The Historians' History of the World 03

Such a prediction might well occur to any one, who reflected on the nature of the two powers which were now coming into conflict, and on the great resources of both, which, though totally different in kind, were so evenly balanced that no human eye could perceive in which scale victory hung; and the termination of the struggle could seem near only to one darkened by passion. The strength of Sparta, as was implied in the observation of Sthenelaidas, lay in the armies which she could collect from the states of her confederacy. The force which she could thus bring into the field is admitted by Pericles, in one of the speeches ascribed to him by Thucydides, to be capable of making head against any that could be raised by the united efforts of the rest of Greece. Within the isthmus her allies included all the states of Peloponnesus, except Achaia and Argos; and the latter was bound to neutrality by a truce which still wanted several years of its term. Hence the great contest now beginning was not improperly called the Peloponnesian War. Beyond the isthmus she was supported by Megara and Thebes, which drew the rest of Bœotia along with it; and Attica would thus have been completely surrounded on the land side by hostile territories, if Platæa and Oropus had not been politically attached to it. The Locrians of Opus, the Dorians of the mother-country, and the Phocians (though these last were secretly more inclined to the Athenians, who had always taken their part in their quarrels with Delphi, the stanch friend of Sparta) were also on her side. Thessaly, Acarnania, and the Amphilochian Argos, were in alliance with her enemy; but for this very reason, and more especially from their hostility to the Messenians of Naupactus, the Ætolians were friendly to her; and she could also reckon on the Corinthian colonies, Anactorium, Ambracia, and Leucas.

The power which Sparta exerted over her allies was much more narrowly limited than that which Athens had assumed over her subjects. The Spartan influence rested partly on the national affinity by which the head was united to the Dorian members of the confederacy, but still more on the conformity, which she established or maintained among all of them, to her own oligarchical institutions. This was the only point in which she encroached on the independence of any. Every state had a voice in the deliberations by which its interests might be affected; and if Sparta determined the amount of the contributions required by extraordinary occasions, she was obliged carefully to adjust it to the ability of each community. So far was she from enriching herself at the expense of the confederacy, that at the beginning of the war there was, as we have seen, no common treasure belonging to it, and no regular tribute for common purposes. But, to compensate for these defects, her power stood on a more durable basis of goodwill than that of Athens; and though in every state there was a party attached to the Athenian interest on political grounds, yet on the whole the Spartan cause was popular throughout Greece; and while Athens was forced to keep a jealous eye on all her subjects, and was in continual fear of losing them, Sparta, secure of the loyalty of her own allies, could calmly watch for opportunities of profiting by the disaffection of those of her rival.

At home indeed her state was far from sound, and the Athenians were well aware of her vulnerable side; but abroad, and as chief of the Peloponnesian confederacy, she presented the majestic and winning aspect of the champion of liberty against Athenian tyranny and ambition: and hence she had important advantages to hope from states which were but remotely connected with her, and were quite beyond the reach of her arms. Many powerful cities in Italy and Sicily were thus induced to promise her their aid, and it was on this she founded her chief expectations of forming a navy, which might face that of Athens. Her allies in this quarter engaged to furnish her with money and ships, which, it was calculated, would amount to no less than five hundred, though for the present it was agreed that they should wear the mask of neutrality, and admit single Athenian vessels into their ports. But as she was conscious that she should still be deficient in the sinews of war, she already began to turn her eyes to the common enemy of Greece, who was able abundantly to supply this want, and would probably be willing to lavish his gold for the sake of ruining Athens, the object of his especial enmity and dread.