Xerxes; envoys visited Argos, Crete, Corcyra, and Syracuse, in
the hope, which proved vain, of obtaining assistance in the
impending struggle. As soon as Xerxes was known to be in
Europe, an army of 10,000 men was sent to hold the pass of
Tempe, but afterwards, on the advice of Alexander of Macedon,
this barrier was abandoned; and it was finally resolved to
await the approaching forces at Thermopylæ and Artemisium. The
supreme authority, both by land and sea, was in the hands of
the Spartans; they were the natural leaders of any army which
the Greeks could put into the field, and the allies refused to
follow unless the ships also were under their charge. … When
hostilities were suspended, the congress re-appears, and the
Greeks once more meet at the Isthmus to apportion the spoil
and adjudge the prizes of valour. In the next year we hear of
no common plan of operations, the fleet and army seeming to
act independently of each other; yet we observe that the
chiefs of the medizing Thebans were taken to the Isthmus
(Corinth) to be tried, after the battle of Platæa. It appears
then that, under the stress of the great Persian invasion, the
Greeks were brought into an alliance or confederation; and for
the two years from midsummer 481 to midsummer 479 a congress
continued to meet, with more or less interruption, at the
Isthmus, consisting of plenipotentiaries from the various
cities. This congress directed the affairs of the nation, so
far as they were in any way connected with the Persian
invasion. When the Barbarians were finally defeated, and there
was no longer any alarm from that source, the congress seems
to have discontinued its meetings. But the alliance remained;
the cities continued to act in common, at any rate, so far as
naval operations were concerned, and Sparta was still the
leading power."
E. Abbott,
Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
C. O. Müller,
History and Antiquity of the Doric Race,
volume 1, appendix 4.
GREECE: B. C. 480.
The Persian War: Thermopylæ.
"Now when tidings of the battle that had been fought at
Marathon [B. C. 490] reached the ears of King Darius, the son
of Hystaspes, his anger against the Athenians," says
Herodotus, "which had been already roused by their attack on
Sardis, waxed still fiercer, and he became more than ever
eager to lead an army against Greece. Instantly he sent off
messengers to make proclamation through the several states
that fresh levies were to be raised, and these at an increased
rate; while ships, horses, provisions and transports were
likewise to be furnished. So the men published his commands;
and now all Asia was in commotion by the space of three
years." But before his preparations were completed Darius
died. His son Xerxes, who ascended the Persian throne, was
cold to the Greek undertaking and required long persuasion
before he took it up. When he did so, however, his
preparations were on a scale more stupendous than those of his
father, and consumed nearly five years. It was not until ten
years after Marathon that Xerxes led from Sardis a host which,
Herodotus computes at 1,700,000 men, besides half a million
more which manned the fleet he had assembled. "Was there a
nation in all Asia," cries the Greek historian, "which Xerxes
did not bring with him against Greece? Or was there a river,
except those of unusual size, which sufficed for his troops to
drink?" By a bridge of boats at Abydos the army crossed the
Hellespont, and moved slowly through Thrace, Macedonia and
Thessaly; while the fleet, moving on the
coast circuit of the same countries, avoided the perilous
promontory of Mount Athos by cutting a canal.
{1573}
The Greeks had determined at first to make their stand against
the invaders in Thessaly, at the vale of Tempe; but they found
the post untenable and were persuaded, instead, to guard the
narrower Pass of Thermopylæ. It was there that the Persians,
arriving at Trachis, near the Malian gulf, found themselves
faced by a small body of Greeks. The spot is thus described by
Herodotus: "As for the entrance into Greece by Trachis, it is,
at its narrowest point, about fifty feet wide. This, however,
is not the place where the passage is most contracted; for it
is still narrower a little above and a little below
Thermopylae. At Alpeni, which is lower down than that place,
it is only wide enough for a single carriage; and up above, at
the river Phœnix, near the town called Anthela, it is the
same. West of Thermopylæ rises a lofty and precipitous hill,
impossible to climb, which runs up into the chain of Œta;
while to the east the road is shut in by the sea and by
marshes. In this place are the warm springs, which the natives
call 'The Cauldrons'; and above them stands an altar sacred to
Hercules. A wall had once been carried across the opening; and
in this there had of old times been a gateway. … King Xerxes
pitched his camp in the region of Malis called Trachinia,
while on their side the Greeks occupied the straits. These
straits the Greeks in general call Thermopylæ (the Hot Gates);
but the natives and those who dwell in the neighbourhood call
them Pylæ (the Gates). … The Greeks who at this spot awaited
the coming of Xerxes were the following:—From Sparta, 300
men-at-arms; from Arcadia, 1,000 Tegeans and Mantineans, 500
of each people; 120 Orchomenians, from the Arcadian
Orchomenus; and 1,000 from other cities; from Corinth, 400
men; from Phlius, 200; and from Mycenæ 80. Such was the number
from the Peloponnese. There were also present, from Bœotia,
700 Thespians and 400 Thebans. Besides these troops, the
Locrians of Opus and the Phocians had obeyed the call of their
countrymen, and sent, the former all the force they had, the
latter 1,000 men. … The various nations had each captains of
their own under whom they served; but the one to whom all
especially looked up, and who had the command of the entire
force, was the Lacedæmonian, Leonidas. … The force with
Leonidas was sent forward by the Spartans in advance of their
main body, that the sight of them might encourage the allies
to fight, and hinder them from going over to the Medes, as it
was likely they might have done had they seen Sparta backward.
They intended presently, when they had celebrated the Carneian
festival, which was what now kept them at home, to leave a
garrison in Sparta, and hasten in full force to join the army.
