The Athenian siege of Potidaea further angered the Corinthians and intensified their haste to bring Sparta into a war against the Athenians. Corinthian citizens were in the besieged city, and at any moment it might surrender, exposing the loyal colony of Corinth to Athenian vengeance. The Corinthians hurried to their Peloponnesian allies, urging them to go to Sparta. Among those who sent delegates were the Aeginetans, who did so secretly out of fear of Athens. They immediately joined the Corinthians in persuading the others who had come that Athens had broken the treaty.1 It is worth emphasizing that even at this point it was left to the Corinthians to force the Spartans to act. Only Sparta could call a meeting of her allies, but she had not done so. The Corinthians, therefore, on their own, invited aggrieved allies to Sparta to exert pressure on the Spartans.
This tactic was successful, and in July of 432 the ephors invited their allies as well as anyone else who had a complaint against Athens to a meeting of the Spartan assembly.2 This was not a meeting of the Peloponnesian League, and that fact is significant. It was a meeting of the Spartans to which foreigners were invited for the purpose of giving testimony and information. It is clear that the citizens of Sparta were not of a mind to go to war, and the ephors called the meeting to change their views. For this purpose all complainants would be helpful, whether or not they were allies. Aegina, in fact, was not an ally, but her complaints would help the cause of the ephors and the war party.3 In the same way, all complaints, whether or not they could be called violations of the Thirty Years’ Peace, would help to fan the flames of Spartan resentment.
Among those who spoke, the Megarians made the loudest complaints, chiefly because of the Megarian Decree. The last to speak were the Corinthians, after they had shrewdly allowed the others to excite the Spartans. As the audience was composed of Spartans, the main purpose of the Corinthian speaker was to persuade the Spartan peace party and the Spartans who wavered between war and peace to break with Athens.4 The war party, of course, was already convinced; what was needed was an indictment of the policy of peaceful coexistence that Sparta had followed since 445 which would show that it had harmed Sparta and would harm her still more if it were not immediately abandoned. Even more, it was necessary to frighten Sparta into action, for fear seemed to be the only way to move her. The Corinthian speech tried to accomplish both purposes in the face of a serious difficulty. The Spartans did not trust the Corinthians or their motives.
The Corinthians complain with some asperity that although they had given the Spartans repeated warning of Athens’ evil intentions, Sparta had paid no attention, for the Spartans believed that the Corinthians spoke on behalf of their own private interests.5 In this the Spartans were quite right, for as we have seen, the Athenians had taken no action that directly interfered with Spartan interests. Even the Megarian Decree and the affair at Potidaea, which were at least doubtful cases, had arisen as a result of Corinth’s own quarrel with Athens. The Spartans knew quite well that it had long been the Corinthian habit to use the Spartan alliance for purely Corinthian purposes. It was this knowledge that the Corinthians must counteract to succeed.
Suspicion of Corinthian motives, they argued, is the cause for Spartan inaction, and that suspicion is both unjustified and dangerous. It is unjustified because Athenian arrogance and aggression are now patent. The Athenians have already enslaved some states, presumably a reference to Aegina. They have long been preparing for war and are now on the point of enslaving still other states, among them allies of Sparta. This last reference, of course, is to Megara. This suspicion and consequent delay have already cost the Peloponnesians dearly. Corcyra, which could have supplied a large fleet, is in Athenian hands; Potidaea, which would provide a valuable base in Thrace, is under siege.6
For all this the Corinthians blamed Sparta, but it was perfectly clear that their barbs were aimed solely at the peace party which had dominated Spartan politics and formulated the policy under attack. They subjected the whole history of that policy to a brief but scathing review. Sparta had allowed Athens to fortify her city after the Persian Wars and then to build the long walls that made their city invulnerable. By this passive policy Sparta shared in the blame for the enslavement of Greece, for she had the power to prevent it but did not, although she had the proud reputation of being the liberator of Greece. Now the Athenian power had already doubled itself (the reference must be to the acquisition of the Corcyrean fleet), and Sparta was still inert. In the same way the Spartans had allowed the Persians to reach the Peloponnese before they had offered serious opposition, and it was only because of the Persians own mistakes that they had been beaten. In the same way, the Corinthians point out, the previous success of the Peloponnesians against Athens had been caused by Athenian mistakes. The reference here must be to the Egyptian campaign and possibly to the campaign in Boeotia. In short, the Corinthians argued that the Greeks enjoyed their freedom not because of the Spartan policy of caution but in spite of it.7
It next behooved the Corinthians to emphasize that the traditional Spartan policy was especially ill suited to stop Athenian aggression. To begin with, the Athenians were far closer than the Persians. They were, moreover, particularly dangerous and deceptive opponents who moved against their neighbors little by little. This remark, apparently made in passing, was particularly important to the Corinthian case. The Athenians had in fact done nothing expressly contrary to the treaty, nothing directly against Sparta, and nothing in itself very menacing. The Corinthians tried to turn these very facts to their advantage by suggesting that in the very indefiniteness of the Athenian actions lay their greatest danger. Indeed, the greatest part of the Corinthian argument rested not on what Athens had already done, not on the moral, legal, or strategic significance of the actions the Athenians had already taken, but rather on an interpretation of the Athenian character that indicated Athens’ future actions.
This interpretation is presented in the most striking way possible by contrasting the Athenian character with that of the Spartans. Since the rhetoric is no less important than the matter of this argument, the invidious comparison deserves quotation.
You have never considered what sort of men you are going to fight and how totally different they are from you. They are revolutionary and quick to formulate plans and put them into action, while you preserve what you have, invent nothing new, and when you act do not even complete what is necessary. Again, they are daring beyond their power, run risks beyond wisdom, and are hopeful amidst dangers, while it is your way to do less than your power permits, to distrust your surest judgments, and to think that you will be destroyed by any dangers. Besides, they are unhesitating while you delay, they are always abroad while you stay at home, for they think that by their absence from home they may gain something while you believe that by going out for something you will lose what you already have. When they have conquered their enemies they pursue them as far as possible and if beaten they yield as little ground as they can. In addition to that they use their bodies in the service of the city as though they belonged to someone else, at the same time as they keep their judgment solely their own so as to use it for the city. And when they have thought of a plan and failed to carry it through to full success, they think they have been deprived of their own property; when they have acquired what they aimed at, they think it only a small thing compared with what they will acquire in the future. If it happens that an attempt fails, they form a new hope to compensate for the loss. For with them alone it is the same thing to hope and to have, when once they have invented a scheme, because of the swiftness with which they carry out what they have planned. And in this way they wear out their entire lives with labor and dangers, and they enjoy what they have the least of all men because they are always engaged in acquisition and because they think their only holiday is to do what is their duty and also because they consider tranquil peace a greater disaster than painful activity. As a result, one would be correct in saying that it is their nature neither to enjoy peace themselves nor to allow it to other men.8
Some scholars interpret this speech in a rather broad sense, as a contrast between the quietism of oligarchy and the revolutionary activism of democracy,9 but its point is much more intensely immediate. The message it carries is that Athens is and has been a dangerously aggressive and revolutionary state that must be stopped before its power becomes overwhelming. Its character is such as to make traditional Spartan policy obsolete and even dangerous. The policy of cautious, watchful waiting, the Corinthians argued, was not praiseworthy prudence. It was, instead, evidence of a suicidal incapacity to lead the struggle for freedom against a foe of the restless, innovative, and aggressive character of the Athenians.
