Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/379

TAEDY ASSISTANCE FIZOM THE SPARTANS. 3d day of their march, a surprising effort, when we consider that the total distance from Sparta to Athens was about one hundred rect, the sixth day of Boedromion, the day of battle as given by Plutarch, is not to be called in question. That day comes in the second prytany of thf: year, which begins about the sixth of Metageitnion, and ends about tho twelfth of BoCdromion, and which must in this year have fallen to the lot of the tribe Mantis. On the first or second day of BoCdromion, the rote for marching out the army may have passed ; on the sixth the battle was fought ; both during the prytany of this tribe. I im not prepared to carry the.se reasons farther than the particular case cf the battle of Marathon, and the vindication of the day of that battle as stated by Plutarch ; nor would I apply them to later periods, such as the Peloponnesian war. It is certain that the army regulations of Athens were considerably modified between the battle of Marathon and the Pelopon- nesian war, as well in other matters as in what regards the polemarch ; and we have not sufficient information to enable us to determine whether in that later period the Athenians followed any known or perpetual rule in the battle-order of the tribes. Military considerations, connected with tha state of the particular army serving, must have prevented the constant ob- servance of any rule : thus we can hardly imagine that Nikias, command- ing the army before Syracuse, could have been tied down to any invariable order of battle among the tribes to which his hoplites belonged. More- over, the expedition against Syracuse lasted more than one Attic year: can it be believed that Nikias, on receiving information from Athens of the sequence in which the prytanies of the tribes had been drawn by lot during the second year of his expedition, would be compelled to marshal his army in a new battle-order conformably to it ? As the military operations of the Athenians became more extensive, they would find it necessary to leave such dispositions more and more to the general serving in every particular campaign. It may well be doubted whether during the Peloponnesian v/ar any established rule was observed in marshalling the tribes for battle. > One great motive which induces critics to maintain that the battle was fonght in the Athenian month Metageitnioilf is, that that month coincides with the Spartan month Karneiqs, so that the refusal of the Spartans to march before the full moon, is construed to apply only to the peculiar sanc- tity of this last-mentioned month, instead of being a constant rule for the v/hole year. I perfectly agree with these critics, that the answer, given by tlie Spartans to the courier Pheidippides, cannot be held to prove a regular, invariable Spartan maxim, applicable throughout the whole year, not to begin a march in the second quarter of the moon : very possibly, as Boeckb remarks, there may have been some festival impending during the particu lar month in question, upon which the Spartan refusal to march wa founded. But no inference can be deduced from hence to disprove the aixth VOL. IV. 16