Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh

“ They had no more ships of war, and on land they were still effectually kept in check by the Spartan garrison at Decelea. Lysander was so sure of his prey that he made no haste to sail to the Piraeus. He busied himself for some months in taking over towns once in alliance with or subject to Athens, expelling the Athenian garrisons, but granting them safe-conducts to Athens, that the number of mouths in the doomed city might be increased. He was not opposed any- where, the whole Athenian empire crumbled away as if by magic, and none of the allies maintained their allegiance but Samos. ”

“ He was a man of unusually high character, and had many of the most important qualifications of a great general. He had introduced the system of the phalanx, and had brought the army of Thebes to a high state of perfection. Still, he had to direct or carry out the policy of his country, which was narrow and mischievous, though some of the worst acts of the Thebans during their supremacy were done against his will. His policy was to carry the war into the enemy's country, to set up in the Peloponnese a power great enough to counterbalance that of Sparta. ”

“ The Lacedaemonian admiral was now Lysander, a man of low origin but possessed of remarkable talents as a statesman, diplomatist, and soldier. An intimate friendship sprang up between him and Cyrus, partly owing to his personal qualities, partly because the prince had made up his mind to support Sparta as being most inclined to acknowledge the Persian rule of the Asiatic Greek states. From that time there was renewed activity in the Spartan fleet, materially promoted by the regular payment of the men which the liberality of Cyrus made possible. ”

“ Fifty-five years earlier this had been the policy of Alcibiades, who looked to Argos as best supplying what was needed. Now Epaminondas, or his agents selected Arcadia. Mantineia was restored, the Arcadian cities were induced to form a league, and a new town, to be called Megaclopolis, was founded, to be the capital and seat of government. This measure alarmed both Sparta and Athens. We therefore have a new combination—these two ancient enemies joining to resist the ambition of Thebes. The war went on. Epaminondas four times invaded the Peloponnese—once almost surprising Sparta itself. ”

“ But though the aristocrats were compelled to leave the island, some of them shortly afterwards returned, and the civil disorders thus renewed prevented Corcyra from counting for anything henceforth in the war. The Athenians, however, still had their eyes directed westward, and this year saw the first of these interferences in the affairs of Sicily, which were several times repeated with the vain hope of establishing an Athenian supremacy there, and gaining a new vantage-ground for attacks upon the Peloponnese. ”

“ The defeat of this great armament, therefore, must have caused mourning all over Greece, and a keen sense of the weakened prestige of Athens; which was farther hampered by the permanent occupation of Decelea, only about fifteen miles from the city, by a Peloponnesian force commanded by a Spartan king. Accordingly there was a widely-spread inclination to revolt among the subject allies. The Persian satraps in Asia Minor, Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes, saw their opportunity of reasserting their master's authority over the Greek cities in Asia, and his influence in Greece generally. ”

“ These years were a time of great distress in Athens owing to an outbreak of plague, which caused the death of many thousands, and demoralised the survivors by the constant peril, and the relaxation of all the usual restraints which it produced. The people turned fiercely upon Pericles, whom they regarded as the origin of their sufferings, both as having caused the war and induced them to crowd the city with countrymen and cattle. ”

“ He devoted himself to philosophy and applied himself to listen to everybody of eminence who might assist his studies. He soon gave up physics—as leading to nothing and being beyond human powers—and devoted his whole mind to ethics and mental philosophy. ”

“ Lamachus was for sailing direct to Syracuse, Alcibiades for first making an attempt to win over other Sicilian towns and native Sicels to their side. But when the plan of Alcibiades was finally accepted and the armament moved to Catana—which had been induced almost by accident to admit them—it was met by a trireme sent by the Athenians to recall Alcibiades to stand his trial for impiety. His enemies had succeeded in his absence in stirring up the popular feeling against him, and thus the ablest of the generals was lost to the expedition, and a most dangerous enemy was secured for Athens. ”

“ It was on this occasion that Socrates, who happened to be one of the prytanes, or presidents of the ecclesia, showed his courage and respect for law by refusing to put the resolution, condemning the generals, to the vote, because it was illegal to condemn men together by a single decree. ”

“ Yet they would probably have prevailed had it not been for an eclipse of the moon, after which the seers forbade any movement for a month, and Nicias was firm in refusing to disobey the warning. The result was that the Syracusans again attacked them by land and sea. The land attack was repulsed, but the defeat of the fleet was so complete that all idea of any further offensive movement had to be abandoned. The best they could hope would be to escape in safety. ”

“ The alliance seems first to have consisted of Chios, Tenedos, Mitylene and Mythymna in Lesbos, Byzantium and Rhodes, but it was quickly joined by others until it reached the number of about seventy. The adhesion of Thebes marked its antagonism to Sparta, and that of Acarnania, Cephallenia, and Zakynthus three years later secured Athenian supremacy in the Ionian sea. The renewed activity of Athens brought out a new generation of generals and admirals as able and successful as those who served her in the last century. ”

“ The situation was further complicated by the action of Alcibiades, who, finding his position in Sparta wearisome or dangerous, joined Tissaphernes, and persuaded him for a time to be somewhat less liberal in his support of the Spartans, arguing that it was not for the king's interest that any one Greek state should be too powerful. Taking advantage of the influence which he had or professed to have over Tissaphernes, he now negotiated with the commanders of the Athenian fleet at Samos for his own restoration. ”

“ Some of the allies, such as the Corinthians and Thebans, wished to destroy Athens altogether. But the Spartans, to their honour, rejected the proposal; and at length peace was granted on condition of Athens renouncing all authority over other states, possessing only twelve ships of war, recalling oligarchical exiles, pulling down the long walls, and dismantling the Piraeus (Spring of B.C. 404) . Lysander sailed into the Piraeus and superintended the destruction of the long walls and the fortifications of the harbour. ”

