The Historians' History of the World 03

The first operations of Corinth however were not directed against Megara. The Athenians, having undertaken a landing in the territory of the Halieis (the population of the southern Argolic peninsula, bordering on Trœzen and Hermione), were defeated on land by the Corinthian and Epidaurian forces: possibly it may have been in this expedition that they acquired possession of Trœzen, which we find afterwards in their dependance, without knowing when it became so. But in a sea-fight which took place off the island of Cecryphaleia (between Ægina and the Argolic peninsula) the Athenians gained the victory. After this victory and defeat—neither of them apparently very decisive—the Æginetans began to take a more energetic part in the war, and brought out their full naval force together with that of their allies—Corinthians, Epidaurians, and other Peloponnesians: while Athens equipped a fleet of corresponding magnitude, summoning her allies also; though we do not know the actual numbers on either side.

In the great naval battle which ensued off the island of Ægina, the superiority of the new nautical tactics acquired by twenty years’ practice of the Athenians since the Persian War—over the old Hellenic ships and seamen, as shown in those states where at the time of the battle of Marathon the maritime strength of Greece had resided—was demonstrated by a victory most complete and decisive. The Peloponnesian and Dorian seamen had as yet had no experience of the improved seacraft of Athens, and when we find how much they were disconcerted with it even twenty-eight years afterwards at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, we shall not wonder at its destructive effect upon them in this early battle. The maritime power of Ægina was irrecoverably ruined. The Athenians captured seventy ships of war, landed a large force upon the island, and commenced the siege of the city by land as well as by sea.

If the Lacedæmonians had not been occupied at home by the blockade of Ithome, they would have been probably induced to invade Attica as a diversion to the Æginetans; especially as the Persian Megabazus came to Sparta at this time on the part of Artaxerxes to prevail upon them to do so, in order that the Athenians might be constrained to retire from Egypt. This Persian brought with him a large sum of money, but was nevertheless obliged to return without effecting his mission. The Corinthians and Epidaurians, however, while they carried to Ægina a reinforcement of three hundred hoplites, did their best to aid her further by an attack upon Megara; which place, it was supposed, the Athenians could not possibly relieve without withdrawing their forces from Ægina, inasmuch as so many of their men were at the same time serving in Egypt. But the Athenians showed themselves equal to all these three exigencies at one and the same time—to the great disappointment of their enemies. Myronides marched from Athens to Megara at the head of the citizens in the two extremes of military age, old and young; these being the only troops at home. He fought the Corinthians near the town, gaining a slight, but debatable advantage, which he commemorated by a trophy, as soon as the Corinthians had returned home. But the latter, when they arrived at home, were so much reproached by their own old citizens, for not having vanquished the refuse of the Athenian military force, that they returned back at the end of twelve days and erected a trophy on their side, laying claim to a victory in the past battle. The Athenians, marching out of Megara, attacked them a second time, and gained on this occasion a decisive victory. The defeated Corinthians were still more unfortunate in their retreat; for a body of them, missing their road, became entangled in a space of private ground enclosed on every side by a deep ditch and having only one narrow entrance. Myronides, detecting this fatal mistake, planted his hoplites at the entrance to prevent their escape, and then surrounded the enclosure with his light-armed troops, who with their missile weapons slew all the Corinthian hoplites, without possibility either of flight or resistance. The bulk of the Corinthian army effected their retreat, but the destruction of this detachment was a sad blow to the city.

THE LONG WALLS

[458 B.C.]