CHAPTER X.
Sequel of the Life of Miltiades—of Aristides—of Themistocles.
We shall hereafter have occasion to describe briefly the total change of the international relations and politics of the Greek communities, which ensued in consequence of the Persian war. Athens was rewarded for her exertions and sufferings by half a century of increasing and almost uninterrupted splendour, under the successive guidance of Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles. Still, as we do not write the history of Greece, we shall pass in silence over this brilliant period. Seasons of convulsion present the phenomena on which men dwell, and the eras by which they date, in the moral as well as in the physical world, where the silent process by which Nature elaborates her productions, the slow mouldering of mountains into new plains of inexhaustible fertility pass almost unobserved and unappreciated: but the attention is roused and compelled when the destructive powers of the hurricane and earthquake are let loose. But before we pass entirely from this subject, it will be well briefly to relate the further fortunes of those men to whom Athens owed, not only her greatness, but her existence.
The battle of Marathon raised Miltiades to the height of popularity. He availed himself of it to request an armament of ninety ships, with troops and money, not stating the object of his expedition to his countrymen, but merely promising to enrich them, if they would follow him, for that he would lead them to a land whence they should bring home gold without end. The Athenians, elated by this hope, consented; and he immediately sailed to the island of Paros, and laid siege to its capital, under pretence of exacting satisfaction because a Parian trireme had served in the Persian fleet. This, Herodotus says, was the pretence; but the real reason was a grudge against the Parians, because one of them, Lysagoras, had done him a bad turn with Hydarnes, the Persian governor of the Ionian coast. He therefore sent a herald to demand 100 talents (about 25,000l.), saying, that unless they complied, he would never lead away his troops till he had taken the city. But as to giving Miltiades the money, the Parians had no notion at all of that—they only thought how they might best protect themselves; and they laboured by night to double the height of the walls, wherever they seemed open to attack.
“So far,” says Herodotus, “all the Greeks agree.” The Parians had a little prodigy of their own to account for the failure of the enterprise. When Miltiades made little progress, and was in perplexity, a Parian woman, priestess of the infernal deities, came to him and bade him follow her advice, if it were of importance to him to possess the city. In obedience to her advice, he went to an eminence in front of the city, on which there was a temple dedicated to Ceres, and being unable to open the gates of the sacred enclosure, he leaped over it, and advanced towards the fence, with what specific purpose the historian relates not. On approaching the door he was seized with terror and shuddering, and hastily retreated as he had entered; but in leaping over the fence, he inflicted a severe injury upon his leg. Another story is told by Cornelius Nepos, that a forest upon the continent, which could be seen from the island, by some chance was set on fire during the night, and that the besiegers and the besieged alike concluded it a signal of coming help from the Persian monarch.[68] But all agree that Miltiades lay sick, and that the siege proceeded unfavourably, and that at last, Herodotus says on the 26th day, he broke it up, and led home the fleet. The Athenians were very angry, and shortly after his return, Xanthippus, one of the Alcmæonid party, brought a capital charge against him, “on account of the deceit practised on the people.” Miltiades was too ill to defend himself, for his wound had mortified; but he appeared before the assembly in a litter, while his friends spoke in his behalf, expatiating on the services which he had rendered to the state, especially at Marathon. This being their chief dependence, we may presume that they felt they had a weak cause to support. The people remitted the capital punishment, but imposed a fine of fifty talents,[69] (12,500l.) Miltiades died soon after, and the fine was discharged by his celebrated son Cimon.
Such is the story as it is told by Herodotus. It is not theatrical enough for later writers, who have related how the victor of Marathon, being unable to discharge the fine imposed upon him, was cast into prison, and died there; and how his body was refused the rites of burial, until Cimon redeemed it by the sacrifice of his own liberty. The reader will do well to hesitate in receiving such ornamental passages in Grecian history, when uncorroborated by the earliest authorities. The silence of Herodotus alone would be sufficient to discredit this story. It has, however, been acutely inferred from a passage in Plato, that Miltiades was sentenced to imprisonment, probably till the fine was paid (a very necessary provision), but that this part of the sentence was not carried into effect.[70]
The death of Miltiades has been a favourite topic for declamation against popular ingratitude. If the Athenians were really deceived; if they supposed, as the promise of unbounded wealth might lead them to think, that he intended to lead them against the Persians, and their anger was directed against the misapplication of the national resources to gratify private animosity, and plunder a kindred state; then was their conduct just and honourable. No claim to public gratitude ought to be allowed to screen a public delinquent from detection; when guilt is proved, past services may fitly be alleged in mitigation or remission of punishment. But we cannot implicitly believe in this virtuous indignation; and are inclined to suspect that if Miltiades had returned with one hundred talents, he would have heard nothing of prosecution, and that the failure, not the attack upon Paros, was the true grievance. During a siege of twenty-six days there was abundant time to recall the fleet, if the enterprise had been disapproved. Nepos indeed says that he was charged with having received a bribe from Persia to withdraw; and ascribes the readiness of the Athenians to convict, to a growing dread of his talents and popularity, and fear lest he should prove a second Pisistratus. This is not improbable; it is in perfect keeping with the institution of ostracism, which seems to have been first levelled against Aristides five or six years later.
The rival statesmen, Aristides and Themistocles, men diametrically opposite as well in character as in politics, were rising to the first honours before the battle of Marathon. Aristides was one of the ten generals appointed on that occasion, and the year after held the dignity of Archon. Simple, just, and disinterested, neither for his own nor his country’s advantage would he deviate from the plain rules of honesty; and he thus earned and merited the appellation of the Just. Themistocles on the contrary was avowedly actuated by party spirit; and his desire to raise his country seems to have been secondary to his desire to raise himself. Crooked as acute in his policy, he scrupled not as to the character of his means, if they were fitted to promote his end; and his strenuous exertions in the Persian war were so skilfully contrived, as to secure for himself a kind reception from the victor, if his first object, the deliverance of Athens, failed. Two such men, of whom the former supported the aristocratical, the latter the democratical party, were not likely to remain at peace; and two or three years before the invasion of Xerxes, Themistocles had influence enough to procure a vote of ostracism against his rival. This was a species of banishment for five, ten, or twenty years, called ostracism from ostrakon, a shell, or piece of earthenware, because citizens wrote the name of him whom they wished to exile upon some such material, and cast it into a balloting box. To obtain a decree of this nature six thousand votes were required. Ostensibly it was neither a punishment nor disgrace, but merely intended as a safeguard lest even the virtues and services of great men should become dangerous to the liberty of their country. Themistocles, however, had a mind capable of laying aside private enmity when an emergency required it, and himself proposed a decree before the battle of Salamis, by which Aristides, with all other exiles, was recalled. Eminent alike, each upon his own element, as the one at Salamis, so the other commanded the Athenians at Platæa. On this occasion, the post of honour, the right wing, being held according to their constant custom by the Lacedæmonians, a dispute arose between the Athenians and Tegeatæ which should be placed in the left. Here Aristides displayed his prudence and moderation.[71] “We came here,” he said, “to fight, and not to talk. Since however the Tegeatæ have advanced their deeds of renown, both in old times and of late, it is necessary that we also should explain to you our claims to priority among Greeks.” Then briefly enumerating their ancient glories, and concluding with mention of Marathon, he added, “But this is no time to wrangle about place. We are ready to obey you, Lacedæmonians, wherever and against whomsoever you choose to station us; and wherever we are, will do our best. Command us, therefore, as men who will obey.” The whole army of the Lacedæmonians shouted out, that the Athenians were more worthy than the Tegeatæ to lead the left wing.
