The History of Greece

Front matter

THE HISTORY OF GREECE. By WILLIAM MITFORD, Esq. THE THIRD VOLUME. LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. CADELL, IN THE STAAND, 1822. Luke Hansard & Sons, near Lincoln's -Inn Fields. CONTENTS or THE THIRD VOLUME.

CHAPTER XIII.

Affairs of Greece, from the Thtrty- Years Truce to that commonly called the Peloponnesian War ; with a summary View of the History of Macedonia, from the earliest Accounts. Sect. I. Administration of Pericles: Science, Arts, and fine Taste at Athens. Change in the condition of Women in Greece : Aspasia. Popular Licentiousness at Athens. The Athenian Empire asserted and extended. Project for Union of Greece --_-•------,-. p. i. Sect. II. War between Samos and Miletus: Interference of Athens : Armament under Pericles : Samos taken. Funeral Solemnity at Athens in honor of the slain in their Country's Service -.-..--......p. 14. Sect. III. Affairs of Corcyra: Sedition at Epidamnus : War between Corcyra and Corinth : Defect of the antient Ships of War : Deficient Naval Skill of the Peloponnesians : Sea-fight off Actium : Accession of the Corcyræans to the Athenian Confederacy : Sea-fght off Sybota : Infraction of the Thirty-years Truce --------- p. 19.

Section I

Administration of Pericles : Science, Arts, and fine Taste at Athens. Change in the Condition of Women in Greece .- Aspasia. Popular Licentiousness at Athens. The Athenian Empire asserted and extended. Project for Union of Greece. ATHENS now rested six years, uningaged in any hostilities ; a longer interval of perfect peace than she had before known in above forty years, elapsed since she rose from her ashes after the Persian invasion. It is a wonderful and sin gular phenomenon in the history of mankind, too little accounted for by anything recorded by an tient, or imagined by modern writers, that, during this period of turbulence, in a commonwealth whose whole population in free subjects amounted scarcely to thirty thousand families, art, science, vol. hi. b fine chap, fine taste, and politeness, should have risen to ,.

X*IL , that perfection which has made Athens the mistress of the world, through all succeeding ages. Some sciences indeed have been carried higher in modern times, and art has put forth new branches, of which some have given new helps to science : but Athens, in that age, reached a perfection of taste that no country hath since surpassed ; but on the contrary all have looked up to, as a polar star, by which, after sinking in the deepest barbarism, taste has been guided in its restoration to splendor, and the observation of which will probably ever be the surest preservative against its future corrup tion and decay. Much of these circumstances of glory to Athens, and of improvement, since so extensively spred over the world, was owing to Pericles. Peisistratus had nourished the infancy of Attic genius ; Pericles brought it to maturity.

In the age of Peisistratus books were scarcely known, science was vague, and art still rude. But during the turbulent period which intervened, things had been so wonderfully prepared, that, in the age of Pericles, science and every polite art waited, as it were, only his magic touch to exhibit them to the world in Aiclb. i. meridian splendor. The philosopher Anaxagoras piutlvit*'2' ofCIazomene, whose force of understanding and p. 118. t. 2 Plut. vit, Peric, extent of science acquired him the appellation of the Intellect, had been the tutor of the youth of Pericles, and remained the friend of his riper years. Among those with whom Pericles chiefly conversed was also the Athenian Pheidias, in whom, with a capacity for every science, was united the S ECT. I. Plat. Menex, CONDITION OF WOMEN. 3 the sublimest genius for the fine arts, which he professed ; and Damon, who, professing only music, was esteemed the ablest speculative politician that the world had yet produced.

Nor must the celebrated Aspasia be omitted in the enumeration of those to whom Pericles was indebted for the cultivation of his mind; since we have it on the authority of Plato, that Socrates himself acknowledged to have profited from the instruction of that extraordinary woman. It will not be the place here to inlarge upon the manners any more than upon the arts and knowlege, of the age of Pericles ; yet it may be requisite to advert to one point, in which a great change had taken place since the age which Homer has described. The political circumstances of Greece, and especially of Athens, had contributed much to exclude women of rank from general society. The turbulence to which every commonwealth was continually liable, from the contentions of faction, made it often unsafe, or at least unpleasant for them to go abroad.

But in democracies their situation was peculiarly untoward. That form of government compelled the men to associate all with all. The general assembly necessarily called all together; and the vote of the meanest citizen being there of equal value with that of the highest, the more numerous body of the poor was always formidable to the wealthy few. Hence followed the utmost condescension, or something more than condescension, from the rich to the multitude; and not to the collected multitude only, nor to the best among the multitude, but B 2 principally C H A P XIII. See also Lysias against Diogeiton. principally to the most turbulent, illmannered, and worthless. Not those alone who sought honors or commands, but all who desired security for their property, must not only meet these men upon a footing of equality in the general assembly* but associate with them in the gymnasia and por ticoes, flatter them, and sometimes cringe to them.

