The Historians' History of the World 03

In spite of his birth which classed him among the Eupatrids, Alcibiades, like Pericles, went over to the side of the people, and made himself the adversary of a man very different from himself, the superstitious Nicias, who was also a noble, rich and tried by long services. But Alcibiades had the advantage of him in audacity, fascination, and eloquence. Demosthenes regards him as the first orator of his time; not that he had a great flow of language; on the contrary, as his phrases did not come quickly enough, he frequently repeated the last words of his sentences; but the force and elegance of his speech and a certain lisp which was not displeasing, rendered him irresistible. His first political act was an unwelcome measure. He suggested an increase of the tribute of the allies, an imprudence which Pericles would not have committed. But Alcibiades had different schemes and different doctrines. He believed in the right of might and he made use of it; he looked forward to gigantic enterprises and he prepared the necessary means in advance. His inaction began to weigh on him. He was thirty-one years old and had as yet done nothing; so he bestirred himself considerably on the occasion of the treaty of 421. He would have liked to supplant Nicias and win the honour of the peace for himself. His flatteries to the prisoners of Sphacteria met with no success; the Spartans relied more on the old general, and Alcibiades bore them a grudge in consequence.

Alcibiades

There was no lack of men opposed to this treaty. It was signed amidst the applause of the old, the rich, and the cultivators, but in it Athens, through Nicias’ fault, had allowed herself to be ignominiously tricked. The merchants who during the war had seen the sea closed to their rivals and open to their own vessels, the sailors, the soldiers, and all the people of the Piræus who lived on their pay or their booty, formed a numerous party. Alcibiades constituted himself its chief. The warlike spirit which was to disappear only with Greece itself soon gave him allies from outside.

What Sparta and Athens were doing on a large scale was being done by other towns on a small one. Strong or weak, obscure or illustrious, all had the same ambition: all desired subjects. The Eleans had subdued the Lepreatæ, Mantinea and the towns in her neighbourhood; Thebes had knocked down the walls of Thespiæ in order to keep that town at her mercy; and Argos had transferred within her own walls the inhabitants of several townships of Argos, though in doing so she granted them civil rights. Sparta watched with annoyance this movement for the concentration of lesser cities round more powerful ones. She proclaimed the independence of the Lepreatæ, and secretly encouraged the defection of the subjects of Mantinea and the hatred of Epidaurus against Argos. But since Sphacteria she had lost her prestige. At Corinth, at Megara, in Bœotia, it was openly said that she had basely sacrificed the interests of her allies; indignation was especially felt at her alliance with Athens. The Peloponnesian league was in fact dissolved; one people dreamed of reconstituting it for their own advantage.

The repose and prosperity of Argos in the midst of the general conflict had increased her resources and her liberal policy towards the towns of the district had augmented her strength. But the new-comers were a powerful reinforcement to the democratic party whose influence impelled Argos on a line of policy opposed to that of the Spartans. This town therefore might and wished to become the centre of an anti-Lacedæmonian league. Mantinea, where the democracy predominated; the Eleans, who had been offended by Lacedæmon; Corinth, which, by the treaty of Nicias, lost two important towns in Acarnania, were ready to join their grudges and their forces. The Argives skilfully seized the opportunity; twelve deputies were sent to all the Greek cities which desired to form a confederation from which the two cities which were equally menacing to the common liberty, namely Sparta and Athens, should be excluded. But an agreement could not be arrived at. A league of the northern states was thus rendered abortive; nothing could yet be done without Sparta or Athens.