[[25]]
CHAPTER III
THE MEGARIAN DECREES
THERE is a remarkable discrepancy between Thucydides' account of the
negotiations immediately preceding the war and all the other ancient accounts
we possess. These other authorities agree in representing certain decrees
against Megara, passed at Athens on the eve of the war, as having a critical
effect in bringing it on. Thucydides, on the contrary, does not even record
these decrees at the proper point, and only makes a few allusions to them which
attract no special attention. The explanation of this disciepancy will, we
hope, throw some light on our inquiry into the aims of the party which made the
war.
The evidence of Aristophanes with regard to these decrees has much weight. We
must, of course, handle the statements of a comic poet cautiously; but there is
a kind of inference which we can draw with confidence. The inference we can
draw here is that the audience which witnessed the Acharnians believed
certain things. They may or may not have believed that Pericles acted from
personal motives. That is unimportant; if they did, it merely shows that they
did not understand Pericles, and that they could not imagine any serious motive
he could have entertained. What is important is that they believed that the
series of decrees against Megara had much more to do with the outbreak of the
war than any ordinary reader, not on his guard, could possibly gather from
Thucydides' account. We are sure of this, because Aristophanes' purpose here
is serious; he wishes to allay a shortsighted rage against Sparta and convert
the poor, exasperated peasants to the cause of peace. He would not further this
purpose by giving such an account of the origin of the war as every
[[26]]
one in his audience knew to be substantially false. It is one thing to
represent the quarrel as arising ultimately out of the theft of three
courtesans; no one would take that too seriously. But when it comes to
describing how the actual outbreak occurred, we can imagine no motive for
pretending that the boycotting of Megara was the principal point on which the
negotiations turned, unless it really was so. In Aristophanes' account it is
the sole point:--
`For Pericles, like an Olympian Jove,
With all his thunder and his thunderbolts
Began to storm and lighten dreadfully,
Alarming all the neighbourhood of Greece;
And made decrees drawn up like drinking-songs.
In which it was enacted and concluded,
That the Megarians should remain excluded
From every place where commerce was transacted.
With all their war--like `old care'--in the ballad;
And this decree by sea and land was valid.
Then the Megarians, being all half starved,
Desired the Spartans, to desire of us,
Just to repeal those laws; the laws I mentioned,
Occasioned by the stealing of those strumpets.
And so they begged and prayed us several times;
And we refused; and so they went to war.' (note 1)
If this
sketch of the negotiations is not roughly correct, what is the point of it?
The impression here given by Aristophanes is confirmed by Diodorus, who, after
stating that Pericles had private motives for desiring war, proceeds thus (note 2): `There was a decree at Athens excluding the Megarians from the market and
harbours, and the Megarians appealed to Sparta. The Lacedaemonians at their
instance sent envoys empowered by a resolution of the Council of the League to
demand that the Athenians should rescind the decree and to threaten war if they
refused. The Athenian Assembly met, and Pericles with his great eloquence
persuaded the Athenians not to annul the decree, saying that to give way to
Sparta against their interests was the first step to servitude. So he advised
them to remove from the country into the town, and having command of the sea to
fight the Spartans to the end.'
[1. Ar. Ach. 530 ff. Frere.
[2. Diod. xii 39.]
[[27]]
Plutarch (note 1) goes a step further and expressly states that
`probably no other point would have involved the Athenians in war, if they
could have been induced to rescind the decree against Megara. Pericles exerted
all his influence to prevent this, and by working up the Athenian people to
share his rancour against Megira1 was the sole author of the war'. `He seems to
have had some private grudge against Megara.'
All these accounts agree in two respects. (1) They make the Megarian decree
the central point of the negotiations, (2) They connect this decree with some
unexplained personal rancour felt by Pericles against Megara. On the other
hand, Thucydides, as we shall presently show at length, keeps the measures
against Megara in the background.
What was the history of these decrees? In 446 the Megarians had risen
and expelled the Athenian garrisons which had for some time held their ports.
The Megarian colony, Byzantium, had joined in the Samian revolt. The
commercial interests of Megara in Pontus were threatened by Athenian enterprise
in that region. Megara had a very small territory, and its population lived by
industry and by the trade which passed through. Athens was the nearest market;
so it was easy for the great sea power to put the screw on the small one. The
first decree against Megara dates, probably, from before the summer of 433.
