# Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14/V

V
ATHENIAN SUPREMACY
B.C. 466—B.C. 431.
Though the intellectual supremacy of Athens lasted far into the fourth century B.C., her political supremacy fell, never to be restored, with the ruinous disasters of the Peloponnesian war. But in this chapter we shall be concerned with the happier period of her material and artistic success.
We have seen that the development of the Confederacy of Delos led to the assumption by Athens ​of an almost imperial position. That she should have taken the lead in the confederacy was the natural result of her great services in the Persian war; and that she was strong enough to seize the opportunity was owing, above all, to the brilliant abilities of Themistocles, and the high character of Aristides. To Themistocles it was chiefly due that she had become a strong naval power; it was due to his sagacity and gallantry that she had played so important a part in repelling the Persian invasion and to his vigorous exertions that, after that event, she had become a fortified town, with harbours suitable for her expanding trade and growing power. It was at his suggestion in B.C. 477 that the city walls were hastily constructed in spite of the jealous remonstrances of Sparta, and that the Piraeus was also encircled for a distance of seven miles, by the immense double wall which secured it for more than three centuries. And when the policy of Themistocles in exacting contributions from the islands, as a penalty for their involuntary medizing, seemed likely to discredit the state in the eyes of the Greeks, it was the moderation and equity of Aristides that renewed public confidence in its leadership, and caused it to be regarded as the natural head of the new confederacy. This was confirmed by the voluntary withdrawal of the Spartans, who, content with an acknowledged primacy in the Peloponnese and in land warfare generally, allowed the maritime leadership to fall into the hands of Athens, apparently at first without foreseeing the consequences. When, again, the confederacy, after thirteen years ​of existence, began to show signs of disruption, and the Thasians, wishing to break off from it, appealed for aid to Sparta (B.C. 465), the Spartans were pre- vented from giving it, by a great disaster at home. A severe earthquake in that year caused much loss of life and damage to property and buildings; and the helots—smarting under years of forced labour and oppression—were in rebellion, both in Laconia and Messenia.
Repulsed by King Archidamus in their attempt to take Sparta itself the helots collected on Mount Ithome, where they maintained themselves for ten years. During that time all the energies of Sparta and her allies were devoted to the siege. The Athenians, therefore, during these years had nothing to fear from Spartan interference, though it was well known that jealousy of her powers in the Aegean was growing rapidly in Sparta. This was emphasised by an incident connected with the siege of Ithome. Among other requests for aid the Spartan had sent one to Athens. Cimon, who had done such brilliant service for the Delian confederacy, was head of the party at Athens which desired a close alliance with Sparta. He persuaded the people to send the aid requested under his own leadership. But when he arrived, the Spartan generals, who had either not approved of the invitation to Athens or had repented of it, dismissed him with scant courtesy. The feeling aroused at Athens by this rebuff was sufficiently violent to cause the ostracism of Cimon (B.C. 461).
This event began a new era with the advent to supreme influence of Pericles, who had for some time
PERICLES, OB. B.C. 429.
(British Museum.)
​been Cimon's rival. Pericles was in character and tastes the reverse of a demagogue, for he maintained a somewhat haughty reserve, mingled little in general society, and only spoke in the assembly on important occasions. Yet his eloquence was so persuasive that for many years it made him almost autocratic. The constitutional changes that can be with certainty attributed to him are not numerous or striking. Yet they are all in the direction of more complete democracy. He is said to have been the first to propose a small payment for those who sat as jurors in law courts, thus making it possible for all classes to give their time to this duty. In conjunction with Ephialtes, the most advanced demagogue of the time, he assisted in reducing the power of the Areopagus to that of a court of law for trying certain cases of homicide. The council of the Areopagus consisted of ex-archons. They were members for life, and the council had by a kind of prescription exercised a certain superintendence over magistrates and people. We do not know exactly how far it was able to withstand votes passed by the assembly, or to oppose acts of magistrates, but it certainly possessed some powers which were held to be inconsistent with pure democracy; and of these Ephialtes and Pericles deprived it. He also established the theoric fund, from which the entrance fee to the theatre was to be paid for such citizens as applied for it, and the enjoyment of the festivals generally to be made free to all.
