Conformably to what is here said, the first blow of the war was struck, not by Athens, but against her. After the decisive answer given to the Spartan envoys, taken in conjunction with the previous proceedings, and the preparations actually going on among the Peloponnesian confederacy,—the truce could hardly be said to be still in force, though there was no formal proclamation of rupture. A few weeks passed in restricted and mistrustful intercourse;[199] though individuals who passed the borders did not think it necessary to take a herald with them, as in time of actual war. Had the excess of ambition been on the side of Athens compared with her enemies, this was the time for her to strike the first blow, carrying with it of course great probability of success, before their preparations were completed. But she remained strictly within the limits of the truce, and the disastrous series of mutual aggressions, destined to tear in pieces the entrails of Hellas, was opened by her enemy and her neighbor.

The little town of Platæa, still hallowed by the memorable victory over the Persians, as well as by the tutelary consecration received from Pausanias, was the scene of this unforeseen enterprise. It stood in Bœotia, immediately north of Kithæron; on the borders of Attica on one side, and of the Theban territory on the other, from which it was separated by the river Asôpus: the distance between Platæa and Thebes being about seventy stadia, or a little more than eight miles. Though Bœotian by descent, the Platæans were completely separated from the Bœotian league, and in hearty alliance, as well as qualified communion of civil rights, with the Athenians, who had protected them against the bitter enmity of Thebes, for a period of time now nearly three generations. But in spite of this long prescription, the Thebans, as chiefs of the Bœotian league, still felt themselves wronged by the separation of Platæa: and an oligarchical faction of wealthy Platæans espoused their cause,[200] with a view of subverting the democratical government of the town, of destroying its leaders, their political rivals, and of establishing an oligarchy with themselves as the chiefs. Naukleidês, and others of this faction, entered into a secret conspiracy with Eurymachus and the oligarchy of Thebes: to both it appeared a tempting prize, since war was close at hand, to take advantage of this ambiguous interval, before watches had been placed, and the precautions of a state of war commenced, and to surprise the town of Platæa in the night: moreover, a period of religious festival was chosen, in order that the population might be most completely off their guard.[201] Accordingly, on a rainy night towards the close of March 431 B.C.,[202] a body of rather more than three hundred Theban hoplites, commanded by two of the Bœotarchs, Pythangelus, and Diemporus, and including Eurymachus in the ranks, presented themselves at the gate of Platæa during the first sleep of the citizens: Naukleidês and his partisans opened the gate and conducted them to the agora, which they reached and occupied in military order without the least resistance. The best part of the Theban military force was intended to arrive at Platæa by break of day, in order to support them.[203]

Naukleidês and his friends, following the instincts of political antipathy, were eager to conduct the Thebans to the houses of their opponents, the democratical leaders, in order that the latter might be seized or despatched. But to this the Thebans would not consent: believing themselves now masters of the town, and certain of a large reinforcement at daylight, they thought they could overawe the citizens into an apparently willing acquiescence in their terms, without any actual violence: they wished, moreover, rather to soften and justify, than to aggravate, the gross public wrong already committed. Accordingly their herald was directed to invite, by public proclamation, all Platæans who were willing to return to their ancient sympathies of race, and to the Bœotian confederacy, that they should come forth and take station as brethren in the armed ranks of the Thebans. And the Platæans, suddenly roused from sleep by the astounding news that their great enemy was master of the town, supposed amidst the darkness that the number of assailants was far greater than the reality: so that in spite of their strong attachment to Athens, they thought their case hopeless, and began to open negotiations. But as they soon found out, in spite of the darkness, as the discussion proceeded, that the real numbers of the Thebans were not greater than could be dealt with,—they speedily took courage and determined to attack them; establishing communication with each other by breaking through the walls of their private houses, in order that they might not be detected in moving about in the streets or ways,[204]—and forming barricades with wagons across such of these ways as were suitable. A little before daybreak, when their preparations were fully completed, they sallied forth from their houses to the attack, and immediately came to close quarters with the Thebans. The latter, still fancying themselves masters of the town, and relying upon a satisfactory close to the discussions when daylight should arrive, now found themselves surprised in their turn, and under great disadvantages: for they had been out all night under a heavy rain,—they were in a town which they did not know, with narrow, crooked, and muddy ways, such as they would have had difficulty in finding even by daylight. Nevertheless, on finding themselves suddenly assailed, they got as well as they could into close order, and repelled the Platæans two or three times: but the attack was still repeated, with loud shouts, while the women also screamed, and howled, and threw tiles from the flat-roofed houses, until at length the Thebans became dismayed and broken. But flight was not less difficult than resistance; for they could not find their way out of the city, and even the gate by which they entered, the only one open, had been closed by a Platæan citizen, who thrust into it the point of a javelin in place of the peg whereby the bar was commonly held fast. Dispersed about the city, and pursued by men who knew every inch of the ground, some ran to the top of the wall, and jumped down on the outside, most of them perished in the attempt,—a few others escaped through an unguarded gate, by cutting through the bar with a hatchet which a woman gave to them,—while the greater number of them ran into the open doors of a large barn or building in conjunction with the wall, mistaking these doors for an approach to the town-gate. They were here blocked up without the chance of escape, and the Platæans at first thought of setting fire to the building: but at length a convention was concluded, whereby they, as well as all the other Thebans in the city, agreed to surrender at discretion.[205]

Had the reinforcements from Thebes arrived at the expected hour, this disaster would have been averted. But the heavy rain and dark night retarded their whole march, while the river Asôpus was so much swollen as to be with difficulty fordable: so that before they reached the gates of Platæa, their comrades within were either slain or captured. Which fate had befallen them, the Thebans without could not tell: but they immediately resolved to seize what they could find, persons as well as property, in the Platæan territory,—no precautions having been taken as yet to guard against the perils of war by keeping within the walls,—in order that they might have something to exchange for such Thebans as were prisoners. Before this step could be executed, however, a herald came forth from the town to remonstrate with them upon their unholy proceeding in having so flagrantly violated the truce, and especially to warn them not to do any wrong without the walls. If they retired without inflicting farther mischief, their prisoners within should be given up to them; if otherwise, these prisoners would be slain immediately. A convention having been concluded and sworn to on this basis, the Thebans retired without any active measures. Such at least was the Theban account of what preceded their retirement: but the Platæans gave a very different statement; denying that they had made any categorical promise or sworn any oath,—and affirming that they had engaged for nothing, except to suspend any decisive step with regard to the prisoners until discussion had been entered into to see if a satisfactory agreement could be concluded.

