|
The History of the Peloponnesian War
By Thucydides
Translated by Richard Crawley
The Third Book.
CHAPTER IX.
Fourth and Fifth Years of the War -
Revolt
of Mitylene THE next summer, just as
the
corn was getting ripe, the Peloponnesians
and their allies invaded Attica under
the
command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus,
king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat
down
and ravaged the land; the Athenian
horse
as usual attacking them, wherever it
was
practicable, and preventing the mass
of the
light troops from advancing from their
camp
and wasting the parts near the city.
After
staying the time for which they had
taken
provisions, the invaders retired and
dispersed
to their several cities. Immediately
after
the invasion of the Peloponnesians
all Lesbos,
except Methymna, revolted from the
Athenians.
The Lesbians had wished to revolt even
before
the war, but the Lacedaemonians would
not
receive them; and yet now when they
did revolt,
they were compelled to do so sooner
than
they had intended. While they were
waiting
until the moles for their harbours
and the
ships and walls that they had in building
should be finished, and for the arrival
of
archers and corn and other things that
they
were engaged in fetching from the Pontus,
the Tenedians, with whom they were
at enmity,
and the Methymnians, and some factious
persons
in Mitylene itself, who were proxeni
of Athens,
informed the Athenians that the Mitylenians
were forcibly uniting the island under
their
sovereignty, and that the preparations
about
which they were so active, were all
concerted
with the Boeotians their kindred and
the
Lacedaemonians with a view to a revolt,
and
that, unless they were immediately
prevented,
Athens would lose Lesbos. However,
the Athenians,
distressed by the plague, and by the
war
that had recently broken out and was
now
raging, thought it a serious matter
to add
Lesbos with its fleet and untouched
resources
to the list of their enemies; and at
first
would not believe the charge, giving
too
much weight to their wish that it might
not
be true. But when an embassy which
they sent
had failed to persuade the Mitylenians
to
give up the union and preparations
complained
of, they became alarmed, and resolved
to
strike the first blow. They accordingly
suddenly
sent off forty ships that had been
got ready
to sail round Peloponnese, under the
command
of Cleippides, son of Deinias, and
two others;
word having been brought them of a
festival
in honour of the Malean Apollo outside
the
town, which is kept by the whole people
of
Mitylene, and at which, if haste were
made,
they might hope to take them by surprise.
If this plan succeeded, well and good;
if
not, they were to order the Mitylenians
to
deliver up their ships and to pull
down their
walls, and if they did not obey, to
declare
war. The ships accordingly set out;
the ten
galleys, forming the contingent of
the Mitylenians
present with the fleet according to
the terms
of the alliance, being detained by
the Athenians,
and their crews placed in custody.
However,
the Mitylenians were informed of the
expedition
by a man who crossed from Athens to
Euboea,
and going overland to Geraestus, sailed
from
thence by a merchantman which he found
on
the point of putting to sea, and so
arrived
at Mitylene the third day after leaving
Athens.
The Mitylenians accordingly refrained
from
going out to the temple at Malea, and
moreover
barricaded and kept guard round the
half-finished
parts of their walls and harbours.
When the
Athenians sailed in not long after
and saw
how things stood, the generals delivered
their orders, and upon the Mitylenians
refusing
to obey, commenced hostilities. The
Mitylenians,
thus compelled to go to war without
notice
and unprepared, at first sailed out
with
their fleet and made some show of fighting,
a little in front of the harbour; but
being
driven back by the Athenian ships,
immediately
offered to treat with the commanders,
wishing,
if possible, to get the ships away
for the
present upon any tolerable terms. The
Athenian
commanders accepted their offers, being
themselves
fearful that they might not be able
to cope
with the whole of Lesbos; and an armistice
having been concluded, the Mitylenians
sent
to Athens one of the informers, already
repentant
of his conduct, and others with him,
to try
to persuade the Athenians of the innocence
of their intentions and to get the
fleet
recalled. In the meantime, having no
great
hope of a favourable answer from Athens,
they also sent off a galley with envoys
to
Lacedaemon, unobserved by the Athenian
fleet
which was anchored at Malea to the
north
of the town. While these envoys, reaching
Lacedaemon after a difficult journey
across
the open sea, were negotiating for
succours
being sent them, the ambassadors from
Athens
returned without having effected anything;
and hostilities were at once begun
by the
Mitylenians and the rest of Lesbos,
with
the exception of the Methymnians, who
came
to the aid of the Athenians with the
Imbrians
and Lemnians and some few of the other
allies.
The Mitylenians made a sortie with
all their
forces against the Athenian camp; and
a battle
ensued, in which they gained some slight
advantage, but retired notwithstanding,
not
feeling sufficient confidence in themselves
to spend the night upon the field.
After
this they kept quiet, wishing to wait
for
the chance of reinforcements arriving
from
Peloponnese before making a second
venture,
being encouraged by the arrival of
Meleas,
a Laconian, and Hermaeondas, a Theban,
who
had been sent off before the insurrection
but had been unable to reach Lesbos
before
the Athenian expedition, and who now
stole
in in a galley after the battle, and
advised
them to send another galley and envoys
back
with them, which the Mitylenians accordingly
did. Meanwhile the Athenians, greatly
encouraged
by the inaction of the Mitylenians,
summoned
allies to their aid, who came in all
the
quicker from seeing so little vigour
displayed
by the Lesbians, and bringing round
their
ships to a new station to the south
of the
town, fortified two camps, one on each
side
of the city, and instituted a blockade
of
both the harbours. The sea was thus
closed
against the Mitylenians, who, however,
commanded
the whole country, with the rest of
the Lesbians
who had now joined them; the Athenians
only
holding a limited area round their
camps,
and using Malea more as the station
for their
ships and their market. While the war
went
on in this way at Mitylene, the Athenians,
about the same time in this summer,
also
sent thirty ships to Peloponnese under
Asopius,
son of Phormio; the Acarnanians insisting
that the commander sent should be some
son
or relative of Phormio. As the ships
coasted
along shore they ravaged the seaboard
of
Laconia; after which Asopius sent most
of
the fleet home, and himself went on
with
twelve vessels to Naupactus, and afterwards
raising the whole Acarnanian population
made
an expedition against Oeniadae, the
fleet
sailing along the Achelous, while the
army
laid waste the country. The inhabitants,
however, showing no signs of submitting,
he dismissed the land forces and himself
sailed to Leucas, and making a descent
upon
Nericus was cut off during his retreat,
and
most of his troops with him, by the
people
in those parts aided by some coastguards;
after which the Athenians sailed away,
recovering
their dead from the Leucadians under
truce.
Meanwhile the envoys of the Mitylenians
sent
out in the first ship were told by
the Lacedaemonians
to come to Olympia, in order that the
rest
of the allies might hear them and decide
upon their matter, and so they journeyed
thither. It was the Olympiad in which
the
Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory,
and the envoys having been introduced
to
make their speech after the festival,
spoke
as follows: "Lacedaemonians and
allies,
the rule established among the Hellenes
is
not unknown to us. Those who revolt
in war
and forsake their former confederacy
are
favourably regarded by those who receive
them, in so far as they are of use
to them,
but otherwise are thought less well
of, through
being considered traitors to their
former
friends. Nor is this an unfair way
of judging,
where the rebels and the power from
whom
they secede are at one in policy and
sympathy,
and a match for each other in resources
and
power, and where no reasonable ground
exists
for the rebellion. But with us and
the Athenians
this was not the case; and no one need
think
the worse of us for revolting from
them in
danger, after having been honoured
by them
in time of peace. "Justice and
honesty
will be the first topics of our speech,
especially
as we are asking for alliance; because
we
know that there can never be any solid
friendship
between individuals, or union between
communities
that is worth the name, unless the
parties
be persuaded of each other's honesty,
and
be generally congenial the one to the
other;
since from difference in feeling springs
also difference in conduct. Between
ourselves
and the Athenians alliance began, when
you
withdrew from the Median War and they
remained
to finish the business. But we did
not become
allies of the Athenians for the subjugation
of the Hellenes, but allies of the
Hellenes
for their liberation from the Mede;
and as
long as the Athenians led us fairly
we followed
them loyally; but when we saw them
relax
their hostility to the Mede, to try
to compass
the subjection of the allies, then
our apprehensions
began. Unable, however, to unite and
defend
themselves, on account of the number
of confederates
that had votes, all the allies were
enslaved,
except ourselves and the Chians, who
continued
to send our contingents as independent
and
nominally free. Trust in Athens as
a leader,
however, we could no longer feel, judging
by the examples already given; it being
unlikely
that she would reduce our fellow confederates,
and not do the same by us who were
left,
if ever she had the power. "Had
we all
been still independent, we could have
had
more faith in their not attempting
any change;
but the greater number being their
subjects,
while they were treating us as equals,
they
would naturally chafe under this solitary
instance of independence as contrasted
with
the submission of the majority; particularly
as they daily grew more powerful, and
we
more destitute. Now the only sure basis
of
an alliance is for each party to be
equally
afraid of the other; he who would like
to
encroach is then deterred by the reflection
that he will not have odds in his favour.
Again, if we were left independent,
it was
only because they thought they saw
their
way to empire more clearly by specious
language
and by the paths of policy than by
those
of force. Not only were we useful as
evidence
that powers who had votes, like themselves,
would not, surely, join them in their
expeditions,
against their will, without the party
attacked
being in the wrong; but the same system
also
enabled them to lead the stronger states
against the weaker first, and so to
leave
the former to the last, stripped of
their
natural allies, and less capable of
resistance.
But if they had begun with us, while
all
the states still had their resources
under
their own control, and there was a
centre
to rally round, the work of subjugation
would
have been found less easy. Besides
this,
our navy gave them some apprehension:
it
was always possible that it might unite
with
you or with some other power, and become
dangerous to Athens. The court which
we paid
to their commons and its leaders for
the
time being also helped us to maintain
our
independence. However, we did not expect
to be able to do so much longer, if
this
war had not broken out, from the examples
that we had had of their conduct to
the rest.
"How then could we put our trust
in
such friendship or freedom as we had
here?
We accepted each other against our
inclination;
fear made them court us in war, and
us them
in peace; sympathy, the ordinary basis
of
confidence, had its place supplied
by terror,
fear having more share than friendship
in
detaining us in the alliance; and the
first
party that should be encouraged by
the hope
of impunity was certain to break faith
with
the other. So that to condemn us for
being
the first to break off, because they
delay
the blow that we dread, instead of
ourselves
delaying to know for certain whether
it will
be dealt or not, is to take a false
view
of the case. For if we were equally
able
with them to meet their plots and imitate
their delay, we should be their equals
and
should be under no necessity of being
their
subjects; but the liberty of offence
being
always theirs, that of defence ought
clearly
to be ours. "Such, Lacedaemonians
and
allies, are the grounds and the reasons
of
our revolt; clear enough to convince
our
hearers of the fairness of our conduct,
and
sufficient to alarm ourselves, and
to make
us turn to some means of safety. This
we
wished to do long ago, when we sent
to you
on the subject while the peace yet
lasted,
but were balked by your refusing to
receive
us; and now, upon the Boeotians inviting
us, we at once responded to the call,
and
decided upon a twofold revolt, from
the Hellenes
and from the Athenians, not to aid
the latter
in harming the former, but to join
in their
liberation, and not to allow the Athenians
in the end to destroy us, but to act
in time
against them. Our revolt, however,
has taken
place prematurely and without preparation-
a fact which makes it all the more
incumbent
on you to receive us into alliance
and to
send us speedy relief, in order to
show that
you support your friends, and at the
same
time do harm to your enemies. You have
an
opportunity such as you never had before.
Disease and expenditure have wasted
the Athenians:
their ships are either cruising round
your
coasts, or engaged in blockading us;
and
it is not probable that they will have
any
to spare, if you invade them a second
time
this summer by sea and land; but they
will
either offer no resistance to your
vessels,
or withdraw from both our shores. Nor
must
it be thought that this is a case of
putting
yourselves into danger for a country
which
is not yours. Lesbos may appear far
off,
but when help is wanted she will be
found
near enough. It is not in Attica that
the
war will be decided, as some imagine,
but
in the countries by which Attica is
supported;
and the Athenian revenue is drawn from
the
allies, and will become still larger
if they
reduce us; as not only will no other
state
revolt, but our resources will be added
to
theirs, and we shall be treated worse
than
those that were enslaved before. But
if you
will frankly support us, you will add
to
your side a state that has a large
navy,
which is your great want; you will
smooth
the way to the overthrow of the Athenians
by depriving them of their allies,
who will
be greatly encouraged to come over;
and you
will free yourselves from the imputation
made against you, of not supporting
insurrection.
In short, only show yourselves as liberators,
and you may count upon having the advantage
in the war. "Respect, therefore,
the
hopes placed in you by the Hellenes,
and
that Olympian Zeus, in whose temple
we stand
as very suppliants; become the allies
and
defenders of the Mitylenians, and do
not
sacrifice us, who put our lives upon
the
hazard, in a cause in which general
good
will result to all from our success,
and
still more general harm if we fail
through
your refusing to help us; but be the
men
that the Hellenes think you, and our
fears
desire." Such were the words of
the
Mitylenians. After hearing them out,
the
Lacedaemonians and confederates granted
what
they urged, and took the Lesbians into
alliance,
and deciding in favour of the invasion
of
Attica, told the allies present to
march
as quickly as possible to the Isthmus
with
two-thirds of their forces; and arriving
there first themselves, got ready hauling
machines to carry their ships across
from
Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens,
in order to make their attack by sea
and
land at once. However, the zeal which
they
displayed was not imitated by the rest
of
the confederates, who came in but slowly,
being engaged in harvesting their corn
and
sick of making expeditions. Meanwhile
the
Athenians, aware that the preparations
of
the enemy were due to his conviction
of their
weakness, and wishing to show him that
he
was mistaken, and that they were able,
without
moving the Lesbian fleet, to repel
with ease
that with which they were menaced from
Peloponnese,
manned a hundred ships by embarking
the citizens
of Athens, except the knights and Pentacosiomedimni,
and the resident aliens; and putting
out
to the Isthmus, displayed their power,
and
made descents upon Peloponnese wherever
they
pleased. A disappointment so signal
made
the Lacedaemonians think that the Lesbians
had not spoken the truth; and embarrassed
by the non-appearance of the confederates,
coupled with the news that the thirty
ships
round Peloponnese were ravaging the
lands
near Sparta, they went back home. Afterwards,
however, they got ready a fleet to
send to
Lesbos, and ordering a total of forty
ships
from the different cities in the league,
appointed Alcidas to command the expedition
in his capacity of high admiral. Meanwhile
the Athenians in the hundred ships,
upon
seeing the Lacedaemonians go home,
went home
likewise. If, at the time that this
fleet
was at sea, Athens had almost the largest
number of first-rate ships in commission
that she ever possessed at any one
moment,
she had as many or even more when the
war
began. At that time one hundred guarded
Attica,
Euboea, and Salamis; a hundred more
were
cruising round Peloponnese, besides
those
employed at Potidaea and in other places;
making a grand total of two hundred
and fifty
vessels employed on active service
in a single
summer. It was this, with Potidaea,
that
most exhausted her revenues- Potidaea
being
blockaded by a force of heavy infantry
(each
drawing two drachmae a day, one for
himself
and another for his servant), which
amounted
to three thousand at first, and was
kept
at this number down to the end of the
siege;
besides sixteen hundred with Phormio
who
went away before it was over; and the
ships
being all paid at the same rate. In
this
way her money was wasted at first;
and this
was the largest number of ships ever
manned
by her. About the same time that the
Lacedaemonians
were at the Isthmus, the Mitylenians
marched
by land with their mercenaries against
Methymna,
which they thought to gain by treachery.
