[506] Thucyd. iv, 3. The account, alike meagre and inaccurate, given by Diodorus, of these interesting events in Pylus and Sphakteria, will be found in Diodor. xii, 61-64.

[507] Thucyd. iv, 4.

[508] Thucyd. iv, 9. Demosthenês placed the greater number (τοὺς πολλοὺς) of his hoplites round the walls of his post, and selected sixty of them to march down to the shore. This implies a total which can hardly be less than two hundred.

[509] Thucyd. iv, 8.

[510] Thucyd. iv, 10.

[511] Thucyd. iv, 8. τοὺς μὲν οὖν ἔσπλους ταῖς ναυσὶν ἀντιπρώροις βύζην κλῄσειν ἔμελλον.

[512] Thucyd. iv, 11, 12; Diodor. xii. Consult an excellent note of Dr. Arnold on this passage, in which he contrasts the looseness and exaggeration of Diodorus with the modest distinctness of Thucydidês.

[513] Thucyd. iv, 12. ἐπὶ πολὺ γὰρ ἐποίει τῆς δόξης ἐν τῷ τότε, τοῖς μὲν ἠπειρώταις μάλιστα εἶναι καὶ τὰ πεζὰ κρατίστοις, τοῖς δὲ θαλασσίοις τε καὶ ταῖς ναυσὶ πλεῖστον προέχειν.

[514] Thucyd. iv, 13. ἐλπίζοντες τὸ κατὰ τὸν λιμένα τεῖχος ὕψος μὲν ἔχειν, ἀποβάσεως δὲ μάλιστα οὔσης ἑλεῖν μηχαναῖς. See Poppo’s note upon this passage.

[515] Thucyd. iv, 14.

[516] Thucyd. iv, 13. The Lacedæmonians παρεσκευάζοντο, ἢν ἐσπλέῃ τις, ὡς ἐν τῷ λιμένι ὄντι οὐ σμικρῷ ναυμαχήσοντες.

The expression, “the harbor which was not small,” to designate the spacious bay of Navarino, has excited much remark from Mr. Bloomfield and Dr. Arnold, and was indeed one of the reasons which induced the latter to suspect that the harbor meant by Thucydidês was not the bay of Navarino, but the neighboring lake of Osmyn Aga.

I have already discussed that supposition in a former note: but in reference to the expression οὐ σμικρῷ, we may observe, first, that the use of negative expressions to convey a positive idea would be in the ordinary manner of Thucydidês.

But farther, I have stated in a previous note that it is indispensable, in my judgment, to suppose the island of Sphakteria to have touched the mainland much more closely in the time of Thucydidês than it does now. At that time, therefore, very probably, the basin of Navarino was not so large as we now find it.

[517] Thucyd. iv, 14. ἔτρωσαν μὲν πολλὰς, πέντε δ᾽ ἔλαβον. We cannot in English speak of wounding a trireme,—though the Greek word is both lively and accurate, to represent the blow inflicted by the impinging beak of an enemy’s ship.

[518] See above, in this History, chap. xlix.

[519] Thucyd. iv, 13, 14.

[520] Thucyd. iv, 16. The chœnix was equivalent to about two pints, English dry measure: it was considered as the usual daily sustenance for a slave. Each Lacedæmonian soldier had, therefore, double of this daily allowance, besides meat, in weight and quantity not specified: the fact that the quantity of meat is not specified, seems to show that they did not fear abuse in this item.

The kotyla contained about half a pint, English wine measure: each Lacedæmonian soldier had, therefore, a pint of wine daily. It was always the practice in Greece to drink the wine with a large admixture of water.

[521] Thucyd. iv, 21: compare vii, 18.

[522] Thucyd. iv, 18. γνῶτε δὲ καὶ ἐς τὰς ἡμετέρας νῦν ξυμφορὰς ἀπιδόντες, etc.

[523] Thucyd. iv, 19.

