I have already recounted, in the preceding chapter, how the Asiatic Greeks, breaking loose from the Spartan Pausanias, entreated Athens to organize a new confederacy, and to act as presiding city (Vorort),—and how this confederacy, framed not only for common and pressing objects, but also on principles of equal rights and constant control on the part of the members, attracted soon the spontaneous adhesion of a large proportion of Greeks, insular or maritime, near the Ægean sea. I also noticed this event as giving commencement to a new era in Grecian politics. For whereas there had been before a tendency, not very powerful, yet on the whole steady and increasing, towards something like one Pan-Hellenic league under Sparta as president,—from henceforward that tendency disappears and a bifurcation begins: Athens and Sparta divide the Grecian world between them, and bring a much larger number of its members into coöperation, either with one or the other, than had ever been so arranged before.

Thucydidês marks precisely, as far as general words can go, the character of the new confederacy during the first years after its commencement: but unhappily he gives us scarcely any particular facts,—and in the absence of such controlling evidence, a habit has grown up of describing loosely the entire period between 477 B. C., and 405 B. C. (the latter date is that of the battle of Ægos Potamos), as constituting “the Athenian empire.” This word denotes correctly enough the last part, perhaps the last forty years, of the seventy-two years indicated; but it is misleading when applied to the first part: nor, indeed, can any single word be found which faithfully characterizes as well the one part as the other. A great and serious change had taken place, and we disguise the fact of that change, if we talk of the Athenian hegemony, or headship, as a portion of the Athenian empire. Thucydidês carefully distinguishes the two, speaking of the Spartans as having lost, and of the Athenians as having acquired, not empire, but headship, or hegemony.[575] The transition from the Athenian hegemony to the Athenian empire was doubtless gradual, so that no one could determine precisely where the former ends and the latter begins: but it had been consummated before the thirty years’ truce, which was concluded fourteen years before the Peloponnesian war,—and it was in fact the substantial cause of that war. Empire then came to be held by Athens,—partly as a fact established, resting on acquiescence rather than attachment or consent on the minds of the subjects,—partly as a corollary from necessity of union combined with her superior force: while this latter point, superiority of force as a legitimate title, stood more and more forward, both in the language of her speakers and in the conceptions of her citizens. Nay, the Athenian orators of the middle of the Peloponnesian war venture to affirm that their empire had been of this same character ever since the repulse of the Persians: an inaccuracy so manifest, that if we could suppose the speech made by the Athenian Euphêmus at Kamarina in 415 B. C. to have been heard by Themistoklês or Aristeidês fifty years before, it would have been alike offensive to the prudence of the one and to the justice of the other. The imperial state of Athens, that which she held at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when her allies, except Chios and Lesbos, were tributary subjects, and when the Ægean sea was an Athenian lake,—was of course the period of her greatest splendor and greatest action upon the Grecian world. It was also the period most impressive to historians, orators, and philosophers,—suggesting the idea of some one state exercising dominion over the Ægean, as the natural condition of Greece, so that if Athens lost such dominion, it would be transferred to Sparta,—holding out the dispersed maritime Greeks as a tempting prize for the aggressive schemes of some new conqueror,—and even bringing up by association into men’s fancies the mythical Minos of Krete, and others, as having been rulers of the Ægean in times anterior to Athens.

Even those who lived under the full-grown Athenian empire had before them no good accounts of the incidents between 479-450 B. C.; for we may gather from the intimation of Thucydidês, as well as from his barrenness of facts, that while there were chroniclers both for the Persian invasion and for the times before, no one cared for the times immediately succeeding.[576] Hence, the little light which has fallen upon this blank has all been borrowed—if we except the careful Thucydidês—from a subsequent age; and the Athenian hegemony has been treated as a mere commencement of the Athenian empire: credit has been given to Athens for a long-sighted ambition, aiming from the Persian war downwards at results which perhaps Themistoklês[577] may have partially divined, but which only time and successive accidents opened even to distant view. But such systematic anticipation of subsequent results is fatal to any correct understanding, either of the real agents or of the real period; both of which are to be explained from the circumstances preceding and actually present, with some help, though cautious and sparing, from our acquaintance with that which was then an unknown future. When Aristeidês and Kimon dismissed the Lacedæmonian admiral Dorkis, and drove Pausanias away from Byzantium on his second coming out, they had to deal with the problem immediately before them; they had to complete the defeat of the Persian power, still formidable,—and to create and organize a confederacy as yet only inchoate. This was quite enough to occupy their attention, without ascribing to them distant views of Athenian maritime empire.

In that brief sketch of incidents preceding the Peloponnesian war, which Thucydidês introduces as “the throwing off of his narrative,”[578] he neither gives, nor professes to give, a complete enumeration of all which actually occurred. During the interval between the first desertion of the Asiatic allies from Pausanias to Athens, in 477 B. C.,—and the revolt of Naxos in 466 B. C.,—he recites three incidents only: first, the siege and capture of Eion, on the Strymon, with its Persian garrison,—next, the capture of Skyros, and appropriation of the island to Athenian kleruchs, or out-citizens,—thirdly, the war with Karystus in Eubœa, and reduction of the place by capitulation. It has been too much the practice to reason as if these three events were the full history of ten or eleven years. Considering what Thucydidês states respecting the darkness of this period, we might perhaps suspect that they were all which he could learn about it on good authority: and they are all, in truth, events having a near and special bearing on the subsequent history of Athens herself,—for Eion was the first stepping-stone to the important settlement of Amphipolis, and Skyros in the time of Thucydidês was the property of outlying Athenian citizens, or kleruchs. Still, we are left in almost entire ignorance of the proceedings of Athens, as conducting the newly-established confederate force: for it is certain that the first ten years of the Athenian hegemony must have been years of most active warfare against the Persians. One positive testimony to this effect has been accidentally preserved to us by Herodotus, who mentions, that “before the invasion of Xerxes, there were Persian commanders and garrisons everywhere in Thrace and the Hellespont,[579] all of whom were conquered by the Greeks after that invasion, with the single exception of Maskamês, governor of Doriskus, who could never be taken, though many different Grecian attempts were made upon the fortress. Of those who were captured by the Greeks, not one made any defence sufficient to attract the admiration of Xerxes, except Bogês, governor of Eion.” Bogês, after bravely defending himself, and refusing offers of capitulation, found his provisions exhausted, and farther resistance impracticable. He then kindled a vast funeral pile,—slew his wives, children, concubines, and family, and cast them into it,—threw his precious effects over the wall into the Strymon,—and lastly, precipitated himself into the flames.[580] His brave despair was the theme of warm encomium among the Persians, and his relatives in Persia were liberally rewarded by Xerxes. This capture of Eion, effected by Kimon, has been mentioned, as already stated, by Thucydidês; but Herodotus here gives us to understand that it was only one of a string of enterprises, all unnoticed by Thucydidês, against the Persians. Nay, it would seem from his language, that Maskamês maintained himself in Doriskus during the whole reign of Xerxes, and perhaps longer, repelling successive Grecian assaults.

