought it inadequate to
the attempt; not in numbers- these were not so unequal- but in quality, the
flower of the Athenian army being in the field, with the best of the Lemnians
and Imbrians. He therefore prepared to assail them by stratagem. By showing the
enemy the number of his troops, and the shifts which he had been put to to to
arm them, he thought that he should have less chance of beating him than by not
letting him have a sight of them, and thus learn how good a right he had to
despise them. He accordingly picked out a hundred and fifty heavy infantry and,
putting the rest under Clearidas, determined to attack suddenly before the
Athenians retired; thinking that he should not have again such a chance of catching
them alone, if their reinforcements were once allowed to come up; and so
calling all his soldiers together in order to encourage them and explain his
intention, spoke as follows:
"Peloponnesians,
the character of the country from which we have come, one which has always owed
its freedom to valour, and the fact that you are Dorians and the enemy you are
about to fight Ionians, whom you are accustomed to beat, are things that do not
need further comment. But the plan of attack that I propose to pursue, this it
is as well to explain, in order that the fact of our adventuring with a part
instead of with the whole of our forces may not damp your courage by the
apparent disadvantage at which it places you. I imagine it is the poor opinion
that he has of us, and the fact that he has no idea of any one coming out to
engage him, that has made the enemy march up to the place and carelessly look
about him as he is doing, without noticing us. But the most successful soldier
will always be the man who most happily detects a blunder like this, and who
carefully consulting his own means makes his attack not so much by open and
regular approaches, as by seizing the opportunity of the moment; and these
stratagems, which do the greatest service to our friends by most completely
deceiving our enemies, have the most brilliant name in war. Therefore, while
their careless confidence continues, and they are still thinking, as in my
judgment they are now doing, more of retreat than of maintaining their
position, while their spirit is slack and not high-strung with expectation, I
with the men under my command will, if possible, take them by surprise and fall
with a run upon their centre; and do you, Clearidas, afterwards, when you see
me already upon them, and, as is likely, dealing terror among them, take with
you the Amphipolitans, and the rest of the allies, and suddenly open the gates
and dash at them, and hasten to engage as quickly as you can. That is our best
chance of establishing a panic among them, as a fresh assailant has always more
terrors for an enemy than the one he is immediately engaged with. Show yourself
a brave man, as a Spartan should; and do you, allies, follow him like men, and
remember that zeal, honour, and obedience mark the good soldier, and that this
day will make you either free men and allies of Lacedaemon, or slaves of
Athens; even if you escape without personal loss of liberty or life, your
bondage will be on harsher terms than before, and you will also hinder the
liberation of the rest of the Hellenes. No cowardice then on your part, seeing
the greatness of the issues at stake, and I will show that what I preach to
others I can practise myself."
After
this brief speech Brasidas himself prepared for the sally, and placed the rest
with Clearidas at the Thracian gates to support him as had been agreed.
Meanwhile he had been seen coming down from Cerdylium and then in the city,
which is overlooked from the outside, sacrificing near the temple of Athene; in
short, all his movements had been observed, and word was brought to Cleon, who
had at the moment gone on to look about him, that the whole of the enemy's
force could be seen in the town, and that the feet of horses and men in great
numbers were visible under the gates, as if a sally were intended. Upon hearing
this he went up to look, and having done so, being unwilling to venture upon
the decisive step of a battle before his reinforcements came up, and fancying
that he would have time to retire, bid the retreat be sounded and sent orders
to the men to effect it by moving on the left wing in the direction of Eion,
which was indeed the only way practicable. This however not being quick enough
for him, he joined the retreat in person and made the right wing wheel round,
thus turning its unarmed side to the enemy. It was then that Brasidas, seeing
the Athenian force in motion and his opportunity come, said to the men with him
and the rest: "Those fellows will never stand before us, one can see that
by the way their spears and heads are going. Troops which do as they do seldom
stand a charge. Quick, someone, and open the gates I spoke of, and let us be
out and at them with no fears for the result." Accordingly issuing out by
the palisade gate and by the first in the long wall then existing, he ran at
the top of his speed along the straight road, where the trophy now stands as
you go by the steepest part of the hill, and fell upon and routed the centre of
the Athenians, panic-stricken by their own disorder and astounded at his
audacity. At the same moment Clearidas in execution of his orders issued out
from the Thracian gates to support him, and also attacked the enemy. The result
was that the Athenians, suddenly and unexpectedly attacked on both sides, fell
into confusion; and their left towards Eion, which had already got on some
distance, at once broke and fled. Just as it was in full retreat and Brasidas
was passing on to attack the right, he received a wound; but his fall was not
perceived by the Athenians, as he was taken up by those near him and carried
off the field. The Athenian right made a better stand, and though Cleon, who
from the first had no thought of fighting, at once fled and was overtaken and
slain by a Myrcinian targeteer, his infantry forming in close order upon the
hill twice or thrice repulsed the attacks of Clearidas, and did not finally
give way until they were surrounded and routed by the missiles of the Myrcinian
and Chalcidian horse and the targeteers. Thus the Athenian army was all now in
flight; and such as escaped being killed in the battle, or by the Chalcidian
horse and the targeteers, dispersed among the hills, and with difficulty made
their way to Eion. The men who had taken up and rescued Brasidas, brought him
into the town with the breath still in him: he lived to hear of the victory of
his troops, and not long after expired. The rest of the army returning with
Clearidas from the pursuit stripped the dead and set up a trophy. After this all the allies attended in
arms and buried Brasidas at the public expense in the city, in front of what is
now the marketplace, and the Amphipolitans, having enclosed his tomb, ever
afterwards sacrifice to him as a hero and have given to him the honour of games
and annual offerings. They constituted him the founder of their colony, and
pulled down the Hagnonic erections, and obliterated everything that could be
interpreted as a memorial of his having founded the place; for they considered
that Brasidas had been their preserver, and courting as they did the alliance
of Lacedaemon for fear of Athens, in their present hostile relations with the
latter they could no longer with the same advantage or satisfaction pay Hagnon
his honours. They also gave the Athenians back their dead. About six hundred of
the latter had fallen and only seven of the enemy, owing to there having been
no regular engagement, but the affair of accident and panic that I have
described. After taking up their dead the Athenians sailed off home, while
Clearidas and his troops remained to arrange matters at Amphipolis.
About
the same time three Lacedaemonians- Ramphias, Autocharidas, and Epicydidas- led
a reinforcement of nine hundred heavy infantry to the towns in the direction of
Thrace, and arriving at Heraclea in Trachis reformed matters there as seemed
good to them. While they delayed there, this battle took place and so the
summer ended.
With
the beginning of the winter following, Ramphias and his companions penetrated
as far as Pierium in Thessaly; but as the Thessalians opposed their further
advance, and Brasidas whom they came to reinforce was dead, they turned back
home, thinking that the moment had gone by, the Athenians being defeated and
gone, and themselves not equal to the execution of Brasidas's designs. The main
cause however of their return was because they knew that when they set out
Lacedaemonian opinion was really in favour of peace.
Indeed
it so happened that directly after the battle of Amphipolis and the retreat of
Ramphias from Thessaly, both sides ceased to prosecute the war and turned their
attention to peace. Athens had suffered severely at Delium, and again shortly
afterwards at Amphipolis, and had no longer that confidence in her strength
which had made her before refuse to treat, in the belief of ultimate victory
which her success at the moment had inspired; besides, she was afraid of her
allies being tempted by her reverses to rebel more generally, and repented
having let go the splendid opportunity for peace which the affair of Pylos had
offered. Lacedaemon, on the other hand, found the event of the war to falsify
her notion that a few years would suffice for the overthrow of the power of the
Athenians by the devastation of their land. She had suffered on the island a
disaster hitherto unknown at Sparta; she saw her country plundered from Pylos
and Cythera; the Helots were deserting, and she was in constant apprehension
that those who remained in Peloponnese would rely upon those outside and take
advantage of the situation to renew their old attempts at revolution. Besides
this, as chance would have it, her thirty years' truce with the Argives was
upon the point of expiring; and they refused to renew it unless Cynuria were
restored to them; so that it seemed impossible to fight Argos and Athens at
once. She also suspected some of the cities in Peloponnese of intending to go
over to the endeed was indeed the case.
These
considerations made both sides disposed for an accommodation; the
Lacedaemonians being probably the most eager, as they ardently desired to
recover the men taken upon the island, the Spartans among whom belonged to the
first families and were accordingly related to the governing body in
Lacedaemon. Negotiations had been begun directly after their capture, but the
Athenians in their hour of triumph would not consent to any reasonable terms;
though after their defeat at Delium, Lacedaemon, knowing that they would be now
more inclined to listen, at once concluded the armistice for a year, during
which they were to confer together and see if a longer period could not be
agreed upon.
Now,
however, after the Athenian defeat at Amphipolis, and the death of Cleon and
Brasidas, who had been the two principal opponents of peace on either side- the
latter from the success and honour which war gave him, the former because he
thought that, if tranquillity were restored, his crimes would be more open to
detection and his slanders less credited- the foremost candidates for power in
either city, Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, and Nicias, son
of Niceratus, the most fortunate general of his time, each desired peace more
ardently than ever. Nicias, while still happy and honoured, wished to secure
his good fortune, to obtain a present release from trouble for himself and his
countrymen, and hand down to posterity a name as an ever-successful statesman,
and thought the way to do this was to keep out of danger and commit himself as
little as possible to fortune, and that peace alone made this keeping out of
danger possible. Pleistoanax, again, was assailed by his enemies for his
restoration, and regularly held up by them to the prejudice of his countrymen,
upon every reverse that befell them, as though his unjust restoration were the
cause; the accusation being that he and his brother Aristocles had bribed the
prophetess of Delphi to tell the Lacedaemonian deputations which successively
arrived at the temple to bring home the seed of the demigod son of Zeus from
abroad, else they would have to plough with a silver share. In this way, it was
insisted, in time he had induced the Lacedaemonians in the nineteenth year of
his exile to Lycaeum (whither he had gone when banished on suspicion of having
been bribed to retreat from Attica, and had built half his house within the
consecrated precinct of Zeus for fear of the Lacedaemonians), to restore him
with the same dances and sacrifices with which they had instituted their kings
upon the first settlement of Lacedaemon. The smart of this accusation, and the
reflection that in peace no disaster could occur, and that when Lacedaemon had
recovered her men there would be nothing for his enemies to take hold of
(whereas, while war lasted, the highest station must always bear the scandal of
everything that went wrong), made him ardently desire a settlement. Accordingly
this winter was employed in conferences; and as spring rapidly approached, the
Lacedaemonians sent round orders to the cities to prepare for a fortified
occupation of Attica, and held this as a sword over the heads of the Athenians
to induce them to listen to their overtures; and at last, after many claims had
been urged on either side at the conferences a peace was agreed on upon the
following basis. Each party was to restore its conquests, but Athens was to
keep Nisaea; her demand for Plataea being met by the Thebans asserting that
they had acquired the place not by force or treachery, but by the voluntary
adhesion upon agreement of its citizens; and the same, according to the
Athenian account, being the history of her acquisition of Nisaea. This
arranged, the Lacedaemonians summoned their allies, and all voting for peace
except the Boeotians, Corinthians, Eleans, and Megarians, who did not approve
of these proceedings, they concluded the treaty and made peace, each of the
contracting parties swearing to the following articles:
The Athenians and Lacedaemonians and
their allies made a treaty, and swore to it, city by city, as follows;
1. Touching the national temples, there
shall be a free passage by land and by sea to all who wish it, to sacrifice,
travel, consult, and attend the oracle or games, according to the customs of
their countries.
2. The temple and shrine of Apollo at
Delphi and the Delphians shall be governed by their own laws, taxed by their
own state, and judged by their own judges, the land and the people, according
to the custom of their country.
3. The treaty shall be binding for
fifty years upon the Athenians and the allies of the Athenians, and upon the
Lacedaemonians and the allies of the Lacedaemonians, without fraud or hurt by
land or by sea.
4. It shall not be lawful to take up
arms, with intent to do hurt, either for the Lacedaemonians and their allies
against the Athenians and their allies, or for the Athenians and their allies
against the Lacedaemonians and their allies, in any way or means whatsoever.
But should any difference arise between them they are to have recourse to law
and oaths, according as may be agreed between the parties.
5. The Lacedaemonians and their allies
shall give back Amphipolis to the Athenians. Nevertheless, in the case of
cities given up by the Lacedaemonians to the Athenians, the inhabitants shall
be allowed to go where they please and to take their property with them: and
the cities shall be independent, paying only the tribute of Aristides. And it
shall not be lawful for the Athenians or their allies to carry on war against
them after the treaty has been concluded, so long as the tribute is paid. The
cities referred to are Argilus, Stagirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, and
Spartolus. These cities shall be neutral, allies neither of the Lacedaemonians
nor of the Athenians: but if the cities consent, it shall be lawful for the
Athenians to make them their allies, provided always that the cities wish it.
The Mecybernaeans, Sanaeans, and Singaeans shall inhabit their own cities, as
also the Olynthians and Acanthians: but the Lacedaemonians and their allies
shall give back Panactum to the Athenians.
6. The Athenians shall give back
Coryphasium, Cythera, Methana, Pteleum, and Atalanta to the Lacedaemonians, and
also all Lacedaemonians that are in the prison at Athens or elsewhere in the
Athenian dominions, and shall let go the Peloponnesians besieged in Scione, and
all others in Scione that are allies of the Lacedaemonians, and all whom
Brasidas sent in there, and any others of the allies of the Lacedaemonians that
may be in the prison at Athens or elsewhere in the Athenian dominions.
7. The Lacedaemonians and their allies
shall in like manner give back any of the Athenians or their allies that they
may have in their hands.
8. In the case of Scione, Torone, and
Sermylium, and any other cities that the Athenians may have, the Athenians may
adopt such measures as they please.
9. The Athenians shall take an oath to
the Lacedaemonians and their allies, city by city. Every man shall swear by the
most binding oath of his country, seventeen from each city. The oath shall be
as follows; "I will abide by this agreement and treaty honestly and
without deceit." In the same way an oath shall be taken by the Lacedaemonians
and their allies to the Athenians: and the oath shall be renewed annually by
both parties. Pillars shall be erected at Olympia, Pythia, the Isthmus, at
Athens in the Acropolis, and at Lacedaemon in the temple at Amyclae.
10. If anything be forgotten, whatever
it be, and on whatever point, it shall be consistent with their oath for both
parties, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, to alter it, according to their
discretion.
The treaty begins from the ephoralty of
Pleistolas in Lacedaemon, on the 27th day of the month of Artemisium, and from
the archonship, of Alcaeus at Athens, on the 25th day of the month of
Elaphebolion. Those who took the oath and poured the libations for the
Lacedaemonians were Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetis, Chionis, Metagenes,
Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Tellis,
Alcinadas, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus: for the Athenians, Lampon,
Isthmonicus, Nicias, Laches, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus,
Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and
Demosthenes.
This
treaty was made in the spring, just at the end of winter, directly after the
city festival of Dionysus, just ten years, with the difference of a few days,
from the first invasion of Attica and the commencement of this war. This must
be calculated by the seasons rather than by trusting to the enumeration of the
names of the several magistrates or offices of honour that are used to mark
past events. Accuracy is impossible where an event may have occurred in the
beginning, or middle, or at any period in their tenure of office. But by
computing by summers and winters, the method adopted in this history, it will
be found that, each of these amounting to half a year, there were ten summers
and as many winters contained in this first war.
Meanwhile
the Lacedaemonians, to whose lot it fell to begin the work of restitution,
immediately set free all the prisoners of war in their possession, and sent
Ischagoras, Menas, and Philocharidas as envoys to the towns in the direction of
Thrace, to order Clearidas to hand over Amphipolis to the Athenians, and the
rest of their allies each to accept the treaty as it affected them. They,
however, did not like its terms, and refused to accept it; Clearidas also, willing
to oblige the Chalcidians, would not hand over the town, averring his inability
to do so against their will. Meanwhile he hastened in person to Lacedaemon with
envoys from the place, to defend his disobedience against the possible
accusations of Ischagoras and his companions, and also to see whether it was
too late for the agreement to be altered; and on finding the Lacedaemonians
were bound, quickly set out back again with instructions from them to hand over
the place, if possible, or at all events to bring out the Peloponnesians that
were in it.
The
allies happened to be present in person at Lacedaemon, and those who had not
accepted the treaty were now asked by the Lacedaemonians to adopt it. This,
however, they refused to do, for the same reasons as before, unless a fairer
one than the present were agreed upon; and remaining firm in their
determination were dismissed by the Lacedaemonians, who now decided on forming
an alliance with the Athenians, thinking that Argos, who had refused the
application of Ampelidas and Lichas for a renewal of the treaty, would without
Athens be no longer formidable, and that the rest of the Peloponnese would be
most likely to keep quiet, if the coveted alliance of Athens were shut against
them. Accordingly, after conference with the Athenian ambassadors, an alliance
was agreed upon and oaths were exchanged, upon the terms following:
1. The Lacedaemonians shall be allies
of the Athenians for fifty years.
2. Should any enemy invade the
territory of Lacedaemon and injure the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians shall help
in such way as they most effectively can, according to their power. But if the
invader be gone after plundering the country, that city shall be the enemy of
Lacedaemon and Athens, and shall be chastised by both, and one shall not make
peace without the other. This to be honestly, loyally, and without fraud.
3. Should any enemy invade the
territory of Athens and injure the Athenians, the Lacedaemonians shall help
them in such way as they most effectively can, according to their power. But if
the invader be gone after plundering the country, that city shall be the enemy
of Lacedaemon and Athens, and shall be chastised by both, and one shall not
make peace without the other. This to be honestly, loyally, and without fraud.
4. Should the slave population rise,
the Athenians shall help the Lacedaemonians with all their might, according to
their power.
5. This treaty shall be sworn to by the
same persons on either side that swore to the other. It shall be renewed annually
by the Lacedaemonians going to Athens for the Dionysia, and the Athenians to
Lacedaemon for the Hyacinthia, and a pillar shall be set up by either party: at
Lacedaemon near the statue of Apollo at Amyclae, and at Athens on the Acropolis
near the statue of Athene. Should the Lacedaemonians and Athenians see to add
to or take away from the alliance in any particular, it shall be consistent
with their oaths for both parties to do so, according to their discretion.
Those who took the oath for the Lacedaemonians
were Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus,
Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Alcinadas, Tellis,
Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus; for the Athenians, Lampon, Isthmionicus, Laches,
Nicias, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles,
Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.
This
alliance was made not long after the treaty; and the Athenians gave back the men
from the island to the Lacedaemonians, and the summer of the eleventh year
began. This completes the history of the first war, which occupied the whole of
the ten years previously.
AFTER
the treaty and the alliance between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, concluded
after the ten years' war, in the ephorate of Pleistolas at Lacedaemon, and the
archonship of Alcaeus at Athens, the states which had accepted them were at
peace; but the Corinthians and some of the cities in Peloponnese trying to
disturb the settlement, a fresh agitation was instantly commenced by the allies
against Lacedaemon. Further, the Lacedaemonians, as time went on, became
suspected by the Athenians through their not performing some of the provisions
in the treaty; and though for six years and ten months they abstained from
invasion of each other's territory, yet abroad an unstable armistice did not
prevent either party doing the other the most effectual injury, until they were
finally obliged to break the treaty made after the ten years' war and to have
recourse to open hostilities.
The
history of this period has been also written by the same Thucydides, an
Athenian, in the chronological order of events by summers and winters, to the
time when the Lacedaemonians and their allies put an end to the Athenian
empire, and took the Long Walls and Piraeus. The war had then lasted for twenty-seven
years in all. Only a mistaken judgment can object to including the interval of
treaty in the war. Looked at by the light of facts it cannot, it will be found,
be rationally considered a state of peace, where neither party either gave or
got back all that they had agreed, apart from the violations of it which
occurred on both sides in the Mantinean and Epidaurian wars and other
instances, and the fact that the allies in the direction of Thrace were in as
open hostility as ever, while the Boeotians had only a truce renewed every ten
days. So that the first ten years' war, the treacherous armistice that followed
it, and the subsequent war will, calculating by the seasons, be found to make
up the number of years which I have mentioned, with the difference of a few
days, and to afford an instance of faith in oracles being for once justified by
the event. I certainly all along remember from the beginning to the end of the
war its being commonly declared that it would last thrice nine years. I lived
through the whole of it, being of an age to comprehend events, and giving my
attention to them in order to know the exact truth about them. It was also my
fate to be an exile from my country for twenty years after my command at
Amphipolis; and being present with both parties, and more especially with the
Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs somewhat
particularly. I will accordingly now relate the differences that arose after
the ten years' war, the breach of the treaty, and the hostilities that
followed.
After
the conclusion of the fifty years' truce and of the subsequent alliance, the
embassies from Peloponnese which had been summoned for this business returned
from Lacedaemon. The rest went straight home, but the Corinthians first turned
aside to Argos and opened negotiations with some of the men in office there,
pointing out that Lacedaemon could have no good end in view, but only the
subjugation of Peloponnese, or she would never have entered into treaty and
alliance with the once detested Athenians, and that the duty of consulting for
the safety of Peloponnese had now fallen upon Argos, who should immediately
pass a decree inviting any Hellenic state that chose, such state being
independent and accustomed to meet fellow powers upon the fair and equal ground
of law and justice, to make a defensive alliance with the Argives; appointing a
few individuals with plenipotentiary powers, instead of making the people the
medium of negotiation, in order that, in the case of an applicant being
rejected, the fact of his overtures might not be made public. They said that
many would come over from hatred of the Lacedaemonians. After this explanation
of their views, the Corinthians returned home.
The
persons with whom they had communicated reported the proposal to their
government and people, and the Argives passed the decree and chose twelve men
to negotiate an alliance for any Hellenic state that wished it, except Athens
and Lacedaemon, neither of which should be able to join without reference to
the Argive people. Argos came into the plan the more readily because she saw
that war with Lacedaemon was inevitable, the truce being on the point of
expiring; and also because she hoped to gain the supremacy of Peloponnese. For
at this time Lacedaemon had sunk very low in public estimation because of her
disasters, while the Argives were in a most flourishing condition, having taken
no part in the Attic war, but having on the contrary profited largely by their
neutrality. The Argives accordingly prepared to receive into alliance any of
the Hellenes that desired it.
The
Mantineans and their allies were the first to come over through fear of the
Lacedaemonians. Having taken advantage of the war against Athens to reduce a
large part of Arcadia into subjection, they thought that Lacedaemon would not
leave them undisturbed in their conquests, now that she had leisure to
interfere, and consequently gladly turned to a powerful city like Argos, the
historical enemy of the Lacedaemonians, and a sister democracy. Upon the
defection of Mantinea, the rest of Peloponnese at once began to agitate the
propriety of following her example, conceiving that the Mantineans not have
changed sides without good reason; besides which they were angry with
Lacedaemon among other reasons for having inserted in the treaty with Athens
that it should be consistent with their oaths for both parties, Lacedaemonians
and Athenians, to add to or take away from it according to their discretion. It
was this clause that was the real origin of the panic in Peloponnese, by
exciting suspicions of a Lacedaemonian and Athenian combination against their
liberties: any alteration should properly have been made conditional upon the
consent of the whole body of the allies. With these apprehensions there was a
very general desire in each state to place itself in alliance with Argos.
In
the meantime the Lacedaemonians perceiving the agitation going on in
Peloponnese, and that Corinth was the author of it and was herself about to
enter into alliance with the Argives, sent ambassadors thither in the hope of
preventing what was in contemplation. They accused her of having brought it all
about, and told her that she could not desert Lacedaemon and become the ally of
Argos, without adding violation of her oaths to the crime which she had already
committed in not accepting the treaty with Athens, when it had been expressly
agreed that the decision of the majority of the allies should be binding,
unless the gods or heroes stood in the way. Corinth in her answer, delivered
before those of her allies who had like her refused to accept the treaty, and
whom she had previously invited to attend, refrained from openly stating the
injuries she complained of, such as the non-recovery of Sollium or Anactorium
from the Athenians, or any other point in which she thought she had been
prejudiced, but took shelter under the pretext that she could not give up her
Thracian allies, to whom her separate individual security had been given, when
they first rebelled with Potidaea, as well as upon subsequent occasions. She
denied, therefore, that she committed any violation of her oaths to the allies
in not entering into the treaty with Athens; having sworn upon the faith of the
gods to her Thracian friends, she could not honestly give them up. Besides, the
expression was, "unless the gods or heroes stand in the way." Now
here, as it appeared to her, the gods stood in the way. This was what she said
on the subject of her former oaths. As to the Argive alliance, she would confer
with her friends and do whatever was right. The Lacedaemonian envoys returning
home, some Argive ambassadors who happened to be in Corinth pressed her to
conclude the alliance without further delay, but were told to attend at the
next congress to be held at Corinth.
Immediately
afterwards an Elean embassy arrived, and first making an alliance with Corinth
went on from thence to Argos, according to their instructions, and became
allies of the Argives, their country being just then at enmity with Lacedaemon
and Lepreum. Some time back there had been a war between the Lepreans and some
of the Arcadians; and the Eleans being called in by the former with the offer
of half their lands, had put an end to the war, and leaving the land in the
hands of its Leprean occupiers had imposed upon them the tribute of a talent to
the Olympian Zeus. Till the Attic war this tribute was paid by the Lepreans,
who then took the war as an excuse for no longer doing so, and upon the Eleans
using force appealed to Lacedaemon. The case was thus submitted to her
arbitrament; but the Eleans, suspecting the fairness of the tribunal, renounced
the reference and laid waste the Leprean territory. The Lacedaemonians
nevertheless decided that the Lepreans were independent and the Eleans
aggressors, and as the latter did not abide by the arbitration, sent a garrison
of heavy infantry into Lepreum. Upon this the Eleans, holding that Lacedaemon
had received one of their rebel subjects, put forward the convention providing
that each confederate should come out of the Attic war in possession of what he
had when he went into it, and considering that justice had not been done them
went over to the Argives, and now made the alliance through their ambassadors,
who had been instructed for that purpose. Immediately after them the
Corinthians and the Thracian Chalcidians became allies of Argos. Meanwhile the
Boeotians and Megarians, who acted together, remained quiet, being left to do
as they pleased by Lacedaemon, and thinking that the Argive democracy would not
suit so well with their aristocratic government as the Lacedaemonian
constitution.
About
the same time in this summer Athens succeeded in reducing Scione, put the adult
males to death, and, making slaves of the women and children, gave the land for
the Plataeans to live in. She also brought back the Delians to Delos, moved by
her misfortunes in the field and by the commands of the god at Delphi.
Meanwhile the Phocians and Locrians commenced hostilities. The Corinthians and
Argives, being now in alliance, went to Tegea to bring about its defection from
Lacedaemon, seeing that, if so considerable a state could be persuaded to join,
all Peloponnese would be with them. But when the Tegeans said that they would
do nothing against Lacedaemon, the hitherto zealous Corinthians relaxed their
activity, and began to fear that none of the rest would now come over. Still
they went to the Boeotians and tried to persuade them to alliance and a common
action generally with Argos and themselves, and also begged them to go with them
to Athens and obtain for them a ten days' truce similar to that made between
the Athenians and Boeotians not long after the fifty years' treaty, and, in the
event of the Athenians refusing, to throw up the armistice, and not make any
truce in future without Corinth. These were the requests of the Corinthians.
The Boeotians stopped them on the subject of the Argive alliance, but went with
them to Athens, where however they failed to obtain the ten days' truce; the
Athenian answer being that the Corinthians had truce already, as being allies
of Lacedaemon. Nevertheless the Boeotians did not throw up their ten days'
truce, in spite of the prayers and reproaches of the Corinthians for their
breach of faith; and these last had to content themselves with a de facto
armistice with Athens.
The
same summer the Lacedaemonians marched
into Arcadia with their whole levy under Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias,
king of Lacedaemon, against the Parrhasians, who were subjects of Mantinea, and
a faction of whom had invited their aid. They also meant to demolish, if
possible, the fort of Cypsela which the Mantineans had built and garrisoned in
the Parrhasian territory, to annoy the district of Sciritis in Laconia. The
Lacedaemonians accordingly laid waste the Parrhasian country, and the
Mantineans, placing their town in the hands of an Argive garrison, addressed
themselves to the defence of their confederacy, but being unable to save
Cypsela or the Parrhasian towns went back to Mantinea. Meanwhile the
Lacedaemonians made the Parrhasians independent, razed the fortress, and
returned home.
The
same summer the soldiers from Thrace who had gone out with Brasidas came back,
having been brought from thence after the treaty by Clearidas; and the
Lacedaemonians decreed that the Helots who had fought with Brasidas should be
free and allowed to live where they liked, and not long afterwards settled them
with the Neodamodes at Lepreum, which is situated on the Laconian and Elean
border; Lacedaemon being at this time at enmity with Elis. Those however of the
Spartans who had been taken prisoners on the island and had surrendered their
arms might, it was feared, suppose that they were to be subjected to some
degradation in consequence of their misfortune, and so make some attempt at
revolution, if left in possession of their franchise. These were therefore at
once disfranchised, although some of them were in office at the time, and thus
placed under a disability to take office, or buy and sell anything. After some
time, however, the franchise was restored to them.
The
same summer the Dians took Thyssus, a town on Acte by Athos in alliance with
Athens. During the whole of this summer intercourse between the Athenians and
Peloponnesians continued, although each party began to suspect the other
directly after the treaty, because of the places specified in it not being
restored. Lacedaemon, to whose lot it had fallen to begin by restoring
Amphipolis and the other towns, had not done so. She had equally failed to get
the treaty accepted by her Thracian allies, or by the Boeotians or the
Corinthians; although she was continually promising to unite with Athens in
compelling their compliance, if it were longer refused. She also kept fixing a
time at which those who still refused to come in were to be declared enemies to
both parties, but took care not to bind herself by any written agreement.
Meanwhile the Athenians, seeing none of these professions performed in fact,
began to suspect the honesty of her intentions, and consequently not only
refused to comply with her demands for Pylos, but also repented having given up
the prisoners from the island, and kept tight hold of the other places, until
Lacedaemon's part of the treaty should be fulfilled. Lacedaemon, on the other
hand, said she had done what she could, having given up the Athenian prisoners
of war in her possession, evacuated Thrace, and performed everything else in
her power. Amphipolis it was out of her ability to restore; but she would
endeavour to bring the Boeotians and Corinthians into the treaty, to recover
Panactum, and send home all the Athenian prisoners of war in Boeotia. Meanwhile
she required that Pylos should be restored, or at all events that the
Messenians and Helots should be withdrawn, as her troops had been from Thrace,
and the place garrisoned, if necessary, by the Athenians themselves. After a
number of different conferences held during the summer, she succeeded in
persuading Athens to withdraw from Pylos the Messenians and the rest of the
Helots and deserters from Laconia, who were accordingly settled by her at
Cranii in Cephallenia. Thus during this summer there was peace and intercourse
between the two peoples.
Next
winter, however, the ephors under whom the treaty had been made were no longer
in office, and some of their successors were directly opposed to it. Embassies
now arrived from the Lacedaemonian confederacy, and the Athenians, Boeotians,
and Corinthians also presented themselves at Lacedaemon, and after much
discussion and no agreement between them, separated for their several homes;
when Cleobulus and Xenares, the two ephors who were the most anxious to break
off the treaty, took advantage of this opportunity to communicate privately
with the Boeotians and Corinthians, and, advising them to act as much as
possible together, instructed the former first to enter into alliance with
Argos, and then try and bring themselves and the Argives into alliance with
Lacedaemon. The Boeotians would so be least likely to be compelled to come into
the Attic treaty; and the Lacedaemonians would prefer gaining the friendship
and alliance of Argos even at the price of the hostility of Athens and the
rupture of the treaty. The Boeotians knew that an honourable friendship with
Argos had been long the desire of Lacedaemon; for the Lacedaemonians believed
that this would considerably facilitate the conduct of the war outside
Peloponnese. Meanwhile they begged the Boeotians to place Panactum in her hands
in order that she might, if possible, obtain Pylos in exchange for it, and so
be more in a position to resume hostilities with Athens.
After
receiving these instructions for their governments from Xenares and Cleobulus
and their friends at Lacedaemon, the Boeotians and Corinthians departed. On
their way home they were joined by two persons high in office at Argos, who had
waited for them on the road, and who now sounded them upon the possibility of
the Boeotians joining the Corinthians, Eleans, and Mantineans in becoming the
allies of Argos, in the idea that if this could be effected they would be able,
thus united, to make peace or war as they pleased either against Lacedaemon or
any other power. The Boeotian envoys were were pleased at thus hearing
themselves accidentally asked to do what their friends at Lacedaemon had told
them; and the two Argives perceiving that their proposal was agreeable,
departed with a promise to send ambassadors to the Boeotians. On their arrival
the Boeotians reported to the Boeotarchs what had been said to them at
Lacedaemon and also by the Argives who had met them, and the Boeotarchs,
pleased with the idea, embraced it with the more eagerness from the lucky
coincidence of Argos soliciting the very thing wanted by their friends at
Lacedaemon. Shortly afterwards ambassadors appeared from Argos with the
proposals indicated; and the Boeotarchs approved of the terms and dismissed the
ambassadors with a promise to send envoys to Argos to negotiate the alliance.
In
the meantime it was decided by the Boeotarchs, the Corinthians, the Megarians,
and the envoys from Thrace first to interchange oaths together to give help to
each other whenever it was required and not to make war or peace except in
common; after which the Boeotians and Megarians, who acted together, should
make the alliance with Argos. But before the oaths were taken the Boeotarchs
communicated these proposals to the four councils of the Boeotians, in whom the
supreme power resides, and advised them to interchange oaths with all such
cities as should be willing to enter into a defensive league with the
Boeotians. But the members of the Boeotian councils refused their assent to the
proposal, being afraid of offending Lacedaemon by entering into a league with
the deserter Corinth; the Boeotarchs not having acquainted them with what had
passed at Lacedaemon and with the advice given by Cleobulus and Xenares and the
Boeotian partisans there, namely, that they should become allies of Corinth and
Argos as a preliminary to a junction with Lacedaemon; fancying that, even if
they should say nothing about this, the councils would not vote against what
had been decided and advised by the Boeotarchs. This difficulty arising, the
Corinthians and the envoys from Thrace departed without anything having been
concluded; and the Boeotarchs, who had previously intended after carrying this
to try and effect the alliance with Argos, now omitted to bring the Argive
question before the councils, or to send to Argos the envoys whom they had
promised; and a general coldness and delay ensued in the matter.
In
this same winter Mecyberna was assaulted and taken by the Olynthians, having an
Athenian garrison inside it.
All
this while negotiations had been going on between the Athenians and
Lacedaemonians about the conquests still retained by each, and Lacedaemon,
hoping that if Athens were to get back Panactum from the Boeotians she might
herself recover Pylos, now sent an embassy to the Boeotians, and begged them to
place Panactum and their Athenian prisoners in her hands, in order that she
might exchange them for Pylos. This the Boeotians refused to do, unless
Lacedaemon made a separate alliance with them as she had done with Athens.
Lacedaemon knew that this would be a breach of faith to Athens, as it had been
agreed that neither of them should make peace or war without the other; yet
wishing to obtain Panactum which she hoped to exchange for Pylos, and the party
who pressed for the dissolution of the treaty strongly affecting the Boeotian
connection, she at length concluded the alliance just as winter gave way to
spring; and Panactum was instantly razed. And so the eleventh year of the war
ended.
In
the first days of the summer following, the Argives, seeing that the promised
ambassadors from Boeotia did not arrive, and that Panactum was being
demolished, and that a separate alliance had been concluded between the
Boeotians and Lacedaemonians, began to be afraid that Argos might be left
alone, and all the confederacy go over to Lacedaemon. They fancied that the
Boeotians had been persuaded by the Lacedaemonians to raze Panactum and to
enter into the treaty with the Athenians, and that Athens was privy to this
arrangement, and even her alliance, therefore, no longer open to them- a
resource which they had always counted upon, by reason of the dissensions
existing, in the event of the noncontinuance of their treaty with Lacedaemon.
In this strait the Argives, afraid that, as the result of refusing to renew the
treaty with Lacedaemon and of aspiring to the supremacy in Peloponnese, they
would have the Lacedaemonians, Tegeans, Boeotians, and Athenians on their hands
all at once, now hastily sent off Eustrophus and Aeson, who seemed the persons
most likely to be acceptable, as envoys to Lacedaemon, with the view of making
as good a treaty as they could with the Lacedaemonians, upon such terms as
could be got, and being left in peace.
Having
reached Lacedaemon, their ambassadors proceeded to negotiate the terms of the
proposed treaty. What the Argives first demanded was that they might be allowed
to refer to the arbitration of some state or private person the question of the
Cynurian land, a piece of frontier territory about which they have always been
disputing, and which contains the towns of Thyrea and Anthene, and is occupied
by the Lacedaemonians. The Lacedaemonians at first said that they could not
allow this point to be discussed, but were ready to conclude upon the old
terms. Eventually, however, the Argive ambassadors succeeded in obtaining from
them this concession: For the present there was to be a truce for fifty years,
but it should be competent for either party, there being neither plague nor war
in Lacedaemon or Argos, to give a formal challenge and decide the question of
this territory by battle, as on a former occasion, when both sides claimed the
victory; pursuit not being allowed beyond the frontier of Argos or Lacedaemon.
The Lacedaemonians at first thought this mere folly; but at last, anxious at
any cost to have the friendship of Argos they agreed to the terms demanded, and
reduced them to writing. However, before any of this should become binding, the
ambassadors were to return to Argos and communicate with their people and, in
the event of their approval, to come at the feast of the Hyacinthia and take
the oaths.
The
envoys returned accordingly. In the meantime, while the Argives were engaged in
these negotiations, the Lacedaemonian ambassadors- Andromedes, Phaedimus, and
Antimenidas- who were to receive the prisoners from the Boeotians and restore
them and Panactum to the Athenians, found that the Boeotians had themselves
razed Panactum, upon the plea that oaths had been anciently exchanged between
their people and the Athenians, after a dispute on the subject to the effect
that neither should inhabit the place, but that they should graze it in common.
As for the Athenian prisoners of war in the hands of the Boeotians, these were
delivered over to Andromedes and his colleagues, and by them conveyed to Athens
and given back. The envoys at the same time announced the razing of Panactum,
which to them seemed as good as its restitution, as it would no longer lodge an
enemy of Athens. This announcement was received with great indignation by the
Athenians, who thought that the Lacedaemonians had played them false, both in
the matter of the demolition of Panactum, which ought to have been restored to
them standing, and in having, as they now heard, made a separate alliance with
the Boeotians, in spite of their previous promise to join Athens in compelling
the adhesion of those who refused to accede to the treaty. The Athenians also
considered the other points in which Lacedaemon had failed in her compact, and
thinking that they had been overreached, gave an angry answer to the
ambassadors and sent them away.
The
breach between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians having gone thus far, the party
at Athens, also, who wished to cancel the treaty, immediately put themselves in
motion. Foremost amongst these was Alcibiades, son of Clinias, a man yet young
in years for any other Hellenic city, but distinguished by the splendour of his
ancestry. Alcibiades thought the Argive alliance really preferable, not that
personal pique had not also a great deal to do with his opposition; he being
offended with the Lacedaemonians for having negotiated the treaty through
Nicias and Laches, and having overlooked him on account of his youth, and also
for not having shown him the respect due to the ancient connection of his
family with them as their proxeni, which, renounced by his grandfather, he had
lately himself thought to renew by his attentions to their prisoners taken in
the island. Being thus, as he thought, slighted on all hands, he had in the
first instance spoken against the treaty, saying that the Lacedaemonians were
not to be trusted, but that they only treated, in order to be enabled by this
means to crush Argos, and afterwards to attack Athens alone; and now,
immediately upon the above occurring, he sent privately to the Argives, telling
them to come as quickly as possible to Athens, accompanied by the Mantineans
and Eleans, with proposals of alliance; as the moment was propitious and he
himself would do all he could to help them.
Upon
receiving this message and discovering that the Athenians, far from being privy
to the Boeotian alliance, were involved in a serious quarrel with the
Lacedaemonians, the Argives paid no further attention to the embassy which they
had just sent to Lacedaemon on the subject of the treaty, and began to incline
rather towards the Athenians, reflecting that, in the event of war, they would
thus have on their side a city that was not only an ancient ally of Argos, but
a sister democracy and very powerful at sea. They accordingly at once sent
ambassadors to Athens to treat for an alliance, accompanied by others from Elis
and Mantinea.
At
the same time arrived in haste from Lacedaemon an embassy consisting of persons
reputed well disposed towards the Athenians- Philocharidas, Leon, and Endius-
for fear that the Athenians in their irritation might conclude alliance with
the Argives, and also to ask back Pylos in exchange for Panactum, and in
defence of the alliance with the Boeotians to plead that it had not been made
to hurt the Athenians. Upon the envoys speaking in the senate upon these
points, and stating that they had come with full powers to settle all others at
issue between them, Alcibiades became afraid that, if they were to repeat these
statements to the popular assembly, they might gain the multitude, and the
Argive alliance might be rejected, and accordingly had recourse to the
following stratagem. He persuaded the Lacedaemonians by a solemn assurance that
if they would say nothing of their full powers in the assembly, he would give
back Pylos to them (himself, the present opponent of its restitution, engaging
to obtain this from the Athenians), and would settle the other points at issue.
His plan was to detach them from Nicias and to disgrace them before the people,
as being without sincerity in their intentions, or even common consistency in
their language, and so to get the Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans taken into
alliance. This plan proved successful. When the envoys appeared before the
people, and upon the question being put to them, did not say as they had said
in the senate, that they had come with full powers, the Athenians lost all
patience, and carried away by Alcibiades, who thundered more loudly than ever
against the Lacedaemonians, were ready instantly to introduce the Argives and
their companions and to take them into alliance. An earthquake, however,
occurring, before anything definite had been done, this assembly was adjourned.
In
the assembly held the next day, Nicias, in spite of the Lacedaemonians having
been deceived themselves, and having allowed him to be deceived also in not
admitting that they had come with full powers, still maintained that it was
best to be friends with the Lacedaemonians, and, letting the Argive proposals
stand over, to send once more to Lacedaemon and learn her intentions. The
adjournment of the war could only increase their own prestige and injure that
of their rivals; the excellent state of their affairs making it their interest
to preserve this prosperity as long as possible, while those of Lacedaemon were
so desperate that the sooner she could try her fortune again the better. He
succeeded accordingly in persuading them to send ambassadors, himself being
among the number, to invite the Lacedaemonians, if they were really sincere, to
restore Panactum intact with Amphipolis, and to abandon their alliance with the
Boeotians (unless they consented to accede to the treaty), agreeably to the
stipulation which forbade either to treat without the other. The ambassadors
were also directed to say that the Athenians, had they wished to play false,
might already have made alliance with the Argives, who were indeed come to
Athens for that very purpose, and went off furnished with instructions as to
any other complaints that the Athenians had to make. Having reached Lacedaemon,
they communicated their instructions, and concluded by telling the
Lacedaemonians that unless they gave up their alliance with the Boeotians, in
the event of their not acceding to the treaty, the Athenians for their part
would ally themselves with the Argives and their friends. The Lacedaemonians,
however, refused to give up the Boeotian alliance- the party of Xenares the
ephor, and such as shared their view, carrying the day upon this point- but
renewed the oaths at the request of Nicias, who feared to return without having
accomplished anything and to be disgraced; as was indeed his fate, he being
held the author of the treaty with Lacedaemon. When he returned, and the
Athenians heard that nothing had been done at Lacedaemon, they flew into a
passion, and deciding that faith had not been kept with them, took advantage of
the presence of the Argives and their allies, who had been introduced by Alcibiades,
and made a treaty and alliance with them upon the terms following:
The Athenians, Argives, Mantineans, and
Eleans, acting for themselves and the allies in their respective empires, made
a treaty for a hundred years, to be without fraud or hurt by land and by sea.
1. It shall not be lawful to carry on
war, either for the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, and their allies, against the
Athenians, or the allies in the Athenian empire: or for the Athenians and their
allies against the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, or their allies, in any way or
means whatsoever. The Athenians, Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans shall be
allies for a hundred years upon the terms following:
2. If an enemy invade the country of
the Athenians, the Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans shall go to the relief of
Athens, according as the Athenians may require by message, in such way as they
most effectually can, to the best of their power. But if the invader be gone
after plundering the territory, the offending state shall be the enemy of the
Argives, Mantineans, Eleans, and Athenians, and war shall be made against it by
all these cities: and no one of the cities shall be able to make peace with
that state, except all the above cities agree to do so.
3. Likewise the Athenians shall go to
the relief of Argos, Mantinea, and Elis, if an enemy invade the country of
Elis, Mantinea, or Argos, according as the above cities may require by message,
in such way as they most effectually can, to the best of their power. But if
the invader be gone after plundering the territory, the state offending shall
be the enemy of the Athenians, Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans, and war shall
be made against it by all these cities, and peace may not be made with that
state except all the above cities agree to it.
4. No armed force shall be allowed to
pass for hostile purposes through the country of the powers contracting, or of
the allies in their respective empires, or to go by sea, except all the cities-
that is to say, Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis- vote for such passage.
5. The relieving troops shall be
maintained by the city sending them for thirty days from their arrival in the
city that has required them, and upon their return in the same way: if their
services be desired for a longer period, the city that sent for them shall
maintain them, at the rate of three Aeginetan obols per day for a heavy-armed
soldier, archer, or light soldier, and an Aeginetan drachma for a trooper.
6. The city sending for the troops shall
have the command when the war is in its own country: but in case of the cities
resolving upon a joint expedition the command shall be equally divided among
all the cities.
7. The treaty shall be sworn to by the
Athenians for themselves and their allies, by the Argives, Mantineans, Eleans,
and their allies, by each state individually. Each shall swear the oath most
binding in his country over full-grown victims: the oath being as follows:
"I STAND BY THE ALLIANCE AND ITS
ARTICLES, JUSTLY, INNOCENTLY, AND SINCERELY, AND I WILL NOT TRANSGRESS THE SAME
IN ANY WAY OR MEANS WHATSOEVER."
The
oath shall taken at Athens by the Senate and the magistrates, the Prytanes
administering it: as by the Senate, the Eighty, and the Artynae, the Eighty
administering it: at Mantinea by the Demiurgi, the Senate, and the other
magistrates, the Theori and Polemarchs administering it: at Elis by the
Demiurgi, the magistrates, and the Six Hundred, the Demiurgi and the
Thesmophylaces administering it. The oaths shall be renewed by the Athenians
going to Elis, Mantinea, and Argos thirty days before the Olympic games: by the
Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans going to Athens ten days before the great feast
of the Panathenaea. The articles of the treaty, the oaths, and the alliance
shall be inscribed on a stone pillar by the Athenians in the citadel, by the
Argives in the market-place, in the temple of Apollo: by the Mantineans in the
temple of Zeus, in the market-place: and a brazen pillar shall be erected
jointly by them at the Olympic games now at hand. Should the above cities see
good to make any addition in these articies, whatever all the above cities
shall agree upon, after consulting together, shall be binding.
Although
the treaty and alliances were thus concluded, still the treaty between the
Lacedaemonians and Athenians was not renounced by either party. Meanwhile
Corinth, although the ally of the Argives, did not accede to the new treaty,
any more than she had done to the alliance, defensive and offensive, formed
before this between the Eleans, Argives, and Mantineans, when she declared
herself content with the first alliance, which was defensive only, and which
bound them to help each other, but not to join in attacking any. The
Corinthians thus stood aloof from their allies, and again turned their thoughts
towards Lacedaemon.
At
the Olympic games which were held this summer, and in which the Arcadian
Androsthenes was victor the first time in the wrestling and boxing, the
Lacedaemonians were excluded from the temple by the Eleans, and thus prevented
from sacrificing or contending, for having refused to pay the fine specified in
the Olympic law imposed upon them by the Eleans, who alleged that they had
attacked Fort Phyrcus, and sent heavy infantry of theirs into Lepreum during
the Olympic truce. The amount of the fine was two thousand minae, two for each
heavy-armed soldier, as the law prescribes. The Lacedaemonians sent envoys, and
pleaded that the imposition was unjust; saying that the truce had not yet been
proclaimed at Lacedaemon when the heavy infantry were sent off. But the Eleans
affirmed that the armistice with them had already begun (they proclaim it first
among themselves), and that the aggression of the Lacedaemonians had taken them
by surprise while they were living quietly as in time of peace, and not
expecting anything. Upon this the Lacedaemonians submitted, that if the Eleans
really believed that they had committed an aggression, it was useless after
that to proclaim the truce at Lacedaemon; but they had proclaimed it
notwithstanding, as believing nothing of the kind, and from that moment the
Lacedaemonians had made no attack upon their country. Nevertheless the Eleans
adhered to what they had said, that nothing would persuade them that an
aggression had not been committed; if, however, the Lacedaemonians would
restore Lepreum, they would give up their own share of the money and pay that
of the god for them.
As
this proposal was not accepted, the Eleans tried a second. Instead of restoring
Lepreum, if this was objected to, the Lacedaemonians should ascend the altar of
the Olympian Zeus, as they were so anxious to have access to the temple, and
swear before the Hellenes that they would surely pay the fine at a later day.
This being also refused, the Lacedaemonians were excluded from the temple, the
sacrifice, and the games, and sacrificed at home; the Lepreans being the only
other Hellenes who did not attend. Still the Eleans were afraid of the
Lacedaemonians sacrificing by force, and kept guard with a heavy-armed company
of their young men; being also joined by a thousand Argives, the same number of
Mantineans, and by some Athenian cavalry who stayed at Harpina during the
feast. Great fears were felt in the assembly of the Lacedaemonians coming in
arms, especially after Lichas, son of Arcesilaus, a Lacedaemonian, had been
scourged on the course by the umpires; because, upon his horses being the
winners, and the Boeotian people being proclaimed the victor on account of his
having no right to enter, he came forward on the course and crowned the
charioteer, in order to show that the chariot was his. After this incident all
were more afraid than ever, and firmly looked for a disturbance: the
Lacedaemonians, however, kept quiet, and let the feast pass by, as we have
seen. After the Olympic games, the Argives and the allies repaired to Corinth
to invite her to come over to them. There they found some Lacedaemonian envoys;
and a long discussion ensued, which after all ended in nothing, as an
earthquake occurred, and they dispersed to their different homes.
Summer
was now over. The winter following a battle took place between the Heracleots
in Trachinia and the Aenianians, Dolopians, Malians, and certain of the
Thessalians, all tribes bordering on and hostile to the town, which directly
menaced their country. Accordingly, after having opposed and harassed it from
its very foundation by every means in their power, they now in this battle
defeated the Heracleots, Xenares, son of Cnidis, their Lacedaemonian commander,
being among the slain. Thus the winter ended and the twelfth year of this war
ended also. After the battle, Heraclea was so terribly reduced that in the
first days of the summer following the Boeotians occupied the place and sent
away the Lacedaemonian Agesippidas for misgovernment, fearing that the town
might be taken by the Athenians while the Lacedaemonians were distracted with
the affairs of Peloponnese. The Lacedaemonians, nevertheless, were offended
with them for what they had done.
