“I don’t understand (he said) these long speeches of the Athenians. They have praised themselves abundantly, but they have never rebutted what is laid to their charge,—that they are guilty of wrong against our allies and against Peloponnesus. Now, if in former days they were good men against the Persians, and are now evil-doers against us, they deserve double punishment, as having become evil-doers instead of good.[150] But we are the same now as we were then: we know better than to sit still while our allies are suffering wrong: we shall not adjourn our aid while they cannot adjourn their sufferings.[151] Others have in abundance wealth, ships, and horses,—but we have good allies, whom we are not to abandon to the mercy of the Athenians: nor are we to trust our redress to arbitration and to words, when our wrongs are not confined to words. We must help them speedily and with all our strength. Nor let any one tell us that we can with honor deliberate when we are actually suffering wrong,—it is rather for those who intend to do the wrong, to deliberate well beforehand. Resolve upon war then, Lacedæmonians, in a manner worthy of Sparta: suffer not the Athenians to become greater than they are: let us not betray our allies to ruin, but march, with the aid of the gods, against the wrong-doers.”
With these few words, so well calculated to defeat the prudential admonitions of Archidamus, Stheneläidas put the question for the decision of the assembly,—which, at Sparta, was usually taken neither by show of hands nor by deposit of balls in an urn, but by cries analogous to the Aye or No of the English House of Commons,—the presiding ephor declaring which of the cries predominated. On this occasion the cry for war was manifestly the stronger:[152] yet Stheneläidas affected inability to determine which of the two cries was the louder, in order that he might have an excuse for bringing about a more impressive manifestation of sentiment and a stronger apparent majority,—since a portion of the minority would probably be afraid to show their real opinions as individuals openly. He accordingly directed a division, like the Speaker of the English House of Commons, when his decision in favor of aye or no is questioned by any member: “Such of you as think that the truce has been violated, and that the Athenians are doing us wrong, go to that side; such as think the contrary, to the other side.” The assembly accordingly divided, and the majority was very great on the warlike side of the question.
The first step of the Lacedæmonians, after coming to this important decision was, to send to Delphi and inquire of the oracle whether it would be beneficial to them to undertake the war: the answer brought back (Thucydidês seems hardly certain that it was really given[153]) was,—that if they did their best they would be victorious, and that the god would help them, invoked or uninvoked. They at the same time convened a general congress of their allies at Sparta, for the purpose of submitting their recent resolution to the vote of all.
To the Corinthians, in their anxiety for the relief of Potidæa, the decision of this congress was not less important than that which the Spartans had just taken separately: and they sent round envoys to each of the allies, entreating them to authorize war without reserve. Through such instigations, acting upon the general impulse then prevalent, the congress came together in a temper decidedly warlike: most of the speakers were full of invective against Athens, and impatient for action, while the Corinthians, waiting as before to speak the last, wound up the discussion by a speech well calculated to insure a hearty vote. Their former speech had been directed to shame, exasperate, and alarm the Lacedæmonians: this point had now been carried, and they had to enforce, upon the allies generally, the dishonor as well as the impolicy of receding from a willing leader. The cause was one in which all were interested, the inland states not less than the maritime, for both would find themselves ultimately victims of the encroaching despot city: whatever efforts were necessary for the war, ought cheerfully to be made, since it was only through war that they could arrive at a secure and honorable peace. There were good hopes that this might soon be attained, and that the war would not last long,—so decided was the superiority of the confederacy, in numbers, in military skill, and in the equal heart and obedience of all its members.