We must refer to the history of Greece for the formation of a confederacy to prosecute the war against Persia, and for the events which disgusted the members of it with Sparta, and induced them to place Athens at their head. Aristides at this time commanded her fleet; and his known probity and moderation probably had much influence in procuring this distinction, the first step to her future empire. To him was referred the delicate task of apportioning the sums which each state should contribute to the general fund: and so justly did he execute this trust that all parties were satisfied; and in later times the tributaries to the Athenian treasury referred to the assessment of Aristides as a sort of golden age. He died, it is said, in the year 467 b.c., poor, but honoured, insomuch that he was buried at the public charge, and his children were provided for at the public expense. This is the best testimony to the honesty of a man through whose hands four hundred and sixty talents passed yearly.
The career of Themistocles was of a far more varied and eventful nature. His first recorded appearance in public life was signalised by a measure pregnant with important results; and doubly meritorious, as proving that at an early age he clearly distinguished the true policy of Athens, and because it did not seem likely to advance the fortunes of an aspiring man who sought to build his greatness upon popular favour. The revenues accruing from the silver mines of Laureium, instead of being applied to any public purpose, were distributed among the citizens, and furnished a gratuity of ten drachmæ (about eight shillings) to each man. Themistocles saw the importance of being strong at sea, and had influence or eloquence enough to obtain a decree to apply this income exclusively to ship-building, until two hundred triremes were completed with the money. This made the Athenians at once a great maritime power, whereas before they had but few ships, and those chiefly of the smaller class. This seems to have taken place the year before the battle of Marathon. “Now, after this good beginning and success, he won the citizens by degrees to bend their force to sea, declaring to them how by land they were scant able to make head against their equals, whereas by their power at sea they should not only defend themselves from the barbarous people, but moreover be able to command all Greece. Hereupon he made them good mariners, and passing seamen, as Plato saith, where before they were stout and valiant soldiers by land. This gave his enemies occasion to cast it in his teeth afterwards, that he had taken away from the Athenians the pike and target, and had brought them to the galley and the oar, and so he got the upper hand of Miltiades, who in that inveighed against him. Now after he had thus his will by bringing the sea service to pass, whether thereby he did overthrow the justice of the commonweal or not, I leave that to the philosophers to dispute. But that the preservation of all Greece stood at that time on the sea, and that the galleys only were the cause of setting up Athens again, Xerxes himself is a sufficient witness, besides other proofs that might be brought thereof.”[72]
His brilliant services were duly acknowledged. At the first Olympic festival celebrated after the defeat of Xerxes, he occupied more attention than the contending champions; and even the Spartans, while they gave the prize of valour to their own admiral Eurybiades, awarded to him that of wisdom, and though generally little gratified by the visits of strangers, invited him to Lacedæmon, and appointed a guard of honour of three hundred citizens to attend him. Continuing in command of the Athenian squadron when the allied fleet began to exact satisfaction from those islanders who, probably against their will, had followed the Persian standard, he abused his high character and station by extorting large sums as the price of his protection from those islands or persons who were obnoxious to the charge of Medism, or having favoured the Persian cause. “Let others extol Pausanias, or Xanthippus, or Leotychides; my praise shall be for Aristides, the best man of sacred Athens. For Latona detests Themistocles, the false, the unjust, the traitor; who for paltry pelf deserted the interest of Timocreon, his friend and host, and refused to restore him to his native Ialysus. Money guided the destructive course of the fleet; while the corrupt commander, restoring unjustly, persecuting unjustly, some into banishment, some to death, as the larger bribe persuaded, filled his coffers.”[73] Such were the charges brought against him by Timocreon, a Rhodian, who had been guilty of apostacy from the Grecian cause, and depended on Themistocles’ friendship to restore him to his country. In this particular case there seems to have been nothing to blame, and indeed the accusation is, that Themistocles did not pervert his power to gratify private ends: but the concurrent testimony of antiquity leads us to conclude that these charges of unjust and interested dealing rest upon a solid foundation.
