Part 36, Chapter 10, Parts 1 and 2 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 by John Bagnell Bury, Chapter 10, Part 1. The War of Athens with the Peloponnesians, 431 to 421 BC. The Empire and commercial supremacy of Athens had, as we have seen, swiftly drawn a war upon herself and Greece. That war had been indecisive. It had taught her some lessons, but it had not called her ambition or crippled her trade, and it was therefore inevitable that she should have to fight again. We have now to follow the second phase of the struggle, up to the culmination of that antagonism between Dorian and Ionian, of which the Greeks of this period never lost sight. Part 1, The Prelude of the War. The incidents which led up to the Peloponnesian War are connected with two Corinthian colonies, Corkira and Potidaea. Corkira, which had always been an unfeleal daughter, Potidaea, which, though maintaining friendly relations with Corinth, had become a member of the Athenian Confederacy. One of those parties struggles in an insignificant city, which in Greece were often the occasion of wars between great states, had taken place in Epidamnus, a colony of Corkira. The people, harassed by the banished nobles and their barbarian allies, asked help from their mother city. Corkira refused, and Epidamnus turned to Corinth. The Corinthians sent troops and a number of new colonists. The Corkirians, highly resenting this interference, demanded their dismissal, and when the demand was refused, blockaded the isthmus of Epidamnus. Corinth then made preparations for an expedition against Corkira, and Corkira in alarm sent envoys to Corinth, proposing to refer the matter for arbitration to such Peloponnesian states as both should agree upon. But the Corinthians refused the arbitration, and sent a squadron of 75 ships with 2,000 hoplites against the Corkiraians. The powerful navy of Corkira consisted of 120 ships, of which 40 were besieging Epidamnus. With the remaining 80 ships, they won a complete victory over the Corinthians outside the Ambrachian Gulf, and on the same day Epidamnus surrendered. During the rest of the year, Corkira had command of the Ionian Sea, and her triremes sailed about damaging the allies of Corinth. But Corinth began to prepare for a greater effort against her powerful and detested colony. The work of preparation went on for two years. The report of the ships she was building, and the navies she was hiring, frightened Corkira. For, while Corinth had the Peloponnesian League at her back, Corkira had no allies, and belonged neither to the Athenian, nor to the Spartan League. It was her obvious policy to seek a connection with Athens, and she determined to do so. The Corinthians, hearing of this intention, tried to thwart it, for they had good reason to fear a combination of the Athenian with the Corkarian navy. And so it came to pass that the envoys of Corkira and Corinth appeared together before the assembly of Athens. The arguments which Thucydides has put into their mouths express clearly the bearings of the situation and the importance of the decision for Athens. The main argument for accepting the prophet alliance of Corkira depends on the assumption that war is imminent. The Lacedaemonians, fearing the growth of your empire, are eager to take up arms, and the Corinthians, who are your enemies, are all powerful with them. They begin with us, but they will go on to you, that we may not stand united against them in the bond of a common enmity. And it is our business to strike first, and to forestall their designs instead of waiting to counteract them. On this assumption the alliance of Corkira offers great advantages. It lies conveniently on the route to Sicily, and it possesses one of the only three considerable navies in Greece. If the Corinthians get hold of our fleet, and you allow the two to become one, you will have to fight against the united navies of Corkira and the Peloponnesus.  The reply of the Corinthian ambassadors was weak. Their appeal to certain past services that Corinth had rendered to Athens could hardly have much effect, for there was nothing but jealousy between the two cities. They might deprecate, but they could not disprove, the notion that Athens would soon have a war with the Peloponnesus on her hands. And as for justice, Corkira could make as plausible a case as Corinth. The most cogent argument for Corinth was that if Athens allied herself with Corkira, she would take a step which, if not in itself violating the thirty years peace, would necessarily involve a violation of it. After two debates the assembly agreed to an alliance with Corkira but of a defensive kind. Athens was only to give armed help in case Corkira itself were threatened. By this decision she avoided a direct violation of the treaty. Ten ships were sent to Corkira with orders not to fight unless Corkira or some of the places belonging to it were attacked. A great and tumultuous naval engagement ensued near the islet of Sibota, between Lukimi, the southeastern promontory of Corkira, and the Thesprotian mainland. A Corkiran fleet of 110 ships was ranged against a Corinthian of 150, the outcome of two years of preparation. The right wing of the Corkirians was worsted and the ten Athenian ships, which had held aloof at first, interfered to prevent its total discomforture. In the evening the sudden sight of twenty new Athenian ships on the horizon caused the Corinthians to retreat and the next day they declined battle. This seemed an admission of defeat and justified the Corkirians in raising a trophy. But the Corinthians also raised a trophy for they had come off best in the battle. They returned home then and on their way captured Anatorian which Corkira and Corinth held in common. Corinth treated the Corkirians who had been taken captive in the battle with great consideration. Most of them were men of importance and it was hoped that through them Corkira might ultimately be won over to friendship with Corinth. It would be seen afterwards that the hope was not ill-founded. The breach with Corinth forced Athens to look to the security of her interests in the Colchidic Peninsula where Corinth had a great deal of influence. The city of Potidia which occupies and guards the Isthmus of Palini was a tributary ally of Athens but received its annual magistrates from its mother city Corinth. Immediately after the battle of Cebota Athens required the Potidians to raise the city walls on the south side where they were not needed for protection against Macedonia and to abandon the system of Corinthian magistrates. The Potidians refused. They were supported by the promise of Sparta to invade Attica in case Potidia were attacked by Athens. But the situation was complicated by the policy of the Macedonian king Perdicus who had been formerly the friend of Athens but was now her adversary because she had befriended his brothers who were now lead against him. He conceived and organised a general revolt of Chalkidiki against Athens and even persuaded the Chalkidians to pull down their cities on the coast and concentrate themselves in the strong inland town of Alinthus. The Botiians also, centred on Spartolus, joined the rebels. Thus the revolt of Potidia, while it has its special causes in connection with the enmity of Athens and Corinth under another aspect forms part of a general movement in that quarter against the Athenian dominion. The Athenians began operations in Macedonia but soon advanced against Potidia and gained an advantage over the Corinthian general Aristius who had arrived with some Peloponnesian forces. This battle has a particular interest for a graven stone still speaks to us of the sorrow of Athens for the men who fell fighting foremost before Potidia's walls and giving their lives in barter for glory ennobled their country. The Athenians then invested the city. So far the Corinthians had acted alone. Now seeing the danger of Potidia they took active steps to incite the Lacedimonians to declare war against Athens. Pericles knew that war was coming and he promptly struck not with sword or spear but with a more cruel and deadly weapon. Megara had assisted Corinth at the Battle of Subota. The Athenians passed a measure excluding the Megarians from the markets and ports of their empire. The decree spelt economical ruin to Megara and Megara was an important member of the Peloponnesian League. The Athenian statesmen knew how to strike. The comic poet sang how The Olympian Pericles in Roth full mined or grease and set her in a broil with statutes worded like a drinking-catch. No Megarian on land nor in markets shall stand nor sail in the sea nor set foot on the strand. The allies appeared at Sparta and brought formal charges against Athens of having broken the 30 years peace and committed various acts of injustice. Some Athenian envoys who were at Sparta, ostensibly for other business, were given an opportunity of replying. But arguments and recriminations were superfluous. It did not matter in the least whether Athens could defend this transaction or Corinth could make good that charge. For, in the case of an inevitable war, the causes openly alleged seldom correspond with the motives which really govern. It was not the Caucasian Incidents or the Siege of Potidaia or the Megarian Decree that caused the Peloponnesian War, though jointly they hastened its outbreak. It was the fear and jealousy of the Athenian power. The only question was whether it was the right hour to engage in that unavoidable struggle. The Spartan king Archidamus advised Delay, Do not take up arms yet. War is not an affair of arms, but of money which gives to arms their use, and which is needed above all things when a Continental is fighting against a maritime power. Let us find money first, and then we may safely allow our minds to be excited by the speeches of our allies. But the efforts were in favour of war. This then allied us in a short and pointed speech, put the question, not shall we declare war, but has the treaty been broken, and are the Athenians in the wrong? It was decided that the Athenians were in the wrong, and this decision necessarily led to a declaration of war. But before that declaration was made, the approval of the Delphic Oracle was gained, and the General Assembly of the Allies gathered at Sparta and agreed to the war. Thucydides chose the setting well for his brilliant contrast between the characters and spirits and aims of the two great protagonists who now prepare to stand face to face on the stage of Hellenic history. He makes the Corinthian envoys at the First Assembly in Sparta, the spokesman of his comparison. You have never considered, O Lacedaemonians, what manner of men are these Athenians, with whom you will have to fight, and how utterly unlike yourselves. They are revolutionary, equally quick in the conception and in the execution of every new plan. While you are conservative, careful only to keep what you have, originating nothing, and not acting even when action is most necessary. They are bold beyond their strength, they run risks which prudence would condemn, and in the midst of misfortune they are full of hope, whereas it is your nature, though strong, to act feebly when your plans are most prudent, to distrust them, and when calamities come upon you, to think that you will never be delivered from them. They are impetuous, and you are dilletry, they are always abroad, and you are always at home. For they hope to gain something by leaving their homes, but you are afraid that any new enterprise may imperil what you have already. When conquerors they pursue their victory to the utmost, when defeated they fall back the least. Their bodies they devote to the country, as though they belong to other men. Their true self is their mind, which is most truly their own when employed in her service. When they do not carry out an intention which they have formed, they seem to have sustained a personal bereavement. When an enterprise succeeds they have gained a mere instalment of what is to come. But if they fail, they at once conceive new hopes, and so fill up the void. With them alone, to hope is to have, for they lose not a moment in the execution of an idea. This is the lifelong task, full of danger and toil, which they are always imposing upon themselves. None enjoy their good things less, because they are always seeking for more. To do their duty is their only holiday, and they deem the quiet of inaction to be as disagreeable as the most tiresome business. If a man should serve them, in a word, that they were born neither to have peace to themselves, nor to allow peace to other men, he would simply speak the truth. On the present occasion, however, the Athenians did not give an example of that promptness in action, which is contrasted in this passage with the dilatory habits of the Spartans, which you'll presently see why. It was the object of Sparta to gain time. Accordingly, she sent embassies to Athens with trivial demands. She required the Athenians to drive out the Curse of the Goddess, which rested on the family of the Alpmionidae. This was a raking up of history two centuries old, the period of Chylon's conspiracy. The point of it lay in the fact that Pericles, on his mother's side, belonged to the Acursid family. Athens replied by equally trivial demands. The purification of the Curse of Athena of the Brazen House and of the Curse of Tynaris, where some helots had been murdered in the Temple of Poseidon. These amenities, which served the purpose of Sparta by gaining time, were followed by an ultimatum, in the sense that Athens might still have peace if she restored the independence of the Helenes. There was a peace-party at Athens, but Pericles carried the day. Let us send the ambassadors away, he said, giving them this answer, that we will not exclude the Magarians from our markets and harbours if the Lacedaemonians will not exclude foreigners, whether ourselves or our allies, from Sparta, for the treaty no more forbids the one than the other. That we will concede independence to the cities if they were independent when we made the treaty and as soon as the Lacedaemonians allow their subject states to be governed as they choose, not for the interest of Lacedaemon, but for their own. Also, that we are willing to offer arbitration according to the treaty and that we do not want to begin the war but intend to defend ourselves if attacked. This answer will be just and befits the dignity of the city. We must be aware, however, that the war will come and the more willing we are to accept the situation, the less ready will our enemies be to lay hands upon us.  