money; and that the change in the relative positions of Athens and her allies was brought about wholly by the acts of the latter. It may be true, as Thucydides asserts, that Athens was firm, even to harshness, in insisting that all should discharge to the full their duties as confederates. But with the Ionians it was the old story. The demands of Athens seemed hard only because they loathed the idea of long-continued strenuous exertion. But they were dealing now with men who were not to be trifled with; and as in some shape or other they must bear their measure of the general burden, the thought struck them that their end might be gained if they paid more money and furnished fewer ships and men, or none. Their proposal was accepted; and its immediate result was to inhance enormously the power of Athens, while in case of revolt they became practically helpless against a thoroughly disciplined and thoroughly resolute enemy.

Sestos and Byzantion had fallen, but Eion on the mouth of the Strymon was taken only after a desperate resistance; nor was it until ten years later that the victory of Kimon destroyed, it is said, on one and the same day (466 B.C.) the Phenician fleet of 200 ships at the mouth of the Eurymedon, in Pamphylia, and the land-forces with which it was destined to co-operate. This long-continued struggle with Persia after the battle of Mykalê involved the need of strenuous exertions: and for this the Ionians were not prepared. The Athenians on the other hand were not less resolved that the effort should be made ; and as soon as this radical difference of view began to find expression, the Delian synod was doomed, and the empire or tyranny of Athens had begun. Not many months after the victories of the Eurymedon a quarrel with the Thasians about their mines and trade on their Thrakian settlements was followed by open war; and the Athenians, to make all further rivalry impossible, sent 10,000 men as settlers to the spot called the Nine Roads, the site of the future Amphipolis. This post they succeeded in occupying; but tempted by the hope of large profits from mines to advance further inland, their whole force was virtually cut off by the Edonian Thrakians. This terrible disaster brought no relief to the Thasians, who in their distress besought aid from Sparta. The Spartans entered into a secret engagement to invade Attica, which proved that, apart from specific causes of offence, the mere greatness of

Athens was a wrong which they could not forgive. To this fear of Athens and to this alone we must trace the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war.

The evil feelings thus excited were stimulated by an affront given to the Athenians, who had been invited by the Spartans to aid them in putting down a revolt of the Helots (464 B.C.). The Athenian force sent under Kimon was employed for a time in the siege of Ithômê, where the Helots had taken refuge, and was then dismissed with a suddenness which betrayed the secret jealousy of the Spartans for Athens. The indignation stirred up in the Athenians by this conduct was no mere feeling of the moment. The policy of the philo-Lakonian party was cast to the winds: and proposals for a treaty of alliance were at once made to Argos, the ancient rival and enemy of Sparta. The Argives welcomed the alliance as one which might go far towards the recovery of their old supremacy. The fire thus kindled spread swiftly. The Thessalians were brought into the new confederacy; and Megara, tired out with Corinthian incroachments on her boundaries, flung herself into the arms of Athens (461 B.C.). Her friendship was eagerly welcomed, for the Athenians thus became possessed of the two Megarian ports, "Nisaia on the Saronic gulf and Pegai on that of Corinth, while their occupation of the passes of Geraneia rendered Spartan invasion of Attica practically impossible. Still further to strengthen their hold on Megara, they joined the city by long walls to its southern port of Nisaia, and within the fortress thus made they placed a permanent garrison. Meanwhile the siege of Ithômê went on; but at length the Helots came to terms with their besiegers. They were to leave the Peloponnesos, under the pain of becoming the slaves of any who might catch them if they dared to set foot there again. Departing on these terms they found a refuge in Naupaktos, which the Athenians had lately taken from the Ozolian Lokrians.

The Aiginetans meanwhile had resolved to measure themselves in earnest with the Athenians (459 B.C.). They went into battle, relying probably on the tactics which had destroyed the Persian fleets at Salamis and Mykalê: they came out of it, utterly ruined as a maritime power. On the Athenian side the history of this time with its rush of events and its startling changes exhibits a picture of astonishing and almost preternatural

energy. One Athenian army was besieging Aigina; another was absent in Egypt. A third, consisting of little more than old men and boys under Myronides, was holding down the Corinthians. Yet this was the time chosen by Perikles for carrying out at home the plan which on a very small scale had been adopted at Megara. To join Athens with Peiraieus on the one side and Phaleron on the other, one wall was needed of about 41⁄2 and another of about 4 English miles in length. Such an enterprise madeit evident to the Spartans that if the growth of Athens was to be arrested, it could be done only by setting up a counterpoise to her influence in northern Hellas. Hence for the sake of checking her they overcame their almost invincible dislike of regularly organized federations, and set to work to restore the supremacy of Thebes which had been most disgracefully zealous in the cause of Xerxes.

