Remarks on the Effects of War.—State of Athens.—Interference of
Sparta with respect to the Fortifications of Athens.—Dexterous
Conduct of Themistocles.—The New Harbour of the Piraeus.—Proposition
of the Spartans in the Amphictyonic Council defeated by Themistocles.
—Allied Fleet at Cyprus and Byzantium.—Pausanias.—Alteration in his
Character.—His ambitious Views and Treason.—The Revolt of the
Ionians from the Spartan Command.—Pausanias recalled.—Dorcis
replaces him.—The Athenians rise to the Head of the Ionian League.—
Delos made the Senate and Treasury of the Allies.—Able and prudent
Management of Aristides.—Cimon succeeds to the Command of the Fleet.
—Character of Cimon.—Eion besieged.—Scyros colonized by Atticans.—
Supposed Discovery of the Bones of Theseus.—Declining Power of
Themistocles.—Democratic Change in the Constitution.—Themistocles
ostracised.—Death of Aristides.
I. It is to the imperishable honour of the French philosophers of thelast century, that, above all the earlier teachers of mankind, theyadvocated those profound and permanent interests of the human racewhich are inseparably connected with a love of PEACE; that theystripped the image of WAR of the delusive glory which it took, in theprimitive ages of society, from the passions of savages and theenthusiasm of poets, and turned our contemplation from the fame of theindividual hero to the wrongs of the butchered millions. But theirzeal for that HUMANITY, which those free and bold thinkers were thefirst to make the vital principle of a philosophical school, led theminto partial and hasty views, too indiscriminately embraced by theirdisciples; and, in condemning the evils, they forgot the advantages ofwar. The misfortunes of one generation are often necessary to theprosperity of another. The stream of blood fertilizes the earth overwhich it flows, and war has been at once the scourge and the civilizerof the world: sometimes it enlightens the invader, sometimes theinvaded; and forces into sudden and brilliant action the arts and thevirtues that are stimulated by the invention of necessity—matured bythe energy of distress. What adversity is to individuals, war oftenis to nations: uncertain in its consequences, it is true that, withsome, it subdues and crushes, but with others it braces and exalts.Nor are the greater and more illustrious elements of character in menor in states ever called prominently forth, without something of thatbitter and sharp experience which hardens the more robust propertiesof the mind, which refines the more subtle and sagacious. Even whenthese—the armed revolutions of the world—are most terrible in theirresults—destroying the greatness and the liberties of one people—they serve, sooner or later, to produce a counteracting rise andprogress in the fortunes of another; as the sea here advances, thererecedes, swallowing up the fertilities of this shore to increase theterritories of that; and fulfilling, in its awful and appallingagency, that mandate of human destinies which ordains all things to bechanged and nothing to be destroyed. Without the invasion of Persia,Greece might have left no annals, and the modern world might search invain for inspirations from the ancient.
II. When the deluge of the Persian arms rolled back to its Easternbed, and the world was once more comparatively at rest, the continentof Greece rose visibly and majestically above the rest of thecivilized earth. Afar in the Latian plains, the infant state of Romewas silently and obscurely