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The History of the Peloponnesian War
Book 3 - Chapter IX
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Fourth and Fifth Years of the War - Revolt of Mitylene
The next summer, just as the corn was getting ripe, the
Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under the command of
Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat
down and ravaged the land; the Athenian horse as usual attacking them,
wherever it was practicable, and preventing the mass of the light
troops from advancing from their camp and wasting the parts near the
city. After staying the time for which they had taken provisions,
the invaders retired and dispersed to their several cities.
Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos,
except Methymna, revolted from the Athenians. The Lesbians had
wished to revolt even before the war, but the Lacedaemonians would not
receive them; and yet now when they did revolt, they were compelled to
do so sooner than they had intended. While they were waiting until the
moles for their harbours and the ships and walls that they had in
building should be finished, and for the arrival of archers and corn
and other things that they were engaged in fetching from the Pontus,
the Tenedians, with whom they were at enmity, and the Methymnians, and
some factious persons in Mitylene itself, who were proxeni of
Athens, informed the Athenians that the Mitylenians were forcibly
uniting the island under their sovereignty, and that the
preparations about which they were so active, were all concerted
with the Boeotians their kindred and the Lacedaemonians with a view to
a revolt, and that, unless they were immediately prevented, Athens
would lose Lesbos.
However, the Athenians, distressed by the plague, and by the war
that had recently broken out and was now raging, thought it a
serious matter to add Lesbos with its fleet and untouched resources
to the list of their enemies; and at first would not believe the
charge, giving too much weight to their wish that it might not be
true.
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But when an embassy which they sent had failed to persuade the Mitylenians to give up the union and preparations complained of,
they became alarmed, and resolved to strike the first blow. They
accordingly suddenly sent off forty ships that had been got ready to
sail round Peloponnese, under the command of Cleippides, son of
Deinias, and two others; word having been brought them of a festival
in honour of the Malean Apollo outside the town, which is kept by
the whole people of Mitylene, and at which, if haste were made, they
might hope to take them by surprise. If this plan succeeded, well
and good; if not, they were to order the Mitylenians to deliver up
their ships and to pull down their walls, and if they did not obey, to
declare war. The ships accordingly set out; the ten galleys, forming
the contingent of the Mitylenians present with the fleet according
to the terms of the alliance, being detained by the Athenians, and
their crews placed in custody. However, the Mitylenians were
informed of the expedition by a man who crossed from Athens to Euboea,
and going overland to Geraestus, sailed from thence by a merchantman
which he found on the point of putting to sea, and so arrived at
Mitylene the third day after leaving Athens. The Mitylenians
accordingly refrained from going out to the temple at Malea, and
moreover barricaded and kept guard round the half-finished parts of
their walls and harbours.
When the Athenians sailed in not long after and saw how things
stood, the generals delivered their orders, and upon the Mitylenians
refusing to obey, commenced hostilities. The Mitylenians, thus
compelled to go to war without notice and unprepared, at first
sailed out with their fleet and made some show of fighting, a little
in front of the harbour; but being driven back by the Athenian
ships, immediately offered to treat with the commanders, wishing, if
possible, to get the ships away for the present upon any tolerable
terms. The Athenian commanders accepted their offers, being themselves
fearful that they might not be able to cope with the whole of
Lesbos; and an armistice having been concluded, the Mitylenians sent
to Athens one of the informers, already repentant of his conduct,
and others with him, to try to persuade the Athenians of the innocence
of their intentions and to get the fleet recalled. In the meantime,
having no great hope of a favourable answer from Athens, they also
sent off a galley with envoys to Lacedaemon, unobserved by the
Athenian fleet which was anchored at Malea to the north of the town.
While these envoys, reaching Lacedaemon after a difficult journey
across the open sea, were negotiating for succours being sent them,
the ambassadors from Athens returned without having effected anything;
and hostilities were at once begun by the Mitylenians and the rest
of Lesbos, with the exception of the Methymnians, who came to the
aid of the Athenians with the Imbrians and Lemnians and some few of
the other allies. The Mitylenians made a sortie with all their
forces against the Athenian camp; and a battle ensued, in which they
gained some slight advantage, but retired notwithstanding, not feeling
sufficient confidence in themselves to spend the night upon the field.
After this they kept quiet, wishing to wait for the chance of
reinforcements arriving from Peloponnese before making a second
venture, being encouraged by the arrival of Meleas, a Laconian, and
Hermaeondas, a Theban, who had been sent off before the insurrection
but had been unable to reach Lesbos before the Athenian expedition,
and who now stole in in a galley after the battle, and advised them to
send another galley and envoys back with them, which the Mitylenians
accordingly did.
