Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/441

 CONDUCT OF THUCYDIDES. 419 foresight, in omitting to place the valuable position really exposed under sufficient guard beforehand, and leaving it thus open to the enemy, while he himself was absent in another place which was out of danger, and his easy faith that there would be no dan- gerous surprise, at a time when the character of the enemy's officer, as well as the disaffection of the neighbors (Argilus), plainly indicated that there would be, if the least opening were afforded, that these were defects meriting serious reproof, and disqualifying him from any future command of trust and respon- sibility. Nor can we doubt that the whole feeling of the respec- tive armies, who would have to pay with their best blood the unhappy miscalculation of this officer, would go along with such a sentence ; without at all suspecting themselves to be guilty of injustice, or of " directing the irritation produced by the loss against an innocent object." The vehement leather-seller in the Pnyx, at Athens, when he brought forward what are called "his calumnies" against Thucydides and Eukles, as having caused, through culpable omis- sion, a fatal and irreparable loss to their country, might perhaps state his case with greater loudness and acrimony ; but it may be doubted whether he would say anything more really galling than would be contained in the dignified rebuke of an esteemed modern general to a subordinate officer under similar circum- stances. In my judgment, not only the accusation against these two officers I assume Eukles to have been included was called for on the fairest presumptive grounds, which would be sufficient as a justification of the leather-sell Kleon, but the pos- itive verdict of guilty against them was fully merited. Whether the banishment inflicted was a greater penalty than the case warranted, I will not take upon me to pronounce. Every age has its own standard of feeling for measuring what is a proper intensity of punishment : penalties which our grandfathers thought right and meet, would in the present day appear intolerably rigorous. But when I consider the immense value of Am- phipolis to Athens, combined with the conduct whereby it was lost, I cannot think that there was a single Athenian, or a single Greek, who would deem the penalty of banishment toe severe. It is painful to find such strong grounds of official censura