as Suraj-ud-Doulah murdered the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Death of Nikias and nes. The Athenian generals were happily spared the sight of these prolonged and excruciating tortures. Unless the terms of the convention were to be kept, Demosthenes could, of course, expect no mercy. In flagrant violation of a distinct compact the doom of the victor at Sphakteria was sealed, and he died, as he had lived, without a stain on his military reputation, the victim of the superstition and the respectability of his colleague. But the Syracusans were determined on the instant death not of Demosthenes only, whose life they were pledged to spare, but of Nikias. The Corinthians too, it is said, were sorely troubled by the fear that his great wealth might regain him his freedom and that his freedom would be used to involve them again in a struggle like that which had now reached its close. Their fear was absurdly thrown away. Had they voted to him a golden crown with a public maintenance for life in their Prytaneion as the destroyer of Athens and the benefactor and saviour of Syracuse and Sicily, their decree would have been not too severe a satire on his political and military career. Effect of the expedition on the subsequent history of Greece. So ended an expedition which changed the current of Athenian history and therefore, in more or less degree, of the history of the world. In the Athenian people the mere entertainment of such a project as the conquest of Sicily was a grave political error. They had hazarded on this distant venture an amount of strength which was imperiously needed for the protection of Attica and the recovery of Amphipolis; and instead of a starvation which, as things turned out, would have been wise, they fed the expedition with a bounty so lavish that failure became utter ruin. In short, from first to last, everything was done to court disaster and to play into the hands of their enemies; but unless we are to maintain the doctrine that things have always happened as it is best that they should happen, it would have been distinctly better for Syracuse and better for the world, if the success of Athens had been only somewhat less complete than her catastrophe. The power of trampling on Sicily as Gylippos and his allies trampled on the defeated armament would have done no good either to Athens or to the world; but if the isolating policy which seeks to maintain an infinite number of autonomous units be in itself an evil, then it is unfortunate that the victory of Gylippos insured the predominance of this policy. Athens had done what she could to weld into a coherent body a number of such centrifugal units. Her work may have been imperfect, but so far as it went, it was real, and, as we have seen, it involved no substantial injustice. To a vast extent she could offer to her allies or her subjects common interests and common ends. Sparta could offer none; but the system of Sparta fell in with instincts in the Hellenic mind which may have been weakened but were never eradicated, and against this instinct the wisdom and prudence of Athenian statesmen strove in vain. The military history of the expedition has a painful and terrible interest of its own: but the Athenians who were led to death or slavery in Sicily were not mere professional soldiers, and the horrors of the catastrophe are heightened by the intense political emotions with which they undertook to fight the battles of their country. Never had they behaved more gallantly, never had they undergone privations so cheerfully, never had they nerved themselves so zealously to renewed efforts under frightful disasters as in this fatal expedition. Had they left Peiraieus under the command of Lamachos and Demosthenes, they would have returned home in triumph a year before the time when they were brought to utter ruin by the folly and obstinacy of one man. CHAPTER VIII. THE PELOPONNESIAN (DEKELEIAN) WAR FROM THE CATASTROPHE AT SYRACUSE TO THE SUPPRESSION OF THE OLIGARCHY OF THE FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS. WHILE the walls of Dekeleia, daily gaining height and strength, showed that the enemy was permanently established on Attic soil, Effects of the Spartan occupation of Dekeleia. the Athenians still fed themselves on bright hopes of Sicilian conquest. There was, in truth, need of encouragement. Previous invasions had left the land at rest after a raid of five or six weeks at the utmost; now the whole country lay at the mercy of the enemy. Each day they felt the sting of the monster evil of slavery. Twenty thousand men, whom Greek philosophy delighted to regard as animated machines, deserted to the enemy and left Athens almost destitute of skilled workmen. Each day the Athenian cavalry was employed in repelling the assaults or keeping back the forces of the enemy: and each day its strength and usefulness were impaired by the laming or the wounding of horses on ground utterly unfitted for their operations. Thus far, even during the yearly invasions of the enemy, the pressure had been comparatively slight. If the Eleusinian plain was wasted, still abundant supplies could be brought 1 See p. 247. into the city by way of Oropos. But this way was now blocked by the Spartan garrison: and the fiery energy of Agis, in marked contrast with the slower movements of Archidamos, made the idea of forcing it hopeless. Everything must now be conveyed round Sounion in merchant ships which lay exposed to the attacks of Peloponnesian privateers. Athens had, indeed, ceased to be a city. It was now nothing more than a garrison in which the defenders were worn out with harassing and incessant duty. The very magnitude of their tasks involved a charge of something like madness or infatuation. Athens was herself practically in a state of siege: and all her fleet with the flower of her forces was besieging a distant city of equal size and power. Their expenses were daily rising at a ruinous rate, while their revenues were melting away, or proved themselves wholly inadequate to bear the strain put upon them. The massa cre of Mykalessos. Nor was this the end of the evils involved in the lack of means brought about by this deadly war. A body of 1,300 Thrakian mercenaries reached Athens after Demosthenes had sailed for Sicily; and as it was impossible to send them after him, so sheer poverty prevented the Athenians from keeping them in Attica for a service in which they would probably have been especially useful. They were accordingly