History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗
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Eetionia is a mole of Piraeus, close alongside of the entrance of
the harbour, and was now fortified in connection with the wall already
existing on the land side, so that a few men placed in it might be
able to command the entrance; the old wall on the land side and the
new one now being built within on the side of the sea, both ending
in one of the two towers standing at the narrow mouth of the
harbour. They also walled off the largest porch in Piraeus which was
in immediate connection with this wall, and kept it in their own
hands, compelling all to unload there the corn that came into the
harbour, and what they had in stock, and to take it out from thence
when they sold it.
These measures had long provoked the murmurs of Theramenes, and when
the envoys returned from Lacedaemon without having effected any
general pacification, he affirmed that this wall was like to prove the
ruin of the state. At this moment forty-two ships from Peloponnese,
including some Siceliot and Italiot vessels from Locri and Tarentum,
had been invited over by the Euboeans and were already riding off
Las in Laconia preparing for the voyage to Euboea, under the command
of Agesandridas, son of Agesander, a Spartan. Theramenes now
affirmed that this squadron was destined not so much to aid Euboea
as the party fortifying Eetionia, and that unless precautions were
speedily taken the city would be surprised and lost. This was no
mere calumny, there being really some such plan entertained by the
accused. Their first wish was to have the oligarchy without giving
up the empire; failing this to keep their ships and walls and be
independent; while, if this also were denied them, sooner than be
the first victims of the restored democracy, they were resolved to
call in the enemy and make peace, give up their walls and ships, and
at all costs retain possession of the government, if their lives
were only assured to them.
For this reason they pushed forward the construction of their work
with posterns and entrances and means of introducing the enemy,
being eager to have it finished in time. Meanwhile the murmurs against
them were at first confined to a few persons and went on in secret,
until Phrynichus, after his return from the embassy to Lacedaemon, was
laid wait for and stabbed in full market by one of the Peripoli,
falling down dead before he had gone far from the council chamber. The
assassin escaped; but his accomplice, an Argive, was taken and put
to the torture by the Four Hundred, without their being able to
extract from him the name of his employer, or anything further than
that he knew of many men who used to assemble at the house of the
commander of the Peripoli and at other houses. Here the matter was
allowed to drop. This so emboldened Theramenes and Aristocrates and
the rest of their partisans in the Four Hundred and out of doors, that
they now resolved to act. For by this time the ships had sailed
round from Las, and anchoring at Epidaurus had overrun Aegina; and
Theramenes asserted that, being bound for Euboea, they would never
have sailed in to Aegina and come back to anchor at Epidaurus,
unless they had been invited to come to aid in the designs of which he
had always accused the government. Further inaction had therefore
now become impossible. In the end, after a great many seditious
harangues and suspicions, they set to work in real earnest. The
heavy infantry in Piraeus building the wall in Eetionia, among whom
was Aristocrates, a colonel, with his own tribe, laid hands upon
Alexicles, a general under the oligarchy and the devoted adherent of
the cabal, and took him into a house and confined him there. In this
they were assisted by one Hermon, commander of the Peripoli in
Munychia, and others, and above all had with them the great bulk of
the heavy infantry. As soon as the news reached the Four Hundred,
who happened to be sitting in the council chamber, all except the
disaffected wished at once to go to the posts where the arms were, and
menaced Theramenes and his party. Theramenes defended himself, and
said that he was ready immediately to go and help to rescue Alexicles;
and taking with him one of the generals belonging to his party, went
down to Piraeus, followed by Aristarchus and some young men of the
cavalry. All was now panic and confusion. Those in the city imagined
that Piraeus was already taken and the prisoner put to death, while
those in Piraeus expected every moment to be attacked by the party
in the city. The older men, however, stopped the persons running up
and down the town and making for the stands of arms; and Thucydides
the Pharsalian, proxenus of the city, came forward and threw himself
in the way of the rival factions, and appealed to them not to ruin the
state, while the enemy was still at hand waiting for his
opportunity, and so at length succeeded in quieting them and in
keeping their hands off each other. Meanwhile Theramenes came down
to Piraeus, being himself one of the generals, and raged and stormed
against the heavy infantry, while Aristarchus and the adversaries of
the people were angry in right earnest. Most of the heavy infantry,
however, went on with the business without faltering, and asked
Theramenes if he thought the wall had been constructed for any good
purpose, and whether it would not be better that it should be pulled
down. To this he answered that if they thought it best to pull it
down, he for his part agreed with them. Upon this the heavy infantry
and a number of the people in Piraeus immediately got up on the
fortification and began to demolish it. Now their cry to the multitude
was that all should join in the work who wished the Five Thousand to
govern instead of the Four Hundred. For instead of saying in so many
words “all who wished the commons to govern,” they still disguised
themselves under the name of the Five Thousand; being afraid that
these might really exist, and that they might be speaking to one of
their number and get into trouble through ignorance. Indeed this was
why the Four Hundred neither wished the Five Thousand to exist, nor to
have it known that they did not exist; being of opinion that to give
themselves so many partners in empire would be downright democracy,
while the mystery in question would make the people afraid of one
another.