We must refer to the History of Greece for an account of the bold and able measures by which he secured time to rebuild the walls of Athens, and for the improvement of the harbour Piræeus, which under his superintendence was connected with the city by walls built of squared blocks of marble, and became the most complete naval arsenal yet known. How long he continued to enjoy his high popularity and authority is not known: but he wanted moderation to retain what he had justly acquired. He offended the people by an unworthy vanity, and disgusted the allies by rapacity and ostentation, insomuch that reports were circulated of his holding correspondence with Persia, and aiming at the tyranny of Athens, if not of all Greece. And he had powerful enemies at home to take advantage of these errors, not so much in Aristides, whose honest opposition was untinged by personal or factious animosity, as in the Alcmæonidæ, and in Cimon, son of Miltiades, who at this time was in the commencement of his long, and brilliant, and virtuous career. To them the democratical tenor of his policy and his personal superiority were alike distasteful; and they had influence enough to procure his banishment by ostracism for five years. This took place in the year 471 b.c. During this period, Pausanias, king of Sparta, was convicted of having engaged in a treasonable correspondence with the Persian monarch, and put to death; and the Lacedæmonians asserted that they had proof of Themistocles being concerned in the plot, and required that the same punishment might be inflicted upon him. Plutarch says that he flatly refused to join in the treason of Pausanias, but that he preserved the secret. His accusers required that he should be brought to trial, not in his own country, but before some general council of the Greek states, probably the council of Amphictyons, and they had sufficient influence with the party now in power at Athens to obtain their concurrence. Messengers were sent with authority to apprehend him, wherever they should find him. He fled first to the island of Corcyra, to which he had formerly been a benefactor. But the Corcyræans, alleging that they durst not keep him, conveyed him over to the continent of Epirus, and there being continually pursued, he was driven at last, like Coriolanus, to take shelter with an ancient enemy, Admetus, king of the Molossians. That prince being absent, he awaited his return seated before the domestic altar, holding in his arms his infant son: such being esteemed the most sacred and binding method of supplication among the Molossians. Admetus was touched, and, while he was able, gave the fugitive a secure retreat; but the Athenian and Lacedæmonian commissioners tracked his steps, and though his protector refused to give him up, he was obliged to fly. He now crossed the continent to Pydna, a seaport of Macedonia, and finding there a ship bound for Ionia, he embarked, and was carried by stress of weather among the Athenian fleet then besieging Naxos.[74] Fearing to be recognised, he called the master aside, told him who he was, and why he fled, and declared that if he were taken, he would charge him with having been bribed to favour his escape. To avoid this, it was only requisite to confine the sailors closely to the ship until the weather served them to be gone. The master consented, and instead of landing at night, as was usual with Grecian mariners, they lay a day and night tempest-tossed at sea; and at length arrived safely at Ephesus. Themistocles now reaped the benefit of his double-dealing. He kept himself concealed, however, at first, because the Persians had set a price of two hundred talents upon his head, until he received an answer to the following letter, which he wrote to Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, who had newly succeeded to his father’s throne: “I, Themistocles, am coming to thee, who of all the Grecians, as long as I was forced to resist thy father that invaded me, have done your house the most damage; yet the benefits I did him were more after once I with safety, he with danger, was to make retreat. And both a good turn is already due to me (writing here how he had forewarned him of the Grecians’ departure out of Salamis, and ascribing the not breaking of the bridge falsely to himself), and I now come prepared to do thee great services, being persecuted by the Grecians for thy friendship’s sake. But I desire to have a year’s respite, that I may declare unto thee the cause of my coming myself.”
“The king, as is reported, wondered at his design, and commanded him to do as he said. In this time of respite he learned as much as he could of the language and fashions of the place, and a year after, coming to the court, he was great with the king, more than ever had been any Grecian before; both for his former estimation, and the hope that he gave of bringing Greece into subjection, but especially in the proof that he had given of his wisdom. For Themistocles was a man in whom most truly was manifested the strength of natural judgment, wherein he had something worthy of admiration, different from other men. For by his natural prudence, without the help of instruction either before or after, he was both best able to form an opinion on the spur of the moment with least deliberation, and the best diviner of the issue of matters to come. Of those things he was engaged in, he could give a good account; and what he was unpractised in, he was not to seek how to judge of conveniently. Also he foresaw, no man better, what was best or worse in any case that was doubtful. And to say all in few words, this man, by the natural goodness of his wit, and quickness of deliberation, was the ablest of all men to tell what was fit to be done on a sudden. But falling sick he ended his life: some say he died voluntarily by poison, because he thought himself unable to perform what he had promised to the king. His monument is in Magnesia in Asia, in the marketplace: for he had the government of that country, the king having bestowed upon him Magnesia, which yielded him fifty talents yearly for his bread, and Lampsacus for his wine (for this city was then thought to have store of wine), and Myus for his meat. His bones are said by his kinsman to have been brought home by his own appointment, and buried in Attica, unknown to the Athenians: for it was not lawful to bury one there that had fled for treason. These were the ends of Pausanias the Lacedæmonian and Themistocles the Athenian, the most famous men of all the Grecians of their time.”[75]
“Such were the ends of the two most famous men of Greece in their time.” That of Pausanias moves little compassion: he was a weak and vicious man, raised to an undeserved celebrity by hereditary rank, and by the mighty events with which the age was pregnant. He was a traitor, and he perished as such, worthy of pity only for the lingering torment of his death. Much more touching is the fate of Themistocles, driven on an unjust accusation, as we believe, from place to place, and at last forced to seek shelter from those to whom he had done the deepest harm, and thus apparently to justify those accusations which alone had reduced him to so unworthy a step. Melancholy we must needs call the close of his life, in spite of all the splendour that surrounded it: for who can believe that to such a man wealth and luxury could compensate for exile, for the loss of all share and interest in the greatness which he had himself founded, and was now compelled to surrender into the guidance of unfriendly hands? The anecdote relating to his burial furnishes a touching illustration of the nature of his feelings at the close of life, and is itself almost sufficient to refute the charge of treason. Men seek not so fondly to be restored even in death to their native land, when they have deliberately resolved on subjecting it to the miseries of conquest by a foreign, in Grecian language, a barbarian race. That he had so far temporised with Pausanias as to give the Spartans plausible ground for their accusation is probable, and consistent with the tortuous policy which, unfortunately for his glory in honest men’s eyes, he always pursued. But to believe that he seriously laboured to establish that dominion which it was his boast to have overthrown; to pull down the fabric of Athenian greatness which his own hand had raised, and with which his glory was indissolubly connected; this would require the most cogent proofs, in place of which we have nothing but a bare report. We may derive a valuable moral from comparing the close of his life with that of Aristides. The latter, after a life spent in the highest commands, with unbounded opportunities for amassing wealth, died in poverty. Themistocles’ property, when he entered on public life, was valued at three talents; when he fled to Persia his effects were confiscated to the value of eighty or one hundred talents, and yet it is said that his friends saved the greater part, and remitted them into Asia to him. Yet who dare avow that he would choose the wealth and fate of Themistocles in preference to the honourable poverty of Aristides? who, that is not entirely devoted to wealth, could even feel such a preference? True it is that the crooked course of Themistocles procured a brilliant reception in the Persian court, when all other countries were closed against him: but it is also true that a more disinterested and open life would have obviated the necessity of seeking a foreign refuge. The rancour of party spirit might then have exiled him for a time, as it exiled Aristides, but it could have done no more. All Greece would have exclaimed in mingled anger and contempt against him who should have dared to connect the name of Aristides with a charge of treason: all Greece was ready to believe Themistocles guilty on the sole evidence of his selfish and intriguing spirit.
CHAPTER XI.
Bust of Thucydides.
Prosecution of the Persian war—Rise of Athens to maritime empire, and consequent undermining of the aristocratical interest—Administration of Cimon—of Pericles—Education of the Athenians—Commencement of the Peloponnesian war.