Athens excluded Megarian wares from the Athenian market on pain of
confiscation. This is the first of the two decrees which Aristophanes
mentions. (note 2) It was not moved by Pericles. Thucydides does not record
it.
The second decree was more stringent. After the conclusion of the alliance with
Corcyra, (note 3) on the trumpery excuse that the Megarians had cultivated some
sacred land at Eleusis, or received fugitive slaves, or what not, Pericles
moved that the Megarians should be excluded (not merely from the Athenian
market, but) from all ports in the Athenian empire.
[1. Pericles,
29. [2. Ach. 515.
[3. Probable date, winter, 433-432.]
[[28]]
This meant flat ruin to Megara; for she was shut out of Byzantium, an
indispensable port of call on the Pontic route, and the central mart of the
corn-trade on which she depended. Aristophanes' (note 1) picture of starvation
at Megara is not overdrawn. Here is another incident--surely important enough,
and falling well within his period--which Thucydides does not record in its
place.Thucydides also omits to mention a third decree--that of
Charinos--which declared a `truceless war' with Megara. This decree falls
between the attack on Plataea in April, 431, with which the war opens, and the
march of the Peloponnesian army. (note 2) Why do we hear nothing of it from
the historian of the war?
Let us now look at the allusions to Megara which Thucydides does make.
(1) The Corinthians in their speech at Athens (i. 42) refer, in passing, to
`the ill-feeling which your treatment of the Megarians has already inspired'.
(2) At the congress at Sparta (i. 67) the Lacedaemonians summon their allies to
bring forward their grievances against Athens. `Others came with their several
charges, including the Megarians, who, among many other causes of quarrel,
stated that they were excluded from the harbours in the Athenian Empire and
from the Attic market, contrary to the treaty.'
(3) In the negotiations which preceded the declaration of war (i. 139), the
Lacedaemonians after making other demands `insisted, above all, and in the
plainest terms, that if the Athenians wanted to avert war they must rescind the
decree which excluded the Megarians from the market of Athens and the harbours
in the Athenian dominions. But the Athenians would not listen to them, or
rescind the decree; alleging in reply that the Megarians had tilled the sacred
ground and the neutral borderland and had received runaway slaves.' In the
debate which followed `some said the decree ought not to stand in the way of
peace'.
[1. Ach. 635, 730 ff.; Pax, 245, 481. [2. In the
interval between Thuc. ii. 2 and ii. 13.]
[[29]]
(4) Pericles in his speech on this occasion (note 1) discusses the
Lacedaemonian grievances, and refers to Megara in curious language: `They tell
us to withdraw from Potidaea, to leave Aegina independent, and to rescind the
decree against Megara. Do not imagine that we shall be fighting for a small
matter if we refuse to annul this measure, of which they make so much, telling
us its revocation would stop the war. This small matter involves the trial
and confirmation of your whole purpose. If you give way about a trifle they
will think you are afraid and make harder conditions.'
(5) At i. 144 Pericles makes his counter-demand: `We will not exclude the
Megarians, if the Lacedaemonians will not exclude foreigners from Sparta.' The
Athenians adopted these terms.
Even from these few allusions the truth peeps out, that the decree `of which
they make so much, telling us its revocation would stop the war' was
really, as it appears in Aristophanes, Plutarch, and Diodorus, the
turning-point of the negotiations. But we venture to say that no one, reading
the whole story in Thucydides and unacquainted with the other evidence, would
gather this impression. Such a reader would be left with the idea that the
decree was in itself, as Periclcs calls it, `a trifling matter,' exaggerated by
the Spartans, and merely held to by the Athenians as a point of honour. he
would never discover that there were three decrees, each more stringent than
the last, or that the second was moved by Pericles himself, or that, by this
`trifling matter', Megara was reduced nearly to starvation.
The same design of keeping Megarian affairs in the background can be detected
in Thucydides' treatment of the operations in that `truceless war', the
declaration of which he never records. At ii. 31 he mentions an invasion of the
Megarid in full force, and observes that the invasion was repeated every year
until Nisaea was taken. This incidental observation is repeated at iv. 66 (B.C.
494). But these invasions are not, like the Spartan invasions of Attica,
recorded separately as they occurred, according to Thucydides'
avowed
[1. Thuc. i. 140 ff.]
