The History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume I (64 page)

[“From all sides”. The cities of Ionia remained unwalled, after they were burnt by Darius on their defection (A.C.497). Herod. vi. 32. Goeller.]

[“Brought news of having themselves seen him” c. Poppo and Bekker, on conjecture, here and above read
Icarus
for
Clarus.
]

[Vulgo, Λάτμου: Bekker and the rest, Πάτμου.]

[Bekk.: ἰδίαν. Göll. et Arn.: ἰδίᾳ. Itamanes and the barbarians, “introduced through some party quarrel”. Colophon was one of the twelve Ionian states: see ch. 104. Aristotle (v. iii.) attributes the discord between the Colophonians and the Notians to a dissimilarity of habits, pursuits, c.: which made them, like the inhabitants of Peiræus and Athens (the former more democratic than the latter), unsuitable members of the same state.]

[See vii. 57: where the Mantineans, Arcadians, Cretans, and Ætolians are described as mercenaries, ready to march anywhere for pay.]

[“And the Colophonians of the high town of the Medan faction, came and joined their state”.]

[οἰκιστὰς:
leaders
of the colony:—seated them there “under the Athenian
colonial
laws”. Goeller.]

[“And the Peloponnesian ships having dared to venture across to Ionia to help them, contributed not a little to the vehemence of the Athenians”. Goeller.]

[“Those in office”, are the Prytanes, in whose power it was to call extraordinary assemblies: which was done, by exposing publicly in a tablet the time and subject of debate, γνώμας προθεῖναι: see Lucian, Necyomantia, 19. The Proedri presided in the assembly: and the cryer summoned the speakers by the form, τίς ἀγορεύειν βούλεται; See Dem. pro Cor.]

[“But it
will be
worst,
if
” c.]

[The more
simple
sort c.]

[“And to find fault with whatever is spoken c., as unable to show their wit in graver matters”. Goeller.]

[“Whereas the vengeance that follows close upon the injury, equals the malice of the wrong doer, and so takes the best satisfaction”. Göll.]

[And actions already past, “in such sort, that you take not the evidence of your own eyes as more trustworthy, than what you hear from those who find fault in a fine speech”.]

[“And each desirous, above all to be able himself to speak, but if not, then to contradict those that can, rather than seem to follow their advice, and to approve beforehand any thing smartly said; eager to be the first to see the truth of what is spoken, but slow to preconceive c.: seeking, as one may say, somewhat else” c. Goeller.]

[“Than if they had power to war upon us by themselves”.]

[“And
men,
as one may say”.]

[“For against
us
they have all alike taken arms; since, if overawed by their oligarchy, they might have called us in, and so have been now in their city again”. Goeller.]

[“We must hold out no hope that they will, either by persuasion or corruption, gain any thing from our being conscious that they err through human infirmity”. Göll.]

[“Must
be
” c.: that is, from having made themselves suspected.]

Meaning that the orators are bribed.

[Rather than towards such “as remain, after all, just what they were, and not a jot less” c. Arn. Göll.]

[“And then, if even though not your right you still resolve to hold it,” c.]

[“Representing to yourselves in as lively a manner as may be what” c. Goeller.]

[The one “with folly”: the other “with a rude and narrow mind”. Arnold.]

[“That will accuse them of making a sort of display for the sake of a bribe”. Arnold, Goeller.]

[“Of a want of wisdom, rather than of honesty”.]

[“But without appealing to party feeling, to make it appear that his is the best counsel”.]

[“And so far from punishing, not even to disgrace the man” c.]

[“He that succeedeth”.]

[“Nor would he that doth not, strive in the same way, by himself too gratifying the people, to draw them to him”.]

[“Spoken straightforward”.]

[“By this needless degree of thought”. Goeller.]

[“And liable to such a mode of construing it, give” c. Goeller.]