The peoples of Greece were parted as follows on the sides of the two chief antagonists. Sparta commanded the whole Peloponnesus except her old enemy Argos and Akia. She commanded the Isthmus for she had both Corinth and Megara. In northern Greece she had Biosha, Fokis and Locrys. In western Greece Ambrachia, Anatorion and the island of Lukas. In western Greece Athens commanded the Akarnanians, Kokaira and Zakhinthas as well as the Messinians of Naupactus. In northern Greece she had Plataea and these were her only allies beyond her Confederacy. Athens' strength lay in her fleet large and well trained. In addition to the ships of Lesbos and Kios and the possible help from Kokaira she had 300 triremes of her own. Her fleet had a long tradition of active fighting and had maintained annual patrols in the Aegean even in peace. The nucleus of her cruise was Athenian but the numbers needed were too large to be supplied from the citizen body alone and a considerable proportion of her rowers were recruited in the islands where men who had few chances to earn a livelihood at home were glad to earn good pay in a service with great traditions. On the Peloponnesian side the Corinthians alone were a naval power and their failure at Sibota had emphasised their weakness. They had little experience of fighting and their ships and crews were outclassed. On land however the Peloponnesians had an immense advantage. With their Beocian allies they could put into the field at least 30,000 men without using reserves and the Lacedaemonians were still the best hoplites in Greece. Against them the Athenians had a field force of 13,000 hoplites with 1,200 cavalry including mounted archers and a reserve force including medics of 16,000. Scarcely less important to Athens than her armed forces were her financial reserves. More than 1,200 talents had been spent on crushing the revolt of Samos and it was clear that war with the Peloponnesians would involve heavier and more expensive commitments. Pericles well knew that the efficiency of a navy depended in large part on regular and high pay and that war could not be financed on emergency measures. He had therefore deliberately aimed at maintaining a reserve for the inevitable clash. As war drew near special measures were taken to restrict expenditure. The building programme on the Acropolis was halted. Further expenditure beyond a low annual limit from the reserve was made subject to a special vote of sanction in the assembly. The treasures in money and kind of the other gods in the city below the Acropolis and throughout Attica were concentrated on the Acropolis where they would be saved from invading Peloponnesians and readily available if the state needed to use them. After the peace of Chaleas the principal had been established that the tribute could be used for Athenian purposes and it was the accumulation of tribute that formed the bulk of the reserve. It had been given to the safekeeping of Athena and is described in documents as The Sacred Monies of Athena. Spending from this reserve for war purposes involved loans from the goddess. A strict record had to be kept and the interest on the debts was carefully calculated. In this reserve when the war broke out there were some 6,000 talents and Athens could expect an annual income from home sources and the empire of some 1,000 talents. From the experience of the Samyan Revolt, Athens in 431 seemed likely to be able to finance war without resulting to extreme measures. The Peloponnesians were in a much weaker position. They had no financial reserves and no common war chest. Their organization was well adapted to land operations but they lacked the essential financial basis for naval warfare. The Corinthians could talk lightly of attracting the allies from the Athenian crews by higher pay but in their hearts they knew that these were empty words. Not until Persian subsidies were secured could the Peloponnesians keep large fleets for long periods at sea. Part 2. General view of the war. Thucydides. The war on which we are now entering is a resumption on a somewhat greater scale of the war which was concluded by the 30 years peace. Here too the Corinthians are the most active instigators of the opposition to Athens. The Spartans are but half-hearted leaders and have to be spurred by their allies. The war lasts 10 years and is concluded by the peace of Nicaea. But hostilities begin again and pass for a time to a new scene of warfare, the island of Sicily. This war ends with the battle of Aegospotomy which decided the fate of the Athenian empire. Thus during 55 years Athens was contending for her empire with the Peloponnesians and this conflict falls into three distinct wars. The first ending with the 30 years peace, the second with the peace of Nicaea, the third with the battle of Aegospotomy. But while there is a break of 13 years between the First War and the Second, there is hardly any break between the Second War and the Third. Hence the Second and the Third which have been united in the history of Thucydides are generally grouped closely together and called by the common name of the Peloponnesian War. This name is never used by Thucydides but it shows how Athenian the sympathies of historians have always been. From the Peloponnesian point of view the conflict would be called the Attic War. It will not be amiss to repeat here what the true cause of the struggle was. Athens was resolved to maintain in spite of Greece her naval empire and thus far she was responsible. But there is no reason to suppose that she had any design of seriously increasing her empire and the idea of some modern historians that Pericles undertook the war in the hope of winning supremacy over all Hellas is contrary to the plain facts of the case. This war has attained a celebrity in the world's history which considering its scale and its consequences may seem unmerited. A domestic war between small Greek states may be thought a slight matter indeed compared with the struggle in which Greece was arrayed against the might of Persia. But the Peloponnesian War has had an advantage which has been granted to no other episode in the history of Hellas. It has been recorded by the first and the greatest of Greek critical historians. To read the book which Thucydides, the son of Olerus has bequeathed to posterity is in itself a liberal education, a lesson in politics and history which is, as he aimed to make it, a possession for ever. Only a few years can have separated the day on which Herodotus completed his work and the day on which Thucydides began his. But from one to the other there is a sheer leap. When political events have passed through the brain of Herodotus they come out as delightful stories. With the insatiable curiosity of an inquirer he has little political insight. He has the instinct of a literary artist. His historical methods are rudimentary. The splendid work of Herodotus is more in common with the epic poets who went before him than with the historians who came after him. When he began to collect material for his history the events of the Persian invasion were already encircled with a halo of legend so that he had a subject thoroughly to his taste. It is a strange sensation to turn from the naive, uncritical, entrancing storyteller of Halicarnassus to the grave historian of Athens. The first history in the true sense of the word sprang full-grown into life like Athena from the brain of Zeus and it is still without arrival. Severe in its reserves written from a purely intellectual point of view unencumbered with platitudes and moral judgments cold and critical but exhibiting the rarest powers of dramatic and narrative art the work of Thucydides is at every point a contrast to the work of Herodotus. Mankind might well despair if the science of criticism had not advanced further since the days of Thucydides and we are not surprised to find any details on the threshold of his work with the earlier history of Greece he fails to carry his sceptical treatment far enough and accepts some traditions which on his own principles he should have questioned. But the interval which divides Thucydides from his elder contemporary Herodotus is a whole heaven. The interval which divides Thucydides from a critic of our own day is small indeed. Reserved as he is Thucydides cannot disguise as a Democrat of the Periclean school. He makes no secret of his admiration for the political wisdom of Pericles. It must be granted that the incidents of the war would lose something of their interest that the whole episode would be shorn of much of its dignity and eminence if Thucydides had not deigned to be its historian. But it was not a slight or unworthy theme. It is the story of the decline and fall of the Athenian Empire and at this period Athens is the centre of ecumenical history. The importance of the war is not impaired by the smallness of the states which were involved in it. For in these small states lived those political ideas and institutions which concerned the future development of mankind far more than any movements in the barbarous kingdoms however great their territory. The war of ten years which now began may seem at first sight to have consisted of a number of disconnected and haphazard incidents but both the Athenians and the Peloponnesians had definite objects in view. Their plans were determined by the nature of their own resources and by the geography of the enemy's territories. The key to the war is the fundamental fact that it was waged between a power which was mainly continental and a power which was mainly maritime. From the nature of the case the land power is obliged to direct its attacks chiefly on the continental possessions of the sea power while the sea power has to confine itself to attacking the maritime possessions of the land power. It follows that the small land army of the sea power and the small fleet of the land power are each mainly occupied with the work of defence and are seldom free to act on the offensive. Hence the maritime possessions of the maritime power and the inland possessions of the continental power are not generally the scene of warfare. These considerations simplify the war. The points at which the Peloponnesians can attack Athens with their land forces are Attica itself and Thrace. Accordingly Attica is invaded almost every year and there is constant warfare in Thrace but the war is hardly ever carried into the Aegean coast except in consequence of some special circumstance such as the revolt of an Athenian ally. On the other hand the offensive operations of Athens are mainly in the west of Greece about the islands of the Ionian Sea and near the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf. That was the region where they had the best prospect by their naval superiority of detaching members from the Peloponnesian