The Plutus, written in 388 is a singular work. An honest old man Chremylus enters with Carion "his most faithful and most thievish servant". They are holding fast a blind old man, in obedience to an oracle of Apollo. After a little questioning the stranger admits that he is Plutus, the god of wealth. Wild with joy they invite him to their house. He does not like houses, for they have never brought him to any good.

"If I enter a stingy man's abode, he immediately digs me deep in the earth and denies he has ever seen me. If I enter a crazy man's home, given to dicing and fast living, I am soon ejected naked."

Learning that Chremylus is honest and poor he consents to try once again.

The rumour gets abroad that Chremylus has suddenly grown rich; his acquaintance reveal their true characters as they come to question him about his luck. The goddess Poverty enters, to be cross-examined by Chremylus who has suggested that Plutus should recover his sight under the healing care of Asclepius. Before the care is effected, she points out the dangers of his project. He is well-meaning, but foolish; Poverty is not Mendicancy, it means a life of thrift, with nothing left over but with no real want; it is the source of the existence of all the handicrafts, nor can the slaves be counted on to do the work if everybody becomes rich, for nobody will sell slaves if he has money already. Riches on the other hand are the curse of many; wealth rots men, causing gout, dropsy and bloated insolence; the gods themselves are poor, otherwise they would not need human sacrifice.

The cure is successful; Plutus recovers his eyes and can see to whom he gives his blessings; the good and the rascals alike receive their due reward. The change which wealth produces in men's natures is most admirably depicted in the Epilogue.

This is an Allegory dramatised with no little skill. The piece is full of the shrewdest hits at our human failings, aimed, however, with no ill-nature. Aristophanes' power of characterisation here shows no falling-off. Fortune's fickleness is proverbial and has received frequent literary treatment. Men's first prayer is for wealth; poverty, according to Dr. Johnson, is evidently a great evil because it needs such a long defence. Yet it is only the well-meaning but utterly unpractical idealists who desire to make us all prosperous—

"How that may change our nature, that's the question."

Some are not fit for riches, being ignorant of their true function; self-indulgence and moral rottenness follow wealth; because of the abuse of the power which wealth brings, we are taught that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

It is difficult to convey an adequate impression of Aristophanes to the English reader. Long excerpts are impossible and undesirable. Comedy is essentially a mirror of contemporary life; it contains all kinds of references to passing political events and transient forms of social life; its turns of language are peculiar to its own age. We who are familiar with Shakespeare know that one of our chief difficulties in reading him is the constant reference to what was obvious to the Elizabethan public but is dark to us. Yet the plays of Aristophanes in an English translation such as that of Frere read far more like modern work than the comedies of Ben Jonson, for the society in which Aristophanes moved was far more akin to ours. It was democratic, was superficially educated, was troubled by socialistic and communistic unrest exactly as we are. Some of our modern thinkers would be surprised to find how many of their dreamings were discussed twenty-three centuries ago by men quite as intelligent and certainly as honest.

Aristophanes' greatest fault is excessive conservatism. He gives us a most vivid description of the evils and abuses of his own time, yet has no remedy except that of putting back the hands of the clock some fifty years. Marathon, Aeschylus, the nascent democracy were his ideal and he was evidently put out by the ending of the period of "Periclean calm." He then has no solution for the problems in front of him. But it might be asked whether a dramatist's business is not rather to leave solutions to the thinker, concerning himself only with mirroring men's natures. With singular courage and at no small personal risk this man attacked the great ones of his day, scourging their hypocrisies and exposing the real tendencies of their principles. If he has opened our eyes to the objections to popular government and popular poetry and has made us aware of the significance of the feminist movement, let us be thankful; we shall be more on our guard and be less easily persuaded that problems are new or that they are capable of a final solution.

On the other hand, we shall find in him qualities of a most original type. His spirits are inexhaustible, he laughs heartily and often without malice at the follies of the mass of men; Cleon and Euripides were anathema to him, but the rest he treats as Fluellen did Pistol: "You beggarly knave, God bless you". His lyrics must be classed with the best in Greek poetry. Like Rabelais this rollicking jolly spirit disguises his wisdom under the mask of folly, turning aside with some whimsical twist just when he is beginning to be too serious. He will repay the most careful reading, for his best things are constantly turning up when least expected. His political satire ceasing with the death of Cleon, he turned to the land of pure fancy among the winged careless things; he then raised the woman's question, started literary criticism and ended with Allegory. To few has such a noble cycle of work been vouchsafed; we owe him at least a debt of remembrance, for he loved us as our brother.

TRANSLATIONS:

Frere (verse). This spirited version of five plays is justly famous. Various plays have been rendered into verse by Rogers (Bell). The translation is on the whole rather free. The volumes contain excellent introductions and notes.

No prose translation of outstanding merit has appeared.

The Greek tragedians have not received their due from translators and admirers. There is nothing in English drama inspired by Greece to compare with the French imitations of Seneca, Plautus and Terence.



HERODOTUS

Greek historical literature follows the same course of development as Greek poetry; it begins in epic form in Ionia and ends in dramatic type at Athens.

Herodotus, "the father of History", was born at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor about 484 B.C. He travelled widely over the East, Egypt, North Africa and Greece. He was acquainted with the Sophoclean circle, joined the Athenian colony at Thurii in South Italy and died there before the end of the century. His subject was the defeat of the Persian attack on Greece and falls into three main divisions. In the first three books he tells how Persian power was consolidated: in the next three he shows how it flooded Russia, Thrace and Greece, being stemmed at Marathon in 490; the last three contain the story of its final shattering at Salamis and Plataea in 480 and of the Greek recoil on Asia in 479. It is thus a "triple wave of woes" familiar to Greek thought. His dialect is Ionic, which he adopted because it was the language of narrative poetry and prose.

His introduction leads at once into Romance; he intends to preserve the memory of the wonderful deeds of Greeks and Barbarians, the cause of their quarrel being the abductions of women, Io, Europe, Medea, Helen. A more recent aggressor was Croesus, King of Lydia, who attacked the Greek seaboard. The earlier reigns of Lydian kings are recounted in a series of striking narratives. Gyges was the owner of the famous magic ring which made its possessor invisible. His policy of expansion was continued by his son and grandson. But Croesus, his great-grandson, was the wealthiest of all, extending his realm from as far as the Halys, the boundary of Cyrus' Persian Empire. Solon's famous but fictitious warning to him to "wait till the end comes before deciding whether he had been happy" left him unmoved. Soon clouds began to gather. A pathetic misadventure robbed him of his son; the growing power of Persia alarmed him and he applied to Delphi for advice. The oracle informed him that if he crossed the Halys he would ruin a mighty Empire and suggested alliance with the strongest state in Greece. Finding that Athens was still torn by political struggles consequent upon the romantic banishments and restorations of Peisistratus, he joined with Sparta which had just overcome a powerful rival, Tegea in Arcadia.

Croesus crossed the Halys in 554. After fighting an indecisive battle he retired to his capital Sardis. Cyrus unexpectedly pursued him. The Lydian cavalry stampeded, the horses being terrified by the sight and odour of the Persian camel corps. Croesus shut himself up in Sardis which he thought impregnable. An excellent story tells how the Persians scaled the most inaccessible part of the fortress. Croesus was put on a pyre and there remembered the words of Solon. Cyrus, dreading a similar revolution of fortune, tried in vain to save him from the burning faggots; the fire was too fierce for his men to quench, but Apollo heard Croesus' prayer and sent a rainstorm which saved him. Being reproached by the fallen monarch who had poured treasure into his temple, Apollo replied that he had staved off ruin for three full years, but could not prevail against Fate; besides, Croesus should have asked whose Empire he was to destroy; at least Apollo had delivered him from death. The Lydian portion ends with a graphic description of laws, customs and monuments.

The rise of Persia is next described. Assyria, whose capital was Nineveh, was destroyed by Cyaxares of Media, whose capital was Ecbatana. His son Astyages in consequence of a dream married his daughter Mandane to a Persian named Cambyses. A second dream made him resolve to destroy her child Cyrus who, like Oedipus, was saved from exposure by a herdsman. Later, on learning Cyrus' identity, Astyages punished Harpagus whom he had bidden to remove the child. Harpagus sowed mutiny in the Median army, giving the victory to the Persians in 558. Cyrus proceeded to attack the Asiatic Greeks, of whom the Phocaeans left their home to found new states in Corsica and Southern Gaul; the other cities surrendered. Babylon was soon the only city in Asia not subject to Persia. Cyrus diverted the course of the Euphrates and entered the town in 538. In an attack on Tomyris, queen of a Scythian race, Cyrus was defeated and slain in 529.