The ladies, to avoid a society which their fathers and husbands could not avoid, lived with their female slaves, in a secluded part of the house ; associating little with oneanother, and scarcely at all with the men, even their nearest relations ; and seldom appearing in public, but at those re ligious festivals in which antient custom required the women to bear a part, and sacerdotal authority could insure decency of conduct toward them. Hence the education of the Grecian ladies in general, and particularly the Athenian, was scarcely above that of their slaves; and, as we find them exhibited in lively picture, in the little treatise upon domestic economy remaining to us from Xenophon, they were equally of uninstructed minds, and unformed manners. To the deficiencies to which women of rank were thus condemned, by custom which the new political circumstances of the country had superinduced upon the better manners of the heroic ages, was owing that comparative superiority, through which some of the Grecian courtezans attained extraordinary renown.

Carefully instructed in every elegant accomplishment, and, from early years, accustomed to converse among men, and men of the highest rank and most improved talents, if they ASPASIA. 5 they possessed understanding it became cultivated ; sect. and to their houses men resorted, not merely in > J" the low pursuit of sensual pleasure, but to injoy, often in the most polished company, the charms of female conversation, which, with women of rank and character, was totally forbidden. Hence, at Piut.vh. the time of the invasion under Xerxes, more than one Grecian city is said to have been ingaged in the Persian interest through the influence of Thar gelia, a Milesian courtezan, who was afterward raised to the throne of Thessaly. Aspasia was also a Milesian, the daughter of Axiochus ; for her celebrity has preserved her father's name.

With uncommon beauty were joined in Aspasia still more uncommon talents ; and, with a mind the most cultivated, manners so decent, that, in her more advanced years, not only Socrates professed to have learned eloquence from her, but, as Plutarch relates, the ladies of Athens used to accompany their husbands to her house for the instruction of her conversation. Pericles became her passionate admirer, and she attached herself to him during his life: according to Plutarch he divorced his wife, with whom he had lived on ill terms, to marry her. We are informed, on Plat. r • u- Menon. higher authority, that he was not fortunate in his P.o,4.t. ». family, his sons being mentioned by Plato as youths pll8. j. j. of mean understanding. After he was once firmly established at the head of the Athenian administration, he passed his little leisure from public busi ness mostly in company with Aspasia and a few select friends ; avoiding that extensive society in b 3 which CHAP. XIII. which the Athenians in general delighted, and seldom seen by the people, but in the exercise of some public office, or speaking in the general assembly : a reserve perhaps as advantageous to him, as the contrary conduct was necessary to the ambitious who were yet but aspiring at great ness, or to the wealthy without power, who desired security to their property.

Policy united with natural inclination to induce Pericles to patronize the arts, and call forth their finest productions for the admiration and delight of the Athenian people. The Athenian people were the despotic soverein ; Pericles the favorite and minister, whose business it was to indulge the soverein's caprices that he might direct their measures ; and he had the skill often to direct even their caprices. That fine taste which he possessed eminently, was in some degree general among the Athenians ; and the gratification of that fine taste was one mean by which he retained his influence. Works were undertaken, according to the expres sion of Plutarch, in whose time they still remained perfect, of stupendous magnitude, and in form and grace inimitable ; all calculated for the accommodation, or in some way for the gratification, of the multitude.

Pheidias was superintendant of the works : under him many architects and artists were employed, whose merit intitled them to fame with posterity, and of whose labors (such is the hardness of the Attic marble, their principal material, and the mildness of the Attic atmosphere) relics which have escaped the violence of men, still after SC1BNCE, ARTS AND TASTE. 7 SECT. I. after the lapse of more than two thousand years, exhibit all the perfection of design, and even of workmanship, which earned that fame. Meanwhile Pheidias himself was executing works of statuary which were, while they lasted, the admiration of succeeding times. Nor does the testimony to these works, which are now totally, or almost totally lost, rest meerly upon Grecian report ; for the Romans, when in possession of all the most exquisite productions of Grecian art, scanty relics of which have excited the wonder and formed the taste of modern ages, were at a loss to express their admiration of the sublimity of the works of Pheidias.

When such was the perfection of the art of sculpture, it were a solecism to suppose that the sister art of painting could be mean, since the names of Panænus, kinsman of Pheidias, and Zeuxis and Parrhasius, cotem poraries, remained always among the most cele brated of the Grecian school. At the same time the chaste sublimity of the great tragic poets Æs chylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and. that extra ordinary mixture of the most elegant satire with the grossest buffoonery, the old comedy, as it is called, were alternately exhibited in immense thea ters, at the public expence, and for the amusement of the whole people. Thus captivating the Athenians by their relish for matters of taste and their passion for amuse ment, Pericles confirmed his authority principally by that great instrument for the management of a people, his" eloquence : but this was supported by unremitted assiduity in public business, and evident B 4 superiority superiority of capacity for the conduct of it ; and, above all, by an ostentatious integrity.

