A General History for Colleges and High Schools

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But an act of treachery on the part of a native Greek rendered unavailing
all the bravery of the keepers of the pass. A by-way leading over the
mountains to the rear of the Spartans was revealed to Xerxes. The
startling intelligence was brought to Leonidas that the Persians were
descending the mountain-path in his rear. He saw instantly that all was
lost. The allies were permitted to seek safety in flight while opportunity
remained. But to him and his Spartan companions there could be no thought
of retreat. Death in the pass, the defence of which had been intrusted to
them, was all that Spartan honor and Spartan law now left them. The next
day, surrounded by the Persian host, they fought with desperate valor;
but, overwhelmed by mere numbers, they were slain to the last man. With
them also perished seven hundred Thespians who had chosen death with their
companions. Over the bodies of the Spartan soldiers a monument was
afterwards erected with this inscription: "Stranger, tell the
Lacedaemonians that we lie here in obedience to their orders."

THE BURNING OF ATHENS.-Athens now lay open to the invaders. The
Peloponnesians, thinking of their own safety simply, commenced throwing up
defences across the isthmus of Corinth, working day and night under the
impulse of an almost insane fear. Athens was thus left outside to care for
herself.

Counsels were divided. The Delphian oracle had obscurely declared, "When
everything else in the land of Cecrops shall be taken, Zeus grants to
Athena that the _wooden walls_ alone shall remain unconquered, to defend
you and your children." The oracle was believed to be, as was declared,
"firm as adamant."

But there were various opinions as to what was meant by the "wooden
walls." Some thought the Pythian priestess directed the Athenians to seek
refuge in the forests on the mountains; but Themistocles (who it is
thought may have himself prompted the oracle) contended that the ships
were plainly indicated.

The last interpretation was acted upon. All the soldiers of Attica were
crowded upon the vessels of the fleet at Salamis. The aged men, with the
women and children, were carried out of the country to different places of
safety. All the towns of Attica, with the capital, were thus abandoned to
the conquerors.

A few days afterwards the Persians entered upon the deserted plain, which
they rendered more desolate by ravaging the fields and burning the empty
towns. Athens shared the common fate, and her splendid temples sank in
flames. Sardis was avenged. The joy in distant Susa was unbounded.

THE NAVAL BATTLE OF SALAMIS (480 B.C.).--Just off the coast of Attica,
separated from the mainland by a narrow passage of water, lies the island
of Salamis. Here lay the Greek fleet, awaiting the Persian attack. To
hasten on the attack before dissensions should divide the Greek forces,
Themistocles resorted to the following stratagem. He sent a messenger to
Xerxes representing that he himself was ready to espouse the Persian
cause, and advised an immediate attack upon the Athenian fleet, which he
represented as being in no condition to make any formidable resistance.
Xerxes was deceived. He ordered an immediate attack. From a lofty throne
upon the shore he himself overlooked the scene and watched the result. The
Persian fleet was broken to pieces and two hundred of the ships destroyed.
[Footnote: The entire Persian fleet numbered about seven hundred and fifty
vessels; the Grecian, about three hundred and eighty-five ships, mostly
triremes.]

The blow was decisive. Xerxes, fearing that treachery might burn or break
the Hellespontine bridges, instantly despatched a hundred ships to protect
them; and then, leaving Mardonius with three hundred thousand men to
retrieve the disaster of Salamis, and effect, as he promised to do, the
conquest of the rest of Greece, the monarch set out on his ignominious
retreat to Asia. [Footnote: On the very day of the battle of Salamis,
Gelon of Syracuse gained a great victory over the Carthaginians at the
battle of Himera, in the north of Sicily. So it was a memorable day for
Hellas in the West as well as in the East.]

THE BATTLES OF PLATAEA AND MYCALE (479 B.C.).--The next year the Persian
fleet and army thus left behind in Europe were entirely destroyed, both on
the same day--the army at Plataea, near Thebes, by the combined Greek
forces under the Spartan Pausanias; and the fleet, including the Asiatic
land forces, at Mycale, on the Ionian coast.

The battles of Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale were the successive blows that
shattered into fragments the most splendid armaments ever commanded by
Asiatic despot.

