These important acquisitions were soon crowned by the completion of the Long Walls and the conquest of Ægina. That island, doubtless starved out by its protracted blockade, was forced to capitulate on condition of destroying its fortifications, surrendering all its ships of war, and submitting to annual tribute as a dependent ally of Athens. The reduction of this once powerful maritime city, marked Athens as mistress of the sea on the Peloponnesian coast not less than on the Ægean. Her admiral Tolmidês displayed her strength by sailing round Peloponnesus, and even by the insult of burning the Lacedæmonian ports of Methônê and of Gythium. He took Chalkis, a possession of the Corinthians, and Naupaktus belonging to the Ozolian Lokrians, near the mouth of the Corinthian gulf,—disembarked troops near Sikyon with some advantage in a battle against opponents from that town,—and either gained or forced into the Athenian alliance not only Zakynthus and Kephallênia, but also some of the towns of Achaia; for we afterwards find these latter attached to Athens without knowing when the connection began.[634]
During the ensuing year the Athenians renewed their attack upon Sikyon, with a force of one thousand hoplites under Periklês himself, sailing from the Megarian harbor of Pêgæ in the Krissæan gulf. This eminent man, however, gained no greater advantage than Tolmidês,—defeating the Sikyonian forces in the field and driving them within their walls: he afterwards made an expedition into Akarnania, taking the Achæan allies in addition to his own forces, but miscarried in his attack on Œniadæ and accomplished nothing. Nor were the Athenians more successful in a march undertaken this same year against Thessaly, for the purpose of restoring Orestes, one of the exiled princes or nobles of Pharsalus. Though they took with them an imposing force, including their Bœotian and Phocian allies, the powerful Thessalian cavalry forced them to keep in a compact body and confined them to the ground actually occupied by their hoplites; while all their attempts against the city failed, and their hopes of internal rising were disappointed.[635]
Had the Athenians succeeded in Thessaly, they would have acquired to their alliance nearly the whole of extra-Peloponnesian Greece: but even without Thessaly their power was prodigious, and had now attained a maximum height, from which it never varied except to decline. As a counterbalancing loss against so many successes, we have to reckon their ruinous defeat in Egypt, after a war of six years against the Persians (B. C. 460-455). At first, they had gained brilliant advantages, in conjunction with the insurgent prince Inarôs; expelling the Persians from all Memphis except the strongest part, called the White Fortress: and such was the alarm of the Persian king, Artaxerxes, at the presence of the Athenians in Egypt, that he sent Megabazus with a large sum of money to Sparta, in order to induce the Lacedæmonians to invade Attica. This envoy, however, failed, and an augmented Persian force being sent to Egypt under Megabyzus, son of Zopyrus,[636] drove the Athenians and their allies, after an obstinate struggle, out of Memphis into the island of the Nile called Prosôpîtis. Here they were blocked up for eighteen months, until at length Megabyzus turned the arm of the river, laid the channel dry, and stormed the island by land. A very few Athenians escaped by land to Kyrênê: the rest were either slain or made captive, and Inarôs himself was crucified. And the calamity of Athens was farther aggravated by the arrival of fifty fresh Athenian ships, which, coming after the defeat, but without being aware of it, sailed into the Mendesian branch of the Nile, and thus fell unawares into the power of the Persians and Phenicians; very few either of the ships or men escaping. The whole of Egypt became again subject to the Persians, except Amyrtæus, who contrived, by retiring into the inaccessible fens, still to maintain his independence. One of the largest armaments ever sent forth by Athens and her confederacy was thus utterly ruined.[637]
It was about the time of the destruction of the Athenian army in Egypt, and of the circumnavigation of Peloponnesus by Tolmidês, that the internal war, carried on by the Lacedæmonians, against the Helots or Messenians at Ithômê, ended. These besieged men, no longer able to stand out against a protracted blockade, were forced to abandon this last fortress of ancient Messenian independence, stipulating for a safe retreat from Peloponnesus with their wives and families, with the proviso, that if any one of them ever returned to Peloponnesus, he should become the slave of the first person who seized him. They were established by Tolmidês at Naupaktus, which had recently been taken by the Athenians from the Ozolian Lokrians,[638]—where they will be found rendering good service to Athens in the following wars.
