Volume 6 — CHAPTER XLVIII. FROM THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. (continued 2)

After having spent several days before Œnoê without either taking the fort or receiving any message from the Athenians, Archidamus marched onward to Eleusis and the Thriasian plain,—about the middle of June, eighty days after the surprise of Platæa. His army was of irresistible force, not less than sixty thousand hoplites, according to the statement of Plutarch,[232] or of one hundred thousand, according to others: considering the number of constituent allies, the strong feeling by which they were prompted, and the shortness of the expedition combined with the chance of plunder, even the largest of these two numbers is not incredibly great, if we take it to include not hoplites only, but cavalry and light-armed also: but as Thucydidês, though comparatively full in his account of this march, has stated no general total, we may presume that he had heard none upon which he could rely. As the Athenians had made no movement towards peace, Archidamus anticipated that they would come forth to meet him in the fertile plain of Eleusis and Thria, which was the first portion of territory that he sat down to ravage: but no Athenian force appeared to oppose him, except a detachment of cavalry, who were repulsed in a skirmish near the small lakes called Rheiti. Having laid waste this plain without any serious opposition, Archidamus did not think fit to pursue the straight road which from Thria conducted directly to Athens across the ridge of Mount Ægaleos, but turned off to the westward, leaving that mountain on his right hand until he came to Krôpeia, where he crossed a portion of the line of Ægaleos over to Acharnæ. He was here about seven miles from Athens, on a declivity sloping down into the plain which stretches westerly and northwesterly from Athens, and visible from the city walls: and he here encamped, keeping his army in perfect order for battle, but at the same time intending to damage and ruin the place and its neighborhood. Acharnæ was the largest and most populous of all the demes in Attica, furnishing no less than three thousand hoplites to the national line, and flourishing as well by its corn, vines, and olives, as by its peculiar abundance of charcoal-burning from the forests of ilex on the neighboring hills: moreover, if we are to believe Aristophanês, the Acharnian proprietors were not merely sturdy “hearts of oak,” but peculiarly vehement and irritable.[233] It illustrates the condition of a Grecian territory under invasion, when we find this great deme, which could not have contained less than twelve thousand free inhabitants of both sexes and all ages, with at least an equal number of slaves, completely deserted. Archidamus calculated that when the Athenians actually saw his troops so close to their city, carrying fire and sword over their wealthiest canton, their indignation would become uncontrollable, and they would march out forthwith to battle. The Acharnian proprietors especially, he thought, would be foremost in inflaming this temper, and insisting upon protection to their own properties,—or, if the remaining citizens refused to march out along with them, they would, after having been thus left undefended to ruin, become discontented and indifferent to the general weal.[234]

Though his calculation was not realized, it was, nevertheless, founded upon most rational grounds. What Archidamus anticipated was on the point of happening, and nothing prevented it, except the personal ascendency of Periklês, strained to its very utmost. So long as the invading army was engaged in the Thriasian plain, the Athenians had some faint hope that it might—like Pleistoanax, fourteen years before—advance no farther into the interior: but when it came to Acharnæ, within sight of the city walls,—when the ravagers were actually seen destroying buildings, fruit-trees, and crops, in the plain of Athens, a sight strange to every Athenian eye except to those very old men who recollected the Persian invasion,—the exasperation of the general body of citizens rose to a pitch never before known. The Acharnians first of all, next the youthful citizens generally,—became madly clamorous for arming and going forth to fight. Knowing well their own great strength, but less correctly informed of the superior strength of the enemy, they felt confident that victory was within their reach. Groups of citizens were everywhere gathered together,[235] angrily debating the critical question of the moment; while the usual concomitants of excited feeling,—oracles and prophecies of diverse tenor, many of them, doubtless, promising success against the enemy at Acharnæ,—were eagerly caught up and circulated.