After assaulting the town, and not
meeting
with the success that they anticipated,
they
withdrew to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus;
and taking measures for the better
security
of these towns and strengthening their
walls,
hastily returned home. After their
departure
the Methymnians marched against Antissa,
but were defeated in a sortie by the
Antissians
and their mercenaries, and retreated
in haste
after losing many of their number.
Word of
this reaching Athens, and the Athenians
learning
that the Mitylenians were masters of
the
country and their own soldiers unable
to
hold them in check, they sent out about
the
beginning of autumn Paches, son of
Epicurus,
to take the command, and a thousand
Athenian
heavy infantry; who worked their own
passage
and, arriving at Mitylene, built a
single
wall all round it, forts being erected
at
some of the strongest points. Mitylene
was
thus blockaded strictly on both sides,
by
land and by sea; and winter now drew
near.
The Athenians needing money for the
siege,
although they had for the first time
raised
a contribution of two hundred talents
from
their own citizens, now sent out twelve
ships
to levy subsidies from their allies,
with
Lysicles and four others in command.
After
cruising to different places and laying
them
under contribution, Lysicles went up
the
country from Myus, in Caria, across
the plain
of the Meander, as far as the hill
of Sandius;
and being attacked by the Carians and
the
people of Anaia, was slain with many
of his
soldiers. The same winter the Plataeans,
who were still being besieged by the
Peloponnesians
and Boeotians, distressed by the failure
of their provisions, and seeing no
hope of
relief from Athens, nor any other means
of
safety, formed a scheme with the Athenians
besieged with them for escaping, if
possible,
by forcing their way over the enemy's
walls;
the attempt having been suggested by
Theaenetus,
son of Tolmides, a soothsayer, and
Eupompides,
son of Daimachus, one of their generals.
At first all were to join: afterwards,
half
hung back, thinking the risk great;
about
two hundred and twenty, however, voluntarily
persevered in the attempt, which was
carried
out in the following way. Ladders were
made
to match the height of the enemy's
wall,
which they measured by the layers of
bricks,
the side turned towards them not being
thoroughly
whitewashed. These were counted by
many persons
at once; and though some might miss
the right
calculation, most would hit upon it,
particularly
as they counted over and over again,
and
were no great way from the wall, but
could
see it easily enough for their purpose.
The
length required for the ladders was
thus
obtained, being calculated from the
breadth
of the brick. Now the wall of the Peloponnesians
was constructed as follows. It consisted
of two lines drawn round the place,
one against
the Plataeans, the other against any
attack
on the outside from Athens, about sixteen
feet apart. The intermediate space
of sixteen
feet was occupied by huts portioned
out among
the soldiers on guard, and built in
one block,
so as to give the appearance of a single
thick wall with battlements on either
side.
At intervals of every ten battlements
were
towers of considerable size, and the
same
breadth as the wall, reaching right
across
from its inner to its outer face, with
no
means of passing except through the
middle.
Accordingly on stormy and wet nights
the
battlements were deserted, and guard
kept
from the towers, which were not far
apart
and roofed in above. Such being the
structure
of the wall by which the Plataeans
were blockaded,
when their preparations were completed,
they
waited for a stormy night of wind and
rain
and without any moon, and then set
out, guided
by the authors of the enterprise. Crossing
first the ditch that ran round the
town,
they next gained the wall of the enemy
unperceived
by the sentinels, who did not see them
in
the darkness, or hear them, as the
wind drowned
with its roar the noise of their approach;
besides which they kept a good way
off from
each other, that they might not be
betrayed
by the clash of their weapons. They
were
also lightly equipped, and had only
the left
foot shod to preserve them from slipping
in the mire. They came up to the battlements
at one of the intermediate spaces where
they
knew them to be unguarded: those who
carried
the ladders went first and planted
them;
next twelve light-armed soldiers with
only
a dagger and a breastplate mounted,
led by
Ammias, son of Coroebus, who was the
first
on the wall; his followers getting
up after
him and going six to each of the towers.
After these came another party of light
troops
armed with spears, whose shields, that
they
might advance the easier, were carried
by
men behind, who were to hand them to
them
when they found themselves in presence
of
the enemy. After a good many had mounted
they were discovered by the sentinels
in
the towers, by the noise made by a
tile which
was knocked down by one of the Plataeans
as he was laying hold of the battlements.
The alarm was instantly given, and
the troops
rushed to the wall, not knowing the
nature
of the danger, owing to the dark night
and
stormy weather; the Plataeans in the
town
having also chosen that moment to make
a
sortie against the wall of the Peloponnesians
upon the side opposite to that on which
their
men were getting over, in order to
divert
the attention of the besiegers. Accordingly
they remained distracted at their several
posts, without any venturing to stir
to give
help from his own station, and at a
loss
to guess what was going on. Meanwhile
the
three hundred set aside for service
on emergencies
went outside the wall in the direction
of
the alarm. Fire-signals of an attack
were
also raised towards Thebes; but the
Plataeans
in the town at once displayed a number
of
others, prepared beforehand for this
very
purpose, in order to render the enemy's
signals
unintelligible, and to prevent his
friends
getting a true idea of what was passing
and
coming to his aid before their comrades
who
had gone out should have made good
their
escape and be in safety. Meanwhile
the first
of the scaling party that had got up,
after
carrying both the towers and putting
the
sentinels to the sword, posted themselves
inside to prevent any one coming through
against them; and rearing ladders from
the
wall, sent several men up on the towers,
and from their summit and base kept
in check
all of the enemy that came up, with
their
missiles, while their main body planted
a
number of ladders against the wall,
and knocking
down the battlements, passed over between
the towers; each as soon as he had
got over
taking up his station at the edge of
the
ditch, and plying from thence with
arrows
and darts any who came along the wall
to
stop the passage of his comrades. When
all
were over, the party on the towers
came down,
the last of them not without difficulty,
and proceeded to the ditch, just as
the three
hundred came up carrying torches. The
Plataeans,
standing on the edge of the ditch in
the
dark, had a good view of their opponents,
and discharged their arrows and darts
upon
the unarmed parts of their bodies,
while
they themselves could not be so well
seen
in the obscurity for the torches; and
thus
even the last of them got over the
ditch,
though not without effort and difficulty;
as ice had formed in it, not strong
enough
to walk upon, but of that watery kind
which
generally comes with a wind more east
than
north, and the snow which this wind
had caused
to fall during the night had made the
water
in the ditch rise, so. that they could
scarcely
breast it as they crossed. However,
it was
mainly the violence of the storm that
enabled
them to effect their escape at all.
Starting
from the ditch, the Plataeans went
all together
along the road leading to Thebes, keeping
the chapel of the hero Androcrates
upon their
right; considering that the last road
which
the Peloponnesians would suspect them
of
having taken would be that towards
their
enemies' country. Indeed they could
see them
pursuing with torches upon the Athens
road
towards Cithaeron and Druoskephalai
or Oakheads.
After going for rather more than half
a mile
upon the road to Thebes, the Plataeans
turned
off and took that leading to the mountain,
to Erythrae and Hysiae, and reaching
the
hills, made good their escape to Athens,
two hundred and twelve men in all;
some of
their number having turned back into
the
town before getting over the wall,
and one
archer having been taken prisoner at
the
outer ditch. Meanwhile the Peloponnesians
gave up the pursuit and returned to
their
posts; and the Plataeans in the town,
knowing
nothing of what had passed, and informed
by those who had turned back that not
a man
had escaped, sent out a herald as soon
as
it was day to make a truce for the
recovery
of the dead bodies, and then, learning
the
truth, desisted. In this way the Plataean
party got over and were saved. Towards
the
close of the same winter, Salaethus,
a Lacedaemonian,
was sent out in a galley from Lacedaemon
to Mitylene. Going by sea to Pyrrha,
and
from thence overland, he passed along
the
bed of a torrent, where the line of
circumvallation
was passable, and thus entering unperceived
into Mitylene told the magistrates
that Attica
would certainly be invaded, and the
forty
ships destined to relieve them arrive,
and
that he had been sent on to announce
this
and to superintend matters generally.
The
Mitylenians upon this took courage,
and laid
aside the idea of treating with the
Athenians;
and now this winter ended, and with
it ended
the fourth year of the war of which
Thucydides
was the historian. The next summer
the Peloponnesians
sent off the forty-two ships for Mitylene,
under Alcidas, their high admiral,
and themselves
and their allies invaded Attica, their
object
being to distract the Athenians by
a double
movement, and thus to make it less
easy for
them to act against the fleet sailing
to
Mitylene. The commander in this invasion
was Cleomenes, in the place of King
Pausanias,
son of Pleistoanax, his nephew, who
was still
a minor. Not content with laying waste
whatever
had shot up in the parts which they
had before
devastated, the invaders now extended
their
ravages to lands passed over in their
previous
incursions; so that this invasion was
more
severely felt by the Athenians than
any except
the second; the enemy staying on and
on until
they had overrun most of the country,
in
the expectation of hearing from Lesbos
of
something having been achieved by their
fleet,
which they thought must now have got
over.
However, as they did not obtain any
of the
results expected, and their provisions
began
to run short, they retreated and dispersed
to their different cities. In the meantime
the Mitylenians, finding their provisions
failing, while the fleet from Peloponnese
was loitering on the way instead of
appearing
at Mitylene, were compelled to come
to terms
with the Athenians in the following
manner.
Salaethus having himself ceased to
expect
the fleet to arrive, now armed the
commons
with heavy armour, which they had not
before
possessed, with the intention of making
a
sortie against the Athenians. The commons,
however, no sooner found themselves
possessed
of arms than they refused any longer
to obey
their officers; and forming in knots
together,
told the authorities to bring out in
public
the provisions and divide them amongst
them
all, or they would themselves come
to terms
with the Athenians and deliver up the
city.
The government, aware of their inability
to prevent this, and of the danger
they would
be in, if left out of the capitulation,
publicly
agreed with Paches and the army to
surrender
Mitylene at discretion and to admit
the troops
into the town; upon the understanding
that
the Mitylenians should be allowed to
send
an embassy to Athens to plead their
cause,
and that Paches should not imprison,
make
slaves of, or put to death any of the
citizens
until its return. Such were the terms
of
the capitulation; in spite of which
the chief
authors of the negotiation with Lacedaemon
were so completely overcome by terror
when
the army entered that they went and
seated
themselves by the altars, from which
they
were raised up by Paches under promise
that
he would do them no wrong, and lodged
by
him in Tenedos, until he should learn
the
pleasure of the Athenians concerning
them.
Paches also sent some galleys and seized
Antissa, and took such other military
measures
as he thought advisable. Meanwhile
the Peloponnesians
in the forty ships, who ought to have
made
all haste to relieve Mitylene, lost
time
in coming round Peloponnese itself,
and proceeding
leisurely on the remainder of the voyage,
made Delos without having been seen
by the
Athenians at Athens, and from thence
arriving
at Icarus and Myconus, there first
heard
of the fall of Mitylene. Wishing to
know
the truth, they put into Embatum, in
the
Erythraeid, about seven days after
the capture
of the town. Here they learned the
truth,
and began to consider what they were
to do;
and Teutiaplus, an Elean, addressed
them
as follows: "Alcidas and Peloponnesians
who share with me the command of this
armament,
my advice is to sail just as we are
to Mitylene,
before we have been heard of. We may
expect
to find the Athenians as much off their
guard
as men generally are who have just
taken
a city: this will certainly be so by
sea,
where they have no idea of any enemy
attacking
them, and where our strength, as it
happens,
mainly lies; while even their land
forces
are probably scattered about the houses
in
the carelessness of victory. If therefore
we were to fall upon them suddenly
and in
the night, I have hopes, with the help
of
the well-wishers that we may have left
inside
the town, that we shall become masters
of
the place. Let us not shrink from the
risk,
but let us remember that this is just
the
occasion for one of the baseless panics
common
in war: and that to be able to guard
against
these in one's own case, and to detect
the
moment when an attack will find an
enemy
at this disadvantage, is what makes
a successful
general." These words of Teutiaplus
failing to move Alcidas, some of the
Ionian
exiles and the Lesbians with the expedition
began to urge him, since this seemed
too
dangerous, to seize one of the Ionian
cities
or the Aeolic town of Cyme, to use
as a base
for effecting the revolt of Ionia.
This was
by no means a hopeless enterprise,
as their
coming was welcome everywhere; their
object
would be by this move to deprive Athens
of
her chief source of revenue, and at
the same
time to saddle her with expense, if
she chose
to blockade them; and they would probably
induce Pissuthnes to join them in the
war.
However, Alcidas gave this proposal
as bad
a reception as the other, being eager,
since
he had come too late for Mitylene,
to find
himself back in Peloponnese as soon
as possible.
Accordingly he put out from Embatum
and proceeded
along shore; and touching at the Teian
town,
Myonnesus, there butchered most of
the prisoners
that he had taken on his passage. Upon
his
coming to anchor at Ephesus, envoys
came
to him from the Samians at Anaia, and
told
him that he was not going the right
way to
free Hellas in massacring men who had
never
raised a hand against him, and who
were not
enemies of his, but allies of Athens
against
their will, and that if he did not
stop he
would turn many more friends into enemies
than enemies into friends. Alcidas
agreed
to this, and let go all the Chians
still
in his hands and some of the others
that
he had taken; the inhabitants, instead
of
flying at the sight of his vessels,
rather
coming up to them, taking them for
Athenian,
having no sort of expectation that
while
the Athenians commanded the sea Peloponnesian
ships would venture over to Ionia.
From Ephesus
Alcidas set sail in haste and fled.
He had
been seen by the Salaminian and Paralian
galleys, which happened to be sailing
from
Athens, while still at anchor off Clarus;
and fearing pursuit he now made across
the
open sea, fully determined to touch
nowhere,
if he could help it, until he got to
Peloponnese.
Meanwhile news of him had come in to
Paches
from the Erythraeid, and indeed from
all
quarters. As Ionia was unfortified,
great
fears were felt that the Peloponnesians
coasting
along shore, even if they did not intend
to stay, might make descents in passing
and
plunder the towns; and now the Paralian
and
Salaminian, having seen him at Clarus,
themselves
brought intelligence of the fact. Paches
accordingly gave hot chase, and continued
the pursuit as far as the isle of Patmos,
and then finding that Alcidas had got
on
too far to be overtaken, came back
again.
Meanwhile he thought it fortunate that,
as
he had not fallen in with them out
at sea,
he had not overtaken them anywhere
where
they would have been forced to encamp,
and
so give him the trouble of blockading
them.
On his return along shore he touched,
among
other places, at Notium, the port of
Colophon,
where the Colophonians had settled
after
the capture of the upper town by Itamenes
and the barbarians, who had been called
in
by certain individuals in a party quarrel.
The capture of the town took place
about
the time of the second Peloponnesian
invasion
of Attica. However, the refugees, after
settling
at Notium, again split up into factions,
one of which called in Arcadian and
barbarian
mercenaries from Pissuthnes and, entrenching
these in a quarter apart, formed a
new community
with the Median party of the Colophonians
who joined them from the upper town.
