 Chapter 7 Parts 12, 13 and 14 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1. A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 by John Bagnell Bury. Chapter 7 Parts 12, 13 and 14. Part 12 Religious Movements in the 6th Century In the latter part of the 6th Century, the expansion of the Persian power had suspended a stone of tantalus over Hellas, and it seemed likely that Greek civilization might be submerged in an oriental monarchy. We have seen how the Greek generals Greek spearmen and Greek seamen averted this calamity. We have now to see how another danger was averted, a danger which, though it is not like the Persian invasion written large on the face of history, threatened Greece with a no less terrible disaster. This danger lay in the dissemination of a new religion which, if it had gained the upper hand, as at one time it seemed likely to do, would have pressed with as dead and stifling a weight upon Greece as any oriental superstition. Spiritually the Greeks might have been annexed to the people of the Orient. The Age of Solon witnessed not only a social and political movement among the masses in various parts of Greece, but also an intellectual and spiritual stirring. There was an intellectual dissatisfaction with the theogony of Hesiod as an explanation of the origin of the world, and the natural philosophy of Thales and his successors came into being in Ionia. But there was also a moral dissatisfaction with the tales of religious mythology as they were handed down by the epic Bards, and this feeling took the form of interpreting and modifying them so as to make them conform to ethical ideals. The poet Stesichorus was a pioneer in this direction, and it was he who first imported into the legend of the House of Atius, the murder of Agamemnon by his wife, and the murder of Clytemnestra by her son, the terrible moral significance which Aeschylus and the Attic Tragedians afterwards made so familiar. Further than this, men began to feel a craving for an existence after death, and intense curiosity about the world of shades and a desire for personal contact with the supernatural. Both the scientific and the religious movements have the same object to solve the mystery of existence, but the religious craving demanded a short road and immediate satisfaction. The craving led to the propagation of a new religion which began to spread about the middle of the 6th century. We know not where it originally took shape, but Attica became its most active centre, and it was propagated to western Helars beyond the sea. Based partly on the wild Thracian worship of Dionysus, this religion was called Orphic from Orpheus, poet and priest, who was supposed to have been born in Thrace and founded the Bacchic Rites, and it exercised a deep influence over not only the people at large, but even the thinkers of Greece. The Orphic teachers elaborated a theology of their own, a special doctrine of the future world, peculiar rites and peculiar rules of conduct, but they took up into their system so far as possible, the old popular beliefs. The Orphic religion might almost be described as based on three institutions, the worship of Dionysus, the mysteries connected with the gods of the underworld, and the itinerant prophets, but Dionysus, the underworld, and the art of the seer and purifier all acquired new significance in the light of the Orphic theology. It was perhaps as early as the 8th century that the worship of Dionysus was introduced into northern Greece, and various legends record the opposition which was at first offered to the reception of the stranger. His orgies spread, especially in Biosha and Attica. The worshippers gathered at night on the mountains by torchlight, with deerskins on their shoulders and long ivy-read wands in their hands, and danced wildly to the noise of cymbals and flutes. Men and women tore and devoured the limbs of the sacred victims. They desired to fall, and they often fell, especially the women, into a sort of frenzied ecstasy, into which their souls were thought to be in mystic communion with Dionysus. It was probably the influence of the Dionysian worship that induced the Delphic god to give his oracles through the mouth of a woman cast into a state of divine frenzy. Men could also deal with the supernatural world through the mediation of seers. Wise men and women, called Baqids and Sibyls, attached to no temple or sanctuary, travelled about and made their livelihood by prophesying, purifying, and healing. They practiced these three arts through their intimacy with the invisible world of spirits, to which the causes of disease and uncleanness were ascribed. Epimenides was one of the most famous and powerful of these wizards. We saw how he was called upon to purify Athens. Mysteries connected with the cult of the deities of the underworld supplied another means of approaching the supernatural. The Homeric Bards of Ionia may have lived in a society where life yielded so many pleasures that men could look forward with equanimity and resignation to that colourless existence in the grey kingdom of Persephone, which is described in the epics. But the conditions of life were very different in the mother country in the eighth century. The strife for existence was hard, and the Beocian poet must have echoed the groans of many a wretched white when he cried, The earth is full of ills, of ills the sea. It was a time when men were ready to entertain new views of a future world, suggesting hopes that a tolerable existence unattainable here might await them there. These new hopes which began to take shape in the course of the seventh century were naturally connected with the religion of the deities of the underworld. In Homer we find Persephone as queen in the realm of the ghosts, but we meet there no hint of a connection between her worship and that of Demeter, the goddess of the fruits of the earth. But as the earth which yields the sustenance of men's life also receives men into her bosom when they die, Demeter and Persephone came to be associated in many local cults throughout Greece, and there grew up the legend of the rape of Persephone which was specially developed at Eleusis and was the subject of the Eleusinian hymn to Demeter, composed in the seventh century. At Eleusis this Chthonian cult acquired a peculiar character by the introduction of a new doctrine touching the state of souls in the life beyond the grave. In the days of Eleusinian independence the kings themselves were the priests of the two goddesses. When Eleusis became part of the Athenian state the Eleusinian worship was made part of the Athenian state religion. A temple of the two goddesses was built under the Acropolis and called the Eleusinion and the Eleusinian mysteries became one of the chief festivals of the Attic year conducted by the king. The mysteries which were probably of a very simple nature in the seventh century were subsequently transformed under Athenian influence. Two points in this transformation are especially to be noted. The old Eleusinian king Tryptolamus is made more prominent and is revered as the founder of agriculture sent abroad by Demeter herself to sow seed and instruct folk in the art. But far more important is the association of the cult of Yacus with the Eleusinian worship. Yacus was a god of the underworld who had a shrine in Athens. In the mysteries he was born to Eleusis and solemnly received there every year. He was originally distinct from the mystic Dionysus with whom he was afterwards identified. The mysteries seem to have consisted of a representation in dumb show of the story of Persephone and Demeter. Mystic spells were uttered at certain moments in the spectacle and certain sacred gear was exhibited. There was no explanation of any system of doctrine. The initiated were seers not hearers. When the scheme of the mysteries was fully developed the order of the festival which took place in September was on this wise. On the first day the cry was heard in the streets of Athens. Seawood on Mustai, Mustai to the sea. And the initiated went down to the shore and cleansed themselves in the seawater. Hence the day was called Haladet Mustai. The next two days were occupied with offerings and ceremonies at Athens. And on the fourth the image of Yacus was taken forth from his shrine and carried in solemn procession along the sacred way over Mount Igalius to Eleusis. The Mustai as they went sang the song of Yacus and reached the temple of the goddesses under the Eleusinian Acropolis late at night by the light of torches. The great day was when they assembled in the hall of initiation and sat around on the tears of stone seats. The Hierophant who always belonged to the Eleusinian royal family of the Umulpids displayed the secret things of the worship. Beside him the torch holder, the herald and the priest of the altar conducted the mystic ceremonies. The mysteries are mysterious still so far as most of the details are concerned yet we may perhaps say that no definite dogma was taught no systematic interpretation was laid on the legends but the acts were calculated to arouse men's hopes mysterious enough to impress their imaginations and vague enough to suggest to different minds different significances. The rites gave to many an assurance of future wheel and even to harder reasoners a certain sense of possibilities in the unknown and it was believed that the Mustai had an advantage over the uninitiated not only here but hereafter an interest as it were with the powers of the other world so it is said in the old Eleusinian hymn Bliss hath he won who so these things hath seen among all men upon the earth that go but they to whom those sights have never been unveiled have other dole of wheel and woe even dead shut fast within the moldy gloom below. The Eleusinian mysteries became panhellenic all Greeks not impure through any pollution were welcome to the rites of initiation women were not excluded by their sex nor slaves by their condition it is probable that the development of the mysteries owed a good deal to the Pisistratids and the ground plan of the Hall of Ceremonies which was erected in their time could be traced to Eleusis. Part 13. Spread of the Orphic Religion The Orphic teachers promulgated a new theory of the creation of the world a theory which may have derived some suggestions from Babylonia they taught that time was the original principle that then aether and chaos came into being that out of these two elements time formed a silver egg from which sprang the first born of the gods, pharnes, god of light the development of the world is the self-revelation of pharnes it was necessary to bring this cosmogony into connection with Greek theology accordingly Zeus swallows pharnes and thereby becomes the original force from which the world has to be developed anew the Thracian god Dionysus Zaglius is the son of Zeus and Persephone and thus closely connected with the underworld