The valuable indication here cited from Herodotus would be of itself a sufficient proof that the first years of the Athenian hegemony were full of busy and successful hostility against the Persians. And in truth this is what we should expect: the battles of Salamis, Platæa, and Mykalê, drove the Persians out of Greece, and overpowered their main armaments, but did not remove them at once from all the various posts which they occupied throughout the Ægean and Thrace. Without doubt, the Athenians had to clear the coasts and the islands of a great number of different Persian detachments: an operation never short nor easy, with the then imperfect means of siege, as we may see by the cases of Sestus and Eion; nor, indeed, always practicable, as the case of Doriskus teaches us. The fear of these Persians, yet remaining in the neighborhood,[581] and even the chance of a renewed Persian invading armament, formed one pressing motive for Grecian cities to join the new confederacy: while the expulsion of the enemy added to it those places which he had occupied. It was by these years of active operations at sea against the common enemy, that the Athenians first established[582] that constant, systematic, and laborious training, among their own ships’ crews, which transmitted itself with continual improvements down to the Peloponnesian war: it was by these, combined with the present fear, that they were enabled to organize the largest and most efficient confederacy ever known among Greeks,—to bring together deliberative deputies,—to plant their own ascendency as enforcers of the collective resolutions,—and to raise a prodigious tax from universal contribution. Lastly, it was by these same operations, prosecuted so successfully as to remove present alarm, that they at length fatigued the more lukewarm and passive members of the confederacy, and created in them a wish either to commute personal service for pecuniary contribution, or to escape from the obligation of service in any way. The Athenian nautical training would never have been acquired,—the confederacy would never have become a working reality,—the fatigue and discontents among its members would never have arisen,—unless there had been a real fear of the Persians, and a pressing necessity for vigorous and organized operations against them, during the ten years between 477 and 466 B. C.

As to the ten years from 477-466 B. C., there has been a tendency almost unconscious to assume that the particular incidents mentioned by Thucydidês about Eion, Skyros, Karystus, and Naxos, constitute the sum total of events. To contradict this assumption, I have suggested proof sufficient, though indirect, that they are only part of the stock of a very busy period,—the remaining details of which, indicated in outline by the large general language of Thucydidês, we are condemned not to know. Nor are we admitted to be present at the synod of Delos, which during all this time continued its periodical meetings: though it would have been highly interesting to trace the steps whereby an institution which at first promised to protect not less the separate rights of the members than the security of the whole, so lamentably failed in its object. We must recollect that this confederacy, formed for objects common to all, limited to a certain extent the autonomy of each member; both conferring definite rights and imposing definite obligations. Solemnly sworn to by all, and by Aristeidês on behalf of Athens, it was intended to bind the members in perpetuity,—marked even in the form of the oath, which was performed by casting heavy lumps of iron into the sea never again to be seen.[583] As this confederacy was thus both perpetual and peremptory, binding each member to the rest, and not allowing either retirement or evasion, so it was essential that it should be sustained by some determining authority and enforcing sanction. The determining authority was provided by the synod at Delos: the enforcing sanction was exercised by Athens as president. And there is every reason to presume that Athens, for a long time, performed this duty in a legitimate and honorable manner, acting in execution of the resolves of the synod, or at least in full harmony with its general purposes. She exacted from every member the regulated quota of men or money, employing coercion against recusants, and visiting neglect of military duty with penalties. In all these requirements she only discharged her appropriate functions as chosen leader of the confederacy, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the general synod went cordially along with her[584] in strictness of dealing towards those defaulters who obtained protection without bearing their share of the burden.

But after a few years, several of the confederates becoming weary of personal military service, prevailed upon the Athenians to provide ships and men in their place, and imposed upon themselves in exchange a money-payment of suitable amount. This commutation, at first probably introduced to meet some special case of inconvenience, was found so suitable to the taste of all parties that it gradually spread through the larger portion of the confederacy. To unwarlike allies, hating labor and privation, it was a welcome relief,—while to the Athenians, full of ardor and patient of labor, as well as discipline, for the aggrandizement of their country, it afforded constant pay for a fleet more numerous than they could otherwise have kept afloat. It is plain from the statement of Thucydidês that this altered practice was introduced from the petition of the confederates themselves, not from any pressure or stratagem, on the part of Athens.[585] But though such was its real source, it did not the less fatally degrade the allies in reference to Athens, and extinguish the original feeling of equal rights and partnership in the confederacy, with communion of danger as well as of glory, which had once bound them together. The Athenians came to consider themselves as military chiefs and soldiers, with a body of tribute-paying subjects, whom they were entitled to hold in dominion, and restrict, both as to foreign policy and internal government, to such extent as they thought expedient,—but whom they were also bound to protect against foreign enemies. The military force of these subject-states was thus in a great degree transferred to Athens, by their own act, just as that of so many of the native princes in India has been made over to the English. But the military efficiency of the confederacy against the Persians was much increased, in proportion as the vigorous resolves of Athens[586] were less and less paralyzed by the contentions and irregularity of a synod; so that the war was prosecuted with greater success than ever, while those motives of alarm, which had served as the first pressing stimulus to the formation of the confederacy, became every year farther and farther removed.

Under such circumstances several of the confederate states grew tired even of paying their tribute,—and averse to continuance as members. They made successive attempts to secede, but Athens, acting seemingly in conjunction with the synod, repressed their attempts one after the other,—conquering, fining, and disarming the revolters; which was the more easily done, since in most cases their naval force had been in great part handed over to her. As these events took place, not all at once, but successively in different years,—the number of mere tribute-paying allies as well as of subdued revolters continually increasing,—so there was never any one moment of conspicuous change in the character of the confederacy: the allies slid unconsciously into subjects, while Athens, without any predetermined plan, passed from a chief into a despot. By strictly enforcing the obligations of the pact upon unwilling members, and by employing coercion against revolters, she had become unpopular in the same proportion as she acquired new power,—and that, too, without any guilt of her own. In this position, even if she had been inclined to relax her hold upon the tributary subjects, considerations of her own safety would have deterred her from doing so; for there was reason to apprehend that they might place their strength at the disposal of her enemies. It is very certain that she never was so inclined; it would have required a more self-denying public morality than has ever been practised by any state, either ancient or modern, even to conceive the idea of relinquishing voluntarily an immense ascendency as well as a lucrative revenue: least of all was such an idea likely to be conceived by Athenian citizens, whose ambition increased with their power, and among whom the love of Athenian ascendency was both passion and patriotism. But though the Athenians were both disposed and qualified to push all the advantages offered, and even to look out for new, we must not forget that the foundations of their empire were laid in the most honorable causes: voluntary invitation, efforts both unwearied and successful against a common enemy, unpopularity incurred in discharge of an imperative duty, and inability to break up the confederacy without endangering themselves as well as laying open the Ægean sea to the Persians.[587]

