Note 658 — Chapter XLV · PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFEDERACY UNDER ATHENS AS HEAD. — FIRST FORMATION AND RAPID EXPANSION OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Thucyd. i, 114, 115; ii, 21; Diodor. xii, 5. I do not at all doubt that the word Achaia here used, means the country in the north part of Peloponnesus, usually known by that name. The suspicions of Göller and others, that it means, not this territory, but some unknown town, appear to me quite unfounded. Thucydidês had never noticed the exact time when the Athenians acquired Achaia as a dependent ally, though he notices the Achæans (i, 111) in that capacity. This is one argument, among many, to show that we must be cautious in reasoning from the silence of Thucydidês against the reality of an event,—in reference to this period between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, where his whole summary is so brief.
In regard to the chronology of these events, Mr. Fynes Clinton remarks: “The disasters in Bœotia produced the revolt of Eubœa and Megara about eighteen months after, in Anthestêrion 445 B. C.: and the Peloponnesian invasion of Attica, on the expiration of the five years’ truce,” (ad ann. 447 B. C.)
Mr. Clinton seems to me to allow a longer interval than is probable: I incline to think that the revolt of Eubœa and Megara followed more closely upon the disasters in Bœotia, in spite of the statement of archons given by Diodorus: οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον, the expression of Thucydidês means probably no more than three or four months; and the whole series of events were evidently the product of one impulse. The truce having been concluded in the beginning of 445 B. C., it seems reasonable to place the revolt of Eubœa and Megara, as well as the invasion of Attica by Pleistoanax, in 446 B. C.—and the disasters in Bœotia, either in the beginning of 446 B. C., or the close of 447 B. C.
It is hardly safe to assume, moreover (as Mr. Clinton does, ad ann. 450, as well as Dr. Thirlwall, Hist. Gr. ch. xvii, p. 478), that the five years’ truce must have been actually expired before Pleistoanax and the Lacedæmonians invaded Attica: the thirty years’ truce, afterwards concluded, did not run out its full time.