The Historians' History of the World 03

Pericles, when he formed his coalition with Cimon, seems to have entered heartily into the enlarged views of that great man; and, with the hope that, through their coalition, both the oligarchical and the democratical powers in Athens might be held justly balanced, had early in view to establish the peace of Greece on a union between Athens and Lacedæmon. It is however evident, from the narrative of Thucydides, that Archidamus rarely could direct the measures of the Lacedæmonian government. On a view of all information, then, it may seem probable that the project of Pericles was concerted with Archidamus; and that the opposition of those in Lacedæmon, of an adverse faction concurred with opposition from those in Athens, who apprehended injury to their interests from a new coalition with the aristocratical party, to compel the great projector to abandon his magnificent and beneficent purpose.f

FOOTNOTES

[45] Plutarch tells a story—characteristic if not true—of a rude fellow who, after railing at Pericles all day, as he was transacting business in public, followed him after dusk with abusive language to his door, when Pericles ordered one of his servants to take a light, and conduct the man home.

Ruins of Haliartus

CHAPTER XXV. ATHENS AT WAR

Peace between Lacedæmon and Athens was indispensable towards the quiet of the rest of the nation, but, in the want of such a union as Pericles had projected, was unfortunately far from being insured; and, when war began anywhere, though among the most distant settlements of the Grecian people, how far it might extend was not to be foreseen. A dispute between two Asiatic states of the Athenian confederacy led Athens into a war which greatly endangered the truce made for thirty years, when it had scarcely lasted six. Miletus and Samos, each claiming the sovereignty of Priene, originally a free Grecian commonwealth, asserted their respective pretensions by arms. The Milesians, not till they were suffering under defeat, applied to Athens for redress, as of a flagrant injury done them. The usual feuds within every Grecian state furnished assistance to their clamour; for, the aristocracy prevailing at that time in Samos, the leaders of the democratical party joined the enemies of their country in accusing the proceedings of its government before the Athenian people.

THE SAMIAN WAR

[440-439 B.C.]

The opposition at Athens maliciously imputed the measures following to the weak compliance of Pericles with the solicitations of Aspasia in favour of her native city; but it appears clearly, from Thucydides, that no such motive was needful: the Athenian government would of course take cognisance of the cause; and, as might be expected, a requisition was sent to the Samian administration to answer, by deputies at Athens, to the charges urged against them. The Samians, unwilling to submit their claim to the arbitration of those who they knew were always systematically adverse to the aristocratical interest, refused to send deputies. A fleet of forty trireme galleys however brought them to immediate submission; their government was changed to a democracy, in which those who had headed the opposition of course took the lead; and to insure permanent acquiescence from the aristocratical party, fifty men and fifty boys, of the first families of the island, were taken as hostages, and placed under an Athenian guard in the island of Lemnos.