File:The ancient world, from the earliest times to 800 A. D (1913) (14778944244).jpg

Identifier: ancientworldfrom00west (find matches)
Title: The ancient world, from the earliest times to 800 A. D
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: West, Willis Mason, 1857- (from old catalog)
Subjects: History, Ancient
Publisher: Boston, New York (etc.) Allyn and Bacon
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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an ships proved equal tothree times their number of the enemy.^ Gradually, however,the Peloponnesians learned something of the Athenian tactics,and this difference became less marked. 247. New Leaders. — The deadliest blow of the plague wasthe striking down of Pericles, who died of the disease, inthe third year of the war. Never had the Athenians soneeded his controlling will and calm judgment. He was fol-lowed by a new class of leaders, — men of the people, likeCleon the tanner, and Hyperholus the lampmaker, — men ofstrong will and much force, but rude, untrained, unscrupulous,and ready to surrender their own convictions, if necessary, towin the favor of the crowd. Such men were to lead Athensinto many blunders and crimes. Over against them stoodonly a group of incapable aristocrats, led by Nicias, a good butstupid man, and Alcibiades, a brilliant, unprincipled adventurer. 1 Special report to illustrate these points; the story of Phormios victoriesin the Corinthian Gulf in 431.
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§249) ATHENIAN DISASTER 247 Athens was peculiarly unfortunate in her statesmen atthis period. She produced no Themistocles, or Aristides, orCimon, or Pericles; and Phormio and Demosthenes, her greatadmirals, were usually absent from the city. Sparta, on theother hand, produced two greater generals than ever before inher history: Brasidas, whose brilliant campaigns overthrewAthenian supremacy on the coast of Thrace; and Lysander,who was finally to bring the war to a close. 248. Athenian Disaster in Sicily. — The turning-point in thewar was an unwise and misconducted Athenian expeditionagainst Syracuse.^ Two hundred perfectly equipped ships andover forty thousand men — among them eleven thousand ofthe flower of the Athenian hoplites — were pitifully sacrificedby the superstition and miserable generalship of their leader,Nicias (413 b.c). Even after this crushing disaster Athens refused peace thatshould take away her empire. Every nerve was strained, andthe last resources and rese

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