[524] Thucyd. iv, 20. ἡμῖν δὲ καλῶς, εἴπερ πότε, ἔχει ἀμφοτέροις ἡ ξυναλλαγὴ, πρίν τι ἀνήκεστον διὰ μέσου γενόμενον ἡμᾶς καταλαβεῖν, ἐν ᾧ ἀνάγκη ἀΐδιον ὑμῖν ἔχθραν πρὸς τῇ κοινῇ καὶ ἰδίαν ἔχειν, ὑμᾶς δὲ στερηθῆναι ὧν νῦν προκαλούμεθα.

I understand these words κοινὴ and ἰδία agreeably to the explanation of the Scholiast, from whom Dr. Arnold, as well as Poppo and Göller, depart, in my judgment erroneously. The whole war had been begun in consequence of the complaints of the Peloponnesian allies, and of wrongs alleged to have been done to them by Athens: Sparta herself had no ground of complaint,—nothing of which she desired redress.

Dr. Arnold translates it: “We shall hate you not only nationally, for the wound you have inflicted on Sparta; but also individually, because so many of us will have lost our near relations from your inflexibility.” “The Spartan aristocracy (he adds) would feel it a personal wound to lose at once so many of its members, connected by blood or marriage with its principal families: compare Thucyd. v, 15.”

We must recollect, however, that the Athenians could not possibly know at this time that the hoplites inclosed in Sphakteria belonged in great proportion to the first families in Sparta. And the Spartan envoys would surely have the diplomatic prudence to abstain from any facts or arguments which would reveal, or even suggest, to them so important a secret.

[525] Thucyd. iv, 20. ἡμῶν γὰρ καὶ ὑμῶν ταὐτὰ λεγόντων τό γε ἄλλο Ἑλληνικὸν ἴστε ὅτι ὑποδεέστερον ὂν τὰ μέγιστα τιμήσει.

Aristophanês, Pac. 1048. Ἐξὸν σπεισαμένοις κοινῇ τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἄρχειν.

[526] Thucyd. iv, 21.

[527] Thucyd. iv, 21. μάλιστα δὲ αὐτοὺς ἐνῆγε Κλέων ὁ Κλεαινέτου, ἀνὴρ δημαγωγὸς κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὢν καὶ τῷ δήμῳ πιθανώτατος· καὶ ἔπεισεν ἀποκρίνασθαι, etc.

This sentence reads like a first introduction of Kleon to the notice of the reader. It would appear that Thucydidês had forgotten that he had before introduced Kleon on occasion of the Mitylenæan surrender, and that too in language very much the same, iii, 36. καὶ Κλέων ὁ Κλεαινέτου,—ὢν καὶ ἐς τὰ ἄλλα βιαιότατος τῶν πολιτῶν, καὶ τῷ δήμῳ παρὰ πολὺ ἐν τῷ τότε πιθανώτατος, etc.

[528] Thucyd. iv, 22.

[529] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 7; Philochorus, Fragm. 105, ed. Didot.

[530] Let us read some remarks of Mr. Burke on the temper of England during the American war.

“You remember that in the beginning of this American war, you were greatly divided: and a very strong body, if not the strongest, opposed itself to the madness which every art and every power were employed to render popular, in order that the errors of the rulers might be lost in the general blindness of the nation. This opposition continued until after our great, but most unfortunate, victory at Long Island. Then all the mounds and banks of our constancy were borne down at once; and the frenzy of the American war broke in upon us like a deluge. This victory, which seemed to put an immediate end to all difficulties, perfected in us that spirit of domination which our unparalleled prosperity had but too long nurtured. We had been so very powerful, and so very prosperous, that even the humblest of us were degraded into the devices and follies of kings. We lost all measure between means and ends; and our headlong desires became our politics and our morals. All men who wished for peace, or retained any sentiments of moderation, were overborne or silenced: and this city (Bristol) was led by every artifice (and probably with the more management, because I was one of your members) to distinguish itself by its zeal for that fatal cause.” Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol previous to the election (Works, vol. iii, p. 365).

Compare Mr. Burke’s Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, p. 174 of the same volume.

[531] Thucyd. iv, 39.

[532] Thucyd. iv, 23.

[533] Thucyd. iv, 25. τῶν νεῶν οὐκ ἐχούσων ὅρμον. This does not mean (as some of the commentators seem to suppose, see Poppo’s note) that the Athenians had not plenty of sea-room in the harbor: it means, that they had no station ashore, except the narrow space of Pylus itself.

