Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/404

386 38(> HISTORY OF GRtECE. which maintained its sober judgment throughout a career of pros- perity, and became even more watchful in regard to security, in pro- portion as it advanced in power." He adds, that the step of revolt- ing from Athens, though the Chian government now discovered it to have been an error, was at any rate a pardonable error ; for it was undertaken under the impression, universal throughout Greece, and prevalent even in Athens herself after the disaster at Syracuse, that Athenian power, if not Athenian independence, was at an end, and undertaken in conjunction with allies seem- ingly more than sufficient to sustain it. This remarkable obser- vation of Thucydides doubtless includes an indirect censure upon his own city, as abusing her prosperity for purposes of unmeasured aggrandizement : a censure not undeserved in reference to the enterprise against Sicily. But it counts at the same time as a valuable testimony to the condition of the allies of Athens under the Athenian empire, and goes far in reply to the charge of prac- tical oppression against the imperial city. The operations now carrying on in Chios indicated such an unexpected renovation in Athenian affairs, that a party in the island began to declare in favor of reunion with Athens. The Chian government were forced to summon Astyochus, with his four Peloponnesian ships from Erythroc, to strengthen their hands, and keep down opposition, by seizing hostages from the sus- pected parties, as well as by other precautions. While the Chians were thus endangered at home, the Athenian interest in Ionia was still farther fortified by the arrival of a fresh armament from Athens at Samos. Phrynichus, Onomakles, and Skironides con- ducted a fleet of forty-eight triremes, some of them employed for the transportation of hoplites ; of which latter there were aboard one thousand Athenians, and fifteen hundred Argeians. Five hundred of these Argeians, having come to Athens without arms, were clothed with Athenian panoplies for service. The newly- arrived armament immediately sailed from Samos to Miletus, where it effected a disembarkation, in conjunction with those Mj/eJtKciv fi^XP 1 TOTC, dieTropdyaav. Xloi yap ftovoi peru AaKedaifiovioi?, ut iyu ycr&6fj.T)v, evtiatftovrjaavTes apa KOL Ecu^povrjaav, KOI uau cTre6l6av fj rro^.r{ rtiroZf rrt TO uel&v, roau nal LKOC^OVVTO txvpuTepov, etc. viii, 45. Ol Xtot. . .Trlovaiuraroi wrcf TUV 'EZMjvuv, etc.