Book 2
And yet I, with whom you are angry, am as competent as any man, I think, both to determine upon the right measures and to expound them, and as good a patriot and superior to the influence of money.
For he who determines upon a policy, and fails to lay it clearly before others, is in the same case as if he never had a conception of it; and he who has both gifts, but is disloyal to his country, cannot speak with the same unselfish devotion; and if he have loyalty also, but a loyalty that cannot resist money, then for that alone everything will be on sale.
If, therefore, when you allowed me to persuade you to go to war, you believed that I possessed these qualities even in a moderate degree more than other men, it is unreasonable that I should now bear the blame, at any rate, of wrongdoing.
"For though I admit that going to war is always sheer folly for men who are free to choose, and in general are enjoying good fortune, yet if the necessary choice was either to yield and forthwith submit to their neighbours' dictation, or by accepting the hazard of war to preserve their independence, then those who shrink from the hazard are more blameworthy than those who face it.
For my part, I stand where I stood before, and do not recede from my position; but it is you who have changed. For it has happened, now that you are suffering, that you repent of the consent you gave me when you were still unscathed, and in your infirmity of purpose my advice now appears to you wrong. The reason is that each one of you is already sensible of his hardships, whereas the proof of the advantages is still lacking to all, and now that a great reverse has come upon you without any warning, you are too dejected in mind to persevere in your former resolutions.
For the spirit is cowed by that which is sudden and unexpected and happens contrary to all calculation; and this is precisely the experience you have had, not only in other matters, but especially as regards the plague.
Nevertheless, seeing that you are citizens of a great city and have been reared amid customs which correspond to her greatness,Described by Pericles in the Funeral Oration, Thuc. 2.37 - Thuc. 2.42. you should willingly endure even the greatest calamities and not mar your good fame. For as all men claim the right to detest him who through presumption tries to grasp a reputation to which he has no title, so they equally claim a right to censure him who through faintheartedness fails to live up to the reputation he already enjoys. You should, rather, put away your grief for private ills and devote yourselves to the safety of the commonwealth.
"As to the hardships involved in this war, and your misgivings lest they prove very great and we succumb after all, let those arguments suffice which I have advanced on many other occasionsThuc. 2.13 and Thuc. 1.140 - Thuc. 1.144. in order to convince you that your fears are groundless. But there is one point I propose to lay before you on which, I think, you have never yourselves as yet reflected, in spite of the advantage it gives you as regards your empire and its greatness, and which I have never previously dealt with in my speeches, and should not have done so now—for it makes a somewhat boastful claim—had I not seen that you are unreasonably dejected.
You think that it is only over your allies that your empire extends, but I declare that of two divisions of the world which lie open to man's use, the land and the sea, you hold the absolute mastery over the whole of one, not only to the extent to which you now exercise it, but also to whatever fuller extent you may choose; and there is no one, either the Great King or any nation of those now on the earth, who will block your path as you sail the seas with such a naval armament as you now possess.
This power, therefore, is clearly not to be compared with the mere use of your houses and fields, things which you value highly because you have been dispossessed of them; nor is it reasonable that you should fret about them, but you should make light of them, regarding them in comparison with this power as a mere flowergarden or ornament of a wealthy estate, and should recognize that freedom, if we hold fast to it and preserve it, will easily restore these losses, but let men once submit to others and even what has been won in the pastOr, reading τὰ προσεκτημένα, freedom and all that freedom gives = πρὸς τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ κεκτημένα, as Poppo explains). has a way of being lessened. You must therefore show yourselves not inferior in either of these two respects to your fathers, who by their own labours, and not by inheritance, not only acquired but also preserved this empire and bequeathed it to you (and it is a greater disgrace to let a possession you have be taken away than it is to attempt to gain one and fail);
and you must go to meet your enemies not only with confidence in yourselves, but with contempt for them. For even a coward, if his folly is attended with good luck, may boast, but contempt belongs only to the man who is convinced by his reason that he is superior to his opponents, as is the case with us.
And, where fortune is impartial, the result of this feeling of contempt is to render courage more effective through intelligence, that puts its trust not so much in hope, which is strongest in perplexity, as in reason supported by the facts, which gives a surer insight into the future.