The next day the Four Hundred, although alarmed, nevertheless
assembled in the council chamber, while the heavy infantry in Piraeus,
after having released their prisoner Alexicles and pulled down the
fortification, went with their arms to the theatre of Dionysus,
close to Munychia, and there held an assembly in which they decided to
march into the city, and setting forth accordingly halted in the
Anaceum. Here they were joined by some delegates from the Four
Hundred, who reasoned with them one by one, and persuaded those whom
they saw to be the most moderate to remain quiet themselves, and to
keep in the rest; saying that they would make known the Five Thousand,
and have the Four Hundred chosen from them in rotation, as should be
decided by the Five Thousand, and meanwhile entreated them not to ruin
the state or drive it into the arms of the enemy. After a great many
had spoken and had been spoken to, the whole body of heavy infantry
became calmer than before, absorbed by their fears for the country
at large, and now agreed to hold upon an appointed day an assembly
in the theatre of Dionysus for the restoration of concord.
When the day came for the assembly in the theatre, and they were
upon the point of assembling, news arrived that the forty-two ships
under Agesandridas were sailing from Megara along the coast of
Salamis. The people to a man now thought that it was just what
Theramenes and his party had so often said, that the ships were
sailing to the fortification, and concluded that they had done well to
demolish it. But though it may possibly have been by appointment
that Agesandridas hovered about Epidaurus and the neighbourhood, he
would also naturally be kept there by the hope of an opportunity
arising out of the troubles in the town. In any case the Athenians, on
receipt of the news immediately ran down in mass to Piraeus, seeing
themselves threatened by the enemy with a worse war than their war
among themselves, not at a distance, but close to the harbour of
Athens. Some went on board the ships already afloat, while others
launched fresh vessels, or ran to defend the walls and the mouth of
the harbour.
Meanwhile the Peloponnesian vessels sailed by, and rounding Sunium
anchored between Thoricus and Prasiae, and afterwards arrived at
Oropus. The Athenians, with revolution in the city, and unwilling to
lose a moment in going to the relief of their most important
possession (for Euboea was everything to them now that they were
shut out from Attica), were compelled to put to sea in haste and
with untrained crews, and sent Thymochares with some vessels to
Eretria. These upon their arrival, with the ships already in Euboea,
made up a total of thirty-six vessels, and were immediately forced
to engage. For Agesandridas, after his crews had dined, put out from
Oropus, which is about seven miles from Eretria by sea; and the
Athenians, seeing him sailing up, immediately began to man their
vessels. The sailors, however, instead of being by their ships, as
they supposed, were gone away to purchase provisions for their
dinner in the houses in the outskirts of the town; the Eretrians
having so arranged that there should be nothing on sale in the
marketplace, in order that the Athenians might be a long time in
manning their ships, and, the enemy’s attack taking them by
surprise, might be compelled to put to sea just as they were. A signal
also was raised in Eretria to give them notice in Oropus when to put
to sea. The Athenians, forced to put out so poorly prepared, engaged
off the harbour of Eretria, and after holding their own for some
little while notwithstanding, were at length put to flight and
chased to the shore. Such of their number as took refuge in Eretria,
which they presumed to be friendly to them, found their fate in that
city, being butchered by the inhabitants; while those who fled to
the Athenian fort in the Eretrian territory, and the vessels which got
to Chalcis, were saved. The Peloponnesians, after taking twenty-two
Athenian ships, and killing or making prisoners of the crews, set up a
trophy, and not long afterwards effected the revolt of the whole of
Euboea (except Oreus, which was held by the Athenians themselves), and
made a general settlement of the affairs of the island.
When the news of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, a panic
ensued such as they had never before known. Neither the disaster in
Sicily, great as it seemed at the time, nor any other had ever so much
alarmed them. The camp at Samos was in revolt; they had no more
ships or men to man them; they were at discord among themselves and
might at any moment come to blows; and a disaster of this magnitude
coming on the top of all, by which they lost their fleet, and worst of
all Euboea, which was of more value to them than Attica, could not
occur without throwing them into the deepest despondency. Meanwhile
their greatest and most immediate trouble was the possibility
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