m CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEIsT IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE NiWtrraH fitter ^ n t a «fc .., -- _ ^^mik^ ;^^i* l!«ss!&arT.-5 Cornell University Library DF 229.T53G88 1911 Thucydldes and the histg 3 1924 028 249 955 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028249955 THUCYDIDES AND THE HISTORY OF HIS AGEj THUCYDIDES AND THE HISTORY OF HIS AGE By G. B. QRUNDY, D.Litt. FELLOW AND TUTOR OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, LECTURER IN ANCIENT HISTORY AT BRASENOSE COLLEGE, AND LECTURER IN ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD AUTHOR OF ' THE GREAT PERSIAN WAR ' WITH MAPS LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 191 I L.V. PREFACE It is only fair to any one who may read any part of this book that he should be enlightened beforehand as to the origin of certain peculiarities which will be found in it. It presents the history of the fifth century before Christ under a somewhat novel aspect, in that it depicts the Greeks generally, and the Athenians in particular, as moving in a material rather than an ideal world. I have sought to get at the reality of life as it was lived by the mass of the Hellenes of two thousand years ago, — the men whose con- dition, passions, and emotions made the political, as distinct from the intellectual, history of their race. When first I formed this idea of composing a historical edition of Thucydides, I had no intention of presenting Greek history under this aspect, though I was quite aware from my experience of those persistent inquirers, my Oxford pupils, that there was much in it, as commonly represented, for which it was not possible to provide a satisfactory explanation. In point of fact, I had no idea as to where the explanation lay. When, about ten years ago, I began a course of reading and inquiry with a view to getting at the available evidence as to the population of Greece in old times, I did so with- out the slightest suspicion that it would provide me with anything of the nature of a solution of these difficulties. But in the course of the inquiry I came upon passages in the works of various ancient historians, which, interpreted in the light of what I knew of the conditions of life in modern Greece, a country with which I am familiar, provided some- thing of the nature of an answer to those problems which I had hitherto found insoluble. I was thus diverted from a somewhat narrow historical aim to one of more wide im- portance, — the economic conditions under which men lived vi PREFACE in that Greek world which has influenced so markedly the life of other races and other times. The Greeks made a great future ; but they lived for a real present ; and it is with the nature of that present that I have concerned myself. I am convinced, whether rightly or wrongly, that history is made in the life of peoples rather than of individuals, and that, in the life of peoples, it is the material rather than the intellectual interest which makes con- temporary history. Voltaire and Rousseau would have talked to deaf ears, had they talked to men contented with their lot. The selection of subjects for this preliminary volume may seem strange at first sight. But the logical connection between the purely historical sections is so close that I felt it would be well to place them before the reader at one and the same time. Hence I have associated the chapter on the strategy of the Ten Years' War with other chapters which deal with the general history of the age of which Thucydides wrote. Its strategy is only explicable on those economic grounds of which I have treated in the earlier part of the volume. It follows, therefore, that if the reader is to form a sound judgment of the value of the evidence and the validity of the conclusions drawn from it, he must found it on the whole and not on part of that which I have put before him. Still I have tried to give each section some measure of completeness within itself. This has involved a certain amount of repetition, which may annoy any one who reads the volume through. Some repetition in quotations has also been necessary, because some passages in the ancient authorities afford evidence bearing upon more than one phase of the history. With regard to the spelling of Greek names I have been consistently inconsistent. I myself would prefer a close transliteration of the Greek ; but an adherence to this preference in the case of names which are peculiarly familiar to the world in their Latin form, would appear pedantic. As far as modern authors are concerned, I have, I believe acknowledged in the notes the help I have received from PREFACE vii them. My inquiries have led me into paths untraversed by previous workers in Greek history; and it is inevitable that my views should, in some important respects, fail to accord with theirs. Their views and their names have a reputation which will last as long as Greek history is studied ; and I feel that if what I have written is to be accepted as a justifiable modification of what they have published, the justification must be founded upon con- structive evidence rather than destructive criticism. It would be superfluous to quote to students of Greek history passages from works upon which their knowledge of it must have been based. This book is preliminary to a historical edition of Thucy- dides. Whether the edition will ever be completed depends to a great extent on the way in which this first volume is received. In any case, the completion will necessarily be a work of time. The position of College tutor at Oxford is not one of learned leisure. Though I have already done much of the work for the rest of the edition, and have in my possession surveys both published and unpublished, together with other information bearing on Thucydides which I have collected in Greece, yet the completion and literary arrangement of such matter can only be carried out at times when there is no other work on hand ; and such times are singularly few and far between in the Oxford year. Since I published my work on the Great Persian War two of the most distinguished members of the School of Ancient History in Oxford, Professor H. F. Pelham and Dr. A. H. J. Greenidge, have passed away. I lost in them two of the kindest friends I ever had, but I hope I shall re- tain to the end of my own life, associated with the memory of two men of singular lovableness and singular ability, that spirit of enthusiasm for historical inquiry with which they originally inspired me. In the preliminary stages of the preparation of this present book I worked alone. In getting it ready for pub- lication I have had most valuable help from Mr. Alfred Stark, scholar of Corpus Christi College. In enlisting his services on my behalf, I knew I was obtaining the help of viii PREFACE one whose natural qualifications and knowledge of history, combined with accurate and careful scholarship, would be most valuable to me ; and my expectations have been m every way fulfilled. A writer is fortunate who receives from his publisher that sound literary advice and kindly sympathy which I have received from Mr. John Murray during the last seventeen years. G. B. G. Oxford, i^iA Septeviber 1910. CONTENTS INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER THE NATURE OF THUCYDIDES' WORK PAGE His history the history of a war. History a new element in literature. Herodotus. Limitations of the scope of Thucydides' history. Reasons for this limitation. His story of the war. The greatness of the war. Criteria of the magnitude of any war. The position of the Greek race in the world of the Fifth Century. The Greek as a soldier. Misleading conclusions from the history of the Fourth Century. Political failure of the Greeks. Distrust of eminent capacity. Place of the Peloponnesian War in the history of the Western World. The object with which Thucydides wrote his history. His philosophical interest. Moral judgments. His Ethics modern rather than Greek in type. . . . . . . 1-9 PART I : THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES CHAPTER I The extant biographies. Knowledge of his work in the Fourth and Third Centuries B.C. The Classicists of the First Century B.C. Loss of biographical details. Birth. Family relationships. Citizenship and Property. Early life. Opening years of the Peloponnesian War. Evidence of the 'Speeches.' His Strategia. Evidence of autopsy. The year 424 B.C. His attitude to Kleon. His attitude towards Imperialism and towards Ultra-democracy. His political views. His life after 424. Residence at Amphipolis. Possible relations with Brasidas. His residence after 421. Sojourn in Peloponnese. Beginning of his composition. Autopsy at Syracuse. Collection of material for the later books. Return from exile. His life after his return. Archelaos of Macedon. ? Place of Death. His reputed tomb at Athens. Date of Death. . ii:47 PART II : THE GENERAL RELIABILITY OF THE RECEIVED TEXT OF THUCYDIDES CHAPTER II Textual errors in his work rarely demonstrable. Evidence of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Alleged corruption in the Speeches. Style due to originality of the author. Alleged drajpatk influence. Influence of Rhetoric. Effect on Thucydides' style. Evidence of the text of V. 47 on the question of textual corruption. The Mss. ........ 48-57 X THUCYDIDES PART III: THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND OF GREEK HISTORY CHAPTER III THE FOOD SUPPLY OF GREECE PAGE The Economic Geography of Greece, past and present. Economics in Greek Literature. Deficiency of home food supply in Ancient Greece. Evidence of Hesiod. Greek Colonisation. How colonis- ing activity reacted on itself. Home purchasing power for foreign supplies: evidence of Plutarch's 'Solon.' Archaeological evi- dence on trade. The vine and olive. An economic reaction. Capital and slavery. Miscellaneous evidence on Greek food supply. The Pontus corn trade. The Megarean decrees. Attica during the Peloponnesian War. Significance of Greek mercenary service abroad, especially in reference to Peloponnese. Evidence on food supply drawn from Greek warfare. Isokrates' evidence. General effect of the food question on Greek politics. . . 5^'9S CHAPTER IV SLAVERY AND LABOUR Athenian statesmen and the Economic question. Prosperity and Slavery. Slavery in manufactures. Evil effects on free labour. Economic distress and politics. Economic evidence for the Fifth Century. Economic distress and politics (continued). The ideal and the material in Greek history. Inevitability of the Economic situation. The right to live. ..... 96-1 ii CHAPTER V ECONOMIC POSITION OF CLASSES IN ATTICA IN THE SIXTH CENTURY Change in Economic position in Athens during the Century. Effect of Solonian legislation. Classes and parties in the earlier part of the Sixth Century. Peisistratos' policy. Vine culture. The traders — change in politics in the Sixth Century. Economic cause of the change. ....... 112-124 CHAPTER VI ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY IN ATTICA B.C. 510 TO B.C. 462 Summary of the Economic conditions discussed in the previous chapters. From Kleisthenes to Marathon. Defects of govern- ment by Ekklesia. From Kleisthenes to Marathon (continued) : the Kleisthenic reforms. Themistokles as a. statesman. The- mistokles' policy in the West. His naval policy. Economic element in his policy. Evidence as to the economic position in Athens in the middle of the Fifth Century. The Fourth Century treatise Ilepl UpiKrdSuy. Political influence of the urban popula- CONTENTS xi PAGE tion. Themistokles and the Economic problem as stated in the treatise Ilepi Upoo-iSwc. Themistokles and the question of food supply. General view of his policy. The policy of Aristides. Causes of his second quarrel with Themistokles. Aristides and the Economic question. The Eurymedon and its consequences. . 125-168 CHAPTER VII THE PERIKLEAN DEMOCRACY AND THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE The new democracy. The ideal and the material in Periklean policy. The Delian League and the Athenian Empire. Greek Individ- ualism. Individualism and the Delian League. The League after the Eurymedon. Perikles' economic policy modified by circum- stances from that of Themistokles. Economic situation in the days of Perikles. Slavery and Labour. Two periods of Periklean policy. The earlier period : Economic measures. Athenian Warfare and the policy behind it. Perikles' policy after 454. His policy after 446. The economic theory of the Empire. Facts and motives. Material and ideal elements in the Periklean policy. Thucydides' attitude towards the Periklean policy. The Athenian state in the years preceding the Peloponnesian War. . . 169-21 1 PART IV CHAPTER VIII THE POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY Tendency to misunderstand the policy of Sparta, and consequently to condemn it. The population of Ancient Greece. Importance of the modern as well as the ancient evidence. Dr. Beloch's con- clusions. Reasons for differing from them. Population larger in the Fifth Century than at the present day. Ancient population of the Spartan state. The statistics, ancient and modern. Propor- tion of free to non-free population. Effect on Spartan policy. Geographical situation. Evidence as to the fear of the Helots. The concentric circles of Spartan policy. Policy in Peloponnese. Arkadia ; Elis : Achaia : Argos : Corinth. Argos and Athens. Influence of Corinth on Spartan policy. Sikyon. Extra-Pelopon- nesian policy. Imperialism of Sparta apparent at times, though not real. Corinth and Sparta's foreign politics. Cause of her influence. Her geographical position. Sparta and Rome. Sparta's interests north of the Isthmus. The Megarid. Boeotia. Delphi. Thessaly. Policy on the Asiatic side of the Aegean. Lysander's policy and its opponents. Ultimately disastrous to Sparta. Polykrates and Corinth. Relations with Athens in last years of the Sixth Century. Use made of Boeotia. Relations with Athenian aristocracy. Expulsion of the Pisistratids. Corinth and Athens in the last years of the Sixth Century. Sparta and Argos in 480 and 479 B.C. Corinth and Athens in the Fifth Century. Sparta and the Athenian Empire. Sparta during the Peloponnesian War. Position in Greece after the Thirty Years' Peace of 446 B.C. Reluctance of Sparta to begin the Pelopon- nesian War. Significance of the Megarian decree. The Peace of Nikias and after. Attitude to the Sicilian expedition. The Ionian War and its results on Sparta's policy. General consistency of Sparta s policy in the Fifth Century. The expectation and the reality of Spartan policy. . . 212-239 xii THUCYDIDES PART V: THE ART OF WAR DURING THE LATER HALF OF THE FIFTH CENTURY CHAPTER IX THE NATURAL CONDITIONS OF WARFARE IN GREECE PAGE Fifth Century writers treat rather of the facts than the art of war. Cause of this. Contrast with Polybius. Attitude of Herodotus and of Thucydides. The paradoxes of Greek warfare. Nature of Greece as determinative of the nature of Greek warfare. The first paradox. The limitations of the hoplite. Reliance on the hoplite. The second paradox. Attack on fortifications. Solution of the paradoxes. Cultivable areas. Food supply. Effects of devasta- tion. Battles must be fought on the plains. Hence the hoplite the most effective soldier. The use of the Acropolis. The limita- tions of the campaigning season. Foreign criticism of Greek warfare in Herodotus. Greek view of foreign warfare. . . 240-252 CHAPTER X THE CITIZEN, THE PROFESSIONAL, AND THE MERCENARY ARMY The art of war during the Pentekontaetia. The Spartan army. The Athenian army. The efficiency of the hoplite. Mercenaries prior to the Peloponnesian War, The democratic army. Limitations of the citizen army. The type of the Athenian army. Growth of the mercenary element. Circumstances which promoted it. Mercenaries in naval service. Necessity for good light-armed troops. The Peltast. Sources of supply. Difficulty of training the Greek in light-armed warfare. Nature and limitations of Greek military courage. The army of Brasidas. His army partly mercenary. Use of mercenaries by Athens. . . . 253-266 CHAPTER XI METHODS OF FIGHTING EMPLOYED BY GREEK ARMIES AT THE TIME Tactics prior to the Peloponnesian War. Hoplite tactics. Depth of the phalanx. Advance 8p6iJUf. Flank attack and the employment of reserves. Attack on wings. Modification in later times by Epaminondas. Fear of flank attack. Hoplite against light-armed on level ground. Recognition of the limitation of the hoplite f°r" 267-273 CHAPTER XII LIGHT-ARMED TROOPS AND CAVALRY IN GREEK WARFARE Acquisition of experience during the Peloponnesian War. Part played by light-armed. Light-armed from N.-W. Greece. Recognition of the necessity of good light-armed troops. Increased use of them. Cavalry. Rare use of it among the Greeks. Usefulness of the arm. Persian and Thessalian cavalry. Boeotian cavalry. Greek use of cavalry. Possibilities of its use against hoplites. Its effective uses in the Peloponnesian War. Later developments 274-281 CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER XIII SIEGE OPERATIONS PAGE Incapacity of Greek armies. Experience during the Pentekontaetia. Lack of details of sieges during this period. First recorded use of siege engines by Greeks in the siege of Samos 440 B.C. Various methods of conducting siege operations. Attitude of Thucydides and its possible significance. List of sieges and methods employed during the Peloponnesian War. Fortified places in the Athenian Empire. Athenian policy in respect to fortifications. Athenian skill in siege operations. Active assault by storming. The System of 'Long Walls.' . 282-291 CHAPTER XIV NAVAL WARFARE The sudden increase in the Athenian navy. Its motive. Themi- stokles' 'Western' policy. Navy used by Aristides and Kimon in the prosecution of the ' Eastern ' policy. War experience during the Pentekontaetia. Three recurrent phases of naval tactics. Tactics of Vessels propelled by oars. Trained and untrained crews. Speed of the trireme. Herodotus and naval tactics : Lade and the SUktXovs. Conditions necessary for its successful employment. Artemision : Defensive circular formation. Salamis : Charging and boarding. Improvements in design of vessels. Kimon's tactics. His motive. Athenian fleet at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. Contemporary Greek fleets inefficient. Naval war between Corinth and Corcyra. ' Old-fashioned ' tactics. Contemporary Athenian tactics — dependent on the skill of the opponent. Phormio in the Corinthian Gulf. Corinthian defensive tactics. Phormio's second sea-fight. The ivaarpoipii. Engage- ment between Athenians and Peloponnesians off Corcyra. Naval battle near Messene. Danger of Athenian tactics when used against a determined adversary. Tactics during the Sicilian expedition. Corinthians evolve a new method of meeting Athenian fleets. Syracusans adopt the method at Syracuse. Inapplicability of Athenian tactics to the circumstances at Syracuse. The Athenians are finally driven to employ boarding tactics. Effect of Sicilian disaster on the Athenian navy. Loss of the skilled crews an irreparable disaster. How it affected the later course of the war. Loss of tactical superiority. Foreign element in the Athenian navy. The Athenian element in the crews. Its inadequacy after Syracuse. Privateering. The later engagements of the war. ...... 292-314 PART VI : THE CAUSES AND STRATEGY OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR CHAPTER XV THE CAUSES AND PLANS OF THE WAR AS SET FORTH IN THUCYDIDES Difficulties inherent in Thucydides' story. Impression of triviality and futility. Method of stating the main designs of the war. Real importance of the Ten Years' War. Imperfect nature of Thucydides' account of the strategy of the war. This possibly due xiv THUCYDIDES PAGE to the interest with which he wrote. Omission of obvious strategi- cal facts. His implicit method of stating strategic designs. Speech of Archidamos. Design indicated. Corinthian speech. Designs indicated. Athenian designs. Speech of Perikles. Designs indicated. Statement of Perikles' strategy in Book II. Some of these designs not applicable to the Ten Years' War, but to the Ionian War only. The actual designs of the two sides at the outset of the Ten Years' War. Original strategy quite simple. Thucydides' silence as to the development of strategy in the course of the war. Views of Archidamos and of Perikles. Causes of the war. Thucydides' view. A modern view. Justi- fication of the formation of the modern view. Corinth and Athens rivals in Western trade. The question of Corcyra. Difficulty in accepting the modern view. Attitude of the minor states of Peloponnese. Nature of their interest in the trade with the West. Economic position of these states. Thucydides' evidence. Posi- tion of the contemporary Greek world with regard to the Corn trade. Athenian control and management of the Pontus trade. The Megarean decree. Sicilian Corn trade. Causes of Sparta's reluctance to take up war. Egyptian Corn trade. Position of Athens with reference to the Corn trade. Identification of the ' war party ' at Athens. Nature of the Athenian interest in Corcyra. Athens a political because, an economic danger to the Pelopon- nesians. Peloponnesians determined on the destruction of the Athenian Empire. The Ultra-democrat and the tribute. Strategy of the war in the light of its causes. Peloponnesian designs. Athenian strategy. Division of the War into geographical areas. . . . 315-332 CHAPTER XVI THE WAR IN ATTICA Invasion of Attica the main design of the Peloponnesians. Concentra- tion of the population. The forts of Attica. Invasions of Attica during the war. Strategy of Perikles maintained in Attica after his death. Failure of the invasions. Epoch-making in Greek military history. 'BirircixtC/ii6s. BOEOTIA AND THE ISTHMUS Strategical value of the Megarid. Attica hemmed in on the north by Boeotia. Attack on Plataea. Its strategical importance. The passes of the Kithaeron-Parnes range. Athens and the siege of Plataea. Attack on Oenoe. Athens and the Megarid. Brasidas and Salamis. Influence of Demosthenes on the war. Attack on Corinth in 425. Great attack on the Megarid in 424. Athens and Boeotia. Demosthenes' plan of invasion through Aetolia. Attack on the Tanagraean district. Demosthenes' second attempt on Boeotia. Delion. Summary of results in this region of the war. Atalanta and Heraklea Trachinia. .... 333-34? CHAPTER XVII THE CORINTHIAN GULF AND NORTH-WEST GREECE Unexpected prominence of this region in the early years of the war Political position in N.-W. Greece. The route to Sicily The great land route through N. - W. Greece. Importance of Oeniadae CONTENTS XV PAGE Athenian attacks on Corinthian dependencies. Amphilochian Argos. Phormio at Naupaktos. Expedition of Knemos. Attacks on Phormio. Change in the position at Corcyra. Olpae and Idomene. Subsequent results of these victories. Demosthenes as a general. Later events in the N. -W. THE WAR ROUND PELOPONNESE Psychological intent of the raids on the Peloponnesian Coast. Details of the raids. Designs of Demosthenes. Attack on Melos. Demosthenes and the Peloponnese. Pylos. Methana. Kythera. Athenian positions round Peloponnese. Blockade of Pelopon- nese. Later references to such blockade. .... 346-359 CHAPTER XVIII SICILY Objects of the expeditions. Thucydides' views. Recent history of Sicily. Omissions in Thucydides. The treaties with Rhegion and Leontini. Athenian interests in Sicily. Policy of Syracuse, 445-427 B.C. Thucydides' account of the war in Sicily. Signifi- cance of the date of the Athenian intervention. Its main object as disclosed by the actual operations. Syracuse renews her aggressive policy. She drops it at the time of the Peace of Nikias. The real objects of the Athenian intervention. Summary of conclusions. MACEDONIA AND CHALKIDIKE The changeable Perdikkas. His record in the war. Potidaea. Extraordinary importance attached to its possession by both Athens and Corinth. Siege of Potidaea. Thracian invasion of Macedonia. Brasidas and Chalkidike. His plan only semi-officially recognised. List of Brasidas' successes. Effect of the capture of Amphipolis. Its strategic importance. Danger to the Hellespont region. Reasons for Brasidas' delay in advancing. The armistice of 423. Position in Chalkidike. The battle of Amphipolis. Death of Kleon and Brasidas. Effect of the war in Thrace on the Peace. THE ASIATIC COAST Operations of small strategic significance. Policy of Athens with regard to the fortification of the Asiatic continental towns. Choice between Athenian and Persian rule. Mytilene. The Carian and Lykian tribute. THE RESULTS OF THE WAR Enemies of Athens disillusioned and dispirited. Aggressive pos- sibilities of the Athenian naval power. Why did Athens make peace in 421 ? Utter failure of the antiquated Peloponnesian strategy. Strength of Athenian position after 42 1 . . . 360-383 APPENDIX: THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY CHAPTER I THE GENERAL QUESTION Ullrich and his opponents. The intention of Thucydides. Xenophon's continuation of the work. Abrupt conclusion of Thucydides' xvi THUCYDIDES PAGE history. Incompleteness in respect to quality. Its publication. A 'literary executor' (Editor?). Did Xenophon use Thucydi- des' notes? Primary divisions of the work. The second introduc- tion. Its significance. The conception of the oneness of the war. Not shared by contemporaries. Fourth-century views. Views of later writers. Impression created by the Peace of Nikias. The 'Years of Peace' 421-415 B.C. The date of Thucydides' con- ception of the oneness of the war. Separation of the first part of his work from the second. Publication of the story of the Ten Years' War. His position as an author after 421 B.C. Note on modern critics and their criticism. A'bi'e.— The suggested Editor of Thucydides. . . . 387-404 CHAPTER II THE COMPOSITION OF BOOK I. Sections and sub-sections of the first half of the history (I.-V. 24). Subjective and Objective matter in Book I. Order of sections in Book I. Deductions. Views in Book I. inconsistent with the final views of the author. Causes of the war. The original form or first draft of Book I. ...... 405-413 CHAPTER III SPECIAL SECTIONS AND PASSAGES IN THE INTRODUCTORY MATTER OF BOOK I. Statement of purpose (i. (i) ). No mention of the length of the war. Was the first draft revised or added to, or both ? Archaeological introduction (i. (2)-xvii. (i)). Use of Hellanikos? The purpose of the introduction. Types of circumstances in the past reproduced in his own time. Identity of the war with which he compared these earlier wars. Special passages in the sub-sections. The Persian Wars (xviii. (i)-xviii. (2) ). The Pentekontaetia (xviii. (2)-xix.). Passage on the Pentekontaetia. Use of 7raXa(a. Steup's view. Reference to the war of 459-446 B.C. Historical errors (xx. -xxi. ). Hippias and Hipparchos. Recur- rence to the subject in Book VI. Digressive character of the later passage. Its emphatic language. Priority of composition of the two passages. Second passage an answer to criticism of the first. First passage had been published before the second was written. Identity of ' this war,' referred to at the end of the section. Historical method (xxii. ). No mention of facilities for obtaining information from both sides (vide v. 26). Significance of this omission. General character of the war (xxiii. (l)-(3) ). Does comparison refer to the Ten Years' or to the Twenty-Seven Years' War? The Median War. The War 450-446 B.C. The expression iv ta-ifi Xpbvif. Desolation of cities. Earthquakes: those of 427 B.C. Eclipses. Decisive on date of composition. Pestilence. General conclusion. The causes of the war (xxiii. (4)-(6) ). § 6, part of the second draft. §§ 4 and 5 applicable to the Ten Years' War. Summary of conclusions arrived at in this chapter. . . 414-434 CHAPTER IV CONSIDERATION OF PASSAGES FROM I. xxiv.-cxivi. The Speeches. Date of composition relative to their context. The Psychologial element. Elaboration of thought and language. CONTENTS xvii PAGE Absence of speeches from Books V. and VIII. Cause of the omission. Literary nature of the Melian Dialogue. Claim to latitude in the composition of the speeches. Situations in Book VIII. Books V. and VIII. represent uncompleted stages in Thucydides' work. Speeches later in date of composition than their immediate context. The affair of Epidamnos (xxiv.-lv.). The affair of Potidaea (Ivi.-lxvi. ). Chronology of these sections. One significant passage in Chapter 56. The first Congress of the Allies at Sparta (Ixvii.- Ixxxvii.). Significance of passage in Chapters 76, 77. Is the section affected by Thucydides' ultimate view as to the causes of the War? A. The real causes of the war (Ixxxviii). B. The formation of the Athenian Empire (Ixxxix.-xcvii. (i) ). C. A personal state- ment (xcvii. (2) ). D. Continuation of the History of the Pentekon- taetia (xcviii. -cxviii. {2)). All these subsections belong to one period of composition. Reference to Hellanikos in C. Date of Hellanikos' work. Various explanations of this personal state- ment. Significance with regard to D. Views of Cwiklinski and Wilamowitz-Moellendorf. Date of composition of D. with refer- ence to B. Relation of these sub-sections to the verissima causa of the war. Late date in composition. References to wall founda- tions. Connection between Chapter 87 and Chapter 1 18 (3). The second Congress of the Allies at Sparta (cxviii. (2)- cxxv. (i)). The speech of the Corinthians. Intent of the speech. Designs of the war as stated in this speech. These plans are really the plans of the Dekelean or Ionian War. Juxtaposition of this speech to previous Corinthian speech. Actual plans of the Ten Years' War. Peloponnesian offensive confined to one main design. This not mentioned in this speech. Speech a late addition to the text. Connection of language between Chapter 119 and Chapter 124. General causes of the delay in beginning the war (cxxv. (2) ). Story of Kylon (cxxvi. ). A digression. Position of Perikles (cxxvii.). The curse of Taenaros (cxxviii. (l) ). The curse of the Brazen House and Story of Pausanias (cxxviii. (2)- cxxxv. (i) ). Date of composition indeterminable. The story of Themistokles (cxxxv. (2)-cxxxviii.) Its position in the book. Suggested reason for its insertion. Various demands made by the Peloponnesians (cxxxix. (i)-(3) ). Ekklesia at Athens and speech of Perikles (cxxxix. (3)-cxlv.). Speech of Perikles compared with the second Corinthian speech. Perikles' speech belongs partly to the first, partly to the second draft of the history. Immediate causes of the war (cxlvi.). Question as to the authenticity of the chapter. ..... 43S"4S3 CHAPTER V THE EXPRESSIONS obe 6 TToXf/uof AND o iroXf/ior o8e IN THUCYDIDES Has 85t a different meaning in the two expressions ? Rare use of oBtos with 5r6Xe/iO! in Thucydides. 6Se precedes TrdXe/^as up to II. 34. From this chapter up to V. 25 invariably succeeds it. Its use after V. 25. Peculiarities in its use in dating the termination of years of the war. Ullrich's view. Its use in IV. 116 and in Book V. Suggestions as to the meaning of SSe in post- positions. 6 7r6Xf/ios S5e in passages other than those referring to the years of the war. Further suggestions as to meaning. SSe b xviii THUCYDIDES PAGE used after nouns other than iriXe/tos. Summary of suggestions as to meaning. Application of conclusions to Ullrich's views. Special application to important passages in the first half of the history. Summary of conclusions, ..•••■ 454"4 7 CHAPTER VI THE COMPOSITION OF THE STORY OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR The main questions concerned. Chronological method (II. i). The 'continuity' of the war. General history up to the time of the author's exile (II. li.-IV. cvii.). Form of narrative contrasted with that of Book I. Con- sideration of special passages. II. 48. [Notes on II. 9 and II. I3-] II- 54- Interpolation of new without revision of old matter. II. 54 {iis). II. 57. II. 65. II. 94. II. 97. II. 100. [Note on III. 13.] III. 26. III. 68. III. 82-83. Ill- 87- III- 93- [Notes on III. 98, III. 113, IV. 48.] IV. 12. IV. 60. IV. 74. IV. 81. [Note on IV. 48.] . . . . - - 468-478 CHAPTER VII THE STORY OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR AFTER THUCYDIDES' EXILE General considerations as to date of composition. Text of the One Year's Truce. Traceable omissions from the narrative. General considerations. . ..... 479-4S3 CHAPTER VIII THE CLOSE OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR The closing chapters of the Ten Years' War. (V. 18-24.) Text of the Peace of Nikias. Chapter 20. Original ending of the story of the Ten Years' War. Chapters 21-24. Formal ending of the story of the Ten Years' War. Repetition of the statement of the duration of the war. Summary of the conclusions with regard to the first half of the history. Tabulation of the passages of the first and second draft. General consideration of the interpolated passages. . . 484-494 CHAPTER IX THE FIFTH BOOK (25-U6) General indication of its lateness of composition. Represents the middle stage of Thucydides' composition. Annalistic character of narrative. Original documents. Conception of the ' Years of Peace ' as part of the war. His original view of the Sicilian War. The second phase of Thucydides' conception of the war. The 'six years and ten months ' of V. 25 (3). Regarded the Sicilian War as a war by itself even after he came to regard the Ten Years' War and the Dekelean War as one. Date of Book V. relative to Books VI. and VIII. Peloponnesian and non-Peloponnesian sources. The campaign of Mantinea. The original documents in the text of the book. The Melian Dialogue. . . . 495-56 CONTENTS xix CHAPTER X THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH BOOKS PAGE Subject matter of the books. Sources of information. Autopsy. Information from the Athenian side. Monographic character of the books. Originally intended as a separate work. Date of collection of materials. Formation of the new conception of the oneness of the war. Place of the Sicilian War in this conception. Phases of the conception. Change of conception marked in the text. References to previous and later events. Passages which indicate the concept of the Sicilian War as a separate war. Passages in which the Sicilian War is regarded as part of the Twenty-Seven Years' War. The letter of Nikias. .... 504-576 CHAPTER XI DATE OF COMPOSITION OF BOOKS V. (25-I16), VI., VII. Sources of Information. The order of the composition of the three parts of these books, (A) V. 25-116, (B) VI.-VII. 28, (C) VII. 29-87. Consideration of the various factors in the calculation. Various hypotheses. The composition of B prior to that of A and C. Difficulty in determining the date of the composition of C. Question of the publication of Books VI. and VII. as a separate work. Summary of conclusions with regard to the dates of the various parts. ....... 517-527 CHAPTER XII BOOK VIII Its unfinished character. Deductions formed from its unfinished state by ancient critics. Suggested motives for the omission of speeches. Probably the latest composition of the author. . . . 528-530 CHAPTER XIII SUMMARY Summary of conclusions from the previous chapters. . 53 ''534 I INDEX : I. Names and Subjects. . . 535-545 II. Authors. . 546-553 PROLEGOMENA TO THUCYDIDES INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER THE NATURE OF THUCYDIDES' WORK ' THUCYDIDES, an Athenian, composed a history of the war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians.' ^ The historian did not aim at writing a general history of the period within which fell the events which he records. His attention was confined to that great war which was to be so fateful to the Greek states of his day — a fatefulness which he and other thinking men seem to have anticipated at its very outset. They knew, what every Greek felt, that the Athenian Empire was not merely an outrage but a menace to political liberty as the race understood liberty ; and that the states of Greece had set their teeth with the intention of destroying this power which threatened not merely the freedom but, by its control of large sources of food supply, the very lives of many of them. It is not strange if Thucy- dides thought from the very beginning that it would be a fight to a finish this time. Thus the war offered from the first a subject which could hardly fail to be of absorbing interest. Thucydides was a man with a mission and he wanted a striking text. He was, too, a pioneer in literature who had to appeal to a people in whom the dramatic sense was instinctive, and whose natural impulse had been strength- ened by the epic and the drama. If the new literature was to succeed, it must appeal to the imagination of the Greek race in no doubtful fashion ; and war has ever supplied a subject of unflagging interest. Herodotus had created the 1 Thuc. i. I. A 2 INTRODUCTION new literature by the skilful combination of pre-existing forms. He had welded into one the works of the logo- grapher, the annalist, and the geographer, and combined therewith the best stories, true and untrue, current in his day. His supreme merit is that he was the first to make the narrative of the life of the world interesting to those who were capable of being interested therein. Yet with all his digressions, his narrative is centred round a great war, and leads from beginnings far back in the past to the final catastrophe of the years 480 and 479. Of all the departments of history, the tale of war must always be of the widest and most intense interest Hence it is not strange that the two great founders of historical literature chose as their subjects the two greatest wars in which their race had been engaged. This is not the place to institute a comparison of genius between them, For the present suffice it to say that the mind of Thucy- dides, more ordered and more self-restrained, — perhaps ' self-constrained ' would be nearer the truth, — imposed on him a limitation of subject to which his predecessor had never submitted. It is indeed the case that he takes in certain respects a somewhat narrow view of its scope. He has omitted chapters from the political history of the time which would, had he inserted them, have explained many obscurities in the story of the conduct of the war itself. The omissions detract from the value of his history to a reader of the twentieth century ; but the reader or hearer of the fifth century before Christ, and, above all, his Athenian audience, stood in a very different relation to a narrative of events which were to them contemporary, Much occurred the story of which would be to the historical student of the present day supremely interesting, but would have been supremely uninteresting to men to whom sud things were a matter of common knowledge. Thucydides wrote under the disadvantages which must hamper any historian who writes of events which are contemporary witi the lives of his audience, and, above all, of an audience whick had participated in the politics of its time to an extent nol possible under the conditions of a modern state. He wrote,, too, for men who had no appreciation of a balanced judj THE GREATNESS OF THE WAR 3 ment in political matters. The Greek could not conceive of a dispassionate treatment of political history. To him such history could only be written from a party standpoint. An unbiassed political history was impossible in the days of Thucydides ; and Thucydides, though stern in his im- plied condemnations, wished to be unbiassed. There were thus several compelling reasons which constrained him as an author to confine his subject to the war. It was a great war, he says, the greatest which had been waged in the Greek world. He is very emphatic in his prefatory advertisement of its supreme magnitude, because, with a certain literary jealousy not peculiar to his time, he wished the world to regard his subject as greater and more interesting than that of his predecessor Herodotus. Yet in reading his narrative the modern world is inclined to form the idea that the actual magnitude of the war was not commensurate with the impression of size and importance which he gives to it in the preface to his story. Many even of the most partial admirers of the historian's work must admit that his method of telling the tale of the war is calculated to give an impression of triviality, of inconse- quence, and of a certain futility which is inconsistent with the claims set forth in his opening chapters. It will be neces- sary to inquire into the causes of this inconsistency ; but the present task is to attempt to form some idea of certain important elements in the condition of the Greek world, especially in Greece itself, at the time at which the war was ^aged, and to deduce therefrom conclusions as to the motives underlying the war, and as to its importance in the history of the world in general, and of the Hellenic race in particular. From the historian's point of view, the magnitude of a war is not a mere question of the numbers engaged, — of the forces put into the field by either side, any more than the importance of a battle is to be judged by the number of killed and wounded. One of the main factors in any judgment on the importance of any particular war — the place which the powers engaged held in the world of their day — has no necessary connection with numbers. The Peloponnesian War brought into the field 4 INTRODUCTION at various times in its course of twenty-seven years nearly all the states of that scattered Hellenic race whose position relative to the world around was at the time more tran- scendent than that which any race save the Roman has occupied in any period of which historical records exist. In the sphere of intellect it was far in advance of its contemporaries. Its great position in the world of the fifth century was largely due to the application of its intellectual ability to practical life, above all to the com- merce of the age. But whatever value be attached to the intellectual factor in world politics, the physical factor, the quantity and quality of the men who form each political unit, is one of which large account must be taken in any rational estimate of the possibilities and actualities of any age or series of events. The armies and navies of the larger Greek states of the fifth and even of the fourth century, though they may appear small relative to the numbers which modern states can throw into the scale of war, were factors of the utmost importance in the history of a world in which the competi- tion was infinitely more limited. Philip of Macedon formed an estimate of the power of the Greece of his day very diiiferent from that which is found in some authorities of the nineteenth century. It may be presumed that Philip was in a position to form conclusions on the subject sounder than those which have been fashionable of late years. He knew the efficiency of the Greek in the art of war, and therefore he studiously avoided doing anything which might bring about a combination of the Greek states against him. Those who study the disastrous history of the Greece of the fourth century are but too apt to read into it a wholesale racial decay, physical and intellectual. It is a story behind the facts of which lie causes difficult to understand but easy to misunderstand. Disaster so great would seem to proceed from causes widespread and manifold. But the facts do not support such large conclusions. It is illogical to attribute physical decadence to a race which had but one competitor in maritime enterprise, and from which governments and Democracy and statesmanship s adventurers of other races could draw recruits for any venture, however reckless, where military efficiency was required. In most of the departments of life it was intellectually by far the ablest race of its time. It failed in one of them — in the one in which failure is fatal — politics. The Greek was a political monomaniac. His political ideal could only have been realised permanently in a world where all were of equal ability and equal honesty. It was an ideal which in practical life tended to bring the second-rate man to the control of the affairs of the state. Therein lay its fatal defect. The time must come when one of the neighbouring races, under the leadership of a man or men of first-class ability, would curb the liberty of a race whose ideal of liberty precluded that discipline, that subordination of the individual, which is necessary for effective action. And the time was not long deferred. It came in the middle of the fourth century. The superior race which had entrusted its fortunes to politicians suc- cumbed utterly to a race which, though inferior to it in nearly every department of life, was directed by the master-minds of statesmen. Democracy proved itself jealous of its greatest children. It preferred that mediocrity whose mental workings it could understand, to a higher capacity whose breadth of view it could not grasp and therefore suspected. It is true that, now and again, at great crises, it entrusted its fortunes to its most capable men ; but its confidence was not lasting, because it was opposed to the very spirit which had produced and which pervaded democracy as understood by the Greek. The evidence of the fifth century is more reliable with regard to the excellences than the defects of the men of outstanding ability which the Greek world at that time produced. Their excellences are proved by facts ; their defects rest largely on the testimony of bitter political and per.sonal opponents. That Themistokles, Perikles, Alkibiades, or Lysander were in any sense perfect men, judged by the least exacting of human standards, it would be absurd to maintain. But they were men who saw, as no other men of their century saw, the possibilities which 6 INTRODUCTION lay within the grasp of their nation. They understood that the Hellenic race possessed physical and mental qualities which, if they could be brought into combined working, would render it practically dominant in the world. They sought the end by different means and in a variety of ways. They were suspected of dangerously selfish motives, and there can be little doubt that the suspicion was well founded. The end itself, too, fell far short of a high ideal. It was not, however, a wholly unjustifiable ideal in a world in which the ultimate choice lay between ruling and being ruled. But the Greeks, as a race, would have none of it. The parochial politics of their own states afforded sufficient scope and a satisfying interest to them. Athens alone accepted the idea, and the very fact that this war, in one of its phases, was an attempt to realise it, is sufficient to stamp it with that character of greatness which Thucydides claims for it. But it was a war whose greatness developed within the period during which it took place. Thucydides' judg- ment of its magnitude and importance is formed on a consideration of the war as a whole. In his general estimate he shows an inclination to attribute to its opening phases a greatness and importance which can only be claimed for its later developments. He accordingly assigns it to original causes of wider import than those which were operative before the war commenced. The fear of the growing power of Athens was a much larger factor after the Peace of Nikias than it can have been after the Thirty Years' Peace of 446. But if this is the impression created by the language of his opening chapters, it is an impression which is corrected by his account of the war itself His narrative of its first four or five years betrays a certain smallness and poverty of design on either side. But the plot thickens as the years pass by. Before the Ten Years' War (431-421) has come to an end, the men of imagina- tion on either side, Demosthenes and Brasidas, have evolved plans which must, if carried to their conclusion, lead to a result far more decisive than any which could have been reached had the antagonists adhered to their original designs. From the moment when the Athenian THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE WAR 7 sailors began from sheer ennui to build castles on the shore at Pylos, the war entered on a new phase. It became a death struggle between the imperialist idea, as represented by Athens, and the limited political ambitions of the average Greek, who was not disposed to let Athens attain to a world empire at the expense of the in- dependence of the other Greek states ; — the only price at which it could be bought. But the important point in connection with this war is that, on any rational estimate of the forces existent on the shores of the Mediterranean in the latter half of the fifth century, this world dominion could have been bought at this price. There was no power which could have withstood a combined Hellenic effort. Persia was rotten to the core. Carthage was unequal to the united strength of even the Sicilian Greeks. Macedonia and the states of Italy were as yet in their political childhood. The issue at stake in the Peloponnesian War was not the fate of certain Greek states of the size of English counties. The issue was whether the most powerful race of the day should combine in the struggle for the mastery of the world, or should succumb by reason of division and sub- division to some racial neighbour less powerful but more unified than itself. The victory of Athens would have meant a Hellenic Empire. The victory of Sparta and her allies meant a Greece hopelessly divided against itself. Speculation of what might have been had things turned out otherwise is idle dreaming, but the war must be reckoned among those whose issues have affected the history of the world up to our own time. Had Athens won in Sicily : had she used the great resources of that island against her dispirited rivals at home : had she subdued them, and led them in a war of conquest against the barbarian, she might have founded a Hellenic Empire, in which the Hellene might have become more conscious of his racial responsi- bilities than of his individual rights. Had that come about, the whole course of subsequent history would have been immensely modified. If the student of the history of this time regards these considerations as based on a right estimate of possibilities. 8 INTRODUCTION he will look upon the history of Thucydides as being not merely a brilliant story of trivialities of local interest, but a narrative of events whose echoes will die only with the death of Western civilisation. Such was the subject of Thucydides' work. With regard to its object it is more difficult to speak. His narrative is in the main a military history, as military history was understood at the time at which he wrote. It has already been noticed how rigidly he adheres to his subject, to the exclusion of much political matter which modern taste would judge to have been relevant to the record of the events of which he wrote. Was it his aim to excel as a military historian ? There are many who read, love and admire the work of this great writer, and many and various, no doubt, would be the answers they would give to this question. The answer which is about to be given can only claim such authority as may be accorded to a long and somewhat minute study of his work. With Thucydides the military history is a means to an end, not an end in itself. He aimed at being a teacher, not of strategy or tactics, but of politics, understanding by politics the life of men in communities. His method was inductive. He cited facts and then drew conclusions from them. He believed in cycles of history, and he wished to aid the cause of civilisation by showing men how, under a given set of circumstances, individuals, and, above all, com- munities, had in the past acted rightly or wrongly, in order that in the future the mistakes of the past might be avoided. It has been said that he makes no moral judgments. If by such are meant explicit judgments, the criticism is true. But his work is full of implied moral judgments. Men do not like being taught ; and Thucydides was aware of the fact. The didactic element in literature is repulsive to the average man. If men are to be taught, they must be taught unconsciously — by implication. But furthermore, the subject, if it is to appeal widely to mankind, must be made attractive. How could this be better attained than by combining it with the ever-exciting tale of war? Moreover, in time of war the lights and shadows of human nature are brought into high relief, and the picture of human character THE ETHICS OF THUCYDIDES 9 may be brought into like relief without the appearance of exaggeration. Thus Thucydides' subject was suited to the object with which he wrote. It is sometimes said that he is intensely ' Greek,' under- standing thereby that he is typical of those qualities, definite and indefinite, which are associated with the Greek genius. A full discussion of this view would involve a long consideration. But in one respect Thucydides is the least Greek of all the authors of the classical age. The Greek judged good and evil by a different standard and from a somewhat different standpoint to that of the twentieth century, and it would be absurd to estimate the moral qualities of the men of the race by appeal to Christian ethics. But it is remarkable that good and evil, as understood by Thucydides, are good and evil as understood by all that is best among mankind at the present day. PART I THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES CHAPTER I It has become customary to prefix to editions ofThucy- dides the text of his biography by Marcellinus. Such grave suspicion has, however, been cast upon many of the items of importance in that work, and its general authenticity has been so seriously invalidated by modern criticism,^ that it is more convenient for the historical purpose to treat it as a supplementary rather than as the main source of information. The work itself dates from the fifth century A.D. ; and the story of the ' appreciation ' bestowed upon Thucydides' work in the earlier part of the eight centuries' interval between his death and the time at which Marcellinus wrote, renders it improbable in the highest degree that that fifth-century author possessed any authentic sources of information which are not available to the world of the present day. There exists also an anonymous biography of the historian which is no more reliable than that by Marcellinus. It was not until more than a century after Thucydides' death that the biography of literary celebrities came to be written ; and Thucydides' work had passed out of fashion long before the third century B.C. opened. It is true that his work as a whole must have been known to the world very shortly after he died. That is shown by the well established tradition that Xenophon and Theopompos deliberately set themselves the task of continuing it. Xenophon's work is the oldest evidence for the existence ^ Cf. especially Prof. v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hermes, xii. U 12 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES of Thucydides' history, though the first positive indication of the fact that it was in the hands of others is the Sicilian history of Philistos, written under Dionysios I. in B.C. 357. Philistos seems certainly to have used the first book of Thucydides.i About the middle of the fourth century B.C. Thucydides is in the hands, not merely of the historians, but of the Condottiere Aeneas and the orator Apollodoros. Still it is very significant for the appreciation of his work that the orator Demosthenes seems to have been unac- quainted with it : 2 that Plato and Aristotle diligently ignore it: and that Isokrates appears to do so. Some time early in the third century B.C. Praxiphanes, a disciple of Theophrastus, published a treatise, TJepl iv 6nvKv8i8ov fierfvTjvoxfv. This is confirmed by Plutarch's Nikias, which originates essentially from Philistos. (Wilamowitz, Hermes, xii.) 2 Dionysius asserts that Demosthenes knew it, but there is not any authentic proof of such having been the case. (Wilamowitz, Hermes, xii.) 5 Gilbert {Philologus, 38) sets some store by it as an authority, but Hirzel {Hermes, xiii.) points out that the information comes from a dialogue, and as Murray says (G. Murray, Ancient Greek Literature), 'The scenes in dialogues are, even in Plato's hands, admittedly un- historic ; after Plato's death they are the merest imaginary conversa- tions. . . .' * Polyb. viii. 13. THE CLASSICISTS 13 until between 70 and 50 B.C. that Thucydides was set up as a pattern of style by teachers. This was part of the outcome of the movement of the classicists against the fanciful Asiatic style in prose. For two centuries before this time form rather than matter had absorbed the atten- tion of the literary world. Dionysius was the chief representative of the new movement ; but there were criticisms in existence before he wrote. The date of the movement can be closely determined. When Cicero wrote De Oratore the new conception of Greek literature was unknown to him. His sources for the chapters on Greek historiography (ii. 53-58) and eloquence (ii. 93-95) still regarded Timaeus, Demetrios of Phaleron, et cetera, as equals of Thucydides and Demosthenes. But Cicero soon found himself not to be au courant with the new criticism. There- fore as soon as he went back to Rhetoric, he read zealously the patterns recommended, namely Thucydides and Lysias. When writing in defence of his theory of style, he shows familiarity with them, and accepts in principle the new views. But, if the literature of the three preceding centuries be examined — the literature from Aristotle to Dionysius — it is most striking to notice how strange Thucydides had become to the writers of that period. To this neglect of Thucydides' work and to the com- parative lateness of the date at which the biographies of literary men became a recognised department of Hterature must be ascribed the many imperfections and uncertainties in the extant records of the life of the great historian. From B.C. 70 onwards his work is well known to students and others. Diodorus, writing in the years immediately preced- ing the Christian era, is compelled, indeed, by his subject to make large use of it, and is aware that Xenophon and Theopompos began their histories at the point at which Thucydides left off.^ But it was too late, as it would seem, for the men of that day and of later time to recover any reliable details of his biography, save such as might be deduced from the work of the author himself. The general consensus of opinion 1 Diod. xii. 37, xiii. 42. 14 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES of those critics who have examined the work of Mar- cellinus is that the real knowledge of Thucydides' life is confined to details mentioned or implied in his own history.^ No trustworthy explicit evidence has survived as to the date of his birth,^ Nor is the implied evidence on this point exactly determinative. Three factors come into the calculation: (i) his age at the beginning of his work; (2) his age at the time of his generalship in 424 B.C. ; (3) his age at the end of his work. Of these the second provides relatively the most secure basis of calculation, though, absolutely speaking, it does not lead to any precise con- clusion. It is at least highly probable that he must have been thirty years of age when he held the aTpaTrjyia. That was the original minimum of age for holders of that office,* and it is improbable that any change had been made in the regulation prior to 424 B.C.* If so, he must have been born in or before 454 B.C. The expressions in the twenty-sixth chapter of the fifth book suggest that he had arrived at a full age when the war opened in 431, and was not a very old man when it closed in 404.^ It has been suggested that these expressions imply that he cannot have been over seventy at the time at which the war closed. There is a certain probability that he was well under seventy.^ In the dry climate of Greece men age more rapidly than they do in the moister climates of North 1 Cf. Steup's introduction to Classen's edition of Thucydides, and especially Wilamowitz, Hermes, xii. ^ ApoHodoros puts his birth in B.C. 470, but the date is probably deduced solely from consideration of passages in Thucydides' work. Wilamowitz - Moellendorfif {Hermes) thinks that Apollodoros, taking the words of Thuc. v. 26 (5) eVf^ioov 81a jrai/i-ds, etc.. has deduced there- from Thucydides' ukju^ in 432, and from that settled the year of his birth. Others attributed to him a life of fifty years. 3 (Arist.) 'Afl. TToX. 4 (2-3). * It still remained the minimum age for jurymen : cf. (Arist.) 'h.6. jroX. 63. 3, and for members of the ^ovkt] : cf. Xen., Mem. i. 2 (35). ^ Cf. Thuc. V. 26, eVfj3ta)i' 8e Sta iravTos avTOV al(rBav6^ev65 re rfj fjXiKia Kal Trpoa-e^atv tt)V yvanrjv, ^ Marcellinus (Bekker, p. 6, 1. 30) says vaguely : vnep to mvTr^KovTa trr). BIRTH AND FAMILY 15 and Middle Europe.^ On the other hand, the words also imply that he must have attained to full manhood in 431. On the whole, the assumption that he was born about B.C. 460 cannot be far wrong. He is not likely to have lived to an extreme old age, for doubtless the grief of exile, and sorrow at the disasters which overtook his country, left their mark on him ; and he died some time in the early years of the fourth century.^ The evidence as to the family relationships of Thucydides presents considerable difficulty. He himself mentions his father's name, Oloros.^ More than this he does not say. Plutarch gives certain information as to his family relation- ships in the 'life' of Kimon.* ' Kimon the son of Miltiades had for his mother Hegesipyle, a Thracian by race, daughter of King Oloros, as is related in the poems of Archelaos and Melanthios written for Kimon himself Wherefore also Thucydides the historian, being akin to Kimon's family, was son of Oloros, who owed his identity of name to his ancestors, and possessed the gold mines in Thrace' . . . ' And his (Thucydides') remains being taken to Attica, his monument is shown among those of Kimon's family, beside the tomb of Elpinike the sister of Kimon. But Thucydides was an AHmousian by deme, whereas Miltiades' family were Lakiadae.' Pausanias^ mentions a statue of 'Thucy- dides the son of Oloros ' at Athens. The whole tale with regard to the tomb at Athens is suspect ; and, if so, the alleged relationship with the Philaid family is suspect also, because the allegation seems to hang ' In Europe generally the proportion of persons between fifty and sixty years of age is eighty-three per thousand ; in Greece it is fifty-five. Of persons over sixty the proportion in Europe is eighty-seven, in Greece is fifty-three per thousand. Cf. STano-TiK^ r^s 'EXXaSos, ttX?;- Bva-fios, 1879, p. 28. ^ Marcellinus does not give any indication of the date of Thucydides' birth. ^ Thuc. iv. 104. Thucydides made strict rules for himself with regard to the paternal name ; but many passages from v. 25 to the end of his work violate the rule. The Athenian nobility did not use the paternal name, but the name of the deme (Wilamowitz, Hermes, xii.). * Plut. Ki7n. 4. ' Paus. i. 23. 9. i6 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES to a certain extent on the reported discovery of the grave.^ The identity of the names of Thucydides' father and Kimon's maternal grandfather does not necessarily prove any relationship, although it is possible that such may have existed. The confusion of the tradition with regard to his family connections is well illustrated in the life by Marcellinus, where,^ side by side with the tale of his relationship to the family of Miltiades, is mentioned on the authority of Hermippos another tale to the effect that he was descended from the Peisistratidae. This last item in the tradition originated in the interest which Thucydides shows in the murder of Hipparchos,^ and may be taken as a very fine example of the way in which that element in his biography, which is independent of facts stated or implied by the historian himself, grew up in aftertime. It may perhaps be suggested that, had the historian been connected with either of the distinguished families above mentioned, the fact would probably have been stated or implied in some part of his historical work. The connection with the Peisistratid family is pure invention ; that with the family of Miltiades is, at least, not proven.* ^ Wilamowitz, Hermes, xii., cf. Marcellinus (Bekker, p. 3. 1. 33), ■jTpos yap Tois MeXiTto't -Trvkais KaXovfievais eo-rlv iv KolXtj ra KoXovfieva KtfxtovLa fiVTjfiaraj ej/6a deLKvvrai 'HpoSorbu Koi OovKvdlbov Tdvos, ti6iis for the Invasion apxop.€vov of Boeotia ERASIDAS [iv. 70 Kara Tovrov tov Preparing Expedi- Xpivov (viz. time tion to Chalki- of attack on dike Nisaea) iv. 78 Kara tov ovtov Brasidas starts for Xpovov tov Bipovs Chalkidike (as the prepara- tion for the In- vasionofBoeotia) iv. 84 iv Sc Tia avTm Bipei Attack on Akan- thos iv. 102. rov (8') avTov Attack on Amphi- Xfil^Svos polis.] It is somewhat noticeable that Thucydides dates the events of this year merely by reference to 'summer' and ' winter,' and does not give those more precise indications of chronology which he sometimes employs. This Thucy- didean year is thus divided into two halves, the summer, probably lasting from March 26th to September 26th, and the winter, which includes the last months of 424 and the early months of 423. The expedition to the Megarid must have taken place early in the summer, for the operations seem to have lasted some time, and after they are over Demosthenes goes to Akarnania to collect troops for an expedition to Boeotia, which is timed to take place ' at the immediate commencement of the WAR SERVICE IN 424 B.C. 29 following winter,' that is to say, not later than early in October. At the time of the attack on Nisaea, Brasidas was at Corinth and Sikyon, preparing for the expedition to Chalkidike — preparations which can hardly have remained unknown to the Athenian government, though the Athenians do not seem to have believed that he would be able to make his way to the parts Thraceward, thinking, no doubt, that the passage of Thessaly would prove impossible. Still the election of Thucydides as general may well, as has been already suggested, have been due to a desire to take precautionary measures in Thrace. If Thucydides was at Athens in this summer of 424, and it is all but certain that he must have been there, it is extremely probable that he took part in the expedition to the Megarid, and was thus — not, may be, for the first time — associated with Demosthenes. This seems more probable than that he should have been with Nikias in Kythera. The two expeditions seem to have been more or less simultaneous, and therefore he could not have been in both : and, though the graphic nature of a description is not in the case of Thucydides, as has already been seen, in itself proof or even presumption of autopsy, yet in this case the vivid account of the events at Megara, combined with the other circumstances which render it possible for Thucydides to have been present at them, does argue in favour of autopsy and personal experience. He can hardly have taken part in the campaign of Delion. His period of office as strategos had begun two months before that invasion was timed to take place, and he was, it may be presumed, in or off Thrace when it was under- taken. The circumstances which led to his exile are well known. He was in command of the fleet at Thasos in the winter of 424-3 when Brasidas made his sudden swoop on Amphipolis ; and he was too late to save it, though he succeeded in saving Eion, and beating off Brasidas' attack.^ His colleague as general in those parts was Eukles, who appears to have been the father 1 iv. 104-7. 30 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES of a certain Oinobios, of whom it will be necessary to speak later.^ How far Thucydides was to blame for the loss of Amphi- polis it is impossible to say on the evidence of the story : but it would be manifestly wrong to argue from the silence of the historian an admission of his culpability in the matter. The impersonal character of his narrative is peculiarly illustrated by his omission of anything resembling a defence of his action ; and even the fact that his failure resulted in his exile is not mentioned in connection with the event, but is referred to incidentally later in his work in relation to the facilities which it afforded him for acquiring information from both sides.^ A later tradition, preserved in Marcellinus,^ asserted that Kleon was responsible for his banishment. He may have been ; but the tradition is probably merely a deduction from the terms of disparagement of which Thucydides makes use in introducing that politician to the stage of his history.* It is very commonly assumed by editors of Thucydides and by writers on Greek history that the historian betrays prejudice of a personal character with regard to Kleon. This is argued from the passage above mentioned, and also from his account of the debates on the Spartan offers of peace in 425 ^ and on the command at Sphakteria,^ from his remarks on the success subsequently attained at Sphakteria, and from his description of the distrust^ which the Athenian soldiers at Amphipolis entertained with regard to Kleon's capacity for command.^ That such an assumption is not baseless these passages ^ Eukles, judging from Thucydides' silence, does not appear to have been banished. It is possibly a son of his, Oinobios, who was strategos in 410 B.C., which would be improbable had his father been in exile. Cf: C.I.A. iv. i., p. 15 ff. 2 V. 26. ^ Bekker, p. 9, 1. 8. * iii. 36. U)V Ka\ is Ta aWa ^laioraTOS Toiv noXiToiv rco re SiJjlio) irapa iroKv eV ra Tore 7n.6avaraTos. ^ iv. 21. 22. " iv. 27. 28. especially the last sentence of the latter chapter. ^ iv. 39* '^^'^ "'"^^ KXewvos Kalncp [jLavtabtjs ovaa t] v7r6(T\s(rts direj^rj. ^ V. 7. These soldiers of hoplite census would be for the most part political opponents of Kleon. K.LEON 31 show. But is the assumption necessarily true ? Above all, is the language used due to private animus, or to disapproval of the character and policy of the man in his public capacity ? The implied charges are two in number : (i) that he was a violent extremist in democratic politics, and, consequently, in his views as to the conduct of the war : (2) that he was deficient in capacity for command in the field. The first charge was certainly true ; and there is no reason to suppose that the second was false. Thucydides himself does the man what must be admitted to be at least a limited justice in representing him as dis- trustful of his own powers of command at the time of the debate on the reduction of Sphakteria. He also admits that Kleon's views were justified by the event, and even if he speaks of his ' promise ' as a ' mad ' one, its insanity con- sisted not in supposing that Sphakteria could be promptly captured if energy were shown, but in the expectation that it could be captured by a man who had neither capacity nor experience for command. There is indeed, at the end of this particular story,^ a passage which does at first reading create the impression that it is due to personal animus. ' The Athenians could not help laughing at his fatuity, while sensible persons were pleased at it, reckoning that they must gain one of two advantages, either — what they were most inclined to hope for — get rid of Kleon, or, if disappointed in this expectation, get hold of the Lacedaemonians.' But the passage, when examined, appears to be little more than an explanation of the feelings and attitude of Kleon's political opponents, ol am^pov^^, the ' men of moderate views,' towards him on this particular occasion.^ The attitude which Thucydides takes toward Kleon is 1 iv. 28. ^ I do not mean to imply that the word awippoa-i is used in a technical party sense in this passage in Thucydides. If it had been, it could hardly have failed to make its appearance in his account of the Revolu- tion of the Four Hundred, contained in the eighth book ; but, neverthe- less, I think that by 'sensible' people, Thucydides does here imply^ perhaps more or less unconsciously, the moderate democrats. He so conspicuously ignores 'party' politics in his account of the war, that a direct and explicit reference to them, even on this occasion, would be rather surprising. 32 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES quite explicable on public grounds. He belonged to a class, the demagogues, which the historian believed to be mainly- responsible for the disasters which befell Athens during the war.^ He was indeed, from Thucydides' point of view, the prototype of the class, though not, perhaps, its worst repre- sentative. The writer who ascribed to him the speech in the Mytilenian debate could hardly have accused him of ' committing even state affairs to the whims of the multitude.' ^ Furthermore, Kleon was a party man, and an extreme one at that; and Thucydides, despite the impartiality of his narrative, shows that his own views on politics did not correspond with those of the party to which Kleon belonged, and which in these years he led. It is sometimes assumed that because Thucydides was elected general for the par- ticular year 424-3, he was at the time a member of the extreme democratic party, because the strategic list for the year, in so far as it is known, and the war policy of the year, suggest its preponderance at that time. But though strategic lists may show a preponderance of members of one party, they also show, in practically every case in which the majority of the strategi for the year are known, a mixture of parties. Furthermore, the election of Thucydides for 424-3 was probably made, as has been already suggested, for the special purpose of operations in Thrace ; and, if so, would be independent of party considerations. Utitess Thucydides' views underwent a complete change in the later years of his life, he was certainly not an ultra- democrat. Unfortunately, the passages in his work which indicate those views belong, with perhaps one exception, the speeches in the Mytilenian debate, to a late period in the composition of his history. The ultra-democratic party was intensely imperialist, both in theory and in methods. Thucydides seems to have had a profound dislike of its methods, and probably of its theory, in so far as it involved the rule of Greek over Greek. He never expresses a direct opinion on the subject, such expressions being rare with him ; but a direct expres- sion of opinion would be superfluous from one who used the language which he uses with regard to the revolt and ' Cf. the well-known passage ii. 65 (24) ff. 2 ;{_ gj ^26). THUCYDIDES AND IMPERIALISM 33 reduction of Naxos/ language all the more remarkable because used with regard to a revolt which seems to have taken place before the battle of the Eurymedon, and which was therefore quite unjustifiable in view of the general in- terests of the league. But then he must have known the story of the revolt of his neighbour Thasos, a much more sinister page in the annals of imperial Athens. He puts the explanation of imperial methods into the mouths of those who exercised them — in the speech of Kleon in the Mytilenian debate, and, above all, in the Melian dialogue. Is it possible to suppose that an author who deliberately inserted these passages in his history had any sympathy with the policy which they depicted and pretended to justify ?^ The fact that in the case of Kleon's speech, at least the form, and in the case of the Melian dialogue, both matter and form alike, are the work of the historian, makes the writer's intention all the more clear. He means to give his readers the impression that the methods of Athenian imperialism stand self-condemned. Nor is this impression weakened by the speech of the Athenians at the first congress at Sparta, or by the speech of Euphemos, the Athenian ambassador at Camarina.^ Both are made to audiences to whom the Athenians have to jus- tify the existence of the empire. Quite different is the tale as told by Kleon to an Athenian audience, or as recited to the helpless Melians. CJf Thucydides had, or ever had had, any sympathy with the imperialism of the ultra-democrats of Kleorr's party, he adopts a very strange way of showing it. It is not a question whether he is right or wrong in his im- plied condemnation. The point is that the condemnation is there, in his history, and put in such a form as to leave no doubt as to his personal views. / It is true that it is not possible to argue with certainty ' i. 98. TTpmnj re oiItt; vokis ^vixixaxis Tvapa to KadfCTTTjKos eSovXoidrj, eireLTa Se koX tS>v aXKav as (kclutti ^vve^t]. 2 The same impression seems to have been made on the mind of the anonymous author of the life of Thucydides, though he ascribes the historian's attitude to feeling excited by his own exile. (Cf. the life as given in Bekker's T/iuc, p. 13, 1. 25 ff., especially the words xaT-Tjyo- pdv 8c 'Adrjvaimv Trjv Tvpavviha koi jrXeovc^tav.) 3 i. 73 and vi. 83 respectively. C 34 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES that any one of these passages represents his opinion in and prior to 424. The expression with regard to Naxos comes in that excursus on the Pentekontaetia which was probably inserted in the first book of his history at a late period in his composition — it may be in the last years of his life. Even Kleon's speech may have been — as other speeches in the first four books certainly have been — written at a later period. /The Melian dialogue comes in the fifth book, a part of his history which seems also to have come late in his composition. But, nevertheless, there is no reason to believe that his views on the empire and its methods ever altered ; and it may be assumed that they were during Kleon's lifetime the same as they were twenty years after he died. r'Norcan it be supposed that in 'constitutional' politics he was in sympathy with extreme democracy. It is true that he was an admirer of Perikles, its founder] but the limits of that adrniration are expressly defined by the historian himself.! [He emphasises his power of control over the democracy, and sums up the position by saying that 'in short, what was nominally a democracy became in his hands government by the first citizen.' But in the same chapter he clearly shows that ultra-democracy without such control is, in his opinion, an unmixed political evil. Of the brief-lived moderate democracy established after the fall of the Four Hundred, he says i^ 'It is during the first period of this constitution that the Athenians appear to have enjoyed the best government they ever had, at least in my time. For the fusion of the high and the low was effected with judgment, and this was what first enabled the state to raise up her head ^fter' her manifold disasters.' Both these passages must havvsbeen written late in Thucy- dides' life, and both, by their language or context, show that they were written to a certain extent under the influence which the Sicili^m dis^^t^r exercised upon the historian's mind ; but, as in the case of the passages relating to the Empire, there is,no reason to suppose that they mark or imply a change df view late in life. In other words, there ^ ii. 65. 2 yiii ^y_ POLITICAL VIEWS 35 is every reason to believe that TJiucydides was throughout a moderate democrat in his political opinions.^ The attitude of Thucydides towards Klebn is therefore explicable on public grounds. He was representative of that class of demagogues which brought disaster on the state. He was at the time in his career with which Thucy- dides had to deal the leader of a political party to which Thucydides was opposed. He was the exponent of an imperialist policy of which the historian cordially disap- proved, and of an energetic war policy which he had neither the capacity nor the experience to carry out, and which was opposed by that moderate democratic party to which Thucydides belonged. Thucydides sympathises with the a-a)cf)pove. 288-9, refers very possibly to Thucydides : K.a\ yap dv^p naxys ^icei tSiv npohovTiav tclttX BpqKrjs bv oTras eyxvTpie'ts : and the reference suggests a charge of jrpoSoo-ia. * viii. 81. 36 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES From the time of Thucydides' exile until his death, at least twenty-five years later, the story of his life is, as far as authentic information is concerned, all but a blank. The one authenticated fact is that he obtained an amnesty in 404.1 The rest of the tale is conjectural. It is known, indeed, from his own assertion, that during this period he had access to information obtained from the Pelopon- nesian side, for not only does he say so himself,^ but also his story of the war from the time of his failure at Amphipolis until the Peace of Nikias is all but confined to matter obtained from Peloponnesian sources,^ for not merely the actual exploits of Brasidas, but also the events in Chalkidike, in all of which he plays a part, are in all probability described from information obtained from the Peloponnesian side. This characteristic of this part of his history makes it probable that he spent the first years of his exile in Amphi- polis, or on his property in its neighbourhood. The fact that the place was in possession of the Spartans rendered residence there quite safe for him.* It is further possible that he met Brasidas there. He has an obvious admiration for the man, and has consciously or unconsciously made him the most fascinating character on the historical stage of his time. Not only does he display a peculiar interest in his career, but he also shows a special knowledge of his exploits, a knowledge which may most reasonably be accounted for by personal association, or, at any rate, ' V. 26. ^ V. 26. Koi yevo}xivto Trap' aji<^QT€pois rot? irpayjxafTi, Kai ovx Tjcra-ov Tois Xl€\o7rovvT](Tl(iiV dia rrjv vyr)v. ^ Brasidas' exploits, iv. 108-9, 110-116; Truce between Athens and Peloponnesians (inserted probably after 404), iv. 117-119; Brasidas, iv. 120-128; Chalkidike, iv. 129-131 ; Perdikkas, iv. 132; Argos, iv. 133; Arkadia, iv. 134; Brasidas, iv. 135; Expiration of Truce, v. i ; Chalkidike, v. 2 ; Sicily, v. 4, 5 ; Chalkidike, v. 6-13. * It is possible that he absented himself from the neighbourhood at the time of Kleon's expedition. It is noticeable that he does not mention the recovery by Athens of Thyssos and Olophyxos, which took place at this time, as is implied by the fact that they are not scheduled among the towns in the hands of the Spartans at the time of the making of the Peace of Nikias (v. 18), though they went over to Brasidas (iv. 109) with other towns of the Aktd THUCYDIDES AND BRASIDAS 37 acquaintance. He knows what he did at Methone in 431, and how 'he won the thanks of Sparta by his exploit, being thus the first officer who obtained this notice during the war.'i He is sent as one of those commissioners to help Knemos with the fleet in the Corinthian Gulf,^ but of the three, it is only Brasidas who is brought into prominence in the tale of the actual operations.^ In the same way the leaders in the daring plan to surprise Piraeus are ' Knemos, Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian commanders.'* Thucydides knows all about Brasidas at Corcyra. The Peloponnesian fleet sailed thither in 427 under the command of Alkidas, ' with Brasidas also on board as his adviser.' ^ A victory is won which Alkidas fails to follow up, though Brasidas, it is said, urged him to do so; — and Thucydides is plainly of opinion that Brasidas was right.^ In the sea attack on Pylos 'he who most distinguished himself was Brasidas,' and a detailed account of his gallantry is given.^ It is Brasidas who saves Megara.^ But the most striking testimony of the interest which the historian took in the man is the character sketch of him inserted as a preface to the account of his exploits in Macedonia and Thrace. It is almost a panegyric.® It is needless to pursue the evidence further. In spite of the fact that Brasidas was the cause of his exile, Thucydides places him in the scale of merit in his history second only to Perikles. It looks very much as if he had come under the influence of a personality whose fascinating character is so markedly implied in all that he has to tell concern- ing it. It is impossible to say whether Thucydides continued to reside in Thrace after the Peace of Nikias. There is no absolute reason why he should not have done so, because Amphipolis remained in the hands of the Spartans.^" 1 ii. 25. 2 ii. 85. ^ ii. 86 (33) enciTa 6 Kvrjiios Kol 6 Bpaa-iSas, Kol oi aWoL tS>v UeXoTTOV- 'Tja-Lcov (TTparrjyoi. ^ ii. 93. ^ iii. 76. '5 iil. 79. ' iv. II. ^ iv. 70. " iv. 81. w Until 414, at any rate, viiie Thuc. viii. 9. 38 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES There is just a possibility that he was in Peloponnese during part of these years. There seems to be reason to suppose that his copy of the treaty of alliance be- tween Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantinea was obtained from the version inscribed at Olympia, and an actual visit to that place is suggested by his account of the exclusion of the Lacedaemonians from the games of the year 420.^ Some critics discover evidence of autopsy in his account of the battle of Mantinea, fought in 41 8.^ It is certainly peculiarly graphic, and the details given with regard to the ordering of the line by Agis ^ do undoubtedly suggest the experience of an eye-witness.* There is no question that his account of the battle is written from the Spartan point of view. Diodorus^ describes the battle from the point of view of the Argives ; and a comparison of his account with that of Thucydides demonstrates the origin of the informa- tion which the latter gives. There is one other item of information in his history of those years which he must have obtained from Peloponnese, and which he probably obtained himself, though not of necessity within the period intervening between the Peace of Nikias and the Sicilian expedition, namely the text of the peace propositions from Sparta to Argos in October 418,® and of the treaty of peace and alliance between those two states.'' In both documents the Doric dialect is care- fully preserved, and therefore they must be copied from Argive or Spartan originals. On the whole the probability seems to be that the copies were obtained in Argos;' and it is, of course, not unlikely that they were obtained during this period. The most ardent advocates of the unity of the composi- * For a detailed account discussion of this question vide chapter on ' The Text of Thucydides,' p. 52 ff. 2 Vide especially v. 65 ff. ' v. 71. * Forbes, in his introduction to Thucydides, Bk. i., suggests that the use of the word f'l^avi; in v. 68 may imply autopsy. G. Murray {History of Greek Literature) thinks that Thucydides was present at Mantinea. ^ Diod. xii. 79. ^ v. 77. ' v. 79. 8 Kirchhoff. THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION 39 tion of Thucydides' work admit that there are passages in the first four books which were written before the Sicilian expedition took place.^ It must therefore be the case that in these years Thucydides set to work on the story of the Ten Years' War. What stage he reached in this task is a ques- tion which must be considered in the critical consideration of the composition of his whole work. ~v. The year 415 saw the beginning of the great expedition » to Sicily. He does not appear to have regarded it at its outset as one with the previous Ten Years' War ; but it seems certain that he lost no time in making up his mind to write its story. There is matter in his narra- tive of it which he must have obtained after his return from exile in 404 ; but his collection of materials, though it can hardly have been brought to completion before his return to Athens, was in all probability contemporaneous with the earlier stages of the expedition. So far as his biography is concerned, the interest centres round his account of the operations at Syracuse. There can be no reasonable question that his topographical description of the town and its neighbourhood is that of one who has visited the place and knows the ground well. It is too accurate to admit of the possibility of its being second- hand. Plagiarism in topographical description is not so simple a thing as it may seem ; and, besides, it is not possible to point to any authors from whom he could have borrowed this part of his work.^ He must have been at Syracuse at some time of his life. But when? The vividness and accuracy of his description of the ground have led some commentators to assume that he was in Syra-cuse during the Athenian siege. That is extremely improbable. He himself expresses the opinion that Syracuse must have fallen had not the Athenian designs been faulty. Under ' Even Professor E. Meyer, who is extremely conservative on the subject of the composition of Thucydides' history, says that it is 'a complete unity, ruled by the idea of the one twenty-seven years' war written from the standpoint of the Fall of Athens, even if here and there (so doubtless iv. 48 (5)) a turn of phrase which did not conform to this standpoint may survive from the older conceptions.' 2 Cf. Lupus' Syrakus, p. 114. '(Thucydides) is the only con- temporary historian of the siege.' 40 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES such circumstances it is extremely unlikely that he would have exposed himself to the dangers of capture by those fellow-countrymen who had condemned him to death by default. It is far more probable that he made his way to Sicily after the failure of the great expedition, and got his information with regard to the siege partly from the Syracusans and partly from the Athenian prisoners, aided by personal examination of the ground. His visit to Sicily must therefore have been made at some date subsequent to the year 413.^ Of the rest of the historian's life nothing is known except that he obtained his recall in 404. During the time that the Ionian War was in progress he must have been collect- ing such materials for its history as were accessible to him, and it is probable that he made at least a beginning with the actual narrative of the Sicilian expedition. The language which he himself uses with regard to the end of his exile does not in itself necessarily imply that he returned to Athens when it was brought to a close. The words ^ Croiset believes him to have been in Sicily, but does not give any indication of opinion as to the date of the visit. Other editors of Thucydides have come to the same conclusion. But the most import- ant pronouncement on the subject is in Lupus' German edition of the work of Cavallari and Holm on Syracuse, p. 114: 'He shows so accurate a knowledge both of the neighbourhood of Syracuse and of the incidents of the siege that we must suppose that autopsy has been the medium of his presentment : it is far more probable that he himself went to Syracuse during his long exile in the interest of his historical work.' I have a suggestion to make with regard to this visit to Sicily which is somewhat too conjectural to insert in the text of the biography. I am inclined to think that it is possible that Thucydides' knowledge of N.-W. Greece was obtained in the course of his journey to Sicily, that is to say, that for the first part of that journey he used the well-marked land route which ran from Oeniadae, by Stratos, Amphilochian Argos, and Ambrakia to Apollonia and Epidamnos. Acquaintance with Oeniadae is strongly suggested by his remarks with regard to the delta of the Acheloiis (ii. 102) and the general course of that river. It is quite possible that these remarks are made in conscious com- parison to the briefer and less scientific account of the same phenomenon in Herodotus (ii. 102). Thucydides' acquaintance with the region from Stratos to Amphilochian Argos has been already discussed in reference to Demosthenes' campaign {vide p. 26). RECALL FROM EXILE 41 could be conceivably applicable to the official termination of his cfj^yr}, that is to say, to the date of the amnesty which made his return possible.^ But, apart from general con- siderations, his return to Athens after 404 is evidenced by the particular fact that he saw the remains of the walls of the Piraeus after they had been destroyed^ by Lysander. Pausanias ^ preserves a tradition to the effect that his recall from exile was not due to the general amnesty, but to special decree : ' Oinobios was a man who did a good deed to Thucydides son of Oloros ; for he carried a decree recall- ing Thucydides to Athens. But on his way home Thucy- dides was murdered, and his tomb is not far from the Melitian Gate.' Pliny also uses language which implies a special decree,* for he says that the Athenians recalled Thucydides from banishment because they admired the eloquence of his history. The second part of the tradition contained in Pausanias is plainly mistaken. Whenever Thucydides died, he certainly did not die on his way back to Athens after his exile. Still the connection of the name of Oinobios with the story of his recall is interesting, because a man of that name is known from other sources to have been a son of Eukles, and Eukles was the name of Thucydides' colleague as general in Thrace.^ Yet it is almost certain that Thucydides' exile was brought to a close by the general amnesty, and not by a special decree.® How long he lived after his recall is uncertain. There is no question that his history was amplified in matter and ^ Kal ^vv€^7] ^OL cjievyeiv Trfv c^avToii err) eLKOcrt jaera ttjv es 'Afii7roXiv frrpaTr^yiav. Cf. i. 93) '^"^ wKod6fir](rav ttj eKeivov yv(OfiJ] to ird^os Tov Tel^ovs oirep vvv ert 5i]\6v eVri Trepi tov Xleipaia. ^ i. 23. 9. * Pliny, A'zVA Nai. vii. iii. ^ In an inscription from Rangab6, Ani. H. ii. p. 1012, No. 2349. 43, which belongs to about the above time, Oinobios is called son of Eukles. I s the Oinobios of Pausanias to be identified with this Oinobios ? Gilbert, Philologus, 38. Furthermore C.I.A. fasc. i., p. 15 ff. records a general of the name of Oinobios in 410 B.C. " Gilbert says that Pausanias must have got the statement from some source or other. He suggests that the general decree of amnesty may have been moved by Oinobios, and that Pausanias got the information connecting the decree with the name of Thucydides from some Atthis, probably from Istros. {PMlologus, 38.) 42 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES added to in form after his return to Athens. The first four books were at least revised, some of the matter of the Fifth Book obtained, and probably the whole of the Eighth Book written, after that date. A further question is whether he lived these remaining years of his life at Athens or elsewhere. There is a tradition that Thucydides spent some of his last years at the court of Archelaos of Macedon. It is possible that this tradition originated with Praxiphanes, or was, at any rate, called into being by a passage in Praxiphanes' work which is quoted by Marcellinus.^ If it arises merely from the passage, it arises from a misreading of it ; for the passage does not say anything about residence at Archelaos' court; and it further adds that, 'during the lifetime of Archelaos, Thucydides was, generally speaking, without reputation . . . but subsequently was admired as a divinity.' If Thucydides had no fame during Archelaos' lifetime, it is not likely that he was invited to the Macedonian court as a literary celebrity. But there is a passage in Thucydides' own work^ which implies an acquaintance with Macedonia in the days of Archelaos, of whom he says that he built many fortresses and strong places in the country, improved the roads, and generally speaking put the country in a better state for war than had been done by all the eight kings that preceded him. Such information might, however, have been easily obtained by a person living near Amphipolis. The possession of it does not imply personal acquaintance with Macedonia, still less residence at the court of Archelaos : but, nevertheless, it is probably the original source of the later tradition. But is the tradition true ? A great living critic, who does not err on the side of credulity with respect to the tradition of Thucydides' life, thinks that ' it is not mere imagination if one sees in this passage^ the same gratitude which one sees in the Bacchae of Euripides. Thucydides has spent the evening of his life in the hospitable court at Pella, 1 Bekker, p. 6, 1. 2. The suggestion of origin of the tradition in Praxiphanes is made by Wilamowitz {Hermes, xii.). 2 ii. loo. ' ii. ICO. The critic is Professor v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. PLACE OF DEATH 43 and has found his grave, like Euripides, in Macedonian soil; On the evidence the question of his residence at the Macedonian court must remain an open one. It seems certain that Thucydides spent some part, at least, of the last years of his life in Thrace, for he mentions the changes made in the fortifications of Amphipolis.^ Where and when did he die? The ancient authorities are silent as to the time of his death, but preserve various traditions as to the place at which it occurred. Marcellinus says he died in Thrace ; ^ but he is by no means consistent on this point. He says that 'some say he died in the place where he spent his exile,'* meaning, presumably, in Thrace ; but that ' Didymos says that he died by a violent death in Athens on his return from exile ; and this he (Didymos) says is the story of Zopyros.'* Marcellinus then makes a statement which is surprising, considering that in other passages^ he seems to assume his death in Thrace, for he says : ' I think Zopyros talks nonsense in saying that he died in Thrace, even if Kratippos believes him to be telling the truth.' ^ Unless the extant text of Marcellinus is very corrupt, that would-be biographer was in a very confused state of mind with regard to the locality of Thucydides' death. Furthermore, if what he says is true, Zopyros had made two quite irreconcilable statements on the subject. Marcellinus ' rejects the tradition of Timaeus and others to the effect that he died in Italy. Plutarch preserves the tradition that he died in Skapt6 Hyle in Thrace.® It thus appears that various traditions in antiquity attributed his death to four different localities, Thrace, Athens, Macedonia, and Italy, though the Macedonian tradition is not quite explicit. The possibility of his death in Italy is so remote as to be negligible. The tradition with regard to Macedonia is very vague.^ Either Athens or ^ iv. 103 (8), Kol ov Kadelro reixV cotTTTfp vvv. 2 Bekker, p. 8, 1. 39, and p. 9, 1. i. 3 Bekker, p. 6, 1. 5. * Bekker, p. 6, 1. 5. ^ Quoted note 8 on this page. " Bekker, p. 6, 1. 23. ' Bekker, p. 6, 1. 24. ^ Plut., ^Tzot. 4. " Wilamowitz appears to accept it. (Hermes, xii.) 44 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES Thrace was the probable scene of his death, and of these, if the tradition preserved by Marcellinus with regard to Kratippos be true, Thrace is the more probable. There was in antiquity a very widespread idea that he was murdered. It arose very likely from the fact that the unfinished nature of his work suggested a sudden end. After that, his murder— by tradition— was a natural death.i There was also a very persistent tradition that the tomb of Thucydides was at Athens ; but it takes two forms, one that he was actually buried there ; another, that the tomb was a cenotaph. Plutarch says ^ that though he was murdered in Thrace ' his ashes and bones were carried into the country of Attica, where his tomb appears yet to this day among the tombs of them of the house and family of Kimon, near to the tomb of Kimon's own sister called Elpinik^.' Pausanias says that he was murdered on the way home from Athens, ' and his tomb is not far from the Melitian Gate.'^ Marcellinus* says that ' there are near what is called the Melitian Gate in Koild what are called the Kimonian memorials, where are shown the tombs of Herodotus and of Thucydides.' From this he deduces a relationship with Kimon's family. But what of the tomb of Herodotus in the same place? In another passage ^ he says that some assert that he died in the place in which he spent his exile, and allege that the tomb is a cenotaph, ' for that there is an Upiov upon the tomb, and this is the local and customary sign at Athens of a cenotaph of those who have died under such unfortunate circumstances ^ and are not buried at Athens.' Another tale mentioned by Marcellinus^ as coming from Didymos, through Zopyros, is that he died a violent death after his return to Athens, and was buried there among the graves of the Kimonian family. The tale of Timaeus that he died and was buried in Italy Marcellinus rejects.* Later on in the biography he quotes a very specific ' Pausanias, Plutarch, and Marcellinus, all say that he was murdered. 2 Plut., /Czm. 4. 2 Paus. i. 23. 9. * Bekker, p. 3, 1. 30. ^ Bekker, p. 6, 1. 5. ^ Reference to death in a foreign land. ' Bekker, p. 6, 1. 14. ' Bekker, p. 6, 1. 25. THE TOMB OF THUCYDIDES 45 assertion with regard to the tomb : ^ ' His tomb is near the gates, in a place in Attica which is called the ' Hollow,' according to what Antyllos says, who is credible as a witness by reason of his knowledge of history, as well as a clever exponent of it. ' And a pillar,' he says, ' stands in the " Hollow " with the inscription, " Thucydides the son of Oloros, a Halimusian." Some add the words " lies here." But we say that this addition is invented and interpolated ; for the word " lies " was not in the inscription. ' These quotations are sufficient to show how extremely confused and contradictory was the tradition with regard to the grave of the historian. For the historical purpose, the only important question is whether any tomb of his, cenotaph or otherwise, existed at Athens, because, if it did, that fact would tend to show that his fellow-countrymen appreciated the author and his work. The tradition as to the existence of such a tomb seems at first sight very strong, and has won the acceptance of certain of the great authorities of modern times.^ But when critically examined the tradition is in reality very weak, and can be traced back with great probability to one source, and that a source of doubtful authenticity. It is evident that the later compilers did not find anything certain in their sources, as is shown by the existence of traditions assigning the tomb to at least three different parts of the world, Athens, Thrace, and Italy. As far as Athens is concerned, the main, if not the sole original authority seems to be Polemon's book Trept 'AKpoTToXew;. Marcellinus quotes the book twice,^ in the first instance as authority for the tomb being near the Melitian gate, in the ' Hollow,' among the tombs of the family of Kimon ; and, secondly, in reference to the fact that Thucy- dides was the name of various persons known to history. Polemon seems to be the original source of that assertion of Plutarch which has been already quoted. The passage cited from Pausanias seems even more clearly to go back to the same authority ; in fact Pausanias appears to have used 1 Bekker, p. 11, 1. 18. ^ e.g: Gilbert {Philologus, 38) says it is certain that Thucydides' grave was at Athens. 3 Bekker, p. 4, 1- 2 ; p. 5, 1- 33- 46 THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES Polemon very freely indeed in his description of the monu- ments of Athens.^ But Pausanias' information, drawn from Polemon, is incorrect, and the error seems to have existed in the earlier author.^ The error is two-fold. He speaks of a statue of Epicharinos, whereas it is dedicated by Epicharinos. He also makes a mistake about the patrial name of Epicharinos.^ After speaking of the statue, he mentions one of Thucy- dides the son of Oloros as the work of Oinobios. It is probable that here too the dedicator appears as the sculptor of the work.* This statue was on the Acropolis, and it is possible that its existence there led Polemon to make the remarks about monuments outside the gates, among others the fjLvrjfjia of Thucydides, in order to prove some view of his with regard to what existed elsewhere. It is probable that there was this monument on the Acropolis which compelled him to inquire into the family of Thucydides. On the whole, then, it seems likely that there was a statue of the historian upon the Acropolis ; but the existence of his tomb near the Melitian Gate is altogether doubtful. That it was the tomb of a Thucydides is probable ; but then, as Marcellinus points out,^ the name was not uncommon in Attica. The credibility of the story of the tomb is not enhanced by Marcellinus' statement ^ that it was said that ' there is an Uptov upon the tomb.'' More is known of Attic burial customs than of any other department of Attic life. There is a certain class of Attic cenotaphs, namely those of the ' Wilamowitz {Hermes, xii.) says that the matter is as clear as the day, because in Pausanias' description of the Acropolis no work which is demonstrably later than Polemon, except the statues of Hadrian and the monument of Philopappos, is mentioned ; e.g. the Agrippa monument and the temple of Augustus are omitted. 2 Wilamowitz, loc. supra cit. Gilbert, Philologus, 38 ; but the latter ascribes the mistake to Pausanias. ' Wilamowitz, loc. cit., points out that Pausanias is demonstrably wrong. The basis of the reported statue of Epicharinos has been dis- covered, with the inscription : ''S.Trixa.fivos aviQt^Kiv S 'Od . . . o . . . KpiVtas- Km Nria-ta>rr)s €7rotT](ran]v. The patrial name he has read (or Polemon has read) as oTrXiTo&pojifiv dv. 2 Cf. Marcellinus (Bekker, Thiic, p. 7, 1. 6), i^rjXaxre Se eV 6\lyov, as fhnalv "AvT-uXXo?, Kol ras Topylov rod A-covriVov TrapKraaets Koi ras dvTtOeaets rajv ovojxdTcoVj €vdoKtiiov(ras Kar' €K€LVo\yj Katpov Tvapa rols "EWtjo-l. (Also p. 10, 1. 9), TToXveiSfis 8e h Toiy a-)(r]p.aiTi, to. ttoXXo kqi rav Fopyiov tov Aeovrivov p,iji,ovnevos. 52 GENERAL RELIABILITY OF THE TEXT increase his appreciation of, but would lessen his power to realise, the purest form of that dialect. Thucydides, great as he is, is not a master of Attic style ; and it is unnecessary to seek in undemonstrable textual corruptions for an explanation of the awkwardness and obscurity which is noticeable in many parts of his work.i But that there was always — textual corruption or not — a contrast of style between his work and that of the age which succeeded him, is shown by the fate which befell his history in the three centuries which followed his death. Greek taste dominated the literary criticism of that time. It was a taste which sacrificed matter to form. It began with the sound judgment that the prose of the fourth century showed the best literary style which the language had as yet attained. It ignored Thucydides as a master of style, though, if any judgment may be formed from the fact that three writers set themselves the task of completing his work, it appreciated him, at first at any rate, as a historian, But history soon became corrupted by rhetoric, and Thucydides passed almost into oblivion. Literary taste ran its usual course, appreciating the good, the bad, and the indifferent, at different times, each age supposing that its taste was superior to that of its predecessors. It was during the classical movement of the first century before Christ that Thucydides came once more into vogue ; and then it was only in consequence of a reaction against the fanciful Asiatic style in prose.^ If these considerations be valid, the conclusion which may be arrived at is that arguments for drastic revision of the Thucydidean text are neither convincing nor necessary. Corruptions there are, but they are singularly few as com- pared with those found in some other authors, and are in only one or two instances of historical importance. From the point of view of the historian the present state of the text of Thucydides is illustrated by a comparison between the wording of the treaty between Athens, Argos, 1 ' Thucydides' Greek is at best good Thracian ' is a remark which I once heard made by a great scholar and very learned man. Being neither, I am unable to go the whole way with him. ^ Professor Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hermes, xii. TEXT OF V. 47 53 Elis, and Mantinea as given in the forty-seventh chapter of the Fifth Book, and that of the fragmentary inscription of the same treaty engraved on a marble stel^ discovered at Athens in 1877.^ This fragment gives about one-seventh of the text of the whole. There are thirty differences between the two texts, half of which are in orthography, and the remainder in transposition, omission, and intro- duction of words. There are no historical discrepancies.^ With the details of the differences it will be necessary to deal when discussing the text of this particular chapter in the history. It has been* maintained that the existence of these discrepancies goes against the authority of the MSS. It has also been asserted * that such is not neces- sarily the case. But there is a larger question outside the narrow question of the text of the MSS. How came this document into Thucydides' history? One critic has argued^ that such original documents (treaties, etc.) were not inserted in the text by Thucydides, because such in- sertions were contrary to the custom of historical writing. But had such a custom been established at the time at which Thucydides wrote, when history as literature was in its infancy?^ If, then, the copy of this document was inserted in the text by Thucydides himself, when and where did he obtain it? In respect to time the Fifth Book appears to have come late in the period during which he was engaged in the composition of his history ; but it is not certain that it was composed after his return from exile in 404. If the copy was obtained from Athens before that date, it must have been obtained second hand ; and the possibility of error in such copying is self-evident : that is to say, the divergencies between the Thucydidean document and the fragment on the stel6 are not necessarily to be ascribed to textual corruption, pure and simple. Even if, as is possible, Thucydides 1 C.I.A., Supp. i. 46. 6. 2 For full account of the Inscription, vide Kirchhoff, Hermes, xii. 3 Op. cit., viz. Kirchhoff, Hermes, xii. * Classen. ^ Professor Wilamowitz-Moellendorfif. ' Cf. Croiset's remarks on this question in his introduction to his edition of Thucydides. 54 GENERAL RELIABILITY OF THE TEXT himself obtained the copy after his return to Athens, the possibilities of original error, though reduced, are not eliminated. It is argued that the corruptions which are discoverable — namely glosses, omissions, transformation, changes of inflexional endings, infractions of dialect — are not of a kind which would be due to false reading of the text, but are of the nature of those which would be made by a copyist.^ Still the copyist concerned may be the original copyist, whether Thucydides or another, in respect at any rate to some of the corruptions present. But there is the further possibility that the Thucydidean document was not obtained from the Athenian original. It was ordered that copies of the treaty should be engraved^ and set up at Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Olympia.^ Moreover, although Thucydides has modified the form of the words according to his own predilections in the matter of spelling,* and has not preserved any dialectic forms, there are indications (i) that the copy was not obtained from Athens,^ and (2) that it was obtained from Olympia.^ ' Kirchhoff, Hermes, xii. 2 V. 47. 9. 2 Olympian o-ttjXt], mentioned Paus. v. 12. 8. * £.g: daKaa-aav for BakaTrav, lines 4 and 19 of the Inscription : fjv for iav, lines 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 25. ^ E.g. Inscription bevpo : Thuc. 'AdrjvaCe ; and possibly the omission in Thucydides' text of the words &v apxova-i 'Adrjvaiot which occur in line 6 of the Inscription. " This is markedly suggested by the transposition of the order of the names of the contracting states in lines 7, 8, 13, where in lines 7, 8 the Mantineans precede the Eleians in the Inscription, whereas in Thucy- dides' copy the Eleians have the prior place, and in line 13 the inscriptional order, Argives, Mantineans, Eleians, appears in Thucydides' copy as Eleians, Mantineans, Argives. Gilbert {Philologus, 38) argues that this shows the work of an Eleian craftsman, who would tend to put the name of his state first, though he might not do so in every instance in which the names occurred in the Inscription, i?.^. Thuc. v. 47.(1 s) 'A^. 'hpy. M. 'H. Probably in same order as in Athenian Inscription. (19) 'Apy. 'H. M. Probably in same order as Inscrip- tion. N.B. — Elis before Mantinea in Thuc. (22) 'Apy. 'H. M. Not in Inscription Fragment. N.B. — Elis before Mantinea. (24) 'Afl'. 'Apy. 'H. M. M. H. in Inscription. (26) 'Apy. 'H.M. Probably M. H. in Inscription. INSCRIPTION AT OLYMPIA 55 The attribution of this document in Thucydides to an Eleian original at Olympia is rendered further probable by the fact that Thucydides' report on the Olympian festival ^ follows directly on his report on the conclusion of the treaty ; and the description of the festival is such as to suggest that Thucydides was there as a spectator.^ It is obvious therefore that it is not possible to base grave charges of textual corruption on a comparison between the text of this chapter of Thucydides and that of the Athenian stel6. The major differences between the two are probably due either to differences between the Eleian and Athenian documents, or partly perhaps to a failure to reproduce in Attic Greek the exact wording of the inscription in the Eleian dialect. The rest of the differences are due to little more than mistakes or varia- tions in spelling. It would seem then that the extant text of Thucydides is, from the historian's point of view, in at least a satis- factory condition. 5 Such defects as exist are for the most (30) 'Apy. M. 'H. 'k6. Probably same in Inscription. (35) '^py- ^- 'H. Not in Inscription Fragment. (36) 'H. M. 'Apy. 'Apy. ? ? in Inscription. (4 ) 'Afl. 'Apy. M. 'H. 'KB. ? ? ? in Inscription, (n) 'a5. 'Apy. M. 'H. Not in Inscription Fragment. (24) 'Apy M. 'H. Not in Inscription Fragment. ^ Cf. 'OXupTTiois Toif vvvi, V. 47. Report is in v. 49 f. ^ Gilbert, Philologus, 38. Kirchhoff {Ueber d. von T. benutzten Ur- kunden (1880-1882)), argues in favour of the Athenian copy having been the original of the Thucydidean document. He says that the Attic form and fashion of the copy cannot have been present in any Peloponnesian original, and that Thucydides is not likely to have translated into Attic, of v. 77 and 79. He does not see any convincing grounds for a variation of his practice in the case. One reason for such a variation of practice may be suggested. The documents, cf. v. 77 and 79, seem, according to Kirchhoff s own showing, to be in the Lakonian dialect. Owing to its use in the drama it must have been well known to the Athenians. This would not be the case with the Pseud-Aeolic dialect of Elis : and therefore Thucydides might well consider it desirable to transcribe the original Eleian inscription at Olympia into Attic form. 3 Herbst {Philologus, 40) says that in a paper published forty years ago on the 'Return of Alkibiades,' pp. 51-59, he has carefully ex- amined and calculated the numbers of the Athenian and Peloponnesian S6 GENERAL RELIABILITY OF THE TEXT part of a nature which renders them of import rather to the textual critic and the grammarian than to the student of history.