MEMORIALS AND TROPHIES OF THE WAR.--The glorious issue of the war caused a
general burst of joy and exultation throughout all Greece. Poets, artists,
and orators, all vied with one another in commemorating the deeds of the
heroes whose valor had warded off the impending danger.

Nor did the pious Grecians think that the marvellous deliverance had been
effected without the intervention of the gods in their behalf. To the
temple at Delphi was gratefully consecrated a tenth of the immense spoils
in gold and silver from the field of Plataea; and within the sanctuary of
Athena, upon the Acropolis at Athens, were placed the broken cables of the
Hellespontine bridges, at once a proud trophy of victory, and a signal
illustration of the divine punishment that had befallen the audacious and
impious attempt to lay a yoke upon the sacred waters of the Hellespont.

CHAPTER XIV.

PERIOD OF ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. (479-431 B.C.)

REBUILDING THE WALLS OF ATHENS.--After the Persians had been expelled from
Greece, the first care of the Athenians was the rebuilding of their homes.
Their next task was the restoration of the city walls. The exalted hopes
for the future which had been raised by the almost incredible achievements
of the past few months, led the Athenians to draw a vast circuit of seven
miles about the Acropolis as the line of the new ramparts.

The rival states of the Peloponnesus watched the proceedings of the
Athenians with the most jealous interest. While they could not but admire
Athens, they feared her. Sparta sent an embassy to dissuade the citizens
from rebuilding the walls, hypocritically assigning as the cause of her
interest in the matter her solicitude lest, in case of another Persian
invasion, the city, if captured, might become a shelter and defence to the
enemy. But the Athenians persisted in their purpose, and in a marvellously
short time had raised the wall to such a height that they could defy
interference.

THEMISTOCLES' NAVAL POLICY.--Themistocles saw clearly that the supremacy
of Athens among the Grecian states must be secured and maintained by her
mastery of the sea. He had unbounded visions of the maritime power and
glory that might come to her through her fleet, those "wooden walls" to
which at this moment she owed her very existence; and he succeeded in
inspiring his countrymen with his own enthusiasm and sanguine hopes.

In the prosecution of his views, Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to
enlarge the harbor of Piraeus, the most spacious of the ports of Athens,
and to surround the place with immense walls, far exceeding, both in
compass and strength, those of the capital. He also led his countrymen to
the resolution of adding each year twenty well-equipped triremes to their
navy.

This policy, initiated by Themistocles, was, as we shall see, zealously
pursued by the statesmen that after him successively assumed the lead in
Athenian affairs.

HIS OSTRACISM.--Themistocles well deserved the honor of being called, as
he was, the founder of the New Athens. But, although an able statesman, he
was an unscrupulous man. He accepted bribes and sold his influence,
thereby acquiring an enormous property. Finally he was ostracized (471
B.C.). After long wanderings, he became a resident at the court of the
Persian king.

Tradition affirms that Artaxerxes, in accordance with Persian usage,
provided for the courtier exile by assigning to three cities in Asia Minor
the care of providing for his table: one furnished bread, a second meat,
and a third wines. It is told that one day, as he sat down to his richly
loaded board, he exclaimed, "How much we should have lost, my children, if
we had not been ruined!"

THE CONFEDERACY OF DELOS (477 B.C.).--In order that they might be able to
carry on the war more effectively against the Persians, the Ionian states
of Asia Minor, the islands of the AEgean, and some of the states in Greece
proper, shortly after the battle of Plataea, formed themselves into what is
known as the Confederacy of Delos. Sparta, on account of her military
reputation, had hitherto been accorded the place of pre-eminence and
authority in all such alliances of the Hellenic cities. She had come,
indeed, to regard herself as the natural guardian and leader of Greece.
But at this time the unbearable arrogance of the Spartan general
Pausanias, who presumed upon the great reputation he had gained at the
battle of Plataea, led the states which had entered into the alliance to
look to Athens to assume the position of leadership in the new
confederacy.

The lofty character of Aristides, who was now the most prominent Athenian
leader, and his great reputation for fairness and incorruptible integrity,
also contributed to the same result. He was chosen the first president of
the league (477 B.C.), and the sacred island of Delos was made the
repository of the common funds. What proportion of the ships and money
needed for carrying out the purposes of the union should be contributed by
the different states, was left entirely to the decision of Aristides, such
was the confidence all had in his equity; and so long as he had control of
the matter, none of the members of the alliance ever had cause of
complaint.

