Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/276

 252 HISTORY OF GREECE. country before the Peloponnesian war. The barley, vegetables, %s. and oil, produced in most parts of the territory, — the char- coal prejjared in the flourishing deme of Achai-nce,' — and the fish obtained in abundance near the coast, — all found opulent buyers and a constant demand fiom the augmenting town popu- lation. We are farther told that Themistokles 2 prevailed on the Athenians to build every year twenty new ships of the line, so we may designate the trireme. Whether this number was always strictly adhered to, it is impossible to say : but to repair the ships, as well as to keep up their numbers, was always re- garded among the most indispensable obligations of the execu- tive government. It does not appear that the Spartans offered any opposition to the fortification of the Peirceus, though it was an enterprise greater, more novel, and more menacing, than that of Athen.s. But Diodorus tells us, probably enough, that Theraistokles thought it necessary to send an embassy to Sparta,3 intimating that his schefne was to provide a safe harbor for the collective navy of Greece, in the event of future Persian attack- Works on so vast a scale must have taken a considerable time, and absorbed much of the Athenian force ; yet they did not pre- ' See the lively pieture of the Achamian demots in the comedy of Aris- tophanes so entitled. Respecting the advantages derived from the residence of metics and from foreign visitors, compare the observations of Isokrates, more than a century after this period, Orat. iv, De Pace, p. 163, and Xenophon, De Vectigali- bus, c. iv. - Diodor. xi, 43. ' Diodor. xi, 41, 42, 43. I mean, that the fact of such an embassy being sent to Sparta is probable enough, — separating that fact from the prelim- inary discussions which Diodorus describes as having preceded it in the assembly of Athens, and which seem unmeaning as well as incredible. His story — that Thcmistokles told the assembly that he had a conceived scheme of great moment to the state, but that it did not admit of being made public beforehand, upon which the assembly named Ai-isteides and Xan- thippus to hear it confidentially and judge of it — seems to indicate that Diodorus had read the well-known tale of the project fif Themisiokles to bum the Grecian fleet in the harbor of Pagasse, and that he jumbled it in his memory with this other project for enlarging and fortifying the Peirseus.