"Thucydidies - The History Of The Peloponnesian War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thucydidies)

though after the settlement of the Dorians, its present inhabitants,
it suffered from factions for an unparalleled length of time, still
at a very early period obtained good laws, and enjoyed a freedom from
tyrants which was unbroken; it has possessed the same form of government
for more than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of the late
war, and has thus been in a position to arrange the affairs of the
other states. Not many years after the deposition of the tyrants,
the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and the Athenians.
Ten years afterwards, the barbarian returned with the armada for the
subjugation of Hellas. In the face of this great danger, the command
of the confederate Hellenes was assumed by the Lacedaemonians in virtue
of their superior power; and the Athenians, having made up their minds
to abandon their city, broke up their homes, threw themselves into
their ships, and became a naval people. This coalition, after repulsing
the barbarian, soon afterwards split into two sections, which included
the Hellenes who had revolted from the King, as well as those who
had aided him in the war. At the end of the one stood Athens, at the
head of the other Lacedaemon, one the first naval, the other the first
military power in Hellas. For a short time the league held together,
till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians quarrelled and made war upon
each other with their allies, a duel into which all the Hellenes sooner
or later were drawn, though some might at first remain neutral. So
that the whole period from the Median war to this, with some peaceful
intervals, was spent by each power in war, either with its rival,
or with its own revolted allies, and consequently afforded them constant
practice in military matters, and that experience which is learnt
in the school of danger.

The policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies,
but merely to secure their subservience to her interests by establishing
oligarchies among them; Athens, on the contrary, had by degrees deprived
hers of their ships, and imposed instead contributions in money on
all except Chios and Lesbos. Both found their resources for this war
separately to exceed the sum of their strength when the alliance flourished
intact.

Having now given the result of my inquiries into early times, I grant
that there will be a difficulty in believing every particular detail.
The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of their
own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered, without
applying any critical test whatever. The general Athenian public fancy
that Hipparchus was tyrant when he fell by the hands of Harmodius
and Aristogiton, not knowing that Hippias, the eldest of the sons
of Pisistratus, was really supreme, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus
were his brothers; and that Harmodius and Aristogiton suspecting,
on the very day, nay at the very moment fixed on for the deed, that
information had been conveyed to Hippias by their accomplices, concluded
that he had been warned, and did not attack him, yet, not liking to
be apprehended and risk their lives for nothing, fell upon Hipparchus
near the temple of the daughters of Leos, and slew him as he was arranging