His son Cambyses determined to invade Egypt, the eternal rival of the Mesopotamian kings. Herodotus devotes his second book to a description of the marvels of Egypt, through which he travelled as far as Elephantine on the border of Ethiopia. He opens with a plain proof that Egypt is not the most ancient people, for some children were kept apart during their first two years, nobody being allowed to speak with them. They were then heard to say distinctly the word "bekos" which was Phrygian for "bread". This evidence of Phrygian antiquity satisfied even the Egyptians.

In this second book there is hardly a single leading feature of Egyptian civilisation which is not discussed. The Nile is the life of the land; being anxious to solve the riddle of its annual rise, Herodotus dismisses as unreasonable the theory that the water is produced by the melting snow, for the earth becomes hotter as we proceed further south, and there cannot be snow where there is intense heat. The sun is deflected from its course in winter, which derangement causes the river to run shallow in that season. The religious practice of the land are well described, including the process of embalming; oracles, animals, medicine, writing, dress are all treated. He notes that in Egyptian records the sun has twice risen in the west and twice set in the east.

A long list of dynasties is relieved with many an excellent story, notably the very famous account of how Rhampsonitis lost his treasures and failed to find the robber until he offered him a free pardon; having found him he said the Egyptians excelled all the world in wisdom, and the robber all the Egyptians. The Pyramids are described; transmigration is discussed and emphasis is laid upon the growing popularity of Greek mercenaries. The book closes with the brilliant reign of Amasis, who made overtures to the Greek oracles, allied himself with Samos and permitted the foundation of an important Greek colony at Naucratis.

The third book opens with the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses in 525 on account of an insult offered him by Amasis. A Greek mercenary named Phanes gave the Persians information of the one means of attacking through the desert. After a fierce battle at Pelusium Egypt was beaten; for years afterwards skulls of both armies lay around, the Persian heads being easily broken by a pebble, the Egyptian scarcely breakable by stones. In victory Cambyses outraged Psammenitus, the defeated King; a fruitless expedition against Ethiopia and the Ammonians followed. The Egyptians were stirred by the arrival of their calf-god Apis; Cambyses mockingly wounded him and was punished with madness, slaying his own kindred and committing deeds of impiety.

At that time Egypt was leagued with the powerful island of Samos, ruled by Polycrates, a tyrant of marvellous good fortune. Suspecting some coming disaster to balance it, Amasis urged him to sacrifice his dearest possession to avert the evil eye. Polycrates threw his ring into the sea; it was retrieved by a fisherman. On hearing this, Amasis severed his alliance.

In the absence of Cambyses two Magi brothers stirred up revolt in Susa, one pretending to be Smerdis, the murdered brother of Cambyses. That monarch wounded himself in the thigh as he mounted his horse. The wound festered and caused speedy death. Meanwhile the false Smerdis held the sovereignty. He was suspected by Otanes, a noble whose daughter Phaedyme was married to him. At great personal risk she discovered that the King was without ears, a manifest proof that he was a Magian. Otane thens joined with six other conspirators to put the usurper down. Darius, son of Hystaspes, warned them that their numbers were too large for secrecy, advising immediate action. The two pretenders had meanwhile persuaded Prexaspes, a confidant of Cambyses, to assure the Persians that Smerdis really ruled. Prexaspes told the truth and then threw himself to death from the city walls. This news forced the conspirators' hands; rushing into the palace, they were luckily able to slay the usurpers.

The next question was, who should reign? Herodotus turned these Persians into Greeks, making them discuss the comparative merits of monarchy, oligarchy and democracy. They decided that their horses should choose the next king; he whose steed should first neigh should rule. Darius had a cunning groom named Oebares; that evening he took the horse and his mare into the market-place; next morning on reaching the same spot the horse did not fail to seat his master on the throne in 521. A review of the Persian Empire follows, with a description of India and Arabia.

Polycrates did not long survive. He was the first Greek to conceive the idea of a maritime empire. He was foully murdered by the Persian Oroetes, who decoyed him to the mainland by an offer of treasure and then crucified him. In the retinue of Polycrates was a physician, Democedes of Croton, who was captured by Oroetes. His fame spread to Susa at a time when no court doctor could treat Darius' sprained foot. Democedes was sent for and effected the cure; later he healed the Queen Atossa of a boil. Instructed by him she advised Darius to send a commission of fifteen Persians to spy out the Greek mainland under Democedes' guidance. After an exciting series of adventures the physician succeeded in returning to his native city. But the idea of an invasion of Greece had settled on Darius' mind. First, however, he took Samos, giving it to Syloson, Polycrates' brother who years before in Egypt had made him a present of a scarlet cloak while he was a mere guardsman. Darius consolidated his power in Asia by the capture of the revolted province of Babylon through the self-sacrifice of Zopyrus, son of one of the seven conspirators. The vivid story of his devotion is one of the very greatest things in Herodotus.

Persia being thus mistress of all Asia, of Samos and the seaboard, began to dream of subduing Greece itself. But first Darius determined to conquer his non-Greek neighbours. The fourth book describes the attack which Darius himself led against the Scythians in revenge for the twenty-eight years' slavery they inflicted on the Medes. A description of Scythia is relieved by an account of the circumnavigation of Africa by the Phoenicians and the voyage of Scylax down the Indus and along the coast of Africa to Egypt.

The war on the Scyths was dramatic and exciting, both sides acting in the spirit of chivalry. Crossing the Bosporus, Darius advanced through Thrace to the Danube which he spanned with a bridge. The Scyths adopted the favourite Russian plan of retreating into the interior, destroying the crops and hovering round the foe; they further led the Persians into the territories of their own enemies. This process at last wearied Darius; he sent a herald to challenge them to a straight contest or to become his vassals. The reply came that if Darius wished a conflict he had better outrage their ancestral tombs; as for slavery, they acknowledged only Zeus as their master. But the threat of slavery did its work. A detachment was sent to the Danube to induce the Ionian Greeks to strike for freedom by breaking down the bridge they were guarding, thus cutting off Darius' retreat. To the King himself a Scythian herald brought a present of a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows, implying that unless his army became one of the creatures it would perish by the arrows. The Scyths adopted guerilla tactics, leaving the Persians no rest by night and offering no battle by day. At last Darius began his retreat. One division of the Scythian horsemen reached the bridge before their foes, again asking the Ionians to destroy it. The Greeks pretended to consent, breaking down the Scythian end of it. Darius at last came to the place; to his dismay he found the bridge demolished. He bade an Egyptian Stentor summon Histiaeus, the Greek commandant, who brought up the fleet and saved the Persian host which retired into Asia.

In 509 a second expedition was dispatched against Barca, a colony of Cyrene. The history of the latter is graphically described, the first king being Battus, the Stammerer, who founded it in obedience to the directions of Apollo. Cyrene was brought under Cambyses' sway by Arcesilaus who had been banished. He misinterpreted an oracle and cruelly killed his enemies in Barca. When he was assassinated in that town his mother Pheretima fled from the metropolis Cyrene to Aryandes, the Persian governor in Egypt. Backed by armed force she besieged Barca which resisted bravely for nine months; at the end of that term an agreement was made that Barca should pay tribute and remain unassailed as long as the ground remained firm on which the treaty was made. But the Persians had undermined the spot, covering planks of wood with a loose layer of earth. Breaking down the planks they rushed in and took the town, Pheretima exacting a horrible vengeance. Yet she herself died soon after, eaten of worms. "Thus," remarks the historian, "do men, by too severe vengeances, draw upon their own heads the divine wrath."

The fifth book begins the concentration on purely Greek history. Darius had left Megabazus in command in Europe, retiring himself to Sardis. In that city he was much struck by the appearance of a Paeonian woman and ordered Megabazus to invade the country. He subdued it and Macedonia in 506-4, but in the process some of his commanders were punished for an insult to Macedonian women, revenge being taken by Alexander, son of King Amyntas; a bride shut the lips of a party sent to discover their fate. In Thrace, Megabazus began to suspect Histiaeus, the Ionian who had saved Darius and in return had been given a strong town, Myrcinus on the River Strymon. The King by a trick drew Histiaeus to Sardis and took him to the Capital, leaving his brother Artaphernes as governor in Sardis. But Histiaeus had been succeeded in Miletus by his nephew Aristagoras; to him in 502 came certain nobles from Naxos, one of the Cyclades isles, begging restoration from banishment. He decided to apply to Artaphernes for Persian help; this the viceroy willingly gave as it would further the Persian progress to the objective, the Greek mainland, across the Aegean in a direct line. The Persian admiral Megabates soon quarrelled with Aristagoras about the command and informed the Naxians of the coming attack. The expedition thus failed. Aristagoras, afraid to face Artaphemes whose treasure he had wasted, decided on raising a revolt of the whole of Ionia; at that very moment a slave came to him from his uncle in Susa with a message tattooed on his head, bidding him rebel.

