The History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume I (69 page)

[There must be some error here. The heavy–armed soldiers already said to have embarked, are two thousand men in all. There could scarcely be so many of the Milesians. Goeller.]

[“Marched upon the city of Cythera on the sea”. Cythera seems to have consisted of an upper and lower town: one on the heights, the other close to the sea.]

[For otherwise the Athenians
would have
removed” c. This is an amendment of Heilman, adopted by all the recent editors. That they were not in fact removed, appears in ch. 57.]

[“Having received (from the Milesians) Scandeia,
the
fort upon the haven c., they sailed to Asine
and Helos
and most” c. The Asinæans (those at least of the Asine mentioned in ch. 13) were Dryopes: a race expelled by the Dorians, in the first stage of their wanderings from the north of Thessaly, from the land between Parnassus and Œta afterwards called Doris. Such of them as submitted to the invaders, were either transplanted to the south side of Parnassus, and under the title of Craugallidæ made bondmen of the temple of Delphi: or else migrated to Eubœa and Peloponnesus, and established themselves in Asine, Hermione, and Eion on the coast of Argolis. Shortly before the first Messenian war, they were expelled from Asine by the Argives, for aiding the Spartans in an inroad on the Argive territory: and took refuge in Laconia. In that war they assisted the Spartans against the Messenians: for which service they were rewarded, on the fall of Ithome, with a part of the Messenian coast, where they founded another Asine, and there long preserved their national name and recollections. The Dorian migration appears to have scattered the Dryopes in various directions over the sea: as besides Eubœa, they were found also in Cyprus, Ionia, and the shores of the Hellespont. They were of Arcadian, that is, Pelasgian origin.]

[A war “they were unprovided for”: never having expected to see the enemy in Laconia. The cavalry were in after times raised from 400 to 600: but never were a match for the better mounted and practised cavalry (the ἅμιπποι, v. 57, note) of Bœotia. Mueller iii. 12.]

[“And one body, stationed for the defence of Cortyta and Aphrodisia, charged and frighted in c.:
and
when the men of arms” c.]

[That is, Argolis.—For
Cynuria,
see v. 41, note.]

[“Into the
citadel
”—“cooped up within
it
”. Goeller.]

[“Together with Tantalus c., captain of the Lacedæmonians, who was amongst them and was wounded” c.]

[In this year died Artaxerxes: shortly before whose death Zopyrus, son of the Megabyzus mentioned in i. 109, revolted and fled to Athens. His flight is mentioned by Herodotus, iii. 160: and is, as Goeller says, the latest incident alluded to in his history.]

[“If it succeed not, so that we part each having what he conceives to be his right, we will go to war again hereafter. (First however let us agree amongst ourselves till we are rid of the Athenians.) And indeed you must see that this assembly c.” Schol. Goell. Arn.]

[“Of the commodities in Sicily which” c.]

[This they proved “upon the invitation of the Chalcidian race”.]

[The
league:
that is, the ancient alliance in iii. 86.]

[“And the Athenians that covet c., may well be pardoned: and I blame not c. —
But
we are to blame, as many as know this and do not provide aright, and whoever comes here not judging it a most admirable maxim, that all join in averting the common danger”.]

[“
And
if some man be c., let him not be disappointed if he fail, contrary to his expectation: knowing” c.]

[“And so far as we have each of us fallen short in the designs which we thought to execute, considering that we have been abundantly thwarted by these stumbling–blocks (the Athenians), let us banish hence the impending enemy”. Göll.]

[“Love of contention”.]

[“Told them, that they were intending to come to terms (with the rest of the Sicilians); and that the treaty should be open to them (the Athenians) also”. κἀκείνοις, cannot relate to the allies.]

[“Prosperity beyond expectation”.—“A strength
of
hope”:
i. e.
supplied by hope.]

