Athenians were at first defeated on the land; but this defeat
was more than overbalanced by a naval victory over the Dorian seamen, off
the island of AEgina, by which the naval force of _AEgina_ hitherto great,
was forever prostrated. The Athenians captured seventy ships and commenced
the siege of the city itself. Sparta would have come to the rescue, but
was preoccupied in suppressing the insurrection of the Helots. Corinth
sent three hundred hoplites to AEgina and attacked Megara. But the
Athenians prevailed both at AEgina and Megara, which was a great blow to
Corinth.

(M468) Fearing, however, a renewed attack from Corinth and the
Peloponnesian States, now full of rivalry and enmity, the Athenians, under
the leadership of Pericles, resolved to connect their city with the harbor
of Peireus by a long wall--a stupendous undertaking at that time. It
excited the greatest alarm among the enemies of Athens, and was a subject
of contention among different parties in the city. The party which Cimon,
now ostracised, had headed, wished to cement the various Grecian States in
a grand alliance against the Persians, and dreaded to see this long wall
arise as a standing menace against the united power of the Peloponnesus.
Moreover, the aristocrats of Athens disliked a closer amalgamation with
the maritime people of the Peireus, as well as the burdens and taxes which
this undertaking involved. These fortifications doubtless increased the
power of Athens, but weakened the unity of Hellenic patriotism; and
increased those jealousies which ultimately proved the political ruin of
Greece.

(M469) Under the influence of these rivalries and jealousies the
Lacedaemonians, although the Helots wore not subdued, undertook a hostile
expedition out of the Peloponnesus, with eleven thousand five hundred men,
ostensibly to protect Doris against the Phoecians, but really to prevent
the further aggrandizement of Athens, and this was supposed to be most
easily effected by strengthening Thebes and securing the obedience of the
Boeotian cities. But there was yet another design, to prevent the building
of the long walls, to which the aristocratical party of Athens was
opposed, but which Pericles, with long-sighted views, defended.

(M470) This extraordinary man, with whom the glory and greatness of Athens
are so intimately associated, now had the ascendency over all his rivals.
He is considered the ablest of all the statesmen which Greece produced. He