The
same summer Alcibiades, son of Clinias, now one of the generals at Athens, in
concert with the Argives and the allies, went into Peloponnese with a few
Athenian heavy infantry and archers and some of the allies in those parts whom
he took up as he passed, and with this army marched here and there through
Peloponnese, and settled various matters connected with the alliance, and among
other things induced the Patrians to carry their walls down to the sea,
intending himself also to build a fort near the Achaean Rhium. However, the
Corinthians and Sicyonians, and all others who would have suffered by its being
built, came up and hindered him.
The
same summer war broke out between the Epidaurians and Argives. The pretext was
that the Epidaurians did not send an offering for their pasture-land to Apollo
Pythaeus, as they were bound to do, the Argives having the chief management of
the temple; but, apart from this pretext, Alcibiades and the Argives were
determined, if possible, to gain possession of Epidaurus, and thus to ensure
the neutrality of Corinth and give the Athenians a shorter passage for their
reinforcements from Aegina than if they had to sail round Scyllaeum. The
Argives accordingly prepared to invade Epidaurus by themselves, to exact the
offering.
About
the same time the Lacedaemonians marched out with all their people to Leuctra
upon their frontier, opposite to Mount Lycaeum, under the command of Agis, son
of Archidamus, without any one knowing their destination, not even the cities
that sent the contingents. The sacrifices, however, for crossing the frontier
not proving propitious, the Lacedaemonians returned home themselves, and sent
word to the allies to be ready to march after the month ensuing, which happened
to be the month of Carneus, a holy time for the Dorians. Upon the retreat of
the Lacedaemonians the Argives marched out on the last day but three of the
month before Carneus, and keeping this as the day during the whole time that
they were out, invaded and plundered Epidaurus. The Epidaurians summoned their
allies to their aid, some of whom pleaded the month as an excuse; others came
as far as the frontier of Epidaurus and there remained inactive.
While
the Argives were in Epidaurus embassies from the cities assembled at Mantinea,
upon the invitation of the Athenians. The conference having begun, the
Corinthian Euphamidas said that their actions did not agree with their words;
while they were sitting deliberating about peace, the Epidaurians and their
allies and the Argives were arrayed against each other in arms; deputies from
each party should first go and separate the armies, and then the talk about
peace might be resumed. In compliance with this suggestion, they went and
brought back the Argives from Epidaurus, and afterwards reassembled, but
without succeeding any better in coming to a conclusion; and the Argives a
second time invaded Epidaurus and plundered the country. The Lacedaemonians
also marched out to Caryae; but the frontier sacrifices again proving
unfavourable, they went back again, and the Argives, after ravaging about a
third of the Epidaurian territory, returned home. Meanwhile a thousand Athenian
heavy infantry had come to their aid under the command of Alcibiades, but
finding that the Lacedaemonian expedition was at an end, and that they were no
longer wanted, went back again.
So
passed the summer. The next winter the Lacedaemonians managed to elude the
vigilance of the Athenians, and sent in a garrison of three hundred men to
Epidaurus, under the command of Agesippidas. Upon this the Argives went to the
Athenians and complained of their having allowed an enemy to pass by sea, in
spite of the clause in the treaty by which the allies were not to allow an
enemy to pass through their country. Unless, therefore, they now put the
Messenians and Helots in Pylos to annoy the Lacedaemonians, they, the Argives,
should consider that faith had not been kept with them. The Athenians were
persuaded by Alcibiades to inscribe at the bottom of the Laconian pillar that
the Lacedaemonians had not kept their oaths, and to convey the Helots at Cranii
to Pylos to plunder the country; but for the rest they remained quiet as
before. During this winter hostilities went on between the Argives and
Epidaurians, without any pitched battle taking place, but only forays and
ambuscades, in which the losses were small and fell now on one side and now on
the other. At the close of the winter, towards the beginning of spring, the
Argives went with scaling ladders to Epidaurus, expecting to find it left
unguarded on account of the war and to be able to take it by assault, but
returned unsuccessful. And the winter ended, and with it the thirteenth year of
the war ended also.
In
the middle of the next summer the Lacedaemonians, seeing the Epidaurians, their
allies, in distress, and the rest of Peloponnese either in revolt or
disaffected, concluded that it was high time for them to interfere if they
wished to stop the progress of the evil, and accordingly with their full force,
the Helots included, took the field against Argos, under the command of Agis,
son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. The Tegeans and the other
Arcadian allies of Lacedaemon joined in the expedition. The allies from the
rest of Peloponnese and from outside mustered at Phlius; the Boeotians with
five thousand heavy infantry and as many light troops, and five hundred horse
and the same number of dismounted troopers; the Corinthians with two thousand
heavy infantry; the rest more or less as might happen; and the Phliasians with
all their forces, the army being in their country.
The
preparations of the Lacedaemonians from the first had been known to the
Argives, who did not, however, take the field until the enemy was on his road
to join the rest at Phlius. Reinforced by the Mantineans with their allies, and
by three thousand Elean heavy infantry, they advanced and fell in with the
Lacedaemonians at Methydrium in Arcadia. Each party took up its position upon a
hill, and the Argives prepared to engage the Lacedaemonians while they were
alone; but Agis eluded them by breaking up his camp in the night, and proceeded
to join the rest of the allies at Phlius. The Argives discovering this at
daybreak, marched first to Argos and then to the Nemean road, by which they
expected the Lacedaemonians and their allies would come down. However, Agis,
instead of taking this road as they expected, gave the Lacedaemonians,
Arcadians, and Epidaurians their orders, and went along another difficult road,
and descended into the plain of Argos. The Corinthians, Pellenians, and
Phliasians marched by another steep road; while the Boeotians, Megarians, and
Sicyonians had instructions to come down by the Nemean road where the Argives
were posted, in order that, if the enemy advanced into the plain against the
troops of Agis, they might fall upon his rear with their cavalry. These
dispositions concluded, Agis invaded the plain and began to ravage Saminthus
and other places.
Discovering
this, the Argives came up from Nemea, day having now dawned. On their way they
fell in with the troops of the Phliasians and Corinthians, and killed a few of
the Phliasians and had perhaps a few more of their own men killed by the
Corinthians. Meanwhile the Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians, advancing upon
Nemea according to their instructions, found the Argives no longer there, as
they had gone down on seeing their property ravaged, and were now forming for
battle, the Lacedaemonians imitating their example. The Argives were now
completely surrounded; from the plain the Lacedaemonians and their allies shut
them off from their city; above them were the Corinthians, Phliasians, and
Pellenians; and on the side of Nemea the Boeotians, Sicyonians, and Megarians.
Meanwhile their army was without cavalry, the Athenians alone among the allies
not having yet arrived. Now the bulk of the Argives and their allies did not
see the danger of their position, but thought that they could not have a fairer
field, having intercepted the Lacedaemonians in their own country and close to
the city. Two men, however, in the Argive army, Thrasylus, one of the five
generals, and Alciphron, the Lacedaemonian proxenus, just as the armies were
upon the point of engaging, went and held a parley with Agis and urged him not
to bring on a battle, as the Argives were ready to refer to fair and equal
arbitration whatever complaints the Lacedaemonians might have against them, and
to make a treaty and live in peace in future.
The
Argives who made these statements did so upon their own authority, not by order
of the people, and Agis on his accepted their proposals, and without himself
either consulting the majority, simply communicated the matter to a single
individual, one of the high officers accompanying the expedition, and granted
the Argives a truce for four months, in which to fulfil their promises; after
which he immediately led off the army without giving any explanation to any of
the other allies. The Lacedaemonians and allies followed their general out of
respect for the law, but amongst themselves loudly blamed Agis for going away
from so fair a field (the enemy being hemmed in on every side by infantry and
cavalry) without having done anything worthy of their strength. Indeed this was
by far the finest Hellenic army ever yet brought together; and it should have
been seen while it was still united at Nemea, with the Lacedaemonians in full
force, the Arcadians, Boeotians, Corinthians, Sicyonians, Pellenians,
Phliasians and Megarians, and all these the flower of their respective
populations, thinking themselves a match not merely for the Argive confederacy,
but for another such added to it. The army thus retired blaming Agis, and
returned every man to his home. The Argives however blamed still more loudly
the persons who had concluded the truce without consulting the people,
themselves thinking that they had let escape with the Lacedaemonians an
opportunity such as they should never see again; as the struggle would have
been under the walls of their city, and by the side of many and brave allies.
On their return accordingly they began to stone Thrasylus in the bed of the
Charadrus, where they try all military causes before entering the city.
Thrasylus fled to the altar, and so saved his life; his property however they
confiscated.
After
this arrived a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and three hundred horse, under the
command of Laches and Nicostratus; whom the Argives, being nevertheless loath
to break the truce with the Lacedaemonians, begged to depart, and refused to
bring before the people, to whom they had a communication to make, until
compelled to do so by the entreaties of the Mantineans and Eleans, who were
still at Argos. The Athenians, by the mouth of Alcibiades their ambassador
there present, told the Argives and the allies that they had no right to make a
truce at all without the consent of their fellow confederates, and now that the
Athenians had arrived so opportunely the war ought to be resumed. These
arguments proving successful with the allies, they immediately marched upon
Orchomenos, all except the Argives, who, although they had consented like the
rest, stayed behind at first, but eventually joined the others. They now all
sat down and besieged Orchomenos, and made assaults upon it; one of their
reasons for desiring to gain this place being that hostages from Arcadia had
been lodged there by the Lacedaemonians. The Orchomenians, alarmed at the
weakness of their wall and the numbers of the enemy, and at the risk they ran
of perishing before relief arrived, capitulated upon condition of joining the
league, of giving hostages of their own to the Mantineans, and giving up those
lodged with them by the Lacedaemonians. Orchomenos thus secured, the allies now
consulted as to which of the remaining places they should attack next. The
Eleans were urgent for Lepreum; the Mantineans for Tegea; and the Argives and
Athenians giving their support to the Mantineans, the Eleans went home in a
rage at their not having voted for Lepreum; while the rest of the allies made
ready at Mantinea for going against Tegea, which a party inside had arranged to
put into their hands.
Meanwhile
the Lacedaemonians, upon their return from Argos after concluding the four
months' truce, vehemently blamed Agis for not having subdued Argos, after an
opportunity such as they thought they had never had before; for it was no easy
matter to bring so many and so good allies together. But when the news arrived
of the capture of Orchomenos, they became more angry than ever, and, departing
from all precedent, in the heat of the moment had almost decided to raze his
house, and to fine him ten thousand drachmae. Agis however entreated them to do
none of these things, promising to atone for his fault by good service in the
field, failing which they might then do to him whatever they pleased; and they
accordingly abstained from razing his house or fining him as they had
threatened to do, and now made a law, hitherto unknown at Lacedaemon, attaching
to him ten Spartans as counsellors, without whose consent he should have no
power to lead an army out of the city.
At
this juncture arrived word from their friends in Tegea that, unless they
speedily appeared, Tegea would go over from them to the Argives and their
allies, if it had not gone over already. Upon this news a force marched out
from Lacedaemon, of the Spartans and Helots and all their people, and that
instantly and upon a scale never before witnessed. Advancing to Orestheum in
Maenalia, they directed the Arcadians in their league to follow close after
them to Tegea, and, going on themselves as far as Orestheum, from thence sent
back the sixth part of the Spartans, consisting of the oldest and youngest men,
to guard their homes, and with the rest of their army arrived at Tegea; where
their Arcadian allies soon after joined them. Meanwhile they sent to Corinth,
to the Boeotians, the Phocians, and Locrians, with orders to come up as quickly
as possible to Mantinea. These had but short notice; and it was not easy except
all together, and after waiting for each other, to pass through the enemy's
country, which lay right across and blocked up the line of communication.
Nevertheless they made what haste they could. Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians with
the Arcadian allies that had joined them, entered the territory of Mantinea,
and encamping near the temple of Heracles began to plunder the country.
Here
they were seen by the Argives and their allies, who immediately took up a
strong and difficult position, and formed in order of battle. The
Lacedaemonians at once advanced against them, and came on within a stone's
throw or javelin's cast, when one of the older men, seeing the enemy's position
to be a strong one, hallooed to Agis that he was minded to cure one evil with
another; meaning that he wished to make amends for his retreat, which had been
so much blamed, from Argos, by his present untimely precipitation. Meanwhile
Agis, whether in consequence of this halloo or of some sudden new idea of his
own, quickly led back his army without engaging, and entering the Tegean
territory, began to turn off into that of Mantinea the water about which the
Mantineans and Tegeans are always fighting, on account of the extensive damage
it does to whichever of the two countries it falls into. His object in this was
to make the Argives and their allies come down from the hill, to resist the
diversion of the water, as they would be sure to do when they knew of it, and
thus to fight the battle in the plain. He accordingly stayed that day where he
was, engaged in turning off the water. The Argives and their allies were at
first amazed at the sudden retreat of the enemy after advancing so near, and
did not know what to make of it; but when he had gone away and disappeared,
without their having stirred to pursue him, they began anew to find fault with
their generals, who had not only let the Lacedaemonians get off before, when
they were so happily intercepted before Argos, but who now again allowed them
to run away, without any one pursuing them, and to escape at their leisure
while the Argive army was leisurely betrayed.
The
generals, half-stunned for the moment, afterwards led them down from the hill,
and went forward and encamped in the plain, with the intention of attacking the
enemy.
The
next day the Argives and their allies formed in the order in which they meant
to fight, if they chanced to encounter the enemy; and the Lacedaemonians returning
from the water to their old encampment by the temple of Heracles, suddenly saw
their adversaries close in front of them, all in complete order, and advanced
from the hill. A shock like that of the present moment the Lacedaemonians do
not ever remember to have experienced: there was scant time for preparation, as
they instantly and hastily fell into their ranks, Agis, their king, directing
everything, agreeably to the law. For when a king is in the field all commands
proceed from him: he gives the word to the Polemarchs; they to the Lochages;
these to the Pentecostyes; these again to the Enomotarchs, and these last to
the Enomoties. In short all orders required pass in the same way and quickly
reach the troops; as almost the whole Lacedaemonian army, save for a small
part, consists of officers under officers, and the care of what is to be done
falls upon many.
In
this battle the left wing was composed of the Sciritae, who in a Lacedaemonian
army have always that post to themselves alone; next to these were the soldiers
of Brasidas from Thrace, and the Neodamodes with them; then came the
Lacedaemonians themselves, company after company, with the Arcadians of Heraea
at their side. After these were the Maenalians, and on the right wing the
Tegeans with a few of the Lacedaemonians at the extremity; their cavalry being
posted upon the two wings. Such was the Lacedaemonian formation. That of their
opponents was as follows: On the right were the Mantineans, the action taking
place in their country; next to them the allies from Arcadia; after whom came
the thousand picked men of the Argives, to whom the state had given a long
course of military training at the public expense; next to them the rest of the
Argives, and after them their allies, the Cleonaeans and Orneans, and lastly
the Athenians on the extreme left, and lastly the Athenians on the extreme
left, and their own cavalry with them.
Such
were the order and the forces of the two combatants. The Lacedaemonian army
looked the largest; though as to putting down the numbers of either host, or of
the contingents composing it, I could not do so with any accuracy. Owing to the
secrecy of their government the number of the Lacedaemonians was not known, and
men are so apt to brag about the forces of their country that the estimate of
their opponents was not trusted. The following calculation, however, makes it
possible to estimate the numbers of the Lacedaemonians present upon this
occasion. There were seven companies in the field without counting the
Sciritae, who numbered six hundred men: in each company there were four
Pentecostyes, and in the Pentecosty four Enomoties. The first rank of the
Enomoty was composed of four soldiers: as to the depth, although they had not
been all drawn up alike, but as each captain chose, they were generally ranged
eight deep; the first rank along the whole line, exclusive of the Sciritae,
consisted of four hundred and forty-eight men.
The
armies being now on the eve of engaging, each contingent received some words of
encouragement from its own commander. The Mantineans were, reminded that they
were going to fight for their country and to avoid returning to the experience
of servitude after having tasted that of empire; the Argives, that they would
contend for their ancient supremacy, to regain their once equal share of
Peloponnese of which they had been so long deprived, and to punish an enemy and
a neighbour for a thousand wrongs; the Athenians, of the glory of gaining the
honours of the day with so many and brave allies in arms, and that a victory
over the Lacedaemonians in Peloponnese would cement and extend their empire,
and would besides preserve Attica from all invasions in future. These were the
incitements addressed to the Argives and their allies. The Lacedaemonians
meanwhile, man to man, and with their war-songs in the ranks, exhorted each
brave comrade to remember what he had learnt before; well aware that the long
training of action was of more saving virtue than any brief verbal exhortation,
though never so well delivered.
After
this they joined battle, the Argives and their allies advancing with haste and
fury, the Lacedaemonians slowly and to the music of many flute-players- a
standing institution in their army, that has nothing to do with religion, but
is meant to make them advance evenly, stepping in time, without break their
order, as large armies are apt to do in the moment of engaging.
Just
before the battle joined, King Agis resolved upon the following manoeuvre. All
armies are alike in this: on going into action they get forced out rather on
their right wing, and one and the other overlap with this adversary's left;
because fear makes each man do his best to shelter his unarmed side with the
shield of the man next him on the right, thinking that the closer the shields
are locked together the better will he be protected. The man primarily
responsible for this is the first upon the right wing, who is always striving
to withdraw from the enemy his unarmed side; and the same apprehension makes
the rest follow him. On the present occasion the Mantineans reached with their
wing far beyond the Sciritae, and the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans still farther
beyond the Athenians, as their army was the largest. Agis, afraid of his left
being surrounded, and thinking that the Mantineans outflanked it too far,
ordered the Sciritae and Brasideans to move out from their place in the ranks
and make the line even with the Mantineans, and told the Polemarchs Hipponoidas
and Aristocles to fill up the gap thus formed, by throwing themselves into it
with two companies taken from the right wing; thinking that his right would
still be strong enough and to spare, and that the line fronting the Mantineans
would gain in solidity.
However,
as he gave these orders in the moment of the onset, and at short notice, it so
happened that Aristocles and Hipponoidas would not move over, for which offence
they were afterwards banished from Sparta, as having been guilty of cowardice;
and the enemy meanwhile closed before the Sciritae (whom Agis on seeing that the
two companies did not move over ordered to return to their place) had time to
fill up the breach in question. Now it was, however, that the Lacedaemonians,
utterly worsted in respect of skill, showed themselves as superior in point of
courage. As soon as they came to close quarters with the enemy, the Mantinean
right broke their Sciritae and Brasideans, and, bursting in with their allies
and the thousand picked Argives into the unclosed breach in their line, cut up
and surrounded the Lacedaemonians, and drove them in full rout to the wagons,
slaying some of the older men on guard there. But the Lacedaemonians, worsted
in this part of the field, with the rest of their army, and especially the
centre, where the three hundred knights, as they are called, fought round King
Agis, fell on the older men of the Argives and the five companies so named, and
on the Cleonaeans, the Orneans, and the Athenians next them, and instantly
routed them; the greater number not even waiting to strike a blow, but giving
way the moment that they came on, some even being trodden under foot, in their
fear of being overtaken by their assailants.
The
army of the Argives and their allies, having given way in this quarter, was now
completely cut in two, and the Lacedaemonian and Tegean right simultaneously
closing round the Athenians with the troops that outflanked them, these last
found themselves placed between two fires, being surrounded on one side and
already defeated on the other. Indeed they would have suffered more severely
than any other part of the army, but for the services of the cavalry which they
had with them. Agis also on perceiving the distress of his left opposed to the
Mantineans and the thousand Argives, ordered all the army to advance to the
support of the defeated wing; and while this took place, as the enemy moved
past and slanted away from them, the Athenians escaped at their leisure, and
with them the beaten Argive division. Meanwhile the Mantineans and their allies
and the picked body of the Argives ceased to press the enemy, and seeing their
friends defeated and the Lacedaemonians in full advance upon them, took to
flight. Many of the Mantineans perished; but the bulk of the picked body of the
Argives made good their escape. The flight and retreat, however, were neither
hurried nor long; the Lacedaemonians fighting long and stubbornly until the
rout of their enemy, but that once effected, pursuing for a short time and not
far.
Such
was the battle, as nearly as possible as I have described it; the greatest that
had occurred for a very long while among the Hellenes, and joined by the most
considerable states. The Lacedaemonians took up a position in front of the
enemy's dead, and immediately set up a trophy and stripped the slain; they took
up their own dead and carried them back to Tegea, where they buried them, and
restored those of the enemy under truce. The Argives, Orneans, and Cleonaeans
had seven hundred killed; the Mantineans two hundred, and the Athenians and
Aeginetans also two hundred, with both their generals. On the side of the
Lacedaemonians, the allies did not suffer any loss worth speaking of: as to the
Lacedaemonians themselves it was difficult to learn the truth; it is said,
however, that there were slain about three hundred of them.
While
the battle was impending, Pleistoanax, the other king, set out with a
reinforcement composed of the oldest and youngest men, and got as far as Tegea,
where he heard of the victory and went back again. The Lacedaemonians also sent
and turned back the allies from Corinth and from beyond the Isthmus, and
returning themselves dismissed their allies, and kept the Carnean holidays,
which happened to be at that time. The imputations cast upon them by the
Hellenes at the time, whether of cowardice on account of the disaster in the
island, or of mismanagement and slowness generally, were all wiped out by this
single action: fortune, it was thought, might have humbled them, but the men
themselves were the same as ever.
The
day before this battle, the Epidaurians with all their forces invaded the
deserted Argive territory, and cut off many of the guards left there in the
absence of the Argive army. After the battle three thousand Elean heavy
infantry arriving to aid the Mantineans, and a reinforcement of one thousand
Athenians, all these allies marched at once against Epidaurus, while the
Lacedaemonians were keeping the Carnea, and dividing the work among them began
to build a wall round the city. The rest left off; but the Athenians finished
at once the part assigned to them round Cape Heraeum; and having all joined in
leaving a garrison in the fortification in question, they returned to their
respective cities.
Summer
now came to an end. In the first days of the next winter, when the Carnean
holidays were over, the Lacedaemonians took the field, and arriving at Tegea
sent on to Argos proposals of accommodation. They had before had a party in the
town desirous of overthrowing the democracy; and after the battle that had been
fought, these were now far more in a position to persuade the people to listen
to terms. Their plan was first to make a treaty with the Lacedaemonians, to be
followed by an alliance, and after this to fall upon the commons. Lichas, son
of Arcesilaus, the Argive proxenus, accordingly arrived at Argos with two
proposals from Lacedaemon, to regulate the conditions of war or peace,
according as they preferred the one or the other. After much discussion,
Alcibiades happening to be in the town, the Lacedaemonian party, who now
ventured to act openly, persuaded the Argives to accept the proposal for
accommodation; which ran as follows:
The assembly of the Lacedaemonians
agrees to treat with the Argives upon the terms following:
1. The Argives shall restore to the
Orchomenians their children, and to the Maenalians their men, and shall restore
the men they have in Mantinea to the Lacedaemonians.
2. They shall evacuate Epidaurus, and
raze the fortification there. If the Athenians refuse to withdraw from
Epidaurus, they shall be declared enemies of the Argives and of the Lacedaemonians,
and of the allies of the Lacedaemonians and the allies of the Argives.
3. If the Lacedaemonians have any
children in their custody, they shall restore them every one to his city.
4. As to the offering to the god, the
Argives, if they wish, shall impose an oath upon the Epidaurians, but, if not,
they shall swear it themselves.
5. All the cities in Peloponnese, both
small and great, shall be independent according to the customs of their
country.
6. If any of the powers outside
Peloponnese invade Peloponnesian territory, the parties contracting shall unite
to repel them, on such terms as they may agree upon, as being most fair for the
Peloponnesians.
7. All allies of the Lacedaemonians
outside Peloponnese shall be on the same footing as the Lacedaemonians, and the
allies of the Argives shall be on the same footing as the Argives, being left
in enjoyment of their own possessions.
8.
This treaty shall be shown to the allies, and shall be concluded, if they
approve; if the allies think fit, they may send the treaty to be considered at
home.
The
Argives began by accepting this proposal, and the Lacedaemonian army returned
home from Tegea. After this intercourse was renewed between them, and not long
afterwards the same party contrived that the Argives should give up the league
with the Mantineans, Eleans, and Athenians, and should make a treaty and
alliance with the Lacedaemonians; which was consequently done upon the terms
following:
The Lacedaemonians and Argives agree to
a treaty and alliance for fifty years upon the terms following:
1. All disputes shall be decided by
fair and impartial arbitration, agreeably to the customs of the two countries.
2. The rest of the cities in
Peloponnese may be included in this treaty and alliance, as independent and
sovereign, in full enjoyment of what they possess, all disputes being decided
by fair and impartial arbitration, agreeably to the customs of the said cities.
3. All allies of the Lacedaemonians
outside Peloponnese shall be upon the same footing as the Lacedaemonians
themselves, and the allies of the Argives shall be upon the same footing as the
Argives themselves, continuing to enjoy what they possess.
4. If it shall be anywhere necessary to
make an expedition in common, the Lacedaemonians and Argives shall consult upon
it and decide, as may be most fair for the allies.
5. If any of the cities, whether inside
or outside Peloponnese, have a question whether of frontiers or otherwise, it
must be settled, but if one allied city should have a quarrel with another
allied city, it must be referred to some third city thought impartial by both
parties. Private citizens shall have their disputes decided according to the
laws of their several countries.
The
treaty and above alliance concluded, each party at once released everything
whether acquired by war or otherwise, and thenceforth acting in common voted to
receive neither herald nor embassy from the Athenians unless they evacuated
their forts and withdrew from Peloponnese, and also to make neither peace nor
war with any, except jointly. Zeal was not wanting: both parties sent envoys to
the Thracian places and to Perdiccas, and persuaded the latter to join their
league. Still he did not at once break off from Athens, although minded to do
so upon seeing the way shown him by Argos, the original home of his family.
They also renewed their old oaths with the Chalcidians and took new ones: the
Argives, besides, sent ambassadors to the Athenians, bidding them evacuate the
fort at Epidaurus. The Athenians, seeing their own men outnumbered by the rest
of the garrison, sent Demosthenes to bring them out. This general, under colour
of a gymnastic contest which he arranged on his arrival, got the rest of the
garrison out of the place, and shut the gates behind them. Afterwards the
Athenians renewed their treaty with the Epidaurians, and by themselves gave up
the fortress.
After
the defection of Argos from the league, the Mantineans, though they held out at
first, in the end finding themselves powerless without the Argives, themselves
too came to terms with Lacedaemon, and gave up their sovereignty over the
towns. The Lacedaemonians and Argives, each a thousand strong, now took the
field together, and the former first went by themselves to Sicyon and made the
government there more oligarchical than before, and then both, uniting, put
down the democracy at Argos and set up an oligarchy favourable to Lacedaemon.
These events occurred at the close of the winter, just before spring; and the
fourteenth year of the war ended. The next summer the people of Dium, in Athos,
revolted from the Athenians to the Chalcidians, and the Lacedaemonians settled
affairs in Achaea in a way more agreeable to the interests of their country.
Meanwhile the popular party at Argos little by little gathered new consistency
and courage, and waited for the moment of the Gymnopaedic festival at
Lacedaemon, and then fell upon the oligarchs. After a fight in the city,
victory declared for the commons, who slew some of their opponents and banished
others. The Lacedaemonians for a long while let the messages of their friends
at Argos remain without effect. At last they put off the Gymnopaediae and
marched to their succour, but learning at Tegea the defeat of the oligarchs,
refused to go any further in spite of the entreaties of those who had escaped,
and returned home and kept the festival. Later on, envoys arrived with messages
from the Argives in the town and from the exiles, when the allies were also at
Sparta; and after much had been said on both sides, the Lacedaemonians decided
that the party in the town had done wrong, and resolved to march against Argos,
but kept delaying and putting off the matter. Meanwhile the commons at Argos,
in fear of the Lacedaemonians, began again to court the Athenian alliance,
which they were convinced would be of the greatest service to them; and
accordingly proceeded to build long walls to the sea, in order that in case of
a blockade by land; with the help of the Athenians they might have the
advantage of importing what they wanted by sea. Some of the cities in
Peloponnese were also privy to the building of these walls; and the Argives
with all their people, women and slaves not excepted, addressed themselves to
the work, while carpenters and masons came to them from Athens.
Summer
was now over. The winter following the Lacedaemonians, hearing of the walls
that were building, marched against Argos with their allies, the Corinthians
excepted, being also not without intelligence in the city itself; Agis, son of
Archidamus, their king, was in command. The intelligence which they counted
upon within the town came to nothing; they however took and razed the walls
which were being built, and after capturing the Argive town Hysiae and killing
all the freemen that fell into their hands, went back and dispersed every man
to his city. After this the Argives marched into Phlius and plundered it for
harbouring their exiles, most of whom had settled there, and so returned home.
The same winter the Athenians blockaded Macedonia, on the score of the league
entered into by Perdiccas with the Argives and Lacedaemonians, and also of his
breach of his engagements on the occasion of the expedition prepared by Athens
against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace and against Amphipolis,
under the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus, which had to be broken up mainly
because of his desertion. He was therefore proclaimed an enemy. And thus the
winter ended, and the fifteenth year of the war ended with it.
THE
next summer Alcibiades sailed with twenty ships to Argos and seized the
suspected persons still left of the Lacedaemonian faction to the number of
three hundred, whom the Athenians forthwith lodged in the neighbouring islands
of their empire. The Athenians also made an expedition against the isle of
Melos with thirty ships of their own, six Chian, and two Lesbian vessels,
sixteen hundred heavy infantry, three hundred archers, and twenty mounted
archers from Athens, and about fifteen hundred heavy infantry from the allies
and the islanders. The Melians are a colony of Lacedaemon that would not submit
to the Athenians like the other islanders, and at first remained neutral and
took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon the Athenians using violence
and plundering their territory, assumed an attitude of open hostility.
Cleomedes, son of Lycomedes, and Tisias, son of Tisimachus, the generals,
encamping in their territory with the above armament, before doing any harm to
their land, sent envoys to negotiate. These the Melians did not bring before
the people, but bade them state the object of their mission to the magistrates
and the few; upon which the Athenian envoys spoke as follows:
Athenians.
Since the negotiations are not to go on before the people, in order that we may
not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of
the multitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for
we know that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if
you who sit there were to pursue a method more cautious still? Make no set
speech yourselves, but take us up at whatever you do not like, and settle that
before going any farther. And first tell us if this proposition of ours suits
you.
The
Melian commissioners answered:
Melians.
To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there is
nothing to object; but your military preparations are too far advanced to agree
with what you say, as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and
that all we can reasonably expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to
have right on our side and refuse to submit, and in the contrary case, slavery.
Athenians.
If you have met to reason about presentiments of the future, or for anything
else than to consult for the safety of your state upon the facts that you see
before you, we will give over; otherwise we will go on.
Melians.
It is natural and excusable for men in our position to turn more ways than one
both in thought and utterance. However, the question in this conference is, as
you say, the safety of our country; and the discussion, if you please, can
proceed in the way which you propose.
Athenians.
For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences- either of how
we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now
attacking you because of wrong that you have done us- and make a long speech
which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of
thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians,
although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what
is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as
well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals
in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
Melians.
As we think, at any rate, it is expedient- we speak as we are obliged, since
you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest- that you should not
destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger
to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly
valid if they can be got to pass current. And you are as much interested in
this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an
example for the world to meditate upon.
Athenians.
The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire
like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible
to the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their
rulers. This, however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now
proceed to show you that we are come here in the interest of our empire, and
that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the preservation of your
country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble, and
see you preserved for the good of us both.
Melians.
And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?
Athenians.
Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst,
and we should gain by not destroying you.
Melians.
So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies,
but allies of neither side.
Athenians.
No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an
argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
Melians.
Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with
you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists,
and some conquered rebels?
Athenians.
As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if
any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we
do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our
empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are
islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you
should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea.
Melians.
But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate?
For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey
your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two
happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals
who shall look at case from it that one day or another you will attack them?
And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to
force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?
Athenians.
Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm; the
liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us;
it is rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects
smarting under the yoke, who would be the most likely to take a rash step and
lead themselves and us into obvious danger.
Melians.
Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to get
rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free
not to try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.
Athenians.
Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with honour as
the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of
not resisting those who are far stronger than you are.
Melians.
But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more impartial than the
disproportion of numbers might lead one to suppose; to submit is to give
ourselves over to despair, while action still preserves for us a hope that we
may stand erect.
Athenians.
Hope, danger's comforter, may be indulged in by those who have abundant
resources, if not without loss at all events without ruin; but its nature is to
be extravagant, and those who go so far as to put their all upon the venture
see it in its true colours only when they are ruined; but so long as the
discovery would enable them to guard against it, it is never found wanting. Let
not this be the case with you, who are weak and hang on a single turn of the
scale; nor be like the vulgar, who, abandoning such security as human means may
still afford, when visible hopes fail them in extremity, turn to invisible, to
prophecies and oracles, and other such inventions that delude men with hopes to
their destruction.
Melians.
You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of
contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we
trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just
men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by
the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are bound, if only for very shame, to
come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is not
so utterly irrational.
Athenians.
When you speak of the favour of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as yourselves;
neither our pretensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men
believe of the gods, or practise among themselves. Of the gods we believe, and
of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they
can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it
when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist for ever
after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else,
having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do. Thus, as far as
the gods are concerned, we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be
at a disadvantage. But when we come to your notion about the Lacedaemonians,
which leads you to believe that shame will make them help you, here we bless
your simplicity but do not envy your folly. The Lacedaemonians, when their own
interests or their country's laws are in question, are the worthiest men alive;
of their conduct towards others much might be said, but no clearer idea of it
could be given than by shortly saying that of all the men we know they are most
conspicuous in considering what is agreeable honourable, and what is expedient
just. Such a way of thinking does not promise much for the safety which you now
unreasonably count upon.
Melians.
But it is for this very reason that we now trust to their respect for
expediency to prevent them from betraying the Melians, their colonists, and
thereby losing the confidence of their friends in Hellas and helping their
enemies.
Athenians.
Then you do not adopt the view that expediency goes with security, while
justice and honour cannot be followed without danger; and danger the
Lacedaemonians generally court as little as possible.
Melians.
But we believe that they would be more likely to face even danger for our sake,
and with more confidence than for others, as our nearness to Peloponnese makes
it easier for them to act, and our common blood ensures our fidelity.
Athenians.
Yes, but what an intending ally trusts to is not the goodwill of those who ask
his aid, but a decided superiority of power for action; and the Lacedaemonians
look to this even more than others. At least, such is their distrust of their
home resources that it is only with numerous allies that they attack a neighbour;
now is it likely that while we are masters of the sea they will cross over to
an island?
Melians.
But they would have others to send. The Cretan Sea is a wide one, and it is
more difficult for those who command it to intercept others, than for those who
wish to elude them to do so safely. And should the Lacedaemonians miscarry in
this, they would fall upon your land, and upon those left of your allies whom
Brasidas did not reach; and instead of places which are not yours, you will
have to fight for your own country and your own confederacy.
Athenians.
Some diversion of the kind you speak of you may one day experience, only to
learn, as others have done, that the Athenians never once yet withdrew from a
siege for fear of any. But we are struck by the fact that, after saying you
would consult for the safety of your country, in all this discussion you have
mentioned nothing which men might trust in and think to be saved by. Your
strongest arguments depend upon hope and the future, and your actual resources
are too scanty, as compared with those arrayed against you, for you to come out
victorious. You will therefore show great blindness of judgment, unless, after
allowing us to retire, you can find some counsel more prudent than this. You
will surely not be caught by that idea of disgrace, which in dangers that are
disgraceful, and at the same time too plain to be mistaken, proves so fatal to
mankind; since in too many cases the very men that have their eyes perfectly
open to what they are rushing into, let the thing called disgrace, by the mere
influence of a seductive name, lead them on to a point at which they become so
enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall wilfully into hopeless disaster, and
incur disgrace more disgraceful as the companion of error, than when it comes
as the result of misfortune. This, if you are well advised, you will guard
against; and you will not think it dishonourable to submit to the greatest city
in Hellas, when it makes you the moderate offer of becoming its tributary ally,
without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to you; nor when you have the
choice given you between war and security, will you be so blinded as to choose
the worse. And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who
keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on
the whole succeed best. Think over the matter, therefore, after our withdrawal,
and reflect once and again that it is for your country that you are consulting,
that you have not more than one, and that upon this one deliberation depends
its prosperity or ruin.
The
Athenians now withdrew from the conference; and the Melians, left to
themselves, came to a decision corresponding with what they had maintained in
the discussion, and answered: "Our resolution, Athenians, is the same as
it was at first. We will not in a moment deprive of freedom a city that has
been inhabited these seven hundred years; but we put our trust in the fortune
by which the gods have preserved it until now, and in the help of men, that is,
of the Lacedaemonians; and so we will try and save ourselves. Meanwhile we
invite you to allow us to be friends to you and foes to neither party, and to
retire from our country after making such a treaty as shall seem fit to us
both."
Such
was the answer of the Melians. The Athenians now departing from the conference
said: "Well, you alone, as it seems to us, judging from these resolutions,
regard what is future as more certain than what is before your eyes, and what
is out of sight, in your eagerness, as already coming to pass; and as you have
staked most on, and trusted most in, the Lacedaemonians, your fortune, and your
hopes, so will you be most completely deceived."
The
Athenian envoys now returned to the army; and the Melians showing no signs of
yielding, the generals at once betook themselves to hostilities, and drew a
line of circumvallation round the Melians, dividing the work among the
different states. Subsequently the Athenians returned with most of their army,
leaving behind them a certain number of their own citizens and of the allies to
keep guard by land and sea. The force thus left stayed on and besieged the
place.
About
the same time the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius and lost eighty men
cut off in an ambush by the Phliasians and Argive exiles. Meanwhile the
Athenians at Pylos took so much plunder from the Lacedaemonians that the
latter, although they still refrained from breaking off the treaty and going to
war with Athens, yet proclaimed that any of their people that chose might
plunder the Athenians. The Corinthians also commenced hostilities with the
Athenians for private quarrels of their own; but the rest of the Peloponnesians
stayed quiet. Meanwhile the Melians attacked by night and took the part of the
Athenian lines over against the market, and killed some of the men, and brought
in corn and all else that they could find useful to them, and so returned and
kept quiet, while the Athenians took measures to keep better guard in future.
Summer
was now over. The next winter the Lacedaemonians intended to invade the Argive
territory, but arriving at the frontier found the sacrifices for crossing
unfavourable, and went back again. This intention of theirs gave the Argives
suspicions of certain of their fellow citizens, some of whom they arrested;
others, however, escaped them. About the same time the Melians again took
another part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned.
Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the
command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed vigorously;
and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion
to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold
the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred
colonists and inhabited the place themselves.
The Sixth Book.
THE
same winter the Athenians resolved to sail again to Sicily, with a greater
armament than that under Laches and Eurymedon, and, if possible, to conquer the
island; most of them being ignorant of its size and of the number of its
inhabitants, Hellenic and barbarian, and of the fact that they were undertaking
a war not much inferior to that against the Peloponnesians. For the voyage
round Sicily in a merchantman is not far short of eight days; and yet, large as
the island is, there are only two miles of sea to prevent its being mainland.
It
was settled originally as follows, and the peoples that occupied it are these.
The earliest inhabitants spoken of in any part of the country are the Cyclopes
and Laestrygones; but I cannot tell of what race they were, or whence they came
or whither they went, and must leave my readers to what the poets have said of
them and to what may be generally known concerning them. The Sicanians appear
to have been the next settlers, although they pretend to have been the first of
all and aborigines; but the facts show that they were Iberians, driven by the
Ligurians from the river Sicanus in Iberia. It was from them that the island,
before called Trinacria, took its name of Sicania, and to the present day they
inhabit the west of Sicily. On the fall of Ilium, some of the Trojans escaped
from the Achaeans, came in ships to Sicily, and settled next to the Sicanians
under the general name of Elymi; their towns being called Eryx and Egesta. With
them settled some of the Phocians carried on their way from Troy by a storm,
first to Libya, and afterwards from thence to Sicily. The Sicels crossed over
to Sicily from their first home Italy, flying from the Opicans, as tradition
says and as seems not unlikely, upon rafts, having watched till the wind set
down the strait to effect the passage; although perhaps they may have sailed
over in some other way. Even at the present day there are still Sicels in
Italy; and the country got its name of Italy from Italus, a king of the Sicels,
so called. These went with a great host to Sicily, defeated the Sicanians in
battle and forced them to remove to the south and west of the island, which
thus came to be called Sicily instead of Sicania, and after they crossed over
continued to enjoy the richest parts of the country for near three hundred
years before any Hellenes came to Sicily; indeed they still hold the centre and
north of the island. There were also Phoenicians living all round Sicily, who
had occupied promontories upon the sea coasts and the islets adjacent for the
purpose of trading with the Sicels. But when the Hellenes began to arrive in
considerable numbers by sea, the Phoenicians abandoned most of their stations,
and drawing together took up their abode in Motye, Soloeis, and Panormus, near
the Elymi, partly because they confided in their alliance, and also because
these are the nearest points for the voyage between Carthage and Sicily.
These
were the barbarians in Sicily, settled as I have said. Of the Hellenes, the
first to arrive were Chalcidians from Euboea with Thucles, their founder. They
founded Naxos and built the altar to Apollo Archegetes, which now stands
outside the town, and upon which the deputies for the games sacrifice before
sailing from Sicily. Syracuse was founded the year afterwards by Archias, one
of the Heraclids from Corinth, who began by driving out the Sicels from the
island upon which the inner city now stands, though it is no longer surrounded
by water: in process of time the outer town also was taken within the walls and
became populous. Meanwhile Thucles and the Chalcidians set out from Naxos in
the fifth year after the foundation of Syracuse, and drove out the Sicels by
arms and founded Leontini and afterwards Catana; the Catanians themselves
choosing Evarchus as their founder.
About
the same time Lamis arrived in Sicily with a colony from Megara, and after
founding a place called Trotilus beyond the river Pantacyas, and afterwards
leaving it and for a short while joining the Chalcidians at Leontini, was
driven out by them and founded Thapsus. After his death his companions were
driven out of Thapsus, and founded a place called the Hyblaean Megara; Hyblon,
a Sicel king, having given up the place and inviting them thither. Here they
lived two hundred and forty-five years; after which they were expelled from the
city and the country by the Syracusan tyrant Gelo. Before their expulsion,
however, a hundred years after they had settled there, they sent out Pamillus
and founded Selinus; he having come from their mother country Megara to join
them in its foundation. Gela was founded by Antiphemus from Rhodes and Entimus
from Crete, who joined in leading a colony thither, in the forty-fifth year
after the foundation of Syracuse. The town took its name from the river Gelas,
the place where the citadel now stands, and which was first fortified, being
called Lindii. The institutions which they adopted were Dorian. Near one
hundred and eight years after the foundation of Gela, the Geloans founded
Acragas (Agrigentum), so called from the river of that name, and made
Aristonous and Pystilus their founders; giving their own institutions to the
colony. Zancle was originally founded by pirates from Cuma, the Chalcidian town
in the country of the Opicans: afterwards, however, large numbers came from
Chalcis and the rest of Euboea, and helped to people the place; the founders
being Perieres and Crataemenes from Cuma and Chalcis respectively. It first had
the name of Zancle given it by the Sicels, because the place is shaped like a
sickle, which the Sicels call zanclon; but upon the original settlers being
afterwards expelled by some Samians and other Ionians who landed in Sicily
flying from the Medes, and the Samians in their turn not long afterwards by
Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium, the town was by him colonized with a mixed
population, and its name changed to Messina, after his old country.
Himera
was founded from Zancle by Euclides, Simus, and Sacon, most of those who went
to the colony being Chalcidians; though they were joined by some exiles from
Syracuse, defeated in a civil war, called the Myletidae. The language was a
mixture of Chalcidian and Doric, but the institutions which prevailed were the
Chalcidian. Acrae and Casmenae were founded by the Syracusans; Acrae seventy
years after Syracuse, Casmenae nearly twenty after Acrae. Camarina was first
founded by the Syracusans, close upon a hundred and thirty-five years after the
building of Syracuse; its founders being Daxon and Menecolus. But the
Camarinaeans being expelled by arms by the Syracusans for having revolted,
Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, some time later receiving their land in ransom for
some Syracusan prisoners, resettled Camarina, himself acting as its founder.
Lastly, it was again depopulated by Gelo, and settled once more for the third
time by the Geloans.
Such
is the list of the peoples, Hellenic and barbarian, inhabiting Sicily, and such
the magnitude of the island which the Athenians were now bent upon invading;
being ambitious in real truth of conquering the whole, although they had also
the specious design of succouring their kindred and other allies in the island.
But they were especially incited by envoys from Egesta, who had come to Athens
and invoked their aid more urgently than ever. The Egestaeans had gone to war
with their neighbours the Selinuntines upon questions of marriage and disputed
territory, and the Selinuntines had procured the alliance of the Syracusans,
and pressed Egesta hard by land and sea. The Egestaeans now reminded the
Athenians of the alliance made in the time of Laches, during the former Leontine
war, and begged them to send a fleet to their aid, and among a number of other
considerations urged as a capital argument that if the Syracusans were allowed
to go unpunished for their depopulation of Leontini, to ruin the allies still
left to Athens in Sicily, and to get the whole power of the island into their
hands, there would be a danger of their one day coming with a large force, as
Dorians, to the aid of their Dorian brethren, and as colonists, to the aid of
the Peloponnesians who had sent them out, and joining these in pulling down the
Athenian empire. The Athenians would, therefore, do well to unite with the
allies still left to them, and to make a stand against the Syracusans;
especially as they, the Egestaeans, were prepared to furnish money sufficient
for the war. The Athenians, hearing these arguments constantly repeated in
their assemblies by the Egestaeans and their supporters, voted first to send
envoys to Egesta, to see if there was really the money that they talked of in
the treasury and temples, and at the same time to ascertain in what posture was
the war with the Selinuntines.
The
envoys of the Athenians were accordingly dispatched to Sicily. The same winter
the Lacedaemonians and their allies, the Corinthians excepted, marched into the
Argive territory, and ravaged a small part of the land, and took some yokes of
oxen and carried off some corn. They also settled the Argive exiles at Orneae,
and left them a few soldiers taken from the rest of the army; and after making
a truce for a certain while, according to which neither Orneatae nor Argives
were to injure each other's territory, returned home with the army. Not long
afterwards the Athenians came with thirty ships and six hundred heavy infantry,
and the Argives joining them with all their forces, marched out and besieged
the men in Orneae for one day; but the garrison escaped by night, the besiegers
having bivouacked some way off. The next day the Argives, discovering it, razed
Orneae to the ground, and went back again; after which the Athenians went home
in their ships. Meanwhile the Athenians took by sea to Methone on the
Macedonian border some cavalry of their own and the Macedonian exiles that were
at Athens, and plundered the country of Perdiccas. Upon this the Lacedaemonians
sent to the Thracian Chalcidians, who had a truce with Athens from one ten days
to another, urging them to join Perdiccas in the war, which they refused to do.
And the winter ended, and with it ended the sixteenth year of this war of which
Thucydides is the historian.
Early
in the spring of the following summer the Athenian envoys arrived from Sicily,
and the Egestaeans with them, bringing sixty talents of uncoined silver, as a
month's pay for sixty ships, which they were to ask to have sent them. The
Athenians held an assembly and, after hearing from the Egestaeans and their own
envoys a report, as attractive as it was untrue, upon the state of affairs
generally, and in particular as to the money, of which, it was said, there was
abundance in the temples and the treasury, voted to send sixty ships to Sicily,
under the command of Alcibiades, son of Clinias, Nicias, son of Niceratus, and
Lamachus, son of Xenophanes, who were appointed with full powers; they were to
help the Egestaeans against the Selinuntines, to restore Leontini upon gaining
any advantage in the war, and to order all other matters in Sicily as they
should deem best for the interests of Athens. Five days after this a second
assembly was held, to consider the speediest means of equipping the ships, and to
vote whatever else might be required by the generals for the expedition; and
Nicias, who had been chosen to the command against his will, and who thought
that the state was not well advised, but upon a slight aid specious pretext was
aspiring to the conquest of the whole of Sicily, a great matter to achieve,
came forward in the hope of diverting the Athenians from the enterprise, and
gave them the following counsel:
"Although
this assembly was convened to consider the preparations to be made for sailing to
Sicily, I think, notwithstanding, that we have still this question to examine,
whether it be better to send out the ships at all, and that we ought not to
give so little consideration to a matter of such moment, or let ourselves be
persuaded by foreigners into undertaking a war with which we have nothing to
do. And yet, individually, I gain in honour by such a course, and fear as
little as other men for my person- not that I think a man need be any the worse
citizen for taking some thought for his person and estate; on the contrary,
such a man would for his own sake desire the prosperity of his country more
than others- nevertheless, as I have never spoken against my convictions to
gain honour, I shall not begin to do so now, but shall say what I think best.
Against your character any words of mine would be weak enough, if I were to
advise your keeping what you have got and not risking what is actually yours
for advantages which are dubious in themselves, and which you may or may not
attain. I will, therefore, content myself with showing that your ardour is out
of season, and your ambition not easy of accomplishment.
"I
affirm, then, that you leave many enemies behind you here to go yonder and
bring more back with you. You imagine, perhaps, that the treaty which you have
made can be trusted; a treaty that will continue to exist nominally, as long as
you keep quiet- for nominal it has become, owing to the practices of certain
men here and at Sparta- but which in the event of a serious reverse in any
quarter would not delay our enemies a moment in attacking us; first, because
the convention was forced upon them by disaster and was less honourable to them
than to us; and secondly, because in this very convention there are many points
that are still disputed. Again, some of the most powerful states have never yet
accepted the arrangement at all. Some of these are at open war with us; others
(as the Lacedaemonians do not yet move) are restrained by truces renewed every
ten days, and it is only too probable that if they found our power divided, as
we are hurrying to divide it, they would attack us vigorously with the
Siceliots, whose alliance they would have in the past valued as they would that
of few others. A man ought, therefore, to consider these points, and not to
think of running risks with a country placed so critically, or of grasping at
another empire before we have secured the one we have already; for in fact the
Thracian Chalcidians have been all these years in revolt from us without being
yet subdued, and others on the continents yield us but a doubtful obedience.
Meanwhile the Egestaeans, our allies, have been wronged, and we run to help
them, while the rebels who have so long wronged us still wait for punishment.
