This victory, rendering both Gorgôpas and the Æginetans confident, laid them open to a stratagem skilfully planned by the Athenian Chabrias. That officer, who seems to have been dismissed from Corinth as Iphikrates had been before him, was now about to conduct a force of ten triremes and eight hundred peltasts to the aid of Evagoras; to whom the Athenians were thus paying their debt of gratitude, though they could ill-spare any of their forces from home. Chabrias, passing over from Peiræus at night, landed without being perceived in a desert place of the coast of Ægina, and planted himself in ambush with his peltasts at some little distance inland of the Herakleion or temple of Hêraklês, amidst hollow ground suitable for concealment. He had before made agreement with another squadron and a body of hoplites under Demænetus; who arrived at daybreak and landed at Ægina at a point called Tripyrgia, about two miles distant from the Herakleion, but farther removed from the city. As soon as their arrival became known, Gorgôpas hastened out of the city to repel them, with all the troops he could collect, Æginetans as well as marines out of the ships of war,—and eight Spartans who happened to be his companions in the island. In their march from the city to attack the new comers, they had to pass near the Herakleion, and therefore near the troops in ambush; who, as soon as Gorgôpas and those about him had gone by, rose up suddenly and attacked them in the rear. The stratagem succeeded not less completely than that of Iphikrates at Abydos against Anaxibius. Gorgôpas and the Spartans near him were slain, the rest were defeated, and compelled to flee with considerable loss back to the city.[715]
After this brilliant success, Chabrias pursued his voyage to Cyprus, and matters appeared so secure on the side of Ægina, that Demænetus also was sent to the Hellespont to reinforce Iphikrates. For some time indeed, the Lacedæmonian ships at Ægina did nothing. Eteonikus, who was sent as successor to Gorgôpas,[716] could neither persuade nor constrain the seamen to go aboard, since he had no funds, while their pay was in arrears; so that Athens with her coast and her trading-vessels remained altogether unmolested. At length the Lacedæmonians were obliged to send again to Ægina Teleutias, the most popular and best-beloved of all their commanders, whom the seamen welcomed with the utmost delight. Addressing them under the influence of this first impression, immediately after he had offered sacrifice, he told them plainly that he had brought with him no money, but that he had come to put them in the way of procuring it; that he should himself touch nothing until they were amply provided, and should require of them to bear no more hardship or fatigue than he went through himself; that the power and prosperity of Sparta had all been purchased by willingly braving danger, as well as toil, in the cause of duty; that it became valiant men to seek their pay, not by cringing to any one, but by their own swords at the cost of enemies. And he engaged to find them the means of doing this, provided they would now again manifest the excellent qualities which he knew them by experience to possess.[717]
This address completely won over the seamen, who received it with shouts of applause; desiring Teleutias to give his orders forthwith, and promising ready obedience. “Well, (said he), now go and get your suppers, as you were intending to do; and then come immediately on shipboard, bringing with you provisions for one day. Advance me thus much out of your own means, that we may, by the will of the gods, make an opportune voyage.”[718]
In spite of the eminent popularity of Teleutias, the men would probably have refused to go on board, had he told them beforehand his intention of sailing with his twelve triremes straight into the harbor of Peiræus. At first sight, the enterprise seemed insane, for there were triremes in it more than sufficient to overwhelm him. But he calculated on finding them all unprepared, with seamen as well as officers in their lodgings ashore, so that he could not only strike terror and do damage, but even realize half an hour’s plunder before preparations could be made to resist him. Such was the security which now reigned there, especially since the death of Gorgôpas, that no one dreamt of an attack. The harbor was open, as it had been forty years before, when Brasidas (in the third year of the Peloponnesian war) attempted the like enterprise from the port of Megara.[719] Even then, at the maximum of the Athenian naval power, it was an enterprise possible, simply because every one considered it to be impossible; and it only failed because the assailants became terrified, and flinched in the execution.
