Mosaics of Grecian History Part 32

THE FIRST PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

On the side of Sparta was arrayed the whole of Peloponnesus, except Argos and Acha'ia, together with the Megarians, Phocians, Locrians, Thebans, and some others; while the allies of Athens were the Thessalians, Acarnanians, Messenians, Plataeans, Chi'ans, Lesbians, her tributary towns in Thrace and Asia Minor, and all the islands north of Crete with two exceptions--Me'los and The'ra.

Hostilities were precipitated by a treacherous attack of the Thebans upon Plataea in 431 B.C.; and before the close of the same year a Spartan army of sixty thousand ravaged Attica, and sat down before the very gates of Athens, while the naval forces of the Athenians desolated the coasts of the Peloponnesus. The Spartans were soon called from Attica to protect their homes, and Pericles himself, at the lead of a large force, spread desolation over the little territory of Megaris. This expedition closed the hostilities for the year, and, on his return to Athens, Pericles was intrusted with the duty of p.r.o.nouncing the oration at the public funeral which, in accordance with the custom of the country, was solemnized for those who had fallen in the war.

This occasion afforded Pericles an opportunity to animate the courage and the hopes of his countrymen, by such a description of the glories and the possibilities of Athens as he alone could give. Commencing his address with a eulogy on the ancestors and immediate forefathers of the Athenians, he proceeds to show the latter "by what form of civil polity, what dispositions and habits of life," they have attained their greatness; graphically contrasting their inst.i.tutions with those of other states, and especially with those of the Spartans, their present enemies.

The Oration of Pericles.

[Footnote: From "History of Thucydides," translated by S. T.

Bloomfield, D. D., vol. I., p. 366.]

"We enjoy a form of government not framed on an imitation of the inst.i.tutions of neighboring states, but, are ourselves rather a model to, than imitative of, others; and which, from the government being administered not for the few but for the many, is denominated a democracy. According to its laws, all partic.i.p.ate in an equality of rights as to the determination of private suits, and everyone is preferred to public offices with a regard to the reputation he holds, and according as each is in estimation for anything; not so much for being of a particular cla.s.s as for his personal merit.

Nor is any person who can, in whatever way, render service to the state kept back on account of poverty or obscurity of station.

Thus liberally are our public affairs administered, and thus liberally, too, do we conduct ourselves as to mutual suspicions in our private and every-day intercourse; not bearing animosity toward our neighbor for following his own humor, nor darkening our countenance with the scowl of censure, which pains though it cannot punish. While, too, we thus mix together in private intercourse without irascibility or moroseness, we are, in our public and political capacity, cautiously studious not to offend; yielding a prompt obedience to the authorities for the time being, and to the established laws; especially those which are enacted for the benefit of the injured, and such as, though unwritten, reflect a confessed disgrace on the transgressors."

Having referred to the recreation provided for the public mind by the exhibition of games and sacrifices throughout the whole year, as well as to some points in military matters in which the Athenians excel, Pericles proceeds as follows: "In these respects, then, is our city worthy of admiration, and in others also; for we study elegance combined with frugality, and cultivate philosophy without effeminacy. Riches we employ at opportunities for action, rather than as a subject of wordy boast. To confess poverty with us brings no disgrace; not to endeavor to escape it by exertion is disgrace indeed. There exists, moreover, in the same persons an attention both to their domestic concerns and to public affairs; and even among such others as are engaged in agricultural occupations or handicraft labor there is found a tolerable portion of political knowledge. We are the only people who account him that takes no share in politics, not as an intermeddler in nothing, but one who is good for nothing. We are, too, persons who examine aright, or, at least, fully revolve in mind our measures, not thinking that words are any hindrance to deeds, but that the hindrance rather consists in the not being informed by words previously to setting about in deed what is to be done. For we possess this point of superiority over others, that we execute a bold prompt.i.tude in what we undertake, and yet a cautious prudence in taking forethought; whereas with others it is ignorance alone that makes them daring, while reflection makes them dastardly.

"In short, I may affirm that the city at large is the instructress of Greece, and that individually each person among us seems to possess the most ready versatility in adapting himself, and that not ungracefully, to the greatest variety of circ.u.mstances and situations that diversify human life. That all this is not a mere boast of words for the present purpose, but rather the actual truth, this very power of the state, unto which by these habits and dispositions we have attained, clearly attests; for ours is the only one of the states now existing which, on trial, approves itself greater than report; it alone occasions neither to an invading enemy ground for chagrin at being worsted by such, nor to a subject state aught of self-reproach, as being under the power of those unworthy of empire. A power do we display not unwitnessed, but attested by signs ill.u.s.trious, which will make us the theme of admiration both to the present and future ages; nor need we either a Homer, or any such panegyrist, who might, indeed, for the present delight with his verses, but any idea of our actions thence formed the actual truth of them might destroy: nay, every sea and every land have we compelled to become accessible to our adventurous courage; and everywhere have we planted eternal monuments both of good and of evil. For such a state, then, these our departed heroes (unwilling to be deprived of it) magnanimously fought and fell; and in such a cause it is right that everyone of us, the survivors, should readily encounter toils and dangers."