"And
yet the latter, if brought under, might be kept under; while the Sicilians,
even if conquered, are too far off and too numerous to be ruled without
difficulty. Now it is folly to go against men who could not be kept under even
if conquered, while failure would leave us in a very different position from
that which we occupied before the enterprise. The Siceliots, again, to take
them as they are at present, in the event of a Syracusan conquest (the
favourite bugbear of the Egestaeans), would to my thinking be even less
dangerous to us than before. At present they might possibly come here as
separate states for love of Lacedaemon; in the other case one empire would
scarcely attack another; for after joining the Peloponnesians to overthrow
ours, they could only expect to see the same hands overthrow their own in the
same way. The Hellenes in Sicily would fear us most if we never went there at
all, and next to this, if after displaying our power we went away again as soon
as possible. We all know that that which is farthest off, and the reputation of
which can least be tested, is the object of admiration; at the least reverse
they would at once begin to look down upon us, and would join our enemies here
against us. You have yourselves experienced this with regard to the
Lacedaemonians and their allies, whom your unexpected success, as compared with
what you feared at first, has made you suddenly despise, tempting you further
to aspire to the conquest of Sicily. Instead, however, of being puffed up by
the misfortunes of your adversaries, you ought to think of breaking their
spirit before giving yourselves up to confidence, and to understand that the
one thought awakened in the Lacedaemonians by their disgrace is how they may
even now, if possible, overthrow us and repair their dishonour; inasmuch as military
reputation is their oldest and chiefest study. Our struggle, therefore, if we
are wise, will not be for the barbarian Egestaeans in Sicily, but how to defend
ourselves most effectually against the oligarchical machinations of Lacedaemon.
"We
should also remember that we are but now enjoying some respite from a great
pestilence and from war, to the no small benefit of our estates and persons,
and that it is right to employ these at home on our own behalf, instead of
using them on behalf of these exiles whose interest it is to lie as fairly as
they can, who do nothing but talk themselves and leave the danger to others,
and who if they succeed will show no proper gratitude, and if they fail will
drag down their friends with them. And if there be any man here, overjoyed at
being chosen to command, who urges you to make the expedition, merely for ends
of his own- specially if he be still too young to command- who seeks to be
admired for his stud of horses, but on account of its heavy expenses hopes for
some profit from his appointment, do not allow such a one to maintain his
private splendour at his country's risk, but remember that such persons injure
the public fortune while they squander their own, and that this is a matter of
importance, and not for a young man to decide or hastily to take in hand.
"When
I see such persons now sitting here at the side of that same individual and
summoned by him, alarm seizes me; and I, in my turn, summon any of the older
men that may have such a person sitting next him not to let himself be shamed
down, for fear of being thought a coward if he do not vote for war, but,
remembering how rarely success is got by wishing and how often by forecast, to
leave to them the mad dream of conquest, and as a true lover of his country,
now threatened by the greatest danger in its history, to hold up his hand on
the other side; to vote that the Siceliots be left in the limits now existing
between us, limits of which no one can complain (the Ionian sea for the
coasting voyage, and the Sicilian across the open main), to enjoy their own
possessions and to settle their own quarrels; that the Egestaeans, for their
part, be told to end by themselves with the Selinuntines the war which they
began without consulting the Athenians; and that for the future we do not enter
into alliance, as we have been used to do, with people whom we must help in
their need, and who can never help us in ours.
"And
you, Prytanis, if you think it your duty to care for the commonwealth, and if
you wish to show yourself a good citizen, put the question to the vote, and
take a second time the opinions of the Athenians. If you are afraid to move the
question again, consider that a violation of the law cannot carry any prejudice
with so many abettors, that you will be the physician of your misguided city,
and that the virtue of men in office is briefly this, to do their country as
much good as they can, or in any case no harm that they can avoid."
Such
were the words of Nicias. Most of the Athenians that came forward spoke in
favour of the expedition, and of not annulling what had been voted, although
some spoke on the other side. By far the warmest advocate of the expedition
was, however, Alcibiades, son of Clinias, who wished to thwart Nicias both as
his political opponent and also because of the attack he had made upon him in
his speech, and who was, besides, exceedingly ambitious of a command by which
he hoped to reduce Sicily and Carthage, and personally to gain in wealth and
reputation by means of his successes. For the position he held among the
citizens led him to indulge his tastes beyond what his real means would bear,
both in keeping horses and in the rest of his expenditure; and this later on
had not a little to do with the ruin of the Athenian state. Alarmed at the
greatness of his licence in his own life and habits, and of the ambition which
he showed in all things soever that he undertook, the mass of the people set
him down as a pretender to the tyranny, and became his enemies; and although
publicly his conduct of the war was as good as could be desired, individually,
his habits gave offence to every one, and caused them to commit affairs to
other hands, and thus before long to ruin the city. Meanwhile he now came
forward and gave the following advice to the Athenians:
"Athenians,
I have a better right to command than others- I must begin with this as Nicias
has attacked me- and at the same time I believe myself to be worthy of it. The
things for which I am abused, bring fame to my ancestors and to myself, and to
the country profit besides. The Hellenes, after expecting to see our city
ruined by the war, concluded it to be even greater than it really is, by reason
of the magnificence with which I represented it at the Olympic games, when I
sent into the lists seven chariots, a number never before entered by any
private person, and won the first prize, and was second and fourth, and took
care to have everything else in a style worthy of my victory. Custom regards
such displays as honourable, and they cannot be made without leaving behind
them an impression of power. Again, any splendour that I may have exhibited at
home in providing choruses or otherwise, is naturally envied by my fellow
citizens, but in the eyes of foreigners has an air of strength as in the other
instance. And this is no useless folly, when a man at his own private cost
benefits not himself only, but his city: nor is it unfair that he who prides
himself on his position should refuse to be upon an equality with the rest. He
who is badly off has his misfortunes all to himself, and as we do not see men
courted in adversity, on the like principle a man ought to accept the insolence
of prosperity; or else, let him first mete out equal measure to all, and then
demand to have it meted out to him. What I know is that persons of this kind
and all others that have attained to any distinction, although they may be
unpopular in their lifetime in their relations with their fellow-men and
especially with their equals, leave to posterity the desire of claiming connection
with them even without any ground, and are vaunted by the country to which they
belonged, not as strangers or ill-doers, but as fellow-countrymen and heroes.
Such are my aspirations, and however I am abused for them in private, the
question is whether any one manages public affairs better than I do. Having
united the most powerful states of Peloponnese, without great danger or expense
to you, I compelled the Lacedaemonians to stake their all upon the issue of a
single day at Mantinea; and although victorious in the battle, they have never
since fully recovered confidence.
"Thus
did my youth and so-called monstrous folly find fitting arguments to deal with
the power of the Peloponnesians, and by its ardour win their confidence and
prevail. And do not be afraid of my youth now, but while I am still in its
flower, and Nicias appears fortunate, avail yourselves to the utmost of the
services of us both. Neither rescind your resolution to sail to Sicily, on the
ground that you would be going to attack a great power. The cities in Sicily
are peopled by motley rabbles, and easily change their institutions and adopt
new ones in their stead; and consequently the inhabitants, being without any
feeling of patriotism, are not provided with arms for their persons, and have
not regularly established themselves on the land; every man thinks that either
by fair words or by party strife he can obtain something at the public expense,
and then in the event of a catastrophe settle in some other country, and makes
his preparations accordingly. From a mob like this you need not look for either
unanimity in counsel or concert in action; but they will probably one by one
come in as they get a fair offer, especially if they are torn by civil strife
as we are told. Moreover, the Siceliots have not so many heavy infantry as they
boast; just as the Hellenes generally did not prove so numerous as each state
reckoned itself, but Hellas greatly over-estimated their numbers, and has
hardly had an adequate force of heavy infantry throughout this war. The states
in Sicily, therefore, from all that I can hear, will be found as I say, and I
have not pointed out all our advantages, for we shall have the help of many
barbarians, who from their hatred of the Syracusans will join us in attacking
them; nor will the powers at home prove any hindrance, if you judge rightly.
Our fathers with these very adversaries, which it is said we shall now leave
behind us when we sail, and the Mede as their enemy as well, were able to win
the empire, depending solely on their superiority at sea. The Peloponnesians
had never so little hope against us as at present; and let them be ever so
sanguine, although strong enough to invade our country even if we stay at home,
they can never hurt us with their navy, as we leave one of our own behind us
that is a match for them.
"In
this state of things what reason can we give to ourselves for holding back, or
what excuse can we offer to our allies in Sicily for not helping them? They are
our confederates, and we are bound to assist them, without objecting that they
have not assisted us. We did not take them into alliance to have them to help
us in Hellas, but that they might so annoy our enemies in Sicily as to prevent
them from coming over here and attacking us. It is thus that empire has been
won, both by us and by all others that have held it, by a constant readiness to
support all, whether barbarians or Hellenes, that invite assistance; since if
all were to keep quiet or to pick and choose whom they ought to assist, we should
make but few new conquests, and should imperil those we have already won. Men
do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike
the first blow to prevent the attack being made. And we cannot fix the exact
point at which our empire shall stop; we have reached a position in which we
must not be content with retaining but must scheme to extend it, for, if we
cease to rule others, we are in danger of being ruled ourselves. Nor can you
look at inaction from the same point of view as others, unless you are prepared
to change your habits and make them like theirs.
"Be
convinced, then, that we shall augment our power at home by this adventure
abroad, and let us make the expedition, and so humble the pride of the
Peloponnesians by sailing off to Sicily, and letting them see how little we
care for the peace that we are now enjoying; and at the same time we shall
either become masters, as we very easily may, of the whole of Hellas through
the accession of the Sicilian Hellenes, or in any case ruin the Syracusans, to
the no small advantage of ourselves and our allies. The faculty of staying if
successful, or of returning, will be secured to us by our navy, as we shall be
superior at sea to all the Siceliots put together. And do not let the
do-nothing policy which Nicias advocates, or his setting of the young against
the old, turn you from your purpose, but in the good old fashion by which our
fathers, old and young together, by their united counsels brought our affairs
to their present height, do you endeavour still to advance them; understanding
that neither youth nor old age can do anything the one without the other, but
that levity, sobriety, and deliberate judgment are strongest when united, and
that, by sinking into inaction, the city, like everything else, will wear
itself out, and its skill in everything decay; while each fresh struggle will
give it fresh experience, and make it more used to defend itself not in word
but in deed. In short, my conviction is that a city not inactive by nature
could not choose a quicker way to ruin itself than by suddenly adopting such a
policy, and that the safest rule of life is to take one's character and
institutions for better and for worse, and to live up to them as closely as one
can."
Such
were the words of Alcibiades. After hearing him and the Egestaeans and some
Leontine exiles, who came forward reminding them of their oaths and imploring
their assistance, the Athenians became more eager for the expedition than
before. Nicias, perceiving that it would be now useless to try to deter them by
the old line of argument, but thinking that he might perhaps alter their
resolution by the extravagance of his estimates, came forward a second time and
spoke as follows:
"I
see, Athenians, that you are thoroughly bent upon the expedition, and therefore
hope that all will turn out as we wish, and proceed to give you my opinion at
the present juncture. From all that I hear we are going against cities that are
great and not subject to one another, or in need of change, so as to be glad to
pass from enforced servitude to an easier condition, or in the least likely to
accept our rule in exchange for freedom; and, to take only the Hellenic towns,
they are very numerous for one island. Besides Naxos and Catana, which I expect
to join us from their connection with Leontini, there are seven others armed at
all points just like our own power, particularly Selinus and Syracuse, the
chief objects of our expedition. These are full of heavy infantry, archers, and
darters, have galleys in abundance and crowds to man them; they have also
money, partly in the hands of private persons, partly in the temples at
Selinus, and at Syracuse first-fruits from some of the barbarians as well. But
their chief advantage over us lies in the number of their horses, and in the
fact that they grow their corn at home instead of importing it.
"Against
a power of this kind it will not do to have merely a weak naval armament, but
we shall want also a large land army to sail with us, if we are to do anything
worthy of our ambition, and are not to be shut out from the country by a
numerous cavalry; especially if the cities should take alarm and combine, and
we should be left without friends (except the Egestaeans) to furnish us with
horse to defend ourselves with. It would be disgraceful to have to retire under
compulsion, or to send back for reinforcements, owing to want of reflection at
first: we must therefore start from home with a competent force, seeing that we
are going to sail far from our country, and upon an expedition not like any
which you may undertaken undertaken the quality of allies, among your subject
states here in Hellas, where any additional supplies needed were easily drawn
from the friendly territory; but we are cutting ourselves off, and going to a
land entirely strange, from which during four months in winter it is not even
easy for a messenger get to Athens.
"I
think, therefore, that we ought to take great numbers of heavy infantry, both
from Athens and from our allies, and not merely from our subjects, but also any
we may be able to get for love or for money in Peloponnese, and great numbers
also of archers and slingers, to make head against the Sicilian horse.
Meanwhile we must have an overwhelming superiority at sea, to enable us the
more easily to carry in what we want; and we must take our own corn in merchant
vessels, that is to say, wheat and parched barley, and bakers from the mills
compelled to serve for pay in the proper proportion; in order that in case of
our being weather-bound the armament may not want provisions, as it is not
every city that will be able to entertain numbers like ours. We must also
provide ourselves with everything else as far as we can, so as not to be
dependent upon others; and above all we must take with us from home as much
money as possible, as the sums talked of as ready at Egesta are readier, you
may be sure, in talk than in any other way.
"Indeed,
even if we leave Athens with a force not only equal to that of the enemy except
in the number of heavy infantry in the field, but even at all points superior
to him, we shall still find it difficult to conquer Sicily or save ourselves.
We must not disguise from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers
and enemies, and that he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared
to become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in this to
find everything hostile to him. Fearing this, and knowing that we shall have
need of much good counsel and more good fortune- a hard matter for mortal man
to aspire to- I wish as far as may be to make myself independent of fortune
before sailing, and when I do sail, to be as safe as a strong force can make
me. This I believe to be surest for the country at large, and safest for us who
are to go on the expedition. If any one thinks differently I resign to him my
command."
With
this Nicias concluded, thinking that he should either disgust the Athenians by
the magnitude of the undertaking, or, if obliged to sail on the expedition,
would thus do so in the safest way possible. The Athenians, however, far from
having their taste for the voyage taken away by the burdensomeness of the
preparations, became more eager for it than ever; and just the contrary took
place of what Nicias had thought, as it was held that he had given good advice,
and that the expedition would be the safest in the world. All alike fell in
love with the enterprise. The older men thought that they would either subdue
the places against which they were to sail, or at all events, with so large a
force, meet with no disaster; those in the prime of life felt a longing for
foreign sights and spectacles, and had no doubt that they should come safe home
again; while the idea of the common people and the soldiery was to earn wages
at the moment, and make conquests that would supply a never-ending fund of pay
for the future. With this enthusiasm of the majority, the few that liked it
not, feared to appear unpatriotic by holding up their hands against it, and so
kept quiet.
At
last one of the Athenians came forward and called upon Nicias and told him that
he ought not to make excuses or put them off, but say at once before them all
what forces the Athenians should vote him. Upon this he said, not without
reluctance, that he would advise upon that matter more at leisure with his
colleagues; as far however as he could see at present, they must sail with at
least one hundred galleys- the Athenians providing as many transports as they
might determine, and sending for others from the allies- not less than five
thousand heavy infantry in all, Athenian and allied, and if possible more; and
the rest of the armament in proportion; archers from home and from Crete, and
slingers, and whatever else might seem desirable, being got ready by the
generals and taken with them.
Upon
hearing this the Athenians at once voted that the generals should have full
powers in the matter of the numbers of the army and of the expedition
generally, to do as they judged best for the interests of Athens. After this
the preparations began; messages being sent to the allies and the rolls drawn
up at home. And as the city had just recovered from the plague and the long
war, and a number of young men had grown up and capital had accumulated by
reason of the truce, everything was the more easily provided.
In
the midst of these preparations all the stone Hermae in the city of Athens,
that is to say the customary square figures, so common in the doorways of
private houses and temples, had in one night most of them their fares
mutilated. No one knew who had done it, but large public rewards were offered
to find the authors; and it was further voted that any one who knew of any
other act of impiety having been committed should come and give information
without fear of consequences, whether he were citizen, alien, or slave. The
matter was taken up the more seriously, as it was thought to be ominous for the
expedition, and part of a conspiracy to bring about a revolution and to upset
the democracy.
Information
was given accordingly by some resident aliens and body servants, not about the
Hermae but about some previous mutilations of other images perpetrated by young
men in a drunken frolic, and of mock celebrations of the mysteries, averred to
take place in private houses. Alcibiades being implicated in this charge, it
was taken hold of by those who could least endure him, because he stood in the
way of their obtaining the undisturbed direction of the people, and who thought
that if he were once removed the first place would be theirs. These accordingly
magnified the matter and loudly proclaimed that the affair of the mysteries and
the mutilation of the Hermae were part and parcel of a scheme to overthrow the
democracy, and that nothing of all this had been done without Alcibiades; the
proofs alleged being the general and undemocratic licence of his life and
habits.
Alcibiades
repelled on the spot the charges in question, and also before going on the
expedition, the preparations for which were now complete, offered to stand his
trial, that it might be seen whether he was guilty of the acts imputed to him;
desiring to be punished if found guilty, but, if acquitted, to take the
command. Meanwhile he protested against their receiving slanders against him in
his absence, and begged them rather to put him to death at once if he were
guilty, and pointed out the imprudence of sending him out at the head of so
large an army, with so serious a charge still undecided. But his enemies feared
that he would have the army for him if he were tried immediately, and that the
people might relent in favour of the man whom they already caressed as the
cause of the Argives and some of the Mantineans joining in the expedition, and
did their utmost to get this proposition rejected, putting forward other
orators who said that he ought at present to sail and not delay the departure
of the army, and be tried on his return within a fixed number of days; their
plan being to have him sent for and brought home for trial upon some graver
charge, which they would the more easily get up in his absence. Accordingly it
was decreed that he should sail.
After
this the departure for Sicily took place, it being now about midsummer. Most of
the allies, with the corn transports and the smaller craft and the rest of the
expedition, had already received orders to muster at Corcyra, to cross the
Ionian Sea from thence in a body to the Iapygian promontory. But the Athenians
themselves, and such of their allies as happened to be with them, went down to
Piraeus upon a day appointed at daybreak, and began to man the ships for
putting out to sea. With them also went down the whole population, one may say,
of the city, both citizens and foreigners; the inhabitants of the country each
escorting those that belonged to them, their friends, their relatives, or their
sons, with hope and lamentation upon their way, as they thought of the
conquests which they hoped to make, or of the friends whom they might never see
again, considering the long voyage which they were going to make from their
country. Indeed, at this moment, when they were now upon the point of parting
from one another, the danger came more home to them than when they voted for
the expedition; although the strength of the armament, and the profuse
provision which they remarked in every department, was a sight that could not
but comfort them. As for the foreigners and the rest of the crowd, they simply
went to see a sight worth looking at and passing all belief.
Indeed
this armament that first sailed out was by far the most costly and splendid
Hellenic force that had ever been sent out by a single city up to that time. In
mere number of ships and heavy infantry that against Epidaurus under Pericles,
and the same when going against Potidaea under Hagnon, was not inferior;
containing as it did four thousand Athenian heavy infantry, three hundred
horse, and one hundred galleys accompanied by fifty Lesbian and Chian vessels
and many allies besides. But these were sent upon a short voyage and with a
scanty equipment. The present expedition was formed in contemplation of a long
term of service by land and sea alike, and was furnished with ships and troops
so as to be ready for either as required. The fleet had been elaborately
equipped at great cost to the captains and the state; the treasury giving a
drachma a day to each seaman, and providing empty ships, sixty men-of-war and
forty transports, and manning these with the best crews obtainable; while the
captains gave a bounty in addition to the pay from the treasury to the
thranitae and crews generally, besides spending lavishly upon figure-heads and
equipments, and one and all making the utmost exertions to enable their own
ships to excel in beauty and fast sailing. Meanwhile the land forces had been
picked from the best muster-rolls, and vied with each other in paying great
attention to their arms and personal accoutrements. From this resulted not only
a rivalry among themselves in their different departments, but an idea among
the rest of the Hellenes that it was more a display of power and resources than
an armament against an enemy. For if any one had counted up the public
expenditure of the state, and the private outlay of individuals- that is to
say, the sums which the state had already spent upon the expedition and was
sending out in the hands of the generals, and those which individuals had
expended upon their personal outfit, or as captains of galleys had laid out and
were still to lay out upon their vessels; and if he had added to this the
journey money which each was likely to have provided himself with,
independently of the pay from the treasury, for a voyage of such length, and
what the soldiers or traders took with them for the purpose of exchange- it
would have been found that many talents in all were being taken out of the
city. Indeed the expedition became not less famous for its wonderful boldness
and for the splendour of its appearance, than for its overwhelming strength as
compared with the peoples against whom it was directed, and for the fact that
this was the longest passage from home hitherto attempted, and the most
ambitious in its objects considering the resources of those who undertook it.
The
ships being now manned, and everything put on board with which they meant to
sail, the trumpet commanded silence, and the prayers customary before putting
out to sea were offered, not in each ship by itself, but by all together to the
voice of a herald; and bowls of wine were mixed through all the armament, and
libations made by the soldiers and their officers in gold and silver goblets.
In their prayers joined also the crowds on shore, the citizens and all others
that wished them well. The hymn sung and the libations finished, they put out
to sea, and first out in column then raced each other as far as Aegina, and so
hastened to reach Corcyra, where the rest of the allied forces were also
assembling.
MEANWHILE
at Syracuse news came in from many quarters of the expedition, but for a long
while met with no credence whatever. Indeed, an assembly was held in which
speeches, as will be seen, were delivered by different orators, believing or
contradicting the report of the Athenian expedition; among whom Hermocrates,
son of Hermon, came forward, being persuaded that he knew the truth of the
matter, and gave the following counsel:
"Although
I shall perhaps be no better believed than others have been when I speak upon
the reality of the expedition, and although I know that those who either make
or repeat statements thought not worthy of belief not only gain no converts but
are thought fools for their pains, I shall certainly not be frightened into
holding my tongue when the state is in danger, and when I am persuaded that I
can speak with more authority on the matter than other persons. Much as you
wonder at it, the Athenians nevertheless have set out against us with a large
force, naval and military, professedly to help the Egestaeans and to restore
Leontini, but really to conquer Sicily, and above all our city, which once
gained, the rest, they think, will easily follow. Make up your minds,
therefore, to see them speedily here, and see how you can best repel them with
the means under your hand, and do be taken off your guard through despising the
news, or neglect the common weal through disbelieving it. Meanwhile those who
believe me need not be dismayed at the force or daring of the enemy. They will
not be able to do us more hurt than we shall do them; nor is the greatness of
their armament altogether without advantage to us. Indeed, the greater it is
the better, with regard to the rest of the Siceliots, whom dismay will make
more ready to join us; and if we defeat or drive them away, disappointed of the
objects of their ambition (for I do not fear for a moment that they will get
what they want), it will be a most glorious exploit for us, and in my judgment
by no means an unlikely one. Few indeed have been the large armaments, either
Hellenic or barbarian, that have gone far from home and been successful. They
cannot be more numerous than the people of the country and their neighbours,
all of whom fear leagues together; and if they miscarry for want of supplies in
a foreign land, to those against whom their plans were laid none the less they
leave renown, although they may themselves have been the main cause of their
own discomfort. Thus these very Athenians rose by the defeat of the Mede, in a
great measure due to accidental causes, from the mere fact that Athens had been
the object of his attack; and this may very well be the case with us also.
"Let
us, therefore, confidently begin preparations here; let us send and confirm
some of the Sicels, and obtain the friendship and alliance of others, and
dispatch envoys to the rest of Sicily to show that the danger is common to all,
and to Italy to get them to become our allies, or at all events to refuse to
receive the Athenians. I also think that it would be best to send to Carthage
as well; they are by no means there without apprehension, but it is their
constant fear that the Athenians may one day attack their city, and they may
perhaps think that they might themselves suffer by letting Sicily be
sacrificed, and be willing to help us secretly if not openly, in one way if not
in another. They are the best able to do so, if they will, of any of the
present day, as they possess most gold and silver, by which war, like
everything else, flourishes. Let us also send to Lacedaemon and Corinth, and
ask them to come here and help us as soon as possible, and to keep alive the
war in Hellas. But the true thing of all others, in my opinion, to do at the
present moment, is what you, with your constitutional love of quiet, will be
slow to see, and what I must nevertheless mention. If we Siceliots, all
together, or at least as many as possible besides ourselves, would only launch
the whole of our actual navy with two months' provisions, and meet the
Athenians at Tarentum and the Iapygian promontory, and show them that before
fighting for Sicily they must first fight for their passage across the Ionian
Sea, we should strike dismay into their army, and set them on thinking that we
have a base for our defensive- for Tarentum is ready to receive us- while they
have a wide sea to cross with all their armament, which could with difficulty
keep its order through so long a voyage, and would be easy for us to attack as
it came on slowly and in small detachments. On the other hand, if they were to
lighten their vessels, and draw together their fast sailers and with these
attack us, we could either fall upon them when they were wearied with rowing,
or if we did not choose to do so, we could retire to Tarentum; while they,
having crossed with few provisions just to give battle, would be hard put to it
in desolate places, and would either have to remain and be blockaded, or to try
to sail along the coast, abandoning the rest of their armament, and being
further discouraged by not knowing for certain whether the cities would receive
them. In my opinion this consideration alone would be sufficient to deter them
from putting out from Corcyra; and what with deliberating and reconnoitring our
numbers and whereabouts, they would let the season go on until winter was upon
them, or, confounded by so unexpected a circumstance, would break up the
expedition, especially as their most experienced general has, as I hear, taken
the command against his will, and would grasp at the first excuse offered by
any serious demonstration of ours. We should also be reported, I am certain, as
more numerous than we really are, and men's minds are affected by what they
hear, and besides the first to attack, or to show that they mean to defend
themselves against an attack, inspire greater fear because men see that they
are ready for the emergency. This would just be the case with the Athenians at
present. They are now attacking us in the belief that we shall not resist,
having a right to judge us severely because we did not help the Lacedaemonians
in crushing them; but if they were to see us showing a courage for which they
are not prepared, they would be more dismayed by the surprise than they could
ever be by our actual power. I could wish to persuade you to show this courage;
but if this cannot be, at all events lose not a moment in preparing generally
for the war; and remember all of you that contempt for an assailant is best
shown by bravery in action, but that for the present the best course is to
accept the preparations which fear inspires as giving the surest promise of
safety, and to act as if the danger was real. That the Athenians are coming to
attack us, and are already upon the voyage, and all but here- this is what I am
sure of."
Thus
far spoke Hermocrates. Meanwhile the people of Syracuse were at great strife among
themselves; some contending that the Athenians had no idea of coming and that
there was no truth in what he said; some asking if they did come what harm they
could do that would not be repaid them tenfold in return; while others made
light of the whole affair and turned it into ridicule. In short, there were few
that believed Hermocrates and feared for the future. Meanwhile Athenagoras, the
leader of the people and very powerful at that time with the masses, came
forward and spoke as follows:
"For
the Athenians, he who does not wish that they may be as misguided as they are
supposed to be, and that they may come here to become our subjects, is either a
coward or a traitor to his country; while as for those who carry such tidings
and fill you with so much alarm, I wonder less at their audacity than at their
folly if they flatter themselves that we do not see through them. The fact is
that they have their private reasons to be afraid, and wish to throw the city
into consternation to have their own terrors cast into the shade by the public
alarm. In short, this is what these reports are worth; they do not arise of
themselves, but are concocted by men who are always causing agitation here in
Sicily. However, if you are well advised, you will not be guided in your
calculation of probabilities by what these persons tell you, but by what shrewd
men and of large experience, as I esteem the Athenians to be, would be likely
to do. Now it is not likely that they would leave the Peloponnesians behind
them, and before they have well ended the war in Hellas wantonly come in quest
of a new war quite as arduous in Sicily; indeed, in my judgment, they are only
too glad that we do not go and attack them, being so many and so great cities
as we are.
"However,
if they should come as is reported, I consider Sicily better able to go through
with the war than Peloponnese, as being at all points better prepared, and our
city by itself far more than a match for this pretended army of invasion, even
were it twice as large again. I know that they will not have horses with them,
or get any here, except a few perhaps from the Egestaeans; or be able to bring
a force of heavy infantry equal in number to our own, in ships which will
already have enough to do to come all this distance, however lightly laden, not
to speak of the transport of the other stores required against a city of this
magnitude, which will be no slight quantity. In fact, so strong is my opinion
upon the subject, that I do not well see how they could avoid annihilation if
they brought with them another city as large as Syracuse, and settled down and
carried on war from our frontier; much less can they hope to succeed with all
Sicily hostile to them, as all Sicily will be, and with only a camp pitched
from the ships, and composed of tents and bare necessaries, from which they
would not be able to stir far for fear of our cavalry.
"But
the Athenians see this as I tell you, and as I have reason to know are looking
after their possessions at home, while persons here invent stories that neither
are true nor ever will be. Nor is this the first time that I see these persons,
when they cannot resort to deeds, trying by such stories and by others even
more abominable to frighten your people and get into their hands the
government: it is what I see always. And I cannot help fearing that trying so
often they may one day succeed, and that we, as long as we do not feel the
smart, may prove too weak for the task of prevention, or, when the offenders
are known, of pursuit. The result is that our city is rarely at rest, but is
subject to constant troubles and to contests as frequent against herself as
against the enemy, not to speak of occasional tyrannies and infamous cabals.
However, I will try, if you will support me, to let nothing of this happen in
our time, by gaining you, the many, and by chastising the authors of such
machinations, not merely when they are caught in the act- a difficult feat to
accomplish- but also for what they have the wish though not the power to do; as
it is necessary to punish an enemy not only for what he does, but also
beforehand for what he intends to do, if the first to relax precaution would
not be also the first to suffer. I shall also reprove, watch, and on occasion
warn the few- the most effectual way, in my opinion, of turning them from their
evil courses. And after all, as I have often asked, what would you have, young
men? Would you hold office at once? The law forbids it, a law enacted rather
because you are not competent than to disgrace you when competent. Meanwhile
you would not be on a legal equality with the many! But how can it be right
that citizens of the same state should be held unworthy of the same
privileges? "It will be said,
perhaps, that democracy is neither wise nor equitable, but that the holders of
property are also the best fitted to rule. I say, on the contrary, first, that
the word demos, or people, includes the whole state, oligarchy only a part;
next, that if the best guardians of property are the rich, and the best
counsellors the wise, none can hear and decide so well as the many; and that
all these talents, severally and collectively, have their just place in a
democracy. But an oligarchy gives the many their share of the danger, and not
content with the largest part takes and keeps the whole of the profit; and this
is what the powerful and young among you aspire to, but in a great city cannot
possibly obtain.
"But
even now, foolish men, most senseless of all the Hellenes that I know, if you
have no sense of the wickedness of your designs, or most criminal if you have
that sense and still dare to pursue them- even now, if it is not a case for
repentance, you may still learn wisdom, and thus advance the interest of the
country, the common interest of us all. Reflect that in the country's
prosperity the men of merit in your ranks will have a share and a larger share
than the great mass of your fellow countrymen, but that if you have other
designs you run a risk of being deprived of all; and desist from reports like
these, as the people know your object and will not put up with it. If the
Athenians arrive, this city will repulse them in a manner worthy of itself; we
have moreover, generals who will see to this matter. And if nothing of this be
true, as I incline to believe, the city will not be thrown into a panic by your
intelligence, or impose upon itself a self-chosen servitude by choosing you for
its rulers; the city itself will look into the matter, and will judge your
words as if they were acts, and, instead of allowing itself to be deprived of
its liberty by listening to you, will strive to preserve that liberty, by
taking care to have always at hand the means of making itself respected."
Such
were the words of Athenagoras. One of the generals now stood up and stopped any
other speakers coming forward, adding these words of his own with reference to
the matter in hand: "It is not well for speakers to utter calumnies
against one another, or for their hearers to entertain them; we ought rather to
look to the intelligence that we have received, and see how each man by himself
and the city as a whole may best prepare to repel the invaders. Even if there
be no need, there is no harm in the state being furnished with horses and arms
and all other insignia of war; and we will undertake to see to and order this,
and to send round to the cities to reconnoitre and do all else that may appear
desirable. Part of this we have seen to already, and whatever we discover shall
be laid before you." After these words from the general, the Syracusans
departed from the assembly.
In
the meantime the Athenians with all their allies had now arrived at Corcyra.
Here the generals began by again reviewing the armament, and made arrangements
as to the order in which they were to anchor and encamp, and dividing the whole
fleet into three divisions, allotted one to each of their number, to avoid
sailing all together and being thus embarrassed for water, harbourage, or
provisions at the stations which they might touch at, and at the same time to
be generally better ordered and easier to handle, by each squadron having its
own commander. Next they sent on three ships to Italy and Sicily to find out
which of the cities would receive them, with instructions to meet them on the
way and let them know before they put in to land.
After
this the Athenians weighed from Corcyra, and proceeded to cross to Sicily with
an armament now consisting of one hundred and thirty-four galleys in all
(besides two Rhodian fifty-oars), of which one hundred were Athenian vessels-
sixty men-of-war, and forty troopships- and the remainder from Chios and the
other allies; five thousand and one hundred heavy infantry in all, that is to
say, fifteen hundred Athenian citizens from the rolls at Athens and seven
hundred Thetes shipped as marines, and the rest allied troops, some of them
Athenian subjects, and besides these five hundred Argives, and two hundred and
fifty Mantineans serving for hire; four hundred and eighty archers in all,
eighty of whom were Cretans, seven hundred slingers from Rhodes, one hundred
and twenty light-armed exiles from Megara, and one horse-transport carrying
thirty horses.
Such
was the strength of the first armament that sailed over for the war. The
supplies for this force were carried by thirty ships of burden laden with corn,
which conveyed the bakers, stone-masons, and carpenters, and the tools for
raising fortifications, accompanied by one hundred boats, like the former
pressed into the service, besides many other boats and ships of burden which
followed the armament voluntarily for purposes of trade; all of which now left
Corcyra and struck across the Ionian Sea together. The whole force making land
at the Iapygian promontory and Tarentum, with more or less good fortune,
coasted along the shores of Italy, the cities shutting their markets and gates
against them, and according them nothing but water and liberty to anchor, and
Tarentum and Locri not even that, until they arrived at Rhegium, the extreme
point of Italy. Here at length they reunited, and not gaining admission within
the walls pitched a camp outside the city in the precinct of Artemis, where a
market was also provided for them, and drew their ships on shore and kept
quiet. Meanwhile they opened negotiations with the Rhegians, and called upon
them as Chalcidians to assist their Leontine kinsmen; to which the Rhegians
replied that they would not side with either party, but should await the
decision of the rest of the Italiots, and do as they did. Upon this the
Athenians now began to consider what would be the best action to take in the
affairs of Sicily, and meanwhile waited for the ships sent on to come back from
Egesta, in order to know whether there was really there the money mentioned by
the messengers at Athens.
In
the meantime came in from all quarters to the Syracusans, as well as from their
own officers sent to reconnoitre, the positive tidings that the fleet was at
Rhegium; upon which they laid aside their incredulity and threw themselves
heart and soul into the work of preparation. Guards or envoys, as the case
might be, were sent round to the Sicels, garrisons put into the posts of the
Peripoli in the country, horses and arms reviewed in the city to see that
nothing was wanting, and all other steps taken to prepare for a war which might
be upon them at any moment.
Meanwhile
the three ships that had been sent on came from Egesta to the Athenians at
Rhegium, with the news that so far from there being the sums promised, all that
could be produced was thirty talents. The generals were not a little
disheartened at being thus disappointed at the outset, and by the refusal to
join in the expedition of the Rhegians, the people they had first tried to gain
and had had had most reason to count upon, from their relationship to the
Leontines and constant friendship for Athens. If Nicias was prepared for the
news from Egesta, his two colleagues were taken completely by surprise. The
Egestaeans had had recourse to the following stratagem, when the first envoys
from Athens came to inspect their resources. They took the envoys in question
to the temple of Aphrodite at Eryx and showed them the treasures deposited
there: bowls, wine-ladles, censers, and a large number of other pieces of
plate, which from being in silver gave an impression of wealth quite out of
proportion to their really small value. They also privately entertained the
ships' crews, and collected all the cups of gold and silver that they could
find in Egesta itself or could borrow in the neighbouring Phoenician and
Hellenic towns, and each brought them to the banquets as their own; and as all
used pretty nearly the same, and everywhere a great quantity of plate was
shown, the effect was most dazzling upon the Athenian sailors, and made them
talk loudly of the riches they had seen when they got back to Athens. The dupes
in question- who had in their turn persuaded the rest- when the news got abroad
that there was not the money supposed at Egesta, were much blamed by the
soldiers.
Meanwhile
the generals consulted upon what was to be done. The opinion of Nicias was to
sail with all the armament to Selinus, the main object of the expedition, and
if the Egestaeans could provide money for the whole force, to advise
accordingly; but if they could not, to require them to supply provisions for
the sixty ships that they had asked for, to stay and settle matters between
them and the Selinuntines either by force or by agreement, and then to coast
past the other cities, and after displaying the power of Athens and proving
their zeal for their friends and allies, to sail home again (unless they should
have some sudden and unexpected opportunity of serving the Leontines, or of
bringing over some of the other cities), and not to endanger the state by
wasting its home resources.
Alcibiades
said that a great expedition like the present must not disgrace itself by going
away without having done anything; heralds must be sent to all the cities
except Selinus and Syracuse, and efforts be made to make some of the Sicels
revolt from the Syracusans, and to obtain the friendship of others, in order to
have corn and troops; and first of all to gain the Messinese, who lay right in
the passage and entrance to Sicily, and would afford an excellent harbour and
base for the army. Thus, after bringing over the towns and knowing who would be
their allies in the war, they might at length attack Syracuse and Selinus;
unless the latter came to terms with Egesta and the former ceased to oppose the
restoration of Leontini.
Lamachus,
on the other hand, said that they ought to sail straight to Syracuse, and fight
their battle at once under the walls of the town while the people were still
unprepared, and the panic at its height. Every armament was most terrible at
first; if it allowed time to run on without showing itself, men's courage
revived, and they saw it appear at last almost with indifference. By attacking
suddenly, while Syracuse still trembled at their coming, they would have the
best chance of gaining a victory for themselves and of striking a complete
panic into the enemy by the aspect of their numbers- which would never appear
so considerable as at present- by the anticipation of coming disaster, and
above all by the immediate danger of the engagement. They might also count upon
surprising many in the fields outside, incredulous of their coming; and at the
moment that the enemy was carrying in his property the army would not want for
booty if it sat down in force before the city. The rest of the Siceliots would
thus be immediately less disposed to enter into alliance with the Syracusans,
and would join the Athenians, without waiting to see which were the strongest.
They must make Megara their naval station as a place to retreat to and a base
from which to attack: it was an uninhabited place at no great distance from
Syracuse either by land or by sea.
After
speaking to this effect, Lamachus nevertheless gave his support to the opinion
of Alcibiades. After this Alcibiades sailed in his own vessel across to Messina
with proposals of alliance, but met with no success, the inhabitants answering
that they could not receive him within their walls, though they would provide
him with a market outside. Upon this he sailed back to Rhegium. Immediately
upon his return the generals manned and victualled sixty ships out of the whole
fleet and coasted along to Naxos, leaving the rest of the armament behind them
at Rhegium with one of their number. Received by the Naxians, they then coasted
on to Catana, and being refused admittance by the inhabitants, there being a
Syracusan party in the town, went on to the river Terias. Here they bivouacked,
and the next day sailed in single file to Syracuse with all their ships except
ten which they sent on in front to sail into the great harbour and see if there
was any fleet launched, and to proclaim by herald from shipboard that the Athenians
were come to restore the Leontines to their country, as being their allies and
kinsmen, and that such of them, therefore, as were in Syracuse should leave it
without fear and join their friends and benefactors the Athenians. After making
this proclamation and reconnoitring the city and the harbours, and the features
of the country which they would have to make their base of operations in the
war, they sailed back to Catana.
An
assembly being held here, the inhabitants refused to receive the armament, but
invited the generals to come in and say what they desired; and while Alcibiades
was speaking and the citizens were intent on the assembly, the soldiers broke
down an ill-walled-up postern gate without being observed, and getting inside
the town, flocked into the marketplace. The Syracusan party in the town no
sooner saw the army inside than they became frightened and withdrew, not being
at all numerous; while the rest voted for an alliance with the Athenians and
invited them to fetch the rest of their forces from Rhegium. After this the
Athenians sailed to Rhegium, and put off, this time with all the armament, for
Catana, and fell to work at their camp immediately upon their arrival.
Meanwhile
word was brought them from Camarina that if they went there the town would go
over to them, and also that the Syracusans were manning a fleet. The Athenians
accordingly sailed alongshore with all their armament, first to Syracuse, where
they found no fleet manning, and so always along the coast to Camarina, where
they brought to at the beach, and sent a herald to the people, who, however,
refused to receive them, saying that their oaths bound them to receive the
Athenians only with a single vessel, unless they themselves sent for more.
Disappointed here, the Athenians now sailed back again, and after landing and
plundering on Syracusan territory and losing some stragglers from their light
infantry through the coming up of the Syracusan horse, so got back to Catana.
There
they found the Salaminia come from Athens for Alcibiades, with orders for him
to sail home to answer the charges which the state brought against him, and for
certain others of the soldiers who with him were accused of sacrilege in the
matter of the mysteries and of the Hermae. For the Athenians, after the
departure of the expedition, had continued as active as ever in investigating
the facts of the mysteries and of the Hermae, and, instead of testing the
informers, in their suspicious temper welcomed all indifferently, arresting and
imprisoning the best citizens upon the evidence of rascals, and preferring to
sift the matter to the bottom sooner than to let an accused person of good
character pass unquestioned, owing to the rascality of the informer. The
commons had heard how oppressive the tyranny of Pisistratus and his sons had
become before it ended, and further that that had been put down at last, not by
themselves and Harmodius, but by the Lacedaemonians, and so were always in fear
and took everything suspiciously.
Indeed,
the daring action of Aristogiton and Harmodius was undertaken in consequence of
a love affair, which I shall relate at some length, to show that the Athenians
are not more accurate than the rest of the world in their accounts of their own
tyrants and of the facts of their own history. Pisistratus dying at an advanced
age in possession of the tyranny, was succeeded by his eldest son, Hippias, and
not Hipparchus, as is vulgarly believed. Harmodius was then in the flower of
youthful beauty, and Aristogiton, a citizen in the middle rank of life, was his
lover and possessed him. Solicited without success by Hipparchus, son of
Pisistratus, Harmodius told Aristogiton, and the enraged lover, afraid that the
powerful Hipparchus might take Harmodius by force, immediately formed a design,
such as his condition in life permitted, for overthrowing the tyranny. In the
meantime Hipparchus, after a second solicitation of Harmodius, attended with no
better success, unwilling to use violence, arranged to insult him in some
covert way. Indeed, generally their government was not grievous to the
multitude, or in any way odious in practice; and these tyrants cultivated
wisdom and virtue as much as any, and without exacting from the Athenians more
than a twentieth of their income, splendidly adorned their city, and carried on
their wars, and provided sacrifices for the temples. For the rest, the city was
left in full enjoyment of its existing laws, except that care was always taken
to have the offices in the hands of some one of the family. Among those of them
that held the yearly archonship at Athens was Pisistratus, son of the tyrant
Hippias, and named after his grandfather, who dedicated during his term of
office the altar to the twelve gods in the market-place, and that of Apollo in
the Pythian precinct. The Athenian people afterwards built on to and lengthened
the altar in the market-place, and obliterated the inscription; but that in the
Pythian precinct can still be seen, though in faded letters, and is to the
following effect:
Pisistratus, the son of Hippias,
Sent up this record of his archonship
In precinct of Apollo Pythias.
That
Hippias was the eldest son and succeeded to the government, is what I
positively assert as a fact upon which I have had more exact accounts than
others, and may be also ascertained by the following circumstance. He is the
only one of the legitimate brothers that appears to have had children; as the
altar shows, and the pillar placed in the Athenian Acropolis, commemorating the
crime of the tyrants, which mentions no child of Thessalus or of Hipparchus,
but five of Hippias, which he had by Myrrhine, daughter of Callias, son of
Hyperechides; and naturally the eldest would have married first. Again, his
name comes first on the pillar after that of his father; and this too is quite
natural, as he was the eldest after him, and the reigning tyrant. Nor can I
ever believe that Hippias would have obtained the tyranny so easily, if
Hipparchus had been in power when he was killed, and he, Hippias, had had to
establish himself upon the same day; but he had no doubt been long accustomed
to overawe the citizens, and to be obeyed by his mercenaries, and thus not only
conquered, but conquered with ease, without experiencing any of the
embarrassment of a younger brother unused to the exercise of authority. It was
the sad fate which made Hipparchus famous that got him also the credit with
posterity of having been tyrant.
To
return to Harmodius; Hipparchus having been repulsed in his solicitations
insulted him as he had resolved, by first inviting a sister of his, a young
girl, to come and bear a basket in a certain procession, and then rejecting
her, on the plea that she had never been invited at all owing to her
unworthiness. If Harmodius was indignant at this, Aristogiton for his sake now
became more exasperated than ever; and having arranged everything with those
who were to join them in the enterprise, they only waited for the great feast
of the Panathenaea, the sole day upon which the citizens forming part of the
procession could meet together in arms without suspicion. Aristogiton and
Harmodius were to begin, but were to be supported immediately by their
accomplices against the bodyguard. The conspirators were not many, for better
security, besides which they hoped that those not in the plot would be carried
away by the example of a few daring spirits, and use the arms in their hands to
recover their liberty.
At
last the festival arrived; and Hippias with his bodyguard was outside the city
in the Ceramicus, arranging how the different parts of the procession were to
proceed. Harmodius and Aristogiton had already their daggers and were getting
ready to act, when seeing one of their accomplices talking familiarly with
Hippias, who was easy of access to every one, they took fright, and concluded
that they were discovered and on the point of being taken; and eager if
possible to be revenged first upon the man who had wronged them and for whom
they had undertaken all this risk, they rushed, as they were, within the gates,
and meeting with Hipparchus by the Leocorium recklessly fell upon him at once,
infuriated, Aristogiton by love, and Harmodius by insult, and smote him and
slew him. Aristogiton escaped the guards at the moment, through the crowd
running up, but was afterwards taken and dispatched in no merciful way:
Harmodius was killed on the spot.
When
the news was brought to Hippias in the Ceramicus, he at once proceeded not to
the scene of action, but to the armed men in the procession, before they, being
some distance away, knew anything of the matter, and composing his features for
the occasion, so as not to betray himself, pointed to a certain spot, and bade
them repair thither without their arms. They withdrew accordingly, fancying he
had something to say; upon which he told the mercenaries to remove the arms,
and there and then picked out the men he thought guilty and all found with
daggers, the shield and spear being the usual weapons for a procession.
In
this way offended love first led Harmodius and Aristogiton to conspire, and the
alarm of the moment to commit the rash action recounted. After this the tyranny
pressed harder on the Athenians, and Hippias, now grown more fearful, put to
death many of the citizens, and at the same time began to turn his eyes abroad
for a refuge in case of revolution. Thus, although an Athenian, he gave his
daughter, Archedice, to a Lampsacene, Aeantides, son of the tyrant of
Lampsacus, seeing that they had great influence with Darius. And there is her
tomb in Lampsacus with this inscription:
Archedice lies buried in this earth,
Hippias her sire, and Athens gave her
birth;
Unto her bosom pride was never known,
Though daughter, wife, and sister to
the throne.
Hippias,
after reigning three years longer over the Athenians, was deposed in the fourth
by the Lacedaemonians and the banished Alcmaeonidae, and went with a safe
conduct to Sigeum, and to Aeantides at Lampsacus, and from thence to King
Darius; from whose court he set out twenty years after, in his old age, and
came with the Medes to Marathon.
With
these events in their minds, and recalling everything they knew by hearsay on
the subject, the Athenian people grow difficult of humour and suspicious of the
persons charged in the affair of the mysteries, and persuaded that all that had
taken place was part of an oligarchical and monarchical conspiracy. In the
state of irritation thus produced, many persons of consideration had been
already thrown into prison, and far from showing any signs of abating, public
feeling grew daily more savage, and more arrests were made; until at last one
of those in custody, thought to be the most guilty of all, was induced by a
fellow prisoner to make a revelation, whether true or not is a matter on which
there are two opinions, no one having been able, either then or since, to say
for certain who did the deed. However this may be, the other found arguments to
persuade him, that even if he had not done it, he ought to save himself by
gaining a promise of impunity, and free the state of its present suspicions; as
he would be surer of safety if he confessed after promise of impunity than if
he denied and were brought to trial. He accordingly made a revelation,
affecting himself and others in the affair of the Hermae; and the Athenian
people, glad at last, as they supposed, to get at the truth, and furious until
then at not being able to discover those who had conspired against the commons,
at once let go the informer and all the rest whom he had not denounced, and
bringing the accused to trial executed as many as were apprehended, and
condemned to death such as had fled and set a price upon their heads. In this
it was, after all, not clear whether the sufferers had been punished unjustly,
while in any case the rest of the city received immediate and manifest relief.
To
return to Alcibiades: public feeling was very hostile to him, being worked on
by the same enemies who had attacked him before he went out; and now that the
Athenians fancied that they had got at the truth of the matter of the Hermae,
they believed more firmly than ever that the affair of the mysteries also, in
which he was implicated, had been contrived by him in the same intention and
was connected with the plot against the democracy. Meanwhile it so happened
that, just at the time of this agitation, a small force of Lacedaemonians had
advanced as far as the Isthmus, in pursuance of some scheme with the Boeotians.
It was now thought that this had come by appointment, at his instigation, and
not on account of the Boeotians, and that, if the citizens had not acted on the
information received, and forestalled them by arresting the prisoners, the city
would have been betrayed. The citizens went so far as to sleep one night armed
in the temple of Theseus within the walls. The friends also of Alcibiades at
Argos were just at this time suspected of a design to attack the commons; and
the Argive hostages deposited in the islands were given up by the Athenians to
the Argive people to be put to death upon that account: in short, everywhere
something was found to create suspicion against Alcibiades. It was therefore
decided to bring him to trial and execute him, and the Salaminia was sent to
Sicily for him and the others named in the information, with instructions to
order him to come and answer the charges against him, but not to arrest him,
because they wished to avoid causing any agitation in the army or among the
enemy in Sicily, and above all to retain the services of the Mantineans and
Argives, who, it was thought, had been induced to join by his influence.
Alcibiades, with his own ship and his fellow accused, accordingly sailed off
with the Salaminia from Sicily, as though to return to Athens, and went with
her as far as Thurii, and there they left the ship and disappeared, being
afraid to go home for trial with such a prejudice existing against them. The
crew of the Salaminia stayed some time looking for Alcibiades and his
companions, and at length, as they were nowhere to be found, set sail and
departed. Alcibiades, now an outlaw, crossed in a boat not long after from Thurii
to Peloponnese; and the Athenians passed sentence of death by default upon him
and those in his company.