No country, looking only to external circumstances, had ever a fairer opportunity of establishing a mighty empire than Greece, after the total overthrow of the Persian invasion. The power of Persia broken, Egypt in decay, Rome in its infancy, Carthage distant and intent upon western conquests, her own soldiery inspirited by success, and preceded by that opinion of their invincibility which is an almost certain earnest of future victory, there seemed to be no power capable of withstanding Greece had she been zealous and unanimous in prosecuting foreign conquest. But instead of tracing the march of a victorious nation to empire, these pages will describe little but the growth of civil dissensions, bloody enmities, and long and destructive warfare between kindred states. Until the reign of Alexander, the Greeks never possessed a foot of land in Asia or Africa beyond the narrow territories, acquired long before the period of which we treat, of the numerous cities which lined the Mediterranean, and those smaller seas which communicate with it.
The cause of this want of foreign enterprise is to be sought chiefly in the non-existence of any acknowledged head of the nation, and in the selfishness and want of union which, as we have seen, characterized their councils even in the time of danger. Sparta, in right of her pre-eminent reputation in arms, claimed and was allowed to lead the confederate troops of Greece in the field; but in their councils she had only an equal voice. That reputation, and the lofty, self-denying, though stern and unlovely temper fostered by the institutions of Lycurgus, had excited so much respect, that at the games of assembled Greece the presence of a Spartan was enough to turn the eyes of the spectators from the competitors to himself: and the command of the fleet collected to oppose Xerxes was vested in a Spartan at the instance of the allies themselves, who, notwithstanding the smallness of the Lacedæmonian naval force, refused to serve under any other than a Spartan commander. But the pride and presumed treason of Pausanias soon disgusted the allies, and threw the naval command into the hands of the Athenians; and that people soon converted the force meant to prosecute the quarrel with Persia into an instrument of their own aggrandisement, and assumed an authority nothing less than despotic over free states, which had confederated with them as one equal with another. Hence arose two different and often conflicting interests: the Athenians powerful by sea, the Lacedæmonians by land. Opposed in the nature of their government as in the nature of their strength, they became the rallying points to which two factions, implacable in their enmity, looked for support; and to the care with which they fomented the civil discords on which their power was based, the evils which we are about to describe may in great measure be referred. But the circumstances which led to this rivalry require to be more fully told.
The states which had confederated to repel the invasion of Xerxes did not rest satisfied with self-defence. After the battle of Salamis, the fleet proceeded to liberate the islands of the Ægean Sea, and the Grecian cities of Asia Minor; and the forces of those states gladly combined with their deliverers to prosecute the war against their common enemy. In the third year after the battle of Salamis, the haughtiness and misconduct of Pausanias so alienated the allies, that the Peloponnesians returned home, and the Asiatic, Hellespontine, and Island Greeks transferred the right of leading their united forces to the Athenians. Aristides’ high character for integrity appears to have been the chief instrument in procuring for his countrymen this great increase of power. By his advice they proceeded to draw out an assessment, in which each state, according to its strength, was rated to furnish a certain number of ships, and a stated sum of money, for the purposes of the confederacy; and the difficult and invidious task of apportioning the contributions was assigned to him. This he executed with such success that not a complaint of injustice or partiality was heard. The whole assessment amounted to 460 talents, about 101,000 English pounds. At his death, Cimon, hitherto the partner of his influence, succeeded to the sole possession of it. Cimon was one of the most honest of Grecian statesmen; but he was not governed by that scrupulous love of justice which distinguished Aristides. Under his guidance the first steps were taken towards making the contributions of Greece for the maintenance of the Persian war the means of establishing the dominion of Athens over Grecian cities. The allied states by degrees grew weary of exertions to which they were no longer urged by a sense of danger; and when it was proposed that they should commute the personal service of their citizens for a sum of money, the Athenians undertaking to provide and man a fleet for the general purposes of the confederacy, the suggestion was readily adopted by many. “By this means Athens was at once obliged to build and employ more ships, and supplied with the means, while the navy of the allies proportionally declined. The Athenians, feeling their strength, became haughtier in their conduct, and more harsh in enforcing the same services which grew to be less punctually rendered. Hence rose wars with the defaulters, in which, Athens uniformly prevailing, the fleet of the conquered city was taken from it, and a heavier tribute levied: and since every such contest brought fresh power and wealth to the predominant state, and diminished the resources which could be at the command of any combination among its dependants, Athens, from the leader, became the mistress of her allies. The first state so subjected was the island Naxos, which revolted, and was conquered in the twelfth year of the Athenian command.”[76] Thus Athens became the best nursery for seamen in Greece, and increased her fleet at the expense of others, who grew weak from the very causes which made her strong. Moreover, having monopolized the naval arm, she was released from all shadow of control from the council of associate states, and was left at full liberty to employ her strength against the Persians, or the pirates, or her own refractory allies, as might best suit the exigencies of the moment. Her power reached its greatest height about the year 450 b.c., when it extended over almost all the islands of the Ægean, including Eubœa, and over the maritime Grecian settlements in Thrace, Macedonia, and Asia Minor. On the continent her influence directed the policy of Megaris, Bœotia, Phocis, and the Opuntian Locris; by the strong towns of Naupactus and Pegæ, she commanded both ends of the Corinthian gulf; Trœzen was subject to her; her influence was predominant in Achaia; and Argos, always jealous of its overbearing neighbour, Lacedæmon, was bound by that jealousy in close alliance with the only countervailing power.
So great a change in the political influence of Athens did not occur without corresponding alterations in the private circumstances and temper of the citizens. Cimon was himself attached to aristocratical principles, and endeavoured to maintain close alliance with Lacedæmon; but still the necessary result of the policy and events which raised Athens to such extensive empire was to diminish the influence of the aristocracy of wealth and birth, and to throw a preponderating influence into the hands of the poorer class of citizens. Such, in Greece, was the invariable effect of cultivating naval power. The military force of every people consisted principally of hoplitæ, as they were called—literally, armed men, whose equipment consisted of body armour, greaves, a helmet, a large shield, a long spear, and sword. A body of these troops was always attended by a body of men more lightly armed, and fitter for reconnoitring, for the duty of outposts, and similar uses; but little to be relied on in the shock of battle, and principally composed of slaves and mercenaries. The heavy foot, on the contrary, in the flourishing times of Greece, were almost universally citizens, and citizens of the richer classes; for the state supplied no armour, and the poorest class could not afford to keep the expensive equipment necessary to pass muster in the ranks. The citizens of Athens were divided into four classes, according to their income. The two wealthiest were obliged to keep a horse, and serve in the cavalry, an expensive service in the barren country of Attica: the third class was obliged to be provided with the full equipment of a heavy-armed soldier: the fourth were allowed to serve in that capacity, if possessed of proper armour: if not, they were enrolled among the light-armed force, or served in the fleet. The poorer class, at Athens as elsewhere, was the most numerous; and it is evident, from what has been said, that its importance would increase or diminish in proportion as the main exertions of the state were made by sea or by land. Where naval power was uncultivated the power of the sword fell into the hands of the rich: where war and commerce were alike carried on by sea, the lowest class became important by its services, as well as by its numbers. Hence the cultivation of maritime strength was always considered favourable to the cause of democracy.
