About the same time as the troubles of Korkyra occurred, Nikias, the Athenian general, conducted an armament against the rocky island of Minôa, which lay at the mouth of the harbor of Megara, and was occupied by a Megarian fort and garrison. The narrow channel, which separated it from the Megarian port of Nisæa, and formed the entrance of the harbor, was defended by two towers projecting out from Nisæa, which Nikias attacked and destroyed by means of battering machines from his ships. He thus cut off Minôa from communication on that side with the Megarians, and fortified it on the other side, where it communicated with the mainland by a lagoon bridged over with a causeway. Minôa, thus becoming thoroughly insulated, was more completely fortified and made an Athenian possession; since it was eminently convenient to keep up an effective blockade against the Megarian harbor, which the Athenians had hitherto done only from the opposite shore of Salamis.[469]

Though Nikias, son of Nikeratus, had been for some time conspicuous in public life, and is said to have been more than once stratêgus along with Periklês, this is the first occasion on which Thucydidês introduces him to our notice. He was now one of the stratêgi, or generals of the commonwealth, and appears to have enjoyed, on the whole, a greater and more constant personal esteem than any citizen of Athens, from the present time down to his death. In wealth and in family he ranked among the first class of Athenians: in political character, Aristotle placed him, together with Thucydidês son of Melêsias and Theramenês, above all other names in Athenian history,—seemingly even above Periklês.[470] Such a criticism, from Aristotle, deserves respectful attention, though the facts before us completely belie so lofty an estimate. It marks, however, the position occupied by Nikias in Athenian politics, as the principal person of what maybe called the oligarchical party, succeeding Kimon and Thucydidês, and preceding Theramenês. In looking to the conditions under which this party continued to subsist, we shall see that, during the interval between Thucydidês (son of Melêsias) and Nikias, the democratical forms had acquired such confirmed ascendency, that it would not have suited the purpose of any politician to betray evidence of positive hostility to them, prior to the Sicilian expedition, and the great embarrassment in the foreign relations of Athens which arose out of that disaster. After that change, the Athenian oligarchs became emboldened and aggressive, so that we shall find Theramenês among the chief conspirators in the revolution of the Four Hundred: but Nikias represents the oligarchical party in its previous state of quiescence and torpidity, accommodating itself to a sovereign democracy, and existing in the form of common sentiment rather than of common purposes. And it is a remarkable illustration of the real temper of the Athenian people, that a man of this character, known as an oligarch but not feared as such, and doing his duty sincerely to the democracy, should have remained until his death the most esteemed and influential man in the city. He was a man of a sort of even mediocrity, in intellect, in education, and in oratory: forward in his military duties, and not only personally courageous in the field, but also competent as a general under ordinary circumstances:[471] assiduous in the discharge of all political duties at home, especially in the post of stratêgus, or one of the ten generals of the state, to which he was frequently chosen and rechosen. Of the many valuable qualities combined in his predecessor Periklês, the recollection of whom was yet fresh in the Athenian mind, Nikias possessed two, on which, most of all his influence rested,—though, properly speaking, that influence belongs to the sum total of his character, and not to any special attributes in it: First, he was thoroughly incorruptible, as to pecuniary gains,—a quality so rare in Grecian public men of all the cities, that when a man once became notorious for possessing it, he acquired a greater degree of trust than any superiority of intellect could have bestowed upon him: next, he adopted the Periklêan view as to the necessity of a conservative or stationary foreign policy for Athens, and of avoiding new acquisitions at a distance, adventurous risks, or provocation to fresh enemies. With this important point of analogy, there were at the same time material differences between them, even in regard to foreign policy. Periklês was a conservative, resolute against submitting to loss or abstraction of empire, as well as refraining from aggrandizement: Nikias was in policy faint-hearted, averse to energetic effort for any purpose whatever, and disposed, not only to maintain peace, but even to purchase it by considerable sacrifices. Nevertheless, he was the leading champion of the conservative party of his day, always powerful at Athens: and as he was constantly familiar with the details and actual course of public affairs, capable of giving full effect to the cautious and prudential point of view, and enjoying unqualified credit for honest purposes,—his value as a permanent counsellor was steadily recognized, even though in particular cases his counsel might not be followed.

Besides these two main points, which Nikias had in common with Periklês, he was perfect in the use of those minor and collateral modes of standing well with the people, which that great man had taken little pains to practise. While Periklês attached himself to Aspasia, whose splendid qualities did not redeem, in the eyes of the public, either her foreign origin or her unchastity, the domestic habits of Nikias appear to have been strictly conformable to the rules of Athenian decorum. Periklês was surrounded by philosophers, Nikias by prophets,—whose advice was necessary both as a consolation to his temperament, and as a guide to his intelligence under difficulties; one of them was constantly in his service and confidence, and his conduct appears to have been sensibly affected by the difference of character between one prophet and another,[472] just as the government of Louis the Fourteenth, and other Catholic princes, has been modified by the change of confessors. To a life thus rigidly decorous and ultra-religious—both eminently acceptable to the Athenians—Nikias added the judicious employment of a large fortune with a view to popularity. Those liturgies—or expensive public duties undertaken by rich men each in his turn, throughout other cities of Greece as well as in Athens—which fell to his lot were performed with such splendor, munificence, and good taste, as to procure for him universal encomiums; and so much above his predecessors as to be long remembered and extolled. Most of these liturgies were connected with the religious service of the state, so that Nikias, by his manner of performing them, displayed his zeal for the honor of the gods at the same time that he laid up for himself a store of popularity. Moreover, the remarkable caution and timidity—not before an enemy, but in reference to his own fellow-citizens—which marked his character, rendered him preëminently scrupulous as to giving offence or making personal enemies. While his demeanor towards the poorer citizens generally was equal and conciliating, the presents which he made were numerous, both to gain friends and to silence assailants. We are not surprised to hear that various bullies, whom the comic writers turn to scorn, made their profit out of this susceptibility,—but most assuredly Nikias as a public man, though he might occasionally be cheated out of money, was greatly assisted by the reputation which he thus acquired.

