them yet higher grounds for glorying in their common country. Henceforth they felt that some great destiny lay before it. At the commencement of the struggle, the unknown power of the great king was viewed with such apprehension, that no people had dared to withstand the assault of the conquerors of Asia, till the Athenians set the example in the plain of Marathon.30 But now it was no longer doubtful that the ascendency rested with the natives of the West. It remained only to determine what tribe should lead forth the sons of Europe, and what state should be the head of that empire which should arise out of Greece for the subjugation of mankind

30 Herod. vi. 112.

CHAPTER XII.

Athenian Attempt at establishing the Grecian Empire.

SPARTANS UNFIT FOR RULE-ARISTIDES-ATHENS FORTIFIED ALLIES RENDERED DEPENDENT- THENIAN AND SPARTAN ALLIANCE-PELOPONNESIAN WAR-BRASIDAS

-ALCIBIADES-SICILIAN EXPEDITION-ÆGOSPOTAMOSATHENS TAKEN.

On the Ægean shore a city stands-
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits,
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,

City or suburban, studious walks and shades.

MILTON.

THE retreat of Xerxes left the rule of Greece in the hands of the Spartans; and their general, Pausanias, headed the expedition which proceeded to free the

cities of the Hellespont and of Asia Minor. After delivering Cyprus, he proceeded to the siege of Byzantium. But here his conduct shewed the inevitable weakness of the institutions of Lycurgus, and that it is little to remove the occasion, without removing the disposition, to offend. On the taking of Byzantium, some Persian captives of distinction gained over Pausanias by the hopes of wealth and luxury, such as he never could enjoy as a Spartan citizen; and he soon offended the other Greeks, by what in subsequent times was their common complaint, that "strict as was the Spartan discipline at home, its citizens were no sooner sent to command in foreign countries, than they forgot not only their own severer rules, but even those common principles of duty which were regarded by the other Greeks.”

In Aristides the Athenian, who had held an inferior command under Pausanias, the allies had the example of a man as superior to his countrymen as the Spartan general fell below them. To him, therefore, and to Athens, they now came, and committed to them the authority, which before they would yield to none but a Lacedæmonian.2 So that Aristides gained for himself the title of the just; and "for his country, what it never before possessed, the dominion of the sea. 13 Nor had Themistocles been of less national advantage to his citizens. When they returned to Attica, on the retreat of Xerxes, the Lacedæmonians wished to prevent the fortification of their city, professedly lest fortified places out of Peloponnesus should hereafter afford harbour to the Persians, but in reality out of jealousy of their rising power. It was by the artful delays of Themistocles, who himself went as ambassador to Sparta, that the Lacedæmonians were prevented from en1 B.C. 470. Thucydides, i. 94.

2 Thucydides, i. 95, et sq. Herod. viii. 3.

3 Diod. xi. 6.

E.C. 461.

GREATNESS OF ATHENS.

95

forcing their demand till the Athenians had raised their walls to a defensible height. The completion of their fortifications was followed by the improvement of their harbours, which were joined to the city by lofty walls; and thus Athens gained almost the security of an insular power.

The subsequent advance of its greatness, during the forty-five years which elapsed from the commencement of its command till the Peloponnesian war, was the work of those great men who successively rose up for its direction. But if the extraordinary elasticity of the Athenian constitution led to the existence of great men, the fickleness and ingratitude of the people prevented them from profiting as they might by their abilities. Miltiades, the victor of Marathon, died in prison. Aristides the just had been banished before the Persian war. The same fate befel Themistocles, the saviour of his country, soon after it. Cimon, son of Miltiades, who took the greatest lead in the formation of the Athenian empire, suffered for a considerable time under a similar sentence. He had commanded in various expeditions which had established the authority of the Athenians over the various allies which made up their confederacy. They had begun by establishing a common treasury at Delos, and assigning to each state a contribution of ships or money, with a view to defence against the Persians. But they soon transferred the treasury to their own city; they extended the money-payment, with a view of increasing their own navy, and they inflicted the severest punishment on any states which withheld it. Naxos and Thasos, the first to revolt, were made an example to others.

Meanwhile the energy of the people was increased by the change which had taken place in their domestic institutions. The dissolution of an

cient ties and hereditary associations, produced by their confinement on shipboard, and by the destruction of their city, had given an impulse to the democratical party, which led to the removal of that qualification which Solon had made essential to office. The authority of the court of Areopagus, which he had established as a check upon the democracy, was greatly diminished. At the same time the popular mind was swayed by Pericles, a statesman who, though not superior to the temptation of being the public favourite, was yet thoroughly free from every mercenary motive, and desirous only of advancing the splendour and strength of Athens. So rapidly was this effected, that, at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenian alliance embraced Chios, Samos, Lesbos, all the islands of the Archipelago (except, Thera and Melos, which took no part), Corcyra, Zacynthus, the Greek colonies in Asia Minor and on the coasts of Thrace and Macedonia, and in Greece itself, Acarnania, and the cities of Naupactus and Platea. Besides these, which with few exceptions were subject-states, they had a party in many cities of the Lacedæmonian alliance-the democratical faction every where looking up to Athens as its only hope of predominance.

This feeling, however, was kept in check by that national jealousy with which all the tribes of Dorian blood regarded their Ionian origin. This tie, and the love of aristocratical institutions, formed the connecting bond of the Spartan alliance. It included all Peloponnesus except Achaia and Argos, which stood neuter-Megara, Locris, Phocis, Boeotia, the towns of Ambracia and Anactorium, and the island of Leucadia. These powerful confederacies had long eyed one another with suspicion, before they finally encountered in the Peloponnesian war. The wisest leaders on each side desired to prevent hostilities.