There were two other causes, besides that which has just been adverted to, for the unpopularity of imperial Athens. First, the existence of the confederacy, imposing permanent obligations, was in conflict with the general instinct of the Greek mind, tending towards separate political autonomy of each city, as well as with the particular turn of the Ionic mind, incapable of that steady personal effort which was requisite for maintaining the synod of Delos, on its first large and equal basis. Next,—and this is the great cause of all,—Athens, having defeated the Persians, and thrust them to a distance, began to employ the force and the tribute of her subject-allies in warfare against Greeks, wherein these allies had nothing to gain from success,—everything to apprehend from defeat,—and a banner to fight for, offensive to Hellenic sympathies. On this head, the subject-allies had great reason to complain, throughout the prolonged wars of Greek against Greek, for the purpose of sustaining Athenian predominance: but on the point of practical grievances or oppressions, they had little ground for discontent, and little feeling of actual discontent, as I shall show more fully hereafter. Among the general body of citizens in the subject-allied cities, the feeling towards Athens was rather indifference than hatred: the movement of revolt against her proceeded from small parties of leading men, acting apart from the citizens, and generally with collateral views of ambition for themselves: and the positive hatred towards her was felt chiefly by those who were not her subjects.

It is probable that the same indisposition to personal effort, which prompted the confederates of Delos to tender money-payment as a substitute for military service, also induced them to neglect attendance at the synod. But we do not know the steps whereby this assembly, at first an effective reality, gradually dwindled into a mere form and vanished. Nothing, however, can more forcibly illustrate the difference of character between the maritime allies of Athens, and the Peloponnesian allies of Sparta, than the fact,—that while the former shrank from personal service, and thought it an advantage to tax themselves in place of it,—the latter were “ready enough with their bodies,” but uncomplying and impracticable as to contributions.[588] The contempt felt by these Dorian landsmen for the military efficiency of the Ionians recurs frequently, and appears even to have exceeded what the reality justified: but when we turn to the conduct of the latter twenty years earlier, at the battle of Ladê, in the very crisis of the Ionic revolt from Persia,[589]—we detect the same want of energy, the same incapacity of personal effort and labor, as that which broke up the confederacy of Delos with all its beneficial promise. To appreciate fully the indefatigable activity and daring, together with the patient endurance of laborious maritime training, which characterized the Athenians of that day,—we have only to contrast them with these confederates, so remarkably destitute of both. Amidst such glaring inequalities of merit, capacity, and power, to maintain a confederacy of equal members was impossible: it was in the nature of things that the confederacy should either break up, or be transmuted into an Athenian empire.

It has already been mentioned that the first aggregate assessment of tribute, proposed by Aristeidês, and adopted by the synod at Delos, was four hundred and sixty talents in money. At that time many of the confederates paid their quota, not in money but in ships; but this practice gradually diminished, as the commutations above alluded to, of money in place of ships, were multiplied, while the aggregate tribute, of course, became larger. It was no more than six hundred talents[590] at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, forty-six years after the first formation of the confederacy; from whence we may infer that it was never at all increased upon individual members during the interval. For the difference between four hundred and sixty talents and six hundred admits of being fully explained by the numerous commutations of service for money, as well as by the acquisitions of new members, which doubtless Athens had more or less the opportunity of making. It is not to be imagined that the confederacy had attained its maximum number, at the date of the first assessment of tribute: there must have been various cities, like Sinopê and Ægina, subsequently added.[591]

Without some such preliminary statements as those just given, respecting the new state of Greece between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, beginning with the Athenian hegemony, or headship, and ending with the Athenian empire, the reader would hardly understand the bearing of those particular events which our authorities enable us to recount; events unhappily few in number, though the period must have been full of action, and not well authenticated as to dates. The first known enterprise of the Athenians in their new capacity—whether the first absolutely or not, we cannot determine—between 476 B. C. and 466 B. C., was the conquest of the important post of Eion, on the Strymon, where the Persian governor, Bogês, starved out after a desperate resistance, destroyed himself rather than capitulate, together with his family and precious effects, as has already been stated. The next events named are their enterprises against the Dolopes and Pelasgi in the island of Skyros, seemingly about 470 B. C., and the Dryopes in the town and district of Karystus, in Eubœa. To the latter, who were of a different kindred from the inhabitants of Chalkis and Eretria, and received no aid from them, they granted a capitulation: the former were more rigorously dealt with, and expelled from their island. Skyros was barren, and had little to recommend it, except a good maritime position and an excellent harbor; while its inhabitants, seemingly akin to the Pelasgian residents in Lemnos, prior to the Athenian occupation of that spot, were alike piratical and cruel. Some Thessalian traders, recently plundered and imprisoned by them, had raised a complaint against them before the Amphiktyonic synod, which condemned the island to make restitution: the mass of the islanders threw the burden upon those who had committed the crime; and these men, in order to evade payment, invoked Kimon with the Athenian armament,—who conquered the island, expelled the inhabitants, and peopled it with Athenian settlers.

Such clearance was a beneficial act, suitable to the new character of Athens as guardian of the Ægean sea against piracy: but it seems also connected with Athenian plans. The island lay very convenient for the communication with Lemnos, which the Athenians had doubtless reoccupied after the expulsion of the Persians,[592] and became, as well as Lemnos, a recognized adjunct, or outlying portion, of Attica: moreover, there were old legends which connected the Athenians with it, as the tomb of their hero Theseus, whose name, as the mythical champion of democracy, was in peculiar favor at the period immediately following the return from Salamis. It was in the year 476 B. C., that the oracle had directed them to bring home the bones of Theseus from Skyros, and to prepare for that hero a splendid entombment and edifice in their new city: they had tried to effect this, but the unsocial manners of the Dolopians had prevented a search, and it was only after Kimon had taken the island that he found, or pretended to find, the body. It was brought to Athens in the year 469 B. C.,[593] and after being welcomed by the people in solemn and joyous procession, as if the hero himself had come back, was deposited in the interior of the city,—the monument called the Theseium, with its sacred precinct being built on the spot, and invested with the privilege of a sanctuary for men of poor condition who might feel ground for dreading the oppressions of the powerful, as well as for slaves in case of cruel usage.[594] Such were the protective functions of the mythical hero of democracy, whose installation is interesting as marking the growing intensity of democratical feeling in Athens since the Persian war.

It was about two years or more after this incident, that the first breach of union in the confederacy of Delos took place. The important island of Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades,—an island which thirty years before had boasted a large marine force and eight thousand hoplites,—revolted; on what special ground we do not know: but probably the greater islands fancied themselves better able to dispense with the protection of the confederacy than the smaller,—at the same time that they were more jealous of Athens. After a siege, of unknown duration, by Athens and the confederate force, it was forced to surrender, and reduced to the condition of a tributary subject;[595] its armed ships being doubtless taken away, and its fortifications razed: whether any fine or ulterior penalty was levied, we have no information.

