In spite of the convention concluded at Pydna, Perdikkas, whose character for faithlessness we shall have more than one occasion to notice, was now again on the side of the Chalkidians, and sent two hundred horse to join them, under the command of Iolaus. Aristeus posted his Corinthians and Potidæans on the isthmus near Potidæa, providing a market without the walls, in order that they might not stray in quest of provisions: his position was on the side towards Olynthus,—which was about seven miles off, but within sight, and in a lofty and conspicuous situation. He here awaited the approach of the Athenians, calculating that the Chalkidians from Olynthus would, upon the hoisting of a given signal, assail them in the rear when they attacked him. But Kallias was strong enough to place in reserve his Macedonian cavalry and other allies as a check against Olynthus; while with his Athenians and the main force he marched to the isthmus and took position in front of Aristeus. In the battle which ensued, Aristeus and the chosen band of Corinthians immediately about him were completely successful, breaking the troops opposed to them, and pursuing for a considerable distance: but the remaining Potidæans and Peloponnesians were routed by the Athenians and driven within the walls. On returning from pursuit, Aristeus found the victorious Athenians between him and Potidæa, and was reduced to the alternative either of cutting his way through them into the latter town, or of making a retreating march to Olynthus. He chose the former as the least of two hazards, and forced his way through the flank of the Athenians, wading into the sea in order to turn the extremity of the Potidæan wall, which reached entirely across the isthmus, with a mole running out at each end into the water: he effected this daring enterprise and saved his detachment, though not without considerable difficulty and some loss. Meanwhile, the auxiliaries from Olynthus, though they had begun their march on seeing the concerted signal, had been kept in check by the Macedonian horse, so that the Potidæans had been beaten and the signal again withdrawn, before they could make any effective diversion: nor did the cavalry on either side come into action. The defeated Potidæans and Corinthians, having the town immediately in their rear, lost only three hundred men, while the Athenians lost one hundred and fifty, together with the general Kallias.[121]
The victory was, however, quite complete, and the Athenians, after having erected their trophy, and given up the enemy’s dead for burial, immediately built their blockading wall across the isthmus, on the side of the mainland, so as to cut off Potidæa from all communication with Olynthus and the Chalkidians. To make the blockade complete, a second wall across the isthmus was necessary, on the other side towards Pallênê: but they had not force enough to detach a completely separate body for this purpose, until after some time they were joined by Phormio with sixteen hundred fresh hoplites from Athens. That general, landing at Aphytis, in the peninsula of Pallênê, marched slowly up to Potidæa, ravaging the territory in order to draw out the citizens to battle: but the challenge not being accepted, he undertook, and finished without obstruction, the blockading wall on the side of Pallênê, so that the town was now completely inclosed, and the harbor watched by the Athenian fleet. The wall once finished, a portion of the force sufficed to guard it, leaving Phormio at liberty to undertake aggressive operations against the Chalkidic and Bottiæan townships. The capture of Potidæa was now only a question of more or less time, and Aristeus, in order that the provisions might last longer, proposed to the citizens to choose a favorable wind, get on shipboard, and break out suddenly from the harbor, taking their chance of eluding the Athenian fleet, and leaving only five hundred defenders behind: though he offered himself to be among those left behind, he could not determine the citizens to so bold an enterprise, and he therefore sallied forth in the way proposed with a small detachment, in order to try and procure relief from without,—especially some aid or diversion from Peloponnesus. But he was able to accomplish nothing beyond some partial warlike operations among the Chalkidians,[122] and a successful ambuscade against the citizens of Sermylus, which did nothing for the relief of the blockaded town: it had, however, been so well-provisioned that it held out for two whole years,—a period full of important events elsewhere.
