The second and third years of the war had both been years of great suffering with the Athenians, from the continuance of the epidemic, which did not materially relax until the winter of the third year (B.C. 429-428). It is no wonder that, under the pressure of such a calamity, their military efforts were enfeebled, although the victories of Phormio had placed their maritime reputation at a higher point than ever. To their enemies, the destructive effects of this epidemic—effects still felt, although the disorder itself was suspended during the fourth year of the war—afforded material assistance as well as encouragement to persevere; and the Peloponnesians, under Archidamus, again repeated during this year their invasion and ravage of Attica, which had been intermitted during the year preceding. As before, they met with no serious resistance: entering the country about the beginning of May, they continued the process of devastation until their provisions were exhausted.[370] To this damage the Athenians had probably now accustomed themselves: but they speedily received, even while the invaders were in their country, intelligence of an event far more embarrassing and formidable,—the revolt of Mitylênê and of the greater part of Lesbos.

This revolt, indeed, did not come even upon the Athenians wholly unawares; but the idea of it was of longer standing than they suspected, for the Mitylenæan oligarchy had projected it before the war, and had made secret application to Sparta for aid, but without success. Some time after hostilities broke out, they resumed the design, which was warmly promoted by the Bœotians, kinsmen of the Lesbians in Æolic lineage and dialect. The Mitylenæan leaders appear to have finally determined on revolt during the preceding autumn or winter; but they thought it prudent to make ample preparations before they declared themselves openly: and, moreover, they took measures for constraining three other towns in Lesbos—Antissa, Eresus, and Pyrrha—to share their fortunes, to merge their own separate governments, and to become incorporated with Mitylênê. Methymna, the second town in Lesbos, situated on the north of the island, was decidedly opposed to them and attached to Athens. The Mitylenæans built new ships, put their walls in an improved state of defence, carried out a mole in order to narrow the entrance of their harbor, and render it capable of being closed with a chain, despatched emissaries to hire Scythian bowmen and purchase corn in the Euxine, and took such other measures as were necessary for an effective resistance. Though the oligarchical character of their government gave them much means of secrecy, and above all, dispensed with the necessity of consulting the people beforehand,—still, measures of such importance could not be taken without provoking attention. Intimation was sent to the Athenians by various Mitylenæan citizens, partly from private feeling, partly in their capacity of proxeni (or consuls, to use a modern word which approaches to the meaning) for Athens,—especially by a Mitylenæan named Doxander, incensed with the government for having disappointed his two sons of a marriage with two orphan heiresses.[371] Not less communicative were the islanders of Tenedos, animated by ancient neighborly jealousy towards Mitylênê; so that the Athenians were thus forewarned both of the intrigues between Mitylênê and the Spartans and of her certain impending revolt unless they immediately interfered.[372]

This news seems to have become certain about February or March 428 B.C.: but such was then the dispirited condition of the Athenians,—arising from two years’ suffering under the epidemic, and no longer counteracted by the wholesome remonstrances of Periklês,—that they could not at first bring themselves to believe what they were so much afraid to find true. Lesbos, like Chios, was their ally, upon an equal footing, still remaining under those conditions which had been at first common to all the members of the confederacy of Delos. Mitylênê paid no tribute to Athens: it retained its walls, its large naval force, and its extensive landed possessions on the opposite Asiatic continent: its government was oligarchical, administering all internal affairs without the least reference to Athens. Its obligations as an ally were, that, in case of war, it was held bound to furnish armed ships, whether in determinate number or not, we do not know: it would undoubtedly be restrained from making war upon Tenedos, or any other subject-ally of Athens: and its government or its citizens would probably be held liable to answer before the Athenian dikasteries, in case of any complaint of injury from the government or citizens of Tenedos or of any other ally of Athens,—these latter being themselves also accountable before the same tribunals, under like complaints from Mitylênê. That city was thus in practice all but independent, and so extremely powerful that the Athenians in their actual state of depression were fearful of coping with it, and therefore loth to believe the alarming intelligence which reached them. They sent envoys with a friendly message to persuade the Mitylenæans to suspend their proceedings, and it was only when these envoys returned without success that they saw the necessity of stronger measures. Ten Mitylenæan triremes, serving as contingent in the Athenian fleet, were seized, and their crews placed under guard; while Kleïppidês, then on the point of starting, along with two colleagues, to conduct a fleet of forty triremes round Peloponnesus, was directed to alter his destination and to proceed forthwith to Mitylênê.[373] It was expected that he would reach that town about the time of the approaching festival of Apollo Maloeis, celebrated in its neighborhood,—on which occasion the whole Mitylenæan population was in the habit of going forth to the temple: so that the town, while thus deserted, might easily be surprised and seized by the fleet. In case this calculation should be disappointed, Kleïppidês was instructed to require that the Mitylenæans should surrender their ships of war and raze their fortifications, and, in case of refusal, to attack them immediately.

But the publicity of debate at Athens was far too great to allow such a scheme to succeed. The Mitylenæans had their spies in the city, and the moment the resolution was taken, one of them set off to communicate it at Mitylênê. Crossing over to Geræstus in Eubœa, he got aboard a merchantman on the point of departure, and reached Mitylênê with a favorable wind on the third day from Athens: so that when Kleïppidês arrived shortly afterwards, he found the festival adjourned and the government prepared for him. The requisition which he sent in was refused, and the Mitylenæan fleet even came forth from the harbor to assail him, but was beaten back with little difficulty: upon which, the Mitylenæan leaders, finding themselves attacked before their preparations were completed, and desiring still to gain time before they declared their revolt, opened negotiations with Kleïppidês, and prevailed on him to suspend hostilities until ambassadors could be sent to Athens,—protesting that they had no serious intention of revolting. This appears to have been about the middle of May, soon after the Lacedæmonian invasion of Attica. Kleïppidês was induced, not very prudently, to admit this proposition, under the impression that his armament was insufficient to cope with a city and island so powerful; and he remained moored off the harbor at the north of Mitylênê until the envoys, among whom was included one of the very citizens of Mitylênê who had sent to betray the intended revolt, but who had since changed his opinion, should return from Athens. Meanwhile the Mitylenæan government, unknown to Kleïppidês, and well aware that the embassy would prove fruitless, took advantage of the truce to send secret envoys to Sparta, imploring immediate aid: and on the arrival of the Lacedæmonian Meleas and the Theban Hermæondas, who had been despatched to Mitylênê earlier, but had only come in by stealth since the arrival of Kleïppidês, a second trireme was sent along with them, carrying additional envoys to reiterate the solicitation. These arrivals and despatches were carried on without the knowledge of the Athenian admiral, chiefly in consequence of the peculiar site of the town, which had originally been placed upon a little islet divided from Lesbos by a narrow channel, or euripus, and had subsequently been extended across into the main island,—like Syracuse, and so many other Grecian settlements. It had consequently two harbors, one north, the other south of the town: Kleïppidês was anchored off the former, but the latter remained unguarded.[374]

