requisite to insure the concurrent and hearty action of numbers, and to clothe with imposing sanction a state of war already existing in reality, though yet unproclaimed. The sentiment in Peloponnesus at this moment was not the fear of Athens, but the hatred of Athens,—and the confident hope of subduing her. And indeed such confidence was justified by plausible grounds: men might well think that the Athenians would never endure the entire devastation of their highly cultivated soil,—or at least that they would certainly come forth to fight for it in the field, which was all that the Peloponnesians desired. Nothing except the unparalleled ascendency and unshaken resolution of Periklês, induced the Athenians to persevere in a scheme of patient defence, and to trust to that naval superiority which the enemies of Athens, save and except the judicious Archidamus, had not yet learned fully to appreciate. Moreover, the confident hopes of the Peloponnesians were materially strengthened by the wide-spread sympathy in favor of their cause, proclaiming, as it did, the intended liberation of Greece from a despot city.[161] [157] Thucyd. i, 88. Ἐψηφίσαντο δὲ οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τὰς σπονδὰς λελύσθαι καὶ πολεμητέα εἶναι, ~οὐ τοσοῦτον τῶν ξυμμάχων πεισθέντες τοῖς λόγοις, ὅσον φοβούμενοι τοὺς Ἀθηναίους~, μὴ ἐπὶ μεῖζον δυνηθῶσιν, ὁρῶντες αὐτοῖς τὰ πολλὰ τῆς Ἑλλάδος ὑποχείρια ἤδη ὄντα: compare also c. 23 and 118. [158] Plutarch’s biography of Periklês is very misleading, from its inattention to chronology, ascribing to an earlier time feelings and tendencies which really belong to a later. Thus he represents (c. 20) the desire for acquiring possession of Sicily, and even of Carthage and the Tyrrhenian coast, as having become very popular at Athens even before the revolt of Megara and Eubœa, and before those other circumstances which preceded the thirty years’ truce: and he gives much credit to Periklês for having repressed such unmeasured aspirations. But ambitious hopes directed towards Sicily could not have sprung up in the Athenian mind until after the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. It was impossible that they could make any step in that direction until they had established their alliance with Korkyra, and this was only done in the year before the Peloponnesian war,—done too, even then, in a qualified manner, and with much reserve. At the first outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians had nothing but fears, while the Peloponnesians had large hopes of aid, from the side of Sicily. While it is very true, therefore, that Periklês was eminently useful in discouraging rash and distant enterprises of ambition generally, we cannot give him the credit of keeping down Athenian desires of acquisition in Sicily, or towards Carthage,—if, indeed, this latter ever was included in the catalogue of Athenian hopes,—for such desires were hardly known until after his death, in spite of the assertion again