Athenians against the Persians.

It is believed that a

treaty of peace was concluded between them.

This treaty of peace, on which some doubts have been thrown, is called the Treaty of Callias, and sometimes, though incorrectly, the Cimonian Treaty. It recognized the general state of things in which the war had left the Greeks and the Persians. The main conditions were that the Greeks should relinquish the isle of Cyprus, and recall a fleet which Cimon before his death had despatched to Egypt. On the other hand the great king granted freedom to all the Greek cities on the Asiatic continent, and engaged not to attack them either by land or sea. Greek war ships were not to sail east, and Persian war ships were not to sail west of certain limits in the Levant and the Euxine sea. There was to be peace and amity between the Greeks and Persians, and neither was to make any expedition against the other.

Thus ended, for a time, the war between the Greeks B.C. 499- and the Persians. It had lasted just fifty

449. years. This half-century had witnessed wonderful alterations of fortune. It had commenced with the Ionian revolt under Aristagoras, which the Persians had crushed, and after the most glorious and remarkable war in ancient history, providentially terminated in the repulse and defeat of the Eastern invaders, and in the promotion of some of the highest interests of the human

race.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SUDDEN DECLINE OF ATHENIAN POWER.

THE splendid prosperity of Athens did not long continue unchequered. She was not to be as powerful on land as on sea, nor to attain to that extent of power which should permanently overshadow the rest of Greece. Her greatness was long to endure, and in the direction of intellectual effort was to surpass all that she had yet achieved. But she was to be shorn of her territorial acquisitions as rapidly as she had acquired them.

It seems probable that a wide and deep-seated feeling of jealousy towards Athens was provoked throughout Greece, in great measure owing to the subjugation of Ægina, thought by the Greeks to be little worthy of such a doom. Sparta remained faithful, however, to the five years' truce. She undertook, indeed, a war which she was pleased to call a sacred war, on account of Delphi. The Phocians had expelled the native Delphians, and taken on themselves the management of the temple which had been unduly under Spartan influence. The quarrel about the temple was whether it should be administered by the Phocians generally, or by the Delphian members of the Phocian league. The Peloponnesian army dispossessed the Phocians and restored the temple to the Delphians. But as soon as the Peloponnesian army was withdrawn an Athenian army marched in and gave the temple back again to the Phocians. Now the Phocians were their allies, and it was a great thing for the Athenians that their allies should have the direction of the oracles. Still, the Spartans did not break the truce. The impending blow was to come from the Athenian empire itself.

The victory of Enophyta had established the Athenian supremacy over Boeotia, and in each city Athens had established that democratical form of government which was most in accordance with her own institutions. Eminent men from many cities had been driven into banishment, and these men were always plotting and planning the revolutionary steps which would restore them to their forfeited place and power. Having concerted their plans, by what would be called in modern language a coup d'état, they suddenly arose and 'mastered Orchomenus, Charoneia, and other important towns in

Boeotia. As soon as this was known the heroic Tolmides at once started for the rescue with a thousand Hoplites. The far-sighted Pericles clearly discerned that this force was entirely insufficient for the important work on hand, and earnestly advised them, but in vain, to be cautious and to make more complete preparations. Tolmides succeeded in capturing Charoneia, but he was suddenly surprised near Coroneia himself, and many of his men slain, and a large number of his Hoplites taken

B. C. 447.

prisoners. This defeat was ruinous. It was not that the loss was so very great, for Athens was able to sustain a still heavier blow; but here, as elsewhere in Greek history, the capture of the prisoners was of the greatest political importance. They belonged to the best and most influential Athenian families, and no sacrifice would be considered too great for their restoration. As the price of their deliverance Athens agreed to entirely relinquish her position in Boeotia, throughout all the cities the exiles were restored, and Boeotia, instead of being a powerful auxiliary became the deadly enemy of the Athenians.

