Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/250

 228 HISTORY OF GREECE. this policy was now no longer necessary, and the Mitylenaeauss, feeling themselves free only in name, were imperatively called upon by regard for their own safety to seize the earliest opportu- nity for emancipating themselves in reality. Nor was it merely regard for their own safety, but a farther impulse of Pan-Hellenic patriotism ; a desire to take rank among the opponents, and not among the auxiliaries of Athens, in her usurpation of sovereignty over so many free Grecian states. 1 The Mitylenaeans had, how- ever, been compelled to revolt with preparations only half-corn pleted, and had therefore a double claim upon the succor of Sparta, the single hope and protectress of Grecian autonomy. And Spartan aid if now lent immediately and heartily, in a renewed attack on Attica daring this same year, by sea as well as by land could not fail to put down the common enemy, exhausted as she was by pestilence as well as by the cost of three years' war, and occupying her whole maritime force, either in the siege of Mitylene or round Peloponnesus. The orator con- cluded by appealing not merely to the Hellenic patriotism and sympathies of the Peloponnesians, but also to the sacred name of the Olympic Zeus, in whose precinct the meeting was held, that his pressing entreaty might not be disregarded. 2 In following this speech of the orator, we see the plain confes- sion that the Mitylenaeans had no reason whatever to complain of the conduct of Athens towards themselves : she had respected alike their dignity, their public force, and their private security. This important fact helps us to explain, first, the indifference which the Mitylenaean people will be found to manifest in the revolt ; next, the barbarous resolution taken by the Athenians after its suppression. The reasons given for the revolt are mainly two. 1. The Mitylenaeans had no security that Athens would not degrade them into the condition of subject-allies like the rest. 2. They did not choose to second the ambition of Athens, and to become parties to a war, for the sake of maintaining an empire essentially offensive to Grecian political instincts. In both these two reasons there is force ; and both touch the sore point of the TOV( ye loo-fyrjQovq a/covraf,fi//^rt ydl/covv olf erryeaav, v a T i 6 - revet v. 1 Thucyd. iii, 13. * Thucyd in, 13, 1