We cannot doubt that the reduction of this powerful island, however untoward in its effects upon the equal and self-maintaining character of the confederacy, strengthened its military force by placing the whole Naxian fleet with new pecuniary contributions in the hands of the chief: nor is it surprising to hear that Athens sought both to employ this new force, and to obliterate the late act of severity, by increased exertions against the common enemy. Though we know no particulars respecting operations against Persia, since the attack on Eion, such operations must have been going on; but the expedition under Kimon, undertaken not long after the Naxian revolt, was attended with memorable results. That commander, having under him two hundred triremes from Athens, and one hundred from the various confederates, was despatched to attack the Persians on the south-western and southern coast of Asia Minor. He attacked and drove out several of their garrisons from various Grecian settlements, both in Karia and Lykia: among others, the important trading city of Phasêlis, though at first resisting, and even standing a siege, was prevailed upon by the friendly suggestions of the Chians in Kimon’s armament to pay a contribution of ten talents and join in the expedition. From the length of time occupied in these various undertakings, the Persian satraps had been enabled to assemble a powerful force, both fleet and army, near the mouth of the river Eurymedon, in Pamphylia, under the command of Tithraustês and Pherendatês, both of the regal blood. The fleet, chiefly Phenician, seems to have consisted of two hundred ships, but a farther reinforcement of eighty Phenician ships was expected, and was actually near at hand, and the commanders were unwilling to hazard a battle before its arrival. Kimon, anxious for the same reason to hasten on the combat, attacked them vigorously: partly from their inferiority of numbers, partly from discouragement at the absence of the reinforcement, they seem to have made no strenuous resistance. They were put to flight and driven ashore; so speedily, and with so little loss to the Greeks, that Kimon was enabled to disembark his men forthwith, and attack the land-force which was drawn up on shore to protect them. The battle on land was long and gallantly contested, but Kimon at length gained a complete victory, dispersed the army with the capture of many prisoners, and either took or destroyed the entire fleet. As soon as his victory and his prisoners were secured, he sailed to Cyprus for the purpose of intercepting the reinforcement of eighty Phenician ships in their way, and was fortunate enough to attack them while yet they were ignorant of the victories of the Eurymedon. These ships too were all destroyed, though most of the crews appear to have escaped ashore on the island. Two great victories, one at sea and the other on land, gained on the same day by the same armament, counted with reason among the most glorious of all Grecian exploits, and were extolled as such in the inscription on the commemorative offering to Apollo, set up out of the tithe of the spoils.[596] The number of prisoners, as well as the booty taken by the victors, was immense.

A victory thus remarkable, which thrust back the Persians to the region eastward of Phasêlis, doubtless fortified materially the position of the Athenian confederacy against them; but it tended not less to exalt the reputation of Athens, and even to popularize her with the confederates generally, from the large amount of plunder divisible among them. Probably this increased power and popularity stood her in stead throughout her approaching contest with Thasos, at the same time that it explains the increasing fear and dislike of the Peloponnesians.

Thasos was a member of the confederacy of Delos; but her quarrel with Athens seems to have arisen out of causes quite distinct from confederate relations. It has been already stated that the Athenians had within the last few years expelled the Persians from the important post of Eion, on the Strymon, the most convenient post for the neighboring region of Thrace, which was not less distinguished for its fertility than for its mining wealth. In the occupation of this post, the Athenians had had time to become acquainted with the productive character of the adjoining region, chiefly occupied by the Edonian Thracians; and it is extremely probable that many private settlers arrived from Athens, with the view of procuring grants or making their fortunes by partnership with powerful Thracians in working the gold-mines round Mount Pangæus. In so doing, they speedily found themselves in collision with the Greeks of the opposite island of Mount Thasos, who possessed a considerable strip of land, with various dependent towns on the continent of Thrace, and derived a large revenue from the mines of Skaptê Hylê, as well as from others in the neighborhood.[597] The condition of Thasos at this time, about 465 B. C., indicates to us the progress which the Grecian states in the Ægean had made since their liberation from Persia. It had been deprived both of its fortifications and of its maritime force, by order of Darius, about 491 B. C., and must have remained in this condition until after the repulse of Xerxes; but we now find it well-fortified and possessing a powerful maritime force.

In what precise manner the quarrel between the Thasians and the Athenians of Eion manifested itself, respecting the trade and the mines in Thrace, we are not informed; but it reached such a height that the Athenians were induced to send a powerful armament against the island, under the command of Kimon.[598] Having vanquished the Thasian force at sea, they disembarked, gained various battles, and blocked up the city by land as well as by sea. And at the same time they undertook—what seems to have been part and parcel of the same scheme—the establishment of a larger and more powerful colony on Thracian ground not far from Eion. On the Strymon, about three miles higher up than Eion, near the spot where the river narrows itself again out of a broad expanse of the nature of a lake, was situated the Edonian town or settlement called Ennea Hodoi, (Nine Ways), a little above the bridge, which here served as an important communication for all the people of the interior. Both Histiæus and Aristagoras, the two Milesian despots, had been tempted by the advantages of this place to commence a settlement there: both of them had failed, and a third failure on a still grander scale was now about to be added. The Athenians sent thither a large body of colonists, ten thousand in number, partly from their own citizens, partly collected from their allies: and the temptations of the site probably rendered volunteers numerous. As far as Ennea Hodoi was concerned, they were successful in conquering it and driving away the Edonian possessors: but on trying to extend themselves farther to the eastward, to a spot called Drabêskus, convenient for the mining region, they encountered a more formidable resistance from a powerful alliance of Thracian tribes, who had come to the aid of the Edonians in decisive hostility to the new colony,—probably not without instigation from the inhabitants of Thasos. All or most of the ten thousand colonists were slain in this warfare, and the new colony was for the time completely abandoned: we shall find it resumed hereafter.[599]

Disappointed as the Athenians were in this enterprise, they did not abandon the blockade of Thasos, which held out more than two years, and only surrendered in the third year. Its fortifications were razed; its ships of war, thirty-three in number, taken away:[600] its possessions and mining establishments on the opposite continent relinquished: moreover, an immediate contribution in money was demanded from the inhabitants, over and above the annual payment assessed upon them for the future. The subjugation of this powerful island was another step in the growing dominion of Athens over her confederates.

The year before the Thasians surrendered, however, they had taken a step which deserves particular notice, as indicating the newly-gathering clouds in the Grecian political horizon. They had made secret application to the Lacedæmonians for aid, entreating them to draw off the attention of Athens by invading Attica; and the Lacedæmonians, without the knowledge of Athens, having actually engaged to comply with this request, were only prevented from performing their promise by a grave and terrible misfortune at home.[601] Though accidentally unperformed, however, this hostile promise is a most significant event: it marks the growing fear and hatred on the part of Sparta and the Peloponnesians towards Athens, merely on general grounds of the magnitude of her power, and without any special provocation. Nay, not only had Athens given no provocation, but she was still actually included as a member of the Lacedæmonian alliance, and we shall find her presently both appealed to and acting as such. We shall hear so much of Athens, and that too with truth, as pushing and aggressive,—and of Sparta as homekeeping and defensive,—that the incident just mentioned becomes important to remark. The first intent of unprovoked and even treacherous hostility—the germ of the future Peloponnesian war—is conceived and reduced to an engagement by Sparta.