The expenses unavoidable in such a career, combined with strict personal honesty, could not have been defrayed except by another quality, which ought not to count as discreditable to Nikias, though in this too he stood distinguished from Periklês. He was a careful and diligent money-getter; a speculator in the silver mines of Laurium, and proprietor of one thousand slaves, whom he let out for work in them, receiving a fixed sum per head for each: the superintending slaves who managed the details of this business were men of great ability and high pecuniary value.[473] Most of the wealth of Nikias was held in this form, and not in landed property. Judging by what remains to us of the comic authors, this must have been considered as a perfectly gentlemanlike way of making money: for while they abound with derision of the leather-dresser Kleon, the lamp-maker Hyperbolus, and the vegetable-selling mother to whom Euripidês owes his birth, we hear nothing from them in disparagement of the slave-letter Nikias. The degree to which the latter was thus occupied with the care of his private fortune, together with the general moderation of his temper, made him often wish to abstract himself from public duty: but such unambitious reluctance, rare among the public men of the day, rather made the Athenians more anxious to put him forward and retain his services. In the eyes of the Pentakosiomedimni and the Hippeis, the two richest classes in Athens, he was one of themselves,—and on the whole, the best man, as being so little open to reproach or calumny, whom they could oppose to the leather-dressers and lamp-makers who often out-talked them in the public assembly. The hoplites, who despised Kleon,—and did not much regard even the brave, hardy, and soldierlike Lamachus, because he happened to be poor,[474]—respected in Nikias the union of wealth and family with honesty, courage, and carefulness in command. The maritime and trading multitude esteemed him as a decorous, honest, religious gentleman, who gave splendid choregies, treated the poorest men with consideration, and never turned the public service into a job for his own profit,—who, moreover, if he possessed no commanding qualities, so as to give to his advice imperative and irresistible authority, was yet always worthy of being consulted, and a steady safeguard against public mischief. Before the fatal Sicilian expedition, he had never commanded on any very serious or difficult enterprise, but what he had done had been accomplished successfully; so that he enjoyed the reputation of a fortunate as well as a prudent commander.[475] He appears to have acted as proxenus to the Lacedæmonians at Athens; probably by his own choice, and among several others.

The first half of the political life of Nikias,—after the time when he rose to enjoy full consideration in Athens, being already of mature age,—was spent in opposition to Kleon; the last half, in opposition to Alkibiadês. To employ terms which are not fully suitable to the Athenian democracy, but which yet bring to view the difference intended to be noted better than any others, Nikias was a minister or ministerial man, often actually exercising and always likely to exercise official functions,—Kleon was a man of the opposition, whose province it was to supervise and censure official men for their public conduct. We must divest these words of that sense which they are understood to carry in English political life,—a standing parliamentary majority in favor of one party: Kleon would often carry in the public assembly resolutions, which his opponents Nikias and others of like rank and position,—who served in the posts of stratêgus, ambassador, and other important offices designated by the general vote, were obliged against their will to execute. In attaining such offices they were assisted by the political clubs, or established conspiracies (to translate the original literally), among the leading Athenians, to stand by each other both for acquisition of office and for mutual insurance under judicial trial. These clubs, or hetæries, must without doubt have played a most important part in the practical working of Athenian politics, and it is much to be regretted that we are possessed of no details respecting them. We know that in Athens they were thoroughly oligarchical in disposition,[476]—while equality, or something near to it, in rank and position must have been essential to the social harmony of the members: in some towns, it appears that such political associations existed under the form of gymnasia,[477] for the mutual exercise of the members, or of syssitia for joint banquets. At Athens they were numerous, and doubtless not habitually in friendship with each other, since the antipathies among different oligarchical men were exceedingly strong, and the union brought about between them at the time of the Four Hundred arose only out of common desire to put down the democracy, and lasted but a little while. But the designation of persons to serve in the capacity of stratêgus and other principal offices greatly depended upon them,—as well as the facility of passing through that trial of accountability to which every man was liable after his year of office. Nikias, and men generally of his rank and fortune, helped by these clubs, and lending help in their turn, composed what may be called the ministers, or executive individual functionaries of Athens: the men who acted, gave orders to individual men as to specific acts, and saw to the execution of that which the senate and the public assembly resolved. Especially in regard to the military and naval force of the city, so large and so actively employed at this time, the powers of detail possessed by the stratêgi must have been very great and essential to the safety of the state.

While Nikias was thus in what may be called ministerial function, Kleon was not of sufficient importance to attain the same, but was confined to the inferior function of opposition: we shall see in the coming chapter how he became as it were promoted, partly by his own superior penetration, partly by the dishonest artifice and misjudgment of Nikias and other opponents, in the affair of Sphakteria. But his vocation was now to find fault, to censure, to denounce; his theatre of action was the senate, the public assembly, the dikasteries; his principal talent was that of speech, in which he must unquestionably have surpassed all his contemporaries. The two gifts which had been united in Periklês—superior capacity for speech as well as for action—were now severed, and had fallen, though both in greatly inferior degree, the one to Nikias, the other to Kleon. As an opposition-man, fierce and violent in temper, Kleon was extremely formidable to all acting functionaries; and from his influence in the public assembly, he was doubtless the author of many important positive measures, thus going beyond the functions belonging to what is called opposition. But though the most effective speaker in the public assembly, he was not for that reason the most influential person in the democracy: his powers of speech in fact, stood out the more prominently, because they were found apart from that station, and those qualities which were considered, even at Athens, all but essential to make a man a leader in political life. To understand the political condition of Athens at this time, it has been necessary to take this comparison between Nikias and Kleon, and to remark, that though the latter might be a more victorious speaker, the former was the more guiding and influential leader; the points gained by Kleon were all noisy and palpable, sometimes however, without doubt, of considerable moment,—but the course of affairs was much more under the direction of Nikias.