The rest of the allies also intended to act similarly; for it
happened that the Olympic festival fell exactly at this same
period. None of them looked to see the contest at Thermopylæ
decided so speedily." For two days Leonidas and his little
army held the pass against the Persians. Then, there was found
a traitor, a man of Malis, who betrayed to Xerxes the secret
of a pathway across the mountains, by which he might steal
into the rear of the post held by the Greeks. A thousand
Phocians had been stationed on the mountain to guard this
path; but they took fright when the Persians came upon them in
the early dawn, and fled without a blow. When Leonidas learned
that the way across the mountain was open to the enemy he knew
that his defense was hopeless, and he ordered his allies to
retreat while there was yet time. But he and his Spartans
remained, thinking it "unseemly" to quit the post they had
been specially sent to guard. The Thespians remained with
them, and the Thebans—known partisans at heart of the
Persians—were forced to stay. The latter deserted when the
enemy approached; the Spartans and the Thespians fought and
perished to the last man.
Herodotus,
History
(translated by Rawlinson), book 7.
ALSO IN:
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 3, chapter 1.
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 40 (volume 4).
See, also,
ATHENS: B. C. 480-479.
GREECE: B. C. 480.
The Persian Wars: Artemisium.
On the approach of the great invading army and fleet of
Xerxes, the Greeks resolved to meet the one at the pass of
Thermopylæ and the other at the northern entrance of the
Eubœan channel. "The northern side of Eubœa afforded a
commodious and advantageous station: it was a long beach,
called, from a temple at its eastern extremity, Artemisium,
capable of receiving the galleys, if it should be necessary to
draw them upon the shore, and commanding a view of the open
sea and the coast of Magnesia, and consequently an opportunity
of watching the enemy's movements as he advanced towards the
south; while, on the other hand, its short distance from
Thermopylæ enabled the fleet to keep up a quick and easy
communication with the land force."
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 15 (volume 1).
The Persian fleet, after suffering heavily from a destructive
storm on the Magnesian coast, reached Aphetæ, opposite
Artemisium, at the mouth of the Pagasæan gulf. Notwithstanding
its losses, it still vastly outnumbered the armament of the
Greeks, and feared nothing but the escape of the latter. But,
in the series of conflicts which ensued, the Greeks were
generally victorious and proved their superior naval genius.
They could not, however, afford the heavy losses which they
sustained, and, upon hearing of the disaster at Thermopylæ and
the Persian possession of the all-important pass, they deemed it
necessary to retreat.
W. Mitford,
History of Greece,
chapter 8, section 4 (volume 2).
GREECE: B. C. 480.
The Persian Wars: Salamis.
Leonidas and his Spartan band having perished vainly at
Thermopylæ, in their heroic attempt to hold the pass against
the host of Xerxes, and the Greek ships at Artemisium having
vainly beaten their overwhelming enemies, the whole of Greece
north of the isthmus of Corinth lay completely at the mercy of
the invader. The Thebans and other false-hearted Greeks joined
his ranks, and saved their own cities by helping to destroy
their neighbors. The Platæans, the Thespians and the Athenians
abandoned their homes in haste, conducted their families, and
such property as they might snatch away, to the nearer islands
and to places of refuge in Peloponnesus. The Greeks of
Peloponnesus rallied in force to the isthmus and began there
the building of a defensive wall. Their fleet, retiring from
Artemisium, was drawn together, with some re-enforcements,
behind the island of Salamis, which stretches across the
entrance to the bay of Eleusis, off the inner coast of Attica,
near Athens.
{1574}
Meantime the Persians had advanced through Attica, entered the
deserted city of Athens, taken the Acropolis, which a small
body of desperate patriots resolved to hold, had slain its
defenders and burned its temples. Their fleet had also been
assembled in the bay of Phalerum, which was the more easterly
of the three harbors of Athens. At Salamis the Greeks were in
dispute. The Corinthians and the Peloponnesians were bent upon
falling back with the fleet to the isthmus; the Athenians, the
Eginetans and the Megarians looked upon all as lost if the
present combination of the whole naval power of Hellas in the
narrow strait of Salamis was permitted to be broken up. At
length Themistocles, the Athenian leader, a man of fertile
brain and overbearing resolution, determined the question by
sending a secret message to Xerxes that the Greek ships had
prepared to escape from him. This brought down the Persian
fleet upon them at once and left them no chance for retreat.
Of the memorable fight which ensued (September 20 B. C. 480)
the following is a part of the description given by Herodotus:
"Against the Athenians, who held the western extremity of the
line towards Eleusis, were placed the Phœnicians; against the
Lacedæmonians, whose station was eastward towards the Piræus,
the Ionians. Of these last, a few only followed the advice of
Themistocles, to fight backwardly; the greater number did far
otherwise. … Far the greater number of the Persian ships
engaged in this battle were disabled, either by the Athenians
or by the Eginetans. For as the Greeks fought in order and
kept their line, while the barbarians were in confusion and
had no plan in anything that they did, the issue of the battle
could scarce be other than it was. Yet the Persians fought far
more bravely here than at Eubœa, and indeed surpassed
themselves; each did his utmost through fear of Xerxes, for
each thought that the king's eye was upon himself. … During
the whole time of the battle Xerxes sat at the base of the
hill called Ægaleos, over against Salamis; and whenever he saw
any of his own captains perform any worthy exploit he inquired
concerning him; and the man's name was taken down by his
scribes, together with the names of his father and his city.
… When the rout of the barbarians began, and they sought to
make their escape to Phalêrum, the Eginetans, awaiting them in
the channel, performed exploits worthy to be recorded. Through
the whole of the confused struggle the Athenians employed
themselves in destroying such ships as either made resistance
or fled to shore; while the Eginetans dealt with those which
endeavoured to escape down the straits; so that the Persian
vessels were no sooner clear of the Athenians than straightway
they fell into the hands of the Eginetan squadron. … Such of
the barbarian vessels as escaped from the battle fled to
Phalêrum, and there sheltered themselves under the protection
of the land army. … Xerxes, when he saw the extent of his
loss, began to be afraid lest the Greeks might be counselled
by the Ionians, or without their advice might determine, to
sail straight to the Hellespont and break down the bridges
there; in which case he would be blocked up in Europe and run
great risk of perishing. He therefore made up his mind to
fly."
