Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/369

 JUDGMENT OF THUCYDIDES. 347 teria, shocking as they did this preconceived idea, discredited the military prowess of Sparta in the eyes of all Greece, and espe- cially in those of her own allies. Even in Sparta itself, too, the same feeling prevailed, partially revealed in the answer trans- mitted to Styphon from the generals on shore, who did not ven- ture to forbid surrender, yet discountenanced it by implication : and it is certain that the Spartans would have lost less by their death than by their surrender. But we read with disgust the spiteful taunt of one of the allies of Athens (not an Athenian) engaged in the affair, addressed in the form of a question to one of the prisoners : " Have your best men then been all slain ?" The reply conveyed an intimation of the standing contempt en- tertained by the Lacedaemonians for the bow and its chance- strokes in the line : " That would be a capital arrow which could single out the best man." The language which Herodotus puts into the mouth of Demaratus, composed in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, attests this same belief in Spartan valor : " The Lacedaemonians die, but never surrender." l Such impression was from henceforward, not indeed effaced, but sen- sibly enfeebled, and never again was it restored to its former pitch. But the general judgment of the Greeks respecting the cap- ture of Sphakteria, remarkable as it is to commemorate, is far less surprising than that pronounced by Thucydides himself. Kleon and Demosthenes returning with a part of the squadron and carrying all the prisoners, started from Sphakteria on the next day but one after the action, and reached Athens within twenty days after Kleon had left it. Thus, " the promise of Kleon, in- sane as it was, came true," observes the historian. 3 1 To adopt a phrase, the counterpart of that which has been ascribed to the Vieille Garde of the Emperor Napoleon's army ; compare Herodot vii, 104. 2 Thucyd. iv, 39. Kai rov ~K.~Aeuvog Kaiirep fiaviudrje ovaa TJ vir6~ irefii]' kvrbf jap eluoaiv rifiepuv ffyaye Tot)f avdpctf, &<TKtp Mr. Mitibrd, in recounting these incidents, after having said, respecting Kleon : " In a very extraordinary train of circumstances which followed, hit impudence and his fortune (if, in the want of another, we may use that term) Wonderfully favored him," goes on to observe, two pages farther :