It was during the summer of this year, the fifth of the war,—B.C. 427, that the Athenians began operations on a small scale in Sicily; probably contrary to the advice both of Nikias and Kleon, neither of them seemingly favorable to these distant undertakings. I reserve, however, the series of Athenian measures in Sicily—which afterwards became the turning-point of the fortunes of the state—for a department by themselves. I shall take them up separately, and bring them down to the Athenian expedition against Syracuse, when I reach the date of that important event.

During the autumn of the same year, the epidemic disorder, after having intermitted for some time, resumed its ravages at Athens, and continued for one whole year longer, to the sad ruin both of the strength and the comfort of the city. And it seems that this autumn, as well as the ensuing summer, were distinguished by violent atmospheric and terrestrial disturbance. Numerous earthquakes were experienced at Athens, in Eubœa, in Bœotia, especially near Orchomenus. Sudden waves of the sea and unexampled tides were also felt on the coast of Eubœa and Lokris, and the islands of Atalantê and Peparêthus; the Athenian fort and one of the two guard-ships at Atalantê were partially destroyed. The earthquakes produced one effect favorable to Athens; they deterred the Lacedæmonians from invading Attica. Agis, king of Sparta, had already reached the isthmus for that purpose; but the repeated earthquakes were looked upon as an unfavorable portent, and the scheme was abandoned.[478]

These earthquakes, however, were not considered as calculated to deter the Lacedæmonians from the foundation of Herakleia, a new colony near the strait of Thermopylæ. On this occasion, we hear of a branch of the Greek population not before mentioned during the war. The coast immediately north of the strait of Thermopylæ was occupied by the three subdivisions of the Malians,—Paralii, Hierês, and Trachinians. These latter, immediately adjoining Mount Œta on its north side,—as well as the Dorians, the little tribe properly so called, which was accounted the primitive hearth of the Dorians generally, who joined the same mountain-range on the south,—were both of them harassed and plundered by the predatory mountaineers, probably Ætolians, on the high lands between them. At first, the Trachinians were disposed to throw themselves on the protection of Athens; but not feeling sufficiently assured as to the way in which she would deal with them, they joined with the Dorians in claiming aid from Sparta: in fact, it does not appear that Athens, possessing naval superiority only, and being inferior on land, could have given them effective aid. The Lacedæmonians eagerly embraced the opportunity, and determined to plant a strong colony in this tempting situation: there was wood in the neighboring regions for ship-building,[479] so that they might hope to acquire a naval position for attacking the neighboring island of Eubœa, while the passage of troops against the subject-allies of Athens in Thrace, would also be facilitated; the impracticability of such passage had forced them, three years before, to leave Potidæa to its fate. A considerable body of colonists, Spartans and Lacedæmonian Periœki, was assembled under the conduct of three Spartan œkists,—Leon, Damagon, and Alkidas; the latter we are to presume, though Thucydidês does not say so, was the same admiral who had met with such little success in Ionia and at Korkyra. Proclamation was farther made to invite the junction of all other Greeks as colonists, excepting by name Ionians, Achæans, and some other tribes not here specified. Probably the distinct exclusion of the Achæans must have been rather the continuance of ancient sentiment than dictated by any present reasons; since the Achæans were not now pronounced enemies of Sparta. A number of colonists, stated as not less than ten thousand, flocked to the place, having confidence in the stability of the colony under the powerful protection of Sparta; and a new town, of large circuit, was built and fortified under the name of Herakleia;[480] not far from the site of Trachis, about two miles and a quarter from the nearest point of the Maliac gulf, but about double that distance from the strait of Thermopylæ. Near to the latter, and for the purpose of keeping effective possession of it, a port, with dock and accommodation for shipping, was constructed.

A populous city, established under Lacedæmonian protection in this important post, alarmed the Athenians, and created much expectation in every part of Greece: but the Lacedæmonian œkists were harsh and unskilful in their management, and the Thessalians, to whom the Trachinian territory was tributary, considered the colony as an encroachment upon their soil. Anxious to prevent its increase, they harassed it with hostilities from the first moment, while the Œtæan assailants were not idle: and Herakleia, thus pressed from without, and misgoverned within, dwindled down from its original numbers and promise, barely maintaining its existence.[481] We shall find it in later times, however, revived, and becoming a place of considerable importance.