^ In the case of Thucydides the extant text is derived from the collation of some thirty-five to forty MSS., some ships given in Book viii., and found them absolutely consistent and correct. For this reason he has a great respect for the traditional text of Thucydides. ^ In a paper published by the Philological Society of London {Transactions, 1907, pp. 1-56) on the ' Transliteration and Pronunciation of the Latin Letter V,' I have had occasion to compare (Chapter i.) the transcriptions of Latin names in a series of Greek authors with those in inscriptions contemporary with them. I venture to think that the result is remarkable in relation to the general reliability of the extant texts. It shows, at any rate, that in one department of his work • — a department, too, in which carelessness might easily be displayed — the copyist of MSS. displayed on the whole peculiar care ; and it casts considerable doubt on the theory of wholesale textual corruption which has been attributed to the period of the first six centuries after Christ. I confess that it has led me to be very cautious in accepting suggestions of textual corruption in the texts of ancient historians. I do feel, that is to say, that the work of the textual critics of the past has been crowned with distinct success in that they have been able to attain, by the collation of the best MSS., to texts which are a satisfactorily accurate reproduction of that which the historians originally wrote. On the general question of the reliability of extant Texts, Dr. F. G. Kenyon writes in the Quarterly Review, April 1908, p. 353, as follows : — 'We know now, on the evidence of the papyri, that the vellum MSS. of the tenth and subsequent centuries not only contain the same text, to all intents, as the much earlier papyri, but contain it generally in a sounder form; for the vellum MSS. represent the tradition of the libraries, while the papyri for the most part have been gathered from the rubbish heaps of provincial towns and villages in Upper Egypt. They serve also to curb the rashness of conjectural emenders. Here and there, no doubt, the conjectures of modern scholars are justified : it would be disheartening if it were not so ; but these are invariably corrections which involve but little change. If a passage is seriously corrupt (and that such corruptions exist, and go back to very early dates, the papyri themselves demonstrate), the chances are largely against a modern scholar healing it successfully ; not because his scholarship is deficient, but because the possibilities are numerous and the odds are against his finding the same form of words as the ancient author. As against this weakening of our faith in the healing powers of scholarship may be set the very comforting assurance that the Greek classics do not stand in so much need of healing as has 5Qmetiines been supposed-' MANUSCRIPTS 57 of which, as is commonly the case with the manuscripts of authors, are of much more importance than the others. Those of the fourteenth or fifteenth century seem to be for the most part more or less exact reproductions of MSS. still extant. The ancient MSS. are about seven or eight in number. They belong to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, or, at earliest, to the tenth. No one of them dates back so far as the ninth. In Books i.-vi. these MSS. are not separated by any great difference. The Vatican MS. of Books vii. and viii. seems, however, to have had a source different from that of the others. The peculi- arities of this MS. begin at vi. 94 ; and the interesting theory has been put forward^ that this must have been the beginning of the tenth Book of that edition of Thucy- dides which Marcellinus says was divided into thirteen books. ^ ' Professor Wilamowitz-MoellendorfF. ^ A description of the various MSS. will be inserted as a preface to the detailed discussion of the various readings in the text. PART III CHAPTER III THE FOOD SUPPLY OF GREECE — THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND OF GREEK HISTORY Before attempting to deal with the story of the Greece of that age of which Thucydides wrote, it is necessary to realise certain aspects of the nature of the land itself, and to form some estimate of the larger economic conditions under which men lived in the fifth century before Christ. Greece, and indeed the whole of the western part of the Balkan Peninsula, has marked physical characteristics which are not reproduced in the rest of Europe. In peninsular Italy, it is true, they exist to a very modified extent ; but even so, the difference between the two lands is so great that it would be misleading to attempt to draw a parallel between them. Regarded as an area for human habitation, Greece is a land of strong contrasts. The greater part of the country consists of mountain ranges of extreme rugged- ness, with sides whose steepness would render cultivation difficult, even had not the fact that they are for the most part almost totally devoid of earth precluded the possibility of such a thing. Nor do these mountain sides afford the pasturage which such localities afford in lands of moister climate. The number of cattle which Greece can support is very small, and their condition bears eloquent testimony to the poorness of their fare. In respect to cultivated areas, modern Greece is probably less well situated than the Greece of the fifth century before Christ. In various parts of the country the hill sides show remains of the walls used in terraced cultivation, where no such cultivation CULTIVATION OF GREECE 59 now exists.! Centuries of neglect under an alien and unenlightened domination allowed these walls to fall into disrepair, and the soil which they formerly retained has long since been washed into the valleys. On the other hand, the alluvial plains in the hollows of fhe hills, though small in area compared with the total surface of the land, are, for the most part, of unusual fertility ; and the very limitation of their area, combined with their extreme productiveness, must in all ages have rendered their possession a matter of keen competition among the inhabitants of the land. It is reckoned that their cultivable surface does not amount to more than twenty-two per cent, of the whole area of modern Greece.^ Furthermore, it is of extreme importance for the present consideration that the area under actual cultivation in 1893 did not amount to more than fifteen per cent, of the whole area of the country ; and it was reckoned that, were the remaining seven per cent, brought under cultivation, modern Greece would be free from the necessity of importing foreign corn. It must therefore be concluded that, if it can be shown \ that ancient Greece was under the necessity of importing ^ corn from abroad to feed its inhabitants, its population must have been much larger than it is at the present day. It might perhaps be urged that modern methods of cultiva- tion tend to produce larger returns than was the case of old. But the Greek peasant has been conspicuous in his resistance to such improvements in agricultural method as he has been urged to adopt, and his farm work is of that primitive character which is customary among some- what backward races which can win a sufficiency with little exertion from a rich soil, — for, as has been already said, the soil of Greece, wherever it is cultivable, is very rich. If there be any arguable probability in the case, it is ^ Pausanias has occasion now and again to remark on land, especially mountain-side, which had in his day passed out of cultivation. Remains of former terrace cultivation are observable in Samos iyide Murray's Handbook of Asia Minor). The facts with regard to European Greece have come under my own observation. 2 Vide Report of acreage of agricultural produce in Greece, 1893, taken from the Statesman's Year Book. 6o THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND that the methods of cultivation in the fifth century were superior to those of the present day. The modern Greek is the descendant of men who, for several centuries, cultivated their land either in servitude to others who owned it, or under such conditions as made the prospect of reaping anything like the full benefit of their work very remote. That is not a state of things under which agriculture flourishes ; and those who adhere to the methods of such a distressful period cannot be said to be reaping the full benefit of the land. These considerations, added to the evidence already cited of a hill-side cultivation more extensive than that which exists at the present day, lead to the belief that the Greece of the period of the Peloponnesian War was capable of supporting a larger population than can be supported by modern Greece. The Greek of the fifth century did not write about economics in the larger sense of the term. In the fourth century the situation became such as to make men not merely think but write. It was not so much that the situation had fundamentally changed, as that the measures which in the fifth century had been taken to relieve it either were not available in the fourth, or, when available, had in many cases been productive of evils almost as intolerable as those which they were designed to cure. Hence, in the fourth century, men were seeking for other remedies, and the treatise De Vectigalibus, attributed to Xenophon, as well as various passages in Isokrates, deal with the economics of the day with a directness which is not found in fifth-century authors. But, as far as the evils themselves are concerned, the evidence, though clear, is indirect. It must be arrived at by implication. There was no reason to describe a state of things which had become normal in the Greek world. Every one was aware of the conditions of daily life under which he lived, and under which his forefathers had lived for four or five generations past. Contemporary literature therefore accepts the economic facts of the day ; and, as far as direct reference is con- EVIDENCE ON ECONOMICS 6i cerned, does not as a rule mention them. They are taken as the natural order of things, a recital of which would not be of great interest to those who were in touch with them every day of their lives. It is the abnormal not the normal which is interesting to those who are under the norm. Had a deficiency of food produce been the exception rather than the rule in Greece of the fifth century, the exceptional case would certainly have been noticed in a direct way by some of the historians of the time. The references, though very numerous, are indirect ; because the condition, though not universal, was very general throughout the land. It may perhaps be urged that a scarcity of food supply, had it existed, must have called for direct reference from some writer : and yet that it is not until the fourth century — in Isokrates — that such a refer- ence is found. The answer to this objection is that a deficiency of food supply does not necessarily imply a scarcity. By the fifth century the Greek had evolved for himself economic conditions which, under any save extreme circumstances, were quite sufficient to meet the deficit in the home supply. He accepted the situation, for to him it had existed from time immemorial. It was a common- place of life, and early historical literature did not concern itself with the commonplace. The evidence on this question of food supply is found in passages scattered throughout Greek literature. It crops up in various strange forms. There is no lack of it : indeed its quantity is almost embarrassing to any one who would set it forth in order. It may seem strange that its significance has not been appreciated by the host of writers who have in the past dealt with the history of ancient Greece. But only a small number of these writers have had an intimate acquaintance with the local conditions of the land ; and the significance of the passages to which reference has been made would only force itself upon the mind of one to whom those conditions were well known. To cite all the evidence which has a bearing upon the question would demand a greater expenditure of space than any would-be commen- tator on Thucydides can devote to such a department of 62 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND his subject. Not that the department is unimportant. It is indeed of the utmost importance, since it gives the clue to much that is otherwise incomprehensible in the history of the fifth century. But all that will be attempted here is to give evidence which will, it is hoped, be sufficient to establish the conclusions put forward. The dry statistics which have been already given with regard to the cultivable area of Greece would of themselves suggest to those who are acquainted with the results of similar geographical circumstances in other parts of the world the probability that it was a land which would be liable to suffer from at least a chronic deficiency in its home food supply. That such was the case indeed is shown by evidence which dates from a period far anterior to that at which the reliable history of the country begins. Even in the days of Hesiod, and, moreover, even, as it would seem, in Boeotia, a region far more productive than any part of Greece save Thessaly, the stress of deficiency was at times felt. It is a contingency which is contemplated in the poet's Works and Days} He dreams of an ideal world where the land would yield its increase, and the necessity for voyaging abroad in search of food would no longer exist. Even in this very early evidence on the subject there is found that trait which is noticeable throughout the passages of Greek literature which refer to it — the absence of direct statement. The circumstances are implied, and implied in such a way as to show that the poet had no sort of doubt but that his audience would understand the reference. The necessity spoken ' Cf. Works and Days, 236 ff. 'They are abundant in blessings throughout their life; nor do they voyage on the ships ; but the grain-giving field beareth fruit.' This is an ideal picture from which the stern necessity of seeking food from abroad is excluded. It is eloquent of a reality very different from the picture drawn : cf. the note in Paley's edition of Hesiod. 1. 42 contains a similar implication, also in an ideal sketch : — ' For the Gods keep the means of life hidden from mankind : For it is easily conceivable that you might work for a single day, So that you might have support for the years and be at leisure ; And quickly would you store away your boat-paddle over the smoke. And the work of oxen and patient mules would go to ruin.' CAUSES OF COLONISATION 63 of is evidently a matter of everyday life, — an unpleasant, but to the poet's hearers, a commonplace necessity. From this eighth century until the time of Solon we have no contemporary historical evidence,^ and the later literary evidence which refers to this dark period is not, as a rule, concerned with matters which would suggest a reference to economic subjects. Still, the tradition that the Greece of this time suffered from over-population survived in the time of Thucydides. Speaking of the prominent naval states of early days he says : ' For they attacked and subjugated the islands, especially when the pressure of population was felt by them.' But the deductions from the reliable facts of this age are striking and unmistak- able. Within these dark centuries falls the great period of Greek colonising activity. The Greek of a later time, with whom politics tended to absorb every other interest, ascribed this activity mainly to political tension within the various states. That political tension was an important causal antecedent in the movement is certainly the case. But it is also certain that it was not the sole cause; and it is very doubtful if it was the real efficient cause. It is remarkable that the theory of political tension is in the majority of cases connected with the land question. Either the land of the state is alleged to have been in the hands of the few ; or at any rate it is implied that all productive areas were already occupied, and the landless folk went forth to found a colony. It would seem, indeed, even from the vague traditional evidence, that the difficulty was ultimately economic rather than political.^ It was not ' In Thuc. i. 5 occurs a quite general statement which may refer to the pressure of the food question in early Greece. ' They were com- manded by powerful chiefs, who took this means (piracy) of increasing their wealth and providing for their poorer followers.' ^ That the political motive, which is so prominent among the causes of colonising activity alleged in the literature which came into existence a century and a half after the period of activity had ended, is not the true cause of the phenomenon of Greek colonisation is shown by the fact that the impetus to settlement came to an end, while the political motive, a-raa-is, was still in active existence. With the opening of the sixth century the colonising activity of the Greek dies away after a century and a half of energy, but a-Taats is just as marked a feature of 64 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND so much that the land was already taken up ; it was that it had ceased to provide sufficient sustenance for the population of the state. Colonising activity on the part of a state or a race generally implies that the community has a surplus population. It is only on the strongest compulsion that men leave well-known scenes for unknown dangers in foreign lands ; and the causes which drove the Greek from that home whose light and colour he so vividly appreciated, cannot have been otherwise than compelling in character. Furthermore, when account is taken of the main trend of Greek colonising activity, the economic nature of the move- ment becomes still more apparent. It is in the great corn- producing regions of the then known world that its activity is mainly concentrated, in Sicily and in the Euxine. Whatever may have been the case with regard to Sicily, no other reason would have constrained the Greek to colonise the shores of the ' inhospitable ' sea. It is, too, towards the close of this period that Egypt is overrun by the Greek trader.^ The question may suggest itself why, if such a deficit of food supply was the normal condition of things in Greece, the colonising energy of the race ever abated. Colonisation tended to do away with the causes which had produced it. The settlements in Sicily and on the north shore of the Pontus did much to solve the difficulty at home by rendering the acquisition of foreign corn far more easy than it had been before ; and the Hellene in Greece itself gradually evolved an economic condition of things under which he was enabled, under normal circum- stances, to purchase abroad that which should make up for Greek political life after that time as it had been while colonisation was still in progress. The phenomenon of ardcns may therefore have been a secondary cause of the phenomenon of colonising activity, but it cannot have been the primary, still less the most efficient cause. 1 TO MiXrjcrlav reixof, the forerunner of Naukratis, and the first promi- nent Greek trading settlement m Egypt, must have been founded ' con- siderably before 650 B.C.' (Hall, The Oldest Civilisation of Greece, p. 271.) It coincides in date, therefore, with the period of Greek colonis- ing activity, and indicates a desire to tap the great corn supplies of Egypt. EFFECTS OF COLONISATION 65 the deficiency in his own land. It is unnecessary to say that the economic condition which was evolved implied a power of purchase. The means by which the power was attained are indicated in various passages scattered through- out Greek literature. But before turning to the consideration of some of these passages, it may be well to speak of another important effect of Greek colonising activity. The foundation of the colonies must have resulted in an enormous increase in the sea-borne trade of the Hellenic world, a trade whose profits would accrue largely to the maritime states of Greece proper, and would place them in a very favourable position with regard to the means of purchase of food products from abroad. As far as these particular states were concerned, the problem must have been solved, to a great extent, navigando. To what extent it was solved by this means it is impossible to say, because evidence is not forthcoming from the literature of a period when large economic problems were not understood, when the simple fact was accepted and no inquiry made into the cause. But though the contemporary world did not put down the fact in writing, there can be no doubt that the increase of Greek trade did much towards the solution of the question of food supply. It would, of course, be the maritime and commercial states which would profit most from the new economic developments ; but the non-maritime states could not fail to derive advantage from the fact that food supplies were brought to their very doors. A clue as to their position is afforded by a passage which Thucydides inserts in the reported speech of the Corinthians at Sparta in the spring before the Peloponnesian War broke out. ' The states more inland and out of the highway of com- munication should understand that if they omit to support the coast powers, the result will be to injure the transit of their produce for exportation, and the reception in exchange of their imports from the sea.' ^ Whether these words were actually spoken by the Corinthians or not, is a matter which does not affect their validity as evidence on this economic question. They are at any rate the words of a writer or ' Thuc. i. 120. From R. Crawley's Translation of Thucydides. E 66 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND speaker of the fifth century, and are therefore good evi- dence for a certain aspect of the economic situation in that age. The words imply, what must indeed have been the case, that these non-maritime states had resources by means of which they could purchase foreign commodities. Even at the expense of anticipating the evidence, it may be well for clearness' sake to mention what those resources were. In the case of some of the states the export of manufactured goods brought great wealth to the com- munities. In point of fact the states which were foremost in manufacture were largely identical with those which were foremost in trade. In the case of nearly all the states of Greece, however, the exports of the products of the vine and the olive brought much profit to the country, with a curious economic result which will have to be noticed hereafter. There is a passage in Plutarch's ' life of Solon which, whatever its source, is of the utmost significance in Greek economic history. It is a passage whose genuineness of origin is accredited by the fact that it is incredible that it could have been invented before the age of scientific economics. It is further clear that Plutarch, and, it may be safely presumed, his original authority, had no real appreciation of the significance of the words when they set them down in their narrative. In describing the domestic reforms introduced into Athens in the early years of the sixth century, Plutarch says : — (Solon) ' seeing that the city was becoming filled with people who were con- tinually resorting to Attica from all parts for security's sake, and that the major portion of the land was unpro- ductive and poor, and that the sea traders were not accustomed to import commodities among people who had nothing to give in return, turned the attention of the people towards manufactures (Te%i'a?), and made a law that it should not be incumbent on a son to support his father unless the latter had him taught some craft' . . . 'Solon, by adapting the laws to circumstances rather than circum- stances to the law, and because he saw that the nature of the land afforded a meagre competence to those who ' Plut., Solon, 22. THE ECONOMICS OF SOLON 67 worked it, and was not equal to the support of an idle and unemployed population, gave a dignity to manufactures, and ordered the council of Areopagos to superintend the sources of the supply of necessities, and to punish the idle.' In a later chapter Plutarch^ refers to a law of Solon forbidding the export of all products of the land except those of the olive.^ Furthermore, the change in the coinage standard current in Attica from the Aeginetan to the Euboic is not without significance in relation to the other remarkable economic measures. There is a certain simplicity in the language in which the changes are described which tends to disguise their importance. Rightly regarded, the passages give the modern world a picture of a Greek state at a peculiarly critical point in its economic history, and passing moreover through a crisis such as must have occurred with various modifica- tions in the history of many of its neighbours.^ The situation in Attica at the moment is in many respects brought clearly before the mind of the reader, in others is somewhat disguised, partly because the writer did not and could not understand its full economic significance, partly because he tends to bring into prominence rather the side lights than the high lights of a situation which appears to be in accord with what is to him the normal, and, there- fore, natural order of things. Still, read in the light of that which is writ large on many a page of the original authorities for Greek History, the passages quoted above do not require an elaborate elucidation. It is evident that by the beginning of the sixth century the population of Attica had become larger than the land could support. This is ascribed to the influx of people from other parts of Greece. Thucydides* in his archaeological introduction speaks of a similar influx, but refers it to a period much anterior to the time of Solon. It is significant that he ascribes the reputed colonisation of the Ionian cities of Asia to over-population brought about by 1 Plut., Solon, 24. ^ No reference is made to export of vine products. " Attica was not prominent in Greek colonisation. * Thuc. i. 2 ad fin. 68 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND this cause. It is possible that Plutarch and his original authority post-dated this influx, and that the pressure in Solon's time was due to an ordinary increase in the popula- tion. The trouble does not appear to have been a new one, if any reliance is to be placed on the vague and distorted traditions of the previous period in Attica. Political ferment in that country was far more due to economic causes than would appear from the writings of those to whom politics pure and simple were an absorbing interest. The gist of the whole situation was that for the poorer classes the problem of living had become acute. They were in all probability far more the victims of circumstances than of their fellow-men. Still it is evident that the richer classes had sought to profit from a bad condition of things, and had added to inevitable evils others which aggravated the unavoidable miseries of the time. The Solonian legislation, in so far as it was destructive, confined itself to an attack on these artificial aggravations of the troubles and trials of the day. Distress had led to personal servitude for debt. He abolished it. The poverty of the population had, it would seem, induced the landowners to seek abroad a better market for the produce of their lands. He forbade its export with the exception of the produce of the olive. But he turned a deaf ear to the cry that the land was held by a few owners, and listened not to any demand for its redistribution. That might have done much to alleviate the agitation of the moment, without doing anything to cure the fundamental evil of the time. Solon is a great figure in economic history ; he is, indeed, judged by the evidence which is at present extant, the greatest economist which the Mediterrannean world pro- duced before the foundation of the Roman principate. He saw that the only remedy for the great economic evils of the day consisted in giving the land that means of supplementing the home food supply which it wholly lacked before he legislated. The sea trader did not import anything, into Attica, because Attica had nothing to give in return, says Plutarch ; and Attica required, above all, foreign corn. Solon sought that means in manufactures, which could command large profits in a world where that SOLON AND PETSISTRATOS 69 form of industry was very restricted. It was a remedy which could not take immediate eftect ; but it was the only remedy which could ultimately meet a situation as serious as any which the statesman has to meet. Solon is indeed a strange product of the sixth century before Christ. Modern criticism has reduced the personalities of some of the early legislators, whose names and reputations later Greek tradition magnified, to mere shadows on the stage of history. But Solon is a mighty personality — a person- ality which is indestructible, because its uniqueness, as recorded in the pages of Plutarch, is in its most essential traits far beyond the powers of imagination of an age which could not understand but could only record the acts which rendered it unique. The intellectual greatness of the man is as real a fact in the story of the sixth century as Salamis is in the history of the fifth. The written history of Attica from Solon to Kleisthenes, in so far as it is extant, is largely concerned with the strange vicissitudes of the family of the Peisistratidae. Peisistratos was borne into power on a wave of popular discontent. Great evils can seldom be cured within a short time ; and a period of national convalescence is a sore trial to the most patient race. The Solonian remedy required the lapse of at least one generation before its effects could be fully felt.^ After time was disposed to regard the age of the Peisistratids as a golden age. From what is known of Solon and the Peisistratidae respectively it is not perhaps unreasonable to conjecture that the former was largely re- sponsible for the impression which the period created in the tradition of after time. One thing is certain. The Attica of the closing years of the sixth century was very different from the Attica of its dawn. The poverty-stricken agri- cultural state of its opening years ^ has developed into a ^ According to (Arist.) 'a5. IIoX. the S/iTjioi/pyol seem to have been sufficiently influential in 582 to claim two seats in the college often Archons alleged to have been established in that year ; cf. Ch. 13. fir' edo^e^v) avTols 6ta to (rTa(rid^€iv ap^ovras eXstrdat SeKO, nivTe fisv evnarptdaiv, rpits 8e aypoiKwv, 8vo 5e 8rjixLovpyaiv, 2 For the original agricultural character of Attic industry cf. Thuc. ii. 14, also Plut., Them, xix., where, speaking of Themistokles' policy 70 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND manufacturing and trading state of at least second-rate im- portance among its Hellenic neighbours. Archaeological discoveries in Sicily and Italy show that whereas Attica played little if any part in the trade with the West when the century opened, it was a serious com- petitor with Corinth and Aegina before it closed. But the light which is thrown by archaeological discovery on ancient trade and manufactures within the Mediterranean area in these centuries is not shed exclusively on Attica. It makes it clear that in respect to manufactures the Greece and the Greek world of the latter part of the sixth and of the whole of the fifth century stood in relation to the world of its day in a position analogous to that occupied by Eng- land in the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century. The Greek did not indeed possess a monopoly of the Mediterranean trade : the Phoenician took good care of that ; but he held a position which the Phoenician could only contest, but with which he probably could not vie. The wealth which came from this source to some, at any rate, of the states of Greece, provided the means wherewith the inadequate food supply could be supplemented. But a more general means of attaining this end was pro- vided by the cultivation of the vine and olive. It is im- possible to make more than a guess at the original home of these valuable members of the vegetable world. They flourish at the present day all round the shores of the Mediterranean. But it is evident that in ancient times their areas of cultivation were infinitely more restricted even in that region. In the modern Algeria and Tunis the olive is a characteristic feature of the cultivated lands, whereas the prosperity of Akragas in Sicily in the sixth and fifth centuries before Christ was due mainly to its export of the products of the olive to the Carthaginian dominions. Herodotus^ preserves a curious tradition with regard to of naval and commercial expansion, Plutarch regards him as Tpoirov TLva TOLS TraXatots /Sao'tXcOtrt twv 'AdTjvaiaiv ai/ri7roXtreud/^evos. 'EKcTvot fiev yap, as XeyeruL, npayjxarevojxevoi Toiis noXiras dnoa-nda-ai rrjs 6dKd(r(rr]i, Kai (rvvedi(rai ^^v pri irXiovras, dWd ttjv ^a>pav (jiVTsiovTas, etc. ' Herod, v. 82. WINE AND OLIVE TRADE 71 Attica : ' It is said that there were olives in no other part of the world (save Attica) at this time' — he is referring, of course, to an early period. It has been suggested ^ that the story- was brought to his mind by the ancient olive in the Erech- theion at Athens. It is, however, more probable that he cited a tradition which, though not literally true in itself, preserved the fact that the cultivation of the olive, even in Greece itself, was at one time much more restricted than in his own day. Herodotus also testifies to the Greek wine trade with the Egypt of his time, though he is mistaken in his supposition that Egypt produced no wine of its own.^ But it is not necessary to resort to literary evidence in order to be convinced of the magnitude of this form of Hellenic commerce in antiquity. The great wine jars of Greek manufacture found on the sites of nearly all the cities of the Mediterranean which were approached by the trade of the Greeks in the sixth and fifth centuries afford abundant evidence that this product was a staple of their commerce. And the produce of the vine and olive continued for many ages to be the most important exports of Hellas. Even in the days of Polybius, when much of the commercial and all the political pre-eminence of Greece was a thing of the past, when the population of the land had shrunk to an enormous extent compared with its magnitude in the flourishing period of the fifth century, and when the country was consequently capable under ordinary circum- stances, it would seem, of feeding its own inhabitants, the vine and the olive continued to afford the chief articles of Greek export. ' The Pontus,^ therefore, being rich in what all the world requires for the support of life, the Byzantines are the ^ Vide note ad loc. cit. in Stein's edition. A similar tradition with regard to the originally restricted area of vine cultivation in Greece is found in AthenaeuSj ii. ; 'EKdraios S' o MiX^o-jos Ty]v ayxTrcXov iv AlraXia \iymv evpeflijj'ai, vide Hekataeus, frag. 341 in F.H.G. (Miiller) ; vide also Hellanikos, frag. 155 in F.H.G. Vide also Apollodoros, chap. 8, F.H.G. i. p. 113, which reproduces the tradition that the vine originated in Aetolia. Cf. also Diod. iv. 2. ^ Herod, iii. 6. 3 Polyb. iv. 38. 72 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND absolute masters of all such things. For those com- modities which are the first necessities of existence, cattle and slaves, are confessedly supplied by the dis- tricts round the Pontus in greater profusion and of better quality than any others : and for luxuries, they supply us with honey, wax, and salt fish in great abundance ; while they take our superfluous stock of olive oil and every kind of wine. In the matter of corn there is "a mutual interchange, they supplying it or taking it, as it happens to be convenient.' The position, the prosperity of the Greece of the fifth century, nay, the actual daily bread of its inhabitants, were absolutely dependent on its pre-eminent position in trade and manufactures with respect to the contemporary world. How absolute that dependence was is shown by the testi- mony of Pausanias. In his day Greece had lost her manufactures : had lost ^ her carrying trade : had lost her practical monopoly of the wine trade. Foreign corn would have been difficult to obtain, even had she had the means of purchasing it, for the corn supply had been diverted to Italy. Greece had fallen a victim to the Roman policy of keeping trade in Roman hands. And what was the result? The land was depopulated, in parts a deserted wilderness ; a land rich only in the ruins of the past. But these very remedies for deficiency of food supply tended to aggravate the defects which had rendered them necessary. The soil and climate of Greece are not merely peculiarly adapted to the growth of the vine and the olive, but render their products of peculiar excellence. Inexpert manufacture, in combination with modern fashion, does much to keep the Greek wine of the present day out of the best markets. But the raw product, so to speak, of the vine of Greece is not inferior, indeed is probably superior, to that of any country in the world. In the ancient world Greek wine had no rival. The quick-witted Greek culti- vator was not long in discovering this, when colonisation increased the facilities of export. It soon became clear to him that the product of an area under vine cultivation could purchase more corn than could possibly be grown PROSPERITY AND SLAVERY 73 on the same area.^ Consequently much of the land which, prior to the time at which the import of foreign corn in large quantities became possible, had been devoted to cereal cultivation, was now diverted to the cultivation of the vine,^ and, though probably to a less extent, of the olive. Thus the staple food products of Greece itself diminished in quantity. But in the sixth century the material prosperity of the majority of the Greek states must have been advancing rapidly : and, by a law of nature, growth of material prosperity means growth of population — a growth not merely due to the influx of foreigners into a land where wealth may be won, but also to the in- crease in the indigenous population resulting from that willingness to procreate children which is found among peoples whose material resources are on an ascending scale, such as promises a livelihood to all. But in the ancient world the growth of population with material prosperity was due to a third cause of a more sinister, and of a more disastrous kind. Wealth increased : and the world of that day ever tended to expend its superfluous capital on the purchase of slaves. It must not be supposed that in applying the terms 'sinister' and ' disastrous' to this mode of increase, any moral judgment on the institution of slavery is implied. That is a matter of another consideration. The practical economic effects of the system, as certain features in the history of the fifth century will show, are quite sufficient to warrant the application to it of terms so gloomy. In the fifth century the situation with respect to food supply was not, under normal circumstances, critical ; but was liable to become so at any moment. Any com- 1 In the fourth century, at any rate, the corn and wine trade passed through the usual commercial vicissitudes. Xenophon (wepX OiKovojilas) speaks of times at which the cultivation of cereals and of the vine became unprofitable for the Greek farmer, probably owing to excessive import in the case of the former, and over-production in the case of the latter. There are also other cases of excessive dearness of corn in Attica owing to corn speculations. Demosthenes, iii. 2. 271, and iii. 2. 284 segq. 2 A specific instance of this change of cultivation will be cited in the case of the Attica of the age of Peisistratos. 74 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND motion^ which interrupted sea-borne trade must have tended to create a situation of extreme gravity for those states of Greece which were practically dependent on foreign supplies. Reference has been already made to the significance of the geographical areas to which the Greek colonist resorted. Before dealing with other evidence, it may be well to speak briefly of some of the passages, both literary and in- scriptional, from which information as to the Greek corn trade may be derived. The passage from Plutarch's Solon, which has been already discussed, affords striking evidence as to the situation in Attica in the early years of the sixth century. Direct evidence on the trade is rare in authors of the fifth century. Discourses on trade questions are not found in writings of that date. The subject was banausic, and therefore to be avoided. But the reader comes across scattered passages which, either by direct reference or by implication, indicate the importance of the question. 'Poverty has ever been familiar to Greece,' ^ are words put by Herodotus into the mouth of Demaratos in an account of an imaginary conversation with Xerxes.^ The passage from Diodorus already quoted* implies per- chance that the wars with Persia had considerably em- barrassed the corn imports from the Pontus. It is most significant that the earliest operations of the patriot Greeks, after the repulse of the Persian attack in Europe, aim at the freeing of the Hellespont and the Bosphoros from Persian control. Sestos^ and Byzantion are the names ^ Cf. the evidence of Diodorus, xii. i., as to the economic condition of Greece after the Persian War of 480-479 : ' Every state of Greece was filled with such abundance that all marvelled at the contrast to the previous period. For from this time forward, for fifty years, Greece made great strides in prosperity.' 2 Herod, vii. 102. ^ TrXfiTj ^iv yap yaia KaKwv, irXei?) Sc 6aXa(Ta-a in Hesiod, Works and Days, line loi, may possibly contain a similar reference. * Vide note i on this page. ^ In 479 it was attacked by the Greek fleet as iovTos la-xvpoTarov reixos Totv raiiTT] (Herod, ix. 115)- In 411 Strombichides, the Athenian admiral, establishes Sestos as a (ppovpiov KOI (jivXaKtiv Toi navTos 'EXXi)(r7rdvrov. (Thuc. viii. 62.) Cf. also the remark with regard to Sestos attributed to Derkyllidas. Xen., MeTfi. iv. 8. 5 ■ 6r] iracra noKis 'EXXijyir S>(rT( ndvras 6avfiav Kapnau Ta)0i rats ovalms aveTpf^ov, Koi rrjv X'^'P"" fTT^rjpaxrav olKfTav KOi kttjvSiv, koI TrfS aXXi;j evbaifiovias, fieyoKas fiev \ap.pdvovTes Trpocrodovs, ovSiv Se els Tois fiu^drar ttoXc^ous dvoKlcKovrei. Herod., v. 31, speaking of Naxos at the time (circ. 500 B.C.) at which Aristagoras made his attack on it says : ' In it was much wealth and many slaves.' In ancient historical literature a large slave population is again and again mentioned in connection with some reference to the peculiar prosperity of a state or region. Of course cause and effect react upon one another. Prosperity brings the slave, and the slave brings prosperity, but in a special and restricted form. Chios, an island whose wealth was proverbial, had more slaves than any state save Lacedaemon (Thuc. viii. 40). Beloch {Die Bevdlkeru7ig, etc.) establishes with great probability the numbers of slaves in three of the great slave- owning states of Greece of the fifth century as : — Korinth — 60,000 full-grown men, 150,000 of slave class. Aegina — 70,000 „ 175,000 „ Athens — 40,000 „ 100,000 „ INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF SLAVES 99 Athens ; but in the case of Athens the increase must have been peculiarly great, in proportion to the greatness of the change in her financial position. In the world of the present day in which slavery as an institution is the exception rather than the rule, it is difficult to realise the effect of this increase on the social and economic condition of the free population of the state, and all the more so, inasmuch as the ancients regarded slavery as part of the natural order of things, and consequently accepted as natural the social and economic conditions which it entailed.^ They do not ' Note on Slavery and Free Labour. — Mr. Zimmern of New College, Oxford, has published in the Sociological Review two papers on the subject of slavery in the ancient world. I am only concerned with one of the conclusions at which he arrives. He is of opinion that the competition between free and slave labour was not so disastrous as might be imagined, and as, for instance, I represent it to be. I would point out that the difference between our views is more apparent than real. Mr. Zimmern deals with the ancient state in a normal economic condition. He does not recognise economic fluctuations from age to age. I myself have no doubt that under ordinary and normal circumstances the competition was not sufficiently great to be disastrous to free labour. But under conditions and at times of peculiar prosperity, when circumstances led to the accumulation of capital in a state, its in- vestment in slave labour was necessarily disastrous to the free labourer. And when these circumstances were combined with others, such as wars of conquest, which flooded the slave market, then the disaster was all the greater. In Athens, so long as she remains a poor or moderately wealthy state, there is no evidence of such an economic difficulty having arisen ; the evidence makes its appearance when the effects of the Solonian economic legislation begin to add largely to the wealth of the community. Moreover, owing to the use to which the slave was put in Attica, that is to say, the fact that he was employed especially in manufactures, he competed directly with that landless class which was so often an economic difficulty in ancient communities. Athens in the fifth century is a state in an abnormal economic condition ; and this led to abnormal relations between free and slave labour. The same was the case in Rome in the second and first centuries B.C. It would be obviously wrong to argue from a state of things where more or less normal conditions prevailed, to one where the conditions were admittedly abnormal ; for example, from Athens after the Macedonian conquest to Athens in the fifth century. During the greater part of the fourth century Athens maintained something like her previous condition of prosperity, and the position of the lower classes continued to be a grave economic and political difficulty. The wealthy are still wealthy enough to employ slaves in large numbers. But when Macedon shifted loo THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND therefore form the subject of contemporary description or discussion. In so far as slavery is discussed, it is as an abstract institution. Its concrete effects are accepted as facts, because they belong to an order of things which is universal in the experience of the men of that age. Hence the direct contemporary evidence on the question is rare and imperfect. The present consideration is not concerned with the abstract question, but with the effect of a large slave population on the relations of classes in ancient society in general, and in Greece and in Attica in particular. The existence of a large number of slaves within the state was inimical to the interests of the middle and lower classes, so much so that it may perhaps be said with truth that no institution had a more detrimental effect on ancient politics. In Greece especially the uses to which the slaves were put rendered them a peculiar danger to the economic condition of the population. The slave was used sparingly for domestic purposes, but was from very early times employed in manufactures and trades, and to a certain extent in agriculture. the trade centres of the world to points outside the Aegean, and established a gold standard in Mediterranean trade, then Athens ceased to profit from her geographical position and her silver mines, and the abnormal economic period came to an end with her. After this time the free labour question ceases to be acute. The question is one of degree. When capital was scarce, or slaves were dear, or both, the free labour market was not liable to be over- whelmed by imported slave labour. But when, as in Athens in the fifth century, there was capital seeking investment, the ancient capitalist, as the evidence clearly proves, invested largely in slaves. Slave labour, as inscriptions show, was only half as expensive as free labour. Let any one try to realise what 40,000 able-bodied slaves meant in the Attic labour market of the fifth century. It is impossible to find anything like a relative parallel in the modern world. Apart from all these general considerations, to what other cause can be attributed the poverty of the lower classes at Athens at a time when the prosperity of the state as a whole was most marked ? Their dwopia is attested in passages drawn from a literature written from the stand- point of those who would, had not the thing been so patent a fact, have been the last to concede to them so valid an excuse for the claims they made upon the state, and for the policy which they pursued during the time at which they controlled it. FREE AND SLAVE LABOUR loi The cheapness of slave labour tended ever to widen the extent of its employment. Furthermore, its exploitation was cheaper on a large than on a small scale ; and thus the institution in its growth promoted the interests of the large, and was adverse to the interests of the small, capitalist. The ultimate tendency was to concentrate wealth in fewer hands, and to widen, therefore, the gulf between rich and poor. The small middle-class capitalist found himself engaged in competition with the large slave-owner, always to his disadvantage, and sometimes, no doubt, to his extinction. But the lowest class of handworkers found itself exposed to a competition of a far more disastrous kind. The free labourer had to compete with the handicraft of slaves. His emoluments were reduced to a point that rendered bare subsistence a difficulty.^ This is no fancy picture of what must have been the case ; it is part of the actual records of the history of the Athens of the fifth century. The situation is clearly indicated in more than one passage in Plutarch's life of Perikles,^ as well as in passages in other works which refer to this period. Not merely were the emoluments of free labour reduced, but the field of its actual employment was immensely restricted by this competition. The large industries which in modern states provide the lower classes with a means of livelihood were worked by slaves. A similar state of things supervened in the last century of the existence of the ^ In Xen., Mem. ii. 7, is a curious passage relating to the contrast between free and slave labour. The circumstances are peculiar, but the general contrast in respect of profit between slave and free labour is emphasised : — " Ti nori eimv, ((jit), S n IL^pifiav fiev ttoXKovs Tp€(j>Q>v ov fiovov eavTa tc koItovtols TaTriT^Seia Siivarm rrape^eiv, dWa Koi wepiTTOieirat Tocravra ware Kal TrXovreiv, rrv 5e noWovs Tpitfxcv dcdoiKas p-rj St' ZvSeiav Tav fVtTJjSeifflv ajravTes aTroXTja-Bt ; "On vrj At', e0ij, 6 piv SovXovs Tp4(f>ei, iya> h'eKevBipovs." The striking feature of the passage is that Aristarchos, in this answer to Sokrates, expresses what is to him evidently a commonplace in the economy of life. 2 The passages referred to are in Plut., Perik. 9. 11. 12. The quota- tion of this particular work of Plutarch as good evidence for the fifth century is justified by the fact that expert criticism in modern times has demonstrated that this biography of Perikles is drawn from peculiarly reliable sources. 102 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND Roman republic. Rome had had economic troubles before that time, but they had not been due to slave competition ; nor had they been so grave or so widespread in their effects as were those which she had to face in the century which preceded the establishment of the Principate. Prior to the second century she had not had the means of acquiring large supplies of slave labour, and such as she had employed had been used rather for domestic than for industrial pur- poses on a large scale. The rapid expansion of the empire in the second century before Christ, and the wars which had brought about that expansion, had flooded the Italian markets with cheap slaves. The use to which they were put in cultivating large estates in Italy helped to bring about the ruin of the small cultivator in many parts of the country, and the middle-class farmer and the agricultural labourer were driven to seek in Rome a livelihood which they could no longer make in the rural districts. In Rome itself the dexterous slave-craftsman of the East proved a formidable competitor to free native handicraft. It is a far cry from Athens in the fifth century to Rome in the first century before Christ ; but the case of Rome is cited in order to show the striking way in which national pros- perity entailed social and economic difficulties in a state of society which accepted slavery as an institution. The modern world is not exempt from such difficulties, but they present themselves in a less grave form, because the com- petition of slave labour does not exist, and the experience of later times has discovered more scientific methods of meeting the social problem of actual want. But in Athens of the fifth and Rome of the first century the proportion of the population which could not maintain existence by its own labour must have been infinitely greater than in any modern state. It was an evil situation, and one aggra- vated by the fact that society had not as yet recognised the support of the indigent to be a part of social duty. It regarded it indeed as a political necessity, because of the need of keeping quiet a large and potentially turbulent element which might upset or disturb existing interests both political and economic. Rome met the difficulty by cheap corn, and, under the Principate, by control and regulation ORIGIN OF THE PERIKLEAN DEMOCRACY 103 of the corn supply. In the Athens of the fifth century a somewhat different way of meeting the situation was adopted. It is very hard to realise the sequence of circumstances and ideas which brought into being that strange political creation, the Athenian democracy of the Periklean period. What is known of it at the present day is known largely from the writings of those who regarded it as an accursed thing. The impetus which created it is commonly repre- sented as having been political — above all the monomania of the Greek for personal participation in the government of his state. But what lay behind the monomania? Was it of the nature of an hereditary trait in the Greek char- acter? Or did it originate ultimately in economic circum- stances ? It is noticeable that the great wave of democracy which spread over Greece falls within that period of pros- perity which followed the Great Persian War.^ But national prosperity meant class adversity to the mass of the poorer population. The attribution of this political move- ment to 'ideas of political liberty innate in the Greek race,' to ' a consciousness of the greatness of the part played by the proletariate in the fight for national liberty,' gives a certain picturesqueness to a professed history of the period, but fails to accord with sundry hard dry facts recorded by contemporary literature with an unconsciousness of their significance which gives the reader an assurance of their truth. The victims of an economic situation, if they be many, are not apt to remain passive under that situation. The demand for daily bread is one which is made imperatively, and which it is imperative to meet. And the men who made the demand in that day made it with a consciousness that in the state as it existed there was no machinery wherewith the demand could be met. There was no poor- law relief for the victim of circumstances or of hereditary incapacity.^ And the number of capables who were the 1 Cf. (Arist.), 'Ae. noX. 24. ' In the fifth century the support of orphans seems to have been recognised as part of the duty of the state, cf. Arist., 'A.d. IIoX. 24, ad fin. In the fourth century there is an allowance of an obol a day to the I04 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND victims of circumstances was so large as to make them conscious of their strength. The intensity of the feeling between oligarch and democrat in Greek politics cannot be rationally attributed to a mere conflict of political ideas. It was that which lay behind the ideas which provoked the feeling. The ideas implied lines of policy by which certain practical benefits might be attained — benefits which might cure the ills of practical life. Abstract ideas leave the masses unmoved unless they are the outcome of a concrete situation wherein the position of the proletariate is pre- carious or even desperate. To the Greek democrat democracy meant ultimately the maintenance of a right to live, which could not be main- tained by any other means. It may be conjectured that that quasi-instinct of political liberty which is so character- istic of the Greek resulted from life in a land where men were hard beset to find a living. It developed, indeed, into a strong growth which was largely independent of economic conditions, and which included much that was but remotely connected with them. But it is in the economic situation of the states of Greece that its roots are planted ; and its intimate connection therewith is always observable at each stage of its growth. There were two stages in the situation, each of which promoted the rise of the democratic idea. The early stage is that which prevails before the opening of the sixth century, one in which Greece has not fully solved the question of home purchasing power in rela- tion to foreign food supply. The sixth century, in the case of Attica especially, solved that problem, but in a way that gave birth to a fresh problem, certainly not less grave, and perhaps, taken in relation to the circumstances of the time, more dangerous to the social and political position in Greece. The growth of slave labour had led to a conges- tion in the labour market, such as can hardly be realised bodily incapacitated, cf. Lysias, Orat. 24, virep tov 'ASwdrow. Apart from a comparative failure to recognise the moral side of the obliga- tion, the scale upon which the problem presented itself in such states as Attica in the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ would have rendered the methods of relief practised in modern states wholly in- adequate. EVIDENCE FOR THE PENTEKONTAETIA 105 in modern times, because under circumstances as they now exist, it is hardly possible or indeed conceivable that this difificulty and danger should present itself on the same relative scale and in such an acute form.^ It was the problem of the able-bodied unemployed which the statesmen of Attica had to face in the fifth century, and this, too, in a land deficient in home food produce. The question may be asked, why, if such was really the case, the position does not stand out more sharply and more clearly in the written records of the time. The written records of the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars are notoriously defective. Of first hand contemporary evidence but little survives, save in the pages of Thucydides ; ^ and he is necessarily confined by his subject to the story of the wars and foreign relations of Athens during that period. It is doubtless the case that a good deal of contemporary evidence is enshrined in the pages of Diodorus and Plutarch ; but Plutarch is not a historian, but a biographer who wrote for an audience which wanted biography treated in a pleasant chatty form, with a sufficient leaven of moral considerations to give comfort to the serious-minded reader ; and Diodorus is little more than an annalist, and sometimes a bad one at that. It may be safely said that any evidence on economic questions which appears in the pages of Plutarch is there ' Of the number of slaves in Attica in the early years of the fifth century no record exists. It was probably large, relative to the popula- tion at the time. But this number must have increased rapidly after the great wars of 480 and 479 ; and in the earlier years of Perikles' rule it may well have been as large, relative to the population, as it was ater in the century. Beloch {Die Bevolkerung, etc., p. 95) argues that the number of full-grown male slaves in Attica in the latter part of the fifth century was 40,000, implying a slave population of about 100,000. Gernet, as already mentioned, accepts 400,000 as the number. But any number larger than 200,000 is highly improbable. It is noticeable that no less than 20,000 slaves deserted at the time of the occupation of Dekeleia, cf. Thuc. vii. 27 : Kai avSpaTrdSoi/ nXiov T\ h\io fivpiddes r]lTOfi.oKriKe Thuc. vi. 54. flKoa-Tfjv iiovov : (Arist.) 'A^. IIoX. 16. 4. Sexdnji/. 120 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND was such as to render the facilitation of the import of foreign corn a necessary article of policy to any ruler of Attica in the sixth century, especially a ruler whose paramount interest it was to keep the people quiet. Peisistratos' action with regard to Sigeion and the Chersonese was forced on him by imperative circumstances. There is a feature in the history of the time which may be connected with the policy, though the connection would hardly suggest itself to any one unacquainted with the gene- ral economic circumstances of Greece. The Dionysos cult made great progress in Attica under the Peisistratidae, and was encouraged by them in every way. The City Dionysia were first celebrated about 534. It is exceedingly probable that the spread of this cult was connected with the promo- tion of the cultivation of the vine, that means of purchase of foreign food supply which would be most effective for a rural population. Later experience showed that the Dia- kria of Attica was peculiarly suited to this cultivation. Moreover, there is one item of evidence which suggests that the cultivation was not largely carried on in Attica before Peisistratos' time. There is no mention of the produce of the vine in the Solonian law relating to exports from Attica.i The object of the law was to prevent the export of the cereal and other essential food products of the country. Had Attica possessed a wine trade in his time it is unlikely that Solon would have failed to exempt from the veto on export so valuable a means of relieving the tension of the food question. There is, then, a considerable probability that Peisistratos promoted, or even in a sense inaugurated, the Attic vine culture. The adaptability of the slopes of the Diakria for this purpose, and their unsuitableness for cereal produce, would of itself suggest the change ; and the value of such an area under vines would be infinitely greater than its value under corn.^ The effect of the change on the profits ' Plut., Solon 24 ! Tav hi yevofiivav diddecnv npos ^tvovs iXaiov /iouov ^ That this cultivation was carried on mainly on the mountain slopes of the Diakria at some distance from Athens is indicated by the fact that the earliest Attic comedy which comes into existence in the sixth MERCANTILE CLASS 121 of the cultivator would be very great indeed. By the time the fifth century is reached the rural agriculturist has ceased to be the poorest class in the state, and, with that, has ceased to be the advanced section in democratic politics. Class interests continue to rule in Athens just as afore- time. Moreover, the class interests are still local in charac- ter ; but the localities have different boundaries to what they had in the past, and classes and parties are neither in composition nor in political sentiment that which they had been in the sixth century.^ Of the progress of the development of the Paralii, — the mercantile, and, as time progressed, the manufacturing class — , the records of the period tell nothing. They were opposed to the tyranny of Peisistratos, except during the period of his second tenure, from 552 to 546 B.C. Presumably Peisis- tratos made in those years some concessions of policy in their favour; but no mention of them appears in the records. It was a powerful party. Peisistratos attained to the tyranny in 560 in consequence of its being at variance with the oligarchical party. Its reconciliation with the latter brought about his expulsion in 555. It is its leader Megakles who restores the tyrant in 552 ; and he also, after another reconciliation with the Pediaki, expels Peisistratos a second time in 546. For ten years this opposition rules the state, until it is for the time being crushed at the battle of Pallene in 536. It is a party of middle-class interests, so far as a middle class was possible in ancient society, if any judgment may be formed from the assertion of the Aristotelian treatise. That is the most remarkable fact which is known concern- ing it. It is remarkable in this way. The class, which in the fifth century is, economically speaking, its lineal descendant, is of a different political complexion. It has become ultra-democratic in its politics, and communistic in its yearnings. It has changed places with the rural cultiv- centiiry in connection with the feast of Dionysos is not admitted to Athens itself until early in the fifth century. Cf. Croiset, Arisiophane, p. 2. ' Cf. Pseudo-Xen., De Rep. Athen. ii. 14, where the S^/ios is the town class, while 01 yiap-^ovvTit Km oX n'KoiKnoi 'ASrjvaiav are classed together. 122 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND ator. In point of fact no specific evidence exists as to the steps by which this strange evolution was brought about, and the gaps in the record must be filled in by means of conclusions drawn from the results which such circum- stances as are known would be calculated to produce under the conditions of ancient social life. Both the agricultural class on the one hand, and the mercantile and manufactur- ing class on the other, increased greatly in prosperity during the sixth century. In the case of the former there is no evidence that the prosperity advanced or retrograded under normal circumstances in the fifth century. But there is overwhelming evidence that the aggregate wealth of the mercantile and manufacturing classes increased rapidly in that period owing to the deliberate trade policy pursued at the time. It is therefore, at first sight, startling to find that the class discontent and distress in that century exists not in the agricultural but in the manufacturing section of the Athenian state, above all, among the handworkers. It is almost certain that the difference is due to a difference in the distribution of wealth within the respective classes. Among the rural community it was far more equal than among the manufacturing and mercantile population. But the ultimate cause was that, whereas the wealth of the rural population, having reached a certain point, could not rise greatly above it, the wealth of the mercantile and manufac- turing class possessed far greater possibilities of expansion. The capitalist could not develop among a rural population of small landowners and tenants. The cultivator had no capital to expend on slave labour. Even had he had it, the limited area of cultivable land in Attica could not conceiv- ably have supplied a field for the exploitation of slave labour in agriculture on a large scale, such as developed in Italy in the second century before Christ. Consequently the free labourer of the rural districts was not crushed, at any rate, by the competition of slave labour. That does not necessarily imply that he was free from such competition. It may be, probably was, the case that some of the rural population was driven into the town ; but, if Thucydides be a reliable witness in the matter, this migration cannot have taken place to any large extent, for he expressly says that EVOLUTION OF THE MERCANTILE CLASS 123 at the time of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, ' most of the Athenians still lived in the country with their families and their households.' 1 It is also noticeable that the policy of pay for public services inaugurated in the fifth century is run on lines which aim at the amelioration of the condition of the urban rather than of the rural population. In the earliest part of the sixth century the rural population had suffered from poverty and distress, while the town and coast popula- tion had enjoyed, it would seem, a competence for the provision of daily bread, at any rate after the Solonian ordinances had begun to take effect. How came it that the position was reversed in the fifth century ? There is only one cause to which the change can be attributed, the exploitation of slave labour by the mercantile, and above all, by the manufacturing class. This class is growing rapidly in wealth and importance in the sixth century ; but in the first stages of its development it is a class of which each member can profit from the growth of its prosperity. The employer has not as yet accumulated large capital. He works on a small scale. He forms a comparatively numerous section in the manufacturing community. He has not as yet the capital to expend on slave labour, and therefore must give employment to the free citizen. This, together with the improvement in the condition of the rural population, is that which made the last years of Peisistratos seem a Golden Age. But the economic development of the country was proceeding with great rapidity. The abler and more fortunate employers were doubtless accumulating capital with a ruthlessness characteristic of an age when men see, or think they see, the avenues to unheard-of wealth open to them, characteristic too of a social system in which the sentiment of humanity only appealed to those who had themselves reason to appeal to it. Many of the smaller employers must have gone to the wall. But, far worse than this, the capitalist began to purchase and employ slave labour. The free labourer was gradually thrust out of employment, and the number of able-bodied unemployed or half-employed must have increased with great rapidity in the last years of the 1 I. Thuc. ii. 16. 124 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND sixth and the first years of the fifth century. The magni- tude of the evil is best attested by the fact that, before the middle of the fifth century was reached, the political con- trol of the state passed into the hands of this needy class which the economic developments of the sixth century had brought into existence. SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS CONCLUSIONS 125 CHAPTER VI ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY IN ATTICA B.C. SIC TO B.C. 462 It may be well at this point in the story to sum up briefly the conditions the existence of which it has been sought to establish with reference to the economic circumstances pre- vailing in Greek lands : — (i) Greece generally, and Attica in particular, was dependent largely on foreign corn for its food supply. (2) The Greek states had by the fifth century solved the problem of the means of purchase of such supply by the promotion of the carrying and export trade, and by acquiring the control of two of the great regions of food production in the Mediterranean world. (3) A great increase of wealth in Attica, in the sixth and early years of the fifth century, had led to the purchase and exploitation of slave labour on a large scale, especially in manufactures. (4) The slave labour, especially when exploited by the capitalist, competed with the free labour of the lower classes to the great disadvantage of the latter. (5) It further tended to the disadvantage of the small middle class capitalist, and led consequently to the diminution of that grade in the population which could never be large in a state of society in which the professions which so largely support the middle class of modern states were partly or wholly undeveloped. 126 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND (6) The evidence for the position of the lower classes is small in quantity, because — {a) The general extant evidence for the history of Greece up to 431 is, with the exception of that for the years 480 and 479, very deficient. {b) When the attention of writers began to be directed to the subject, the main circum- stances existent in their day had existed for a long time past, and were therefore regarded as normal — a natural condition of things which called for little or no comment ; and, furthermore, to the main circumstances originally existent had been added other circumstances which distorted men's view of the original state of things. (7) The evidence is for the most part that of writers who are writing in the interests of a class which is smarting under a bitter sense of injustice at the hands of the Athenian proletariate. It is the incidental admissions in this hostile evidence which render it possible for the modern reader to realise the general economic situation in Attica in that earlier half of the fifth century with whose problems Themistokles, Aristides, Kimon, and Perikles had to deal. Even if no direct evidence on the question existed, certain marked features of the political history of Athens in the latter years of the sixth and the early years of the fifth century would suggest to one who studied comparative history that the Athenian state was at the time in a position of great economic difficulty. The political convulsions of that time are too fierce to be accounted for by a mere conflict of abstract ideas : the great political changes which are brought about within it, in spite of fierce opposition, could only have been carried through by men whose material interests were at stake. The interval between the expulsion of the tyrants and Marathon is one in which a desperate political struggle is going on between aristocrat and democrat.^ It is marked by many vicissitudes and changes ' The reconstruction of the history of this twenty years has been ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 127 of fortune. Marathon decided the struggle for the moment in favour of the aristocrat. But it was only for the moment. There comes a dim period of ten years in the midst of one of the most brilliant epochs of Greek History. The internal political history of Athens in those years is almost entirely lost to the modern world. The substantial extant evidence for it might almost be compressed within one single page of print. The rest of its story as now written is founded upon conjecture. One thing is certain. The Athenian proletariate is at the end of those ten years in a very different political position from that in which it was when the decade opened. It has not attained to its full power, but it is well on its way towards that end. Another significant feature of this period is the close coincidence of the lines of cleavage of classes and parties, a coincidence which Kleisthenes sought to abolish, but which continued so long as Attica had a history of its own. Such lines of cleavage always tend to coincide ; but in any state where the coincidence is peculiarly close, there is reason for a strong presumption that economic causes of a serious character underlie the politics of the time. He who seeks to unravel the political narrative of these years is conscious that there is something lurking in the dark background, which, if it could be discerned, would go far to explain that which is incomprehensible in the imperfect story of the political events. It is in the economic situation that the explanation is to be sought. Much has been already said of the great economic change which had come over Attica in the sixth century — how she entered upon it in the guise of a purely agricultural state, and issued from it with a considerable position in the contemporary world of trade and manu- facture. At first, no doubt, the Attic proletariate had been greatly benefited by Solon's measures. He solved, at any rate, the question of the means of purchase of foreign food for an overabundant home population. Moreover, the ably carried out by Mr. J. A. R. Munro in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xix. Part ii., 1899. I have built upon the foundation of the evidence furnished by him in chapter iv. of my book The Great Persian War. 128 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND Athenian democracy, by its employment in manufactures and the merchant service, possessed in its own person the means of purchase. But wealth began to accumulate, and was invested ever more largely in that form of property which was most profitable in the manufacturing state of the ancient world — the slave. Competition with slave labour was impossible for the free proletariate which lived by the work of its hands.^ The ranks of the unemployed or inadequately employed must have been swelled rapidly. Hand labour became associated with slavery. P^or the ^ The cost of free labour at Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries has been treated of by Professor Jevons in the Joiirnal of the Hellenic Society, 1895. In the fifth century {vide CI. A. i. 335) a labourer's wages seem to have been i drachma a day. From C.I.A. i. 324, which relates to the accounts for the building of the Erechtheion in 408-7 B.C., the same conclusion may be drawn. In the fourth century (cf. C.I.A. n. ii., 834 B. and c.) from the year 329 B.C. onward, the wages of the unskilled labourer appear to have been i\ drachmas (9 obols) a day, while a skilled labourer (carpenter) received lof obols, and a bricksetter as much even as 25 drachmas. Thus the annual cost of a free labourer in the fifth century was 360 drachmas, and in the fourth 540 drachmas. From C.I.A. II. ii., 834 B. and c. (quoted above) the cost of food for a slave was 3 obols a day, = 180 ds. per ann. We may reckon clothing and incidental expenses, = 50 ds. „ „ And interest on purchase money at 12 per cent., = 40 ds. „ „ Total, 270 ds. per ann. Even if a reserve fund for insurance or death be added, there is still a great discrepancy between the cost of free and slave labour. But such an addition is not necessary, because the slave's peculium fell to the master on death or manumission. Thus in the fourth century the cost of slave labour was just half that of free labour ; and it is probable that in the fifth century the proportion was much the same. That slave labour did not drive free labour completely out of the field is shown by these inscriptions. It is probable that in the fourth century the supply did not altogether meet the demand ; and, in the departments of handicraft where special skill was required, the dexterous Greek would hold his own. But, on the mere question of comparative cost, slave labour must have been a most disastrous competitor with the labour of the free man ; and much of the latter must have been driven out of the labour market. Moreover, this conclusion accords with the evidence of the author of the 'Adrjvmav noXirf la, of Plutarch, and of Xenophon ; and it may be presumed that these writers had at least as good evidence on the subject as we can produce at the present day. ECONOMIC SITUATION 510-490 B.C. 129 freeman/ it lost its dignity as well as its emoluments. The situation must have soon become acute. It constituted a political danger of the gravest character; and, though those who did not suffer from the circumstances failed at first, as men usually do, to realise a situation of gradual growth, yet some would appreciate it. Even men of dull intelligence do not require telling that poverty and actual want, if widespread in a community, mean, unless remedied, a revolution serious in proportion to the duration of the ill condition of things. It was the political rather than the moral aspect of the question which made an effective appeal to the ancient mind ; and it was therefore on political rather than purely social lines that the men of the ancient world sought a remedy. Of the economic history of these years there exists no direct evidence, and very little even of an indirect kind from which conclusions may be drawn. Nevertheless there can be little doubt that they were years of critical significance in the history of the Athenian state. It is only in recent times that their political history has been re- constituted, a history which has at last given the clue to the otherwise incomprehensible story of Marathon. It was a period of intense struggle, wherein the fortunes of the two parties engaged underwent rapid vicissitudes. In the fragmentary evidence which survives to us the struggle appears as purely political, a contest for the mastery between parties which have different ideas as to the best form of government for the state. But the political struggles of the previous period, from Solon to the expulsion of Hippias, had been ultimately based upon economic questions ; and it is, to say the least of it, improbable that with the cessation of the tyranny the economic causes of dispute also ceased to exist ; in fact, the conclusions which have been already drawn as to the economic situation at the close of the Peisistratid period would suggest that economic questions would be likely to play a prominent part in the politics of 1 It is doubtless from a fifth-century writer that Plutarch borrowed the expression which he uses with regard to Solon : rals rexvaXs a^iajia irepieOrjKe (Ch. 22), implying a regretful contrast between the present day and the past. I I30 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND the succeeding age. In order to arrive at an understanding of the situation which Themistokles and the statesmen of Athens in the fifth century had to meet, it will be necessary to consider briefly the facts which are known concerning the twenty years of political and, it may be added with certainty, of economic transition which intervened between the expulsion of Hippias and Marathon. It is permissible, perhaps, to recall that estimate of the economic situation at the close of the Peisistratid period, which has been given in the previous chapter. The landed aristocracy continued to exist ; but, in consequence of the confiscations of the later days of Peisistratos' rule, in smaller numbers than aforetime. They formed, no doubt, the nucleus, if not the majority, of the oligarchical party in the state : a party strong in influence, but so small in numbers that it could not hope, under anything resembling a demo- cratic constitution, to control the affairs of the state, except by means of the support of others of less extreme views. The yeomen and tenant farmers of Attica formed the class which had brought Peisistratos into power, and whose interests that 'tyrant' had vigorously supported and pro- moted. Moreover, his support seems to have been extra- ordinarily enlightened and successful ; for, whereas at the beginning of his rule it is the distressed and discontented class in the state, it is from his time onward in a con- dition of at least adequate prosperity. Furthermore, the change in its economic circumstances had brought about a change in its political ideas. At the beginning of the sixth century it is the extreme democratic section of the time, the ' men of the coast ' forming the ' Middle Party ' ; whereas at the end of the sixth and during the fifth century it is the section of moderate views, inclining indeed to democracy, but not to democracy in its extreme form. But it is the Paralii, the men of the coast, who supply the great paradox in the development of the situation in the sixth century. At the beginning they are the moderate section in politics, under the leadership of Megakles the Alkmaeonid. Nor can there be any doubt that the wealth of the section, if taken in the aggregate, increased CHANGES IN THE POLITICS OF CLASSES 131 enormously. Yet it changed its politics during the period, and issued from it as a party of extreme democratic views such as are associated throughout Athenian history with economic discontent, if not distress. This apparent paradox can only be accounted for on the assumption that the wealth which had accrued to this section of the population had tended to accumulate in the hands of the few: that a capitalist class had sprung into existence in it and yet not of it, which tended ever more and more to employ slave labour in those trades and manufactures which had brought wealth to the ' men of the coast.' It is, of course, the case that, in the absence of evidence, it is an assump- tion to assert that the paradoxical politics of this class in the last years of the sixth and during the fifth century were due to the fact that the majority of it was embarrassed by the disastrous competition of slave labour ; but there is explicit evidence for its distressed condition in the earlier half of the fifth century, and no other assump- tion can account for that communistic democracy which is so characteristic of it during both the fifth and fourth centuries. Such, then, appears to have been the economic position at the time of the expulsion of Hippias. The situation of the handicraftsmen had not probably become so acute as it became later ; but it was sufficiently acute to influence the politics of the time. Economic evolution pursues a smoother course than that of politics, because its development is less under the control of the will of man. PoHtically speaking, the expulsion of Hippias was a revolution ; but there is no reason to suppose that it had any noticeable immediate effect on economic development. The Alkmaeonidae, the leaders of the men of the coast, of the trading class in the community, had been instigators of the expulsion. Sparta had carried it out from various motives which can only be conjectured, but certainly with the expectation that it would lead to the re-establishment of the old aristocratic regime. In that she was grievously disappointed. She had under- estimated the power of democracy in the developed Athenian state. 132 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND The political story of these twenty years indicates that the balance between the two parties in the state was at the time somewhat finely adjusted, so much so that a slight addition of weight to either side of the scale trans- ferred the control of the state policy from one side to the other. Despite the lack of contemporary evidence there can be little doubt as to the general nature of the parties which were opposed to one another in this struggle. They are commonly spoken of as Aristocratic and Democratic. Taken literally, the names are misleading. The Aris- tocratic party cannot have been wholly aristocratic ; nor were all the democrats contained in the Democratic party. In point of fact there seem to have been three parties in the state : the Aristocratic, composed for the most part of the large land-holding class : the Moderate Demo- crats, recruited mainly from the yeoman and tenant farmer class, a section which, in spite of its democratic ideas, had that conservative tendency characteristic of a class which is, on the whole, in a satisfactory economic condition : the Extremists, or Ultra-democrats, composed mainly of the old Paralii, and especially of the population of the capital and its neighbouring ports. This class was certainly seeking some relief from its position at the time ; and a conjecture has already been made as to what that position was. The numerical paucity of the purely aristocratic section forbids us to entertain the belief that it could have held its own unaided against the extreme democrats ; and it would indeed seem that the clue to the political balance of the time lies in the existence of a coalition between it and the moderate and contented conservative democrat of the rural districts. Moreover, this coalition seems to have been more or less of a permanent character during the fifth century, and to have actually controlled the state policy between the years 477 and 462. There are, no doubt, occasions and even brief periods during which moderate democracy sided with extreme democracy ; but, on the whole, the alliance between aristocracy and moderate democracy during the fifth century seems to have had a singular permanence. Even at the risk of anticipating POLITICAL EVENTS 510-490 B.C. 133 history, it may be said that this permanence was probably due rather to economic than political causes, a combination of the monetarily contented against the communistic policy of the necessitous. The political story of these twenty years has to be constituted, in so far as it can be written, from a series of incidents in Athenian history. The struggle began immediately after the expulsion of Hippias. It was characterised by the way in which the opposing parties sought for external support. The Aristocratic section relied on the disillusioned Sparta, which was only too anxious to remedy the mistake she had made in serving the interests of the Alkmaeonidae, and was probably well aware that sentiment combined with numerical weakness would guarantee the fidelity of an Aristocracy ruling in Attica to Spartan interests. This alliance continued throughout the fifth century, to the very small profit of either side. For the time being, however, it placed the Democrats in a difficulty. It made it necessary for them to seek abroad for means of aid to counterbalance the powerful support which Sparta could give to their opponents. Such aid could not be found in the Greece of that day. Not one of its states was powerful enough to neutralise the strength of the Lacedaemonian assistance. So the Democrats sought in Persia that support which they could not find among their own race. This alliance proved as ineffective as that which their opponents had made ; nay, more than that, it very nearly led to a disaster fatal to the very existence of the state. Those who deem it strange and incredible that such an alliance should ever have been contemplated are misled by the tendency to read into the period before Marathon the sentiments which the Greeks entertained towards Persia from 490, and especially from 480 onwards. But those feelings were the creation of a war which had yet to be fought, and of a literature as yet to be written. From the Scythian expedition up to that of Mardonius in 492, Persia must have presented herself to the eyes of the European Greek as a power which did not entertain large designs in Europe. Nor was the 134 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND semi-abortive expedition of 492 calculated to bring about a modification of that opinion.^ It is possible, on examination of the recorded incidents of these twenty years to see that they are characterised by numerous changes in the predominance of parties within the state. The power of the Democrats was shown in the first few years by the passing of the Constitution of Kleisthenes. But the repeated interference of Sparta made these years a period of political confusion. The embassy to Artaphernes, which was probably sent about the year 507, must have been despatched at a time when the Democrats were controlling the policy ; but the censure passed on it when it returned was probably the work of the opposite party. From about 506 to 499 the Democrats would seem to have been predominant, otherwise Sparta's action in stirring up a serious war against Attica, and in proposing the restoration of Hippias, is unaccountable. ' It will, perhaps, be well to catalogue in a note the various incidents between 510 and 490 B.C. which appear to be of significance for the contemporary party history of Athens. It must be understood that the dates given can only be regarded as approximate : — 510. Expulsion of Hippias by the Spartans. 508. Constitution of Kleisthenes. 508-7. Second Spartan expedition to support Isagoras. 507. Democrats seek alliance with Persia, and the ambassadors offer earth and water to Artaphernes at Sardis. 507. Sparta in alliance with Thebes and Chalkis attacks Athens. Fall of Chalkis. Athenian Kleruchs planted there. Between 506-499. Sparta proposes to the congress of the allies the reinstatement of Hippias. Corinth opposes the proposal successfully. 499. Aid given to the Ionian rebels. 499-8. That aid withdrawn. 496. Hipparchos, a Peisistratid, archon. 493. Phrynichos' play The Capture of Miletus. 493-2. Phrynichos fined. 493. Return of Miltiades from the Chersonese. 493. Miltiades prosecuted for tyranny and acquitted. 493-2. Themistokles archon. 491. Athenians persuade Kleomenes to interfere in Aegina. 490. 'Treachery' at Athens at the time of Marathon. Alkmaeonidae and the Democrats in collusion with Persia. POLITICS 499-490 B.C. 13s But the aid sent to the Ionian rebels in 499 cannot have been a measure promoted by the philo-Medic Democrat. Presumably, therefore, the Aristocrats controlled the policy of the moment. But there is a quick change and reversal of policy. The aid is withdrawn, probably at the instance of the Democratic party. From 498 to 493, Democracy seems to have been pre- dominant. But the election of a Peisistratid as archon in 496 indicates, in all probability, a modification in its policy. Whether because Persia insisted upon it, or because the Democrats were alarmed at the strength which Aristocracy displayed, they seem to have found it necessary to accept the restoration of the ' tyranny ' as part, at any rate, of their means of salvation. Doubtless the 'tyranny' they contemplated was one which should be exercised just as much in the interests of their class as the previous one had been exercised in the interests of rural cultivators. The presence of Hippias in 490 seems to indicate that, whether willingly or unwillingly, they had come to recognise his restoration as a necessary part of their programme. The year 493 seems to have been a critical one in politics. At its opening, at any rate, Democracy is predominant. Phrynichos is fined for a play which was evidently regarded as a bitter criticism on the policy which had withdrawn aid from the Ionian revolt. Themistokles is elected archon for 493-2. But in that same year Miltiades returned from Chersonese, and thereby gave the Aristocratic party a leader of prestige such as it required. He was attacked by the Democrats by means of prosecution, and acquitted. His acquittal must have been reckoned a great victory for Aristocracy. From this time until Marathon that party seems to have been in power ; in fact it probably remained in power until the ill-fated expedition of Miltiades to Paros. It has been necessary to speak in the course of the last few pages of parties being 'predominant' and 'in power' at Athens. These terms, borrowed from the party history of modern times, are calculated to convey a wrong impres- sion to any one who fails to realise the peculiar nature of the circumstances under which party power was exercised in a city state with a democratic constitution such as that of 136 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND Athens. The fundamental idea of ancient democracy was that each citizen should participate personally in the government of the state by membership of the Assembly.! Personal attendance at its meetings was absolutely requisite for the exercise of this right, inasmuch as the principle of representation was not recognised. In the initial stage of free communities the principle worked, no doubt, satisfactorily; but as the communities became larger this form of assembly became to a greater or less degree an anomaly. It was a question of distance and em- ployment. The rural dweller, situated far, may be, from the centre where the assembly met, could not, on the mere question of distance and time, afford to attend many of its meetings. The result was that the larger the state grew, the less representative became the attendance ; in fact the legislative power tended to pass more and more under the control of that section of the people which resided in the immediate neighbourhood of the place of meeting. In the case of Attica this defective feature in the constitution of the city state had peculiar and important influence on its political and economic history. The normal policy must have been largely controlled during the greater part of the fifth century by the town population of Athens and Piraeus, and this despite the fact which is stated by Thucydides that even at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War the majority of the population of Attica resided in the country. From the date of the foundation of the Delian League to the revolution of Ephialtes this control is not so marked ■ but there were at that time, as will be seen, special economic reasons which induced the town population, or, at any rate, the discontented section of it, to side with the policy which Aristides and Kimon promoted. From about 462 until the establishment of the Tyranny of the Thirty, the policy of 1 Majority in the Athenian Assembly. — Apart from permanent circum- stances, incidental circumstances might have a decisive influence on the majority in Athenian politics. The success of the attack on the Areo- pagos must have been largely due to the absence of 4000 hoplites with Kimon in Messenia. In like manner the prospect of Alkibiades being acquitted on the charge of participating in the mutilation of the Hermae must have been greatly prejudiced by the absence of manyof his followers on board the fleet. Cf. E. Meyer, Forschungen, 1899, p. 54. HERODOTUS AND KLEISTHENES 137 Athens is practically that of the urban element in the population. During the twenty years from 5 10 to 490 B.C. the urban stood without doubt in a much smaller ratio to the rural population than it did in the days of Thucydides. Athenian trade and trade interests had not attained the development of fifty years later. Hence it would be less difficult for the Aristocrats and Moderates to secure a majority at a meet- ing of the Ekklesia. Still, as might indeed be expected, the establishment of anything resembling a permanent majority, — one which could be relied on at every meeting, — must have been almost impossible. It is not surprising therefore that during this period the apparent predominance of parties within the state is marked by frequent change. The surviving history of these twenty years is so purely incidental that it would be unreasonable to hope for much in- formation on the economic question — a subject upon which the evidence, even during periods about which more is known, is never large in quantity before the fourth century is reached. There exists in the pages of Herodotus some curious in- formation with regard to the Kleisthenic constitution. It is im- plied that Kleisthenes the Alkmaeonid promulgated that con- stitution with a view to winning the support of the democracy, and by 'democracy' is obviously meant that section from which the ultra-democrats of the next century were politically descended.^ The motive given is that he found Isagoras and his followers too strong for him. The same motive is attributed to him in the Aristotelian treatise on the Athenian constitution,^ but the account of the matter in that work is obviously drawn from Herodotus. The question arises whether Herodotus is correct on this point. The Aristotelian treatise states that the Alkmaeonidae were the leaders of 'moderate' democracy in the earlier part of the sixth century.^ But those ' moderate' democrats of that period, the Paralii, are the political ancestors of the extreme democrats of the fifth century ; and the story of the twenty years to Marathon indicates that the extreme democrats of the days of Kleisthenes were the same section ^ Herod, v. 66, rov fi^/xoi/ irpotreTaipL^eTai. " (Arist.) 'Ad. noX. 20. 3 (Arist.) 'AB. noX. 13. 138 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND as the extremists of the Marathonian period, and of the re- mainder of the fifth century. It is possible, therefore, that Herodotus has made a mistake with regard to one factor of the situation at the time, and that Kleisthenes legislated on behalf of and supported by that class, and not with a view to win its support. Why should the Alkmaeonid seek to win the support of a class whose support, so far as is known, he had never lost? It was a class which had at first pro- fited and then suffered by the results of the Solonian reforms under the Peisistratid rigime, and which had conse- quently become extremist in political ideas. This change in the political views of classes in Attica in the sixth century, though clearly implied in the Aristotelian treatise, is not noticed by the compiler of that work. For the sixth century history he is dependent on Herodotus ; for that of the fifth century he goes elsewhere. Nor was it a matter which would be of profound interest to Herodotus, who, apart from the question of interest, does not display much knowledge of the general political complexion of the classes in Attica prior to Kleisthenes. Doubtless he regarded the extreme democrat of the earlier half of the fifth century as the direct political descendant of the extreme democrat of the first half of the sixth. In respect to ideas he was so to a certain extent. In respect to class he was not. One historical difficulty seems to have been recognised, at any rate, by the author of the Aristotelian treatise. The Alkmaeonid family led a moderate political section in the sixth, but an extreme section in the fifth century. Herodotus sought to account for the difference by a special interpretation of the intent of the political reforms of Kleisthenes. The probable truth is that the Alkmaeonidae were far more attached to a class, and, in a sense, to a locality, in Attica, than to any set political creed. But it is not possible to draw definite conclusions as to the economic intent of the Kleisthenic reforms, because there is no certain evidence as to the circumstances under which they were carried ; and consequently the main clue to their intent is lacking. Relative to later developments the form of democracy established was of a moderate character. It may be that the moderate character of the REFORMS OF KLEISTHENES 139 constitution was due to the necessity of winning support outside that section in politics of which the Alkmaeonids were leaders. It may be that Kleisthenes took a states- manlike view of the necessity for fusing the various interests, economic and political, in the reconstituted state, and sought this end by the new tribal organisation, and, above all, by the power which was given to the new Council of Five Hundred organised on the new tribal basis. But what- ever the intent and effect of these measures may have been, the legislative power lay ultimately in that Ekklesia, which was not affected by the new tribal arrangements, but which would of necessity be controlled under normal cir- cumstances by the urban section of the population, a section composed largely of the class upon which the economic circumstances of the time were beginning to press. This would afford some sort of guarantee against the state falling once more under the control of that rural population, which had supported the rule of the Peisistratids ; and that doubtless was the immediate aim of Kleisthenes. But it would also bring ultimately into existence the position of affairs prevalent during the greater part of the next century, in virtue of which the needy element in the urban population was enabled to use the resources of the state for its own profit. But extant records contain evidence with regard to certain modifications in the terms of the tenure of the citizenship which are attributed either to Kleisthenes, or, at any rate, to this immediate period.^ The first measure is a revision of the lists of citizens, resulting in the exclusion of those who had not the proper qualifications. In the Aristotelian treatise this is set down to the period ' after the deposition of the tyrants,' by which is meant presumably the years immediately succeeding the expulsion of Hippias. In the Politics,^ however, Aristotle ascribes to Kleisthenes a measure of a contrary tendency — the enrolment of a ' number of foreigners, slaves, and resident aliens in the tribes.' It has been sought to ex- plain away the difficulty by assuming a volts-face of policy on the part of Kleisthenes and the democrats. But, 1 (Arist.) 'A5. IIoX. 13. 2 Arist., Politics, iii. 3. 140 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND if there was such a volte-face, which of the two measures came first ? The question also arises whether the revision of the citizen Hst, which is not ascribed to any particular statesman or party, was the work of Kleisthenes. The evidence is so defective, that it is impossible to do more than guess at what may have been the case. It may be that the admission of extraneous elements to the citizen- ship came first, and that it was a political measure taken with a view to strengthening the democratic following of the Alkmaeonidae. Later, — how much later cannot be said, — when the pressure of economic circumstances became more marked, it was sought to diminish the prospective obligations of the state with reference to the growing class of needy citizens. This was at any rate the intent of that revision of the citizen list which dates from about the year 445. It is possible, in other words, that this latter measure was a quasi repeal on economic grounds of a measure which had been taken from motives of political opportunism. There is, however, the further possibility that these measures, though^hey appear to follow opposite lines of policy, were part of one economic scheme, similar to that sketched in the fourth-century treatise of Xenophon — a scheme for the sup- port, or practical support, of the Athenian population by means of revenue drawn from alien traders resident in Attica. The remainder of the story of these twenty years, so far as it is known, throws very little light on the economic situation. The participation of Chalkis in the war of 506, and the troubles between Athens and Aegina, suggest that the expansion of Athenian trade was em- barrassing some of the older mercantile states. That the pressure of population was beginning to be felt at Athens, or rather that the circumstances of a certain element in the population were such as required relief, is suggested by the settlement of 4000 Athenian kleruchs in the lands of the Hippobotai in the year 506 B.c.^ It is not until the closing years of the period that any further fact of economic significance appears upon the record. The archonship of Themistokles in 493-2, however, is the commencement of a new era of economic policy. 1 Herod, v. 77. THEMISTOKLES 141 The personality of Themistokles looms large in the his- tory of the fifth century. It is, therefore, somewhat hard to realise, without a close examination of the evidence, how very little is really known of the part which he played as a statesman in Athens itself Certain acts of his, certain facts with regard to him, are well accredited. The rest of his life is a blank, save that every now and then it is possible to form somewhat important conjectures from apparently trivial facts recorded of him. Herodotus confines himself practically to the record of one year of his life. Thucydides, in a digression from his main narrative, deals with one or two incidents of his later life, and describes his personality in a passage unrivalled as a word picture of intellectual genius. Plutarch's life of him is singularly thin ; in fact he has little to tell except what he has gathered from the authors already mentioned. Both in it and in the life of Aristides he emphasises the opposition and contrast between the two statesmen ; but he just fails to say wherein the con- trast essentially lay, except in so far as the difference of the personalities of the two men is concerned. The purely biographical details of Themistokles' career need not be recorded in a chapter which is concerned with the economic question of his day ; and all that will be attempted here is to arrive at some conclusion as to his attitude on that question. His prominence in politics seems to date from before Marathon. Unfortunately for the present purpose, the little that is told of him and his doings before the year 480 is mainly concerned with the line which he took in reference to the danger from Persia. But, as has been already said, he appears on the political stage before Marathon, if, as seems to be the case, the Themistokles whom Dionysius of Halikarnassos mentions as archon in 493-2 is identical with him. The language of Thucydides supports the identification.^ He must therefore have played a prominent part in at least the later of those ^ Thuc. i. 93. 3. ETTCKTC Se Kai Toi Hiipaims ra \onra 6 6f/iioTOKX^f olKobofielv virrjpKTO d' avTOV irporepov eiri rrjs ekelvov ap^rjs rjs kut' iviavTov 'Adrjuaiois rjp^e. The names of the archons from 496 are 142 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND twenty years of political turmoil in Athens which intervened between the expulsion of the tyrants and Marathon. Themistokles' name as a statesman is, of course, most closely associated with the policy of enlarging the Athenian fleet, one which he seems to have advocated from the beginning of his political career. With this is ultimately associated the design of making Piraeus the main centre of Attic life. Were not the records of Greek history, save those of the years 480 and 479, so exceedingly defective before the date of the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, it might be accounted extraordinary that so little is really known of the details of the public life of this remarkable man. It is, indeed, only of the main lines of his policy that any knowledge survives. Plutarch's life of him is, in respect to matter, very meagre. Herodotus and Thucydides were only called upon to record special phases of his career. But there are apparent in the extant records hints of a special department of his policy, associated indeed with the main lines of it, and yet possessing a significance of its own. He seems to have taken peculiar interest in promoting the connection of Attica with Sicily, Italy, and the west generally. There are various fragments of evidence showing his relations both with the western Greek world and with that north-west corner of Greece which was so important for those who would use the route westwards. Herodotus puts into his mouth at Salamis^ a threat that the Athenians will migrate to Italiot Siris, which he asserts to be an old possession of Athens.^ He gave his daughters the remarkable names of Sybaris and Italia.^ The possible story of his shutting out Hieron from the games at Olympia,* and the impossible story of his taking refuge with Hieron in his exile,^ point to the belief that known, with the exception of those of 486-5 and 482-1, and the-name of Themistokles only appears in 493-2. It must therefore be almost certain that it is to this year that Thucydides refers. Cf. Busolt, Gr. Gesch. ii. p. 642, note. ' Herod, viii. 62. 2 Plut., Them. 32. ^ piut^ Them. 25. " Plut., Them. 24. '" The story of his visit to Hiero, though almost certainly untrue, may have arisen from the fact that, when he fled west, he intended to go to Hiero. If so, Hiero's death in 467 B.C. may have changed his plans. WESTERN POLICY OF THEMISTOKLES 143 Sicily and Italy filled a large place in his thoughts and in those of his countrymen. His mother is alleged to have been an Akarnanian ^ — a possibly untrue tradition, but one which points to a belief in his close connection with north- west Greece. He was a benefactor of Corcyra,^ and sought to take refuge there after his expulsion from Athens;^ but the Corcyraeans, anxious to be rid of an embarrassing guest, set him upon the opposite mainland, 'where,' says Thucydides, 'he was compelled to take refuge with Admetos, the Molossian King, though they were not on friendly terms.' These are obviously fragments of a lost chapter in history, and a very important chapter too. Plutarch tells more about Corcyra and the Molossian King.* Themistokles, he says, had been an arbitrator in a dispute between Corcyra and Corinth, and had decided against Corinth. He had also, when in power at Athens, opposed a request which Admetos made to the Athenians.^ The evidence is unsatisfactory, because it gives us a glimpse of important events, but leaves us in the dark as to the far more important causes lying behind them. But it does indicate that Themistokles had views, and probably a policy, with regard to Athenian enterprise in the West. Before attempting to arrive at any general conclusions as to the aims of the general policy of Themistokles, it is necessary to examine such interpretations of his policy with respect to the enlargement of the fleet and the estab- lishment of the port of the Piraeus as are to be found in ancient authors. Diodorus^ ascribes it to the desire to attain to the hegemony on the sea. He further attributes to him the aim of liberating the Ionian Greeks of Asia and bring- ing them under Athenian control ; and, moreover, of secur- ing the command of the islands of the Aegean. There can be no doubt that there lies behind this a policy of commercial expansion. But that does not appear to have been the whole intent of the design, and the existence of a second element in it, of which there is evidence in ancient authorities, may perhaps raise the question whether 1 Cornel. Nepos, Them. i. ^ Thuc. i. 136. 3 Plut., Them. li,. ^ Plut., Them. 24. 6 Plut., Them. 34. * Diod. xi. 41. 144 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND the policy of commercial expansion is not rather a means to an end than an end in itself. The intention to promote the commercial interests of Athens is attested in the chapter of Diodorus to which reference has been already made. ' He persuaded the people to build every year twenty triremes in addition to those already existing, and to make the metics and craftsmen tax-free, in order that a large popu- lation might come into the state from all parts, and they might without difficulty establish more crafts ; for he thought that both of these things would be most useful towards the provision of the naval forces.' This policy of promoting the influx of foreigners for trade purposes into a state with an already superabundant population relative to its food resources is a very curious feature in Athenian economics. It is all the more curious at this particular juncture, because the evidence of the 'AOrjvaimv UoXireia and of Plutarch shows clearly that there existed in Athens at this time a large class which had to look to the public service for support. A similar measure is ascribed to Kleisthenes ; and a still more remarkable fact is that in the Xenophontine treatise Ilepl TIpocroSwv this measure is ex- plicitly recommended as a remedy for what was probably the far more serious economic state of things which pre- vailed in Attica at the time that treatise was written. Before attempting to arrive at the explanation of what was, under the circumstances, so unexpected a measure, it will be well to notice another object of the Themistoklean naval policy. Plutarch^ implies that one aim of it was to em- ploy the proletariate on the fleet,^ and so give it weight in politics.^ The passage does not explicitly assert the policy of pro- viding for the necessities of the population by employment on board the fleet ; but that such a policy is implied is shown by reference to passages in the works of Plutarch, and, furthermore, by express statements in the Aristotelian treatise on the Athenian constitution. Even at the risk of ' Plut., TAem. 19. " (Arist.) 'A5. HoX. 24. ^ Plut., Them. 19. o6ev koli t6v S^/iov rfii^af €pei Kopirov, 6pvv eirropav. ^ Cf. Pseudo-Xen., Z>e Rep. Athen. ii. 14, which explains that the S^/iOf is a town class, not exposed to invasion, and therefore not in fear of war : whereas o\ yiapyovvres kol 01 jrXovo-toi ' KB-qvaiutv fear it. Cf. also Arist., Pol. VIII. (V.) 1 1 (3), 12, 1303 b, 10. Km 'ABrjvrjcnv . . . fiaXKov SrjpoTiKo). ol TOV JJ€i.pala oIkovvtcs tSiv ro acrrv. ^ Demosthenes, De Corona, 301-2, asks his audience if it is not the duty of a good citizen ' to provide that the import of corn may be brought as far as Piraeus along an entirely friendly coast.' ' For the importance attached to the question of food supply, cf (Arist.) 'A6. UoX. 43, concerning the meetings of the Ekklesia : — THEMISTOKLES' POLICY 155 (3) The provision of such employment for the lower classes as would secure to them that means of livelihood of which they had been largely deprived by the competition of slave labour. The various items of policy attributed to Themistokles by ancient writers, or which may be deduced from what is known concerning his life and actions, are explicable on one or more of these grounds of necessity. His policy with regard to the introduction of metics and craftsmen seems at first sight to be exceptional in this respect. It appears strange and inexplicable that such a plan should be promoted by a statesman who had to meet the circumstances of a country in which the home food supply was deficient, and in which there already existed a large unemployed or semi-employed class. But there is no reason to suspect that the economics of Themistokles were more scientific than those of his contemporaries and successors. He was called upon to meet a peculiarly difficult economic situa- tion ; and it need not be accounted strange if, considering the age in which he lived, his methods of meeting it were somewhat experimental. It is possible that there is in that work of Xenophon,i to which it has been already necessary to refer, a reproduction of the theory upon which Themistokles and, to a certain extent, his successors acted. There has already been occasion to speak of the practical object of that work ; but there is a curious theory under- lying it to which reference has not yet been made. ^Lav fiev Kvpiav ['EK/cXT^trtai'] ev rj Set Tas dp^as inLx^ipoTovelv et boKOvfTL KoXcos apx^LVj KoX TTspX (TiTov, Koi TTcpl (pvKcLKijs Trj£ \iopas ;;(pT7^aTt^etr. Cf. E. Meyer, Forschungen, 1899, p. 194 : — ' In the fifth century the population of Attica was larger than in the fourth, and consequently the need of corn was greater. The question of forming a correct judgment as to the extent of the need was one of the most important demands which had to be made on a statesman.' Cf. Xen., Memorabilia iii. 6. (13). 'AXX' iiceivov ye tol, ecf)ri, olS' on ovK rj^XrjKaSj dW €0•Ke^/^at, 'ir6(rov -)(p6vov iKavos i(7TiV 6 ck Trjs ^apas yiyvofxevos (tItos biarpef^eiv Tr]V ttoKiv j Kcu ttoxtov els tov eviavTov TrpofrSetrat, tva p,rj TovTo ye XdOy ere Trore rj TrdXt? evderjs yevofxevrj, aXX' eiScb? e^jis vnep Twv dvayKaiwv avp-^ovXevav ttj TroXet ^0T)6eiv re Ka\ af^^ecv avrrjv. AeyecSj ecpr] 6 TXavKav, irap.p.eyeftes wpdyp.a, e'i ye Koi tS>v rotoijr. cit. ch. 5. THEMISTOKLES AND ARISTIDES 163 more than that he belonged to the moderate and not to the extreme section of the aristocratic party.