The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose Volume I - Greece Part 4

[Footnote 17: Now known as Corfu, an island lying off the western coast of Greece, adjacent to Epirus.]

THUCYDIDES

Born in Athens about 471 B.C.; died about 401; celebrated as a historian; claimed blood relationship with Miltiades and Cimon; possest an ample fortune; in 424 commanded an expedition against Brasidas, but failing in it went into exile, returning to Athens twenty years later; did not live to finish his "History of the Peloponnesian War," the narrative ending seven years before the war closed; the Greek text first printed by Aldus at Venice in 1502.[18]

I

THE ATHENIANS AND SPARTANS CONTRASTED[19]

Such were the causes of ill feeling which at this time existed between the Athenians and Peloponnesians;[20] the Corinthians complaining that the Athenians were blockading their colony of Potidaea, which was occupied by a Corinthian and Peloponnesian garrison; the Athenians rejoining that the Peloponnesians had excited to revolt a state which was an ally and tributary of theirs, and that they had now openly joined the Potidaeans, and were fighting on their side. The Peloponnesian war, however, had not yet broken out; the peace still continued; for thus far the Corinthians had acted alone.

But now, seeing Potidaea[21] besieged, they bestirred themselves in earnest. Corinthian troops were shut up within the walls, and they were afraid of losing the town; so without delay they invited the allies to meet at Sparta. There they inveighed against the Athenians, whom they affirmed to have broken the treaty and to have wronged the Peloponnesians.... The Megarians alleged, among other grounds of complaint, that they were excluded from all harbors within the Athenian dominion and from the Athenian market, contrary to the treaty. The Corinthians waited until the other allies had stirred up the Lacedaemonians; at length they came forward, and, last of all, spoke as follows:

"The spirit of trust, Lacedaemonians, which animates your own political and social life makes you distrust others who, like ourselves, have something unpleasant to say, and this temper of mind, tho favorable to moderation, too often leaves you in ignorance of what is going on outside your own country. Time after time we have warned you of the mischief which the Athenians would do to us, but instead of taking our words to heart, you chose to suspect that we spoke only from interested motives. And this is the reason why you have brought the allies to Sparta, too late, not before but after the injury has been inflicted, and when they are smarting under the sense of it. Which of them all has a better right to speak than ourselves, who have the heaviest accusations to make, outraged as we are by the Athenians, and neglected by you? If the crimes which they are committing against h.e.l.las were being done in a corner, then you might be ignorant, and we should have to inform you of them; but now, what need of many words?

Some of us, as you see, have been already enslaved; they are at this moment intriguing against others, notably against allies of ours; and long ago they had made all their preparations in expectation of war.

Else why did they seduce from her allegiance Corcyra, which they still hold in defiance of us, and why are they blockading Potidaea, the latter a most advantageous post for the command of the Thracian peninsula, the former a great naval power which might have a.s.sisted the Peloponnesians?

"And the blame of all this rests on you; for you originally allowed them to fortify their city after the Persian war, and afterward to build their Long Walls;[22] and to this hour you have gone on defrauding of liberty their unfortunate subjects, and are now beginning to take it away from your own allies. For the true enslaver of a people is he who can put an end to their slavery, but has no care about it; and all the more, if he be reputed the champion of liberty in h.e.l.las. And so we have met at last, but with what difficulty! and even now we have no definite object. By this time we ought to have been considering, not whether we are wronged, but how we are to be revenged. The aggressor is not now threatening, but advancing; he has made up his mind, while we are resolved about nothing. And we know too well how by slow degrees and with stealthy steps the Athenians encroach upon their neighbors. While they think that you are too dull to observe them, they are more careful; but, when they know that you wilfully overlook their aggressions, they will strike you and not spare. Of all h.e.l.lenes, Lacedaemonians, you are the only people who never do anything; on the approach of an enemy, you are content to defend yourselves against him, not by acts, but by intentions, and seek to overthrow him, not in the infancy but in the fulness of his strength. How came you to be considered safe? That reputation of yours was never justified by facts. We all know that the Persian made his way from the ends of the earth against Peloponnesus before you encountered him in a worthy manner; and now you are blind to the doings of the Athenians, who are not at a distance, as he was, but close at hand. Instead of attacking your enemy, you wait to be attacked, and take the chances of a struggle which has been deferred until his power is doubled. And you know that the barbarian miscarried chiefly through his own errors, and that we have oftener been delivered from these very Athenians by blunders of their own than by any aid from you. Some have already been ruined by the hopes which you inspired in them; for so entirely did they trust you that they took no precautions themselves. These things we say in no accusing or hostile spirit--let that be understood--but by way of expostulation. For men expostulate with erring friends; they bring accusations against enemies who have done them a wrong.