As Thucydidês records both of these statements, without intimating to which of the two he himself gave the preference, we may presume that both of them found credence with respectable persons. The Theban story is undoubtedly the most probable: but the Platæans appear to have violated the understanding, even upon their own construction of it. For no sooner had the Thebans retired, than they (the Platæans) hastily brought in their citizens and the best of their movable property within the walls, and then slew all their prisoners forthwith; without even entering into the formalities of negotiation. The prisoners thus put to death, among whom was Eurymachus himself, were one hundred and eighty in number.[206]

On the first entrance of the Theban assailants at night, a messenger had started from Platæa to carry the news to Athens: a second messenger followed him to report the victory and capture of the prisoners, as soon as it had been achieved. The Athenians sent back a herald without delay, enjoining the Platæans to take no step respecting the prisoners until consultation should be had with Athens. Periklês doubtless feared what turned out to be the fact: for the prisoners had been slain before his messenger could arrive. Apart from the terms of the convention, and looking only to the received practice of ancient warfare, their destruction could not be denounced as unusually cruel, though the Thebans, when fortune was in their favor, chose to designate it as such,[207]—but impartial contemporaries would notice, and the Athenians in particular would deeply lament, the glaring impolicy of the act. For Thebes, the best thing of all would of course be to get back her captured citizens forthwith: but next to that, the least evil would be to hear that they had been put to death. In the hands of the Athenians and Platæans, they would have been the means of obtaining from her much more valuable sacrifices than their lives, considered as a portion of Theban power, were worth: so strong was the feeling of sympathy for imprisoned citizens, several of them men of rank and importance,—as may be seen by the past conduct of Athens after the battle of Korôneia, and by that of Sparta, hereafter to be recounted, after the taking of Sphakteria. The Platæans, obeying the simple instinct of wrath and vengeance, threw away this great political advantage, which the more long-sighted Periklês would gladly have turned to account.

At the time when the Athenians sent their herald to Platæa, they also issued orders for seizing all Bœotians who might be found in Attica; while they lost no time in sending forces to provision Platæa, and placing it on the footing of a garrison town, removing to Athens the old men and sick, with the women and children. No complaint or discussion, respecting the recent surprise, was thought of by either party: it was evident to both that the war was now actually begun,—that nothing was to be thought of except the means of carrying it on,—and that there could be no farther personal intercourse except under the protection of heralds.[208] The incident at Platæa, striking in all its points, wound up both parties to the full pitch of warlike excitement. A spirit of resolution and enterprise was abroad everywhere, especially among those younger citizens, yet unacquainted with the actual bitterness of war, whom the long truce but just broken had raised up; and the contagion of high-strung feeling spread from the leading combatants into every corner of Greece, manifesting itself partly in multiplied oracles, prophecies, and religious legends adapted to the moment:[209] a recent earthquake at Delos, too, as well as various other extraordinary physical phenomena, were construed as prognostics of the awful struggle impending,—a period fatally marked not less by eclipses, earthquakes, drought, famine, and pestilence, than by the direct calamities of war.[210]

An aggression so unwarrantable as the assault on Platæa tended doubtless to strengthen the unanimity of the Athenian assembly, to silence the opponents of Periklês, and to lend additional weight to those frequent exhortations,[211] whereby the great statesman was wont to sustain the courage of his countrymen. Intelligence was sent round to forewarn and hearten up the numerous allies of Athens, tributary as well as free: the latter, with the exception of the Thessalians, Akarnanians, and Messenians at Naupaktus, were all insular,—Chians, Lesbians, Korkyræans, and Zakynthians: to the island of Kephallênia also they sent envoys, but it was not actually acquired to their alliance until a few months afterwards.[212] With the Akarnanians, too, their connection had only been commenced a short time before, seemingly during the preceding summer, arising out of the circumstances of the town of Argos in Amphilochia. That town, situated on the southern coast of the Ambrakian gulf, was originally occupied by a portion of the Amphilochi, a non-Hellenic tribe, whose lineage apparently was something intermediate between Akarnanians and Epirots. Some colonists from Ambrakia, having been admitted as co-residents with the Amphilochian inhabitants of this town, presently expelled them, and retained the town with its territory exclusively for themselves. The expelled inhabitants, fraternizing with their fellow tribes around as well as with the Akarnanians, looked out for the means of restoration; and in order to obtain it, invited the assistance of Athens. Accordingly, the Athenians sent an expedition of thirty triremes, under Phormio, who, joining the Amphilochians and Akarnanians, attacked and carried Argos, reduced the Ambrakiots to slavery, and restored the town to the Amphilochians and Akarnanians. It was on this occasion that the alliance of the Akarnanians with Athens was first concluded, and that their personal attachment to the Athenian admiral, Phormio, commenced.[213]

The numerous subjects of Athens, whose contributions stood embodied in the annual tribute, were distributed all over and around the Ægean, including all the islands north of Krete, with the exception of Melos and Thera.[214] Moreover, the elements of force collected in Athens itself, were fully worthy of the metropolis of so great an empire. Periklês could make a report to his countrymen of three hundred triremes fit for active service; twelve hundred horsemen and horse-bowmen; sixteen hundred bowmen; and the great force of all, not less than twenty-nine thousand hoplites,—mostly citizens, but in part also metics. The chosen portion of these hoplites, both as to age and as to equipment, were thirteen thousand in number; while the remaining sixteen thousand, including the elder and younger citizens and the metics, did garrison-duty on the walls of Athens and Peiræus,—on the long line of wall which connected Athens both with Peiræus and Phalêrum,—and in the various fortified posts both in and out of Attica. In addition to these large military and naval forces, the city possessed in the acropolis, an accumulated treasure of coined silver amounting to not less than six thousand talents, or about one million four hundred thousand pounds, derived from annual laying by of tribute from the allies and perhaps of other revenues besides: the treasure had at one time been as large as nine thousand seven hundred talents, or about two million two hundred and thirty thousand pounds, but the cost of the recent religious and architectural decorations at Athens, as well as at the siege of Potidæa, had reduced it to six thousand. Moreover, the acropolis and the temples throughout the city were rich in votive offerings, deposits, sacred plate, and silver implements for the processions and festivals, etc., to an amount estimated at more than five hundred talents; while the great statue of the goddess recently set up by Pheidias in the Parthenon, composed of ivory and gold, included a quantity of the latter metal not less than forty talents in weight,—equal in value to more than four hundred talents of silver,—and all of it go arranged that it could be taken off from the statue at pleasure. In alluding to these sacred valuables among the resources of the state, Periklês spoke of them only as open to be so applied in case of need, with the firm resolution of replacing them during the first season of prosperity, just as the Corinthians had proposed to borrow from Delphi and Olympia. Besides the hoard thus actually in hand, there came in a large annual revenue, amounting, under the single head of tribute from the subject allies, to six hundred talents, equal to about one hundred and thirty-eight thousand pounds; besides all other items,[215] making up a general total of at least one thousand talents, or about two hundred and thirty thousand pounds.

