6 HISTORY OF GREECE. the commencement of the Peloponnesian wai, and is prefaced by an apology, little less than humiliating, from king Archidamus who, not unconscious of the sort of treason which he was meditat- ing, pleads that Sparta, when the Athenians are conspiring against her, ought not to be blamed for asking from foreigners as well as from Greeks aid for her own preservation. 1 From the earliest commencement to the seventh year of the war, many separate and successive envoys were despatched by the Spartans to Susa ; two of whom were seized in Thrace, brought to Athens, and there put to death. The rest reached their destination, but talked in so confused a way, and contradicted each other so much, that the Persian court, unable to understand what they meant, 2 sent Arta phernes with letters to Sparta (in the seventh year of the war) complaining of such stupidity, and asking for clearer information. Artaphernes fell into the hands of an Athenian squadron at Eion on the Strymon, and was conveyed to Athens ; where he was treated with great politeness, and sent back (after the letters which he carried had been examined) to Ephesus. What is more important to note is, that Athenian envoys were sent along with him, with a view of bringing Athens into friendly communication with the Great King ; which was only prevented by the fact that Artaxerxes Longimanus just then died. Here we see the fatal practice, generated by intestine war, of invoking Persian aid ; be- gun by Sparta as an importunate solicitor, and partially imi- tated by Athens, though we do not know what her envoys were instructed to say, had they been able to reach Susa. Nothing more is heard about Persian intervention until the year of the great Athenian disasters before Syracuse. Elate with the hopes arising out of that event, the Persians required no soli- citation, but were quite as eager to tender interference for their own purposes, as Sparta was to invite them for hers. How ready Sparta was to purchase their aid by the surrender of the Asiatic 1 Thucyd. i, 82. Kuv TOVTC/) Kai T& rjfiirepa aiiruv tgapTveadat, ^Vfipixuv re Kpoaayuyri not 'Ehhqvuv Kal /3ap/3apuv, el irotiev rtva f/ vavri- KOV ri xpVpaTuv 6vvafj.iv Tr^oahrjipofie&a, (a veTri(f>&o vov <5e, ocroi uairep not f/fielf iir' 'A.di]vaiuv imfJovfevoftEda, pr) "ETikrjvas fiovov iAAei ical {iap(3upove irpoalapovrae diaffu&rjvai), etc. Compare also Plato, Menexenus, c. 14, p. 243 B.
- Thucyd. 5i, 7, 67 ; iv, 50.
