5. Sparta had not become the head of this league by agreement, and still less by usurpation; but by tacit acknowledgment she was the leader, not only of this, but of the whole of Greece; and she acted as such in all foreign relations from about the year 580 B.C. Her alliance was courted by Crœsus: and the Ionians, when pressed by Cyrus, had recourse to the Spartans, [pg 203] who, with an amusing ignorance of the state of affairs beyond the sea, thought to terrify the king of Persia by the threat of hostilities. It is a remarkable fact, that there were at that time Scythian envoys in Sparta, with whom a great plan of operations against Persia is said to have been concerted; which it is not easy to believe.[799] In the year 520 B.C. the Platæans put themselves under the protection of Cleomenes,[800] who referred them to Athens; a herald from Sparta drove the Alcmæonidæ from their city:[801] afterwards Aristagoras sought from the protector of Greece[802] aid against the national enemy: and when the Æginetans gave the Persians earth and water, the Athenians accused them of treachery before the Spartans: and lastly, during the Persian war, Greece found in the high character of that state the only means of effecting the union so necessary for her safety and success.[803]
6. In this war a new confederacy was formed, which was extended beyond Peloponnesus; the community of danger and of victory having, besides a momentary combination, also produced an union destined for some duration. It was the assembly of this league—a fixed congress at Corinth during, and at Sparta after, the war—that settled the internal differences of Greece, that invited Argos, Corcyra, and Gelon to join the league, and afterwards called upon Themistocles to answer for his proceedings.[804] So much it did for the present emergency. But at the same [pg 204] time Pausanias, the regent of Sparta, after the great victory of Platæa (at which, according to Æschylus, the power of Persia fell by the Doric spear),[805] prevailed upon the allies to conclude a further treaty. Under the auspices of the gods of the confederacy, particularly of the Eleutherian (or Grecian) Zeus, they pledged themselves mutually to maintain the independence of all states, and to many other conditions, of which the memory has been lost. To the Platæans in particular security from danger was promised.[806] The Ionians also, after the battle of Mycale, were received into this confederacy.[807]
7. The splendid victories over the Persians had for some time taken Sparta, which was fitted for a quiet and passive existence, out of her natural sphere; and her king Pausanias had wished to betray his country for the glitter of an Asiatic prince. But this state soon perceived her true interest, and sent no more commanders to Asia, “that her generals might not be made worse:” she likewise decided to avoid any further war with the Persians, thinking that Athens was better fitted to carry it on than herself.[808] The decision of the Spartans was doubtless influenced by the defection of the Ionians from Pausanias, and their refusal to obey Dorcis, whom the Spartans had sent with a small body of men in his place. Nevertheless, the chief motives which determined them must have lain deeper; for without the Greeks of Asia Minor, they could, by the assistance of the naval powers of Peloponnesus, Corinth, Ægina, &c, have continued a [pg 205] war which promised more gain and plunder than trouble and danger. If the speech were now extant in which Hetoëmaridas the Heraclid proved to the councillors that it was not expedient for Sparta to aim at the mastery of the sea,[809] we should doubtless possess a profound view, on the Spartan side, of those things which we are now accustomed to look on with Athenian eyes. Nor is it true that the supremacy over the Greeks was in fact transferred at all from Sparta to Athens, if we consider the matter as Sparta considered it, however great the influence of this change may have been on the power of Athens. But Sparta continued to hold her pre-eminence in Peloponnesus, and most of the nations of the mother-country joined themselves to her: while none but the Greeks of Asia Minor and the islands, who had previously been subjects of Persia, and were then only partially liberated, perhaps too much despised by Sparta, put themselves under the command of Athens.[810]
8. But the complete liberation of Asia Minor from the Persian yoke, which has been considered one of the chief exploits of Athens, was in fact never effected. Without entering into the discussion respecting the problematical treaty of Cimon,[811] we will merely seek to ascertain the actual state of the Asiatic Greeks at this period. Herodotus states, that Artaphernes, the satrap at Sardes under Darius, fixed the tribute to be paid by the Ionians as it remained until the time of the [pg 206] writer,[812] i.e. about the end of the Peloponnesian war. It is evident that this was a tribute to be paid to the king of Persia: the exactions of the Athenians were clearly not regulated by any Persian register of property. Again, in the nineteenth year of the war, Tissaphernes sought for assistance against Athens, that he might be able to pay to the king of Persia the tribute due from the Grecian maritime towns, which the Athenians had prevented him from collecting.