[[30]]
plan of chronicling the events of the war. At ii. 93 we discover from a
passing reference that the Athenians had established a fort in Salamis,
opposite the Megarian coast, and kept three ships stationed there `to prevent
anything being conveyed by sea into or out of Megara'. We hear of this fort
again at iii. 51, when the Athenians capture Minoa, to make the blockade more
effective. From these hints we gather that all through the early part of the
war Athens was following up her policy of bringing the severest possible
pressure to bear on Megara. But why are we only given hints and summary
allusions to the incidents of this truceless war?
One motive which might induce Thucydides to suppress Pericles' connexion
with the attack on Megara has already been mentioned. From all the
non-Thucydidean accounts it is clear that this attack was currently associated
with some petty, personal rancour on Pericles' part. Thucydides, who knew that
Pericles was incapable of plunging Athens into war for such motives, wished to
contradict the scandal. For the same reason he keeps silent about the indirect
attacks made upon Pericles through the persons of Pheidias, Anaxagoras,
Aspasia. But this is hardly a sufficient explanation of the anomalies we have
pointed out.
There is however one hypothesis which would provide a complete explanation.
Thucydides, we remember, is bound by his plan of speech-writing to state only
official policies; he speaks of `the Athenians' as if they were one united
whole, with a single purpose. Suppose, now, that the attack on Megara, the
boycotting decrees, and the truceless war, were part of a policy which had not
been originated by Pericles, but forced upon him againct his will. Suppose it
was the policy of the class which furnished the bulk of his majority, the class
we attempted to characterize in the last chapter--in a word, the policy of the
Piraeus. Suppose that younger leaders, sprung from that class itself, were
already threatening to outbid Pericles in the popular favour; that Cleon, for
instance, was telling the demos to take their own way and,
[[31]]
if Pericles would not lead them, he would. How would Pericles meet this
situation?
Imagine a statesman of aristocratic birth, with the ideals and
prejudices of his class; mainly interested in culture, in art and philosophy;
by temperament exceptionally sensitive and reserved; openly called a
`tyrant'--the `new Pesistratus'. He owes his position--a position which the
habits of a lifetime have made indispensable--to the favour of a class of
working people, incapable of his aspirations, ignorant of his pursuits largely
of alien extraction and indifferent to his hereditary traditions; engaged in
occupations which his own class despises as mercenary and degrading. He can
keep them amused for a time with festivals, doles, and abundance of employment
on public works; but what will happen when they become conscious of the power
he has irrevocably put in their hands? A very little agitation will suffice to
consolidate and marshal them in irresistible ranks. Someone--Cleon, let us
say,--puts into their heads a wider policy than that of appropriating the
allies' treasure in the form of wages.
The first step in this policy involves the coercion of Megara--why, we shall
presently see. The policy is distasteful to Pericles; he will stand out
against it as long as he dares; but even his influence cannot hold back the
demos. The first decree against Megara is moved by somebody--his very name is
lost--and carried. For Pericles to stand out longer would be to advertise all
Greece that his influence is no longer supreme. He throws himself into the
campaign against Megara with a vehemence which makes people think he must have
some personal spite. Some young Megarians must have carried off a couple of
Aspasia's women. So idle tongues run on scandal. Pericles is not sorry that
his real motive is not divined by the gossips. He moves in his own person the
second, more stringent decree. His upstart competitors are instantly silenced;
the words are taken out of their mouths; their policy becomes the policy of the
leader whom they hoped to displace. There is some disappointment of personal
ambitions, which must wait for a better opening; Pericles cannot live for ever.
But, politically, a signal triumph is won. Athens has taken the
[[32]]
first step in the execution of a plan that was not matured in Aspasia's
boudoir, but has been the theme of many back-parlour conferences in the
wineshops along the quays. Its authors can well afford to go on working below
the surface.What was the rest of this plan? To find that out we
must concentrate our attention on the point from which Thucydides diverts it.
We must study the significance of Megara, and discover the purpose of a violent
and sustained attack on that inoffensive little community. (note 1)
The town of Megara is in a tiny plain, dominated on all sides by barren
hills. The country could, of itelf, support only a very small population. Yet
Megara had once been a great sea-power, founding her colonies far to the east
and west, in Fontus and in Sicily. The Megarians, says Isocrates, (note 2)
started with few advantages; they had no territory, no harbours, no mines;
they were `tillers of stones'; yet now they have the finest houses in Greece.
