History of the Peloponnesian War | Page 2

Years of the War - Intrigues of Alcibiades -
Withdrawal of the Persian Subsidies - Oligarchical Coup d'Etat at
Athens - Patriotism of the Army at Samos

CHAPTER XXVI
Twenty first Year of the War - Recall of Alcibiades to Samos - Revolt
of Euboea and Downfall of the Four Hundred - Battle of Cynossema

BOOK I


CHAPTER I
The State of Greece from the earliest Times to the Commencement of
the Peloponnesian War Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of
the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at
the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war
and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief
was not without its grounds. The preparations of both the combatants
were in every department in the last state of perfection; and he could
see the rest of the Hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel; those who
delayed doing so at once having it in contemplation. Indeed this was
the greatest movement yet known in history, not only of the Hellenes,
but of a large part of the barbarian world--I had almost said of mankind.
For though the events of remote antiquity, and even those that more
immediately preceded the war, could not from lapse of time be clearly
ascertained, yet the evidences which an inquiry carried as far back as
was practicable leads me to trust, all point to the conclusion that there
was nothing on a great scale, either in war or in other matters.
For instance, it is evident that the country now called Hellas had in
ancient times no settled population; on the contrary, migrations were of
frequent occurrence, the several tribes readily abandoning their homes
under the pressure of superior numbers. Without commerce, without
freedom of communication either by land or sea, cultivating no more of
their territory than the exigencies of life required, destitute of capital,
never planting their land (for they could not tell when an invader might
not come and take it all away, and when he did come they had no walls
to stop him), thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be
supplied at one place as well as another, they cared little for shifting

their habitation, and consequently neither built large cities nor attained
to any other form of greatness. The richest soils were always most
subject to this change of masters; such as the district now called
Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the
most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land
favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created
faction which proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion.
Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very
remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants. And
here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the
migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in
other parts. The most powerful victims of war or faction from the rest
of Hellas took refuge with the Athenians as a safe retreat; and at an
early period, becoming naturalized, swelled the already large
population of the city to such a height that Attica became at last too
small to hold them, and they had to send out colonies to Ionia.
There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my
conviction of the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan war
there is no indication of any common action in Hellas, nor indeed of the
universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary, before the time of
Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed, but the country
went by the names of the different tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian.
It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis, and were
invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually
acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long time
elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. The best proof of
this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere
calls all of them by that name, nor indeed any of them except the
followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes: in
his poems they are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does
not even use the term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not
yet been marked off from the rest of the world by one distinctive
appellation. It appears therefore that the several Hellenic communities,
comprising not only those who first acquired the name, city by city, as
they came to understand each other, but also those who assumed it
afterwards as the name of the whole