THE
Athenian generals left in Sicily now divided the armament into two parts, and,
each taking one by lot, sailed with the whole for Selinus and Egesta, wishing
to know whether the Egestaeans would give the money, and to look into the
question of Selinus and ascertain the state of the quarrel between her and
Egesta. Coasting along Sicily, with the shore on their left, on the side
towards the Tyrrhene Gulf they touched at Himera, the only Hellenic city in
that part of the island, and being refused admission resumed their voyage. On
their way they took Hyccara, a petty Sicanian seaport, nevertheless at war with
Egesta, and making slaves of the inhabitants gave up the town to the
Egestaeans, some of whose horse had joined them; after which the army proceeded
through the territory of the Sicels until it reached Catana, while the fleet
sailed along the coast with the slaves on board. Meanwhile Nicias sailed
straight from Hyccara along the coast and went to Egesta and, after transacting
his other business and receiving thirty talents, rejoined the forces. They now
sold their slaves for the sum of one hundred and twenty talents, and sailed
round to their Sicel allies to urge them to send troops; and meanwhile went
with half their own force to the hostile town of Hybla in the territory of
Gela, but did not succeed in taking it.
Summer
was now over. The winter following, the Athenians at once began to prepare for
moving on Syracuse, and the Syracusans on their side for marching against them.
From the moment when the Athenians failed to attack them instantly as they at
first feared and expected, every day that passed did something to revive their
courage; and when they saw them sailing far away from them on the other side of
Sicily, and going to Hybla only to fail in their attempts to storm it, they
thought less of them than ever, and called upon their generals, as the
multitude is apt to do in its moments of confidence, to lead them to Catana,
since the enemy would not come to them. Parties also of the Syracusan horse
employed in reconnoitring constantly rode up to the Athenian armament, and
among other insults asked them whether they had not really come to settle with
the Syracusans in a foreign country rather than to resettle the Leontines in
their own.
Aware
of this, the Athenian generals determined to draw them out in mass as far as
possible from the city, and themselves in the meantime to sail by night
alongshore, and take up at their leisure a convenient position. This they knew
they could not so well do, if they had to disembark from their ships in front
of a force prepared for them, or to go by land openly. The numerous cavalry of
the Syracusans (a force which they were themselves without) would then be able
to do the greatest mischief to their light troops and the crowd that followed
them; but this plan would enable them to take up a position in which the horse
could do them no hurt worth speaking of, some Syracusan exiles with the army
having told them of the spot near the Olympieum, which they afterwards
occupied. In pursuance of their idea, the generals imagined the following
stratagem. They sent to Syracuse a man devoted to them, and by the Syracusan
generals thought to be no less in their interest; he was a native of Catana,
and said he came from persons in that place, whose names the Syracusan generals
were acquainted with, and whom they knew to be among the members of their party
still left in the city. He told them that the Athenians passed the night in the
town, at some distance from their arms, and that if the Syracusans would name a
day and come with all their people at daybreak to attack the armament, they,
their friends, would close the gates upon the troops in the city, and set fire
to the vessels, while the Syracusans would easily take the camp by an attack
upon the stockade. In this they would be aided by many of the Catanians, who
were already prepared to act, and from whom he himself came.
The
generals of the Syracusans, who did not want confidence, and who had intended
even without this to march on Catana, believed the man without any sufficient
inquiry, fixed at once a day upon which they would be there, and dismissed him,
and the Selinuntines and others of their allies having now arrived, gave orders
for all the Syracusans to march out in mass. Their preparations completed, and
the time fixed for their arrival being at hand, they set out for Catana, and
passed the night upon the river Symaethus, in the Leontine territory. Meanwhile
the Athenians no sooner knew of their approach than they took all their forces
and such of the Sicels or others as had joined them, put them on board their
ships and boats, and sailed by night to Syracuse. Thus, when morning broke the
Athenians were landing opposite the Olympieum ready to seize their camping
ground, and the Syracusan horse having ridden up first to Catana and found that
all the armament had put to sea, turned back and told the infantry, and then
all turned back together, and went to the relief of the city.
In
the meantime, as the march before the Syracusans was a long one, the Athenians
quietly sat down their army in a convenient position, where they could begin an
engagement when they pleased, and where the Syracusan cavalry would have least
opportunity of annoying them, either before or during the action, being fenced
off on one side by walls, houses, trees, and by a marsh, and on the other by
cliffs. They also felled the neighbouring trees and carried them down to the
sea, and formed a palisade alongside of their ships, and with stones which they
picked up and wood hastily raised a fort at Daskon, the most vulnerable point
of their position, and broke down the bridge over the Anapus. These
preparations were allowed to go on without any interruption from the city, the
first hostile force to appear being the Syracusan cavalry, followed afterwards
by all the foot together. At first they came close up to the Athenian army, and
then, finding that they did not offer to engage, crossed the Helorine road and
encamped for the night.
The
next day the Athenians and their allies prepared for battle, their dispositions
being as follows: Their right wing was occupied by the Argives and Mantineans,
the centre by the Athenians, and the rest of the field by the other allies.
Half their army was drawn up eight deep in advance, half close to their tents
in a hollow square, formed also eight deep, which had orders to look out and be
ready to go to the support of the troops hardest pressed. The camp followers
were placed inside this reserve. The Syracusans, meanwhile, formed their heavy
infantry sixteen deep, consisting of the mass levy of their own people, and
such allies as had joined them, the strongest contingent being that of the
Selinuntines; next to them the cavalry of the Geloans, numbering two hundred in
all, with about twenty horse and fifty archers from Camarina. The cavalry was
posted on their right, full twelve hundred strong, and next to it the darters.
As the Athenians were about to begin the attack, Nicias went along the lines,
and addressed these words of encouragement to the army and the nations
composing it:
"Soldiers,
a long exhortation is little needed by men like ourselves, who are here to
fight in the same battle, the force itself being, to my thinking, more fit to
inspire confidence than a fine speech with a weak army. Where we have Argives,
Mantineans, Athenians, and the first of the islanders in the ranks together, it
were strange indeed, with so many and so brave companions in arms, if we did
not feel confident of victory; especially when we have mass levies opposed to our
picked troops, and what is more, Siceliots, who may disdain us but will not
stand against us, their skill not being at all commensurate to their rashness.
You may also remember that we are far from home and have no friendly land near,
except what your own swords shall win you; and here I put before you a motive
just the reverse of that which the enemy are appealing to; their cry being that
they shall fight for their country, mine that we shall fight for a country that
is not ours, where we must conquer or hardly get away, as we shall have their
horse upon us in great numbers. Remember, therefore, your renown, and go boldly
against the enemy, thinking the present strait and necessity more terrible than
they."
After
this address Nicias at once led on the army. The Syracusans were not at that
moment expecting an immediate engagement, and some had even gone away to the
town, which was close by; these now ran up as hard as they could and, though
behind time, took their places here or there in the main body as fast as they
joined it. Want of zeal or daring was certainly not the fault of the
Syracusans, either in this or the other battles, but although not inferior in
courage, so far as their military science might carry them, when this failed
them they were compelled to give up their resolution also. On the present
occasion, although they had not supposed that the Athenians would begin the
attack, and although constrained to stand upon their defence at short notice,
they at once took up their arms and advanced to meet them. First, the
stone-throwers, slingers, and archers of either army began skirmishing, and
routed or were routed by one another, as might be expected between light
troops; next, soothsayers brought forward the usual victims, and trumpeters
urged on the heavy infantry to the charge; and thus they advanced, the
Syracusans to fight for their country, and each individual for his safety that
day and liberty hereafter; in the enemy's army, the Athenians to make another's
country theirs and to save their own from suffering by their defeat; the
Argives and independent allies to help them in getting what they came for, and
to earn by victory another sight of the country they had left behind; while the
subject allies owed most of their ardour to the desire of self-preservation,
which they could only hope for if victorious; next to which, as a secondary
motive, came the chance of serving on easier terms, after helping the Athenians
to a fresh conquest.
The
armies now came to close quarters, and for a long while fought without either
giving ground. Meanwhile there occurred some claps of thunder with lightning
and heavy rain, which did not fail to add to the fears of the party fighting
for the first time, and very little acquainted with war; while to their more experienced
adversaries these phenomena appeared to be produced by the time of year, and
much more alarm was felt at the continued resistance of the enemy. At last the
Argives drove in the Syracusan left, and after them the Athenians routed the
troops opposed to them, and the Syracusan army was thus cut in two and betook
itself to flight. The Athenians did not pursue far, being held in check by the
numerous and undefeated Syracusan horse, who attacked and drove back any of
their heavy infantry whom they saw pursuing in advance of the rest; in spite of
which the victors followed so far as was safe in a body, and then went back and
set up a trophy. Meanwhile the Syracusans rallied at the Helorine road, where
they re-formed as well as they could under the circumstances, and even sent a
garrison of their own citizens to the Olympieum, fearing that the Athenians
might lay hands on some of the treasures there. The rest returned to the town.
The
Athenians, however, did not go to the temple, but collected their dead and laid
them upon a pyre, and passed the night upon the field. The next day they gave
the enemy back their dead under truce, to the number of about two hundred and
sixty, Syracusans and allies, and gathered together the bones of their own,
some fifty, Athenians and allies, and taking the spoils of the enemy, sailed
back to Catana. It was now winter; and it did not seem possible for the moment
to carry on the war before Syracuse, until horse should have been sent for from
Athens and levied among the allies in Sicily- to do away with their utter
inferiority in cavalry- and money should have been collected in the country and
received from Athens, and until some of the cities, which they hoped would be
now more disposed to listen to them after the battle, should have been brought
over, and corn and all other necessaries provided, for a campaign in the spring
against Syracuse.
With
this intention they sailed off to Naxos and Catana for the winter. Meanwhile
the Syracusans burned their dead and then held an assembly, in which
Hermocrates, son of Hermon, a man who with a general ability of the first order
had given proofs of military capacity and brilliant courage in the war, came
forward and encouraged them, and told them not to let what had occurred make
them give way, since their spirit had not been conquered, but their want of
discipline had done the mischief. Still they had not been beaten by so much as
might have been expected, especially as they were, one might say, novices in
the art of war, an army of artisans opposed to the most practised soldiers in
Hellas. What had also done great mischief was the number of the generals (there
were fifteen of them) and the quantity of orders given, combined with the
disorder and insubordination of the troops. But if they were to have a few
skilful generals, and used this winter in preparing their heavy infantry,
finding arms for such as had not got any, so as to make them as numerous as
possible, and forcing them to attend to their training generally, they would
have every chance of beating their adversaries, courage being already theirs
and discipline in the field having thus been added to it. Indeed, both these
qualities would improve, since danger would exercise them in discipline, while
their courage would be led to surpass itself by the confidence which skill
inspires. The generals should be few and elected with full powers, and an oath
should be taken to leave them entire discretion in their command: if they
adopted this plan, their secrets would be better kept, all preparations would
be properly made, and there would be no room for excuses.
The
Syracusans heard him, and voted everything as he advised, and elected three
generals, Hermocrates himself, Heraclides, son of Lysimachus, and Sicanus, son
of Execestes. They also sent envoys to Corinth and Lacedaemon to procure a
force of allies to join them, and to induce the Lacedaemonians for their sakes
openly to address themselves in real earnest to the war against the Athenians,
that they might either have to leave Sicily or be less able to send
reinforcements to their army there.
The
Athenian forces at Catana now at once sailed against Messina, in the
expectation of its being betrayed to them. The intrigue, however, after all
came to nothing: Alcibiades, who was in the secret, when he left his command
upon the summons from home, foreseeing that he would be outlawed, gave
information of the plot to the friends of the Syracusans in Messina, who had at
once put to death its authors, and now rose in arms against the opposite faction
with those of their way of thinking, and succeeded in preventing the admission
of the Athenians. The latter waited for thirteen days, and then, as they were
exposed to the weather and without provisions, and met with no success, went
back to Naxos, where they made places for their ships to lie in, erected a
palisade round their camp, and retired into winter quarters; meanwhile they
sent a galley to Athens for money and cavalry to join them in the spring.
During the winter the Syracusans built a wall on to the city, so as to take in
the statue of Apollo Temenites, all along the side looking towards Epipolae, to
make the task of circumvallation longer and more difficult, in case of their
being defeated, and also erected a fort at Megara and another in the Olympieum,
and stuck palisades along the sea wherever there was a landing Place.
Meanwhile, as they knew that the Athenians were wintering at Naxos, they
marched with all their people to Catana, and ravaged the land and set fire to
the tents and encampment of the Athenians, and so returned home. Learning also
that the Athenians were sending an embassy to Camarina, on the strength of the
alliance concluded in the time of Laches, to gain, if possible, that city, they
sent another from Syracuse to oppose them. They had a shrewd suspicion that the
Camarinaeans had not sent what they did send for the first battle very
willingly; and they now feared that they would refuse to assist them at all in
future, after seeing the success of the Athenians in the action, and would join
the latter on the strength of their old friendship. Hermocrates, with some
others, accordingly arrived at Camarina from Syracuse, and Euphemus and others
from the Athenians; and an assembly of the Camarinaeans having been convened,
Hermocrates spoke as follows, in the hope of prejudicing them against the
Athenians:
"Camarinaeans,
we did not come on this embassy because we were afraid of your being frightened
by the actual forces of the Athenians, but rather of your being gained by what
they would say to you before you heard anything from us. They are come to
Sicily with the pretext that you know, and the intention which we all suspect,
in my opinion less to restore the Leontines to their homes than to oust us from
ours; as it is out of all reason that they should restore in Sicily the cities
that they lay waste in Hellas, or should cherish the Leontine Chalcidians
because of their Ionian blood and keep in servitude the Euboean Chalcidians, of
whom the Leontines are a colony. No; but the same policy which has proved so
successful in Hellas is now being tried in Sicily. After being chosen as the
leaders of the Ionians and of the other allies of Athenian origin, to punish
the Mede, the Athenians accused some of failure in military service, some of
fighting against each other, and others, as the case might be, upon any
colourable pretext that could be found, until they thus subdued them all. In
fine, in the struggle against the Medes, the Athenians did not fight for the
liberty of the Hellenes, or the Hellenes for their own liberty, but the former
to make their countrymen serve them instead of him, the latter to change one
master for another, wiser indeed than the first, but wiser for evil.
"But
we are not now come to declare to an audience familiar with them the misdeeds
of a state so open to accusation as is the Athenian, but much rather to blame
ourselves, who, with the warnings we possess in the Hellenes in those parts
that have been enslaved through not supporting each other, and seeing the same
sophisms being now tried upon ourselves- such as restorations of Leontine
kinsfolk and support of Egestaean allies- do not stand together and resolutely
show them that here are no Ionians, or Hellespontines, or islanders, who change
continually, but always serve a master, sometimes the Mede and sometimes some
other, but free Dorians from independent Peloponnese, dwelling in Sicily. Or,
are we waiting until we be taken in detail, one city after another; knowing as
we do that in no other way can we be conquered, and seeing that they turn to
this plan, so as to divide some of us by words, to draw some by the bait of an
alliance into open war with each other, and to ruin others by such flattery as
different circumstances may render acceptable? And do we fancy when destruction
first overtakes a distant fellow countryman that the danger will not come to
each of us also, or that he who suffers before us will suffer in himself alone?
"As
for the Camarinaean who says that it is the Syracusan, not he, that is the
enemy of the Athenian, and who thinks it hard to have to encounter risk in
behalf of my country, I would have him bear in mind that he will fight in my
country, not more for mine than for his own, and by so much the more safely in
that he will enter on the struggle not alone, after the way has been cleared by
my ruin, but with me as his ally, and that the object of the Athenian is not so
much to punish the enmity of the Syracusan as to use me as a blind to secure
the friendship of the Camarinaean. As for him who envies or even fears us (and
envied and feared great powers must always be), and who on this account wishes
Syracuse to be humbled to teach us a lesson, but would still have her survive,
in the interest of his own security the wish that he indulges is not humanly
possible. A man can control his own desires, but he cannot likewise control
circumstances; and in the event of his calculations proving mistaken, he may
live to bewail his own misfortune, and wish to be again envying my prosperity.
An idle wish, if he now sacrifice us and refuse to take his share of perils
which are the same, in reality though not in name, for him as for us; what is
nominally the preservation of our power being really his own salvation. It was
to be expected that you, of all people in the world, Camarinaeans, being our
immediate neighbours and the next in danger, would have foreseen this, and
instead of supporting us in the lukewarm way that you are now doing, would
rather come to us of your own accord, and be now offering at Syracuse the aid
which you would have asked for at Camarina, if to Camarina the Athenians had
first come, to encourage us to resist the invader. Neither you, however, nor
the rest have as yet bestirred yourselves in this direction.
"Fear
perhaps will make you study to do right both by us and by the invaders, and
plead that you have an alliance with the Athenians. But you made that alliance,
not against your friends, but against the enemies that might attack you, and to
help the Athenians when they were wronged by others, not when as now they are
wronging their neighbours. Even the Rhegians, Chalcidians though they be,
refuse to help to restore the Chalcidian Leontines; and it would be strange if,
while they suspect the gist of this fine pretence and are wise without reason,
you, with every reason on your side, should yet choose to assist your natural
enemies, and should join with their direst foes in undoing those whom nature
has made your own kinsfolk. This is not to do right; but you should help us
without fear of their armament, which has no terrors if we hold together, but
only if we let them succeed in their endeavours to separate us; since even
after attacking us by ourselves and being victorious in battle, they had to go
off without effecting their purpose.
"United,
therefore, we have no cause to despair, but rather new encouragement to league
together; especially as succour will come to us from the Peloponnesians, in
military matters the undoubted superiors of the Athenians. And you need not
think that your prudent policy of taking sides with neither, because allies of
both, is either safe for you or fair to us. Practically it is not as fair as it
pretends to be. If the vanquished be defeated, and the victor conquer, through
your refusing to join, what is the effect of your abstention but to leave the
former to perish unaided, and to allow the latter to offend unhindered? And yet
it were more honourable to join those who are not only the injured party, but
your own kindred, and by so doing to defend the common interests of Sicily and
save your friends the Athenians from doing wrong.
"In
conclusion, we Syracusans say that it is useless for us to demonstrate either
to you or to the rest what you know already as well as we do; but we entreat, and
if our entreaty fail, we protest that we are menaced by our eternal enemies the
Ionians, and are betrayed by you our fellow Dorians. If the Athenians reduce
us, they will owe their victory to your decision, but in their own name will
reap the honour, and will receive as the prize of their triumph the very men
who enabled them to gain it. On the other hand, if we are the conquerors, you
will have to pay for having been the cause of our danger. Consider, therefore;
and now make your choice between the security which present servitude offers
and the prospect of conquering with us and so escaping disgraceful submission
to an Athenian master and avoiding the lasting enmity of Syracuse."
Such
were the words of Hermocrates; after whom Euphemus, the Athenian ambassador,
spoke as follows:
"Although
we came here only to renew the former alliance, the attack of the Syracusans
compels us to speak of our empire and of the good right we have to it. The best
proof of this the speaker himself furnished, when he called the Ionians eternal
enemies of the Dorians. It is the fact; and the Peloponnesian Dorians being our
superiors in numbers and next neighbours, we Ionians looked out for the best
means of escaping their domination. After the Median War we had a fleet, and so
got rid of the empire and supremacy of the Lacedaemonians, who had no right to
give orders to us more than we to them, except that of being the strongest at
that moment; and being appointed leaders of the King's former subjects, we
continue to be so, thinking that we are least likely to fall under the dominion
of the Peloponnesians, if we have a force to defend ourselves with, and in
strict truth having done nothing unfair in reducing to subjection the Ionians
and islanders, the kinsfolk whom the Syracusans say we have enslaved. They, our
kinsfolk, came against their mother country, that is to say against us,
together with the Mede, and, instead of having the courage to revolt and
sacrifice their property as we did when we abandoned our city, chose to be slaves
themselves, and to try to make us so.
"We,
therefore, deserve to rule because we placed the largest fleet and an
unflinching patriotism at the service of the Hellenes, and because these, our
subjects, did us mischief by their ready subservience to the Medes; and, desert
apart, we seek to strengthen ourselves against the Peloponnesians. We make no
fine profession of having a right to rule because we overthrew the barbarian
single-handed, or because we risked what we did risk for the freedom of the
subjects in question any more than for that of all, and for our own: no one can
be quarrelled with for providing for his proper safety. If we are now here in
Sicily, it is equally in the interest of our security, with which we perceive
that your interest also coincides. We prove this from the conduct which the
Syracusans cast against us and which you somewhat too timorously suspect;
knowing that those whom fear has made suspicious may be carried away by the
charm of eloquence for the moment, but when they come to act follow their
interests.
"Now,
as we have said, fear makes us hold our empire in Hellas, and fear makes us now
come, with the help of our friends, to order safely matters in Sicily, and not
to enslave any but rather to prevent any from being enslaved. Meanwhile, let no
one imagine that we are interesting ourselves in you without your having
anything to do with us, seeing that, if you are preserved and able to make head
against the Syracusans, they will be less likely to harm us by sending troops
to the Peloponnesians. In this way you have everything to do with us, and on
this account it is perfectly reasonable for us to restore the Leontines, and to
make them, not subjects like their kinsmen in Euboea, but as powerful as
possible, to help us by annoying the Syracusans from their frontier. In Hellas
we are alone a match for our enemies; and as for the assertion that it is out
of all reason that we should free the Sicilian, while we enslave the
Chalcidian, the fact is that the latter is useful to us by being without arms
and contributing money only; while the former, the Leontines and our other
friends, cannot be too independent.
"Besides,
for tyrants and imperial cities nothing is unreasonable if expedient, no one a
kinsman unless sure; but friendship or enmity is everywhere an affair of time
and circumstance. Here, in Sicily, our interest is not to weaken our friends,
but by means of their strength to cripple our enemies. Why doubt this? In
Hellas we treat our allies as we find them useful. The Chians and Methymnians
govern themselves and furnish ships; most of the rest have harder terms and pay
tribute in money; while others, although islanders and easy for us to take, are
free altogether, because they occupy convenient positions round Peloponnese. In
our settlement of the states here in Sicily, we should therefore; naturally be
guided by our interest, and by fear, as we say, of the Syracusans. Their
ambition is to rule you, their object to use the suspicions that we excite to
unite you, and then, when we have gone away without effecting anything, by
force or through your isolation, to become the masters of Sicily. And masters
they must become, if you unite with them; as a force of that magnitude would be
no longer easy for us to deal with united, and they would be more than a match
for you as soon as we were away.
"Any
other view of the case is condemned by the facts. When you first asked us over,
the fear which you held out was that of danger to Athens if we let you come
under the dominion of Syracuse; and it is not right now to mistrust the very
same argument by which you claimed to convince us, or to give way to suspicion
because we are come with a larger force against the power of that city. Those
whom you should really distrust are the Syracusans. We are not able to stay
here without you, and if we proved perfidious enough to bring you into
subjection, we should be unable to keep you in bondage, owing to the length of
the voyage and the difficulty of guarding large, and in a military sense
continental, towns: they, the Syracusans, live close to you, not in a camp, but
in a city greater than the force we have with us, plot always against you,
never let slip an opportunity once offered, as they have shown in the case of
the Leontines and others, and now have the face, just as if you were fools, to
invite you to aid them against the power that hinders this, and that has thus
far maintained Sicily independent. We, as against them, invite you to a much
more real safety, when we beg you not to betray that common safety which we
each have in the other, and to reflect that they, even without allies, will, by
their numbers, have always the way open to you, while you will not often have
the opportunity of defending yourselves with such numerous auxiliaries; if,
through your suspicions, you once let these go away unsuccessful or defeated,
you will wish to see if only a handful of them back again, when the day is past
in which their presence could do anything for you.
"But
we hope, Camarinaeans, that the calumnies of the Syracusans will not be allowed
to succeed either with you or with the rest: we have told you the whole truth
upon the things we are suspected of, and will now briefly recapitulate, in the
hope of convincing you. We assert that we are rulers in Hellas in order not to
be subjects; liberators in Sicily that we may not be harmed by the Sicilians;
that we are compelled to interfere in many things, because we have many things
to guard against; and that now, as before, we are come as allies to those of
you who suffer wrong in this island, not without invitation but upon
invitation. Accordingly, instead of making yourselves judges or censors of our
conduct, and trying to turn us, which it were now difficult to do, so far as
there is anything in our interfering policy or in our character that chimes in
with your interest, this take and make use of; and be sure that, far from being
injurious to all alike, to most of the Hellenes that policy is even beneficial.
Thanks to it, all men in all places, even where we are not, who either
apprehend or meditate aggression, from the near prospect before them, in the
one case, of obtaining our intervention in their favour, in the other, of our
arrival making the venture dangerous, find themselves constrained,
respectively, to be moderate against their will, and to be preserved without
trouble of their own. Do not you reject this security that is open to all who
desire it, and is now offered to you; but do like others, and instead of being
always on the defensive against the Syracusans, unite with us, and in your turn
at last threaten them."
Such
were the words of Euphemus. What the Camarinaeans felt was this. Sympathizing
with the Athenians, except in so far as they might be afraid of their
subjugating Sicily, they had always been at enmity with their neighbour
Syracuse. From the very fact, however, that they were their neighbours, they
feared the Syracusans most of the two, and being apprehensive of their
conquering even without them, both sent them in the first instance the few horsemen
mentioned, and for the future determined to support them most in fact, although
as sparingly as possible; but for the moment in order not to seem to slight the
Athenians, especially as they had been successful in the engagement, to answer
both alike. Agreeably to this resolution they answered that as both the
contending parties happened to be allies of theirs, they thought it most
consistent with their oaths at present to side with neither; with which answer
the ambassadors of either party departed.
In the
meantime, while Syracuse pursued her preparations for war, the Athenians were
encamped at Naxos, and tried by negotiation to gain as many of the Sicels as
possible. Those more in the low lands, and subjects of Syracuse, mostly held
aloof; but the peoples of the interior who had never been otherwise than
independent, with few exceptions, at once joined the Athenians, and brought
down corn to the army, and in some cases even money. The Athenians marched
against those who refused to join, and forced some of them to do so; in the
case of others they were stopped by the Syracusans sending garrisons and
reinforcements. Meanwhile the Athenians moved their winter quarters from Naxos
to Catana, and reconstructed the camp burnt by the Syracusans, and stayed there
the rest of the winter. They also sent a galley to Carthage, with proffers of
friendship, on the chance of obtaining assistance, and another to Tyrrhenia;
some of the cities there having spontaneously offered to join them in the war.
They also sent round to the Sicels and to Egesta, desiring them to send them as
many horses as possible, and meanwhile prepared bricks, iron, and all other
things necessary for the work of circumvallation, intending by the spring to
begin hostilities.
In
the meantime the Syracusan envoys dispatched to Corinth and Lacedaemon tried as
they passed along the coast to persuade the Italiots to interfere with the
proceedings of the Athenians, which threatened Italy quite as much as Syracuse,
and having arrived at Corinth made a speech calling on the Corinthians to
assist them on the ground of their common origin. The Corinthians voted at once
to aid them heart and soul themselves, and then sent on envoys with them to
Lacedaemon, to help them to persuade her also to prosecute the war with the
Athenians more openly at home and to send succours to Sicily. The envoys from
Corinth having reached Lacedaemon found there Alcibiades with his fellow
refugees, who had at once crossed over in a trading vessel from Thurii, first
to Cyllene in Elis, and afterwards from thence to Lacedaemon; upon the
Lacedaemonians' own invitation, after first obtaining a safe conduct, as he
feared them for the part he had taken in the affair of Mantinea. The result was
that the Corinthians, Syracusans, and Alcibiades, pressing all the same request
in the assembly of the Lacedaemonians, succeeded in persuading them; but as the
ephors and the authorities, although resolved to send envoys to Syracuse to
prevent their surrendering to the Athenians, showed no disposition to send them
any assistance, Alcibiades now came forward and inflamed and stirred the
Lacedaemonians by speaking as follows:
"I
am forced first to speak to you of the prejudice with which I am regarded, in
order that suspicion may not make you disinclined to listen to me upon public
matters. The connection, with you as your proxeni, which the ancestors of our
family by reason of some discontent renounced, I personally tried to renew by
my good offices towards you, in particular upon the occasion of the disaster at
Pylos. But although I maintained this friendly attitude, you yet chose to
negotiate the peace with the Athenians through my enemies, and thus to
strengthen them and to discredit me. You had therefore no right to complain if
I turned to the Mantineans and Argives, and seized other occasions of thwarting
and injuring you; and the time has now come when those among you, who in the
bitterness of the moment may have been then unfairly angry with me, should look
at the matter in its true light, and take a different view. Those again who
judged me unfavourably, because I leaned rather to the side of the commons,
must not think that their dislike is any better founded. We have always been
hostile to tyrants, and all who oppose arbitrary power are called commons;
hence we continued to act as leaders of the multitude; besides which, as
democracy was the government of the city, it was necessary in most things to
conform to established conditions. However, we endeavoured to be more moderate
than the licentious temper of the times; and while there were others, formerly
as now, who tried to lead the multitude astray- the same who banished me- our
party was that of the whole people, our creed being to do our part in
preserving the form of government under which the city enjoyed the utmost
greatness and freedom, and which we had found existing. As for democracy, the
men of sense among us knew what it was, and I perhaps as well as any, as I have
the more cause to complain of it; but there is nothing new to be said of a patent
absurdity; meanwhile we did not think it safe to alter it under the pressure of
your hostility.
"So
much then for the prejudices with which I am regarded: I now can call your
attention to the questions you must consider, and upon which superior knowledge
perhaps permits me to speak. We sailed to Sicily first to conquer, if possible,
the Siceliots, and after them the Italiots also, and finally to assail the
empire and city of Carthage. In the event of all or most of these schemes
succeeding, we were then to attack Peloponnese, bringing with us the entire
force of the Hellenes lately acquired in those parts, and taking a number of
barbarians into our pay, such as the Iberians and others in those countries,
confessedly the most warlike known, and building numerous galleys in addition
to those which we had already, timber being plentiful in Italy; and with this
fleet blockading Peloponnese from the sea and assailing it with our armies by
land, taking some of the cities by storm, drawing works of circumvallation
round others, we hoped without difficulty to effect its reduction, and after
this to rule the whole of the Hellenic name. Money and corn meanwhile for the
better execution of these plans were to be supplied in sufficient quantities by
the newly acquired places in those countries, independently of our revenues
here at home.
"You
have thus heard the history of the present expedition from the man who most
exactly knows what our objects were; and the remaining generals will, if they
can, carry these out just the same. But that the states in Sicily must succumb
if you do not help them, I will now show. Although the Siceliots, with all
their inexperience, might even now be saved if their forces were united, the
Syracusans alone, beaten already in one battle with all their people and
blockaded from the sea, will be unable to withstand the Athenian armament that
is now there. But if Syracuse falls, all Sicily falls also, and Italy
immediately afterwards; and the danger which I just now spoke of from that
quarter will before long be upon you. None need therefore fancy that Sicily
only is in question; Peloponnese will be so also, unless you speedily do as I
tell you, and send on board ship to Syracuse troops that shall able to row
their ships themselves, and serve as heavy infantry the moment that they land;
and what I consider even more important than the troops, a Spartan as
commanding officer to discipline the forces already on foot and to compel
recusants to serve. The friends that you have already will thus become more
confident, and the waverers will be encouraged to join you. Meanwhile you must
carry on the war here more openly, that the Syracusans, seeing that you do not
forget them, may put heart into their resistance, and that the Athenians may be
less able to reinforce their armament. You must fortify Decelea in Attica, the
blow of which the Athenians are always most afraid and the only one that they
think they have not experienced in the present war; the surest method of
harming an enemy being to find out what he most fears, and to choose this means
of attacking him, since every one naturally knows best his own weak points and
fears accordingly. The fortification in question, while it benefits you, will
create difficulties for your adversaries, of which I shall pass over many, and
shall only mention the chief. Whatever property there is in the country will
most of it become yours, either by capture or surrender; and the Athenians will
at once be deprived of their revenues from the silver mines at Laurium, of their
present gains from their land and from the law courts, and above all of the
revenue from their allies, which will be paid less regularly, as they lose
their awe of Athens and see you addressing yourselves with vigour to the war.
The zeal and speed with which all this shall be done depends, Lacedaemonians,
upon yourselves; as to its possibility, I am quite confident, and I have little
fear of being mistaken.
"Meanwhile
I hope that none of you will think any the worse of me if, after having
hitherto passed as a lover of my country, I now actively join its worst enemies
in attacking it, or will suspect what I say as the fruit of an outlaw's
enthusiasm. I am an outlaw from the iniquity of those who drove me forth, not,
if you will be guided by me, from your service; my worst enemies are not you
who only harmed your foes, but they who forced their friends to become enemies;
and love of country is what I do not feel when I am wronged, but what I felt
when secure in my rights as a citizen. Indeed I do not consider that I am now
attacking a country that is still mine; I am rather trying to recover one that
is mine no longer; and the true lover of his country is not he who consents to
lose it unjustly rather than attack it, but he who longs for it so much that he
will go all lengths to recover it. For myself, therefore, Lacedaemonians, I beg
you to use me without scruple for danger and trouble of every kind, and to
remember the argument in every one's mouth, that if I did you great harm as an
enemy, I could likewise do you good service as a friend, inasmuch as I know the
plans of the Athenians, while I only guessed yours. For yourselves I entreat
you to believe that your most capital interests are now under deliberation; and
I urge you to send without hesitation the expeditions to Sicily and Attica; by
the presence of a small part of your forces you will save important cities in
that island, and you will destroy the power of Athens both present and
prospective; after this you will dwell in security and enjoy the supremacy over
all Hellas, resting not on force but upon consent and affection."
Such
were the words of Alcibiades. The Lacedaemonians, who had themselves before
intended to march against Athens, but were still waiting and looking about
them, at once became much more in earnest when they received this particular
information from Alcibiades, and considered that they had heard it from the man
who best knew the truth of the matter. Accordingly they now turned their
attention to the fortifying of Decelea and sending immediate aid to the
Sicilians; and naming Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, to the command of the
Syracusans, bade him consult with that people and with the Corinthians and
arrange for succours reaching the island, in the best and speediest way
possible under the circumstances. Gylippus desired the Corinthians to send him
at once two ships to Asine, and to prepare the rest that they intended to send,
and to have them ready to sail at the proper time. Having settled this, the
envoys departed from Lacedaemon.
In
the meantime arrived the Athenian galley from Sicily sent by the generals for
money and cavalry; and the Athenians, after hearing what they wanted, voted to
send the supplies for the armament and the cavalry. And the winter ended, and
with it ended the seventeenth year of the present war of which Thucydides is
the historian.
The
next summer, at the very beginning of the season, the Athenians in Sicily put
out from Catana, and sailed along shore to Megara in Sicily, from which, as I
have mentioned above, the Syracusans expelled the inhabitants in the time of
their tyrant Gelo, themselves occupying the territory. Here the Athenians
landed and laid waste the country, and after an unsuccessful attack upon a fort
of the Syracusans, went on with the fleet and army to the river Terias, and
advancing inland laid waste the plain and set fire to the corn; and after
killing some of a small Syracusan party which they encountered, and setting up
a trophy, went back again to their ships. They now sailed to Catana and took in
provisions there, and going with their whole force against Centoripa, a town of
the Sicels, acquired it by capitulation, and departed, after also burning the
corn of the Inessaeans and Hybleans. Upon their return to Catana they found the
horsemen arrived from Athens, to the number of two hundred and fifty (with
their equipments, but without their horses which were to be procured upon the
spot), and thirty mounted archers and three hundred talents of silver.
The
same spring the Lacedaemonians marched against Argos, and went as far as
Cleonae, when an earthquake occurred and caused them to return. After this the
Argives invaded the Thyreatid, which is on their border, and took much booty
from the Lacedaemonians, which was sold for no less than twenty-five talents.
The same summer, not long after, the Thespian commons made an attack upon the
party in office, which was not successful, but succours arrived from Thebes,
and some were caught, while others took refuge at Athens.
The
same summer the Syracusans learned that the Athenians had been joined by their
cavalry, and were on the point of marching against them; and seeing that
without becoming masters of Epipolae, a precipitous spot situated exactly over
the town, the Athenians could not, even if victorious in battle, easily invest
them, they determined to guard its approaches, in order that the enemy might
not ascend unobserved by this, the sole way by which ascent was possible, as
the remainder is lofty ground, and falls right down to the city, and can all be
seen from inside; and as it lies above the rest the place is called by the
Syracusans Epipolae or Overtown. They accordingly went out in mass at daybreak
into the meadow along the river Anapus, their new generals, Hermocrates and his
colleagues, having just come into office, and held a review of their heavy
infantry, from whom they first selected a picked body of six hundred, under the
command of Diomilus, an exile from Andros, to guard Epipolae, and to be ready
to muster at a moment's notice to help wherever help should be required.
Meanwhile
the Athenians, the very same morning, were holding a review, having already
made land unobserved with all the armament from Catana, opposite a place called
Leon, not much more than half a mile from Epipolae, where they disembarked
their army, bringing the fleet to anchor at Thapsus, a peninsula running out
into the sea, with a narrow isthmus, and not far from the city of Syracuse
either by land or water. While the naval force of the Athenians threw a
stockade across the isthmus and remained quiet at Thapsus, the land army
immediately went on at a run to Epipolae, and succeeded in getting up by
Euryelus before the Syracusans perceived them, or could come up from the meadow
and the review. Diomilus with his six hundred and the rest advanced as quickly
as they could, but they had nearly three miles to go from the meadow before
reaching them. Attacking in this way in considerable disorder, the Syracusans
were defeated in battle at Epipolae and retired to the town, with a loss of
about three hundred killed, and Diomilus among the number. After this the
Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the Syracusans their dead under
truce, and next day descended to Syracuse itself; and no one coming out to meet
them, reascended and built a fort at Labdalum, upon the edge of the cliffs of
Epipolae, looking towards Megara, to serve as a magazine for their baggage and
money, whenever they advanced to battle or to work at the lines.
Not
long afterwards three hundred cavalry came to them from Egesta, and about a
hundred from the Sicels, Naxians, and others; and thus, with the two hundred
and fifty from Athens, for whom they had got horses from the Egestaeans and
Catanians, besides others that they bought, they now mustered six hundred and
fifty cavalry in all. After posting a garrison in Labdalum, they advanced to
Syca, where they sat down and quickly built the Circle or centre of their wall
of circumvallation. The Syracusans, appalled at the rapidity with which the
work advanced, determined to go out against them and give battle and interrupt
it; and the two armies were already in battle array, when the Syracusan
generals observed that their troops found such difficulty in getting into line,
and were in such disorder, that they led them back into the town, except part
of the cavalry. These remained and hindered the Athenians from carrying stones
or dispersing to any great distance, until a tribe of the Athenian heavy
infantry, with all the cavalry, charged and routed the Syracusan horse with
some loss; after which they set up a trophy for the cavalry action.
The
next day the Athenians began building the wall to the north of the Circle, at
the same time collecting stone and timber, which they kept laying down towards
Trogilus along the shortest line for their works from the great harbour to the
sea; while the Syracusans, guided by their generals, and above all by
Hermocrates, instead of risking any more general engagements, determined to
build a counterwork in the direction in which the Athenians were going to carry
their wall. If this could be completed in time, the enemy's lines would be cut;
and meanwhile, if he were to attempt to interrupt them by an attack, they would
send a part of their forces against him, and would secure the approaches
beforehand with their stockade, while the Athenians would have to leave off
working with their whole force in order to attend to them. They accordingly
sallied forth and began to build, starting from their city, running a cross
wall below the Athenian Circle, cutting down the olives and erecting wooden
towers. As the Athenian fleet had not yet sailed round into the great harbour,
the Syracusans still commanded the seacoast, and the Athenians brought their
provisions by land from Thapsus.
The
Syracusans now thought the stockades and stonework of their counterwall
sufficiently far advanced; and as the Athenians, afraid of being divided and so
fighting at a disadvantage, and intent upon their own wall, did not come out to
interrupt them, they left one tribe to guard the new work and went back into
the city. Meanwhile the Athenians destroyed their pipes of drinking-water
carried underground into the city; and watching until the rest of the
Syracusans were in their tents at midday, and some even gone away into the
city, and those in the stockade keeping but indifferent guard, appointed three
hundred picked men of their own, and some men picked from the light troops and
armed for the purpose, to run suddenly as fast as they could to the
counterwork, while the rest of the army advanced in two divisions, the one with
one of the generals to the city in case of a sortie, the other with the other
general to the stockade by the postern gate. The three hundred attacked and
took the stockade, abandoned by its garrison, who took refuge in the outworks
round the statue of Apollo Temenites. Here the pursuers burst in with them, and
after getting in were beaten out by the Syracusans, and some few of the Argives
and Athenians slain; after which the whole army retired, and having demolished
the counterwork and pulled up the stockade, carried away the stakes to their
own lines, and set up a trophy.
The
next day the Athenians from the Circle proceeded to fortify the cliff above the
marsh which on this side of Epipolae looks towards the great harbour; this
being also the shortest line for their work to go down across the plain and the
marsh to the harbour. Meanwhile the Syracusans marched out and began a second
stockade, starting from the city, across the middle of the marsh, digging a
trench alongside to make it impossible for the Athenians to carry their wall
down to the sea. As soon as the Athenians had finished their work at the cliff
they again attacked the stockade and ditch of the Syracusans. Ordering the
fleet to sail round from Thapsus into the great harbour of Syracuse, they
descended at about dawn from Epipolae into the plain, and laying doors and
planks over the marsh, where it was muddy and firmest, crossed over on these,
and by daybreak took the ditch and the stockade, except a small portion which
they captured afterwards. A battle now ensued, in which the Athenians were
victorious, the right wing of the Syracusans flying to the town and the left to
the river. The three hundred picked Athenians, wishing to cut off their passage,
pressed on at a run to the bridge, when the alarmed Syracusans, who had with
them most of their cavalry, closed and routed them, hurling them back upon the
Athenian right wing, the first tribe of which was thrown into a panic by the
shock. Seeing this, Lamachus came to their aid from the Athenian left with a
few archers and with the Argives, and crossing a ditch, was left alone with a
few that had crossed with him, and was killed with five or six of his men.
These the Syracusans managed immediately to snatch up in haste and get across
the river into a place of security, themselves retreating as the rest of the
Athenian army now came up.
Meanwhile
those who had at first fled for refuge to the city, seeing the turn affairs
were taking, now rallied from the town and formed against the Athenians in
front of them, sending also a part of their number to the Circle on Epipolae,
which they hoped to take while denuded of its defenders. These took and
destroyed the Athenian outwork of a thousand feet, the Circle itself being
saved by Nicias, who happened to have been left in it through illness, and who
now ordered the servants to set fire to the engines and timber thrown down
before the wall; want of men, as he was aware, rendering all other means of
escape impossible. This step was justified by the result, the Syracusans not
coming any further on account of the fire, but retreating. Meanwhile succours
were coming up from the Athenians below, who had put to flight the troops
opposed to them; and the fleet also, according to orders, was sailing from
Thapsus into the great harbour. Seeing this, the troops on the heights retired
in haste, and the whole army of the Syracusans re-entered the city, thinking
that with their present force they would no longer be able to hinder the wall
reaching the sea.
After
this the Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the Syracusans their dead
under truce, receiving in return Lamachus and those who had fallen with him.
The whole of their forces, naval and military, being now with them, they began
from Epipolae and the cliffs and enclosed the Syracusans with a double wall
down to the sea. Provisions were now brought in for the armament from all parts
of Italy; and many of the Sicels, who had hitherto been looking to see how
things went, came as allies to the Athenians: there also arrived three ships of
fifty oars from Tyrrhenia. Meanwhile everything else progressed favourably for
their hopes. The Syracusans began to despair of finding safety in arms, no
relief having reached them from Peloponnese, and were now proposing terms of
capitulation among themselves and to Nicias, who after the death of Lamachus
was left sole commander. No decision was come to, but, as was natural with men
in difficulties and besieged more straitly than before, there was much
discussion with Nicias and still more in the town. Their present misfortunes
had also made them suspicious of one another; and the blame of their disasters
was thrown upon the ill-fortune or treachery of the generals under whose
command they had happened; and these were deposed and others, Heraclides,
Eucles, and Tellias, elected in their stead.
Meanwhile
the Lacedaemonian, Gylippus, and the ships from Corinth were now off Leucas,
intent upon going with all haste to the relief of Sicily. The reports that
reached them being of an alarming kind, and all agreeing in the falsehood that
Syracuse was already completely invested, Gylippus abandoned all hope of
Sicily, and wishing to save Italy, rapidly crossed the Ionian Sea to Tarentum
with the Corinthian, Pythen, two Laconian, and two Corinthian vessels, leaving
the Corinthians to follow him after manning, in addition to their own ten, two
Leucadian and two Ambraciot ships. From Tarentum Gylippus first went on an
embassy to Thurii, and claimed anew the rights of citizenship which his father
had enjoyed; failing to bring over the townspeople, he weighed anchor and
coasted along Italy. Opposite the Terinaean Gulf he was caught by the wind
which blows violently and steadily from the north in that quarter, and was
carried out to sea; and after experiencing very rough weather, remade Tarentum,
where he hauled ashore and refitted such of his ships as had suffered most from
the tempest. Nicias heard of his approach, but, like the Thurians, despised the
scanty number of his ships, and set down piracy as the only probable object of
the voyage, and so took no precautions for the present.
About
the same time in this summer, the Lacedaemonians invaded Argos with their allies,
and laid waste most of the country. The Athenians went with thirty ships to the
relief of the Argives, thus breaking their treaty with the Lacedaemonians in
the most overt manner. Up to this time incursions from Pylos, descents on the
coast of the rest of Peloponnese, instead of on the Laconian, had been the
extent of their co-operation with the Argives and Mantineans; and although the
Argives had often begged them to land, if only for a moment, with their heavy
infantry in Laconia, lay waste ever so little of it with them, and depart, they
had always refused to do so. Now, however, under the command of Phytodorus,
Laespodius, and Demaratus, they landed at Epidaurus Limera, Prasiae, and other
places, and plundered the country; and thus furnished the Lacedaemonians with a
better pretext for hostilities against Athens. After the Athenians had retired
from Argos with their fleet, and the Lacedaemonians also, the Argives made an
incursion into the Phlisaid, and returned home after ravaging their land and killing
some of the inhabitants.
The Seventh Book.
AFTER
refitting their ships, Gylippus and Pythen coasted along from Tarentum to
Epizephyrian Locris. They now received the more correct information that
Syracuse was not yet completely invested, but that it was still possible for an
army arriving at Epipolae to effect an entrance; and they consulted, accordingly,
whether they should keep Sicily on their right and risk sailing in by sea, or,
leaving it on their left, should first sail to Himera and, taking with them the
Himeraeans and any others that might agree to join them, go to Syracuse by
land. Finally they determined to sail for Himera, especially as the four
Athenian ships which Nicias had at length sent off, on hearing that they were
at Locris, had not yet arrived at Rhegium. Accordingly, before these reached
their post, the Peloponnesians crossed the strait and, after touching at
Rhegium and Messina, came to Himera. Arrived there, they persuaded the
Himeraeans to join in the war, and not only to go with them themselves but to
provide arms for the seamen from their vessels which they had drawn ashore at
Himera; and they sent and appointed a place for the Selinuntines to meet them
with all their forces. A few troops were also promised by the Geloans and some
of the Sicels, who were now ready to join them with much greater alacrity,
owing to the recent death of Archonidas, a powerful Sicel king in that
neighbourhood and friendly to Athens, and owing also to the vigour shown by
Gylippus in coming from Lacedaemon. Gylippus now took with him about seven
hundred of his sailors and marines, that number only having arms, a thousand
heavy infantry and light troops from Himera with a body of a hundred horse,
some light troops and cavalry from Selinus, a few Geloans, and Sicels numbering
a thousand in all, and set out on his march for Syracuse.
Meanwhile
the Corinthian fleet from Leucas made all haste to arrive; and one of their
commanders, Gongylus, starting last with a single ship, was the first to reach
Syracuse, a little before Gylippus. Gongylus found the Syracusans on the point
of holding an assembly to consider whether they should put an end to the war.
This he prevented, and reassured them by telling them that more vessels were
still to arrive, and that Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, had been dispatched by
the Lacedaemonians to take the command. Upon this the Syracusans took courage,
and immediately marched out with all their forces to meet Gylippus, who they
found was now close at hand. Meanwhile Gylippus, after taking Ietae, a fort of
the Sicels, on his way, formed his army in order of battle, and so arrived at
Epipolae, and ascending by Euryelus, as the Athenians had done at first, now
advanced with the Syracusans against the Athenian lines. His arrival chanced at
a critical moment. The Athenians had already finished a double wall of six or
seven furlongs to the great harbour, with the exception of a small portion next
the sea, which they were still engaged upon; and in the remainder of the circle
towards Trogilus on the other sea, stones had been laid ready for building for
the greater part of the distance, and some points had been left half finished,
while others were entirely completed. The danger of Syracuse had indeed been
great.
Meanwhile
the Athenians, recovering from the confusion into which they had been first
thrown by the sudden approach of Gylippus and the Syracusans, formed in order
of battle. Gylippus halted at a short distance off and sent on a herald to tell
them that, if they would evacuate Sicily with bag and baggage within five days'
time, he was willing to make a truce accordingly. The Athenians treated this
proposition with contempt, and dismissed the herald without an answer. After
this both sides began to prepare for action. Gylippus, observing that the
Syracusans were in disorder and did not easily fall into line, drew off his
troops more into the open ground, while Nicias did not lead on the Athenians
but lay still by his own wall. When Gylippus saw that they did not come on, he
led off his army to the citadel of the quarter of Apollo Temenites, and passed
the night there. On the following day he led out the main body of his army,
and, drawing them up in order of battle before the walls of the Athenians to
prevent their going to the relief of any other quarter, dispatched a strong
force against Fort Labdalum, and took it, and put all whom he found in it to
the sword, the place not being within sight of the Athenians. On the same day
an Athenian galley that lay moored off the harbour was captured by the
Syracusans.
After
this the Syracusans and their allies began to carry a single wall, starting from
the city, in a slanting direction up Epipolae, in order that the Athenians,
unless they could hinder the work, might be no longer able to invest them.
Meanwhile the Athenians, having now finished their wall down to the sea, had
come up to the heights; and part of their wall being weak, Gylippus drew out
his army by night and attacked it. However, the Athenians who happened to be
bivouacking outside took the alarm and came out to meet him, upon seeing which
he quickly led his men back again. The Athenians now built their wall higher,
and in future kept guard at this point themselves, disposing their confederates
along the remainder of the works, at the stations assigned to them. Nicias also
determined to fortify Plemmyrium, a promontory over against the city, which
juts out and narrows the mouth of the Great Harbour. He thought that the
fortification of this place would make it easier to bring in supplies, as they
would be able to carry on their blockade from a less distance, near to the port
occupied by the Syracusans; instead of being obliged, upon every movement of
the enemy's navy, to put out against them from the bottom of the great harbour.
Besides this, he now began to pay more attention to the war by sea, seeing that
the coming of Gylippus had diminished their hopes by land. Accordingly, he
conveyed over his ships and some troops, and built three forts in which he
placed most of his baggage, and moored there for the future the larger craft
and men-of-war. This was the first and chief occasion of the losses which the
crews experienced. The water which they used was scarce and had to be fetched
from far, and the sailors could not go out for firewood without being cut off
by the Syracusan horse, who were masters of the country; a third of the enemy's
cavalry being stationed at the little town of Olympieum, to prevent plundering
incursions on the part of the Athenians at Plemmyrium. Meanwhile Nicias learned
that the rest of the Corinthian fleet was approaching, and sent twenty ships to
watch for them, with orders to be on the look-out for them about Locris and
Rhegium and the approach to Sicily.
