It was while the northerly states of Greece were thus successively falling oft from the common cause, that the deputies assembled at the Isthmus took among themselves the solemn engagement, in event of success, to inflict upon these recusant brethren condign punishment–to tithe them in property, and perhaps to consecrate a tenth of their persons, for the profit of the Delphian god. Exception was to be made in favour of those states which had been driven to yield by irresistible necessity. Such a vow seemed at that moment little likely to be executed: it was the manifestation of a determined feeling binding together the states which took the pledge, but it cannot have contributed much to intimidate the rest.

To display their own force, was the only effective way of keeping together doubtful allies; and the pass of Thermopylæ was now fixed upon as the most convenient point of defence, next to that of Tempê–leaving out indeed, and abandoning to the enemy, Thessalians, Perrhæbians, Magnêtes, Phthiôtid Achæans, Dolopes, Ænianes, Malians, &c, who would all have been included if the latter line had been adhered to ; but comprising the largest range consistent with safety. The position of Thermopylæ presented another advantage which was not to be found at Tempê ; the mainland was here separated from the island of Eubœa only by a narrow strait, about two English miles and a half in its smallest breadth, between Mount Knêmis and Cape Kênæum.

430 b.c. Barren results of the operations during the first year of war

At the close of one year after the attempted surprise of Platæa by the Thebans, the belligerent parties in Greece remained in an unaltered position as to relative strength. Nothing decisive had been accomplished on either side, either by the invasion of Attica, or by the flying descents round the coast of Peloponnesus: in spite of mutual damage inflicted—doubtless in the greatest measure upon Attica—no progress was yet made towards the fulfilment of those objects which had induced the Peloponnesians to go to war. Especially the most pressing among all their wishes—the relief of Potidæa—was noway advanced; for the Athenians had not found it necessary to relax the blockade of that city. The result of the first year's operations had thus been to disappoint the hopes of the Corinthians and the other ardent instigators of war, while it justified the anticipations both of Periklês and of Archidamus.

Second invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesians—more spreading and ruinous than the first

A second devastation of Attica was resolved upon for the commencement of spring; and measures were taken for carrying it all over that territory, since the settled policy of Athens not to hazard a battle with the invaders was now ascertained. About the end of March or beginning of April, the entire Peloponnesian force (two-thirds from each confederate city as before) was assembled under the command of Archidamus and marched into Attica.

Eighth year of the war—began with most favourable promise for Athens—closed with great reverses to her

The eighth year of the war, described in the last chapter, had opened with sanguine hopes for Athens, and with dark promise for Sparta, chiefly in consequence of the memorable capture of Sphakteria towards the end of the preceding summer. It included, not to mention other events, two considerable and important enterprises on the part of Athens—against Megara and against Bœotia; the former plan, partially successful—the latter, not merely unsuccessful, but attended with a ruinous defeat. Lastly, the losses in Thrace following close upon the defeat at Deliuna, together with the unbounded expectations everywhere entertained from the future career of Brasidas, had again seriously lowered the impression entertained of Athenian power. The year thus closed amidst humiliations the more painful to Athens, as contrasted with the glowing hopes with which it had begun.

Desire of Spartans to make peace in order to regain the captives—they decline sending reinforcenuents to Brasidas

It was now that Athens felt the full value of those prisoners whom she had taken at Sphakteria. With those prisoners, as Kleon and his supporters had said truly, she might be sure of making peace whenever she desired it. Having such a certainty to fall back upon, she had played a bold same and aimed at larger acquisitions during the past year—and this speculation, though not in itself unreasonable, had failed: moreover a new phenomenon, alike unexpected by all, had occurred, when Brasidas broke open and cut up her empire in Thrace.

Personal activity now prevalent among the Athenian citizens—empire of Athens again exclusively maritime, after the thirty years' truce

The judicial alterations effected at Athens by Periklês and Ephialtês, described in the preceding chapter, gave to a large proportion of the citizens direct jury functions and an active interest in the constitution, such as they had never before enjoyed; the change being at once a mark of previous growth of democratical sentiment during the past, and a cause of its farther development during the future. The Athenian people were at this time ready for personal exertion in all directions: military service on land or sea was not less conformable to their dispositions than attendance in the ekklesia or in the dikastery at home. The naval service especially was prosecuted with a degree of assiduity which brought about continual improvement in skill and efficiency, and the poorer citizens, of whom it chiefly consisted, were more exact in obedience and discipline than any of the more opulent persons from whom the infantry or the cavalry were drawn. The maritime multitude, in addition to self-confidence and courage, acquired by this laborious training an increased skill, which placed the Athenian navy every year more and more above the rest of Greece: and the perfection of this force became the more indispensable as the Athenian empire was now again confined to the sea and seaport towns; the reverses immediately preceding the thirty years' truce having broken up all Athenian land ascendency over Megara, Bœotia, and the other continental territories adjoining to Attica.

After having in the last chapter followed the repulse of the Carthaginians by the Sicilian Greeks, we now return to the central Greeks and the Persians a case in which the triumph was yet more interesting to the cause of human improvement generally. The disproportion between the immense host assembled by Xerxes, and the little which he accomplished, naturally provokes both a contempt for Persian force and an admiration for the comparative handful of men by whom they were so ignominiously beaten. Both these sentiments are just, but both are often exaggerated beyond the point which attentive contemplation of the facts rewill justify. The Persian mode of making war (which we may liken to that of the modern Turks, now that the period of their energetic fanaticism has passed away) was in a high degree disorderly and inefficient : the men indeed, individually taken, especially the native Persians, were not deficient in the qualities of soldiers, but their arms and their organisation were wretched and their leaders yet worse. On t he other hand, the Greeks, equal, if not superior, in individual bravery, were incomparably superior in soldier-like order as well as in arms : but here too the leadership was defective, and the disunion a constant source of peril.