Herodotus,
History
(edited and translated by Rawlinson),
book 8, sections 85—97 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 4 (volume 4).
W. W. Goodwin,
The Battle of Salamis
(Papers of the American School at Athens, volume 1).
GREECE: B. C. 479.
The Persian Wars: Platæa.
When Xerxes, after the defeat of his fleet at Salamis, fled
back to Asia with part of his disordered host, he left his
lieutenant, Mardonius, with a still formidable army, to repair
the disaster and accomplish, if possible, the conquest of the
Greeks. Mardonius retired to Thessaly for the winter, but
returned to Attica in the spring and drove the Athenians once
more from their shattered city, which they were endeavoring to
repair. He made overtures to them which they rejected with
scorn, and thereupon he destroyed everything in city and
country which could be destroyed, reducing Athens to ruins and
Attica to a desert. The Spartans and other Peloponnesians who
had promised support to the Athenians were slow in coming, but
they came in strong force at last. Mardonius fell back into
Bœotia, where he took up a favorable position in a plain on
the left bank of the Asopus, near Platæa. This was in
September, B. C. 479. According to Herodotus, he had 300,000
"barbarian" troops and 50,000 Greek allies. The opposing
Greeks, who followed him to the Asopus, were 110,000 in
number. The two armies watched one another for more than ten
days, unwilling to offer battle because the omens were on both
sides discouraging. At length the Greeks undertook a change of
position and Mardonius, mistaking this for a movement of
retreat, led his Persians on a run to attack them. It was a
fatal mistake. The Spartans, who bore the brunt of the Persian
assault, soon convinced the deluded Mardonius that they were
not in flight, while the Athenians dealt roughly with his
Theban allies. "The barbarians," says Herodotus, "many times
seized hold of the Greek spears and brake them; for in
boldness and warlike spirit the Persians were not a whit
inferior to the Greeks; but they were without bucklers,
untrained, and far below the enemy in respect of skill in
arms. Sometimes singly, sometimes in bodies of ten, now fewer
and now more in number, they dashed forward upon the Spartan
ranks, and so perished. … After Mardonius fell, and the
troops with him, which were the main strength of the army,
perished, the remainder yielded to the Lacedæmonians and took
to flight. Their light clothing and want of bucklers were of
the greatest hurt to them: for they had to contend against men
heavily armed, while they themselves were without any such
defence." Artabazus, who was second in command of the
Persians, and who had 40,000 immediately under him, did not
strike a blow in the battle, but quitted the field as soon as
he saw the turn events had taken, and led his men in a retreat
which had no pause until they reached and crossed the
Hellespont. Of the remainder of the 300,000 of Mardonius'
host, only 3,000, according to Herodotus, outlived the battle.
It was the end of the Persian invasions of Greece.
Herodotus,
History
(translated by Rawlinson), book 9.
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 42 (volume 5).
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 16 (volume 1).
G. W. Cox,
History of Greece,
book 2, chapter 7 (volume 1).
{1575}
In celebration of the victory an altar to Zeus was erected and
consecrated by the united Greeks with solemn ceremonies, a
quintennial festival, called the Feast of Liberty, was
instituted at Platæa, and the territory of the Platæans was
declared sacred and inviolable, so long as they should
maintain the appointed sacrifices and funeral honors to the
dead. But these agreements did not avail to protect the
Platæans when the subsequent Peloponnesian War broke out, and
they stood faithfully among the allies of Athens. "The last
act of the assembled army was the expedition against Thebes,
in order, according to the obligation incumbent upon them, to
take revenge on the most obstinate ally of the national enemy.
Eleven days after the battle Pausanias appeared before the
city and demanded the surrender of the party-leaders,
responsible for the policy of Thebes. Not until the siege had
lasted twenty days was the surrender obtained. … Timagenidas
and the other leaders of the Thebans were executed as traitors
against the nation, by order of Pausanias, after he had
dismissed the confederate army."
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).
GREECE: B. C. 479.
The Persian Wars: Mycale.
The same day, in September, B. C. 479, on which the Greeks at
Platæa destroyed the army of Mardonius, witnessed an almost
equal victory won by their compatriots of the fleet, on the
coast of Asia Minor. The Persian fleet, to avoid a battle with
them, had retreated to Mycale on the narrow strait between the
island of Samos and the mainland, where a land army of 60,000
men was stationed at the time. Here they drew their ships on
shore and surrounded them with a rampart. The Greeks, under
Leotychides the Lacedæmonian, landed and attacked the whole
combined force. The Ionians in the Persian army turned against
their masters and helped to destroy them. The rout was
complete and only a small remnant escaped to reach Sardis,
where Xerxes was still lingering.
Herodotus,
History
(translated by Rawlinson),
book 9.
ALSO IN:
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 16 (volume 1).
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 42 (volume 5).
GREECE: B. C. 479-478.
Athens assumes the protection of Ionia.
Siege and capture of Sestus.
Rebuilding and enlargement of Athens and its walls.
Interference of Sparta foiled by Themistocles.
See ATHENS: B. C. 479-478.
GREECE: B. C. 478-477.
Reduction of Byzantium.
Mad conduct of Pausanias.
His recall.
Alienation of the Asiatic Greeks from Sparta.
Their closer union with Athens.
Withdrawal of the Spartans from the war.
Formation of the Delian Confederacy.