A little after dark, Teleutias quitted the harbor of Ægina, without telling any one whither he was going. Rowing leisurely, and allowing his men alternate repose on their oars, he found himself before morning within half a mile of Peiræus, where he waited until day was just dawning, and then led his squadron straight into the harbor. Everything turned out as he expected; there was not the least idea of being attacked, nor the least preparation for defence. Not a single trireme was manned or in fighting condition, but several were moored without their crews, together with merchant-vessels, loaded as well as empty. Teleutias directed the captains of his squadron to drive against the triremes, and disable them; but by no means to damage the beaks of their own ships by trying to disable the merchant-ships. Even at that early hour, many Athenians were abroad, and the arrival of the unexpected assailants struck every one with surprise and consternation. Loud and vague cries transmitted the news through all Peiræus, and from Peiræus up to Athens, where it was believed that their harbor was actually taken. Every man having run home for his arms, the whole force of the city rushed impetuously down thither, with one accord,—hoplites as well as horsemen. But before such succors could arrive, Teleutias had full time to do considerable mischief. His seamen boarded the larger merchant-ships, seizing both the men and the portable goods which they found aboard. Some even jumped ashore on the quay (called the Deigma), laid hands on the tradesmen, ship-masters, and pilots, whom they saw near, and carried them away captive. Various smaller vessels with their entire cargoes were also towed away; and even three or four triremes. With all these Teleutias sailed safely out of Peiræus, sending some of his squadron to escort the prizes to Ægina, while he himself with the remainder sailed southward along the coast. As he was seen to come out of Peiræus, his triremes were mistaken for Athenian, and excited no alarm; so that he thus captured several fishing-boats, and passage-boats coming with passengers from the islands to Athens,—together with some merchantmen carrying corn and other goods, at Sunium. All were carried safely into Ægina.[720]
The enterprise of Teleutias, thus admirably concerted and executed without the loss of a man, procured for him a plentiful booty, of which, probably not the least valuable portion consisted in the men seized as captives. When sold at Ægina, it yielded so large a return that he was enabled to pay down at once a month’s pay to his seamen; who became more attached to him than ever, and kept the triremes in animated and active service under his orders.[721] Admonished by painful experience, indeed, the Athenians were now, doubtless, careful both in guarding and in closing Peiræus; as they had become forty years before after the unsuccessful attack of Brasidas. But in spite of the utmost vigilance, they suffered an extent of damage from the indefatigable Teleutias, and from the Æginetan privateers, quite sufficient to make them weary of the war.[722]
We cannot doubt, indeed, that the prosecution of the war must have been a heavy financial burthen upon the Athenians, from 395 B.C. downward to 387 B.C. How they made good the cost, without any contributory allies, or any foreign support, except what Konon obtained during one year from Pharnabazus,—we are not informed. On the revival of the democracy in 403 B.C., the poverty of the city, both public and private, had been very great, owing to the long previous war, ending with the loss of all Athenian property abroad. At a period about three years afterwards, it seems that the Athenians were in arrears, not merely for the tribute-money which they then owed to Sparta as her subject allies, but also for debts due to the Bœotians on account of damage done; that they were too poor to perform in full the religious sacrifices prescribed for the year, and were obliged to omit some even of the more ancient; that the docks as well as the walls were in sad want of repair.[723] Even the pay to those citizens who attended the public assemblies and sat as dikasts in the dikasteries,—pay essential to the working of the democracy,—was restored only by degrees; beginning first at one obolus, and not restored to three oboli, at which it had stood before the capture, until after an interval of some years.[724] It was at this time too that the Theôric Board, or Paymasters for the general expenses of public worship and sacrifice, was first established; and when we read how much the Athenians were embarrassed for the means of celebrating the prescribed sacrifices, there was, probably, great necessity for the formation of some such office. The disbursements connected with this object had been effected, before 403 B.C., not by any special Board, but by the Hellenotamiæ, or treasurers of the tribute collected from the allies, who were not renewed after 403 B.C. as the Athenian empire had ceased to exist.