The eighth year of the war, on which we now touch, presents events of a more important and decisive character than any of the preceding. In reviewing the preceding years, we observe that though there is much fighting, with hardship and privation inflicted on both sides, yet the operations are mostly of a desultory character, not calculated to determine the event of the war. But the capture of Sphakteria and its prisoners, coupled with the surrender of the whole Lacedæmonian fleet, was an event full of consequences and imposing in the eyes of all Greece. It stimulated the Athenians to a series of operations, larger and more ambitious than anything which they had yet conceived; directed, not merely against Sparta in her own country, but also to the reconquest of that ascendency in Megara and Bœotia which they had lost on or before the thirty years’ truce. On the other hand, it intimidated so much both the Lacedæmonians, the revolted Chalkidic allies of Athens in Thrace, and Perdikkas, king of Macedonia, that between them the expedition of Brasidas, which struck so serious a blow at the Athenian empire, was concerted. This year is thus the turning-point of the war. If the operations of Athens had succeeded, she would have regained nearly as great a power as she enjoyed before the thirty years’ truce: but it happened that Sparta, or rather the Spartan Brasidas, was successful, gaining enough to neutralize all the advantages derived by Athens from the capture of Sphakteria.
The first enterprise undertaken by the Athenians in the course of the spring was against the island of Kythêra, on the southern coast of Laconia. It was inhabited by Lacedæmonian Periœki, and administered by a governor, and garrison of hoplites, annually sent thither. It was the usual point of landing for merchantmen from Libya and Egypt; and as it lay very near to Cape Malea, immediately over against the gulf of Gythium,—the only accessible portion of the generally inhospitable coast of Laconia,—the chance that it might fall into the hands of an enemy was considered as so menacing to Sparta, that some politicians are said to have wished the island at the bottom of the sea.[589] Nikias, in conjunction with Nikostratus and Autoklês, conducted thither a fleet of sixty triremes, with two thousand Athenian hoplites, some few horsemen, and a body of allies, mainly Milesians. There were in the island two towns,—Kythêra and Skandeia: the former having a lower town close to the sea, fronting Cape Malea, and an upper town on the hill above; the latter, seemingly, on the south or west coast. Both were attacked at the same time by order of Nikias; ten triremes and a body of Milesian[590] hoplites disembarked and captured Skandeia; while the Athenians landed at Kythêra, and drove the inhabitants out of the lower town into the upper, where they speedily capitulated. A certain party among them had indeed secretly invited the coming of Nikias, through which intrigue easy terms were obtained for the inhabitants. Some few men, indicated by the Kytherians in intelligence with Nikias, were carried away as prisoners to Athens: but the remainder were left undisturbed, and enrolled among the tributary allies under obligation to pay four talents per annum; an Athenian garrison being placed at Kythêra for the protection of the island. From hence Nikias employed seven days in descents and inroads upon the coast, near Helos, Asinê, Aphrodisia, Kotyrta, and elsewhere. The Lacedæmonian force was disseminated in petty garrisons, which remained each for the defence of its own separate post, without uniting to repel the Athenians, so that there was only one action, and that of little importance, which the Athenians deemed worthy of a trophy.
In returning home from Kythêra, Nikias first ravaged the small strip of cultivated land near Epidaurus Limêra, on the rocky eastern coast of Laconia, and then attacked the Æginetan settlement at Thyrea, the frontier strip between Laconia and Argolis. This town and district had been made over by Sparta to the Æginetans, at the time when they were expelled from their own island by Athens, in the first year of the war. The new inhabitants, finding the town too distant from the sea[591] for their maritime habits, were now employed in constructing a fortification close on the shore; in which work a Lacedæmonian detachment under Tantalus, on guard in that neighborhood, was assisting them. When the Athenians landed, both Æginetans and Lacedæmonians at once abandoned the new fortification. The former, with the commanding officer, Tantalus, occupied the upper town of Thyrea; but the Lacedæmonian troops, not thinking it tenable, refused to take part in the defence, and retired to the neighboring mountains, in spite of urgent entreaty from the Æginetans. The Athenians, immediately after landing, marched up to the town of Thyrea, and carried it by storm, burning or destroying everything within it: all the Æginetans were either killed or made prisoners, and even Tantalus, disabled by his wounds, became prisoner also. From hence the armament returned to Athens, where a vote was taken as to the disposal of the prisoners. The Kytherians brought home were distributed for safe custody among the dependent islands: Tantalus was retained along with the prisoners from Sphakteria; but a harder fate was reserved for the Æginetans; they were all put to death, victims to the long-standing apathy between Athens and Ægina. This cruel act was nothing more than a strict application of admitted customs of war in those days: had the Lacedæmonians been the victors, there can be little doubt that they would have acted with equal rigor.[592]
The occupation of Kythêra, in addition to Pylus, by an Athenian garrison, following so closely upon the capital disaster in Sphakteria, produced in the minds of the Spartans feelings of alarm and depression such as they had never before experienced. Within the course of a few short months their position had completely changed from superiority and aggression abroad to insult and insecurity at home. They anticipated nothing less than incessant foreign attacks on all their weak points, with every probability of internal defection, from the standing discontent of the Helots: nor was it unknown to them, probably, that even Kythêra itself had been lost partly through betrayal. The capture of Sphakteria had caused peculiar sensations among the Helots, to whom the Lacedæmonians had addressed both appeals and promises of emancipation, in order to procure succor for their hoplites while blockaded in the island; and if the ultimate surrender of these hoplites had abated the terrors of Lacedæmonian prowess throughout all Greece, this effect had been produced to a still greater degree among the oppressed Helots. A refuge at Pylus, and a nucleus which presented some possibility of expanding into regenerated Messenia, were now before their eyes; while the establishment of an Athenian garrison at Kythêra opened a new channel of communication with the enemies of Sparta, so as to tempt all the Helots of daring temper to stand forward as liberators of their enslaved race.[593] The Lacedæmonians, habitually cautious at all times, felt now as if the tide of fortune had turned decidedly against them, and acted with confirmed mistrust and dismay, confining themselves to measures strictly defensive, and organizing a force of four hundred cavalry, together with a body of bowmen, beyond their ordinary establishment.
But the precaution which they thought it necessary to take in regard to the Helots, affords the best measure of their apprehensions at the moment, and exhibits, indeed, a refinement of fraud and cruelty rarely equalled in history. Wishing to single out from the general body such as were most high-couraged and valiant, the ephors made proclamation, that those Helots, who conceived themselves to have earned their liberty by distinguished services in war, might stand forward to claim it. A considerable number obeyed the call; probably many who had undergone imminent hazards during the preceding summer, in order to convey provisions to the blockaded soldiers in Sphakteria.[594] They were examined by the government, and two thousand of them were selected as fully worthy of emancipation; which was forthwith bestowed upon them in public ceremonial, with garlands, visits to the temples, and the full measure of religious solemnity. The government had now made the selection which it desired; presently every man among these newly-enfranchized Helots was made away with, no one knew how.[595] A stratagem at once so perfidious in the contrivance, so murderous in the purpose, and so complete in the execution, stands without parallel in Grecian history,—we might almost say, without a parallel in any history. It implies a depravity far greater than the rigorous execution of a barbarous customary law against prisoners of war or rebels, even in large numbers. The ephors must have employed numerous instruments, apart from each other, for the performance of this bloody deed; yet it appears that no certain knowledge could be obtained of the details; a striking proof of the mysterious efficiency of this Council of Five, surpassing even that of the Council of Ten at Venice, as well as of the utter absence of public inquiry or discussion.