[534] Thucyd. iv, 26.

[535] Thucyd. iv, 27, 29, 30.

[536] Thucyd. iv, 27. Καὶ ἐς Νικίαν τὸν Νικηράτου στρατηγὸν ὄντα ἀπεσήμαινεν, ἐχθρὸς ὢν καὶ ἐπιτιμῶν—ῥᾴδιον εἶναι παρασκευῇ, εἰ ἄνδρες εἶεν οἱ στρατηγοὶ, πλεύσαντας λαβεῖν τοὺς ἐν τῇ νήσῳ· καὶ αὐτός γ᾽ ἂν, εἰ ἦρχε, ποιῆσαι τοῦτο. Ὁ δὲ Νικίας τῶν τε Ἀθηναίων τι ὑποθορυβησάντων ἐς τὸν Κλέωνα, ὅτι οὐ καὶ νῦν πλεῖ, εἰ ῥᾴδιόν γε αὐτῷ φαίνεται· καὶ ἅμα ὁρῶν αὐτὸν ἐπιτιμῶντα, ἐκέλευεν ἥντινα βούλεται δύναμιν λαβόντα τὸ ἐπὶ σφᾶς εἶναι, ἐπιχειρεῖν.

[537] Thucyd. iv, 28. ὁ δὲ (Κλέων) τὸ μὲν πρῶτον οἰόμενος αὐτὸν (Νικίαν) λόγῳ μόνον ἀφιέναι, ἑτοῖμος ἦν, γνοὺς δὲ τῷ ὄντι παραδωσείοντα ἀνεχώρει, καὶ οὐκ ἔφη αὐτὸς ἀλλ᾽ ἐκεῖνον στρατηγεῖν, δεδιὼς ἤδη καὶ οὐκ ἂν οἰόμενός οἱ αὐτὸν τολμῆσαι ὑποχωρῆσαι. Αὖθις δὲ ὁ Νικίας ἐκέλευε καὶ ἐξίστατο τῆς ἐπὶ Πύλῳ ἀρχῆς, καὶ μάρτυρας τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἐποιεῖτο. Οἱ δὲ, οἷον ὄχλος φιλεῖ ποιεῖν, ὅσῳ μᾶλλον ὁ Κλέων ὑπέφευγε τὸν πλοῦν καὶ ἐξανεχώρει τὰ εἰρημένα, τόσῳ ἐπεκελεύοντο τῷ Νικίᾳ παραδιδόναι τὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ ἐκείνῳ ἐπεβόων πλεῖν. Ὥστε οὐκ ἔχων ὅπως τῶν εἰρημένων ἔτι ἐξαπαλλαγῇ, ὑφίσταται τὸν πλοῦν, καὶ παρελθὼν οὔτε φοβεῖσθαι ἔφη Λακεδαιμονίους, etc.

[538] Thucyd. iv, 28. Τοῖς δὲ Ἀθηναίοις ἐνέπεσε μέν τι καὶ γέλωτος τῇ κουφολογίᾳ αὐτοῦ· ἀσμένοις δ᾽ ὅμως ἐγίγνετο τοῖς σώφροσι τῶν ἀνθρώπων, λογιζομένοις δυοῖν ἀγαθοῖν τοῦ ἑτέρου τεύξεσθαι—ἢ Κλέωνος ἀπαλλαγήσεσθαι, ὃ μᾶλλον ἤλπιζον, ἢ σφαλεῖσι γνώμης Λακεδαιμονίους σφίσι χειρώσασθαι.

[539] Aristophanês, Equit. 54:—

It is Demosthenês who speaks in reference to Kleon,—termed in that comedy the Paphlagonian slave of Demos.

Compare v. 391,

and 740-1197.

So far from cunningly thrusting himself into the post as general, Kleon did everything he possibly could to avoid the post, and was only forced into it by the artifices of his enemies. It is important to notice how little the jests of Aristophanês can be taken as any evidence of historical reality.

[540] Thucyd. iv, 28. οἷον ὄχλος φιλεῖ ποιεῖν, etc.

[541] Thucyd. iv, 30.

