Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/117

 BEGINNING OF THE PELOPONNESIA1, WAR ^ and, moreover, that that truce marked an epocL of signal fturni lint ion and reduction of her power. The triumph which Sparta and the Peloponnesians then gained, though not sufficiently complete to remove all fear of Athens, was yet great enough to inspire them with the hope that a second combined effort would subdue her. This mixture of fear and hope was exactly the state of feeling out of which war was likely to grow, and we see that even before the quarrel between Corinth and Korkyra, sagacious Greeks everywhere anticipated war as not far distant :' it was near breaking out even on occasion of the revolt of Samoe, 2 and peace was then preserved partly by the commercial and nautical interests of Corinth, partly by the quiescence of Athens. But the quarrel of Corinth and Korkyra, which Sparta might have appeased beforehand had she thought it her interest to do so, and the junction of Korkyra with Athens, exhibited the latter as again in a career of aggrandizement, and thus again brought into play the warlike feelings of Sparta ; while they converted Corinth from the advocate of peace into a clamorous organ of war. The revolt of Potidasa, fomented by Corinth, and en- couraged by Sparta in the form of a positive promise to invade really belong to a later. Thus he represents (c. 20) the desire for acquiring possession of Sicily, and even of Carthage and the Tyrrhenian coast, as having become very popular at Athens even before the revolt of Megara and Euboea, and before those other circumstances which preceded the thirty years' truce : and he gives much credit to Perikles for having repressed such unmeasured aspirations. But ambitious hopes directed towards Sicily could not have sprung up in the Athenian mind until after the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. It was impossible that they could make any step, in that direction until they had established their alli- ance with Korkyra, and this was only done in the year before the Pelopon- nesian war, done too, even then, in a qualified manner, and with much reserve. At the first outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians had nothing but fears, while the Peloponnesians had large hopes of aid, from the side of Sicily. While it is very true, therefore, that Perikles was eminently useful in discouraging rash and distant enterprises of ambition generally, we cannot give him the credit of keeping down Athenian desires of acquisition in Sicily, or towards Carthage, if, indeed, this latter ever was included in the catalogue of Athenian hopes, for such desires were hardly known until after his death, in spite of the assertion again repeated by Plutarch, Alkibiades, c. 17. 1 Thucyd. i, 33 -36. - Thucyd. i, 40, 41.