Darius Hystaspis was not a conqueror like Cyrus or Cambyses: the ruling maxim of his government seems to have been to aim rather at consolidating and securing his empire than at enlarging it; and though he was engaged in wars almost throughout his whole reign, they all partook of a defensive character, and were the result of prudence, or necessity, or chance, rather than of deliberate ambition. Hence it arose that his attention was chiefly turned toward the western side of his dominions, where accidental causes brought him into collision with the Greeks, and produced those memorable events which we are now about to relate. Had his genius resembled that of his predecessors he would probably have directed his views toward the East, where the kingdoms of India lay open to his arms. On this side the Indus appears to have been the boundary of his empire, and the Indians who composed the twentieth satrapy, and whose tribute according to Herodotus exceeded a third of that of all the remainder, were probably the inhabitants of the modern Candahar, and Cabul, and the adjacent lands west of the Indus. Of the vast and rich country beyond he knew only by report, which however had undoubtedly spread the fame of its wonderful fertility and opulence: but though he employed a Greek navigator, Scylax of Caryanda, to follow the Indus into the ocean, and to survey the coast from its mouth westward, he does not seem to have formed any settled design of conquest in this quarter.

The ravages of the pestilence continued in Attica for two years without any abatement; and in the fourth summer of the war, 428, the country was again invaded by a Peloponnesian army under the command of king Archidamus. The policy which prudence had dictated to Pericles was maintained after his death, partly perhaps through the weakness and depression caused by the sickness, and partly because the enemy's presence had now become more familiar, and no longer excited the same emotions. The Athenians contented themselves with annoying the enemy, as opportunity offered itself, with their cavalry, which prevented his light troops from spreading over the country, and infesting the immediate neighbourhood of the city, and forced them to keep within the shelter of the heavy infantry. At the same time they equipped a fleet of forty galleys, which prepared to sail round Peloponnesus, under the command of Cleippides and two colleagues.

But in the mean while they were threatened in a distant quarter with a blow, which, if it had taken effect, not only would have immediately weakened their power, but might have proved ruinous in its remote consequences. We have already mentioned, that before the war broke out Mitylene had only been prevented from casting off the Athenian yoke by the reluctance which the Spartans felt to break the Thirty Years' Truce.

The tameness with which Sparta had looked on during the siege of Melos, the feeble resistance which she offered to the incursions of the Athenian garrison at Pylus, the vacillation and timidity which she betrayed in her transactions with Argos, and with her allies in Macedonia and Thrace, encouraged Athens to resume the projects of aggrandizement which the events of the war had compelled her for a time to lay aside. We have seen how ill she brooked the disappointment which she had suffered through the sudden termination to which the quarrels of the Sicilian Greeks had been brought by Hermocrates; and she had since shown that she only waited for an opportunity of renewing her enterprises in their island. Such an opportunity had appeared to present itself not long after the departure of the armament commanded by Eurymedon. The Leontines, when they saw the Athenians withdrawn, thought it expedient to prepare themselves, as well as they could, against the attacks which, notwithstanding the counsels of Hermocrates, they had always reason to apprehend from Syracuse. It seems to have been chiefly with this view that they admitted a large body of new citizens. But it was necessary to provide for these new settlers; and this could not be done without in some way disturbing the previous state of property. A proposal was accordingly made, and obtained general approbation among the commonalty, for a repartition of land.

After the return of Melesippus, Archidamus had no further pretext for lingering at the Isthmus, and he forthwith set forward on his march. But instead of striking at once into the heart of Attica, or advancing along the sea-coast into the plain of Eleusis, he turned aside to the north, and, crossing the territory of Megara, sat down before a little place called Œnoe, which had been fortified and garrisoned to secure one of the passes of Cithæron between Attica and Bœotia. The Spartans, and the Peloponnesians in general, had no skill in sieges, and did not value it. The fortress defied their attacks, though they exhausted all the resources of their military art. The army grew impatient of the delay, which frustrated its hopes of a rich booty, by giving the Attic husbandmen abundant leisure for placing all their movable property in safety. Archidamus seems to have thought, that his presence was more likely to work upon the fears of the Athenians, before it was felt, and while they might still hope to keep their territory undamaged. But finding at length that he was only losing his time, while he wearied and provoked his troops, he abandoned his attempt upon Œnoe, and, marching southward, entered the Thriasian plain, or the district of Eleusis, where the corn was just ripe, and now began in earnest to give the Athenians a sample of what they had to expect from a continuance of the war.