dismissed under the command of Diitrephes, who was charged to do the enemy a mischief, if he could, as he went along. With these men he made his way to Mykalessos, distant about two miles from their night post at the Hermaion. The town was small; the walls were weak and for the most part in ruins; and the gates were wide open. An attack from enemies was the last thing which the inhabitants looked for, when the troop of bloodthirsty savages burst in upon them and a massacre began to which even the frightful annals of Hellenic warfare could furnish no parallel. Not less than eight or nine hours could pass before tidings of the catastrophe could bring help from Thebes: and when the Thebans reached Mykalessos, the Thrakians had departed with their booty. But success had made them incautious; and their enemies were upon them before they had traversed the short distance which separates the town from the sea. Two hundred and fifty were killed: the rest got on board and sailed homewards. The Boiotians lost about twenty horsemen and hoplites with the Boiotarch Skirphondas; but the Athenians sustained a greater injury in the deep and universal indignation excited against them by this frightful massacre.1 Scarcely more than three weeks later the Athenians must have received the dispatch which informed them of the failure of the night attack on Epipolai and taught them that success was no longer to be hoped for. The Athenians would have done no more than their duty, if as soon as these tidings came they had sent to the 1 Thục. vii. 30. State of when the generals an order for the immediate return of the army and fleet. For a full month longer such an order would have averted the last terrible catastrophe; nor can they be acquitted of a most culpable remissness except on the ground that, although their confidence in Nikias was egregiously misplaced, they had ample reason for trusting the judgement as well as the bravery of Demosthenes. During the month which followed the night attack no dispatch probably was sent after the one which announced its failure; and if any was sent along with the order countermanding further supplies from Katanê, it preceded only by a few days the events which sealed their doom. Of those last awful hours no official record ever reached Athens; and it needed probably the exultation which was soon manifested by their enemies to convince the Athenians of the infinitude of the ruin. In the first burst of despairing grief they turned angrily on the speakers who had urged on the expedition, and on the soothsayers and diviners who had augured success for the enterprise: but such revenge was a poor consolation for the utter failure of a scheme which they had themselves decreed. Their thoughts were soon drawn away to more practical matters. The strength and flower of their army had been cut off; their fleet was either burnt or in the enemy's hands; their docks were almost empty of ships, and their calamity had rendered their adversaries irresistible. But although the heavens seemed laden with their doom, one feeling only pervaded the people. The idea of submission crossed no man's mind. The struggle must be carried on vigorously and economically: and the second consideration was as important as the first. They resolved at once to provide wood for ship-building, and to watch closely all movements among their subject allies, and especially in Euboia. The dockyards were again busy with workmen, and with the rapidity which had astonished the Syracusans the promontory of Sounion was strongly fortified to protect the passage of merchant vessels, while a further force was rendered available by abandoning the fort on the Peloponnesian coast facing the island of Kythera. State of feeling in Peloponnesos and among the oligarchical factions in the cities subject to Athens. The calamities which had thus strung the nerves of the Athenians to a pitch of desperate resolution roused in their enemies a vehement enthusiasm which regarded the struggle as all but ended. One more blow only was needed; and if this blow should be struck quickly and firmly, Athens would experience the fate which she had designed for all the Hellenic tribes. Such at least seemed the prospect to the oligarchical factions which were more or less powerful in the cities belonging to the Athenian 1 See p. 383. confederation.1 Orders were issued for the building of a hundred ships, of which the Spartans and Boiotians should each furnish twenty-five, fifteen being furnished by the Corinthians and the same number by the Phokians and Lokrians together. But the winter had not passed away before some of the allies of Athens made efforts to transfer their allegiance to Sparta. The first deputation came from Euboia: and Agis at once summoned Alkamenes and Melanthos from Sparta to undertake the government of the island. Before they could accomplish their journey a second deputation came from Lesbos; and the influence of the Boiotians, who insisted on the paramount need of securing that island, induced Agis to leave Euboia for the present to itself, while Alkamenes was sent as Harmostes or governor to Lesbos. Overtures of Tissaphernes and Pharnabazos to the Spar tans. At Sparta the drama soon became more complicated. The oligarchic factions in Chios and Erythrai2 were anxious to avail themselves of the prostration of Athens in order to realise their dreams of autonomy. With their envoys, whom they sent not to Agis but straight to Sparta, appeared ambassadors from Tissaphernes. The Persian satrap of the province which lay to the south of the gulf of Adramyttion had received notice from the great king that the tributes due from the Hellenic cities within his jurisdiction must be paid into the treasury. The mere fact that the weakness of Athens should at once call forth such a claim might have taught them that in seeking to be free of the Athenian yoke they were but wishing, like the frogs, to change king Log for king Stork. Both sides were indeed much like thieves who needed each the aid of the other. The oligarchic conspirators, for such they literally and strictly were, felt that they dared not run the risk of revolt unless they could have the support of an adequate force of allies, and they knew that Sparta would not stir unless it could be made clear that it was to her interest to do so. Tissaphernes, again, on his side knew that without Spartan aid he could not break up the Athenian empire, and that until this result could be achieved, he must remain |