alliance. Thrace, Attica and the seas of western Greece are therefore the chief and constant scenes of the war. There are episodes elsewhere but they are to some extent accidental. Pericles had completely abandoned the policy of continental enterprise which had led up to the 30 years peace. That enterprise had been a departure from the policy initiated by Themistocles of concentrating all the energy of Athens on the development of her naval power. Pericles returned to this policy without reserve and he appears at the outbreak of the war under the inspiration of the Salamnian spirit. Athens is now to show the same extreme independence of her land, the same utter confidence in her ships which she had shown when the Mead approached her borders. Let us give up lands and houses said Pericles but keep a watch over the city and the sea. We should not under any irritation at the loss of our property give battle to the Peloponnesians who far outnumber us. More not for houses or lands but for men. Men may give these but these will not give men. If I thought that you would listen to me I would say to you go yourselves and destroy them and thereby prove to the Peloponnesians that none of these things will move you for such is the power which the empire of the sea gives. This was the spirit in which Pericles undertook the war. The policy of sacrificing Attica was no rash or perverse audacity. It was only part of a well considered system of strategy for which Pericles has been severely blamed. His object was to wear out the enemy not to attempt to subjugate or decisively defeat. He was determined not to call to great battle for which the land forces of Athens were manifestly insufficient. On land Biosha alone was a match for her. He adopted the strategy of exhaustion as it has been called the strategy which consists largely in manoeuvring and considers the economy of one's own forces as solicitously as the damaging of the foe. Which will accept battle only under certain conditions which is always on the watch for favourable opportunities but avoids great risks. The more we reflect on the conditions of the struggle and the nature of the Athenian resources the more fully will the plan of Pericles approve itself as the strategy uniquely suitable to the circumstances. Nor will the criticism that he neglected the land defences of Attica and the suggestion that he should have fortified the frontier against invasions bear close examination. The whole Athenian land army would have been required to garrison both the Magarian and Biosha frontiers and there would have been no troops left for operations elsewhere. Nor would it have been easy for a citizen army to abide on duty as would in this case have been necessary for a large part of the year. It was quite an accord with the spirit of the patient strategy of Pericles that he refrained from the temptation of striking a blow at the enemy when they had resolved on war but were not yet prepared. One effective blow he had indeed struck the decree against Megara to damage the foe commercially was an essential part of his method. Within a few years this method would doubtless have been crowned with success and brought about a peace favourable to Athens but for untoward events which he could not foresee. End of Chapter 10, Part 2 This recording is in the public domain. Section 37 Being Chapter 10 Parts 3 and 4 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 by John Bagnell Bury Chapter 10, Part 3 The Theban Attack on Plataea The declaration of war between the two great states of Greece was a signal to smaller states to profit by the situation for the gratification of their private enmities. On a dark moonless night in the early spring a band of three hundred Thebans here, invited and admitted by a small party in the city. Instead of at once attacking the chiefs of the party which supported the Athenian alliance they took up their post in the Agora and made a proclamation calling upon the Plataeans to join the B-Ocean League. The Plataeans as a people with the exception of a few male contents were cordially attached to Athens but they were surprised and in the darkness of the night they exaggerated the numbers of the Thebans. They acceded to the Theban demand but in the course of negotiations discovered how few the enemies were. Breaking down the party walls between their houses so as not to attract notice by moving in the streets they concerted a plan of action. When all was arranged they barricaded the streets leading to the Agora with wagons and then attacked the enemy before dawn. The Thebans were soon dispersed. They lost their way in the strange town and wandered about pelted by women from the housetops through narrow streets deep in mud for heavy rain had fallen during the night. A few clambered up the city wall and cast themselves down on the other side where the greater number rushed through the door of a large building mistaking it for one of the town gates and were thus captured alive by the Plataeans. A few escaped who reached an unguarded gate and cut the wooden bolt with an axe which a woman gave them. The three hundred were only the vanguard of a large Theban force which was advancing slowly in the rain along the eight miles of road which lay between Thebes and Plataea. They were delayed by the crossing of the swollen Asipus River and they arrived too late. The Plataeans sent out a herald to them requiring them to do no injury to Plataean property outside the walls if they valued the lives of the Theban prisoners. According to the Theban account the Plataeans definitely promised to restore the prisoners when the troops evacuated their territory. But the Plataeans afterwards denied this and said that they merely promised without the sanction of an oath to restore the prisoners in case they came to an agreement after negotiation. It matters little. The Plataeans as soon as they had conveyed to the city put their prisoners to death one hundred and eighty in number. Even on their own showing they were clearly guilty of an act of ill faith which is explained by the deep hatred existing between the two states. A message had been immediately sent to Athens. The Athenians seized all the Beotians in Attica and sent a herald to Plataea bidding them not to injure their prisoners but the herald found the Thebans dead. The Athenians immediately set Plataea ready for a siege. They provisioned it with corn, removed the women, children and old men and sent a garrison of eighty Athenians. The Theban attack on Plataea was a glaring violation of the thirty years peace and it hastened the outbreak of the war. Greece was now in a state of intense excitement at the approaching struggle of the two leading cities. Oracles flew about and a recent earthquake in Delos was supposed to be significant. Public opinion was generally favourable to the Lacedaemonians who seemed to be the champions of liberty against a tyrannical city. Both sides meditated in listing the aid of Persia. The Lacedaemonians negotiated with the states of Italy and Sicily for the purpose of obtaining a large navy to crush the Athenians but this scheme also fell through. The cities of the west were busy with their own political interests to send ships and money to old Greece. Athens indeed had also cast her eyes westward and when she embraced the alliance of Corchira she seemed to have been forming connections with Sicily. At all events in the same year ambassadors of Regium and Leontini appeared together at Athens and at the same meeting of the assembly the alliances were renewed with both cities on the proposal the object of Chalkidian Leontini was doubtless to gain support against Corinthian Syracuse while the motive of Regium may have been connected with the affairs of Thurii, the rebellious daughter of Athens herself but these alliances led to no action of Athens in the west for six years to come. Part 4 The Plague When the corn was ripe in the last days of May King Archidamus with two-thirds of the Peloponnesian army invaded Attica. From the isthmus he had sent on Melisippus to Athens if even at the last hour the Athenians might yield but Pericles had persuaded them to receive no embassies once the enemy were in the field the envoy had to leave the borders of Attica before the sun set and Thucydides after the manner of Herodotus marks the formal commencement of the war by repeating the impressive words which Melisippus uttered as he stood on the frontier This day will be the beginning of many woes to the Greeks. Archidamus then laid siege to Innoe, a fortress on Mount Chitharon but failed to take it and his delay gave the Athenians time to complete their preparations. They brought into the city their family and their goods, while their flocks and herds were removed to the island of Euboea. The inhabitants of the population into the city caused terrible crowding. A few had the homes of their friends but the majority pitched their tents in the vacant spaces and housed themselves as the peace-party bitterly said in barrels and vultures' nests. They seized temples and shrines and even the ancient enclosure of the Pelargicon on the northwest of the Acropolis was occupied though its occupation was deprecated by a dark oracle. The crowding was relieved when the Piraeus and the space between the long walls were utilized. Archidamus first ravaged the plain of Ileucis and Thria. He then crossed into the Cephisian plain by the pass between Mount Igalios and Parnes and halted under Parnes in the Deem of Achanai whence he could see in the distance the Acropolis of Athens. The proximity of the invaders caused great excitement in Athens in a position to Pericles who would not allow the troops to go forth against them except to few flying columns of horse in the immediate neighbourhood of the city. Pericles had been afraid that Archidamus who was his personal friend might spare his property either from friendship or policy so he took the precaution of declaring to his fellow citizens that he would give his lands to the people if they were left unraveaged. The invader presently advanced northward between Parnes and Pentallicus to Decalia and proceeded through the territory of Oropus to Beotia. The Athenians, meanwhile, had been operating by sea. They had sent a hundred ships around the Peloponnesus and an attack on Methoni on the Messinian coast failed. The place was saved by a daring Spartan officer, Brassidas who by this exploit began a distinguished career. But the fleet was more successful further north. The important island of Kefalina was won over and some towns on the Achananian coast were taken. Measures were also adopted for the protection of Euboea against the Locrians of the opposite mainland. The epic Namidian town of Thronion was captured and the desert island of Atalanta over against Oropus was made a guard station. More important was the drastic measure which Athens adopted against her subject from her rivals, the Dorians of Aegina. She felt that they were not to be trusted and the security of her positions in the Seronic Gulf was of the first importance. So she drove out the Aeginetans and settled the island with a clerarchy of her own citizens. Aegina thus became, like Salamis, annexed to Attica. Just as the Messinian exiles had been befriended by Athens and given a new home, so the Aegineten exiles were now in Sparta and were settled in the region of Theriatis in the north of Laconia. Theriatis was the Lacedaemonian answer to Naupactus. When Archidarmus left Attica Pericles consulted for emergencies of the future by setting aside a reserve fund of money and a reserve armament of ships. There had been as much as 9,700 talents in the treasury but the expenses of the buildings and of the war at Potidair had reduced this to 6,000. It was now decreed that 1,000 talents of this amount should be reserved, not to be touched unless the enemy were to attack Athens by sea and that every year 100 triremes should be set apart with the same object. In winter the Athenians following an old custom celebrated the public burial of those who had fallen in the war. The bones were laid in 10 cedar boxes and were buried outside the walls in the Keramikus. An empty bed covered with a pool was carried for those whose bodies were missing. Pericles pronounced the funeral panagyric. It has not been preserved but the spirit and general argument of it have been reproduced in the oration which Thucydides who must have been one of the audience has put in his mouth. It is a rare good fortune to possess a picture drawn by Thucydides of the ideal Athens which Pericles dreamed of creating. There is no exclusiveness, he said in our public life and in our private intercourse. We are not suspicious of one another nor