The Historians' History of the World 03

The first treaty guaranteed to the Greeks, according to usage, the right to offer sacrifices at Delphi, to consult its oracle and to attend its festivals. It was agreed that each side should restore the cities taken in war; Thebes alone was to be allowed to retain Platæa, in exchange for which the Athenians would keep Nisæa in the Megarid, and Anactorium and Sollium in Acarnania. It was stipulated that “what was decreed for the majority of the allies should bind them all, unless hindrances should occur on the part of the gods and heroes.” All the allies save Corinth, Megara, and the Eleans, accepted these conditions. It was finally decided that peace should be ratified by an oath renewed each year and inscribed upon the columns of Olympia and Delphi, of the temple of Poseidon on the isthmus, in the citadel at Athens, and the Amyclæum at Sparta.

One of the articles of the treaty read that prisoners should be restored on both sides. When those of Sphacteria arrived, they were degraded from their rights as citizens, that the stain on Spartan courage might be removed by showing that Lacedæmon recognised no compromise with duty, even in the face of death. It is true that shortly after, these same citizens were reinstated in their former position.

The first of these treaties which brought temporary cessation to the ills the people had suffered for the last ten years, bore the name of the honourable man who had been instrumental in having it drawn, Nicias. Who had profited by all the blood that had been shed? Sparta had increased neither in strength nor in glory, while Greece simply retained her original empire, her people not for a moment renouncing the hatred that had armed them against each other. No side had gained, and civilisation had lost what ten years of peace would have added to the brilliancy of the Age of Pericles.e

FOOTNOTES

[54] [Over five hundred of the oligarchical party escaped to Mount Istone, and when the Athenian fleet sailed away proceeded to make frequent raids upon the democratic strongholds, till in 425 the Athenian fleet on the way to Sicily paused in Corcyra and aided the people to storm Istone. The prisoners left to the mob were foully butchered and the oligarchical party annihilated.]

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE RISE OF ALCIBIADES

Thucydides remarks that after the Peace of Nicias, there was but one of the predictions current at the commencement of the Peloponnesian War that was reputed to have received its fulfilment: it was the one which declared that the war would last three times nine years. There were indeed three acts in this war; we have seen the first: the second was the uneasy truce which extends from 421 to 413 when, though there was no general war, war was everywhere. The last, from 413 to 404, includes the catastrophe and the train of circumstances which brought it about.

The first period is filled with Pericles; his policy survives him, and in spite of Cleon his spirit governs Athens; the second and third are entirely taken up by Alcibiades, his passions, his services, and his crimes.

[450-421 B.C.]

Alcibiades whose descent was derived from Ajax, was connected on his mother’s side with the Alemæonids. The death of his father Clinias, killed at Coronea, left him to the guardianship of his relatives, Pericles and Ariphron, who, on his attaining his majority, handed him over one of the great fortunes in Athens. With wealth and noble blood, he joined that beauty which in the estimation of this artist-people added to the brilliance of talents and virtue on the brows of Sophocles and Pericles, and always seemed a gift of the gods, even on the features of an athlete. Parasites, flatterers, all who are attracted by fortune, grace, and boldness, thronged round the footsteps of this rich and witty young man, who had become what in Athens was a power, namely the ruler of fashion. Accustomed in the midst of this train to find himself applauded for his wild actions, Alcibiades dared everything, and all with impunity. The force and flexibility of his temperament rendered him capable of vice and virtue, abstinence and debauchery, according to the hour, the day, or the place. In the city of Lycurgus there was no Spartan more harsh towards his body; in Asia he outdid the satraps in luxury and self-indulgence. But his audacity and his indomitable petulance compromised the long meditated plans of his ambition for the sake of a jest or an orgy. Lively and diverse passions carried him now in one direction, now in another, and always to excess, while in the stormy versatility of his character he did not find the curb which might have restrained him, namely, the sense of right and duty.