by Rex Warner
For in these years, when Pericles was between the ages of twenty-five and thirty, Ephialtes was becoming an important figure. He was constantly prosecuting, with or without success and on charges which were sometimes valid and often absurd, members of the Council of the Areopagus. He made many enemies, but he showed a sound political intelligence; for the Athenian people were, at long last (one may say this as one looks backwards), beginning to feel their power. They were resentful of the privileged position of the Areopagus and they were beginning to become impatient with Kimon’s continual references to Sparta. “The Spartans would never do this,” he would say, as though that were a sufficient argument against some measure to which he was opposed; and Ephialtes often won applause by his quick ridicule of such sentences. It almost seemed that all he needed in order to become a really formidable power in the state was a certain air of respectability. This deficiency was made good when Pericles made his first speech in the Assembly, firmly aligning himself with what seemed to many to be the revolutionary policies of Ephialtes.
5
The Struggle for Power
I remember very well the year in which Pericles, at the age of twenty-six, made his first speech in the Assembly. Other interesting events also occurred in this year, including one of the greatest scientific importance. For this was the year when the great meteoric body fell at Goat’s River. I was informed of this event soon after it had taken place and was able to inspect the celestial sphere within a week or two after its fall. It is, of course, a sight to be seen to this day and it constitutes (I would dare to say) a decisive proof for some of my theories. It is hard and metallic. In flight it was seen to be shining. It is, I believe, of the same substance as the stars and of the sun itself, which, in my view, is at least as large as the whole Peloponnese. And, unless I am much mistaken, the source of the sun’s radiance is simply heat. The moon, on the other hand, owes its light to reflection from the sun. But I am digressing. All I mean to establish is that this year is one which is particularly clear in my memory.
There were other events too, not of scientific but of literary and political interest. This was the year when our friend Sophocles first won the prize at the dramatic festival. There was extremely keen feeling on the part of the audience (a feeling that is often aroused when a brilliant newcomer challenges an accepted champion), so keen indeed that the controllers of the festival invited Kimon and his nine colleagues on the board of generals to take the place of the usual judges. They awarded the prize to Sophocles rather than to Aeschylus not for any political reason, but simply out of admiration for the young man’s extraordinary talent and, possibly, because they were tired of seeing Aeschylus always winning the prize. Aeschylus (though he undoubtedly considered himself the superior dramatist) took his defeat well; and indeed not even Aeschylus could be angry or offended with Sophocles, whose manners were always gracious and whose attitude towards elder poets was invariably deferential. Still, to us this victory of Sophocles seemed to mark the end of an epoch. A new clarity had appeared in the theater, just as a new clarity was appearing in the arts (Pheidias was already working) and in public speaking.
It was in this year too that Aristides died. He, now that Themistocles was in exile, had been the last of the great leaders of the resistance to the Persian invasion still active in politics, so that his death seemed also to mark some kind of turning point. Now Kimon alone stood at the head of the party of what might be called established and conservative authority, and Kimon’s extravagant respect for Sparta, which Aristides had not shared, made him, in spite of his military successes and his personal popularity, vulnerable. He was still, unquestionably, supreme. But Athenians do not like people to be long so, and Ephialtes, with his evident sincerity and his quick wit, was already beginning to win some support in the Assembly at the time when Pericles first came forward to speak there.
He had taken, I remember, enormous trouble over the preparation of this first speech of his, and this in spite of the fact that he was naturally gifted for oratory. He was nervous too and, though not at all lacking in resolution, somehow lacking in confidence. He rehearsed his speech several times before me and other friends of his, taking our criticisms most seriously, although in fact there was little room for criticism. I suppose that at the time what we remarked on most was his dignity of manner; wit and brilliance we expected of him, but what surprised us was the air of authority, worn so easily by such a young man. And by every account the audience in the Assembly was as surprised and delighted as were we, his intimate friends. Never before, it was said, had so young a man been listened to with such respect. For there was nothing either irresponsible or pompous about his delivery or about his words. What he said was both wise and unexpected, and so it was with him always. He made a practice of not speaking often (Ephialtes would make five speeches to his one), and throughout his life, even at the very few times when he became unpopular, the people would hang upon his words. Perhaps this was because he said what they themselves would have wished to say, had they the intelligence required. Certainly there was a sense in which he identified himself with them with the whole mass of them, rather than with any particular section. Yet he was not a mouthpiece or a stimulator; he was always a leader. He never took advantage of a popular mood; he created these moods and was ahead of them. Those who listened to him became amazed at their own intelligence and resolution; they seldom realized that these were his qualities, not theirs, because he was able to present them to themselves as something which they were not, though they would like to be. And so he did, in fact, transform them.
