Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/440

 418 HISTORY OF GREECE. ran the risk of making Athens unpopular: moreover, strict con- stancy of watch, night after night, when no actual danger comes, with an unpaid citizen force, is not easy to maintain. This is an insufficient 3xcuse, but it is better than anything which can be oftered on behalf of Thucydides ; who had with him a paid Athenian force, and might just as well have kept it at Eion as at Thasos. "We may be sure that the absence of Thucydides with his fleet, at Thasos, was one essential condition in the plot laid by Brasidas with the Argilians. To say, with Dr. Thirlwall, that " human prudence and activity could not have accomplished more than Thucydides did, undei the same circumstances" is true as matter of fact, and creditable as far as it goes. But it is wholly inadmissible as a justification, and meets only one part of the case. An officer in command is responsible, not only for doing most " under the circumstances," but also for the circumstances themselves, in so far as they are under his control ; and nothing is more under his control than the position which he chooses to occupy. If the emperor Napo- leon, or the duke of Wellington, had lost, by surprise of an enemy not very numerous, a post of supreme importance which they thought adequately protected, would they be satisfied to hear from a responsible officer in command : " Having no idea that the enemy would attempt any surprise, I thought that I might keep my force half a day's journey off from the post ex- posed, at another post which it was physically impossible for the 3nemy to reach ; but, the moment I was informed that the sur- prise had occurred, I hastened to the scene, did all that human prudence and activity could do to repel the enemy ; and though I found that he had already mastered the capital post of all, yet J beat him back from a second post which he was on the point of mastering also ? " Does any one imagine that, these illustrious chiefs, smarting under the loss of an inestimable position which alters the whole prospects of a campaign, would be satisfied with such a report, and would dismiss the officer with praises for his vigor and bravery, " under the circumstances?" They would most assuredly reply, that he had done right in coming back, that his conduct after coming back had been that of a brave man, and that there was no impeachment on his courage. But they would at the same time add, that his want of judgment and