Book 2
So Nymphodorus came to Athens, brought about the alliance with Sitalces, and got Sadocus son of Sitalces made an Athenian citizen; and he promised also to bring the war in Thrace to an end, saying that he would persuade Sitalces to send the Athenians a Thracian force of cavalry and targeteers.
Moreover, he brought about a reconciliation between Perdiccas and the Athenians, whom he persuaded to restore ThermeThuc. 1.61.2. to him. Perdiccas immediately joined forces with the Athenians under PhormioThuc. 1.64.2; Thuc. 1.65.3. and took the field against the Chalcidians.
It was in this way that Sitalces son of Teres, king of the Thracians, became an ally of the Athenians, and also Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians.
Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred ships, who were still operating on the Peloponnesian coast, took Sollium, a town belonging to the Corinthians, which they then handed over, the territory as well as the city, to the people of Palaerus in Acarnania, for their exclusive occupation. They also stormed Astacus, which Euarchus ruled as tyrant, drove him out, and incorporated the place in their confederacy.
Sailing then to the island of Cephallenia, they brought it over to their side without a battle. Now Cephallenia lies over against Acarnania and Leucas and is a union of four communities, the Palians, Cranians, Samaeans, and Pronnians. And not long afterwards the ships withdrew to Athens.
Toward the autumn of this year the Athenians with all their military forces, drawn both from the citizens and the resident aliens, invaded Megaris under the command of Pericles son of Xanthippus, who was general.i.e. one of the ten generals elected annually. The Athenians of the fleet of one hundred ships operating around Peloponnesus, who happened to be at Aegina on their way home, when they heard that the whole military force of the city was at Megara, sailed over and joined them.
This was the largest army of Athenians that had ever been assembled in one body, for the city was still at the height of its strength and not as yet stricken by the plague; the Athenians themselves numbered not less than ten thousand heavy infantry, not including the three thousand at PotidaeaThuc. 1.61.4. and there were three thousand heavy-armed aliens who took part in the invasion, and, besides, a considerable body of light-armed troops. After they had ravaged most of the Megarian country they retired.
Later on in the course of the war still other invasions were made by the Athenians into Megaris every year, both with the cavalry and with the whole army, until Nisaea was captured.Thuc. 4.66 - Thuc. 4.69.
Towards the end of this summer the431 B.C. Athenians also fortified and garrisoned Atalante, the island which lies off Opuntian Locris and had hitherto been unoccupied. Their object was to prevent pirates sailing from Opus and the other ports of Locris and ravaging Euboea. These were the events which took place during this summer after the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Attica.
But in the ensuing winter, Euarchus the Acarnanian, wishing to return to Astacus, persuaded the Corinthians to sail with forty ships and fifteen hundred heavy infantry and restore him to power, and for this purpose he himself hired some mercenaries. The commanders of the expedition were Euphamidas son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus son of Timocrates, and Eumachus son of Chrysis. They did in fact sail over and restore him;
and wishing to acquire some other places along the seaboard of Acarnania they made the attempt but failed, and thereupon sailed for home.
As they skirted the coast they touched at Cephallenia, where they made a descent upon the territory of the Cranians; here deceived by the inhabitants through some sort of agreement they lost a few of their men by an unexpected attack of the Cranians, and finally, after they had got out to sea with considerable difficulty, managed to get back home.
In the course of the same winter the Athenians, following the custom of their fathers, celebrated at the public expense the funeral rites of the first who had fallen in this war.
The ceremony is as follows. The bones of the departed lie in state for the space of three days in a tent erected for that purpose, and each one brings to his own dead any offering he desires.
On the day of the funeral coffins of cypress wood are borne on wagons, one for each tribe, and the bones of each are in the coffin of his tribe. One empty bier, covered with a pall, is carried in the procession for the missing whose bodies could not be found for burial.
Any one who wishes, whether citizen or stranger, may take part in the funeral procession, and the women who are related to the deceased are present at the burial and make lamentation.
The coffins are laid in the public sepulchre, which is situated in the most beautiful suburb' of the city; there they always bury those fallen in war, except indeed those who fell at Marathon; for their valour the Athenians judged to be preeminent and they buried them on the spot where they fell.