During the absence of the Mitylenæan envoys at Athens, reinforcements reached the Athenian admiral from Lemnos, Imbros, and some other allies, as well as from the Lesbian town of Methymna: so that when the envoys returned, as they presently did, with an unfavorable reply, war was resumed with increased vigor. The Mitylenæans, having made a general sally with their full military force, gained some advantage in the battle; yet, not feeling bold enough to maintain the field, they retreated back behind their walls. The news of their revolt, when first spread abroad, had created an impression unfavorable to the stability of the Athenian empire: but when it was seen that their conduct was irresolute, and their achievements disproportionate to their supposed power, a reaction of feeling took place,—and the Chians and other allies came in with increased zeal in obedience to the summons of Athens for reinforcements. Kleïppidês soon found his armament large enough to establish two separate camps, markets for provision, and naval stations, north and south of the town, so as to watch and block up both the harbors at once.[375] But he commanded little beyond the area of his camp, and was unable to invest the city by land; especially as the Mitylenæans had received reinforcements from Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus, the other towns of Lesbos which acted with them. They were even sufficiently strong to march against Methymna, in hopes that it would be betrayed to them by a party within; but this expectation was not realized, nor could they do more than strengthen the fortifications, and confirm the Mitylenæan supremacy, in the other three subordinate towns; in such manner that the Methymnæans, who soon afterwards attacked Antissa, were repulsed with considerable loss. In this undecided condition the island continued, until, somewhere about the month of August B.C. 428, the Athenians sent Pachês to take the command, with a reinforcement of one thousand hoplites, who rowed themselves thither in triremes. The Athenians were now in force enough not only to keep the Mitylenæans within their walls, but also to surround the city with a single wall of circumvallation, strengthened by separate forts in suitable positions. By the beginning of October, Mitylênê was thus completely blockaded, by land as well as by sea.[376]

Meanwhile, the Mitylenæan envoys, after a troublesome voyage, reached Sparta a little before the Olympic festival, about the middle of June. The Spartans directed them to come to Olympia at the festival, where all the members of the Peloponnesian confederacy would naturally be present,—and there to set forth their requests, after the festival was concluded, in presence of all.[377] Thucydidês has given us, at some length, his version of the speech wherein this was done,—a speech not a little remarkable. Pronounced as it was by men who had just revolted from Athens, having the strongest interest to raise indignation against her as well as sympathy for themselves,—and before an audience exclusively composed of the enemies of Athens, all willing to hear, and none present to refute, the bitterest calumnies against her, we should have expected a confident sense of righteous and well-grounded though perilous effort on the part of the Mitylenæans, and a plausible collection of wrongs and oppressions alleged against the common enemy. Instead of which, the speech is apologetic and embarrassed: the speaker not only does not allege any extortion or severe dealing from Athens towards the Mitylenæans, but even admits the fact that they had been treated by her with marked honor;[378] and that, too, during a long period of peace, during which she stood less in awe of her allies generally, and would have had much more facility in realizing any harsh purposes towards them, than she could possibly enjoy now that the war had broken out, when their discontents would be likely to find powerful protectors.[379] According to his own showing, the Mitylenæans, while they had been perfectly well treated by Athens during the past, had now acquired, by the mere fact of war, increased security for continuance of the like treatment during the future. It is upon this ground of security for the future, nevertheless, that he rests the justification of the revolt, not pretending to have any subject of positive complaint. The Mitylenæans, he contends, could have no prospective security against Athens: for she had successively and systematically brought into slavery all her allies, except Lesbos and Chios, though all had originally been upon an equal footing: and there was every reason for fearing that she would take the first convenient opportunity of reducing the two last remaining to the same level,—the rather as their position was now one of privilege and exception, offensive to her imperial pride and exaggerated ascendency. It had hitherto suited the policy of Athens to leave these two exceptions, as a proof that the other allies had justly incurred their fate, since otherwise Lesbos and Chios, having equal votes, would not have joined forces in reducing them:[380] but this policy was now no longer necessary, and the Mitylenæans, feeling themselves free only in name, were imperatively called upon by regard for their own safety to seize the earliest opportunity for emancipating themselves in reality. Nor was it merely regard for their own safety, but a farther impulse of Pan-Hellenic patriotism; a desire to take rank among the opponents, and not among the auxiliaries of Athens, in her usurpation of sovereignty over so many free Grecian states.[381] The Mitylenæans had, however, been compelled to revolt with preparations only half-completed, and had therefore a double claim upon the succor of Sparta,—the single hope and protectress of Grecian autonomy. And Spartan aid—if now lent immediately and heartily, in a renewed attack on Attica during this same year, by sea as well as by land—could not fail to put down the common enemy, exhausted as she was by pestilence as well as by the cost of three years’ war, and occupying her whole maritime force, either in the siege of Mitylênê or round Peloponnesus. The orator concluded by appealing not merely to the Hellenic patriotism and sympathies of the Peloponnesians, but also to the sacred name of the Olympic Zeus, in whose precinct the meeting was held, that his pressing entreaty might not be disregarded.[382]

In following this speech of the orator, we see the plain confession that the Mitylenæans had no reason whatever to complain of the conduct of Athens towards themselves: she had respected alike their dignity, their public force, and their private security. This important fact helps us to explain, first, the indifference which the Mitylenæan people will be found to manifest in the revolt; next, the barbarous resolution taken by the Athenians after its suppression. The reasons given for the revolt are mainly two. 1. The Mitylenæans had no security that Athens would not degrade them into the condition of subject-allies like the rest. 2. They did not choose to second the ambition of Athens, and to become parties to a war, for the sake of maintaining an empire essentially offensive to Grecian political instincts. In both these two reasons there is force; and both touch the sore point of the Athenian empire. That empire undoubtedly contradicted one of the fundamental instincts of the Greek mind,—the right of every separate town to administer its own political affairs apart from external control. The Peloponnesian alliance recognized this autonomy in theory, by the general synod and equal voting of all the members at Sparta, on important occasions; though it was quite true,[383] as Periklês urged at Athens, that in practice nothing more was enjoyed than an autonomy confined by Spartan leading-strings,—and though Sparta held in permanent custody hostages for the fidelity of her Arcadian allies, summoning their military contingents without acquainting them whither they were destined to march. But Athens proclaimed herself a despot, effacing the autonomy of her allies not less in theory than in practice: far from being disposed to cultivate in them any sense of a real common interest with herself, she did not even cheat them with those forms and fictions which so often appease discontent in the absence of realities. Doubtless, the nature of her empire, at once widely extended, maritime, and unconnected, or only partially connected, with kindred of race, rendered the forms of periodical deliberation difficult to keep up; at the same time that it gave to her as naval chief an ascendency much more despotic than could have been exercised by any chief on land. It is doubtful whether she could have overcome—it is certain that she did not try to overcome—these political difficulties; so that her empire stood confessed as a despotism, opposed to the political instinct of the Greek mind; and the revolts against it, like this of Mitylênê,—in so far as they represented a genuine feeling, and were not merely movements of an oligarchical party against their own democracy,—were revolts of this offended instinct, much more than consequences of actual oppression. The Mitylenæans might certainly affirm that they had no security against being one day reduced to the common condition of subject-allies like the rest; yet an Athenian speaker, had he been here present, might have made no mean reply to this portion of their reasoning;—he would have urged that, had Athens felt any dispositions towards such a scheme, she would have taken advantage of the fourteen years’ truce to execute it; and he would have shown that the degradation of the allies by Athens, and the change in her position from president to despot had been far less intentional and systematic than the Mitylenæan orator affirmed.