The whole Athenian commonwealth thus, with all its appur tenances, or, in the words of cotemporary authors, revenues, armies, fleets, ilands, the sea, friend ships and alliances with kings and various poten tates, and influence that commanded several Gre cian states and many barbarous nations, all were in a manner his possession. Plutarch says that, while thus, during fifteen years, ruling the Athe nian empire, so strict and scrupulous was his economy in his private affairs, that he neither increased nor diminished his paternal estate by a single drachma: but, according to the more pro bable assertion, and higher authority of Isocrates, his private estate suffered in maintaining his public importance, so that he left it less to his sons than he had received it from his father. CHAP. XIII. Apud Plut in vit.

Peric- Plat. Alcib. l. p. 104. t. a. Isocr. de pace, p.U54' t. a. ed. Auger. But the political power of Pericles resting on the patronage, which he professed, of democracy, he was obliged to allow much, and even to bear much, that a better constitution would have put under more restraint. Such, under his administration, was the popular licentiousness, that the comic poets did not fear to vent, in the public theaters, the grossest jokes upon his person, the severest invectives against his administration, and even the most abominable calumnies upon his character. His connection with Aspasia was not likely to escape their satire. She was called, on the public stage, the Omphale of her time, the Deianeira, and even the Juno. Many circumstances of the administration of Pericles were malevolently at- Plut.

T«. Peric. tributed POPULAR LICENTIOUSNESS. 9 SECT. I. tributed to her influence, and much gross abuse and much improbable calumny was vented against both of them. It would indeed be scarcely possible "to distinguish almost any truth amid the licentiousness of wit, and the violence, not to say the atrociousness, of party-spirit at Athens, had we not generally, for this interesting period of history, the guidance of a cotemporary author, Thucydides son of Olorus ; of uncommon abilities and still more uncommon impartiality, and whose ample fortune, great connections, and high situation in the commonwealth, opened to him superior means of information. For what is omitted in the concise review of Grecian affairs, which he has prefixed to his history of the Peloponnesian war, we have sometimes some testimony from Xeno phon, Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, or the orators.

To later writers, when not in some degree sup ported by these, it is seldom safe to trust. Some times they have adopted reports carelessly; and often, as we find Plutarch frequently acknowleging, they have been unable to unravel truth amid con tradiction and improbability. Indeed Plutarch, tho often extremely negligent, is yet often, and especially for the life of Pericles, our best assistant. He frequently quotes his authorities ; and where unbiassed by some evident prejudice, he is generally impartial. We may then trust the united authorities of Thucydides, Isocrates, and Plutarch, notwithstanding the vague accusations reported by Diodorus and others, that the clear integrity of Pericles, not less than the wisdom of his public conduct, was was his shield against the scurrility of the comic poets, so adapted to make impression on the po pular mind, as well as against every effort of the opposing orators1.

One great point however of his policy was to keep the people always either amused or employed. During peace an exercising squadron of sixty trireme gallies was sent out for eight months in every year. Nor was this without a farther use than meerly ingaging the attention of the people, and maintaining the navy in vigor. Himself occasionally took the command; and sailing among the distant dependencies of the empire, settled disputes between them, and con firmed the power and extended the influence of Athens. The Ægean and the Propontis did not bound his voyages : he penetrated into the Euxine ; and finding the distant Grecian settlement of Sinope divided between Timesileos, who affected the tyranny, and an opposing party, he left there Lamachus with thirteen ships, and a body of land forces, with whose assistance to the popular side the tyrant and those of his faction were expelled.

Their houses and property, apportioned into six hundred lots, were offered to so many Athenian citizens ; and volunteers were not wanting to go upon such conditions to settle at Sinope. To dis burthen the government at home, by providing advantageous establishments, in distant parts, for the poor and discontented among the soverein citizens » The expression of Thucydides is of that forcible kind which is almost peculiar to him, and to which his character gives an wrtr0" n W^ »' " rUld hardl? ha™ f^m any other writer. n.««x,,_ - W* & rZ r« i{,^.T, xa) J yt^ Xt^aju, ti h*<p*m aZvfiTat®. y„^„©-. Thucyd. 1. 2. c. 65. EMPIRE EXTENDED. 11 citizens of Athens, was a policy often resorted to sect. by Pericles. We have alreddy seen him conduct- *' , ing a colony to the Thracian Chersonese ; and it Ch. i«. 8.4. 0 ,.,... . . . of this Hist. was during his administration, in the same year, according to Diodorus, in which the thirty years Dlod , truce was concluded, that the deputation came c- 9>&seq from the Thessalian adventurers, who had been of tins Hist. expelled by the Crotoniats from their attempted establishment in the deserted territory of Sybaris, in consequence of which the colony was esta blished, under his patronage, with which Herodotus and Lysias settled at Thurium.

