Kitap 2
Of these, the Chians, Lesbians, and Corcyraeans furnished ships, the rest infantry and money.
Such were the allies of each side and the preparations they made for the war.
Immediately after the affair at Plataea the Lacedaemonians sent word around to the various states in the Peloponnesus and their confederacy outside the Peloponnesus to make ready such troops and supplies as it was appropriate they should have for a foreign expedition, their intention being to invade Attica.
When everything was ready in the several states, two-thirds of the contingent of each state assembled at the appointed time at the Isthmus.
And when the whole army was assembled, Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, who was to be the leader of this expedition, called together the generals of all the states as well as the chief officials and the most notable men, and exhorted them as follows:
" Peloponnesians and allies, our fathers made many campaigns both in the Peloponnesus and beyond it, and the elder men also amongst us do not lack experience in warfare, yet never before have we taken the field with a greater armament than this; but though we were never more numerous and puissant, it is also a very powerful state we now go against.
It is but right, therefore, that we neither should show ourselves worse men than our fathers nor wanting to our own fame. For all Hellas is stirred by this enterprise of ours, and fixes her gaze upon it, and being friendly to us on account of their hatred of the Athenians hopes that we shall succeed in carrying out our designs.
Therefore, even if some of us may think that we are going against them with superior numbers and that in all likelihood the enemy will not risk a pitched battle with us, we must not on that account be a whit less carefully prepared when we advance, but rather must officer and soldier of every state for his own part be always expecting to encounter some danger.
For the events of war cannot be foreseen, and attacks are generally sudden and furious; and oftentimes a smaller force, made cautious by fear, overmatches a larger number that is caught unprepared because it despises the foe.
One should, however, when campaigning in an enemy's country always be bold in spirit, but in action cautious and therefore prepared. For thus men will be most valorous in attacking their opponents and most secure against assault. "And we are going against a city which is not so powerless to defend itself as some may think, but is perfectly prepared in all respects;
we have therefore every reason to expect them to risk a battle, if they have not already set out before we are yet there, at any rate when they see us in their territory laying it waste and destroying their property.
For with all men, when they suffer an unwonted calamity, it is the sight set then and there before their eyes which makes them angry, and when they are angry they do not pause to think but rush into action.
And the Athenians are even more likely than most men to act in this way, since they are more disposed to claim the right to rule over others and to attack and ravage their neighbours' land than to see their own ravaged.
Realising, then, how powerful is the city against which you are taking the field, and how great is the fame, for better or for worse, which you are about to win for your ancestors and for yourselves fiom the outcome, follow wherever your officers lead you, regarding good order and vigilance as all-important, and sharply giving heed to the word of command; for this is the fairest as well as the safest thing—for a great host to show itself subject to a single discipline."
With these words Archidamus dismissed the assembly. He then first sent Melesippus son of Diocritus, a Spartan, to Athens, in the hope that the Athenians, when they saw that the Lacedaemonians were already on the march, might be somewhat more inclined to yield.
But they did not allow him to enter the city, much less to appear before the assembly; for a motion of Pericles had already been carried not to admit herald or embassy after the Lacedaemonians had once taken the field. They accordingly dismissed him without hearing him, and ordered him to be beyond their borders that same day; and in future, they added, the Lacedaemonians must first withdraw to their own territory before sending an embassy, if they had any communication to make.
They also sent an escort along with Melesippus, in order to prevent his having communication with anyone. And when he arrived at the frontier and was about to leave his escort, he uttered these words before he went his way, "
This day will be the beginning of great evils for the Hellenes." When he came to the army, and Archidamus had learned that the Athenians would not as yet make any concession, then at length they broke camp and advanced into Athenian territory.
And the Boeotians not only supplied their contingenti .e. two-thirds of their full appointment; cf. Thuc. 2.10.2. and the cavalry to serve with the Peloponnesians, but also went to Plataea with their remaining troops and proceeded to ravage the country.