It was while the Lacedæmonians were in this state of uneasiness at home, that envoys reached them from Perdikkas of Macedonia and the Chalkidians of Thrace, entreating aid against Athens; who was considered likely, in her present tide of success, to resume aggressive measures against them. There were, moreover, other parties, in the neighboring cities[596] subject to Athens, who secretly favored the application, engaging to stand forward in open revolt as soon as any auxiliary force should arrive to warrant their incurring the hazard. Perdikkas (who had on his hands a dispute with his kinsman Arrhibæus, prince of the Lynkestæ-Macedonians, which he was anxious to be enabled to close successfully) and the Chalkidians offered at the same time to provide the pay and maintenance, as well as to facilitate the transit, of the troops who might be sent to them; and what was of still greater importance to the success of the enterprise, they specially requested that Brasidas might be invested with the command.[597] He had now recovered from his wounds received at Pylus, and his reputation for adventurous valor, great as it was from positive desert, stood out still more conspicuously, because not a single other Spartan had as yet distinguished himself. His other great qualities, apart from personal valor, had not yet been shown, for he had never been in any supreme command. But he burned with impatience to undertake the operation destined for him by the envoys; although at this time it must have appeared so replete with difficulty and danger, that probably no other Spartan except himself would have entered upon it with the smallest hopes of success. To raise up embarrassments for Athens, in Thrace, was an object of great consequence to Sparta, while she also obtained an opportunity of sending away another large detachment of her dangerous Helots. Seven hundred of these latter were armed as hoplites and placed under the orders of Brasidas, but the Lacedæmonians would not assign to him any of their own proper forces. With the sanction of the Spartan name, with seven hundred Helot hoplites, and with such other hoplites as he could raise in Peloponnesus by means of the funds furnished from the Chalkidians, Brasidas prepared to undertake this expedition, alike adventurous and important.
Had the Athenians entertained any suspicion of his design, they could easily have prevented him from ever reaching Thrace. But they knew nothing of it until he had actually joined Perdikkas, nor did they anticipate any serious attack from Sparta, in this moment of her depression, much less an enterprise far bolder than any which she had ever been known to undertake. They were now elate with hopes of conquests to come on their own part, their affairs being so prosperous and promising that parties favorable to their interests began to revive, both in Megara and in Bœotia; while Hippokratês and Demosthenês, the two chief stratêgi for the year, were men of energy, well qualified both to project and execute military achievements.
The first opportunity presented itself in regard to Megara. The inhabitants of that city had been greater sufferers by the war than any other persons in Greece: they had been the chief cause of bringing down the war upon Athens, and the Athenians revenged upon them all the hardships which they themselves endured from the Lacedæmonian invasion. Twice in every year they laid waste the Megarid, which bordered upon their own territory; and that too with such destructive hands throughout its limited extent, that they intercepted all subsistence from the lands near the town, at the same time keeping the harbor of Nisæa closely blocked up. Under such hard conditions the Megarians found much difficulty in supplying even the primary wants of life.[598] But their case had now, within the last few months, become still more intolerable by an intestine commotion in the city, ending in the expulsion of a powerful body of exiles, who seized and held possession of Pegæ, the Megarian port in the gulf of Corinth. Probably imports from Pegæ had been their chief previous resource against the destruction which came on them from the side of Athens; so that it became scarcely possible to sustain themselves, when the exiles in Pegæ not only deprived them of this resource, but took positive part in harassing them. These exiles were oligarchical, and the government in Megara had now become more or less democratical: but the privations in the city presently reached such a height, that several citizens began to labor for a compromise, whereby the exiles in Pegæ might be readmitted. It was evident to the leaders in Megara that the bulk of the citizens could not long sustain the pressure of enemies from both sides, but it was also their feeling that the exiles in Pegæ, their bitter political rivals, were worse enemies than the Athenians, and that the return of these exiles would be a sentence of death to themselves. To prevent this counter-revolution, they opened a secret correspondence with Hippokratês and Demosthenês, engaging to betray both Megara and Nisæa to the Athenians; though Nisæa, the harbor of Megara, about one mile from the city, was a separate fortress occupied by a Peloponnesian garrison, and by them exclusively, as well as the Long Walls, for the purpose of holding Megara fast to the Lacedæmonian confederacy.[599]
The scheme for surprise was concerted, and what is more remarkable, in the extreme publicity of all Athenian affairs, and in a matter to which many persons must have been privy, was kept secret, until the instant of execution. A large Athenian force, four thousand hoplites and six hundred cavalry, was appointed to march at night by the high road through Eleusis to Megara: but Hippokratês and Demosthenês themselves went on shipboard from Peiræus to the island of Minôa, which was close against Nisæa, and had been for some time under occupation by an Athenian garrison. Here Hippokratês concealed himself with six hundred hoplites, in a hollow space out of which brick earth had been dug, on the mainland opposite to Minôa, and not far from the gate in the Long Wall which opened near the junction of that wall with the ditch and wall surrounding Nisæa; while Demosthenês, with some light-armed Platæans and a detachment of active young Athenians, called Peripoli, and serving as the movable guard of Attica, in their first or second year of military service, placed himself in ambush in the sacred precinct of Arês, still closer to the same gate.
To procure that the gate should be opened, was the task of the conspirators within. Amidst the shifts to which the Megarians had been reduced in order to obtain supplies, especially since the blockade of Minôa, predatory exit by night was not omitted. Some of these conspirators had been in the habit, before the intrigue with Athens was projected, of carrying out a small sculler-boat by night upon a cart, through this gate, by permission of the Peloponnesian commander of Nisæa and the Long Walls. The boat, when thus brought out, was carried down to the shore along the hollow of the dry ditch which surrounded the wall of Nisæa, then put to sea for some nightly enterprise, and was brought back again along the ditch before daylight in the morning; the gate being opened, by permission, to let it in. This was the only way by which any Megarian vessel could get to sea, since the Athenians at Minôa were complete masters of the harbor. On the night fixed for the surprise, this boat was carried out and brought back at the usual hour. But the moment that the gate in the Long Wall was opened to readmit it, Demosthenês and his comrades sprang forward to force their way in; the Megarians along with the boat at the same time setting upon and killing the guards, in order to facilitate his entrance. This active and determined band were successful in mastering the gate, and keeping it open until the six hundred hoplites under Hippokratês came up, and got into the interior space between the Long Walls. They immediately mounted the walls on each side, every man as he came in, with little thought of order, to drive off or destroy the Peloponnesian guards; who, taken by surprise, and fancying that the Megarians generally were in concert with the enemy against them,—confirmed, too, in such belief by hearing the Athenian herald proclaim aloud that every Megarian who chose might take his post in the line of Athenian hoplites,[600]—made at first some resistance, but were soon discouraged, and fled into Nisæa. By a little after daybreak, the Athenians found themselves masters of all the line of the Long Walls, and under the very gates of Megara,—reinforced by the larger force which, having marched by land through Eleusis, arrived at the concerted moment.