Aristagoras first applied to Sparta for aid. When arguments failed, he tried to bribe the king Cleomenes. In the room was the King's little daughter Gorgo. Hearing Aristagoras gradually raise his offer from ten to fifty talents, the child said, "Father, depart, or the stranger will corrupt thee". Aristagoras received a better welcome at Athens. That city in 510 had expelled Hippias, the tyrant son of Peisistratus, who appealed to Artaphernes for aid. Hearing this, the Athenians sent an embassy asking the satrap not to assist the exile, but the answer was that if they wished to survive, they must receive their ruler back. Aristagoras therefore found the Athenians in a fit frame of mind to listen. They lent him a fleet of twenty sail and marched with him to Sardis which they captured and burned in 501. The revolt speedily spread over all the Asiatic sea-coast. On hearing of the Athenians for the first time, Darius directed a slave to say to him thrice a day, "Sire, remember the Athenians". He summoned Histiaeus and accused him of complicity in the revolt, but Histiaeus assured him of his loyalty and obtained permission to go to the coast. Meanwhile the Persians took strong action against the rebels, subduing many towns and districts. The book ends with the flight of Aristagoras to Myrcinus and his death in battle against the Thracians in 496.

The next book opens with the famous accusation of Histiaeus by Artaphernes: "Thou hast stitched this boot and Aristagoras hath put it on." Histiaeus in fear fled to his own city Miletus; being disowned there, he for a time maintained a life of privateering, but was eventually captured and crucified by Artaphernes. The Ionian revolt had been narrowed down to Miletus and one or two less important towns. The Greeks assembled a fleet, but a spirit of insubordination manifesting itself they were defeated at sea in the battle of Lade in 495. Next year Miletus fell but was treated with mercy. At Athens the news caused the greatest consternation; a dramatic poet named Phrynichus ventured to stage the disaster; the people wept and fined him a thousand talents, forbidding any similar presentation in future. Stamping out the last embers of revolt in Asia the Persians coasted along Thrace; before their advance the great Athenian Miltiades was compelled to fly from the Dardanelles to his native city. In 492 Mardonius was appointed viceroy of Asia Minor. He reorganised the provincial system and then attempted to double the perilous promontory of Athos, but only a remnant of his forces returned to Asia.

Next year Darius sent to all the Greek cities demanding earth and water, the tokens of submission. The islanders obeyed including Aegina, the deadly foe of Athens. A protest made by the latter led to a war between the two states in which Athens was worsted. Sparta itself had just been torn by an internal dissension between two claimants of the throne, one of whom named Demaratus had been ejected and later fled to the Persian court. The great expedition of 490 sailed straight across the Aegean, commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. Their primary objective was Eretria in Euboea, a city which had assisted the Ionians in their revolt. The town was speedily betrayed, the inhabitants being carried aboard the Persian fleet. Guided by Hippias the armament landed at the bay of Marathon, twenty-five miles from Athens. A vain appeal was sent to Sparta for succours; Athens, supported by the little Boeotian city of Plataea, was left to cope with the might of Persia.

It was fortunate that the Athenians could command the services of Miltiades who had already had some experience of the Persian methods of attack. The details of the great battle that followed depend upon the sole authority of Herodotus among the Greek writers. Many difficulties are caused by his narrative, but it seems certain that Miltiades was in command on the day on which the battle was actually fought. He apparently clung to the hills overlooking the plain and bay of Marathon until the Persian cavalry were unable to act. Seizing the opportunity, he led his men down swiftly to the combat; his centre which had been purposely weakened was thrust back but the two wings speedily proved victorious, then converged to assist the centre, finally driving the foe to the sea where a desperate conflict took place. The Persians succeeded in embarking and promptly sailed round the coast to Athens, but seeing the victors in arms before the town they sailed back to Asia. The Spartan reinforcements which arrived too late for the battle viewed the Persian dead and returned after praising the Athenians.

A slight digression tells the amusing story how the Athenian Hippocleides in his cups lost the hand of the princess of Sicyon because he danced on his head and waved his legs about, shouting that he didn't care. The great victor Miltiades did not long survive his glory. His attempt to reduce the island of Paros, which had sided with Persia, completely failed. Returning to Athens he was condemned and fined, shortly after dying of a mortified thigh.

In the third portion Herodotus gradually rises to his greatest height of descriptive power. Darius resolved on a larger expedition to reduce Greece. He made preparations for three years, then a revolt in Egypt delayed his plans and his career was cut short by death in 485. His successor Xerxes was disinclined to invade Europe, but was overborne by Mardonius his cousin. A canal was dug across the peninsula of Athos, a bridge was built over the Hellespont, and provisions were collected. A detailed account of the component forces is given, special mention being made of Artemisia, Queen of Herodotus' own city, who was to win great glory in the campaign. The army marched over the Hellespont and along the coast, the fleet supporting it; advancing through Thessaly, it reached the pass of Thermopylae, opposite Euboea, in 480.

On the Greek side was division; the Spartans imagined that their duty was to save the Peloponnese only; they were eager to build a wall across the isthmus of Corinth, leaving the rest of Greece to its fate. But Athens had produced another genius named Themistocles. Shortly before the invasion the silver mines at Laureium in Attica had yielded a surplus; he persuaded the city to use it for building a fleet of two hundred sail to be directed against Aegina. When the Athenians got an oracle from Delphi which stated that they would lose their land but be saved by their wooden walls, he interpreted the oracle as referring to the fleet. Under his management the city built more ships. The Council of Greece held at the Isthmus of Corinth decided that an army should defend Thermopylae while the fleet supported it close by at Artemisium. The Persian fleet had been badly battered in a storm as it sailed along the coast of Magnesia, nearly four hundred sail foundering; the remainder reached safe anchorage in the Malian gulf, further progress being impossible till the Greek navy was beaten or retired.

At Thermopylae the advance-guard was composed of Spartans led by Leonidas who determined to defend the narrow pass. A Persian spy brought the news to Xerxes that this small body of warriors were combing their hair. The King sent for Demaratus, the ex-Spartan monarch, who assured him that this was proof that the Spartans intended to fight to the death. After a delay of four days the fight began. The Spartans routed all their opponents including the famous Immortals, the Persian bodyguard. At length a traitor Ephialtes told Xerxes of a path across the mountains by which Leonidas could be taken in the rear. Learning from deserters and fugitives that he had been betrayed, Leonidas dismissed the main body, himself advancing into the open. After winning immortal glory he and his men were destroyed and the way to Greece lay open to the invader.

In three naval engagements off Artemisium the Greek fleet showed its superiority; a detachment of two hundred sail had been sent round the island of Euboea to block up the exit of the channel through which the Greek navy had to retreat, but a storm totally destroyed this force. When the army retreated from Thermopylae the Greek ships were obliged to retire to the Isthmus; in spite of much opposition the Athenians compelled Eurybiades the Spartan admiral to take up his station at Salamis, whither the Persian navy followed. Their army had advanced through Boeotia, attacking Delphi on the way. The story was told how Apollo himself defended his shrine, hurling down rocks on the invaders and sending supernatural figures to discomfit them. Entering Attica the barbarian host captured a deserted Athens, Xerxes sending the glad news to his subjects in the Persian capital.

The Greeks were with difficulty persuaded not to abandon the sea altogether. Themistocles was bitterly opposed in his naval policy by Adeimantus, the Corinthian; it was only by threatening to leave Greece with their fleet that the Athenians were able to bring the allies to reason. By a stroke of cunning Themistocles forced their hands; a messenger went to Xerxes with news of the Greek intention to retreat; on hearing this the Persians during the night blocked up the passages round Salamis and landed some of their best troops on a little island called Psyttaleia. The news of this encircling movement was brought to the allies by Aristides, a celebrated Athenian who was in exile, and was confirmed by a Tenian ship which deserted from the Persians. Next morning the Greeks sailed down the strait to escape the blockade and soon the famous battle began. Among the brave deeds singled out for special mention none was bolder than that of Artemisia who sank a friend to escape capture. The remainder of the Persian captains had no chance of resisting, being huddled up in a narrow channel. Seeing Artemisia's courage Xerxes remarked that his men had become women, his women men. The rout of the invaders was quickly completed, the chief glory being won by Aegina and Athens; the victory was consummated by the slaughter of the troops on Psyttaleia. The Persian monarch sent tidings of this defeat to his capital and in terror of a revolt in Ionia decided to retreat, leaving Mardonius in command of picked troops. He hurriedly passed along the way he had come, almost disappearing from Herodotus' story.

