Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/131

 BEGINNING OF THE PELOPONNESIAN AR. 109 by opportunities, always rare and accidental, for successful attack. They might, perhaps, establish a fortified post in Attica, but it would do little serious mischief; while at sea, their inferiority and helplessness would be complete, and the irresistible Athenian navy would take care to keep it so. Nor would they be able to reckon on tempting away the able foreign seamen from Athenian ships by means of funds borrowed from Olympia or Delphi r 1 for besides that the mariners of the dependent islands would find themselves losers even by accepting a higher pay, with the cer- tainty of Athenian vengeance afterwards, Athens herself would suffice to man her fleet in case of need, with her own citizens and metics : she had within her own walls steersmen and mariners better as well as more numerous than all Greece besides. There was but one side on which Athens was vulnerable : Attica unfor- tunately was not an island, it was exposed to invasion and ravage. To this the Athenians must submit, without committing the imprudence of engaging a land battle to avert it: they had abundant lands out of Attica, insular as well as continental, to supply their wants, and they could in their turn, by means of their navy, ravage the Peloponnesian territories, whose inhabi- tants had no subsidiary lands to recur to. 2 " Mourn not for the loss of land and houses (continued the orator) : reserve your mourning for men: houses and land acquire not men, but men acquire them. 3 Nay, if I thought I could pre- vail upon you, I would exhort you to march out and ravage them yourselves, and thus show to the Peloponnesians that, for them at least, ye will not truckle. And I could exhibit many further grounds for confidently anticipating success, if ye will only be 1 Thucyd. i. 143. SITE Kal Kivr/aavrec TUV 'Ohvfimaoiv fj TUV fj.tc&V fj.eiovi ireiptivro TJ/J.UV vno^a^elv Toijg tjevovc TUV vavruv, pr) OVTUV fj.sv -fjftuv avTiirdTiuv, iopavruv avruv TE Kal ruv /J.ETOIKUV, dsivbv uv i]v vvv 6s r66e re inrup^Ei, Kal, cnrep Kpariarov, Kvj3epvt/raf fyofiEv Tro/Uraf Kal T}/V uX?^v VTrrjpeaiav nTiEiovf Kal a/LtECvovf rj iruaa fy uA^r/ 'EAAaf. This is in reply to those hopes which we know to have been conceived by the Peloponnesian leaders, and upon which the Corinthian speaker in the Peloponnesian congress had dwelt (i, 121). Doubtless Perikles would b informed of the tenor of all these public demonstrations at Sparta. 2 Thucyd. ', 141, 142, 143. 3 Thucyd. '.. 143. TTJV TE ohotivpciv firi oiKi&v Kal yjjf irotEia&at, u/'.Au i <Lt oil yap ruds rovf uv&oa<;, uW ol uvdpsf ravra KTuvrai.