Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/317

 GRECIAN CONFEDERACY UNDER ATHENS. 293 over the ^gean, as the natural condition of Greece, so that if Athens lost such dominion, it would be transferred to Sparta, holding out the dispersed maritime Greeks as a tempting prize for the aggressive schemes of some new conqueror, — and even bringing up by association into men's fancies the mythical Minos of Krete, and others, as having been rulers of the ^Egean in times anterior to Athens. Even those who lived under the full-grown Athenian empire had before them no good accounts of the incidents between 479- 450 B.C. ; for we may gather fi-om the intimation of Thucydides, as Avell as from his barrenness of facts, that while there were chroniclers both for the Persian invasion and for the times before, no one cared for the times immediately succeeding.' Hence, the little light which has fallen upon this blank has all been borrowed — if we except the careful Thucydides — from a subsequent age; and the Athenian hegemony has been ti'eated as a mere com- .tnencement of the Athenian empire : credit has been given to Athens for a long-sighted ambition, aiming from the Persian war downwards at results Avhich perhaps Themistokles^ may have partially divined, but which only time and successive accidents opened even to distant view. But such systematic anticipation ' Thucyd. i, 97. rocg Tzpo kjioii u-aaiv eK?uTrEC 7}v tovto rb x^piov, nai fj rd. npb Tuv Mi]6lkuv ^vv£Ti-&£aav ij aira rd, MijdiKa • tovtuv 6e dawep Kal ^tp ar o iv ry ^ArriKy ^vyypaf^ 'EAAavi/cof, ppaxeug re Kal tocc XPo^°^C oi'K uKpij3u^ e~efivf}<T&7]. Hellanikus, therefore, had done no more than touch upon the events of this period : and he found so little good information within his reach as to fall into chronological blunders. iarl, Kal n/v upxvv Evdiig ^v/KaTscrKEva^e. Dr. Arnold says in his note, " ev&vc signifies probably immediately after the retreat of the Persians." I think it refers to an earlier period, — that point of time when Themistokles first counselled the building of the fleet, or at least when he counselled them to abandon their city and repose all their hopes in their fleet. It is only by this supposition that we get a rea- sonable meaning for the words eTo^-jirjoE eItteIv, " he was the Jirst who dared to sa>/" — which implies a counsel of extraordinaiy boldness. "For he was the first who dared to advise them to grasp at the sea, and from that moment forward he helped to establish their empire." The word ivyKare- a K e V a ^ e seems to doxiote a collateral consequence, not directly contem plated, though perhaps divined, by Themistokles.
 * Thucyd. i, 93. r^f yup 6?/ -Qa/MGarjc ■n-purog iTu?.fir}(jev iiirelv wf uv^eKTia