10.
When it is said that Mycenae was but a small place, or that any other city which
existed in those days is inconsiderable in our own, this argument will hardly prove that
the expedition was not as great as the poets relate and as is commonly imagined.
[2]
Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples
and the ground-plan, distant ages would1 be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all
equal to their fame.
And yet they own two-fifths of the Peloponnesus, and are acknowledged leaders of the
whole, as well as of numerous allies in the rest of Hellas.
But their city is not built continuously, and has no splendid temples or other
edifices; it rather resembles a group of villages like the ancient towns of Hellas, and
would therefore make a poor show.
Whereas, if the same fate befell the Athenians, the ruins of Athens would strike the
eye, and we should infer their power to have been twice as great as it really is.
[3]
We ought not then to be unduly sceptical. The greatness of cities should be estimated by their real power and not by appearances.
And we may fairly suppose the Trojan expedition2 to have been greater than any which preceded it, although according to Homer, if
we may once more appeal to his testimony, not equal to those of our own day. He was a
poet, and may therefore be expected to exaggerate;
yet, even upon his showing, the
expedition was comparatively small.
[4]
For it numbered, as he tells us, twelve hundred ships, those of the Boeotians3 carrying one hundred and
twenty men each, those of Philoctetes4 fifty; and by these
numbers he may be presumed to indicate the largest and the smallest ships;
else why in the catalogue is nothing said about the size of any others?
That the crews were all fighting men as well as rowers he clearly implies when speaking
of the ships of Philoctetes;
for he tells us that all the oarsmen were likewise archers.
And it is not to be supposed that many who were not sailors would accompany the
expedition, except the kings and principal officers; for the troops had to cross the
sea, bringing with them the materials of war, in vessels without decks,
built after the old piratical fashion.
[5]
Now if we take a mean between the crews, the invading forces will appear not to have
been very numerous when we remember that they were drawn from the whole of Hellas.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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