History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (best ebook for manga .TXT) 📖
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had at once left the alliance of the Athenians and gone back to that
of the Potidaeans, having deputed Iolaus as his general: The plan of
Aristeus was to keep his own force on the isthmus, and await the
attack of the Athenians; leaving the Chalcidians and the allies
outside the isthmus, and the two hundred cavalry from Perdiccas in
Olynthus to act upon the Athenian rear, on the occasion of their
advancing against him; and thus to place the enemy between two
fires. While Callias the Athenian general and his colleagues
dispatched the Macedonian horse and a few of the allies to Olynthus,
to prevent any movement being made from that quarter, the Athenians
themselves broke up their camp and marched against Potidaea. After
they had arrived at the isthmus, and saw the enemy preparing for
battle, they formed against him, and soon afterwards engaged. The wing
of Aristeus, with the Corinthians and other picked troops round him,
routed the wing opposed to it, and followed for a considerable
distance in pursuit. But the rest of the army of the Potidaeans and of
the Peloponnesians was defeated by the Athenians, and took refuge
within the fortifications. Returning from the pursuit, Aristeus
perceived the defeat of the rest of the army. Being at a loss which of
the two risks to choose, whether to go to Olynthus or to Potidaea,
he at last determined to draw his men into as small a space as
possible, and force his way with a run into Potidaea. Not without
difficulty, through a storm of missiles, he passed along by the
breakwater through the sea, and brought off most of his men safe,
though a few were lost. Meanwhile the auxiliaries of the Potidaeans
from Olynthus, which is about seven miles off and in sight of
Potidaea, when the battle began and the signals were raised,
advanced a little way to render assistance; and the Macedonian horse
formed against them to prevent it. But on victory speedily declaring
for the Athenians and the signals being taken down, they retired
back within the wall; and the Macedonians returned to the Athenians.
Thus there were no cavalry present on either side. After the battle
the Athenians set up a trophy, and gave back their dead to the
Potidaeans under truce. The Potidaeans and their allies had close upon
three hundred killed; the Athenians a hundred and fifty of their own
citizens, and Callias their general.
The wall on the side of the isthmus had now works at once raised
against it, and manned by the Athenians. That on the side of Pallene
had no works raised against it. They did not think themselves strong
enough at once to keep a garrison in the isthmus and to cross over
to Pallene and raise works there; they were afraid that the Potidaeans
and their allies might take advantage of their division to attack
them. Meanwhile the Athenians at home learning that there were no
works at Pallene, some time afterwards sent off sixteen hundred
heavy infantry of their own citizens under the command of Phormio, son
of Asopius. Arrived at Pallene, he fixed his headquarters at
Aphytis, and led his army against Potidaea by short marches,
ravaging the country as he advanced. No one venturing to meet him in
the field, he raised works against the wall on the side of Pallene. So
at length Potidaea was strongly invested on either side, and from
the sea by the ships co-operating in the blockade. Aristeus, seeing
its investment complete, and having no hope of its salvation, except
in the event of some movement from the Peloponnese, or of some other
improbable contingency, advised all except five hundred to watch for a
wind and sail out of the place, in order that their provisions might
last the longer. He was willing to be himself one of those who
remained. Unable to persuade them, and desirous of acting on the
next alternative, and of having things outside in the best posture
possible, he eluded the guardships of the Athenians and sailed out.
Remaining among the Chalcidians, he continued to carry on the war;
in particular he laid an ambuscade near the city of the Sermylians,
and cut off many of them; he also communicated with Peloponnese, and
tried to contrive some method by which help might be brought.
Meanwhile, after the completion of the investment of Potidaea, Phormio
next employed his sixteen hundred men in ravaging Chalcidice and
Bottica: some of the towns also were taken by him.
Congress of the Peloponnesian Confederacy at Lacedaemon
The Athenians and Peloponnesians had these antecedent grounds of
complaint against each other: the complaint of Corinth was that her
colony of Potidaea, and Corinthian and Peloponnesian citizens within
it, were being besieged; that of Athens against the Peloponnesians
that they had incited a town of hers, a member of her alliance and a
contributor to her revenue, to revolt, and had come and were openly
fighting against her on the side of the Potidaeans. For all this,
war had not yet broken out: there was still truce for a while; for
this was a private enterprise on the part of Corinth.
But the siege of Potidaea put an end to her inaction; she had men
inside it: besides, she feared for the place. Immediately summoning
the allies to Lacedaemon, she came and loudly accused Athens of breach
of the treaty and aggression on the rights of Peloponnese. With her,
the Aeginetans, formally unrepresented from fear of Athens, in
secret proved not the least urgent of the advocates for war, asserting
that they had not the independence guaranteed to them by the treaty.