[154] The naval superiority of Athens depended chiefly upon hired seamen,—and the confederacy, by borrowing from the treasuries of Delphi and Olympia, would soon be able to overbid her, take into pay her best mariners, and equal her equipment at sea: they would excite revolt among her allies, and establish a permanent fortified post for the ruin of Attica. To make up a common fund for this purpose, was indispensably necessary; for Athens was far more than a match for each of them single-handed, and nothing less than hearty union could save them all from successive enslavement,—the very supposition of which was intolerable to Peloponnesian freemen, whose fathers had liberated Greece from the Persian. Let them not shrink from endurance and sacrifice in such a cause,—it was their hereditary pride to purchase success by laborious effort. The Delphian god had promised them his coöperation; and the whole of Greece would sympathize in the cause, either from fear of the despotism of Athens, or from hopes of profit. They would not be the first to break the truce, for the Athenians had already broken it, as the declaration of the Delphian god distinctly implied. Let them lose no time in sending aid to the Potidæans, a Dorian population now besieged by Ionians, as well as to those other Greeks whom Athens had enslaved. Every day the necessity for effort was becoming stronger, and the longer it was delayed, the more painful it would be when it came. “Be ye persuaded then, (concluded the orator), that this city, which has constituted herself despot of Greece, has her position against all of us alike, some for present rule, others for future conquest; let us assail and subdue her, that we may dwell securely ourselves hereafter, and may emancipate those Greeks who are now in slavery.”[155]
If there were any speeches delivered at this congress in opposition to the war, they were not likely to be successful in a cause wherein even Archidamus had failed. After the Corinthian had concluded, the question was put to the deputies of every city, great and small, indiscriminately and the majority decided for war.[156] This important resolution was adopted about the end of 432 B.C., or the beginning of January 431 B.C.: the previous decision of the Spartans separately may have been taken about two months earlier, in the preceding October or November 432 B.C.
Reviewing the conduct of the two great Grecian parties at this momentous juncture, with reference to existing treaties and positive grounds of complaint, it seems clear that Athens was in the right. She had done nothing which could fairly be called a violation of the thirty years’ truce: and for such of her acts as were alleged to be such, she offered to submit them to that amicable arbitration which the truce itself prescribed. The Peloponnesian confederates were manifestly the aggressors in the contest; and if Sparta, usually so backward, now came forward in a spirit so decidedly opposite, we are to ascribe it partly to her standing fear and jealousy of Athens, partly to the pressure of her allies, especially of the Corinthians. Thucydidês, recognizing these two as the grand determining motives, and indicating the alleged infractions of truce as simple occasions or pretexts, seems to consider the fear and hatred of Athens as having contributed more to determine Sparta than the urgency of her allies.[157] That the extraordinary aggrandizement of Athens, during the period immediately succeeding the Persian invasion, was well calculated to excite alarm and jealousy in Peloponnesus, is indisputable: but if we take Athens as she stood in 432 B.C., it deserves notice that she had neither made, nor, so far as we know, tried to make, a single new acquisition during the whole fourteen years which had elapsed since the conclusion of the thirty years’ truce;[158]— and, moreover, that that truce marked an epoch of signal humiliation and reduction of her power. The triumph which Sparta and the Peloponnesians then gained, though not sufficiently complete to remove all fear of Athens, was yet great enough to inspire them with the hope that a second combined effort would subdue her. This mixture of fear and hope was exactly the state of feeling out of which war was likely to grow,—and we see that even before the quarrel between Corinth and Korkyra, sagacious Greeks everywhere anticipated war as not far distant:[159] it was near breaking out even on occasion of the revolt of Samos,[160] and peace was then preserved partly by the commercial and nautical interests of Corinth, partly by the quiescence of Athens. But the quarrel of Corinth and Korkyra, which Sparta might have appeased beforehand had she thought it her interest to do so,—and the junction of Korkyra with Athens,—exhibited the latter as again in a career of aggrandizement, and thus again brought into play the warlike feelings of Sparta; while they converted Corinth from the advocate of peace into a clamorous organ of war. The revolt of Potidæa,—fomented by Corinth, and encouraged by Sparta in the form of a positive promise to invade Attica,—was, in point of fact, the first