"And surely we have a right to find fault with our neighbors if any one ever had. There are important interests at stake to which, as far as we can see, you are insensible. And you have never considered what manner of men are these Athenians with whom you will have to fight, and how utterly unlike yourselves. They are revolutionary, equally quick in the conception and in the execution of every new plan; while you are conservative--careful only to keep what you have, originating nothing, and not acting even when action is most necessary. They are bold beyond their strength; they run risks which prudence would condemn; and in the midst of misfortune they are full of hope. Whereas it is your nature, tho strong, to act feebly; when your plans are most prudent, to distrust them; and when calamities come upon you, to think that you will never be delivered from them. They are impetuous, and you are dilatory; they are always abroad, and you are always at home.

For they hope to gain something by leaving their homes; but you are afraid that any new enterprise may imperil what you have already. When conquerors, they pursue their victory to the utmost; when defeated, they fall back the least. Their bodies they devote to their country as tho they belonged to other men; their true self is in their mind, which is most truly their own when employed in her service. When they do not carry out an intention which they have formed, they seem to have sustained a personal bereavement; when an enterprise succeeds, they have gained a mere instalment of what is to come; but if they fail, they at once conceive new hopes and so fill up the void. With them alone to hope is to have, for they lose not a moment in the execution of an idea. This is the lifelong task, full of danger and toil, which they are always imposing upon themselves. None enjoy their good things less, because they are always seeking for more. To do their duty is their only holiday, and they deem the quiet of inaction to be as disagreeable as the most tiresome business. If a man should say to them, in a word, that they were born neither to have peace themselves nor to allow peace to other men, he would simply speak the truth.

"In the face of such an enemy, Lacedaemonians, you persist in doing nothing. You do not see that peace is best secured by those who use their strength justly, but whose att.i.tude shows that they have no intention of submitting to wrong. Justice with you seems to consist in giving no annoyance to others and in defending yourselves only against positive injury. But this policy would hardly be successful, even if your neighbors were like yourselves; and in the present case, as we pointed out just now, your ways compared with theirs are old-fashioned. And, as in the arts, so also in politics, the new must always prevail over the old. In settled times the traditions of government should be observed; but when circ.u.mstances are changing and men are compelled to meet them, much originality is required.

"The Athenians have had a wider experience, and therefore the administration of their state has improved faster than yours. But here let your procrastination end; send an army at once into Attica and a.s.sist your allies, especially the Potidaeans, to whom your word is pledged. Do not allow friends and kindred to fall into the hands of their worst enemies, or drive us in despair to seek the alliance of others; in taking such a course we should be doing wrong either before the G.o.ds who are witnesses of our oaths or before men whose eyes are upon us. For the true breakers of treaties are not only those who, when forsaken, turn to others, but those who forsake allies whom they have sworn to defend. We will remain your friends if you choose to bestir yourselves; for we should be guilty of an impiety if we deserted you without cause; and we shall not easily find allies equally congenial to us. Take heed then; you have inherited from your fathers the leadership of Peloponnesus; see that her greatness suffers no diminution at your hands."

