1. From a multitude of small states, never united but continually distracted by civil broils—and such at the beginning of this period were the states of Greece—any thing important could hardly be expected without the occurrence of some external event, which, by rallying the divided forces round one point, and directing them toward one object, should hinder them from mutually exhausting one another. It was the hostile attempt of Persia that first laid the foundation of the future splendour of Greece; certain states then grew so rapidly in power, that upon their particular history hinges the general history of all the rest.

2. Not even the summons to acknowledge the Persian authority was sufficient to rouse the national energy of the Greeks. All the islands, and most of the states on the main land, submitted to the yoke; Sparta and Athens alone boldly rejected it. The Athenians, unassisted, under their leader Miltiades, acquainted from his youth with the Persians and their mode of warfare, and with the superiority of the arms of his countrymen, became the saviours of Greece.

3. The immediate consequence of this victory was a naval expedition against the islands, more particularly Paros, to which Miltiades, out of a private grudge, persuaded the Athenians. It was undertaken for the purpose of levying contributions; and seems to have given the Athenians the first idea of their subsequent dominion of the sea. The Athenians punished Miltiades for the failure of this expedition, although the effect of their own folly; yet was this act of injustice a source of happiness to Athens; as the fall of Miltiades made room for the men who laid the solid foundation of her glory and greatness.

4. As usual in every democratic state rising to power, the history of Athens now becomes that of eminent individuals, standing at the head of affairs, as generals or demagogues. Themistocles, who united to an astonishing degree in his own person the most splendid talents of statesman and general, with a spirit of intrigue, and even of egotism; and Aristides, whose disinterestedness, even in those days, was singular at Athens, were the real founders of the power of this commonwealth. Athens, however, was more indebted to the first than to the latter.

5. The glory of frustrating the second mighty Persian invasion of Greece under Xerxes I. belongs to Themistocles alone. Not only his great naval victory off Salamis, but still more the manner in which he contrived to work upon his countrymen, proves him to have been the greatest man of the age, and the deliverer of Greece, now united by one common bond of interest.—All national leagues are weak in themselves: yet how strong may even the weakest be made when held together by one great man, who knows how to animate it with his own spirit!

6. The victory of Salamis did not conclude the war; but the negotiations entered into during the winter months with the Persian general, Mardonius, left in Thessaly, and with the Asiatic Greeks, to excite them to throw off the yoke, show how far the confidence of the nation in its own strength had increased. But by the battle fought on land at PlatÆÆ, under the command of the Spartan, Pausanias, (guardian to Plistarchus, son of Leonidas,) and the Athenian, Aristides; together with the naval battle at Mycale on the same day, and the destruction of the Persian fleet, the Persians are for ever driven from the territory of Greece, though the war continues for some time longer.

7. The expulsion of the Persians wrought an entire change in the internal and external relations of Greece. From being the aggressed the Greeks became the aggressors; to free their Asiatic countrymen is now the chief object or pretext for the continuation of a war so profitable; the chief command of which abides with Sparta until B. C. 470.

8. This transfer of the command to Athens had a decided effect on all the subsequent relations of Greece, not only because it augmented the jealousy between Sparta and Athens, but because Athens exercised her predominance for a purpose entirely different from that of Sparta.—Establishment of a permanent confederacy, comprising most of the Grecian states without Peloponnesus, especially the islands, and an adjustment of the contributions to be annually furnished by each, with the view of prosecuting the Persian war, and liberating the Asiatic Greeks from the Persian yoke. Although the common treasury was first established at Delos, the superintendence of it was confided to Athens; and such a manager as Aristides was not always to be found.—Natural consequence of this new establishment: 1. What had hitherto been mere military precedence, becomes in the hands of Athens a right of political prescription, and that, as usual, is soon converted into a sovereignty. Hence her idea of the supremacy of Greece, (???? t?? ????d??,) as connected with that of the sea, (?a?ass???at?a.) 2. The oppression of the Athenians, sometimes real, at other times presumed, after a short time, rouses the spirit of discontent and contumacy among several of the confederates: hence, 3. The gradual formation of a counter league, headed by Sparta, who maintains her supremacy over the greatest part of the Peloponnesus.

