Stories from Thucydides Read online

  STORIES FROM THUCYDIDES

  RETOLD BY H. L. HAVELL B. A.

  FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OXFORD

  _O my poor Kingdom, sick with civil blows!_ SHAKESPEARE, _Henry IV_.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE CORINTH AND CORCYRA THE SURPRISE OF PLATAEA THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS INVESTMENT OF PLATAEA NAVAL VICTORIES OF PHORMIO THE REVOLT OF LESBOS ESCAPE OF TWO HUNDRED PLATAEANS. FALL OF PLATAEA CAPTURE OF A HUNDRED AND TWENTY SPARTANS AT SPHACTERIA CAMPAIGNS OF BRASIDAS IN THRACE THE HOLLOW PEACE THE ATHENIANS IN SICILY EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  In a former volume we have traced the course of events which ended inthe complete overthrow of Xerxes and his great army. Our present taskis to describe the chief incidents in the cruel and devastating war,commonly known as the Peloponnesian War, which lasted for twenty-sevenyears, and finally broke up the Athenian Empire. The cause of that warwas the envy and hatred excited in the other states of Greece by thepower and greatness of Athens; and in order to make our storyintelligible we must indicate briefly the steps by which she rose tothat dangerous eminence, and drew upon herself the armed hostility ofhalf the Greek world.

  We take up our narrative at the point of time when the Atheniansreturned to their ruined homes after the defeat of the Persians atPlataea. Of their ancient city nothing remained but a few houses whichhad served as lodgings for the Persian grandees, and some scatteredfragments of the surrounding wall. Their first task was to restore theouter line of defence, and by the advice of Themistocles the new walltook in a much wider circuit than the old rampart which had beendestroyed by the Persians. The whole population toiled night and day toraise the bulwark which was to guard their temples and their homes,using as materials the walls of the houses which had been sacked andburnt by the Persians, with whatever remained of public buildings,sacred or profane, and sparing not even the monumental pillars ofgraves in the urgency of their need.

  But jealous eyes were watching them, and busy tongues were waggingagainst that gallant race of Attica which had been foremost in thecommon cause against the barbarian invader. "These Athenians aredangerous neighbours," was the cry. "Let us stop them from buildingtheir wall, or Athens will become a standing menace to ourselves."Before long these murmurs reached the ears of the Spartans, and theysent envoys to dissuade the Athenians from fortifying their city. Theirreal purpose was disguised under the mask of anxiety for the generalsafety of Greece. "It is not expedient," they urged, "that thePersians, when next they come against us, should find fenced citieswhich they may make their strongholds, as they have lately done inAthens and in Thebes. Cease, therefore, from building this wall, andhelp us to destroy all such defences, outside of Peloponnesus. If weare attacked again, we will unite our forces within the isthmus, andmeet the invader from there."

  But Themistocles was not the man to be hoodwinked by the simple cunningof the Spartans. By his advice the Athenians dismissed the envoys,promising to send an embassy to discuss the matter at Sparta. As soonas they were gone, Themistocles caused himself to be appointed as headof the embassy, and set out at once for Sparta, instructing theAthenians to keep his colleagues back until the wall had been raised toa sufficient height for purposes of defence. Arrived at Sparta, he kepthimself close in his lodging, and declined all conference with theauthorities, alleging that he could do nothing without his colleagues.

  Meanwhile the Athenians were making incredible efforts to carry on thework which was essential to their liberty and prosperity. Men, women,and children toiled without intermission, and the wall was rapidlyapproaching a defensible height. The clamour of their enemies grewlouder and louder, and angry messages reached the Spartans everyday,reproaching them with their supineness and procrastination. Being askedthe meaning of these reports, Themistocles professed total ignorance,and bade the Spartans send men to Athens to see for themselves. TheSpartans did so, and when the men arrived at Athens the Athenians, whohad been privately warned by Themistocles, kept them in custody, ashostages for their own representatives at Sparta. Themistocles hadmeanwhile been joined by his partners in the embassy, and learning fromthem that the wall was now of sufficient height, he spoke out plainly,and let the Spartans understand what his true purpose was. "Athens," hesaid, "is once more a fortified city, and we are able to discussquestions of public or private interest on a footing of equality. Whenwe forsook all, and took to our ships to fight for the common weal, itwas done without prompting of yours; and that peril being past, weshall take such measures as concern our safety, without leave asked ofyou. And in serving ourselves, we are serving you also; for if Athensis not free, how can she give an unbiased vote in questions whichconcern the general welfare of Greece?"

