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to exercise greater cruelties upon one another than if they had been at war with barbarians.

Potidea had now been besieged almost three years, when the inhabitants reduced to extremities, and in such want of provisions that some fed on human flesh, and not expecting any succours from the Peloponnesians, whose attempts in Attica had all proved abortive, surrendered on conditions. The circumstances which made the Athenians treat them with lenity, were, the severity of the weather, which exceedingly annoyed the besiegers, and the prodigious expence of the siege, which had already cost* 2000 talents. They therefore came out of the city with their wives and children, as well citizens as foreigners, with each but one suit of clothes, and the women two, and only a little money to carry them home. The Athenians blamed their generals for granting this capitulation without their order, because otherwise, as the citizens were reduced to the utmost extremities, they would have surrendered at discretion. They sent a colony thither.

The first thing that Pericles did, after his being re-elected generalissimo, was to propose the abrogation of that law, which he himself had caused to be enacted against bastards, when they were legitimate children. It declared that such only should be considered as true and legitimate Athenians, whose fathers and mothers were both natives of Athens; and it had been executed just before with the utmost rigour. For the king of Egypt having sent to Athens a present of 40,000 measures of corn to be distributed among the people, the bastards, on account of this new law, were involved in a thousand difficulties till then unpractised, and which had not been so much as thought of. Near 5000 of them were condemned and sold as slaves, whilst 14,040 citizens were confirmed in their privileges, and recognized as true Athenians. It was thought very strange that the author and promoter of this law should himself desire to have it repealed. But the Athenians were moved to compassion at the domestic calamities of Pericles"; so that they permitted him to enter his bastard in his own name in the register of the citizens of his tribe.

A little after, he himself was infected with the pestilence. Being extremely ill and ready to breathe his last, the principal citizens, and such of his friends as had not forsaken him, discoursing together in his bedchamber about his rare merit, they ran over his exploits, and computed the number of his victories; for whilst he was generalissimo of the Athenians, he had erected for the glory of their city nine trophies, in memory of as many battles gained by him. They did not imagine that Pericies heard what they were saying, because he seemed to have lost his senses; but it was far otherwise, for not a single word of their discourse had escaped him; when, breaking suddenly from his silence, "I am surprised," says he," that you should treasure up so well in your memories, and extol so highly a series of actions, in which fortune had so great a share, and “which are common to me with so many other generals, and at the same

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*The army which besieged Potidea consisted of 3000 men exclusive of the 1600 who had been sent under the command of Phormio. Every soldier received daily two drachms, or 20d. French, for master and man; and those of the galleys had the same pay. Thucyd. l. 3. p. 182.

†A. M. 3575. Ant. J. C. 429.

Plutarch does not name this king. Perhaps it was Inarus, son Psammetichus king of Libya, who had caused part of the Egyptians to take up arms against Artaxerxes, and to whom the Athenians, above 30 years before, had sent sucCours against the Persians. Thucyd. J. i. p. 68.

"time should forget the most glorious circumstance in my life, I mean, "my never having caused a single citizen to put on mourning." Excellent words! which very few in high stations can declare with truth. The Athenians were deeply afflicted at his death.

The reader has doubtless observed, from what has been said of Pericles, that in him were united most qualities which constitute the great man; as those of the admiral, by his great skill in naval affairs of the great captain, by his conquests and victories; of the high-treasurer, by the excellent order in which he put the finances; of the great politician, by the extent and justness of his views, by his eloquence in public deliberations, and by the dexterity and address with which he transacted the affairs; of a minister of state, by the methods he employed to increase trade and promote the arts in general; in fine, of father of his country, by the happiness he procured to every individual, and which he always had in view, as the true scope and end of his administration.

But I must not omit another characteristic which was peculiar to him. He acted with so much wisdom, moderation, disinterestedness, and zeal for the public good; he discovered in all things so great a superiority of talents, and gave so exalted an idea of his experience, capacity and integ rity, that he acquired the confidence of all the Athenians, and fixed in his own favour, during 40 years that he governed the Athenians, their natural fickleness and inconstancy. He suppressed that jealousy which an extreme fondness for liberty had made them entertain against all citizens distinguished by their merit and great authority. But the most surprising circumstance is, he gained this great ascendant merely by persuasion, without employing force, mean artifices, or any of those arts which a mean politician excuses in himself, upon the specious pretence, that the necessity of the public affairs and reasons of state make them necessary.

