History of the Peloponnesian War

While they were still in the plain, before they went to the Paralian territory, he was preparing an armament of a hundred ships to sail against the Peloponnese;

and when all was ready, he put out to sea. On board the ships he took four thousand heavy-armed of the Athenians, and three hundred cavalry in horse-transports, then for the first time made out of old vessels :

a Chian and Lesbian force also joined the expedition with fifty ships.

When this armament of the Athenians put out to sea, they left the Peloponnesians in the Paralian territory of Attica. On arriving at Epidaurus, in the Peloponnese, they ravaged the greater part of the land, and having made an assault on the city, entertained some hope of taking it;

but did not, however, succeed. After sailing from Epidaurus, they ravaged the land belonging to Troezen, Haliae, and Hermione;

all which places are on the coast of the Peloponnese. Proceeding thence they came to Prasiae, a maritime town of Laconia, and ravaged some of the land, and took the town itself, and sacked it. After performing these achievements, they returned home; and found the Peloponnesians no longer in Attica, but returned.

Now all the time that the Peloponnesians were in the Athenian territory, and the Athenians were engaged in the expedition on board their ships, the plague was carrying them off both in the armament and in the city, so that it was even said that the Peloponnesians, for fear of the disorder, when they heard from the deserters that it was in the city, and also perceived them performing the funeral rites, retired the quicker from the country.

Yet in this invasion they stayed the longest time, and ravaged the whole country: for they were about forty days in the Athenian territory.

The same summer Hagnon son of Nicias, and Cleopompus son of Clinias, who were colleagues with Pericles, took the army which he had employed, and went straightway on an expedition against the Chalcidians Thrace-ward, and Potidaea, which was still being besieged: and on their arrival they brought up their engines against Potidaea, and endeavoured to take it by every means.

But they neither succeeded in capturing the city, nor in their other measures, to any extent worthy of their preparations: for the plague attacked them, and this indeed utterly overpowered them there, wasting their force to such a degree, that even the soldiers of the Athenians who were there before were infected with it by the troops which came with Hagnon, though previously they had been in good health. Phormio, however, and his sixteen hundred, were no longer in the neighbourhood of the Chalcidians [and so escaped its ravages].

Hagnon therefore returned with his ships to Athens, having lost by the plague fifteen hundred out of four thousand heavy-armed, in about forty days. The soldiers who were there before still remained in the country, and continued the siege of Potidaea.

After the second invasion of the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians, when their land had been again ravaged, and the disease and the war were afflicting them at the same time, changed their views, and found fault with Pericles, thinking that he had persuaded them to go to war, and that it was through him that they had met with their misfortunes;

and they were eager to come to terms with the Lacedaemonians. Indeed they sent ambassadors to them, but did not succeed in their object. And their minds being on all sides reduced to despair, they were violent against Pericles.

He therefore, seeing them irritated by their present circumstances, and doing every thing that he had himself expected them to do, called an assembly, (for he was still general,) wishing to cheer them, and by drawing off the irritation of their feelings to lead them to a calmer and more confident state of mind. So he came forward and spoke as follows:

"I had both expected the proofs of your anger against me, which have been exhibited, (for I am aware of the causes of it,) and have now convened an assembly for this purpose, that I may remind you [of what you have forgotten], and reprove you if in any respect you are wrong, either in being irritated against me or in succumbing to your misfortunes.

For I consider that a state which in its public capacity is successful confers more benefit on individuals, than one which is prosperous as regards its particular citizens, while collectively it comes to ruin.

For though a man is individually prosperous, yet if his country is ruined, he none the less shares in its destruction; whereas, if he is unfortunate in a country that is fortunate, he has a much better hope of escaping his dangers.

Since then a state is able to bear the misfortunes of individuals, while each individual is unable to bear hers, how can it fail to be the duty of all to support her, and not to act as you are now doing, who, being panic-stricken by your domestic afflictions, give up all thought of the public safety, and are blaming both me who advised you to go to war, and yourselves who joined in voting for it.

And yet I, with whom you are angry, am a man who deem myself second to none in at once knowing what measures are required, and explaining them to others; a lover too of my country, and superior to the influence of money.

