Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/232

210 HISTORY OF GREECE. r&e condemned generals, the verdict of impartial history wifl pronounce that the sentiment itself was well founded, and that the generals deserved censure and disgrace. The Athenian peo- ple might with justice proclaim to them : " Whatever be the grandeur of your victory, we can neither rejoice in it ourselves, Dor allow you to reap honor from it, if we find that you have left many hundreds of those who helped in gaining it to be drowned on board the wrecks without making any effort to save them, when such effort might well have proved successful." CHAPTER LXV, FROM THE BATTLE OF ARGINUS,E TO THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS, AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE THIRTY. THE victory of Arginusa? gave for the time decisive mastery of the Asiatic seas to the Athenian fleet ; and is even said to have so discouraged the Lacedaemonians, as to induce them to send propositions of peace to Athens. But this statement 1 is open to 1 The statement rests on the authority of Aristotle, as referred to by the Scholiast on the last verse of the Ranse of Aristophanes. And this, so far as I know, is the only authority : for when Mr.Fynes Clinton (Fast. Hellen. ad ann. 406) says that JEschines (De Fals. Legat. p. 38, c. 24) mentions the overtures of peace, I think that no one who looks at that passage will be inclined to found any inference upon it. Against it, we may observe : 1 Xenophon does not mention it. This is something, though far from being conclusive when standing alone. 2. Diodorus does not mention it. 3. The terms alleged to have been proposed by the Lacedaemonians, are exactly the same as those said to have been propose i by them after the death of Mindarus at Kyzikus, namely : To evacuate Dekelcia, and each party to stand as they were. Not only the terms are the same, but also the person who stood prominent in opposition is in both cases the same, Kleophon. The overtures after Arginusse arc in fact a second edition of those after the battle of Kyyikas