After paying a handsome tribute to the memory of the departed warriors whose virtues, he says, helped to adorn Athens with all that makes it the theme of his encomiums, Pericles exhorts his hearers to emulate the spirit of those who contributed to their country the n.o.blest sacrifice. "They bestowed," he adds, "their persons and their lives upon the public; and therefore, as their private recompense, they receive a deathless renown and the n.o.blest of sepulchres, [Footnote: While kings, in dusty darkness hid, Have left a nameless pyramid, Thy heroes, though the general doom Hath swept the column from their tomb, A mightier monument command-- The mountains of their native land!

These, points thy muse, to stranger's eye-- The graves of those that cannot die!

--BYRON.]

not so much that wherein their bones are entombed as in which their glory is preserved--to be had in everlasting remembrance on all occasions, whether of speech or action. For to the ill.u.s.trious the whole earth is a sepulchre; nor do monumental inscriptions in their own country alone point it out, but an unwritten and mental memorial in foreign lands, which, more durable than any monument, is deeply seated in the breast of everyone.

Imitating, then, these ill.u.s.trious models--accounting that happiness is liberty, and that liberty is valor--be not backward to encounter the perils of war. [Footnote: It was a kindred spirit that led our own great statesman, Webster, in quoting from this oration, to ask: "Is it Athens or America? Is Athens or America the theme of these immortal strains? Was Pericles speaking of his own country as he saw it or knew it? or was he gazing upon a bright vision, then two thousand years before him, which we see in reality as he saw it in prospect?"] For the unfortunate and hopeless are not those who have most reason to be lavish of their lives, but rather such as, while they live, have to hazard a chance to the opposite, and who have most at stake; since great would be the reverse should they fall into adversity. For to the high-minded, at least, more grievous is misfortune overwhelming them amid the blandishments of prosperity; than the stroke of death overtaking them in the full pulse of vigor and common hope, and, moreover, almost unfelt."

Says the historian from whose work the speech of Pericles is taken: "Such was the funeral solemnity which took place this winter, with the expiration of which the first year of the war was brought to a close." DR. ERNST CURTIUS comments as follows on the oration: "With lofty simplicity Pericles extols the Athenian Const.i.tution, popular in the fullest sense through having for its object the welfare of the entire people, and offering equal rights to all the citizens; but at the same time, and in virtue of this its character, adapted for raising the best among them to the first positions in the state. He lauds the high spiritual advantages offered by the city, the liberal love of virtue and wisdom on the part of her sons, their universal sympathy in the common weal, their generous hospitality, their temperance and vigor, which peace and the love of the beautiful had not weakened, so that the city of the Athenians must, in any event, be an object of well-deserved admiration both for the present and for future ages. Such were the points of view from which Pericles displayed to the citizens the character of their state, and described to them the people of Athens, as it ought to be. He showed them their better selves, in order to raise them above themselves and arouse them to self-denial, to endurance, and to calm resolution.

Full of a new vital ardor they returned home from the graves, and with perfect confidence confronted the destinies awaiting them in the future." [Footnote: "The History of Greece," vol. iii., p. 66; by Dr. Ernst Curtius.]

THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS.

In the spring of 430 B.C. the Spartans again invaded Attica, and the Athenians shut themselves up in Athens. But here the plague, a calamity more dreadful than war, attacked them and swept away mult.i.tudes. This plague, which not only devastated Athens, but other Grecian cities also, is described at considerable length, with a harrowing minuteness of detail, by the Latin poet LUCRETIUS. His description is based upon the account given by Thucydides. We give here only the beginning and the close of it:

A plague like this, a tempest big with fate, Once ravaged Athens and her sad domains; Unpeopled all the city, and her paths Swept with destruction. For amid the realms Begot of Egypt, many a mighty tract Of ether traversed, many a flood o'erpa.s.sed, At length here fixed it; o'er the hapless realm Of Cecrops hovering, and the astonished race Dooming by thousands to disease and death.

Thus seized the dread, unmitigated pest Man after man, and day succeeding day, With taint voracious; like the herds they fell Of bellowing beeves, or flocks of timorous sheep: On funeral, funeral hence forever piled.

E'en he who fled the afflicted, urged by love Of life too fond, and trembling for his fate, Repented soon severely, and himself Sunk in his guilty solitude, devoid Of friends, of succor, hopeless and forlorn; While those who nursed them, to the pious task Roused by their prayers, with piteous moans commixt, Fell irretrievable: the best by far, The worthiest, thus most frequent met their doom.