For he who knows a thing that is right, but does not explain it with clearness is no better than if he had never had a conception of it; and he, gain, who has both these requisites, but is ill-affected toward his country, would not so well speak for her interest And even this qualification be added to the others, while he is influenced by regard for money, all of them together would be sacrificed for this one consideration.

So that if you were persuaded by me to go to war, because you thought that I possessed these qualities even in a moderate degree more than other men, I cannot now fairly be charged with injuring you, at any rate.

"For those indeed to go to war, who, while successful in other things, have had a choice in the matter allowed them, it is great folly. But if [in our case] it were necessary, either immediately to submit to our neighbours, if we made concessions, or to preserve our independence by running a great risk;

then he who shrank from the risk is more reprehensible than he who faced it. For my part then, I am the same that I ever was, and do not depart from my opinion; but you are changing, since it happens that you were persuaded [to go to war] while unscathed, but repent of it now you are suffering: and that my advice appears wrong through the weakness of your resolution; because pain is now in possession of each man's feeling, while the certainty of the benefit is as yet hidden from all: and a great reverse having befallen you, and that suddenly, your mind is too prostrated to persevere in your determinations.

For the spirit is enslaved by what is sudden and unlooked for, and most beyond our calculation; which has been your case, in addition to every thing else, more especially with regard to the plague.

Living, however, as you do in a great city, and brought up with habits corresponding to it, you ought to be willing to encounter the greatest misfortunes, and not to sully your reputation; (for men think it equally just to find fault with him who weakly falls short of his proper character, and to hate him who rashly grasps at that which does not belong to him;) and you ought to cease grieving for your private sufferings, and to devote yourselves to the safety of the commonwealth.

"But with regard to your trouble in the war, lest you should fear that it may prove great, and we may still be none the more successful, let those arguments suffice you, with which on many other occasions I have proved the error of your suspicions respecting it. At the same time, I will also lay before you the following advantage, which yourselves do not appear ever yet to have thought of as belonging to you, respecting the greatness of your empire, and which I never urged in my former speeches; nor would I even now, as it has rather too boastful an air, if I did not see you unreasonably cast down.

You think then that you only bear rule over your own subject allies; but I declare to you that of the two parts of the world open for man's use, the land and the sea, of the whole of the one you are most absolute masters, both as far as you avail yourselves of it now, and if you should wish to do so still further; and there is no power, neither the king nor any nation besides at the present day, that can prevent your sailing [where you please] with your present naval resources.

This power then evidently is far from being merely on a level with the benefits of your houses and lands, which you think so much to be deprived of: nor is it right for you to give about them, but rather to hold them cheap, considering them, in comparison with this, as a mere gardenplot and embellishment of a rich man's estate You should know, too, that liberty, provided we devote ourselves to that and preserve t, will easily recover these losses; whereas those who have once submitted to others find even their greatest gains diminish. Nor should you how yourselves interior in both respect to your fathers, who with labour, and not by inheritance from others, acquired these possessions, and moreover kept them, and bequeathed them to us for it is more disgraceful to be deprived of a thing when we have got it, than to fail in getting it. On the contrary, you should meet your enemies, nor only with spirit, but also with a spirit of contempt.

For confidence is produced even by lucky ignorance, ay, even in a coward; but contempt is the feeling of the man who trusts that he is superior to his adversaries in counsel also, which is our case.

And ability, with a high spirit, renders more sure the daring which arises from equal fortune; and does not so much trust to mere hope, whose strength mainly displays itself in difficulties; but rather to a judgment grounded upon present realities, whose anticipations may be more relied upon.

"It is but fair, too, that you should sustain the dignity of the state derived from its sovereignty, on which you all pride yourselves; and that either you should not shrink from its labours, or else should lay no claim to its honours either. Nor should you suppose that you are struggling to escape one evil only, slavery instead of freedom; but to avoid loss of dominion also, and danger from the animosities which you lave incurred in your exercise of that dominion.

And from this it is no longer possible for you to retire; if through fear at the present time any one is for so playing the honest man in quiet. For you now hold it as a tyranny, which it seems wrong to have assumed, but dangerous to give up.