Thus spake the Corinthians. Now there happened to be staying at Lacedaemon an Athenian emba.s.sy which had come on other business, and when the envoys heard what the Corinthians had said, they felt bound to go before the Lacedaemonian a.s.sembly, not with the views of answering the accusations brought against them by the cities, but they wanted to put before the Lacedaemonians the whole question, and make them understand that they should take time to deliberate and not be rash. They desired also to set forth the greatness of their city, reminding the elder men of what they knew, and informing the younger of what lay beyond their experience. They thought that their words would sway the Lacedaemonians in the direction of peace. So they came and said that, if they might be allowed, they too would like to address the people. The Lacedaemonians invited them to come forward, and they spoke as follows:

"We were not sent here to argue with your allies, but on a special mission; observing, however, that no small outcry has arisen against us, we have come forward, not to answer the accusations which they bring (for you are not judges before whom either we or they have to plead), but to prevent you from lending too ready an ear to their bad advice and so deciding wrongly about a very serious question. We propose also, in reply to the wider charges which are raised against us, to show that what we have acquired we hold rightfully.

"Of the ancient deeds handed down by tradition and which no eye of any one who hears us ever saw, why should we speak? But of the Persian war, and other events which you yourselves remember, speak we must, altho we have brought them forward so often that the repet.i.tion of them is disagreeable to us. When we faced those perils we did so for the common benefit; in the solid good you shared, and of the glory, whatever good there may be in that, we would not be wholly deprived.

Our words are not designed to deprecate hostility, but to set forth in evidence the character of the city with which, unless you are very careful, you will soon be involved in war. We tell you that we, first and alone, dared to engage with the barbarian at Marathon,[23] and that, when he came again, being too weak to defend ourselves by land, we and our whole people embarked on shipboard and shared with the other h.e.l.lenes in the victory of Salamis.[24] Thereby he was prevented from sailing to the Peloponnesus and ravaging city after city; for against so mighty a fleet how could you have helped one another? He himself is the best witness of our words; for when he was once defeated at sea, he felt that his power was gone and quickly retreated with the greater part of his army.

"The event proved undeniably that the fate of h.e.l.las depended on her navy. And the three chief elements of success were contributed by us; namely, the greatest number of ships, the ablest general, the most devoted patriotism. The ships in all numbered four hundred, and of these, our own contingent amounted to nearly two-thirds. To the influence of Themistocles, our general, it was chiefly due that we fought in the strait, which was confessedly our salvation; and for this service you yourselves honored him above any stranger who ever visited you. Thirdly, we displayed the most extraordinary courage and devotion; there was no one to help us by land; for up to our frontier those who lay in the enemy's path were already slaves; so we determined to leave our city and sacrifice our homes. Even in that extremity we did not choose to desert the cause of the allies who still resisted, and by dispersing ourselves to become useless to them; but we embarked and fought, taking no offense at your failure to a.s.sist us sooner. We maintain then that we rendered you a service at least as great as you rendered us. The cities from which you came to help us were still inhabited and you might hope to return to them; your concern was for yourselves and not for us; at any rate, you remained at a distance while we had anything to lose. But we went forth from a city which was no more, and fought for one of which there was small hope; and yet we saved ourselves, and bore our part in saving you. If, in order to preserve our land, like other states, we had gone over to the Persians at first, or afterward had not ventured to embark because our ruin was already complete, it would have been useless for you with your weak navy to fight at sea, but everything would have gone quietly just as the Persian desired.

"Considering, Lacedaemonians, the energy and sagacity which we then displayed, do we deserve to be so bitterly hated by the other h.e.l.lenes merely because we have an empire? That empire was not acquired by force; but you would not stay and make an end of the barbarian, and the allies came of their own accord and asked us to be their leaders.

The subsequent development of our power was originally forced upon us by circ.u.mstances; fear was our first motive; afterward ambition, and then interest stept in. And when we had incurred the hatred of most of our allies, when some of them had already revolted and been subjugated, and you were no longer the friends to us which you once had been, but suspicious and ill-disposed, how could we without great risk relax our hold? For the cities as fast as they fell away from us would have gone over to you. And no man is to be reproached who seizes every possible advantage when the danger is so great.

