quered by the Persians, was undertaken, with great success, by Athens. Athens became the leading
sea power, and acquired a considerable imperialist control over the Ionian islands. Under the
leadership of Pericles, who was a moderate democrat and a moderate imperialist, Athens
prospered. The great temples, whose ruins are still the glory of Athens, were built by his initiative,
to replace those destroyed by Xerxes. The city increased very rapidly in wealth, and also in
culture, and, as invariably happens at such times, particularly when wealth is due to foreign
commerce, traditional morality and traditional beliefs decayed.
There was at this time in Athens an extraordinarily large number of men of genius. The three great
dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, all belong to the fifth century. Aeschylus fought
at Marathon and saw the battle of Salamis. Sophocles was still religiously orthodox. But Euripides
was influenced by Protagoras and by the free-thinking spirit of the time, and his treatment of the
myths is sceptical and subversive. Aristophanes, the comic poet, made fun of Socrates, Sophists,
and philosophers, but nevertheless belonged to their circle; in the Symposium Plato represents him
as on very friendly terms with Socrates. Pheidias the sculptor, as we have seen, belonged to the
circle of Pericles.
The excellence of Athens, at this period, was artistic rather than intellectual. None of the great
mathematicians or philosophers of the fifth century were Athenians, with the exception of
Socrates; and Socrates was not a writer, but a man who confined himself to oral discussion.
The outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C. and the death of Pericles in 429 B.C.
introduced a darker period in Athenian history. The Athenians were superior at sea, but the
Spartans had supremacy on land, and repeatedly occupied Attica (except Athens) during the
summer. The result was that Athens was overcrowded, and suffered severely from the plague. In
414 B.C. the Athenians sent a large expedition to Sicily, in the hope of capturing Syracuse, which
was allied with Sparta; but the attempt was a failure. War made the Athenians fierce and
persecuting. In 416 B.C. they conquered the island of Melos, put to death all men of military age,
and enslaved the other inhabitants. The Trojan Women of Euripides is a protest against such
barbarism. The conflict had an ideological aspect, since Sparta was
-80-the champion of oligarchy and Athens of democracy. The Athenians had reason to suspect some
of their own aristocrats of treachery, which was generally thought to have had a part in the final
naval defeat at the battle of Aegospotami in 405 B.C.
At the end of the war, the Spartans established in Athens an oligarchial government, known as the
Thirty Tyrants. Some of the Thirty, including Critias, their chief, had been pupils of Socrates.
They were deservedly unpopular, and were overthrown within a year. With the compliance of
Sparta, democracy was restored, but it was an embittered democracy, precluded by an amnesty
from direct vengeance against its internal enemies, but glad of any pretext, not covered by the
amnesty, for prosecuting them. It was in this atmosphere that the trial and death of Socrates took
place ( 399 B.C.).,