Their
opponents had retired into exile, and
now
called in Paches, who invited Hippias,
the
commander of the Arcadians in the fortified
quarter, to a parley, upon condition
that,
if they could not agree, he was to
be put
back safe and sound in the fortification.
However, upon his coming out to him,
he put
him into custody, though not in chains,
and
attacked suddenly and took by surprise
the
fortification, and putting the Arcadians
and the barbarians found in it to the
sword,
afterwards took Hippias into it as
he had
promised, and, as soon as he was inside,
seized him and shot him down. Paches
then
gave up Notium to the Colophonians
not of
the Median party; and settlers were
afterwards
sent out from Athens, and the place
colonized
according to Athenian laws, after collecting
all the Colophonians found in any of
the
cities. Arrived at Mitylene, Paches
reduced
Pyrrha and Eresus; and finding the
Lacedaemonian,
Salaethus, in hiding in the town, sent
him
off to Athens, together with the Mitylenians
that he had placed in Tenedos, and
any other
persons that he thought concerned in
the
revolt. He also sent back the greater
part
of his forces, remaining with the rest
to
settle Mitylene and the rest of Lesbos
as
he thought best. Upon the arrival of
the
prisoners with Salaethus, the Athenians
at
once put the latter to death, although
he
offered, among other things, to procure
the
withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from
Plataea,
which was still under siege; and after
deliberating
as to what they should do with the
former,
in the fury of the moment determined
to put
to death not only the prisoners at
Athens,
but the whole adult male population
of Mitylene,
and to make slaves of the women and
children.
It was remarked that Mitylene had revolted
without being, like the rest, subjected
to
the empire; and what above all swelled
the
wrath of the Athenians was the fact
of the
Peloponnesian fleet having ventured
over
to Ionia to her support, a fact which
was
held to argue a long meditated rebellion.
They accordingly sent a galley to communicate
the decree to Paches, commanding him
to lose
no time in dispatching the Mitylenians.
The
morrow brought repentance with it and
reflection
on the horrid cruelty of a decree,
which
condemned a whole city to the fate
merited
only by the guilty. This was no sooner
perceived
by the Mitylenian ambassadors at Athens
and
their Athenian supporters, than they
moved
the authorities to put the question
again
to the vote; which they the more easily
consented
to do, as they themselves plainly saw
that
most of the citizens wished some one
to give
them an opportunity for reconsidering
the
matter. An assembly was therefore at
once
called, and after much expression of
opinion
upon both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus,
the same who had carried the former
motion
of putting the Mitylenians to death,
the
most violent man at Athens, and at
that time
by far the most powerful with the commons,
came forward again and spoke as follows:
"I have often before now been
convinced
that a democracy is incapable of empire,
and never more so than by your present
change
of mind in the matter of Mitylene.
Fears
or plots being unknown to you in your
daily
relations with each other, you feel
just
the same with regard to your allies,
and
never reflect that the mistakes into
which
you may be led by listening to their
appeals,
or by giving way to your own compassion,
are full of danger to yourselves, and
bring
you no thanks for your weakness from
your
allies; entirely forgetting that your
empire
is a despotism and your subjects disaffected
conspirators, whose obedience is ensured
not by your suicidal concessions, but
by
the superiority given you by your own
strength
and not their loyalty. The most alarming
feature in the case is the constant
change
of measures with which we appear to
be threatened,
and our seeming ignorance of the fact
that
bad laws which are never changed are
better
for a city than good ones that have
no authority;
that unlearned loyalty is more serviceable
than quick-witted insubordination;
and that
ordinary men usually manage public
affairs
better than their more gifted fellows.
The
latter are always wanting to appear
wiser
than the laws, and to overrule every
proposition
brought forward, thinking that they
cannot
show their wit in more important matters,
and by such behaviour too often ruin
their
country; while those who mistrust their
own
cleverness are content to be less learned
than the laws, and less able to pick
holes
in the speech of a good speaker; and
being
fair judges rather than rival athletes,
generally
conduct affairs successfully. These
we ought
to imitate, instead of being led on
by cleverness
and intellectual rivalry to advise
your people
against our real opinions. "For
myself,
I adhere to my former opinion, and
wonder
at those who have proposed to reopen
the
case of the Mitylenians, and who are
thus
causing a delay which is all in favour
of
the guilty, by making the sufferer
proceed
against the offender with the edge
of his
anger blunted; although where vengeance
follows
most closely upon the wrong, it best
equals
it and most amply requites it. I wonder
also
who will be the man who will maintain
the
contrary, and will pretend to show
that the
crimes of the Mitylenians are of service
to us, and our misfortunes injurious
to the
allies. Such a man must plainly either
have
such confidence in his rhetoric as
to adventure
to prove that what has been once for
all
decided is still undetermined, or be
bribed
to try to delude us by elaborate sophisms.
In such contests the state gives the
rewards
to others, and takes the dangers for
herself.
The persons to blame are you who are
so foolish
as to institute these contests; who
go to
see an oration as you would to see
a sight,
take your facts on hearsay, judge of
the
practicability of a project by the
wit of
its advocates, and trust for the truth
as
to past events not to the fact which
you
saw more than to the clever strictures
which
you heard; the easy victims of new-fangled
arguments, unwilling to follow received
conclusions;
slaves to every new paradox, despisers
of
the commonplace; the first wish of
every
man being that he could speak himself,
the
next to rival those who can speak by
seeming
to be quite up with their ideas by
applauding
every hit almost before it is made,
and by
being as quick in catching an argument
as
you are slow in foreseeing its consequences;
asking, if I may so say, for something
different
from the conditions under which we
live,
and yet comprehending inadequately
those
very conditions; very slaves to the
pleasure
of the ear, and more like the audience
of
a rhetorician than the council of a
city.
"In order to keep you from this,
I proceed
to show that no one state has ever
injured
you as much as Mitylene. I can make
allowance
for those who revolt because they cannot
bear our empire, or who have been forced
to do so by the enemy. But for those
who
possessed an island with fortifications;
who could fear our enemies only by
sea, and
there had their own force of galleys
to protect
them; who were independent and held
in the
highest honour by you- to act as these
have
done, this is not revolt- revolt implies
oppression; it is deliberate and wanton
aggression;
an attempt to ruin us by siding with
our
bitterest enemies; a worse offence
than a
war undertaken on their own account
in the
acquisition of power. The fate of those
of
their neighbours who had already rebelled
and had been subdued was no lesson
to them;
their own prosperity could not dissuade
them
from affronting danger; but blindly
confident
in the future, and full of hopes beyond
their
power though not beyond their ambition,
they
declared war and made their decision
to prefer
might to right, their attack being
determined
not by provocation but by the moment
which
seemed propitious. The truth is that
great
good fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly
tends to make a people insolent; in
most
cases it is safer for mankind to have
success
in reason than out of reason; and it
is easier
for them, one may say, to stave off
adversity
than to preserve prosperity. Our mistake
has been to distinguish the Mitylenians
as
we have done: had they been long ago
treated
like the rest, they never would have
so far
forgotten themselves, human nature
being
as surely made arrogant by consideration
as it is awed by firmness. Let them
now therefore
be punished as their crime requires,
and
do not, while you condemn the aristocracy,
absolve the people. This is certain,
that
all attacked you without distinction,
although
they might have come over to us and
been
now again in possession of their city.
But
no, they thought it safer to throw
in their
lot with the aristocracy and so joined
their
rebellion! Consider therefore: if you
subject
to the same punishment the ally who
is forced
to rebel by the enemy, and him who
does so
by his own free choice, which of them,
think
you, is there that will not rebel upon
the
slightest pretext; when the reward
of success
is freedom, and the penalty of failure
nothing
so very terrible? We meanwhile shall
have
to risk our money and our lives against
one
state after another; and if successful,
shall
receive a ruined town from which we
can no
longer draw the revenue upon which
our strength
depends; while if unsuccessful, we
shall
have an enemy the more upon our hands,
and
shall spend the time that might be
employed
in combating our existing foes in warring
with our own allies. "No hope,
therefore,
that rhetoric may instil or money purchase,
of the mercy due to human infirmity
must
be held out to the Mitylenians. Their
offence
was not involuntary, but of malice
and deliberate;
and mercy is only for unwilling offenders.
I therefore, now as before, persist
against
your reversing your first decision,
or giving
way to the three failings most fatal
to empire-
pity, sentiment, and indulgence. Compassion
is due to those who can reciprocate
the feeling,
not to those who will never pity us
in return,
but are our natural and necessary foes:
the
orators who charm us with sentiment
may find
other less important arenas for their
talents,
in the place of one where the city
pays a
heavy penalty for a momentary pleasure,
themselves
receiving fine acknowledgments for
their
fine phrases; while indulgence should
be
shown towards those who will be our
friends
in future, instead of towards men who
will
remain just what they were, and as
much our
enemies as before. To sum up shortly,
I say
that if you follow my advice you will
do
what is just towards the Mitylenians,
and
at the same time expedient; while by
a different
decision you will not oblige them so
much
as pass sentence upon yourselves. For
if
they were right in rebelling, you must
be
wrong in ruling. However, if, right
or wrong,
you determine to rule, you must carry
out
your principle and punish the Mitylenians
as your interest requires; or else
you must
give up your empire and cultivate honesty
without danger. Make up your minds,
therefore,
to give them like for like; and do
not let
the victims who escaped the plot be
more
insensible than the conspirators who
hatched
it; but reflect what they would have
done
if victorious over you, especially
they were
the aggressors. It is they who wrong
their
neighbour without a cause, that pursue
their
victim to the death, on account of
the danger
which they foresee in letting their
enemy
survive; since the object of a wanton
wrong
is more dangerous, if he escape, than
an
enemy who has not this to complain
of. Do
not, therefore, be traitors to yourselves,
but recall as nearly as possible the
moment
of suffering and the supreme importance
which
you then attached to their reduction;
and
now pay them back in their turn, without
yielding to present weakness or forgetting
the peril that once hung over you.
Punish
them as they deserve, and teach your
other
allies by a striking example that the
penalty
of rebellion is death. Let them once
understand
this and you will not have so often
to neglect
your enemies while you are fighting
with
your own confederates." Such were
the
words of Cleon. After him Diodotus,
son of
Eucrates, who had also in the previous
assembly
spoken most strongly against putting
the
Mitylenians to death, came forward
and spoke
as follows: "I do not blame the
persons
who have reopened the case of the Mitylenians,
nor do I approve the protests which
we have
heard against important questions being
frequently
debated. I think the two things most
opposed
to good counsel are haste and passion;
haste
usually goes hand in hand with folly,
passion
with coarseness and narrowness of mind.
As
for the argument that speech ought
not to
be the exponent of action, the man
who uses
it must be either senseless or interested:
senseless if he believes it possible
to treat
of the uncertain future through any
other
medium; interested if, wishing to carry
a
disgraceful measure and doubting his
ability
to speak well in a bad cause, he thinks
to
frighten opponents and hearers by well-aimed
calumny. What is still more intolerable
is
to accuse a speaker of making a display
in
order to be paid for it. If ignorance
only
were imputed, an unsuccessful speaker
might
retire with a reputation for honesty,
if
not for wisdom; while the charge of
dishonesty
makes him suspected, if successful,
and thought,
if defeated, not only a fool but a
rogue.
The city is no gainer by such a system,
since
fear deprives it of its advisers; although
in truth, if our speakers are to make
such
assertions, it would be better for
the country
if they could not speak at all, as
we should
then make fewer blunders. The good
citizen
ought to triumph not by frightening
his opponents
but by beating them fairly in argument;
and
a wise city, without over-distinguishing
its best advisers, will nevertheless
not
deprive them of their due, and, far
from
punishing an unlucky counsellor, will
not
even regard him as disgraced. In this
way
successful orators would be least tempted
to sacrifice their convictions to popularity,
in the hope of still higher honours,
and
unsuccessful speakers to resort to
the same
popular arts in order to win over the
multitude.
"This is not our way; and, besides,
the moment that a man is suspected
of giving
advice, however good, from corrupt
motives,
we feel such a grudge against him for
the
gain which after all we are not certain
he
will receive, that we deprive the city
of
its certain benefit. Plain good advice
has
thus come to be no less suspected than
bad;
and the advocate of the most monstrous
measures
is not more obliged to use deceit to
gain
the people, than the best counsellor
is to
lie in order to be believed. The city
and
the city only, owing to these refinements,
can never be served openly and without
disguise;
he who does serve it openly being always
suspected of serving himself in some
secret
way in return. Still, considering the
magnitude
of the interests involved, and the
position
of affairs, we orators must make it
our business
to look a little farther than you who
judge
offhand; especially as we, your advisers,
are responsible, while you, our audience,
are not so. For if those who gave the
advice,
and those who took it, suffered equally,
you would judge more calmly; as it
is, you
visit the disasters into which the
whim of
the moment may have led you upon the
single
person of your adviser, not upon yourselves,
his numerous companions in error. "However,
I have not come forward either to oppose
or to accuse in the matter of Mitylene;
indeed,
the question before us as sensible
men is
not their guilt, but our interests.
Though
I prove them ever so guilty, I shall
not,
therefore, advise their death, unless
it
be expedient; nor though they should
have
claims to indulgence, shall I recommend
it,
unless it be dearly for the good of
the country.
I consider that we are deliberating
for the
future more than for the present; and
where
Cleon is so positive as to the useful
deterrent
effects that will follow from making
rebellion
capital, I, who consider the interests
of
the future quite as much as he, as
positively
maintain the contrary. And I require
you
not to reject my useful considerations
for
his specious ones: his speech may have
the
attraction of seeming the more just
in your
present temper against Mitylene; but
we are
not in a court of justice, but in a
political
assembly; and the question is not justice,
but how to make the Mitylenians useful
to
Athens. "Now of course communities
have
enacted the penalty of death for many
offences
far lighter than this: still hope leads
men
to venture, and no one ever yet put
himself
in peril without the inward conviction
that
he would succeed in his design. Again,
was
there ever city rebelling that did
not believe
that it possessed either in itself
or in
its alliances resources adequate to
the enterprise?
All, states and individuals, are alike
prone
to err, and there is no law that will
prevent
them; or why should men have exhausted
the
list of punishments in search of enactments
to protect them from evildoers? It
is probable
that in early times the penalties for
the
greatest offences were less severe,
and that,
as these were disregarded, the penalty
of
death has been by degrees in most cases
arrived
at, which is itself disregarded in
like manner.
Either then some means of terror more
terrible
than this must be discovered, or it
must
be owned that this restraint is useless;
and that as long as poverty gives men
the
courage of necessity, or plenty fills
them
with the ambition which belongs to
insolence
and pride, and the other conditions
of life
remain each under the thraldom of some
fatal
and master passion, so long will the
impulse
never be wanting to drive men into
danger.
Hope also and cupidity, the one leading
and
the other following, the one conceiving
the
attempt, the other suggesting the facility
of succeeding, cause the widest ruin,
and,
although invisible agents, are far
stronger
than the dangers that are seen. Fortune,
too, powerfully helps the delusion
and, by
the unexpected aid that she sometimes
lends,
tempts men to venture with inferior
means;
and this is especially the case with
communities,
because the stakes played for are the
highest,
freedom or empire, and, when all are
acting
together, each man irrationally magnifies
his own capacity. In fine, it is impossible
to prevent, and only great simplicity
can
hope to prevent, human nature doing
what
it has once set its mind upon, by force
of
law or by any other deterrent force
whatsoever.