Gylippus,
meanwhile, went on with the wall across Epipolae, using the stones which the
Athenians had laid down for their own wall, and at the same time constantly led
out the Syracusans and their allies, and formed them in order of battle in
front of the lines, the Athenians forming against him. At last he thought that
the moment was come, and began the attack; and a hand-to-hand fight ensued
between the lines, where the Syracusan cavalry could be of no use; and the
Syracusans and their allies were defeated and took up their dead under truce,
while the Athenians erected a trophy. After this Gylippus called the soldiers
together, and said that the fault was not theirs but his; he had kept their
lines too much within the works, and had thus deprived them of the services of
their cavalry and darters. He would now, therefore, lead them on a second time.
He begged them to remember that in material force they would be fully a match
for their opponents, while, with respect to moral advantages, it were
intolerable if Peloponnesians and Dorians should not feel confident of
overcoming Ionians and islanders with the motley rabble that accompanied them,
and of driving them out of the country.
After
this he embraced the first opportunity that offered of again leading them
against the enemy. Now Nicias and the Athenians held the opinion that even if
the Syracusans should not wish to offer battle, it was necessary for them to
prevent the building of the cross wall, as it already almost overlapped the
extreme point of their own, and if it went any further it would from that
moment make no difference whether they fought ever so many successful actions,
or never fought at all. They accordingly came out to meet the Syracusans.
Gylippus led out his heavy infantry further from the fortifications than on the
former occasion, and so joined battle; posting his horse and darters upon the
flank of the Athenians in the open space, where the works of the two walls
terminated. During the engagement the cavalry attacked and routed the left wing
of the Athenians, which was opposed to them; and the rest of the Athenian army
was in consequence defeated by the Syracusans and driven headlong within their
lines. The night following the Syracusans carried their wall up to the Athenian
works and passed them, thus putting it out of their power any longer to stop
them, and depriving them, even if victorious in the field, of all chance of
investing the city for the future.
After
this the remaining twelve vessels of the Corinthians, Ambraciots, and
Leucadians sailed into the harbour under the command of Erasinides, a
Corinthian, having eluded the Athenian ships on guard, and helped the
Syracusans in completing the remainder of the cross wall. Meanwhile Gylippus
went into the rest of Sicily to raise land and naval forces, and also to bring
over any of the cities that either were lukewarm in the cause or had hitherto
kept out of the war altogether. Syracusan and Corinthian envoys were also
dispatched to Lacedaemon and Corinth to get a fresh force sent over, in any way
that might offer, either in merchant vessels or transports, or in any other
manner likely to prove successful, as the Athenians too were sending for reinforcements;
while the Syracusans proceeded to man a fleet and to exercise, meaning to try
their fortune in this way also, and generally became exceedingly confident.
Nicias
perceiving this, and seeing the strength of the enemy and his own difficulties
daily increasing, himself also sent to Athens. He had before sent frequent
reports of events as they occurred, and felt it especially incumbent upon him
to do so now, as he thought that they were in a critical position, and that,
unless speedily recalled or strongly reinforced from home, they had no hope of
safety. He feared, however, that the messengers, either through inability to
speak, or through failure of memory, or from a wish to please the multitude,
might not report the truth, and so thought it best to write a letter, to ensure
that the Athenians should know his own opinion without its being lost in
transmission, and be able to decide upon the real facts of the case.
His
emissaries, accordingly, departed with the letter and the requisite verbal
instructions; and he attended to the affairs of the army, making it his aim now
to keep on the defensive and to avoid any unnecessary danger.
At
the close of the same summer the Athenian general Euetion marched in concert
with Perdiccas with a large body of Thracians against Amphipolis, and failing
to take it brought some galleys round into the Strymon, and blockaded the town
from the river, having his base at Himeraeum.
Summer
was now over. The winter ensuing, the persons sent by Nicias, reaching Athens,
gave the verbal messages which had been entrusted to them, and answered any
questions that were asked them, and delivered the letter. The clerk of the city
now came forward and read out to the Athenians the letter, which was as
follows:
"Our
past operations, Athenians, have been made known to you by many other letters;
it is now time for you to become equally familiar with our present condition,
and to take your measures accordingly. We had defeated in most of our
engagements with them the Syracusans, against whom we were sent, and we had
built the works which we now occupy, when Gylippus arrived from Lacedaemon with
an army obtained from Peloponnese and from some of the cities in Sicily. In our
first battle with him we were victorious; in the battle on the following day we
were overpowered by a multitude of cavalry and darters, and compelled to retire
within our lines. We have now, therefore, been forced by the numbers of those
opposed to us to discontinue the work of circumvallation, and to remain
inactive; being unable to make use even of all the force we have, since a large
portion of our heavy infantry is absorbed in the defence of our lines.
Meanwhile the enemy have carried a single wall past our lines, thus making it
impossible for us to invest them in future, until this cross wall be attacked
by a strong force and captured. So that the besieger in name has become, at
least from the land side, the besieged in reality; as we are prevented by their
cavalry from even going for any distance into the country.
"Besides
this, an embassy has been dispatched to Peloponnese to procure reinforcements,
and Gylippus has gone to the cities in Sicily, partly in the hope of inducing
those that are at present neutral to join him in the war, partly of bringing
from his allies additional contingents for the land forces and material for the
navy. For I understand that they contemplate a combined attack, upon our lines
with their land forces and with their fleet by sea. You must none of you be
surprised that I say by sea also. They have discovered that the length of the
time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews,
and that with the entireness of our crews and the soundness of our ships the
pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to
haul our ships ashore and careen them, because, the enemy's vessels being as
many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack. Indeed,
they may be seen exercising, and it lies with them to take the initiative; and
not having to maintain a blockade, they have greater facilities for drying
their ships.
"This
we should scarcely be able to do, even if we had plenty of ships to spare, and
were freed from our present necessity of exhausting all our strength upon the
blockade. For it is already difficult to carry in supplies past Syracuse; and
were we to relax our vigilance in the slightest degree it would become
impossible. The losses which our crews have suffered and still continue to
suffer arise from the following causes. Expeditions for fuel and for forage,
and the distance from which water has to be fetched, cause our sailors to be
cut off by the Syracusan cavalry; the loss of our previous superiority
emboldens our slaves to desert; our foreign seamen are impressed by the unexpected
appearance of a navy against us, and the strength of the enemy's resistance;
such of them as were pressed into the service take the first opportunity of
departing to their respective cities; such as were originally seduced by the
temptation of high pay, and expected little fighting and large gains, leave us
either by desertion to the enemy or by availing themselves of one or other of
the various facilities of escape which the magnitude of Sicily affords them.
Some even engage in trade themselves and prevail upon the captains to take
Hyccaric slaves on board in their place; thus they have ruined the efficiency
of our navy.
"Now
I need not remind you that the time during which a crew is in its prime is
short, and that the number of sailors who can start a ship on her way and keep
the rowing in time is small. But by far my greatest trouble is, that holding
the post which I do, I am prevented by the natural indocility of the Athenian
seaman from putting a stop to these evils; and that meanwhile we have no source
from which to recruit our crews, which the enemy can do from many quarters, but
are compelled to depend both for supplying the crews in service and for making
good our losses upon the men whom we brought with us. For our present
confederates, Naxos and Catana, are incapable of supplying us. There is only
one thing more wanting to our opponents, I mean the defection of our Italian
markets. If they were to see you neglect to relieve us from our present
condition, and were to go over to the enemy, famine would compel us to
evacuate, and Syracuse would finish the war without a blow.
"I
might, it is true, have written to you something different and more agreeable
than this, but nothing certainly more useful, if it is desirable for you to
know the real state of things here before taking your measures. Besides I know
that it is your nature to love to be told the best side of things, and then to
blame the teller if the expectations which he has raised in your minds are not
answered by the result; and I therefore thought it safest to declare to you the
truth.
"Now
you are not to think that either your generals or your soldiers have ceased to
be a match for the forces originally opposed to them. But you are to reflect
that a general Sicilian coalition is being formed against us; that a fresh army
is expected from Peloponnese, while the force we have here is unable to cope
even with our present antagonists; and you must promptly decide either to
recall us or to send out to us another fleet and army as numerous again, with a
large sum of money, and someone to succeed me, as a disease in the kidneys
unfits me for retaining my post. I have, I think, some claim on your
indulgence, as while I was in my prime I did you much good service in my
commands. But whatever you mean to do, do it at the commencement of spring and
without delay, as the enemy will obtain his Sicilian reinforcements shortly,
those from Peloponnese after a longer interval; and unless you attend to the
matter the former will be here before you, while the latter will elude you as
they have done before."
Such
were the contents of Nicias's letter. When the Athenians had heard it they
refused to accept his resignation, but chose him two colleagues, naming
Menander and Euthydemus, two of the officers at the seat of war, to fill their
places until their arrival, that Nicias might not be left alone in his sickness
to bear the whole weight of affairs. They also voted to send out another army
and navy, drawn partly from the Athenians on the muster-roll, partly from the allies.
The colleagues chosen for Nicias were Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes, and
Eurymedon, son of Thucles. Eurymedon was sent off at once, about the time of
the winter solstice, with ten ships, a hundred and twenty talents of silver,
and instructions to tell the army that reinforcements would arrive, and that
care would be taken of them; but Demosthenes stayed behind to organize the
expedition, meaning to start as soon as it was spring, and sent for troops to
the allies, and meanwhile got together money, ships, and heavy infantry at
home.
The
Athenians also sent twenty vessels round Peloponnese to prevent any one
crossing over to Sicily from Corinth or Peloponnese. For the Corinthians,
filled with confidence by the favourable alteration in Sicilian affairs which
had been reported by the envoys upon their arrival, and convinced that the
fleet which they had before sent out had not been without its use, were now
preparing to dispatch a force of heavy infantry in merchant vessels to Sicily,
while the Lacedaemonians did the like for the rest of Peloponnese. The
Corinthians also manned a fleet of twenty-five vessels, intending to try the
result of a battle with the squadron on guard at Naupactus, and meanwhile to
make it less easy for the Athenians there to hinder the departure of their
merchantmen, by obliging them to keep an eye upon the galleys thus arrayed
against them.
In
the meantime the Lacedaemonians prepared for their invasion of Attica, in
accordance with their own previous resolve, and at the instigation of the
Syracusans and Corinthians, who wished for an invasion to arrest the
reinforcements which they heard that Athens was about to send to Sicily.
Alcibiades also urgently advised the fortification of Decelea, and a vigorous
prosecution of the war. But the Lacedaemonians derived most encouragement from
the belief that Athens, with two wars on her hands, against themselves and
against the Siceliots, would be more easy to subdue, and from the conviction
that she had been the first to infringe the truce. In the former war, they
considered, the offence had been more on their own side, both on account of the
entrance of the Thebans into Plataea in time of peace, and also of their own
refusal to listen to the Athenian offer of arbitration, in spite of the clause
in the former treaty that where arbitration should be offered there should be
no appeal to arms. For this reason they thought that they deserved their
misfortunes, and took to heart seriously the disaster at Pylos and whatever
else had befallen them. But when, besides the ravages from Pylos, which went on
without any intermission, the thirty Athenian ships came out from Argos and
wasted part of Epidaurus, Prasiae, and other places; when upon every dispute
that arose as to the interpretation of any doubtful point in the treaty, their
own offers of arbitration were always rejected by the Athenians, the
Lacedaemonians at length decided that Athens had now committed the very same
offence as they had before done, and had become the guilty party; and they began
to be full of ardour for the war. They spent this winter in sending round to
their allies for iron, and in getting ready the other implements for building
their fort; and meanwhile began raising at home, and also by forced
requisitions in the rest of Peloponnese, a force to be sent out in the
merchantmen to their allies in Sicily. Winter thus ended, and with it the
eighteenth year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.
In
the first days of the spring following, at an earlier period than usual, the
Lacedaemonians and their allies invaded Attica, under the command of Agis, son
of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. They began by devastating the parts
bordering upon the plain, and next proceeded to fortify Decelea, dividing the
work among the different cities. Decelea is about thirteen or fourteen miles
from the city of Athens, and the same distance or not much further from
Boeotia; and the fort was meant to annoy the plain and the richest parts of the
country, being in sight of Athens. While the Peloponnesians and their allies in
Attica were engaged in the work of fortification, their countrymen at home sent
off, at about the same time, the heavy infantry in the merchant vessels to
Sicily; the Lacedaemonians furnishing a picked force of Helots and Neodamodes
(or freedmen), six hundred heavy infantry in all, under the command of
Eccritus, a Spartan; and the Boeotians three hundred heavy infantry, commanded
by two Thebans, Xenon and Nicon, and by Hegesander, a Thespian. These were
among the first to put out into the open sea, starting from Taenarus in
Laconia. Not long after their departure the Corinthians sent off a force of
five hundred heavy infantry, consisting partly of men from Corinth itself, and
partly of Arcadian mercenaries, placed under the command of Alexarchus, a
Corinthian. The Sicyonians also sent off two hundred heavy infantry at same
time as the Corinthians, under the command of Sargeus, a Sicyonian. Meantime
the five-and-twenty vessels manned by Corinth during the winter lay confronting
the twenty Athenian ships at Naupactus until the heavy infantry in the
merchantmen were fairly on their way from Peloponnese; thus fulfilling the
object for which they had been manned originally, which was to divert the
attention of the Athenians from the merchantmen to the galleys.
During
this time the Athenians were not idle. Simultaneously with the fortification of
Decelea, at the very beginning of spring, they sent thirty ships round
Peloponnese, under Charicles, son of Apollodorus, with instructions to call at
Argos and demand a force of their heavy infantry for the fleet, agreeably to
the alliance. At the same time they dispatched Demosthenes to Sicily, as they
had intended, with sixty Athenian and five Chian vessels, twelve hundred
Athenian heavy infantry from the muster-roll, and as many of the islanders as
could be raised in the different quarters, drawing upon the other subject
allies for whatever they could supply that would be of use for the war.
Demosthenes was instructed first to sail round with Charicles and to operate
with him upon the coasts of Laconia, and accordingly sailed to Aegina and there
waited for the remainder of his armament, and for Charicles to fetch the Argive
troops.
In Sicily,
about the same time in this spring, Gylippus came to Syracuse with as many
troops as he could bring from the cities which he had persuaded to join.
Calling the Syracusans together, he told them that they must man as many ships
as possible, and try their hand at a sea-fight, by which he hoped to achieve an
advantage in the war not unworthy of the risk. With him Hermocrates actively
joined in trying to encourage his countrymen to attack the Athenians at sea,
saying that the latter had not inherited their naval prowess nor would they
retain it for ever; they had been landsmen even to a greater degree than the
Syracusans, and had only become a maritime power when obliged by the Mede.
Besides, to daring spirits like the Athenians, a daring adversary would seem
the most formidable; and the Athenian plan of paralysing by the boldness of
their attack a neighbour often not their inferior in strength could now be used
against them with as good effect by the Syracusans. He was convinced also that
the unlooked-for spectacle of Syracusans daring to face the Athenian navy would
cause a terror to the enemy, the advantages of which would far outweigh any
loss that Athenian science might inflict upon their inexperience. He
accordingly urged them to throw aside their fears and to try their fortune at
sea; and the Syracusans, under the influence of Gylippus and Hermocrates, and
perhaps some others, made up their minds for the sea-fight and began to man
their vessels.
When
the fleet was ready, Gylippus led out the whole army by night; his plan being
to assault in person the forts on Plemmyrium by land, while thirty-five
Syracusan galleys sailed according to appointment against the enemy from the
great harbour, and the forty-five remaining came round from the lesser harbour,
where they had their arsenal, in order to effect a junction with those inside
and simultaneously to attack Plemmyrium, and thus to distract the Athenians by
assaulting them on two sides at once. The Athenians quickly manned sixty ships,
and with twenty-five of these engaged the thirty-five of the Syracusans in the
great harbour, sending the rest to meet those sailing round from the arsenal;
and an action now ensued directly in front of the mouth of the great harbour,
maintained with equal tenacity on both sides; the one wishing to force the
passage, the other to prevent them.
In
the meantime, while the Athenians in Plemmyrium were down at the sea, attending
to the engagement, Gylippus made a sudden attack on the forts in the early
morning and took the largest first, and afterwards the two smaller, whose
garrisons did not wait for him, seeing the largest so easily taken. At the fall
of the first fort, the men from it who succeeded in taking refuge in their
boats and merchantmen, found great difficulty in reaching the camp, as the
Syracusans were having the best of it in the engagement in the great harbour,
and sent a fast-sailing galley to pursue them. But when the two others fell,
the Syracusans were now being defeated; and the fugitives from these sailed alongshore
with more ease. The Syracusan ships fighting off the mouth of the harbour
forced their way through the Athenian vessels and sailing in without any order
fell foul of one another, and transferred the victory to the Athenians; who not
only routed the squadron in question, but also that by which they were at first
being defeated in the harbour, sinking eleven of the Syracusan vessels and
killing most of the men, except the crews of three ships whom they made
prisoners. Their own loss was confined to three vessels; and after hauling
ashore the Syracusan wrecks and setting up a trophy upon the islet in front of
Plemmyrium, they retired to their own camp.
Unsuccessful
at sea, the Syracusans had nevertheless the forts in Plemmyrium, for which they
set up three trophies. One of the two last taken they razed, but put in order
and garrisoned the two others. In the capture of the forts a great many men
were killed and made prisoners, and a great quantity of property was taken in
all. As the Athenians had used them as a magazine, there was a large stock of
goods and corn of the merchants inside, and also a large stock belonging to the
captains; the masts and other furniture of forty galleys being taken, besides
three galleys which had been drawn up on shore. Indeed the first and chiefest
cause of the ruin of the Athenian army was the capture of Plemmyrium; even the
entrance of the harbour being now no longer safe for carrying in provisions, as
the Syracusan vessels were stationed there to prevent it, and nothing could be
brought in without fighting; besides the general impression of dismay and
discouragement produced upon the army.
After
this the Syracusans sent out twelve ships under the command of Agatharchus, a
Syracusan. One of these went to Peloponnese with ambassadors to describe the
hopeful state of their affairs, and to incite the Peloponnesians to prosecute
the war there even more actively than they were now doing, while the eleven
others sailed to Italy, hearing that vessels laden with stores were on their way
to the Athenians. After falling in with and destroying most of the vessels in
question, and burning in the Caulonian territory a quantity of timber for
shipbuilding, which had been got ready for the Athenians, the Syracusan
squadron went to Locri, and one of the merchantmen from Peloponnese coming in,
while they were at anchor there, carrying Thespian heavy infantry, took these
on board and sailed alongshore towards home. The Athenians were on the look-out
for them with twenty ships at Megara, but were only able to take one vessel
with its crew; the rest getting clear off to Syracuse. There was also some
skirmishing in the harbour about the piles which the Syracusans had driven in
the sea in front of the old docks, to allow their ships to lie at anchor inside,
without being hurt by the Athenians sailing up and running them down. The
Athenians brought up to them a ship of ten thousand talents burden furnished
with wooden turrets and screens, and fastened ropes round the piles from their
boats, wrenched them up and broke them, or dived down and sawed them in two.
Meanwhile the Syracusans plied them with missiles from the docks, to which they
replied from their large vessel; until at last most of the piles were removed
by the Athenians. But the most awkward part of the stockade was the part out of
sight: some of the piles which had been driven in did not appear above water,
so that it was dangerous to sail up, for fear of running the ships upon them,
just as upon a reef, through not seeing them. However divers went down and
sawed off even these for reward; although the Syracusans drove in others.
Indeed there was no end to the contrivances to which they resorted against each
other, as might be expected between two hostile armies confronting each other
at such a short distance: and skirmishes and all kinds of other attempts were
of constant occurrence. Meanwhile the Syracusans sent embassies to the cities,
composed of Corinthians, Ambraciots, and Lacedaemonians, to tell them of the
capture of Plemmyrium, and that their defeat in the sea-fight was due less to
the strength of the enemy than to their own disorder; and generally, to let
them know that they were full of hope, and to desire them to come to their help
with ships and troops, as the Athenians were expected with a fresh army, and if
the one already there could be destroyed before the other arrived, the war
would be at an end.
While
the contending parties in Sicily were thus engaged, Demosthenes, having now got
together the armament with which he was to go to the island, put out from
Aegina, and making sail for Peloponnese, joined Charicles and the thirty ships
of the Athenians. Taking on board the heavy infantry from Argos they sailed to
Laconia, and, after first plundering part of Epidaurus Limera, landed on the
coast of Laconia, opposite Cythera, where the temple of Apollo stands, and,
laying waste part of the country, fortified a sort of isthmus, to which the
Helots of the Lacedaemonians might desert, and from whence plundering
incursions might be made as from Pylos. Demosthenes helped to occupy this
place, and then immediately sailed on to Corcyra to take up some of the allies
in that island, and so to proceed without delay to Sicily; while Charicles
waited until he had completed the fortification of the place and, leaving a
garrison there, returned home subsequently with his thirty ships and the
Argives also.
This
same summer arrived at Athens thirteen hundred targeteers, Thracian swordsmen
of the tribe of the Dii, who were to have sailed to Sicily with Demosthenes.
Since they had come too late, the Athenians determined to send them back to
Thrace, whence they had come; to keep them for the Decelean war appearing too
expensive, as the pay of each man was a drachma a day. Indeed since Decelea had
been first fortified by the whole Peloponnesian army during this summer, and
then occupied for the annoyance of the country by the garrisons from the cities
relieving each other at stated intervals, it had been doing great mischief to
the Athenians; in fact this occupation, by the destruction of property and loss
of men which resulted from it, was one of the principal causes of their ruin.
Previously the invasions were short, and did not prevent their enjoying their
land during the rest of the time: the enemy was now permanently fixed in
Attica; at one time it was an attack in force, at another it was the regular
garrison overrunning the country and making forays for its subsistence, and the
Lacedaemonian king, Agis, was in the field and diligently prosecuting the war; great
mischief was therefore done to the Athenians. They were deprived of their whole
country: more than twenty thousand slaves had deserted, a great part of them
artisans, and all their sheep and beasts of burden were lost; and as the
cavalry rode out daily upon excursions to Decelea and to guard the country,
their horses were either lamed by being constantly worked upon rocky ground, or
wounded by the enemy.
Besides,
the transport of provisions from Euboea, which had before been carried on so
much more quickly overland by Decelea from Oropus, was now effected at great
cost by sea round Sunium; everything the city required had to be imported from
abroad, and instead of a city it became a fortress. Summer and winter the
Athenians were worn out by having to keep guard on the fortifications, during
the day by turns, by night all together, the cavalry excepted, at the different
military posts or upon the wall. But what most oppressed them was that they had
two wars at once, and had thus reached a pitch of frenzy which no one would
have believed possible if he had heard of it before it had come to pass. For
could any one have imagined that even when besieged by the Peloponnesians
entrenched in Attica, they would still, instead of withdrawing from Sicily,
stay on there besieging in like manner Syracuse, a town (taken as a town) in no
way inferior to Athens, or would so thoroughly upset the Hellenic estimate of
their strength and audacity, as to give the spectacle of a people which, at the
beginning of the war, some thought might hold out one year, some two, none more
than three, if the Peloponnesians invaded their country, now seventeen years
after the first invasion, after having already suffered from all the evils of
war, going to Sicily and undertaking a new war nothing inferior to that which
they already had with the Peloponnesians? These causes, the great losses from
Decelea, and the other heavy charges that fell upon them, produced their
financial embarrassment; and it was at this time that they imposed upon their
subjects, instead of the tribute, the tax of a twentieth upon all imports and
exports by sea, which they thought would bring them in more money; their
expenditure being now not the same as at first, but having grown with the war
while their revenues decayed.
Accordingly,
not wishing to incur expense in their present want of money, they sent back at
once the Thracians who came too late for Demosthenes, under the conduct of
Diitrephes, who was instructed, as they were to pass through the Euripus, to
make use of them if possible in the voyage alongshore to injure the enemy.
Diitrephes first landed them at Tanagra and hastily snatched some booty; he
then sailed across the Euripus in the evening from Chalcis in Euboea and
disembarking in Boeotia led them against Mycalessus. The night he passed
unobserved near the temple of Hermes, not quite two miles from Mycalessus, and
at daybreak assaulted and took the town, which is not a large one; the
inhabitants being off their guard and not expecting that any one would ever
come up so far from the sea to molest them, the wall too being weak, and in
some places having tumbled down, while in others it had not been built to any
height, and the gates also being left open through their feeling of security.
The Thracians bursting into Mycalessus sacked the houses and temples, and
butchered the inhabitants, sparing neither youth nor age, but killing all they
fell in with, one after the other, children and women, and even beasts of
burden, and whatever other living creatures they saw; the Thracian race, like
the bloodiest of the barbarians, being even more so when it has nothing to
fear. Everywhere confusion reigned and death in all its shapes; and in
particular they attacked a boys' school, the largest that there was in the place,
into which the children had just gone, and massacred them all. In short, the
disaster falling upon the whole town was unsurpassed in magnitude, and
unapproached by any in suddenness and in horror.
Meanwhile
the Thebans heard of it and marched to the rescue, and overtaking the Thracians
before they had gone far, recovered the plunder and drove them in panic to the
Euripus and the sea, where the vessels which brought them were lying. The
greatest slaughter took place while they were embarking, as they did not know
how to swim, and those in the vessels on seeing what was going on on on shore
moored them out of bowshot: in the rest of the retreat the Thracians made a
very respectable defence against the Theban horse, by which they were first
attacked, dashing out and closing their ranks according to the tactics of their
country, and lost only a few men in that part of the affair. A good number who
were after plunder were actually caught in the town and put to death.
Altogether the Thracians had two hundred and fifty killed out of thirteen
hundred, the Thebans and the rest who came to the rescue about twenty, troopers
and heavy infantry, with Scirphondas, one of the Boeotarchs. The Mycalessians
lost a large proportion of their population.
While
Mycalessus thus experienced a calamity for its extent as lamentable as any that
happened in the war, Demosthenes, whom we left sailing to Corcyra, after the
building of the fort in Laconia, found a merchantman lying at Phea in Elis, in
which the Corinthian heavy infantry were to cross to Sicily. The ship he
destroyed, but the men escaped, and subsequently got another in which they
pursued their voyage. After this, arriving at Zacynthus and Cephallenia, he
took a body of heavy infantry on board, and sending for some of the Messenians
from Naupactus, crossed over to the opposite coast of Acarnania, to Alyzia, and
to Anactorium which was held by the Athenians. While he was in these parts he
was met by Eurymedon returning from Sicily, where he had been sent, as has been
mentioned, during the winter, with the money for the army, who told him the
news, and also that he had heard, while at sea, that the Syracusans had taken
Plemmyrium. Here, also, Conon came to them, the commander at Naupactus, with
news that the twenty-five Corinthian ships stationed opposite to him, far from
giving over the war, were meditating an engagement; and he therefore begged
them to send him some ships, as his own eighteen were not a match for the
enemy's twenty-five. Demosthenes and Eurymedon, accordingly, sent ten of their
best sailers with Conon to reinforce the squadron at Naupactus, and meanwhile
prepared for the muster of their forces; Eurymedon, who was now the colleague
of Demosthenes, and had turned back in consequence of his appointment, sailing
to Corcyra to tell them to man fifteen ships and to enlist heavy infantry;
while Demosthenes raised slingers and darters from the parts about Acarnania.
Meanwhile
the envoys, already mentioned, who had gone from Syracuse to the cities after
the capture of Plemmyrium, had succeeded in their mission, and were about to
bring the army that they had collected, when Nicias got scent of it, and sent
to the Centoripae and Alicyaeans and other of the friendly Sicels, who held the
passes, not to let the enemy through, but to combine to prevent their passing,
there being no other way by which they could even attempt it, as the
Agrigentines would not give them a passage through their country. Agreeably to
this request the Sicels laid a triple ambuscade for the Siceliots upon their
march, and attacking them suddenly, while off their guard, killed about eight
hundred of them and all the envoys, the Corinthian only excepted, by whom
fifteen hundred who escaped were conducted to Syracuse.
About
the same time the Camarinaeans also came to the assistance of Syracuse with
five hundred heavy infantry, three hundred darters, and as many archers, while
the Geloans sent crews for five ships, four hundred darters, and two hundred
horse. Indeed almost the whole of Sicily, except the Agrigentines, who were
neutral, now ceased merely to watch events as it had hitherto done, and
actively joined Syracuse against the Athenians.
While
the Syracusans after the Sicel disaster put off any immediate attack upon the
Athenians, Demosthenes and Eurymedon, whose forces from Corcyra and the
continent were now ready, crossed the Ionian Gulf with all their armament to
the Iapygian promontory, and starting from thence touched at the Choerades
Isles lying off Iapygia, where they took on board a hundred and fifty Iapygian
darters of the Messapian tribe, and after renewing an old friendship with Artas
the chief, who had furnished them with the darters, arrived at Metapontium in
Italy. Here they persuaded their allies the Metapontines to send with them
three hundred darters and two galleys, and with this reinforcement coasted on
to Thurii, where they found the party hostile to Athens recently expelled by a
revolution, and accordingly remained there to muster and review the whole army,
to see if any had been left behind, and to prevail upon the Thurians resolutely
to join them in their expedition, and in the circumstances in which they found
themselves to conclude a defensive and offensive alliance with the Athenians.
About
the same time the Peloponnesians in the twenty-five ships stationed opposite to
the squadron at Naupactus to protect the passage of the transports to Sicily
had got ready for engaging, and manning some additional vessels, so as to be
numerically little inferior to the Athenians, anchored off Erineus in Achaia in
the Rhypic country. The place off which they lay being in the form of a
crescent, the land forces furnished by the Corinthians and their allies on the
spot came up and ranged themselves upon the projecting headlands on either
side, while the fleet, under the command of Polyanthes, a Corinthian, held the
intervening space and blocked up the entrance. The Athenians under Diphilus now
sailed out against them with thirty-three ships from Naupactus, and the
Corinthians, at first not moving, at length thought they saw their opportunity,
raised the signal, and advanced and engaged the Athenians. After an obstinate
struggle, the Corinthians lost three ships, and without sinking any altogether,
disabled seven of the enemy, which were struck prow to prow and had their
foreships stove in by the Corinthian vessels, whose cheeks had been
strengthened for this very purpose. After an action of this even character, in
which either party could claim the victory (although the Athenians became
masters of the wrecks through the wind driving them out to sea, the Corinthians
not putting out again to meet them), the two combatants parted. No pursuit took
place, and no prisoners were made on either side; the Corinthians and
Peloponnesians who were fighting near the shore escaping with ease, and none of
the Athenian vessels having been sunk. The Athenians now sailed back to
Naupactus, and the Corinthians immediately set up a trophy as victors, because
they had disabled a greater number of the enemy's ships. Moreover they held
that they had not been worsted, for the very same reason that their opponent
held that he had not been victorious; the Corinthians considering that they
were conquerors, if not decidedly conquered, and the Athenians thinking
themselves vanquished, because not decidedly victorious. However, when the
Peloponnesians sailed off and their land forces had dispersed, the Athenians
also set up a trophy as victors in Achaia, about two miles and a quarter from
Erineus, the Corinthian station.
This
was the termination of the action at Naupactus. To return to Demosthenes and
Eurymedon: the Thurians having now got ready to join in the expedition with
seven hundred heavy infantry and three hundred darters, the two generals
ordered the ships to sail along the coast to the Crotonian territory, and
meanwhile held a review of all the land forces upon the river Sybaris, and then
led them through the Thurian country. Arrived at the river Hylias, they here
received a message from the Crotonians, saying that they would not allow the
army to pass through their country; upon which the Athenians descended towards
the shore, and bivouacked near the sea and the mouth of the Hylias, where the
fleet also met them, and the next day embarked and sailed along the coast
touching at all the cities except Locri, until they came to Petra in the
Rhegian territory.
Meanwhile
the Syracusans hearing of their approach resolved to make a second attempt with
their fleet and their other forces on shore, which they had been collecting for
this very purpose in order to do something before their arrival. In addition to
other improvements suggested by the former sea-fight which they now adopted in
the equipment of their navy, they cut down their prows to a smaller compass to
make them more solid and made their cheeks stouter, and from these let stays
into the vessels' sides for a length of six cubits within and without, in the
same way as the Corinthians had altered their prows before engaging the
squadron at Naupactus. The Syracusans thought that they would thus have an
advantage over the Athenian vessels, which were not constructed with equal
strength, but were slight in the bows, from their being more used to sail round
and charge the enemy's side than to meet him prow to prow, and that the battle being
in the great harbour, with a great many ships in not much room, was also a fact
in their favour. Charging prow to prow, they would stave in the enemy's bows,
by striking with solid and stout beaks against hollow and weak ones; and
secondly, the Athenians for want of room would be unable to use their favourite
manoeuvre of breaking the line or of sailing round, as the Syracusans would do
their best not to let them do the one, and want of room would prevent their
doing the other. This charging prow to prow, which had hitherto been thought
want of skill in a helmsman, would be the Syracusans' chief manoeuvre, as being
that which they should find most useful, since the Athenians, if repulsed,
would not be able to back water in any direction except towards the shore, and
that only for a little way, and in the little space in front of their own camp.
The rest of the harbour would be commanded by the Syracusans; and the
Athenians, if hard pressed, by crowding together in a small space and all to
the same point, would run foul of one another and fall into disorder, which
was, in fact, the thing that did the Athenians most harm in all the sea-fights,
they not having, like the Syracusans, the whole harbour to retreat over. As to
their sailing round into the open sea, this would be impossible, with the
Syracusans in possession of the way out and in, especially as Plemmyrium would
be hostile to them, and the mouth of the harbour was not large.
With
these contrivances to suit their skill and ability, and now more confident
after the previous sea-fight, the Syracusans attacked by land and sea at once.
The town force Gylippus led out a little the first and brought them up to the
wall of the Athenians, where it looked towards the city, while the force from
the Olympieum, that is to say, the heavy infantry that were there with the
horse and the light troops of the Syracusans, advanced against the wall from
the opposite side; the ships of the Syracusans and allies sailing out
immediately afterwards. The Athenians at first fancied that they were to be
attacked by land only, and it was not without alarm that they saw the fleet
suddenly approaching as well; and while some were forming upon the walls and in
front of them against the advancing enemy, and some marching out in haste against
the numbers of horse and darters coming from the Olympieum and from outside,
others manned the ships or rushed down to the beach to oppose the enemy, and
when the ships were manned put out with seventy-five sail against about eighty
of the Syracusans.
After
spending a great part of the day in advancing and retreating and skirmishing
with each other, without either being able to gain any advantage worth speaking
of, except that the Syracusans sank one or two of the Athenian vessels, they
parted, the land force at the same time retiring from the lines. The next day
the Syracusans remained quiet, and gave no signs of what they were going to do;
but Nicias, seeing that the battle had been a drawn one, and expecting that
they would attack again, compelled the captains to refit any of the ships that
had suffered, and moored merchant vessels before the stockade which they had
driven into the sea in front of their ships, to serve instead of an enclosed
harbour, at about two hundred feet from each other, in order that any ship that
was hard pressed might be able to retreat in safety and sail out again at
leisure. These preparations occupied the Athenians all day until nightfall.
The
next day the Syracusans began operations at an earlier hour, but with the same
plan of attack by land and sea. A great part of the day the rivals spent as
before, confronting and skirmishing with each other; until at last Ariston, son
of Pyrrhicus, a Corinthian, the ablest helmsman in the Syracusan service,
persuaded their naval commanders to send to the officials in the city, and tell
them to move the sale market as quickly as they could down to the sea, and
oblige every one to bring whatever eatables he had and sell them there, thus
enabling the commanders to land the crews and dine at once close to the ships,
and shortly afterwards, the selfsame day, to attack the Athenians again when
they were not expecting it.
In
compliance with this advice a messenger was sent and the market got ready, upon
which the Syracusans suddenly backed water and withdrew to the town, and at
once landed and took their dinner upon the spot; while the Athenians, supposing
that they had returned to the town because they felt they were beaten,
disembarked at their leisure and set about getting their dinners and about
their other occupations, under the idea that they done with fighting for that
day. Suddenly the Syracusans had manned their ships and again sailed against
them; and the Athenians, in great confusion and most of them fasting, got on
board, and with great difficulty put out to meet them. For some time both
parties remained on the defensive without engaging, until the Athenians at last
resolved not to let themselves be worn out by waiting where they were, but to
attack without delay, and giving a cheer, went into action. The Syracusans
received them, and charging prow to prow as they had intended, stove in a great
part of the Athenian foreships by the strength of their beaks; the darters on
the decks also did great damage to the Athenians, but still greater damage was
done by the Syracusans who went about in small boats, ran in upon the oars of
the Athenian galleys, and sailed against their sides, and discharged from
thence their darts upon the sailors.
At
last, fighting hard in this fashion, the Syracusans gained the victory, and the
Athenians turned and fled between the merchantmen to their own station. The
Syracusan ships pursued them as far as the merchantmen, where they were stopped
by the beams armed with dolphins suspended from those vessels over the passage.
Two of the Syracusan vessels went too near in the excitement of victory and
were destroyed, one of them being taken with its crew. After sinking seven of
the Athenian vessels and disabling many, and taking most of the men prisoners
and killing others, the Syracusans retired and set up trophies for both the
engagements, being now confident of having a decided superiority by sea, and by
no means despairing of equal success by land.
IN
the meantime, while the Syracusans were preparing for a second attack upon both
elements, Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrived with the succours from Athens,
consisting of about seventy-three ships, including the foreigners; nearly five
thousand heavy infantry, Athenian and allied; a large number of darters,
Hellenic and barbarian, and slingers and archers and everything else upon a
corresponding scale. The Syracusans and their allies were for the moment not a
little dismayed at the idea that there was to be no term or ending to their
dangers, seeing, in spite of the fortification of Decelea, a new army arrive
nearly equal to the former, and the power of Athens proving so great in every
quarter. On the other hand, the first Athenian armament regained a certain
confidence in the midst of its misfortunes. Demosthenes, seeing how matters
stood, felt that he could not drag on and fare as Nicias had done, who by
wintering in Catana instead of at once attacking Syracuse had allowed the
terror of his first arrival to evaporate in contempt, and had given time to
Gylippus to arrive with a force from Peloponnese, which the Syracusans would
never have sent for if he had attacked immediately; for they fancied that they
were a match for him by themselves, and would not have discovered their
inferiority until they were already invested, and even if they then sent for
succours, they would no longer have been equally able to profit by their arrival.
Recollecting this, and well aware that it was now on the first day after his
arrival that he like Nicias was most formidable to the enemy, Demosthenes
determined to lose no time in drawing the utmost profit from the consternation
at the moment inspired by his army; and seeing that the counterwall of the
Syracusans, which hindered the Athenians from investing them, was a single one,
and that he who should become master of the way up to Epipolae, and afterwards
of the camp there, would find no difficulty in taking it, as no one would even
wait for his attack, made all haste to attempt the enterprise. This he took to
be the shortest way of ending the war, as he would either succeed and take
Syracuse, or would lead back the armament instead of frittering away the lives
of the Athenians engaged in the expedition and the resources of the country at
large.
First
therefore the Athenians went out and laid waste the lands of the Syracusans
about the Anapus and carried all before them as at first by land and by sea,
the Syracusans not offering to oppose them upon either element, unless it were
with their cavalry and darters from the Olympieum. Next Demosthenes resolved to
attempt the counterwall first by means of engines. As however the engines that
he brought up were burnt by the enemy fighting from the wall, and the rest of
the forces repulsed after attacking at many different points, he determined to
delay no longer, and having obtained the consent of Nicias and his fellow
commanders, proceeded to put in execution his plan of attacking Epipolae. As by
day it seemed impossible to approach and get up without being observed, he
ordered provisions for five days, took all the masons and carpenters, and other
things, such as arrows, and everything else that they could want for the work
of fortification if successful, and, after the first watch, set out with
Eurymedon and Menander and the whole army for Epipolae, Nicias being left
behind in the lines. Having come up by the hill of Euryelus (where the former
army had ascended at first) unobserved by the enemy's guards, they went up to
the fort which the Syracusans had there, and took it, and put to the sword part
of the garrison. The greater number, however, escaped at once and gave the
alarm to the camps, of which there were three upon Epipolae, defended by
outworks, one of the Syracusans, one of the other Siceliots, and one of the
allies; and also to the six hundred Syracusans forming the original garrison
for this part of Epipolae. These at once advanced against the assailants and,
falling in with Demosthenes and the Athenians, were routed by them after a
sharp resistance, the victors immediately pushing on, eager to achieve the
objects of the attack without giving time for their ardour to cool; meanwhile
others from the very beginning were taking the counterwall of the Syracusans,
which was abandoned by its garrison, and pulling down the battlements. The
Syracusans and the allies, and Gylippus with the troops under his command,
advanced to the rescue from the outworks, but engaged in some consternation (a
night attack being a piece of audacity which they had never expected), and were
at first compelled to retreat. But while the Athenians, flushed with their
victory, now advanced with less order, wishing to make their way as quickly as
possible through the whole force of the enemy not yet engaged, without relaxing
their attack or giving them time to rally, the Boeotians made the first stand
against them, attacked them, routed them, and put them to flight.
The
Athenians now fell into great disorder and perplexity, so that it was not easy
to get from one side or the other any detailed account of the affair. By day
certainly the combatants have a clearer notion, though even then by no means of
all that takes place, no one knowing much of anything that does not go on in
his own immediate neighbourhood; but in a night engagement (and this was the
only one that occurred between great armies during the war) how could any one
know anything for certain? Although there was a bright moon they saw each other
only as men do by moonlight, that is to say, they could distinguish the form of
the body, but could not tell for certain whether it was a friend or an enemy.
Both had great numbers of heavy infantry moving about in a small space. Some of
the Athenians were already defeated, while others were coming up yet
unconquered for their first attack. A large part also of the rest of their
forces either had only just got up, or were still ascending, so that they did
not know which way to march. Owing to the rout that had taken place all in
front was now in confusion, and the noise made it difficult to distinguish
anything. The victorious Syracusans and allies were cheering each other on with
loud cries, by night the only possible means of communication, and meanwhile
receiving all who came against them; while the Athenians were seeking for one
another, taking all in front of them for enemies, even although they might be
some of their now flying friends; and by constantly asking for the watchword, which
was their only means of recognition, not only caused great confusion among
themselves by asking all at once, but also made it known to the enemy, whose
own they did not so readily discover, as the Syracusans were victorious and not
scattered, and thus less easily mistaken. The result was that if the Athenians
fell in with a party of the enemy that was weaker than they, it escaped them
through knowing their watchword; while if they themselves failed to answer they
were put to the sword. But what hurt them as much, or indeed more than anything
else, was the singing of the paean, from the perplexity which it caused by
being nearly the same on either side; the Argives and Corcyraeans and any other
Dorian peoples in the army, struck terror into the Athenians whenever they
raised their paean, no less than did the enemy. Thus, after being once thrown
into disorder, they ended by coming into collision with each other in many
parts of the field, friends with friends, and citizens with citizens, and not
only terrified one another, but even came to blows and could only be parted
with difficulty. In the pursuit many perished by throwing themselves down the
cliffs, the way down from Epipolae being narrow; and of those who got down
safely into the plain, although many, especially those who belonged to the
first armament, escaped through their better acquaintance with the locality,
some of the newcomers lost their way and wandered over the country, and were
cut off in the morning by the Syracusan cavalry and killed.
The
next day the Syracusans set up two trophies, one upon Epipolae where the ascent
had been made, and the other on the spot where the first check was given by the
Boeotians; and the Athenians took back their dead under truce. A great many of
the Athenians and allies were killed, although still more arms were taken than
could be accounted for by the number of the dead, as some of those who were
obliged to leap down from the cliffs without their shields escaped with their
lives and did not perish like the rest.
After
this the Syracusans, recovering their old confidence at such an unexpected
stroke of good fortune, dispatched Sicanus with fifteen ships to Agrigentum
where there was a revolution, to induce if possible the city to join them;
while Gylippus again went by land into the rest of Sicily to bring up
reinforcements, being now in hope of taking the Athenian lines by storm, after
the result of the affair on Epipolae.
In
the meantime the Athenian generals consulted upon the disaster which had
happened, and upon the general weakness of the army. They saw themselves
unsuccessful in their enterprises, and the soldiers disgusted with their stay;
disease being rife among them owing to its being the sickly season of the year,
and to the marshy and unhealthy nature of the spot in which they were encamped;
and the state of their affairs generally being thought desperate. Accordingly,
Demosthenes was of opinion that they ought not to stay any longer; but
agreeably to his original idea in risking the attempt upon Epipolae, now that
this had failed, he gave his vote for going away without further loss of time,
while the sea might yet be crossed, and their late reinforcement might give
them the superiority at all events on that element. He also said that it would
be more profitable for the state to carry on the war against those who were
building fortifications in Attica, than against the Syracusans whom it was no
longer easy to subdue; besides which it was not right to squander large sums of
money to no purpose by going on with the siege.
This
was the opinion of Demosthenes. Nicias, without denying the bad state of their
affairs, was unwilling to avow their weakness, or to have it reported to the
enemy that the Athenians in full council were openly voting for retreat; for in
that case they would be much less likely to effect it when they wanted without
discovery. Moreover, his own particular information still gave him reason to
hope that the affairs of the enemy would soon be in a worse state than their
own, if the Athenians persevered in the siege; as they would wear out the
Syracusans by want of money, especially with the more extensive command of the
sea now given them by their present navy. Besides this, there was a party in
Syracuse who wished to betray the city to the Athenians, and kept sending him
messages and telling him not to raise the siege. Accordingly, knowing this and
really waiting because he hesitated between the two courses and wished to see
his way more clearly, in his public speech on this occasion he refused to lead
off the army, saying he was sure the Athenians would never approve of their
returning without a vote of theirs. Those who would vote upon their conduct,
instead of judging the facts as eye-witnesses like themselves and not from what
they might hear from hostile critics, would simply be guided by the calumnies
of the first clever speaker; while many, indeed most, of the soldiers on the
spot, who now so loudly proclaimed the danger of their position, when they
reached Athens would proclaim just as loudly the opposite, and would say that
their generals had been bribed to betray them and return. For himself,
therefore, who knew the Athenian temper, sooner than perish under a
dishonourable charge and by an unjust sentence at the hands of the Athenians, he
would rather take his chance and die, if die he must, a soldier's death at the
hand of the enemy. Besides, after all, the Syracusans were in a worse case than
themselves. What with paying mercenaries, spending upon fortified posts, and
now for a full year maintaining a large navy, they were already at a loss and
would soon be at a standstill: they had already spent two thousand talents and
incurred heavy debts besides, and could not lose even ever so small a fraction
of their present force through not paying it, without ruin to their cause;
depending as they did more upon mercenaries than upon soldiers obliged to
serve, like their own. He therefore said that they ought to stay and carry on
the siege, and not depart defeated in point of money, in which they were much
superior.
Nicias
spoke positively because he had exact information of the financial distress at
Syracuse, and also because of the strength of the Athenian party there which
kept sending him messages not to raise the siege; besides which he had more
confidence than before in his fleet, and felt sure at least of its success.
Demosthenes, however, would not hear for a moment of continuing the siege, but
said that if they could not lead off the army without a decree from Athens, and
if they were obliged to stay on, they ought to remove to Thapsus or Catana;
where their land forces would have a wide extent of country to overrun, and
could live by plundering the enemy, and would thus do them damage; while the
fleet would have the open sea to fight in, that is to say, instead of a narrow
space which was all in the enemy's favour, a wide sea-room where their science
would be of use, and where they could retreat or advance without being confined
or circumscribed either when they put out or put in. In any case he was
altogether opposed to their staying on where they were, and insisted on
removing at once, as quickly and with as little delay as possible; and in this
judgment Eurymedon agreed. Nicias however still objecting, a certain diffidence
and hesitation came over them, with a suspicion that Nicias might have some
further information to make him so positive.
WHILE
the Athenians lingered on in this way without moving from where they were,
Gylippus and Sicanus now arrived at Syracuse. Sicanus had failed to gain
Agrigentum, the party friendly to the Syracusans having been driven out while
he was still at Gela; but Gylippus was accompanied not only by a large number
of troops raised in Sicily, but by the heavy infantry sent off in the spring
from Peloponnese in the merchantmen, who had arrived at Selinus from Libya.
They had been carried to Libya by a storm, and having obtained two galleys and
pilots from the Cyrenians, on their voyage alongshore had taken sides with the
Euesperitae and had defeated the Libyans who were besieging them, and from
thence coasting on to Neapolis, a Carthaginian mart, and the nearest point to
Sicily, from which it is only two days' and a night's voyage, there crossed
over and came to Selinus. Immediately upon their arrival the Syracusans
prepared to attack the Athenians again by land and sea at once. The Athenian
generals seeing a fresh army come to the aid of the enemy, and that their own
circumstances, far from improving, were becoming daily worse, and above all
distressed by the sickness of the soldiers, now began to repent of not having
removed before; and Nicias no longer offering the same opposition, except by urging
that there should be no open voting, they gave orders as secretly as possible
for all to be prepared to sail out from the camp at a given signal. All was at
last ready, and they were on the point of sailing away, when an eclipse of the
moon, which was then at the full, took place. Most of the Athenians, deeply
impressed by this occurrence, now urged the generals to wait; and Nicias, who
was somewhat over-addicted to divination and practices of that kind, refused
from that moment even to take the question of departure into consideration,
until they had waited the thrice nine days prescribed by the soothsayers.
The
besiegers were thus condemned to stay in the country; and the Syracusans,
getting wind of what had happened, became more eager than ever to press the
Athenians, who had now themselves acknowledged that they were no longer their
superiors either by sea or by land, as otherwise they would never have planned
to sail away. Besides which the Syracusans did not wish them to settle in any
other part of Sicily, where they would be more difficult to deal with, but
desired to force them to fight at sea as quickly as possible, in a position
favourable to themselves. Accordingly they manned their ships and practised for
as many days as they thought sufficient. When the moment arrived they assaulted
on the first day the Athenian lines, and upon a small force of heavy infantry
and horse sallying out against them by certain gates, cut off some of the
former and routed and pursued them to the lines, where, as the entrance was
narrow, the Athenians lost seventy horses and some few of the heavy infantry.
Drawing
off their troops for this day, on the next the Syracusans went out with a fleet
of seventy-six sail, and at the same time advanced with their land forces against
the lines. The Athenians put out to meet them with eighty-six ships, came to
close quarters, and engaged. The Syracusans and their allies first defeated the
Athenian centre, and then caught Eurymedon, the commander of the right wing,
who was sailing out from the line more towards the land in order to surround
the enemy, in the hollow and recess of the harbour, and killed him and
destroyed the ships accompanying him; after which they now chased the whole
Athenian fleet before them and drove them ashore.