Mardonius accompanied him to Thessaly and Macedonia; he sent Alexander, King of the latter country, as an envoy to Athens, offering to rebuild the temples and restore all property in exchange for an alliance. Hearing the news the Spartans in fear for themselves sent a counter-embassy. The Athenian reply is one of the great things in historical literature. "It was a base surmise in men like the Spartans who know our mettle. Not all the gold in the world would tempt us to enslave our own countrymen. We have a common brotherhood with all Greeks, a common language, common altars and sacrifices, common nationality; it would be unseemly to betray these. We thank you for your offer to support our ruined families, but we will bear our calamities as we may and will not burden you. Lead out your troops; face the enemy in Boeotia and there give him battle."

The last book relates the consequences of the Athenian reply to Alexander. Mardonius advanced rapidly to Athens, which he captured a second time. The Spartans were busy keeping the feast of Hyacinthia; only an Athenian threat to come to terms with the foe prevailed on them to move. Mardonius soon evacuated Attica, the ground being too stony for cavalry, and encamped near Plataea. The Greeks followed, taking the high ground on Mount Cithaeron. A brave exploit of the Athenian infantry in defeating cavalry heartened the whole army. After eleven days' inaction, Mardonius determined to attack, news of his plan being brought secretly at night to the Athenians by Alexander. The Spartans, afraid of facing the Persians, exchanged places with the Athenians; when this movement was discovered by Mardonius, he sent a challenge to the Spartans to decide the battle by a single conflict between them and his Persian division. Receiving no reply, he let his cavalry loose on the Greeks who began to retire to a place called the Island, where horse could not operate. This action took place during the night. When morning broke the battle began. The Persian wicker shields could not resist their enemies' weapons; the host fled and after Mardonius fell was slaughtered in heaps. The Greek took vengeance on the Thebans who had acted with the Persians, of whom a mere remnant reached Asia under the command of Artabazus.

The victorious Greek fleet had advanced as far as Delos, commanded by Leotychides, a Spartan of royal blood. To them came an embassy from Samos, urging an attack on the Persians encamped on Mycale. It is said that the battle was fought on the same day as that of Plataea and that a divine rumour ran through the Greek army that their brothers had gained the day. In the action at Mycale the Athenians took the palm of valour, bursting the enemy's line and storming his entrenchments. This victory freed Ionia; it remained only to open the Dardanelles. The Spartans returned home, but the Athenians crossed from Abydos in Asia to Sestos, the strongest fortress in the district. The place was starved into surrender; with its capture ends the story of Persia's attempt to destroy European civilisation.

In this great Epic nothing is more obvious than the terror the Greeks felt when they first faced the Persians. The numbers arrayed against them were overwhelming, their despondency was justifiable. It required no little courage from a historian to tell the awkward truth—that Herodotus did tell it is no small testimony to his veracity. Yet only a little experience was needed to convince the Greeks that they were superior on both land and sea. Once the lesson was learned, they never forgot it. Mycale is the proof that they remembered it well. This same consciousness of superiority animated two other Greek armies, one deserted in the middle of Asia Minor, yet led unmolested by Xenophon through a hostile country to the shores of the Black Sea—the other commanded by Alexander the Great who planted Greek civilisation over every part of his conquests, from the coast to the very gates of Persia itself.

Modern history seems to have lost all powers of interesting its readers. It is as dull as political economy; it suspects a stylist, questions the accuracy of its authorities, tends to minimise personal influence on events, specialises on a narrow period, emphasises constitutional development, insists on the "economic interpretation" of an age and at times seems quite unable to manage with skill the vast stores of knowledge on which it draws. To it Herodotus is often a butt for ridicule; his credulity, inability to distinguish true causes, belief in divine influences, love of anecdote and chronological vagueness are serious blemishes. But to us Herodotus is literature; we believe that he himself laughs slyly at some of the anecdotes he has rendered more piquant by a pretended credulity; this quick-witted Greek would find it paid him to assume innocence in order to get his informers (like his critics) to go on talking. Like Froissart, Joinville, de Comines and perhaps even like Macaulay he wishes to write what will charm as well as what will instruct.

Yet as a historian Herodotus is great; he sifts evidence, some of which he mentions only to reject it; the substantial accuracy of his statements has been borne out by inscriptions; in fact, his value to-day is greater than it was last century. If a man's literary bulk is measured by the greatness of his subject, Herodotus cannot be a mean writer. His theme is nothing less than the history of civilisation itself as far as he could record it; his broad sweep of narrative may be taken to represent the wide speculation of a philosophic historian as opposed to the narrower and more intense examination of a short period which is characteristic of the scientific historian. He tells us of the first actual armed conflict between East and West, the never-ending eternally romantic story. As Persia fought Greece, so Rome subdued Carthage, Crusader attacked Saladin, Turkey submerged half Europe, Russia contended with Japan. The atmosphere of Herodotus is the unchanging East of the Bible, inscrutable Egypt, prehistoric Russia, barbarous Thrace, as well as civilised Greece, Africa, India; had he never written, much information would have been irretrievably lost, for example, the account of one of the "Fifteen decisive battles" in history. Let him be judged not as a candidate for some Chair of Ancient History in some modern University, but as the greatest writer of the greatest prose-epic in the greatest literature of antiquity.

Of his inimitable short stories it is difficult to speak with measured praise; it is dangerous to quote them, they are so perfect that a word added or omitted might spoil them. His so-called digressions have always some cogent reason in them; they are his means of including in the panorama a scene essential to its completeness. The narrow type of history writing has been tried for some centuries; all that it seems able to accomplish is to go on narrowing itself until it cannot enjoy for recording or remembering. It is a refreshing experience to move in the broad open regions of history in which Herodotus trod. If it is impossible to combine accurate research with the ecstasy of pure literature, be it so. Herodotus will be read with joy and laughter and sometimes with tears when some of our modern historians have been superseded by persons even duller than themselves.

TRANSLATIONS:

Rawlinson's edition with a version contains essays of the greatest value. It has been the standard for two generations and is not likely to be superseded.

The Loeb Series contains a version by A. D. Godley.

The great annotated edition of the text by R. W. Macan (Oxford) is the result of a lifetime's work. It contains everything necessary to confirm the claims of the historian.

The Great Persian War, by Grundy (London), is valuable.

See Bury, Ancient Greek Historians (Macmillan).



THUCYDIDES

History, like an individual's life, is a succession of well-defined periods. Herodotus took as his subject a long cycle of events; the shorter period was first treated by Thucydides who introduced methods which entitle him to be regarded as the first modern historian. Born in Attica in 471 he was a victim of the great plague, was exiled for his failure to check Brasidas at Eion in 424 and spent the rest of his life in collecting materials for his great work. His death took place about 402.

His preface is remarkable as outlining his creed. First he states his subject, the Peloponnesian war of 431-404; he then tests by an appeal to reason the statements in old legends and in Homer, arguing from analogy or from historical survivals in his own time to prove that various important movements were caused or checked by economic influence. He uses his imagination to prove that the importance of an event cannot be decided from the extant remains of its place of origin, for if only the ruins of both Sparta and Athens were left, Sparta would be thought to be insignificant and Athens would appear twice as powerful as she really is. Poetical exaggeration is easy and misleading, and ancient history is difficult to determine by absolute proofs.

"Men accept statements about their own national past from one another without testing them."

"To most men the search for truth implies no effort; they prefer to turn to the first accounts available."

"It was difficult for me to write an exact narrative of the speeches actually made; I have therefore given the words that might have been expected of each speaker, adhering to the broad meaning of what was really uttered. The facts I have not taken from any chance person, nor have I given my own impressions, but have as accurately as possible written a detailed account of what I witnessed myself or heard from others. The discovery of these facts was laborious owing to conflicting statements and confused memories and party favour. Perhaps the unromantic nature of my record will make it uninteresting; but if any person will judge it useful because he desires to consider a clear account of actual facts and of what is likely to recur at some future time, I shall be content. As a compilation it is rather an eternal possession than a prize-essay for a moment."

The essentially modern idea of history writing is here perfectly evident.