These facts are, of course, known with regard to his middle and later life, when he had an ascendancy over this difficult democracy which is quite unparalleled. What is even more remarkable is that the qualities which gave him this ascendancy were shown, and recognized, from the very beginning. As I have said, he did not speak often, and at the beginning he certainly claimed no kind of leadership. If the word “leader” can be used at all, then Ephialtes was the leader of the party and Pericles a subordinate. Yet from the beginning, by all accounts, Pericles commanded an extraordinary respect. This did not proceed from the fact that he, the leading member of one of the noblest families in Athens, had adopted a kind of revolutionary line in politics. Others from the same family had done that before. It seems rather that Pericles was admired simply for himself. He was capable of saying what was surprising in a way that made it appear obvious. He shared his superiority with his inferiors. Indeed, he loved them.
Yet for all the respect that he inspired, it might well have seemed that he and Ephialtes were speaking for a hopeless cause. Kimon’s position was very strong and in nearly all of his activities it was impossible for the extreme democrats not to support him. There was, for example, the case of the island of Naxos, a powerful place with a considerable navy and a fine force of hoplites. After having been liberated from the Persians, Naxos decided that her future was secure. So she seceded from the Athenian alliance, claiming that as the original purpose of the League had already been carried out, she and the other allies had no further obligations. It was a critical moment. Had Naxos been allowed to do as she wished, other allies also would have withdrawn their contributions in ships or money to the League and the whole basis of Athenian sea power would have been destroyed. Moreover, the Naxians had a case which was not unreasonable. It was a case supported, though not overtly, by Sparta, whose government was already alarmed at the growth of Athenian influence and prestige. Kimon himself must have been aware of Spartan feeling on this subject, but for once in his life he seems to have considered the Spartans wrong. He commanded an expedition which reduced Naxos to submission and he associated himself with those who described the action of Naxos as “revolt.” With this behavior of his, Ephialtes and Pericles could not quarrel. They, even more than Kimon, would support an Athenian League which, from this moment, was becoming an empire. And soon afterwards Kimon won the greatest victories of his whole career when, at the Ri
ver Eurymedon in southeast Asia, he destroyed in one day a large army and an enormous Persian fleet. The enemies of Kimon might claim, as Ephialtes did, that the two hundred Athenian triremes which took part in this expedition had been designed and laid down by Themistocles; but no one could dispute the fact that in these spectacular victories, in which two hundred enemy ships were captured, the daring and efficiency of Kimon himself had been decisive.
In the same year Themistocles himself, after having sought refuge in vain in many of the Greek states which had been saved by his genius, was forced to throw himself on the mercy of the Great King. It was a moment when it might well have seemed that Kimon and his party were secure in power and that the attacks made on this dominant party by Ephialtes and by Pericles were likely to be no more effective than is the barking of dogs upon an armed man. But, as I have observed elsewhere, change can be not only gradual but catastrophic. Within a few years of this, his greatest victory, Kimon was in exile and his whole policy had been reversed. His downfall was due in part to the opposition of Ephialtes and Pericles, but this opposition could never have been successful had it not been for the jealous and shortsighted policy of Sparta, the state which Kimon himself revered most of all.
The Athenians, like most men, worship success, but they would have forgiven Kimon almost any failure except one that concerned Sparta and their own pride. And as it was, there were some military failures in the years that followed the victories of the Eurymedon. There was, I remember, at this time much discussion as to how the forces of the League were to be employed now that Persian naval power had been so thoroughly shattered. Some were in favor of going on to liberate Cyprus, and this would indeed have been a patriotic action in accordance with the declared policy of the League. In fact, however, these forces were used more simply in the interests of Athens, and once again there was dissension within the League. Athens already controlled the sea routes into the Black Sea; she now wished to control also the land route by which Xerxes had marched, and at the same time to secure a hold over the gold mines of Thrace and the very profitable trade with the interior. It was one of those plans which arc dear to the Athenians, for the possibilities seemed almost limitless. And the plan seemed to be well made. First a colony was to be established on the River Strymon at Nine Ways (the place now called Amphipolis), and from this excellent strategic position Athenian power and influence were to be extended through. Thrace and Macedonia. It was a plan with which neither Ephialtes nor Pericles found any fault.
Yet the plan miscarried. In the first place it was opposed by the people of Thasos, which at that time was a rich and powerful island contributing a large fleet, manned by her own citizens, to the Athenian alliance. Thasos was the second ally to secede from the League, and Kimon was forced to divert part of his powerful force to deal with what was now generally described as a “revolt.” And the Thasians acted with skill and resolution. Their fleet was, as might have been expected, driven from the sea, but not before it had sunk thirty-three Athenian warships. This was the greatest, indeed almost the only, loss that Athens had suffered since Salamis, and even after their naval defeat the Thasians did not surrender. They had good fortifications and had taken steps to equip themselves for a long siege. The Athenians reacted as they always do in such emergencies; they sent out more ships and more men; but still Kimon’s original force was weakened, and though the colonists were safely established at Nine Ways, their military strength was less than it should have been.