Gylippus
seeing the enemy's fleet defeated and carried ashore beyond their stockades and
camp, ran down to the breakwater with some of his troops, in order to cut off
the men as they landed and make it easier for the Syracusans to tow off the
vessels by the shore being friendly ground. The Tyrrhenians who guarded this
point for the Athenians, seeing them come on in disorder, advanced out against
them and attacked and routed their van, hurling it into the marsh of
Lysimeleia. Afterwards the Syracusan and allied troops arrived in greater
numbers, and the Athenians fearing for their ships came up also to the rescue
and engaged them, and defeated and pursued them to some distance and killed a
few of their heavy infantry. They succeeded in rescuing most of their ships and
brought them down by their camp; eighteen however were taken by the Syracusans
and their allies, and all the men killed. The rest the enemy tried to burn by
means of an old merchantman which they filled with faggots and pine-wood, set
on fire, and let drift down the wind which blew full on the Athenians. The
Athenians, however, alarmed for their ships, contrived means for stopping it
and putting it out, and checking the flames and the nearer approach of the
merchantman, thus escaped the danger.
After
this the Syracusans set up a trophy for the sea-fight and for the heavy
infantry whom they had cut off up at the lines, where they took the horses; and
the Athenians for the rout of the foot driven by the Tyrrhenians into the
marsh, and for their own victory with the rest of the army.
The
Syracusans had now gained a decisive victory at sea, where until now they had
feared the reinforcement brought by Demosthenes, and deep, in consequence, was
the despondency of the Athenians, and great their disappointment, and greater
still their regret for having come on the expedition. These were the only
cities that they had yet encountered, similar to their own in character, under
democracies like themselves, which had ships and horses, and were of
considerable magnitude. They had been unable to divide and bring them over by
holding out the prospect of changes in their governments, or to crush them by
their great superiority in force, but had failed in most of their attempts, and
being already in perplexity, had now been defeated at sea, where defeat could
never have been expected, and were thus plunged deeper in embarrassment than
ever.
Meanwhile
the Syracusans immediately began to sail freely along the harbour, and
determined to close up its mouth, so that the Athenians might not be able to
steal out in future, even if they wished. Indeed, the Syracusans no longer
thought only of saving themselves, but also how to hinder the escape of the
enemy; thinking, and thinking rightly, that they were now much the stronger,
and that to conquer the Athenians and their allies by land and sea would win
them great glory in Hellas. The rest of the Hellenes would thus immediately be
either freed or released from apprehension, as the remaining forces of Athens
would be henceforth unable to sustain the war that would be waged against her;
while they, the Syracusans, would be regarded as the authors of this
deliverance, and would be held in high admiration, not only with all men now
living but also with posterity. Nor were these the only considerations that
gave dignity to the struggle. They would thus conquer not only the Athenians
but also their numerous allies, and conquer not alone, but with their
companions in arms, commanding side by side with the Corinthians and
Lacedaemonians, having offered their city to stand in the van of danger, and
having been in a great measure the pioneers of naval success.
Indeed,
there were never so many peoples assembled before a single city, if we except
the grand total gathered together in this war under Athens and Lacedaemon. The
following were the states on either side who came to Syracuse to fight for or
against Sicily, to help to conquer or defend the island. Right or community of
blood was not the bond of union between them, so much as interest or compulsion
as the case might be. The Athenians themselves being Ionians went against the
Dorians of Syracuse of their own free will; and the peoples still speaking
Attic and using the Athenian laws, the Lemnians, Imbrians, and Aeginetans, that
is to say the then occupants of Aegina, being their colonists, went with them.
To these must be also added the Hestiaeans dwelling at Hestiaea in Euboea. Of
the rest some joined in the expedition as subjects of the Athenians, others as
independent allies, others as mercenaries. To the number of the subjects paying
tribute belonged the Eretrians, Chalcidians, Styrians, and Carystians from
Euboea; the Ceans, Andrians, and Tenians from the islands; and the Milesians,
Samians, and Chians from Ionia. The Chians, however, joined as independent
allies, paying no tribute, but furnishing ships. Most of these were Ionians and
descended from the Athenians, except the Carystians, who are Dryopes, and
although subjects and obliged to serve, were still Ionians fighting against Dorians.
Besides these there were men of Aeolic race, the Methymnians, subjects who
provided ships, not tribute, and the Tenedians and Aenians who paid tribute.
These Aeolians fought against their Aeolian founders, the Boeotians in the
Syracusan army, because they were obliged, while the Plataeans, the only native
Boeotians opposed to Boeotians, did so upon a just quarrel. Of the Rhodians and
Cytherians, both Dorians, the latter, Lacedaemonian colonists, fought in the
Athenian ranks against their Lacedaemonian countrymen with Gylippus; while the
Rhodians, Argives by race, were compelled to bear arms against the Dorian
Syracusans and their own colonists, the Geloans, serving with the Syracusans.
Of the islanders round Peloponnese, the Cephallenians and Zacynthians
accompanied the Athenians as independent allies, although their insular
position really left them little choice in the matter, owing to the maritime
supremacy of Athens, while the Corcyraeans, who were not only Dorians but
Corinthians, were openly serving against Corinthians and Syracusans, although
colonists of the former and of the same race as the latter, under colour of
compulsion, but really out of free will through hatred of Corinth. The
Messenians, as they are now called in Naupactus and from Pylos, then held by
the Athenians, were taken with them to the war. There were also a few Megarian
exiles, whose fate it was to be now fighting against the Megarian Selinuntines.
The
engagement of the rest was more of a voluntary nature. It was less the league than
hatred of the Lacedaemonians and the immediate private advantage of each
individual that persuaded the Dorian Argives to join the Ionian Athenians in a
war against Dorians; while the Mantineans and other Arcadian mercenaries,
accustomed to go against the enemy pointed out to them at the moment, were led
by interest to regard the Arcadians serving with the Corinthians as just as
much their enemies as any others. The Cretans and Aetolians also served for
hire, and the Cretans who had joined the Rhodians in founding Gela, thus came
to consent to fight for pay against, instead of for, their colonists. There
were also some Acarnanians paid to serve, although they came chiefly for love
of Demosthenes and out of goodwill to the Athenians whose allies they were.
These all lived on the Hellenic side of the Ionian Gulf. Of the Italiots, there
were the Thurians and Metapontines, dragged into the quarrel by the stern
necessities of a time of revolution; of the Siceliots, the Naxians and the
Catanians; and of the barbarians, the Egestaeans, who called in the Athenians,
most of the Sicels, and outside Sicily some Tyrrhenian enemies of Syracuse and
Iapygian mercenaries.
Such
were the peoples serving with the Athenians. Against these the Syracusans had
the Camarinaeans their neighbours, the Geloans who live next to them; then
passing over the neutral Agrigentines, the Selinuntines settled on the farther
side of the island. These inhabit the part of Sicily looking towards Libya; the
Himeraeans came from the side towards the Tyrrhenian Sea, being the only
Hellenic inhabitants in that quarter, and the only people that came from thence
to the aid of the Syracusans. Of the Hellenes in Sicily the above peoples
joined in the war, all Dorians and independent, and of the barbarians the
Sicels only, that is to say, such as did not go over to the Athenians. Of the
Hellenes outside Sicily there were the Lacedaemonians, who provided a Spartan
to take the command, and a force of Neodamodes or Freedmen, and of Helots; the
Corinthians, who alone joined with naval and land forces, with their Leucadian
and Ambraciot kinsmen; some mercenaries sent by Corinth from Arcadia; some
Sicyonians forced to serve, and from outside Peloponnese the Boeotians. In
comparison, however, with these foreign auxiliaries, the great Siceliot cities
furnished more in every department- numbers of heavy infantry, ships, and
horses, and an immense multitude besides having been brought together; while in
comparison, again, one may say, with all the rest put together, more was
provided by the Syracusans themselves, both from the greatness of the city and
from the fact that they were in the greatest danger.
Such
were the auxiliaries brought together on either side, all of which had by this
time joined, neither party experiencing any subsequent accession. It was no
wonder, therefore, if the Syracusans and their allies thought that it would win
them great glory if they could follow up their recent victory in the sea-fight
by the capture of the whole Athenian armada, without letting it escape either
by sea or by land. They began at once to close up the Great Harbour by means of
boats, merchant vessels, and galleys moored broadside across its mouth, which
is nearly a mile wide, and made all their other arrangements for the event of
the Athenians again venturing to fight at sea. There was, in fact, nothing
little either in their plans or their ideas.
The
Athenians, seeing them closing up the harbour and informed of their further
designs, called a council of war. The generals and colonels assembled and
discussed the difficulties of the situation; the point which pressed most being
that they no longer had provisions for immediate use (having sent on to Catana
to tell them not to send any, in the belief that they were going away), and
that they would not have any in future unless they could command the sea. They
therefore determined to evacuate their upper lines, to enclose with a cross
wall and garrison a small space close to the ships, only just sufficient to
hold their stores and sick, and manning all the ships, seaworthy or not, with
every man that could be spared from the rest of their land forces, to fight it
out at sea, and, if victorious, to go to Catana, if not, to burn their vessels,
form in close order, and retreat by land for the nearest friendly place they
could reach, Hellenic or barbarian. This was no sooner settled than carried
into effect; they descended gradually from the upper lines and manned all their
vessels, compelling all to go on board who were of age to be in any way of use.
They thus succeeded in manning about one hundred and ten ships in all, on board
of which they embarked a number of archers and darters taken from the
Acarnanians and from the other foreigners, making all other provisions allowed
by the nature of their plan and by the necessities which imposed it. All was
now nearly ready, and Nicias, seeing the soldiery disheartened by their
unprecedented and decided defeat at sea, and by reason of the scarcity of
provisions eager to fight it out as soon as possible, called them all together,
and first addressed them, speaking as follows:
"Soldiers
of the Athenians and of the allies, we have all an equal interest in the coming
struggle, in which life and country are at stake for us quite as much as they
can be for the enemy; since if our fleet wins the day, each can see his native
city again, wherever that city may be. You must not lose heart, or be like men
without any experience, who fail in a first essay and ever afterwards fearfully
forebode a future as disastrous. But let the Athenians among you who have
already had experience of many wars, and the allies who have joined us in so
many expeditions, remember the surprises of war, and with the hope that fortune
will not be always against us, prepare to fight again in a manner worthy of the
number which you see yourselves to be.
"Now,
whatever we thought would be of service against the crush of vessels in such a
narrow harbour, and against the force upon the decks of the enemy, from which
we suffered before, has all been considered with the helmsmen, and, as far as
our means allowed, provided. A number of archers and darters will go on board,
and a multitude that we should not have employed in an action in the open sea,
where our science would be crippled by the weight of the vessels; but in the
present land-fight that we are forced to make from shipboard all this will be
useful. We have also discovered the changes in construction that we must make
to meet theirs; and against the thickness of their cheeks, which did us the
greatest mischief, we have provided grappling-irons, which will prevent an
assailant backing water after charging, if the soldiers on deck here do their
duty; since we are absolutely compelled to fight a land battle from the fleet,
and it seems to be our interest neither to back water ourselves, nor to let the
enemy do so, especially as the shore, except so much of it as may be held by
our troops, is hostile ground.
"You
must remember this and fight on as long as you can, and must not let yourselves
be driven ashore, but once alongside must make up your minds not to part
company until you have swept the heavy infantry from the enemy's deck. I say
this more for the heavy infantry than for the seamen, as it is more the
business of the men on deck; and our land forces are even now on the whole the
strongest. The sailors I advise, and at the same time implore, not to be too
much daunted by their misfortunes, now that we have our decks better armed and
greater number of vessels. Bear in mind how well worth preserving is the
pleasure felt by those of you who through your knowledge of our language and
imitation of our manners were always considered Athenians, even though not so
in reality, and as such were honoured throughout Hellas, and had your full share
of the advantages of our empire, and more than your share in the respect of our
subjects and in protection from ill treatment. You, therefore, with whom alone
we freely share our empire, we now justly require not to betray that empire in
its extremity, and in scorn of Corinthians, whom you have often conquered, and
of Siceliots, none of whom so much as presumed to stand against us when our
navy was in its prime, we ask you to repel them, and to show that even in
sickness and disaster your skill is more than a match for the fortune and
vigour of any other.
"For
the Athenians among you I add once more this reflection: You left behind you no
more such ships in your docks as these, no more heavy infantry in their flower;
if you do aught but conquer, our enemies here will immediately sail thither,
and those that are left of us at Athens will become unable to repel their home
assailants, reinforced by these new allies. Here you will fall at once into the
hands of the Syracusans- I need not remind you of the intentions with which you
attacked them- and your countrymen at home will fall into those of the
Lacedaemonians. Since the fate of both thus hangs upon this single battle, now,
if ever, stand firm, and remember, each and all, that you who are now going on
board are the army and navy of the Athenians, and all that is left of the state
and the great name of Athens, in whose defence if any man has any advantage in
skill or courage, now is the time for him to show it, and thus serve himself
and save all."
After
this address Nicias at once gave orders to man the ships. Meanwhile Gylippus
and the Syracusans could perceive by the preparations which they saw going on
that the Athenians meant to fight at sea. They had also notice of the
grappling-irons, against which they specially provided by stretching hides over
the prows and much of the upper part of their vessels, in order that the irons
when thrown might slip off without taking hold. All being now ready, the
generals and Gylippus addressed them in the following terms:
"Syracusans
and allies, the glorious character of our past achievements and the no less
glorious results at issue in the coming battle are, we think, understood by
most of you, or you would never have thrown yourselves with such ardour into
the struggle; and if there be any one not as fully aware of the facts as he
ought to be, we will declare them to him. The Athenians came to this country
first to effect the conquest of Sicily, and after that, if successful, of
Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas, possessing already the greatest empire yet
known, of present or former times, among the Hellenes. Here for the first time
they found in you men who faced their navy which made them masters everywhere;
you have already defeated them in the previous sea-fights, and will in all
likelihood defeat them again now. When men are once checked in what they
consider their special excellence, their whole opinion of themselves suffers
more than if they had not at first believed in their superiority, the
unexpected shock to their pride causing them to give way more than their real
strength warrants; and this is probably now the case with the Athenians.
"With
us it is different. The original estimate of ourselves which gave us courage in
the days of our unskilfulness has been strengthened, while the conviction
superadded to it that we must be the best seamen of the time, if we have
conquered the best, has given a double measure of hope to every man among us;
and, for the most part, where there is the greatest hope, there is also the
greatest ardour for action. The means to combat us which they have tried to
find in copying our armament are familiar to our warfare, and will be met by
proper provisions; while they will never be able to have a number of heavy
infantry on their decks, contrary to their custom, and a number of darters
(born landsmen, one may say, Acarnanians and others, embarked afloat, who will
not know how to discharge their weapons when they have to keep still), without
hampering their vessels and falling all into confusion among themselves through
fighting not according to their own tactics. For they will gain nothing by the
number of their ships- I say this to those of you who may be alarmed by having
to fight against odds- as a quantity of ships in a confined space will only be
slower in executing the movements required, and most exposed to injury from our
means of offence. Indeed, if you would know the plain truth, as we are credibly
informed, the excess of their sufferings and the necessities of their present
distress have made them desperate; they have no confidence in their force, but
wish to try their fortune in the only way they can, and either to force their
passage and sail out, or after this to retreat by land, it being impossible for
them to be worse off than they are.
"The
fortune of our greatest enemies having thus betrayed itself, and their disorder
being what I have described, let us engage in anger, convinced that, as between
adversaries, nothing is more legitimate than to claim to sate the whole wrath of
one's soul in punishing the aggressor, and nothing more sweet, as the proverb
has it, than the vengeance upon an enemy, which it will now be ours to take.
That enemies they are and mortal enemies you all know, since they came here to
enslave our country, and if successful had in reserve for our men all that is
most dreadful, and for our children and wives all that is most dishonourable,
and for the whole city the name which conveys the greatest reproach. None
should therefore relent or think it gain if they go away without further danger
to us. This they will do just the same, even if they get the victory; while if
we succeed, as we may expect, in chastising them, and in handing down to all
Sicily her ancient freedom strengthened and confirmed, we shall have achieved
no mean triumph. And the rarest dangers are those in which failure brings
little loss and success the greatest advantage."
After
the above address to the soldiers on their side, the Syracusan generals and Gylippus
now perceived that the Athenians were manning their ships, and immediately
proceeded to man their own also. Meanwhile Nicias, appalled by the position of
affairs, realizing the greatness and the nearness of the danger now that they
were on the point of putting out from shore, and thinking, as men are apt to
think in great crises, that when all has been done they have still something
left to do, and when all has been said that they have not yet said enough,
again called on the captains one by one, addressing each by his father's name
and by his own, and by that of his tribe, and adjured them not to belie their
own personal renown, or to obscure the hereditary virtues for which their
ancestors were illustrious: he reminded them of their country, the freest of
the free, and of the unfettered discretion allowed in it to all to live as they
pleased; and added other arguments such as men would use at such a crisis, and
which, with little alteration, are made to serve on all occasions alike-
appeals to wives, children, and national gods- without caring whether they are
thought commonplace, but loudly invoking them in the belief that they will be
of use in the consternation of the moment. Having thus admonished them, not, he
felt, as he would, but as he could, Nicias withdrew and led the troops to the
sea, and ranged them in as long a line as he was able, in order to aid as far
as possible in sustaining the courage of the men afloat; while Demosthenes,
Menander, and Euthydemus, who took the command on board, put out from their own
camp and sailed straight to the barrier across the mouth of the harbour and to
the passage left open, to try to force their way out.
The
Syracusans and their allies had already put out with about the same number of
ships as before, a part of which kept guard at the outlet, and the remainder
all round the rest of the harbour, in order to attack the Athenians on all
sides at once; while the land forces held themselves in readiness at the points
at which the vessels might put into the shore. The Syracusan fleet was
commanded by Sicanus and Agatharchus, who had each a wing of the whole force,
with Pythen and the Corinthians in the centre. When the rest of the Athenians
came up to the barrier, with the first shock of their charge they overpowered
the ships stationed there, and tried to undo the fastenings; after this, as the
Syracusans and allies bore down upon them from all quarters, the action spread
from the barrier over the whole harbour, and was more obstinately disputed than
any of the preceding ones. On either side the rowers showed great zeal in
bringing up their vessels at the boatswains' orders, and the helmsmen great
skill in manoeuvring, and great emulation one with another; while the ships
once alongside, the soldiers on board did their best not to let the service on
deck be outdone by the others; in short, every man strove to prove himself the
first in his particular department. And as many ships were engaged in a small
compass (for these were the largest fleets fighting in the narrowest space ever
known, being together little short of two hundred), the regular attacks with
the beak were few, there being no opportunity of backing water or of breaking
the line; while the collisions caused by one ship chancing to run foul of
another, either in flying from or attacking a third, were more frequent. So
long as a vessel was coming up to the charge the men on the decks rained darts
and arrows and stones upon her; but once alongside, the heavy infantry tried to
board each other's vessel, fighting hand to hand. In many quarters it happened,
by reason of the narrow room, that a vessel was charging an enemy on one side
and being charged herself on another, and that two or sometimes more ships had
perforce got entangled round one, obliging the helmsmen to attend to defence
here, offence there, not to one thing at once, but to many on all sides; while
the huge din caused by the number of ships crashing together not only spread
terror, but made the orders of the boatswains inaudible. The boatswains on
either side in the discharge of their duty and in the heat of the conflict
shouted incessantly orders and appeals to their men; the Athenians they urged
to force the passage out, and now if ever to show their mettle and lay hold of
a safe return to their country; to the Syracusans and their allies they cried
that it would be glorious to prevent the escape of the enemy, and, conquering,
to exalt the countries that were theirs. The generals, moreover, on either
side, if they saw any in any part of the battle backing ashore without being
forced to do so, called out to the captain by name and asked him- the
Athenians, whether they were retreating because they thought the thrice hostile
shore more their own than that sea which had cost them so much labour to win;
the Syracusans, whether they were flying from the flying Athenians, whom they
well knew to be eager to escape in whatever way they could.
Meanwhile
the two armies on shore, while victory hung in the balance, were a prey to the
most agonizing and conflicting emotions; the natives thirsting for more glory
than they had already won, while the invaders feared to find themselves in even
worse plight than before. The all of the Athenians being set upon their fleet,
their fear for the event was like nothing they had ever felt; while their view
of the struggle was necessarily as chequered as the battle itself. Close to the
scene of action and not all looking at the same point at once, some saw their
friends victorious and took courage and fell to calling upon heaven not to
deprive them of salvation, while others who had their eyes turned upon the
losers, wailed and cried aloud, and, although spectators, were more overcome
than the actual combatants. Others, again, were gazing at some spot where the
battle was evenly disputed; as the strife was protracted without decision,
their swaying bodies reflected the agitation of their minds, and they suffered
the worst agony of all, ever just within reach of safety or just on the point
of destruction. In short, in that one Athenian army as long as the sea-fight
remained doubtful there was every sound to be heard at once, shrieks, cheers,
"We win," "We lose," and all the other manifold
exclamations that a great host would necessarily utter in great peril; and with
the men in the fleet it was nearly the same; until at last the Syracusans and
their allies, after the battle had lasted a long while, put the Athenians to
flight, and with much shouting and cheering chased them in open rout to the
shore. The naval force, one one way, one another, as many as were not taken
afloat now ran ashore and rushed from on board their ships to their camp; while
the army, no more divided, but carried away by one impulse, all with shrieks
and groans deplored the event, and ran down, some to help the ships, others to
guard what was left of their wall, while the remaining and most numerous part
already began to consider how they should save themselves. Indeed, the panic of
the present moment had never been surpassed. They now suffered very nearly what
they had inflicted at Pylos; as then the Lacedaemonians with the loss of their
fleet lost also the men who had crossed over to the island, so now the
Athenians had no hope of escaping by land, without the help of some
extraordinary accident.
The
sea-fight having been a severe one, and many ships and lives having been lost
on both sides, the victorious Syracusans and their allies now picked up their
wrecks and dead, and sailed off to the city and set up a trophy. The Athenians,
overwhelmed by their misfortune, never even thought. of asking leave to take up
their dead or wrecks, but wished to retreat that very night. Demosthenes,
however, went to Nicias and gave it as his opinion that they should man the
ships they had left and make another effort to force their passage out next
morning; saying that they had still left more ships fit for service than the
enemy, the Athenians having about sixty remaining as against less than fifty of
their opponents. Nicias was quite of his mind; but when they wished to man the
vessels, the sailors refused to go on board, being so utterly overcome by their
defeat as no longer to believe in the possibility of success.
Accordingly
they all now made up their minds to retreat by land. Meanwhile the Syracusan
Hermocrates- suspecting their intention, and impressed by the danger of
allowing a force of that magnitude to retire by land, establish itself in some
other part of Sicily, and from thence renew the war- went and stated his views
to the authorities, and pointed out to them that they ought not to let the
enemy get away by night, but that all the Syracusans and their allies should at
once march out and block up the roads and seize and guard the passes. The
authorities were entirely of his opinion, and thought that it ought to be done,
but on the other hand felt sure that the people, who had given themselves over
to rejoicing, and were taking their ease after a great battle at sea, would not
be easily brought to obey; besides, they were celebrating a festival, having on
that day a sacrifice to Heracles, and most of them in their rapture at the
victory had fallen to drinking at the festival, and would probably consent to
anything sooner than to take up their arms and march out at that moment. For
these reasons the thing appeared impracticable to the magistrates; and
Hermocrates, finding himself unable to do anything further with them, had now
recourse to the following stratagem of his own. What he feared was that the
Athenians might quietly get the start of them by passing the most difficult
places during the night; and he therefore sent, as soon as it was dusk, some
friends of his own to the camp with some horsemen who rode up within earshot
and called out to some of the men, as though they were well-wishers of the
Athenians, and told them to tell Nicias (who had in fact some correspondents
who informed him of what went on inside the town) not to lead off the army by
night as the Syracusans were guarding the roads, but to make his preparations
at his leisure and to retreat by day. After saying this they departed; and
their hearers informed the Athenian generals, who put off going for that night
on the strength of this message, not doubting its sincerity.
Since
after all they had not set out at once, they now determined to stay also the following
day to give time to the soldiers to pack up as well as they could the most
useful articles, and, leaving everything else behind, to start only with what
was strictly necessary for their personal subsistence. Meanwhile the Syracusans
and Gylippus marched out and blocked up the roads through the country by which
the Athenians were likely to pass, and kept guard at the fords of the streams
and rivers, posting themselves so as to receive them and stop the army where
they thought best; while their fleet sailed up to the beach and towed off the
ships of the Athenians. Some few were burned by the Athenians themselves as
they had intended; the rest the Syracusans lashed on to their own at their
leisure as they had been thrown up on shore, without any one trying to stop
them, and conveyed to the town.
After
this, Nicias and Demosthenes now thinking that enough had been done in the way
of preparation, the removal of the army took place upon the second day after
the sea-fight. It was a lamentable scene, not merely from the single
circumstance that they were retreating after having lost all their ships, their
great hopes gone, and themselves and the state in peril; but also in leaving
the camp there were things most grievous for every eye and heart to contemplate.
The dead lay unburied, and each man as he recognized a friend among them
shuddered with grief and horror; while the living whom they were leaving
behind, wounded or sick, were to the living far more shocking than the dead,
and more to be pitied than those who had perished. These fell to entreating and
bewailing until their friends knew not what to do, begging them to take them
and loudly calling to each individual comrade or relative whom they could see,
hanging upon the necks of their tent-fellows in the act of departure, and
following as far as they could, and, when their bodily strength failed them,
calling again and again upon heaven and shrieking aloud as they were left
behind. So that the whole army being filled with tears and distracted after
this fashion found it not easy to go, even from an enemy's land, where they had
already suffered evils too great for tears and in the unknown future before
them feared to suffer more. Dejection and self-condemnation were also rife
among them. Indeed they could only be compared to a starved-out town, and that
no small one, escaping; the whole multitude upon the march being not less than
forty thousand men. All carried anything they could which might be of use, and
the heavy infantry and troopers, contrary to their wont, while under arms
carried their own victuals, in some cases for want of servants, in others
through not trusting them; as they had long been deserting and now did so in
greater numbers than ever. Yet even thus they did not carry enough, as there was
no longer food in the camp. Moreover their disgrace generally, and the
universality of their sufferings, however to a certain extent alleviated by
being borne in company, were still felt at the moment a heavy burden,
especially when they contrasted the splendour and glory of their setting out
with the humiliation in which it had ended. For this was by far the greatest
reverse that ever befell an Hellenic army. They had come to enslave others, and
were departing in fear of being enslaved themselves: they had sailed out with
prayer and paeans, and now started to go back with omens directly contrary;
travelling by land instead of by sea, and trusting not in their fleet but in
their heavy infantry. Nevertheless the greatness of the danger still impending
made all this appear tolerable.
Nicias
seeing the army dejected and greatly altered, passed along the ranks and
encouraged and comforted them as far as was possible under the circumstances,
raising his voice still higher and higher as he went from one company to another
in his earnestness, and in his anxiety that the benefit of his words might
reach as many as possible:
"Athenians
and allies, even in our present position we must still hope on, since men have
ere now been saved from worse straits than this; and you must not condemn
yourselves too severely either because of your disasters or because of your
present unmerited sufferings. I myself who am not superior to any of you in
strength- indeed you see how I am in my sickness- and who in the gifts of
fortune am, I think, whether in private life or otherwise, the equal of any, am
now exposed to the same danger as the meanest among you; and yet my life has
been one of much devotion toward the gods, and of much justice and without
offence toward men. I have, therefore, still a strong hope for the future, and
our misfortunes do not terrify me as much as they might. Indeed we may hope
that they will be lightened: our enemies have had good fortune enough; and if
any of the gods was offended at our expedition, we have been already amply
punished. Others before us have attacked their neighbours and have done what
men will do without suffering more than they could bear; and we may now justly
expect to find the gods more kind, for we have become fitter objects for their
pity than their jealousy. And then look at yourselves, mark the numbers and
efficiency of the heavy infantry marching in your ranks, and do not give way
too much to despondency, but reflect that you are yourselves at once a city
wherever you sit down, and that there is no other in Sicily that could easily
resist your attack, or expel you when once established. The safety and order of
the march is for yourselves to look to; the one thought of each man being that
the spot on which he may be forced to fight must be conquered and held as his
country and stronghold. Meanwhile we shall hasten on our way night and day
alike, as our provisions are scanty; and if we can reach some friendly place of
the Sicels, whom fear of the Syracusans still keeps true to us, you may forthwith
consider yourselves safe. A message has been sent on to them with directions to
meet us with supplies of food. To sum up, be convinced, soldiers, that you must
be brave, as there is no place near for your cowardice to take refuge in, and
that if you now escape from the enemy, you may all see again what your hearts
desire, while those of you who are Athenians will raise up again the great
power of the state, fallen though it be. Men make the city and not walls or
ships without men in them."
As
he made this address, Nicias went along the ranks, and brought back to their
place any of the troops that he saw straggling out of the line; while
Demosthenes did as much for his part of the army, addressing them in words very
similar. The army marched in a hollow square, the division under Nicias
leading, and that of Demosthenes following, the heavy infantry being outside
and the baggage-carriers and the bulk of the army in the middle. When they
arrived at the ford of the river Anapus there they found drawn up a body of the
Syracusans and allies, and routing these, made good their passage and pushed
on, harassed by the charges of the Syracusan horse and by the missiles of their
light troops. On that day they advanced about four miles and a half, halting
for the night upon a certain hill. On the next they started early and got on
about two miles further, and descended into a place in the plain and there
encamped, in order to procure some eatables from the houses, as the place was
inhabited, and to carry on with them water from thence, as for many furlongs in
front, in the direction in which they were going, it was not plentiful. The
Syracusans meanwhile went on and fortified the pass in front, where there was a
steep hill with a rocky ravine on each side of it, called the Acraean cliff.
The next day the Athenians advancing found themselves impeded by the missiles
and charges of the horse and darters, both very numerous, of the Syracusans and
allies; and after fighting for a long while, at length retired to the same camp,
where they had no longer provisions as before, it being impossible to leave
their position by reason of the cavalry.
Early
next morning they started afresh and forced their way to the hill, which had
been fortified, where they found before them the enemy's infantry drawn up many
shields deep to defend the fortification, the pass being narrow. The Athenians
assaulted the work, but were greeted by a storm of missiles from the hill,
which told with the greater effect through its being a steep one, and unable to
force the passage, retreated again and rested. Meanwhile occurred some claps of
thunder and rain, as often happens towards autumn, which still further
disheartened the Athenians, who thought all these things to be omens of their
approaching ruin. While they were resting, Gylippus and the Syracusans sent a
part of their army to throw up works in their rear on the way by which they had
advanced; however, the Athenians immediately sent some of their men and
prevented them; after which they retreated more towards the plain and halted
for the night. When they advanced the next day the Syracusans surrounded and
attacked them on every side, and disabled many of them, falling back if the
Athenians advanced and coming on if they retired, and in particular assaulting
their rear, in the hope of routing them in detail, and thus striking a panic
into the whole army. For a long while the Athenians persevered in this fashion,
but after advancing for four or five furlongs halted to rest in the plain, the
Syracusans also withdrawing to their own camp.
During
the night Nicias and Demosthenes, seeing the wretched condition of their
troops, now in want of every kind of necessary, and numbers of them disabled in
the numerous attacks of the enemy, determined to light as many fires as
possible, and to lead off the army, no longer by the same route as they had
intended, but towards the sea in the opposite direction to that guarded by the
Syracusans. The whole of this route was leading the army not to Catana but to
the other side of Sicily, towards Camarina, Gela, and the other Hellenic and
barbarian towns in that quarter. They accordingly lit a number of fires and set
out by night. Now all armies, and the greatest most of all, are liable to fears
and alarms, especially when they are marching by night through an enemy's
country and with the enemy near; and the Athenians falling into one of these
panics, the leading division, that of Nicias, kept together and got on a good
way in front, while that of Demosthenes, comprising rather more than half the
army, got separated and marched on in some disorder. By morning, however, they
reached the sea, and getting into the Helorine road, pushed on in order to
reach the river Cacyparis, and to follow the stream up through the interior,
where they hoped to be met by the Sicels whom they had sent for. Arrived at the
river, they found there also a Syracusan party engaged in barring the passage
of the ford with a wall and a palisade, and forcing this guard, crossed the
river and went on to another called the Erineus, according to the advice of
their guides.
Meanwhile,
when day came and the Syracusans and allies found that the Athenians were gone,
most of them accused Gylippus of having let them escape on purpose, and hastily
pursuing by the road which they had no difficulty in finding that they had
taken, overtook them about dinner-time. They first came up with the troops
under Demosthenes, who were behind and marching somewhat slowly and in
disorder, owing to the night panic above referred to, and at once attacked and
engaged them, the Syracusan horse surrounding them with more ease now that they
were separated from the rest and hemming them in on one spot. The division of
Nicias was five or six miles on in front, as he led them more rapidly, thinking
that under the circumstances their safety lay not in staying and fighting,
unless obliged, but in retreating as fast as possible, and only fighting when
forced to do so. On the other hand, Demosthenes was, generally speaking,
harassed more incessantly, as his post in the rear left him the first exposed
to the attacks of the enemy; and now, finding that the Syracusans were in
pursuit, he omitted to push on, in order to form his men for battle, and so
lingered until he was surrounded by his pursuers and himself and the Athenians
with him placed in the most distressing position, being huddled into an
enclosure with a wall all round it, a road on this side and on that, and
olive-trees in great number, where missiles were showered in upon them from
every quarter. This mode of attack the Syracusans had with good reason adopted
in preference to fighting at close quarters, as to risk a struggle with
desperate men was now more for the advantage of the Athenians than for their
own; besides, their success had now become so certain that they began to spare
themselves a little in order not to be cut off in the moment of victory,
thinking too that, as it was, they would be able in this way to subdue and
capture the enemy.
In
fact, after plying the Athenians and allies all day long from every side with
missiles, they at length saw that they were worn out with their wounds and
other sufferings; and Gylippus and the Syracusans and their allies made a
proclamation, offering their liberty to any of the islanders who chose to come
over to them; and some few cities went over. Afterwards a capitulation was
agreed upon for all the rest with Demosthenes, to lay down their arms on
condition that no one was to be put to death either by violence or imprisonment
or want of the necessaries of life. Upon this they surrendered to the number of
six thousand in all, laying down all the money in their possession, which
filled the hollows of four shields, and were immediately conveyed by the
Syracusans to the town.
Meanwhile
Nicias with his division arrived that day at the river Erineus, crossed over,
and posted his army upon some high ground upon the other side. The next day the
Syracusans overtook him and told him that the troops under Demosthenes had
surrendered, and invited him to follow their example. Incredulous of the fact,
Nicias asked for a truce to send a horseman to see, and upon the return of the
messenger with the tidings that they had surrendered, sent a herald to Gylippus
and the Syracusans, saying that he was ready to agree with them on behalf of
the Athenians to repay whatever money the Syracusans had spent upon the war if
they would let his army go; and offered until the money was paid to give
Athenians as hostages, one for every talent. The Syracusans and Gylippus
rejected this proposition, and attacked this division as they had the other,
standing all round and plying them with missiles until the evening. Food and
necessaries were as miserably wanting to the troops of Nicias as they had been
to their comrades; nevertheless they watched for the quiet of the night to
resume their march. But as they were taking up their arms the Syracusans
perceived it and raised their paean, upon which the Athenians, finding that
they were discovered, laid them down again, except about three hundred men who
forced their way through the guards and went on during the night as they were
able.
As
soon as it was day Nicias put his army in motion, pressed, as before, by the
Syracusans and their allies, pelted from every side by their missiles, and
struck down by their javelins. The Athenians pushed on for the Assinarus,
impelled by the attacks made upon them from every side by a numerous cavalry
and the swarm of other arms, fancying that they should breathe more freely if
once across the river, and driven on also by their exhaustion and craving for
water. Once there they rushed in, and all order was at an end, each man wanting
to cross first, and the attacks of the enemy making it difficult to cross at
all; forced to huddle together, they fell against and trod down one another,
some dying immediately upon the javelins, others getting entangled together and
stumbling over the articles of baggage, without being able to rise again.
Meanwhile the opposite bank, which was steep, was lined by the Syracusans, who
showered missiles down upon the Athenians, most of them drinking greedily and
heaped together in disorder in the hollow bed of the river. The Peloponnesians
also came down and butchered them, especially those in the water, which was
thus immediately spoiled, but which they went on drinking just the same, mud
and all, bloody as it was, most even fighting to have it.
At
last, when many dead now lay piled one upon another in the stream, and part of
the army had been destroyed at the river, and the few that escaped from thence
cut off by the cavalry, Nicias surrendered himself to Gylippus, whom he trusted
more than he did the Syracusans, and told him and the Lacedaemonians to do what
they liked with him, but to stop the slaughter of the soldiers. Gylippus, after
this, immediately gave orders to make prisoners; upon which the rest were
brought together alive, except a large number secreted by the soldiery, and a
party was sent in pursuit of the three hundred who had got through the guard
during the night, and who were now taken with the rest. The number of the enemy
collected as public property was not considerable; but that secreted was very
large, and all Sicily was filled with them, no convention having been made in
their case as for those taken with Demosthenes. Besides this, a large portion
were killed outright, the carnage being very great, and not exceeded by any in
this Sicilian war. In the numerous other encounters upon the march, not a few
also had fallen. Nevertheless many escaped, some at the moment, others served
as slaves, and then ran away subsequently. These found refuge at Catana.
The
Syracusans and their allies now mustered and took up the spoils and as many
prisoners as they could, and went back to the city. The rest of their Athenian
and allied captives were deposited in the quarries, this seeming the safest way
of keeping them; but Nicias and Demosthenes were butchered, against the will of
Gylippus, who thought that it would be the crown of his triumph if he could
take the enemy's generals to Lacedaemon. One of them, as it happened,
Demosthenes, was one of her greatest enemies, on account of the affair of the
island and of Pylos; while the other, Nicias, was for the same reasons one of
her greatest friends, owing to his exertions to procure the release of the
prisoners by persuading the Athenians to make peace. For these reasons the
Lacedaemonians felt kindly towards him; and it was in this that Nicias himself
mainly confided when he surrendered to Gylippus. But some of the Syracusans who
had been in correspondence with him were afraid, it was said, of his being put
to the torture and troubling their success by his revelations; others,
especially the Corinthians, of his escaping, as he was wealthy, by means of
bribes, and living to do them further mischief; and these persuaded the allies
and put him to death. This or the like was the cause of the death of a man who,
of all the Hellenes in my time, least deserved such a fate, seeing that the
whole course of his life had been regulated with strict attention to virtue.
The
prisoners in the quarries were at first hardly treated by the Syracusans.
Crowded in a narrow hole, without any roof to cover them, the heat of the sun
and the stifling closeness of the air tormented them during the day, and then
the nights, which came on autumnal and chilly, made them ill by the violence of
the change; besides, as they had to do everything in the same place for want of
room, and the bodies of those who died of their wounds or from the variation in
the temperature, or from similar causes, were left heaped together one upon
another, intolerable stenches arose; while hunger and thirst never ceased to
afflict them, each man during eight months having only half a pint of water and
a pint of corn given him daily. In short, no single suffering to be apprehended
by men thrust into such a place was spared them. For some seventy days they
thus lived all together, after which all, except the Athenians and any
Siceliots or Italiots who had joined in the expedition, were sold. The total
number of prisoners taken it would be difficult to state exactly, but it could
not have been less than seven thousand.
This
was the greatest Hellenic achievement of any in thig war, or, in my opinion, in
Hellenic history; at once most glorious to the victors, and most calamitous to
the conquered. They were beaten at all points and altogether; all that they
suffered was great; they were destroyed, as the saying is, with a total
destruction, their fleet, their army, everything was destroyed, and few out of many
returned home. Such were the events in Sicily.
The Eighth Book.
WHEN
the news was brought to Athens, for a long while they disbelieved even the most
respectable of the soldiers who had themselves escaped from the scene of action
and clearly reported the matter, a destruction so complete not being thought
credible. When the conviction was forced upon them, they were angry with the
orators who had joined in promoting the expedition, just as if they had not
themselves voted it, and were enraged also with the reciters of oracles and
soothsayers, and all other omen-mongers of the time who had encouraged them to
hope that they should conquer Sicily. Already distressed at all points and in
all quarters, after what had now happened, they were seized by a fear and
consternation quite without example. It was grievous enough for the state and
for every man in his proper person to lose so many heavy infantry, cavalry, and
able-bodied troops, and to see none left to replace them; but when they saw,
also, that they had not sufficient ships in their docks, or money in the
treasury, or crews for the ships, they began to despair of salvation. They
thought that their enemies in Sicily would immediately sail with their fleet
against Piraeus, inflamed by so signal a victory; while their adversaries at
home, redoubling all their preparations, would vigorously attack them by sea
and land at once, aided by their own revolted confederates. Nevertheless, with
such means as they had, it was determined to resist to the last, and to provide
timber and money, and to equip a fleet as they best could, to take steps to
secure their confederates and above all Euboea, to reform things in the city
upon a more economical footing, and to elect a board of elders to advise upon
the state of affairs as occasion should arise. In short, as is the way of a
democracy, in the panic of the moment they were ready to be as prudent as possible.
These
resolves were at once carried into effect. Summer was now over. The winter
ensuing saw all Hellas stirring under the impression of the great Athenian
disaster in Sicily. Neutrals now felt that even if uninvited they ought no
longer to stand aloof from the war, but should volunteer to march against the
Athenians, who, as they severally reflected, would probably have come against
them if the Sicilian campaign had succeeded. Besides, they considered that the
war would now be short, and that it would be creditable for them to take part
in it. Meanwhile the allies of the Lacedaemonians felt all more anxious than
ever to see a speedy end to their heavy labours. But above all, the subjects of
the Athenians showed a readiness to revolt even beyond their ability, judging
the circumstances with passion, and refusing even to hear of the Athenians
being able to last out the coming summer. Beyond all this, Lacedaemon was
encouraged by the near prospect of being joined in great force in the spring by
her allies in Sicily, lately forced by events to acquire their navy. With these
reasons for confidence in every quarter, the Lacedaemonians now resolved to
throw themselves without reserve into the war, considering that, once it was
happily terminated, they would be finally delivered from such dangers as that
which would have threatened them from Athens, if she had become mistress of
Sicily, and that the overthrow of the Athenians would leave them in quiet
enjoyment of the supremacy over all Hellas.
Their
king, Agis, accordingly set out at once during this winter with some troops
from Decelea, and levied from the allies contributions for the fleet, and
turning towards the Malian Gulf exacted a sum of money from the Oetaeans by
carrying off most of their cattle in reprisal for their old hostility, and, in
spite of the protests and opposition of the Thessalians, forced the Achaeans of
Phthiotis and the other subjects of the Thessalians in those parts to give him
money and hostages, and deposited the hostages at Corinth, and tried to bring
their countrymen into the confederacy. The Lacedaemonians now issued a
requisition to the cities for building a hundred ships, fixing their own quota
and that of the Boeotians at twenty-five each; that of the Phocians and
Locrians together at fifteen; that of the Corinthians at fifteen; that of the
Arcadians, Pellenians, and Sicyonians together at ten; and that of the
Megarians, Troezenians, Epidaurians, and Hermionians together at ten also; and
meanwhile made every other preparation for commencing hostilities by the
spring.
In
the meantime the Athenians were not idle. During this same winter, as they had
determined, they contributed timber and pushed on their ship-building, and fortified
Sunium to enable their corn-ships to round it in safety, and evacuated the fort
in Laconia which they had built on their way to Sicily; while they also, for
economy, cut down any other expenses that seemed unnecessary, and above all
kept a careful look-out against the revolt of their confederates.
While
both parties were thus engaged, and were as intent upon preparing for the war
as they had been at the outset, the Euboeans first of all sent envoys during
this winter to Agis to treat of their revolting from Athens. Agis accepted
their proposals, and sent for Alcamenes, son of Sthenelaidas, and Melanthus
from Lacedaemon, to take the command in Euboea. These accordingly arrived with
some three hundred Neodamodes, and Agis began to arrange for their crossing
over. But in the meanwhile arrived some Lesbians, who also wished to revolt;
and these being supported by the Boeotians, Agis was persuaded to defer acting
in the matter of Euboea, and made arrangements for the revolt of the Lesbians,
giving them Alcamenes, who was to have sailed to Euboea, as governor, and
himself promising them ten ships, and the Boeotians the same number. All this
was done without instructions from home, as Agis while at Decelea with the army
that he commanded had power to send troops to whatever quarter he pleased, and
to levy men and money. During this period, one might say, the allies obeyed him
much more than they did the Lacedaemonians in the city, as the force he had
with him made him feared at once wherever he went. While Agis was engaged with
the Lesbians, the Chians and Erythraeans, who were also ready to revolt,
applied, not to him but at Lacedaemon; where they arrived accompanied by an
ambassador from Tissaphernes, the commander of King Darius, son of Artaxerxes,
in the maritime districts, who invited the Peloponnesians to come over, and
promised to maintain their army. The King had lately called upon him for the
tribute from his government, for which he was in arrears, being unable to raise
it from the Hellenic towns by reason of the Athenians; and he therefore
calculated that by weakening the Athenians he should get the tribute better
paid, and should also draw the Lacedaemonians into alliance with the King; and
by this means, as the King had commanded him, take alive or dead Amorges, the
bastard son of Pissuthnes, who was in rebellion on the coast of Caria.
While
the Chians and Tissaphernes thus joined to effect the same object, about the
same time Calligeitus, son of Laophon, a Megarian, and Timagoras, son of
Athenagoras, a Cyzicene, both of them exiles from their country and living at
the court of Pharnabazus, son of Pharnaces, arrived at Lacedaemon upon a
mission from Pharnabazus, to procure a fleet for the Hellespont; by means of
which, if possible, he might himself effect the object of Tissaphernes'
ambition and cause the cities in his government to revolt from the Athenians,
and so get the tribute, and by his own agency obtain for the King the alliance
of the Lacedaemonians.
The
emissaries of Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes treating apart, a keen competition
now ensued at Lacedaemon as to whether a fleet and army should be sent first to
Ionia and Chios, or to the Hellespont. The Lacedaemonians, however, decidedly
favoured the Chians and Tissaphernes, who were seconded by Alcibiades, the
family friend of Endius, one of the ephors for that year. Indeed, this is how
their house got its Laconic name, Alcibiades being the family name of Endius.
Nevertheless the Lacedaemonians first sent to Chios Phrynis, one of the
Perioeci, to see whether they had as many ships as they said, and whether their
city generally was as great as was reported; and upon his bringing word that
they had been told the truth, immediately entered into alliance with the Chians
and Erythraeans, and voted to send them forty ships, there being already,
according to the statement of the Chians, not less than sixty in the island. At
first the Lacedaemonians meant to send ten of these forty themselves, with
Melanchridas their admiral; but afterwards, an earthquake having occurred, they
sent Chalcideus instead of Melanchridas, and instead of the ten ships equipped
only five in Laconia. And the winter ended, and with it ended also the
nineteenth year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.
At
the beginning of the next summer the Chians were urging that the fleet should
be sent off, being afraid that the Athenians, from whom all these embassies
were kept a secret, might find out what was going on, and the Lacedaemonians at
once sent three Spartans to Corinth to haul the ships as quickly as possible
across the Isthmus from the other sea to that on the side of Athens, and to
order them all to sail to Chios, those which Agis was equipping for Lesbos not
excepted. The number of ships from the allied states was thirty-nine in all.
Meanwhile
Calligeitus and Timagoras did not join on behalf of Pharnabazus in the
expedition to Chios or give the money- twenty-five talents- which they had
brought with them to help in dispatching a force, but determined to sail
afterwards with another force by themselves. Agis, on the other hand, seeing
the Lacedaemonians bent upon going to Chios first, himself came in to their
views; and the allies assembled at Corinth and held a council, in which they
decided to sail first to Chios under the command of Chalcideus, who was
equipping the five vessels in Laconia, then to Lesbos, under the command of
Alcamenes, the same whom Agis had fixed upon, and lastly to go to the
Hellespont, where the command was given to Clearchus, son of Ramphias. Meanwhile
they would take only half the ships across the Isthmus first, and let those
sail off at once, in order that the Athenians might attend less to the
departing squadron than to those to be taken across afterwards, as no care had
been taken to keep this voyage secret through contempt of the impotence of the
Athenians, who had as yet no fleet of any account upon the sea. Agreeably to
this determination, twenty-one vessels were at once conveyed across the
Isthmus.
They
were now impatient to set sail, but the Corinthians were not willing to
accompany them until they had celebrated the Isthmian festival, which fell at
that time. Upon this Agis proposed to them to save their scruples about
breaking the Isthmian truce by taking the expedition upon himself. The Corinthians
not consenting to this, a delay ensued, during which the Athenians conceived
suspicions of what was preparing at Chios, and sent Aristocrates, one of their
generals, and charged them with the fact, and, upon the denial of the Chians,
ordered them to send with them a contingent of ships, as faithful confederates.
Seven were sent accordingly. The reason of the dispatch of the ships lay in the
fact that the mass of the Chians were not privy to the negotiations, while the
few who were in the secret did not wish to break with the multitude until they
had something positive to lean upon, and no longer expected the Peloponnesians
to arrive by reason of their delay.
In
the meantime the Isthmian games took place, and the Athenians, who had been
also invited, went to attend them, and now seeing more clearly into the designs
of the Chians, as soon as they returned to Athens took measures to prevent the
fleet putting out from Cenchreae without their knowledge. After the festival
the Peloponnesians set sail with twenty-one ships for Chios, under the command
of Alcamenes. The Athenians first sailed against them with an equal number,
drawing off towards the open sea. The enemy, however, turning back before he
had followed them far, the Athenians returned also, not trusting the seven
Chian ships which formed part of their number, and afterwards manned
thirty-seven vessels in all and chased him on his passage alongshore into
Spiraeum, a desert Corinthian port on the edge of the Epidaurian frontier.
After losing one ship out at sea, the Peloponnesians got the rest together and
brought them to anchor. The Athenians now attacked not only from the sea with
their fleet, but also disembarked upon the coast; and a melee ensued of the
most confused and violent kind, in which the Athenians disabled most of the
enemy's vessels and killed Alcamenes their commander, losing also a few of
their own men.
After
this they separated, and the Athenians, detaching a sufficient number of ships
to blockade those of the enemy, anchored with the rest at the islet adjacent,
upon whkh they proceeded to encamp, and sent to Athens for reinforcements; the
Peloponnesians having been joined on the day after the battle by the
Corinthians, who came to help the ships, and by the other inhabitants in the
vicinity not long afterwards. These saw the difficulty of keeping guard in a
desert place, and in their perplexity at first thought of burning the ships,
but finally resolved to haul them up on shore and sit down and guard them with
their land forces until a convenient opportunity for escaping should present
itself. Agis also, on being informed of the disaster, sent them a Spartan of
the name of Thermon. The Lacedaemonians first received the news of the fleet
having put out from the Isthmus, Alcamenes having been ordered by the ephors to
send off a horseman when this took place, and immediately resolved to dispatch
their own five vessels under Chalcideus, and Alcibiades with him. But while
they were full of this resolution came the second news of the fleet having
taken refuge in Spiraeum; and disheartened at their first step in the Ionian
war proving a failure, they laid aside the idea of sending the ships from their
own country, and even wished to recall some that had already sailed.
