History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (free ebooks for android .txt) 📕

Eetionia is a mole of Piraeus, close alongside of the entrance of

the harbour, and was now fortified in connection with the wall already

existing on the land side, so that a few men placed in it might be

able to command the entrance; the old wall on the land side and the

new one now being built within on the side of the sea, both ending

in one of the two towers standing at the narrow mouth of the

harbour. They also walled off the largest porch in Piraeus which was

in immediate connection with this wall, and kept it in their own

hands, compelling all to unload there the corn that came into the

harbour, and what they had in stock, and to take it out from thence

when they sold it.

These measures had long provoked the murmurs of Theramenes, and when

the envoys returned from Lacedaemon without having effected any

general pacification, he affirmed that this wall was like to prove the

ruin of the state. At this moment forty-two ships from Peloponnese,

including some Siceliot and Italiot vessels from Locri and Tarentum,

had been invited over by the Euboeans and were already riding off

Las in Laconia preparing for the voyage to Euboea, under the command

of Agesandridas, son of Agesander, a Spartan. Theramenes now

affirmed that this squadron was destined not so much to aid Euboea

as the party fortifying Eetionia, and that unless precautions were

speedily taken the city would be surprised and lost. This was no

mere calumny, there being really some such plan entertained by the

accused. Their first wish was to have the oligarchy without giving

up the empire; failing this to keep their ships and walls and be

independent; while, if this also were denied them, sooner than be

the first victims of the restored democracy, they were resolved to

call in the enemy and make peace, give up their walls and ships, and

at all costs retain possession of the government, if their lives

were only assured to them.

For this reason they pushed forward the construction of their work

with posterns and entrances and means of introducing the enemy,

being eager to have it finished in time. Meanwhile the murmurs against

them were at first confined to a few persons and went on in secret,

until Phrynichus, after his return from the embassy to Lacedaemon, was

laid wait for and stabbed in full market by one of the Peripoli,

falling down dead before he had gone far from the council chamber. The

assassin escaped; but his accomplice, an Argive, was taken and put

to the torture by the Four Hundred, without their being able to

extract from him the name of his employer, or anything further than

that he knew of many men who used to assemble at the house of the

commander of the Peripoli and at other houses. Here the matter was

allowed to drop. This so emboldened Theramenes and Aristocrates and

the rest of their partisans in the Four Hundred and out of doors, that

they now resolved to act. For by this time the ships had sailed

round from Las, and anchoring at Epidaurus had overrun Aegina; and

Theramenes asserted that, being bound for Euboea, they would never

have sailed in to Aegina and come back to anchor at Epidaurus,

unless they had been invited to come to aid in the designs of which he

had always accused the government. Further inaction had therefore

now become impossible. In the end, after a great many seditious

harangues and suspicions, they set to work in real earnest. The

heavy infantry in Piraeus building the wall in Eetionia, among whom

was Aristocrates, a colonel, with his own tribe, laid hands upon

Alexicles, a general under the oligarchy and the devoted adherent of

the cabal, and took him into a house and confined him there. In this

they were assisted by one Hermon, commander of the Peripoli in

Munychia, and others, and above all had with them the great bulk of

the heavy infantry. As soon as the news reached the Four Hundred,

who happened to be sitting in the council chamber, all except the

disaffected wished at once to go to the posts where the arms were, and

menaced Theramenes and his party. Theramenes defended himself, and

said that he was ready immediately to go and help to rescue Alexicles;

and taking with him one of the generals belonging to his party, went

down to Piraeus, followed by Aristarchus and some young men of the

cavalry. All was now panic and confusion. Those in the city imagined

that Piraeus was already taken and the prisoner put to death, while

those in Piraeus expected every moment to be attacked by the party

in the city. The older men, however, stopped the persons running up

and down the town and making for the stands of arms; and Thucydides

the Pharsalian, proxenus of the city, came forward and threw himself

in the way of the rival factions, and appealed to them not to ruin the

state, while the enemy was still at hand waiting for his

opportunity, and so at length succeeded in quieting them and in

keeping their hands off each other. Meanwhile Theramenes came down

to Piraeus, being himself one of the generals, and raged and stormed

against the heavy infantry, while Aristarchus and the adversaries of

the people were angry in right earnest. Most of the heavy infantry,

however, went on with the business without faltering, and asked

Theramenes if he thought the wall had been constructed for any good

purpose, and whether it would not be better that it should be pulled

down. To this he answered that if they thought it best to pull it

down, he for his part agreed with them. Upon this the heavy infantry

and a number of the people in Piraeus immediately got up on the

fortification and began to demolish it. Now their cry to the multitude

was that all should join in the work who wished the Five Thousand to

govern instead of the Four Hundred. For instead of saying in so many

words “all who wished the commons to govern,” they still disguised

themselves under the name of the Five Thousand; being afraid that

these might really exist, and that they might be speaking to one of

their number and get into trouble through ignorance. Indeed this was

why the Four Hundred neither wished the Five Thousand to exist, nor to

have it known that they did not exist; being of opinion that to give

themselves so many partners in empire would be downright democracy,

while the mystery in question would make the people afraid of one

another.