  It was impossible for the Spartans to express open resentment at a pleaso moderate and so reasonable. But they were secretly annoyed to findthat their malice had been detected and exposed; and by this incidentwas sown the first seed of ill-will which was afterwards to bear suchbitter fruit for Athens and for Greece. For the present, however, theaffair was ended, and the first step secured for the Athenians in theircareer of glory and power.

  Themistocles was the first who clearly saw that the future of Athenslay on the sea. But if Athens was to hold and extend her position asthe first naval power in Greece, it was above all things necessary thatshe should have a strong and fortified station for her fleets, herarsenals, and her dockyards. Nature had provided her with what sheneeded, in the peninsula of Peiraeus, which juts out into the SaronicGulf, about five miles south-west of the inland town. As soon as thecity-wall was completed, fortifications of immense strength werecarried round the whole of Peiraeus; and within this vast rampart rosea second city, equal in size to the old one, with streets laid out instraight lines, and filled with the stir and bustle of a maritimepopulation. Three land-locked harbours gave ample room for the fleetsof Athens to lie in shelter and safety; and this great sea-port townwas afterwards united to the original city by two long walls, which metthe sea, one at the north-western corner of Peiraeus, and the other atthe south-eastern point of the Bay of Phalerum. Between these, at alater period, a third wall was built, running parallel to the northernwall at a distance of about two hundred feet, and known as the Southernor Middle Wall.

  Many years elapsed before these important works were completed; and inthe meantime great events had been happening in other parts of theGreek world, tending more and more to realise the dream ofThemistocles, and make his beloved city the undisputed mistress of thesea. After the defeat of the Persian armies and fleets at Salamis,Plataea, and Mycale, much hard work remained to be done, in reducingthe outlying cities on the coasts of Thrace and in the eastern cornersof the Aegaean, which held out for the Great King. The Spartans werestill nominal leaders of the allied Greek navy; but after a year ofservice they resigned this position, which they owed to theiracknowledged supremacy in land warfare, to the Athenians. They wereinduced to take this step, partly by their own aversion to foreignenterprises, and partly by the misconduct of their general Pausanias,who had disgusted the allies serving under him in the fleet by hisintolerable arrogance and tyranny. The field was thus left open to theAthenians, who willingly assumed the command offered them by themaritime cities of Greece, with the object of prosecuting the warvigorously against Persia. Each city was assessed to furnish a fixedcontribution of ships or money, and the sacred island of Delos wasappointed as the common treasury and meeting-place of the league. Thuswas formed the famous Delian Confederacy, with the avowed purpose ofmaking reprisals on the Great King's territory for the havoc which hehad wrought in Greece. For a time all went smoothly, and the variousmembers of the league fought under Athens as her independent allies.But by degrees the Greeks fr
om the islands and coast-lands of Asiabegan to weary of their arduous duties, and murmured against theAthenians, who proved hard task-masters, and compelled them by force toperform their part in the bargain. One by one the cities revolted fromthe leadership of Athens, were attacked by her navies, and reduced tothe position of subjects and tributaries. Others voluntarily withdrewfrom all active co-operation in the war, agreeing to pay a fixed annualsum as a substitute for service in the fleet. And before the outbreakof the Peloponnesian War the two powerful islands of Lesbos and Chioswere the only members of the original league who still retained theirindependence.

  Such were the circumstances which led to the foundation of the AthenianEmpire, which grew up, by the force of necessity, out of the decay of aconfederacy born of a common need, and organised for the specialbenefit of the Asiatic Greeks. For the names of the Greek cities on thecoasts of Asia Minor still figured in the Persian tribute-lists; andthe moment that the grasp of Athens relaxed on the confines of theKing's dominions, after the ruinous defeat in Sicily, Persiantax-gatherers came knocking at the gates of Ephesus and Miletus,demanding the arrears of tribute. So urgent was the need supplied bythe energy of Athens, and so blind were these Greeks of Asia Minor totheir own interests.

