CHAPTER XLIX.

FROM THE BEGINNING OE THE SECOND YEAR DOWN TO THE END OF THE THIRD YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

At the close of one year after the attempted surprise of Platæa by the Thebans, the belligerent parties in Greece remained in an unaltered position as to relative strength. Nothing decisive had been accomplished on either side, either by the invasion of Attica, or by the flying descents round the coast of Peloponnesus: in spite of mutual damage inflicted,—doubtless, in the greatest measure upon Attica,—no progress was yet made towards the fulfilment of those objects which had induced the Peloponnesians to go to war. Especially, the most pressing among all their wishes—the relief of Potidæa—was noway advanced; for the Athenians had not found it necessary to relax the blockade of that city. The result of the first year’s operations had thus been to disappoint the hopes of the Corinthians and the other ardent instigators of war, while it justified the anticipations both of Periklês and of Archidamus.

A second devastation of Attica was resolved upon for the commencement of spring; and measures were taken for carrying it all over that territory, since the settled policy of Athens not to hazard a battle with the invaders was now ascertained. About the end of March, or beginning of April, the entire Peloponnesian force—two-thirds from each confederate city, as before—was assembled under the command of Archidamus, and marched into Attica. This time they carried the work of systematic destruction, not merely over the Thriasian plain and the plain immediately near to Athens, as before; but also to the more southerly portions of Attica, down even as far as the mines of Laurium. They traversed and ravaged both the eastern and the western coast, remaining not less than forty days in the country. They found the territory deserted as before, all the population having retired within the walls.[271]

[271] Thucyd. ii, 47-55.

In regard to this second invasion, Periklês recommended the same defensive policy as he had applied to the first; and, apparently, the citizens had now come to acquiesce in it, if not willingly, at least with a full conviction of its necessity. But a new visitation had now occurred, diverting their attention from the invader, though enormously aggravating their sufferings. A few days after Archidamus entered Attica, a pestilence, or epidemic sickness, broke out unexpectedly at Athens.

It appears that this terrific disorder had been raging for some time throughout the regions round the Mediterranean; having begun, as was believed, in Æthiopia,—thence passing into Egypt and Libya, and overrunning a considerable portion of Asia under the Persian government: about sixteen years before, too, there had been a similar calamity in Rome and in various parts of Italy. Recently, it had been felt in Lemnos and some other islands of the Ægean, yet seemingly not with such intensity as to excite much notice generally in the Grecian world: at length it passed to Athens, and first showed itself in the Peiræus. The progress of the disease was as rapid and destructive as its appearance had been sudden; whilst the extraordinary accumulation of people within the city and long walls, in consequence of the presence of the invaders in the country, was but too favorable to every form of contagion. Families crowded together in close cabins and places of temporary shelter,[272]—throughout a city constructed, like most of those in Greece, with little regard to the conditions of salubrity,—and in a state of mental chagrin from the forced abandonment and sacrifice of their properties in the country, transmitted the disorder with fatal facility from one to the other. Beginning as it did about the middle of April, the increasing heat of summer farther aided the disorder, the symptoms of which, alike violent and sudden, made themselves the more remarked because the year was particularly exempt from maladies of every other description.[273]

[272] Thucyd. ii, 52; Diodor. xii, 45; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 34. It is to be remarked, that the Athenians, though their persons and movable property were crowded within the walls, had not driven in their sheep and cattle also, but had transported them over to Eubœa and the neighboring islands (Thucyd. ii, 14). Hence they escaped a serious aggravation of their epidemic: for in the accounts of the epidemics which desolated Rome under similar circumstances, we find the accumulation of great numbers of cattle, along with human beings, specified as a terrible addition to the calamity (see Livy, iii, 66; Dionys. Hal. Ant. Rom. x, 53: compare Niebuhr, Römisch. Gesch. vol. ii, p. 90).

[273] Thucyd. ii, 49. Τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἔτος, ὡς ὡμολογεῖτο, ἐκ πάντων μάλιστα δὴ ἐκεῖνο ἄνοσον ἐς τὰς ἄλλας ἀσθενείας ἐτύγχανεν ὄν. Hippokratês, in his description of the epidemic fever at Thasos, makes a similar remark on the absence of all other disorders at the time (Epidem. i, 8, vol. ii, p. 640, ed. Littré).

Of this plague,—or, more properly, eruptive typhoid fever,[274] distinct from, yet analogous to, the smallpox,—a description no less clear than impressive has been left by the historian Thucydidês, himself not only a spectator but a sufferer. It is not one of the least of his merits, that his notice of the symptoms, given at so early a stage of medical science and observation, is such as to instruct the medical reader of the present age, and to enable the malady to be understood and identified. The observations, with which that notice is ushered in, deserve particular attention. “In respect to this distemper (he says), let every man, physician or not, say what he thinks respecting the source from whence it may probably have arisen, and respecting the causes which he deems sufficiently powerful to have produced so great a revolution. But I, having myself had the distemper, and having seen others suffering under it, will state _what it actually was_, and will indicate, in addition, such other matters, as will furnish any man, who lays them to heart, with knowledge and the means of calculation beforehand, in case the same misfortune should ever again occur.”[275] To record past facts, as a basis for rational prevision in regard to the future,—the same sentiment which Thucydidês mentions in his preface,[276] as having animated him to the composition of his history,—was at that time a duty so little understood, that we have reason to admire not less the manner in which he performs it in practice, than the distinctness with which he conceives it in theory. We may infer from his language that speculation in his day was active respecting the causes of this plague, according to the vague and fanciful physics and scanty stock of ascertained facts, which was all that could then be consulted. By resisting the itch of theorising from one of those loose hypotheses which then appeared plausibly to explain everything, he probably renounced the point of view from which most credit and interest would be derivable at the time: but his simple and precise summary of observed facts carries with it an imperishable value, and even affords grounds for imagining, that he was no stranger to the habits and training of his contemporary, Hippokratês, and the other Asklepiads of Cos.[277]

[274] “La description de Thucydide (observes M. Littré, in his introduction to the works of Hippokratês, tom. i, p. 122), est tellement bonne qu’elle suffit pleinement pour nous faire comprendre ce que cette ancienne maladie a été: et il est fort à regretter que des médecins tels qu’Hippocrate et Galien n’aient rien écrit sur les grandes épidémies, dont ils ont été les spectateurs. Hippocrate a été témoin de cette peste racontée par Thucydide, et il ne nous en a pas laissé la description. Galien vit également la fièvre éruptive qui désola le monde sous Marc Aurèle, et qu’il appelle lui-même la longue peste. Cependant excepté quelques mots épars dans ses volumineux ouvrages, excepté quelques indications fugitives, il ne nous a rien transmis sur un événement médical aussi important; à tel point que si nous n’avions pas le récit de Thucydide, il nous seroit fort difficile de nous faire une idée de celle qu’a vue Galien, et qui est la même (comme M. Hecker s’est attaché à le démontrer) que la maladie connue sous le nom de Peste d’Athènes. C’était une fièvre éruptive différente de la variole, et éteinte aujourdhui. On a cru en voir les traces dans les _charbons_ (ἄνθρακες) des livres Hippocratiques.”

Both Krauss (Disquisitio de naturâ morbi Atheniensium. Stuttgard, 1831, p. 38) and Hæser (Historisch. Patholog. Untersuchungen. Dresden 1839, p. 50) assimilate the pathological phenomena specified by Thucydidês to different portions of the Ἐπιδημίαι of Hippokratês. M. Littré thinks that the resemblance is not close or precise, so as to admit of the one being identified with the other. “Le tableau si frappant qu’en a tracé ce grand historien ne se réproduit pas certainement avec une netteté suffisante dans les brefs détails donnés par Hippocrate. La maladie d’Athènes avoit un type si tranché, que tous ceux qui en ont parlé ont du le réproduire dans ses parties essentielles.” (Argument aux 2me Livre des Epidémies, Œuvres d’Hippocrate, tom. v. p. 64.) There appears good reason to believe that the great epidemic which prevailed in the Roman world under Marcus Aurelius—the Pestis Antoniniana—was a renewal of what is called the Plague of Athens.

[275] Thucyd. ii, 48. λεγέτω μὲν οὖν περὶ αὐτοῦ, ὡς ἕκαστος γιγνώσκει, καὶ ἰατρὸς καὶ ἰδιώτης, ἀφ᾽ ὅτου εἰκὸς ἦν γενέσθαι αὐτὸ, καὶ τὰς αἰτίας ἅστινας νομίζει τοσαύτης μεταβολῆς ἱκανὰς εἶναι δύναμιν ἐς τὸ μεταστῆσαι σχεῖν· ἐγὼ δὲ οἷόν τε ἐγίγνετο λέξω, καὶ ἀφ᾽ ὧν ἄν τις σκοπῶν, εἴ ποτε καὶ αὖθις ἐπιπέσοι, μάλιστ᾽ ἂν ἔχοι τι προειδὼς μὴ ἀγνοεῖν, ταῦτα δηλώσω, αὐτός τε νοσήσας καὶ αὐτὸς ἰδὼν ἄλλους πάσχοντας.

Demokritus, among others, connected the generation of these epidemics with his general system of atoms, atmospheric effluvia, and εἴδωλα: see Plutarch, Symposiac. viii, 9, p. 733; Demokriti Fragment., ed. Mullach, lib. iv, p. 409.

The causes of the Athenian epidemic as given by Diodorus (xii, 58)—unusual rains, watery quality of grain, absence of the Etesian winds, etc., may perhaps be true of the revival of the epidemic in the fifth year of the war, but can hardly be true of its first appearance; since Thucydidês states that the year in other respects was unusually healthy, and the epidemic was evidently brought from foreign parts to Peiræus.

[276] Thucyd. i, 22.

[277] See the words of Thucydidês. ii, 49. καὶ ἀποκαθάρσεις χολῆς πᾶσαι, ~ὅσαι ὑπὸ ἰατρῶν ὠνομασμέναι εἰσὶν~, ἐπῄεσαν,—which would seem to indicate a familiarity with the medical terminology: compare also his allusion to the speculations of the physicians, cited in the previous note; and c. 51—~τὰ πάσῃ διαίτῃ θεραπευόμενα~, etc.

In proof how rare the conception was, in ancient times, of the importance of collecting and registering particular medical facts, I transcribe the following observations from M. Littré (Œuvres d’Hippocrate, tom. iv, p. 646, Remarques Retrospectives).

“Toutefois ce qu’il importe ici de constater, ce n’est pas qu’Hippocrate a observé de telle ou telle manière, mais c’est qu’il a eu l’idée de recueillir et de consigner des faits particuliers. En effet, rien, dans l’antiquité, n’a été plus rare que ce soin: outre Hippocrate, je ne connois qu’Erasistrate qui se soit occupé de relater sous cette forme les résultats de son expérience clinique. Ni Galien lui-même, ni Arétée, ni Soranus, ni les autres qui sont arrivés jusqu’à nous, n’ont suivi un aussi louable exemple. Les observations consignées dans la collection Hippocratique constituent la plus grande partie, à beaucoup près, de ce que l’antiquité a possédé en ce genre: et si, en commentant le travail d’Hippocrate, on l’avait un peu imité, nous aurions des matériaux à l’aide desquels nous prendrions une idée bien plus précise de la pathologie de ces siècles reculés.... Mais tout en exprimant ce regret et en reconnaissant cette utilité relative à nous autres modernes et véritablement considérable, il faut ajouter que l’antiquité avoit dans les faits et la doctrine Hippocratiques un aliment qui lui a suffi—et qu’une collection, même étendue, d’histoires particulières n’auroit pas alors modifié la médecine, du moins la médecine scientifique, essentiellement et au delà de la limite que comportoit la physiologie. Je pourrai montrer ailleurs que la doctrine d’Hippocrate et de l’école de Cos a été la seule solide, la seule fondée sur un aperçu vrai de la nature organisée; et que les sectes postérieures, méthodisme et pneumatisme, n’ont bâti leurs théories que sur des hypothèses sans consistance. Mais ici je me contente de remarquer, que la pathologie, en tant que science, ne peut marcher qu’à la suite de la physiologie, dont elle n’est qu’une des faces: et d’Hippocrate à Galien inclusivement, la physiologie ne fit pas assez de progrès pour rendre insuffisante la conception Hippocratique. Il en résulte, nécessairement, que la pathologie, toujours considérée comme science, n’auroit pu, par quelque procédé que ce fût, gagner que des corrections et des augmentations de détail.”

It is hardly within the province of an historian of Greece to repeat after Thucydidês the painful enumeration of symptoms, violent in the extreme, and pervading every portion of the bodily system, which marked this fearful disorder. Beginning in Peiræus, it quickly passed into the city, and both the one and the other was speedily filled with sickness and suffering, the like of which had never before been known. The seizures were perfectly sudden, and a large proportion of the sufferers perished, after deplorable agonies, on the seventh or on the ninth day: others, whose strength of constitution carried them over this period, found themselves the victims of exhausting and incurable diarrhœa afterwards: with others again, after traversing both these stages, the distemper fixed itself in some particular member, the eyes, the genitals, the hands, or the feet, which were rendered permanently useless, or in some cases amputated, even where the patient himself recovered. There were also some whose recovery was attended with a total loss of memory, so that they no more knew themselves or recognized their friends. No treatment or remedy appearing, except in accidental cases, to produce any beneficial effect, the physicians or surgeons whose aid was invoked became completely at fault; while trying their accustomed means without avail, they soon ended by catching the malady themselves and perishing: nor were the charms and incantations[278] to which the unhappy patient resorted, likely to be more efficacious. While some asserted that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns of water, others referred the visitation to the wrath of the gods, and especially to Apollo, known by hearers of the Iliad as author of pestilence in the Greek host before Troy. It was remembered that this Delphian god had promised the Lacedæmonians, in reply to their application immediately before the war, that he would assist them whether invoked or uninvoked,—and the disorder now raging was ascribed to the intervention of their irresistible ally: while the elderly men farther called to mind an oracular verse sung in the time of their youth: “The Dorian war will come, and pestilence along with it.”[279] Under the distress which suggested, and was reciprocally aggravated by, these gloomy ideas, prophets were consulted, and supplications with solemn procession were held at the temples, to appease the divine wrath.

[278] Compare the story of Thalêtas appeasing an epidemic at Sparta by his music and song (Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1146).

Some of the ancient physicians were firm believers in the efficacy of these charms and incantations. Alexander of Tralles says, that having originally treated them with contempt, he had convinced himself of their value by personal observation, and altered his opinion (ix, 4)—ἔνιοι γοῦν οἴονται τοῖς τῶν γραῶν μύθοις ἐοικέναι τὰς ἐπῳδὰς, ὥσπερ κἀγὼ μέχρι πολλοῦ· τῷ χρόνῳ δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐναργῶς φαινομένων ἐπείσθην εἶναι δύναμιν ἐν αὐταῖς. See an interesting and valuable dissertation, Origines Contagii, by Dr. C. F. Marx (Stuttgard, 1824, p. 129).

The suffering Hêraklês, in his agony under the poisoned tunic, invokes the ἀοιδὸς along with the χειροτέχνης ἰατοριάς (Sophoklês, Trachin. 1005).

[279] Thucyd. ii, 54.

Φάσκοντες οἱ πρεσβύτεροι πάλαι ᾄδεσθαι— Ἥξει Δωριακὸς πόλεμος, καὶ λοιμὸς ἅμ᾽ αὐτῷ.

See also the first among the epistles ascribed to the orator Æschinês, respecting a λοιμὸς in Delos.

It appears that there was a debate whether, in this Hexameter verse, λιμὸς (famine) or λοιμὸς (pestilence) was the correct reading: and the probability is, that it had been originally composed with the word λιμὸς,—for men might well fancy beforehand that _famine_ would be a sequel of the Dorian war, but they would not be likely to imagine _pestilence_ as accompanying it. Yet, says Thucydidês, the reading λοιμὸς was held decidedly preferable, as best fitting to the actual circumstances (οἱ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι πρὸς ἃ ἔπασχον τὴν μνήμην ἐποιοῦντο). And “if (he goes on to say) there should ever hereafter come another Dorian war, and famine along with it, the oracle will probably be reproduced with the word λιμὸς as part of it.”

This deserves notice, as illustrating the sort of admitted license with which men twisted the oracles or prophecies, so as to hit the feelings of the actual moment.

When it was found that neither the priest nor the physician could retard the spread, or mitigate the intensity, of the disorder, the Athenians abandoned themselves to utter despair, and the space within the walls became a scene of desolating misery. Every man attacked with the malady at once lost his courage,—a state of depression, itself among the worst features of the case, which made him lie down and die, without the least attempt to seek for any preservatives. And though, at first, friends and relatives lent their aid to tend the sick with the usual family sympathies, yet so terrible was the number of these attendants who perished, “like sheep,” from such contact, that at length no man would thus expose himself; while the most generous spirits, who persisted longest in the discharge of their duty, were carried off in the greatest numbers.[280] The patient was thus left to die alone and unheeded: sometimes all the inmates of a house were swept away one after the other, no man being willing to go near it: desertion on one hand, attendance on the other, both tended to aggravate the calamity. There remained only those who, having had the disorder and recovered, were willing to tend the sufferers. These men formed the single exception to the all-pervading misery of the time,—for the disorder seldom attacked any one twice, and when it did, the second attack was never fatal. Elate with their own escape, they deemed themselves out of the reach of all disease, and were full of compassionate kindness for others whose sufferings were just beginning. It was from them, too, that the principal attention to the bodies of deceased victims proceeded: for such was the state of dismay and sorrow, that even the nearest relatives neglected the sepulchral duties, sacred beyond all others in the eyes of a Greek. Nor is there any circumstance which conveys to us so vivid an idea of the prevalent agony and despair, as when we read, in the words of an eye-witness, that the deaths took place among this close-packed crowd without the smallest decencies of attention,[281]—that the dead and the dying lay piled one upon another, not merely in the public roads, but even in the temples, in spite of the understood defilement of the sacred building,—that half-dead sufferers were seen lying round all the springs, from insupportable thirst,—that the numerous corpses thus unburied and exposed, were in such a condition, that the dogs which meddled with them died in consequence, while no vultures or other birds of the like habits ever came near. Those bodies which escaped entire neglect, were burnt or buried[282] without the customary mourning, and with unseemly carelessness. In some cases, the bearers of a body, passing by a funeral pile on which another body was burning, would put their own there to be burnt also;[283] or perhaps, if the pile was prepared ready for a body not yet arrived, would deposit their own upon it, set fire to the pile, and then depart. Such indecent confusion would have been intolerable to the feelings of the Athenians, in any ordinary times.

[280] Compare Diodor. xiv, 70, who mentions similar distresses in the Carthaginian army besieging Syracuse, during the terrible epidemic with which it was attacked in 395 B.C.; and Livy, xxv, 26, respecting the epidemic at Syracuse when it was besieged by Marcellus and the Romans.

