could only have acquired such a naval dominion as Athens once held by
devoting and zealously training all its sons to service in its fleets.
In order to man the numerous galleys which she sent out, she necessarily
employed large numbers of hired mariners and slaves at the oar; but the
staple of her crews was Athenian, and all posts of command were held by
native citizens. It was by reminding them of this, of their long
practice in seamanship, and the certain superiority which their
discipline gave them over the enemy's marine, that their great minister
mainly encouraged them to resist the combined power of Lacedaemon and
her allies. He taught them that Athens might thus reap the fruit of her
zealous devotion to maritime affairs ever since the invasion of the
Medes; "she had not, indeed, perfected herself; but the reward of her
superior training was the rule of the sea--a mighty dominion, for it
gave her the rule of much fair land beyond its waves, safe from the idle
ravages with which the Lacedaemonians might harass Attica, but never
could subdue Athens."

Athens accepted the war with which her enemies threatened her rather
than descend from her pride of place; and though the awful visitation of
the plague came upon her, and swept away more of her citizens than the
Dorian spear laid low, she held her own gallantly against her enemies.
If the Peloponnesian armies in irresistible strength wasted every spring
her corn-lands, her vineyards, and her olive groves with fire and sword,
she retaliated on their coasts with her fleets; which, if resisted, were
only resisted to display the preëminent skill and bravery of her seamen.
Some of her subject allies revolted, but the revolts were in general
sternly and promptly quelled. The genius of one enemy had indeed
inflicted blows on her power in Thrace which she was unable to remedy;
but he fell in battle in the tenth year of the war, and with the loss of
Brasidas the Lacedaemonians seemed to have lost all energy and judgment.