Meanwhile the Athenians, greatly encouraged by the inaction of the
Mitylenians, summoned allies to their aid, who came in all the quicker
from seeing so little vigour displayed by the Lesbians, and bringing
round their ships to a new station to the south of the town, fortified
two camps, one on each side of the city, and instituted a blockade
of both the harbours. The sea was thus closed against the Mitylenians,
who, however, commanded the whole country, with the rest of the
Lesbians who had now joined them; the Athenians only holding a limited
area round their camps, and using Malea more as the station for
their ships and their market.
While the war went on in this way at Mitylene, the Athenians,
about the same time in this summer, also sent thirty ships to
Peloponnese under Asopius, son of Phormio; the Acarnanians insisting
that the commander sent should be some son or relative of Phormio.
As the ships coasted along shore they ravaged the seaboard of Laconia;
after which Asopius sent most of the fleet home, and himself went on
with twelve vessels to Naupactus, and afterwards raising the whole
Acarnanian population made an expedition against Oeniadae, the fleet
sailing along the Achelous, while the army laid waste the country. The
inhabitants, however, showing no signs of submitting, he dismissed the
land forces and himself sailed to Leucas, and making a descent upon
Nericus was cut off during his retreat, and most of his troops with
him, by the people in those parts aided by some coastguards; after
which the Athenians sailed away, recovering their dead from the
Leucadians under truce.
Meanwhile the envoys of the Mitylenians sent out in the first ship
were told by the Lacedaemonians to come to Olympia, in order that
the rest of the allies might hear them and decide upon their matter,
and so they journeyed thither. It was the Olympiad in which the
Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory, and the envoys having
been introduced to make their speech after the festival, spoke as
follows:
"Lacedaemonians and allies, the rule established among the
Hellenes is not unknown to us. Those who revolt in war and forsake
their former confederacy are favourably regarded by those who
receive them, in so far as they are of use to them, but otherwise
are thought less well of, through being considered traitors to their
former friends. Nor is this an unfair way of judging, where the rebels
and the power from whom they secede are at one in policy and sympathy,
and a match for each other in resources and power, and where no
reasonable ground exists for the rebellion. But with us and the
Athenians this was not the case; and no one need think the worse of us
for revolting from them in danger, after having been honoured by
them in time of peace.
"Justice and honesty will be the first topics of our speech,
especially as we are asking for alliance; because we know that there
can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union
between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be
persuaded of each other's honesty, and be generally congenial the
one to the other; since from difference in feeling springs also
difference in conduct. Between ourselves and the Athenians alliance
began, when you withdrew from the Median War and they remained to
finish the business. But we did not become allies of the Athenians for
the subjugation of the Hellenes, but allies of the Hellenes for
their liberation from the Mede; and as long as the Athenians led us
fairly we followed them loyally; but when we saw them relax their
hostility to the Mede, to try to compass the subjection of the allies,
then our apprehensions began. Unable, however, to unite and defend
themselves, on account of the number of confederates that had votes,
all the allies were enslaved, except ourselves and the Chians, who
continued to send our contingents as independent and nominally free.
Trust in Athens as a leader, however, we could no longer feel, judging
by the examples already given; it being unlikely that she would reduce
our fellow confederates, and not do the same by us who were left, if
ever she had the power.
"Had we all been still independent, we could have had more faith
in their not attempting any change; but the greater number being their
subjects, while they were treating us as equals, they would
naturally chafe under this solitary instance of independence as
contrasted with the submission of the majority; particularly as they
daily grew more powerful, and we more destitute. Now the only sure
basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the
other; he who would like to encroach is then deterred by the
reflection that he will not have odds in his favour. Again, if we were
left independent, it was only because they thought they saw their
way to empire more clearly by specious language and by the paths of
policy than by those of force. Not only were we useful as evidence
that powers who had votes, like themselves, would not, surely, join
them in their expeditions, against their will, without the party
attacked being in the wrong; but the same system also enabled them
to lead the stronger states against the weaker first, and so to
leave the former to the last, stripped of their natural allies, and
less capable of resistance. But if they had begun with us, while all
the states still had their resources under their own control, and
there was a centre to rally round, the work of subjugation would
have been found less easy. Besides this, our navy gave them some
apprehension: it was always possible that it might unite with you or
with some other power, and become dangerous to Athens. The court which
we paid to their commons and its leaders for the time being also
helped us to maintain our independence. However, we did not expect
to be able to do so much longer, if this war had not broken out,
from the examples that we had had of their conduct to the rest.
"How then could we put our trust in such friendship or freedom as we
had here? We accepted each other against our inclination; fear made
them court us in war, and us them in peace; sympathy, the ordinary
basis of confidence, had its place supplied by terror, fear having
more share than friendship in detaining us in the alliance; and the
first party that should be encouraged by the hope of impunity was
certain to break faith with the other. So that to condemn us for being
the first to break off, because they delay the blow that we dread,
instead of ourselves delaying to know for certain whether it will be
dealt or not, is to take a false view of the case. For if we were
equally able with them to meet their plots and imitate their delay, we
should be their equals and should be under no necessity of being their
subjects; but the liberty of offence being always theirs, that of
defence ought clearly to be ours.
