The Story of Greece and Rome for boys and girls
- Автор: Macgregor Mary
- Год: 1914
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Зарубежная литература для детей
Электронная книга - «The Story of Greece and Rome for boys and girls». Краткое содержание книги:
The Story of Greece: Told to Boys and Girls от Mary Macgregor
The Story of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus, Told to Boys and Girls от Mary Esther Miller MacGregor
Those of the garrison who had stayed in the city did all that they could to perplex the enemy, by making a sally on the side of the town farthest from that by which their friends had fled. And when the Spartans lit torches and flashed danger signals to the Thebans whose city was not far off, the Plataeans lit beacons, so that the signals were confused.
Meanwhile the fugitives, having reached the ground in safety, were met by a band of three hundred Spartans. These were carrying lights, so the Plataeans were able to send a shower of arrows among them with sure and deadly aim. In the confusion that followed, all save one archer succeeded in crossing a ditch, covered with ice, but too thin to bear the weight of the fugitives. They struggled through the icy water, and after many narrow escapes two hundred and twelve weary men reached Athens in safety.
Plataea held out gallantly until the summer of 427 B.C., when famine at length forced her to surrender.
Five judges were sent from Sparta to decide the fate of the prisoners. But the trial was a mere form, for the Thebans had already persuaded the Spartans how to treat the unfortunate men.
Each prisoner as he was brought before the judges was asked if he had helped the Spartans in their war against Athens. As each one answered ‘No,’ he was led out and put to death. In this way two hundred Plataeans and twenty-five Athenians lost their lives, while the city they had so bravely defended was razed to the ground.
CHAPTER LXIV
THE SENTENCE OF DEATH
In the fourth year of the Peloponnesian War the city of Mytilene threw off the yoke of Athens. Mytilene was the capital of Lesbos, an island near the coast of Asia. The city had belonged to the Delian league, and when the league became the empire of Athens, the city remained faithful to the empire. But as time passed the Mytileneans became afraid lest Athens should treat them as she had treated the Samians, and should make them subjects instead of allies.
While Athens was at war with Sparta she would have little time, thought the Mytileneans, to trouble about their small island, so they revolted and asked the Spartans to support them, if that should be necessary. The Spartans promised to help the Mytileneans if the Athenians should punish their disloyalty, but, as so often happened, they did not attempt to keep their promise until it was too late.
Athens was angry when she heard of the revolt at Mytilene. Although she could ill spare the men, she sent an army under a general named Paches to blockade the town by sea and by land and so to starve her into submission. At all costs Mytilene must not fall into the hands of Sparta.
Before long, so strict was the blockade, food began to run short in the hapless island, and the Spartans failed to send the help they had promised.
But when the citizens were desperate with hunger, a messenger from Sparta reached the town. He had passed the Athenian army unnoticed and had entered Mytilene, to the delight of the starving people. When he assured them that ships laden with corn were on the way and would reach them soon, their joy was unbounded.
Day after day, week after week passed, but the Spartan ships did not come, and hope began to die out of the hearts of the Mytileneans. It was plain that they must either surrender or starve to death; so they determined to surrender.
They sent for Paches, and agreed to give up the city, and to leave their fate to be decided by the Athenian assembly. In the meantime about one thousand of the inhabitants were sent as prisoners to Athens.
The Athenians had been bitterly angry with the Mytileneans for revolting when their hands were already full with war at home and with the misery caused by the plague. They were in no mood now to deal mercifully with them.
Cleon, a leather-merchant, who by his own efforts had risen to a high position in the State, roused the temper of the people by his rough and noisy eloquence, and Pericles was no longer alive to restrain it, as he had so often done, by his wiser, calmer speech.
When the assembly met, it was Cleon who proposed that all those able to bear arms should be put to death, and that the women and children should be sold as slaves. In its angry mood the assembly voted as Cleon wished.
No sooner was the sentence of death passed, than a ship was despatched to the island to bid Paches, the Athenian general, carry out the terrible decision of the assembly.
But a little later, when the assembly broke up and escaped from the influence of Cleon’s eloquence, the members began to be ashamed of their cold-blooded sentence.
Ambassadors from Mytilene had come to Athens to plead the cause of their people. When they saw that the Athenians were uneasy, they persuaded them to call another meeting of the assembly the following morning, to reconsider the sentence that they had passed.
Cleon had felt no regret at the fate of the rebels, and he was indignant that the assembly should dream of revoking its decree. When it met on the following day he spoke even more vehemently than before, urging the members to see that the sentence was carried out.
But Diodotus, a noble Athenian, whose name has never been forgotten, spoke as well as Cleon. So wise were his words that those who had already wished to alter the sentence for pity’s sake, were now sure that wisdom also demanded that the Mytileneans should be spared. Diodotus won the day, for Cleon was defeated by a small majority.
No sooner was the sentence revoked than in hot haste a ship was manned, and the crew was bidden to do its utmost to overtake the vessel which was carrying the sentence of doom to Mytilene. Already it was twenty-four hours since the ship had left Athens. Was it possible to carry the good news in time?
The ambassadors promised large rewards to the oarsmen if they reached the city before the terrible sentence had been carried out. In their anxiety they provided barley, wine, oil for the crew.
There was no lack of zeal on the part of the sailors. They rowed with all their strength, taking but scant rest, and eating the barley, which had been soaked in wine and oil and made into cakes, as they sat at their oars. They knew that on their speed depended the life or death of thousands.
Swifter and swifter flashed the oars of the second ship. In the first vessel the sailors pulled slowly, for they were in no haste to deliver the dread tidings which they carried. And it was well that they had no heart for their task, for with every muscle strained to the utmost the crew of the second boat reached Mytilene only just in time.
The death sentence had already reached Paches, and he was preparing to carry it out, when with a glad, triumphant shout the second boat swung into the harbour, and the Mytileneans were saved.
But even so they paid heavily for their rebellion, for about thirty of their leading citizens were executed, their fleet was taken by the Athenians, and the walls of their city were destroyed.
CHAPTER LXV
BRASIDAS LOSES HIS SHIELD
In 425 B.C., the seventh year of the war, an Athenian fleet of about forty ships, under an admiral named Eurymedon, was forced by stormy weather to seek shelter on the promontory of Pylos in Messenia. Pylos stood on the Bay of Pylos, which you now know as the Bay of Navarino.
To give the men something to do until the storm allowed them to sail, Demosthenes, an officer on board one of the ships, bade them begin to build a fort. But it was not only to employ the men that he did this, but because he believed that Pylos would make a good fortress from which to attack the western shore of Peloponnesus.
At first the men took little interest in the work, for they expected each day to leave Pylos. But as the storm continued, they began to work with a will, and soon a fortress that looked fit to defy an enemy was finished.
It had not been easy work, for the men had no iron tools. They could not cut stones, but were forced to pick out those that fitted into each other.