It is immediately evident that the Corinthian portrait of both Spartans and Athenians is enormously exaggerated. A people so sluggish and unimaginative as the Spartans depicted by the Corinthian speech could hardly have won mastery over the Peloponnese, leadership of the Greeks in the successful resistance to Persia, and victory in the First Peloponnesian War. Even if we make allowances for the intensity of Corinthian feelings and the heat of the moment, we must admit that such a caricature could hardly have hoped to win the sympathy of the Spartans. But it was not intended to be a picture of the whole Spartan people; instead it was an indictment of the leaders of the peace party and their policy. We have seen that not all Spartans had favored the policy of quietism that Sparta had adopted after the disgrace of Pausanias. The Corinthian speech was intended in part to show that the aggressive dissenters had been right and the pacific victors wrong. The inflammatory rhetoric was well designed to encourage criticism of the peace party and support for its enemies.
The depiction of Athenian actions and character is even more remote from the facts. Athens had made no significant territorial acquisitions since the 450’s. Her policy in regard to Sparta and her allies had, since 445, been a model of restraint. In suppressing revolution and defection in their empire, the Athenians had done no more than the Spartans had in consolidating their hold over the Peloponnese in the decade or so after the Persian War. Only within the last year had the Athenians taken actions that could even remotely fit the characterization of the Corinthians, and it was clear that those actions had been brought on by Corinth’s quarrel with Corcyra, precisely the kind of private quarrel that made Spartans suspicious of Corinthian motives. It was important for the Corinthians to shift the emphasis away from these recent actions, for they might be regarded as a momentary aberration brought on by a specific conflict that could be resolved by prudence, patience, and restraint. Instead, they must be depicted as the continuation of a well-established policy that arose inevitably from the institutions and character of the Athenian people. That character must be shown to make peaceful coexistence impossible, even if the present crisis could be passed. Prejudice, suspicion, and fear, all are employed to overshadow the facts of recent history and to drive the Spartans toward war.
The Corinthians concluded their appeal, turning away from generalities, with specific demands capped by an open threat. The Spartans must keep their promise to the Potidaeans by quickly invading Attica. If they do not, the Corinthians, and perhaps others, will renounce the Spartan alliance and seek allies elsewhere.10 No doubt some Spartans took this threat seriously, and at least one modern scholar of great shrewdness has done the same. Eduard Meyer believes that Corinth’s threat to seek allies elsewhere, probably in Argos, was “a knife at the breast” of Sparta. He compares the situation with the one after the Peace of Nicias. On that occasion Sparta completely disregarded Corinthian interests with the result that Corinth organized a separate alliance that threatened to destroy Sparta’s control of the Peloponnese.11 In fact, the situations are not at all comparable. In 421, Argos, just then freed of her treaty with Sparta, was eager to take advantage of Sparta’s problems to regain lost territories which had been long disputed. Sparta, moreover, was worn out by ten years of unsuccessful warfare, her strength was impaired, and her prestige at very low ebb. Other important allies of Sparta, such as Megara, Thebes, Elis, and Mantinea, were thoroughly dissatisfied with Spartan hegemony. It is important to point out, moreover, that even with such a splendid opportunity to form a separate alliance of the discontented powers, Corinth never joined the new coalition that she helped to create. She used it instead as a threat with which to compel Sparta to resume a war that Corinth wanted but Sparta did not.12
In the summer of 432 the situation was quite different. Argos was bound to Sparta by treaty and, more important, by her impotence in the face of a Spartan army whose power and prestige were unchallenged. There was no threat of defections from Spartan hegemony elsewhere. Besides Corinth only Aegina, which was impotent and under Athenian control, and Megara, a negligible power unaided by Sparta, were dissatisfied with Spartan policy. The fact is that Corinth’s threat of defection was completely empty. If the Corinthians could not drive the Spartans to fight, they had nowhere else to go. They must either fight Athens alone, which would be suicidal, or accept the situation, which would be irritating, embarrassing, perhaps even infuriating, but which would not damage any of Corinth’s vital interests. The damage would be largely psychological; Corinth would have to accept the fact that, unlike Sparta and Athens, she was a power of the second rank. She refused to accept this, and that refusal drove the Corinthians to bring on a disastrous war.
Even the Spartan peace party could not know that the Corinthian threat was vain with the confidence that we know it, although they surely suspected it. But before its leaders could defend their policy against the Corinthian attack, another speech intervened. It was made by an Athenian, part of an embassy that Thucydides tells us “happened to have been present beforehand on other business.” The ambassadors were present at the Spartan assembly, and when they heard the other speeches they decided to make a speech of their own. It is often supposed that no such embassy was present and that the speech was invented by Thucydides out of whole cloth, “as a device for introducing as early as possible a telling apology for the Athenian empire.” 13 There are very persuasive artistic arguments against this view,14 but the best argument is very simple. When Thucydides tells us that there was an Athenian embassy in Sparta, that it attended the assembly, and that its spokesman rose to speak, he is making flat statements of facts. To doubt them is to doubt that Pericles delivered a funeral oration, that a battle took place at Mantinea, or that Melos was destroyed. We have a duty to question Thucydides’ interpretations, but if we are to deny his simplest statements of fact, we must give up any hope of dealing with the history he purports to describe. On the principle that it is proper to accept the facts presented by Thucydides unless they are contradicted by better evidence, we are compelled to believe in the reality of the Athenian speech at Sparta, if not in the perfect accuracy of the Thucydidean version.15
It is, moreover, altogether natural and reasonable that the Athenians should have been in Sparta and acted as they did. Pericles must havex heard of the Corinthian machinations in Sparta and of the Spartan invitation to those who thought themselves wronged by Athens. If he learned of these things from no one else, he must have done so from his friends in Sparta who had an interest in thwarting the Corinthians and the Spartan war party. The fact that he sent no official spokesman to present the Athenian side of things is no accident. It was his position that Athens had taken no action to put her in conflict with Sparta; thus, it would not be appropriate to defend the Athenian actions to the Spartans. This point is made emphatically both by the Athenian spokesman and by Thucydides himself.16 On the other hand, it would be very useful to have firsthand information of what took place in the Spartan assembly with all the nuances. At the same time, it was very possible that the occasion might arise where a statement of the attitude and policy of Athens might prevent the Spartans from taking reckless actions that they might regret. We may imagine that the Athenian ambassadors, like the generals at Sybota, were chosen for their wisdom, asked to use their judgment as to whether and when to act, and given very explicit instructions as to what they should say if the occasion arose.
The embassy, whose official cover story we never learn, arrived in advance of the assembly, and when the opportunity arose, they intervened. The content of their speech has given modern scholars no little trouble. It does not seem to provide a direct defense against the Corinthian attack, which, as we have seen, was in any case something more subtle and complicated than merely an attack on the Athenians. It is ignored by the speech that Archidamus makes a little later on. Thucydides does not tell us the name of the Athenian ambassadors or of their spokesman, although he surely knew them. But the most difficult problem of all has been to decide on the purpose of the speech, for it has seemed to many to be deliberately provocative and calculated to bring on the war, yet Thucydides clearly believed the contrary to be true.17 Most of the problems disappear, however, if we regard the speech that Thucydides reports as a reasonably accurate account of the general tenor of what was said and examine that speech in the light of its political context.