Zeus gives him the kingdom of the universe while he is still a boy but he is pursued by the Titans and when after many escapes he takes the shape of a ball he is rent in pieces by them but Athena saves his heart Zeus swallows it and afterwards brings forth the new Dionysus the Titans still wet with the blood of their victim he strikes with lightning and the race of men springs from their ashes so that the nature of men is compact of titanic and Dionysiac elements good and bad the motive of the myth was to awaken in the human soul a consciousness of its divine origin and help it on its way back to the divine state to escape from the prison or tomb of the body to become free from the titanic elements penalties and purifications are necessary and the soul has to pass through a cycle of incarnations in the intervals between these incarnations which recur at fixed times the soul exists in the kingdom of Hades to attain a final deliverance a man must live ascetically according to rules which the Orphics prescribed and be initiated in the orgies of Dionysus thus they prescribed abstinence from animal food and imposed necessary ceremonies of purification they taught the doctrine of judgment after death and rewards and punishments in Hades according to men's deeds in the body thus the Orphics reintroduced as it were into Greece the Thracian Dionysus who seemed almost another god when brought face to face with the Dionysus who had been Hellenized and sobered since his admission into the society of the Greek gods of Olympus they adopted and developed the ideas of the Ellucinian mysteries and in a poem on the descent of Orpheus into Hades they described the geography of the underworld they also aspired to take the place of the old prophets and purifiers and they sought out and collected the oracles which those prophets had disseminated their doctrines were published in poems which were intended to supersede the theogony of Hesiod and the surviving fragments of these works show more poetical power than the compositions of the later successors of Homer the Orphic religion found a welcome at Athens and was encouraged by Pisistratus and his sons Onomacritus, one of the most eminent Orphic teachers reputed the author of a poem on the rites of initiation one great credit and influence at the court of the tyrants we saw how he was supposed to have taken part in preparing an edition of Homer in which it was suspected that he and his collaborators made interpolations and how another interpolation led to his banishment when he was detected in making an edition of his own to a collection of ancient oracles which were ascribed to the mythical poet Muzios the Orphic traditions were taken up by a man of genius Pythagoras of Samus who went to Italy and settled at Croton where he was well received his philosophy had two sides the philosophic and the religious he made important discoveries in mathematics and the theory of music he recognized the spherical form of the earth and his astronomical researches led to a considerable step taken by his followers in the direction of the Copernican system the distinction of real and apparent motions the Pythagoreans knew that the motion of the sun round the earth was only apparent but they did not discover the revolution of the earth on its axis they conceived a fire in the centre of the universe round which the earth turns in 24 hours the five known planets also revolving round it and the moon and the sun in a month and a year respectively we never see the fire because we live on the side of the earth which is always turned away from it the whole world is warmed and lit from that fire the half of the universe Pythagoras sought to explain the world spiritual and material by numbers and though he could plausibly defend the idea in general its absurdity was evident when carried out in detail his great achievement was the creation of mathematical science at Croton he founded a religious sect or brotherhood organized according to strict rules the most important doctrine was the transmigration of souls and the ascetic mode of life corresponded to that of the Orphic sects in fact the Pythagoreans were practically an Orphic community the brotherhood which did not exclude women obtained adherence not only in Croton but in the neighbouring cities and won a decisive political influence in Italian Greece but this influence was exerted solely in the interests of oligarchy it would seem indeed that the nobles became members of the religious organization in order to use it as an instrument of political power it was during the ascendancy of the Pythagoreans that a war broke out between Croton and its neighbour Sibiris which was then subject to a tyranny the men of Croton harboured the exiles whom Tellis the despot of Sibiris drove out and refused his demand for their surrender Tellis led forth a large host a battle was fought and the Sibirites were routed then the victors captured Sibiris and utterly blotted it out new cities were to arise near the place one was for a few months to resume its name but the old Sibiris which had become proverbial throughout Greece for its wealth and luxury disappeared so completely that its exact sight is unknown the destruction of the rival city was the chief exploit of the Pythagorean oligarchy of Croton but a strong opposition arose in Croton against the government and against the Pythagorean order Pythagoras himself found it prudent to escape from the struggle by leaving Croton and he ended his life at Metapontion the democratic party was led by Cylon but the Cylonians did not get the upper hand till more than half a century had passed and the Pythagorean order flourished in Croton and the neighbouring cities at length the sudden blow dissolved their power one day 40 brethren were assembled at Croton in the house of Mylon their opponents set the building on fire and only two escaped it was a signal for a general persecution throughout Italy everywhere the members of the society were put to death or banished at the time of the fall of the Pythagoreans the Orphic religion was no longer a danger to Greece it was otherwise in the lifetime of Pythagoras himself then it seemed as if the Orphic doctrines were revealed as the salvation which men's minds craved and if those doctrines had taken firm hold of Greece all the priesthoods of the national temples would have admitted the new religion become its ministers and thereby exercised an enormous saccadotal power nor would the Orphic teachers have failed if there had not been a powerful antidote to counteract their mysticism even as it was they exercised a permanent influence stimulating the imaginations of poets like Aeschylus and Pindar and diffusing a vivid picture of the world of Hades which has affected all subsequent literature Part 14 Ionian Reason the antidote to the Orphic religion was the philosophy of Ionia in Asiatic Greece that religion never took root and most fortunately the philosophical movement the separation of science from theology of cosmogony from theogony had begun before the Orphic movement was disseminated Europe is deeply indebted to Ionia for having founded philosophy but that debt is enhanced by the fact that she thereby rescued Greece from the tyranny of a religion interpreted by priests we have met Thales and Anneximander already Pythagoras although he and his followers made important advances in science through his weight into the scale of mysticism affected by both the religious and the philosophical movements he sought to combine them and in such unions the mystic element always wins the preponderance but there were others who pursued undistracted the paths of reason and among these the most eminent and influential were Xenophonies and Heraclitus no man was more active in the cause of reason Xenophonies of Colophon who after the Persian subjugation of Ionia migrated to Elia where he died in extreme old age but he spent his long life in wandering about the world and none saw and heard more of many lands and many men than he the feeble resistance of Ionia to the invader had disgusted him with the Greeks and produced a reaction in his mind against their religion and their ideals his experience of many lands helped him to cast away national prejudices and he spent his strength in warring against received opinions in the first place he attacked the orthodox religion and showed up the irrational side of gods made in the image of men if oxen or horses or lions he said had hands to make images of their gods they would fashion them in the shape of oxen horses and lions in the next place he protested against the accepted teachers of the Greeks the poets Homer and Hesiod whom Greece regarded as inspired all they have taught men he said is theft, adultery and mutual deceit again he ridiculed the conventional ideas of Greek life the ideal for instance of the athlete he deprecated the folly which showed great honours to a victor in a race or a contest our wisdom is better than the strength of human animals and horses he carried about and spread his revolutionary ideas from city to city in the guise of a musician attended by a slave with a sitham but he was not merely destructive he had something to put in the place of the beliefs which he overthrew he constructed a philosophy of which the first principle was God not like mortals in either form or mind which he identified with the whole cosmos and which was thus material existing in space and not excluding the existence of particular subordinate gods animating nature he was also distinguished as a geologist he drew conclusions from fossils as to the past history of the earth as a fearless thinker seeking to break through national prejudices he is one of the most attractive of the pioneers of Greek thought but what especially concerns us here is that Xenophonies rejected Orpheus as utterly as he rejected Hesiod he would have nothing to do with mysticism and divine revelation he regarded the Orphic priests as imposters and he invades strongly against Pythagoras we can hardly overvalue his services in thus actively fighting the battle of reason and diffusing ideas which counteracted not only the comparatively harmless superstitions of the vulgar but also the more serious and subtle danger of the Orphic religion long before he died Greek philosophy had become a living power which no religion would stifle a waxing force which would hinder saccadotalism from ever turning back the stream of progress the rationalism of Xenophonies affected Heraclitus of Ephesus a man of very different temper Heraclitus heartily despised the vulgar he was an aristocrat in politics and he wrote in a hard style for the few in old age he retreated to the woods to end his life having deposited the book of his philosophy in the temple of Artemis a man of greater genius than any of the Ionian philosophers who preceded him he thought out the doctrine of the flux which exercised an immense influence