B.C. 431.

PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

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Pericles perceived that the great danger of Athens arose from its inordinate ambition, and that its best policy was, slowly to cement its empire, by gaining more complete command over its subject-states. On the other hand, the Spartan king Archidamus pointed out to his countrymen that they had no means of aggression except to ravage the lands of Attica, of which the Athenians, commanding the sea, were independent; while they would be exposed to every species of injury, without power of retaliation.

But the violence of both parties soon led them into a war which lasted twenty-seven years, and verified the predictions of both leaders.4 The Peloponnesians ravaged Attica; but as the Athenians were not allowed by Pericles, then their general, to leave the walls and oppose them, no further injury could be inflicted. Meanwhile the Athenian ships ravaged every part of the Lacedæmonian coast. Nor did any means offer for injuring the Athenians till there arose a Spartan, who, with the firmness and self-possession which belonged to his countrymen, displayed a pliability of mind, an enterprise, and a readiness to avail himself of every resource, for which he was not indebted to the discipline of Lycurgus.5 Brasidas, such was his name, was sent with a small force into Thrace; and after making his way through the hostile plains of Thessaly, he succeeded in alienating many of its towns from Athens. He had gained possession of Amphipolis, a port of great importance on the river Strymon, commanding the sole passage along the Thracian shore, when Cleon, an Athenian demagogue, who, after the death of Pericles, had gained great influence with the populace, was sent against him. Cleon, a tanner by trade, wholly ignorant of military measures, exposed his forces to certain de

4

B.C. 431.

5 Thucyd. iv. 65 and following. B.C. 424.

K

feat by defiling in front of Amphipolis, so as to lay open their right or unguarded sides to the arrows of the enemy. Brasidas sallied forth to take advantage of the error, and exposing himself in the hurry of the attack, he fell,a loss as irreparable to the Spartans as the death of Cleon was beneficial to their enemies.

But at this time there arose a man better fitted to represent the peculiar combination of talent and volatility which belonged to the Athenian character. Alcibiades, son of Clinias, was an Athenian of birth and fortune, who possessed the still more important qualifications of courage, talent, and eloquence. He quickly became a favourite with the multitude; and after various negotiations in Peloponnesus, which proved his great ascendency over the minds of men, he engaged his countrymen in an expedition against the island of Sicily, which, if he had been allowed to carry his designs into execution, would probably have confirmed them in the empire of Greece, but which their suspicion and inconsistency made the means of their destruction.7 Pericles had advised them not to risk their forces on any great attempt till the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war. biades had extensive plans for making the conquest of Sicily a means for that of Peloponnesus. But the Athenians would neither regard the prudent caution of the one, nor give scope to the daring designs of the other. They sent the greater part of their forces to Sicily. But they soon recalled Alcibiades, whose talents alone sufficed for their direction. The Syracusans, a colony of Dorian extraction, encouraged, when on the eve of ruin, by the presence of Gylippus, a Lacedæmonian, made head successfully against them, and the expedition ended in the total destruc tion of their fleet and army. Meanwhile Alcibiades, 6 B.C. 415. Thucyd. vi. &c. 7.Thucyd. ii. 65.

8

Alci

8

B.C. 413.

B.C. 403.

ATHENS TAKEN.

99

returning to Greece, and flying as an exile to Sparta, imparted Athenian energy to its drooping counsels. Still, though they were deserted by many of their allies, their cause might have prevailed, had not their inconstancy disgusted their best generals, and again alienated Alcibiades, whom the prevalence of the aristocratical party had recalled to Athens. At length the strength of Sparta, aided by Persian gold, enabled Lysander to collect an armament, by which their last fleet was defeated at Egospotamos in the Hellespont, and they were finally blockaded by sea and land.9 After a protracted siege, in which they suf fered all the miseries of famine, while they anticipated the retribution of those cruelties which they had inflicted on other Grecian states (as Melos, a Lacedæmonian colony, where they had put all the male citizens to death),—the Athenians were finally compelled to surrender their city. But the recollection of their services in the Persian war was not totally effaced. The Spartans declared that They would not put out one of the eyes of Greece. contented themselves with the demolition of the long walls, which had secured Athens from their power, and with imposing such other conditions as established their own supremacy in Greece.

9 B.C. 403. Xenophon's Hellenics, i. and ii,

they

CHAPTER XIII.

The Spiritual Kingdom of the Grecian Philosophers.

ATTEMPT TO IMPROVE MAN'S CHARACTER-POETRY AND THE ARTS THEIR LITTLE EFFECT-PLAGUE AT ATHENSTHE SOPHISTS-PYTHAGORAS-IONIC SCHOOL-SOCRATES -THE FOUR SCHOOLS OF HIS DISCIPLES-PLATO-PHILOSOPHY FAILS OF RAISING HUMAN NATURE.

Be assured that those things, which by his treacherous artifices he who is called the Tempter has caused to be uttered among the Greeks, have only added to my knowledge and belief in the Scriptures.-JUSTIN MARTYR'S Dialogue with Trypho, I 69.

THE daring attempt of the Athenians to concentrate in their city the power of the West bad thus signally failed. Democracy had given them confidence and energy for the attempt, but wanted prudence and self-restraint for its execution. The oath required of their youth," to regard wheat, barley, vines, and olives, as the only boundaries of Attica," as though "all the cultivated parts of the world"1 must submit to their sway, became henceforth an idle boast.

But in the meantime there had arisen, in the heart of this adventurous republic, a set of men who proposed to themselves a different sort of empire over mankind, and who, in truth, bore a great part in that mighty alteration which the third empire was to produce on the fortunes of the world. Both by what they did, and by what they failed of effecting, the Greek philosophers carried on the designs of God's providence; they diffused that universal language which opened a way for the triumphs of the

1 Gillies' Greece, chap. xiii.

ATHENIAN CIVILISATION.

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Gospel, and they shewed that nothing but the Gospel could enlighten mankind.

The minds of the Greeks had first been cultivated by poetry and the arts. Pisistratus made it his object to render the poems of Homer popular at Athens, as the same method had been taken by Lycurgus to improve the Lacedæmonians. But the military system of Sparta had suited little with the elegant arts, which had taken full root at Athens. There Pericles taught the people to expend their public resources on adorning their city. There was this peculiar excellence in ancient times, that works of art were not made subservient, as among the moderns, to the selfishness of private luxury, but were either employed to give greater dignity to public law or greater sanctity to religious worship. At this time, accordingly, the Parthenon, the pride of ancient architecture, was built in honour of their tutelary goddess Minerva; and Phidias, the greatest sculptor of antiquity, honoured Athens at this period by his abode and his works. Its great dramatic poets, Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and Aristophanes, the author of the most celebrated comedies, flourished or arose during the age of Pericles. The war with Sparta was narrated by their citizen Thucydides, the chief of Greek historians. But these, and a host besides them of distinguished men, did little to raise the moral character of the people. Their ingratitude to their principal leaders has been described. And a pestilence, which assailed Athens at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, shewed that, in what constitutes man's character for good or evil, they were inferior to many of the most unenlightened barbarians.

Thucydides, himself resident in Athens at the time of the plague, describes its progress and con

2 B.C. 431-429.