angry with our neighbour if he does what he likes. We do not put on sour looks at him which, though harmless, are not pleasant and we have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many relaxations from toil. We have regular games and sacrifices throughout the year. At home the style of our life is refined and the delight which we daily feel in all these things helps to banish melancholy. Because of the greatness of our city the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us so that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as of our own. Then again our military training is in many respects superior to that of our adversaries. Our city is thrown open to the world and we never expel a foreigner or prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the secret if revealed to an enemy might profit him. We rely not upon management or trickery but upon our own hearts and hands and in the matter of education whereas they from early youth are always undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave we live at ease and yet are equally ready to face which they face. If we prefer to meet danger with a light heart but without laborious training and with a courage which is gained by habit and not enforced by law are we not greatly the gainers? Since we do not anticipate the pain although when the hour comes we can be as brave as those who never allow themselves to rest and thus too our city is equally admirable in peace and in war. For we are lovers of the beautiful yet simple in our tastes and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness wealth we employ not for talk and ostentation but when there is a real use for it to avow poverty with us is no disgrace the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it an Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his own household and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics we alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs not as a harmless but as a useless character and if few of us are originators we are all sound judges of a policy. The great impediment to action is in our opinion not discussion but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action for we have a peculiar power and of acting too whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection then the speaker goes on to describe Athens as the centre of Hellenic culture and to claim that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace and he continues we shall not be without witnesses there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages we shall not need the praises of Homer or any other panagyrist whose poetry may please for the moment although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day for we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf I would have you day by day fix your eyes upon the greatness of Athens until you become filled with the love of her and when you are impressed by the spectacle of her glory this empire has been acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage to do it who in the hour of conflict had the fear of dishonour always present to them and who if ever they failed in an enterprise would not allow their virtues to be lost to their country but freely gave their lives to her as the fairest offering which they could present at her feast the sacrifice which they collectively made was individually repaid to them they received again and again each one for himself a praise which grows not old and the noblest of all sepulchres I speak not of that in which their remains are laid but of that in which their glory survives and is proclaimed always and on every fitting occasion both in word and deed for the whole earth is the sepulcher of famous men not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions but in foreign lands their dwells also an unwritten memorial of them graven not on stone but in the hearts of men make them your examples we are reminded of an earlier monument from the middle of the century a beautiful relief found on the acropolis shows the helmeted lady of the land leaning on her spear with downcast head and gazing gravely at a slab of stone it is an attractive interpretation that she is sadly engaged in reading the names of citizens who had recently fallen in the defence of her city perhaps in the first Peloponnesian war next year the Peloponnesians again invaded Attica and extended their devastations to the south of the peninsula as far as Laulion but the Athenians concerned themselves less with this invasion they had to contend with a more awful enemy within the walls of their city the plague had broken out Thucydides, who was stricken down himself gives a terrible account of its ravages and the demoralisation which it produced in Athens the art of medicine was in its first infancy and the inexperienced physicians were unable to treat the unknown virulent disease which defied every remedy and was aggravated by the overcrowding of summer the dead lay unburied the temples were full of corpses and the funeral customs were forgotten or violated dying wretches were gathered about every fountain seeking to relieve their unquenchable thirst men remembered an old oracle which said that a Dorian war will come and a plague therewith but the Greek for plague Loimos was hardly distinguishable from the Greek for famine at the present day they are identical in sound and people were not quite sure which was the true word naturally the verse was now quoted with Loimos but says Thucydides in case there comes another Dorian war and it is accompanied by a famine the oracle will be quoted with Limous the same historian who has given of this pestilence of vivid description unequalled by later narrators of similar scourges Caccio de Fao declares that the plague originated in Ethiopia spread through Egypt over the Persian Empire and then reached the Aegean but it is remarkable that a plague raged at the same time in the still obscure city of central Italy which was afterwards to become the mistress of Greece it has been guessed with some plausibility that the infection which reached both Athens and Rome had travelled along the trade routes from Carthage the Peloponnesus almost entirely escaped in Athens the havoc of the pestilence permanently reduced the population the total number of Athenian burgers of both sexes and all ages was about 140,000 in the first quarter of the 5th century prosperity had raised it to 172,000 by the beginning of the war but the plague brought it down below the old level and it reached again as in a year before an Athenian fleet attacked the Peloponnesus but this time it was the coasts of Argolis Epidaeus, Troisin, Hermione, Haleis the armament was large 4,000 spearmen and 300 horse it was under the command of Pericles and it aimed at the capture of Epidaeus while the Epidaean troops were absent with their allies in Attica the attempt miscarried we know not why and it is hard to forgive our historian for omitting all the details of this ambitious enterprise which would have been if it had succeeded one of the most important exploits of the war for Epidaeus occupied an invaluable strategic position it would have been a useful base for raiding the territory of Corinth and Megara it would have threatened Peloponnesian armies advancing into Attica and it might have served as a tempting bait to Argos Epidaeus was part of the heritage of Teminus and its independence was an index of Argyve weakness should neutral Argos rejoin her old ally the balance of power would be decisively shifted in Athens' favour at the end of the summer hostilities broke out in the west of Greece before the war the inhabitants of Amfilochion Argos driven out by the Ambracchiots had with their allies the Achananians appeared for help to Athens Athens had sent Formio with 30 ships to restore the position the Ambracchiots were sold into slavery and the city restored to Amfilochions and Achananians who became grateful allies now taking advantage of the general unsettlement the Ambracchiots tried to recover the lost ground but though they overran the countryside they could not take the city a show of force by Athens was needed and Formio was sent with 20 ships to hold guard at Naupactus from this station he could watch the northwest and guard the entrance to the Crician Gulf in Thrace meanwhile the siege of Potidia had been prosecuted throughout the year the inhabitants had been reduced to such straits that they even tasted human flesh and in the winter they capitulated the terms were that the Potidians and the foreign soldiers were to leave the city the men with one garment the women with two of them of money was to be allowed them Athens soon afterwards colonised the place the siege had cost two thousand talents meanwhile the Athenians had been cast into such despair by the plague that they made overtures for peace to Sparta their overtures were rejected and they turned the fury of their disappointment upon Pericles who had returned unsuccessful from Epidaurus he was suspended from the post of Strategos to which he had been prosecuted in the spring his accounts were called for and examined by the council and an exceptionally large court of one thousand five hundred and one judges was in panel to try him for the misappropriation of public money he was found guilty of theft to the trifling amount of five talents the verdict was a virtual acquittal though he had to pay a fine of ten times the amount and he was presently re-elected to the post which he had been suspended he was in truth indispensable all the courage, all the patience all the eloquence of the great statesman were demanded at this crisis he had to convince Athens that the privileges of her imperial position involved hardships and toils and that it was dangerous for her to draw back the position of the imperialist is always vulnerable to assaults on grounds of morality and the peace party at Athens make a plausible case against the policy of Pericles but the imperial instinct of the people responded in spite of temporary reactions to his call Athens was not destined to be guided by him much longer he had lost his two legitimate sons in the plague and he died about a year later in his last years he had been afflicted by the indirect attacks of his enemies Phidias was accused of embezzling part of the public money devoted to the works on the Acropolis in which he was engaged and it was implied that Pericles was cognizant of the dishonesty Phidias was condemned then the philosopher Anaxagoras was publicly prosecuted for holding and propagating impious doctrines Pericles defended his friend but Anaxagoras was sentenced to pay a fine of five talents and retired to continue his philosophical studies the next attack was upon his mistress Aspasia who was charged with impiety the pleading of Pericles procured her acquittal and in the last year of his life the people passed a decree to legitimize her son the latest words of Pericles express what to the student of the history of civilization is an important feature of his character his humanity no Athenian ever put on black for an act of mine and of Chapter 10 Part 4 this recording is in the public domain Section 38 being Chapter 10 Parts 5 and 6 of the history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information please visit LibriVox.org a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 by John Bagnore Bury Chapter 10 Part 5 The Siege and Capture of Plataea In the next summer Archidamus was induced by the Thebans instead of invading Attica to march across Kitharun and Lataya like Elis itself the Plataea land was sacred in memory of the great deliverance of Helas which had been wrought there and the Spartan king when he set foot upon it called the gods to witness that the Plataeans had first done wrong he proposed to the Plataeans that they should evacuate their territory until the end of the war they might count their trees and their possessions and all should then be restored to them intact having consulted Athens which promised to protect them the Plataeans refused and Archidamus began the siege the Athenians however were true to the policy of avoiding continental warfare and notwithstanding their promises sent no help Plataea was a very important position for the Peloponnesians to secure it commanded the road from Megara to Thebes by which communications between the Peloponnesus and Biosha could be maintained most easily without entering Attica the visitor to Plataea must not suppose that the city which Archidamus besieged extended over the entire ground plan which now meets his eye for he seized the circuit of the city as it existed a century later occupying the whole surface of the low triangular plateau