[At Athens, it was open to any citizen to impeach any law or decree, on the ground of its being either contrary to some existing law, or unjust, or inexpedient. Upon the oath to that effect of the complainant, the validity of the law, or, if not already passed into a law, all further proceedings upon it were suspended till the question of its legality or illegality was decided. This was done by a proceeding called a γραϕὴ παρανόμων; which took place before the ordinary courts, the judges whereof were the six thousand chosen by lot from the citizens at large. The success of the proceeding subjected the proposer of the law to an arbitrary fine: and a third conviction rendered him incapable of proposing any law thereafter. On the other hand, the complainant, if he failed in obtaining a fifth part of the voices of the judges, was himself subjected to a fine. The time for originating this proceeding, was limited to a year from the passing of the law impeached.]

[These words, though evidently required by the sense, are wanting in the Greek.]

[“Especially” contendeth.]

[“The well–being of” the future.]

[“For his council, grounded more upon what is just, may perhaps, according to your present anger against the Mytilenæans, soon win your consent: but we are not pleading judicially against them, so as to need arguments” c. Goeller.]

[“Men, in
imposing
punishment, have gone through all” c. Goeller. Capital punishments were not, it seems, in use amongst the Greeks in early times.]

[“Hope and desire in every way; this as the leader, c.; are the cause of most mischief: and being undiscerned, have greater power than dangers seen”.]

[“Contributes no less to urge men on”.]

[“Every man, without reason, conceives greater ideas of those things (liberty and dominion) than the reality”. Goeller, Arnold.]

[“
Too
severely: nor make desperate those that revolt” c.]

[“To prejudice ourselves by becoming exact judges” c.]

[“Hath, as was likely, revolted to recover its independence”.]

[
And
when.]

[“For in
all
cities”, c.]

[“In
it
”: that is, in revenge.]

[“Were nevertheless”: that is, notwithstanding the change of opinion in ch. 36.]

[“Lest the
former
vessel arriving first”. Bekker, Arnold.]

[It was unusual to continue the voyage by night in any but sailing vessels.]

[“Drove on”.]

[“And was about executing the decree, when the second vessel reached land and arrested the destruction of the city. So near” c.]

[The lands thus assigned to the gods in Greece and Rome, became the property of the state, and were usually let to individuals subject to certain duties to the temple, priests, c. Land was also sometimes consecrated by individuals to some god, for the sake of the security of the religious sanction: the τέμενος, or land set apart, remaining in the possession of themselves and their posterity, subject to the charges of keeping up the temple, maintaining the priests, c. See the case of Xenophon, Anab. v. 3: and of Mæandrius, Herod. iii. 142. As to the Athenian κληροῦχοι, here said to be sent out to Lesbos, they might be sent out to view the lots and arrange with the tenants, but it is manifest they did not remain there: as in the subsequent revolts in Lesbos (viii. 22, 23), there was evidently no Athenian population in the island then. Arn. Since A.C. 506 the Athenians had been in the habit of sending
cleruchi
instead of colonies to the countries conquered by them. Herm. Gr. Antiq. § 117.]

[In iv. 52, called τὰς Ἀκταίας.]

[“And having first
on the side of Nisæa
taken two projecting towers with engines c., he also took in with a wall the part
over against the continent,
where there was access to the island, which lay not far from the continent, by a bridge over a ford”. Goeller and Arnold understand the towers to have stood, one on a mole from Minoa, and the other on a mole from Nisæa. “Minoa has long ceased to be an island; but the mole on which, according to custom, stood one of the towers defending the entrance of the port, is still traceable.” Arnold.]

[“With a demand”.]

[And they “fed the Platæans, till the judges arrived” c.]

[Mueller (Dor. i. 9, n.) observes that Platæa had after the time of Pausanias been on friendly terms with Sparta: to which circumstance, and to this προξένια, Lacon owed his name. Aeimnestus is a name famous, as being that of the slayer of Mardonius at the battle of Platæa: himself with a body of three hundred men being afterwards all slain to a man, in the plain of Stenyclerus in the third Messenian war. Mueller, referring to Herod. ix. 64, calls him a Spartan: but Herodotus calls him, not a
Spartan,
but “a man
famous in Sparta
”: and as the Platæans assisted the Spartans in that war, there appears in the account of Herodotus nothing inconsistent with its being the person here mentioned.]