To the Peloponnesian auditors, however, the speech of the latter proved completely satisfactory; the Lesbians were declared members of the Peloponnesian alliance, and a second attack upon Attica was decreed. The Lacedæmonians, foremost in the movement, summoned contingents from their various allies, and were early in arriving with their own at the isthmus: they there began to prepare carriages or trucks for dragging across the isthmus the triremes which had fought against Phormio, from the harbor of Lechæum into the Saronic gulf, in order to employ them against Athens. But the remaining allies did not answer to the summons, remaining at home occupied with their harvest; and the Lacedæmonians, sufficiently disappointed with this languor and disobedience, were still farther confounded by the unexpected presence of one hundred Athenian triremes off the coast of the isthmus. The Athenians, though their own presence at the Olympic festival was forbidden by the war, had doubtless learned more or less thoroughly the proceedings which had taken place there respecting Mitylênê. Perceiving the general belief entertained of their depressed and helpless condition, they determined to contradict this by a great and instant effort, and accordingly manned forthwith one hundred triremes, requiring the personal service of all men, citizens as well as metics; and excepting only the two richest classes of the Solonian census, i. e. the pentakosiomedimni, and the hippeis, or horsemen. With this prodigious fleet they made a demonstration along the isthmus in view of the Lacedæmonians, and landed in various parts of the Peloponnesian coast to inflict damage. At the same time, thirty other Athenian triremes, despatched sometime previously to Akarnania, under Asôpius, son of Phormio, landed at different openings in Laconia, for the same purpose; and this news reached the Lacedæmonians at the isthmus while the other great Athenian fleet was parading before their eyes.[384] Amazed at so unexpected a demonstration of strength, they began to feel how much the Mitylenæans had misled them respecting the exhaustion of Athens, and how incompetent they were, especially without the presence of their allies, to undertake any joint effective movement by sea and land against Attica. They therefore returned home, resolving to send an expedition of forty triremes, under Alkidas, to the relief of Mitylênê itself; at the same time transmitting requisitions to their various allies, in order that these triremes might be furnished.[385]

Meanwhile, Asôpius, with his thirty triremes, had arrived in Akarnania, from whence all the ships except twelve were sent home. He had been nominated commander as the son of Phormio, who appears either to have died, or to have become unfit for service, since his victories of the preceding year; and the Akarnanians had preferred a special request that a son, or at least some relative of Phormio, should be invested with the command of the squadron; so beloved was his name and character among them. Asôpius, however, accomplished nothing of importance, though he again undertook conjointly with the Akarnanians a fruitless march against Œniadæ. Ultimately, he was defeated and slain, in attempting a disembarkation on the territory of Leukas.[386]

The sanguine announcement made by the Mitylenæans at Olympia, that Athens was rendered helpless by the epidemic, had indeed been strikingly contradicted by her recent display; since, taking numbers and equipment together, the maritime force which she had put forth this summer, manned as it was by a higher class of seamen, surpassed all former years; although, in point of number only, it was inferior to the two hundred and fifty triremes which she had sent out during the first summer of the war.[387] But the assertion that Athens was impoverished in finances was not so destitute of foundation: for the whole treasure in the acropolis, six thousand talents at the commencement of the war, was now consumed, with the exception of that reserve of one thousand talents which had been solemnly set aside against the last exigences of defensive resistance. This is not surprising, when we learn that every hoplite engaged for near two years and a half in the blockade of Potidæa, received two drachmas per day, one for himself and a second for an attendant: there were during the whole time of the blockade three thousand hoplites engaged there,—and for a considerable portion of the time, four thousand six hundred; besides the fleet, all the seamen of which received one drachma per day per man. Accordingly the Athenians were now for the first time obliged to raise a direct contribution among themselves, to the amount of two hundred talents, for the purpose of prosecuting the siege of Mitylênê: and they at the same time despatched Lysiklês with four colleagues, in command of twelve triremes, to collect money. What relation these money-gathering ships bore to the regular tribute paid by the subject-allies, or whether they were allowed to visit these latter, we do not know: in the present case, Lysiklês landed at Myus, near the mouth of the Mæander, and marched up the country to levy contributions on the Karian villages in the plain of that river: but he was surprised by the Karians, perhaps aided by the active Samian exiles at Anæa in the neighborhood, and slain, with a considerable number of his men.[388]

While the Athenians thus held Mitylênê under siege, their faithful friends, the Platæans, had remained closely blockaded by the Peloponnesians and Bœotians for more than a year, without any possibility of relief. At length, provisions began to fail, and the general, Eupompidês, backed by the prophet Theænetus,—these prophets[389] were often among the bravest soldiers in the army,—persuaded the garrison to adopt the daring but seemingly desperate resolution of breaking out over the blockading wall, and in spite of its guards. So desperate, indeed, did the project seem, that at the moment of execution, one half of the garrison shrank from it as equivalent to certain death: the other half, about two hundred and twelve in number, persisted and escaped. Happy would it have been for the remainder had they even perished in the attempt, and thus forestalled the more melancholy fate in store for them!

It has been already stated, that the circumvallation of Platæa was accomplished by a double wall and a double ditch, one ditch without the encircling walls, another between them and the town; the two walls being sixteen feet apart, joined together, and roofed all round, so as to look like one thick wall, and to afford covered quarters for the besiegers. Both the outer and inner circumference were furnished with battlements, and after every ten battlements came a roofed tower, covering the whole breadth of the double wall,—allowing a free passage inside, but none outside. In general, the entire circuit of the roofed wall was kept under watch night and day: but on wet nights the besiegers had so far relaxed their vigilance as to retire under cover of the towers, and leave the intermediate spaces unguarded: and it was upon this omission that the plan of escape was founded. The Platæans prepared ladders of a proper height to scale the blockading double wall, ascertaining its height by repeatedly counting the ranges of bricks, which were quite near enough for them to discern, and not effectually covered with whitewash. On a cold and dark December night, amidst rain, sleet, and a roaring wind, they marched forth from the gates, lightly armed, some few with shields and spears, but most of them with breastplates, javelins, and bows and arrows: the right foot was naked, and the left foot alone shod, so as to give to it a more assured footing on the muddy ground.[390] Taking care to sally out with the wind in their faces, and at such a distance from each other as to prevent any clattering of arms, they crossed the inner ditch and reached the foot of the wall without being discovered: the ladders, borne in the van, were immediately planted, and Ammeas, son of Korœbus, followed by eleven others, armed only with a short sword and breastplate, mounted the wall: others, armed with spears, followed him, their shields being carried and handed to them when on the top by comrades behind. It was the duty of this first company to master and maintain the two towers, right and left, so as to keep the intermediate space free for passing over. This was successfully done, the guards in both towers being surprised and slain, without alarming the remaining besiegers: and many of the Platæans had already reached the top of the wall, when the noise of a tile accidently knocked down by one of them, betrayed what was passing. Immediately a general clamor was raised, alarm was given, and the awakened garrison rushed up from beneath to the top of the wall, yet not knowing where the enemy was to be found; a perplexity farther increased by the Platæans in the town, who took this opportunity of making a false attack on the opposite side. Amidst such confusion and darkness, the blockading detachment could not tell where to direct their blows, and all remained at their posts, except a reserve of three hundred men, kept constantly in readiness for special emergencies, who marched out and patrolled the outside of the ditch to intercept any fugitives from within. At the same time, fire-signals were raised to warn their allies at Thebes,—but here again the Platæans in the town had foreseen and prepared fire-signals on their part, which they hoisted forthwith, in order to deprive this telegraphic communication of all special meaning.[391]