Having pointed out the significance of the war, not only to Greece but to the whole of the world, he gives its causes. To him the real root of the trouble was Sparta's fear of Athenian power: the alleged pretexts were different. The rise of Athens is rapidly described, her building of the walls broken down by the Persians, her control of the island-states in a Delian league which eventually became the nucleus of her Empire, her alliance with Megara, a buffer-state between herself and Corinth. This last saved her from fears of a land invasion; when she built for Megara long walls to the sea she incurred the intense anger of Corinth which smouldered for years and at last caused the Peloponnesian conflagration. The reduction of Aegina in 451 compensated for the loss of Boeotia and Egypt. Eventually the Thirty Years' Peace was concluded in 445; Athens gave up Megara, but retained Euboea; her definite policy for the future was concentration on a maritime empire; she controlled nearly all the islands of the Aegean and was mistress of the Saronic gulf, Aegina, "the eyesore of the Peiraeus", having fallen.

But if she was to confine her energies to the sea, it was essential that she should be mistress of all the trade-routes which in ancient history usually ran along the coast. On both east and west she found Corinth in possession; a couple of quarrels with this city ruptured the peace. In the west, Corinth had founded Corcyra (Corfu); this daughter colony quarrelled with her mother and prevailed. In itself Corcyra was of little importance in purely Greek politics, but it happened to possess a large navy and commanded the trade-route to Sicily, whence came the corn supply. When threatened with vengeance by Corinth, she appealed to Athens, where ambassadors from Corinth also appeared. Their arguments are stated in the speeches which are so characteristic of Thucydides. The Athenians after careful consideration decided to conclude a defensive alliance with Corcyra, for they dreaded the acquisition of her navy by Corinth. But circumstances turned this into an offensive alliance, for Corinth attacked and would have won a complete victory at sea but for timely Athenian succour. In the east Athens was even more vitally concerned in trade with the Hellespont, through which her own corn passed. On this route was the powerful Corinthian city Potidaea, situate on the western prong of Chalcidice. It had joined the Athenian confederacy but had secured independence by building strong walls. When the Athenians demanded their destruction and hostages as a guarantee, the town revolted and appealed to the mother-city Corinth. A long and costly siege drained Athens of much revenue and distracted her attention; but worst of all was the final estrangement of the great trade rival whom she had thwarted in Greece itself by occupying Megara, in the west by joining Corcyra, and in the east by attacking Potidsea.

The final and open pretext for war was the exclusion of Megara from all Athenian markets; this step meant the extinction of the town as a trading-centre and was a definite set-back to the economic development of the Peloponnese, of which Corinth and Megara were the natural avenues to northern Greece. The cup was full; Athenian ambition had run its course. The aggrieved states of the Peloponnese were invited to put their case at Sparta; Corinth drew a famous picture of the Athenian character, its restlessness, energy, adaptability and inventiveness. "In the face of such a rival," they added,

"Sparta hesitates; in comparison Spartan methods are antiquated, but modern principles cannot help prevailing; in a stagnant state conservative institutions are the best, but when men are faced with various difficulties great ingenuity is essential; for that reason Athens through her wide experience has made more innovations."

An Athenian reply failed to convince the allies of her innocence; one of the Spartan Ephors forced the congress to declare that Athens had violated the peace. A second assembly was summoned, at which the Corinthians in an estimate of the Athenian power gave reasons for believing it would eventually be reduced. They further appealed to what has never yet failed to decide in favour of war—race antagonism; the Athenians and her subjects were Ionians, whereas the Peloponnesians were mainly Dorians. The necessary vote for opening hostilities was secured; but first an ultimatum was presented. If Athens desired peace she must rescind the exclusion acts aimed at Megara. At the debate in the Athenian assembly Pericles, the virtual ruler, gave his reason for believing Athens would win; he urged a demand for the withdrawal of Spartan Alien Acts aimed at Athens and her allies and offered arbitration on the alleged grievances.

It is well to repeat the causes of this war: trade rivalry, naval competition, race animosity and desire for predominance. Till these are removed it is useless to expect permanent peace in spite of Leagues or Tribunals or Arbitration Courts. Further, it should be noted that Thucydides takes the utmost care to point out the excellent reasons the most enlightened statesmen had for arriving at contradictory conclusions; the event proved them all wrong without exception. The future had in store at least two events which no human foresight could discover, and these proved the deciding factors in the conflict.

The war began in 431 by a Theban attack on Plataea, the little town just over the Attic frontier which had been allied with Athens for nearly a century and protected her against invasion from the north. This city had long been hated by Thebes as a deserter from her own league; it alone of Boeotian towns had not joined the Persians. Burning with the desire to capture it, a body of Thebans entered the place by night, seizing the chief positions. But in the morning their scanty numbers were apparent; recovering from panic the Plataeans overwhelmed the invaders and massacred them. This open violation of the treaty kindled the war-spirit. Both sides armed, Sparta being more popular as pretending to free Greece from a tyrant. Their last ambassador on leaving Athenian territory said: "This day will be the beginning of mighty woes for Greece".

The Spartans invaded Attica, cutting down the fruit trees and forcing the country folk into the city; the Athenians replied by ravaging parts of Peloponnese and Megara. The funeral of the first Athenian victims of the war was the occasion of a remarkable speech. Pericles in delivering it expounds the Athenian ideal of life.

"We do not compete with other constitutions, we are rather a pattern for the rest. In our democracy all are equal before the law; each man is promoted to public office not by favour but by merit, according as he can do the State some service. We love beauty in its simplicity, we love knowledge without losing manliness. Our citizens can administer affairs both private and public; our working classes have an adequate knowledge of politics. To us the most fatal error is the lack of theoretical instruction before we attempt any duty. In a word, I say that Athens is an education for all Greece; individually we can prove ourselves competent to face the most varied forms of human activity with the maximum of grace and adaptability.... We have forced the whole sea and every land to open to our enterprise. Look daily at the material power of the city and love her passionately. Her glory was won by men who did their duty and sacrificed themselves for her. The whole world is the sepulchre of famous men; their memory is not only inscribed on pillars in their own country, it lives unwritten in the hearts of men in alien lands."

At the beginning of the next year a calamity which no statesman could have foreseen overtook Athens. A mysterious plague of the greatest malignity scourged the city, the mortality being multiplied among the crowds of refugees. The city's strength was seriously impaired, public and private morality were undermined, inasmuch as none knew how long he had to live. Discouraged by it and by the invasions the Athenians sent a fruitless embassy to Sparta and tinned in fury on Pericles. He made a splendid defence of his policy and gave them heart to continue the struggle; he pointed out that it was better to lose their property and save the State than save their property and lose the State; their fleet opened to them the world of waters over which they could range as absolute masters. Soon afterwards he died, surviving the opening of the war only two years and a half; his character and abilities received due acknowledgment from Thucydides.

At this point Sparta decided to destroy Plataea, the Athenian outpost in Boeotia. A very brilliant description of the siege and counter-operations reveals very clearly the Spartan inability to attack walled towns and explains their objection to fortified friends. Leaving the town guarded they retired for a time, to complete the work later. The war began to spread beyond the Peloponnese to the north of the Corinthian gulf, the control of which was important to both sides. The Acarnanians were attacked by Sparta and appealed to the Athenian admiral Phormio. Two naval actions in the gulf revealed the astonishing superiority of the Athenian navy on the high seas. Threatened in her corn supply in the west, Sparta began to intrigue with the outlying kingdoms on the north-east, the "Thraceward parts" on the trade-route being the objective.

A spirit of revolt against Athenian rule appeared in Lesbos, which seceded in 428. The chief town in this non-Ionic island was Mytilene, which sent ambassadors to Sparta. Their speech clearly explains how the Athenians were able to keep their hold on their policy; her policy (like that of Rome) was to divide the allies by carefully grading their privileges, playing off the weak against the stronger. The Spartans proved unable to help and the Athenians easily blockaded the city, capturing it early in 427. In their anger they at first decided to slay all the inhabitants, but a better feeling led to a reconsideration next day. In the Assembly two great speeches were delivered. Pericles had been succeeded by Cleon, to whom Thucydides seems to have been a little unjust. He opened his speech with the famous remark that a democracy cannot govern an Empire; it is liable to sudden fits of passion which make a consistent policy impossible. He himself never changed his plans, but his audience were different.

"You are all eyes for speeches, all ears for deeds; you judge of the possibility of a project from good speeches; accomplished facts you believe not because you see them but because you hear them from smart critics. You are easily duped by some novel plan, but you refuse to adhere to what has been proved sound. You are slaves to every new oddity and have nothing but contempt for what is familiar. Every one of you would like to be a good speaker, failing that, to rival your orators in cleverness. You are as quick to guess what is coming in a speech as you are slow at foreseeing its consequences. In a word, you live in some non-real world."

