The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]

[465-451 B.C.]

This war had not been brought to a termination, when, in the year 465 B.C., a tremendous earthquake destroyed Sparta, and a sudden ruin threatened to overwhelm the chief state of Greece. For, in the hope of utterly annihilating their rulers, many helots revolted, and the war was called the Third Messenian War. Upon this the Lacedæmonians, foreseeing a tedious siege, called in the aid of their allies; and this call was answered among others by the Athenians; the Spartans, however, dismissed them, as we have seen, before the fortress was taken.

Immediately after the dismission of the Athenians from Ithome, the injured people of Athens annulled the alliance with Sparta, which had subsisted since the Persian War. Then followed the war with the maritime towns of Argolis, in which Athens, after many reverses, at length succeeded in destroying the fleet of Ægina, and subjugating that island (457 B.C.). The inactivity of Sparta during these astonishing successes of her enemy (for when she concluded the armistice with Athens she must have partly foreseen its consequences) seems to prove that she was entirely occupied with the final capture of Ithome, and the settlement of her interests in Arcadia.

The five years’ truce in 451 B.C. was only an armistice between Athens and the Peloponnesian confederacy, which left Bœotia to shake off the Athenian yoke by her own exertions. At the end of these five years Megara revolted from the Athenians, and in consequence an invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesians took place, which, though it did not produce any immediate result, was soon followed by the Thirty Years’ Truce, in which Athens ceded her conquests in Megaris and the Peloponnese, and on the mainland returned within her ancient boundaries.

If now we consider the events which have been briefly traced it will be perceived, that the principle on which the Lacedæmonians constantly acted was one of self-defence, of restoring what had been lost, or preserving what was threatened with danger; whereas the Athenians were always aiming at attack or conquest, or the change of existing institutions. While the Spartans during this period, even after the greatest victories, did not conquer a foot of land, subjugate one independent state, or destroy one existing institution; the Athenians, for a longer or for a shorter time, reduced large tracts of country under their dominion, extended their alliance (as it was called) on all sides, and respected no connection when it came in conflict with their plans of empire.

But the astonishing energy of the Athenians, which from one point kept the whole of Greece in constant vibration, almost paralysed Sparta; the natural slowness of that state became more and more apparent: which having been, as it were, violently transplanted into a strange region, only began by degrees to comprehend the policy of Athens. It is manifest that the maxims of the Athenian policy were directly at variance with the general feeling of justice entertained by the Greeks, and especially to the respect for affinity of blood; and this fundamental difference was the true cause of the Peloponnesian War. In the first place then, Dorians were opposed to Ionians; and hence in the well-known oracle it was called the Doric War. It was a union of the free Greeks against the evil ambition of one state: of land forces against sea forces: the fleet of the Peloponnesians was at the beginning of the war very inconsiderable. Hence it was some time before the belligerent parties even so much as encountered one another; the land was the means of communication for one party, the sea for the other: hence the states friendly to Athens were immediately compelled to build Long Walls for the purpose of connecting the chief city with the sea, and isolating it from the land. Large bodies of men practised in war fought against wealth: the Peloponnesians carried on the war with natives; whereas Athens manned her fleet—the basis of her power—chiefly with foreign seamen; so that the Corinthians said justly that the power of Athens was rather purchased than native. It was the main principle of Pericles’ policy, and it is also adopted by Thucydides in the famous introduction to his History, that it is not the country and people, but moveable and personal property in the proper sense of the word, which make states great and powerful. The war meant the maintenance of ancient custom as opposed to the desire for novelty: the former was the chief feature of the Doric, the latter of the Ionic race. The Dorians wished to preserve their ancient dignity and power, as well as their customs and religious feelings: the Ionians were commonly in pursuit of something new. It was a union of nations and tribes against one arbitrarily formed: aristocracy was pitted against democracy: this difference was manifested in the first half of the war by Athens changing, while Sparta only restored governments; for in this instance also the power of Sparta was in strictness only employed in upholding ancient establishments, as an aristocracy may indeed be overthrown, but cannot be formed in a moment.