Thus did Sparta lose, and Athens gain, the place of precedence among the
Ionian states. The Dorian states of the Peloponnesus, in the main, still
looked to Sparta as their leader and adviser. All Greece was thus divided
into two great leagues, under the rival leadership of Sparta and Athens.

THE ATHENIANS CONVERT THE DELIAN LEAGUE INTO AN EMPIRE.--The Confederacy
of Delos laid the basis of the imperial power of Athens. The Athenians
misused their authority as leaders of the league, and gradually, during
the interval between the formation of the union and the beginning of the
Peloponnesian War, reduced their allies, or confederates, to the condition
of tributaries and subjects.

Athens transformed the league into an empire in the following manner. The
contributions assessed by Aristides upon the different members of the
confederation consisted of ships and their crews for the larger states,
and of money payments for the smaller ones. From the first, Athens
attended to this assessment matter, and saw to it that each member of the
league made its proper contribution. After a while, some of the cities
preferring to make a money payment in lieu of ships, Athens accepted the
commutation, and then building the ships herself, added them to her own
navy. Thus the confederates disarmed themselves and armed their master.

Very soon the restraints which Athens imposed upon her allies became
irksome, and they began to refuse, one after another, to pay the
assessment in any form. Naxos, one of the Cyclades, was the first island
to secede, as it were, from the league (466 B.C.). But Athens had no idea
of admitting any such doctrine of state rights, and with her powerful navy
forced the Naxians to remain within the union, and to pay an increased
tribute.

What happened in the case of Naxos happened in the case of almost all the
other members of the confederation. By the year 449 B.C. only three of the
island members of the league still retained their independence.

Even before this date (probably about 457 B.C.) the Athenians had
transferred the common treasury from Delos to Athens, and diverting the
tribute from its original purpose, were beginning to spend it, not in the
prosecution of war against the Barbarians, but in the execution of home
enterprises, as though the treasure were their own revenue.

Thus what had been simply a voluntary confederation of sovereign and
independent cities, was converted into what was practically an absolute
monarchy, with the Attic democracy as the imperial master.

What made this servitude of the former allies of Athens all the more
galling was the fact that they themselves had been compelled to forge the
very chains which fettered them; for it was their money that had built and
was maintaining the fleet by which they were kept in subjection and forced
to do whatever might be the will of the Athenians.

THE LEADERSHIP OF CIMON; HIS OSTRACISM.--One of the ablest and most
popular of the generals who commanded the forces of the Athenians during
this same period when they were enslaving their confederates, was Cimon,
the son of Miltiades. He was one of those whose spirits had been fired by
the exciting events attendant upon the Persian invasion. He had acquired a
certain reputation, at the time of the abandonment of Athens, by being the
first to hang up his bridle in the sanctuary of the Acropolis, thus
expressing his resolution to place all his confidence in the fleet, as
Themistocles advised.

The popularity of Cimon at last declined, and he suffered ostracism, as
had Aristides and Themistocles before him. His loss of public favor came
about in this manner. In the year 464 B.C., a terrible earthquake
destroyed a large portion of Sparta. In the panic of the appalling
disaster the Spartans were led to believe that the evil had befallen them
as a punishment for their recent violation of the Temple of Poseidon, from
which some Helots who had fled to the sanctuary for refuge had been torn.
The Helots, on their part, were quick to interpret the event as an
intervention of the gods in their behalf, and as an unmistakable signal
for their uprising. Everywhere they flew to arms, and, being joined by
some of the Perioeci, furiously attacked their masters. The Spartans,
after maintaining the bitter struggle for several years, finding
themselves unable to reduce their former slaves to submission, were forced
to ask aid of the other Grecian states.

The great Athenian statesman Pericles implored his countrymen not to lend
themselves to the building up of the power of their rival. But the
aristocratic Cimon, who had always entertained the most friendly feelings
for the Spartans, exhorted the Athenians to put aside all sentiments of
enmity or jealousy, and to extend succor to their kinsmen. "Let not
Greece," said he, "be lamed, and thus Athens herself be deprived of her
yokefellow." The assembly voted as he advised, and so the Athenian forces
fought for some time side by side with the Lacedaemonians.

