Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/512

490 490 HISTORY OF THE persons themselves could not have pleaded their own cause better under the immediate influence of their interests and passions. It must indeed be allowed, that this wonderful quality of the historian is partly due to the sophistical exercises, which taught the art of speaking for both parties, for the bad as well as the good ; but the application which Thucydides made of this art was the best and most beneficial that could be conceived : and it is obvious, that there can be no true history unless we presume such a faculty of assuming the characters of the persons described, and giving some kind of justification to the most opposite opinions, for without this the force of opinions can never be adequately represented. Thucydides developes the principles which guided the Athenians in their dealings with their allies with such a consistent train of reasoning, that we are almost compelled to assent to the truth of the argument. In a series of speeches, occurring in very different parts of the history, but so connected Avith one another that we cannot fail to recognize in them a continuation of the same reasoning and a progressive confirmation of those principles, the Athenians show that they did not gain their power by violence, but were compelled by the force of circumstances to give it the form of a protectorate ; that in the existing state of things they could not relinquish this protectorate without hazarding their own existence ; that as this protectorate had become a tyranny, it must be maintained by vigour and severity ; that humanity and equity could only be appealed to in dealings with an equal, who had an opportunity of requiting benefits conferred upon him ;* till at last, in the dialogue with the Melians, the Athenians assert the right of the stronger as a law of nature, and rest their demand, that the Melians should become subject to them, on this principle alone. " We desire and do," say they, " only what is consistent with all that men conceive of the gods and desire for themselves. For as we believe it of the gods, so we clearly perceive in the case of men, that all who have the power are constrained by a necessity of nature to govern and command. We did not invent this law, nor were we the first to avail ourselves of it ; but since we have received it as a law already established and in full force, and since we shall leave it as a perpetual inheritance to those who come after us, we intend, on the present occasion, to act in accordance with it, because we know that you and all others would act in the same manner if you possessed the same power." f These principles, according to which no doubt Greeks and other men had acted before them, though perhaps under some cloak or disguise of justice, are so coolly propounded was defeated by the more humane party of Diodotus ; hut this exception, made in the case of the Mitylenseans, remained an exception in favour of humanity ; as a general rule, the spirit of Cleon predominated in the foreign policy of Atnens. f Thucyd. Y. 105, according to Dr. Arnold's correct interpretation.
 * Thucyd. III. 37. 40. This is said by Cleon, who, in the case in question,