Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/345

327 TOTAL DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS. 327 vessels in or near their own station ; a few being even captured before they could arrive there. The diverse manifestations of sympathy among the Athenians in the station itself were now exchanged for one unanimous shriek of agony and despair. The boldest of them rushed to rescue the ships and their crews from pursuit, others to man their walls in case of attack from land : many were even paralyzed at the sight, and absorbed with the thoughts of their own irretrievable ruin. Their souls were doubt- less still farther subdued by the wild and enthusiastic joy which burst forth in maddening shouts from the hostile crowds around the harbor, in response to their own victorious comrades on ship- board. Such was the close of this awful, heart-stirring, and decisive combat. The modern historian strives in vain to convey the impression of it which appears in the condensed and burning phrases of Thucydides. We find in his description of battles generally, and of this battle beyond all others, a depth and abundance of human emotion which has now passed out of mili- tary proceedings. The Greeks who fight, like the Greeks who look on, are not soldiers withdrawn from the community, and specialized as well as hardened by long professional training, but citizens with all the passions, instincts, sympathies, joys, and sor- rows of domestic as well as political life. Moreover, the non- military population in ancient times had an interest of the most intense kind in the result of the struggle ; which made the differ- ence to them, if not of life and death, at least of the extremity of happiness and misery. Hence the strong light and shade, the Homeric exhibition of undisguised impulse, the tragic detail of personal motive and suffering, which pervades this and other military descriptions of Thucydides. When we read the few but most vehement words which he employs to depict the Athenian camp under this fearful trial, we must recollect that these were not only men whose all was at stake, but that they were more- over citizens full of impressibility, sensitive and demonstrative Greeks ; and, indeed, the most sensitive and demonstrative of all Greeks. To repress all manifestations of strong emotion was not considered in ancient times essential to the dignity of the human character. Amidst all the deep pathos, however, which the great historian