We are told by Plutarch, that the Athenians, after the surrender of Thasos and the liberation of the armament, had expected from Kimon some farther conquests in Macedonia,—and even that he had actually entered upon that project with such promise of success, that its farther consummation was certain as well as easy. Having under these circumstances relinquished it and returned to Athens, he was accused by Periklês and others of having been bought off by bribes from the Macedonian king Alexander; but was acquitted after a public trial.[602]

During the period which had elapsed between the first formation of the confederacy of Delos and the capture of Thasos (about thirteen or fourteen years, B. C. 477-463), the Athenians seem to have been occupied almost entirely in their maritime operations, chiefly against the Persians,—having been free from embarrassments immediately around Attica. But this freedom was not destined to last much longer; and during the ensuing ten years, their foreign relations near home become both active and complicated; while their strength expands so wonderfully, that they are found competent at once to obligations on both sides of the Ægean sea, the distant as well as the near.

Of the incidents which had taken place in Central Greece during the twelve or fifteen years immediately succeeding the battle of Platæa, we have scarcely any information. The feelings of the time, between those Greeks who had supported and those who had resisted the Persian invader, must have remained unfriendly even after the war was at an end, and the mere occupation of the Persian numerous host must have inflicted severe damage both upon Thessaly and Bœotia. At the meeting of the Amphiktyonic synod which succeeded the expulsion of the invaders, a reward was proclaimed for the life of the Melian Ephialtês, who had betrayed to Xerxes the mountain-path over Œta, and thus caused the ruin of Leonidas at Thermopylæ: moreover, if we may trust Plutarch, it was even proposed by Lacedæmon that all the medizing Greeks should be expelled from the synod,[603]—a proposition which the more long-sighted views of Themistoklês successfully resisted. Even the stronger measure, of razing the fortifications of all the extra-Peloponnesian cities, from fear that they might be used to aid some future invasion, had suggested itself to the Lacedæmonians,—as we see from their language on the occasion of rebuilding the walls of Athens; and in regard to Bœotia, it appears that the headship of Thebes as well as the coherence of the federation was for the time almost suspended. The destroyed towns of Platæa and Thespiæ were restored, and the latter in part repeopled,[604] under Athenian influence; and the general sentiment of Peloponnesus as well as of Athens would have sustained these towns against Thebes, if the latter had tried at that time to enforce her supremacy over them in the name of “ancient Bœotian right and usage.”[605] The Theban government was then in discredit for its previous medism,—even in the eyes of Thebans themselves;[606] while the party opposed to Thebes in the other towns was so powerful, that many of them would probably have been severed from the federation to become allies of Athens like Platæa, if the interference of Lacedæmon had not arrested such a tendency. The latter was in every other part of Greece an enemy to organized aggregation of cities, either equal or unequal, and was constantly bent on keeping the little autonomous communities separate;[607] whence she sometimes became by accident the protector of the weaker cities against compulsory alliance imposed upon them by the stronger: the interest of her own ascendency was in this respect analogous to that of the Persians when they dictated the peace of Antalkidas,—of the Romans in administering their extensive conquests,—and of the kings of medieval Europe in breaking the authority of the barons over their vassals. But though such was the policy of Sparta elsewhere, her fear of Athens, which grew up during the ensuing twenty years, made her act differently in regard to Bœotia: she had no other means of maintaining that country as her own ally and as the enemy of Athens, except by organizing the federation effectively, and strengthening the authority of Thebes. It is to this revolution in Spartan politics that Thebes owed the recovery of her ascendency,[608]—a revolution so conspicuously marked, that the Spartans even aided in enlarging her circuit and improving her fortifications: nor was it without difficulty that she maintained this position, even when recovered, against the dangerous neighborhood of Athens, a circumstance which made her not only a vehement partisan of Sparta, but even more furiously anti-Athenian than Sparta, down to the close of the Peloponnesian war.

The revolution, just noticed, in Spartan politics towards Bœotia, did not manifest itself until about twenty years after the commencement of the Athenian maritime confederacy. During the course of those twenty years, we know that Sparta had had more than one battle to sustain in Arcadia, against the towns and villages of that country, in which she came forth victorious: but we have no particulars respecting these incidents. We also know that a few years after the Persian invasion, the inhabitants of Elis concentrated themselves from many dispersed townships into the one main city of Elis:[609] and it seems probable that Lepreum in Triphylia, and one or two of the towns of Achaia, were either formed or enlarged by a similar process near about the same time.[610] Such aggregation of towns out of preëxisting separate villages was not conformable to the views, nor favorable to the ascendency, of Lacedæmon: but there can be little doubt that her foreign policy, after the Persian invasion, was both embarrassed and discredited by the misconduct of her two contemporary kings, Pausanias, who, though only regent, was practically equivalent to a king, and Leotychidês,—not to mention the rapid development of Athens and Peiræus. But in the year B. C. 464, the year preceding the surrender of Thasos to the Athenian armament, a misfortune of yet more terrific moment befell Sparta. A violent earthquake took place in the immediate neighborhood of Sparta itself, destroying a large portion of the town, and a vast number of lives, many of them Spartan citizens. It was the judgment of the earth-shaking god Poseidon, according to the view of the Lacedæmonians themselves, for a recent violation of his sanctuary at Tænarus, from whence certain suppliant Helots had been dragged away not long before for punishment,[611]—not improbably some of those Helots whom Pausanias had instigated to revolt. The sentiment of the Helots, at all times one of enmity towards their masters, appears at this moment to have been unusually inflammable: so that an earthquake at Sparta, especially an earthquake construed as divine vengeance for Helot blood recently spilt, was sufficient to rouse many of them at once into revolt, together with some even of the Periœki. The insurgents took arms and marched directly upon Sparta, which they were on the point of mastering during the first moments of consternation, had not the bravery and presence of mind of the young king Archidamus reanimated the surviving citizens and repelled the attack. But though repelled, the insurgents were not subdued: for some time they maintained the field against the Spartan force, and sometimes with considerable advantage, since Aeimnêstus, the warrior by whose hand Mardonius had fallen at Platæa, was defeated and slain with three hundred followers in the plain of Stenyklêrus, overpowered by superior numbers.[612] When at length defeated, they occupied and fortified the memorable hill of Ithômê, the ancient citadel of their Messenian forefathers. Here they made a long and obstinate defence, supporting themselves doubtless by incursions throughout Laconia: nor was defence difficult, seeing that the Lacedæmonians were at that time confessedly incapable of assailing even the most imperfect species of fortification. After the siege had lasted some two or three years, without any prospect of success, the Lacedæmonians, beginning to despair of their own sufficiency for the undertaking, invoked the aid of their various allies, among whom we find specified the Æginetans, the Athenians, and the Platæans.[613] The Athenian troops are said to have consisted of four thousand men, under the command of Kimon; Athens being still included in the list of Lacedæmonian allies.