"Sestos had fallen: but Byzantion and the Thrakian Doriskos,
with Eion on the Strymon and many other places on the northern
shores of the Egean, were still held by Persian garrisons,
when, in the year after the battle of Plataiai, Pausanias, as
commander of the confederate fleet, sailed with 20
Peloponnesian and 30 Athenian ships to Kypros (Cyprus) and
thence, having recovered the greater part of the island, to
Byzantion. The resistance here was as obstinate perhaps as at
Sestos; but the place was at length reduced, and Sparta stood
for the moment at the head of a triumphant confederacy. It was
now in her power to weld the isolated units, which made up the
Hellenic world, into something like an organised society, and
to kindle in it something like national life. … But she had
no statesman capable, like Themistokles, of seizing on a
golden opportunity, while in her own generals she found her
greatest enemies." Pausanias "was, it would seem, dazzled by
Persian wealth and enamoured of Persian pleasures. He had
roused the indignation of his own people by having his name
inscribed, as leader of all the Greek forces, on the tripod
which was to commemorate the victory of Plataiai: and now his
arrogance and tyranny were to excite at Byzantion a discontent
and impatience destined to be followed by more serious
consequences to his country as well as to himself. On the fall
of Byzantion he sent to the Persian king the prisoners taken
in the city, and spread the report that they had escaped. He
forwarded at the same time, it is said, … a letter in which
he informed Xerxes that he wished to marry his daughter and to
make him lord of all Hellas." Xerxes opened negotiations with
him, and "the head of this miserable man was now fairly
turned. Clad in Persian garb, he aped the privacy of Asiatic
despots; and when he came forth from his palace it was to make
a royal progress through Thrace, surrounded by Median and
Egyptian life guards, and to show his insolence to men who
were at least his equals. The reports of this significant
change in the behaviour of Pausanias led to his recall. He was
put on his trial; but his accusers failed to establish the
personal charges brought against him, while his Medism also
was dismissed as not fully proved. The suspicion, however, was
so strong that he was deprived of his command. … All these
events were tending to alienate the Asiatic Greeks and the
islanders of the Egean from a state which showed itself
incapable of maintaining its authority over its own servants."
Even before the recall of Pausanius, "the Asiatic Greeks
intreated Aristeides the Athenian commander to admit them into
direct relations with Athens; and the same change of feeling
had passed over all the non-medising Greek states with the
exception of the Peloponnesian allies of Sparta. In short, it
had become clear that all Hellas was divided into two great
sections, the one gravitating as naturally to Sparta, the
great land power, as the other gravitated to Athens with her
maritime preponderance. When therefore a Spartan commission
headed by Dorkis arrived with a small force to take the place
of Pausanias, they were met by passive resistance where they
had looked for submission; and their retirement from the field
in which they were unable to compel obedience left the
confederacy an accomplished fact."
G. W. Cox,
History of Greece,
book 2, chapter 8 (volume 2).
This confederacy of the Asiatic Greeks with Athens, now
definitely organized, is known as the Confederacy of Delos, or
the Delian League. "To Athens, as decidedly the preponderant
power, both morally and materially, was of necessity, and also
with free good-will, consigned the headship and chief control
of the affairs and conduct of the alliance; a position that
carried with it the responsibility of the collection and
administration of a common fund, and the presidency of the
assemblies of delegates. As time went on and circumstances
altered, the terms of confederation were modified in various
instances; but at first the general rule was the contribution,
not only of money or ships, but of actual personal service.
… We have no precise enumeration of the allies of Athens at
this early time, but the course of the history brings up the
mention of many.
{1576}
… Crete was never directly affected by these events, and
Cyprus was also soon to be left aside; but otherwise all the
Greek islands of the Aegean northwards—except Melos, Thera,
Aegina, and Cythera—were contributory, including Euboea; as
were the cities on the coasts of Thrace and the Chalcidic
peninsula from the Macedonian boundary to the Hellespont;
Byzantium and various cities on the coasts of the Propontis,
and less certainly of the Euxine; the important series of
cities on the western coast of Asia Minor—though apparently
with considerable exceptions—Aeolian, Ionian, Dorian, and
Carian, as far as Caunus at least on the borders of Lycia, if
not even round to the Chelidonian isles. The sacred island of
Delos was chosen as the depository of the common treasure and
the place of meeting of the contributors. Apart from its
central convenience and defensibleness as an island, and the
sanctity of the temple, … it was a traditional centre for
solemn reunions of Ionians from either side the Aegean. … At
the distinct request of the allies the Athenians appointed
Aristides to superintend the difficult process of assessing
the various forms and amounts of contribution. … The total
annual amount of the assessment was the large sum of 460
talents (£112,125), and this perhaps not inclusive of, but
only supplementary to, the costly supply of equipped ships."
W. W. Lloyd,
The Age of Pericles,
chapter 14 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
E. Abbott,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapters 6 and 8.
GREECE: B. C. 477-462.
Advancing democracy of Athens.
Sustentation of the Commons from the Confederate Treasury.
The stripping of power from the Areopagus.
See ATHENS: B. C. 477-462.
GREECE: B. C. 477-461.
Athens as the head of the Delian League.
Triumph of Anti-Spartan policy at Athens and approach of war.
Ostracism of Cimon.
"Between the end of the Persian war and the year 464 B. C.,
Sparta had sunk from the champion of the whole of Hellas to
the half-discredited leader of the Peloponnese only. Athens,
on the contrary, had risen from a subordinate member of the
league controlled by Sparta to be the leader and almost the
mistress of a league more dangerous than that over which
Sparta held sway. Sparta unquestionably entertained towards
Athens the jealous hatred of a defeated rival. By what steps
Athens was increasing her control over the Delian League, and
changing her position from that of a president to that of an
absolute ruler will be explained. …
See ATHENS: B. C. 466-454.