The main Athenian armament of this summer, consisting of sixty triremes, under Nikias, undertook an expedition against the island of Melos. Melos and Thera, both inhabited by ancient colonists from Lacedæmon, had never been from the beginning, and still refused to be, members of the Athenian alliance, or subjects of the Athenian empire. They thus stood out as exceptions to all the other islands in the Ægean, and the Athenians thought themselves authorized to resort to constraint and conquest; believing themselves entitled to command over all the islands. They might indeed urge, and with considerable plausibility, that the Melians now enjoyed their share of the protection of the Ægean from piracy, without contributing at all to the cost of it: but considering the obstinate reluctance and strong Lacedæmonian prepossessions of the Melians, who had taken no part in the war, and given no ground of offence to Athens, the attempt to conquer them by force could hardly be justified even as a calculation of gain and loss, and was a mere gratification to the pride of power in carrying out what, in modern days, we should call the principle of maritime empire. Melos and Thera formed awkward corners, which defaced the symmetry of a great proprietor’s field;[482] and the former ultimately entailed upon Athens the heaviest of all losses,—a deed of blood which deeply dishonored her annals. On this occasion, Nikias visited the island with his fleet, and after vainly summoning the inhabitants, ravaged the lands, but retired without undertaking a siege. He then sailed away, and came to Orôpus, on the northeast frontier of Attica, bordering on Bœotia: the hoplites on board his ships landed in the night, and marched into the interior of Bœotia, to the vicinity of Tanagra. They were here met, according to signal raised, by a military force from Athens, which marched thither by land; and the joint Athenian army ravaged the Tanagræan territory, gaining an insignificant advantage over its defenders. On retiring, Nikias reassembled his armament, sailed northward along the coast of Lokris with the usual ravages, and returned home without effecting anything farther.[483]

About the same time that he started, thirty other Athenian triremes, under Demosthenês and Proklês, had been sent round Peloponnesus to act upon the coast of Akarnania. In conjunction with the whole Akarnanian force, except the men of Œniade,—with fifteen triremes from Korkyra, and some troops from Kephallênia and Zakynthus,—they ravaged the whole territory of Leukas, both within and without the isthmus, and confined the inhabitants to their town, which was too strong to be taken by anything but a wall of circumvallation and a tedious blockade. And the Akarnanians, to whom the city was especially hostile, were urgent with Demosthenês to undertake this measure forthwith, since the opportunity might not again recur, and success was nearly certain.

But this enterprising officer committed the grave imprudence of offending them on a matter of great importance, in order to attack a country of all others the most impracticable,—the interior of Ætolia. The Messenians of Naupaktus, who suffered from the depredations of the neighboring Ætolian tribes, inflamed his imagination by suggesting to him a grand scheme of operations,[484] more worthy of the large force which he commanded than the mere reduction of Leukas. The various tribes of Ætolians,—rude, brave, active, predatory, and unrivalled in the use of the javelin, which they rarely laid out of their hands,—stretched across the country from between Parnassus and Œta to the eastern bank of the Achelôus. The scheme suggested by the Messenians was, that Demosthenês should attack the great central Ætolian tribes,—the Apodôti, Ophioneis, and Eurytânes: if they were conquered, all the remaining continental tribes between the Ambrakian gulf and Mount Parnassus might be invited or forced into the alliance of Athens,—the Akarnanians being already included in it. Having thus got the command of a large continental force,[485] Demosthenês contemplated the ulterior scheme of marching at the head of it on the west of Parnassus, through the territory of the Ozolian Lokrians,—inhabiting the north of the Corinthian gulf, friendly to Athens, and enemies to the Ætolians, whom they resembled both in their habits and in their fighting,—until he arrived at Kytinium, in Doris, in the upper portion of the valley of the river Kephisus. He would then easily descend that valley into the territory of the Phocians, who were likely to join the Athenians if a favorable opportunity occurred, but who might at any rate be constrained to do so. From Phocis, the scheme was to invade from the northward the conterminous territory of Bœotia, the great enemy of Athens: which might thus perhaps be completely subdued, if assailed at the same time from Attica. Any Athenian general, who could have executed this comprehensive scheme, would have acquired at home a high and well-merited celebrity. But Demosthenês had been ill-informed, both of the invincible barbarians and the pathless country comprehended under the name of Ætolia: some of the tribes spoke a language scarcely intelligible to Greeks, and even eat their meat raw, while the country has even down to the present time remained not only unconquered, but untraversed, by an enemy in arms.

Demosthenês accordingly retired from Leukas, in spite of the remonstrance of the Akarnanians, who not only could not be induced to accompany him, but went home in visible disgust, He then sailed with his other forces—Messenians, Kephallenians, and Zakynthians—to Œneon, in the territory of the Ozolian Lokrians, a maritime township on the Corinthian gulf, not far eastward of Naupaktus,—where his army was disembarked, together with three hundred epibatæ (or marines) from the triremes,—including on this occasion, what was not commonly the case on shipboard,[486] some of the choice hoplites, selected all from young men of the same age, on the Athenian muster-roll. Having passed the night in the sacred precinct of Zeus Nemeus at Œneon, memorable as the spot where the poet Hesiod was said to have been slain, he marched early in the morning, under the guidance of the Messenian Chromon, into Ætolia; on the first day he took Potidania, on the second Krokyleium, on the third Teichium,—all of them villages unfortified and undefended, for the inhabitants abandoned them and fled to the mountains above. He was here inclined to halt and wait the junction of the Ozolian Lokrians, who had engaged to invade Ætolia at the same time, and were almost indispensable to his success, from their familiarity with Ætolian warfare and similarity of weapons. But the Messenians again persuaded him to advance without delay into the interior, in order that the villages might be separately attacked and taken before any collective force could be gathered together: and Demosthenês was so encouraged by having as yet encountered no resistance, that he advanced to Ægitium, which he also found deserted, and captured without opposition.