The Athenians at the very outset try to make clear what their purpose is and what it is not. They have not come to argue against the allies of Sparta, nor do they want to answer the specific charges alleged against Athens by the several cities. That would be altogether inappropriate, for the Athenians do not recognize the Spartans as their judges. Their intentions, rather, are threefold: to prevent the Spartans from yielding to the arguments of their allies and thereby too quickly making a bad decision about very important matters; to show that Athens has come into possession of its empire fairly; and to demonstrate that their city was far from contemptible in its power.18 They began by pointing out at some length the extraordinary services Athens had performed in defense of the Greeks, not least among whom were the Spartans themselves, during the Persian War. This was hardly a tactful recitation and could not be expected to soften the Spartan attitude towards Athenian actions, but the Athenian spokesman himself makes it clear that he did not intend it to do so. “We will recount these facts,” he says, “not as a plea but as an evidence and a demonstration of what sort of city you will encounter if you make the wrong decision.” 19
In any case, the recital of Athens’ deeds in the Persian War is a necessary preliminary to the account of how Athens acquired her empire. That account, of course, makes no attempt to answer the specific complaints made by Sparta’s allies about Corcyra, Megara, Aegina, and Potidaea. In a deeper sense, however, it does answer the charge implicit in the entire Corinthian attack that the Athenian Empire is an arrogant, tyrannous, and aggressive power which Athens has acquired by a continuous application of force and guile. In the process it carries out the promise that the speaker has made to show that the Athenians have acquired their empire justly. He asserts that the Athenians have not gained their empire by force, but that the allies accepted their leadership voluntarily after the Spartans had refused to accept the hegemony of the Greek war against the Persians. They were compelled to extend the boundaries of their empire at first from fear, then for the sake of honor, and finally, he frankly admits, out of self-interest. With remarkable candor he goes on to admit that in the process of gaining and ruling their empire the Athenians incurred the hatred of many of their allies. Some of them had already revolted and been made subject as a result. By that time Sparta had become hostile to Athens, and it was no longer safe to relax Athenian control for fear that her subjects would secede and join the Spartan alliance.
It is hard to believe that the Athenian speaker was quite so candid. His altogether objective account of the growth of the Athenian Empire is a splendid summary of Thucydides’ account in chapters 89 to 118 of his first book, and we may well imagine that Thucydides, who was not present to hear the speech, may have put more than a little of his own thought and language into it. In spite of that, there was probably quite a bit of frankness, even bluntness, in the original speech where it would serve the speaker’s purpose. His remarks were addressed to a hostile audience; any attempt to put a better face on Athenian actions than they deserved would be immediately detected and earn nothing but contempt. It was, on the other hand, not the Athenian purpose to pretend that the Athenian actions were virtuous, but rather that they were justified and even necessary. The Athenian spokesman thought that the necessities that had compelled his city’s actions should be readily comprehensible to another hegemonal power. The Spartans, he pointed out, dictate the form of constitution that their Peloponnesian allies employ in accordance with the interests of Sparta. If they had maintained their hegemony in the war against Persia, they would have found it necessary to take similar measures too, would have become equally unpopular, and would have faced the same choice: to rule strongly or surrender leadership. All this was quite understandable, for it was always the rule of human nature for the strong to rule over the weak.20
In this last statement it is easy to see an anticipation of the argument the Athenians use in the Melian Dialogue, but the two situations are quite different. On the later occasion, the Athenians justified an atrocity they were about to commit to a lesser state. At the assembly in Sparta the Athenian spokesman addresses his observation to a powerful state on the verge of launching a great war against Athens. The argument asserts that, given the power that the two great super-powers have achieved, it is idle to talk of liberty or autonomy. The simple fact is that all the other states must accept the leadership of the hegemonal states whether in the open or covertly. The Athenian argues that Athens accepted the leadership of her allies because “we thought we were worthy, and you thought so too, until now, having calculated your interests, you employ the argument of justice.”21 The fact is, argues the Athenian, that anyone in a position of leadership, no matter how just and moderate his hegemony, will soon become unpopular.
Indeed, the Athenians complain that their very moderation and their attempts to treat their allies as equals has made their rule harder to bear. “It seems that men who are victims of injustice are more resentful than those who are the victims of violence, for the former seem to be deprived by an equal while the latter are coerced by someone stronger.”22 This is illustrated by the fact that the Athenian allies were more acquiescent under Persian rule than they are under Athenian leadership. And now the Athenian drove home the point of this lesson. If the Spartans destroy the Athenian Empire, the result will not be the restoration of independence to all the subjects of Athens. Instead, Sparta will succeed to the hegemony, and that will be neither pleasant nor suitable for the Spartans. Sparta will soon lose the good will it now enjoys as a result of Athenian unpopularity. The management of an overseas empire, moreover, is incompatible with Spartan mores and institutions. The debacle of Pausanias has already demonstrated that fact. “The customs you employ at home are not reconcilable with those of the other Greeks, and whenever any one of you goes abroad he acts in such a way as to conform neither to these nor to those of the other Greeks.”23
Thus, the account the Athenians have given of their acquisition of empire and the nature of their rule is not a general discussion of imperialism thrust into the debate by Thucydides, nor is it an attempt to defend or palliate Athenian actions. It is instead part of a very intelligent and practical argument, the point of which is to make Sparta think twice before plunging into a war that will not only be dangerous but will be likely to bring results very different from what the Spartans anticipate. The argument is not only very pointed in its application to the immediate decision on foreign policy, but it also is subtly directed to the continuing split in internal Spartan politics. One of the main reasons for Spartan conservatism had always been the realization of some of its leaders that involvement in adventures outside the Peloponnese threatened the cherished stability of the Spartan constitution and the preservation of the Spartan way of life. The adventures of Cleomenes, Pausanias, and Leotychidas had all led to danger, corruption, and disgrace. As we shall see, the Spartan war party and those they persuaded imagined that the war would be quick and probably settled by a single great battle. Afterwards, they thought, Greece would be free and Sparta could retire to the Peloponnese with renewed prestige, honor, and power. No doubt there were some who saw things more clearly and were glad to try to replace Athens as the head of a great empire and unafraid of the great wealth that would come with hegemony. But they were surely in a minority and not eager to have their ambitions broadcast to the conservative majority.
