The Historical Antiquities of the Greeks (Volume 2) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: treachery and folly was entirely defeated by the prudence and lenity of Aristides. But how little do the political and military operations of the Spartans appear when compared with those of the Athenians ! how narrow-minded their patriotism ! how closely bordering on perfidy to the common cause is the indifference which, upon the completion of the Isthmian wall, they testified for the fate of the Athenians6, to whom, in their previous terror, they had addressed such urgent entreaties! The selfish and contracted policy of Sparta had rendered her alike insensible to reason and to honour; still the emphatic exhortation 65 of the Tegean Chileus induced her to march out and win laurels at Plataeae. Our object being to delineate the political sentiments of the Greeks, and not to describe the effect upon their feelings produced by the sight of the adverse host, we shall not dwell upon the pusillanimity with which the smaller Grecian states hesitated to march out of their encampments, or even the apprehensions of Sparta to come to an engagement with the Persians, whilst Athens everywhere made head against the enemy with enduring self-denial and unflinching fortitude. After the victory, all those states which had not deserted the cause of their country, claimed a share in the glory of the day; hence the JEgine- tans and others afterwards erected cenotaphs beside the monuments of the Athenians, Spartans, Te- geans, Megarians, Phliasians, Plataeans, Thespians, etc., who had fallen in the fight . " cai irnf l 'AOi1voi'uv ovuir t Siia9ai ovSiv, Herod. 9. 8. Herod. 9. 9. Herod. 9. 85. Doubts are expressed of the authenticity of his account of those who took part in the engagement, and of iht interment, in Plut. de The allied fleet carried the war into Asia67; the battle of Mycal...