The English Works of Thomas Hobbes (1839) 2 vols. - Vol. 8 (63 page)

[
This
winter.]

[Fell upon the enemy “wherever an opportunity offered”. Arnold.]

[τῶν ὅπλων; properly the space where the arms were piled; here, the camp of the heavy–armed soldiers. Arnold.]

[αλλὰ.
But
c.]

[“That they were forcing the Lesbians to submit to the government of Mytilene”: that is, as the people of Attica submitted to that of Athens: ii. 15. Arn. It is hardly possible to suppose with Goeller, that they were attempting to bring all the Lesbians actually to Mytilene. This revolt is one of the instances cited by Aristotle, of seditions attended with fatal consequences, arising out of insignificant causes. Timophanes, a rich man, left two daughters: and Doxandros, the proxenos or host of the Athenians, being rejected by the sons as the suitor of their sisters, brought about the sedition. Pol. v. 4.]

[The Bœotians, an Æolian branch from Arne in Thessaly, migrated from Arne in Thessaly sixty years after the Trojan war (i. 12) to Cadmeis, since called Bœotia. After the expulsion of the family of Orestes from Peloponnesus, Penthilus and other of his descendants fled to Bœotia, and thence colonized Mysia in Asia Minor, Tenedos, Lesbos, and other islands: which colonies therefore, as well as Bœotia, were all Æolian. Homer (Il. ii. 494.) makes Bœotians sail to Troy from all the cities in Bœotia, except Thebes and a few others: notwithstanding which, and Thucydides’ expression (i. 12), no Bœotians, according to Mueller and Hermann, were settled there till after the war.]

[“Forty galleys which chanced to have been made ready” c.]

[“They
were
to command c.: and to make war upon them, if” c.]

[Maloeis, the temple of Apollo in the suburbs of Mytilene.]

[Allowed “the parley”. Nothing was granted but an armistice.]

[Malea, the site of the temple of Apollo Maloeis, in the northern part of the city, and at the northern port, hence also called “portus Maloeis”.
Malea
nomen erat appellativum linguæ Græcæ antiquissimæ, significans prominentiam aliquam montis vel litoris, neque reperitur nomen esse nisi locorum Doricorum Æoliorumque, velut Lesbi, Cretæ, Laconiæ. Goeller. The Athenians besieging Mytilene, have their market at Malea: see ch. 6.]

[Who came in “much the sooner, for seeing no security in the Lesbians”.]

[“And bringing their ships round to the station
to the south
of the city, they fortified two camps c., and established their blockades at both the harbours, and so quite excluded c.” Arn. “They fortified two camps
to the south
c.” Göll.]

[“Sailed
along
the Achelous”.]

[“At Nericus”.]

[“And having put off a little from the land (ἀποπλεύσαντες), they afterwards received their dead” c. Goeller.]

[The successful ending of the second Messenian war, and the reduction of Tegea, the stronghold of Arcadia commanding the entrance of Laconia, placed Sparta at the head of Peloponnesus: and from about A.C.580 her ἡγεμονὶα was recognized, not only by Peloponnesus, but by Greece in general; a rank confirmed to her by the expulsion of the tyrants (which, along with the setting up of oligarchical government, was ever the steady aim of the Spartan policy) and the overthrow of Argos. Thus it was at Sparta, that Athens accused Ægina of giving earth and water to Darius: and Sparta summoned Themistocles to answer to the charge of medizing. We see here however, as before in i. 87, that this supremacy extended to no control over the confederacy. It was formed of Peloponnesian states: and governed by fixed laws, with a certain order of precedence. By this constitution, no common action, such as declaring war or concluding peace or treaties, could be undertaken without a congress, wherein all the states had equal voices (i. 125): and instances are not wanting of Sparta being outvoted (i. 40, 41; Herod. v. 93). Sparta was the place of assembly for the deliberations of the allies: she took upon herself the control and execution of all measures there resolved on. But on the internal affairs of the allied states, neither had Sparta nor the confederacy any influence. By a fundamental law, each state was independent and enjoyed its ancient customs: and even disputes between individual states, were beyond the jurisdiction of the confederacy (v. 31). In Herod. v. 94, we see the allies protest against Sparta’s “meddling with a Grecian state”.]

