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inconstancy. He suppressed that jealousy, which an extreme fondness for liberty had made them enter, tain against all citizens distinguished by their merit and great authority. But the most surprizing circumstance is, he gained this great ascendant merely by persuasion, without employing force, mean artifices, or any of those arts which a mean politician excuses in himself upon the specious pretence, that the necessity of the publick affairs, and reasons of state, make them necessary.

b Anaxagoras died the same year as Pericles. Plutarch relates a circumstance concerning him, that happened some time before, which must not be omitted. He says that this philosopher, who had voluntarily reduced himself to excessive poverty, in order that he might have the greater leisure to pursue his studies; finding himself neglected, in his old age, by Pericles, who, in the multiplicity of the publick affairs, had not always time to think of him; * wrapped his cloak about his head, and threw himself on the ground, in the fixed resolution to starve himself. Pericles hearing of this accidentally, ran with the utmost haste to the philosopher's house, in the deepest affliction. He conjured him, in the strongest and most moving terms, not to throw his life away; adding, that it was not Anaxagoras but himself that was to be lamented, if he was so unfortunate as to lose so wise and faithful a friend; who was so capable of giving him wholesome counsels, with regard to the pressing occasions of the state. Anaxagoras then, uncovering a little his head, spoke thus to him; Pericles, those who use a lamp take care to feed it with oil. This was a gentle, and at the same time a strong and piercing reproach. Pericles ought to have supplied his wants unasked. Many tamps are extinguished in this manner in a country.

b Plut. in Pericl. P. 162.

one

It was the custom for those to cover their heads with their cloaks, who were reduced to despair, and resolved to die.

by the criminal negligence of those who ought to Artax. supply them.

SECT. III. The Lacedæmonians besiege Plataa. Mitylene is taken by the Athenians. Plataa surrenders. The plague breaks out again in Athens.

13

Fourth and fifth years of the war:

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Ant. J.C.

428.

THE most memorable transaction of the follow. A. M. ing years, was the siege of Platææ by the Lacedæmo 3576. nians. This was one of the most famous sieges in antiquity, on account of the vigorous efforts of both parties; but especially for the glorious resistance made by the besieged, and their bold and industrious stratagem, by which several of them got out of the city, and by that means escaped the fury of the enemy. The Lacedæmonians besieged this place in the beginning of the third campaign. As soon as they had pitched their camp round the city, in order to lay waste the places adjacent to it, the Platæans sent some deputies to Archidamus, who commanded on that occasion, to represent, that he could not attack them with the least shadow of justice, because that, after the famous battle of Platæ, Pausanias, the Grecian general, offering up a sacrifice in their city to Jupiter the deliverer, in presence of all the allies, had given them their freedom to reward their valour and zeal; and therefore, that they ought not to be disturbed in the enjoyment of their liberties, since it had been granted them by a Lacedæmonian. Archidamus answered, that their demand would be very reasonable, had they not joined with the Athenians, the professed enemies to the liberty of Greece; but that, if they would disengage themselves from their present alliance, or at least remain neuter, they then should be left in the full enjoyment of their pri vileges. The deputies replied, that they could not

C

Thucyd. 1. . p. 147-151. Diod. 1. xxii, p. 102-109,

Artax. possibly come to any agreement, without first sendLongim. ing to Athens, whither their wives and their children were retired. The Lacedæmonians permitted them to send thither; when the Athenians promising solemnly to succour them to the utmost of their power, the Platæans resolved to suffer the last extre mities rather than surrender; and accordingly they informed the Lacedæmonians, from their walls, that they could not comply with what was desired.

Árchidamus then, after calling upon the gods to witness, that he did not first infringe the alliance, and was not the cause of the calamities which might befall the Platæans, for having refused the just and reasonable conditions offered them, prepared for the siege. He surrounded the city with a circumvallation of trees, which were laid long-ways, very close together, with their boughs interwoven, and turned towards the city, to prevent any person from going out of it. He afterwards threw up a platform to set the batteries on; in hopes that, as so many hands were employed, they should soon take the city. He therefore caused trees to be felled on mount Cithæron, and interwove them with fascines, in order to support the terrass on all sides; he then threw into it wood, earth and stones; in a word, whatever could help to fill it up. The whole army worked night and day, without the least intermission, during seventy days; one half of the soldiers reposing themselves, whilst the rest were at work.

The besieged observing that the work began to rise, they threw up a wooden wall upon the walls of the city, opposite to the platform, in order that they might always out-top the besiegers; and filled the hollow of this wooden wall with the bricks they took from the rubbish of the neighbouring houses; so that the wall of timber served in a manner as a defence to keep the wall from falling, as it was carrying up. It was covered, on the outside, with hides both raw and dry, in order to shelter the works and the workmen from the fires discharged

against it. In proportion as it rose, the platform Artax. was raised also, which in this manner was carried to Longim. a great height. But the besieged made a hole in the opposite wall, in order to carry off the earth that sustained the platform; which the besiegers perceiving, they put large paniers filled with mortar, in the place of the earth which had been removed, because these could not be so easily carried off. The besieged therefore, finding their first stratagem defeated, made a mine under ground as far as the platform, in order to shelter themselves, and to remove from it the earth and other materials of which it was composed, and which they gave from hand to hand, as far as the city. The besiegers were a considerable time without perceiving this, till at last they found that their work did not go forward, and that the more earth they laid on, the weaker it grew. But the besieged judging that the superiority of numbers would at length prevail; without amusing themselves any longer at this work, or carrying the wall higher on the side towards the battery, they contented themselves with building another within, in the form of a half-moon, both ends of which joined to the wall; in order that the besieged might retire behind it when the first wall should be forced; and so oblige the enemy to make fresh works.

In the mean time the besiegers having set up their machines (doubtless after they had filled up the ditch, though Thucydides does not say this) shook the city wall in a very terrible manner, which, though it alarmed the citizens very much, did not however discourage them. They employed every art that fortification could suggest against the enemy's batteries. They prevented the effect of the battering rams, by ropes which turned aside their strokes. They also employed another artifice; the

The end (downward) of these ropes formed a variety of slip-knots, with which they catched the head of the battering ram, which they raised up by the help of the machine.

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two ends of a great beam were made fast by long Longim. iron chains to two large pieces of timber, supported

at due distance upon the wall in the nature of a balance; so that whenever the enemy played their machine, the besieged lifted up this beam, and let it fall back on the head of the battering ram, which quite deadened its force, and consequently made it of no effect.

The besiegers finding the attack did not go on successfully, and that a new wall was raised against their platform, despaired of being able to storm the place, and therefore changed the siege into a blockade. However, they first endeavoured to set fire to it, imagining that the town might easily be burnt down, as it was so small, whenever a strong wind should rise; for they employed all the artifices imaginable, to make themselves masters of it as soon as possible, and with little expence. They therefore threw fascines into the intervals between the walls of the city and the intrenchment with which they had surrounded them; and filled these intervals in a very little time, because of the multitude of hands employed by them; in order to set fire, at the same time, to different parts of the city. They then lighted the fire with pitch and sulphur, which in a moment made such a prodigious blaze, that the like was never seen. This invention was very near carrying the city, which had baffled all others; for the besieged could not make head at once against the fire and the enemy in several parts of the town; and had the weather favoured the besiegers, as they flattered themselves it would, it had certainly been taken: But history informs us, that an exceeding heavy rain fell, which extinguished the fire.

This last effort of the besiegers having been defeated as successfully as all the rest, they now turned the siege into a blockade, and surrounded the city with a brick wall, strengthened on each side with a deep fossé. The whole army was engaged successively in this work, and when it was finished, they