Meanwhile, the escaping Platæans, masters of the two adjoining towers,—on the top of which some of them mounted, while others held the doorway through, so as to repel with spears and darts all approach of the blockaders,—prosecuted their flight without interruption over the space between, shoving down the battlements in order to make it more level and plant a greater number of ladders. In this manner they all successively got over and crossed the outer ditch; every man, immediately after crossing, standing ready on the outer bank, with bow and javelin, to repel assailants and maintain safe passages for his comrades in the rear. At length, when all had descended, there remained the last and greatest difficulty,—the escape of those who occupied the two towers and kept the intermediate portion of wall free: yet even this was accomplished successfully and without loss. The outer ditch was, however, found embarrassing,—so full of water from the rain as to be hardly fordable, yet with thin ice on it also, from a previous frost: for the storm, which in other respects was the main help to their escape, here retarded their passage of the ditch by an unusual accumulation of water. It was not, however, until all had crossed except the defenders of the towers,—who were yet descending and scrambling through,—that the Peloponnesian reserve of three hundred were seen approaching the spot with torches. Their unshielded right side was turned towards the ditch, and the Platæans, already across and standing on the bank, immediately assailed them with arrows and javelins,—in which the torches enabled them to take tolerable aim, while the Peloponnesians on their side could not distinguish their enemies in the dark, and had no previous knowledge of their position. They were thus held in check until the rearmost Platæans had surmounted the difficulties of the passage: after which the whole body stole off as speedily as they could, taking at first the road towards Thebes, while their pursuers were seen with their torch-lights following the opposite direction, on the road which led by the heights called Dryos-Kephalæ to Athens: after having marched about three quarters of a mile on the road to Thebes, leaving the chapel of the Hero Androkratês on their right hand, the fugitives quitted it, and striking to the eastward towards Erythræ and Hysiæ, soon found themselves in safety among the mountains which separate Bœotia from Attica at that point; from whence they passed into the glad harbor and refuge of Athens.[392]

Two hundred and twelve brave men thus emerged to life and liberty, breaking loose from that impending fate which too soon overtook the remainder, and preserving for future times the genuine breed and honorable traditions of Platæa. One man alone was taken prisoner at the brink of the outer ditch, while a few, who had enrolled themselves originally for the enterprise, lost courage and returned in despair even from the foot of the inner wall; telling their comrades within that the whole band had perished. Accordingly, at daybreak, the Platæans within sent out a herald to solicit a truce for burial of the dead bodies, and it was only by the answer made to this request, that they learned the actual truth. The description of this memorable outbreak exhibits not less daring in the execution than skill and foresight in the design; and is the more interesting, inasmuch as the men who thus worked out their salvation were precisely the bravest men, who best deserved it.

Meanwhile, Pachês and the Athenians kept Mitylênê closely blocked up, the provisions were nearly exhausted, and the besieged were already beginning to think of capitulation,—when their spirits were raised by the arrival of the Lacedæmonian envoy Salæthus, who had landed at Pyrrha on the west of Lesbos, and contrived to steal in through a ravine which obstructed the continuity of the blockading wall,—about February 427 B.C. He encouraged the Mitylenæans to hold out, assuring them that a Peloponnesian fleet under Alkidas was on the point of setting out to assist them, and that Attica would be forthwith invaded by the general Peloponnesian army. His own arrival, also, and his stay in the town, was in itself no small encouragement: we shall see hereafter, when we come to the siege of Syracuse by the Athenians, how much might depend upon the presence of one single Spartan. All thought of surrender was accordingly abandoned, and the Mitylenæans awaited with impatience the arrival of Alkidas, who started from Peloponnesus at the beginning of April, with forty-two triremes; while the Lacedæmonian army at the same time invaded Attica, in order to keep the attention of Athens fully employed. Their ravages on this occasion were more diligent, searching, and destructive to the country than before, and were continued the longer because they awaited the arrival of news from Lesbos. But none reached them, their stock of provisions was exhausted, and the army was obliged to break up.[393]

The news, when it did arrive, proved very unsatisfactory.

Salæthus and the Mitylenæans had held out until their provisions were completely exhausted, but neither relief, nor tidings, reached them from Peloponnesus. At length, even Salæthus became convinced that no relief would come; he projected, therefore, as a last hope, a desperate attack upon the Athenians and their wall of blockade. For this purpose, he distributed full panoplies among the mass of the people, or commons, who had hitherto been without them, having at best nothing more than bows or javelins.[394] But he had not sufficiently calculated the consequences of this important step. The Mitylenæan multitude, living under an oligarchical government, had no interest whatever in the present contest, which had been undertaken without any appeal to their opinion. They had no reason for aversion to Athens, seeing that they suffered no practical grievance from the Athenian alliance: and we shall find hereafter that even among the subject-allies—to say nothing of a privileged ally like Mitylênê—the bulk of the citizens were never forward, sometimes positively reluctant, to revolt. The Mitylenæan oligarchy had revolted, in spite of the absence of practical wrongs, because they desired an uncontrolled town-autonomy as well as security for its continuance: but this was a feeling to which the people were naturally strangers, having no share in the government of their own town, and being kept dead and passive, as it was the interest of the oligarchy that they should be, in respect to political sentiment. A Grecian oligarchy might obtain from its people quiet submission under ordinary circumstances, but if ever it required energetic effort, the genuine devotion under which alone such effort could be given, was found wanting. Accordingly, the Mitylenæan demos, so soon as they found themselves strengthened and ennobled by the possession of heavy armor, refused obedience to the orders of Salæthus for marching out and imperiling their lives in a desperate struggle. They were under the belief—not unnatural under the secrecy of public affairs habitually practised by an oligarchy, but which, assuredly, the Athenian demos would have been too well informed to entertain—that their governors were starving them, and had concealed stores of provisions for themselves. Accordingly, the first use which they made of their arms was, to demand that these concealed stores should be brought out and fairly apportioned to all, threatening, unless their demand was complied with at once, to enter into negotiations with the Athenians, and surrender the city. The ruling Mitylenæans, unable to prevent this, but foreseeing that it would be their irretrievable ruin, preferred the chance of negotiating themselves for a capitulation. It was agreed with Pachês, that the Athenian armament should enter into possession of Mitylênê; that the fate of its people and city should be left to the Athenian assembly, and that the Mitylenæans should send envoys to Athens to plead their cause: until the return of these envoys, Pachês engaged that no one should be either killed, or put in chains, or sold into slavery. Nothing was said about Salæthus, who hid himself as well as he could in the city. In spite of the guarantee received from Pachês, so great was the alarm of those Mitylenæans who had chiefly instigated the revolt, that when he actually took possession of the city, they threw themselves as suppliants upon the altars for protection; but being induced, by his assurances, to quit their sanctuary, were placed in the island of Tenedos until answer should be received from Athens.[395]

