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Conse

quences of

the Athe

nian armament in Sicily.

CHAPTER LXI.

FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ATHENIAN ARMA-
MENT IN SICILY DOWN TO THE OLIGARCHICAL CON-
SPIRACY OF THE FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS.

In the preceding chapter, we followed to its me-
lancholy close the united armament of Nikias and
Demosthenês, first in the harbour and lastly in the
neighbourhood of Syracuse, towards the end of
September 413 B.C.

The first impression which we derive from the the ruin of perusal of that narrative is, sympathy for the parties directly concerned-chiefly for the number of gallant Athenians who thus miserably perished, partly also for the Syracusan victors, themselves a few months before on the verge of apparent ruin. But the distant and collateral effects of the catastrophe throughout Greece were yet more momentous than those within the island in which it occurred.

Occupation of Dekeleia

cedæmo

nians-its ruinous

effects upon Athens.

I have already mentioned, that even at the moby the La- ment when Demosthenês with his powerful armament left Peiræus to go to Sicily, the hostilities of the Peloponnesian confederacy against Athens herself had been already recommenced. Not only was the Spartan king Agis ravaging Attica, but the far more important step of fortifying Dekeleia, for the abode of a permanent garrison, was in course of completion. That fortress, having been begun about the middle of March, was probably by the month of June in a situation to shelter its garrison,

which consisted of contingents periodically furnished, and relieving each other alternately, from all the different states of the confederacy, under the permanent command of king Agis himself.

And now began that incessant marauding of domiciliated enemies-destined to last for nine years until the final capture of Athens-partially contemplated even at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war—and recently enforced, with full comprehension of its disastrous effects, by the virulent antipathy of the exile Alkibiadês'. The earlier invasions of Attica had been all temporary, continuing for five or six weeks at the farthest, and leaving the country in repose for the remainder of the year. But the Athenians now underwent from henceforward the fatal experience of a hostile garrison within fifteen miles of their city; an experience peculiarly painful this summer, as well from its novelty, as from the extraordinary vigour which Agis displayed in his operations. His excursions were so widely extended, that no part of Attica was secure or could be rendered productive. Not only were all the sheep and cattle destroyed, but the slaves too, especially the most valuable slaves or artisans, began to desert to Dekeleia in great numbers more than 20,000 of them soon disappeared in this way. So terrible a loss of income both to Athens beproprietors of land and to employers in the city, was farther aggravated by the increased cost and difficulty of import from Euboea. Provisions and cattle from that island had previously come over land from Orôpus, but as that road was completely Thucyd. i. 122-142; vi. 90.

comes a

military post

heavy duty

in arms im

posed upon

the citizens.

Financial pressure.

stopped by the garrison of Dekeleia, they were now of necessity sent round Cape Sunium by sea; a transit more circuitous and expensive, besides being open to attack from the enemy's privateers'. In the midst of such heavy privations, the demands on citizens and metics for military duty were multiplied beyond measure. The presence of the enemy at Dekeleia forced them to keep watch day and night throughout their long extent of wall, comprising both Athens and Peiræus: in the daytime the hoplites of the city relieved each other on guard, but at night, nearly all of them were either on the battlements or at the various military stations in the city. Instead of a city, in fact, Athens was reduced to the condition of something like a military post2. Moreover the rich citizens of the state, who served as horsemen, shared in the general hardship; being called on for daily duty in order to restrain at least, since they could not entirely prevent, the excursions of the garrison of Dekeleia: their efficiency was however soon impaired by the laming of their horses on the hard and stony soil3.

Besides the personal efforts of the citizens, such exigences pressed heavily on the financial resources of the state. Already the immense expense

1 Thucyd. viii. 4. About the extensive ruin caused by the Lacedæmonians to the olive-grounds in Attica, see Lysias, Or. vii. De Oleâ Sacrâ, sect. 6, 7.

An inscription preserved in M. Boeckh's Corp. Inscr. (Part ii. No. 93. p. 132) gives some hint how landlords and tenants met this inevitable damage from the hands of the invaders. The Deme Exôneis lets a farm to a certain tenant for forty years, at a fixed rent of 140 drachmæ ; but if an invading enemy shall drive him out or injure his farm, the Deme is to receive one half of the year's produce, in place of the year's

rent.

2

Thucyd. vii. 28, 29.

3

Thucyd. vii. 27.

incurred, in fitting out the two large armaments for Sicily, had exhausted all the accumulations laid by in the treasury during the interval since the peace of Nikias; so that the attacks from Dekeleia, not only imposing heavy additional cost, but at the same time abridging the means of paying, brought the finances of Athens into positive embarrassment. With the view of increasing her revenues, she altered the principle on which her subject-allies had hitherto been assessed. Instead of a fixed sum of annual tribute, she now required from them payment of a duty of 5 per cent. on all imports and exports by sea'. How this new principle of assessment worked, we have unfortunately no information. To collect the duty, and take precautions against evasion, an Athenian custom-house officer must have been required in each allied city. Yet it is difficult to understand how Athens could have enforced a system at once novel, extensive, vexatious, and more burdensome to the payers-when we come to see how much her hold over those payers, as well as her naval force, became enfeebled, before the close even of the actual year2.

1 Thucyd. vii. 28.

2 Upon this new assessment on the allies, determined by the Athenians, Mr. Mitford remarks as follows:

"Thus light, in comparison of what we have laid upon ourselves, was the heaviest tax, as far as we learn from history, at that time known in the world. Yet it caused much discontent among the dependent commonwealths; the arbitrary power by which it was imposed being indeed reasonably execrated, though the burden itself was comparatively a nothing."

This admission is not easily reconciled with the frequent invectives in which Mr. Mitford indulges against the empire of Athens, as practising a system of extortion and oppression ruinous to the subject-allies.

I do not know, however, on what authority he affirms that this was

Athens dismisses her

mercenaries

at Myka

lêssus.

Her impoverished finances also compelled her to Thracian dismiss a body of Thracian mercenaries, whose aid -massacre would have been very useful against the enemy at Dekeleia. These Thracian peltasts, 1300 in number, had been hired at a drachma per day each man, to go with Demosthenês to Syracuse, but had not reached Athens in time. As soon as they came thither, the Athenians placed them under the command of Diitrephês, to conduct them back to their native country-with instructions to do damage to the Boeotians, as opportunity might occur, in his way through the Euripus. Accordingly Diitrephês, putting them on shipboard, sailed round Sunium and northward along the eastern coast of Attica. After a short disembarkation near Tanagra, he passed on to Chalkis in Euboea in the narrowest part of the strait, from whence he crossed in the night to the Boeotian coast opposite, and marched up some distance from the sea to the neighbourhood of the Boeotian town Mykalêssus. He arrived here unseen-lay in wait near a temple of Hermês about two miles distant-and fell upon the town unexpectedly at break of day. To the Mykalessians-dwelling in the centre of Boeotia, not far from Thebes and at a considerable distance from the sea-such an assault was not less unex

"the heaviest tax then known in the world ;" and that "it caused much discontent among the subject commonwealths." The latter assertion would indeed be sufficiently probable, if it be true that the tax ever came into operation: but we are not entitled to affirm it.

Considering how very soon the terrible misfortunes of Athens came on, I cannot but think it a matter of uncertainty whether the new assessment ever became a reality throughout the Athenian empire. And the fact that Thucydidês does not notice it as an additional cause of discontent among the allies, is one reason for such doubts.

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