chapter 17 (volume 3)._

_E. Abbott, Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens, chapters 5-6. _

GREECE: B. C. 460-449. Disastrous Athenian expedition to Egypt. Cimon's last enterprise against the Persians. The disputed Peace of Cimon, or Callias. Five years truce between Athens and Sparta.

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

GREECE: B. C. 458-456. Alliance of Corinth and Ægina against Athens and Megara. Athenian victories. Siege and conquest of Ægina. The Spartans in Bœotia. Defeat of Athens at Tanagra. Her success at Œnophyta. Humiliation of Thebes. Athenian ascendancy restored.

Crippled by the great earthquake of 464 B. C., and harassed by the succeeding Messenian War, "nothing could be done, on the part of Sparta, to oppose the establishment and extension of the separate alliance between Athens and Argos; and accordingly the states of Northern Peloponnesus commenced their armaments against Athens on their own account, in order to obtain by force what formerly they had achieved by secret intrigues and by pushing forward Sparta. To stop the progress of the Attic power was a necessary condition of their own existence; and thus a new warlike group of states formed itself among the members of the disrupted confederation. The Corinthians entered into a secret alliance with Ægina and Epidaurus, and endeavored to extend their territory and obtain strong positions beyond the Isthmus at the expense of Megara. This they considered of special importance to them, inasmuch as they knew the Megareans, whose small country lay in the midst between the two hostile alliances, to be allies little deserving of trust. … The fears of the Corinthians were realized sooner than they had anticipated. The Megareans, under the pressure of events, renounced their treaty obligations to Sparta, and joined the Attico-Argive alliance. … The passes of the Geranea, the inlets and outlets of the Doric peninsula, now fell into the hands of the Athenians; Megara became an outwork of Athens; Attic troops occupied its towns; Attic ships cruised in the Gulf of Corinth, where harbors stood open to them at Pegæ and Ægosthena. The Athenians were eager to unite Megara as closely as possible to themselves, and for this reason immediately built two lines of walls, which connected Megara with its port Nisæa, eight stadia off, and rendered both places impregnable to the Peloponnesians. This extension of the hostile power to the boundaries of the Isthmus, and into the waters of the western gulf, seemed to the maritime cities of Peloponnesus to force them into action. Corinth, Epidaurus, and Ægina commenced an offensive war against Athens—a war which opened without having been formally declared; and Athens unhesitatingly accepted the challenge thrown out with sufficient distinctness in the armaments of her adversaries. Myronides, an experienced general and statesman, … landed with an Attic squadron near Halieis (where the frontiers of the Epidaurians and Argives met), and here found a united force of Corinthians, Epidaurians, and Æginetans awaiting him. Myronides was unsuccessful in his campaign. A few months later the hostile fleets met off the island of Cecryphalea, between Ægina and the coast of Epidaurus. The Athenians were victorious, and the struggle now closed round Ægina itself. Immediately opposite the island ensued a second great naval battle. Seventy of the enemy's ships fell into the hands of the Athenians, whose victorious fleet without delay surrounded Ægina. The Peloponnesians were fully aware of the importance of Ægina to them. Three hundred hoplites came to the relief of the island, and the Corinthians marched across the Geranea into Megaris to the relief of Ægina. It seemed impossible that, while the fleet of the Athenians was fighting in the land of the Nile, and another was lying before Ægina, they should have a third army in readiness for Megara. But the Peloponnesians had no conception of the capabilities of action belonging to the Athenians. True, the whole military levy was absent from the country, and only enough men were left at home for the mere defence of the walls. Yet all were notwithstanding agreed that neither should Ægina be given up nor the new allies be left in the lurch. Myronides advanced to meet the Corinthians with troops composed of those who had passed the age of military service or not yet reached it. In the first fight he held his ground: when the hostile forces returned for the second time, they were routed with tremendous loss. Megara was saved, and the energy of the Athenians had been most splendidly established. {1578} In attestation of it the sepulchral pillars were erected in the Ceramicus, on which were inscribed the names of the Athenian soldiers who had fallen in one and the same year (Ol. lxxx 3; B. C. 458-7) off Cyprus, in Egypt, Phœicia, Halieis, Ægina, and Megara. A fragment of this remarkable historical document is preserved to this day. While thus many years' accumulation of combustible materials had suddenly broken out into a flame of the fiercest war in Central Greece, new complications also arose in the north. The Thebans, who had suffered so deep a humiliation, believed the time to have arrived when the events of the past were forgotten, and when they could attain to new importance and power. In opposition to them the Phocians put forth their strength. … After the dissolution of the Hellenic Confederation, and the calamities which had befallen the Spartans, the Phocians thought they might venture an attack upon the Dorian tetrapolis, in order to extend their frontiers in this direction. … For Sparta it was a point of honor not to desert the primitive communities of the Dorian race. She roused herself to a vigorous effort, and, notwithstanding all her losses and the continuance of the war in Messenia, was able to send 11,500 men of her own troops and those of the confederates across the Isthmus before the Athenians had time to place any obstacles in their way [B. C. 457]. The Phocians were forced to relinquish their conquests. But when the Spartan troops were about to return home across the Isthmus they found the mountain-passes occupied by Athens, and the Gulf of Corinth made equally insecure by the presence of hostile ships. Nothing remained for the Lacedæmonians but to march into Bœotia, where their presence was welcome to Thebes. They entered the valley of the Asopus, and encamped in the territory of Tanagra, not far from the frontiers of Attica. Without calculating the consequences, the Athenians had brought themselves into an extremely dangerous situation. … Their difficulties increased when, contemporaneously, evil signs of treasonable plots made their appearance in the interior of the city. …