[281] Thucyd. ii, 52. Οἰκιῶν γὰρ οὐχ ὑπαρχουσῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν καλύβαις πνιγηραῖς ὥρᾳ ἔτους διαιτωμένων, ὁ φθόρος ἐγίγνετο οὐδενὶ κόσμῳ, ἀλλὰ καὶ νεκροὶ ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοις ἀποθνήσκοντες ἔκειντο, καὶ ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς ἐκαλινδοῦντο καὶ περὶ τὰς κρήνας ἁπάσας ἡμιθνῆτες, τοῦ ὕδατος ἐπιθυμίᾳ. Τά τε ἱερὰ ἐν οἷς ἐσκήνηντο, νεκρῶν πλέα ἦν, αὐτοῦ ἐναποθνῃσκόντων· ὑπερβιαζομένου γὰρ τοῦ κακοῦ οἱ ἄνθρωποι, οὐκ ἔχοντες, ὅ,τι γένωνται, ἐς ὀλιγωρίαν ἐτράποντο καὶ ἱερῶν καὶ ὁσίων ὁμοίως.

[282] Thucyd. ii, 50: compare Livy, xli, 21, describing the epidemic at Rome in 174 B.C. “Cadavera, intacta à canibus et vulturibus, tabes absumebat: satisque constabat, nec illo, nec priore anno in tantâ strage boum hominumque vulturium usquam visum.”

[283] Thucyd. ii, 52. From the language of Thucydidês, we see that this was regarded at Athens as highly unbecoming. Yet a passage of Plutarch seems to show that it was very common, in his time, to burn several bodies on the same funeral pile (Plutarch, Symposiac. iii, 4, p. 651).

To all these scenes of physical suffering, death, and reckless despair, was superadded another evil, which affected those who were fortunate enough to escape the rest. The bonds both of law and morality became relaxed, amidst such total uncertainty of every man both for his own life, and that of others. Men cared not to abstain from wrong, under circumstances in which punishment was not likely to overtake them,—nor to put a check upon their passions, and endure privations in obedience even to their strongest conviction, when the chance was so small of their living to reap reward or enjoy any future esteem. An interval short and sweet, before their doom was realized—before they became plunged in the wide-spread misery which they witnessed around, and which affected indiscriminately the virtuous and the profligate—was all they looked to enjoy; embracing with avidity the immediate pleasures of sense, as well as such positive gains, however ill-gotten, as could be made the means of procuring them, and throwing aside all thought both of honor or of long-sighted advantage. Life and property were alike ephemeral, nor was there any hope left but to snatch a moment of enjoyment, before the outstretched hand of destiny should fall upon its victims.

The melancholy picture of society under the pressure of a murderous epidemic, with its train of physical torments, wretchedness, and demoralization, has been drawn by more than one eminent author, but by none with more impressive fidelity and conciseness than by Thucydidês,[284] who had no predecessor, and nothing but the reality to copy from. We may remark that, amidst all the melancholy accompaniments of the time, there are no human sacrifices, such as those offered up at Carthage during pestilence to appease the anger of the gods,—there are no cruel persecutions against imaginary authors of the disease, such as those against the Untori (anointers of doors) in the plague of Milan in 1630.[285] Three years altogether did this calamity desolate Athens: continuously, during the entire second and third years of the war,—after which, followed a period of marked abatement for a year and a half: but it then revived again, and lasted for another year, with the same fury as at first. The public loss, over and above the private misery, which this unexpected enemy inflicted upon Athens, was incalculable. Out of twelve hundred horsemen, all among the rich men of the state, three hundred died of the epidemic; besides four thousand and four hundred hoplites out of the roll formerly kept, and a number of the poorer population so great as to defy computation.[286] No efforts of the Peloponnesians could have done so much to ruin Athens, or to bring the war to a termination such as they desired: and the distemper told the more in their favor, as it never spread at all into Peloponnesus, though it passed from Athens to some of the more populous islands.[287] The Lacedæmonian army was withdrawn from Attica somewhat earlier than it would otherwise have been, for fear of taking the contagion.[288]

[284] The description in the sixth book of Lucretius, translated and expanded from Thucydidês,—that of the plague at Florence in 1348, with which the Decameron of Boccacio opens,—and that of Defoe, in his History of the Plague in London, are all well known.

[285] “Carthaginienses, cum inter cetera mala etiam peste laborarent, cruentâ sacrorum religione, et scelere pro remedio, usi sunt: quippe homines ut victimas immolabant; pacem deorum sanguine eorum exposcentes, pro quorum vitâ Dii rogari maximè solent.” (Justin, xviii, 6.)

For the facts respecting the plague of Milan and the Untori, see the interesting novel of Manzoni, Promessi Sposi, and the historical work of the same author, Storia della Colonna Infame.

[286] Thucyd. iii, 87. τοῦ δὲ ἄλλου ὄχλου ἀνεξεύρετος ἀριθμός. Diodorus makes them above 10,000 (xii, 58) freemen and slaves together, which must be greatly beneath the reality.

[287] Thucyd. ii, 54. τῶν ἄλλων χωρίων τὰ πολυανθρωπότατα. He does not specify what places these were: perhaps Chios, but hardly Lesbos, otherwise the fact would have been noticed when the revolt of that island occurs.

[288] Thucyd. ii, 57.

But it was while the Lacedæmonians were yet in Attica, and during the first freshness of the terrible malady, that Periklês equipped and conducted from Peiræus an armament of one hundred triremes, and four thousand hoplites to attack the coasts of Peloponnesus: three hundred horsemen were also carried in some horse-transports, prepared for the occasion out of old triremes. To diminish the crowd accumulated in the city, was doubtless of beneficial tendency, and perhaps those who went aboard, might consider it as a chance of escape to quit an infected home. But unhappily they carried the infection along with them, which desolated the fleet not less than the city, and crippled all its efforts. Reinforced by fifty ships of war from Chios and Lesbos, the Athenians first landed near Epidaurus in Peloponnesus, ravaging the territory, and making an unavailing attempt upon the city: next, they made like incursions on the more southerly portions of the Argolic peninsula,—Trœzen, Halieis, and Hermionê; and lastly attacked and captured Prasiæ, on the eastern coast of Laconia. On returning to Athens, the same armament was immediately conducted, under Agnon and Kleopompus, to press the siege of Potidæa, the blockade of which still continued without any visible progress. On arriving there, an attack was made on the walls by battering engines, and by the other aggressive methods then practised; but nothing whatever was achieved. In fact, the armament became incompetent for all serious effort, from the aggravated character which the distemper here assumed, communicated by the soldiers fresh from Athens, even to those who had before been free from it at Potidæa. So frightful was the mortality, that out of the four thousand hoplites under Agnon, no less than ten hundred and fifty died in the short space of forty days. The armament was brought back in this melancholy condition to Athens, while the reduction of Potidæa was left, as before, to the slow course of blockade.[289]

[289] Thucyd. ii, 56-58.

On returning from the expedition against Peloponnesus, Periklês found his countrymen almost distracted[290] with their manifold sufferings. Over and above the raging epidemic, they had just gone over Attica and ascertained the devastations committed by the invaders throughout all the territory—except the Marathonian[291] Tetrapolis and Dekeleia; districts spared, as we are told, through indulgence founded on an ancient legendary sympathy—during their long stay of forty days. The rich had found their comfortable mansions and farms, the poor their modest cottages, in the various demes, torn down and ruined. Death,[292] sickness, loss of property, and despair of the future, now rendered the Athenians angry and intractable to the last degree; and they vented their feelings against Periklês, as the cause, not merely of the war, but also of all that they were now enduring. Either with or without his consent, they sent envoys to Sparta to open negotiations for peace, but the Spartans turned a deaf ear to the proposition. This new disappointment rendered them still more furious against Periklês, whose long-standing political enemies now doubtless found strong sympathy in their denunciations of his character and policy. That unshaken and majestic firmness, which ranked first among his many eminent qualities, was never more imperiously required, and never more effectively manifested. In his capacity of stratêgus, or general, he convoked a formal assembly of the people, for the purpose of vindicating himself publicly against the prevailing sentiment, and recommending perseverance in his line of policy. The speeches made by his opponents, assuredly very bitter, are not given by Thucydidês; but that of Periklês himself is set down at considerable length, and a memorable discourse it is. It strikingly brings into relief both the character of the man and the impress of actual circumstances,—an impregnable mind, conscious not only of right purposes, but of just and reasonable anticipations, and bearing up with manliness, or even defiance, against the natural difficulty of the case, heightened by an extreme of incalculable misfortune. He had foreseen,[293] while advising the war originally, the probable impatience of his countrymen under its first hardships, but he could not foresee the epidemic by which that impatience had been exasperated into madness: and he now addressed them, not merely with unabated adherence to his own deliberate convictions, but also in a tone of reproachful remonstrance against their unmerited change of sentiment towards him,—seeking at the same time to combat that uncontrolled despair which, for the moment, overlaid both their pride and their patriotism. Far from humbling himself before the present sentiment, it is at this time that he sets forth his titles to their esteem in the most direct and unqualified manner, and claims the continuance of that which they had so long accorded, as something belonging to him by acquired right.

[290] Thucyd. ii, 59. ἠλλοίωντο τὰς γνώμας.

[291] Diodor. xii, 45; Ister ap. Schol. ad Soph. Œdip. Colon. 689; Herodot. ix.

[292] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ὁ μὲν δῆμος, ὅτι ἀπ᾽ ἐλασσόνων ὁρμώμενος, ἐστέρητο καὶ τούτων· οἱ δὲ δυνατοὶ, καλὰ κτήματα κατὰ τὴν χώραν οἰκοδομίαις τε καὶ πολυτελέσι κατασκευαῖς ἀπολωλεκότες.

[293] Thucyd. i, 140.

His main object, throughout this discourse, is to fill the minds of his audience with patriotic sympathy for the weal of the entire city, so as to counterbalance the absorbing sense of private woe. If the collective city flourishes, he argues, private misfortunes may at least be borne: but no amount of private prosperity will avail, if the collective city falls; a proposition literally true in ancient times, and under the circumstances of ancient warfare, though less true at present. “Distracted by domestic calamity, ye are now angry both with me, who advised you to go to war, and with yourselves, who followed the advice. Ye listened to me, considering me superior to others in judgment, in speech, in patriotism, and in incorruptible probity,[294]—nor ought I now to be treated as culpable for giving such advice, when in point of fact the war was unavoidable, and there would have been still greater danger in shrinking from it. I am the same man, still unchanged,—but ye, in your misfortunes, cannot stand to the convictions which ye adopted when yet unhurt. Extreme and unforeseen, indeed, are the sorrows which have fallen upon you: yet, inhabiting as ye do a great city, and brought up in dispositions suitable to it, ye must also resolve to bear up against the utmost pressure of adversity, and never to surrender your dignity. I have often explained to you that ye have no reason to doubt of eventual success in the war, but I will now remind you, more emphatically than before, and even with a degree of ostentation suitable as a stimulus to your present unnatural depression,—that your naval force makes you masters, not only of your allies, but of the entire sea,[295]—one half of the visible field for action and employment. Compared with so vast a power as this, the temporary use of your houses and territory is a mere trifle,—an ornamental accessory not worth considering; and this, too, if ye preserve your freedom, ye will quickly recover. It was your fathers who first gained this empire, without any of the advantages which ye now enjoy; ye must not disgrace yourselves by losing what they acquired. Delighting as ye all do in the honor and empire enjoyed by the city, ye must not shrink from the toils whereby alone that honor is sustained: moreover, ye now fight, not merely for freedom instead of slavery, but for empire against loss of empire, with all the perils arising out of imperial unpopularity. It is not safe for you now to abdicate, even if ye chose to do so; for ye hold your empire like a despotism,—unjust perhaps in the original acquisition, but ruinous to part with when once acquired. Be not angry with me, whose advice ye followed in going to war, because the enemy have done such damage as might be expected from them; still less on account of this unforeseen distemper: I know that this makes me an object of your special present hatred, though very unjustly, unless ye will consent to give me credit also for any unexpected good luck which may occur. Our city derives its particular glory from unshaken bearing up against misfortune: her power, her name, her empire of Greeks over Greeks, are such as have never before been seen: and if we choose to be great, we must take the consequence of that temporary envy and hatred which is the necessary price of permanent renown. Behave ye now in a manner worthy of that glory: display that courage which is essential to protect you against disgrace at present, as well as to guarantee your honor for the future. Send no farther embassy to Sparta, and bear your misfortunes without showing symptoms of distress.”[296]

[294] Thucyd. ii, 60. καίτοι ἐμοὶ τοιούτῳ ἀνδρὶ ὀργίζεσθε, ὃς οὐδενὸς οἴομαι ἥσσων εἶναι γνῶναί τε τὰ δέοντα, καὶ ἑρμηνεῦσαι ταῦτα, φιλόπολίς τε καὶ χρημάτων κρείσσων.

[295] Thucyd. ii, 62. δηλώσω δὲ καὶ τόδε, ὅ μοι δοκεῖτε οὔτ᾽ αὐτοὶ πώποτε ἐνθυμηθῆναι ὑπάρχον ὑμῖν μεγέθους πέρι ἐς τὴν ἀρχὴν, οὔτ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐν τοῖς πρὶν λόγοις· οὐδ᾽ ἂν νῦν ἐχρησάμην κομπωδεστέραν ἔχοντι τὴν προσποίησιν, εἰ μὴ καταπεπληγμένους ὑμᾶς παρὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἑώρων. Οἴεσθε μὲν γὰρ τῶν ξυμμάχων μόνον ἄρχειν—ἐγὼ δὲ ἀποφαίνω δύο μερῶν τῶν ἐς χρῆσιν φανερῶν, γῆς καὶ θαλάττης, τοῦ ἑτέρου ὑμᾶς παντὸς κυριωτάτους ὄντας, ἐφ᾽ ὅσον τε νῦν νέμεσθε, καὶ ἢν ἐπιπλέον βουληθῆτε.

[296] Thucyd. ii, 60-64. I give a general summary of this memorable speech, without setting forth its full contents, still less the exact words.

The irresistible reason, as well as the proud and resolute bearing of this discourse, set forth with an eloquence which it was not possible for Thucydidês to reproduce,—together with the age and character of Periklês,—carried the assent of the assembled people; who, when in the Pnyx, and engaged according to habit on public matters, would for a moment forget their private sufferings in considerations of the safety and grandeur of Athens: possibly, indeed, those sufferings, though still continuing, might become somewhat alleviated when the invaders quitted Attica, and when it was no longer indispensable for all the population to confine itself within the walls. Accordingly, the assembly resolved that no farther propositions should be made for peace, and that the war should be prosecuted with vigor. But though the public resolution thus adopted showed the ancient habit of deference to the authority of Periklês, the sentiments of individuals taken separately were still those of anger against him, as the author of that system which had brought them into so much distress. His political opponents—Kleon, Simmias, or Lakratidas, perhaps all three in conjunction—took care to provide an opportunity for this prevalent irritation to manifest itself in act, by bringing an accusation against him before the dikastery. The accusation is said to have been preferred on the ground of pecuniary malversation, and ended by his being sentenced to pay a considerable fine, the amount of which is differently reported,—fifteen, fifty, or eighty talents, by different authors.[297] The accusing party thus appeared to have carried their point, and to have disgraced, as well as excluded from reëlection, the veteran statesman. But the event disappointed their expectations: the imposition of the fine not only satiated all the irritation of the people against him, but even occasioned a serious reaction in his favor, and brought back as strongly as ever the ancient sentiment of esteem and admiration. It was quickly found that those who had succeeded Periklês as generals, neither possessed nor deserved in an equal degree, the public confidence, and he was accordingly soon reëlected, with as much power and influence as he had ever in his life enjoyed.[298]

[297] Thucyd. ii, 65: Plato, Gorgias, p. 515, c. 71: Plutarch, Periklês, c. 35; Diodor. xii, c. 38-45. About Simmias, as the vehement enemy of Periklês, see Plutarch, Reipub. Ger. Præcept. p. 805.

Plutarch and Diodorus both state that Periklês was not only fined, but also removed from his office of stratêgus. Thucydidês mentions the fine, but not the removal: and his silence leads me to doubt the reality of the latter event altogether. For with such a man as Periklês, a vote of removal would have been a penalty more marked and cutting than the fine; moreover, removal from office, though capable of being pronounced by vote of the public assembly, would hardly be inflicted as penalty by the dikastery.

I imagine the events to have passed as follows: The stratêgi, with most other officers of the commonwealth, were changed or reëlected at the beginning of Hekatombæon, the first month of the Attic year; that is, somewhere about midsummer. Now the Peloponnesian army, invading Attica about the end of March or beginning of April, and remaining forty days, would leave the country about the first week in May. Periklês returned from his expedition against Peloponnesus shortly after they left Attica; that is, about the middle of May (Thucyd. ii, 57): there still remained, therefore, a month or six weeks before his office of stratêgus naturally expired, and required renewal. It was during this interval (which Thucydidês expresses by the words ἔτι δ᾽ ἐστρατήγει, ii, 59) that he convoked the assembly and delivered the harangue recently mentioned.

But when the time for a new election of stratêgi arrived, the enemies of Periklês opposed his reëlection, and brought a charge against him, in that trial of accountability to which every magistrate at Athens was exposed, after his period of office. They alleged against him some official misconduct in reference to the public money, and the dikastery visited him with a fine. His reëlection was thus prevented, and with a man who had been so often reëlected, this might be loosely called “taking away the office of general:” so that the language of Plutarch and Diodorus, as well as the silence of Thucydidês, would, on this supposition, be justified.

[298] Thucyd. ii, 65.

But that life—long, honorable, and useful—had already been prolonged considerably beyond the sixtieth year, and there were but too many circumstances, besides the recent fine, which tended to hasten as well as to embitter its close. At the very moment when Periklês was preaching to his countrymen, in a tone almost reproachful, the necessity of manful and unabated devotion to the common country, in the midst of private suffering,—he was himself among the greatest of sufferers, and most hardly pressed to set the example of observing his own precepts. The epidemic carried off not merely his two sons, the only two legitimate, Xanthippus and Paralus, but also his sister, several other relatives, and his best and most useful political friends. Amidst this train of domestic calamities, and in the funeral obsequies of so many of his dearest friends, he remained master of his grief, and maintained his habitual self-command, until the last misfortune,—the death of his favorite son Paralus, which left his house without any legitimate representative to maintain the family and the hereditary sacred rites. On this final blow, though he strove to command himself as before, yet, at the obsequies of the young man, when it became his duty to place a garland on the dead body, his grief became uncontrollable, and he burst out, for the first time of his life, into profuse tears and sobbing.[299]

[299] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 36.