He pleaded for the rigorous application of the extreme penalty already voted.

He was opposed by Diodotus, who appealed to the same principle as Cleon did expediency.

"No penalty will deter men, not even the death penalty. Men have run through the whole catalogue of deterrents in the hope of securing themselves against outrage, yet offences still are common. Human nature is driven by some uncontrollable master passion which tempts it to danger. Hope and Desire are everywhere and are most mischievous, for they are invisible. Fortune too is as powerful a means of exciting men. At tunes she stands unexpectedly at their side and leads them to take risks with too slender resources. Most of all she tempts cities, for they are contending for the greatest prizes, liberty or domination. It is absolutely childish then to imagine that when human nature is bent on performing a thing it will be deterred by law or any other force. If revolting cities are quite sure that no mercy will be shown, they will fight to the last, bequeathing the victors only smoking ruins. It would be more expedient to be merciful and thus save the expenses of a long siege."

This saner view prevailed. The doctrine of a "ruling passion" is a remarkable contribution to Greek political thought, the abstract personifications reading like the work of a poet or philosopher. An exciting race against time is most graphically described. After great exertions the ship bearing the reprieve arrived just in time to save Mytilene. This act of mercy stands in sinister contrast with the treatment the unhappy Plataeans received from the liberators of Greece. The citizens were captured, Athens having strangely abandoned them in spite of her promise to help. They were allowed to commemorate their services to Greece, appealing in a most moving speech to the sacred ground of their city, the scene of the immortal battle. All was in vain. The Thebans accused them of flat treachery to Boeotia, securing their condemnation. Corcyra similarly proved unprofitable; it was afflicted by fratricidal dissensions which coloured one of Thucydides' darkest pictures. As the war went on it became clearer that it was a struggle between two rival political creeds, democracy and oligarchy. To the partisans all other ties were of little value, whether of blood or race or religion; only frenzied boldness and unquestioning obedience to a party organisation were of any consequence. This wretched spirit of feud was destined in the long run to spell the doom of the Greek cities. In 427 the first mention was made of the will-of-the-wisp which in time led Athens to her ruin. In her anxiety to intercept the Peloponnesian corn she supported Leontini against Syracuse, the leading Sicilian state. In Acarnania the capable general Demosthenes after a series of movements not quite fruitless succeeded in bringing peace to the jarring mountain tribes.

In 425 a most important event took place. As an Athenian squadron was proceeding to Sicily it was forced to put in at Pylos, where many centuries later Greece won a famous victory over the Turks. Demosthenes, though he had no official command, persuaded his comrades to fortify the place as a base from which to harry Spartan territory. It was situated in the country which had once belonged to the Messenians who for generations had been held down by the Spartan oligarchs. Deserters soon began to stream in; the gravity of the situation was recognised by the Spartan government who landed more than four hundred of their best troops on the island of Sphacteria at the entrance to the bay. These were speedily isolated by the Athenian navy; and news of the event filled all Greece with excitement. A heated discussion took place at Athens, where Cleon accused Nicias, the commander-in-chief, of slackness in not capturing the blockaded force. Spartan overtures for a peace on condition of the return of the isolated men proved vain; after a lively altercation with Nicias Cleon made a promise to capture the Spartans within thirty days, a feat which he accomplished with the aid of Demosthenes. Nearly three hundred were found to prefer surrender to death; these were conveyed to Athens and were an invaluable asset for bargaining a future peace.

A further success was the capture of Nisaea, the port of Megara, in 424, but an attempt to propagate democracy in Boeotia ended in a severe defeat at Delium; the fate of Plataea was a bad advertisement in an oligarchically governed district. Worse was to follow. Brasidas, a Spartan who had greatly distinguished himself at Pylos, passed through Thessaly with a volunteer force, reaching Thrace and capturing some important towns; the loss of one of these, Eion, caused the exile of the historian, who was too late to save it. In 423 a truce for one year was arranged between the combatants, but Brasidas ignored it, sowing disaffection among the Athenian allies. His personal charm gave them a good impression of the Spartan character and his offer of liberty was too attractive to be resisted. His success was partly due to a deliberate misrepresentation of the Athenian power which proved greater than it seemed to be. The two real obstacles to peace were Brasidas and Cleon; at Amphipolis they met in battle; a rash movement gave the Spartan an opportunity for an attack. He fell in action, but the town was saved. Cleon was killed in the same battle and the path to peace was clear. The truce for one year developed into a regular settlement in 421, Nicias being responsible for its negotiation in Athens. The chief clause provided that Athens should recover Amphipolis in exchange for the Spartan captives.

The members of the Peloponnesian league considered themselves betrayed by this treaty, for their hated rival Athens had not been humbled. Corinth was the ringleader in raising disaffection. She determined to create a new league, including Argos, the inveterate foe of Sparta. This state had stood aloof from the war, nursing her strength and biding her time for revenge. When Sparta failed to restore Amphipolis, the war party at Athens, led by Alcibiades, formed an alliance with Argos to reduce Sparta; but this policy alienated Corinth, who refused to act with her trade rival. An Argive attack on Arcadia ended in the fierce battle of Mantinea in 418, in which Sparta won a complete victory. Argos was forced to come to terms, the new league was dissolved and Athens was once more confronted by her combined enemies, her diplomacy a failure and her trump-card, the Sphacterian prisoners, lost.

Next year she was guilty of an act of sheer outrage. Her fleet descended on the island of Melos, which had remained neutral, though its inhabitants were colonists from the Spartan mainland close by. Nowhere does the dramatic nature of Thucydides' work stand more clearly revealed than in his account of this incident. He represents the Athenian and Melian leaders as arguing the merits of the case in a regular dialogue, essentially a dramatic device. The Athenian doctrine of Might and Expediency is unblushingly preached and acted upon, in spite of Melian protests; the island was captured, its population being slain or enslaved. Such an act is a fitting prelude to the great disaster which forms the next act of Thucydides' drama.

In 416 Athens proceeded to develop her design of subjugating Sicily. Segesta was at feud with Selinus; as the latter city applied to Syracuse for aid, the former bethought her of her ancient alliance with Athens. Next year the Sicilian ambassadors arrived with tales of unlimited wealth to finance an expedition. Nicias, the leader of the peace party, vainly counselled the Assembly to refrain; he was overborne by Alcibiades, whose ambition it was to reduce not only Sicily but Carthage also. When the expedition was about to sail most of the statues of Hermes in the city were desecrated in one night. Alcibiades, appointed to the command with Nicias and Lamachus, was suspected of the outrage, but was allowed to sail. The fleet left the city with all the pomp and ceremony of prayer and ritual, after which it showed its high spirits in racing as far as Aegina.

In Sicily itself Hermocrates, the great Syracusan patriot, repeatedly warned his countrymen of the coming storm, advising them to sink all feuds in resistance to the common enemy. He was opposed by Athenagoras, a democrat who, true to his principles, suspected the story as part of a militarist plot to overthrow the constitution. His speech is the most violent in Thucydides, but contains a passage of much value.

"The name of the whole is People, that of a part is Oligarchy; the rich are the best guardians of wealth, the educated class can make the wisest decisions, the majority are the best judges of speeches. All these classes in a democracy have equal power both individually and collectively. But oligarchy shares the dangers with the many, while it does not merely usurp the material benefits, rather it appropriates and keeps them all."

The Athenians received a cold welcome wherever they went. At Catana they found their state vessel waiting to convey Alcibiades home to stand his trial; he effected his escape on the homeward voyage, crossing to the Peloponnese. The great armament instead of thrusting at Syracuse wasted its time and efficiency on side-issues, mainly owing to the cold leadership of Nicias. This valuable respite was used to the full by Hermocrates, who at a congress held at Camarina was insistent on the racial character of the struggle between themselves who were Dorians and the Ionians from Athens. This national antipathy contributed greatly to the final decision of the conflict.

Passing to Sparta, Alcibiades deliberately betrayed his country. His speech is of the utmost importance.

His view of democracy is contemptuous. "Nothing new can be said of what is an admitted folly." He then outlined the Athenian ambition; it was to subdue Carthage and Sicily, bring over hosts of warlike barbarians, surround and reduce the Peloponnese and then rule the whole Greek-speaking world. He advised his hearers to aid Sicilian incapacity by sending a Spartan commander; above all, he counselled the occupation of Deceleia, a town in Attica just short of the border, through which the corn supply was conveyed to the capital; this would lead to the capture of the silver-mines at Laureium and to the decrease of the Athenian revenues. He concluded with an attempt to justify his own treachery, remarking that when a man was exiled, he must use all means to secure a return.