Isocrates' explanation of this paradox well illustrates the blindness of the
Greeks to economic causes. The prosperity of Megara is due, he tells us, to
virtuous moderation (svfrosÊnh)!
The Megarian territory fills most of the length of the isthmus which joins the
Peloponnese and Northern Greece. The advantages of such a position, given the
conditions under which commerce was carried on in the ancient world, have,
until very recently, not been perceived. Thus Grote looked at the situation
only through modern eyes. (note 3) `The acquisition of Megara (in 461 B.C.)
was of signal value to the Athenians, since it opened up to them the whole
range of territory across the outer isthmus of Corinth to the interior of the
Krissaean Gulf, on which the Megarian port of Pegae was situated, and placed
them in possession of the passes of Mount Geraneia, so that they could
arrest the march of
[1. In the next paragraphs I am following
closely M. Victor Berard's brilliant exposition of his `Law of Isthmuses' in
Les Phénitiens et L'Odyssée, 1. p. 61 ff, and freely
borrowing his evidence. Any reader of this fascinating book will see that all
this section of my work is inspired by his discoveries. [2. de Pace,
117.
[3. Grote, iv. 408.]
[[33]]
a Peloponnesian army over the isthmus and protect Attica from invasion.'
This is a modern view; we naturally think of the isthmus as a
land-link, `opening up a range of territory'; we travel along it by the
railway which takes us from Patras, through Corinth, to Athens. Our route by
sea goes round the south of the Feloponnese, past Cape Malea. But, before the
invention of steam, an isthmus, as M. Bérard has shown, is not only a
link between two continents; it is of much more importance as a bridge between
two seas. For the comprehension of ancient commercial routes, and of all that
part of history which depends on them, it is essential to grasp M.
Bérard's cardinal principle: the route which follows the land as far
as possible, and takes to the sea only when the land fails, was the cheapest,
easiest, and safest.We will here adduce only one of M.
Bérard's illustrations, because it is taken from Thucydides himself.
Among the reasons which the historian gives for the great distress at Athens,
caused by the occupation of Dekeleia, is the following: `Provisions formerly
conveyed by the shorter route from Euboea to Oropus and thence overland through
Dekeleia, were now carried by sea round the promontory of Sunium at great
cost.' (note 1) The road from Oropus by Dekeleia to Athens was an isthmic
route. Now that steam has made us independent of winds, no one would dream of
sending corn from Oropus to Athens by road; and this land-route, which in the
time of Dicaearchus (note 2) was still a flourishing caravan-track, `well
supplied with inns,' is now utterly abandoned. But before the introduction of
steam it was easier, quicker, and cheaper than the sea-route round Sunium.
Now, if the isthmus of Dekeleia was of such vital significance to Athens, the
isthmus of Corinth and Megara--as a glance at the map will show--must have been
the most important bridge between two seas in the whole of central Greece. It
was the gate of the Western Ocean. The other gate--the channel, to the south
of the Peloponnese, round Cape Malea--was beset with terrors to the sailor. It
is a
[1. Thuc. vii. 284 <= parakomidØ ...
polutelØw [[section]]g[[currency]]gneto. [2. Geogr. Gr. Min. i. p.
100, quoted by M. Bérard, i. p. 73.]
[[34]]
gap in a chain of islands--Kythera, Aegilia, Crete, Kasos, Karpathos,
Rhodes--which block the southern entrance of the Aegean. In the channels
between these islands strong currents and violent winds naturally prevail, and
Malea is not the least dangerous point. It was here that Ulysses was swept
from his course `by the stream of the sea and the north wind'. (note 1)
Herodotus tells how the Corcyreans were prevented from sending their fleet to
help the Greeks at Salamis by the Etesian winds at Malea. (note 2) The
Athenians in 424 were afraid that they could not revictual their fleet at Pylos
in Messenia. They feared lest the winter should overtake them at their post,
seeing that the conveyance of provisions round the Peloponnese would be quite
impossible. Pylos itself was a desert, and not even in summer could they send
round sufficient supplies. The coast was without harbours. (note 3) During
the four winter months, we read elsewhere, (note 4) it was not easy even to
send a message by sea from Sicily to Athens.Such were the
dangers, in the time of sailing-ships, of what is now the regular sea-route to
the Piraeus. The possessors of the Corinthian and Megarian isthmus were the
gainers. For this point we have the explicit evidence of Strabo, (note 5) who
says: `Corinth was called (by Homer) "the rich", because of its emporium,
situated as it is on the isthmus and possessing two harbours, one on the side
of Asia, the other on the side of Italy. This made the exchange of merchandise
between these regions easy. In the old days the passage to Sicily was not good
for sailing (eÎplouw), and the open seas were dangerous, especially off
Malea, because of the meeting of winds there (ént[[currency]]pnoiai).