But the Spartans were distrustful of their Athenian allies, and fearing
they might pass over to the side of the Helots, they dismissed them. The
discourtesy of the act aroused the most bitter resentment at Athens. The
party of Pericles took advantage of the exasperated feelings of the people
to effect some important changes in the constitution in favor of the
people, which made it almost purely democratical in character, and to
secure the exercise of the ostracism against Cimon as the leader of the
aristocratical party and the friend of Sparta (459 B.C.).

THE AGE OF PERICLES (459-431 B.C.).

GENERAL FEATURES OF THE AGE.--Under the inspiration of Pericles, the
Athenian state now entered upon the most brilliant period of its history.
The epoch embraces less than the lifetime of a single generation, yet its
influence upon the civilization of the world can hardly be overrated.
During this short period Athens gave birth to more great men--poets,
artists, statesmen, and philosophers--than all the world besides has
produced in any period of equal length.

[Illustration: PERICLES.]

Among all the great men of this age, Pericles stood pre-eminent. Such was
the impression he left upon the period in which he lived, that it is
called after him the Periclean Age. Yet Pericles' authority was simply
that which talent and character justly confer. He ruled, as Plutarch says,
by the art of persuasion.

During the Periclean period the Athenian democracy was supreme. Every
matter that concerned the empire was discussed and decided by the popular
assembly. Never before had any people enjoyed such perfect political
liberty as did the citizens of Athens at this time, and never before were
any people, through so intimate a knowledge of public affairs, so well
able to direct the policies of state. Every citizen, it is affirmed, was
qualified to hold civil office.

PERICLES FOSTERS THE NAVAL POWER OF ATHENS.--Cimon's policy had been to
keep the Grecian cities united in order that they might offer effectual
resistance to the Persian power. The aim of his rival Pericles was to
maintain Athens as the leading state in Hellas, and to oppose the
pretensions of Sparta. Accordingly he encouraged the Athenians to
strengthen their naval armament and to perfect themselves in naval
discipline, for with Themistocles he was convinced that the supremacy of
Athens must depend chiefly upon her fleet.

As a part of his maritime policy, Pericles persuaded the Athenians to
build what were known as the Long Walls,--great ramparts between four and
five miles in length,--which united Athens to the ports of Piraeus and
Phalerum. Later, as a double security, a third wall was built parallel to
the one running to the former harbor. By means of these walls Athens and
her ports, with the intervening land, were converted into a vast fortified
district, capable in time of war of holding the entire population of
Attica. With her communication with the sea thus secured, and with a
powerful navy at her command, Athens could bid defiance to her foes on sea
and land.

[Illustration: ATHENS AND THE LONG WALLS.]

EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE THIRTY YEARS' TRUCE.--At the same time that
Pericles was making the maritime supremacy of Athens more secure, he was
endeavoring to build up for her a land empire in Central Greece. As her
influence in this quarter increased, Sparta became more and more jealous,
and strove to counteract it, chiefly by enhancing the power of Thebes.

The contest between the two rivals was long and bitter. It was ended by
the well-known Peace of Pericles, or the Thirty Years' Truce (445 B.C.).
By the terms of this treaty each of the rival cities was left at the head
of the confederation it had formed, but neither was to interfere with the
subjects or allies of the other, while those cities of Hellas which were
not yet members of either league were to be left free to join either
according to choice.

The real meaning of the Truce was that Athens gave up her ambition to
establish a land empire, and was henceforth to be content with supremacy
on the seas. It meant further that Greece was to remain a house divided
against itself; that democratic Athens must share with aristocratic Sparta
the hegemony, or leadership, of the Hellenic cities.

PERICLES ADORNS ATHENS WITH PUBLIC BUILDINGS.--Notwithstanding Pericles
had failed to build up for Athens a land dominion, he had nevertheless
succeeded in securing for her a place of proud pre-eminence in maritime
Hellas. Athens having achieved such a position as she now held, it was the
idea of Pericles that the Athenians should so adorn their city that it
should be a fitting symbol of the power and glory of their empire. Nor was
it difficult for him to persuade his art-loving countrymen to embellish
their city with those masterpieces of genius that in their ruins still
excite the admiration of the world.