In his peroration the Athenian emphasized the gravity of the Spartan decision. He urged the Spartans to be slow in making such a momentous choice. He spoke with particular emphasis of the incalculability of war and the role of mere change in a war of long duration, as this one was likely to be. Finally, he asked the Spartans not to break the treaty in violation of their oaths, but instead to accept arbitration on all disputed points as provided by the treaty. If the Spartans refuse, however, “calling on the gods by whom we have sworn as witnesses, we shall try to take vengeance on those who have started the war where you have led the way.”24
It should be clear from this summary and analysis that we have no reason to believe that the Athenians intended their speech to provoke a war. Thucydides tells us just the opposite: the Athenians wanted to persuade the Spartans not to decide hastily. “At the same time they wanted to make clear the great power of their city, to offer a reminder to the older men of what they already knew and to the younger men of the things of which they were ignorant, thinking that because of their arguments the Spartans would incline to peace instead of war.”25 It is true that on this occasion Thucydides is not merely stating a fact but offering his understanding of an intention. Yet he had every opportunity to ask the Athenian ambassadors what their intention was and he surely did so. If he reports it incorrectly he is not guilty of an error of interpretation but of a total and deliberate deception. We have no reason to suspect him of such falsification. It is perfectly true that the Athenian line may be characterized as hard, perhaps even as unyielding, in spite of the offer of arbitration that concludes the speech. But this does not mean that it could not have been intended to persuade the Spartans to keep the peace. In any such confrontation, there are two basic tacks that may be taken. The line of sweet reasonableness tries to minimize differences, to yield wherever possible, to palliate actions that have caused friction. Such a line was taken by the western powers against Hitler in the 1930’s, and its enemies gave it the pejorative epithet “appeasement.” Sometimes such a procedure is justified and brings peace; sometimes it does not. The other basic approach tries not to appease but to deter. It assumes that the other side has more to lose than to gain by fighting a war and tries to demonstrate that fact to the adversary. It is careful to be and to appear unyielding with the intention of depriving the adversary of false illusions of a cheap and easy victory and of bringing home to him the determination of his foe and the costliness of a war. Such a policy was followed by the United States after the Second World War vis à vis Russia. It is a dangerous policy and may in some cases bring on the very war it tries to avoid. Up to now, at least, it has not done so; peace has been preserved for over two decades and the tension between the adversaries seems somewhat less than it was at the beginning of the confrontation.
The point is that the toughness of the Periclean line says nothing about its intentions. We have every reason to believe that Pericles wanted peace, still thought it possible in July, 432 and sent his ambassadors to Sparta in the hopes of preventing a Spartan declaration for war. The Athenian speech already made clear the terms he insisted upon and to which he would hold without deviation to the end. He would not defend Athens to Sparta, because Sparta was not involved and was certainly not a proper judge of Athenian actions. Athens would not yield to threats but would fight if forced to do so. On the other hand, the Athenians were prepared to submit all disputes to impartial arbitration.
If the speech had achieved its desired result, it would have had a sobering effect on the Spartans and inclined them to the conservative position of the peace party. But the ephors, the allies, and the cumulative effect of Athens’ recent actions had done their work too well. After the Athenian speech the Spartans asked all strangers to withdraw and discussed their decision among themselves. The majority clearly believed that the Athenians were in the wrong and that Sparta should go to war immediately. At that moment Archidamus rose to speak. The venerable king, a personal friend of Pericles and the leader of the peace party, “a man with a reputation for wisdom and prudence,”26 made a final attempt to stem the tide moving his city toward a war that he knew would be dreadful.
Although a large part of his speech is devoted to the task of answering the Corinthian charges and defending the conservative peace policy that he supported throughout his career, Archidamus did not ignore the Athenian speech, as some have thought. In fact, the first part of his address is a subtle expansion and documentation of the points made by the Athenians: Athens is an unusual and powerful state which will prove a dangerous enemy; the war will be long and its outcome incalculable; the Spartans should not rush into such a serious and fateful decision. Athens is unlike the other Greek states of the Peloponnese and its environs. The Athenians have ships, experienced sailors, horses, weapons, money, a very large population, and many allies who pay tribute. In all these respects Sparta is inferior.27 What kind of a war can the Spartans hope to fight against such a foe?
It is clear that the average Spartan who favored war looked to the past for a model of what the next war would be like, as men have never ceased to do. They expected that the Athenians would never allow the Spartans to destroy their crops, but would come out to their frontier to defend their fields in the traditional way. Either they would surrender before fighting as they had in 446, or they would be defeated in a single battle. The Spartans would never have undertaken a war that they truly believed would be long and costly. One of Archidamus’ major aims was to emphasize the point made by the Athenians. He admitted that the Spartans had the military superiority easily to invade and lay waste the fields of Attica. “But they have plenty of other territory which they rule, and they will get what they need by sea.”28
If the Spartans answered by encouraging revolt among the Athenian allies, they would need a navy to support the rebels, and where would they get it? Unless the Spartans could gain control of the seas or cut off the financial resources of Athens, they could not win such a war as they must fight. It would be vain for the Spartans to hope that “the war will quickly come to an end if we ravage their land.”29 Nor should they expect the Athenians to be so foolish as to “enslave themselves to their land” or to give way to panic when the war should come. In prophetic words Archidamus told the Spartans, “I fear, rather, that we shall pass this war on to our children.”30
It was also necessary for the aged king to defend his policy against the Corinthian attack, and since that attack came in such general terms, the defense amounted to an apologia for the entire way of life in which Archidamus believed. At the same time it contained sharp refutations of many points made by the Corinthians. The slowness and caution with which the Corinthians reproach us, he said, is no cause for shame. That caution has served Sparta well in the past; because of it “we have always lived in a city that was both free and of the best reputation.”31 Just as the Corinthians contrasted the Spartan character with that of the Athenians to make their point, Archidamus compared the Spartan character with the Corinthians’ to make his. Although he never mentions the Corinthians by name, his target is perfectly clear. What the Corinthians call sluggishness (τὸ βραδύ) may be more correctly designated prudent self-control (σωϕροσύνη ἔμϕρων). Because we have it we do not become arrogant when successful nor unduly yielding when things go wrong. Because of this quality we can neither be flattered nor goaded into imprudent decisions. We have become good at war and government because we are a well-ordered people (διὰ τὸ ἐύκοσμον). The same qualities the Corinthians criticize make us brave fighters and disciplined, law-abiding citizens.
Then Archidamus turned the attack against the Corinthians. “We are not so clever at useless things that we can disparage the enemy’s preparations in a fine speech but not carry it through in action.”32 This was a jarring and not unduly subtle reference to the naval and military reversals Corinth had suffered at Athenian hands, first at Corcyra and then at Potidaea. No doubt Corinth had encouraged her allies with confident words on those occasions too, but had fought without success on both occasions. “We think that the plans of our neighbors are very much like our own and that what will happen by chance is beyond determination by reason.”33 The Spartans go to war on the assumption that their opponents are not fools, counting not on mistakes they hope the enemy will make, but on their own preparations. In a single sentence Archidamus rejects the entire line of argument put forward by the Corinthians based on the special character they attribute to the Athenians. “We must not believe that man differs from man very much but that he is best who is disciplined in the hardest school.”34 The Athenians are men such as we are, is his implication; do not try to paint them as supermen and drive us to war out of irrational and unjustified fear.
Although Archidamus was opposed to a rash decision for war, he did not advocate a supine policy of allowing Athens to do whatever she liked. In the first place, that had never been the policy of the Spartan peace party. Besides, the mood of the Spartan assembly made such a policy politically impossible. Instead, Archidamus offered a policy that was a practical and realistic alternative. First the Spartans should send ambassadors to Athens to make official complaints without making clear the intentions of Sparta. At the same time the Spartans should prepare for the kind of war they must face if negotiation failed. They should seek help in ships and money from barbarians as well as Greeks, while building their own resources at home. If the Athenians yielded to the Spartan complaints, there would be no need of a war. If the Athenians returned unsatisfactory replies, there would be plenty of time to fight, when the Spartans were properly prepared in two or three years. The very period of preparation, combined with continued Spartan firmness, might serve to make war unnecessary. The Spartans should not be eager to ravage the land of Attica. “Do not think of their land as anything but a hostage for us, and the better it is cultivated the better hostage it will be.”35 The best course for Sparta is to leave the land untouched as long as possible so that when the Athenians think of possible concessions, they will know that they have something very important and tangible to lose. To destroy it first would enrage the Athenians, make them desperate, and deprive Sparta of a useful hostage.