The Spartan and Athenian armies met at Tanagra, within sight of the Euripos: and the Athenians were defeated after a severe and bloody fight (457 B.C.). On the sixty-second day after the battle (the exactness of the chronology shows how firmly these incidents had fixed themselves on the memory of the people) Myronides marched into Boiotia, and by his splendid victory among the vineyards of Oinophyta raised the empire of Athens to the greatest height which it ever reached. From Megara and its harbours to the passes of Thermopylai Athens was now supreme; and this great exaltation was followed almost immediately by the humbling of her ancient foe Aigina. The walls of this ill-fated city were razed, her fleet was forfeited and the conquest crowned by the imposition of the tribute for maintaining the Athenian confederacy. Nor was this all. Great success was followed in some instances by failure, in others (as in Egypt) by disaster on a large scale; but these misfortunes had no effect in damping the spirit of the Athenians.

They were, indeed, none the less resolved to carry on the war against Persia, and Kimon was sent to Kypros (Cyprus) with 200 ships. Unable to stand out against this relentless hostility, Artaxerxes sent to Athens ambassadors charged with proposals for peace, and the Athenians, dispatching their own envoys to Sousa, headed by Kallias, concluded, it is said, the treaty which bears his name. By this convention the Persian king bound himself to send no ships of war beyond

the eastern promontory of Lykia, and to respect the Thrakian Bosporos as the entrance to Hellenic waters (455 B.C.).

Thus had Athens reached the zenith of her greatness, not by an unbroken series of victories such as may be recorded in the career of mythical conquerors, but by the persistent resolution which will draw from success the utmost possible encouragement, while it refuses to bend even beneath great reverses. On a foundation of shifting materials she had raised the fabric of a great empire, and she had done this by compelling the members of her confederation to work together for a common end, while refusal on their part had been followed by summary chastisement. In short, she was throughout offending that sentiment of the Hellenic mind which regarded the city as the ultimate unit of society: and of this feeling Sparta availed herself in order to break up the league which threatened to make her insignificant by land as it had practically deprived her of all power by sea. The designs of Athens were manifested by the substitution of democracy for oligarchy in the cities subjected to her rule; and a formidable body of aristocratic exiles furious in their hatred of Athens was scattered through Hellas. Nine years after the battle of Oinophyta (447 B.C.) the storm burst on the shores of the lake Kopaïs. The banished Eupatrids were masters of Orchomenos, Chaironeia, and some other Boiotian cities: and against these an Athenian army marched under Tolmides, a general whose zeal outran his discretion. He had taken Chaironeia, and was marching southwards when he was attacked in the territory of Koroneia. The result was a ruinous defeat for the Athenians, who to recover their prisoners agreed to evacuate Boiotia.

The land-empire of Athens was doomed to fall as rapidly as it rose. The revolt of Euboia was the natural fruit of revived oligarchy; but scarcely had Perikles with an Athenian army landed in the island, when the more terrible tidings reached them that Megara also was in revolt (446 B.C.). A. Peloponnesian army was already in Attica when Perikles returned in haste with his army from Euboia; but the retreat of the Peloponnesians left Perikles free to deal with the Euboians as he thought fit. The whole island was subdued, and definite treaties were made with all the cities except Histiaia, where the inhabitants were expelled, and Athenian Klerouchoi, or settlers, introduced in

their place. The conquest of Euboia was followed by a truce with Sparta for thirty years, by which the Athenians surrendered Troizen and Achaia, together with the harbours of Megara.

The general course of this history has shown that the periods in which Athens was most aggressive abroad were the periods in which the principles of democracy were being most rapidly developed at home. The first great blow was struck at the religious exclusiveness of the ancient Eupatrid houses when Solon gave to the peasant cultivators a permanent interest in the land, and when he followed up this momentous reform by introducing a classification of citizens based not upon religion and blood but upon property. The stone had been set rolling, but it had not yet moved far. Hence Kleisthenes found himself summoned to a warfare in which he had still to fight against the old enemies. If only members of the religious tribes could fill the public offices, Athens must remain as insignificant as she had been before the days of Solon. Kleisthenes cut the knot by inrolling all the citizens into ten new tribes, against the local aggregation of which he made most careful provision. But although the religious exclusiveness of the old Eupatrids could no longer be maintained, another oligarchic influence remained in the preponderance of wealth. As a matter of fact it was unlikely that, even if all restrictions were removed, poor men would, except in rare instances, be chosen to fill high public offices: but by the constitution of Kleisthenes the members of the lowest or poorest class,-in other words, the main body of Athenian citizens,—were declared ineligible for the Archonship, and it was reserved for the conservative Aristeides to propose the removal of this restriction, when the growth of a large maritime population at the Peiraieus, animated by a hearty obedience to law and exhibiting a marked contrast to the turbulence of the wealthier Hoplites, proved the wisdom of abolishing it. The result showed that eligibility was not always or often followed by election. It was certain, therefore, that the party of progress would seek to devise some means for securing to the poorer citizens the privileges and powers of which they had shown themselves deserving, while the conservative statesmen would seek to keep things as they were. The former party was headed by Perikles and Ephialtes: at the