Meanwhile, the Megarians within the city were in the greatest tumult and consternation. But the conspirators, prepared with their plan, had resolved to propose that the gates should be thrown open, and that the whole force of the city should be marched out to fight the Athenians: when once the gates should be open, they themselves intended to take part with the Athenians, and facilitate their entrance,—and they had rubbed their bodies over with oil in order to be visibly distinguished in the eyes of the latter. Their plan was only frustrated the moment before it was about to be put in execution, by the divulgation of one of their own comrades. Their opponents in the city, apprized of what was in contemplation, hastened to the gate, and intercepted the men rubbed with oil as they were about to open it. Without betraying any knowledge of the momentous secret which they had just learned, these opponents loudly protested against opening the gate and going out to fight an enemy for whom they had never conceived themselves, even in moments of greater strength, to be a match in the open field. While insisting only on the public mischiefs of the measure, they at the same time planted themselves in arms against the gate, and declared that they would perish before they would allow it to be opened. For this obstinate resistance the conspirators were not prepared, so that they were forced to abandon their design and leave the gate closed.
The Athenian generals, who were waiting in expectation that it would be opened, soon perceived by the delay that their friends within had been baffled, and immediately resolved to make sure of Nisæa, which lay behind them; an acquisition important not less in itself, than as a probable means for the mastery of Megara. They set about the work with the characteristic rapidity of Athenians. Masons and tools in abundance were forthwith sent for from Athens, and the army distributed among themselves the wall of circumvallation round Nisæa in distinct parts. First, the interior space between the Long Walls themselves was built across, so as to cut off the communication with Megara; next, walls were carried out from the outside of both the Long Walls down to the sea, so as completely to inclose Nisæa, with its fortifications and ditch. The scattered houses which formed a sort of ornamented suburb to Nisæa, furnished bricks for this inclosing circle, or were sometimes even made to form a part of it as they stood, with the parapets on their roofs; while the trees were cut down to supply material wherever palisades were suitable. In a day and a half the work of circumvallation was almost completed, so that the Peloponnesians in Nisæa saw before them nothing but a hopeless state of blockade. Deprived of all communication, they not only fancied that the whole city of Megara had joined the Athenians, but they were moreover without any supply of provisions, which had been always furnished to them in daily rations from the city. Despairing of any speedy relief from Peloponnesus, they accepted easy terms of capitulation offered to them by the Athenian generals.[601] After delivering up their arms, each man among them was to be ransomed for a stipulated price; we are not told how much, but doubtless a moderate sum. The Lacedæmonian commander, and such other Lacedæmonians as might be in Nisæa, were, however, required to surrender themselves as prisoners to the Athenians, to be held at their disposal. On these terms Nisæa was surrendered to the Athenians, who cut off its communication with Megara, by keeping the intermediate space between the Long Walls effectively blocked up,—walls, of which they had themselves, in former days, been the original authors.[602]
Such interruption of communication by the Long Walls indicated in the minds of the Athenian generals a conviction that Megara was now out of their reach. But the town in its present distracted state, would certainly have fallen into their hands,[603] had it not been snatched from them by the accidental neighborhood and energetic intervention of Brasidas. That officer, occupied in the levy of troops for his Thracian expedition, was near Corinth and Sikyon, when he first learned the surprise and capture of the Long Walls. Partly from the alarm which the news excited among these Peloponnesian towns, partly from his own personal influence, he got together a body of two thousand seven hundred Corinthian hoplites, six hundred Sikyonian and four hundred Phliasian, besides his own small army, and marched with this united force to Tripodiskus, in the Megarid, half-way between Megara and Pegæ, on the road over Mount Geraneia; having first despatched a pressing summons to the Bœotians to request that they would meet him at that point with reinforcements. He trusted by a speedy movement to preserve Megara, and perhaps even Nisæa; but on reaching Tripodiskus in the night, he learned that the latter place had already surrendered. Alarmed for the safety of Megara, he proceeded thither by a night-march without delay. Taking with him only a chosen band of three hundred men, he presented himself, without being expected, at the gates of the city; entreating to be admitted, and offering to lend his immediate aid for the recovery of Nisæa. One of the two parties in Megara would have been glad to comply; but the other, knowing well that in that case the exiles in Pegæ would be brought back upon them, was prepared for a strenuous resistance, in which case the Athenian force, still only one mile off, would have been introduced as auxiliaries. Under these circumstances the two parties came to a compromise, and mutually agreed to refuse admittance to Brasidas. They expected that a battle would take place between him and the Athenians, and each calculated that Megara would follow the fortunes of the victor.[604]
Returning back without success to Tripodiskus, Brasidas was joined there early in the morning by two thousand Bœotian hoplites and six hundred cavalry; for the Bœotians had been put in motion by the same news as himself, and had even commenced their march, before his messenger arrived, with such celerity as to have already reached Platæa.[605] The total force under Brasidas was thus increased to six thousand hoplites and six hundred cavalry, with whom he marched straight to the neighborhood of Megara. The Athenian light troops, dispersed over the plain, were surprised and driven in by the Bœotian cavalry; but the Athenian cavalry, coming to their aid, maintained a sharp action with the assailants, wherein, after some loss on both sides, a slight advantage remained on the side of the Athenians. They granted a truce for the burial of the Bœotian officer of cavalry, who was slain with some others. After this indecisive cavalry skirmish, Brasidas advanced with his main force into the plain, between Megara and the sea, taking up a position near to the Athenian hoplites, who were drawn up in battle array, hard by Nisæa and the Long Walls. He thus offered them battle if they chose it; but each party expected that the other would attack and each was unwilling to begin the attack on his own side, Brasidas was well aware that, if the Athenians refused to fight, Megara would be preserved from falling into their hands,—which loss it was his main object to prevent, and which had in fact been prevented only by his arrival. If he attacked and was beaten, he would forfeit this advantage,—while, if victorious, he could hardly hope to gain much more. The Athenian generals on their side reflected, that they had already secured a material acquisition in Nisæa, which cut off Megara from their sea; that the army opposed to them was not only superior in number of hoplites, but composed of contingents from many different cities, so that no one city hazarded much in the action; while their own force was all Athenian, and composed of the best hoplites in Athens, which would render a defeat severely ruinous to the city: nor did they think it worth while to encounter this risk, even for the purpose of gaining possession of Megara. With such views in the leaders on both sides, the two armies remained for some time in position, each waiting for the other to attack: at length the Athenians, seeing that no aggressive movement was contemplated by their opponents, were the first to retire into Nisæa. Thus left master of the field, Brasidas retired in triumph to Megara, the gates of which were now opened without reserve to admit him.[606]
