XVI. CHAP. ministry did not refuse him the honor for which there seems to have been no competitor. He was to increase the scanty force assigned him, as he 1. 4. c. 80. could, by interest, or by hire, among the Peloponnesian states. Thucyd. c. 70. c. 71. It happened that he was preparing in Sicyon and Corinth for his march northward, when he received information of the measures of the Athenians against Megara. Brasidas thought no business not his, in which he could serve his country. The allies of the immediate neighborhood felt as he did for the safety of Megara, and of the Peloponnesian garrison in Nisæa. In addition therefore to the troops collected for the Thracian expedition, two thousand seven hundred Corinthians, and a thousand Sicyonians and Phliasians, put themselves under his command; and a requisition was dispatched into Boeotia for the force of that country to meet him at Tripodiscus, a village of Megaris, situate under mount Geraneia. On his march, intelligence met him, that Nisæa was already taken; upon which, leaving his army at Tripodiscus, he hastened, in the night, with three hundred chosen men, to Megara and arrived under its walls, undiscovered by the Athenians. Meanwhile a singular kind of concord, between the factions in Megara, had been produced by mutual fear. The democratical chiefs apprehended, that the admission of a Lacedæmonian general would be immediately followed by the restoration of the exiles, and their own banishment; the aristocratical party not less feared, that the consequence of any alarm to the popular mind would be a prevailing resolution to admit the Athenians, which would produce their own inevitable ruin. A momentary compromise was therefore followed by a unanimous resolution not to admit Brasidas. Both parties expected a battle between the Athenian and Peloponnesian armies; and, when the event of that was decided, they might chuse their measures, they thought, more safely. Brasidas therefore, after having in vain attempted to remove the apprehensions of both, withdrew to Tripodiscus. SECT. II. 1. 4. c. 72. Before the arrival of the messenger from Corinth, Thucyd. the Boeotians, in alarm for their allies of Megara, had been assembling their forces; and by daybreak Brasidas was joined at Tripodiscus by two thousand two hundred of their heavy-armed foot, with the very important addition of six hundred horse. The whole of his heavy-armed foot amounting thus to six thousand, a force superior to the regular troops of the Athenian army before Megara, he marched immediately for that place. The Boeotian horse presently put to flight the Athenian light troops, scattered over the plain. The Athenian cavalry advancing to protect them, a sharp action insued, in which the commander of the Boeotian horse was killed, with little advantage otherwise gained on either side. The measures of Brasidas mark the judicious commander, who knew when to refrain, as well as how to dare. It was notorious, that the Megarians watched the event to decide their measures. Brasidas therefore chose for his camp an advantageous situation, very near Megara, and waited there. The Athenian generals, c. 73. having already carried their purpose in a great degree, deemed it utterly unadvisable, for what remained, to risk the army they commanded, under disadvantageous circumstances, against a superior force. As soon then as the Megarians of the oli- c. 74. garchal party were convinced that the Athenians would not venture a battle, they no longer hesitated to introduce Brasidas; upon which the Athe XVI. CHAP. nian generals, leaving a garrison in Nisæa, withdrew to Athens. Brasidas, after a very essential service to his country, and its allies, thus effected without hazard, except to his own person, returned to Corinth. What followed, in Megara, seems to have been among the instances of depravity in Grecian manThucyd. ners, to which Thucydides has in general terms 1.2. c. 82. adverted, imputing it in some degree to the ex1.4. c. 74. ample set in the Corcyræan sedition. Those Megarians of the democratical party, who had been most forward in the Athenian interest, fearing apparently the concurrence of the enmity of Lacedæmon with that of their fellowcitizens, avoided worse consequences by a voluntary exile. Those who had been less violent in party-measures, thought they might then make a composition with the aristocratical party. A conference was accordingly held for the purpose. What the democratical leaders most feared was the return of those aristocratical chiefs who were in exile at Pega. Their restoration however was not to be obviated, but it was agreed that a complete amnesty for all past transactions should be solemnly sworn to by all. The exiles accepted the condition, and took the oath. They were presently raised to the principal offices of their little state. Taking then the opportunity of a general review of arms, for which the people of the Grecian towns were usually from time to time assembled, they apprehended a hundred of those whom they considered as having been most their enemies ; preferred an accusation of treason against them before the assembled people; and, condemnation being pronounced, all were executed. The su periority of the oligarchal party being thus rendered decisive, the supreme power in Megara, says Thucydides, remained long vested in very few hands. SECT. II. SECTION III. Sedition in Baotia and Phocis: Attempts of the Athenians against SECT. P. W. 8. 1. 4. c. 76. THE advantage gained by Athens in the war continued to extend its effects. The partizans of III. democracy in all the oligarchal republics, but with B.C. 424. still more eagerness the numerous democratical Ol exiles, were everywhere watching for opportunities to profit from the turn in the affairs of Greece. In this state of things a plan was concerted for a revolution in Boeotia. Ptœodorus, a Theban exile, Thucyd. was at the head of the business; some banished Orchomenians were among the most zealous and active in it; and a party in Phocis was prepared to join them on the first favorable occasion. The Orchomenians undertook to ingage mercenary troops in Peloponnesus: for persons either by principle or by circumstances disposed to favor democracy, or open to the persuasion of bribery, were to be found under all oligarchal governments. Ptœodorus meanwhile communicated with the Athenian generals Hippocrates and Demosthenes, and a project was formed for betraying Siphæ and Chæronea into their hands; the former a small seaport of the Thespian territory on the Corinthian gulph; the other, an inland town of the Orchomenian territory, on the borders of Phocis. The Athenians were at the same time to seize and fortify Delium, a temple of Apollo XVI. CHAP. in the Tanagræan district, near the coast overagainst Eubœa; and the intention being that these attempts on distant points should take place on the same day, it was expected the distraction would prevent effectual opposition anywhere. If then the democratical party in Boeotia should not be imboldened everywhere immediately to rise, yet those posts being securely occupied, and inroads made from them as opportunity offered, with due incouragement given to the revolted and to those disposed to revolt, the whole of Boeotia would quickly be brought under democratical sway, and of course into the alliance and under the protection, which would be, in a great degree, to be under the dominion of Athens. Thucyd. Such was the project: for the execution, while 1. 4. c. 77. Hippocrates kept the force in Attica prepared, Demosthenes conducted a fleet of forty triremes around Peloponnesus to Naupactus; and, to prevent suspicion of the principal design, began operations against the enemies of the Athenian confederacy in the western provinces. On his arrival, he found Eniadæ, so long the thorn of Acarnania, already reduced by his allies of that province. Being joined by those allies, he marched against Salynthius, prince of Agraïs in Ætolia, who was quickly compelled to submit to his terms. After then reducing some hostile towns or clans of inferior note, and settling the affairs of those parts to his satisfaction, he returned to Naupactus, to prepare for the execution of the greater enterprize concerted at Athens. Thucyd. 1. 4. c. 89. After 13th In the autumn, having collected a considerable force of Acarnanians and other allies of the western provinces, he sailed for Sipha; but on his arrival he had the mortification to find the place strongly |