The History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume I (68 page)

[“
More
easily: for it was then impossible to lie round c.,
whilst
the Helots were not tender” c.]

[“Skins”. The seed of the white poppy, roasted and mixed with honey, was a dish in the second course amongst the ancients.]

[“Seeing that the transport of the necessary supplies round Peloponnesus would be impossible; (and this in a desert place, where even in summer they were unable to send them sufficient supplies); and that there could be no watch kept by their galleys, the place being harbourless: so that either, themselves giving over the blockade, the men would escape so, or taking advantage of some foul weather, they would get out aboard the ships that brought them food”.]

[“That the Lacedæmonians felt they had some strong ground to rely on”.]

[“He advised the Athenians, seeing them somewhat more inclined in their minds to the expedition, that it was not fit” c.]

[“The
generals
”: that is, the ten annually chosen.—“That himself
at any rate,
if he had” c.]

[“For what concerned them (the generals)”. Arnold.]

[Gave
up
his command.]

[“But nevertheless the affair gave great content to the wiser sort, considering that of two” c.]

[“And was proceeding to sail shortly”. Arnold.]

[“And he was confirmed” c.]

[“
He
was afraid”.]

[“For to themselves the deficiencies and the preparation of their enemy, being hidden by the wood, would not be equally visible”.]

[“In a great degree”. See i. 23.]

[“Having unwittingly set fire to a small part of the wood, and the wind” c.]

[Discerning that the Lacedæmonians were more c., “
and that
the Athenians would take the affair rather to heart as a matter of importance,
and that
the island was easier to land in than he thought for, did now prepare for the enterprise, and both sent” c.]

[“The middle of the island, being the most level and where lay the water, was kept” c.]

[“For there was
there
” c.]

[“They (the guards) being yet in their cabins and in the act of taking arms, and they (the Athenians) having landed unobserved; the Lacedæmonians thinking that those galleys had come” c.]

[The trireme had three ranks of rowers, the
Thranitæ, Zygitæ,
and
Thalamii.
Of these the Thalamii were the lowest order or least efficient men, and were therefore unprovided with arms and unfit for action. The relative position in the galley of these three ranks, is matter of doubt: some placing them one above the other, others the Thranitæ in the stern, the Zygitæ in midships, and the Thalamii in the head. Goeller.]

[“
Were
to follow them”. ἀπορώτατοι (
meanliest provided
c.) is rendered by Goeller “most difficult to get at”.—“Who are
formidable
at a distance”.]

[“Whilst the heavy–armed advanced not, but lay still”.]

[πῖλος seems to have signified a
helmet,
as well as a
jerkin
or lining of the breast–plate: here probably the latter. From its original signification of
hair,
it may be supposed to be something made of hair. Goeller.]

[“To the stronghold at the extremity of the island, which was not far off, and their own guards”.]

[“Wherever they gave a passage, and where trusting” c. Goeller.]

[“For there they were slain by the Persians, who turned them by the path (over the mountains)”.]

[“Knowing that if they gave ground any more, be it ever so little, they would be utterly destroyed by their army, stayed the fight” c.]

[“Whether would they” c.]

[“That had command (πρότερον) before Styphon”.]

[The Spartans had three officers chosen by the ephors, called Hippagretæ: each of whom chose 100 young men, the very flower of the Spartan youth, justifying his choice by his reasons. These 300 accompanied the king on expeditions not far from home: and were called, “the 300 horsemen”. (Muell. iii. 12.) But it is probable that Hippagretes is here a proper name and not that of the office.]

[“
Spartans
”: see ch. 8, note.]

[“By
what
was
brought
in”.]

[καλοὶ κ’αγαθοὶ, γενναῖοι, c. were the titles assumed by the aristocratical class in Greece: whilst the plebeians were designated as δειλοὶ, κακοὶ, πονηροὶ, and the like. See Aristot. iv. 8.]

