associated with Sophokles during this expedition, the famous tragedian was a most charming friend and companion, but not gifted with much practical wisdom.

Perikles with his squadron of forty-four ships met the Samian fleet of seventy ships off the island of Tragia, and routed it. Receiving a reënforcement of forty ships from Athens, and twenty-five from Chios and Lesbos, he disembarked at Samos, defeated the Samian land force, blockaded the harbor with a portion of his fleet, and, surrounding the city with its triple wall on the land, besieged it both by land and sea. Meanwhile the Samians sent Stesagoras with five ships to hasten the arrival of the Phœnician fleet, and the report that this was approaching became so general that Perikles felt obliged to take sixty out of his hundred and twenty-five triremes to meet the coming enemy. But the Phoenician fleet never came in sight, because. the Persians dared not make an attack by reason of the truce, which forbade them to send a fleet westward of the Chelidonian promontory.

The Samians, seizing the opportunity offered by the weakening of the Attic fleet through the departure of Perikles, suddenly sallied out, destroyed the guard-ships, routed the rest, and, raising the siege, became for fourteen days the masters of the sea. The most noteworthy incident of this event is that Melissus, the general of the Samians, was also a prominent member of the Eleatic school, and wrote "Concerning Nature and Essence."* Thus, on one side the greatest dramatist of the century commanded the Athenians, and on the other one of the most renowned of philosophers led the Samians to victory; an event peculiarly characteristic of that epoch, in which the theoretical life was closely linked with the practical.

When Perikles returned from the Asiatic coast the Samians were again besieged, the Athenians having received * Περὶ φύσεως καὶ τοῦ ὄντος,

an additional aid of sixty ships from home and thirty from Chios and Lesbos, making altogether nearly two hundred sail. The Samians, led by Melissus, continued the struggle for many months, but finally were defeated and compelled to demolish their wall, to give hostages, to surrender their war-vessels, and to pay by stated installments the expenses of the war, amounting, it is said, to one thousand talents. The Byzantines at the same time agreed to be subjects as before.

Funeral Oration of Perikles.

The revolution of Samos again showed how unstable was the foundation of the Athenian empire. The uprising was indeed subdued, and no other city took part in it except Byzantium, which appears to have yielded without any war as soon as the Samians were reduced to subjection. But, in order to accomplish this result, it was necessary to use two hundred triremes-not less than Kimon ten years before had needed to inflict a mortal wound on the great Persian king. These doubtless would not have sufficed if the Peloponnesians had given the Samians the aid which they solicited. But this the Peloponnesians not only refused to do, but, on the proposition of the Corinthians, declared that every confederacy had the right to punish its own recreant members. Thus they left the course of action free to the Athenians, and Perikles was able, on his return, to celebrate this new achievement by a splendid funeral oration.

The custom of delivering these orations was introduced shortly after the Persian wars,* and afforded an excellent opportunity for eulogizing the patriotism of the citizens, especially when the orator had great personal merit and power of eloquence. Perikles was twice chosen by the peo

*This custom still prevails throughout Hellas. No man of note dies without the offering of this last tribute by his friends and relatives. Many men make the delivery of these funeral orations their profession.

ple to address them at public funerals. The oration pronounced after the reduction of Samos has not reached us. Of the second, delivered at the close of the first year of the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides has happily recorded a large part, describing also the funeral pomp-doubtless the same on all occasions. Three days before the funeral procession, the bones of the deceased warriors were placed in a tent, that each might have the opportunity of bringing to his own. relative whatever offering he pleased. The remains were then laid in coffins of cypress, carried forth on carts, and deposited in the public vault, which was at the Kerameikus, the fairest suburb of the city. One coffin was used for the dead of each tribe, and an empty cart represented the "unknown "—i. e., those warriors whose remains were not found. The wives and female relatives followed the carts with loud wailings, and next in order a numerous concourse both of citizens and strangers.

In the obsequies of those who fell at Samos, after the coffins had been consigned to the grave, Perikles, standing on an elevated platform, pronounced the eulogy. This oration is said to have been brilliant and powerful. It appears that Perikles, in his exultation over the achievement, went beyond his usual moderation; for the Chian poet Ion says that he forgot himself so far as to say that Agamemnon needed ten years to conquer a barbarous city, while he in nine months had reduced to subjection the most powerful of all the Ionic communities. But so great was his personal influence, so brilliant the eloquence by which in narrating the heroic deeds of the departed he conferred honor upon them and the city, that his boastful statement was not disapproved. On the contrary, on descending from the bema, the wives, mothers, and daughters of the fallen decorated him, like a victorious athlete, with wreaths and garlands. One voice of disapproval only was heard, that of Elpinike, who approaching him said, “Are these actions, then, Perikles, worthy of crowns and gar

lands, which have deprived us of many brave citizens, not in a war with the Phoenicians and Medes, such as my brother Kimon waged, but in destroying a city united to us both in blood and friendship?" According to Plutarch, Perikles only smiled, and answered softly with this line of Archilochus :

Why lavish ointments on a head that is gray?" *

But the voice of Elpinike was the voice of truth. It was indeed unfortunate that the Hellenic power should have been wasted in civil combats; it was unfortunate that no other bond of political union could have been found except that of force and oppression; and most unfortunate of all, that every new triumph of Athens should only arouse the common indignation against her.

CHAPTER IX.

EVENTS BEFORE THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

The Decree against Megara.

THE destruction of the Samians did not even have the result of terrifying the other cities into submission, as shortly after the Lesbians secretly sought the assistance of Sparta to enable them to revolt. Their demand was not favorably heard, as the Peloponnesians, and especially the Spartans, were not disposed to violate the thirty years' truce. It is evident that Athens had the greatest possible interest in fostering this peaceful disposition of the Peloponnesians. But about this time a serious change took place in Athenian policy. While during the thirty years' truce they ob

* Οὐκ ἄν μύροισι γραῦς ἐοῦσ ̓ ἠλείφει,

tained peace at a great sacrifice, and while even now prudence demanded that they should avoid every cause of dispute, we suddenly see them inviting war of their own accord.

After the conquest of Samos, a decree was issued by Perikles, by which the Megarians were excluded, on penalty of death, from all ports within the empire of Athens and from the market of Attica. This barbarous decree virtually destroyed the Megarians, dooming them as it did to complete commercial stagnation. It was issued on account of the alleged facts that the Megarians had sheltered fugitive slaves from Athens, and had cultivated a tract of land partly sacred and partly in dispute between the two communities, and therefore by mutual understanding left in common without any permanent inclosure. In reality, the Athenians wished to punish Megara because no other revolution had brought upon Athens such irreparable mischief as the one in that city fourteen years before.

Grote says that the feeling prevalent between the two cities had been one of bitter enmity, and that it was undoubtedly within the legitimate right of Athens to enforce this decree. But since the Athenians had once surrendered Megara to the Peloponnesians, had they a right to avenge themselves in so relentless a manner on that city? It is true that Perikles maintained that there was nothing in the truce to prevent the issuing of such a decree, and that it was even less harsh than the systematic expulsion of foreigners by Sparta; but we must confess that his assumption savored of sophistry. That law existed in Sparta even during the heroic times, and was enacted in no spirit of antagonism to commerce, but simply to keep the Spartans fixed within their ancestral laws. Again, Sparta was not a commercial city, and the law could never have injured the commercial relations or interests of the Greeks. In no way does the decree against the Megarians seem to be justified; and assuredly it can not