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

appearing at Mitylene, were compelled to come to terms with the

Athenians in the following manner. Salaethus having himself ceased

to expect the fleet to arrive, now armed the commons with heavy

armour, which they had not before possessed, with the intention of

making a sortie against the Athenians. The commons, however, no sooner

found themselves possessed of arms than they refused any longer to

obey their officers; and forming in knots together, told the

authorities to bring out in public the provisions and divide them

amongst them all, or they would themselves come to terms with the

Athenians and deliver up the city.

The government, aware of their inability to prevent this, and of the

danger they would be in, if left out of the capitulation, publicly

agreed with Paches and the army to surrender Mitylene at discretion

and to admit the troops into the town; upon the understanding that the

Mitylenians should be allowed to send an embassy to Athens to plead

their cause, and that Paches should not imprison, make slaves of, or

put to death any of the citizens until its return. Such were the terms

of the capitulation; in spite of which the chief authors of the

negotiation with Lacedaemon were so completely overcome by terror when

the army entered that they went and seated themselves by the altars,

from which they were raised up by Paches under promise that he would

do them no wrong, and lodged by him in Tenedos, until he should

learn the pleasure of the Athenians concerning them. Paches also

sent some galleys and seized Antissa, and took such other military

measures as he thought advisable.

Meanwhile the Peloponnesians in the forty ships, who ought to have

made all haste to relieve Mitylene, lost time in coming round

Peloponnese itself, and proceeding leisurely on the remainder of the

voyage, made Delos without having been seen by the Athenians at

Athens, and from thence arriving at Icarus and Myconus, there first

heard of the fall of Mitylene. Wishing to know the truth, they put

into Embatum, in the Erythraeid, about seven days after the capture of

the town. Here they learned the truth, and began to consider what they

were to do; and Teutiaplus, an Elean, addressed them as follows:

“Alcidas and Peloponnesians who share with me the command of this

armament, my advice is to sail just as we are to Mitylene, before we

have been heard of. We may expect to find the Athenians as much off

their guard as men generally are who have just taken a city: this will

certainly be so by sea, where they have no idea of any enemy attacking

them, and where our strength, as it happens, mainly lies; while even

their land forces are probably scattered about the houses in the

carelessness of victory. If therefore we were to fall upon them

suddenly and in the night, I have hopes, with the help of the

well-wishers that we may have left inside the town, that we shall

become masters of the place. Let us not shrink from the risk, but

let us remember that this is just the occasion for one of the baseless

panics common in war: and that to be able to guard against these in

one’s own case, and to detect the moment when an attack will find an

enemy at this disadvantage, is what makes a successful general.”

These words of Teutiaplus failing to move Alcidas, some of the

Ionian exiles and the Lesbians with the expedition began to urge

him, since this seemed too dangerous, to seize one of the Ionian

cities or the Aeolic town of Cyme, to use as a base for effecting

the revolt of Ionia. This was by no means a hopeless enterprise, as

their coming was welcome everywhere; their object would be by this

move to deprive Athens of her chief source of revenue, and at the same

time to saddle her with expense, if she chose to blockade them; and

they would probably induce Pissuthnes to join them in the war.

However, Alcidas gave this proposal as bad a reception as the other,

being eager, since he had come too late for Mitylene, to find

himself back in Peloponnese as soon as possible.

Accordingly he put out from Embatum and proceeded along shore; and

touching at the Teian town, Myonnesus, there butchered most of the

prisoners that he had taken on his passage. Upon his coming to

anchor at Ephesus, envoys came to him from the Samians at Anaia, and

told him that he was not going the right way to free Hellas in

massacring men who had never raised a hand against him, and who were

not enemies of his, but allies of Athens against their will, and

that if he did not stop he would turn many more friends into enemies

than enemies into friends. Alcidas agreed to this, and let go all

the Chians still in his hands and some of the others that he had

taken; the inhabitants, instead of flying at the sight of his vessels,

rather coming up to them, taking them for Athenian, having no sort

of expectation that while the Athenians commanded the sea

Peloponnesian ships would venture over to Ionia.

