The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]

This measure seems to have been on many accounts imprudent. There was found at Athens a strong disposition to refuse the aid. But Cimon, who, with a universal liberality, always professed particular esteem for the Lacedæmonians, prevailed upon his countrymen to take the generous part; and a considerable body of forces marched under his command into the Peloponnesus. Upon their arrival at the camp of the besiegers an assault upon the place was attempted, but with so little success that recourse was again had to the old method of blockade. It was in the leisure of that inactive and tedious mode of attack that principally arose those heartburnings which first occasioned an avowed national aversion between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, and led, not indeed immediately, but in a direct line, to the fatal Peloponnesian War. All the prudence and all the authority of Cimon could not prevent the vivacious spirit of the Athenians from exulting, perhaps rather insultingly, in the new pre-eminence of their country; wherever danger called, they would be ostentatiously forward to meet it; and an assumed superiority, without a direct pretension to it, was continually appearing.

The Spartan pride was offended by their arrogance; the Spartan gravity was disturbed by their lively forwardness: it began to be considered that, though Greeks, they were Ionians, whom the Peloponnesians considered as an alien race; and it occurred that if, in the continuance of the siege, any disgust should arise, there was no security that they might not renounce their present engagements, and even connect themselves with the helots; who, as Greeks, had, not less than the Lacedæmonians, a claim to friendship and protection from every other Grecian people. Mistrust thus arose on one side; disgust became quickly manifest on both; and the Lacedæmonians shortly resolved to dismiss the Athenian forces. This however they endeavoured to do, as far as might be, without offence, by declaring that an “assault having been found ineffectual, the assistance of the Athenians was superfluous for the blockade, and the Lacedæmonians would not give their allies unnecessary trouble.” All the other allies were however retained, and the Athenians alone returned home; so exasperated by this invidious distinction that, on their arrival at Athens, the party adverse to Cimon proposing a decree for renouncing the confederacy with Lacedæmon, it was carried. An alliance with Argos, the inveterate enemy of Sparta, immediately followed; and soon after the Thessalians acceded to the new confederacy.

While Lacedæmon was engaged with this dangerous insurrection, a petty war arose in the Peloponnesus, affording one of the most remarkable, among the many strong instances on record, of the miseries to which the greater part of Greece was perpetually liable from the defects of its political system. Argos, the capital of Argolis, and formerly of the Peloponnesus under the early kings of the Danaan race, or perhaps before them, lost its preeminence, as we have already seen, during the reigns of the Persidæan and Pelopidæan princes, under whom Mycenæ became the first city of Greece. On the return of the Heraclidæ, Temenus fixed his residence at Argos, which thus regained its superiority. But, as the oppressions, arising from a defective political system, occasioned very generally through Greece the desire, so the troubles of the Argive government gave the means for the inferior towns to become independent republics. Like the rest, or perhaps more than the rest, generally oppressive, that government was certainly often ill-conducted and weak; and Lacedæmon, its perpetual enemy, fomented the rebellious disposition of its dependencies. During the ancient wars of Sparta and Messenia, the Argives had expelled the people of their towns of Asine and Nauplia, and forced them to seek foreign settlements; a resource sufficiently marking a government both weak and oppressive. Mycenæ was now a much smaller town than Argos; but its people, encouraged by Lacedæmon, formed lofty pretensions. The far-famed temple of Juno, the tutelar deity of the country, situated about five miles from Argos, and little more than one from Mycenæ, was considered by the Argives as theirs; and, from the time, it was supposed, of the Heraclidæ, the priestess had been appointed and the sacred ceremonies administered under the protection of their government. Nevertheless the Mycenæans now claimed the right to this superintendency. The games of Nemea, from their institution, or, as it was called, their restoration, had been under the direction of the Argives; but the Mycenæan government claimed also the prior right to preside there. These however were but branches of a much more important claim; for they wanted only power, or sufficient assistance from Sparta, to assert a right of sovereignty over Argos itself and all Argolis; and they were continually urging another pretension, not the less invidious to Argos because better founded, a pretension to merit with all the Greek nation for having joined the confederacy against Persia, while the Argives allied themselves with the common enemy of Greece. The favourable opportunity afforded by the helot rebellion was eagerly seized by the Argives for ridding themselves of such troublesome and dangerous neighbours, whom they considered as rebellious subjects. Laying siege to Mycenæ they took the place, reduced the surviving people to slavery, and dedicating a tenth of the spoil to the gods destroyed the town, which was never rebuilt.