Here however was the term of his good fortune. The mountains round Ægitium were occupied not only by the inhabitants of that village, but also by the entire force of Ætolia, collected even from the distant tribes Bomiês and Kalliês, who bordered on the Maliac gulf. The invasion of Demosthenês had become known beforehand to the Ætolians, who not only forewarned all their tribes of the approaching enemy, but also sent ambassadors to Sparta and Corinth to ask for aid.[487] However, they showed themselves fully capable of defending their own territory, without foreign aid: and Demosthenês found himself assailed, in his position at Ægitium, on all sides at once, by these active highlanders, armed with javelins, pouring down from the neighboring hills. Not engaging in any close combat, they retreated when the Athenians advanced forward to charge them,—resuming their aggression the moment that the pursuers, who could never advance far in consequence of the ruggedness of the ground, began to return to the main body. The small number of bowmen along with Demosthenês for some time kept their unshielded assailants at bay; but the officer commanding the bowmen was presently slain, and the stock of arrows became nearly exhausted; and what was still worse, Chromon, the Messenian, the only man who knew the country, and could serve as guide, was slain also. The bowmen became thus either ineffective or dispersed; while the hoplites exhausted themselves in vain attempts to pursue and beat off an active enemy, who always returned upon them, and in every successive onset thinned and distressed them more and more. At length the force of Demosthenês was completely broken, and compelled to take flight; but without beaten roads, without guides, and in a country not only strange to them, but impervious from continual mountain, rock, and forest. Many of them were slain in the flight by pursuers, superior not less in rapidity of movement than in knowledge of the country: some even lost themselves in the forest, and perished miserably in flames kindled around them by the Ætolians: and the fugitives were at length reassembled at Œneon, near the sea, with the loss of Proklês, the colleague of Demosthenês in command, as well as of one hundred and twenty hoplites, among the best-armed and most vigorous in the Athenian muster-roll.[488] The remaining force was soon transported back from Naupaktus to Athens, but Demosthenês remained behind, being too much afraid of the displeasure of his countrymen to return at such a moment. It is certain that his conduct was such as justly to incur their displeasure; and that the expedition against Ætolia, alienating an established ally and provoking a new enemy, had been conceived with a degree of rashness which nothing but the unexpected favor of fortune could have counterbalanced.

The force of the new enemy whom his unsuccessful attack had raised into activity, soon made itself felt. The Ætolian envoys despatched to Sparta and Corinth found it easy to obtain the promise of a considerable force to join them in an expedition against Naupaktus: and about the month of September, a body of three thousand Peloponnesian hoplites, including five hundred from the newly-founded colony of Herakleia, was assembled at Delphi, under the command of Eurylochus, Makarius, and Menedemus. Their road of march to Naupaktus lay through the territory of the Ozolian Lokrians, whom they proposed either to gain over or to subdue. With Amphissa, the largest Lokrian township, and in the immediate neighborhood of Delphi, they had little difficulty,—for the Amphissians were in a state of feud with their neighbors on the other side of Parnassus, and were afraid that the new armament might become the instrument of Phocian antipathy against them. On the very first application they joined the Spartan alliance, and gave hostages for their fidelity to it: moreover, they persuaded many other Lokrian petty villages—among others the Myoneis, who were masters of the most difficult pass on the road—to do the same. Eurylochus received from these various townships reinforcements for his army, as well as hostages for their fidelity, whom he deposited at Kytinium in Doris: and he was thus enabled to march through all the territory of the Ozolian Lokrians without resistance; except from Œneon and Eupalion, both which places he took by force. Having arrived in the territory of Naupaktus, he was there joined by the full force of the Ætolians; and their joint efforts, after laying waste all the neighborhood, captured the Corinthian colony of Molykreion, which had become subject to the Athenian empire.[489]

Naupaktus, with a large circuit of wall and thinly defended, was in the greatest danger, and would certainly have been taken, had it not been saved by the efforts of the Athenian Demosthenês, who had remained there ever since the unfortunate Ætolian expedition. Apprized of the coming march of Eurylochus, he went personally to the Akarnanians, and persuaded them to send a force to aid in the defence of Naupaktus: for a long time they turned a deaf ear to his solicitations, in consequence of the refusal to blockade Leukas, but they were at length induced to consent. At the head of one thousand Akarnanian hoplites, Demosthenês threw himself into Naupaktus; and Eurylochus, seeing that the town had thus been placed out of the reach of attack, abandoned all his designs upon it,—marching farther westward to the neighboring territories of Ætolia, Kalydon, Pleuron, and Proschium, near the Achelôus and the borders of Akarnania. The Ætolians, who had come down to join him for the common purpose of attacking Naupaktus, here abandoned him and retired to their respective homes. But the Ambrakiots, rejoiced to find so considerable a Peloponnesian force in their neighborhood, prevailed upon him to assist them in attacking the Amphilochian Argos as well as Akarnania; assuring him that there was now a fair prospect of bringing the whole of the population of the mainland, between the Ambrakian and Corinthian gulfs, under the supremacy of Lacedæmon. Having persuaded Eurylochus thus to keep his forces together and ready, they themselves with three thousand Ambrakiot hoplites invaded the territory of the Amphilochian Argos, and captured the fortified hill of Olpæ immediately bordering on the Ambrakian gulf, about three miles from Argos itself: this hill had been in former days employed by the Akarnanians as a place for public judicial congress of the whole nation.[490]

This enterprise, communicated forthwith to Eurylochus, was the signal for movement on both sides. The Akarnanians marched with their whole force to the protection of Argos, and occupied a post called Krênæ in the Amphilochian territory, hoping to be able to prevent Eurylochus from effecting his junction with the Ambrakiots at Olpæ. They at the same time sent urgent messages to Demosthenês at Naupaktus, and to the Athenian guard-squadron of twenty triremes under Aristotelês and Hierophon, entreating their aid in the present need, and inviting Demosthenês to act as their commander. They had forgotten their displeasure against him arising out of his recent refusal to blockade at Leukas,—for which they probably thought that he had been sufficiently punished by his disgrace in Ætolia; while they knew and esteemed his military capacity. In fact, the accident whereby he had been detained at Naupaktus, now worked fortunately for them as well as for him: it secured to them a commander whom all of them respected, obviating the jealousies among their own numerous petty townships,—it procured for him the means of retrieving his own reputation at Athens. Demosthenês, not backward in seizing this golden opportunity, came speedily into the Ambrakian gulf with the twenty Athenian triremes, conducting two hundred Messenian hoplites and sixty Athenian bowmen. He found the whole Akarnanian force concentrated at the Amphilochian Argos, and was named general along with the Akarnanian generals, but in reality enjoying the whole direction of the operations.