In this inflamed temper of the Athenian mind, Periklês was naturally the great object of complaint and wrath. He was denounced as the cause of all the existing suffering: he was reviled as a coward for not leading out the citizens to fight, in his capacity of general: the rational convictions as to the necessity of the war and the only practicable means of carrying it on, which his repeated speeches had implanted, seemed to be altogether forgotten.[236] This burst of spontaneous discontent was, of course, fomented by the numerous political enemies of Periklês, and particularly by Kleon,[237] now rising into importance as an opposition-speaker; whose talent for invective was thus first exercised under the auspices of the high aristocratical party, as well as of an excited public. But no manifestations, however violent, could disturb either the judgment or the firmness of Periklês. He listened, unmoved, to all the declarations made against him, and resolutely refused to convene any public assembly, or any meeting invested with an authorized character, under the present irritated temper of the citizens.[238] It appears that he, as general, or rather the board of ten generals, among whom he was one, must have been invested constitutionally with the power, not only of calling the ekklesia when they thought fit, but also of preventing it from meeting,[239] and of postponing even those regular meetings which commonly took place at fixed times, four times in the prytany. No assembly, accordingly, took place, and the violent exasperation of the people was thus prevented from realizing itself in any rash public resolution. That Periklês should have held firm against this raging force, is but one among the many honorable points in his political character; but it is far less wonderful than the fact, that his refusal to call the ekklesia was efficacious to prevent the ekklesia from being held. The entire body of Athenians were now assembled within the walls, and if he refused to convoke the ekklesia, they might easily have met in the Pnyx, without him; for which it would not have been difficult at such a juncture to provide plausible justification. The inviolable respect which the Athenian people manifested on this occasion for the forms of their democratical constitution—assisted doubtless by their long-established esteem for Periklês, yet opposed to an excitement alike intense and pervading, and to a demand apparently reasonable, in so far as regarded the calling of an assembly for discussion,—is one of the most memorable incidents in their history.

While Periklês thus decidedly forbade any general march out for battle, he sought to provide as much employment as possible for the compressed eagerness of the citizens. The cavalry were sent out, together with the Thessalian cavalry their allies, for the purpose of restraining the excursions of the enemy’s light troops, and protecting the lands near the city from plunder.[240] At the same time, he fitted out a powerful expedition, which sailed forth to ravage Peloponnesus, even while the invaders were yet in Attica.[241] Archidamus, after having remained engaged in the devastation of Acharnæ long enough to satisfy himself that the Athenians would not hazard a battle, turned away from Athens in a northwesterly direction towards the demes between Mount Brilêssus and Mount Parnês, on the road passing through Dekeleia. The army continued ravaging these districts until their provisions were exhausted, and then quitted Attica by the northwestern road near Orôpus, which brought them into Bœotia. The Oropians were not Athenians, but dependent upon Athens, and the district of Græa, a portion of their territory, was laid waste; after which, the army dispersed and retired back to their respective homes.[242] It would seem that they quitted Attica towards the end of July, having remained in the country between thirty and forty days.

Meanwhile, the Athenian expedition under Karkinus, Prôteas, and Sokratês, joined by fifty Korkyræan ships, and by some other allies, sailed round Peloponnesus, landing in various parts to inflict damage, and among other places, at Methônê (Modon) on the southwestern peninsula of the Lacedæmonian territory.[243] The place, neither strong nor well-garrisoned, would have been carried with little difficulty, had not Brasidas the son of Tellis,—a gallant Spartan now mentioned for the first time, but destined to great celebrity afterwards,—who happened to be on guard at a neighboring post, thrown himself into it with one hundred men by a rapid movement, before the dispersed Athenian troops could be brought together to prevent him. He infused such courage into the defenders of the place that every attack was repelled, and the Athenians were forced to reëmbark,—an act of prowess which procured for him the first public honors bestowed by the Spartans during this war. Sailing northward along the western coast of Peloponnesus, the Athenians landed again on the coast of Elis, a little south of the promontory called Cape Ichthys: they ravaged the territory for two days, defeating both the troops in the neighborhood and three hundred chosen men from the central Eleian territory. Strong winds on a harborless coast now induced the captains to sail with most of the troops round Cape Ichthys, in order to reach the harbor of Pheia on the northern side of it; while the Messenian hoplites, marching by land across the promontory, attacked Pheia and carried it by assault. When the fleet arrived, all were reëmbarked,—the full force of Elis being under march to attack them: they then sailed northward, landing on various other spots to commit devastation, until they reached Sollium, a Corinthian settlement on the coast of Akarnania. They captured this place, which they handed over to the inhabitants of the neighboring Akarnanian town of Palærus,—as well as Astakus, from whence they expelled the despot Euarchus, and enrolled the town as a member of the Athenian alliance. From hence they passed over to Kephallênia, which they were fortunate enough also to acquire as an ally of Athens without any compulsion,—with its four distinct towns, or districts, Palês, Kranii, Samê, and Pionê. These various operations took up near three months from about the beginning of July, so that they returned to Athens towards the close of September,[244]—the beginning of the winter half of the year, according to the distribution of Thucydidês.