Hence the proverb, "When you pass Malea, forget your home." Hence it was
convenient for merchants both from Italy and from Asia to avoid the passage
round Malea, and to bring their merchandise to Corinth. By land, likewise, the
tolls on what was exported from or imported into the Peloponnese went to those
who held the entrance (tå kle>yra).'
[1. Od. ix. 80. Most
of these references are taken from M. Bérard, i p. 82 ff. [2. Herod.
vii. 168.
[3. Thuc. vi. 27.
[4. Thuc. iv. 21.
[5. Strabo viii,
378.]
[[35]]
Strabo gives another instance of the same phenomenon: the wealth of
Krisa, near Delphi, was due to its position on an `isthmus'. Krisa was not a
port; it lay inland on a spur of the mountains commanding the road up the gorge
from the harbour of Itea to Delphi. The prosperity of its inhabitants,
according to Strabo, (note 1) `was due to the heavy tolls (tdeg.lh)
vhich they exacted from those who came to the shrine from Sicily and Italy.'
The position of Krisa is analogous to that of Debeleia; it commands an isthmic
route across Phokis to Thebes and the Euboean seas. The importance of Delphi
itself was probably due to its being situated on this ancient commercial
artery. In the early days when Euboea was colonizing Sicily we may be fairly
sure that the communication vith the -vest followed this line.
Thucydides' (note 2) testimony about Corinth agrees with that of Strabo.
`Corinth, being seated on an isthmus, was naturally from the first a centre of
commerce; for the Hellenes within and without the Peloponnese, in the old days
when they communicated more by land than by sea, had to pass through her
territory to reach one another. Her power was due to Health, as the testimony
of the ancient poets shows, when they call her "rich". And when the Hellenes
began to take more to the sea Corinth acquired a fleet and kept down
piracy; and as she offered an emporium both by sea and land, her revenues
were a source of power.'
Consider, now, the feelings of the merchants, down in the Piraeus, with
the great stream of traffic between Sicily and Italy in the west and Asia Minor
and the seas and islands to the east, flowing both ways across the isthmus,
under their very eyes. The Piraeus had captured the bulk of the eastern trade
formerly carried on by Euboea, Aegina, Megara. The only great field for
further expansion was in the west, and Corinth held the gateway. Every vase
that the Athenian potteries exported to Italy, every cheese that came from
Syracuse to the port of Athens, had to pay toll to the keepers of the isthmus.
Attica was cut off from the western seas by
[1. Strabo ix.
418. [2. Thuc. i. 13.]
[[36]]
Boeotia, thee Megarid, Corinth. The weak point in this chain was
Megara, which possessed, moreover, a port on each sea--Pegae on the west,
Nisaea on the east--with a road over the pass joining them. What would become
of the riches of Corinth, when the Piraeus bad established an alternative
channel for the trade across the isthmus? And so we read (note 1) that, in 461,
`Athens obtained the alliance of Megara, which had quarrelled with Corinth.
Thus the Athenians gained both Megara and Pegae, and built long walls froni
Megara to Nisaea, and garrisoned them. And from this above all arose the
intense hatred of Corinth for Athens.'Yes! and we can guess
the sort of hatred. It is not the hatred of Dorian against Ionian, or of
oligarch against democrat; it is the hatred of the principal trader with Italy
and Sicily against her most dangerous rival, the
Piraeus.`Corinth you hated; so did she hate you!' (note 2)The war which followed the seizure of Megara by Athens in 461
presents some remarkable analogies with the later Peloponnesian war.
(1) It began with a quarrel between Corinth and Megara, whose territory forms
the bridge between the Aegean and the West. Athens was allied with Megara. The
later war begins with a quarrel between Corinth and Corcyra, which is
`conveniently situated for the voyage to Italy and Sicily'. (note 3) Athens is
allied with Corcyra.
(2) In the earlier war Athens secured at once Megara, Pegae, and Nisaea. (note 4) At its conclusion, owing to the untimely revolt of Euboea, she was compelled
to surrender them.