But the chief interest attaching to him in the story of the Greeks is connected with the two objects ​which he set before himself in the earlier period of his influence—the formation of a continental empire or supremacy for Athens, and the beautifying of the city itself, that it might become the chosen home of art and literature. In the latter object he succeeded beyond all comparison. In the former, after a brief success, he failed entirely. His policy in this respect brought upon Athens the enmity of Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes. It led to almost perpetual war, and to a growing discontent among the members of the confederacy of Delos, who saw their contributions being used for the selfish aggrandisement of one city. To it may be traced the train of disasters which eventually destroyed the political power and influence of Athens in Greece.
The first step in this attempt was the formation of an alliance with Argos, to which the adhesion of Megara and Thessaly was presently obtained. The primary object was to form a counterpoise to the supreme influence of Sparta in the Peloponnese. It did not involve immediate war with the Spartans, who were too much engaged with the revolted helots to resent it actively: but it roused the jealous alarms of those powers whose first interest it was to have free passage for their ships or an unfettered communication with the Peloponnese,—Corinth, Epidauros, and Aegina, who accordingly combined to attack the new confederacy (B.C. 458–456). The Athenians had some successes in this struggle, especially at sea, which enabled them to reduce Aegina. to subjection and force it to join the Delian confederacy. On the other hand, they were defeated at Tanagra (B.C. 457) ​by a Spartan army, which, on its way home from assisting Doris against the Locrians, took the opportunity of being in Boeotia to make a demonstration against the Attic frontier. But next year an Athenian army entered Boeotia and won a victory over the Boeotians and their allies at Oenophyta, after which Boeotia, Phocis, and Opuntian Locris were compelled to join the Athenian alliance. The victory of the Spartans at Tanagra had led to no important result, but it emphasised the fact that the Spartans considered themselves as at war with the Athenians, and were resolved to withstand the expansion of their supremacy. After the end of the struggle with their helots, who in B.C. 455 capitulated at Mount Ithome on condition of being allowed to leave the country, the Spartans would be at less disadvantage in this controversy. Just about the same time an Athenian fleet and army was destroyed in Egypt. They had been sent five years before to assist the Libyan Inaros to rebel against the Persian king, and their destruction was a blow to the prestige of Athens as champion of Greece against Persia. Still, on the whole, up to B.C. 449 the successes obtained by Athens in prosecuting the policy of Pericles, as well as in other directions, were considerable. In B.C. 456 Athens was still further secured by the long walls which joined the city to the Piraeus and to Phalerum; one of her admirals (Tolmides) sailed round the Peloponnese, burnt Gytheium, the port of Sparta, took Naupactus (where the defeated Messenians were now allowed to settle), and caused the western islands of Zacynthus and Cephallenia to join the Athenian ​alliance. Next year Pericles himself led an expedition in the Corinthian Gulf and secured the adhesion of Achaia.
But this was the end of Athenian successes. Cimon, after the battle of Tanagra, had been re- called, and now induced Athens to agree to a five years' truce with Sparta (B.C. 450), and once more to devote her energies to further measures against Persia; while at the same time a thirty years' peace was effected between Argos and Sparta, which practically put an end to the attempt to form a powerful counterpoise to Sparta in the Peloponnese. A year of successful war with the Persians at Cyprus followed (B.C. 449), in the course of which Cimon died, and an understanding was come to that the Persian fleets were not to sail into the Aegean, and that the king was to acknowledge the independence of all Hellenic towns. Whether this was secured by a formal treaty negotiated by Callias is not certain. But for the time it represents the practical state of affairs. Callias was a cousin of Aristides, and is generally referred to by later writers as having negotiated this peace. He at any rate seems to have been about this time on some mission to the Persian court. But that the king should have formally accepted such humiliating terms has been thought improbable.