The army of Brasidas, having gained the chief point for which it was collected, speedily dispersed,—he himself resuming his preparations for Thrace; while the Athenians on their side also returned home, leaving an adequate garrison for the occupation both of Nisæa and of the Long Walls. But the interior of Megara underwent a complete and violent revolution. While the leaders friendly to Athens, not thinking it safe to remain, fled forthwith and sought shelter with the Athenians,[607] the opposite party opened communication with the exiles at Pegæ and readmitted them into the city; binding them however, by the most solemn pledges, to observe absolute amnesty of the past and to study nothing but the welfare of the common city. The new-comers only kept their pledge during the interval which elapsed until they acquired power to violate it with effect. They soon got themselves placed in the chief commands of state, and found means to turn the military force to their own purposes. A review and examination of arms, of the hoplites in the city, having been ordered, the Megarian lochi were so marshalled and tutored as to enable the leaders to single out such victims as they thought expedient. They seized many of their most obnoxious enemies, some of them suspected as accomplices in the recent conspiracy with Athens: the men thus seized were subjected to the forms of a public trial, before that which was called a public assembly; wherein each voter, acting under military terror, was constrained to give his suffrage openly. All were condemned to death and executed, to the number of one hundred.[608] The constitution of Megara was then shaped into an oligarchy of the closest possible kind, a few of the most violent men taking complete possession of the government. But they must probably have conducted it with vigor and prudence for their own purposes, since Thucydidês remarks that it was rare to see a revolution accomplished by so small a party, and yet so durable. How long it lasted, he does not mention. A few months after these incidents, the Megarians regained possession of their Long Walls, by capture from the Athenians,[609] to whom indeed they could have been of no material service, and levelled the whole line of them to the ground: but the Athenians still retained Nisæa. We may remark, as explaining in part the durability of this new government, that the truce concluded at the beginning of the ensuing year must have greatly lightened the difficulties of any government, whether oligarchical or democratical, in Megara.
The scheme for surprising Megara had been both laid and executed with skill, and only miscarried through an accident to which such schemes are always liable, as well as by the unexpected celerity of Brasidas. It had, moreover, succeeded so far as to enable the Athenians to carry Nisæa,—one of the posts which they had surrendered by the thirty years’ truce, and of considerable positive value to them: so that it counted on the whole as a victory, leaving the generals with increased encouragement to turn their activity elsewhere. Accordingly, very soon after the troops had been brought back from the Megarid,[610] Hippokratês and Demosthenês concerted a still more extensive plan for the invasion of Bœotia, in conjunction with some malcontents in the Bœotian towns, who desired to break down and democratize the oligarchical governments, and especially through the agency of a Theban exile named Ptœodôrus. Demosthenês, with forty triremes, was sent round Peloponnesus to Naupaktus, with instructions to collect an Akarnanian force, to sail into the inmost recess of the Corinthian or Krissæan gulf, and to occupy Siphæ, a maritime town belonging to the Bœotian Thespiæ, where intelligences had been already established. On the same day, determined beforehand, Hippokratês engaged to enter Bœotia, with the main force of Athens, at the southeastern corner of the territory near Tanagra, and to fortify Delium, the temple of Apollo, on the coast of the Eubœan strait: while at the same time it was concerted that some Bœotian and Phocian malcontents should make themselves masters of Chæroneia on the borders of Phocis. Bœotia would thus be assailed on three sides at the same moment, so that the forces of the country would be distracted and unable to coöperate. Internal movements were farther expected to take place in some of the cities, such as perhaps to establish democratical governments and place them at once in alliance with the Athenians.
Accordingly, about the month of August, Demosthenês sailed from Athens to Naupaktus, where he collected his Akarnanian allies,—now stronger and more united than ever, since the refractory inhabitants of Œniadæ had been at length compelled to join their Akarnanian brethren: moreover, the neighboring Agræans with their prince Salynthius were also brought into the Athenian alliance. On the appointed day, seemingly about the beginning of October, he sailed with a strong force of these allies up to Siphæ, in full expectation that it would be betrayed to him.[611] But the execution of this enterprise was less happy than that against Megara. In the first place, there was a mistake as to the day understood between Hippokratês and Demosthenês: in the next place, the entire plot was discovered and betrayed by a Phocian of Phanoteus (bordering on Chæroneia) named Nicomachus,—communicated first to the Lacedæmonians and through them to the bœotarchs. Siphæ and Chæroneia were immediately placed in a state of defence, and Demosthenês, on arriving at the former place, found not only no party within it favorable to him, but a formidable Bœotian force which rendered attack unavailing: moreover, Hippokratês had not yet begun his march, so that the defenders had nothing to distract their attention from Siphæ.[612] Under these circumstances, not only was Demosthenês obliged to withdraw without striking a blow, and to content himself with an unsuccessful descent upon the territory of Sikyon,[613] but all the expected internal movements in Bœotia were prevented from breaking out.
It was not till after the Bœotian troops, having repelled the attack by sea, had retired from Siphæ, that Hippokratês commenced his march from Athens to invade the Bœotian territory near Tanagra. He was probably encouraged by false promises from the Bœotian exiles, otherwise it seems remarkable that he should have persisted in executing his part of the scheme alone, after the known failure of the other part. It was, however, executed in a manner which implies unusual alacrity and confidence. The whole military population of Athens was marched into Bœotia, to the neighborhood of Delium, the eastern coast-extremity of the territory belonging to the Bœotian town of Tanagra; the expedition comprising all classes, not merely citizens, but also metics or resident non-freemen, and even non-resident strangers then by accident at Athens. Of course this statement must be understood with the reserve of ample guards left behind for the city: but besides the really effective force of seven thousand hoplites, and several hundred horsemen, there appear to have been not less than twenty-five thousand light-armed, half-armed, or unarmed attendants accompanying the march.[614] The number of hoplites is here prodigiously great; brought together by general and indiscriminate proclamation, not selected by a special choice of the stratêgi out of the names on the muster-roll, as was usually the case for any distant expedition.[615] As to light-armed, there was at this time no trained force of that description at Athens, except a small body of archers. No pains had been taken to organize either darters or slingers: the hoplites, the horsemen, and the seamen, constituted the whole effective force of the city. Indeed, it appears that the Bœotians also were hardly less destitute than the Athenians of native darters and slingers, since those which they employed in the subsequent siege of Delium were in great part hired from the Malian gulf.[616] To employ at one and the same time heavy-armed and light-armed, was not natural to any Grecian community, but was a practice which grew up with experience and necessity. The Athenian feeling, as manifested in the Persæ of Æschylus a few years after the repulse of Xerxes, proclaims exclusive pride in the spear and shield, with contempt for the bow: and it was only during this very year, when alarmed by the Athenian occupation of Pylus and Kythêra, that the Lacedæmonians, contrary to their previous custom, had begun to organize a regiment of archers.[617] The effective manner in which Demosthenês had employed the light-armed in Sphakteria against the Lacedæmonian hoplites, was well calculated to teach an instructive lesson as to the value of the former description of troops.
