The Historians' History of the World 03

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.

At Athens, after the banishment of Themistocles, Cimon remained long in possession of a popularity which nothing could resist; and his abilities, his successes, and his moderation, his connection with the aristocratical interest, and his favour with the people, seemed altogether likely to insure, if anything could insure, permanency and quiet to his administration. But in Athens, as in every free government, there would always be a party adverse to the party in the direction of public affairs: matters had been for some time ripening for a change; and the renunciation of the Lacedæmonian alliance was the triumph of the opposition.d

FOOTNOTES

[42] Plutarch says that “Cimon’s house was a kind of common hall for all the people; the first fruits of his lands were theirs; whatever the seasons produced of excellent and agreeable, they freely gathered; nor were strangers in the least debarred from them: so that he in some measure revived the community of goods, which prevailed in the reign of Saturn, and which the poets tell so much of.”

[43] Gorgias the Leontine gave him this character: “He got riches to use them, and used them so as to be honoured on their account.”

[44] [This war has been called the Third Messenian War.]

Temple of Erechtheus

CHAPTER XXIV. THE RISE OF PERICLES

This was the ruler of the land

When Athens was the land of fame:

This was the light that led the band

When earth was like a living flame;

The centre of earth’s noblest ring—

Of more than men the more than king.

—George Croly.