The total devastation of Attica in the Persian invasion must, of course, have reduced great numbers from competence and comfort to poverty. For some time the lucrative war carried on against Persia at once filled the treasury, and enabled the state to supply the wants of this class by military pay. A further resource was found in the splendid liberality of Cimon, who, possessed of vast hereditary wealth, had the good fortune to increase it greatly by plunder and other perquisites of a commander-in-chief, without incurring the charge of dishonesty or rapaciousness. This wealth was freely spent in maintaining his influence. His gardens and orchards were thrown open to the public; a table was daily spread at his house for the free use of the poorer citizens; and he readily lent money to those who required it. Partly at his own, partly at the national expense, many splendid public buildings were erected while he ruled the councils of the state; and an example was given for the still more splendid subsequent improvements of Pericles. But in spite of his services and his magnificence, Cimon experienced a reverse of favour, to which his professed aristocratical principles, and avowed admiration and attachment to Sparta, contributed in no small degree. In the year 461 b.c. he was banished by ostracism, and a new party came into power, headed by Ephialtes and Pericles, then a young man just rising into eminence. These men were pledged to hostility to Sparta, and bound to gratify the poorer citizens, by whose favour they had been raised to direct the councils of the republic.
To preserve that favour it was necessary that the present administration should not be eclipsed by the splendour and beneficence of the preceding one. But the means of the leaders were far inferior; nor from their private fortunes could they feed the hungry, and provide splendid places of resort for the tenants of hovels, as their magnificent predecessor had done. The only resource was to bribe the public with its own money; and with this view a law was proposed, by which the issues from the treasury, which hitherto had been controlled by the court of Areopagus, were placed under the immediate command of the people. The next step was to allow pay for attendance at the general assemblies and in the courts of justice, in each of which a considerable number of dicasts[77] sat, taken indiscriminately from the citizens. This measure was introduced and carried by Pericles, or, according to another statement, there was before a small sum allowed for these services, which was increased by him. The total number of persons who thus derived no small part of their subsistence from the public funds was very considerable; for in one alone of the courts fifty persons was the smallest number that ever sat, and the usual number was from two to five hundred. Sometimes two or more courts were consolidated, and then from one to two thousand persons sat in judgment at once. The effect of this law was twofold: it secured the popularity of those who had procured such a boon for the poor; it secured also a large attendance of the poor in the general assembly, for attendance there secured a sufficient provision for the wants of the day; and as stated assemblies occurred four times in thirty-five days, the payments for these and other extraordinary attendances, with public feasts, and sacrifices, and duty in the courts, formed nearly a subsistence for those who had neither property nor employment.
Not less careful was Pericles to gratify national pride by the splendour of his public improvements. In this respect he far outdid even Cimon, and stamped on Athens that character of magnificence in respect of its public buildings, which has made it the wonder and admiration of strangers even to this day. One of the long walls, the temple of Eleusis, and the Odeon or musical theatre, were erected under his direction; and, above all, the Parthenon was built, and adorned with those celebrated sculptures, part of which, after the lapse of twenty-three centuries, have found a new resting-place in our national Museum. The Propylæa, or gateway leading into the Acropolis, was another of his works, “which are the more wonderful because they were completed in so short a time, and have lasted so long; and because, while perfect, each of them was redolent of antiquity in respect of beauty, and yet for grace and vigour it seems to this day as if each of them were newly finished; there resides in them such an ever-springing freshness, which prevents the injuries of time being felt, as if each of the said works were tenanted by an ever youthful spirit, a soul never waxing old, which still retains them in that vigour.”[78]
To meet the expenses of a line of policy such as we have described, the mere revenue of Attica was of course insufficient; but the impost originally contributed by the confederate Greeks towards avenging the aggression of Persia was rigorously exacted, and applied without scruple to the private purposes of the state and its governors. It was matter of great complaint throughout Greece, that the money raised for the common benefit of the nation should be perverted to the luxury of an overweening and oppressive city; and the political enemies of Pericles made it a constant subject of invective in the public assemblies, that the people of Athens were openly defamed for this act of robbery, and that it was “an overgreat injury to the rest of Greece, and too manifest a token of tyranny, to behold before their eyes how we do employ the money which they were enforced to gather for the maintenance of the wars against the barbarian, in gilding, building, and setting forth our city like a glorious woman, all to be gauded with gold and precious stones; and how we do make images and build temples of wonderful and infinite charge. Pericles replied to the contrary, that the Athenians were not bound to make any account of this money unto their friends and allies, considering that they fought for their safety, and that they kept the barbarian far from Greece, without troubling them to set out any one man, horse, or ship of theirs, the money only excepted, which is no more theirs that paid it than theirs that received it, so they bestow it to that use they received it for. And their city being already well furnished with all things necessary for the wars, it was good reason they should bestow the surplus of their treasure in things which, in time to come, would make their fame eternal. Moreover, he said, that whilst they continue building, they should be presently rich, by reason of the diversity of work of all sorts, and other things which they should have need of; and to compass these things better, and to set them in hand, all manner of artificers and workmen that would labour, should be set on work. So should all the citizens and townsmen receive pay and wages of the common treasure, and the city by this means should be greatly beautified, and much more able to maintain itself.”[79]
As a defence the reply is valueless, but it shows how small a portion of reason or justice is sufficient to supply a pretext when backed by power, and points out the certain, and not unmerited, lot of those nations which give the sword out of their own hand, and trust to wealth to purchase defenders. Farther ground for discontent might be found in the increased amount of the tax, which, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, had been raised from four hundred and sixty talents, the sum levied by Aristides b.c. 477, to about six hundred talents.
