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

King of the Thracians. Teres, the father of Sitalces, was the first to

establish the great kingdom of the Odrysians on a scale quite

unknown to the rest of Thrace, a large portion of the Thracians

being independent. This Teres is in no way related to Tereus who

married Pandion’s daughter Procne from Athens; nor indeed did they

belong to the same part of Thrace. Tereus lived in Daulis, part of

what is now called Phocis, but which at that time was inhabited by

Thracians. It was in this land that the women perpetrated the

outrage upon Itys; and many of the poets when they mention the

nightingale call it the Daulian bird. Besides, Pandion in

contracting an alliance for his daughter would consider the advantages

of mutual assistance, and would naturally prefer a match at the

above moderate distance to the journey of many days which separates

Athens from the Odrysians. Again the names are different; and this

Teres was king of the Odrysians, the first by the way who attained

to any power. Sitalces, his son, was now sought as an ally by the

Athenians, who desired his aid in the reduction of the Thracian

towns and of Perdiccas. Coming to Athens, Nymphodorus concluded the

alliance with Sitalces and made his son Sadocus an Athenian citizen,

and promised to finish the war in Thrace by persuading Sitalces to

send the Athenians a force of Thracian horse and targeteers. He also

reconciled them with Perdiccas, and induced them to restore Therme

to him; upon which Perdiccas at once joined the Athenians and

Phormio in an expedition against the Chalcidians. Thus Sitalces, son

of Teres, King of the Thracians, and Perdiccas, son of Alexander, King

of the Macedonians, became allies of Athens.

Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred vessels were still cruising

round Peloponnese. After taking Sollium, a town belonging to

Corinth, and presenting the city and territory to the Acarnanians of

Palaira, they stormed Astacus, expelled its tyrant Evarchus, and

gained the place for their confederacy. Next they sailed to the island

of Cephallenia and brought it over without using force. Cephallenia

lies off Acarnania and Leucas, and consists of four states, the

Paleans, Cranians, Samaeans, and Pronaeans. Not long afterwards the

fleet returned to Athens. Towards the autumn of this year the

Athenians invaded the Megarid with their whole levy, resident aliens

included, under the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus. The

Athenians in the hundred ships round Peloponnese on their journey home

had just reached Aegina, and hearing that the citizens at home were in

full force at Megara, now sailed over and joined them. This was

without doubt the largest army of Athenians ever assembled, the

state being still in the flower of her strength and yet unvisited by

the plague. Full ten thousand heavy infantry were in the field, all

Athenian citizens, besides the three thousand before Potidaea. Then

the resident aliens who joined in the incursion were at least three

thousand strong; besides which there was a multitude of light

troops. They ravaged the greater part of the territory, and then

retired. Other incursions into the Megarid were afterwards made by the

Athenians annually during the war, sometimes only with cavalry,

sometimes with all their forces. This went on until the capture of

Nisaea. Atalanta also, the desert island off the Opuntian coast, was

towards the end of this summer converted into a fortified post by

the Athenians, in order to prevent privateers issuing from Opus and

the rest of Locris and plundering Euboea. Such were the events of this

summer after the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica.

In the ensuing winter the Acarnanian Evarchus, wishing to return

to Astacus, persuaded the Corinthians to sail over with forty ships

and fifteen hundred heavy infantry and restore him; himself also

hiring some mercenaries. In command of the force were Euphamidas,

son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus, son of Timocrates, and Eumachus, son of

Chrysis, who sailed over and restored him and, after failing in an

attempt on some places on the Acarnanian coast which they were

desirous of gaining, began their voyage home. Coasting along shore

they touched at Cephallenia and made a descent on the Cranian

territory, and losing some men by the treachery of the Cranians, who

fell suddenly upon them after having agreed to treat, put to sea

somewhat hurriedly and returned home.

In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost

to those who had first fallen in this war. It was a custom of their

ancestors, and the manner of it is as follows. Three days before the

ceremony, the bones of the dead are laid out in a tent which has

been erected; and their friends bring to their relatives such

offerings as they please. In the funeral procession cypress coffins

are borne in cars, one for each tribe; the bones of the deceased being

placed in the coffin of their tribe. Among these is carried one

empty bier decked for the missing, that is, for those whose bodies

could not be recovered. Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins

in the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail at the

burial. The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the Beautiful

suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always

buried; with the exception of those slain at Marathon, who for their

singular and extraordinary valour were interred on the spot where they

fell. After the bodies have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by

the state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation, pronounces

over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all retire. Such is

the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the war,

whenever the occasion arose, the established custom was observed.

Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of

Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium. When the proper

time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an elevated platform

in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and spoke as

follows:

“Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made

this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should

be delivered at the burial of those who fall in battle. For myself,

I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in

deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by honours also shown by deeds;

such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people’s cost. And

I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to

be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall

according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly

upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers

that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is

familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has

not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it

to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be

led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own

nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they

can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the

actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with

it incredulity. However, since our ancestors have stamped this

custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and

to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.

“I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that

they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like

the present. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession

from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the

present time by their valour. And if our more remote ancestors deserve

praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance

the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to

leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation. Lastly,

there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by

those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigour of life;

while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that

can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for

peace. That part of our history which tells of the military

achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready

valour with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of

Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my

hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by. But

what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of

government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits

out of which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve

before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to

be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly

dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or

foreigners, may listen with advantage.

“Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states;

we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its

administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it

is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal

justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing,

advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class

considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again

does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is

not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we

enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There,

far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do

not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what

he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot

fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But

all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as

citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to

obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the

protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute

book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot

be broken without acknowledged disgrace.

“Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh

itself from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year

round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily

source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude

of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that

to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury

as those of his own.

“If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our

antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien

acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing,

although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our

liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native

spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from

their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at

Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to

encounter every legitimate