“ The same process would show men that their views and conceptions of the gods were hopelessly vague and uncertain. Such demonstrations could easily be represented as sapping the foundations of religion and morality. The prejudice which was roused by them was confirmed by the fact that some of the youths who frequented his society had turned out bad and mischievous citizens—such as Alcibiades the traitor, and Critias the most abhorred of the Thirty. ”

“ Meanwhile the Athenian fleets were to harry the coasts of the Peloponnese, and carry the arms of Athens into Western Greece and the Islands of the Ionian Sea. Thus in B.C. 431 Cephallenia was reduced, and in B.C. 429 Acarnania was successfully defended against a combined attack of Peloponnesians and Ambraciots. In this same year Phormio twice defeated the Peloponnesian fleet, which in the second battle was commanded by Brasidas, one of the most able commanders produced by Sparta in the early years of the war, who failed, however, in an attack on the Piraeus. ”

“ The Sophists, or Lecturers, who had visited Athens from time to time, had principally promoted the study of oratory or literature. They seldom professed to teach physical science, and in their instructions Ethics were generally treated as a branch of Politics—the art of social life. ”

“ The Spartans secured the revolt of Euboea and defeated an Athenian force sent to recover it; and the mortification and terror of the Athenian people were increased by seeing a new fort being erected at the entrance of the harbour of the Piraeus, which they believed to be intended to overawe them and protect Peloponnesian invaders. A counter revolution, therefore, quickly took place, and the restored ecclesia voted the recall of Alcibiades (as the commanders at Samos wished) and even elected him Strategus. ”

“ Athens. But the Athenians were too triumphant to listen, and the unexpected success of Cleon, who had, as he promised, taken the Spartans in Sphacteria within twenty clays, had given him great influence in the assembly, and induced the people to follow his policy, which was to continue the war at all hazards, rather than that of the cautious and respectable Nicias, who was for making peace. They won a victory over the Corinthians in the autumn of B.C. 425; in the next year they occupied the island of Cythera, off the southern shore of Lacedaemonia, as well as other places on the mainland ”

“ Still, about a thousand of the men who had been ringleaders in the revolt were executed, and their lands divided among Athenian cleruchs.
Freed from this danger, the Athenian fleets were again employed in the west to support the democrats of Corcyra, who, after violent civil wars and terrible massacres, had expelled the aristocrats. Here, as at Lesbos, the dilatoriness or cowardice of the Spartan commander gave the Athenians the advantage. ”

“ Seldom had the destruction of so large and splendid a force been so complete. The disaster affected a very large part of Greece. Thucydides gives us the names of about thirty-eight states from which a certain number of citizens were serving in the Athenian force. They include towns or peoples of all parts of Hellas, Sicily, Italy, Ionia, the Aegean islands and Asiatic Greece. ”

“ The winter was employed in negotiations for peace. One difficulty was, that though both Athens and Sparta, from mutual disappointment at the result of the war, were anxious to make terms, the chief allies of Sparta—Boeotia, Corinth, Elis Megara—were unwilling to join. Another difficulty was, that though one of the terms of the peace was a mutual restitution of conquered states, this restitution was not always possible. Amphipolis refused to be handed back, and the Thebans declined to restore Plataea ”

“ He argued that it should be composed of all citizens of good character, and that the arbitrary execution of respectable men should cease. Critias, however, who took the lead among the Thirty, had no difficulty in getting rid of him. In a meeting of the Council he struck his name off the list of the privileged citizens, and delivered him to the Eleven for execution. After his death the tyranny went on for some months unchecked. However, the numerous citizens living in exile found safe refuge in Thebes and other towns, which from jealousy of Sparta, refused to deliver them up. ”

“ They had, moreover, inspired the Arcadians with so much confidence in themselves that some of their cities began to be restive under the Theban supremacy. The schism was increased by a quarrel over the management of Olympia and the use to be made of its treasures. In this dispute some appealed to Athens and Sparta and others to Thebes. Mantineia was the leading state on the Spartan side, and the primary object of Epaminondas in his fourth invasion of the Peloponnese was to reduce that town. ”

“ Thus all her maritime possessions were taken from Athens, while, on the other hand, her own frontiers were rectified so as to include Oropus, of which the Thebans had deprived her; and as a special mark of the king's favour the 2,000 prisoners were restored without ransom. Philip then marched into the Peloponnese, where every state submitted but Sparta. The Spartans stood sullenly aloof, but their supremacy in the Peloponnese was gone ; they were independent but isolated, with a territory cur- tailed in every direction, and impoverished by the ravages of the Macedonian troops. ”

“ It is true that next year (B.C. 417) a counter revolution restored the democrats, who rejoined Athens, but the battle of Mantinea practically put an end to efficient opposition to Sparta in the Peloponnese and broke up the conspiracy.
Athens was still nominally at peace with Sparta. But a series of offensive acts on her part led to the open renunciation of that peace. Pylos was a standing ground of quarrel. Athenian troops had fought at Mantinea on the side of Argos ”

“ Next year (B.C. 405) , Lysander again took the command of the Peloponnesian fleet. [3] He once more removed the scene of the war to the point at which Athens was most sensitive—the Hellespont. He seized Lampsacus, and, waiting his opportunity, sailed across to attack the Athenian fleet on the opposite coast at Aegospotami, when the men were mostly on shore at breakfast, destroyed their ships, and captured and put to death about 3,000 men. ”

“ At any rate, the Spartans failed to assist them, and after several months blockade of their chief city they were forced to surrender. The Athenians put all men of military age to death, and sold the women and children into slavery, dividing their lands among seven hundred of their own settlers. ”