To this formidable catalogue of means for war were to be added other items not less important, but which did not admit of being weighed and numbered; the unrivalled maritime skill and discipline of the seamen,—the democratical sentiment, alike fervent and unanimous, of the general mass of citizens,—and the superior development of directing intelligence. And when we consider that the enemy had indeed on his side an irresistible land-force, but scarcely anything else,—few ships, no trained seamen, no funds, no powers of combination or headship,—we may be satisfied that there were ample materials for an orator like Periklês to draw an encouraging picture of the future. He could depict Athens as holding Peloponnesus under siege by means of her navy and a chain of insular posts;[216] and he could guarantee success[217] as the sure reward of persevering, orderly, and well-considered exertion, combined with firm endurance under a period of temporary but unavoidable suffering; and combined too with another condition hardly less difficult for Athenian temper to comply with,—abstinence from seductive speculations of distant enterprise, while their force was required by the necessities of war near home.[218] But such prospects were founded upon a long-sighted calculation, looking beyond immediate loss, and therefore likely to take less hold of the mind of an ordinary citizen,—or at any rate, to be overwhelmed for the moment by the pressure of actual hardship. Moreover, the best which Periklês could promise was a successful resistance,—the unimpaired maintenance of that great empire to which Athens had become accustomed; a policy purely conservative, without any stimulus from the hope of positive acquisition,—and not only without the sympathy of other states, but with feelings of simple acquiescence on the part of most of her allies,—of strong hostility everywhere else.

On all these latter points the position of the Peloponnesian alliance was far more encouraging. So powerful a body of confederates had never been got together,—not even to resist Xerxes. Not only the entire strength of Peloponnesus—except Argeians and Achæans, both of whom were neutral at first, though the Achæan town of Pellênê joined even at the beginning, and all the rest subsequently—was brought together, but also the Megarians, Bœotians, Phocians, Opuntian Lokrians, Ambrakiots, Leukadians, and Anaktorians. Among these, Corinth, Megara, Sikyon, Pellênê, Elis, Ambrakia, and Leukas, furnished maritime force, while the Bœotians, Phocians, and Lokrians supplied cavalry. Many of these cities, however, supplied hoplites besides; but the remainder of the confederates furnished hoplites only. It was upon this latter force, not omitting the powerful Bœotian cavalry, that the main reliance was placed; especially for the first and most important operation of the war,—the devastation of Attica. Bound together by the strongest common feeling of active antipathy to Athens, the whole confederacy was full of hope and confidence for this immediate forward march,—so gratifying at once both to their hatred and to their love of plunder, by the hand of destruction laid upon the richest country in Greece,—and presenting a chance even of terminating the war at once, if the pride of the Athenians should be so intolerably stung as to provoke them to come out and fight. Certainty of immediate success, at the first outset, a common purpose to be accomplished and a common enemy to be put down, and favorable sympathies throughout Greece,—all these circumstances filled the Peloponnesians with sanguine hopes at the beginning of the war: and the general persuasion was, that Athens, even if not reduced to submission by the first invasion, could not possibly hold out more than two or three summers against the repetition of this destructive process.[219] Strongly did this confidence contrast with the proud and resolute submission to necessity, not without desponding anticipations of the result, which reigned among the auditors of Periklês.[220]

But though the Peloponnesians entertained confident belief of carrying their point by simple land-campaign, they did not neglect auxiliary preparations for naval and prolonged war. The Lacedæmonians resolved to make up the naval force already existing among themselves and their allies to an aggregate of five hundred triremes; chiefly by the aid of the friendly Dorian cities on the Italian and Sicilian coast. Upon each of them a specific contribution was imposed, together with a given contingent; orders being transmitted to them to make such preparations silently without any immediate declaration of hostility against Athens, and even without refusing for the present to admit any single Athenian ship into their harbors.[221] Besides this, the Lacedæmonians laid their schemes for sending envoys to the Persian king, and to other barbaric powers,—a remarkable evidence of melancholy revolution in Grecian affairs, when that potentate, whom the common arm of Greece had so hardly repulsed a few years before, was now invoked to bring the Phenician fleet again into the Ægean for the purpose of crushing Athens.

The invasion of Attica, however, without delay, was the primary object to be accomplished; and for that the Lacedæmonians issued circular orders immediately after the attempted surprise at Platæa. Though the vote of the allies was requisite to sanction any war, yet when that vote had once been passed, the Lacedæmonians took upon themselves to direct all the measures of execution. Two-thirds of the hoplites of each confederate city,—apparently two-thirds of a certain assumed rating, for which the city was held liable in the books of the confederacy, so that the Bœotians and others who furnished cavalry were not constrained to send two-thirds of their entire force of hoplites,—were summoned to be present on a certain day at the isthmus of Corinth, with provisions and equipment for an expedition of some length.[222] On the day named, the entire force was found duly assembled, and the Spartan king Archidamus, on taking the command, addressed to the commanders and principal officers from each city a discourse of solemn warning as well as encouragement. His remarks were directed chiefly to abate the tone of sanguine over-confidence which reigned in the army. After adverting to the magnitude of the occasion, the mighty impulse agitating all Greece, and the general good wishes which accompanied them against an enemy so much hated,—he admonished them not to let their great superiority of numbers and bravery seduce them into a spirit of rash disorder. “We are about to attack (he said) an enemy admirably equipped in every way, so that we may be very certain that they will come out and fight,[223] even if they be not now actually on the march to meet us at the border, at least when they see us in their territory ravaging and destroying their property. All men exposed to any unusual indignity become incensed, and act more under passion than under calculation, when it is actually brought under their eyes: much more will the Athenians do so, accustomed as they are to empire, and to ravage the territory of others rather than to see their own so treated.”

Immediately on the army being assembled, Archidamus sent Melêsippus as envoy to Athens to announce the coming invasion, being still in hopes that the Athenians would yield. But a resolution had been already adopted, at the instance of Periklês, to receive neither herald nor envoy from the Lacedæmonians when once their army was on its march: so that Melêsippus was sent back without even being permitted to enter the city. He was ordered to quit the territory before sunset, with guides to accompany him and prevent him from addressing a word to any one. On parting from his guides at the border, Melêsippus exclaimed,[224] with a solemnity but too accurately justified by the event: “This day will be the beginning of many calamities to the Greeks.”