"Such, Lacedaemonians and allies, are the grounds and the reasons of
our revolt; clear enough to convince our hearers of the fairness of
our conduct, and sufficient to alarm ourselves, and to make us turn to
some means of safety. This we wished to do long ago, when we sent to
you on the subject while the peace yet lasted, but were balked by your
refusing to receive us; and now, upon the Boeotians inviting us, we at
once responded to the call, and decided upon a twofold revolt, from
the Hellenes and from the Athenians, not to aid the latter in
harming the former, but to join in their liberation, and not to
allow the Athenians in the end to destroy us, but to act in time
against them. Our revolt, however, has taken place prematurely and
without preparation--a fact which makes it all the more incumbent on
you to receive us into alliance and to send us speedy relief, in order
to show that you support your friends, and at the same time do harm to
your enemies. You have an opportunity such as you never had before.
Disease and expenditure have wasted the Athenians: their ships are
either cruising round your coasts, or engaged in blockading us; and it
is not probable that they will have any to spare, if you invade them a
second time this summer by sea and land; but they will either offer no
resistance to your vessels, or withdraw from both our shores. Nor must
it be thought that this is a case of putting yourselves into danger
for a country which is not yours. Lesbos may appear far off, but
when help is wanted she will be found near enough. It is not in Attica
that the war will be decided, as some imagine, but in the countries by
which Attica is supported; and the Athenian revenue is drawn from
the allies, and will become still larger if they reduce us; as not
only will no other state revolt, but our resources will be added to
theirs, and we shall be treated worse than those that were enslaved
before. But if you will frankly support us, you will add to your
side a state that has a large navy, which is your great want; you will
smooth the way to the overthrow of the Athenians by depriving them
of their allies, who will be greatly encouraged to come over; and
you will free yourselves from the imputation made against you, of
not supporting insurrection. In short, only show yourselves as
liberators, and you may count upon having the advantage in the war.
"Respect, therefore, the hopes placed in you by the Hellenes, and
that Olympian Zeus, in whose temple we stand as very suppliants;
become the allies and defenders of the Mitylenians, and do not
sacrifice us, who put our lives upon the hazard, in a cause in which
general good will result to all from our success, and still more
general harm if we fail through your refusing to help us; but be the
men that the Hellenes think you, and our fears desire."
Such were the words of the Mitylenians. After hearing them out,
the Lacedaemonians and confederates granted what they urged, and
took the Lesbians into alliance, and deciding in favour of the
invasion of Attica, told the allies present to march as quickly as
possible to the Isthmus with two-thirds of their forces; and
arriving there first themselves, got ready hauling machines to carry
their ships across from Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens, in
order to make their attack by sea and land at once. However, the
zeal which they displayed was not imitated by the rest of the
confederates, who came in but slowly, being engaged in harvesting
their corn and sick of making expeditions.
Meanwhile the Athenians, aware that the preparations of the enemy
were due to his conviction of their weakness, and wishing to show
him that he was mistaken, and that they were able, without moving
the Lesbian fleet, to repel with ease that with which they were
menaced from Peloponnese, manned a hundred ships by embarking the
citizens of Athens, except the knights and Pentacosiomedimni, and
the resident aliens; and putting out to the Isthmus, displayed their
power, and made descents upon Peloponnese wherever they pleased. A
disappointment so signal made the Lacedaemonians think that the
Lesbians had not spoken the truth; and embarrassed by the
non-appearance of the confederates, coupled with the news that the
thirty ships round Peloponnese were ravaging the lands near Sparta,
they went back home. Afterwards, however, they got ready a fleet to
send to Lesbos, and ordering a total of forty ships from the different
cities in the league, appointed Alcidas to command the expedition in
his capacity of high admiral. Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred
ships, upon seeing the Lacedaemonians go home, went home likewise.
If, at the time that this fleet was at sea, Athens had almost the
largest number of first-rate ships in commission that she ever
possessed at any one moment, she had as many or even more when the war
began. At that time one hundred guarded Attica, Euboea, and Salamis; a
hundred more were cruising round Peloponnese, besides those employed
at Potidaea and in other places; making a grand total of two hundred
and fifty vessels employed on active service in a single summer. It
was this, with Potidaea, that most exhausted her revenues--Potidaea
being blockaded by a force of heavy infantry (each drawing two
drachmae a day, one for himself and another for his servant), which
amounted to three thousand at first, and was kept at this number
down to the end of the siege; besides sixteen hundred with Phormio who
went away before it was over; and the ships being all paid at the same
rate. In this way her money was wasted at first; and this was the
largest number of ships ever manned by her.