[The fall of Corinth (ch. 42, n.) brought the Dorians for the first time in contact with Attica: but the expedition failed through the devotion of Codrus. Hearing that the Delphic oracle had promised them success, if they spared the Athenian king, he is said to have procured his own death by stratagem at the hands of a Dorian: and on the Athenians demanding his body, they withdrew in despair from Attica. The expedition however had the important result of finally separating Megaris from Attica. It was now occupied by a Dorian colony, and remained long subject to Corinth, as Ægina was to Epidaurus, Chæroneia to Orchomenus c.: so much so that the same observances were exacted from the Megarean peasantry on the death of a Bacchiad, as from the Laconian periœci on the death of the Spartan king (see Herod. vi. 55). Aided by Argos, the Megareans recovered their independence, and remained subject to their own Dorian oligarchy till about 620: when a popular insurrection raised to the throne the demagogue Theagenes, who had gained his popularity by destroying the cattle of the rich in their pastures (Arist. v. 5). To confirm his own power, he aided his son–in–law Cylon in his attempt on Athens (i. 126). Like the other
tyrants,
he prompted industry and the arts, and employed the people in adorning the city with splendid and useful buildings. Upon his overthrow, whether by Sparta or not is uncertain, the democracy soon lost sight of all moderation: and Solon’s
disburthening ordinance
was improved upon, by not simply cancelling the debt, but also compelling the creditor to refund the interest received. So freely were the rich banished for the sake of their confiscated property, that in the end (as happened also at Cume) the banished became the stronger party, and ejected the democracy (Arist. v. 5). It was perhaps at this period that ostracism was adopted at Megara. On the rupture between Sparta and Athens in the third Messenian war (i. 102), the people were again uppermost, and fought on the side of the Athenians at Tanagra: but the defeat at Coroneia was followed by a revolution at Megara. How the oligarchy came to be at this time in banishment, does not appear.]

[“Knowing that the people, in their present distress, could no longer hold with themselves, in their fear made an offer” c. Arn. Goell.]

[“Which would more readily
surrender,
if that” c.]

[“
The
island”.]

[The Athenian youth at the age of eighteen took the military oath, οὐ καταισχυνῶ ὅπλα τὰ ἱερά. κ. τ. λ.: “I will not disgrace my arms, nor desert my post c”: and served two years as περίπολος: that is to say, kept watch and ward in the towns and fortresses on the coast and frontier, and performed all duties necessary for the defence of Attica; not
generally
going over the borders. But Boeckh observes, that the περίπολοι here mentioned are not
ephebi:
being classed with the light–armed, and distinguished from the hoplitæ; whereas the ephebi were completely armed: that these are the ordinary
patroles
to be found in every army.]

[“And during this night none of the city perceived any thing of this, save such as had peculiar care to know what was passing”.]

[“And then sail out, and before it was day in a cart to bring it back” c.—“Within the gates”: that is, of the long walls.]

[“And at the same time the Megareans that were in the plot, slay the guards at the gates. And first” c.]

[“Took to their heels in a fright, the enemy falling upon them in the night, and thinking, on finding themselves assaulted by the Megarean traitors, that all the Megareans had betrayed them”.]

[“That any Megarean that would, should go and pile his arms with the Athenians”.]

[That is, the long walls: now follows the attempt on the city.]

[“Anoint themselves with
oil.
And they had the greater security in opening the gates, for that 4,000 c., which were to come
from Eleusis
c., were c.” The anointing with oil was too common to excite suspicion.]

[“And they remained on guard about the gates”.]

[“And beginning from the long walls, which they were masters of, they built a wall across them on the side of Megara, and thence on either side of Nisæa down to the sea, distributing c.: and felling
the
fruit trees and timber trees, they formed a palisade where required”.]

Not pulled them down quite, but only so far as not to be a defence to any part of the city. [That part of the long walls, between the city and their own cross wall.]

[“Desiring above all”.]

[“And then they might more safely turn to the side they were disposed to, when that side had the victory.
But
Brasidas, not prevailing, returned” c. That is, he did not, as the Megareans expected, fight.]

[“Having intended,
even
before Brasidas sent, to come” c.]

[“For the Athenians charged the hipparchus and some few others of the Bœotians close to Nisæa, and slew and rifled them”. Poppo, to account for the Athenian cavalry being so close to Nisæa, supposes that they retreated there purposely to draw the enemy after them.]

[“Any decided advantage”.]

The period is somewhat long: and seems to be one of them, that gave occasion to Dionysius Halicarnasius to censure the author’s elocution.

[“Being now dismayed”.]

[“But these, as soon as they were in possession of the government, held a review: and having separated the lochi from each other in divers quarters of the city, picked out” c.]

[“Thinking there was danger it might happen there, as” c. Anæa, on the opposite continent, had of old been a place of refuge for exiles from Samos. The original inhabitants of Samos, the Leleges, appear to have received a colony of Ionians from Epidaurus: who being expelled by Androclus, son of Codrus, one of the leaders of the Ionian migration and the founder of Ephesus, fled some to Samothrace, then inhabited by Pelasgians, some to Anæa, there waiting the opportunity to return. This in a few years presented itself, and they again ejected the Ephesians: and became a part of the
Ionian
body. The present exiles must have been driven out on the surrender of Samos to Pericles in 440: see i. 117].