[542] Colonel Leake gives an interesting illustration of these particulars in the topography of the island which may even now be verified (Travels in Morea, vol. i, p. 408).

[543] Thucyd. iv, 31.

[544] Thucyd. iv, 32.

[545] Thucyd. iv, 32.

[546] Thucyd. v, 71.

[547] Thucyd. iv, 33.

[548] Thucyd. iv, 33. ὥσπερ ὅτε πρῶτον ἀπέβαινον τῇ γνώμῃ δεδουλωμένοι ὡς ἐπὶ Λακεδαιμονίους, etc.

[549] Thucyd. iv, 34: compare with this the narrative of the destruction of the Lacedæmonian mora near Lechæum, by Iphikratês and the Peltastæ (Xenophon. Hellen. iv, 5, 11).

[550] Thucyd. iv, 34. Τό τε ἔργον ἐνταῦθα χαλεπὸν τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις καθίστατο· οὔτε γὰρ οἱ πῖλοι ἔστεγον τὰ τοξεύματα, δοράτιά τε ἐναποκέκλαστο βαλλομένων, εἶχον δὲ οὐδὲν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς χρήσασθαι, ἀποκεκλῃμένοι μὲν τῇ ὄψει τοῦ προορᾷν, ὑπὸ δὲ τῆς μείζονος βοῆς τῶν πολεμίων τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς παραγγελλόμενα οὐκ ἐσακούοντες, κινδύνου δὲ πανταχόθεν περιεστῶτος, καὶ οὐκ ἔχοντες ἐλπίδα καθ᾽ ὅ,τι χρὴ ἀμυνομένους σωθῆναι.

There has been doubt and difficulty in this passage, even from the time of the Scholiasts. Some commentators have translated πῖλοι caps or hats,—others, padded cuirasses of wool or felt, round the breast and back: see the notes of Duker, Dr. Arnold, Poppo, and Göller. That the word πῖλος is sometimes used for the helmet, or head-piece, is unquestionable,—sometimes even (with or without χαλκοὺς) for a brazen helmet (see Aristophan. Lysis. 562; Antiphanês ap. Athenæ. xi, p. 503); but I cannot think that on this occasion Thucydidês would specially indicate the head of the Lacedæmonian hoplite as his chief vulnerable part. Dr. Arnold, indeed, offers a reason to prove that he might naturally do so; but in my judgment the reason is very insufficient.

Πῖλοι means stuffed clothing of wool or felt, whether employed to protect head, body, or feet: and I conceive, with Poppo and others, that it here indicates the body-clothing of the Lacedæmonian hoplite; his body being the part most open to be wounded on the side undefended by the shield, as well as in the rear. That the word πῖλοι will bear this sense may be seen in Pollux, vii, 171; Plato, Timæus, p. 74; and Symposion, p. 220, c. 35: respecting πῖλος as applied to the foot-covering,—Bekker, Chariklês, vol. ii, p. 376.

[551] Thucyd. iv, 35.

[552] Thucyd. iv, 33. τῇ σφετέρᾳ ἐμπειρίᾳ χρήσασθαι, etc.

[553] Thucyd. iv, 36.

[554] Thucyd. iv, 37.

[555] Thucyd. iv. 38. Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι κελεύουσιν ὑμᾶς αὐτοὺς περὶ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν βουλεύεσθαι, μηδὲν αἰσχρὸν ποιοῦντας.

[556] Thucyd. iv, 38; v, 15.

[557] Thucyd. iv, 39.

[558] Thucyd. iv, 40. παρὰ γνώμην τε δὴ μάλιστα τῶν κατὰ τὸν πόλεμον τοῦτο τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἐγένετο, etc.

[559] To adopt a phrase, the counterpart of that which has been ascribed to the Vieille Garde of the Emperor Napoleon’s army; compare Herodot. vii, 104.

[560] Thucyd. iv, 39. Καὶ τοῦ Κλέωνος καίπερ μανιώδης οὖσα ἡ ὑπόσχεσις ἀπέβη· ἐντὸς γὰρ εἴκοσιν ἡμερῶν ἤγαγε τοὺς ἄνδρας, ὥσπερ ὑπέστη.