[813] From this it is plain that the shah of Susa was ignorant that the majority of those cities had for more than sixty years paid to the Athenians and not to him, and attributed the arrears only to the negligence of his viceroys. I say only the majority; for the Athenians had been far from completing the glorious work of the great Cimon; and after the war-contributions had become a most oppressive tribute, these cities might not themselves be very desirous to change their master. Hence Themistocles, as a vassal of Persia, possessed undisturbed, at the accession of Artaxerxes, the beautiful towns of Magnesia on the Mæander, Lampsacus, Myus, Percote, and ancient Scepsis.[814] At a still later period the descendants of king Demaratus, Eurysthenes, and Procles, ruled by the same title over Halisarna in Mysia.[815] The neighbouring towns of Gambrium, Palægambrium, Myrina, and Grynium had [pg 207] been given by Darius to Gongylus, and his descendants still dwelt there after the Peloponnesian war.[816] When Athens unjustly expelled the Delians from their island, they found a place of refuge at Adramytteum, on the coast of Æolis, which was granted them by the satrap Pharnaces.[817] Thus the Athenian empire did not prevent the vassals and subjects of the king of Persia from ruling over the Greeks of Asia Minor, even down to the very coast. We need not go any further to prove the entire falsehood of the account commonly given by the panegyrical rhetoricians of Athens.
9. Peloponnesus took the less concern in these proceedings, as internal differences had arisen from some unknown cause, which led to an open war between Sparta and Arcadia. We only know, that, between the battle of Platæa (in which Tegea, as also later still, showed great fidelity towards Sparta) and the war with the Helots (i.e. between 479 and 465 B.C.), the Lacedæmonians fought two great battles, the one against the Tegeates and Argives at Tegea, the other against all the Arcadians, with the exception of the Mantineans, at Dipæa in the Mænalian territory. Tisamenus, an Elean, of the family of the Iamidæ, was in both battles in the Spartan army; and in both Sparta was victorious.[818] Yet, in an epigram of Simonides, the valour of the Tegeates is praised, who by their death had saved their city from destruction;[819] probably after the loss of the first battle. As we find that Argos had a share in this war,[820] it is possible [pg 208] that the views of that state were directed against the ascendancy of Sparta; perhaps also the independence of the Mænalians, Parrhasians, &c. had been, as was so often the case, attacked by the more powerful states of Arcadia, and was defended by the head of the Peloponnesian confederacy.
10. This war had not been brought to a termination, when, in the year 465 B.C., in the reign of Archidamus[821] and Pleistoanax, a tremendous earthquake (which is said to have been predicted by Anaximander[822]) destroyed Sparta, and a sudden ruin threatened to overwhelm the state of Greece. For, in the hope of utterly annihilating their rulers, many Helots (perhaps doubly excited by the late outrage on the suppliants at the altar of the Tænarian god),[823] especially the ancient inhabitants of Messenia, and two cities of the Periœci, revolted from Sparta; these rebels were all named Messenians, and the war was called the third Messenian war.[824] The circumstances of this terrible contest are almost unknown to us; and we can only collect the few fragments extant of its history. Aëimnestus the Spartan, who had killed Mardonius, fought with 300 men at Stenyclarus against a body of Messenians, and was slain with all his men.[825] This was followed by a great battle with [pg 209] the same enemy at Ithome,[826] in which the Spartans were victorious. Most of the conquered Messenians then intrenched themselves on the steep summit of Ithome, which was even then sacred to Zeus Ithomatas; and they probably restored the ancient walls and defences which had fallen down. Upon this the Lacedæmonians, foreseeing a tedious siege, called in the aid of their allies; and this call was answered among others by the Æginetans,[827] the Mantineans,[828] the Platæans,[829] and the Athenians, who, at the request of the Spartan envoy Periclides, sent 4000 hoplites[830] under the command of Cimon; the Spartans, however, dismissed them before the fortress was taken, in which they expected to be aided by the superiority of the Athenians in the art of besieging, not without showing their suspicion of the innovating spirit of their ally.[831] In the tenth year of the siege, 455 B.C., Ithome surrendered on terms; and the Messenians, together with [pg 210] their wives and children, quitted Peloponnesus, under a promise of never again entering it. It appears that the war between Lacedæmon and Arcadia was concluded upon conditions, of which one was, that no person should be put to death for the sake of the Lacedæmonian party at Tegea; and another, that Sparta was to expel the Messenians from the country, but not kill them—which were inscribed on a pillar on the banks of the Alpheus.[832] The Athenians, however, gave the fugitives the town of Naupactus, which they had shortly before conquered, and which was conveniently situated for tempting them, against their promise, to make inroads and forays in Peloponnesus. The Messenians still continued, in the Peloponnesian war, to be distinguished from the neighbouring people by their Doric dialect.[833]