*

Anaxagoras died the same year as Pericles. Plutarch relates a circumstance concerning him, which happened some time before, which must not be omitted. He says, that this philosopher, who had voluntarily redu ced himself to excessive poverty, in order that he might have the greater leisure to pursue his studies, finding himself neglected in his old age by Pericles, who, in the multiplicity of the public affairs, had not always time to think of him, wrapped his cloak about his head, † and threw himself on the ground, in the fixed resolution to starve himself. Pericles hearing of this accidentally, ran with the utmost haste to the philosopher's house in the deepest affliction. He conjured him, in the strongest and most moving terms, not to throw his life away; adding, that it was not Anaxagoras, but himself that was to be lamented, if he was so unfortunate as to lose so wise and faithful a friend; one who was so capable of giving him wholesome counsels with regard to the pressing occasions of the state. Anaxagoras then, uncovering his head a little, spoke thus to him: "Pericles, "those who use a lamp take care to feed it with oil." This was a gentle, and at the same time a strong and piercing reproach. Pericles ought to have supplied his wants unasked. Many lamps are extinguished in this manner in a country by the criminal negligence of those who ought to supply them.

*Plut. in Pericl. p. 162.

+ It was the custom for those to cover their heads with their cloaks who were reduced to despair, and resolved to die.

SECTION III.

THE LACEDEMONIANS BESIEGE PLATEA.-FOURTH AND FIFTH YEARS OF THE WAR.

THE most memorable transaction of the following years * was the siege of Platea by the Lacedæmonians. This was one of the most famous sieges in antiquity, on account of the vigorous efforts of both parties; but especially for the glorious resistance made by the besieged, and their bold and industrious stratagem, by which several of them got out of the city, and by that means escaped the fury of the enemy. The Lacedæmonians besieged this place in the beginning of the third campaign. As soon as they had pitched their camp round the city, in order to lay waste the places adjacent to it, the Platæans sent some deputies to Archidamus, who commanded on that occasion, to represent that he could not attack them with the least shadow of justice, because, that, after the famous battle of Platæa, Pausanias, the Grecian general, offering up a sacrifice in their city to Jupiter the Deliverer, in presence of all the allies, had given them their freedom to reward their valour and zeal; and therefore, that they ought not to be disturbed in the enjoyment of their liberties, since it had been granted them by a Lacedæmonian. Archidamus answered, that their demand would be very reasonable, had they not joined with the Athenians, the professed enemies to the liberty of Greece; but that if they would disengage themselves from their present alliance, or at least remain neuter, they then should be left in the full enjoyment of their privileges. The deputies replied, that they could not possibly come to any agreement without first sending to Athens, whither their wives and their children were retired. The Lacedæmonians permitted them to send thither, when the Athenians promising solemnly to succour them to the utmost of their power, the Platæans resolved to suffer the last extremities rather than surrender; and accordingly they informed the Lacedæmonians from their walls that they could not comply with what was desired.

Archidamus then, after calling upon the gods to witness that he did not first infringe the alliance, and was not the cause of the calamities which might befal the Platæans for having refused the just and reasonable conditions offered them, prepared for the siege. He surrounded the city with a circumvallation of trees, which were laid long-ways, very close together, with their boughs interwoven, and turned towards the city, to prevent any person from going out of it. He afterwards threw up a platform to set the batteries on, in hopes that as so many hands were employed, they should soon take the city. He therefore caused trees to be felled on mount Citheron, and interwove them with fascines, in order to support the terra on all sides; he then threw in wood, earth and stones, in a word, whatever could help to fill it up. The whole army worked night and day, without the least intermission, during seventy days; one half of the soldiers reposing themselves whilst the rest were at work.

The besieged observing that the work began to rise, they threw up a wooden wall upon the walls of the city opposite to the platform, in order that they might always out-top the besiegers, and filled the hollow of this wooden wall with the bricks they took from the rubbish of the neighbouring houses; so that the wall of timber served in a manner as a defence to

* A. M. 3576. Ant. J. C. 426. Thucyd. 1. ii. p. 147–151. Diod. J. xxii. p. 102-...

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keep the wall from falling as it was carrying up. It was covered on the outside with hides both raw and dry, in order to shelter the works and the workmen from the fires discharged against it. In proportion as it rose, the platform was raised also, which in this manner was carried to a great height. But the besieged made a hole in the opposite wall, in order to carry off the earth that sustained the platform; which the besiegers perceiving, they put large panniers filled with mortar in the place of the earth which had been removed, because these could not be so easily carried off. The besieged, therefore, finding their first stratagem defeated, made a mine under ground as far as the platform, in order to shelter themselves, and to remove from it the earth and other materials of which it was composed, and which they gavé from hand to hand, as far as the city. The besiegers were a considerable time without perceiving this, till at last they found that their work did not go forward, and that the more earth they laid on, the weaker it grew. But the besieged judging that the superiority of numbers would at length prevail, without amusing themselves any longer at this work, or carrying the wall higher on the side towards the battery, they contented themselves with building another within, in the form of a half moon, both ends of which joined to the wall, in order that the besieged might retire behind it when the first wall should be forced, and so oblige the enemy to make fresh works.

