Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/47

 to obtain the convocation of this congress at Athens, — a Pan-Hellenic congress for Pan-Hellenic purposes. But those who were sent to Bœotia and Peloponnesus completely failed in their object, from the jealousy, noway astonishing, of Sparta and her allies: of the rest we hear nothing, for this refusal was quite sufficient to frustrate the whole scheme. It is to be remarked that the dependent allies of Athens appear to have been summoned just as much as the cities perfectly autonomous; so that their tributary relation to Athens was not understood to degrade them. We may sincerely regret that such congress did not take effect, as it might have opened some new possibilities of converging tendency and alliance for the dispersed fractions of the Greek name, a comprehensive benefit, to which Sparta was at once incompetent and indifferent, but which might, perhaps, have been realized under Athens, and seems in this case to have been sincerely aimed at by Perikles. The events of the Peloponnesian war, however, extinguished all hopes of any such union. The interval of fourteen years, between the beginning of the thirty years' truce and that of the Peloponnesian war, was by no means one of undisturbed peace to Athens. In the sixth year of that period occurred the formidable revolt of Samos. That island appears to have been the most powerful of all the allies of Athens, — more powerful even than Chios or Lesbos, and standing on the same footing as the two latter; that is, paying no tribute-money, — a privilege when compared with the body of the allies,— but furnishing ships and men when called upon, and retaining, subject to this condition, its complete autonomy, its oligarchical government, its fortifications, and its military force. Like most of the other islands near the coast, Samos