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

Thus, then, it was now necessary to contend simultaneously against foes within and foes without, to defend the constitution as well as the independence of the state. Nor was the question merely as to an isolated attack and a transitory danger; for the conduct of the Spartans in Bœotia clearly showed that it was now their intention to restore to power Thebes … because they were anxious to have in the rear of Athens a state able to stop the extension of the Attic power in Central Greece. This intention could be best fulfilled by supporting Thebes in the subjugation of the other Bœotian cities. For this purpose the Peloponnesians had busily strengthened the Theban, i. e. the oligarchical party, in the whole of the country, and encircled Thebes itself with new fortifications. Thebes was from a country town to become a great city, an independent fortified position, and a base for the Peloponnesian cause in Central Greece. Hence Athens could not have found herself threatened by a more dangerous complication. The whole civic army accordingly took the field, amounting, together with the Argives, and other allies, to 14,000 men, besides a body of Thessalian cavalry. In the low ground by the Asopus below Tanagra the armies met. An arduous and sanguinary struggle ensued, in which for the first time Athens and Sparta mutually tested their powers in a regular battle. For a long time the result was doubtful; till in the very thick of the battle the cavalry went over to the enemy, probably at the instigation of the Laconian party. This act of treason decided the day in favor of Sparta, although patriotic Athenians would never consent to count this among the battles lost by Athens. The Spartans were far from fulfilling the expectations of the party of the Oligarchs. As soon as they knew that the passes of the Isthmus were once more open, they took their departure, towards the fall of the year, through Megara, making this little country suffer for its defection by the devastation of its territory. … They reckoned upon Thebes being for the present strong enough to maintain herself against her neighbors; for ulterior offensive operations against Athens, Tanagra was to serve as a base. The plan was good, and the conjuncture of affairs favorable. But whatever the Spartans did, they did only by halves: they concluded a truce for four months, and quitted the ground. The Athenians, on the other hand, had no intention of allowing a menacing power to establish itself on the frontiers of their country. Without waiting for the return of the fair season, they crossed Mount Parnes two months after the battle, before any thoughts of war were entertained in Bœotia; Myronides, who was in command, defeated the Theban army which was to defend the valley of the Asopus, near Œnophyta. This battle with one blow put an end to all the plans of Thebes; the walls of Tanagra were razed. Myronides continued his march from town to town; everywhere the existing governments were overthrown, and democratic constitutions established with the help of Attic partisans. … Thus, after a passing humiliation, Athens was soon more powerful than ever, and her sway extended as far as the frontiers of the Phocians. Nay, during the same campaign she extended her military dominion as far as Locris. … Meanwhile the Æginetans also were gradually losing their power of resistance. For nine months they had resisted the Attic squadron. … Now their strength was exhausted; and the proud island of the Æacidæ, which Pindar had sung as the mother of the men who in the glorious rivalry of the festive games shone out before all other Hellenes, had to bow down before the irresistible good fortune of the Athenians, and was forced to pull down her walls, to deliver up her vessels of war, and bind herself to the payment of tribute. Contemporaneously with this event, the two arms of walls [at ATHENS] … between the upper and lower town were completed. Athens was now placed beyond the fear of any attack. … The Peloponnesian confederation was shaken to its very foundations; and Sparta was still let and hindered by the Messenian revolt, while the Athenians were able freely to dispose of their military and naval forces."

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 2 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 9 (volume 2)._

_Thucydides, Peloponnesian War (translated by Jowett), book 1, sections 107-108._

{1579}

GREECE: B. C. 449-445. Quarrel of Delphians and Phocians. Interference of Sparta and Athens. Bœotian revolution. Defeat of Athenians at Coroneia. Revolt of Eubœa and Megara. The Thirty Years Truce.