The Spartans had for some time been anxious to open hostilities; an act of Athenian aggression gave them an opportunity. Meanwhile in Sicily Lamachus had perished in attacking a Syracusan cross-wall. Left in sole command, Nicias remained inactive, while Gylippus, despatched from Sparta, arrived in Syracuse just in time to prevent it from capitulating. The seventh book is the record of continued Athenian disasters. Little by little Gylippus developed the Syracusan resources. First he made it impossible for the Athenians to circumvallate the city; then he captured the naval stores of the enemy, forcing them to encamp in unhealthy ground. Nicias had begged the home government to relieve him of command owing to illness. Believing in the lucky star of the man who had taken Nissea they retained him, sending out a second great fleet under Demosthenes. The latter at once saw the key to the whole situation. The Syracusan cross-wall which Nicias had failed to render impassable must be captured at all costs. A night attack nearly succeeded, but ended in total defeat. Demosthenes immediately advised retreat; but Nicias obstinately refused to leave. In the meantime the Syracusans closed the mouth of their harbour with a strong boom, penning up the Athenian fleet. The famous story of the attempt to destroy it calls out all the author's powers of description. He draws attention to the narrow space in which the action was fought. As long as the Athenians could operate in open water they were invincible; but the Syracusans not only forced them to fight in a confined harbour, they strengthened the prows of their vessels, enabling them to smash the thinner Athenian craft in a direct charge. The whole Athenian army went down to the edge of the water to watch the engagement which was to settle their fate. Their excitement was pitiable, for they swayed to and fro in mental agony, calling to their friends to break the boom and save them. After a brave struggle, the invaders were routed and driven to the land by the victorious Syracusans.

Retreat by land was the only escape. A strategem planned by Hermocrates and Nicias' superstitious terrors delayed the departure long enough to enable the Syracusans to secure the passes in the interior. When the army moved away the scene was one of shame and agony; the sick vainly pleaded with their comrades to save them; the whole force contrasted the proud hopes of their coming with their humiliating end and refused to be comforted by Nicias, whose courage shone brightest in this hour of defeat. Demosthenes' force was isolated and was quickly captured; Nicias' men with great difficulty reached the River Assinarus, parched with thirst. Forgetting all about their foes, they rushed to the water and fought among themselves for it though it ran red with their own blood. At last the army capitulated and was carried back to Syracuse. Thrown into the public quarries, the poor wretches remained there for ten weeks, scorched by day, frost-bitten by night. The survivors were sold into slavery.

"This was the greatest achievement in the war and, I think, in Greek history the most creditable to the victors, the most lamentable to the vanquished. In every way they were utterly defeated; their sufferings were mighty; they were destroyed hopelessly; ships, men, everything perished, few only returning from the great host."

So ends the most heartrending story in Greek history, told with absolute fidelity by a son of Athens and a former general of her army.

The last book is remarkable for the absence of speeches; it is a record of the continued intrigues which followed the Sicilian disaster. Upheavals in Asia Minor brought into the swirl of plots Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, anxious to recover control of Ionia hitherto saved by Athenian power. In 412 the Athenian subjects began to revolt, seventeen defections being recorded in all. At Samos a most important movement began; the democrats rose against their nobles, being guaranteed independence by Athens. Soon they made overtures to Alcibiades who was acting with the Spartan fleet; he promised to detach Tissaphernes from Sparta if Samos eschewed democracy, a creed odious to the Persian monarchy. The Samians sent a delegation to Athens headed by Pisander, who boldly proposed Alcibiades' return, the dissolution of the democracy in Samos and alliance with Tissaphernes. These proposals were rejected, but the democracy at Athens was not destined to last much longer, power being usurped by the famous Four Hundred in 411. The Samian democracy eventually appointed Alcibiades general, while in Athens the extremists were anxious to come to terms with Sparta. This movement split the Four Hundred, the constitution being changed to that of the Five Thousand, a blend of democracy and oligarchy which won Thucydides' admiration; the history concludes with the victory of the Athenians in the naval action at Cynossema in 410.

The defects of Thucydides are evident; his style is harsh, obscure and crabbed; it is sometimes said that he seems wiser than he really is mainly because his language is difficult; that if his thoughts were translated into easier prose our impressions of his greatness would be much modified. Yet it is to be remembered that he, like Lucretius, had to create his own vocabulary. It is a remarkable fact that prose has been far more difficult to invent than poetry, for precision is essential to it as the language of reasoning rather than of feeling. Instead of finding fault with a medium which was necessarily imperfect because it was an innovation we should be thankful for what it has actually accomplished. It is not always obscure; at times, when "the lion laughed" as an old commentator says, he is almost unmatched in pure narrative, notably in his rapid summary of the Athenian rise to power in the first book and in the immortal Syracusan tragedy of the seventh.

His merits are many and great; his conciseness, repression of personal feeling, love of accuracy, careful research, unwillingness to praise overmuch and his total absence of preconceived opinion testify to an honesty of outlook rare in classical historians. Because he feels certain of his detachment of view, he quite confidently undertakes what few would have faced, the writing of contemporary history. Nowadays historians do not trust themselves; we may expect a faithful account of our Great War some fifty years hence, if ever. Not so Thucydides; he claims that his work will be a treasure for all time; had any other written these words we should have dismissed them as an idle boast.

For he is the first man to respect history. It was not a plaything; it was worthy of being elevated to the rank of a science. As such, its events must have some deep causes behind them, worth discovering not only in themselves as keys to one particular period, but as possible explanations of similar events in distant ages. Accordingly, he deemed it necessary to study first of all our human nature, its varied motives, mostly of questionable morality, next he studied international ethics, based frankly on expediency. The results of these researches he has embodied (with one or two exceptions) in his famous speeches. He surveyed the ground on which battles were fought; he examined inscriptions, copying them with scrupulous care; he criticised ancient history and contemporary versions of famous events, many of which he found to be untrue. Further, his anxiety to discover the real sources of certain policies made it necessary for him to write an account of seemingly purposeless action in wilder or even barbarous regions such as Arcadia, Ambracia, Macedonia; in consequence his work embraces the whole of the Greek world, as he said it would in his famous preface.

As an artist, he is not without his merits. The dramatic nature of his plan has been frequently pointed out; to him the main plot is the destruction not of Athens, but of the Periclean democracy, the overthrow thereof being due to a conflict with another like it; hence the marked change in the last book, in which the main dramatic interest has waned. This dramatic form has, however, defeated its own objects sometimes, for all the Thucydidean fishes talk like Thucydidean whales.

To us he is indispensable. We are a maritime power, ruling a maritime empire, our potential enemies being military nations. He has warned us that democracy cannot govern an empire. Perhaps our type of this creed is not so full of the lust for domination and aggrandisement as was that of Athens; it may be suspected that we are virtuous mainly because we have all we need and are not likely to be tempted overmuch. But there is the other and more subtle danger. The enemies within the state betrayed Deceleia which safeguarded the food-supply. We have many Deceleias, situate along the great trade-routes and needing protection. Once these are betrayed we shall not hold out as Athens did for nearly ten years; ten weeks at the outside ought to see our people starving and beaten, fit for nothing but the payment of indemnities to the power which relieves us of our inheritance.

TRANSLATIONS:—

The earliest is by Hobbes, the best is by Jowett, Oxford. Though somewhat free, it renders with vigour the ideas of the original text.

The Loeb Series has a version by Smith.

Thucydides Mythistoricus, Cornford (Arnold), is an adverse criticism of the historian; it points out the inaccuracies which may be detected in his work.

Clio Enthroned by W. R. M. Lamb, Cambridge, should be read in conjunction with the above. The author adopts the traditional estimate of Thucydides.

See also Bury, Ancient Greek Historians, as above.



PLATO

Shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war Plato was born, probably in 427. During the eighty years of his life he travelled to Sicily at least twice, founded the Academy at Athens and saw the beginning of the end of the Greek freedom. He represents the reflective spirit in a nation which seems to appear when its development is well advanced. After the madness of a long war the Athenians, stripped of their Empire for a time, sought a new outlet for their restless energies and started to conquer a more permanent kingdom, that of scientific speculation about the highest faculties of the human mind.

