Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/496

 474 HISTORY OF GREECE. vas consecrated as the great agora of the city, which was remodelled accordingly. He was also proclaimed cekist, 01 founder, of Amphipolis, and as such, received heroic worship with annual games and sacrifices to his honor. 1 The Athenian Agnon, the real founder and originally recognized cekist of the city, was stripped of all his commemorative honors and expunged from the remembrance of the people : his tomb and the buildings connected with it, together with every visible memento of 'his name, being destroyed. Full of hatred as the Amphipolitans now were to- wards Athens, and not merely of hatred, but of fear, since the loss which they had just sustained of their saviour and protector, they felt repugnance to the idea of rendering farther worship to an Athenian oekist. Nor was it convenient to keep up such a religious link with Athens, now that they were forced to look anxiously to Lacedajmon for assistance. Klearidas, as governor of Amphipolis, superintended those numerous alterations in the city which this important change required, together with the erection of the trophy, just at the spot where Brasidas had first charged the Athenians ; while the remaining armament of Athens, having obtained the usual truce and buried their dead, returned home without farther operations. There are few battles recorded in history wherein the disparity and contrast of the two generals opposed has been so manifest, consummate skill and courage on the one side against ignorance and panic on the other. On the singular ability and courage of Brasidas there can be but one verdict of unqualified admiration : but the criticism passed by Thucydides on Kleon, here as else- where, cannot be adopted without reserves. He tells us that Kleon undertook his march, from Eion up to the hill in front of Amphip- olis, in the same rash and confident spirit with which he had 1 Thucyd. v, 11. Aristotle, a native of Stageirus near to Amphipolis, cites the sacrifices rendered to Brasidas as an instance of institutions estab- lished by special and local enactment (Ethic. Nikomach. v, 7). In reference to the aversion now entertained by the Amphipolitans to tho continued worship of Agnon as their cekist, compare the discourse ad- dressed by the Platseans to the Lacedaamonians, pleading for mercy. The Thebans, if they became possessors of the Plataeid, would not continue th a sacrifices to tho gods who had granted victory at the great battle of Platse'i, nor ''unereal mjmentos to the slain (Thucyd. iii, 58).