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tidas, that he might apply to the king for the money, and that it depended on him to find means for the subsistence of his army. This conduct gave him great trouble, and distressed him exceedingly; for he had brought no money with him from Sparta, and could not resolve to extort any from the citizens, as he found them sufficiently rifled already.

In this urgent necessity, a person having offered him fifty talents, that is to say, fifty thousand crowns, to obtain a favour he could not grant with justice, he refused them. Upon which Cleander, one of his officers, said, "I would accept them were I in your place." And so would I" replied the general, I in yours. were

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He had no other resource therefore than to go, as Lysander had done, to ask money at the gates of the king's general and lieutenants, for which he was the least proper of all mankind. Nurtured and educated in the love of liberty, full of great and noble sentiments, and infinitely remote from all flattery and baseness, he was convinced at heart, that it was less evil and dishonour for Greeks to be overcome by Greeks, than infamously to make their court, and beg at the gates of barbarians, whose only merit consisted in their gold and silver. The whole nation was indeed disgraced by so mean a prostitution. Cicero, in his ofhces, draws two very different characters of persons employed in the administration of government, and makes the application of them to the two generals of whom we speak. The one, says he, zealous lovers of the truth, and declared enemies of all fraud, piqued themselves upon their simplicity and candour, and do not believe that it can ever consist with honour to lay snares, or use artifice. The others, prepared to do or suffer any thing, are not ashamed of the meanest actions and prostitutions, provided, from those unworthy means, they have reason to expect the success of their designs. Cicero places Callicratidas among the former, and Lysander among the latter, to whom he gives two epitaphs not much to his honour, and hardly consistent with the Spartan character, when he calls him " very artful and very patient," or rather "very complaisant."t

Callicratidas, however, forced by necessity, went to Lydia, and repaired immediately to the palace of Cyrus, where he desired that prince might be told, that the admiral of the Grecian fleet was come to speak with him. He was answered, that Cyrus was then at the table, engaged in a party of pleasure; to which he replied with a modest tone and air, that he was in no haste, and would wait till the prince came forth. The guards set up a laugh, wondering at the honest stranger's simplicity, which had so little the air of the world in it; and he was obliged to retire. He came thither a second time and was again denied admittance. Upon which he returned to Ephesus, loading those with curses and imprecations who had first made their court to barbarians, and by their flattery and submissions had taught them to make their riches a title and pretence for insulting the rest of mankind. Addressing himself at the same time to those about him, he swore, that as soon as he returned to Sparta, he would use his utmost endeavours to reconcile the Greeks among themselves, that for the future they might become formidable to the barbarians and have no farther occasion for their aid to invade and ruin each other. But that generous Spartan, whose thoughts were so noble, and so worthy the Lacedæmonian name, and whose justice, magnanimity, and valour, might rank him with all that Greece had ever produced of the most excellent and most con summate, had not the good fortune to return to his country, nor apply himselt to a work so great and so worthy of him.

*Plut. in Apoph. p. 222.

Sunt his alii multum dispares, simplices et aperti; qui nihil ex occulto, nihil ex insidiis agendum putant; veritatis cultores, fraudis inimici: itemque alii, qui quidvis perpetiantur, cuivis deserviant, dum, quod ve lint, consequantur. Quo in genere versatissimum et patientissimum Lacedæmonium Lysandrum accepi mus, contraque Callicratidem. Offic. 1. i. n. 109.

The Greek says literally that he was drinking, wives. The Persians valued themselves upon drinking a great deal, as an instance of their merit, as we shall see in Cyrus's letter to the Lacedæmonians. VOL. II.

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SECTION V.-ÇALLICRATIDAS IS DEFEATED BY THE ATHENIANS. SENTENCE OF DEATH PASSED ON SOME ATHENIAN GENERALS. SOCRATES ALONE OPPOSES THIS SENTENCE.