He found also the whole of the enemy’s force, both the three thousand Ambrakiot hoplites and the Peloponnesian division under Eurylochus, already united and in position at Olpæ, about three miles off. For Eurylochus, as soon as he was apprized that the Ambrakiots had reached Olpæ, broke up forthwith his camp at Proschium in Ætolia, knowing that his best chance of traversing the hostile territory of Akarnania consisted in celerity: the whole Akarnanian force, however, had already gone to Argos, so that his march was unopposed through that country. He crossed the Achelôus, marched westward of Stratus, through the Akarnanian townships of Phytia, Medeon, and Limnæa, then quitting both Akarnania and the direct road from Akarnania to Argos, he struck rather eastward into the mountainous district of Thyamus, in the territory of the Agræans, who were enemies of the Akarnanians. From hence he descended at night into the territory of Argos, and passed unobserved under cover of the darkness between Argos itself, and the Akarnanian force at Krênæ; so as to join in safety the three thousand Ambrakiots at Olpæ; to their great joy,—for they had feared that the enemy at Argos and Krênæ would have arrested his passage; and feeling their force inadequate to contend alone, they had sent pressing messages home to demand large reinforcements for themselves and their own protection.[491]

Demosthenês thus found an united and formidable enemy, superior in number to himself, at Olpæ, and conducted his troops from Argos and Krênæ to attack them. The ground was rugged and mountainous, and between the two armies lay a steep ravine which neither liked to be the first to pass, so that they lay for five days inactive. If Herodotus had been our historian, he would probably have ascribed this delay to unfavorable sacrifices (which may probably have been the case), and would have given us interesting anecdotes respecting the prophets on both sides; but the more positive and practical genius of Thucydidês merely acquaints us, that on the sixth day both armies put themselves in order of battle,—both probably tired of waiting. The ground being favorable for ambuscade, Demosthenês hid in a bushy dell four hundred hoplites and light-armed, so that they might spring up suddenly in the midst of the action upon the Peloponnesian left, which outflanked his right. He was himself on the right with the Messenians and some Athenians, opposed to Eurylochus on the left of the enemy: the Akarnanians, with the Amphilochian akontists, or darters, occupied his left, opposed to the Ambrakiot hoplites: Ambrakiots and Peloponnesians were, however, intermixed in the line of Eurylochus, and it was only the Mantineans who maintained a separate station of their own towards the left centre. The battle accordingly began, and Eurylochus with his superior numbers was proceeding to surround Demosthenês, when on a sudden the men in ambush rose up and set upon his rear. A panic seized his men, and they made no resistance worthy of their Peloponnesian reputation: they broke and fled, while Eurylochus, doubtless exposing himself with peculiar bravery in order to restore the battle, was early slain. Demosthenês, having near him his best troops, pressed them vigorously and their panic communicated itself to the troops in the centre, so that all were put to flight and pursued to Olpæ. On the right of the line of Eurylochus, the Ambrakiots, the most warlike Greeks in the Epirotic regions, completely defeated the Akarnanians opposed to them, and carried their pursuit even as far as Argos. So complete, however, was the victory gained by Demosthenês over the remaining troops, that these Ambrakiots had great difficulty in fighting their way back to Olpæ, which was not accomplished without severe loss, and late in the evening. Among all the beaten troops, the Mantineans were those who best maintained their retreating order.[492] The loss in the army of Demosthenês was about three hundred: that of the opponents much greater, but the number is not specified.

Of the three Spartan commanders, two, Eurylochus and Makarius, had been slain: the third, Menedæus, found himself beleaguered both by sea and land,—the Athenian squadron being on guard along the coast. It would seem, indeed, that he might have fought his way to Ambrakia, especially as he would have met the Ambrakiot reinforcement coming from the city. But whether this were possible or not, the commander, too much dispirited to attempt it, took advantage of the customary truce granted for burying the dead, to open negotiations with Demosthenês and the Akarnanian generals, for the purpose of obtaining an unmolested retreat. This was peremptorily refused: but Demosthenês (with the consent of the Akarnanian leaders) secretly intimated to the Spartan commander and those immediately around him, together with the Mantineans and other Peloponnesian troops,—that if they chose to make a separate and surreptitious retreat, abandoning their comrades, no opposition would be offered: for he designed by this means, not merely to isolate the Ambrakiots, the great enemies of Argos and Akarnania, along with the body of miscellaneous mercenaries who had come under Eurylochus, but also to obtain the more permanent advantage of disgracing the Spartans and Peloponnesians in the eyes of the Epirotic Greeks, as cowards and traitors to military fellowship. The very reason which prompted Demosthenês to grant a separate facility of escape, ought to have been imperative with Menedæus and the Peloponnesians around him, to make them spurn it with indignation: yet such was their anxiety for personal safety, that this disgraceful convention was accepted, ratified, and carried into effect forthwith. It stands alone in Grecian history, as a specimen of separate treason in officers, to purchase safety for themselves by abandoning those under their command. Had the officers been Athenian, it would have been doubtless quoted as an example of the pretended faithlessness of democracy: but as it was the act of a Spartan commander in conjunction with many leading Peloponnesians, we can only remark upon it as a farther manifestation of that intra-Peloponnesian selfishness, and carelessness of obligation towards extra-Peloponnesian Greeks, which we found so lamentably prevalent during the invasion of Xerxes; in this case indeed heightened by the fact that the men deserted were fellow-Dorians and fellow-soldiers, who had just fought in the same ranks.

