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Meanwhile the Thasians being defeated in the field and suffering siege, appealed to Lacedaemon, and desired her to assist them by an invasion of Attica. Without informing Athens, she promised and intended to do so, but was prevented by the occurrence of the earthquake, accompanied by the secession of the Helots and the Thuriats and Aethaeans of the Perioeci to Ithome.
It is strange that any should dispute the right of the Romans to feel their human, as well as their Hellenic, sympathies revolted at the outrageous treatment of the Cians and Thasians. Thus in reality all political, commercial, and moral motives concurred in inducing Rome to undertake the second war against Philip one of the most righteous, which the city ever waged.
So the Lacedaemonians being engaged in a war with the rebels in Ithome, the Thasians in the third year of the siege obtained terms from the Athenians by razing their walls, delivering up their ships, and arranging to pay the moneys demanded at once, and tribute in future; giving up their possessions on the continent together with the mine.
You are to suppose, that the same complaints are made by the Cianians, Abydenians, Aeneans, Maronites, Thasians, Parians, Samians, Larissenians, Messenians, on the side of Achaia; and complaints, still heavier and more grievous, by those whom he had it more in his power to injure.
They recorded, that when the Thasians erected a statue to Theagenes, a victor in the games, one of his rivals went to it by night, and endeavored to throw it down by repeated blows, until at last he moved it from its pedestal, and was crushed to death beneath its fall. This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought above the will of the writer.
The Thasians invoked the aid of Sparta, which was promised though not fulfilled, which imbittered the relations between the two leading Grecian States. The towns of Platæa and Thespiæ were restored and repeopled under Athenian influence. The Spartans even aided in enlarging her circuit and improving her fortifications, which aid made Thebes a vehement partisan of Sparta.
After this he defeated in a sea-fight the people of Thasos, who had revolted from Athens, captured thirty-three of their ships, took their city by storm, and annexed to Athens the district of the mainland containing the gold mines, which had belonged to the Thasians. From Thasos he might easily have invaded Macedonia and inflicted great damage upon that country, but he refrained from doing so.
The Thasians, on the other hand, had anciently possessed some of the mines and the monopoly of the commerce; they had joined in the confederacy; and, asserting that the conquest had been made, if by Athenian arms, for the federal good, they demanded that the ancient privileges should revert to them.
At an early period of the blockade the Thasians secretly applied to the Lacedaemonians to make a diversion in their favour by invading Attica: and though the Lacedaemonians were still ostensibly allied with Athens, they were base enough to comply with this request. Their treachery, however, was prevented by a terrible calamity which befel themselves.
It is strange that any should dispute the right of the Romans to feel their human, as well as their Hellenic, sympathies revolted at the outrageous treatment of the Cians and Thasians. Thus in reality all political, commercial, and moral motives concurred in inducing Rome to undertake the second war against Philip one of the most righteous, which the city ever waged.
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