Nor was this the only maritime expedition of the summer: thirty more triremes, under Kleopompus, were sent through the Euripus to the Lokrian coast opposite to the northern part of Eubœa. Some disembarkations were made, whereby the Lokrian towns of Thronium and Alopê were sacked, and farther devastation inflicted: while a permanent garrison was planted, and a fortified post erected, in the uninhabited island of Atalanta, opposite to the Lokrian coast, in order to restrain privateers from Opus and the other Lokrian towns in their excursions against Eubœa.[245] It was farther determined to expel the Æginetan inhabitants from Ægina, and to occupy the island with Athenian colonists. This step was partly rendered prudent by the important position of the island midway between Attica and Peloponnesus; but a concurrent motive, and probably the stronger motive, was the gratification of ancient antipathy and revenge against a people who had been among the foremost in provoking the war and in inflicting upon Athens so much suffering. The Æginetans with their wives and children were all put on shipboard and landed in Peloponnesus,—where the Spartans permitted them to occupy the maritime district and town of Thyrea, their last frontier towards Argos: some of them, however, found shelter in other parts of Greece. The island was made over to a detachment of Athenian kleruchs, or citizen proprietors, sent thither by lot.[246]

To the sufferings of the Æginetans, which we shall hereafter find still more deplorably aggravated, we have to add those of the Megarians. Both had been most zealous in kindling the war, but upon none did the distress of war fall so heavily. Both probably shared the premature confidence felt among the Peloponnesian confederacy, that Athens could never hold out more than a year or two,—and were thus induced to overlook their own undefended position against her. Towards the close of September, the full force of Athens, citizens and metics, marched into the Megarid under Periklês, and laid waste the greater part of the territory: while they were in it, the hundred ships which had been circumnavigating Peloponnesus, having arrived at Ægina on their return, went and joined their fellow-citizens in the Megarid, instead of going straight home. The junction of the two formed the largest Athenian force that had ever yet been seen together: there were ten thousand citizen hoplites, independent of three thousand others who were engaged in the siege of Potidæa, and three thousand metic hoplites,—besides a large number of light troops.[247] Against so large a force the Megarians could of course make no head, and their territory was all laid waste, even to the city walls. For several years of the war, the Athenians inflicted this destruction once, and often twice in the same year: a decree was proposed in the Athenian ekklesia by Charinus, though perhaps not carried, to the effect that the stratêgi every year should swear, as a portion of their oath of office,[248] that they would twice invade and ravage the Megarid. As the Athenians at the same time kept the port of Nisæa blocked up, by means of their superior naval force and of the neighboring coast of Salamis, the privations imposed on the Megarians became extreme and intolerable.[249] Not merely their corn and fruits, but even their garden vegetables near the city, were rooted up and destroyed, and their situation seems often to have been that of a besieged city hard pressed by famine. Even in the time of Pausanias, so many centuries afterwards, the miseries of the town during these years were remembered and communicated to him, being assigned as the reason why one of their most memorable statues had never been completed.[250]

To these various military operations of Athens during the course of this summer, some other measures of moment are to be added; and Thucydidês also notices an eclipse of the sun which modern astronomical calculations refer to the third of August: had this eclipse happened three months earlier, immediately before the entrance of the Peloponnesians into Attica, it might probably have been construed as an unfavorable omen, and caused the postponement of the scheme. Expecting a prolonged struggle, the Athenians now made arrangements for placing Attica in a permanent state of defence, both by sea and land; what these arrangements were, we are not told in detail, but one of them was sufficiently remarkable to be named particularly. They set apart one thousand talents out of the treasure in the acropolis as an inviolable reserve, not to be touched except on the single contingency of a hostile naval force about to assail the city, with no other means at hand to defend it. They further enacted, that if any citizen should propose, or any magistrate put the question, in the public assembly, to make any different application of this reserve, he should be punishable with death. Moreover, they resolved every year to keep back one hundred of their best triremes, and trierarchs to command and equip them, for the same special necessity.[251] It may be doubted whether this latter provision was placed under the same stringent sanction, or observed with the same rigor, as that concerning the money, which latter was not departed from until the twentieth year of the war, after all the disasters of the Sicilian expedition, and on the terrible news of the revolt of Chios. It was on that occasion that the Athenians first repealed the sentence of capital punishment against the proposer of this forbidden change, and next appropriated the money to meet the then imminent peril of the commonwealth.[252]

