Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading. George Park Fisher
II. THE INFLUENCE OF ALCIBIADES.
THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION.—From this time, Alcibiades, a relative of Pericles, but lacking his sobriety and disinterested spirit, plays an active part. Beautiful in person, rich, a graceful and effective orator, but restless and ambitious, he quickly acquired great influence. Three years after the peace of Nicias, he persuaded Athens to join a league of disaffected Peloponnesian allies of Sparta; but in the battle of Mantinea (418 B.C.) the Spartans regained their supremacy. It was at the suggestion of Alcibiades that the Athenians undertook the great Sicilian Expedition, which resulted in the worst disasters they ever suffered. This expedition was aimed at the Dorian city of Syracuse, and the hope was that all Sicily might be conquered. It consisted of about forty thousand men, besides the sailors. The commanders were Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus. Alcibiades was recalled to answer a charge of sacrilege. At Thurii he managed to escape and went over to the side of Sparta. Gylippus went with a small Spartan fleet to aid Syracuse. The Athenians were repulsed in their attack on the city. Although re-inforced by land and naval forces under a gallant and worthy general, Demosthenes, they fought under great disadvantages, so that their fleet was destroyed in the Syracusan harbor. Their retreating forces on land were cut to pieces or captured. Nicias and Demosthenes died either at the hands of the executioner or by a self-inflicted death.
NAVAL CONTESTS.—No such calamity had ever overtaken a Grecian army. The news of it brought anguish into almost every family in Athens. The Spartans had fortified the village of Decelea in Attica, and sought on the sea, with Persian help, to annihilate the Athenian navy. The allies of Athens, Chios, Miletus, etc., revolted. The oligarchs at Athens overthrew the democratic constitution, and placed the Government in the hands of a Council of Four Hundred. The popular assembly was limited to five thousand members, and was never called together. The object was to make peace with Sparta. But the army before Samos, of which Thrasybulus, a patriotic man, was the leader, refused to accept this change of government. Alcibiades, who had left the Spartans out of anger on account of their treatment of him, was recalled, and assumed command. The oligarchical rule was overturned in four months after its establishment, and the democracy restored—the assembly being still limited, however, to five thousand citizens. Three brilliant naval victories, the last at Cyzicus (410 B.C.), were won over the Spartans by Alcibiades who came back to Athens in triumph (408 B.C.). Lysander was the commander of the Spartan fleet on the coast of Asia Minor, and (407 B.C.) gained a victory over the Athenian ships during a temporary absence of Alcibiades. Alcibiades was not reëlected general. He now withdrew, and, three years later, died. The new Spartan admiral, Callicratidas, surrounded the Athenian fleet under Conon at Mitylene. By very strenuous exertions of the Athenians, a new fleet was dispatched to the help of Conon; and in the battle of Arginusæ (406 B.C.), the Peloponnesians were completely vanquished. The public spirit of Athens and the resources of a free people were never more impressively shown than in the prodigious efforts made by the Athenians to rise from the effect of the crushing disaster which befell the Sicilian expedition on which their hopes were centered. But these exertions only availed to furnish to coming generations an example of the heroic energy and love of country which are possible under free government.