^ But before Marathon the policy of promoting the interests of the land army, and, generally speaking, of the men of the hoplite census, as against the interests of the naval forces, had been an essential feature of the designs of that party. After 479 all this is changed. The League policy of Aristides and Kimon could not fail to promote the growth of the power of the naval element within the state, since for that policy a large use of a large navy was absolutely necessary. Unless Diodorus^ is mistaken, this league policy was also an essential feature of the policy of Themistokles. It may have been so up to a certain point. They may have been in agreement about the necessity of continuing the war against Persia ; and there was only one means by which that could be accomplished, namely, the fleet. But that they differed in some important respects is suggested by the disappearance of Themistokles from Athenian politics not many ^years after 479. In what this difference consisted can at best be a matter of conjecture. It is probable that Themistokles wanted to go much further, in at least one respect, than Aristides and his party were prepared to do. The Philo-Lakonian ^ policy of a dual hegemony in Greece could find but little sympathy with him ; and his attitude on the question * may be indicated in the tale of his proposal for the destruction of the Lacedaemonian fleet, a story which, though suspect in detail, may have a large element of general truth at the bottom of it. It is possible, too, that he differed from Aristides and Kimon on the question of the direction of Athenian expansion, or rather as to the source from which Athens should look for her food supply from abroad. He wished the state to look west- wards : they wished it to turn its attention to the East. He probably assented to the operations against Persia being carried to such a point as to preclude all reasonable prospect of her being able to interfere again on the European side. But it is also probable that he despaired of making head ' Plut., Arist. 22, credits him with a pronounced democratic policy immediately after Plataea. 2 Diod. X. 41. ^ Plut., Kim. 16. * Plut., Arist. 22. i64 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND against the power of Persia on the Asiatic side, and above all of the possibility of maintaining a reliable hold upon the passage to the Pontus corn region. And, indeed, at the time when this second political conflict between him and Aristides took place, the possibility must have seemed very remote.^ Very little headway was made against Persia between Plataea and the Eurymedon. In fact, there were in these years two rival policies in existence, an Eastern and a Western, and the political ruin of Themistokles was very likely due to the controversy which arose therefrom. That Themistokles conceived a Western policy is shown by evidence already cited. Nor did this Western policy die with him. There is a tradition, however, in Plutarch with reference to the death of Aristides^ which may indicate that this Eastern policy to which reference has just been made may have had as part of its motive the desire to get control of the corn region of the Pontus. Plutarch says that one account of Aristides' death related that he died in the course of an expedition to this sea, whither he ' had gone on public business.' It is impossible to suggest any motive for the invention of such a tradition. It may well be that the question between the Eastern and Western policies was really whether Athens should look to the Pontus or to Sicily and the West for that corn supply which was not as yet satisfactorily assured to her. The conflict between the two policies did not cease with the death of their chief exponents at this time. During the years of warfare between 459 and 453 the strategy of the ultra-democratic government at Athens aims almost ex- * Banishment of Themistokles. — The date of Themistokles' banish- ment is uncertain. It is impossible to suppose with 'Afl. IIoX. 25, that he was in Athens 462-1 B.C. Aesch., Pers., shows him to have been in high reputation in 471, so his banishment must have been after that date. The great Persian preparations of 469 would justify the policy of Kimon and discredit that of Themistokles. Hence his banishment may date from 468. The connection of his name with that of Hiero in a tradition which, though unreliable, is probably not groundless, would suggest that he went into exile before the latter's death. Themistokles' banishment may be dated at about B.C. 468. 2 Plut., Arist 26. EASTERN AND WESTERN POLICIES 165 clusively at the control of the Greek end of the trade route to the West, whereas Kimon is still looking eastwards in the last year of his life. The events of the years immediately preceding the Thirty Years' Peace of 446 made it necessary for Perikles to drop this policy. It is not until after the Peace that he turns his attention to the Pontus. However this may be, the question itself in the period succeeding the war of 479 was probably determined by the contemporary state of Sicily. There could be little hope of making headway there in the years following the battle of Himera. Siciliot tyranny had vanquished Carthage, and Sicily under successful tyrants was too hard a nut to crack. At the head of the combination of cities which had won the victory stood Syracuse, devoted to the interests of Corinthian as against Athenian trade; and it is more than possible that the vigorous action in the East was rendered necessary by the diiificulties which a powerful Syracuse placed in the way of obtaining from Sicily the corn which Athens so badly needed. It must be got from either Sicily or the Pontus, and at that particular time a defeated Persia may have seemed more easy to tackle than a victorious Sicily. And so the Eastern policy was pursued until a wave of democracy swept away tyranny in the island, and led to that state of division and weakness which must result from the essential ideal of Greek democracy, the small autonomous city state. Then under Perikles the western policy is taken up, and a more or less successful attempt is made in the war of the years following 459 to get control of the Corinthian Gulf, the Greek end of the trade route to Sicily and the West. The Egyptian disaster, followed by the losses of 447, made it necessary to abandon this policy, and Perikles found himself obliged to adopt the policy of Aristides and Kimon, and to seek to supply the necessities of Athens from the East. From henceforth until the time of the Ten Years' War, and, perhaps, until the great expedition of 415, Athens confines herself to maintaining the status quo in Sicily. Syracuse is working against her, and seeking an oppor- tunity to win a hegemony over the Greek states of the island. This policy she pursues actively whenever she thinks that Athens' hands are full elsewhere; but she is very r66 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROtTN-D careful to avoid or even disclaim it when either Athens' hands are free, or that state shows, as during the Ten Years' War, that she will play an active part in Sicily if Syracuse does not keep quiet. There is considerable difficulty in judging of the attitude of Aristides and Kimon and their party towards the economic situation of the Athenian proletariate. It is true that the evidence of the Aristotelian treatise is very explicit, but it is also true that there exist grounds for doubting its genuineness. In passages already quoted the intent of Aristides to provide by his league policy for the support of the proletariate is three times asserted.^ The policy of employing the proletariate on board the fleet is emphati- cally attributed to Kimon by Plutarch.^ There can be little question that at the back of much of the Aristotelian treatise lies a party pamphlet dating from the time of the revolu- tion of the Four Hundred. The object of that pamphlet was to prove to the ultra-democrat of the year 41 1 that the aristocratic and moderate statesmen of the past had been more democratic than they had been depicted in democratic tradition. The suspicion might therefore be entertained that the attribution to Aristides of measures aiming at the relief of the proletariate may be political forgery. But the relief given is in the form of payment for war-services to the state, and the reactionaries of 41 1 ex- empted such services from their proposals for the abolition of state pay. That Aristides' measures did afford such relief is practically beyond doubt. It may be even the case that he was conscious of the fact. But it is, to say the least of it, very doubtful whether his policy had such relief as its main motive : and in this respect the Aristotelian treatise may misrepresent the facts of the times. Indeed, if the League policy solved the economic problem at home indirectly, there would be no reason for attempting its direct solution. There is thus no reason to suppose that Aristides' policy had as its chief motive the relief of the indigent citizen ; but at the same time it seems probable that employment on the ^ (Arist.) 'Pi.6. IIoX. 24 {bis) and 25, vide p. 147. - Plut, Kim. 2. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EURYMEDON 167 large fleet which was in commission up to the time of the Eurymedon did solve for the time being the economic difificulty. The long period during which the coalition of the Aristocrats and Moderates held power suggests that the proletariate was more or less contented with its lot, and, it may be, was largely withdrawn from politics by reason of foreign service. It is noticeable that the political changes begin their course shortly after the Eurymedon. Within a year or two the attack on the Areopagos was opened. This juxtaposi- tion of dates is very significant. The Eurymedon had been a decisive action. More had been accomplished on that one day than in the whole of the decade of warfare which pre- ceded it. All men must thereafter have believed that the fear of Persia in the Aegean had become remote : many must have believed that it had been banished for ever. It must have led to a great diminution in the numbers of the fleet in actual commission, and consequently in the number of the citizens who made a livelihood by employment on board the fleet. The control of the Athenian state at the moment was in the hands of those who, though committed to a large policy, showed themselves in the course of the next half century to have no sympathy whatever with an imperial policy. The economic position of the Athenian proletariate in the urban districts must have become once more acute. That economic situation showed itself, as is usual in Greek history, in political action. The needy ultra-democrat, to whom the policy of his opponents no longer supplied the means of livelihood, realised that truth, which is so general in Greek political life, that if he wished to derive benefits from the state he must control the workings of its constitution.^ The exploitation of state resources in the interests of party was so established a principle in Greek politics, that the party out of power could expect little or nothing from the sympathy of political opponents. There was, so far as the ' Pseudo-Xen., De Rep. Athen. i. 6, ei \i.iv yap ol ;(p7;(TToi eXfyoy xai e/3ovXeuovTo, Tois Ojioioii l(rLV avrols rjv dyada, tois Se drjfionKols ovik dyadd. Cf. also tiid, ii. 20, avrbv fiiv yap tv iroinv iravTi fir) i68 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND evidence goes, no special political motive for the attack on the Areopagos. It is not asserted that it had initiated or sought to initiate a reaction. It was assailed simply as the representative of that aristocratic element which had for some years past, in coalition with the Moderate Democrats, controlled the policy of the state. Up to the time of the Eurymedon that policy satisfied the material interests of the opposition ; afterwards it failed, in all probability, to do so. Hence the political assault on the stronghold of its authors. This consideration tends to throw further light upon the policy of Aristides and his party as depicted in the 'Adrjualmv HoXireia. It' seems possible that the relief of the needy class was an undesigned corollary of the League policy of the coalition party which Aristides led, and it is possible that the deviation from historical truth, of which that treatise is guilty in reference to this particular item in the story of the Athenian state, consists in attributing to Aristides a design which he did not really entertain, though the results of his policy were, up to the time of the Eurymedon, as effective from an economic point of view as if it had been determined by an economic end. But still there does exist the possibility that Aristides Aad the economic end in view. He was dead at the time of the Eurymedon, and the state was directed by Kimon — a general rather than a statesman. The policy of the coalition party after the Eurymedon might have been very different had Aristides survived. Kimon may have realised to a certain extent the economic necessities of the time — the tale of his large liberality in support of the poor suggests that such may have been the case ; but, unless he is much misrepresented in history, he does not appear to have had the statesmanlike capacity which was required for dealing with so difficult a question. ATHENS UNDER PERIKLES 169 CHAPTER VII THE PERIKLEAN DEMOCRACY AND THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE With the semi-revolution brought about by Ephialtes and Perikles begins a new era in Athenian history. A new democracy and a new empire grow up side by side. It is a strange democracy and a strange empire. History does not present any counterpart to either of them. Of the empire we possess considerable knowledge ; but the secret of the real inner nature of the democracy died with Perikles. All that can be claimed for this chapter is that it is an attempt to penetrate on economic lines into the mystery of its life story. It is the ideal side of the Periklean creation which has most attracted the attention of historians ; and it must be confessed that the element of idealism within it presents a very fascinating study. But though many of its features are not explicable save on idealistic lines, there are others which are due to some practical necessity which, perhaps, history has not altogether succeeded in elucidating. The disastrous failure of the system after Perikles' death, the intense hatred with which it was regarded by those especially who suffered from its later developments, have led to its story being distorted in contemporary and later evidence. Had it not been for Thucydides and for a few incidental admissions in other authors, it would have come down to us as the vulgar creation of a self-seeking politician who sought to maintain himself in power by yielding to the baser instincts of the ignorant and the idle. Thucydides discloses the fact that it aimed at a high ideal, though he 170 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND seems well aware that the ideal was too high for average human nature to realise. The incidental admissions of other authors show that those practical elements in it which the later world condemned most severely were designed to meet an urgent practical necessity of the time. It was indeed out of a practical necessity that Perikles sought to create an ideal which should itself obviate such evils as might arise from the measures taken to meet the necessity. The empire of Athens over her allies was an essential factor in the Periklean design. But there are two phases in the design, that before, and that after, the Peace of 446 ; and for the later phase the empire is a more important factor than it is for the earlier. Still it is during both periods an essential element in the design. The process by which the Delian League was converted into an Athenian dpxv was partly inevitable, partly de- liberate. Severe as is the condemnation passed upon that process in after time, it would seem that the element of inevitability played in it a greater part than the element of deliberation. In spite of his intense admiration for Perikles, the one man above all others who was responsible for the conversion, Thucydides was no friend of the policy of empire as it presented itself in his day. The language used y with respect to the suppression of the revolt of Naxos is so severe that it discloses the opinion of the writer ; ^ and, furthermore, it is hard to believe that the supporter of an imperial policy would have deliberately inserted in his ' history such documents as the speech of Kleon and the Melian dialogue. Yet even Thucydides introduces into his narrative arguments which, taken in conjunction with certain well-known characteristics of Greek political sentiment, go far towards showing that at the outset, at any rate, of the period of Perikles' rule, Athens could not, without great danger to herself, nor indeed without danger to the Hellenic world, have allowed the dissolution of the league. But for its continued maintenance force and constraint were required ; and these ultimately spelt empire. As has been already said, the question is concerned with a general characteristic of Greek political sentiment. Greek 1 Thuc. i. 98. rtroivinUALiSM 17 r public life, whether represented by the individual, by the party, or by the state, was saturated with individualism. Well aware that the individual could not by himself realise his individualism, the Greek sought for the least common measure in life, the smallest form of association in which he could realise it to the fullest extent which was, humanly speaking, possible. He found this in party and in the city state. In any larger form of community the realisation of his own individual interests must necessarily become difficult. He therefore limited his political ideal to the city state. Some writers of Greek history have allowed their admiration for many departments of Greek life to blind them to many of its defects, and have dis- coursed with much satisfaction on that ' subordination of the individual to the community ' in which they profess to discover the most admirable feature of Greek political life at its best. The undeniable state and party individualism of the fourth century they are wont to attribute to that form of the "social compact' which the Sophists taught in the later half of the fifth. It does not seem to occur to them that this teaching could hardly have borne so large and so terrible a crop of fruit had not its seed been sown on ground adapted by nature to receive it. Greek individualism, like so many elements in Greek life, is by no means a simple thing, because it was not evolved by a simple race. The Greek was far too keen-witted to fail to see that the individual, in order to gain his individual ends, must combine with others whose aims resemble, though they may not be absolutely identical with, his own. He was keenly anxious to realise as many of those ends as possible. Inasmuch therefore as all forms of combination and association demand the sacrifice of some individual interests, he sought for that form of society which would be sufficiently large to promise the realisation of the ends of the society, and not so large as to sacrifice to the interests of the society the interests on which he set most store. He found this society in the city state, or rather in those associations of party by which the city state could be dominated. That which above all tends to disguise the individualism 172 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND of the Greeks is the fact that individualism is peculiarly fearful of itself It was this fear which introduced into Greek social life an element which contrasts strongly with that which is commonly associated with individualism. In some respects the control of the state over the individual, and the sacrifices which it demanded from him, were greater than in modern states. But the completeness of that con- trol is not necessarily to be attributed to the self-sacrifice of the individual to the community, and furthermore the contrast with the modern state is not emphasised by any peculiar absence of individualism from modern political life. All that this control meant was that the individual recog- nised that a strong association was necessary in order to keep in check the strong individualism of his fellow Greeks. The individualism of others must always be a danger to the liberty of the individual. Several well-known and ever-recurrent features of Greek history seem to mark a strong tendency towards in- dividualism, even when it is least apparent, at any rate in the extant records of the time. The Greek would vigorously support the state, when in form and action it promoted what seemed to him to be his own interests. But there his loyalty ended. He was far more attached to party than to the state.^ His party promoted directly that which he conceived to be his own interest. So did the state, but in a less direct way. If the state promoted his party interests, well and good ! But if the interests of party came into conflict with the interests of the state, he sided with his party. Party interest was nearer to individual interest than was the interest of the state; and he was quite determined that his sacrifice to any association with others should be as small as possible. He was quite ready to become a promoter of a-rd(nv ifKeovTwv koi K^povpovvTtov Koi (TTpaTevofiev Qjv TO otKOvpovv e)(r] 7rp6(j)a(rtv aTTO ToiV Brjno fieyoKa Kai KCK.oo'firjfjLeva XafxirpaSt Tois fih ''EXKrjvi Thuc. i. 41. INTERNAL POLICY OF PERIKLES 199 sible. They were the victims rather than the creators of them. The internal policy of Perikles during this period pursues a course similar to that of the period before the Thirty Years' Peace, modified by the fact that its conclusion must have thrown a large number of those citizens out of em- ployment who had earned their living on board the fleet. The law relative to citizenship was coincident in date with the Five Years' Truce. The most drastic instance recorded of its application comes immediately after the Thirty Years' Peace. It is, of course, with reference to Psam- metichos' gift of corn. The gift was made, so Philochoros says, in consequence of a famine in Attica.^ That in- cidental statement is interesting as showing that the corn supply of Attica was not at all times provided for by the sources available at this time, and may suggest that Perikles in his marked policy of the previous years had sought, amongst other things, to remedy this defect as far as Attica was concerned. Still, the policy indicated is too large to be entirely accounted for upon this single assumption. The later expedition to the Pontus also suggests that the sources of supply were not satisfactory.^ If the numbers given in Philochoros and Plutarch are reliable,^ the revision which took place was very strictly 1 Philocb., Fragt. 90, MuUer, F.H.G., i. p. 398. ^ In the fourth century Athens is mainly dependent upon the Pontus region for her foreign corn supply. Cf. Dem. npos AenTivrjv 31 : npos Tolvvv diravTa rbv eV toiv a\\o>v efinopccov a(^tKfou/xei/ov 6 €k tov Hovtov criTOS cldirX^av ifjTLV. etKorw? ' ov yap povov fiid to tov tottov tovtov cItov ^X^^^ TrXfioTov. . . . The context shows how necessary it was for Athens to maintain good relations with those who controlled the sources and routes of this supply. Cf Perikles' expedition to the Pontus, nigh a century earlier. ' Philoch., ad loc. cit. Plut., Perik. 37. Beloch {Die Bevolkerung der antiken Welt) says that the numbers given in Philochoros cannot be reconciled with the data in Thucydides. He suggests a possible textual corruption, because it is very common for numbers to fall out before p,iptot or x'^">'- The number might have been 3 p.vpwi ; but this suggestion he admits to be unsatisfactory, because we find practically the same numbers in Plutarch. He there- fore suggests that the distribution was made to the poorer classes only. The number of those who lost, added to the number of those who retained, their citizenship (4760 + 14240) gives 19,000. He supposes 20O THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND carried out. More than one quarter of the claimants to citizenship were struck off the citizen list.^ therefore that one of the numbers in Philochoros was obtained from some statistics, and so the other number obtained by subtraction from the round numlser, 19,000. The number of recipients would be preserved in the statistics. He suggests that the 19,000 may be the number of drJTes in Philochoros' own time. The 14,240 is probably correct, that is, is the number of 6rJTes who actually received the corn. If we reckon those who made no claim, either owing to absence from Athens, or owing to fear of a ypa^'j ievlas, we get numbers which accord with the calculations made from the data of Thucydides. It is quite impossible to assume that this represents the total number of Athenian citizens. All the other evidence on the subject points to a much larger number. The impossibility of the assumption to which reference has been made can be demonstrated from the statistics of Thucydides ii. 13. We are there told that Athens had in 431, that is to say only fourteen years after this time, ' 13,000 heavy infantry, besides 16,000 more in garrisons and on home duty at Athens.' The 16,000 is manifestly doubtful; but the 13,000 is, by the test of independent evidence, almost certainly correct. Is it possible to conceive that in this interval of fourteen years the population of Attica can have increased to such an enormous extent that the original (sic) 14,000 citizens had swollen to such numbers that there were at least 13,000 of the hoplite census ? The most probable explanation of the difficulty is as follows : there is good reason for supposing that the dijres or fourth class of the citizens was about equal in numbers to the whole of the three upper classes taken together. If we assume that this 14,000 is the number of the fourth class of citizens, then the 13,000 hoplites of Thucydides bear to it something like the ratio which other evidence would lead us to expect. It is, to say the least of it, probable that a gift of corn intended for the relief of the population would be distributed among that part of the population most in need of relief, especially in a democracy constituted like that of the Athens of this period. I have little doubt in my own mind that this 14,000 is the number of the indigent class, probably somewhat swollen beyond its former propor- tion by the general effects of the termination of the war, and by the particular effect of the crtTodeia, which, so Philochoros says, prevailed at the time. This must not be understood to imply that the whole of those whose names were removed from the list of citizens belonged to this class. It is probable that the opportunity was widely used for the revision of the list. It must also be assumed, of course, that the 14,000 are male citizens of full age. ' Philochoros says 4760, Plutarch ' a little less than 5000.' Plutarch also tells us that 14,040 survived the test, a number closely correspond- ing to that 14,240 mentioned by Philochoros in reference to that late revision which seems to be referred to in the Wasps of Aristophanes, 715, in relation to certain corn which appears to have come from KLERUCHIES AND COLONIES 201 No measure could show more clearly the economic posi- tion in the Athenian state at this time, and the policy which Perikles was compelled to adopt in order to relieve that position. The whole aim of the measures taken in the years grouped round the date of the Thirty Years' Peace is to reduce the financial liabilities of the state with respect to its citizen population. This reduction of the number at home is accompanied by a policy of settlement abroad. The kleruchy and colonisation system is in peculiar activity at this time. If the possible later date of the kleruchy in the Thracian Chersonese be taken, then in the eight years from 450 to 443, kleruchies were sent out to Andros {circ. 450), Naxos {circ. 447), Thracian Chersonese {circ. 447), Lemnos {circ. 447), Imbros {circ. 447), Kolophon {circ. 446), Hestiaea {circ. 446), Chalkis and Eretria {circ. 44S), together with colonies to Brea {circ. 446) and Thurii (443).^ In 437, moreover, a colony was settled at Amphipolis. These kleruchies and colonies served a double purpose in certain instances. They not merely reduced the surplus population of Attica, but also provided for the military occupation of important strategic points, such as the Thracian Chersonese, or of disaffected portions of the empire. They afford, indeed, striking evidence of the two main elements in the new policy forced on Perikles, above all by the disaster in Egypt — the internal consolidation of the empire, and the provisions of means of livelihood for that indigent class, which the state had hitherto largely provided for by employment in that war which languished after 45 1 and came to an end in 446.^ Euboea. But the important question is as to the identity of this 14,000 odd, which Plutarch mentions, and which appears also in Philochoros, though the two authors do not give numbers which are exactly identical. ' Beloch {Die Bevolkerung, etc.) reckons the Athenian kleruch com- munities in 431 at 7500-8500, or perhaps 10,000. This is probably some- what of an underestimate. During the Peloponnesian War 2000 kleruchs were sent out, namely 500 to Aegina, 1000 to Potidaea, and 500 to Melos. ^ The economic side of the policy is shown in the words of the rider which Phantokles attached to the decree relating to the colonisation of Brea {C.I.A., i. 31) is 8e [B]pe'ai/ ix BrjTav KQi fe[i/]yn-£i' Uvm Toils aiTo[i\Kovs ; and both it and the military side of the policy are testified to in Plutarch, Perik. 11 : — iiravopdovnivos [8f] ras avopias tov drjfiov, (poPov de Kol <^povpixv tov /ifj veaTipi^eiv Ti irapaKaTOiKi^au Tois (TVjip.d)(OiS. 202 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND From this time forward the economic policy of Perikles and the Athenian democracy takes a more pronounced and unmistakable form. That watchword, ' Attica for the Athenian,' which had underlain so much of the statesman- ship of Themistokles is enlarged. Henceforth it is ' Attica and the empire for the Athenian.' The political morality of the new form is doubtful : its political necessity is certain. The thirty years which elapsed between the foundation of the Delian League and the Peace of 446 had not brought about any change in the end oi Athenian politics. It was the available means to this end which had changed. The ' end ' was the solution, on behalf of a large mass of the Athenian population, of the problem of living ; and the at- tainment of that end was more imperatively demanded by the circumstances of 446 than by those of thirty years earlier. A quarter of a century of warfare, first against Persia, and later against Egypt and Greek neighbours, had provided a temporary and, indeed, intermittent solution. But war, even under the most favourable circumstances, tends to take away with one hand what it gives with the other, and no statesman could be mad enough to seek in a permanent state of war for the final solution of an economic situation. It must be sought along the paths of peace. Yet war had provided a means which now lay ready to hand — the empire. Athens must henceforth exploit her imperial position in the interests of indigent imperialists. It presents a curious paradox in history, this necessitous democracy ruling a beggar's empire. It is communism, but communism in the strangest form in which it was ever realised. It was based on a special interpretation of the terms on which the tribute of the allies was paid. Strictly speaking, the <^o/do9 had never been a ' League ' contribution. It was paid in name to the Treasury of the league, but in fact to Athens for the performance of league duties on behalf of members of the league. This aspect of the payment does not appear to have been thrust into the foreground in the early days of the existence of the confederacy. The Helleno- tamiai seem, indeed, from the first to have been Athenian citizens; but for more than twenty years the payments went into a treasury at Delos, not at Athens, and into a treasury THE THEORY OF THE TRIBUTE 203 which was, in name at least, that of the league as a whole. But it was really to Athens that the payments were made, because she alone provided the ships and crews to take the place of those which, under the league obligations, should have been provided by actual contri- butions in kind by all the members of the confederacy alike. Thus the claim of Athens to the tribute was not purely fictitious. It resulted from a contract in virtue of which Athens on the one part undertook to supply for league purposes the naval quotas of certain of the states of the league, provided they, on the other part, paid certain assessed sums in lieu of contributions in kind. From the Athenian point of view the contract was adequately carried out if Athens provided those league states with efficient defence against external attack, especially on the part of Persia. But she regarded the arrangement rather from a commercial than a political aspect. Commercially speaking it was, no doubt, perfectly justifiable for Athens to argue that if she could provide this protection at a cheaper rate than that actually paid for it, any sums she saved out of the payments made were hers to dispose of as she liked.^ The weak point in the Athenian argument arose from the fact that the laws which govern commercial contracts cannot be applied to political contracts, inasm.uch as the latter are not made from the same mental standpoint, and involve circumstances and considerations of far larger extent and of wholly different character from those which attend upon and are involved in the making of a precise and therefore narrow commercial agreement. The Peace of Kallias, if not the Eurymedon, must have given the Greek world of that day the impression that the danger from Persia was a thing of the past. Whether the Greek world was right in that impression is another question. It is, at least, significant that, in the closing years of this very century, when the Athenian sea power was broken, Persia became ' Cf. Plut., Perik. 12, 'ESiSaa-Xfi' ovv 6 HepiKkrit rbv hrjixov, oti, xprjudrav fxev ovK 6v a TOiv bihovToiv OVK eVrti', aXXa rwv Xafx^avovrcoVj av irapixwfTLV av6' hv Xap^dvovai.. 204 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND once more a threatening factor in Greek politics, and actually recovered much of her old position in reference to the Greek cities of the Asiatic coast. It is possible that Perikles foresaw such a danger. But in any case the Peace of Kallias had created a situation which did not require the maintenance of a naval force of the magnitude which had been necessary before the Peace was concluded. Frorn the political point of view, therefore, the allies might justly expect a reduction of the tribute proportionate to the reduction in the demands made upon those who undertook the defence of the cities of the league. From the frag- mentary data furnished by the extant tribute lists it is possible to argue that such a reduction was temporarily made before the Peace of 446 ; but after that date the average payments of the past seem to have been resumed. From the point of view of abstract political morality the claim of Athens to maintain the tribute on a war footing was not capable of justification ; but then the circumstances of the world seldom permit abstract political morality being practised in a complete form even by those who would most desire to realise it. Circumstances may render equit- able injustice the only realisable form of justice. And the circumstances of the Athenian world of the beginning of the later half of the fifth century presented peculiar difficulties in this respect. Athens had, in a way, been forced along the paths of empire ; and she had gone so far that she could not turn back without self-destruction. But the real difficulty lay in Attica itself It is not easy to realise the position of Perikles as a statesman at this moment, and therefore it is hard to realise the dilemma in which he was placed. His home state was liable to destruction from three causes, any one of which by itself was sufficient to bring ruin upon it, and any one or all of which might become active if Athens relaxed her hold on the empire. The allies would be certain to turn and rend Athens under the impulse of exasperation which resulted from the limitation of their liberties. Athens would lose her hold on the avenues of that foreign corn supply upon which she was so dependent; indeed the approaches to the Pontus would be in the hands of states whose future hostility could not be doubted. The THE THREEFOLD NECESSITIES OF ATHENS 205 means of relief for a large necessitous element of the popu- lation would vanish, with results incalculably serious to the state. The maintenance of the empire might be a wrong : the maintenance of the tribute on its former scale might be an added wrong ; but to Athens and to Perikles the situa- tion afforded no other solution. Thus the Periklean policy in its latest and most complete form was based on thrice stern necessity. Henceforth there could be no question of the voluntary sacrifice of the empire. In view of the striking nature of the evidence which the revision of the citizen lists, and the many cases in which kleruchies were sent out in the years which precede and follow the Thirty Years' Peace, afford as to the economic position of the Athenian proletariate, it is not necessary to further emphasise the compelling nature of this motive of the Periklean system. It is probable that in the ten years which succeeded the Peace it came nearest to its realisation. It is to this period that the expedition which Perikles undertook to the Pontus must be ascribed.^ The record of the expedition in Plutarch illustrates in a very striking way the curious silence as to economic facts which is so characteristic of much of the fifth century literature. Whether in the present instance the silence is due to a disinclination to deal with the commonplace, or to ignorance of the circumstances, it is not possible to say ; but can there be any reasonable doubt in the minds of those who are acquainted with the merest elements of the economic history of the Attica of this age that the intent of this expedition was to impress upon the corn-trading cities of the Pontus the desirability of maintaining satis- factory relations with so great a sea-power as Athens ? The attempt to rationalise history is exposed to dangers of which any one who has attempted to write, or has even studied, history must be keenly aware : but the historian and the student must not therefore be driven into an accept- ance of the motiveless facts recorded by ancient writers of the story of this great century as constituting the sum of the knowledge which can be attained with regard to it. It is imperative for the understanding of this or any period that 1 Plut., Perik. 20. 2o6 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND an attempt should be made to arrive at the motives which prompted actions, and at the circumstances which called those motives into existence ; and success in this cannot be attained by treating each fact by itself, but by comparing it with other facts recorded of the time, and thus arriving at some general conclusion as to the significance underlying them. On the face of the records this period seems at first sight to be governed by more or less abstract ideas. What has been attempted in these pages is to show that those ideas were based on practical facts which played a capital part in the lives of the men of that time. It was, too, in this decade that Perikles evolved a new method of meeting the prevailing needs of the proletariate : the employment in public works, i whose expenses were pro- vided for out of the tribute. It is evident, therefore, that the necessary measures of relief could not be met by Bouleutic and Heliastic pay ; and, indeed, the communistic element in the Periklean system is marked by the determination that the relief should be given in a form which should corrupt the recipient as little as possible. He must do real work in order to win a livelihood from the state. The system had moral and economic defects which must ensure its eventual failure ; but it must be borne in mind that it was evolved in an age and among men to whom economic experience was lacking alike in theory and in practice, and that it was brought into being by circumstances which must in any age have demanded unusual methods of treatment. It would seem, however, that Perikles, aware of its defects, sought to avoid that social decadence which must result from the system, by giving men a high ideal of social and political life. Athens was to be to Hellas a pattern of the highest life to which a free community could attain. The picture is drawn in that Funeral Oration which Thucydides inserts in the second book of his history. To what extent the speech reproduces the language of Perikles it is im- possible to say. It is probable that it represents little more than Thucydides' own idea of the ideal at which Perikles aimed ; but it is also probable that it reproduces that ideal with a considerable amount of truth. It is, in a sense, a 1 Plut., Perik. 12. THE PERIKLEAN IDEAL 207 justification of Athens' claim to a political control of, and financial dependence upon, a large number of its fellow Hellenic states. There is, however, one element in the speech, its optimism, which can hardly be attributed to Thucydides, and which must, unless it be wholly false, be Periklean in origin. The ideal is spoken of as though it had been actually realised in the life of the Athenian people. Its historian obviously admired the ideal and the man who conceived it ; but he can have had no illusions as to its realisation, or even as to the possibility of such a thing.^ Outdoor relief is to the present world a social, and to the Athens of the fifth century was a political, necessity; but it cannot be argued that it improves the morale of the recipient, or is calculated to render him receptive of high ideals. That may not have been the feel- ing in the mind of Thucydides ; but he shows quite plainly that he has no sort of sympathy with the system which was the foundation of the ideal, and had apparently rendered its realisation a possibility. Of the empire and the system upon which it was maintained he shows by implication the plainest disapproval. The author of the language used in the ninety-eighth chapter of the first book with regard to the revolt of Naxos and its reduction : the man who in- serted in his work the speech of Kleon on the fate of the Mytilenians, and the Melian dialogue, cannot be supposed to have had any sympathy with either the theory or the practice of the empire. What did the man who wrote of the 'enslaving' of Naxos think of the treatment of his own neighbour Thasos, a far more discreditable item in Athenian history? Thucydides' attitude towards Perikles and his policy is not simple. For the man himself he seems to have had an intense admiration. Of certain sides of his statesmanship he expresses or implies the strongest approval ; with regard to others he is either silent or, by implication, strongly condemnatory. His attitude is peculiarly characteristic of him. He is without enthusiasms, conscious of the evil as well as the good in human nature, or, perhaps, slightly '■ Personality of Perikles. — Eupolis, the comic poet, in like manner, admires the man, but not his policy, still less his democracy. 2o8 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND more sensitive to the evil than to the good. It is not his way to pile up all a man's qualities on one side of the moral scale. He has, indeed, little to do with moral qualities. The one explicit and significant moral judgment which he passes upon any of the characters which appears on his historical stage is rendered all the more significant by its context, laudable piety side by side with deplorable and disastrous indecision. He is conscious of the antithesis which the same nature and the same life may present in themselves. But of men's nature and men's lives he would say, ' By their acts you shall know them,' His judgment on the acts of Perikles is limited, because the acts of that statesman with which he was called upon to deal fall within a space of a few years — the last years of his life — and are concerned with a limited and specific subject, his policy immediately before and immediately after the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. The historian's own view as to the causes, both of the war itself and of the disasters which befell Athens in the later phases of it, would inevitably lead him to approve of this section of the Periklean policy ; and that approval is implied, and, indeed, expressed in that sixty-fifth chapter of the second book, in which he contrasts his statesmanship with the demagogism of his successors in Athenian politics. It has been suggested that there is a certain intentional irony in the juxtaposition of the accounts of the Funeral Oration and of the Plague in his history : that he thereby intended to show his disbelief in the possibility of the realisation of the ideal set forth in that speech. The suggestion seems rather remote, in so far as the general contrast is concerned. It is, however, possible that the historian did intend to bring into high relief the special contrast between the tendency towards good which is displayed by those who live in a state of peace and pros- perity such as that of Athens in the fifteen years which followed the Thirty Years' Peace, and the tendency towards evil which is displayed by the same people under the stress of war and adversity. He moralises on the same theme in another part of his history.^ ' In peace and prosperity states ' Thuc. iii. 82, THE GOOD AND THE EVIL IN HISTORY 209 and individuals have better sentiments, .because they do not find themselves confronted suddenly with imperious necessities ; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough master, that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes.' At the same time there can be little doubt that Thucydides was attracted — more than attracted — by the abstract side of Periklean democracy. It is easier to imagine than to realise the impression which life at Athens in those years preceding the Peloponnesian War must have made on one who was acquainted with life in Thrace. It would tend to idealise and exaggerate the best elements in it. And so throughout his story of the fall of Athenian greatness there runs one theme of lament at the destruction of that system of social life which he had known in Athens under the rule of Perikles. He cannot forgive those who were responsible for its destruction. His attitude is somewhat strange. He must have known that which every one else knew, that the system was based on a mode of life rendered possible by the exploitation of the resources of the empire — an empire which he condemned alike in its beginning and in its end. He had seen both the obverse and the reverse of the current imperial coin, the obverse at Athens, the reverse in Thrace. He had no illusions on the subject. It is, perhaps, the absence of illusions which makes him appear so para- doxical. But his paradox is that of the thinker who is cautious in his decisions between good and evil, because he feels that he neither knows nor can know what evil really is. To him there is nothing wholly good or wholly evil. In all things there is an element which may be condemned — the evil, and an element which may be approved — the good. Thus he approves and condemns, but within limits, and by implication for the most part. But he has no fancy for explicit moral judgments of, that human life and action wherein the elements of good and evil are always mingled and often inseparable. It is, perhaps, their inseparability which he realises most intensely. There may be a balance on the side of good, or a balance on the side of evil, but it is not always distinguishable, and even when distinguish- able, cannot be accurately determined. But the most in- o 210 THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND calculable factor in the whole calculation is the evil of circumstances as distinguished from the evil of acts. He will not pass judgment on the acts of those who do what is best under the circumstances of the moment, even though those acts fall far short of that which is commonly accounted best in human life. Of the economic basis of the democracy he says nothing, though he implies much. His silence on this point is all of a piece with his general attitude to economic and financial questions. They do not interest him, probably because they do not afford material for the highest literary form of composition, and were, moreover, regarded as banausic in that cultured society to whose opinion he was so sensitive. His attitude towards such questions is extra- ordinary. He expatiates on the importance of capital in war, yet he subsequently confines himself to a few quite general remarks on the effect of the war on the public finances of Athens. He never mentions the enormous increase in the assessment of the tribute made in the later years of the Ten Years' War. He mentions quite casually, in reference to the first expedition sent to Sicily in 427, the fact that, inter alia, the Athenians wished to prevent the Peloponnesians from obtaining corn thence ; but he never connects this motive with all the fighting which took place in North-West Greece in the first five years of the war. The accounts of Perikles and the Periklean democracy in the pages of Thucydides have alike the merits and limitations of a great picture. They give a vivid present- ment of their subject at a certain time, and in reference to certain special circumstances. The Athenian state of the years immediately preceding the Peloponnesian War is in many respects unique in history. It represents an undoubted attempt to realise a great political ideal. The educated men of the Periklean age were beginning to live in a world of ideas by which the mass of their contemporaries were but little affected, and which they therefore failed to put into practice. Still the race, as a race, had a tendency towards idealism such as might justify an attempt to leaven the base material side FAILURE OF THE PERIKLEAN IDEAL 211 of life by the introduction of social theory. In contrast with the Roman, who was satisfied with the tolerably good in a practical world, the Greek sought the best in a world which, even to the least imaginative of his race, was one of theories and ideas. But the ideal in the present in- stance was both the outcome and the would-be cure of economic circumstances of extraordinary difificulty and danger. Moreover, the danger was not merely economic. It was also moral. The economic danger was met by the practical exploitation of the empire as a means both of securing the foreign food supply and of providing for the support of the necessitous element in the imperial pro- letariate. The ideal element was designed to meet the moral danger inseparable from a system under which human nature was not called upon to display that indi- vidual energy and endeavour which is the most healthy element in the everyday life of man. Built upon a bad practical basis, the ideal was doomed to failure ; and never was the commonplace of a later age — optimi corruptio pessiina — more strikingly illustrated. For Perikles and the Athenians of his day were in a very striking way the victims of circumstances. In the circum- stances of the time lay the evil which was destined to corrupt both the system and the men who designed it. Furthermore, it is in these circumstances that the true causes of the Peloponnesian War must be sought. PART IV CHAPTER VIII THE POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY There are certain chapters in Greek history, which, in the form in which they are commonly presented to the student, convey an impression of irrationality — of a story taken from the history of a world in which the ordinary laws of cause and effect do not hold good. No one of these chapters leaves him with a more unsatisfactory feeling that he has not arrived at the truth than that which relates to the position and policy of Sparta with reference to external politics. Lacedaemon was an enigma to its contemporaries. To that fact may be attributed the difficulty which has always existed with regard to its true presentment, and the very varied judgments which have been formed and expressed as to the motives and morale of its policy and actions. Sparta's conduct on various occasions has been subjected to the severest criticism not merely in modern but in ancient times ; yet a consideration of the whole long story of this unique state is apt to leave behind it the feeling that its critics have judged it too severely, and have above all blamed it for not doing that which was not in its power to do. There is such an extraordinary consistency in that ' unambitious,' ' vacillating,' ' dilatory ' policy, which even her friends and admirers condemned in the fifth century before Christ, and less passionate critics have condemned in the nineteenth century after Christ, that a thoughtful student of history may well feel some doubt as to whether that policy was dictated by an innate, unintelligent, selfish con- servatism, or was due to motives of such a compelling 212 THE QUESTION OF POPULATION 213 character as to condition rigidly the relations of Sparta with the outside world. The clue to the difficulty lies in the question of the population of Greece generally, and of Lakonia and Messenia in particular, in ancient times. All the available evidence points to the fact that Greece had a larger population in the fifth century than it has at the present day.^ ' The statistics with regard to the population of Ancient Greece, which have been collected in Dr. Julius Beloch's work on the population of the Ancient World, have a significance which has been recognised but not always fully appreciated in relation to the history of some of the Greek States. But Dr. Beloch has not said the last word on the sub- ject. He has failed to estimate the importance of the evidence which Greece at the present day affords. He tends also to discredit certain statements of numbers, from which larger estimates of the population of Greece in ancient times might be deduced than would be the case were the calculations founded on certain other existent data. The reasons which he gives for the rejection of this evidence are by no means conclusive, and betray at times a failure to appreciate certain factors in that Greek military history from which these data are largely drawn. The cultivated, and, indeed, cultivable area in Greece at the present day is undoubtedly smaller than it was in the flourishing days of the fifth century. Pausanias notices the ruin of the hillside cultivation, of which the traces are still apparent in many parts of Greece ; and in a climate such as that of the Eastern Mediterranean this form of cultiva- tion, if once allowed to go to ruin, is almost beyond the possibility of reconstitution, owing to the soil being washed down into the valleys by the heavy rains of the autumn and spring. There is perhaps no country in the civilised world which has had a more distressful economic history during the last two thousand years. Devastation and misgovernment have alike played havoc with the productiveness of a land whose cultivable area was, under the most favourable circumstances, but a little more than one-fifth of its whole extent. From returns published by the Greek Government in 1893 it appears that the total area in Greece which is capable of yielding food products other than cattle amounts to only 22 per cent, of the whole area of the country ; and of this a very large proportion is in the one district of Thessaly. Moreover, the area actually cultivated in that year amounted to only 15 per cent, of the surface of Greece. It is also stated— and this is significant for the present purpose — that, were that 7 per cent, of area, which is the difference between those two amounts under cultivation at the present day, the necessity for the import of foreign grain would cease, and this in spite of the fact that large areas of land in the Peloponnese which are capable of yielding food products 214 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY The ancient evidence with regard to the population of Lakonia and Messenia varies greatly according as to whether the inquiry be dealing with the Spartiate, the Perioekid, or the Helot element. But the point which it is important to determine is the ratio which existed between the numbers of those three sections of the inhabitants of the Lacedaemonian state. There can be no question that the two first elements were small in comparison with the third ; and it is further possible to arrive at some conclusion as to the maximum numbers which can be attributed to them. Whether these maxima are accurate or not is another ques- tion. Still, it is possible to attain certainty on the point which is all-important for the present consideration : namely, that these numbers did not exceed certain limits which may be deduced from the ancient evidence. On the question of are sacrificed to the growth of the currant crop. But it is further reckoned that were the 72,000 acres of cornland which at present lie fallow in Thessaly brought under cultivation, the deficit of home food products would be supplied ; and this acreage is but a fraction of the 7 per cent, to which reference has been made. It would therefore appear that at the present day, in spite of the cultivable area being in all probability appreciably smaller than it was in the fifth century before Christ, it would, if brought under cultivation, be enough and even more than enough to meet the needs of the present population in respect to food supply. When we turn to the evidence of the circumstances as they existed in the fifth century, we find a state of things which contrasts strongly in certain important respects with that existent at the present day. The population of the country at that time was larger, probably far larger, than the country could support. All the states from Boeotia southwards seem to have been more or less dependent on foreign corn. This dependence was of old standing. It had existed in Boeotia, and, if in Boeotia, almost certainly in the less fertile districts of Greece, so early as the days of Hesiod. [Hesiod, Works and Days, 11. 42 and 236.] Aegina and Peloponnese were importing corn from the Pontus early in the fifth century. [Herod, vii. 147.] Later in the same century Peloponnese was importing corn from Sicily. [Thuc. iii. 86.] The evidence with regard to the import of corn into Attica is so well known that it need not be produced in detail. The contrast of circumstances between the fifth century and the present day is twofold. The cultiv- able and cultivated area was greater in that century than it is now ; yet this larger area failed to meet the needs of the then population ; whereas at the present day, were the cultivable area all utilised, modern HELOT POPULATION 215 the numbers of the Helot population the ancient evidence affords but little help. The data are almost exclusively military ; and only at Plataea in 479 did Sparta put a large body of Helots in the field. The unusual numbers on that occasion were probably due to two causes. The Greeks knew that they were about to meet a foe who was peculiarly strong in respect to light-armed troops. Further- more, the occasion was so critical that Sparta, like the other states of Greece, thought it necessary to make the utmost effort ; and, taking the field with her full Spartiate force, did not dare to leave the ungarrisoned capital at the mercy of the Helots. From the numbers given by Herodotus, namely 5000 Spartiates, 5000 Perioeki, and 35,000 Helots, a ratio of 1:1:7 might be deduced between the elements of the population.^ Greece could supply the wants of its present inhabitants. Only one conclusion can be drawn from this ; namely, that the population of Greece in the fifth century was certainly larger, and probably consider- ably larger than at the present day. Thus, taking these broad facts drawn from ancient and modern evidence into consideration, it seems impossible to accept Dr. Julius Beloch's low estimate of the population at that time. The total population of Modern Greece as given in the census list of 1896 is 2,433,806. Dr. Beloch arrives at the population of Ancient Greece by adding together the numbers which he attributes to the individual states. He thus estimates a total of 1,579,000 ; or, including slaves, 2,228,000. To discuss the various items in his calculations would involve the writing of a small volume. He shows a marked tendency towards the belittlement of the ancient data and suspects exaggeration where no exaggeration can be proved. The result is that he arrives at a sum total which, judged by the substantial evidence which the country at present affords, must err considerably on the side of under-statement. Anything approaching certainty upon this question is impossible ; but the general, and indeed the particular evidence, if treated without pre- judice, point to an aggregate population in the fifth century at least 33 per cent, larger than the numbers at which Dr. Beloch arrives. ' Dr. Beloch places no reliance on the numbers stated by Herodotus to have been present at Plataea ; but a comparison between them and the data relating to an earlier and a later period tends to confirm the Herodotean estimate in nearly every respect. It is only in relation to some of the smaller contingents present at the battle that possible exaggeration may be suspected. 2i6 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY This 5000 is the largest number which we find attributed to a purely Spartiate force by Greek historians. But the occasion was unique and the effort was unique. It is almost certain that the full Spartiate force never passed beyond the frontier of Lakonia during the fifth century, save on this occasion. It was necessary to leave a garrison in Sparta when the army marched out. At Mantinea in 418 the numbers are either 3552 or 3584 [according to the method of calculation employed], and this in face of serious danger. Moreover, the numbers contain S/ciptrat, BpaaiSeioi, and NewSayntoSet?. At Corinth in 394 Sparta puts 6000 hoplites into the field : but we know that the Morae at this time were 600 strong,^ so that the Spartiate contingent of six Morae would amount to 3600 men, the remainder being made up of a Mora of 600 'SiKiplrai, and 1800 NewSa/AwSet?. There can be little question that 5000 represents the maximum of the Spartiate force. It may be a slight over- statement of numbers ; it is certainly not an understate- ment, — and that is the important point in reference to the present question. By the middle of the fourth century there had been a considerable decrease in the numbers of the Spartiates.^ Assuming this 5000 to represent the able-bodied male population between twenty and fifty years of age, it would, on a calculation based on age statistics of modern Greece, amount to 40 per cent, of the whole male population. This would imply 12,500 male Spartiates, or a total population of 25,000, inasmuch as the number of males and females is about the same in Greek lands.^ For the Perioekid population no satisfactory statistics > Xen. I/M. iv. 2. 16. 2 Cf. Xen. //eU. iii. 3. (5 and 6) where the Spartiates not belonging to the o/ioiot are reckoned as 4000, while the ofiowi are said to consist only of the King, Ephors, Senators, and about forty others. ^ Caes. B.G. x. 3 reckons the warriors of the Helvetii to be 25 per cent, of the whole population. Dionysius ix. 25 multiplies the census list by four to find the total. Were we to accept these ratios, the Spartiate population would work out at a maximum of 20,000. But for the purposes of this chapter we will assume the larger number, 25,000, NUMBERS OF THE HELOTS 217 exist. The 5000 at Plataea might suggest something like an equality with the Spartiate population ; but it is unlikely that Sparta armed the whole of the able-bodied Perioeki as a hoplite force.^ For the Helots the 35,000 of Herodotus is the only evidence in ancient history. But here again it is im- probable that anything like the whole able-bodied Helot population was called out, even on this occasion. It is, in fact, to the modern census tables that we must turn in order to arrive at some estimate of the ratio between the free and the non-free population of Lacedaemon. The modern population of the regions included within its old boundaries is as follows : — Messenia . . 184,280 Lakonia . . . 138,313 Skiritis . . 19,911 Kythera . . 12,306 354,810 It has already been shown that any assumption that these numbers were larger than the numbers of those inhabiting this region in antiquity would be against the evidence which is available. It is on the contrary probable that Lakonia and Messenia in the fifth century contained not less than 400,000 souls. If so, the proportion of free to non-free population was i : 15. It was certainly not much smaller than this. Greek historians, though, of course, aware that the Spartiates were largely outnumbered by the combined Perioekid and Helot populations, have not until the last few years had at their disposal the means whereby they may realise the extraordinarily large ratio which the non- free bore to the free population of the country. This new evidence, when duly weighed and evaluated, does not merely present the Spartan state in a new light, but gives the clue to that strange and apparently tortuous policy which puzzled the contemporary world, and of which 1 Dr. Beloch, relying chiefly on data from the fourth and later centuries, computes their number at 15,000 males, which would imply a population of 30,000 Perioeki, 2i8 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY later writers, aided even by the survey of the facts of centuries, have never been able to give a satisfactory explanation. Nature had rigidly conditioned the part which Sparta should play in the life of its time. The external Greek world, seeing Sparta in possession of the most effective military force of which it had any experience in the fifth century, expected it to play a different and much larger part. The Spartiate, living face to face with danger so great that it would have been dangerous to confess its magnitude to the outside world, had not in the fifth century any illusions as to the nature of the policy which he must pursue. The policy of the state had, for him, limitations which the Greeks of the other states could not understand, because they could not realise the compelling nature of the motives which lay behind it, Sparta could not wholly conceal the truth, but she dare not let it all be known ; hence, of the most important element in the Spartan system, Thucydides, a diligent inquirer, has to admit Sia rij? -TToXtTeiwi TO KpvKTov '^jvoeiTo. Alike by her geographical situation and by her internal institutions she was cut off from the outside world. She was situated at the extremit}' of a peninsula. Her sea communications were rendered difficult to the navigators of those days by the capes which projected far on either side of her harbours. Her land communications were scarcely less difficult. A rugged region separated her from the interior of the peninsula ; and further north another rugged region lay across the path to the Isthmus. Moreover, all the roads thither save one, and that a circuitous route, were barred by Argos, her rival and enemy in Peloponnese. Nature had designed her to lead a life of retirement in the valley of the Eurotas, a pleasant but secluded spot. Owing to her geographical circumstances alone, it would not have been easy for her to play an imperial part in the Greece of the fifth century. But the Spartiate of the fifth century was heir to institu- tions which set even stricter limits on his activities. How those institutions had originated neither he nor those who wrote his history seem to have had any clear idea ; but SERFDOM 219 the fact remained that he had to face the problem of governing and exploiting in servitude a population many times larger than his own. It was a fierce, not a docile race, which he sought to keep in subjection. He ruled by fear, but himself reaped the crop which he sowed. The situation could only be met, as it had been met, by the formation of a military community. His life had to be sacri- ficed in order that it might be preserved. He was ever on the strain, holding, as it were, a wolf by the throat ; and he knew it, and knew it better than the outside world, which had only half-grasped the reality of the situation. Compromise was impossible. The system was of long standing, and it had begotten a mutual bitterness which would have rendered any alleviation of the system danger- ous to those who controlled its working.^ When we con- sider the proportion and the relations existing between the rulers and their serf subjects, when we realise that the former must have been outnumbered by at least ten to one, it becomes a matter of surprise, not that Sparta did so little in Panhellenic politics, but that she did so much. Every other page of Greek history testifies to her own fear of her own situation ; and the evidence from the statistics of population testifies to the reality of the grounds whereon the fear was based. Aristotle, who spoke from the experience of several centuries of recorded history, says : ' For the Penestae in Thessaly made frequent attacks on the Thessalians, as did the Helots upon the Lacedae- monians; indeed, they may be described as perpetually lying in wait to take advantage of their masters' mis- fortunes.'^ The awful tale which Thucydides tells of the treatment of the two thousand Helots shortly after the affair of Pylos exemplifies the extremity of the fear with which the ruling race regarded them.^ But it is unnecessary * The dilemma is stated — perhaps understated — in Aristot. Pol. 11. ix. p. 45, Hne 7, ed. Bekker : 'What is the right way of dealing with them ? If they are left without restraint, they grow insolent and claim equality with their masters ; while, if they are harshly treated they are in a state of conspiracy and bitter ill-will.' 2 Aristot. Pol. II. ix. (Welldon's translation). ^ Thuc. iv. 80. ' Indeed fear of the growth and numbers [of the Helots] persuaded the Lacedaemonians to the action which I shall 2 20 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY to quote numerous examples of what is a commonplace in Greek history.^ That which neither the Greek nor the modern world realised, and which Sparta wished to prevent her contemporaries from realising to the full, was the extent of the danger which ever menaced the ruling minority in the state. The Spartan accepted a life of hardness, because he was face to face with a situation whose sternness he could not mistake. His ideas were ultimately limited by the confines of his own territory, because he had therein enough to occupy his mind. He was called narrow-minded and unambitious ; but men who have to guard against destruction every day of their lives have no time for day-dreams or large ambitions. Sparta produced in the fifth century but few exceptions to her norm ; and men like Pausanias and Lysander were the products of periods of Panhellenic excitement, men who were carried away by the greatness of the positions in which the action of interests far larger than those of the self-centred Spartan state had placed them. But Sparta, with eyes intent on dangers near at hand, refused during the fifth century to be dazzled by distant splendours. It can hardly be doubted that she was wiser than her more ambitious sons. She treated their ambitions as crimes against the state. Spartan policy is ultimately conditioned either directly or indirectly by her home circumstances. These dominated her policy and dominated it absolutely, even if not always directly. That policy may be represented diagrammatically by three concentric circles : the inmost one, her home policy ; the intermediate one, her Peloponnesian policy ; now relate, their policy having been at all times governed by the necessity of taking precautions against them.' 1 Thuc. V. 14. One of the reasons for the Lacedaemonians desiring peace was that they were afraid that the Helots might revolt, owing to the encouragement afforded them by the Athenian occupation of Pylos and Kythera. The fear of the Helots receives official acknowledgment in the treaty of alliance concluded between Sparta and Athens after the Peace of Nikias. The third article of that treaty (Thuc. v. 23) runs as follows : — If the slaves (77 SovXei'a) revolt the Athenians shall give the Lacedaemonians full aid to the utmost of their power. POLICY IN PELOPONNESE 221 the outermost one, her policy outside Peloponnese. The Peloponnesian poHcy is conditioned by her home circum- stances, and the same is ultimately the case with her extra- Peloponnesian policy ; but here the influence is indirect, because, until the rise of the Theban power in the fourth century, the world outside Peloponnese could only affect Sparta through Peloponnese itself. Of the Peloponnesian policy of Sparta it is not necessary to speak at any length. It was absolutely determined by the Helot question at home. Her neighbours, especially the Arkadian cities, had to be kept under sufficient control to prevent their tampering with that serf -population. Hence Arkadia was kept divided.^ Its two greatest cities. Tegea and Mantinea, were played off against one another, and any attempt at combination or even awoiKiafj.o'i within the region was treated as a casus belli. Yet even here the limitations of the power of Sparta are shown. She might have conquered Arkadia at any time in the fifth century. In one sense this could hardly have failed to save her much trouble and anxiety. But she had not any surplus Spartiate population to expend on im- perialist policy. Elis was in some respects a more, in some respects a less, difficult problem. Its population was, as a rule, con- tented and unambitious. Its land was more fertile than that of most of the Greek states. It was cut off from the rest of Peloponnese by rugged mountainous regions, and from the rest of the world by a coast-line which afforded but little shelter to navigators. Still it was within easy reach of Messenia, and so Sparta kept a watchful eye upon it. She brought it within the League, and sternly repressed its perverse ambition to combine with Argos. Probably the Elean agriculturist resented the necessity of ' Cf. Thuc. V. 29, which relates how Mantinea, while Sparta's hands were full, had brought into subjection a certain part of Arkadia. After the Peace of Nikias, the Mantineans joined the Argive alliance, because they thought, says Thucydides, that, now Sparta's hands were free, she would not allow them to retain their territory. It is notice- able (v. 32) that Tegea refused to join the alliance, showing how successful Spartan policy had been in keeping Arkadia divided. (Cf. also V. 33.) Mantinea surrendered this territory subsequently (v. 81). 2 22 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY furnishing contingents to the Peloponnesian League army during the seasons of corn and vine harvest. The possession of Lepreon, too, was a persistent cause of quarrel between the two states. Sparta's action in this matter seems to have been dictated by a consideration of her all-important interests in Arkadia. Achaia was a negligible quantity, and was treated as such. It was cut off from the rest of the Peloponnese by the great barrier of Erymanthos, and for this reason, and in consequence of its general weakness, could not in any way endanger the internal affairs of Lacedaemon. The states of the Argolid presented a special problem, or series of problems. Sparta's policy in relation to Argos illustrates, too, in a special way the necessary limitations of her general policy. Argos was hardly less dangerous than Arkadia, and more powerful than any single Arkadian city. She was anxious to win back that hegemony in Peloponnese which Sparta had usurped from motives of self-preservation. She had a large population for a Greek state. Her. citizens outnumbered the Spartiates. She was inclined to tamper with the Arkadian cities, and, further- more, possessed in the Thyreatic plain a region which was in contact with the Helot district of eastern Lakonia. So Sparta took the plain from her, and ultimately settled the exiled Aeginetans there. Three times in the course of the century, at Sepea, Dipaea, and Mantinea, she taught Argos lessons on the danger of interfering with Sparta's interests in Peloponnese; and moreover, as a set policy, she played off Epidauros and Troezen against her. On the three occasions above mentioned she had Argos in ^he hollow of her hand. But she neither wiped her out of ex- istence, nor even garrisoned the Larissa. Yet it was manifestly to her interest to hold this important strategic point. Of the five routes to the Isthmus, four, those vi4 Karyae and the springs of Lerna, by Hysiae, the Prinos, and the Klimax routes were all commanded by Argos. The circuitous route by the Arkadian Orchomenos was the only one which Argos did not command. Sparta demonstrated that she could crush Argos if she so willed. It has been suggested that she refrained from so ARGOS 223 doing out of deference to Hellenic sentiment, which would have been shocked by the destruction of a Greek state. There were probably more practical reasons for her forbear- ance. The destruction of Argos' independence would have brought upon Sparta more difficulties than advantages. She was the kite which frightened the other cities of the Akt6 to take refuge under the wing of Sparta. But far more important than this was the influence which she exerted upon Corinthian policy. Since at least the time of Pheidon, Argos had had close connection with Aegina, that trade rival which, until the time of the sudden growth of Athenian power, Corinth most hated and feared. Hence the trading town of the Isthmus regarded Argos with fear and hostility, and sought in alliance with Sparta protection against the possible combination of the two states against her. The first twenty years of the fifth century changed the circumstances without relieving the situation, as far as Corinth was concerned. For the rivalry of Aegina was substituted the far more formidable rivalry of Athens ; and Athens, too, soon showed a disposition to make use of Argos. Little use she got of her. She tried to employ her as a cat's paw to get certain Peloponnesian chestnuts out of the fire. The cat's paw got badly burnt, but the chestnuts remained in the fire; and on one occasion, in 418, Athens burnt her own fingers. The connection with Argos was one of the capital blunders of Athenian policy in the fifth cen- tury. Argos reaped advantages and disadvantages from it : Athens disadvantages alone. The reputed slow wit of Sparta had probably arrived at a more correct estimate of Argos than had the imaginative cleverness of Athens. Of course the situation was one which contained elements calculated to cause Sparta anxiety, especially in times of political stress ; but it entailed one advantage, in that it made Argos more formidable to Corinth than she would otherwise have been after the fall of Aegina ; and, for the rest, the alliance was not of such a character as would preclude Sparta from forcing Argos to accept a position of neutrality on treaty conditions. But above all it kept Corinth more or less in order ; and, of all the members of the Peloponnesian team, Corinth had the hardest mouth. 2 24 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY It was a narrow, well-defined road along which Sparta sought to drive the team, and Corinth at times sought to drag her yoke-mates along other paths. Moreover at times she succeeded in so doing ; and it is mainly these diver- gences from the set policy of Sparta which tend to give it an appearance of width such as Sparta neither did nor could wish that it should possess. So much for the pre- sent with regard to the relation of the two states. They are of far more importance in connection with the extra- Peloponnesian than with the Peloponnesian policy of Sparta. Sikyon's connection with the Spartan league was probably more due to the fact that it exploited and controlled the internal trade of the Peloponnese, than to anything else. Doubtless Sparta would have exercised coercion, had not interest been sufficient as a factor with a state so situated with reference to the allies of Sparta. The case of Megara, though intimately bound up with Pelo- ponnesian policy, is, like that of Corinth, more really concerned with the relations of Sparta to the world out- side Peloponnese. The extra-Peloponnesian policy is that element in the matter under consideration which presents the greatest difficulties to the student of Greek history. It seems at times as if Sparta gave way, even in the fifth century, to attacks of imperialism. Even so, the attacks are brief ; and the political actions of Sparta which may be attributed to them neither form a continuous chain of policy, nor even are pursued in themselves for any length of time. She stretches out her arm at times, but only to withdraw it both rapidly and soon. Sparta had no human capital to expend on such enterprises j^ what she had was fully employed at home and in the neighbourhood of home. As far as the government and the people are concerned, the imperial tinge of these acts is a false colouring. The action ' After Brasidas' success in Chalkidike, three Spartan commissioners were sent by the Lacedaemonian Government to report on the state of affairs. ' They brought with them,' says Thucydides, ' though contrary to law, certain young Spartans, intending to make them governors of its cities, instead of leaving them to the care of chance persons.' (iv. 132.) CORINTH AND SPARTA 225 of Sparta outside Peloponnese was taken absolutely in reference to her position in Peloponnese, and was condi- tioned by it ; and that again was equally absolutely con- ditioned by the situation at home. Spartiates of large ambition did now and then mistake or wilfully ignore the true situation, and tried to use the resources of the state for larger, and for the most part, for selfish ends ; but their fellow-countrymen had no mind to sacrifice their lives at home for the advancement of other people's ambition abroad. Their conservatism was the conservatism of self- preservation. But Corinth was the enfant terrible of Spartan foreign politics. It is very difficult to gauge exactly the grounds of the influence which this state exercised in the Spartan league. Intensely commercial, she afforded a strange con- trast to her uncommercial leader. There can have been little community of sentiment between the two. A cer- tain community of interests supplied its place. In so far as the interests were common, they were political. Yet political interests were subordinated in the case of Corinth to trade interests. As a great commercial state her interests were as world-wide as those of Sparta were narrow. Though a complete understanding of the relations between Corinth and Sparta may be unattainable on the existing evidence, yet there are certain factors recognisable which must have played an important part in determining them. Corinth was the only state of the league which \^^s poten- tially powerful ovv the sea. She was probably more wealthy than any other of the states, though there is no evidence to show in what way this affected the situation. But above all she commanded the Isthmus, the highway to the states of the north — a highway along which Sparta must have free passage unless she was prepared to allow her interests in Peloponnese to be endangered from the north ; for just as it was necessary that sufficient control should be exercised in Peloponnese to prevent interference in Spartan territory, so also it was necessary, though in a fainter and more dis- tant sense, that a control should be exercised in Northern Greece sufficient to prevent interference with Pelopon- P 226 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY nesian interests. Sparta would have limited her interests to Lakonia and Messenia, had she dared to do so, or at the Isthmus, had that been a practical possibility. But the chains of the stern necessity laid upon her linked her with regions in which her direct interest was hardly perceptible. Her position with respect to her own dominions and her own ambitions is clearly analogous to that of Rome in the third and second centuries before Christ. Rome's personal ambition was limited by the shores of Italy. It did not even pass the Sicilian strait. Italy was her Lakonia and Messenia, and the subject Italians were her Perioeki and Helots. But she soon found herself under the necessity of controlling those lands from which her position in Italy could be threatened ; and even then she could not stay her hand ere she had brought into subjection an outer circle of territories from which the regions surrounding Italy might be endangered. Still Rome could afford to incur responsibilities which she disliked, whereas Sparta could not. Sparta would have left the states of Northern Greece to go their own way, if only they had been in the impossibility of interfering in Peloponnese. But that was not so ; and hence the right of way across the Isthmus was all important to her as a land power ; and the good-will of Corinth had to be maintained by concessions which involved departures from that rigidly limited policy in which alone Sparta had a personal interest. How embarrassing for Sparta was the position which Corinth could, if she would, create, was shown in the wars of the early part of the fourth century. The position of the Megarid astride the Isthmus rendered it necessary for Sparta to exercise a control over that state also. It is evident that she regarded its occupation by Athens in the middle years of the fifth century with the utmost disquietude. That extraordinary expedition which ended at the battle of Tanagra had doubtless more than one motive ; but it is probable that one object at which it aimed was to force Athens by direct or indirect means to relax her grasp of the northern part of the Isthmus. RELATIONS WITH NORTH GREECE 227 It may be well to say a few words with regard to the general policy of Sparta in Northern Greece, before proceed- ing to deal in detail with the various occasions on which Sparta displayed activity outside Peloponnese. The Tanagra expedition aimed, among other things, at the establishment in Boeotia of a power which might threaten and consequently restrict the dangerous activities of Athens. Throughout the rest of the century, save for a brief period succeeding the Peace of Nikias, this is the policy pursued in and towards Boeotia. With the Boeotians themselves the fear of Attic aggression was sufficient to make them wish to maintain relations with Sparta, until the time came in the fourth century when Athens ceased to be the formidable state which she had been. Then Sparta found she had fostered the growth of a power which she could not control. But, in the fifth century, at any rate, and especially in the earlier half of it, the influence of Delphi was the factor in North Greek politics which Sparta especially desired to have on her side. Fortunately for her, Delphi was just as much interested in Sparta's support, owing to the claims which the Phokians set up to the control of that influential sanctuary. Delphi's influence, if exerted against Sparta, might have been very dangerous to her both inside and outside Peloponnese. The relations with Thessaly, though the two states rarely came into contact, are not unimportant. Sparta evidently feared that she might as ally of Athens be troublesome in matters in which Sparta was interested. On the whole the fear proved groundless. The Thessalian feudal lords had to deal with a problem of a similar nature, though not in so marked a form, as that in which it presented itself in Lakonia. The detailed records of the foreign policy of Sparta during the latter part of the sixth and the whole of the fifth century show the influence of her home problem on her actions abroad. About the middle of the sixth century, probably in the years between 550 and 546, Croesus, so Herodotus tells us,^ ' Herod, i. 56. 228 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY formed an alliance with Sparta. He had discovered, we are told, upon inquiry, that Sparta and Athens were the most powerful of the Greek states. The acceptance of this alliance by Sparta is spoken of in some Greek histories as a first plunge of Sparta into Asiatic politics. The question may, however, be raised whether the action of Sparta on this occasion is to be regarded as implying any intention at all to incur responsibilities in Asia. Croesus had, doubtless, a special reason for seeking the alliance. What Sparta's reasons for accepting it were, we do not know. Croesus was threatened by danger from Persia. Whether Sparta knew this when she joined hands with him is another question. It is probable that to her the alliance had no definite intent, for it seems to have been made before the danger from Persia had taken a definite form. But it is somewhat gratuitous to suppose that the Spartan government intended to embroil itself in Asiatic matters. When the critical moment came, Sparta showed little readi- ness to undertake her part of the obligation. There is a tale of a bowl having been sent to Croesus, which never reached him. An expedition was prepared, but was never despatched. Why then was the alliance ever made? To the Greeks of that day the Lydian power appeared great and, perhaps, threatening. It had subdued the Greeks of Asia and was winning influence in Greek Europe. The friendship of a power which might some day be expected to make itself felt on the near side of the Aegean might be valuable to a state which was forced to exercise a wide control in that part of the world. Sparta demon- strated again and again in the next century and a half that she had no intention whatever of undertaking responsibili- ties in Asia. Her indifference to the fate of the Asiatic Greeks appears heartless.^ She refused to send them assistance against Cyrus, confining herself to expostulations which that monarch treated with contempt. In 499-8 she re- fused to send aid to the Ionian rebels. In 479, after Mykale, she would not undertake any responsibilities on their behalf if they remained on the Asiatic coast. She appears as 1 Cf the first clause of the treaty with Persia (Thuc. viii. 58), which hands over the Greeks of the Asiatic mainland to the king. ASIATIC RELATIONS 229 fighting for their freedom in the last years of the Pelopon- nesian War. But her object is the ruin of Athens, to be attained by bringing about the revolt of her allies on the Asiatic coast. Those allies welcomed her as a liberator, but they were soon disillusioned in a two-fold sense. Lysander had no intention of playing the disinterested part of a Pan-hellenic patriot on a limited income. He dreamed of a Spartan empire, with the founder of it, him- self, the arbiter of the Hellenic world. With that end he planted harmosts and boards of control in the revolted towns, a regime which soon dispelled all dreams of liberty. But the situation was intensely complicated. Sparta's position on the Asiatic coast had been attained by financial aid from Persia. The fleet and the manning of the fleet had been dependent on the sums which Persia had advanced. The ships had to be paid for, and Sparta lacked, as we have seen, the human capital. Moreover, that capital had been terribly depleted by the long years of war.^ Persia could not be expected to supply funds for the prosecution of a policy directly hostile to her interests. The former allies of Athens must pay for their 'liberty.' They would have to pay tribute to their new master. Up to the time of the fall of Athens all went well with Lysander's designs.^ But there was at Sparta a party, led by King Pausanias, which clung to the old policy and dis- trusted the new. For the time it prevailed. But Lysander had involved Sparta in ways from which there was no com- plete turning. The State had incurred obligations from which it could not recede. The Lysandrian system had created for it among the cities of the Aegean potential enemies which would fly at its throat if it relaxed its grasp of them. Moreover, many of its influential citizens, adherents of Lysander, had tasted the sweets of despotic power 1 How very much the number of the Spartiates had been reduced towards the end of the fifth century is shown, not merely by the other- wise incomprehensible anxiety caused by the capture of a small number of them on Sphakteria, but still more, perhaps, by the fact that fears were entertained that this small body of men might, after their return, bring about a revolution. (Thuc. v. 34.) 2 For variation in Spartan policy, due to party changes at Sparta, of. Thuc. V. 36. 230 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY abroad, and were by no means minded to return to the obscurity of life under the stern levelling system at home. Amidst the intense excitement of the last years of the death struggle with Athens, Sparta had incurred obliga- tions, some of which she could not perform, some of which she had to try to carry through whether she would or not ; and furthermore it had come about that with respect to the latter the will of the state was divided. With the fourth century dawned an era which for Greece itself was in some respects better, in many worse, than the preceding age ; but which for Sparta was wholly worse. The new designs depleted a population which had never been more than enough to maintain the less ambitious policy of the fifth century. But of the new policy and its results it will be necessary to speak later in this chapter. The tale of the last years of the fifth and the opening years of the fourth century shows that Sparta had no interests on the Asiatic coasts save such as the last years of the fifth century had created for her. But these new interests were fatal to her. She might and did sacrifice the continental cities to Persia, because she had not the means, despite Agesilaos, of maintaining their independence, and because, under Persian control, they could not endanger her interests on the European side. But she had attained to a new position from which in certain respects she could not recede without danger to herself; and thereby she was ultimately ruined. It was part of the tragedy of her national life that she was forced in the fourth century to abandon that necessarily restricted policy which she had pursued in the fifth, and to which we must now return. In speaking of Spartan policy on the Asiatic coast of the Aegean, no reference has been made to the expedition against Polykrates of Samos. The omission has been deli- berate. The policy which lay behind the incident is of a piece with other examples in the sixth and fifth centuries, but has little connection with Sparta's general attitude towards Asiatic affairs and Asiatic Greeks. The tale, as told by Herodotus,^ fails to carry conviction with it. The 1 Herod, iii. 44. CORINTH AND ATHENS 231 special motive for the expedition attributed to the Lacedae- monians is absurdly insufficient to account for their action. The substantial element in the story is the part played by Corinth. Behind the whole affair there obviously lies some trade dispute, which would seem to have arisen out of relations between Samos and Corinth's colony and enemy, Corcyra. In such a trade dispute Sparta cannot conceiv- ably have had any direct interest ; and her action in the matter must have been determined by the necessity of maintaining good relations with Corinth ; in fact, this is the first recorded of the various instances in which that impor- tant Peloponnesian state was able to divert Sparta from her customary and narrow path of policy. It was necessary for Sparta's safety that she should lead in Peloponnese ; but leadership entailed the incurring of responsibilities on behalf of those she led, above all on behalf of that Pelopon- nesian power whose position was so embarrassingly strong. Even amidst the obscurity which hangs over the history of Greece in the sixth century, it is possible perhaps to discern the main thread running through the apparently tangled skein of the relations between Sparta and Athens in the last twenty years of it. Athens under the Peisistratids, in consequence mainly of the economic reforms of Solon, had become a considerable factor in Hellenic politics. This alone would have attracted Sparta's attention to her, inas- much as a disturbance of the political equilibrium in Middle or Northern Greece would ultimately mean the possibility of difficulty in the Peloponnese. Though Sparta's relations with the Peisistratids were friendly, the establishment of relations between them and Argos would be peculiarly calculated to arouse Spartan apprehension. Thus two policies were adopted, both aiming at the curtailment of the growing greatness of Athens. The first was simple enough, namely, the elevation of the power of Boeotia to an equality and rivalry with that of Athens. Plataea's appeal for pro- tection is referred to Athens, in order that that state may become embroiled with Boeotia. In the last decade of the century Boeotia is encouraged to join in an attack on Athens. The policy failed for the time being ; but it bore fruit in the next century. 232 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY The second policy must have been, in a sense, alternative to the first. It consisted in an attempt to establish an aris- tocracy in Athens, which both by sentiment and by its numerical weakness would tend to be dependent on Sparta. It is, of course, the case that we only know a certain amount of the truth with regard to the expulsion of the Peisistratids and the events which followed thereon in the course of the succeeding years. No doubt Delphi played a part in the matter ; but no doubt also the increase in Athenian power and the relations with Argos rendered Sparta anxious for a change of regime in Attica, especially as that change might be anticipated to result in the restora- tion of the aristocracy of a previous period. Sparta miscal- culated the power of democracy in the rising state. She tried to rectify her mistake by expeditions to support Isagoras ; and, when those failed, by a continuance of that alliance with the aristocratic party which is so marked at the time of Marathon. That alliance becomes a traditional policy in the fifth century. It comes to the surface at the time of Tanagra, and later in the century at the time of the Revolution of the Four Hundred and during the tyranny of the Thirty. But its tangible results were little or nothing. Had it borne substantial fruit, there might have been no Peloponnesian War. The influence of Corinth is shown, too, in these last twenty years of the sixth century. She brings about a temporary reconciliation between Athens and Thebes, with reference to the troubles respecting the acceptance by Athens of the responsibility for the protection of Plataea. By passive resistance she wrecks Kleomenes' expedition to Attica. She protests successfully against the proposed restoration of Hippias. And Sparta, the great, the power- ful Sparta, has to bow to her influence, and dare not punish her. Corinth was playing her own game, as she always did, knowing well that she was an absolutely necessary factor in Spartan policy. And what was the game? Pro- bably she wanted Athens to be free to develop her rivalry with Aegina, and to crush that trade rival of them both. It was a mistake ; but it was, at the time, a genuine policy all the same. THE WAR OF 480-479 333 The war of 480-479, while it lasted, set up an abnormal state of things, under which the normal policies of the Greek states had to be laid aside. Sparta was, like the other patriotic states, fighting for her very existence. Doubtless her home circumstances tended to influence her plans ; but the strategic questions as to the defence of Thermopylae, the defence of the Isthmus, and fighting at Salamis and Plataea, were debated on considerations which had nothing to do with Sparta's position at home or in the Peloponnese. A recent writer^ has tried to show that Argos' doubtful attitude hampered Spartan strategy, and accounted above all for the meagreness of the force sent to Thermopylae, and the dilatoriness in the despatch of troops to Plataea. The argument ceases to be convincing when we consider that the available fighting force of Argos had been wiped out by Kleomenes less than half a generation before ; and that a mere tithe of the Peloponnesian hoplite army which appeared at Plataea would have sufficed to keep Argos in check. If the Peloponnesians could put some 25,000 hoplites into line there, are we to suppose that they could not spare more than 3000 for the defence of Ther- mopylae? Was the remainder required to watch a state which could never put more than 6000 men into the field, and cannot, on any reasonable calculation, have been in a position at that moment to raise a force of more than half the number? No doubt Sparta had to watch the Helots in 480, and to take them with her in 479 ; but the two facts have little traceable effect on the Greek plan of campaign. The war of 480 and its preliminaries brought about a great change in the policies of the Greek States. The increase in the Athenian fleet had disillusioned Corinth. For the rest of the century, even including the actual period of the Persian War, she was conscious of the dangerous character of the Athenian rivalry. Except, perhaps, during the decade from 446 to 436, she is intensely hostile to Athens, and consequently far more dependent on Sparta. Thus far Sparta gained. But Athens issued from that national war with a strength and prestige which excited apprehension in Sparta. The balance of power for which ' Mr. J. A. R. Munro in ihe /.I/.S., 1902. 234 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY Sparta had worked, and for which she continued to work, was upset. Henceforth she was profoundly distrustful of Athens, but also profoundly distrustful of herself. The situation is a curious and incomprehensible one as it appears in the pages of extant history. Some important factor is lacking from the historical record. Sparta lives for the greater part of the rest of the century in a dilemma of apprehension, fearing alike the position of Athens and the dangers which must be incurred in breaking it down. Wherein lay the danger ? If that can be discovered, it will doubtless prove to be the missing factor in the situation. Sparta believed that the power of Athens could be broken, unless Thucydides gives a very misleading picture of the views entertained there in the period immediately preceding the Peloponnesian War. She thought that the devastation of Attica must force Athens either to fight or to submit, and she had no doubt of her capacity to beat Athens on land. Yet her participation in the war between 460 and 450 was singularly half-hearted ; and Thucydides makes it quite clear that she would have ignored the causes of the dispute of the period preceding the Peloponnesian War, had Corinth allowed her to do so. In the years succeeding the Peace of Nikias her reluctance is still more marked. In the case of the first of these three periods the abstention may be accounted for by the earthquake and the Helot revolt, if, as implied in the received text of Thucydides,^ the latter took ten years to suppress. Moreover, Sparta had failed in the campaign of Tanagra to break the grip of Athens on 1 The reference is, of course, to the well-known crux in the text of Thuc. i. 103. In Hude, Bekker, and Stuart Jones (Oxford edition) the Sexdro) is maintained. Steup has restored it to Classen's text, though Classen preferred TCTapra. Busolt and Holm prefer this latter reading. I must confess that the language of Ch. 103 seems to me to imply that the settlement of the Messenians in Naupaktos took place before Megara called in the aid of Athens against Corinth. It is mentioned before this latter event, and Thucydides, careful in chronological detail, gives no hint that he is departing from the chronological order of events. Were the matter of first-class importance in relation to my present subject the question would demand further discussion. Under the circumstances I need only add that I believe Tirapra to be the original reading. SPARTA'S TWOFOLD FEAR OF ATHENS 235 the Megarid ; and when, after Oenophyta, Boeotia passed into the possession of Athens, the invasion of Attica became a matter of extreme difficulty and danger. In the third case the reluctance might be due to the disappointing results of the Ten Years' War, and to the fact that she could no longer rely on the support of her disillu- sioned allies, Corinth and Thebes. Still her forbearance in taking offence, except when imminent danger in Pelopon- nese threatened her in 418, is unnatural, and cannot be satisfactorily accounted for except on the assumption that she feared her position at home, an assumption supported by the extraordinary alarm which the capture of Pylos, and later, the capture of the Spartiates at Sphakteria excited in Sparta. One cause of fear was, of course, possible revolt among the Helots ; another was the loss of her citizens. But the Spartiates captured or killed at Sphakteria cannot have amounted to more than 175 men, the rest of the force being formed of Perioeki. Loss of prestige may account for the feeling at first excited by this disaster ; but the ardent desire to get back the prisoners can only be attri- buted to the fact that the loss was severe relative to the Spartiate population. How far that had decreased since Plataea, it is impossible to say ; but that there had been a decrease, and probably a considerable decrease, is practically certain. The whole attitude of Sparta to imperial Athens up 'to the time of the disaster in Sicily is best explained by a sense that a direct attack on her was one which, even if successful, would imperil the position at home, by reason of the losses which would be involved in the defeat of a state so powerful. And so she sought to shun a war in which even victory might be too dearly purchased. Moreover, after 447 Athens was not too formidable on land, and it was only by land that Sparta's position might be imperilled. Athens as a moderately powerful land power was not with- out her uses in Spartan policy. She was a factor in main- taining the balance which was Sparta's political ideal in North Greece. Boeotia she had sought to play off against Attica in 506 and at the time of Tanagra. In both cases the policy had for the moment been a failure. But from 236 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 447 until 421 Boeotia played the part which Sparta designed for her. Furthermore, if Boeotia was useful as a check on Athens, the existence of Athens secured the fidelity of Boeotia and Corinth to Spartan interests. Thus, as far as Sparta herself was concerned, the position of affairs north of the Isthmus in the years succeeding the Thirty Years' Peace was at least fairly satisfactory. Athens, hard hit in the last years of the previous war, showed a disposition to be con- tent with what she had got ; and Sparta had little real interest in the fortunes of the states of the Athenian empire — states which could not affect the interests of the Greeks on the mainland, and which were therefore a negligible quantity to her. There were hot heads among her allies who wished to intervene on behalf of the revolted Samians in 440-439, but the plan was suppressed — by Corinth, so Corinth said — though there is no reason to suppose that Sparta showed any enthusiasm for it. jThe reluctance of Sparta to enter upon the Peloponnesian Wai- is, at first, most marked. Even Thucydides does not conceal the fact, though he is intensely interested in proving his own original theory with regard to the causes of the war. It is clear that Sparta saw that the possession or control of Corcyra by either Corinth or Athens must inevit- ably lead to war between those powers. She took a bold step on the path of conciliation when she sent ambassadors of her own to accompany the Corcyraean embassy to Corinth. Nor does Thucydides conceal the difficulty which, even after the failure of that embassy, Corinth experienced in getting Sparta to take action. That is brought out in the Corinthian speech at the first congress at Sparta. Even after that, Sparta professed to be prepared to make peace, if only the Megarian decree were revokedTj The language of Thucydides^ implies that the questions of Potidaea and Aegina were regarded as capable of settle- ment, perhaps of compromise, if only the decree were wiped out. Perikles, so Thucydides says, had no belief that such would be the case. Still Perikles may have mistaken the true inclination of Sparta, or have regarded the dispute with Corinth as soluble only by war. It seems, even from • Thuc. i. 139. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR 237 the evidence of Thucydides, that the Megarian decree forced Sparta to take a course which she had been pecu- liarly reluctant to take. The reason may possibly be conjectured. She had among her allies various states which were dependent upon foreign corn. Megara was peculiarly dependent on this source of supply, because she was a manufacturing state with a population far larger than the unfruitful Megarid could support. Athens controlled one at least of the main sources of supply, the Pontus trade. If Athens were allowed to mete out such measure to one of the states of the Peloponnesian League, she might adopt the same policy to others. On this point, there- fore, there could be no compromise ; and Sparta's hand was necessarily forced, as, no doubt, Perikles had intended that it should be. To Athens with her discontented allies a state of war was far safer than a condition of uncertain peace. The Peloponnesian War changed the face of Greek politics. Something has already been said about the posi- tion after the Peace of Nikias. Sparta had discovered to her dismay that Athens could not be reduced by land warfare only, whereas Athens had threatened Sparta's position at home by the occupation of Kythera and Pylos. The enormous effect which the seizure of these small frac- tions of Lacedaemonian territory had on Lacedaemonian politics, itself goes far to prove that the Spartiate position at home was far more critical than either Sparta admitted, or Greece knew it to be. The neglect which Sparta showed of the interests of her allies when she consented to the terms of the Peace of Nikias has been ascribed to mere selfishness of disposition. It would have been a strangely perverse selfishness to sacrifice the support of Corinth and Boeotia for any save a compelling motive. And the motive is there, in the pages of Thucydides : — the extreme fear excited by the position at home. That position had first of all to be put to rights : the situation in Northern Greece could be dealt with afterwards. And so Sparta spent the next few years feeling about in a blind sort of way for alliances which might restore the situation north of the Isthmus, a prey meanwhile to the irritating pin-pricks of 238 POLICY OF SPARTA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY Athenian policy. Once only, when the danger came ter- ribly near to her, was she moved to action — at Mantinea in 418 ; but only to lapse once more into a state of lethargy from which even the Sicilian expedition could not arouse her. It is probable that she mistook its real intent, until Alkibiades opened her eyes on the matter. She may have regarded with satisfaction the diversion of Athenian ener- gies to a distant field, and against states whose weal or woe could not affect the situation in Lakonia. But when she discovered the true nature of the Athenian ambitions, and recognised that the disaster in Sicily afforded an oppor- tunity for ridding Hellas for ever of the threatening power of Athens, she was forced to take action. Of the Ionian War and its results we have already spoken. It involved Sparta in a situation which she was wholly unfitted to maintain. Yet she had to maintain it in part because she could not wholly renounce it without running the risk of self-destruction. Moreover, she could only maintain it by means which rapidly exhausted her limited resources, and brought upon her the condemnation alike of contemporaries and of after-time. She was forced into a policy which made fearful demands upon her already depleted population. It was no longer a policy of spheres of influence ; it was one of direct control, by means of garrisons, of lands outside her own. She had indeed to modify her attitude towards the Helots, because she had to employ them more largely in regular hoplite service ; but the conspiracy of Kinadon shows that they were still a serious danger. It was probably the Spartiate's greatest enemy, Epaminondas, who saved the Spartiate from destruc- tion, by withdrawing Messenia from his control. But Leuktra and Mantinea are the direct sequel of the Ionian War. It is impossible in the limits of a chapter to deal in full detail with such a large historical question as the policy of Sparta. All that has been attempted is to show by refer- ence especially to the less obvious factors in the history of Lacedaemon in the fifth century that that policy was, from the very nature of the circumstances, singularly limited, and, in a sense, singularly consistent. The contemporary LIMITATIONS OF SPARTAN POLICY. 