The Historians' History of the World 04

The Athenians made better use of their opportunities. As long as Epaminondas lived, their enterprises on the sea were without success; so that several of their generals were condemned to death (as Leosthenes and Callisthenes), or a mulct was imposed upon them (as on Cephisodotus) because they had caused losses to the state on account of their negligence and their unsuccessful undertakings. But after the battle of Mantinea they not only succeeded in driving the Thebans completely away from the sea, but they were again successful in uniting the greatest part of the islands of the Ægean Sea (Eubœa, Chios, Samos, Rhodes, etc.) under their sea-hegemony; in strengthening their sovereignty in Chalcidice and Macedonia and on the Gulf of Thermæ; and, after the murder of the Thracian sovereign Cotys by two youths who had been brought up in Athens, in again bringing the Thracian Chersonesus under their power and opening the sea-route to the fertile coast of the Pontus by way of the Hellespont. As the murderers of a tyrant, the young men of Ænus, who executed this “divine” deed on the person of Cotys, were honoured by the Athenians with the rights of citizens and golden wreaths. But with the good fortune of the Athenians there also returned the old abuses. The dissolute mercenaries, poorly paid, committed acts of extortion and oppression; the sovereign assembly often violated the treaties based on equality of rights, imposed taxes and aids upon the allied cities, divided territories among Attic colonists (cleruchs) and forgot the principles of clemency and moderation which had won so many willing members to their second maritime confederation. Besides, there was a scarcity of able leaders to replace the aging generals, such as Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheus, and there was also a waning of patriotic feeling. Having their own advantage more in mind than the greatness of their city, the generals tried to acquire independent possessions and dominions, an effort which was assisted by the increasing number of the mercenaries, who were taking the place of all the citizen levies. These conditions, combined with the secret intrigues of the Thebans, caused new dissatisfaction and brought about the deplorable social war, which led to the dissolution of the second Athenian maritime confederation at a time when the latter already comprised about seventy cities, as the disasters of the last years of the Peloponnesian War were the cause of the dissolution of the first.b

Great changes have taken place in the history of Greece since we left the Athenian soldiers and sailors rotting in the mines of Sicily. A greater change is about to take place. Of this it is only necessary to say the word “Macedonia.” Before we trace the rise of these northerners it will be well to glance briefly at the busy circumstances of Sicily.a

Greek Terra-cotta

(In the British Museum)

CHAPTER XLVII. THE TYRANTS IN SICILY

[410-405 B.C.]

The absence of federation which, in spite of the military superiority of the Greeks, had enabled the king of Persia to become master of Asiatic Greece and arbitrator of European Greece, was about to deliver the whole of Sicily into the hands of the Carthaginians. Segesta, constantly at war with Selinus, called them to its assistance in 410 B.C., as some years previously it had called the Athenians. Carthage was then at the height of its power; it raised an army of one hundred thousand mercenaries, and sent them into Sicily under the command of Hannibal, grandson of that Hamilcar who had been killed in the battle of Himera seventy years before this time. He began by taking possession of Segesta in the name of Carthage, then besieged Selinus, which was taken in 409, after a heroic resistance. All the inhabitants, men and women, old and young, were slain. The town was razed to the ground; the scattered ruins of its temples are still to be seen. Himera was also entirely destroyed. The greater number of the inhabitants had succeeded in escaping before the last assault; about three thousand were left, whom Hannibal put to death by torture in the very spot where his grandfather had fallen.