CALLICRATIDAS, after having gained several victories over the Athenians, had at last pursued Conon one of their generals into the port of Mitylene, where he kept him blocked up. This was in the twenty-sixth year of the Peloponnesian war. Conon seeing himself besieged by sea and land, without hope of aid, and in want of provisions, found means to apprize Athens of the extreme danger he was in. Extraordinary efforts were made to relieve him, and in less than a month's time a fleet of one hundred and ten sail were fitted ut, on board of which were embarked all who were capable of bearing arms, s well slaves as freemen, with some horse. At Samos they were joined by he allies with forty galleys, and steered for the Arginusæ, islands situated between Cuma and Mitylene. Callicratidas being informed of their course, left Eteonicus to continue the siege with fifty ships, and put to sea with a hundred and twenty sail, with design to face the enemy, and prevent their relieving Conon. The right wing of the Athenians was commanded by Protomachus and Thrasylus, who had each fifteen galleys. They were supported by a second line with a like number of ships, commanded by Lysias and Aristogenes. The left wing, like the other, drawn up in two lines, was under Aristocrates and Diomedon, supported by Erasinidas and Pericles, son of the great Pericles. The main body, consisting of near thirty galleys, among which were the three Athenian admirals, was disposed in one line. They had strengthened each of their wings with a second line; because their galleys were neither so swift, nor so easy to manage, as those of the enemy; so that there was reason to fear their getting between two, and being charged on both sides at the same time. The Lacedæmonians and their allies, who perceived they were inferior in number to the enemy, contented themselves with drawing up in one line, in order to equal their front, and for the greater facility of running between the Athenian galleys, and turning nimbly round them. Callicratidas's pilot, daunted at the inequality, advised him not to hazard the battle, and to retire: but he replied, that he could not fly without shame; and that his death was of small importance to the republic. "Sparta," said he, "does not depend upon one man. He commanded the right wing, and Thrasondas the Theban, the left.*

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It was terrible to behold the sea covered with three hundred galleys ready to engage. Never had more numerous naval armies of the Greeks joined battle before. The ability, experience and valour of the generals who commanded, left nothing to desire; so that there was reason to believe this battle would decide the fate of both people, and put an end to a war that had endured so long. When the signals were given, the two armies raised great shouts, and began the fight. Callicratidas, who, from the answer of the augurs, expected to fall in the battle, performed amazing acts of valour. He attacked the enemy with incredible courage and boldness, sunk some of their ships, disabled others by breaking their oars, and piercing their sides with the prow or beak of his galley. At length he attacked that of Pericles, and made a thousand holes in it; but the latter having hooked him fast with a grappling iron, he found it impossible to disengage himself, and was surrounded in an instant by several of the Athenian vessels. His own was immediately filled with the enemy, and after a dreadful slaughter, he fell dead, rather overwhelmed by their numbers than vanquished. The right wing, which he commanded, having lost its admiral, was put to flight. The left, composed of Boeotians, and Fubœans, still made a long and vigorous resistance, actuated by a fear of falling into the hands of the Athenians, against whom they had revolted; but they

* Xenoph. Hellen. 1. i. p. 444-452. Diod. 1. xiii. p. 198. et 206. 217-222

were at length obliged to give way, and retire in disorder. The Athenians erected a trophy in the Arginusæ. They lost twenty-five galleys in this battle, and the enemy more than seventy, of which number were nine of the ten furnished by the Lacedæmonians.

Plutarch equals Callicratidas, the Lacedæmonian general, for his justice, valour, and magnanimity, with all who had ever rendered themselves most worthy of admiration among the Greeks.*

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He blames him, however, exceedingly for hazarding the battle at the Arginusæ, and observes, that to avoid the reproach of having retired out of fear, he had, through a mistaken sense of honour, failed in the essential duty of his function. For," says Plutarch, "if, to use the comparison of Iphicrates,† the light armed infantry resemble the hands, the horse the feet, the main body the breast, and the general the head; the general, who abandous himself rashly to the impetuosity of his valour, does not so much neglect or expose his own life, as the lives of those whose safety depends upon his. Our Lacedæmonian chief was therefore in the wrong," continues Plutarch, "to answer the pilot, who advised him to retire, 'Sparta does not depend upon one man.'" For though it be true, that Callicratidas, fighting under the orders of another by sea or land, was no more than one man; yet, commanding an army, all who obeyed his orders were collected in his person; and he, in whom so many thousands might be lost, was no longer one man. Cicero had passed the same judgment upon him before Plutarch. After having said, that there were many persons to be found, who were ready to sacrifice their fortunes, and even their lives, for their country, but who out of false delicacy in point of glory, would not hazard their reputation for it in the least; he cites the example of Callicratidas, who answered those who advised him to retreat from the Arginusæ, "That Sparta could fit out another fleet if this were lost; but for himself, he could not fly before the enemy without shame and infamy."§