9. The changes introduced into the internal organization are not to be determined solely by the palpable alterations made in any of Lycurgus's or Solon's institutions. In Sparta, the general frame-work of Lycurgus's constitution subsisted; nevertheless the power was virtually in the hands of the ephori, whose dictatorial sway placed Sparta in the formidable posture she now assumed.—At Athens, in proportion as the importance of foreign relations increased, and amid the protracted struggles between the heads of the democratic and aristocratic parties, the real power, under the outward appearance of a democracy, gradually centered in the hands of the ten annually elected generals, (st?at????,) who with more or less effect played the parts of demagogues.

10. The following forty years, from 470—430, constitute the flourishing period of Athens. A concurrence of fortunate circumstances happening among a people of the highest abilities and promoted by great men, produced here phenomena, such as have never since been witnessed. Political greatness was the fundamental principle of the commonwealth; Athens had been the guardian, and the champion of Greece, and she wished to appear worthy of herself. Hence in Athens alone were men acquainted with public splendour, exhibited in buildings, in spectacles, and festivals, the acquisition of which was facilitated by private frugality. This public spirit animating every citizen, expanded the blossoms of genius; no broad line of distinction was anxiously drawn between private and public life; whatever great, whatever noble was produced by Athens, sprung up verdant and robust out of this harmony, this buxom vigour of the state. Far different was the case with Sparta; there rude customs and laws arrested the development of genius: there men were taught to die for the land of their forefathers: while at Athens they learnt to live for it.

11. Agriculture continued the principal occupation of the citizens of Attica; other employments were left to the care of slaves. Commerce and navigation were mainly directed towards the Thracian coast and the Black sea; the spirit of trade, however, was never the prevailing one. As affairs of state became more attractive, and men desired to participate in them, the want of intellectual education began to be felt, and sophists and rhetoricians soon offered their instruction. Mental expertness was more coveted than mental knowledge; men wished to learn how to think and to speak. A poetical education had long preceded the rise of this national desire; poesy now lost nothing of its value: as heretofore Homer remained the cornerstone of intellectual improvement. Could it be that such blossoms would produce other fruits than those which ripened in the school of Socrates, in the masterpieces of the tragedians and orators, and in the immortal works of Plato?

12. These flowers of national genius burst forth in spite of many evils, inseparable from such a constitution established among such a people. Great men were pushed aside; others took their places. The loss of Themistocles was supplied by Miltiades's son Cimon; who to purer politics united equal talents. He protracted the war against the Persians in order to maintain the union of the Greeks; and favoured the aristocratic party at the same time that he affected popularity. Even his enemies learnt by experience, that the state could not dispense with a leader who seemed to have entered into a compact for life with victory.

13. The death of Aristides, and the banishment of Cimon, concur in elevating Pericles to the head of affairs; a statesman whose influence had begun to operate as early as 469. Less a general than a demagogue, he supported himself in authority during forty years, until the day of his death, and swayed Athens without being either archon or member of the areopagus. That under him the constitution must have assumed a more democratic character, is demonstrated by the fact Pericles dies, 429. of his exaltation as leader of the democratic party. The aristocrats, however, contrive until 444 to set up rivals against him in the persons of the military leaders, Myronides, Tolmidas, and more particularly the elder Thucydides.

14. Cimon recalled from exile, endeavours to reestablish the domestic tranquillity of Greece, and at the same time to renew the war against the Persians. He succeeds in his attempt after the lapse of five years; and the consequence is a victorious expedition against the Persians. He defeats their fleet off Cyprus, and routs their army on the Asiatic coast. The fruit of this victory is the celebrated peace with Artaxerxes I. (see above, p. 104.) Ere that peace is concluded Cimon dies, too soon for his country, while occupied with the siege of Citium.