on his successors this principle was the constant change in all things existence is change we are and we are not but the process of change observes a certain law nature has her measures and thus while he had developed the doctrine of relativity good and bad he said are the same he had a basis for ethics his influence was both subversive and conservative according as one took hold of the doctrine of the flux or the fixed law of the world the pantheistic principle of Xenophonies was taken up at Elia by Parmenides who gave it a new metaphysical meaning he assumed an eternal unchanging being and treated it with the scientific method which he learnt from the Pythagoreans one of the most important services of Parmenides and his followers was their argument that sense is deceptive and leads us into self-contradiction here they said was the capital error of Heraclitus who founded his system on the senses with Parmenides and Heraclitus philosophy in the strict sense metaphysics as we call it was fully founded we have not to pursue the development here but we have to realise that the establishment of the study of philosophy was one of the most momentous facts in the history of the Greeks it meant the triumph of reason over mystery it led to the discrediting of the Orphic movement it ensured the free political and social progress of Helas a danger averted without noise or bloodshed not at a single crisis but in the course of many years is a danger which soon ceases to be realised and it is perhaps hard to imagine that in the days of Pisistratus the religion which was then moving Greece and especially Attica bid fair to gain a dominant influence and secure a fatal power for the priests the Delphic priesthood had, doubtless an instinct that the propagation of the Orphic doctrines might ultimately redown to its own advantage although the new religion had arisen when the aristocracies were passing away and had addressed itself to the masses it is certain that if it had gained the upper hand it would have lent itself to the support of aristocracy and tyranny the tyrants of Athens might have made an Orphic priesthood a useful instrument of terror and the brotherhood of Pythagoras was an unmistakable lesson to Greece what the predominance of a religious order was likely to mean we may say with propriety that a great peril was averted from Greece by the helpful influence of the immortal thinkers of Ionia but this, after all, is only a superficial way of putting the fact if we look deeper we see that the victory of philosophy over the doctrines of priests was simply the expression of the Greek spirit which inevitably sought its highest satisfaction in the full expansion of its own powers in the free light of reason the sixth century, the most critical period in the mental development of the Greeks came to be known afterwards as the age of the seven sages the national instinct for shaping legends chose out a number of men who had made some impression by their justice and prudence and regardless of dates invented an ideal community among them as if they had formed a sort of college and brought them into connection with great people like Lydian kings Periander, the tyrant of Corinth was curiously added to the list which included Solon and Thales to them were attributed wise maxims like know thyself, avoid excess and it is hard to be virtuous the spirit which the legend describes to these sages and which the lives of Solon and Pitecus displayed reflects the wisdom which sought to solve or rather to evade the everlasting problems of the discrepancy between man's ideal of justice and the actual ordering of the world by enjoining a life of moderation but it is not without significance that when the Orphic agitation had abated Greece should have enshrined the worldly wisdom of men who stood wholly aloof from mystic excitements and sought for no revelation in the fiction of the seven sages End of Part 14 End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8, Part 1, 2 and 3 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 by John Bagnell Burry Chapter 8, Parts 1, 2 and 3 The Foundation of the Athenian Empire Section 1 The Position of Sparta and Career of Pausanias The Persian War in its effects on Greece illustrates the operation of a general law which governs human societies Pressure from without, whether on a nation or a race tends to promote unity and cohesion within In the case of a nation the danger of foreign attack increases the sense of unity among individual citizens and strengthens the central power In the case of a race it tends to weld the individual communities into a nation or a federation In the latter case the chance of realizing a complete or permanent unity depends partly on the strength and the duration of the external pressure partly upon the degree of strength in the instinct for independence and whether to hinder the political atoms from cohesion The Persian danger produced a marked tendency towards unity but the pressure was acute only for a few years and lasted in any form only for a few decades and therefore that tendency was arrested and the instinct for independence resumed its uncontested sway before any scheme of Panhellenic federal government had become necessary On the coast of Asia where the danger was permanent the union came into existence Now on these principles a philosopher might have predicted that an Hellenic union whether whole or partial whether of short or of long duration would follow the repulse of the Persians He might have predicted that such a great joint effort would react upon the domestic development of the victorious peoples But no one could have foreseen what the shape of the union would take or how the reaction would be directed The course of Grecian affairs entered upon a new and unexpected way For the last 40 years Sparta had been the predominant power in continental Greece She had become the head of a Peloponnesian league and had intervened with effect in Greek affairs beyond the limits of the Peloponnesias Her headship in the common resistance to Persia was recognized without murmur or dispute by the allies of northern Greece In fact her peninsula league may be said to have widened into the Pan-Hellenic Confederacy of the Isthmus Her admirals had been commanders-in-chief at Salamis and at Mycale And if it were said that those naval victories could not be ascribed to Lacedaemonian skill or enterprise Sparta could point to Thermopylae where her king had been gloriously defeated to Citharion where her general and her spearsmen had won What was, after all, the decisive contest of the war A political prophet would therefore have been tempted to predict that Sparta universally acknowledged before the war to be the leading state of Greece would after the war be able to convert leadership into dominion A great national enterprise conducted under her auspices to a splendid conclusion must immensely increase the moral strength of her position and might justly stimulate her ambition, moral power by dexterous management can soon be converted into material strength In short, after the battle of Platae the Greek world seemed to lie at Sparta's feet If such a calculations were made, they were doomed to disappointment Lacedaemon had not the means and the Lacedaemonian government had not the brains or the spirit to create the means of carrying out an effective imperial policy For a state which aspired to a truly imperial position in Greece must inevitably be a steed power This was determined by the geographical and commercial conditions of the Greek world So long as the Asian Greeks belonged to the Persian dominion so long as the eastern waters of the Aegean were regarded as a Persian sea Sparta might indeed hold a dominant position as a helus, thus restricted But when the world of free Hellenic states once more extended over the Aegean sea to the skirts of Asia and to Thrace Sparta, unless she became a sea power could not extend her influence over this larger sea-bound Greece She might retain her continental position but her prestige must ultimately be eclipsed and her power menaced by any city which won imperial authority over the islands and coasts of the Aegean This was what happened The Spartans were people unable to adapt themselves to new conditions Their city, their constitution, their spirit were survivals from medieval Greece The government was conservative, by tradition Reforms were unwelcome, a man of exceptional ability was regarded with suspicion They continued to drill their hoplites in the fifth century as they had done in the sixth The formation of a navy would have seemed to them as unpractical an idea as an expedition against the capital of Persia And if we follow their conduct of the recent war we see that their policy was petty and provincial They had generally acted at the last moment They had never shown the power of initiation Their view was so limited by the smaller interests of the Peloponnesus that again and again they almost betrayed the national cause Failing to share in the progress of Greece, utterly wanting in the imperial instinct in the quality of imagination which accompanies it The city of Lacedaemon was not marked out to achieve a political union of the Hellenic States She was, however, able to prevent a rival from achieving it but not before that rival had completely thrown her into the shade Unfortunately, the events of the years succeeding the battle of Platae are but very slightly known Herodotus, who, about half a century later, completed the story Compact of fiction and history of the Persian War ends his work at the capture of Cestos In the meantime the events of that full and momentous half-century had not been recorded except by bits and scraps The dates became confused, the details were forgiven and when Thucydides, some years after Herodotus, came to investigate the history of this period The results of his research was a meager narrative in a very uncertain chronological setting The growth of the Athenian Empire is the central fact of the period but before tracing it we must pause It will not be for long over the misfortunes of Sparta Pasonius, the son of Cleombrotus, had shown it must be allowed remarkable military ability in conducting the campaign of Platae but his talents as a politician were not equal to his talents as a general Leaping into fame by his victory he was led into attempting to play a part for which he was to slide a man Sparta sent him out in command of a squadron of ships supplied by her allies to continue the work of emancipating the Eastern Greeks He sailed first to Cyprus and was successful in delivering the greater part of the island from Persian rule He then proceeded to Byzantium and expelled the Persian garrison But here his conduct became ambiguous, he began to play game of his own He connived at the escape of some kinsmen of Xerxes who were in the city and he committed various acts of insolence and