About the same time that the Lacedaemonians were at the Isthmus, the
Mitylenians marched by land with their mercenaries against Methymna,
which they thought to gain by treachery. After assaulting the town,
and not meeting with the success that they anticipated, they
withdrew to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus; and taking measures for the
better security of these towns and strengthening their walls,
hastily returned home. After their departure the Methymnians marched
against Antissa, but were defeated in a sortie by the Antissians and
their mercenaries, and retreated in haste after losing many of their
number. Word of this reaching Athens, and the Athenians learning
that the Mitylenians were masters of the country and their own
soldiers unable to hold them in check, they sent out about the
beginning of autumn Paches, son of Epicurus, to take the command,
and a thousand Athenian heavy infantry; who worked their own passage
and, arriving at Mitylene, built a single wall all round it, forts
being erected at some of the strongest points. Mitylene was thus
blockaded strictly on both sides, by land and by sea; and winter now
drew near.
The Athenians needing money for the siege, although they had for the
first time raised a contribution of two hundred talents from their own
citizens, now sent out twelve ships to levy subsidies from their
allies, with Lysicles and four others in command. After cruising to
different places and laying them under contribution, Lysicles went
up the country from Myus, in Caria, across the plain of the Meander,
as far as the hill of Sandius; and being attacked by the Carians and
the people of Anaia, was slain with many of his soldiers.
The same winter the Plataeans, who were still being besieged by
the Peloponnesians and Boeotians, distressed by the failure of their
provisions, and seeing no hope of relief from Athens, nor any other
means of safety, formed a scheme with the Athenians besieged with them
for escaping, if possible, by forcing their way over the enemy's
walls; the attempt having been suggested by Theaenetus, son of
Tolmides, a soothsayer, and Eupompides, son of Daimachus, one of their
generals. At first all were to join: afterwards, half hung back,
thinking the risk great; about two hundred and twenty, however,
voluntarily persevered in the attempt, which was carried out in the
following way. Ladders were made to match the height of the enemy's
wall, which they measured by the layers of bricks, the side turned
towards them not being thoroughly whitewashed. These were counted by
many persons at once; and though some might miss the right
calculation, most would hit upon it, particularly as they counted over
and over again, and were no great way from the wall, but could see
it easily enough for their purpose. The length required for the
ladders was thus obtained, being calculated from the breadth of the
brick.
Now the wall of the Peloponnesians was constructed as follows. It
consisted of two lines drawn round the place, one against the
Plataeans, the other against any attack on the outside from Athens,
about sixteen feet apart. The intermediate space of sixteen feet was
occupied by huts portioned out among the soldiers on guard, and
built in one block, so as to give the appearance of a single thick
wall with battlements on either side. At intervals of every ten
battlements were towers of considerable size, and the same breadth
as the wall, reaching right across from its inner to its outer face,
with no means of passing except through the middle. Accordingly on
stormy and wet nights the battlements were deserted, and guard kept
from the towers, which were not far apart and roofed in above.
Such being the structure of the wall by which the Plataeans were
blockaded, when their preparations were completed, they waited for a
stormy night of wind and rain and without any moon, and then set
out, guided by the authors of the enterprise. Crossing first the ditch
that ran round the town, they next gained the wall of the enemy
unperceived by the sentinels, who did not see them in the darkness, or
hear them, as the wind drowned with its roar the noise of their
approach; besides which they kept a good way off from each other, that
they might not be betrayed by the clash of their weapons. They were
also lightly equipped, and had only the left foot shod to preserve
them from slipping in the mire. They came up to the battlements at one
of the intermediate spaces where they knew them to be unguarded: those
who carried the ladders went first and planted them; next twelve
light-armed soldiers with only a dagger and a breastplate mounted, led
by Ammias, son of Coroebus, who was the first on the wall; his
followers getting up after him and going six to each of the towers.
After these came another party of light troops armed with spears,
whose shields, that they might advance the easier, were carried by men
behind, who were to hand them to them when they found themselves in
presence of the enemy. After a good many had mounted they were
discovered by the sentinels in the towers, by the noise made by a tile
which was knocked down by one of the Plataeans as he was laying hold
of the battlements. The alarm was instantly given, and the troops
rushed to the wall, not knowing the nature of the danger, owing to the
dark night and stormy weather; the Plataeans in the town having also
chosen that moment to make a sortie against the wall of the
Peloponnesians upon the side opposite to that on which their men
were getting over, in order to divert the attention of the
besiegers. Accordingly they remained distracted at their several
posts, without any venturing to stir to give help from his own
station, and at a loss to guess what was going on. Meanwhile the three
hundred set aside for service on emergencies went outside the wall
in the direction of the alarm. Fire-signals of an attack were also
raised towards Thebes; but the Plataeans in the town at once displayed
a number of others, prepared beforehand for this very purpose, in
order to render the enemy's signals unintelligible, and to prevent his
friends getting a true idea of what was passing and coming to his
aid before their comrades who had gone out should have made good their
escape and be in safety.