distinct violation of the truce, and the initiatory measure of the Peloponnesian war: nor did the Spartan meeting, and the subsequent congress of allies at Sparta, serve any other purpose than to provide such formalities as were requisite to insure the concurrent and hearty action of numbers, and to clothe with imposing sanction a state of war already existing in reality, though yet unproclaimed. The sentiment in Peloponnesus at this moment was not the fear of Athens, but the hatred of Athens,—and the confident hope of subduing her. And indeed such confidence was justified by plausible grounds: men might well think that the Athenians would never endure the entire devastation of their highly cultivated soil,—or at least that they would certainly come forth to fight for it in the field, which was all that the Peloponnesians desired. Nothing except the unparalleled ascendency and unshaken resolution of Periklês, induced the Athenians to persevere in a scheme of patient defence, and to trust to that naval superiority which the enemies of Athens, save and except the judicious Archidamus, had not yet learned fully to appreciate. Moreover, the confident hopes of the Peloponnesians were materially strengthened by the wide-spread sympathy in favor of their cause, proclaiming, as it did, the intended liberation of Greece from a despot city.[161]
To Athens, on the other hand, the coming war presented itself in a very different aspect; holding out scarcely any hope of possible gain, and the certainty of prodigious loss and privation,—even granting, that, at this heavy cost, her independence and union at home, and her empire abroad, could be upheld. By Periklês, and by the more long-sighted Athenians, the chance of unavoidable war was foreseen even before the Korkyræan dispute.[162] But Periklês was only the first citizen in a democracy, esteemed, trusted, and listened to, more than any one else by the body of the citizens, but warmly opposed in most of his measures, under the free speech and latitude of individual action which reigned at Athens,—and even bitterly hated by many active political opponents. The formal determination of the Lacedæmonians, to declare war, must of course have been made known at Athens by those Athenian envoys, who had entered an unavailing protest against it in the Spartan assembly. No steps were taken by Sparta to carry this determination into effect until after the congress of allies and their pronounced confirmatory vote. Nor did the Spartans even then send any herald, or make any formal declaration. They despatched various propositions to Athens, not at all with a view of trying to obtain satisfaction, or of providing some escape from the probability of war; but with the contrary purpose,—of multiplying demands, and enlarging the grounds of quarrel.[163] Meanwhile, the deputies retiring home from the congress to their respective cities, carried with them the general resolution for immediate warlike preparations to be made, with as little delay as possible.[164]
The first requisition addressed by the Lacedæmonians to Athens was a political manœuvre aimed at Periklês, their chief opponent in that city. His mother, Agaristê, belonged to the great family of the Alkmæônids, who were supposed to be under an inexpiable hereditary taint, in consequence of the sacrilege committed by their ancestor Megaklês, nearly two centuries before, in the slaughter of the Kylonian suppliants near the altar of the Venerable Goddesses.[165] Ancient as this transaction was, it still had sufficient hold on the mind of the Athenians to serve as the basis of a political manœuvre: about seventy-seven years before, shortly after the expulsion of Hippias from Athens, it had been so employed by the Spartan king Kleomenês, who at that time exacted from the Athenians a clearance of the ancient sacrilege, to be effected by the banishment of Kleisthenês, the founder of the democracy, and his chief partisans. This demand, addressed by Kleomenês to the Athenians, at the instance of Isagoras, the rival of Kleisthenês,[166] had been then obeyed, and had served well the purposes of those who sent it; a similar blow was now aimed by the Lacedæmonians at Periklês, the grand nephew of Kleisthenês, and doubtless at the instance of his political enemies: religion required, it was pretended, that “the abomination of the goddess should be driven out.”[167] If the Athenians complied with this demand, they would deprive themselves, at this critical moment, of their ablest leader; but the Lacedæmonians, not expecting compliance, reckoned at all events upon discrediting Periklês with the people, as being partly the cause of the war through family taint of impiety,[168]—and this impression would doubtless be loudly proclaimed by his political opponents in the assembly.