And men with these views would very quickly ruin the state, whether they persuaded others [to adopt the same], or even lived any where independently by themselves; for quietness is not a safe principle, unless ranged with activity; nor is it for the interest of a sovereign state, but of a subject one, that it may live in safe slavery.

Do you then neither be seduced by such citizens, nor be angry with me, whom yourselves also joined in voting for war, though the enemy has invaded our country, and done what it was natural that he should do, if you would not submit; and though, besides what we looked for, this disease also has come upon us—the only thing, indeed, of all that has happened beyond our expectations. And it is through this, I well know, that in some degree I am still more the object of your displeasure;

yet not with justice, unless you will also give me the credit when you meet with any success beyond your calculation, The evils then which are sent by heaven, you must bear perforce; those which are inflicted by your enemies c with courage: for such was formerly the custom of this country, and let it not now meet with a check in your case.

But consider that it has the greatest name in all the world from not yielding to misfortunes, and from expending in war more lives and labours than any other state; and that it has now the greatest power that ever existed up to the present time; the memory of which, even should we now at length give way, (for every thing is naturally liable to decrease,) will be left to posterity for ever, namely, that we had dominion over more Greeks than any other Greek state ever had; and held out in the greatest wars against them, both collectively and singly;

and inhabited a city better provided with all things than any other, and greater. And yet your quiet man would find fault with these things;

but the man who has himself a wish to achieve something, will emulate them; while whoever does not possess them will envy them. But to be hated and offensive for the time resent has been the lot of all who ever presumed rule over others; that man however, takes wise counsel, who envy for the greatest thins. For odium does not last long; but present splendour and future glory are handed down to perpetual memory.

Do you then, providing both for your future honour, and for your immediate escape from disgrace, secure both objects by your present spirit: and neither send any heralds to the Lacedaemonians, nor show that you are weighed down by your present troubles; for such as in feeling are least annoyed at their misfortunes, while in action they most courageously resist them, these, both of states and of individuals, are the best.

By speaking to this effect Pericles endeavoured both to divert the Athenians from their anger towards himself, and to lead away their thoughts from their present hardships.

And in a public point of view they were persuaded by his speech, and were no longer for sending to the Lacedaemonians, but were more resolute for the war; though in their private feeling they were distressed by their sufferings; the commons, because, having set out with less resources, they had been deprived of even those; the higher orders, because they had lost fine possessions in the country, both in buildings and expensive establishments, and, what was the greatest evil of all, had war instead of peace.

They did not, however, cease from their public displeasure toward him, till they had fined him in a sum of money.

But no long time after, as the multitude to they again elected him general, and committed every thing to him; for on the points in which each man was vexed about his domestic affairs, they now felt less keenly; but with regard to what the whole state needed, they thought that he was most valuable.

For as long as he was at the head of the state in time of peace, he governed it with moderation, and kept it in safety, and it was at its height of greatness in his time: and when the war broke out, he appears to have foreknown its power in this respect also.

He survived its commencement two years and six months; and when he was dead, his foresight with regard to its course was appreciated to a still greater degree.

For he said that if they kept quiet and attended to their navy, and did not gain additional dominion during the war, nor expose the city to hazard, they would have the advantage in the struggle. But they did the very contrary of all this, and in other things which seemed to have to do with the war, through their private ambition and private gain, they adopted evil measures both towards themselves and their allies; which, if successful, conducted the honour and benefit of individuals; but if they failed, proved detrimental to the state with regard to the war.

And the reason was, that he, being powerful by means of his high rank and talents, and manifestly proof against bribery, controlled the multiude with an independent spirit, and was not led by them so much as he himself led them; for he did not say any thing to humour them, for the acquisition of power by improper means; but was able on the strength of his character to contradict them even at the risk of their displeasure.

Whenever, for instance, he perceived them unseasonably and insolently confident, by his language he would dash them down to alarm; and, on the other hand, when they were unreasonably alarmed, he would raise them again to confidence. And so, though in name it was democracy, in fact it was a government administered by he first man.

Whereas those w o came after, being more on level with each other, and each grasping to become first, had recourse to devoting [not only their speeches, but] even their measures, to the humours of the people.