Immediately afterwards, however, the Athenian supremacy on land, which the policy of Pericles had secured, began to melt away. In B.C. 448 a quarrel as to the management of the temple and Oracle at Delphi produced another outbreak of hostilities ​between Sparta and Athens: the former supporting the claims of the inhabitants of Delphi to the exclusive care of the temple, the latter supporting the Phocians, who had forcibly asserted their right to a share in it. The importance of such a controversy is to be measured by the influence of the Oracle on Greek politics. Both sides professed a care for the impartiality of the Oracle; but in fact both wished to secure its support for themselves; and the special influence which Sparta had long had over the Delphians the Athenians tried to minimise by causing the management of the Oracle to be shared by the other Phocians.
This did not lead to any actual encounter between Athenian and Spartan troops; but in the next year (B.C. 447) an attempt of the Athenians to interfere in the political troubles of a Boeotian town, Chaeroneia, brought upon them so serious a defeat on their way home at Coroneia, that in order to recover their prisoners they surrendered all authority in the other towns of Boeotia. In these towns the aristocratic party immediately regained power, and renounced not only the authority but even the alliance of Athens. This was the first break in the continental supremacy acquired by Pericles. It was followed in the next year by a similar revolt of Megara (so important as commanding the road into the Peloponnese) and of Euboea, which, though an island, was practically a part of Attica. The disadvantage of having again incurred the enmity of Sparta was now shown by the support at once given to Megara. A Spartan army under King Pleistoanax invaded the ​Attic territory; and though it retired without doing any damage, owing, it was believed, to the king having been bribed by Pericles, this did not save Athenian influence at Megara. The revolt had begun by the massacre of an Athenian garrison stationed there, and it now definitely broke off from the Athenian alliance. Pericles, who had been recalled from an expedition against Euboea by the invasion of Pleistoanax, did succeed next year (B.C. 444) in reducing that island to obedience. But the measures of suppression were severe, including the removal of all the inhabitants of Histiaea, and all the aristocratic party at Chalcis, and the division of their lands among a thousand cleruchs, that is, Athenian citizens holding allotments of land. Such a policy has been tried many times in Ireland, but has never been permanently successful. Euboea remained Athenian, but restless and discontented, and a favourite point of attack for her enemies in aftertimes. With this exception the land confederacy laboriously contrived by Pericles was now broken up. Thessaly had withdrawn some years before, though without formal breach; Argos, by making terms with Sparta, had practically renounced alliance with Athens; Megara and Boeotia had broken away; and now in negotiating a thirty years' peace with Sparta (B.C. 445) the Athenians were obliged to withdraw from Achaia, to surrender Nisaea and Pagae, the two ports of Megara, as well as Troezen in Argolis. In fact, Athenian supremacy on the mainland was gone.
In spite of this failure Pericles was more powerful ​in Athens than ever, and it is a remarkable fact that the man who had led the opposition to him since the disappearance of Cimon, Thucydides, son of Milesias, was ostracised the next year. Thus Pericles remained active and powerful. He was promoting colonies at Thurii in Italy (B.C. 444) and at Amphipolis in Thrace (B.C. 437), the former as a means of securing trade with Italy, the latter to maintain Athenian influence in the rich gold-mining district of Pangaeus. He also interfered with such effect in a quarrel which had arisen between Samos and Miletus (B.C. 440) that after a nine months' siege the Samians were compelled to surrender their free status in the Confederacy of Delos, and to become an acknowledged subject of Athens, as did Byzantium also, which had joined the Samian movement. The only really free allies were now the Chians and Lesbians, and the altered position of Athens had been emphasised some ten years before by the removal of the treasury from Delos to Athens. The money, therefore, came more and more to be regarded as Athenian revenue, in return for which Athens was bound to maintain a fleet in the Aegean, but was not bound to render any account of it otherwise. The amount of the phoros had steadily in- creased, either by the adhesion of new members or by the readjustment of the contributions, so that it was greater by about a third than the original sum obtained. The right of Athens to enforce payment, and, if necessary, to place an overseer or resident with a garrison in any of the subject states, was gradually asserted, and contributed to her imperial pretensions.