oppression to the Greeks He behaved more as a tyrant than as a general and he completely ruined all chances that his country had of remaining at the head of the Confederacy which the Persian invasion had called into being The Eastern Greeks placed themselves under the protection and headship of Athens This step was inevitable, the maritime power of Athens marked her out to be a leader in the prosecution of the war beyond the sea But the conduct of Pausanias at Byzantium may well have been the occasion of the formal transference of the leadership of the Confederacy from Sparta to Athens At Sparta itself the reports of the doings of the general aroused alarm and anxiety He was recalled to answer the charges It was said that he wore Persian dress and was attended by an Asiatic bodyguard in his journey through Thrace for he had indeed been intriguing with the Persian court The victor of Platae offered to enslave his own city and the rest of Hellas to Xerxes and to seal the compact by marrying his daughter His overtures were welcomed by the great king and Pausanias being a small man and elated by vanity was unable to refrain from betraying in little things his treacherous designs The Persian intrigue however could not at this time be proved against him He was punished only for some acts of injury which he had done to particular persons He was not sent out again but he subsequently hired a trireme for himself and returned to the scene of his former intrigue He resumed possession of Byzantium and thus controlled the inner gate of the Eucsean and he succeeded almost immediately in capturing Cestos which gave him control of the outer gate also This was too much for Athenians who were extending their political and commercial interests in these regions and they sent out a squadron under Semen the son of Miltiades who recovered Cestos and drove Pausanias out of Byzantium Spartan government hearing that he was intriguing in the Troad sent a herald commanding him to return home He obeyed the summons believing that he could compass and acquittal by bribes but it seems that he was already devising a daring and dangerous plan against the constitution of his own city The F-4s threw him into prison but it was difficult to procure evidence of his guilt He was released and challenged in quarry Everybody knew that he had not only negotiated with Persia but that he had prepared the way for a revolt of the Helots by promising them emancipation He dreamed of converting the Spartan state into a true monarchy but there were not clear enough proofs to act upon until a confidential servant turned in former Pausanias had entrusted him with a letter to Artebazus but the man who had noticed that none of the messengers who had been previously dispatched on the same errand ever returned broke the seal and read in the letter the order for his death He showed the letter to the F-4s and they wishing to have proof against Pausanias from his own mouth contrived a stratagem A hut with the partition was erected at the sanctuary of Teneris They concealed themselves in one room and the man remained in the other a suppliant Pausanias came to discover why he was there The man told him of the letter and reproached him In the conversation Pausanias admitted the whole truth But he received a hint of his danger and fled to the temple of Athena of the Brazen house He took refuge in a small covered building adjoining the shrine The F-4s had the doors built up and starved him to death As he was dying they brought him out and by the command of the Delphic god he was buried at the entrance to the sacred enclosure But the starvation within the precincts was an offence against the goddess and brought a curse upon the Spartans To expiate this they dedicated two brazen statues to Athena of the Brazen house Though the adventures of Pausanias are of no great consequence His career is typical of the Spartan Abroad And it throws some light on years of which we know very little The Spartan government had sent out another general to replace Pausanias in the hell's pond But the allies would have no more dealings with Spartan generals And Sparta made no further attempt to win back the allegiance which the Aegean and Asiatic Greeks had transferred to Athens On the other hand she made some attempts at extending her power on the mainland And forming a continental federation She cast her eyes upon Thessaly and perhaps hoped that if she brought the far north under her sway She could extend her influence southward to the Cracean Gulf And form a Lachodimonian empire on the basis of the unfictionate league of northern Greece She sent forth an army under King Leatechitis Who landed in the Pagacian bay and showed that he could have easily subjugated the Thessalonian states But like any Spartan general he could not resist silver and gold And the Allude princes saved their power by bribing the invader His guilt was evident and when he returned home he was condemned to death He saved himself by fleeing to Tegea where Athena's sanctuary was ever the refuge of a Spartan king in the day of danger It is possible that Sparta gained some influence in Thessaly by the center-rise In which she employed the Peloponnesian fleet, but she made no conquest Nor did her attempt to reorganize the Amfictionic federation prosper better She proposed to expel from this league all the states that had joined the Meade This was aimed at Thebes and Thessaly, and even the states which had not joined the federation against the Meade This was aimed at Argos But through the influence of Themastoclese, who represented Athens, the proposal was thrown out The activity of Themastoclese in defeating the designs of Sparta at this period Is reflected in the story that he tried to induce the Athenians to set fire to the Peloponnesian fleet in Thessaly and waters Sparta was unable to prosecute any further plans of empire beyond her own peninsula She was soon compelled to fight for her position within the Peloponnesus itself Argos had now recovered somewhat from the annihilating blow which had been dealt her by King Cleomenes And was entering upon a new constitutional development which was ultimately to shape itself into a democracy Most of the small towns which had taken advantage of the prostration of their mistresses to throw off her yoke Such as Histiae and Orniae were brought back again to their allegiance It might have been harder to cast out the slay lords Tirans from their Cleopian fortress But a prophet from Fijlia came and stirred them up against Argos They took the offensive, endured a defeat, and Tirans was recovered Thus re-arising Argos was able to support the Arcadian cities in a combination against the power of Sparta She entered into alliance with Tigia, but outside the walls of that city the joint forces of the two allies were smitten by the hoplites of Lackadamen Yet the city was not taken and the epitaph of the fallen warriors told how their bravery hindered the smoke of blazing Tigia from their mountain to the sky Soon after this we find all the Arcadian cities leagued against Sparta All except the Mantoneans who were never ready to join hands with their Tejiate neighbors This time Argos sent no help The Arcadian league sustained a crushing defeat at Depea and Tigia was forced to submit Thus through the energy of the young king Arcodemus Sparta maintained her position But there were grave causes of anxiety for the future She had to behold the cynicism of the villages of Elis into a city with a democratic constitution That was a danger in the west Regenerate Argos was a danger in the east And even in Arcadia Sparta was constrained reluctantly to recognize the new cynicism of the Mantonean villages As a mark of gratitude to the community for holding aloof from the Arcadian league Thus it was not given to Sparta to strike out a new path The Persian war left her much where she was before She had, if anything, diminished rather than increased her prestige And she had shown the world that she was destined to remain in the old Peloponnesian groove In the meantime another city had been advancing with rapid strides along a new path Compassing large enterprises and establishing a large empire The lukewarmness of Sparta, exhibited in her failure to follow up the battle of Mycale Had induced the Ionian and other Asiatic Greeks to place themselves under the leadership of Athens Thus was formed the voluntary confederacy on which an Athenian empire was to rise The object was not only to protect the rescued cities from reconquest by the barbarian But also to devastate the country of the great king In order to obtain by rapine a set off against the expenses and losses of the war The treasury of the league was established in the sacred island of Delos The ancient center of Ionian worship And it was hence called the confederacy of Delos The recapture of Sestos was its first achievement The league included the Ionian and Aeolian cities of Asia The islands adjacent to the coast from Lesbos to Rhodes A large number of towns on the propuntus and some in Thrace Most of the Cyclades and Uboa except its southern city, Caristus It was a league of sea-states and therefore the basis of the contract was That each state should furnish ships to the common fleet But most of the members were small and poor Many could not equip more than one or two ships Many could do no more than contribute a part of the expenses to the furnishing of a single galley To gather together a number of small and scattered contingents at a fixed time and place Was always a matter of difficulty Nor was such a miscellaneous armament easily managed It was therefore arranged that the smaller states, instead of furnishing ships Should pay a yearly sum of money to a common treasury It is uncertain how the amount of these payments was fixed It seems probable that a calculation was made that all the states, which undertook to pay in money Aught to have been able to contribute between them one hundred ships And that the annual sum of four hundred and sixty talents was taken as the equivalent of this contribution Then a careful estimate was made of the resources and capacities of each city And that sum was proportionately distributed among them The valuation of the wealth of the Confederate cities and the determination of the contribution of each Was a work of great difficulty and responsibility And it was devolved upon Aristides, whose discretion and the respect in which he was held Fitted him eminently for the task His valuation remained in force for more than fifty years Thus from the very beginning the Confederacy consisted of two kinds of members Those who furnished ships and those who paid an equivalent in money A pharaohs, as it was called, and the second class was far the larger For besides those who could only furnish a ship, or two, or even part of a ship Many of the larger cities preferred the system of payments Which did not oblige their burgers to leave