From these two contests between Athens and Corinth, first indirectly at Korkyra, next distinctly and avowedly at Potidæa, sprung those important movements in the Lacedæmonian alliance which will be recounted in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
FROM THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
Even before the recent hostilities at Korkyra and Potidæa, it had been evident to reflecting Greeks that the continued observance of the thirty years’ truce was very uncertain, and that the mingled hatred, fear, and admiration, which Athens inspired throughout Greece, would prompt Sparta and the Spartan confederacy to seize the first favorable opening for breaking down the Athenian power. That such was the disposition of Sparta, was well understood among the Athenian allies, however considerations of prudence and general slowness in resolving might postpone the moment of carrying it into effect. Accordingly, not only the Samians when they revolted had applied to the Spartan confederacy for aid, which they appear to have been prevented from obtaining chiefly by the pacific interests then animating the Corinthians,—but also the Lesbians had endeavored to open negotiations with Sparta for a similar purpose, though the authorities—to whom alone the proposition could have been communicated, since it remained secret and was never executed—had given them no encouragement.[123] The affairs of Athens had been administered under the ascendency of Periklês, without any view to extension of empire or encroachment upon others, though with constant view to the probabilities of war, and with anxiety to keep the city in a condition to meet it: but even the splendid internal ornaments, which Athens at that time acquired, were probably not without their effect in provoking jealousy on the part of other Greeks as to her ultimate views. The only known incident, wherein Athens had been brought into collision with a member of the Spartan confederacy prior to the Korkyræan dispute, was the decree passed in regard to Megara,—prohibiting the Megarians, on pain of death, from all trade or intercourse as well with Athens as with all ports within the Athenian empire. This prohibition was grounded on the alleged fact, that the Megarians had harbored runaway slaves from Athens, and had appropriated and cultivated portions of land upon the border; partly land, the property of the goddesses of Eleusis,—partly a strip of territory disputed between the two states, and therefore left by mutual understanding in common pasture without any permanent inclosure.[124] In reference to this latter point, the Athenian herald, Anthemokritus had been sent to Megara to remonstrate, but had been so rudely dealt with, that his death shortly afterwards was imputed as a crime to the Megarians.[125] We may well suppose that ever since the revolt of Megara, fourteen years before, which caused to Athens an irreparable mischief, the feeling prevalent between the two towns had been one of bitter enmity, manifesting itself in many ways, but so much exasperated by recent events as to provoke Athens to a signal revenge.[126] Exclusion from Athens and all the ports in her empire, comprising nearly every island and seaport in the Ægean, was so ruinous to the Megarians, that they loudly complained of it at Sparta, representing it as an infraction of the thirty years’ truce; though it was undoubtedly within the legitimate right of Athens to enforce,—and was even less harsh than the systematic expulsion of foreigners by Sparta, with which Periklês compared it.
These complaints found increased attention after the war of Korkyra and the blockade of Potidæa by the Athenians. The sentiments of the Corinthians towards Athens had now become angry and warlike in the highest degree: nor was it simply resentment for the past which animated them, but also the anxiety farther to bring upon Athens so strong a hostile pressure as should preserve Potidæa and its garrison from capture. Accordingly, they lost no time in endeavoring to rouse the feelings of the Spartans against Athens, and in inducing them to invite to Sparta all such of the confederates as had any grievances against that city. Not merely the Megarians but several other confederates, appeared there as accusers; while the Æginetans, though their insular position made it perilous for them to appear, made themselves vehemently heard through the mouths of others, complaining that Athens withheld from them that autonomy to which they were entitled under the truce.[127]
According to the Lacedæmonian practice, it was necessary first that the Spartans themselves, apart from their allies, should decide whether there existed a sufficient case of wrong done by Athens against themselves or against Peloponnesus,—either in violation of the thirty years’ truce, or in any other way. If the determination of Sparta herself were in the negative, the case would never even be submitted to the vote of the allies; but if it were in the affirmative, then the latter would be convoked to deliver their opinion also: and assuming that the majority of votes coincided with the previous decision of Sparta, the entire confederacy stood then pledged to the given line of policy,—if the majority was contrary, the Spartans would stand alone, or with such only of the confederates as concurred. Each allied city, great or small, had an equal right of suffrage. It thus appears that Sparta herself did not vote as a member of the confederacy, but separately and individually as leader,—and that the only question ever submitted to the allies was, whether they would or would not go along with her previous decision. Such was the course of proceeding now followed: the Corinthians, together with such other of the confederates as felt either aggrieved or alarmed by Athens, presented themselves before the public assembly of Spartan citizens, prepared to prove that the Athenians had broken the truce, and were going on in a course of wrong towards Peloponnesus.[128] Even in the oligarchy of Sparta, such a question as this could only be decided by a general assembly of Spartan citizens, qualified both by age, by regular contribution to the public mess, and by obedience to Spartan discipline. To the assembly so constituted the deputies of the various allied cities addressed themselves, each setting forth his case against Athens. The Corinthians chose to reserve themselves to the last, after the assembly had been previously inflamed by the previous speakers.