  The visible sign of this momentous change, by which the DelianConfederacy became merged in the Athenian Empire, was the removal ofthe treasury from Delos to Athens. The Athenians now undertook thewhole administration of the common fund, using the surplus for theadornment of Athens by magnificent public buildings. This appropriationseems reasonable enough, when we consider that the whole burden ofdefending the eastern Greeks against Persia, and keeping the barbarianout of Greek waters, now lay upon Athens. This great public duty, whichhad been thrown upon her by the indifference of Sparta, and the unmanlysloth of her own allies, was faithfully performed; and she might wellask why she should be called upon to lavish the blood of her owncitizens for nothing. That Athens should be great, splendid, andpowerful, was not only a reward due to her public spirit and devotionto the common cause, but also a guarantee for the general dignity andliberty of Greeks. And we, who have still before us the remnants of hertemples and statues, and learn from them what man can accomplish underthe inspiration of great ideals, need not scan too closely her claim toappropriate the funds which she employed for so noble a purpose. Forthis was the great age of Grecian art, the age of Phidias, Polycletus,Myron, and Polygnotus. The greatest of these was Phidias; and in theParthenon, or Temple of the Virgin Goddess, [Footnote: Athene, thepatron goddess of Athens.] built under his direction on the Acropolisat Athens, he has left the most enduring monument of his fame. He alsodesigned the Propylaea, a magnificent columned vestibule, fronting thebroad flight of steps which led up to the western entrance of theAcropolis. But the most renowned of his works was the gigantic statueof the Olympian Zeus, wrought in gold and ivory, which was the chiefglory of the temple at Olympia. Of this sublime creation, the highestexpression of divinity achieved by the ancients, only the famesurvives. These triumphs of art were not brought to completion untilnearly the close of the period of forty-eight years which separates thePersian from the Peloponnesian War; and it is now necessary to glancebackward, and touch briefly on the principal events which occurredafter the formation of the Delian Confederacy. The war was carried onwith energy against Persia, and hostilities continued at intervals forthirty years after the battle of Plataea. [Footnote: B.C. 479-449.]

  The chief leader in these enterprises was the heroic Cimon, leader ofthe conservative party at Athens, and the great rival of Pericles; andhis most brilliant exploit was a crushing defeat inflicted on thePersian army and fleet at the mouth of the river Eurymedon inPamphylia. But the victorious career of the Athenians received a severecheck twelve years later in Egypt, where a large force of ships and menwas totally destroyed by the Persian general Megabyzus. The war draggedon for five years longer, and peace was then concluded on terms highlyadvantageous to the Greeks. Shortly before this, Cimon, who had beenthe chief promoter of the war, died at Cyprus.

  The same years which brought to a successful issue the long strugglewith Persia witnessed a renewal of those internal conflicts by whichthe energies of Greece were finally exhausted, leaving her an easy preyto the arms of Macedon. The guilt of renewing these suicidal quarrelslies with the Spartans, who had long been nursing their grudge againstAthens, and were waiting for the opportunity to inflict on her a fatalblow. Fifteen years [Footnote: B.C. 464. ] after the battle of Plataeathey seized the occasion when the Athenians were engaged with a largepart of their forces in carrying on operations against the revoltedisland of Thasos to prepare an invasion of Attica. But at the verymoment when they were meditating this act of perfidy a double disasterfell upon them at home, demanding all their exertions to save them fromruin. Sparta was levelled to the ground by a terrible earthquake, inwhich twenty thousand of her citizens perished; and in the midst of thepanic caused by this awful calamity the Helots rose in arms againsttheir oppressors, and forming an alliance with the Messenian subjectsof Sparta, entrenched themselves in a strong position on Mount Ithome.Here they maintained themselves for two years, defying all the effortsof the Spartans to drive them from their stronghold. In spite of theirrecent treachery, the Spartans were not ashamed to apply to Athens forhelp: and chiefly through the influence of Cimon, whose laurels fromthe Eurymedon were still fresh, four thousand Athenian hoplites[Footnote: Heavy-armed foot-soldiers.] were sent under his command toaid in dislodging the Helots. The Athenians were famous for their skillin attacking fortified places; but on this occasion they wereunsuccessful, and the Spartans, whose evil conscience made them proneto suspicion, at once began to doubt the honesty of their intentions,and dismissed them with scant ceremony. This unfriendly act helped toembitter the relations between the two leading cities of Greece; andtwo years later, when the Messenians were expelled from Ithome, anddriven into exile, the Athenians settled them with their families atNaupactus, an important strategic position on the north of theCorinthian Gulf, which has recently fallen into the hands of Athens.

  Deeply offended by the affront received at Ithome, the Athenians nowformed an alliance with Argos, the ancient rival and bitter enemy ofSparta. Thessaly, connected with Athens by old ties of friendship,joined the league; and Megara, now suffering from the oppressions ofCorinth, made a fourth.