11. Immediately after the dismission of the Athenians from Ithome, the people of Athens, in order to resent the affront, annulled the alliance with Sparta, which had subsisted since the Persian war;[834] entered into a treaty with Argos, the enemy of Sparta, and also with the Thessalians; and even joined to itself Megara, which was dependent on its commercial intercourse. Then followed the war with the maritime towns of Argolis, in which Athens, after many reverses, at length succeeded in destroying the fleet of [pg 211] Ægina, and subjugating that island (457 B.C.).[835] Sparta was compelled to be a quiet spectator of the subjection of so important a member of her confederacy, as she was still occupied with the siege of Ithome, and in the same year had sent out an army to liberate her mother country, Doris, from the yoke of the Phocians. But when, after the execution of this object, the Spartans were hastening back to Peloponnesus, they were compelled to force their passage home by the battle of Tanagra, which, with the assistance of the Thebans, they gained over an army composed of Athenians, Ionians, Argives, and Thessalians. This aid was afforded to them on the condition that they would help the Thebans to regain their supremacy in Bœotia, which the Thebans had lost by their defection from the Grecian cause in the Persian war.[836] Sparta, however, after so decisive a victory, concluded a four months' armistice with Athens, during which that state conquered the Thebans at Œnophyta, finished the blockade of Ægina, subdued all Bœotia with the exception of Thebes, and Phocis, and extended its democratical constitution, which after the battle of Tanagra was nearly threatened with destruction,[837] even to the city of Thebes. The inactivity of Sparta during these astonishing successes of her enemy (for when she concluded the armistice with Athens she must have partly foreseen its consequences) seems to prove that she was entirely occupied with the final capture [pg 212] of Ithome, and the settlement of her interests in Arcadia.[838] But that the war, which was now renewed by Athens, nevertheless extended to the whole Peloponnesian league, is shown by the connected attacks of Tolmides on the Spartan harbour Gytheium, and the cities of Sicyon and Corinth, and also by the expedition of Pericles in the Corinthian gulf. The five years' truce in 451 B.C. was only an armistice between Athens and the Peloponnesian confederacy, which left Bœotia to shake off the Athenian yoke by its own exertions. This was also the time of the Sacred war, in which a Spartan and an Athenian army, one coming after the other, the first gave the management of the temple to the Delphians, and the second, against all ancient right,[839] to the Phocians. At the end of these five years Megara revolted from the Athenians, and in consequence an invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesians took place, which, though it did not produce any immediate result, was soon followed by the thirty years' truce, in which Athens ceded her conquests in Megaris and Peloponnesus,[840] and on the mainland returned within her ancient boundaries; but she preserved the same power over her other confederates. For when the Athenians soon afterwards attacked the revolted island of Samos, the [pg 213] Peloponnesians indeed debated whether they should protect it, but the proposal of Corinth was adopted, that Athens should be allowed to deal with her allies as she pleased.[841]
12. If now we consider the events which have been briefly traced in the foregoing pages, it will be perceived, that the principle on which the Lacedæmonians constantly acted was one of self-defence, of restoring what had been lost, or preserving what was threatened with danger; whereas the Athenians were always aiming at attack or conquest, or the change of existing institutions. While the Spartans during this period, even after the greatest victories, did not conquer a foot of land, subjugate one independent state, or destroy one existing institution; the Athenians, for a longer or for a shorter time, reduced large tracts of country under their dominion, extended their alliance (as it was called) on all sides, and respected no connexion sanctioned by nature, descent, or antiquity, when it came in conflict with their plans of empire. But the astonishing energy of the Athenian people, which from one point kept the whole of Greece in constant vibration, almost paralysed Sparta; the natural slowness of that state became more and more apparent: which having been, as it were, violently transplanted into a strange region, only began by degrees to comprehend the policy of Athens.