[“Of our intent”. Goeller.]

[“Yet we became allies, not with the Athenians for enslaving the Grecians; but with the Grecians for deliverance from the Medes”. Arnold, Goeller.]

[ἐπαγομένους: “and proposing to themselves the subjugation” c.; Poppo: “and bringing about” c.; Goeller. ἐπειγομένους, “eagerly pursuing”, is suggested by Bekker. “But when we saw c. we were no longer without alarm: (but unable, disunited as we were through difference of councils, to defend ourselves, the allies, all but ourselves and the Chians, were subdued; and we, nominally indeed of our own free will, helped to subdue them): and no longer held we them, by the foregone example, for faithful leaders. For c.: and if we were all still independent, we should be more secure of their leaving us alone. But having got most of them under, and we being still on an equality, it was not likely (with our single equality too by the side of the already general giving in of the rest) that they would bear it very patiently: especially” c.]

[No other “than that domination appeared attainable by fair words and craft rather than by force. For they both made use c., that having equal voice we should not against our will have warred with them (upon our confederates), had these not done the injury: and by the same act, they not only brought first c., but also reserving” c.]

[“Were not likely” to do c.]

[“
And
it was more” c. The sentence should run on to “break the league?”: and the next sentence should begin with “So that”, (ὥστε), and not with “Now”; being the manifest consequence of the preceding sentence.]

[By Hermæondas: see ch. 5.]

[Arnold and Goeller take ἀποϛασιν here in its original sense of “standing aloof from”; so that it suits both the cases, one of simply
standing aloof
from the Grecians and doing them no mischief, the other of
revolt
from the Athenians.]

[“That you may be seen ready”, at once c.]

[“In case you
the second time
this summer” c.]

[“More easily”.]

[“Which you bear”, of not c.]

[This relates to the constitution of Solon. The people of Attica are said to have been divided, in early times, into the four tribes Kekropis, Autocthon, Cranais, Atthis; corresponding to the territorial division, Actæa, Paralia, Mesogæa, Diacris: the same tribes being afterwards called, after their gods, Dias, Atthenais, Posidonias, Hephæstias. The Ionians (a separate class of the aboriginal inhabitants, if not a distinct race) introduced the caste–division called the Ionic tribes, viz.
warriors, artificers, herdsmen,
and
husbandmen
(or as some read,
priests):
these, for some purposes, remained in being till the time of Cleisthenes (iv. 118, note), though early modified by Theseus (as it is said), the father of the democracy, by the less strongly marked distinction of Eupatridæ, Geomori, and Demiurgi, or in other words, of
nobles
and
plebeians.
The usurpations of the Eupatridæ have been already noticed (i. 126, note). The insurrection of Cylon (one of those popular risings upon the aristocracy, which in other states raised to the throne so many of the so–called
tyrants;
who were therefore so eagerly hunted down by Sparta) was the forerunner of Solon’s changes. He replaced (A.C. 594) the aristocracy of birth by a timocracy, or one of property: of the citizens with incomes exceeding, respectively, 500, 300, and 150 medimni of corn, and as many measures of wine and oil, he formed the three classes,
pentacosiomedimni, hippeis,
and
zeugitæ,
to whom he committed all the executive power of the state. All with incomes below that of the zeugitæ, formed the class of
thetes,
contributing nothing to the state, and therefore excluded from all offices: but admitted to the public assembly; and having, with the other classes, cognizance of all judicial appeals, a power attended in after times with important consequences. In the eyes however of the people, of this as of other states, these changes were matter of minor importance, and valued only as the means for attaining other objects. What lay next their hearts, was the famous σεισάχθεια: the liberation of the land from its mortgage, of the debtor from his debt. This effected, they relapsed into their usual apathy: whence they were roused by the efforts of the aristocracy to regain their lost power, which ended (A.C. 560) in the tyranny of Peisistratus.]