239 world tended to condemn it, because it could not under- stand what Sparta could not afford to confess, the perilous weakness of the situation at home. Ata t:^? TroXtreta? to Kpvn-Tov '^yvoeiTO, — though Thucydides did not apply the words to a situation of which he accepted, probably, the account current in the Greek world generally. Hence far more was expected from Sparta than she could possibly perform ; and a great deal of condemnation has been pro- nounced upon her for failing to do in the fifth century that which brought about her ruin in the fourth. PART V THE ART OF WAR DURING THE LATER HALF OF THE FIFTH CENTURY CHAPTER IX THE NATURAL CONDITIONS OF WARFARE IN GREECE It has been necessary in a previous chapter to deal with certain aspects of the physical geography of Greece and with certain conditions of life which were brought into existence by the nature of the land in which that life was lived. These conditions had so marked an influence on Greek warfare that it is impossible, even at the risk of wearying the reader by repetition, to avoid a recurrence to them in the present chapter. Though the Greek authors who wrote, or referred to, the story of the fifth century were so largely concerned with the narrative of the wars of the Greeks, they say very little of warfare as an art. That was left to later writers who lived in an age which had evolved, or professed to have evolved, a more scientific view of the phenomena of life. There is nothing in fifth century history which is at all comparable to the description of the art of war as practised by the Roman legions, which Polybius inserted in his work in the second century before Christ. This particular contrast between Polybius and, the fifth century writers is due partly to a cause which is peculiarly illustra- tive of the attitude which the earlier historians adopted to the history of the times with which they dealt. It may be presumed that Polybius was writing specially for the con- temporary Greek audience, with intent to show his fellow- Paucity of references to the art of war 24^ countrymen the true nature of the power with which they had come into conflict. He wrote to the Greeks of a people whose institutions they knew but imperfectly; and therefore a description of them or, at any rate, of some of them, would have the interest of novelty to his readers. Hence in Polybius what may be called the abiding elements in history are found side by side with ephemeral events. He deals not merely with incidents but with institutions. With such writers as Herodotus, Thucydides, and their contemporaries, the case is different. They were writing indeed, like Polybius, for a Greek audience, but were mainly concerned with things Greek. It is only when he is dealing with non-Hellenic peoples that Herodotus enlarges upon their institutions, except in the case of Sparta, whose institutions were so unique and so imperfectly known in the Greek world, and especially in that Athenian world for which above all Herodotus wrote — a world which partly idealised and wholly misunderstood the true nature of the public life of its great rival. For the rest, the Greek History of Herodotus is a history of incident rather than of institutions. The abiding elements in the national life of the Greeks can only be gathered from him by implica- tion. He writes of a Greek war, but his references to the art of war as practised by his countrymen at the time are of a purely incidental character. He only refers to matters of organisation when he recognises that some great change has taken place between his own time and that whose history he is relating, as, for example, in the case of the command of the Athenian army at Marathon. But he says nothing of the organisation of the command of the same army at Plataea, simply, as it would seem, because it was to all intents identical with the system which prevailed at the time at which he wrote. It is the same with Thucy- dides. He says very little of the institutions of his time. Taking their permanence as a basis of division, the materials of the matter of history may be placed in an ascending order : incidents, institutions, racial and human tendencies. Thucydides confines himself almost entirely to the first and third of these. He says absolutely nothing of the general tendencies of the art of war in his day, despite the Q 242 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY fact that it was undergoing a momentous process of change. It is easy to criticise the omission ; but it is not easy for a contemporary to recognise the changes due to general evolution until they have arrived at a certain state of completion ; and the changes to which reference is here made did not have a marked effect on Greek warfare until just after Thucydides' death. The events of his time had done little more than point a moral which the next age was destined to translate into practical life. Nevertheless it would have been a great gain to military history had it occurred to the historian of the Peloponnesian War to describe the organisation of the armies of the period, the stratagems and tactics which they employed. Unfortu- nately the circumstances under which he wrote did not call for such descriptions ; for he wrote for a race every male member of which was a potential- or actual soldier, well acquainted with the ordinary affairs of military life and action. Such being the nature of the evidence, the task set before the modern writer of history who would deal with the general aspects of the warfare of the period is a difficult one. The facts have to be gathered from the uncertain testimony of incidental references. Greek warfare in the fifth century, as it appears in the pages of contemporary writers, is one of the most para- doxical phenomena in history. The paradox is so marked that it must become apparent to the student at a very early stage in his study of the subject. Its solution, however, is only possible for one who has a fairly intimate knowledge of the nature of the land in which that warfare took place. Greece is not merely a peculiarly mountainous country, but has for the most part a surface whose ruggedness cannot be appreciated by those unacquainted with the terrestrial conditions produced in such a land by such a climate as prevails in south - eastern Europe. The fact that its mountains are composed of various species of limestone would suggest that its ranges are bold in outline and steep in gradient. It would also suggest that their surface is peculiarly rugged. Those who know the slopes of the limestone hills of north Derbyshire will be able to TERRESTRIAL AND CLIMATIC CONDITIONS 243 appreciate to some extent the nature of the slopes of the Greek mountains. But they cannot realise it. The rugged- ness is accentuated to an enormous extent by the effects of a climate which is almost rainless for two-thirds of the year, but for the remaining four months is liable to torren- tial rainstorms which sweep everything before them, and carry away from the hill-sides the earth which has been cracked and disintegrated by the intense heat of the summer season. The result can only be appreciated by experience. It is something which is infinitely more difficult and labori- ous to traverse than even a Swiss upland or the most rugged moorland to be found in the British Isles. The rocks are closely set together. All are pointed and sharp. There is no soft vegetation on which to tread. What vegetation there is consists for the most part of low scrub some twelve to eighteen inches high, of which much is of a thorny character, and whose most marked characteristic is that it will, when the wayfarer is making his way through it, support his foot at that moment in the step when support is most inconvenient, and let it through with an unexpected suddenness which is equally inconvenient and upsetting. Passage up, down, or along a Greek hill-side is a severe labour even for a man in light marching order, and cannot be maintained for any length of time under a Greek sun, unless the traveller follow the narrow sheep tracks. This state of things, bad as it is, is sometimes complicated by the fact that the hill-sides are covered by thick bush, as, for instance, above Thermopylae, some ten feet high. Any one who has tried to make his way through such an en- tanglement will not be anxious to repeat the experiment. All this may sound exaggerated to those unacquainted with Greece, and even to those who have only passed through parts of the country by ordinary travellers' routes. From a very short distance the Greek hill-side looks quite easy ground to traverse. Actual traverse soon proves the deceitful nature of the appearance. Should any traveller in Greece, accustomed only to yiew the hill-sides from the train or the roads in the plain, have any doubt as to the accuracy of this description, let him try to make his way, regardless of sheep tracks, in a bee-line from any one point 244 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY * on a Greek hill-side, or even on an island like Sphakteria, to another point a quarter of a mile distant, and he will discover that what is here said is literally true. It has been mentioned in a previous chapter that the total cultivable area of Greece is only twenty-two per cent, of the whole. The greater part of the surface of the remaining four-fifths of the country is of the nature here described. It is now possible to explain the first paradox in Greek warfare. If the greater part of the surface of Greece pre- sents such difficulties even to the unburdened traveller, what must it have presented to a man in hoplite armour? The weight of that panoply was very great. It was not, of course, so complete as the panoplies of knights of the Middle Ages ; but piece for piece it was very much more heavy, because, in all probability, the Greek armourer never elaborated the manufacture of iron to the same extent as his successors of two thousand years later.^ Even a single Greek hoplite would have found himself in great difficulties on such ground. As for a body of hoplites, its position would have been hopeless. Its efficiency was absolutely dependent upon the maintenance of a peculiarly close and precise formation, such as it could not possibly have main- tained for an advance of even ten yards over such ground as this. The story of what happened to Demosthenes' hoplites in Aetolia, and to the Spartans on Sphakteria, in the very war of which Thucydides wrote, shows clearly the difficulties of troops of that nature when involved on ground of such a kind. It might have been expected that in a country of this character the inhabitants would have evolved a type of military force such as could act with eiifect on ground of this nature, and that the light -armed soldier would have played a great part in Greek warfare. But the records of 1 I have tried on a Greek hoplite helmet found at Delphi, and I have also tried on various helmets of genuine armour dating from various periods in the Middle Ages. The iron of the Greek helmet was extra- ordinary thick, and its vi'eight was, I should say, nearly double that of the heaviest helmet of the mediaeval period, even than those used by the Spanish common soldiers of the sixteenth century, which were naturally made of comparatively inexpensive metal. PARADOXES OF GREEK WARFARE 245 the warfare of the fifth century show clearly that, though light-armed troops accompanied Greek armies in the field, they played as a rule so small a part in the actual fighting that their deeds are rarely recorded, save in peculiarly exceptional cases such as those which have been just men- tioned. This silence is so marked and so universal in the records of fifth century warfare that it is very difficult to say what part the light-armed did play in the fighting of that period. One thing is clear, that it was the hoplite force upon which the Greek state relied ; and its success or failure decided the fate of the battle. The position is a strange one. The typical Greek army was composed of a type of force which could not possibly have been effective in four-fifths of the area of the. country. Such is the first paradox which calls for solution in Greek warfare. Before attempting to solve it, it will be well to take the second paradox, inasmuch as it is soluble upon the same lines as the first. There are few questions in Greek history which so fre- quently and persistently call for consideration and solution as the contrast which is presented in the military history of the fifth century between, on the one hand, the peculiar strength of the natural positions which the character of the country afforded for the acropolis of its towns both great and small, and, on the other, the peculiar incapacity which the typical Greek army displayed in the attack on such places. The paradox becomes still more striking when we consider the most prominent individual case among Greek armies, the Spartan, whose reputation for incapacity in this respect was notorious. And yet, in spite of this, this very army was able to maintain the hegemony of its country over a large part of Greece, thickly sown with fortifications of great natural strength. In attacking these, its only method was blockade. Nor were the other prominent Greek armies, at any rate until the time of the Pelopon- nesian War, really in advance of the Lacedaemonians in this respect. The Athenians had, indeed, a reputation that way, but it was evidently the reputation of the one-eyed among the blind. Such details as we have of the siege of Potidaea show that at the beginning of the Peloponnesian 246 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY War the Athenians were not far advanced in the science of attack on fortified places. The old passive system of blockade is the one adopted ; and, though it is in the end effective, the cost is enormous. The question naturally arises, How is it that the Greeks, after a long and frequent experience of warfare with one another, had never carried this special branch of the art to a higher pitch of development than that which it had attained at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War? Fur- thermore, how did it come about that Sparta, in spite of its notorious incompetence in this department, was able, in face of what was at times the most serious opposition, to exercise the strong political influence which it exercised over neighbouring states whose towns were provided with all but impregnable acropolis? The solution of these two paradoxes lies in circumstances which it has been necessary to describe in relation to the general economic position of the Greek world. The cultivable land of Greece consisted mainly, though not entirely, of the alluvial plains which lay in the hollows of her hills, land highly productive in quality, but small in area. It has already been said that it only amounts to twenty-two per cent, of the area of the country ; but were Boeotia, and, above all, Thessaly, left out of the calculation, the percentage would be very much smaller. From a very early age Greece suffered from shortness of food supply. The cultivable area seems to have been in some cases barely adequate, in others absolutely in- adequate, for the inhabitants of various regions of the country. It is very difficult to realise in these days of rapid transport and transit how precarious must have been the food supply of various parts of the ancient world, and especially of countries where the cultivable area was limited. It is also probable that this factor in life had far more influence upon the policy of ancient states than would appear to have been the case, if the extant records of his- tory were to be accepted as a complete picture of the life of the times with which they deal. As has been already pointed out, those records did not concern themselves with the uninteresting economic commonplaces of existence. INVASION AND FOOD SUPPLY 247 But what is known of the position of the average Greek state with respect to food supply makes it quite certain that there was hardly a single state in Greece except Thessaly which would not in the fifth century have been seriously embarrassed, or, in some cases, brought to the verge of starvation by the destruction of its annual crops, or, still more, by the destruction of those vines and olive trees whose produce afforded it the means of purchasing food from abroad. That fact is the factor which determined the composition of Greek armies in the fifth century. The armies were designed exclusively for employment in a land where these marked and extraordinary conditions prevailed. They were not designed for employment outside Greece. A citizen force is not adapted for service beyond the seas, and up to the fifth century the Greek, though he had shown himself an ardent colonist beyond the seas, had never been taken by the lust of conquest for conquest's sake. What was the position of a Greek state when invaded by the hoplite force of a neighbour? It is perfectly true that the invading force could not operate or even venture itself upon the rugged ground which formed the major part of the area of the state invaded. It was incapable of captur- ing by assault artificial fortifications placed on those very impregnable sites which the country afforded. In their hills or within these fortifications the inhabitants of the invaded country were absolutely secure so far as personal safety was concerned. Had it been possible for Greek states when invaded to adopt this policy, those which aimed at exerting an influence outside their own borders would have had to evolve a form of land force very different from the typical Greek army of the fifth century, and to practise the art of attacking fortifications. Neither of these necessities arose in Greek warfare until Athens adopted a new system of defence which completely non- plussed the old system of land attack. Yet even at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War the Spartans and Peloponnesians fully expected that the old system would be effective against Athens.^ They argued from the as yet uncontroverted experience of the past. ' Cf. Thuc. V. 14. ' The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, desired peace, because the issue of the war had been contrary to their expecta- 248 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY Greek states with inadequate or barely adequate food supply could not afford to purchase the personal security of their inhabitants by allowing the cultivable ground, that is to say, the alluvial plains especially, to be devastated by an invading force. The fruit and cereal crops must be saved at all costs, either by facing the enemy in the field or by prompt submission to his demands. The only other alter- native was safety in the present, and starvation, or some- thing like it, in the near future. The enemy would be aware of this, and therefore there was no inducement for him to leave the alluvial plain, and not as a rule very much reason for his undertaking the attack or blockade of the local acropolis. Hence, if a battle had to be fought — and a battle was the only alternative to submission — it must be fought on the alluvial plain. On such ground the hoplite force was effective, and not only that, but also by far the most effective force which could be furnished by a country unable to provide horses for heavy cavalry. On such ground, therefore, the state attacked must place hoplite against hoplite. The light-armed troops, in the form in which they existed in Greece at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, could not face the hoplite upon ground on which the latter could act. It may perhaps occur to some one to ask why, if such were the conditions of Greek warfare, so many fortified acropolis were raised throughout the length and breadth of the land. Their main intent seems to have been to provide a refuge for the non-fighting element in the population, as well as for the movable property — cattle and implements — from the cultivated land. In many instances, of course, they served for more exclusively military purposes, such as the guard of routes into or through the territory to which they belonged. Such were the circumstances which provide the solution of the two paradoxes of Greek military history. It was the cultivable fifth of the area of Greece which tions, the war in which they had supposed that, by the devastation of Attica, they would within a few years destroy the Athenian power . . ,' CAMPAIGNING SEASON 249 was all important to its inhabitants. The other four-fifths might be ignored, and, therefore, the fact also might be ignored, that the form of force most suitable to the defence of the one-fifth was useless upon the remaining four-fifths of Greek territory. Before entering upon a consideration of the evidence as to the modifications in the art of war which took place in the last thirty years of the century, there is one further question of a general nature which calls for solution. People are wont to ask : ' Why did the Greeks confine their active warfare to the spring, summer, and early autumn, and, as a rule, omit it altogether during the winter months ? ' It does not seem to have been because of the cold. Throughout the greater part of Greece the winter tempera- ture is mild ; and even in the north-east, where the winds from the Black Sea are apt to make themselves felt, the cold is never severe, judged by the standard of the climate of Mid-Europe. There is, indeed, nothing in the tempera- ture of Greece, taken by itself, which would prevent the carrying on of active operations in a normal winter season. But, of course, this omission of campaigning in winter was common not merely among the armies of the ancient, but also among those of the mediaeval world. In all these cases, therefore, there was doubtless some common cause for it, apart from any particular cause which may have existed in Greece itself. It was probably a question of the transport of shelter. Men could not face in the open even the moderate severities of a Greek winter, still less those of the winter of lands less favoured in respect to climate. For transportable dwellings the material must have been expen- sive, and their transport not merely expensive but, in the case of lands either unprovided or ill-provided with roads, almost impossible. In Greece itself there were special circumstances which militated against winter campaigning. The winter rains reduce the fine soil of the alluvial plains to a condition which those who have not experienced it can hardly realise. The mud on the tracks becomes literally knee-deep. A hoplite force would simply have foundered 2 50 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY in it. The form of army which the Greek for compelling reasons was obliged to adopt was unemployable in winter. For the most part Greek authors accept the peculiarities of Greek warfare as if they were part of the normal order of things. The attitude is quite natural. Few of the writers had any real acquaintance with other military systems or methods ; none of them knew anything of military history in the larger sense ; and to them, therefore, the Greek system seemed to be the rule in the world as they knew it, and any divergence from that system appeared exceptional. Thucydides, for instance, though he writes with what is obviously an intimate acquaintance with the Greek methods of warfare as practised in his day, never betrays any consciousness that the circumstances which called those peculiar methods into existence were at all exceptional. Herodotus, on the other hand, an author with a wider experience of the great world outside Greece, had evidently heard some criticism of the Greek methods which brought into prominence their exceptional character, criti- cism whose significance, however, even he but imperfectly understood, for he consigns his mention of it to one of the less substantial chapters of his history. It is perhaps less strange that Herodotus failed to see the full significance of that which he wrote, than that writers who have treated scientifically of ancient warfare should have over- looked a sentence wherein lies the clue, or more than half the clue, to those paradoxes which they have left unsolved. Herodotus gives in his history what purports to be a detailed report of a conversation^ between Mardonius and Xerxes on the subject of the proposed expedition against Greece. That the conversation is in form absolutely unhis- torical, no one would perhaps deny. But it contains, all the same, matter of the greatest historical importance — matter, too, which is all the more reliable because its setting pre- cludes the idea that it was the deliberate invention of the historian who placed it there. It originated, in all proba- bility, in some remark which a Persian friend of Herodotus had made to the historian himself. Mardonius is repre- ' vii. 9 (2). PERSIAN IMPRESSIONS OF GREEK WARFARE 251 sented as saying : ' And yet the Greeks, owing to their perversity and stupidity, are accustomed to arrange their warfare in the most silly manner. For when they declare war on one another, they look for the fairest and most level ground, and go thither and fight, so that the victor comes off with considerable damage. Of the vanquished I say absolutely nothing : for they perish utterly.' To Herodotus, no doubt, the remark appeared to be somewhat of a joke ; but, nevertheless, it conveys the impression created in the mind of a foreign observer of Greek contemporary war ; and what is more, the impression is a true one, though the original author of the remark may not have had any know- ledge of the circumstances which brought it about that Greek battles were practically confined to the flat alluvial plains of the country. The Greek view of Persian warfare and the Persian type of force is expressed in another passage in Herodotus. Speaking ^ of Aristagoras' visit to Athens in order to get help for the Ionian rebels, he says, ' Aristagoras said the same that he had said at Sparta respecting the Persian mode of warfare, how they used neither the shield nor spear, and could be easily conquered.' These two passages are peculiarly interesting because they express the contemporary views of each of two races with regard to the warfare of the other, views which, so far as they went, were peculiarly true, though both of them left out of reckoning certain factors of the two situations. The Persian did not understand that warfare in Greece meant fighting for the possession and produce of the narrow plains of that country ; the Greek did not appreciate the fact that, though the hoplite must be superior to a conspicuously lighter-armed man in close combat on ground suited to heavy-armed infantry, it would be impossible to force a battle of that nature in lands of wide areas of cultivation in strong contrast to the restricted areas of food production in Greece. Devastation, to be effective, takes time ; and it could never be so effective in the wide plains of inland Asia as to force their Persian rulers to accept battle on ground upon which a hoplite force could act. Greece was destined to learn in the course of the fifth century two great > V. 97. 252 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY lessons with regard to warfare : in the first place, that the estimate of Aristagoras made at the beginning of the cen- tury was quite right, given that the field of battle was suitable for hoplites ; and, in the second, that a hoplite force could not be effective in Asia unless strongly supported by efficient bodies of light-armed and cavalry. TYPES OF GREEK SOLDIERS 253 CHAPTER X THE CITIZEN, THE PROFESSIONAL, AND THE MERCENARY ARMY It is now possible to understand why the Greeks, during the greater part of the fifth century, placed implicit confi- dence in a type of force so eminently unsuited to act upon four-fifths of the area of the country. The hoplite is not merely the type, he is the sole effective element in the armies of the majority of the Greek states. Light-armed troops there are, no doubt, in abundance, but the part which they play in actual fighting is, until the time of the Pelopon- nesian War, so inferior as to call for little mention by historians. Few states possessed cavalry; and even those states which did possess it, with the exception of Thessaly, and, in a less degree, Boeotia, made very little use of it in actual battle. Thucydides says in one of the introductory chapters of his history ,1 that up to a period then compara- tively recent, the wars of the Greeks had been merely wars between neighbouring tribes. Of the experience gained in the Persian War he says nothing, because he is anxious to keep the war as far as possible in the background, lest it should detract by comparison from the war whose history he is about to relate. But of the interval between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars he says^ that during it both Athens and Sparta gained considerable experience, so that they entered upon the Peloponnesian War with a greater mastery of the art of war than they had possessed earlier in the century. When the records of this interval are examined, and above all when such records. as exist of the fighting in the Persian • Thuc. i. 15. 2 Thuc.i. 18. 254 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY War are compared with the story of the early years of the Peloponnesian War, it does not appear to be the case that Sparta or even Athens had made such a great advance as the historian implies. Sparta's experience consisted of cer- tain warfare in Thessaly, in which she probably learnt what others were destined to learn after her, that her hoplite force was comparatively ineffective against Thessalian cavalry on Thessalian plains, the extent of which rendered that country exceptional among Greek states as an area of military operations. There had been a war in Arkadia. There had also been between 459 and 446 that war which some called the first Peloponnesian War, in which, however, Sparta had played but little part. The records of the Per- sian and of the early years of the Peloponnesian War do not when compared give the slightest hint that Sparta had in the interval made any noticeable modification either in the organisation or the tactics of her army. Perhaps, if Thucy- dides' account of the siege of Plataea be taken au pied de la lettre, it may be assumed that she had, either from her own experience at Ithome or from the experience of others else- where, made some advance in the art of attack on fortified places. But her utter incompetence at Pylos almost dis- proves anything which the somewhat doubtful account of what happened at Plataea might be taken to prove. It is very difficult to say what advance in the military art the Athenian army had made during these fifty years. The war with Persia dragged on for thirty years after its conclusion in Greece ; but the fighting was of a desultory character, and the only great engagement fought on land was that at the Eurymedon. There was a certain amount of land fighting in the Egyptian expedition, and also in Greece during the war between 459 and 446; and it may well be that the Athenians learnt something from the ex- perience which these wars gave them. But in actual fact it is impossible to say what advance was made by Athens in consequence of it. There is nothing on record which would warrant the assumption that the Athenian army, as it was at the beginning of the Pelopon- nesian War, was, except in numbers, a better fighting machine than that which fought at Marathon. The Warfare during the pentekontaetia 255 Athenian tactics in that battle were such as could only have been carried out by a well-trained force. If the whole period, then, be taken into consideration, it is noticeable that the experience which the Greeks gained of warfare outside Greece itself was practically confined to the Athenians and their allies, and that experience, as far as land- warfare was concerned, was very small. It was not sufficient to teach the Athenian that which a larger experience would have shown him, the weakness of the Persian when matched against the Greek under circumstances which permitted the latter to carry out the tactics of a hoplite force. In one respect Athens had in all probability learnt some- thing. She had during this time to carry out various sieges of places defended by Asiatics, and it is not unlikely that she learnt something of their methods, and evolved some new ones of her own. At the end of the period the hoplite force is just as much the one effective element of the typical Greek army as it was at the beginning. No change in that respect had taken place, because there had been no call for any change. Except in Egypt, Athens' ambition against Persia had been such as could be carried out effectively by the Athenian fleet. She did not aim at the acquisition of terri- tory behind the Greek coastlines of that empire. Thus the Greek military methods of 430 are, as far as can be judged at the present day, very similar to those of fifty years earlier. In certain respects the reliance placed upon the hoplite force was justifiable. It furnished the best infantry of the time, and, in a pitched battle, there was nothing in the contemporary world which could stand against it. On its own ground it was invaluable ; but in regions more rugged than the plains of Greece it was useless ; and on plains of wide area it required the assistance of efficient bodies of light-armed and, it may be, cavalry. But man for man, the hoplite was the most efficient soldier of his day, and there was nothing in the world, east of the Adriatic at any rate, which, until Philip had perfected the Macedonian army, could have faced a force of the combined states of Greece. Even Philip himself shirked the experiment. 2S6 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY Up to the time of the Peloponnesian War the armies of the Greek states seem to have been purely citizen forces. There had of course been occasions in previous times when tyrants had employed mercenaries for their own purposes ; but in the Greek states at home, at any rate, these mercenary troops had never amounted to more than a bodyguard. Among the Sicilian states the case had been different. How far the Thessalian armies of the period used citizen forces it is impossible to say; but it is probable that the cavalry at any rate served under terms somewhat resembling those of the feudal system of later days. The non-employment of mercenaries was not due to any lack of supply. Long before this time the inhabitants of the poorer states of the Greek world had sought a living as soldiers of fortune in the pay of foreign potentates or states.^ Immediately after this war was over, Cyrus had no difficulty in getting together 10,000 for his expedition ; and, if Pausanias^ is to be believed, no less than 50,000 were found by Alexander the Great in the service of the Persian king and his satraps. It was partly poverty, partly the democratic idea in the form in which it existed in the fifth century, which pre- vented the employment of mercenaries, on land at any rate. The Greek states had not the wealth of the Siciliots and their tyrants. The democratic creed of the time included an article to which a baser and more selfish form of democracy would have refused to give adherence, namely, the idea that those who profit from the existence of the state should serve it in their persons. Fifth-century de- mocracy did not create the idea. It had a direct line of descent from the time when the army was the assembly, when, as was the case, it would seem, in the early stages of all the states of the Indo-European family, membership of the army constituted the whole claim to citizenship. The fifth-century democrat converted the idea. Aforetime a man had been a citizen because he was a soldier; now he was a soldier because he was a citizen. The idea constituted one of the most healthy features of the democracy of the age. When it vanished, the baser ideas underlying the 1 Vide p. 80 of this volume. 2 Paus. viii. 52. 5. CITIZEN ARMIES AND PROLONGED WARFARE 257 system got the upper hand. But universal service was not merely due to an idea. In the fifth century, at any rate, tyranny was a recent possibility, and the danger from it could best be provided against by citizen service in the army. The fact that their armies were citizen armies limited of necessity the ambitions of the Greek states. Such armies are not adapted for prolonged continuous service. Hence Greek wars tended to be short and sharp, and, for reasons already mentioned, decisive. Thucydides ascribes their brevity to lack of capital.^ That no doubt had something to do with it. But the dislike of the agriculturist to be called away from home during a season of harvest, which, inasmuch as it included the gathering of the produce of cereals, vines, and olives, extended throughout the greater part of the campaigning season, had a great deal more to do with it ; and the fact, to which attention has been already called, that a state when invaded had, either by submission or battle, to bring matters to a prompt decision, was most of all responsible for this feature of Greek warfare. But this characteristic of citizen forces all but precluded their use in campaigning over seas, and was a very effective impediment to the growth of imperialism in any crude form. Hence the Greek of the fifth century never cherished the idea in himself, and, consequently, disliked its development in others. But what of Athens, her army, and her empire ? From the very beginnings of that empire the Athenian army ceased to be a citizen army of the ordinary kind ; nor, indeed, was the empire an empire in the sense in which that word is ordinarily used. Moreover, it was the Athenian fleet rather than the Athenian army which won and main- tained that empire ; and on the two occasions, the expedi- tion to Egypt and the expedition to Sicily, on which Athens employed large land forces in prolonged service abroad, she placed the greater part of the burden upon contingents drawn from her allies. The Athenian army of this time is a somewhat hybrid military institution. It is a citizen army in all respects save one : — it is not, strictly speaking, paid by the state, but out ' Thuc. i. 141. R 2s8 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY of the contributions of the cities of the so-called league. It tended, as it would seem, to become more and more mercenary in spirit. The time came when even the hoplite became eager to benefit from that pay provided by the tribute, that pay upon which the Athenian lower classes had so largely relied for subsistence, and which must have provided to a great extent for the expenses of the land army. Thucydides makes that quite clear in his description of the feelings which anim.ated the Athenian soldiers at the time when the Sicilian expedition was proposed.^ The ex- pedition, he says, was popular with various classes for various reasons. ' The masses and the soldiery hoped to get present pay therefrom, and to acquire an inexhaustible source of pay for the future.' He expressly uses the word fiicrdocjiopd, thus implying his own view that the Athenian army had become something of the nature of a mercenary force. But when the Peloponnesian War began there was no genuinely mercenary force among the armies of the Greek states. In naval matters it was different, but that is a question for later consideration. But the idea of employ- ing mercenary troops took hold of the Greeks during this war, and, when once it had taken root, it grew with great rapidity. Various causes contributed to bring it into existence and to promote its growth. The war itself, though not an active one throughout its whole length of twenty-seven years, had periods of activity far longer and more exacting than any of which the Greek world, and, above all, Greek citizen armies had had experience. Year after year the cultivator was called from his land, and the trader from his business, at the very season at which his presence was most needed, if the land and the business were not to go to ruin. It was naturally suggested to the mind of the Greek that it was better to support the burden of paying some one to take your place in the field rather than be robbed altogether of the means of supporting even your- self. It is true that this idea did not have much practical issue within the period of the war itself ; but it got a firm hold of men's minds, and was of marked effect in determin- ing the reorganisation of Greek military affairs in the period ' Thuc. vi. 24. MERCENARIES 259 which succeeded the close of the war. The causes which were effective in the war itself were less wide than this, but they brought about certain practical changes which paved the way for the realisation of that which was due to the wider idea. This change, this revolution in military matters, came gradually upon the Greek world of that day. Two conditions favourable to it were existent before the war began. The inhabitants of certain states, above all of Arkadia, were perfectly ready to serve as mercenaries any one who would employ them. In the navies of some of the Greek states the mercenary system already existed. Athens employed foreign sailors in her fleets. Corinth ^ had recruited within the Athenian dominions mercenaries for the great expedition to Corcyra. It was, in a sense, natural enough that the mercenary principle should be applied to a service which was of necessity more prolonged than that which was usual in land warfare. A direct impetus to the employment of mercenaries on land was given by an experience which came early in the war. Demosthenes' defeat in Aetolia opened his eyes at any rate to the fact that when Athenian heavy-armed troops were called upon in the course of the war to act upon ground unsuited to their_ ordinary tactics, they mu.st have the assistance of an efficient light-armed force. The very fact that so little is heard of the light-armed in the Greek battles which were fought before this time, shows that that branch of the land forces had been thrust into the background by the peculiar conditions of ordi- nary Greek warfare, and being of minor importance, had become of very minor efficiency. Athens had not any regularly organised light-armed force at the time of the battle of Delion.^ It was Demosthenes, too, who had the experience of the effectiveness of the light-armed troops against hoplites in the fighting in north-west Greece. Even before the disaster in Aetolia the Athenians operating in Chalkidike had had reason to appreciate the fact that light-armed could be employed effectively against hoplites, and, generally speaking, that a hoplite force by itself was not by any means invincible or invaluable on ground and ' Thuc. i. 35. Cf. also i. 31. ^ Thuc. iv. 94. 26o ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY under circumstances which differed fundamentally from those which were characteristic of Greece.^ It seems to have been in Chalkidike, too, that the Athenians got their first experience of that peculiarly effective type of light- armed soldier, the TreXracrTT??, who was destined to become so prominent in the Greek warfare of the first half of the fourth century. As far as can be judged from the records of the subsequent warfare, Demosthenes was convinced by his bitter experience in Aetolia, and his happy experience at Olpae and Idomene, that really efficient light-armed troops such as were produced in those regions where the hoplite either was non-existent, as in Aetolia, or was not regarded as the all-in-all of a land army, might, properly used, become a great factor in the wars of the Greeks. He so far impressed his views upon his own countrymen that they made such a use of light-armed at Sphakteria as they had never made before. But, as yet, Athens had only half-learnt the lesson. There is no trace of the new ideas in the records of the campaign of Delion. Even where, as at Sphakteria, the new arm was employed, it was found possible to obtain the troops of the type re- quired either by levies within the empire, or from Messenian sympathisers. So far, it was not necessary to hire mercen- aries from outside. But a resort to the mercenary system was only a question of time. There were races outside the Athenian empire or even, like the Thracians, outside Greece, who could furnish far more eiiScient light-armed troops than the Athenians or any other Greeks had or could requisition from the areas under their control. It was practically inevitable that, as the war progressed, one side or both would have resort to these excellent and prolific sources of supply. It may seem at first sight strange that the Greek states, and, above all, Athens, did not proceed to raise their own light-armed troops to the efficiency of similar troops elsewhere. Greek military history supplies, however, the reasons for this apparently strange omission. Efficient light-armed troops require a great deal of training. The peltasts of the fourth century had to be professional soldiers, simply because the ordinary citizen could not ' Cf. the experiences of Spartolos. Thuc. ii. 79. LIMITATIONS OF THE CITIZEN ARMY 261 give the time required for the making of good troops of this type of armament. It would, again, have been almost impossible to create and perfect a new type of force, whether peltast or otherwise, amid the stress of war. Furthermore a light-armed force, if it is to be of any value, must be possessed of that form of courage known as dash. An indiscriminating enthusiasm is apt to resent any statement which denies to the Greeks the possession of any of those qualities which are most admired in men. To deny them the quality of courage would be absurd. But courage is of various kinds ; and even the bravest races which the world has ever seen have not displayed the virtue in all its phases. As a citizen soldier, the Greek displayed as much courage as any race, in which that form of service has existed, has shown except in moments of rare national enthusiasm. But it is a well-known fact that there are certain things which it is unwise to call upon a body of citizen soldiers to do. Philip and Alexander of Macedon, who knew well the possibilities of the citizen army, were careful, before proceeding to undertake what must have seemed to the contemporary world the dangerous venture in Asia, to engraft on the citizen force certain elements in which professional esprit-de-corps could be highly developed, in order to give the army designed for the great venture that dan which makes men face risks in which the odds are, or seem to be, terribly against them. It is striking to notice in the history of the Peloponnesian War how great armies and their com- manders shun the taking of risks no greater than those which have been faced again and again by the soldiers of other races. Whatever may have been the size of the force which besieged Plataea, it was certainly many times larger than the small body of men which defended the place. Yet the attack was never pushed home, though, apparently, preparations were made for so doing. Can any one believe that Demosthenes could have successfully de- fended Pylos against anything of the nature of a determined attack on the part of the Peloponnesian force? It is evident that Greek commanders could not call upon Greek citizen armies to face risks which involved the prospect of 262 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY heavy losses. Greek courage showed itself in many forms, but that was not one of them. The Greek was neither an optimist nor a fatalist. Also he was a citizen soldier, and he did not regard war as his trade. Brasidas and Demosthenes stand out sharply in the pages of Thucydides as dashing soldiers of a type unusual in the Greek world of that time. In accordance with the normal experience of other races and other times, the Greek, when he developed into a professional soldier, showed more of this type of courage than he had ever shown before. But even so, the military circumstances of the past affected him. It was as a hoplite that he excelled. He had been accustomed from time immemorial to go into battle encased in armour which was more effective than any which was carried by the races with which he came into collision. From time immemorial it had been on the heavily armoured man that he had relied in war. That was the type of soldier which the race recognised. The Greek soldier, like other soldiers, was tenacious of old ideas. Could he have put them off, he might have put off his armour. But he clung to the one, and so he clung to the other. It would have been, humanly speaking, impossible to convert the Greek of the period of the Peloponnesian War into a light-armed soldier likely to be effective against light-armed troops drawn from races who had for ages employed that type of force, who had developed the spirit which should animate men fighting under such conditions, and the tactics which should be employed in such a service. Hence, when the necessity for the employment of effective light-armed troops forced itself upon the minds of the Greeks, they naturally tended to turn to those sources of supply which lay ready to hand, and to purchase abroad that which they had not at home. Of all the purely practical, as distinct from the psycho- logical causes which led to the growth of the mercenary and of the professional soldier in the Greek world, this demand for light-armed troops of good quality, which the circumstances of the Peloponnesian War brought into existence, is the most efficient. It is very difficult to say where the citizen soldier ends THE ARMY OF BRASIDAS 263 and the professional begins. It has already been pointed out that the Athenian army at this time had some of the characteristics of a professional force, though, if it were necessary to assign it definitely to a class, it belongs far more to the citizen than to the professional type of army. The Spartan army is half-way between the two types, a strange product of a unique system. But in the early years of the war 'Sparta set, or permitted to be set, on foot a force which, if not originally of the professional type, became so ultimately, as it would seem. It was brought into existence by those peculiar circumstances of the Spartan state, which forbade it from taking the risk not merely of losing the lives of citizens, but of employing them at such a distance from home as would make it impossible to bring them back promptly in case their presence were called for. When Brasidas proposed his expedition to Chalkidike the Spartan government treated his proposal in a way which is, as far as the records go, unique in Spartan military history up to that time. It was evidently the intention of that government to adopt a policy which would enable it to profit by any success which Brasidas might attain, without involving itself in serious loss of any kind in case of his failure. No force of Spartiates was entrusted to Brasidas, nor was any levy made on the members of the Peloponnesian League for the purpose of his expedition.! He was provided with 700 Helots armed as hoplites, and was allowed to recruit other soldiers from Peloponnese. Of these he collected a thousand. These Peloponnesians were mercenaries.^ This is the first in- stance of the use of mercenaries in land warfare on the Peloponnesian side, and dates from 424. As far as is known Sparta had never employed, or countenanced the employment of, such troops before. The enterprise was in ' It is possible that this latter fact is consequent upon the former. It seems to have been the rule in leagues of Greek states that levies made for the purposes of a league should be made from all its members or not made at all. In this case Sparta did not wish to provide any levy of her own citizens, and could not therefore, as it would seem, call on the other states of the Peloponnesian League to provide levies from theirs. ^ Cf. Thuc. iv. 80 : rows S' ShXovs ck t^t Ji.(\oiTovvi\frav iwrBa Ttelcras i^rjyayfi'. 264 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY a sense the private enterprise of Brasidas : but the pay for these troops cannot have come from him, but must have been provided from the funds, if any, of the Peloponnesian League, or at the expense of Sparta herself.^ The first instance of the employment of mercenaries in land warfare by Athens dates from the next year, 423.^ It is interesting to notice that the necessity for their employment was forced upon her first in Chalkidike. She had indeed learned some years before, by the experience in AetoHa, the neces- sity of employing light-armed under certain circumstances, but on such occasions as at Sphakteria she had been able to meet the necessity by the employment of Greek troops, which do not seem to have been mercenaries strictly so called. In Chalkidike, however, she had to face a far more efficient type of light-armed fighting man than was found in Greece — the peltast, a type which seems to have origin- ated among the Thracians, and to have been copied by their neighbours, the Greeks of the Chalkidic peninsula, who were at the time at which Athens took this step largely in revolt against her. For Nikias' expedition of 423, therefore, she hired Thracian mercenaries, and got also peltasts from her own allies in those parts. The Sicilian expedition involved service at a considerable distance from home. It has been already seen that this fact did not prevent it being welcomed by many Athenians who, though not mercenaries, had come to look on arms as a possible profession. Still the numbers required were very great ; and Nikias, at any rate, seems to have thought that Athens could not spare enough men for the purpose out of her citizen force, even with the aid of contingents from the allies. He accordingly warned the Athenians that mercenaries would have to be hired from Peloponnese.^ ' These troops of Brasidas seem to have become a regular division of the Spartan army. They are mentioned as forming such at the battle of Mantinea in 418 {^paa-ibuoi, Thuc. v. 67, 71 and 72). But it is probable that these /3pacri8«ot did not include the mercenaries hired in Peloponnese, and were composed mainly of the Helots who had formed part of the army in Chalkidike. It is extremely unlikely that the mercenary element in the force was retained by Sparta after the Peace of Nikias. ^ Thuc. iv. 129. ' Thuc. vi. 22. GROWTH OF THE MERCENARY SYSTEM 265 Two hundred and fifty Mantinean and other mercenaries sailed with the expedition.^ Later they hired mercenaries from Thrace ; but as these came too late to be sent to Sicily with Demosthenes, they were despatched home again, and perpetrated on their way the massacre at Mykalessos.2 To the Arkadians, whom the Athenians employed in Sicily, mercenary service was no novelty. That race inherited the spirit of soldiers of fortune. They were quite ready, says Thucydides, to fight for any one who paid them against any one, even their own countrymen.^ They were animated with the same spirit which animated the mercenaries of Wallenstein, Tilly, and Gustavus Adol- phus in the Thirty Years' War. Arkadian mercenaries were also employed by Corinth in the force which she sent to aid the Syracusans.* Syracuse herself was employing mercenaries at the time ; but it was no novelty for a Siciliot state to employ this type of force. It was among the Greeks at home that they were a novelty. This great change in the military system of the Greek states at home was due then to various causes. The extreme prolongation of the period of warfare created in the mind of a citizen soldier a desire to get his place on service supplied by some one else who should be paid by the state. In the case of the Athenians this desire was counterbalanced by the tendency, which was now, as it would seem, spreading upward in the social ranks, to seek a living in the service and from the service of the state. This indisposition to serve as a citizen soldier did not consequently have much practical result during the period of the Peloponnesian War : but it was implanted in men's minds, and was certain to have a rapid growth. Added to this was a strong dislike to service at any considerable distance from home, a feeling which was very powerful with the citizen-soldiers of all the Greek states save Athens. But, after all, the most efficient cause of the change was that wider experience of warfare which the Greek' acquired ' Thuc. vi. 43. 2 Thuc. vii. 29. ^ Thuc. vii. 57. * Thuc. vii. 19. 266 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY at this time, an experience which showed him that the type of force which was effective within the area of Hellas was apt to prove ineffective in regions of a different nature, unless supplemented by efficient light-armed troops such as could only be obtained in their best form by hiring them from peoples who did not belong to the states of the mainland of Greece. The peltast, above all, proved so effective that the Greek soon turned his attention to the improvement of his type, and early in the fourth century elaborated his training to such an extent that he became of necessity a professional soldier. TACTICS DURING THE PENTEKONTAETIA 267 CHAPTER XI METHODS OF FIGHTING EMPLOYED BY GREEK ARMIES OF THE TIME So very little is said by Herodotus of the tactics of the Greek hoplite soldier of the time of the Persian War, that it is almost impossible to say whether any important tactical modifications were introduced during the period of the Pentakontaetia. There is no evidence of any great change having taken place ; and indeed the fighting in which the Greeks were engaged during the interval was not such as to suggest the probability of their having found it necessary to modify the tactics of the previous age. The war with Persia was, except for the expedition to Egypt, conducted almost entirely by sea; and in Egypt the hoplite was acting on ground of the same nature as those alluvial plains of Greece for the defence of which his type had been designed. There is no reason to suppose that the disaster which was incurred there was due to tactical defects. For the rest, the Greek armies during this fifty odd years fought on Greek soil, where tactics were, as has been already seen, strictly conditioned by the nature of the country and the circumstances of its population. In point of fact the hoplite phalanx was of such a nature that any great elaboration of tactical design in its evolution was practically impossible. The units, the individual hoplites, were so heavily armed that their mode of fighting was necessarily limited. Man- oeuvres which a less heavily-armed soldier could have carried out would have been impossible for them. The hoplite force relied on two qualities, solidity and weight. The men were placed very close together in the 268 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY ranks, and that tendency which Thucydides notices,^ for each man to attempt to shelter his right side under the shield of the man next to him would promote the closeness of the order in the phalanx. The aim was to present to the enemy an unbroken line of shields and breastplates. It would no doubt have been very difficult indeed to induce the Greek citizen soldier to adopt tactics involving a more open order, still more to lighten his defensive armour with a view to attaining greater freedom of movement. The average man who has been trained to go into battle under circumstances tending towards personal security cannot be easily persuaded to face the dangers of war under any other and less safe conditions. Under ordinary circumstances the hoplite force advanced into battle in a compact mass, probably at the slow step {/3aBr]v), breaking, it may be, into a run in the last few yards of advance. When it came into contact with the enemy, it relied in the first instance on shock tactics, that is to say, on the weight put into the first onset and developed in the subsequent thrust. The principle was very much the same as that followed by the forwards in a scrummage at the Rugby game of football. People who are un- acquainted with military history do not understand the importance of mere avoirdupois weight in close fighting. A regiment of big men meeting a regiment of smaller men in a circumscribed space, such as, for example, a village street, will almost certainly drive the latter back. Light cavalry cannot face heavy cavalry under such circumstances. The importance of this factor is clearly brought out by Polybius in his account of the battle of Sellasia.^ He speaks of the Spartans having been, despite their courage, ' forced to give way before the overpowering weight of the Macedonian phalanx.' And again : ' At length Antigonos ordered a charge in close order and in double phalanx ; the enormous weight of this phalanx formation proved sufficient finally to dislodge the Lacedaemonians from their strong- holds.' Such are the words of a second-century historian, writing at a time when the factor of weight was fully appreciated. In the fifth century the appreciation of it ' Thuc. V. 71. 2 Polyb. ii. 69. DEPTH AND WEIGHT OF PHALANX 269 would seem to have been at least imperfect. It was not till Leuktra that the Greeks really learnt this particular lesson in the military art. But before the days of Epami- nondas, at the time of this very Peloponnesian War, the Thebans seem to have appreciated the effectiveness of the weight factor in hoplite warfare. At Delion their phalanx was twenty-five deep — an unusual depth, as may be seen from the way in which Thucydides mentions the fact,^ as well as from such details as may be obtained elsewhere. The depth of the phalanx seems to have varied, as Thucy- dides says in speaking of the phalanxes of the other Boeotian contingents in the same battle. The Athenian hoplites in this battle were eight deep. At Mantinea in 418 the Lacedaemonian divisions were drawn up according to the discretion of the general commanding them, but the average, Thucydides says,^ was eight men deep. It is possible that a depth of eight men was the most common formation of the hoplite phalanx at the time of the Peloponnesian War.^ It is evident that there was a quicker step recognised in Greek army drill — the advance ' Spofitp.' Judging from the emphasis which Herodotus lays upon the fact that the Athenian army at Marathon used this mode of advance, it may be presumed that it was very rarely used when the advance was made over any considerable space of ground. The expression does not appear to mean ' at a run,' for it is applied by Thucydides* to Brasidas' rapid march from south to north of Thessaly in the course of his expedition to Chalkidike.^ The close formation was so important for the effectiveness of the phalanx that a considerable amount of drill must have been necessary in order to ensure that the line was accurately maintained during an advance. In 1 Thuc. iv. 94. 2 Thuc. v. 68. ^ In the first engagement at Syracuse (Thuc. vi. 67) there are two bodies of Athenian troops, each eight deep. The Syracusans are drawn up sixteen deep. ■■ Thuc. iv. 78. ^ A good deal of criticism had been expended on the Herodotean use of this word in the account of the advance at Marathon, and especially on the absurdity of supposing that a hoplite force could run for a dis- tance of nearly a mile. Such criticism is founded upon a misconception of the meaning of the word which Herodotus uses. 2^o ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY the Spartan army this was secured by the use of fifes, which gave the time to the step, a fact mentioned by Thucydides in his account of the battle of Mantinea. It must, however, be concluded, from his express mention of this practice, that it was peculiar to the Spartan army. It is curious to notice in the Greek warfare of this time the extreme rarity with which two devices, — the flank attack, and the employment of a reserve force, — are used. Thucy- dides only mentions one instance of the deliberate use of a reserve force.^ In the first engagement at Syracuse Nikias retained half his army as such. It is very difficult to account for the fact that the Greek commanders in the battles of this period did not keep a hoplite body in reserve, with a view to using where it could be employed with most effect after the battle was joined. It is probable that the theory prevailed that it was all- important to put as much weight as possible into the first charge : that it was on the effect of this that the battle was decided ; and therefore that it was necessary to throw into it the weight of the whole available force. There is no mention of genuine reserve forces in the accounts of the great battles of the war. The non-employment of the flank attack is still more difficult to account for. The general theory governing the fighting of large armies seems to have been that the most effective way of defeating an enemy was to roll up his line from one or both wings, not by attack in flank, but by defeating one, or, if possible, both of the opposing wings. This theory seems to have governed the disposition of the Athenian lines at Marathon, and was used there with strikingly successful results against opponents with inferior defensive armour. But it remained the great theory of Greek tactics throughout the century, as is shown by the fact that the most efificient elements of an army were invariably placed upon the wings. It is employed in its most pronounced form by Epaminondas at Leuktra. But his dispositions there are a variation from previous practice. Up to that time the fashion had been to put the best troops in the army on the right wing. The right wing at 1 Thuc. vi. 67. WING ATTACK 271 Marathon is occupied by Athenians under the direct com- mand of Kallimachos : at Plataea by the Spartans : at Olpae by Demosthenes and his men : on the Boeotian side at Delion by the Thebans : Spartans are on the extreme right of the Lacedaemonian army at Mantinea. The idea, fi then, seems to have been that the best troops should be on the right, with intent to roll up the enemy's line from left to right; but, inasmuch as the enemy would be pretty certain to attempt the same design, the second-best troops were placed on the left in order to prevent him from being successful in this manoeuvre. At Leuktra, however, Epaminondas modified this plan. He concentrated his best troops on his own left, feeling that if they could defeat the best troops of the right wing of the enemy, the work of rolling up the rest of the line would be comparatively easy, as indeed proved to be the case. Though this ruling design in Greek battle tactics of the fifth century bears a close relation to flank attack, it is, of course, an attack on the wing, not on the flank itself. But the curious thing is that, though the flank attack is never employed, it is always feared. At Marathon the Athenian front is extended so as to equal that of the Persians. At Olpae Demosthenes is afraid of being outflanked. Agis at Mantinea fears that the Lacedaemonian left wing may be outflanked by the Mantineans, and takes precautions against this happening.^ One thing is evident. The hoplite phalanx was regarded as peculiarly vulnerable on either flank. The first care of a general seems to have been to make his front at least equal in length to that of the enemy. As to the off"ensive, the indisposition to risk the flank attack may have been due to the fact that a body of hoplite troops engaged in making such an attack would be liable to expose its own flanks, since it must, under such circumstances, be detached from the rest of the line. That was a risk which the Greek general of the fifth century would not undertake, and one, it may be, that his soldiers would not face. It seems to have been the case that the hoplite, on ground suited to his movements, could move rapidly over a short ^ Thuc. V. 71. 272 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY distance, such as, for instance, the range of missile weapons. Attacked by light-arnnied troops on level ground, the hoplite force threw out detachments from its ranks, which made short rapid charges on the assailants. The extreme rarity of cases in which light-armed venture to assail hoplites on such ground makes it almost certain that these tactics must have been effective. Such was the case, at any rate, with Greek light-armed troops. More effective troops of this description, especially if combined with cavalry, might be dangerous to a hoplite force, as, for instance, the Chalkidian peltasts at Spartolos, where, in combination with cavalry, they drove back the Athenian hoplites.^ Slingers, too, employing a missile of peculiarly long range, as missiles went in those days, might get a hoplite phalanx into diffi- culties, as happened to Knemos' Peloponnesian hoplites at Stratos.^ On really bad ground, the hoplite was almost at the mercy of light-armed ; but then, as has been already pointed out, the hoplite was not designed for such ground. It is peculiarly significant of the limited character of Greek military experience up to the time of the Peloponnesian War, that this weakness of the hoplite type of force was not appreciated until the experience of this war, and especially of Demosthenes in Aetolia and of the Spartans on Sphakteria, demonstrated it. It is probable that the manoeuvre of charging by detach- ments was most effective when used by hoplite corps which had had something like a professional training. Thucy- dides implies^ that had the ground on Sphakteria been suitable for hoplites, Demosthenes' light-armed would have suffered severely from charges by the Spartan force : ' the ground,' he says, ' was difficult and rough . . . ; and the Lacedaemonians, who were encumbered by their arms, could not pursue them in such a place.' Brasidas seems to have used this manoeuvre with success in his retreat from Lynkestis : ' he selected the youngest of his soldiers to run out upon the enemy at whatever point the attack might be made.'* The plan was effective in 1 Thuc. ii. 79. 2 Thuc. ii. 81. ' Thuc. iv. 33. * Thuc. iv. 125. HOPLITE TACTICS 273 checking what was probably a somewhat efficient light- armed foe.^ He also adopted on this occasion the formation of the hollow square, with the baggage and light-armed in the centre. A similar formation has been adopted in recent years by English troops when engaged with the Soudanese. Later, in the Peloponnesian War, Nicias adopted it for his reserve force in the first engagement at Syracuse. As far as hoplite fighting is concerned there is very little, if any, development of tactics during this war, for the very good reason that the limitations imposed upon the phalanx by the nature of its armament made such development almost impossible. But it was in this war that the Greek realised for the first time that a form of force which was well adapted to the peculiar circumstances of warfare within his own country was not capable by itself of facing the circumstances of warfare as they presented themselves outside Greece, or even in the less-known parts of Greece itself. ' Thuc. iv. 127. 2 74 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY CHAPTER XII LIGHT-ARMED TROOPS AND CAVALRY IN GREEK WARFARE The most striking feature in the development of the art of war, produced by the long experience of the twenty-seven years of fighting, arose from the recognition that, whatever might be the case with warfare in Greece, warfare outside that country involved the necessity of facing the attacks of light-armed troops far more efficient than any which the circumstances of Greek warfare had called into existence. But, moreover, the Greek had never discovered that there was a sort of mean between the extremes of his heavy- armed and light-armed men, which possessed nearly all the mobility of light-armed troops, and sufficient offensive and defensive armour to cope successfully, or, at any rate, with a fair hope of success, with bodies of hoplite troops. Having made the discovery, he developed it, not so much during this war as during the early fourth century, into the highly trained bodies of peltasts who served under such com- manders as Iphikrates and Chabrias. If an argument may be drawn from the silence of both Herodotus and Thucydides, the Greek light-armed of the time at which the Peloponnesian War began played a very inferior part in battles and warfare generally. Nor is this, perhaps, very surprising under the exceptional but very marked circumstances under which Greek warfare was carried on. By themselves they were no use whatever for stopping a hoplite force from carrying out that which it was all-important to prevent it from doing, the devastation of the alluvial plains. It is, indeed, the case that the part which they played was so inferior that it is very diffi- cult to say what it actually was. It is significant that, USE OF LIGHT-ARMED TROOPS 275 though the majority of the Greek states had presumably organised bodies of light-armed troops, Athens had not, at any rate up to the time of Delion, any such organised force.i At the same time she employed them at that very battle ; and the fact that an appreciable number of them were among the slain shows that they took part in the fighting. It is probable that their main use was to protect the flanks of an advancing hoplite force against attacks from the light-armed of the enemy. Thus every Greek army had to have light-armed troops with it as a matter of pre- caution, if for no other reason. But there is no instance mentioned by authors of the fifth century in which light- armed troops played a decisive part in any battle on Greek soil, except in the two cases in this war where hoplites were caught on ground unsuited to their formation and their tactics. The Greek soldiers of the opening years of the Pelopon- nesian War did not reck much of the light-armed. ' The Aetolians,' they said, 'though a large and warlike people, dwelt in unwalled villages, which were widely scattered ; and, as they had only light-armed soldiers, they could be subdued without difficulty before they could combine.'^ Those who held this view had occasion to change it before long. Still the light-armed were not regarded as of any importance in pitched battles, and Thucydides himself speaks of them in a somewhat contemptuous way in his account of the first engagement at Syracuse:' ' for a while the throwers of stones and slingers and archers skirmished in front of the two armies, driving one another before them after the manner of light-armed troops.' But the light-armed troops from the less civilised parts of Greece were far more effective than those from states where the hoplite was the recognised type of soldier. The Akarnanian Slingers at Stratos inflicted considerable losses on the Peloponnesian hoplites of Knemos,* and this, too, on ground not unfavourable for hoplite fighting. Of Demos- thenes' experience in Aetolia it is not necessary to speak again. 1 Thuc. iv. 94. 2 Thuc. iii. 94. ^ Thuc. vi. 69. « Thuc. ii. 81. 276 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY But the war taught many lessons besides that which Demosthenes learnt in Aetolia. It soon became clear to the commanders of Greek armies serving abroad that reli- ance could not be placed upon hoplite troops unsupported by effective bodies of men whose armament rendered them more mobile. The demand for various types of light- armed became greater as the war progressed. Archers, javelin men, slingers, and, above all, peltasts are found to be necessary under the larger and wider experience which the war afforded to the Greek soldier. The defeat of the Athenian hoplites by light-armed cavalry and peltasts at Spartolos, of Kn^mos and his Peloponnesian hoplites by Akarnanian slingers at Stratos. the destruction of Ambra- kiot hoplites by Amphilochian light-armed,^ did not merely support the conclusions drawn from the experience in Aetolia and Sphakteria, but carried them still further. These incidents showed that, even on ground not unsuited to its movements, a hoplite force was vulnerable if attacked by light-armed soldiers drawn from races which had practised that form of fighting. Hence the demand for such troops becomes a common feature of the war after the first five years of it have elapsed. The Boeotians, wish- ing to capture Delion send for javelin men and slingers from the Malian Gulf: peltasts are employed at Torone : Brasidas employs peltasts to aid Mende : the Athenians employ them likewise in Chalkidike : Brasidas has a pecu- liarly large force of them at Amphipolis : both sides in the siege of Syracuse used light-armed troops of all kinds. ^ In 410 Thrasyllos converted 5000 of his seamen into peltasts, and used them with considerable effect against the Milesians.^ The Peloponnesian War developed the military art into a science ; and that process of development is perhaps most clearly seen in the growing appreciation of the necessity of co-ordinating various kinds of troops in order to create a really efficient army. The failure of the Greeks to create effective light-armed > Thuc. ii. 79; ii. 81 ; iii. 112. ' Thuc. iv. 100 ; iv. iii ; iv. 123 ; iv. 129 ; v. 6 ; vi. and vn.passim. 2 Xen., Hell. 1. ii. i and 3. CAVALRY 277 soldiers from among the civilised states of Greece itself was probably due to the fact that the citizen-soldier of these states had become accustomed to rely on heavy defensive armour, and to think that it was only incumbent on him to face the most deadly risks of battle when so protected. It would be contrary to human nature to expect men who were accustomed to see their fellow-citizens enter battle in hoplite panoply to face the same risks without such bodily protection. The ineffectiveness of another branch of the military ser- vice, the cavalry, among the Greeks was due to a different cause. The greater part of Greece is peculiarly unsuited to horse-breeding, because the pasturage is excessively poor. The consequence was that Thessaly and Boeotia alone among Greek states developed cavalry of any significance. There can be little doubt that heavy cavalry or even really good light cavalry would have been very effective against such opponents as the Greek hoplites had to face in this war, the peltasts and other light-armed troops of races who had developed light-armed tactics. A striking instance of this is mentioned in Thucydides.^ In the fight- ing during the Thracian raid into Macedonia, the Mace- donian horsemen made short work of the Thracians opposed to them. ' No one withstood their onset, for they were excellent horsemen, and were protected with coats of mail.' But up to the time of the Peloponnesian War the Greek states which had played prominent parts in the theatre of war had found their opponents mainly among one another ; and, except in the brief experience of Plataea, and on such occasions as attempts had been made to interfere in Thessaly, had not been called upon to face good cavalry. Still, looked at in the light of after events, those experiences had been instructive. The Persian light cavalry had shown itself a formidable foe on the plains of Boeotia when once it had discovered the foolishness of trying conclusions at close quarters with unbroken heavy-armed infantry. The Thessalian plains afforded such admirable ground for cavalry that Greek armies which tried to win successes ' Thuc. ii. 100. 2 78 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY there soon found that their conquests would be confined to the ground on which they stood. ^ But Thessaly rarely excited the cupidity or even the interest of the southern states ; and the Thessalian had no particular fancy for ruining his horses on the impossible tracks and surfaces of the lands southward. So he lived for the most part a life of his own ; and the necessity for devising means of meeting his mounted men was never forced upon the armies of middle Greece or Peloponnese. The Boeotian Horse was evidently not a negligible factor for those who had to wage war in and against Boeotia ; but it does not seem to have made much practical impression on those who were called upon to face it ; and the Boeotian himself gave it a dis- tinctly inferior place in importance to the hoplite. Up to the time of the Peloponnesian War the prominent Greek states had no occasion to develop an arm which they and those with whom they were brought into hostile contact could only have developed at great difficulty and expense. The use which the Greeks at the beginning of the war were wont to make of their cavalry was generally confined to attacks on stragglers of a hostile force who were engaged either in foraging or in devastation.^ It might be used for a rapid raid on an enemy's territory.* The Athenian cavalry was used in this way in the Megarid. During the Sicilian expedition the Syracusans employed their horsemen as scouts, and above all as a terror to those of the enemy who separated themselves from the main body of troops. But it is evident that men had not realised what cavalry could do against infantry whose striking power was limited to the length of the weapons which they held in their hands. Cavalry was regarded as useless in close fighting* in a space enclosed by walls on either side, a situation in which the weight of men and horses in a charge pushed home, ought to have crushed back any infantry unprovided with the firearms of modern times. It has been the universal experience of war in recent centuries that cavalry which is unbroken by infantry fire must crush any infantry with ' Cf. the Athenians at Pharsalos, Thuc. i. ill. 2 Cf. Thuc. ii. 22. ^ Thuc. ii. 31. * Thuc. vii. J. CAVALRY VERSUS HOPLITE 279 which it gets into close quarters.^ It was the steady fire of the English squares at Waterloo which saved them from being broken by the French cavalry charges. Had that cavalry been launched against hoplites, the latter, despite their defensive armour, must have been ridden down. The Greeks could not develop the cavalry because they had not the horses. Apart from that, an effective cavalry force, and especially a heavy cavalry force such as would be required against hoplites, is very expensive to maintain. Its exist- ence is only possible under two conditions : abundance of good horses, and a numerous and hardy nobility of sufficient wealth to supply themselves with horses and the horse- man's panoply. In only one of the states of the ancient world, and at only one period of that state's history, was an effective force of this kind maintained. Macedon, under the master-hands of Philip and his son Alexander, created it from among the nobility of the country. The military genius of Alexander saw how it could be best employed. Against heavy infantry more mobile than a hoplite force, such, for instance, as the Roman legions, it had its limita- tions, because that infantry was provided with heavy missiles such as would break the shock of the charge, and, apart from that, could rapidly adopt a more open order so as to let the assailant cavalry pass between its ranks. In no part of the Greek world, east or west, was a cavalry arm developed which could decide a battle by the shock of its charge; and those states which either possessed cavalry before the war broke out or acquired it for use in the war, used it eventually as a secondary means of attack in battle, to be employed against hoplites who were either shaken or in flight, or against light-armed. But its main 1 In military history of modern times it has been said that cavalry is of little use against unbroken infantry. That is true of infantry pro- vided with firearms. But what would happen to infantry unprovided with firearms if attacked by heavy-armed cavalry is clearly shown by what happened to infantry provided with firearms, but assailed before they could make effective use of them, as, for instance, the Austrian columns at Marengo, the Russian and Austrian infantry at Austerlitz, or the French infantry which advanced against the English left at Waterloo, and were cut to pieces by a sudden charge of the English cavalry. 28o ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY use seems to have been either for the protection or harassing of scattered bands of foragers. At the same time it was of considerable value if used in combination with heavy- armed infantry, and a hoplite force accompanied by cavalry was peculiarly formidable to a hoplite force without it. At the battle of Solygea, the obstinate resistance of the Corinthian hoplites was overcome because the Athenians had cavalry, whereas the Corinthians had not.^ At Mantinea the Athenian cavalry saved their infantry from a most dangerous position.^ Cavalry could also be used as an effective check on hoplite tactics, and especially in the case of the manceuvre of charging in detached bodies from the ranks.^ But the mention of their effectiveness in this respect tends to imply the negative fact that they were not good enough to employ against a hoplite force in close array, and this is further borne out by the mention of their ineffectiveness in fighting within anything resembling an enclosed space.* In combination with javelin men they became more formidable, and in one instance the two arms together put to flight the Athenian left wing at Syracuse.^ Cavalry could also be used effectively against the light- armed and camp-followers in the rear of the battle line of hoplites.* Generally speaking, though the Greeks of this period made little use in their wars within Greece itself of an arm which they had not the means of bringing to any great size or efficiency, yet they seem to have been aware that they could not ignore the effect of cavalry under conditions different from those which prevailed in Greece itself Nikias foresaw that it would be necessary for the Athenians to employ a numerous cavalry in Sicily.^ The developments of the art of war from age to age are curious, interesting, and often unexpected. It is possible not merely to trace but to foresee certain lines of evolution in so far as circumstances either remain the same, or develop in accordance with well-defined principles. But new cir- cumstances arise, and demand new experiments from the inventiveness of mankind. ' Thuc. iv. 44. 2 Thuc. v. 73. ' Thuc. vi. 70. ^ Thuc. vii. 5. = Thuc. vii. 6. " Thuc. vi. 64. ' Thuc. vi. 20. CAVALRY AS THE STRIKING ARM 281 When the Peloponnesian War opened, the Greek placed all but absolute reliance on his hoplite force. Before it ended he had learnt that, to make an efficient army suitable for service in other lands, and even in certain respects within his own, the hoplite must be supported by good light-armed troops and, if possible, by cavalry. The next age, the first half of the fourth century, developed the military art along these lines, and the Greek hoplite force became in such combination the most effective mili- tary engine in the world east of the Ionian Sea. The Macedonian recognised that the heavy-armed phalanx was lacking in mobility, and that greater mobility was required in the ' striking ' force of an army. He did not conceive the idea of making the phalanx more mobile, because its effectiveness was regarded as being dependent upon its close formation. He evolved the idea of a heavy cavalry force which should be the striking arm, while the phalanx, more heavily armed than ever, and consequently more immobile, should give solidarity and rigidity to the resisting power of the line of battle. The effectiveness of the cavalry declined as its personnel became scattered over the whole of Western Asia, but the phalanx remained as the type of all that men thought best in the military art, until it was wiped out of existence by those soldiers who combined all the best fighting qualities of the hoplite and the peltast — the Roman legionaries. 282 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY CHAPTER XIII SIEGE OPERATIONS It has already been necessary to refer to the peculiar incapacity displayed by Greek armies in the attack on artificial fortifications, a military defect attributable to the special circumstances under which warfare was carried on in Greece itself. It is now necessary to consider what were the methods of attack employed at the time of the Peloponnesian War, and whether, before the war and during the war, the Greek developed the art of assault on walled places. It seems quite certain that the great military powers which arose in Asia had carried the art to a high pitch of elaboration many centuries before that in which the Peloponnesian War took place, and that the Greeks were far behind them in this respect. Though there is no evidence on the subject, yet it may be safely assumed that the Asiatic Greeks, at any rate, had learnt from association with the Persian some of the methods which the latter employed, and some of this experience must have been peculiarly and painfully their own.^ But up to the time when the war against the Persian was carried to the east coast of the Aegean the Greeks had had no stimulus to acquire an art which they had little occasion to employ, inasmuch as nearly all their land warfare up to that time had been carried on within Greece itself. The Persian War from 479 onwards made the Athenians, at any rate, and those who were allied with them, acquainted with the circumstances of warfare over seas. Yet, even so, ^ Cf. Artemon of Klazomenae, who, according to Diodorus xii. 28, constructed engines for Perikles' siege of Samos in 440-39. EARLIER HALF OF THE FIFTH CENTURY 283 the cases in which league armies were called upon to attack places defended by forces other than Greek were comparatively rare ; and furthermore, the essential military details of those sieges have for the most part vanished from the pages of history. Sestos was besieged by the Athenian contingent of the Greek fleet immediately after the battle of Mykale. The Persian commander had not expected an attack, and had not made any preparations to withstand a siege. Little is said or even implied as to the methods of attack employed. There was certainly a blockade, for the besieged were reduced to the verge of starvation ; but even the blockade seems to have been ineffective, for the Per- sians managed to escape through it one night. Nothing that Herodotus says implies an effective assault.^ Diodorus' language might be taken to imply an active attack ; but it is probable that the passage is a loosely worded abbrevia- tion of what Herodotus relates.^ No details are given of the siege of Byzantion.^ Eion was probably starved out by blockade.* No details are given of the siege of Naxos, nor of that of Thasos. Diodorus' reference to the siege of Aegina suggests that some form of assault was employed,'' but it would be very unsafe to draw conclusions from the language used in an author of Diodorus' type, especially in a passage in which he is not describing events with any great detail. In Pausanias^ is a remarkable account of a siege of Oeniadae by the Messenians from Naupaktos, in which it is related that the assailants attacked the town by means of escalade and by undermining the walls. They captured it, and held it a year, so Pausanias says. The siege is no doubt a historical fact : but are the details to be relied upon ? That is a very doubtful question, the more so because Pausanias introduces into his account of the early Messenian wars with Sparta various details which are > Hdt. ix. 117. ^ Diod. xi. 37, Trpoo-^oXas T^ TToXei ■TTOirjO'dji.evos. ^ Thuc. i. 94. Diod. xi. 44. * Plut., Kim. 7. Pausanias (viii. 8. 7) says that Kimon employed water to dissolve the brick ramparts. ^ Diod. xi. 70. * Paus. iv. 25. 284 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY without doubt anachronisms. He seems to have tried to give interest to the story by the insertion of stratagems and devices which did not come into practice until much later times. He may have done so in this instance also. Though the evidence cannot be positively rejected, it cannot be accepted as satisfactory proof that the Messenians had carried the art of siege to such a pitch by the middle of the fifth century. Of the siege of the White Castle at Memphis in the Egyption expedition no details are given. In the siege of Samos in 440-39 the method of triple circumvallation was employed, if Thucydides is to be believed.! But Diodorus makes the interesting statement that Perikles employed in the siege rams constructed by a certain Artemon of Klazomenae, and that he was the first who used this method of attack.^ Presumably he means either 'the first Athenian' or 'the first Greek 'who did so. If that is what he means, it is very probable that he has recorded a genuine and interesting historical fact with regard to the siege of Samos. The ancient world employed one or more of four methods of attack on cities. These were : — (i) Circumvallation by one or more walls built round the city : (2) Assault, either by scaling ladders or by a mound raised against the wall : (3) The use of engines to break down or break through the wall : (4) Mining, with a view to destroying the wall foundations. There can be no doubt that with the Greeks the first of these methods was the one commonly employed before the Peloponnesian War. Even during the war it is at least the customary method. The curious feature about the evidence is that there exists no satisfactory testimony of the Greeks having employed methods (2) and (3), and very little evidence of their having employed method (4) before the date of the Peloponnesian War. ' Thuc. i. 116. 117. 2 Diod. xii. 28. THUCYDIDES AND SIEGE OPERATIONS 285 The attitude of Thucydides towards the siege operations which were undertaken during the war is remarkable, and is perhaps significant. The vast majority of the incidents of the Peloponnesian War are treated by him with great brevity, in some cases with a brevity disproportionate to their importance. There are, however, three into which he enters with a peculiar and striking amount of detail : — (i) The Siege of Plataea : (2) The operations at Pylos and Sphakteria : (3) The Siege of Syracuse. It will be noticed that these are all narratives of siege operations, or of operations kindred to them. There is one noticeable omission from the list — the siege of Potidaea, which, though of such importance and magni- tude, is described with much less detail. A historian writing of events with which both he and the audience for which he writes are contemporary will naturally dwell most on those which present some novelty to contemporary experience. It may therefore be suspected from the elaboration of detail with which Thucydides deals with these three cases of siege operations that there was some- thing of the nature of novelty in that department of the war ; that the operations relating to the attack and defence of fortified places had entered on a new phase of develop- ment within the limits of the historian's own personal experience. Wherein lay the novelty? It must have been in the use of active attack as contrasted with the old passive method of blockade by circumvallation. Active methods had probably been employed by the Greeks before the Peloponnesian War ; but if any conclusion is to be drawn from the records, they must have been employed but rarely. If Diodorus is to be trusted, the use of engines in the attack on fortifications was first made by the Athenians in the siege of Samos in 440-39.^ The evidence of Thucydides as to the sieges which took place in the Peloponnesian War is rather striking. It ' Diod. xii. 28, already quoted. 286 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY may be convenient for the purpose of this inquiry to tabulate it : — Place Besieged. Attacking Force. Reference to Passage. Method Employed. 'Potidaea Athenians i. 64 Partial circumval- lation. I. • 5J 5) ii. 58 Engines and other means. F.' ») )» ii. 70 Blockade. 2. Oenoe Peloponnesians ii. 18. 19 Engines and siege works. F. 3. Plataea J5 ii. 75, etc. Circumvallation. Escalade by mound. F. Mining. F. Engines. F. Blockade. 4. Methymna Athenians iii. 18 Assault. F. 5. Mytilene n iii. 18 Circumvallation- wall with forts. 6. Minoa It iii. 51 Engines worked from the sea. (7. Naupaktos Peloponnesians iii. 102 Assault contem- plated but not carried out.) 8. Nisaea Athenians iv. 69 Circumvallation. 9. Mende 5) iv. 130 j5 10. Skione iv. 132 )J (11. Amphipolis 37 V. 7 Use of siege engines contemplated.) 12. Epidauros Argives V. 56 Escalade. F. 13. Orchomenos Allies of Argos V. 61 Repeated assaults on a weak wall. 14. Epidauros » V. 75 Circumvallation. 15. Melos Athenians V. 114 16. Athenian forts Syracusans vii. 23 Assault, when forts at Syracuse half deserted. 17. Counter wall Athenians vii. 43 Attempt to employ at Syracuse engines, which enemy burn. F. 18. Miletos 3> viii. 25 Preparation for circumvallation. 19. lasos Peloponnesians viii. 28 Taken by assault. In the later yea by circ rs of the war the i umvallation. Athenians s till rely on attack 20. Chalkedon Athenians Xen. Hell. I. iii. 4 Circumvallation. 21. Byzantion 5) Xen. Hell. I. iii. 14 » ' F. indicates that the assault was a failure. ATHENS AND FORTIFICATIONS OF THE ALLIES 287 In the attack on the extempore fortifications at Pylos the Peloponnesians tried assault, and had the intention of employing engines. Apart from these particulars of sieges or assaults on walled places, Thucydides gives some very interesting incidental information with regard to the dis- tribution of walled places in the Athenian empire. It is expressly stated or implied that the following allied towns possessed, or had possessed, fortifications : — Potidaea (i. 64), Thasos (i. loi), Samos (i. 116), Mytilene (iii. 3), Antissa (iii. 18), Pyrrha (iii. 18), Eresos (iii. 18), Mende (iv. 130), Skione (iv. 132), Amphipolis (v. 7). The following did not possess fortifications : — Ionian cities of the mainland (iii. 33), and especially Klazo- menae (viii. 31), Lampsakos (viii. 62) Kyzikos (viii. 107). There seems to be little doubt as to what was the nature of the regulation laid down by Athens on this point. The cities of the Asiatic mainland were not allowed to have fortifications. The remaining cities, whether con- tinental or not, were permitted to fortify themselves or to retain their fortifications, unless they had been destroyed after an attempt at revolt. It seems at first strange that Athens, which had posed as the liberator of the Greeks from Persia, should have prevented those towns which were peculiarly exposed to Persian attack from providing themselves with the most effective means of defence. It appears to be evident that, in actual fact, Athens was far more afraid of assistance being given them than of an attack being made upon them by Persia. It is not as if a distinction had been drawn throughout the empire between continental and island cities. In that case it might have been assumed that the basis of the distinction lay in the fact that the Athenian fleet could cut off island cities from sources of supply and help, but would be ineffective in the case of the others But the cities of Chalkidike, even the smaller ones, seem to have been fortified without exception. It is possible to narrow the question somewhat more. If a continental city revolted, its reduction must neces- sarily be a question of a siege. It must have been the case therefore that Athens felt that a siege of the Asiatic cities 2 88 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY would present greater difficulties than elsewhere ; and this feeling can only have been due to the fact that a revolted ally on the continent of Asia, apart from the possibility of special experience of its own, would be able to rely on help from the Persians, whose skill in siege operations was much greater at this time than that of the Greeks. Athens evidently doubted her own skill in this department. Judged by her performances in the Peloponnesian War, her doubt appears to have been well justified. It is curious that both the Greek historians of the century mention a claim for Athens to be regarded as superior to the rest of Hellas in this department of the military art — Herodotus in reference to the attack on the Persian camp after the battle of Plataea, and Thucydides in reference to the siege of Ithome.^ But in the Peloponnesian War Athens showed herself little if at all superior to the contemporary states of Hellas. What is her record ? She besieged or assaulted ten walled places in the course of that part of the war which Thucydides describes. She was successful in the cases of Potidaea, Mytilene, the tower of Minoa, Nisaea, Mende, Skione, and Melos. In only one instance, that of the tower of Minoa, the least important of all, was the place taken by active assault of any kind. The others were reduced by the old-fashioned system of circumvallation and blockade, though in the case of Potidaea assault by engines was tried without effect. It will be seen that the evidence presents the greatest difficulty to any one who would form any conclusion as to the actual position of the Greeks at this period with respect to the besieger's art. Perhaps the most striking thing is that there is no warrant for the supposition that Athens was peculiarly ahead of her contemporaries in this depart- ment — certainly not in active as distinct from passive siege operations. The most reasonable solution of the difficulty is the hypothesis that the art was, as far as the Greeks were concerned, at a stage in which new experiments, suggested probably by Asiatic Greeks, were being tried, and, too, without much success. That perhaps accounts for the ' Thuc. i. I02. ACTIVE METHODS 289 elaboration with which Thucydides treats of the siege of Plataea, which, though more important in its results than might perhaps be gathered from the historian's narrative, cannot, despite the impression created by that narrative, have been on a large scale. It was, however, the sole example during the war of prolonged siege operations con- ducted in Greece itself The story is a curious one. Every form of attack is alleged to have been employed, and every form of defence adopted by the besieged. It is a museum of the besieger's art. Its veracity has been assailed. But, for the present consideration, it is not a question whether all these artifices were employed at this particular siege. The important fact is that Thucydides did describe them for an Athenian audience. That creates a strong presumption that their use was in some sense a novelty. But it is also noteworthy that these arts are alleged to have been employed, not by Athenians, but by Pelo- ponnesians. Two, or even three, questions arise : firstly, where did they learn them ? secondly, how did they learn them ? thirdly, why did they learn them ? In answer to the first it is only possible to guess that they learnt them from Asia. That the Spartans at any rate acquired some knowledge of the art is shown by the capacity which Gylippos displayed at Syracuse. The second question does not admit of any answer in the present state of knowledge. As to the third, it is possible to conjecture that the experiences at Ithome had shown the Spartans the danger in which their incapacity involved them in case of a rising of the Helots. Thucydides credits them with employing engines and siege works in the unsuccessful attack on Oenoe in the first year of the war, and with the intention to employ engines in the attack on Pylos. The singular ill-success of the active operations in sieges during the war is very striking. The only way of account- ing for it is that it was due to the Greeks being at the time novices in that mode of assault. But it might have been expected that even if unskilled in the manufacture and use of engines, the Greeks would have employed assault by storming parties. They do employ it sometimes. At Methymna (iii. 18) the Athenians T 290 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY fail. So do the Argives at Epidauros (v. 56). The allies of Argos employ it apparently at Orchomenos (v. 61), where the wall is weak. Gylippos takes the Athenian forts at Syracuse when they are half deserted (vii. 23). Presum- ably the Peloponnesians employed it at Pylos. Thus the cases in which such an assault is made and is successful are only two in number, and in both of these the circumstances were peculiarly favourable. Why was not this form of attack more frequently and more successfully employed ? The answer probably lies in certain practical and psycho- logical considerations with regard to the Greek hoplite, which it has already been necessary to take into account. The weight of his panoply rendered him in all probability unsuitable for successful escalade : he seems indeed to have shrunk from an uphill attack.^ Also, psychologically, if the man of average bravery be trained and accustomed to fight in close order in a strongly protected line, it is very difficult to get him to adopt a form of attack in which such order is impossible. Thus for all practical purposes this department of the art of war underwent but little change during the last thirty years of the fifth century. New experiments were tried, but without success : and the old method of circumvalla- tion and blockade was in all cases the last and most effective resort. Hitherto the discussion has been concerned with the attack and defence of walled places ; but the subject of siege operations at this period cannot be dismissed without some reference to a most important development in the design of fortifications. After the close of the Persian War in Europe in 479 the fortifications of Athens were rebuilt on an enlarged scale, in spite of the opposition of Sparta to the whole project. It seems almost certain that the fortification of the Piraeus was carried out about the same time. There are grounds for the conjecture that the fortifications of the latter place date from Themistokles' Archonship in 493-2 ; but the ques- tion of date does not come into the present consideration, ^ Cf. the Athenians at Solygea, when the Corinthians retire up the hill. LONG WALLS 291 since it is admitted that the fortifications of this port were in existence in the early seventies of the century. In the year 459 Athens acquired control of the Megarid. She proceeded forthwith to connect the fortified town of Megara with its fortified harbour Nisaea by means of long walls, thus ensuring the communication of the capital with the sea. This is the first instance of a design which was to have a marked influence on the warfare of the later part of the century. Very soon after this, probably in the following year, the Athenians connected their own capital with the Piraeus by similar walls. It may well be the case that by so doing they completed the original design of Themistokles ; but that, in view of lack of evidence, must remain a matter of conjecture. The plan of connecting the chief centre of population in the state with a base on the sea was a stroke of genius such as might be expected from a man of Themistokles' rare qualities. A power like Athens, in command of the sea, might defy attack on the system of land warfare as it existed in Greece at the time. The Ten Years' War was destined to give practical proof of that. The military genius of Alkibiades recognised the effective- ness of the system. In the years succeeding the Peace of Nikias he got it applied to Patrae in Achaia, and sought to get it carried out in the case of Argos ; but the Spartans, who had every reason to recognise its effectiveness in the Ten Years' War, intervened while the Argive walls were in process of construction, and destroyed them.^ In the fourth and following centuries the system was largely employed, and even little places like Limnae in Akarnania and Aegosthena in the Megarid connected their acropolis with the neighbouring sea by means of a-KeXr], as such walls came to be called. In the Peloponnesian War itself they brought about a complete revolution in the strategy employed by the enemies of Athens ; in fact the contrast which the Ionian presents to the Ten Years' War in this respect is entirely due to the existence of the great linked fortress of Athens- Piraeus. 1 Thuc. V. 53 ; V. 82. 83. 292 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY CHAPTER XIV NAVAL WARFARE The establishment of the great Athenian fleet by Themis- tokles in the later eighties of the century had upset a certain balance of naval power which had existed up to that time among the chief maritime states of Greece. Until the en- larged fleet was created no single state of Greece appears to have aimed at even a 'two-power' standard. Aegina and Corinth, though, it would seem, stronger on the sea than Athens, did not possess individually any preponderating position ; and other states, even Sparta, possessed navies which were not by any means despicable relative to the contemporary strength of the prominent naval states. The enormous and sudden increase in the naval strength of Athens introduced a disturbing factor into Greek politics. The new policy had not, it would seem, a single motive. No doubt the danger from Persia had much to do with its creation. Also Aegina might be crushed. But that can have been but a partial motive, for the new fleet was a means out of all proportion to such an end. It would give employment to many of the Athenian proletariate, and thus help to solve one of the two pressing problems by which Athenian statesmanship was faced. It would promote that trade policy of Themistokles, which aimed also at the solution of the same problem. Last, but probably not least, it would enable Athens to secure a route or routes of access, to one or more of those sources of food supply abroad, upon which she must have been becoming more and more dependent. But however much the home circumstances of Attica may have called for the creation of such a fleet, its existence must have alarmed the contemporary Greek world, and have set thoughtful statesmen wondering to what use it would NAVAL POLICY OF ATHENS 293 eventually be put. It is evident that in the first years of its existence it alarmed one Greek power, Corinth ; for, allow- ing for Herodotus' possible exaggeration of the story, it is clear that Corinth, throughout the war of 480, was always ready to support those strategic proposals of the patriots which were least to the individual interest of Attica. And yet Corinth had been Athens' friend in a war with Aegina less than twenty years before. There can be little doubt that Themistokles' intention was to use the Athenian naval power ultimately for the purpose of expansion westwards ; and it is probable that this intention to prosecute eventually a western policy had been shown to Corinth even before 480 by some at least of those measures which Themistokles is known to have taken — measures which point clearly to such a policy having been planned in his mind. But the circumstances, political and otherwise, which supervened after the war in Europe came to an end in 479 robbed him of the chance of the prosecution of his plan ; and his great fleet was used by his political opponents, probably to the intense relief of the contem- porary Greek powers, in enterprises eastwards, enterprises in which, however, two of the main motives of Themistokles' policy, the securing of the food supply and the support, through employment, of the poorer Athenian citizens, must have played a part, simply because they were of such a compelling character that no Athenian statesman, whether a Peisistratos, an Aristides, or a Kimon, dare ignore them altogether. One thing led to another. The necessities of Athens suggested a patriotic continuation of the war against Persia, for by such means could Athenian enterprise be justi- fied in the eyes of the Greeks generally. That war brought into existence the Delian League ; and it was eventually converted, mainly by the inevitable course of circumstances, but partly by deliberate policy, into an Athenian empire. This process of development involved the Athenian fleet in a good deal of fighting, not merely with Persian but also with Hellenic foes, revolted allies, and when, after 462, Athenian imperialism developed, with the navies of states of Greece itself Against Persia the Athenian fleet acquired some experience in great battles at the Eurymedon and off 294 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY Cyprus ; but the experience was intermittent. There does not appear to have been any continuity about the fighting at sea. Persia was only ready to try conclusions with big fleets. The war is not distinguished by numerous small naval actions such as add so much to the experience of those who are engaged in them. Still the interludes be- tween the rare periods of Persian naval activity were fairly well occupied in naval practice at the expense of Greek foes, and the Athenian fleet in the fifty odd years which intervened between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars must have learnt much that would be of value in elabor- ating its tactics. It is probable that this ' much' consisted largely in the perfecting of details with regard to the working of the ships, those details which, minute in themselves, go for so much when it comes to actual warfare. Apart from these details, which it is impossible to trace in the story of the time, naval warfare at this period went through certain changes such as may be found in the tactics of all naval states until the age of long-range cannon. The changes are rung again and again in naval history on three sets of tactics: — (i) Boarding, preceded by the use of missiles for clearing the decks, and the killing as many of the enemy's crew as possible ; (2) Ramming an enemy's vessel at some weak point in its structure, preferably the broadside of a trireme, but, if not this, its stern ; (3) Ramming a vessel end on with a prow construction in some peculiarly strong form. Even within the comparatively brief period of the Pelo- ponnesian War the naval warfare of the Greeks developed throughout these stages of tactics. In those days, when warships relied exclusively on their oars for propulsion in battle, a common form of attack would be to smash the enemy's oars on one side so as to render the vessel unmanageable. As far as manoeuvring was concerned a fleet of triremes would demand far less skill than sailing vessels, but would be capable of more varied and more precise evolutions. Still there must have been a vast difference between the handi- TACTICS 295 ness and manoeuvring power of a trireme with a thoroughly trained crew and that of one with a crew untrained or only- half trained. This must have been the main secret of the success of the Athenians in the battles of the Ten Years' War ; in fact the tactics which they employed at that time presumed the superior efficiency of their crews. It is probable that a trireme could advance over a com- paratively short distance at a great pace. It will be shown hereafter that an average pace of over eight miles an hour was possible over a distance of fifty miles and more at a stretch ; and, if so, it is probable that in a battle charge a trireme could get up a pace of twelve miles an hour. After all the oarage power was very great relative to the size of the vessel. Herodotus says, unfortunately, very little about the naval tactics of the engagements at Artemision and Salamis ; and, indeed, in the latter battle the narrowness of the waters in which it was fought must have rendered the employment of elaborate tactics almost impossible. His description of the still earlier battle of Lad6 contains one detail which would be extremely interesting if it were free from all suspicion of anachronism. In his account of that great fight he mentions that forty marines ^ served on board each of the Chian vessels. So large a number would point to boarding having been at that time the manoeuvre em- ployed. But he also describes the Chian vessels as preferring the manoeuvre of the Sie/cTrXov?, or, at any rate, by his language, implies that this manoeuvre was employed.^ It is of course possible that his words are not to be taken in a technical sense, and that they merely imply that the Chians passed through the enemies' line more than once in the course of the battle, that which would happen if per- sistent attempts were made to damage the enemy's oarage. It may be, on the other hand, that Herodotus did use the words in a technical sense, and that he attributes to the time of the Ionian Revolt a manoeuvre which, in all proba- bility, attracted much attention in the later years of his life. There is, of course, a third possibility, namely that the ' Hdt. vi. 15. ^ SiennXeovTfs ivavfjiax^ov. 296 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY manoeuvre was actually known to the lonians at that time ; and thus the implication in Thucydides that it was a novelty in his day implies nothing more than that the Athenians had learnt it from the lonians in the course of the warfare with Persia. The manoeuvre itself must have demanded considerable skill in the management of the vessels which employed it. They advanced, apparently, in column or line ahead, cut through the enemy's line, and then turned so as to strike the enemy on the stern. The success must have depended on the speed of turning, a factor dependent upon the efificiency of the crews. There are further considerations on the other side of the question. Success in the manoeuvre must have been dependent not merely on the skill of those who employed it, but also on considerable inferiority of skill on the part of those against whom it was employed. Of course ships in column or line ahead can turn more quickly than those in line, because they have free room for so doing, whereas ships in anything resembling a close line formation have not. They can wheel, but not turn, — at any rate with rapidity. But still with efificient crews they could have got away from the stern attack. There was another dangerous possibility. The manoeuvre would have been in its initial stages a very risky one against a fleet which could manoeuvre well, because the column of attack might be taken in the flank, in fact the enemy might have replied to an attempt at Ste/cTrXov? by the manoeuvre called irepiirXov^, that is to say, wheeling and attacking the side of their foe's vessels with the beaks of their own. It must therefore be presumed that the Sii/c-TrXovi was a manoeuvre which could not be employed successfully, or, in any case, involved the greatest risk, if attempted against a skilled adversary. It is noticeable that all cases of its employment occur in battles where the fleet against which it is employed is of distinctly inferior skill, or is, in all probability, unacquainted with this particular form of tactics. In the account of the first engagement ^ at Artemision Herodotus describes a peculiar formation taken up by the 1 Hdt. viii. II. THE PERSIAN WAR 297 Greeks in view, apparently, of the superior numbers of the enemy. They formed a circular or semi-circular line, prows outward, to charge the foe prow to prow {avrlTrpapoi). This was successful, if Herodotus' account of what happened is correct. The formation is the same as that adopted by the Corinthians when fighting their first sea-fight ^ with Phormio in the Corinthian Gulf in 429. The object at Artemision was to prevent broadside attacks from an enemy whose numbers would allow him to outflank. Probably the manoeuvre was one well known in naval warfare at that time. Herodotus says nothing of the Greek tactics in the other two engagements at Artemision. At Salamis the conditions were peculiar, owing to the narrow space, and manoeuvring, save on the part of individual ships here and there, must have been impossible. Herodotus' account ^ of the engagement makes it very difficult to say what were the manoeuvres adopted by the Greeks. That the Greeks disabled the enemy's vessels by charging them is expressly stated f and, as the Persians were in disorder, it is probable that the Greeks were in many instances able to attack the sides of the Persian vessels. Boarding was also employed by Samothracians against a Greek vessel,* after they had cleared its decks by hurling javelins. But of the details of the actual fighting at Salamis Herodotus knows but little. As far as the structure of Athenian triremes is concerned, certain improvements had been introduced by Themistokles,^ which made them more handy for manoeuvring. Kimon introduced further improvements, which are significant of the tactics employed by him. He made the vessels broader, and had a gangway constructed joining the decks fore and aft, with a view to their being better adapted for fighting with a larger number of hoplites aboard. It is evident that Kimon believed in boarding tactics. It must be remembered that he designed his vessels for use against the Persian fleet, a fleet possessing, in its Phoenician contingent at any rate, crews which were at least as practised as those of the Athenians of that day, and one therefore against which the 1 Thuc. ii. 83. 