XX. CHAP. generals, who indeed seem never to have been accused, appears proof of their innocence. Not that the narrative of Xenophon gives all the information we might desire. The conduct, however, of the Athenian commanders, altogether seems to have been totally inexcusable; tho in what degree any one was separately blameworthy does not appear. While the command of gold, which Lysander possessed, excites one kind of suspicion, the haste and the extent of the execution, together with the little scrupulousness usual among the Greeks, may excite another. At the same time it is possible that the misconduct, in the Athenian armament, may have arisen from division of command and violence of party. To carry any steddy authority may have been impossible; and, while none could confide in the government at home, all would fear it; not for their misdeeds but for the prevalence of a faction, adverse to the faction with which they were connected. Athens, the trap and grave of her victorious generals, would not be the place where, in the present disastrous circumstances, Conon would expect refuge for himself, or where nine ships could probably be of any important service to the public. As soon therefore as he was beyond Xen. Hel. danger of pursuit, he dispatched the sacred ship Paralus alone to bear the news of a defeat, which could be scarcely less than the stroke of death 1. 1. c. 2. s. 19. Diod. 1.13. c. 106. in turn (Herod. 1. 6. c. 110. et Thucyd. 1. 6. c. 91.); but the historian does not say that the day of the action was the day of Adeimantus's command, or that, till the attack made by Lysander (except in the negligence of the Athenians, which had increased gradually) the circumstances of that day differed from those of the four preceding. IV. to the commonwealth. For himself, fortunately SECT. having friendship with Evagoras, who ruled the Grecian city of Salamis in Cyprus, he directed his course thither, with his remaining squadron, and was kindly received. SECTION V. Consequences of the Battle of Aigospotami. Siege of Athens. Conclusion of the Peloponnesian War. s. 1. V. THE ruin of the Athenian marine, effected at SECT. Aigospotami, put all the dependencies of the commonwealth at once into the power of the enemy Lysander had only to direct the course of his victorious fleet, and take possession. The command of the strait, communicating with the Euxine sea, was his first object. As soon as he Xen. Hel. appeared between Byzantium and Chalcedon, both 1.2. c. 2. those important places desired to capitulate. The Athenian garrisons were allowed to depart in safety; but policy prompted this apparent lenity. Lysander already looked forward to the conquest of Athens; and, against the uncommon strength of the fortifications of that city, famine would be the only weapon of certain efficacy. As therefore any augmentation of the numbers within would promote his purpose, he permitted all Athenian citizens to go to Athens, but to Athens only. Those Byzantines who had taken a leading part in delivering their city to Alcibiades, apprehensive perhaps more of their fellowcitizens than of Lysander, retired into Pontus. CHAP. XX. 1. 2. c. 2. Meanwhile the Paralus, arriving by night at Peiræus, communicated intelligence, such as no crew Xen. Hel. perhaps of the unfortunate fleet, not protected by the sacred character of the ship, would have dared B.C. 405. to carry. Alarm and lamentation, beginning immeP. W. 26. diately about the harbor, were rapidly communi $. 2. cated through the town of Peiræus, and then passing from mouth to mouth, by the long walls, up to the city, the consternation became universal; and that night, says the cotemporary historian, no person slept in Athens. Grief for the numerous slain, the best part of the Athenian youth, among whom everyone had some relation or friend to mourn, was not the prevailing passion; it was overborne by the dread, which pervaded all, of that fate to themselves, which, however individuals might be innocent, the Athenian people as a body were conscious of deserving, for the many bloody massacres perpe trated at their command. The treatment of the Histiæans, Scionæans, Toronæans, Æginetans, and many other Grecian people (it is still the cotemporary Attic historian who speaks,) but, above all, of the Melians, a Lacedæmonian colony, recurred to every memory, and haunted every imagination. Athens was not even now without able men, capable of directing public affairs in any ordinary storm. But, beside that the remaining strength of the commonwealth was utterly unequal to the force that would be brought against it, the lasting strife of faction, and the violence of intestine tumult, had nearly destroyed all coherence in the constituent parts of the government. Nothing remained of that public confidence, which, after the Sicilian overthrow, had inabled those who took the lead to surprize all Greece with new exertion, and even to recover superiority in the war. The leader of the pace. V. Esch. myst. soverein Many was Cleophon, by trade a musical- SECT. instrument-maker, who, treading in the steps of Cleon and Hyperbolus, had acquired power even Isocr. de superior to what they had formerly held. Such p.218. t. 2. was his confidence in his ascendancy, that he did de legat. not scruple, in scorn of democratical equality, to p. 254. assume the distinctions and pomp of command. To have a residence suited to his new dignity, he used opportunity offered by the banishment of An- Andoc. de docides, chief of one of the most antient and eminent families, to occupy his house. But public agony and fear inforced, for the moment, sober conduct, and a disposition to listen to those fittest to advise. On the morrow after the arrival of the fatal news, a general assembly being held, such measures were resolved on as the exigency of the moment most required. Immediate siege by land and sea was expected. To raise a fleet able to oppose that of the enemy was no longer possible. It was therefore determined to block up all the ports except one, to repair the walls, to appoint guards, and prepare every way to sustain a siege. 1. 2. c. 2. . 3. Meanwhile Lysander, after receiving the submis- Xen. Hel. sion of the Hellespontine cities, sailed to Lesbos, where Mitylenë immediately surrendered to him. He sent Eteonicus, with only ten ships, to the Thracian coast, and all the Athenian dependencies there acceded to the Lacedæmonian terms. All the ilands hastened to follow the example, Samos alone excepted. The Samians, in the savage fury of democracy, answered the summons by a massacre of the men of rank23 among their citizens, and prepared for defence. Means to punish this insulting barbarity were not likely to be wanting: at present a greater object 23 Τῶν γνωρίμων. 8. 4. XX. CHAP. called Lysander. He sent information, at the same time to Lacedæmon and Deceleia, that he was ready Xen. Hel. to sail for Peiræus with two hundred triremes. 1. 2. c. 2. The Lacedæmonian government determined upon a strong exertion, to put a speedy end to a war which had lasted, with scarcely any perfect intermission, twenty-six years. The Peloponnesian allies were summoned to arms, consisting now of all the states of the peninsula except Argos. The whole force of Laconia was at the same time ordered to march the king, Pausanias, son of the regent who won the battle of Platæa, commanded in chief. With the powerful army thus assembled, Pausanias entered Attica: Agis joined him with his troops from Deceleia; and they fixed their head-quarters together in the celebrated gymnasium of Academia, close to Athens. s. 5. 8. 6. The interval of leisure for the fleet, during the preparation for the march of the army, was employed by Lysander in an act of justice and charity, likely to bring great credit to himself, and popularity to the Lacedæmonian name. There were, wandering about Greece, some Melians and Æginetans, who, by accidental absence, or some other lucky chance, had escaped the general massacre of their people by the Athenians. These Lysander collected and reinstated in their ilands. From Ægina he proceeded to Salamis, which he plundered; and then, with a hundred and fifty triremes, took his station at the mouth of the harbor of Peiræus, to prevent supplies to Athens by sea. Without an ally, without a fleet, without stores, and blockaded by sea and land, the Athenians made no proposal to their victorious enemies: in sullen despondency they prepared, to the best of their ability, for defence, without a reasonable view but to 1 |