In 449 B. C. "on occasion of a dispute between the Delphians and the Phocians as to which should have the care of the temple and its treasures, the Lacedæmonians sent an army, and gave them to the former; but as soon as they were gone, Pericles led thither an Athenian army, and put the Phocians in possession. Of this the Lacedæmonians took no notice. The right of Promanty, or first consulting the oracle, which had been given to Sparta by the Delphians, was now assigned to Athens by the Phocians; and this honor was probably the cause of the interference of both states. As the Athenians had given the upper hand to the democratic party in Bœotia, there was of course a large number of the opposite party in exile. These had made themselves masters of Orchomenus, Chæroneia, and some other places, and if not checked in time, might greatly endanger the Athenian influence. Tolmidas, therefore, led an army and took and garrisoned Chæroneia; but, as he was returning, he was attacked at Coroneia by the exiles from Orchomenus, joined by those of Eubœa and their other friends. Tolmidas fell, and his troops were all slain or made prisoners. (Ol. 83, 2.) [B. C. 447.] The Athenians, fearing a general war, agreed to a treaty, by which, on their prisoners being restored, they evacuated Bœotia. The exiles returned to their several towns, and things were placed on their old footing. … Eubœa was now (Ol. 83, 3) [B. C. 446] in revolt: and while Pericles was at the head of an army reducing it, the party in Megara adverse to Athens rose and massacred all the Athenian garrisons except that of Nisæa. Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians came to their aid: and the Peloponnesians, led by one of the Spartan kings, entered and wasted the plain of Eleusis. Pericles led back his army from Eubœa, but the enemy was gone; he then returned and reduced that island, and having expelled the people of Hestiæa, gave their lands to Athenian colonists; and the Athenians, being unwilling to risk the chance of war with the Dorian confederacy, gladly formed (Ol. 83, 4) [B. C. 445] a truce for thirty years, surrendering Nisæa and Pegæ, and withdrawing a garrison which they had in Trœzen, and ceasing to interfere in Achaia."

_T. Keightley, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 1._

"The Athenians saw themselves compelled to give up their possessions in Peloponnesus, especially Achaia, as well as Trœzene and Pagæ, an important position for their communication with the peninsula. Even Nisæa was abandoned. Yet these losses, sensibly as they affected their influence upon the Grecian continent, were counterbalanced by a concession still more significant, the acknowledgment of the Delian League. It was left open to states and cities which were members of neither confederacy to join either at pleasure. These events happened in Ol. 83,3 (B. C. 445)—the revolt of Megara and Eubœa, the invasion of Pleistoanax, the re-conquest of Eubœa, and the conclusion of the treaty, which assumed the form of an armistice for thirty years. Great importance must be attributed to this settlement, as involving an acknowledgment which satisfied both parties and did justice to the great interests at stake on either side. If Athens renounced some of her possessions, the sacrifice was compensated by the fact that Sparta recognized the existence of the naval supremacy of Athens, and the basis on which it rested. We may perhaps assume that the compromise between Pericles and Pleistoanax was the result of the conviction felt by both these leading men that a fundamental dissociation of the Peloponnesian from the Delian league was a matter of necessity. The Spartans wished to be absolutely supreme in the one, and resigned the other to the Athenians."

_L. von Ranke, Universal History: The Oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeks, chapter 7, section 2._

_ALSO IN: Sir E. B. Lytton, Athens: Its Rise and Fall, book 5, chapter 1._

GREECE: B. C. 445-431. Splendor of Athens and greatness of the Athenian Empire under the rule of Pericles.

See ATHENS: B. C. 445-431.

GREECE: B. C. 440. Subjugation of revolted Samos by the Athenians. Spartan interference prevented by Corinth.

See ATHENS: B. C. 440-437.

GREECE: B. C. 435-432. Causes of the Peloponnesian War.

"In B. C. 431 the war broke out between Athens and the Peloponnesian League, which, after twenty-seven years, ended in the ruin of the Athenian empire. It began through a quarrel between Corinth and Kerkyra [or Korkyra, or Corcyru], in which Athens assisted Kerkyra. A congress was held at Sparta; Corinth and other States complained of the conduct of Athens, and war was decided on. The real cause of the war was that Sparta and its allies were jealous of the great power that Athens had gained. A far greater number of Greek States were engaged in this war than had ever been engaged in a single undertaking before. States that had taken no part in the Persian war were now fighting on one side or the other. Sparta was an oligarchy, and the friend of the nobles everywhere; Athens was a democracy, and the friend of the common people; so that the war was to some extent a struggle between these classes all over Greece."

_C. A. Fyffe, History of Greece (History Primer),