Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/286

 262 HISTORY OF GHEECE. this national schism and called into action by it, appears the inter- nal political schism in each separate city between oligarchy and affairs, comparing the period before and after the Persian war. Thucydides goes on to trace briefly the consequences of this bisection of the Grecian world into two great leagues, — -the growing improvement in military skill, and the increasing stretch of military effort on both sides from the Persian invasion down to the Peloponnesian war ; -~ he remarks also, upon the dif- ference between Sparta and Athens in their way of dealing with their allies respectively. He then states the striking fact, that the military force put forth sepai-ately by Athens and her allies on the one side, and by Sparta and her allies on the other, during the Peloponnesian Avar, were each of them greater than the entire force which had been employed by both together in the most powerful juncture of their confederacy against the Persian inva- ders, — Kal eyevETo avTOir ef Tovde rbv TtoTiefiOv 7/ I6la ■KapaaKEV'^ ud^uv 1/ il)g Tu KpuTiara ttote /xetu uKpac(j>vovc fijg ^vfifiaxioc Tjvdrjaav (i, 19). I notice this last passage especially (construing it as the Scholiast seems to do), not less because it conveys an interesting comparison, than because it has been understood by Dr. Arnold, Goller, and other commentators, in a sense which seems to me eiToneous. They interpret thus : avrolg to mean the Athenians only, and not the Lacedaimonians, — rj idla napaaKEvrj to denote the forces equipped by Athens herself, apart from her allies, — and aKpaL(*)vovc ^vfifiaxM^ to refer " to the Athenian alliance only, at a period a little before the conclusion of the thirty years' treaty, wlicn the Athenians were masters not only of the islands, and the Asiatic Greek colonies, but had also united to their confederacy Bceotia and Achaia on the continent of Greece itself." (Dr. Arnold's note.) Now so far, as the words go, the meaning assigned by Dr. Amold miglit be admissible ; but if we trace the thread of ideas in Thucydides, we shall see that the comparison, as these commenta- toi's conceive it, between Athens alone and Athens aided by her allies — between the Atlienian empire as it stood during the Peloponnesian wai*, and the same empire as it had stood before the thirty years' truce — is quite for- eign to his thoughts. Nor had Thucydides said one word to inform the reader, that the Athenian empire at the licginning of the Peloponnesian war had diminished in magnitude, and thus was no longer aKpaKpvj)^: with- out which previous notification, the comparison supposed by Dr. Arnold could not be clearly understood. I conceive that there are two periods, and two sets of circumstances, which, throughout all this passage, Thucydides* means to contrast: first, confederate Greece at the time of the Persian war; next, bisected Greece in a state of war, imder tlie double headship of Spai'ta and Athens. AvtoIc refers as much to Sparta as to Athens — unpai^- f ot)f r^f ^vfifiaxiac means what had been before expressed by ufiatxn'ia — and noTE set against t6v6e tov noXefiov, is equivalent to the expression which had before been used — urrb tuv MrjdiKiJv Ic t6v6e uel rbv Tz67.Ejiov.