Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/29

Rh Athenian budget, however, prior to the Peloponnesian war, we know that during the larger part of the administration of

would have constituted in the minds of the latter a substantive grievance, such as to aggravate the motive for revolt in a manner which Thucydides could hardly fail to notice. The orator Æshehines refers the augmentation of the tribute, up to twelve hundred talents, to the time succeeding the peace of Nikias: M. Boeckh (Public Econ. of Athens, b. iii, ch. 15-19, pp. 400-434) supposes it to have taken place earlier than the representation of the Vespæ of Aristophanes, that is, about three years before that peace, or 423 B.C. But this would have been just before the time of the expedition of Brasidas into Thrace, and his success in exciting revolt among the dependencies of Athens: if Athens had doubled her tribute upon all the allies, just before that expedition, Thucydides could not have omitted to mention it, as increasing the chances of success to Brasidas, and helping to determine the resolutions of the Akanthians and others, which were by no means adopted unanimously or without hesitation, to revolt. In reference to the oration called that of Andokidus against Alkibiades, I made some remarks in the fourth volume of this History (vol. iv, ch. xxxi, p. 151), tending to show it to be spurious and of a time considerably later than that to which it purports to belong. I will here add one other remark, which appears to me decisive, tending to the same conclusion. The oration professes to be delivered in a contest of ostracism between Nikias, Alkibiades, and the speaker: one of the three, he says, must necessarily be ostracized, and the question is, to determine which of the three: accordingly, the speaker dwells upon many topics calculated to raise a bad impression of Alkibiades, and a favorable impression of himself. Among the accusations against Alkibiades, one is, that after having recommended, in the assembly of the people, that the inhabitants of Melos should be sold as slaves, he had himself purchased a Melian woman among the captives, and had had a son by her: it was criminal, argues the speaker, to beget offspring by a woman whose relations he had contributed to cause to be put to death, and whose city he had contributed to ruin (c. 8). Upon this argument I do not here touch, any farther than to bring out the point of chronology. The speech, if delivered at all, must have been delivered, at the earliest, nearly a year after the capture of Melos by the Athenians: it may be of later date, but it cannot possibly be earlier. Now Melos surrendered in the winter immediately preceding the great expedition of the Athenians to Sicily in 41 5 B.C., which expedition sailed about midsummer (Thucyd. v, 116; vi, 30). Nikias and Alkibiades both went as commanders of that expedition: the latter was recalled to Athens for trial on the charge of impiety about three months afterwards, but escaped in the way home, was condemned and sentenced to banishment in his absence, and did not return to Athens until 407 B.C., long after the death of Nikias, who continued in command of the Athenian armament in