Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/204

 182 mSTORY OF GREECE. regain his ascendency in the JEgean. Timagoras of Terjea, together with an Argeian named Pollis, without any formal mission from his city, and the Corinthian Aristeus, accompanied them. As the sea was in the power of Athens, they travelled overland through Thrace to the Hellespont; and Aristeus, eager to leave nothing untried for the relief of Potidaaa, prevailed upon them to make application to Sitalkes, king of the Odrysian Thra- dan?. That prince was then in alliance with Athens, and his son Sadokus had even received the grant of Athenian citizenship: yet the envoys thought it possible not only to detaJi him from the Athenian alliance, but even to obtain fmui L.'ir> an army to act against the Athenians and raise the blockad* 1 ^V Potidiea, this being refused, they lastly applied to him for u sde escort to the banks of the Hellespont, in their way towards Persia. But Learchus and Ameiniades, then Athenian residents near the person of Sitakles, had influence enough not only to cause rejec- tion of these requests, but also to induce Sadokus, as a testimony of zeal in his new character of Athenian citizen, to assist them in seizing the persons of Aristeus and his companions in their journey through Thrace. Accordingly, the whole party were seized and conducted as prisoners to Athens, where they were forthwith put to death, without trial or permission to speak, and their bodies cast into rocky chasms, as a reprisal for the cap- tured seamen slain by the Lacedaemonians. 1 1 Thucyd. ii, 67. Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. Greece, vol. iii, ch. 20, p. 129) says that " the envoys were sacrificed chiefly to give a decent color to the base- ness : ' of killing Aristeus, from whom the Athenians feared subsequent evil, in consequence of his ability and active spirit. I do not think this is fairly contained in the words of Thucydidcs. He puts in the foreground of Athe- nian motive, doubtless, fear from the future energy of Aristeus ; but if that had been the only motive, the Athenians would probably have slain him singly without the rest : they would hardly think it necessary to provide themselves with " any decent color," in the way that Dr. Thirlwall suggests. Thucydides names the special feeling of the Athenians against Aristeus (in my judgment), chiefly in order to explain the extreme haste of the Athenian sentence of execution av^ftepov uKpirovf, etc. : they were under the influence of combined motives, fear, revenge, retaliation. The envoys here slain were sons of Sperthies and Bulis, former Spaitan heralds who had gone up to Xerxes at Susa to offer their heads as atone- ment for the previous conduct of the Spartans in killing the heralds of