So imperfect were the means of attacking walls at that day, even for the most intelligent Greeks, that this increased force made no immediate impression on the fortified hill of Ithômê. And when the Lacedæmonians saw that their Athenian allies were not more successful than they had been themselves, they soon passed from surprise into doubt, mistrust, and apprehension. The troops had given no ground for such a feeling, and Kimon, their general, was notorious for his attachment to Sparta; yet the Lacedæmonians could not help calling to mind the ever-wakeful energy and ambition of these Ionic strangers, whom they had introduced into the interior of Laconia, together with their own promise—though doubtless a secret promise—to invade Attica, not long before, for the benefit of the Thasians. They even began to fear that the Athenians might turn against them, and listen to solicitations for espousing the cause of the besieged. Under the influence of such apprehensions, they dismissed the Athenian contingent forthwith, on pretence of having no farther occasion for them; while all the other allies were retained, and the siege or blockade went on as before.[614]

This dismissal, ungracious in the extreme, and probably rendered even more offensive by the habitual roughness of Spartan dealing, excited the strongest exasperation both among the Athenian soldiers and the Athenian people,—an exasperation heightened by circumstances immediately preceding. For the resolution to send auxiliaries into Laconia, when the Lacedæmonians first applied for them, had not been taken without considerable debate at Athens: the party of Periklês and Ephialtês, habitually in opposition to Kimon, and partisans of the forward democratical movement, had strongly discountenanced it, and conjured their countrymen not to assist in renovating and strengthening their most formidable rival. Perhaps the previous engagement of the Lacedæmonians to invade Attica on behalf of the Thasians may have become known to them, though not so formally as to exclude denial; and even supposing this engagement to have remained unknown at that time to every one, there were not wanting other grounds to render the policy of refusal plausible. But Kimon, with an earnestness which even the philo-Laconian Kritias afterwards characterized as a sacrifice of the grandeur of Athens to the advantage of Lacedæmon,[615] employed all his credit and influence in seconding the application. The maintenance of alliance with Sparta on equal footing,—peace among the great powers of Greece, and common war against Persia,—together with the prevention of all farther democratical changes in Athens,—were the leading points of his political creed. As yet, both his personal and political ascendency was predominant over his opponents: as yet, there was no manifest conflict, which had only just begun to show itself in the case of Thasos, between the maritime power of Athens, and the union of land-force under Sparta: and Kimon could still treat both of these phenomena as coexisting necessities of Hellenic well-being. Though no way distinguished as a speaker, he carried with him the Athenian assembly by appealing to a large and generous patriotism, which forbade them to permit the humiliation of Sparta. “Consent not to see Hellas lamed of one leg, and Athens drawing without her yoke-fellow;”[616] such was his language, as we learn from his friend and companion, the Chian poet Ion: and in the lips of Kimon it proved effective. It is a speech of almost melancholy interest, since ninety years passed over before such an appeal was ever again addressed to an Athenian assembly.[617] The despatch of the auxiliaries was thus dictated by a generous sentiment, to the disregard of what might seem political prudence: and we may imagine the violent reaction which took place in Athenian feeling, when the Lacedæmonians repaid them by singling out their troops from all the other allies as objects of insulting suspicion,—we may imagine the triumph of Periklês and Ephialtês, who had opposed the mission,—and the vast loss of influence to Kimon, who had brought it about,—when Athens received again into her public assemblies the hoplites sent back from Ithômê.

Both in the internal constitution, indeed,—of which more presently,—and in the external policy of Athens, the dismissal of these soldiers was pregnant with results. The Athenians immediately passed a formal resolution to renounce the alliance between themselves and Lacedæmon against the Persians. They did more: they looked out for land enemies of Lacedæmon, with whom to ally themselves. Of these by far the first, both in Hellenic rank and in real power, was Argos. That city, neutral during the Persian invasion, had now recovered from the effects of the destructive defeat suffered about thirty years before from the Spartan king Kleomenês: the sons of the ancient citizens had grown to manhood, and the temporary predominance of the Periœki, acquired in consequence of the ruinous loss of citizens in that defeat, had been again put down. In the neighborhood of Argos, and dependent upon it, were situated Mykenæ, Tiryns, and Midea,—small in power and importance, but rich in mythical renown. Disdaining the inglorious example of Argos, at the period of danger, these towns had furnished contingents both to Thermopylæ and Platæa, which their powerful neighbor had been unable either to prevent at the time, or to avenge afterwards, from fear of the intervention of Lacedæmon. But so soon as the latter was seen to be endangered and occupied at home, with a formidable Messenian revolt, the Argeians availed themselves of the opportunity to attack not only Mykenæ and Tiryns, but also Orneæ, Midea, and other semi-dependent towns around them. Several of these were reduced; and the inhabitants robbed of their autonomy, were incorporated with the domain of Argos: but the Mykenians, partly from the superior gallantry of their resistance, partly from jealousy of their mythical renown, were either sold as slaves or driven into banishment.[618] Through these victories Argos was now more powerful than ever, and the propositions of alliance made to her by Athens, while strengthening both the two against Lacedæmon, opened to her a new chance of recovering her lost headship in Peloponnesus. The Thessalians became members of this new alliance, which was a defensive alliance against Lacedæmon: and hopes were doubtless entertained of drawing in some of the habitual allies of the latter.

The new character which Athens had thus assumed, as a competitor for landed alliances, not less than for maritime ascendency, came opportunely for the protection of the neighboring town of Megara. It appears that Corinth, perhaps instigated, like Argos, by the helplessness of the Lacedæmonians, had been making border encroachments on the one side upon Kleônæ, on the other side upon Megara:[619] on which ground the latter, probably despairing of protection from Lacedæmon, renounced the Lacedæmonian connection, and obtained permission to enrol herself as an ally of Athens.[620] This was an acquisition of signal value to the Athenians, since it both opened to them the whole range of territory across the outer isthmus of Corinth to the interior of the Krissæan gulf, on which the Megarian port of Pegæ was situated, and placed them in possession of the passes of Mount Geraneia, so that they could arrest the march of a Peloponnesian army over the isthmus, and protect Attica from invasion. It was, moreover, of great importance in its effects on Grecian politics: for it was counted as a wrong by Lacedæmon, gave deadly offence to the Corinthians, and lighted up the flames of war between them and Athens; their allies, the Epidaurians and Æginetans, taking their part. Though Athens had not yet been guilty of unjust encroachment against any Peloponnesian state, her ambition and energy had inspired universal awe; while the maritime states in the neighborhood, such as Corinth, Epidaurus, and Ægina, saw these terror-striking qualities threatening them at their own doors, through her alliance with Argos and Megara. Moreover, it is probable that the ancient feud between the Athenians and Æginetans, though dormant since a little before the Persian invasion, had never been appeased or forgotten: so that the Æginetans, dwelling within sight of Peiræus, were at once best able to appreciate, and most likely to dread, the enormous maritime power now possessed by Athens. Periklês was wont to call Ægina the eyesore of Peiræus:[621] but we may be very sure that Peiræus, grown into a vast fortified port, within the existing generation, was in a much stronger degree the eyesore of Ægina.