Meanwhile the first of the scaling party that had got up, after
carrying both the towers and putting the sentinels to the sword,
posted themselves inside to prevent any one coming through against
them; and rearing ladders from the wall, sent several men up on the
towers, and from their summit and base kept in check all of the
enemy that came up, with their missiles, while their main body planted
a number of ladders against the wall, and knocking down the
battlements, passed over between the towers; each as soon as he had
got over taking up his station at the edge of the ditch, and plying
from thence with arrows and darts any who came along the wall to
stop the passage of his comrades. When all were over, the party on the
towers came down, the last of them not without difficulty, and
proceeded to the ditch, just as the three hundred came up carrying
torches. The Plataeans, standing on the edge of the ditch in the dark,
had a good view of their opponents, and discharged their arrows and
darts upon the unarmed parts of their bodies, while they themselves
could not be so well seen in the obscurity for the torches; and thus
even the last of them got over the ditch, though not without effort
and difficulty; as ice had formed in it, not strong enough to walk
upon, but of that watery kind which generally comes with a wind more
east than north, and the snow which this wind had caused to fall
during the night had made the water in the ditch rise, so that they
could scarcely breast it as they crossed. However, it was mainly the
violence of the storm that enabled them to effect their escape at all.
Starting from the ditch, the Plataeans went all together along the
road leading to Thebes, keeping the chapel of the hero Androcrates
upon their right; considering that the last road which the
Peloponnesians would suspect them of having taken would be that
towards their enemies' country. Indeed they could see them pursuing
with torches upon the Athens road towards Cithaeron and
Druoskephalai or Oakheads. After going for rather more than half a
mile upon the road to Thebes, the Plataeans turned off and took that
leading to the mountain, to Erythrae and Hysiae, and reaching the
hills, made good their escape to Athens, two hundred and twelve men in
all; some of their number having turned back into the town before
getting over the wall, and one archer having been taken prisoner at
the outer ditch. Meanwhile the Peloponnesians gave up the pursuit
and returned to their posts; and the Plataeans in the town, knowing
nothing of what had passed, and informed by those who had turned
back that not a man had escaped, sent out a herald as soon as it was
day to make a truce for the recovery of the dead bodies, and then,
learning the truth, desisted. In this way the Plataean party got
over and were saved.
Towards the close of the same winter, Salaethus, a Lacedaemonian,
was sent out in a galley from Lacedaemon to Mitylene. Going by sea
to Pyrrha, and from thence overland, he passed along the bed of a
torrent, where the line of circumvallation was passable, and thus
entering unperceived into Mitylene told the magistrates that Attica
would certainly be invaded, and the forty ships destined to relieve
them arrive, and that he had been sent on to announce this and to
superintend matters generally. The Mitylenians upon this took courage,
and laid aside the idea of treating with the Athenians; and now this
winter ended, and with it ended the fourth year of the war of which
Thucydides was the historian.
The next summer the Peloponnesians sent off the forty-two ships
for Mitylene, under Alcidas, their high admiral, and themselves and
their allies invaded Attica, their object being to distract the
Athenians by a double movement, and thus to make it less easy for them
to act against the fleet sailing to Mitylene. The commander in this
invasion was Cleomenes, in the place of King Pausanias, son of
Pleistoanax, his nephew, who was still a minor. Not content with
laying waste whatever had shot up in the parts which they had before
devastated, the invaders now extended their ravages to lands passed
over in their previous incursions; so that this invasion was more
severely felt by the Athenians than any except the second; the enemy
staying on and on until they had overrun most of the country, in the
expectation of hearing from Lesbos of something having been achieved
by their fleet, which they thought must now have got over. However, as
they did not obtain any of the results expected, and their
provisions began to run short, they retreated and dispersed to their
different cities.
In the meantime the Mitylenians, finding their provisions failing,
while the fleet from Peloponnese was loitering on the way instead of
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, instead of being led on by cleverness and
intellectual rivalry to advise your people against our real opinions.