home The tribute was collected by Tennethinian officers Who bore the title of Hellenatomai, the Treasurers of the Greeks The Council of the Confederates met at Delos, where the treasury was And each member had an equal voice The large number of votes enabled Athens easily to control the proceedings of the council She would influence the smaller states, and the number of these votes overcame the weight of any opposition which the larger states could offer As leader of the Confederacy, Athens had the executive entirely in her hands And it was of the highest significance that the treasurers were not selected from the whole body of Confederates, but were Athenian citizens Thus from the first, Athens held in her hands the means of gradually, and without any violent revolution, transforming the naval union into a naval empire While the name of Aristides is connected most closely with the foundation of the Confederacy, there is no doubt that it was due to its rival, the Rostocles, that Athens took the tide of fortune at the flood The Rostocles had made his city a sea power, and this feat approved him the greatest of the statesmen He was a man of genius. The most reserved of all historians, Thucydides, turns aside to praise his unusual natural gifts, his power of divining what was likely to happen, and his capacity for dealing with difficult situations We should have expected that the guidance of the policy of Athens, the organization of the new Confederacy, would have been entirely entrusted thermistically Half a century later, when the democratic development of Athens had advanced farther, this would probably have been the case But at this time a man without powerful connections could not long maintain his influence over the people The Rostocles had no party behind him, and the exceptional ability of the Vann is shown by nothing so much as by the fact that, in spite of this disadvantage, he played such a great part His rivals, Aristides and Xanthippus, were representative of the old and considerable party of the coast, which was associated with the family of Megacles and Clesthenes, to which the wife of Xanthippus belonged They are the leaders at Pate and Machael, the name of the Mastocles does not appear in the second year of the Persian War The circumstance that the Mastocles was not a party leader, that there was no protracted period during which Athens submitted to his influence, might easily lead us to underrate his importance Though he was not formally or officially the founder of the Confederacy, yet when Athens undertook the leadership and entered upon the new paths which then opened out before her, she was under the spell of a spirit which he had been the clearest and earliest interpreter But his influence had not yet passed away, and while the fleet was building an empire in the east, there was work for him to do amid the ruins of Athens The fortification of Athens and the Piraeus The Mastocles, as we saw, made Athens a sea power Under his guidance she threw her chief energy into the development of a navy, but if she had followed that guidance more fully, she would now have cut herself more boldly adrift from the ties which attached her to the continent It often occurred to the Athenians to regret that Athens was not an island If we were islanders, they thought, we could defy the world There would always be the Bocian and the Magarian frontiers But if a series of strong fortresses had been regularly maintained on those frontiers And if Athenian politicians had resolutely eschewed a continental policy, it might have been possible to spend practically all their strength on their ships In any case, when Athens decided to enter upon a new career, her true policy would have been to come down to the Piraeus She should have left her old city round the Acropolis and migrated to the shore of the sea, which was hence-forward to shape her history The position of the Acropolis was a fatality for Athens. It was too far from the sea and at the same time too near If it had been as far from the coast as Acarnae, the citizens would almost certainly at this period have transferred their hearths and temples to the hill of Minitia and the shores of the Piraeus But it was near enough to admit of tolerably quick communication with the harbor, and this geographical circumstance at once saved the old town and weakened the new city Expediency will induce a monarch, but nothing except necessity will persuade a free people to take the monumentous resolution of leaving the spot where the homes and temples of the community have existed for centuries The place associated with their dearest memories, their hopes, and their fears Had the Masticleses an attirent, we may venture to suppose that he would have left Athens unfortified, built his palace on Minitia, and made Piraeus the center of government, the city so that in a few years the old town would have sunk into decay But since Athens was to remain as before, notwithstanding the new development, and since this new development made the Piraeus of greater strategic importance It became necessary to fortify and defend two towns within five miles distance of each other After Plataea the Athenians brought back their families and goods to their desolate habitation Little of the old town wall was still standing, and they proceeded to build a new wall The work was done in haste, the material of older buildings and even gravestones was used The traces of haste can be detected in some of the remains of this wall of the Masticleses near the Depylon gate in the northwest of the city For it was by the advice and under the inspiration of the Masticleses that the work was wrought It embraced a larger circuit than the old enclosure which Pissostrateses had destroyed On the south side it followed the heights of the Phinex group of hills and approached the Elysis The Peloponnesians looked with jealousy at the rise of the Athenian walls The activity of Athens in the Persian war and her strong navy made them suspect her ambitions But they could not prevent her from strengthening her town The Lachodemonians sent an embassy to deprecate fortifications and to invite the Athenians instead of fortifying their own town to join Sparta in demolishing all fortifications in Greece But they were not in a position to do more than remonstrate As the name of the Masticleses was associated with the wall it was inevitable that an anecdote should be circulated to illustrate the resources and wiles of the Attic Odysseus At his suggestion the Spartan envoys were sent back with the answer that the Athenians would send an embassy When they were gone he started himself as one of the ambassadors but his colleagues were to remain behind till the wall had reached the lowest defensible height In the meantime the whole population, men, women, and children were to press on the work Having arrived at Sparta he delayed presenting himself before the assembly and when he was asked why he said that his colleagues had been detained and that he expected them every day Meanwhile persons arriving from Athens assured the Spartans that the wall was being built The Masticleses asked them not to be deceived by such rumors but to send men of their own to discover whether it was true At the same time he sent a message to Athens with instructions that the envoys from Sparta should be detained till he and his colleagues had returned The wall had now reached a sufficient height and the other ambassadors having arrived the Masticleses appeared before the assembly and declared that Athens had walls and could defend any communication to make They must deal with us as with men who are capable of deciding their own and Greece's interests The Lachodemonians had to put as good a face on the matter as they could The story has significance in representing Athens as now formally declaring herself the peer of Sparta The fortification of Piraeus was likewise taken in hand A thick wall was built all around the Munichian peninsula keeping close to the sea and was continued along the north side of the harbor of Catherus Or the harbor as it was simply called And out to the promontory of Etonia The entrances to this chief harbor and to the two small havens of Munichia and Zia on the east side of the peninsula were fortified by moles In the course of the next twenty years the Athenians came to see the disadvantage of the two towns which ought to have been won It was born in upon their statesmen that in the case of an enemy invading Attica with a powerful army The communications between Athens and the Piraeus might be completely severed And the folk of the city be cut off from their ships In order to meet this danger, which would have been most simply met by deserting Athens, a new device was imagined It was resolved to transform the two towns into a double town, girded by a continuous line of fortification Two diverging walls were built to connect Athens with the sea The northern joined the Piraeus wall near the harbor, the southern ran down to the roadstead of Philarion By these long walls, costly to build and costly to defend, Athens sought to rectify a mistake and adapt her topography to her role of mistress of the sea But though this device of Athens to conciliate her past history with her future seems clumsy enough, it answered its purpose fairly well Her naval power was based upon the only sure foundation, a growing naval commerce This in its turn depended upon the increase of Attic industries, which may be estimated by the enormous number of resident aliens or medics Who settled in Athens or Piraeus for the purpose of manufacture and trade These medics who seemed to have ultimately approached the number of 10,000 were liable to the same ordinary burdens as the citizens And when a property tax was imposed in time of war, they were taxed at a higher rate We may well believe that the Masticles was concerned to encourage the growth of a class of inhabitants who were directly or indirectly so profitable to the community But in our scanty and vague records of this momentous period, it is impossible to define the activity of the Masticles We know that he wished to introduce a system by which a certain number of Tari-remes should be at least every year But this idea was not adopted New ships were built from time to time according as they were needed But a new system of furnishing them was introduced The state supplied only the hull and some of the rigging The duty and expense of fitting the galley, launching it complete, and training the oarsmen were laid upon the most wealthy burgers each in his turn This public burden was called the Trierarchy, and the Trierarch, who sailed with his ship, was responsible for their good repair of the Trierine at the end of the period of his office 170 oarsmen, composed of hired foreigners and slaves, and partly of the poorest class of the citizens, propelled each galley There was a crew of 20 men to manage the vessel, including