The Bœotian Delium,[618] which Hippokratês now intended to occupy and fortify, was a temple of Apollo, strongly situated and overhanging the sea, about five miles from Tanagra, and somewhat more than a mile from the border territory of Orôpus,—a territory originally Bœotian, but at this time dependent on Athens, and even partly incorporated in the political community of Athens, under the name of the Deme of Græa.[619] Orôpus itself was about a day’s march from Athens, by the road which led through Dekeleia and Sphendalê, between the mountains Parnês and Phelleus: so that as the distance to be traversed was so inconsiderable, and the general feeling of the time was that of confidence, it is probable that men of all ages, arms, and dispositions crowded to join the march, in part from mere curiosity and excitement. Hippokratês reached Delium on the day after he had started from Athens: on the succeeding day he began his work of fortification, which was completed, all hands aiding, and tools as well as workmen having been brought along with the army from Athens, in two days and a half. Having dug a ditch all round the sacred ground, he threw up the earth in a bank alongside of the ditch, planting stakes, throwing in fascines, and adding layers of stone and brick, to keep the work together, and make it into a rampart of tolerable height and firmness. The vines[620] round the temple, together with the stakes which served as supports to them, were cut to obtain wood; the houses adjoining furnished bricks and stone: the outer temple-buildings themselves also, on some of the sides, served as they stood to facilitate and strengthen the defence; but there was one side on which the annexed building, once a portico, had fallen down: and here the Athenians constructed some wooden towers as a help to the defenders. By the middle of the fifth day after leaving Athens, the work was so nearly completed, that the army quitted Delium, and began its march homeward, out of Bœotia; halting, after it had proceeded about a mile and a quarter, within the Athenian territory of Orôpus. It was here that the hoplites awaited the coming of Hippokratês, who still remained at Delium, stationing the garrison, and giving his final orders about future defence; while the greater number of the light-armed and unarmed, separating from the hoplites, and seemingly without any anticipation of the coming danger, continued their return-march to Athens.[621] Their position was probably about the western extremity of the plain of Orôpus, on the verge of the low heights between that plain and Delium.[622]
During these five days, however, the forces from all parts of Bœotia had time to muster at Tanagra: and their number was just completed as the Athenians were beginning their march homeward from Delium. Contingents had arrived, not only from Thebes and its dependent townships around, but also from Haliartus, Korôneia, Orchomenus, Kôpæ, and Thespiæ: that of Tanagra joined on the spot. The government of the Bœotian confederacy at this time was vested in eleven bœotarchs,—two chosen from Thebes, the rest in unknown proportion by the other cities, immediate members of the confederacy,—and in four senates, or councils, the constitution of which is not known. Though all the bœotarchs, now assembled at Tanagra, formed a sort of council of war, yet the supreme command was vested in Pagondas and Aranthidês, the bœotarchs from Thebes; either in Pagondas as the senior of the two, or perhaps in both, alternating with each other day by day.[623] As the Athenians were evidently in full retreat, and had already passed the border, all the other bœotarchs, except Pagondas, were unwilling to hazard a battle[624] on soil not Bœotian, and were disposed to let them return home without obstruction. Such reluctance is not surprising, when we reflect that the chances of defeat were considerable, and that probably some of these bœotarchs were afraid of the increased power which a victory would lend to the oppressive tendencies of Thebes. But Pagondas strenuously opposed this proposition, and carried the soldiers of the various cities along with him, even in opposition to the sentiments of their separate leaders, in favor of immediately fighting. He called them apart and addressed them by separate divisions, in order that all might not quit their arms at one and the same moment.[625] He characterized the sentiment of the other bœotarchs as an unworthy manifestation of weakness, which, when properly considered, had not even the recommendation of superior prudence. For the Athenians had just invaded the country, and built a fort for the purpose of continuous devastation; nor were they less enemies on one side of the border than on the other. Moreover, they were the most restless and encroaching of all enemies; and the Bœotians, who had the misfortune to be their neighbors, could only be secure against them by the most resolute promptitude in defending themselves, as well as in returning the blows first given. If they wished to protect their autonomy and their property against the condition of slavery under which their neighbors in Eubœa had long suffered, as well as so many other portions of Greece, their only chance was to march onward and beat these invaders, following the glorious example of their fathers and predecessors in the field of Korôneia. The sacrifices were favorable to an advancing movement, and Apollo, whose temple the Athenians had desecrated by converting it into a fortified place, would lend his cordial aid to the Bœotian defence.[626]
Finding his exhortations favorably received, Pagondas conducted the army by a rapid march to a position close to the Athenians. He was anxious to fight them before they should have retreated farther; and, moreover, the day was nearly spent,—it was already late in the afternoon. Having reached a spot where he was only separated from the Athenians by a hill, which prevented either army from seeing the other, he marshalled his troops in the array proper for fighting. The Theban hoplites, with their dependent allies, ranged in a depth of not less than twenty-five shields, occupied the right wing: the hoplites of Haliartus, Korôneia, Kôpæ, and its neighborhood, were in the centre: those of Thespiæ, Tanagra, and Orchomenus, on the left; for Orchomenus, being the second city in Bœotia next to Thebes, obtained a second post of honor at the opposite extremity of the line. Each contingent adopted its own mode of marshalling the hoplites, and its own depth of files: on this point there was no uniformity, a remarkable proof of the prevalence of dissentient custom in Greece, and how much each town, even among confederates, stood apart as a separate unit.[627] Thucydidês specifies only the prodigious depth of the Theban hoplites; respecting the rest, he merely intimates that no common rule was followed. There is another point also which he does not specify, but which, though we learn it only on the inferior authority of Diodorus, appears both true and important. The front ranks of the Theban heavy-armed were filled by three hundred select warriors, of distinguished bodily strength, valor, and discipline, who were accustomed to fight in pairs, each man being attached to his neighbor by a peculiar tie of intimate friendship. These pairs were termed the heniochi and parabatæ, charioteers and companions; a denomination probably handed down from the Homeric times, when the foremost heroes really combated in chariots in front of the common soldiers, but now preserved after it had outlived its appropriate meaning.[628] This band, composed of the finest men in the various palæstræ of Thebes, and enjoying a peculiar training for the defence of the kadmeia, or citadel, was in after-days detached from the front ranks of the phalanx, and organized into a separate regiment under the name of the Sacred Lochus, or Band: we shall see how much it contributed to the short-lived military ascendency of Thebes. On both flanks of this mass of Bœotian hoplites, about seven thousand in total number, were distributed one thousand cavalry, five hundred peltasts, and ten thousand light-armed or unarmed. The language of the historian seems to imply that the light-armed on the Bœotian side were something more effective than the mere multitude who followed the Athenians.