In the midst of these several personal trials he received the intimation, through Alkibiadês and some other friends, of the restored confidence of the people towards him, and of his re-election to the office of stratêgus: nor was it without difficulty that he was persuaded to present himself again at the public assembly, and resume the direction of affairs. The regret of the people was formally expressed to him for the recent sentence,—perhaps, indeed, the fine may have been repaid to him, or some evasion of it permitted, saving the forms of law,[300]—in the present temper of the city; which was farther displayed towards him by the grant of a remarkable exemption from a law of his own original proposition. He had himself, some years before, been the author of that law, whereby the citizenship of Athens was restricted to persons born both of Athenian fathers and Athenian mothers, under which restriction several thousand persons, illegitimate on the mother’s side, are said to have been deprived of the citizenship, on occasion of a public distribution of corn. Invidious as it appeared to grant, to Periklês singly, an exemption from a law which had been strictly enforced against so many others, the people were now moved not less by compassion than by anxiety to redress their own previous severity. Without a legitimate heir, the house of Periklês, one branch of the great Alkmæônid gens by his mother’s side, would be left deserted, and the continuity of the family sacred rites would be broken,—a misfortune painfully felt by every Athenian family, as calculated to wrong all the deceased members, and provoke their posthumous displeasure towards the city. Accordingly, permission was granted to Periklês to legitimize, and to inscribe in his own gens and phratry his natural son by Aspasia, who bore his own name.[301]

[300] See Plutarch, Demosthen. c. 27, about the manner of bringing about such an evasion of a fine: compare also the letter of M. Boeckh, in Meineke, Fragment. Comic. Græcor. ad Fragm. Eupolid. ii, 527.

[301] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 37.

It was thus that Periklês was reinstated in his post of stratêgus, as well as in his ascendency over the public counsels,—seemingly about August or September, 430 B.C. He lived about one year longer, and seems to have maintained his influence as long as his health permitted. Yet we hear nothing of him after this moment, and he fell a victim, not to the violent symptoms of the epidemic, but to a slow and wearing fever,[302] which underminded his strength as well as his capacity. To a friend who came to ask after him when in this disease, Periklês replied by showing a charm or amulet which his female relations had hung about his neck,—a proof how low he was reduced, and how completely he had become a passive subject in the hands of others. And according to another anecdote which we read, yet more interesting and equally illustrative of his character,—it was during his last moments, when he was lying apparently unconscious and insensible, that the friends around his bed were passing in review the acts of his life, and the nine trophies which he had erected at different times for so many victories. He heard what they said, though they fancied that he was past hearing, and interrupted them by remarking: “What you praise in my life, belongs partly to good fortune,—and is, at best, common to me with many other generals. But the peculiarity of which I am most proud, you have not noticed,—no Athenian has ever put on mourning on my account.”[303]

[302] Plutarch (Perik. c. 38) treats the slow disorder under which he suffered as one of the forms of the epidemic: but this can hardly be correct, when we read the very marked character of the latter, as described by Thucydidês.

[303] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 38.

Such a cause of self-gratulation, doubtless more satisfactory to recall at such a moment than any other, illustrates that long-sighted calculation, aversion to distant or hazardous enterprise, and economy of the public force, which marked his entire political career; a career long, beyond all parallel, in the history of Athens,—since he maintained a great influence, gradually swelling into a decisive personal ascendency, for between thirty and forty years. His character has been presented in very different lights, by different authors, both ancient and modern, and our materials for striking the balance are not so good as we could wish. But his immense and long-continued ascendency, as well as his unparalleled eloquence, are facts attested not less by his enemies than by his friends,—nay, even more forcibly by the former than by the latter. The comic writers, who hated him, and whose trade it was to deride and hunt down every leading political character, exhaust their powers of illustration in setting forth both the one and the other:[304] Telekleidês, Kratinus, Eupolis, Aristophanês, all hearers and all enemies, speak of him like Olympian Zeus, hurling thunder and lightning,—like Hêraklês and Achilles,—as the only speaker on whose lips persuasion sat, and who left his sting in the minds of his audience: while Plato the philosopher,[305] who disapproved of his political working, and of the moral effects which he produced upon Athens, nevertheless extols his intellectual and oratorical ascendency: “his majestic intelligence,”—in language not less decisive than Thucydidês. There is another point of eulogy, not less valuable, on which the testimony appears uncontradicted: throughout his long career, amidst the hottest political animosities, the conduct of Periklês towards opponents was always mild and liberal.[306] The conscious self-esteem and arrogance of manner with which the contemporary poet Ion reproached him,[307] contrasting it with the unpretending simplicity of his own patron Kimon,—though probably invidiously exaggerated, is doubtless in substance well founded, and those who read the last speech given above out of Thucydidês, will at once recognize in it this attribute. His natural taste, his love of philosophical research, and his unwearied application to public affairs, all contributed to alienate him from ordinary familiarity, and to make him careless, perhaps improperly careless, of the lesser means of conciliating public favor.

[304] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 4, 8, 13, 16; Eupolis. Δῆμοι, Fragm. vi. p. 459, ed. Meineke. Cicero (De Orator. iii, 34; Brutus, 9-11) and Quintilian (ii, 16, 19; x, 1, 82) count only as witnesses at second-hand.

[305] Plato, Gorgias, c. 71, p. 516; Phædrus, c. 54. p. 270. Περικλέα, τὸν οὕτω μεγαλοπρεπῶς σοφὸν ἄνδρα. Plato, Mens. p. 94, B.

[306] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 10-39.

[307] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 5.

But admitting this latter reproach to be well founded, as it seems to be, it helps to negative that greater and graver political crime which has been imputed to him, of sacrificing the permanent well-being and morality of the state to the maintenance of his own political power,—of corrupting the people by distributions of the public money. “He gave the reins to the people (in Plutarch’s words[308]), and shaped his administration for their immediate favor, by always providing at home some public spectacle, or festival, or procession, thus nursing up the city in elegant pleasures,—and by sending out every year sixty triremes, manned by citizen-seamen on full pay, who were thus kept in practice and acquired nautical skill.” Now the charge here made against Periklês, and supported by allegations in themselves honorable rather than otherwise,—of a vicious appetite for immediate popularity, and of improper concessions to the immediate feelings of the people against their permanent interests,—is precisely that which Thucydidês, in the most pointed manner denies; and not merely denies, but contrasts Periklês with his successors in the express circumstances that _they_ did so, while _he_ did not. The language of the contemporary historian[309] well deserves to be cited: “Periklês, powerful from dignity of character as well as from wisdom, and conspicuously above the least tinge of corruption, held back the people with a free hand, and was their real leader instead of being led by them. For not being a seeker of power from unworthy sources, he did not speak with any view to present favor, but had sufficient sense of dignity to contradict them on occasion, even braving their displeasure. Thus, whenever he perceived them insolently and unseasonably confident, he shaped his speeches in such manner as to alarm and beat them down: when again he saw them unduly frightened, he tried to counteract it, and restore them confidence: so that the government was in name a democracy, but in reality an empire exercised by the first citizen in the state. But those who succeeded after his death, being more equal one with another, and each of them desiring preëminence over the rest, adopted the different course of courting the favor of the people, and sacrificing to that object even important state-interests. From whence arose many other bad measures, as might be expected in a great and imperial city, and especially the Sicilian expedition,” etc.

[308] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11. Διὸ καὶ τότε μάλιστα τῷ δήμῳ τὰς ἡνίας ἀνεὶς ὁ Περικλῆς ἐπολιτεύετο πρὸς χάριν—ἀεὶ μέν τινα θέαν πανηγυρικὴν ἢ ἑστίασιν ἢ πομπὴν εἶναι μηχανώμενος ἐν ἄστει, καὶ διαπαιδαγωγῶν οὐκ ἀμούσοις ἡδοναῖς τὴν πόλιν—ἑξήκοντα δὲ τριήρεις καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἐκπέμπων, ἐν αἷς πολλοὶ τῶν πολιτῶν ἔπλεον ὀκτὼ μῆνας ἔμμισθοι, μελετῶντες ἅμα καὶ μανθάνοντες τὴν ναυτικὴν ἐμπειρίαν.

Compare c. 9, where Plutarch states that Periklês, having no other means of contending against the abundant private largesses of his rival, Kimon, resorted to the expedient of distributing the public money among the citizens, in order to gain influence; acting in this matter upon the advice of his friend, Demonidês, according to the statement of Aristotle.

[309] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ἐκεῖνος μὲν (Περικλῆς) δυνατὸς ὢν τῷ ~τε ἀξιώματι~ καὶ τῇ γνώμῃ, ~χρημάτων τε διαφανῶς ἀδωρότατος γενόμενος, κατεῖχε τὸ πλῆθος ἐλευθέρως~, καὶ οὐκ ἤγετο μᾶλλον ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἢ αὐτὸς ἦγε, διὰ τὸ μὴ κτώμενος ἐξ οὐ προσηκόντων τὴν δύναμιν πρὸς ἡδονήν τι λέγειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔχων ἐπ᾽ ~ἀξιώσει~ καὶ πρὸς ὀργήν τι ἀντειπεῖν. Ὁπότε γοῦν αἴσθοιτό τι αὐτοὺς παρὰ καιρὸν ὕβρει θαρσοῦντας, λέγων κατέπλησσεν ἐπὶ τὸ φοβεῖσθαι· καὶ δεδιότας αὖ ἀλόγως ἀντικαθίστη πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ θαρσεῖν. Ἐγίγνετο δὲ λόγῳ μὲν δημοκρατία, ἔργῳ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ πρώτου ἀνδρὸς ἀρχή. Οἱ δὲ ὕστερον ἴσοι μᾶλλον αὐτοὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὄντες, καὶ ὀρεγόμενοι τοῦ πρῶτος ἕκαστος γίγνεσθαι, ἐτράποντο καθ᾽ ἡδονὰς τῷ δήμῳ καὶ τὰ πράγματα ἐνδιδόναι. Ἐξ ὧν, ἄλλα τε πολλά, ὡς ἐν μεγάλῃ πόλει καὶ ἀρχὴν ἐχούσῃ, ἡμαρτήθη, καὶ ὁ ἐς Σικελίαν πλοῦς· ὃς οὐ τοσοῦτον γνώμης ἁμάρτημα ἦν, etc. Compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 3.

Ἀξίωσις and ἀξίωμα, as used by Thucydidês seem to differ in this respect: Ἀξίωσις signifies, a man’s dignity, or pretensions to esteem and influence as felt and measured by himself; _his sense of dignity_; Ἀξίωμα means his _dignity_, properly so called; as felt and appreciated by others. See i, 37, 41, 69.

It will be seen that the judgment here quoted from Thucydidês contradicts, in the most unqualified manner, the reproaches commonly made against Periklês, of having corrupted the Athenian people by distributions of the public money, and by giving way to their unwise caprices, for the purpose of acquiring and maintaining his own political power. Nay, the historian particularly notes the opposite qualities,—self-judgment, conscious dignity, indifference to immediate popular applause or wrath, when set against what was permanently right and useful,—as the special characteristic of that great statesman. A distinction might indeed be possible, and Plutarch professes to note such distinction, between the earlier and the later part of his long political career: he began, so that biographer says, by corrupting the people in order to acquire power, but having acquired it, he employed it in an independent and patriotic manner, so that the judgment of Thucydidês, true respecting the later part of his life, would not be applicable to the earlier. This distinction may be to a certain degree well founded, inasmuch as the power of opposing a bold and successful resistance to temporary aberrations of the public mind, necessarily implies an established influence, and can hardly ever be exercised even by the firmest politician during his years of commencement: he is at that time necessarily the adjunct of some party or tendency which he finds already in operation, and has to stand forward actively and assiduously before he can create for himself a separate personal influence. But while we admit the distinction to this extent, there is nothing to warrant us in restricting the encomium of Thucydidês exclusively to the later life of Periklês, or in representing the earlier life as something in pointed contrast with that encomium. Construing fairly what the historian says, he evidently did not so conceive the earlier life of Periklês. Either those political changes which are held by Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and others, to demonstrate the corrupting effect of Periklês and his political ascendency,—such as the limitation of the functions of the Areopagus, as well as of the power of the magistrates, the establishment of the numerous and frequent popular dikasteries with regular pay, and perhaps also the assignment of pay to those who attended the ekklesia, the expenditure for public works, religious edifices and ornaments, the diobely (or distribution of two oboli per head to the poorer citizens at various festivals, in order that they might be able to pay for their places in the theatre), taking it as it then stood, etc.,—did not appear to Thucydidês mischievous and corrupting, as these other writers thought them; or else he did not particularly refer them to Periklês.

Both are true, probably, to some extent. The internal political changes at Athens, respecting the Areopagus and the dikasteries, took place when Periklês was a young man, and when he cannot be supposed to have yet acquired the immense personal ascendency which afterwards belonged to him. Ephialtês in fact seems in those early days to have been a greater man than Periklês, if we may judge by the fact that he was selected by his political adversaries for assassination,—so that they might with greater propriety be ascribed to the party with which Periklês was connected, rather than to that statesman himself. But next, we have no reason to presume that Thucydidês considered these changes as injurious, or as having deteriorated the Athenian character. All that he does say as to the working of Periklês on the sentiment and actions of his countrymen, is eminently favorable. He represents the presidency of that statesman as moderate, cautious, conservative, and successful; he describes him as uniformly keeping back the people from rash enterprises, and from attempts to extend their empire,—as looking forward to the necessity of a war, and maintaining the naval, military, and financial forces of the state in constant condition to stand it,—as calculating, with long-sighted wisdom, the conditions on which ultimate success depended. If we follow the elaborate funeral harangue of Periklês, which Thucydidês, since he produces it at length, probably considered as faithfully illustrating the political point of view of that statesman, we shall discover a conception of democratical equality no less rational than generous; an anxious care for the recreation and comfort of the citizens, but no disposition to emancipate them from active obligation, either public or private,—and least of all, any idea of dispensing with such activity by abusive largesses out of the general revenue. The whole picture, drawn by Periklês, of Athens, “as the schoolmistress of Greece,” implies a prominent development of private industry and commerce, not less than of public citizenship and soldiership,—of letters, arts, and recreative varieties of taste.

Though Thucydidês does not directly canvass the constitutional changes effected in Athens under Periklês, yet everything which he does say leads us to believe that he accounted the working of that statesman, upon the whole, on Athenian power as well as on Athenian character, eminently valuable, and his death as an irreparable loss. And we may thus appeal to the judgment of an historian who is our best witness in every conceivable respect, as a valid reply to the charge against Periklês, of having corrupted the Athenian habits, character, and government. If he spent a large amount of the public treasure upon religious edifices and ornaments, and upon stately works for the city,—yet the sum which he left untouched, ready for use at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, was such as to appear more than sufficient for all purposes of defence, or public safety, or military honor. It cannot be shown of Periklês that he ever sacrificed the greater object to the less,—the permanent and substantially valuable, to the transitory and showy,—assured present possessions, to the lust of new, distant, or uncertain conquests. If his advice had been listened to, the rashness which brought on the defeat of the Athenian Tolmidês, at Korôneia in Bœotia, would have been avoided, and Athens might probably have maintained her ascendency over Megara and Bœotia, which would have protected her territory from invasion, and given a new turn to the subsequent history. Periklês is not to be treated as the author of the Athenian character: he found it with its very marked positive characteristics and susceptibilities, among which, those which he chiefly brought out and improved were the best. The lust of expeditions against the Persians, which Kimon would have pushed into Egypt and Cyprus, he repressed, after it had accomplished all which could be usefully aimed at: the ambition of Athens he moderated rather than encouraged: the democratical movement of Athens he regularized, and worked out into judicial institutions, which became one of the prominent features of Athenian life, and worked, in my judgment, with a very large balance of benefit to the national mind as well as to individual security, in spite of the many defects in their direct character as tribunals. But that point in which there was the greatest difference between Athens, as Periklês found if, and as he left it, is, unquestionably, the pacific and intellectual development,—rhetoric, poetry, arts, philosophical research, and recreative variety. To which if we add, great improvement in the cultivation of the Attic soil,—extension of Athenian trade,—attainment and laborious maintenance of the maximum of maritime skill, attested by the battles of Phormio,—enlargement of the area of complete security by construction of the Long Walls,—lastly, the clothing of Athens in her imperial mantle, by ornaments, architectural and sculptural,—we shall make out a case of genuine progress realized during the political life of Periklês, such as the evils imputed to him, far more imaginary than real, will go but a little way to alloy. How little, comparatively speaking, of the picture drawn by Periklês in his funeral harangue of 431 B.C. would have been correct, if the harangue had been delivered over those warriors who fell at Tanagra, twenty-seven years before!

It has been remarked by M. Boeckh,[310] that Periklês sacrificed the landed proprietors of Attica to the maritime interests and empire of Athens. This is of course founded on the destructive invasions of the country during the Peloponnesian war; for down to the commencement of that war the position of Attic cultivators and proprietors was particularly enviable: and the censure of M. Boeckh, therefore, depends upon the question, how far Periklês contributed to produce, or had it in his power to avert, this melancholy war, in its results so fatal, not merely to Athens, but to the entire Grecian race. Now here again, if we follow attentively the narrative of Thucydidês, we shall see that in the judgment of that historian, not only Periklês did not bring on the war, but he could not have averted it without such concession as Athenian prudence, as well as Athenian patriotism peremptorily forbade: moreover, we shall see, that the calculations on which Periklês grounded his hopes of success if driven to war, were, in the opinion of the historian, perfectly sound and safe. We may even go farther, and affirm, that the administration of Periklês during the fourteen years preceding the war, exhibits a “moderation,” to use the words of Thucydidês,[311] dictated especially by anxiety to avoid raising causes of war; though in the months immediately preceding the breaking out of the war, after the conduct of the Corinthians at Potidæa, and the resolutions of the congress at Sparta, he resisted strenuously all compliance with special demands from Sparta,—demands essentially insincere, and in which partial compliance would have lowered the dignity of Athens without insuring peace. The stories about Pheidias, Aspasia, and the Megarians, even if we should grant that there is some truth at the bottom of them, must, if we follow Thucydidês, be looked upon at worst as concomitants and pretexts, rather than as real causes, of the war: though modern authors, in speaking of Periklês, are but too apt to use expressions which tacitly assume these stories to be well founded.

[310] Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, b. iii, ch. xv. p. 399, Eng. Trans.

Kutzen, in the second Beylage to his treatise, Periklês als Staatsmann (pp. 169-200), has collected and inserted a list of various characters of Periklês, from twenty different authors, English, French, and German. That of Wachsmuth is the best of the collection,—though even he appears to think that Periklês is to blame for having introduced a set of institutions which none but himself could work well.

[311] Thucyd. ii, 65. ~μετρίως ἐξηγεῖτο~. i, 144. δίκας δὲ ὅτι ἐθέλομεν δοῦναι κατὰ τὰς ξυνθήκας, πολέμου δὲ οὐκ ἄρξομεν, ἀρχομένους δὲ ἀμυνούμεθα.

Seeing then that Periklês did not bring on and could not have averted the Peloponnesian war,—that he steered his course in reference to that event with the long-sighted prudence of one who knew that the safety and the dignity of imperial Athens were essentially interwoven,—we have no right to throw upon him the blame of sacrificing the landed proprietors of Attica. These might, indeed, be excused for complaining, where they suffered so ruinously; but the impartial historian, looking at the whole of the case, cannot admit their complaints as a ground for censuring the Athenian statesman.