She was at the same time prosecuting the war against Persia
with conspicuous success. Her leader in this task was Cimon.
In the domain of practice Athens produced no nobler son than
this man. He was the son of Miltiades, the victor of Marathon,
and by heredity and inclination took his stand with the
conservative party in Athens.
See ATHENS: B. C. 477-462, to 460-449.
He succeeded here to the leading position of Aristides, and he
possessed all that statesman's purity of character. … It was
as a naval commander, and as a supporter of a forward policy
against Persia, that Cimon won his greatest renown. But he had
also a keen interest in the domestic development of Athens and
her attitude to the other states of Greece. To maintain
friendship with Sparta was the root of all his policy. His
perfect honesty in supporting this policy was never
questioned, and Sparta recognised his good will to them by
appointing him Proxenus in Athens. It was his duty in this
capacity to protect any Spartan resident in or visiting
Athens. His character and personality were eminently
attractive. … Under his guidance the Athenian fleet struck
Persia blow on blow. … In 466, near the mouth of the
Eurymedon in Pamphylia [see ATHENS: B. C. 470-466], the
Persian fleet was destroyed, and after a fierce struggle her
land forces also were defeated with very great slaughter. It
was long before Persian influence counted for anything again
on the waters of the Mediterranean. Cimon, with the personal
qualities of Aristides, had obtained the successes of
Themistocles. Opposition to Cimon was not wanting. The
Athenian democracy had entered on a path that seemed blocked
by his personal supremacy. And now the party of advancing
democracy possessed a leader, the ablest and greatest that it
was ever to possess. Pericles was about thirty years of age.
… He was related to great families through both father and
mother, and to great families that had championed the
democratic side. His father Zanthippus had prosecuted
Miltiades, the father of Cimon. … To lead the party of
advanced democracy was to attack Cimon, against whom he had
hereditary hostility. … When in 465 Thasos rebelled from
Athens, defeat was certain unless she found allies. She
applied to Sparta for assistance. Athens and Sparta were still
nominally allies, for the creation of the Delian League had
not openly destroyed the alliance that had subsisted between
them since the days of the Persian war. But the Thasians hoped
that Sparta's jealousy of Athens might induce her to disregard
the alliance. And they reckoned rightly. The Spartan fleet was
so weak that no interference upon the sea could be thought of,
but if Attica were attacked by land the Athenians would be
forced to draw off some part of their armament from Thasos.
Sparta gave a secret promise that this attack should be made.
But before they could fulfil their promise their own city was
overwhelmed by a terrible earthquake. … Only five houses
were left standing, and twenty thousand of the inhabitants
lost their lives. King Archidamus saved the state from even
more appalling ruin. While the inhabitants were dazed with the
catastrophe, he ordered the alarm-trumpet to be blown; the
military instincts of the Spartans answered to the call, and
all that were left assembled outside of the city safe from the
falling ruins. Archidamus's presence of mind saved them from
even greater danger than that of earthquake. The disaster
seemed to the masses of Helots that surrounded Sparta clear
evidence of the wrath of the god Poseidon. … The Helots
seized arms, therefore, and from all sides rushed upon Sparta.
Thanks to Archidamus's action, they found the Spartans
collected and ready for battle. They fell back upon Messenia,
and concentrated their strength round Mount Ithome, the
natural Acropolis of that district. … All the efforts of
their opponents, never very successful in sieges, failed to
dislodge them. At last, in 464, Sparta had to appeal to her
allies for help against her own slaves; and, as Athens was her
ally, she appealed to Athens. Should the help be granted? …
Cimon advocated the granting of Sparta's demand with all his
strength. … But there was much to be said on the other side,
and it was said by Ephialtes and Pericles.
{1577}
The whole of Pericles's foreign policy is founded on the
assumption that union between Athens and Sparta was
undesirable and impossible. In everything they stood at
opposite poles of thought. …. Cimon gained the vote of the
people. He went at once with a force of four thousand
heavy-armed soldiers to Ithome. Athenian soldiers enjoyed a
great reputation for their ability in the conduct of sieges;
but, despite their arrival, the Helots in Ithome still held
out. And soon the Spartans grew suspicious of the Athenian
contingent. The failure of Sparta was so clearly to the
interest of Athens that the Spartans could not believe that
the Athenians were in earnest in trying to prevent it; and at
last Cimon was told that Sparta no longer had need of the
Athenian force. The insult was all the more evident because
none of the other allies were dismissed. Cimon at once
returned to Athens. …
See MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD.
On his return he still opposed those complete democratic
changes that Pericles and Ephialtes were at this time
introducing into the state. A vote of ostracism was demanded.
The requisite number of votes fell to Cimon, and he had to
retire into exile (461). … His ostracism doubtless allowed
the democratic changes, in any case inevitable, to be
accomplished without much opposition or obstruction, but it
also deprived Athens of her best soldier at a time when she
needed all her military talent. For Athens could not forget
Sparta's insult. In 461 she renounced the alliance with her
that had existed since the Persian wars; and that this rupture
did not mean neutrality was made clear when, immediately
afterwards, Athens contracted an alliance with Argos, always
the enemy and now the dangerous enemy of Sparta, and with the
Thessalians, who also had grounds of hostility to Sparta.
Under such circumstances war could not be long in coming."
A. J. Grant,
Greece in the Age of Pericles,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
Plutarch,
Cimon; Pericles.
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 17 (volume 3).
E. Abbott,
Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens,
chapters 5-6.
GREECE: B. C. 460-449.
Disastrous Athenian expedition to Egypt.
Cimon's last enterprise against the Persians.
The disputed Peace of Cimon, or Callias.
Five years truce between Athens and Sparta.
See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.
GREECE: B. C. 458-456.
Alliance of Corinth and Ægina against Athens and Megara.