"At all events, Lacedaemonians, we may retort that you, in the exercise of your supremacy, manage the cities of Peloponnesus to suit your own views, and that if you, and not we, had persevered in the command of the allies long enough to be hated, you would have been quite as intolerable to them as we are, and would have been compelled, for the sake of your own safety, to rule with a strong hand. An empire was offered to us: can you wonder that, acting as human nature always will, we accepted it, and refused to give it up again, constrained by three all powerful motives, ambition, fear, interest? We are not the first who have aspired to rule; the world has ever held that the weaker must be kept down by the stronger. And we think that we are worthy of power; and there was a time when you thought so too; but now when you mean expediency you talk about justice. Did justice ever deter any one from taking by force whatever he could? Men who indulge the natural ambition of empire deserve credit if they are in any degree more careful of justice than they need be. How moderate we are would speedily appear if others took our place; indeed, our very moderation, which should be our glory, has been unjustly converted into a reproach.

"For because in our suits with our allies, regulated by treaty, we do not even stand upon our rights, but have inst.i.tuted the practise of deciding them at Athens and by Athenian law, we are supposed to be litigious. None of our opponents observes why others, who exercise dominion elsewhere and are less moderate than we are in their dealings with their subjects, escape this reproach. Why is it? Because men who practise violence have no longer any need of law. But we are in the habit of meeting our allies on terms of equality, and, therefore, if through some legal decision of ours, or exercise of our imperial power, contrary to their own ideas of right, they suffer ever so little, they are not grateful for our moderation in leaving them so much, but are far more offended at their trifling loss than if we had from the first plundered them in the face of day, laying aside all thought of law. For then they would themselves have admitted that the weaker must give way to the stronger. Mankind resents injustice more than violence, because the one seems to be an unfair advantage taken by an equal, the other is the irresistible force of a superior. They were patient under the yoke of the Persian, who inflicted on them far more grievous wrongs; but now our dominion is odious in their eyes.

And no wonder: the ruler of the day is always detested by his subjects. And should your empire supplant ours, may not you lose the good-will which you owe to the fear of us? Lose it you certainly will, if you mean again to exhibit the temper of which you gave a specimen when, for a short time, you led the confederacy against the Persian.

For the inst.i.tutions under which you live are incompatible with those of foreign states; and further, when any of you goes abroad, he respects neither these nor any other h.e.l.lenic laws.

"Do not then be hasty in deciding a question which is serious; and do not, by listening to the misrepresentations and complaints of others, bring trouble upon yourselves. Realize, while there is time, the inscrutable nature of war; and how when protracted it generally ends in becoming a mere matter of chance, over which neither of us can have any control, the event being equally unknown and equally hazardous to both. The misfortune is that in their hurry to go to war, men begin with blows, and when a reverse comes upon them, then have recourse to words. But neither you nor we have as yet committed this mistake; and therefore while both of us can still choose the prudent part, we tell you not to break the peace or violate your oaths. Let our differences be determined by arbitration, according to the treaty. If you refuse, we call to witness the G.o.ds by whom you have sworn that you are the authors of the war; and we will do our best to strike in return."

When the Lacedaemonians had heard the charges brought by the allies against the Athenians, and their rejoinder, they ordered everybody but themselves to withdraw, and deliberated alone. The majority were agreed that there was now a clear case against the Athenians, and that they must fight at once.[25]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 18: Jowett says Thucydides "stands absolutely alone among historians, not only of h.e.l.las, but of the world, in his impartiality and love of truth." Macaulay's enthusiasm for him is well known.

Mahaffy says his work was intended to be a military history, compiled from original doc.u.ments and from personal observations made by himself and other eye-witnesses. "There can not be the smallest doubt," adds Mahaffy, "that, in the hands of Thucydides, the art of writing history made an extraordinary stride and attained a perfection which no subsequent h.e.l.lenic, and few modern writers have attained." He is praised for the "lofty dignity" which he imparts to every subject. His temper is so solemn and severe as to be "strangely un-Attic." Among his great and enduring merits is the fact that he has "taught us to know more of Greek interpolitical life than all other Greek writers put together." No historian has been greater than he, not only in dignity of language, but in calmness of judgment, in intellectual force, and in breadth and acuteness of observation.]

[Footnote 19: From Book I of the "History of the Peloponnesian War."

Translated by Benjamin Jowett.]