The relation of Athens to her allies, the weak point of her position, it was beyond the power of Periklês seriously to amend, probably also beyond his will, since the idea of political incorporation, as well as that of providing a common and equal confederate bond, sustained by effective federal authority between different cities, was rarely entertained even by the best Greek minds.[312] We hear that he tried to summon at Athens a congress of deputies from all cities of Greece, the allies of Athens included;[313] but the scheme could not be brought to bear, in consequence of the reluctance, noway surprising, of the Peloponnesians. Practically, the allies were not badly treated during his administration: and if, among the other bad consequences of the prolonged war, they, as well as Athens, and all other Greeks come to suffer more and more, this depends upon causes with which he is not chargeable, and upon proceedings which departed altogether from his wise and sober calculations. Taking him altogether, with his powers of thought, speech, and action,—his competence, civil and military, in the council as well as in the field,—his vigorous and cultivated intellect, and his comprehensive ideas of a community in pacific and many-sided development,—his incorruptible public morality, caution, and firmness, in a country where all those qualities were rare, and the union of them in the same individual of course much rarer,—we shall find him without a parallel throughout the whole course of Grecian history.

[312] Herodotus (1, 170) mentions that previous to the conquest of the twelve Ionic cities in Asia by Crœsus, Thalês had advised them to consolidate themselves all into one single city government at Teos, and to reduce the existing cities to mere demes or constituent, fractional municipalities,—τὰς δὲ ἄλλας πόλιας οἰκεομένας μηδὲν ἧσσον νομίζεσθαι κατάπερ εἰ δῆμοι εἶεν. It is remarkable to observe that Herodotus himself bestows his unqualified commendation on this idea.

[313] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 17.

Under the great mortality and pressure of sickness at Athens, their operations of war naturally languished; while the enemies also, though more active, had but little success. A fleet of one hundred triremes, with one thousand hoplites on board, was sent by the Lacedæmonians under Knêmus to attack Zakynthus, but accomplished nothing beyond devastation of the open parts of the island, and then returned home. And it was shortly after this, towards the month of September, that the Ambrakiots made an attack upon the Amphilochian town called Argos, situated on the southern coast of the gulf of Ambrakia: which town, as has been recounted in the preceding chapter, had been wrested from them two years before by the Athenians, under Phormio, and restored to the Amphilochians and Akarnanians. The Ambrakiots, as colonists and allies of Corinth, were at the same time animated by active enmity to the Athenian influence in Akarnania, and by desire to regain the lost town of Argos. Procuring aid from the Chaonians, and some other Epirotic tribes, they marched against Argos, and after laying waste the territory, endeavored to take the town by assault, but were repulsed, and obliged to retire.[314] This expedition appears to have impressed the Athenians with the necessity of a standing force to protect their interest in those parts; so that in the autumn Phormio was sent with a squadron of twenty triremes to occupy Naupaktus, now inhabited by the Messenians, as a permanent naval station, and to watch the entrance of the Corinthian gulf.[315] We shall find in the events of the succeeding year ample confirmation of this necessity.

[314] Thucyd. ii, 68.

[315] Thucyd. ii, 69.

Though the Peloponnesians were too inferior in maritime force to undertake formal war at sea against Athens, their single privateers, especially the Megarian privateers from the harbor of Nisæa, were active in injuring her commerce,[316]—and not merely the commerce of Athens, but also that of other neutral Greeks, without scruple or discrimination. Several merchantmen and fishing-vessels, with a considerable number of prisoners, were thus captured.[317] Such prisoners as fell into the hands of the Lacedæmonians,—even neutral Greeks as well as Athenians,—were all put to death, and their bodies cast into clefts of the mountains. In regard to the neutrals, this capture was piratical, and the slaughter unwarrantably cruel, judged even by the received practice of the Greeks, deficient as that was on the score of humanity: but to dismiss these neutral prisoners, or to sell them as slaves, would have given publicity to a piratical capture and provoked the neutral towns, so that the prisoners were probably slain as the best way of getting rid of them and thus suppressing evidence.[318]

[316] Thucyd. iii, 51.

[317] Thucyd. ii, 67-69; Herodot. vii, 137. Respecting the Lacedæmonian privateering during the Peloponnesian war, compare Thucyd. v, 115: compare also Xenophon, Hellen. v, 1, 29.

[318] Thucyd. ii, 67. Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ὕπηρξαν, τοὺς ἐμπόρους οὓς ἔλαβον Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ἐν ὁλκάσι περὶ Πελοπόννησον πλέοντας ἀποκτείναντες καὶ ἐς φάραγγας ἐσβαλόντες. Πάντας γὰρ δὴ κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς τοῦ πολέμου οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ὅσους λάβοιεν ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ, ὡς πολεμίους διέφθειρον, καὶ τοὺς μετὰ Ἀθηναίων ξυμπολεμοῦντας καὶ τοὺς μηδὲ μεθ᾽ ἑτέρων.

The Lacedæmonian admiral Alkidas slew all the prisoners taken on board merchantmen off the coast of Ionia, in the ensuing year (Thucyd. iii, 32). Even this was considered extremely rigorous, and excited strong remonstrance; yet the mariners slain were not neutrals, but belonged to the subject-allies of Athens: moreover, Alkidas was in his flight, and obliged to make choice between killing his prisoners or setting them free.

Some of these Peloponnesian privateers ranged as far as the southwestern coast of Asia Minor, where they found temporary shelter, and interrupted the trading-vessels from Phasêlis and Phenicia to Athens; to protect which, the Athenians despatched, in the course of the autumn, a squadron of six triremes under Melêsander. He was farther directed to insure the collection of the ordinary tribute from Athenian subject-allies, and probably to raise such contributions as he could elsewhere. In the prosecution of this latter duty, he undertook an expedition from the sea-coast against one of the Lykian towns in the interior, but his attack was repelled with loss, and he himself slain.[319]

[319] Thucyd. ii, 69.

An opportunity soon offered itself to the Athenians, of retaliating on Sparta for this cruel treatment of the maritime prisoners. In execution of the idea projected at the commencement of the war, the Lacedæmonians sent Anêristus and two others as envoys to Persia, for the purpose of soliciting from the Great King aids of money and troops against Athens; the dissensions among the Greeks thus gradually paving the way for him to regain his ascendency in the Ægean. Timagoras of Tegea, together with an Argeian named Pollis, without any formal mission from his city, and the Corinthian Aristeus, accompanied them. As the sea was in the power of Athens, they travelled overland through Thrace to the Hellespont; and Aristeus, eager to leave nothing untried for the relief of Potidæa, prevailed upon them to make application to Sitalkês, king of the Odrysian Thracians. That prince was then in alliance with Athens, and his son Sadokus had even received the grant of Athenian citizenship: yet the envoys thought it possible not only to detach him from the Athenian alliance, but even to obtain from him an army to act against the Athenians and raise the blockade of Potidæa,—this being refused, they lastly applied to him for a safe escort to the banks of the Hellespont, in their way towards Persia. But Learchus and Ameiniadês, then Athenian residents near the person of Sitalkês, had influence enough not only to cause rejection of these requests, but also to induce Sadokus, as a testimony of zeal in his new character of Athenian citizen, to assist them in seizing the persons of Aristeus and his companions in their journey through Thrace. Accordingly, the whole party were seized and conducted as prisoners to Athens, where they were forthwith put to death, without trial or permission to speak,—and their bodies cast into rocky chasms, as a reprisal for the captured seamen slain by the Lacedæmonians.[320]

[320] Thucyd. ii. 67. Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. Greece, vol. iii, ch. 20, p. 129) says that “the envoys were sacrificed chiefly to give a decent color to the baseness” of killing Aristeus, from whom the Athenians feared subsequent evil, in consequence of his ability and active spirit. I do not think this is fairly contained in the words of Thucydidês. He puts in the foreground of Athenian motive, doubtless, fear from the future energy of Aristeus; but if that had been the only motive, the Athenians would probably have slain him singly without the rest: they would hardly think it necessary to provide themselves with “any decent color,” in the way that Dr. Thirlwall suggests. Thucydidês names the special feeling of the Athenians against Aristeus (in my judgment), chiefly in order to explain the extreme haste of the Athenian sentence of execution—αὐθήμερον—ἀκρίτους, etc.: they were under the influence of combined motives,—fear, revenge, retaliation.

The envoys here slain were sons of Sperthiês and Bulis, former Spartan heralds who had gone up to Xerxes at Susa to offer their heads as atonement for the previous conduct of the Spartans in killing the heralds of Darius. Xerxes dismissed them unhurt,—so that the anger of Talthybius (the heroic progenitor of the family of heralds at Sparta) remained still unsatisfied: it was only satisfied by the death of their two sons, now slain by the Athenians. The fact that the two persons now slain were sons of those two (Sperthiês and Bulis) who had previously gone to Susa to tender their lives,—is spoken of as a “romantic and tragical coincidence.” But there surely is very little to wonder at. The functions of herald at Sparta, were the privilege of a particular gens, or family: every herald, therefore, was _ex officio_ the son of a herald. Now when the Lacedæmonians, at the beginning of this Peloponnesian war, were looking out for two members of the heraldic gens to send up to Susa, upon whom would they so naturally fix as upon the sons of those two men who had been to Susa before? These sons had doubtless heard their fathers talk a great deal about it,—probably with interest and satisfaction, since they derived great glory from the unaccepted offer of their lives in atonement. There was a particular reason why these two men should be taken, in preference to any other heralds, to fulfil this dangerous mission: and doubtless when they perished in it, the religious imagination of the Lacedæmonians would group all the series of events as consummation of the judgment inflicted by Talthybius in his anger (Herodot. vii, 135—ὡς λέγουσι Λακεδαιμόνιοι).

It appears that Anêristus, the herald here slain, had distinguished himself personally in that capture of fishermen on the coast of Peloponnesus by the Lacedæmonians, for which the Athenians were now retaliating (Herodot. vii, 137). Though this passage of Herodotus is not clear, yet the sense here put upon it is the natural one,—and clearer (in my judgment) than that which O. Müller would propose instead of it (Dorians, ii, p. 437).

Such revenge against Aristeus, the instigator of the revolt of Potidæa, relieved the Athenians from a dangerous enemy; and that blockaded city was now left to its fate. About midwinter it capitulated, after a blockade of two years, and after going through the extreme of suffering from famine, to such a degree that some of those who died were even eaten by the survivors. In spite of such intolerable distress, the Athenian generals, Xenophon son of Euripidês and his two colleagues, admitted them to favorable terms of capitulation,—permitting the whole population and the Corinthian allies to retire freely, with a specified sum of money per head, as well as with one garment for each man and two for each woman,—so that they found shelter among the Chalkidic townships in the neighborhood. These terms were singularly favorable, considering the desperate state of the city, which must very soon have surrendered at discretion: but the hardships, even of the army without, in the cold of winter, were very severe, and they had become thoroughly tired both of the duration and the expense of the siege. The cost to Athens had been not less than two thousand talents; since the assailant force had never been lower than three thousand hoplites, during the entire two years of the siege, and for a portion of the time considerably greater,—each hoplite receiving two drachmas _per diem_. The Athenians at home, when they learned the terms of the capitulation, were displeased with the generals for the indulgence shown,—since a little additional patience would have constrained the city to surrender at discretion: in which case the expense would have been partly made good by selling the prisoners as slaves,—and Athenian vengeance probably gratified by putting the warriors to death.[321] A body of one thousand colonists were sent from Athens to occupy Potidæa and its vacant territory.[322]

[321] Thucyd. ii, 70; iii, 17. However, the displeasure of the Athenians against the commanders cannot have been very serious, since Xenophon was appointed to command against the Chalkidians in the ensuing year.

[322] Diodor. xii, 46.

Two full years had now elapsed since the actual commencement of war, by the attack of the Thebans on Platæa; yet the Peloponnesians had accomplished nothing of what they expected. They had not rescued Potidæa, nor had their twice-repeated invasion, although assisted by the unexpected disasters arising from the epidemic, as yet brought Athens to any sufficient humiliation,—though perhaps the envoys which she had sent during the foregoing summer with propositions for peace, contrary to the advice of Periklês, may have produced an impression that she could not hold out long. At the same time, the Peloponnesian allies had on their side suffered little damage, since the ravages inflicted by the Athenian fleet on their coast may have been nearly compensated by the booty which their invading troops gained in Attica. Probably by this time the public opinion in Greece had contracted an unhappy familiarity with the state of war, so that nothing but some decisive loss and humiliation on one side at least, if not on both, would suffice to terminate it. In this third spring, the Peloponnesians did not repeat their annual march into Attica,—deterred, partly, we may suppose, by fear of the epidemic yet raging there,—but still more by the strong desire of the Thebans to take their revenge on Platæa.

To this ill-fated city, Archidamus marched forthwith, at the head of the confederate army. But no sooner had he entered and begun to lay waste the territory, than the Platæan heralds came forth to arrest his hand, and accosted him in the following terms: “Archidamus, and ye men of Lacedæmon, ye act wrong, and in a manner neither worthy of yourselves nor of your fathers, in thus invading the territory of Platæa. For the Lacedæmonian Pausanias, son of Kleombrotus, after he had liberated Greece from the Persians, in conjunction with those Greeks who stood forward to bear their share of the danger, offered sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherius, in the market-place of Platæa; and there, in presence of all the allies, assigned to the Platæans their own city and territory to hold in full autonomy, so that none should invade them wrongfully, or with a view to enslave them: should such invasion occur, the allies present pledged themselves to stand forward with all their force as protectors. While your fathers made to us this grant, in consideration of our valor and forwardness in that perilous emergency, ye are now doing the precise contrary: ye are come along with our worst enemies, the Thebans, to enslave us. And we on our side now adjure you, calling to witness the gods who sanctioned that oath, as well as your paternal and our local gods, not to violate the oath by doing wrong to the Platæan territory, but to let us live on in that autonomy which Pausanias guaranteed.”[323]

[323] Thucyd. ii, 71, 72.

Whereunto Archidamus replied: “Ye speak fairly, men of Platæa, if your conduct shall be in harmony with your words. Remain autonomous yourselves, as Pausanias granted, and help us to liberate those other Greeks, who, after having shared in the same dangers and sworn the same oath along with you, have now been enslaved by the Athenians. It is for their liberation and that of the other Greeks that this formidable outfit of war has been brought forth. Pursuant to your oaths, ye ought by rights, and we now invite you, to take active part in this object. But if ye cannot act thus, at least remain quiet, conformably to the summons which we have already sent to you; enjoy your own territory, and remain neutral,—receiving both parties as friends, but neither party for warlike purposes. With this we shall be satisfied.”

The reply of Archidamus discloses by allusion a circumstance which the historian had not before directly mentioned; that the Lacedæmonians had sent a formal summons to the Platæans to renounce their alliance with Athens and remain neutral: at what time this took place,[324] we do not know, but it marks the peculiar sentiment attaching to the town. But the Platæans did not comply with the invitation thus twice repeated. The heralds, having returned for instructions into the city, brought back for answer, that compliance was impossible, without the consent of the Athenians, since their wives and families were now harbored at Athens: besides, if they should profess neutrality, and admit both parties as friends, the Thebans might again make an attempt to surprise their city. In reply to their scruples, Archidamus again addressed them: “Well, then, hand over your city and houses to us Lacedæmonians: mark out the boundaries of your territory: specify the number of your fruit-trees, and all your other property which admits of being numbered; and then retire whithersoever ye choose, as long as the war continues. As soon as it is over, we will restore to you all that we have received,—in the interim, we will hold it in trust, and keep it in cultivation, and pay you such an allowance as shall suffice for your wants.”[325]

[324] This previous summons is again alluded to afterwards, on occasion of the slaughter of the Platæan prisoners (iii, 68): διότι ~τόν τε ἄλλον χρόνον~ ἠξίουν δῆθεν, etc.

[325] Thucyd. ii, 73, 74.

The proposition now made was so fair and tempting, that the general body of the Platæans were at first inclined to accept it, provided the Athenians would acquiesce; and they obtained from Archidamus a truce long enough to enable them to send envoys to Athens. After communication with the Athenian assembly, the envoys returned to Platæa, bearing the following answer: “Men of Platæa, the Athenians say they have never yet permitted you to be wronged since the alliance first began,—nor will they now betray you, but will help you to the best of their power. And they adjure you, by the oaths which your fathers swore to them, not to depart in any way from the alliance.”

This message awakened in the bosoms of the Platæans the full force of ancient and tenacious sentiment. They resolved to maintain, at all cost, and even to the extreme of ruin, if necessity should require it, their union with Athens. It was indeed impossible that they could do otherwise, considering the position of their wives and families, without the consent of the Athenians; and though we cannot wonder that the latter refused consent, we may yet remark, that, in their situation, a perfectly generous ally might well have granted it. For the forces of Platæa counted for little as a portion of the aggregate strength of Athens; nor could the Athenians possibly protect it against the superior land-force of their enemies,—in fact, so hopeless was the attempt that they never even tried, throughout the whole course of the long subsequent blockade.

The final refusal of the Platæans was proclaimed to Archidamus, by word of mouth from the walls, since it was not thought safe to send out any messenger. As soon as the Spartan prince heard the answer, he prepared for hostile operations,—apparently with very sincere reluctance, attested in the following invocation, emphatically pronounced:—

“Ye gods and heroes, who hold the Platæan territory, be ye my witnesses, that we have not in the first instance wrongfully—not until these Platæans have first renounced the oaths binding on all of us—invaded this territory, in which our fathers defeated the Persians after prayers to you, and which ye granted as propitious for Greeks to fight in,—nor shall we commit wrong in what we may do farther, for we have taken pains to tender reasonable terms, but without success. Be ye now consenting parties: may those who are beginning the wrong receive punishment for it,—may those who are aiming to inflict penalty righteously, obtain their object.”

It was thus that Archidamus, in language delivered probably under the walls, and within hearing of the citizens who manned them, endeavored to conciliate the gods and heroes of that town which he was about to ruin and depopulate. The whole of this preliminary debate,[326] so strikingly and dramatically set forth by Thucydidês, illustrates forcibly the respectful reluctance with which the Lacedæmonians first brought themselves to assail this scene of the glories of their fathers. What deserves remark is, that their direct sentiment attaches itself, not at all to the Platæan people, but only to the Platæan territory; it is purely local, though it becomes partially transferred to the people, as tenants of this spot, by secondary association. It was, however, nothing but the long-standing antipathy[327] of the Thebans which induced Archidamus to undertake the enterprise; for the conquest of Platæa was of no avail towards the main objects of the war, though its exposed situation caused it to be crushed between the two great contending forces in Greece.

[326] Thucyd. ii, 71-75.

[327] Thucyd. iii, 68.

