This is a monstrous perversion of historical fact. Nothing so "sophistical" can be detected in Peisthetærus even by a German Professor predetermined to find "sophistry" everywhere. The Athenians had indeed suffered serious checks and severe defeats at Oropus, Delium, Amphipolis, and elsewhere; but no one who reads the history of the Peloponnesian war, without a preconceived theory to maintain, can fail to see that their affairs were to al appearance more prosperous at the commencement of the year 414, than they were when the war began. They had destroyed the prestige of the Spartan name, had detached Argos from her alliance, and in fact felt themselves so secure at home that they conceived the idea of employing their superabundant strength in the Sicilian expedition. It is impossible not to assent to the truth of Grote's remark, that the Melian Dialogue is introduced by Thucydides to illustrate the overweening insolence of the Athenians in this the culminating period of their prosperity: to point the moral, so striking to the Greek mind, that Pride goes before a fall, exactly in the same spirit as the Poet's, when he makes Agamemnon walk over purple to the House of Death.
No Athenian audience would have tolerated at any time, least of al at this time, a drama which represented themselves as gaping, light-minded, feeble birds, and their enemies as Olympian Gods. What says Alcibiades (Thucyd, vi. 17)? (
Greek characters)[1]; an assertion which, sanguine and vainglorious as he was, he would
- ↑ Mr Grote's interpretation of this passage seems to me quite untenable. "As to the Peloponnesians, powerful as they were, they were not more desperate enemies than they had been in former days:" and in a note he explains (
Greek characters) to mean "enemies beyond our hopes of being able to deal with," refering to Thuc. vii. 4, and vii. 47. (Grote, Hist. Gr. vii. p. 210). Now, in the first place, the Athenians did not consider the Peloponnesians "desperate enemies" at any time of their history till after the battle of Ægos Potami, least of all at this time. Again, if this be the meaning of the clause, how can the following (Greek characters) be translated at all? The two passages referred to do not justify Mr Grote's interpretation, because the word is, in both, neuter. vii. 4, (Greek characters). vii. 47, (Greek characters). I do not know of a single instance of (Greek characters) as applied to persons having the passive signification. The sense therefore is: "In the first place (τϵ) the Peloponnesians never were so hopeless of success against us; and, secondly, (τϵ) supposing them to be in ever such good heart, they can but invade us by land, and that we cannot prevent in any case, while we shall always leave a
