nian triremes that eleven escaped even from this supreme peril. The remaining nine were driven ashore, such of their crews as could not swim being all slain. The battle seemed to be ended by a decisive victory. But another turn was to be given to the day by the Athenian triremes who had escaped. The rearmost of these, finding itself chased by a single Leukadian vessel far in advance of the rest of the Peloponnesian fleet, swept swiftly round a merchant vessel which was lying at its moorings, and dashed into the broadside of its pursuer. This exploit so damped the courage of the Peloponnesians who were coming up behind that they ceased from rowing, while some found themselves among shoals. Seizing the favourable moment, the ten Athenian ships flew to the attack. The conflict was soon The Peloponnesian ships fled for Panormos, six being taken by the Athenians, who also recovered all their triremes but one.

over.

The great plan of the Spartans which was to drive the Athenians from the Corinthian gulf had thus failed utterly: but Brasidas thought that a blow might be struck at Athens herself by a sudden attack on Peiraieus. The seamen were embarked at the Megarian port of Nisaia; but either their weakness or their fears led them to substitute the easier task of a raid on Salamis. The result was made known at Athens by means of fire signals, and excited extreme alarm. Hurrying in full force to Peiraieus, the Athenians hastened to Salamis. But the Spartans were already gone, taking with them a large amount of plunder and many prisoners, together with the three guard-ships stationed off Boudoron for the purpose of barring access to the harbour of Megara.

The Athenians were not more successful in a larger enterprise which was to bring upon the Makedonian chief Perdikkas and the Chalkidian towns the unwieldy power of the Thrakian Sitalkes. Armies of mountaineers are not easily gathered or held together. The Athenian ships, which were to cooperate with him were behind their time; and Seuthes, the nephew of Sitalkes, having received the promise of Stratonikê the sister of Perdikkas in marriage, urged with determined earnestness the necessity for retreat. Thus within thirty days from the time when the army set out the order was given for return, and the great host melted away.

The fourth year of the war (B.C. 428) brought with it for the

Athenians not only another Spartan invasion, but a crisis so sudden and so serious that for a time their power of action was almost paralysed. All Lesbos was in revolt, with the exception of the single town of Methymna. Together with Chios Lesbos alone now retained the privileges of free members of the Delian or Athenian confederacy; but the Lesbian oligarchs valued still more highly the old exclusive system which the Athenians seemed destined everywhere to break up. Even before the beginning of the war they had besought the aid of Sparta in the meditated revolt, and they now again sent thither ambassadors charged with a still more pressing appeal. These envoys were permitted to plead their cause before the Hellenes assembled to celebrate the great Olympian festival. It is enough to say that for themselves these Lesbian envoys have no grievance whatever to urge. They even admit that they had been treated with marked distinction: and all that they could say for themselves was first that the idea of revolt had been forced on them by the slavery to which other members of the Delian confederation had been reduced, and secondly that they had been compelled to carry out their plan prematurely. Of the real relations of Athens with her free and her subject allies they said not a word. On the real independence of the allies in the management of their internal affairs they kept careful silence; but the checks which were put on quarrels and wars between two or more allied cities were resented as involving loss of freedom. In short, if the picture drawn by the historian be in any degree a true one, the revolt of Lesbos was the work of a faction with which the main body of the people had no active sympathy, and which they seized the first occasion for defeating.

It had been the special prayer of the Lesbian envoys that the Spartans should invade Attica for the second time this year on the ground that the Athenians had not only been prostrated by the plague but had spent all their reserve funds. This last statement was true. Of the six thousand talents which were stored in the treasury at the beginning of the war, one thousand only remained,—that sum, namely, of which under pain of death no citizen was to propose to make use except for the defence of the city itself against invading armies or fleets. But the Athenians were resolved to show, that in spite of all depressing causes they were able to meet their enemies on equal terms without taking away any portion of their fleet from Lesbos.

Their attack on Methymna had failed; but an attempt to retaliate was followed by a severe defeat of the Methymnaians. The Mytilenaians had in fact full command of the land, although the harbours of Mytilene were under strict blockade. A thousand hoplites under Paches completely invested this city.

The Spartan invasion of the fifth year of the war (B.c.427) was even more merciless than those which had preceded it. It was prolonged in the hopes that tidings of success might be brought from Lesbos; but none such came. Alkidas, who had been sent out with a Spartan fleet, failed to make his appearance; and, looking on his arrival as hopeless, the party in power armed the Demos as hoplites in order to sally out from the city against the besiegers. The step was fatal. The commons, instead of obeying orders, insisted on an immediate distribution of corn to alleviate the famine which already pressed hard upon them, or threatened in default of this to throw open the gates to the Athenians. Making a virtue of necessity, the oligarchs at once made a convention with Paches, who pledged himself neither to imprison, inslave, nor slay any Mytilenaian until the Athenian people had given their judgement in the matter. Soon afterwards Alkidas, learning what had taken place, resolved to return home. On his way he signalised himself by a massacre of the prisoners whom he had seized in the merchant vessels which, under the impression that any fleet in Egean waters must be Athenian, had approached his ships without suspicion. Having vainly pursued him as far as Patmos, Paches returned to Lesbos where he reduced the towns of Pyrrha and Eresos, and sent to Athens the Mytilenaians (in number about 1,000) who had been placed for safe keeping in Tenedos.