The policy which thus turned what was meant to be a confederacy of free states into a kind of empire broke down eventually, but for the present it seemed successful and permanent. In another direction Pericles successfully carried out his ideal of Athens as a centre of art and learning, to which men of letters and artists should naturally come. As a first condition the city was to be supremely beautiful. Buildings, accordingly, of unsurpassed grace and splendour were either begun or completed under his influence. The famous Pheidias (d. about B.C. 430) acted somewhat in the capacity of Minister of Fine Art, and had the general superintendence of the works undertaken at his motion. Various architects were employed, but Pheidias and his assistants added the crown to the glory of the buildings by statues, or by the figures in relief in the pediments, frieze, and metopes of temples. It was not, indeed, at Athens alone that this outburst of building occurred, nor was the activity of Pheidias confined to Athens. In all parts of Hellas, in Sicily, Southern Italy, Corinth, Aegina, and Arcadia, remains of splendid temples still attest the supremacy of Greek genius, and it was at Olympia in Elis that one of his most famous works, the statue of Zeus, in ivory and gold, was completed and dedicated. But the Acropolis at Athens possessed the largest number of his works. The figures in the pediments of the Parthenon and in the frieze and metopes were the creation of his own hands or of those of his school working under his direction. His, too, was the colossal bronze figure of Athena Promachos, holding
THE PARTHENON.
​shield and spear, and with its pedestal rising seventy feet. The Theseium near the Cerameicus was of rather an earlier date, and the Propylaea—the stairs and entrance gateway on to the Acropolis—was begun towards the end of this period (B.C. 437). The Erechtheium, the double temple which took its name from the mythical King Erechtheus and contained many objects of time-honoured sanctity, was also begun in this period, but not finished. These buildings represent the restoration that followed the destruction wrought by the Persians in B.C. 481–479. To the same age probably belong the Odeum, or Music Hall, with conical roof in imitation of the tent of Xerxes, the temple of Athena Nike (Nike Apteros), and the Theseium. The auditorium of the Dionysian Theatre, hollowed out of the southern rock of the Acropolis, went through various stages of construction, and probably did not attain its ultimate form for more than a hundred years later. The vast temple of Olympian Zeus had been begun by Peisistratus a century before this period, but was on such a scale that the Athenian state was never rich enough to complete it. That was reserved for the Emperor Hadrian. Besides these buildings streets and colonnades (στοαί) were gradually filled with monuments of various sorts. A whole street, for instance, leading from the Dionysian Theatre to the town was adorned by monuments raised by men who had supplied the choruses for plays which had gained a prize. Of these only one is extant of the year B.C. 335, in the shape of a circular-domed temple with engaged columns of the Corinthian order ​of architecture and made of Pentelic marble, known as the choragic monument of Lysicrates. Other streets and colonnades were adorned with Herman, square blocks or posts of marble, of which the upper part represented the head and bust of the god Hermes, or of Dionysius, or often two heads looking opposite ways. The art of painting contributed much in this period to beautifying the city. The chief artist who at this time was employed on public work at Athens—generally under the direction and patronage of Cimon—was Polygnotus of Thasos. Paintings of his in Athens—besides many in other places—are mentioned in the Stoa poikile, where many episodes in Athenian history were represented, ending with a vivid presentment of the battle of Marathon—in the Theseium, the Propylaea, the temple of the Dioscuri, and elsewhere. Parts of the same paintings were by his pupil, Mikon. We, of course, have not the same means of judging of the painter's art as we have of that of the sculptors and builders of this age, but it seems that the characteristic feature of both branches of art was increased power of representing the human form naturally and gracefully, whether in repose or movement, free from the conventionality and stiffness of more archaic art. The difficulty of representing attitudes, dress, hair, and eyes had been overcome. Groupings of men and horses in procession or contest were produced, and created a vivid illusion of life and movement. Though Athens excelled other Greek states in the number and splendour of these treasures of art, the artistic progress was by no means confined to her.