on which the town stood the Plataea of Archidamus corresponds probably to the southern and higher part of the space occupied by the later town the wall of the older Plataea cannot have been much more than a mile long for the small garrison 400 Plataeans and 80 Athenians could never have maintained a longer line of defense in a place where nature had done almost nothing to assist them having surrounded the city with a palisade to prevent anyone from getting out Archidamus employed his army in building a mound they worked for 70 days and 70 nights the Plataeans endeavoured to counteract this by raising the height of their own wall opposite the mound by a structure of bricks set in a wooden frame they protected the workmen by screens of hide against burning arrows but as the mound rose higher and higher a new device was tried they made a hole in the wall underneath and drew out the earth from the mound the Athenians met this device by putting into the gap clay packed in baskets of reeds this could not be drawn away quickly like the loose earth another plan was then devised by the besieged they dug a subterranean mine under the wall to some distance beneath the mound and drew the earth away as they had done before this effectively retarded the progress of the mound for though the besieges were numerous they had to carry the earth from a considerable distance the Plataeans resorted to yet another device from the two extremities of that portion of the wall which they had raised in height they built an inner wall in crescent shape projecting inwards so that if the outer wall were taken the Peloponnesians would have all their labour over again they also showed ingenuity in frustrating the battering rams which the besieges brought against the walls they placed two poles on top of the wall projecting over it to the ends of these poles they attached a huge beam by means of iron chains when the engine approached they let go the beam which snapped off the head of the battering ram the besieges then made an attempt to set the town on fire they heaped up faggots along the wall close to the mound and kindled them with brimstone and pitch if the prevalent south wind had been blowing down the slopes of the mountain nothing would have saved the Plataeans conflagration which ensued and rendered the wall unapproachable by the besieges when this device failed the Peloponnesians saw that they would have to blockade Plataea they built a wall of circumvalation about a hundred yards from the city and dug two fosters one inside and one outside this wall then Archidamus left part of his army to maintain the blockade during the winter the blockaders of whom about half were the Peloponnesians established a communication by means of fire signals with thebes at the end of another year the Plataeans saw that they had no longer any hope of help from Athens and their food was running short they determined to make an attempt to escape the wall of the Peloponnesians looked like a single wall of immense thickness but it actually consisted of two walls sixteen feet apart the middle space which served as quarters for the garrison was roofed over and guard was kept on the roof along the top there were battlements on each side and at every tenth battlement there was a tower which covered the whole width from wall to wall there were passages through the middle of the towers but not at the sides on wet and stormy nights the guard used to leave the battlements and retire under the shelter of the towers the escape was attended with much risk and less than half the garrison attempted it the plan was carefully calculated they determined the height of the wall by counting and recounting the number of layers of bricks in a spot which had not been plastered and then constructed ladders of exactly the right length on a dark night amid rain and storm they stole out crossed the inner ditch and reached the wall unnoticed they were lightly equipped and while their right feet were bare they prevented slipping in the mud twelve men, led by Ammius ascended first near two adjacent towers they killed the guard in each tower and secured the passages which they held until all their companions had mounted and descended on the other side one of the Platians in climbing up on the roof knocked a brick from one of the battlements its fall was heard and the alarm was given all the besiegers came out on the wall but in the blackness they did not discover what it was and no one dared to move from his own place moreover the Platians in the city distracted their attention by sallying out on the side opposite to that on which their friends were escaping the Peloponnesians lit their danger signals to Thebes but this had also been foreseen by the Platians who by lighting other beacons on their own wall confused the signals of their enemies but what the Platians had most of fear was attacked from a band of 300 men whose duty it was to patrol outside the wall while the last of the Platians were descending they arrived with lights they were thus illuminated themselves and a good mark for the arrows and darts of the Platians who were standing along the edge of the outer ditch this ditch was crossed with difficulty it was swollen with rain and had a coat of ice too thin to bear but all got over safely except one archer was captured on the brink the escape was perhaps affected on the north side of the city the fugitives at first took the road to Thebes to put their pursuers off the scent but when they had left Plataea about a mile behind them they struck to the right and reached the road from Thebes to Athens near Eritre 212 men reached Athens a few more had started but had turned back before they crossed the wall this episode is an permanently interesting example of the survival of the fittest from melancholy fate awaited those who had not the courage to take their lives in their hands in the following summer, want of food forced them to capitulate at discretion to the Lacedaemonians 5 men were sent from Sparta to decide their fate but their fate had already been decided through the influence of Thebes each prisoner was merely asked have you in the present war done any service to the Lacedaemonians or their allies the form of the question implied the sentence and it was in vain that the Plataeans appealed to the loyalty of their ancestors to the cause of Hellas in the Persian war or implored the Lacedaemonians to look upon the sepulchres of their own fathers buried in Plataean land and honoured every year by Plataea with the customary offerings they were put to death 200 in number and 25 Athenians and the city was raised to the ground the Peloponnesians now commanded the road from Megara to Thebes it is hard to avoid reproaching the Athenians for impolicy in not coming to the relief of their old unfaithful ally and maintaining a position so important for the communication between the Peloponnes and Biosha their failure to bring succour at the beginning of the siege may be explained by their sufferings of the plague which still prevailed and in the following year a more pressing danger diverted their attention the revolt of a member of their maritime confederacy Part 6 Revolt of Mitalini Archidamus had invaded Attica for the third time and had just quitted it when the news arrived that Mitalini and the rest of Lesbos with the exception of Methimna this was a great and as it might seem to Athens an unprovoked blow it was not due to any special grievance the oligarchical government of Mitalini confessed that the city was always well treated and honoured by Athens the revolt is all the more interesting and significant on this account it was a protest of the Hellenic instinct for absolute autonomy against an empire such as the Athenian the sovereignty of the Lesbian cities was limited in regard to foreign affairs their relations with other members of the confederacy were subject to control on the part of Athens and their ships were required for Athenian purposes such restraints were irksome and as they had seen the free allies of Athens most recently Samos gradually transformed into subjects they might fear that this would presently be their own case too the revolt had been meditated for some years it was hastened in the end before all the preparations were made such as the closing of the harbour of Mitalini by a mole and chain because the design had been betrayed to Athens by enemies in Methymna and Tenedos the Athenians on the first news sent ships under Cleopides to surprise Mitalini at a festival of Apollo which all the inhabitants used to celebrate outside the walls but the Mitalinians received secret intelligence and postponed the feast the lesbians had a large fleet and the Athenians were feeling so severely the effects of the plague and of the war that the rebellion had a good prospect of success if it had been energetically supported by the Peloponnesians envoys who were sent to gain their help pleaded the cause of lesbos at the Olympian Games which were celebrated this year at the most august of the Panhellenic festivals by the banks of the Alpheus it was a fitting occasion to come forward among the assembled Greeks as champions of the principle of self-government which it is the glory of Greece to have taught mankind and as Mitalini had no grievance beyond the general injustice of Athens in imposing external limitations on the autonomy of others her assertion of that principle carried the greater weight Lesbos was admitted into the Peloponnesian League but no assistance was sent the revolt from Athens was accompanied by a constitutional change within the borders of Lesbos itself except Methimna in the north the other cities in the island Antissa, Eresus and Pira on her landlocked bay agreed to merge their own political individualities in the city of Mitalini by the constitutional process known as cynicism Mitalini was now to be to Lesbos what Athens was to Attica the citizens of Pira Eresus and Antissa would hence forward be citizens of Mitalini Lesbos with Methimna independent and hostile would now be what Attica was before the annexation of Elusus meanwhile the Athenians had blockaded the two harbours of Mitalini and Pachy soon arrived with a thousand hoplites to complete the investment he built a wall on the land side of the city at this time the Athenians were in sore want of money for their funds had been seriously strained especially by the expenses of the siege of Potidaia as a measure of economy the hoplites sent from Athens to reinforce the besiegers were required to take the ores themselves a small squadron was sent at the same time to the Carian district to levy tribute from states which had defaulted a dangerous mission which met with no success the tribute of the empire was increased by a new extraordinary assessment and at home they resulted to the expedient of raising money by a property tax this tax now introduced for the first time differed both in object and in nature from the property tax of the 6th century in the first place it was not imposed permanently but only to meet a temporary crisis secondly it was to be used for purely military purposes thirdly it was imposed on all property and not merely on land economical conditions had changed since the crisis stood us and landed proprietors no longer formed the bulk of the richest men the tax yielded in the first year 200 talents and was frequently reimposed the urgent need justified it but it increased the bitterness of the oligarchs and helped to strain the allegiance of the moderates it was probably first introduced by Cleon who was this year a member of the council it became associated with the policy of the demagogues at the end of the winter the Spartan sent a man his name was Silithus to assure the people of Mitalini that an armament would be dispatched to their relief he managed to elude the Athenians and get into the city the spirits of the besieged rose and when summer came 42 ships were sent under the command of Alcidus and at the same time the Peloponnesians invaded Attica for the fourth time hoping to distract the attention of the people from Mitalini the besieged waited and waited but the ships never came and the food ran short Silithus in despair determined to make a sally and for this purpose armed the mass of the people with shields and spears but the people when they got the arms refused to obey and demanded that the oligarchs should bring forth the corn and that all should share it fairly otherwise they would surrender the city this drove the government the chance of a separate negotiation on the part of the people and they capitulated at discretion their fate was to be decided at Athens and meanwhile Pachys was to put no man to death the fleet of Alcidus had