At Athens indignation at the revolt ran high. No event had yet happened so seriously affecting her dignity and so greatly endangering her empire. Moved by the mastering passion of resentment, the Athenians were in no mood for drawing distinctions between the guilty and the innocent, and accordingly they welcomed the proposal of murdering the whole adult male population of Mytilene. Of the orators who spoke most vehemently in favour of this plan the most violent, if we may believe Thucydides, was Kleon.

Although this man is here first mentioned by the great historian, he had long since gained some notoriety by his opposition to Perikles. In the broad and coarse pictures of the comic poet

Aristophanes he is the unprincipled schemer who gains influence by pandering to the vices of the people and cajoling them with the meanest and most fulsome flattery. No picture could be more untrue. If we may trust the narrative of an enemy, adulation of the Demos was the last sin which could be laid to his charge. It would be more true to say that he acquired power by blustering rhetoric, by boundless impudence, and by administering the harshest rebukes to the people, so long as there was some popular feeling to which these rebukes in the end appealed. His rudeness and grossness were thus forgiven by the aristocratic party to whom the policy of Perikles was distasteful. In other words he had in his favour a powerful sentiment in their dislike of the great statesman who had dealt the deathblow to their ancient privileges. In the case of the Mytilenaians he had on his side a feeling still more powerful; and probably a vast majority came to the debate vehemently eager to take the vengeance to which Kleon gave the name of justice. But the massacre which he and they desired was on so vast a scale that the feeling of burning anger was speedily followed by a feeling of amazement at the ocean of blood which was to be shed in order to appease it; and a resolution was carried to reconsider the question. On the following morning Kleon stood forth again to urge with savage persistency the paramount duty of giving full play to the instinct of resentment. That against the Lesbians he had a terrible indictment it is impossible to deny ; but, if the report of Thucydides may be trusted, he uttered a direct falsehood when he asserted that the oligarchs and the Demos had been guilty of the same crime and therefore deserved the same punishment. The plea was palpably untrue. The Demos was armed only when the oligarchs felt that thus only could they escape imminent ruin; and no sooner had they grasped their weapons, than they used the power, thus gained, in the interests of Athens. This distinction forms the key-note of the speech by which Diodotos sought to bring the people to a better mind. In all the states of her alliance Athens now had beyond all doubt a body of stanch friends and even in Lesbos these friends had only been overborne by the selfish violence of the oligarchic faction. By following the advice of Kleon they would deal the deathblow to this friendship, and would encounter everywhere an ominous monotony of hatred and disgust. It was absurd to form

expectations of future gain on the mere severity of punishment. The black codes which punished all offences with death, had not been specially successful in lessening the number or atrocity of offences.

When at length the question was put to the vote, the amendment of Diodotos that the prisoners then at Athens should be put upon their trial and that the lives of the Mytilenaians in Lesbos should be spared was carried by a very small majority. But although the decree of the preceding day was thus rescinded, there was little chance that the more merciful decision would take effect. The trireme carrying the death warrant of six or seven thousand men had had the start of nearly twenty-four hours; but the second trireme was sent forth with far greater inducements. Stocking the ship with an ample supply of wine and barley meal, the Lesbian envoys promised the crew rich rewards if they reached the island in time. Possibly the desire of saving Athens from a great crime and a great disgrace may have influenced them even more powerfully. They reached Lesbos, not indeed before the first trireme, but before Paches had begun the execution of the decree which he had already published. Here ended the repentance and the mercy of the Athenians. The thousand Mytilenaian prisoners sent by Paches to Athens were put to death. The walls of Mytilene were pulled down, and its fleet forfeited; and a definite annual tribute was imposed upon the city.

The subjugation of Lesbos preceded only by a few days or weeks the destruction of Plataia. A year and a half had passed away from the first appearance of Archidamos before the devoted town, when the Plataians resolved to force their way through the lines of the besiegers. From Athens there was clearly no hope of help, and their store of food was rapidly failing them. But as the time for carrying out the plan drew nigh, not much more than half the number could muster courage to go on with the scheme. The event showed the wisdom of their choice; and the fugitives found a welcome in Athens, which had done nothing to help them during the siege. For some months longer the Plataians in the city held out against an enemy more terrible than man; but as the summer wore on the Spartan leader found that his assaults were met with steadily diminishing force. If the Plataians could be induced to make a voluntary surrender of their city, there would be no