To this splendour Pericles seems to have been led alike by policy and taste. The Athenians were naturally a vain people, and their self-complacency was nurtured by the unequalled rapidity with which their fame and power had increased. Every thing which ministered to that fame became precious in their eyes, and a good instance of this is given by Plutarch, if we may trust the accuracy of that gossiping and amusing historian. “Pericles, perceiving that his enemies did still cry out upon him, that he did vainly waste and consume the common treasure, and that he bestowed on the works the whole revenue of the city, one day, when the people were assembled together, he asked before them all whether they thought that the cost bestowed were too much. The people answered him, a great deal too much. Well, then, said he, the charges shall be mine (if you think good), and none of yours; provided that no man’s name be written on the works, but mine only. When Pericles had said so, the people cried out aloud, that they would none of that (either that they wondered at the greatness of his mind, or else for that they would not give him the only honour and praise to have done so sumptuous and stately works), but willed him that he should see them finished at the common charges, without sparing for any cost.”[80] “In his political course,” says Professor Heeren, “Pericles was guided by a simple principle, to be the first in his own city, while he secured it the first place among cities.” Hence in arts, as well as in arms, he wished it to obtain pre-eminence; and, instead of following the narrow policy of Sparta, which discouraged in every way the approach of strangers, he endeavoured to make his city the resort and wonder of the world, and to adopt every means of turning the wealth of other nations into her treasury; and he was himself singularly qualified to direct the public taste, as well as the public arms, not merely by natural talents, but by a more refined education than, when he was young, generally fell to the lot of a Greek citizen. The celebrated philosopher Anaxagoras was his preceptor in youth; the musician Damon, characterized by Socrates as possessing every quality which could fit a man to take charge of youth, and said to be deeply versed in matters of government, was his friend and associate in riper years; in the company of the celebrated Aspasia he is said to have found advantages, as well as fascinations, such as no other society in Greece could supply; and his personal accomplishments were set off by a style of oratory which, in polish and eloquence, surpassed all that had yet been heard, and singularly caught the minds of the Athenian people.
In all this there was much to refine and elevate the national taste; there was also much which injured the national character in more vital points, as we may now easily trace in the consequences. Few Athenians had recourse to any species of labour, except military service, to gain a subsistence. Of those who had no means, the number, the just claims, and the expectations were alike increased by the Persian invasion; and the events which followed it, first a long and profitable war, secondly the consecutive administrations of Cimon and Pericles, who lavished, the one his own, the other the national resources, to keep the poor in good humour, were well calculated to foster their natural dislike to labour, and equally natural desire to enjoy the produce of other men’s industry. The result was, that a people jealous to excess of its own supreme authority, and braggart of its own exertions in the cause of freedom, became a harsh and oppressive ally in name, but sovereign in reality (our language affords no term to express accurately the relation in which the dependant, ὑπήκοος, stood to the leading state), ruthlessly vindictive in punishing every attempt to shake off its yoke. “Had Athens commanded no resources but its own, it would have been impossible to support in idleness so large a portion of the people; but the subject states were liable to unlimited extortion. Any proposed exaction, however oppressive, was eagerly caught at by the swarm of idlers who looked for maintenance and pleasure to the lavish expenditure of the state, and their number and frequent attendance in the assembly would generally ensure the success of any measure which united them in its favour. Hence arose a crew of profligate demagogues, who obtained a paramount influence by being ready to propose, at any cost of justice, humanity, and ultimate advantage, whatever promised to the multitude an immediate gain, and who frequently turned their ascendancy to profit, by taking presents from the allies, as the price of forbearance and protection. The populace drew both gain and pleasure from the submission of the allies; the pride of each was flattered, in proportion to his personal insignificance, by the homage paid him as a citizen of the sovereign republic; their hopes of individual enjoyment were all bound up in the continuance and extension of the empire, and the passions thence resulting were studiously exasperated by unprincipled orators: what wonder, then, that we shall henceforth find their sway as jealous as oppressive; and, in case of revolt, their vengeance as cruel as their rule had been unjust!”[81]
Another cause of the deterioration of the Athenian character is to be found in the growth of a new system of education about this period, and the introduction of new accomplishments, new teachers, and new principles. The brief notice of this subject, which we shall introduce, is principally derived from the only English writer who has treated it in a popular manner, and who is well calculated to discuss the question by his intimate acquaintance with Aristophanes and the Socratic writings, though his vehement dislike of all democracies, and especially the Athenian, is such as to make his testimony on some points rather suspicious; we allude to Mr. Mitchell, the translator of Aristophanes. It is to be premised, however, that these are matters on which great difference of opinion exists among scholars; and that many persons among those best qualified to judge take a very different view of the subject from that here given.
Before the age of Pericles, the education of an Athenian of rank and wealth consisted in obtaining, through the instructions of the grammarians, an intimate acquaintance with the writings of the older poets, especially Homer; after which he passed into the hands of the music-master, and the keeper of the gymnasium, or school of bodily exercises. The two latter were the most important branches of education, not so much for purposes of display, as for the effect which they were held to possess in the formation of character. To those whose curiosity prompted some research into the secrets of nature, the schools of the philosophers offered abundant gratification. There they might hear treated the most abstruse topics of physical and metaphysical science; the nature of God, the nature and origin of the universe and its most striking phenomena, the nature of man, were all discussed with a zealous interest and attention on the part of the pupils, which appears to have led them into no small extravagances.[82] But some years previous to the Peloponnesian war, as the cause of democracy gained ground, and the minds of all men were fired by the examples of Themistocles, who had risen from the people, or Pericles, who had risen on the people, to fame and power, a species of knowledge more suited to practical purposes was eagerly sought after, and a class of teachers soon rose up to supply the want. These persons, the most distinguished of them not natives of Athens, were called sophists, and they boldly undertook to supply all deficiencies, and qualify their pupils for any station whatever which they might be called on to fill, or for any pursuit by which they hoped to rise to eminence. They professed to have acquired, and to be able to teach, all knowledge; and one of them, by way of advertising his own merits, appeared at the Olympic games with a stock of literary samples of various sorts, tragedy, epics, &c.; and further, with the announcement that every article of use or ornament about his person was the work of his own hands. This folly, if it were all, might excite a smile; but these men laid claim to a more mischievous power, that of being able to confound truth and falsehood, and to show how either of two contradictory propositions might be proved with equal certitude and success, according to the interest or inclination of the disputant. Under a democracy, eloquence was the readiest path to power; and eloquence, they taught, was of all acquisitions the most important; that eloquence, and skill in word-splitting, by which, as Plato has farcically described it in the Euthydemus, it could be shown that a man could speak and be silent at the same time; that it was equally easy to a professor of this art to prove that a man knew or did not know the same thing, or that he both knew it and did not know it at the same time; and by which the sophists, in the above-named dialogue, prove to the satisfaction of their fellow-disputant, “that he had a father—that he had no father—that a dog was his father—that his father was everybody’s father—that his mother had a family equally numerous, in which horses, pigs, and crab-fish were all common brethren, with the same rights and ties of consanguinity and affection.”