posterity would have great disbelief of their power in proportion to their fame. (And yet they occupy two of the five divisions of the Peloponnese, and take the lead of the whole of it, and of their allies out of it in great numbers. Still, as the city is neither built closely, nor has sumptuous temples and public buildings, but is built in villages, after the old fashion of Greece, it would have an inferior appearance.) Whereas if the Athenians were to suffer the same fate, I think their power would be conjectured, from the appearance of the city to the eye, to have been double what it is. It is not therefore right to be incredulous, nor to look at the appearance of cities rather than their power; but to think that that expedition was greater indeed than any that were before it, but inferior to those of the present day; if on this point again we must believe the poetry of Homer, which it is natural that he, as a poet, set off on the side of exaggeration; but, nevertheless, even on this view it appears inferior. For he has made it to consist of twelve hundred ships, those of the Boeotians carrying 120 men, and those of Philoctetes 50; meaning to show, as I think, the largest and the least; at any rate he has made no mention of the size of any others in the catalogue of the ships. And that they all were themselves rowers and fighting men, he has shown in the case of the ships of Philoctetes. For he has represented all the men at the oar as bowmen. And it is not probable that many supernumeraries would sail with them, except the kings and highest officers; especially as they were going to cross the open sea with munitions of war; and, on the other hand, had not their vessels decked, but equipped, after the old fashion, more like privateers. Looking then at the mean of the largest and the smallest ships, they do not appear to have gone in any great number, considering that they were sent by the whole of Greece in common.

11. And the reason was not so much scarcity of men as want of money. For owing to difficulty of subsistence, they took their army the smaller, and such only as they hoped would live on the country itself while carrying on the war; and when on their arrival they were superior in battle, (and that they were so is evident, for they would not else have built the fortification for their camp,) they appear not even then to have employed all their force, but to have turned to the cultivation of the Chersonese, and to piracy, for want of

scattered, the more easily held out' by open force t years; being a match for those who successively w behind. But if they had gone with abundance of food a body had continuously carried through the war, foraging and agriculture, they would easily have co them in battle, and taken the place; since even tho united, but only with the part that was successively they held out against them. Now by pressing th [I say,] they would have taken Troy both in less t with less trouble; but through want of money both dertakings before this2 were weak, and this itself, more famous than the former, is shown by facts3 to ha inferior to its fame, and to the present report of it, w prevailed by means of the poets.

4

12. For even after the Trojan war Greece was still about, and settling itself; so that it could not incr power by remaining at rest. For the return of the from Troy, having taken place so late, caused many tions; and factions, generally speaking, arose in the st consequence of which men were expelled, and founde For those who are now called Boeotians, being driver Arne by the Thessalians in the sixtieth year after the of Troy, settled in what is now called Bootia, but wa called the Cadmean country. (Though there was a of them in this country before, some of whom also joi expedition against Troy.) And the Dorians in the e year took possession of the Peloponnese with the He And Greece having with difficulty, after a long ti joyed settled peace, and being no longer subject to mig began to send out colonies; and the Athenians c Ionia, and most of the islands; and the Peloponnesi greater part of Italy and Sicily, and some places in the Greece. But all these places were founded after the Tro

5

1i. e. keeping the field, and not merely fighting from their wall 2 The plural pronoun in the Greek, is used with reference to T the common term to signify the Trojan war.

3 Or, "inferior in the facts."

The old reading, μɛ

i. e. it was not yet settled.-Arnold.
was changing its place of abode."

would mean, ""

5 The term " Greece" is here used in its widest sense, as incl

countries that had a Greek population.

13. Now when Greece was becoming more powerful, and acquiring possession of money still more than before, tyrannies, generally speaking, were established in the cities, from the revenues becoming greater; whereas before there had been hereditary kingly governments with definite privileges; and Greece began to fit out navies, and they paid more attention to the sea. Now the Corinthians are said first to have managed naval matters most nearly to the present fashion, and triremes to have been built at Corinth first in Greece. And Aminocles, a Corinthian shipwright, appears to have built four ships for the Samians also. Now it is about three hundred years to the end of this war from the time that Aminocles went to the Samians; and the most ancient sea-fight with which we are acquainted was fought between the Corinthians and the Corcyræans. And from that too it is about two hundred and sixty years to the same period. For the Corinthians, having their city situated on the isthmus, had always possessed an emporium; as the Greeks of old, both those within the Peloponnese and those without, had intercourse with each other by land more than by sea, through their country: and they were very rich, as is shown even by the old poets; for they gave the title of "wealthy" to the place. And when the Greeks began to make more voyages, having got their ships they put down piracy; and rendered their city rich in income of money, as they afforded an emporium both ways. And the Ionians afterwards had a large navy in the time of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and Cambyses his son; and while at war with Cyrus, commanded the sea along their coast for some time. Polycrates also, tyrant of Samos, in the time of Cambyses, having a strong fleet, both made some other of the islands subject to him, and took Rhenea and dedicated it to the Delian Apollo. And the Phocæans, while founding Massalia, conquered the Carthaginians in a sea-fight.