wasted time about the Peloponnesians and on reaching the island of Mykonos received the news that Mitalini was taken he sailed to Erythra and there it was proposed to Alcidus that he should attack Mitalini the principle that men who have just gained possession of a city are usually off their guard another suggestion was that a town on the Asiatic coast should be seized and a revolt excited against Athens in the Ionian district but these plans were far too good and daring for a Lacedemonian admiral to adopt he sailed southward was pursued by Pachys as far as Pachmos and retired into the Peloponnesian waters more at home the ringleaders of the revolt of Mitalini were sent to Athens and along with them the Spartans, Elythus who was immediately put to death the assembly met to determine the fate of the prisoners and decided to put to death not only the most guilty who had been sent to Athens but the whole adult male population and to enslave the women and children a trireme was immediately dispatched to Pachys with this terrible command the fact that the Athenian assembly was persuaded to press the cruel rights of war so far as to decree the extinction of a whole population shows how deep was the feeling of wrath that prevailed against Mitalini many things contributed to render that feeling particularly bitter the revolt had come at a moment when Athens was sore bestowed between plague and the war every Athenian had a grudge against Mitalini for his own pocket had suffered through the tax which it had been necessary to impose and the imperial pride of the people had been wounded by the unheard of event of a Peloponnesian fleet sailing in the eastern waters of which Athens regarded herself as the sole mistress but above all it was the revolt not of a subject but of a free ally Athens could more easily forgive the rebellion of a subject state which tried to throw off her yoke the repudiation of her leadership by a nominally independent Confederate for the action of Mitalini was in truth an indictment of the whole fabric of the Athenian Empire as unjust and undesirable and the Athenians felt its significance the mere unreasoning instinct of self-preservation suggested the policy of making a terrible example it was another question whether this policy was wise the calm sense of Pericles was no longer there to guide and enlighten the assembly we now find democratic statesmen of a completely different stamp coming forward to take his place the assembly is swayed by men of the people tradesmen like Cleon, the leather merchant Eucrates, the rope seller Hyperbulus, the lamp maker these men had not like Aristides, Caimon and Pericles family connections to start to support them they had no aristocratic traditions as the background of their democratic policy they were self-made they won their influence in the state by sheer force of cleverness eloquence, industry and audacity a man like Cleon the son of Cleonetus whom we now meet holding the unofficial position of leader of the assembly must to attain that eminence have regularly attended week after week in the Pnics he must have mastered the details of political affairs he must have had the courage to confront the Olympian authority of Pericles and the dexterity to make some palpable hits he must have studied the art of speaking and been able to hold his audience Cleon and the other statesmen of this new type are especially interesting as the politicians whom the advanced democracy produced and educated it would be a grievous error to suppose that their policy was determined by mere selfish ambition or party malice nearly all we know of them is derived from the writings of men who not only condemned their policy but personally disliked them as low-born upstarts yet though they may have been vulgar and offensive in their manners there is abundant evidence that they were able and there is no proof that they were not generally honest politicians to those who regretted the dignity of Pericles the speech of Cleon or hyperbolas may have seemed violent and coarse but Cleon himself could hardly have outdone the coarseness and the violence of the personalities which Demosthenes heaped on Iskines in a subsequent generation these new politicians were for the most part strong imperialists and Cleon seems to have taken fully to heart the maxim of Pericles to keep the subject allies well in hand it was under his influence that the assembly vented its indignation against Mitalini by dooming the whole people to slaughter but when the meeting had dispersed a partial reaction set in men began in a cooler moment to realize the inhumanity of their action and to question its policy the envoys of Mitalini who had been permitted to come to Athens to plead her cause seeing this change of feeling to summon an extraordinary meeting of the assembly for the following morning to reconsider the decree Cleon again came forward to support it on the grounds of both legal justice and good policy Thucydides represents him as openly asserting the principle that a tyrannical city must use tyrannical methods and rule by fear chastising her allies without mercy the chief speaker on the other side was a certain diodotus who had done immortality by his action at this famous crisis diodotus handled the question entirely as a matter of policy Cleon had deprecated any appeal to the irrelevant considerations of humanity or pity diodotus carefully avoiding such an appeal deprecates on his own side with great force Cleon's appeal to considerations of justice the Mitalinians have deserved the sentence of death certainly the argument is entirely irrelevant the question for Athens to consider is not what Mitalini deserves but what it is expedient for Athens to inflict we are not at law with the Mitalinians and do not want to be told what is just we are considering a matter of policy and desire to know how we can turn them to account he then goes on to argue that as a matter of fact the penalty of death is not a deterrent such a severe punishment will be injurious to Athens a city which has revolted knowing that whether she comes to term soon or late the penalty will be the same will never surrender money will be wasted and a long blockade and when the place is taken it will be a mere wreck moreover if the people of Mitalini who were compelled to join with their oligarchical government in rebelling are destroyed the popular party will everywhere be alienated from Athens the reasoning of Deodotus which was based on sound views of policy must have confirmed many of the audience who had already been influenced by the emotion of pity but even still the assembly was nearly equally divided and the supporters of Deodotus won their motion by a very small majority the ship which bore the sentence of doom had a start of about a day and a night could it be overtaken by the trireme which was now dispatched with the reprieve the Mitalini and envoys supplied the crew with wine and barley and offered large rewards if they were in time the oarsmen continued rowing while they ate the barley kneaded with wine and oil and slept and rowed by turns the first trireme bound on an unpleasant errand had sailed slowly it arrived a little before the other Pachys had the decree in his hand and was about to execute it when the second ship sailed into the harbour and the city was saved the wrath of Athens against her rebellious ally was sufficiently gratified by the trial and execution of those Mitalinians who had been sent to Athens as especially guilty having taken away the lesbian fleet and raised the wall of Mitalini the Athenians divided the island excluding Mithymna into three thousand lots of which three hundred were consecrated to the gods the rest they let to Athenian citizens as clerics and the land was cultivated by the lesbians who paid an annual rent End of Part 6 This recording is in the public domain Section 39 being Chapter 10 Parts 7, 8 and 9 of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org A History of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 by John Bagnore Burie Chapter 10 Part 7 Warfare in Western Greece and historic events in Corkira While the attention of Greece was directed upon the fortunes of Plataea and Mitalini warfare had been carried on in the regions of the west and the reputation of the Athenian navy had risen higher The Ambrachites had persuaded Sparta to send an expedition against Achanania If the Peloponnesians firmly established themselves there they might win the whole Athenian alliance Knemus was sent with a thousand hoplites in advance He made an attempt on the important town of Stratus but was forced to retreat Meanwhile a Peloponnesian fleet was to sail from Corinth to support him It consisted of 47 ships and had to pass Formio who was guarding the entrance of the Corinthian Gulf with only 20 Formio let them sail into the open sea preferring to attack them there For manoeuvres he crowded the enemy's ships into a narrow space A morning breeze helped him by knocking the ships against one another and when they were in confusion the Athenians dashed in and gained a complete victory The government at Sparta could not understand how skill could gain such an advantage over far superior numbers They sent commissioners to make an inquiry and Knemus was told that he must try again and be successful A reorganised Peloponnesian fleet took up a position at Ponomus in Achaea and Formio was stationed at Rion on the opposite coast The object of Knemus was to lure or drive the enemy into the Gulf where their skill in handling their ships would be less decisive than in the open sea With this purpose he sailed towards Nalpactus and Formio in alarm sailed along the coast to protect the place As the Athenian ships moved near the land in single file the enemy suddenly swung round and rode down upon them at their utmost speed The 11 ships which were nearest Nalpactus had time to run round the right Peloponnesian wing and escape The rest were driven aground 20 Peloponnesian vessels on the right were in the meantime pursuing the 11 Athenian which were making for Nalpactus A Lucadian ship was far in advance of the others closely pursuing an Athenian which was lagging behind Near Nalpactus a merchant vessel lay in their way anchored in the deep water The Athenian trireme rode round it struck her pursuer amid ships and sank her This brilliant exploit startled the Peloponnesians who were coming up singing a peon of victory The front ships dropped oars and waited for the rest The Athenians who had already reached Nalpactus were in a situation and immediately bore down and gained another complete victory If this able admiral Formio had lived he might have extended Athenian influence considerably in western Greece but after a winter expedition which he made in Achanania he suddenly drops out of history and as we find his son Asopius sent out in the following summer at the request of the Achananians we must conclude that his career was not short by death Asopius made an unsuccessful attempt on Oiniadai and was slain in a descent on Lukas The peninsula of Lukas and the Achananian Oiniadai girt by morasses at the mouth of the river Akelius were two main objectives of Athenian enterprise in the west Lukas was never one but four years later Oiniadai was forced to join the Athenian alliance Kokaira herself was to be the next scene of war in the Ionian sea The prisoners whom Corinth had taken in the Epidamnian war had been released on the understanding that they were to win over Kokaira from the Athenian alliance and their intrigues were effectual in dividing the state and producing a sanguinary revolution The question between the Peloponnesian and the Athenian alliance was closely bound up with the cleavage between the oligarchical and the democratic party The intrigues in the Corinthian interest and their faction formed a conspiracy to overthrow the democratic constitution Their first step was to prosecute Pethias, the leader of the people, on the charge of scheming to make Kokaira a subject of Athens He was acquitted and retorted by summoning their five richest men to take their trial for cutting vine-polls in the sanctuaries and alchinois They were fined a stator for each pole such a heavy fine that the culprit sat as suppliance in the sanctuary imploring that they might pay by instalments The prayer was refused and in desperation they rushed into the Senate House and slew Pethias and sixty others who were with him The oligarchy now had the upper hand and they attacked the people who fled to the Acropolis and the Helaic harbour The other harbour which looks towards the mainland along with the Agara and the lower parts of the city were held by the oligarchs Next day reinforcements came to both