The resolution here taken about this sacred reserve, and the rigorous sentence interdicting contrary propositions, is pronounced by Mr. Mitford to be an evidence of the indelible barbarism of democratical government.[253] But we must recollect, first, that the sentence of capital punishment was one which could hardly by possibility come into execution; for no citizen would be so mad as to make the forbidden proposition, while this law was in force. Whoever desired to make it, would first begin by proposing to repeal the prohibitory law, whereby he would incur no danger, whether the assembly decided in the affirmative or negative; and if he obtained an affirmative decision, he would then, and then only, proceed to move the reappropriation of the fund. To speak the language of English parliamentary procedure, he would first move the suspension or abrogation of the standing order whereby the proposition was forbidden,—next, he would move the proposition itself: in fact, such was the mode actually pursued, when the thing at last came to be done.[254] But though the capital sentence could hardly come into effect, the proclamation of it in terrorem had a very distinct meaning. It expressed the deep and solemn conviction which the people entertained of the importance of their own resolution about the reserve,—it forewarned all assemblies and all citizens to come, of the danger of diverting it to any other purpose,—it surrounded the reserve with an artificial sanctity, which forced every man who aimed at the reappropriation to begin with a preliminary proposition, formidable on the very face of it, as removing a guarantee which previous assemblies had deemed of immense value, and opening the door to a contingency which they had looked upon as treasonable. The proclamation of a lighter punishment, or a simple prohibition without any definite sanction whatever, would neither have announced the same emphatic conviction, nor produced the same deterring effect. The assembly of 431 B.C. could not in any way enact laws which subsequent assemblies could not reverse; but it could so frame its enactments, in cases of peculiar solemnity, as to make its authority strongly felt upon the judgment of its successors, and to prevent them from entertaining motions for repeal, except under necessity at once urgent and obvious. Far from thinking that the law now passed at Athens displayed barbarism, either in the end or in the means, I consider it principally remarkable for its cautious and long-sighted view of the future,—qualities the exact reverse of barbarism,—and worthy of the general character of Periklês, who probably suggested it. Athens was just entering into a war which threatened to be of indefinite length, and was certain to be very costly. To prevent the people from exhausting all their accumulated fund, and to place them under a necessity of reserving something against extreme casualties, was an object of immense importance. Now the particular casualty, which Periklês, assuming him to be the proposer, named as the sole condition of touching this one thousand talents, might be considered as of all others the most improbable, in the year 431 B.C. So immense was then the superiority of the Athenian naval force, that to suppose it defeated, and a Peloponnesian fleet in full sail for Peiræus, was a possibility which it required a statesman of extraordinary caution to look forward to, and which it is truly wonderful that the people generally could have been induced to contemplate. Once tied up to this purpose, however, the fund lay ready for any other terrible emergency: and we shall find the actual employment of it incalculably beneficial to Athens, at a moment of the gravest peril, when she could hardly have protected herself without some such special resource. The people would scarcely have sanctioned so rigorous an economy, had it not been proposed to them at a period so early in the war that their available reserve was still much larger: but it will be forever to the credit of their foresight as well as constancy, that they should first have adopted such a precautionary measure, and afterwards adhered to it for nineteen years, under severe pressure for money, until at length a case arose which rendered farther abstinence really, and not constructively, impossible.

To display their force and take revenge by disembarking and ravaging parts of Peloponnesus, was doubtless of much importance to Athens during this first summer of the war: though it might seem that the force so employed was quite as much needed in the conquest of Potidæa, which still remained under blockade,—and of the neighboring Chalkidians in Thrace, still in revolt. It was during the course of this summer that a prospect opened to Athens of subduing these towns, through the assistance of Sitalkês, king of the Odrysian Thracians. That prince had married the sister of Nymphodôrus, a citizen of Abdêra; who engaged to render him, and his son Sadokus, allies of Athens. Sent for to Athens and appointed proxenus of Athens at Abdêra, which was one of the Athenian subject allies, Nymphodôrus made this alliance, and promised, in the name of Sitalkês, that a sufficient Thracian force should be sent to aid Athens in the reconquest of her revolted towns: the honor of Athenian citizenship was at the same time conferred upon Sadokus.[255] Nymphodôrus farther established a good understanding between Perdikkas of Macedonia and the Athenians, who were persuaded to restore to him Therma, which they had before taken from him. The Athenians had thus the promise of powerful aid against the Chalkidians and Potidæans: yet the latter still held out, with little prospect of immediate surrender. Moreover, the town of Astakus, in Akarnania, which the Athenians had captured during the summer, in the course of their expedition round Peloponnesus, was recovered during the autumn by the deposed despot Euarchus, assisted by forty Corinthian triremes and one thousand hoplites. This Corinthian armament, after restoring Euarchus, made some unsuccessful descents both upon other parts of Akarnania and upon the island of Kephallênia: in the latter, they were entrapped into an ambuscade, and obliged to return home with considerable loss.[256]