Such was the order in which Pagondas marched his army over the hill, halting them for a moment in front and sight of the Athenians, to see that the ranks were even, before he gave the word for actual charge.[629] Hippokratês, on his side, apprized while still at Delium, that the Bœotians had moved from Tanagra, first sent orders to his army to place themselves in battle array, and presently arrived himself to command them; leaving three hundred cavalry at Delium, partly as garrison, partly for the purpose of acting on the rear of the Bœotians during the battle. The Athenian hoplites were ranged eight deep along the whole line,—with the cavalry, and such of the light-armed as yet remained, placed on each flank. Hippokratês, after arriving on the spot, and surveying the ground occupied, marched along the front of the line briefly encouraging his soldiers; who, as the battle was just on the Orôpian border, might fancy that they were not in their own country, and that they were therefore exposed without necessity. He, too, in a strain similar to that adopted by Pagondas, reminded the Athenians, that on either side of the border they were alike fighting for the defence of Attica, to keep the Bœotians out of it; since the Peloponnesians would never dare to enter the country without the aid of the Bœotian horse.[630] He farther called to their recollection the great name of Athens, and the memorable victory of Myronidês, at Œnophyta, whereby their fathers had acquired possession of all Bœotia. But he had scarcely half-finished his progress along the line, when he was forced to desist by the sound of the Bœotian pæan. Pagondas, after a few additional sentences of encouragement, had given the word: the Bœotian hoplites were seen charging down the hill; and the Athenian hoplites, not less eager, advanced to meet them at a running step.[631]
At the extremity of the line on each side, the interposition of ravines prevented the actual meeting of the two armies: but throughout all the rest of the line, the clash was formidable and the conduct of both sides resolute. Both armies, maintaining their ranks compact and unbroken, came to the closest quarters; to the contact and pushing of shields against each other.[632] On the left half of the Bœotian line, consisting of hoplites from Thespiæ, Tanagra, and Orchomenus, the Athenians were victorious. The Thespians, who resisted longest, even after their comrades had given way, were surrounded and sustained the most severe loss from the Athenians; who in the ardor of success, while wheeling round to encircle the enemy, became disordered and came into conflict even with their own citizens, not recognizing them at the moment: some loss of life was the consequence.
While the left of the Bœotian line was thus worsted and driven back for protection to the right, the Thebans on that side gained decided advantage. Though the resolution and discipline of the Athenians was noway inferior, yet as soon as the action came to close quarters and to propulsion with shield and spear, the prodigious depth of the Theban column (more than triple of the depth of the Athenians, twenty-five against eight) enabled them to bear down their enemies by mere superiority of weight and mass. Moreover, the Thebans appear to have been superior to the Athenians in gymnastic training and acquired bodily force, as they were inferior both in speech and in intelligence. The chosen Theban warriors in the front rank were especially superior: but apart from such superiority, if we assume simple equality of individual strength and resolution on both sides,[633] it is plain that when the two opposing columns came into conflict, shield against shield, the comparative force of forward pressure would decide the victory. This motive is sufficient to explain the extraordinary depth of the Theban column, which was increased by Epameinondas, half a century afterwards, at the battle of Leuktra, from a depth of twenty-five men to the still more astonishing depth of fifty: nor need we suspect the correctness of the text, with some critics, or suppose, with others, that the great depth of the Theban files arose from the circumstance that the rear ranks were too poor to provide themselves with armor.[634] Even in a depth of eight, which was that of the Athenian column in the present engagement,[635] and seemingly the usual depth in a battle, the spears of the four rear ranks could hardly have protruded sufficiently beyond the first line to do any mischief. The great use of all the ranks behind the first four, was partly to take the place of such of the foremost lines as might be slain, partly, to push forward the lines before them from behind. The greater the depth of the files, the more irresistible did this propelling force become: hence the Thebans at Delium, as well as at Leuktra, found their account in deepening the column to so remarkable a degree, to which we may fairly presume that their hoplites were trained beforehand.
The Thebans on the right thus pushed back[636] the troops on the left of the Athenian line, who retired at first slowly, and for a short space, maintaining their order unbroken, so that the victory of the Athenians on their own right would have restored the battle, had not Pagondas detached from the rear two squadrons of cavalry; who, wheeling unseen round the hill behind, suddenly appeared to the relief of the Bœotian left, and produced upon the Athenians on that side, already deranged in their ranks by the ardor of pursuit, the intimidating effect of a fresh army arriving to reinforce the Bœotians. And thus, even on the right, the victorious portion of their line, the Athenians lost courage and gave way; while on the left, where they were worsted from the beginning, they found themselves pressed harder and harder by the pursuing Thebans: so that in the end, the whole Athenian army was broken, dispersed, and fled. The garrison of Delium, reinforced by three hundred cavalry, whom Hippokratês had left there to assail the rear of the Bœotians during the action, either made no vigorous movement, or were repelled by a Bœotian reserve stationed to watch them. Flight having become general among the Athenians, the different parts of their army took different directions: the right sought refuge at Delium, the centre fled to Orôpus, and the left took a direction towards the high lands of Parnês. The pursuit of the Bœotians was vigorous and destructive: they had an efficient cavalry, strengthened by some Lokrian horse who had arrived even during the action: their peltasts also, and their light-armed, would render valuable service against retreating hoplites.[637] Fortunately for the vanquished, the battle had begun very late in the afternoon, leaving no long period of daylight: this important circumstance saved the Athenian army from almost total destruction.[638] As it was, however, the general Hippokratês, together with nearly one thousand hoplites, and a considerable number of light-armed and attendants, were slain; while the loss of the Bœotians, chiefly on their defeated left wing, was rather under five hundred hoplites. Some prisoners[639] seem to have been made, but we hear little about them. Those who had fled to Delium and Orôpus were conveyed back by sea to Athens.
The victors retired to Tanagra, after erecting their trophy, burying their own dead, and despoiling those of their enemies. An abundant booty of arms from the stripped warriors, long remained to decorate the temples of Thebes, and the spoil in other ways is said to have been considerable. Pagondas also resolved to lay siege to the newly-established fortress at Delium: but before commencing operations,—which might perhaps prove tedious, since the Athenians could always reinforce the garrison by sea,—he tried another means of attaining the same object. He despatched to the Athenians a herald, who, happening in his way to meet the Athenian herald, coming to ask the ordinary permission for burial of the slain, warned him that no such request would be entertained until the message of the Bœotian general had first been communicated, and thus induced him to come back to the Athenian commanders. The Bœotian herald was instructed to remonstrate against the violation of holy custom committed by the Athenians in seizing and fortifying the temple of Delium; wherein their garrison was now dwelling, performing numerous functions which religion forbade to be done in a sacred place, and using as their common drink the water especially consecrated to sacrificial purposes. The Bœotians therefore solemnly summoned them in the name of Apollo, and the gods inmates along with him, to evacuate the place, carrying away all that belonged to them: and the herald gave it to be understood, that, unless this summons were complied with, no permission would be granted to bury the dead.