While the Peloponnesian forces were still collecting at the Isthmus and while they were on the march but had not yet invaded Attica, Pericles son of Xanthippus, who was one of the ten Athenian generals, when he realised that the invasion would be made, conceived a suspicion that perhaps Archidamus, who happened to be a guest-friend of his, might pass by his fields and not lay them waste, doing this either on his own initiative, in the desire to do him a personal favour, or at the bidding of the Lacedaemonians with a view to creating a prejudice against him, just as it was on his account that they had called upon the Athenians to drive out the pollution.Thuc. 1.127.1. So he announced to the Athenians in their assembly that while Archidamus was indeed a guest-friend of his, this relationship had certainly not been entered upon for the detriment of the state; and that in case the enemy might not lay waste his fields and houses like the rest, he now gave them up to be public property, and asked that no suspicion should arise against himself on that account.
And he gave them the same advice as beforecf. Thuc. 1.143. about the present situation: that they should prepare for the war, should bring in their property from the fields, and should not go out to meet the enemy in battle, but should come into the city and there act on the defensive; that they should equip their fleet, in which their strength lay, and keep a firm hand upon their allies, explaining that the Athenian power depended on revenue of money received from the allies, and that, as a general rule, victories in war were won by abundance of money as well as by wise policy.
And he bade them be of good courage, as on an average six hundred talentsAbout £120,000 or $583,200. The original amount at the institution of the Confederacy of Delos was 460 talents (1.96.2. The figure here given is an average amount, because the assessment was revised every four years at the Panathenaea.These figures, and all other equivalents of Greek financial statements, are purely conventional, inasmuch as the purchasing power of money was then very much greater than now. of tribute were coming in yearly from the allies to the city, not counting the other sourcesThe ordinary revenue, apart from the tribute, consisted of customs duties, tax on sales, poll tax on resident aliens, rents of state property, especially the silver mines, court fees and fines. of revenue, and there were at this time still on hand in the Acropolis six thousand talentsAbout £1,940,000, or $9,428,400. of coined silver (the maximum amount had been nine thousand seven hundred talents, from which expenditures had been made for the construction of the PropylaeaCompleted about 432 B.c. of the Acropolis and other buildings,Such as the Parthenon, the Odeum, and the Telesterion at Eleusis (see Plut. Per. 13.). as well as for the operations at Potidaea).
Besides, there was uncoined gold and silver in public and private dedications, and all the sacred vessels used in the processions and games, and the Persian spoils and other treasures of like nature, worth not less than five hundred talents.About £100,000, or $486,000.
And he estimated, besides, the large amount of treasure to be found in the other temples. All this would be available for their use, and, if they should be absolutely cut off from all other resources, they might use even the gold plates with which the statue of the goddess herself was overlaid.The chryselephantine statue of Athena by Phidias in the Parthenon. The statue, as he pointed out to them, contained forty talents' weight of pure gold, and it was all removable.According to Plut. Per. xxxi., Phidias, by the advice of Pericles, laid on the gold in such a way that it could all be removed and weighed.
This treasure they might use for selfpreservation, but they must replace as much as they took. As to their resources in money, then, he thus sought to encourage them;
and as to heavv-armed infantry, he told them that there were thirteen thousand, not counting the sixteen thousand men who garrisoned the forts and manned the city walls. For this was the number engaged in garrison duty at first, when the enemy were invading Attica, and they were composed of the oldest and the youngestThe age limits were eighteen to sixty, those from eighteen to twenty (peri/poloi) being called on only for garrison duty within the bounds of Attica. The age of full citizenship was twenty. citizens and of such metics as were heavily armed. For the length of the Phalerian wall was thirty-five stadia to the circuit-wall of the city, and the portion of the circuit-wall itself which was guarded was fortythree stadia (a portion being left unguarded, that between the Long Wall and the Phalerian); and the Long Walls to the Peiraeus were forty stadia in extent, of which only the outside one was guarded; and the whole circuit of the Peiraeus including Munichia was sixty stadia, half of it being under guard.
The cavalry, Pericles pointed out, numbered twelve hundred, including mounted archers, the bow-men sixteen hundred, and the triremes that were seaworthy three hundred.
For these were the forces, and not less than these in each branch, which the Athenians had on hand when the first invasion of the Peloponnesians was impending and they found themselves involved in the war. And Pericles used still other arguments, as was his wont, to prove that they would be victorious in the war.
After the Athenians had heard his words they were won to his view, and they began to bring in from the fields their children and wives, and also their household furniture, pulling down even the woodwork of the houses themselves; but sheep and draught-animals they sent over to Euboea and the adjacent islands.