" You may reasonably be expected, moreover, to support the dignity which the state has attained through empire—a dignity in which you all take pride—and not to avoid its burdens, unless you resign its honours also. Nor must you think that you are fighting for the simple issue of slavery or freedom; on the contrary, loss of empire is also involved and danger from the hatred incurred in your sway.
From this empire, however, it is too late for you even to withdraw, if any one at the present crisis, through fear and shrinking from action does indeed seek thus to play the honest man; for by this time the empire you hold is a tyranny, which it may seem wrong to have assumed, but which certainly it is dangerous to let go.
Men like these would soon ruin a state, either here, if they should win others to their views, or if they should settle in some other land and have an independent state all to themselves; for men of peace are not safe unless flanked by men of action; nor is it expedient in an imperial state, but only in a vassal state, to seek safety by submission.
"Do not be led astray by such citizens as these, nor persist in your anger with me,—for you yourselves voted for the war the same as I—just because the enemy has come and done exactly what he was certain to do the moment you refused to hearken to his demands, even though, beyond all our expectations, this plague has fallen upon us—the only thing which has happened that has transcended our foresight. I am well aware that your displeasure with me has been aggravated by the plague; but there is no justice in that, unless you mean to give me also the credit whenever any unexpected good fortune falls to your lot.
But the right course is to bear with resignation the afflictions sent by heaven and with fortitude the hardships that come from the enemy; for such has been the practice of this city in the past, and let it find no impediment in yourselves.
And realize that Athens has a mighty name among all mankind because she has never yielded to mis fortunes, but more freely than any other city has lavished lives and labours upon war, and that she possesses to-day a power which is the greatest that ever existed down to our time. The memory of this greatness, even should we now at last give way a little—for it is the nature of all things to decay as well as to grow—will be left to posterity forever, how that we of all Hellenes held sway over the greatest number of Hellenes, in the greatest wars held out against our foes whether united or single, and inhabited a city that was the richest in all things and the greatest.
These things the man who shrinks from action may indeed disparage, but he who, like ourselves, wishes to accomplish something will make them the goal of his endeavour, while every man who does not possess them will be envious.
To be hated and obnoxious for the moment has always been the lot of those who have aspired to rule over others; but he who, aiming at the highest ends, accepts the odium, is well advised. For hatred does not last long, but the splendour of the moment and the after-glory are left in everlasting remembrance.
Do you, then, providently resolving that yours shall be honour in ages to come and no dishonour in the present, achieve both by prompt and zealous effort. Make no overtures to the Lacedaemonians and do not let them know that you are burdened by your present afflictions ; for those who in the face of calamities show least distress of spirit and in action make most vigorous resistance, these are the strongest, whether they be states or individuals."
By such words Pericles endeavoured to cure the Athenians of their anger toward him, and to divert their minds from their present ills.
And as regards public affairs they were won over by his arguments, sending no further envoys to the Lacedaemonians, and were more zealous for the war; but in private they were distressed by their sufferings; for the commons, having less to start with, had been deprived even of this, while the upper classes had lost their beautiful estates in the country, both buildings and costly furniture, and above all they had war instead of peace. Indeed one and all they did not give over their resentment against him until they had imposed a fine upon him.
But not long afterwards, as is the way with the multitude, they chose him again as general and entrusted him with the whole conduct of affairs;
for they were now becoming individually less keenly sensible of their private griefs, and as to the needs of the state as a whole they esteemed him invaluable.
For so long as he presided over the affairs of the state in time of peace he pursued a moderate policy and kept the city in safety, and it was under him that Athens reached the height of her greatness; and, after the war began, here too he appears to have made a farsighted estimate of her strength. Pericles lived two years and six months beyond the beginning of the war;
and after his death his foresight as to the war was still more fully recognized.
For he had told the Athenians that if they would maintain a defensive policy, attend to their navy, and not seek to extend their sway during the war, or do anything to imperil the existence of the state, they would prove superior. But they not only acted contrary to his advice in all these things, but also in matters that apparently had no connection with the war they were led by private ambition and private greed to adopt policies which proved injurious both as to themselves and their allies; for these policies, so long as they were successful, merely brought honour or profit to individual citizens, but when they failed proved detrimental to the state in the conduct of the war.The reference is especially to the Sicilian expedition; the pernicious results were seen in the Decelean war.