Athenian victories.
Siege and conquest of Ægina.
The Spartans in Bœotia.
Defeat of Athens at Tanagra.
Her success at Œnophyta.
Humiliation of Thebes.
Athenian ascendancy restored.
Crippled by the great earthquake of 464 B. C., and harassed by
the succeeding Messenian War, "nothing could be done, on the
part of Sparta, to oppose the establishment and extension of
the separate alliance between Athens and Argos; and
accordingly the states of Northern Peloponnesus commenced
their armaments against Athens on their own account, in order
to obtain by force what formerly they had achieved by secret
intrigues and by pushing forward Sparta. To stop the progress
of the Attic power was a necessary condition of their own
existence; and thus a new warlike group of states formed
itself among the members of the disrupted confederation. The
Corinthians entered into a secret alliance with Ægina and
Epidaurus, and endeavored to extend their territory and obtain
strong positions beyond the Isthmus at the expense of Megara.
This they considered of special importance to them, inasmuch
as they knew the Megareans, whose small country lay in the
midst between the two hostile alliances, to be allies little
deserving of trust. … The fears of the Corinthians were
realized sooner than they had anticipated. The Megareans,
under the pressure of events, renounced their treaty
obligations to Sparta, and joined the Attico-Argive alliance.
… The passes of the Geranea, the inlets and outlets of the
Doric peninsula, now fell into the hands of the Athenians;
Megara became an outwork of Athens; Attic troops occupied its
towns; Attic ships cruised in the Gulf of Corinth, where
harbors stood open to them at Pegæ and Ægosthena. The
Athenians were eager to unite Megara as closely as possible to
themselves, and for this reason immediately built two lines of
walls, which connected Megara with its port Nisæa, eight
stadia off, and rendered both places impregnable to the
Peloponnesians. This extension of the hostile power to the
boundaries of the Isthmus, and into the waters of the western
gulf, seemed to the maritime cities of Peloponnesus to force
them into action. Corinth, Epidaurus, and Ægina commenced an
offensive war against Athens—a war which opened without
having been formally declared; and Athens unhesitatingly
accepted the challenge thrown out with sufficient distinctness
in the armaments of her adversaries. Myronides, an experienced
general and statesman, … landed with an Attic squadron near
Halieis (where the frontiers of the Epidaurians and Argives
met), and here found a united force of Corinthians,
Epidaurians, and Æginetans awaiting him. Myronides was
unsuccessful in his campaign. A few months later the hostile
fleets met off the island of Cecryphalea, between Ægina and
the coast of Epidaurus. The Athenians were victorious, and the
struggle now closed round Ægina itself. Immediately opposite
the island ensued a second great naval battle. Seventy of the
enemy's ships fell into the hands of the Athenians, whose
victorious fleet without delay surrounded Ægina. The
Peloponnesians were fully aware of the importance of Ægina to
them. Three hundred hoplites came to the relief of the island,
and the Corinthians marched across the Geranea into Megaris to
the relief of Ægina. It seemed impossible that, while the
fleet of the Athenians was fighting in the land of the Nile,
and another was lying before Ægina, they should have a third
army in readiness for Megara. But the Peloponnesians had no
conception of the capabilities of action belonging to the
Athenians. True, the whole military levy was absent from the
country, and only enough men were left at home for the mere
defence of the walls. Yet all were notwithstanding agreed that
neither should Ægina be given up nor the new allies be left in
the lurch. Myronides advanced to meet the Corinthians with
troops composed of those who had passed the age of military
service or not yet reached it. In the first fight he held his
ground: when the hostile forces returned for the second time,
they were routed with tremendous loss. Megara was saved, and
the energy of the Athenians had been most splendidly
established.
{1578}
In attestation of it the sepulchral pillars were erected in
the Ceramicus, on which were inscribed the names of the
Athenian soldiers who had fallen in one and the same year (Ol.
lxxx 3; B. C. 458-7) off Cyprus, in Egypt, Phœicia, Halieis,
Ægina, and Megara. A fragment of this remarkable historical
document is preserved to this day. While thus many years'
accumulation of combustible materials had suddenly broken out
into a flame of the fiercest war in Central Greece, new
complications also arose in the north. The Thebans, who had
suffered so deep a humiliation, believed the time to have
arrived when the events of the past were forgotten, and when
they could attain to new importance and power. In opposition
to them the Phocians put forth their strength. … After the
dissolution of the Hellenic Confederation, and the calamities
which had befallen the Spartans, the Phocians thought they
might venture an attack upon the Dorian tetrapolis, in order
to extend their frontiers in this direction. … For Sparta it
was a point of honor not to desert the primitive communities
of the Dorian race. She roused herself to a vigorous effort,
and, notwithstanding all her losses and the continuance of the
war in Messenia, was able to send 11,500 men of her own troops
and those of the confederates across the Isthmus before the
Athenians had time to place any obstacles in their way [B. C.
457]. The Phocians were forced to relinquish their conquests.
But when the Spartan troops were about to return home across
the Isthmus they found the mountain-passes occupied by Athens,
and the Gulf of Corinth made equally insecure by the presence
of hostile ships. Nothing remained for the Lacedæmonians but
to march into Bœotia, where their presence was welcome to
Thebes. They entered the valley of the Asopus, and encamped in
the territory of Tanagra, not far from the frontiers of
Attica. Without calculating the consequences, the Athenians
had brought themselves into an extremely dangerous situation.
… Their difficulties increased when, contemporaneously, evil
signs of treasonable plots made their appearance in the
interior of the city. …
See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.