Answer was returned by the Athenian herald, who now went to the Bœotian commanders, to the following effect: “The Athenians did not admit that they had hitherto been guilty of any wrong in reference to the temple, and protested that they would persist in respecting it for the future as much as possible. Their object in taking possession of it had been no evil sentiment towards the holy place, but the necessity of avenging the repeated invasions of Attica by the Bœotians. Possession of the territory, according to the received maxims of Greece, always carried along with it possession of temples therein situated, under obligation to fulfil all customary obligations to the resident god, as far as circumstances permitted. It was upon this maxim that the Bœotians had themselves acted when they took possession of their present territory, expelling the prior occupants and appropriating the temples: it was upon the same maxim that the Athenians would act in retaining so much of Bœotia as they had now conquered, and in conquering more of it, if they could. Necessity compelled them to use the consecrated water—a necessity not originating in the ambition of Athens, but in prior Bœotian aggressions upon Attica,—a necessity which they trusted that the gods would pardon, since their altars were allowed as a protection to the involuntary offender, and none but he who sinned without constraint experienced their displeasure. The Bœotians were guilty of far greater impiety in refusing to give back the dead, except upon certain conditions connected with the holy ground, than the Athenians, who merely refused to turn the duty of sepulture into an unseemly bargain. Tell us unconditionally (concluded the Athenian herald) that we may bury our dead under truce, pursuant to the maxims of our forefathers. Do not tell us that we may do so on condition of going out of Bœotia, for we are no longer in Bœotia; we are in our own territory, won by the sword.”
The Bœotian generals dismissed the herald with a reply short and decisive: “If you are in Bœotia, you may take away all that belongs to you, but only on condition of going out of it. If on the other hand you are in your own territory, you can take your own resolution without asking us.”[640]
In this debate, curious as an illustration of Grecian manners and feelings, there seems to have been special pleading and evasion on both sides. The final sentence of the Bœotians was good as a reply to the incidental argument raised by the Athenian herald, who had rested the defence of Athens in regard to the temple of Delium on the allegation that the territory was Athenian, not Bœotian, Athenian by conquest and by the right of the strongest, and had concluded by affirming the same thing about Oropia, the district to which the battle-field belonged. It was only this same argument, of actual superior force, which the Bœotians retorted, when they said: “If the territory to which your application refers is yours by right of conquest (i. e. if you are de facto masters of it, and are strongest within it), you can of course do what you think best in it: you need not ask any truce at our hands; you can bury your dead without a truce.”[641] The Bœotians knew that at this moment the field of battle was under guard by a detachment of their army,[642] and that the Athenians could not obtain the dead bodies without permission; but since the Athenian herald had asserted the reverse as a matter of fact, we can hardly wonder that they resented the production of such an argument; meeting it by a reply sufficiently pertinent in mere diplomatic fencing.
But if the Athenian herald, instead of raising the incidental point of territorial property, combined with an incautious definition of that which constituted territorial property, as a defence against the alleged desecration of the temple of Delium, had confined himself to the main issue, he would have put the Bœotians completely in the wrong. According to principles universally respected in Greece, the victor, if solicited, was held bound to grant to the vanquished a truce for burying his dead; to grant and permit it absolutely, without annexing any conditions. On this, the main point in debate, the Bœotians sinned against the most sacred international law of Greece, when they exacted the evacuation of the temple at Delium as a condition for consenting to permit the burial of the Athenian dead. Ultimately, after they had taken Delium, we shall find that they did grant it unconditionally; and we may doubt whether they would have ever persisted in refusing it, if the Athenian herald had pressed this one important principle separately and exclusively; and if he had not, by an unskilful plea in vindication of the right to occupy and live at Delium, both exasperated their feelings, and furnished them with a collateral issue as a means of evading the main demand.[643]
To judge this curious debate with perfect impartiality, we ought to add, in reference to the conduct of the Athenians in occupying Delium, that for an enemy to make special choice of a temple, as a post to be fortified and occupied, was a proceeding certainly rare, perhaps hardly admissible, in Grecian warfare. Nor does the vindication offered by the Athenian herald meet the real charge preferred. It is one thing for an enemy of superior force to overrun a country, and to appropriate everything within it, sacred as well as profane: it is another thing for a border enemy, not yet in sufficient force for conquering the whole, to convert a temple of convenient site into a regular garrisoned fortress, and make it a base of operations against the neighboring population. On this ground, the Bœotians might reasonably complain of the seizure of Delium: though I apprehend that no impartial interpreter of Grecian international custom would have thought them warranted in attaching it as a condition to their grant of the burial-truce when solicited.
