[489-481 B.C.]
Of the particular points on which their rivalry turned, we are unfortunately little informed. But it is highly probable that one of them was the important change of policy above alluded to,—the conversion of Athens from a land-power into a sea-power; the development of this new and stirring element in the minds of the people. By all authorities, this change of policy is ascribed principally and specially to Themistocles. On that account, if for no other reason, Aristides would probably be found opposed to it: but it was moreover a change not in harmony with that old-fashioned Hellenism, undisturbed uniformity of life, and narrow range of active duty and experience which Aristides seems to have approved in common with the subsequent philosophers. The seaman was naturally more of a wanderer and cosmopolite than the heavy-armed soldier: the modern Greek seaman even at this moment is so to a remarkable degree, distinguished for the variety of his ideas, and the quickness of his intelligence: the land-service was a type of steadiness and inflexible ranks, the sea-service that of mutability and adventure. Such was the idea strongly entertained by Plato and other philosophers: though we may remark that they do not render justice to the Athenian seaman, whose training was far more perfect and laborious, and his habits of obedience far more complete, than that of the Athenian hoplite or horseman: a training beginning with Themistocles, and reaching its full perfection about the commencement of the Peloponnesian War.
In recommending extraordinary efforts to create a navy as well as to acquire nautical practice, Themistocles displayed all that sagacious appreciation of the circumstances and dangers of the time for which Thucydides gives him credit: and there can be no doubt that Aristides, though the honester politician of the two, was at this particular crisis the less essential to his country. Not only was there the struggle with Ægina, a maritime power equal or more than equal, and within sight of the Athenian harbour, but there was also in the distance a still more formidable contingency to guard against. The Persian armament had been driven with disgrace from Attica back to Asia; but the Persian monarch still remained with undiminished means of aggression as well as increased thirst for revenge; and Themistocles knew well that the danger from that quarter would recur greater than ever. He believed that it would recur again in the same way, by an expedition across the Ægean like that of Datis to Marathon; against which the best defence would be found in a numerous and well-trained fleet. Nor could the large preparations of Darius for renewing the attack remain unknown to a vigilant observer, extending as they did over so many Greeks subject to the Persian empire. Such positive warning was more than enough to stimulate the active genius of Themistocles, who now prevailed upon his countrymen to begin with energy the work of maritime preparation, as well against Ægina as against Persia. Not only were two hundred new ships built, and citizens trained as seamen, but the important work was commenced, during the year when Themistocles was either archon or general, of forming and fortifying a new harbour for Athens at Piræus, instead of the ancient open bay of Phalerum. The latter was indeed somewhat nearer to the city, but Piræus with its three separate natural ports, admitting of being closed and fortified, was incomparably superior in safety as well as in convenience. It is not too much to say with Herodotus, that the Æginetan war was “the salvation of Greece, by constraining the Athenians to make themselves a maritime power.” The whole efficiency of the resistance subsequently made to Xerxes turned upon this new movement in the organisation of Athens, allowed as it was to attain tolerable completeness through a fortunate concurrence of accidents; for the important delay of ten years between the defeat of Marathon and the fresh invasion by which it was to be avenged was, in truth, the result of accident. First, the revolt of Egypt; next, the death of Darius; thirdly, the indifference of Xerxes at his first accession towards Hellenic matters—postponing until 480 B.C., an invasion which would naturally have been undertaken in 487 or 486 B.C., and which would have found Athens at that time without her wooden walls—the great engine of her subsequent salvation.
Another accidental help, without which the new fleet could not have been built—a considerable amount of public money—was also by good fortune now available to the Athenians. It is first in an emphatic passage of the poet Æschylus, and next from Herodotus on the present occasion, that we hear of the silver mines of Laurium in Attica, and the valuable produce which they rendered to the state. At what time they first began to be worked, we have no information; but it seems hardly possible that they could have been worked with any spirit or profitable result, until after the expulsion of Hippias and the establishment of the democratical constitution of Clisthenes. Neither the strong local factions, by which different portions of Attica were set against each other before the time of Pisistratus—nor the rule of that despot succeeded by his two sons—were likely to afford confidence and encouragement. But when the democracy of Clisthenes first brought Attica into one systematic and comprehensive whole, with equal rights assigned to each part, and with a common centre at Athens—the power of that central government over the mineral wealth of the country, and its means of binding the whole people to respect agreements concluded with individual undertakers, would give a new stimulus to private speculation in the district of Laurium. It was the practice of the Athenian government either to sell, or to let for a long term of years, particular districts of this productive region to individuals or companies; on consideration partly of a sum or fine paid down, partly of a reserved rent equal to one twenty-fourth part of the gross produce.