Having thus secured possession of Mitylênê, Pachês sent round some triremes to the other side of the island, and easily captured Antissa. But before he had time to reduce the two remaining towns of Pyrrha and Eresus, he received news which forced him to turn his attention elsewhere.

To the astonishment of every one, the Peloponnesian fleet of Alkidas was seen on the coast of Ionia. It ought to have been there much earlier, and had Alkidas been a man of energy, it would have reached Mitylênê even before the surrender of the city. But the Peloponnesians, when about to advance into the Athenian waters and brave the Athenian fleet, were under the same impressions of conscious weakness and timidity—especially since the victories of Phormio in the preceding year—as that which beset land-troops who marched up to attack the Lacedæmonian heavy-armed.[396] Alkidas, though unobstructed by the Athenians, who were not aware of his departure,—though pressed to hasten forward by Lesbian and Ionian exiles on board, and aided by expert pilots from those Samian exiles who had established themselves at Anæa,[397] on the Asiatic continent, and acted as zealous enemies of Athens,—nevertheless, instead of sailing straight to Lesbos, lingered first near Peloponnesus, next at the island of Delos, making capture of private vessels with their crews; until at length, on reaching the islands of Ikarus and Mykonus, he heard the unwelcome tidings that the besieged town had capitulated. Not at first crediting the report, he sailed onward to Embaton, in the Erythræan territory on the coast of Asia Minor, where he found the news confirmed. As only seven days had elapsed since the capitulation had been concluded, Teutiaplus, an Eleian captain in the fleet, strenuously urged the daring project of sailing on forthwith, and surprising Mitylênê by night in its existing unsettled condition: no preparation would have been made for receiving them, and there was good chance that the Athenians might be suddenly overpowered, the Mitylenæans again armed, and the town recovered.

Such a proposition, which was indeed something more than daring, did not suit the temper of Alkidas. Nor could he be induced by the solicitation of the exiles to fix and fortify himself either in any port of Ionia, or in the Æolic town of Kymê, so as to afford support and countenance to such subjects of the Athenian empire as were disposed to revolt; though he was confidently assured that many of them would revolt on his proclamation, and that the satrap Pissuthnês of Sardis would help him to defray the expense. Having been sent for the express purpose of relieving Mitylênê, Alkidas believed himself interdicted from any other project, and determined to return to Peloponnesus at once, dreading nothing so much as the pursuit of Pachês and the Athenian fleet. From Embaton, accordingly, he started on his return, coasting southward along Asia Minor as far as Ephesus. But the prisoners taken in his voyage were now an encumbrance to his flight; and their number was not inconsiderable, since all the merchant-vessels in his route had approached the fleet without suspicion, believing it to be Athenian: a Peloponnesian fleet near the coast of Ionia was as yet something unheard of and incredible. To get rid of his prisoners, Alkidas stopped at Myonnêsus, near Teos, and there put to death the greater number of them,—a barbarous proceeding, which excited lively indignation among the neighboring Ionic cities to which they belonged; insomuch that when he reached Ephesus, the Samian exiles dwelling at Anæa, who had come forward so actively to help him, sent him a spirited remonstrance, reminding him that the slaughter of men neither engaged in war, nor enemies, nor even connected with Athens, except by constraint, was disgraceful to one who came forth as the liberator of Greece,—and that, if he persisted, he would convert his friends into enemies, not his enemies into friends. So keenly did Alkidas feel this animadversion, that he at once liberated the remainder of his prisoners, several of them Chians; and then started from Ephesus, taking his course across sea towards Krete and Peloponnesus. After much delay off the coast of Krete from stormy weather, which harassed and dispersed his fleet, he at length reached in safety the harbor of Kyllênê in Elis, where his scattered ships were ultimately reunited.[398]

Thus inglorious was the voyage of the first Peloponnesian admiral who dared to enter that Mare clausum which passed for a portion of the territory of Athens.[399] But though he achieved little, his mere presence excited everywhere not less dismay than astonishment: for the Ionic towns were all unfortified, and Alkidas might take and sack any one of them by sudden assault, even though unable to hold it permanently. Pressing messages reached Pachês from Erythræ and from several other places, while the Athenian triremes called Paralus and Salaminia, the privileged vessels which usually carried public and sacred deputations, had themselves seen the Peloponnesian fleet anchored at Ikarus, and brought him the same intelligence. Pachês, having his hands now free by the capture of Mitylênê, set forth immediately in pursuit of the intruder, whom he chased as far the island of Patmos. It was there ascertained that Alkidas had finally disappeared from the eastern waters, and the Athenian admiral, though he would have rejoiced to meet the Peloponnesian fleet in the open sea, accounted it fortunate that they had not taken up a position in some Asiatic harbor,—in which case it would have been necessary for him to undertake a troublesome and tedious blockade,[400] besides all the chances of revolt among the Athenian dependencies. We shall see how much, in this respect, depended upon the personal character of the Lacedæmonian commander, when we come hereafter to the expedition of Brasidas.

On his return from Patmos to Mitylênê, Pachês was induced to stop at Notium by the solicitations of some exiles. Notium was the port of Kolophon, from which it was some little distance, as Peiræus was from Athens.[401]

About three years before, a violent internal dissension had taken place in Kolophon, and one of the parties, invoking the aid of the Persian Itamanes (seemingly one of the generals of the satrap Pissuthnês), had placed him in possession of the town; whereupon the opposite party, forced to retire, had established itself separately and independently at Notium. But the Kolophonians who remained in the town soon contrived to procure a party in Notium, whereby they were enabled to regain possession of it, through the aid of a body of Arcadian mercenaries in the service of Pissuthnês. These Arcadians formed a standing garrison at Notium, in which they occupied a separate citadel, or fortified space, while the town became again attached as harbor to Kolophon. A considerable body of exiles, however, expelled on that occasion, now invoked the aid of Pachês to reinstate them, and to expel the Arcadians. On reaching the place, the Athenian general prevailed upon Hippias, the Arcadian captain, to come forth to a parley, under the promise that, if nothing mutually satisfactory could be settled, he would again replace him, “safe and sound,” in the fortification. But no sooner had the Arcadian come forth to this parley, than Pachês, causing him to be detained under guard, but without fetters or ill-usage, immediately attacked the fortification while the garrison were relying on the armistice, carried it by storm, and put to death both the Arcadians and the Persians who were found within. Having got possession of the fortification, he next brought Hippias again into it, “safe and sound,” according to the terms of the convention, which was thus literally performed, and then immediately afterwards caused him to be shot with arrows and javelins. Of this species of fraud, founded on literal performance and real violation of an agreement, there are various examples in Grecian history; but nowhere do we read of a more flagitious combination of deceit and cruelty than the behavior of Pachês at Notium. How it was noticed at Athens, we do not know: but we may remark, not without surprise, that Thucydidês recounts it plainly and calmly without a single word of comment.[402]