The Athenians were at this time actively engaged in prosecuting the war against Persia, having a fleet of no less than two hundred sail, equipped by or from the confederacy collectively, now serving in Cyprus and on the Phenician coast. Moreover, the revolt of the Egyptians under Inaros, about 460 B. C., opened to them new means of action against the Great King; and their fleet, by invitation of the revolters, sailed up the Nile to Memphis, where there seemed at first a good prospect of throwing off the Persian dominion. Yet in spite of so great an abstraction from their disposable force, their military operations near home were conducted with unabated vigor: and the inscription which remains,—a commemoration of their citizens of the Erechtheid tribe, who were slain in one and the same year, in Cyprus, Egypt, Phenicia, the Halieis, Ægina, and Megara,—brings forcibly before us that energy which astonished and even alarmed their contemporaries. Their first proceedings at Megara were of a nature altogether novel, in the existing condition of Greece. It was necessary for the Athenians to protect their new ally against the superiority of Peloponnesian land-force, and to insure a constant communication with it by sea; but the city, like most of the ancient Hellenic towns, was situated on a hill at some distance from the sea, separated from its port Nisæa by a space of nearly one mile. One of the earliest proceedings of the Athenians was to build two lines of wall, near and parallel to each other, connecting the city with Nisæa, so that the two thus formed one continuous fortress, wherein a standing Athenian garrison was maintained, with the constant means of succor from Athens in case of need. These “long walls,” though afterwards copied in other places, and on a larger scale, were at that juncture an ingenious invention, for the purpose of extending the maritime arm of Athens to an inland city.

The first operations of Corinth, however, were not directed against Megara. The Athenians having undertaken a landing in the territory of the Halieis, the population of the southern Argolic peninsula, bordering on Trœzen and Hermionê, were defeated on land by the Corinthian and Epidaurian forces: possibly it may have been in this expedition that they acquired possession of Trœzen, which we find afterwards in their dependence, without knowing when it became so. But in a sea-fight which took place off the island of Kekryphaleia, between Ægina and the Argolic peninsula, the Athenians gained the victory. After this victory and defeat,—neither of them apparently very decisive,—the Æginetans began to take a more energetic part in the war, and brought out their full naval force, together with that of their allies,—Corinthians, Epidaurians, and other Peloponnesians: while Athens equipped a fleet of corresponding magnitude, summoning her allies also; though we do not know the actual numbers on either side. In the great naval battle which ensued off the island of Ægina, the superiority of the new nautical tactics, acquired by twenty years’ practice of the Athenians since the Persian war,—over the old Hellenic ships and seamen, as shown in those states where, at the time of the battle of Marathon, the maritime strength of Greece had resided,—was demonstrated by a victory most complete and decisive. The Peloponnesian and Dorian seamen had as yet had no experience of the improved seacraft of Athens, and when we find how much they were disconcerted with it, even twenty-eight years afterwards, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, we shall not wonder at its destructive effect upon them in this early battle. The maritime power of Ægina was irrecoverably ruined: the Athenians captured seventy ships of war, landed a large force upon the island, and commenced the siege of the city by land as well as by sea.[622]

If the Lacedæmonians had not been occupied at home by the blockade of Ithômê, they would have been probably induced to invade Attica as a diversion to the Æginetans; especially as the Persian Megabazus came to Sparta at this time on the part of Artaxerxes to prevail upon them to do so, in order that the Athenians might be constrained to retire from Egypt: this Persian brought with him a large sum of money, but was nevertheless obliged to return without effecting his mission.[623] The Corinthians and Epidaurians, however, while they carried to Ægina a reinforcement of three hundred hoplites, did their best to aid her farther by an attack upon Megara; which place, it was supposed, the Athenians could not possibly relieve without withdrawing their forces from Ægina, inasmuch as so many of their men were at the same time serving in Egypt. But the Athenians showed themselves equal to all these three exigencies at one and the same time,—to the great disappointment of their enemies. Myrônidês marched from Athens to Megara at the head of the citizens in the two extremes of military age, old and young; these being the only troops at home. He fought the Corinthians near the town, gaining a slight, but debatable advantage, which he commemorated by a trophy, as soon as the Corinthians had returned home. But the latter when they arrived at home, were so much reproached by their own old citizens, for not having vanquished the refuse of the Athenian military force,[624] that they returned back at the end of twelve days and erected a trophy on their side, laying claim to a victory in the past battle. The Athenians, marching out of Megara, attacked them a second time, and gained on this occasion a decisive victory. The defeated Corinthians were still more unfortunate in their retreat; for a body of them, missing their road, became entangled in a space of private ground, inclosed on every side by a deep ditch, and having only one narrow entrance. Myrônidês, detecting this fatal mistake, planted his hoplites at the entrance to prevent their escape, and then surrounded the enclosure with his light-armed troops, who, with their missile weapons, slew all the Corinthian hoplites, without possibility either of flight or resistance. The bulk of the Corinthian army effected their retreat, but the destruction of this detachment was a sad blow to the city.[625]

Splendid as the success of the Athenians had been during this year, both on land and at sea, it was easy for them to foresee that the power of their enemies would presently be augmented by the Lacedæmonians taking the field. Partly on this account,—partly also from the more energetic phase of democracy, and the long-sighted views of Periklês, which were now becoming ascendent in the city,—the Athenians began the stupendous undertaking of connecting Athens with the sea by means of long walls. The idea of this measure had doubtless been first suggested by the recent erection of long walls, though for so much smaller a distance, between Megara and Nisæa: for without such an intermediate stepping-stone, the idea of a wall forty stadia long (equal to four and a half miles) to join Athens with Peiræus, and another wall of thirty-five stadia (equal to about four miles) to join it with Phalêrum, would have appeared extravagant even to the sanguine temper of Athenians,—as it certainly would have seemed a few years earlier to Themistoklês himself. Coming as an immediate sequel of great recent victories, and while Ægina, the great Dorian naval power, was prostrate and under blockade, it excited the utmost alarm among the Peloponnesians,—being regarded as the second great stride,[626] at once conspicuous and of lasting effect, in Athenian ambition, next to the fortification of Peiræus. But besides this feeling in the bosom of enemies, the measure was also interwoven with the formidable contention of political parties then going on at Athens. Kimon had been recently ostracized; and the democratical movement pressed by Periklês and Ephialtês—of which more presently—was in its full tide of success, yet not without a violent and unprincipled opposition on the part of those who supported the existing constitution. Now, the long walls formed a part of the foreign policy of Periklês, continuing on a gigantic scale the plans of Themistoklês when he first schemed the Peiræus. They were framed to render Athens capable of carrying on war against any superiority of landed attack, and of bidding defiance to the united force of Peloponnesus. But though thus calculated for contingencies which a long-sighted man might see gathering in the distance, the new walls were, almost on the same grounds, obnoxious to a considerable number of Athenians: to the party recently headed by Kimon, who were attached to the Lacedæmonian connection, and desired above all things to maintain peace at home, reserving the energies of the state for anti-Persian enterprise: to many landed proprietors in Attica, whom they seemed to threaten with approaching invasion and destruction of their territorial possessions: to the rich men and aristocrats of Athens, averse to a still closer contact and amalgamation with the maritime multitude in Peiræus: lastly, perhaps, to a certain vein of old Attic feeling, which might look upon the junction of Athens with the separate demes of Peiræus and Phalêrum as effacing the special associations connected with the holy rock of Athênê. When, to all these grounds of opposition, we add, the expense and trouble of the undertaking itself, the interference with private property, the peculiar violence of party which happened then to be raging, and the absence of a large proportion of military citizens in Egypt,—we shall hardly be surprised to find that the projected long walls brought on a risk of the most serious character both for Athens and her democracy. If any farther proof were wanting of the vast importance of these long walls, in the eyes both of friends and of enemies, we might find it in the fact, that their destruction was the prominent mark of Athenian humiliation after the battle of Ægos Potamos, and their restoration the immediate boon of Pharnabazus and Konon after the victory of Knidus.