15. The conclusion of peace with Persia, glorious as it was, and the death of the man whose grand political object was to preserve union among the Greeks, again aroused the spirit of internal strife. For notwithstanding nearly twenty years intervened before the tempest burst with all its fury, this period was so turbulent during its course, that Greece seldom enjoyed universal peace. While Athens by her naval strength was maintaining her ascendancy over the confederates, and while some of those confederates were raising the standard of rebellion and passing over to Sparta, every thing was gradually combining towards the formation of a counter league, the necessary consequence of which must have been a war, such as the Peloponnesian. Up to this time Athens was at the height of her power; she was governed by Pericles, who, in every thing but the name, was sole ruler during this period, and for that reason she experienced few of the evils resulting from a democratic constitution. Who, indeed, could overthrow a demagogue whose presence of mind, even in the greatest good fortune, never once deserted him; who knew how to keep alive among his fellow-citizens the conviction that, however exalted they might be, it was to him alone they were indebted for it?

16. The history of the twenty-seven years' war, known by the name of the Peloponnesian, or great Grecian war, which swept away the fairest flowers of Greece, is the more deserving attention from its being not merely a struggle between nations, but likewise against certain forms of government. The policy of Athens, which to establish or preserve her influence in foreign states, excited the multitude against the higher orders, had on all sides given rise to two factions, the democrat or Athenian, and the aristocrat or Spartan; and the mutual bitterness of party spirit produced the most violent disorders.

17. The respective relations of the two head states of Greece to their confederates, were at this time of a very opposite nature. Athens, as a naval power, was mistress of most of the islands and maritime cities, which, as tributary confederates, rendered for the most part a forced obedience. Sparta, as a land power, was allied with most of the states on the continent, which had joined her side of their own accord, and were not subject to tribute. Sparta therefore presented herself as the deliverer of Greece from the Athenian yoke.

18. Sketch of the internal state of Athens and Sparta at this period. The power of Athens depended mainly on the state of her finances; without which she could not support a fleet, and without a fleet her ascendancy over the confederates would of course fall to ground. And although Pericles, notwithstanding his lavish public expenditure, was able to enter upon the war with 6,000 talents in the treasury, experience could not fail to show that, in such a democratic state as Athens was now become under Pericles, the squandering of the public money was an unavoidable evil. This evil was produced, however, at Athens much less by the peculations of individual state officers than by the demands of the multitude, who for the most part lived at the expense of the state treasury. On the other hand, Sparta as yet had no finance; and only began to feel the want of it as she began to acquire a naval power, and entered upon undertakings more vast than mere incursions.

19. First period of the war until the fifty years' peace. Beginning of the war unsuccessful to Athens during the first three years, under the conduct of Pericles, in whose defensive plan we may perhaps discern the infirmities of age. The Athenians, however, suffered less from the annual inroads of the Spartans than from the plague, to which Pericles himself at last fell a victim. The alliance of the Athenians with the kings of Thrace and Macedonia extended the theatre of war; on the other hand, Sparta had already conceived the idea of an alliance with Persia.

20. The death of Pericles was, for the next seven years, during which the place of that great man was supplied by Cleon a currier, followed by all the evils of an uncurbed democracy. The atrocious decrees with respect to Mitylene, which after seceding, had been recaptured, and the insurrection of the CorcyrÆan populace against the rich, characterized the party spirit then dominant in Greece better than the few insignificant events of a war conducted without any plan. Sparta, however, found in young Brasidas a general, such as are wont to arise in revolutionary times. His prosecution of the war on the Macedonian coast might have brought great danger to Athens, had he so early not fallen a victim to his own gallantry.

21. The peace now concluded for fifty years could not be of long duration, as many of the confederates on either side were discontented with its terms. All hope of tranquillity must have been at an end when the management of Athenian affairs fell into the hands of a youth like Alcibiades, in whom vanity and artifice held the place of patriotism and talent, and who thought war the only field in which he could gain credit. Against him what availed the prudence of Nicias?—Happy was it for Athens that during the whole of this period Sparta never produced one man who could match even with Alcibiades!