Perceiving
this, Alcibiades again persuaded Endius and the other ephors to persevere in
the expedition, saying that the voyage would be made before the Chians heard of
the fleet's misfortune, and that as soon as he set foot in Ionia, he should, by
assuring them of the weakness of the Athenians and the zeal of Lacedaemon, have
no difficulty in persuading the cities to revolt, as they would readily believe
his testimony. He also represented to Endius himself in private that it would
be glorious for him to be the means of making Ionia revolt and the King become
the ally of Lacedaemon, instead of that honour being left to Agis (Agis, it
must be remembered, was the enemy of Alcibiades); and Endius and his colleagues
thus persuaded, he put to sea with the five ships and the Lacedaemonian
Chalcideus, and made all haste upon the voyage.
About
this time the sixteen Peloponnesian ships from Sicily, which had served through
the war with Gylippus, were caught on their return off Leucadia and roughly
handled by the twenty-seven Athenian vessels under Hippocles, son of Menippus,
on the lookout for the ships from Sicily. After losing one of their number, the
rest escaped from the Athenians and sailed into Corinth.
Meanwhile
Chalcideus and Alcibiades seized all they met with on their voyage, to prevent
news of their coming, and let them go at Corycus, the first point which they
touched at in the continent. Here they were visited by some of their Chian
correspondents and, being urged by them to sail up to the town without
announcing their coming, arrived suddenly before Chios. The many were amazed
and confounded, while the few had so arranged that the council should be
sitting at the time; and after speeches from Chalcideus and Alcibiades stating
that many more ships were sailing up, but saying nothing of the fleet being
blockaded in Spiraeum, the Chians revolted from the Athenians, and the
Erythraeans immediately afterwards. After this three vessels sailed over to
Clazomenae, and made that city revolt also; and the Clazomenians immediately
crossed over to the mainland and began to fortify Polichna, in order to retreat
there, in case of necessity, from the island where they dwelt.
While
the revolted places were all engaged in fortifying and preparing for the war,
news of Chios speedily reached Athens. The Athenians thought the danger by
which they were now menaced great and unmistakable, and that the rest of their
allies would not consent to keep quiet after the secession of the greatest of
their number. In the consternation of the moment they at once took off the
penalty attaching to whoever proposed or put to the vote a proposal for using
the thousand talents which they had jealously avoided touching throughout the
whole war, and voted to employ them to man a large number of ships, and to send
off at once under Strombichides, son of Diotimus, the eight vessels, forming
part of the blockading fleet at Spiraeum, which had left the blockade and had
returned after pursuing and failing to overtake the vessels with Chalcideus.
These were to be followed shortly afterwards by twelve more under Thrasycles,
also taken from the blockade. They also recalled the seven Chian vessels,
forming part of their squadron blockading the fleet in Spiraeum, and giving the
slaves on board their liberty, put the freemen in confinement, and speedily
manned and sent out ten fresh ships to blockade the Peloponnesians in the place
of all those that had departed, and decided to man thirty more. Zeal was not
wanting, and no effort was spared to send relief to Chios.
In
the meantime Strombichides with his eight ships arrived at Samos, and, taking
one Samian vessel, sailed to Teos and required them to remain quiet. Chalcideus
also set sail with twenty-three ships for Teos from Chios, the land forces of
the Clazomenians and Erythraeans moving alongshore to support him. Informed of
this in time, Strombichides put out from Teos before their arrival, and while
out at sea, seeing the number of the ships from Chios, fled towards Samos,
chased by the enemy. The Teians at first would not receive the land forces, but
upon the flight of the Athenians took them into the town. There they waited for
some time for Chalcideus to return from the pursuit, and as time went on
without his appearing, began themselves to demolish the wall which the
Athenians had built on the land side of the city of the Teians, being assisted
by a few of the barbarians who had come up under the command of Stages, the
lieutenant of Tissaphernes.
Meanwhile
Chalcideus and Alcibiades, after chasing Strombichides into Samos, armed the
crews of the ships from Peloponnese and left them at Chios, and filling their
places with substitutes from Chios and manning twenty others, sailed off to
effect the revolt of Miletus. The wish of Alcibiades, who had friends among the
leading men of the Milesians, was to bring over the town before the arrival of
the ships from Peloponnese, and thus, by causing the revolt of as many cities
as possible with the help of the Chian power and of Chalcideus, to secure the
honour for the Chians and himself and Chalcideus, and, as he had promised, for
Endius who had sent them out. Not discovered until their voyage was nearly
completed, they arrived a little before Strombichides and Thrasycles (who had
just come with twelve ships from Athens, and had joined Strombichides in
pursuing them), and occasioned the revolt of Miletus. The Athenians sailing up
close on their heels with nineteen ships found Miletus closed against them, and
took up their station at the adjacent island of Lade. The first alliance
between the King and the Lacedaemonians was now concluded immediately upon the
revolt of the Milesians, by Tissaphernes and Chalcideus, and was as follows:
The Lacedaemonians and their allies
made a treaty with the King and Tissaphernes upon the terms following:
1. Whatever country or cities the King
has, or the King's ancestors had, shall be the king's: and whatever came in to
the Athenians from these cities, either money or any other thing, the King and
the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall jointly hinder the Athenians from
receiving either money or any other thing.
2. The war with the Athenians shall be
carried on jointly by the King and by the Lacedaemonians and their allies: and
it shall not be lawful to make peace with the Athenians except both agree, the
King on his side and the Lacedaemonians and their allies on theirs.
3. If any revolt from the King, they
shall be the enemies of the Lacedaemonians and their allies. And if any revolt
from the Lacedaemonians and their allies, they shall be the enemies of the King
in like manner.
This
was the alliance. After this the Chians immediately manned ten more vessels and
sailed for Anaia, in order to gain intelligence of those in Miletus, and also
to make the cities revolt. A message, however, reaching them from Chalcideus to
tell them to go back again, and that Amorges was at hand with an army by land,
they sailed to the temple of Zeus, and there sighting ten more ships sailing up
with which Diomedon had started from Athens after Thrasycles, fled, one ship to
Ephesus, the rest to Teos. The Athenians took four of their ships empty, the
men finding time to escape ashore; the rest took refuge in the city of the
Teians; after which the Athenians sailed off to Samos, while the Chians put to
sea with their remaining vessels, accompanied by the land forces, and caused
Lebedos to revolt, and after it Erae. After this they both returned home, the
fleet and the army.
About
the same time the twenty ships of the Peloponnesians in Spiraeum, which we left
chased to land and blockaded by an equal number of Athenians, suddenly sallied
out and defeated the blockading squadron, took four of their ships, and,
sailing back to Cenchreae, prepared again for the voyage to Chios and Ionia.
Here they were joined by Astyochus as high admiral from Lacedaemon, henceforth
invested with the supreme command at sea. The land forces now withdrawing from
Teos, Tissaphernes repaired thither in person with an army and completed the
demolition of anything that was left of the wall, and so departed. Not long
after his departure Diomedon arrived with ten Athenian ships, and, having made
a convention by which the Teians admitted him as they had the enemy, coasted
along to Erae, and, failing in an attempt upon the town, sailed back again.
About
this time took place the rising of the commons at Samos against the upper
classes, in concert with some Athenians, who were there in three vessels. The
Samian commons put to death some two hundred in all of the upper classes, and
banished four hundred more, and themselves took their land and houses; after
which the Athenians decreed their independence, being now sure of their
fidelity, and the commons henceforth governed the city, excluding the
landholders from all share in affairs, and forbidding any of the commons to give
his daughter in marriage to them or to take a wife from them in future.
After
this, during the same summer, the Chians, whose zeal continued as active as
ever, and who even without the Peloponnesians found themselves in sufficient
force to effect the revolt of the cities and also wished to have as many
companions in peril as possible, made an expedition with thirteen ships of
their own to Lesbos; the instructions from Lacedaemon being to go to that
island next, and from thence to the Hellespont. Meanwhile the land forces of
the Peloponnesians who were with the Chians and of the allies on the spot,
moved alongshore for Clazomenae and Cuma, under the command of Eualas, a
Spartan; while the fleet under Diniadas, one of the Perioeci, first sailed up
to Methymna and caused it to revolt, and, leaving four ships there, with the
rest procured the revolt of Mitylene.
In
the meantime Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, set sail from Cenchreae with
four ships, as he had intended, and arrived at Chios. On the third day after
his arrival, the Athenian ships, twenty-five in number, sailed to Lesbos under
Diomedon and Leon, who had lately arrived with a reinforcement of ten ships
from Athens. Late in the same day Astyochus put to sea, and taking one Chian
vessel with him sailed to Lesbos to render what assistance he could. Arrived at
Pyrrha, and from thence the next day at Eresus, he there learned that Mitylene
had been taken, almost without a blow, by the Athenians, who had sailed up and
unexpectedly put into the harbour, had beaten the Chian ships, and landing and
defeating the troops opposed to them had become masters of the city. Informed
of this by the Eresians and the Chian ships, which had been left with Eubulus
at Methymna, and had fled upon the capture of Mitylene, and three of which he
now fell in with, one having been taken by the Athenians, Astyochus did not go
on to Mitylene, but raised and armed Eresus, and, sending the heavy infantry
from his own ships by land under Eteonicus to Antissa and Methymna, himself proceeded
alongshore thither with the ships which he had with him and with the three
Chians, in the hope that the Methymnians upon seeing them would be encouraged
to persevere in their revolt. As, however, everything went against him in
Lesbos, he took up his own force and sailed back to Chios; the land forces on
board, which were to have gone to the Hellespont, being also conveyed back to
their different cities. After this six of the allied Peloponnesian ships at
Cenchreae joined the forces at Chios. The Athenians, after restoring matters to
their old state in Lesbos, set sail from thence and took Polichna, the place
that the Clazomenians were fortifying on the continent, and carried the
inhabitants back to their town upon the island, except the authors of the
revolt, who withdrew to Daphnus; and thus Clazomenae became once more Athenian.
The
same summer the Athenians in the twenty ships at Lade, blockading Miletus, made
a descent at Panormus in the Milesian territory, and killed Chalcideus the
Lacedaemonian commander, who had come with a few men against them, and the
third day after sailed over and set up a trophy, which, as they were not
masters of the country, was however pulled down by the Milesians. Meanwhile
Leon and Diomedon with the Athenian fleet from Lesbos issuing from the
Oenussae, the isles off Chios, and from their forts of Sidussa and Pteleum in
the Erythraeid, and from Lesbos, carried on the war against the Chians from the
ships, having on board heavy infantry from the rolls pressed to serve as
marines. Landing in Cardamyle and in Bolissus they defeated with heavy loss the
Chians that took the field against them and, laying desolate the places in that
neighbourhood, defeated the Chians again in another battle at Phanae, and in a
third at Leuconium. After this the Chians ceased to meet them in the field,
while the Athenians devastated the country, which was beautifully stocked and
had remained uninjured ever since the Median wars. Indeed, after the
Lacedaemonians, the Chians are the only people that I have known who knew how
to be wise in prosperity, and who ordered their city the more securely the
greater it grew. Nor was this revolt, in which they might seem to have erred on
the side of rashness, ventured upon until they had numerous and gallant allies
to share the danger with them, and until they perceived the Athenians after the
Sicilian disaster themselves no longer denying the thoroughly desperate state
of their affairs. And if they were thrown out by one of the surprises which
upset human calculations, they found out their mistake in company with many
others who believed, like them, in the speedy collapse of the Athenian power.
While they were thus blockaded from the sea and plundered by land, some of the
citizens undertook to bring the city over to the Athenians. Apprised of this
the authorities took no action themselves, but brought Astyochus, the admiral,
from Erythrae, with four ships that he had with him, and considered how they
could most quietly, either by taking hostages or by some other means, put an
end to the conspiracy.
While
the Chians were thus engaged, a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and fifteen
hundred Argives (five hundred of whom were light troops furnished with armour
by the Athenians), and one thousand of the allies, towards the close of the
same summer sailed from Athens in forty-eight ships, some of which were
transports, under the command of Phrynichus, Onomacles, and Scironides, and
putting into Samos crossed over and encamped at Miletus. Upon this the
Milesians came out to the number of eight hundred heavy infantry, with the
Peloponnesians who had come with Chalcideus, and some foreign mercenaries of
Tissaphernes, Tissaphernes himself and his cavalry, and engaged the Athenians
and their allies. While the Argives rushed forward on their own wing with the
careless disdain of men advancing against Ionians who would never stand their
charge, and were defeated by the Milesians with a loss little short of three
hundred men, the Athenians first defeated the Peloponnesians, and driving
before them the barbarians and the ruck of the army, without engaging the
Milesians, who after the rout of the Argives retreated into the town upon
seeing their comrades worsted, crowned their victory by grounding their arms
under the very walls of Miletus. Thus, in this battle, the Ionians on both
sides overcame the Dorians, the Athenians defeating the Peloponnesians opposed
to them, and the Milesians the Argives. After setting up a trophy, the
Athenians prepared to draw a wall round the place, which stood upon an isthmus;
thinking that, if they could gain Miletus, the other towns also would easily
come over to them.
Meanwhile
about dusk tidings reached them that the fifty-five ships from Peloponnese and
Sicily might be instantly expected. Of these the Siceliots, urged principally
by the Syracusan Hermocrates to join in giving the finishing blow to the power
of Athens, furnished twenty-two- twenty from Syracuse, and two from Silenus;
and the ships that we left preparing in Peloponnese being now ready, both
squadrons had been entrusted to Therimenes, a Lacedaemonian, to take to
Astyochus, the admiral. They now put in first at Leros the island off Miletus,
and from thence, discovering that the Athenians were before the town, sailed
into the Iasic Gulf, in order to learn how matters stood at Miletus. Meanwhile
Alcibiades came on horseback to Teichiussa in the Milesian territory, the point
of the gulf at which they had put in for the night, and told them of the battle
in which he had fought in person by the side of the Milesians and Tissaphernes,
and advised them, if they did not wish to sacrifice Ionia and their cause, to
fly to the relief of Miletus and hinder its investment.
Accordingly
they resolved to relieve it the next morning. Meanwhile Phrynichus, the
Athenian commander, had received precise intelligence of the fleet from Leros,
and when his colleagues expressed a wish to keep the sea and fight it out,
flatly refused either to stay himself or to let them or any one else do so if
he could help it. Where they could hereafter contend, after full and
undisturbed preparation, with an exact knowledge of the number of the enemy's
fleet and of the force which they could oppose to him, he would never allow the
reproach of disgrace to drive him into a risk that was unreasonable. It was no
disgrace for an Athenian fleet to retreat when it suited them: put it as they
would, it would be more disgraceful to be beaten, and to expose the city not
only to disgrace, but to the most serious danger. After its late misfortunes it
could hardly be justified in voluntarily taking the offensive even with the
strongest force, except in a case of absolute necessity: much less then without
compulsion could it rush upon peril of its own seeking. He told them to take up
their wounded as quickly as they could and the troops and stores which they had
brought with them, and leaving behind what they had taken from the enemy's
country, in order to lighten the ships, to sail off to Samos, and there
concentrating all their ships to attack as opportunity served. As he spoke so
he acted; and thus not now more than afterwards, nor in this alone but in all
that he had to do with, did Phrynichus show himself a man of sense. In this way
that very evening the Athenians broke up from before Miletus, leaving their
victory unfinished, and the Argives, mortified at their disaster, promptly
sailed off home from Samos.
As
soon as it was morning the Peloponnesians weighed from Teichiussa and put into Miletus
after the departure of the Athenians; they stayed one day, and on the next took
with them the Chian vessels originally chased into port with Chalcideus, and
resolved to sail back for the tackle which they had put on shore at Teichiussa.
Upon their arrival Tissaphernes came to them with his land forces and induced
them to sail to Iasus, which was held by his enemy Amorges. Accordingly they
suddenly attacked and took Iasus, whose inhabitants never imagined that the
ships could be other than Athenian. The Syracusans distinguished themselves
most in the action. Amorges, a bastard of Pissuthnes and a rebel from the King,
was taken alive and handed over to Tissaphernes, to carry to the King, if he
chose, according to his orders: Iasus was sacked by the army, who found a very
great booty there, the place being wealthy from ancient date. The mercenaries
serving with Amorges the Peloponnesians received and enrolled in their army
without doing them any harm, since most of them came from Peloponnese, and
handed over the town to Tissaphernes with all the captives, bond or free, at
the stipulated price of one Doric stater a head; after which they returned to
Miletus. Pedaritus, son of Leon, who had been sent by the Lacedaemonians to
take the command at Chios, they dispatched by land as far as Erythrae with the
mercenaries taken from Amorges; appointing Philip to remain as governor of
Miletus.
Summer
was now over. The winter following, Tissaphernes put Iasus in a state of
defence, and passing on to Miletus distributed a month's pay to all the ships
as he had promised at Lacedaemon, at the rate of an Attic drachma a day for
each man. In future, however, he was resolved not to give more than three
obols, until he had consulted the King; when if the King should so order he
would give, he said, the full drachma. However, upon the protest of the
Syracusan general Hermocrates (for as Therimenes was not admiral, but only
accompanied them in order to hand over the ships to Astyochus, he made little
difficulty about the pay), it was agreed that the amount of five ships' pay
should be given over and above the three obols a day for each man; Tissaphernes
paying thirty talents a month for fifty-five ships, and to the rest, for as
many ships as they had beyond that number, at the same rate.
The
same winter the Athenians in Samos, having been joined by thirty-five more
vessels from home under Charminus, Strombichides, and Euctemon, called in their
squadron at Chios and all the rest, intending to blockade Miletus with their
navy, and to send a fleet and an army against Chios; drawing lots for the
respective services. This intention they carried into effect; Strombichides,
Onamacles, and Euctemon sailing against Chios, which fell to their lot, with
thirty ships and a part of the thousand heavy infantry, who had been to
Miletus, in transports; while the rest remained masters of the sea with
seventy-four ships at Samos, and advanced upon Miletus.
Meanwhile
Astyochus, whom we left at Chios collecting the hostages required in
consequence of the conspiracy, stopped upon learning that the fleet with
Therimenes had arrived, and that the affairs of the league were in a more
flourishing condition, and putting out to sea with ten Peloponnesian and as
many Chian vessels, after a futile attack upon Pteleum, coasted on to
Clazomenae, and ordered the Athenian party to remove inland to Daphnus, and to
join the Peloponnesians, an order in which also joined Tamos the king's
lieutenant in Ionia. This order being disregarded, Astyochus made an attack
upon the town, which was unwalled, and having failed to take it was himself
carried off by a strong gale to Phocaea and Cuma, while the rest of the ships
put in at the islands adjacent to Clazomenae- Marathussa, Pele, and Drymussa.
Here they were detained eight days by the winds, and, plundering and consuming
all the property of the Clazomenians there deposited, put the rest on shipboard
and sailed off to Phocaea and Cuma to join Astyochus.
While
he was there, envoys arrived from the Lesbians who wished to revolt again. With
Astyochus they were successful; but the Corinthians and the other allies being
averse to it by reason of their former failure, he weighed anchor and set sail
for Chios, where they eventually arrived from different quarters, the fleet
having been scattered by a storm. After this Pedaritus, whom we left marching
along the coast from Miletus, arrived at Erythrae, and thence crossed over with
his army to Chios, where he found also about five hundred soldiers who had been
left there by Chalcideus from the five ships with their arms. Meanwhile some
Lesbians making offers to revolt, Astyochus urged upon Pedaritus and the Chians
that they ought to go with their ships and effect the revolt of Lesbos, and so
increase the number of their allies, or, if not successful, at all events harm
the Athenians. The Chians, however, turned a deaf ear to this, and Pedaritus
flatly refused to give up to him the Chian vessels.
Upon
this Astyochus took five Corinthian and one Megarian vessel, with another from
Hermione, and the ships which had come with him from Laconia, and set sail for
Miletus to assume his command as admiral; after telling the Chians with many
threats that he would certainly not come and help them if they should be in
need. At Corycus in the Erythraeid he brought to for the night; the Athenian
armament sailing from Samos against Chios being only separated from him by a
hill, upon the other side of which it brought to; so that neither perceived the
other. But a letter arriving in the night from Pedaritus to say that some
liberated Erythraean prisoners had come from Samos to betray Erythrae,
Astyochus at once put back to Erythrae, and so just escaped falling in with the
Athenians. Here Pedaritus sailed over to join him; and after inquiry into the
pretended treachery, finding that the whole story had been made up to procure
the escape of the men from Samos, they acquitted them of the charge, and sailed
away, Pedaritus to Chios and Astyochus to Miletus as he had intended.
Meanwhile
the Athenian armament sailing round Corycus fell in with three Chian men-of-war
off Arginus, and gave immediate chase. A great storm coming on, the Chians with
difficulty took refuge in the harbour; the three Athenian vessels most forward
in the pursuit being wrecked and thrown up near the city of Chios, and the
crews slain or taken prisoners. The rest of the Athenian fleet took refuge in
the harbour called Phoenicus, under Mount Mimas, and from thence afterwards put
into Lesbos and prepared for the work of fortification.
The
same winter the Lacedaemonian Hippocrates sailed out from Peloponnese with ten
Thurian ships under the command of Dorieus, son of Diagoras, and two
colleagues, one Laconian and one Syracusan vessel, and arrived at Cnidus, which
had already revolted at the instigation of Tissaphernes. When their arrival was
known at Miletus, orders came to them to leave half their squadron to guard
Cnidus, and with the rest to cruise round Triopium and seize all the
merchantmen arriving from Egypt. Triopium is a promontory of Cnidus and sacred
to Apollo. This coming to the knowledge of the Athenians, they sailed from
Samos and captured the six ships on the watch at Triopium, the crews escaping
out of them. After this the Athenians sailed into Cnidus and made an assault
upon the town, which was unfortified, and all but took it; and the next day
assaulted it again, but with less effect, as the inhabitants had improved their
defences during the night, and had been reinforced by the crews escaped from
the ships at Triopium. The Athenians now withdrew, and after plundering the
Cnidian territory sailed back to Samos.
About
the same time Astyochus came to the fleet at Miletus. The Peloponnesian camp
was still plentifully supplied, being in receipt of sufficient pay, and the
soldiers having still in hand the large booty taken at Iasus. The Milesians
also showed great ardour for the war. Nevertheless the Peloponnesians thought
the first convention with Tissaphernes, made with Chalcideus, defective, and
more advantageous to him than to them, and consequently while Therimenes was
still there concluded another, which was as follows:
The convention of the Lacedaemonians
and the allies with King Darius and the sons of the King, and with Tissaphernes
for a treaty and friendship, as follows:
1. Neither the Lacedaemonians nor the
allies of the Lacedaemonians shall make war against or otherwise injure any
country or cities that belong to King Darius or did belong to his father or to
his ancestors; neither shall the Lacedaemonians nor the allies of the Lacedaemonians
exact tribute from such cities. Neither shall King Darius nor any of the
subjects of the King make war against or otherwise injure the Lacedaemonians or
their allies.
2. If the Lacedaemonians or their
allies should require any assistance from the King, or the King from the
Lacedaemonians or their allies, whatever they both agree upon they shall be
right in doing.
3. Both shall carry on jointly the war
against the Athenians and their allies: and if they make peace, both shall do
so jointly.
4. The expense of all troops in the
King's country, sent for by the King, shall be borne by the King.
5. If any of the states comprised in
this convention with the King attack the King's country, the rest shall stop
them and aid the King to the best of their power. And if any in the King's
country or in the countries under the King's rule attack the country of the
Lacedaemonians or their allies, the King shall stop it and help them to the
best of his power.
After
this convention Therimenes handed over the fleet to Astyochus, sailed off in a
small boat, and was lost. The Athenian armament had now crossed over from
Lesbos to Chios, and being master by sea and land began to fortify Delphinium,
a place naturally strong on the land side, provided with more than one harbour,
and also not far from the city of Chios. Meanwhile the Chians remained
inactive. Already defeated in so many battles, they were now also at discord
among themselves; the execution of the party of Tydeus, son of Ion, by
Pedaritus upon the charge of Atticism, followed by the forcible imposition of
an oligarchy upon the rest of the city, having made them suspicious of one
another; and they therefore thought neither themselves not the mercenaries
under Pedaritus a match for the enemy. They sent, however, to Miletus to beg
Astyochus to assist them, which he refused to do, and was accordingly denounced
at Lacedaemon by Pedaritus as a traitor. Such was the state of the Athenian
affairs at Chios; while their fleet at Samos kept sailing out against the enemy
in Miletus, until they found that he would not accept their challenge, and then
retired again to Samos and remained quiet.
In
the same winter the twenty-seven ships equipped by the Lacedaemonians for
Pharnabazus through the agency of the Megarian Calligeitus, and the Cyzicene
Timagoras, put out from Peloponnese and sailed for Ionia about the time of the
solstice, under the command of Antisthenes, a Spartan. With them the
Lacedaemonians also sent eleven Spartans as advisers to Astyochus; Lichas, son of
Arcesilaus, being among the number. Arrived at Miletus, their orders were to
aid in generally superintending the good conduct of the war; to send off the
above ships or a greater or less number to the Hellespont to Pharnabazus, if
they thought proper, appointing Clearchus, son of Ramphias, who sailed with
them, to the command; and further, if they thought proper, to make Antisthenes
admiral, dismissing Astyochus, whom the letters of Pedaritus had caused to be
regarded with suspicion. Sailing accordingly from Malea across the open sea,
the squadron touched at Melos and there fell in with ten Athenian ships, three
of which they took empty and burned. After this, being afraid that the Athenian
vessels escaped from Melos might, as they in fact did, give information of
their approach to the Athenians at Samos, they sailed to Crete, and having
lengthened their voyage by way of precaution made land at Caunus in Asia, from
whence considering themselves in safety they sent a message to the fleet at
Miletus for a convoy along the coast.
Meanwhile
the Chians and Pedaritus, undeterred by the backwardness of Astyochus, went on
sending messengers pressing him to come with all the fleet to assist them
against their besiegers, and not to leave the greatest of the allied states in
Ionia to be shut up by sea and overrun and pillaged by land. There were more
slaves at Chios than in any one other city except Lacedaemon, and being also by
reason of their numbers punished more rigorously when they offended, most of
them, when they saw the Athenian armament firmly established in the island with
a fortified position, immediately deserted to the enemy, and through their
knowledge of the country did the greatest mischief. The Chians therefore urged
upon Astyochus that it was his duty to assist them, while there was still a
hope and a possibility of stopping the enemy's progress, while Delphinium was
still in process of fortification and unfinished, and before the completion of
a higher rampart which was being added to protect the camp and fleet of their
besiegers. Astyochus now saw that the allies also wished it and prepared to go,
in spite of his intention to the contrary owing to the threat already referred
to.
In
the meantime news came from Caunus of the arrival of the twenty-seven ships
with the Lacedaemonian commissioners; and Astyochus, postponing everything to
the duty of convoying a fleet of that importance, in order to be more able to
command the sea, and to the safe conduct of the Lacedaemonians sent as spies
over his behaviour, at once gave up going to Chios and set sail for Caunus. As
he coasted along he landed at the Meropid Cos and sacked the city, which was
unfortified and had been lately laid in ruins by an earthquake, by far the
greatest in living memory, and, as the inhabitants had fled to the mountains,
overran the country and made booty of all it contained, letting go, however,
the free men. From Cos arriving in the night at Cnidus he was constrained by
the representations of the Cnidians not to disembark the sailors, but to sail
as he was straight against the twenty Athenian vessels, which with Charminus,
one of the commanders at Samos, were on the watch for the very twenty-seven
ships from Peloponnese which Astyochus was himself sailing to join; the
Athenians in Samos having heard from Melos of their approach, and Charminus
being on the look-out off Syme, Chalce, Rhodes, and Lycia, as he now heard that
they were at Caunus.
Astyochus
accordingly sailed as he was to Syme, before he was heard of, in the hope of
catching the enemy somewhere out at sea. Rain, however, and foggy weather
encountered him, and caused his ships to straggle and get into disorder in the
dark. In the morning his fleet had parted company and was most of it still
straggling round the island, and the left wing only in sight of Charminus and
the Athenians, who took it for the squadron which they were watching for from
Caunus, and hastily put out against it with part only of their twenty vessels,
and attacking immediately sank three ships and disabled others, and had the
advantage in the action until the main body of the fleet unexpectedly hove in
sight, when they were surrounded on every side. Upon this they took to flight,
and after losing six ships with the rest escaped to Teutlussa or Beet Island,
and from thence to Halicarnassus. After this the Peloponnesians put into Cnidus
and, being joined by the twenty-seven ships from Caunus, sailed all together
and set up a trophy in Syme, and then returned to anchor at Cnidus.
As
soon as the Athenians knew of the sea-fight, they sailed with all the ships at
Samos to Syme, and, without attacking or being attacked by the fleet at Cnidus,
took the ships' tackle left at Syme, and touching at Lorymi on the mainland
sailed back to Samos. Meanwhile the Peloponnesian ships, being now all at
Cnidus, underwent such repairs as were needed; while the eleven Lacedaemonian
commissioners conferred with Tissaphernes, who had come to meet them, upon the
points which did not satisfy them in the past transactions, and upon the best and
mutually most advantageous manner of conducting the war in future. The severest
critic of the present proceedings was Lichas, who said that neither of the
treaties could stand, neither that of Chalcideus, nor that of Therimenes; it
being monstrous that the King should at this date pretend to the possession of
all the country formerly ruled by himself or by his ancestors- a pretension
which implicitly put back under the yoke all the islands- Thessaly, Locris, and
everything as far as Boeotia- and made the Lacedaemonians give to the Hellenes
instead of liberty a Median master. He therefore invited Tissaphernes to
conclude another and a better treaty, as they certainly would not recognize
those existing and did not want any of his pay upon such conditions. This
offended Tissaphernes so much that he went away in a rage without settling
anything.
THE
Peloponnesians now determined to sail to Rhodes, upon the invitation of some of
the principal men there, hoping to gain an island powerful by the number of its
seamen and by its land forces, and also thinking that they would be able to
maintain their fleet from their own confederacy, without having to ask for
money from Tissaphernes. They accordingly at once set sail that same winter
from Cnidus, and first put in with ninety-four ships at Camirus in the Rhodian
country, to the great alarm of the mass of the inhabitants, who were not privy
to the intrigue, and who consequently fled, especially as the town was
unfortified. They were afterwards, however, assembled by the Lacedaemonians
together with the inhabitants of the two other towns of Lindus and Ialysus; and
the Rhodians were persuaded to revolt from the Athenians and the island went
over to the Peloponnesians. Meanwhile the Athenians had received the alarm and
set sail with the fleet from Samos to forestall them, and came within sight of
the island, but being a little too late sailed off for the moment to Chalce,
and from thence to Samos, and subsequently waged war against Rhodes, issuing
from Chalce, Cos, and Samos.
The
Peloponnesians now levied a contribution of thirty-two talents from the
Rhodians, after which they hauled their ships ashore and for eighty days
remained inactive. During this time, and even earlier, before they removed to
Rhodes, the following intrigues took place. After the death of Chalcideus and
the battle at Miletus, Alcibiades began to be suspected by the Peloponnesians;
and Astyochus received from Lacedaemon an order from them to put him to death,
he being the personal enemy of Agis, and in other respects thought unworthy of
confidence. Alcibiades in his alarm first withdrew to Tissaphernes, and
immediately began to do all he could with him to injure the Peloponnesian
cause. Henceforth becoming his adviser in everything, he cut down the pay from
an Attic drachma to three obols a day, and even this not paid too regularly;
and told Tissaphernes to say to the Peloponnesians that the Athenians, whose
maritime experience was of an older date than their own, only gave their men
three obols, not so much from poverty as to prevent their seamen being
corrupted by being too well off, and injuring their condition by spending money
upon enervating indulgences, and also paid their crews irregularly in order to
have a security against their deserting in the arrears which they would leave
behind them. He also told Tissaphernes to bribe the captains and generals of
the cities, and so to obtain their connivance- an expedient which succeeded
with all except the Syracusans, Hermocrates alone opposing him on behalf of the
whole confederacy. Meanwhile the cities asking for money Alcibiades sent off,
by roundly telling them in the name of Tissaphernes that it was great impudence
in the Chians, the richest people in Hellas, not content with being defended by
a foreign force, to expect others to risk not only their lives but their money
as well in behalf of their freedom; while the other cities, he said, had had to
pay largely to Athens before their rebellion, and could not justly refuse to
contribute as much or even more now for their own selves. He also pointed out
that Tissaphernes was at present carrying on the war at his own charges, and
had good cause for economy, but that as soon as he received remittances from
the king he would give them their pay in full and do what was reasonable for
the cities.
Alcibiades
further advised Tissaphernes not to be in too great a hurry to end the war, or
to let himself be persuaded to bring up the Phoenician fleet which he was
equipping, or to provide pay for more Hellenes, and thus put the power by land
and sea into the same hands; but to leave each of the contending parties in
possession of one element, thus enabling the king when he found one troublesome
to call in the other. For if the command of the sea and land were united in one
hand, he would not know where to turn for help to overthrow the dominant power;
unless he at last chose to stand up himself, and go through with the struggle
at great expense and hazard. The cheapest plan was to let the Hellenes wear
each other out, at a small share of the expense and without risk to himself.
Besides, he would find the Athenians the most convenient partners in empire as
they did not aim at conquests on shore, and carried on the war upon principles
and with a practice most advantageous to the King; being prepared to combine to
conquer the sea for Athens, and for the King all the Hellenes inhabiting his
country, whom the Peloponnesians, on the contrary, had come to liberate. Now it
was not likely that the Lacedaemonians would free the Hellenes from the
Hellenic Athenians, without freeing them also from the barbarian Mede, unless
overthrown by him in the meanwhile. Alcibiades therefore urged him to wear them
both out at first, and, after docking the Athenian power as much as he could,
forthwith to rid the country of the Peloponnesians. In the main Tissaphernes
approved of this policy, so far at least as could be conjectured from his
behaviour; since he now gave his confidence to Alcibiades in recognition of his
good advice, and kept the Peloponnesians short of money, and would not let them
fight at sea, but ruined their cause by pretending that the Phoenician fleet
would arrive, and that they would thus be enabled to contend with the odds in
their favour, and so made their navy lose its efficiency, which had been very
remarkable, and generally betrayed a coolness in the war that was too plain to
be mistaken.
Alcibiades
gave this advice to Tissaphernes and the King, with whom he then was, not
merely because he thought it really the best, but because he was studying means
to effect his restoration to his country, well knowing that if he did not
destroy it he might one day hope to persuade the Athenians to recall him, and
thinking that his best chance of persuading them lay in letting them see that
he possessed the favour of Tissaphernes. The event proved him to be right. When
the Athenians at Samos found that he had influence with Tissaphernes,
principally of their own motion (though partly also through Alcibiades himself
sending word to their chief men to tell the best men in the army that, if there
were only an oligarchy in the place of the rascally democracy that had banished
him, he would be glad to return to his country and to make Tissaphernes their
friend), the captains and chief men in the armament at once embraced the idea
of subverting the democracy.
The
design was first mooted in the camp, and afterwards from thence reached the
city. Some persons crossed over from Samos and had an interview with
Alcibiades, who immediately offered to make first Tissaphernes, and afterwards
the King, their friend, if they would give up the democracy and make it
possible for the King to trust them. The higher class, who also suffered most
severely from the war, now conceived great hopes of getting the government into
their own hands, and of triumphing over the enemy. Upon their return to Samos
the emissaries formed their partisans into a club, and openly told the mass of
the armament that the King would be their friend, and would provide them with
money, if Alcibiades were restored and the democracy abolished. The multitude,
if at first irritated by these intrigues, were nevertheless kept quiet by the
advantageous prospect of the pay from the King; and the oligarchical
conspirators, after making this communication to the people, now re-examined
the proposals of Alcibiades among themselves, with most of their associates.
Unlike the rest, who thought them advantageous and trustworthy, Phrynichus, who
was still general, by no means approved of the proposals. Alcibiades, he
rightly thought, cared no more for an oligarchy than for a democracy, and only
sought to change the institutions of his country in order to get himself
recalled by his associates; while for themselves their one object should be to
avoid civil discord. It was not the King's interest, when the Peloponnesians
were now their equals at sea, and in possession of some of the chief cities in
his empire, to go out of his way to side with the Athenians whom he did not
trust, when he might make friends of the Peloponnesians who had never injured
him. And as for the allied states to whom oligarchy was now offered, because
the democracy was to be put down at Athens, he well knew that this would not
make the rebels come in any the sooner, or confirm the loyal in their
allegiance; as the allies would never prefer servitude with an oligarchy or
democracy to freedom with the constitution which they actually enjoyed, to
whichever type it belonged. Besides, the cities thought that the so-called
better classes would prove just as oppressive as the commons, as being those
who originated, proposed, and for the most part benefited from the acts of the
commons injurious to the confederates. Indeed, if it depended on the better
classes, the confederates would be put to death without trial and with
violence; while the commons were their refuge and the chastiser of these men.
This he positively knew that the cities had learned by experience, and that
such was their opinion. The propositions of Alcibiades, and the intrigues now
in progress, could therefore never meet with his approval.
However,
the members of the club assembled, agreeably to their original determination,
accepted what was proposed, and prepared to send Pisander and others on an
embassy to Athens to treat for the restoration of Alcibiades and the abolition
of the democracy in the city, and thus to make Tissaphernes the friend of the
Athenians.
Phrynichus
now saw that there would be a proposal to restore Alcibiades, and that the
Athenians would consent to it; and fearing after what he had said against it
that Alcibiades, if restored, would revenge himself upon him for his
opposition, had recourse to the following expedient. He sent a secret letter to
the Lacedaemonian admiral Astyochus, who was still in the neighbourhood of
Miletus, to tell him that Alcibiades was ruining their cause by making
Tissaphernes the friend of the Athenians, and containing an express revelation
of the rest of the intrigue, desiring to be excused if he sought to harm his
enemy even at the expense of the interests of his country. However, Astyochus,
instead of thinking of punishing Alcibiades, who, besides, no longer ventured
within his reach as formerly, went up to him and Tissaphernes at Magnesia,
communicated to them the letter from Samos, and turned informer, and, if report
may be trusted, became the paid creature of Tissaphernes, undertaking to inform
him as to this and all other matters; which was also the reason why he did not
remonstrate more strongly against the pay not being given in full. Upon this
Alcibiades instantly sent to the authorities at Samos a letter against
Phrynichus, stating what he had done, and requiring that he should be put to
death. Phrynichus distracted, and placed in the utmost peril by the
denunciation, sent again to Astyochus, reproaching him with having so ill kept
the secret of his previous letter, and saying that he was now prepared to give
them an opportunity of destroying the whole Athenian armament at Samos; giving
a detailed account of the means which he should employ, Samos being
unfortified, and pleading that, being in danger of his life on their account,
he could not now be blamed for doing this or anything else to escape being
destroyed by his mortal enemies. This also Astyochus revealed to Alcibiades.
Meanwhile
Phrynichus having had timely notice that he was playing him false, and that a
letter on the subject was on the point of arriving from Alcibiades, himself
anticipated the news, and told the army that the enemy, seeing that Samos was
unfortified and the fleet not all stationed within the harbour, meant to attack
the camp, that he could be certain of this intelligence, and that they must
fortify Samos as quickly as possible, and generally look to their defences. It
will be remembered that he was general, and had himself authority to carry out
these measures. Accordingly they addressed themselves to the work of
fortification, and Samos was thus fortified sooner than it would otherwise have
been. Not long afterwards came the letter from Alcibiades, saying that the army
was betrayed by Phrynichus, and the enemy about to attack it. Alcibiades,
however, gained no credit, it being thought that he was in the secret of the
enemy's designs, and had tried to fasten them upon Phrynichus, and to make out
that he was their accomplice, out of hatred; and consequently far from hurting
him he rather bore witness to what he had said by this intelligence.
After
this Alcibiades set to work to persuade Tissaphernes to become the friend of
the Athenians. Tissaphernes, although afraid of the Peloponnesians because they
had more ships in Asia than the Athenians, was yet disposed to be persuaded if
he could, especially after his quarrel with the Peloponnesians at Cnidus about
the treaty of Therimenes. The quarrel had already taken place, as the
Peloponnesians were by this time actually at Rhodes; and in it the original
argument of Alcibiades touching the liberation of all the towns by the
Lacedaemonians had been verified by the declaration of Lichas that it was
impossible to submit to a convention which made the King master of all the
states at any former time ruled by himself or by his fathers.
While
Alcibiades was besieging the favour of Tissaphernes with an earnestness
proportioned to the greatness of the issue, the Athenian envoys who had been
dispatched from Samos with Pisander arrived at Athens, and made a speech before
the people, giving a brief summary of their views, and particularly insisting
that, if Alcibiades were recalled and the democratic constitution changed, they
could have the King as their ally, and would be able to overcome the
Peloponnesians. A number of speakers opposed them on the question of the
democracy, the enemies of Alcibiades cried out against the scandal of a
restoration to be effected by a violation of the constitution, and the
Eumolpidae and Ceryces protested in behalf of the mysteries, the cause of his
banishment, and called upon the gods to avert his recall; when Pisander, in the
midst of much opposition and abuse, came forward, and taking each of his
opponents aside asked him the following question: In the face of the fact that
the Peloponnesians had as many ships as their own confronting them at sea, more
cities in alliance with them, and the King and Tissaphernes to supply them with
money, of which the Athenians had none left, had he any hope of saving the state,
unless someone could induce the King to come over to their side? Upon their
replying that they had not, he then plainly said to them: "This we cannot
have unless we have a more moderate form of government, and put the offices
into fewer hands, and so gain the King's confidence, and forthwith restore
Alcibiades, who is the only man living that can bring this about. The safety of
the state, not the form of its government, is for the moment the most pressing
question, as we can always change afterwards whatever we do not like."
The
people were at first highly irritated at the mention of an oligarchy, but upon
understanding clearly from Pisander that this was the only resource left, they
took counsel of their fears, and promised themselves some day to change the
government again, and gave way. They accordingly voted that Pisander should
sail with ten others and make the best arrangement that they could with
Tissaphernes and Alcibiades. At the same time the people, upon a false
accusation of Pisander, dismissed Phrynichus from his post together with his
colleague Scironides, sending Diomedon and Leon to replace them in the command
of the fleet. The accusation was that Phrynichus had betrayed Iasus and
Amorges; and Pisander brought it because he thought him a man unfit for the
business now in hand with Alcibiades. Pisander also went the round of all the
clubs already existing in the city for help in lawsuits and elections, and
urged them to draw together and to unite their efforts for the overthrow of the
democracy; and after taking all other measures required by the circumstances,
so that no time might be lost, set off with his ten companions on his voyage to
Tissaphernes.
In
the same winter Leon and Diomedon, who had by this time joined the fleet, made
an attack upon Rhodes. The ships of the Peloponnesians they found hauled up on
shore, and, after making a descent upon the coast and defeating the Rhodians
who appeared in the field against them, withdrew to Chalce and made that place
their base of operations instead of Cos, as they could better observe from
thence if the Peloponnesian fleet put out to sea. Meanwhile Xenophantes, a
Laconian, came to Rhodes from Pedaritus at Chios, with the news that the
fortification of the Athenians was now finished, and that, unless the whole
Peloponnesian fleet came to the rescue, the cause in Chios must be lost. Upon
this they resolved to go to his relief. In the meantime Pedaritus, with the
mercenaries that he had with him and the whole force of the Chians, made an
assault upon the work round the Athenian ships and took a portion of it, and
got possession of some vessels that were hauled up on shore, when the Athenians
sallied out to the rescue, and first routing the Chians, next defeated the
remainder of the force round Pedaritus, who was himself killed, with many of
the Chians, a great number of arms being also taken.
After
this the Chians were besieged even more straitly than before by land and sea,
and the famine in the place was great. Meanwhile the Athenian envoys with
Pisander arrived at the court of Tissaphernes, and conferred with him about the
proposed agreement. However, Alcibiades, not being altogether sure of
Tissaphernes (who feared the Peloponnesians more than the Athenians, and
besides wished to wear out both parties, as Alcibiades himself had
recommended), had recourse to the following stratagem to make the treaty
between the Athenians and Tissaphernes miscarry by reason of the magnitude of
his demands. In my opinion Tissaphernes desired this result, fear being his motive;
while Alcibiades, who now saw that Tissaphernes was determined not to treat on
any terms, wished the Athenians to think, not that he was unable to persuade
Tissaphernes, but that after the latter had been persuaded and was willing to
join them, they had not conceded enough to him. For the demands of Alcibiades,
speaking for Tissaphernes, who was present, were so extravagant that the
Athenians, although for a long while they agreed to whatever he asked, yet had
to bear the blame of failure: he required the cession of the whole of Ionia,
next of the islands adjacent, besides other concessions, and these passed
without opposition; at last, in the third interview, Alcibiades, who now feared
a complete discovery of his inability, required them to allow the King to build
ships and sail along his own coast wherever and with as many as he pleased.
Upon this the Athenians would yield no further, and concluding that there was
nothing to be done, but that they had been deceived by Alcibiades, went away in
a passion and proceeded to Samos.
Tissaphernes
immediately after this, in the same winter, proceeded along shore to Caunus,
desiring to bring the Peloponnesian fleet back to Miletus, and to supply them
with pay, making a fresh convention upon such terms as he could get, in order
not to bring matters to an absolute breach between them. He was afraid that if
many of their ships were left without pay they would be compelled to engage and
be defeated, or that their vessels being left without hands the Athenians would
attain their objects without his assistance. Still more he feared that the
Peloponnesians might ravage the continent in search of supplies. Having
calculated and considered all this, agreeably to his plan of keeping the two
sides equal, he now sent for the Peloponnesians and gave them pay, and
concluded with them a third treaty in words following:
In the thirteenth year of the reign of
Darius, while Alexippidas was ephor at Lacedaemon, a convention was concluded
in the plain of the Maeander by the Lacedaemonians and their allies with
Tissaphernes, Hieramenes, and the sons of Pharnaces, concerning the affairs of
the King and of the Lacedaemonians and their allies.
1. The country of the King in Asia
shall be the King's, and the King shall treat his own country as he pleases.
2. The Lacedaemonians and their allies
shall not invade or injure the King's country: neither shall the King invade or
injure that of the Lacedaemonians or of their allies. If any of the
Lacedaemonians or of their allies invade or injure the King's country, the
Lacedaemonians and their allies shall prevent it: and if any from the King's
country invade or injure the country of the Lacedaemonians or of their allies,
the King shall prevent it.
3. Tissaphernes shall provide pay for
the ships now present, according to the agreement, until the arrival of the
King's vessels: but after the arrival of the King's vessels the Lacedaemonians
and their allies may pay their own ships if they wish it. If, however, they
choose to receive the pay from Tissaphernes, Tissaphernes shall furnish it: and
the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall repay him at the end of the war such
moneys as they shall have received.
4. After the vessels have arrived, the
ships of the Lacedaemonians and of their allies and those of the King shall
carry on the war jointly, according as Tissaphernes and the Lacedaemonians and
their allies shall think best. If they wish to make peace with the Athenians,
they shall make peace also jointly.
This
was the treaty. After this Tissaphernes prepared to bring up the Phoenician
fleet according to agreement, and to make good his other promises, or at all
events wished to make it appear that he was so preparing.
Winter
was now drawing towards its close, when the Boeotians took Oropus by treachery,
though held by an Athenian garrison. Their accomplices in this were some of the
Eretrians and of the Oropians themselves, who were plotting the revolt of
Euboea, as the place was exactly opposite Eretria, and while in Athenian hands
was necessarily a source of great annoyance to Eretria and the rest of Euboea.
Oropus being in their hands, the Eretrians now came to Rhodes to invite the
Peloponnesians into Euboea. The latter, however, were rather bent on the relief
of the distressed Chians, and accordingly put out to sea and sailed with all
their ships from Rhodes. Off Triopium they sighted the Athenian fleet out at
sea sailing from Chalce, and, neither attacking the other, arrived, the latter
at Samos, the Peloponnesians at Miletus, seeing that it was no longer possible
to relieve Chios without a battle. And this winter ended, and with it ended the
twentieth year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.
Early
in the spring of the summer following, Dercyllidas, a Spartan, was sent with a
small force by land to the Hellespont to effect the revolt of Abydos, which is
a Milesian colony; and the Chians, while Astyochus was at a loss how to help
them, were compelled to fight at sea by the pressure of the siege. While
Astyochus was still at Rhodes they had received from Miletus, as their
commander after the death of Pedaritus, a Spartan named Leon, who had come out
with Antisthenes, and twelve vessels which had been on guard at Miletus, five
of which were Thurian, four Syracusans, one from Anaia, one Milesian, and one
Leon's own. Accordingly the Chians marched out in mass and took up a strong
position, while thirty-six of their ships put out and engaged thirty-two of the
Athenians; and after a tough fight, in which the Chians and their allies had
rather the best of it, as it was now late, retired to their city.
Immediately
after this Dercyllidas arrived by land from Miletus; and Abydos in the
Hellespont revolted to him and Pharnabazus, and Lampsacus two days later. Upon
receipt of this news Strombichides hastily sailed from Chios with twenty-four
Athenian ships, some transports carrying heavy infantry being of the number,
and defeating the Lampsacenes who came out against him, took Lampsacus, which
was unfortified, at the first assault, and making prize of the slaves and goods
restored the freemen to their homes, and went on to Abydos. The inhabitants,
however, refusing to capitulate, and his assaults failing to take the place, he
sailed over to the coast opposite, and appointed Sestos, the town in the Chersonese
held by the Medes at a former period in this history, as the centre for the
defence of the whole Hellespont.
In
the meantime the Chians commanded the sea more than before; and the
Peloponnesians at Miletus and Astyochus, hearing of the sea-fight and of the
departure of the squadron with Strombichides, took fresh courage. Coasting
along with two vessels to Chios, Astyochus took the ships from that place, and
now moved with the whole fleet upon Samos, from whence, however, he sailed back
to Miletus, as the Athenians did not put out against him, owing to their
suspicions of one another. For it was about this time, or even before, that the
democracy was put down at Athens. When Pisander and the envoys returned from
Tissaphernes to Samos they at once strengthened still further their interest in
the army itself, and instigated the upper class in Samos to join them in
establishing an oligarchy, the very form of government which a party of them
had lately risen to avoid. At the same time the Athenians at Samos, after a
consultation among themselves, determined to let Alcibiades alone, since he
refused to join them, and besides was not the man for an oligarchy; and now
that they were once embarked, to see for themselves how they could best prevent
the ruin of their cause, and meanwhile to sustain the war, and to contribute
without stint money and all else that might be required from their own private
estates, as they would henceforth labour for themselves alone.