2 Hdt. viii. 84 ff. 3 Hdt. viii. 86. * Hdt. viii. 90. ^ pju^^ j^i,„ jj. 298 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY Ste«7rXou? would have been in any case dangerous and pro- bably impossible of successful accomplishment. But the hoplites serving as marines on board the Greek vessels could not fail to be effective against the Persians. The fighting by sea at the Eurymedon seems to have been unimportant. The Persian fleet appears to have made no real resistance. Neither Plutarch nor Diodorus says any- thing of the sea-fight, except that the Persians made but a brief stand. Nothing is known of Athenian naval history from the time of the Eurymedon until the beginning of the Pelo- ponnesian War, except that there were great battles at Kekryphalea and Aegina, and off Cyprus. When the Peloponnesian War began the Athenian navy consisted of three hundred ships.^ The largest number in commission at one time during the Ten Years' War was two hundred and fifty.^ That navy quite overshadowed anything and everything which the states of the mainland of Hellas could put upon the sea at that time. Corcyra alone possessed a fleet which was in any way comparable to that of the Athenians ; and it was little more than one-third the size. Aegina had sunk into nothingness, a mere depend- ency of Athens. The other Greek states, including even Corinth, had long ago given up all attempts at competition in naval matters, and had in their despair allowed their fleets to become inefficient both in quantity and in quality. On land, at any rate, they could feel fairly safe against Athenian aggression. The unpreparedness of even such a power as Corinth, whose interests might have been expected to incite her to keep up something like an efficient fleet, is shown by the desperate efforts which she had to make in order to cope with Corcyra. The Aegean had become an Athenian lake. There was nothing to be done there. As for the western seas the thirty years' peace had estab- lished a working arrangement in that part of the world, and, until the affa"irs of Corcyra took a sinister development, it might well have been expected that Athens, who had burnt her fingers badly in the previous war, would not be ^ Thuc. ii. 13. ^ Thuc. iii. 17. INEFFICIENCY OF PELOPONNESIAN NAVIES 299 aggressive there. Nothing was to be gained by attempting a hopeless competition with Athens in the east, and any attempt to exclude Athens from the west would but result in provoking this state to take up once more that western policy, baneful alike to her and to the rest of Greece. Moreover, in the west Athens seemed inclined to be reason- able. Hence there was no inducement for the other Greek states to spend their money on navies. Thus naval com- petition ceased ; and states which had in the past made some show upon the sea made no attempt to substitute an impossible for a fairly satisfactory situation. Thus the opening of the Peloponnesian War found the antagonists of Athens singularly unprepared to face the position on the sea. They had had but little practice in naval warfare since Salamis. The experience of Kekryphalea and Aegina dis- couraged further experience. They had fallen behind the times. Athens had guaranteed the peace of the Aegean. She appears to have regulated the corn trade from the Pontus, but she does not appear to have interfered in any other branch of trade. The currency system of her allies in the Aegean shows that their general trade relations were not interfered with so far as Athens was concerned. Thus the other trading states of Hellas proper had no motive to maintain expensive fleets. Their general trade was not restricted, and its safety in the Aegean was secured at the expense of Athens and her allies. As for the Pontus corn, their rights of purchase seem, judging from the case of Megara, to have been guaranteed by the Peace of 446. The naval fighting in the last half of the fifth century opens with the engagement between Corinth and Corcyra. Of the tactics of the first of these sea-fights Thucydides says nothing.! Of the second he gives some very important details,^ and attaches thereto a significant remark of his own. ' The decks of both (fleets) were crowded with heavy infantry, with archers, and with javelin men ; for their naval arrangements were still of the old clumsy sort. The en- gagement was obstinate, but more courage than skill was 1 Thuc. i. 29. 2 Thuc. i. 49. 300 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY displayed, and it had almost the appearance of a battle by land. When the ships once charged one another it was hardly possible to part company, for the throng of vessels was dense, and the hopes of victory lay chiefly in the heavy armed, who maintained a steady fight upon the decks, the ships meanwhile remaining motionless. There were no attempts to break the enemy's line. Brute force and rage made up for the want of tactics.' It has always been assumed that this criticism of Thucy- dides is to be regarded as absolutely implying that the Athenians had definitely abandoned the old boarding tactics, and relied, and furthermore would have relied under all circumstances, on manoeuvring, and especially upon the SieKTrXovi. The judgment must be modified. Let it be granted that in such naval fighting as occurred in the Ten Years' War the Athenians did employ this or some similar manoeuvres whenever sea-room allowed of it. Let it be granted too that, having become accustomed to use it with effect, they would tend to employ it under circumstances where it could not be used effectively. Still it must be remembered that many years of this warfare elapsed before Athens met a fleet whose skill was at all comparable to her own. Against unskilled opponents the manoeuvre could be used with success. But would Athens have employed it had she had to meet opponents as skilful as herself in naval matters ? Only a few years ago the theory prevailed that modern naval battles would be decided by the ram. Quite a different idea prevails at the present time. The experi- ence of warfare shows that naval tactics are liable to much more rapid fluctuations than those connected with land war- fare, and, above all, that a manoeuvre which has been aban- doned in one age of naval activity may be revived with effect in a later age. It is all a question of the relative skill of the opponents who are matched against one another. And so it was in the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians employed the manoeuvres of the St6«7rXoi;? and ireplTfKovi with great effect in the first half of the whole twenty-seven years of warfare, whenever an opponent dared to face them. But when those opponents became more skilled, little is TACTICS OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR 301 heard of these manceuvres, simply because they would be more risky to those who employed them than to those against whom they were employed. In all probability the question was one of the most commonplace simplicity, namely the rapidity with which the crews of the triremes on either side could turn the course of their vessels. There was also the question of sea room ; but that was a question of attendant circumstances which might or might not be present in any battle of any period. In the earlier years of the war, then, the Athenians, faced by adversaries of greatly inferior skill, adopted, when possible, manoeuvring tactics. The effectiveness of such attack being dependent entirely upon the skill of the rowers and of the boatswains who directed their operations, the number of fighting men aboard was reduced to a minimum. At first these tactics were most effective ; and it may be that this effectiveness induced the Athenians to attempt to employ them in later stages of the war on occasions when they had better employed other devices. Thucydides' description of Phormio's first sea-fight'- in the Corinthian Gulf gives a very vivid picture of Athenian naval manoeuvres as directed by a commander of unusual skill. Phormio had only twenty vessels as compared with the forty-seven of the Corinthian and allied fleet ; but the latter, though war vessels, were acting rather as transports, and v/ere not prepared for a sea-fight. Their destination was Akarnania, a fact which Phormio seems to have known. They kept at first along the south shore of the Gulf, while Phormio moved on a parallel line along the northern shore. He knew evidently that they would have to cross the Gulf, and had no intention of attacking them until they were in waters sufficiently open for the employment of manceuvres. So soon as they attempted to cross the Gulf from Patrae northwards he bore down upon them. The Corinthians seem to have had a wholesome dread of Athenian manoeuvring power, which suggests that they had had experience of it in the war between 459 and 446 — at 1 Thue. ii. 83. 302 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY Kekryphaleia, in all probability. They adopted the circular formation, prows outward, such as the Greeks had adopted at Artemision. But they were evidently aware that the SoeKtrXov; might be dangerous to those who employed it, for they kept five ships in reserve in the middle of the circle, which were ' to row out at whatever point the enemy charged them.' The intention must have been to take the assailants in flank. From Thucydides' description the Athenian manoeuvres were daring and risky in the ex- treme. They 'ranged their ships in a single line (ahead) and sailed round and round the Peloponnesian fleet, which they drove into a narrower and narrower space, almost touching as they passed, and leading the crews to suppose that they were on the point of charging.' Why the Corinthians did not take their vessels broadside as they passed is somewhat difficult to understand. The proba- bility is that Phormio's vessels were prepared to turn outward at the first sign of any such intention, and furthermore that he could reckon on the enemy avoiding any manoeuvre which would disturb their circular formation. When the morning wind came the Corinthians were thrown into con- fusion, and the importance of trained crews is shown by one remark of Thucydides, who says that their unpractised rowers had great difficulty in clearing the waters in a heavy sea, and so made the vessels disobedient to the helm. Then the Athenians charged and the fight was soon over. The second sea-fight^ in the Gulf presents some curious features. The disproportion of numbers was even greater than that in the first battle. Phormio had still only twenty ships,^ whereas the enemy had seventy-seven. His base was Nau- paktos : theirs was Kyllene, the Elean port outside the Gulf Thence they moved inward to the southern Cape Rhion, while he moved outward so as to get outside the narrows and have room for manoeuvring. Thucydides ^ mentions a fact which shows the entire confidence which the Athenians 1 Thuc. ii. 86. 2 Further reinforcements which had been despatched to him had been delayed in Crete. 3 Thuc. ii. 88. THE ANASTR0PH6 303 of this time had in their naval superiority, namely that it was an accepted opinion among them that they were bound to face any number of Peloponnesian vessels. The speech of Phormio, whether the words be Phormio's or not, throws light on the elements of Athenian tactics at the time : ^ ' I will not give battle in the Gulf, if I can help it, nor will I sail into it, because I know that lack of room is a dis- advantage to those who, with a few well-handled and better sailing vessels, engage a large number of badly handled ones. For it is not possible to sail forward in proper fashion to the charge {ifi^oXrj) unless the enemy be seen while yet at a distance ; nor is it possible to fall back when pressed hard. Cutting the line and wheeling back to the charge, which are the manoeuvres of vessels with superior sailing powers, cannot be carried out, but it would be necessary to constitute your sea battle as though it were a fight on land.' These words emphasise the fact which has been observed before, that the whole efficiency of the Athenian fleet depended upon the rapidity with which the ships could be turned. The manoeuvres of the avaaTpoi^rj could only have been practised by a vessel with a crew which could drive it quickly through the water and turn it quickly, and could do these things moreover more rapidly than the enemy could. The manoeuvre was peculiarly illustrated in this battle, in the last phase of the engagement, when an Athenian ship, pursued by a Leukadian into the harbour of Naupaktos, turned round a merchant vessel at anchor, struck the Leukadian vessel amidships and sank her. The rationale of the manoeuvre seems to have been this : A slower vessel A is in direct pursuit of a faster vessel B. When B has placed a certain distance between herself and A, she having got the correct interval for the manoeuvre, begins to wheel for example to the left. If A continues a direct course B will take her amidships. If she wheels in the opposite direction she may be charged from the stern. If she wheels in the same direction as B, then being slower in pace, and probably much slower in turning, she will again be 1 Thuc. ii. 89. ^Thuc. ii, 91. 304 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY taken amidships on her right flank, for B will have com- pleted a half circle while she perhaps has completed little more than a quarter.^ The manoeuvres in the battle, which are described by Thucydides with considerable detail, show a very decided strategic skill on the part of the Peloponnesian commander. There is, however, only one tactical incident other than that which has been already noticed. The eleven Athenian ships which had been chased into Naupaktos took up a position in the harbour, prows outward. Then came the sinking of the Leukadian vessel,^ after which, says Thucy- dides, the remainder of the twenty Peloponnesian ships which were in pursuit 'were frightened at the unexpected and uncalculated incident ; and as they had been pursuing without order, owing to the victory being with them, some of them dropped the blades of their oars and lost way, a foolish act in face of an enemy ready to advance upon them from a short distance.' The danger obviously was that the loss of way would make the ships more difficult to manoeuvre in case of a sudden charge. The enormous superiority of the Athenians in manceuvr- ing power at this period ^ of the war is strikingly illustrated in the sea-fight with the Peloponnesians off Corcyra. The latter had fifty-three ships, of which they employed twenty against the disordered Corcyrean fleet, while with the remaining thirty- three they faced the twelve vessels of the Athenians. The tactics of the latter seem absolutely im- pudent considering their inferiority in numbers. They attacked the wings of the opposing fleet,* and caused the 1 The three possibilities may be shown in a rough diagram : — 2 Thuc. ii. 91. ^ Thuc. iii. 78. ■• Cf. Artemision and the Corinthian Gulf. <=^t_ i CORCYRA AND SICILY 305 enemy to form a circle. They then sailed round them and endeavoured to throw them into confusion, repeating Phormio's tactics in the Corinthian Gulf.^ The twenty vessels which had been opposed to the Corcyreans, fearing a disaster, then came up, and the whole Peloponnesian fleet charged the Athenians, whereupon they retreated in leisurely fashion, stern first, to give the Corcyreans time to escape. The splendid and successful audacity of their tactics is striking proof of the immense superiority of Athenian naval skill at this time. The rest of the battles of the Ten Years' War do not throw much new light on the naval tactics of this time. Lack of space rendered the fight in the harbour of Pylos a mere mel6e.^ There is, however, one little detail in a small fight near Messen6 in Sicily,^ which shows that the Athenian manoeuvres might be dangerous if employed against a skilled and determined adversary. The Syracusans were moving along the shore, and the Athenians apparently in a line parallel to them, when the Syracusans suddenly wheeled outwards and sank one of the Athenian vessels. The Athenians seem to have forgotten that they were dealing with a foe who had not that wholesome dread of them which possessed the Peloponnesians. They were just a little too careless. After this there was no fighting at sea until the time of the great Sicilian expedition. Thucydides does not give any details of the tactics employed in the first sea-fight at Syracuse ; * but, as the main engagement took place just outside the entrance of the great harbour, and the sole object of the Athenian contingent was to prevent the Syracusans from forcing an entrance, it is probable that it was little more than a determined m^l6e in which manoeuvring was impossible. Still the defeat of the Syracusans ^ was mainly due to lack of skill of their crews. In the subsequent attack on the palisade^ which the Syracusans had built to protect their vessels, the Athenians 1 Thuc. ii. 84. ^ Thuc. iv. 14. ' Thuc. iv. 25. « Thuc. vii. 22. ' Thuc. vii. 23. " Thuc. vii. 25. U 3o6 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY employed a ship of unusual size and design. It was of -10,000 talents — about 250 tons — burden, and was furnished with wooden towers and bulwarks. The vessel was to be employed close in-land, and the object of the peculiar struc- ture seems to have been to protect those on deck from missiles hurled from a higher level, and to make it possible for some of them to return the fire from the same level. The adversaries of Athens^ were beginning to discover that they must devise some means of nullifying the superior manoeuvring power of the Athenian fleet. Only two courses were open to them — either the adoption of board- ing tactics, or the use of vessels with strongly compacted bows for direct end - on ramming. The first of these would offer little chance of success against vessels which could easily elude their own. So recourse was had to the second, and the experiment was first tried in an action in the Corinthian Gulf. The Peloponnesian fleet of about thirty ships took up its position across the mouth of a semi-circular bay on the coast of Achaia. There it was attacked by the Athenian fleet of thirty-three ships from Naupaktos. The Peloponnesians had purposely strengthened the prows of their vessels, and their tactics were adopted in view of this fact. They allowed the Athenians to advance near to them, and then charged, smashing in the prows of seven of the Athenian vessels. The battle was indecisive ; but the fact of its not ending in an Athenian victory is significant. Apparently about the same time the Syracusans ^ adopted a similar design. From what Thucydides says they were profiting by the experience of the Corinthians in the action in the Gulf In the confined space of the great harbour they expected the plan to be peculiarly effective. Enough is implied in Thucydides' accounts of the engagement in the Gulf, and of the subsequent engagement at Syracuse, to show that the plan had its limitations with regard to effectiveness. The fleet which employed it must not give sea-room to a more skilled adversary, and must, unless it caught the enemy in a corner, leave the first offen- sive to him. But, as circumstances then stood at Syracuse, ' Thuc. vii. 34. 2 xhuc. vii. 36. NEW NAVAL DEVICE AT SYRACUSE 307 the Athenian fleet was in a corner. The first engagement which followed was indecisive. So was the next. But later in the day of the second engagement a third took place, which brought out in a remarkable way the weak- nesses of the Athenian theory of naval tactics.^ The Athenians had evidently become slaves to a system which postulated the possession of sea-room, and had designed their vessels and formed their crews wholly with a view to it. Thus they found themselves in a very bad way when the circumstances rendered its employment im- possible. Viewed in the light of experience, it seems very illogical on their part not to have provided for contingencies which could hardly fail to supervene. But how often in the history of warfare has a people which has found itself in possession of an effective manoeuvre placed all its tactical eggs in one basket ! There is the further consideration that human ingenuity cannot provide for everything. If pace and handiness be regarded as the main requisite of vessels, then they must be built for lightness, and the dead weight of the crew must be reduced as far as possible. Thus, on the present occasion the Athenians found them- selves under two disadvantages ; their ships were too lightly-built, and so were smashed by the enemy's vessels ; and their crews were swept away by the superior fire of the large crews on board the vessels of their adversary. More- over, the Syracusans took care to hamper their manoeuvring power by sending in row-boats among their oars. In the third sea-fight at Syracuse Eurymedon,^ who com- manded the Athenian right wing, extended his line too far in an attempt to outflank the enemy. The Syracusans pierced the Athenian's centre, and cooped him up in the innermost part of the harbour. His whole division was destroyed, and he himself perished. After Phormio and Alkibiades he was the ablest Athenian naval commander who took part in the war. The final naval battle at Syracuse took a form difl"erent from that of the previous engagements. The Athenians were absolutely confined to the great harbour, where manoeuvring was out of the question. Their one idea was 1 Thuc. vii. 35, 39, 40. "^ Thuc. vii. 52. 3o8 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY to break out ; therefore they were quite prepared to put every man whom they could spare on board the ships.^ They were driven to rely on boarding tactics, those old- fashioned tactics of which Thucydides speaks somewhat contemptuously in his account of the battle between the Corinthians and Corcyreans. But Thucydides explains it all in the speech which he puts into the mouth of Nikias : ^ ' Many archers and javelin men will embark, and a great number of other troops, whom, if we were going to fight in the open sea, we should not employ, because they increase the weight of our ships, and therefore itnpede our skill : but here, where we are obliged to fight a land battle on shipboard, they will be useful' There can be little doubt that Thucydides purposely uses almost exactly the same words ^ which he had used of the battle off Corcyra. He wishes to mark a striking moment in the long-drawn tragedy of the fall of the Athenian empire. Nor, perhaps, is he altogether loath to mark too, by implication, how the most consummate human skill, employed in a bad cause, is liable to succumb to that power, to him not very definite, which tends to take the side of right. A perverse ambition had brought about a situation in which skill would be of little use. It was now a question of hard fighting between the aggressor and the aggrieved. It was all part of the human tragedy that this skill, which had led to such brilliant successes in the past, should have tempted those who possessed it into a position in which it could not be of any avail, and which forced them to employ the clumsy methods of an enemy whom they had despised and had also wronged. 'When ship strikes ship, refuse to separate until you have swept the enemy's heavy-armed from their decks.' Such were Nikias' orders.* The change in Athenian tactics, forced by the circum- stances of the situation, is further emphasised in the speech put into the mouth of Gylippos.^ The account of the battle itself does not contribute aught to our knowledge of naval tactics. It was tactically a second Salamis, in which there was little or no general plan ; ' Thuc. vii. 60. '^ Thuc. vii. 62. ^ Thuc. i. 49. * Thuc. vii. 63. 5 Thuc. vii. 67. EFFECTS OF THE SICILIAN DISASTER 309 and no skill was shown save by the individual navigating officers of the various ships. It was, perhaps, in the naval department of the war that the disaster in Sicily had most dire effect on the Athenian power. Their superiority had been on sea, and had been due largely to the possession of highly-trained crews, whose skill had rendered their fleets infinitely superior to anything which could be brought against them. The pick of these crews had been sent to Syracuse.^ ' All these vessels,' says Thucydides, 'had been manned with the best crews which could be obtained.' The drain on this department of the service is further emphasised in Nikias' final speech : ' Those of you who are Athenians I would remind once more that there are no more ships like these in the dockyards.'^ New ships might indeed be built, and were built, in after years : it was the crews which were irreplaceable. The losses were enormous in themselves. Relative to the population of the state, they were probably greater than have ever befallen any state which has been prominent in history. It is hard to realise what the loss would mean to a city with a population of a few hundred thousand at most. Leaving transports out of reckoning, sixty Athenian triremes sailed with the original expedition.^ The crews of these would amount to some 12,000 men. Ten ships sailed to Sicily later with Eurymedon.* These, however, are included in the seventy-three vessels which arrived with Demosthenes.^ There are also included in this latter number certain foreign vessels, which must be identified with the fifteen Corcyrean ships which are mentioned in an earlier chapter.® Thus the net reinforcements sent by Athens must have been fifty- eight vessels, with crews of 1 1,600 men. As far as is known, all these vessels and their crews were lost. It is, as has been already said, very hard to realise what the loss of 24,000 sailors meant to a navy and a state such as Athens. One thing, however, it certainly did mean : namely, that the state had lost all its best-trained men of the naval service, and with them that superiority of skill which had been so marked a feature of the Ten Years' War. 1 Thuc. vi. 31. ^ Thuc vii. 64. ' Thuc. vi. 31. * Thuc. vii. 16. ^ Thuc. vii. 42. ^ Thuc. vii. 31. 310 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY But the question from this time forward must have been one not merely of quality but of quantity. The drain on the able-bodied population of Attica must have been far larger than it could possibly meet, and for the remainder of the war it must have become necessary to hire sailors from abroad. That, no doubt, lies behind the reference to the seducing of the foreign sailors of Athens which appears in the extant text of Thucydides^ in the second Corinthian speech at Sparta, in a passage which refers to the plans of the Ionian rather thail of the Ten Years' War — a passage which is of late insertion in the text of the First Book. The statement made in that chapter : ' The Athenian power consists of mercenaries, and not of their own citizens,' could not possibly have been made in reference to the circumstances of the Ten Years' War.^ The Athenian citizen was only too anxious to serve for pay, even at times when he was not suffering from the severe pressure of war.^ During the Ten Years' War the state had been in a posi- tion to pick and choose the best men for the crews of its triremes. Only under exceptional circumstances had it been necessary to go outside what was, in all probability, a regular rota list.* The crews were, it would seem, drawn from the Thetes, the fourth class of citizens, for it is twice mentioned, as an exceptional circumstance, that crews are drawn from others than this class. At the time of the siege of Mytilene the Athenians surprised the Peloponnesians by putting lOO vessels into commission in addition to 150 already on active service.^ The crews were drawn not merely from the citizens but also from the Metics ; and ' Thuc. i. 121. ^ It is, I believe, commonly assumed that Athens employed mercen- aries more largely in the fleets of the Ten Years' than in those of the Ionian War. When all the evidence is taken into account it looks as if exactly the opposite were the case. 3 Cf. Thuc. vi. 24. * Thuc. i. 143 represents Perikles as answering the threat made in the Corinthian speech. But that is in a part of his reputed speech which, like the Corinthian speech, is a late insertion in Bk. i., and relates to the Ionian War. " Thuc. iii. 16. PERSONNEL OF THE NAVV 311 furthermore, only the two highest classes were exempted from the service, so that the Zeugitai were called upon.^ Immediately after this the Athenians sent 1000 hoplites to Mytilene, 'who rowed the vessels themselves.'^ The entire passage (iii. 16) indicates that the regular Athenian navy list could supply crews for about 150 ships, that is to say, consisted of 30,000 men. That all these were citizens is not necessarily the case ; there were almost certainly slaves and foreigners among them ; but it is also almost certainly the case that the vast majority were citizens, and that, too, of the fourth class, since service on the part of the Zeugitai, the men of the hoplite census, is clearly indicated as being exceptional.' Of this navy list of something like 30,000 men, at least 24,000 were lost to the state in Sicily.* Thus Athens began the Ionian War under very serious difficulties with regard to the personnel of the fleet, and it is not strange if, especially in its earlier years, the hire of foreign sailors became necessary, and had to be resorted to in spite of the financial exhaustion of the state. This, doubtless, had something to do with that agitation for the limitation of 1 It is sometimes argued from the language of this passage : itr^avTes avToi re liKrjV Inniwv Koi TTfVTaKooriofifbifivcov koX ol /ieToiKoi — that the exceptional nature of the circumstances consisted in the employment of the citizens, and, naturally, those who take this view confirm it by reference to i. 143, which has been already quoted. Of this latter passage I have spoken in the recent note. Of the previous passage I would suggest that the dvToi is merely used in contrast to 01 fierotKoi, and that the exceptional element is the implied calling upon of the Zeugitai for sea service. Furthermore, the employment of the Metic on such service would almost certainly be exceptional. That was distinctly not the part which the Metic was designed to play in the economy of the Athenian state. 2 Thuc. iii. 18. 2 It is possible that this is the reason why Athens never organised the light-armed element in the army (vide Thucydides' account of Delion). The first call upon the man below the hoplite census was for service in the fleet. * There were a certain number of foreign sailors employed in Sicily, but the number cannot have been very large, for though many deserted (vii- 13), yet depletion of crews is not mentioned among the embarrass- ments of the Athenians in later engagements. 312 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY pay which is the most prominent feature of the opening of the Revolution of the Four Hundred. The disaster in Sicily had two results : the Athenians had to re-create their fleet, and the Peloponnesians were encouraged to take up the war at home in earnest, and to contest with Athens the supremacy of the sea. A step was taken by the Athenians at this time^ which is not without its significance relative to the warfare of the moment; they fortified Sunium for the protection of their corn-ships on the way round to Athens. It might appear at first sight as if this step was taken with a view to secur- ing traders against attacks from the enemy's fleet. But a reference to the same matter shows that the danger was of another nature, since it refers to a time when the enemy's fleet was not formidable, nor even threatened to be so. ' The importation of provisions,' says Thucydides, ' from Euboea, which had been previously carried out more expedi- tiously from Oropos through Dekelea, was becoming ex- pensive when carried on by sea round Sunium.' ^ The ex- pense is a puzzling item in the statement, sea carriage being so infinitely cheaper than land carriage. The only explana- tion is that it was due to losses caused by privateering and the consequent high rates of insurance. There are various incidental references to privateering in Thucydides which are quite sufficient to show that even in the days of the ascendancy of the Athenian fleet it was quite common during the period of warfare, all the more so as the war- ships of that day were unable to keep the sea for any prolonged period, and long spells of cruising service, such as were undertaken by the wooden vessels of modern times, were impossible for the ships of the fifth century. The difficulty with regard to the provision of crews soon made itself felt at Athens. Hoplites had to be compelled to serve as marines on board the fleet,^ and this when the number of ships in commission was not very large. It became exceptional, it would seem, for an Athenian ship to be manned entirely by an Athenian crew, for Thucydides • Thuc. viii. 4. " Thuc. vii. 28. ' Thuc. viii. 24. SEA-FIGHTS IN THE IONIAN WAR 313 expressly mentions that the crew of the Paralos were all free-born Athenians.^ The battle of Kynossema does not throw much light on the tactical question.* The desire to outflank and the fear of outflanking is shown by the Peloponnesians and Athenians respectively, but there is no mention of the latter having recourse to the elaborate tactics of the Ten Years War. ' For some time past,' says Thucydides, ' they had feared the Peloponnesian navy on account of their disaster in Sicily, as well as of the various smaller defeats which they had sustained.' Apart from the psychological results of recent failures, which would be liable to discredit the tactics of the days of Phorm io, the relative inferiority of the Athenian crews rendered the employment of elaborate manoeuvres at least dangerous and probably impossible. The change in the tactical situation is more clearly shown at Arginusae. For the remainder of the naval warfare Xenophon is the chief authority, and the evidence suffers from the general tendency of this author to treat that which is important with brevity, and the unessential with considerable detail. Apart from this, his own career in war was such as to make him more interested in land- than in sea-warfare. The battle of Kyzikos was one of the most decisive naval actions of the whole war; but as the Peloponnesians con- fined their naval defence ® to anchoring their ships together near in shore, a plan which Alkibiades defeated by landing troops and routing the enemy, there were no tactical develop- ments in the engagement. The account which Xenophon* gives of the Athenian tactics at Arginusae is very striking, but not very clear in all its details. The formation adopted was certainly un- usual. Each wing seems to have been composed of sixty vessels, disposed in four divisions of fifteen vessels each. Each division was commanded by a strategos. The vessels seem to have been in two lines, thirty in front, and thirty behind. Xenophon only speaks of the wings of the fleet, but the centre was apparently composed of ten Samian vessels, and ten commanded by the taxiarchs (whoever ■ Thuc. viii. 73. ^ Thuc. viii. 104-106. 3 Xen., Hell. I. i. 16, 18. ■" Xen., Hell. I. vi. 28. 314 ART OF WAR DURING THE FIFTH CENTURY they may be), — all these in single line ; and behind them three admirals' ships and an unstated number of allied vessels. The strong wings and comparatively weak centre suggest that the formation was on the analogy of that adopted in land armies of the period. It was also a formation which would be adopted by those who stood to win by hard fighting rather than by skilful manoeuvring ; in fact Xenophon says expressly that they were drawn up in this way in order that they might not, being the worse sailors,^ afford the enemy the opportunity of employing the SteKirXov;. These few words are as significant as any to be found in the whole history of Greek warfare. They show the immensity of the decline of Athens in that arm upon which she relied for her greatness as an imperial power. Not even Kyzikos had restored the confidence which had been lost at Syracuse. Arginusae was a great victory, but it was calculated to make Phormio turn in his grave. Aegospotamoi was hardly a battle, and throws no further light on the art of naval warfare. The summary may be brief The Athenian empire rose and fell with the Athenian navy. ' Xen., Hell. I. vi. 31, oma S' (Tax6l(Tav, tva lifj SieKTrXouv Molev x^'^P"" yap cTrXeov. PART VI THE CAUSES AND STRATEGY OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR CHAPTER XV THE CAUSES AND PLANS OF THE WAR AS SET FORTH IN THUCYDIDES Editors of Thucydides, and those who have written the history of Ancient Greece, have found peculiar difficulty in dealing with that historian's narrative of the first ten years of the Peloponnesian War. As a narrative of war it is, except in the one or two instances in which Thucydides treats in detail of special incidents, somewhat uninteresting. Does the lack of interest lie in the war itself or in the method of him who wrote its story ? Modern writers have expressed their adherence to both of these views ; and, in fact, on this particular question of Greek history they tend to form two camps. It must be confessed that, taken as read, the story of the war leaves the reader with the impression that it was composed of a series of disconnected incidents and petty operations, and ended in a somewhat futile way. The historian never mentions explicitly any ground plan or plans upon which it was conducted except in the case of the strategy of Perikles, which only in part survived that statesman himself. It is true that in various speeches said to have been made before the war began certain intended designs are mentioned ; but nothing is said about their application to the course of events, and some of them are obviously inapplicable to this Ten Years' War. 315 3i6 THE TEN YEARS' WAR The most ardent admirer of Thucydides must admit that the story told in the first four books and the early chapters of the fifth book leaves an impression of futility and inconsequence such as is hard to reconcile with the historian's claim that the war about which he wrote was greater than any in which the Greeks had been engaged before his time. Which is true, — the claim, or the features of the picture drawn by him ? In order to answer this question it is necessary to anticipate somewhat that which can only be demonstrated on consideration of the incidents of the war. The Ten Years' War was in itself peculiarly important and decisive. It reduced the enemies of Athens to despair; and had Athens been content with its results, her position as an imperial state, and as the leading state of Greece, might have remained assured to her for many a long year to come. Her opponents were thoroughly disillusioned, and would have left her alone, had she not by her subsequent policy driven them into a war which they began in despair and continued in hope. Moreover, this Ten Years' War was one in which each side had certain set designs, some of which were in existence throughout almost the whole of its course, some operative during long periods of it. It may be asked why, if such designs really did exist, Thucydides does not mention them. About some of them he is not absolutely silent, though he rather implies than states their nature. About others he says nothing. His silence cannot in this instance be attributed to the deliberate omission of matter which would have been uninteresting to his readers. The answer probably lies in the nature of the man himself, and in the real intent with which he wrote his history. He wrote the history of a great war. So far he may be called a military historian. It was an attractive subject, and he wanted to attract men to history, because he sincerely believed that they could learn much from it. Thus it is the philosophy of history which is his main intent, and which he teaches by precept put into the mouths of his speakers, and by example in the narrative of events. He is a philosophical historian ; and to the historian of THUCYDIDES' STORY OF THE WAR 317 that type the narrative of events is a means to an end, not an end in itself. He is not a military historian in the true sense of the word. He had no desire to teach his fellow- men the art of war, or to improve the art by criticism. But he was sensible of the fact that, if an author wishes his work to reach the minds of the many, he must choose a subject which will attract them. A striking element in his genius is that, though he writes with intent to teach, he avoids the didactic form. It has become a common- place of criticism to say that he avoids moral judgments. That is one of those misleading generalisations to which literary criticism is at times prone. It is true ; — but it is true in a very narrow sense. It is misleading, because the speeches in his work are filled from end to end with implied moral judgments, which any one who has studied Thucydides' work and his methods with close attention will regard in many instances as expressions rather of the mind of the writer than of the minds of those into whose mouths they are put. Is it strange that a historian with such inclinations and tendencies should not shine in a department of his work which would serve his purpose quite well without being treated of in a scientific fashion ? He could illustrate all that he wanted to illustrate without showing in his story of the war between 459 and 456 the strategic importance of the Megarid to Athens, and the aim and intent of operations which were almost exclusively confined to the acquisition of complete control of the Corinthian Gulf. He tells his readers that the Athenians went to Egypt, and some little of what happened there ; but he never says why they undertook so great an expedition. And so it is with the story of the Ten Years' War. The operations round Peloponnese seem a series of disjointed raids, without plan or design. The peculiar interest which both sides show in Akarnania and the North - West generally is never explained, and to many modern writers has seemed inexplicable. It is almost futile to ask whether Thucydides did know the explanation of these things and omitted to explain them. Still, it is improbable that, if he had known them. 3i8 THE TEN YEARS' WAR he would have deliberately omitted all mention of impor- tant explanations which might have been given in a few lines of script. It is also improbable that, had he known them, he would have by a series of oversights omitted them in so many important instances. It is probable, therefore, that he did not know them, and that he did not know them because he had never inquired into them ; and, lastly, that he had never inquired into them because they were not essential for the fulfilment of the real intent of his history. Yet he does not enter upon the story of the war without giving in a more or less indirect form the general designs with which the two sides began the conflict. It is peculiarly characteristic of his treatment of this side of his history that the main design upon which the Peloponnesians relied throughout the whole of the Ten Years' War is only dis- closed to the reader as an implication from an argument which casts doubt upon its efficiency. Thucydides intro- duces it into a speech which is put into the mouth of Archidamos at the first Congress at Sparta. The argu- ments employed in this speech^ are of a striking and important character, and may be summarised as follows : — (i) The military resources of Sparta are well adapted for use against her neighbours in Peloponnese, and a war with them can be brought to a rapid decision : (2) Athens is a power of a different type to them, strong in her navy, in capital, in the numbers of her population and allies : (3) It is impossible to bring about the revolt of her allies without an effective navy : (4) Devastation of Athenian territory will not bring matters to a decision, because the Athenians are in a position to import supplies from abroad. It is in this last argument that the main strategic design of the Peloponnesians in this war is implied. But the design itself is not stated. In the speech attributed to the Corinthians at the second 1 Thuc. i. 80. PLANS OF THE WAR 319 Congress at Sparta, the plans of the Peloponnesian side are further developed.^ The earlier part of the speech is mainly devoted to brushing aside the difficulties which Archidamos is repre- sented as having foreseen. The plans of the war as indicated in it are as follows : — (i) Capital can be got from Delphi and Olympia : (2) With this a navy can be created, and the foreign sailors in the Athenian service can be bought over: (3) The revolt of the allies can be brought about : (4) A permanent fortified base in Athenian territory can be established. The plans of the Athenians are set forth in a somewhat indirect fashion in the speech which Perikles ^ is represented as having delivered to the Athenians with a view to dis- suading them from accepting any compromise on the questions in dispute. It is, to say the least of it, ex- ceedingly doubtful whether the major part of the speech is authentic in the sense that the words, or even the matter, are part of a speech which Perikles ever made. It is to a certain extent an answer, paragraph by paragraph, to the re- puted Corinthian speech at the second Congress at Sparta, a speech whose contents cannot conceivably have been known to Perikles. Its value to the modern world consists in its being at any rate a statement of the possible designs of the war from an Athenian point of view. As far as the matter of the speech relates to the designs and prospects of the war,^ it may be summarised as follows : — (i) The Peloponnesians have no capital, and hence cannot carry on a prolonged war : * (2) The establishment of a fortified base in an enemy's country is difficult, and a naval power like Athens can retaliate by devastating the enemy's terri- tory : ^ 1 Thuc. i. 120. 2 Thuc. i. 140. s /^^-^ * Cf. i. 80 (3). Speech of Archidamos. 6 Cf. i. 122 (i). Speech of the Corinthisins. 320 THE TEN YEARS' WAR (3) The acquisition of naval skill is difficult, and a question of time.^ (4) If the Peloponnesians get capital from Delphi or Olympia and seduce Athenian foreign seamen, the Athenians can man their own fleet.^ (5) If the Peloponnesians invade Athenian territory, the Athenians can retaliate in the same way and more effectively on theirs ; also Athens has land elsewhere. Early in the Second Book Thucydides gives an express statement of the strategy of Perikles. He persuaded the Athenians to bring within their walls their movable property from the country ; ^ to refuse battle ; to confine themselves to the defence of the fortifications ; and to keep their navy in good order. Speaking later of Perikles' general policy,* he says that he particularly enjoined upon the Athenians not to make any attempt at the acquisition of territory during the war, but to confine themselves to the defensive, advice which they departed from after his death with disastrous results. This is all that the historian has to say of the designs of either side. Those set down in the speeches of the First Book do not appear to be more than plans entertained before the war began. In point of fact they are certain general lines of strategy which were actually put into practice. But when the actual events of the Ten Years' War are taken into account, it becomes clear that some of these intended plans were never put into practice during its course. No mention is made of any attempt on the part of the Peloponnesians to obtain capital from Delphi, Olympia, or elsewhere. In the Ionian War it was obtained from Persia. No attempt was made on the part of the Pelopon- nesians at the setting up of a permanent fortified post in Attica until Dekelea was seized and occupied in the Ionian War. Without the necessary money the seducing of Athens' foreign sailors was impossible. It never became possible until Persia supplied the funds. 1 Cf. i. 121 (4). Speech of the Corinthians. 2 Cf. 121 (3). Speech of the Corinthians. 3 Thuc. ii. 13. 1 Thuc. ii. 65. PLANS OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR 321 It is evident, therefore, that the plans set forth in the First Book are not merely the plans of the Ten Years' War, but those of the whole twenty-seven years of warfare. But it will be shown later, in consideration of the dates of composition of the various parts of Thucydides' history, that the passages wherein the plans which are only applicable to the Ten Years' War are mentioned or implied are easily separable from those in which the plans applicable only to the Ionian War are stated, and the conclusion will be drawn that these latter passages are of a date posterior to the com- position of the first draft of what was originally a history of the Ten Years' War, and of the Ten Years' War only.^ Judged by the test of facts, the designs of the two sides at the outset of the war seem to have been such as Thucydides implies in the speech of Archidamos, and states explicitly in the two passages of the Second Book of his history. It is unnecessary to repeat here that which has been already said in the chapter on the art of war at this period. The strategy of the time, so far as the offensive was concerned, was simple, because the conditions under which warfare had hitherto been waged in Greece made elaboration quite unnecessary. A state which invaded and proceeded to devastate an enemy's lands could, unless those lands were in Thessaly, confidently expect that the enemy would have to fight or accept terms without fighting. The whole plan of the Peloponnesian offensive was, at the outset of the war, formed on that assumption ; and, as far as official design was concerned, that plan was the only method of taking the offensive which the Peloponnesians adopted up to the time of the Peace of Nikias. Brasidas, indeed, developed a design of his own; but that was never accorded more than semi-official countenance. It is with regard to this development of design as the war went on that Thucydides is most defective. The defect is not so marked in the case of the venture of Brasidas as with regard to the enlargement of the Athenian strategy ' It is probable that the whole of the Corinthian (i. 120 ff.) speech at the second Congress at Sparta was of this late date of composition ; and, if so, it is also probable that that part of Perikles' speech which has reference to it is of the same date. X 32 2 THE TEN YEARS' WAR after Perikles' death. Of that he says nothing, save in a very doubtful passage with regard to the intent of the expeditions despatched to Sicily from 427 onwards, and the little he does say with regard to them is probably a mistaken interpretation of the Athenian design, a reading- back into the period of the Ten Years' War of the policy which promoted the great Sicilian expedition. There is at any rate one reliable historical element in the speech of Archidamos. It preserves the record of the fact that one man in Sparta distrusted the effectiveness of the Peloponnesian strategy. It is probable that Archidamos saw that the great Athens-Piraeus fortress, combined with the command of the sea, had introduced a new factor into Greek warfare , which rendered Greek strategical problems insoluble by the old methods. But whether this was or was not Archidamos' view, it was certainly that of Perikles. His whole strategy was based on the effectiveness of the new invention. The strategy of the two sides in the Ten Years' War can best be understood if their position in the years preceding it be realised. How did the war come about ? Thucydides mentions three causes : — (i) The fear which the Peloponnesians, and especially Sparta, felt at the growing power of Athens : (2) The affair of Epidamnos and Corcyra, followed by that of Potidaea : (3) The Megarian decree. Modern historical criticism has added a fourth : — (4) The rivalry between Corinth and Athens for the trade with the west. Thucydides' view is that the first was the real and efficient cause; while the second was the immediate, and, to men generally, the obvious cause. The third he hardly admits to have been a cause at all. Of the fourth possible cause he does not appear to have formed any conception, though he provides the premisses upon which this modern conclusion has been founded. Let it be granted that Thucydides' view has such obvious logical defects that modern criticism is justified in looking CAUSES OF THE WAR 323 to premisses other than those on which his conclusion is founded. It is his premisses which are defective. Athens' power had not grown continuously since the time of the foundation of the Dalian League. She had been much more powerful in the fifties than she was in the thirties of the century. The Thirty Years' Peace of 446 had been a terrible set-back alike to her resources and to her ambitions, so much so that after that date she had pursued a conspic- uously unaggressive policy in strong contrast to her policy in the previous period. Yet it is probable, to say the least of it, that there is some truth in Thucydides' statement of cause. £ln what sense had Athens' power increased ? In a political sense it seems, as far as the available evidence goes, to have retrograded. Modern criticism, seeing this difficulty, seeks to get over it by saying that the increase had been commercial, and that the real point in dispute was whether Athens should be allowed to absorb the trade of the west, or, at any rate, to get a predominant position in it. Thus the question was really one between Athens and Corinth, for there is not the slightest reason to suppose that any of the other states of the Peloponnesian League, except perhaps Sikyon, were interested to any appreciable extent in the general trade with the west.^ This question, it is said, was brought to a head by the alliance between Athens and Corcyra which resulted from the complications about Epidamnos. If Corcyra, the critical strategic point on the western route, fell under the control of Athens, the Corinthian position with regard to Sicilian and Italian trade would be imperilled. Hence the Corinthians roused the league to action upon a question in which the other members of the league had little personal interest. Those who support this theory point to a fact which does undoubtedly tell in its favour, namely, that the narrative of Thucydides shows quite clearly that Corinth had great difficulty in rousing Sparta to action. ' Sikyon's special interest is suggested in v. 52, where Thucydides tells us that when Alkibiades contemplated making a fort on Rhion at the north of the Corinthian Gulf, 'the Corinthians, Sikyonians, and others to whose interests the fort would have been injurious, came and prevented him.' 324 THE TEN YEARS' WAR There is, however, one feature in the evidence which is very difficult to reconcile with this view. Corinth seems to hav& won over the other Peloponnesian states to her side before she succeeded in getting the adherence of Sparta.^ They agreed to the necessity of war with Athens before ever Sparta did. From what is known of the nature of these states, it is reasonable, indeed almost necessary, to assume that the situation created by the affair of Corcyra aft"ected their interests in some way. It is not likely that they were concerned about the fate of Potidaea. Athens had never been aggressive towards any of them save Boeotia ; and the security of the states of Peloponnese was amply guaranteed by Spartan interests. They must have been interested in some way in Corinthian trade with the west. It was a trade, indeed, in which the major part of the profits went to Corinth ; but, all the same, they must have enjoyed some important indirect advantage from it. Thucydides says nothing explicit about their economic position ; but then he says nothing explicit about the more marked economic position of Attica, though it is of course implied in the statement which he makes with regard to the difficulties caused by the occupation of Dekelea,^ and the consequent diversion of the corn route. And so it is with the economic position of the Peloponnesian states. There are two purely incidental passages in which their situation with regard to foreign food supply is implied ; but even so, the significance of the first of them would not be comprehensible did not the second exist. Speaking of the motives which prompted the Athenians to send an expedi- tion to Sicily in 427,^ he says : ' They sent their ships on the plea of relationship, but (in reality) because they wished to stop the export of corn to Peloponnese, and to test the possibility of bringing Sicily into subjection.' In the light of this passage, a previous passage in the Corinthian speech at the second Congress at Sparta acquires considerable significance. The Corinthians * warn their allies in the League that ' the inland states which are not on the highway of trade 1 Thuc. i. 119. ^ Thuc. viii. 28. 3 Thuc. iii. 86. ^ Thuc. i. 120. MINOR STATES OF PELOPONNESE 325 must bear in mind that if they do not join in with the states of the coast, the export of commodities and the import of such things as come to the continent by sea will be rendered more difficult for them. They must not put a wrong construction upon our words, as though they did not concern them, but must bear in mind that, if they leave the coast powers in the lurch, the danger will eventually come to them. . . .' Read with the passage from the Third Book the meaning becomes quite explicit. ' If you let the Athenians get hold of Corcyra, the route to Sicily, and consequently the Sicilian corn trade, will be in their hands. Of course states like Corinth, which actually carry on that trade, will suffer most ; but your turn will come when you are unable to obtain through Corinth that corn which you purchase through your manufactured and home-grown commodities.' The position of the Greek world at this time with regard to the corn trade is fairly clear, Of the three districts, the Pontus, Sicily, and Egypt, from which the supply was derived, Athens ultimately controlled the first. She probably regulated it even before the war broke out ; she certainly did so later.^ But there seem.s to have been a clause in the Thirty Years' Peace of 446 which stipulated for free access to the Athenian market for states of the Peloponnesian League.^ ' The Megarians alleged,' says Thucydides, ' among other serious grounds of complaint, that they were excluded from the ports in the Athenian Empire and from the Attic market, contrary to the treaty.' He then immediately adds, in a passage of extreme significance, that at the first Congress at Sparta, ' the Cor- inthians came forward last, after having allowed the other allies to take the lead in inciting the Spartans to action.' . . . Here again we see the states of the Peloponnesian League displaying the same interest in Megarian trade that they had displayed in Corinthian trade. As has been already pointed out, the whole history of these states renders it to the last degree improbable that their sym- pathy was disinterested. It cannot be attributed to a feel- 1 C/.A. i. 4°- ^ Thuc. i. 67. 326 THE TEN YEARS' WAR ing of esprit de corps among members of the league, for the league was essentially one which had been forced upon them by Sparta. It cannot have been because they feared Athens was trying to force Megara into the same relations with regard to her as had existed in the fifties of the cen- tury. That was a matter which was important to Sparta, to whom the blocking of the Isthmus would have meant a dangerous decrease of that influence which she had for her own safety to exercise in Northern Greece, and to Boeotia and Corinth, as neighbours of the Megarid^The attitude of the members of the Peloponnesian League is only explicable on the assumption that the real significance of the decrees was that they excluded Megara from participa- tion in the Pontus corn trade ; and that the measure which Athens had already meted out to Megara might in the future be meted out to them also"^ The words already quoted —from the speech of the Corinthians at the second Congress at Sparta become of still more significance from the fact that the Megarian decree was already in operation at the time to which Thucydides ascribes the words. J~As regards the secaad source of supply, Sicily, the posi- tion has been indicated in what has already been said. Athens had made a determined effort in the fifties to get control of the near end of the route thither. The treaty of 446 left her merely in possession of Naupaktos. From that time until the complications about Corcyra arose the route was open to general competitioirj But if Corcyra fell into the hands of Athens she would control it, and would be able to close it, if she so wished. Hence the significance of the operations in North-West Greece in the earlier 'half of the Ten Years' War. In truth, the position of the Peloponnesian states was very critical. But it may be said, ' Why, if such was the case, did Sparta hold back ? ' It is in the first place probable that Sparta, possessed of the rich plains of Lakonia and Messenia, was by no means so badly situated with regard to food supply as the other states of Peloponnese. In any case the ruling minority could never be seriously affected SOURCES OF THE CORN SUPPLY 327 by the question. But it is also possible that the chief cause of her reluctance to enter upon war was the influence of Archidamos, who doubted the effectiveness of Spartan resources when used against the military position which Athens held in consequence of her having not merely the command of the sea, but a great fortified centre which could be supplied from the sea. The third source of supply, Egypt, was in itself important, but by nature and circumstances not so easily available as the other two. It was, in the first place, in possession of a great power, not, like the Pontus corn region, partitioned among small principalities, nor like Sicily, under the con- trol of Greek city states. But to the Peloponnesians the voyage to Egypt presented difficulties both actual and possible. In those days of navigation the most popular route thither was naturally along the south coast of Asia Minor, by Cyprus, and down the Syrian shore. This is the route which the Athenians used during the war.^ Another route went from Kythera to Crete, and thence across the open Levant to the mouths of the Nile. This was being used by the Peloponnesians during the Ten Years' War, and was obviously of considerable importance to them, as is implied by what Thucydides says with regard to Nikias' capture of Kythera.^ But the voyage over the open Levant was not the kind of navigation which the trader of those days attempted, if he could possibly avoid its necessity; and, as a means of communication with Egypt, the Cretan route must have been somewhat ineffective by reason of its very danger. The position of the Peloponnesian states in the period preceding the Peloponnesian War becomes thus quite clear. They were threatened with the possibility of being cut off from the two most accessible sources of food supply. p With Athens the case was, of course, different. Lit does not seem likely, in view of Perikles' policy since 446 and his experience before that date, that he had any idea of renewing on the part of Athens that attempt to corner the world's corn supply whi-eh- had' failed -so-dtsastrously-in-the. ' Thuc. viii. 35. ^ Thuc. iv. 53. 328 THE TEN YEARS' WAR fifties. Nor can Athens have been so profoundly interested in the corn trade of Sicily as the Peloponnesian states were. She had the Pontus trade to fall back upon. But her general trade interests in Sicily were considerable, and she could not let Corcyra fall into Corinthian hands. All the other matters in dispute were no more than secondary to that disputed question, j The demands made upon Potidaea were a mere precaution in view of the bad relations with its mother-city Corinth. When the demands were refused, Athens as an imperial state had to enforce them. The Megarian decrees were probably issued to bring to an end a state of disturbed peace far more dangerous to Athens, with a number of discontented allies on her hands, than a state of actual war. The war must come; it was better that it should come soon. In recent works on Greek history the view has been taken that it was the trading party at Athens which forced the Peloponnesian War, and showed itself most keen in its prosecution. It has even been suggested that this party forced Perikles' hand in the matter of the Megarian decrees, and that Thucydides has deliberately suppressed this fact. Why he should have suppressed such a fact, had it been a fact, it is difficult to conceive. His admiration for Perikles, his obvious belief that the war brought ruin to that Periklean democracy of which he admired so many elements, would have led him to dissociate his hero from a responsibility for the beginning of that course of events which was to lead to such disaster. Yet he is emphatic in his assertion that Perikles was an out-and-out supporter of a war policy. The motives of parties at Athens must be judged in the light of the situation before the war began. That was a very complicated one. To the Athenian the possibility of Corcyra falling into the hands of Corinth had offered the prospect of Athens being cut off from Sicily and its trade, in which she had large interests. So far there was a general trade interest involved which she would naturally be loath to lose. But Sicily was an all-important resource to her in case she were cut off at some future time from the Pontus ; and her connection with that region through THE WAR PARTY IN ATHENS 329 the narrow waters of the Hellespont and Bosphoros was in the very nature of things most precarious. The question whether she should turn to the Pontus or to Sicily for her food supply had been, up to 446, a disputed one in Athenian politics. She could face the risk in the Hellespont and Bosphoros so long as she had access to Sicily. l__To the Peloponnesians the possession of Corcyra by Athens would mean that that power would control the two most available sources of foreign corn which the world of that day provided, and the Megarian decree showed the kind of use which Athens would be capable of making of such a situation.] The Peloponnesian states were convinced that Athens Rad become a great political, because a great economic, danger to them, and saw that she must remain so, as long as she remained an imperial power. Their determination was to destroy the Athenian empire, a determination which was evidently known at Athens before the war began, and which determined the attitude of parties there towards it, both while as yet it was in prospect, and after it began. ' Under Themistokles the economic difficulties of the semi- employed or unemployed population of Attica had been solved by employment on board the fleet. The expenses of that system, which was in existence for a few years only, he had intended to supply by encouraging the settlement of skilled metic traders in the country, and so increasing its commercial wealth, and with that its power of giving employment in the state service. Under Aristides and Kimon employment on board the fleet was still the remedy, but the financial support was supplied by the tribute. Under Ferikles the indigent ultra-democrat became the controlling element in the policy of the state. He looked to the tribute as his main means of support in the public service. Commercial expansion might do something, but the tribute was the main thing ; and consequently he was prepared to stake all on the maintenance of the empire. He would even expand it, not so much for commercial purposes, as for the sake of increasing the tribute income. This is clearly shown in Thucydides' account of the 330 THE TEN YEARS' WAR reasons which made the Sicilian Expedition so popular.^ He says nothing of commercial expansion. The at- traction was that the expedition offered the prospect of pay for the present, and an inexhaustible source of pay for the future. The alleged commercial causes of the Peloponnesian War must therefore be understood in a limited sense. The two main factors in the position of the Athenian state were : — (i) The necessity of importing corn from abroad : (2) The necessity of providing for the unemployed. Hence, in view of the precarious nature of the connection with the Pontus, Athens could not see any power in the position of being able to cut her communications with Sicily ; nor could she for one moment contemplate the possibility of the destruction of her empire. Under ultra-democracy Athens was far more of a social- istic or communistic, than of a commercial state. Looked at in the light of this evidence as to the real causes of the war, the strategy of the two sides in the Ten Years' War becomes explicable. The main strategic plans on either side were not of an elaborate character. On the Peloponnesian side two designs, and only two, are originally observable : — (i) The invasion and devastation of Attica, which, according to the universal experience of the past, must force Athens to do one of two things, either to come to terms, or to fight the superior Pelopon- nesian army in a pitched battle. In the latter case there was every probability that the Athenians would be defeated. The design left out of reckoning one factor, the linked fortress of Athens-Piraeus ; but how many times in wars more recent than the Peloponnesian War have such factors been unappreciated until bitter experience has proved their efficiency ! (2) The keeping open of communication with Sicily and the west : — ' Thuc. vi. 24. PLANS OF EITHER SIDE 33T (a) By breaking the Athenian naval power in the Corinthian Gulf: (^) By acquiring a land route through north- west Greece by which Corcyra and the prospective Athenian position in that island might be turned. Later in the war a third design was developed by Brasidas and accorded semi-official countenance by the Spartan Government, namely — The bringing about of the revolt of the Athenian allies by means of a land expedition. Furthermore, in view of the fact that the troubles which developed in Corcyra afforded some hope of breaking its connection with Athens, naval interference there was sub- stituted for that attempt to secure the land route in the north-west which had by that time met with disastrous failure. The Athenian strategy seems to have been originally the work of Perikles alone. It consisted in — (i) The maintenance of the strict defensive in Attica, in order to break the hearts of the Peloponnesians, and to wear them down by continual failure : (2) The raiding of the coasts of Peloponnese, chiefly, it would seem, with a view to giving the Athenian population some moral compensation for the losses which the defensive in Attica imposed upon them : (3) The maintenance of a naval position in the Corin- thian Gulf, probably, in the present instance, with a view to keep touch with Corcyra. The second and third designs developed in the later years of the war ; but their development, and other minor designs which sprang into existence in those years, will be best considered with the actual course of events. Thucydides, ever anxious for chronological accuracy, writes the story of the war in a chronological framework. For the understanding of the plans which governed and were evolved from it, the geographical arrangement is far more convenient, for it so happens that the war was fought 332 THE TEN YEARS' WAR in various distinct areas, in each of which some special design is observable. These areas are : — (i) Attica. (2) The states bordering upon it, namely, Boeotia and the Isthmus states. (3) The Corinthian Gulf and North-west Greece, including Corcyra. (4) Peloponnesos. (5) Sicily. (6) Macedonia and Chalkidike. (7) The Asiatic Coast. WAR IN ATTICA 333 CHAPTER XVI THE WAR IN ATTICA In Attica the Peloponnesians put into practice their main design. So far as the decision of the war was concerned, it formed practically their whole design, for they do not appear, judged by their actions, to have entertained any real hope of effecting anything in the Aegean by means of their fleet ; and thus the bringing about of the revolt of the allies on a large scale cannot have been regarded as a practicable possibility. Before the first invasion took place the Attic population was collected within the walls of the Athens-Piraeus fortifi- cations.i Some, however, of the (fipovpia, or small fortified places in the country seem to have been occupied. Oenoe was thus garrisoned in 431 ;^ and Perikles' reference to garrisons in the ^povpia must apply to places in Attica.^ The Peloponnesians invaded Attica in 43 1, 430, 428, 427, and 425, five times in all. In 429 the invasion was omitted by reason of the plague, which was prevalent in Athens at the time ;* in 426 it was omitted because of numerous earth- quakes.^ After 425 the invasions ceased, because the Athenians held the Sphakterian prisoners as hostages. The devastation of Attica carried out in these invasions must have been very destructive. But although invasions took place on three occasions after Perikles' death, the strategy of the Athenians with respect to them did not change. They refused a pitched battle, confining them- selves to harassing stragglers who were committing damage. 1 Thuc. ii. 14. 2 Thuc. ii. 18. ^ i]^^^, ;i. 13. * Thuc. ii. 71. '- Thuc. iii. 89. 334 THE TEN YEARS' WAR After the first invasion ^ there seems to have been a feeling for peace, and even an embassy sent to Sparta; but, judging from what is implied by Aristophanes,^ the rural population, which had suffered most from the war, was opposed on that occasion to any idea of making peace. The tale of the invasions as told by Thucydides is very brief. It tends, indeed, to leave the reader with the impres- sion that they were incidents of merely second-rate im- portance. In one sense they were, in that they led to no decisive result. But their failure was epoch-making in the history of Greek warfare, and had the Athenians allowed * Details of invasions : — Date. Districts Ravaged. Other Incidents. Duration. 1st. 431. ' In the middle of the summer when the corn was in full ear.' 2nd. 430. ' In the very begin- ning of sum- mer.' 3rd. 428. Sum- mer: 'Corn in full ear.' 4th. 427. Sum- mer. ;th. 425. In the Spring, ' be- fore the corn was ripe.' Eleusis. Thriasian plain. Acharnae. (District between Parnes and Mt. Brilessos.) Piraia, district of Oropos (coast district). No specific men- tion. No specific men- tion. Country previously overrun and other districts. Worst of all save the 2nd. Siege of Oenoe. Cavalry skirmish at Rheitoi. Cavalry skirmish at Phrygia. Plague breaks out in Athens. Cavalry skir- mishes. While their provisions lasted. Forty days ; the longest stay they ever made. Solongassup- plies lasted. Solongassup- plies lasted. Fifteen days. Ackarnians, 175 ff. INVASIONS OF ATTICA 335 its results to abide, the Ten Years' War might have been of decisive importance in Greek history. With their failure the whole Peloponnesian plan of attack went to pieces.^ Thucydides sums it all up in a few words : ' There had been a time when they fancied that, if they only devastated Attica, they would crush the power of Athens within, a few years.' Never, perhaps, had Sparta been so utterly disillusioned. The discovery that Athens was invulnerable by those methods of warfare which had always succeeded in the past, and for which, therefore, the Spartans had designed their type of force, was a terrible one to make ; and they issued from the war broken in spirit if not in power — men who had suffered a disastrous passive defeat. If Thucydides is correct, they did not fail for want of warning. Archidamos had cast doubt upon the effective- ness of the design. The Mytilenians are credited in their speech at Olympiad with a very definite pronouncement upon the futility of the plan : ' The war will not be fought out in Attica, as might be imagined, but in those countries by which Attica is supported.' There is no satisfactory evidence^ that the plan of eiriTei- %t(7/id? was seriously adopted by the Spartans during this particular war. Thucydides says that such a design was threatened just before peace was made in order to make the Athenians more anxious to come to terms. But was there any intention of carrying the threat into practice? It is hardly probable that there was ; in fact, the report of the threat may be the invention of some years later. Sparta could not have carried out the design herself So long as Pylos and Kythera were in the hands of the enemy she could hardly spare a man from her own territory. The permanent maintenance of a large force within Attica would have been exceedingly unpopular among her Pelo- ponnesian allies. Even in later years, when the need for action was far more pressing, when Athens had shown her hand as an aggressive power with regard to her plans in Sicily and their intended sequel, Alkibiades had to be very persistent in order to get it adopted. 1 Thuc. V. 14. 2 Thuc. iii. 13. ^ Thuc. v. 17. 336 THE TEN YEARS' WAR Boeotia and the Isthmus. The operations in this region are easily explicable by the simple but very important strategical considerations con- nected with it. The importance of the Megarid to both sides is obvious. To the Peloponnesians, in consequence of the fact that Athens commanded the sea, it was the sole means of military communication with Boeotia and the other northern members of the league.^ To Athens its possession would have been invaluable in two ways, for she could then have blocked the difficult passes of Mount Geranea, and have cut the connection between the Pelo- ponnese and Northern Greece ; and, furthermore, she would have acquired through the port of Pegae, once more, a direct communication with the Corinthian Gulf, such as she had had in the days before the Thirty Years' Peace. The case of Boeotia was different. Its adherence to the Peloponnesian cause was amply assured by an intense hostility to Athens, which originated when Athens took Plataea under her wing to protect the little town against the encroachments of Thebes, and which had acquired an added bitterness through Oenophyta and all that had resulted from that battle. To Athens it was a standing menace — a hostile state which hemmed her in and threat- ened her from the north at a time when she had to face a powerful combination against her on the south. It was no part of the strategy of Perikles to take the offensive against Boeotia ; and during the first years of the war Athens displayed a singular but logical apathy towards the Boeotians and all they did : — logical, because success on the defensive was all at which Athens need aim. Still her position was embarrassing so long as Boeotia could menace her from the north ; and it is not strange that in the later years of this war she sought to rid herself of this embarrassment. 1 How clearly the Boeotians recognised this fact is shown iv. 72 ; ' Even before they were summoned by Brasidas they had intended to relieve Megara ; for the danger came home to them ; and their whole force was collected at Plataea.' IMPORTANCE OF PLATAEA 337 The first move in this region was made by the Pelopon- nesian side. Before the war began the Thebans attempted to seize Plataea. The details of the attempt have nothing to do with the strategy of the war. The question is why it was made. In the pages of Thucydides the only apparent motive is a desire on the part of the Thebans to pay off old scores against a town which had always threatened the Pan-Boeotian policy of Thebes. Had this abortive attack on Plataea stood alone, it might have been possible to accept this implied motive. But it was followed two years later by a determined siege of the place by the combined Peloponnesian army, followed by a long and wearisome blockade. It is hard to believe that Sparta and her Peloponnesian allies would have expended all. this time and money in operations which would be peculiarly distasteful to them, merely to satisfy a sentiment in which they did not participate. The adherence of Thebes to the Peloponnesian cause was amply guaranteed. There was no reason for Sparta to engage herself and her allies in an undertaking such as the siege of Plataea merely to humour the whim of a member of the league which was attached to it by motives of revenge infinitely greater than those which prompted her in the case of Plataea. The desire of the Peloponnesians to get possession of the place must have been due to material rather than to merely sentimental considerations ; and, though Thucydides, as is so often his way, says nothing about them, it is not difficult to discern what they were. It is only of recent years, however, that the facts have become available ;i now that they are so, the truth is evident. Except at its easternmost end, the southern frontier of Boeotia was formed by the Kithaeron-Parnes range. At the eastern end the district of Oropos, which Athens had acquired from Boeotia, and held at the time of the Ten 1 I suppose I may claim to have rediscovered them in the winter of 15592-3, when I examined the western passes through Kithaeron, at a time when I was making a survey of the neighbourhood of Plataea. I made a further examination of the passes in 1899. Prior to my visit the only source of information with regard to the topography of the region was the Austrian map, which was very defective. Y 338 THE TEN YEARS' WAR Years' War, lay to the north of the main ridge of the range. For by far the greater part of its length this frontier was coincident with that of Attica. Only for a few miles at its western end did it coincide with the frontier of the Megarid. It is plain, therefore, that, except at such times as the Pelo- ponnesian army was present in full force in Attica, the communication between the northern and southern members of the league must have been maintained by passage across those few miles of the frontier between Boeotia and the Megarid. This part of the frontier is formed by the ridge of Kithaeron, which has a height of from 3000 to 4500 feet, and falls into the Corinthian Gulf at its western extremity in a bold steep slope. There were only two passages through this short stretch of frontier, one- of which — the pass on that road from Plataea to Megara which Pausanias mentions^ — led through it, while the other led round the western buttress by a path overhanging the Corinthian Gulf and debouching in the Megarid at the small port of Aegosthena. These were the only two routes of communication between the northern and southern members of the Peloponnesian League which can, under normal circumstances, have been available during the war. Of the nature of the passage round the range to Aegosthena Xenophon supplies very clear evidence. It must have been a very difficult route under any circumstances, and a very undesirable one indeed from a military point of view.^ The pass on the road to Megara, though somewhat pre- cipitous, was not by any means difficult or dangerous, and furthermore provided, if available, a more direct means of communication between north and south. ^ But so long as Plataea remained in the enemy's hands this pass was not ' Paus. ix. 2, 3, and 5. 2 Cf. Xen., Hell. v. 4. 17-18, where Xenophon gives a graphic descrip- tion of the difficulties which Kleombrotos and his army encountered in the passage of this route ; cf. also Xen., Hell. vi. 4. 26, where Xenophon, speaking of the Spartan retreat by this route after Leuktra, describes it as a difficult path. 5 After the capture of Plataea, that town was used by the Boeotians as a place of gathering for an army which was intended to operate on the Isthmus. Cf. iv. 72. THE PASSES OF KITHAERON 339 available except to a considerable force, since that fortified town stood close to its northern exit. There can be no doubt that the anxiety of the Pelo- ponnesians to get hold of Plataea, and the time and trouble which they expended on its capture, were due to the desire to acquire control of this route. Its possession was of the utmost importance to them. The first attempt to seize it has been already mentioned. It ended in a dismal failure. The defence of the place had been provided for to a certain extent by Athens. The women and children had been removed,^ and 80 Athenians had been sent to reinforce the Plataean garrison of 400 men. It seems at first sight surprising that Athens did not send larger assistance to the garrison. But events proved that for active defence the numbers were sufficient ; and if it came, as it did, to a question of blockade, then the presence of a larger number would have shortened rather than prolonged the resistance. What is more genuinely surprising is that Athens subsequently never made any attempt to break the blockade when, in its later phase, the number of besiegers was reduced. It must be assumed that this abstinence was in accord with the policy of strict defensive which was maintained in the earlier years of the war. But such inaction on the part of the Athenians could not have been reckoned upon by the Peloponnesians at the beginning of the war ; and the very first undertaking of Archidamos seems to have been designed to facilitate or secure a subse- quent attack on Plataea. At the outset of his first invasion of Attica he attacked Oenoe. He failed to take it ; and he was much blamed by those who either did not under- stand or did not approve of his plan for an apparent waste of time. The design upon which the Pelopon- nesians placed their entire trust at that time was the devastation of Attica, and it would be natural that they should show no patience at anything which delayed its execution. The importance of Oenoe was that it com- manded the road from Athens to Plataea. A Pelopon- nesian garrison there would have made communication between the two places difficult, and a strong garrison might ' Thuc. ii. 6. 340 THE TEN YEARS' WAR have blocked the road altogether. When he attacked Oenoe Archidamos did not know that the Athenians would observe the defensive so strictly as they subsequently did. Two years later, when the siege of Plataea was begun, the strict limitations of the Athenian strategy had been proved by experience. It was in 429 that the Peloponnesians began the siege. The story as told by Thucydides affords very puzzling material for historical criticism ; but it is unnecessary to enter upon its details here. Suffice it to say that the town held out for nearly two years. In 427 it surrendered. Henceforth the communications between north and south were open, so far as the Plataea - Megara road was concerned. The apparent apathy of Athens with regard to the fate of Plataea was no doubt mainly the result of the strategy she had adopted. There is no question that she was anxious to interrupt communications at the Isthmus, and for this purpose Plataea played its part. But it was in the Megarid that the plan could be most easily and effectively carried out. It had doubtless suffered severely from the results of the Megarian decree. Its situation during this time must have been pitiable. It was by nature a wretchedly poor little country, which had developed textile manufactures to such an extent that its population had grown out of all proportion to its home supplies. With the Attic market closed, and the Corinthian Gulf blockaded by the squadron at Naupaktos, it is easy to believe that the starving Megarian of Aristophanes' play is not a fancy picture. Nor was this all. Athens seems to have been determined to force Megara to surrender to her hegemony, and with this intent invaded and devastated the country year by year.^ She also kept certain ships at the western end of Salamis with a view to blockading the port of Nisaea.^ Doubtless blockade-running was easy in an age in which it was difficult to keep ships at sea for any prolonged period, — in fact Thucydides expressly men- tions such blockade-running at this very port. The Megar- ians, however, showed themselves to be passive resisters ' Thuc. ii. 31. ^ Thuc. ii. 93. MEGARA AND CORINTH 341 of the most persevering kind, and refused to yield either to the pressure of Athens or of circumstances, however bad they might be. But if Athens was a dangerous and disastrous neighbour to Megara, Megara was potentially dangerous to Athens. That bold but cool adventurer Brasidas saw the possibilities of the situation, and, by making use of them, scared the Athenians in such a way as they had never been scared before. The suggestion came from the Megarians. The plan was to get at Piraeus through Salamis and to destroy whatever could be destroyed there.^ It was the kind of adventure which Brasidas loved : and in the summer of 429 he proceeded to carry it out. It was not successful, but it gave the Athenians such a fright that from that time forward they took special precautions for the safety of Piraeus. The success of Demosthenes at the battle of Olpae seems to have led to his becoming influential in the Athenian Council of War. Of the general results of this, which were very important, it will be best to speak in relation to the war round Peloponnese. Athens began to take a some- what vigorous offensive ; and the region of the Isthmus and of Boeotia became the scene of considerable activity. In the summer of 425,^ immediately after the success at Sphakteria, the Athenians under Nikias, with a considerable force, made an attack on the Corinthian territory. Thucy- dides describes the operations with considerable detail, but never says a word as to their object. As far as Corinthian territory was concerned nothing came of the expedition. It seems unlikely that the intent of the Athenians was to try to get hold of the Isthmus at this point. Why make such an attempt in the land of the powerful state of Corinth when the weaker Megarid, with a geographical position much more convenient for Athenian purposes, offered a far more favourable opportunity of getting com- mand of the Isthmus? On the facts, so far as they are known, the expedition seems to have aimed at inflicting as much damage as possible on Corinthian territory. The invasions of the Megarid had led to no permanent 1 Thuc. ii. 93, 94. 2 Thuc. iv. 42, ff. 342 THE TEN YEARS' WAR result. But in 424 things took a turn which was favour- able to Athens.! Megara was divided against itself. The democrats held the capital, while the oligarchs were collected at Pegae ; and the latter carried devastation into a territory which was ravaged twice a year by the Athen- ians. It was proposed to recall the oligarchs and bring about an accommodation. The democratic leaders, seeing that they could not prevent this, opened negotiations with the Athenians, Hippokrates and Demosthenes, with a view to their seizing Megara. Demosthenes was not likely to require much persuading, and, indeed, the Athenians gener- ally were not likely to let slip so favourable an opportunity of reacquiring the Megarid.'' They were already in possession of the small island of Minoa, which lay close to the land off Nisaea, and had been captured by Nikias in 427. Landing therefore at Minoa, they first effected a lodg- ment in the long walls between Megara and Nisaea.* They then captured Nisaea. Here their success ended, for Brasidas brought a relief army by way of Tripodiskos from Corinth, and was joined in the Megarid by a con- siderable Boeotian force. After this he occupied the town of Megara. For the Athenians the net result of the expedition was the capture of Nisaea, which, though not unimportant in itself, did not bring them much nearer to their main object, the command of the Isthmus. Their feebly executed attempt to block it by holding Plataea, and their far more energetic endeavours to effect the same thing by the occupation of the Megarid, had alike failed. The strategic problem which Boeotia presented was different. It was manifestly inconvenient and dangerous to have enemies on both sides. But the strategy of passive resistance which prevailed in the earlier years of the war forbade active operations against that state, apart from the fact that unless Boeotia could be carried by a rapidly executed coup de main, the Peloponnesians might invade Attica and catch the Athenian army in Boeotia before it could get back to Athens. It was Demosthenes who first conceived that such a ^ Thuc. iv. 66, ff. ^ Thuc. iii. 51. ^ Thuc. iv. 69. DEMOSTHENES 343 coup de main might be carried out. He was a dashing soldier with briUiant ideas, but one who tended to look rather to the end than to the means by which it might be carried out. His first design for the conquest of Boeotia was a wild-cat scheme. He tried to execute it in the summer of 426.^ His idea was to make his way from Naupaktos through Aetolia, subduing the Aetolians by the way, to Kytinion in Doris ; to win over the Phokians to his side, and with them invade Boeotia from the north. Such is, at any rate, the account which Thucydides gives of it ; and, as his relations with Demosthenes seem to have been intimate, it is probable that he got reliable information as to that commander's design. The scheme came to a disastrous end at its outset in Aetolia. The only good that resulted from it was that Demosthenes learnt a lesson which he never forgot — the limitations of a hoplite force. He in his turn taught it to the Spartans on Sphakteria in a way which made them remember it. In this same summer of 426,^ just before Demosthenes' attempt, a large Athenian army, acting in concert with troops from the fleet, had devastated a portion of the Tan- agraean district for a day and a night, and had defeated a Tanagraean force which came out against them. The means seem strangely large as compared with the result, and it might be suspected that the action was concerted with Demosthenes. But Thucydides says nothing of such a plan. Two years later ^ Demosthenes again took up the design of an attack on Boeotia. It is evident that he was convinced of the necessity of ridding Athens of the danger which ever threatened her from being placed, as it were, between two fires. Political discontent afforded good pros- pects for the attack. Demosthenes himself was to operate from the side of the Corinthian Gulf, where Siphae, a port on the Krissaean Gulf, was to be betrayed into his hands. Certain exiles of Orchomenos and some Phokians were to get hold of Chaeronea; while the main Athenian army was to invade Boeotia from its south-eastern corner. 1 Thuc. iii. 95. ^ Thuc. iii. 91. ^ Jhuc. iv. 76. 344 THE TEN YEARS' WAR Everything went wrong with the expedition. There was a mistake about the time ; — Demosthenes arrived at Siphae too soon. Moreover the Boeotians got wind of the plot and were prepared. They occupied Siphae and Chaeronea. Then came the Athenian defeat at Delion and the capture of the fortifications they had set up at the temple at that place. From this time until the end of the war they left Boeotia alone. In this particular geographical department of the war the Athenians, then, achieved no success. They failed to get hold of the Isthmus. They failed to rid themselves of the menace from Boeotia. In point of fact their net loss amounted to little, for the operations were such that, though their success would have involved great advantages, their failure involved little loss. They had lost Plataea, which they had taken very little trouble to hold. They had won Nisaea, which, without Megara, was very little practical good to them. Delion had a sobering effect from which they were probably the unconscious gainers. There are two items in the history of the war which are connected with this geographical area, the occupation of Atalanta by the Athenians, and that of Heraklea Trachinia by the Spartans. The former was carried out in the autumn of 43 1 to prevent the Lokrian pirates from attacking Euboea.^ It is a further indication of what has been already noted, that privateering was common during the war. The foundation of Heraklea is more important.^ It was built in 426 on the summit of the Trachinian cliffs immediately to the west of the mouth of the Asopos ravine; and in spite of its stormy and disastrous history during the brief period it was in Lacedaemonian hands,^ it remained for centuries one of the main strategic positions in Greece. It commanded the great route from north to south which branched at the foot of the cliffs on which it stood eastwards towards Thermopylae, which was about three and a half miles distant, and southwards through the not difficult but very dangerous Asopos ravine. Thucydides says that the ' Thuc. ii. 32. ^ Thuc. ill. 92. 3 Cf. Thuc. iii. 93, 100; v. 12, 51, 52. HERAKLEA TRACHINIA 345 Spartans founded it with the immediate intention of pro- tecting the Dorians of Doris, but with further intention of using it to facilitate communication with Thrace. They also intended to start a dock on the nearest point of the Malian Gulf with a view to acting against Euboea. This last plan was never carried out. It is also probable that it was intended to serve a purpose which Thucydides does not mention, namely to bar the road of the Thessalians, allies of Athens, southwards. 346 THE TEN YEARS' WAR CHAPTER XVII THE CORINTHIAN GULF AND NORTH-WEST GREECE It is in this department of the war that the defects of Thucydides as a military historian are most apparent. In the opening years both sides, especially the Peloponnesians, betrayed an extraordinary interest in north-west Greece, a region which, save for the Corinthian settlements scattered along its coasts, might have been expected to fall entirely outside the area of operations. But the historian never explains in any way the unexpected prominence given to it in the early years of the Ten Years' War. To understand this it is necessary to consider the political position in this region at the time at which the war opened, and also certain physical characteristics which were equally responsible for the interest displayed in it. By far the most important political fact was that which had been the main cause of the war — the alliance between Corcyra and Athens. To the Peloponnesians, when the war opened, it held out the prospect that the sea route to Sicily and the west would be blocked so long as the war lasted ; and, as will be seen hereafter, it was this prospect which made them take so marked an interest in the neighbouring continent. On the coast of the continent the Corinthian settlements, which were not for the most part of the ordinary type of Greek colonies, formed a close-linked chain, Ambrakia, Anaktorion, Leukas, Sollion, Astakos, Molykrion,^ and Chalkis, not to speak of Apollonia and Epidamnos further north. On the continent the Akarnanians and Amphilochian Argives were allies of Athens, while the rest of the continentals of the region, ^ Molykrion appears to have been in the possession of Athens in 426 (iii. 102). It had probably been captured during the war ; but its capture is not recorded by Thucydides. ROUTE THROUGH N.-W. GREECE 347 especially the Aetolians, seem to have sided, though not very actively, with the Peloponnesians. Naupaktos on the AetoHan coast was, of course, in Athenian hands, and was peculiarly important inasmuch as it lay close to the narrow entrance, only one and a half miles in width, of the Corinthian Gulf, and so, in a sense, commanded it. But there was also another important exception, the town of Oeniadae, on the Akarnanian coast at the mouth of the AcheloUs river, which, unlike the rest of Akarnania, would not enter the Athenian alliance, and in fact showed itself hostile to Athenian interests.' Why it adopted this attitude, will be shown later. The Peloponnesians could not contemplate with equa- nimity the prospect of the sea-route to Sicily being blocked for the indefinite period of the war. Nor could they expect to free the route by naval efforts. The combined fleets of Athens and Corcyra made any such design hopeless. It is perfectly true that internal troubles in Corcyra subsequently made that state a comparatively ineffective factor in the war; but neither the Peloponnesians nor any one else could have foreseen that in 431, much less have calculated upon it The prospect was as simple as it was serious. While the war lasted the Pontus corn region would be closed. The coast voyage to Egypt would be so dangerous as to be practically impossible, and the Cretan route, with its long open-sea traverse, was not calculated to tempt navigators. And now the sea-route to the third and last corn region of the world was likely to be blocked ! The connection with Sicily was thus all-important to them, and some means of keeping it open must be devised. Under the circumstances the only possible means was to turn the position at Corcyra. There was just a possibility of doing that by acquiring control of a great natural route which went through north- west Greece. This route led from Oeniadae up the plain of the lower Acheloiis to Stratos : thence by the Akarnanian lakes to Limnae : thence to Amphilochian Argos ; and from there to Ambrakia, from which place it followed a road running near the coast to Apollonia and Epidamnos. It 1 Thuc. ii. 82. 348 THE TEN YEARS' WAR presents singularly little natural difficulty considering the rugged nature of the district through which it passes. To the Peloponnesians the difficulties it presented were of a military nature, in that part of its course lay in Akarnania, and part in the territory of Amphilochian Argos. From Oeniadae northward Akarnanian territory might have been avoided by keeping to the east or Aetolian bank of the Achelous as far as a point opposite Stratos. But there it would be necessary to cross the river and to go through Akarnania for some twenty miles as far as Limnae. From there the road passes for another twenty miles along the east shore of the Ambrakiot Gulf, hemmed in closely in the right by the foot-hills of Pindus, except where, some four miles north of Limnae, the small plain of Amphilochian Argos runs back about two miles into the hills. The town itself probably stood on the hills at the eastern or landward side of the plain. It was certainly the key to this route ; hence the anxiety which the Peloponnesians and their friends showed to get it into their possession. Stratos might be avoided. As for Akarnania generally, it must have been then, as it is now, a comparatively thinly populated region ; and the Peloponnesians, once in the possession of Amphilochian Argos, might have easily dealt with the Akarnanians, provided always that Athens did not help them. The significance of Oeniadae now becomes apparent. Its importance Is shown even on the evidence of fact in Thucydides by the singular desire which all those who are interested in the western trade route show to get it into their possession; but Thucydides himself never gives one word of explanation as to why it was so much coveted. It is worth while to notice its contemporary history. In the course of the operations which Athens^ had carried out in the previous war with a view to getting the Corinthian Gulf within her control, Perikles had unsuccessfully attacked it in 454. When the Peloponnesian War began,^ the town, as has been already said, though Akarnanian, took the Pelopon- nesian side. Knemos retreated thither after his defeat at Stratos.^ ' Thuc. i. III. ^ Thuc. ii. 102. ^ Thuc. ii. 82. STRATEGY IN N.-W. GREECE 349 In 429 Phormio intended to attack it/ but was prevented by the flooded state of the country. In 428, Asopios^ with the aid of the Akarnanians, attacked the place unsuccessfully. In 426 Oeniadae^ is still standing apart from the rest of Akarnania. After their defeat at Olpae* the Ambrakiots and Pelo- ponnesians returned to Oeniadae. In 424 the Akarnanians forced Oeniadae ^ to enter the Athenian alliance ; a fact which is very significant in refer- ence to the Athenian strategy at that time. The strategy in the north-west was, then, due to the fact that there was, when the war opened, every prospect that the route by sea to Sicily and its corn supply would be blocked to the Peloponnesians. In this region of the war the Peloponnesians were on the offensive ; while the Athenians were on the defensive, except in so far as they made attacks on the Corinthian dependencies. It is with such attacks that the operations here begin. The Athenian design when the war began was to make the sea-route to the west absolutely impracticable to the enemy. When they found that the Peloponnesians were determined to try and develop the land route, then they took such measures as they could to prevent them from acquiring control of it. In 431 the Athenian fleet® round Peloponnese captured two Corinthian dependencies on the Akarnanian coast, SoUion and Astakos. It also brought over Kephallenia to the Athenian side, thus acquiring an important strategic position off the outer mouth of the Corinthian Gulf. In the next winter, however, the Corinthian fleet recovered Astakos, and made an unsuccessful attempt to recover Kephallenia.^ In the summer of 430 the Peloponnesian fleet ^ attacked Zakynthos without result. Later in the same summer^ the continental struggle in this region began with an attack of the Ambrakiots on 1 Thuc. ii. 102. ^ Thuc. iii. 7. ^ Thuc. iii. 94. * Thuc. iii. 114. ' Thuc. iv. 77. " Thuc. ii. 30. ^ Thuc. ii. 33. ^ Thuc. ii. 66. " Thuc. ii. 6S. 35° THE TEN YEARS' WAR Amphilochian Argos, the key to the north-west route. Thucydides ascribes the attack to personal enmity between the two states ; but subsequent developments in this region show pretty clearly that the Ambrakiots were acting in the Peloponnesian interest on this occasion. He does, how- ever, mention an interesting fact, namely that at some then recent date (for Phormio played a part in the matter), the Ambrakiots had driven out the Argives, who thereupon formed an alliance with the Akarnanians, and the two together called in the Athenians, who sent Phormio with thirty ships, and restored Argos to its former owners and to the Akarnanians. Hence, says Thucydides, the origin of the alliance between the Akarnanians and Athens. On the present occasion, in the late summer of 430, the Ambrakiot attack failed. In the winter of this year, 430,^ the Athenians stationed Phormio at Naupaktos with twenty ships to prevent 'anyone from sailing out of or into Corinth and the Krissaean Gulf Thus a further impediment of a serious character was placed in the way of the use of the sea-route to the west, and that doubtless accounts for the determined effort which the Peloponnesians made in the following year to get hold of the land route. In the year 429^ the Lacedaemonians despatched a force of 1000 hoplites, together with a considerable fleet under Knemos, to help the Ambrakiots and Chaonians in an attempt to subdue all Akarnania. From Thucy- dides' account it might be supposed that all this was done merely to gratify a desire on the part of the Am- brakiots to subdue Akarnania. It may be regarded as quite certain that the Lacedaemonians would not have done anything of the kind, unless the possession of Akarnania had been of high importance to them. Such expeditions were by no means popular with Sparta and her allies, and were not undertaken except for some very important reason. The reason doubtless was that the sea-r6ute was more embarrassed than ever by Phormio at Naupaktos, and the opening of the land route became imperative, if the Peloponnesians were to maintain communication with Sicily, 1 Thuc. ii. 69. 2 xhuc. ii. 80. OPERATIONS IN N.-W. GREECE 351 It would be comparatively easy to keep up communications with Oeniadae from Kyllene in Elis, because the sea passage was but a few miles, and it lay well outside Naupaktos. With the details of the expedition it is not necessary to deal. It ended with a defeat of the combined Pelopon- nesian and Barbarian army by the people of Stratos beneath the walls of that town. Meanwhile the Peloponnesian fleet ^ had been badly defeated by Phormio at the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf, and thus, what with failure on land and disaster at sea, the position in the north-west was worse than ever for the Peloponnesians. It became evident to them that Phormio must be anni- hilated if they were to do anything in the north-west ; and accordingly preparations were made for a formidable attack on him. On this occasion the fleet was collected at Kyllene, outside the narrows of the gulf, and Phormio's squadron was the main, not, as in the previous case, the secondary objective. The story of the battle is a long one. For the Peloponnesians it was a practical defeat, since, under the circumstances, anything which was not a victory was a defeat to them. Shortly after the victory the Athenian ^ position at Naupaktos was made more secure by the arrival of a belated reinforcement of twenty ships, which had been engaged in certain operations in Crete, whose significance Thucydides does not point out. In the winter of 429^ Phormio made an expedition to Akarnania in which nothing of importance was effected. In the summer of 428* Asopios attacked Oeniadae with- out success, and met with disaster and death in Leukas. Nothing is told of the part which Corcyra had hitherto played since the war began, but it is evident from the operations of the Peloponnesians that it blocked the sea- route westward. In 427,* however, things began to go wrong there from the Athenian point of view. Certain aristocrats who had returned, acting in the interests of Corinth, though they 1 Thuc. ii. 83, 84. 2 Thuc. ii. 92. ' Thuc. ii. 102. * Thuc. iii. 7. * Thuc. iii. 70. 352 THE TEN YEARS' WAR could not bring to an end the Athenian alliance, got their fellow-citizens to vote for friendship with the Pelopon- nesians. Then ensued some very bloody proceedings which have little concern with the strategy of the war ; but the aristocrats got a vote of neutrality to both sides carried. After some more fighting an Athenian admiral arrived from Naupaktos and induced the Corcyraeans to make an offen- sive and defensive alliance with Athens.^ Just after this a large Pelopannesian fleet came up, attracted by the possi- bility of profiting from the disorders, and defeated the Athenians and the Corcyraean democrats. The Peloponnesians did not follow up their victory, but retreated when they heard that Eurymedon was coming up with a large fleet which the Athenians had sent on hearing of the disturbances in Corcyra. After this the democrats massacred the aristocrats, some of whom, how- ever, escaped to the mainland, and by attacks upon the island made things as unpleasant as they could for their democratic opponents. From this time until the end of the war Corcyra must have been less useful to Athens ; but the passage past the island would be exceedingly dangerous for Peloponnesian traders, who would be at the mercy of enterprising privateers. Still the willingness of the Athenians to interfere in Sicily which developed immedi- ately after these disorders in Corcyra may have been partly due to them. In the summer of 426^ Demosthenes, with an Athenian fleet and ships from Corcyra, Kephallenia, and Zakynthos, attacked Leukas, but before anything definite was accom- plished, he was persuaded to turn his attention to Aetolia. There he met with disaster ; and the Peloponnesians retali- ated by sending 3000 hoplites to Aetolia^ with the immediate intention of attacking Naupaktos. That town was saved by the Akarnanians. But the Peloponnesian force moved northwards to help the Ambrakiots in another attack on Amphilochian Argos. At Olpae, only a few miles from that town, they were utterly defeated, together with the Ambrakiots,* by Demosthenes ^ Thuc. iii. 75. ^ Thuc. iii. 94. ^ Thuc. iii. 100. * Thuc. iii. 105-108. END OF THE FIGHTING IN THE N.W. 353 with an Akarnanian and Argive force. Immediately after- wards the Ambrakiot^ reinforcements were practically wiped out at Idomene, a few miles north of Olpae. The survivors of the defeated took refuge at Oeniadae, many miles to the south. These two battles decided the war in the north-west. There was no more fighting in that region between the protagonists in the war. At the same time it is very difficult to say what was the exact practical result of the battles. In one respect, at any rate, it cannot have been quite what the Athenians hoped or expected. The Akar- nanians had no fancy to become the subjects of Athens.^ They also made a somewhat curious treaty with Ambrakia. Neither was to join any one else in attacking the other, but, apparently, the terms did not include peace with the Pelo- ponnesians, for a hostility to Anaktorion is expressly implied. But the all-important question is : Did the new arrange- ment allow the passage through Akarnania of Pelopon- nesian trade with Sicily ? It would seem from what happened later that it did not. There was a further result of these victories which had a great influence on the course of the war. Demosthenes' reputation, seriously imperilled by his disaster in Aetolia, was more than restored ; and from this time forward he was military expert of that party in Athens, the extreme democrats, which desired the vigorous prosecution of the war. He was bold, perhaps a shade too bold, as a designer ; but he had an undoubted genius for strategy. In originality he was unsurpassed by any general whom Athens produced in the Peloponnesian War, and in genius as a commander he was excelled by Alkibiades alone. Under his influence the Athenian strategy took a new development which is, however, most marked in the region of the Peloponnese, and with which it will therefore be best to deal when dis- cussing the progress of the war in that region. The rest of the tale of the war in the north-west may be told in a very few words. In 425 Eurymedon and Sophokles^ brought the troubles 1 Thuc. iii. 112. * Thuc. iii. 113, I M- ^ Thuc. iv. 46. Z 354 THE TEN YEARS' WAR in Corcyra to an end for the time being by forcing the aristocrats who had entrenched themselves on Mount Istone to surrender. By a perfidious trick Eurymedon was induced to surrender the prisoners to the democrats, who treacherously massacred them. Anaktorion ^ was captured the same year by a combined force of Athenians and Akarnanians, a fact which demonstrates the peculiar and limited nature of the terms of the treaty made after Olpae. Late in 424 the Akarnanians reduced Oeniadae,^ and forced it to join the Athenian confederacy. The part played by Oeniadae in the war in the north- west is mysterious, simply because Thucydides never says why it adopted a policy which was opposed to that of the rest of Akarnania. It must have had some strong material interest for so doing, and the only possible conjecture as to the nature of that interest is that it either derived profit from passing on Sicilian corn to Peloponnese, or hoped to be able to do so. The general result of the war in the north-west was that the Athenians maintained a position which, had they been able to make full use of it, must have brought disaster to Peloponnese. The War round Peloponnese. In none of the geographical departments into which the area of warfare may be divided did the strategy of the Athenians undergo a greater change than round the coasts of Peloponnese. In the design of Perikles the war in this region played little strategical part. Raids on the Pelopon- nesian coast could do little permanent harm, and were not in the least likely to bring the conclusion of the war sensibly nearer. The part which they had to play in his plan was psychological. That plan included an element which it was difficult to induce the Athenian people to accept in the first instance,^ and still more difficult to get them to adhere to for a prolonged period — the sacrifice of the rural districts of Attica to the enemy without any 1 Thuc. iv. 49. 2 Thuc. iv. ^^. ^ Thuc. ii. 21, 22. PELOPONNESE 355 attempt being made to defend them. Perikles was well aware of the feeling which it must eventually arouse ; still more alive to the danger involved in case such feeling found expression in action ; and he seems to have realised that the only means of keeping it within bounds was to provide the Athenians with some moral compensation by inflicting similar injury on the territory of their enemies. Even for some years after his death the war in this region maintained this form, and presents therefore in the pages of Thucydides the appearance of being composed of a series of petty and more or less futile undertakings. It was left for Demos- thenes to give it a new form which included operations of a far more serious nature, such as were calculated to lead to more permanent and more decisive results. The story of the first few years of the war is little more than a catalogue of raids, and may be treated as such. In 431 a fleet was sent round Peloponnese.