Upon the commanding site of the Acropolis was erected the unrivalled
Parthenon. Various other edifices, rich with sculptures, were also erected
there and in different parts of Athens, until the whole city took on a
surprisingly brilliant and magnificent appearance. The whole world looked
up to the Attic city with the same surprised wonder with which a century
before it had regarded the city of Babylon as adorned by the power and
wealth of the great Nebuchadnezzar.

The Athenians secured the vast sums of money needed for the prosecution of
their great architectural works, out of the treasury of the Delian
confederacy. The allies naturally declaimed bitterly against this
proceeding, complaining that Athens, with their money, was "gilding itself
as a proud and vain woman decks herself out with jewels." But the answer
of Pericles to them was, that the money was contributed to the end that
the cities of the league should be protected from the Persians, and that
so long as the Athenians kept the enemy at a distance they had a right to
use the money as they pleased.

The Citizens are taken into the Pay of the State.--It was a fixed idea of
Pericles that in a democracy there should be not only an equal
distribution of political rights among all classes, but also an
equalization of the means and opportunities of exercising these rights, as
well as an equal participation by all in social and intellectual
enjoyments.

In promoting his views Pericles carried to great length the system of
payment for the most common public services. Thus, he introduced the
custom of military pay; hitherto the Athenian soldier had served his
country in the field as a matter of honor and duty. He also secured the
payment of the citizen for serving as a juryman, as well as for his
attendance upon the meetings of the popular assembly. Through his
influence, also, salaries were attached to the various civil offices, the
most of which had hitherto been unpaid positions.

These various measures enabled the poorer citizens to enjoy, without an
inconvenient sacrifice, their franchise in the popular assembly, and to
offer themselves for the different magistracies, which up to this time had
been practically open only to men of means and leisure.

Furthermore, Pericles introduced or extended the practice of supplying all
the citizens with free tickets to the theatre and other places of
amusement, and of banqueting the people on festival days at the public
expense.

STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE.--Under Pericles Athens had
become the most powerful naval state in the world. In one of his last
speeches, made at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, in which he
recounts the resources of the Athenian empire, Pericles says to his
fellow-citizens: "There is not now a king, there is not any nation in the
universal world, able to withstand that navy which at this juncture you
can launch out to sea."

But the most significant feature of this new imperial power was the
combination of these vast material resources with the most imposing
display of intellectual resources that the world had ever witnessed. Never
before had there been such a union of the material and intellectual
elements of civilization at the seat of empire. Literature and art had
been carried to the utmost perfection possible to human genius. Art was
represented by the inimitable creations of Phidias and Polygnotus. The
drama was illustrated by the incomparable tragedies of AEschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides, and by the comedies of Aristophanes, while the
writing of the world's annals had become an art in the graceful narrations
of Herodotus.

But there were elements of weakness in the splendid imperial structure.
The subject cities of the empire were the slaves of Athens. To her they
paid tribute. To her courts they were dragged for trial. Naturally they
regarded Athens as the destroyer of Hellenic liberties, and watched
impatiently for the first favorable moment to revolt, and throw off the
hateful yoke that she had imposed upon them. Hence the Athenian empire
rested upon a foundation of sand.

Had Athens, instead of enslaving her confederates of the Delian league,
only been able to find out some way of retaining them as allies in an
equal union,--a great and perhaps impossible task in that age of the
world,--as head of the federated Greek race, she might have secured for
Hellas the sovereignty of the Mediterranean, and the history of Rome might
have ended with the first century of the Republic.

Furthermore, in his system of payment for the most common public services,
and of wholesale public gratuities, Pericles had introduced or encouraged
practices that had the same demoralizing effects upon the Athenians that
the free distribution of grain at Rome had upon the Roman populace. These
pernicious customs cast discredit upon labor, destroyed frugality, and
fostered idleness, thus sapping the virtues and strength of the Athenian
democracy.

Illustrations of these weaknesses, as well as of the strength of the
Athenian empire, will be afforded by the great struggle between Athens and
Sparta known as the Peloponnesian War, the causes and chief incidents of
which we shall next rehearse.

CHAPTER XV.

THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR: THE SPARTAN AND THE THEBAN SUPREMACY.

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