"We must not, therefore, commit
ourselves
to a false policy through a belief
in the
efficacy of the punishment of death,
or exclude
rebels from the hope of repentance
and an
early atonement of their error. Consider
a moment. At present, if a city that
has
already revolted perceive that it cannot
succeed, it will come to terms while
it is
still able to refund expenses, and
pay tribute
afterwards. In the other case, what
city,
think you, would not prepare better
than
is now done, and hold out to the last
against
its besiegers, if it is all one whether
it
surrender late or soon? And how can
it be
otherwise than hurtful to us to be
put to
the expense of a siege, because surrender
is out of the question; and if we take
the
city, to receive a ruined town from
which
we can no longer draw the revenue which
forms
our real strength against the enemy?
We must
not, therefore, sit as strict judges
of the
offenders to our own prejudice, but
rather
see how by moderate chastisements we
may
be enabled to benefit in future by
the revenue-producing
powers of our dependencies; and we
must make
up our minds to look for our protection
not
to legal terrors but to careful administration.
At present we do exactly the opposite.
When
a free community, held in subjection
by force,
rises, as is only natural, and asserts
its
independence, it is no sooner reduced
than
we fancy ourselves obliged to punish
it severely;
although the right course with freemen
is
not to chastise them rigorously when
they
do rise, but rigorously to watch them
before
they rise, and to prevent their ever
entertaining
the idea, and, the insurrection suppressed,
to make as few responsible for it as
possible.
"Only consider what a blunder
you would
commit in doing as Cleon recommends.
As things
are at present, in all the cities the
people
is your friend, and either does not
revolt
with the oligarchy, or, if forced to
do so,
becomes at once the enemy of the insurgents;
so that in the war with the hostile
city
you have the masses on your side. But
if
you butcher the people of Mitylene,
who had
nothing to do with the revolt, and
who, as
soon as they got arms, of their own
motion
surrendered the town, first you will
commit
the crime of killing your benefactors;
and
next you will play directly into the
hands
of the higher classes, who when they
induce
their cities to rise, will immediately
have
the people on their side, through your
having
announced in advance the same punishment
for those who are guilty and for those
who
are not. On the contrary, even if they
were
guilty, you ought to seem not to notice
it,
in order to avoid alienating the only
class
still friendly to us. In short, I consider
it far more useful for the preservation
of
our empire voluntarily to put up with
injustice,
than to put to death, however justly,
those
whom it is our interest to keep alive.
As
for Cleon's idea that in punishment
the claims
of justice and expediency can both
be satisfied,
facts do not confirm the possibility
of such
a combination. "Confess, therefore,
that this is the wisest course, and
without
conceding too much either to pity or
to indulgence,
by neither of which motives do I any
more
than Cleon wish you to be influenced,
upon
the plain merits of the case before
you,
be persuaded by me to try calmly those
of
the Mitylenians whom Paches sent off
as guilty,
and to leave the rest undisturbed.
This is
at once best for the future, and most
terrible
to your enemies at the present moment;
inasmuch
as good policy against an adversary
is superior
to the blind attacks of brute force."
Such were the words of Diodotus. The
two
opinions thus expressed were the ones
that
most directly contradicted each other;
and
the Athenians, notwithstanding their
change
of feeling, now proceeded to a division,
in which the show of hands was almost
equal,
although the motion of Diodotus carried
the
day. Another galley was at once sent
off
in haste, for fear that the first might
reach
Lesbos in the interval, and the city
be found
destroyed; the first ship having about
a
day and a night's start. Wine and barley-cakes
were provided for the vessel by the
Mitylenian
ambassadors, and great promises made
if they
arrived in time; which caused the men
to
use such diligence upon the voyage
that they
took their meals of barley-cakes kneaded
with oil and wine as they rowed, and
only
slept by turns while the others were
at the
oar. Luckily they met with no contrary
wind,
and the first ship making no haste
upon so
horrid an errand, while the second
pressed
on in the manner described, the first
arrived
so little before them, that Paches
had only
just had time to read the decree, and
to
prepare to execute the sentence, when
the
second put into port and prevented
the massacre.
The danger of Mitylene had indeed been
great.
The other party whom Paches had sent
off
as the prime movers in the rebellion,
were
upon Cleon's motion put to death by
the Athenians,
the number being rather more than a
thousand.
The Athenians also demolished the walls
of
the Mitylenians, and took possession
of their
ships. Afterwards tribute was not imposed
upon the Lesbians; but all their land,
except
that of the Methymnians, was divided
into
three thousand allotments, three hundred
of which were reserved as sacred for
the
gods, and the rest assigned by lot
to Athenian
shareholders, who were sent out to
the island.
With these the Lesbians agreed to pay
a rent
of two minae a year for each allotment,
and
cultivated the land themselves. The
Athenians
also took possession of the towns on
the
continent belonging to the Mitylenians,
which
thus became for the future subject
to Athens.
Such were the events that took place
at Lesbos.
CHAPTER X. Fifth Year of the War -
Trial
and Execution of the Plataeans - Corcyraean
Revolution DURING the same summer,
after
the reduction of Lesbos, the Athenians
under
Nicias, son of Niceratus, made an expedition
against the island of Minoa, which
lies off
Megara and was used as a fortified
post by
the Megarians, who had built a tower
upon
it. Nicias wished to enable the Athenians
to maintain their blockade from this
nearer
station instead of from Budorum and
Salamis;
to stop the Peloponnesian galleys and
privateers
sailing out unobserved from the island,
as
they had been in the habit of doing;
and
at the same time prevent anything from
coming
into Megara. Accordingly, after taking
two
towers projecting on the side of Nisaea,
by engines from the sea, and clearing
the
entrance into the channel between the
island
and the shore, he next proceeded to
cut off
all communication by building a wall
on the
mainland at the point where a bridge
across
a morass enabled succours to be thrown
into
the island, which was not far off from
the
continent. A few days sufficing to
accomplish
this, he afterwards raised some works
in
the island also, and leaving a garrison
there,
departed with his forces. About the
same
time in this summer, the Plataeans,
being
now without provisions and unable to
support
the siege, surrendered to the Peloponnesians
in the following manner. An assault
had been
made upon the wall, which the Plataeans
were
unable to repel. The Lacedaemonian
commander,
perceiving their weakness, wished to
avoid
taking the place by storm; his instructions
from Lacedaemon having been so conceived,
in order that if at any future time
peace
should be made with Athens, and they
should
agree each to restore the places that
they
had taken in the war, Plataea might
be held
to have come over voluntarily, and
not be
included in the list. He accordingly
sent
a herald to them to ask if they were
willing
voluntarily to surrender the town to
the
Lacedaemonians, and accept them as
their
judges, upon the understanding that
the guilty
should be punished, but no one without
form
of law. The Plataeans were now in the
last
state of weakness, and the herald had
no
sooner delivered his message than they
surrendered
the town. The Peloponnesians fed them
for
some days until the judges from Lacedaemon,
who were five in number, arrived. Upon
their
arrival no charge was preferred; they
simply
called up the Plataeans, and asked
them whether
they had done the Lacedaemonians and
allies
any service in the war then raging.
The Plataeans
asked leave to speak at greater length,
and
deputed two of their number to represent
them: Astymachus, son of Asopolaus,
and Lacon,
son of Aeimnestus, proxenus of the
Lacedaemonians,
who came forward and spoke as follows:
"Lacedaemonians,
when we surrendered our city we trusted
in
you, and looked forward to a trial
more agreeable
to the forms of law than the present,
to
which we had no idea of being subjected;
the judges also in whose hands we consented
to place ourselves were you, and you
only
(from whom we thought we were most
likely
to obtain justice), and not other persons,
as is now the case. As matters stand,
we
are afraid that we have been doubly
deceived.
We have good reason to suspect, not
only
that the issue to be tried is the most
terrible
of all, but that you will not prove
impartial;
if we may argue from the fact that
no accusation
was first brought forward for us to
answer,
but we had ourselves to ask leave to
speak,
and from the question being put so
shortly,
that a true answer to it tells against
us,
while a false one can be contradicted.
In
this dilemma, our safest, and indeed
our
only course, seems to be to say something
at all risks: placed as we are, we
could
scarcely be silent without being tormented
by the damning thought that speaking
might
have saved us. Another difficulty that
we
have to encounter is the difficulty
of convincing
you. Were we unknown to each other
we might
profit by bringing forward new matter
with
which you were unacquainted: as it
is, we
can tell you nothing that you do not
know
already, and we fear, not that you
have condemned
us in your own minds of having failed
in
our duty towards you, and make this
our crime,
but that to please a third party we
have
to submit to a trial the result of
which
is already decided. Nevertheless, we
will
place before you what we can justly
urge,
not only on the question of the quarrel
which
the Thebans have against us, but also
as
addressing you and the rest of the
Hellenes;
and we will remind you of our good
services,
and endeavour to prevail with you.
"To
your short question, whether we have
done
the Lacedaemonians and allies any service
in this war, we say, if you ask us
as enemies,
that to refrain from serving you was
not
to do you injury; if as friends, that
you
are more in fault for having marched
against
us. During the peace, and against the
Mede,
we acted well: we have not now been
the first
to break the peace, and we were the
only
Boeotians who then joined in defending
against
the Mede the liberty of Hellas. Although
an inland people, we were present at
the
action at Artemisium; in the battle
that
took place in our territory we fought
by
the side of yourselves and Pausanias;
and
in all the other Hellenic exploits
of the
time we took a part quite out of proportion
to our strength. Besides, you, as Lacedaemonians,
ought not to forget that at the time
of the
great panic at Sparta, after the earthquake,
caused by the secession of the Helots
to
Ithome, we sent the third part of our
citizens
to assist you. "On these great
and historical
occasions such was the part that we
chose,
although afterwards we became your
enemies.
For this you were to blame. When we
asked
for your alliance against our Theban
oppressors,
you rejected our petition, and told
us to
go to the Athenians who were our neighbours,
as you lived too far off. In the war
we never
have done to you, and never should
have done
to you, anything unreasonable. If we
refused
to desert the Athenians when you asked
us,
we did no wrong; they had helped us
against
the Thebans when you drew back, and
we could
no longer give them up with honour;
especially
as we had obtained their alliance and
had
been admitted to their citizenship
at our
own request, and after receiving benefits
at their hands; but it was plainly
our duty
loyally to obey their orders. Besides,
the
faults that either of you may commit
in your
supremacy must be laid, not upon the
followers,
but on the chiefs that lead them astray.
"With regard to the Thebans, they
have
wronged us repeatedly, and their last
aggression,
which has been the means of bringing
us into
our present position, is within your
own
knowledge. In seizing our city in time
of
peace, and what is more at a holy time
in
the month, they justly encountered
our vengeance,
in accordance with the universal law
which
sanctions resistance to an invader;
and it
cannot now be right that we should
suffer
on their account. By taking your own
immediate
interest and their animosity as the
test
of justice, you will prove yourselves
to
be rather waiters on expediency than
judges
of right; although if they seem useful
to
you now, we and the rest of the Hellenes
gave you much more valuable help at
a time
of greater need. Now you are the assailants,
and others fear you; but at the crisis
to
which we allude, when the barbarian
threatened
all with slavery, the Thebans were
on his
side. It is just, therefore, to put
our patriotism
then against our error now, if error
there
has been; and you will find the merit
outweighing
the fault, and displayed at a juncture
when
there were few Hellenes who would set
their
valour against the strength of Xerxes,
and
when greater praise was theirs who
preferred
the dangerous path of honour to the
safe
course of consulting their own interest
with
respect to the invasion. To these few
we
belonged, and highly were we honoured
for
it; and yet we now fear to perish by
having
again acted on the same principles,
and chosen
to act well with Athens sooner than
wisely
with Sparta. Yet in justice the same
cases
should be decided in the same way,
and policy
should not mean anything else than
lasting
gratitude for the service of good ally
combined
with a proper attention to one's own
immediate
interest. "Consider also that
at present
the Hellenes generally regard you as
a pattern
of worth and honour; and if you pass
an unjust
sentence upon us in this which is no
obscure
cause, but one in which you, the judges,
are as illustrious as we, the prisoners,
are blameless, take care that displeasure
be not felt at an unworthy decision
in the
matter of honourable men made by men
yet
more honourable than they, and at the
consecration
in the national temples of spoils taken
from
the Plataeans, the benefactors of Hellas.
Shocking indeed will it seem for Lacedaemonians
to destroy Plataea, and for the city
whose
name your fathers inscribed upon the
tripod
at Delphi for its good service, to
be by
you blotted out from the map of Hellas,
to
please the Thebans. To such a depth
of misfortune
have we fallen that, while the Medes'
success
had been our ruin, Thebans now supplant
us
in your once fond regards; and we have
been
subjected to two dangers, the greatest
of
any- that of dying of starvation then,
if
we had not surrendered our town, and
now
of being tried for our lives. So that
we
Plataeans, after exertions beyond our
power
in the cause of the Hellenes, are rejected
by all, forsaken and unassisted; helped
by
none of our allies, and reduced to
doubt
the stability of our only hope, yourselves.
"Still, in the name of the gods
who
once presided over our confederacy,
and of
our own good service in the Hellenic
cause,
we adjure you to relent; to recall
the decision
which we fear that the Thebans may
have obtained
from you; to ask back the gift that
you have
given them, that they disgrace not
you by
slaying us; to gain a pure instead
of a guilty
gratitude, and not to gratify others
to be
yourselves rewarded with shame. Our
lives
may be quickly taken, but it will be
a heavy
task to wipe away the infamy of the
deed;
as we are no enemies whom you might
justly
punish, but friends forced into taking
arms
against you. To grant us our lives
would
be, therefore, a righteous judgment;
if you
consider also that we are prisoners
who surrendered
of their own accord, stretching out
our hands
for quarter, whose slaughter Hellenic
law
forbids, and who besides were always
your
benefactors. Look at the sepulchres
of your
fathers, slain by the Medes and buried
in
our country, whom year by year we honoured
with garments and all other dues, and
the
first-fruits of all that our land produced
in their season, as friends from a
friendly
country and allies to our old companions
in arms. Should you not decide aright,
your
conduct would be the very opposite
to ours.
Consider only: Pausanias buried them
thinking
that he was laying them in friendly
ground
and among men as friendly; but you,
if you
kill us and make the Plataean territory
Theban,
will leave your fathers and kinsmen
in a
hostile soil and among their murderers,
deprived
of the honours which they now enjoy.
What
is more, you will enslave the land
in which
the freedom of the Hellenes was won,
make
desolate the temples of the gods to
whom
they prayed before they overcame the
Medes,
and take away your ancestral sacrifices
from
those who founded and instituted them.
