At the time Athens, without question,
stood at the head of the naval world: her empire was in the truest
sense the product of sea-power. Her navy, whilst unequalled in size,
might claim, without excessive exaggeration, to be invincible. The
great armament which the Athenians despatched to Sicily seemed, in
numbers alone, capable of triumphing over all resistance. If the
Athenian navy had already met with some explicable mishaps, it
looked back with complacent confidence on the glorious achievements
of more than half a century previously. It had enjoyed many years
of what was so nearly a maritime peace that its principal exploits
had been the subjection of states weak to insignificance on the
sea as compared with imperial Athens. Profuse expenditure on its
maintenance; the 'continued practice' of which Pericles boasted,
the peace manoeuvres of a remote past; skilfully designed equipment;
and the memory of past glories;--all these did not avail to save
it from defeat at the hands of an enemy who only began to organise
a fleet when the Athenians had invaded his coast waters.
Ideal perfection as a regular army has never been so nearly reached
as by that of Sparta. The Spartan spent his life in the barrack
and the mess-room; his amusements were the exercises of the parade
ground. For many generations a Spartan force had never been defeated
in a pitched battle. We have had, in modern times, some instances
of a hectoring soldiery arrogantly prancing amongst populations
whose official defenders it had defeated in battle; but nonesuch
could vie with the Spartans in the sublimity of their military
self-esteem.
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