the Colustus, who set the time to the oarsmen, and there were, besides, 10 soldiers As their navy was, from henceforth, to be the chief arm of their military power, the Athenians were obliged to make a necessary change in the constitution of their highest military command Two courses were open to them. They might leave the board of generals as it was, each general being the captain of the hoplites of his own tribe, and institute a new board of admirals If this arrangement had been made, it would have been necessary to assign to the admirals a higher authority, for the purpose of conducting joint operations by land and sea, so that the position of generals would have been reduced to that of subordinate officers The other course was to make the generals supreme commanders, by land and sea alike, and such had been their virtual position during the Persian invasion This second plan was adopted, and as a logical consequence the generals were no longer elected, one from each tribe, but from the whole people, though an actual practice and attempt was made to secure that each tribe should be represented The old duties of the generals as commanders of the tribal regiments were undertaken for the infantry by new officers, called taxiarchs, and for the cavalry by the phyloarchs The fortification of the city and her harbor was the chief, but it was not the only work that the masons of Athens were set to do The Persians had wrecked the houses of Athena on her high hill, and no duty was more pressing for the Athenians when the danger passed than to find a dwelling place for the goddess There can be little doubt that their first thought was to restore the Elder Temple, the house which she shared with Erechtheus, the place of the precious emblems of the olive tree and the salt spring If it were only to make it ready in some temporary fashion to receive the ancient wooden image, which had probably been lodged in the secret hiding place It is not clear that they attempted any complete or partial restoration of the younger temple, the house of a hundred feet, perhaps they simply swept away the ruins Probably the walls and columns still partly stood, but the roof and all the woodwork had been destroyed, and the sculptures which adorned the pediments had been cast down and shattered The limbs and trunks of the giants, strewn among the ruins, were cast away into the rubbish heaps, from which they have now been drawn forth recently into new honor as precious relics of the early art of Greece In any case, even if they were built in some sort the dismantled temple, the burgers of Athens were not content, they resolved that the lady of their city should have an ampler and more glorious dwelling-house It was probably when the Mostocles was still their guiding statesman that the plan was laid of a second temple near the southern brink of the hill The foundations of this new temple are still to be seen, but it was never carried out as it was designed When the time came to rear the walls, the plan was entirely altered, and, as we shall see hereafter, the Parthenon arose on the foundations which were intended for a building of wholly different proportions End of Chapter 8, Parts 1-3 Chapter 8, Part 4-6 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 By John Bagnell Burry, Chapter 8, Part 4-6 Ostracism and the Death of the Mostocles For some years the Mostocles divided the guidance of public affairs with Aristides and Xanthaphis He superintended the building of the walls, and we have already seen how he effectually opposed the designs of Sparta But the man of genius had his weaknesses. Like most Greek statesmen, he was accessible to bribes, and perhaps he would hardly have cared to tell how he would become a rich man It was more serious that his vanity betrayed him into committing public indiscretions He built near his own house a shrine to Artemis, wisest in council, on the ground that the councils which he had offered his country had been wiser than all others In themselves such things were of little importance, but they conduced to unpopularity and gave opponents a handle for attack The time and the immediate causes of the banishment of the Mostocles are uncertain Perhaps he tried to carry through measures which were too revolutionary for Aristides, though Aristides was a decided Democrat At all events he succumbed to a coalition of Aristides and Xanthaphis, which was doubtless also supported by Semen, who was rising into prominence through his military successes Appeal was made to the trial of ostracism, and the greater number of six thousand sherds bore the name of the Mostocles One of these fatal sherds perhaps still exists The exiles Stixman took up his abode in Argos The presence there of such a crafty and active enemy was not agreeable to Sparta, and he was not left long in peace When the Persian intrigues of Pausanias were disclosed, the Lachodemonians discovered that the Mostocles was implicated in the scandal But though the Mostocles held communications with Pausanias, communications of a compromising kind, it is not in the least likely that he was really guilty of any design to betray Greece to Persia It is rather to be presumed that those communications were concerned with the schemes of Pausanias against the Spartan constitution He was accused of high treason against his country, men were sent to arrest him and bring him to trial, and he fled to Corsera The Corsareans refused to keep him, and he crossed over to Aperus, pursued by Lachodomian and Athenian officers He was forced to stop at the house of Adamus, king of the Molossians, though his previous relations with this king had not been friendly In these western lands we seem to be translated into a far older time and to visit the homestead of a Homeric king Adamus was not at home, but the Mostocles supplicated the queen, and she directed him to take her child and seat himself by the hearth When the king returned, the Mostocles implored his protection, and Adamus hospitably refused to give him up to the pursuers The Athenians, disappointed of their prey, condemned him as a traitor to outlawry, confiscated his property and dooming his descendants to loss of citizenship Adamus sent the fugitive overland to Pidna in Macedonia A vessel carried him to the shores of Ionia For some years he lay hidden in towns on the Asiatic coast, but when Xerxes died, and our taxerxes came to the throne, he went up to Sousa, and intrigued at the Persian court Thus circumstances drove him to follow the example of Paesanias, and by a curious irony the two men, who might be regarded as the saviors of Greece The hero of Salamis and the hero of Platia were perverted into framing plans for undoing their own work and enslaving the country which they had delivered It may well have been, however, that the Mostocles, who was an able and farsighted man, merely intended to compass his own advantage at the expense of the great king, and had no serious thought of kicking out any designs against Greece He was, as we might expect, more successful than the Spartan schemer He won high honour in Persia, and was given the government of the district of Magnesia, where Magnesia itself furnished his table with bread, Limpascus with wine, and Anias with meat The Mostocles died in Magnesia, and the Magnesians gave him outside their walls the resting place which was denied to him in his own country Nor were they content with this, they sought to associate his fame more intimately with their own city They paid him the honour of a hero, and erected in their marketplace a statue of the Saviour of Greece, standing naked in the act of pouring a libation over an altar, below which lay a slain bull It was not long before this scene was willfully or ignorantly misunderstood, and gave rise to a false story Half a century after the death of the Mostocles, it was popularly supposed that he had poisoned himself with bull's blood, and the absurd motive of despair at his inability to fulfil his promises to the Persian king was assigned for his self-slaughter There can be little doubt that this tale, first circulated perhaps by malicious tongues at Athens, was suggested by the bull and the libation dish in the monument of the Magnesian marketplace The Confederacy of Delos becomes an Athenian empire The conduct of the war which the Confederacy of Delos was waging against Persia had been entrusted to Semen, the son of Miltiades We have seen already how he drove Pasonius out of Sestos and Byzantium His next exploit was to capture Iain, a town near the mouth of the Strymon, and the most important stronghold of the Persians east of the Hellspont The place was defended to the uttermost by Bogus, its gallant commander who refused all overtures And when the food ran out he lit a great funeral pyre He slew his wife and his children, his concubines and his slaves, and hurled them into the fire He took all his gold and silver to the top of the wall and flung it into the waters of the Strymon Then he leaped himself into the flames Thus the Athenians captured a strong host fortress and they were tempted by the rich cornfields and the forest of timber in the neighborhood to make a permanent settlement at Iain But the colonists whom they sent forth were destroyed by the Thracian natives The day for the establishment of the Athenian power on the lower Strymon had not yet come Doriscus, which commanded the mouth of the Hebris, was still in Persian hands The attempts of the Athenian fleet to take it were successfully resisted, and we know not what befell it in the end Perhaps it fell into the hands of the Thracians The next enterprise of Simon was the reduction of the rocky island of Skyrus, a stronghold of Dolopian pirates While Athens was winning post on the fringe of the Aegean, it was no less necessary for her to secure intermediate stations And the importance of Skyrus was its position on the sea-road from Athens to western Thrace The rude inhabitants were enslaved and their place was taken by Attic settlers The island was in fact annexed to Attica But Simon won less glory by the conquest than by discovery of the bones of Theseus There was a Delphic oracle which had bade the Athenians take the bones of Theseus and keep them in an honorable resting place And perhaps there was a legend that the hero was buried in Skyrus In any case, whether by chance or after a search, there was found in the island a grave containing a warrior's corpse of heroic size It was the corpse of Theseus, Simon brought it back to Athens, and perhaps none of his exploits earned him greater popularity A few years later Simon achieved what was the most brilliant success of his life Hitherto he had been busy in the northern waters of the Aegean It was high time that the fleet should sail southward and strike a blow against the Persian power in the seas of Rhodes and Cyprus It was not only high time it was imperative, for Xerxes had equipped a great armament, his