But when the remains have been laid away in the earth, a man chosen by the state, who is regarded as best endowed with wisdom and is foremost in public esteem, delivers over them an appropriate eulogy. After this the people depart.
In this manner they bury; and throughout the war, whenever occasion arose, they observed this custom.
Now over these, the first victims of the war, Pericles son of Xanthippus was chosen to speak. And when the proper time came, he advanced from the sepulchre and took his stand upon a platform which had been built high in order that his voice might reach as far as possible in the throng, and spoke as follows:
Most of those who have spoken here in the past have commended the law-giver who added this oration to our ceremony, feeling that it is meet and right that it should be spoken at their burial over those who have fallen in war. To me, however, it would have seemed sufficient, when men have proved themselves brave by valiant acts, by act only to make manifest the honours we render them—such honours as to-day you have witnessed in connection with these funeral ceremonies sole nr ized by the state—and not that the valour of many men should be hazarded on one man to be believed or not according as he spoke well or ill.
For it is a hard matter to speak in just measure on an occasion where it is with difficulty that belief in the speaker's accuracy is established. For the hearer who is cognizant of the facts and partial to the dead will perhaps think that scant justice has been done in comparison with his own wishes and his own knowledge, while he who is not so informed, whenever he hears of an exploit which goes beyond his own capacity, will be led by envy to think there is some exaggeration. And indeed eulogies of other men are tolerable only in so far as each hearer thinks that he too has the ability to perform any of the exploits of which he hears;
but whatever goes beyond that at once excites envy and unbelief. However, since our forefathers approved of this practice as right and proper, I also, rendering obedience to the law, must endeavour to the best of my ability to satisfy the wishes and beliefs of each of you.
"I shall speak first of our ancestors, for it is right and at the same time fitting, on an occasion like this, to give them this place of honour in recalling what they did. For this land of ours, in which the same people have never ceased to dwell in an unbroken line of successive generations, they by their valour transmitted to our times a free state.
And not only are they worthy of our praise, but our fathers still more; for they, adding to the inheritance which they received, acquired the empire we now possess and bequeathed it, not without toil, to us who are alive to-day.
And we ourselves here assembled, who are now for the most part still in the prime of life, have further strengthened the empire in most respects, and have provided our city with all resources,Those enumerated by Pericles in Thuc. 1.12: money, army, and navy. so that it is sufficient for itself both in peace and in war.
The military exploits whereby our several possessions were acquired, whether in any case it were we ourselves or our fathers that valiantly repelled the onset of war, Barbarian or Hellenic, I will not recall, for I have no desire to speak at length among those who know. But I shall first set forth by what sort of training we have come to our present position, and with what political institutions and as the result of what manner of life our empire became great, and afterwards proceed to the praise of these men; for I think that on the present occasion such a recital will be not inappropriate and that the whole throng, both of citizens and of strangers, may with advantage listen to it.
"We live under a form of government which does not emulate the institutions of our neighboursAlluding to the Spartans, whose institutions were said to have been borrowed from Crete; in fact, throughout the whole speech the constrast is with Spartan conditions.; on the contrary, we are ourselves a model which somePossible allusion to the embassy sent from Rome in 454 B.c. to examine the laws of Solon (Livy 3. 31). follow, rather than the imitators of other peoples. It is true that our government is called a democracy, because its administration is in the hands, not of the few, but of the many; yet while as regards the law all men are on an equality for the settlement of their private disputes, as regards the value set on them it is as each man is in any way distinguished that he is preferred to public honours, not because he belongs to a particular class, but because of personal merits; nor, again, on the ground of poverty is a man barred from a public career by obscurity of rank if he but has it in him to do the state a service.
And not only in our public life are we liberal, but also as regards our freedom from suspicion of one another in the pursuits of every-day life; for we do not feel resentment at our neighbour if he does as he likes, nor yet do we put on sour looks which, though harmless, are painful to behold.
But while we thus avoid giving offence in our private intercourse, in our public life we are restrained from lawlessness chiefly through reverent fear, for we render obedience to those in authority and to the laws, and especially to those laws which are ordained for the succour of the oppressed and those which, though unwritten, bring upon the transgressor a disgrace which all men recognize.