Again and again Archidamus urged the Spartans not to be dragged into a war in which no proper Spartan interests were involved by allies with selfish motives. “Complaints on the part of cities or individuals can be resolved, but when a whole alliance begins a war whose outcome no one can foresee, for the sake of individual interests, it is hard to emerge with honor.”36 We must not, he said, be carried away prematurely by the words of our allies, who, in any case, will not carry the main burden of the war, but we must prepare properly. Let us maintain our traditional ways, which have served us so well, that cautious deliberation, which we can use not because we are weak, but precisely because we are strong. Archidamus concludes with his very specific proposals: send envoys to Athens to discuss Potidaea and the other complaints of the allies; this must be done because the Athenians have offered arbitration, and it is against our laws (οὐ νόμιμον) to make an immediate attack against someone offering arbitration. At the same time we are negotiating, let us prepare for war. “If you do this you will be making the best decision for yourselves and the one that will most frighten your enemies.”37
The proposals of Archidamus were altogether in accord with the views expressed by the Athenian ambassadors in the Spartan assembly. If adopted they would have avoided a hasty decision for war, opened a period of negotiation, and submitted all disputes to arbitration on their individual merits. As we shall see, this would have suited Pericles perfectly. It did not, however, suit the Corinthians and their aggrieved allies. If Potidaea could be saved at all, the attempt must be made immediately; every day that passed brought its capitulation closer. More important still, an impartial arbitration of each case would not help the Corinthians. By now they did not want the settlement of grievances; they wanted revenge on Athens to restore their prestige; they wanted a free hand against Corcyra; it is probably not too much to say that at this point they wanted nothing less than the destruction of the Athenian Empire. The war party in Sparta was of a similar mind. It was not the troubles of Corinth, Megara, Aegina, or Potidaea that concerned them, but what appeared to them the arrogant and dangerous power of Athens. About this there could be no negotiation or compromise; Athens must be humbled.
When the ephor Sthenelaidas rose to answer Archidamus he must have felt confident that most Spartans had not been persuaded by the old king, for he made little effort to counter his arguments. His brief and blunt speech, as Gomme says, “is excellently in character”38 and deserves quotation.
I don’t understand the lengthy arguments of the Athenians. They praise themselves highly, but they don’t deny that they are doing wrong to our allies and to the Peloponnesus. If they behaved well against the Persians and are now behaving badly towards us, they deserve a double punishment because they have become bad after having been good. But we are the same now as we were then, and, if we are wise, we will not look on while they wrong our allies, nor will we delay in seeking vengeance; for our allies are already suffering. Others may have much money, ships, and horses, but we have good allies whom we must not betray to the Athenians. Nor should we submit to judgments by courts or words, for we have not been injured by words. Instead we must take swift vengeance with all our forces. And let no one tell us that we must take time to consider when we have been wronged; rather let those who contemplate doing a wrong reflect for a long time. So vote for war, Spartans, in a manner worthy of Sparta. Do not allow the Athenians to grow stronger and do not betray your allies, but let us, with the help of the gods, march out against the wrongdoers.39
After he had finished his speech, Sthenelaidas, as ephor, put the question to a vote. The usual Spartan procedure was to vote by voice, but on this occasion Sthenelaidas claimed he could not tell which shout was louder and asked for a division, putting the question as follows: “Let whoever thinks that the Athenians have broken the treaty and are doing wrong go to that spot [to which he pointed], and whoever thinks not let him go to the other side.” It is perfectly clear that Sthenelaidas was in no real doubt about the outcome of the vote; he wanted to make the size of the majority dramatically evident in case of a later shift in Spartan opinion.40 The division revealed that a large majority (πολλῷ πλείους) agreed with Sthenelaidas and decided that the treaty had been broken.41 It is important to recognize that this was not a declaration of war, and much time would pass before any hostile action was taken, but the Spartan decision meant it would be very difficult, if indeed possible, to avoid a general war.
Why did the Spartans decide as they did? For Thucydides their decision was predetermined. “The Spartans voted that the treaty had been broken and that they must go to war not so much because they had been persuaded by the arguments of their allies, but because they were afraid that the Athenians might become more powerful, seeing that the greater part of Greece was already in their hands.”42 This amounts to a repetition of the judgment he has already made on “the truest cause of the war.”43 On this occasion it is supported by a long excursus (1. 89–118) giving the history of the growth of the Athenian Empire, which proves that for Thucydides the cause of the Peloponnesian War must be sought long before the trouble at Epidamnus. At the end of that excursus he makes it clear that the decision for war was merely the last step in a continuous process that began immediately after the Persian War.
All these actions that the Greeks performed against each other and against the barbarian took place in the period of about fifty years between the retreat of Xerxes and the beginning of this war. In this time the Athenians established and reinforced their empire, and themselves attained great power. Although the Spartans perceived this, they made only a small attempt to prevent it and remained quiet for the greater part of the time. For even before this they had never been quick to go to war unless they were compelled, and in this period they were hindered, to a degree, by wars at home. This quiet lasted until the power of the Athenians began to manifest itself and to lay hold on their allies. Then the situation became unendurable and the Spartans decided they must try with all their resolution to destroy that power if they could and to launch this war.44
To us, however, the inevitability of the Spartan decision is not so clear. As we have seen, and as even Thucydides admits, the Athenians thought it could still be averted when they spoke to the assembled Spartans. Archidamus did not treat the decision for war as a fait accompli and tried to avert it. If we trace the history of Spartan policy since the Epidamnian crisis, moreover, we find no reason to be confident that the Spartans would be eager for war in July, 432. From the beginning they had worked for a peaceful settlement of the dispute between Corinth and Corcyra. During the ensuing struggle they remained at least neutral and probably exerted their influence to prevent their other allies from becoming involved.45 They were probably troubled by the growth in Athenian power that accompanied the successful defense of Corcyra, and it is likely that a majority of the ephors who took office shortly after Sybota, among whom was Sthenelaidas, were or became members of the war party.46 The Megarian Decree, which probably came soon after the ultimatum to Potidaea, may explain why the ephors were moved to promise an invasion of Attica to the Potidaeans. In any case, the combination of the decree and the ultimatum in the winter of 433/2 were enough to produce a warlike majority in the ephorate. But what we must not forget is that even then the feeling for peace among the Spartans in general was so great that the ephors could not keep their promise to Potidaea. Even after Potidaea was under siege, it was left to the Corinthians to call the aggrieved allies to Sparta to make their complaints. Only then did the ephors feel able to call an assembly of the Spartans to give an official ear to the charges against Athens.
