SECTION IV. Sedition at Chios. Lysander reäppointed Com- mander-in-chief of the Peloponnesian Fleet: in favor with THE HISTORY OF GREE CE. CHAPTER XVI. Of the PELOPONNESIAN WAR, from the Application for PEACE from LACEDÆMON in the seventh Year, to the Conclusion of PEACE between LACEDEMON and ATHENS in the tenth Year. SECTION I. Expedition under Nicias to the Corinthian Coast. Conclusion of the Corcyraan Sedition. Embassy from Persia to Lacedæmon. Lacedæmonian iland of Cythera, and Eginetan Settlement at Thyrea, taken by the Athenians. Inhumanity of the Athenians. IF, stopping for a moment at this point of Grecian history, we turn our view back to past transactions, as reported by the impartial pen of the cotemporary historian, we cannot but admire the able policy, the clear foresight, and the bold firmness of him who has by some writers, antient and modern, been traduced as the wanton author of this, in the end, unfortunate war, the all-accomplished Pericles; and if we take any interest in the fate of Athens, or of Greece, we cannot but regret that he was not yet living to conduct to a conclusion the scene of bloodshed, through the XVI. Peric. CHAP. opportunity which now offered, and to exert his capacious mind toward the establishment of a political union, which might have given stability to peace through the country. What might have been done, had Pericles and his virtuous and venerable friend the Spartan king Archidamus met in such a crisis, we might amuse ourselves, perhaps not unprofitably, with imagining, were we to take into the consideration all the circumstances of the times, as they remain reported by Thucydides, and illumined with no inconsiderable collateral light, by other cotemporary and nearly cotemporary writers. After the general abolition of kingly power, so fair an opportunity certainly never occurred for carrying into effect the noble Plut. vit. project, said to have been conceived, and even attempted by Pericles, of a federal union of the Greek nation, which might prevent hostility within itself, and afford means of united exertion against forein enemies. But the desire simply of keeping peace at home, perhaps never led to such a union among any people: some pressure of a forein power is wanting; some overbearing neighbor, or a general superiority of force in surrounding states. No such pressure at this time bore upon Greece. Persia had ceased to give alarm: Macedonia was not yet formidable: Carthage had small inducement to turn her views to a country, where war was so well understood, and riches so little abounded: the name of Rome was scarcely known. The little republics therefore of Lacedæmon and Athens, judging from experience of the past, for they were not always led by the capacious mind of a Pericles, vainly supposed themselves equal to resist any power ever likely to arise upon earth; an opinion indeed generally en I. tertained, as the writings of Plato and Aristotle SECT. prove, even among the ablest politicians of the time; and tho Xenophon was aware of their error, yet he was not aware of any good remedy for the weakness of the antient republics, and the defects of the political system of Greece. Under the control of Cleon, the Athenian government was not likely to be distinguished for moderation; and the fortunate event of that adventurer's late presumptuous undertaking, increasing his favor with the people, would not lessen his own arrogance. The conduct of the war moreover, on the part of the Athenians, was so far rendered easy, by the decided superiority which their fleet possessed, and by the pledges in their hands, which secured them from invasion, that they might chuse their measures. Any very consistent plan, as in the present circumstances of their administration it was not very likely to be formed, so it was not absolutely necessary to success. Passion seems to have dictated their next undertaking they Thucyd. would take revenge on the Corinthians, the first instigators of the war, and, upon all occasions, the most zealous actors in it. A fleet of eighty tri- B.C.425. remes was equipped, and a landforce imbarked, Ol. 88. 4. consisting of two thousand Athenian heavy-armed Septemfoot and two hundred horse, with the auxiliary ber. troops of Miletus, Andrus, and Carystus. Nicias commanded. The armament, proceeding up the Saronic gulph, made the shore between Chersonesus and Rheitus, scarcely eight miles from Corinth. The Corinthians, apprized of its destination by intelligence from Argos, had already assembled the whole force of their Peloponnesian territory, except five hundred men absent on garrison duty in Ambracia and Leucadia, and they marched to oppose 1. 4. c. 42. P. W. 7. XVI. Thucyd. 1. 4. c. 43. c. 44. sonesus. CHAP. the expected debarkation. But Nicias, moving in the night unobserved, landed his troops near CherThe Corinthians, quickly informed by signals, hastened thither with half their forces, leaving the other half at Cenchreæ, for the security of the neighboring coast and country. A very obstinate action insued, in which, after various efforts, and some turns of fortune, the exertions of the Athenian horse decided the event of the day. The Corinthian general being killed, with two hundred and twelve heavy-armed, the rest of the army, distressed for want of cavalry to oppose the Athenian, retreated, but in good order, to some strong ground in its rear. The Athenians stripped the enemy's dead, and erected their trophy. The honor of victory thus was clearly theirs, but the advantage gained was otherwise small: they dared not await the junction of the forces from Cenchreæ with the defeated army; and the less, as all the elders and youths in Corinth were besides hastening to join it, and ere long the neighboring allies would come in. Nicias therefore reïmbarked his forces in such haste, that he left behind him two of his dead, who had not been immediately found. Thucyd. Apprehensive then of the clamor and popular illwill to which this might give occasion, he sent a herald to the Corinthians to request the bodies: and thus, according to Grecian maxims, surrendered the honor of the trophy, and all claim to the glory of victory. ibid. Plut. vit. Nic. But the decided command of the sea, which the Athenians possessed, gave the means to distress their enemies greatly, with little risk to themselves. The antient ships of war were singularly commodious for operations upon a coast; moving any way in any wind, if not too fresh; and for debarkation |