  Within sight of the shores of Attica lies the island of Aegina, famousin legend as the home of Aeacus, grandfather of Achilles, anddistinguished for its school of sculpture, and for its mighty breed ofathletes, whose feats are celebrated in the laureate strains of Pindar.The Aeginetans had obtained the first prize for valour displayed in thebattle of Salamis, and for many years they had pressed the Athenianshard in the race for maritime supremacy. They were now attacked by anoverwhelming Athenian force, and after a stubborn resistance weretotally defeated, and compelled to enroll themselves among the subjectsof Athens. A still harder fate was reserved for the hapless Dorianislanders in the next generation.

  In the following nine years [Footnote: B.C. 456-447.] the power ofAthens reached its greatest height, and for a moment it seemed as ifshe were destined to extend her empire over the whole mainland ofGreece. By the victory of Oenophyta, gained over the Boeotians justbefore the reduction of Aegina, Athens became mistress of all thecentral provinces of the Greek peninsula, from the pass of Thermopylaeto the gulf of Corinth. The alliance of Megara, lately united by longwalls to its harbour of Nisaea, secured her from invasion on the sideof Peloponnesus. The great island of Euboea, with its rich pastures andfruitful corn lands, had, since the Persian War, become an Athenianestate, and was jealously guarded as one of her most valuablepossessions; and on the sea, from the eastern corner of the Euxine tothe strait of Gibraltar, there was none to dispute her sway.

  But this rapid ascent was followed by no less speedy a fall, and oneact of indiscretion stripped the Athenians of all the advantages whichthey had acquired on the mainland of Greece. In every city of Greecethere were always two pa
rties, the wealthy and noble, called oligarchs,and the demos, or commons; and according as Spartan or Athenianinfluence was in the ascendant the balance of power in each citywavered between the nobles and the people, the Athenians favouring theMany, the Spartans the Few. Accordingly there was always a party livingin exile, and waiting for a turn of affairs which might enable them toreturn to their city, and wrest the power from that faction which hadbeen the last to triumph. In the cities of Boeotia the leaders of theoligarchs had been driven into banishment after the battle ofOenophyta, and democracies were established under the control ofAthens. After nine years of banishment these exiles returned, and theresult was an oligarchical reaction in the chief cities of Boeotia. Ahastily equipped and ill-organised force was sent out from Athens toput down the authors of the revolution, and in the battle whichfollowed, at Coronea, [Footnote: B.C. 447.] the Athenians sustained asevere defeat, and a large number of their citizens were takenprisoners by the Boeotians. To recover these prisoners the Atheniansconsented to evacuate Boeotia, and by this surrender they lost theirhold on central Greece, as far as Thermopylae.

  This heavy blow was followed two years later by the revolt of Megaraand Euboea; and in the midst of the alarm thus occasioned, theAthenians heard that a powerful Spartan army was threatening theirborders. It was a terrible moment for Athens; but she was saved by theprudence and energy of Pericles, whose influence in her councils wasnow supreme. By some means or other--as the Spartans asserted, by aheavy bribe--he induced the Spartan king Pleistoanax to draw off hisforces; and then crossing over into Euboea, he quickly reduced thewhole island to submission, and took severe measures to prevent anyoutbreak in the future.

  The exertions of the Athenians during the last thirty years had beenprodigious, and their efforts to found an empire in continental Greecehad ended in total failure. Discouraged by their reverses, theyconcluded a thirty years' truce with the Spartans and their allies,resigning the last remnant of their recent conquests, and leavingMegara in her old position as a member of the Peloponnesian leagueunder Sparta. The loss of Megara was severely felt, and her conduct inthe late troubles was neither forgotten nor forgiven. The Megarians hadby their own free choice been admitted into the Athenian alliance, andin an hour of great peril to Athens, without shadow of pretext they hadrisen in arms against her. It was not long before they had to pay aheavy penalty for their treachery and inconstancy.

  The last event which we have to record, before entering into the maincurrent of our narrative, is the secession of Samos, the most importantmember of the maritime allies of Athens. This wealthy and powerfulisland had hitherto, with Chios and Lesbos, enjoyed the distinction ofserving under Athens as an independent ally. The Athenians, with a viewto their own interests, had recently set up a democracy in Samos, whichhad hitherto been governed by an oligarchy. Incensed by thisinterference, the Samian nobles, who had been driven into exile, hireda mercenary force, and making a sudden attack from the mainland,overthrew the democracy and raised the standard of revolt. The crisiscalled for prompt and vigorous action on the part of Athens; for ifSamos had been successful in defying her authority, the other membersof the league would speedily have followed the example, and the wholefabric of her empire might have been shattered to pieces. Pericles wasagain equal to the emergency, and by employing the whole naval power ofAthens he was able, after a siege of nine months, to reduce therefractory islanders to submission. The Samians were compelled tosurrender their fleet, to pull down their walls, to pay a heavy warindemnity, and to give hostages as a security for their good conduct inthe future. And henceforward they became subjects and tributaries ofAthens.