Mr. Mitford, in recounting these incidents, after having said, respecting Kleon: “In a very extraordinary train of circumstances which followed, his impudence and his fortune (if, in the want of another, we may use that term) wonderfully favored him,” goes on to observe, two pages farther:—

“It however soon appeared, that though for a man like Cleon, unversed in military command, the undertaking was rash and the bragging promise abundantly ridiculous, yet the business was not so desperate as it was in the moment generally imagined: and in fact the folly of the Athenian people, in committing such a trust to such a man, far exceeded that of the man himself, whose impudence seldom carried him beyond the control of his cunning. He had received intelligence that Demosthenês had already formed the plan and was preparing for the attempt, with the forces upon the spot and in the neighborhood. Hence, his apparent moderation in the demand for troops; which he judiciously accommodated to the gratification of the Athenian people, by avoiding to require any Athenians. He farther showed his judgment, when the decree was to be passed which was finally to direct the expedition, by a request which was readily granted, that Demosthenês might be joined with him in the command.” (Mitford, Hist. of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xv, sect. vii. pp. 250-253.)

It appears as if no historian could write down the name of Kleon without attaching to it some disparaging verb or adjective. We are here told in the same sentence that Kleon was an impudent braggart for promising the execution of the enterprise,—and yet that the enterprise itself was perfectly feasible. We are told in one sentence that he was rash and ridiculous for promising this, unversed as he was in military command: a few words farther, we are informed that he expressly requested that the most competent man to be found, Demosthenês, might be named his colleague. We are told of the cunning of Kleon, and that Kleon had received intelligence from Demosthenês,—as if this were some private communication to himself. But Demosthenês had sent no news to Kleon, nor did Kleon know anything which was not equally known to every man in the assembly. The folly of the people in committing the trust to Kleon is denounced,—as if Kleon had sought it himself, or as if his friends had been the first to propose it for him. If the folly of the people was thus great, what are we to say of the knavery of the oligarchical party, with Nikias at their head, who impelled the people into this folly, for the purpose of ruining a political antagonist, and who forced Kleon into the post against his own most unaffected reluctance? Against this manœuvre of the oligarchical party, neither Mr. Mitford nor any other historian says a word. When Kleon judges circumstances rightly, as Mr. Mitford allows that he did in this case, he has credit for nothing better than cunning.

The truth is, that the people committed no folly in appointing Kleon, for he justified the best expectations of his friends. But Nikias and his friends committed great knavery in proposing it, since they fully believed that he would fail. And, even upon Mr. Mitford’s statement of the case, the opinion of Thucydidês which stands at the beginning of this note is thoroughly unjustifiable; not less unjustifiable than the language of the modern historian about the “extraordinary circumstances,” and the way in which Kleon was “favored by fortune.” Not a single incident can be specified in the narrative to bear out these invidious assertions.

[561] The jest of an unknown comic writer (probably Eupolis or Aristophanês, in one of the many lost dramas) against Kleon: “that he showed great powers of prophecy after the fact,” (Κλέων Προμηθεύς ἐστι μετὰ τὰ πράγματα, Lucian, Prometheus, c. 2), may probably have reference to his proceedings about Sphakteria: if so, it is certainly undeserved.

In the letter which he sent to announce the capture of Sphakteria and the prisoners to the Athenians, it is affirmed that he began with the words—Κλέων Ἀθηναίων τῇ Βουλῇ καὶ τῷ Δήμῳ χαίρειν. This was derided by Eupolis, and is even considered as a piece of insolence, though it is difficult to see why (Schol. ad Aristophan. Plut. 322; Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœdiæ Antiquæ, p. 362).

[562] Vit. Thucydidis, p. xv, ed. Bekker.

[563] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 8; Thucyd. v, 7.

[564] Thucyd. iv, 41.

[565] Thucyd. iv, 41: compare Aristophan. Equit. 648 with Schol.

[566] Thucyd. iv, 79.

[567] Thucyd. v, 16.

[568] The Acharneis was performed at the festival of the Lenæa, at Athens, January, 425 B.C.: the Knights, at the same festival in the ensuing year, 424 B.C.