A Caryatid of the Erechtheium, about B.C. 380.
(British Museum.)
​Most of the chief states of Hellas possessed works of great beauty. The most perfect, perhaps, of all that has been preserved—the Venus of the Louvre—came from the island of Melos. The leading artists were of various nationality, and were willing to work for any state that would employ them. The great temples, especially those which were the seats of oracles, were filled with the offerings of expectant or grateful worshippers, some, no doubt, more remarkable for their costliness than their artistic merit, but many the work of the greatest artists of the present or the past.
Other influences which were modifying the Greek character were literature and philosophy. These did not find their earliest homes in Athens. The earliest poets, as we have seen, were mostly from Asia and the islands; the earliest historians from Miletus; the earliest philosophers from Ionia, Sicily, and Italy. Even in the Periclean age the chief seat of mental philosophy was Elea in Italy, and the leaders of a new physical philosophy came from Thrace or Asia. Simonides, the greatest writer of hymns and epigrams, was a native of Ceos; Pindar, the greatest lyric poet, was a Boeotian; and Herodotus, the first great writer of literary history, was a native of Halicarnassus, in Caria. Yet this age saw the beginning of the movement which was to make Athens for a long time the intellectual capital of Greece. Though his speculations on the nature and origin of the universe alarmed the people and caused his expulsion from the city, Anaxagoras spent some years in Athens and profoundly affected Pericles ​and his generation. Herodotus visited Athens more than once, and spent the last years of his life in Thurii, which was in great part an Athenian colony, while his successor in the art of history was a pure Athenian, Thucydides, son of Olorus. The three great masters of tragedy were also Athenians, and in their different ways profoundly influenced the Greeks of this age and turned men's eyes still more decisively upon Athens. Aeschylus, the poet of lofty religion and heroic passion, died in B.C. 456; Sophocles, the clear-eyed pourtrayer of the whole range of human emotion, lived from B.C. 495 to B.C. 405; and Euripides, the master of pathos and the bold questioner of received beliefs, though fifteen years his junior, survived him only by a year.
These artistic and literary triumphs helped to make Athens and the Athenians what they were. Constant association with noble words and beautiful sights had the same effect on their minds, says Plato, as living in a healthy spot has on their bodies. “From beautiful works of art there smites upon eyes and ears as it were a breeze from a healthful region, leading them insensibly from childhood to a con- formity and harmony with the good and a love of it.” This gave a peculiar distinction to that supremacy of Athens in the Hellas of that age, which the activity and enterprise of her sons, the wealth obtained from her subject allies, and her pre-eminent naval power had secured and consolidated.
Yet there were not wanting signs of opposition to Pericles, both at home and among the members of the confederacy. His great opponent, Cimon, died in
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, B.C. 335. (Corinthian.)
​B.C. 449, but another leader of the opposition survived in Thucydides, son of Milesias, who inveighed against the expense incurred by the splendid works promoted by Pericles. Though he was got rid of by ostracism in B.C. 445, all opposition was not silenced. It showed itself at Athens in attacks upon the friends of Pericles. Pheidias was accused both of peculation and of impiety. The former he disproved by removing the gold from the statue of Zeus, and showing that it was of the just weight. On the latter charge (founded on the introduction of his own likeness and that of Pericles among the warriors fighting the Amazons), he was, it seems, convicted and died in prison. Anaxagoras again was expelled for impiety, while Aspasia (mistress and friend of Pericles) was only saved by the utmost exertion of his influence.