[“In confidence, to
you
we yielded up c.: and upon condition not to be at the discretion (as therefore we are
not
) of any but yourselves; conceiving” c. Göll.]

[“For the liberty of this speech has been granted at our request”: and also c.]

[“To say somewhat before running the hazard of judgment” Steph. Arn.]

[And we fear not, “lest condemning us beforehand on the ground of our merits towards you being less than yours towards us”, you make that a crime. Göll. Arn.]

[“But if you consider us as friends, then that you yourselves rather do the wrong in making war upon us”. Goeller.]

[“We have been
now
not the first to break”.]

[“With you
and Pausanias
”. This is an answer to the doubts started, (Herodotus
expressly
mentioning the Lacedæmonians, Tegeatans, and Athenians only), whether the Platæans were present at the
first
of this battle. He makes, however, the number of the Lacedæmonians
engaged,
50,000 (ix. 61): whereas previously (ch. 28) he reckons them, Lacedæmonians 10,000 (of whom, Spartans 5,000), and Helots (seven to each Spartan) 35,000; in all, 45,000: leaving 5,000 to be accounted for, which might include the Platæans.]

[Ithome, a stronghold on a hill commanding the plains of Stenyclerus and the Pamisus, must have been a place of considerable strength. The first Messenian war seems to have been confined chiefly to its vicinity, and its reduction entailed the subjugation of the whole country. In the third war, the siege of Ithome lasted ten years, though the Spartans were assisted not only by the Platæans and 4,000 Athenian hoplitæ, but by the Æginetans and Mantineans also. The earthquake is said to have left not more than five houses standing in Sparta, and to have destroyed 20,000 persons; and amongst them, the flower of the Spartan youth, by the fall of the building wherein they were exercising. But for the presence of mind of Archidamus, in gathering round him the Spartans in arms by giving a false alarm of an enemy’s approach, the Helots, already assembled, would have fallen upon them and completed the work of destruction.]

[See ii. 73, note.]

[The Platæans were already in the enjoyment of certain rights of citizens of Athens, called “the rights of Platæans”: extending, it is supposed, to no political rights, but limited to those of marriage, commerce, capacity to hold lands, c. Under that title they were sometimes conferred on others than Platæans. Thus, Arnold says, the slaves that fought at Salamis, were made
Platæans:
and a similar class of rights existed at Rome, called the “jus Cæritum”; whence also “in Cærites referri”. The Platæans, however, that survived the destruction of their city and settled at Athens, were distributed amongst the ten tribes, and admitted to all the rights, sacred and profane, of natural–born citizens, excepting (for the following reason) eligibility to the office of archon and priest. The Athenians had three divisions of society: the πάτρα or γένος, the descendants of a common ancestor; the ϕρατρία,
patræ,
connected by intermarriage; and the ϕυλὴ, a union of
phratriæ.
Thus, they were divided into
tribes
(the four Ionic): and again, into the twelve
phratriæ:
each phratria into thirty
patræ,
of which each again contained thirty heads of families. Every phratria had absolute and exclusive control over the admission of members: and to that purpose was yearly devoted the last of the three days of the feast of the
Apaturia
(a name derived by Mueller from πατὴρ̧), when the people were assembled according to phratriæ. On that day, the newly married female citizen was admited into the phratria of her husband: the child into that of its father: and the child of the
naturalized
citizen into that of its maternal grandfather. But the phratriæ recognized no title to admission but birth: and the naturalized citizen, thus excluded from the phratriæ, was also excluded from the worship of Apollo πατρῷος: and so (by the oath required of the candidate, that he worshipped Ἀπόλλων πατρῷος and Ζεὺς ἑρκεῖος) from the office of priest and archon.]