A General History for Colleges and High Schools

t in the long struggle known as the Peloponnesian War. Pericles had foreseen the coming storm: "I descry war," said he, "low

he blockade by the Athenians of Potid?a, on the Macedonian coast. This was a Corinthian colony, but it was a member of the Delian league, and was now being chastised by Athens

o the deputies of both sides, decided that the Athenians had been guilty of injustice, and declared for war. The resolution of the Spartans was endorsed by the Peloponnesian confederation, and apparently approved by

Sparta were all the states of the Peloponnesus, save Argos and Achaia, while beyond the Isthmus the Boeotian League, headed by Thebes, and other states were he

ice as many smaller towns-of her great maritime empire. Her independent allies were Chios, Lesb

drama was enacted at night, within the walls of Plat?a. This city, though in Boeotia, w

Thebans planned its surprise and capture. Three hundred Thebans gained access to the unguarded city in the dead o

d overpowered them in the darkness, and took a hundred and eighty of them prisoners. These captives they afterwards murdered, in violation, as th

as and hamlets and gather within the defences of the city. He did not deem it prudent to risk a battle in the open fields. From the walls of Athens the people could see the flames of their burning villages and farmhouses, as

sery, a pestilence broke out within the crowded city, and added its horrors to the already unbearable calamities of war. No pen could picture the despair and gloom that settled over the city. Athens lost, probably, one-fourth of her fighting

pled demagogues, of whom Cleon was chief. The mob element got control of the popular assembly,

war was waged with the utmost vindictiveness and cruelty.

ans was in the hands of the Athenian assembly. Cleon proposed that all the men of the place, six thousand in number, should be slain, and the women and

dly called; the barbarous vote was repealed; and a swift trireme, bearing the reprieve, set out in anxious haste to overtake the former g

was quite severe enough. Over one thousand of the nobles of Mytilene were killed, the city

wreaked such vengeance upon the Mytileneans, the Spartans and their allies captured the city of Plat?a

a point of land (Pylos) on the coast of Messenia. The Spartans made every effort to dislodge the enemy. In the course of the siege, four hundred Spartans under Brasidas, having landed upon a little is

s for peace were opened, which, after many embassies to and fro, resulted in what is known as the Peace of Nicias, from the prominent Athenian general who is supposed

were not carried out in good faith or temper on either side. So the war went on. For about seven years, however, Athens and Sparta refrained from invading each other's territory; but even during this period each

ation: A

y to him, for he possessed all those personal traits which make men popular idols. His influence over the democracy was unlimited. He was able to carry through the popular assembly almost any measure that it pleased him to advocate. The more prudent of the Athenians were filled with apprehension for the future of the state

mind was a most magnificent one. He proposed that the Athenians, after effecting the conquest of Sicily, should make that island the base of operations against both Africa and Italy. With the Italians and Carthaginians su

thirty-six thousand soldiers and sailors. The commanders were Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus. Later, Demosthenes was sent out with a reinforcement consisting of seventy-three triremes and five thousand soldiers.] Anxiously did those remaining be

d furthermore of having mimicked the sacred rites of the Eleusinian mysteries.] Fearing to trust himself in the hands of his enemies at Athens, he fled to Sparta, and there, by traitorous counsel, did all in his power to ruin the very expedition he had planned. He advised the Spartans to send at once their best general to the Syracusans. They sent Gylippus, an able commander, whose generalship con

nown as Decelea, in Attica, only twelve miles from Athens. This was a thorn in the side of Athens. Secure in this stronghold, the Spartans could annoy and keep in terror almost all the Attic plain. The o

away from her on every side. The Persians, ever ready to aid the Greeks in destroying one another

been in vain. But the oligarchical party, for the sake of ruining the democracy were willing to ruin the empire. While the army was absent from Athens, th

forgetting and forgiving the past, recalled Alcibiades, and gave him command of the army, thereby well illustrating what the poet Aristo

ndo the evil he had done. He had ruined Athens beyond redemption by any human power. Constantly the struggle grew more and more h

captured by the Spartans under Lysander (405 B.C.). The prisoners, three thous

ites the historian Xenophon, referring to the night upon which the n

Athens was besieged by sea and land, and soon forced to surrender. Some of the allies insisted upon the total destruction of the city, and the conversion of it

or Corinth should become too powerful. So the city itself was spared, but the fortifications of Pir?us and the Long W

he war she had maintained that her only purpose in warring against Athens was to regain liberty for the G

oponnesian War, "Never had so many cities been made desolate by victories;... never were there

st the reverse now of what they were at the time of the Persian invasion. When, with all Athens in ruins, Themistocles at Salamis was taunted by the Spar

rality; while the vigor and productiveness of the intellectual and artistic life of Hellas, the centre and home of which had been Athens, were impaired beyond recovery. The achievements of the Greek intellect, especially in the fields of philosophic thought, in the century following the war we