22. Alcibiades's party brings forward at Athens the project of conquering Sicily, under the pretence of succouring the Segestani against the Syracusans. This rash expedition, in which the hopes both of the Athenians and of its instigator Alcibiades were blighted, gave to Athens the first great blow, from which she never after, even with the utmost exertion of her strength, recovered; especially as Sparta also was now become a naval power.

23. Fatal as in the present circumstances the blow struck in Sicily must appear to have been to Athens, yet the calamity was surmounted by Athenian enthusiasm, never greater than in times of misfortune. They maintained their supremacy over the confederates; but the part which Alcibiades, in consequence of the new posture his own personal interest had assumed at Sparta, took in their affairs, brought about a twofold domestic revolution, which checked the licentious democracy.

24. Brilliant period of Alcibiades's command. The reiterated naval victories won by the Athenians over the Spartans under Mindarus, who, mistrusting Tissaphernes, now forms an alliance with Pharnabazus, satrap of the north of Asia Minor, oblige the Spartans to propose peace, which haughty Athens, unluckily for herself, rejects.

25. Arrival of the younger Cyrus in Asia Minor; the shrewdness of Lysander wins him over to the Spartan interest. The republican haughtiness of Lysander's successor, Callicratidas, shown to Cyrus, was a serious error in policy; for, unassisted by Persian money, Sparta was not in a condition to pay her mariners, nor consequently to support her naval establishment. After the defeat and death of Callicratidas, the command is restored to Lysander, who terminates the twenty seven years' war triumphantly for Sparta.

26. Thus ended a war destructive in its moral, still more than in its political, consequences. Party spirit had usurped the place of patriotic feeling; as national prejudice had that of national energy. Athens being subdued, Sparta stood at the head of confederate Greece; but Greece very soon experienced the yoke of her deliverers to be infinitely more galling than that of the people hitherto called her oppressors. What evils must not have ensued from the revolutions Lysander now found it necessary to effect in most of the Grecian states, in order to place the helm of government in the hands of his own party under the superintendence of a Spartan harmost?—How oppressive must not have been the military rule of the numerous Spartan garrisons?—Nor could any alleviation of tribute be hoped for, now that in Sparta it was acknowledged that the "state must possess an exchequer."—The arrogance and rapacity of the new masters were rendered more grievous by their being more uncivilized and destitute.

27. Happy revolution in Athens, and expulsion of the thirty tyrants by Thrasybulus, favoured by the party at Sparta opposed to Lysander, and headed by king Pausanias. Restoration and reform of Solon's constitution; general amnesty. It was easy to reestablish forms;—to recall the departed spirit of the nation was impossible!

28. The defeat of the younger Cyrus entangles the Spartans in a war with the Persians, the same year that, after the death of king Agis, Agesilaus takes possession of the regal dignity. We willingly forget his usurpation as we follow him in his heroic career. None but a man of genius could have instructed Sparta how to support for so long a time the extravagant character which she had now undertaken to play.

29. The Corinthian war, waged against Sparta by Corinth, Thebes, and Argos, to which Athens and the Thessalians unite, terminated by the peace of Antalcidas. The tyranny of Sparta, and more particularly the recent devastation of Elis, a sacred territory, were the alleged pretexts; but the bribes of Timocrates, the Persian envoy, were the real causes of this war.

30. The quarrels which, after the peace of Antalcidas, Sparta began to have with Mantinea and Phlius, and still more so her participation in those between the Macedo-Greek cities and the over-powerful Olynthus, prove too plainly the arrogance with which Sparta behaved to the weaker states. But the arbitrary appropriation of the citadel of Thebes by Phoebidas,—an act not indeed commanded, yet approved by Sparta,—was attended with more serious consequences than were at first expected. Would that all authors of similar breaches of good faith and the law of nations were visited with the same vengeance!

31. Period of the rivalry of Sparta and Thebes, Thebes, from the year 378. The greatness of Thebes was the work of two men, who knew how to inspire their fellow-citizens and confederates with their own heroic spirit: with them Thebes rose, with them she fell. Rarely does history exhibit such a duumvirate as that of Epaminondas and Pelopidas. How high must our estimation of Pythagoras be, even had his philosophy formed but one such man as Epaminondas!