I return to the sequel of the battle near the Arginusæ. The Athenian generals ordered Theramenes, Thrasybulus, and some other officers, to return with about fifty galleys, to take up the wrecks and dead bodies, in order to inter them, while they rowed on with the rest against Eteonicus, who kept Conon besieged before Mitylene. But a violent tempest came on suddenly, and prevented the execution of this order. Eteonicus having received news of the defeat, and fearing that it might occasion alarm and terror among the troops, sent back those who brought it, with orders to return with wreaths of flowers upon their heads, and to give out, that Callicratidas had gained the victory, and destroyed the whole Athenian fleet. Upon their return, he offered sacrifices of thanksgiving, and having made his troops take some refreshment, he sent the galleys away directly, the wind being fair, and marched off the land army to Methymna, after having burned the camp. Conon being delivered in this manner from the blockade, joined the victorious fleet, which returned forthwith to Samos. But, when it was known at Athens, that the dead bodies had been left without interment, the people were highly enraged, and laid the whole weight of their resentment upon those whom they believed guilty of that crime. The ancients held it a great one not to provide sepulture for the dead; and we may observe, that after all their battles, the first care of the conquered, notwithstanding the sense of their misfortune and their great affliction for a bloody defeat, was to demand a suspension of arms from the victor, in order to pay their last duties to those who had fallen in battle, on which they believed their happiness in another life depended. Although the pagans had but confused

* Plut. in Lysand. p. 436.

He was a famous general of the Athenians.
Plut. in Pelop. p. 278.

Inventi multi sunt, qui non modo pecuniam, sed vitam etiam, profundere pro patria parati essent, iidem gloria jacturam ne minimam quidem facere vellent, ne republica quidem postulante: ut Callicratidas, qui, cum, Lacedæmoniorum dux fuisset Peloponnesiaco bello, multaque fecisset egregie, vertit ad extremum omnia, cum consilio non paruit eorum, qui classem ab Arginusis removendam, nec cum Atheniensibus demicandum putabant. Quibus ille respondit, Lacedæmonios, classe illa amissa, aliam parare posse; se fugere sinę suo dedecore non posse.-Offic. I. i. n. 48.

ideas of the future state of the body, yet, the concern of the soul for the body after death, the religious regard paid to it and the zeal of their solemn obsequies, seem to argue that tradition had universally impressed upon the minds of all men some indistinct notions of a resurrection.

Hence arose the fury of the people of Athens. They immediately nominated new generals, retaining only Conon and appointing Adimantes and Philocles his colleagues. Eight days after which, two of them absconded, and only six returned to Athens. Theramenes, the tenth general, who returned before the rest of the fleet, accused the other chiefs before the people, making them responsible for not bringing off the dead after the battle; and to clear himself, read the letter they had written to the senate and people, wherein they excused themselves by the violence of the storm, without charging any body. That calumny was detestably vile, being an abuse of their reserve in not mentioning him in their letter, and in not laying a fault to his charge, of which he might have appeared the most guilty. The generals, at their return, not being able to obtain a reasonable time for making their defence, contented themselves with representing in few words the state of the affair, and appealed for the truth of what they said to the pilots, and all present when it happened. The people seemed to receive their excuse favourably, and several persons offered themselves for their sureties; but night coming on, it was thought proper to adjourn the assembly, and it being the people's custom to give their suffrages by lifting up of hands, their resolution could not be known; besides which, the council were first to give their opinion upon the question to be proposed to the people.

The feast of Apaturia unexpectedly coming on, in which it was the custom to assemble by families, the relations of Theramenes posted several persons in mourning habits and shaved, in proper places, who said they were the kindred of those who had been slain in the battle, and obliged Callixenes to accuse the generals in the senate. It was decreed in consequence, that as the accusation and defence had been heard in the last assembly, the people by their respective tribes should give their voices, and if the accused were found guilty, they should be punished with death, their estates confiscated, and the tenth part consecrated to the goddess Minerva. Some senators opposed this decree as unjust and contrary to the laws: but as the people, at the instigation of Callixenes, threatened to include the opposers in the same cause and crime with the generals, they were so mean as to desist from their opposition, and to sacrifice the innocent generals to their own safety, by consenting to the decree. Socrates, the celebrated philosopher, was the only one of the senators who stood firm, and persisted obstinately in opposing a decree so notoriously unjust, and so contrary to all laws. The orator, who mounted the tribunal in defence of the generals, showed, "that they had failed in nothing of their duty, as they had given orders that the dead bodies should be taken up: that if any one were guilty, it was he, who being charged with these orders, had neglected to put them in execution; but that he accused nobody; and that the tempest which came on expectedly at the very instant, was an unanswerable apology, and entirely discharged the accused from all guilt. He demanded that a whole day should be given them for their defence, a favour not denied to the most criminal, and that they should be tried separately. He represented, that they were not in the least obliged to precipitate a sentence, wherein the lives of the most illustrious of the citizens were concerned; that it was in some measure attacking the gods to make men responsible for the winds and weather;* that they could not, without the most flagrant ingratitude and injustice, put the conquerors to death, to whom they ought to decree crowns and honours, or give up the defenders of their country to the rage of those who envied them; that, if they did so, their unjust judgment would be followed with a sudden, but vain repentance, which would leave behind it the sharpest remorse, and cover