last resistance to the triumph of Greek arms Simon delivered both the Greek and the native coast towns of Keria from Persian rule And constrained the Lycian communities to enroll themselves in the Confederacy of Delos Then, at the river Euromedin in Pamphylia, he found the Persian army and the Persian fleet And overcame them in a battle by land and sea, destroying 200 Phoenician ships This victory sealed the acquisition of southern Asia Minor from Keria to Pamphylia for the Athenian Federation The booty which was won in this battle was to be put to the use of fortifying the Athenian Citadel, which the Persians had dismantled The Mostocles, who laid his hopes on the Piraeus, would have been content that the Acropolis should have remained unwalled But the conservative policy of Simon decided that it should become, again, the fortress of Athens The south wall was now built out of the spoils of the Euromedin It could not be said that the Confederacy of Delos had failed to do its work The victory on the Pamphylian River freed Greece from all danger on the side of the Persian Empire And Simon soon followed up his success by reducing some places on the Thracian Chersonnes, which were still held by the Barbarians But in the interval between the conquest of Skyrus and the battle of the Euromedin, the Confederate fleet had been set to do other work It had been set to make war upon Greek states which were unwilling to belong to the League The first case was one of pure and simple coercion of a foreign city Caristus, unlike the other cities of her island, had held aloof from the Confederacy, and this anomaly seemed intolerable to Athens Especially as the place was so near to the shores of Attica Caristus was subjugated and made in spite of herself a member of the League The second case was that of a Confederate state which wished to be a Confederate no longer Naxos succeeded from the League and the fleet of the Allies reduced her by blockade In the case of Caristus, the Confederacy could defend its act only by the plea of political necessity In the case of Naxos, it could reasonably maintain its right of forcing the individual members to fulfill their obligations until the association should be dissolved by the common consent of all But both acts alike seemed to be acts of tyrannical outrage on the independence of free states and were an offence to public opinion in Greece The oppression was all the worse in as much as both Naxos and Caristus were deprived of their autonomy They became, in fact, subjects of Athens. They are typical examples of the fashion in which the Athenian Empire was built up Athens was already forcing the Fedders with which she would bind her allies The victory of the Urimeddon left Athens free to pursue this inevitable policy of transforming the Confederacy into an empire The most powerful Confederate state on the Thracian coast was the island city of Thassos Possessing a considerable fleet, it was doubtless one of those cities which contributed ships Athens was making new endeavors to plant a settlement on the Strymon and to lay hands on the traffic in those regions Her interests collided with those of the Thacians, whose prosperity largely depended upon their trade in Thracia A distance arose about a gold mine and the islanders revolted They hoped, for support, both from Macedonia and from Thrace, since both those countries were interested in excluding Athens from the coast trade of the northern seaboard They hoped, too, for help from Sparta, but the Lachodemonians were hindered from sending succor by revolt of the Helots The fleet of the Thacians was defeated by Simon and after a long blockade they capitulated Their walls were pulled down, their ships were handed over to Athens, they gave up all claims to the mine and the mainland and agreed to pay whatever tribute was demanded The typical instances of these three island cities, Caristus, Naxos, and Thassos, exhibit the methods which Athenian policy followed in numerous cases which are not courted There were now three classes of members of the Confederacy of Delos There were one, the non-tributary allies which contributed ships, two, the tributary allies which were independent, and three, the tributary allies which were subject As the Asiatic cities were declining in vigor and disliked military service and absence from home, they mostly preferred to discharge their obligations by paying tribute It was obviously for the interest of Athens that as many members as possible should contribute money and as few as possible contribute ships For the ships which the tribute money furnished out were simply in addition to her own fleet because they were under her direct control She consequently aimed at diminishing the members of the first class and soon it consisted of only the three large and wealthy islands, Lesbos, Chios, and Samos Again it was to the interest of Athens to transfer the members of the second class into the third and win control over the internal affairs of the cities New members which were coerced to join were never allowed to preserve absolute autonomy and all revolting cities were reduced to the condition of subjection But the degrees of subjection were not the same The position of each city was determined by a special agreement with Athens and the terms of these cities varied As a rule Athens prescribed to her subjects the general form of their constitutions and it need hardly be said that these constitutions were always democratic The new constitution which she imposed on Eurythrae when that city was forced to join the league has been partially preserved on a stone But there was no general hard and fast system Each city had its own individual arrangements and its own measure of restricted autonomy The closer dependence of these tributary states on Athens was in many cases marked by the presence of an Athenian garrison and Athenian civil officers But there was one burden which was common to all, the obligation of furnishing soldiers to the league in time of war It was a duty which could be demanded only under certain defined conditions But it was an innovation which altered the original character of the league as a merely maritime confederacy It seems probable that Athens tried to extend the duty of military service to her autonomous allies and that this policy caused revolts A result which was not unwelcome to Athens as it gave her opportunities to deprive them of autonomy Ultimately all the allies seemed to have been liable to military service except the three states which furnished ships, Chios, Lesbos, and Samos As the process of turning the alliance into an empire advanced, Athens found herself able to discontinue the meetings of the Confederate assembly in the island of Delos She could now act entirely as she deemed good without going through the form of consulting a body whose decisions must necessarily be hers As the great majority of the members were her own subjects The formal establishment of her empire may be dated ten years after the war with Thessos when the treasury of the league was transferred from Delos to Athens This set the seal on the creation of the Athenian empire The Confederacy of Delos no longer existed and although the term alliance was always officially used, men no longer hesitated to use the word empire in ordinary speech The tribute money thus passed from the protection of the Ionian Apollo to the custody of the goddess of the Acropolis And in return for her safekeeping, one Mina for every talent of the yearly tribute was paid into her own treasury The Athenian empire embraced the Aegean Sea with its northern and eastern fridges from Methon in the northwest to Lycean Fasilis in the southeast The number of cities which belonged to it at its height was considerably more than 200 We can enumerate more than 260 names from official tribute lists Large fragments of some of these lists have come down to us in the most trustworthy form on the original stones themselves They not only teach us the names of the subject cities but they tell us the amount of tribute which many of these cities were called upon to pay At the end of every fourth year the assessment of the tribute was readjusted The burden was redistributed and the evidence of the lists permits us to infer that the total amount of the revenue was maintained at 460 talents As it had been originally fixed by Aristides For a few years indeed it was temporarily raised to meet the pressure of exceptional needs But in general it was maintained and the accession of new members instead of augmenting the total revenue diminished proportionally the contributions of all the cities Moreover every member had a voice in the assessment of its tribute and could appeal after the assessment had been made to the popular courts of Athens One of the most important restrictions on the independence of the cities was the jurisdiction which the Athenians asserted in criminal cases It was natural for all disputes between Athens and any of her subjects should be decided at Athens And it was not unreasonable that if the burger of any allied community committed an act of treason against the empire he should be tried in the imperial city But Athens sometimes claimed further rights of jurisdiction In a case of chalces she enacted that all cases in which the penalty is death, banishment or the loss of civic rights should be sent for judgment to Athens In this as in other matters there were various arrangements with the various cities and some doubtless had more freedom than others In regard to lawsuits arising out of the breach of contract between citizens of Athens and citizens of the allied states Such affairs were regulated by separate international agreements and decided in the law courts of the defendant city In this matter, and it was important, Athens could take the credit of not using her power for the furtherance of her own interests And it may sometimes have happened that an Athenian was treated with somewhat less than fairness when a subject folk had a chance of indulging their bitterness against one of their masters The Athenian empire was dissolved half a century after the translation of the treasury from Delos to Athens We shall see that it began to decline not many years after it had reached the height of its power We must remember that the first principles of the political thought and political life of Greece were opposed to such a union The sovereign city-state was the basis of the civilized Hellenic world and no city-state was ready, if it could help it, to surrender any part of its sovereignty In the face of a common danger, cities might be ready to combine together in a league, each parting with some of her sovereign powers to a common federal council But preserving the right of secession, and this was the idea of the Confederacy of Delos in its initial form But even such a voluntary and partial surrender of sovereignty was regarded as a misfortune So