Archidamus, as soon as the reception of his last envoy was made known to him, continued his march from the isthmus into Attica,—which territory he entered by the road of Œnoê, the frontier Athenian fortress of Attica towards Bœotia. His march was slow, and he thought it necessary to make a regular attack on the fort of Œnoê, which had been put into so good a state of defence, that after all the various modes of assault, in which the Lacedæmonians were not skilful, had been tried in vain,[225]—and after a delay of several days before the place,—he was compelled to renounce the attempt.

The want of enthusiasm on the part of the Spartan king,—his multiplied delays, first at the isthmus, next in the march, and lastly before Œnoê,—were all offensive to the fiery impatience of the army, who were loud in their murmurs against him. He acted upon the calculation already laid down in his discourse at Sparta,[226]—that the highly cultivated soil of Attica was to be looked upon as a hostage for the pacific dispositions of the Athenians, who would be more likely to yield when devastation, though not yet inflicted, was nevertheless impending, and at their doors. In this point of view, a little delay at the border was no disadvantage; and perhaps the partisans of peace at Athens may have encouraged him to hope that it would enable them to prevail. Nor can we doubt that it was a moment full of difficulty to Periklês at Athens. He had to proclaim to all the proprietors in Attica the painful truth, that they must prepare to see their lands and houses overrun and ruined; and that their persons, families, and movable property, must be brought in for safety either to Athens, or to one of the forts in the territory,—or carried across to one of the neighboring islands. It would, indeed, make a favorable impression when he told them that Archidamus was his own family friend, yet only within such limits as consisted with duty to the city: in case, therefore, the invaders, while ravaging Attica, should receive instruction to spare his own lands, he would forthwith make them over to the state as public property: nor was such a case unlikely to arise, if not from the personal feeling of Archidamus, at least from the deliberate manœuvre of the Spartans, who would seek thus to set the Athenian public against Periklês, as they had tried to do before by demanding the banishment of the sacrilegious Alkmæônid race.[227] But though this declaration would doubtless provoke a hearty cheer, the lesson which he had to inculcate, not simply for admission as prudent policy, but for actual practice, was one revolting alike to the immediate interest, the dignity, and the sympathies of his countrymen. To see their lands all ravaged, without raising an arm to defend them,—to carry away their wives and families, and to desert and dismantle their country residences, as they had done during the Persian invasion,—all in the confidence of compensation in other ways and of remote ultimate success,—were recommendations which, probably, no one but Periklês could have hoped to enforce. They were, moreover, the more painful to execute, inasmuch as the Athenian citizens had very generally retained the habits of residing permanently, not in Athens, but in the various demes of Attica; many of which still preserved their temples, their festivals, their local customs, and their limited municipal autonomy, handed down from the day when they had once been independent of Athens.[228] It was but recently that the farming, the comforts, and the ornaments, thus distributed over Attica, had been restored from the ruin of the Persian invasion, and brought to a higher pitch of improvement than ever; yet the fruits of this labor, and the scenes of these local affections, were now to be again deliberately abandoned to a new aggressor, and exchanged for the utmost privation and discomfort. Archidamus might well doubt whether the Athenians would nerve themselves up to the pitch of resolution necessary for this distressing step, when it came to the actual crisis; and whether they would not constrain Periklês against his will to make propositions for peace. His delay on the border, and postponement of actual devastation, gave the best chance for such propositions being made; though as this calculation was not realized, the army raised plausible complaints against him for having allowed the Athenians time to save so much of their property.

From all parts of Attica the residents flocked within the spacious walls of Athens, which now served as shelter for the houseless, like Salamis, forty-nine years before: entire families with all their movable property, and even with the woodwork of their houses; the sheep and cattle were conveyed to Eubœa and the other adjoining islands.[229] Though a few among the fugitives obtained dwellings or reception from friends, the greater number were compelled to encamp in the vacant spaces of the city and Peiræus, or in and around the numerous temples of the city,—always excepting the acropolis and the eleusinion, which were at all times strictly closed to profane occupants; but even the ground called the Pelasgikon, immediately under the acropolis, which, by an ancient and ominous tradition, was interdicted to human abode,[230] was made use of under the present necessity. Many, too, placed their families in the towers and recesses of the city walls,[231] or in sheds, cabins, tents, or even tubs, disposed along the course of the long walls to Peiræus. In spite of so serious an accumulation of losses and hardships, the glorious endurance of their fathers in the time of Xerxes was faithfully copied, and copied too under more honorable circumstances, since at that time there had been no option possible; whereas, the march of Archidamus might, perhaps, now have been arrested by submissions, ruinous indeed to Athenian dignity, yet not inconsistent with the security of Athens, divested of her rank and power. Such submissions, if suggested as they probably may have been by the party opposed to Periklês, found no echo among the suffering population.

After having spent several days before Œnoê without either taking the fort or receiving any message from the Athenians, Archidamus marched onward to Eleusis and the Thriasian plain,—about the middle of June, eighty days after the surprise of Platæa. His army was of irresistible force, not less than sixty thousand hoplites, according to the statement of Plutarch,[232] or of one hundred thousand, according to others: considering the number of constituent allies, the strong feeling by which they were prompted, and the shortness of the expedition combined with the chance of plunder, even the largest of these two numbers is not incredibly great, if we take it to include not hoplites only, but cavalry and light-armed also: but as Thucydidês, though comparatively full in his account of this march, has stated no general total, we may presume that he had heard none upon which he could rely. As the Athenians had made no movement towards peace, Archidamus anticipated that they would come forth to meet him in the fertile plain of Eleusis and Thria, which was the first portion of territory that he sat down to ravage: but no Athenian force appeared to oppose him, except a detachment of cavalry, who were repulsed in a skirmish near the small lakes called Rheiti. Having laid waste this plain without any serious opposition, Archidamus did not think fit to pursue the straight road which from Thria conducted directly to Athens across the ridge of Mount Ægaleos, but turned off to the westward, leaving that mountain on his right hand until he came to Krôpeia, where he crossed a portion of the line of Ægaleos over to Acharnæ. He was here about seven miles from Athens, on a declivity sloping down into the plain which stretches westerly and northwesterly from Athens, and visible from the city walls: and he here encamped, keeping his army in perfect order for battle, but at the same time intending to damage and ruin the place and its neighborhood. Acharnæ was the largest and most populous of all the demes in Attica, furnishing no less than three thousand hoplites to the national line, and flourishing as well by its corn, vines, and olives, as by its peculiar abundance of charcoal-burning from the forests of ilex on the neighboring hills: moreover, if we are to believe Aristophanês, the Acharnian proprietors were not merely sturdy “hearts of oak,” but peculiarly vehement and irritable.[233] It illustrates the condition of a Grecian territory under invasion, when we find this great deme, which could not have contained less than twelve thousand free inhabitants of both sexes and all ages, with at least an equal number of slaves, completely deserted. Archidamus calculated that when the Athenians actually saw his troops so close to their city, carrying fire and sword over their wealthiest canton, their indignation would become uncontrollable, and they would march out forthwith to battle. The Acharnian proprietors especially, he thought, would be foremost in inflaming this temper, and insisting upon protection to their own properties,—or, if the remaining citizens refused to march out along with them, they would, after having been thus left undefended to ruin, become discontented and indifferent to the general weal.[234]

