18. Sketch of the internal state of Athens and Sparta at this period. The power of Athens depended mainly on the state of her finances; without which she could not support a fleet, and without a fleet her ascendancy over the confederates would of course fall to ground. And although Pericles, notwithstanding his lavish public expenditure, was able to enter upon the war with 6,000 talents in the treasury, experience could not fail to show that, in such a democratic state as Athens was now become under Pericles, the squandering of the public money was an unavoidable evil. This evil was produced, however, at Athens much less by the peculations of individual state officers than by the demands of the multitude, who for the most part lived at the expense of the state treasury. On the other hand, Sparta as yet had no finance; and only began to feel the want of it as she began to acquire a naval power, and entered upon undertakings more vast than mere incursions.
Financial system of the Athenians. Revenue: 1. The tribute paid by the confederates (φόροι) increased by Pericles from four hundred and sixty to six hundred talents. 2. Income from the customs, (which were farmed,) and from the mines at Laurium. 3. The caution money of the non-citizens: (μέτοικοι.) 4. The taxes on the citizens, (εἰσφοραὶ,) which fell almost entirely on the rich, more particularly on the first class, the members of which were not only to bear the burthen of fitting out the fleet, (τριεραρχίαι,) but were likewise to furnish means for the public festivals and spectacles, (χορηγίαι.) The whole income of the republic at this time was estimated at 2,000 talents. But the disbursements made to the numerous assistants at the courts of justice (the principal means of existence with the poorer citizens, and which, more than any thing else, contributed to the licentiousness of the democracy and the oppression of the confederates, whose causes were all brought to Athens for adjudication,) together with the expenditure for festivals and spectacles, even at this time, absorbed the greatest part of the revenue.
† F. Boekh, Public Economy of the Athenians, 2 parts, Berlin, 1816. The chief work on the subject. [Ably translated by J. C. Lewis, esq. of Christ Church in this university.]
Athenian Letters, or the Epistolary Correspondence of an Agent of the King of Persia, residing at Athens during the Peloponnesian war. London, 1798, 2 vols. 4to. The production of several young authors; first printed, but not published, in 1741. This sketch comprises, not only Greece, but likewise Persia and Egypt.
First period of the war,
431—422.
429.
430.
19. First period of the war until the fifty years' peace. Beginning of the war unsuccessful to Athens during the first three years, under the conduct of Pericles, in whose defensive plan we may perhaps discern the infirmities of age. The Athenians, however, suffered less from the annual inroads of the Spartans than from the plague, to which Pericles himself at last fell a victim. The alliance of the Athenians with the kings of Thrace and Macedonia extended the theatre of war; on the other hand, Sparta had already conceived the idea of an alliance with Persia.
Consequence of the death of Pericles.
427.
424.
422.
20. The death of Pericles was, for the next seven years, during which the place of that great man was supplied by Cleon a currier, followed by all the evils of an uncurbed democracy. The atrocious decrees with respect to Mitylene, which after seceding, had been recaptured, and the insurrection of the Corcyræan populace against the rich, characterized the party spirit then dominant in Greece better than the few insignificant events of a war conducted without any plan. Sparta, however, found in young Brasidas a general, such as are wont to arise in revolutionary times. His prosecution of the war on the Macedonian coast might have brought great danger to Athens, had he so early not fallen a victim to his own gallantry.
Capture of Amphipolis by Brasidas, and exile of Thucydides, 424. Engagement near Amphipolis between Brasidas and Cleon; and death of those two generals, 422.
Peace not lasting. 422.
Alcibiades at the head of affairs, 420.