former is an age of poetry, the latter an age of prose. In spite of these contrasts, there is a real unity in the period which begins with the repulse of Xerxes and ends with the death of Alexander, as compared with any preceding one. It is an age of maturity in politics, in literature, and in art; and this is true of no earlier age. Nor can we say that the 5th century is, in all these aspects of Greek life, immature as compared with the 4th, or, on the other hand, that the 4th is decadent as compared with the 5th. On the political side, maturity is, in one sense, reached in the earlier century. There is nothing in the later century so great as the Athenian empire. In another sense, maturity is not reached till the 4th century. It is only in the later century that the tendency of the Greek constitutions to conform to a common type, democracy, is (at least approximately) realized, and it is only in this century that the principles upon which democracy is based are carried to their logical conclusion. In literature, if we confine our attention to poetry, we must pronounce the 5th century the age of completed development; but in prose the case is different. The style even of Thucydides is immature, as compared with that of Isocrates and Plato. In philosophy, however high may be the estimate that is formed of the genius of the earlier thinkers, it cannot be disputed that in Plato and Aristotle we find a more mature stage of thought. In art, architecture may perhaps be said to reach its zenith in the 5th, sculpture in the 4th century. In its political aspect, the history of the Great Age resolves itself into the history of two movements, the imperial and the democratic. Hitherto Greece had meant, politically, an aggregate of independent states, very numerous, and, as a rule, very small. The principle Systems of government. of autonomy was to the Greek the most sacred of all political principles; the passion for autonomy the most potent of political factors. In the latter half of the 6th century Sparta had succeeded in combining the majority of the Peloponnesian states into a loose federal union; so loose, however, that it appears to have been dormant in the intervals of peace. In the crisis of the Persian invasion the Peloponnesian League was extended so as to include all the states which had espoused the national cause. It looked on the morrow of Plataea and Mycale (the two victories, won simultaneously, in 479 B.C., by Spartan commanders, by which the danger from Persia was finally averted) as if a permanent basis for union might be found in the hegemony of Sparta. The sense of a common peril and a common triumph brought with it the need of a common union; it was Athens, however, instead of Sparta, by whom the first conscious effort was made to transcend the isolation of the Greek political system and to bring the units into combination. The league thus founded (the Delian League, established in 477 B.C.) was under the presidency of Athens, but it included hardly any other state besides those that had conducted the defence of Greece. It was formed, almost entirely, of the states which had been liberated from Persian rule by the great victories of the war. The Delian League, even in the form in which it was first established, as a confederation of autonomous allies, marks an advance in political conceptions upon the Peloponnesian League. Provision is made for an annual revenue, for periodical meetings of the council, and for a permanent executive. It is a real federation, though an imperfect one. There were defects in its constitution which rendered it inevitable that it should be transformed into an empire. Athens was from the first “the predominant partner.” The fleet was mainly Athenian, the commanders entirely so; the assessment of the tribute was in Athenian hands; there was no federal court appointed to determine questions at issue between Athens and the other members; and, worst omission of all, the right of secession was left undecided. By the middle of the century the Delian League has become the Athenian empire. Henceforward the imperial idea, in one form or another, dominates Greek politics. Athens failed to extend her authority over the whole of Greece. Her empire was overthrown; but the triumph of autonomy proved the triumph of imperialism. The Spartan empire succeeds to the Athenian, and, when it is finally shattered at Leuctra (371 B.C.), the hegemony of Thebes, which is established on its ruins, is an empire in all but name. The decay of Theban power paves the way for the rise of Macedon.
Thus throughout this period we can trace two forces contending for mastery in the Greek political system. Two causes divide the allegiance of the Greek world, the cause of empire and the cause of autonomy. The formation of the confederacy of Delos did not involve the dissolution of the alliance between Athens and Sparta. For seventeen years more Athens retained her place in the league, “which had been established against the Mede” under the presidency of Sparta in 480 B.C. (Thuc. i. 102). The ascendancy of Cimon and the Philolaconian party at Athens was favourable to a good understanding between the two states, and at Sparta in normal times the balance inclined in favour of the party whose policy is best described by the motto “quieta non movere.”
In the end, however, the opposition of the two contending forces proved too strong for Spartan neutrality. The fall of Cimon (461 B.C.) was followed by the so-called “First Peloponnesian War,” a conflict between Athens and her maritime rivals, Corinth and Aegina, into which Sparta was ultimately drawn. Thucydides regards The Peloponnesian Wars. the hostilities of these years (460– 454 B.C.), which were resumed for a few months in 446 B.C., on the expiration of the Five Years’ Truce, as preliminary to those of the great Peloponnesian War (431– 404 B.C.). The real question at issue was in both cases the same. The tie that united the opponents of Athens was found in a common hostility to the imperial idea. It is a complete misapprehension to regard the Peloponnesian War as a mere duel between two rival claimants for empire. The ultimatum presented by Sparta on the eve of the war demanded the restoration of autonomy to the subjects of Athens. There is no reason for doubting her sincerity in presenting it in this form. It would, however, be an equal misapprehension to regard the war as merely a struggle between the cause of empire and the cause of autonomy. Corresponding to this fundamental contrast there are other contrasts, constitutional, racial and military. The military interest of the war is largely due to the fact that Athens was a sea power and Sparta a land one. As the war went on, the constitutional aspect tended to become more marked. At first there were democracies on the side of Sparta, and oligarchies on the side of Athens. In the last stage of the war, when Lysander’s influence was supreme, we see the forces of oligarchy everywhere united and organized for the destruction of democracy. In its origin the war was certainly not due to the rivalry of Dorian and Ionian. This racial, or tribal, contrast counted for more in the politics of Sicily than of Greece; and, though the two great branches of the Greek race were represented respectively by the leaders of the two sides, the allies on neither side belonged exclusively to the one branch or the other. Still, it remains true that the Dorian states were, as a rule, on the Spartan side, and the Ionian states, as a rule, on the Athenian—a division of sentiment which must have helped to widen the breach, and to intensify the animosities.
As a political experiment the Athenian empire possesses a unique interest. It represents the first attempt to fuse the principles of imperialism and democracy. It is at once the first empire in history possessed and administered by a sovereign people, and the first which sought to establish a common system of democratic The Athenian empire. institutions amongst its subjects.[1] It was an experiment that failed, partly owing to the inherent strength of the oligarchic cause, partly owing to the exclusive character of ancient citizenship. The Athenians themselves recognized that their empire depended for its existence upon the solidarity of democratic interests (see Thuc. iii. 47; Pseudo-Xenophon, de Rep. Ath. i. 14, iii. 10). An understanding existed between the democratic leaders in the subject-states and the democratic party at Athens.
- ↑ It has been denied by some writers (e.g. by A. H. J. Greenidge) that Athens interfered with the constitutions of the subject-states. For the view put forward in the text, the following passages may be quoted: Aristotle, Politics 1307 b 20; Isocrates, Panegyricus, 105, 106, Panathenaicus, 54 and 68; Xenophon, Hellenica, iii. 4. 7; Ps.-Xen. Athen. Constit. i. 14, iii. 10.
