Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/101

BATTLES OF THERMOPYLiE AND AETEmSIUM. 77 invader was, after all, not a god, but a man, exposed to those reverses of fortune which came inevitably on all men, and most of all, upon those in preeminent condition." * Such arguments prove but too evidently the melancholy state of terror which then pervaded the Greek mind : whether reassured by them or not, the great body of the Opuntian Lokrians, and one thousand Phocians, joined Leonidas at Thermopylae. That this terror was both genuine and serious, there cannot be any doubt : and the question naturally suggests itself, why the Greeks did not at once send their full force instead of a mere advanced guard .'* The answer is to be found in another attri- bute of the Greek character, — it was the time of celebrating both the Olympic festival-games on the banks of the Alpheius, and the Karneian festival at Sparta and most of the other Do- rian states.2 Even at a moment when their whole freedom and existence were at stake, the Greeks could not bring themselves to postpone these venerated solemnities : especially the Pelopon- nesian Greeks, among whom this force of religious routine ap- pears to have been the strongest. At a period more than a century later, in the time of Demosthenes, when the energy of the Athenians had materially declined, we shall find them, too, postponing the military necessities of the state to the complete and splendid fulfilment of their religious festival obligations, — starving all their measures of foreign policy in order that the Theoric exhibitions might be imposing to the people and satis- factory to the gods. At present, we find little disposition in the Athenians to make this sacrifice, — certainly much less than in the Peloponnesians. The latter, remaining at home to celebrate ' Herodot. vii, 203. ?.£yovTeg Ji' ayy^MV, uq avToi /lcev ^Kocev TrpoSpofiot Tuv a7J.uv, 01 6e XocttoI tuv avixixaxuv npoaSoKi/ioL Tvaauv e'kji rjfiEprjv. , . . Kai a(pi Eirj Seivov ov6iv • ov yup ^ebv slvai rdv kiziovTa Ittc t^v 'EAAada, aXX' uv&puTTOv Elvai 6e ■&VTjTbv ovdsva, ovSe iascr&ai, tu kukov ef upxVQ yivofiEVL) oil avvEfi'ix^j), rolai 61 (lEyiaroLaL avTsuv, /xeytoTa- o^eIIelv uv koI Tov iuEXavvovra, ug iovra -QvrjTbv, uTzd rfjg do^ric -keoeeiv uv. ' Herodot. vil, 206. It was only the Dorian states (Lacedsemon, Argos, Sikyon, etc.) which were under obligation of abstinence from aggressive military operations during the month of the Karneian festival : other states (even in Peloponnesus), Elis, Mantineia, etc., and of course Athens, were not under similar restraint (Thncyd. v, 54, 75).