[Pylos was destined to belong once more to the Messenians. The ancient inhabitants of Messenia (Caucones and Leleges) appear to have been mixed, before the Dorian invasion, with a people from the north of Thessaly. There stood an Ithome, a Tricca, and an Œchalia, all within the district afterwards called
Doris:
and it is probable that the irruption of the Dorians into Doris caused the migration that carried these names to Messenia. The Messenians are said to have submitted quietly to their Dorian sovereigns. Their Heracleid kings appear in fact to have adopted a wise and liberal system of government, very different from the oppressive rule of the Dorians in Laconia and Argolis. But the Dorians shrank from all intercourse with the native population: and jealous of the favour showed to them by Cresphontes, (the son of Aristomachus to whose lot fell Messenia), they assassinated him. His successors nevertheless are found dedicating temples and instituting rites in honour of the old Messenian gods and heroes, apparently for the purpose of effacing national distinctions by a common worship. Pylos, before the Dorian invasion the most important town of Messenia, seems to have remained long unsubdued, and to have been held by the Nestoridæ for several centuries after they had wrested it from the house of Atreus. Even in their second struggle with Sparta, in the seventh century A. C., the Messenians still found allies in the Nestoridæ: and after their defeat were long sheltered at Pylos and Methone. The revival of Messenia in 369, gave Sparta her death–blow. After the battle of Leuctra, the Messenians were recalled by Epaminondas to their native land: and the city of Messene was founded on the site of their ancient stronghold, Ithome. The chief of the new settlers appear to have been the Messenian exiles (see i. 103), who at the close of the Peloponnesian war were expelled from Naupactus, and betook themselves, part to their kinsmen at Rhegium, part to Hesperis, the Cyrenaic city in Africa. From their singular tenacity of the Doric dialect and customs, they seem to have included many Dorian families: and appear accordingly to have been very impatient under the democratic equality prevailing afterwards at Messene.]

[“And setting sail, betimes next morning they put in” c.]

[“
Twelve
stadia”. The isthmus, generally understood as the neck of land between Schœnus on the one sea, and Diholcus on the other: that is, as the names imply, the ancient place of transport over the isthmus: must here be taken as extending as far as Cenchreiæ.—Ephyra, the Dorian “Corinth of Jupiter”, became a seat of the Æolic race: but the more ancient population are believed to have been nearly allied to that of Attica: the legends of Sicyon and Corinth speak of an ancient connexion between this region and Attica: and the distinct traces of the Ionians found in Trœzen and Epidaurus, and the well attested antiquity of the Cynurians, “Ionians doricised under the Argives” (Herod. viii. 73), show that the Ionian name had in very early times prevailed on the eastern, as well as the western, side of Peloponnesus. The
Iasian,
supposed to mean
Ionian,
appears to be a more ancient epithet of Argos, than the
Achæan.
—This account of the reduction of Corinth, illustrates the Dorian mode of warfare in subduing the country: and also shows that the great revolution which imposed a foreign yoke on the Achæans, was not (according to the common legend) effected by a momentary struggle. The plan was to occupy a strong post, as the top of some hill, near the enemy’s city, and wear him out by incessant excursions. And when the number is considered (not exceeding 20,000) of the Dorian warriors migrating to Peloponnesus, it is difficult to conceive how a people, notoriously inexpert at storming fortifications, could subdue a country abounding in inaccessible strongholds in any other manner. The reduction of Argos, against which, after marching through Arcadia and seating themselves in the plains of Sparta, they first turned their arms, is another example. Upon a hill about three miles south of Argos, stands
Temenium:
a fortified place, so called from containing a monument of Temenus, one of the three sons of the Heracleid chief Aristomachus. From this spot, after a hard struggle and manifestly after the death of Temenus, the Dorians made themselves masters of Argos: and it is a fable therefore, which represents the descendants of Aristomachus as having nothing to do on entering Peloponnesus, but to cast lots and take possession of their several districts, Argolis, Messenia, and Laconia. Cresphontes, another son, founded a new capital in the plain of Stenyclerus: doubtless, as the first step towards the conquest of the whole land, neither Pylos nor Andania, the seat of the ancient Messenian kings, being yet in his possession. As to Laconia, it is clear that it cost the Dorians much time and toil to subdue it. Amyclæ, lying not three miles from Sparta, and apparently the ancient capital of the Achæan kings, was not reduced till the close of the ninth century, 300 years after the invasion: and Helos itself, not till later. Nor was it till about the first Olympiad, 776, that Laconia was so far subdued and tranquillized, as to enable the Spartans to turn their arms against their neighbours.]