--Trans. by J. MASON GOOD.

THE DEATH OF PERICLES.

Oppressed by both war and pestilence, the Athenians were seized with rage and despair, and accused Pericles of being the author of their misfortunes. But that determined man still adhered to his plans, and endeavored to soothe the popular mind by an expedition against Peloponnesus, which he commanded in person.

After committing devastations upon various parts of the enemy's coasts, Pericles returned to find the people still more impatient of the war and clamorous for peace. An emba.s.sy was sent to Sparta with proposals for a cessation of hostilities, but it was dismissed without a hearing. This repulse increased the popular exasperation, and, although at an a.s.sembly that he called for the purpose Pericles succeeded, by his power of speech, in quieting the people, and convincing them of the justice and patriotism of his course, his political enemies charged him with peculation, of which he was convicted, and his nomination as general was cancelled. He retired to private life, but his successors in office were incompetent and irresolute, and it was not long before he was re-elected general. He appeared to recover his ascendancy; but in the middle of the third year of the war he died, a victim to the plague.

He perished, but his wreath was won; He perished in his height of fame: Then sunk the cloud on Athens' sun, Yet still she conquered in his name.

Filled with his soul, she could not die; Her conquest was Posterity!

--CROLY.

Thucydides relates that when Pericles was near his end, and apparently insensible, the friends who had gathered round his bed relieved their sorrow by recalling the remembrance of his military exploits, and of the trophies which he had raised. He interrupted them, observing that they had omitted the most glorious praise which he could claim: "Other generals have been as fortunate, but I have never caused the Athenians to put on mourning"-- referring, doubtless, to his success in achieving important advantages with but little loss of life; and which THIRLWALL considers "a singular ground of satisfaction, if Pericles had been conscious of having involved his country in the bloodiest war it had ever waged."

The success of Pericles in retaining, for so many years, his great influence over the Athenian people, must be attributed, in large part, to his wonderful powers of persuasion. Cicero is said to have regarded him as the first example of an almost perfect orator; and Bulwer says that "the diction of his speeches, and that consecutive logic which preparation alone can impart to language, became irresistible to a people that had itself become a Pericles." Whatever may be said of Pericles as a politician, his intellectual superiority cannot be questioned. As the accomplished man of genius, and the liberal patron of literature and art, he is worthy of the highest admiration; for "by these qualities he has justly given name to the most brilliant intellectual epoch that the world has ever seen." The following extract from MITFORD'S History of Greece, may be considered a correct sketch of the great democratic ruler:

The Character of Pericles.

"No other man seems to have been held in so high estimation by most of the ablest writers of Greece and Rome, for universal superiority of talents, as Pericles. The accounts remaining of his actions hardly support his renown, which was yet, perhaps, more fairly earned than that of many, the merit of whose achievements has been, in a great degree, due to others acting under them, whose very names have perished. The philosophy of Pericles taught him not to be vain-glorious, but to rest his fame upon essentially great and good rather than upon brilliant actions. It is observed by Plutarch that, often as he commanded the Athenian forces, he never was defeated; yet, though he won many trophies, he never gained a splendid victory. A battle, according to a great modern authority, is the resource of ignorant generals; when they know not what to do they fight a battle. It was almost universally the resource of the age of Pericles; little conception was entertained of military operations beyond ravage and a battle. His genius led him to a superior system, which the wealth of his country enabled him to carry into practice. His favorite maxim was to spare the lives of his soldiers; and scarcely any general ever gained so many important advantages with so little bloodshed.

"This splendid character, however, perhaps may seem to receive some tarnish from the political conduct of Pericles; the concurrence, at least, which is imputed to him, in depraving the Athenian Const.i.tution, to favor that popular power by which he ruled, and the revival and confirmation of that pernicious hostility between the democratical and aristocratical interests, first in Athens and then by the Peloponnesian war throughout the nation. But the high respect with which he is always spoken of by three men in successive ages, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Isoc'rates, all friendly to the aristocratical interest, and all anxious for concord with Lacedaemon, strongly indicates that what may appear exceptionable in his conduct was, in their opinion, the result, not of choice, but of necessity. By no other conduct, probably, could the independence of Athens have been preserved; and yet that, as the event showed, was indispensable for the liberty of Greece."