But when Athens saw the Peloponnesian confederacy again established, and as she could not, on account of the truce, attack it directly, she looked to the colonial law, which rested rather on hereditary feelings than on positive institution, for an opportunity of an [pg 214] indirect attack. This was soon found in the defensive treaty with Corcyra, which state was engaged with its mother country Corinth in a war, according to ancient Greek principles, wholly unlawful and unjust. Besides this, however, it was an actual breach of the thirty years' truce.[842] And the same principles were expressed in the demand that Potidæa should, for the sake of the Athenian confederacy, give up its original connexion with the parent state. In both these cases it is manifest that the maxims of the Athenian policy were directly at variance with the general feeling of justice entertained by the Greeks, and especially with the respect for affinity of blood; and this fundamental difference was the true cause of the Peloponnesian war.
13. As it would not be consistent with the plan of this work to give a detailed account of the influence of the Peloponnesian war upon the political and private character of the Greeks, we must be content to point out the following obvious points of opposition between the contending parties. In the first place, then, Dorians were opposed to Ionians; and hence in the well-known oracle it was called the Doric war.[843] The individual exceptions are for the most part merely apparent;[844] also when the Athenians attacked Sicily, all the Doric cities were opposed to them.[845] On the side of Athens were ranged all the Ionians of Europe, [pg 215] of the islands, and of Asia, not indeed voluntarily, but still not altogether against their inclination. The union of the free Greeks against the evil ambition of one state. At the beginning of the war the general voice of Greece was in favour of Sparta[846] (which was heard through the Delphian oracle, when it promised that state assistance);[847] nor did she compel any one to join in it. The allies of Athens, having previously been Persian subjects, were accustomed to obey; and on the present occasion forced to submit; the public assembly of Athens was the only free voice in so large a combination. Land-forces against sea-forces. According to the speech of Pericles, Peloponnesus was able, in an action with heavy-armed troops, to resist all the rest of Greece together; and Athens avoided coming to this mode of engagement with singular ingenuity. The fleet of the Peloponnesians, on the other hand, was at the beginning of the war very inconsiderable.[848] Hence it was some time before the belligerent parties even so much as encountered one another. The land was the means of communication for one party, the sea for the other: hence the states friendly to Athens were immediately compelled to build long walls for the purpose of connecting the chief city with the sea, and isolating it from the land; as Megara before, and Argos and Patræ during the war.[849] Large bodies of men practised in war against wealth. The Peloponnesians carried on the war with natives: whereas Athens manned her fleet—the basis [pg 216] of her power—chiefly with foreign seamen; so that the Corinthians said justly that the power of Athens was rather purchased than native.[850] It was the main principle of Pericles' policy, and it is also adopted by Thucydides in the famous introduction to his History, that it is not the country and people, but moveable property, (χρήματα, in the proper sense of the word,) which makes states great and powerful. Slow and deliberate conviction against determined rashness. This is evident both from the different direction taken by the alliances of the two parties, and from their national character. It was with good reason that the oracle admonished Sparta to carry on the war with decision and firmness; for that state was always cautious of undertaking a war, and ready for peace.[851] Maintenance of ancient custom as opposed to the desire of novelty. The former was the chief feature of the Doric, the latter of the Ionic race. The Dorians wished to preserve their ancient dignity and power, as well as their customs and religious feelings: the Ionians were commonly in pursuit of something new, frequently, as in the case of the Sicilian expedition, but obscurely seen and conceived. Union of nations and races against one arbitrarily formed. As has been already shown, this difference was the cause of the war; and indeed Athens in the course of it hardly recognised any duty in small states to remain faithful to cities of the same race, and to their mother countries; otherwise, why was Melos so barbarously punished, for remembering rather that it was a colony of Sparta than an island? Thus also in the interior [pg 217] of states the Athenians encouraged political associations or clubs (ἑταιρίαι), while the Spartans trusted to the ties of relationship.[852] Aristocracy against democracy.[853] This difference was manifested in the first half of the war by Athens changing, while Sparta only restored governments; for in this instance also the power of Sparta was in strictness only employed in upholding ancient establishments, as an aristocracy may indeed be overthrown, but cannot be formed in a moment.