History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides (classic literature books .TXT) 📗
- Author: Thucydides
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second year of this war of which Thucydides was the historian.
_Third Year of the War - Investment of Plataea - Naval Victories
of Phormio - Thracian Irruption into Macedonia under Sitalces_
The next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies, instead of
invading Attica, marched against Plataea, under the command of
Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. He had
encamped his army and was about to lay waste the country, when the
Plataeans hastened to send envoys to him, and spoke as follows:
“Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, in invading the Plataean territory,
you do what is wrong in itself, and worthy neither of yourselves nor
of the fathers who begot you. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, your
countryman, after freeing Hellas from the Medes with the help of
those Hellenes who were willing to undertake the risk of the battle
fought near our city, offered sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator in the
marketplace of Plataea, and calling all the allies together restored
to the Plataeans their city and territory, and declared it
independent and inviolate against aggression or conquest. Should any
such be attempted, the allies present were to help according to their
power. Your fathers rewarded us thus for the courage and patriotism
that we displayed at that perilous epoch; but you do just the
contrary, coming with our bitterest enemies, the Thebans, to enslave
us. We appeal, therefore, to the gods to whom the oaths were then
made, to the gods of your ancestors, and lastly to those of our
country, and call upon you to refrain from violating our territory
or transgressing the oaths, and to let us live independent, as
Pausanias decreed.”
The Plataeans had got thus far when they were cut short by
Archidamus saying: “There is justice, Plataeans, in what you say, if
you act up to your words. According, to the grant of Pausanias,
continue to be independent yourselves, and join in freeing those of
your fellow countrymen who, after sharing in the perils of that
period, joined in the oaths to you, and are now subject to the
Athenians; for it is to free them and the rest that all this provision
and war has been made. I could wish that you would share our labours
and abide by the oaths yourselves; if this is impossible, do what we
have already required of you—remain neutral, enjoying your own; join
neither side, but receive both as friends, neither as allies for the
war. With this we shall be satisfied.” Such were the words of
Archidamus. The Plataeans, after hearing what he had to say, went into
the city and acquainted the people with what had passed, and presently
returned for answer that it was impossible for them to do what he
proposed without consulting the Athenians, with whom their children
and wives now were; besides which they had their fears for the town.
After his departure, what was to prevent the Athenians from coming and
taking it out of their hands, or the Thebans, who would be included in
the oaths, from taking advantage of the proposed neutrality to make
a second attempt to seize the city? Upon these points he tried to
reassure them by saying: “You have only to deliver over the city and
houses to us Lacedaemonians, to point out the boundaries of your land,
the number of your fruit-trees, and whatever else can be numerically
stated, and yourselves to withdraw wherever you like as long as the
war shall last. When it is over we will restore to you whatever we
received, and in the interim hold it in trust and keep it in
cultivation, paying you a sufficient allowance.”
When they had heard what he had to say, they re-entered the city,
and after consulting with the people said that they wished first to
acquaint the Athenians with this proposal, and in the event of their
approving to accede to it; in the meantime they asked him to grant
them a truce and not to lay waste their territory. He accordingly
granted a truce for the number of days requisite for the journey,
and meanwhile abstained from ravaging their territory. The Plataean
envoys went to Athens, and consulted with the Athenians, and
returned with the following message to those in the city: “The
Athenians say, Plataeans, that they never hitherto, since we became
their allies, on any occasion abandoned us to an enemy, nor will
they now neglect us, but will help us according to their ability;
and they adjure you by the oaths which your fathers swore, to keep the
alliance unaltered.”
On the delivery of this message by the envoys, the Plataeans
resolved not to be unfaithful to the Athenians but to endure, if it
must be, seeing their lands laid waste and any other trials that might
come to them, and not to send out again, but to answer from the wall
that it was impossible for them to do as the Lacedaemonians
proposed. As soon as he had received this answer, King Archidamus
proceeded first to make a solemn appeal to the gods and heroes of
the country in words following: “Ye gods and heroes of the Plataean
territory, be my witnesses that not as aggressors originally, nor
until these had first departed from the common oath, did we invade
this land, in which our fathers offered you their prayers before
defeating the Medes, and which you made auspicious to the Hellenic
arms; nor shall we be aggressors in the measures to which we may now
resort, since we have made many fair proposals but have not been
successful. Graciously accord that those who were the first to
offend may be punished for it, and that vengeance may be attained by
those who would righteously inflict it.”