The capture of Sphakteria took place about July, B.C. 425: between the two dates above. See Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, ad ann.

[569] Thucyd. iv, 117; v, 14.

[570] Thucyd. iv, 42. Τοῦ δ᾽ αὐτοῦ θέρους μετὰ ταῦτα εὐθὺς, etc.

[571] See the geographical illustrations of this descent in Dr. Arnold’s plan and note appended to the second volume of his Thucydidês,—and in Colonel Leake, Travels in Morea, ch. xxviii, p. 235; xxix, p. 309.

[572] Thucyd. iv, 43.

[573] Thucyd. iv, 44. ἔθεντο τὰ ὅπλα,—an expression which Dr. Arnold explains, here as elsewhere, to mean “piling the arms:” I do not think such an explanation is correct, even here: much less in several other places to which he alludes. See a note on the surprise of Platæa by the Thebans, immediately before the Peloponnesian war.

[574] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 6.

[575] Thucyd. iv, 45.

[576] Thucyd. iv, 2-45.

[577] Thucyd. iv, 46.

[578] Thucyd. iv, 47, 48.

[579] Thucyd. iv, 48.

[580] Thucyd. iv, 49.

[581] Thucyd. iv, 51.

[582] Thucyd. iv, 52.

[583] Thucyd. iv, 50. ἐν αἷς πολλῶν ἄλλων γεγραμμένων κεφάλαιον ἦν, πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίους, οὐκ εἰδέναι ὅ,τι βούλονται· πολλῶν γὰρ ἐλθόντων πρέσβεων οὐδένα ταὐτὰ λέγειν· εἰ οὖν βούλονται σαφὲς λέγειν, πέμψαι μετὰ τοῦ Πέρσου ἄνδρας ὡς αὐτόν.

[584] Thucyd. iv, 86. ὅρκοις τε Λακεδαιμονίων καταλαβὼν τὰ τέλη τοῖς μεγίστοις, ἦ μὴν, etc.

[585] Thucyd. iv, 50; Diodor. xii, 64. The Athenians do not appear to have ever before sent envoys or courted alliance with the Great King; though the idea of doing so must have been noway strange to them, as we may see by the humorous scene of Pseudartabas in the Acharneis of Aristophanês, acted in the year before this event.

[586] Diodor. xi, 65; Aristotel. Polit. v, 8, 3; Justin, iii, 1; Ktesias, Persica, c. 29, 30. It is evident that there were contradictory stories current respecting the plot to which Xerxes fell a victim: but we have no means of determining what the details were.

[587] Ktesias, Persica, c. 38-43; Herodot. iii, 80.

[588] Diodor. xii, 64-71; Ktesias, Persica, c. 44-46.

[589] Thucyd. iv, 54; Herodot. vii, 235. The manner in which Herodotus alludes to the dangers which would arise to Sparta from the occupation of Kythêra by an enemy, furnishes one additional probability tending to show that his history was composed before the actual occupation of the island by Nikias, in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war. Had he been cognizant of this latter event, he would naturally have made some allusion to it.

The words of Thucydidês in respect to the island of Kythêra are, the Lacedæmonians πολλὴν ἐπιμέλειαν ἐποιοῦντο· ἦν γὰρ αὐτοῖς τῶν τε ἀπ᾽ Αἰγύπτου καὶ Λιβύης ὁλκάδων προσβολὴ, καὶ λῃσταὶ ἅμα τὴν Λακωνικὴν ἧσσον ἐλύπουν ἐκ θαλάσσης, ᾗπερ μόνον οἷον τ᾽ ἦν κακουργεῖσθαι· πᾶσα γὰρ ἀνέχει πρὸς τὸ Σικελικὸν καὶ Κρητικὸν πέλαγος.

I do not understand this passage, with Dr. Arnold and Göller, to mean, that Laconia was unassailable by land, but very assailable by sea. It rather means that the only portion of the coast of Laconia where a maritime invader could do much damage, was in the interior of the Laconic gulf, near Helos, Gythium, etc., which is in fact the only plain portion of the coast of Laconia. The two projecting promontories, which end, the one in Cape Malea, the other in Cape Tænarus, are high, rocky, harborless, and afford very little temptation to a disembarking enemy. “The whole Laconian coast is high projecting cliff, where it fronts the Sicilian and Kretan seas,”—πᾶσα ἀνέχει. The island of Kythêra was particularly favorable for facilitating descents on the territory near Helos and Gythium. The ἀλιμενότης of Laconia is noticed in Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 8, 7, where he describes the occupation of the island by Konon and Pharnabazus.