that when the motives which induced a city to join a federation became less strong and pressing, every member was anxious to gain its complete independence and resume the sovereign rights which it had laid down Such being the free tendencies which have swayed the peoples of Greece, it required a mighty arm and a constant vigilance for a ruling state to keep her federation or empire together An empire, however disguised, was always considered an injustice, a defiance to the political morality of Hellas A Greek felt it a degradation of his dignity or an interaction of his freedom, not to be the citizen of a free and sovereign city And he felt this at many points if he belonged to one of the subject allies of Athens, since their self-government was limited in regard to domestic as well as foreign affairs However liberal the general supervision of the mistress might be, the alliance with that mistress was a loss of the heart of all good things, liberty, which means the right of governing oneself If Athens had adopted the policy which was so successfully adopted by Rome, the policy of enlarging itself by admitting the citizens of smaller states to her own citizenship She might have built up a more enduring fabric of empire, but such a plan was incompatible with the political notions of the Greeks Policy and Ostracism of Simon As the Persian War had brought out more vividly the contrast between Greek and Barbarian and impressed the Greeks with the ideal unity of their race So the Confederacy of Dylos emphasized a division existing within the Greek race itself, the contrast of Dorian and Ionian That vision was largely artificial, it was the result of mistaken notions about the early history of Greece and only within very restricted limits did it represent any natural line of cleavage in the Hellenic race But it had come to be accepted as an axiom and was an important element in the situation We must probably seek for the origin of the opposition between Dorian and Ionians as a political doctrine in the unity of the Peloponnesus The actual geographical unity produced a political unity when in the sixth century the Spartan power became dominant And this was reinforced by the conception of its ethnical unity as mainly a Dorian country The identity and exclusiveness of Peloponnesian interests had been apparent at the time of the Persian invasion And the Peloponnesus not only stood aloof from, but had had the air of protesting against the growth of the Athenian Confederacy And this Confederacy had taken upon itself from the very first in Ionian color Athens, believing that she was an Ionian city and the mother of the Ionians of Asia, was gathering her children about her The shrine of the Delian Apollo, the great center of Ionian worship, was chosen as the center of the new Ionian Union The treasures of the league were in the Ionian Apollo's keeping and in its island the allies met to take counsel together Thus the Dorian Federation of the Peloponnesus under the headship of Sparta stood out against the Ionian Federation of the Aegean under the headship of Athens For some years the antagonism lay dormant. Sparta was still an ally of Athens against the Mede and the danger from Persia had not passed away But the preservation of peace was also due, in some measure, to the policy of the men who guided the fortunes of Athens, Aristides and Simon The son of Miltiades he had been at first regarded as a youth of little promise His grandfather was named Simpleton and he was supposed to have inherited a wit poorer than that of the ordinary Athenian Fond of the wine-cup and leading a disorderly life he was not a man of liberal education and a writer of memoirs who knew him described him as Peloponnesian rather than Athenian Uncultivated but honest and downright. He lived with his step-sister Eponnes and they both affected Lacedaemonian manners Aristides seems to have discerned his military ability and to have introduced him to public life His simplicity, geniality and lavish hospitality rendered him popular, his military successes confirmed his influence The two guiding principles of Simon's policy were the persecution of the war against Persia and the maintenance of good relations with the Lacedaemonians He upheld the doctrine of dual leadership. Athens should be mistress of the seas but she should recognize Sparta as the mistress of the continent Simon's sympathy with Sparta and his connections there became an important political fact and undoubtedly helped to postpone a rupture between Sparta and Athens In this policy Aristides, the leader of the democracy, and Simon, who was by no means in sympathy with the development of the democratic constitution, had pulled together After the death of the Masticles they had the whole power in their hands, Simon being continually re-elected as strategists and Aristides having the moral control of the sovereign assembly On the death of Aristides, Simon remained the most powerful statesman in Athens but his want of sympathy with democracy rendered it impossible that he should retain this power in a state which was advancing on the lines along which Athens was moving now Younger statesmen arose and formed a party of opposition against Simon and the oligarchs who rallied around him The two chief politicians of this democratic party were Ephialtes, a man of unquestioned probity, whom the oligarchs disliked and feared, and Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, who now began to play a permanent part in the assembly After the conquest of Thessos they charged Simon with having received bribes from Alexander, the king of Macedon, who was supporting the Thacians, and with having failed to act against Macedonia as it was his duty to act The accusation appears not to have been pressed hard and Simon was acquitted, but it was the first movement of an opposition which was speedily to bring about his fall Meanwhile Sparta herself had dealt a blow to his policy When the victory of the Urimeddon dispelled the fears of Persia, which had hovered over Greece till then, Sparta felt herself free to unseal her dormant jealousy of Athens at the first suitable opportunity, and she saw her opportunity in the war with Thessos But unforeseen events at home hindered her, as we saw, from actual intervention against Athens The Spartan citizen lived over a perpetual volcano, the servitude of their periochi and helots The fire which Pausanias thought of kindling burst forth eight years after his death An earthquake had laid in ruins the village which composed the town of Sparta, and a large number of the inhabitants were buried in the convulsion The moment was chosen by the Missinian serfs to shake off the yoke of their detested masters They annihilated in battle a company of 300 Spartans, but then they were smitten at the Ismiths, an unknown place in Messina, and thought refuge in the stronghold of Ithom On that steep hill, full of the memories of earlier struggles, they held out for a few years The Spartans were driven to ask the aid of allies, Platia, Agena, and Mantia sent troops to besiege Ithom They even asked Athens herself to sucker them in their distress The democratic politicians lifted up their voice against the sending of any aid, and the event proved them to be perfectly right But the Athenian folk listened to the councils of Simon, who drove home his doctrine of the dual leadership by two persuasive metaphors We must not leave Hellas lame, we must not allow Athens to lose her yoke fellow Simon took 4,000 hoplites to Messina, but though the Athenians had a reputation for skill in besieging fortresses, Bevers to take Ithom failed Then Sparta rounded and smote Athens in the face She told the Athenians, alone of all the allies who were encamped around the hill, that she required their help no more We are told that the Lachodimonians were afraid of the adventurous and revolutionary spirit of the Athenians But it is strange indeed that they should have dealt thus with a force which was both procured and commanded by a friend so staunch as Simon This incident exploded the Laconian policy of Simon, it exposed the futility of making sacrifices to court Sparta's friendship, and it revealed the depth of Spartan jealousy The opposition of Ephialtes and his party to the Messinian expedition received its justification And meanwhile Ephialtes and Pericles had taken advantage of the absence of the conservative evilsmen effect a number of radical reforms which were necessary to complete the democratic constitution These reforms were extremely popular and immensely increased the influence of the statesmen who carried them When Simon returned with his policy discredited they denounced him as a Philo Laconian and felt that they could safely attempt to ostracize him An ostracism was held and Simon was banished, soon afterwards a mysterious crime was committed Simon's chief antagonist Ephialtes was murdered and no one ever ascertained with maturity who the murderers were He had many bitter foes among the erigo-fights whom he had attacked singly and collectively and there were perhaps some among them who would not have hesitated to wreak such a vengeance on their assailant The Athenians had presently an opportunity of retaliating on Sparta for her contumely The blockade of Ithome was continued and the rebels at last capitulated They were allowed to leave the Peloponnesus unharmed on the condition that they should never return The Athenians who had helped to besiege them now found them a shelter They settled the Messinians in a new home at Nefactus on the Corinthian coast, a place where they had recently established a naval station In the Altus of Olympia we may still see a memorial of this third Messinian war The round base of a statue of Zeus which the Lachodemonians dedicated as a thank offering for their victory And we may read the inscribed verses in which they besought the Lord Zeus of Olympus to accept a fair image graciously While the Lachodemonians were wholly intent upon the long siege of the Messinian fort The Argyves, free from the fear of attack on that side, had seized the occasion to lay siege to Mycenae In the days of Argyve greatness this stronghold can hardly have been other than an Argyve fortress And it was probably after the great victory of Clemononnes with Spartan help that the Mycenaeans won for a brief space to their ancient independence During that brief space they had the glory of bearing a hand in the deliverance of Greece On the summit of their primeval citadel they built a temple where the old palace had stood and they girdled the city below with a wall They now defended the fortress for some time but their supplies were cut off and they were forced to submit The Argyves let them depart whether they would and some found a refuge in Macedonia But the old town was destroyed all except the walls which were stronger than the forces of destruction Argyves was once more mistress of her plain