"It
were not to your glory, Lacedaemonians,
either
to offend in this way against the common
law of the Hellenes and against your
own
ancestors, or to kill us your benefactors
to gratify another's hatred without
having
been wronged yourselves: it were more
so
to spare us and to yield to the impressions
of a reasonable compassion; reflecting
not
merely on the awful fate in store for
us,
but also on the character of the sufferers,
and on the impossibility of predicting
how
soon misfortune may fall even upon
those
who deserve it not. We, as we have
a right
to do and as our need impels us, entreat
you, calling aloud upon the gods at
whose
common altar all the Hellenes worship,
to
hear our request, to be not unmindful
of
the oaths which your fathers swore,
and which
we now plead- we supplicate you by
the tombs
of your fathers, and appeal to those
that
are gone to save us from falling into
the
hands of the Thebans and their dearest
friends
from being given up to their most detested
foes. We also remind you of that day
on which
we did the most glorious deeds, by
your fathers'
sides, we who now on this are like
to suffer
the most dreadful fate. Finally, to
do what
is necessary and yet most difficult
for men
in our situation- that is, to make
an end
of speaking, since with that ending
the peril
of our lives draws near- in conclusion
we
say that we did not surrender our city
to
the Thebans (to that we would have
preferred
inglorious starvation), but trusted
in and
capitulated to you; and it would be
just,
if we fail to persuade you, to put
us back
in the same position and let us take
the
chance that falls to us. And at the
same
time we adjure you not to give us up-
your
suppliants, Lacedaemonians, out of
your hands
and faith, Plataeans foremost of the
Hellenic
patriots, to Thebans, our most hated
enemies-
but to be our saviours, and not, while
you
free the rest of the Hellenes, to bring
us
to destruction." Such were the
words
of the Plataeans. The Thebans, afraid
that
the Lacedaemonians might be moved by
what
they had heard, came forward and said
that
they too desired to address them, since
the
Plataeans had, against their wish,
been allowed
to speak at length instead of being
confined
to a simple answer to the question.
Leave
being granted, the Thebans spoke as
follows:
"We should never have asked to
make
this speech if the Plataeans on their
side
had contented themselves with shortly
answering
the question, and had not turned round
and
made charges against us, coupled with
a long
defence of themselves upon matters
outside
the present inquiry and not even the
subject
of accusation, and with praise of what
no
one finds fault with. However, since
they
have done so, we must answer their
charges
and refute their self-praise, in order
that
neither our bad name nor their good
may help
them, but that you may hear the real
truth
on both points, and so decide. "The
origin of our quarrel was this. We
settled
Plataea some time after the rest of
Boeotia,
together with other places out of which
we
had driven the mixed population. The
Plataeans
not choosing to recognize our supremacy,
as had been first arranged, but separating
themselves from the rest of the Boeotians,
and proving traitors to their nationality,
we used compulsion; upon which they
went
over to the Athenians, and with them
did
as much harm, for which we retaliated.
"Next,
when the barbarian invaded Hellas,
they say
that they were the only Boeotians who
did
not Medize; and this is where they
most glorify
themselves and abuse us. We say that
if they
did not Medize, it was because the
Athenians
did not do so either; just as afterwards
when the Athenians attacked the Hellenes
they, the Plataeans, were again the
only
Boeotians who Atticized. And yet consider
the forms of our respective governments
when
we so acted. Our city at that juncture
had
neither an oligarchical constitution
in which
all the nobles enjoyed equal rights,
nor
a democracy, but that which is most
opposed
to law and good government and nearest
a
tyranny- the rule of a close cabal.
These,
hoping to strengthen their individual
power
by the success of the Mede, kept down
by
force the people, and brought him into
the
town. The city as a whole was not its
own
mistress when it so acted, and ought
not
to be reproached for the errors that
it committed
while deprived of its constitution.
Examine
only how we acted after the departure
of
the Mede and the recovery of the constitution;
when the Athenians attacked the rest
of Hellas
and endeavoured to subjugate our country,
of the greater part of which faction
had
already made them masters. Did not
we fight
and conquer at Coronea and liberate
Boeotia,
and do we not now actively contribute
to
the liberation of the rest, providing
horses
to the cause and a force unequalled
by that
of any other state in the confederacy?
"Let
this suffice to excuse us for our Medism.
We will now endeavour to show that
you have
injured the Hellenes more than we,
and are
more deserving of condign punishment.
It
was in defence against us, say you,
that
you became allies and citizens of Athens.
If so, you ought only to have called
in the
Athenians against us, instead of joining
them in attacking others: it was open
to
you to do this if you ever felt that
they
were leading you where you did not
wish to
follow, as Lacedaemon was already your
ally
against the Mede, as you so much insist;
and this was surely sufficient to keep
us
off, and above all to allow you to
deliberate
in security. Nevertheless, of your
own choice
and without compulsion you chose to
throw
your lot in with Athens. And you say
that
it had been base for you to betray
your benefactors;
but it was surely far baser and more
iniquitous
to sacrifice the whole body of the
Hellenes,
your fellow confederates, who were
liberating
Hellas, than the Athenians only, who
were
enslaving it. The return that you made
them
was therefore neither equal nor honourable,
since you called them in, as you say,
because
you were being oppressed yourselves,
and
then became their accomplices in oppressing
others; although baseness rather consists
in not returning like for like than
in not
returning what is justly due but must
be
unjustly paid. "Meanwhile, after
thus
plainly showing that it was not for
the sake
of the Hellenes that you alone then
did not
Medize, but because the Athenians did
not
do so either, and you wished to side
with
them and to be against the rest; you
now
claim the benefit of good deeds done
to please
your neighbours. This cannot be admitted:
you chose the Athenians, and with them
you
must stand or fall. Nor can you plead
the
league then made and claim that it
should
now protect you. You abandoned that
league,
and offended against it by helping
instead
of hindering the subjugation of the
Aeginetans
and others of its members, and that
not under
compulsion, but while in enjoyment
of the
same institutions that you enjoy to
the present
hour, and no one forcing you as in
our case.
Lastly, an invitation was addressed
to you
before you were blockaded to be neutral
and
join neither party: this you did not
accept.
Who then merit the detestation of the
Hellenes
more justly than you, you who sought
their
ruin under the mask of honour? The
former
virtues that you allege you now show
not
to be proper to your character; the
real
bent of your nature has been at length
damningly
proved: when the Athenians took the
path
of injustice you followed them. "Of
our unwilling Medism and your wilful
Atticizing
this then is our explanation. The last
wrong
wrong of which you complain consists
in our
having, as you say, lawlessly invaded
your
town in time of peace and festival.
Here
again we cannot think that we were
more in
fault than yourselves. If of our own
proper
motion we made an armed attack upon
your
city and ravaged your territory, we
are guilty;
but if the first men among you in estate
and family, wishing to put an end to
the
foreign connection and to restore you
to
the common Boeotian country, of their
own
free will invited us, wherein is our
crime?
Where wrong is done, those who lead,
as you
say, are more to blame than those who
follow.
Not that, in our judgment, wrong was
done
either by them or by us. Citizens like
yourselves,
and with more at stake than you, they
opened
their own walls and introduced us into
their
own city, not as foes but as friends,
to
prevent the bad among you from becoming
worse;
to give honest men their due; to reform
principles
without attacking persons, since you
were
not to be banished from your city,
but brought
home to your kindred, nor to be made
enemies
to any, but friends alike to all. "That
our intention was not hostile is proved
by
our behaviour. We did no harm to any
one,
but publicly invited those who wished
to
live under a national, Boeotian government
to come over to us; which as first
you gladly
did, and made an agreement with us
and remained
tranquil, until you became aware of
the smallness
of our numbers. Now it is possible
that there
may have been something not quite fair
in
our entering without the consent of
your
commons. At any rate you did not repay
us
in kind. Instead of refraining, as
we had
done, from violence, and inducing us
to retire
by negotiation, you fell upon us in
violation
of your agreement, and slew some of
us in
fight, of which we do not so much complain,
for in that there was a certain justice;
but others who held out their hands
and received
quarter, and whose lives you subsequently
promised us, you lawlessly butchered.
If
this was not abominable, what is? And
after
these three crimes committed one after
the
other- the violation of your agreement,
the
murder of the men afterwards, and the
lying
breach of your promise not to kill
them,
if we refrained from injuring your
property
in the country- you still affirm that
we
are the criminals and yourselves pretend
to escape justice. Not so, if these
your
judges decide aright, but you will
be punished
for all together. "Such, Lacedaemonians,
are the facts. We have gone into them
at
some length both on your account and
on our
own, that you may fed that you will
justly
condemn the prisoners, and we, that
we have
given an additional sanction to our
vengeance.
We would also prevent you from being
melted
by hearing of their past virtues, if
any
such they had: these may be fairly
appealed
to by the victims of injustice, but
only
aggravate the guilt of criminals, since
they
offend against their better nature.
Nor let
them gain anything by crying and wailing,
by calling upon your fathers' tombs
and their
own desolate condition. Against this
we point
to the far more dreadful fate of our
youth,
butchered at their hands; the fathers
of
whom either fell at Coronea, bringing
Boeotia
over to you, or seated, forlorn old
men by
desolate hearths, with far more reason
implore
your justice upon the prisoners. The
pity
which they appeal to is rather due
to men
who suffer unworthily; those who suffer
justly
as they do are on the contrary subjects
for
triumph. For their present desolate
condition
they have themselves to blame, since
they
wilfully rejected the better alliance.
Their
lawless act was not provoked by any
action
of ours: hate, not justice, inspired
their
decision; and even now the satisfaction
which
they afford us is not adequate; they
will
suffer by a legal sentence, not as
they pretend
as suppliants asking for quarter in
battle,
but as prisoners who have surrendered
upon
agreement to take their trial. Vindicate,
therefore, Lacedaemonians, the Hellenic
law
which they have broken; and to us,
the victims
of its violation, grant the reward
merited
by our zeal. Nor let us be supplanted
in
your favour by their harangues, but
offer
an example to the Hellenes, that the
contests
to which you invite them are of deeds,
not
words: good deeds can be shortly stated,
but where wrong is done a wealth of
language
is needed to veil its deformity. However,
if leading powers were to do what you
are
now doing, and putting one short question
to all alike were to decide accordingly,
men would be less tempted to seek fine
phrases
to cover bad actions." Such were
the
words of the Thebans. The Lacedaemonian
judges
decided that the question whether they
had
received any service from the Plataeans
in
the war, was a fair one for them to
put;
as they had always invited them to
be neutral,
agreeably to the original covenant
of Pausanias
after the defeat of the Mede, and had
again
definitely offered them the same conditions
before the blockade. This offer having
been
refused, they were now, they conceived,
by
the loyalty of their intention released
from
their covenant; and having, as they
considered,
suffered evil at the hands of the Plataeans,
they brought them in again one by one
and
asked each of them the same question,
that
is to say, whether they had done the
Lacedaemonians
and allies any service in the war;
and upon
their saying that they had not, took
them
out and slew them, all without exception.
The number of Plataeans thus massacred
was
not less than two hundred, with twenty-five
Athenians who had shared in the siege.
The
women were taken as slaves. The city
the
Thebans gave for about a year to some
political
emigrants from Megara and to the surviving
Plataeans of their own party to inhabit,
and afterwards razed it to the ground
from
the very foundations, and built on
to the
precinct of Hera an inn two hundred
feet
square, with rooms all round above
and below,
making use for this purpose of the
roofs
and doors of the Plataeans: of the
rest of
the materials in the wall, the brass
and
the iron, they made couches which they
dedicated
to Hera, for whom they also built a
stone
chapel of a hundred feet square. The
land
they confiscated and let out on a ten
years'
lease to Theban occupiers. The adverse
attitude
of the Lacedaemonians in the whole
Plataean
affair was mainly adopted to please
the Thebans,
who were thought to be useful in the
war
at that moment raging. Such was the
end of
Plataea, in the ninety-third year after
she
became the ally of Athens. Meanwhile,
the
forty ships of the Peloponnesians that
had
gone to the relief of the Lesbians,
and which
we left flying across the open sea,
pursued
by the Athenians, were caught in a
storm
off Crete, and scattering from thence
made
their way to Peloponnese, where they
found
at Cyllene thirteen Leucadian and Ambraciot
galleys, with Brasidas, son of Tellis,
lately
arrived as counsellor to Alcidas; the
Lacedaemonians,
upon the failure of the Lesbian expedition,
having resolved to strengthen their
fleet
and sail to Corcyra, where a revolution
had
broken out, so as to arrive there before
the twelve Athenian ships at Naupactus
could
be reinforced from Athens. Brasidas
and Alcidas
began to prepare accordingly. The Corcyraean
revolution began with the return of
the prisoners
taken in the sea-fights off Epidamnus.
These
the Corinthians had released, nominally
upon
the security of eight hundred talents
given
by their proxeni, but in reality upon
their
engagement to bring over Corcyra to
Corinth.
These men proceeded to canvass each
of the
citizens, and to intrigue with the
view of
detaching the city from Athens. Upon
the
arrival of an Athenian and a Corinthian
vessel,
with envoys on board, a conference
was held
in which the Corcyraeans voted to remain
allies of the Athenians according to
their
agreement, but to be friends of the
Peloponnesians
as they had been formerly. Meanwhile,
the
returned prisoners brought Peithias,
a volunteer
proxenus of the Athenians and leader
of the
commons, to trial, upon the charge
of enslaving
Corcyra to Athens. He, being acquitted,
retorted
by accusing five of the richest of
their
number of cutting stakes in the ground
sacred
to Zeus and Alcinous; the legal penalty
being
a stater for each stake. Upon their
conviction,
the amount of the penalty being very
large,
they seated themselves as suppliants
in the
temples to be allowed to pay it by
instalments;
but Peithias, who was one of the senate,
prevailed upon that body to enforce
the law;
upon which the accused, rendered desperate
by the law, and also learning that
Peithias
had the intention, while still a member
of
the senate, to persuade the people
to conclude
a defensive and offensive alliance
with Athens,
banded together armed with daggers,
and suddenly
bursting into the senate killed Peithias
and sixty others, senators and private
persons;
some few only of the party of Peithias
taking
refuge in the Athenian galley, which
had
not yet departed. After this outrage,
the
conspirators summoned the Corcyraeans
to
an assembly, and said that this would
turn
out for the best, and would save them
from
being enslaved by Athens: for the future,
they moved to receive neither party
unless
they came peacefully in a single ship,
treating
any larger number as enemies. This
motion
made, they compelled it to be adopted,
and
instantly sent off envoys to Athens
to justify
what had been done and to dissuade
the refugees
there from any hostile proceedings
which
might lead to a reaction. Upon the
arrival
of the embassy, the Athenians arrested
the
envoys and all who listened to them,
as revolutionists,
and lodged them in Aegina. Meanwhile
a Corinthian
galley arriving in the island with
Lacedaemonian
envoys, the dominant Corcyraean party
attacked
the commons and defeated them in battle.
Night coming on, the commons took refuge
in the Acropolis and the higher parts
of
the city, and concentrated themselves
there,
having also possession of the Hyllaic
harbour;
their adversaries occupying the market-place,
where most of them lived, and the harbour
adjoining, looking towards the mainland.
The next day passed in skirmishes of
little
importance, each party sending into
the country
to offer freedom to the slaves and
to invite
them to join them. The mass of the
slaves
answered the appeal of the commons;
their
antagonists being reinforced by eight
hundred
mercenaries from the continent. After
a day's
interval hostilities recommenced, victory
remaining with the commons, who had
the advantage
in numbers and position, the women
also valiantly
assisting them, pelting with tiles
from the
houses, and supporting the melee with
a fortitude
beyond their sex. Towards dusk, the
oligarchs
in full rout, fearing that the victorious
commons might assault and carry the
arsenal
and put them to the sword, fired the
houses
round the marketplace and the lodging-houses,
in order to bar their advance; sparing
neither
their own, nor those of their neighbours;
by which much stuff of the merchants
was
consumed and the city risked total
destruction,
if a wind had come to help the flame
by blowing
on it. Hostilities now ceasing, both
sides
kept quiet, passing the night on guard,
while
the Corinthian ship stole out to sea
upon
the victory of the commons, and most
of the
mercenaries passed over secretly to
the continent.