"Moreover, we have provided for the spirit many relaxations from toil: we have gamesReferring especially to the contests at the chief festivals, like the Panathenaea and Dionysia, which by their artistic setting and performance were recreations of the mind and spirit quite as much as physical exercises. and sacrifices regularly throughout the year and homes fitted out with good taste and elegance; and the delight we each day find in these things drives away sadness.
And our city is so great that all the products of all the earth flow in upon us, and ours is the happy lot to gather in the good fruits of our own soil with no more home-felt security of enjoyment than we do those of other lands.Thucydides refers to thes spiritual no less than to the physical products which the greatness of Athens attracts to her, to the poetry, music, and art which find there a congenial home as well as to articles of commerce. On these latter compare a passage in the pseudo-Xenophontic Constitution of the Athenians, written somewhat earlier than this portion of Thucydides' history: Whatever desirable thing is found in Sicily, Italy, Cyprus, Egypt, Lydia, the Pontus, the Peloponnesus, or anywhere else, all these things are brought together at Athens on account of her mastery of the sea. Ps. Xen. Const. Ath. 2.7.
"We are also superior to our opponents in our system of training for warfare, and this in the following respects. In the first place, we throw our city open to all the world and we never by exclusion acts debar any one from learning or seeing anything which an enemy might profit by observing if it were not kept from his sight; for we place our dependence, not so much upon prearranged devices to deceive, as upon the courage which springs from our own souls when we are called to action. And again, in the matter of education, whereas they from early childhood by a laborious discipline make pursuit of manly courage, we with our unrestricted mode of life are none the less ready to meet any equality of hazard.Pericles here hints at his policy, outlined in Thuc. 2.13.2, of always acting on the defensive when the enemy forces are distinctly superior. And here is the proof:
When the Lacedaemonians invade our territory they do not come alone but bring all their confederates with them, whereas we, going by ourselves against our neighbours' territory, generally have no difficulty, though fighting on foreign soil against men who are defending their own homes, in overcoming them in battle.
And in fact our united forces no enemy has ever yet met, not only because we are constantly attending to the needs of our navy, but also because on land we send our troops on many enterprises; but if they by chance engage with a division of our forces and defeat a few of us, they boast that they have repulsed us all, and if the victory is ours, they claim that they have been beaten by us all.
If, then, by taking our ease rather than by laborious training and depending on a courage which springs more from manner of life than compulsion of laws, we are ready to meet dangers, the gain is all ours, in that we do not borrow trouble by anticipating miseries which are not yet at hand, and when we come to the test we show ourselves fully as brave as those who are always toiling; and so our city is worthy of admiration in these respects, as well as in others.
"For we are lovers of beauty yet with no extravagance and lovers of wisdom yet without weakness. Wealth we employ rather as an opportunity for action than as a subject for boasting; and with us it is not a shame for a man to acknowledge poverty, but the greater shame is for him not to do his best to avoid it.
And you will find united in the same persons an interest at once in private and in public affairs, and in others of us who give attention chiefly to business, you will find no lack of insight into political matters. For we alone regard the man who takes no part in public affairs, not as one who minds his own business, but as good for nothing; and we Athenians decide public questions for ourselvesAs contrasted with the Spartans, whose officials made the most important decisions. or at least endeavour to arrive at a sound understanding of them, in the belief that it is not debate that is a hindrance to action but rather not to be instructed by debate before the time comes for action.
For in truth we have this point also of superiority over other men, to be most daring in action and yet at the same time most given to reflection upon the ventures we mean to undertake; with other men, on the contrary, boldness means ignorance and reflection brings hesitation. And they would rightly be adjudged most courageous who, realizing most clearly the pains no less than the pleasures involved, do not on that account turn away from danger. Again, in nobility of spirit, we stand in sharp contrast to most men;
for it is not by receiving kindness, but by conferring it, that we acquire our friends. Now he who confers the favour is a firmer friend, in that he is disposed, by continued goodwill toward the recipient, to keep the feeling of obligation alive in himThis must be the meaning of the ὥστε clause, but something is perhaps wrong with the text.; but he who owes it is more listless in his friendship, knowing that when he repays the kindness it will count, not as a favour bestowed, but as a debt repaid.