[245] Thucyd. ii, 26-32; Diodor. xii, 44.
[246] Thucyd. ii, 27.
[247] Thucyd. ii, 31; Diodor. xii, 44.
[248] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 30.
[249] See the striking picture in the Acharneis of Aristophanês (685-781) of the distressed Megarian selling his hungry children into slavery with their own consent: also Aristoph. Pac. 432.
The position of Megara, as the ally of Sparta and enemy of Athens, was uncomfortable in the same manner,—though not to the same intense pitch of suffering,—in the war which preceded the battle of Leuktra, near fifty years after this (Demosthen. cont. Neær., p. 1357, c. 12).
[250] Pausan. i, 40, 3.
[251] Thucyd. ii, 24.
[252] Thucyd. viii, 15.
[253] Mitford, Hist. of Greece, ch. xiv, sect. 1, vol. iii, p. 100. “Another measure followed, which, taking place at the time when Thucydidês wrote and Periklês spoke, and while Periklês held the principal influence in the administration, strongly marks both the inherent weakness and the indelible barbarism of democratical government. A decree of the people directed.... But so little confidence was placed in a decree so important, sanctioned only by the present will of that giddy tyrant, the multitude of Athens, against whose caprices, since the depression of the court of Areopagus, no balancing power remained,—that the denunciation of capital punishment was proposed against whosoever should propose, and whosoever should concur in (?) any decree for the disposal of that money to any other purpose, or in any other circumstances.”