Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/478

 4-56 HISTORY OF GREECE. eessful generals open to his accusations, it would also throw up successful generals who would certainly outshine him, and would probably put him down. In the life which Plutarch has given us of Phokion, a plain and straightforward military man, we read that one of the frequent and criminative speakers of Athens, of character analogous to that which is ascribed to Kleon, expressed his surprise on hearing Phokion dissuade the Athe- nians from embarking in a new war : "Yes (said Phokion), I think it right to dissuade them ; though I know well, that if there be war, I shall have command over you ; if there be peace, you will have command over me." l This is surely a more rational estimate of the way in which war affects the comparative impor- tance of the orator and the military officer, than that which Thucydides pronounces in reference to the interests of Kleon. Moreover, when we come to follow the political history of Syra- cuse, we shall find the demagogue Athenagoras ultra-pacific, and the aristocrat Hermokrates far more warlike : 2 the former is afraid, not without reason, that war will raise into consequence energetic military leaders dangerous to the popular constitution. We may add, that Kleon himself had not been always warlike he commenced his political career as an opponent of Perikles, when the latter was strenuously maintaining the necessity and prudence of beginning the Peloponnesian war. 3 But farther, if we should even grant that Kleon had a separate party-interest in promoting the war, it will still remain to be con- sidered, whether, at this particular crisis, the employment cc energetic warlike measures in Thrace was not really the sound and prudent policy for Athens. Taking Perikles as the best judge of that policy, we shall find him at the outset of the war inculcating emphatically two important points: 1. To stand vig- orously upon the defensive, maintaining unimpaired their maritime empire, " keeping their subject-allies well in hand," submitting patiently even to see Attica ravaged. 2. To abstain from trying to enlaige their empire or to make new conquests during the 1 Plutarch. Phokion. c. 16. J Plutarch, Perikles, c. 33-35.
 * See the speeches of Athenagoras and Hermokrates Thucyd. vi, 33-36