The next day the Athenian general,
Nicostratus,
son of Diitrephes, came up from Naupactus
with twelve ships and five hundred
Messenian
heavy infantry. He at once endeavoured
to
bring about a settlement, and persuaded
the
two parties to agree together to bring
to
trial ten of the ringleaders, who presently
fled, while the rest were to live in
peace,
making terms with each other, and entering
into a defensive and offensive alliance
with
the Athenians. This arranged, he was
about
to sail away, when the leaders of the
commons
induced him to leave them five of his
ships
to make their adversaries less disposed
to
move, while they manned and sent with
him
an equal number of their own. He had
no sooner
consented, than they began to enroll
their
enemies for the ships; and these, fearing
that they might be sent off to Athens,
seated
themselves as suppliants in the temple
of
the Dioscuri. An attempt on the part
of Nicostratus
to reassure them and to persuade them
to
rise proving unsuccessful, the commons
armed
upon this pretext, alleging the refusal
of
their adversaries to sail with them
as a
proof of the hollowness of their intentions,
and took their arms out of their houses,
and would have dispatched some whom
they
fell in with, if Nicostratus had not
prevented
it. The rest of the party, seeing what
was
going on, seated themselves as suppliants
in the temple of Hera, being not less
than
four hundred in number; until the commons,
fearing that they might adopt some
desperate
resolution, induced them to rise, and
conveyed
them over to the island in front of
the temple,
where provisions were sent across to
them.
At this stage in the revolution, on
the fourth
or fifth day after the removal of the
men
to the island, the Peloponnesian ships
arrived
from Cyllene where they had been stationed
since their return from Ionia, fifty-three
in number, still under the command
of Alcidas,
but with Brasidas also on board as
his adviser;
and dropping anchor at Sybota, a harbour
on the mainland, at daybreak made sail
for
Corcyra. The Corcyraeans in great confusion
and alarm at the state of things in
the city
and at the approach of the invader,
at once
proceeded to equip sixty vessels, which
they
sent out, as fast as they were manned,
against
the enemy, in spite of the Athenians
recommending
them to let them sail out first, and
to follow
themselves afterwards with all their
ships
to. gether. Upon their vessels coming
up
to the enemy in this straggling fashion,
two immediately deserted: in others
the crews
were fighting among themselves, and
there
was no order in anything that was done;
so
that the Peloponnesians, seeing their
confusion,
placed twenty ships to oppose the Corcyraeans,
and ranged the rest against the twelve
Athenian
ships, amongst which were the two vessels
Salaminia and Paralus. While the Corcyraeans,
attacking without judgment and in small
detachments,
were already crippled by their own
misconduct,
the Athenians, afraid of the numbers
of the
enemy and of being surrounded, did
not venture
to attack the main body or even the
centre
of the division opposed to them, but
fell
upon its wing and sank one vessel;
after
which the Peloponnesians formed in
a circle,
and the Athenians rowed round them
and tried
to throw them into disorder. Perceiving
this,
the division opposed to the Corcyraeans,
fearing a repetition of the disaster
of Naupactus,
came to support their friends, and
the whole
fleet now bore down, united, upon the
Athenians,
who retired before it, backing water,
retiring
as leisurely as possible in order to
give
the Corcyraeans time to escape, while
the
enemy was thus kept occupied. Such
was the
character of this sea-fight, which
lasted
until sunset. The Corcyraeans now feared
that the enemy would follow up their
victory
and sail against the town and rescue
the
men in the island, or strike some other
blow
equally decisive, and accordingly carried
the men over again to the temple of
Hera,
and kept guard over the city. The Peloponnesians,
however, although victorious in the
sea-fight,
did not venture to attack the town,
but took
the thirteen Corcyraean vessels which
they
had captured, and with them sailed
back to
the continent from whence they had
put out.
The next day equally they refrained
from
attacking the city, although the disorder
and panic were at their height, and
though
Brasidas, it is said, urged Alcidas,
his
superior officer, to do so, but they
landed
upon the promontory of Leukimme and
laid
waste the country. Meanwhile the commons
in Corcyra, being still in great fear
of
the fleet attacking them, came to a
parley
with the suppliants and their friends,
in
order to save the town; and prevailed
upon
some of them to go on board the ships,
of
which they still manned thirty, against
the
expected attack. But the Peloponnesians
after
ravaging the country until midday sailed
away, and towards nightfall were informed
by beacon signals of the approach of
sixty
Athenian vessels from Leucas, under
the command
of Eurymedon, son of Thucles; which
had been
sent off by the Athenians upon the
news of
the revolution and of the fleet with
Alcidas
being about to sail for Corcyra. The
Peloponnesians
accordingly at once set off in haste
by night
for home, coasting along shore; and
hauling
their ships across the Isthmus of Leucas,
in order not to be seen doubling it,
so departed.
The Corcyraeans, made aware of the
approach
of the Athenian fleet and of the departure
of the enemy, brought the Messenians
from
outside the walls into the town, and
ordered
the fleet which they had manned to
sail round
into the Hyllaic harbour; and while
it was
so doing, slew such of their enemies
as they
laid hands on, dispatching afterwards,
as
they landed them, those whom they had
persuaded
to go on board the ships. Next they
went
to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded
about
fifty men to take their trial, and
condemned
them all to death. The mass of the
suppliants
who had refused to do so, on seeing
what
was taking place, slew each other there
in
the consecrated ground; while some
hanged
themselves upon the trees, and others
destroyed
themselves as they were severally able.
During
seven days that Eurymedon stayed with
his
sixty ships, the Corcyraeans were engaged
in butchering those of their fellow
citizens
whom they regarded as their enemies:
and
although the crime imputed was that
of attempting
to put down the democracy, some were
slain
also for private hatred, others by
their
debtors because of the moneys owed
to them.
Death thus raged in every shape; and,
as
usually happens at such times, there
was
no length to which violence did not
go; sons
were killed by their fathers, and suppliants
dragged from the altar or slain upon
it;
while some were even walled up in the
temple
of Dionysus and died there. So bloody
was
the march of the revolution, and the
impression
which it made was the greater as it
was one
of the first to occur. Later on, one
may
say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed;
struggles being every, where made by
the
popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians,
and by the oligarchs to introduce the
Lacedaemonians.
In peace there would have been neither
the
pretext nor the wish to make such an
invitation;
but in war, with an alliance always
at the
command of either faction for the hurt
of
their adversaries and their own corresponding
advantage, opportunities for bringing
in
the foreigner were never wanting to
the revolutionary
parties. The sufferings which revolution
entailed upon the cities were many
and terrible,
such as have occurred and always will
occur,
as long as the nature of mankind remains
the same; though in a severer or milder
form,
and varying in their symptoms, according
to the variety of the particular cases.
In
peace and prosperity, states and individuals
have better sentiments, because they
do not
find themselves suddenly confronted
with
imperious necessities; but war takes
away
the easy supply of daily wants, and
so proves
a rough master, that brings most men's
characters
to a level with their fortunes. Revolution
thus ran its course from city to city,
and
the places which it arrived at last,
from
having heard what had been done before,
carried
to a still greater excess the refinement
of their inventions, as manifested
in the
cunning of their enterprises and the
atrocity
of their reprisals. Words had to change
their
ordinary meaning and to take that which
was
now given them. Reckless audacity came
to
be considered the courage of a loyal
ally;
prudent hesitation, specious cowardice;
moderation
was held to be a cloak for unmanliness;
ability
to see all sides of a question, inaptness
to act on any. Frantic violence became
the
attribute of manliness; cautious plotting,
a justifiable means of self-defence.
The
advocate of extreme measures was always
trustworthy;
his opponent a man to be suspected.
To succeed
in a plot was to have a shrewd head,
to divine
a plot a still shrewder; but to try
to provide
against having to do either was to
break
up your party and to be afraid of your
adversaries.
In fine, to forestall an intending
criminal,
or to suggest the idea of a crime where
it
was wanting, was equally commended
until
even blood became a weaker tie than
party,
from the superior readiness of those
united
by the latter to dare everything without
reserve; for such associations had
not in
view the blessings derivable from established
institutions but were formed by ambition
for their overthrow; and the confidence
of
their members in each other rested
less on
any religious sanction than upon complicity
in crime. The fair proposals of an
adversary
were met with jealous precautions by
the
stronger of the two, and not with a
generous
confidence. Revenge also was held of
more
account than self-preservation. Oaths
of
reconciliation, being only proffered
on either
side to meet an immediate difficulty,
only
held good so long as no other weapon
was
at hand; but when opportunity offered,
he
who first ventured to seize it and
to take
his enemy off his guard, thought this
perfidious
vengeance sweeter than an open one,
since,
considerations of safety apart, success
by
treachery won him the palm of superior
intelligence.
Indeed it is generally the case that
men
are readier to call rogues clever than
simpletons
honest, and are as ashamed of being
the second
as they are proud of being the first.
The
cause of all these evils was the lust
for
power arising from greed and ambition;
and
from these passions proceeded the violence
of parties once engaged in contention.
The
leaders in the cities, each provided
with
the fairest professions, on the one
side
with the cry of political equality
of the
people, on the other of a moderate
aristocracy,
sought prizes for themselves in those
public
interests which they pretended to cherish,
and, recoiling from no means in their
struggles
for ascendancy engaged in the direst
excesses;
in their acts of vengeance they went
to even
greater lengths, not stopping at what
justice
or the good of the state demanded,
but making
the party caprice of the moment their
only
standard, and invoking with equal readiness
the condemnation of an unjust verdict
or
the authority of the strong arm to
glut the
animosities of the hour. Thus religion
was
in honour with neither party; but the
use
of fair phrases to arrive at guilty
ends
was in high reputation. Meanwhile the
moderate
part of the citizens perished between
the
two, either for not joining in the
quarrel,
or because envy would not suffer them
to
escape. Thus every form of iniquity
took
root in the Hellenic countries by reason
of the troubles. The ancient simplicity
into
which honour so largely entered was
laughed
down and disappeared; and society became
divided into camps in which no man
trusted
his fellow. To put an end to this,
there
was neither promise to be depended
upon,
nor oath that could command respect;
but
all parties dwelling rather in their
calculation
upon the hopelessness of a permanent
state
of things, were more intent upon self-defence
than capable of confidence. In this
contest
the blunter wits were most successful.
Apprehensive
of their own deficiencies and of the
cleverness
of their antagonists, they feared to
be worsted
in debate and to be surprised by the
combinations
of their more versatile opponents,
and so
at once boldly had recourse to action:
while
their adversaries, arrogantly thinking
that
they should know in time, and that
it was
unnecessary to secure by action what
policy
afforded, often fell victims to their
want
of precaution. Meanwhile Corcyra gave
the
first example of most of the crimes
alluded
to; of the reprisals exacted by the
governed
who had never experienced equitable
treatment
or indeed aught but insolence from
their
rulers- when their hour came; of the
iniquitous
resolves of those who desired to get
rid
of their accustomed poverty, and ardently
coveted their neighbours' goods; and
lastly,
of the savage and pitiless excesses
into
which men who had begun the struggle,
not
in a class but in a party spirit, were
hurried
by their ungovernable passions. In
the confusion
into which life was now thrown in the
cities,
human nature, always rebelling against
the
law and now its master, gladly showed
itself
ungoverned in passion, above respect
for
justice, and the enemy of all superiority;
since revenge would not have been set
above
religion, and gain above justice, had
it
not been for the fatal power of envy.
Indeed
men too often take upon themselves
in the
prosecution of their revenge to set
the example
of doing away with those general laws
to
which all alike can look for salvation
in
adversity, instead of allowing them
to subsist
against the day of danger when their
aid
may be required. While the revolutionary
passions thus for the first time displayed
themselves in the factions of Corcyra,
Eurymedon
and the Athenian fleet sailed away;
after
which some five hundred Corcyraean
exiles
who had succeeded in escaping, took
some
forts on the mainland, and becoming
masters
of the Corcyraean territory over the
water,
made this their base to Plunder their
countrymen
in the island, and did so much damage
as
to cause a severe famine in the town.
They
also sent envoys to Lacedaemon and
Corinth
to negotiate their restoration; but
meeting
with no success, afterwards got together
boats and mercenaries and crossed over
to
the island, being about six hundred
in all;
and burning their boats so as to have
no
hope except in becoming masters of
the country,
went up to Mount Istone, and fortifying
themselves
there, began to annoy those in the
city and
obtained command of the country. At
the close
of the same summer the Athenians sent
twenty
ships under the command of Laches,
son of
Melanopus, and Charoeades, son of Euphiletus,
to Sicily, where the Syracusans and
Leontines
were at war. The Syracusans had for
allies
all the Dorian cities except Camarina-
these
had been included in the Lacedaemonian
confederacy
from the commencement of the war, though
they had not taken any active part
in it-
the Leontines had Camarina and the
Chalcidian
cities. In Italy the Locrians were
for the
Syracusans, the Rhegians for their
Leontine
kinsmen. The allies of the Leontines
now
sent to Athens and appealed to their
ancient
alliance and to their Ionian origin,
to persuade
the Athenians to send them a fleet,
as the
Syracusans were blockading them by
land and
sea. The Athenians sent it upon the
plea
of their common descent, but in reality
to
prevent the exportation of Sicilian
corn
to Peloponnese and to test the possibility
of bringing Sicily into subjection.
Accordingly
they established themselves at Rhegium
in
Italy, and from thence carried on the
war
in concert with their allies. CHAPTER
XI.
Year of the War - Campaigns of Demosthenes
in Western Greece - Ruin of Ambracia
SUMMER
was now over. The winter following,
the plague
a second time attacked the Athenians;
for
although it had never entirely left
them,
still there had been a notable abatement
in its ravages. The second visit lasted
no
less than a year, the first having
lasted
two; and nothing distressed the Athenians
and reduced their power more than this.
No
less than four thousand four hundred
heavy
infantry in the ranks died of it and
three
hundred cavalry, besides a number of
the
multitude that was never ascertained.
At
the same time took place the numerous
earthquakes
in Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia, particularly
at Orchomenus in the last-named country.
The same winter the Athenians in Sicily
and
the Rhegians, with thirty ships, made
an
expedition against the islands of Aeolus;
it being impossible to invade them
in summer,
owing to the want of water. These islands
are occupied by the Liparaeans, a Cnidian
colony, who live in one of them of
no great
size called Lipara; and from this as
their
headquarters cultivate the rest, Didyme,
Strongyle, and Hiera. In Hiera the
people
in those parts believe that Hephaestus
has
his forge, from the quantity of flame
which
they see it send out by night, and
of smoke
by day. These islands lie off the coast
of
the Sicels and Messinese, and were
allies
of the Syracusans. The Athenians laid
waste
their land, and as the inhabitants
did not
submit, sailed back to Rhegium. Thus
the
winter ended, and with it ended the
fifth
year of this war, of which Thucydides
was
the historian. The next summer the
Peloponnesians
and their allies set out to invade
Attica
under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus,
and went as far as the Isthmus, but
numerous
earthquakes occurring, turned back
again
without the invasion taking place.