After extending the summons to any of their allies and others who
might have complaints to make of Athenian aggression, the
Lacedaemonians held their ordinary assembly, and invited them to
speak. There were many who came forward and made their several
accusations; among them the Megarians, in a long list of grievances,
called special attention to the fact of their exclusion from the ports
of the Athenian empire and the market of Athens, in defiance of the
treaty. Last of all the Corinthians came forward, and having let those
who preceded them inflame the Lacedaemonians, now followed with a
speech to this effect:
“Lacedaemonians! the confidence which you feel in your
constitution and social order, inclines you to receive any reflections
of ours on other powers with a certain scepticism. Hence springs
your moderation, but hence also the rather limited knowledge which you
betray in dealing with foreign politics. Time after time was our voice
raised to warn you of the blows about to be dealt us by Athens, and
time after time, instead of taking the trouble to ascertain the
worth of our communications, you contented yourselves with
suspecting the speakers of being inspired by private interest. And so,
instead of calling these allies together before the blow fell, you
have delayed to do so till we are smarting under it; allies among whom
we have not the worst title to speak, as having the greatest
complaints to make, complaints of Athenian outrage and Lacedaemonian
neglect. Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been made
in the dark, you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be
our duty to enlighten you. As it is, long speeches are not needed
where you see servitude accomplished for some of us, meditated for
others—in particular for our allies—and prolonged preparations in
the aggressor against the hour of war. Or what, pray, is the meaning
of their reception of Corcyra by fraud, and their holding it against
us by force? what of the siege of Potidaea?—places one of which lies
most conveniently for any action against the Thracian towns; while the
other would have contributed a very large navy to the Peloponnesians?
“For all this you are responsible. You it was who first allowed them
to fortify their city after the Median war, and afterwards to erect
the long walls—you who, then and now, are always depriving of
freedom not only those whom they have enslaved, but also those who
have as yet been your allies. For the true author of the subjugation
of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which
permits it having the means to prevent it; particularly if that
power aspires to the glory of being the liberator of Hellas. We are at
last assembled. It has not been easy to assemble, nor even now are our
objects defined. We ought not to be still inquiring into the fact of
our wrongs, but into the means of our defence. For the aggressors with
matured plans to oppose to our indecision have cast threats aside
and betaken themselves to action. And we know what are the paths by
which Athenian aggression travels, and how insidious is its
progress. A degree of confidence she may feel from the idea that
your bluntness of perception prevents your noticing her; but it is
nothing to the impulse which her advance will receive from the
knowledge that you see, but do not care to interfere. You,
Lacedaemonians, of all the Hellenes are alone inactive, and defend
yourselves not by doing anything but by looking as if you would do
something; you alone wait till the power of an enemy is becoming twice
its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy. And yet
the world used to say that you were to be depended upon; but in your
case, we fear, it said more than the truth. The Mede, we ourselves
know, had time to come from the ends of the earth to Peloponnese,
without any force of yours worthy of the name advancing to meet him.
But this was a distant enemy. Well, Athens at all events is a near
neighbour, and yet Athens you utterly disregard; against Athens you
prefer to act on the defensive instead of on the offensive, and to
make it an affair of chances by deferring the struggle till she has
grown far stronger than at first. And yet you know that on the whole
the rock on which the barbarian was wrecked was himself, and that if
our present enemy Athens has not again and again annihilated us, we
owe it more to her blunders than to your protection; Indeed,
expectations from you have before now been the ruin of some, whose
faith induced them to omit preparation.
“We hope that none of you will consider these words of
remonstrance to be rather words of hostility; men remonstrate with
friends who are in error, accusations they reserve for enemies who
have wronged them. Besides, we consider that we have as good a right
as any one to point out a neighbour’s faults, particularly when we
contemplate the great contrast between the two national characters;
a contrast of which, as far as we can see, you have little perception,
having never yet considered what sort of antagonists you will
encounter in the Athenians, how widely, how absolutely different
from yourselves. The Athenians are addicted to innovation, and their
designs are characterized by swiftness alike in conception and
execution; you have a genius for keeping what you have got,
accompanied by a total want of invention, and when forced to act you
never go far enough. Again, they are adventurous beyond their power,
and daring beyond their judgment, and in danger they are sanguine;
your wont is to attempt less than is justified by your power, to
mistrust even what is sanctioned by your judgment, and to fancy that
from danger there is no release. Further, there is promptitude on
their side against procrastination on yours; they are never at home,
you are never from it: for they hope by their absence to extend
their acquisitions, you
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