[“Wasting the Periœcis”. The Spartans living only in the capital, the whole of Laconia was properly the περιοικὶς, “the land inhabited by the periœci”: though here is meant only the part by the sea. Laconia was divided into six districts; Sparta, Amyclæ, Las, Pharæ, Ægys, and Epidaurus Limera or Gytheium: and Messenia into four; Pylos, Rhium, Mesola, and Hyamia. The whole was called Λακεδαίμων ἑκατόμπολις: but it must have been after the reduction by Sparta of the whole of Messenia, as well as of Cynuria (to which Anthana, one of the towns belonged), that is, after A. C. 548, that the number of towns inhabited by the periœci were fixed at a hundred. Müll. Dor. iii. 2. See iv. 126.]

[“At the time when the ships sailed, the Athenians had one of the largest fleets they ever had at one time, of ships in a state of effectiveness from their good condition. And they had as many and still more at the beginning of the war”. Arnold.]

[Consumed “at first”. At this time the pay of the
hoplites
varied from two oboli to a drachme: officers received twice, the cavalry thrice, and field officers four times as much, with the like for their provisions. The regular pay of the seamen (formed, besides foreigners, of Thetes and slaves, as at Sparta of the Helots) was three oboli, that of the Paralitæ four. The value of the medimnus of corn (about an English bushel and a half), estimated by Boeckh at two drachmes, will give some idea of the value of this pay: apparently, not high.]

[Settled “more securely”.]

[But beaten “in a sally”.]

[With a single wall, “building
in it
turrets here and there on the strong points: so that” c. A
single
wall was enough, no attack being feared from without. About Platæa, the Lacedæmonians (ch. 21) build a double wall; one for the blockade, the other for their own protection.]

[“The Athenians c. themselves, then for the first time, contributed a tribute of two hundred talents; and dispatched also Lysicles” c. This being an extraordinary imposition, the ἀργυρόλογοι are sent to collect it. The ordinary tributes were brought in by the allies themselves at the great Dionysia; or collected, if necessary, by ships called ἐκλογεῖς.]

[See iv. 75.]

[“Guessing the length
from
the thickness of a brick, took” c.]

“To be more storm than usual”: of wind, that is, as well as rain.]

[“Whereby the Platæans were blockaded”.]

[“A stormy and rainy night”.]

[“Unperceived by the guards”, who c.]

[The noise “of their approach” could not c.]

[“In the
mud
”.]

[“That carried
darts
”.]

[“More of them”.]

[“To the end that they might be least intent upon them”.]

[“
Along
(on the top of) the wall”. Goeller.]

[“Then came down (the last of them with much ado) they in the towers, and were going to the ditch”.]

[“
But
standing themselves in the dark” c.]

[“The fane of the hero Androcrates”. See Herod. ix. 25.]

[Δρυὸς κέϕαλαι: the Athenian name of a town in the valley of Cithæron: called by the Bœotians τρεῖς κέϕαλαι, the
Three Heads
(Herod. ix. 39); probably from three oaks growing there.]

[In chapters 16, 25, 29, 69, they are said to be
forty.
]

[“Was still too young to command”. Goeller.]

[ψιλὸν: “before light–armed”: having no ὅπλα,
armour.
]

[The men
in power—the
corn.]

[Being in “exceeding fear”.]

[Embatum.]

[
Surprises
of war. Goeller, Arnold.]

[This is a corrupt passage.]

[See iv. 75.]

[He set at liberty “all the Chians he had left, and certain he had of
other
nations. For” c.]

[His temporibus Atheniensibus duæ, quas sacras dicebant, triremes erant; Paralus, quam qui agebant Paralitæ sive Parali dicebantur; et Salaminia sive Delia, etiam Theoria appellata, qua Salaminii vehebantur. Atque hac quidem, ad theoros Delum mittendos; utraque, quippe volociter navigantibus, ad alias theorias emittendas, ferendos nuntios, tributa colligenda, homines pecuniasque trajiciendas, item in prœliis vehendis belli ducibus utebantur. Goeller.]