After the victory of Tanagra, the Lacedæmonians made no farther expeditions out of Peloponnesus for several succeeding years, not even to prevent Bœotia and Phocis from being absorbed into the Athenian alliance. The reason of this remissness lay, partly, in their general character; partly, in the continuance of the siege of Ithômê, which occupied them at home; but still more, perhaps, in the fact that the Athenians, masters of the Megarid, were in occupation of the road over the highlands of Geraneia, and could therefore obstruct the march of any army out from Peloponnesus. Even after the surrender of Ithômê, the Lacedæmonians remained inactive for three years, after which time a formal truce was concluded with Athens by the Peloponnesians generally, for five years longer.[639] This truce was concluded in a great degree through the influence of Kimon,[640] who was eager to resume effective operations against the Persians; while it was not less suitable to the political interests of Periklês that his most distinguished rival should be absent on foreign service,[641] so as not to interfere with his influence at home. Accordingly, Kimon equipped a fleet of two hundred triremes, from Athens and her confederates, and set sail for Cyprus, from whence he despatched sixty ships to Egypt, at the request of the insurgent prince Amyrtæus, who was still maintaining himself against the Persians amidst the fens,—while with the remaining armament he laid siege to Kitium. In the prosecution of this siege, he died, either of disease or of a wound. The armament, under his successor, Anaxikrates, became so embarrassed for want of provisions that they abandoned the undertaking altogether, and went to fight the Phenician and Kilikian fleet near Salamis, in Cyprus. They were here victorious, first on sea, and afterwards on land, though probably not on the same day, as at the Eurymedon; after which they returned home, followed by the sixty ships which had gone to Egypt for the purpose of aiding Amyrtæus.[642]
From this time forward no farther operations were undertaken by Athens and her confederacy against the Persians. And it appears that a convention was concluded between them, whereby the Great King on his part promised two things: To leave free, undisturbed, and untaxed, the Asiatic maritime Greeks, not sending troops within a given distance of the coast: to refrain from sending any ships of war either westward of Phasêlis (others place the boundary at the Chelidonean islands, rather more to the westward) or within the Kyanean rocks at the confluence of the Thracian Bosphorus with the Euxine. On their side, the Athenians agreed to leave him in undisturbed possession of Cyprus and Egypt. Kallias, an Athenian of distinguished family, with some others of his countrymen, went up to Susa to negotiate this convention: and certain envoys from Argos, then in alliance with Athens, took the opportunity of going thither at the same time, to renew the friendly understanding which their city had established with Xerxes at the period of his invasion of Greece.[643]
As is generally the case with treaties after hostility,—this convention did little more than recognize the existing state of things, without introducing any new advantage or disadvantage on either side, or calling for any measures to be taken in consequence of it. We may hence assign a reasonable ground for the silence of Thucydidês, who does not even notice the convention as having been made: we are to recollect always that in the interval between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, he does not profess to do more than glance briefly at the main events. But the boastful and inaccurate authors of the ensuing century, orators, rhetors, and historians, indulged in so much exaggeration and untruth respecting this convention, both as to date and as to details,—and extolled as something so glorious the fact of having imposed such hard conditions on the Great King,—that they have raised a suspicion against themselves. Especially, they have occasioned critics to ask the very natural question, how this splendid achievement of Athens came to be left unnoticed by Thucydidês? Now the answer to such question is, that the treaty itself was really of no great moment: it is the state of facts and relations implied in the treaty, and existing substantially before it was concluded, which constitutes the real glory of Athens. But to the later writers, the treaty stood forth as the legible evidence of facts which in their time were passed and gone; while Thucydidês and his contemporaries, living in the actual fulness of the Athenian empire, would certainly not appeal to the treaty as an evidence, and might well pass it over, even as an event, when studying to condense the narrative. Though Thucydidês has not mentioned the treaty, he says nothing which disproves its reality, and much which is in full harmony with it. For we may show, even from him: 1. That all open and direct hostilities between Athens and Persia ceased, after the last-mentioned victories of the Athenians near Cyprus: that this island is renounced by Athens, not being included by Thucydidês in his catalogue of Athenian allies prior to the Peloponnesian war;[644] and that no farther aid is given by Athens to the revolted Amyrtæus in Egypt. 2. That down to the time when the Athenian power was prostrated by the ruinous failure at Syracuse, no tribute was collected by the Persian satraps in Asia Minor from the Greek cities on the coast, nor were Persian ships of war allowed to appear in the waters of the Ægean,[645] nor was the Persian king admitted to be sovereign of the country down to the coast. Granting, therefore, that we were even bound, from the silence of Thucydidês, to infer that no treaty was concluded, we should still be obliged also to infer, from his positive averments, that a state of historical fact, such as the treaty acknowledged and prescribed, became actually realized. But when we reflect farther, that Herodotus[646] certifies the visit of Kallias and other Athenian envoys to the court of Susa, we can assign no other explanation of such visit so probable as the reality of this treaty: certainly, no envoys would have gone thither during a state of recognized war; and though it may be advanced as possible that they may have gone with the view to conclude a treaty, and yet not have succeeded,—this would be straining the limits of possibility beyond what is reasonable.[647]