[“And
sailed
to it”.]

[“Orchomenus the Minyeian, but now the Bœotian”. See iii. 61, note. There was an Orchomenus in Arcadia, and also in Thessaly. The race of Minyans took their name from their king Minyas, said to be the first man that ever built a treasury. The vast wealth of the city is attested by the expression of Achilles, “that he would not forgive Agamemnon, though he should give him all that is brought to Orchomenus, or Egyptian Thebes”: Il. ix. 381. It retained its name, the
Minyeian,
for some time after the occupation of Bœotia by the Bœotians: Il. ii. 511. In 368 A. C., being the chief seat of the aristocratical party in Bœotia, the members of the equestrian order were charged with a plot to overthrow the Theban democracy: the male population was put to the sword, and the city razed to the ground. Orchomenus, Thespiæ, and Platæa disappeared at this time from the list of Bœotian cities. — ξυντελεῖ means, that Chæroneia retained its own laws and the dominion over its territory: but besides paying tribute was bound to furnish troops for Orchomenus, and sent no ambassadors to the Bœotian league. Goeller.]

[“Might not come to aid Delium with c., but might be busied each about their own troubled affairs”. Vulgo κινούμενοι: Bekker c. κινούμενα.—Templum est Apollinis Delium imminens mari: quinque millia passuum a Tanagra abest: minus quatuor millium inde in proxima Eubœæ est mari trajectus. Liv. xxxv. 51.]

[“And having reduced
them
(Salynthius and the Agræi), had all
other
things ready, when the time should require” c.]

[“To give a safe passage”.]

[“Melitia in Achaia”, the seat of Hellen, the father of Dorus, Æolus, and Xuthus; the latter the father of Achæus and Ion: the fabulous genealogy used by the ancients to express an affinity they could no better define, between the four tribes of which the Hellenic nation is generally considered to consist, the Dorians, Æolians, Achæans, and Ionians. Achaia was itself another name for Hellas and Phthia, the seat of the real Hellenes, those mentioned by Homer (Il. ii. 684) in conjunction with the Achæans: thither they are supposed to have migrated from the more ancient Hellas near Dodona in Epirus, probably from the same cause that brought thence the people who gave their name to Thessaly, the pressure of new tribes from the north. In this latter Hellas they are found along with the Græci, both probably akin to each other and to the Pelasgi, the race which under the names of Caucones, Leleges, Curetes, Chaones, c., were in the earliest times spread widely over the whole of Greece, Epirus, and Thessaly: their settlements being generally indicated by the Pelasgian names,
Argos
(a plain),
Larissa
(a walled town). Of the above four tribes, the
Æolians
were the most widely diffused, spreading themselves over the Pagasæan bay in Thessaly, Bœotia, Ephyra (Corinth), Ætolia, Locris, as well as the western side of Peloponnesus. The
Achæans,
from whom the whole of Peloponnesus is sometimes called the
Achæan Argos,
in distinction to the Pelasgian Argos in Thessaly, were the predominant race in the south of Thessaly and the eastern side of Peloponnesus: the former seeming to be their earlier seat, and being themselves perhaps originally no other than the Pelasgian inhabitants of Phthia. The
Dorians
are supposed to have entered Thessaly from the north: after successive migrations, the epochs of which are unknown, they issued at last from the foot of Mount Œta to effect the conquest of Peloponnesus. Of the
Ionian
name, there is no trace in the north: and it appears in Peloponnesus (perhaps a more ancient seat of the Ionians than even Attica) before the Hellenes are heard of in Thessaly. It is used by Herodotus as equivalent to Pelasgian or ante–Hellenic: and the genuine Ionians appear to be the aboriginal Pelasgi. Of the four tribes, three seem to have no particular connexion with the Hellenes, except their northern extraction: the fourth has not even that. How the name of this obscure tribe came to fix itself on what we call
Greece,
wants explanation; unless Thucydides (i. 3.) may be considered to have given one. It is remarkable that the two names, Hellenes and Græci, should be first found close beside each other: the one, without any assignable cause, spreading eastward, over the whole continent; the other westward, being applied by the Italians to the inhabitants of the western coast, and afterwards by the Romans much more extensively, from whom, as Mr. Thirlwall observes, it has unfortunately descended to us. See Thirl. chap. iv.]