About
the same time that these earthquakes
were
so common, the sea at Orobiae, in Euboea,
retiring from the then line of coast,
returned
in a huge wave and invaded a great
part of
the town, and retreated leaving some
of it
still under water; so that what was
once
land is now sea; such of the inhabitants
perishing as could not run up to the
higher
ground in time. A similar inundation
also
occurred at Atalanta, the island off
the
Opuntian Locrian coast, carrying away
part
of the Athenian fort and wrecking one
of
two ships which were drawn up on the
beach.
At Peparethus also the sea retreated
a little,
without however any inundation following;
and an earthquake threw down part of
the
wall, the town hall, and a few other
buildings.
The cause, in my opinion, of this phenomenon
must be sought in the earthquake. At
the
point where its shock has been the
most violent,
the sea is driven back and, suddenly
recoiling
with redoubled force, causes the inundation.
Without an earthquake I do not see
how such
an accident could happen. During the
same
summer different operations were carried
on by the different beligerents in
Sicily;
by the Siceliots themselves against
each
other, and by the Athenians and their
allies:
I shall however confine myself to the
actions
in which the Athenians took part, choosing
the most important. The death of the
Athenian
general Charoeades, killed by the Syracusans
in battle, left Laches in the sole
command
of the fleet, which he now directed
in concert
with the allies against Mylae, a place
belonging
to the Messinese. Two Messinese battalions
in garrison at Mylae laid an ambush
for the
party landing from the ships, but were
routed
with great slaughter by the Athenians
and
their allies, who thereupon assaulted
the
fortification and compelled them to
surrender
the Acropolis and to march with them
upon
Messina. This town afterwards also
submitted
upon the approach of the Athenians
and their
allies, and gave hostages and all other
securities
required. The same summer the Athenians
sent
thirty ships round Peloponnese under
Demosthenes,
son of Alcisthenes, and Procles, son
of Theodorus,
and sixty others, with two thousand
heavy
infantry, against Melos, under Nicias,
son
of Niceratus; wishing to reduce the
Melians,
who, although islanders, refused to
be subjects
of Athens or even to join her confederacy.
The devastation of their land not procuring
their submission, the fleet, weighing
from
Melos, sailed to Oropus in the territory
of Graea, and landing at nightfall,
the heavy
infantry started at once from the ships
by
land for Tanagra in Boeotia, where
they were
met by the whole levy from Athens,
agreeably
to a concerted signal, under the command
of Hipponicus, son of Callias, and
Eurymedon,
son of Thucles. They encamped, and
passing
that day in ravaging the Tanagraean
territory,
remained there for the night; and next
day,
after defeating those of the Tanagraeans
who sailed out against them and some
Thebans
who had come up to help the Tanagraeans,
took some arms, set up a trophy, and
retired,
the troops to the city and the others
to
the ships. Nicias with his sixty ships
coasted
alongshore and ravaged the Locrian
seaboard,
and so returned home. About this time
the
Lacedaemonians founded their colony
of Heraclea
in Trachis, their object being the
following:
the Malians form in all three tribes,
the
Paralians, the Hiereans, and the Trachinians.
The last of these having suffered severely
in a war with their neighbours the
Oetaeans,
at first intended to give themselves
up to
Athens; but afterwards fearing not
to find
in her the security that they sought,
sent
to Lacedaemon, having chosen Tisamenus
for
their ambassador. In this embassy joined
also the Dorians from the mother country
of the Lacedaemonians, with the same
request,
as they themselves also suffered from
the
same enemy. After hearing them, the
Lacedaemonians
determined to send out the colony,
wishing
to assist the Trachinians and Dorians,
and
also because they thought that the
proposed
town would lie conveniently for the
purposes
of the war against the Athenians. A
fleet
might be got ready there against Euboea,
with the advantage of a short passage
to
the island; and the town would also
be useful
as a station on the road to Thrace.
In short,
everything made the Lacedaemonians
eager
to found the place. After first consulting
the god at Delphi and receiving a favourable
answer, they sent off the colonists,
Spartans,
and Perioeci, inviting also any of
the rest
of the Hellenes who might wish to accompany
them, except Ionians, Achaeans, and
certain
other nationalities; three Lacedaemonians
leading as founders of the colony,
Leon,
Alcidas, and Damagon. The settlement
effected,
they fortified anew the city, now called
Heraclea, distant about four miles
and a
half from Thermopylae and two miles
and a
quarter from the sea, and commenced
building
docks, closing the side towards Thermopylae
just by the pass itself, in order that
they
might be easily defended. The foundation
of this town, evidently meant to annoy
Euboea
(the passage across to Cenaeum in that
island
being a short one), at first caused
some
alarm at Athens, which the event however
did nothing to justify, the town never
giving
them any trouble. The reason of this
was
as follows. The Thessalians, who were
sovereign
in those parts, and whose territory
was menaced
by its foundation, were afraid that
it might
prove a very powerful neighbour, and
accordingly
continually harassed and made war upon
the
new settlers, until they at last wore
them
out in spite of their originally considerable
numbers, people flocking from all quarters
to a place founded by the Lacedaemonians,
and thus thought secure of prosperity.
On
the other hand the Lacedaemonians themselves,
in the persons of their governors,
did their
full share towards ruining its prosperity
and reducing its population, as they
frightened
away the greater part of the inhabitants
by governing harshly and in some cases
not
fairly, and thus made it easier for
their
neighbours to prevail against them.
The same
summer, about the same time that the
Athenians
were detained at Melos, their fellow
citizens
in the thirty ships cruising round
Peloponnese,
after cutting off some guards in an
ambush
at Ellomenus in Leucadia, subsequently
went
against Leucas itself with a large
armament,
having been reinforced by the whole
levy
of the Acarnanians except Oeniadae,
and by
the Zacynthians and Cephallenians and
fifteen
ships from Corcyra. While the Leucadians
witnessed the devastation of their
land,
without and within the isthmus upon
which
the town of Leucas and the temple of
Apollo
stand, without making any movement
on account
of the overwhelming numbers of the
enemy,
the Acarnanians urged Demosthenes,
the Athenian
general, to build a wall so as to cut
off
the town from the continent, a measure
which
they were convinced would secure its
capture
and rid them once and for all of a
most troublesome
enemy. Demosthenes however had in the
meanwhile
been persuaded by the Messenians that
it
was a fine opportunity for him, having
so
large an army assembled, to attack
the Aetolians,
who were not only the enemies of Naupactus,
but whose reduction would further make
it
easy to gain the rest of that part
of the
continent for the Athenians. The Aetolian
nation, although numerous and warlike,
yet
dwelt in unwalled villages scattered
far
apart, and had nothing but light armour,
and might, according to the Messenians,
be
subdued without much difficulty before
succours
could arrive. The plan which they recommended
was to attack first the Apodotians,
next
the Ophionians, and after these the
Eurytanians,
who are the largest tribe in Aetolia,
and
speak, as is said, a language exceedingly
difficult to understand, and eat their
flesh
raw. These once subdued, the rest would
easily
come in. To this plan Demosthenes consented,
not only to please the Messenians,
but also
in the belief that by adding the Aetolians
to his other continental allies he
would
be able, without aid from home, to
march
against the Boeotians by way of Ozolian
Locris
to Kytinium in Doris, keeping Parnassus
on
his right until he descended to the
Phocians,
whom he could force to join him if
their
ancient friendship for Athens did not,
as
he anticipated, at once decide them
to do
so. Arrived in Phocis he was already
upon
the frontier of Boeotia. He accordingly
weighed
from Leucas, against the wish of the
Acarnanians,
and with his whole armament sailed
along
the coast to Sollium, where he communicated
to them his intention; and upon their
refusing
to agree to it on account of the non-investment
of Leucas, himself with the rest of
the forces,
the Cephallenians, the Messenians,
and Zacynthians,
and three hundred Athenian marines
from his
own ships (the fifteen Corcyraean vessels
having departed), started on his expedition
against the Aetolians. His base he
established
at Oeneon in Locris, as the Ozolian
Locrians
were allies of Athens and were to meet
him
with all their forces in the interior.
Being
neighbours of the Aetolians and armed
in
the same way, it was thought that they
would
be of great service upon the expedition,
from their acquaintance with the localities
and the warfare of the inhabitants.
After
bivouacking with the army in the precinct
of Nemean Zeus, in which the poet Hesiod
is said to have been killed by the
people
of the country, according to an oracle
which
had foretold that he should die in
Nemea,
Demosthenes set out at daybreak to
invade
Aetolia. The first day he took Potidania,
the next Krokyle, and the third Tichium,
where he halted and sent back the booty
to
Eupalium in Locris, having determined
to
pursue his conquests as far as the
Ophionians,
and, in the event of their refusing
to submit,
to return to Naupactus and make them
the
objects of a second expedition. Meanwhile
the Aetolians had been aware of his
design
from the moment of its formation, and
as
soon as the army invaded their country
came
up in great force with all their tribes;
even the most remote Ophionians, the
Bomiensians,
and Calliensians, who extend towards
the
Malian Gulf, being among the number.
The
Messenians, however, adhered to their
original
advice. Assuring Demosthenes that the
Aetolians
were an easy conquest, they urged him
to
push on as rapidly as possible, and
to try
to take the villages as fast as he
came up
to them, without waiting until the
whole
nation should be in arms against him.
Led
on by his advisers and trusting in
his fortune,
as he had met with no opposition, without
waiting for his Locrian reinforcements,
who
were to have supplied him with the
light-armed
darters in which he was most deficient,
he
advanced and stormed Aegitium, the
inhabitants
flying before him and posting themselves
upon the hills above the town, which
stood
on high ground about nine miles from
the
sea. Meanwhile the Aetolians had gathered
to the rescue, and now attacked the
Athenians
and their allies, running down from
the hills
on every side and darting their javelins,
falling back when the Athenian army
advanced,
and coming on as it retired; and for
a long
while the battle was of this character,
alternate
advance and retreat, in both which
operations
the Athenians had the worst. Still
as long
as their archers had arrows left and
were
able to use them, they held out, the
light-armed
Aetolians retiring before the arrows;
but
after the captain of the archers had
been
killed and his men scattered, the soldiers,
wearied out with the constant repetition
of the same exertions and hard pressed
by
the Aetolians with their javelins,
at last
turned and fled, and falling into pathless
gullies and places that they were unacquainted
with, thus perished, the Messenian
Chromon,
their guide, having also unfortunately
been
killed. A great many were overtaken
in the
pursuit by the swift-footed and light-armed
Aetolians, and fell beneath their javelins;
the greater number however missed their
road
and rushed into the wood, which had
no ways
out, and which was soon fired and burnt
round
them by the enemy. Indeed the Athenian
army
fell victims to death in every form,
and
suffered all the vicissitudes of flight;
the survivors escaped with difficulty
to
the sea and Oeneon in Locris, whence
they
had set out. Many of the allies were
killed,
and about one hundred and twenty Athenian
heavy infantry, not a man less, and
all in
the prime of life. These were by far
the
best men in the city of Athens that
fell
during this war. Among the slain was
also
Procles, the colleague of Demosthenes.
Meanwhile
the Athenians took up their dead under
truce
from the Aetolians, and retired to
Naupactus,
and from thence went in their ships
to Athens;
Demosthenes staying behind in Naupactus
and
in the neighbourhood, being afraid
to face
the Athenians after the disaster. About
the
same time the Athenians on the coast
of Sicily
sailed to Locris, and in a descent
which
they made from the ships defeated the
Locrians
who came against them, and took a fort
upon
the river Halex. The same summer the
Aetolians,
who before the Athenian expedition
had sent
an embassy to Corinth and Lacedaemon,
composed
of Tolophus, an Ophionian, Boriades,
an Eurytanian,
and Tisander, an Apodotian, obtained
that
an army should be sent them against
Naupactus,
which had invited the Athenian invasion.
The Lacedaemonians accordingly sent
off towards
autumn three thousand heavy infantry
of the
allies, five hundred of whom were from
Heraclea,
the newly founded city in Trachis,
under
the command of Eurylochus, a Spartan,
accompanied
by Macarius and Menedaius, also Spartans.
The army having assembled at Delphi,
Eurylochus
sent a herald to the Ozolian Locrians;
the
road to Naupactus lying through their
territory,
and he having besides conceived the
idea
of detaching them from Athens. His
chief
abettors in Locris were the Amphissians,
who were alarmed at the hostility of
the
Phocians. These first gave hostages
themselves,
and induced the rest to do the same
for fear
of the invading army; first, their
neighbours
the Myonians, who held the most difficult
of the passes, and after them the Ipnians,
Messapians, Tritaeans, Chalaeans, Tolophonians,
Hessians, and Oeanthians, all of whom
joined
in the expedition; the Olpaeans contenting
themselves with giving hostages, without
accompanying the invasion; and the
Hyaeans
refusing to do either, until the capture
of Polis, one of their villages. His
preparations
completed, Eurylochus lodged the hostages
in Kytinium, in Doris, and advanced
upon
Naupactus through the country of the
Locrians,
taking upon his way Oeneon and Eupalium,
two of their towns that refused to
join him.
Arrived in the Naupactian territory,
and
having been now joined by the Aetolians,
the army laid waste the land and took
the
suburb of the town, which was unfortified;
and after this Molycrium also, a Corinthian
colony subject to Athens. Meanwhile
the Athenian
Demosthenes, who since the affair in
Aetolia
had remained near Naupactus, having
had notice
of the army and fearing for the town,
went
and persuaded the Acarnanians, although
not
without difficulty because of his departure
from Leucas, to go to the relief of
Naupactus.
They accordingly sent with him on board
his
ships a thousand heavy infantry, who
threw
themselves into the place and saved
it; the
extent of its wall and the small number
of
its defenders otherwise placing it
in the
greatest danger. Meanwhile Eurylochus
and
his companions, finding that this force
had
entered and that it was impossible
to storm
the town, withdrew, not to Peloponnese,
but
to the country once called Aeolis,
and now
Calydon and Pleuron, and to the places
in
that neighbourhood, and Proschium in
Aetolia;
the Ambraciots having come and urged
them
to combine with them in attacking Amphilochian
Argos and the rest of Amphilochia and
Acarnania;
affirming that the conquest of these
countries
would bring all the continent into
alliance
with Lacedaemon. To this Eurylochus
consented,
and dismissing the Aetolians, now remained
quiet with his army in those parts,
until
the time should come for the Ambraciots
to
take the field, and for him to join
them
before Argos. Summer was now over.
The winter
ensuing, the Athenians in Sicily with
their
Hellenic allies, and such of the Sicel
subjects
or allies of Syracuse as had revolted
from
her and joined their army, marched
against
the Sicel town Inessa, the acropolis
of which
was held by the Syracusans, and after
attacking
it without being able to take it, retired.
In the retreat, the allies retreating
after
the Athenians were attacked by the
Syracusans
from the fort, and a large part of
their
army routed with great slaughter. After
this,
Laches and the Athenians from the ships
made
some descents in Locris, and defeating
the
Locrians, who came against them with
Proxenus,
son of Capaton, upon the river Caicinus,
took some arms and departed. The same
winter
the Athenians purified Delos, in compliance,
it appears, with a certain oracle.