"For myself, I adhere to my former opinion, and wonder at those
who have proposed to reopen the case of the Mitylenians, and who are
thus causing a delay which is all in favour of the guilty, by making
the sufferer proceed against the offender with the edge of his anger
blunted; although where vengeance follows most closely upon the wrong,
it best equals it and most amply requites it. I wonder also who will
be the man who will maintain the contrary, and will pretend to show
that the crimes of the Mitylenians are of service to us, and our
misfortunes injurious to the allies. Such a man must plainly either
have such confidence in his rhetoric as to adventure to prove that
what has been once for all decided is still undetermined, or be bribed
to try to delude us by elaborate sophisms. In such contests the
state gives the rewards to others, and takes the dangers for
herself. The persons to blame are you who are so foolish as to
institute these contests; who go to see an oration as you would to see
a sight, take your facts on hearsay, judge of the practicability of
a project by the wit of its advocates, and trust for the truth as to
past events not to the fact which you saw more than to the clever
strictures which you heard; the easy victims of new-fangled arguments,
unwilling to follow received conclusions; slaves to every new paradox,
despisers of the commonplace; the first wish of every man being that
he could speak himself, the next to rival those who can speak by
seeming to be quite up with their ideas by applauding every hit almost
before it is made, and by being as quick in catching an argument as
you are slow in foreseeing its consequences; asking, if I may so
say, for something different from the conditions under which we
live, and yet comprehending inadequately those very conditions; very
slaves to the pleasure of the ear, and more like the audience of a
rhetorician than the council of a city.
"In order to keep you from this, I proceed to show that no one state
has ever injured you as much as Mitylene. I can make allowance for
those who revolt because they cannot bear our empire, or who have been
forced to do so by the enemy. But for those who possessed an island
with fortifications; who could fear our enemies only by sea, and there
had their own force of galleys to protect them; who were independent
and held in the highest honour by you--to act as these have done,
this is not revolt--revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and
wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our
bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their
own account in the acquisition of power. The fate of those of their
neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson
to them; their own prosperity could not dissuade them from
affronting danger; but blindly confident in the future, and full of
hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition, they
declared war and made their decision to prefer might to right, their
attack being determined not by provocation but by the moment which
seemed propitious. The truth is that great good fortune coming
suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent; in most
cases it is safer for mankind to have success in reason than out of
reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity
than to preserve prosperity. Our mistake has been to distinguish the
Mitylenians as we have done: had they been long ago treated like the
rest, they never would have so far forgotten themselves, human
nature being as surely made arrogant by consideration as it is awed by
firmness. Let them now therefore be punished as their crime
requires, and do not, while you condemn the aristocracy, absolve the
people. This is certain, that all attacked you without distinction,
although they might have come over to us and been now again in
possession of their city. But no, they thought it safer to throw in
their lot with the aristocracy and so joined their rebellion! Consider
therefore: if you subject to the same punishment the ally who is
forced to rebel by the enemy, and him who does so by his own free
choice, which of them, think you, is there that will not rebel upon
the slightest pretext; when the reward of success is freedom, and
the penalty of failure nothing so very terrible? We meanwhile shall
have to risk our money and our lives against one state after
another; and if successful, shall receive a ruined town from which
we can no longer draw the revenue upon which our strength depends;
while if unsuccessful, we shall have an enemy the more upon our hands,
and shall spend the time that might be employed in combating our
existing foes in warring with our own allies.
"No hope, therefore, that rhetoric may instil or money purchase,
of the mercy due to human infirmity must be held out to the
Mitylenians. Their offence was not involuntary, but of malice and
deliberate; and mercy is only for unwilling offenders. I therefore,
now as before, persist against your reversing your first decision,
or giving way to the three failings most fatal to empire--pity,
sentiment, and indulgence. Compassion is due to those who can
reciprocate the feeling, not to those who will never pity us in
return, but are our natural and necessary foes: the orators who
charm us with sentiment may find other less important arenas for their
talents, in the place of one where the city pays a heavy penalty for a
momentary pleasure, themselves receiving fine acknowledgments for
their fine phrases; while indulgence should be shown towards those who
will be our friends in future, instead of towards men who will
remain just what they were, and as much our enemies as before. To
sum up shortly, I say that if you follow my advice you will do what is
just towards the Mitylenians, and at the same time expedient; while by
a different decision you will not oblige them so much as pass sentence
upon yourselves. For if they were right in rebelling, you must be
wrong in ruling. However, if, right or wrong, you determine to rule,
you must carry out your principle and punish the Mitylenians as your
interest requires; or else you must give up your empire and
cultivate honesty without danger. Make up your minds, therefore, to
give them like for like; and do not let the victims who escaped the
plot be more insensible than the conspirators who hatched it; but
reflect what they would have done if victorious over you, especially
they were the aggressors. It is they who wrong their neighbour without
a cause, that pursue their victim to the death, on account of the
danger which they foresee in letting their enemy survive; since the
object of a wanton wrong is more dangerous, if he escape, than an
enemy who has not this to complain of. Do not, therefore, be
traitors to yourselves, but recall as nearly as possible the moment of
suffering and the supreme importance which you then attached to
their reduction; and now pay them back in their turn, without yielding
to present weakness or forgetting the peril that once hung over you.