We are told by Herodotus that there was in the Athenian treasury, at the time when Themistocles made his proposition to enlarge the naval force, a great sum arising from the Laurian mines, out of which a distribution was on the point of being made among the citizens—ten drachmæ [about 8 shillings or $2] to each man. Themistocles availed himself of this precious opportunity—set forth the necessities of the war with Ægina, and the still more formidable menace from the great enemy in Asia—and prevailed upon the people to forego the promised distribution for the purpose of obtaining an efficient navy. One cannot doubt that there must have been many speakers who would try to make themselves popular by opposing this proposition and supporting the distribution; insomuch that the power of the people generally to feel the force of a distant motive as predominant over a present gain, deserves notice as an earnest of their approaching greatness.
Immense indeed was the recompense reaped for this self-denial, not merely by Athens but by Greece generally, when the preparations of Xerxes came to be matured, and his armament was understood to be approaching. The orders for equipment of ships and laying in of provisions, issued by the Great King to his subject Greeks in Asia, the Ægean, and Thrace, would of course become known throughout Greece proper; especially the vast labour bestowed on the canal of Mount Athos, which would be the theme of wondering talk with every Thasian or Acanthian citizen who visited the festival games in the Peloponnesus. All these premonitory evidences were public enough, without any need of that elaborate stratagem whereby the exiled Demaratus is alleged to have secretly transmitted, from Susa to Sparta, intelligence of the approaching expedition. The formal announcements of Xerxes all designated Athens as the special object of his wrath and vengeance. Other Grecian cities might thus hope to escape without mischief: so that the prospect of the great invasion did not at first provoke among them any unanimous disposition to resist. Accordingly, when the first heralds despatched by Xerxes from Sardis in the autumn of 481 B.C., a little before his march to the Hellespont, addressed themselves to the different cities with demand of earth and water, many were disposed to comply. Neither to Athens, nor to Sparta, were any heralds sent; and these two cities were thus from the beginning identified in interest and in the necessity of defence. Both of them sent, in this trying moment, to consult the Delphian oracle; while both at the same time joined to convene a Panhellenic congress at the Isthmus of Corinth, for the purpose of organising resistance against the expected invader.
CONGRESS AT CORINTH
[481 B.C.]
We have pointed out the various steps whereby the separate states of Greece were gradually brought, even against their own natural instincts, into something approaching more nearly to political union. The present congress, assembled under the influence of common fear from Persia, has more of a Panhellenic character than any political event which has yet occurred in Grecian history. It extends far beyond the range of those Peloponnesian states which constitute the immediate allies of Sparta: it comprehends Athens, and is even summoned in part by her strenuous instigation: moreover it seeks to combine every city of Hellenic race and language, however distant, which can be induced to take part in it—even the Cretans, Corcyræans, and Sicilians. It is true that all these states do not actually come, but earnest efforts are made to induce them to come: the dispersed brethren of the Hellenic family are entreated to marshal themselves in the same ranks for a joint political purpose—the defence of the common hearth and metropolis of the race. This is a new fact in Grecian history, opening scenes and ideas unlike to anything which has gone before—enlarging prodigiously the functions and duties connected with that headship of Greece which had hitherto been in the hands of Sparta, but which is about to become too comprehensive for her to manage—and thus introducing increased habits of co-operation among the subordinate states, as well as rival hopes of aggrandisement among the leaders. The congress at the Isthmus of Corinth marks such further advance in the centralising tendencies of Greece, and seems at first to promise an onward march in the same direction: but the promise will not be found realised.
Its first step was indeed one of inestimable value. While most of the deputies present came prepared, in the name of their respective cities, to swear reciprocal fidelity and brotherhood, they also addressed all their efforts to appease the feuds and dissensions which reigned among particular members of their own meeting. Of these the most prominent, as well as the most dangerous, was the war still subsisting between Athens and Ægina. The latter was not exempt, even now, from suspicions of medising (i.e., embracing the cause of the Persians), which had been raised by her giving earth and water ten years before to Darius. But her present conduct afforded no countenance to such suspicions: she took earnest part in the congress as well as in the joint measures of defence, and willingly consented to accommodate her difference with Athens. In this work of reconciling feuds, so essential to the safety of Greece, the Athenian Themistocles took a prominent part, as well as Cheileus of Tegea in Arcadia. The congress proceeded to send envoys and solicit co-operation from such cities as were yet either equivocal or indifferent, especially Argos, Corcyra, and the Cretan and Sicilian Greeks; and at the same time to despatch spies across to Sardis, for the purpose of learning the state and prospects of the assembled army.