III. THE FALL OF ATHENS.
Lysander once more took command of the Spartan fleet. Shrewd in diplomacy, as well as skillful in battle, he strengthened his naval force by the aid of Cyrus the Younger, the Persian governor in Asia Minor. Watching his opportunity, he attacked the Athenians at Ægospotami, opposite Lampsacus, when soldiers and sailors were off their guard (405 B.C.). Three thousand of them, who had not been slain in the assault, were slaughtered after they had been taken captive. Conon escaped to Cyprus with only eight ships. One fast-sailing trireme carried the news of the overwhelming defeat to Athens. Lysander followed up his success cautiously, but with energy. Islands and seaports surrendered to him, and in them he established the aristocratic rule. The Athenians were shut in by land and by sea. A treacherous aristocratic faction within the walls was working in the interest of the Spartans. Famine conspired with other agencies to destroy the multitude of homeless and destitute people who had crowded into the city. Starvation compelled a surrender to the Spartan general. The long walls and fortifications were demolished by the ruthless conqueror, the work of destruction being carried on to the sound of the flute. All but twelve vessels were given up to the captors. The democratic system was subverted, and thirty men—the "Thirty Tyrants"—of the oligarchical party were established in power, with Critias, a depraved and passionate, though able, man, at their head (404–403 B.C.). They put a Spartan garrison in the citadel, and sought to confirm their authority by murdering or banishing all whom they suspected of opposition. Thrasybulus, a patriot, collected the democratic fugitives at Phyle, defeated the Thirty, and seized the Piraeus. Critias was slain. Ten oligarchs of a more moderate temper were installed in power. In co-operation with the Spartan king, Pausanias, the two parties at Athens were reconciled. An amnesty was proclaimed, and democracy in a moderate form was restored, with a revision of the laws, under the archonship of Euclides (403 B.C.). It was shortly after this change that the trial and death of Socrates occurred, the wisest and most virtuous man of ancient times (399 B.C.).
PHILOSOPHY: SOCRATES.—At the head of the Greek philosophers is the illustrious name of Socrates. He was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and was born 469 B.C., just as Pericles was assuming the leadership at Athens. Socrates was the founder of moral philosophy. He was original, being indebted for his ideas to no previous school. He was as sound in body as in mind. His appearance was unique. His forehead was massive, but his flat nose gave to his countenance an aspect quite at variance with the Greek ideal of beauty. He looked, it was said, like a satyr. He taught, in opposition to the Sophists, a class of men (including Gorgias, Protagoras, and others) who instructed young men in logic and grammar, taking fees—which was contrary to the custom of the Greek philosophers—and cultivating intellectual keenness and dexterity, often at the expense of depth and sincerity. Their work as thinkers was negative, being confined mainly to pointing out fallacies in existing systems, but providing nothing positive in the room of them. Socrates had been called by the oracle at Delphi the wisest of men. He could only account for this by the fact, that, in contrast with others, he did not erroneously deem himself to be knowing. "Know thyself" was his maxim. His daily occupation was to converse with different classes, especially young men, on subjects of highest moment to the individual and to the state. By a method of quiet cross-examination, the "Socratic irony," he made them aware of their lack of clear ideas and tenable, consistent opinions, and endeavored to guide them aright. The soul and its moral improvement was his principal subject. He asserted Theism and the spiritual nature and obligations of religion, without calling in question the existence of the various divinities. He taught the doctrine of a universal Providence. Absolute loyalty to conscience, the preference of virtue to any possible advantage without it, he solemnly inculcated. He believed, perhaps not without a mingling of doubt, in the immortality of the soul. Taking no part in public affairs, he devoted his time to this kind of familiar instruction—to teaching by dialogue, in compliance with what he believed to be an inward call of God. An impulse within him, which he called a divine "voice," checked him when he was about to take a wrong step. He was charged with corrupting the youth by his teaching, and with heresy in religion. His rebukes of the shallow and the self-seeking had stung them, and had made him many enemies. Such men as Alcibiades and Critias, who had been among his hearers, but for whose misconduct he was really not in the least responsible, added to his unpopularity. The Apology, as given by Plato, contains the substance of his most impressive defense before his judges. He took no pains to placate them or his accusers, or to escape after he was convicted. Conversing with his disciples in the same genial, tranquil tone which he had always maintained, he drank the cup of hemlock, and expired (May, 399 B.C.). An account of his teaching and of his method of life is given by his loving scholar, Xenophon, in the Memorabilia. The dialogues of Plato, in which Socrates is the principal interlocutor, mingle with the master's doctrine the pupil's own thoughts and speculations.
PLATO.—Plato (427–347 B.C.),