It was towards the close of this autumn also that Periklês, chosen by the people for the purpose, delivered the funeral oration at the public interment of those warriors who had fallen during the campaign. The ceremonies of this public token of respect have already been described in a former chapter, on occasion of the conquest of Samos: but that which imparted to the present scene an imperishable interest, was the discourse of the chosen statesman and orator; probably heard by Thucydidês himself, and in substance reproduced. A large crowd of citizens and foreigners, of both sexes and all ages, accompanied the funeral procession from Athens to the suburb called the outer Kerameikus, where Periklês, mounted upon a lofty stage prepared for the occasion, closed the ceremony with his address. The law of Athens not only provided this public funeral and commemorative discourse, but also assigned maintenance at the public expense to the children of the slain warriors until they attained military age: a practice which was acted on throughout the whole war, though we have only the description and discourse belonging to this single occasion.[257]

The eleven chapters of Thucydidês which comprise this funeral speech are among the most memorable relics of antiquity; considering that under the language and arrangement of the historian,—always impressive, though sometimes harsh and peculiar, like the workmanship of a powerful mind, misled by a bad or an unattainable model,—we possess the substance and thoughts of the illustrious statesman. A portion of it, of course, is and must be common-place, belonging to all discourses composed for a similar occasion. Yet this is true only of a comparatively small portion: much of it is peculiar, and every way worthy of Periklês,—comprehensive, rational, and full, not less of sense and substance than of earnest patriotism. It thus forms a strong contrast with the jejune, though elegant, rhetoric of other harangues, mostly[258] not composed for actual delivery; and deserves, in comparison with the funeral discourses remaining to us from Plato, and the Pseudo-Demosthenês, and even Lysias, the honorable distinction which Thucydidês claims for his own history,—an ever-living possession, and not a mere show-piece for the moment.

In the outset of his speech, Periklês distinguishes himself from those who had preceded him in the same function of public orator, by dissenting from the encomiums which it had been customary to bestow on the law enjoining these funeral harangues: he thinks that the publicity of the funeral itself, and the general demonstrations of respect and grief by the great body of citizens, tell more emphatically in token of gratitude to the brave dead, when the scene passes in silence, than when it is translated into the words of a speaker, who may easily offend, either by incompetency or by apparent feebleness, or perhaps even by unseasonable exaggeration. Nevertheless, the custom having been embodied in law, and elected as he has been by the citizens, he comes forward to discharge the duty imposed upon him in the best manner he can.[259]

One of the remarkable features in this discourse is, its business-like, impersonal character: it is Athens herself who undertakes to commend and decorate her departed sons, as well as to hearten up and admonish the living.

After a few words on the magnitude of the empire, and on the glorious efforts as well as endurance whereby their forefathers and they had acquired it,—Periklês proceeds to sketch the plan of life, the constitution, and the manners, under which such achievements were brought about.[260]