Though his calculation was not realized, it was, nevertheless, founded upon most rational grounds. What Archidamus anticipated was on the point of happening, and nothing prevented it, except the personal ascendency of Periklês, strained to its very utmost. So long as the invading army was engaged in the Thriasian plain, the Athenians had some faint hope that it might—like Pleistoanax, fourteen years before—advance no farther into the interior: but when it came to Acharnæ, within sight of the city walls,—when the ravagers were actually seen destroying buildings, fruit-trees, and crops, in the plain of Athens, a sight strange to every Athenian eye except to those very old men who recollected the Persian invasion,—the exasperation of the general body of citizens rose to a pitch never before known. The Acharnians first of all, next the youthful citizens generally,—became madly clamorous for arming and going forth to fight. Knowing well their own great strength, but less correctly informed of the superior strength of the enemy, they felt confident that victory was within their reach. Groups of citizens were everywhere gathered together,[235] angrily debating the critical question of the moment; while the usual concomitants of excited feeling,—oracles and prophecies of diverse tenor, many of them, doubtless, promising success against the enemy at Acharnæ,—were eagerly caught up and circulated.

In this inflamed temper of the Athenian mind, Periklês was naturally the great object of complaint and wrath. He was denounced as the cause of all the existing suffering: he was reviled as a coward for not leading out the citizens to fight, in his capacity of general: the rational convictions as to the necessity of the war and the only practicable means of carrying it on, which his repeated speeches had implanted, seemed to be altogether forgotten.[236] This burst of spontaneous discontent was, of course, fomented by the numerous political enemies of Periklês, and particularly by Kleon,[237] now rising into importance as an opposition-speaker; whose talent for invective was thus first exercised under the auspices of the high aristocratical party, as well as of an excited public. But no manifestations, however violent, could disturb either the judgment or the firmness of Periklês. He listened, unmoved, to all the declarations made against him, and resolutely refused to convene any public assembly, or any meeting invested with an authorized character, under the present irritated temper of the citizens.[238] It appears that he, as general, or rather the board of ten generals, among whom he was one, must have been invested constitutionally with the power, not only of calling the ekklesia when they thought fit, but also of preventing it from meeting,[239] and of postponing even those regular meetings which commonly took place at fixed times, four times in the prytany. No assembly, accordingly, took place, and the violent exasperation of the people was thus prevented from realizing itself in any rash public resolution. That Periklês should have held firm against this raging force, is but one among the many honorable points in his political character; but it is far less wonderful than the fact, that his refusal to call the ekklesia was efficacious to prevent the ekklesia from being held. The entire body of Athenians were now assembled within the walls, and if he refused to convoke the ekklesia, they might easily have met in the Pnyx, without him; for which it would not have been difficult at such a juncture to provide plausible justification. The inviolable respect which the Athenian people manifested on this occasion for the forms of their democratical constitution—assisted doubtless by their long-established esteem for Periklês, yet opposed to an excitement alike intense and pervading, and to a demand apparently reasonable, in so far as regarded the calling of an assembly for discussion,—is one of the most memorable incidents in their history.

While Periklês thus decidedly forbade any general march out for battle, he sought to provide as much employment as possible for the compressed eagerness of the citizens. The cavalry were sent out, together with the Thessalian cavalry their allies, for the purpose of restraining the excursions of the enemy’s light troops, and protecting the lands near the city from plunder.[240] At the same time, he fitted out a powerful expedition, which sailed forth to ravage Peloponnesus, even while the invaders were yet in Attica.[241] Archidamus, after having remained engaged in the devastation of Acharnæ long enough to satisfy himself that the Athenians would not hazard a battle, turned away from Athens in a northwesterly direction towards the demes between Mount Brilêssus and Mount Parnês, on the road passing through Dekeleia. The army continued ravaging these districts until their provisions were exhausted, and then quitted Attica by the northwestern road near Orôpus, which brought them into Bœotia. The Oropians were not Athenians, but dependent upon Athens, and the district of Græa, a portion of their territory, was laid waste; after which, the army dispersed and retired back to their respective homes.[242] It would seem that they quitted Attica towards the end of July, having remained in the country between thirty and forty days.

Meanwhile, the Athenian expedition under Karkinus, Prôteas, and Sokratês, joined by fifty Korkyræan ships, and by some other allies, sailed round Peloponnesus, landing in various parts to inflict damage, and among other places, at Methônê (Modon) on the southwestern peninsula of the Lacedæmonian territory.[243] The place, neither strong nor well-garrisoned, would have been carried with little difficulty, had not Brasidas the son of Tellis,—a gallant Spartan now mentioned for the first time, but destined to great celebrity afterwards,—who happened to be on guard at a neighboring post, thrown himself into it with one hundred men by a rapid movement, before the dispersed Athenian troops could be brought together to prevent him. He infused such courage into the defenders of the place that every attack was repelled, and the Athenians were forced to reëmbark,—an act of prowess which procured for him the first public honors bestowed by the Spartans during this war. Sailing northward along the western coast of Peloponnesus, the Athenians landed again on the coast of Elis, a little south of the promontory called Cape Ichthys: they ravaged the territory for two days, defeating both the troops in the neighborhood and three hundred chosen men from the central Eleian territory. Strong winds on a harborless coast now induced the captains to sail with most of the troops round Cape Ichthys, in order to reach the harbor of Pheia on the northern side of it; while the Messenian hoplites, marching by land across the promontory, attacked Pheia and carried it by assault. When the fleet arrived, all were reëmbarked,—the full force of Elis being under march to attack them: they then sailed northward, landing on various other spots to commit devastation, until they reached Sollium, a Corinthian settlement on the coast of Akarnania. They captured this place, which they handed over to the inhabitants of the neighboring Akarnanian town of Palærus,—as well as Astakus, from whence they expelled the despot Euarchus, and enrolled the town as a member of the Athenian alliance. From hence they passed over to Kephallênia, which they were fortunate enough also to acquire as an ally of Athens without any compulsion,—with its four distinct towns, or districts, Palês, Kranii, Samê, and Pionê. These various operations took up near three months from about the beginning of July, so that they returned to Athens towards the close of September,[244]—the beginning of the winter half of the year, according to the distribution of Thucydidês.