See Colonel Leake’s description of this coast, and the high cliffs between Cape Matapan—Tænarus—and Kalamata, which front the Sicilian sea, as well as those eastward of Cape St. Angelo, or Malea, which front the Kretan sea (Travels in Morea, vol. i, ch. vii, p. 261: “tempestuous, rocky, unsheltered coast of Mesamani,” ch. viii, p. 320; ch. vi, p. 205; Strabo, viii, p. 368; Pausan. iii, c. xxvi, 2).

[590] Thucyd. iv, 54. δισχιλίοις Μιλησίων ὁπλίταις. It seems impossible to believe that there could have been so many as two thousand Milesian hoplites: but we cannot tell where the mistake lies.

[591] Thucyd. iv, 56. He states that Thyrea was ten stadia, or about a mile and one-fifth, distant from the sea. But Colonel Leake (Travels in the Morea, vol. ii, ch. xxii, p. 492), who has discovered quite sufficient ruins to identify the spot, affirms “that it is at least three times that distance from the sea.”

This explains to us the more clearly why the Æginetans thought it necessary to build their new fort.

[592] Thucyd. iv, 58; Diodor. xii, 65.

[593] Thucyd. iv, 41, 55, 56.

[594] Thucyd. iv, 80.

[595] Thucyd. iv, 80. Καὶ προκρίναντες ἐς δισχιλίους, οἱ μὲν ἐστεφανώσαντό τε καὶ τὰ ἱερὰ περιῆλθον ὡς ἠλευθερωμένοι· οἱ δὲ οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον ἠφάνισάν τε αὐτοὺς, καὶ οὐδεὶς ᾔσθετο ὅτῳ τρόπῳ ἕκαστος διεφθάρη: compare Diodor. xii, 67.

Dr. Thirlwall (History of Greece, vol. iii. ch. xxiii, p. 244, 2d edit. note) thinks that this assassination of Helots by the Spartans took place at some other time unascertained, and not at the time here indicated. I cannot concur in this opinion. It appears to me, that there is the strongest probable reason for referring the incident to the time immediately following the disaster in Sphakteria, which Thucydidês so especially marks (iv, 41) by the emphatic words: Οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἀμαθεῖς ὄντες ἐν τῷ πρὶν χρόνῳ λῃστείας καὶ τοῦ τοιούτου πολέμου, τῶν τε Εἱλώτων αὐτομολούντων καὶ φοβούμενοι μὴ καὶ ἐπὶ μακρότερον σφίσι τι νεωτερισθῇ τῶν κατὰ τὴν χώραν, οὐ ῥᾳδίως ἔφερον. This was just after the Messenians were first established at Pylus, and began their incursions over Laconia, with such temptations as they could offer to the Helots to desert. And it was naturally just then that the fear, entertained by the Spartans of their Helots, became exaggerated to the maximum, leading to the perpetration of the act mentioned in the text. Dr. Thirlwall observes, “that the Spartan government would not order the massacre of the Helots at a time when it could employ them on foreign service.” But to this it may be replied, that the capture of Sphakteria took place in July or August, while the expedition under Brasidas was not organized until the following winter or spring. There was therefore an interval of some months during which the government had not yet formed the idea of employing the Helots on foreign service. And this interval is quite sufficient to give a full and distinct meaning to the expression καὶ τότε (Thucyd. iv, 80) on which Dr. Thirlwall insists; without the necessity of going back to any more remote point of antecedent time.

[596] Thucyd. iv, 79.

[597] Thucyd. iv, 80. προὐθυμήθησαν δὲ καὶ οἱ Χαλκιδῆς ἄνδρα ἔν τε τῇ Σπάρτῃ δοκοῦντα δραστήριον εἶναι ἐς τὰ πάντα, etc.