And the reason for this was that Pericles, who owed his influence to his recognized standing and ability, and had proved himself clearly incorruptible in the highest degree, restrained the multitude while respecting their liberties, and led them rather than was led by them, because he did not resort to flattery, seeking power by dishonest means, but was able on the strength of his high reputation to oppose them and even provoke their wrath. At any rate, whenever he saw them unwarrantably confident and arrogant, his words would cow them into fear;
and, on the other hand, when he saw them unreasonably afraid, he would restore them to confidence again. And so Athens, though in name a democracy, gradually became in fact a government ruled by its foremost citizen.
But the successors of Pericles, being more on an equality with one another and yet striving each to be first, were ready to surrender to the people even the conduct of public affairs to suit their whims.
And from this, since it happened in a great and imperial state, there resulted many blunders, especially the Sicilian expedition,For the history of this expedition, see Books vi and vii. which was not so much an error of judgment, when we consider the enemy they went against, as of management; for those who were responsible for it, instead of taking additional measures for the proper support of the first troops which were sent out, gave themselves over to personal intrigues for the sake of gaining the popular leadership and consequently not only conducted the military operations with less rigour, but also brought about, for the first time, civil discord at home.
And yet, after they had met with disaster in Sicily, where they lost not only their army but also the greater part of their fleet, and by this time had come to be in a state of sedition at home, they neverthless held out ten years not only against the enemies they had before, but also against the Sicilians, who were now combined with them, and, besides, against most of their allies, who were now in revolt, and later on, against Cyrus son of the King, who joined the Peloponnesians and furnished them with money for their fleet; and they did not finally succumb until they had in their private quarrels fallen upon one another and been brought to ruin.
Such abundant grounds had Pericles at that time for his own forecast that Athens might quite easily have triumphed in this war over the Peloponnesians alone.
During the same summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies made an expedition with a hundred ships to the island of Zacynthus, which lies over against Elis. The Zacynthians are colonists of the Achaeans in the Peloponnesus and were in alliance with the Athenians.
On board the ships were one thousand Lacedaemonian hoplites, and Cnemus a Spartan was admiral. And making a descent upon the land they ravaged most of it; but as the inhabitants would not come to terms they sailed back home.
And at the end of the same summer430 B.C. Aristeus a Corinthian, three Lacedaemonian envoys, Aneristus, Nicolaus, and Pratodamus, also Timagoras of Tegea and Pollis of Argos, the last acting in a private capacity,Because Argos was a neutral state: Thuc. 2.9.2. set out for Asia to the King's court to see if they might persuade him to furnish money and join in the war. On their way they came first to Sitalces son of Teres in Thrace, their desire being to persuade him, if possible, to forsake the Athenian alliance and send a force to relieve Potidaea, where an Athenian army was conducting the siege; and also, in pursuance of their object, with his help to cross the Hellespont to PharnacesThen Satrap of Dascylium; Thuc. 1.129.1. son of Pharnabazus, who was to escort them up the country to
the King. But two Athenian envoys, Learchus son of Callimachus and Ameiniades son of Philemon, who chanced to be visiting Sitalces, urged Sadocus son of Sitalces, who had been made an Athenian citizen,Thuc. 2.29.5. to deliver the men into their hands, that they might not cross over to the King and do such injury as might be to his
adopted city.Possibly τὴν ἐκείνου πόλιν τὸ μέρος means a city in a measure his own. To this Sadocus agreed, and sending some troops to accompany Learchus and Ameiniades, seized them as they journeyed through Thrace before they embarked on the boat by which they were to cross the Hellespont. They were then, in accordance with his orders, delivered to the Athenian envoys, who took them and brought them
to Athens. When they arrived, the Athenians, in fear that Aristeus might escape and do them still more harm, because he had evidently been the prime mover in all the earlier intrigues at Potidaea and along the coast of Thrace, put them all to death on that very day without a trial, though they wished to say something in their own defence, and threw their bodies into a pit, thinking it justifiable to employ for their own protection the same measures as had in the first instance been used by the Lacedaemonians when they killed and cast into pits the traders of the Athenians and their allies whom they caught on board merchantmen on the coast of the Peloponnesus. For at the beginning of the war all persons whom the Lacedaemonians captured at sea they destroyed as enemies, whether they were fighting on the side of the Athenians or not even taking part on either side.