Notium was separated from Kolophon, and placed in possession of those Kolophonians who were opposed to the Persian supremacy in the upper town. But as it had been down to this time a mere appendage of Kolophon and not a separate town, the Athenians soon afterwards sent œkists and performed for it the ceremonies of colonization according to their own laws and customs, inviting from every quarter the remaining exiles of Kolophon.[403] Whether any new settlers went from Athens itself, we do not know: but the step was intended to confer a sort of Hellenic citizenship, and recognized collective personality, on the new-born town of Notium; without which, neither its theôry or solemn deputation would have been admitted to offer public sacrifice, nor its private citizens to contend for the prize, at Olympic and other great festivals.

Having cleared the Asiatic waters from the enemies of Athens, Pachês returned to Lesbos, reduced the towns of Pyrrha and Eresus, and soon found himself so completely master both of Mitylênê and the whole island, as to be able to send home the larger part of his force; carrying with them as prisoners those Mitylenæans who had been deposited in Tenedos, as well as others, prominently implicated in the late revolt, to the number altogether of rather more than a thousand. The Lacedæmonian Salæthus, being recently detected in his place of concealment, was included among the prisoners transmitted.

Upon the fate of these prisoners the Athenians had now to pronounce, and they entered upon the discussion in a temper of extreme wrath and vengeance. As to Salæthus, their resolution to put him to death was unanimous and immediate, nor would they listen to his promises, assuredly delusive, of terminating the blockade of Platæa, in case his life were spared. What to do with Mitylênê and its inhabitants was a point more doubtful, and was submitted to formal debate in the public assembly.

It is in this debate that Thucydidês first takes notice of Kleon, who is, however, mentioned by Plutarch as rising into importance some few years earlier, during the lifetime of Periklês. Under the great increase of trade and population in Athens and Peiræus during the last forty years, a new class of politicians seem to have grown up, men engaged in various descriptions of trade and manufacture, who began to rival more or less in importance the ancient families of Attic proprietors. This change was substantially analogous to that which took place in the cities of mediæval Europe, when the merchants and traders of the various guilds gradually came to compete with, and ultimately supplanted, the patrician families in whom the supremacy had originally resided. In Athens, persons of ancient family and station enjoyed at this time no political privilege, and since the reforms of Ephialtês and Periklês, the political constitution had become thoroughly democratical. But they still continued to form the two highest classes in the Solonian census founded on property,—the pentakosiomedimni, and the hippeis, or knights: new men enriched by trade doubtless got into these classes, but probably only in minority, and imbibed the feeling of the class as they found it, instead of bringing into it any new spirit. Now an individual Athenian of this class, though without any legal title to preference, yet when he stood forward as candidate for political influence, continued to be decidedly preferred and welcomed by the social sentiment at Athens, which preserved in its spontaneous sympathies distinctions effaced from the political code.[404] Besides this place ready prepared for him in the public sympathy, especially advantageous at the outset of political life,—he found himself farther borne up by the family connections, associations, and political clubs, etc., which exercised very great influence both on the politics and the judicature of Athens, and of which he became a member as a matter of course. Such advantages were doubtless only auxiliary, carrying a man up to a certain point of influence, but leaving him to achieve the rest by his own personal qualities and capacity. But their effect was nevertheless very real, and those who, without possessing them, met and buffeted him in the public assembly, contended against great disadvantages. A person of such low or middling station obtained no favorable presumptions or indulgence on the part of the public to meet him half-way,—nor had he established connections to encourage first successes, or help him out of early scrapes. He found others already in possession of ascendency, and well-disposed to keep down new competitors; so that he had to win his own way unaided, from the first step to the last, by qualities personal to himself; by assiduity of attendance, by acquaintance with business, by powers of striking speech, and withal by unflinching audacity, indispensable to enable him to bear up against that opposition and enmity which he would incur from the high-born politicians, and organized party clubs, as soon as he appeared to be rising up into ascendency.

The free march of political and judicial affairs raised up several such men, during the years beginning and immediately preceding the Peloponnesian war. Even during the lifetime of Periklês, they appear to have arisen in greater or less numbers: but the personal ascendency of that great man,—who combined an aristocratical position with a strong and genuine democratical sentiment, and an enlarged intellect rarely found attached to either,—impressed a peculiar character on Athenian politics. The Athenian world was divided into his partisans and his opponents, among each of whom there were individuals high-born and low-born,—though the aristocratical party, properly so called, the majority of wealthy and high-born Athenians, either opposed or disliked him. It is about two years after his death that we begin to hear of a new class of politicians: Eukratês, the rope-seller; Kleon, the leather-seller; Lysiklês, the sheep-seller; Hyperbolus, the lamp-maker;[405] the two first of whom must have been already well-known as speakers in the ekklesia, even during the lifetime of Periklês. Among them all, the most distinguished was Kleon, son of Kleænetus.

Kleon acquired his first importance among the speakers against Periklês, so that he would thus obtain for himself, during his early political career, the countenance of the numerous and aristocratical anti-Perikleans. He is described by Thucydidês in general terms as a person of the most violent temper and character in Athens,—as being dishonest in his calumnies, and virulent in his invective and accusation.[406] Aristophanês, in his comedy of the Knights, reproduces these features, with others new and distinct, as well as with exaggerated details, comic, satirical, and contemptuous. His comedy depicts Kleon in the point of view in which he would appear to the knights of Athens,—a leather-dresser, smelling of the tan-yard,—a low-born brawler, terrifying opponents by the violence of his criminations, the loudness of his voice, the impudence of his gestures,—moreover, as venal in his politics, threatening men with accusations, and then receiving money to withdraw them; a robber of the public treasury, persecuting merit as well as rank, and courting the favor of the assembly by the basest and most guilty cajolery. The general attributes set forth by Thucydidês (apart from Aristophanês, who does not profess to write history), we may well accept; the powerful and violent invective of Kleon, often dishonest, together with his self-confidence and audacity in the public assembly. Men of the middling class, like Kleon and Hyperbolus, who persevered in addressing the public assembly and trying to take a leading part in it, against persons of greater family pretension than themselves, were pretty sure to be men of more than usual audacity. Had they not possessed this quality, they would never have surmounted the opposition made to them: we may well believe that they had it to a displeasing excess,—and even if they had not, the same measure of self-assumption which in Alkibiadês would be tolerated from his rank and station, would in them pass for insupportable impudence. Unhappily, we have no specimens to enable us to appreciate the invective of Kleon. We cannot determine whether it was more virulent than that of Demosthenês and Æschinês, seventy years afterwards,—each of those eminent orators imputing to the other the grossest impudence, calumny, perjury, corruption, loud voice, and revolting audacity of manner, in language which Kleon can hardly have surpassed in intensity of vituperation, though he doubtless fell immeasurably short of it in classical finish. Nor can we even tell in what degree Kleon’s denunciations of the veteran Periklês were fiercer than those memorable invectives against the old age of Sir Robert Walpole, with which Lord Chatham’s political career opened. The talent for invective possessed by Kleon, employed first against Periklês, would be counted as great impudence by the partisans of that illustrious statesman, as well as by impartial and judicious citizens; but among the numerous enemies of Periklês, it would be applauded as a burst of patriotic indignation, and would procure for the orator that extraneous support at first which would sustain him until he acquired his personal hold on the public assembly.[407]

