28 



ATHENS. 



Athen*. fact, an extensive violation of the most solemn en- 

 ' v" mm ' gagements. Each party liad gained possession of 

 these towns, not as conquerors, but as allies ; tiny 

 had been uniformly welcomed by one party, whose 

 power they had established by crushing the opposite. 

 This party now complained, that, from being the 

 rulers of their country, they were left exposed to all 

 the resentment of the sovereign state from which they 

 had revolted, and, what was more dreadful, to the 

 igeance of their fellow citizens, whom they had pu- 

 nished or expelled. The cities of the Chalcidice rai- 

 sed loud outcries against Sparta ; they refused to 

 yield to a treaty in which they had not been consult- 

 ed ; and general murmurs arose among the allies of 

 both nations. The Corinthians saw in this crisis an 

 War in Pc- opportunity of acting a distinguished part, by espou- 

 ltipounou:. s ing the cause of the Chalcidian cities, and of all 

 who thought themselves aggrieved by the treaty in 

 question ; and their league was joined by Argos, 

 Mantinca, and Elis. 



This confederacy seems evidently to have at first 

 been chiefly formed with the view of resisting the 

 pretensions of Athens ; yet such was the restless am- 

 bition of that republic, that she soon became one 

 of its leading members. So fair an opportunity of 

 humbling the power of Sparta, it was thought, should 

 not be lost. Nicias, the leader of the anstocratical 

 and pacific party, had prevailed for a time, only 

 through the sudden death of Cleon, the leader of the 

 popular party, which was destined to hold perpetual 

 sway in Athens. The place of the latter was soon 

 supplied by a man of far superior talents ; by Alci- 

 biades, the greatest orator, the most accomplished 

 gentleman, and the first general, of his age ; but 

 whose total want of principle rendered these acquire- 

 ments, not the safety, but the ruin of himself and 

 of his country. With the view of breaking off the 

 treaty, he is said to have employed an artifice, one of 

 the most shameless that is mentioned in history. 

 Lacedemonian ambassadors arrived, and, being intro- 

 duced to the senate, shewed full powers to conclude 

 a treaty, not only of peace, but of alliance for flic re- 

 duction of the mutinous states. Alcibiades, having 

 invited them to his house, after great professions of 

 zeal in their cause, advised them, in order to nego- 

 tiate with greater advantage, to conceal the extent 

 of their powers. Next day, in the assembly of the 

 people, he was the first to demand from them the 

 production of full powers ; and when they, in con- 

 formity to his private advice, denied that they were 

 possessed of such, he immediately burst into a violent 

 invective, contrasted their present declaration with 

 that of the day before, and, accusing them of false- 

 hood and treachery, procured their immediate dis- 

 missal. 



War was now kindled in Peloponnesus ; but the 

 Athenians acted only the part of auxiliaries. Their 

 favourite object was the extension of their mari- 

 time dominion. They reduced Scione, a town of 

 Chalcidice, in the peninsula of Pallene, and avenged, 

 with tlie most atrocious severity, the revolt of the 

 inhabitants. This cruelty, however, proved rather 

 hurtful to their interests. It roused a spirit of resist- 

 ance, which, joined to the interference of Perdicias, 

 rendered it impossible for them to make any farther 



progress in that quarter. They turned next to an 

 enterprise, the most disgraceful and unjustifiable in 

 which they ever engaged. The island of Melos, 

 one of the finest of the Cycladcs, had been peopled 

 by a Lacedemonian colony ; yet, notwithstanding its 

 lion with that state, it had, during the whole- 

 war, observed the strictest neutrality. The Athe- 

 , however, now sent an armament to take pos- 

 i of it. They first asked admittance to the 

 assembly of the people : But the Melians, dreading 

 their eloquence, and the contagious character of po- 

 pular government, chose rather to admit them to an 

 audience of the senate. The conference which took 

 place is preserved by Thucydides, and gives a most 

 curious, but most unfavourable view of the foreign 

 politics of Athens. The only thing like a right 

 which her ambassadors urge, is founded on their ha- 

 ving delivered Greece from Persian invasion, whence 

 they infer that they are entitled to command it. Be- 

 ing pressed, however, on this subject, they decline 

 any discussion on the justness of the proceeding, and 

 openly appeal to the law of the strongest. The Me- 

 lians then endeavour to persuade them, that their 

 own interest would not be promoted by so violent a 

 proceeding. The reply of the Athenians discovers 

 the most unbounded confidence in their own good 

 fortune, and in the power of their state, which no- 

 thing, they apprehended, can shake. The Melians, 

 finding entreaties and argument fruitless, prepared 

 to deiend themselves by force of arms. Their resist- 

 ance was long and vigorous ; but, the island being at 

 length taken, the Athenians completed their iniquity, 

 by putting to death all the males above the age of 

 fourteen, and selling the rest as slaves. 



Such a violent and flagitious system soon hurried 

 them on to their ruin. The island of Sicily had, 

 for some time past, been desolated by violent internal 

 wars. In these the Athenians had repeatedly taken 

 a share ; but so unwelcome was their interference, 

 that it had united all the states of the island in a 

 league for the exclusion of strangers. From this 

 none dissented except the city of Egesta, which had 

 incurred the resentment of Syracuse and Selinus ; 

 apprehensive of being crushed by whom, the Eges- 

 tans sought the alliance of Athens. They gave, at 

 the same time, an exaggerated statement of the re- 

 sources, particularly pecuniary, which they them- 

 selves could supply. Nothing could be more impru- 

 dent for the A thenians, than to engage, at such a 

 juncture, in a war almost equal in magnitude to the 

 Peloponnesian. They were scarcely at peace with 

 Sparta, which would doubtless avail itself of the first 

 favourable opportunity of humbling them. They 

 had a mighty rebellion to suppress, of their own de- 

 pendencies, in the Chalcidice. But with the Athe- 

 nians, always sanguine and adventurous, always aim- 

 ing at what they did not possess, and thinking of ag- 

 grandizement rather than of safety, such consider- 

 ations had_ little influence. Masters of Sicily, they 

 would soon become masters of all Greece ; nor was 

 there any stretch of greatness to which they might 

 not attain. Alcibiades, with all the young men devo- 

 ted to him, and, in general, all the leaders of the po- 

 pular party, strenuously supported a measure, from 

 which the cautious prudence of Nicias in vain at- 



Athens. 



A C. 416. 

 The Athe- 

 nians un- 

 dertake an 

 expedition 

 to Sicily. 



