The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0093/00938.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 42KB | 636 lines

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$Title{Plutarch's Lives
Part III}
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$Author{Plutarch}
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$Subject{pericles
upon
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war
city
himself
samians
say
see
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$Date{c75}
$Log{See Aristotle*0093801.scf
}
Title:       Plutarch's Lives
Book:        Pericles
Author:      Plutarch
Date:        c75
Translation: Dryden, Arthur Hugh Clough

Part III

     After this, having made a truce between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians
for thirty years, he ordered, by public decree, the expedition against the
Isle of Samos, on the ground, that, when they were bid to leave off their war
with the Milesians, they had not complied. And as these measures against the
Samians are thought to have been taken to please Aspasia, this may be a fit
point for inquiry about the woman, what art or charming faculty she had that
enabled her to captivate, as she did, the greatest statesmen, and to give the
philosophers occasion to speak so much about her, and that, too, not to her
disparagement. That she was a Milesian by birth, the daughter of Axiochus, is
a thing acknowledged. And they say it was in emulation of Thargelia, a
courtesan of the old Jonian times, that she made her addresses to men of great
power. Thargelia was a great beauty, extremely charming, and at the same time
sagacious; she had numerous suitors among the Greeks, and brought all who had
to do with her over the Persian interest, and by their means, being men of the
greatest power and station, sowed the seeds of the Median faction up and down
in several cities.  Aspasia, ^7 some say, was courted and caressed by Pericles
upon account of her knowledge and skill in politics. Socrates himself would
sometimes go to visit her, and some of his acquaintance with him; and those
who frequented her company would carry their wives with them to listen to her.
Her occupation was any thing but creditable, her house being a home for young
courtesans. Aeschines tells us also, that Lysicles, a sheep-dealer, a man of
low birth and character, by keeping Aspasia company after Pericle's death,
came to be a chief man in Athens. And in Plato's Menexenus, though we do not
take the introduction as quite serious, still thus much seems to be
historical, that she had the repute of being resorted to by many of the
Athenians for instruction in the art of speaking. Pericle's inclination for
her seems, however, to have rather proceeded from the passion of love. He had
a wife that was near of kin to him, who had been married first to Hipponicus,
by whom she had Callias, surnamed the Rich; and also she brought Pericles,
while she lived with him, two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus. Afterwards, when
they did not well agree nor like to live together, he parted with her, with
her own consent, to another man, and himself took Aspasia, and loved her with
wonderful affection; every day, both as he went out and as he came in from the
market-place, he saluted and kissed her.

[Footnote 7: She was married, says Athenaeus, to fourteen husbands; a woman of
great beauty and intellect.]

     In the comedies she goes by the nicknames of the new Omphale and
Deianira, and again is styled Juno. Cratinus, is downright terms, calls her a
harlot.

     "To find him a Juno the goddess of lust
     Bore that harlot past shame,
     Aspasia by name."

It should seem, also, that he had a son by her; Eupolis, in his Demi,
introduced Pericles asking after his safety, and Myronides replying,

     "My son?" "He lives; a man he had been long,
     But that the harlot-mother did him wrong."

Aspasia, they say, became so celebrated and renowned, that Cyrus also, who
made war against Artaxerxes for the Persian monarchy, gave her whom he loved
the best of all his concubines the name of Aspasia, who before that was called
Milto. She was a Phocaean by birth, the daughter of one Hermotimus, and, when
Cyrus fell in battle, was carried to the king, and had great influence at
court. These things coming into my memory as I am writing this story, it would
be unnatural for me to omit them.

     Pericles, however, was particularly charged with having proposed to the
assembly the war against the Samians, from favor to the Milesians, upon the
entreaty of Aspasia. For the two states were at war for the possession of
Priene; and the Samians, getting the better, refused to lay down their arms
and to have the controversy betwixt them decided by arbitration before the
Athenians. Pericles, therefore, fitting out a fleet, went and broke up the
oligarchical government at Samos, and, taking fifty of the principal men of
the town as hostages, and as many of their children, sent them to the isle of
Lemnos, there to be kept, though he had offers, as some relate, of a talent a
piece for himself from each one of the hostages, and of many other presents
from those who were anxious not to have a democracy. Moreover, Pissuthnes the
Persian, one of the king's lieutenants, bearing some good-will to the Samians,
sent him ten thousand pieces of gold to excuse the city. Pericles, however,
would receive none of all this; but after he had taken that course with the
Samians which he thought fit, and set up a democracy among them, sailed back
to Athens.

     But they, however, immediately revolted, Pissuthnes having privily got
away their hostages for them, and provided them with means for the war.
Whereupon Pericles came out with a fleet a second time against them, and found
them not idle nor slinking away, but manfully resolved to try for the dominion
of the sea. The issue was, that, after a sharp sea-fight about the island
called Tragia, Pericles obtained a decisive victory, having with forty-four
ships routed seventy of the enemy's, twenty of which were carrying soldiers.

     Together with his victory and pursuit, having made himself master of the
port, he laid siege to the Samians, and blocked them up, who yet, one way or
other, still ventured to make sallies, and fight under the city walls. But
after that another greater fleet from Athens was arrived, and that the Samians
were now shut up with a close leaguer on every side, Pericles, taking with him
sixty galleys, sailed out into the main sea, with the intention, as most
authors give the account, to meet a squadron of Phoenician ships that were
coming for the Samians' relief, and to fight them at as great distance as
could be from the island; but, as Stesimbrotus says, with a design of putting
over to Cyprus; which does not seem to be probable. But whichever of the two
was his intent, it seems to have been a miscalculation. For on his departure,
Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a philosopher, being at that time general in
Samos, despising either the small number of the ships that were left or the
inexperience of the commanders, prevailed with the citizens to attack the
Athenians. And the Samians having won the battle, and taken several of the men
prisoners, and disabled several of the ships, were masters of the sea, and
brought into port all necessaries they wanted for the war, which they had not
before. Aristotle says, too, that Pericles himself had been once before this
worsted by this Melissus in a sea-fight.

[See Aristotle: Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer]

     The Samians, that they might requite an affront which had before been put
upon them, branded the Athenians, whom they took prisoners, in their
foreheads, with the figure of an owl. For so the Athenians had marked them
before with a Samaena, which is a sort of ship, low and flat in the prow, so
as to look snub-nosed, but wide and large and well-spread in the hold, by
which it both carries a large cargo and sails well. And it was so called,
because the first of that kind was seen at Samos, having been built by order
of Polycrates the tyrant. These brands upon the Samians' foreheads, they say,
are the allusion in the passage of Aristophanes, where he says, -

     "For, oh, the Samians are a lettered people."

     Pericles, as soon as news was brought him of the disaster that