After
encouraging each other in these resolutions, they now at once sent off half the
envoys and Pisander to do what was necessary at Athens (with instructions to
establish oligarchies on their way in all the subject cities which they might
touch at), and dispatched the other half in different directions to the other
dependencies. Diitrephes also, who was in the neighbourhood of Chios, and had
been elected to the command of the Thracian towns, was sent off to his
government, and arriving at Thasos abolished the democracy there. Two months,
however, had not elapsed after his departure before the Thasians began to
fortify their town, being already tired of an aristocracy with Athens, and in
daily expectation of freedom from Lacedaemon. Indeed there was a party of them
(whom the Athenians had banished), with the Peloponnesians, who with their
friends in the town were already making every exertion to bring a squadron, and
to effect the revolt of Thasos; and this party thus saw exactly what they most
wanted done, that is to say, the reformation of the government without risk,
and the abolition of the democracy which would have opposed them. Things at
Thasos thus turned out just the contrary to what the oligarchical conspirators
at Athens expected; and the same in my opinion was the case in many of the
other dependencies; as the cities no sooner got a moderate government and
liberty of action, than they went on to absolute freedom without being at all
seduced by the show of reform offered by the Athenians.
Pisander
and his colleagues on their voyage alongshore abolished, as had been
determined, the democracies in the cities, and also took some heavy infantry
from certain places as their allies, and so came to Athens. Here they found
most of the work already done by their associates. Some of the younger men had
banded together, and secretly assassinated one Androcles, the chief leader of
the commons, and mainly responsible for the banishment of Alcibiades; Androcles
being singled out both because he was a popular leader and because they sought
by his death to recommend themselves to Alcibiades, who was, as they supposed,
to be recalled, and to make Tissaphernes their friend. There were also some
other obnoxious persons whom they secretly did away with in the same manner.
Meanwhile their cry in public was that no pay should be given except to persons
serving in the war, and that not more than five thousand should share in the
government, and those such as were most able to serve the state in person and
in purse.
But
this was a mere catchword for the multitude, as the authors of the revolution
were really to govern. However, the Assembly and the Council of the Bean still
met notwithstanding, although they discussed nothing that was not approved of
by the conspirators, who both supplied the speakers and reviewed in advance what
they were to say. Fear, and the sight of the numbers of the conspirators,
closed the mouths of the rest; or if any ventured to rise in opposition, he was
presently put to death in some convenient way, and there was neither search for
the murderers nor justice to be had against them if suspected; but the people
remained motionless, being so thoroughly cowed that men thought themselves
lucky to escape violence, even when they held their tongues. An exaggerated
belief in the numbers of the conspirators also demoralized the people, rendered
helpless by the magnitude of the city, and by their want of intelligence with
each other, and being without means of finding out what those numbers really
were. For the same reason it was impossible for any one to open his grief to a
neighbour and to concert measures to defend himself, as he would have had to
speak either to one whom he did not know, or whom he knew but did not trust.
Indeed all the popular party approached each other with suspicion, each
thinking his neighbour concerned in what was going on, the conspirators having
in their ranks persons whom no one could ever have believed capable of joining
an oligarchy; and these it was who made the many so suspicious, and so helped
to procure impunity for the few, by confirming the commons in their mistrust of
one another.
At
this juncture arrived Pisander and his colleagues, who lost no time in doing
the rest. First they assembled the people, and moved to elect ten commissioners
with full powers to frame a constitution, and that when this was done they
should on an appointed day lay before the people their opinion as to the best
mode of governing the city. Afterwards, when the day arrived, the conspirators
enclosed the assembly in Colonus, a temple of Poseidon, a little more than a
mile outside the city; when the commissioners simply brought forward this
single motion, that any Athenian might propose with impunity whatever measure
he pleased, heavy penalties being imposed upon any who should indict for
illegality, or otherwise molest him for so doing. The way thus cleared, it was
now plainly declared that all tenure of office and receipt of pay under the
existing institutions were at an end, and that five men must be elected as
presidents, who should in their turn elect one hundred, and each of the hundred
three apiece; and that this body thus made up to four hundred should enter the
council chamber with full powers and govern as they judged best, and should
convene the five thousand whenever they pleased.
The
man who moved this resolution was Pisander, who was throughout the chief
ostensible agent in putting down the democracy. But he who concerted the whole
affair, and prepared the way for the catastrophe, and who had given the
greatest thought to the matter, was Antiphon, one of the best men of his day in
Athens; who, with a head to contrive measures and a tongue to recommend them,
did not willingly come forward in the assembly or upon any public scene, being
ill looked upon by the multitude owing to his reputation for talent; and who
yet was the one man best able to aid in the courts, or before the assembly, the
suitors who required his opinion. Indeed, when he was afterwards himself tried
for his life on the charge of having been concerned in setting up this very
government, when the Four Hundred were overthrown and hardly dealt with by the
commons, he made what would seem to be the best defence of any known up to my
time. Phrynichus also went beyond all others in his zeal for the oligarchy.
Afraid of Alcibiades, and assured that he was no stranger to his intrigues with
Astyochus at Samos, he held that no oligarchy was ever likely to restore him,
and once embarked in the enterprise, proved, where danger was to be faced, by
far the staunchest of them all. Theramenes, son of Hagnon, was also one of the
foremost of the subverters of the democracy- a man as able in council as in
debate. Conducted by so many and by such sagacious heads, the enterprise, great
as it was, not unnaturally went forward; although it was no light matter to
deprive the Athenian people of its freedom, almost a hundred years after the
deposition of the tyrants, when it had been not only not subject to any during
the whole of that period, but accustomed during more than half of it to rule
over subjects of its own.
The
assembly ratified the proposed constitution, without a single opposing voice,
and was then dissolved; after which the Four Hundred were brought into the
council chamber in the following way. On account of the enemy at Decelea, all
the Athenians were constantly on the wall or in the ranks at the various
military posts. On that day the persons not in the secret were allowed to go
home as usual, while orders were given to the accomplices of the conspirators
to hang about, without making any demonstration, at some little distance from
the posts, and in case of any opposition to what was being done, to seize the
arms and put it down. There were also some Andrians and Tenians, three hundred
Carystians, and some of the settlers in Aegina come with their own arms for
this very purpose, who had received similar instructions. These dispositions
completed, the Four Hundred went, each with a dagger concealed about his
person, accompanied by one hundred and twenty Hellenic youths, whom they
employed wherever violence was needed, and appeared before the Councillors of
the Bean in the council chamber, and told them to take their pay and be gone;
themselves bringing it for the whole of the residue of their term of office,
and giving it to them as they went out.
Upon
the Council withdrawing in this way without venturing any objection, and the
rest of the citizens making no movement, the Four Hundred entered the council
chamber, and for the present contented themselves with drawing lots for their
Prytanes, and making their prayers and sacrifices to the gods upon entering
office, but afterwards departed widely from the democratic system of
government, and except that on account of Alcibiades they did not recall the
exiles, ruled the city by force; putting to death some men, though not many,
whom they thought it convenient to remove, and imprisoning and banishing
others. They also sent to Agis, the Lacedaemonian king, at Decelea, to say that
they desired to make peace, and that he might reasonably be more disposed to treat
now that he had them to deal with instead of the inconstant commons.
Agis,
however, did not believe in the tranquillity of the city, or that the commons
would thus in a moment give up their ancient liberty, but thought that the
sight of a large Lacedaemonian force would be sufficient to excite them if they
were not already in commotion, of which he was by no means certain. He
accordingly gave to the envoys of the Four Hundred an answer which held out no
hopes of an accommodation, and sending for large reinforcements from
Peloponnese, not long afterwards, with these and his garrison from Decelea,
descended to the very walls of Athens; hoping either that civil disturbances
might help to subdue them to his terms, or that, in the confusion to be
expected within and without the city, they might even surrender without a blow
being struck; at all events he thought he would succeed in seizing the Long
Walls, bared of their defenders. However, the Athenians saw him come close up,
without making the least disturbance within the city; and sending out their
cavalry, and a number of their heavy infantry, light troops, and archers, shot
down some of his soldiers who approached too near, and got possession of some
arms and dead. Upon this Agis, at last convinced, led his army back again and,
remaining with his own troops in the old position at Decelea, sent the
reinforcement back home, after a few days' stay in Attica. After this the Four
Hundred persevering sent another embassy to Agis, and now meeting with a better
reception, at his suggestion dispatched envoys to Lacedaemon to negotiate a
treaty, being desirous of making peace.
They
also sent ten men to Samos to reassure the army, and to explain that the oligarchy
was not established for the hurt of the city or the citizens, but for the
salvation of the country at large; and that there were five thousand, not four
hundred only, concerned; although, what with their expeditions and employments
abroad, the Athenians had never yet assembled to discuss a question important
enough to bring five thousand of them together. The emissaries were also told
what to say upon all other points, and were so sent off immediately after the
establishment of the new government, which feared, as it turned out justly,
that the mass of seamen would not be willing to remain under the oligarchical
constitution, and, the evil beginning there, might be the means of their
overthrow.
Indeed
at Samos the question of the oligarchy had already entered upon a new phase,
the following events having taken place just at the time that the Four Hundred
were conspiring. That part of the Samian population which has been mentioned as
rising against the upper class, and as being the democratic party, had now
turned round, and yielding to the solicitations of Pisander during his visit,
and of the Athenians in the conspiracy at Samos, had bound themselves by oaths
to the number of three hundred, and were about to fall upon the rest of their
fellow citizens, whom they now in their turn regarded as the democratic party.
Meanwhile they put to death one Hyperbolus, an Athenian, a pestilent fellow
that had been ostracized, not from fear of his influence or position, but
because he was a rascal and a disgrace to the city; being aided in this by
Charminus, one of the generals, and by some of the Athenians with them, to whom
they had sworn friendship, and with whom they perpetrated other acts of the
kind, and now determined to attack the people. The latter got wind of what was
coming, and told two of the generals, Leon and Diomedon, who, on account of the
credit which they enjoyed with the commons, were unwilling supporters of the
oligarchy; and also Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, the former a captain of a
galley, the latter serving with the heavy infantry, besides certain others who
had ever been thought most opposed to the conspirators, entreating them not to
look on and see them destroyed, and Samos, the sole remaining stay of their
empire, lost to the Athenians. Upon hearing this, the persons whom they
addressed now went round the soldiers one by one, and urged them to resist,
especially the crew of the Paralus, which was made up entirely of Athenians and
freemen, and had from time out of mind been enemies of oligarchy, even when
there was no such thing existing; and Leon and Diomedon left behind some ships
for their protection in case of their sailing away anywhere themselves.
Accordingly, when the Three Hundred attacked the people, all these came to the
rescue, and foremost of all the crew of the Paralus; and the Samian commons
gained the victory, and putting to death some thirty of the Three Hundred, and
banishing three others of the ringleaders, accorded an amnesty to the rest. and
lived together under a democratic government for the future.
The
ship Paralus, with Chaereas, son of Archestratus, on board, an Athenian who had
taken an active part in the revolution, was now without loss of time sent off
by the Samians and the army to Athens to report what had occurred; the fact
that the Four Hundred were in power not being yet known. When they sailed into
harbour the Four Hundred immediately arrested two or three of the Parali and,
taking the vessel from the rest, shifted them into a troopship and set them to
keep guard round Euboea. Chaereas, however, managed to secrete himself as soon
as he saw how things stood, and returning to Samos, drew a picture to the
soldiers of the horrors enacting at Athens, in which everything was
exaggerated; saying that all were punished with stripes, that no one could say
a word against the holders of power, that the soldiers' wives and children were
outraged, and that it was intended to seize and shut up the relatives of all in
the army at Samos who were not of the government's way of thinking, to be put
to death in case of their disobedience; besides a host of other injurious
inventions.
On
hearing this the first thought of the army was to fall upon the chief authors
of the oligarchy and upon all the rest concerned. Eventually, however, they
desisted from this idea upon the men of moderate views opposing it and warning
them against ruining their cause, with the enemy close at hand and ready for
battle. After this, Thrasybulus, son of Lycus, and Thrasyllus, the chief
leaders in the revolution, now wishing in the most public manner to change the
government at Samos to a democracy, bound all the soldiers by the most
tremendous oaths, and those of the oligarchical party more than any, to accept
a democratic government, to be united, to prosecute actively the war with the
Peloponnesians, and to be enemies of the Four Hundred, and to hold no
communication with them. The same oath was also taken by all the Samians of
full age; and the soldiers associated the Samians in all their affairs and in
the fruits of their dangers, having the conviction that there was no way of
escape for themselves or for them, but that the success of the Four Hundred or
of the enemy at Miletus must be their ruin.
The
struggle now was between the army trying to force a democracy upon the city,
and the Four Hundred an oligarchy upon the camp. Meanwhile the soldiers
forthwith held an assembly, in which they deposed the former generals and any
of the captains whom they suspected, and chose new captains and generals to
replace them, besides Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, whom they had already. They
also stood up and encouraged one another, and among other things urged that
they ought not to lose heart because the city had revolted from them, as the
party seceding was smaller and in every way poorer in resources than
themselves. They had the whole fleet with which to compel the other cities in
their empire to give them money just as if they had their base in the capital,
having a city in Samos which, so far from wanting strength, had when at war
been within an ace of depriving the Athenians of the command of the sea, while
as far as the enemy was concerned they had the same base of operations as
before. Indeed, with the fleet in their hands, they were better able to provide
themselves with supplies than the government at home. It was their advanced
position at Samos which had throughout enabled the home authorities to command
the entrance into Piraeus; and if they refused to give them back the
constitution, they would now find that the army was more in a position to
exclude them from the sea than they were to exclude the army. Besides, the city
was of little or no use towards enabling them to overcome the enemy; and they
had lost nothing in losing those who had no longer either money to send them
(the soldiers having to find this for themselves), or good counsel, which
entitles cities to direct armies. On the contrary, even in this the home
government had done wrong in abolishing the institutions of their ancestors,
while the army maintained the said institutions, and would try to force the
home government to do so likewise. So that even in point of good counsel the
camp had as good counsellors as the city. Moreover, they had but to grant him
security for his person and his recall, and Alcibiades would be only too glad
to procure them the alliance of the King. And above all if they failed
altogether, with the navy which they possessed, they had numbers of places to
retire to in which they would find cities and lands.
Debating
together and comforting themselves after this manner, they pushed on their war
measures as actively as ever; and the ten envoys sent to Samos by the Four
Hundred, learning how matters stood while they were still at Delos, stayed
quiet there.
About
this time a cry arose among the soldiers in the Peloponnesian fleet at Miletus
that Astyochus and Tissaphernes were ruining their cause. Astyochus had not
been willing to fight at sea- either before, while they were still in full
vigour and the fleet of the Athenians small, or now, when the enemy was, as
they were informed, in a state of sedition and his ships not yet united- but
kept them waiting for the Phoenician fleet from Tissaphernes, which had only a
nominal existence, at the risk of wasting away in inactivity. While Tissaphernes
not only did not bring up the fleet in question, but was ruining their navy by
payments made irregularly, and even then not made in full. They must therefore,
they insisted, delay no longer, but fight a decisive naval engagement. The
Syracusans were the most urgent of any.
The
confederates and Astyochus, aware of these murmurs, had already decided in
council to fight a decisive battle; and when the news reached them of the
disturbance at Samos, they put to sea with all their ships, one hundred and ten
in number, and, ordering the Milesians to move by land upon Mycale, set sail
thither. The Athenians with the eighty-two ships from Samos were at the moment
lying at Glauce in Mycale, a point where Samos approaches near to the
continent; and, seeing the Peloponnesian fleet sailing against them, retired
into Samos, not thinking themselves numerically strong enough to stake their
all upon a battle. Besides, they had notice from Miletus of the wish of the
enemy to engage, and were expecting to be joined from the Hellespont by
Strombichides, to whom a messenger had been already dispatched, with the ships
that had gone from Chios to Abydos. The Athenians accordingly withdrew to
Samos, and the Peloponnesians put in at Mycale, and encamped with the land
forces of the Milesians and the people of the neighbourhood. The next day they
were about to sail against Samos, when tidings reached them of the arrival of
Strombichides with the squadron from the Hellespont, upon which they
immediately sailed back to Miletus. The Athenians, thus reinforced, now in
their turn sailed against Miletus with a hundred and eight ships, wishing to
fight a decisive battle, but, as no one put out to meet them, sailed back to
Samos.
IN
the same summer, immediately after this, the Peloponnesians having refused to
fight with their fleet united, through not thinking themselves a match for the
enemy, and being at a loss where to look for money for such a number of ships,
especially as Tissaphernes proved so bad a paymaster, sent off Clearchus, son
of Ramphias, with forty ships to Pharnabazus, agreeably to the original
instructions from Peloponnese; Pharnabazus inviting them and being prepared to
furnish pay, and Byzantium besides sending offers to revolt to them. These
Peloponnesian ships accordingly put out into the open sea, in order to escape
the observation of the Athenians, and being overtaken by a storm, the majority
with Clearchus got into Delos, and afterwards returned to Miletus, whence
Clearchus proceeded by land to the Hellespont to take the command: ten,
however, of their number, under the Megarian Helixus, made good their passage
to the Hellespont, and effected the revolt of Byzantium. After this, the
commanders at Samos were informed of it, and sent a squadron against them to
guard the Hellespont; and an encounter took place before Byzantium between
eight vessels on either side.
Meanwhile
the chiefs at Samos, and especially Thrasybulus, who from the moment that he
had changed the government had remained firmly resolved to recall Alcibiades,
at last in an assembly brought over the mass of the soldiery, and upon their
voting for his recall and amnesty, sailed over to Tissaphernes and brought
Alcibiades to Samos, being convinced that their only chance of salvation lay in
his bringing over Tissaphernes from the Peloponnesians to themselves. An
assembly was then held in which Alcibiades complained of and deplored his
private misfortune in having been banished, and speaking at great length upon
public affairs, highly incited their hopes for the future, and extravagantly
magnified his own influence with Tissaphernes. His object in this was to make the
oligarchical government at Athens afraid of him, to hasten the dissolution of
the clubs, to increase his credit with the army at Samos and heighten their own
confidence, and lastly to prejudice the enemy as strongly as possible against
Tissaphernes, and blast the hopes which they entertained. Alcibiades
accordingly held out to the army such extravagant promises as the following:
that Tissaphernes had solemnly assured him that if he could only trust the
Athenians they should never want for supplies while he had anything left, no,
not even if he should have to coin his own silver couch, and that he would
bring the Phoenician fleet now at Aspendus to the Athenians instead of to the
Peloponnesians; but that he could only trust the Athenians if Alcibiades were recalled
to be his security for them.
Upon
hearing this and much more besides, the Athenians at once elected him general
together with the former ones, and put all their affairs into his hands. There
was now not a man in the army who would have exchanged his present hopes of
safety and vengeance upon the Four Hundred for any consideration whatever; and
after what they had been told they were now inclined to disdain the enemy
before them, and to sail at once for Piraeus. To the plan of sailing for
Piraeus, leaving their more immediate enemies behind them, Alcibiades opposed
the most positive refusal, in spite of the numbers that insisted upon it,
saying that now that he had been elected general he would first sail to
Tissaphernes and concert with him measures for carrying on the war.
Accordingly, upon leaving this assembly, he immediately took his departure in
order to have it thought that there was an entire confidence between them, and
also wishing to increase his consideration with Tissaphernes, and to show that
he had now been elected general and was in a position to do him good or evil as
he chose; thus managing to frighten the Athenians with Tissaphernes and
Tissaphernes with the Athenians.
Meanwhile
the Peloponnesians at Miletus heard of the recall of Alcibiades and, already
distrustful of Tissaphernes, now became far more disgusted with him than ever.
Indeed after their refusal to go out and give battle to the Athenians when they
appeared before Miletus, Tissaphernes had grown slacker than ever in his payments;
and even before this, on account of Alcibiades, his unpopularity had been on
the increase. Gathering together, just as before, the soldiers and some persons
of consideration besides the soldiery began to reckon up how they had never yet
received their pay in full; that what they did receive was small in quantity,
and even that paid irregularly, and that unless they fought a decisive battle
or removed to some station where they could get supplies, the ships' crews
would desert; and that it was all the fault of Astyochus, who humoured
Tissaphernes for his own private advantage.
The
army was engaged in these reflections, when the following disturbance took
place about the person of Astyochus. Most of the Syracusan and Thurian sailors
were freemen, and these the freest crews in the armament were likewise the
boldest in setting upon Astyochus and demanding their pay. The latter answered
somewhat stiffly and threatened them, and when Dorieus spoke up for his own
sailors even went so far as to lift his baton against him; upon seeing which
the mass of men, in sailor fashion, rushed in a fury to strike Astyochus. He,
however, saw them in time and fled for refuge to an altar; and they were thus
parted without his being struck. Meanwhile the fort built by Tissaphernes in
Miletus was surprised and taken by the Milesians, and the garrison in it turned
out- an act which met with the approval of the rest of the allies, and in
particular of the Syracusans, but which found no favour with Lichas, who said
moreover that the Milesians and the rest in the King's country ought to show a
reasonable submission to Tissaphernes and to pay him court, until the war
should be happily settled. The Milesians were angry with him for this and for
other things of the kind, and upon his afterwards dying of sickness, would not
allow him to be buried where the Lacedaemonians with the army desired.
The
discontent of the army with Astyochus and Tissaphernes had reached this pitch,
when Mindarus arrived from Lacedaemon to succeed Astyochus as admiral, and
assumed the command. Astyochus now set sail for home; and Tissaphernes sent
with him one of his confidants, Gaulites, a Carian, who spoke the two
languages, to complain of the Milesians for the affair of the fort, and at the
same time to defend himself against the Milesians, who were, as he was aware,
on their way to Sparta chiefly to denounce his conduct, and had with them
Hermocrates, who was to accuse Tissaphernes of joining with Alcibiades to ruin
the Peloponnesian cause and of playing a double game. Indeed Hermocrates had
always been at enmity with him about the pay not being restored in full; and
eventually when he was banished from Syracuse, and new commanders- Potamis,
Myscon, and Demarchus- had come out to Miletus to the ships of the Syracusans,
Tissaphernes, pressed harder than ever upon him in his exile, and among other
charges against him accused him of having once asked him for money, and then
given himself out as his enemy because he failed to obtain it.
While
Astyochus and the Milesians and Hermocrates made sail for Lacedaemon,
Alcibiades had now crossed back from Tissaphernes to Samos. After his return
the envoys of the Four Hundred sent, as has been mentioned above, to pacify and
explain matters to the forces at Samos, arrived from Delos; and an assembly was
held in which they attempted to speak. The soldiers at first would not hear
them, and cried out to put to death the subverters of the democracy, but at
last, after some difficulty, calmed down and gave them a hearing. Upon this the
envoys proceeded to inform them that the recent change had been made to save
the city, and not to ruin it or to deliver it over to the enemy, for they had
already had an opportunity of doing this when he invaded the country during
their government; that all the Five Thousand would have their proper share in
the government; and that their hearers' relatives had neither outrage, as
Chaereas had slanderously reported, nor other ill treatment to complain of, but
were all in undisturbed enjoyment of their property just as they had left them.
Besides these they made a number of other statements which had no better
success with their angry auditors; and amid a host of different opinions the
one which found most favour was that of sailing to Piraeus. Now it was that
Alcibiades for the first time did the state a service, and one of the most
signal kind. For when the Athenians at Samos were bent upon sailing against
their countrymen, in which case Ionia and the Hellespont would most certainly
at once have passed into possession of the enemy, Alcibiades it was who
prevented them. At that moment, when no other man would have been able to hold
back the multitude, he put a stop to the intended expedition, and rebuked and
turned aside the resentment felt, on personal grounds, against the envoys; he
dismissed them with an answer from himself, to the effect that he did not
object to the government of the Five Thousand, but insisted that the Four
Hundred should be deposed and the Council of Five Hundred reinstated in power: meanwhile
any retrenchments for economy, by which pay might be better found for the
armament, met with his entire approval. Generally, he bade them hold out and
show a bold face to the enemy, since if the city were saved there was good hope
that the two parties might some day be reconciled, whereas if either were once
destroyed, that at Samos, or that at Athens, there would no longer be any one
to be reconciled to. Meanwhile arrived envoys from the Argives, with offers of
support to the Athenian commons at Samos: these were thanked by Alcibiades, and
dismissed with a request to come when called upon. The Argives were accompanied
by the crew of the Paralus, whom we left placed in a troopship by the Four
Hundred with orders to cruise round Euboea, and who being employed to carry to
Lacedaemon some Athenian envoys sent by the Four Hundred- Laespodias,
Aristophon, and Melesias- as they sailed by Argos laid hands upon the envoys,
and delivering them over to the Argives as the chief subverters of the
democracy, themselves, instead of returning to Athens, took the Argive envoys
on board, and came to Samos in the galley which had been confided to them.
The
same summer at the time that the return of Alcibiades coupled with the general
conduct of Tissaphernes had carried to its height the discontent of the
Peloponnesians, who no longer entertained any doubt of his having joined the
Athenians, Tissaphernes wishing, it would seem, to clear himself to them of
these charges, prepared to go after the Phoenician fleet to Aspendus, and
invited Lichas to go with him; saying that he would appoint Tamos as his
lieutenant to provide pay for the armament during his own absence. Accounts
differ, and it is not easy to ascertain with what intention he went to
Aspendus, and did not bring the fleet after all. That one hundred and
forty-seven Phoenician ships came as far as Aspendus is certain; but why they
did not come on has been variously accounted for. Some think that he went away
in pursuance of his plan of wasting the Peloponnesian resources, since at any
rate Tamos, his lieutenant, far from being any better, proved a worse paymaster
than himself: others that he brought the Phoenicians to Aspendus to exact money
from them for their discharge, having never intended to employ them: others
again that it was in view of the outcry against him at Lacedaemon, in order
that it might be said that he was not in fault, but that the ships were really
manned and that he had certainly gone to fetch them. To myself it seems only
too evident that he did not bring up the fleet because he wished to wear out
and paralyse the Hellenic forces, that is, to waste their strength by the time
lost during his journey to Aspendus, and to keep them evenly balanced by not
throwing his weight into either scale. Had he wished to finish the war, he
could have done so, assuming of course that he made his appearance in a way
which left no room for doubt; as by bringing up the fleet he would in all
probability have given the victory to the Lacedaemonians, whose navy, even as
it was, faced the Athenian more as an equal than as an inferior. But what
convicts him most clearly, is the excuse which he put forward for not bringing
the ships. He said that the number assembled was less than the King had
ordered; but surely it would only have enhanced his credit if he spent little
of the King's money and effected the same end at less cost. In any case,
whatever was his intention, Tissaphernes went to Aspendus and saw the
Phoenicians; and the Peloponnesians at his desire sent a Lacedaemonian called
Philip with two galleys to fetch the fleet.
Alcibiades
finding that Tissaphernes had gone to Aspendus, himself sailed thither with
thirteen ships, promising to do a great and certain service to the Athenians at
Samos, as he would either bring the Phoenician fleet to the Athenians, or at
all events prevent its joining the Peloponnesians. In all probability he had
long known that Tissaphernes never meant to bring the fleet at all, and wished
to compromise him as much as possible in the eyes of the Peloponnesians through
his apparent friendship for himself and the Athenians, and thus in a manner to
oblige him to join their side.
While
Alcibiades weighed anchor and sailed eastward straight for Phaselis and Caunus,
the envoys sent by the Four Hundred to Samos arrived at Athens. Upon their
delivering the message from Alcibiades, telling them to hold out and to show a
firm front to the enemy, and saying that he had great hopes of reconciling them
with the army and of overcoming the Peloponnesians, the majority of the members
of the oligarchy, who were already discontented and only too much inclined to
be quit of the business in any safe way that they could, were at once greatly
strengthened in their resolve. These now banded together and strongly criticized
the administration, their leaders being some of the principal generals and men
in office under the oligarchy, such as Theramenes, son of Hagnon, Aristocrates,
son of Scellias, and others; who, although among the most prominent members of
the government (being afraid, as they said, of the army at Samos, and most
especially of Alcibiades, and also lest the envoys whom they had sent to
Lacedaemon might do the state some harm without the authority of the people),
without insisting on objections to the excessive concentration of power in a
few hands, yet urged that the Five Thousand must be shown to exist not merely
in name but in reality, and the constitution placed upon a fairer basis. But
this was merely their political cry; most of them being driven by private
ambition into the line of conduct so surely fatal to oligarchies that arise out
of democracies. For all at once pretend to be not only equals but each the
chief and master of his fellows; while under a democracy a disappointed
candidate accepts his defeat more easily, because he has not the humiliation of
being beaten by his equals. But what most clearly encouraged the malcontents
was the power of Alcibiades at Samos, and their own disbelief in the stability
of the oligarchy; and it was now a race between them as to which should first
become the leader of the commons.
Meanwhile
the leaders and members of the Four Hundred most opposed to a democratic form
of government- Phrynichus who had had the quarrel with Alcibiades during his
command at Samos, Aristarchus the bitter and inveterate enemy of the commons,
and Pisander and Antiphon and others of the chiefs who already as soon as they
entered upon power, and again when the army at Samos seceded from them and
declared for a democracy, had sent envoys from their own body to Lacedaemon and
made every effort for peace, and had built the wall in Eetionia- now redoubled
their exertions when their envoys returned from Samos, and they saw not only
the people but their own most trusted associates turning against them. Alarmed
at the state of things at Athens as at Samos, they now sent off in haste
Antiphon and Phrynichus and ten others with injunctions to make peace with
Lacedaemon upon any terms, no matter what, that should be at all tolerable.
Meanwhile they pushed on more actively than ever with the wall in Eetionia. Now
the meaning of this wall, according to Theramenes and his supporters, was not
so much to keep out the army of Samos, in case of its trying to force its way
into Piraeus, as to be able to let in, at pleasure, the fleet and army of the
enemy. For Eetionia is a mole of Piraeus, close alongside of the entrance of
the harbour, and was now fortified in connection with the wall already existing
on the land side, so that a few men placed in it might be able to command the
entrance; the old wall on the land side and the new one now being built within
on the side of the sea, both ending in one of the two towers standing at the
narrow mouth of the harbour. They also walled off the largest porch in Piraeus which
was in immediate connection with this wall, and kept it in their own hands,
compelling all to unload there the corn that came into the harbour, and what
they had in stock, and to take it out from thence when they sold it.
These
measures had long provoked the murmurs of Theramenes, and when the envoys
returned from Lacedaemon without having effected any general pacification, he
affirmed that this wall was like to prove the ruin of the state. At this moment
forty-two ships from Peloponnese, including some Siceliot and Italiot vessels
from Locri and Tarentum, had been invited over by the Euboeans and were already
riding off Las in Laconia preparing for the voyage to Euboea, under the command
of Agesandridas, son of Agesander, a Spartan. Theramenes now affirmed that this
squadron was destined not so much to aid Euboea as the party fortifying
Eetionia, and that unless precautions were speedily taken the city would be
surprised and lost. This was no mere calumny, there being really some such plan
entertained by the accused. Their first wish was to have the oligarchy without
giving up the empire; failing this to keep their ships and walls and be
independent; while, if this also were denied them, sooner than be the first
victims of the restored democracy, they were resolved to call in the enemy and
make peace, give up their walls and ships, and at all costs retain possession
of the government, if their lives were only assured to them.
For
this reason they pushed forward the construction of their work with posterns and
entrances and means of introducing the enemy, being eager to have it finished
in time. Meanwhile the murmurs against them were at first confined to a few
persons and went on in secret, until Phrynichus, after his return from the
embassy to Lacedaemon, was laid wait for and stabbed in full market by one of
the Peripoli, falling down dead before he had gone far from the council
chamber. The assassin escaped; but his accomplice, an Argive, was taken and put
to the torture by the Four Hundred, without their being able to extract from
him the name of his employer, or anything further than that he knew of many men
who used to assemble at the house of the commander of the Peripoli and at other
houses. Here the matter was allowed to drop. This so emboldened Theramenes and
Aristocrates and the rest of their partisans in the Four Hundred and out of
doors, that they now resolved to act. For by this time the ships had sailed
round from Las, and anchoring at Epidaurus had overrun Aegina; and Theramenes
asserted that, being bound for Euboea, they would never have sailed in to
Aegina and come back to anchor at Epidaurus, unless they had been invited to
come to aid in the designs of which he had always accused the government.
Further inaction had therefore now become impossible. In the end, after a great
many seditious harangues and suspicions, they set to work in real earnest. The
heavy infantry in Piraeus building the wall in Eetionia, among whom was
Aristocrates, a colonel, with his own tribe, laid hands upon Alexicles, a
general under the oligarchy and the devoted adherent of the cabal, and took him
into a house and confined him there. In this they were assisted by one Hermon,
commander of the Peripoli in Munychia, and others, and above all had with them
the great bulk of the heavy infantry. As soon as the news reached the Four
Hundred, who happened to be sitting in the council chamber, all except the
disaffected wished at once to go to the posts where the arms were, and menaced
Theramenes and his party. Theramenes defended himself, and said that he was
ready immediately to go and help to rescue Alexicles; and taking with him one
of the generals belonging to his party, went down to Piraeus, followed by
Aristarchus and some young men of the cavalry. All was now panic and confusion.
Those in the city imagined that Piraeus was already taken and the prisoner put
to death, while those in Piraeus expected every moment to be attacked by the
party in the city. The older men, however, stopped the persons running up and
down the town and making for the stands of arms; and Thucydides the Pharsalian,
proxenus of the city, came forward and threw himself in the way of the rival
factions, and appealed to them not to ruin the state, while the enemy was still
at hand waiting for his opportunity, and so at length succeeded in quieting
them and in keeping their hands off each other. Meanwhile Theramenes came down
to Piraeus, being himself one of the generals, and raged and stormed against
the heavy infantry, while Aristarchus and the adversaries of the people were
angry in right earnest. Most of the heavy infantry, however, went on with the
business without faltering, and asked Theramenes if he thought the wall had
been constructed for any good purpose, and whether it would not be better that
it should be pulled down. To this he answered that if they thought it best to
pull it down, he for his part agreed with them. Upon this the heavy infantry
and a number of the people in Piraeus immediately got up on the fortification
and began to demolish it. Now their cry to the multitude was that all should
join in the work who wished the Five Thousand to govern instead of the Four
Hundred. For instead of saying in so many words "all who wished the
commons to govern," they still disguised themselves under the name of the
Five Thousand; being afraid that these might really exist, and that they might
be speaking to one of their number and get into trouble through ignorance.
Indeed this was why the Four Hundred neither wished the Five Thousand to exist,
nor to have it known that they did not exist; being of opinion that to give
themselves so many partners in empire would be downright democracy, while the
mystery in question would make the people afraid of one another.
The
next day the Four Hundred, although alarmed, nevertheless assembled in the
council chamber, while the heavy infantry in Piraeus, after having released
their prisoner Alexicles and pulled down the fortification, went with their
arms to the theatre of Dionysus, close to Munychia, and there held an assembly
in which they decided to march into the city, and setting forth accordingly
halted in the Anaceum. Here they were joined by some delegates from the Four
Hundred, who reasoned with them one by one, and persuaded those whom they saw
to be the most moderate to remain quiet themselves, and to keep in the rest;
saying that they would make known the Five Thousand, and have the Four Hundred
chosen from them in rotation, as should be decided by the Five Thousand, and
meanwhile entreated them not to ruin the state or drive it into the arms of the
enemy. After a great many had spoken and had been spoken to, the whole body of
heavy infantry became calmer than before, absorbed by their fears for the
country at large, and now agreed to hold upon an appointed day an assembly in
the theatre of Dionysus for the restoration of concord.
When
the day came for the assembly in the theatre, and they were upon the point of
assembling, news arrived that the forty-two ships under Agesandridas were
sailing from Megara along the coast of Salamis. The people to a man now thought
that it was just what Theramenes and his party had so often said, that the
ships were sailing to the fortification, and concluded that they had done well
to demolish it. But though it may possibly have been by appointment that
Agesandridas hovered about Epidaurus and the neighbourhood, he would also
naturally be kept there by the hope of an opportunity arising out of the
troubles in the town. In any case the Athenians, on receipt of the news
immediately ran down in mass to Piraeus, seeing themselves threatened by the
enemy with a worse war than their war among themselves, not at a distance, but
close to the harbour of Athens. Some went on board the ships already afloat,
while others launched fresh vessels, or ran to defend the walls and the mouth
of the harbour.
Meanwhile
the Peloponnesian vessels sailed by, and rounding Sunium anchored between
Thoricus and Prasiae, and afterwards arrived at Oropus. The Athenians, with
revolution in the city, and unwilling to lose a moment in going to the relief
of their most important possession (for Euboea was everything to them now that
they were shut out from Attica), were compelled to put to sea in haste and with
untrained crews, and sent Thymochares with some vessels to Eretria. These upon
their arrival, with the ships already in Euboea, made up a total of thirty-six
vessels, and were immediately forced to engage. For Agesandridas, after his
crews had dined, put out from Oropus, which is about seven miles from Eretria by
sea; and the Athenians, seeing him sailing up, immediately began to man their
vessels. The sailors, however, instead of being by their ships, as they
supposed, were gone away to purchase provisions for their dinner in the houses
in the outskirts of the town; the Eretrians having so arranged that there
should be nothing on sale in the marketplace, in order that the Athenians might
be a long time in manning their ships, and, the enemy's attack taking them by
surprise, might be compelled to put to sea just as they were. A signal also was
raised in Eretria to give them notice in Oropus when to put to sea. The
Athenians, forced to put out so poorly prepared, engaged off the harbour of
Eretria, and after holding their own for some little while notwithstanding, were
at length put to flight and chased to the shore. Such of their number as took
refuge in Eretria, which they presumed to be friendly to them, found their fate
in that city, being butchered by the inhabitants; while those who fled to the
Athenian fort in the Eretrian territory, and the vessels which got to Chalcis,
were saved. The Peloponnesians, after taking twenty-two Athenian ships, and
killing or making prisoners of the crews, set up a trophy, and not long
afterwards effected the revolt of the whole of Euboea (except Oreus, which was
held by the Athenians themselves), and made a general settlement of the affairs
of the island.
When
the news of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, a panic ensued such as
they had never before known. Neither the disaster in Sicily, great as it seemed
at the time, nor any other had ever so much alarmed them. The camp at Samos was
in revolt; they had no more ships or men to man them; they were at discord
among themselves and might at any moment come to blows; and a disaster of this
magnitude coming on the top of all, by which they lost their fleet, and worst
of all Euboea, which was of more value to them than Attica, could not occur
without throwing them into the deepest despondency. Meanwhile their greatest
and most immediate trouble was the possibility that the enemy, emboldened by
his victory, might make straight for them and sail against Piraeus, which they
had no longer ships to defend; and every moment they expected him to arrive.
This, with a little more courage, he might easily have done, in which case he
would either have increased the dissensions of the city by his presence, or, if
he had stayed to besiege it, have compelled the fleet from Ionia, although the
enemy of the oligarchy, to come to the rescue of their country and of their
relatives, and in the meantime would have become master of the Hellespont,
Ionia, the islands, and of everything as far as Euboea, or, to speak roundly,
of the whole Athenian empire. But here, as on so many other occasions, the Lacedaemonians
proved the most convenient people in the world for the Athenians to be at war
with. The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of
energy of the Lacedaemonians as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of
their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime
empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like
the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them.
Nevertheless,
upon receipt of the news, the Athenians manned twenty ships and called
immediately a first assembly in the Pnyx, where they had been used to meet
formerly, and deposed the Four Hundred and voted to hand over the government to
the Five Thousand, of which body all who furnished a suit of armour were to be
members, decreeing also that no one should receive pay for the discharge of any
office, or if he did should be held accursed. Many other assemblies were held
afterwards, in which law-makers were elected and all other measures taken to
form a constitution. It was during the first period of this constitution that
the Athenians appear to have enjoyed the best government that they ever did, at
least in my time. For the fusion of the high and the low was effected with
judgment, and this was what first enabled the state to raise up her head after
her manifold disasters. They also voted for the recall of Alcibiades and of
other exiles, and sent to him and to the camp at Samos, and urged them to
devote themselves vigorously to the war.
Upon
this revolution taking place, the party of Pisander and Alexicles and the
chiefs of the oligarchs immediately withdrew to Decelea, with the single
exception of Aristarchus, one of the generals, who hastily took some of the
most barbarian of the archers and marched to Oenoe. This was a fort of the
Athenians upon the Boeotian border, at that moment besieged by the Corinthians,
irritated by the loss of a party returning from Decelea, who had been cut off
by the garrison. The Corinthians had volunteered for this service, and had
called upon the Boeotians to assist them. After communicating with them,
Aristarchus deceived the garrison in Oenoe by telling them that their
countrymen in the city had compounded with the Lacedaemonians, and that one of
the terms of the capitulation was that they must surrender the place to the
Boeotians. The garrison believed him as he was general, and besides knew
nothing of what had occurred owing to the siege, and so evacuated the fort
under truce. In this way the Boeotians gained possession of Oenoe, and the
oligarchy and the troubles at Athens ended.
To
return to the Peloponnesians in Miletus. No pay was forthcoming from any of the
agents deputed by Tissaphernes for that purpose upon his departure for Aspendus;
neither the Phoenician fleet nor Tissaphernes showed any signs of appearing,
and Philip, who had been sent with him, and another Spartan, Hippocrates, who
was at Phaselis, wrote word to Mindarus, the admiral, that the ships were not
coming at all, and that they were being grossly abused by Tissaphernes.
Meanwhile Pharnabazus was inviting them to come, and making every effort to get
the fleet and, like Tissaphernes, to cause the revolt of the cities in his
government still subject to Athens, founding great hopes on his success; until
at length, at about the period of the summer which we have now reached,
Mindarus yielded to his importunities, and, with great order and at a moment's
notice, in order to elude the enemy at Samos, weighed anchor with seventy-three
ships from Miletus and set sail for the Hellespont. Thither sixteen vessels had
already preceded him in the same summer, and had overrun part of the
Chersonese. Being caught in a storm, Mindarus was compelled to run in to Icarus
and, after being detained five or six days there by stress of weather, arrived
at Chios.
Meanwhile
Thrasyllus had heard of his having put out from Miletus, and immediately set
sail with fifty-five ships from Samos, in haste to arrive before him in the
Hellespont. But learning that he was at Chios, and expecting that he would stay
there, he posted scouts in Lesbos and on the continent opposite to prevent the
fleet moving without his knowing it, and himself coasted along to Methymna, and
gave orders to prepare meal and other necessaries, in order to attack them from
Lesbos in the event of their remaining for any length of time at Chios.
Meanwhile he resolved to sail against Eresus, a town in Lesbos which had
revolted, and, if he could, to take it. For some of the principal Methymnian
exiles had carried over about fifty heavy infantry, their sworn associates,
from Cuma, and hiring others from the continent, so as to make up three hundred
in all, chose Anaxander, a Theban, to command them, on account of the community
of blood existing between the Thebans and the Lesbians, and first attacked
Methymna. Balked in this attempt by the advance of the Athenian guards from
Mitylene, and repulsed a second time in a battle outside the city, they then
crossed the mountain and effected the revolt of Eresus. Thrasyllus accordingly
determined to go there with all his ships and to attack the place. Meanwhile
Thrasybulus had preceded him thither with five ships from Samos, as soon as he
heard that the exiles had crossed over, and coming too late to save Eresus,
went on and anchored before the town. Here they were joined also by two vessels
on their way home from the Hellespont, and by the ships of the Methymnians,
making a grand total of sixty-seven vessels; and the forces on board now made
ready with engines and every other means available to do their utmost to storm
Eresus.
In
the meantime Mindarus and the Peloponnesian fleet at Chios, after taking
provisions for two days and receiving three Chian pieces of money for each man
from the Chians, on the third day put out in haste from the island; in order to
avoid falling in with the ships at Eresus, they did not make for the open sea,
but keeping Lesbos on their left, sailed for the continent. After touching at
the port of Carteria, in the Phocaeid, and dining, they went on along the
Cumaean coast and supped at Arginusae, on the continent over against Mitylene.
From thence they continued their voyage along the coast, although it was late
in the night, and arriving at Harmatus on the continent opposite Methymna,
dined there; and swiftly passing Lectum, Larisa, Hamaxitus, and the
neighbouring towns, arrived a little before midnight at Rhoeteum. Here they
were now in the Hellespont. Some of the ships also put in at Sigeum and at
other places in the neighbourhood.
Meanwhile
the warnings of the fire signals and the sudden increase in the number of fires
on the enemy's shore informed the eighteen Athenian ships at Sestos of the
approach of the Peloponnesian fleet. That very night they set sail in haste
just as they were, and, hugging the shore of the Chersonese, coasted along to
Elaeus, in order to sail out into the open sea away from the fleet of the
enemy.
After
passing unobserved the sixteen ships at Abydos, which had nevertheless been
warned by their approaching friends to be on the alert to prevent their sailing
out, at dawn they sighted the fleet of Mindarus, which immediately gave chase.
All had not time to get away; the greater number however escaped to Imbros and
Lemnos, while four of the hindmost were overtaken off Elaeus. One of these was
stranded opposite to the temple of Protesilaus and taken with its crew, two
others without their crews; the fourth was abandoned on the shore of Imbros and
burned by the enemy.
After
this the Peloponnesians were joined by the squadron from Abydos, which made up
their fleet to a grand total of eighty-six vessels; they spent the day in
unsuccessfully besieging Elaeus, and then sailed back to Abydos. Meanwhile the
Athenians, deceived by their scouts, and never dreaming of the enemy's fleet
getting by undetected, were tranquilly besieging Eresus. As soon as they heard
the news they instantly abandoned Eresus, and made with all speed for the
Hellespont, and after taking two of the Peloponnesian ships which had been
carried out too far into the open sea in the ardour of the pursuit and now fell
in their way, the next day dropped anchor at Elaeus, and, bringing back the
ships that had taken refuge at Imbros, during five days prepared for the coming
engagement. After this they engaged
in the following way. The Athenians formed in column and sailed close
alongshore to Sestos; upon perceiving which the Peloponnesians put out from
Abydos to meet them. Realizing that a battle was now imminent, both combatants
extended their flank; the Athenians along the Chersonese from Idacus to
Arrhiani with seventy-six ships; the Peloponnesians from Abydos to Dardanus
with eighty-six. The Peloponnesian right wing was occupied by the Syracusans,
their left by Mindarus in person with the best sailers in the navy; the
Athenian left by Thrasyllus, their right by Thrasybulus, the other commanders
being in different parts of the fleet. The Peloponnesians hastened to engage
first, and outflanking with their left the Athenian right sought to cut them
off, if possible, from sailing out of the straits, and to drive their centre
upon the shore, which was not far off. The Athenians perceiving their intention
extended their own wing and outsailed them, while their left had by this time
passed the point of Cynossema. This, however, obliged them to thin and weaken
their centre, especially as they had fewer ships than the enemy, and as the
coast round Point Cynossema formed a sharp angle which prevented their seeing
what was going on on the other side of it.
The
Peloponnesians now attacked their centre and drove ashore the ships of the
Athenians, and disembarked to follow up their victory. No help could be given
to the centre either by the squadron of Thrasybulus on the right, on account of
the number of ships attacking him, or by that of Thrasyllus on the left, from
whom the point of Cynossema hid what was going on, and who was also hindered by
his Syracusan and other opponents, whose numbers were fully equal to his own.
At length, however, the Peloponnesians in the confidence of victory began to
scatter in pursuit of the ships of the enemy, and allowed a considerable part
of their fleet to get into disorder. On seeing this the squadron of Thrasybulus
discontinued their lateral movement and, facing about, attacked and routed the
ships opposed to them, and next fell roughly upon the scattered vessels of the
victorious Peloponnesian division, and put most of them to flight without a
blow. The Syracusans also had by this time given way before the squadron of
Thrasyllus, and now openly took to flight upon seeing the flight of their
comrades.
The
rout was now complete. Most of the Peloponnesians fled for refuge first to the
river Midius, and afterwards to Abydos. Only a few ships were taken by the
Athenians; as owing to the narrowness of the Hellespont the enemy had not far
to go to be in safety. Nevertheless nothing could have been more opportune for
them than this victory. Up to this time they had feared the Peloponnesian
fleet, owing to a number of petty losses and to the disaster in Sicily; but
they now ceased to mistrust themselves or any longer to think their enemies
good for anything at sea. Meanwhile they took from the enemy eight Chian
vessels, five Corinthian, two Ambraciot, two Boeotian, one Leucadian,
Lacedaemonian, Syracusan, and Pellenian, losing fifteen of their own. After
setting up a trophy upon Point Cynossema, securing the wrecks, and restoring to
the enemy his dead under truce, they sent off a galley to Athens with the news
of their victory. The arrival of this vessel with its unhoped-for good news,
after the recent disasters of Euboea, and in the revolution at Athens, gave
fresh courage to the Athenians, and caused them to believe that if they put
their shoulders to the wheel their cause might yet prevail.
On
the fourth day after the sea-fight the Athenians in Sestos having hastily
refitted their ships sailed against Cyzicus, which had revolted. Off Harpagium
and Priapus they sighted at anchor the eight vessels from Byzantium, and,
sailing up and routing the troops on shore, took the ships, and then went on
and recovered the town of Cyzicus, which was unfortified, and levied money from
the citizens. In the meantime the Peloponnesians sailed from Abydos to Elaeus,
and recovered such of their captured galleys as were still uninjured, the rest
having been burned by the Elaeusians, and sent Hippocrates and Epicles to
Euboea to fetch the squadron from that island.
About
the same time Alcibiades returned with his thirteen ships from Caunus and
Phaselis to Samos, bringing word that he had prevented the Phoenician fleet
from joining the Peloponnesians, and had made Tissaphernes more friendly to the
Athenians than before. Alcibiades now manned nine more ships, and levied large
sums of money from the Halicarnassians, and fortified Cos. After doing this and
placing a governor in Cos, he sailed back to Samos, autumn being now at hand.
Meanwhile Tissaphernes, upon hearing that the Peloponnesian fleet had sailed
from Miletus to the Hellespont, set off again back from Aspendus, and made all
sail for Ionia. While the Peloponnesians were in the Hellespont, the
Antandrians, a people of Aeolic extraction, conveyed by land across Mount Ida
some heavy infantry from Abydos, and introduced them into the town; having been
ill-treated by Arsaces, the Persian lieutenant of Tissaphernes. This same
Arsaces had, upon pretence of a secret quarrel, invited the chief men of the
Delians to undertake military service (these were Delians who had settled at
Atramyttium after having been driven from their homes by the Athenians for the
sake of purifying Delos); and after drawing them out from their town as his
friends and allies, had laid wait for them at dinner, and surrounded them and
caused them to be shot down by his soldiers. This deed made the Antandrians
fear that he might some day do them some mischief; and as he also laid upon
them burdens too heavy for them to bear, they expelled his garrison from their
citadel.
Tissaphernes,
upon hearing of this act of the Peloponnesians in addition to what had occurred
at Miletus and Cnidus, where his garrisons had been also expelled, now saw that
the breach between them was serious; and fearing further injury from them, and
being also vexed to think that Pharnabazus should receive them, and in less
time and at less cost perhaps succeed better against Athens than he had done,
determined to rejoin them in the Hellespont, in order to complain of the events
at Antandros and excuse himself as best he could in the matter of the
Phoenician fleet and of the other charges against him. Accordingly he went
first to Ephesus and offered sacrifice to Artemis....
[When
the winter after this summer is over the twenty-first year of this war will be
completed.]
THE END .