As soon as the ceremony of burying the dead had been completed, Menedæus, and the Peloponnesians who were protected by this secret convention, stole away slyly and in small bands under pretence of collecting wood and vegetables: on getting to a little distance, they quickened their pace and made off,—much to the dismay of the Ambrakiots, who ran after them and tried to overtake them. The Akarnanians pursued, and their leaders had much difficulty in explaining to them the secret convention just concluded. Nor was it without some suspicions of treachery, and even personal hazard, from their own troops, that they at length caused the fugitive Peloponnesians to be respected; while the Ambrakiots, the most obnoxious of the two to Akarnanian feeling, were pursued without any reserve, and two hundred of them were slain before they could escape into the friendly territory of the Agræans.[493] To distinguish Ambrakiots from Peloponnesians, similar in race and dialect, was, however, no easy task, and much dispute arose in individual cases.

Unfairly as this loss fell upon Ambrakia, a far more severe calamity was yet in store for her. The large reinforcement from the city, which had been urgently invoked by the detachment at Olpæ, started in due course as soon as it could be got ready, and entered the territory of Amphilochia about the time when the battle of Olpæ was fought, but ignorant of that misfortune, and hoping to arrive soon enough to stand by their friends. Their march was made known to Demosthenês, on the day after the battle, by the Amphilochians; who, at the same time, indicated to him the best way of surprising them in the rugged and mountainous road along which they had to march, at the two conspicuous peaks called Idomenê, immediately above a narrow pass leading farther on to Olpæ. It was known beforehand, by the line of march of the Ambrakiots, that they would rest for the night at the lower of these two peaks, ready to march through the pass on the next morning. On that same night, a detachment of Amphilochians, under direction from Demosthenês, seized the higher of the two peaks; while that commander himself, dividing his forces into two divisions, started from his position at Olpæ in the evening after supper. One of these divisions, having the advantage of Amphilochian guides in their own country, marched by an unfrequented mountain road to Idomenê; the other, under Demosthenês himself, went directly through the pass leading from Idomenê to Olpæ. After marching all night, they reached the camp of the Ambrakiots a little before daybreak,—Demosthenês himself with his Messenians in the van. The surprise was complete; the Ambrakiots were found still lying down and asleep, while even the sentinels, uninformed of the recent battle,—hearing themselves accosted in the Doric dialect by the Messenians, whom Demosthenês had placed in front for that express purpose, and not seeing very clearly in the morning twilight, mistook them for some of their own fellow-citizens coming back from the other camp. The Akarnanians and Messenians thus fell among the Ambrakiots sleeping and unarmed, and without any possibility of resistance. Large numbers of them were destroyed on the spot, and the remainder fled in all directions among the neighboring mountains, none knowing the roads and the country; it was the country of the Amphilochians, subjects of Ambrakia, but subjects averse to their condition, and now making use of their perfect local knowledge and light-armed equipment, to inflict a terrible revenge on their masters. Some of the Ambrakiots became entangled in ravines,—others fell into ambuscades laid by the Amphilochians. Others again, dreading most of all to fall into the hands of the Amphilochians, barbaric in race as well as intensely hostile in feeling, and seeing no other possibility of escaping them, swam off to the Athenian ships cruising along the shore. There were but a small proportion of them who survived to return to Ambrakia.[494]

The complete victory of Idomenê, admirably prepared by Demosthenês, was achieved with scarce any loss: and the Akarnanians, after erecting their trophy, despoiled the enemy’s dead and carried off the arms thus taken to Argos.

On the morrow they were visited by a herald, coming from those Ambrakiots who had fled into the Agræan territory, after the battle of Olpæ, and the subsequent pursuit. He came with the customary request from defeated soldiers, for permission to bury their dead who had fallen in that pursuit. Neither he, nor those from whom he came, knew anything of the destruction of their brethren at Idomenê,—just as these latter had been ignorant of the defeat at Olpæ; while, on the other hand, the Akarnanians in the camp, whose minds were full of the more recent and capital advantage at Idomenê, supposed that the message referred to the men slain in that engagement. The numerous panoplies just acquired at Idomenê lay piled up in the camp, and the herald, on seeing them, was struck with amazement at the size of the heap, so much exceeding the number of those who were missing in his own detachment. An Akarnanian present asked the reason of his surprise, and inquired how many of his comrades had been slain,—meaning to refer to the slain at Idomenê. “About two hundred,” the herald replied. “Yet these arms here show, not that number, but more than a thousand men.” “Then they are not the arms of those who fought with us.” “Nay, but they are; if ye were the persons who fought yesterday at Idomenê.” “We fought with no one yesterday: it was the day before yesterday, in the retreat.” “O, then ye have to learn, that we were engaged yesterday with these others, who were on their march as reinforcement from the city of Ambrakia.”