  We have now completed our review of the chief events which occurredbetween the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. It was a period of rapiddevelopment for Athens, of ceaseless activity at home and abroad, ofimmense progress in all the arts of war and peace. The imperial cityhad now risen to her full stature, and stood forth, supreme inintellect and in action, the wonder and envy of mankind. Her mightywalls bade defiance to her enemies at home, and she held in her handthe islands and coast-districts of the Aegaean, where the last murmurof resistance had been quelled. Her recent reverses on the mainland ofGreece had left the real sources of her power untouched; and taughther, if she would but take the lesson to heart, the proper limits ofher empire. And she had risen to this height, not by the prevailingforce of any single mind, but by the united efforts of all hercitizens, working together for a whole generation, shunning nosacrifice, and shrinking from no exertion, in their devotion to thecommon mother of them all. Every Athenian, from the wealthiest noble tothe poorest rower in the fleet, felt that he had a stake in thecountry, which to a Greek meant the city, where he was born. He gavehis vote in the Parliament [Footnote: Called the Ecclesia.] of Athens,and served on the juries chosen by lot from the whole body of thecitizens, before whose judgment-seat, unassailable by bribery orintimidation, the mightiest offenders trembled. He was a statesman, ajudge, a lawgiver, and a warrior, and he might even hope to climb tothe highest place in the State, and rule, like Pericles, as a prince ofdemocracy. Around him rose the temples and statues of the gods, freshfrom the chisel of the artist, the visible symbols of Atheniangreatness, and of the grand ideals which he served. The masterpieces ofAeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides opened to him the boundless realmsof the imagination, taught him grave lessons of moral wisdom, andconnected the strenuous present with the heroic past; and the OldComedy, the most complete embodiment of the very genius of democracy,afforded a feast of wit and fancy for his lighter hours. If he had ataste for higher speculation, he might hear Anaxagoras discoursing onthe mysteries of the spiritual world, or Zeno applying his sharp testsfor the conviction of human error. And when the assembly was summonedto discuss matters of high imperial policy, he felt all the greatnessand majesty of the Athenian state, as he hung entranced on the lips ofPericles.

  Such was Athens in her prime, and such were the men who raised her tothe lofty eminence which she held among the cities of Greece. But theyears which had lifted her to that unparalleled height had raised up ahost of enemies against her, and it behoved her to temper ambition withprudence if she would maintain the proud position which the held. Thescattered units which composed the Athenian empire were held togetherby no tie of loyalty or affection to their common mistress, but solelyby the dread of her overwhelming naval power. Even in the noblestspirits of ancient Greece, the feeling of patriotism, as we understandit, was feeble and uncertain; when we speak of our _country_, the Greekspoke of his _city_, and his love, his hopes, his highest aspirations,were bounded by the narrow circuit of the walls which contained thetombs of his ancestors and the temples of his gods. This feeling, themost deeply-rooted instinct of Greek political life, had beengrievously offended by Athens, when she compelled the islanders of theAegaean, and the Greek cities of Asia, to serve in her navies, and paytribute to her exchequer.

  Turning now to the mainland of Greece we find, in most of the leadingstates, a sentiment of mingled fear and hatred against Athens, whichhad been steadily increasing in volume in the course of the last thirtyyears. The haughty Thebans had not forgotten their defeat at Oenophyta,and their nine years of servitude to Athens. Aegina was groaning underher yoke, and threatened with total political extinction. Megaracomplained that her commerce was ruined by a decree which excluded hermerchants from the ports in the Athenian Empire. In the heart ofPeloponnesus the Spartans were hatching mischief against their hatedrival, who had robbed them of half their dignity as the acknowledgedleaders of the Greeks. Corinth, whose commerce was chiefly in thewestern sea, outside the sphere of Athenian influence, was disposed tobe friendly, and had done the Athenians good service during the revoltof Samos.[Footnote: See below, p. 31.] But five years later [Footnote:B.C. 435.] an event occurred which changed this feeling into bitterhatred against Athens, and drove the Corinthians into the ranks of hermost inveterate foes. And it is at this point that we take up the mainthread of our story.