We may therefore believe in the reality of this treaty between Athens and Persia, improperly called the Kimonian treaty: improperly, since not only was it concluded after the death of Kimon, but the Athenian victories by which it was immediately brought on were gained after his death. Nay, more,—the probability is, that if Kimon had lived, it would not have been concluded at all; for his interest as well as his glory led him to prosecute the war against Persia, since he was no match for his rival Periklês, either as a statesman or as an orator, and could only maintain his popularity by the same means whereby he had earned it,—victories and plunder at the cost of the Persians. His death insured more complete ascendency to Periklês, whose policy and character were of a cast altogether opposite:[648] while even Thucydidês, son of Melêsias, who succeeded Kimon, his relation, as leader of the anti-Periklean party, was also a man of the senate and public assembly rather than of campaigns and conquests. Averse to distant enterprises and precarious acquisitions, Periklês was only anxious to maintain unimpaired the Hellenic ascendency of Athens, now at its very maximum: he was well aware that the undivided force and vigilance of Athens would not be too much for this object,—nor did they in fact prove sufficient, as we shall presently see. With such dispositions he was naturally glad to conclude a peace, which excluded the Persians from all the coasts of Asia Minor, westward of the Chelidoneans, as well as from all the waters of the Ægean, under the simple condition of renouncing on the part of Athens farther aggressions against Cyprus, Phenicia, Kilikia, and Egypt. The Great King on his side had had sufficient experience of Athenian energy to fear the consequences of such aggressions, if prosecuted; nor did he lose much by relinquishing formally a tribute which at the time he could have little hope of realizing, and which of course he intended to resume on the first favorable opportunity. Weighing all these circumstances, we shall find that the peace, improperly called Kimonian, results naturally from the position and feelings of the contracting parties.
Athens was now at peace both abroad and at home, under the administration of Periklês, with a great empire, a great fleet, and a great accumulated treasure. The common fund collected from the contributions of the confederates, and originally deposited at Delos, had before this time been transferred to the acropolis at Athens. At what precise time this transfer took place, we cannot state: nor are we enabled to assign the successive stages whereby the confederacy, chiefly with the freewill of its own members, became transformed from a body of armed and active warriors under the guidance of Athens, into disarmed and passive tribute-payers, defended by the military force of Athens,—from allies free, meeting at Delos, and self-determining, into subjects isolated, sending their annual tribute, and awaiting Athenian orders. But it would appear that the change had been made before this time: some of the more resolute of the allies had tried to secede, but Athens had coerced them by force, and reduced them to the condition of tribute-payers, without ships or defence; and Chios, Lesbos, and Samos were now the only allies free and armed on the original footing. Every successive change of an armed ally into a tributary,—every subjugation of a seceder,—tended of course to cut down the numbers, and enfeeble the authority, of the Delian synod; and, what was still worse, it altered the reciprocal relation and feelings both of Athens and her allies,—exalting the former into something like a despot, and degrading the latter into mere passive subjects.
Of course, the palpable manifestation of the change must have been the transfer of the confederate fund from Delos to Athens. The only circumstance which we know respecting this transfer is, that it was proposed by the Samians,[649]—the second power in the confederacy, inferior only to Athens, and least of all likely to favor any job or sinister purpose of the Athenians. It is farther said that, when the Samians proposed it, Aristeidês characterized it as a motion unjust, but useful: we may well doubt, however, whether it was made during his lifetime. When the synod at Delos ceased to be so fully attended as to command respect,—when war was lighted up, not only with Persia, but with Ægina and Peloponnesus,—the Samians might not unnaturally feel that the large accumulated fund, with its constant annual accessions, would be safer at Athens than at Delos, which latter island would require a permanent garrison and squadron to insure it against attack. But whatever may have been the grounds on which the Samians proceeded, when we find them coming forward to propose the transfer, we may reasonably infer that it was not displeasing, and did not appear unjust, to the larger members of the confederacy,—and that it was no high-handed and arbitrary exercise of power, as it is often called, on the part of Athens.