But what was of the greatest importance for the future was this: the people of Thasos appealed to Sparta and, for the first time, described Athens as “the tyrant city.” The purpose of the League, they claimed, was to liberate the Greeks. In fact it was being employed to enslave them. And they called upon Sparta, as the acknowledged leader of the Greek world, to intervene in the cause of liberty. A strange request indeed, my friends! Not that liberty is unimportant; only that it is a word capable of a great variety of meanings. Today, for example, both Athens and Sparta claim to be fighting for liberty; yet both cannot be fighting for the same thing, and it is not impossible that the final result of the struggle will be to deprive each state of the liberty which it now possesses. But what is really remarkable about the appeal of the Thasians and about the later appeals which led to the present war is that anyone should have thought that Sparta could be conceivably interested in any kind of liberty whatever. We have here, I think, to consider a complete misuse of words, a misuse common enough in politics, yet one which would be absolutely fatal to any philosophical or historical investigation. What distinguished my friend Pericles from all other statesmen was his extreme reluctance to misuse words. He knew with perfect clarity the difference between Spartan and Athenian “liberty” the one negative and defensive, the other positive and, within limits, aggressive. He knew that the Athenian, in his own country, was the freest man that has existed in civilized history, and he claimed that even in her imperialist ventures Athens gave more than she received. And, he would say, just as the Spartan citizen had no liberty at home, so he would prove, as he had proved, intolerant and oppressive abroad. A Spartan, to use a term from my own philosophy, is without intelligence; he is not interested in a power which creates and an organization which expands.
He is, however, interested in preventing other people from developing the powers which he lacks, and, though generally reluctant to intervene in foreign affairs, will do so when he conceives that no risk will be involved. At about the time when the Thasian ambassadors reached Sparta, there arrived news which made it appear that Spartan intervention could be carried out safely. It appeared that while Kimon was advancing into Macedonia the Athenian colonists at Nine Ways had unwisely decided upon a military expedition of their own against the neighboring Thracian tribes. These tribes are capable of uniting in an emergency and they did so on this occasion. The Athenian force was surrounded and almost entirely destroyed. It was said that no less than ten thousand men had been killed.
Such a disaster seemed to the Spartan authorities one from which Athens would not soon recover. They therefore encouraged the Thasians to resist and promised to help them. It is probable that the Spartan promises were vague, but without doubt (as was discovered later) the Thasians assumed that Sparta would invade Attica in the following spring. I think it likely that they would indeed have done so if they had not been suddenly faced with a most difficult and dangerous situation in their own country.
First, there was an earthquake in Sparta. Naturally, on scientific grounds, I did my best to investigate this thoroughly, and it is my belief that this was the worst earthquake that has ever occurred on the Greek mainland within living memory. That the town of Sparta was almost entirely destroyed is not important; there neither were nor are any buildings of distinction in the place. But the loss of life was tremendous. There were at least twenty thousand casualties, and among these were a considerable number of those highly trained Spartans of the officer class on whom the whole security of the state depends. And, since Spartan power is built on the loyalty of a few and the subjection of the rest, it was not unnatural that the subjected should seize this opportunity to revolt. Soon Sparta was fighting for her life, and it was against this background that, in Athens, the final struggle between Ephialtes and Kimon began.
In the year of the earthquake both Ephialtes and Pericles had been elected to the board of generals. For Pericles this was a peculiar distinction. He was only thirty years old, and though he had served in a number of campaigns, he was much less known than Ephialtes as a speaker in the Assembly. In politics he still followed the leadership of Ephialtes, though I doubt whether he would have continued to do so for long. He was, I remember, somewhat reluctant at this time to join Ephialtes in his violent attacks on Kimon, though he was perfectly well aware that Kimon was the chief obstacle in the way of the democratic and anti-Spartan policies to which both he and Ephialtes were committed. And now, for the first time, it was possible to maintain that Kimon had been unsuccess
ful. Thasos, certainly, was still under blockade and in the end would be forced to surrender. But the colony at Nine Ways had been wiped out and the campaign in Macedonia had been broken off before anything had been gained from it.
Ephialtes determined to prosecute Kimon for military inefficiency and for having taken a bribe from the King of Macedonia. This seemed a daring thing to do even when done by Ephialtes, who was known to be no respecter of persons; but when people heard that Pericles was to be associated with him in the prosecution, members of Kimon’s party became not only outraged but alarmed. Kimon’s elderly sister Elpinice actually offended all the rules of Athenian modesty by coming alone to Pericles’s house in order to beg him not to take up the case. It was an action which surprised Pericles as much as everyone else, but he treated this fierce and resolute woman with great charm. Apparently he greeted her with the words “My dear Elpinice, are you looking for a love affair at your age?” and though he refused to dissociate himself from Ephialtes, he convinced her that he neither had nor would pretend to have any personal animosity against Kimon. In many military expeditions he had served under his leadership, and though he regarded his Spartan policy as dangerous and inept, he had no doubt of his fine qualities as a general.