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that if it had not been for Corinth the Spartans would probably have taken no action whatever.47 Throughout the course of Spartan history the forces favoring peace had almost always been in the majority. Even in this crisis the war party was unable to maintain firm control for very long. As we shall see, they were unable to bring Sparta to action for more than a year after the assembly we have described, and even then, the first act of war was left to an ally. Although Archidamus had been defeated on this occasion, he remained a figure of great political and military importance who clearly influenced Spartan policy long after he was outvoted in the assembly of July, 432. Up to the very outbreak of the war, the peace party remained powerful, and even during the Archidamian War, they were strong enough to compel their countrymen to seek peace on several occasions. Thucydides, of course, is quite right in emphasizing the role played by the old fear and suspicion of Athens in bringing about the Spartan decision, but that fear had been insufficient to dislodge the peace party until the Battle of Sybota, at the earliest, or to cause Sparta to act even after that battle. What turned the tide was the performance of the Corinthians, aided by the recent actions of Athens.
The Corinthian contribution to the Spartan change of policy can be divided into three parts. First, they organized and contributed to an effective propaganda campaign waged by the aggrieved friends and allies of Sparta, which gave the warlike ephors a chance to put their case in the most favorable circumstances. Next, they employed a very effective weapon in their threat of secession from the Spartan alliance, which seemed to promise the dissolution of that alliance. We may think that the threat was only a bluff, but most Spartans were unwilling to call it. Probably the most effective device employed by the Corinthians, however, was the picture they painted for their Spartan audience of the Athenians. By tying together the early history of the Athenian Empire with Athens’ recent actions in response to the Corcyrean affair, they were able to depict the Athenians as a permanently restless, aggressive, and dangerous people who must be stopped before it was too late. Reasonableness, caution, delay, and negotiation would only be thought weakness by such people. The only thing to do was to stop them before their power, already grown too great, should become even greater and all Greece was enslaved.
Cooler consideration might have shown that this picture was not altogether consistent with historical fact. Since 445 the policy of Athens had been consistently unaggressive; Corinth, even more than Sparta, had recognized that fact by its recommendations in regard to the Samian rebellion. The peace party might argue that the recent actions of Athens were not part of a general policy of aggression but were merely an isolated response to a particular situation brought about by Corinth against the advice of Sparta. Given some time for the incident to pass, the Athenians would very likely return to their policy of preserving their empire, avoiding involvements on the Greek mainland and the west, and seeking accommodation with the Peloponnesians on terms of equality and mutual respect. This view of things, in fact, seems to be what was behind Archidamus’ policy of slow preparation for war coupled with negotiation.
Cooler heads did not prevail, and for this the rhetoric of the allies, and especially the Corinthians, was largely responsible. We must admit, however, that the Corinthians could not have succeeded without the unintended help of Pericles. His policy after Sybota was meant to prepare Athens for a conflict with Corinth while avoiding a clash with Sparta, but it did not have that result. The financial measures he took even before Sybota were, of course, very reasonable and not inflammatory.48 The expeditions of Phormio to Acarnania and Diotimus to Italy, as well as the renewal of the treaties with Rhegium and Leontini, were all easily explicable measures aimed at a possible war with Corinth, but need not alarm Sparta unless she were already determined to defend the Corinthians. The Megarian Decree, however, was something else again. Here the Athenians were not moving against Corinth directly but against an ally of Sparta strategically located at the gateway to the Peloponnese. Archidamus and his friends might be aware that it was not intended as an aggressive act by Pericles and that Athens had no intention of seizing Megara. They might know that the trade embargo, far from being an extreme act of aggression, was really a compromise measure to limit the scope of a possible war with Corinth by warning off potential allies. To the ordinary Spartan, however, it looked like an arrogant, aggressive, and unnecessary action.
We do not know just what Athens did at Aegina or what action, if any, provoked it. Apparently, however, its necessity was not clear to the Spartans. The ultimatum that Athens casually delivered to Potidaea could only contribute to the image the Spartan war party wanted to fix on the Athenians. So far as we know it was altogether unprovoked. The Athenians were quite right in thinking that Potidaea was the one place most vulnerable to Corinthian agitation and so a likely trouble spot, but at the time the ultimatum was delivered, the Potidaeans had done nothing to justify the harsh demands made upon them. To the Spartans the affair at Potidaea must have seemed another instance of arrogant Athenian aggression against an innocent bystander. Such impressions were not enough to produce any action on the part of the Spartans until the Corinthian speech put all the pieces together.
In such circumstances the tone and character of the Athenian reply seem ill chosen. A firm, unyielding line backed by a show of strength is a fine tactic of diplomacy against an adversary who is convinced of its employer’s basically unaggressive intentions. Such was Sparta’s attitude when it was controlled by Archidamus and the peace party. It is far less useful, indeed it is very dangerous, when used towards a state that has come to fear that its user is too powerful, aggressive, and ambitious. These were the fears of the war party, and it seems likely that the hard line of Pericles helped convince uncommitted Spartans and some who had favored peace to support the war.
Pericles appears to have believed that his careful policy of limited response to the Corinthian challenge would be understood by Sparta, and the record of the previous fifteen years gave him good reason to believe it. What he did not recognize was that his policy could contribute to a change in the internal situation of Sparta and bring to power men who could not or would not understand him. Once again we may speculate that his long period of power at Athens had made him insufficiently aware of how different the political situation at Sparta was from that at Athens. When Pericles spoke, he spoke confidently for Athens and her empire. When Archidamus spoke, he could not be sure that he controlled Sparta, much less the Peloponnesian League. Given the instability of Spartan politics in the summer of 432, Pericles seems to have made a fateful miscalculation.
The decision in the Spartan assembly was that the treaty had been broken; it was not a vote for war. At the same time, the decision was binding only on the Spartans, for their allies had not formally considered the question. Thus, the Corinthians, even though they had carried the day, did not get the quick action they wanted. Instead the ephors called for an assembly of the allies to deliberate on the matter and to vote for war if that were their decision.49 Meanwhile, they sent to the oracle at Delphi to ask the god if they should go to war. Thucydides reports the reply with uncharacteristic hesitation. “The god answered them, so it is said, that if they fought with full vigor they would achieve victory, and he said that he himself would give his aid whether he was called upon or not.”50 Thucydides did not know the actual response of the oracle, and his hesitation is likely caused by the suspicion, probably correct, that he has the version of the war party.51 Still, their report must have been correct in essence if not in detail. After Athens’ defeat at Coronea and her abandonment of central Greece, she had lost influence at Delphi. She had already gained the enmity of the priests by her support of the Phocians.52 The ephors, of course, knew all this and were confident of a favorable answer when they put the question. It was another step in their difficult campaign to drive the Spartans to war.
The congress of Sparta’s allies convened in August of 432.53 It is worth pointing out that even though Sparta had already made its position clear and Corinth and Megara were openly and enthusiastically in favor of the Spartan decision, a unanimous vote of agreement by the allies was not a foregone conclusion. It is most likely that not all the allies attended the congress.54 It is possible that they stayed home because they lacked sympathy with the Spartan decision. Far more telling is the action of the Corinthians. Before the meeting they had gone to each city in private, urging each ally to vote for war, “fearing that Potidaea would be taken before they could act.”55 From the language of Thucydides56 it is impossible to be certain whether this electioneering took place in Sparta before the meeting convened or whether the Corinthians had gone from city to city even before the delegates had arrived at Sparta. The desperation of the Corinthians makes the latter possibility seem more likely. When the congress began, the several allies repeated the complaints they had made in July before the Spartan apella. Once again the Corinthians spoke last and most vigorously.