Archidamus now commenced the siege forthwith, in full hopes that his numerous army, the entire strength of the Peloponnesian confederacy, would soon capture a place of no great size, and probably not very well fortified; yet defended by a resolute garrison of four hundred native citizens, with eighty Athenians: there was no one else in the town except one hundred and ten female slaves for cooking. The fruit-trees, cut down in laying waste the cultivated land, sufficed to form a strong palisade all round the town, so as completely to block up the inhabitants. Next, Archidamus, having abundance of timber near at hand in the forests of Kithæron, began to erect a mound up against a portion of the town wall, so as to be able to march up by an inclined plane, and thus take the place by assault. Wood, stones, and earth, were piled up in a vast heap,—cross palings of wood being carried on each side of it, in parallel lines at right angles to the town wall, for the purpose of keeping the loose mass of materials between them together. For seventy days and as many nights did the army labor at this work, without any intermission, taking turns for food and repose: and through such unremitting assiduity, the mound approached near to the height of the town wall. But as it gradually mounted up, the Platæans were not idle on their side: they constructed an additional wall of wood, which they planted on the top of their own town wall, so as to heighten the part over against the enemy’s mound: sustaining it by brickwork behind, for which the neighboring houses furnished materials: hides, raw as well as dressed, were suspended in front of it, in order to protect their workmen against missiles, and the woodwork against fire-carrying arrows.[328] And as the besiegers still continued heaping up materials, to carry their mound up to the height even of this recent addition, the Platæans met them by breaking a hole in the lower part of their town wall, and pulling in the earth from the lower portion of the mound; which thus gave way at the top and left a vacant space near the wall, until the besiegers filled it up by letting down quantities of stiff clay rolled up in wattled reeds, which could not be pulled away in the same manner. Again, the Platæans dug a subterranean passage from the interior of their town to the ground immediately under the mound, and thus carried away unseen the lower earth belonging to the latter; so that the besiegers saw their mound continually sinking down, in spite of fresh additions at the top,—yet without knowing the reason. Nevertheless, it was plain that these stratagems would be in the end ineffectual, and the Platæans accordingly built a new portion of town wall in the interior, in the shape of a crescent, taking its start from the old town wall on each side of the mound: the besiegers were thus deprived of all benefit from the mound, assuming it to be successfully completed; since when they had marched over it, there stood in front of them a new town wall to be carried in like manner.

[328] Thucyd. ii, 75.

Nor was this the only method of attack employed. Archidamus farther brought up battering engines, one of which greatly shook and endangered the additional height of wall built by the Platæans over against the mound; while others were brought to bear on different portions of the circuit of the town wall. Against these new assailants, various means of defence were used: the defenders on the walls threw down ropes, got hold of the head of the approaching engine, and pulled it by main force out of the right line, either upwards or sideways: or they prepared heavy wooden beams on the wall, each attached to both ends by long iron chains to two poles projecting at right angles from the wall, by means of which poles it was raised up and held aloft: so that at the proper moment, when the battering machine approached the wall, the chain was suddenly let go, and the beam fell down with great violence directly upon the engine and broke off its projecting beak.[329] However rude these defensive processes may seem, they were found effective against the besiegers, who saw themselves, at the close of three months’ unavailing efforts, obliged to renounce the idea of taking the town in any other way than by the process of blockade and famine,—a process alike tedious and costly.[330]

[329] The various processes, such as those here described, employed both for offence and defence in the ancient sieges, are noticed and discussed in Æneas Poliorketic. c. 33, _seq._

[330] Thucyd. ii, 76.

Before they would incur so much inconvenience, however, they had recourse to one farther stratagem,—that of trying to set the town on fire. From the height of their mound, they threw down large quantities of fagots, partly into the space between the mound and the newly-built crescent piece of wall,—partly, as far as they could reach, into other parts of the city: pitch and other combustibles were next added, and the whole mass set on fire. The conflagration was tremendous, such as had never been before seen: a large portion of the town became unapproachable, and the whole of it narrowly escaped destruction. Nothing could have preserved it, had the wind been rather more favorable: there was indeed a farther story, of a most opportune thunder-storm coming to extinguish the flames, which Thucydidês does not seem to credit.[331] In spite of much partial damage, the town remained still defensible, and the spirit of the inhabitants unsubdued.

[331] Thucyd. ii, 77.

There now remained no other resource except to build a wall of circumvallation round Platæa, and trust to the slow process of famine. The task was distributed in suitable fractions among the various confederate cities, and completed about the middle of September, a little before the autumnal equinox.[332] Two distinct walls were constructed, with sixteen feet of intermediate space all covered in, so as to look like one very thick wall: there were, moreover, two ditches, out of which the bricks for the wall had been taken,—one on the inside towards Platæa, and the other on the outside against any foreign relieving force. The interior covered space between the walls was intended to serve as permanent quarters for the troops left on guard, consisting half of Bœotians and half of Peloponnesians.[333]

[332] Thucyd. ii, 78. καὶ ἐπειδὴ πᾶν ἐξείργαστο περὶ Ἀρκτούρου ἐπιτολάς, etc. at the period of the year when the star Arcturus rises immediately before sunrise,—that is, sometime between the 12th and 17th of September: see Göller’s note on the passage. Thucydidês does not often give any fixed marks to discriminate the various periods of the year, as we find it here done. The Greek months were all lunar months, or nominally so: the names of months, as well as the practice of intercalation to rectify the calendar, varied from city to city; so that if Thucydidês had specified the day of the Attic month Boêdromion (instead of specifying the rising of Arcturus) on which this work was finished, many of his readers would not have distinctly understood him. Hippokratês also, in indications of time for medical purposes, employs the appearance of Arcturus and other stars.

[333] Thucyd. ii, 78; iii, 21. From this description of the double wall and covered quarters provided for what was foreknown as a long blockade, we may understand the sufferings of the Athenian troops (who probably had no double wall), in the two years’ blockade of Potidæa,—and their readiness to grant an easy capitulation to the besieged: see a few pages above.

At the same time that Archidamus began the siege of Platæa, the Athenians on their side despatched a force of two thousand hoplites and two hundred horsemen, to the Chalkidic peninsula, under Xenophon son of Euripidês (with two colleagues), the same who had granted so recently the capitulation of Potidæa. It was necessary doubtless, to convoy and establish the new colonists who were about to occupy the deserted site of Potidæa: moreover, the general had acquired some knowledge of the position and parties of the Chalkidic towns, and hoped to be able to act against them with effect. They first invaded the territory belonging to the Bottiæan town of Spartôlus, not without hopes that the city itself would be betrayed to them by intelligences within: but this was prevented by the arrival of an additional force from Olynthus, partly hoplites, partly peltasts. These peltasts, a species of troops between heavy-armed and light-armed, furnished with a pelta (or light shield), and short spear, or javelin, appear to have taken their rise among these Chalkidic Greeks, being equipped in a manner half Greek and half Thracian: we shall find them hereafter much improved and turned to account by some of the ablest Grecian generals. The Chalkidic hoplites are generally of inferior merit: on the other hand, their cavalry and their peltasts are very good: in the action which now took place under the walls of Spartôlus, the Athenian hoplites defeated those of the enemy, but their cavalry and their light troops were completely worsted by the Chalkidic. These latter, still farther strengthened by the arrival of fresh peltasts from Olynthus, ventured even to attack the Athenian hoplites, who thought it prudent to fall back upon the two companies left in reserve to guard the baggage. During this retreat they were harassed by the Chalkidic horse and light-armed, who retired when the Athenians turned upon them, but attacked them on all sides when on their march; and employed missiles so effectively that the retreating hoplites could no longer maintain a steady order, but took to flight, and sought refuge at Potidæa. Four hundred and thirty hoplites, near one-fourth of the whole force, together with all three generals, perished in this defeat, and the expedition returned in dishonor to Athens.[334]

[334] Thucyd. ii, 79.

In the western parts of Greece, the arms of Athens and her allies were more successful. The repulse of the Ambrakiots from the Amphilochian Argos, during the preceding year, had only exasperated them and induced them to conceive still larger plans of aggression against both the Akarnanians and Athenians. In concert with their mother-city Corinth, where they obtained warm support, they prevailed upon the Lacedæmonians to take part in a simultaneous attack of Akarnania, by land as well as by sea, which would prevent the Akarnanians from concentrating their forces in any one point, and put each of their townships upon an isolated self-defence; so that all of them might be overpowered in succession, and detached, together with Kephallênia and Zakynthus, from the Athenian alliance. The fleet of Phormio at Naupaktus, consisting only of twenty triremes, was accounted incompetent to cope with a Peloponnesian fleet such as might be fitted out at Corinth. There was even some hope that the important station at Naupaktus might itself be taken, so as to expel the Athenians completely from those parts.

The scheme of operations now projected was far more comprehensive than anything which the war had yet afforded. The land-force of the Ambrakiots, together with their neighbors and fellow-colonists the Leukadians and Anaktorians, assembled near their own city, while their maritime force was collected at Leukas, on the Akarnanian coast. The force at Ambrakia was joined, not only by Knêmus, the Lacedæmonian admiral, with one thousand Peloponnesian hoplites, who found means to cross over from Peloponnesus, eluding the vigilance of Phormio,—but also by a numerous body of Epirotic and Macedonian auxiliaries, collected even from the distant and northernmost tribes. A thousand Chaonians were present, under the command of Photyus and Nikanor, two annual chiefs chosen from the regal gens. Neither this tribe, nor the Thesprotians who came along with them, acknowledged any hereditary king. The Molossians and Atintânes, who also joined the force, were under Sabylinthus, regent on behalf of the young prince Tharypas. There came, besides, the Paranæi, from the banks of the river Aôus under their king Orœdus, together with one thousand Orestæ, a tribe rather Macedonian than Epirot, sent by their king Antiochus. Even king Perdikkas, though then nominally in alliance with Athens, sent one thousand of his Macedonian subjects, who, however, arrived too late to be of any use.[335] This large and diverse body of Epirotic invaders, a new phenomenon in Grecian history, and got together doubtless by the hopes of plunder, proves the extensive relations of the tribes of the interior with the city of Ambrakia,—a city destined to become in later days the capital of the Epirotic king Pyrrhus.

[335] Thucyd. ii, 80.

It had been concerted that the Peloponnesian fleet from Corinth should join that already assembled at Leukas, and act upon the coast of Akarnania at the same time that the land-force marched into that territory. But Knêmus finding the land-force united and ready, near Ambrakia, deemed it unnecessary to await the fleet from Corinth, and marched straight into Akarnania, through Limnæa, a frontier village territory belonging to the Amphilochian Argos. He directed his march upon Stratus,—an interior town, and the chief place in Akarnania,—the capture of which would be likely to carry with it the surrender of the rest; especially as the Akarnanians, distracted by the presence of the ships at Leukas, and alarmed by the large body of invaders on their frontier, did not dare to leave their own separate homes, so that Stratus was left altogether to its own citizens. Nor was Phormio, though they sent an urgent message to him, in any condition to help them; since he could not leave Naupaktus unguarded, when the large fleet from Corinth was known to be approaching. Under such circumstances, Knêmus and his army indulged the most confident hopes of overpowering Stratus without difficulty. They marched in three divisions: the Epirots in the centre,—the Leukadians and Anaktorians on the right,—the Peloponnesians and Ambrakiots, together with Knêmus himself, on the left. So little expectation was entertained of resistance, that these three divisions took no pains to keep near or even in sight of each other. Both the Greek divisions, indeed, maintained a good order of march, and kept proper scouts on the look out; but the Epirots advanced without any care or order whatever; especially the Chaonians, who formed the van. These men, accounted the most warlike of all the Epirotic tribes, were so full of conceit and rashness, that when they approached near to Stratus, they would not halt to encamp and assail the place conjointly with the Greeks; but marched along with the other Epirots right forward to the town, intending to attack it single-handed, and confident that they should carry it at the first assault, before the Greeks came up, so that the entire glory would be theirs. The Stratians watched and profited by this imprudence. Planting ambuscades in convenient places, and suffering the Epirots to approach without suspicion near to the gates, they then suddenly sallied out and attacked them, while the troops in ambuscade rose up and assailed them at the same time. The Chaonians who formed the van, thus completely surprised, were routed with great slaughter; while the other Epirots fled, after but little resistance. So much had they hurried forward in advance of their Greek allies, that neither the right nor the left division were at all aware of the battle, until the flying barbarians, hotly pursued by the Akarnanians, made it known to them. The two divisions then joined, protected the fugitives, and restrained farther pursuit,—the Stratians declining to come to hand-combat with them until the other Akarnanians should arrive. They seriously annoyed the forces of Knêmus, however, by distant slinging, in which the Akarnanians were preëminently skilful; nor did Knêmus choose to persist in his attack under such discouraging circumstances. As soon as night arrived, so that there was no longer any fear of slingers, he retreated to the river Anapus, a distance of between nine and ten miles. Well aware that the news of the victory would attract other Akarnanian forces immediately to the aid of Stratus, he took advantage of the arrival of his own Akarnanian allies from Œniadæ (the only town in the country which was attached to the Lacedæmonian interest), and sought shelter near their city. From thence his troops dispersed, and returned to their respective homes.[336]

[336] Thucyd. ii, 82; Diodor. xii, 48.

Meanwhile, the Peloponnesian fleet from Corinth, which had been destined to coöperate with Knêmus off the coast of Akarnania, had found difficulties in its passage, alike unexpected and insuperable. Mustering forty-seven triremes of Corinth, Sikyon, and other places, with a body of soldiers on board, and with accompanying store-vessels,—it departed from the harbor of Corinth, and made its way along the northern coast of Achaia. Its commanders, not intending to meddle with Phormio and his twenty ships at Naupaktus, never for a moment imagined that he would venture to attack a number so greatly superior: the triremes were, accordingly, fitted out more as transports for numerous soldiers than with any view to naval combat,—and with little attention to the choice of skilful rowers.[337]

[337] Thucyd. ii, 83. οὐχ ὡς ἐπὶ ναυμαχίαν, ἀλλὰ στρατιωτικώτερον παρεσκευασμένοι: compare the speech of Knêmus, c. 87. The unskilfulness of the rowers is noticed (c. 84).

Except in the combat near Korkyra, and there only partially, the Peloponnesians had never yet made actual trial of Athenian maritime efficiency, at the point of excellence which it had now reached: themselves retaining the old unimproved mode of fighting and of working ships at sea, they had no practical idea of the degree to which it had been superseded by Athenian training. Among the Athenians, on the contrary, not only the seamen generally had a confirmed feeling of their own superiority,—but Phormio especially, the ablest of all their captains, always familiarized his men with the conviction, that no Peloponnesian fleet, be its number ever so great, could possibly contend against them with success.[338] Accordingly, the Corinthian admirals, Machaon and his two colleagues, were surprised to observe that Phormio with his small Athenian squadron, instead of keeping safe in Naupaktus, was moving in parallel line with them and watching their progress until they should get out of the Corinthian gulf into the more open sea. Having advanced along the northern coast of Peloponnesus as far as Patræ in Achaia, they then altered their course, and bore to the northwest in order to cross over towards the Ætolian coast, in their way to Akarnania. In doing this, however, they perceived that Phormio was bearing down upon them from Chalkis and the mouth of the river Euenus, and they now discovered for the first time that he was going to attack them. Disconcerted by this incident, and not inclined for a naval combat in the wide and open sea, they altered their plan of passage, returned to the coast of Peloponnesus, and brought to for the night at some point near to Rhium, the narrowest breadth of the strait. Their bringing to was a mere feint intended to deceive Phormio, and induce him to go back for the night to his own coast: for, during the course of the night, they left their station, and tried to get across the breadth of the gulf, where it was near the strait, and comparatively narrow, before Phormio could come down upon them: and if the Athenian captain had really gone back to take night-station on his own coast, they would probably have got across to the Ætolian or northern coast without any molestation in the wide sea: but he watched their movements closely, kept the sea all night, and was thus enabled to attack them in mid-channel, even during the shorter passage near the strait, at the first dawn of morning.[339] On seeing his approach, the Corinthian admirals ranged their triremes in a circle with the prows outward, like the spokes of a wheel; the circle was made as large as it could be without leaving opportunity to the Athenian assailing ships to practise the manœuvre of the diekplus,[340] and the interior space was sufficient, not merely for the store-vessels, but also for five chosen triremes, who were kept as a reserve, to dart out when required through the intervals between the outer triremes.

[338] Thucyd. ii, 88. πρότερον μὲν γὰρ ~ἀεὶ αὐτοῖς ἔλεγε~ (Phormio) καὶ προπαρεσκεύαζε τὰς γνώμας, ὡς οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς πλῆθος νεῶν τοσοῦτον, ἢν ἐπιπλέῃ, ὅ,τι οὐχ ὑπομενετέον αὐτοῖς ἐστί· καὶ οἱ στρατιῶται ἐκ πολλοῦ ἐν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς τὴν ἀξίωσιν ταύτην εἰλήφεσαν, ~μηδένα ὄχλον Ἀθηναῖοι ὄντες Πελοποννησίων νεῶν ὑποχωρεῖν~.

This passage is not only remarkable as it conveys the striking persuasion entertained by the Athenians of their own naval superiority, but also as it discloses the frank and intimate communication between the Athenian captain and his seamen,—so strongly pervading and determining the feelings of the latter. Compare what is told respecting the Syracusan Hermokratês, Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 30.

[339] Thucyd. ii, 83. Ἐπειδὴ μέντοι ἀντιπαραπλέοντάς τε ἑώρων αὐτοὺς (that is, when the Corinthians saw the Athenian ships) παρὰ γῆν σφῶν κομιζομένων, καὶ ἐκ Πατρῶν τῆς Ἀχαΐας πρὸς τὴν ἀντιπέρας ἤπειρον διαβαλλόντων ἐπὶ Ἀκαρνανίας κατεῖδον τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἀπὸ τῆς Χαλκίδος καὶ τοῦ Εὐήνου ποταμοῦ προσπλέοντας σφίσι, ~καὶ οὐκ ἔλαθον νυκτὸς ὐφορμισάμενοι~, οὕτω δὴ ἀναγκάζονται ναυμαχεῖν κατὰ μέσον τὸν πορθμόν.

There is considerable difficulty in clearly understanding what was here done, especially what is meant by the words οὐκ ἔλαθον νυκτὸς ὐφορμισάμενοι, which words the Scholiast construed as if the nominative case to ἔλαθον were οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, whereas the natural structure of the sentence, as well as the probabilities of fact, lead the best commentators to consider οἱ Πελοποννήσιοι as the nominative case to that verb. The remark of the Scholiast, however, shows us, that the difficulty of understanding the sentence dates from ancient times.

Dr. Arnold—whose explanation is adopted by Poppo and Göller—says: “The two fleets were moving parallel to one another along the opposite shores of the Corinthian gulf. But even when they had sailed out of the strait at Rhium, the opposite shores were still so near, that the Peloponnesians hoped to cross over without opposition, if they could so far deceive the Athenians, as to the spot where they brought to for the night, as to induce them either to stop too soon, or to advance too far, that they might not be exactly opposite to them to intercept the passage. If they could lead the Athenians to think that they meant to advance in the night beyond Patræ, the Athenian fleet was likely to continue its own course along the northern shore, to be ready to intercept them when they should endeavor to run across to Acarnania. But the Athenians, aware that they had stopped at Patræ, stopped themselves at Chalkis, instead of proceeding further to the westward; and thus were so nearly opposite to them, that the Peloponnesians had not time to get more than half-way across, before they found themselves encountered by their watchful enemy.”