Of this important assembly, on which so much of the future fate of Greece turned, Thucydidês has preserved an account unusually copious. First, the speech delivered by the Corinthian envoys. Next, that of some Athenian envoys, who happening to be at the same time in Sparta on some other matters, and being present in the assembly so as to have heard the speeches both of the Corinthians and of the other complainants, obtained permission from the magistrates to address the assembly in their turn. Thirdly, the address of the Spartan king Archidamus, on the course of policy proper to be adopted by Sparta. Lastly, the brief, but eminently characteristic, address of the ephor Stheneläidas, on putting the question for decision. These speeches, the composition of Thucydidês himself, contain substantially the sentiments of the parties to whom they are ascribed: neither of them is distinctly a reply to that which has preceded, but each presents the situation of affairs from a different point of view.
The Corinthians knew well that the audience whom they were about to address had been favorably prepared for them,—for the Lacedæmonian authorities had already given an actual promise to them and to the Potidæans at the moment before Potidæa revolted, that they would invade Attica. So great was the revolution in sentiment of the Spartans, since they had declined lending aid to the much more powerful island of Lesbos, when it proposed to revolt,—a revolution occasioned by the altered interests and sentiments of Corinth. Nor were the Corinthians ignorant that their positive grounds of complaint against Athens, in respect of wrong or violation of the existing truce, were both few and feeble. Neither in the dispute about Potidæa nor about Korkyra, had Athens infringed the truce or wronged the Peloponnesian alliance. In both, she had come into collision with Corinth, singly and apart from the confederacy: she had a right, both according to the truce and according to the received maxims of international law, to lend defensive aid to the Korkyræans at their own request,—she had a right also, according to the principles laid down by the Corinthians themselves on occasion of the revolt of Samos, to restrain the Potidæans from revolting. She had committed nothing which could fairly be called an aggression: indeed the aggression, both in the case of Potidæa and in that of Korkyra, was decidedly on the side of the Corinthians: and the Peloponnesian confederacy could only be so far implicated as it was understood to be bound to espouse the separate quarrels, right or wrong, of Corinth. All this was well known to the Corinthian envoys; and accordingly we find that, in their speech at Sparta, they touch but lightly, and in vague terms, on positive or recent wrongs. Even that which they do say completely justifies the proceedings of Athens about the affair of Korkyra, since they confess without hesitation the design of seizing the large Korkyræan navy for the use of the Peloponnesian alliance: while in respect of Potidæa, if we had only the speech of the Corinthian envoy before us without any other knowledge, we should have supposed it to be an independent state, not connected by any permanent bonds with Athens,—we should have supposed that the siege of Potidæa by Athens was an unprovoked aggression upon an autonomous ally of Corinth,[129]—we should never have imagined that Corinth had deliberately instigated and aided the revolt of the Chalkidians as well as of the Potidæans against Athens. It might be pretended that she had a right to do this, by virtue of her undefined metropolitan relations with Potidæa: but at any rate, the incident was not such as to afford any decent pretext for charge against the Athenians, either of outrage towards Corinth,[130] or of wrongful aggression against the Peloponnesian confederacy.