^ This fleet attacked Methone, which was saved by Brasidas, and after- wards ravaged the district of Pheia in Elis for two days. In the same summer the Athenians- expelled the Aeginetans from Aegina, and themselves settled that island which in the hands of the Aeginetans would have been a standing danger to Athens, and in the hands of the Athenians would be a menace to the neighbouring coast of Peloponnese. In 430 an unusually large fleet was despatched round Peloponnese.^ The district of Epidauros was ravaged, and an unsuccessful attack made on the town. The regions of Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione were also devastated, and Prasiag in Lakonia was captured and plundered. The establishment of Phormio' with a squadron at Naupaktos in this year, though mainly designed with a view to blocking the Corinthian Gulf, constituted a danger to the north coast of Peloponnese. In 428 Asopios, with a small fleet, ravaged the coasts of Lakonia.^ Later in the year a larger fleet was sent, and landings made on various parts of the Peloponnesian coast.* ' Thuc. ii. 23, 25. ^ Thuc. ii. 27. 3 Thuc. ii. 56. * Thuc. ii. 69. * Thuc. iii. 7. 6 jjjuc. iii. 16. 3S6 THE TEN YEARS' WAR In 426 a large fleet attacked Melos unsuccessfully,^ while another was sent round Peloponnese under Demosthenes, but does not seem to have made any attack on the Peloponnesian coast. The synchronism with the attack on Melos of this ap- pearance of Demosthenes in the Peloponnesian region of the war suggests certain considerations with regard to the strategy of that bold soldier. Of his personal character- istics as a commander there has already been occasion to speak. He was destined to exercise considerable influence on Athenian strategy in the later half of the Ten Years' War. It seems probable that he worked in close connection with Kleon, until that politician developed military ambitions of his own. He appears to have cherished two main designs : — (i) To cut off Peloponnese from its sources of food supply : (2) To force or bring over Boeotia to the Athenian side, and thus rid Athens of embarrassment on her northern frontier. He had a pretty clear idea that the first step in his first design must be to secure the north-west against the possi- bility of the Peloponnesians using it as a passage to Sicily. But there was Egypt to be taken into account, and Melos was one of a line of islands which stretched almost across the Southern Aegean, on the line along which Peloponnesian traders who might seek to use the coast route to Egypt would pass. Was the attack on Melos made with a view to blocking this passage ? Was it due to his influence in the Council of War at Athens? In the light of subsequent strategic developments it seems exceedingly likely that it was. It is noticeable that on this occasion, though he is sent round Peloponnese, he leaves that region alone, and turns his attention to the north-west. From there it is diverted for the moment to Boeotia by what seemed to him a favourable opportunity of attacking that country. That enterprise failing, he returned once more to the north-west, ' Thuc. iii. 91. DESIGNS OF DEMOSTHENES 357 and, as far as this war is concerned, he final!}'- settled matters there by the victory at Olpae. This definitely killed Peloponnesian enterprise in that region ; and from that time forward he turned his attention to Peloponnese. Whether it was he who conceived the idea that Peloponnese could be starved out, it is impossible to say ; for the opera- tions in the north-v/est began before he became prominent, and the first ships were also despatched to Sicily before he began to exercise any traceable influence on Athenian counsels. But he was at any rate responsible, in spite of opposition, for the carrying out of the idea in Peloponnese itself, and it may be assumed that the idea took a clearer form in his mind than in the minds of others, and was translated into a definite strategy under his influence. From the time of Olpae onwards the Athenian operations round Peloponnese undergo a great change. It is no longer a question of casual raiding at indefinite points, but of permanent occupation of definite positions. The change begins with the occupation of Pylos on the suggestion of Demosthenes.! This was in the summer of 425. The plan met with little favour, a circumstance probably due, if any deduction may be safely drawn from the strategic lists, to the fact that the moderate democrats, who were opposed to a pronounced aggressive strategy, were preponderant on the strategic board at the time. Still the plan came off. There is no reason to tell the tale. The occupation of Pylos was a serious menace to Sparta and Peloponnese, and also to the Peloponnesian trade. In the same year, 425, the Athenians seized Methana,^ a peninsula on the coast of the Argolic Akt6, and fortified it. In 424 the Athenians took and occupied Kythera,^ ' where,' says Thucydides, 'the merchant vessels from Egypt and Libya usually put in.' From this point a constant raiding of the Lakonian coast was thereafter carried on. By this same expedition Epidauros Limera,* on the east coast of Lakonia, was raided, and also Thyrea in Kynuria, where the Lacedaemonians had settled the expelled Aeginetans. The town was taken and plundered. ' Thuc. iv. 3 ff. ^ Thuc. iv. 45. 3 Thuc. iv. 53. * Thuc. iv. 56, 57. 358 THE TEN YEARS' WAR It is also noticeable that in this year the Athenians captured Nisaea. From 424 onwards the Athenians held important posi- tions all round Peloponnese, Nisaea in the Megarid, Aegina, Methana, Kythera, Pylos, Zakynthos, Kephallenia, and Naupaktos. Moreover, it is in that year that Oeniadae fell into the hands of the Akarnanians. As far as trading vessels were concerned, something like a regular blockade of the Peloponnesian coast must have been in existence, and the importation of food supplies from abroad must have become all but impossible. There is no means of judging how far the design was effective, or what would have been its results had the war been protracted for a few years longer. The disaster at Delion, followed by that at Amphipolis, discredited the war party to which Demosthenes belonged, and the Peace of Nikias brought the strategic design round Peloponnese to a permanent conclusion. It may perhaps be said that, if the design of the blockade of Peloponnese existed, it is very curious that Thucydides should have failed to mention it. But then there are so many curious omissions in the military part of his history. Still he often supplies indirect evidence in cases in which he does not make any express statement. He puts into the mouth of Alkibiades at Sparta words of considerable significance:'^ 'Of the timber which Italy supplies in such abundance we meant to build numerous additional triremes, and with them to blockade Peloponnese.' The plan sug- gested itself to the Athenian mind; and it looks very much as if the words of Alkibiades, and especially the reference to ' additional triremes,' were intended to mean : ' we tried this plan before, and had we more ships we might try it with more pronounced success.' What had probably happened in this Ten Years' War was that Athens had not been able to keep enough ships round Peloponnese to stop blockade-running. At the time of the Sicilian expedition^ she attempts a blockade as regards the route to the west : ' The Athenians also sent twenty ships to cruise off the Peloponnesian coast ' Thuc. vi. 90. 2 Thuc. vii. 17. 38- ^^^^< ^**^^ 1 M ^ B. E ZACrSNTHXJS I o jsr I u Pencils J Pie; jyletkome* OKNTTSSAB t PELOPONNESOS and the ISTHMUS ScsDe, a£ Bjomeai Miles lO 5 O ao 5 o Scale, of liu^hslL 3£[Les BLOCKADE OF PELOPONNESE 359 and interrupt any vessels trying to pass to Sicily from Peloponnese or Corinth.' Such was, no doubt, the main object of the blockade of the last years of the Ten Years' War. It is probable that the blockade was carried on not merely by the Athenian fleet, but by privateers which found Pylos, Kythera, Naupaktos, Kephallenia, and Methana very handy headquarters. Such, at any rate, was the plan adopted during the Sicilian Expedition,^ when Demosthenes seized and fortified a peninsula on the actual Lakonian coast opposite Kythera. ' Thuc. vii. 26. 36o THE TEN YEARS' WAR CHAPTER XVIII SICILY The strategical question relating to the operations in Sicily during the Ten Years' War is mainly concerned with the objects for which the expeditions to that region were under- taken. Thucydides says very little with regard to the object, or objects, of the Atiienian interference in the island. He asserts that ' they sent the ships, professedly on the ground of relationship,^ but in reality because they wished to prevent corn being imported thence into Peloponnese, and they were making experiment of the possibility of bringing Sicily into subjection.' This statement has been taken by some historians of Greece to imply that the expedition of 427 was a genuine attempt to bring the island into subjection. Apart from other considerations, the smallness of the fleet employed, even after reinforce- ments had been sent, renders it almost impossible to believe that any such design existed at that time. Thucydides himself is far more cautious in his statement. He represents it as. being at most a preliminary experiment ; and even this statement of motive is not necessarily more than an idea of his own as to the reasons which prompted the expedition. There were various circumstances connected with the history of Sicily in the recent past which Thucj'dides must have mentioned, had he known them ; and his apparent ignorance of them makes it difificult, if not impossible, to understand the relations between Athens and Sicily from the very vague evidence which he gives. He does not seem, 1 Thuc. iii. 86. REASONS FOR INTERFERENCE IN SICILY 361 for example, to have realised the part which Syracuse had played and was playing in the island. He knows that it threatened to a certain extent the liberties of some of the other Greek cities, but he does not appear to understand the ambition and the power of that state. A far more striking and curious omission on his part is his failure to mention, in reference to the Athenian action in 427, the treaties with Rhegion and Leontini which Athens had made six years before.^ He speaks, indeed, of the interference, in 427 as having taken place Kara iraXaiav ^v/j./j^axi'av ', ^ but it is hardly credible that he should refer in such terms to treaties which were at the time only six years old. Athens had had treaty relations with Sicilian towns more than twenty years before the Peloponnesian War broke out ; and the reference in Thucydides must be taken to mean some treaty or treaties of comparatively ancient date. Athens had both general and particular reasons for interfering in Sicily at the time of the Ten Years' War. She had undoubtedly large trade interests in the island ; and at this particular time she was desirous, as Thucy- dides himself says, of stopping the export of corn from thenoe to Peloponnese. In a political sense she neither was nor had been aggressive in Sicily. It was Syracuse which had played that part in the Sicilian drama. That town had for some fifteen years before the Pelopon- nesian War enjoyed a position of superiority among the Siciliot cities by reason of her wealth, her population, her admirable situation, and her central geographical posi- tion among them. She had shown a wish to translate superiority into predominance. Syracusan democracy was not content to play a less part in Sicilian politics than Syracusan tyranny had played earlier in the century. The Sikel wars of Duketios had deferred the ambitions of all the Siciliot cities alike. When they came to an end, Syra- cuse and Akragas developed a rivalry for the hegemony of the Greek part of the island. The defeat of Akragas about 445 left Syracuse in a commanding position. There was 1 C./.A., i. 33, and iv. i, p. 13 ; C.I.A., iv. I, 33a, p. 13. 2 Thuc. iii. 86. 362 THE TEN YEARS' WAR certainly no Siciliot city which could face her singly. But it is noticeable that she took no immediate steps to make herself supreme ; and that which happened subsequently shows that her delay was due to fear of Athens. Some years before, that state had been regarded by some of the Siciliot cities as a desirable ally to whom appeals for help might be addressed. That of itself shows that those cities looked upon Athens as having considerable interests in Sicily — interests which they expected her to defend. From 445 until the time of the great Sicilian expedition there is a see-saw of politics in the island. Whenever she supposes Athens to have her hands full elsewhere, Syracuse starts a policy of encroachment upon the independence of her neighbours. But the moment Athens shows, or threatens to show, herself ready to interfere in Sicily, Syracuse draws back, and seeks to alarm the very cities whose liberties she had been attacking, or intending to attack, into combination against alleged Athenian aggression. But was Athens really aggressive in Sicily, or did Syracuse raise the cry of 'Wolf!' merely to mask her own aggressive policy? The answer to that question must depend upon the date to which reference is made. In the war in Greece in the fifties of this century Athens had undoubtedly been seeking to pave her way to Sicily and the west by acquiring complete control of the Corinthian Gulf. In 454 or thereabouts Segesta had sought her alliance.^ The Athenian people were at the time credited with a large ambition of conquest in the west. But the Thirty Years' Peace of 446 and the disasters by which it was preceded were severe checks to Athenian ambition, and from that time until, at any rate, the begin- ning of the Peloponnesian War, Athens was absolutely precluded from an aggressive policy not merely in Sicily, but also nearer home. Syracuse began to watch for an opportunity. She seized it first in 445 by attacking and defeating Akragas while Athens had as yet not disen- tangled herself from the embarrassments of a disastrous peace. After the fall of Akragas the position of Syracuse was very strong. She had gained considerable territory by ' C.I.A., Supplement, p. 139. AGGRESSIVENESS OF SYRACUSE 363 the victory over the Sikels in 450. She had crushed the only Siciliot state which could rival her in strength. She had a close alliance with Messana and Lokri, while Gela and Himera were her friends. Kamarina was indeed hostile, and so were the Chalkidian towns, Leontini, Naxos, and Catana. But Rhegion, the most formidable foe which was left her, was weakened by political troubles. Still for some years she marked time. Perhaps the foundation of Thurii in 443 suggested to her that the Greek states generally had still an inconvenient interest in the west. But in 440 Athens was embarrassed by the revolt of Samos, which lasted into 439, and severely taxed the resources of the state. Syracuse's second opportunity had come. She increased her armaments. She seems, in fact, to have doubled her army and navy.^ But the revolt of Samos was suppressed before she could act, and she there- fore relapsed into prudent inactivity. Only three years later the affair of Epidamnos began, and resulted subse- quently in an alliance between Athens and Corcyra. That brought Athens, as it were, half-way to Sicily. Syracuse had to keep quiet. The next move was on the part of Athens. By 433 it had become plain that war in Greece was probable, if not inevitable. Syracuse had made it quite evident that, if Athens got involved in difficulties at home, she would move in Sicily. It was certainly no part of Perikles' design to assume the aggressive in that quarter while engaged in war in Greece. All that Athens could do would be to maintain the status quo in the west. A pre- dominance of Syracuse in Sicily would be fatal to Athenian trade ; for Syracuse was a Corinthian colony which, unlike Corcyra, had maintained friendly relations with the mother country, and would certainly promote her trade interests against those of Athens. There can be little doubt that the treaties with Rhegion and Leontini in 433 were made with intent to support Athenian interests in the west in view of the coming war, and, in particular, to give Athens ' Diodorus (xii. 30) speaks very clearly about the object of these pre- parations : T(XVTa 5e ^Trparrov hiavoov^evoi naaav ^tKeXlav eV Tov kut* oKlyov KaraKTijo aaocu. 364 THE TEN YEARS' WAR a legal excuse for interference in Sicilian affairs in case Syracuse showed any tendency to move.^ Athenian expectations as to Syracusan policy after the war in Greece began were not disappointed. The Peloponnesians had expected a good deal of help from the island and from the Italian Greeks : ^ that seems certain, even if the amount of help said to be expected is greatly exaggerated in the actual text of Thucydides.* In point of fact they got no assistance military or naval. It was not the habit of Syracuse to sacrifice her own oppor- tunities in order to serve the purposes of her friends. It is now possible to turn to Thucydides for the story of what happened in and with regard to Sicily during the Ten Years' War. The most striking features of his account of the war in Sicily are its brevity and the omissions from it of important facts which are known from the works of other historians. All the references taken together only amount to twenty- one chapters.* ' It has been suggested that these treaties were made at the instance of extremists at Athens who were opposed to the comparatively cautious policy of Perikles, and who wished to pave the way for Athenian conquest in the island. It is said that the attack on Pheidias shows the existence of a powerful party opposed to him. That may be the case ; but the available evidence shows that from the time at which affairs became critical until the outbreak of the war the policy of Athens was controlled by Perikles ; and it must therefore be presumed that these treaties were made at his instigation. ^ Thuc. ii. 7. ^ It seems almost certain that the ' 500 ships ' in the text is a textual error for some much smaller number. ^ The references are : — ii. 7. Demands made by the Peloponnesian League on Siciliot and Italiot allies, iii. 86. Athenian squadron sent lo Italy. iii. 88. Operations round Sicily, 427. iii. 90. Death of Charoiades. iii. 99. Athenian attack on Lokri in Italy, iii. 103. Athenians and allies try to take a Sikel town held by the Syracusans. iii. 115-116. Another squadron sent to Sicily, 436. iv. I. Messana occupied by the Syracusans, 425. iv. 24-25. Affairs in Sicily, 425. iv. 58-65. Congress of Siciliots at Gela, 424. v. 4. Embassy of Phaeax to Sicily, 422. EXPEDITION OF 427 365 His history is in this department a mere summary. He omits to mention various important facts which are found in Diodorus.^ The war in Greece had not lasted very long before Syracuse began to move. She and her allies, that is to say, all the Dorian cities save Kamarina, attacked Leontini, which had allies of its own, to wit, the Chal- kidian cities, together with Kamarina and the Italiot town of Rhegion. This it was which brought about the Athenian expedition of 427. Gorgias of Leontini was the chief speaker of the embassy which called in the help of Athens. The year in which the aid was sent may have some significance in relation to the motives which prompted the sending. If any conclusion, which some deny, is to be drawn from the names on the strategic list of the year, the moderate democrats, who were opposed to a vigorous prosecution of the war, were predominant at the time in Athenian politics. If so, the intervention cannot have had, so far as the responsible authorities at Athens were con- cerned, any aim at the conquest of Sicily. What interpre- tation the Athenian people generally put upon it is quite another thing. They had inherited ambitious schemes from the previous generation ; and Thucydides' reference to experiments in conquest ^ may be merely an expression of what was in the mind of the irresponsible populace at the time. The small size of the fleet which was despatched precludes such an idea having existed in the minds of those who despatched it. The story of the war in the years which followed fails utterly to support the presumption that any plan of wide conquest existed, but does support other conclusions far more in consonance with the design which was being put into action in the contemporary war in Greece. The actual operations are individually unimportant. For the purposes of strategy, all that is required is to give a brief summary of them. In 427 the Athenians sent a fleet of twenty ships to Sicily under Laches and Charoiades, and stationed 1 Uiod. xii. 53, fif. " Thuc. ill. 86. 366 THE TEN YEARS' WAR them at Rhegion in Italy. There follows Thucydides' statement, already quoted, of the object in so sending them.^ In the winter the fleet, together with thirty Rhegian vessels, attacked the Aeolian Islands. They ravaged, but did not capture them.^ In 426 Charoiades was slain and Laches became sole commander.^ The Athenians and their allies captured Mylae and Messana. They also attacked Lokri in Italy, and took a small fort, but not the place itself* They later attacked Inessa, which was garrisoned by the Syracusans, but without success. Another attack was made on Lokri.^ In the winter of this year an attack was made on Himera. At home the Athenians got ready a second fleet of forty ships with intent to send it to Sicily under Eurymedon and Sophokles,* and despatched meanwhile Pythodoros with a few ships to take over the command from Laches. This they did, says Thucydides, because they wished to finish the war there, and to practise their fleet ! The latter statement of motive is too incomprehensible even for dis- cussion. There was another failure in an attack on Lokri. The campaign of 425 opened with events of some im- portance. Messana revolted from the Athenians and received a Syracusan garrison. With regard to this Thucydides makes certain explanations of motive which are of extreme significance in reference to the campaigning in Sicily.''' He says that the Syracusans took part in this aff"air chiefly because they saw that Messana was the key of Sicily, and they were afraid that the Athenians might establish themselves there and come and attack Syracuse with a larger force. Simultaneously with these events the people of Lokri attacked Rhegion. They did not take it; but they pre- vented its interfering at Messana. Curiously enough the part which the Athenian fleet played in these events is not 1 Thuc. iii. 86. ^ xhuc. iii. 88. ^ -phuc. iii. 90. '' Thuc. iii. 99. ^ xhuc. iii. 103. * Thuc. iii. 115. ' Thuc. iv. i. OPERATIONS IN SICILY 367 mentioned. Perhaps the enemy took advantage of its temporary absence from the Sicilian strait. Arrange- ments were made by the Syracusans and their alHes for the protection of Messana. The ships under Eurymedon and Sophokles were delayed in the operations at Pylos,^ and so the Syracusans planned a second attack on Rhegion before they arrived. Thucy- dides expressly says that they wanted to get command of the Sicilian strait. In the first naval engagement they were defeated by the Athenians and Rhegians. A second engagement was indecisive. The Athenians were then called away to Kamarina by the news that there was treachery there. Meanwhile the Messanians attacked Naxos, but were repulsed with great loss. The Athenians and their allies took the opportunity of attacking Messana, but met with no success. ' After this,' says Thucydides, 'the Hellenes in Sicily went on fighting with one another by land; but the Athenians took no part in their operations.' This is, on the face of it, a somewhat surprising denouement. For some reason, which can only be conjectured, Syracuse was alarmed at the Athenian action in Sicily. Athens had effected very little ; in truth, judged by the facts that are expressly stated, her interference had been a failure. As things stood, she held Rhegion by a precarious or, at any rate, disputed tenure, and she had various allies in the island for whom she had done very little, and whom, according to Thucydides, she now left to fight their own battles with Syracuse and its friends. In the next year, 424, a general congress of the Sicilian cities was called at Gela,^ at which Hermokrates, as the spokesman of Syracuse, raised the bogey of Athenian aggression. Eurymedon and Sophokles had long delayed in bringing up the Athenian reinforcements, but they were all but due when this congress met ; and their impending arrival seems to have constituted the main argument in the Syracusan speech. Still the sequel was surprising. The Siciliots agreed to a peace on the general terms of ' Thuc. iv. 24, 25. 2 Thuc. iv. 58. 368 THE TEN YEARS' WAR the maintenance of the status quo ; the Athenian generals assented to these terms, and the fleet left Sicilian waters. Athenian generals at this time did not assent to arrange- ments which they thought might meet with disapproval from the authorities at Athens ; and it may be assumed that the generals in this case thought that the arrangements made were satisfactory from the point of view of Athenian policy in Sicily. If so, this policy must have been limited to the maintenance of the status quo. But in Athens at this time and later, official policy was one thing and popular ambition another ; and the worst of it all was that popular feeling could wreak its vengeance on those who had as agents carried out an official policy of which the people did not approve. So Pythodoros and Sophokles were fined, and Eurymedon was banished. No sooner had the Athenian fleet left Sicily than Syra- cuse was at her old games again. Two years had not passed before things came to a head. Political troubles arose at Leontini,^ of which Syracuse tried to take advantage. So war ensued once more. The war at home was obviously drawing nigh to its end through sheer ennui on both sides. So Athens contented herself with sending Phaeax as ambassador to Sicily, with orders to point out to the Sicilian Greeks that Syracuse was aiming at sole dominion in the islands, and to encourage them to combined resist- ance. It is in this chapter that Thucydides gives for the first time a hint as to the real nature of the ambitions of this city. It was her fourth opportunity, and she was making use of it. But the Peace of Nikias came next year, and, so soon as Athens' hands were free, Syracuse, as on previous occasions, dropped the aggressive policy like a hot coal. It does not appear to have been any part of the policy of the responsible government at Athens to attempt wide conquest in Sicily. The proceedings of the Athenians there have an appearance of pettiness and futility, because they are credited with aiming at something very much larger than their actual intent. Judged by facts, their efforts » Thuc. V. 4. OFFICIAL AND POPULAR POLICY 369 were concentrated on an attempt to get absolute con- trol of the Sicilian strait by the occupation or adhesion of Rhegion and Messana. A certain amount of general support is given to the Athenian allies, and concessions are made to their private ends, as, for instance, in the attack on the Aeolian Islands ; but Rhegion, Messana, and Lokri are the real objectives of Athenian effort. Syracuse might represent, and irresponsible opinion at Athens might suppose, that these places were to be used as points-d' appui for the ultimate conquest of Sicily ; but there is no trace of such an intention having been formed in the minds of the responsible authorities. Their policy and strategy are quite explicable by motives which were not merely in the air but in active existence at the time. When the interference first took place it aimed at two things : setting a check on the ambitions of Syracuse, and preventing the Peloponnesians from obtaining corn from Sicily. Athens could not afford to lose her trade connections with Sicily, and, in view of the war in Greece, was profoundly interested in embarrassing her enemies with respect to food supply. These being her motives, the otherwise strange retirement of the Athenian fleet from Sicily in 424 becomes perfectly explicable. Syracuse, in promoting a congress at Gela, had definitely renounced for the time being her aggressive policy, so that the danger to Athenian trade interests no longer existed. By getting hold of the Sicilian strait Athens would have been in a position to sever absolutely the trade connection with Peloponnese and the corn export thither. The attempt had been a failure ; but by 424 the acquisition of permanent posts all round Peloponnese held out a promise of effecting the blockade at the Greek instead of the Sicilian end of the route : so there was no reason to make further attempts on the straits and to detain those ships which would be wanted for blockade purposes nearer home. But, it may be asked, why did the Athenian generals assent to the terms of the arrangements made at Gela, terms made, on the face of them, because of a fear of Athenian aggression ? It may safely be assumed that Athens had got a very accurate idea of the measure of the foot of 2 A 370 THE TEN YEARS' WAR Sicilian unity, and knew exactly the spirit in which her allies in Sicily had entered into this arrangement. After all it suited them just as well as it suited Athens, and far better than it suited Syracuse, as subsequent events were destined to show. It established a state of beati possi- dentes, which was all that they 'and Athens wanted. Syracuse did not want anything of the kind, and so, when the Athenians had departed, took up once more the aggressive policy. But the war in Greece was fizzling out, and Athens contented herself with an embassy, knowing well that, so soon as her hands were free at home, Syracuse would draw back in Sicily. The discussion of this department of the Ten Years' War has been long : the summary of it may be short. The Athenian enterprise in Sicily was unconnected with the war at home in so far as it aimed at the maintenance of Athenian interests in the island ; but was closely connected with it in that it also aimed at preventing the export of food products thence to Peloponnese. Such were the two aims of the Athenians ; and taken on the whole, Athens may be said to have reached a certain measure of success in their attain- ment. She maintained a position in the Sicilian strait until Syracuse was frightened into a pacific policy, and until she herself was established round Peloponnese in so strong a position as to render the occupation of the strait comparatively unnecessary. Macedonia and Chalkidike The war on the north and north-west coast of the Aegean has very little strategic connection with the operations in the other geographical areas. It is, moreover, divisible into two parts which have very little connection with one another : — (i) The siege of Potidaea : (2) The operations of Brasidas. These are separated from one another by a considerable chronological interval. The war in this region took, as far as substantial operations and results are concerned, a very definite and simple form. PERDIKKAS 371 Its story in Thucydides is complicated by his strict chrono- logical method, and by the frequent appearance in his pages of that fantastic personage, Perdikkas, King of Macedonia. This quick-change political artiste infuses a sort of comic element into the serious story of events. It is also a con- fusing element, because the reader is never sure on which side Perdikkas may be found on the next page of the story, and may even be in doubt as to which side Perdikkas is on at the time of which he is actually reading. Perdikkas is the Mr. Micawber of the Peloponnesian War — always waiting for something to turn up, and always making singularly ineffective use of whatever comes to hand. He seeks opportunities from both parties, and hence changes sides in a way which is bewildering to the reader of history. He was not exactly a fool, because he had a definite end in view which was not at all foolish. It was in his means to that end that he was singularly ineffective. His natural tendency would be towards opposition to Athens, because that power had subject allies on the very coast of his dominions, and hemmed him in eastwards by her possessions in Chalkidike. His general intent seems to have been to take advantage of the war in such a way as to get rid of these embarrassments. He had also a special grievance against Athens in that she had supported his brother Philip and also Derdas against him. It may be well, for clearness' sake, to tabulate his changes of attitude during the course of the war. Year. Passage in Thuc. For Athens. Against Athens. Prior to 432 432 i- 57 i- 56, 57 Friend and ally. Persuades Poti- daeans and Chal- kidians to revolt. 432 i. 61 Accepts accommo- dation with the Athenians, 432 i. 62 but immediately afterwards turns against them and fights on behalf of Potidaeans. 372 THE TEN YEARS' WAR Year. Passage in Thuc. For Athens. Against Athens. 431 ii. 29 Is again reconciled, and acts with Phormio. 429 ii. 80 Sends help to the Ambrakiots un- known to the Athenians. 429 11. 95 Attacked by Sitalkes of Thrace to whom, as well as to the Athenians, he had proved faithless. 424 IV. 79 Invites Brasidas. 424 IV. 82 Declared an enemy by the Athenians. 424-423 IV. 83, 103, Acting with Brasi- 107, 124 das in various operations. 423 iv. 128, 132 Quarrels with Brasidas and joins the Athenians. 422 V. 6 Kleon demands reinforcements from him. Such is Perdikkas' record, and a strange one it is. He is a singularly active, but almost a negligible, quantity. He changed often, but he changed nothing, so far as the issue of the war was concerned. He may almost be left out of the calculation. He managed, however, to make himself a considerable nuisance to the Athenians by fomenting troubles for them in Chalkidike. But he proved less dangerous as an enemy than as a friend. The story of the affair of Potidaea is, historically speak- ing, unsatisfactory — because it does not on the face of it state motives which are adequate to account for the very serious incidents which ensued, and for the importance which Athens attached to the place. Its position was strong ; but it had none of the strategic importance of such situations as those of Amphipolis or the towns on the Hellespont and Bosphoros, not to mention other places in the Athenian Empire. POTIDAEA 373 Its political relations at the time were extraordinary ,i — indeed unique in the Hellenic world. It was a colony of Corinth, connected with the mother city by political ties much closer than were usual in colonies of the Greeks. Yet it was also a tributary to Athens. The fact that trouble had arisen with Corinth might well make the Athenians anxious as to its attitude ; and when Perdikkas sought to make use of the situation by inciting it and its neighbours to revolt, the Athenians took action, and called upon the Potidaeans to pull down their fortifications. After some resultless negotiations Potidaea and its neighbours revolted, the latter concentrating themselves at Olynthos.^ The Corinthians sent a considerable force, 1600 hoplites and 400 light-armed, to their assistance. The Athenian expedition,^ which had been originally intended for Macedonia, proceeded in the first instance to act there ; * but on the arrival of reinforcements, moved on Potidaea. The army was a large one, 3000 hoplites of their own and numerous allies, together with 600 horse provided by Philip. The details of the operations which followed have nothing to do with the strategic question. Suffice it to say that after a battle in which the Athenians partly defeated the enemy, they began the blockade of the place on the side towards the continent, and later, when reinforcements arrived, on the side towards the peninsula, across the narrow neck of which the town stretched. The determination of the Athenians to retain the place was equalled by the anxiety of the Corinthians lest it should fall into their hands.^ It is very difficult to account for the extremity of determination and anxiety on the two sides. To Athens, indeed, its loss might have meant wide- spread trouble in Chalkidike. But why did Corinth make such a fuss about a place which was already, for all practical purposes, in the Athenian dominion? It must have been important to her for trade purposes ; and it has been suggested that her anxiety on this occasion was due to a desire to use it, in consequence of the war with Corcyra, 1 Thuc. i. 56. 2 Thuc. i. 58. ^ Thuc. i. 59. * Thuc. i. 61. ^ Thuc. i. 67. 374 THE TEN YEARS' WAR as a means of communication with the west along that great route to Epidamnos which was subsequently con- verted in Roman times into the Egnatian Way. But the suggestion is not more than a guess. It is, to say the least of it, doubtful whether trade could have passed safely through the Illyrian tribes who dwelt along the route. Such was the position at Potidaea in 432. In 431,^ when the Ten Years' War had already begun, the Athenians made an alliance with Sitalkes, King of the Odrysae, the ruling race in Thrace. Their object was, no doubt, to have a set off against Macedonia. They were persuaded by a Thracian envoy to win over Perdikkas to their side by restoring Therma to him. His friendship proved transitory, needless to say. The siege, or rather blockade, of Potidaea^ was continued by a large force, which suffered severely from the plague in 430. At the end of that year, however, the place was starved out, and surrendered after a siege which had cost the Athenians what was, relative to the value of money in those days, the enormous sum of 2000 talents (ii'480,000).^ The inhabitants were allowed to leave the town, and Athenian settlers were substituted for them. Thus ended the first part of the war in this region. It was evidently of an importance which, owing to lack of evidence, there is no means of satisfactorily estimating at the present time. There was a brief sequel in 429.* The Athenians tried to suppress those who had taken refuge at Olynthos. They were however defeated. Later in the same year the Thracians under Sitalkes,^ at the instigation of the Athenians, surged like a flood over Macedonia and Northern Chalkidike. They caused much damage and alarm, but effected nothing permanent. Bottiaea and North Chalkidike remained in revolt, and up to 425, that is to say for four years, there does not appear to have been any change in the situation in this region, or indeed, any attempt made to change it. In 425 the Athenians took Eion,^ at the mouth of the 1 Thuc. ii. 29. 2 Thuc. ii. 58. ' Thuc. ii. 70. ■• Thuc. ii. 79. ^ Thuc. ii. 95-101. ^ Thuc. iv. 7. AMPHIPOLIS 375 Strymon, but the Bottiaeans and Chalkidians drove them out almost immediately. The comparative indifference with which Athens treated affairs in Chalkidike and the expedition of Brasidas is perhaps to be accounted for by the fact that the revolt there, which was, after all, partial, and confined to the towns inland, was not a strategic danger to the empire so long as Athens held Amphipolis. It was a matter which could be safely left for settlement when the war elsewhere had come to an end. But in 424 the ever active and enterprising mind of Brasidas was planning that which was destined to make the region of first-class strategic importance in the area of the war. In that year,^ after a certain delay caused by the necessity of saving Megara from falling into the hands of the Athenians, he advanced northwards through Thessaly, on the invitation of Perdikkas and the Chalkidians. But the idea was evidently Brasidas' own.^ It was not an official plan of the Spartan government, as is shown by the fact that they did not send any Spartan force with him, nor even made any levy in Peloponnese. They supplied 700 Helots, and the rest of the hoplites were Peloponnesian volunteers, The Spartan government did not disapprove of the expedition, but evidently doubted the possibility of its success ; and was only prepared to give it semi-official countenance. Thucydides sums up the matter by saying that the Spartans sent Brasidas because it was his wish to go. Of the details of Brasidas' exploits in the parts Thrace- ward it is not necessary to speak. All that need be done is to catalogue his various successes. In 424 Akanthos and Stagiros came over to him.* Argilos also joined him, and Amphipolis surrendered.* Thucydides the historian, who was strategos in those parts, saved Eion.^ As a general he failed to save Amphi- polis ; and as a historian he failed to mention how Eion had come into the hands of the Athenians since the events of 425." 1 Thuc. iv. 78. 2 Thuc. iv. 80. ^ Thuc. iv. 88. * Thuc. iv. 103, 106. ^ Thuc. iv. 107. ' Thuc iv. 7. 376 THE TEN YEARS' WAR Myrkinos, Gal6psos, and Oesyme now joined Brasidas.^ The capture of Amphipolis converted the strategic situa- tion in that part of the empire into one of crucial import- ance to Athens. Thucydides describes the alarm which it caused,^ and states with a certain explicitness the reason for that alarm. 'On the fall of Amphipolis,' he says, 'the Athenians were greatly alarmed, because, amongst other reasons, the city was important to them owing to its sending them timber for shipbuilding, and to the revenue which it paid to them, and because although, if the Thessalians allowed them to pass, the Lacedaemonians could make their way to the allies as far as the Strymon, yet they could get no further unless they held the bridge (at Amphipolis), because above the town the river widened out into a large and extensive lake, and the region about Eion was guarded by triremes.' Thucydides, who lived in the region and knew it well, is able in this instance to point out the strategic results of the capture of this all-important position. He sees that Brasidas could do little harm so long as his operations were confined to Chalkidike. He sees, too, that Amphipolis itself was more important to both sides than the whole of the rest of ' the parts Thraceward.' Yet he states the strategic position in a curious negative way. He says that the Peloponnesians could go no further unless they held the bridge at Amphipolis ; but he never says what would happen if they did go further. Fortunately the position is clear, and the cause of alarm is manifest. The capture of Amphipolis left but a short stretch of Thracian territory between Brasidas and the Hellespont region. Leaving aside the possibility of a rapid march in force through Thrace, Brasidas had proved himself an able diplomatist, and the passage through might be negotiated on the same lines as that through Thessaly. Once in the Helles- pont district, he would be in the region in which a fatal blow might be delivered against Athens and her empire. The corn route from the Pontus would have been cut, and a situation fatal to Athens would have supervened — a ■ Thuc. iv. 107. 2 Thuc. iv. 108. BRASIDAS AND THE HELLESPONT 377 situation similar to that which was brought about in the closing years of this Peloponnesian War. Why did not Brasidas advance without delay ? It is probable that he felt he had not a sufficiently large force for so critical and important an enterprise; and, therefore, waited till he could get more troops. There was also the question of communications. Even if he did get to the Hellespont he knew that he could not expect the inferior Peloponnesian fleet to open up and maintain communica- tions with him there. Yet he must retain touch with the Peloponnesian base, for his arrival in the district of the Propontis would certainly be the signal for a determined attack on him by a large Athenian force. The only line of communication would be by land ; and even in Chalkidike that was not as yet properly assured, for Amphipolis had evidently been his real immediate aim from the first, and he had only made a beginning of the systematic subjugation of the Athenian towns in the peninsula. Hence his subsequent operations were such as might be expected from one so situated. He had to wait for rein- forcements, and employed the time of waiting profitably in an attempt to make things secure for further advance by reducing the country in his immediate rear. He had good reason to hope that the Spartan government would support him, now that he had so great a success all but within his grasp. Unfortunately for his hopes, Athenian strategy round Peloponnese had taken a new development, and Sparta and her allies had so much to attract their attention at home that they had little heart and few disposable means for enterprises abroad, however well they might promise. Thucydides, who never fully recognised the position round Peloponnese, ascribes the Peloponnesian backwardness to envy, and to the fear for the prisoners of Sphakteria.^ The Athenians met the situation for the moment by sending garrisons to the Chalkidian towns. There is no reason to follow in detail the operations which Brasidas undertook to secure his rear at Amphipolis. In this same year, 424,^ he proceeded against the Aktd of Mount Athos. ^ Thuc. iv. 108. ' Thuc. iv. 109. 378 THE TEN YEARS' WAR He captured Torone and Lekythos.^ The armistice of one year made in 423 was accepted by the Athenians mainly because they were alarmed at Brasidas' successes.^ But that commander had no mind to observe a truce which would give the Athenians time to make preparations for undoing all that he had done. Early in the year Skione revolted to him,^ and he accepted its submission. This was followed by the revolt of Mende.^ He garrisoned both places. The position in Chalkidike and the parts Thraceward at this time is worth noting. The Bottiaeans and Olynthos were already in revolt when Brasidas came ; and in the latter had been concen- trated the populations of certain revolted towns in the neighbourhood, whose names are not mentioned. Potidaea had revolted, but had been retaken. Since Brasidas' arrival the following towns had fallen into his hands: Akanthos, Stagiros, Argilos, Amphipolis, Torone, Leky- thos, Skione, and Mende. Inasmuch as the surrender of some of these towns included, in all probability, that of some small and insignificant places in their neighbourhood, it may be said that at the end of 423 nearly the whole of Chalkidike had gone or been brought over to him. After taking over Skione and Mende,^ he joined Per- dikkas in an Illyrian campaign, which very nearly ended in disaster, and led to a quarrel between him and that enterprising opportunist. The result was unfortunate for his future designs, for he had doubtless joined in operations which could bring him no direct advantage, merely with a view to conciliating the goodwill of one who lay on the line of communication with the Peloponnesian base. Meanwhile, in his absence, the Athenians had recovered Mende, and proceeded to blockade Skione.* But the Peloponnesians had meanwhile changed their minds, and had despatched reinforcements to Brasidas.' Perdikkas, ineffective as a positive quantity, showed himself effective as a negative one. He got the Thessalians to stop ^ Thuc. iv. no ff. 116. ^ Thuc. iv. 117. ' Thuc. iv. 120. * Thuc. iv. 123. ^ Thuc. iv. 124 ff. " Thuc. v. 129-131. ' Thuc. iv. 132. AMPHIPOLIS AND THE PEACE 379 the passage of these reinforcements through their territory. Brasidas' career of success had come to an end. He made an attempt on Potidaea, v/hich failed.^ After the armistice^ had come to a close, Kleon with a large force arrived on the scene. He recaptured Torone, and, later, Galepsos.^ Very soon afterwards he and Brasidas fell in a battle near Amphipolis.* A second attempt ^ was made about this time to get rein- forcements to Brasidas. But the band of 900 hoplites under three Spartan leaders was stopped by the Thessalians, and, hearing Brasidas was dead, returned home. Thus the war in the parts Thraceward came to an end. There can be little doubt that the position in that region had much to do with determining the Athenians to accept a peace. So long as Amphipolis remained in the hands of the enemy, the position of Athens was threatened at its most critical part, the region of the Hellespont. Delion had been a nasty blow in the face, but had done but little damage. But the blow at Amphipolis got home. How- ever promising the position might be in the rest of the area of the war, Athens must get Amphipolis back. She had failed to recover it by war : she must do so by peace. And so she accepted the Peace of Nikias. The Asiatic Coast Strategically speaking, the operations on the Asiatic coast during this war were of very small significance. So long as Athens retained command of the sea, the Pelo- ponnesians could do her very little damage there. Even when the revolt of Mytilene made the position in those parts somewhat critical, the Peloponnesian efforts to inter- fere were chieily remarkable for their timidity. There is, however, one curious fact of a strategic nature which can be gathered from various purely incidental passages in Thucydides. The Athenians seem to have adopted a peculiar strategic policy in this region with regard to the fortifications of the allied towns. It is readily ■ Thuc. iv. 135. ^ Thuc. v. 2. ^ Thuc. v. 6. * Thuc. V. 10. ■> Thuc. v. 12. 13. 38o THE TEN YEARS' WAR comprehensible that they would wish to make their control of them easy by refusing to allow them to maintain or construct artificial defences. But it might have been ex- pected that they would have had to allow the towns of the mainland to maintain such defences against the danger from Persia. With the islands it was different. In their case it might have been plausibly argued that the Athenian position on the sea gave them adequate protection ; and that they had no need for fortifications. It so happens that, in these incidental passages above mentioned, Thucy- dides gives information which leads to the conclusion that Athens did not in general adopt this policy, but its opposite. Of the island towns, Samos was fortified till 439.^ Mytilene (iii. 3) was fortified. But Thucydides expressly says that Ionia had no forti- fied towns,^ and by Ionia, he means the cities of the mainland. Klazomenae (viii. 31) and Knidos (viii. 35) are expressly mentioned as having no fortifications. Lampsakos (viii. 62) and Kyzikos (viii. 107) are unwalled. It is evident that the Athenians were far more afraid of the hostility of the cities to themselves than of attack on them from outside. The loyalty of the island states, or, at any rate, their reduction in case of revolt, was satisfac- torily guaranteed by the fact that there was no power which could give them adequate assistance. With the cities of the mainland that was not so. The naval power of Athens would have been of little avail had they been able to call Persian assistance within fortifications. Unfortified, whether aided by Persia or not, they would be open to attack from the sea. Thus it was safer to keep them un- fortified.* The policy throws light on the political senti- ments of these towns. It is evident that they had no more love for the Athenian dominion than for the pre- 1 Thuc. i. 1 16. 117. - Thuc. iii. 33. 8 The nature of the danger which threatened the Athenian dominion in these continental cities is well illustrated in the case of Kolophon (iii. 34), which was apparently two miles from the sea. In 430 it was taken by Itamenes and some Persians. But its port. Notion, was re- captured by the Athenians in 427. ATHENS AND THE ASIATIC COAST 381 existing subjection to Persia ; ^ in fact it is probable that, had the choice been allowed them, they would have pre- ferred the latter. Persian rule had never borne heavily on their local liberties and freedom of action : and, too, what- ever the cause may have been, they had been more prosperous as members of the Persian than as members of the Athenian empire. The farther south the Athenian power extended, the weaker it became. The collection of tribute from the cities of the Karian and Lykian coast had to be made by force. Nor is this surprising, for in many of those cities the non-Hellenic outnumbered the Hellenic element in the population. For the greater part of the Ten Years' War a state of comparative peace prevailed on the coast. The revolt of Mytilene disturbed it for a time. It naturally caused considerable alarm at Athens because it might set the example to others. All that it proved was how little the Athenians had to fear from Peloponnesian efforts on that side of the Aegean. Alkidas had no fancy to risk an engagement with the Athenian fleet ; and, after a successful game of hide and seek, got back to where he had most desired to be, the Peloponnesian side of the Aegean. The revolt, begun in 428, was suppressed in 427. The efforts to collect tribute in Karia and Lykia did not meet with success,^ and there is little doubt that any claims Athens made to control aught save a few coast towns in those parts were more or less illusory. Still, if she kept a hold on the coast, it was all she wanted. The countries themselves can have been of little or no importance to her : the coast was, because the route to Egypt passed along it. The Results of the War It is difficult to realise from the incidental remarks of Thucydides how important were the results of the war. 1 Cf. the representations made by the Samians to Alkidas (iii. 32) when protesting against his murder of some prisoners. They tell him that the Athenian allies are not hostile to him : their connec- tion with Athens is one of necessity and compulsion. 2 Thuc. ii. 6g ; iii. 19. 382 THE TEN YEARS' WAR The situation in the year 421 and the years which im- mediately follow is lost sight of in the lurid light which the Sicilian expedition and the Ionian War cast upon the history of the age. The mere narrative of fact in the Fifth Book of Thucydides' history leads to the same conclusions that must be drawn from a consideration of the events of the war itself. The adversaries of Athens were absolutely broken in spirit, not because they themselves had suffered any individual military disasters of great magnitude in the course of the war, but because the war itself had clearly demonstrated to them that the imperial city, which repre- sented in theory and in practice all that the Greeks most loathed, was ultimately invulnerable against such resources of attack as they had at their disposal. They had discovered, too, in the last five years of the war, that the command of the sea made Athens formidable not merely on the defensive but on the offensive also. A power which could absolutely shut out Peloponnese from the Pontus corn trade, and could, by blockading the Pelo- ponnesian coast from definite strategic points such as Naupaktos, Pylos, Kythera and Methana, make com- munication with the only remaining corn regions of the world, Egypt and Sicily, very difficult, was a foe so formidable as to threaten the very existence of some of the states of the Peloponnesian League. Sparta, in particular, had to contemplate the possibility, in case the war were prolonged, of some of these states seceding to the Athenian side merely in order to maintain the existence of their population. The whole Peloponnesian War was destined to illustrate, in the case of both sides which fought in it, the extreme precariousness of the position of states which are dependent on others for a part at any rate of the food supply of their population. In the Ten Years' War the danger was demonstrated in the case of the enemies of Athens ; in the Ionian War in the case of Athens herself. Why then did Athens make peace in 421 ? It was forced on her by Brasidas, who had the genius to see that she had one vulnerable point, the Hellespont region. He got within striking distance of that region RESULTS OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR 383 when he got hold of Amphipolis. Athens was seriously- alarmed, more alarmed, perhaps, than she need have been, for subsequent events proved the magnitude of the diffi- culties which lay in the way of getting reinforcements to Brasidas. When the effort to recover Amphipolis failed, the danger in that part, combined with the desire for peace natural to a people which has gone through ten years of fighting, induced Athens to accept the terms of the Peace of Nikias. But the terms do not in any real sense represent the situation created by the war. The old methods of Greek warfare had broken down. Devastation had failed to accomplish its immemorial object. The want of experience in the attack on fortifications, never felt before, had made it impossible to break the Athenian hold of Naupaktos, Pylos, and Methana. The old world of Greece was dissolv- ing like a dream, because the simple strategy of that warfare which had maintained its fabric had been proved hopelessly antiquated. Disruption and despair were, after 421, the main features in the policy of Athens' quondam enemies. Her own position was infinitely stronger than it appeared on the paper of the Treaty. It was difficult to overestimate the strength of it. One man, however, Alkibiades, succeeded in so doing. The genius of Themistokles had saved the state in a moment of disaster ; that of Alkibiades destroyed it in a moment of success. Such is the way of genius in matters political. APPENDIX THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY 2 I! APPENDIX THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY I THE GENERAL QUESTION Up to the time when Ullrich wrote his famous thesis on the composition of Thucydides' history, it had not occurred to any critic to suggest either that the work was not composed in the order in which it has come down to the modern world, or that its original form was not such as is found in the received text. Ullrich raised a question which from its very nature is incapable of final settlement ; and it may be expected that so long as Thucydides' work remains a subject of scholarly and historical inquiry students will debate the manner of its growth. Since Ullrich was an innovator in criticism, he may be regarded as being progressive in his views, while those who have argued against him, and in favour of a uniform growth of the work, may be looked ■ upon as conservative critics. The battle of opinions has raged fiercely during the last twenty years, but, so far, neither side shows the slightest disposition either to acknowledge defeat, or even to claim a victory. What views may be taken by observers of the battle is another matter.' The author, if the statement which he makes at the outset of his work is to be believed, set about his task with extraordinary deliberation. ' It is in Germany that the battle has been and is being fought. Scholars outside Germany who have had occasion to discuss the question have been content for the most part to express agreement or disagreement with the original work done there — an attitude which is practically forced upon them by the fact that so many suggestions have been made by the advocates of either view that the area of possible suggestion has been all but exhausted. The mere recital of the names of those who have taken part in the discussion would de- mand much space and time. A statement and criticism of all their views would demand a volume, and a large volume, in itself. For the present purpose it will suffice to cite the names of those who have made permanent contributions to the inquiry, and to discuss such arguments as have acquired a permanent place in the case of either side. 387 388 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY He says ' that he foresaw that the war would be a great one, and con- sequently began his collection of materials from the time when the two sides first took up arms. He intended to write the history of the whole war, that is to say, to continue his work until the war came to a definite end. It would be prejudging a matter which must be discussed hereafter, were any attempt made at this stage of the consideration to form a conclusion as to whether he at any time conceived the war to have come to an end with the Peace of Nikias in 421. Suffice it for the present to say that in his final conception he regarded the war as having been brought to a conclusion with the downfall of Athens in 404.^ Therefore, during at least the last years of his life, he aimed at carry- ing on his narrative to the events of that year. This task he never completed. He brought his story to the summer of B.C. 411, the twenty-first year of the Twenty-seven Years' War ; and at that point the tale breaks off abruptly. The last sentence of his work is incom- plete in matter and form. Xenophon undertook the work of continuing the narrative ; and, inasmuch as there is a gap of several weeks between the last events recorded by Thucydides and the first events mentioned in the Hellenika, it has been suggested that some of the text at the end of the eighth book has been lost, and that the termination may not have been so abrupt as it is in the extant MSS. But though there is a certain partial gap of time between the two works, the events in the first chapter of the Hellenika are, generally speaking, taken up at the point at which Thucydides left them.' The opening of Xenophon's history would be incomprehensible without the last chapter of Thucydides ; it is, indeed, formally attached to the end of the earlier historian's work ; and, if this attachment be not absolutely complete, its incompleteness is more probably due to oversight or to a certain carelessness on the part of Xenophon, than to the loss of some paragraphs at the end of the text of Thucydides. The first conclusion, therefore, which must be drawn with regard to this history of the Peloponnesian War is that it is incomplete, a position which is accepted by all commentators alike. Furthermore, the com- position was brought not merely to a premature but to an abrupt con- clusion. But this incompleteness with regard to quantity suggests the very strong possibility that the work may be in whole, or in part, incomplete in respect to quality ; that is to say, that it has not all been subjected to a final revision such as would reduce it to the ultimate form at which the author aimed. For the moment this must remain a general suggestion. How far it is supported by a detailed consideration can only be determined by an examination of the separate parts of the work. But there are other considerations suggested by the incompleteness ' i. I. " v. 26. ' Cf. Breitenbach's Introduction to the Hellenika. In the opening of the Hellenika ^era roCra refers to the last events narrated by Thucydides, and ^I'ou- jiAxi\i!o-v ai5*« refers to Thuc. viii. 103. 2 and 107. i. PUBLICATION OF THE WORK 389 of the work. It is almost inconceivable that Thucydides gave his work to the world in the form in which it is now extant. It is contrary to all probability to suppose that any author would pubhsh a work which has nothing that can be called a definite conclusion. One of two things must be the case : either that certain completed sections such as the story of the Ten Years' War and that of the Sicilian expedition had been already published, and that some literary executor, in accordance with the final conception of the author as to the oneness of the war, made a compilation of that which had been already published, and added thereto so much of the tale of the Ionian War as the author had composed before his death ; or that this executor found the whole of the writings unpublished and gave them to the world in a lump, as it were. But the main point is that, whether there had or had not been previous publications of some part or parts of Thucydides' work, its incompleteness and peculiarly abrupt ending forbid the supposition that it was ever given to the world by the historian in the form in which it now exists, and suggests almost inevitably that a literary executor published the work in the form in which it is now extant. Whether that executor also played the part of editor is another and further question.^ There is one more consideration suggested by these circumstances. If Thucydides carried out his original intention, and collected materials for the war as the war proceeded, he must by 404 have been in posses- sion of notes on the events of those years of the Ionian War, whose story he never lived to write. Had the executor to whom reference has been already made played the part of editor, he might have been at least tempted to write the story of the remaining years of the war from such notes. He did not do so, nor did he ever give them to the world as they were — always supposing that they existed. It has been suggested that these notes did exist, and that they were used by Xenophon in the composition of the two first books of the Hellenika. It is certainly the case that Xenophon employs, so long as he is writing the story of the Peloponnesian War, a historical method which in respect to chronology and other points resembles that of Thucydides, but contrasts with that of the succeeding books of the Hellenika. But this does not argue the use of Thucydides' materials, which, had they existed, must almost certainly have recorded the recapture of two places, Pylos and Nisaea, of whose capture Thucy- dides has so much to say in his fourth book.^ In Xenophon's narrative ^ The critic Schwartz believes in an editor; but his editor is rather of the nature of a literary executor. He points out that no one gives an unfinished work to the world. G. Meyer only believes in an editor in a limited degree {i.e. a literary executor). He cannot believe that Thucydides published his ncomplete work, which breaks off just before the important battle of Kyzikos ; but he thinks the editor published the work as he found it. ' Breitenbach, Introduction to the Hellenika. For Pylos and Nisaea, vide Thuc. iv. 3 and iv. 67. 390 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY the recapture of these places is not mentioned." Moreover, the gaps and deficiencies in the first two books of the Hellenika would be incompre- hensible had they been composed on the basis of Thucydides' notes, which, according to that author's own testimony, he made right from the beginning of the war (i. i.) and made, too, apparently with great care (cf. i. 22). Again, though the historical method in these two books is founded on that of Thucydides, yet the style is essentially Xenophon's own, simple and transparent, characteristically distinguishable from the style of Thucydides, which is marked by complicated construction and by a pregnancy often difficult to understand.^ It seems safe to say, therefore, that so far as our present knowledge goes, there is no trace whatever of any notes which Thucydides may have made on the events of the last years of the war. Whoever gave Thucydides' work to the world confined himself to the publication of that material to which the historian had given some measure of literary form.^ For the purpose of considering the internal evidence with regard to the order of composition of the history, the whole work may be divided into certain divisions. Of these, the primary are two in number : — (i) The beginning to v. 24 inclusive, i.e. the history of the Ten Years' War, together with an introduction and preliminaries : (2) V. 25 to the end, i.e. the history of the years of Peace, of the Sicilian War, and of the Ionian War to the summer of B.C. 411. This division is rendered noteworthy by the fact that the historian opens the second part of it with a new introduction. He begins his history with the words : ' Thucydides, an Athenian, composed the history of the incidents in the war between the Pelopon- nesians and Athenians.' .... It might be expected that this statement of authorship would have sufficed for the whole work. It is therefore somewhat surprising to find a repetition of the statement at the begin- ning of the narrative of the events which succeeded the close of the Ten Years' War: 'The same Thucydides has also written the story ' Kriiger has a theory that Xenophon's Hellenika i.-ii. are materials of Thucydides worked up by Xenophon. Breitenbach rejects this for the reasons already given. ^ Breitenbach. ' Commentators on Thucydides have not failed to make suggestions as to the identity of the literary executor who gave Thucydides' work to the world. Breitenbach argues from a passage in Diogenes Laertius (Diog. Laert. ii. 57, X^erat S' ort koX to. QovKvSiSov jSi^Xd \av6dvovTa i^-^eX^ff^at dwdfievos tXvrbs eU 5A|ay ■fjrta.yev) that Xenophon was the first into whose hands the work of Thucydides came ; for the meaning of the words can only be that Xenophon published the work of Thucydides, and so opened to that author the path of glory. But the question is not as to the meaning of the words, but as to the authority behind them : and that must remain a doubtful point. All that can be said is, that of all possible editors whose names are known to the present world, Xenophon is the most probable. THE SECOND INTRODUCTION 391 of the events in order as each occurred, by summers and winters, up to the time that the Lacedaemonians and their allies brought the Athenian empire to an end and captured the Long Walls and the Piraeus.' ' Ullrich and those critics who are of his way of thinking ask why, if the whole narrative was originally composed all of a piece, this second introduction was inserted. Whatever view may be taken ultimately as to its origin, it must be accounted as at least an unexpected feature in a history which is written, as the author expressly says, under the conception of the whole Twenty-seven Years' War as one. The theories which have been suggested by Ullrich and others with regard to the composition of the history were without doubt primarily and originally due to the existence of this second introduction. What- ever view may be taken ultimately as to its significance, its presence inevitably suggests the continuation of an interrupted work, and moreover of a work which has been interrupted under an impression which prevailed at one time in the mind of the author that the work had been brought to completion. The question is not merely of textual, but also of historical interest. 'We are dealing with a historian of the first rank, our main source of information for the period, whose judgment must appear to us in a different light according as it was formed immediately after events, or at the end of the whole war, when the writer must have stood much more objectively towards the events of the first period.'^ Even a great authority, ^ whose views as to the composition of the history are on the whole conservative in character, has to admit that, though he believes that 'the war' referred to in the first chapter of the first book is the whole Twenty-seven Years' War, Thucydides did not until later form this view as to the oneness of the whole war. It was essentially an original view, not shared by the men of his own day, nor by those of the next century. But the writer admits that it is strange that the historian deferred until the fifth book the statement of his own peculiar views, if, as he postulates, he held them when he wrote the first four books. Even this conservative critic would apparently admit that, apart from any question as to the date of the composition of the history, it was not until, at earliest, the beginning of the war in Sicily that Thucydides formed the conception of the oneness of the war. It has been already mentioned that this conception was original and essentially his own. It is not shared either by his contemporaries or by his immediate successors. It is noticeable that his contemporary Andokides, in a speech dating from 390, looks upon the Dekelean (Ionian) War as a war by itself — a second Peloponnesian War; — and does not regard the Sicilian expedition as a Peloponnesian War at all. Lysias speaks of the Ten Years' War as the Archidamian War.* He V. 26. ^ Leske. '^ Professor Eduard Meyer, Forsc&ungen, 1899. Harpokr. v. s. Suidas 'ApxiSdfuos irdXefios. 392 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY also speaks of the Dekelean War. He has no conception of them as parts of the same war. The separation between the Archidamian and the Dekelean Wars is most marked in the literature of the first half of the fourth century. The later war, with its most decisive results, almost swamped the recollection of the Ten Years' (Archidamian) War. The orators of the fourth century refer frequently to the second war, but very rarely to the first. If they do refer to the Archidamian War, it is reckoned as coming within the period of Athenian prosperity, and is not given a special name.^ Plato distinguishes between the wars. He speaks^ of the Dekelean War as a third ^zx, after mentioning the Ten Years' War as a second war, and the first Peloponnesian War (459-446) as a first war, though he gives no special names to them. Aeschines,^ or the source which he follows, distinguishes the two wars, though he again does not give them any special names. Both he and Andokides* emphasise the advantages gained by the Peace of Nikias.'' ^ Aristophanes in the Peace, 990 ff, writing in 421, speaks of the war having lasted thirteen years. He dates it back to the battle of Leukimme in 434. It is possible that Thucydides, when he wrote the words (i. 66), 01) /xivroi o ye Tr6\efi6s wio ^ivEppihyu, dW ^tl dvaKdJXT} V''' ^^^4 y^P TaOra ol Kopivdioi Sirpa^av, with regard to the hostilities at Potidaea, was writing in silent contra- diction to some such view. He calls the war of Epidamnos rd KepKf/aai/cd. Diodorus (xii. 30) speaks of it as t6v Kopiv6iaK6v KkjiBivTa irSKefiov. ^ Plato, Menex. 242, E. N.B. — the words : rpirbs di irbXe/ios ixera Tairrjv TTJV elp'fjvTiv, ' De Falsa Legatione, 51. 176. * De Pace, 24. 9. ' It is unnecessary to discuss all the passages in which the idea of the separateness of these wars is clearly shown. But the passages may be cited without discussion — Isokrates, Plat. 302. 31 ; De Pace, 166. 37 ; Demos- thenes, De Corona, 258. 96; Contra Androt. 597. 15; Contra Eubul. 1304. 18. Later historians and writers adopted, as a rule, Thucydides' view of the whole war as one. Diodorus copies Thucydides, but is acquainted with a different view taken by other writers : cf. xii. 74 and 75 arf init., 81, 82, where, ii- agreement with Thucydides, he speaks of the fifteenth and seventeenth years of the war. But xiii. 24, i-pjl . . . KaraXeXu/t^pou, and also 114, he speaks of the Ten Years' War, thus showing that the sources which he used, other than Thucydides, differed from Thucydides in their view of the period. In Plut. , Perik. 29 f., Lysander 11, Aristides I, and also in Pausanias iii. 3. 1 1, viii. 41. 9, iv. 6. i, and viii. 52. 3, as well as in Cic. , de Rep. iii. 3. 32. 44, and in Cornelius Nepos, Thucydides' view as to the oneness of the war is adopted. But some later authors follow other views : e.g. Trogus Pompeius speaks of three wars : vide also Aelian, V.H. 13. 38, and Maximus Tyrius, Diss. 9. In the Strassburg Papyrus, Gr. 84. (ed. B. Keil, 1902), there is a reference to the oneness of the war : "On TtXeuraio;' ei's rhv Xle\oirovv7i(naKiv irkXeiiov AeKeKcxbv [d]/3i9/ioC(ri" Ttt S' &Wa p,ipT) 2i,Ke\iK6s KaVApxiSd/iio^. But this is an MS. of no independent authority, apparently a mere schoolmaster's pricis of Greek history, and a very poor and elementary one at that. It is probable that the passage quoted rests on the ultimate authority of Thucydides. THE ONENESS OF THE WAR 393 It seems clear then that Thucydides' view as to the oneness of the war was essentially his own. It was not shared by contemporaries, nor was it either shared or adopted by writers of the fourth century. Up to Macedonian times the Athenians appear to have regarded the Ten Years' War and the Dekelean War as two wars ; and to have almost forgotten the former in view of the latter. The very graves and memorials in Athens would lead them to regard the two wars as dis- tinct from one another. It may be assumed, therefore, that the con- tinuity between the warfare before and after the Peace of Nikias did not strike either the contemporary world or the succeeding generations. Even if no independent evidence on this point existed, the peculiar emphasis with which Thucydides argues for his own view would suggest that such was the case.' This unanimity of idea among those who had occasion to refer to the war, either while it lasted or in the half century which followed its close, cannot but come into account in any estimate of the mental attitude with which Thucydides originally regarded the events immediately succeeding the peace of 421. Is it conceivable that circumstances which were unanimously regarded both then and later as a cessation of the previous period of warfare suggested themselves to the mind of Thucydides immediately after that peace as indicating not a cessation, but a continuation of the war which the peace had formally brought to a close? It is quite contrary to the probability of things that such was the case. His remarks on that period are almost certainly due to an afterthought. The state- ment made in the twenty-fifth chapter of the fifth book was, on the face of it, not put into writing until at least six years and ten months after the treaty was made ; and the words in the next chapter : — ' If (any one) have regard to the facts of the case, he will see that the term "peace" can hardly be applied to a state of things in which neither party gave back or received all the places stipulated : moreover, in the Mantinean and Epidaurian Wars and in other matters, there were violations of the treaty on both sides ; the Chalkidian allies maintained their attitude of hostility towards Athens, and the Boeotians merely observed an armistice terminable at ten days' notice,' ^ — express con- siderations which cannot have been present in the mind of the writer until, at earliest, these so-called years of peace had come to a close. Such then are the points of similarity which Thucydides eventually discovered to exist between this, to him, delusive period of peace and the period of warfare which preceded it. But there were points of contrast between the two periods which were on the face of them more striking than those points of similarity, and which must in the natural order of things have impressed themselves on the mind of any contemporary before the points of similarity could have suggested themselves even to the most acute observer. There was not merely the peace itself: there was the alliance between Athens and Sparta Cf., of course, v. 25 and 26. ^ v. 26. 394 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY which followed the peace. It is true that points of dispute between the two powers came almost immediately into existence ; but these were, in the first instance, largely due to difficulties which Sparta had with certain of the states which had been her allies in the previous war. Moreover although the peace proved 'insecure,' yet it introduced a new state of things into the Greek world in great contrast to the situation before the peace was made. Sparta's independent action in making it had alienated from her her most important allies, Thebes and Corinth, and the connection between them and Sparta was never re-established on the terms on which it had existed before 421. Re- garding this period of the peace by itself alone, neither it nor any part of it can be called a war between Lacedaemonians and Athenians, much less a war between Peloponnesians and Athenians. Though not formally dissolved, still, during the first five years of this period, the Peloponnesian League ceased to exist in the form which it had received by the Thirty Years' Peace of 446, never again to be revived, strictly speaking, in its earlier form. Even after the end of the whole war, Sparta, though victorious, never again acquired her former position in the league. Again, in the whole great section from v. 27 to vi. 105^ which represents this period, Thucydides never had an opportunity of thinking of any undertaking which proceeded from the Peloponnesians as active during this period. No one could speak of this time of manifold political permutations and combinations as one with, and, above all, as part of, a war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians. Moreover Sparta, on Thucydides' own showing, was ready to preserve peace at any price short of serious danger to her position in Pelopon- nese and at home. Alkibiades' policy forced her to take up arms in 418 ; but she laid them definitely aside at the first moment at which she could do so without seriously imperilling her own safety. Athens must have been convinced of the pacific desires of Sparta when she undertook the Sicilian expedition ; and the sequel proved that she had not mistaken Sparta's feeling at the time at which the expedition was sent forth. It is certainly very hard to see how any contemporary of these events could, within the period in which they took place, have conceived of them as a continuation of the Ten Years' War. To the contemporary observer, moreover, the Sicilian expedition, inasmuch as Sparta showed no intention of moving, must originally have appeared to divert all prospect of war at home by transferring the activities and resources of Athens to a distant scene. Thus it is in the highest degree unhkely that any conception of the 'oneness' with the Ten Years' War of the events which occurred be- tween the Peace of Nikias and the incidents related in vi. 105 can have suggested itself, during the time at which those events were in progress, to the mind of a contemporary observer, whether Thucydides or any one else. It cannot indeed have been before the war in Greece began once more on a large scale that the idea of its connection with the warfare of the previous twenty odd years suggested itself to the THUCYDIDES' CONCEPTION OF THE WAR 395 mind of one and, even then, of only one of its contemporaries.' The year 413 is thus the earliest date at which Thucydides can have formed that conception of the war which has left such unmistakable traces on the composition of his history. It is at the same time prob- able that, had he lived, the traces of this change of view would not have been so apparent in the perfected form of his work. But, in any case, the second introduction presents a difficulty which has not always been taken into account in the various dissertations on this much-vexed question. If the earlier part of his work had not ' Note on the names used by Thucydides in reference to the wars of the fifth century. — Thucydides has no set names for the wars with which he was con- temporary, probably because no set names for them had become established in common usage. Still the terms which he uses show in some instances what were the names applied to them by either side. Various expressions are used of the war generally, but it is probable that those, though in themselves applicable to the whole war, were originally applied to the Ten Years' War. Thus (i. 44) the expression 6 ir/iis neXoiroj/xijcr/oi;! TriXe/tos is used with reference to the Athenian expectation of the coming war. From the Spartan point of view it is spoken of as 6 trfhi 'A$T]vaiovs vd'Ke/ws. Thucydides himself speaks of it (i. I) as (6 7r6\e/tos) twv Ile\oTrovyriTii>iKlis . . . TrAXe^os. The Sicilian expedition is referred to from the Syracusan point of view (vi. 73) as 6 Trpbs 'ABitvalovs 7ri\e/ios. Thucydides himself (vii. 85) speaks of it as 6 SiKeXi/cJs 7r6Xe/ios. The whole period of warfare after the so-called ' Years of Peace ' is spoken of (v. 26) as 6 llffrepoy i^ airifs [sc. rrjs auaKuxh^^ TriXt/tos. The references to the Dekelean (or Ionian) War are peculiarly interesting. In later times it was known by either one or both of the above names. But, as far as terminology goes, Thucydides distinguishes between the two names, applying the one (vii. 27) 6 iK ttjs Ae/teXelas iriXe/ws, to the war in Attica, and the other, 6 'laviKis ir6X£/tos, to the naval war, which was chiefly on the Ionian or Asiatic coast of the Aegean. This latter term has sometimes been assumed to have been applied by him to the whole of this last phase of the Twenty-Seven Years' War ; but though it is used in connection with an incident on the European side of the Aegean, it refers distinctly to the naval, and not to the Dekelean War strictly so-called. In the treaties between Sparta and Persia (viii. 18 and viii. 37) this war is called in general terms 6 irpds 'ASrivalovs 7r6Xe;iios, where it is spoken of, of course, from the point of view of Athens' enemies. Thucydides himself refers to it (iv. 81) in a passage which must have come late in his period of composition as 6 xp^ptp SffTepov utTa rd iK 2i/teX(as iriXe/nos. 396 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY been given to the world, above all if it had, as some maintain, not even been written before the close of the whole war, why did the author insert this second introduction in the middle of his history ? It would have been quite superfluous had the composition of his history been deferred until the whole twenty-seven years of warfare was over, or even had the author not committed himself to some earlier view by publishing an account of the war up to the Peace of Nikias. Why should he make this second statement of his authorship to a world which knew nothing of any previous views which he might have held, and nothing, too, of the previous part of his written history ? Why, again, should he have reasserted his chronological method, had not this first part of his work been at some time and in some sense separate from the second ? It is also strange, as has been frequently pointed out by many commentators, that if the historian regarded the whole twenty-seven years of war as one at the time when he began the composition of the first part of his history, he deferred the expression of his views as to the length of the war until the opening chapter of the story of the war subsequent to the Peace of Nikias. Were this the only peculiar feature of the opening of the history of the later part of the war, its position might be accounted for by the suggestion that the author preferred to use it rather as a link than an introduction to his history. But taken in conjunction with the other two features already mentioned, the second introduction, and the second statement of chronological method, it must emphasise the significance of the con- clusions to which the existence of these two factors in the composition leads. The question under consideration is so exceedingly complicated, that it may be well at the end of each stage of the argument to sum up the conclusion suggested by the premisses or group of premisses which have been taken into account. Stated thus briefly, the conclusion suggested by the existence of the second introduction, of the second statement of chronological method, and of the expression of view as to the length of the war, is that Thucydides, before inserting these passages in his work, had completed at least a draft of the story of the Ten Years' War, and probably given it to the world. A second series of considerations tends to support the probability of such having been the case. He says expressly in the opening sentences of his work that he began his collection of materials from the very time at which the war com- menced, in the expectation that it would prove a great war. If so, he must at the time of the Peace of Nikias have been in possession of material for the story of the Ten Years' War — material imperfect, per- haps, estimated by the standard of modern scientific history, but com- plete enough for an age wherein no historical standard save that which the author set up for himself can be said to have been in existence. That Thucydides himself was. satisfied with something very short of ideal completeness of material is shown by the fact that his story of THE HISTORY OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR 397 the war from the date of his exile to the Peace of Nikias is drawn almost entirely from materials which must have been obtained from the Peloponnesian side — a fact which is not without significance, as will hereafter be pointed out, in relation to the date of the composition of this part of his history.' What then was his position as a would-be author in 421 ? He had had for ten years past the express intention of writing the history of the war. During that period he had collected materials with that end in view. The peace must have conveyed to his mind, as it did to the minds of other contemporaries, the idea that the war was over. It is certain that the events of the years of peace did not appear to him an attractive subject. His narrative of them shows that. Is it probable — indeed is it conceivable — that in these years suc- ceeding the Peace of Nikias he made no attempt to put this material together in literary form, but waited for that recommencement of the war which neither he nor any one else could have foreseen at the time, and which did not come until nearly eight years later, or deferred his task in the hope of being able to get materials from the Athenian side for the years from 424 to 421 when his exile was brought to a termina- tion of which the circumstances of those years afforded not the slightest prospect? This latter alternative may be brushed aside immediately. The state of his narrative of those years shows con- clusively that he composed their history without waiting for the termination of his exile. Thus the second series of considerations points to the same con- clusion as the first, that Thucydides completed a draft of the story of the Ten Years' War before ever he formed any conception of the twenty-seven years of war as one : and, if he completed it, as he had ample time to do before the Dekelean War, or even before the Sicilian expedition opened, it is probable that he published it. Hence the necessity of a second introduction to the continuation of an already published work.^ ' Cf. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: In the last years of the Archidamian War only the Thracian exploits of Brasidas are recounted. The story of Greek affairs is fragmentary and confused. He never brought this later history of the Ten Years' War to final completion. 2 The questions which have been raised so far in this chapter are ; — (i) Did Thucydides write the history of the Ten Years' War before he formed the conception of the oneness of the whole twenty-seven years of warfare ? (2) Did he give his history to the world before he proceeded at any rate to write the story of the years of peace and of the Ionian [Dekelean] War, or even before he wrote the account of the Sicilian expedition ? I have answered these questions on the facts themselves. In so doing I have of course been largely aided and itifluenced by the works of various 398 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY critics. It may be well at this point, therefore, to say something of these critics, and to mention briefly their views upon these general questions. As has been already stated, they are divided into two schools : the Progressive school of Ullrich and the Conservative school of his opponents. Up to 1878 Progressive criticism was most prominently represented by — Ullrich, [1846]. Boehm, [1856 — who recanted later]. Grote, E. Curtius, \_Gr. Gesch. ii., p. 697, note 25]. Steup, [i868]. Miiller-Strubing, [1873]. Breitenbach, [1873]. Leske, [1875]. A. Kirchhoff, [1878]. Volkheim, [1878]. The Conservative view was, up to the same date, advocated chiefly by — Classen, [1862]. Kii7rpiov6s, Welti, Boehm, [1870 {vide above)]. Stahl, [1873]. The important critics since that date are — Prof, von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Prof. Croiset, Prof. E. Meyer, Friedrichs, Cwiklinski, Ippel, G. Meyer, Herbst, Helmhold, Welzhofer, Schwartz, Kirchhoff. Space does not admit of their views on the general questions propounded at the beginning of this note being stated in more than precis. I. XilAXiCA {Beitrdge zur ErUdrung des T.). Thucydides had made notes on the war from its beginning. Thought it finished in 421. He proceeded to write, and got to the middle of Bk. iv., when hostilities recommenced, first in Sicily and then in Greece proper. He stayed his hand and began to take notes again. Did not resume regular composition until after 404. Had Thucydides had from the beginning the intention of writing the history of the Twenty-seven Years' War, he would at the beginning of the work, and not so late as v. 26, have spoken of the extent of the war as a whole. Note on Ullrich's views. — It is hardly possible to accept a late date for the composition of the later part of Bk. iv., if an early date for the composition of the earlier part of the book be accepted. Generally speaking the later half of the book, which, in respect to subject-matter, is all but confined to the exploits of Brasidas, suggests that the historian, at the time he wrote it, was limited, in VIEWS ON THE GENERAL QUESTION 399 respect to sources, to information from the Peloponnesian side, which would indicate coniiposition prior to 404. 2. Steup. Vide especially introduction to the 1897 edition of Classen's Tkucydides. Not till 409 or 408 did Thucydides come to regard the war as one. He had by that time completed the history of the Ten Years' War and the question of publication arose. Having adopted the new view, he did not publish the Ten Years' War separately, nor even proceed immediately to revise the narrative of it in view of later events, but collected materials for the story of the events then in progress, viz. the incidents of the Dekelean War. He does not agree with Ullrich's view as to the late composition of the later part of Bk. iv. But Steup seems to think that he began the collection of materials for the Sicilian and Dekelean Wars while they were in progress, before 410, not originally with the idea of attaching them to the previous work, but with intent to publish them separately. Note on Steup' s view. — The question of the publication of the story of the Ten Years' War as a separate work must always be peculiarly disputable. At the same time the second preface, with its statements as to the author- ship and chronological method, would seem superfluous, had not the writer been already known as an author who had already followed a certain chrono- logical method, but had seen fit to enlarge the scope of a work which he had brought to apparent completion. Had the earlier narrative not been published, why should not the author, uncommitted to any views which he wished to revise, have pursued the narrative without any break ? 3. Muller-Strubing. {,Jahrbuchfilr Philologie,\%%T,.) The Ten Years' War was published separately. The second statement of chronological method, and the recurrence to the story of the murder of Hipparchos, were called forth by criticism of what he had already published. 4. Breitenbach. (Introduction to Xenophon's ^«//e«2'/Ja.) Thucydides collected materials for his history during the whole course of the war ; but probably proceeded to the formal composition of his work while collecting materials. Certainly did so after the Peace of Nikias, under the impression that the war was at an end. Wrote the history of the Ten Years' War at that time without knowledge of what was to follow. Then proceeded with the description of events up to those described at the end of Bk. viii., until the news of Aigospotamoi reached him, when, recognising it as the end of the war, he laid aside the pen until the peace was concluded. Then, when he had in view the whole course of the war up to its conclusion, he naturally did not take up the work at the point at which he had left off, but set to work on a revision of that which he had completed. 5. KiRCHHOFF. {Th. U.S. Urkundenmaterial : Berlin, 1895.) The history of the Archidamian War (i. l-v. 20), an independent and complete work composed considerably before the end of the war, in which certain additions have been somewhat planlessly inserted. The rest written after 404, but, for the most part, left by Thucydides in a wholly incomplete state. 40O THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY 6. Classen (in his edition of Thucydides). Thucydides wrote the whole of the history after 404. Classen takes those passages in the early books which, as Ullrich maintained, showed that the historian, when he wrote them, did not know of the events of the later wars, and seeks to prove that these passages do not necessarily imply that ignorance. The argument has to be considered when these passages are examined. Note. — On more general grounds he argues that the regular character and uninterrupted connection of the whole eight books indicate continuous and uninterrupted composition up to the time when death overtook the historian. It was only after the war had closed that composition of this kind could be undertaken. 7. F. Kiel (^Quo tempore Th. priorem operis sui partem composuerit : Diss. von Gottingen, Hannover, 1880) argues that there is no evidence in any part of Thucydides' history of its having been written before 404. 8. A. Kuxpiavis [Ilepi t-^s olKovo/xias roC 9. ] ; and 9. J. M. Stahl. {De Thucydidis Vita et Scriptis, in the first volume of his stereotyped edition) ; and 10. J. J. Welti ( Ueber die Abfassungsaeii des Thuk. Geschichtswerkes : Winterthur, 1869) held the same conservative views as to the composition of the history. 11. L. Cwiklinski (Quaestiones de Tempore quo Th. priorem historiae suae partem composuerit: Diss, von Berlin, Gnesen, 1873). The first four books composed after the Peace of Nikias but before 404, and subsequently revised. The beginning of the fifth book was also added in a revision. Ndte. — It is difficult to see why Cwiklinski separates the early chapters of the fifth book from the fourth. At a later period (see Hermes, xii. ) he seems to have modified this view, and to have conceived of the possibility of v. 1-24 belonging to the same period of composition as iv. He also thinks that the account of the Sicilian expedition, with the exception of certain revised passages, was writen before 404. 12. J. Helmhold. (Ueber die successive Entstehung des Thuc. Geschichts- werkes, i. Teil, i. Progr. des Realprogymn. inGetweiler, Colmar, 1876.) The history of the Ten Years' War is an independent whole, though the real conclusion has been put in the wrong place. It was revised and added to in view of later events. All that comes after the Peace of Nikias is a later edition — a con- tinuation, related to the original work as the histories of Theopompos and Xenophon were related to the history of Thucydides. Probably Thucy- dides completed the history of the Ten Years' War before the Dekelean War opened, perhaps even before he began to write down the history of later events. 13. E. Ippel. (Quaestiones Thucydideae, Diss, von Halle, 1879.) The Archidamian and Sicilian Wars originally intended as two separate works. 14. G. Mever. (Quibus temporibus Thucydides historiae suae partes scrip- serit. Progr. der Klosterschule zu Ilfeld und Diss, von Jena, Nordhausen, 1880.) The story of the Ten Years' War was written soon after the Peace of Nikias, and that of the Sicilian expedition before 404. After 404, the VIEWS ON THE GENERAL QUESTION 401 Archfeology, Pentekontaetia, and Books v. 25-116 and Book viii. were written, and that which had already been written was revised. 15. E. Schwartz. (Ueber das erste Bitch v. T. Rh. M. 41, p. 203.) The unity of composition in Thucydides is a hopelessly lost idea. 16. Friedrichs. It is impossible to reject the idea that Thucydides originally regarded the years 421-414 as real years of peace. Hence the Sicilian expedition must in the first instance have appeared to him as a separate undertaking. Still he conceived the idea of writing its history. As his work on it progressed the connection between it and the previous war was forced upon his consciousness, especially when the Spartans renewed the war on Athens in Greece. It is also plain that his collection of materials for the interval between the Ten Years' War and the Sicilian expedition cannot have been contemporary with the events. 17. Herbst. (Philologus, xi., 1881.) Herbst admits partial agreement with Ullrich. Thucydides did write the story of the Ten Years' War as a special part of his history. The second introduction shows that. But Thucydides composed his work, as his own words say, ' after the end of the war.' Note. — It is difficult to say to what passage Herbst is referring. 18. Welzhofer. (T. u. sein Geschichtswerk.) Thucydides' work did not take its present form until about 400 B.C. Up to that time he had merely collected materials. The time of collection was almost a generation : the time of composition perhaps hardly a year. 19. WiLAMOWlTZ-MoELLENDORFF. (Aristoieles u. Atken, Sic.) The history of the Ten Years' War was an independent and complete work. The second part of the history was also written before 404, !.«. directly after the events. The story of the Sicilian expedition was originally an independent work. 20. Croiset. (Edition of Thucydides.) Undoubtedly there are certain traces of composition prior to 404. 21. E. Meyer. (Forschungen, 1899). The Peace of 421 was not, like that of 446-5, decisive. The conditions were not carried out. The Boeotians, Corinthians, Megarians, Eleans, and Chalkidians did not conclude peace with Athens. How could the historian have brought his work to a conclusion at this point ? There is no doubt that the first book, in the form in which we have it, was not written till after 404. The first four books were written after 404, and must be understood from that standpoint, even if the writer has taken in detail certain elements from previous designs. ' This war ' is then the Twenty-seven Years' War, the ' Peloponnesian War ' grasped as a unity ; and the causes of the war given in the first book are those of the Twenty-seven Years' War. Note. — Every one must admit that Thucydides' work, 'in the form in which we now have it,' dates in composition from after the end of the war. But the question in relation to the first half of his history is whether ' the form in which we now have it ' is the original form, and whether there was not an earlier form composed long before the war came to a close — in fact in the years succeeding the Peace of Nikias. Kirchhoff regards the history of the Archidamian War (i. i-v. 20) as an 2 C 402 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY independent and complete work, in which the author has inserted somewhat planlessly certain additions. The rest he believes to have been written after 404, but to have been left for the most part in a wholly incomplete state. The mass of literature which has been written on this question is so large, that no attempt has been made to cite all the works of those who have discussed the subject. But the works and views quoted are those which have had most weight in this very prolonged controversy ; and, taken as a whole, they represent the various ramifications of the conjectures which have been made. The danger of misrepresentation is always present in any attempt to give a prhis of views which have been argued at considerable length ; but I think that what I have stated is an accurate reproduction of the general conclusions arrived at by the various writers on the most general questions connected with the composition of Thucydides' History. Note on a Suggested Editor of Thucydides^ Work 1 have already expressed the view that the unfinished state of Thucydides' work almost necessarily implies that it was given to the world by some person other than himself. For want of a better term I have called that person his ' literary executor.' I have left in abey- ance the question whether this executor played the part of an editor. But the question is one which cannot be ignored, partly because the theory that there was such an editor cannot be regarded as ground- less, and also because it has been supported by scholars of great ability. The part which any modern editor of Thucydides must play in relation to such theories is a difficult one. Few of those which relate to the composition of the history are capable of demonstrative proof. It is, throughout, a question of probabilities, and hence he is compelled to exercise at every turn a choice with which, as he is well aware, many of his readers could show substantia' reason for disagreeing. Granted a literary executor, it is on the face of it quite possible that the irregularities observable in the history are due either in whole or in part to his handiwork : in other words, he acted as editor, and inserted in that portion of the work which Thucydides had brought to comple- tion the notes which the historian had written in relation to other material, or himself actually filled up the gaps in the uncompleted work by compositions of his own which are less careful and accurate than the work of the historian, and are in some cases inconsistent with that which the historian himself wrote. Such a theory is quite possible. The chief supporters of this ' editorial ' theory have been Wilamowitz- Moellendorff {Curae Thucydideae, Gottingen, 1885, and Hermes^ xx.), Junghahn (jV. Jahrb. fiir Phil., and Studien z. T., Berlin, 1886), and Miiller-Striibing (A''. Jahrb. f. Phil. 133). Indeed, as G. Meyer says, there is a general impression among German scholars that there is evidence of an early fourth-century editor of Thucydides, who dealt with those portions of his work which he had left merely in the form of notes. Apart from the general arguments in favour of the theory which have been given above, and which might suggest themselves to any student THE QUESTION OF AN EDITOR 403 of Thucydides, certain specific reasons have been put forward in support of it. The contrast in form between the first and other books, and its clumsy arrang-ement, are ascribed by Wilamowitz to an editor who was making use of the mere notes left behind by Thucydides. The alleged mistaken character of the expressions and statements of i. 146 are ascribed to the same cause. Adolph Bauer (Philol. 46) discusses this latter view. He admits that the chapter is suspicious, especially when compared with the next chapter (ii. i). He admits, moreover, that it contains matter which Thucydides did not write ; but he argues that the position of this inserted matter shows that it was inserted after the division into books, and cannot therefore be due to an editor of Thucydides, but is probably the work of a gloss writer. Wilamowitz argues for the antiquity of the insertion because Pollux (i. 151) has borrowed it. But, even so, it is only put back before the end of the second century after Christ. A certain confusion in the chronology of the first book, especially with regard to the events preceding the war and the precise duration of the Ten Years' War, is ascribed by Wilamowitz to an editor. It is undoubtedly the case that the dating of the various incidents in the affairs of Epidamnos and Potidaea is very vague, especially as com- pared with the chronology of the events in the war itself. But it must be remembered that Thucydides, according to his own state- ment, did not begin to collect materials for his history until the war itself actually commenced. From that time forward he had his own records to which to refer; but before that time he must have had recourse to less exact evidence. It is true that he might have referred to the public records at Athens. But even if he had done so, these would not .have given him more than the dates of payments made for expeditions. The actual times at which the expeditions were despatched, and still more the dates of engagements, could only have been approximately calculated from such information. The com- parative confusion and vagueness of the dating of this particular part of the history is thus quite explicable without the ' editorial ' hypothesis. On the question of the precise length of the Ten Years' War there is an undoubted discrepancy in the statements made. In v. 20 it is asserted that the peace was made ' at the end of the winter and the beginning of spring,' and that ' exactly ten years and a few days had elapsed since the first invasion of Attica and the beginning of the war.' But this invasion (ii. 19) is dated eighty days after the Theban raid on Plataea, which took place ' at the beginning of spring ' (ii. 2). The interval therefore between the first invasion of Attica and the signing of the peace was about nine and three-quarter years, not ten years and a few days, as asserted in v. 20. But it is also noticeable that in ii. i and 2, Thucydides regards the Theban raid on Plataea as the beginning of the war ; and the interval between that and the conclusion of the treaty would have been a little over ten years. A. Bauer {Philologus, 46) regards the words v fo-poXfj fj h ttjv 'Attikjjv koi ... in v. 20 as an 404 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY interpolation into the text. That, of course, may be the case. But another explanation is possible. The chapter v. 20 was either written or revised at a late period, as the words ra Trpara noXeiJim toSe show. The statement of the length of the war, in the form in which it is given in this chapter, may be due to an oversight. The author had, no doubt, made a calculation of its length long before he revised this chapter. He had the figures ten years and a few days in his mind, but forgot, when he made what was obviously an incomplete, and probably a more or less hurried, revision of the story of the Ten Years' War, from what terminus a quo he had originally made this calculation. At any rate the hypothetical editor need not necessarily be called in as a deus ex machina to solve the situation. Junghahn supports the theory of the ' editor ' by what he alleges to be the illogical character of the arguments in some of the speeches, and also by the contrast between the extreme simplicity and the involved constructions present in the work. As far as the illogical character of the arguments is concerned, all that can be said is that this alleged defect in the work has passed quite unnoticed by the majority of critics of Thucydides. It cannot therefore be regarded as a striking characteristic. That certain parts of the work, and especially the speeches, are more elaborate in form than much of the narrative, goes without saying. But such special elaboration of passages in historical works is by no means a characteristic peculiar to this particular history ; and, in carrying it out, Thucydides would only be yielding to an impulse which is common to writers of all ages, and which would be peculiarly strongly felt by one who had lived in Athens in the years following the visit of Gorgias. Such are the major arguments which have been put forward in favour of the view that Thucydides' work was 'edited' by whoever gave it to the world. That the view is not impossible has been already admitted. But it s not, in my opinion, supported by arguments which raise it to that level of probability which is attained by other theories with regard to the composition of Thucydides' history. Had there been such an editor as is implied by the arguments of the supporters of the theory, it would at least be strange that he, after dealing so freely with the author's material, should have refrained from bringing the work to completion; or, at any rate, should have allowed it to come to a conclusion so premature and so abrupt as that of the extant text. Of all possible known names which might be suggested for such a r&le, that of Xenophon is most probable. But there is no part of Thucy dides' work that does not contain passages which, in respect to style, apart from other considerations, forbid any assumption that Xenophon put them into literary form. Xenophon wzoy have been the 'literary executor' who gave the work to the world ; but there is no trace what- ever of his having edited it in the strict sense of the term. On the whole, the 'editor' theory must be accounted 'not proven,' even in the court of probability. THE COMPOSITION OF BOOK I 405 II THE COMPOSITION OF BOOK I It was pointed out in the previous chapter that the whole of Thucy- dides' history is primarily divisible into two parts : — (i) Bk. i. i-v. 24. — Introduction, Preliminaries and History of the Ten Years' War. (2) Bk. V. 25-end.— The History of the ' Years of Peace,' of the Sicilian Expedition, and of the Ionian War up to the summer of 411. In the present chapter it is proposed to consider certain features and passages in the first of these two parts. This first part of the history, especially the first book, is, of course, by no means uniform in treatment, but is made up of sections which are distinct in respect to matter, and, to a certain extent, in respect to style, from one another. The division of sections and subsections which will be adhered to in this chapter is as follows : ' — PART. Section. Sub- section. I. 1. 11. m. I Introduction, A Statement of purpose, i. 1 (l). iv. V. to 24. I to 23. B C D Archasological Introduction, i. i (2)-l8(l). The Persian Wars, i. 18 (l)-l8 (2). The Pentekontaetia, i. 18 (2)- 19. ' E Historical errors, especially with regard to murder of Hipparchos, i. 20-21. F Historical method, i. 22. G General character of the war, i. 1 H 23-(i)-(3)- Realcausesof the war, i. 23 (4)-(6). 2 Immediate causes of the war,^ i. 24- 66(1). A B Affair of Epidamnos, i. 24-55. Affair of Potidaea, i. 56-66 (i). 3 First Congress of Peloponiies- ian League at Sparta, i. 66 (0-87. ^ The numbering of the paragraphs in this list is the usual one adopted in Stuart Jones' edition of the text (Oxford : Clarendon Press). 2 Vide Thuc. i. 146. 4o6 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY Sub- PART. Section. section. I. i. ii. iii. 4 The Pentekon- A Real causes of the war, 1. 