The States to whom appeals for aid were sent were all of them in peculiar positions with reference not merely to their home affairs, but also to their relations towards the mass of the Greek States.
The very nature of things as they existed in the fifth century before Christ made it improbable, almost impossible, that Corcyra should take a very active interest in the affairs of Greece generally. The Hellenism of her continental neighbours in North-west Greece, in Epirus, in Ætolia, in Acarnania, was as yet undeveloped. The range of Pindus, by its oblique course from the very shores of the Adriatic to those of the Corinthian Gulf, cut off that corner of the Greek world from those outside influences and that wide experience which contributed so largely towards making the Hellenism of the fifth century what it was. Corcyra had no immediate neighbours from whom she could catch the infection of the Hellenic spirit. It is hardly strange if she did not interpret the unwritten law of Greek patriotism in the sense in which it was interpreted by those who were much more interested in upholding it. Selfish she appeared to the Greeks of this time; and it can be seen by reading between the lines in Thucydides that this was the impression she gave to her contemporaries half a century later. She was severely—it may be, hardly judged. The circumstances were peculiarly unfavourable to the development within her of a pan-Hellenic spirit. Nature had placed her in an almost ideal position in relation to one of the greatest trade routes of the ancient world,—that from Greece to Italy and the West. Wealth came easily to her. Her position allowed her to regard with equanimity the competition of Corinth and the growing rivalry of Athenian trade. However much there might be for her competitors, the very nature of her position assured her of an ample sufficiency. So she lived on a policy of sufferance, neither interfering nor interfered with. If the Corcyrean was a spoilt child, he had been spoilt by mother nature. His circumstances were such as were peculiarly calculated to encourage a selfish patriotism. Had he voyaged the whole Mediterranean over, he could not have found a fairer picture than that presented by his own enchanted island. To himself, no doubt, he appeared the honest man; but to his contemporaries of larger view he seemed, as it were, the “man with the muck-rake” of Greek politics, over whose head the crown of patriotism was held in vain.
It is conceivable that in the present instance Corcyra did not understand to the full the nature of the danger which threatened Greece. It had taken long to convince the states who sent her the invitation that the attack was not directed against Athens alone. She promised assistance, but evidently with a mental reservation to hold back until the intention of the Persian was declared unmistakably.
Unfortunately for her reputation, she held back too long. When she ought to have joined in, she did not—possibly she was too late to do so; and it is not surprising if her contemporaries, who had borne the burden of the struggle unaided by her, judged her hardly.
Not so severe, perhaps, should be the judgment of those who are in a position to review the whole extent of the feeling which prevailed at this critical time. Patriotism, when aroused, does not argue according to the rules of logic; and so, remembering this, the severity of the judgment passed by the Greek patriot on the Greek neutral may be excused, or even in a sense justified. But it must also be borne in mind that those who, with Delphi, regarded any joint action of the Greek States in a quarrel which might be looked upon as concerning Athens alone, to be calculated to bring suffering upon the whole of Greece, or at any rate on those who took part in it, and therefore impolitic, were also justified from their point of view. To them it might seem as if Athens should lie on the bed she herself had made, when she had alone among the great powers of Greece interfered in the Ionian revolt.
ATTITUDE OF ARGOS.
Of the Crete of the earlier part of the fifth century but little is known from the historians; and the modern exploration of the historic remains on the island has, so far, thrown but little light on its political relations at this time, whether internal or external. It seems to have been divided up between a number of comparatively small city States, which it would have been difficult to rouse to joint action on any question which did not concern their special interests. Herodotus does not pass any judgment on the conduct of the Cretans in refusing aid, possibly because the refusal was in accordance with the answer given by the Delphic oracle when consulted on the subject.
The attitude of Argos is not so easy to account for. She had, indeed, suffered terribly by the loss of six thousand of her citizens in the battle with the Lacedæmonians under Kleomenes. Delphi, in consistency with its policy at the time, counselled against interference; but the Argive tale was that, even so, they were ready to take part in the defence, provided Sparta granted them a thirty years’ truce, and provided she shared the supreme command of the allied forces with them. H. vii. 149. The proposal of a truce was entertained, if not actually accepted; but Sparta refused to let Argos have more than one-third of the command. The old question of the hegemony of Sparta and Argos in the Peloponnese lay at the bottom of the refusal; but there is manifestly a certain amount of improbability in the Argive account of the affair as given by Herodotus. H. vii. 151, ad init. He tells another tale, which seems to have been of Athenian origin. It is to the effect that Xerxes had been in direct communication with Argos, and had practically ensured its neutrality, and that the terms demanded by Argos from the other Greeks were proposed with a full knowledge that they would be refused.
This tale was supported, so the historian says, by information obtained at Susa by that mysterious embassy of Kallias; nevertheless, Herodotus believes the Argive account, and rejects the tale current in the rest of Greece.
If an author in the fifth century B.C. could not satisfactorily discover the truth with regard to the matter, it is not likely that it should be possible to do so at the present day. It may be that Argos, from genuine conviction, followed the lead of Delphi, but provided for a possible error in that policy by entering into some kind of arrangement with the Persian.