14. These were the strongest of their navies. But even these, though many generations after the Trojan war, appear to have used but few triremes, and to have been still fitted out with fifty-oared vessels, and long boats, as that fleet was. And it was but a short time before the Median war, and the death of Darius, who was king of the Persians after Cambyses, that triremes were possessed in any number by the tyrants of Sicily and the Corcyræans. For these were the last navies

worth mentioning established in Greece before the expedition of Xerxes: as the Æginetans and Athenians, and whoever else had any, possessed but small ones, and of those the greater part fifty-oared vessels; and it was only lately that Themistocles persuaded the Athenians, when at war with the Æginetans, and when the barbarian was also expected, to build those very ships with which they fought him by sea; and these were not yet decked throughout.

15. Of such a [deficient] character then were the navies of the Greeks, both the ancient ones and those which were built afterwards. And yet those who paid attention to them obtained the greatest power, both by income of money and dominion over others for they sailed against the islands, and subdued them; especially those who had not sufficient extent of country. But as for war by land, from which any power1 was acquired, there was none. Such as did arise, were all against their several neighbours; and the Greeks did not go out in any foreign expeditions far from their country for the subjugation of others. For they had not ranged themselves with the chief states as subjects; nor, on the other hand, did they of their own accord, on fair and equal terms, make common expeditions; but it was rather neighbouring states that separately waged war upon each other. But it was for the war carried on at an early period between the Chalcidians and Eretrians, that the rest of Greece also was most generally divided in alliance with one side or the other.

16. Now to others there arose in other ways obstacles to their increase; and in the case of the Ionians, when their power had advanced to a high pitch, Cyrus and the Persian kingdom, having subdued Croesus and all within the Halys to the sea, marched against them, and reduced to bondage their cities on the mainland, as Darius afterwards did even the islands, conquering them by means of the fleet of the Phonicians.

17. As for the tyrants, such as there were in the Grecian cities, since they provided only for what concerned themselves, with a view to the safety of their own persons, and the aggrandizement of their own family, they governed their cities

1 From the position of the kai here, it seems intended only to make the following word more emphatic; as it is often used, before verbs especially; an instance of which occurs in the very next sentence, ὅσοι καὶ ἐγένοντο.

with caution, as far as they possibly could; and nothing memorable was achieved by them; [indeed nothing,] except it might be against their own several border states. [I speak of those in old Greece, ] for those in Sicily advanced to a very great degree of power. Thus on all sides Greece for a long time was kept in check; so that it both performed nothing illustrious in common, and was less daring as regards individual states.

18. But after the tyrants of the Athenians and those in the rest of Greece, (which even at an earlier period1 was for a long time subject to tyrants,) the most and last, excepting those in Sicily, had been deposed by the Lacedæmonians; (for Lacedæmon, after the settlement of the Dorians, who now inhabit it, though torn by factions for the longest time of any country that we are acquainted with, yet from the earliest period enjoyed good laws, and was always free from tyrants; for it is about four hundred years, or a little more, to the end of this war, that the Lacedæmonians have been in possession of the same form of government; and being for this reason powerful, they settled matters in the other states also ;) after,2 I say, the deposition of the tyrants in the rest of Greece, not many years subsequently the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and Athenians. And in the tenth year after it, the barbarians came again with the great armament against Greece to enslave it. And when great danger was impending, the Lacedæmonians took the lead of the confederate Greeks, as being the most powerful; and the Athenians, on the approach of the Medes, determined to leave their city, and having broken up their establishments,3 went on board their ships, and became a naval people. And having together repulsed the barbarian, no long time after, both those Greeks who had revolted from the king, and those who had joined in the war [against him], were divided between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians. For these states respectively appeared the most powerful; for the one was strong by land, and the other by sea. And for a short time the confederacy held together; but afterwards the Lacedæmonians and Athe

1 i. e. than the Athenians.

2 A common force of dé after a long parenthesis.

3 Or, "having removed their furniture," the word meaning just the reverse of κατασκευάζομαι. Bloomfield connects it with ἐς τὰς ναῦς.