The events related in the preceding chapter had reduced, Sparta to a state of despondency which even exceeded the measure of her real danger and distress. Only one ray of hope broke the gloom of her prospects; but henceforth it continued to brighten them, until their colour was totally changed. For this favourable turn in her affairs she was indebted chiefly to the courage and ability of Brasidas. But it was the alarm generally diffused by the recent successes of the Athenians, both among their enemies and their dependants, that furnished him with this new opportunity of serving his country. The revolted towns of Chalcidice, when they saw Athens prevailing, and her rival almost at her mercy, dreaded lest they should be the next objects to feel the weight of her arm. Their neighbours who had not yet cast off the yoke, feared that it would now become more galling than ever. They saw that Chios had been lately compelled to soothe the jealousy of the Athenians by demolishing her new fortifications, and to throw herself upon the good faith of her suspicious ally for the maintenance of that degree of liberty which she had hitherto enjoyed. Perdiccas too, though still nominally in alliance with Athens, was agitated by similar apprehensions, and he had need of foreign succours to subdue a refractory vassal, Arrhibæus, king of the Lyncestians.

Though the issue of the Persian invasion had not broken nor even dangerously shaken the power of Persia, it had relieved the European Greeks, and the islanders of the Ægean, from all apprehension of another attack on their freedom from the same quarter. Most of the states now united with Athens would have been satisfied with this security, and had no wish to act on the offensive against the vanquished enemy. But Athens saw a vast field open to her ambition in the East; the situation of the Asiatic Greeks afforded a fair pretext for the continuance of hostilities, and many of her leading statesmen were desirous of giving this direction to the restless spirit of their countrymen.

Foremost among these was Cimon, son of Miltiades. In his youth he gave little promise of the abilities or of the character which he afterwards displayed, and seemed to have inherited the limited capacity of his grandfather, who had incurred a nickname expressive of extreme simplicity, rather than his father's genius. His propensity to pleasure was thought to be so strong as to divert his attention from business, and drew on him the satire of the comic poets; and in his early youth he is said to have neglected the ordinary accomplishments of an Athenian gentleman. If however this was the case, he would seem, from an anecdote reported by Plutarch on the authority of a contemporary, to have supplied this deficiency at a later period.

ON THE ATTIC TRIBES

The view we have taken of the four ancient Attic tribes, agrees in the main with those of Wachsmuth, Buttmann (in the Essay on φρατρία in the Mythologus), and Dr. Arnold, in his Appendix I. to Thucydides, vol. i. But some readers may like to learn the opinions of other learned men on this subject, and on some other points connected with it, to which allusions have here and there been made in the text.

Niebuhr in the first edition of his Roman History (i. p. 226.) considered the names of the four tribes abolished by Cleisthenes as significant of so many castes. In the second edition he retains the same opinion with regard to the origin of the names, but on account of the order in which they stand doubts whether they ever had any such meaning in Attica (i. n. 707.) And in the third edition he appears to have been induced by Hermann's arguments, in the Preface to the Ion of Euripides, to abandon his former opinion on this question altogether. But this is of less importance than his view of what the Attic tribes were down to the time of Solon. He conceived them to have included only a part of the population of Attica – the Ionian conquerors blended perhaps with a portion of the ancient inhabitants (see ed. 2. i. p. 307.) – and to have stood in a relation to the rest, similar to that between the Patricians and Plebeians at Rome.

We have already taken a survey of the legends relating to the origin of the people of Attica, and to the events of their history down to the Ionian migration. We must now look back to the same period, in order to trace the progress of their political institutions, from the earliest times to the establishment of that form of government under which the Athenians were living when they first came into conflict with the power of Persia.

Among the few facts which we are able to collect with regard to the state of Attica in the earliest times, there are two which seem to be so well attested, or so clearly deduced from authentic accounts, that they may be safely admitted. We read that the territory of Attica was originally divided into a number of little states; and tradition has preserved the names of some petty chiefs, who are said to have ruled in these districts with the title of king. These communities were independent of each other and of Athens in their internal government, and sometimes even made war on their neighbours. On the other hand, we are informed that attempts were made, at a very early period, to unite the forces of the whole nation for the purpose of mutual defence. It was Cecrops, according to an Attic antiquarian, who first established a confederacy among the inhabitants of Attica, to repel the inroads of the Carian pirates, and of the Bœotians, who invaded it on the land side.

The Thirty Years' Truce, though concluded upon terms seemingly disadvantageous to Athens, afforded an interval of repose highly favourable to her prosperity, only interrupted by one successful effort. It was during this period that Pericles was enabled to carry out his views into action, with the amplest means that the state could furnish at his command, and with scarcely a breath of opposition to divert him from his purpose. The history of Athens during the continuance of the Thirty Years' Truce may be properly comprised in a general survey of his administration.

Pericles, to describe his policy in a few words, had two objects mainly in view throughout his public life: to extend and strengthen the Athenian empire, and to raise the confidence and self-esteem of the Athenians themselves to a level with the lofty position which they occupied. Almost all his measures may clearly be referred to one or the other of these ends. There are only a few as to which it may seem doubtful whether they can be traced to any higher aim than that of establishing his own power, and whether they must not be regarded as a sacrifice by which, at the expence of his principles, he purchased that popularity which was the indispensable condition of success in all his undertakings.

The condition of the greater part of the states which composed the Athenian confederacy had, as we have seen, undergone a great change in the time of Cimon, and through his management.