All negotiation being thus broken off, the Bœotian generals prepared to lay siege to Delium, aided by two thousand Corinthian hoplites, together with some Megarians and the late Peloponnesian garrison of Nisæa, who joined after the news of the battle. Though they sent for darters and slingers, probably Œtæans and Ætolians, from the Maliac gulf, yet their direct attacks were at first all repelled by the garrison, aided by an Athenian squadron off the coast, in spite of the hasty and awkward defences by which alone the fort was protected. At length they contrived a singular piece of fire-mechanism, which enabled them to master the place. They first sawed in twain a thick beam, pierced a channel through it long-ways from end to end, coated most part of the channel with iron, and then joined the two halves accurately together. From the farther end of this hollowed beam they suspended by chains a boiler, full of pitch, brimstone, and burning charcoal; lastly, an iron tube projected from the end of the interior channel of the beam, in a direction so as to come near to the boiler. Such was the machine, which, constructed at some distance, was brought on carts and placed close to the wall, near the palisading and the wooden towers. The Bœotians then applied great bellows to their own end of the beam, blowing violently with a close current of air through the interior channel, so as to raise an intense fire in the boiler at the other end. The wooden portions of the wall, soon catching fire, became untenable for the defenders, who escaped in the best way they could, without attempting farther resistance. Two hundred of them were made prisoners and a few slain; but the greater number got safely on shipboard. This recapture of Delium took place on the seventeenth day after the battle, during all which interval the Athenians slain had remained on the field unburied. Presently, however, arrived the Athenian herald to make fresh application for the burial-truce; which was now forthwith granted, and granted unconditionally.[644]
Such was the memorable expedition and battle of Delium, a fatal discouragement to the feeling of confidence and hope which had previously reigned at Athens, besides the painful immediate loss which it inflicted on the city. Among the hoplites who took part in the vigorous charge and pushing of shields, the philosopher Sokratês is to be numbered. His bravery both in the battle and the retreat was much extolled by his friends, and doubtless with good reason: he had before served with credit in the ranks of the hoplites at Potidæa, and he served also at Amphipolis: his patience under hardship and endurance of heat and cold being not less remarkable than his personal bravery. He and his friend Lachês were among those hoplites, who, in the retreat from Delium, instead of flinging away their arms and taking to flight, kept their ranks, their arms, and their firmness of countenance; insomuch that the pursuing cavalry found it dangerous to meddle with them, and turned to an easier prey in the disarmed fugitives. Alkibiadês also served at Delium in the cavalry, and helped to protect Sokratês in the retreat. The latter was thus exposing his life at Delium nearly at the same time when Aristophanês was exposing him to derision in the comedy of the Clouds, as a dreamer alike morally worthless and physically incapable.[645]
Severe as the blow was which the Athenians suffered at Delium, their disasters in Thrace about the same time, or towards the close of the same summer and autumn, were yet more calamitous. I have already mentioned the circumstances which led to the preparation of a Lacedæmonian force intended to act against the Athenians in Thrace, under Brasidas, in concert with the Chalkidians, revolted subjects of Athens, and with Perdikkas of Macedon. Having frustrated the Athenian designs against Megara (as described above),[646] Brasidas completed the levy of his division,—seventeen hundred hoplites, partly Helots, partly Dorian Peloponnesians,—and conducted them, towards the close of the summer, to the Lacedæmonian colony of Herakleia, in the Trachinian territory near the Maliac gulf. To reach Macedonia and Thrace, it was necessary for him to pass through Thessaly, which was no easy task; for the war had now lasted so long that every state in Greece had become mistrustful of the transit of armed foreigners. Moreover, the mass of the Thessalian population were decidedly friendly to Athens, nor had he any sufficient means to force a passage: while, should he wait to apply for formal permission, there was much doubt whether it would be granted, and perfect certainty of such delay and publicity as would put the Athenians on their guard. But though such was the temper of the Thessalian people, yet the Thessalian governments, all oligarchical, sympathized with Lacedæmon; and the federal authority or power of the tagus, which bound together the separate cities, was generally very weak. What was of still greater importance, the Macedonian Perdikkas, as well as the Chalkidians, had in every city powerful guests and partisans, whom they prevailed upon to exert themselves actively in forwarding the passage of the army.[647]
To these men Brasidas sent a message at Pharsalus, as soon as he reached Herakleia; and Nikonidas, of Larissa, with other Thessalian friends of Perdikkas, assembling at Melitæa, in Achaia Phthiôtis, undertook to escort him through Thessaly. By their countenance and support, combined with his own boldness, dexterity, and rapid movements, he was enabled to accomplish the seemingly impossible enterprise of running through the country, not only without the consent but against the feeling of its inhabitants, simply by such celerity as to forestall opposition. After traversing Achaia Phthiôtis, a territory dependent on the Thessalians, Brasidas began his march from Melitæa through Thessaly itself, along with his powerful native guides. Notwithstanding all possible secrecy and celerity, his march became so far divulged, that a body of volunteers from the neighborhood, offended at the proceeding, and unfriendly to Nikonidas, assembled to oppose his progress down the valley of the river Enipeus. Reproaching him with wrongful violation of an independent territory, by the introduction of armed forces without permission from the general government, they forbade him to proceed farther. His only chance of making progress lay in disarming their opposition by fair words. His guides excused themselves by saying that the suddenness of his arrival had imposed upon them as his guests the obligation of conducting him through, without waiting to ask for formal permission: to offend their countrymen, however, was the farthest thing from their thoughts and they would renounce the enterprise if the persons now assembled persisted in their requisition. The same conciliatory tone was adopted by Brasidas himself. “He protested his strong feeling of respect and friendship for Thessaly and its inhabitants: his arms were directed against the Athenians, not against them: nor was he aware of any unfriendly relation subsisting between the Thessalians and Lacedæmonians, such as to exclude either of them from the territory of the other. Against the prohibition of the parties now before him, he could not possibly march forward, nor would he think of attempting it; but he put it to their good feeling whether they ought to prohibit him.” Such conciliatory language was successful in softening the opponents and inducing them to disperse. But so afraid were his guides of renewed opposition in other parts, that they hurried him forward still more rapidly,[648] and he “passed through the country at a running pace without halting.” Leaving Melitæa in the morning, he reached Pharsalus on the same night, encamping on the river Apidanus: thence he proceeded on the next day to Phakium, and on the day afterwards into Perrhæbia,[649] a territory adjoining to and dependent on Thessaly, under the mountain range of Olympus. Here he was in safety, so that his Thessalian guides left him; while the Perrhæbians conducted him over the pass of Olympus—the same over which the army of Xerxes had marched—to Dium, in Macedonia, in the territory of Perdikkas, on the northern edge of the mountain.[650]
The Athenians were soon apprized of this stolen passage, so ably and rapidly executed, in a manner which few other Greeks, certainly no other Lacedæmonian, would have conceived to be possible. Aware of the new enemy thus brought within reach of their possessions in Thrace, they transmitted orders thither for greater vigilance, and at the same time declared open war against Perdikkas;[651] but unfortunately without sending any efficient force, at the moment when timely defensive intervention was imperiously required. Perdikkas immediately invited Brasidas to join him in the attack of Arrhibæus, prince of the Macedonians, called Lynkestæ, or of Lynkus; a summons which the Spartan could not decline, since Perdikkas provided half of the pay and maintenance of the army,—but which he obeyed with reluctance, anxious as he was to commence operations against the allies of Athens. Such reluctance was still farther strengthened by envoys from the Chalkidians of Thrace, who, as zealous enemies of Athens, joined him forthwith, but discouraged any vigorous efforts to relieve Perdikkas from embarrassing enemies in the interior, in order that the latter might be under more pressing motives to conciliate and assist them. Accordingly Brasidas, though he joined Perdikkas, and marched along with the Macedonian army towards the territory of the Lynkestæ, was not only averse to active military operations, but even entertained with favor propositions from Arrhibæus, wherein the latter expressed his wish to become the ally of Lacedæmon, and offered to refer all his differences with Perdikkas to the arbitration of the Spartan general himself. Communicating these propositions to Perdikkas, Brasidas invited him to listen to an equitable compromise, admitting Arrhibæus into the alliance of Lacedæmon. But Perdikkas indignantly refused: “He had not called in Brasidas as a judge, to decide disputes between him and his enemies, but as an auxiliary, to put them down wherever he might point them out: and he protested against the iniquity of Brasidas in entering into terms with Arrhibæus, while the Lacedæmonian army was half paid and maintained by him,” (Perdikkas.[652]) Notwithstanding such remonstrances, and even a hostile protest, Brasidas persisted in his intended conference with Arrhibæus, and was so far satisfied with the propositions made that he withdrew his troops without marching over the pass into Lynkus. Too feeble to act alone, Perdikkas loudly complained, and contracted his allowance for the future so as to provide for only one-third of the army of Brasidas instead of one-half.