This explanation seems to me not satisfactory, nor does it take account of all the facts of the case. The first belief of the Peloponnesians was, that Phormio would not dare to attack them at all: accordingly, having arrived at Patræ, they stretched from thence across the gulf to the mouth of the Euenus,—the natural way of proceeding according to ancient navigation,—going in the direction of Akarnania (ἐπὶ Ἀκαρνανίας). As they were thus stretching across, they perceived Phormio bearing down upon them from the Euenus: this was a surprise to them, and as they wished to avoid a battle in the mid-channel, they desisted from proceeding farther that day, in hopes to be able to deceive Phormio in respect of their night-station. They made a feint of taking night-station on the shore between Patræ and Rhium, near the narrow part of the strait; but, in reality, they “slipped anchor and put to sea during the night,” as Mr. Bloomfield says, in hopes of getting across the shorter passage under favor of darkness, before Phormio could come upon them. That they must have done this is proved by the fact, that the subsequent battle was fought on the morrow in the mid-channel _very little after daybreak_ (we learn this from what Thucydidês says about the gulf-breeze, for which Phormio waited before he would commence his attack—ὅπερ ἀναμένων τε περιέπλει, καὶ εἰώθει γίγνεσθαι ~ἐπι τὴν ἕω~). If Phormio had returned to Chalkis, they would probably have succeeded; but he must have kept the sea all night, which would be the natural proceeding of a vigilant captain, determined not to let the Peloponnesians get across without fighting: so that he was upon them in the mid-channel immediately that day broke.

Putting all the statements of Thucydidês together, we may be convinced that this is the way in which the facts occurred. But of the precise sense of ὐφορμισάμενοι, I confess I do not feel certain: Haack says, it means “clam appellere ad littus,” but here, I think, that sense will not do: for the Peloponnesians did not wish, and could indeed hardly hope, to conceal from Phormio the spot where they brought to for the night, and to make him suppose that they brought to at some point of the shore west of Patræ, when in reality they passed the night in Patræ,—which is what Dr. Arnold supposes. The shore west of Patræ makes a bend to the southwest,—forming the gulf of Patras,—so that the distance from the northern, or Ætolian and Akarnanian, side of the gulf becomes for a considerable time longer and longer, and the Peloponnesians would thus impose upon themselves a longer crossing, increasing the difficulty of getting over without a battle. But ὐφορμισάμενοι may reasonably be supposed to mean, especially in conjunction with οὐκ ἔλαθον, “taking up a simulated or imperfect night-station,” in which they did not really intend to stay all night, and which could be quitted at short notice and with ease. The preposition ὑπὸ, in composition, would thus have the sense, not of _secrecy_ (_clam_) but of _sham-performance_, or of mere going through the forms of an act for the purpose of making a false impression (like ὑποφέρειν, Xenoph. Hell. iv, 72). Mr. Bloomfield proposes conjecturally ἀφορμισάμενοι, meaning, “that the Peloponnesians slipped their anchors in the night:” I place no faith in the conjecture, but I believe him to be quite right in supposing, that the Peloponnesians _did actually_ slip their anchors in the night.

Another point remains to be adverted to. The battle took place κατὰ μέσον τὸν πορθμόν. Now we need not understand this expression to allude to the narrowest part of the sea, or the strait, strictly and precisely; that is, the line of seven stadia between Rhium and Antirrhium. But I think we must understand it to mean a portion of sea not far westward of the strait, where the breadth, though greater than that of the strait itself, is yet not so great as it becomes in the line drawn northward from Patræ. We cannot understand πορθμὸς (as Mr. Bloomfield and Poppo do,—see the note of the latter on the Scholia) to mean _trajectus_ simply, that is to say, the passage across even the widest portion of the gulf of Patras: nor does the passage cited out of c. 86 require us so to understand it. Πορθμὸς, in Thucydidês, means a strait, or narrow crossing of sea, and Poppo himself admits that Thucydidês always uses it so: nor would it be reasonable to believe that he would call the line of sea across the gulf, from Patræ to the mouth of the Euenus, a πορθμός. See the note of Göller, on this point.

[340] Thucyd. ii, 86. μὴ δíδοντες διέκπλουν. The great object of the fast-sailing Athenian trireme was, to drive its beak against some weak part of the adversary’s ship: the stern, the side, or the oars,—not against the beak, which was strongly constructed as well for defence as for offence. The Athenian, therefore, rowing through the intervals of the adversary’s line, and thus getting in their rear, turned rapidly, and got the opportunity, before the ship of the adversary could change its position, of striking it either in the stern or some weak part. Such a manœuvre was called the _diekplus_. The success of it, of course, depended upon the extreme rapidity and precision of the movements of the Athenian vessel, so superior in this respect to its adversary, not only in the better construction of the ship, but the excellence of rowers and steersmen.

In this position they were found and attacked shortly after daybreak, by Phormio, who bore down upon them with his ships in single file, all admirable sailors, and his own ship leading; all being strictly forbidden to attack until he should give the signal. He rowed swiftly round the Peloponnesian circle, nearing the prows of their ships as closely as he could, and making constant semblance of being about to come to blows. Partly from the intimidating effect of this manœuvre, altogether novel to the Peloponnesians,—partly from the natural difficulty, well known to Phormio, of keeping every ship in its exact stationary position,—the order of the circle, both within and without, presently became disturbed. It was not long before a new ally came to his aid, on which he fully calculated, postponing his actual attack until this favorable incident occurred. The strong land-breeze out of the gulf of Corinth, always wont to begin shortly after daybreak, came down upon the Peloponnesian fleet with its usual vehemence, at a moment when the steadiness of their order was already somewhat giving way, and forced their ships more than ever out of proper relation one to the other. The triremes began to run foul of each other, or become entangled with the store-vessels: so that in every ship the men aboard were obliged to keep pushing off their neighbors on each side with poles,—not without loud clamor and mutual reproaches, which prevented both the orders of the captain, and the cheering sound or song whereby the keleustês animated the rowers and kept them to time, from being at all audible. Moreover, the fresh breeze had occasioned such a swell, that these rowers, unskilful under all circumstances, could not get their oars clear of the water, and the pilots thus lost all command over their vessels.[341] The critical moment was now come, and Phormio gave the signal for attack. He first drove against and disabled one of the admiral’s ships,—his comrades next assailed others with equal success,—so that the Peloponnesians, confounded and terrified, attempted hardly any resistance, but broke their order and sought safety in flight. They fled partly to Patræ, partly to Dymê, in Achaia, pursued by the Athenians; who, with scarcely the loss of a man, captured twelve triremes, took aboard and carried away almost the entire crews, and sailed off with them to Molykreium, or Antirrhium, the northern cape at the narrow mouth of the Corinthian gulf, opposite to the corresponding cape called Rhium in Achaia. Having erected at Antirrhium a trophy for the victory, dedicating one of the captive triremes to Poseidon, they returned to Naupaktus; while the Peloponnesian ships sailed along the shore from Patræ to Kyllênê, the principal port in the territory of Elis. They were here soon afterwards joined by Knêmus, who passed over with his squadron from Leukas.[342]

[341] See Dr. Arnold’s note upon this passage of Thucydidês, respecting the keleustês and his functions: to the passages which he indicates as reference, I will add two more of Plautus, Mercat. iv, 2, 5, and Asinaria, iii, 1, 15.

When we conceive the structure of an ancient trireme, we shall at once see, first, how essential the keleustês was, to keep the rowers in harmonious action,—next, how immense the difference must have been between practised and unpractised rowers. The trireme had, in all, one hundred and seventy rowers, distributed into three tiers. The upper tier, called thranitæ, were sixty-two in number, or thirty-one on each side: the middle tier, or zygitæ, as well as the lowest tier, or thalamitæ, were each fifty-four in number, or twenty-seven on each side. Besides these, there were belonging to each trireme a certain number, seemingly about thirty, of supplementary oars (κῶπαι περινέω), to be used by the epibatæ, or soldiers, serving on board, in case of rowers being killed, or oars broken. Each tier of rowers was distributed along the whole length of the vessel, from head to stern, or at least along the greater part of it; but the seats of the higher tiers were not placed in the exact perpendicular line above the lower. Of course, the oars of the thranitæ, or uppermost tier, were the longest: those of the thalamitæ, or lowest tier, the shortest: those of the zygitæ, of a length between the two. Each oar was rowed only by one man. The thranitæ, as having the longest oars, were most hardly worked and most highly paid. What the length of the oars was, belonging to either tier, we do not know, but some of the supplementary oars appear to have been about fifteen feet in length.

What is here stated, appears to be pretty well ascertained, chiefly from the inscriptions discovered at Athens a few years ago, so full of information respecting the Athenian marine,—and from the most instructive commentary appended to these inscriptions by M. Boeckh, Seewesen der Athener, ch. ix, pp. 94, 104, 115. But there is a great deal still, respecting the equipment of an ancient trireme, unascertained and disputed.

Now there was nothing but the voice of the keleustês to keep these one hundred and seventy rowers all to good time with their strokes. With oars of different length, and so many rowers, this must have been no easy matter, and apparently quite impossible, unless the rowers were trained to act together. The difference between those who were so trained and those who were not, must have been immense. We may imagine the difference between the ships of Phormio and those of his enemies, and the difficulty of the latter in contending with the swell of the sea,—when we read this description of the ancient trireme.

About two hundred men, that is to say, one hundred and seventy rowers and thirty supernumeraries, mostly epibatæ or hoplites serving on board, besides the pilot, the man at the ship’s bow, the keleustês, etc., probably some half dozen officers, formed the crew of a trireme: compare Herodot. viii, 17; vii, 184, where he calculates the thirty epibatæ over and above the two hundred. Dr. Arnold thinks that, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the epibatæ on board an Athenian trireme were no more than ten: but this seems not quite made out: see his note on Thucyd. iii, 95.

The Venetian galleys in the thirteenth century were manned by about the same number of men. “Les galères Vénitiens du convoi de Flandre devaient être montées par deux cent hommes libres, dont 180 rameurs, et 12 archers. Les arcs ou balistes furent préscrits en 1333 pour toutes les galères de commerce armées.” (Depping, Histoire du Commerce entre le Levant et l’Europe, vol. i, p. 163.)

[342] Thucyd. ii, 84.

These two incidents, just recounted, with their details,—the repulse of Knêmus and his army from Stratus, and the defeat of the Peloponnesian fleet by Phormio,—afford ground for some interesting remarks. The first of the two displays the great inferiority of the Epirots to the Greeks,—and even to the less advanced portion of the Greeks,—in the qualities of order, discipline, steadiness, and power of coöperation for a joint purpose. Confidence of success with them is exaggerated into childish rashness, so that they despise even the commonest precautions either in march or attack; while the Greek divisions on their right and on their left are never so elate as to omit either. If, on land, we thus discover the inherent superiority of Greeks over Epirots involuntarily breaking out,—so in the sea-fight we are no less impressed with the astonishing superiority of the Athenians over their opponents; a superiority, indeed, noway inherent, such as that of Greeks over Epirots, but depending in this case on previous toil, training, and inventive talent, on the one side, compared with neglect and old-fashioned routine on the other. Nowhere does the extraordinary value of that seamanship, which the Athenians had been gaining by years of improved practice, stand so clearly marked as in these first battles of Phormio. It gradually becomes less conspicuous as we advance in the war, since the Peloponnesians improve, learning seamanship as the Russians, under Peter the Great, learned the art of war from the Swedes, under Charles the Twelfth,—while the Athenian triremes and their crews seem to become less choice and effective, even before the terrible disaster at Syracuse, and are irreparably deteriorated after that misfortune.

To none did the circumstances of this memorable sea-fight seem so incomprehensible as to the Lacedæmonians. They had heard, indeed, of the seamanship of Athens, but had never felt it, and could not understand what it meant: so they imputed the defeat to nothing but disgraceful cowardice, and sent indignant orders to Knêmus at Kyllênê, to take the command, equip a larger and better fleet, and repair the dishonor. Three Spartan commissioners—Brasidas, Timokratês, and Lykophron—were sent down to assist him with their advice and exertions in calling together naval contingents from the different allied cities: and by this means, under the general resentment occasioned by the recent defeat, a large fleet of seventy-seven triremes was speedily mustered at Panormus,—a harbor of Achaia near to the promontory of Rhium, and immediately within the interior gulf. A land-force was also collected at the same place ashore, to aid the operations of the fleet. Such preparations did not escape the vigilance of Phormio, who transmitted to Athens news of his victory, at the same time urgently soliciting reinforcements to contend with the increasing strength of the enemy. The Athenians immediately sent twenty fresh ships to join him: but they were induced by the instances of a Kretan named Nikias, their proxenus at Gortyn, to allow him to take the ships first to Krete, on the faith of his promise to reduce the hostile town of Kydonia. He had made this promise as a private favor to the inhabitants of Polichna, border enemies of Kydonia; but when the fleet arrived he was unable to fulfil it: nothing was effected except ravage of the Kydonian lands, and the fleet was long prevented by adverse winds and weather from getting away.[343] This ill-advised diversion of the fleet from its straight course to join Phormio is a proof how much the counsels of Athens were beginning to suffer from the loss of Periklês, who was just now in his last illness and died shortly afterwards. That liability to be seduced by novel enterprises and projects of acquisition, against which he so emphatically warned his countrymen,[344] was even now beginning to manifest its disastrous consequences.

[343] Thucyd. ii, 85.

[344] Thucyd. i, 144. Πολλὰ δὲ καὶ ἄλλα ἔχω ἐς ἐλπίδα τοῦ περιέσεσθαι, ἢν ἐθέλητε ἀρχήν τε μὴ ἐπικτᾶσθαι ἅμα πολεμοῦντες, καὶ κινδύνους αὐθαιρέτους μὴ προστίθεσθαι· μᾶλλον γὰρ πεφόβημαι τὰς οἰκείας ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίας ἢ τὰς τῶν ἐναντίων διανοίας.

Through the loss of this precious interval, Phormio now found himself, with no more than his original twenty triremes, opposed to the vastly increased forces of the enemy,—seventy-seven triremes, with a large force on land to back them: the latter, no mean help in ancient warfare. He took up his station near the Cape Antirrhium, or the Molykric Rhium, as it was called,—the opposite cape to the Achaic Rhium: the line between them, seemingly about an English mile in breadth, forms the entrance of the Corinthian gulf. The Messenian force from Naupaktus attended him, and served on land. But he kept on the outside of the gulf, anxious to fight in a large and open breadth of sea, which was essential to Athenian manœuvring: while his adversaries on their side remained on the inside of the Achaic cape, from the corresponding reason,—feeling that to them the narrow sea was advantageous, as making the naval battle like to a land battle, effacing all superiority of nautical skill.[345] If we revert back to the occasion of the battle of Salamis, we find that narrowness of space was at that time accounted the best of all protections for a smaller fleet against a larger. But such had been the complete change of feeling, occasioned by the system of manœuvring introduced since that period in the Athenian navy, that amplitude of sea room is now not less coveted by Phormio than dreaded by his enemies. The improved practice of Athens had introduced a revolution in naval warfare.

[345] Thucyd. ii, 86-89: compare vii, 36-49.

For six or seven days successively, the two fleets were drawn out against each other,—Phormio trying to entice the Peloponnesians to the outside of the gulf, while they on their side did what they could to bring him within it.[346] To him, every day’s postponement was gain, since it gave him a new chance of his reinforcements arriving: for that very reason, the Peloponnesian commanders were eager to accelerate an action, and at length resorted to a well-laid plan for forcing it on. But in spite of immense numerical superiority, such was the discouragement and reluctance, prevailing among their seamen, many of whom had been actual sufferers in the recent defeat,—that Knêmus and Brasidas had to employ emphatic exhortations; insisting on the favorable prospect before them,—pointing out that the late battle had been lost only by mismanagement and imprudence, which would be for the future corrected,—and appealing to the inherent bravery of the Peloponnesian warrior. They concluded by a hint, that while those who behaved well in the coming battle would receive due honor, the laggards would assuredly be punished:[347] a topic rarely touched upon by ancient generals in their harangues on the eve of battle, and demonstrating conspicuously the reluctance of many of the Peloponnesian seamen, who had been brought to the fight again chiefly by the ascendency and strenuous commands of Sparta. To this reluctance Phormio pointedly alluded, in the encouraging exhortations which he on his side addressed to his men: for they too, in spite of their habitual confidence at sea, strengthened by the recent victory, were dispirited by the smallness of their numbers. He reminded them of their long practice and rational conviction of superiority at sea, such as no augmentation of numbers, especially with an enemy conscious of his own weakness, could overbalance: and he called upon them to show their habitual discipline and quick apprehension of orders, and above all to perform their regular movements in perfect silence during the actual battle,[348]—useful in all matters of war, and essential to the proper conduct of a sea-fight. The idea of entire silence on board the Athenian ships while a sea-fight was going on, is not only striking as a feature in the picture, but is also one of the most powerful evidences of the force of self-control and military habits among these citizen-seamen.

[346] Thucyd. ii, 86.

[347] Thucyd. ii, 87. Τῶν δὲ πρότερον ἡγεμόνων οὐ χεῖρον τὴν ἐπιχείρησιν ἡμεῖς παρασκευάσομεν, καὶ οὐκ ἐνδώσομεν πρόφασιν οὐδενὶ κακῷ γενέσθαι· ἢν δέ τις ἄρα καὶ βουληθῇ, κολασθήσεται τῇ πρεπούσῃ ζημίᾳ, οἱ δὲ ἀγαθοὶ τιμήσονται τοῖς προσήκουσιν ἄθλοις τῆς ἀρετῆς.

[348] Thucyd. ii, 89. Καὶ ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ ~κόσμον καὶ σιγὴν~ περὶ πλείστου ἡγεῖσθε, ὃ ἔς τε τὰ πολλὰ τῶν πολεμικῶν ξυμφέρει, καὶ ναυμαχίᾳ οὐχ ἥκιστα, etc.