[Footnote 20: The Peloponnesians were the people of the peninsula which forms the southern part of Greece, and which is now known as Morea. In ancient times this territory was called the Peloponnesus.

Its people comprized the inhabitants of several political domains called Achaia, Sicyonia, Corinthia, Argolis, Arcadia, Laconia, Messenia, and Elis. Laconia was otherwise, and quite anciently, known as Lacedaemon, its capital being the city of Sparta.]

[Footnote 21: Potidaea, the modern Pinaka, had revolted from Athens in 432 B.C., but did not capitulate until the end of the second year of the Peloponnesian war. It was a rich and flourishing town, originally Dorian, but colonized later from Corinth. During one of the Eastern invasions of Greece, it fell into Persian hands.]

[Footnote 22: These walls connected Athens with its port, the Piraeus, and were each about five miles long. They ran parallel and were separated from each other by about 500 feet of s.p.a.ce. This intervening land was used for a carriage road, on either side of which were houses. Thus was formed a continuous walled street from Athens to the sea, so that communication in case of war was made secure.]

[Footnote 23: The battle of Marathon was fought in September, 490. It ended the attempts of Darius to subdue Greece.]

[Footnote 24: The battle of Salamis took place in September, 480, and was fought in waters lying between the Piraeus and the island of Salamis. Themistocles commanded the Greeks. The Persian ships were practically annihilated. Byron's lines on this battle, in his poem "The Isles of Greece," will be recalled.]

II

THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS[26] (430--425 B.C.)

They [the enemy] had not been there [in Attica] many days when the plague broke out at Athens for the first time. A similar disorder is said to have previously smitten many places, particularly Lemnos;[27]

but there is no record of such a pestilence occurring elsewhere, or of so great a destruction of human life. For a while physicians, in ignorance of the nature of the disease, sought to apply remedies; but it was in vain, and they themselves were among the first victims, because they oftenest came into contact with it. No human art was of any avail, and as to supplications in temples, inquiries of oracles, and the like, they were utterly useless, and at last men were overpowered by the calamity and gave up all remedies.

The disease is said to have begun south of Egypt in Ethiopia; thence it descended into Egypt and Libya, and after spreading over the greater part of the Persian empire, suddenly fell upon Athens. It first attacked the inhabitants of the Piraeus, and it was supposed that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns, no conduits having as yet been made there. It afterward reached the upper city, and then the mortality became far greater. As to its probable origin or the causes which might or could have produced such a disturbance of nature, every man, whether a physician or not, will give his own opinion. But I shall describe its actual course, and the symptoms by which any one who knows them beforehand may recognize the disorder should it ever reappear. For I was myself attacked, and witnessed the sufferings of others.

The season was admitted to have been remarkably free from ordinary sickness; and if anybody was already ill of any other disease, it was absorbed in this. Many who were in perfect health, all in a moment, and without any apparent reason, were seized with violent heats in the head and with redness and inflammation of the eyes. Internally the throat and the tongue were quickly suffused with blood, and the breath became unnatural and fetid. There followed sneezing and hoa.r.s.eness; in a short time the disorder, accompanied by a violent cough, reached the chest; then fastening lower down, it would move the stomach and bring on all the vomits of bile to which physicians have ever given names; and they were very distressing. An ineffectual retching producing violent convulsions attacked most of the sufferers; some as soon as the previous symptoms had abated, others not until long afterward. The body externally was not so very hot to the touch, nor yet pale; it was of a livid color inclining to red, and breaking out in pustules and ulcers. But the internal fever was intense; the sufferers could not bear to have on them even the finest linen garment; they insisted on being naked, and there was nothing which they longed for more eagerly than to throw themselves into cold water. And many of those who had no one to look after them actually plunged into the cisterns, for they were tormented by unceasing thirst, which was not in the least a.s.suaged whether they drank little or much. They could not sleep; a restlessness which was intolerable never left them.