And the removal was a hard thing for them to accept, because most of them had always been used to live in the country.
And this kind of life had been the characteristic of the Athenians, more than of any other Hellenes, from the very earliest times. For in the time of Cecrops and the earliest kings down to Theseus, Attica had been divided into separate towns, each with its town hall and magistrates, and so long as they had nothing to fear they did not come together to consult with the king, but separately administered their own affairs and took counsel for themselves. Sometimes they even made war upon the king, as, for example, the Eleusinians with Eumolpus did upon Erechtheus.
But when Theseus became king and proved himself a powerful as well as a prudent ruler, he not only re-organized the country in other respects, but abolished the councils and magistracies of the minor towns and brought all their inhabitants into union with what is now the city, establishing a single council and town hall, and compelled them, while continuing to occupy each his own lands as before, to use Athens as the sole capital. This became a great city, since all were now paying their taxes to it,Others render: since all were now counted as belonging to it. and was such when Theseus handed it down to his successors.
And from his time even to this day the Athenians have celebrated at the public expense a festival called the Synoecia,"Feast of the Union," celebrated on the sixteenth of the month Hecatombaeon. in honour of the goddess. Before thisi.e. before the Synoecismus, or union of Attica under Theseus. what is now the Acropolis was the city, together with the region at the foot of the Acropolis toward the south.
And the proof of this is as follows: On the Acropolis itself are the sanctuariesIt is taken for granted that these temples were ancient foundations. of the other gods as well as of Athena,A lacuna in the text is generally assumed; Classen would supply καὶ τὰ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς after θεῶν ἐστι, and I translate this. and the sanctuaries which are outside the Acropolis are situated more in that quarter of the city, namely those of Olympian Zeus, of Pythian Apollo, of Earth, and of Dionysus in Limnae, in whose honour are celebrated the more ancient DionysiaThe Anthesteria, contrasted with the Lenaea, which was also an ancient festival, but of less antiquity. The city Dionysia was of comparatively recent origin. the twelfth of the month Anthesterion, just as the Ionian descendants of the Athenians also are wont even now to celebrate it. In that quarter are also situated still other ancient sanctuaries.
And the fountain now called Enneacrunus,Enneacrunus, Nine Conduits; Callirrhoe, Fair Stream. from the fashion given it by the tyrants, but which anciently, when the springs were uncovered, was named Callirrhoe, was used by people of those days, because it was close by, for the most important ceremonials; and even now, in accordance with the ancient practice, it is still customary to use its waters in the rites preliminary to marriages and other sacred ceremonies.
And, finally, the Acropolis, because the Athenians had there in early times a place of habitation, is still to this day called by them Polis or city.
Because, then, of their long-continued life of independence in the country districts, most of the Athenians of early times and of their descendants down to the time of this war, from force of habit, even after their political union with the city, continued to reside, with their households, in the country where they had been born; and so they did not find it easy to move away, especially since they had only recently finished restoring their establishments after the Persian war.
They were dejected and aggrieved at having to leave their homes and the temples which had always been theirs,—relics, inherited from their fathers, of their original form of government—and at the prospect of changing their mode of life, and facing what was nothing less for each of them than forsaking his own town.
And when they came to the capital, only a few of them were provided with dwellings or places of refuge with friends or relatives, and most of them took up their abode in the vacant places of the city and the sanctuaries and the shrines of heroes, all except the Acropolis and the Eleusinium and any other precinct that could be securely closed. And the Pelargicum,A fortification built by the "Pelasgians " on the west side of the Acropolis, the only side accessible to an enemy. It was to the space below and above this fortification that the curse attached. as it was called, at the foot of the Acropolis, although it was under a curse that forbade its use for residence, and this was also prohibited by a verse-end of a Pythian oracle to the following effect: The Pelargicum unoccupied is better, nevertheless under stress of the emergency was completely filled with buildings. And the oracle, as it seems to me, came true, but in a sense quite the opposite of what was expected;
for it was not on account of the unlawful occupation of the place that the city was visited by the calamities, but it was on account of the war that there was the necessity of its occupation, and the oracle, although it did not mention the war, yet foresaw that the place would never be occupied for any good.