sides to the people from other parts of the island and to the oligarchs from the mainland Fighting was soon resumed and the people had the advantage In order to bar their way to the arsenal the oligarch set fire to the houses and buildings in the neighbourhood of the Agara Next day twelve Athenian ships under Nicostratus arrived from Naupactus He induced the two parties to come to an agreement but the democrats persuaded him to leave five Athenian ships to ensure the preservation of order for they did not trust their opponents Nicostratus was to take five Caucasian ships instead and the crews of them were chosen from the oligarchs They were in fact to be hostages for the behaviour of their fellows but they feared they might be sent to Athens and fled to the refuge of a temple Nicostratus could not induce them to stir The people regarded this distrust as a proof of criminal designs and armed anew The rest of the oligarchs then fled to the temple of Hera but the democrats induced them to cross over to an islet off the coast Four or five days later a Peloponnesian fleet of 53 ships arrived under Alcidus who had just returned from his expedition to Ionia In a naval engagement outside the harbour the Caucasians fought badly and the Athenians were forced to retreat but the Peloponnesians did not follow up their success and soon afterwards hearing that an Athenian armament of 60 ships was on its way returned home The democratic party was now in a position to wreak vengeance on its foes who had gratuitously disturbed the peace of the city and sought to submit it to the yoke of its ancient enemy The most vindictive and inhuman passions had been roused in the people by the attempt of the oligarchs on their liberty and they now gave vent to these passions without regard to honour or policy The 400 suppliants had returned from the island and were again under the protection of Hera 50 of them were persuaded to come forth to take their trial and were executed The rest seeing their fate aided each other in committing suicide Some hung themselves on the trees in the sacred enclosure Eurymidon arrived with the Athenian fleet and remained seven days During this time the Caucasians slew all whom they suspected of being opposed to the democracy and many victims were sacrificed to private enmity Every form of death was to be seen and everything and more than everything that commonly happens in revolutions happened then The father slew the son and the suppliants were torn from the temples and slain near them Some of them were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and there perished To such extremes of cruelty did revolution go and this seemed to be the worst of revolutions because it was the first Eurymidon looked on and did not intervene While the democracy cannot be excused for these horrible excesses the fact remains that the guilt of causing the revolution rests entirely with the oligarchs The chief victims of the democratic fury deserve small compassion They had set the example of violence The occurrences at Corkira made a profound impression in Greece reflected in the pages of Thucydides That historian has used the episode as the text for deep comments on the revolutionary spirit which soon began to disturb the states of the Greek world Party divisions were encouraged and aggravated by the hope or fear of foreign intervention The oligarchs looking to the Lassidimonians and the democrats to the Athenians In time of peace these party struggles would have been far less bitter This acute observation is illustrated by a famous modern instance the French Revolution where the worst outranges of the revolutionists were provoked by foreign intervention In that great revolution too we can verify the Greek historians analysis of the effect of the revolutionary spirit when it runs wild on the moral nature of men The revolutionists determined to outdo the report of all who had preceded them by the ingenuity of their enterprises and the activity of their revenges The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things but was changed by them as they thought proper Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage Prudent delay was the excuse of a coward Moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness To know everything was to do nothing Frantic energy was the true quality of a man The lover of violence was always trusted and his opponent suspected It was dangerous to be quiet and neutral The citizens who were of neither party fell a prey to both They were disliked because they held aloof or men were jealous of their surviving The laws of heaven as well as of civilised societies were set aside without scruple amid the impatience of party spirit the zeal of contention the eagerness of ambition and the cravings of revenge These are some of the features in the delineation which Thucydides has drawn of the diseased condition of political life in the city-states of Greece But the sequel of the Caucasian Revolution has still to be recorded About 600 of the oligarchs who escaped the vengeance of their opponents established themselves on Mount Estoni in the northeast of the island and easily becoming masters of the open country they harassed the inhabitants of the city for two years then an Athenian fleet of which the ultimate destination was Sicily under the command of Eurimidon and Sophocles arrived at Corcyra and the Athenians helped the Democrats to storm the fort on Mount Estoni The oligarchs capitulated on condition that the Athenian people should determine how they were to be dealt with The generals placed them in the island of Turcia on the understanding that if any of their number attempted to escape all should be deprived of the benefit of the previous agreement But the Democrats apprehended the prisoners would not be put to death at Athens and they were determined that their enemies should die A foul trick was planned and carried out Friends of the prisoners were sent over to the island who said that the generals had resolved to leave them to the mercy of the Democrats and advised them to escape offering to provide a ship A few of the captives fell into the trap and were caught starting All the prisoners were immediately handed over to the Caucasians who shut them up in a large building They were taken out in batches of twenty and made to march tied together down an avenue of hoplites who smote and wounded any whom they recognized as a personal enemy Three batches had thus marched to execution when their comrades in the building who thought they were merely being removed to another prison discovered the truth They called on the Athenians but they called in vain to stir out of the building or let anyone enter The Caucasians did not attempt to force their way in They tore off the roof and hurled bricks and shot arrows from above The captives, absolutely helpless began to anticipate the purpose of their tormentors by taking their own lives piercing their throats with the arrows which were shot down or strangling themselves with the ropes of some beds which were in the place The work of destruction went on during the greater part of the night All was over when the day dawned and the corpses were carried outside the city Thus ended the Caucasian Revolution and the last scene was more ghastly even than the first Eurymidon had less excuse on this occasion for refusing to intervene than he had two years before since the prisoners had surrendered to the Athenians It was said that he and Sophocles were ready to take advantage of the base trick of the Democrats because unable to take the captives to Athens themselves being bound for Sicily they could not bear that the credit should fall to another The oligarchical faction at Corkira was now utterly annihilated and the Democrats lived in peace Part 8 Campaigns of Demosthenes in the West During the Caucasian Troubles Demosthenes was destroyed in Western Greece An Athenian fleet under the general Demosthenes had sailed round the Peloponnesus and attacked the island of Lukas Demosthenes was an enterprising commander distinguished from most of his fellows by certain originality of conception On this occasion the idea of making a great stroke induced him to abandon the operations at Lukas though the Arcaninians thought he might have taken the town by blockade and engaged in a new enterprise on the north of the Corinthian Gulf Most of the lands between Biosia and the western sea Focus, Locris, Acarnania were friendly to Athens but the hostility of the uncivilized Italians rendered land operations in those regions dangerous Demosthenes conceived the plan of reducing the Italians so that he could then operate from the west on Doris and Biosia without the danger of his communications being threatened in the rear His idea in fact was to bring the Corinthian Gulf into touch with the UBNC The Spartans it is to be observed were at this very time concerning themselves with the regions of Mount Eta The appeals of Doris on the south and Trachis on the north of the Aetian range for protection against the hostilities of the mountain tribes induced the Lacedemonians to send out a colony established in Trachis not very far from the pass of Thermopylae under the name of Heraklia A colony was an unusual enterprise for Sparta but Heraklia had a more important significance and intention than the mere defence of members of the Amphitioni It was a place from which Ubia could be attacked and it might prove of the greatest service as an intermediate station for carrying on operations in the Calcidic Peninsula The fears which the foundation of Heraklia excited at Athens were indeed disappointed Heraklia never flourished It was incessantly assailed by the powerful hostility of the Thetalians and its ruin was completed by the flagrantly unjust administration of the Lacedemonian governors But its first foundation was a serious event and it seems highly probable that Demosthenes, when he formed his plan had before his mind being Heraklia from the south by the occupation of Doris But his plan, attractive as it might sound, was eminently impracticable The preliminary condition was the subjugation of a mountainous country involving a warfare in which Demosthenes was inexperienced and hoplites were at a great disadvantage The Messenians of Naupatis represented to him that Itolia, a land of unwalled villages could easily be reduced But the Messenians had their own game to play They suffered from the hostilities of their Etolian neighbours and wanted to use the ambition of the Athenian general for their own purpose The Achananians, who were deeply interested in the defeat of Lukas were indignant with Demosthenes for not prosecuting the blockade and refused to join him against Etolia Starting from Inion in Locris the Athenians and some allies led to large force advanced into the country hoping to reduce several tribes before they had time to combine But the Etolians had already learnt his plans and were already collecting a great force The main chance of Demosthenes lay in the cooperation of the Ozzolian Nocrians who knew the Etolian country and mode of warfare and were armed in the Etolian fashion Demosthenes committed the error of not waiting for them and were constantly unable to deal with the Etolian Javelin men But Aigition, rushing down from the hills they wrought havoc among the invaders who had captured the town 120 Athenian hoplites fell the very finest men whom the city of Athens lost during the war Demosthenes did not dare to return to Athens He remained at Naupactus and soon had an opportunity of retrieving his fame He had answered this invasion of Etolia by sending 3000 hoplites under Euryliacus against Naupactus 500 of these troops came from Heraclea the newly founded colony Naupactus, ill defended was barely saved by the energy of Demosthenes who persuaded the Akarnanians to send reinforcements Euryliacus abandoned the siege and withdrew to the neighbourhood of Caledon and Pluron for the purpose of joining the Ambracchiates in an attack upon Argos Winter had begun when the Ambracchiates descended from the north into the Argyve territory and seized the fort of Olpai which stands a little north of Argos on a hill by the sea and was once used as a hall of justice by the Akarnanian League Demosthenes was asked by the Akarnanians to be their leader in resisting this attack and a message for help was sent to 20 Athenian vessels which were coasting off the Peloponnesus the troops of Euryliacus marched from the south across Akarnania and joined their allies at Olpai the Athenian ships arrived in the Ambracchiate gulf and with the reinforcements which they brought Demosthenes gave battle to the enemy between Olpai and Argos and by a skillfully contrived