Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/118

 yb HISTORY OF GREECE. Attica, was, in point of fact, the first distinct violation of the truce, and the initiatory measure of the Peloponnesian Avar : noi did the Spartan meeting, and the subsequent congress of alliea at Sparta, serve any other purpose than to provide such formal- ities as were requisite to insure the concurrent and hearty action of numbers, and to clothe with imposing sanction a state of war already existing in reality, though yet unproclaitned. The sen- timent in Peloponnesus at this moment was not the fear of Athens, but the hatred of Athens, and the confident hope of subduing her. And indeed such confidence was justified by plausible grounds : men might well think that the Athenians would never endure the entire devastation of their highly culti- vated soil, or at least that they would certainly come forth to fight for it in the field, which was all that the Peloponnesian s desired. Nothing except the unparalleled ascendency and un- shaken resolution of Perikles, induced the Athenians to persevere in a scheme of patient defence, and to trust to that naval superi- ority which the enemies of Athens, save and except the judicious Archidamus,had not yet learned fully to appreciate. Moreover, the confident hopes of the Peloponnesians were materially strength- ened by the wide-spread sympathy in favor of their cause, pro- claiming, as it did, the intended liberation of Greece from a despot city. 1 To Athens, on the other hand, the coming war presented itself in a very different aspect ; holding out scarcely any hope of pos- sible gain, and the certainty of prodigious loss and privation, even granting, that, at this heavy cost, her independence and union at home, and her empire abroad, could be upheld. By Perikles, and by the more long-sighted Athenians, the chance of unavoid- able war was foreseen even before the Korkyraean dispute. 2 But Perikles was only the first citizen in a democracy, esteemed, trusted, and listened to, more than any one else by the body cf the citizens, but warmly opposed in most of his measures, under the free speech and latitude of individual action which reigned at Athens, and even bitterly hated by many active political opponents. The formal determination of the Lacedaemonians, to declare war, must of course have been made known at Athens 1 Thucvd. ii, 8. * Thucyd. ' : 45 ; Plutarch, Terikles. c. 8.