II. HOW THE GREAT WAR BEGAN

Just as the simple soul must picture deity in the form of a man, so the simple citizen must conceive the causes of war to be personal—usually one person. Even Aristophanes, like some gossips of his time, would have it that Pericles brought on the Peloponnesian War by attacking Megara, because Megara had offended Aspasia.³

It is probable that Pericles, who had not hesitated to conquer Aegina, had dreamed of completing Athens’ control of Greek trade by dominating not only Megara but Corinth, which was to Greece what Istanbul is to the eastern Mediterranean today—a door and a key to half a continent’s trade. But the basic cause of the war was the growth of the Athenian Empire, and the development of Athenian control over the commercial and political life of the Aegean. Athens allowed free trade there in time of peace, but only by imperial sufferance; no vessel might sail that sea without her consent. Athenian agents decided the destination of every vessel that left the grain ports of the north; Methone, starving with drought, had to ask Athens’ leave to import a little corn.⁴ Athens defended this domination as a vital necessity; she was dependent upon imported food, and was determined to guard the routes by which that food came. In policing the avenues of international trade Athens performed a real service to peace and prosperity in the Aegean, but the process became more and more irksome as the pride and wealth of the subject cities grew. The funds that these had contributed for defense against Persia were being used for the adornment of Athens, even for the financing of Athenian wars upon other Greeks.⁵ Periodically the assessment had been increased until it was now, in 432, some 460 talents ($2,300,000) per year. Athens reserved to Athenian courts the right to try all cases, arising within the Confederacy, that involved Athenian citizens or major crimes. If any city resisted, it was reduced by force; so Pericles with efficient dispatch suppressed rebellions in Aegina (457), Euboea (446), and Samos (440). If we may believe Thucydides, the democratic leaders at Athens, while making liberty the idol of their policy among Athenians, frankly recognized that the Confederacy of free cities had become an empire of force. “You should remember,” says Thucydides’ Cleon to the Assembly (427), “that your empire is a despotism exercised over unwilling subjects who are always conspiring against you; they do not obey in return for any kindness which you do them to your own injury, but only in so far as you are their master; they have no love for you, but they are held down by force.”⁶ The inherent contradiction between the worship of liberty and the despotism of empire co-operated with the individualism of the Greek states to end the Golden Age.

The resistance to Athenian policy came from nearly every state in Greece.⁷ Boeotia fought off at Coronea (447) the attempt of Athens to include it in the Empire. Some subject cities, and others that feared to become subject, appealed to Sparta to check the Athenian power. The Spartans were not eager for war, knowing the strength and valor of the Athenian fleet; but the old racial antipathy between Dorian and Ionian inflamed them, and the Athenian custom of establishing in every city democracies dependent upon the Empire seemed to the landowning oligarchy of Sparta a threat to aristocratic government everywhere. For a time the Spartans contented themselves with supporting the upper classes in every city, and slowly forging a united front against Athens.

Surrounded by enemies abroad and at home, Pericles worked for peace and prepared for war. The army, he calculated, could protect Attica, or all of Attica’s population gathered within Athens’ walls; and the navy could keep open the routes by which Euxine or Egyptian grain might enter Athens’ walled port. It was his judgment that no real concessions could be made without endangering that supply of food; it seemed to him, as now to England, a choice between empire and starvation. Nevertheless he sent envoys to all the Greek states, inviting them to an Hellenic Conference which would seek a peaceful solution of the problems that were leading to war. Sparta refused to attend, feeling that her acceptance would be construed as an acknowledgment of Athenian hegemony, and at her secret suggestion⁸ so many other states rejected the invitation that the project fell through. Meanwhile, says Thucydides, in a sentence that explains much history, “The Peloponnesus and Athens were both full of young men whose inexperience made them eager to take up arms.”⁹

These basic factors being present, the coming of war awaited some provocative incident. In 435 Corcyra, a Corinthian colony, declared itself independent of Corinth; and presently she joined the Athenian Confederacy for protection. Corinth sent a fleet to reduce the island; Athens,appealed to by the victorious democrats of Corcyra, sent a fleet to help them. An indecisive battle took place, in which the navies of Corcyra and Athens fought against those of Megara and Corinth. In 432 Potidaea, a city in Chalcidice tributary to Athens but Corinthian in blood, attempted to expel the Athenian power. Pericles sent an army to besiege it, but its resistance continued for two years, and weakened the military resources and prestige of Athens. When Megara gave further help to Corinth Pericles ordered all Megarian products excluded from the markets of Attica and the Empire. Megara and Corinth appealed to Sparta; Sparta proposed to Athens a repeal of this Megarian decree; Pericles agreed on condition that Sparta permit foreign states to trade with Laconia. Sparta refused; instead, she laid down as a prerequisite to peace, that Athens should acknowledge the full independence of all Greek cities—i.e., that Athens should surrender her Empire. Pericles persuaded the Athenians to reject this demand; and Sparta declared war.¹⁰