Nor was this the only maritime expedition of the summer: thirty more triremes, under Kleopompus, were sent through the Euripus to the Lokrian coast opposite to the northern part of Eubœa. Some disembarkations were made, whereby the Lokrian towns of Thronium and Alopê were sacked, and farther devastation inflicted: while a permanent garrison was planted, and a fortified post erected, in the uninhabited island of Atalanta, opposite to the Lokrian coast, in order to restrain privateers from Opus and the other Lokrian towns in their excursions against Eubœa.[245] It was farther determined to expel the Æginetan inhabitants from Ægina, and to occupy the island with Athenian colonists. This step was partly rendered prudent by the important position of the island midway between Attica and Peloponnesus; but a concurrent motive, and probably the stronger motive, was the gratification of ancient antipathy and revenge against a people who had been among the foremost in provoking the war and in inflicting upon Athens so much suffering. The Æginetans with their wives and children were all put on shipboard and landed in Peloponnesus,—where the Spartans permitted them to occupy the maritime district and town of Thyrea, their last frontier towards Argos: some of them, however, found shelter in other parts of Greece. The island was made over to a detachment of Athenian kleruchs, or citizen proprietors, sent thither by lot.[246]

To the sufferings of the Æginetans, which we shall hereafter find still more deplorably aggravated, we have to add those of the Megarians. Both had been most zealous in kindling the war, but upon none did the distress of war fall so heavily. Both probably shared the premature confidence felt among the Peloponnesian confederacy, that Athens could never hold out more than a year or two,—and were thus induced to overlook their own undefended position against her. Towards the close of September, the full force of Athens, citizens and metics, marched into the Megarid under Periklês, and laid waste the greater part of the territory: while they were in it, the hundred ships which had been circumnavigating Peloponnesus, having arrived at Ægina on their return, went and joined their fellow-citizens in the Megarid, instead of going straight home. The junction of the two formed the largest Athenian force that had ever yet been seen together: there were ten thousand citizen hoplites, independent of three thousand others who were engaged in the siege of Potidæa, and three thousand metic hoplites,—besides a large number of light troops.[247] Against so large a force the Megarians could of course make no head, and their territory was all laid waste, even to the city walls. For several years of the war, the Athenians inflicted this destruction once, and often twice in the same year: a decree was proposed in the Athenian ekklesia by Charinus, though perhaps not carried, to the effect that the stratêgi every year should swear, as a portion of their oath of office,[248] that they would twice invade and ravage the Megarid. As the Athenians at the same time kept the port of Nisæa blocked up, by means of their superior naval force and of the neighboring coast of Salamis, the privations imposed on the Megarians became extreme and intolerable.[249] Not merely their corn and fruits, but even their garden vegetables near the city, were rooted up and destroyed, and their situation seems often to have been that of a besieged city hard pressed by famine. Even in the time of Pausanias, so many centuries afterwards, the miseries of the town during these years were remembered and communicated to him, being assigned as the reason why one of their most memorable statues had never been completed.[250]

To these various military operations of Athens during the course of this summer, some other measures of moment are to be added; and Thucydidês also notices an eclipse of the sun which modern astronomical calculations refer to the third of August: had this eclipse happened three months earlier, immediately before the entrance of the Peloponnesians into Attica, it might probably have been construed as an unfavorable omen, and caused the postponement of the scheme. Expecting a prolonged struggle, the Athenians now made arrangements for placing Attica in a permanent state of defence, both by sea and land; what these arrangements were, we are not told in detail, but one of them was sufficiently remarkable to be named particularly. They set apart one thousand talents out of the treasure in the acropolis as an inviolable reserve, not to be touched except on the single contingency of a hostile naval force about to assail the city, with no other means at hand to defend it. They further enacted, that if any citizen should propose, or any magistrate put the question, in the public assembly, to make any different application of this reserve, he should be punishable with death. Moreover, they resolved every year to keep back one hundred of their best triremes, and trierarchs to command and equip them, for the same special necessity.[251] It may be doubted whether this latter provision was placed under the same stringent sanction, or observed with the same rigor, as that concerning the money, which latter was not departed from until the twentieth year of the war, after all the disasters of the Sicilian expedition, and on the terrible news of the revolt of Chios. It was on that occasion that the Athenians first repealed the sentence of capital punishment against the proposer of this forbidden change, and next appropriated the money to meet the then imminent peril of the commonwealth.[252]

The resolution here taken about this sacred reserve, and the rigorous sentence interdicting contrary propositions, is pronounced by Mr. Mitford to be an evidence of the indelible barbarism of democratical government.[253] But we must recollect, first, that the sentence of capital punishment was one which could hardly by possibility come into execution; for no citizen would be so mad as to make the forbidden proposition, while this law was in force. Whoever desired to make it, would first begin by proposing to repeal the prohibitory law, whereby he would incur no danger, whether the assembly decided in the affirmative or negative; and if he obtained an affirmative decision, he would then, and then only, proceed to move the reappropriation of the fund. To speak the language of English parliamentary procedure, he would first move the suspension or abrogation of the standing order whereby the proposition was forbidden,—next, he would move the proposition itself: in fact, such was the mode actually pursued, when the thing at last came to be done.[254] But though the capital sentence could hardly come into effect, the proclamation of it in terrorem had a very distinct meaning. It expressed the deep and solemn conviction which the people entertained of the importance of their own resolution about the reserve,—it forewarned all assemblies and all citizens to come, of the danger of diverting it to any other purpose,—it surrounded the reserve with an artificial sanctity, which forced every man who aimed at the reappropriation to begin with a preliminary proposition, formidable on the very face of it, as removing a guarantee which previous assemblies had deemed of immense value, and opening the door to a contingency which they had looked upon as treasonable. The proclamation of a lighter punishment, or a simple prohibition without any definite sanction whatever, would neither have announced the same emphatic conviction, nor produced the same deterring effect. The assembly of 431 B.C. could not in any way enact laws which subsequent assemblies could not reverse; but it could so frame its enactments, in cases of peculiar solemnity, as to make its authority strongly felt upon the judgment of its successors, and to prevent them from entertaining motions for repeal, except under necessity at once urgent and obvious. Far from thinking that the law now passed at Athens displayed barbarism, either in the end or in the means, I consider it principally remarkable for its cautious and long-sighted view of the future,—qualities the exact reverse of barbarism,—and worthy of the general character of Periklês, who probably suggested it. Athens was just entering into a war which threatened to be of indefinite length, and was certain to be very costly. To prevent the people from exhausting all their accumulated fund, and to place them under a necessity of reserving something against extreme casualties, was an object of immense importance. Now the particular casualty, which Periklês, assuming him to be the proposer, named as the sole condition of touching this one thousand talents, might be considered as of all others the most improbable, in the year 431 B.C. So immense was then the superiority of the Athenian naval force, that to suppose it defeated, and a Peloponnesian fleet in full sail for Peiræus, was a possibility which it required a statesman of extraordinary caution to look forward to, and which it is truly wonderful that the people generally could have been induced to contemplate. Once tied up to this purpose, however, the fund lay ready for any other terrible emergency: and we shall find the actual employment of it incalculably beneficial to Athens, at a moment of the gravest peril, when she could hardly have protected herself without some such special resource. The people would scarcely have sanctioned so rigorous an economy, had it not been proposed to them at a period so early in the war that their available reserve was still much larger: but it will be forever to the credit of their foresight as well as constancy, that they should first have adopted such a precautionary measure, and afterwards adhered to it for nineteen years, under severe pressure for money, until at length a case arose which rendered farther abstinence really, and not constructively, impossible.