The later war opens with a series of diastic measures against Megara, followed
up by yearly invasions, and the capture of Minoa, and later of Nisaea and
Megara itself. At a critical moment, Cleon sacrifices the chance of peace by an
exorbitant demand for the cession of Pegae and Nisaea, together with
other places, none of which had been in Athenian hands in this war. The
negotiations broke down. (note 5)
[1. Thuc. i. 103. [2. Ar.
Eccl. 199. Koriny[[currency]]oiw >=xyesye, kéke>no[[currency]] gdeg.
soi.
[3. Thuc. i. 36.
[4. Thuc. i. 111, an Athenian fleet wag at Pegae
till 454.
[5. Thuc. iv. 21.]
[[37]]
3) In the earlier war Sparta held aloof at first, intervening only when
Boeotia was conquered.
In the later, Sparta is not concerned in the outbreak of war, at Corcyra. She
only comes in under strong pressure from Corinth, on whose port (as the
Corinthians point out) the interior of the Peloponnese is economically
dependent. (note 1)
(4) The most striking analogy of all is the following. During the earlier
operations, with all Greece on her hands, Athens suddenly undertook a very
large and costly expedition--to Egypt!
In the thick of the Peioponnesian war, `with her suburbs,' as Isocrates says,
`in the enemies' hands,' Athens undertook a still larger and costlier
expedition to Sicily--an expedition prepared for, years before, by small
expeditions sent out to foment civil and racial discord among the Sicilian
states.
Each of these enterprises was a disastrous failure. With regard to the Egyptian
expedition, we are told that it was `fatal coincidence that Athens'
forces were divided. With her full strength she might have crushed the
Peloponnesians'. (note 2) The Sicilian expedition, we suppose, must have been
another fatal coincidence. But, perhaps, if we look in the right quarter, we
may find in both undertakings some evidence of calculation and design.
The upshot of the earlier war, the net gain of Athens when all her other
gains had been lost, was the extinction of Aegina, who had hitherto been a
strong naval and commercial power, and now had joined Corinth. Athens
blockaded the island, and reduced it; the Aeginetans' fleet was surrendered and
they became tributaries. Aegina, we note, is situated in an eastward-facing
gulf; her trade must have been chiefly in Aegean waters and the Levant. Had
she any commercial connexion with Egypt? When King Amasis, who, as Herodotus
tells us, (note 3) was partial to the Greeks, established Greek settlers at
Naukratis, he granted lands to those who wanted to trade along the coast, so
that they might erect temples.
[1. Thuc. i. 120. [2. Bury,
History of Greece (1900), p. 355.
[3. Herod. ii. 178.]
[[38]]
The most famous of these shrines was the Hellenion, a joint foundation
of several states, which had the right to appoint governors of the emporium.
Three states had separate temples: the Samians had a temple to Hera; the
Milesians, to Apollo; the Aeginetans, to Zeus.Aegina, then, was
one of the three states whose interests in Egyptian commerce were large enough
for her to maintain a separate sanctuary for her settlers there. Of the other
two, Miletus was ruined by the Persian wars, and her trade was transferred to
the Piraeus; Samos had become a tributary of Athens. Aegina remained. Is it a
very hazardous inference that there was some connexion between the war in
Greece and the expedition to Egypt--that it was not a mere fatal coincidence?
If one of the objects of Athens was to capture the Egyptian trade, that would
explain these simultaneous operations at both ends of the chain. She failed of
her other objects because she tried too much at once; but she succeeded in
extinguishing Aegina.
With this instructive parallel before us, may we not conjecture further that
the Sicilian expedition was not an incomprehensible vagary of the wild and
self-interested Alcibiades, but was part of the original scheme of the party
which promoted the Peloponnesian war? If Sicily had been fiom the first the
distant objective, the nearer objective was not Sparta, but Corinth. And
Corinth was to be attacked through Megara, which provided the desired avenue to
the West.
This is the supposition required to complete our hypothesis--the supposition
that Sicily was in view from the first. Not in Pericles' view; it was no part
of the official programme, as he saw it, and hence it does not appear in
Thucydides' story till he is out of the way. Peric!es did not want to conquer
Sicily, but some other people did; and they were the people who forced on
Pericles the violent measures against Megara.
We reserve for the next chapter some considerations which tend to show
that Thucydides' narrative, in its earlier part, obscures important facts
relating to the designs on Sicily.