It had
been purified before by Pisistratus
the tyrant;
not indeed the whole island, but as
much
of it as could be seen from the temple.
All
of it was, however, now purified in
the following
way. All the sepulchres of those that
had
died in Delos were taken up, and for
the
future it was commanded that no one
should
be allowed either to die or to give
birth
to a child in the island; but that
they should
be carried over to Rhenea, which is
so near
to Delos that Polycrates, tyrant of
Samos,
having added Rhenea to his other island
conquests
during his period of naval ascendancy,
dedicated
it to the Delian Apollo by binding
it to
Delos with a chain. The Athenians,
after
the purification, celebrated, for the
first
time, the quinquennial festival of
the Delian
games. Once upon a time, indeed, there
was
a great assemblage of the Ionians and
the
neighbouring islanders at Delos, who
used
to come to the festival, as the Ionians
now
do to that of Ephesus, and athletic
and poetical
contests took place there, and the
cities
brought choirs of dancers. Nothing
can be
clearer on this point than the following
verses of Homer, taken from a hymn
to Apollo:
Phoebus, wherever thou strayest, far
or near,
Delos was still of all thy haunts most
dear.
Thither the robed Ionians take their
way
With wife and child to keep thy holiday,
Invoke thy favour on each manly game,
And
dance and sing in honour of thy name.
That
there was also a poetical contest in
which
the Ionians went to contend, again
is shown
by the following, taken from the same
hymn.
After celebrating the Delian dance
of the
women, he ends his song of praise with
these
verses, in which he also alludes to
himself:
Well, may Apollo keep you all! and
so, Sweethearts,
good-bye- yet tell me not I go Out
from your
hearts; and if in after hours Some
other
wanderer in this world of ours Touch
at your
shores, and ask your maidens here Who
sings
the songs the sweetest to your ear,
Think
of me then, and answer with a smile,
'A blind
old man of Scio's rocky isle.' Homer
thus
attests that there was anciently a
great
assembly and festival at Delos. In
later
times, although the islanders and the
Athenians
continued to send the choirs of dancers
with
sacrifices, the contests and most of
the
ceremonies were abolished, probably
through
adversity, until the Athenians celebrated
the games upon this occasion with the
novelty
of horse-races. The same winter the
Ambraciots,
as they had promised Eurylochus when
they
retained his army, marched out against
Amphilochian
Argos with three thousand heavy infantry,
and invading the Argive territory occupied
Olpae, a stronghold on a hill near
the sea,
which had been formerly fortified by
the
Acarnanians and used as the place of
assizes
for their nation, and which is about
two
miles and three-quarters from the city
of
Argos upon the sea-coast. Meanwhile
the Acarnanians
went with a part of their forces to
the relief
of Argos, and with the rest encamped
in Amphilochia
at the place called Crenae, or the
Wells,
to watch for Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians,
and to prevent their passing through
and
effecting their junction with the Ambraciots;
while they also sent for Demosthenes,
the
commander of the Aetolian expedition,
to
be their leader, and for the twenty
Athenian
ships that were cruising off Peloponnese
under the command of Aristotle, son
of Timocrates,
and Hierophon, son of Antimnestus.
On their
part, the Ambraciots at Olpae sent
a messenger
to their own city, to beg them to come
with
their whole levy to their assistance,
fearing
that the army of Eurylochus might not
be
able to pass through the Acarnanians,
and
that they might themselves be obliged
to
fight single-handed, or be unable to
retreat,
if they wished it, without danger.
Meanwhile
Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians,
learning
that the Ambraciots at Olpae had arrived,
set out from Proschium with all haste
to
join them, and crossing the Achelous
advanced
through Acarnania, which they found
deserted
by its population, who had gone to
the relief
of Argos; keeping on their right the
city
of the Stratians and its garrison,
and on
their left the rest of Acarnania. Traversing
the territory of the Stratians, they
advanced
through Phytia, next, skirting Medeon,
through
Limnaea; after which they left Acarnania
behind them and entered a friendly
country,
that of the Agraeans. From thence they
reached
and crossed Mount Thymaus, which belongs
to the Agraeans, and descended into
the Argive
territory after nightfall, and passing
between
the city of Argos and the Acarnanian
posts
at Crenae, joined the Ambraciots at
Olpae.
Uniting here at daybreak, they sat
down at
the place called Metropolis, and encamped.
Not long afterwards the Athenians in
the
twenty ships came into the Ambracian
Gulf
to support the Argives, with Demosthenes
and two hundred Messenian heavy infantry,
and sixty Athenian archers. While the
fleet
off Olpae blockaded the hill from the
sea,
the Acarnanians and a few of the Amphilochians,
most of whom were kept back by force
by the
Ambraciots, had already arrived at
Argos,
and were preparing to give battle to
the
enemy, having chosen Demosthenes to
command
the whole of the allied army in concert
with
their own generals. Demosthenes led
them
near to Olpae and encamped, a great
ravine
separating the two armies. During five
days
they remained inactive; on the sixth
both
sides formed in order of battle. The
army
of the Peloponnesians was the largest
and
outflanked their opponents; and Demosthenes
fearing that his right might be surrounded,
placed in ambush in a hollow way overgrown
with bushes some four hundred heavy
infantry
and light troops, who were to rise
up at
the moment of the onset behind the
projecting
left wing of the enemy, and to take
them
in the rear. When both sides were ready
they
joined battle; Demosthenes being on
the right
wing with the Messenians and a few
Athenians,
while the rest of the line was made
up of
the different divisions of the Acarnanians,
and of the Amphilochian carters. The
Peloponnesians
and Ambraciots were drawn up pell-mell
together,
with the exception of the Mantineans,
who
were massed on the left, without however
reaching to the extremity of the wing,
where
Eurylochus and his men confronted the
Messenians
and Demosthenes. The Peloponnesians
were
now well engaged and with their outflanking
wing were upon the point of turning
their
enemy's right; when the Acarnanians
from
the ambuscade set upon them from behind,
and broke them at the first attack,
without
their staying to resist; while the
panic
into which they fell caused the flight
of
most of their army, terrified beyond
measure
at seeing the division of Eurylochus
and
their best troops cut to pieces. Most
of
the work was done by Demosthenes and
his
Messenians, who were posted in this
part
of the field. Meanwhile the Ambraciots
(who
are the best soldiers in those countries)
and the troops upon the right wing,
defeated
the division opposed to them and pursued
it to Argos. Returning from the pursuit,
they found their main body defeated;
and
hard pressed by the Acarnanians, with
difficulty
made good their passage to Olpae, suffering
heavy loss on the way, as they dashed
on
without discipline or order, the Mantineans
excepted, who kept their ranks best
of any
in the army during the retreat. The
battle
did not end until the evening. The
next day
Menedaius, who on the death of Eurylochus
and Macarius had succeeded to the sole
command,
being at a loss after so signal a defeat
how to stay and sustain a siege, cut
off
as he was by land and by the Athenian
fleet
by sea, and equally so how to retreat
in
safety, opened a parley with Demosthenes
and the Acarnanian generals for a truce
and
permission to retreat, and at the same
time
for the recovery of the dead. The dead
they
gave back to him, and setting up a
trophy
took up their own also to the number
of about
three hundred. The retreat demanded
they
refused publicly to the army; but permission
to depart without delay was secretly
granted
to the Mantineans and to Menedaius
and the
other commanders and principal men
of the
Peloponnesians by Demosthenes and his
Acarnanian
colleagues; who desired to strip the
Ambraciots
and the mercenary host of foreigners
of their
supporters; and, above all, to discredit
the Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesians
with
the Hellenes in those parts, as traitors
and self-seekers. While the enemy was
taking
up his dead and hastily burying them
as he
could, and those who obtained permission
were secretly planning their retreat,
word
was brought to Demosthenes and the
Acarnanians
that the Ambraciots from the city,
in compliance
with the first message from Olpae,
were on
the march with their whole levy through
Amphilochia
to join their countrymen at Olpae,
knowing
nothing of what had occurred. Demosthenes
prepared to march with his army against
them,
and meanwhile sent on at once a strong
division
to beset the roads and occupy the strong
positions. In the meantime the Mantineans
and others included in the agreement
went
out under the pretence of gathering
herbs
and firewood, and stole off by twos
and threes,
picking on the way the things which
they
professed to have come out for, until
they
had gone some distance from Olpae,
when they
quickened their pace. The Ambraciots
and
such of the rest as had accompanied
them
in larger parties, seeing them going
on,
pushed on in their turn, and began
running
in order to catch them up. The Acarnanians
at first thought that all alike were
departing
without permission, and began to pursue
the
Peloponnesians; and believing that
they were
being betrayed, even threw a dart or
two
at some of their generals who tried
to stop
them and told them that leave had been
given.
Eventually, however, they let pass
the Mantineans
and Peloponnesians, and slew only the
Ambraciots,
there being much dispute and difficulty
in
distinguishing whether a man was an
Ambraciot
or a Peloponnesian. The number thus
slain
was about two hundred; the rest escaped
into
the bordering territory of Agraea,
and found
refuge with Salynthius, the friendly
king
of the Agraeans. Meanwhile the Ambraciots
from the city arrived at Idomene. Idomene
consists of two lofty hills, the higher
of
which the troops sent on by Demosthenes
succeeded
in occupying after nightfall, unobserved
by the Ambraciots, who had meanwhile
ascended
the smaller and bivouacked under it.
After
supper Demosthenes set out with the
rest
of the army, as soon as it was evening;
himself
with half his force making for the
pass,
and the remainder going by the Amphilochian
hills. At dawn he fell upon the Ambraciots
while they were still abed, ignorant
of what
had passed, and fully thinking that
it was
their own countrymen- Demosthenes having
purposely put the Messenians in front
with
orders to address them in the Doric
dialect,
and thus to inspire confidence in the
sentinels,
who would not be able to see them as
it was
still night. In this way he routed
their
army as soon as he attacked it, slaying
most
of them where they were, the rest breaking
away in flight over the hills. The
roads,
however, were already occupied, and
while
the Amphilochians knew their own country,
the Ambraciots were ignorant of it
and could
not tell which way to turn, and had
also
heavy armour as against a light-armed
enemy,
and so fell into ravines and into the
ambushes
which had been set for them, and perished
there. In their manifold efforts to
escape
some even turned to the sea, which
was not
far off, and seeing the Athenian ships
coasting
alongshore just while the action was
going
on, swam off to them, thinking it better
in the panic they were in, to perish,
if
perish they must, by the hands of the
Athenians,
than by those of the barbarous and
detested
Amphilochians. Of the large Ambraciot
force
destroyed in this manner, a few only
reached
the city in safety; while the Acarnanians,
after stripping the dead and setting
up a
trophy, returned to Argos. The next
day arrived
a herald from the Ambraciots who had
fled
from Olpae to the Agraeans, to ask
leave
to take up the dead that had fallen
after
the first engagement, when they left
the
camp with the Mantineans and their
companions,
without, like them, having had permission
to do so. At the sight of the arms
of the
Ambraciots from the city, the herald
was
astonished at their number, knowing
nothing
of the disaster and fancying that they
were
those of their own party. Some one
asked
him what he was so astonished at, and
how
many of them had been killed, fancying
in
his turn that this was the herald from
the
troops at Idomene. He replied: "About
two hundred"; upon which his interrogator
took him up, saying: "Why, the
arms
you see here are of more than a thousand."
The herald replied: "Then they
are not
the arms of those who fought with us?"
The other answered: "Yes, they
are,
if at least you fought at Idomene yesterday."
"But we fought with no one yesterday;
but the day before in the retreat."
"However that may be, we fought
yesterday
with those who came to reinforce you
from
the city of the Ambraciots." When
the
herald heard this and knew that the
reinforcement
from the city had been destroyed, he
broke
into wailing and, stunned at the magnitude
of the present evils, went away at
once without
having performed his errand, or again
asking
for the dead bodies. Indeed, this was
by
far the greatest disaster that befell
any
one Hellenic city in an equal number
of days
during this war; and I have not set
down
the number of the dead, because the
amount
stated seems so out of proportion to
the
size of the city as to be incredible.
In
any case I know that if the Acarnanians
and
Amphilochians had wished to take Ambracia
as the Athenians and Demosthenes advised,
they would have done so without a blow;
as
it was, they feared that if the Athenians
had it they would be worse neighbours
to
them than the present. After this the
Acarnanians
allotted a third of the spoils to the
Athenians,
and divided the rest among their own
different
towns. The share of the Athenians was
captured
on the voyage home; the arms now deposited
in the Attic temples are three hundred
panoplies,
which the Acarnanians set apart for
Demosthenes,
and which he brought to Athens in person,
his return to his country after the
Aetolian
disaster being rendered less hazardous
by
this exploit. The Athenians in the
twenty
ships also went off to Naupactus. The
Acarnanians
and Amphilochians, after the departure
of
Demosthenes and the Athenians, granted
the
Ambraciots and Peloponnesians who had
taken
refuge with Salynthius and the Agraeans
a
free retreat from Oeniadae, to which
place
they had removed from the country of
Salynthius,
and for the future concluded with the
Ambraciots
a treaty and alliance for one hundred
years,
upon the terms following. It was to
be a
defensive, not an offensive alliance;
the
Ambraciots could not be required to
march
with the Acarnanians against the Peloponnesians,
nor the Acarnanians with the Ambraciots
against
the Athenians; for the rest the Ambraciots
were to give up the places and hostages
that
they held of the Amphilochians, and
not to
give help to Anactorium, which was
at enmity
with the Acarnanians. With this arrangement
they put an end to the war. After this
the
Corinthians sent a garrison of their
own
citizens to Ambracia, composed of three
hundred
heavy infantry, under the command of
Xenocleides,
son of Euthycles, who reached their
destination
after a difficult journey across the
continent.
Such was the history of the affair
of Ambracia.
The same winter the Athenians in Sicily
made
a descent from their ships upon the
territory
of Himera, in concert with the Sicels,
who
had invaded its borders from the interior,
and also sailed to the islands of Aeolus.
Upon their return to Rhegium they found
the
Athenian general, Pythodorus, son of
Isolochus,
come to supersede Laches in the command
of
the fleet. The allies in Sicily had
sailed
to Athens and induced the Athenians
to send
out more vessels to their assistance,
pointing
out that the Syracusans who already
commanded
their land were making efforts to get
together
a navy, to avoid being any longer excluded
from the sea by a few vessels. The
Athenians
proceeded to man forty ships to send
to them,
thinking that the war in Sicily would
thus
be the sooner ended, and also wishing
to
exercise their navy. One of the generals,
Pythodorus, was accordingly sent out
with
a few ships; Sophocles, son of Sostratides,
and Eurymedon, son of Thucles, being
destined
to follow with the main body. Meanwhile
Pythodorus
had taken the command of Laches' ships,
and
towards the end of winter sailed against
the Locrian fort, which Laches had
formerly
taken, and returned after being defeated
in battle by the Locrians. In the first
days
of this spring, the stream of fire
issued
from Etna, as on former occasions,
and destroyed
some land of the Catanians, who live
upon
Mount Etna, which is the largest mountain
in Sicily. Fifty years, it is said,
had elapsed
since the last eruption, there having
been
three in all since the Hellenes have
inhabited
Sicily. Such were the events of this
winter;
and with it ended the sixth year of
this
war, of which Thucydides was the historian.
|
Evans Experientialism 