To display their force and take revenge by disembarking and ravaging parts of Peloponnesus, was doubtless of much importance to Athens during this first summer of the war: though it might seem that the force so employed was quite as much needed in the conquest of Potidæa, which still remained under blockade,—and of the neighboring Chalkidians in Thrace, still in revolt. It was during the course of this summer that a prospect opened to Athens of subduing these towns, through the assistance of Sitalkês, king of the Odrysian Thracians. That prince had married the sister of Nymphodôrus, a citizen of Abdêra; who engaged to render him, and his son Sadokus, allies of Athens. Sent for to Athens and appointed proxenus of Athens at Abdêra, which was one of the Athenian subject allies, Nymphodôrus made this alliance, and promised, in the name of Sitalkês, that a sufficient Thracian force should be sent to aid Athens in the reconquest of her revolted towns: the honor of Athenian citizenship was at the same time conferred upon Sadokus.[255] Nymphodôrus farther established a good understanding between Perdikkas of Macedonia and the Athenians, who were persuaded to restore to him Therma, which they had before taken from him. The Athenians had thus the promise of powerful aid against the Chalkidians and Potidæans: yet the latter still held out, with little prospect of immediate surrender. Moreover, the town of Astakus, in Akarnania, which the Athenians had captured during the summer, in the course of their expedition round Peloponnesus, was recovered during the autumn by the deposed despot Euarchus, assisted by forty Corinthian triremes and one thousand hoplites. This Corinthian armament, after restoring Euarchus, made some unsuccessful descents both upon other parts of Akarnania and upon the island of Kephallênia: in the latter, they were entrapped into an ambuscade, and obliged to return home with considerable loss.[256]

It was towards the close of this autumn also that Periklês, chosen by the people for the purpose, delivered the funeral oration at the public interment of those warriors who had fallen during the campaign. The ceremonies of this public token of respect have already been described in a former chapter, on occasion of the conquest of Samos: but that which imparted to the present scene an imperishable interest, was the discourse of the chosen statesman and orator; probably heard by Thucydidês himself, and in substance reproduced. A large crowd of citizens and foreigners, of both sexes and all ages, accompanied the funeral procession from Athens to the suburb called the outer Kerameikus, where Periklês, mounted upon a lofty stage prepared for the occasion, closed the ceremony with his address. The law of Athens not only provided this public funeral and commemorative discourse, but also assigned maintenance at the public expense to the children of the slain warriors until they attained military age: a practice which was acted on throughout the whole war, though we have only the description and discourse belonging to this single occasion.[257]

The eleven chapters of Thucydidês which comprise this funeral speech are among the most memorable relics of antiquity; considering that under the language and arrangement of the historian,—always impressive, though sometimes harsh and peculiar, like the workmanship of a powerful mind, misled by a bad or an unattainable model,—we possess the substance and thoughts of the illustrious statesman. A portion of it, of course, is and must be common-place, belonging to all discourses composed for a similar occasion. Yet this is true only of a comparatively small portion: much of it is peculiar, and every way worthy of Periklês,—comprehensive, rational, and full, not less of sense and substance than of earnest patriotism. It thus forms a strong contrast with the jejune, though elegant, rhetoric of other harangues, mostly[258] not composed for actual delivery; and deserves, in comparison with the funeral discourses remaining to us from Plato, and the Pseudo-Demosthenês, and even Lysias, the honorable distinction which Thucydidês claims for his own history,—an ever-living possession, and not a mere show-piece for the moment.

In the outset of his speech, Periklês distinguishes himself from those who had preceded him in the same function of public orator, by dissenting from the encomiums which it had been customary to bestow on the law enjoining these funeral harangues: he thinks that the publicity of the funeral itself, and the general demonstrations of respect and grief by the great body of citizens, tell more emphatically in token of gratitude to the brave dead, when the scene passes in silence, than when it is translated into the words of a speaker, who may easily offend, either by incompetency or by apparent feebleness, or perhaps even by unseasonable exaggeration. Nevertheless, the custom having been embodied in law, and elected as he has been by the citizens, he comes forward to discharge the duty imposed upon him in the best manner he can.[259]

One of the remarkable features in this discourse is, its business-like, impersonal character: it is Athens herself who undertakes to commend and decorate her departed sons, as well as to hearten up and admonish the living.