II. THE ATHENIAN DEMAGOGUES.

Soon after the death of Pericles the results of the political changes introduced by him, as well as of the moral and social changes that had taken place in the people from various causes, became apparent in the raising to power of men from the lower walks of life, whose popularity was achieved and maintained mainly by intrigue and flattery. Chief among these rose Cle'on, a tanner, who has been characterized as "the violent demagogue whose arrogant presumption so unworthily succeeded the enlightened magnanimity of Pericles." In the year 428 Mityle'ne, the capital of the Island of Lesbos, revolted against the supremacy of Athens, but was speedily reduced to subjection, and one thousand or more Mityleneans were sent as prisoners to Athens, to be disposed of as the Athenian a.s.sembly should direct.

Cleon first prominently appears in public in connection with the disposal of these prisoners. With the capacity to transact business in a popular manner, and possessing a stentorian voice and unbounded audacity, he had become "by far the most persuasive speaker in the eyes of the people;" and now, taking the lead in the a.s.sembly debate, he succeeded in having the unfortunate prisoners cruelly put to death. From this period his influence steadily increased, and in the year 425 he was elected commander of the Athenian forces. For several years circ.u.mstances favored him. With the aid of his general, Demosthenes, he captured Py'lus from the Spartans, and on his return to Athens he was received with demonstrations of great favor; but his military incompetence lost him both the victory and his life in the battle of Amphip'olis, 422 B.C.

What we know of the political conduct of Cleon comes from measurably unreliable sources. Aristoph'anes, the chief of the comic poets, describes him as "a noisy brawler, loud in his criminations, violent in his gestures, corrupt and venal in his principles, a persecutor of rank and merit, and a base flatterer and sycophant of the people." Thucydides also calls him "a dishonest politician, a wrongful accuser of others, and the most violent of all the citizens." Both these writers, however, had personal grievances. Of course Cleon very naturally became a target for the invective of the poet. "The taking of Pylus," says GILLIES, "and the triumphant return of Cleon, a notorious coward transformed by caprice and accident into a brave and successful commander, were topics well suiting the comic vein of Aristophanes; and in the comedy first represented in the seventh year of the war--The Knights--he attacks him in the moment of victory, when fortune had rendered him the idol of a licentious mult.i.tude, when no comedian was so daring as to play his character, and no painter so bold as to design his mask." The poet himself, therefore, appeared on the stage, "only disguising his face, the better to represent the part of Cleon." As another writer has said, "Of all the productions of Aristophanes, so replete with comic genius throughout, The Knights is the most consummate and irresistible; and it presents a portrait of Cleon drawn in colors broad and glaring, most impressive to the imagination, and hardly effaceable from the memory." The following extract from the play will show the license indulged in on the stage in democratic Athens, the boldness of the poet's attacks, and will serve, also, as a sample of his style:

Cleon the Demagogue.

The chorus come upon the stage; and thus commence their attack upon Cleon:

Chorus. Close around him, and confound him, the confounder of us all; Pelt him, pummel him, and maul him; rummage, ransack, overhaul him; Overbear him and outbawl him; bear him down, and bring him under.

Bellow, like a burst of thunder, robber! harpy! sink of plunder!

Rogue and villain! rogue and cheat! rogue and villain, I repeat!

Oftener than I can repeat it has the rogue and villain cheated.

Close around him, left and right; spit upon him, spurn and smite: Spit upon him as you see; spurn and spit at him like me.

But beware, or he'll evade you! for he knows the private track Where En'crates was seen escaping with his mill-dust on his back.

Cleon. Worthy veterans of the jury, you that, either right or wrong, With my threepenny provision I've maintained and cherished long, Come to my aid! I'm here waylaid--a.s.sa.s.sinated and betrayed"!

Chorus. Rightly served! we serve you rightly, for your hungry love of pelf; For your gross and greedy rapine, gormandizing by yourself-- You that, ere the figs are gathered, pilfer with a privy twitch Fat delinquents and defaulters, pulpy, luscious, plump, and rich; Pinching, fingering, and pulling--tempering, selecting, culling; With a nice survey discerning which are green and which are turning, Which are ripe for accusation, forfeiture, and confiscation.

Him, besides, the wealthy man, retired upon an easy rent, Hating and avoiding party, n.o.ble-minded, indolent, Fearful of official snares; intrigues, and intricate affairs-- Him you mark; you fix and hook him, while he's gaping unawares; At a fling, at once you bring him hither from the Chersonese; Down you cast him, roast and baste him, and devour him at your ease.

Cleon. Yes; a.s.sault, insult, abuse me! This is the return I find For the n.o.ble testimony, the memorial I designed: Meaning to propose proposals for a monument of stone, On the which your late achievements should be carved and neatly done.

Chorus. Out, away with him! the slave! the pompous, empty, fawning knave!

Does he think with idle speeches to delude and cheat us all, As he does the doting elders that attend his daily call?

Pelt him here, and bang him there; and here, and there, and everywhere.

Cleon. Save me, neighbors! Oh, the monsters! Oh, my side, my back, my breast!