[83] This was the eloquence by which, according to the grave professions of Protagoras, the founder of the school, the worse might be made to appear the better cause, and right and wrong confounded; so that alike in the agora, in the courts of justice, or in social converse, no standard of right or wrong could be set up, except that which the convenience of the speaker should dictate. “As the first step towards this important acquisition, the pupil was carefully initiated in all the niceties of that language, whose mazes and subtleties sometimes led from premises apparently simple to conclusions which looked more like legerdemain than the effects of sober reasoning. He was then told that there were two sorts of persuasion; that by the one an auditor’s mind was imbued with actual knowledge, by the other with a knowledge consisting only in belief and opinion; and when he was asked which of these two persuasions rhetoric was meant to create in the courts of law and the public assemblies, he was answered, belief of knowledge without actuality; for rhetoric was defined to be the art of enabling an ignorant man to speak among the ignorant, with more appearance of knowledge than the man who was actually master of the subject under discussion.”[84] Having imparted this valuable faculty to the pupil, the next step was to teach him to use it fearlessly, undeterred by any visionary considerations of right or wrong, of justice or injustice. With this view it was asserted, “that might makes right; that the property of the weak belongs to the strong; and that, whatever the law might say to the contrary, the voice of nature taught and justified the doctrine.” They proclaimed that the only wise persons were those who aspired to the direction of public affairs, and who were stopped in this attempt by no other consideration than the measure of their capacity; and they added that those who, without any command over themselves, could acquire a command over others, had a right to have their superior talent rewarded by possessing more than others. For temperance, self-restraint, and a dominion over the passions and desires, were set down by them as marks of dulness and stupidity, only calculated to excite derision. They asserted, with confidence, that nature itself made it both just and honourable, that he who wished to live happily, ought to permit his desires as large a sway as possible, and in no way to restrain them: they bargained indeed for the possession of courage and political wisdom in their scholars; but once in possession of these, a man, in their opinion, was at liberty to administer to his passions in all other respects, and to leave nothing unindulged which could contribute to their gratification. They declared that those who attached disgrace to this doctrine, did it only from a sense of shame at wanting the means to gratify their own passions; and their praises of moderation they asserted to be mere hypocrisy, and to proceed solely from the wish of enslaving better men than themselves. With the same power of self-indulgence, they maintained, these assertors of moderation would pursue the same path as those who were now the objects of their animadversions; they concluded therefore that it was ridiculous in those who were above restraint, to lay a restraint upon themselves, and they proclaimed, in the most unqualified terms, that luxury, licentiousness, and intemperance were alone virtue and happiness, and that all other declarations were mere specious pretences, compacts contrary to nature, the triflings of men who deserved no manner of consideration.
“The sacred principles of justice were treated with a contempt equally daring. They often began with the bold definition that justice itself was nothing but the interest of the strongest; that the masterpiece of injustice was to appear a man of virtue without being really one; and they proceeded to prove (and in a town like Athens the demonstration perhaps was not difficult), that, on all occasions, the just man came off worse than the unjust. In the mutual compacts of private life, they said, the just man is always a loser, and the unjust a gainer. In public affairs, when a contribution is to be made, the one with equal property always contributes less than the other; whereas, when a disbursement is to be made, the former receives nothing, and the latter is a considerable gainer. If both are in office, one mischief at least happens to the just man; his private affairs go to ruin from being neglected, and the public give him no redress, merely because he is a just man; he becomes odious besides to his relations and friends, because he will not, for their service, overstep the bounds of right; whereas, to the unjust man the very reverse, said they, is the case. To paint this more forcibly, they drew the picture of a tyranny, where the unjust man was in the highest state of felicity, the voluntarily just in the lowest state of depression; and they proved that the former, though outraging every rule of humanity, was loaded with praises, not only those who were conscious of his crimes, but even those who had suffered by them, considering him as a happy man; for if injustice, added they, is ever blamed, the blame proceeds not from the fear of committing it, but from the fear of suffering by it. Improving upon this notion, they declared that to be able to commit an injury was in itself a blessing, to receive an injury was in itself an evil; but that there was more of ill in receiving, than there was of good in committing, and that to set this right was the origin and object of legislation. Justice therefore they considered as the medium between the greatest of blessings, that of committing wrong with impunity, and the greatest evil, which consists in not being able to revenge an injury received; and hence, according to them, was derived the common attachment to justice, not as being a blessing in itself, but because persons being in a capacity to hurt others, oblige them to consider it as such; for he, they continued, who has power in his hands, and is really a man, would never submit to such a convention: it would indeed be complete folly to do so. Give the good man and the bad man, they triumphantly concluded, power to act as they pleased; present them with rings like that of Gyges, which should make them invisible, and what will be the consequence? The virtuous man would soon be found treading the very same path as the villain, and if he should be so ‘adamantine’ as to act otherwise, he would be considered as the most pitiful and stupid of his species. In public indeed every one would eulogise his virtues; but this would be done with a design of deceiving others, and in the fear of risking fortune if a contrary course were pursued.”[85]
The character and doctrines of the sophists have been made known to us chiefly by the writings of an inveterate enemy, and it is expedient therefore to collect any testimony which may confirm the picture, such as it is given by Plato. Such corroboration will be found in the unexceptionable testimony of the contemporary historian. His description of the state of morals in Athens at the time of the plague, is sufficient proof that some powerful influence had been at work to root out every principle of justice and morality; and we may trace in it the natural consequences of the sophistical tenets, as they are delivered by Socrates, through the medium of Plato. We shall hereafter have occasion to quote this celebrated passage, and can therefore do no more here than refer to it.
The new-formed empire of Athens had lasted some forty years, and had allowed time for those changes, which we have endeavoured to describe, to exert their seductive influence on the national character, when circumstances, which it is not necessary here to relate, led to a quarrel between the Athenians and Corinthians, the latter being a principal member of that confederacy consisting chiefly of Peloponnesian states of which Sparta was the head. At their instance a congress of the confederates was held at Sparta, in which they complained loudly of their injuries, and reproved the sluggishness of the Spartan councils, which had suffered so many Grecian cities to be deprived of independence. Finally it was resolved that the treaties then existing between Sparta and her allies, and the Athenians, were broken, and that a subsequent meeting should be held, to consider the expediency of declaring war. This took place in the autumn of the year 432 b.c.