The first and most obvious task of the Corinthians was to convince those allies who were reluctant to fight Athens that they should vote for and support the war. These reluctant allies must have included most of the cities of Arcadia: Tegea, Mantinea, Phlius, Clitor, and many others.57 These cities must have wondered what such a war had to do with them. As inland cities they had no quarrel with Athens, its navy, or its empire. They were physically remote from most of the quarrels and not much interested in commercial embargoes like the Megarian Decree. To them the Corinthians addressed their first remarks. The inland cities should realize that if they did not help their coastal allies, they would be unable to use them freely as entrepôts where they could dispose of their own surpluses and obtain imports. They should pay careful attention to the debate as something that touched them closely, for if they ignore the appeals of the coastal states, “the danger may one day reach them, and they are deliberating about their own fate no less than ours.”58
It was not only the inland states, however, who needed convincing. Sicyon, for instance, unless it had changed its policy, was not eager for war, for the Sicyonians had tried to avert a conflagration as early as 435. It is likewise probable that Epidaurus, Hermione, Troezen, and Cephallenia, all of whom abstained from aiding Corinth at Sybota, although they were present at Leucimne,59 were not yet persuaded. As coastal towns, they recognized the enormous power of the Athenian navy and empire and the damage it could do them. It may have been precisely because of that power that they were reluctant to enter into a war with Athens over issues that did not concern them directly. They seem to have suspected that the Corinthian policy was not rational, that it did not aim at the redress of particular grievances but at a holy war to destroy the Athenian Empire. In any case, the Corinthians found it necessary to assure them that their war aims were reasonable and limited. “As for us, we are now stirring up war because we have been injured and have sufficient complaints. When we have warded off the Athenians, we will put an end to it when the opportunity offers itself.”60
The most important task for the Corinthians was to convince the allies that they could win a war against Athens. The speech of Archidamus had not convinced the Spartans, but its practical and hardheaded discussion of the difficulties of fighting the Athenians had been given at least a month to make an impression, and the peace party, we may well imagine, had not failed to inform the allies of the arguments the King had put forward. The Corinthians offered the following reasons for optimism: the Peloponnesians were superior in numbers and military experience; they depended on allies, not undependable mercenaries; they could overcome the naval superiority of the Athenians not only from their own resources but by borrowing money from the treasuries at Delphi and Olympia, both of which would be available to the Peloponnesians. It was the naval power of Athens that was most difficult to combat, so the Corinthians had to spend some time in explaining it away. They argued that since the Athenian navy was made of paid foreigners instead of Athenians, it would be easy to hire them away for money. The Athenians, unlike the Peloponnesians, were subject to defection, being dependent on foreigners. One defeat at sea should be enough to destroy the Athenian navy, and thus Athens. Even if Athens should hold out, the Peloponnesians would have time to acquire the necessary naval skills, and since they were naturally more courageous than Athenians, this would guarantee a Peloponnesian victory. The money necessary to bring all this about would come from voluntary contributions by the Peloponnesian allies.61
The Corinthians mentioned still other techniques whereby the Athenians, regarded as so formidable by Archidamus, might be attacked. The Peloponnesians might assist the allies of Athens to revolt and thereby deprive the Athenians of the money and sailors that made them strong. If the Athenians chose not to fight a land battle, the Peloponnesians, in addition to ravaging Attica, could establish a permanent fort in Attica and so make continued depredations. Besides these measures, other, unforeseen opportunities would surely present themselves.62
This Corinthian forecast of devices to be used in the war to come, most particularly the reference to the establishment of a permanent fort in Attica, has often been taken as evidence that this speech was composed by Thucydides, and quite late, for the fort at Decelea was established in 413.63 There is little reason to believe it. On the one hand, many of the Corinthian predictions were wrong: one battle did not end the war; the Peloponnesian navy did not prove the equal of the Athenians after a little practice; the war was not a short one. On the other hand, there is every reason to think that the speech looks backward and not forward. The revolts of Samos and Byzantium, if not the many earlier rebellions, were fresh in the minds of all. It was natural to think that similar rebellions would take place if Athens were distracted by a Peloponnesian war. The idea of establishing a permanent fort in hostile territory hardly requires oracular vision, and there is good evidence that the thought occurred to many well before 413 and even before the Peloponnesian War.64 The intention of the speech was to encourage the allies to vote for war, and optimistic predictions based on past experience were the obvious rhetorical weapons.
The Corinthians argue further that the war is absolutely necessary and the alternative unthinkable. Athens, they argue, is so powerful that she can defeat all the Greek states one by one; the only chance is to unite in a war against her; the alternative is slavery. To submit to the Athenians would be to permit the establishment of a tyranny.65 That unhappy result can be avoided, for Apollo has promised his help and all the rest of Greece apart from the Spartan alliance will gladly join in the struggle out of fear or interest. The approval of Apollo, moreover, proves that the war is just and will not be a violation of the treaty, but rather a defense of a treaty already violated.66
This is, of course, a fine piece of sophistry, though we need not imagine that the wily Corinthians learned it from the sophists. Their peroration employed a splendid array of arguments to achieve their goal; it reminds the modern reader of countless similar arguments that have since been used by the advocates of war. This is a particularly favorable moment to go to war. This war is not in our own interest only, but in the common interest. We must hurry to save the Potidaeans, for they are Dorians besieged by Ionians: the racial argument so often invoked. Now that we have met to consider action, we cannot afford not to take any, for that would be a fatal sign of weakness. War is, in any case, inevitable. The war, moreover, will bring a more lasting peace, “for peace is more secure after a war.”67 The speech concludes with an appropriate statement of the noble purposes of the proposed war. “Recognizing that the state which has established itself as a tyrant in Greece threatens all alike, that it already dominates some of us and is planning the domination of the others, let us march out and subdue it, make a secure future for ourselves, and liberate those who are now enslaved.”68
After the Corinthian speech the vote was taken by “all the allies who were present,” which implies, as we have seen, that not all were present. Of these a majority (τὸ πλῆθος) voted for war. Thucydides does not report the size of the majority, but since he does not indicate that it was overwhelming, as he does on the occasion of the Spartan vote earlier,69 perhaps we may believe that it was far from unanimous. It may be that the division in the alliance reflected the division within Sparta. Not everyone was convinced that the war must come; not everyone believed that it was a just war; not everyone thought it would be easy and successful; not everyone thought it was necessary. To be sure, the alliance had voted for war, and orders were issued to make the appropriate preparations without delay, which would seem to have closed the matter. But, as Thucydides points out, it still was nearly a year before the Spartans invaded Attica and openly began the war.70
This delay is noteworthy. Thucydides’ own explanation is not altogether satisfactory; indeed it is hardly an explanation. He says that they spent the year “putting in order the things they needed” (καθισταμένοις ὧν ἔδει).71 As Busolt has observed, the preparations for an invasion of Attica such as was envisioned by Sthenelaidas and the war party would have taken only a few weeks.72 These compelling considerations make it clear that we need to explain the delay of the Spartans. The answer must be that in spite of the vote in favor of war, the allies and the Spartans themselves were not totally converted to the views of Corinth and the Spartan war party. The arguments of Archidamus must have had their effect after the rhetoric of the Corinthians and the fiery, single-minded patriotism of Sthenelaidas were more carefully assessed. No doubt the Spartans and their allies were persuaded that Athens was a threat and must be stopped, but they now seemed to believe that it was necessary to go somewhat slowly, to make greater preparations than usual, perhaps even to try to achieve their ends without war. It was probably at this time that they sent envoys to Persia and to their friends in Italy and Sicily to ask for help in the coming war.73 At the same time they began to send a series of embassies to the Athenians, ostensibly at least to avoid the war with Athens.