Punish them as they deserve, and teach your other allies by a striking
example that the penalty of rebellion is death. Let them once
understand this and you will not have so often to neglect your enemies
while you are fighting with your own confederates."
Such were the words of Cleon. After him Diodotus, son of Eucrates,
who had also in the previous assembly spoken most strongly against
putting the Mitylenians to death, came forward and spoke as follows:
"I do not blame the persons who have reopened the case of the
Mitylenians, nor do I approve the protests which we have heard against
important questions being frequently debated. I think the two things
most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usually goes
hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of
mind. As for the argument that speech ought not to be the exponent
of action, the man who uses it must be either senseless or interested:
senseless if he believes it possible to treat of the uncertain
future through any other medium; interested if, wishing to carry a
disgraceful measure and doubting his ability to speak well in a bad
cause, he thinks to frighten opponents and hearers by well-aimed
calumny. What is still more intolerable is to accuse a speaker of
making a display in order to be paid for it. If ignorance only were
imputed, an unsuccessful speaker might retire with a reputation for
honesty, if not for wisdom; while the charge of dishonesty makes him
suspected, if successful, and thought, if defeated, not only a fool
but a rogue. The city is no gainer by such a system, since fear
deprives it of its advisers; although in truth, if our speakers are to
make such assertions, it would be better for the country if they could
not speak at all, as we should then make fewer blunders. The good
citizen ought to triumph not by frightening his opponents but by
beating them fairly in argument; and a wise city, without
over-distinguishing its best advisers, will nevertheless not deprive
them of their due, and, far from punishing an unlucky counsellor, will
not even regard him as disgraced. In this way successful orators would
be least tempted to sacrifice their convictions to popularity, in
the hope of still higher honours, and unsuccessful speakers to
resort to the same popular arts in order to win over the multitude.
"This is not our way; and, besides, the moment that a man is
suspected of giving advice, however good, from corrupt motives, we
feel such a grudge against him for the gain which after all we are not
certain he will receive, that we deprive the city of its certain
benefit. Plain good advice has thus come to be no less suspected
than bad; and the advocate of the most monstrous measures is not
more obliged to use deceit to gain the people, than the best
counsellor is to lie in order to be believed. The city and the city
only, owing to these refinements, can never be served openly and
without disguise; he who does serve it openly being always suspected
of serving himself in some secret way in return. Still, considering
the magnitude of the interests involved, and the position of
affairs, we orators must make it our business to look a little farther
than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your advisers, are
responsible, while you, our audience, are not so. For if those who
gave the advice, and those who took it, suffered equally, you would
judge more calmly; as it is, you visit the disasters into which the
whim of the moment may have led you upon the single person of your
adviser, not upon yourselves, his numerous companions in error.
"However, I have not come forward either to oppose or to accuse in
the matter of Mitylene; indeed, the question before us as sensible men
is not their guilt, but our interests. Though I prove them ever so
guilty, I shall not, therefore, advise their death, unless it be
expedient; nor though they should have claims to indulgence, shall I
recommend it, unless it be dearly for the good of the country. I
consider that we are deliberating for the future more than for the
present; and where Cleon is so positive as to the useful deterrent
effects that will follow from making rebellion capital, I, who
consider the interests of the future quite as much as he, as
positively maintain the contrary. And I require you not to reject my
useful considerations for his specious ones: his speech may have the
attraction of seeming the more just in your present temper against
Mitylene; but we are not in a court of justice, but in a political
assembly; and the question is not justice, but how to make the
Mitylenians useful to Athens.
"Now of course communities have enacted the penalty of death for
many offences far lighter than this: still hope leads men to
venture, and no one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward
conviction that he would succeed in his design. Again, was there
ever city rebelling that did not believe that it possessed either in
itself or in its alliances resources adequate to the enterprise?
All, states and individuals, are alike prone to err, and there is no
law that will prevent them; or why should men have exhausted the
list of punishments in search of enactments to protect them from
evildoers? It is probable that in early times the penalties for the
greatest offences were less severe, and that, as these were
disregarded, the penalty of death has been by degrees in most cases
arrived at, which is itself disregarded in like manner. Either then
some means of terror more terrible than this must be discovered, or it
must be owned that this restraint is useless; and that as long as
poverty gives men the courage of necessity, or plenty fills them
with the ambition which belongs to insolence and pride, and the
other conditions of life remain each under the thraldom of some
fatal and master passion, so long will the impulse never be wanting to
drive men into danger. Hope also and cupidity, the one leading and the
other following, the one conceiving the attempt, the other
suggesting the facility of succeeding, cause the widest ruin, and,
although invisible agents, are far stronger than the dangers that
are seen. Fortune, too, powerfully helps the delusion and, by the
unexpected aid that she sometimes lends, tempts men to venture with
inferior means; and this is especially the case with communities,
because the stakes played for are the highest, freedom or empire, and,
when all are acting together, each man irrationally magnifies his
own capacity. In fine, it is impossible to prevent, and only great
simplicity can hope to prevent, human nature doing what it has once
set its mind upon, by force of law or by any other deterrent force
whatsoever.
