The Historians' History of the World 04

Conon betook himself to the work energetically and without delay. He had quitted Athens in 407 B.C., as one of the joint admirals nominated after the disgrace of Alcibiades. He had parted with his countrymen finally at the catastrophe of Ægospotami in 405 B.C., preserving the miserable fraction of eight or nine ships out of that noble fleet which otherwise would have passed entire into the hands of Lysander. He now returned, in 393 B.C., as a second Themistocles, the deliverer of his country, and the restorer of her lost strength and independence. All hands were set to work; carpenters and masons being hired with the funds furnished by Pharnabazus, to complete the fortifications as quickly as possible. The Bœotians and other neighbours lent their aid zealously as volunteers—the same who eleven years before had danced to the sound of joyful music when the former walls were demolished; so completely had the feelings of Greece altered since that period. By such hearty co-operation, the work was finished during the course of the present summer and autumn without any opposition; and Athens enjoyed again her fortified Piræus and harbour, with a pair of long walls, straight and parallel, joining it securely to the city. The Athenian people not only inscribed on a pillar a public vote gratefully recording the exploits of Conon, but also erected a statue to his honour.

The importance of this event in reference to the future history of Athens was unspeakable. Though it did not restore to her either her former navy, or her former empire, it reconstituted her as a city not only self-determining but even partially ascendant. It reanimated her, if not into the Athens of Pericles, at least into that of Isocrates and Demosthenes: it imparted to her a second fill of strength, dignity, and commercial importance, during the half century destined to elapse before she was finally overwhelmed by the superior military force of Macedon. Those who recollect the extraordinary stratagem whereby Themistocles had contrived (eighty-five years before) to accomplish the fortification of Athens, in spite of the base but formidable jealousy of Sparta and her Peloponnesian allies, will be aware how much the consummation of the Themistoclean project had depended upon accident. Now, also, Conon in his restoration was favoured by unusual combinations such as no one could have predicted. So strangely did events run, that the energy, by which Dercyllidas preserved Abydos, brought upon Sparta, indirectly, the greater mischief of the new Cononian walls. It would have been better for Sparta that Pharnabazus should at once have recovered Abydos as well as the rest of his satrapy; in which case he would have had no wrongs remaining unavenged to incense him, and would have kept on his own side of the Ægean; feeding Conon with a modest squadron sufficient to keep the Lacedæmonian navy from again becoming formidable on the Asiatic side, but leaving the walls of Piræus (if we may borrow an expression of Plato) “to continue asleep in the bosom of the earth.”

Remains of a Great Wall at Messene

The presence of Pharnabazus and Conon with their commanding force in the Saronic Gulf, and the liberality with which the former furnished pecuniary aid to the latter for rebuilding the full fortifications of Athens, as well as to the Corinthians for the prosecution of the war—seem to have given preponderance to the confederates over Sparta for that year. The plans of Conon were extensive. He was the first to organise, for the defence of Corinth, a mercenary force which was afterwards improved and conducted with greater efficiency by Iphicrates; and after he had finished the fortifications of Piræus with the Long Walls, he employed himself in showing his force among the islands, for the purpose of laying the foundations of renewed maritime power for Athens.f

While this work was proceeding, the Corinthians, with the subsidy they had received, fitted out a squadron, with which their admiral Agathinus scoured the Corinthian Gulf. The Spartans sent Polemarchus with some galleys to oppose him: but their commander was soon after slain, and Pollis, who took his place, was compelled by a wound which he received in another engagement, to resign it to Herippidas. Herippidas seems to have driven the Corinthians from their station at Rhium: and Teleutias, who succeeded him, recovered the complete mastery of the gulf, and was thus enabled, as we have seen, to co-operate with Agesilaus at Lechæum.

THE EMBASSY OF ANTALCIDAS

[393-390 B.C.]