Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/195

 BATTLE OF ARGINUSJE. 17S bled. At length the Athenians were victorious in all parts : .he Peloponnesian fleet gave way, and their flight became general, partly to Chios, partly to Phokica. More than sixty of their ships were destroyed over and ahove the nine Lacedaemonian, seventy-seven in all ; i taking a total loss of ahove the half of the entire fleet. The loss of the Athenians was also severe, amounting to twenty-five triremes. They returned to Arginusse after the battle. 1 The victory of Arginusa? afforded the most striking proof how much the democratical energy of Athens could yet accomplish, in spite of so many years of exhausting war. But far better would it have been, if her energy on this occasion had been less efficacious and successful. The defeat of the Peloponnesian fleet, and the death of their admirable leader, we must take the second as inseparable from the first, since Kallikratidas was not the man to survive a defeat, were signal misfortunes to the whole Grecian world ; and in an especial manner, misfortunes to Athens herself. If Kallikratidas had gained the victory and survived it, he would certainly have been the man to close the Peloponnesian war ; for Mitylene must immediately have sur- rendered, and Konon, with all the Athenian fleet there blocked up, must have become his prisoners ; which circumstance, com- ing at the back of a defeat, would have rendered Athens disposed to acquiesce in any tolerable terms of peace. Now to have the terms dictated at a moment when her power was not wholly pros- trate, by a man like Kallikratidas, free from corrupt personal ambition and of a generous Pan-Hellenic patriotism, would have been the best fate which at this moment could befall her ; while to the Grecian world generally, it would have been an unspeak- able benefit, that, in the reorganization which it was sure to undergo at the close of the war, the ascendant individual of the moment should be penetrated with devotion to the great ideas of Hellenic brotherhood at home, and Hellenic independence against the foreigner. The near prospect of such a benefit was opened by that rare chance which threw Kallikratidas into the command, enabled him not only to publish his lofty profession of faith but to show that he was prepared to act upon it, and for a time float- Xenoj-h. Ilellcn. i, 6, 34 ; Diodor. xiii, 99, 100.