"We must not, therefore, commit ourselves to a false policy
through a belief in the efficacy of the punishment of death, or
exclude rebels from the hope of repentance and an early atonement of
their error. Consider a moment. At present, if a city that has already
revolted perceive that it cannot succeed, it will come to terms
while it is still able to refund expenses, and pay tribute afterwards.
In the other case, what city, think you, would not prepare better than
is now done, and hold out to the last against its besiegers, if it
is all one whether it surrender late or soon? And how can it be
otherwise than hurtful to us to be put to the expense of a siege,
because surrender is out of the question; and if we take the city,
to receive a ruined town from which we can no longer draw the
revenue which forms our real strength against the enemy? We must
not, therefore, sit as strict judges of the offenders to our own
prejudice, but rather see how by moderate chastisements we may be
enabled to benefit in future by the revenue-producing powers of our
dependencies; and we must make up our minds to look for our protection
not to legal terrors but to careful administration. At present we do
exactly the opposite. When a free community, held in subjection by
force, rises, as is only natural, and asserts its independence, it
is no sooner reduced than we fancy ourselves obliged to punish it
severely; although the right course with freemen is not to chastise
them rigorously when they do rise, but rigorously to watch them before
they rise, and to prevent their ever entertaining the idea, and, the
insurrection suppressed, to make as few responsible for it as
possible.
"Only consider what a blunder you would commit in doing as Cleon
recommends. As things are at present, in all the cities the people
is your friend, and either does not revolt with the oligarchy, or,
if forced to do so, becomes at once the enemy of the insurgents; so
that in the war with the hostile city you have the masses on your
side. But if you butcher the people of Mitylene, who had nothing to do
with the revolt, and who, as soon as they got arms, of their own
motion surrendered the town, first you will commit the crime of
killing your benefactors; and next you will play directly into the
hands of the higher classes, who when they induce their cities to
rise, will immediately have the people on their side, through your
having announced in advance the same punishment for those who are
guilty and for those who are not. On the contrary, even if they were
guilty, you ought to seem not to notice it, in order to avoid
alienating the only class still friendly to us. In short, I consider
it far more useful for the preservation of our empire voluntarily to
put up with injustice, than to put to death, however justly, those
whom it is our interest to keep alive. As for Cleon's idea that in
punishment the claims of justice and expediency can both be satisfied,
facts do not confirm the possibility of such a combination.
"Confess, therefore, that this is the wisest course, and without
conceding too much either to pity or to indulgence, by neither of
which motives do I any more than Cleon wish you to be influenced, upon
the plain merits of the case before you, be persuaded by me to try
calmly those of the Mitylenians whom Paches sent off as guilty, and to
leave the rest undisturbed. This is at once best for the future, and
most terrible to your enemies at the present moment; inasmuch as
good policy against an adversary is superior to the blind attacks of
brute force."
Such were the words of Diodotus. The two opinions thus expressed
were the ones that most directly contradicted each other; and the
Athenians, notwithstanding their change of feeling, now proceeded to a
division, in which the show of hands was almost equal, although the
motion of Diodotus carried the day. Another galley was at once sent
off in haste, for fear that the first might reach Lesbos in the
interval, and the city be found destroyed; the first ship having about
a day and a night's start. Wine and barley-cakes were provided for the
vessel by the Mitylenian ambassadors, and great promises made if
they arrived in time; which caused the men to use such diligence
upon the voyage that they took their meals of barley-cakes kneaded
with oil and wine as they rowed, and only slept by turns while the
others were at the oar. Luckily they met with no contrary wind, and
the first ship making no haste upon so horrid an errand, while the
second pressed on in the manner described, the first arrived so little
before them, that Paches had only just had time to read the decree,
and to prepare to execute the sentence, when the second put into
port and prevented the massacre. The danger of Mitylene had indeed
been great.
The other party whom Paches had sent off as the prime movers in
the rebellion, were upon Cleon's motion put to death by the Athenians,
the number being rather more than a thousand. The Athenians also
demolished the walls of the Mitylenians, and took possession of
their ships. Afterwards tribute was not imposed upon the Lesbians; but
all their land, except that of the Methymnians, was divided into three
thousand allotments, three hundred of which were reserved as sacred
for the gods, and the rest assigned by lot to Athenian shareholders,
who were sent out to the island. With these the Lesbians agreed to pay
a rent of two minae a year for each allotment, and cultivated the land
themselves. The Athenians also took possession of the towns on the
continent belonging to the Mitylenians, which thus became for the
future subject to Athens. Such were the events that took place at
Lesbos.
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