War, however, was not immediately declared. Several embassies passed between Sparta and Athens, partly for the sake of procrastinating a contest for which neither party felt quite ready, partly to produce discord and embarrass the Athenian government. One of these was commissioned to require that due atonement should be made for the murder of Cylon, to avert the anger of the gods from Greece. The Lacedæmonians required that all persons descended from the guilty family should be banished, in the number of whom Pericles was included by his maternal descent, not from any hope of obtaining his banishment, but with the view of throwing on him the odium of involving the city in war on his own account. He eluded the difficulty by reminding them of a similar instance of impiety committed by the Spartan government, which had never been atoned for, and bidding them first make due expiation for that. A second and a third embassy were sent, without producing any hopes of a reconciliation; and when the people were convoked to consider of the last of these, Pericles addressed the assembly in a speech urging it decidedly to reject the haughty demands of the Peloponnesians, which were merely the forerunners of more extensive requisitions. He proceeded to encourage them by contrasting their own wealth with the scanty revenue of the Peloponnesians; a poverty which prevented the latter from engaging in long and distant wars, and which had kept them unacquainted with maritime affairs. He admitted that in one battle they might be victorious over all the rest of Greece; but asserted that they would neither expect nor be able to support a long and expensive war. He explained the manner in which he proposed to conduct the contest which he advised, abandoning Attica to the ravage of the enemy, and taking ample satisfaction by a series of predatory excursions round the coast of Peloponnesus. “It is a very different matter,” he continued, “that the whole of Attica, or that a small part even of Peloponnesus, should be laid waste. For our antagonists can find no other territory except by fighting for it; whereas for us there is abundance, both on the continent and in islands; for the dominion of the sea is a mighty thing; and consider, if we were islanders, who would be so secure from attack as ourselves? Now then we should aim at placing ourselves as nearly in that situation as possible, caring not for houses and lands, but looking to the safety of our city and the sovereignty of the sea, and taking care not to be led by passion to give battle to the Peloponnesians, who are much our superiors in number. For if we beat them, they will fight again in equal force; but if we are beaten, we lose our allies, wherein lies our strength. Let our lament be for men’s bodies, not for houses and lands, for these do not get men, but men get them.”[86]
The Athenians approved of what Pericles had said, and answered, that they would do nothing upon compulsion; but were willing to submit any disputes to arbitration, according to the terms of existing treaties. And the Lacedæmonians departed home, and sent no more embassies.
This was the origin of that long and injurious struggle to Greece, commonly called the Peloponnesian war, in the illustration of which these pages will be chiefly employed. It has obtained a celebrity greater than even its own intrinsic importance might have gained for it, in consequence of having been narrated by a contemporary historian, to whose accuracy, impartiality, and profound knowledge, generation after generation have borne one never-varying testimony; and who has well fulfilled the lofty task which he proposed to himself, of leaving, as his memorial, no collection of idle stories, written to gain the favour of the moment, but an everlasting record of those things which have been, and which will again, according to the nature of man, recur in something of a similar form.[87]
Hostilities commenced in the year b.c. 431. The Lacedæmonian league comprised all the states of Peloponnesus, except Argos and Achaia, which were neutral; and nearly all northern Greece, except Thessaly and Acarnania, which sided with Athens. The Athenian confederacy contained, besides those two states, Corcyra, Zacynthus, and the newly established city of Naupactus, held by the Messenians, who had revolted from Sparta. Chios and Lesbos furnished ships of war, and were treated as allies; the other islands of the Ægean, except Melos and Thera, together with the Greek cities on the coast of Asia and of Thrace, except a few which had revolted, were tributary subjects, deprived of their ships of war, and subject to the uncontrolled will of the Athenian people. Of the means of Athens at this time, we have a tolerably minute account given by Thucydides. The annual revenue paid by the allies has been stated at about six hundred talents, besides other sources, such as port-dues and taxes. It is much to the credit of Pericles’ administration, that, notwithstanding his lavish expenditure, there was in the treasury at this time six thousand talents of coined money, besides a quantity of uncoined gold and silver, in public and private dedications, vessels of sacrifice and divine service, and Persian spoils, amounting to five hundred talents more. There was also much valuable property in the temples, which they might use if necessary, and especially the golden ornaments and drapery of the statue of Minerva in the Parthenon, made of the purest metal, and forty talents in weight, which could be taken off without injury to the statue, and replaced when circumstances should admit of it. The military force of the state amounted to 13,000 heavy-armed foot, fit for foreign service; 16,000 of the same class, comprising the old and young, and foreigners resident in Athens, who were exempt from foreign service, but liable to be called upon for home duty; 1200 cavalry; 1600 archers; and 300 triremes fit to put to sea. Reckoning the crew of a trireme at 200 men, the crews of 130, which number put to sea at once in the first year of the war, would amount to 26,000 men.
Pericles. From a marble bust in the British Museum.
In accordance with the policy recommended by Pericles, and at his suggestion, the Athenians abandoned the whole of Attica to the ravages of the enemy. They removed into the city their families and household furniture, even to the wooden framework of their houses; their live stock was transported to Eubœa and the neighbouring islands. “Very grievous was this removal to them, because they had always been used, the greater part of them, to reside in the country.”[88] This preference of a country life the historian traces to the earliest times; the result no doubt of that superior security of life and property which induced the Athenians, at an earlier period than other Greeks, to desist from wearing arms as part of their usual dress. It was the more grievous, he adds, because after the Median war, in which all Attica was laid waste with fire and sword, their establishments had been newly restored; and, we may conjecture, with new comforts and elegances. Nor was the inconvenience confined to quitting the homes to which they had been long attached. The introduction of such a multitude within the walls of a single city led, of course, to serious inconvenience. Some few had town houses, or found a home with friends and relations; others set up the framework of their houses or constructed habitations as they could in the unoccupied spaces within the walls; and the poorest sheltered themselves in the towers of the walls, or in the temples, or wherever a place of refuge could be found. Even that space of ground which was called the Pelasgian,[89] of which an oracle had declared that it was “better uninhabited,” was not kept unoccupied by the superstition; “and the oracle,” says Thucydides, “seems to me to have turned out contrary to what was supposed, for the threatened evil came not by reason of the forbidden indwelling, but the necessity of the indwelling came through the war.”[90] Those evils, of which we have before spoken, arising from a large, indigent, and idle population, with little employment, except in state affairs, and little subsistence, except from the public treasury, must of course have been greatly increased by such an addition to the inhabitants of the city.