The battles of Salamis, Platæa, and Mycale were the successive blows that shattered into fragments the most splendid armaments ever commanded by Asiatic despot.
MEMORIALS AND TROPHIES OF THE WAR.—The glorious issue of the war caused a general burst of joy and exultation throughout all Greece. Poets, artists, and orators, all vied with one another in commemorating the deeds of the heroes whose valor had warded off the impending danger.
Nor did the pious Grecians think that the marvellous deliverance had been effected without the intervention of the gods in their behalf. To the temple at Delphi was gratefully consecrated a tenth of the immense spoils in gold and silver from the field of Platæa; and within the sanctuary of Athena, upon the Acropolis at Athens, were placed the broken cables of the Hellespontine bridges, at once a proud trophy of victory, and a signal illustration of the divine punishment that had befallen the audacious and impious attempt to lay a yoke upon the sacred waters of the Hellespont.
CHAPTER XIV.
PERIOD OF ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. (479–431 B.C.)
REBUILDING THE WALLS OF ATHENS.—After the Persians had been expelled from Greece, the first care of the Athenians was the rebuilding of their homes. Their next task was the restoration of the city walls. The exalted hopes for the future which had been raised by the almost incredible achievements of the past few months, led the Athenians to draw a vast circuit of seven miles about the Acropolis as the line of the new ramparts.
The rival states of the Peloponnesus watched the proceedings of the Athenians with the most jealous interest. While they could not but admire Athens, they feared her. Sparta sent an embassy to dissuade the citizens from rebuilding the walls, hypocritically assigning as the cause of her interest in the matter her solicitude lest, in case of another Persian invasion, the city, if captured, might become a shelter and defence to the enemy. But the Athenians persisted in their purpose, and in a marvellously short time had raised the wall to such a height that they could defy interference.
THEMISTOCLES' NAVAL POLICY.—Themistocles saw clearly that the supremacy of Athens among the Grecian states must be secured and maintained by her mastery of the sea. He had unbounded visions of the maritime power and glory that might come to her through her fleet, those "wooden walls" to which at this moment she owed her very existence; and he succeeded in inspiring his countrymen with his own enthusiasm and sanguine hopes.
In the prosecution of his views, Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to enlarge the harbor of Piræus, the most spacious of the ports of Athens, and to surround the place with immense walls, far exceeding, both in compass and strength, those of the capital. He also led his countrymen to the resolution of adding each year twenty well-equipped triremes to their navy.
This policy, initiated by Themistocles, was, as we shall see, zealously pursued by the statesmen that after him successively assumed the lead in Athenian affairs.
HIS OSTRACISM.—Themistocles well deserved the honor of being called, as he was, the founder of the New Athens. But, although an able statesman, he was an unscrupulous man. He accepted bribes and sold his influence, thereby acquiring an enormous property. Finally he was ostracized (471 B.C.). After long wanderings, he became a resident at the court of the Persian king.
Tradition affirms that Artaxerxes, in accordance with Persian usage, provided for the courtier exile by assigning to three cities in Asia Minor the care of providing for his table: one furnished bread, a second meat, and a third wines. It is told that one day, as he sat down to his richly loaded board, he exclaimed, "How much we should have lost, my children, if we had not been ruined!"
THE CONFEDERACY OF DELOS (477 B.C.).—In order that they might be able to carry on the war more effectively against the Persians, the Ionian states of Asia Minor, the islands of the Ægean, and some of the states in Greece proper, shortly after the battle of Platæa, formed themselves into what is known as the Confederacy of Delos. Sparta, on account of her military reputation, had hitherto been accorded the place of pre-eminence and authority in all such alliances of the Hellenic cities. She had come, indeed, to regard herself as the natural guardian and leader of Greece. But at this time the unbearable arrogance of the Spartan general Pausanias, who presumed upon the great reputation he had gained at the battle of Platæa, led the states which had entered into the alliance to look to Athens to assume the position of leadership in the new confederacy.
The lofty character of Aristides, who was now the most prominent Athenian leader, and his great reputation for fairness and incorruptible integrity, also contributed to the same result. He was chosen the first president of the league (477 B.C.), and the sacred island of Delos was made the repository of the common funds. What proportion of the ships and money needed for carrying out the purposes of the union should be contributed by the different states, was left entirely to the decision of Aristides, such was the confidence all had in his equity; and so long as he had control of the matter, none of the members of the alliance ever had cause of complaint.
Thus did Sparta lose, and Athens gain, the place of precedence among the Ionian states. The Dorian states of the Peloponnesus, in the main, still looked to Sparta as their leader and adviser. All Greece was thus divided into two great leagues, under the rival leadership of Sparta and Athens.
THE ATHENIANS CONVERT THE DELIAN LEAGUE INTO AN EMPIRE.—The Confederacy of Delos laid the basis of the imperial power of Athens. The Athenians misused their authority as leaders of the league, and gradually, during the interval between the formation of the union and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, reduced their allies, or confederates, to the condition of tributaries and subjects.
Athens transformed the league into an empire in the following manner. The contributions assessed by Aristides upon the different members of the confederation consisted of ships and their crews for the larger states, and of money payments for the smaller ones. From the first, Athens attended to this assessment matter, and saw to it that each member of the league made its proper contribution. After a while, some of the cities preferring to make a money payment in lieu of ships, Athens accepted the commutation, and then building the ships herself, added them to her own navy. Thus the confederates disarmed themselves and armed their master.
Very soon the restraints which Athens imposed upon her allies became irksome, and they began to refuse, one after another, to pay the assessment in any form. Naxos, one of the Cyclades, was the first island to secede, as it were, from the league (466 B.C.). But Athens had no idea of admitting any such doctrine of state rights, and with her powerful navy forced the Naxians to remain within the union, and to pay an increased tribute.
What happened in the case of Naxos happened in the case of almost all the other members of the confederation. By the year 449 B.C. only three of the island members of the league still retained their independence.
Even before this date (probably about 457 B.C.) the Athenians had transferred the common treasury from Delos to Athens, and diverting the tribute from its original purpose, were beginning to spend it, not in the prosecution of war against the Barbarians, but in the execution of home enterprises, as though the treasure were their own revenue.
Thus what had been simply a voluntary confederation of sovereign and independent cities, was converted into what was practically an absolute monarchy, with the Attic democracy as the imperial master.
What made this servitude of the former allies of Athens all the more galling was the fact that they themselves had been compelled to forge the very chains which fettered them; for it was their money that had built and was maintaining the fleet by which they were kept in subjection and forced to do whatever might be the will of the Athenians.
THE LEADERSHIP