More misfortunes were behind. Almost simultaneously a revolt broke out in Euboea and in Megara. The five years' truce which Cimon had made with Sparta was now over, and the Spartans immediately took the field, designing an invasion of Attica. Pericles was in Euboea, endeavouring to subdue the revolted island with an Athenian army. The Megarians had put the Athenian garrison to the sword except those who had escaped to the port of Nisæa, and had invoked the help of the Corinthians. At the same time the Peloponnesian army had commenced ravaging the fertile plains of the coast of Attica. Nothing less seemed threatened than the entire and speedy extinction of the whole imperial power of Athens. It required all the activity and genius of Pericles to extricate his country from this mesh of ruinous circumstances. Suddenly, however, the Spartan army withdrew from Attic soil. It was surmised, with apparent truth, that a youthful king of Sparta, who commanded, had been heavily bribed by Pericles to return. In the public accounts, Pericles charged a certain item of ten talents as expended on a proper but nameless service for necessary expenses; and the Athenians allowed the item to pass in silence. Moreover, the young king, Pleistoanax, the son of the famous Pausanias, fled Sparta, and took refuge in a sanctuary. For many years he lived in a mountain temple of Arcadia, having half his house within the sacred precinct, that he might enjoy the benefit of the sanctuary. When this immediate danger was for a moment escaped, Pericles passed over into Euboea, which

A

he thoroughly subdued, and brought the whole island completely into obedience. The rich pastures of Euboea were of the utmost importance to the Athenians. large tract of Euboean territory was given up to the use of the poorer citizens.

Yet Pericles could not but be aware that he had only staved off the danger for a time, and that this rising against Athens in so many quarters clearly foreboded the dismemberment of the empire. It was necessary to conclude peace on terms that were hard indeed, but still the best that were attainable. A truce for thirty years was concluded with Sparta on certain conditions. First, the Athenians were required to surrender all the influence which they had obtained in the Peloponnesus. They had to give up Trozen and Achaia, the territory which they possessed there. They had already lost the Megarid, and they were now obliged to give up the port of Nisæa, which they had retained. Megaris now passed over from the alliance of Athens into that of Sparta. This defection caused the keenest regret to the Athenians, for it left their territory bare and exposed to invasion, and we shall afterwards see how greatly they suffered in consequence. Moreover, as the revolt of the Megarians had primarily caused all their misfortunes, the Athenians hated them with a peculiar energy of hatred. On these heavier terms, therefore, a truce of thirty years was concluded,' which, however, really lasted a much shorter time.

B.C. 445.

We must now look at the internal politics of the Imperial city. After the death of Cimon, Thucydides (who is not to be confounded with the celebrated historian of that name) became the leader of the aristocratic party. He was a man of ability and eloquence, but not so great a man or so great a statesman as Pericles. When a king of Sparta asked him whether he or Pericles was the better wrestler-" When I throw Pericles," he answered, "he always contrives to make the spectators believe that he has had no fall." Thucydides possessed considerable ability in the art of managing a popular assembly, and he formed an organized opposition to Pericles, his friends, and his policy. The point, how· αἱ τριακονταέτεις μετὰ Εὐβοίας ἅλωσιν σπονδαί.

ever, which he selected for his main opposition to Pericles, was ill chosen, and one on which he was not at all likely to carry the feelings of the Athenians with him. He objected to the lavish expenditure with which Pericles was adorning Athens out of the public funds. The opposition offered by Thucydides altogether failed, and by the process of ostracism Thucydides himself was driven into exile. He was, nevertheless, honourably distinguished in Greek opinion as an excellent citizen, and endowed with an hereditary good-will towards the people.

His forced retirement left the field entirely open for Pericles, who now for many years is the central figure of Athenian history. His influence was supreme, with only slight checks, in the Athenian councils to the end of his life. To quote the language of the historian Thucydides, "though the constitution was in name a democracy, it was, in point of fact, a government administered by one

man.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.

ON THE CHANGES IN THE ATHENIAN CONSTITUTION MADE BY PERICLES.

IN the time of Pericles the constitution of Cleisthenes under which the Athenians were living received several important modifications of a wide and even revolutionary description.

We have already mentioned how he and Ephialtes had considerably mutilated the court of the Areopagus. This was mainly done by a transference of its judicial powers to the democracy. Cases of homicide, however, were still left to the Areopagus. The magistrates also were deprived of their judicial and confined to their executive functions. Ephialtes brought down the laws of Solon from the Areopagus to the market-place, in token that judicial powers had passed into the hands of the people. There was a regular organization of the Athenians in their judicial capacity of dikasts (dikaotaí),

1 Thucyd. ii. 65.