1 1. 67. 1–3.
2 This interpretation is based on the reading provided by the best manuscripts, ABEFM: οί δὲ Αακεδαιμόνιοι, προσπαραρακαλέσαντες τῶν ξυμμάχων καί εἴ τίςτι ἄλλο έϕη ἠδικῆσθαι ὑπὸ ”Αθηναίων, ξύλλοϒον σϕῶν αὐτῶν ποιήσαντες τὸν εἰωθότα λέϒειν ἐκέλευον Classen-Steup changes ἄλλο to ἄλλος, following the suggestion of Reiske, among others. Hude accepts this emendation and, with CG, reads τε after ξυμμάχων. Jones simply accepts the reading of CG. Gomme’s note (Hist. Comm., I, 226) is not as helpful as it might be, for it appears to suggest that the reading of ABEFM does not imply an invitation to two groups, i.e., allies of Sparta and others. But it is clear that all the suggested readings imply just that. The Spartans did invite others besides allies, and if our reading is correct, they invited complaints of all kinds, not only breaches of the treaty.
3 For arguments that Aegina was not a member of the Spartan alliance, see Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 225–226 and D. MacDowell, JHS, LXXX (1960), 118–121. Cf. D. M. Leahy, CP XLIX (1954), 232–243.
4 We have less reason to be confident of Thucydides’ accuracy in reporting this speech than in his accounts of the speeches delivered in Athens, which he himself heard. Still, he could well have gotten the main facts from the Athenian envoys who were present and heard all the speeches (1. 72. 1; Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 233). It seems reasonable, therefore, to assume that the Corinthian speech that Thucydides gives us is relatively close to the one actually delivered.
5 1. 69. 1–2.
6 1. 68. 3–4.
7 1. 69.
8 1. 70.
9 John H. Finley, Jr., Thucydides, 122–123.
10 1. 71. 4–7.
11 Forschungen, II, 315–316.
12 See my article, AJP, LXXXI (1960), 291–310.
13 Forbes, quoted by Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 233. Mme de Romilly (Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, 243) finds it “difficult to believe that the Athenians actually spoke.” She finds that their speech is not related to the debate as a whole, treating “the problems of imperialism in the abstract: it takes account neither of the speakers who have criticized Athens nor of the aim which the Athenian speakers in such an assembly might be expected to pursue; it neglects the politicians present in Sparta in order to speak directly to the future readers of Thucydides’ History.” With all this I disagree totally. As we shall see below, we have every reason to believe in the historicity of the Athenian speech. The speech fits very well into the actual situation if its purposes and the Athenian policy are properly understood. For a very confident denial of the historicity of the speech, see E. Schwartz, Thukydides, 105.
14 Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 252–253.
15 Something very like this view is presented by Busolt (GG, III: 2, 833). For an excellent statement on why we should believe in the reality of the Athenian speech, see F. E. Adcock, Thucydides and his History, 31–32.
16 1. 73. 1; 1. 72. 1.
17 1. 72. 1. The problems of the speech are discussed most intelligently and modestly by Gomme (Hist. Comm., I, 252–254). It is also treated interestingly by Mme de Romilly (33–34 and 242–272), but the value of her discussion is severely damaged by her assumption that the speech is a thoroughgoing invention of Thucydides, intended by him as a general consideration of Athenian imperialism.
18 1. 73. 1.
19 1. 73. 3.
20 1. 75. 1; 76.2.
21 1. 76. 2.
22 1. 76. 4.
23 1. 77. 6.
24 1. 68. 5.
25 1. 72. 1.
26 1. 79. 2.
27 1. 80.
28 1. 81. 2.
29 1. 81.6.
30 Idem.
31 1. 84. 1.
32 1. 84. 3.
33 Idem.
34 1. 84.4.
35 1. 82. 4.
36 1. 82. 6.
37 1. 85. 2.
38 Hist. Comm., I, 251.
39 1. 87.
40 This view is shared by Gomme (Hist. Comm., I, 252). Classen (I, 240) and Busolt (GG, III: 2, 838) believe that the ephor really could not tell which vote was greater on the first ballot. The tone of the ephor’s speech, the final vote, and the entire narrative of Thucydides seem to me to make this interpretation impossible.
41 1. 87. 3–4, 6.
42 1. 88. (ϕοβούμενοι τοὠς Αθηναίους μὴ ἐπὶ μεῖζον δυνηθῶσιν, δρῶντες αὐτοῖς τὰ πολλὰ τῆς “Ελλάδος ὑποχείρια ἤδη ὄντα.
43 1.23. 6.
44 1. 118.
45 See above, pp. 225–226 and 246.
46 Busolt (GG, III: 2, 835–836) is confident that at least a majority of the ephors belonged to the war party. But we must remember that although they took office in the autumn, after Sybota, they had been elected in the spring, before Athens had even made an alliance with Corcyra. We have no reason to think that the Spartans, who had heretofore maintained a consistently peaceful policy, elected a majority of war hawks without any apparent reason. It is more likely that the events of the summer converted some of them to a hostile attitude.
47 See the similar conclusion of Busolt (GG, III: 2, 840–841).
48 S. B. Smith (HSCP, LI [1940], 283–288) suggests that it was growing financial power of the Athenians that drove Sparta to war. This highly original interpretation of Thucydides has, so far as I know, rightly won no support.
49 1. 87. 4–5.
50 1. 118. 3.
51 Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 413.
52 1. 112. 5; Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 413.
53 Gomme, (Hist. Comm., I, 425) puts it early in the month. Busolt (GG, III: 2, 841–842) puts it a bit later, i.e., late August to early September.
54 Thucydides (1. 125. 2) tells us that the final vote was taken by ὅσοι παρῆσαν, which clearly implies that some allies were absent. Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 414.
55 1. 119.
56 καὶ οἱ Κορίνθιοι δεηθέντες μὲν καὶ κατὰ πόλεις πρότερν ἑκάστων ἰδίᾳ ὤστεψηϕίσασθαι τὸν πόλεμον, δεδιότες περί τῇ Ποτειδαίᾳ μὴ προδιαϕθαρῇ….
57 See Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 415.
58 1. 120.2.
59 See above, pp. 223–224 and 245–246.
60 1. 121. 1.
61 1. 121. 2–5.
62 1. 122. 1.
63 Grundy, Thucydides, I, 320–321; see also the discussion of Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 418–419.
64 Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 418.
65 1. 122.
66 1. 123.
67 1. 124. 2.
68 1. 124. 3.
69 1. 87. 3. πολλῷ πλείους.
70 1. 125. 2.
71 1. 125. 2.
72 GG, III: 2, 844. See Appendix K.
73 Diod. 12. 41. 1.