While the disease was at its height the body, instead of wasting away, held out amid these sufferings in a marvelous manner, and either they died on the seventh or ninth day, not of weakness, for their strength was not exhausted, but of internal fever, which was the end of most; or, if they survived, then the disease descended into the bowels and there produced violent ulcerations; severe diarrhea at the same time set in, and at a later stage caused exhaustion, which finally with few exceptions carried them off. For the disorder, which had originally settled in the head, pa.s.sed gradually through the whole body, and, if a person got over the worst, would often seize the extremities and leave its mark, attacking the privy parts and the fingers and the toes; and some escaped with the loss of these, some with the loss of their eyes. Some, again, had no sooner recovered than they were seized with a forgetfulness of all things and knew neither themselves nor their friends.

The malady took a form not to be described, and the fury with which it fastened upon each sufferer was too much for human nature to endure.

There was one circ.u.mstance in particular which distinguished it from ordinary diseases. The birds and animals, which feed on human flesh, altho so many bodies were lying unburied, either never went near them or died if they touched them. This was proved by a remarkable disappearance of the birds of prey, which were not to be seen either about the bodies or anywhere else; while in the case of the dogs the fact was even more obvious, because they live with man.

Such was the general nature of the disease; I omit many strange peculiarities which characterized individual cases. None of the ordinary sicknesses attacked any one while it lasted, or, if they did, they ended in the plague. Some of the sufferers died from want of care, others equally who were receiving the greatest attention. No single remedy could be deemed a specific; for that which did good to one did harm to another. No const.i.tution was of itself strong enough to resist or weak enough to escape the attacks; the disease carried off all alike and defied every mode of treatment. Most appalling was the despondency which seized upon any one who felt himself sickening; for he instantly abandoned his mind to despair and, instead of holding out, absolutely threw away his chance of life. Appalling too was the rapidity with which men caught the infection, dying like sheep if they attended on one another, and this was the princ.i.p.al cause of mortality. When they were afraid to visit one another, the sufferers died in their solitude, so that many houses were empty because there had been no one left to take care of the sick; or if they ventured they perished, especially those who aspired to heroism. For they went to see their friends without thought of themselves and were ashamed to leave them, even at a time when the very relatives of the dying were at last growing weary and ceased to make lamentations, overwhelmed by the vastness of the calamity. But whatever instances there may have been of such devotion, more often the sick and the dying were tended by the pitying care of those who had recovered, because they knew the course of the disease and were themselves free from apprehension. For no one was ever attacked a second time, or not with a fatal result.

All men congratulated them; and they themselves, in the excess of their joy at the moment, had an innocent fancy that they could not die of any other sickness.

The crowding of the people out of the country into the city aggravated the misery, and the newly arrived suffered most. For, having no houses of their own, but inhabiting, in the height of summer, stifling huts, the mortality among them was dreadful, and they perished in wild disorder. The dead lay as they had died, one upon another, while others hardly alive wallowed in the streets and crawled about every fountain craving for water. The temples in which they lodged were full of the corpses of those who had died in them; for the violence of the calamity was such that men, not knowing where to turn, grew reckless of all law, human and divine. The customs which had hitherto been observed at funerals were universally violated, and they buried their dead each one as best he could. Many, having no proper appliances, because the deaths in their household had been so frequent, made no scruple of using the burial-place of others. When one man had raised a funeral pile, others would come, and throwing on their dead first, set fire to it; or when some other corpse was already burning, before they could be stopt would throw their own dead upon it and depart.

There were other and worse forms of lawlessness which the plague introduced at Athens. Men who had hitherto concealed their indulgence in pleasure now grew bolder. For, seeing the sudden change--how the rich died in a moment, and those who had nothing immediately inherited their property--they reflected that life and riches were alike transitory, and they resolved to enjoy themselves while they could, and to think only of pleasure. Who would be willing to sacrifice himself to the law of honor when he knew not whether he would ever live to be held in honor? The pleasure of the moment and any sort of thing which conduced to it took the place both of honor and of expediency. No fear of G.o.d or law of man deterred a criminal. Those who saw all perishing alike thought that the worship or neglect of the G.o.ds made no difference. For offenses against human law no punishment was to be feared; no one would live long enough to be called to account. Already a far heavier sentence had been pa.s.sed and was hanging over a man's head; before that feeling, why should he not take a little pleasure?