After this appeal to the gods Archidamus put his army in motion.
First he enclosed the town with a palisade formed of the fruit-trees
which they cut down, to prevent further egress from Plataea; next they
threw up a mound against the city, hoping that the largeness of the
force employed would ensure the speedy reduction of the place. They
accordingly cut down timber from Cithaeron, and built it up on
either side, laying it like lattice-work to serve as a wall to keep
the mound from spreading abroad, and carried to it wood and stones and
earth and whatever other material might help to complete it. They
continued to work at the mound for seventy days and nights without
intermission, being divided into relief parties to allow of some being
employed in carrying while others took sleep and refreshment; the
Lacedaemonian officer attached to each contingent keeping the men to
the work. But the Plataeans, observing the progress of the mound,
constructed a wall of wood and fixed it upon that part of the city
wall against which the mound was being erected, and built up bricks
inside it which they took from the neighbouring houses. The timbers
served to bind the building together, and to prevent its becoming weak
as it advanced in height; it had also a covering of skins and hides,
which protected the woodwork against the attacks of burning missiles
and allowed the men to work in safety. Thus the wall was raised to a
great height, and the mound opposite made no less rapid progress.
The Plataeans also thought of another expedient; they pulled out
part of the wall upon which the mound abutted, and carried the earth
into the city.
Discovering this the Peloponnesians twisted up clay in wattles of
reed and threw it into the breach formed in the mound, in order to
give it consistency and prevent its being carried away like the
soil. Stopped in this way the Plataeans changed their mode of
operation, and digging a mine from the town calculated their way under
the mound, and began to carry off its material as before. This went on
for a long while without the enemy outside finding it out, so that for
all they threw on the top their mound made no progress in
proportion, being carried away from beneath and constantly settling
down in the vacuum. But the Plataeans, fearing that even thus they
might not be able to hold out against the superior numbers of the
enemy, had yet another invention. They stopped working at the large
building in front of the mound, and starting at either end of it
inside from the old low wall, built a new one in the form of a
crescent running in towards the town; in order that in the event of
the great wall being taken this might remain, and the enemy have to
throw up a fresh mound against it, and as they advanced within might
not only have their trouble over again, but also be exposed to
missiles on their flanks. While raising the mound the Peloponnesians
also brought up engines against the city, one of which was brought
up upon the mound against the great building and shook down a good
piece of it, to the no small alarm of the Plataeans. Others were
advanced against different parts of the wall but were lassoed and
broken by the Plataeans; who also hung up great beams by long iron
chains from either extremity of two poles laid on the wall and
projecting over it, and drew them up at an angle whenever any point
was threatened by the engine, and loosing their hold let the beam go
with its chains slack, so that it fell with a run and snapped off
the nose of the battering ram.
After this the Peloponnesians, finding that their engines effected
nothing, and that their mound was met by the counterwork, concluded
that their present means of offence were unequal to the taking of
the city, and prepared for its circumvallation. First, however, they
determined to try the effects of fire and see whether they could
not, with the help of a wind, burn the town, as it was not a large
one; indeed they thought of every possible expedient by which the
place might be reduced without the expense of a blockade. They
accordingly brought faggots of brushwood and threw them from the
mound, first into the space between it and the wall; and this soon
becoming full from the number of hands at work, they next heaped the
faggots up as far into the town as they could reach from the top,
and then lighted the wood by setting fire to it with sulphur and
pitch. The consequence was a fire greater than any one had ever yet
seen produced by human agency, though it could not of course be
compared to the spontaneous conflagrations sometimes known to occur
through the wind rubbing the branches of a mountain forest together.
And this fire was not only remarkable for its magnitude, but was also,
at the end of so many perils, within an ace of proving fatal to the
Plataeans; a great part of the town became entirely inaccessible,
and had a wind blown upon it, in accordance with the hopes of the
enemy, nothing could have saved them. As it was, there is also a story
of heavy rain and thunder having come on by which the fire was put out
and the danger averted.
Failing in this last attempt the Peloponnesians left a portion of
their forces on the spot, dismissing the rest, and built a wall of
circumvallation round the town, dividing the ground among the
various cities present; a ditch being made within and without the
lines, from which they got their bricks. All being finished by about
the rising of Arcturus, they left men enough to man half the wall, the
rest being manned by the Boeotians, and drawing off their army
dispersed to their several cities. The Plataeans had before sent off
their wives
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