Thus, then, it was now necessary to contend simultaneously
against foes within and foes without, to defend the
constitution as well as the independence of the state. Nor was
the question merely as to an isolated attack and a transitory
danger; for the conduct of the Spartans in Bœotia clearly
showed that it was now their intention to restore to power
Thebes … because they were anxious to have in the rear of
Athens a state able to stop the extension of the Attic power
in Central Greece. This intention could be best fulfilled by
supporting Thebes in the subjugation of the other Bœotian
cities. For this purpose the Peloponnesians had busily
strengthened the Theban, i. e. the oligarchical party, in the
whole of the country, and encircled Thebes itself with new
fortifications. Thebes was from a country town to become a
great city, an independent fortified position, and a base for
the Peloponnesian cause in Central Greece. Hence Athens could
not have found herself threatened by a more dangerous
complication. The whole civic army accordingly took the field,
amounting, together with the Argives, and other allies, to
14,000 men, besides a body of Thessalian cavalry. In the low
ground by the Asopus below Tanagra the armies met. An arduous
and sanguinary struggle ensued, in which for the first time
Athens and Sparta mutually tested their powers in a regular
battle. For a long time the result was doubtful; till in the
very thick of the battle the cavalry went over to the enemy,
probably at the instigation of the Laconian party. This act of
treason decided the day in favor of Sparta, although patriotic
Athenians would never consent to count this among the battles
lost by Athens. The Spartans were far from fulfilling the
expectations of the party of the Oligarchs. As soon as they
knew that the passes of the Isthmus were once more open, they
took their departure, towards the fall of the year, through
Megara, making this little country suffer for its defection by
the devastation of its territory. … They reckoned upon
Thebes being for the present strong enough to maintain herself
against her neighbors; for ulterior offensive operations
against Athens, Tanagra was to serve as a base. The plan was
good, and the conjuncture of affairs favorable. But whatever
the Spartans did, they did only by halves: they concluded a
truce for four months, and quitted the ground. The Athenians,
on the other hand, had no intention of allowing a menacing
power to establish itself on the frontiers of their country.
Without waiting for the return of the fair season, they
crossed Mount Parnes two months after the battle, before any
thoughts of war were entertained in Bœotia; Myronides, who was
in command, defeated the Theban army which was to defend the
valley of the Asopus, near Œnophyta. This battle with one blow
put an end to all the plans of Thebes; the walls of Tanagra
were razed. Myronides continued his march from town to town;
everywhere the existing governments were overthrown, and
democratic constitutions established with the help of Attic
partisans. … Thus, after a passing humiliation, Athens was
soon more powerful than ever, and her sway extended as far as
the frontiers of the Phocians. Nay, during the same campaign
she extended her military dominion as far as Locris. …
Meanwhile the Æginetans also were gradually losing their power
of resistance. For nine months they had resisted the Attic
squadron. … Now their strength was exhausted; and the proud
island of the Æacidæ, which Pindar had sung as the mother of
the men who in the glorious rivalry of the festive games shone
out before all other Hellenes, had to bow down before the
irresistible good fortune of the Athenians, and was forced to
pull down her walls, to deliver up her vessels of war, and
bind herself to the payment of tribute. Contemporaneously with
this event, the two arms of walls [at ATHENS] … between the
upper and lower town were completed. Athens was now placed
beyond the fear of any attack. … The Peloponnesian
confederation was shaken to its very foundations; and Sparta
was still let and hindered by the Messenian revolt, while the
Athenians were able freely to dispose of their military and
naval forces."
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 3, chapter 2 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
G. W. Cox,
History of Greece,
book 2, chapter 9 (volume 2).
Thucydides,
Peloponnesian War
(translated by Jowett),
book 1, sections 107-108.
{1579}
GREECE: B. C. 449-445.
Quarrel of Delphians and Phocians.
Interference of Sparta and Athens.
Bœotian revolution.
Defeat of Athenians at Coroneia.
Revolt of Eubœa and Megara.
The Thirty Years Truce.
In 449 B. C. "on occasion of a dispute between the Delphians
and the Phocians as to which should have the care of the
temple and its treasures, the Lacedæmonians sent an army, and
gave them to the former; but as soon as they were gone,
Pericles led thither an Athenian army, and put the Phocians in
possession. Of this the Lacedæmonians took no notice. The
right of Promanty, or first consulting the oracle, which had
been given to Sparta by the Delphians, was now assigned to
Athens by the Phocians; and this honor was probably the cause
of the interference of both states. As the Athenians had given
the upper hand to the democratic party in Bœotia, there was of
course a large number of the opposite party in exile. These
had made themselves masters of Orchomenus, Chæroneia, and some
other places, and if not checked in time, might greatly
endanger the Athenian influence. Tolmidas, therefore, led an
army and took and garrisoned Chæroneia; but, as he was
returning, he was attacked at Coroneia by the exiles from
Orchomenus, joined by those of Eubœa and their other friends.
Tolmidas fell, and his troops were all slain or made
prisoners. (Ol. 83, 2.) [B. C. 447.] The Athenians, fearing a
general war, agreed to a treaty, by which, on their prisoners
being restored, they evacuated Bœotia. The exiles returned to
their several towns, and things were placed on their old
footing. … Eubœa was now (Ol. 83, 3) [B. C. 446] in revolt:
and while Pericles was at the head of an army reducing it, the
party in Megara adverse to Athens rose and massacred all the
Athenian garrisons except that of Nisæa. Corinthians,
Sicyonians, and Epidaurians came to their aid: and the
Peloponnesians, led by one of the Spartan kings, entered and
wasted the plain of Eleusis. Pericles led back his army from
Eubœa, but the enemy was gone; he then returned and reduced
that island, and having expelled the people of Hestiæa, gave
their lands to Athenian colonists; and the Athenians, being
unwilling to risk the chance of war with the Dorian
confederacy, gladly formed (Ol. 83, 4) [B. C. 445] a truce for
thirty years, surrendering Nisæa and Pegæ, and withdrawing a
garrison which they had in Trœzen, and ceasing to interfere in
Achaia."