The death of Socrates in 399 disgusted Plato; democracy apparently was as intolerant as any other form of political creed. His writings are in a sense a vindication of the honesty of his master, although the picture he draws of him is not so true to life as that of Xenophon. The dialogues fall into two well-marked classes; in the earlier the method and inspiration is definitely Socratic, but in the later Socrates is a mere peg on which Plato hung his own system. In itself the dialogue form was no new thing; Plato adopted it and made it a thing of life and dramatic power, his style being the most finished example of exalted prose in Greek literature. The order in which the dialogues were written is a thorny problem; there is good reason for believing that Plato constantly revised some of them, removing the inconsistencies which were inevitable while he was feeling his way to the final form which his speculations assumed. It is perhaps best to give an outline of a series which exhibits some regular order of thought.

It is sometimes thought that Philosophy has no direct bearing on practical questions. A review of the Crito may dispel this illusion. In it Socrates refuses to be tempted by his young friend Crito who offers to secure his escape from prison and provide him a home among his own friends. The question is whether one ought to follow the opinions of the majority on matters of justice or injustice, or those of the one man who has expert knowledge, and of Truth. The laws of Athens have put Socrates in prison; they would say;

"by this act you intend to perpetrate your purpose to destroy us and the city as far as one man can do so. Can any city survive and not be overturned in which legal decisions have no force, but are rendered null by private persons and destroyed?"

Socrates had by his long residence of seventy years declared his satisfaction with the Athenian legal system. The laws had enabled him to live in security; more, he could have taken advantage of legal protection in his trial, and if he had been dissatisfied could have gone away to some other city. What sort of a figure would he make if he escaped? Wherever he went he would be considered a destroyer of law; his practice would belie his creed; finally, the Laws say,

"if you wish to live in disgrace, after going back on your contract and agreement with us, we will be angry with you while you are alive and in death our Brother Laws will give you a cold welcome; they will know that you have done your best to destroy our authority."

Sound and concrete teaching like this is always necessary, but is hardly likely to be popular. The doctrine of disobedience is everywhere preached in a democracy; violation of contracts is a normal practice and law-breakers have been known to be publicly feasted by the very members of our legislative body.

A different lesson is found in the Euthyphro. After wishing Socrates success in his coming trial, Euthyphro informs him that he is going to prosecute his father for manslaughter, assuring him that it would be piety to do so. Socrates asks for a definition of piety. Euthyphro attempts five—"to act as Zeus did to his father"; "what the gods love"; "what all the gods love"; "a part of righteousness, relating to the care of the gods"; "the saying and doing of what the gods approve in prayer and sacrifice". Each of these proves inadequate; Euthyphro complains of the disconcerting Socratic method as follows:

"Well, I do not know how to express my thoughts. Every one of our suggestions always seem to have legs, refusing to stand still where we may fix it down. Nor have I put into them this spirit of moving and shifting, but you, a second Daedalus."

It is noticeable that no definite result comes from this dialogue; Plato was within his rights in refusing to answer the main question. Philosophy does not pretend to settle every inquiry; her business is to see that a question is raised. Even when an answer is available, she cannot always give it, for she demands an utter abandonment of all prepossessions in those to whom she talks—otherwise there will be no free passage for her teaching. Though refuted, Euthyphro still retained his first opinions, for his first and last definitions are similar in idea. To such a person argument is mere waste of time.

An admirable illustration of Plato's lightness of touch is found in the Laches. The dialogue begins with a discussion about the education of the young sons of Lysimachus and Melesias. Soon the question is raised "What is courage?" Nicias warns Laches about Socrates; the latter has a trick of making men review their lives; his practice is good, for it teaches men their faults in time; old age does not always bring wisdom automatically. Laches first defines courage as the faculty which makes men keep the ranks in war; when this proves inadequate, he defines it as a stoutness of spirit. Nicias is called in; he defines it as "knowledge of terrors and confidence in war"; he is soon compelled to add "and knowledge of all good and evil in every form"—in a word, courage is all virtue combined. The dialogue concludes that it is not young boys but grown men of all ages who need a careful education. This spirited little piece is full of dramatic vigour—the remarks of Laches and Nicias about each other as they are repeatedly confuted are most human and diverting.

Literary criticism is the subject of the Ion. Coming from Ephesus, Ion claimed to be the best professional reciter of Homer in all Greece. Acknowledging that Homer made him all fire, while other poets left him cold, he is made to admit that his knowledge of poetry is not scientific; otherwise he would have been able to discuss all poetry, for it is one. Socrates then makes the famous comparison between a poet and a magnet; both attract an endless chain, and both contain some divine power which masters them. Ecstasy, enthusiasm, madness are the best descriptions of poetic power. Even as a professional reciter Ion admits the necessity of the power of working on men.

"When I am on the platform I look on my audience weeping and looking warlike and dazed at my words. I must pay attention to them; if I let them sit down weeping, I myself shall laugh when I receive my fee, but if they laugh I myself shall weep when I get nothing."

Homer is the subject of the Hippias Minor. At Olympia Hippias once said that every single thing that he was wearing was his own handiwork. He was a most inventive person—one of his triumphs being an art of memory. In this dialogue he prefers the Iliad to the Odyssey because Achilles was called "excellent" and Odysseus "versatile". Socrates soon proves to him that Achilles was false too, as he did not always keep his word. He reminds Hippias that he never wastes time over the brainless, though he listens carefully to every man. In fact, his cross-examination is a compliment. He never thinks the knowledge he gains is his own discovery, but is grateful to any who can teach him. He believes that unwitting deceivers are more culpable than deliberate tricksters. Hippias finds it impossible to agree with him, whereupon Socrates says that things are for ever baffling him by their changeability; it is pardonable that unlearned men like himself should err; when really wise people like Hippias wander in thought, it is monstrous that they are unable to settle the doubts of all who appeal to them.

Channides, the young boy after whom the dialogue was named, was the cousin and ward of Critias, the infamous leader of the Thirty Tyrants. On being introduced to him Socrates starts the discussion "What is self-control?" The lad makes three attempts to answer; seeing his confusion, Critias steps in, "angry with the boy, like a poet angry with an actor who has murdered his poems". But he is not more successful; his three definitions are proved wanting.

"Like men who, seeing others yawn, themselves yawn, he too was in perplexity. But because he had a great reputation, he was put to shame before the audience and refused to admit his inability to define the word."

The dialogue gives no definite answer to the discussion. It is a vivid piece of writing; the contrast between the young lad and the elder cousin whose pet phrases he copies is very striking.

In the Lysis the characters and the conclusion are similar. Lysis is a young lad admired by Hippothales. The first portion of the dialogue consists of a conversation between Lysis and Socrates; the latter recommends the admirer to avoid foolish converse. On the entry of Lysis' friend Menexenus, Socrates starts the question "What is friendship?" It appears that friendship cannot exist between two good or two evil persons, but only between a good man and one who is neither good nor bad, exactly as the philosopher is neither wise nor ignorant, yet he loves knowledge. Still this is not satisfactory; up conclusion being reached, Socrates winds up with a characteristic remark; they think they are friends, yet cannot say what friendship is. This dialogue was carefully read by Aristotle before he gave his famous description in the Ethics: "A friend is a second self". Perhaps Socrates avoided a definite answer because he did not wish to be too serious with these sunny children.

The Euthydemus is an amusing study of the danger which follows upon the use of keen instruments by the unscrupulous. Euthydemus and his brother Dionysodorus are two sophists by trade to whom words mean nothing at all; truth and falsehood are identical, contradiction being an impossibility. As language is meaningless, Socrates himself is quickly reduced to impotence, recovering with difficulty. Plato was no doubt satirising the misuse of the new philosophy which was becoming so popular with young men. When nothing means anything, laughter is the only human language left. The Cratylus is a similarly conceived diversion. Most of it is occupied with fanciful derivations and linguistic discussions of all kinds. It is difficult to say how far Plato is serious. Perhaps the feats of Euthydemus in stripping words of all meaning urged him to some constructive work—for Plato's system is essentially destructive first, then constructive. At any rate, he does insist on the necessity for determining a word's meaning by its derivation, and points out that a language is the possession of a whole people.

In the Protagoras Socrates while a young man is represented as meeting a friend Hippocrates, who was on his way to Protagoras, a sophist from Abdera who had just arrived at Athens. Socrates shows first that his friend has no idea of the seriousness of his action in applying for instruction to a sophist whose definition he is unable to give.

"If your body had been in a critical condition you would have asked the advice of your friends and deliberated many days before choosing your doctor. But about your mind, on which depends your weal or woe according as it is evil or good, you never asked the advice of father or friend whether you ought to apply to this newly-arrived stranger. Hearing last night that he was here, you go to him to-day, ready to spend your own and your friends' money, convinced that you ought to become a disciple of a man you neither know nor have talked with."