The influence of Periklês with the Athenian public had become greater and greater as their political experience of him was prolonged. But the bitterness of his enemies appears to have increased along with it; and not long before this period, he had been indirectly assailed, through the medium of accusations against three different persons, all more or less intimate with him,—his mistress Aspasia, the philosopher Anaxagoras, and the sculptor Pheidias. We cannot make out either the exact date, or the exact facts, of either of these accusations. Aspasia, daughter of Axiochus, was a native of Milêtus, beautiful, well educated, and ambitious. She resided at Athens, and is affirmed, though upon very doubtful evidence, to have kept slave-girls to be let out as courtezans; whatever may be the case with this report, which is most probably one of the scandals engendered by political animosity against Periklês,[169] it is certain that so remarkable were her own fascinations, her accomplishments, and her powers, not merely of conversation, but even of oratory and criticism,—that the most distinguished Athenians of all ages and characters, Sokratês among the number, visited her, and several of them took their wives along with them to hear her also. The free citizen women of Athens lived in strict and almost oriental recluseness, as well after being married as when single: everything which concerned their lives, their happiness, or their rights, was determined or managed for them by male relatives: and they seem to have been destitute of all mental culture and accomplishments. Their society presented no charm nor interest, which men accordingly sought for in the company of the class of women called hetæræ, or courtezans, literally female companions; who lived a free life, managed their own affairs, and supported themselves by their powers of pleasing. These women were numerous, and were doubtless of every variety of personal character: but the most distinguished and superior among them, such as Aspasia and Theodotê,[170] appear to have been the only women in Greece, except the Spartan, who either inspired strong passion or exercised mental ascendency.
Periklês had been determined in his choice of a wife by those family considerations which were held almost obligatory at Athens, and had married a woman very nearly related to him, by whom he had two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus. But the marriage, having never been comfortable, was afterwards dissolved by mutual consent, according to that full liberty of divorce which the Attic law permitted; and Periklês concurred with his wife’s male relations, who formed her legal guardians, in giving her a way to another husband.[171] He then took Aspasia to live with him, had a son by her, who bore his name, and continued ever afterwards on terms of the greatest intimacy and affection with her. Without adopting those exaggerations which represent Aspasia as having communicated to Periklês his distinguished eloquence, or even as having herself composed orations for public delivery, we may well believe her to have been qualified to take interest and share in that literary and philosophical society which frequented the house of Periklês, and which his unprincipled son Xanthippus,—disgusted with his father’s regular expenditure, as withholding from him the means of supporting an extravagant establishment,—reported abroad with exaggerating calumnies and turned into derision. It was from that worthless young man, who died of the Athenian epidemic during the lifetime of Periklês, that his political enemies and the comic writers of the day were mainly furnished with scandalous anecdotes to assail the private habits of this distinguished man.[172] The comic writers attacked him for alleged intrigues with different women, but the name of Aspasia they treated as public property, without any mercy or reserve: she was the Omphalê, the Deianeira, or the Hêrê, to this great Hêraklês or Zeus of Athens. At length one of these comic writers, Hermippus, not contented with scenic attacks, indicted her before the dikastery for impiety, as participant in the philosophical discussions held, and the opinions professed, in the society of Periklês, by Anaxagoras and others. Against Anaxagoras himself, too, a similar indictment is said to have been preferred, either by Kleon or by Thucydidês, son of Melêsias, under a general resolution recently passed in the public assembly, at the instance of Diopeithês. And such was the sensitive antipathy of the Athenian public, shown afterwards fatally in the case of Sokratês, and embittered in this instance by all the artifices of political faction, against philosophers whose opinions conflicted with the received religious dogmas, that Periklês did not dare to place Anaxagoras on his trial: the latter retired from Athens, and the sentence of banishment was passed against him in his absence.[173] But he himself defended Aspasia before the diakastery: in fact, the indictment was as much against him as against her: one thing alleged against her, and also against Pheidias, was, the reception of free women to facilitate the intrigues of Periklês. He defended her successfully, and procured a verdict of acquittal: but we are not surprised to hear that his speech was marked by the strongest personal emotions, and even by tears.[174] The dikasts were accustomed to such appeals to their sympathies, sometimes even to extravagant excess, from ordinary accused persons: but in Periklês, so manifest an outburst of emotion stands out as something quite unparalleled: for constant self-mastery was one of the most prominent features in his character.[175] And we shall find him near the close of his political life, when he had become for the moment unpopular with the Athenian people, distracted as they were at the moment with the terrible sufferings of the pestilence,—bearing up against their unmerited anger not merely with dignity, but with a pride of conscious innocence and desert which rises almost into defiance; insomuch that the rhetor Dionysius, who criticizes the speech of Periklês as if it were simply the composition of Thucydidês, censures that historian for having violated dramatic propriety by a display of insolence where humility would have been becoming.[176]