88. IV. V. to 24. taetia, i. 88- 118(2). B C D History up to formation of Athenian Empire, i. 89-97 (0- Personal statement of reason for writing the story of the Pente- kontaetia, i. 97 (2). Continuation of history of Pente- kontaetia, i. 98-118(2). S Second Con- gress at Spar- ta, i. 118 (3)- 125 (I). Demands made by either side, i. I25(2)-I44. B C D E G H General causes of delay, i. 125 (2). Story of Kylon, i. 126. Position of Perikles, i. 127. Curse of Taenaros, i. 128 (l). Curse of the Brazen house and story of Pausanias, i. 128 (2)-i35 (i). Story of Themistokles, i. 135 (2)- 138- Various demands, i. 139 (l)-(3). Ekklesia at Athens and Speech of Perikles, i. 139 (3)-l45' Immediate causes of the war, i. 146. The Ten Years' War, ii. i-v. 24. A B D E Chronological method, ii. i. General History up to exile of Thucydides, ii. 2-iv. 107. General history from exile of Thucydides to signature of Peace of Nikias, iv. 108-v. 17. Peace of Nikias, v. i8-v. 20 ( I). Chronological method, v. 20 (2)- (3)- Discontent of Sparta's allies and her alliance with Athens, v. 21- 24. The inner criticism of the first part of Thucydides' work, and especi- ally of the first book, is so very complicated, and the literature on the subject so very extensive; that it is difficult to state in a clear form even those elements in it which every student must take into consideration. The matter of the first book is of two kinds (i) Subjective : consisting of statements with regard to the historian's purpose and methods, together with a comparison of the magnitude of his subject with those which had or could have been treated of by previous authors. Those CHARACTERISTICS OF BOOK I 407 statements and this comparison are contained in Section i., Sub- sections (A) Purpose, (B) Archaeological comparison, (E) Discourse on historical errors, (F) Statement of method. (2) Objective : consisting of an account of the events leading up to the war, and especially of the causes which led to its outbreak. This comprises the remaining sections and subsections of the book. Three of these subsections are of the nature of digressions but re- motely connected with the main design of the history, namely Section 6., Subsections (B) the Story of Kylon : (E) the story of Pausanias : (F) the story of Themistokles. Of these three digressions the first is some- what remotely connected with the main historical theme, inasmuch as it explains the position of Perikles in reference to the demands made. The second seems to elaborate the story of events contained in the ninety-fourth and ninety-fifth chapters of this book, but proceeds to deal with matter which is quite irrelevant to the main purpose of the history. The third digression, relating to Themistokles, has hardly any perceptible connection with the subject of the history, and its presence can only be attributed to some special interest which the historian took in that great personality. But the most striking feature of the first book is the unexpected order in which its various sections appear in the text. Ingenuity can supply a reason for anything ; but it is very difficult indeed to discover any adequate reason for a deliberate arrangement of the subject matter of the first book of Thucydides in the order in which it stands in his ex- tant history. It is, in other words, most probable that the arrangement was not deliberate, in the sense that it was not the order which the historian would have finally given to it, had he lived to make a full re- vision and elaboration of his work. It is not as if these considerations referred to an author who was unbusinesslike, illogical, or obscure in his methods. The matter of the rest of his work is arranged with the most scrupulous care and clearness. The contrast, therefore, which the first book presents to the remaining books in this respect is not a feature which can be ignored. The question with regard to the order of matter in the first book is obviously not one which admits of final solution. It is one of pro- babilities, and as such only can be discussed. If the view be taken that, considering the character of the rest of Thucydides' work, it is not possible to believe that this first book is in the form which the historian would have given it, had he brought his history into its final and complete form, then two alternatives arise : either that the present arrangement of the subject matter of the book is that of an original draft which has never been revised ; or that the original draft was different from the present text, but was added to and modified by matter which the historian inserted at a later date in his composition, but did not, probably owing to lack of opportunity, harmonise in respect to form with that which he had already written. If, as is the case, he lacked time to finish his work in respect to quantity, it is, to say the least of it, exceedingly probable that he did not attain 4o8 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY to its completion in respect to quality and form ; and, in the case of this special book, it may well be surmised that a final redaction on the part of the author would have reduced it to that ordered arrangement which is so conspicuous a feature of the rest of his work. In deciding between the two alternatives above stated, account must be taken of the general position which it was sought to establish in the previous chapter, namely that it cannot have been until at least some years after the close of the Ten Years' War that Thucydides came to regard the whole war as one, and that, before he came to take this view, he must have written, and had very probably given to the world, the story of the Ten Years' War. If that was so, it would certainly be necessary for him, when he came, in accordance with his new view, to combine what he had already written with the history of the last seventeen years of the period, to revise his previous work in accordance with his modified opinions. The question then arises whether the formation of the new opinions would be likely to modify any views which may be suspected to have been present in an original draft of his first book. There is one element in that book which is very hard to reconcile with what the historian himself says with regard to the circumstances leading up to the outbreak of the Ten Years' War. That element is the attribution of the war to the Spartan jealousy of the rising power of Athens. It is not at this moment a question whether that was or was not the true cause of the war. The question is whether it can be squared with what Thucydides himself says of the attitude of Sparla in the years before the war broke out, and, too, whether the circumstances in the years succeeding the Thirty Years' Peace had been such as to make Sparta peculiarly apprehensive of Athenian power and aggres- sion. Unless Thucydides gives a most misleading picture of Sparta's attitude at the time when the affairs of Epidamnos and Corcyra assumed a threatening aspect, that state seems to have been animated with a strong desire to avoid a rupture, and to have shown no sign whatever of any wish to attempt to break down the power of Athens. If the known facts of the period succeeding 446 be considered, Sparta's atti- tude of reluctance is not surprising. The growth of the Athenian empire had received certainly a rude and probably a permanent check by the terms of the treaty of that year ; and the Greek states generally, and Athens in particular, seem to have acquiesced in a policy of beati possidentes with regard to one another. So long as Athens did not acquire or seek to acquire land empire in Greece, and did not become so strong abroad as to threaten the balance of power at home, Sparta could regard her position, if not exactly with indifference, at any rate without apprehension. Athens' subject allies were, in a sense, a source of weakness rather than of strength to her. Within this very period Samos tried her resources to the utmost. Samos seems, like Mytilene some years later, to have applied to the Peloponnesian League for help ; but the application was refused on the motion of Corinth, so Corinth THE VERISSIMA CAUSA OF THE WAR 409 subsequently said.' The fact that Corinth, Athens' most bitter enemy of former times, took this hne in B.C. 439, shows how completely the Thirty Years' Peace had changed the feelings of the Greek states to- wards one another. Athens was infinitely less powerful in 445 than she had been in 455. On Thucydides' own showing there was no 'growing power' of Athens to fear at the time when those events supervened which were destined to lead to the outbreak of the Ten Years' War. And Sparta, who, if Thucydides' statement as to the verissima causa of this war be correct, must be conceived of as having been in the later thirties of the century on the look-out for a casus belli with Athens, shows, on Thucydides' own evidence, a marked reluctance to begin a war. The Epidamnos-Corcyra affair was unfortunate in its commence- ment, still more unfortunate in its developments. It brought once more into collision the two powers, Corinth and Athens, whose enmity had been responsible for the last great war which had exhausted the re- sources of the Greek states. There was in fact far more 'unity' or 'oneness' between the war of 459-446 and that of 431-421, than between this latter war and either the Sicilian or Dekelean War. Neither Corinth nor Athens could be blamed as aggressive in the events which led to the outbreak of the war of 431. For ten years before the trouble began at Epidamnos they had lived in peace and even in amity. The crucial question between them was the trade with the west ; and the circumstances relating to Thurii, as well as those relating to Samos, show that they had come to an amicable settlement on this point.^ Moreover, when Corinth first intervened in the matter of Epidamnos, she seems, judged by the facts recorded by Thucydides, to have confined herself to the aim of preventing Epidam- nos from falling into the power of Corcyra. Worsted by Corcyra in the first series of hostilities, she then proceeded to get together an armament, which, rightly or wrongly, gave Athens the impression that she intended to conquer and annex Corcyra, — the one critical point on that western trade route. Then Athens joined in, and thus aroused in Corinth an enmity as fierce as that of twenty years before, and more irreconcilable. Yet neither Athens nor Corinth could afford to see the other in possession of the all-important island. From the time when the ten Athenian ships went to Corcyra, circumstances rendered the war inevitable, as Thucydides implies, and the modern world, with its knowledge after the event, can easily see. But what of Sparta's action in the matter? Had she at this time been animated by that feeling of jealousy and apprehension at the rising power of Athens which Thucydides ascribes to her, she might have been expected to seize with enthusiasm the casus 1 Thuc. i. 41. ^ Even in the early stages of the affair of Epidamnos, Athens appears, judged by the language put by Thucydides into the mouth of the Corcyraean embassy, to have permitted Corinth to recruit within the empire. Cf. Thuc. i. 35 (4). 410 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY belli offered by a quarrel between her most important ally and the power against which she cherished this alleged feeling. Sparta could not well afford to quarrel with Corinth. The embarrassment of her position after 421, in face of Corinth's resentment at her action in making the peace, shows that quite clearly. Corinth was probably the richest member of the Peloponnesian League. She possessed the largest navy ; and, above all, she commanded the Isthmus, the sole land route to Northern Greece. Sparta had to be very careful in her dealings with Corinth ; and, apparently, not merely Sparta, but also Corinth was aware of this fact. It is therefore remarkable that, on Thucydides' own showing— and that is the important point in the present consideration — Sparta dis- played on this occasion a somewhat bold stubbornness in resisting the wishes of Corinth on a question which was probably one of commercial, if not political, life and death to that power. Athens in possession of Corcyra might have brought Corinth nigh ruin, whereas Corinth in possession of the same island could, at most, have embarrassed Athens in one section of the wide trade world which that power exploited. Yet on this question, so vital to a state whose friendship was so necessary to her, Sparta shows a marked reluctance to act in accord- ance with its wishes and in support of its interests. It is evident that Sparta foresaw quite early the Panhellenic danger involved in a quarrel which arose originally between two states, one of which, Epidamnos, was by nature, and the other, Corcyra, by predilec- tion, a very negligible quantity in Greek politics. She wished to reconcile the resulting enmity between Corinth and Corcyra. But the remarkable thing is that she took a course of action which must have given the impression that her sympathies were with Corcyra rather than Corinth, and this at a time when Megara and the cities of the Argolic Aktd had already thrown in their lot with Corinth. ' When the Corcyraeans heard of their preparations they came to Corinth, tak- ng with them Lacedaemonian and Sikyonian envoys, and summoned the Corinthians to withdraw the troops and the colonists, telling them they had nothing to do with Epidamnos. If they made any claim to it, he Corcyraeans expressed themselves willing to refer the case for arbi- tration to such Peloponnesian states as both parties should agree upon, and their decision was to be final.'' The Corcyraeans had at this time, it would seem, every reason to trust in Spartan support of their cause. Spartan ambassadors accompanied them, and, had the proposal for arbitration been accepted, Sparta could hardly have been left out of the list of arbitrating Peloponnesian powers. The situation was greatly modified thereafter by the alliance between Athens and Corcyra. It became infinitely more dangerous to the peace of Greece ; and the danger was still further increased when Athens found it necessary, in view of her relations with Corinth, to take mea- sures to secure Potidaea. The allies of Sparta had by this time made ' I'huc. i. 28. AN INCONSISTENCY 4" up their minds that Athens' conduct called for war,i and Megara, above all, had been exasperated by the Megarian decree. Yet the language which Thucydides puts into the mouth of the Corinthians at the first Congress of the allies at Sparta certainly conveys the impression that even at this critical moment Sparta was reluctant to move. If Thucy- dides did not entertain this view at some time in the period of his composition, why did he invent that Corinthian speech in the form in which it has been handed down ? As it stands, it is irreconcilable with the view as to the causes of the war which he emphasises in two other passages in this same book of his history. Again later, after the decision for war was made by the Peloponnesian League, ' somewhat less than a whole year was passed in making the necessary preparations before they invaded Attica and commenced open hostilities.' 2 This is a strange attitude for the leading state of the league to adopt, if that state were anxious to prevent the growth of the power of Athens. It has been necessary to give this resume of Thucydides' own evidence with regard to the events of the years preceding the war, in order to show how difficult it is to make it harmonise with his statements as to the verissima causa of the war. It is now necessary to ask whether, in view of this inconsistency in the matter of Thucydides' first book, that book is a piece of composition which, in the first place, dates from one period of the historian's writing, and, secondly, has ever been revised by the author. These are questions upon which no finality of decision can be arrived at ; but they are of such great historical importance in reference to the historian's work and subject, that if there is a certain probability attainable in any answer or answers which may be made to them, the attempt to answer them should be made. On the face of the evidence, then, it seems that, when Thucydides wrote certain parts of this book, he held different views as to the causes of the war from those which he held when he wrote certain other parts of it. There cannot be any question that the view which he finally held was that the war was caused by the jealousy and apprehension felt by Sparta of the growing power of Athens. But there seems to have been an earher draft of the book in which that opinion was not expressed, because, presumably, it had not taken form in the author's mind. If the passages in which this opinion is expressed and supported be noted, it will be found that they are responsible for that irregularity in the order of the material which is in such strong contrast to the methodical treatment of history characteristic of the rest of the historian's work ; in other words, if they were omitted from the extant text, it would assume a regularity and order of form similar to that which is found in the second and succeeding books. The passages in which Thucydides speaks of the real cause of the 1 Of. Thuc. i. 6/. ^ Thuc. i. 125. 412 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY war, and by which he supports his views are : — Section i : part of Subsection H [i. 23 (6)] and Section 4: [i. 87-118 (2)], 'The real causes of the war' and 'The History of the Pentekontaetia.' On this general question of the composition of the first book, it is striking to notice that if these passages be omitted, the text of the book acquires a logical order such as is found in the remainder of Thucydides' work.' Furthermore, if the considerations put forward in the previous chapter, with regard to the view which Thucydides must have taken of the war in the period immediately succeeding the Peace of Nikias, be held to be well-grounded, then, at any rate, those passages iu the first book which refer to the Twenty-seven Years' War must be regarded as later interpolations. With respect to the passages referring to the ' true ' cause of the war, it has already been shown how difficult it is to suppose that Thucydides could have had that idea of cause in his mind when he wrote that portion of the book which has been attributed to a first draft. On historical grounds, quite apart from the internal evidence of composition, it seems most probable that this enlarged view as to the cause of the war resulted from that enlarged concept of the war which, as has been maintained, came to the author at a late period in his writing. It was the Ten Years' War, rather than the events of the years which preceded it, which showed the power of Athens. But not until Alkibiades demonstrated to Sparta all the danger to Greece involved in Athenian ambition, did she realise to the full how necessary it was to break the Athenian power. From the time of the Thirty Years' Peace until the time when Alkibiades began to influence Athenian policy, Athens had not played the part of an unprovoked aggressive state. The Peace of Nikias set the seal of Spartan disappointment ; but Athens had had too many disasters in the last years of the war for her to realise the extent of her own success. For that success, though it was negative, was very real. Had she been content with the status quo at that time, the Athenian empire might have become an enduring fact in the Hellenic world. Unfortunately she allowed herself to be persuaded into a policy which roused a feeling of alarm among the Greek states in general, and at Sparta in particular, very different from the apathy with which those states, with the exception of Corinth and her immediate friends, had at first viewed the prospect of a war which was to develop into the Ten Years' War. But now it was no mere question of the embarrassments, actual and possible, of Corinth, Megara, Ae- ginaj or other Peloponnesian states. Athens was a declared aggressor ' It is not to be assumed that these are or are not the only passages in the first book which belong to the second draft of this part of the work. They are those which, on the general consideration which has been taken into account in this chapter, must be placed in that category. The question of the date of the other subsections of the book must be determined by special consideration derived from the internal evidence furnished individually by them. ORIGINAL DRAFT OF BOOK I 413 agdinst the liberties of Greece. The Sicilian expedition had been shown to be the intended prelude to an attack on liberty at home. Then when the Sicilian disaster offered the opportunity, Sparta took up the war with full intent to bring Athens to ruin if she could. Thucydides read back the feeling which existed in Greece at the time when the Dekelean War was begun into the years preceding the Ten Years' War. It was a corollary of his conception of the oneness of the war. The conclusions which have been arrived at in this chapter may now be summarised. There was an original draft of the first book in which it played the part of an introduction to the Ten Years' War only. In that form the book had the ordered arrangement and logical sequence of the rest of its author's work. When, at a later period of his composition, he took a larger view of events, and, in consequence, a larger view of their causes, he revised the original draft of the first book by the insertion of passages in accordance with those new views, and, possibly, though not certainly, by a certain modification of passages already existent in it. He did not live to complete this revision. That is shown not merely by a confused arrangement of matter such as is peculiarly uncharacteristic of the rest of his work, but also by that historical inconsistency which has been pointed out as existing between the matter of these interpolated passages and that of their pre-existing context. The new ideas, afterthoughts in origin, appear as afterthoughts in the text of this first book. 414 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY III SPECIAL SECTIONS AND PASSAGES IN THE INTRODUCTORY MATTER OF BOOK I Section r., Subsection A. Statement of Purpose, [i. i (i)]. The opening passage of the history is less remarkable for what it does say, than for what it fails to say. It states merely the purpose of the author, and serves as a brief general introduction to the first part of his work. The question for present consideration is whether it contains any evidence as to the date at which it was composed, and, further, as to the date at which that first half of the history, to which it forms an introduction, was written. If the 'conservative' hypothesis that the whole work was composed after 404 be assumed, then this subsection presents certain grave difficulties. Some years at least before 404 Thucydides had formed the conception of a Twenty-seven Years' War.^ It was not the accepted idea at the time; that has been already shown.^ It was an original idea on the part of the historian, a fact of which he must have been well aware. If, then, he started his composition in 404, he must have started on this special and original assumption as to the unity of the whole war, an assumption which he could not expect to be present in the minds of his readers. Under such circumstances it would be absolutely necessary for the right understanding of his history that he should explain this assumption or conception at the outset of his work ; otherwise his readers, taking the view generally held in that and in after times as to the separate nature of the three wars, would read at any rate the first half of his history under the mistaken impression that it was written from the ordinary point of view in respect to this most important general concept, and would be liable to misconceive what was perhaps the most important position which the author took up in reference to the period of which he wrote. Under the hypothesis of composition subsequent to 404, it is certainly startling to find that there is no explanation whatever of the position 1 I.e., as will be shown later, of the Ten Years' and Dekelean Wars as one. The conception of the three wars as one came after 404. ''■ Vide p. 391 f. THE LENGTH OF THE WAR 415 assumed by the author in this opening chapter of the history. But it is still more strange to find that no statement of the position is made in any passage up to the close of the first half of the history ; and the reader might arrive at the end of the story of the Ten Years' War without recognising the fact that the author of the narrative regarded it merely as part of a whole war of much larger proportions and, of course, of much greater historical importance than itself The beginning and the end of the work, as Thucydides ultimately conceived it, are not laid down in any of the first four books, though they might easily have been so ; and even, as regards the war itself, its end is never stated, and its beginning not exphcitly determined until the opening of the second book.^ It has been suggested that Thucydides, by using the expression t6v TToKcfiov Tav UeXoirovvrja-tav Kol 'K6r)vaia>v in his opening sentence, clearly implied the whole twenty-seven years of warfare. Had Thucydides used this and related expressions throughout his history in reference to the Twenty-seven Years' War, the suggestion might demand consideration. But he does not do so. He uses a closely related expression in reference to the war of 459-446 B.C^ Apart from this, he could not have expected his contemporaries to include the Sicilian expedition under this head- ing without any explanation on his part. Also, in point of fact, the expression is more appropriate to the Ten Years' War than even to the Dekelean War, inasmuch as the Peloponnesian League was in a more complete form before the Peace of Nikias than it ever was afterwards. But the failure to mention the end of the war — supposing always that the author was writing in view of the whole Twenty-seven Years' War — is perhaps even more remarkable in relation to certain passages. Twice in the thirteenth chapter of the first book he dates events of between two and three centuries earlier by reference to 'the end of this war.' In the eighteenth chapter the Spartan constitution is asserted to have maintained an unchanged character for 'rather more than 400 years before the end of this war.' But the reader neither is, nor has been, informed what is meant by the ' end of this war.' In the twenty-third chapter the war is spoken of as having been of great length ; but inasmuch as it is directly compared in that passage with the Persian War of 480-479, the expression might be applied to the Ten Years' War. There is certainly no presumption in the words, taken with their context, that the reference is to the Twenty-seven Years' War. In the first chapter of the second book he makes a precise statement as to the beginning of the war, but expressly says that it is the begin- ning of a period of 'continuous warfare.' Is it possible to suppose that he could have imagined that his readers, uninstructed by him as to the 1 Vide Ullrich. ^ i. 18, ol AaKeSainiviOi Kal ol 'ASTjvaioi iiroXi/iriffav fiera tuv ^v/J-fiaxoiv Tpbs dWrjXovs. 4i6 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY real nature of the ' Years of Peace,' could have taken these words to- imply the whole war up to 404 ? ^ It is very difficult to adhere to the hypothesis that this first half of the history was written after 404, both for general reasons already stated in the first chapter, and, in particular, in view of the complete absence of any statement as to the length of the war from this first half of the work. There can be really very little doubt that, when the historian wrote the first draft of this earlier half of his work, he had in his mind the Ten Years' War, and the Ten Years' War only. As he was writing for con- temporary readers in the first instance, and was writing moreover of a war which, according to contemporary opinion, came to a definite con- clusion at the Peace of Nikias in 421, there was no absolute reason to make any statement whatever as to its length. The statement of its length made in v. 24, at the very end of the first of the two primary sections of his work, shows, by the fact that it contrasts the continuity of the war up to that time with the broken period of hostilities which suc- ceeded it, that the passage itself is not part of the first draft of this half of his history, but an addition to the original draft made at a time when the whole course of the war was known to him. But, it may be said, why did he not repair this omission when he came to revise the first half of his history in accordance with his new conception of the war ? In point of fact there is very little evidence of revision, strictly so called, in the first half of his history. It is probable that very little indeed was rewritten. The modifications of the first draft took the form of additions to the pre- existing text, such as the detailed account of the Pentekontaetia and certain other chapters which it will be necessary to consider hereafter. Yet even so, it may be said, he might have added some definite state- ment as to his revised view of the period of warfare. That would have entailed considerable modifications of that which he had already written. Moreover, if that which he had written had also been already published, he was in a sense committed to it. It was one thing to add to, it was another thing to revise, that which had already been given to the world. But, after all, the most probable reason for the omission is that which is generally apparent in the work itself, the failure to bring his task to completion. 1 Ullrich (Beitrdge) points out that in v. 24 he uses the word fuyexus of the Ten Years' War . . . ravra Sk to, S^xa ir-q 6 TrpuTos iriXe/ios fu»'exw5 yevbit.evoi yiypairrai, and that he uses the same term with regard to it in vi. 26. I have no doubt that in the first chapter of the second book he is speaking of the Ten Years' War ; but I am inclined to think that, whereas in the passage in the fifth book, and possibly also in that in the sixth book, the continuity of the Ten Years' War is contrasted with a certain discontinuity of the whole twenty- seven years of warfare, in the second book the contrast is with the previous period of warfare at Corcyra and Potidaea. It is obvious that he does not regard the fighting at Corcyra and Potidaea as linlced with that of the Ten Years' War by a chain of continuity, otherwise he would, as Aristophanes does in the passage in the Peace already quoted {vtcfe p. 392), have placed the begin- ning of the war at an earlier date. SOURCES FOR THE ARCHEOLOGY 417 By way of summary it may be said that if Thucydides had written those opening words as a preface to the story of the Twenty-seven Years' War, certain of the matter contained in v. 25 and 26 would have appeared in it. It is impossible to determine with probability whether the words ' koL eXuLO-as fxeyav r' eo-€a-Oai kol d^toKoycoTaTOv T(av npoyfyevrj^^vcov ' refer to the Ten Years' War or to the whole war. It is said that it is im- possible to take this as a reference to the Ten Years' War,^ especially as compared with the Trojan and Persian Wars, and an editor of the HelUnika of Xenophon regards it as a passage of late date in the historian's composition.^ But in view of the fact that, in the subsequent chapter of his intro- ductory matter, he emphasises the greatness of a war which may with greater probability be identified with the Ten Years' than with the Twenty-seven Years' War, these words do not by any means necessarily apply to the whole period of warfare. They may, in fact, be part of the first draft of this section of his history. Section i.. Subsection B. The Archczological Introduction, [i.l(2)-l7(l)]. The determination of the date, or the composition of this subsection of the history, must rest to a certain extent on two general considerations : (1) the sources used by the author; (2) the intent with which these chapters were written. As regards the sources, the evidence is only of import with relation to one author, Hellanikos. Did Thucydides make use of his work in this part of his history? The use made of Homer and Herodotus is practically beyond question ; but it throws no light on the date of com- position. With Hellanikos the case is different. If his work was made use of, then the final draft, at any rate, of this part of the history came late, and there is a certain presumption that the whole subsection is a late introduction into the first draft of the story of the Ten Years' War. The Atthis of Hellanikos cannot have been published before 406, for one fragment of it which has been preserved refers to the liberation of those slaves who had taken part in the battle of Arginusae.^ If, then, Thucydides did make use of Hellanikos, it must presumably have been after that date. Kohler's view' is that it has been established with certainty, or at least probability, that Thucydides, in the prehistoric part of his Archaeology, has used the writings of Hellanikos. Herbst,^ on the other hand, says that the source in Hellanikos is a pure supposi- 1 Herbst, Philologus, 38. " Breitenbach, Introduction to Helhnika. ' Fragment 80, Miiller, F.H.G., concerning which the editor says, vol. i. p. xxiv., ^ Nam Hellenicum post pugnam ad Arginusas (01. 93. 3. 406 a. Chr.) in condendis historiis adhuc occufatum esse prohatur.' * Ueber die Archdologie des T. ' Philologus, 40. 2 D 4i8 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY tion. In so far as we know the fragments of Hellanikos, the resem- blances with Thucydides are not so striking as the differences. Thucydides himself professes to derive his account of the rise of the power of Atreus in Mykenae from those Peloponnesians who had been the recipients of the most credible tradition.^ His account covers to a certain extent the same historical ground as is covered in a frag- ment of Hellanikos.' But the two versions of the tradition have only one point of actual resemblance. For the rest, they are divergent from one another.* There is no other passage in this section of his history which has a point of contact with any of the extant fragments of Hellanikos, and therefore there are no grounds whatever for believing that Thucydides made use of Hellanikos in the composition of this so-called archaeo- logical section of his narrative, whatever may be the case with other parts of his work. His information rests largely on the archaeological finds which came under his notice in graves and so forth : on traditional customs : on folk tales. Such detail as that about Tyndareus he might have got from the monument, the "Wttov jivrjiia, which he could have seen at Sparta, and ^ i. 9. ^ Hellanikos was a Lesbian. ' Hellanikos, Fragment 42, Miiller, F.H.G. * The facts alleged in the two accounts are as follows :- Hellanikos, Fragment 42. Pelops had a son Chrysippos by his first wife. 2. He married, secondly, Hippodamia, d. of Oenomaos. 3. Had several children by her. 4. Of these children Atreus and Thyestes, fearing that Pelops would leave Chrysippos the king- dom, slew Chrysippos. 5. Pelops exiled Atreus and Thy- estes. 6. After Pelops' death, Atreus came back with a large army and seized the kingdom. Thucydides i. 9 (2). Pelops, coming from Asia, by reason of his wealth, gained power, and gave his name to Peloponnese. Eurystheus, king of Mykenae, was slain in Attica by the Herakleidae, He had committed the charge of the kingdom during his absence to Atreus, the son of Pelops, his maternal uncle. Atreus had been banished by his father on account of the murder of Chrysippos. 5. Eurystheus never returned, and the Mykenaeans, dreading the Herakleidae, welcomed Atreus, who was considered a powerful man and had ingratiated himself with the multitude. The difference between the two versions of the tradition is very marked. The only point of resemblance is that in both of them Atreus is said to have been the murderer of Chrysippos. Whatever the origin of the Thucydidean version, it is certainly not taken from Hellanikos, PURPOSE OF THE INTRODUCTION 419 of which he could have heard the tale from the mouths of the Spartans.' Thucydides'yfrr^ source is autopsy : his second source is the literature extant in his day.^ On the question of the sources for this subsection, there exists no reason for attributing it to a late period in Thucydides' composition. With what purpose did Thucydides write this Archaeological Intro- duction ? It is quite obvious, in the first place, that it was not intended to be a complete sketch of early Greek history as known to the author. It deals exclusively with early Greek warfare and matters relating to it. Moreover, it confines itself to those wars in which combinations of Greek states were concerned, and opens with an explanation of the cir- cumstances which made such combinations difficult in early times. It is, then, an introduction, not in a wide sense, but in a very specific sense, to the story which Thucydides is about to relate. Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish this specific character even in the individual pictures of early warfare which are brought before the reader. It is, of course, the case that these individual pictures suggest digressions which have little to do with the main purpose of the introduction ; but the main pictures themselves, to which these digressions are attached, present features which are reproduced in some measure in the period with which Thucydides has to deal. The power of Minos in the Aegean, and his suppression of piracy (Ch. 4) is a prototype of that naval power of Athens which brought peace to that sea ; and the increase in trade which resulted from his rule (Ch. 8) is historically parallel to that which resulted from Athenian empire. ' The love of gain made the weaker willing to serve the stronger, and the command of wealth enabled the more powerful to subjugate the lesser cities. This was the state of society which was beginning to prevail at the time of the Trojan War.' Thus the Athenian empire had its prototype in early times. When Thucydides' views as to recurrent cycles in history are taken into consideration,^ it is almost impossible to doubt that the circum- stances sketched in this introduction are intended by the author to be regarded as historical parallels to the circumstances which existed before the Peloponnesian War broke out. The realm of Minos is the Athenian empire. The Trojan War is the Peloponnesian War. The circumstances which brought about the subjugation of the weaker states in this earlier period are purposely sketched in a form which would render them strikingly similar to the circumstances preceding the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. The author then proceeds to deal with the Trojan War, and ascribes its greatness, as compared with the previous wars, to the concentration of power, and especially of naval power, in the hands of one man, Agamemnon.* ' Cf. Paus. iii. 20. 9. ^ / ide Herbst, Philologus, 40. ' Cf. i. 22. « Cf. Schwartz, Rhein. Mus. 41 (:886) : ' The original thought of Thucydides was presumably that Agamemnon stood at the head of a structure of states 420 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY He then shows that, though great and prolonged, it was intermittent, which fact he ascribes to the lack of capital and, consequently, of sup- plies. As a great Panhellenic effort it resembles the Peloponnesian War, but is contrasted, at any rate with the first ten years of it, by an intermittency due to lack of capital. It was not a ^vvfxh' noXffios. After a brief narrative of the migrations in Hellas, designed to account for the fact that no great combined exploit took place for a long time after the Trojan War, come several chapters deahng with the growth of Greek navies, designed to show (Ch. 15) that these navies were too small to effect any great enterprise. He then shows how the conquest of the Asiatic Greeks by Cyrus, and the unenterprising character of Greek tyrants, prevented any great combined action on the part of Hellas. The statement that the tyrants were put down by Sparta leads to a brief digression on the Spartan constitution ; and from that point the historian passes on to historical rather than archaeological matter. The Archseological Introduction thus shows by internal evidence that it was written by the author with two intentions : (i), a very obvious one, to show that the war with which he was concerned was greater than any war which had preceded it in Hellenic history ; (2), a less obvious one, to illustrate a certain historical parallelism between the events of the far, and those of the very near past. And now arises the main question. What was the war with which Thucydides instituted this comparison and implied this parallelism with the circumstances of the far past ? Was it the Ten Years' War, or was it the war up to 404 ? Ullrich's remark that the Twenty-seven Years' War would not have called for any such comparison, because it was so obviously greater than any war in the past history of the Hellenic world, is a very striking one. It is evident that Thucydides, in writing this introduction, was actuated by the desire to establish a historical position which he knew might be assailed by others, and of the weakness of which he had a certain consciousness. It seems very difficult to believe that he could have had any such feeling with regard to that prolonged and fateful period of twenty-seven years, which ended in the destruction of Athens and her empire — the capital factors m the history of eighty years of the fifth century. Again, if he had been wishful to establish so patent a fact as the greatness of this war, it would have been exceedingly strange for him to be silent on that one point which rendered it all- important— namely, its dinouement. The historical parallelism in reference to the war is more applicable to the Ten Years' War than to the whole war. It is noticeable, for which, by the increase of intercourse, the growth of prosperity, and the pre- ponderance of trade interests, had for the first time become possible, but now towered above everything else j and that he, through the possession of a larger fleet, was in a position to bring this power to its full value.' SPECIAL PASSAGES 421 instance, that peculiar emphasis is laid on the intermittent character of that previous Ten Years' War — the Trojan War — an emphasis which would have been supe'rfluous had the author had in his mind the whole twenty-seven years of warfare. There is also another consideration which is suggested by the reference to the Persian War in a later sub- section of the book.' Aware, apparently, of the critical nature of the historical position which he is taking up, he emphasises the brevity of that war. This emphasis would have been hardly called for from one who was speaking of the whole Peloponnesian War. It seems therefore that, judged by the evidence of its general matter, this Archaeological Introduction so-called was written at a period in which the historian's view was still limited to the Ten Years' or Archidamian War ; and if so, it must have been part of the first draft of the earlier half of his history. It remains to consider the evidence afforded on this question by cer- tain special passages in this subsection. Thucydides says ^ that ' If the same calamity befell the Athenians ' (the desolation of their city) 'judging from the appearance it would present to the eye, its power would be reckoned to have been twice as great as it actually is.' Herbst, ever conservative in his theory that the whole work was written after 404, tries to explain this passage away by suggesting that Thucydides refers to Athens in her desolate state after that year. But the words will not bear such an interpretation. The language employed clearly indicates that at the time at which it was written the writer never contemplated the desolation of the great city. There are other features in the passage which point clearly to a date of composition prior to 404. The language used shows that the relative position of Athens and Sparta was at the time of writing the same as it had been for many years past.' Moreover the Spartans* are spoken of as exercising a hegemony over ' the whole of Peloponnese and the many allies outside it,' which would not have been true of the period subsequent to the Twenty-seven Years' War. ^ In other words, this passage must have been written before 404, and is part of the first draft of the earlier half of the history." 1 i. 23. ^ i. 10 (2). ' Cf. Herod, i. 56, and note the word ^o-tip at the end of the passage in Thucydides (Ullrich). * i. 10 (2). ° As Ullrich points out, the passage, taken literally, must have been written during the short six months in 417 during which Argos was in alliance with Sparta (Thuc. v. 81) and took the field under its leadership. But probably t^s f u/iTrdffjjs Jlekoirovviaov is to be understood with the old-standing exception of Argos. " This view is taken by Schwartz, Rh. Mus, 41. ; so also Steup, Introduction to Classen's Thucydides. Even E. Meyer, Forschungen, 1899, admits the possibility of this being the case, but does not see why Thucydides need have altered the passage; and therefore does not consider the conclusion a certainty. 42 2 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY '• 13 (3)) " '''V" reXeur^v rovSe tov noKefiov. It has been already pointed out that Thucydides does not specify in these words to which war he is referring. On the face of them they might refer either to the Ten Years' War or to the whole war. The words underlined, however, raise that question which has been so much discussed by Thucydides' critics, and which will have to be dealt with later, as to whether there is any real significance in the position of the adjective oSf in this expression, in other words, whether, when Thucydides writes oSe noXeixos, he intends it to have a different signification from o woXf/ior oSe, an expression which occurs so frequently in his work. It is interesting to note that throughout Book i. the order o8e o irdXf/ios occurs ; ^ but in Books ii. iii. and iv., in the formula for the statement of the ends of the years of the war, the order 6 TToXf/iof oSf is found. But Herbst admits that in Book i. the ex- pression is used of the Ten Years' War, and that admission, in so far as it goes, accords with the conclusions which have hitherto been arrived at with reference to this subsection of Thucydides' history. Whether there is any real significance in the varying order of words above noted is a question which will be raised in reference to their use throughout Books ii. iii. and iv. In this subsection then of the history there is not a single word which implies knowledge of, or reference to, the whole war ; whereas there is at least one expression, that relating to the appearance of the city of Athens, which cannot have been written after 404. The general subject-matter, moreover, of this part of the work implies a contrast which the author wishes to institute between the wars of previous periods and the Ten Years' War. It would have been superfluous to institute such a contrast in the case of the whole war. It must be concluded therefore that this subsection of Thucydides' work dates in composition from a period anterior to 404, and is, in fact, a part of the original draft of the first half of his history. Section i. Subsection C, i. 18(1)^-18(2): The Persian Wars. Subsection D., i. 18 (2)-! 9. The Pentekontaetia. The general considerations with regard to these subsections may be briefly stated. The most striking general feature is the passage on Pentekontaetia. It is very difficult to conceive any reason why Thucydides should have inserted this passage at this point, had he had, at the time at which he wrote it, any intention of writing the detailed 1 Cf. Herbst, Philologus, 38. ^ Some commentators would make the division between this and the previous subsections at the beginning of Ch. 18, but the earlier part of the first paragraph of the chapter seems to belong rather to the archaeological matter ; while in the last words of the paragraph reference is made to the beginning of the Persian Wars. For this reason I have made the division which I have adopted. THE PENTEKONTAETIA 423 account of the Pentekontaetia which comes later in the book. More- over, that second account of the period is clearly marked down by the reference to Hellanikos (Ch. 97) as belonging to a period of com- position subsequent to 406, the earliest possible date of the publication of Hellanikos' Attic history. This makes a strong general presumption that at any rate subsection U. was part of the earlier draft of the first half of the history. Steup^ has a peculiar view of the matter contained in these sub- sections. He takes the opening words of Ch. 20, to fiep olv n-aXaia ToiavTa vivpov ; and says that the iraXaid cannot refer to the matter of Chh. 18 and 19, but must refer to that Archaeological section which, according to his view, extends as far as the end of Ch. 17. He there- fore concludes that Ch. 17 cannot always have been separated from Ch. 20 by Chh. 18 and 19. He consequently regards Chh. 18 and 19 as having been written after the mass of the introduction ; and says that had Thucydides ever reached the final revision, which he never did, he would have worked them into the older text. But Steup assumes for iraKaid in this passage in Ch. 20 a meaning which was by no means of necessity that which Thucydides attached to it, as its context shows. Thucydides goes on to speak of the difficulty of discovering the truth with regard to these vaXaid, and illustrates that difficulty by reference to the tale of Harmodios and Aristogeiton — a tale of events which, after all, were less than a quarter of a century prior to Marathon ; and further by reference to Herodotus' mistake with regard to the Pitanate Xd^os at Plataea. He seems indeed to use the word in a quite general sense of all the events which he has mentioned in the previous chapters.^ It is somewhat striking that the reference to the war of 459-446 B.C. contained in this short sketch of the Pentekontaetia is so brief and, in a sense, so vague. In so far as it is noticed at all, it is merely mentioned as part of a period wherein the Lacedaemonians and Athenians became schooled in warfare by reason of perpetual fighting with one another or with their respective allies. Why did not the author institute a com- parison between this war and the war of which he was about to write ? The question admits of one possible answer. The comparison between the Trojan and the Persian Wars and that which formed the historian's subject is made with a literary rather than a historical intent. The author's real aim is to show the superior interest of his subject as 1 Introduction to Classen. ^ Herbst ^Philologus, 38) says that the Wt\UKh. do not belong to the TraXoid, and refers to a passage in the Athenian speech (i. 73) at Sparta : koX to, jiiv ir&vxj iraXtua, tI SetXiyeiv, Sv dfcoai fidWov \6yuv ijidprvpes ^ 6\pts tSiv iKouffO/ihuv ; TO, Si Mi;5(Kcb Koi Saa airol ^vviffre, etc. ... But surely this passage is very inconclusive. In the first place, the reference is to to irdvv TraXaia, not to TraXaia merely ; nor is it specified what these irivv TraXaia are. But above all, the passage is part of a quasi-forensic argument in which the speaker wishes to emphasise the evidence of known or alleged facts ; and the it6.vv iraXiua is mere rhetoric. 424 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY compared with those with which previous literature, especially the works of Homer and Herodotus, had dealt. There was, when he wrote this passage, no literature connected with the war of 459-446 B.C., and therefore no reason to institute the comparison, for Hellanikos' work was as yet unpublished.^ Later, when he came to write its story, he wrote it in such a form as to disguise its greatness, not necessarily with intent to pervert facts, but perhaps because he really did not recognise its importance. He was, after all, convinced that the Greek strength in warlike preparations was only recent in his time.^ Taking these two subsections as a whole, there is no evidence that any passage in them dates from a late period in the composition of the history ; ^ and the sketch of the Pentekontaetia creates a strong pre- sumption of the early date of their composition. Section i. Subsection E., i. 20-21. Historical errors — especially with regard to the murder of Hipparchos. On the question of the composition of the history, by far the most important element in this subsection is the passage relating to Hippias and Hipparchos. Its importance consists in the fact that though the tale is told here with a view to the cotrectioti of historical misconceptions, yet the historian recurs to it much later in his history (vi. 54-58). Professor E. Meyer explains the repetition away * by saying that what Thucydides could only do briefly in the introduction, he does at length, when the opportunity suggests itself, in the text. This is a very unconvincing explanation of the literary phenomenon. Had the idea of Thucydides been such as alleged, he might have been expected merely to cite the incident in the introduction as an example of historical fallacy, and then to proceed to deal with it fully in the text. But what he actually does is to explain wherein the fallacy lies, and then, quite late in his narrative, to recur to the matter with further detail. Professor Meyer's conjecture assumes that Thucydides was guilty of deliberate clumsiness in the composition of his history ; for what could be more clumsy than such a method of dealing with not merely correlated but interrelated, and, in some respects, identical facts ? 1 Cf. what he says in i. 97 with reference to the whole of the Pentekontaetia : — He there states that he wrote the story of it ' because the subject had not been treated of by any of (his) predecessors,' who had confined themselves either to Greek affairs before the Median Wars, or to the Median Wars themselves. No literature, therefore, dealing with the war of 459-446 was published before the work of Hellanikos, and that was not given to the world before the end of the Dekelean War. 2 Cf. i. 6 ; 14 ; 23 ; 17 ; 19 : ii. 36 : vi. 17. ' Breitenbach (Introduction to the Hellenikd) cites 18 (2) as a passage inserted after the author had seen the end of the war, but I cannot, I confess, even conjecture the grounds on which he makes this citation. * Forschungen, 1 899. THE TWO PASSAGES ABOUT HIPPARCHOS 425 But, furthermore, the passage in the sixth book is but remotely called for by its context ; it has, in other words, a certain appearance of having been dragged into the narrative of events as though the author had been ready to adopt any excuse for its introduction. The language too is very emphatic and controversial, in great contrast to the cold style which is characteristic of Thucydides. In the passage in the first book, the chief point which the historian makes is that Hipparchos was not tyrant when he was slain by Harmodios and Aristogeiton, but that Hippias was the eldest son of Peisistratos, and succeeded him in the tyranny. This is cited in quite calm language as an example of the necessity of correcting popular errors with regard to history, and the Athenians are mentioned in a way which shows not the slightest trace of feeling, as the people who labour under the particular mistake which the historian seeks to correct. But in the sixth book the language with regard to the identity of Hipparchos is most emphatic, and betrays considerable personal feel- ing on the part of the writer. ' That Hipparchos was the eldest son of Peisistratos and succeeded to his po'xtr I can positwely affirm irom special information which has been transmitted to me." Moreover, Athenian creduhty is not on this occasion passed over without com- ment. The remark that 'they (the Athenians) know no more than other Hellenes ' ^ would be anything but pleasing, as the historian must have well known, to the Athenians of the last quarter of the fifth century. These features in the passage in the sixth book cannot be ignored in estimating the circumstances and motives which prompted the author to write it. Why this emphasis and sarcasm in reference to a subject which he was able to treat in dispassionate language in the first book? If, as Professor Meyer suggests, the historian merely accepted the opportunity {sic) offered by the matter of the sixth book for the detailed exposition of a subject which he had more than men- tioned in the first, why did he not adhere to that dispassionate style characteristic of his history in general and of the passage in the first book in particular ? These considerations with reference to the passage in the sixth book lead to the almost inevitable conclusion that there was some motive more compelling than the mere desire to expand the passage in the first book, which influenced the historian when he wrote the passage in the sixth book, and inserted it in its somewhat inappropriate context. The fact that Professor Meyer has put forward this theory shows that he recognises that the elaborate repetition of the passage in the first book is too remarkable a feature of the history to be passed over without any attempted explanation. But the use of the word 'Repetition' in reference to the passage in the sixth book begs, in a sense, a question which has not yet been con- sidered. Commentators are not agreed as to which of the two passages was prior to the other in date of composition. 1 vi. 55 ad init. ^ vi. 54. 426 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY Cwiklinski^ thinks that the passage in the first book was inserted on revision, and is later in date of composition than that in the sixth. Presumably the idea underlying the hypothesis is that Thucy- dides, after writing the passage in the sixth book, recognised it as a good illustration of errors which people make with regard to the history of the past, and in a later revision of the first book, inserted it as an example. Professor Wilamowitz-Moellendorff^ takes the same view with regard to the respective dates of the two passages. But this hypothesis does not account for the unusual emphasis which is so noticeable in the passage in the sixth book. Its style suggests that the historian was not merely correcting an error made by others, but answering some charge of error made against himself. There is, moreover, one important difference between the two versions. In the sixth book the motive which induced Harmodios and Aristogeiton to attack Hipparchos, when the attack on Hippias seemed hopeless, is revenge at the insult offered to the sister of Harmodios ; whereas in the version in the first book they are said to have been actuated merely by the desire 'to do something before they were seized.' Thus, whatever the first-book passage is, it is not the sixth-book passage in an abbreviated form. Apart from this dis- crepancy between the two passages, there is nothing in the first-book passage which does not appear in an enlarged and detailed form in that in the sixth book. The only hypothesis which, when brought into contact with all the circumstances and characteristics of the two passages, accords with them, is that the second passage is an emphatic and enlarged restate- ment of the first, with one correction made as to the motive for the murder of Hipparchos. But the tone of the second passage suggests so strongly that the writer had been subjected to criticism with regard to his account of the incident in Athenian history, that it leads to the highly probable conclusion that the first passage had been criticised, and that the second passage was an answer to this criticism. If so, the first passage must be not merely anterior to the second in point of composition, but must also have been published before ever the second was written. This accords with the conjecture, made on general grounds, that a first draft of the history of the Ten Years' War was given to the world as a separate work. Other versions of the story were current at the time. That is evident from Thucydides' language. It is probable that one of them survives in the Aristotelian treatise on the Athenian Constitution,^ a version which differs in various details from that of Thucydides. It is interest- ing to notice the negative fact that though the other two examples of historical errors cited in this chapter are taken from Herodotus, this particular passage does not appear to have any reference to the com- ^ Hermes, xii. ^ Hermes, xii. « (Arist.)'Afl. noX. i8. HISTORICAL METHOD 427 paratively few details of the actual incident which the earlier author gives.i The last sentence of the twenty-first chapter is regarded by some^ as indicating a reference to the whole war. 'And this war, tested by actual facts, will be seen to be the greatest of all time,' says the historian, 'although men judge any war, during the time at which they are engaged in it, to be the greatest of all wars, but, when it is over, show more admiration for previous wars.' The reference is doubtful. It is impossible to say with anything approaching certainty to which war reference is made. At the same time, inasmuch as the comparison^in the Archaeological Introduction seems to be made between the previous wars and the Ten Years' War, there is a certain probability that the war here spoken of is the Ten Years' War. As has been already said, the very stress which Thucy- dides lays upon the comparison implies a certain consciousness of the weakness of the historical position which he had taken up, a weakness he could hardly have felt had he been writing at this time in reference to the whole twenty-seven years' warfare. It has also been seen that later times did not regard the Ten Years' War as peculiarly important.' This may have been the case with contemporary opinion, and hence the persistence of Thucydides in emphasising the importance of his subject. There is, therefore, no reason to assume that this section, or any part of it, belongs to a later period of composition. It would appear to be all of it part of the first draft of the first half of the history. Section i, Subsection F., i. 22. Historical Method. The date of the composition of the first half of this chapter cannot be determined. It is probable, however, that Thucydides had from the very first beginnings of his composition the intention to insert matter in the form of speeches. If so, there is no reason why his statement with regard to their matter and form should not have been part of the first draft of his work. But the second half of the chapter is very significant. Speaking of his sources of information in respect either to autopsy or to oral inquiry, he says : — ' The actual facts with regard to the war I have not thought right to narrate on information obtained from chance informants, or from my own ideas, but from personal experiences, or, as far as facts obtained from others are concerned, after revising them with the utmost accuracy with regard to detail.' Had this passage been written after the close of the whole war, it is almost inconceivable that the writer, who is evidently peculiarly anxious to establish the authority of what he has written, should have omitted to mention that which he adduces in the twenty-sixth chapter of the 1 Hdt. iii. 55 ff. ^ E.g. Breitenbach, Introduction to Hellenika. ' Vidt p. 392. 428 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY fifth book in proof of the authoritative character of his narrative, — the fact that he had had the opportunity of obtaining information from both sides. It may be said, perhaps, that he had enjoyed this opportunity during the Ten Years' War. That both was and was not the case. During the last three years of the war he had been able to obtain information from the Peloponnesian side, but, it would seem, from the Peloponnesian side alone. Such a statement, therefore, made at the end of that war would have been a peculiarly unhappy one, inas- much as it would have tended to call attention to defects rather than advantages in his sources of information. But writing after the whole war was over, and especially with regard to the composition of the second half of his work, he could make it, because after his return from exile he would be able to supplement the information obtained from the Peloponnesian side by information obtained at Athens. It is in the highest degree unlikely that, had this passage been written at the end of the whole war, this telling fact would have been omitted here, only to be inserted halfway through his history. But it is quite conceivable that, for the reasons already given, he would omit such a statement from any preface to his story of the Ten Years' War, supposing even that the circumstances be conceived of as such as would suggest the idea to him. He had indeed two sources of information at different periods in the course of that war ; but he never, till after the war was ended, had any opportunity of combining his sources. With regard to what he wrote after his return to Athens the case was different, and the remark in Book v. might be made both with safety and with effect.' ' Neither this chapter as a whole, nor any individual passages in it, have evoked much comment from those who have written on the question of the composition of the history. Croiset, in his edition of Thucydides, maintains that it must have been written before the speeches were composed. Such may well be the case, and is indeed my own assumption in what I have written on this subject ; but the date of composition is not thereby determined. Steup thinks that § i about the speeches was inserted in the second draft, in an incomplete revision, whereas § 2 was part of the original composition. I agree, of course, with what he says respecting § 2 ; but I cannot see that so positive a statement with regard to § i is warranted by the circumstances. Herbst (Philologus, 40) thinks the words in § 2, dXV oh . . . iire^eXSiiv con- tain reference to Thucydides' banishment. The idea seems far-fetched ; but even if they did refer to it, they would not be determinate of the main question with regard to the date of composition. Cwiklinski regards the whole chapter as having been written after 404, a view not in accord with those probabilities of the case which have been already cited. Breitenbach also thinks that there are elements in the chapter which show that the writer had already seen the end of the war. But what are they ? GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE WAR 429 Section i, Subsection G., i. 23 (i)-(3). General character of the War. On the question of date of composition this subsection presents the greatest difficulty. A very large mass of comment has been devoted to it by editors of Thucydides and others, and the most various opinions have been expressed as to the time of its origin. Though brief, it is made up of a number of items, each of which must be con- sidered separately, before any general conclusions can be reached as to its date in whole or in part. It is necessary therefore to give a summary of the various items and of the essential facts stated in them. (i) § I. tSk Se . . . TTpov^r). The Median War was the greatest war of previous times, but this was decided quickly in two naval and two land battles. The war Thucydides is about to describe was a pro- tracted one. (2) § I. TradrjiiaTa . . . xpova : this was marked by disasters to Greece such as had never occurred within an equal space of time : — £.£■. (a) § 2. ovTe . . . akia-K6)i€vai : Desolation of cities, either by barbarians, or by reason of strife between Hellenes them- selves. (Some after their capture were repeopled by new inhabitants.) (b) § 2. oiVc . . . a-racnd^eiv : Exile and slaughter due to war or civil strife. (c) § 3- a-eia-fiav . . . iiriaxov : Earthquakes of unparalleled violence and extent. (d) § 3. riKiov . . . ^vv(^r](Tav : Eclipses of the sun more numerous than in former times. (e) § 3. avx/ioi . . . Xijuoi : Droughts causing famines. (f) § 3. Km T) . . . vocros : Last and not least, the Plague. The old debated question arises as to which is the war to which these remarks are applicable ; or, putting the question in the only form which, perhaps, makes it soluble, — are they applicable to the Ten Years' War ? The comparison with the Median War (i) might be referable to either the Ten or the Twenty-seven Years' War. But, as has been already said, the emphasis which Thucydides lays on the greatness of the war he is about to relate suggests strongly that he has in his mind the Ten Years' War." Moreover, in speaking of the Median War he limits it to the two years 480-479. It appears then as a Two Years' War. Would it have been necessary under that assumption to call attention to the self- evident contrast of length between such a war and one lasting more than a quarter of a century. Furthermore, — and this is an important consideration—, if he had had in his mind the Twenty-seven Years' War he might well have made a comparison between its length and 1 Vide p. 427. 430 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY that of the war from 459-446 B.C. In respect to length the Ten Years' War would, from his point of view, have come out unfavourably from the comparison ; that is, perhaps, why he never made it — an omission which he could venture, inasmuch as that war had not as yet appeared in histori- cal literature ; and therefore he had no absolute call to compare his theme with that ofanywriteronthat war. Still the war was well within the recollection of his audience ; and it is consequently improbable that he would have omitted to contrast it in point of length with the Twenty-seven Years' War, had he had that war in his mind when he wrote the passage. There is therefore, both on general and on special grounds, reason to believe that the reference in this passage is to the Ten Years' War, and, consequently, that the passage itself is part of the first draft of this half of the history.' The passage on the nadrjuara which occurred during the war does not contain any very distinct general indication of the war to which reference is made. These disasters are said to have been unexampled ' within a period of similar length.' Ullrich thinks that the reference must be to the Ten Years' War, because there was no previous period of twenty-seven years' warfare in Greek history to which the whole war could be compared. The suggestion is certainly worth the making, though it cannot be regarded as convincing. Still, the expression tV Xa-a xpova, though one which might be used of any period, is one which would be suggested to the mind of a writer rather by a comparatively brief, than by a very prolonged period.^ ^ ' Herbst {Phihlogus, 38) is of opinion that the reference in this passage is to the Twenty-seven Years' War, and he gives the following reasons for taking this view : — (i) The Ten Years' War was, in respect to the number of troops employed, so far behind the Persian War, that the difference could not have been suppressed. (2) The iraS^fiara of the Ten Years' War are much less significant than what the Greeks had suifered previously in a shorter time. (3) The Ten Years' War was not decisive. The first of these points is by far the most important. One consideration suggests itself. If the war referred to had been superior to the Persian War in respect to the number of troops employed, it is, to say the least of it, probable that an author who is so obviously anxious to establish the greatness of those of previous authors would have called attention to this fact. But, if, on the other hand, no such superiority existed, then he would be prone to leave this phase of comparison unmentioned. The question of the iraB-^/iara comes later in the discussion of this subsection. The Ten Years' War was not decisive. But Thucydides never sets up that claim for the war of which he is writing in this chapter. Yet the context might well have suggested the putting forward of such a claim had he had the Twenty- seven Years' War in his mind at the time. ^ Friedrichs refers to a similar expression in iii. 113, when the terrible nature of the disaster which overtook Ambrakia is emphasised by the expression iv ^ The idea of inserting this passage about the Ta.diiiJ.aTa as a proof of the REFERENCE TO DISASTERS 431 First among the various kinds of disasters which occurred in the war are mentioned the devastation and desolation of cities. Of this kind of disaster six are recorded during the period of the Ten Years' War, and four in the subsequent years of warfare.' The only conclusion which can be drawn is that there is no reason why the reference should not be to the Ten Years' War. More than that cannot be said. Earthquakes come next in the list of disasters occurring during the war. Thucydides mentions ^ one as having occurred at Delos just before the war broke out ; then a whole series in Attica, Boeotia, Euboea, and Atalanta, which took place in 427 B.C. It is remarkable that these are the only earthquakes of which he gives details. They seem to have made a peculiar impression upon him. He also mentions greatness of the war may have been suggested to Thucydides' mind by the passage in Herodotus vi. 98 : — irl yap Aapelou toO 'To-Tdcircos /coi H^pjew ToO Aapetov Kal 'Apraf^p^ew toO S^p^fw, rpiuv tout^ojv iT^^^s yeveiuVj iy^vero t\4oi KO/td TB 'EX\c£5i ij iirl ehon ftXXos 7ei'eas rds irpb Aapeiov yevop.iva.s . . . Thucydides was keenly sensitive to any impression created by the work of his predecessor. 1 The six are : Prasiae in Lakonia, Thuc. ii. 56 ; Limnaea in Amphilochian Argos, Thuc, ii. 80; Kolophon, Thuc. iii. 34; Plataea, Thuc. iii. 68; Died, xii. 56 ; Thyrea, Thuc. iv. 57 ; Died. xii. 65 ; Leontini, Thuc. v. 4 ; Diod. xii. 54 and 82. In the time subsequent to the first war we have Hysiae in Argolis, Thuc. v. 83; Diod. xii. 81; Orneae, Thuc. vi. 7; Diod. xii. 81; lasos, Thuc. viii. 28; Kedrea, Xen., ffeH. ii. I, and probably referred to Diod, xiii. 104. ^ Cases of earthquakes which occurred during the war are : — (1) ii. 8. Earthquake at Delos, dUyov irpi roiruy, i.e. shortly before the beginning of the war. Date uncertain. (2) iii. 87. 'There were also at this time many earthquakes, at Athens, in Euboea, in Boeotia, and especially in Boeotian Orchomenos.' Date B.C. 427. iii, 89. The Peloponnesians and their allies come as far as the Isthmus, intending to invade Attica, but ' owing to the occurrence of many earthquakes,' they turn back home. Details of earthquakes at Orobiae in Boeotia : destroy all those who could not escape to the upland. Earthquakes at Atalanta, off Opuntian Lokris, destroy the Athenian fort and wreck a vessel. Earthquake wave at Peparethos, and damage done to buildings. (3) iv. 52. Earthquake. Date B.C. 424. (4) *• 45- Earthquake interrupts meeting of Athenian Ekklesia. (5) ^- S°- Earthquake interrupts a meeting at Corinth. Date B.C. 420. (6) vi. 95. Earthquake interrupts Spartan invasion of Argos. Date B.C. 414. (7) viii. 6. Earthquake causes a change to be made in the arrangements with regard to the Spartan fleet. Date B.C. 413. (8) viii. 41. Earthquake at Kos, 6s aiirois inxt ixiyiarbs yc Sij Hv /le/iv-qfieSa, ye;i6fjt.evos. Date p.C. 412, 432 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY an earthquake, apparently of a general character, for the locality is not mentioned,! in 424 B.C. In the later period of the war five earthquakes are recorded, of which the first three are mentioned merely as interrupting certain meetings, while the fourth is noted because it causes a certain change of plan at Sparta. The fifth, at Kos, is spoken of as a great one, the greatest within living memory. It is evident that the earthquakes which made most impression upon the author were those in 427 B.C. ; and those must have been most prominent in his mind when he wrote the passage in the twenty-third chapter of the first book. There is therefore absolutely no reason why the passage should not have been written in reference to the Ten Years' War only. The reference to the eclipses of the sun is somewhat more significant. In point of fact Thucydides only mentions two, both of which fall within the period of the Ten Years' War.^ Only one eclipse is recorded later in the whole war, and that is of the moon. There is therefore a very strong presumption that this passage was written in reference to the Ten Years' War. Moreover, inasmuch as he attributes a certain fatal significance to the phenomenon of eclipse, it is strange that in this reference to them in the first book he should have confined himself to eclipses of the sun, unless the passages were written before 413, in which occurred that eclipse of the moon,' which had a more fatal effect on the course of the war than any eclipse which took place within the twenty-seven years. In view of this omission, it seems impossible to date this reference to a late period of the historian's composition.* The passage relating to the various forms of pestilence which occurred during the war contains nothing which would suggest an inference as to its date of composition. The reference to the Plague as the greatest pestilence of the time would of course be in accordance with the view of one who was writing of the Ten Years' War, but would not be out of place in a passage which had reference to the whole war. Taking this first part of this important chapter into consideration as a whole, it will be seen that it does not contain any detail which is inapplicable to the Ten Years' War, and that certain features in it are more applicable to that war than to the whole period of twenty-seven years. There is therefore, at least, a strong possibility that the whole of it belongs to the first draft of the first half of the history. ' iv. 52. 2 The eclipses mentioned by Thucydides are :— (i) ii. 28, of the sun in B.C. 431. (2) iv. 52, of the sun in B.C. 425. (3) 'ii' 50> of the moon in B.C. 413. vii. 50. * This consideration is mentioned by Ullrich, and Steup regards it as con- clusive of the date of the composition of the passage. DATE OF THE FIRST SECTION 433 Section i, Subsection H., i. 23 (4)-(6). The Causes of the War. The last of the three paragraphs of this subsection may be taken first. It belongs, almost without doubt, to the second draft of this part of the history. The reasons for this conclusion have already been stated,' and need not be restated. Paragraphs (4) and (5) may belong to either the first or second draft ; but probably are part of the first. The author was about to relate the causes of the war, and it would be natural for him to insert at this point some such introductory words as these. The actual language does not forbid the assumption that, in the original draft, the opening words of the twenty-fourth chapter followed immediately on the last words of the fifth paragraph of the twenty-third chapter.^ It may be well, before bringing this chapter to a close, to sum up the conclusions which have been formed with regard to the date of the com- position of this introductory matter contained in the first twenty-three chapters of Thucydides' work. The only passage which can be definitely assigned to a second draft of the composition is the last paragraph of the whole section — the sixth paragraph of the twenty-third chapter. ' Vide p. 411. ^ Note on general opinions of commentators with regard to Chapter 23. Cwiklinski regards i. I (i) and I. 23 as having been written shortly after the Peace of Nikias, but i. i (2)-l. 22 as having been written after 404. It is undoubtedly the case, as he points out, that the beginning o( Chapter 23 would fit in with the last words of i. I (i) if for the twv di, with which 23 begins, were substituted twv yap. But his views with regard to i. i (2)-l. 22 present difficulties which have been already made plain in considering that portion of the history. A. ScUane {Jahresbericht iiber d. Griech. Hist., eic, 1873-76), though not in agreement with Ullrich's views, admits that I. 23 (l)-(3), 'though it hardly suffices to prove Ullrich's hypothesis, serves to strengthen and support the more general considerations which, without exception, speak for Ullrich.' Breitenbach (Introd. Xen. Hellenika] thinks Chapter 23 shows traces of Thucydides having seen the end of the war when he wrote it, but he does not distinguish the various parts of the chapter, and may be arguing from § 6 ; which is certainly of late composition. Professor E. Meyer says that Chapter 23 may contain traces of an older period of composition. It does not, he thinks, contain certain references to events after 421, though he is of opinion that what is said about the devastation of cities by the' barbarians is ill explained by the cases of Kolophon, or even of Mykalessos. He suggests that the references extend to a part of the war not covered by the actual composition of Thucydides, and especially to the devastation of Selinus, Himera, and Akragas by the Carthagii.ians in 409 and 406 B.C. The chapter m.a(nv. Chapters 97-118 do not, says Cwiklinski, tell anything of what Thucydides considers to be the most real reason for the war. Therefore these chapters are wholly divorced from the chapters preceding, as well as from those following them : — they are in fact a digression whose occurrence in his history Thucydides thought it well to explain. Both Cwiklinski (for the reason above given) and Professor Wilamo- witz-Moellendorflf regard Chapters 97-118 as a late addition. They suggest that Thucydides originally wrote only Chapters 89-97, that is to say, merely an account of the foundation of the independence of Athens by the building of the walls of Piraeus and the estaWishment of the Delian League. The matter is not an unimportant one with reference to the composi- tion of the history. If the view taken by these writers be justifiable on the score of probability, the question immediately arises whether these two parts of the story of the Pentekontaetia belong to different periods of composition. It raises too the following general considerations with regard to Thucydides' method of composition. This whole excursus on the Pentekontaetia is, in form, a digression, in that by reason of its setting it comes out of its chronological order in the history. But, if that which Cwiklinski says about the contents of the second part of it (Chapters 97- 1 1 8) be true, then that part is a digression not merely in form, but in matter also, for by 'purely Hellenic history' the critic explicitly means the relation of matter which has nothing to do with the verissima causa of the war. But when this second part is examined, it becomes very difficult to understand to what element or elements in it Cwiklinski refers. It is not a full narrative of Hellenic history during the period with which it deals, any more than the 'Archaeology' is a full narrative of early Greek history. But more than this : it does not deal with a single incident which is unconnected with Attic history. The matter of it can all be regarded as apposite to a story of the growth of the power of Athens. Moreover, its narrative is a continuation of the narrative of the first part of the story of the Pentekontaetia. Thus the reference to Hellanikos cannot be taken as an apology for the insertion of this part of the history. But, furthermore, the language of the passage relating to 1 i.e. Subsections B. 89-97 (i), and D. 98-118. ^ Quaest. de Temp, quo T. friorem hist, stiae partem comfosuerit, 1 873. THE PENTEKONTAETIA 443 Hellanikos seems certainly to imply a reference to the preceding as well as to the succeeding chapters. At the same time, there is a certain significance about, the position of the reference to Hellanikos. Its natural place in the history would have been either at the beginning or at the end of the story of the Pentekontaetia. A possible explanation is that before Hellanikos' work appeared Thucydides had already written the first part of the story of the Pentekontaetia ' ; and that, after its appearance, he wrote the second part. It is true that the first part is late in date of composition, a conclusion which must be arrived at on general grounds which have already been stated, as well as on special grounds which have yet to be put forward. Still the second part may be a still later addition. It is true also that the reference to Hellanikos is worded in such a way as to imply that the defects of that author's narrative are corrected in the previous as well as in the succeeding chapters. Still the correction in the earlier chapters may have been, though not deliberate and intentional, inherent in the pre-existing text. Thus there is a possible explanation of the unexpected position of the para- graph 97 (2). But this explanation involves the further question whether Thucy- dides, before Hellanikos' work came into his hands, had any intention of writing in some form or other the story of the events related in Chapters 98-118. The story in its extant form is a continuation of the first part of the narrative of the events between the Persian Wars and the affair of Epidamnos. Still it is noticeable that the first part ends in a sort of summary of the means by which Athenian power grew after the formation of the Confederacy of Delos. ' By reason of the hegemony of the allies (who were in the first instance autonomous and met and deliberated in general meetings) they made advances in power in the period between this and the Median War, advances due to their management of war and policy in dealing with the barbarian, with their own rebellious allies, and with the various Peloponnesian states with which they came into contact.' It is just conceivable that when Thucydides wrote these words he wrote them as a conclusion to what he at the time intended to be his account of the rise of Athenian power : an account which he continued when the work of Hellanikos came into his hands, and supplied him with an incentive to criticise a rival, and perhaps, too, with material for a more detailed account of a period about which he may well have had some difficulty in getting independent information, owing to the absence of any previous literature on the subject.^ It looks, also, as if the use of Hellanikos had led him somewhat beyond his own brief. The last chapters of this second part of the history of the ' Chapters 89-97 (l). ^ Cf. i. 97 (2). It is also noticeable that, though he criticises Hellanikos' chronology, he gives very little chronological detail himself. 444 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY Pentekontaetia record a distinct decline rather than growth of the Athenian power. These are suggestions ; and such, in the absence of further evidence, they must remain. But, as has been already said, the peculiar and unexpected position of paragraph 97 (2) cannot be passed over without some attempt being made to account for it. These subsections of the history were written by Thucydides with a view to showing the verissima causa of the war. It is unnecessary to repeat here the general arguments which have been already stated for the belief that this idea of the causes of the war were connected with the late-formed idea of its oneness. On general grounds, then, the view must be taken that these subsections came at a late date in the period of composition. All critics are agreed on this question of date, but their reasons for assuming the date are by no means identical in all cases with those here given.' In Chapter 93 occur references of late date. In proof of the hurried nature of the building of Themistokles' walls of Athens Thucydides adduces the fact that ' even now the building shows evidence of having been constructed in haste. For the foundations are laid of stones of all kinds, in places not wrought, but in the condition in which they were carried thither ; and many columns from graves and wrought stones were worked in.' The special reference to the foundations implies, almost with certainty, that he is speaking of the appearance of the walls of Athens after their destruction at the end of the whole war, that is, after 404. The reference to the walls of the Piraeus later in the same chapter points still more clearly to a period after their destruction. Speaking of the way in which they were built he says that it is still traceable, an expression which would hardly have been used had the walls been in- tact at the time of writing.^ But on general, apart from these special ' Professor Wilamowitz-Moellendorff ascribes the whole of the first book from the twenty-fourth to the one hundred and forty-fifth chapter to an editor of Thucydides. But the case for the editor, in the sense, that is to say, of one who composed parts of the extant text, can never be established even with probability. Steup, a ' progressive ' critic, regards these subsections as not having originally formed part of the first book. Professor E. Meyer considers it artistically correct that Thucydides should have given the immediate (Corcyra and Potidaea) causes of the war first, and then (i. 89-118) have recounted the remoter causes which he refers to in i. 23 as TJ)>/ dXTjeea-TaTijv irp!>a(nv. It must be remembered that Professor Meyer regards the whole history as late in composition. Friedrichs regards these subsections as having been composed after 404. G. Meyer thinks they must date from a time when Thucydides had formed the conception of the oneness of the war. 2 Breitenbach (Introduction to Hellenita) asserts that these references in i. 93 are the only ones in Thucydides which relate to events later than the con- clusion of peace in April 404. That would suggest that this section of the history was one of the last which Thucydides ever wrote. THE SECOND CONGRESS AT SPARTA 445 grounds, there is no reason to doubt that this whole section is of late date, some of it at least later than 404, and, furthermore, that it is a late insertion in the first book. The fact of the section having been interpolated in a previous com- position is indicated by the pecuhar sequence, not merely chronological but verbal, between the closing words of Chapter 87 and the opening words of Chapter n8 (3). Were the whole section relating to the Pen- tekontaetia left out, the gap would not be discernible in the Thucydid- ean text. It is difficult to regard this as a mere accident. It looks as if Chapter 118 (3) followed directly on the end of Chapter 87 inthe original draft of the first book.* Section 5, i. 118 (2)-! 25 (i). The Second Congress of the Allies at Sparta. Three questions must always arise with regard to each of the various sections and subsections of Thucydides' work : — (i) Was it present in its extant form in the original draft ? (2) Was it present in some modified form in the original draft? (3) Was it a later addition to the original draft ? All these three possibilities have to be carefully taken into account with reference to the subsection under consideration. Certain passages in the speech of the Corinthians are said to be in- applicable to the Ten Years' War, and are consequently asserted to be late additions or revisions. There can be no doubt that one of the main motives for the insertion of the speech, — a speech which Thucydides can have never heard, and of which it is inconceivable that he could at any later time have obtained much detailed information, — is to explain the general plans of the Peloponnesians for the coming war. ' The expression o5e 6 TrdXefnos in Chapter 118. Three times in the course of Chapter 118 Thucydides refers to the war as SSe 6 ir6Xc/xos. These expressions occur in the first two paragraphs, which are un- doubtedly all of a piece in respect to composition with the preceding chapters, and belong therefore to a late date in the writing of the history. In § 3 begins a passage which is both in chronological and verbal sequence to the last words of Chapter 87. Cf. Chapter 87. ■^ 5^ Si.ayviiiJ.ri ailrri ttjs iKKKT](Tias, toO toi (rirovShi XeKiadai, iyhcTO in Tip rerdpTip Kai dcKdnp Irei tQv TpMKOVTOvrlSav airovSuiv irpoKex'^PV- K111.S1V, 4i ^7^vo>'TO /iera rb. Bu^ol'fcd. Chapter 118 (3). aurois /t^" odv tois Aa/ccSaijUoi/iois SUyvuiaro XcXiJcrffat re Tcls o-irovSds Kal Tot)s ' kdyivalovs aSimlv Tr4/J.^avTes Si h AeX^ois, etc. Section 3 belongs to an earlier period of composition than its preceding context ; and the interpolated character of the story of the Pentekontaetia is very clearly marked. It seems indeed to have been inserted without any alteration of the pre-existing context. But if the first two paragraphs of the chapter belong, as they obviously do, to that story^ then it is reasonable to suppose that the war mentioned in these sections is the Twenty-seven Years' War, since that was ike war which Thucy- dides had in his mind when he wrote the narrative of the Pentekontaetia. 446 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY When these plans are examined, it is found that several of them were hardly if at all operative in the Ten Years' War, though they played a prominent part in the Dekelean War. Such are the seduction of Athenian mercenary sailors by higher pay (121 (3)), the acquisition of naval skill by dint of practice (121 (4)) and the establishment of an fViTfixKr/tia in Attica (122 (l)). It is on the one hand impossible to deny that these passages do raise the suspicion that they, in respect to the matter and form, and their context, in respect to form at least, belong to a later period in the his- torian's composition ; but it is, on the other hand, impossible to assert that all or any of them imply of necessity such a late date of composi- tion. They do not afford any crucial instance absolutely determinative of date. As has been already said, the historian's object in writing the speech was to explain the intended designs of the Peloponnesian side with re- gard to the coming war ; and enough is known of his method with respect to the composition of speeches for it to be assumed that he may have deduced these designs from subsequent events. Still it is, of course, possible that these designs were actually present in the minds of men before the war broke out, and that the historian got knowledge of them by inquiring from the Peloponnesian side. Regarded from a general point of view, they are neither so elaborate nor so novel but that they might have been conceived, before the war began, as effective methods of carrying on hostilities with Athens. They are all of them directly suggested by the exceptional position of Athens as a power weak on land but strong by sea, financially dependent upon reluctant allies, and, to a certain extent, reliant on the aid of mercenaries. So much for the general aspect of the matter. But when its particular as- pects are taken into consideration there arises a doubt whether all these designs could possibly have suggested themselves at the outset of the war in so explicit a form as that in which they are put by the his- torian. The necessity of practice with a view to the acquisition of naval skill was indeed a self-evident requisite in a war with the sea-power of Athens ; but it was a design which the league did not carry out during the Ten Years' War. Its fleet showed a wholesome fear of any attempt to acquire experience by engaging the Athenians on any occasion when the terms were anything like equal. Indeed, so long as the Athenian sea-power was unimpaired, 'practice' of this kind could only spell dis- aster. The experience would have died with the experimenters. It was a different thing when the great Athenian fleet had been destroyed at Syracuse. The bringing about the revolt of the allies seems again a self-evident plan. Brasidas carried it out in the Ten Years' War. But Thucydides says enough about the official attitude towards the design to show that it was Brasidas' own, and one in which at its outset the official world placed little hope and no investment. The seducing of the foreign mercenaries was only rendered possible in later times by means of Persian capital. There is, of course, a THE SECOND CORINTHIAN SPEECH 447 reference to a vague intention of borrowing from the treasures at Delphi and Olympia. But it is never carried out ; and it is, to say the least of it, doubtful whether it ever existed. 'Emr«;(io-/ior was neither a recognised nor requisite method of Greek warfare at the time. There was no reason to establish an fVireixicfio in an ordinary Greek state, which could be easily reduced by a few days of devastation just before harvest time. Moreover, in the case of this particular use, the fVireix'o'/ia at Dekelea was explicitly suggested by Alkibiades, if Thucydides be right.' Moreover, what he is represented as recommending is not eiriTei- Xia-fios in a general sense, but at Dekelea, evidently because that was on the corn route to Athens. It is true that the idea seems to have suggested itself to the Spartan mind before this time. In the very last days of the Ten Years' War the Lacedaemonians had sought to promote an inclination towards peace in the Athenian mind by sending round orders to their allies to make preparation for an eViret;(to-/ids in Attica.'' But the date of this design is significant.' It was not mooted until that plan upon which the Lacedaemonians had relied, the annual devastation of Attica, had been found ineffective. Such a plan had always been effective in Greek warfare in the past. It was a grievous disappointment to Sparta to find it ineffective now, and an EViT«;(io-/L4d£, doubtless with a view to blocking the land route of the corn import, as Dekelea subsequently did, was consequently threatened. But it was a design called into existence by years of failure, and would have entailed a continuous form of service such as Sparta and her league would never have contemplated in the pre- liminary or initial stages of the war. Even after Alkibiades had suggested the plan, he was forced to emphasise his advice before he could get the Lacedaemonians to carry it out.* It is inconceivable that in the original draft of his history Thucydides omitted to give any statement of the designs of either side for the Ten Years' War. Nevertheless it is possible that the whole of the speech attributed to the Corinthians is a late addition to the history. It is noticeable that if the chapter on the Pentekontaetia, a demonstrably late addition, be removed from the extant text, this second speech of the Corinthians comes very near to the first.^ So close a juxtaposition of two speeches by the same person or persons is not in accordance with Thucydides' usual method. ^ VI. 91. ^ Thuc. v. 17. KoX wpbs t6 idp ijSij irapatTKevrj t€ irpoeiravGaeiffBtj &ird tujv AaKeSai/j.oi'lai', repiayyeWo/i^iiri KardydXeis us [^s] ivi.TuxiaiJ.bi'., Situs ol 'ASriyatoi fjiaWof i(ra.Koijoi£v . . . ' Prof. E. Meyer [Forschungen, 1899) regards it as evidence of the existence of such a plan from the earliest days of the war. * Thuc. vii. 18. KoX 'AXxi/SidSi;! npoffKelfievos iSidacrKe ttjc Ac/cAeiap reixffe''' Kal firj dvt^vat rbv irdXe/MOV. '' i.e. Chapters 120-124 and Chapters 68-71 : Cf. Friedrichs' views on this point. 448 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY The question then arises whether this speech has been substituted for some passage in which the plans of the Peloponnesian side for the Ten Years' War alone were stated. In order to answer that question it will be necessary to consider what those plans were, as indicated by subsequent performance. The actual plans of the Peloponnesians in the Ten Years' War were, tested by this subsequent performance, of a very simple character. Leaving out the quasi-private enterprise of Brasidas in Chalkidike, a design which, moreover, was not set on foot until some years after the war had begun, the Peloponnesian offensive seems to have been con- fined to the annual invasion of Attica. Such a method had always been effective in the previous history of Greek warfare ; and it is evident that most of those who were supreme in directing the operations on the Peloponnesian side expected it to be effective in the present instance. That is distinctly implied by the speech of Archidamos,' in which he is represented as warning the Spartans and their allies that the plan may not be effective after all. The only other offensive operations of any magnitude undertaken by the Peloponnesians in the Ten Years' War are those in and off north- west Greece : and it is evident that those are only offensive in appear- ance, and aimed in reality at keeping open that route to Sicily and the west which seemed likely to be blocked by Corcyra. Thus the whole offensive design on the Peloponnesian side at the beginning of this Ten Years' War was confined to the invasion of Attica. It is therefore very significant that Thucydides indicates in a clear and unmistakable way the existence of that design in a sub- section of his history which precedes that under consideration. That fact suggests the possibility that this second Corinthian speech, either as a whole or in part (in so far as it refers to the plans of the war), is a late addition, intended as a statement of the enlarged designs of the later phases of the whole Twenty-seven Years' War. Thucydides had, in fact, already stated by the clearest implication what was the Peloponnesian plan for the Ten Years' War. It was an exceedingly simple one, even as the strategy by which Perikles proposed to meet it was exceeding simple. The Peloponnesians thought that Attica might, like other Greek states, be reduced by devastation. The plan had always succeeded with states so situated with regard to their land resources. They made one of those fallacious inductions by simple enumeration which are the daily undoing of the individual and the race. But why, it may be asked, did they not take into considera- tion the effects of the sea-power of Athens? The question ignores the fact that the effects of novelties, especially in war, are rarely foreseen, for the most part unappreciated, and always incalculable. Thus there was no reason for Thucydides to describe at length designs of so simple a character. But the designs developed with the war ; and, when he came to write of the war as a whole, it became 1 Thuc. i. 80. THE PLANS OF THE WAR 449 necessary to insert into the early part of his work a more elaborate statement of what those designs were. This Corinthian speech is essentially an addition to what had been previously written. It makes no reference to the main, in fact the single, Peloponnesian design of the Ten Years' War. The historian appears to have been conscious that that had already been disclosed in his history. The speech is indeed written by the historian in reference to the Dekelean War, or at any rate in reference to designs which were not existent in a practical sense when the war opened, but which developed within the period of the war itself The conclusion, therefore, which must be come to is that this sec- tion is, as to its main constituent part, the Corinthian speech, a late addition to Thucydides' work. That the context of the speech existed in some form in the original history of the Ten Years' War is almost certain. It may be conjectured that in its original form the section confined itself to a statement that a second Congress was held ; that certain opinions were expressed, and a definite decision in favour of war was made. It is in fact the case that if the words from ndpovTfs Si Kol roTe (Chapter 119) to roiaCra fiev oi Kopivdiot tlirov (Chapter 124) were left out, the section would read as a piece of continuous history, assuming that the SerjdevTes of the present text was originally a finite verb. It is therefore possible that in the first draft of this part of the history the section ended at T!-po8taddpr]aav) and iii. 113 {vddos . . . iyiv^To), in both of which the expression 6 TrdXe/ioy oSe is used, that Thucydides would not have spoken so strongly in these passages had he known at the time of the greater events of the second war (cf. vii. 28. oo-w Km fiei^av 6 nokefios Tjv), and especially of those referred to vii. 29 and 30, vii. 57, viii. 96. If the interpretation of o8e after TrdXe/ios in Thucydides, which will be stated later in this chapter, be right, Thucydides might have written those passages, even had he known of the events of the later parts of the whole war. In other words, obe in this passage seems to be far more precise and limitative in meaning than Ullrich assumed it to be. Herbst, a conservative and therefore anti-UUrichian critic, after con- sidering various passages in which this expression occurs, is inclined to come to the general conclusion that obe 6 noXcfios refers to the Twenty- seven Years', while d TrdXf^or obe refers to the Ten Years' War.^ The conclusion in this chapter approximates more closely to his than to Ullrich's, but differs from it in certain essential and very important features. Any student of Thucydides must notice at an early stage of his study of the author's work that the demonstrative adjective obe when used with the word iroKeiios sometimes precedes and sometimes follows that noun. Furthermore, an examination of the passages in which these two varieties of expression occur will probably raise the suspicion that this variation is not a mere question of taste in the order of words in some particular context, but implies a difference of meaning in the demon- strative adjective. The difficulty is to determine wherein that differ- ence lies. Fide his article in Philologus, 38. 4S6 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY Before entering upon any detailed discussion of the question, there are certain general considerations which must be taken into account. The contrast between the frequency with which Thucydides uses the demonstrative adjective o8e in connection with iroXefios and the rarity with which he uses the adjective ovtos with that noun is very striking. The latter is only found in three instances, in one of which it precedes, and in two of which it follows the noun ; ' whereas the former occurs in thirty-seven cases, in fifteen of which it precedes, and in twenty-two of which it follows the noun.^ In the cases of the use of oJtos, there is in vii. 85 an express reference by name to the Sicilian War ; ^ the other two might refer, judged by themselves, to either the Ten Years' or the Twenty-seven Years' War, though both probably refer to the Ten Years' War.* The second noticeable point is with regard to the use of oSe alone. In the First Book it invariably precedes the noun TroXf/jor. The same ' i. 23 (preceding); i. 21 and vii. 85 (following). ^ Cases in which it precedes are found : i. 8, 13, 18, 23, 24, 97, 118 (3 times) ; ii. 16, 21, 34 ; vi. 17 ; vii. 44, 56. Cases in which it follows are found : ii. 47, 70, 103 ; iii. II, 25, 54, 88, 98, 113, 116; iv. 48, 51, 133, 135 ; v. 20 (twice); vi. 7, 93 ; vii. 18, 87 ; viii. 6, 60. ^ if T(fJ StKcXi/CV TToXifltiJ Toirifi, * I have called attention to this contrast between the frequency of the use of S5c and the rarity of the use of oSros because it is so striking a peculiarity in the author's composition. But I have not made up my mind as to what conclusion is to be drawn therefrom. I cannot believe that it is simply due to a mere personal preference for the one form of the distinguishing adjective over the other, because, in point of fact, oCros is far more common than S5e in the general text of Thucydides. I believe it to be deliberate in a significant sense, but I confess I am unable to make any satisfactory suggestion as to where the signifi- cance lies. One negative fact is certain : that the common distinction between oIStos as referring to previous and SSe as referring to subsequent matter, though marked in other parts of Thucydides, does not hold good in these phrases. Mr. Marchant says the explanation is quite simple : that Thucydides is in the vast majority of cases referring to the war as 'my subject,' 'what I write about,' and therefore uses the more intimate 65e in preference to oBrot. He quotes i. 21 to 23, and also vii. 85, but in the last case assumes that the SuceXocifi is a gloss, — a by no means universally accepted assumption. oBros, he says, is used by Thucydides in cases where he is not speaking of the war as his subject, but as sharply contrasted with other wars. As I have not committed myself to any expression of opinion on this subject, I can deal with the opinion above expressed without prejudiced partiality. It seems to me that the distinction made is of no value at all. If Thucydides consistently used SSe with irbXeixos in this special sense, the passage in i. 21 is an instance in which he might above all have been expected to use it. In i. 23 (i) there is a contrast impUed, and oBtos is indeed used. But the contrast is continued up to i. 23 (3) where 6Se is used with TriXe/ios. In various other of the numerous instances in which he uses 6Se with iriXe^os, a contrast just as strong as that implied in i. 23 (i) is discernible In fact, what could mark the contrast more strongly than S5e, if SSe has the meaning which Mr. Marchant attributes to it ? USE OF 6'8£ WITH tt^Vos 457 ■order is found in the earlier chapters of the Second Book (i6, 21, 34). In ii. 47 it is used for the first time in marking the close of a year of the war ; and there, as is invariably the case in Thucydides where 08c is used in this connection, it follows the noun. But the curious thing is that from this point onward to the end of the first half of the history in v. 25, o8f invariably succeeds the noun TrdXf/ior, whether it be used in speaking of the termination of a year of the war,' or in some ■other connection.^ Thus the usage in the first part of the first half of the history is distinct from that in the second part of the same half. In the second half of the history both positions of o8e are found. In recording the terminations of the years of the war, whenever used, it comes after the noun, as in the first half of the history.' In one other case it also comes after the noun.* In three cases it comes before the noun,^ but none of these three have reference to the end of a year of the war. With respect to its use in dating the ends of years of the wars certain peculiarities are noticeable. The tendency of the author is to employ a set formula. The formula most commonly employed is : Koi (ordinal number) ?ror ra 7ro\e/ii» ireXevTa rmSe ov QovKv8idrjs ^vveypailrev. This is found in ten out of the nineteen instances of this form of dating in Thucydides' work.* A slight and apparently unimportant variant of this formula, Koi (ordinal number) tros eVcXeura ra noKiiia 7-mSe ov OovKvSiBrjs ^vveypa-^ev, is found in two instances.' In one instance an abbreviated form is used — (ordinal number) eroj tov »ro\f^ov rovSe ircXevTa.^ In the remaining six instances of the dating of the end of a year of the war the adjective ode is not used,^ and the formula employed is koL (ordinal number) ?roj Ta noXffia eTeXevTa in five of the six passages,'" and in the sixth a slight variant, namely (ordinal number) cVoj erekevTa rm n-oXe^m." It thus appears that, ignoring the slight variation referred to above, the full formula is employed throughout the history of the Ten Years' War, with one exception,'^ and also throughout the history of the Sicilian expedition and that part of the narrative of the Dekelean War which Thucydides lived to write. In the Fifth Book (and once in the latter part of the Fourth Book) an abbreviated and less precisely worded formula is used, in which the word 08c does not occur. Summing up, therefore, what has been already said, the general peculiarities which are noticeable with regard to the use of o8e with •n-oKifjios are as follows : — (i) Its frequency as compared with the use of oJrof : (2) That in the first half of the history, z.e. as far as v. 25, oSe, when •used with n-oke/ios, always precedes that noun in the text up to the thirty-fifth chapter of the Second Book ; whereas from the forty-seventh 1 Asinii. 47, 70, 103; iii. 25, 88, 116; iv. 51, 135. 2 As in iii. 54, 98, 113 ; iv. 48, 133 ; v. 20 (twice). ' vi. 7, 93 ; vii. 18; viii. 6, 60. * vii. 87. ^ vi. 17 ; vii. 44, 56. « ii, 103 ; iii. 25, 88, Ii6 ; iv. 51, 135 ; vi. 93 ; vii. 18 ; viii. 6, 60. ' ii. 70; vi. 7. » ii. 47. " iv. 116; v. 39, 51, 56, 81, 83. " Viz., those in Book V. " iv. 116. '^ iv. ii6. 458 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY chapter of the Second Book up to the end of this first half of the history, it invariably follows that noun. It is also remarkable that the instance in the forty-seventh chapter of the Second Book is the first case in which it is used in dating the end of a year of the war. (3) That wherever oSc is used in dating the end of a year of the war, it always follows the noun. (4) That oSe is always employed in this form of dating, except in ther Fifth Book and in one passage of the Fourth Book.' It is impossible to suppose that these peculiarities are accidental. Ullrich was disposed to regard the earlier references in the first half of the work, those in which o8e precedes the noun, as applicable to the Ten Years' War, and the later ones, in which it follows the noun, as applicable to the war as a whole. But as a fact the earlier series of references are, in themselves, quite indeterminate ; and, though they probably refer for the most part to the Ten Years' War, yet those in i. 97 and i. 118 probably refer to the Twenty-seven Years' War. In one passage (ii. 54) oSe refers almost certainly to the Ten Years War ; but then the word ttoXe^s does not appear, so that no conclusion can be drawn as to the significance before and after the noun.^ It has, however, been already pointed out that the passages referring to the close of the years of the war which do not contain the word 08c occur, with the one exception in the one hundred and sixteenth chapter of the Fourth Book, in the Fifth Book only ; and furthermore no such passages containing o8e are found in this book. It is noteworthy that this Fifth Book deals with a period in which the war, though, according to Thucydides' view, alive, yet was not in actual progress. The context of the exceptional passage in the Fourth Book is noteworthy in the same respect. It runs thus (ch. 116, ad fin.) : ' And with the passing of winter the eighth year of the war (to jroXeVa) came to an end.' 1 Mr. Marchant lays down three rules which determine the position of o5e (and oStos) after the noun : — (a) If a relative word is to follow immediately, when both ifSe and its noun, precede the relative. (b) \ih airrds is used. (c) When the article is not used. Rule (a) may account for SSe in those passages in which Thucydides uses the full formula for the ending of a year of the war. But ncne of these rules account for the order of words in ii. 47 ; and, of course, none of them account for the far more remarkable omission of 8Se in the formula as used in iv. 116 and throvighout Book V. " The passage is : ^v di ye olixal Tore ftWos iriXe/uos KaroXd/Sg Aupi/tAs TOvSe iiffTepot Kal (v/i^S yevi(r9(u \iii6v . . . Here roSSe must almost certainly refer to the Ten Years' War, because, as Ullrich points out, the passage is written in obvious ignorance of the fact that the taking of Athens and the decision of the Dekelean War were finally brought about by long-continued starvation. The Dekelean War, too, was another Dorian War. FORMULA FOR DATING IN BOOK V. 459 Ch. 117 then opens with the words: 'Immediately on the arrival of the spring of the following summer half of the year the Lace- daemonians and Athenians made a truce for one year.' The juxta- position of these two passages is remarkable in view of the special wording of the passages in the Fifth Book. The close of the eighth year of the war came in a period during which there was a pause in the operations, which pause was immediately confirmed by a regular truce. It came in fact within a time which, though not covered by the regular truce, might nevertheless be conceivably regarded as part of that period of cessation of hostilities which the truce formally established. It is true that the truce was not fully observed, because Brasidas in Chalkidike refused to regard it. Still it was actual through- out the rest of the area of warfare. These considerations suggest, therefore, that one significance of oSe in the passages referring to the close of the years of the war is that it indicates that at the time that that particular year, in connection with which it is used, came to an end, the war was in active progress.' It is further possible that the correspondence of the formula in iv. 116 with the formula employed in Book v., and this despite the fact that the circumstances were not in strict correspondence with those dealt with in Book v., is due to a peculiarly deliberate act on the part of Thucydides. He was emphatic in asserting that the 'years of peace' of Book v. were in reality part of the war ; and by the use of this formula in Book iv. 116 he identifies the circumstances of the truce of the Ten Years' War, — a period which all would reckon as part of that war, — with the circumstances of those 'years of peace' which, as he claims, but nobody else thought, were really part of the Twenty-seven Years' War. In these passages, therefore, which refer to the dating of the years of the war, oSe following the noun TroXefior appears to have at least one special significance, i.e. Thucydides uses it of that which is in active and actual existence at the time of speaking ; but omits it when the existence has been brought to an end, even if that end be only temporary, before the time of speaking. It remains to be considered whether this is the only significance which o8e in this position possesses. This involves a review of two series of passages : ■' — (1) Those in which oSc follows ttoXc/ios in passages which do not refer to the dating of the years of the war. (2) Those in which oSe follows other nouns than wdXe/nos. The passages in which oSe follows n-oXe/xor without reference to the ' This conclusion is important, because in passages in which 6& succeeds- nouns other than TrAXe/tos, the existence, at the time of speaking, of that which is referred to by SSe is a marked peculiarity of most of the passages. ^ It is noticeable that in not one of these passages is the position of 6'5e accounted for by any of the grammatical rules stated by Mr. Marchant. (Vide note i, p. 458). 46o THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY dating of years of the war are : iii. li, iii. 54, iii. 98, iii. 113, iv. 48, iv. 133, V. 20 (twice). In iii. 1 1 the Mytilenians are represented as saying : ' Our survival was due to our courting their commons and the prominent men of the moment. But, judging from the example of what has happened to others, we had no prospect of being able to maintain our position for long, had not this war (6 woKcfios oSe) arisen.' In iii. 54 the Plataeans are represented as saying : ' We assert in answer to the curt question, whether we have done any good to the Lacedaemonians and their allies in this war (eV rm 7roXc/io) TmSe) that, if you put the question to us as enemies then we have not wronged you by not serving you, or, if you put it to us as assumed friends, then you yourselves are in the wrong since you have invaded us.' In iii. 113 the disaster which overtook the Ambrakiots at Olpae and Idomene is spoken of as ' the greatest disaster of all which occurred during this war {Kara tov 7ro\efiov Tov&e) in the same number of days to any individual Greek city.' In iv. 48 Thucydides, speaking of the crTaais at Corcyra and the final destruction of the aristocrats, says that 'the civil disturbance, which had been violent, ended in this incident, Sa-a ye Kara tov noKfiiov TOV be J In iv. 133, speaking of the flight of Chrysis after the burning of the temple of Hera at Argos, he says : ' Chrysis' tenure of the priesthood up to the time of her flight overlapped eight years, and half of the ninth of this war ' (roO n-oXf'^ou rovSe). In V. 20 Thucydides says : ' This treaty was made at the close of winter as spring was coming on, immediately after the city Dionysia, exactly ten years and a few days having elapsed since first the invasion of Attica and the beginning of this war (tov TroXe/iou ToCSe) took place.' Again in the same chapter: 'If, according to the practice in this history, the reader reckons by summers and winters, each having the value of half a year, he will find that ten summers and as many winters fall within the period of this first war.' (ra npaiTa no\4ij.co TijJSe yeyevrjixivovs.) In these passages two uses of o8e may be distinguished ; — (i) As referring to something in existence at the time of speaking, viz. iii. II. (2) As referring to something in existence up to the time of speaking, viz. iii. 54, iii. 98, iii. 113, iv. 133, v. 20 (twice). The passage iv. 48 belongs to one of the two uses ; but, until some decision has been arrived at with regard to the exact meaning of Sa-a ye naTo. tov n-dXe/iov TovSe in its special context, it is impossible to say which. The passages in which SSe is used referring to the dating by years imply probably both ideas, viz. 