Under the influence of the alarm now spread by the proceedings of Athens, the Lacedæmonians were prevailed upon to undertake an expedition out of Peloponnesus, although the Helots in Ithômê were not yet reduced to surrender. Their force consisted of fifteen hundred troops of their own, and ten thousand of their various allies, under the regent Nikomêdês. The ostensible motive, or the pretence, for this march, was the protection of the little territory of Doris against the Phocians, who had recently invaded it and taken one of its three towns. The mere approach of so large a force immediately compelled the Phocians to relinquish their conquest, but it was soon seen that this was only a small part of the objects of Sparta, and that her main purposes, under instigation of the Corinthians, were directed against the aggrandizement of Athens. It could not escape the penetration of Corinth, that the Athenians might presently either enlist or constrain the towns of Bœotia into their alliance, as they had recently acquired Megara, in addition to their previous ally, Platæa: for the Bœotian federation was at this time much disorganized, and Thebes, its chief, had never recovered her ascendency since the discredit of her support lent to the Persian invasion. To strengthen Thebes, and to render her ascendency effective over the Bœotian cities, was the best way of providing a neighbor at once powerful and hostile to the Athenians, so as to prevent their farther aggrandizement by land: it was the same policy as Epaminondas pursued eighty years afterwards in organizing Arcadia and Messênê against Sparta. Accordingly, the Peloponnesian force was now employed partly in enlarging and strengthening the fortifications of Thebes herself, partly in constraining the other Bœotian cities into effective obedience to her supremacy: probably by placing their governments in the hands of citizens of known oligarchical politics,[627] and perhaps banishing suspected opponents. To this scheme the Thebans lent themselves with earnestness; promising to keep down for the future their border neighbors, so as to spare the necessity of armies coming from Sparta.[628]

But there was also a farther design, yet more important, in contemplation by the Spartans and Corinthians. The oligarchical opposition at Athens were so bitterly hostile to the Long Walls, to Periklês, and to the democratical movement, that several of them opened a secret negotiation with the Peloponnesian leaders, inviting them into Attica, and entreating their aid in an internal rising for the purpose not only of putting a stop to the Long Walls, but also of subverting the democracy. And the Peloponnesian army, while prosecuting its operations in Bœotia, waited in hopes of seeing the Athenian malcontents in arms, encamping at Tanagra, on the very borders of Attica, for the purpose of immediate coöperation with them. The juncture was undoubtedly one of much hazard for Athens, especially as the ostracized Kimon and his remaining friends in the city were suspected of being implicated in the conspiracy. But the Athenian leaders, aware of the Lacedæmonian operations in Bœotia, knew also what was meant by the presence of the army on their immediate borders, and took decisive measures to avert the danger. Having obtained a reinforcement of one thousand Argeians and some Thessalian horse, they marched out to Tanagra, with the full Athenian force then at home; which must, of course, have consisted chiefly of the old and the young, the same who had fought under Myrônidês at Megara; for the blockade of Ægina was still going on. Nor was it possible for the Lacedæmonian army to return into Peloponnesus without fighting; for the Athenians, masters of the Megarid, were in possession of the difficult highlands of Geraneia, the road of march along the isthmus; while the Athenian fleet, by means of the harbor of Pegæ, was prepared to intercept them, if they tried to come by sea across the Krissæan gulf, by which way it would appear that they had come out. Near Tanagra, a bloody battle took place between the two armies, wherein the Lacedæmonians were victorious, chiefly from the desertion of the Thessalian horse, who passed over to them in the very heat of the engagement.[629] But though the advantage was on their side, it was not sufficiently decisive to favor the contemplated rising in Attica: nor did the Peloponnesians gain anything by it, except an undisturbed retreat over the highlands of Geraneia, after having partially ravaged the Megarid.

Though the battle of Tanagra was a defeat, yet there were circumstances connected with it which rendered its effects highly beneficial to Athens. The ostracized Kimon presented himself on the field as soon as the army had passed over the boundaries of Attica, requesting to be allowed to occupy his station as an hoplite and to fight in the ranks of his tribe,—the Œnêis. But such was the belief, entertained by the members of the senate and by his political enemies present, that he was an accomplice in the conspiracy known to be on foot, that permission was refused and he was forced to retire. In departing, he conjured his personal friends, Euthippus, of the deme Anaphlystus, and others, to behave in such a manner as might wipe away the stain resting upon his fidelity, and in part also upon theirs. His friends retained his panoply, and assigned to it the station in the ranks which he would himself have occupied: they then entered the engagement with desperate resolution, and one hundred of them fell side by side in their ranks. Periklês, on his part, who was present among the hoplites of his own tribe, the Akamantis, aware of this application and repulse of Kimon, thought it incumbent upon him to display not merely his ordinary personal courage, but an unusual recklessness of life and safety, though it happened that he escaped unwounded. All these incidents brought about a generous sympathy and spirit of compromise among the contending parties at Athens, while the unshaken patriotism of Kimon and his friends discountenanced and disarmed those conspirators who had entered into correspondence with the enemy, at the same time that it roused a repentant admiration towards the ostracized leader himself. Such was the happy working of this new sentiment that a decree was shortly proposed and carried,—proposed too, by Periklês himself,—to abridge the ten years of Kimon’s ostracism, and permit his immediate return.[630] We may recollect that, under circumstances partly analogous, Themistoklês had himself proposed the restoration of his rival Aristeidês from ostracism, a little before the battle of Salamis:[631] and in both cases, the suspension of enmity between the two leaders was partly the sign, partly also the auxiliary cause, of reconciliation and renewed fraternity among the general body of citizens. It was a moment analogous to that salutary impulse of compromise, and harmony of parties, which followed the extinction of the oligarchy of Four Hundred, forty-six years afterwards, and on which Thucydidês dwells emphatically as the salvation of Athens in her distress,—a moment rare in free communities generally, not less than among the jealous competitors for political ascendency at Athens.[632]