nians gave Corcyra against Corinth in 432 B.C., but the real causes lay in natural antagonism of character and in a standing conflict of interests. Sparta began to pose as the champion of a free Hellas, and finally sent an ultimatum: Athens must let all the Greek cities go free; that is, abandon her empire. Athens replied that Sparta might first set free Messenia and the Perioeci towns of Laconia; and the war began.

212. Resources and Plans. The Peloponnesian League with its allies could muster a hundred thousand hoplites, against whom in that day no army in the world could stand; but it could not keep in the field any considerable fraction of that force longer than a few weeks. Sparta could not capture Athens, therefore, and must depend upon ravaging Attic territory and inducing Athenian allies to revolt. Athens had only some twenty-six thousand hoplites at her command, half of whom were needed for distant garrison duty; but she had a navy even more unmatched on the sea than the Peloponnesian army was on land; her walls were impregnable; the islands of Euboea and Salamis, and the open spaces within the Long Walls, could receive her country people with their flocks and herds; the corn trade of south Russia was securely in her hands, the grain ships entering the Peiraeus as usual, however the Spartans might hold the open country of Attica; and Athens could easily afford to support her population for a time from her annual revenues, to say nothing of the immense surplus of six thousand talents in the treasury. Under these conditions Pericles refused to meet the Spartans in battle, and confined himself to ravaging the Peloponnesian coasts with his navy. Neither party could get at the other. The war promised to be a matter of patience and endurance.

of

213. An Unforeseen Factor. Pericles died in the third year the war, but his plan apparently would have worked well except for a tragic fatality that had already fallen upon Athens. A terrible plague had been ravaging Asia, and, just at this time, reached the Aegean. In general, in Greece it did little harm;

but in Athens the streets overcrowded with the population of all Attica living in unusual and unsanitary conditions — the pestilence returned each summer for some years and was deadly beyond description. It is estimated that a fourth of the population was swept away, and the demoralization of society was even more fatal.1

214. Summary of Events and Traits. Still, Athens recovered her buoyant hope, and the war lasted from 431 to 404 B.C., with one short and ill-kept truce. The notable matters for special reports or for further study are:

(1) Athenian superiority in naval tactics-the easy equality of an Athenian squadron in the early years to triple its numbers (illustrated by Phormio's engagements in the Corinthian gulf).

(2) Massacres of prisoners: Thebans by Plataeans, 431 B.C.; Plataeans by Thebans, 427 B.C.; Mytilenaean oligarchs by Athens (the story of the decree and the reprieve); the Melians by Athens, 415 B.C.; thousands of Athenians in the mines of Syracuse; the four thousand Athenians by Sparta after Aegospotami.

(3) The condemnation of the Athenian generals after the victory of Arginusae.

(4) Cleon's leadership at Athens.

(5) The surrender of one hundred and twenty Spartans at Sphacteria. (6) The war in Thrace.

215. The Closing Years: Rule of the Four Hundred; Persian Gold. The turning-point in the war was the unwise and misconducted Athenian expedition against Syracuse. Two hundred perfectly equipped ships and over forty thousand men — among them eleven thousand of the flower of the Athenian hoplites were pitifully sacrificed by the superstition and miserable generalship of their leader, the good but stupid Nicias (413 B.C.). Even after this crushing disaster Athens refused peace that should limit her empire. Every nerve was strained, and the last resources and reserve funds exhausted to build and man

1 Read the account in Thucydides.

new fleets.

Indeed, the war lasted nine years more, and part of the time Athens seemed as supreme in the Aegean as ever. Two things are notable in the closing chapters of the struggle -the attempt at political reaction in Athens, and the betrayal of the Asiatic Greeks to Persia by Sparta.

a. In 411 B.C., after a century of quiet, the oligarchs tried to secure the government. Wealthy men of moderate opinion were wearied by the ruinous taxation of the war. The democ

racy had blundered sadly and had shown its unfitness for dealing with foreign relations, where secrecy and dispatch are so essential; and at home it had fallen under the control of a new class of leaders-men of the people, like Cleon the tanner, and Hyperbolus the lampmaker, men of strong will and of abil ity, but rude, unscrupulous, and demagogic. Under these conditions the officers of the fleet conspired with the oligarchic secret societies at home and terrorized the city by the assassination of leading democrats. The Assembly was induced to pass a decree for a new constitution. Five of the conspirators chose ninety-five others, and each of the hundred added three more, making a council of Four Hundred. This body was to govern the city and appoint all magistrates. It was pledged to create an Assembly of the five thousand wealthier citizens. This step the oligarchs hesitated to take. Meantime, they betrayed Athenian interests to Sparta, and proved generally incompetent, except in murder and plunder. After a few months, the Athenian fleet at Samos revolted and deposed its oligarchic officers; then the democracy at home expelled the Four Hundred and restored the old constitution.

b. In 412 B.C., immediately after the destruction of the Athenian army and fleet in Sicily, Persian satraps appeared again upon the Aegean coast, and Sparta bought the aid of their gold by promising to betray the freedom of the Asiatic Greeks, to whom the Athenian name had been a shield for seventy years.

216. Aegospotami: the Surrender. - Persian funds now built fleet after fleet for Sparta, and slowly Athens was exhausted,

despite some brilliant victories. In 405 B.C. her last fleet, discouraged and demoralized and possibly betrayed by its commanders, was surprised and routed at Aegospotami. Lysander, the Spartan commander, executed in cold blood the four thou sand Athenian citizens among the prisoners.

Athens still held out through a terrible siege, until it was starved into submission in 404 B.C. Corinth and Thebes wished to raze it to the earth; but Sparta had no mind to remove so useful a check upon Thebes, and was content with gentler terms. Athens renounced her empire and all her old alliances, surrendered all her ships but twelve, and bound herself to follow Sparta in peace and war. Then the Long Walls and the fortifications of the Peiraeus were demolished, to the music of Peloponnesian flutes, and Hellas was declared free. In reality it remained only to see to what master Hellas would fall.

IV. THE WESTERN GREEKS IN THE FIFTH AND FOURTH CENTURIES.

217. A Brief Sketch of Events in Magna Graecia ought to be included in this portion of Greek history. The tyrant Gelon and his brother and successor Hiero for a few years after the repulse of Carthage (480 B.C.) made Syracuse the most powerful city in the West; indeed, for a short time just before the full bloom of Athens, it was the center of Greek civilization and the most brilliant city in the world. Between 475 and 450 B.C. the tyrants gave way to democracies in Magna Graecia ; but the old political union of the cities was lost, and petty wars and incessant strife of faction blasted the rising culture.

It was these dissensions and the wars between Ionians and Dorians in Sicily that called in Athens (415-413 B.C.), to her own ruin, during the Peloponnesian War. Then, in 409 B.C., like Persia in the East, Carthage renewed her designs, and quickly overran all the island except Syracuse, which was saved by a new tyrant, Dionysius. This remarkable ruler built up a great military power, and in a long war won back much