Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/317

 ATHENIAN EXPEDITION AGAINST MELOS. 29ft the Maliac gulf, but about double that distance from the strait of Thermopylae. Near to the latter, and for the purpose of keep- ing effective possession of it, a port, with dock and accommoda- tion for shipping, was constructed. A populous city, established under Lacedaemonian protection in this important post, alarmed the Athenians, and creat^much expectation in every part of Greece : but the Lacedtemonian cekists were harsh and unskilful in their management, and the Thessalians, to whom the Trachinian territory was tributary, considered the colony as an encroachment upon their soil. Anx- ious to prevent its increase, they harassed it with hostilities from the first moment, while the (Etaean assailants were not idle : and Herakleia, thus pressed from without, and misgoverned within, dwindled down from its original numbers and promise, barely maintaining its existence. 1 We shall find it in later times, however, revived, and becoming a place of considerable im- portance. The main Athenian armament of this summer, consisting of sixty triremes, under Nikias, undertook an expedition against the island of Melos. Melos and Thera, both inhabited by ancient colonists from Lacedzemon, had never been from the beginning, and still refused to be, members of the Athenian alliance, or sub- jects of the Athenian empire. They thus stood out as exceptions to all the other islands in the JEgean, and the Athenians thought themselves authorized to resort to constraint and conquest ; be- lieving themselves entitled to command over all the islands. They might indeed urge, and with considerable plausibility, that the Melians now enjoyed their share of the protection of the JEgean from piracy, without contributing at all to the cost of it : but considering the obstinate reluctance and strong Lacedaemo- nian prepossessions of the Melians, who had taken no part in the war, and given no ground of offence to Athens, the attempt to conquer them by force could hardly be justified even as a calcu- lation of gain and loss, and was a mere gratification to the pride of power in carrying out what, in modern days, we should call the principle of maritime empire. Melos and Thera formed awkward corners, which defaced the symmetry of a great propri- 1 Thucvd. iii. 92, 93 ; Dndor xi, 49 ; xii, 59.