Quem adeo iniquum, ut sceleri assignet, quod venti et fluctus deliquerint t-Tacit. Annal. 1. xv. c.

them with eternal shame and infamy." The people seemed at first to be moved with these reasons; but animated by the accusers, they pronounced sentence of death against eight of their generals; and six of them who were present were seized, in order to their being carried to the place of execution. One of them, Diomedon, a person of great reputation for his valour and probity, demanded to be heard. 66 Athenians," said he, "I wish the sentence you have passed upon us may not prove the misfortune of the republic; but I have one favour to ask of you in behalf of my colleagues and myself, which is, to acquit us before the gods of the vows we made to them for you and ourselves, as we are not in a condition to discharge them; for it is to the protection, invoked before the battle, we acknowledge that we are indebted for the victory gained by us over the enemy." There was not one good citizen that did not melt into tears at this discourse, so full of goodness and religion, and admire with surprise the moderation of a person, who, seeing himself unjustly condemned, did not however vent the least resentment, or even complaint against his judges, but was solely intent, in favour of an ungrateful country which had doomed them to perish, upon what it owed the gods in common with them, for the victory they had lately obtained.

The execution of the six generals was scarcely over, when the people opened their eyes, and perceived all the horror of that sentence; but their repentance could not restore the dead to life. Callixenes, the orator, was put in prison, and was refused to be heard. Having found means to make his escape, he fled to Decelia, to the enemy, from whence he returned some time after to Athens, where he died of hunger, universally detested and abhorred by all the world, as all false accusers and sianderers should be. Diodorus remarks, that the people themselves were justly punished for their crime by the gods, who abandoned them soon after, not to a single master, but to thirty tyrants, who treated them with the utmost rigour and cruelty.

The disposition of a people is very naturally depicted in this account; and Plato, upon the same event, draws in few words their character with much spirit and resemblance. "The commonalty," says he," is an inconstant, ungrateful, cruel, suspicious animal, incapable of submitting to the government of reason; which is no wonder, adds he, as it is commonly composed of the dregs of a city, and is a monstrous assemblage, without form or order, of all that is worst in it."*

The same relation shows what effect fear can have upon the minds of men, even upon those who pass for the wisest, and how few there are, who are capable of supporting inflexibly the view of present danger and disgrace. Though the justness of the general's cause was perfectly known in the senate, at least by the major part of it, as soon as the people's rage was mentioned, and the terrible menaces they murmured, those grave senators, most of whom had commanded armies, and who all of them had frequently exposed themselves to the greatest dangers of war, instantly changed sides, and came over to the most notorious calumny, and crying injustice that ever took place: an evident proof, that there is a courage, though very rare, which infinitely transcends the valour that induces so many thousands of men, every day, to confront the most terrible dangers in battle.

Among all the judges, only one truly worthy of his reputation, the great Socrates, stood firm and immoveable, in this general treason and perfidy; and though he knew that his suffrage and unaided voice would be of little or no consequence to the accused, he thought them a just homage to oppressed innocence, and that it was unworthy an honest man to govern himself by the fury of a blind and frantic people. We see, in this instance, how far the cause of justice may be abandoned. We may conclude that it was not better defended before the people. Of more than three thousand citizens, who composed the assembly, two only took upon them the defence of their generals, Euriptode

*Plut. in Axioch. p. 368, 369 † Ὁν γὰρ ἐφάινετό μοι σεμνὸν δήμω μαινομένω συεξαρχεια

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