By what degrees or through what causes that hold was gradually increased, we do not know; but at the time when the question of Mitylênê came on for discussion, it had grown into a sort of ascendency which Thucydidês describes by saying that Kleon was “at that time by far the most persuasive speaker in the eyes of the people.” The fact of Kleon’s great power of speech, and his capacity of handling public business in a popular manner, is better attested than anything else respecting him, because it depends upon two witnesses both hostile to him,—Thucydidês and Aristophanês. The assembly and the dikastery were Kleon’s theatre and holding-ground: for the Athenian people taken collectively in their place of meeting, and the Athenian people taken individually, were not always the same person and had not the same mode of judgment: Demos sitting in the Pnyx, was a different man from Demos at home.[408] The lofty combination of qualities possessed by Periklês exercised ascendency over both one and the other; but the qualities of Kleon swayed considerably the former without standing high in the esteem of the latter.

When the fate of Mitylênê and its inhabitants was submitted to the Athenian assembly, Kleon took the lead in the discussion. There never was a theme more perfectly suited to his violent temperament and power of fierce invective. Taken collectively, the case of Mitylênê presented a revolt as inexcusable and aggravated as any revolt could be: and we have only to read the grounds of it, as set forth by the Mitylenæan speakers themselves before the Peloponnesians at Olympia, to be satisfied that such a proceeding, when looked at from the Athenian point of view, would be supposed to justify, and even to require, the very highest pitch of indignation. The Mitylenæans admit, not only that they have no ground of complaint against Athens, but that they have been well and honorably treated by her, with special privilege. But they fear that she may oppress them in future: they hate the very principle of her empire, and eagerly instigate, as well as aid, her enemies to subdue her: they select the precise moment in which she has been worn down by a fearful pestilence, invasion, and cost of war. Nothing more than this would be required to kindle the most intense wrath in the bosom of an Athenian patriot: but there was yet another point which weighed as much as the rest, if not more: the revolters had been the first to invite a Peloponnesian fleet across the Ægean, and the first to proclaim, both to Athens and her allies, the precarious tenure of her empire.[409] The violent Kleon would on this occasion find in the assembly an audience hardly less violent than himself, and would easily be able to satisfy them that anything like mercy to the Mitylenæans was treason to Athens. He proposed to apply to the captive city the penalties tolerated by the custom of war in their harshest and fullest measure: to kill the whole Mitylenæan male population of military age, probably about six thousand persons,—and to sell as slaves all the women and children.[410] The proposition, though strongly opposed by Diodotus and others, was sanctioned and passed by the assembly, and a trireme was forthwith despatched to Mitylênê, enjoining Pachês to put it in execution.[411]

Such a sentence was, in principle, nothing more than a very rigorous application of the received laws of war. Not merely the reconquered rebel, but even the prisoner of war, apart from any special convention, was at the mercy of his conqueror, to be slain, sold, or admitted to ransom: and we shall find the Lacedæmonians carrying out the maxim without the smallest abatement towards the Platæan prisoners, in the course of a very short time. And doubtless the Athenian people, so long as they remained in assembly, under that absorbing temporary intensification of the common and predominant sentiment which springs from the mere fact of multitude, and so long as they were discussing the principle of the case, What had Mitylênê deserved? thought only of this view. Less than the most rigorous measure of war, they would conceive, would be inadequate to the wrong done by the Mitylenæans. But when the assembly broke up,—when the citizen, no longer wound up by sympathizing companions and animated speakers in the Pnyx, subsided into the comparative quiescence of individual life,—when the talk came to be, not about the propriety of passing such a resolution, but about the details of executing it, a sensible change and marked repentance became presently visible. We must also recollect, and it is a principle of no small moment in human affairs, especially among a democratical people like the Athenians, who stand charged with so many resolutions passed and afterwards unexecuted, that the sentiment of wrath against the Mitylenæans had been really in part discharged by the mere passing of the sentence, quite apart from its execution; just as a furious man relieves himself from overboiling anger by imprecations against others which he would himself shrink from afterwards realizing. The Athenians, on the whole the most humane people in Greece,—though humanity, according to our ideas, cannot be predicated of any Greeks,—became sensible that they had sanctioned a cruel and frightful decree, and the captain and seamen,[412] to whom it was given to carry, set forth on their voyage with mournful repugnance. The Mitylenæan envoys present in Athens, who had probably been allowed to speak in the assembly and plead their own cause, together with those Athenians who had been proxeni and friends of Mitylênê, and the minority generally of the previous assembly, soon discerned, and did their best to foster, this repentance; which became, during the course of the same evening, so powerful as well as so wide-spread, that the stratêgi acceded to the prayer of the envoys, and convoked a fresh assembly for the morrow to reconsider the proceeding. By so doing, they committed an illegality, and exposed themselves to the chance of impeachment: but the change of feeling among the people was so manifest as to overbear any such scruples.[413]

Though Thucydidês had given us only a short summary, without any speeches, of what passed in the first assembly,—yet as to the second assembly, he gives us at length the speeches both of Kleon and Diodotus, the two principal orators of the first also. We may be sure that this second assembly was in all points one of the most interesting and anxious of the whole war; and though we cannot certainly determine what were the circumstances which determined Thucydidês in his selection of speeches, yet this cause, as well as the signal defeat of Kleon, whom he disliked, may probably be presumed to have influenced him here. That orator came forward to defend his proposition passed on the preceding day, and denounced in terms of indignation the unwise tenderness and scruples of the people, who could not bear to treat their subject-allies, according to the plain reality, as men held only by naked fear. He dwelt upon the mischief and folly of reversing on one day what had been decided on the day preceding,—upon the guilty ambition of orators, who sacrificed the most valuable interests of the commonwealth either to pecuniary gains, or to the personal credit of speaking with effect, triumphing over rivals, and setting up their own fancies in place of fact and reality. He deprecated the mistaken encouragement given to such delusions by a public “wise beyond what was written,” who came to the assembly, not to apply their good sense in judging of public matters, but merely for the delight of hearing speeches.[414] He restated the heinous and unprovoked wrong committed by the Mitylenæans,—and the grounds for inflicting upon them that maximum of punishment which “justice” enjoined. He called for “justice” against them; nothing less, but nothing more: warning the assembly that the imperial necessities of Athens essentially required the constant maintenance of a sentiment of fear in the minds of unwilling subjects, and that they must prepare to see their empire pass away if they suffered themselves to be guided either by compassion for those who, if victors, would have no compassion on them,[415]—or by unseasonable moderation towards those who would neither feel nor requite it,—or by the mere impression of seductive discourses. Justice against the Mitylenæans, not less than the strong political interests of Athens, required the infliction of the sentence decreed on the day preceding.[416]