T. Keightley,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 1.
"The Athenians saw themselves compelled to give up their
possessions in Peloponnesus, especially Achaia, as well as
Trœzene and Pagæ, an important position for their
communication with the peninsula. Even Nisæa was abandoned.
Yet these losses, sensibly as they affected their influence
upon the Grecian continent, were counterbalanced by a
concession still more significant, the acknowledgment of the
Delian League. It was left open to states and cities which
were members of neither confederacy to join either at
pleasure. These events happened in Ol. 83,3 (B. C. 445)—the
revolt of Megara and Eubœa, the invasion of Pleistoanax, the
re-conquest of Eubœa, and the conclusion of the treaty, which
assumed the form of an armistice for thirty years. Great
importance must be attributed to this settlement, as involving
an acknowledgment which satisfied both parties and did justice
to the great interests at stake on either side. If Athens
renounced some of her possessions, the sacrifice was
compensated by the fact that Sparta recognized the existence
of the naval supremacy of Athens, and the basis on which it
rested. We may perhaps assume that the compromise between
Pericles and Pleistoanax was the result of the conviction felt
by both these leading men that a fundamental dissociation of
the Peloponnesian from the Delian league was a matter of
necessity. The Spartans wished to be absolutely supreme in the
one, and resigned the other to the Athenians."
L. von Ranke,
Universal History:
The Oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeks,
chapter 7, section 2.
ALSO IN:
Sir E. B. Lytton,
Athens: Its Rise and Fall,
book 5, chapter 1.
GREECE: B. C. 445-431.
Splendor of Athens and greatness of the Athenian Empire under
the rule of Pericles.
See ATHENS: B. C. 445-431.
GREECE: B. C. 440.
Subjugation of revolted Samos by the Athenians.
Spartan interference prevented by Corinth.
See ATHENS: B. C. 440-437.
GREECE: B. C. 435-432.
Causes of the Peloponnesian War.
"In B. C. 431 the war broke out between Athens and the
Peloponnesian League, which, after twenty-seven years, ended
in the ruin of the Athenian empire. It began through a quarrel
between Corinth and Kerkyra [or Korkyra, or Corcyru], in which
Athens assisted Kerkyra. A congress was held at Sparta;
Corinth and other States complained of the conduct of Athens,
and war was decided on. The real cause of the war was that
Sparta and its allies were jealous of the great power that
Athens had gained. A far greater number of Greek States were
engaged in this war than had ever been engaged in a single
undertaking before. States that had taken no part in the
Persian war were now fighting on one side or the other. Sparta
was an oligarchy, and the friend of the nobles everywhere;
Athens was a democracy, and the friend of the common people;
so that the war was to some extent a struggle between these
classes all over Greece."
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Greece (History Primer),
chapter 5.
"The Peloponnesian War was a protracted struggle, and attended
by calamities such as Hellas had never known within a like
period of time. Never were so many cities captured and
depopulated—some by Barbarians, others by Hellenes themselves
fighting against one another; and several of them after their
capture were re-peopled by strangers. Never were exile and
slaughter more frequent, whether in the war or brought about
by civil strife. … There were earthquakes unparalleled in
their extent and fury, and eclipses of the sun more numerous
than are recorded to have happened in any former age; there
were also in some places great droughts causing famines, and
lastly the plague which did immense harm and destroyed numbers
of the people. All these calamities fell upon Hellas
simultaneously with the war, which began when the Athenians
and Peloponnesians violated the thirty years' truce concluded
by them after the recapture of Euboea. Why they broke it and
what were the grounds of quarrel I will first set forth, that
in time to come no man may be at a loss to know what was the
origin of this great war. The real though unavowed cause I
believe to have been the growth of the Athenian power, which
terrified the Lacedaemonians and forced them into war."
Thucydides,
History
(translated by Jowett),
book 1, section 23.
The quarrel between Corinth and Korkyra, out of which, as an
immediate excitement, the Peloponnesian War grew, concerned
"the city of Epidamnus, known afterwards, in the Roman times,
as Dyrrachium, hard by the modern Durazzo—a colony founded by
the Korkyreans on the coast of Illyria, in the Ionic gulf,
considerably to the north of their own island."
{1580}
The oligarchy of Epidamnus, driven out by the people, had
allied themselves with the neighboring Illyrians and were
harassing the city. Korkyra refused aid to the latter when
appealed to, but Corinth (of which Korkyra was itself a
colony) promptly rendered help. This involved Corinth and
Korkyra in hostilities, and Athens gave support to the latter.
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
volume 3, book 4.
ALSO IN:
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapters 19-30.
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapters 47-48 (volume 5).
GREECE: B. C. 432.
Great Sea-fight of the Corinthians
with the Korkyrians and Athenians.
Revolt of Potidæa.
"Although Korkyra became the ally of Athens, the force sent to
her aid was confined to the small number of ten ships, for the
express purpose of making it clear to the Corinthians that no
aggressive measures were intended; and the generals received
precise instructions to remain strictly neutral unless the
Corinthians should attempt to effect a landing either on
Korkyra or on any Korkyraian settlements. The Corinthians lost
no time in bringing the quarrel to an issue. With a fleet of
150 ships, of which 60 were furnished by their allies, they
sailed to the harbor of Cheimerion near the lake through which
the river Acheron finds its way into the sea about thirty
miles to the east of the southernmost promontory of Korkyra.
The conflict which ensued exhibited a scene of confusion which
the Athenian seamen probably regarded with infinite contempt.
After a hard struggle the Korkyraians routed the right wing of
the enemy's fleet, and chasing it to its camp on shore, lost
time in plundering it and burning the tents. For this folly
they paid a terrible price. The remainder of the Korkyraian