The next day the Four Hundred, although alarmed, nevertheless

assembled in the council chamber, while the heavy infantry in Piraeus,

after having released their prisoner Alexicles and pulled down the

fortification, went with their arms to the theatre of Dionysus,

close to Munychia, and there held an assembly in which they decided to

march into the city, and setting forth accordingly halted in the

Anaceum. Here they were joined by some delegates from the Four

Hundred, who reasoned with them one by one, and persuaded those whom

they saw to be the most moderate to remain quiet themselves, and to

keep in the rest; saying that they would make known the Five Thousand,

and have the Four Hundred chosen from them in rotation, as should be

decided by the Five Thousand, and meanwhile entreated them not to ruin

the state or drive it into the arms of the enemy. After a great many

had spoken and had been spoken to, the whole body of heavy infantry

became calmer than before, absorbed by their fears for the country

at large, and now agreed to hold upon an appointed day an assembly

in the theatre of Dionysus for the restoration of concord.

When the day came for the assembly in the theatre, and they were

upon the point of assembling, news arrived that the forty-two ships

under Agesandridas were sailing from Megara along the coast of

Salamis. The people to a man now thought that it was just what

Theramenes and his party had so often said, that the ships were

sailing to the fortification, and concluded that they had done well to

demolish it. But though it may possibly have been by appointment

that Agesandridas hovered about Epidaurus and the neighbourhood, he

would also naturally be kept there by the hope of an opportunity

arising out of the troubles in the town. In any case the Athenians, on

receipt of the news immediately ran down in mass to Piraeus, seeing

themselves threatened by the enemy with a worse war than their war

among themselves, not at a distance, but close to the harbour of

Athens. Some went on board the ships already afloat, while others

launched fresh vessels, or ran to defend the walls and the mouth of

the harbour.

Meanwhile the Peloponnesian vessels sailed by, and rounding Sunium

anchored between Thoricus and Prasiae, and afterwards arrived at

Oropus. The Athenians, with revolution in the city, and unwilling to

lose a moment in going to the relief of their most important

possession (for Euboea was everything to them now that they were

shut out from Attica), were compelled to put to sea in haste and

with untrained crews, and sent Thymochares with some vessels to

Eretria. These upon their arrival, with the ships already in Euboea,

made up a total of thirty-six vessels, and were immediately forced

to engage. For Agesandridas, after his crews had dined, put out from

Oropus, which is about seven miles from Eretria by sea; and the

Athenians, seeing him sailing up, immediately began to man their

vessels. The sailors, however, instead of being by their ships, as

they supposed, were gone away to purchase provisions for their

dinner in the houses in the outskirts of the town; the Eretrians

having so arranged that there should be nothing on sale in the

marketplace, in order that the Athenians might be a long time in

manning their ships, and, the enemy’s attack taking them by

surprise, might be compelled to put to sea just as they were. A signal

also was raised in Eretria to give them notice in Oropus when to put

to sea. The Athenians, forced to put out so poorly prepared, engaged

off the harbour of Eretria, and after holding their own for some

little while notwithstanding, were at length put to flight and

chased to the shore. Such of their number as took refuge in Eretria,

which they presumed to be friendly to them, found their fate in that

city, being butchered by the inhabitants; while those who fled to

the Athenian fort in the Eretrian territory, and the vessels which got

to Chalcis, were saved. The Peloponnesians, after taking twenty-two

Athenian ships, and killing or making prisoners of the crews, set up a

trophy, and not long afterwards effected the revolt of the whole of

Euboea (except Oreus, which was held by the Athenians themselves), and

made a general settlement of the affairs of the island.

When the news of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, a panic

ensued such as they had never before known. Neither the disaster in

Sicily, great as it seemed at the time, nor any other had ever so much

alarmed them. The camp at Samos was in revolt; they had no more

ships or men to man them; they were at discord among themselves and

might at any moment come to blows; and a disaster of this magnitude

coming on the top of all, by which they lost their fleet, and worst of

all Euboea, which was of more value to them than Attica, could not

occur without throwing them into the deepest despondency. Meanwhile

their greatest and most immediate trouble was the possibility