In the mean time, the besiegers having set up their machines, doubtless after they had filled up the ditch, though Thucydides does not say this, shook the city wall in a very terrible manner, which, though it alarmed the citizens very much, did not however discourage them. They employed every art that fortification could suggest against the enemy's batteries. They prevented the effect of the battering-rams by ropes which turned aside their strokes. They also employed another artifice: The two ends of a great beam were made fast by long iron chains to two large pieces of timber, supported at due distance upon the wall, in the nature of a balance; so that whenever the enemy played their machine, the besieged lifted up this beam, and let it fall back on the head of the battering ram, which quite deadened its force, and consequently made it of no effect.

The besiegers finding the attack did not go on successfully, and that a new wall was raised against their platform, despaired of being able to storm the place, and therefore changed the siege into a blockade. However, they first endeavoured to set fire to it, imagining that the town might easily be burnt down as it was so small, whenever a strong wind should rise; for they employed all the artifices imaginable to make themselves masters of it as soon as possible, and with little expence. They therefore threw fascines into the intervals between the walls of the city and the intrenchment with which they had surrounded them, and filled these intervals in a very little time because of the multitude of hands employed by them, in order to set fire at the same time to different parts of the city. They then lighted the fire with pitch and sulphur, which in a moment made such a prodigious blaze, that the like was never seen. This invention was very near carrying the city, which had baffled all others; for the besieged could not make head at once against the fire and the enemy in several parts of the town; and had the weather favoured the besiegers, as they flattered them

*The end downward of these ropes formed a variety of slip-knots, with which they catched the head of the battering-ram, which they raised up by the help

of the machine.

selves it would, it had certainly been taken; but history informs us that an exceeding heavy rain fell, which extinguished the fire.

This last effort of the besiegers having been defeated as successfully as all the rest, they now turned the siege into a blockade, and surrounded the city with a brick wall, strengthened on each side with a deep fosse. The whole army was engaged successively in this work, and when it was finished, they left a guard over half of it, the Bootians offering to guard the rest; upon which the Lacedæmonians returned to Sparta about the month of October. There were now in Platea but 400 inhabitants, and 80 Athenians, with 110 women to dress their victuals, and no other person, whether freeman or slave; all the rest having been sent to Athens before the siege. During the campaign some engagements were fought both by sea and land, which I omit, because of no importance.

* The next summer, which was the fourth year of the war, the people of Lesbos, the citizens of Methymne excepted, resolved to break their alliance with the Athenians. They had designed to rebel before the war was declared, but the Lacedæmonians would not receive them at that time. The citizens of Methymne sent advice of this to the Athenians, assuring them that if an immediate succour was not sent, the island would be inevitably lost. The affliction of the Athenians, who had sustained great losses by the war and the plague, was greatly increased when news was brought of the revolt of so considerable an island, whose forces, which were quite fresh, would now join the enemy, and reinforce them on a sudden by the addition of a powerful fleet. The Athenians therefore sent 40 galleys designed for Peloponnesus, which accordingly sailed for Mitylene. The inhabitants, though in great consternation, because they were unprepared, yet put on an appearance of bravery, and sailed out of the port with their ships; however, being repulsed, they proposed an accommodation, which the Athenians listened to, from an apprehension that they were not strong enough to reduce the island to their allegiance. A suspension of arms was therefore agreed upon, during which the Mitylenians sent ambassadors to Athens. The fear of not obtaining their demands, made them send others to Lacedæmonia, to desire succours. This was not ill-judged, the Athenians sending them an answer which they had no reason to interpret in their favour.

The ambassadors of Mitylene, after a dangerous voyage, being arrived in Lacedæmonia, the Spartans deferred giving them audience till the solemnization of the Olympic games, in order that the allies might hear the complaints they had to make. I shall repeat their whole speech on that occasion, as it may serve at once to give a just idea of Thucydides' style, and of the disposition of the several states with regard to the Athenians and Lacedæmonians. "We are sensible," said the ambassadors, " that it "is the custom to use deserters well at first, because of the service they "do those whom they fly to, but to despise them afterwards, as traitors to "their country and friends. This is far from being unjust, when they have "no inducement to such a change; when the same union subsists, and the "same aids are reciprocally granted. But it is far otherwise between us "and the Athenians; and we entreat you not to be prejudiced against us, because, after having been treated mildly by the Athenians during the peace, we now renounce their alliance when they are unfortunate: for "being come hither to demand admittance into the number of your friends and allies, we ought to begin our own justification, by showing the justice

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* Thucyd. l. iii. p. 174–207. Diod. I. xii. p. 103, 109.

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