ambushed and nulled the advantage which they had in superior numbers Euryliacus was slain and the Peloponnesians delivered themselves from their perilous position between Argos and the Athenian ships by making a secret treaty with Demosthenes in which the Ambracchiates were not included it was arranged that they should retreat stealthily without explaining their intention to the Ambracchiates it was good policy on the part of Demosthenes for by this treacherous act the Lacedemonians would lose their character in that part of Greece the Peloponnesians crept out of Olpai one by one pretending to gather herbs and sticks as they got farther away they stepped out more quickly and then the Ambracchiates saw what was happening and ran to overtake them the Akarnanians slew about 200 Ambracchiates and the Peloponnesians escaped into the land of Agria but a heavier blow was in store for Ambracchia reinforcements of that city ignorant of the battle were coming to Olpai Demosthenes sent forward some of his troops to line ambush on their line of march at Iddomani some miles north of Olpai there are two peaks of unequal height the higher was seized in advance by the men of Demosthenes the Ambracchiates when they arrived encamped on the lower Demosthenes then advanced with the rest of his troops and attacked the enemy at dawn for sleep most were slain and those who escaped at first found the mountain paths occupied Thucydides says that during the first ten years of the war no such calamity happened within so few days to any Hellenic state and he does not give the numbers of those who perished because they would appear incredible in proportion to the size of the state Demosthenes might have captured the city if he had pushed on but the Akarnanians did not desire a permanent Athenian occupation at their doors they were content that their neighbour was rendered harmless a treaty of alliance for 100 years was concluded between the Akarnanians with the Amfilokians of Argos and the Ambracchiates neither side was to be required by the other to join against its own allies in the great war but they were to help each other to defend their territories sometimes afterwards an actorian then Oyniadai were won over to the Athenian alliance Part 9 Nikias and Cleon Politics at Athens the success against Ambracchia compensated for the failure in Itolia and Demosthenes could now return to Athens his dashing style of warfare and his bold plans must have caused grave mistrust among the older, more experienced Nikias the son of Nicaratus who seems to have already won without deserving the chief place as a military authority at Athens must have shaken his head over the doings of Demosthenes in the west Nikias a wealthy conservative slave owner who speculated in the silver mines of Lorion was one of the mainstays of that party which was out of sympathy with the intellectual and political progress of Athens and bitterly opposed to the new politicians like Cleon who wielded the chief influence in the assembly the ability of Nikias was irretrievably mediocre he would have been an excellent subordinate officer but he had not the qualities of a leader or a statesman yet he possessed a solid and abiding influence at Athens through his impregnable respectability his superiority to bribes and his scrupulous superstition as well as his acquaintance of military affairs this homage paid to a mediocre respectability throws light on the character of the Athenian democracy and the strength of the conservative party Nikias belonged to the advocates of peace and was well disposed to Sparta so that for several reasons he might be regarded as a successor to Caimon but his political opponents though they constantly defeated him on particular measures never permanently influenced his influence he understood the political value of gratifying in small ways those prejudices of his fellow citizens which he shared himself and he spared no expense in the religious service of the state as Thucydides says he thought too much of divination and omens he had an opportunity of displaying his religious devotion and his liberality on the occasion of the purification of Delos it was only undertaken to induce Apollo to avert a recurrence of the plague the dead were removed from all the tombs and it was ordained that henceforth no one should die or give birth to a child on the sacred island those who were near to either should cross over to Renea the Athenians revived in a new form the old festival celebrated in the Homeric hymn to Apollo, the festival to which the long-robed Ionians gathered and made the glad Ophibus with boxing, dancing and soul the games were restored and horse races introduced for the first time four years later the purification was perfected by the removal of all the inhabitants and the Persians accorded them a refuge at Adre Mytion conducting such ceremonies Nikias was in his right place unfortunately such excellence had an undue weight and it should be noted that this was one of the effects of a city-state in a large modern state the private life and personal opinions of a statesman have small importance and are not weighed by his fellow countrymen in the scale against his political ability saving rare exceptional cases but in a small city the statesman's private life is always before men's eyes and his political position is distinctly affected according as he shocks or gratifies and pre-delections a mediocre man is able by judicious conforming to attain an authority to which his brains give him no claim Pericles was indeed so strong that his influence could survive attacks on his morality and his orthodoxy Nikias maintained his position because he never shocked the public sense of decorum and religion by associating with an aspasia on Anaxagoras the Athenian people combined in a remarkable degree the capacity of appreciating both respectability and intellectual power their progressive instinct was often defeated by conservative prejudices though Nikias was one of those Athenians who were not in full sympathy with the policy of Pericles and approved still less of the policy of his successors he was thoroughly loyal to the democracy but an oligarchical party still existed secretly active and always hoping for an opportunity to upset the democratic constitution this party or a section of it seems to have been known at this time as the young party it included among others who will appear on the stage of history some years later the orator Antiphon who was now coming into public notice in connection with some sensational lawsuits against the dark designs of this party as well as against the misconduct of generals Cleon was constantly on the watch he could describe himself in the assembly as the people's watchdog but at present these oligarchs were harmless so long as no disaster from without befell Athens they had no chance all they could do was to make common cause with the other enemies of Cleon and air their discontent in anonymous political pamphlets chance has preserved us a work of this kind written in one of these years by an Athenian of oligarchical views its subject is the Athenian democracy and the writer professes to answer on behalf of the Athenians the criticisms which the rest of the Greeks pass on Athenian institutions I do not like democracy myself he says but I will show that from their point of view the Athenians manage their state wisely and in the manner most conducive to the interests of democracy the defences for the most part availed indictment it displays remarkable acuteness with occasional triviality the writer has grasped and taken to heart one deep truth the close connection of the sea power of Athens with its advanced democracy it is just he remarks that the poor and the common folk should have more influence than the noble and rich for it is the common folk that row the ships and make the city powerful not the hoplites and the well-born and the worthy highly interesting is his observation that slaves and matics enjoyed what he considered unreasonable freedom and immunity at Athens why you may not strike one of them nor will a slave make way for you in the streets and his malicious explanation is interesting too the common folk dress so badly that you might easily mistake one of them for a slave or a matik and then there would be a to-do if you struck a citizen there is perhaps a touch of malice too in the statement that the commercial empire of Athens which brought to her wharves the delicacies of the world was affecting her language as well as her habits of life and filling it with foreign words an important feature in the political history of Athens in these years was the divorce of the military command from the leadership in the assembly the conflict of harmony between the chief strategoi and the leaders of the people the tradesmen who swayed the assembly had no military training or capacity and they were always at a disadvantage when opposed by men who spoke with the authority of a strategos on questions of military policy until recent years the post of general had been practically confined to men of property and good family but a change ensued perhaps soon after and men of the people were elected the comic poet Eupolis in a play called The Deems in which the great leaders Miltiades and Themistocles Aristides and Pericles the summoned back to life that they may see and deplore degenerate Athens meditates thus on the contrast between the Latter-day generals and their predecessors men of lineage fair and of wealthy estate once our generals were the noble and the great whom as the gods we adored and as gods they guided and guarded the state things are not as then are how different far a manner of men our new generals are the rascals and refuse our city now chooses to lead us to war Cleon was a man of brains and resolution hitherto his main activity had been in the law courts where he called officers to account and maintain the safeguards of popular government if he was to be more than an opposition leader he must be ready to undertake the post of strategos and supported by the experience of an able colleague he need not disgrace himself an understanding therefore between Cleon and the enterprising Demosthenes was one which seemed to offer advantages to both acting together they might damage both the political and the military position of Nikias but before we passed to a famous enterprise which was probably the result of such an understanding we must note the great cost which the continuation of the war entailed more than 4000 talents had already been borrowed from the temple treasures and those steps had been taken to increase revenue when lesbos revolted the drain was continuing and the end was not in sight Cleon seems to have been particularly concerned with the financing of the war and it was no doubt under his influence that it was decided to strengthen the position at the expense of the allies the decree providing for the new assessment was passed in the assembly after the dramatic success at Svakteria but the main lines had probably been worked out by Cleon earlier we possessed numerous fragments of the stone recording the degree and below it the rest of cities with their new assessment the main character is clear since the tribute has become too small, they, the jurors shall join with the council in making the current assessments they shall not assess a lower tribute on any city than it was paying before, unless because of impoverishment of the country there is a manifest inability to pay more these instructions were faithfully followed many cities had their tribute doubled or trebled few escaped increase cities that had long discontinued payment were included and more than 100 names were added of cities which are not known to have paid before including a large group of cities in the Ukesine and the stubborn island of Milos the total of the assessment by these drastic measures was increased to nearly 1,500 talents but this total is in part illusory for many of the cities waited on events and in the following years Athens was not able to display the necessary force overseas borrowings, though on a reduced scale had to continue a sharp increase in tribute was necessary to maintain the offensive but it was an act of ruthless imperialism it increased discontent among the allies who found sympathy from some of Cleon's opponents in Athens while the allies were to be more heavily burdened Cleon raised the duraz fee from two to three obols it would be a mistake to consider this measure a mere bid for popularity we shall hardly be wrong in regarding it as an attempt to relieve the distress which the yearly invasions of Attica and the losses of the harvests inflicted upon the poorer citizens End of Part 9