History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗
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appearing at Mitylene, were compelled to come to terms with the
Athenians in the following manner. Salaethus having himself ceased
to expect the fleet to arrive, now armed the commons with heavy
armour, which they had not before possessed, with the intention of
making a sortie against the Athenians. The commons, however, no sooner
found themselves possessed of arms than they refused any longer to
obey their officers; and forming in knots together, told the
authorities to bring out in public the provisions and divide them
amongst them all, or they would themselves come to terms with the
Athenians and deliver up the city.
The government, aware of their inability to prevent this, and of the
danger they would be in, if left out of the capitulation, publicly
agreed with Paches and the army to surrender Mitylene at discretion
and to admit the troops into the town; upon the understanding that the
Mitylenians should be allowed to send an embassy to Athens to plead
their cause, and that Paches should not imprison, make slaves of, or
put to death any of the citizens until its return. Such were the terms
of the capitulation; in spite of which the chief authors of the
negotiation with Lacedaemon were so completely overcome by terror when
the army entered that they went and seated themselves by the altars,
from which they were raised up by Paches under promise that he would
do them no wrong, and lodged by him in Tenedos, until he should
learn the pleasure of the Athenians concerning them. Paches also
sent some galleys and seized Antissa, and took such other military
measures as he thought advisable.
Meanwhile the Peloponnesians in the forty ships, who ought to have
made all haste to relieve Mitylene, lost time in coming round
Peloponnese itself, and proceeding leisurely on the remainder of the
voyage, made Delos without having been seen by the Athenians at
Athens, and from thence arriving at Icarus and Myconus, there first
heard of the fall of Mitylene. Wishing to know the truth, they put
into Embatum, in the Erythraeid, about seven days after the capture of
the town. Here they learned the truth, and began to consider what they
were to do; and Teutiaplus, an Elean, addressed them as follows:
“Alcidas and Peloponnesians who share with me the command of this
armament, my advice is to sail just as we are to Mitylene, before we
have been heard of. We may expect to find the Athenians as much off
their guard as men generally are who have just taken a city: this will
certainly be so by sea, where they have no idea of any enemy attacking
them, and where our strength, as it happens, mainly lies; while even
their land forces are probably scattered about the houses in the
carelessness of victory. If therefore we were to fall upon them
suddenly and in the night, I have hopes, with the help of the
well-wishers that we may have left inside the town, that we shall
become masters of the place. Let us not shrink from the risk, but
let us remember that this is just the occasion for one of the baseless
panics common in war: and that to be able to guard against these in
one’s own case, and to detect the moment when an attack will find an
enemy at this disadvantage, is what makes a successful general.”
These words of Teutiaplus failing to move Alcidas, some of the
Ionian exiles and the Lesbians with the expedition began to urge
him, since this seemed too dangerous, to seize one of the Ionian
cities or the Aeolic town of Cyme, to use as a base for effecting
the revolt of Ionia. This was by no means a hopeless enterprise, as
their coming was welcome everywhere; their object would be by this
move to deprive Athens of her chief source of revenue, and at the same
time to saddle her with expense, if she chose to blockade them; and
they would probably induce Pissuthnes to join them in the war.
However, Alcidas gave this proposal as bad a reception as the other,
being eager, since he had come too late for Mitylene, to find
himself back in Peloponnese as soon as possible.
Accordingly he put out from Embatum and proceeded along shore; and
touching at the Teian town, Myonnesus, there butchered most of the
prisoners that he had taken on his passage. Upon his coming to
anchor at Ephesus, envoys came to him from the Samians at Anaia, and
told him that he was not going the right way to free Hellas in
massacring men who had never raised a hand against him, and who were
not enemies of his, but allies of Athens against their will, and
that if he did not stop he would turn many more friends into enemies
than enemies into friends. Alcidas agreed to this, and let go all
the Chians still in his hands and some of the others that he had
taken; the inhabitants, instead of flying at the sight of his vessels,
rather coming up to them, taking them for Athenian, having no sort
of expectation that while the Athenians commanded the sea
Peloponnesian ships would venture over to Ionia.