[“As soon as it landed”.]

[“And retiring to a wall, they threw from above (for the place was all rising ground) the stones of the wall; and singing the Pæan, again charged: whom when” c.]

[“For that
the
horsemen supported the Athenians, and did them great” c. See chap. 42.]

[“The greatest slaughter was in the right wing”.]

To fetch off the dead by a herald, was a confession of being the weaker: but yet Nicias chooseth rather to renounce the reputation of victory, than omit an act of piety. Besides, the people took marvellously ill the neglect of the dead bodies: as may appear by their sentence on the captains after the battle of Arginusæ.

[“Wherein lies Methone.”]

[“Did not conceal their reluctance”.]

[“Whilst the greater part slew themselves, some with the arrows c., and others with cords c., in every conceivable way making away with themselves most part of the night (for c.): they perished also by the shot from above”. Goeller.]

[ϕορμηδὸν: see ii. 75, note.]

[“For of one of the parties”.]

[“And the Athenians sailed for Sicily, whither c.: and prosecuted” c.]

[“And the Acarnanians”.]

[“Out of the Assyrian
character
”. Fortassis hoc significat Thucydides: Persas non habuisse suas ac proprias literarum formas, sed ad scribendem adhibuisse literas Assyrias, quas pro antiquissimis habet Plinius; et ab Assyriis ad Phœnices aliosque Orientis populos venisse, viri docti existimant. Duker. It was in Assyrian and Greek characters that Darius inscribed, on the two pillars erected on the Bosphorus, the names of all the tribes that accompanied him in the Scythian expedition. Herod. iv. 87.]

[“Taking however from the Athenians such security as they could, that no innovation should be made in their state”. Goell. Arn.]

[“Coming from”.]

[“The cities called
Actææ,
formerly occupied by the Mytilenæans but then in the possession of the Athenians, and especially Antandros; which having fortified (seeing there was there abundant means for building galleys, c.) they might easily issue thence with” c. These cities, namely, Antandros, and perhaps Coryphantis and Heracleia, were taken by the Athenians, iii. 50.—Has ἀκταίας vocatas Thucydides dicit haud dubie quod in propinqua Lesbo ora Asiæ sitæ erant. Duker.]

[“Of the
Periœci
”: that is, not
Spartans:
see ch. 8. Cythera was colonized by Lacedæmonians (see vii. 57).—“And every year there
went
over” c.]

[“Being that way only vulnerable. For it (Laconia) lieth wholly out” c. Laconia is most properly described by the poet, as a country difficult of access to an enemy: a character of great historical importance. To the north and east, the plain of Sparta can be invaded by two natural passes only: one opening from the upper vale of the Eurotas; the other from that of the Œnus, in which a road leading from Arcadia by the western side of Parnon, and another crossing the same hill from Argos through Cynuria, meet at Sellasia. On the west, Taygetus forms an almost insurmountable barrier. It is indeed traversed by a track, which beginning near the head of the Messenian gulf, enters the plain near Sparta through a narrow defile at the foot of lofty and precipitous rocks. But this pass the simplest precautions would secure. At the mouth of the Laconian gulf, Cythera, with its excellent harbours, was a valuable appendage or a formidable neighbour. Thirl. Demaretus advised Xerxes to invade Laconia from this point: describing it, as an island which it were better for Sparta to be sunk in the sea. Herod. vii. 235.]