The harangue of Kleon is in many respects remarkable. If we are surprised to find a man, whose whole importance resided in his tongue, denouncing so severely the license and the undue influence of speech in the public assembly, we must recollect that Kleon had the advantage of addressing himself to the intense prevalent sentiment of the moment,—that he could, therefore, pass off the dictates of this sentiment as plain, downright, honest sense and patriotism; while the opponents, speaking against the reigning sentiment, and therefore driven to collateral argument, circumlocution, and more or less of manœuvre, might be represented as mere clever sophists, showing their talents in making the worse appear the better reason,—if not actually bribed, at least unprincipled, and without any sincere moral conviction. As this is a mode of dealing with questions both of public concern and of private morality, not less common at present than it was in the time of the Peloponnesian war,—to seize upon some strong and tolerably wide-spread sentiment among the public, to treat the dictates of that sentiment as plain common sense and obvious right, and then to shut out all rational estimate of coming good and evil as if it were unholy or immoral, or at best mere uncandid subtlety,—we may well notice a case in which Kleon employs it to support a proposition now justly regarded as barbarous.

Applying our modern views to this proposition, indeed, the prevalent sentiment would not only not be in favor of Kleon, but would be irresistibly in favor of his opponents. To put to death in cold blood some six thousand persons, would so revolt modern feelings, as to overbalance all considerations of past misconduct in the persons to be condemned. Nevertheless, the speech of Diodotus, who followed and opposed Kleon, not only contains no appeal to any such merciful predispositions, but even positively disclaims appealing to them: the orator deprecates, not less than Kleon, the influence of compassionate sentiment, or of a spirit of mere compromise and moderation.[417] He farther discards considerations of justice or the analogies of criminal judicature,[418]—and rests his opposition altogether upon reasons of public prudence, bearing upon the future welfare and security of Athens.

He begins by vindicating[419] the necessity of reconsidering the resolution just passed, and insists on the mischief of deciding so important a question in haste or under strong passion; he enters a protest against the unwarrantable insinuations of corruption or self-conceit by which Kleon had sought to silence or discredit his opponents;[420] and then, taking up the question on the ground of public wisdom and prudence, he proceeds to show that the rigorous sentence decreed on the preceding day was not to be defended. That sentence would not prevent any other among the subject-allies from revolting, if they saw, or fancied that they saw, a fair chance of success: but it might perhaps drive them,[421] if once embarked in revolt, to persist even to desperation, and bury themselves under the ruins of their city. While every means ought to be employed to prevent them from revolting, by precautions beforehand, it was a mistaken reckoning to try to deter them by enormity of punishment, inflicted afterwards upon such as were reconquered. In developing this argument, the speaker gives some remarkable views on the theory of punishment generally, and on the small addition obtained in the way of preventive effect even by the greatest aggravation of the suffering inflicted upon the condemned criminal,—views which might have passed as rare and profound even down to the last century.[422] And he farther supports his argument by emphatically setting forth the impolicy of confounding the Mitylenæan Demos in the same punishment with their oligarchy: the revolt had been the act exclusively of the latter, and the former had not only taken no part in it, but, as soon as they obtained possession of arms, had surrendered the city spontaneously. In all the allied cities, it was the commons who were well-affected to Athens, and upon whom her hold chiefly depended against the doubtful fidelity of the oligarchies:[423] but this feeling could not possibly continue, if it were now seen that all the Mitylenæans indiscriminately were confounded in one common destruction. Diodotus concludes by recommending that those Mitylenæans whom Pachês had sent to Athens as chiefs of the revolt, should be put upon their trial separately; but that the remaining population should be spared.[424]

This speech is that of a man who feels that he has the reigning and avowed sentiment of the audience against him, and that he must therefore win his way by appeals to their reason. The same appeals, however, might have been made, and perhaps had been made, during the preceding discussion, without success; but Diodotus knew that the reigning sentiment, though still ostensibly predominant, had been silently undermined during the last few hours, and that the reaction towards pity and moderation, which had been growing up under it, would work in favor of his arguments, though he might disclaim all intention of invoking its aid. After several other discourses, both for and against,—the assembly came to a vote, and the proposition of Diodotus was adopted; but adopted by so small a majority, that the decision seemed at first doubtful.[425]

But the trireme carrying the first vote had started the day before, and was already twenty-four hours on its way to Mitylênê. A second trireme was immediately put to sea, bearing the new decree; yet nothing short of superhuman exertions could enable it to reach the condemned city before the terrific sentence now on its way might be actually in course of execution. The Mitylenæan envoys stored the vessel well with provisions, promising large rewards to the crew if they arrived in time; and an intensity of effort was manifested, without parallel in the history of Athenian seamanship,—the oar being never once relaxed between Athens and Mitylênê, and the rowers merely taking turns for short intervals of rest, with refreshment of barley-meal steeped with wine and oil swallowed on their seats. Luckily, there was no unfavorable wind to retard them: but the object would have been defeated, if it had not happened that the crew of the first trireme were as slow and averse in the transmission of their rigorous mandate, as those of the second were eager for the delivery of the reprieve in time. And, after all, it came no more than just in time; the first trireme had arrived, the order for execution was actually in the hands of Pachês, and his measures were already preparing. So near was the Mitylenæan population to this wholesale destruction:[426] so near was Athens to the actual perpetration of an enormity which would have raised against her throughout Greece a sentiment of exasperation more deadly than that which she afterwards incurred even from the proceedings at Melos, Skiônê, and elsewhere. Had the execution been realized, the person who would have suffered most by it, and most deservedly, would have been the proposer, Kleon. For if the reaction in Athenian sentiment was so immediate and sensible after the mere passing of the sentence, far more violent would it have been when they learned that the deed had been irrevocably done, and when all its painful details were presented to their imaginations: and Kleon would have been held responsible as the author of that which had so disgraced them in their own eyes. As the case turned out, he was fortunate enough to escape this danger; and his proposition, to put to death those Mitylenæans whom Pachês had sent home as the active revolting party, was afterwards adopted and executed. It doubtless appeared so moderate after the previous decree passed but rescinded, as to be adopted with little resistance, and to provoke no after-repentance: yet the men so slain were rather more than one thousand in number.[427]