Amongst the allies the causes of discontent were accumulating. The transference of the League treasury from Delos to Athens, though approved by some allies, was offensive to others, and made the imperial pretensions of the Athenians more conspicuous. The placing of an Athenian resident (ἐπίσκοπος) and garrison in some of the states, the insistence upon a democratic form of government, the periodical readjustment of the tribute or phoros, the high-handed treatment of Euboea, Aegina, Samos, and other states wishing to break off—all indicated pretensions to despotic power, offensive to that passion for local autonomy which was the strongest political feeling among the Greeks. Pericles had also used more widely than ever the system of cleruchies, that is, of allotments of lands to Athenian citizens in Euboea ​and other islands, which was also offensive to the ideas and habits of the Greeks, who understood the sending of colonists to unoccupied lands, there to form a new and independent state; but neither understood nor liked the idea of the citizens of one state having lands assigned them by their own government in the territories of another. The subject allies were also annoyed at being obliged to go to Athens for the decision of certain suits by the Attic courts, which was the cause both of delay and expense. In the continent a standing grievance was a decree passed, it was alleged, owing to a private grievance of Pericles or Aspasia forbidding the people of Megara the use of the harbour and markets in Attica and its dependencies.
It only required a spark to set the smouldering disloyalty of her allies and the growing envy and dislike of her neighbours on fire. This spark was supplied by a quarrel with Corinth. In B.C. 435 one of the ordinary revolutions occurred at Epidamnus (Dyrrachium). The nobles were expelled by the popular party, and tried to effect their destruction by enlisting neighbouring barbarians. In their terror the popular party of Epidamnus applied for help to their mother state, Corcyra, and were refused. They then applied to Corinth, the mother city of Corcyra. The Corinthians sent a fleet which was defeated off Actium by the Corcyreans, who then forced Epidamnus to surrender. The Corinthians resolved to renew the war and spent nearly two years in making preparations. Meanwhile both they and the Corcyreans applied to Athens for aid. Under the influence
Gold cup, Mycenæan Age.
​of Pericles the Athenians decided on an alliance with Corcyra, principally because of the advantage it presented for ships sailing to Italy or Sicily, on which the eyes of the Athenians had long been fixed, as offering great opportunities for trade and settlements for their citizens. Accordingly, when the war between Corinth and Corcyra was renewed in B.C. 433, the Corinthians were prevented from taking advantage of a naval victory off the Sybota Islands by an Athenian squadron.
The Corinthians, therefore, were anxious to find some means of retaliating upon Athens, and this was afforded them in the following year (B.C. 432), by the revolt of Potidaea, which was a colony of their own, from the Athenian alliance. The revolt had been originally instigated by the king of Macedonia, who wished to get control over the Chalcidian peninsula. The people of Potidaea applied to Corinth for help, which was readily given, and still more effective aid promised. But the Athenians were too quick for them, and the town was soon completely blockaded by a strong Athenian force of men and ships, though it managed to hold out till the winter of B.C. 430.
The Corinthians now sent envoys to Sparta denouncing the ambition and tyranny of Athens. The Spartans summoned a conference of their allies, and after long deliberation war with Athens was resolved upon. It was not begun at once. Embassies went backwards and forwards, and various demands were made, partly with a view of putting Athens in the wrong, partly in order to gain time ​for preparation. The final demand that Athens should acknowledge the independence of all her allies was practically a declaration of war. The most eager for this had been the Megarians, owing to their exclusion from the Athenian markets; the Corinthians, owing to affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea; and the Aeginetans, because they had been forced to join the confederacy of Delos and had been deprived of their autonomy. But the final cause which induced the Spartans to proclaim war was really dread of Athenian expansion. Athens had more power, than, according to Greek ideas, it was safe for any one state to possess.