From Ephesus Alcidas set sail in haste and fled. He had been seen by
the Salaminian and Paralian galleys, which happened to be sailing from
Athens, while still at anchor off Clarus; and fearing pursuit he now
made across the open sea, fully determined to touch nowhere, if he
could help it, until he got to Peloponnese. Meanwhile news of him
had come in to Paches from the Erythraeid, and indeed from all
quarters. As Ionia was unfortified, great fears were felt that the
Peloponnesians coasting along shore, even if they did not intend to
stay, might make descents in passing and plunder the towns; and now
the Paralian and Salaminian, having seen him at Clarus, themselves
brought intelligence of the fact. Paches accordingly gave hot chase,
and continued the pursuit as far as the isle of Patmos, and then
finding that Alcidas had got on too far to be overtaken, came back
again. Meanwhile he thought it fortunate that, as he had not fallen in
with them out at sea, he had not overtaken them anywhere where they
would have been forced to encamp, and so give him the trouble of
blockading them.
On his return along shore he touched, among other places, at Notium,
the port of Colophon, where the Colophonians had settled after the
capture of the upper town by Itamenes and the barbarians, who had been
called in by certain individuals in a party quarrel. The capture of
the town took place about the time of the second Peloponnesian
invasion of Attica. However, the refugees, after settling at Notium,
again split up into factions, one of which called in Arcadian and
barbarian mercenaries from Pissuthnes and, entrenching these in a
quarter apart, formed a new community with the Median party of the
Colophonians who joined them from the upper town. Their opponents
had retired into exile, and now called in Paches, who invited Hippias,
the commander of the Arcadians in the fortified quarter, to a
parley, upon condition that, if they could not agree, he was to be put
back safe and sound in the fortification. However, upon his coming out
to him, he put him into custody, though not in chains, and attacked
suddenly and took by surprise the fortification, and putting the
Arcadians and the barbarians found in it to the sword, afterwards took
Hippias into it as he had promised, and, as soon as he was inside,
seized him and shot him down. Paches then gave up Notium to the
Colophonians not of the Median party; and settlers were afterwards
sent out from Athens, and the place colonized according to Athenian
laws, after collecting all the Colophonians found in any of the
cities.
Arrived at Mitylene, Paches reduced Pyrrha and Eresus; and finding
the Lacedaemonian, Salaethus, in hiding in the town, sent him off to
Athens, together with the Mitylenians that he had placed in Tenedos,
and any other persons that he thought concerned in the revolt. He also
sent back the greater part of his forces, remaining with the rest to
settle Mitylene and the rest of Lesbos as he thought best.
Upon the arrival of the prisoners with Salaethus, the Athenians at
once put the latter to death, although he offered, among other things,
to procure the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Plataea, which
was still under siege; and after deliberating as to what they should
do with the former, in the fury of the moment determined to put to
death not only the prisoners at Athens, but the whole adult male
population of Mitylene, and to make slaves of the women and
children. It was remarked that Mitylene had revolted without being,
like the rest, subjected to the empire; and what above all swelled the
wrath of the Athenians was the fact of the Peloponnesian fleet
having ventured over to Ionia to her support, a fact which was held to
argue a long meditated rebellion. They accordingly sent a galley to
communicate the decree to Paches, commanding him to lose no time in
dispatching the Mitylenians. The morrow brought repentance with it and
reflection on the horrid cruelty of a decree, which condemned a
whole city to the fate merited only by the guilty. This was no
sooner perceived by the Mitylenian ambassadors at Athens and their
Athenian supporters, than they moved the authorities to put the
question again to the vote; which they the more easily consented to
do, as they themselves plainly saw that most of the citizens wished
some one to give them an opportunity for reconsidering the matter.
An assembly was therefore at once called, and after much expression of
opinion upon both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, the same who had
carried the former motion of putting the Mitylenians to death, the
most violent man at Athens, and at that time by far the most
powerful with the commons, came forward again and spoke as follows:
“I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is
incapable of empire, and never more so than by your present change
of mind in the matter of Mitylene. Fears or plots being unknown to you
in your daily relations with each other, you feel just the same with
regard to your allies, and never reflect that the mistakes into
which you may be led by listening to their appeals, or by giving way
to your own compassion, are full of danger to yourselves, and bring
you no thanks for your weakness from your allies; entirely
forgetting that your empire is a despotism and your subjects
disaffected conspirators, whose obedience is ensured not by your
suicidal concessions, but by the superiority given you by your own
strength and not their loyalty. The most alarming feature in the
case is the constant change of measures with which we appear to be
threatened, and our seeming ignorance of the fact that bad laws
which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that have
no authority; that unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than
quick-witted insubordination; and that ordinary men usually manage
public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. The latter are
always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every
proposition brought forward, thinking that they cannot show their
wit in more important matters, and by such behaviour too often ruin
their country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are
content to be less learned than the laws, and less able to pick
holes in the speech of a good speaker; and being fair judges rather
than rival athletes, generally conduct affairs successfully. These
we ought to imitate,
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