The habitual position of the Peloponnesian fleet off Panormus was within the strait, but nearly fronting the breadth of it,—opposite to Phormio, who lay on the outer side of the strait, as well as off the opposite cape: in the Peloponnesian line, therefore, the right wing occupied the north, or northeast side towards Naupaktus. Knêmus and Brasidas now resolved to make a forward movement up the gulf, as if against that town, which was the main Athenian station; for they knew that Phormio would be under the necessity of coming to the defence of the place, and they hoped to pin him up and force him to action close under the land, where Athenian manœuvring would be unavailing. Accordingly, they commenced this movement early in the morning, sailing in line of four abreast towards the northern coast of the inner gulf; the right squadron, under the Lacedæmonian Timokratês, was in the van, according to its natural position,[349] and care had been taken to place in it twenty of the best sailing ships, since the success of the plan of action was known beforehand to depend upon their celerity. As they had foreseen, Phormio the moment he saw their movement, put his men on shipboard, and rowed into the interior of the strait, though with the greatest reluctance; for the Messenians were on land alongside of him, and he knew that Naupaktus, with their wives and families, and a long circuit of wall,[350] was utterly undefended. He ranged his ships in line of battle ahead, probably his own the leading ship; and sailed close along the land towards Naupaktus, while the Messenians marching ashore kept near to him. Both fleets were thus moving in the same direction, and towards the same point, the Athenian close along shore, the Peloponnesians somewhat farther off.[351] The latter had now got Phormio into the position which they wished, pinned up against the land, with no room for tactics. On a sudden the signal was given, and the whole Peloponnesian fleet facing to the left, changed from column into line, and instead of continuing to sail along the coast, rowed rapidly with their prows shore-ward to come to close quarters with the Athenians. The right squadron of the Peloponnesians occupying the side towards Naupaktus, was especially charged with the duty of cutting off the Athenians from all possibility of escaping thither; and the best ships had been placed on the right for that important object. As far as the commanders were concerned, the plan of action completely succeeded; the Athenians were caught in a situation where resistance was impossible, and had no chance of escape except in flight. But so superior were they in rapid movement even to the best Peloponnesians, that eleven ships, the headmost out of the twenty, just found means to run by,[352] before the right wing of the enemy closed in upon the shore; and made the best of their way to Naupaktus. The remaining nine ships were caught and driven ashore with serious damage,—their crews being partly slain, partly escaping by swimming. The Peloponnesians towed off one trireme with its entire crew, and some others empty; but more than one of them was rescued by the bravery of the Messenian hoplites, who, in spite of their heavy panoply, rushed into the water and got aboard them, fighting from the decks and driving off the enemy even after the rope had been actually made fast, and the process of dragging off had begun.[353]

[349] Thucyd. ii, 90. ἐπὶ τεσσάρων ταξάμενοι τὰς ναῦς. Matthiæ in his Grammar (sect. 584), states that ἐπὶ τεσσάρων means “four deep,” and cites this passage of Thucydidês as an instance of it. But the words certainly mean here _four abreast_; though it is to be recollected that a column four abreast, when turned into line, becomes four deep.

[350] Thucyd. iii, 102.

[351] Thucyd. ii, 90. Οἱ δὲ Πελοποννήσιοι, ἐπειδὴ αὐτοῖς οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οὐκ ἐπέπλεον ἐς τὸν κόλπον καὶ τὰ στενὰ, βουλόμενοι ἄκοντας ἔσω προαγαγεῖν αὐτοὺς, ἀναγόμενοι ἅμα ἕῳ ἔπλεον, ἐπὶ τεσσάρων ταξάμενοι τὰς ναῦς, ~ἐπὶ τὴν ἑαυτῶν γῆν ἔσω~ ἐπὶ τοῦ κόλπου, δεξιῷ κέρᾳ ἡγουμένῳ, ὥσπερ καὶ ὥρμουν· ἐπὶ δ᾽ αὐτῷ εἴκοσι νῆας ἔταξαν τὰς ἄριστα πλεούσας, ὅπως, εἰ ἄρα νομίσας ἐπὶ τὴν Ναύπακτον αὐτοὺς πλεῖν ὁ Φορμίων καὶ αὐτὸς ἐπιβοηθῶν ταύτῃ παραπλέοι, μὴ διαφύγοιεν πλέοντα τὸν ἐπίπλουν σφῶν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ~ἔξω τοῦ ἑαυτῶν κέρως~, ἀλλ᾽ αὗται αἱ νῆες περικλῄσειαν.

It will be seen that I have represented in the text the movement of the Peloponnesian fleet as directed ostensibly and to all appearance against Naupaktus: and I translate the words in the fourth line of the above passage—ἐπὶ τὴν ἑαυτῶν γῆν ἔσω ἐπὶ τοῦ κόλπου—as meaning “_against the station of the Athenians up the gulf within_,” that is, against Naupaktus. Mr. Bloomfield gives that meaning to the passage, though not to the words; but the Scholiast, Dr. Arnold, Poppo, and Göller, all construe it differently, and maintain that the words τὴν ἐαυτῶν γῆν mean _the Peloponnesian shore_. To my view, this latter interpretation renders the whole scheme of the battle confused and unintelligible; while with the other meaning it is perfectly clear, and all the circumstances fit in with each other.

Dr. Arnold does not seem even to admit that τὴν ἑαυτῶν γῆν can mean anything else but the coast of Peloponnesus. He says: “The Scholiast says that ἐπὶ is here used for παρά. It would be better to say that it has a mixed signification of motion towards a place and neighborhood to it: expressing that the Peloponnesians sailed _towards_ their own land (_i. e._ towards Corinth, Sikyon, and Pellênê, to which places the greater number of the ships belonged), instead of standing over to the opposite coast, which belonged to their enemies: and at the same time kept close _upon_ their own land, in the sense of ἐπὶ with a dative case.”

It appears to me that Dr. Arnold’s supposition of Corinth and Sikyon as the meaning of τὴν ἑαυτῶν γῆν is altogether far-fetched and improbable. As a matter of fact, it would only be true of part of the confederate fleet; while it would be false with regard to ships from Elis, Leukas, etc. And if it had been true with regard to all, yet the distance of Corinth from the Peloponnesian station was so very great, that Thucydidês would hardly mark _direction_ by referring to a city so very far off. Then again, both the Scholiast and Dr. Arnold do great violence to the meaning of the preposition ἐπὶ with an accusative case, and cite no examples to justify it. What the sense of ἐπὶ is with an accusative case signifying locality, is shown by Thucydidês in this very passage.—εἰ ἄρα νομίσας ~ἐπὶ τὴν Ναύπακτον~ αὐτοὺς πλεῖν ὁ Φορμίων, etc. (again, c. 85. ἐπὶ Κυδωνίαν πλεῦσαι; and i. 29, ἐπὶ Ἐπίδαμνον, etc.—ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν αὐτοῦ of Perdikkas, i, 57), that is, against, or to go thither with a hostile purpose. So sensible does the Scholiast seem to be of this, that he affirms ἐπὶ to be used instead of παρά. This is a most violent supposition, for nothing can be more different than the two phrases ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν and παρὰ τὴν γῆν. Dr. Arnold again assigns to ἐπὶ with an accusative case another sense, which he himself admits that it only has with a dative.

I make these remarks with a view to show that the sense which Dr. Arnold and others put upon the words of Thucydidês,—ἔπλεον ἐπὶ τὴν ἑαυτῶν γῆν,—departs from the usual, and even from the legitimate meaning of the words. But I have a stronger objection still. If that sense be admitted, it will be found quite inconsistent with the subsequent proceedings, as Thucydidês describes; and any one who will look at the map in reading this chapter, will see plainly that the fact is so. If, as Dr. Arnold supposes, the Peloponnesian fleet kept close along the shore of Peloponnesus, what was there in their movements to alarm Phormio for the safety of Naupaktus, or to draw him so reluctantly into the strait? Or if we even grant this, and suppose that Phormio construed the movement along the coast of Achaia to indicate designs against Naupaktus, and that he therefore came into the gulf and sailed along his own shore to defend the town,—still the Peloponnesians would be separated from him by the whole breadth of the gulf at that point; and as soon as they altered their line of direction for the purpose of crossing the gulf and attacking him, he would have the whole breadth of the gulf in which to take his measures for meeting them, so that instead of finding himself jammed up against the land, he would have been able to go out and fight them in the wide water, which he so much desired. The whole description given by Thucydidês, of the sudden wheeling of the Peloponnesian fleet, whereby Phormio’s ships were assailed, and nine of them cut off, shows that the two fleets must have been very close together when that movement was undertaken. If they had not been close,—if the Peloponnesians had had to row any considerable distance after wheeling,—all the Athenian ships might have escaped along shore without any difficulty. In fact, the words of Thucydidês imply that _both_ the two fleets, at the time when the wheel of the Peloponnesians was made, _were sailing in parallel directions along the northern coast in the direction of Naupaktus_,—ὅπως εἰ ἄρα νομίσας ἐπὶ τὴν Ναύπακτον αὐτοὺς πλεῖν ὁ Φορμίων ~καὶ αὐτὸς ἐπιβοηθῶν~ ταύτῃ παραπλέοι,—“if he _also_, with a view to defend the place, should sail along that coast,” (that is, if he, _as well as they_:) which seems to be the distinct meaning of the particle καὶ in this place.

Now if we suppose the Peloponnesian fleet to have sailed from its original station towards Naupaktus, all the events which follow become thoroughly perspicuous and coherent. I apprehend that no one would ever have entertained any other idea, except from the words of Thucydidês,—ἔπλεον ἐπὶ τὴν ~ἑαυτῶν~ γῆν ἔσω ἐπὶ τοῦ κόλπου. Since the subject or nominative case of the verb ἔπλεον is οἱ Πελοποννήσιοι, it has been supposed that the word ~ἑαυτῶν~ must necessarily refer to the Peloponnesians; and Mr. Bloomfield, with whom I agree as to the signification of the passage, proposes to alter ~ἑαυτῶν~ into ~αὐτῶν~. It appears to me that this alteration is not necessary, and that ἑαυτῶν may very well be construed so as to refer to the _Athenians_, not to the Lacedæmonians. The reflective meaning of the pronoun ἑαυτῶν is _not necessarily_ thrown back upon the subject of the action _immediately_ preceding it, in a complicated sentence where there is more than one subject and more than one action. Thus, for instance, in this very passage of Thucydidês which I have transcribed, we find the word ἑαυτῶν a second time used, and used so that its meaning is thrown back, not upon the subject immediately preceding, but upon a subject more distant from it,—ἐπὶ δ᾽ αὐτῷ (τῷ κέρατι) εἴκοσι ναῦς ἔταξαν τὰς ἄριστα πλεούσας, ὅπως, εἰ ἄρα..., μὴ διαφύγοιεν πλέοντα τὸν ἐπίπλουν σφῶν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ~ἔξω τοῦ ἑαυτῶν κέρως~, ἀλλ᾽ αὗται αἱ νῆες περικλῄσειαν. Now here the words τοῦ ἑαυτῶν κέρως, allude to the Peloponnesian fleet, not to the Athenians, which latter is the subject immediately preceding. Poppo and Göller both admit such to be the true meaning; and if this be admissible, there appears to me no greater difficulty in construing the words ἐπὶ τὴν ἑαυτῶν γῆν to mean, “the land of the _Athenians_,” _not_ “the land of the _Peloponnesians_.” Ἑαυτῶν might have been more unambiguously expressed by ἐκείνων αὑτῶν; for the reflective signification embodied in αὑτῶν is here an important addition to the meaning: “Since the Athenians did not sail into the interior of the gulf and the narrow waters, the Peloponnesians, wishing to bring them in even reluctantly, sailed _against the Athenians’ own land_ in the interior.”

Another passage may be produced from Thucydidês, in which the two words ἑαυτοῦ and ἐκείνου are both used in the same sentence and designate the same person, ii, 13. Περικλῆς, ὑποτοπήσας, ὅτι Ἀρχίδαμος αὐτῷ ξένος ὢν ἐτύγχανε, μὴ πολλάκις ἢ αὐτὸς ἰδίᾳ βουλόμενος χαρίζεσθαι τοὺς ἀγροὺς αὐτοῦ παραλίπῃ καὶ μὴ δῃώσῃ, ἢ καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων κελευσάντων ἐπὶ διαβολῇ τῇ ~ἑαυτοῦ~ γένηται τοῦτο, ὥσπερ καὶ τὰ ἄγη ἐλαύνειν προεῖπον ἕνεκα ~ἐκείνου~· προηγόρευε τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ὅτι Ἀρχίδαμος μὲν οἱ ξένος εἴη, οὐ μέντοι ἐπὶ κακῷ γε τῆς πόλεως γένοιτο, τοὺς δ᾽ ἀγροὺς ~τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ~ καὶ οἰκίας ἢν ἄρα μὴ δῃώσωσιν οἱ πολέμιοι ὥσπερ καὶ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων, ἀφίησιν αὐτὰ δημόσια εἶναι. Here ἑαυτοῦ and ἐκείνου (compare an analogous passage, Xenophon, Hellen. i, 1, 27) both refer to Periklês; and ἑαυτοῦ is twice used, so that it reflects back not upon the subject of the action immediately preceding it, but upon another subject farther behind. Again, iv, 99. Οἱ δὲ Βοιωτοὶ ἀπεκρίναντο, εἰ μὲν ἐν τῇ Βοιωτίᾳ εἰσίν (οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι), ἀπιόντας ~ἐκ τῆς ἑαυτῶν~ ἀποφέρεσθαι τὰ σφέτερα· εἰ δ᾽ ἐν τῇ ~ἐκείνων~, αὐτοὺς γιγνώσκειν τὸ ποιητέον. Here the use of ἑαυτῶν and ἐκείνων is remarkable. Ἑαυτῶν refers to the Bœotians, though the Athenians are the subject of the action immediately preceding; while ἐκείνων refers to the Athenians, in another case where they are the subject of the action immediately preceding. We should almost have expected to find the position of the two words reversed. Again, in iv, 57, we have—Καὶ τούτους μὲν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐβουλεύσαντο καταθέσθαι ἐς τὰς νήσους, καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους Κυθηρίους ~οἰκοῦντας τὴν ἑαυτῶν~ φόρον τέσσαρα τάλαντα φέρειν. Here ἑαυτῶν refers to the subject of the action immediately preceding—that is, to Κυθηρίους, not to Ἀθηναῖοι: but when we turn to another chapter, iii, 78: οἱ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι φοβούμενοι τὸ πλῆθος καὶ τὴν περικύκλωσιν, ἁθρόαις μέν οὐ προσέπιπτον οὐδὲ κατὰ μέσον ~ταῖς ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοὺς τεταγμέναις~ (ναυσὶ)—we find ἑαυτῶν thrown back upon the subject, _not_ immediately preceding it. The same, iv, 47—εἴ πού τίς τινα ἴδοι ἐχθρὸν ἑαυτοῦ; and ii, 95. Ὁ γὰρ Περδίκκας αὐτῷ ὑποσχόμενος, εἰ Ἀθηναίοις τε διαλλάξειεν ~ἑαυτὸν~ (_i. e._ Perdikkas), κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς τῷ πολέμῳ πιεζόμενον, etc.

Compare also Homer, Odyss. xvii, 387. Πτωχὸν δ᾽ οὐκ ἄν τις καλέοι, τρύξοντα ἓ αὐτόν; and Xenophon, Memorab. iv, 2, 28; i, 6, 3; v, 2, 24; Anabas. vii. 2, 10; 6, 43; Hellen. v, 2, 39.

It appears to me, that when we study the use of the pronoun ἑαυτὸς, we shall see reason to be convinced that in the passage of Thucydidês now before us, the phrase οἱ Πελοποννήσιοι ἔπλεον ἐς τὴν ἑαυτῶν γῆν, need not necessarily be referred to the _Peloponnesian_ land, but may in perfect conformity with analogy be understood to mean the _Athenian_ land. I am sure that, in so construing it, we shall not put so much violence upon the meaning as the Scholiast and Dr. Arnold have put upon the preposition ἐπὶ, when the Scholiast states that ἐπὶ τὴν ἑαυτῶν γῆν means the same thing as παρὰ τὴν ἑαυτῶν γῆν, and when Dr. Arnold admits this opinion, only adding a new meaning which does not usually belong to ἐπὶ with an accusative case.

An objection to the meaning which I propose may possibly be grounded on the word νομίσας, applied to Phormio. If the Peloponnesian fleet was sailing directly towards Naupaktus, it may be urged, Phormio would not be said to _think_ that they were going thither, but _to see_ or _become aware_ of it. But in reply to this we may observe, that the Peloponnesians never really intended to attack Naupaktus, though they directed their course towards it; they wished in reality to draw Phormio within the strait, and there to attack him. The historian, therefore, says with propriety, that Phormio would _believe_, and not that he would _perceive_, them to be going thither, since his belief would really be erroneous.

[352] Thucyd. ii, 90. How narrow the escape was, is marked in the words of the historian—τῶν δὲ ἕνδεκα μὲν αἵπερ ἡγοῦντο ~ὑπεκφεύγουσι~ τὸ κέρας τῶν Πελοποννησίων καὶ τὴν ἐπιστροφήν, ἐς τὴν εὐρυχωρίαν.

The proceedings of the Syracusan fleet against that of the Athenians in the harbor of Syracuse, and the reflections of the historian upon them, illustrate this attack of the Peloponnesians upon the fleet of Phormio (Thucyd. vii. 36).

[353] Compare the like bravery on the part of the Lacedæmonian hoplites at Pylus (Thucyd. iv, 14).

The victory of the Peloponnesians seemed assured, and while their left and centre were thus occupied, the twenty ships of their right wing parted company with the rest, in order to pursue the eleven fugitive Athenian ships which they had failed in cutting off. Ten of these got clear away into the harbor of Naupaktus, and there posted themselves in an attitude of defence near the temple of Apollo, before any of the pursuers could come near; while the eleventh, somewhat less swift, was neared by the Lacedæmonian admiral; who, on board a Leukadian trireme, pushed greatly ahead of his comrades, in hopes of overtaking at least this one prey. There happened to lie moored a merchant vessel, at the entrance of the harbor of Naupaktus; and the Athenian captain in his flight, observing that the Leukadian pursuer was for the moment alone, seized the opportunity for a bold and rapid manœuvre. He pulled swiftly round the merchant vessel, directed his trireme so as to meet the advancing Leukadian, and drove his beak against her midships with an impact so violent as to disable her at once; her commander, the Lacedæmonian admiral, Timokratês, was so stung with anguish at this unexpected catastrophe, that he slew himself forthwith, and fell overboard into the harbor. The pursuing vessels coming up behind, too, were so astounded and dismayed by it, that the men, dropping their oars, held water, and ceased to advance; while some even found themselves half aground, from ignorance of the coast. On the other hand, the ten Athenian triremes in the harbor were beyond measure elated by the incident, so that a single word from Phormio sufficed to put them in active forward motion, and to make them strenuously attack the embarrassed enemy: whose ships, disordered by the heat of pursuit, and having been just suddenly stopped, could not be speedily got again under way, and expected nothing less than renewed attack. First, the Athenians broke the twenty pursuing ships, on the right wing; next, they pursued their advantage against the left and centre, who had probably neared to the right; so that after a short resistance, the whole were completely routed, and fled across the gulf to their original station at Panormus.[354] Not only did the eleven Athenian ships thus break, terrify, and drive away the entire fleet of the enemy, with the capture of six of the nearest Peloponnesian triremes,—but they also rescued those ships of their own which had been driven ashore and taken in the early part of the action: moreover, the Peloponnesian crews sustained a considerable loss, both in killed and in prisoners.