The war which followed is called the Peloponnesian war, because Sparta dominated the Peloponnese, which, with the exception of Argolis and Achaia, was mainly on her side; but in fact nearly all continental Greece was hostile to Athens, who relied on her maritime and Asiatic allies. It was, therefore, a contest for the most part between a land and a sea power. It was also a contest between two political ideals—oligarchy and democracy—and to a certain extent racial, between Dorian and Ionian. It lasted with a brief interval till B.C. 404, and its result was the destruction of Athens as an imperial state, and almost as a political force at all in Greece. But the old ideal of perfectly autonomous states was not restored. Spartans took the place of Athenians with still greater odium and less success. The only one to profit was the king of Persia, whose satraps again interfered in Hellenic politics and reimposed his yoke upon the Asiatic Greeks. The ​ten years of Theban supremacy only succeeded in breaking up such union as existed, and Greece was left helpless and divided, to fall under the control of the kings of Macedonia. The war, therefore, has with some justice been called "The Suicide of Hellas."
It may be divided into three periods. First, from B.C. 431 to B.C. 424, in which Athens was, on the whole, eminently successful till the defeat of an Athenian army at Delium, balancing the disaster of the previous year sustained by the Spartans at Sphacteria (B.C. 425), induced the two chief combatants to make a truce for a year. Then followed a kind of interlude, B.C. 423–421, when there was neither open war nor real peace, for in B.C. 422 the war went on in Thrace, though there were no operations in Greece. In B.C. 421 Nicias, who had always been on the side of caution, negotiated a fifty years' peace.
Secondly, B.C. 421–415. During the next six years Athens and Sparta were at peace, but the allies of neither were satisfied. New combinations were made by various states and met by counter-combinations which eventually produced a war between Sparta and Argos, in which Athenian troops took part with Argos, though the peace with Sparta nominally remained. The prominent Athenian statesman in this period is Alcibiades.
Thirdly, B.C. 415–404. This period opens with nominal peace in Greece. The Athenians had the year before suppressed and cruelly punished an attempted revolt in Melos, and her supremacy in the Aegean seemed safe. Her financial position had ​also much improved. Nicias and the conservative part of the citizens were for peace and moderate counsels; but Alcibiades instigated the people to return to an old dream of an empire in the West. The Greek cities in Sicily and Italy were to be made subject, and perhaps even the kingdom of Carthage. With that they would be able to revenge themselves on the Peloponnese, and once more be supreme in Greece. A quarrel between two Sicilian cities gave a pretext for the fatal expedition to Syracuse. The Spartans again took sides against Athens. Attica was not only again invaded, but permanently occupied. And though in the years which followed the destruction of their armament at Syracuse, B.C. 413 to B.C. 404, they made a gallant struggle against the revolt which Sparta stirred up amongst their subject allies, one by one they were all wrested from her—even Oropus and Euboea; and when in B.C. 405 her last fleet was destroyed by Lysander at Aegospotami, there only remained a few months before Athens herself was compelled to surrender and allow her fortifications to be dismantled.
It is to be remembered that this period of constant war and fierce controversy is also the great period of Athenian literature. Sophocles and Euripides were exhibiting their plays while Athenian fleets were conquering or being conquered. Aristophanes found the themes for his most brilliant comedies in the politicians of the day or the burning question of peace or war. Socrates was wandering through the streets, not uninterested in the events of the time, and being called upon more than once to take his share ​
THUCYDIDES, SON OF OLORUS, C. B.C. 471–401.
(Capitoline Museum.)
​in military disaster or political peril, and yet never resting in that constant criticism of life, thought, and morals which laid the foundation of so much of the philosophy of the future. Thucydides, again, was actually engaged in the wars, and suffered, as he believed unjustly, from the rancour of the demagogues; but he, too, worked on through the time of storm and stress to build up the "eternal possession" which he has bequeathed to posterity. It was when the days of strife were over and Athens had found peace without honour that the intellectual sceptre departed from her and found a place for a time in the Greek city of Alexander on the Nile. Peace may nurture genius, but does not seem to produce it. Nine of the ten orators might, perhaps, have lived in any age of Athenian history; but it required a time of fierce strife and desperate struggle for freedom to make a Demosthenes.