Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/99

 BEGINNING OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 77 the Athenian herald, Anthemokritus had been sent to Megara tc remonstrate, but had been so rudely dealt with, that his death shortly afterwards was imputed as a crime to the Megarians. 1 We may well suppose that ever since the revolt of Megara, fourteen years before, which caused to Athens an irreparable mischief, the feeling prevalent between the two towns had been one of bitter enmity, manifesting itself in many ways, but so much exasperated by recent events as to provoke Athens to a signal revenge. 2 Exclusion from Athens and all the ports in her empire, comprising nearly every island and seaport in the JEgean, was so ruinous to the Megarians, that they loudly complained of it at Sparta, representing it as an infraction of the thirty years' 1 Thucydides (i, 139), in assigning the reasons of this sentence of exclu- sion passed by Athens against the Megarians, mentions only the two alle- gations here noticed, wrongful cultivation of territory, and reception of runaway slaves. He does not allude to the herald, Anthemokritus : still le,?s does he notice that gossip of the day, which Aristophanes and other comedians of this period turn to account in fastening the Peloponnesian war upon the personal sympathies of Perikles, namely, that first, some young men of Athens stole away the courtezan, Sinuetha, from Megara: next, the Megarian youth revenged themselves by stealing away from Athens " two engaging courtezans," one of whom was the mistress of Peri- kles ; upon which the latter was so enraged that he proposed the sentence of exclusion against the Megarians (Aristoph. Acharn. 501-516; Plutarch, Perikles, c. 30). Such stories arc chiefly valuable as they make us acquainted with the political scandal of the time. But the story of the herald, Anthemokritns, and his death, cannot be altogether rejected. Though Thucydides, not mentioning the fact, did not believe that the herald's death had really been occasioned by the Megarians ; yet there probably was a popular belief at Athens to that effect, under the influence of which the deceased herald received a public burial near the Thriasian gate of Athens, leading to Eleusis: see Philippi Epistol. ad A then. ap. Dcmosthen. p. 159, E. ; Pausan. i, 36, 3 ; iii, 4, 2. The language of Plutarch (Perikles, c. 30) is probably literally correct, " the herald's death appeared to have been caused by the Megarians," airiq, TUV Meyapeuv uTrodaveiv 5ofe. That neither Thucy- dides, nor Pcrikles himself, believed that the Megarians had leally caused his death, is pretty certain : otherwise, the fact would have been urged when the Lacedaemonians sent to complain of the sentence of exclusion, being a deed so notoriously repugnant to all Grecian feeling. po^iara 6e, hifiivu" T elpyea&oi ruv hi ry 'A&qvaiuv upxrj, etc.
 * Thucyd. i, 67. Meyapw, tiijhovvrec fj.lv nal Zrepa OVK bhiya