“We live under a constitution such as noway to envy the laws of our neighbors,—ourselves an example to others, rather than mere imitators. It is called a democracy, since its permanent aim tends towards the many and not towards the few: in regard to private matters and disputes, the laws deal equally with every man: while looking to public affairs and to claims of individual influence, every man’s chance of advancement is determined, not by party-favor but by real worth, according as his reputation stands in his own particular department: nor does poverty, or obscure station, keep him back,[261] if he really has the means of benefiting the city. And our social march is free, not merely in regard to public affairs, but also in regard to intolerance of each other’s diversity of daily pursuits. For we are not angry with our neighbor for what he may do to please himself, nor do we ever put on those sour looks,[262] which, though they do no positive damage, are not the less sure to offend. Thus conducting our private social intercourse with reciprocal indulgence, we are restrained from wrong on public matters by fear and reverence of our magistrates for the time being, and of our laws,—especially such laws as are instituted for the protection of wrongful sufferers, and even such others as, though not written, are enforced by a common sense of shame. Besides this, we have provided for our minds numerous recreations from toil, partly by our customary solemnities of sacrifice and festival throughout the year, partly by the elegance of our private establishments,—the daily charm of which banishes the sense of discomfort. From the magnitude of our city, the products of the whole earth are brought to us, so that our enjoyment of foreign luxuries is as much our own and assured as those which we grow at home. In respect to training for war, we differ from our opponents (the Lacedæmonians) on several material points. First, we lay open our city as a common resort: we apply no xenêlasy to exclude even an enemy either from any lesson or any spectacle, the full view of which he may think advantageous to him; for we trust less to manœuvres and quackery than to our native bravery, for warlike efficiency. Next, in regard to education, while the Lacedæmonians, even from their earliest youth, subject themselves to an irksome exercise for the attainment of courage, we, with our easy habits of life, are not less prepared than they, to encounter all perils within the measure of our strength. The proof of this is, that the Peloponnesian confederates do not attack us one by one, but with their whole united force; while we, when we attack them at home, overpower for the most part all of them who try to defend their own territory. None of our enemies has ever met and contended with our entire force; partly in consequence of our large navy,—partly from our dispersion in different simultaneous land-expeditions. But when they chance to be engaged with any part of it, if victorious, they pretend to have vanquished us all,—if defeated, they pretend to have been vanquished by all.

“Now, if we are willing to brave danger, just as much under an indulgent system as under constant toil, and by spontaneous courage as much as under force of law,—we are gainers in the end, by not vexing ourselves beforehand with sufferings to come, yet still appearing in the hour of trial not less daring than those who toil without ceasing.

“In other matters, too, as well as in these, our city deserves admiration. For we combine elegance of taste with simplicity of life, and we pursue knowledge without being enervated:[263] we employ wealth, not for talking and ostentation, but as a real help in the proper season: nor is it disgraceful to any one who is poor to confess his poverty, though he may rather incur reproach for not actually keeping himself out of poverty. The magistrates who discharge public trusts fulfil their domestic duties also,—the private citizen, while engaged in professional business, has competent knowledge on public affairs: for we stand alone in regarding the man who keeps aloof from these latter, not as harmless, but as useless. Moreover, we always hear and pronounce on public matters, when discussed by our leaders,—or perhaps strike out for ourselves correct reasonings about them: far from accounting discussion an impediment to action, we complain only if we are not told what is to be done before it becomes our duty to do it. For, in truth, we combine in the most remarkable manner these two qualities,—extreme boldness in execution, with full debate beforehand on that which we are going about: whereas, with others, ignorance alone imparts boldness,—debate introduces hesitation. Assuredly, those men are properly to be regarded as the stoutest of heart, who, knowing most precisely both the terrors of war and the sweets of peace, are still not the less willing to encounter peril.

“In fine, I affirm that our city, considered as a whole, is the schoolmistress of Greece;[264] while, viewed individually, we enable the same man to furnish himself out and suffice to himself in the greatest variety of ways, and with the most complete grace and refinement. This is no empty boast of the moment, but genuine reality: and the power of the city, acquired through the dispositions just indicated, exists to prove it. Athens alone, of all cities, stands forth in actual trial greater than her reputation: her enemy, when he attacks her, will not have his pride wounded by suffering defeat from feeble hands,—her subjects will not think themselves degraded as if their obedience were paid to an unworthy superior.[265] Having thus put forward our power, not uncertified, but backed by the most evident proofs, we shall be admired not less by posterity than by our contemporaries. Nor do we stand in need either of Homer or of any other panegyrist, whose words may for the moment please, while the truth when known would confute their intended meaning: we have compelled all land and sea to become accessible to our courage, and have planted everywhere imperishable monuments of our kindness as well as of our hostility.

“Such is the city on behalf of which these warriors have nobly died in battle, vindicating her just title to unimpaired rights,[266]—and on behalf of which all of us here left behind must willingly toil. It is for this reason that I have spoken at length concerning the city, at once to draw from it the lesson that the conflict is not for equal motives between us and enemies who possess nothing of the like excellence,—and to demonstrate by proofs the truth of my encomium pronounced upon her.”

