Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/306

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

280 HISTORY OF GREECE. assemblies, though useful as a preliminary to action, was mischier ous if allowed as a substitute for action. 1 Such was the Periklean Athenian of 431 B. c. But this energy had been crushed in the disasters closing the Peloponnesian war, and had never again re- vived. The Demosthenic Athenian of 360 B. c. had as it were grown old. Pugnacity, Pan-hcllenic championship, and the love of enterprise, had died within him. He was a quiet, home-keep- ing, refined citizen, attached to the democratic constitution, and executing with cheerful pride his orlinary city-duties under it ; but immersed in industrial or professional pursuits, in domestic comforts, in the impressive manifestations of the public religion, in the atmosphere of discussion and thought, intellectual as well as political. To renounce all this for foreign and continued mil itary service, he considered as a hardship no.t to be endured, ex cept under the pressure of danger near and immediate. Precau tionary exigencies against distant perils, however real, could not be brought home to his feelings ; even to pay others for serving ir- itis place, was a duty which he could scarcely be induced to perform. Not merely in Athens, but also among the Peloponnesian allies of Sparta, the resident citizens had contracted the like indisposi- tion to military service. In the year 431 B. c., these Peloponne- sians (here too we have the concurrent testimony of Perikles and Archidamus 2 ) had been forward for service with their persons, and only backward when asked for money. In 383 B. c., Sparta found them so reluctant to join her standard, especially for opera- tions beyond sea, that she was forced to admit into her confedera- cy the principle of pecuniary commutation ; 3 just as Athens had done (about 460-450 B. c.) with the unwarlike islanders enrolled in her confederacy of Delos. 4 1 Thucyd. ii. 40, 41, 43. rijg Tro^ewf dvvaftiv KOI?' jj/tepav Ipyy nai tpaaruf yiyvojj.evovf avrrjq, KOL OTUV vfi.lv /ieyu/l?/ 66t;ri elvai, v&vfj.ov(ie- vptjf on ro^fiuvTEf Kai, -yfyvuffKOVTEf TU deovra ical tv TO~( epyoif aiaxw6(it< oi uvdpsf avT& iKTrjaavro, etc. Compare ii. 63 the last speech cf Perlk.es. Thucyd. i. 80, 81, 141. 3 Xenoph. Hellen. v. 2, 21. The allied cities furnished money instead of men in the expedition of Mnasippus ,o Korkyra (Xenoph. Hellen. vi 2.16). * 1 hucyd. i. 9