[354] Thucyd. ii, 92. It is sufficiently evident that the Athenians defeated and drove off not only the twenty Peloponnesian ships of the right or pursuing wing,—but also the left and centre. Otherwise, they would not have been able to recapture those Athenian ships which had been lost at the beginning of the battle. Thucydidês, indeed, does not expressly mention the Peloponnesian left and centre as following the right in their pursuit towards Naupaktus. But we may presume that they partially did so, probably careless of much order, as being at first under the impression that the victory was gained. They were probably, therefore, thrown into confusion without much difficulty, when the twenty ships of the right were beaten and driven back upon them,—even though the victorious Athenian triremes were no more than eleven in number.

Thus, in spite not only of the prodigious disparity of numbers, but also of the disastrous blow which the Athenians had sustained at first, Phormio ended by gaining a complete victory; a victory, to which even the Lacedæmonians were forced to bear testimony, since they were obliged to ask a truce for burying and collecting their dead, while the Athenians on their part picked up the bodies of their own warriors. The defeated party, however, still thought themselves entitled, in token of their success in the early part of the action, to erect a trophy on the Rhium of Achaia, where they also dedicated the single Athenian trireme which they had been able to carry off. Yet they were so completely discomfited,—and farther, so much in fear of the expected reinforcement from Athens,—that they took advantage of the night to retire, and sail into the gulf to Corinth: all except the Leukadians, who returned to their own home.

Nor was it long before the reinforcement actually arrived, after that untoward detention which had wellnigh exposed Phormio and his whole fleet to ruin. It confirmed his mastery of the entrance of the gulf and of the coast of Akarnania, where the Peloponnesians had now no naval force at all. To establish more fully the Athenian influence in Akarnania, he undertook during the course of the autumn an expedition, landing at Astakus, and marching into the Akarnanian inland country with four hundred Athenian hoplites and four hundred Messenians. Some of the leading men of Stratus and Koronta, who were attached to the Peloponnesian interest, he caused to be sent into exile, while the chief named Kynês, of Koronta, who seems to have been hitherto in exile, was reëstablished in his native town. The great object was, to besiege and take the powerful town of Œniadæ, near the mouth of the Achelôus; a town at variance with the other Akarnanians, and attached to the Peloponnesians. But the great spread of the waters of the Achelôus rendered this siege impracticable during the winter, and Phormio returned to the station at Naupaktus. From hence he departed to Athens towards the end of the winter, carrying home both his prize-ships and such of his prisoners as were freemen. The latter were exchanged man for man against Athenian prisoners in the hands of Sparta.[355]

[355] Thucyd. ii, 102, 103.

After abandoning the naval contest at Rhium, and retiring to Corinth, Knêmus and Brasidas were prevailed upon by the Megarians, before the fleet dispersed, to try the bold experiment of a sudden inroad upon Peiræus. Such was the confessed superiority of the Athenians at sea, that, while they guarded amply the coasts of Attica against privateers, they never imagined the possibility of an attack upon their own main harbor. Accordingly, Peiræus was not only unprotected by any chain across the entrance, but destitute even of any regular guard-ships manned and ready. The seamen of the retiring Peloponnesian armament, on reaching Corinth, were immediately disembarked and marched, first across the isthmus, next to Megara,—each man carrying his sitting-cloth,[356] and his oar, together with the loop whereby the oar was fastened to the oar-hole in the side, and thus prevented from slipping. There lay forty triremes in Nisæa, the harbor of Megara, which, though old and out of condition, were sufficient for so short a trip; and the seamen immediately on arriving, launched these and got aboard. But such was the awe entertained of Athens and her power, that when the scheme came really to be executed, the courage of the Peloponnesians failed, though there was nothing to hinder them from actually reaching Peiræus: but it was pretended that the wind was adverse, and they contented themselves with passing across to the station of Budorum, in the opposite Athenian island of Salamis, where they surprised and seized the three guard-ships which habitually blockaded the harbor of Megara, and then landed upon the island. They spread themselves over a large part of Salamis, ravaged the properties, and seized men as well as goods. Fire-signals immediately made known this unforeseen aggression, both at Peiræus and at Athens, occasioning in both the extreme of astonishment and alarm; for the citizens in Athens, not conceiving distinctly the meaning of the signals, fancied that Peiræus itself had fallen into the hands of the enemy. The whole population rushed down to the Peiræus at break of day, and put to sea with all the triremes that were ready against the Peloponnesians; but these latter, aware of the danger which menaced them, made haste to quit Salamis with their booty, and the three captured guard-ships. The lesson was salutary to the Athenians: from henceforward Peiræus was furnished with a chain across the mouth, and a regular guard, down to the end of the war.[357] Forty years afterwards, however, we shall find it just as negligently watched, and surprised with much more boldness and dexterity, by the Lacedæmonian captain Teleutias.[358]

[356] Thucyd. ii, 93. ἐδόκει δὲ λαβόντα τῶν ναυτῶν ἕκαστον τὴν κώπην, καὶ τὸ ὑπηρέσιον, καὶ τὸν τροπωτῆρα, etc. On these words there is an interesting letter of Dr. Bishop’s published in the Appendix to Dr. Arnold’s Thucydidês, vol. i. His remarks upon ὑπηρέσιον are more satisfactory than those upon τροπωτήρ. Whether the fulcrum of the oar was formed by a thowell, or a notch, on the gunwale, or by a perforation in the ship’s side, there must in both cases have been required—since it seems to have had nothing like what Dr. Bishop calls a _nut_—a thong to prevent it from slipping down towards the water; especially with the oars of the thranitæ, or upper tier of rowers, who pulled at so great an elevation, comparatively speaking, above the water. Dr. Arnold’s explanation of τροπωτὴρ is suited to the case of a boat, but not to that of a trireme. Dr. Bishop shows that the explanation of the purpose of the ὑπηρέσιον, given by the Scholiast, is not the true one.

[357] Thucyd. ii, 94.

[358] Xenophon, Hellen. v. 1, 19.

As during the summer of this year, the Ambrakiots had brought down a numerous host of Epirotic tribes to the invasion of Akarnania, in conjunction with the Peloponnesians,—so during the autumn, the Athenians obtained aid against the Chalkidians of Thrace from a still more powerful barbaric prince, Sitalkês, king of the Odrysian Thracians. Amidst the numerous tribes, between the Danube and the Ægean sea,—who all bore the generic name of Thracians, though each had a special name besides,—the Odrysians were at this time the most warlike and powerful. The Odrysian king Têrês, father of Sitalkês, had made use of this power to subdue[359] and render tributary a great number of these different tribes, especially those whose residence was in the plain rather than in the mountains. His dominion, the largest existing between the Ionian sea and the Euxine, extended from Abdêra, or the mouth of the Nestus, in the Ægean sea, to the mouth of the Danube in the Euxine; though it seems that this must be understood with deductions, since many intervening tribes, especially mountain tribes, did not acknowledge his authority. Sitalkês himself had invaded and conquered some of the Pæonian tribes who joined the Thracians on the west, between the Axius and the Strymon.[360] Dominion, in the sense of the Odrysian king, meant tribute, presents, and military force when required; and with the two former, at least, we may conclude that he was amply supplied, since his nephew and successor Seuthes, under whom the revenue increased and attained its maximum, received four hundred talents annually in gold and silver as tribute, and the like sum in various presents, over and above many other presents of manufactured articles and ornaments. These latter came from the Grecian colonies on the coast, which contributed moreover largely to the tribute, though in what proportions we are not informed: even Grecian cities not in Thrace sent presents to forward their trading objects, as purchasers for the produce, the plunder, and the slaves, acquired by Thracian chiefs or tribes.[361] The residence of the Odrysians properly so called, and of the princes of that tribe now ruling over so many of the remaining tribes, appears to have been about twelve days’ journey inland from Byzantium,[362] in the upper regions of the Hebrus and Strymon, south of Mount Hæmus, and northeast of Rhodopê. The Odrysian chiefs were connected by relationship more or less distant with those of the subordinate tribes, and by marriage even with the Scythian princes north of the Danube: the Scythian prince Ariapeithês[363] had married the daughter of the Odrysian Têrês, the first who extended the dominion of his tribe over any considerable portion of Thrace.

[359] Thucyd. ii, 29, 95, 96.

[360] Thucyd. ii, 99.

[361] See Xenophon, Anabas. vii, 3, 16; 4, 2. Diodorus (xii, 50) gives the revenue of Sitalkês as more than one thousand talents annually. This sum is not materially different from that which Thucydidês states to be the annual receipt of Seuthes, successor of Sitalkês,—revenue, properly so called, and presents, both taken together.

Traders from Parium, on the Asiatic coast of the Propontis, are among those who come with presents to the Odrysian king, Mêdokus (Xenophon _ut supra_).

[362] Xenoph. Anabas. _l. c._

[363] Herodot. iv, 80.

The natural state of the Thracian tribes—in the judgment of Herodotus, permanent and incorrigible—was that of disunion and incapacity of political association; were such association possible, he says, they would be strong enough to vanquish every other nation,—though Thucydidês considers them as far inferior to the Scythians. The Odrysian dominion had probably not reached, at the period when Herodotus made his inquiries, the same development which Thucydidês describes in the third year of the Peloponnesian war, and which imparted to these tribes an union, partial indeed and temporary, but such as they never reached either before or afterwards. It has been already mentioned that the Odrysian prince Sitalkês, had taken for his wife, or rather for one of his wives, the sister of Nymphodôrus, a Greek, of Abdêra; by whose mediation he had been made the ally, and his son Sadokus even a citizen, of Athens,—and had been induced to promise that he would reconquer the Chalkidians of Thrace for the benefit of the Athenians,[364]—his ancient kinsmen, according to the mythe of Tereus as interpreted by both parties. At the same time, Perdikkas, king of Macedonia, had offended him by refusing to perform a promise made of giving him his sister in marriage,—a promise made as consideration for the interference of Sitalkês and Nymphodôrus in procuring for him peace with Athens, at a moment when he was much embarrassed by civil dissensions with his brother Philip. The latter prince, ruling in his own name, and seemingly independent of Perdikkas, over a portion of the Macedonians along the upper course of the Axius, had been expelled by his more powerful brother, and taken refuge with Sitalkês: he was now apparently dead, but his son Amyntas received from the Odrysian prince the promise of restoration. The Athenians had ambassadors resident with Sitalkês, and they sent Agnon as special envoy to concert arrangements for his march against the Chalkidians, with which an Athenian armament was destined to coöperate. In treating with Sitalkês, it was necessary to be liberal in presents, both to himself and to the subordinate chieftains who held power dependent upon him: nothing could be accomplished among the Thracians except by the aid of bribes,[365] and the Athenians were more competent to supply this exigency than any other people in Greece. The joint expedition against the Chalkidians was finally resolved.

[364] Xenophon, Anabas. vii, 2, 31; Thucyd. ii, 29; Aristophan. Aves, 366. Thucydidês goes out of his way to refute this current belief,—a curious exemplification of ancient legend applied to the convenience of present politics.

[365] Thucyd. ii, 97. Φόρος δὲ ἐκ πάσης τῆς βαρβάρου καὶ τῶν Ἑλληνίδων πόλεων, ὅσον προσῆξαν ἐπὶ Σεύθου, ὃς ὕστερον Σιτάλκου βασιλεύσας πλεῖστον δὴ ἐποίησε, τετρακοσίων ταλάντων μάλιστα δύναμις, ἃ χρυσὸς καὶ ἄργυρος εἴη· καὶ δῶρα οὐκ ἐλάσσω τούτων χρυσοῦ τε καὶ ἀργύρου προσεφέρετο, χωρὶς δὲ ὅσα ὑφαντά τε καὶ λεῖα, καὶ ἡ ἄλλη κατασκευὴ, καὶ οὐ μόνον αὐτῷ ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς παραδυναστεύουσι καὶ γενναίοις Ὀδρυσῶν· κατεστήσαντο γὰρ τοὐναντίον τῆς Περσῶν βασιλείας τὸν νόμον, ὄντα μὲν καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις Θρᾳξὶ, λαμβάνειν μᾶλλον ἢ διδόναι, καὶ αἴσχιον ἦν αἰτηθέντα μὴ δοῦναι ἢ αἰτήσαντα μὴ τυχεῖν· ὅμως δὲ κατὰ τὸ δύνασθαι ἐπὶ πλέον αὐτῷ ἐχρήσαντο· οὐ γὰρ ἦν πρᾶξαι οὐδὲν μὴ διδόντα δῶρα· ὥστε ἐπὶ μέγα ἡ βασιλεία ἦλθεν ἰσχύος.

This universal necessity of presents and bribes may be seen illustrated in the dealings of Xenophon and the Cyreian army with the Thracian prince Seuthes, described in the Anabasis, vii, chapters 1 and 2. It appears that even at that time, B.C. 401, the Odrysian dominion, though it had passed through disturbances and had been practically enfeebled, still extended down to the neighborhood of Byzantium. In commenting upon the venality of the Thracians, the Scholiast has a curious comparison with his own time—καὶ οὐκ ἦν τι πρᾶξαι παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς τὸν μὴ διδόντα χρήματα· ~ὅπερ καὶ νῦν ἐν Ῥωμαίοις~. The Scholiast here tells us that the venality in his time as to public affairs, in the Roman empire, was not less universal: of what century of the Roman empire he speaks, we do not know: perhaps about 500-600 A.D.

The contrast which Thucydidês here draws between the Thracians and the Persians is also illustrated by what Xenophon says respecting the habits of the younger Cyrus: (Anabas. i, 9, 22): compare also the romance of the Cyropædia, viii, 14, 31, 32.

But the forces of Sitalkês, collected from many different portions of Thrace, were tardy in coming together. He summoned all the tribes under his dominion, between Hæmus, Rhodopê, and the two seas: the Getæ, between Mount Hæmus and the Danube, equipped like the Scythians, their neighbors on the other side of the river, with bow and arrow on horseback, also joined him, as well as the Agrianes, the Lææi, and the other Pæonian tribes subject to his dominion; lastly, several of the Thracian tribes called Dii, distinguished by their peculiar short swords, and maintaining a fierce independence on the heights of Rhodopê, were tempted by the chance of plunder, or the offer of pay, to flock to his standard. Altogether, his army amounted, or was supposed to amount, to one hundred and fifty thousand men, one third of it cavalry, who were for the most part Getæ and Odrysians proper. The most formidable warriors in his camp were the independent tribes of Rhodopê; but the whole host, alike numerous, warlike, predatory, and cruel, spread terror amidst all those who were within even the remote possibilities of its march.

Starting from the central Odrysian territory, and bringing with him Agnon and the other Athenian envoys, he first crossed the uninhabited mountain called Kerkinê, which divided the Pæonians on the west from the Thracian tribes called Sinti and Mædi on the east, until he reached the Pæonian town or district called Dobêrus;[366] it was here that many troops and additional volunteers reached him, making up his full total. From Dobêrus, probably marching down along one of the tributary streams of the Axius, he entered into that portion of Upper Macedonia, which lies along the higher Axius, and which had constituted the separate principality of Philip: the presence in his army of Amyntos son of Philip, induced some of the fortified places, Gortynia, Atalantê, and others, to open their gates without resistance, while Eidomenê was taken by storm, and Eurôpus in vain attacked. From hence, he passed still farther southward into Lower Macedonia, the kingdom of Perdikkas; ravaging the territory on both sides of the Axius even to the neighborhood of the towns Pella and Kyrrhus; and apparently down as far south as the mouth of the river and the head of the Thermaic gulf. Farther south than this he did not go, but spread his force over the districts between the left bank of the Axius and the head of the Strymonic gulf,—Mygdonia, Krestônia, and Anthemus,—while a portion of his army was detached to overrun the territory of the Chalkidians and Bottiæans. The Macedonians under Perdikkas, renouncing all idea of contending on foot against so overwhelming a host, either fled or shut themselves up in the small number of fortified places which the country presented. The cavalry from Upper Macedonia, indeed, well armed and excellent, made some orderly and successful charges against the Thracians, lightly armed with javelins, short swords, and the pelta, or small shield,—but it was presently shut in, harassed on all sides by superior numbers, and compelled to think only of retreat and extrication.[367]

[366] See Gatterer (De Herodoti et Thucydidis Thraciâ), sects. 44-57; Poppo (Prolegom. ad Thucydidem), vol. ii, ch. 31, about the geography of this region, which is very imperfectly known, even in modern times. We can hardly pretend to assign a locality to these ancient names.

Thucydidês, in his brief statements respecting this march of Sitalkês, speaks like one who had good information about the inland regions; as he was likely to have from his familiarity with the coasts, and resident proprietorship in Thrace (Thucyd. ii, 100; Herodot. v, 16).

[367] Thucyd. ii, 100; Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 9, 2.

Luckily for the enemies of the Odrysian king, his march was not made until the beginning of winter, seemingly about November or December. We may be sure that the Athenians, when they concerted with him the joint attack upon the Chalkidians, intended that it should be in a better time of the year: having probably waited to hear that his army was in motion, and waited long in vain, they began to despair of his coming at all, and thought it not worth while to despatch any force of their own to the spot.[368] Some envoys and presents only were sent as compliments, instead of the coöperating armament; and this disappointment, coupled with the severity of the weather, the nakedness of the country, and the privations of his army at that season, induced Sitalkês soon to enter into negotiations with Perdikkas; who, moreover, gained over Seuthes, nephew of the Odrysian prince, by promising his sister Stratonikê in marriage, together with a sum of money, on condition that the Thracian host should be speedily withdrawn. This was accordingly done, after it had been distributed for thirty days over Macedonia: during eight of those days his detachment had ravaged the Chalkidic lands. But the interval had been quite long enough to diffuse terror all around: such a host of fierce barbarians had never before been brought together, and no one knew in what direction they might be disposed to carry their incursions. The independent Thracian tribes (Panæi, Odomantê, Drôi, and Dersæi) in the plains on the northeast of the Strymon, and near Mount Pangæus, not far from Amphipolis, were the first to feel alarm lest Sitalkês should take the opportunity of trying to conquer them; on the other side, the Thessalians, Magnêtes, and other Greeks north of Thermopylæ, anticipated that he would carry his invasion farther south, and began to organize means for resisting him: even the general Peloponnesian confederacy heard with uneasiness of this new ally whom Athens was bringing into the field, perhaps against them. All such alarms were dissipated, when Sitalkês, after remaining thirty days, returned by the way he came, and the formidable avalanche was thus seen to melt away without falling on them. The faithless Perdikkas, on this occasion, performed his promise to Seuthes, having drawn upon himself much mischief by violating his previous similar promise to Sitalkês.[369]

[368] Thucyd. ii, 101. ἐπειδὴ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οὐ παρῆσαν ταῖς ναυσὶν, ἀπιστοῦντες αὐτὸν μὴ ἥξειν, etc.

[369] Thucyd. ii, 101.