In consequence of this both many other blunders were committed, as was likely in a great and sovereign state, and especially the expedition to Sicily; which was not so much an error of judgment with respect to the people they went against, as that those who had sent them out, by not afterwards voting supplies required by the armament, but proceeding with their private criminations, to gain the leadership of the commons, both blunted the spirit of measures in the camp, and for the first time were embroiled with one another in the affairs of the city.

But even when they had suffered in Sicily the loss of other forces, and of the greater part of their fleet, and were now involved in sedition at home, they nevertheless held out three years, both against their former enemies, and those from Sicily with them, and moreover against the greater part of their allies who had revolted, and Cyrus, the king's son, who afterwards joined them, and who supplied the Peloponnesians with money for their fleet: nor did they succumb, before they were overthrown and ruined by themselves, through their private quarrels.

Such a superabundance of means had Pericles at that time, by which he himself foresaw that with the greatest ease he could gain the advantage in the war over the Peloponnesians by themselves.

The Lacedaemonians and their allies the same summer made an expedition with a hundred ships against the island of Zacynthus, which lies over against Elis. The inhabitants are a colony of the Achaeans of the Peloponnesus, and were in alliance with the Athenians.

On board the fleet were a thousand heavy-armed of the Lacedaemonians, and Cnemus, a Spartan, as admiral. Having made a descent on the country, they ravaged the greater part of it; and when they did not surrender, they sailed back home.

At the end of the same summer, Aristeus, a Corinthian, Aneristus, Nicolaus, and Stratodemus, ambassadors of the Lacedaemonians, Timagoras, a Tegean, and Pollis, an Argive in a private capacity, being on their way to Asia, to obtain an interview with the king, if by any means they might prevail on him to supply money and join in the war, went first to Thrace, to Sitalces the son of Teres, wishing to persuade him, if they could, to withdraw from his alliance with the Athenians, and make an expedition against Potidaea, where was an armament of the Athenians besieging the place; and then, to proceed by his assistance to their destination across the Hellespont, to Pharnaces the son of Pharnabazus, who was to send them up the country to the king.

But some Athenian ambassadors, Learchus son of Callimachus, and Aminiades son of Philemon, happening to be with Sitalces, persuaded Sadocus his son, who had been made an Athenian citizen, to put the men into their hands, that they might not, by passing over to the king, do their best to injure [what was now] his own country.

He, in compliance with their request, having sent some other men with Learchus and Aminiades, seized them as they were travelling through Thrace to the vessel in which they were to cross the Hellespont, before they went on board, and gave orders to deliver them up to the Athenian ambassadors;

who, having received them, took them to Athens. On their arrival the Athenians, being afraid that if Aristeus escaped he might do them still more mischief, (for even before this he had evidently conducted all the measures in Potidaea and their possessions Thrace-ward,) without giving them a trial, though they requested to say something [in their own defence], put them to death that same day, and threw them into pits; thinking it but just to requite them in the same way as the Lacedaemonians had begun with; for they had killed and thrown into pits the merchants, both of the Athenians and their allies, whom they had taken on board trading vessels about the coast of the Peloponnese. Indeed all that the Lacedaemonians took on the sea at the beginning of the war, they butchered as enemies, both those who were confederates of the Athenians and those who were neutral.

About the same time, when the summer was drawing to a close, the Ambraciots, with their own forces and many of the barbarians whom they had raised, made an expedition against Argos in Amphilochia, and the rest of that country.

Now their enmity against the Argives first arose from the following circumstances.

Argos in Amphilochia and The rest of the country was colonized by Amphilochus the son of Amphiaraus, when he returned home after the Trojan war, and was not pleased with the state of things at Argos;

[and he built it] on the Ambracian Gulf, and called it Argos after the name of his own country.

This was the largest city of Amphilochia, and had the most powerful inhabitants. But many generations afterwards, being pressed by misfortunes, they called in the Ambraciots, who bordered on Amphilochia, as joint-inhabitants; and from the Ambraciots who joined them they were taught the Greek language which they now speak, the rest of the Amphilochians being barbarians.

Now the Ambraciots in process of time drove out the Argives, and held the city by themselves.

Upon this the Amphilochians gave themselves up to the Acarnanians; and both together having called in the Athenians, who sent them Phormio for a general and thirty ships, on the arrival of Phormio they took Argos by storm, and made slaves of the Ambraciots;