eight or twelve) and crushing the Spartan right wing by the sheer weight of his charge, before the rest of the line came into action at all.  If the experiment had not succeeded, Epaminondas would probably have been denounced by his own countrymen as a traitor, and by the enemy as a fool, for varying from the time-honored long, “even line” phalanx; and the average general will still prefer to keep to the old methods; then if anything happens, he at least will not be blamed for any undue rashness.  Only in Macedon, King Philip ii (who is just about to come to the throne) will not hesitate to study the new battle tactics of Epaminondas, and to improve upon them.

The Athenians will tell us that their citizen hoplites are a match for any soldiers in Greece, except until lately the Spartans, and now (since Leuctra) possibly the Thebans.  But Corinthians, Argives, Sicyonians, they can confront more readily.  They will also add, quite properly, that the army of Athens is in the main for home defense.  She does not claim to be a preeminently military state.  The glory of Athens has been the mastery of the sea.  Our next excursion must surely be to the Peireus.

Chapter XIV.  The Peireus and the Shipping.

98.  The “Long Walls” down to the Harbor Town.—­It is some five miles from the city to the Peireus, and the most direct route this time lies down the long avenue laid between the Long Walls, and running almost directly southwest.[*] The ground is quite level.  If we could catch glimpses beyond the walls, we would see fields, seared brown perhaps by the summer sun, and here and there a bright-kerchiefed woman gleaning among the wheat stubble.  The two walls start from Athens close together and run parallel for some distance, then they gradually diverge so as to embrace within their open angle a large part of the circumference of the Peireus.  This open space is built up with all kinds of shops, factories, and houses, usually of the less aristocratic kind.  In fact, all the noxious sights and odors to be found in Athens seem tenfold multiplied as we approach the Peireus.

[*]These were the walls whereof a considerable section was thrown down by Lysander after the surrender of Athens [404 B.C.].  The demolition was done to the “music of flute girls,” and was fondly thought by the victors to mean the permanent crippling of Athens, and therefore “the first day of the liberty of Greece.”  In 393 B.C., by one of the ironies of history, Conon, an Athenian admiral, but in the service of the king of Persia, who was then at war with Sparta, appeared in the Peireus, and with Persian men and money rebuilt the walls amid the rejoicings of the Athenians.