presently returned to the former island, leaving detachments at Chalkê and Kôs to harass the Peloponnesians with desultory attacks. The Peloponnesians now levied from the Rhodians Long inac tion of the fleet at Rhodesparalysing of Tissa corruption of the La cedæmo nian offi cers. a contribution of 32 talents, and adopted the island as the main station for their fleet, instead of Milêtus. We can explain this change of place by their recent intrigues unfriendly discussion with Tissaphernês, and their phernêsdesire to be more out of his reach'. But what we cannot so easily explain, is-that they remained on the island without any movement or military action, and actually hauled their triremes ashore, for the space of no less than eighty days; that is, from about the middle of January to the end of March 411 B.C. While their powerful fleet of 94 triremes, superior to that of Athens at Samos, was thus lying idle their allies in Chios were known to be suffering severe and increasing distress, and repeatedly pressing for aid2: moreover the promise of sending to co-operate with Pharnabazus against the Athenian dependencies on the Hellespont, remained unperformed3. We may impute such extreme military slackness mainly to the insidious policy of Tissaphernês, now playing a double game between Sparta and Athens. He still kept up intelligence with the Peloponnesians at Rhodes-paralysed their energies by assurances that the Phenician fleet was actually on its way to aid them-and ensured the success of these intrigues by bribes distributed personally among the generals and the trierarchs. Thucyd. viii. 40-55. Thucyd. viii. 44: compare c. 57. 3 Thucyd. viii. 39. Even Astyochus the general-in-chief took his share in this corrupt bargain, against which not one stood out except the Syracusan Hermokratês'. Such prolonged inaction of the armament, at the moment of its greatest force, was thus not simply the fruit of honest mistake, like the tardiness of Nikias in Sicily -but proceeded from the dishonesty and personal avidity of the Peloponnesian officers. I have noticed, on more than one previous occasion, the many evidences which exist of the prevalence of personal corruption-even in its coarsest form, that of direct bribery-among the leading Greeks of all the cities, when acting individually. Of such evidences the incident here recorded is not the least remarkable. Nor ought this general fact ever to be forgotten by those who discuss the question between oligarchy and democracy, as it stood in the Grecian world. The confident pretensions put forth by the wealthy and oligarchical Greeks to superior virtue, public as well as private-and the quiet repetition, by various writers modern and ancient, of the laudatory epithets implying such assumed virtue-are so far from being borne out by history, that these individuals were perpetually ready as statesmen to betray their countrymen, or as generals even to betray the interests of their soldiers, for the purpose of acquiring money them 1 Thucyd. viii. 45. Suggestions of Alkibiadês to Tissaphernês-Kai τοὺς τριηράρχους καὶ τοὺς στρατηγοὺς τῶν πόλεων ἐδίδασκεν ὥστε δόντα χρήματα αὐτὸν πεῖσαι, ὥστε ξυγχωρῆσαι ταῦτα ἑαυτῷ, πλὴν τῶν Συρακοσίων· τούτων δὲ, Ερμοκράτης ἐναντιοῦτο μόνος ὑπὲρ τοῦ ξύμπαντος ξυμμαχικού. About the bribes to Astyochus himself, see also c. 50. selves. Of course it is not meant that this was true of all of them; but it was true sufficiently often, to be reckoned upon as a contingency more than probable. If, speaking on the average, the leading men of a Grecian community were not above the commission of political misdeeds thus palpable, and of a nature not to be disguised even from themselves-far less would they be above the vices, always more or less mingled with self-delusion, of pride, power-seeking, party-antipathy or sympathy, love of ease, &c. And if the community were to have any chance of guarantee against such abuses, it could only be by full license of accusation against delinquents, and certainty of trial before judges identified in interest with the people themselves. Such were the securities which the Grecian democracies, especially that of Athens, tried to provide ; in a manner not always wise, still less always effectual-but assuredly justified, in the amplest manner, by the urgency and prevalence of the evil. Yet in the common representations given of Athenian affairs, this evil is overlooked or evaded; the precautions taken against it are denounced as so many evidences of democratical ill-temper and injustice; and the class of men, through whose initiatory action alone such precautions were enforced, are held up to scorn as demagogues and sycophants. Had these Peloponnesian generals and trierarchs, who under the influence of bribes wasted two important months in inaction, been Athenians, there might have been some chance of their being tried and punished; though even at Athens the chance of impunity to offenders, through powerful political clubs and other sinister artifices, was much greater than it ought to have been. So little is it consistent with the truth, however often affirmed, that judicial accusation was too easy, and judicial condemnation too frequent. When the judicial precautions provided at Athens are looked at, as they ought to be, side by side with the evil-they will be found imperfect indeed both in the scheme and in the working, but certainly neither uncalled-for nor over-severe. APPENDIX IN EXPLANATION OF THE PLAN OF SYRACUSE AND THE OPERATIONS DURING THE ATHENIAN SIEGE. IN the description given of this memorable event by Thucydidês, there is a good deal which is only briefly and imperfectly explained. He certainly has left us various difficulties, in the solution of which we cannot advance beyond conjecture more or less plausible: though there are some which appear to me to admit of a more satisfactory solution than has yet been offered. Dr. Arnold, in an Appendix annexed to the third volume of his Thucydidês (p. 265 seq.), together with two Plans, has bestowed much pains on the elucidation of these difficulties: also Colonel Leake, in his valuable remarks on the Topography of Syracuse (the perusal of which, prior to their appearance in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, I owe to his politeness); Serra di Falco, in the fourth volume of his Antichità di Sicilia; and Saverio Cavallari (the architect employed in 1839, in the examination and excavation of the ground which furnished materials for the work of Serra di Falco) in a separate pamphletZur Topographie von Syrakus-printed in the Göttinger Studien for 1845, and afterwards reprinted at Göttingen. With all the aid derived from these comments, I arrive at conclusions on some points different from all of them, which I shall now proceed shortly to state-keeping closely and exclusively to Thucydidês and the Athenian siege, and not professing to meddle with Syracuse as it stood afterwards. The excavations of M. Cavallari (in 1839) determined one point of some importance which was not before known; the situation and direction of the western wall of the outer city or Achradina. This wall is not marked on the Plan of Dr. Arnold nor alluded to in his Remarks: but it appears in that of Colonel Leake and in Serra di Falco as well as in Cavallari; and will be found noted in the Plan hereunto annexed. Respecting Achradina, Colonel Leake remarks (p. 7)—"That it was distinctly divided by nature into an upper portion to the north-east, adjacent to the outer sea-and a lower in the opposite direction, adjacent to the two harbours of Syracuse." Now M. Cavallari, in his Dissertation (p. 15 seq.), offers strong reason for believing that the wall just indicated enclosed only the former of those two portions; that it did not reach from the outer sea across to the Great Harbour, but turned eastward by the great stone-quarries of the Capucines and Novanteris, leaving the "lower portion adjacent to the two harbours,” open and unfortified. The inner and the outer city (Ortygia and Achradina) were |