History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

at such times, there was no

length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their

fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while

some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there.

 

So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression

which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur.

Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed;

struggles being every, where made by the popular chiefs to bring in

the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians.

In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to

make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the

command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and

their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the

foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties. The

sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and

terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as

the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or

milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety

of the particular cases. In peace and prosperity, states and

individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find

themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war

takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough

master, that brings most men’s characters to a level with their

fortunes. Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the

places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been

done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their

inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and

the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to change their ordinary

meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity

came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation,

specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness;

ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.

Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting,

a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme

measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected.

To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a

still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either

was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In

fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of

a crime where it was wanting, was equally commended until even blood

became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those

united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such

associations had not in view the blessings derivable from

established institutions but were formed by ambition for their

overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other rested

less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime. The fair

proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the

stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge

also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of

reconciliation, being only proffered on either side to meet an

immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at

hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize

it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious

vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of safety

apart, success by treachery won him the palm of superior intelligence.

Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues

clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the

second as they are proud of being the first. The cause of all these

evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from

these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in

contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the

fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political

equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought

prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended

to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for

ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of

vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what

justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party

caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal

readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of

the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion

was in honour with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to

arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate

part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not

joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to

escape.

 

Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by

reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honour so

largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became

divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end

to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath

that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their

calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were

more intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence. In this

contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their

own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they

feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations

of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had

recourse to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking

that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure

by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to their want of

precaution.

 

Meanwhile Corcyra gave the first example of most of the crimes

alluded to; of the reprisals exacted by the governed who had never

experienced equitable treatment or indeed aught but insolence from

their rulers—when their hour came; of the iniquitous resolves of

those who desired to get rid of their accustomed poverty, and ardently

coveted their neighbours’ goods; and lastly, of the savage and

pitiless excesses into which men who had begun the struggle, not in

a class but in a party spirit, were hurried by their ungovernable

passions. In the confusion into which life was now thrown in the

cities, human nature, always rebelling against the law and now its

master, gladly showed itself ungoverned in passion, above respect

for justice, and the enemy of all superiority; since revenge would not

have been set above religion, and gain above justice, had it not

been for the fatal power of envy. Indeed men too often take upon

themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of

doing away with those general laws to which all alike can look for

salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against

the day of danger when their aid may be required.

 

While the revolutionary passions thus for the first time displayed

themselves in the factions of Corcyra, Eurymedon and the Athenian

fleet sailed away; after which some five hundred Corcyraean exiles who

had succeeded in escaping, took some forts on the mainland, and

becoming masters of the Corcyraean territory over the water, made this

their base to Plunder their countrymen in the island, and did so

much damage as to cause a severe famine in the town. They also sent

envoys to Lacedaemon and Corinth to negotiate their restoration; but

meeting with no success, afterwards got together boats and mercenaries

and crossed over to the island, being about six hundred in all; and

burning their boats so as to have no hope except in becoming masters

of the country, went up to Mount Istone, and fortifying themselves

there, began to annoy those in the city and obtained command of the

country.

 

At the close of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty ships

under the command of Laches, son of Melanopus, and Charoeades, son

of Euphiletus, to Sicily, where the Syracusans and Leontines were at

war. The Syracusans had for allies all the Dorian cities except

Camarina—these had been included in the Lacedaemonian confederacy

from the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any active

part in it—the Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian cities. In

Italy the Locrians were for the Syracusans, the Rhegians for their

Leontine kinsmen. The allies of the Leontines now sent to Athens and

appealed to their ancient alliance and to their Ionian origin, to

persuade the Athenians to send them a fleet, as the Syracusans were

blockading them by land and sea. The Athenians sent it upon the plea

of their common descent, but in reality to prevent the exportation

of Sicilian corn to Peloponnese and to test the possibility of

bringing Sicily into subjection. Accordingly they established

themselves at Rhegium in Italy, and from thence carried on the war

in concert with their allies.