From Ephesus Alcidas set sail in haste and fled. He had been seen by

the Salaminian and Paralian galleys, which happened to be sailing from

Athens, while still at anchor off Clarus; and fearing pursuit he now

made across the open sea, fully determined to touch nowhere, if he

could help it, until he got to Peloponnese. Meanwhile news of him

had come in to Paches from the Erythraeid, and indeed from all

quarters. As Ionia was unfortified, great fears were felt that the

Peloponnesians coasting along shore, even if they did not intend to

stay, might make descents in passing and plunder the towns; and now

the Paralian and Salaminian, having seen him at Clarus, themselves

brought intelligence of the fact. Paches accordingly gave hot chase,

and continued the pursuit as far as the isle of Patmos, and then

finding that Alcidas had got on too far to be overtaken, came back

again. Meanwhile he thought it fortunate that, as he had not fallen in

with them out at sea, he had not overtaken them anywhere where they

would have been forced to encamp, and so give him the trouble of

blockading them.

On his return along shore he touched, among other places, at Notium,

the port of Colophon, where the Colophonians had settled after the

capture of the upper town by Itamenes and the barbarians, who had been

called in by certain individuals in a party quarrel. The capture of

the town took place about the time of the second Peloponnesian

invasion of Attica. However, the refugees, after settling at Notium,

again split up into factions, one of which called in Arcadian and

barbarian mercenaries from Pissuthnes and, entrenching these in a

quarter apart, formed a new community with the Median party of the

Colophonians who joined them from the upper town. Their opponents

had retired into exile, and now called in Paches, who invited Hippias,

the commander of the Arcadians in the fortified quarter, to a

parley, upon condition that, if they could not agree, he was to be put

back safe and sound in the fortification. However, upon his coming out

to him, he put him into custody, though not in chains, and attacked

suddenly and took by surprise the fortification, and putting the

Arcadians and the barbarians found in it to the sword, afterwards took

Hippias into it as he had promised, and, as soon as he was inside,

seized him and shot him down. Paches then gave up Notium to the

Colophonians not of the Median party; and settlers were afterwards

sent out from Athens, and the place colonized according to Athenian

laws, after collecting all the Colophonians found in any of the

cities.

Arrived at Mitylene, Paches reduced Pyrrha and Eresus; and finding

the Lacedaemonian, Salaethus, in hiding in the town, sent him off to

Athens, together with the Mitylenians that he had placed in Tenedos,

and any other persons that he thought concerned in the revolt. He also

sent back the greater part of his forces, remaining with the rest to

settle Mitylene and the rest of Lesbos as he thought best.

Upon the arrival of the prisoners with Salaethus, the Athenians at

once put the latter to death, although he offered, among other things,

to procure the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Plataea, which

was still under siege; and after deliberating as to what they should

do with the former, in the fury of the moment determined to put to

death not only the prisoners at Athens, but the whole adult male

population of Mitylene, and to make slaves of the women and

children. It was remarked that Mitylene had revolted without being,

like the rest, subjected to the empire; and what above all swelled the

wrath of the Athenians was the fact of the Peloponnesian fleet

having ventured over to Ionia to her support, a fact which was held to

argue a long meditated rebellion. They accordingly sent a galley to

communicate the decree to Paches, commanding him to lose no time in

dispatching the Mitylenians. The morrow brought repentance with it and

reflection on the horrid cruelty of a decree, which condemned a

whole city to the fate merited only by the guilty. This was no

sooner perceived by the Mitylenian ambassadors at Athens and their

Athenian supporters, than they moved the authorities to put the

question again to the vote; which they the more easily consented to

do, as they themselves plainly saw that most of the citizens wished

some one to give them an opportunity for reconsidering the matter.

An assembly was therefore at once called, and after much expression of

opinion upon both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, the same who had

carried the former motion of putting the Mitylenians to death, the

most violent man at Athens, and at that time by far the most

powerful with the commons, came forward again and spoke as follows:

“I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is

incapable of empire, and never more so than by your present change

of mind in the matter of Mitylene. Fears or plots being unknown to you

in your daily relations with each other, you feel just the same with

regard to your allies, and never reflect that the mistakes into

which you may be led by listening to their appeals, or by giving way

to your own compassion, are full of danger to yourselves, and bring

you no thanks for your weakness from your allies; entirely

forgetting that your empire is a despotism and your subjects

disaffected conspirators, whose obedience is ensured not by your

suicidal concessions, but by the superiority given you by your own

strength and not their loyalty. The most alarming feature in the

case is the constant change of measures with which we appear to be

threatened, and our seeming ignorance of the fact that bad laws

which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that have

no authority; that unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than

quick-witted insubordination; and that ordinary men usually manage

public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. The latter are

always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every

proposition brought forward, thinking that they cannot show their

wit in more important matters, and by such behaviour too often ruin

their country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are

content to be less learned than the laws, and less able to pick

holes in the speech of a good speaker; and being fair judges rather

than rival athletes, generally conduct affairs successfully. These

we ought to imitate,