The unfortunate herald now learned for the first time that the large reinforcement from his city had been cut to pieces. So acute was his feeling of mingled anguish and surprise, that he raised a loud cry of woe, and hurried away at once, without saying another word; not even prosecuting his request about the burial of the dead bodies,—which appears on this fatal occasion to have been neglected.[495]

His grief was justified by the prodigious magnitude of the calamity, which Thucydidês considers to have been the greatest that afflicted any Grecian city during the whole war prior to the peace of Nikias; so incredibly great, indeed, that though he had learned the number slain, he declines to set it down, from fear of not being believed,—a scruple which we, his readers, have much reason to regret. It appears that nearly the whole adult military population of Ambrakia was destroyed, and Demosthenês was urgent with the Akarnanians to march thither at once: had they consented, Thucydidês tells us positively that the city would have surrendered without a blow.[496] But they refused to undertake the enterprise, fearing, according to the historian, that the Athenians at Ambrakia would be more troublesome neighbors to them than the Ambrakiots. That this reason was operative, we need not doubt: but it can hardly have been either the single, or even the chief, reason; for, had it been so, they would have been equally afraid of Athenian coöperation in the blockade of Leukas, which they had strenuously solicited from Demosthenês, and had quarrelled with him for refusing. Ambrakia was less near to them than Leukas, and in its present exhausted state, inspired less fear: but the displeasure arising from the former refusal of Demosthenês had probably never been altogether appeased, nor were they sorry to find an opportunity of mortifying him in a similar manner.

In the distribution of the spoil, three hundred panoplies were first set apart as the perquisite of Demosthenês: the remainder were then distributed, one-third for the Athenians, the other two-thirds among the Akarnanian townships. The immense reserve, personally appropriated to Demosthenês, enables us to make some vague conjecture as to the total loss of Ambrakiots. The fraction of one-third, assigned to the Athenian people, must have been, we may imagine, six times as great, and perhaps even in larger proportion, than the reserve of the general: for the latter was at that time under the displeasure of the people, and anxious above all things to regain their favor,—an object which would be frustrated rather than promoted, if his personal share of the arms were not greatly disproportionate to the collective claim of the city. Reasoning upon this supposition, the panoplies assigned to Athens would be eighteen hundred, and the total of Ambrakiot slain, whose arms became public property, would be five thousand four hundred. To which must be added some Ambrakiots killed in their flight from Idomenê by the Amphilochians, in dells, ravines, and by-places: probably those Amphilochians, who slew them, would appropriate the arms privately, without bringing them into the general stock. Upon this calculation, the total number of Ambrakiot slain in both battles and both pursuits, would be about six thousand: a number suitable to the grave expressions of Thucydidês, as well as to his statements, that the first detachment which marched to Olpæ was three thousand strong, and that the message sent home invoked as reinforcement the total force of the city. How totally helpless Ambrakia had become, is still more conclusively proved by the fact that the Corinthians were obliged shortly afterwards to send by land a detachment of three hundred hoplites for its defence.[497]

The Athenian triremes soon returned to their station at Naupaktus, after which a convention was concluded between the Akarnanians and Amphilochians on the one side, and the Ambrakiots and Peloponnesians—who had fled after the battle of Olpæ into the territory of Salynthius and the Agræi—on the other, insuring a safe and unmolested egress to both of the latter.[498] With the Ambrakiots a more permanent pacification was effected: the Akarnanians and Amphilochians concluded with them a peace and alliance for one hundred years, on condition that they should surrender all the Amphilochian territory and hostages in their possession, and should bind themselves to furnish no aid to Anaktorium, then in hostility to the Akarnanians. Each party, however, maintained its separate alliance,—the Ambrakiots with the Peloponnesian confederacy, the Akarnanians with Athens: it was stipulated that the Akarnanians should not be required to assist the Ambrakiots against Athens, nor the Ambrakiots to assist the Akarnanians against the Peloponnesian league; but against all other enemies, each engaged to lend aid to the other.[499]

To Demosthenês personally, the events on the coast of the Ambrakian gulf proved a signal good fortune, well-earned indeed by the skill which he had displayed. He was enabled to atone for his imprudence in the Ætolian expedition, and to reëstablish himself in the favor of the Athenian people. He sailed home in triumph to Athens, during the course of the winter, with his reserved present of three hundred panoplies, which acquired additional value from the accident, that the larger number of panoplies, reserved out of the spoil for the Athenian people, were captured at sea, and never reached Athens. Accordingly, those brought by Demosthenês were the only trophy of the victory, and as such were deposited in the Athenian temples, where Thucydidês mentions them as still existing at the time when he wrote.[500]

It was in the same autumn that the Athenians were induced by an oracle to undertake the more complete purification of the sacred island of Delos. This step was probably taken to propitiate Apollo, since they were under the persuasion that the terrible visitation of the epidemic was owing to his wrath. And as it was about this period that the second attack of the epidemic, after having lasted a year, disappeared,—many of them probably ascribed this relief to the effect of their pious cares at Delos. All the tombs in the island were opened; the dead bodies were then exhumed, and reinterred in the neighboring island of Rheneia: and orders were given that for the future no deaths and no births should take place in the sacred island. Moreover, the ancient Delian festival—once the common point of meeting and solemnity for the whole Ionic race, and celebrated for its musical contests, before the Lydian and Persian conquests had subverted the freedom and prosperity of Ionia—was now renewed. The Athenians celebrated the festival with its accompanying matches, even the chariot-race, in a manner more splendid than had ever been known in former times: and they appointed a similar festival to be celebrated every fourth year. At this period they were excluded both from the Olympic and the Pythian games, which probably made the revival of the Delian festival more gratifying to them. The religious zeal and munificence of Nikias was strikingly displayed at Delos.[501]