After a few words on the magnitude of the empire, and on the glorious efforts as well as endurance whereby their forefathers and they had acquired it,—Periklês proceeds to sketch the plan of life, the constitution, and the manners, under which such achievements were brought about.[260]

“We live under a constitution such as noway to envy the laws of our neighbors,—ourselves an example to others, rather than mere imitators. It is called a democracy, since its permanent aim tends towards the many and not towards the few: in regard to private matters and disputes, the laws deal equally with every man: while looking to public affairs and to claims of individual influence, every man’s chance of advancement is determined, not by party-favor but by real worth, according as his reputation stands in his own particular department: nor does poverty, or obscure station, keep him back,[261] if he really has the means of benefiting the city. And our social march is free, not merely in regard to public affairs, but also in regard to intolerance of each other’s diversity of daily pursuits. For we are not angry with our neighbor for what he may do to please himself, nor do we ever put on those sour looks,[262] which, though they do no positive damage, are not the less sure to offend. Thus conducting our private social intercourse with reciprocal indulgence, we are restrained from wrong on public matters by fear and reverence of our magistrates for the time being, and of our laws,—especially such laws as are instituted for the protection of wrongful sufferers, and even such others as, though not written, are enforced by a common sense of shame. Besides this, we have provided for our minds numerous recreations from toil, partly by our customary solemnities of sacrifice and festival throughout the year, partly by the elegance of our private establishments,—the daily charm of which banishes the sense of discomfort. From the magnitude of our city, the products of the whole earth are brought to us, so that our enjoyment of foreign luxuries is as much our own and assured as those which we grow at home. In respect to training for war, we differ from our opponents (the Lacedæmonians) on several material points. First, we lay open our city as a common resort: we apply no xenêlasy to exclude even an enemy either from any lesson or any spectacle, the full view of which he may think advantageous to him; for we trust less to manœuvres and quackery than to our native bravery, for warlike efficiency. Next, in regard to education, while the Lacedæmonians, even from their earliest youth, subject themselves to an irksome exercise for the attainment of courage, we, with our easy habits of life, are not less prepared than they, to encounter all perils within the measure of our strength. The proof of this is, that the Peloponnesian confederates do not attack us one by one, but with their whole united force; while we, when we attack them at home, overpower for the most part all of them who try to defend their own territory. None of our enemies has ever met and contended with our entire force; partly in consequence of our large navy,—partly from our dispersion in different simultaneous land-expeditions. But when they chance to be engaged with any part of it, if victorious, they pretend to have vanquished us all,—if defeated, they pretend to have been vanquished by all.

“Now, if we are willing to brave danger, just as much under an indulgent system as under constant toil, and by spontaneous courage as much as under force of law,—we are gainers in the end, by not vexing ourselves beforehand with sufferings to come, yet still appearing in the hour of trial not less daring than those who toil without ceasing.

“In other matters, too, as well as in these, our city deserves admiration. For we combine elegance of taste with simplicity of life, and we pursue knowledge without being enervated:[263] we employ wealth, not for talking and ostentation, but as a real help in the proper season: nor is it disgraceful to any one who is poor to confess his poverty, though he may rather incur reproach for not actually keeping himself out of poverty. The magistrates who discharge public trusts fulfil their domestic duties also,—the private citizen, while engaged in professional business, has competent knowledge on public affairs: for we stand alone in regarding the man who keeps aloof from these latter, not as harmless, but as useless. Moreover, we always hear and pronounce on public matters, when discussed by our leaders,—or perhaps strike out for ourselves correct reasonings about them: far from accounting discussion an impediment to action, we complain only if we are not told what is to be done before it becomes our duty to do it. For, in truth, we combine in the most remarkable manner these two qualities,—extreme boldness in execution, with full debate beforehand on that which we are going about: whereas, with others, ignorance alone imparts boldness,—debate introduces hesitation. Assuredly, those men are properly to be regarded as the stoutest of heart, who, knowing most precisely both the terrors of war and the sweets of peace, are still not the less willing to encounter peril.

“In fine, I affirm that our city, considered as a whole, is the schoolmistress of Greece;[264] while, viewed individually, we enable the same man to furnish himself out and suffice to himself in the greatest variety of ways, and with the most complete grace and refinement. This is no empty boast of the moment, but genuine reality: and the power of the city, acquired through the dispositions just indicated, exists to prove it. Athens alone, of all cities, stands forth in actual trial greater than her reputation: her enemy, when he attacks her, will not have his pride wounded by suffering defeat from feeble hands,—her subjects will not think themselves degraded as if their obedience were paid to an unworthy superior.[265] Having thus put forward our power, not uncertified, but backed by the most evident proofs, we shall be admired not less by posterity than by our contemporaries. Nor do we stand in need either of Homer or of any other panegyrist, whose words may for the moment please, while the truth when known would confute their intended meaning: we have compelled all land and sea to become accessible to our courage, and have planted everywhere imperishable monuments of our kindness as well as of our hostility.

“Such is the city on behalf of which these warriors have nobly died in battle, vindicating her just title to unimpaired rights,[266]—and on behalf of which all of us here left behind must willingly toil. It is for this reason that I have spoken at length concerning the city, at once to draw from it the lesson that the conflict is not for equal motives between us and enemies who possess nothing of the like excellence,—and to demonstrate by proofs the truth of my encomium pronounced upon her.”

Periklês pursues at considerable additional length the same tenor of mixed exhortation to the living and eulogy of the dead; with many special and emphatic observations addressed to the relatives of the latter, who were assembled around and doubtless very near him. But the extract which I have already made is so long, that no farther addition would be admissible: yet it was impossible to pass over lightly the picture of the Athenian commonwealth in its glory, as delivered by the ablest citizen of the age. The effect of the democratical constitution, with its diffused and equal citizenship, in calling forth not merely strong attachment, but painful self-sacrifice, on the part of all Athenians,—is nowhere more forcibly insisted upon than in the words above cited of Periklês, as well as in others afterwards: “Contemplating as you do daily before you the actual power of the state, and becoming passionately attached to it, when you conceive its full greatness, reflect that it was all acquired by men of daring, acquainted with their duty, and full of an honorable sense of shame in their actions,”[267]—such is the association which he presents between the greatness of the state as an object of common passion, and the courage, intelligence, and mutual esteem, of individual citizens, as its creating and preserving causes: poor as well as rich being alike interested in the partnership.

But the claims of patriotism, though put forward as essentially and deservedly paramount, are by no means understood to reign exclusively, or to absorb the whole of the democratical activity. Subject to these, and to those laws and sanctions which protect both the public and individuals against wrong, it is the pride of Athens to exhibit a rich and varied fund of human impulse,—an unrestrained play of fancy and diversity of private pursuit, coupled with a reciprocity of cheerful indulgence between one individual and another, and an absence even of those “black looks” which so much embitter life, even if they never pass into enmity of fact. This portion of the speech of Periklês deserves peculiar attention, because it serves to correct an assertion, often far too indiscriminately made, respecting antiquity as contrasted with modern societies,—an assertion that the ancient societies sacrificed the individual to the state, and that only in modern times has individual agency been left free to the proper extent. This is preëminently true of Sparta: it is also true, in a great degree, of the ideal societies depicted by Plato and Aristotle: but it is pointedly untrue of the Athenian democracy, nor can we with any confidence predicate it of the major part of the Grecian cities.