[725] A portion of the money disbursed by the Theôric Board for the religious festivals, was employed in the distribution of two oboli per head, called the diobely, to all present citizens, and actually received by all,—not merely by the poor, but by persons in easy circumstances also.[726] This distribution was made at several festivals, having originally begun at the Dionysia, for the purpose of enabling the citizens to obtain places at the theatrical representations in honor of Dionysus; but we do not know either the number of the festivals, or the amount of the total sum. It was, in principle, a natural corollary of the religious idea connected with the festival; not simply because the comfort and recreation of each citizen, individually taken, was promoted by his being enabled to attend the festival,—but because the collective effect of the ceremony, in honoring and propitiating the god, was believed to depend in part upon a multitudinous attendance and lively manifestations.[727] Gradually, however, this distribution of Theôric or festival-money came to be pushed to an abusive and mischievous excess, which is brought before our notice forty years afterwards, during the political career of Demosthenes. Until that time, we have no materials for speaking of it; and what I here notice is simply the first creation of the Theôric Board.
The means of Athens for prosecuting the war, and for paying her troops sent as well to Bœotia as to Corinth, must have been derived mainly from direct assessments on property, called eisphoræ. And some such assessments we find alluded to generally as having taken place during these years; though we know no details either as to frequency or amount.[728] But the restitution of the Long Walls and of the fortifications of Peiræus by Konon, was an assistance not less valuable to the finances of Athens than to her political power. That excellent harbor, commodious as a mercantile centre, and now again safe for the residence of metics and the importations of merchants, became speedily a scene of animated commerce, as we have seen it when surprised by Teleutias. The number of metics, or free resident non-citizens, became also again large, as it had been before the time of her reverses, and including a number of miscellaneous non-Hellenic persons, from Lydia, Phrygia, and Syria.[729] Both the port-duties, and the value of fixed property at Athens, was thus augmented so as in part to countervail the costs of war. Nevertheless these costs, continued from year to year, and combined with the damage done by Æginetan privateers, were seriously felt, and contributed to dispose the Athenians to peace.
In the Hellespont also, their prospects were not only on the decline, but had become seriously menacing. After going from Ægina to Ephesus in the preceding year, and sending back Gorgôpas with the Æginetan squadron, Antalkidas had placed the remainder of his fleet under his secretary, Nikolochus, with orders to proceed to the Hellespont for the relief of Abydos. He himself landed, and repaired to Tiribazus, by whom he was conducted up to the court of Susa. Here he renewed the propositions for the pacification of Greece,—on principles of universal autonomy, abandoning all the Asiatic Greeks as subject absolutely to the Persian king,—which he had tried in vain to carry through two years before. Though the Spartans generally were odious to Artaxerxes, Antalkidas behaved with so much dexterity[730] as to gain the royal favor personally, while all the influence of Tiribazus was employed to second his political views. At length they succeeded in prevailing upon the king formally to adopt the peace, and to proclaim war against any Greeks who should refuse to accede to it, empowering the Spartans to enforce it everywhere as his allies and under his sanction. In order to remove one who would have proved a great impediment to this measure, the king was farther induced to invite the satrap Pharnabazus up to court, and to honor him with his daughter in marriage; leaving the satrapy of Daskylium under the temporary administration of Ariobarzanes, a personal friend and guest of Antalkidas.[731] Thus armed against all contingencies, Antalkidas and Tiribazus returned from Susa to the coast of Asia Minor in the spring of 387 B.C., not only bearing the formal diploma ratified by the king’s seal, but commanding ample means to carry it into effect; since, in addition to the full forces of Persia, twenty additional triremes were on their way from Syracuse and the Greco-Italian towns, sent by the despot Dionysius to the aid of the Lacedæmonians.[732]