32. A general peace is concluded in Greece through the mediation of the Persians, (who wish to obtain auxiliaries against the Egyptians,) under the condition that all the Grecian cities shall be free: it is acceded to by Sparta and Athens, but rejected by Thebes, because she cannot admit the condition without again falling under the Spartan yoke. In fact, the lofty language used by Epaminondas, as envoy to Sparta, shows that it was problematic whether Sparta or Thebes should now be at the head of Greece. Could the idea, therefore, of a perfect equality between the states of Greece be other than chimerical?

33. The long struggle maintained so gloriously by Epaminondas against Sparta is remarkable both in a political and military point of view. The power of Sparta was abased; Epaminondas invented a new system of tactics, (out of which soon after sprang the Macedonian art of war;) and as soon as he found confederates in Peloponnesus itself, he made his way to the very gates of Sparta.

34. Sparta in distress forms an alliance with Athens, under the stipulation that the command shall alternately be in the hands of the two confederates; conditions, no doubt, humiliating to Spartan pride! It however affords them the means of frustrating Epaminondas's new attempt on Corinth and the Peloponnesus. Even Dionysius I. of Syracuse, thinks himself bound to assist the Spartans as being Dorians.

35. Thebes played a no less brilliant part in the north than she did in the south. And had the attempts to liberate Thessaly from the rule of the tyrant, Alexander of PherÆ, been attended with success, Thebes would have received a vast increase of power. Even in Macedonia she acted as arbitress.

36. Alliance of Thebes with Persia successfully brought about by Pelopidas. In the intrigues of the opponents at the Persian court, the object of each was to bring that court over to his own interest. Yet the domineering tone in which the Persians wished to dictate peace, had not the consequences that might have been expected; and although Sparta consented to her confederates remaining neutral, she would not forego her claims on Messene. The establishment of a navy would have been of more important consequences to Thebes than this alliance, had not all these plans, together with the greatness of Thebes, been 365. swept away by the premature death of her two leading men.

37. The result of this bloody struggle for the supremacy of Greece was, that neither Sparta nor Thebes obtained it; the former of these states being weakened by the loss of Messene, the latter by the loss of its leaders, and both strained by their violent exertions. The situation of Greece after this war seems to have been thus far changed, that no state had the predominance; an independence proceeding from enervation. Even Athens, who by means of her naval power still preserved her influence over the cities on the coast and in the islands, lost the greater part in the war of the allies, together with three of her most celebrated leaders, Chabrias, Timotheus, and Iphicrates, whose places were ill supplied by Chares.

38. At the very time when the growing power of Macedonia under Philip ought to have united all the Grecian states, had such an union been within the range of possibility, Greece plunged into another civil war of ten years' duration, which is known by the name of the sacred or Phocian war. The Amphictyonic assembly, whose duty it was to maintain peace, and whose influence had been in the present circumstances reinstated, abused its authority by kindling discord. The hatred of the Thebans, who sought for new opportunities of quarrel with Sparta, and the ambition of the Phocian Philomelus, were the real causes which led to the war, which the policy of Philip knew how to prolong till the precise moment favourable to his own particular views arrived. The treasures of Delphi circulating in Greece, were as injurious to the country as the ravages which it underwent. A war springing out of private passions, fostered by bribes and subsidiary troops, and terminated by the interference of foreign powers, was exactly what was requisite for annihilating the scanty remains of morality and patriotism still existing in Greece.

39. From the very first advance of Philip, the fate of Greece could scarcely afford matter for doubt; although the eloquence of Demosthenes warded it off until the second invasion, caused by the Amphictyonic sentence passed on the Locrians. (See below, book iv. parag. 15.) The battle of ChÆronea laid the foundation of Macedonia's complete ascendancy over the Grecian republics: by the appointment of Philip to be generalissimo of Greece in the Persian war, that ascendancy was, as it were, formally acknowledged; nor did it end with the assassination of that prince.

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FOURTH BOOK.

HISTORY OF THE MACEDONIAN MONARCHY.

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