Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/40

22 22 HISTORY OF GREECE. It was not only against danger from the returning Helots that the Lacedaemonians had to guard, but also against danger real or supposed from their own Spartan captives; liberated by Athens at the conclusion of the recent alliance. Though the surrender of Sphakteria had been untarnished by any dishonor, nevertheless these men could hardly fail to be looked upon as degraded, in the eyes of Spartan pride ; or at least they might fancy that they were so looked upon, and thus become discontented. Some of them were already in the exer- cise of various functions, when the ephors contracted suspicions of their designs, and condemned them all to temporary disqualifi- cation for any official post, placing the whole of their property under trust-management, and interdicting them, like minors, from every act either of purchase or sale. 1 This species of disfran- chisement lasted for a considerable time ; but the sufferers were at length relieved from it, the danger being supposed to be over. The nature of the interdict confirms, what we know directly from Thucydides, that many of these captives were among the first and wealthiest families in the state, and the ephors may have apprehended that they would employ their wealth in acquiring partisans and organizing revolt among the Helots. "We have no facts to enable us to appreciate the situation ; but the ungenerous spirit of the regulation, as applied to brave warriors recently come home from a long imprisonment justly pointed out by modern historians would not weigh much with the ephors under any symptoms of public danger. Of the proceedings of the Athenians during this summer we hear nothing, except that the town of Skione at length surren- dered to them after a long-continued blockade, and that they put to death the male population of military age, selling the women and children into slavery. The odium of having proposed tliis cruel resolution two years and a half before, belongs to Kleon ; that of executing it, nearly a year after his death, to the leaders who succeeded him, and to his countrymen generally. The reader will, however, now be sufficiently accustomed to the Greek laws of war not to be surprised at such treatment against 1 Thucyd.v, 34. 'Ar/^owf iiroirjaav, urifiiav 6e TOIUVTTJV, uo r e ir]7 upyiu- u,'jit irptOfttvovf TI, fj TTwAoi'trof, Kvpiorf dvat.