[626] Καὶ τῶνδε ὑμεῖς αἴτιοι, τό τε πρῶτον ἐάσαντες αὐτοὺς τὴν πόλιν μετὰ τὰ Μηδικὰ κρατῦναι, καὶ ὕστερον τὰ μακρὰ στῆσαι τείχη,—is the language addressed by the Corinthians to the Spartans, in reference to Athens, a little before the Peloponnesian war (Thucyd. i, 69).
[627] Diodor. xii, 81; Justin, iii, 6. Τῆς μὲν τῶν Θηβαίων πόλεως μείζονα τὸν περίβολον κατεσκεύασαν, τὰς δ’ ἐν Βοιωτίᾳ πόλεις ἠνάγκασαν ὑποτάττεσθαι τοῖς Θηβαίοις.
[628] Diodor. l. c. It must probably be to the internal affairs of Bœotia, somewhere about this time, full as they were of internal dissension, that the dictum and simile of Periklês alludes,—which Aristotle notices in his Rhetoric. iii, 4, 2.
[629] Thucyd. i, 107.
[630] Plutarch, Kimon, c. 14; Periklês, c. 10. Plutarch represents the Athenians as having recalled Kimon from fear of the Lacedæmonians who had just beaten them at Tanagra, and for the purpose of procuring peace. He adds that Kimon obtained peace for them forthwith. Both these assertions are incorrect. The extraordinary successes in Bœotia, which followed so quickly after the defeat at Tanagra, show that the Athenians were under no impressions of fear at that juncture, and that the recall of Kimon proceeded from quite different feelings. Moreover, the peace with Sparta was not made till some years afterwards.
[631] Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 10.
[632] Plutarch, Kimon, c. 17; Periklês, c. 10; Thucyd. viii, 97. Plutarch observes, respecting this reconciliation of parties after the battle of Tanagra, after having mentioned that Periklês himself proposed the restoration of Kimon—
Οὕτω τότε πολιτικαὶ μὲν ἦσαν αἱ διαφοραὶ, μέτριοι δὲ οἱ θυμοὶ καὶ πρὸς τὸ κοινὸν εὐανάκλητοι σύμφερον, ἡ δὲ φιλοτιμία πάντων ἐπικρατοῦσα τῶν παθῶν τοῖς τῆς πατρίδος ὑπεχώρει καίροις.
Which remarks are very analogous to those of Thucydidês, in recounting the memorable proceedings of the year 411 B. C., after the deposition of the oligarchy of Four Hundred (Thucyd. viii, 97).
Καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα δὴ τὸν πρῶτον χρόνον ἐπί γε ἐμοῦ Ἀθηναῖοι φαίνονται εὖ πολιτεύσαντες· μετρία γὰρ ἥ τε ἐς τοὺς ὀλίγους καὶ τοὺς πολλοὺς ξύγκρασις ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐκ πονηρῶν τῶν πραγμάτων γενομένων τοῦτο πρῶτον ἀνήνεγκε τὴν πόλιν. I may remark that the explanatory note of Dr. Arnold on this passage is less instructive than his notes usually are, and even involves, in my judgment, an erroneous supposition as to the meaning. Dr. Arnold says: “It appears that the constitution as now fixed, was at first, in the opinion of Thucydidês, the best that Athens had ever enjoyed within his memory; that is, the best since the complete ascendancy of the democracy effected under Periklês. But how long a period is meant to be included by the words τὸν πρῶτον χρόνον, and when, and how, did the implied change take place? Τὸν πρῶτον χρόνον can hardly apply to the whole remaining term of the war, as if this improved constitution had been first subverted by the triumph of the oligarchy under the Thirty, and then superseded by the restoration of the old democracy after their overthrow. Yet Xenophon mentions no intermediate change in the government between the beginning of his history and the end of the war,” etc.