Periklês pursues at considerable additional length the same tenor of mixed exhortation to the living and eulogy of the dead; with many special and emphatic observations addressed to the relatives of the latter, who were assembled around and doubtless very near him. But the extract which I have already made is so long, that no farther addition would be admissible: yet it was impossible to pass over lightly the picture of the Athenian commonwealth in its glory, as delivered by the ablest citizen of the age. The effect of the democratical constitution, with its diffused and equal citizenship, in calling forth not merely strong attachment, but painful self-sacrifice, on the part of all Athenians,—is nowhere more forcibly insisted upon than in the words above cited of Periklês, as well as in others afterwards: “Contemplating as you do daily before you the actual power of the state, and becoming passionately attached to it, when you conceive its full greatness, reflect that it was all acquired by men of daring, acquainted with their duty, and full of an honorable sense of shame in their actions,”[267]—such is the association which he presents between the greatness of the state as an object of common passion, and the courage, intelligence, and mutual esteem, of individual citizens, as its creating and preserving causes: poor as well as rich being alike interested in the partnership.

But the claims of patriotism, though put forward as essentially and deservedly paramount, are by no means understood to reign exclusively, or to absorb the whole of the democratical activity. Subject to these, and to those laws and sanctions which protect both the public and individuals against wrong, it is the pride of Athens to exhibit a rich and varied fund of human impulse,—an unrestrained play of fancy and diversity of private pursuit, coupled with a reciprocity of cheerful indulgence between one individual and another, and an absence even of those “black looks” which so much embitter life, even if they never pass into enmity of fact. This portion of the speech of Periklês deserves peculiar attention, because it serves to correct an assertion, often far too indiscriminately made, respecting antiquity as contrasted with modern societies,—an assertion that the ancient societies sacrificed the individual to the state, and that only in modern times has individual agency been left free to the proper extent. This is preëminently true of Sparta: it is also true, in a great degree, of the ideal societies depicted by Plato and Aristotle: but it is pointedly untrue of the Athenian democracy, nor can we with any confidence predicate it of the major part of the Grecian cities.

I shall hereafter return to this point when I reach the times of the great speculative philosophers: in the mean time I cannot pass over this speech of Periklês without briefly noticing the inference which it suggests, to negative the supposed exorbitant interference of the state with individual liberty, as a general fact among the ancient Greek republics. There is no doubt that he has present to his mind a comparison with the extreme narrowness and rigor of Sparta, and that therefore his assertions of the extent of positive liberty at Athens must be understood as partially qualified by such contrast. But even making allowance for this, the stress which he lays upon the liberty of thought and action at Athens, not merely from excessive restraint of law, but also from practical intolerance between man and man, and tyranny of the majority over individual dissenters in taste and pursuit,—deserves serious notice, and brings out one of those points in the national character upon which the intellectual development of the time mainly depended. The national temper was indulgent in a high degree to all the varieties of positive impulses: the peculiar promptings in every individual bosom were allowed to manifest themselves and bear fruit, without being suppressed by external opinion, or trained into forced conformity with some assumed standard: antipathies against any of them formed no part of the habitual morality of the citizen. While much of the generating causes of human hatred was thus rendered inoperative, and while society was rendered more comfortable, more instructive, and more stimulating,—all its germs of productive fruitful genius, so rare everywhere, found in such an atmosphere the maximum of encouragement. Within the limits of the law, assuredly as faithfully observed at Athens as anywhere in Greece, individual impulse, taste, and even eccentricity, were accepted with indulgence, instead of being a mark as elsewhere for the intolerance of neighbors or of the public. This remarkable feature in Athenian life will help us in a future chapter to explain the striking career of Sokratês, and it farther presents to us, under another face, a great part of that which the censors of Athens denounced under the name of “democratical license.” The liberty and diversity of individual life in that city were offensive to Xenophon,[268] Plato, and Aristotle,—attached either to the monotonous drill of Sparta, or to some other ideal standard, which, though much better than the Spartan in itself, they were disposed to impress upon society with a heavy-handed uniformity. That liberty of individual action, not merely from the over-restraints of law, but from the tyranny of jealous opinion, such as Periklês depicts in Athens, belongs more naturally to a democracy, where there is no select one or few to receive worship and set the fashion, than to any other form of government. But it is very rare even in democracies: nor can we dissemble the fact that none of the governments of modern times, democratical, aristocratical, or monarchical, presents any thing like the picture of generous tolerance towards social dissent, and spontaneity of individual taste, which we read in the speech of the Athenian statesman. In all of them, the intolerance of the national opinion cuts down individual character to one out of a few set types, to which every person, or every family, is constrained to adjust itself, and beyond which all exceptions meet either with hatred or with derision. To impose upon men such restraints either of law or of opinion as are requisite for the security and comfort of society, but to encourage rather than repress the free play of individual impulse subject to those limits,—is an ideal, which, if it was ever approached at Athens, has certainly never been attained, and has indeed comparatively been little studied or cared for in any modern society.