'the war up to this time and which was in active progress at the moment.' .SUGGESTED MEANING OF 6'Se IN POST-POSITION 461 Owing to the very nature of the above passages SSe has a 'temporal' significance, that is to say, it Umits in respect to time the noun to which it applies. Moreover, it appears to imply a very definite limitation in the mind of the speaker. One of the general facts which has been shown to be apparent from an examination of the passages in which oSc is used with voXe/jLos is, that up to the thirty-fourth chapter of the Second Book this adjective precedes the noun. The use of oSe in the First Book and in these earlier chapters of the Second Book may therefore be its ordinary use of an event still to come. This would be natural in the First Book, where the author is dealing with events before the war opened. But even in the passages in the beginning of the Second Book the futurity of the war, or of part of it, is implied. In ii. 16 the reference is to the habitual residence of the majority of the popula- tion of Attica in rural districts^ ^e'xP' toCSc toS noKe'fiov : in ii. 21 to an invasion of Attica, npo roC8e to£> noKsfiov : in ii. 34 to the funeral oration of Perikles as the first example, iv ri^Se tm ttoXc'^o), of a practice which was customary, and which was presumably carried out on subsequent occasions during the war. Even in this passage the future course of the war, which had then only just begun, was prominently before the mind of the writer. In the passages in the later books, however (vi. 17, vii. 44, vii. 56), the idea of futurity in the expression oSe 6 n-dXe;uor is not traceable ; and the adjective seems to be used merely as determinative of the identity of the war, without implying that it was in whole or in part a future event. Thus the remarkable contrast between the use of o8e before the noun in the early part of the first half of the history, and its use after the noun in the later part of the same half, seems to be deliberate in the full sense. The difference of position implies a marked difference of meaning. Expressed in general terms, the difference is that oSc before the noun is used in these early passages in its ordinary prospective sense, whereas in the cases in which it follows the noun it is usually employed in a retrospective sense. The retrospective meaning of the adjective 08c is not identical with that of oSrof, in that it seems to imply what ovroj does not necessarily imply, namely, that that which is spoken of existed not merely in the past, but either at or up to the time of speaking. This implication is of course most marked in those passages in which oSe is used expressly as determinative of time ; but it is also traceable in other passages in which the idea of time is not prominent. This comes out on examination of the passages in which oSc as an attribute follows nouns other than ttoXe/ios. There are thirty-five such passages in Thucydides' work, in fifteen of which the definite article is also used with the noun with which obe agrees. Of these passages twenty-seven refer to circumstances, things or 462 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY periods which were in existence at the time of mention, while in all other cases their existence in the past, or some action relating to them in the past, is mentioned or implied.^ ^ The passages are : — i. 2. Trapd5eiy/j,a rdde : the example is given in the immediately preceding text. i. 37. Reference to ' the Corcyreans here present.' i. 41. Reference to ' grounds of right ' which have just been cited. i. 43. Reference to 'the Corcyreans here present.' i. 53. Reference to action taken against ' us here ' in accordance with a pre- existing intention. i. 53. In an Athenian speech : reference to the Corcyreans ' our present allies, to whose assistance we went ' in the past. i. 68. In the Corinthian speech at the first Congress at Sparta : reference to ' the allies present,' who have been allies in the past. i. 75. In the Athenian speech at the first Congress at Sparta : reference to the empire still existent, and to the mode in which it was acquired in the past. i. 140. In Perikles' speech: reference to the Peloponnesian embassy, then apparently at Athens, and to previous embassies from the same quarter. ii. 34. Reference to the public funeral of those who had fallen in the war. The Tdov mentioned is one of a previous series, but the first in this war. Reference has also been made in the immediately preceding text to this particular funeral. ii. 35. In the Funeral Oration : reference to t6v \6-yoy rbuSe in a speech which is actually being made. It has been already clearly indicated in the text that similar speeches had been made in the past. ii. 35. In the same oration : reference to the funeral — irepl rbv riipov riySe — which is proceeding, but not concluded. Similar funeral ceremonies had been carried out in the past. ii. 64. In Perikles' speech : reference to the plague which was still in exist- ence, and had been in the past. ii. 74. In Archidamos' speech at Plataea : reference to Plataea and to the beginning of the invasion, a matter in the then past. iii. 13. Reference to a proposed invasion of Attica in the summer in which the proposal is made : 'If you invade a second time this summer ' ; i.e. reference to a previous invasion. iii. 57. In the Plataean speech : reference to their trial which is proceeding. iii. 63. Reference to an alliance with 'the Lacedaemonians here present.' It is noticeable, though, perhaps, not significant, that in the next sentence this alliance is spoken of as though existent at the time of speaking. iv. 85. In a speech of Brasidas : reference to his own army, which is then present, and to the fact that he had had it with him in the past at Nisaea. v. 18. Reference to the terms of a treaty which have been stated in the previous text. In this case the language is apparently that of an official formula, not that of Thucydides himself. V. 22. Reference to an alliance then being made, and whose existence has been already indicated in the previous text. V. 68. Reference to the order of battle at Mantinea, which has just been described in the previous chapter. vi. 9. Reference to an iKxXriala which is already assembled. 6Se AFTER NOUNS OTHER THAN ;rdA.e/nos 463 In these twenty-seven passages the special use of 08c is naturally most apparent in those in which time is definitely mentioned, as in iii. 13 and viii. 99, or definitely implied, as in i. 53, i. 75, i. 140, iv. 85, vi. 12 ; hut the ' temporal ' idea is always behind this use of oSe, even if the reference to the past be merely to that which has been just previously mentioned by the historian, as in i. 2, ii. 34, v. 18, v. 22, v. 68, vi. 78. The remainder of the twenty-seven passages stand in a class by them- selves. In them ode is used after the noun, refers to a quotation, or, in one case, to a list, which immediately follow in the text. This use is found in six passages.' These passages have certain noticeable points of resemblance : — (i) That to which reference is made follows, as has been already mentioned, immediately in the text. (2) In five out of six passages that to which reference is made is a quotation in the actual words of the original, while in the sixth (ii. 9) it is a list which may conceivably have been drawn from some official source. The idea lying behind the use of oSc in these passages is doubtful. It may be that the adjective is put immediately before the quotation, that is to say, after the noun with which it agrees, on the analogy of the pronoun ToiaSe as used in the introduction of speeches into the text. But it is also possible that the idea expressed by oSc after the noun may extend in some instances to that which has a definite termination in that future which immediately follows the time of speak- ing, and, on the analogy of this temporal use, be applied to that which immediately follows in the text. The examination of these passages in Thucydides' work seems then to show that the author used the adjective oSe after the noun in two or possibly three senses : (1) Of that which had an existence in the past and which was still in existence at the time of speaking. vi. 12. In a speech of Nikias: reference to the Sicilian fugitives, who have already asked for help. vi. 40. In a speech of Athenagoras : reference to Syracuse as it was at the time — a democracy ; a contrast with the past implied. vi. 78. Reference to an envy and fear which is felt by one state or another, and to which the speaker has already referred in the previous sentence. vii. 66. In the speech of Gylippos : reference to Sicily or Syracuse and to the original coming of the Athenians, spoken of as in the recent past. viii. 99. Reference to the summer which is running its course at the time of speaking, and to an event which had previously taken place in the same summer. ' i. 132. rh i\iyclov rbSe : the lines immediately follow. ii. 9. jr6\eis rdo-S' : a list of the states immediately follows. iii. 104. iv Tois ?ire(ri toktSc : the lines immediately quoted. iv. 105. K-fipvyixa rbSe : proclamation immediately quoted. iv. 117. iKex€tpla . , . fj5e : terms of the truce immediately given. viii. 57. (jTovSiis rpiras riffSe : terms of the treaty immediately given. 464 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY (2) Of that which had an existence in the past and whose existence extended up to the time of speaking ; and possibly (3) Of that which terminated in an immediate future known at the time of speaking. This third possible use might easily develop out of the first use, in which a certain futurity of existence is implied though not postulated. For practical, and indeed for theoretical, purposes, the three uses have to be distinguished, but one general idea underlies all of them, the idea, namely, of the existence of that to which reference is made, at least up to the time of speaking. The importance of these uses in relation to the date of the com- position of various passages in the history need not be emphasised. These passages relate to various incidents in the Ten Years' War, in that part of Thucydides' history which extends from ii. 47 to v. 25 inclusive. It has been sufficiently indicated in what has been already said on this question that the passages which state the termination of the years of the war have no significance in this connection. 6 ttoXejiios oSe in these passages refers neither to the Ten Years' War nor to the whole war, but simply to the war up to the time of speaking. But there are other passages in this section in which the expression is used, which have provoked a great deal of comment both from Ullrich and his followers and from their opponents. It is commonly argued by the progressives that the expression as originally written by Thucy- dides meant ' the whole war,' but that the circumstances mentioned in the passages make it impossible to suppose that the Twenty-seven Years' War could be implied, and therefore Thucydides when he wrote those passages had the Ten Years' War, and the Ten Years' War only, in his mind. In other words, they were written in the first draft of his history, were never revised, and are in fact part of the proof that a first draft of this part of the history was written. It has been necessary to examine the majority of these passages from a general point of view in the course of this inquiry ; but it is now necessary to examine them further with special reference to the evidence they afford, in the light of the conclusions already arrived at, as to the date of their com- position. It may be well to add to them certain passages from the same section of the history (ii. 47-v. 25) which contain kindred expres- sions. The passages to be considered are contained in iii. 11, iii. 54, iii. 98, iii. 113, iv. 48, iv. 133. In all these the expression 6 TrdXe/xos 08c is employed. The kindred passages are contained in ii. 25, ii. 94, iii. 68, iv. 40. In them the expression employed is 6 jroXe/xor. In the first of these two series, if the conclusions already arrived at are sound, 6 iroKefios o8e must be intended to express one of three ideas either in the mind of the writer or attri- buted by him to some person or persons on his historical stage, these ideas being ' the war at present going on,' or ' the war up to this time,' SPECIAL CASES OF SSe AFTER TrdAc/^os 465 or ' this war which has a definite and known termination in the near future.' In iii. II the Mytilenians are represented as referring to 6 noXcfios oSe. The meaning is obviously ' the war at present going on.' Conse- quently the passage throws no light on the date of composition.' In iii. 54 the Plataeans are represented as saying that they have been curtly asked whether they have done any good to the Lacedaemonians and their allies, eV rc^ n-oXeVm riySe. Some commentators^ regard this use of the expression as equivalent to that in iii. ii. In iii. 52 Thucydides gives in an oblique form the question originally put, and there the expression used is iv ra nokeixa ra Kadea-rSiTi. In iii. 68 reference is again twice made to the same question, first in the words et Tt €v ro) TToXe/zii) VTr' avTuiv ayaShv 7re7roi/^aa"t, and secondly in the words el ti AaKfbai^ovLovs koi tovs ^v^fidxovs ayaOov iv ra TroXe/io) Se^paKores elcriv. The expression in iii. 52 means undoubtedly 'the existing war' ;^ but the use of the perfect tense in both passages in iii. 68 points to a mean- ing ' the war up to the present time,' which is probably the meaning of the expression in iii. 54. In any case the passage does not throw any light on the date of composition, as, whichever of these two meanings were attached to the expression, the expression itself might stand either in a history of the Ten Years' War or in one of the Twenty-seven Years' War. In iii. 98 comes the first of a series of passages in which a particular event is compared with other events of the same kind in the course of the war. Of those Athenian hoplites who fell in Demosthenes' defeat in Aetolia it is said that they were 'the best men of the state of Athens who perished,' fV ra iroXefi-co rmSe. Herbst* thinks that the expression must be understood to refer to the Ten Years' War. That the ex- pression does not imply a comparison extending beyond the Ten Years' War is, judged by the general usage of it in Thucydides, almost certainly the case. It might of course imply ' the present war,' or 'the war up to this time.' But in any case the expression might have been used by one who was writing either the history of the Ten Years' War or that of the Twenty-seven Years' War, and is therefore quite indeterminate as to the date of the writing of the passage. In iii. 113 the disaster to the Ambrakiots at Olpae and Idomene is said to have been the greatest, TaJK Kara tov iroXeiiov rovBe, which over- took any single Greek city within the same number of days. The meaning of the expression used in this passage is clearly deter- mined by use of a similar expression in a later passage, which must be taken in juxtaposition with it. In iv. 48 Thucydides, speaking of the crracris at Corcyra, says that it came to an end, oi\a(T ii. 65 (12). PASSAGES IN BOOKS II. AND III. 473 It is impossible to suppose that the news of the disaster at Syracuse created less consternation than the events in connection with Brasidas' threatened attack on Piraeus. Other disasters too, such as the revolt of Euboea in 411 must have caused greater alarm— in fact Thucydides says so.i It is noteworthy that Thucydides merely uses the general expression Kara tov ffdXf/ioc He speaks therefore of the war generally, that is to say, of the war as a whole, as he understood it at the time at which he wrote the passage. The passage must be an unrevised fragment of the first draft of this part of the history. In ii. 97, speaking of the Thracian principality of the chiefs of the Odrysae, Thucydides says : — ' The tribute which came in from the whole barbarian region and the Greek cities in the time of Seuthes, who reigned after Sitalkes, and raised it to the highest amount, had a value of about four hundred talents of silver, that is to say, such of it as was received in the form of gold and silver.' Sitalkes was king of the Odrysae at the time at which the events recorded in this chapter took place. But this particular sentence refers to the reign of his successor Seuthes, and to a time at which the kingdom of the Odrysae was peculiarly prosperous. It is argued'' that this passage must have been written after the conclusion of the 'years of peace.' But Sitalkes died in 424 b.c.^ and Seuthes succeeded him. The prosperity of the realm under him does not seem to have extended beyond 415. At the same time Thucydides' language seems to imply that he knew that the circumstances in Seuthes' realm changed later. The passage would seem therefore to have been composed at least as late as 415 ; but more than that cannot be said. In 415 the Dekelean War had not begun, and that is almost certainly the war which suggested to Thucydides' mind the oneness of the whole twenty-seven years of warfare. In fact the passage may be either part of the first draft of the history or an insertion of late date. In ii. 100, speaking of Macedonia and the Thracian invasion, Thucy- dides says : — ' There were not many (strong places) ; but later Archelaos, son of Perdikkas, on becoming king, built those now existing in the country, and made direct roads, and generally organised the military afl^airs of the country, with respect to cavalry and hoplites and other war material, in a more effective way than all the other eight kings who had preceded him.' Archelaos became king of Macedon in 413, and reigned till 399. Even if it be assumed that he carried out these works in the earlier part of his reign, it is improbable that the passage can have been written before 406. In any case the earliest conceivable date is 411. It was therefore inserted after the Dekelean War began, and can ^ viii. 96, TOis 5' ' ABrivalots us TjXSe rh irepl rifv W^oiav yeycvqixiva, ^KTrXij^ts fj.syl(rT7] dT] tQv Trplv irapiffTy}, 2 Herbst, Philologus, 38. ' Thuc. iv. loi. 474 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY hardly have been part of the first draft of the history. It is, in fact, attributable to a late date in the historian's work of composition. It is possible that it was written after Archelaos' death in 399, for it is not Thucydides' custom to bestow praise upon the living, and Archelaos is praised very emphatically in this passage.^ In iii. 26, Thucydides, speaking of the Peloponnesian invasion of 428 says : — ' This raid pressed more heavily upon the Athenians than any other except the second.' The criticism of this passage is dependent on that of ii. 57.^ Like that passage, it must belong to the first draft of the history. In iii. 68, speaking of the severity with which the Spartans treated the Plataeans, Thucydides says : — ' It was almost entirely on account of the Thebans, whom they thought useful to them in the war which had then recently begun, that the Spartans were so adverse in their attitude to Plataea.' This passage contains one expression which is, under the circum- stances, somewhat unexpected. The war, by this time, the summer of 427, four years old, is referred to as top noKe/iov . . . apri rare KaBia-Tajifvov. It has been suggested ' that the historian could hardly have used such an expression in reference to a war which was already more than four years old, and which only lasted ten years altogether ; but that he might have used it of a war four years old which was destined to last twenty-seven years. It is further suggested, therefore, that the war in the mind of the writer is the Twenty-seven Years' War, and that therefore this sentence is of late composition. The suggestion does not seem groundless. The sentence is an explanation of its context. It explains that the Spartans in all they did to Plataea and the Plataeans acted at the instigation and in the interest of the Thebans. Thucydides may have thought it desirable, in view of the later relations of Sparta and Thebes, to mention the fact that it was in the interest of Thebes that the Spartans violated their consciences in the case of the Plataeans. There is about the sentence that moral significance which Thucydides is so fond of implying but so chary of expressing. iii. 82-83. All commentators alike are agreed that these chapters are of late date in Thucydides' composition. It has been suggested that they were probably written after the fall of Athens.* ^ In iii. 13 the Mytilenians are represented as saying in their speech at Olympia : — ' For the war will not be decided in Attica, as some suppose, but in the countries by which Attica is supported.' Herbst regards this extract from the speech of the Mytilenians as an implied reference to the Ionian War. The argument is however one which might have occurred to Thucydides to put in the mouth of an Athenian ally, especially a revolted ally asking for help, at any time in the whole period of warfare. The conjecture of a reference to the Ionian War is therefore not necessary, or even probable. 2 Vide p. 472. « Herbst (Philologus, 38). ■> Forbes, Thuc. Bk. i. PASSAGES IN BOOK III. 475 An even later date of composition may be ascribed to them. They are evidently written under the influence of very strong feeling, — feeling so strong that it can only have been caused by events which appealed to the author in a very intimate and special way. The cruelties of the period of the tyranny of the Thirty, which inflicted a shock upon the Greek world from which it never wholly recovered, may have evoked from the historian this striking description of the effiscts of o-7-ao-tr.' In iii. 87 Thucydides asserts that of all the disasters which befell Athens in the course of the war the plague did most damage to her power. ' For,' he says, ' not less than 4400 hoplites of the tribal regiments and three hundred knights, and an unascertained number of the rest of the population died.' Even conservative critics admit ^ that this passage could not have been written after the disaster in Sicily ; but explain the expression away by saying that Thucydides did write of the Ten Years' War as a special war. The explanation is insufficient to account for the circum- stances. The passage as it stands must necessarily convey to the reader the impression that the writer meant to imply that the disaster was the greatest which befell Athens during the whole period with which the writer intended to deal. The logical implication of the passage is so plain that it cannot have escaped the notice of the man who wrote it. It must therefore have been written by Thucydides at a time at which he supposed that the events which were to afford the subject-matter of his story had come to an end. But even the con- servative critics admit that it cannot have been written after the Twenty-seven Years' War was over, or even after 413. It must there- fore have been written after the close of the Ten Years' War, that is to say, between 421 and 413 ; and it constitutes a very remarkable particular piece of evidence of that fact which has been shown to be so probable on general grounds, that Thucydides not merely had at one time the impression that the Peace of Nikias was the close of the war, but actually wrote a first draft of the first half of his history under that impression. Of this first draft therefore this passage is an unrevised sentence. In iii. 93, speaking of the foundation of Heraklea Trachinia, Thucy- dides says that the Athenians feared at first that it might threaten their position in Euboea. He says, however, that the fear proved groundless for the following reasons: — 'The Thessalians, who had dominion of those parts, and those whose territory was menaced by the settlement, fearing lest the Herakleots should prove powerful neighbours, con- tinually damaged and attacked the new settlers, until they wore them out, though their numbers were originally quite large (for every one went thither with a good courage, under the impression that the city was secure, since the Lacedaemonians were the founders). Not but ' iii. 84 is a chapter of doubtful authenticity, but, if accounted genuine, must be held to be of the same date as iii. 82, 83. 2 Cf. Herbst, Philologus, 40. 476 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY what the succession of Lacedaemonian governors too contributed not least to the ruin of affairs, and depopulated the place by frightening away the mass of the population, and by lording it over them harshly and, in some instances, unfairly. The consequence was that their neighbours the more easily got the better of them.' That this passage refers to events some years later than those recorded in the previous context is obvious. For the present purpose, however, the question is as to the date of the events to which reference is made. It has been argued' that this passage must be of late composition, inasmuch as the reference cannot be to the events recorded in v. 51, because viii. 3 shows that circumstances at Heraklea took subsequently a more favourable turn, and the final catastrophe is described in Xen., Hell. i. 2. 1 8. This argument is unconvincing. A comparison of Thucydides' lan- guage in V. 51 with that which he uses in this chapter suggests very strongly that the catastrophe there described is the one which he had in his mind when he wrote the words in the third book. Moreover, the passage in the eighth book does not assert or neces- sarily imply the reconstitution of the affairs of Heraklea. Agis with an army from Dekelea collects forced contributions from those parts, but Heraklea is never mentioned. All the circumstances mentioned in the third book in connection with the future history of Heraklea had supervened before the year 419 ran out : for in the fifth book Thucy- dides mentions a severe disaster to the Herakleots inflicted on them by the native races of the neighbourhood, and relates how the Boeotians deposed the Spartan harmost for misgovernment, and occupied the place themselves, neither of which things they could or would presum- ably have done had the population remained anything like as large as it was in the first days of the settlement. It seems therefore unnecessary to assume a reference to the events mentioned by Xenophon. The passage does not demand the presumption of the possession by the writer of a knowledge of events later than 419, and is therefore not necessarily a passage late in date of composition.''' In iv. 12 Thucydides, speaking of the sea attack and attempted landing on Pylos made by Brasidas, remarks on it as an exceptional instance of the Athenians fighting on land, and the Lacedaemonians attacking from the sea. He then goes on to say that ' the main reputa- tion of the Lacedaemonians at that time was as landsmen especially, and for superiority in the field, and of the Athenians as seamen and for superiority on the sea.' 1 Herbst, Philologus, 38. ^ The passage in iii. 98. 4, in which Thucydides says that those Athenian hoplites who died in Demosthenes' disaster in Aetolia were the best Athenians who died iv tio iroXi/iij) Ti}Se has already been discussed in the previous chapter. The same is the case with regard to iii. 113. 6, which relates to the disaster to the Ambrakiots at Olpae and Idomene. The same is also the case with regard to the passage iv. 48.5, relating to the end of the oTd ^t ^lovvalav evdis Tuy ianKuv. The city Dionysia fell on 8-13 Elaphebolion, i.e. 25-30 March 421. There is therefore a discrepancy of fourteen days between the two dates. This suggests very strongly that when Thucydides wrote v. 20 (i) he did not know the date of the treaty. E. Meyer (Forschnngm) suggests that the peace was concluded at the time of the Dionysia, but came into effect fourteen days later. This explanation is not very conclusive, and, in any case, it does not account for Thucydides having given two different dates, in passages which are practically contextual, without any explanation of the apparent (sic) discrepancy. ' Steup admits that v. 21-24 cannot have belonged to the original first part of the work : so does Kirchhoff. But he thinks that Chapter 25 shows traces of having originally followed directly upon Chapter 20. I cannot see the traces. Also, as I have pointed out, the words at the end of Chapter 24 must be taken as intended to be the formal conclusion of the second draft of the history of the Ten Years' War. 486 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY three and the first part of chapter twenty-four ^ was probably not available to Thucydides until after his return from exile ; and the actual wording of the last part of the twenty-fourth chapter ^ shows it to be of a late period of composition.' SUMMARY. It now remains to sum up the results of the discussion of the indi- vidual sections and subsections of this first half of Thucydides' history. It has been argued on general grounds that there was a first draft of this part of the historian's narrative, written as a history of the Ten Years' War, and of the Ten Years' War only, and probably published as such. In considering the sections individually, special evidence of the existence of such a first draft has been drawn from individual passages in them. It has also been argued that this first draft was revised, but in the limited sense that additions were subsequently made to it. There is no traceable evidence of revision in the sense of rewriting. It may be interesting to tabulate the results arrived at, and thus to attempt to arrive at some conception of the original form which the history of the Ten Years' War took at Thucydides' hands. ' Chapter 23, being a copy of an original document, must be of late date, probably of even later date than its context, which must have been added to the pre-existing history of the Ten Years' War when Thucydides came to write the story of the Years of Peace, under what will be shown very shortly to have been a second phase in his conception of the war. The context may therefore have been written before his return to Athens ; but the text of the alliance was probably obtained after his return. ^ 6 TpCjTOs irdXefios. * Professor E. Meyer {Gesc/i. des Alt.) does not regard v. 21-24 as a late unrevised interpolation into Thucydides' history, as is maintained by Steup (Thuk. Studien), and Kirchhoff (Th. u. s. Urkundev material). Vide also E. Meyer, Forsehungen, ii. 283 ff. It will be seen that I do not regard these chapters as unrevised, or as an interpolation. I regard them as an addition to the original history of the Ten Years' War, written as a link between the story of that war and the story of the events which followed it. SUMMARY 487 01 eij • g J3 J^ ° S2 I- O ^ y3 OS § — -^ ^ ■ --. m O O I N S " I ^ I O^ .« 3. 3-1 -^a -0 g 13 -*-< 1^ =: ii -^S-g-5 ^s (A X) O >3 o CX^ in -r-^ 0.4 o i >=■ a. ® •s g e a 55 " ri .".2 ^ 3 a. J'S'H :P^ !" ■^' "^-H 's=ffi-s e " a u So B *i> in ^ti* tn 6 i «3 C- ^ M 488 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY a. . !=• . o a " TO b J; ; "a -C S J' ■ Uj ) . ST c !W<2 K ■= ? c t- -^ (u ca •? 11 § o ■£ :t; -g ^A " ^ ■? C ^ -3 ■©-J3- .2°c • C , 3 2 ^ -& . c^ C/J • c ^ c lU \§^ O 9- ^ sS ^ HI ' S h^ .2 >•« bS ^ ^ ^ s- r- O t^ O : c o o Me O u t lis l«i ji: j3 s Tl n rt T3 « j: j3 -£ -S " ■" Si .S '^ .-2 S S t: o U] (b OJ o. a, (b OJ w 'a rx: in i2 C E fji a MlZl s C „^ o rt a rf J= ,». -= O ■ It SUMMARY 489 O S " S -S S O >. S 3 C "■ -" "-M _rj "^i G s form , thou Curse en P u* a a 1) C w] -, '^ ^S-^ C rt 2 « 0) -S ^cid I mini 1=1 -11^ ii ^-^i&4 490 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY i> . to b ti "^ G -1. " rt ^ ri ^ S* ^ «1S " ^ ^ •a D'c '-' S a * JJj" J o « S «13 -§^^ 3 . :.c 5^ 11 = o 3 !^ 2 U 3 •e «■*, s ^ 3 O Q, a C .u oT ^ fls ■°M a. J- M Sic; :-=-'& ij . 8 cS® V S • B s -8 ^^^ ■ H,^ ■ (U — - ■ ■5 1 -s 'Uf W -o M g 000 492 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY d o |S O- o 3 'c/J ^ jl! ; S =« * 3 P-l -g c« - 3=0 b a. 3 O O-S ■ w " ba o '^ b «>- :^~ o -p 4) (u wo S 0) — PL, t> a. ,-w UJ 00 ^ §? lU • t -S rC 1 to s •§ S. o o m _ _J_, TIm c4 3 =^ a >, OS I- "I 1^ , M tfl • tu "tn a "in c-j % -a U to rt b 13 ?^ ti'g w . s=- 4J . V . eo •* h >—^ !>^ • >,~ .-a >^ td a^ c^ .i rt • rt ,iJ Si ^ > N 6 o N M in 00 _> > > • II SUMMARY 493 It will be seen that in some cases the motive for the insertion of these interpolated passages is clearly marked, and in all cases may be con- jectured with probability. In the first book occur certain passages which refer to the verissitna causa of the war,' of which that dealing with the history of the Pente- kontaetia contains references of late date. Apart from other circum- stances which have been already discussed, this would suggest that this conception of cause was formed late in the historian's mind. There are also two passages ^ in the same book which refer to the general phases of the Dekelean War. The historian, in his desire to emphasise that view of the unity of the whole war as against current opinion on the subject, has inserted them in the introductory part of his history in the guise of plans which were operative throughout the whole war. He has even inserted a discussion of them in a speech attributed to Perikles, who died sixteen years before these designs came into operation. The interpolations in the first book are inserted, therefore, with in- tent to support opinions which the historian knew to run counter to views held by his contemporaries, — opinions which he himself cannot have formed until late in the whole period of warfare. That he held different opinions at an earlier period the whole of the rest of the first book shows. It is probable that a premature death robbed him of the opportunity of bringing the original draft of the book into line with the later ideas. From the beginning of the second book until the end of the first half of his history, the added or interpolated matter is not distinguished by so marked a purpose as that of the first book. The passages which upon substantial grounds may be attributed to a late date of v/riting are inserted for one of three reasons : either incidentally in order to mention interesting information of late date, as for example with regard to Archelaos' work in Macedonia,' or to give an account of the subsequent development of all -important factors in the history of the time, as for example Athenian statesmanship,'' and araiTK ;'' or in order to insert documentary evidence which was not available to the author at the time at which he wrote the original draft of his history, as for example the texts of the One Year's Truce ' and of the Peace of Nikias.' The last part of the text ' of this half of the history was added with a view to connect the story of the Ten Years' War with that of subsequent events. There has already been occasion to remark that there is no traceable instance in this half of the history of rewriting of a previous text. Re- vision in that sense does not appear to have taken place. It may indeed be suspected that a oSe has been added here and there, either 1 Viz. i. 23 (6) ; 88-118 (2). 2 i. 119-124; 142-143 (2). ' ii. 100 (2). *■ ii. 65 (5)-(l2). 5 iii. 82. 83 [84]. ^ iv. H8-119. ' V. 18-19. ' V. 20 (2)-24. 494 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY with intent to narrow down the signification of a word with respect to the duration of time implied by it, or in order to introduce such inter- polated matter as the actual texts of treaties. There are also cases in which it may be suspected that elaborated passages have been sub- stituted for more brief or more general statements.' It might indeed be argued that rewriting is very difiScult, and, if carefully done, almost impossible to detect, and therefore that the fact that it is not apparent is no proof that it is not in the text. But in the present instance its ex- istence is rendered improbable by the survival of several passages which do not accord with the historian's later view of the oneness of the war. No one who has studied this earlier half of Thucydides' history can deny its greatness as a piece of historical literature. But it is manifestly incomplete in the sense that its author never gave it that final form which he would have given it had he lived. Yet, in spite of this, the extant work is confessedly one of the greatest studies of humanity which have been given to the world. E.g. the second Corinthian speech, and the text of the One Year's Truce. THE FIFTH BOOK 495 IX THE FIFTH BOOK V. 25-116 The date of the composition of this portion of Thucydides' work is a question of peculiar difficulty. That it is of late date, all critics are agreed. Nor has it ever been doubted that it is later in composition than the mass of the text which precedes it. The difficulty is to de- termine its date relative to Books vi. and vii, and also to Book viii. The absolute lateness of its composition is suggested by certain general characteristics. It does not, like the first, second, third, fourth, sixth, and seventh books, contain any speeches, though in the Melian Dialogue it possesses what is in all probability a sketch of the argu- ments to be inserted in two speeches which the author intended to elaborate at a later stage of composition.' It appears to present Thucydides' method of writing in a middle stage. The pure narrative of the book is brief, and at times little more than annalistic in style, so much so as to suggest that this element in it has never been brought by the author to its final elaboration. It is of course, the case that this brevity may be due to the fact that the period with which it deals, though reckoned by the historian to be a part of the war, was nevertheless not a period of active warfare, and could therefore be treated with brevity by one who had chosen the war, and the war alone, as his subject. Yet it cannot be said that this explanation is sufficient to account for a certain lack of elaboration which the text displays ; and it is far more probable that that is due to the author never having had the time to bring his work to completion. A third peculiarity of the section is that it contains within it two original documents, the treaty between Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis,^ and that between Sparta and Argos,' which, though they have their parallels in the texts of the One Year's Truce and the Peace of Nikias in the first half of the history, are not by any means of the same direct importance as those documents in the story of the war. ' Vide p. 423 of this volume. There are various passages throughout the book which, had Thucydides attained his complete method, would have suggested the insertion of speeches. E.g. 36 (i), 50 (5), 55 (i) (brief report of speech in the third person), 61 (2), 69 (l) (brief report of three speeches). ^ V. 47. 8 v. 77. 496 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY Still it is possible to exaggerate the significance of the presence of these two texts in this later part of the fifth book ; and after all they are in a sense called for by their context, and apposite to the general story of the war. Their bearing on the date of the composition of the book may be left for later consideration. Whenever this part of the fifth book was written, it may be assumed that it was not written within the period with which it deals. Even the most conservative critics do not postulate such a manifest improbability. Their general tendency is to place its composition after 404. It is, indeed, hardly conceivable that an author who had been engaged in a history of the war up to the Peace of Nikias, and had moreover confined himself with peculiar strictness to the narrative of the war qua war, should in the years succeeding the Peace of Nikias have regarded the period as part of the war whose history he had set himself to write. He shows most distinctly that he never had any idea of writing a general history of the age in which he lived. The con- ception of these years as part of the period of warfare can only have come to him when the war between Athens and Sparta broke out again. The meagreness of narrative which has already been spoken of as characteristic of this section is most probably due to the fact that it was not until after those years were past and gone that the historian began to make even a collection of the materials for their story. When Thucydides formed a conception of the three wars as one, he conceived of it as a war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. But throughout the whole of the period covered by this section, and, indeed, of the period of the events related up to the hundred and fifth chapter of the sixth book, he had never the opportunity of thinking of an undertaking which proceeded from the Peloponnesians, or even of speaking of the Peloponnesians as exercising any activity against Athens. No one could possibly speak of that time of manifold combinations and dissolutions as part of a war between the Pelopon- nesians and the Athenians.' He came indeed to include the Sicilian Expedition in the history of that war which he eventually regarded as one. Did he consequently begin the collection of materials for the years succeeding the Peace of Nikias shortly after the Sicilian Expedition opened, or at least during its progress ? There certainly was a time in Thucydides' life when he did not regard the Sicilian Expedition as part of the Peloponnesian War, and that time extended at least up to the period when he was engaged in writing the account of the expedition.^ He clearly shows, by the language which he uses in reference to the recommencement of the war by Sparta, that, from the beginning of the Sicilian Expedition up to that time, he regarded the Athenians as ' Cf. Ullrich, Beitrdge. 2 q^ Cwiklinski, Hermes, xii. VIEWS ON THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION 497 having only one war on their hands, and conceived of the Peace of Nikias as having remained unbroken until just before the time of which he is speaking.i Even when the Athenians do get a second war on their hands, it appears in the author's narrative up to vii. 28 as parallel with, that is to say as distinct from, the war in Sicily. A further remarkable fact is that if Thucydides' narrative up to the sixth book be read, there is not, except in ii. 65 and iv. 81, a word said about the great Athenian War in Sicily, and these exceptional chapters are obviously of very late date, — after 404, as the conservative critics would say, a conjecture which may be accepted as prob- ably true. But if there remain any doubt as to the view which Thucydides originally took with regard to the Sicilian Expedition, it must be dis- pelled by what the historian says in this very section which is under discussion. Of the period of ' peace ' he says : " ' And for six years and ten months they (the Athenians and Lacedaemonians) refrained from invading one another's territory, yet outside that territory they did the utmost injury to one another during this time of unstable armistice. Afterwards, indeed, being forced to break the treaty made after the Ten Years' War, they resumed open hostilities.' In the succeeding chapter he argues for his own views as to the length of the war.^ He urges that it is a mistake not to include the interval of peace * in the war. But a remarkable point is that when he comes to reckon up the various parts of the whole twenty-seven years of warfare he gives them as follows : — {a) The first or Ten Years' War : ' {b) The treacherous armistice : {c) The war subsequent to the period of armistice. He never mentions the war in Sicily. It is also to be noted that all of this comes from a chapter which contains the most explicit evidence of having been written after the fall of Athens, for not only does the writer expressly refer to it,* but he also emphasises the fact that he lived throughout the whole war.^ Thus the views expressed or implied in this chapter are the views he held in the last years of his life. It may perhaps be suggested that he includes the Sicilian Expedition in the years of uncertain peace. The conclusion would seem natural enough had the historian been less precise in the statement of his views. He says that the interval during which there was no open war and no formal infraction of the treaty was six years and ten months.* It is evident that this period begins with the conclusion of the Peace. The Peace was concluded in April 421. A period of six years and ten 1 Cf. vi. 105. 2 V. 25 (3). ' v. 26. * TT]v dm fUaov ^ifi^ajtv, later called (3) virdirTos ivaxoix^- ' v. 26 (3). ' y- 26 (i)- ' v. 26 (5), iwepiuv Si Sii. ttoct^s airov (i.e. toC roKi/iOv). * V. 25 (3). 21 498 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY months from that time would end in February 414. That raises a difficulty, because there is absolutely no event of that date which is mentioned or can be regarded as a formal infraction of the treaty. It has been suggested that there is a copyist's error in the extant number of months,! ^nd that the number should be four not ten.^ If so the end of the period would be August 415. This suggested reading brings the close of the period to a date near to but not identical with that of the starting of the Sicilian expedition which Thucydides says left Athens ' about midsummer,' i.e. nearly two months before August 415.' A more complicated proposal* would substitute cVi eirra ctt; xai rea-a-apas /i^vas for the six years and ten months of the extant text. This would bring the end of the period to the date of the events related in vi. 105, of which Thucydides says : ' The Athenians went with thirty ships to the relief of Argos, thus breaking their treaty with the Lacedaemonians in the most overt manner.' There can be little doubt that these events are those to which Thucydides refers in v. 25, because he there says that the period mentioned was that during which 'they abstained from invasion of each other's territory,'* and in vi. 105 he emphasises the fact that, from the Peace up to that time, the Athenians, though they had made raids upon Peloponnese, had not touched Lakonian territory. ' Now, however,' he goes on to say, 'under the command of Pythodoros, Laispodios, and Demaratos they landed at Epidauros Limera, Prasiae, and other places, and plundered the country.' Is it then to be assumed that there had been a twofold mistake in the text, and that 'six' years should be 'seven,' and that 'ten months' should be 'four'? The assumption is not unsupported by the facts, and yet in itself is so complicated as to be always a matter of extreme doubt. Still it is the most probable solution of the difficulty. But the noteworthy feature of the matter is that whether the six years and ten months of the extant text or the proposed amended reading of seven years and four months be assumed, the end of this period of ^ By Ullrich. ' i.e. 5' has been misread as Sha. ' vi. 30. * Proposed originally by Kriiger {vide Clinton, J^asii Hell., 414). ^ Herbst [Philologus, 40) gives an explanation of the ' six years and ten months' of v. 25, which seems at first sight plausible. He suggests that the end of the period must be taken to be the decision of the Spartan Assembly mentioned in vi. 93, to consider the question of the fortification of Dekelea, which had just been suggested lo them by Alkibiades. That would fall about February 414. But in v. 25 Thucydides expressly says that the period to which he refers was one during which Athens and Sparta refrained from invasion of one another's territory. It may be, of course, the case that Thucydides' language in v. 25 is inexact, but it must, on the other hand, be admitted that it bears a curious resemblance to the emphatic language of vi. 105. But, even if Herbst's explanation were accepted, the termination of the period would fall much later than the beginning of the Sicilian expedition. SECOND CONCEPTION OF THE WAR 499 unstable truce comes in the middle of the Sicilian expedition. It seems, then, that Thucydides so late as 404, which is the earliest date which can be attributed to the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters of the fifth book, still regarded the Sicilian Expedition as outside the area of the war properly called the Peloponnesian War, for of the three divisions of the Twenty-seven Years' War, which he gives in the twenty-sixth chapter, the division between the second and the third falls in the middle of that expedition. That he originally regarded the Sicilian War as a war by itself, distinct from the Ten Years' War, seems certain. It would be strange had he done otherwise. But the Dekelean War suggested a connection between itself and the Ten Years' War ; and, consequently, he came to represent the so-called Years of Peace as a direct link, not between the Ten Years' War and the Sicilian Expedition, but between the Ten Years' War and that war — the Dekelean War — which had first sug- gested to his mind the unity of the whole war period. Even his history of the Peloponnesian War, in the form in which it has come down to the modern world, has a main plot and a subsidiary or side-plot. The main plot is the story of the Ten Years' War, of the Years of Peace, and of the Dekelean War. The side-plot is the Sicilian Expedition, a plot unconnected with the preceding part of the drama, but working into the main plot of the play, because it shares with the incidents of the Years of Peace the position of a causal antecedent to the Dekelean War. If this hypothesis be true, then it is evident that the fifth book must belong to a later period of composition than the major part of the sixth or seventh, and indeed its general form, as compared with that of the two succeeding books, would suggest that such was the case. Its unfinished state is in strong contrast to that of the sixth and seventh books, which are in respect to the elaboration both of the narrative and of the speeches the most finished continuous section of Thucydides' work. Whatever date may be assigned to the actual writing of the text of this section, there is reason to believe that the historian began the collection of his materials for it before his exile came to an end, that is to say, before 404. Important parts of the book are without doubt founded upon information obtained from the Peloponnesian side. The conception of the unity of the Ten Years' and Dekelean Wars must have come to him before the Dekelean War and his exile came to an end, and, consequently, the necessity of linking the two together in a literary and historical sense must have been present to his mind at a time when Peloponnesian sources alone were readily available to him. In some passages the Peloponnesian source is very clearly marked in the text, as in the case of the account of the campaign of Mantinea. A division between those parts of the section which probably did, and those which probably did not, come from Peloponnesian sources leads to the following result : — Soo THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY Peloponnesian Sources. Non-Peloponnesian Sources. Chh. 27-31. Chh. 32 (I). Skione-Chalkidic source. 32 (2)-4I. 47-83. 42-46. 84. Possibly Athenian source. Athenian source. IIS (I). 115(3)- 116(1). 114. "5(4). ii6(2)-{3). Of doubtful origin are 32 (1) Deles, 115 (2) Pylos. Of no definite historical source is 85-113. The matter which appears to be derived from Non-Peloponnesian sources amounts to very little of the whole section, and all of the information which is here set down as coming from a probable Athenian source might conceivably have been obtained from sources in Peloponnese. The activity of Alkibiades is concerned with foreign politics, and that which Thucydides tells about him may have been derived partly from Argive sources, partly from those Spartan ambassadors who were the victims of the diplomatic trick which he played upon their embassy. Of the substantial narrative of this part of the fifth book there is no evidence which must of necessity be assumed to be due to information obtained by the author after his return from exile. In the case of certain of those parts of the book which have been attributed to Peloponnesian sources, the provenance of the historian's information is more clearly marked than in others. The account of the campaign of Mantinea' is derived from one who was at least an eye-witness and probably a participant in events.^ It has been suggested that Thucydides himself was an eye-witness of the battle ; but there is nothing in the narrative to render such a conjecture probable.3 Of the story generally it may be said that its Spartan origin is very clearly shown when it is compared with the narrative of the same events as told by Diodoros,* who writes the tale from an Argive point of view. It is possible that this informant was in a position to supply Thucydides with copies of the Spartan documents contained in the ' V. 63-75. ^ Cf. V. 66 (2), (lidXiirro 5?) AaKeSai/xipioi. es i e/ii/xviji'To iv Toirif rif Ktupif Again the informant cannot or will not give the number of the Lacedaemonian dead : cf. v. 74 (3), oi5t«;' 5e xo'^f'^'' M^" ?'' t?;!' dX'/ideiai' irvO^aOai, iXiyovTo di irepl TpiaKoaiovs airodaveiv. ' Forbes (Introd. to Thucydides) refers to iiiiv-i) of v. 68. But it is mote probable that the word merely expresses the impression made upon his informant. * Diod., xii. 79. MELIAN DIALOGUE 501 book : and it is probable that he supplied the narrative of events following upon the campaign of Mantinea.' There are three original documents in this part of the fifth book, the treaty between Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantinea,^ and the two treaties between Sparta and Argos.' From what exact locality they were obtained is a matter of another consideration ; but this at any rate is clear, that they were not obtained from Athens, but from copies existent in Peloponnese. That being so, it is possible or even probable that Thucydides obtained them before 404. But in estimating the date of the composition of this section of the history the so-called Melian Dialogue must be taken into account. Of its form enough has been already said.* There remains to be con- sidered its matter and its setting in the history. It is philosophical in form and dramatic in setting. It is a concrete example of that sophistic argument that might is right, which is discussed in the first book of Plato's Republic. There has already been occasion to notice that Thucydides, by the clearest implication, did not approve of the empire of Athens over her subject allies. He had reached the 1 V. 76-81. Kirchhoff thinks that he did supply the narrative in Chapters 76, 78, So, 81, but not the documents of 77 and 79, because, he says, certain statements on which the narrative rests are inconsistent with the terms of the documents. I confess that I do not see any very striking discrepancy. The only difficulty is as to the identity of the allies of Argos referred to in Clause 3 of the treaty in Chapter 79. If Athens, Elis, and Mantinea had ceased to be her allies, what allies remained to her ? Still the provision may refer to some small towns of the Argolid region. Kirchhoff has similar views with regard to the alliance of v. 23 and the text which follows it. He thinks that, as in the case of the context of Chapters 77 and 79, there is reason to believe that the context was composed before the exact terms of the documents were known to Thucydides. Several of Kirchhoff's arguments have been disposed of by Professor E. Meyer {Forschungen, 1899) ; but with regard to one it is possible to doubt whether Kirchhoff is not right. It is as follows: — Thucydides says that in 420, when Sparta concluded a separate alliance with Boeotia, she knew she was wronging Athens : elprifiinov &vev a\\-^\uv /iijre ttivivSecrda.1 Tif n-iyn iroXe/xeiv (v. 39 (3) ), vide also V. 46 (2) : KaSdirep etpi/To dvev aW-rjXav //i/Sefi ^vn^aliiuv. This clause, he says, is not found in the text of the treaty. Professor E. Meyer suggests that the reference is to the clause of the alliance (^v Si d-gaadi'Tes . . . ru irdXee). But this clause does not appear on any reasonable interpretation to cover the case. Boeotia was at the time formally at war with Athens, and had not surrendered Panakton. It may be that Thucydides' language in v. 39 and v. 46 is inexact. For my own part I am not convinced by Kirchhoff's argument, though I admit that it is not by any means groundless in the particular case of v. 39 and v. 46. Steup and Herwerden think the passages imply a gap in the text of the alliance as published by Thucydides. I would suggest that the defect is far more probably existent in the narrative. Steup regards the passages as glosses, as Kirchhoff himself seems to have done at one time. It may be so; but the gloss is a conjecture which is mostly incapable of proof or disproof. s V. 47. ^ V. 77 and 79. ■* Vide p. 423. S02 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY culminating point of its history. Never was the power of Athens greater than at the moment when she attacked Melos, and it is in relating the story of this moment that he takes the opportunity of disclosing what he evidently believes to be the real theory upon which that power rested. Quite apart from the clear, expression of his views on the empire contained in his reference in the first book to the revolt of Naxos,' the historian discloses enough of his general views of the lives of individuals and of the state to make it beyond doubt that he could not have had any sort of sympathy with the argu- ments which in this dialogue he puts into the mouth of the Athenians. Whatever judgment the modern world may form as to the justifiability or otherwise of the empire, it is evident that Thucydides intended in his history to condemn it emphatically and implicitly. Specious justifi- cations of it are put into the mouths of the Athenians on occasions when they dare not tell the naked truth, as in their speech at the first Congress at Sparta, and in the speech of Euphemos at Kamarina ; but on occasions on which they are under no such constraint, as in the debate on Mytilene or in the Mehan dialogue, the historian puts into their mouths arguments which would be inevitably condemned by the Greek political conscience. It is not here a question whether the Athenians ever actually made use of such arguments, or whether the doctrine that might is right was or was not evolved by Greek philosophy from the circumstances of the Athenian empire. That which is apposite to the present considera- tion is that Thucydides did attribute those arguments to the Athenians in a history which he wrote for the instruction of the Greek world generally, rather than for the peculiar people of which he was himself a member. Moreover, the setting of the dialogue is one of the most strikingly dramatic features in Thucydides' history. There is a tendency abroad to exaggerate the influence which the drama and its literature exercised upon him as a writer. In point of fact he seems to have been a man rather of the coming than of the passing age, of the age of philosophy rather than of the drama. At the same time he would not have been an Athenian of the fifth century had he not possessed the dramatic instinct, an instinct which in this particular instance comes to light in a very marked way. The dialogue represents in words the culminat- ing point of that political v^pir which was to meet with such terrible nemesis in the Sicilian Expedition, and the historian has purposely depicted the sin at its utmost in a passage which immediately precedes the account of the punishment which overtook it. The Melian dialogue may be unhistorical in form and to a certain extent in matter. It is indeed extremely unlikely that the speakers who are represented as taking part in it used such language or expressed such sentiments on the particular occasion. Still, though it may not be history properly so-called, ^et it is a piece of dramatic history which throws some hght 1 i. 98. DATE OF COMPOSITION 503 on the date of the composition of this part of the fifth book. It is part of the tragedy of the fall of the Athenian empire, and like a passage of Greek tragedy, it assumes in the audience an ignorance of the denouement of which, as the writer well knows, the audience would have full knowledge. ' The possibility of our empire coming to an end does not depress us ; ' for a ruling race like the Lacedaemonians are not the people to be cruel to those they conquer,' — very significant words to those who knew the sequel. There can be little doubt that the dialogue was written after the fall of Athens, in that its intent was to contrast the spirit of the Athenians before disaster overtook them with their position when the last act of the war came to an end. It is probable too that the whole section of the history was written subsequent to 404.^ The writer had, it would seem, made collections for it before the war came to an end, but did not proceed to put it into literary form before the war was over ; and, even then, never had time to bring it to literary completeness. As far as the difficult question of the date of composition relative to Books vi. and vii. and Book viii. is concerned, all that can be said is that certain considerations already adduced point to a date subsequent to the composition of Books vi. and vii. But the ques- tion as concernmg both these two books and also Book viii. cannot be decided until the form and matter of Books vi.-viii. has been examined. ' v. 91. ^ vi. 25-H6. S04 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY X THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH BOOKS These books are devoted almost exclusively to the account of the Sicilian Expedition and of the events in Greece accessory to it.' ' How much this is the case the folio wing analysis will show : — Events in Greece Events in Greece Events in Sicily. relating to the arising from the Other Matter. Expedition. Expedition. vi. 2-6. Colonis- vi. I. Athenian de- vi. 7. Events in ation of Sicily. signs. ArgosandMace- 8-25. Origin and donia. discussion of the expedition. 32 (3)-4i. De- 26-32 (2) Prepara- 95. Sparta and bate at Syra- tions : the Muti- Argos. cuse. lation of the Hermae. 45-52. The War Start of the Ex- 105. Definite in Sicily. pedition, 42-44. breach between Voyage to Sicily. Athens and 53. Alkibiades (54-59- Digres- Sparta. recalled. sion on Harmo- dius and Aristo- geiton.) 62-88 (6). War 60-61. Excite- in Sicily. ment at Athens about the Muti- lation of the Hermae. 94. War in 88 (7)-93- Syra- Sicily. cusan embassy in Greece. 96-104. War in Alkibiades at Sicily. Sparta. vii. 1-8. War in vii. 10-16. De- vii. 18-19 (2). vii. 9. Athenian Sicily. spatch received Fortification of attack on Ara- from Nikias. Dekelea. phipolis. 21-25. War in 19 (3)-20. Rein- 26. Devastation Sicily. forcements to Sicily. of Lakonia. 32-33 (3)- War 31. Reinforce- 27 (i)-(2). The in Sicily. ments to Sicily. Thracians and Mykalessos. 36-87. War in 33 (3)-(6). Rein- 27 (3)-28. De- Sicily. forcements to Sicily. kelea. 35. Reinforce- 29-30. The ments to Sicily. Thracians and Mykalessos. 34. Affair in the Corinthian Gulf AUTOPSY AT SYRACUSE 505 Out of the 192 chapters contained in them, only four are concerned with matters not directly connected with or arising from the expedi- tion. In form and matter those chapters are mere parentheses in the text. The books themselves are, in respect to form, perhaps the most highly elaborated part of Thucydides' work. Their narrative, indeed, tends at times to an exaggeration of style such as is not found in the narrative prose of the other books of the history. There can be little question that Thucydides expended peculiar pains on their composi- tion. Any judgment as to their date of writing must be preceded by a consideration of the sources from which the information contained in them was derived by the author. Perhaps the most remarkable information which is given in them relates to the topography of the siege of Syracuse. It is particularly detailed. It is also peculiarly correct, in the judg- ment of those who have examined the site with special reference to Thucydides' narrative.' It is so detailed and so correct that it would be counter to the probabilities of the case to suppose that it is second- hand. It is in fact almost certain that Thucydides visited Syracuse at some time in his life. It has been suggested that he was present during the siege. It is, however, very unlikely that he would take the risk of capture by the Athenians ; and it is much more probable that he went to Sicily very shortly after the siege came to an end. The peculiarly graphic nature of his narrative of events suggests very strongly that his information was obtained from persons in whose minds the recollection of those events was recent and vivid. It is evident, too, that he got information from the Athenian side not merely with regard to that which happened in Syracuse, but also in reference to that which took place at Athens both before and during the time of the expedition. Some if not all of this must have been derived from Athenian prisoners. The last of the Athenians to arrive in Sicily were those who came with Demosthenes and Eurymedon. From the time when that expedition starts Thucydides has nothing more to tell of events in Athens or Greece generally, except the tale of the fight in the Corinthian Gulf, a tale which is linked with that of the voyage of the reinforcements ^ by the fact that the Athenian commander at Naupaktos^ had asked Demosthenes and Eurymedon for the loan of additional vessels, a request to which they complied by sending him ten ships. This was while Demosthenes was on the Akarnanian coast.* He and Eurymedon must have remained on the coast, and later at Corcyra, for some time, and the battle in the Corinthian Gulf may well have taken place'' and ' Cf. especially B. Lupus' work on Syracuse. I spent a fortnight at Syracuse ia the summer of 1899, '^^^ was particularly struck with this feature of the narrative. 2 vii. 34. = vii. 31. * Cf. vi. 31 {5) and 33 (3). ° vii. 34. 5o6 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY the news of it have reached them before they left Corcyra. Thucydides' chronology in these chapters is not very precise.^ All this makes strongly for the probability that the Athenian in- formation in these books was not obtained after the historian's return from exile, but from Athenian prisoners at Syracuse. There is no trace of its having been supplemented by information obtained after 404. It is also clear that Thucydides obtained information from the Syra- cusans, and the conjecture of his visit to Syracuse is supported by the references he makes to its inhabitants,- — references which are in the language of one who had had personal relations with them. Up to a certain stage of his narrative, indeed, his sympathies appear to be on their side.^ A noticeable feature of these books is their marked detachment from their context. There is very little reference to previous or later events. In fact they are like a monograph inserted in a history, rather than a part of the history itself^ Were they originally in- tended to be a monograph on the Sicilian Expedition ? Such may be the case, though the conjecture is not to be taken as implying that the original intention abided with the author up to the end of the period within which he was engaged upon their composition. The time did come when he resolved to make them a part of his history in its later and enlarged form. That would necessitate their being attached to their context by literary links. But the links are singularly slight, merely a reference in the first chapter of the sixth book to the fact that the events about to be related occurred 'in the same winter' as those narrated in the last chapter of the fifth book, and to the earlier expedition to Sicily under Eurymedon and Laches. The last words of the seventh book bring the story of the expedition to a close with an abruptness which is probably in purposed dramatic contrast to the previous narrative. The eighth book naturally takes up the story at the point at which the seventh leaves it. It has been shown in the preceding chapter that Thucydides, when he wrote the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters of the fifth book, at a date at least as late as 404, did not regard the Sicilian Expedition as a part of the Peloponnesian War. If that was his view so late as 404, when the Dekelean War had run its course, it is almost certain that when the expedition began, and during the whole of the time during which it was in progress, he regarded it as separate and distinct from the Ten Years' War.^ ' Cf. vii. 34, irepl Tim avrbv xp^''0''i which is vague, and may refer to the events of Chapter 33, or to a period going further back than those events. ^ Cf. especially vi. 69 (i) ; vii. 56 (2). ' Compare Xenophon's account of the Tyranny of the Thirty in his ffeUeniia. * Cwiklinski (Hermes, xii.) says that the original conception of the Sicilian Expedition as a separate and distinct war was a natural one, inasmuch as there was no geographical connection between it and the war in Greece, MONOGRAPHIC CHARACTER OF BOOKS VI., VII. 507 But there are other indications that the history of the Sicilian War was originally intended as a separate work. The first chapter is pro- bably a late addition, made when the idea of attaching the history of the expedition to the story of the ' Peloponnesian ' War occurred to the author. There then follows an archseological introduction corres- pondent to that archffiological introduction to the Ten Years' War, which seems to have been part of the original draft of the history of that war. It looks very much as if these chapters on the earlier history of Sicily were intended to be introductory to a separate and distinct work. The non-Sicilian and non-Athenian matter contained in these books betrays sources similar to those which Thucydides must have drawn for the period from 424 to 421. It is all attributable to information obtained either from the Peloponnesian side or from the author's neighbours in the parts Thraceward. If these conjectures as to sources be well-founded, they lead to very important conclusions as to the date at which Thucydides composed those books of his history. It is commonly assumed that the remark which Thucydides makes at the beginning of the first book with regard to the collection of his materials as the war progressed holds good for all his history. But, as far as the Sicilian and indeed the Athenian information in these two books is concerned, it is impossible to believe that such is the case. The information cannot have been collected at a time actually contem- porary with the events to which it relates. The very earliest date at which the historian could have got details of the great expedition would be after the final catastrophe in 413. That leads to other im- portant considerations. The information was practically all of it available in one spot — that is to say in Syracuse, and, therefore, it need not be assumed that it took him a long time to collect it. But it is contrary to all probabiUty, that, inasmuch as the information was not available to him before 413, he began his composition of the story of this particular war before 412. Nor can he have proceeded far with his work before the war in Greece began again in such a form as to suggest to the historian's mind its continuity with the Ten Years' War. The Dekelean War cannot have gone far on its course before the suggestion of continuity occurred to him : and, if so, there are reason- able grounds for supposing that he had not brought the story of the Sicilian Expedition to completion before the new idea and new view of the war presented itself to his mind. It will be seen later that certain special characteristics of these books support the conjecture which is here made on general grounds. But this new view did not, at any rate up to 404, take the form of a either previous to or during the course of the expedition. Nor had the Syracusans taken part in the Ten Years' War ; nor, again, was the help which they sent to the Peloponnesians after the expedition very important or very successful. 5o8 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY conception of the Sicilian War as coming in the direct chain of causa- tion of the whole Twenty-seven Years' War. That is shown by his language in the two opening chapters of the second part of his history. Up to the very end of the whole war he regarded the Sicilian Expedition as, historically speaking, more separated from than con- nected with the war in Greece and the Aegean region. There seem indeed to have been three phases in his conception of the relation of the Sicilian War to the war near home. The three phases are : — (i.) A conception of it as separate and distinct from the Ten Years' War, and as not connected with the contemporary war in Europe. (2.) A conception of it as a side-plot of the war in Europe, causally connected in a vague sort of way, not so much with the Ten Years' War as a whole, but with that war in Sicily which, though part of it, was an isolated part of it, and causally connected at its other end with the Dekelean and* Ionian Wars. But this conception of the Sicilian War arises from a new conception of the continuity of the Ten Years' and Dekelean Wars. The occupation of Dekelea did not sug- gest to him a continuity between the Ten Years' War and the Sicilian Expedition. (3.) A conception of it as part of the whole Twenty-seven Years' War, though to what extent it is very difficult to say. The references made to the expedition in the second and fourth books, though probably the latest references to the expedi- tion which he ever wrote, are not worded in such a way as to suggest that the writer regarded that war as part of the main plot of the Peloponnesian War. For the sake of making the discussion which here follows as clear as possible to the reader, it will be well to anticipate one of its main con- clusions. The twenty-eighth chapter of the seventh book marks the change from the first to the second phase of his conception. Up to that point Thucydides is writing under the influence of the earlier view. It will also be argued that certain very definite elements in the books were added to them under the influence of the second and third phases of his ideas. The question of the date of composition is further dependent upon certain obvious considerations ; — (i) References to previous events ; (2) References to later events ; (3) specific uses of the word jroXf^ior. This section of the history is contrasted with that dealing with the Ten Years' War by the fact that there are no references in it which betray an ignorance of the later course of the war. This may imply, of course, either a late date of writing, or a careful revision of a pre- viously written text. I say ' and ' because Thucydides uses the two names in two distinct senses. THREE STAGES OF CONCEPTION 509 The various references to previous' events are not in themselves very striking in relation to the question of the date of composition. They have, however, one noticeable feature. Though the events or circumstances have all of them been mentioned in the previous books, yet the historian does not make any reference to the fact. Had the references been made at a time when the historian had the idea of attaching the history of the expedition to his previous work, it might have been expected that he would have indicated the fact,' in some one, at least, of the four cases. The references to circumstances or events later than the expedition are singularly few as compared with the references of a similar charac- ter which are found in his narrative of the Ten Years' War. In vi. 15 he speaks in a very striking passage of the later career of Alkibiades and of his unrivalled talents as a commander, and of the disastrous consequences which resulted from the Athenians dispensing with his services in consequence of their suspicion with regard to his personal ambition. The reference cannot be to his recall from Sicily, because he had not up to that time had any opportunity of showing his brilliant qualities as a commander. The passage cannot, therefore, have been written before the disaster at Notion ; indeed its language suggests ' vi. I. Eurymedon and Laches in Sicily. vi. 31. Expedition of Perikles to Epidauros and of Hagnon to Potidaea. vii. 18. Reference to various circumstances in the Ten Years' War. vii. 71. The Spartans at Pylos. (I do not include the passages in vi. 12 and vi. 15, because I do not think that they have the significance which some writers have attached to them : e.g. Cwiklinski (Hermes, xil.) says that they introduce Alkibiades to the reader as though Thucydides had not had any previous occasion to mention him ; and he therefore argues that they show that these books were intended as a separate work. This argument would support my own view, and I should certainly adopt it, if I regarded it as sound. But a comparison between that which is said of Alkibiades in this chapter (vi. 15), and that which is said in the previous reference to him in v. 43, could only be used as an argument for the view put forward by CwikHnski and others, did the references overlap with respect to information. In point of fact they refer to different parts of Alkibiades' life ; and therefore suggest that Thucydides, when he wrote one of these passages, had in his mind that other which he had previously written. In V. 43 there is reference to his youth and high descent ; to his philo- Lakonian tendencies before the Peace of Nikias, and to his anti-Lakonian tendencies thereafter, and his consequent advocacy of alliance with Argos. In vi. 12 is put into the mouth of Nikias an attack on him and the ex- travagance of his private life. In vi. 15 his political opposition to Nikias, the magnitude and nature of his ambition, his extravagance of life, lawlessness of habit, his military talents and later career are mentioned. There is absolutely no repetition in the sixth book of the information which has been given in the fifth ; in fact the brief reference to his life in the later book is a continuation of that which has been told the reader in the fifth.) ' Cf. the 5 Trpln-efibv not SeS^Xairai of v. I. 510 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY that the writer had at the time of writing knowledge at least of the catastrophe at Aigospotami. Except those passages in which the whole Twenty-seven Years' War is spoken of as one, there is no other passage in those two books which contains a definite and unmistakable reference to events later than the expedition. It is now necessary to consider those passages in which the Sicilian War is spoken of as distinct on the one hand from the contemporary war in Greece, and on the other from the previous Ten Years' War. It is noticeable that in these two books Thucydides never speaks of the Sicihan War and the contemporary war in Greece as one ; though from the twenty-eighth chapter of the seventh book onwards there are expressions which imply the view that they were both part of the one prolonged war.* But more than this : up to that chapter of the seventh book the wars, when they are mentioned, are either referred to as separate wars or even in a sense contrasted with one another. This is all in accord- ance with the view which Thucydides still held when he wrote the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters of the fifth book. The contemporary war in Europe is referred to as 'the war over there,' that is, ' the war in Greece,' in three passages, in all of which it is regarded from the Sicilian point of view ^ From the same point of view it is spoken of as tov avrov noXc/iov.^ From the same point of view again it is called ' the war with the Athenians.'* In another passage it is spoken of from the Athenian point of view as 'the war from Dekelea.' ^ Moreover, speaking of the results of the occupation of Dekelea, Thucydides says that 'what pressed hardest upon them was the fact that they had two wars on hand at the same time.'^ In all these passages it is the separateness rather than the connec- tion of the two wars which is assumed by the writer. In not one single passage is there to be found any hint of their unity, and this in spite of the obvious fact that there arose a certain causal connection between them. If so, it maybe asked, why did not Thucydides recognise the fact in some marked manner? The answer is probably to be found in his account of the re-opening of the war in Greece. He traces no causal connection whatever between it and the war in Sicily.^ It is entirely due to Athens having taken up the cause of Argos against Sparta, and, though this is related in a chapter immediately succeed- ing the one in which he describes the voyage of Gylippos, nothing whatever is said which could connect the two incidents with one ' I leave out of consideration the passages which refer to the dating of the years of the war, vi. 7, vi. 93, and vii. 18, because these references are of a special nature, which will have to be considered hereafter. ^ rbv iKCi irdXefioy, vi. 34 (10), 36 (12) ; vii. 25 (27), Bekker. ' vi. 88 (33), Bekker. ■> vi. 73 (15), Bekker. = vii. 27 (30), Bekker. « vii. 28 (28), Bekker. ' vi. 105. SEPARATENESS OF THE WAR IN SICILY 511 another. It is important, therefore, to notice that, whatever connec- tion he may have seen between the subsequent development of the war known as the Dekelean War and the war in Sicily, he did not ascribe the origin of the war in Greece to the war in Sicily, a fact which tends to support that which has been already maintained, namely, that he did not even in 404 regard the Sicilian Expedition as part of the Twenty- seven Years' War. A time did come when he altered his view ; but it came very late in his life. The references to the Ten Years' War up to that twenty-eighth chapter of the seventh book not merely regard the war as distinct from the Sicilian War, but, in two instances at least, speak of it as separated from that Sicilian War by a period of peace. In vi. 6 Thucydides says that the people of Egesta reminded the Athenians of the treaty made with Leontini 'in the time of Laches and the former war.'' Does the historian mean by 'the former war' the war in Sicily between 427 and 422, or the Ten Years' War? Judging from his use of the expression d nporepos noXc/ios in a later passage,^ he means the Ten Years' War ; and, if so, its separateness from the Sicilian War is here implied. In the speech of Nikias in the debate on the expedition, he is repre- sented by Thucydides (vi. 12 (i)) as saying : 'We must remember, too, that it is but recently that we have recovered to some small extent from a great pestilence and a great war.' In this case the interval between the Ten Years' War and the Sicilian Expedition is regarded by impli- cation as a period of peace. In vii. 18 he contrasts the feeling with which the Spartans regarded their breach with Athens at the beginning of the Ten Years' War,^ and that with which they regarded their action in once again invading Attic territory and occupying Dekelea. Here the contrast between the two wars is peculiarly emphasised. But though the narrative up to vii. 28 shows evident traces of having been originally written under the first phase of Thucydides' concep- tion, that is to say, when he regarded the Ten Years' War and the Sicilian Expedition as wars by themselves, neither of them connected with that war in Greece whose beginning is related in vi. 105, yet there is also evidence that passages were added to the pre-existing text which were written under the second phase of his conception, when he had come to regard the war in Greece as causally connected with the Ten Years' War, but still regarded the Sicilian Expedition as distinct from both. These passages imply, in other words, the view that the so-called years of Peace were really part of the Peloponnesian War, that is to say, that the war in Greece and the Aegean from 414 onwards was linked by a chain of causation with the previous Ten Years' War ; but they also contrast the war in Sicily with the Peloponnesian War. ' ToO irporipov TroXifiov. 512 THE COMPOSITION OF THUCYDIDES' HISTORY Before taking the references themselves, it may be well to discuss briefly the nature of the contexts in which they respectively occur. They are found in the first and the twenty-sixth chapters of the sixth, and in the twenty-eighth chapter of the seventh book.' AH these .passages occur in contexts which are retrospective. Those contexts state considerations which are indeed suggested by circum- stances mentioned in the regular course of the narrative in imme- diate juxtaposition to them, but refer to matters which were anterior in date to those circumstances, and which are themselves of the nature of general considerations. These references come, therefore, in passages which are such as an author might well insert in a revision or second draft of a narrative. The first chapter of the sixth book may have been modified twice before it attained its present form. The date with which it opens must have been inserted when the author came to conceive of the expedition as part of the whole war. But for the present purpose the significant words are : ' they (the Athenians) were taking on hand a war not much inferior in scale to that against the Peloponnesians.' There is a noticeable similarity in the wording of this passage and that of the passage in the twenty-eighth chapter of the seventh book. In that chapter he says : ' and they were taking on hand in addition a war in no wise inferior to the pre-existing war from Peloponnese.' The striking similarity between the two passages,^ not merely in matter but in actual wording, suggests strongly that the same idea was in the author's mind when he wrote each of them, and, in particular, that the ' Peloponnesian War ' in the one means the same as the ' Peloponnesian War' in the other. Did the first of these two passages stand by itself, then this war might be identified with the Ten Years' War. But the second passage is so worded that the reference must be taken to mean a 'Peloponnesian War' which was not merely previous to, but also continued to exist up to, the time of the Sicilian Expedition.^ ' vi. I, 6tl oi5 7ro\X(^ rivt, VToSe^artpov irdXefiov cLifjipoOvTO fi rbv Trpbs IleXo- Trovvr](rlov!. vi. 26 (2), apTi, S' Ai'eiX^0« i] iriXis ia\iTT]v drb ttjs vbaov koI toC JwexoOs TToXifiOV . . . vii. 28 (3), Kal wb'Kefiov oiSh ^Xdcrirw irpouavdXovTO tov irpbrepov inripxovTos /vi. 1, KO Ivii. 28, I , Kal Tr6\e/j.ov oidiv iXicffw. {vi. I , contd. , AvripovvTO ^ rhv trpis HeXoironvTjo'iovs. vii. 28, contd., irpoaavelXovTO tov itpkTepov iirdpxovTos ix lli\oTrovvriv yap iv a^ii/xaTi . . . 'dir^qXav tjjx nokiv. vi. 26 (2).' apTi 6' aveiKrii, 319, 335, 44^ it ^^l- Eretria, Perikles sends a kleruchy to, 201. See also 79, 97. Euboea, earthquakes in, 431. See also 79, 161, 178, 311, 345, 473i 475. 482- Eukles, 29, 41. Eurymedon, Athenian admiral, 27, 307, 309. 353. 354. 366, 367. 368, 505. 509. 522. battle of, significance of the, 167 ; effect on the economics of Attica, 179. See also 164, 174, 176, 181, 203, 254, 293, 298. Euxine, the, controlled by Persia, 159. See also the Pontus. Flank attacks, rarity of, 270 ; dreaded by the Greeks, 271, 275. Fleet. 5ee 'Naval Warfare.' Food supply in ancient Greece, 61, 70 et seq. See also 74, 87, 91, 125, 247, 248 ; in Peloponnese, 76, 80, 82 f. , 187, 324 f. , 327, 356, 358, 360, 382 ; its influence on Greek warfare generally, 89 ; the pohcy of Themistokles, 159 ; Persian control of the Euxine supply, 159, 187 ; Egyp- tian and Sicilian corn, 160, i85, 187 ; Athens controls the supply for Greece, 187 et seq. ; the interests of Corinth and Athens, 324 ; of Attica, 67 ei seq. , 77 et seq., 83, 89, 90, no, 114, 125, 149, 154, 155. 159. 204. 292. 293, 311, 324, 327, 328 f. , 330, 335, 452 ; of Boeotia, 62 ; of Arkadia, 80 ; of Elis, 80 ; of Thessaly, 90, 91 ; of Sparta, 80, 326 ; of Asiatic Greeks, 75, 87 ; of Athenian allies, 92. Fortifications rarely attacked in Greek warfare, 83, 246 ei seq. ; list of fortified towns in Athenian empire, 287; Piraeus and Athens fortified, 290 ; of Megara and Nisaea, 291 ; Alkibiades recognises the value of, Hid. Four Hundred, revolution of, 166, 232, 526, 528, 529, 530. Funeral Oration, 21, 206, 208. INDEX I.: NAMES AND SUBJECTS 539 Gela, congress of Sicilian cities at, 367. See also 363, 364, 367, 369. Gelo, 76. Gorgias, 21, 51, 365, 404. Greek mercenaries employed by Cyrus and Alexander, 256. Greek race, its relative position in the world, 4. Greek warfare, the principles which influ- enced, 242. See also ' Warfare ' and ' Naval Warfare. ' Greece, nature of the land of, 58, 213 ff., 243, 244 ; its cultivation, 59, 244 ; popu- lation of ancient and modern, 59, 60, 213 etseq. ; conditions of daily life, 61 ; wine and olive trade of, 70 etseq. ; corn trade, 74, 82 ; trade with Pontus, 77 ; slavery and prosperity, 73, its general economic position in the fitth century, giei seq. ; the evidence of the ' kStfoXav HoXiTe^a, 146, and of the Ilepi IIpoo-- blav, 148 ; political state of, during the years following 446 B. c. , 197 ; effect of the nature of the land on the system of warfare, 243; the north-west region, its importance in the beginning of the Ten Years' War, 346. See also ' Eco- nomic conditions,* Gylippos, 289, 290, 308, 510. Halieis, 184, 355. Harmodios and Aristogeiton, 426. Hektemoroi, 118. Hellenika, Xenophon's, 389 etseq. (Ap- pendix). Hellespont, its economic importance to Greece, 71. See also 35, 74, 75, 119, 159, 161, 328, 372, 376, 382. Hellesponto-Phylakes, 77. Helot Revolt, the, 234. Helots, their numbers, 217 ; employed under Brasidas as Hoplites, 263. See also 183, 215 etseq. ; Ch. VIII., 238, 375. Heraclea Trachinia occupied by the Spartans, 344 ; Athenian objection to its foundation, 475. See also 470. Hermione, 355. Hermokrates, 19, 367, 529. Hiero, 80, 142. Himera, 363, 366, 433. Hipparchos, 16, 329, 424 et seq. (Archon), 134. Hippias, 129, 131, i33f.. 232. 424- Histiaea, kleruchy sent to, 201. See also 79, 178. History, the good and evil in, 209 ; some peculiarities of Greek, 212 ; the materials for, 241 ; paucity of references to the art of war, ibid. Hollow square adopted by Brasidas, 272. Hoplites the mainstay of Greek armies, 245, 253, 255, 262 ; their fighting forma- tion, 267 ; depth and weight of the phalanx, 269 ; their weak points, 272 ; vulnerability from light -armed, 276; versus cavalry, 279 ; surpassed by the Roman legionary, 281 ; employed as sailors, 311, 312. See. also 204, 247, 248, 251, Ch. XI., 277, 280, 290, 475. Hoplite census, 163. Horses (for cavalry), 277. Hysiae (Peloponnese), 222, 431. Idealism, 97, Ch. vii. fassim. Idomene, 26, 260, 353, 460, 465. iKplov, 46, 47. Imperialism, Thucydides on, 33, 166, Ch. VIII. passim. Individualism in Greek politics, 158, 171 et seq. Infantry versus cavalry, 279. Invasions of Attica, the, 333 et seq. lonians of Asia, 67f., 75, 134, 135, 143, 174, 187, 228, 287, 296, 380. Ionian War, the, 40, 86, 238, 310, 311, 320. 382, 389. Ionian Revolt, 295. Iphikrates, 274. Isagoras, 134, 137, 232. Isthmus, war in, Ch. XVI. pt. ■^. See also 225 f., 233, 326, 332, 340. Italian Greeks, 364. Italy, 43, 142, 358. Ithome, 254, 288. Javelin men, employment of, 276. Kallias, Peace of, 203. Kamarina, 363, 365, 367. Karia, 380. Karyae, 222. Kekryphalea, 184, 188, 295, 299, 302, Kephallenia, 184, 349, 352, 358, 359. Kimon, his relationship to Thucydides, 44 ; his coalition with Aristides, 162 ; his attitude towards the economic situa- tion, 166 et seq. ; his aggressive Persian policy, 185 ; his naval tactics, 297. See also 15, 16, 17, 126, 136, 154, Ch. VI. passim, 173, 177, 191, 293, 329. S40 THUCYDIDES Kinadon, 238. Kithaeron, Mt. , 337. Klazomenae, 287, 380. Kleisthenes, 127, 134; his constitution, 137 ; his reforms, 139. Kleomenes, 134, 232, 233. Kleon, speech of, at Athens, zielseq. ; dis- liked by Thucydides, ibid, and 32 ; his incapacity, 31 et seq. : his relations with Demosthenes, 356 ; falls in action, 379. See also 18, 170, 207, 372, 481. Kleruchs, the, 83, 134, 146, 177 178, 201. Klimax route, 222. Knemos, 37, 272, 275, 276, 348, 350. Knidos, 380. Kolophon, kleruchy sent to, 201 ; its capture and recapture, 308. See also 178, 380, 431, 433. Kos, earthquake at, 431, 432. Krissaean Gulf, 350. Kyllene, 302, 351. Kylou, story of, 407, 449. Kynossema, naval action of, 313. Kythera taken and occupied by Athens, 357. Sue also 28, 29, 82, 217, 237, 327, 33S. 357. 358, 359. 382. 484- Kytinion, 343. Kyzikos, naval battle, 313. See also 287, 35°- Labour, free and slave, 96 «/ seq. {see also 'Slavery)'; comparative cost of, 128; state of the market in Perikles' time, 179. See also Ch. IV. passim, 123, 128, 131, Ch. vu. passim. Laches, 365, 366. Lad6, 295. Lakonia, coast of, ravaged by Asopios, 355. See also 217, 326, 357, 359. Land question in Attica in the sixth century, 114. Lampsakos, 287, 380. Laurion, the profits from the mines of, 151 , 157- Lekythos captured by Brasidas, 378. Lemnos, klerucliy sent to, 201. Leontini, Athenian treaty with, 364. See also 361, 363, 365, 368, 431, SIX. Lepreon and Sparta, 222. Lesbos, 178. Leukas, 25, 303, 346. Light-armed troops, employment of, un- suitable at first, 244, 245 ; causes of in- troduction of, 259 ; the TreXrdffrijs, 260, 266 ; use of, generally, in Greek war- fare, 274 et seq. Limnae, 291, 347, 431. Lokri, the three attacks on (B.C. 426), 363, 364, 366, 369. Long walls, 291, 477. Lysander, 5 ; his designs and policy, 229. See also 173, 220. Macedonia, cavalry, 277, 279 ; war in, Ch. XVIII. See also 7, 37, 42, 43, 99 f., 267, 281, 332, 473. Mantinea, battle of, 38 ; Sparta's policy towards, 221. See also 54, 8i, 216, 222, 238, 264, 265, 269, 270, 271, 280, 393, 500. Manufacturing states of Greece, 91. See also JO, 100, 113 ff. , 150. Manuscripts, 56 f. Marathon, 126, 127, 129, 133, 134, 141, 162, 232, 254, 269, 270, 271. Megakles, 115, 119, 121, 136. Megara, her manufacturing importance, 78 ; and the corn trade, 325 ; strategi- cal importance, 336 ; a danger to .\thens, 341 ; attacked by Demosthenes, 342 ; the oligarchy estabUshed in, 477 ; passes to, 338. See also 28, 29, 37, 49, 75, 91, 184, 189, 191, 19s, 196, 224,226, 234. 235, 236, 291, 299, 317, 410, 412. Megarian decree, its influence on the Ten Years' War, 322, 327 ; object of, 328. See also jy, 190, 236 f., 325 f., 328, 329, 340,411. Melian Dialogue, the, 436, 501. See also 19. 33. 34. 170, 207, 495. Melos, objects of the attack on, 356. See also 88, 178, 286, 288, 502, 517. Memphis, 284. Mende, the operations at, 378. See also 88, 276, 286, 287, 288. Mercantile class, evolution of the, 123. Mercenary soldiers supplied by Greece to foreign armies, 80, 93, 256 ; causes of the introduction into Greek armies, 258 et seq. ; employment of, by Sparta, 263, by Athens, in Sicilian expedition, 264 ; mercenary sailors, 310. See also Ch. X. passivi, 311, 319, 406. Messana [Messen6], the attacks on (B.C. 425), 366 ; sea fight off, 305. See also 363. 364. 367. 369- Messenia, 217, 231, 238, 326. Messenians, 184, 234, 260, 283. Methana taken by Athens, 357. See also 358. 359. 382. 482. INDEX I.: NAMES AND SUBJECTS S4I Methone defended by Brasidas, 355. See also 27, 184. (Macedonia), 77, 189, 483. Methymna, 286, 289. Metics, the, 158, 310. Middle classes, 95, 121, 125. Miletos and the corn trade, 187. See also 75, 286. Military system, see ' Armies ' and ' War- fare.' Miltiades' relationship to Thucydides, 15, 16. See also 134, 135, 162, 173. (the elder), 75, 119. Minoa, 286, 288, 342. Moderates, 115 f., 130, 132, 166, 36:. Molykrion, 346. Mykalessos, 265, 433, 515. Mylae captured by Athens, 366. Mytilene, its economic condition, 91 ; its criticism of the invasion of Attica, 335 ; fortified, 380; its revolt and suppres- sion, 381. See also 87, 207, 286, 287, 288, 310, 311, 379, 408, 466. Naukratis, 64. Naupaktos, the occupation of, 1S3; its strategic importance, 347 ; Phormio's fleet at, 350, 351. See also 49, 184, 230, 286, 302, 304, 306, 326, 340, 343, 358, 359. 382 f. Naval policy of Themistokles and of Aristides compared, 163 ; of Athens, 291 et seg. warfare, 292 ei seq. ; three sets of tactics, 294 ; battle of Lad^, 295 ; Arte- mision, 297 ; Salamis, ibid. ; merits of Si^KTrXovs and •FeflTrXow compared, 296; the boarding tactics of Kimon, 297 ; naval tactics more liable than military to rapid changes, 300 ; Phor- mio's tactics in the Corinthian Gulf, 301 ; his speech, 303; dt'oo-Tpo^iJ, 303 f. ; the sea fight off Corcyra, 304 ; the action off Messen^, 305 ; the fights at Syracuse, Hid. ; effects of the Sicilian disaster, 309 ; personnel of the Athenian navy, 311 ; blockade running, 340 ; privateer- ing, 344, 359; superiority of Athenians as seamen, 476. See also Ch. XIV. passim. Naxos, subjugation of (by Peisistratos), 119. See also 33, 34. 98, 17°. I74. 177. 178, 207, 283, 502. (Sicily), 80, 363, 367. Neodamodeis, 216. Night attack on Syracuse, 515- Nikias, his orders before the battle off Corcyra, 308 ; his final words before the Sicilian expedition, 309 ; letter of, 515. See also 19, 28, 29, i6o, 264, 273, 280, 509, 522. Nikias, The Peace of. See ' Peace of Nikias." Nikostratos, 28. Nisaea, capture of, by Demosthenes, 342, 358, 484 See also 26, 28, 29, 286, 288, 290, 340. 344. 389. 477- North-West Greece, the war in, Ch. xvii. See also 326, 331, 332, 448. Notion, 380, 509. 'OSe 6 7r6Xe/zos and 6 7r6Xejttos S5e ; Ap- pendix v., 422, 445, 493 f., S14. Oeniadae, 347 ; its great importance to the western trade route, 348 ; is forced to join the Athenian alliance, 349 ; its part in the war, 354. See also 40, 184, 283, 351. 358. Oenoe, 286, 333 ; its strategic value, 339. Oenophyta, 184, 235, 336. Oenolria, 81. Oesyme, 376. Oinobios, 30, 41, 46, Oligarchy, its conflict with democracy, 106, 115. (See also 'Aristocracy' and ' Democracy.') Olive trade of Greece, 70, 150, Oloros, father of Thucydides, 15, 17, 40. Olpae, Thucydides' presence at the battle of, 26, 352 ; results of Demosthenes' victory, 357. See also 260, 271, 341, 349. 356. 460, 465- Olympia, 38, 54, 55, 142, 319, 320, 447. Olynthos, 373, 374, 378, 481. One Year's Truce, 459. Orchomenos (Arkadia), 222, 286. (Boeotia), 343, 431. Oropos, 79, 311, 334, 337 f. OCtos, 456, 461. Oxyrhynchus papyri, 48. Pallene, 118, 121, 439. Paralii (Moderates), the, 115 et seg. ; are the mercantile and manufacturing class, 121 ; under the leadership of Megakles, 130. See also 132, 137. Parnes, Mt., 334. Paros, 135. Particularism (State), 158, 165, 173. Party politics between B.C. 510 and 490, 134- 542 THUCYDIDES Patrae, 291, 301, 470. Patriotism and party in Greek politics, 108, 172. Pausanias, 229 ; and the Curse of the Brazen House, 450. See also 173, 220. Peace of Nikias, the, 358, 484, 518 ; date of, 485. See also 6, 18, 37, 227, 234, 237. 32s. 358, 368, 379. 382 f., 388, 392, 393ff-, 412. 415. 469. 481 f., 493. 497. 531- 'Peace,' the years of, 393 f., 397, 469. Appendix ix., xi., 531 f. Pediaki (Ohgarchs), the, 115 323. 325. 326, 336, 362, 394, 408, 409, 412 ; One Year's Truce, 459, 480, 493 ; Athens and Rhegion ; Athens and Leontini, 361, 363 f. ; Peace of Nikias, vide 'Peace'; Athens and Sparta, 393; Sparta and Argos, 38, 495, 500 ; Athens, Argos, Elis, Mantinea, 38, 52 ff., 495. 5°°. ' Tribute, ' the, theory of, 203 ; Perikles' use of, 329. See also 153. Trireme, structure of the Athenian, 295 f. 297, 312. Troezen, 222, 355, 482. Trojan War compared to the Pelopon- nesian, 419 f., 421. Tyranny, 257. Vine culture, 70 ; promoted by Peisis- tratos, 120. See also 88, 150. War of B.C. 480-479, 233. Warfare, nature of Greek, 244, 383 ; in- fluenced by the armour, and by the nature of the land, 244 ; paradoxes of, 24s ; ineflScient besiegers, 246, 383 ; campaigning season, 249 ; Persian and Greek methods compared, 251 ; Spartan and Athenian progress in the art of, 254 ; hoplites, 245, 253, 262, 267 et seq. \ light-armed troops, 259, 260, 266, 274 et seq. ; Greek Commanders' fears of taking risks, 261 ; Greek armies were citizen armies, 256, 261 ; introduction of mercenary troops, 264 ; the hoplite phalanx, 267 ; the paces of the advance (jSaS^f and dp6/j.Ci>), ibid. ; cavalry, use of, 277 et seq. ; night attacks, only one case recorded, 515. Western Policy (of Athens), 142, 163 f., 198, 293, 299, 322 f., 362. Wine trade of Greece, 70. Zakynthos, 184, 349, 352, 358. Zeugitai, 311. 2 M 546 THUCYDIDES INDEX II: AUTHORS Aelian, 392. Aeneas, 12. Aeschines, 392 (Appendix). Aeschylus, 164. Andokides, 391, 392. Antyllus, 45. Apollodorus, 12, 14, 71. Archelaus, 15. Aristophanes, 35, 77, 78, 81, 194, 200, 334. 392. 416, 477. Aristotle, 12, 13, 95, 139, 153, 154, 219. 'A$. IIoX., 112, 121, 128, 146 ff., 176, 183, 426, 530. Ch. 13. 69, 115, 116, 137, 138, 139, 194. i5. 118, 119. 20. 137. 24. 103, 144, 166, 168, 177, 178, 180, 183, 192. 25. 164, 166, 168, 177, 178. 26. 177, 178, 193, 194. 27. IS4, 177, 178, 185. 33- 79- 43- 154- 63. 14- Athenaeus, 71, 77. Bauer, A. , on the authenticity of Section 6, 453 ». nde also 403, 439. Bekker, 16, 234. Beloch, on the population of Ancient Greece, 213 ». See also 90, 98, 105, 199, 201, 217. BoCKH, 90. Boehm, 398. Breitenbach on Thucydides' method, 399, 428, 433. See also 388, 389, 390, 398, 417, 424, 427, 444, 530. BUSOLT, 142, 234. Caesar, 216. Cicero, 13. Classen, 14, 16, 53, 234, 398, 400, 529. Clinton, 498. Cornelius Nepos, 143, 392. Crawley, 65. Croiset on Thucydides' history, 401, 428 K. See also 16, 40, 53, 121, 398, 529- CURTIUS, 398. Cwiklinski on Thucydides' history, 400, 426, 428, 433, 442. See also 398, 496, 506, 509, 524. Demetrius of Phaleron, 13. Demosthenes, 73, 76, 83, 90, 150, 154, 160, 199, 392. DlDYMUS, 43, 44. DiODORUS an annalist, not a historian, 13. 38, 49> 74. 76. 80, 81, 94, 98, 105, 143, 148, 163, 178, 179, 282, 283, 284, 363. 365. 392, 431. 466, 477. Soo- Diogenes Laertius, 390. DIONYSIUS of HALIKARNASSOS, 12, 13, 81, 141. DUNCKER, 178. EpHORUS, 12. EUPOLIS, 207. Euripides, 42. Forbes on the date of the first Section, 433. See also 38, 474, 500. Friedrichs on Thucydides' method, 401, 469. See also 35, 149, 398, 430, 444, 447- Gernet, 90, 105, 158, 160. Gilbert, 12, 16, 41, 45, 46, 54, 55. Greek Historians [Modern], 61, 89, 107, 157, 180, 205, 315, 328, 387, 484. Grote, 398, 477. Hall, 64. Hekataeus, 71. Hellanicus, 71, 417 ff., 423, 424, 441 U 533- Helmhold on the date of Thucydides' work, 398, 400. liNUJiA. 11 : AUlJrHJK.S 547 Herbst on Thucydides, 401, 420, 423, 428, 430 ; on the use of SSe, 455 ; on the unity of the Ten Years' and Deke- lean Wars, 470 ». See also 55, 398, 417, 419, 422, 440, 465, 471, 472, 474, 475, 476, 477. 498- Hermippus, 16. Herodotus compared with Thucydides, 2 ; on Kleisthenes, 137 ; the character of his Greek History, 241 ; comparison with Polybius, Md, ; his remarks on Greek and Persian modes of warfare, 251 ; on the pace of the Greek advance {Sp6iMp), 269 ; his account of the naval fight at Lad^, 294 ; his prejudice against Themistokles, 451. See also 44, 84, 90, 92, 94,112, 113,138, 141, 147,215,250, 267. k. Ch. Book. Ch. 295- 250. 75- 74- 76. 76. 296. 81. 142. 297. 297. 29. 74- 253- Hesiod, 62, 74, 214. Hill, 105, 148. Holm, 234. Homer, 417, 424. HUDE, 234. Hyperides, 150. Inscriptions, C./.A., 76, 77, 79. J28, 148, 178, i8g, 201, 325, 361, 362, 483 ; C.I.G., 76, 80, 81 ; Lydian, 81. Ion of Chios, 22. IPPEL, note on Thucydides' history, 398, 400. Isokrates, his evidence on the economic condition of Greece, 92. See also 61, 78, 80, 93, 95, 175. 392- JEVONS, 128. junghann, 402, 404. Keil, 392. Kenyon, 56. Kiel on the date of Thucydides' history, 400. Book Ch. I. 17- 75. 85- 59- iiS."7- 154- 80. II. IS4- 80. III. 6. 71- 44. 230. IV. 46. 85- 127. 8S- V. 31- 98. 66. 137- 77- 140. 82. 70. 94. 7S- 97- 251- 3ook Ch. VI. 15- VII. 9- 32. 102. 147. 158. VIII. II. 26. 62. 84. 86. 90. IX. "S- 117. KiRCHHOFF, his views on Thucydides, 400, 501 n. See also 38, 53, 54, 55, 398, 399, 401, 482, 484, 485, 486. KOHLER, 417. Kratippos, 43, 44, 52S. KrUger, 390, 498, 529. Ktesikles, 90. KwTTptaris, 398, 400. Leske, 391, 398. Lupus, 39, 40, 505. Lysias 104, 158, 191. Maecellinus, his biography of Thucy- dides, 12; on the place of Thucydides' death, 44. See also Ch. i. passim, 51. Marchant on the position of 6Se after the noun, 458. See also 454, 456, 459. Maximus Tyrius, 392. Melanthius, 15. Meyer, Professor Eduard, his criti- cisms, 391 (Appendix), 401, 421, 433, 444, 529. See also 39, 136, 150, 155, 185, 194, 398, 424, 425, 447, 472, 485, 486, 501. MUNRO, 127, 233. Murray, 12, 38. NiEBUHR, 529. Pausanias, 15, 41, 44, 46, 54, 59, 72, 81, 256, 283, 338, 419. PhILISTOS, 12. Philochorus, 194, 199 f. Plato, 95, 392. Pliny, 41. Plutarch not a historian but a bio- grapher, 105 ; on Perikles' economic policy, 177. See also 128, 157, 200. Aristides, 141, 145, 162, 163, 164,392. Kimon, 15, 43, 44, 45, 145, 163, 166, 185, 283, 297 f. Lysander, 392, Nikias, 12. Perikles, 96, loi, 145 f., 177, 178, 182, 186, 194, 201, 203, 205, 206, 392- Solon, 66, 112, 120, 129. Themistokles, 69, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145- POLEMON, 45, 46. Pollux, 453, Polybius, the character of his writings, 240 ; his account of the battle of Sel- lasia, 268. See also 32, 71 f. 548 THUCYDIDES Praxiphanes, his biography of Thucy- dides, 12, 42. Rangab^, a. R., 41. Rutherford, 48. SCHONE on the views of Ullrich, 433. Schwartz on Thucydides' method, 401; on the date of his writings, 421 n. See also 389, 398, 419. Stahl, his views about Thucydides' work, 400. See also 398, 529. Stesimbrotos, 22. Steup, his views on Thucydides' history, 399, 421, 423, 428, 444, 469 ; on the authenticity of v. 17, 484. See also 14, 24, 25, 398, 432, 439, 440, 485, 486, 501. Strabo, 178, 482. Stuart Jones, 234, 405. SUIDAS, 391. Theopompos, II, 12, 13, 400, 528. Thucydides, nature of his work, i el seq. , 391 ; compared with Herodotus, 2 ; sub- ject and object of his work, 8 ; his ethics, 9, 208 ; his biography by Marcellinus, 11; by Praxiphanes, 12; neglect of his works till 70 B.C. , 13 ; date of his birth, 14 ; his father Oloros, 15 ; his relation- ship to Miltiades, 15, 16, and to Kimon, 44 ; his gold mines in Thrace, 17 ; autopsy, 19, 376, s°°i 5°Si Ch. i. passim ; as to his having heard the speeches of Perikles, Cleon, etc., 21 et seq. ; as to his presence at the siege of Plataea, 24, and with Phormio or Demosthenes, 25 ; elected General (424 B.C.), 27 ; as to his being in the expedi- tion to the Megarid, 29, and in the campaign of DeUon, ibid. ; the cir- cumstances of his, exile, 30, 35 ; Ap- pendix VII. , 526, 530, 533 ; his attitude towards Kleon, 35 f. ; on Imperial- ism, 33, 170, 208 f. ; an admirer of Perikles, 34, and of Brasidas, 36, 37 ; his account of Mantinea, 38, and of the Sicilian expedition, 39 ; recalled from exile, 41, 526, 530, 533 ; in Thrace, 43 ; place of his death, ibid. ; his tomb, 45, 46, 47 ; date of his death, ibid. ; the reliability of the extant text of his works, 48 et seq. ; influence of the drama, 50 ; the influence of rhetoric, 51 ; philosophy, 50, 316 f. , 529 ; style. 50, 51, 375 f.; documents in the Fifth Book, S3 ; on the inscription at Olyrapia, 55 ; on the economic con- dition of Attica, 68 ; his account of Perikles, 97, and of the Periklean ideal democracy, 169 ; his account of the funeral oration delivered by Perikles, 206 ; Thucydides' attitude towards Perikles and his policy, 207, 209, 210 ; his military history, 241, 250, 299 f., 315 ff., 346, 364; on the employment of light-armed troops at Sphakteria, 272, and at Syracuse, 275 ; value of cavalry exemplified, 277 ; examples of Solygea and Mantinea, 280 ; on the sieges of the Peloponnesian War, 285 et seq. ; the siege of Ithome, 288, and Plataea, 289; on the sea fight between Corinth and Corcyra, 299, 308, and Phormio's two battles in the Corinthian Gulf, 301 ; his treat- ment of the story of the Ten Years' War, 315 ; his views as to the causes of the war, 322 ; economics, 324 ; on the invasions of Attica, 335 ; curious omissions in his history, 358, 361, 364 ; his account of the Athenian operations in Sicily [B.C. 427-423], 365 et seq. ; as strategos he saves Eion, but fails to save Amphipolis, 375; on the results of its capture by Brasidas, 376 ; his history must be con- sidered incomplete, 388 ; Ullrich's criticisms, 387, 391, 398 ; Professor Meyer's, ibid. ; his view of the one- ness of the war, 393 et seq. ; Chron- ology, 396, 403, 439, 468 ; conception of the war, 393 ff., 408 ff., 412, 414 f., 475, Appendix ix-xill ; list of his critics and their views, 398 et seq. ; the question of an editor, 402 et seq. ; the composi- tion of Book I., 405 etseq. ; his ' Archaeo- logical ' introductions, 417 et seq., 507 ; on the parallelism of the Trojan War, 419, and of the Persian War, 422 ; the Melian Dialogue, 436; the Pentekon- taetia, 443 ; his views on Themistoklcs, 450 ; on his expressions &Se 6 ttoXc/hos and 6 7r6Xe/tos 8Se, 454 et seq. ; his ac- count of the years, 424 to 421 B.C., 481 et seq. ; summary of the discussion as to the first half of his history, 486 et seq. ; as to the date of the composition of his Fifth Book, 495 et seq. , 499 ; historical sources, 52f., 481, 500, 501, 505 f.. INDEX II: AUTHORS 549 ThUCYDIDES — continued. 507. S17 I his account of the Sicilian expedition, 504 et seq, ; he treated it originally as a separate war, 518, 521 ; but subsequently embodied it with the Ten Years' and Dekelean Wars, 526, 531 ; the unfinished nature of the last book, 528 ct seq. Book. Ch. Page. I. I, 18, 388, 39S, 399. 405. 414, 454, 487. 67, 405, 462 f., 487. 84. 13- 14. 15- 17- 18. 19. 23- 24. 29. 31- 32- 35- 37. 41- 42. 43- 44- 49. S3- 55- S6. 57- 58. 59- 60. 6r. 62. 64. 65- 66. 67. 68. 71- 73- 75- 76. 77- 80. 81. 86, 87. 424, 84. 456. 421. 41S. 456- 424. 253, 420. 423, 424. 253. 405. 415. 422, 423, 424, 456. 487- 405, 422, 423, 424, 487. 16, 405, 423, 424, 487. 40s, 424, 456, 487. 19, 405, 419, 427, 437, 487, 529- 41, 405, 412, 41S, 421, 424, 429, 433, 456, 487, 493. 405, 433. 439. 444. 456, 488. 299. 259- 21. 259, 409. 21, 462. 409, 462. SI2- 462. 395- 299, 308. 462 f. 40s. 439. 488. 357, 373. 4051 439.488. 357. 373- 373- 439- 357. 373- 357. 286, 287. 488. 392, 405, 439. 488. 325. 373. 405. 4". 440- 20, 447, 462. 447- 20, 33. 174, 462 f. 440. 440. 20, 318, 319, 448. 86. 20. 405, 412, 440, 44S, 488. Tavc^niDRa— continued. Book. Ch. 1 Page. I. 88. 406, 441, 442, 488, 493. 89. 406, 441, 443, 488. 90. 84. 93- 41, 141, 444. 94. 283, 407. 95- 407. 97- 406, 423, 424, 441, 442, 443 456, 488. 98. 33, 207, 406, 441, 488. 99- 174. ICI. 287. 102. 288. 103. 49. 234- III. 278, 348. "5- 22. 116. 284, 287, 380. 117. 284, 380. 118. 406,412,441,442,445,456 488 f., 493. 119. 324,449, 488 f., 493. 120. 20, 65, 319, 321, 324, 437, 447- 121. 310, 320, 437. 122. 319. 451. 124. 447. 449. 488, 493. 125. 406, 411, 445, 449, 489. 126. 406, 449, 489. 127. 406, 449, 489. 128. 406, 450, 489. 132. 463- 135- 406, 450, 489. 136. 143- 138. 406, 450, 489. 139- 236, 406, 450, 489, 490. 140. 21. 23, 77, 319, 437, 452, 462 f. 141. 257. 437, 452. 490. 142. 437. 452, 490. 493- 143- 82, 310, 311, 452, 490, 493. 144. 452. 145- 406, 444, 490. 145. 405, 406, 453, 490. II. I. 403, 406, 465, 490. 2. 403, 406, 465, 469, 490. 6. 339- 7- 49. 364. 8. 431- 9- 463. 470. II. 20, 86. 13. 49, 200, 298, 320, 333, 470. 14- 69. 333- 16. 123, 456. 18. 286, 333. 19- 286, 403. 21. 354. 456, 461- 22. 278. 354- 23- 355. 25- 37. 355. 464 27. 355- 28. 432- 29. 358. 374- 30- 349- 31- 278, 340- 33- 349- 55° THUCYDIDES Thucydides Book. Ch 34- 35- 47- 48. 54. 56. 57- 58. 60. 64. 65. 66. 68. 69. 70. 71- 74- 75- 79- 80. 81. 82. 83- 84. 85- 86. 87. 88. 89. 91. 93- 94- 95- 97- 100. lOI. 102. 103. 2. 3- 7- 9' II. 13- 16. 17- 18. 19. 25- 26. 32- 33- 34- 36. 37- 42. SC- SI- 52- S3- S4- S7- ■continued. Page. 456, 461, 462 f. 21, 462. 456. 4S7, 458. 464- 19, 470. 395, 471. 491- 35S, 431- 472. 474, 491. 19, 286, 274. 21. 23. 462. 23, 320, 469, 490, 491, 493, 497. 529- 349. 491- 349- 350. 355. 381. 286, 374, 456 f. 333- 462. 286. 260, 272, 276, 374. 350. 358. 431- 272, 27s, 276. 347. 348- 297. 301. 351. 470- 305. 351. 470- 17- 37. 302- 20. 302. 20, 303. 303. 304. 351- 37. 340. 341- 341,464,472, 491. 358. 374- 473. 491- 42, 47. 473. 491, 493- 374- 348. 349. 3SI- 4S6f- 87- 287, 380. 349. 351. 355- 20. 456, 460, 464 f. 335. 462 f., 473- 3x0. 355- 298. 286, 287, 289, 311. 381. 456 f. 474. 491- 381. 287, 380. 380. 431- 30- 21, 23. 21. 178. 286, 342. 465- 20, 438. 456 f., 460, 464 f. 23, 462. TavCYDia^s— continued. Book. Ch. Page. III. 61. 20. 63. 462. 68. 464, 465, 474, 491. 70. 3SI- 75- 352- 76. 37- 78. 304- 79- 37- 81. 491. 82. 469, 474,491,493, 529. 83- 474 f-. 491, 493> 529- 84. 475 f-. 491- 85. 87. 492- 86. 76, 82, 187, 214, 324, 360, 361, 364, 365, 366. 87- 431. 475. 492. 88. 364, 366, 456 f. 89- 333. 431- 90. 364. 366. 91. 343. 356- 92. 470. 93- 475. 492. 94- 275. 349. 352- 95- 303. 98. 455. 456 f-i 460. 464 f-. 476- 99- 364, 366. 100. 352. 102. 256, 346. 103. 364. 36S- 104. 463- 105. 352. 112. 276. 353- "3- 353. 430. 455. 456 f- 460. 464 ff., 476. 114. 349. 353- "5- 364, 366. 1x6. 364, 456 f. IV. I. 364, 366. 3- 27. 357. 389- 4- 387- 7- 374, 375- 10. 20. II. 37. 12. 476, 492. 14- 305- 17- 21. 21. 3°- 22. 30. 24- 364. 367- 25- 305. 364. 367- 27. 30. 28. 30. 31- 33- 272. 39- 30. 40. 464. 42. 341- 43- 341- 44- 280. 45- 357. 482. 46. 353- ' 47- 27. 48. 456 f., 460, 464 ft, 476 478- INDEX II : AUTHORS SSI Thucydides Book. Ch. IV. 49. 51- 52. S3- 56. 57. 58. 59- 60. 66. 67. 69. 70. 72. 74- 76. 77- 78. 79- 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 88. 89. 92. 94- 95- 100. lOI. 102. 103. 104. 105- io5. 107. 108. 109. no. III. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 123- 124, 125. 126. 127. 128, 129. 130. 131- 132. 133- 134- 135- V. I. — continued. Page. 354- 456 f. 431. 432- 28, 82, 187, 327, 357. 357- 357, 431- 3641 367- 20. 477. 492. 28, 342. 342. 389- 286, 342. 37- 336, 338. 477. 492. 28, 343. 78, 349. 354- 28, 269, 375. 358. 219. 263, 375. 37. 395. 477. 492. 497- 358. 492. 358. 28, 88. 20, 462 f. 88, 375- 28. 20. 269, 275. 20. 276. 473- 28. 43. 358, 375- 15, 17. 27, 29. 463. 375- 358, 375. 376, 406. 469. 36, 376, 377. 406, 478, 480. 36, 88, 377, 480, 481. 36, 378- 276. 36. 378, 457. 458. 480. 36, 378. 459. 463, 480, 492. 480, 482, 483, 484, 492 f. 36, 477, 480, 483, 484, 492 f. 36, 378, 480, 484. 276, 378, 480. 358, 378, 480. 272. 19- 273- 36, 358, 480. 36, 264, 276, 378, 480. 88, 286, 287, 480. 36, 378, 4B0. 36, 224, 286, 287, 358, 378 450, 483. 36, 456 f. , 460, 464 f. , 480, 36, 480. 36, 379. 456 f-, 480. 36, 400, 480, 509. 36. 379. 480. 480. Thucydides— 527- INDEX II : AUTHORS 553 Thucydides— continued. Book. VIII. Ch. 3- 4- 6. 9- i8. 24. 25' 27. 28. 32. 35- 37- 40. 41. 57- 58. 60. 62. 68. 73- 84. SS- 86. 96. 99- 103. 104. 105. 106. 107- Page. 476, 477- 312. 431, 456 f. 37- 395- 312- 286. 438, 529- 82, 286, 324, 431. 287, 380. 327. 380- 395- 98. 431- 463- 228. 456 f. 74, 287, 380. 47. 529- 313- 529- 529- 438. 529' 4SS. 473- 463- 388. 313- 313- 313. 287, 380, 388. TlMAEUS, 13, 44. Trogus Pompeius, 392. tsountas, 96. Ullrich, his observations on Thucy- dides' method, 387, 398 ; on the paral- lelism of the Trojan and Peloponnesian Wars, 420 ; on the use of 35e by Thucy- dides, 45S, 458 ; on the unity of the Ten Years' and Dekelean Wars, 469. See also 391, 415, 416, 421, 430, 432, 433. 470, 471. 472, 478, 485. 496, 498- VOLKHEIM, 398. Welti, his observations on Thucydides, 398, 400. Welzhofer on the dates of Thucydides, work, 398, 401. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, criticism of Thucydides' method, 401, 426, 441. See also ir, 12, 14, 16, 17, 42, 43, 46, 52, S3. 57. 397. 398. 403. 439. 442, 444. 453, 482, 529. Xenophon, II, 13; did he write the He/)! IlpoHSoiii ? 148 ; records the use of sailors as light- armed troops, 276; on naval warfare, 313 ; his completion of Thucydides' history, 388 (Appendix). See also 14, 128, 400, 404, 528. Hellenika, 79, 88, 90, 159, 160, 216, 276, 286, 313, 314, 338, 388, 389, 466, 476, 477, 506. De Vectigalibus, 60, 105, 140, I44. 148 ff., iss. 156. De Oeconomia, 73. Memorabilia, 74, 78, loi, 155. Anabasis, 82. (Pseudo-Xen.): De Republica Athen- iensium, 77, 92, 107, 121, 154, 160, 167, 176, 190. Zimmern, 99. ZOPYROS, 43, 44. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press Isiiis#ftl!=