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The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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In spite of the flagrant conduct of Pausanias, the Lacedæmonians acquitted him on the allegations of positive and individual wrong; yet, mistrusting his conduct in reference to collusion with the enemy, they sent out Dorcis to supersede him as commander. But a revolution, of immense importance for Greece, had taken place in the minds of the allies. The headship, or hegemony, was in the hands of Athens, and Dorcis the Spartan found the allies not disposed to recognise his authority.
Even before the battle of Salamis, the question had been raised, whether Athens was not entitled to the command at sea, in consequence of the preponderance of her naval contingent. The repugnance of the allies to any command except that of Sparta, either on land or water, had induced the Athenians to waive their pretensions at that critical moment. But the subsequent victories had materially exalted the latter in the eyes of Greece: while the armament now serving, differently composed from that which had fought at Salamis, contained a large proportion of the newly enfranchised Ionic Greeks, who not only had no preference for Spartan command, but were attached to the Athenians on every ground—as well from kindred race, as from the certainty that Athens with her superior fleet was the only protector upon whom they could rely against the Persians. Moreover, it happened that the Athenian generals on this expedition, Aristides and Cimon, were personally just and conciliating, forming a striking contrast with Pausanias. Hence the Ionic Greeks in the fleet, when they found that the behaviour of the latter was not only oppressive towards themselves but also revolting to Grecian sentiment generally, addressed themselves to the Athenian commanders for protection and redress, on the plausible ground of kindred race; entreating to be allowed to serve under Athens as leader instead of Sparta. The Spartan government about this time recalled Pausanias to undergo an examination, in consequence of the universal complaints against him which had reached them. He seems to have left no Spartan authority behind him,—even the small Spartan squadron accompanied him home: so that the Athenian generals had the best opportunity for insuring to themselves and exercising that command which the allies besought them to undertake. So effectually did they improve the moment, that when Dorcis arrived to replace Pausanias, they were already in full supremacy; while Dorcis, having only a small force, and being in no condition to employ constraint, found himself obliged to return home.
ATHENS TAKES THE LEADERSHIP
Type of Greek Helmet
This incident, though not a declaration of war against Sparta, was the first open renunciation of her authority as presiding state among the Greeks; the first avowed manifestation of a competitor for that dignity, with numerous and willing followers; the first separation of Greece—considered in herself alone and apart from foreign solicitations, such as the Persian invasion—into two distinct organised camps, each with collective interests and projects of its own. In spite of mortified pride, Sparta was constrained, and even in some points of view not indisposed, to patient acquiescence. The example of their king Leotychides, too, near about this time, was a second illustration of the same tendency. At the same time, apparently, that Pausanias embarked for Asia to carry on the war against the Persians, Leotychides was sent with an army into Thessaly to put down the Aleuadæ and those Thessalian parties who had sided with Xerxes and Mardonius. Successful in this expedition, he suffered himself to be bribed, and was even detected with a large sum of money actually on his person: in consequence of which the Lacedæmonians condemned him to banishment, and razed his house to the ground; he died afterwards in exile at Tegea. Two such instances were well calculated to make the Lacedæmonians distrust the conduct of their Heraclid leaders when on foreign service, and this feeling weighed much in inducing them to abandon the Asiatic headship in favour of Athens. It appears that their Peloponnesian allies retired from this contest at the same time as they did, so that the prosecution of the war was thus left to Athens as chief of the newly emancipated Greeks.
It was from these considerations that the Spartans were induced to submit to that loss of command which the misconduct of Pausanias had brought upon them. Their acquiescence facilitated the immense change about to take place in Grecian politics. According to the tendencies in progress prior to the Persian invasion, Sparta had become gradually more and more the president of something like a Panhellenic union, comprising the greater part of the Grecian states. Such at least was the point towards which things seemed to be tending; and if many separate states stood aloof from this union, none of them at least sought to form any counter-union, if we except the obsolete and impotent pretensions of Argos.
But the sympathies of the Peloponnesians still clung to Sparta, while those of the Ionian Greeks had turned to Athens: and thus not only the short-lived symptoms of an established Panhellenic union, but even all tendencies towards it from this time disappear. There now stands out a manifest schism, with two pronounced parties, towards one of which nearly all the constituent atoms of the Grecian world gravitate: the maritime states, newly enfranchised from Persia, towards Athens—the land-states, which had formed most part of the confederate army at Platæa, towards Sparta. Along with this national schism and called into action by it, appears the internal political schism in each separate city between oligarchy and democracy. Of course, the germ of these parties had already previously existed in the separate states, but the energetic democracy of Athens, and the pronounced tendency of Sparta to rest upon the native oligarchies in each separate city as her chief support, now began to bestow, on the conflict of internal political parties, an Hellenic importance, and an aggravated bitterness, which had never before belonged to it.
THE CONFEDERACY OF DELOS
[478-476 B.C.]
The general conditions of the confederacy of Delos were regulated in a common synod of the members appointed to meet periodically for deliberative purposes, in the temple of Apollo and Artemis at Delos—of old, the venerated spot for the religious festivals of the Ionic cities, and at the same time a convenient centre for the members. A definite obligation, either in equipped ships of war or in money, was imposed upon every separate city; and the Athenians, as leaders, determined in which form contribution should be made by each: their assessment must of course have been reviewed by the synod, nor had they at this time power to enforce any regulation not approved by that body. It had been the good fortune of Athens to profit by the genius of Themistocles on two recent critical occasions (the battle of Salamis and the rebuilding of her walls), where sagacity, craft, and decision were required in extraordinary measure, and where pecuniary probity was of less necessity: it was no less her good fortune now—in the delicate business of assessing a new tax and determining how much each state should bear, without precedents to guide them, when unimpeachable honesty in the assessor was the first of all qualities—not to have Themistocles; but to employ in his stead the well-known, we might almost say the ostentatious probity of Aristides. This must be accounted good fortune, since at the moment when Aristides was sent out, the Athenians could not have anticipated that any such duty would devolve upon him. His assessment not only found favour at the time of its original proposition, when it must have been freely canvassed by the assembled allies, but also maintained its place in general esteem, after Athens had degenerated into an unpopular empire.