Connected with this reciprocal indulgence of individual diversity, was not only the hospitable reception of all strangers at Athens, which Periklês contrasts with the xenêlasy or jealous expulsion practised at Sparta,—but also the many-sided activity, bodily and mental, visible in the former, so opposite to that narrow range of thought, exclusive discipline of the body and never-ending preparation for war, which formed the system of the latter. His assertion that Athens was equal to Sparta, even in her own solitary excellence,—efficiency on the field of battle,—is doubtless untenable; but not the less impressive is his sketch of that multitude of concurrent impulses which at this same time agitated and impelled the Athenian mind,—the strength of one not implying the weakness of the remainder: the relish for all pleasures of art and elegance, and the appetite for intellectual expansion, coinciding in the same bosom with energetic promptitude as well as endurance: abundance of recreative spectacles, yet noway abating the cheerfulness of obedience even to the hardest calls of patriotic duty: that combination of reason and courage which encountered danger the more willingly from having discussed and calculated it beforehand: lastly, an anxious interest as well as a competence of judgment in public discussion and public action, common to every citizen rich and poor, and combined with every man’s own private industry. So comprehensive an ideal of many-sided social development, bringing out the capacities for action and endurance, as well as those for enjoyment, would be sufficiently remarkable, even if we supposed it only existing in the imagination of a philosopher: but it becomes still more so when we recollect that the main features of it at least were drawn from the fellow-citizens of the speaker. It must be taken, however, as belonging peculiarly to the Athens of Periklês and his contemporaries; nor would it have suited either the period of the Persian war, fifty years before, or that of Demosthenês, seventy years afterwards. At the former period, the art, the letters, and the philosophy, were as yet backward, while even the active energy and democratical stimulus, though very powerful, had not been worked up to the pitch which they afterwards reached: at the latter period, although the intellectual manifestations of Athens subsist in full or even increased vigor, we shall find the personal enterprise and energetic spirit of her citizens materially abated. As the circumstances, which I have already recounted, go far to explain the previous upward movement, so those which fill the coming chapters, containing the disasters of the Peloponnesian war, will be found to explain still more completely the declining tendency shortly about to commence. Athens was brought to the brink of entire ruin, from which it is surprising that she recovered at all,—but noway surprising that she recovered at the expense of a considerable loss of personal energy in the character of her citizens.

And thus the season at which Periklês delivered his discourse lends to it an additional and peculiar pathos. It was delivered at a time when Athens was as yet erect and at her maximum for though her real power was, doubtless, much diminished, compared with the period before the thirty years’ truce, yet the great edifices and works of art, achieved since then, tended to compensate that loss, in so far as the sense of greatness was concerned; and no one, either citizen or enemy, considered Athens as having at all declined. It was delivered at the commencement of the great struggle with the Peloponnesian confederacy, the coming hardships of which Periklês never disguised either to himself or to his fellow-citizens, though he fully counted upon eventual success. Attica had been already invaded; it was no longer “the unwasted territory,” as Euripidês had designated it in his tragedy Medea,[269] represented three or four months before the march of Archidamus,—and a picture of Athens in her social glory was well calculated both to rouse the pride and nerve the courage of those individuals citizens, who had been compelled once, and would be compelled again and again, to abandon their country-residence and fields for a thin tent or confined hole in the city.[270] Such calamities might, indeed, be foreseen: but there was one still greater calamity, which, though actually then impending, could not be foreseen: the terrific pestilence which will be recounted in the coming chapter. The bright colors, and tone of cheerful confidence, which pervade the discourse of Periklês, appear the more striking from being in immediate antecedence to the awful description of this distemper: a contrast to which Thucydidês was, doubtless, not insensible, and which is another circumstance enhancing the interest of the composition.