Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/426

 1Q4 HISTORY OF GREECE. tions of Brasidas and revolt from Athens. 1 Exacting the rcnev.-a of bis pledge and that of the Lacedaemonian authorities, for the preservation of full autonomy to every city which should join him, they received his army into the town. The neighboring city of Stageirus, a colony of Andros. as Akanthus also was, soon followed the example. 3 There are few acts in history wherein Grecian political reason and morality appear to greater advantage than in this proceeding of the Akanthians. The habit of fair, free, and pacific discussion : the established respect to the vote of the majority ; the care to protect individual independence of judgment by secret suffrage ; the deliberate estimate of reasons on both sides by each indi- vidual citizen, all these main laws and conditions of healthy political action appear as a part of the confirmed character of the Akanthians. We shall not find Brasidas entering other towns in a way so creditable or so harmonious. But there is another inference which the scene just described irresistibly suggests. It affords the clearest proof that the Akan- thians had little to complain of as subject-allies of Athens, and that they would have continued in that capacity, if left to their own choice, without the fear of having their crop destroyed. Such is the pronounced feeling of the mass of the citizens : the party who desire otherwise are in a decided minority. It is only the combined effect of severe impending loss, and of tempting assurances held out by the worthiest representative whom Sparta over sent out, which induces them to revolt from Athens : nor even then is the resolution taken without long opposition, and a large dissentient minority, in a case where secret suffrage in- sured free and genuine expression of preference from every individual. Now, it is impossible that the scene in Akanthus at this critical moment could have been of such a character, had the empire of Athens been practically odious and burdensome to the subject-allies, as it is commonly depicted. Had such been the fact ; had the Akanthians felt that the imperial ascendency of 1 Thucyd. iv, 88. Oi de 'lutmr&ioi, iro^Xuv ?.ci9evrcjv irpoTipov TT iufyorepa., Kpv(j>a dtcnftriQioa/itvoi, 6iu re Tb emzyuya eLTtelv rbv Hpuottiav *al TTtpi TOV Kupirov 6i3tf), Zyvuciv oi irfaiovc u$'aTacr&ai ' 2 Thucyd. iv, 88 : Diodor. xii, 67