Plutarch has attributed to Pericles a noble pro ject, unnoticed by any earlier extant author, but worthy of his capacious mind, and otherwise also bearing some characters of authenticity and truth. It was no less than to unite all Greece under one great federal government, of which Athens should be the capital. But the immediate and direct avowal of such a purpose would be likely to raise jealousies so numerous and extensive, as to form insuperable obstacles to the execution. The religion of the nation, tho even in this every town and almost every family claimed something peculiar to itself, was yet that alone in which the Grecian people universally claimed a clear common interest. In the vehemence of public alarm, during the Persian invasion, vows had been in some places made to the gods, for sacrifices, to an extent beyond what the votaries, when blessed with de liverance beyond hope, were able to perform ; and some temples, destroyed by the invaders, probably also from the scantiness of means of those in whose XIU. whose territories they had stood, were not yet re stored.

Taking these circumstances then for his ground, Pericles proposed that a congress of de puties from every republic of the nation should be assembled at Athens, for the purpose first, of in quiring concerning vows for the safety of Greece yet unperformed, and temples, injured by the bar barians, not yet restored ; and then of proceeding to concert measures for ths lasting security of navigation in the Grecian seas, and for the pre servation of peace by land also between all the states composing the Greek nation. The naval question, but still more the ruin which, in the Persian invasion, had befallen Northern Greece, and especially Attica, while Peloponnesus had felt nothing of its evils, gave pretension for Athens to take the lead in the business. On the motion of Pericles, a decree of the Athenian people di rected the appointment of ministers, to invite every Grecian state to send its deputies.

Plutarch, rarely attentive to political information, has not at all indicated what attention was shown, or what participation proposed, for Lacedæmon. His prejudices indeed we find very generally adverse to the Lacedæmonian government, and favoring the Athenian democracy. But, judging from the friendship which, according to the authentic in formation of Thucydides, subsisted between Peri cles and Archidamus, king of Lacedæmon, through life, it is little likely that, in putting forward the project for the peace of Greece, Pericles would have proposed any thing derogatory to the just weight and dignity of Sparta ; which would indeed have been, PROJECT OF PERICLES. 13 SECT. I been, with the pretence of the purpose of peace, only to have put forward a project of contest. Pericles, when he formed his coalition with Cimon, seems .to have entered heartily into the inlarged views of that great man, and with the hope that, through their coalition, both the oligarchal and the democratical powers in Athens might be held justly balanced, had early in view to establish the peace of Greece on a union between Athens and Lacedæmon.

It is however evident, from the narrative of Thucydides, that Archidamus rarely could direct the measures of the Lacedæmonian government. On a view of all information then it seems most probable that the project of Pericles was concerted with Archidamus ; and that the opposition of those in Lacedæmon of an adverse faction, concurred with opposition from those in Athens, who apprehended injury to their interest from a new coalition with the aristocratical party, to compel the great projector to abandon his magnificent and beneficent purpose in a stage so early, that it was no object for the notice of the able and accurate cotemporary historian, in that valuable abridgement of early Grecian history which precedes his narrative of the Peloponne sian war.

Section II

War between Samos and Miletus: Interference of Athens : Armament under Pericles: Samos taken. Funeral Solemnity at Athens in honor of the Slain in their Country s Service. Peace between Lacedæmon and Athens was indispensable toward the quiet of the rest of the nation, but, in the want of such a union as Pe ricles had projected, was unfortunately far from insuring it; and when war began anywhere, tho among the most distant settlements of the Grecian people, how far it might extend was not to be foreseen. A dispute between two Asiatic states, of the Athenian confederacy, led Athens into a war, which greatly indangered the truce made for thirty years, when it had scarcely lasted six. Mi letus and Samos, claiming each the sovereinty of Priene, itself originally a free Grecian commonwealth, asserted their respective pretensions by arms.

The Milesians, not till they were suffering under defeat, applied to Athens for redress, as of a flagrant injury done them. The usual feuds within every Grecian state furnished assistance to their clamor ; for, the aristocracy prevailing at that time in Samos, the leaders of the democratical party joined the enemies of their country, in ac cusing the proceedings of its government before the Athenian people. The opposition at Athens maliciously imputed the measures, which followed, to the weak compliance of Pericles with the soli citations of Aspasia, in favor of her native city ; but it appears clearly from Thucydides, that no CHAP. XIII. B.C. 440 r>i 8+ 4 ui. TT. ,• Thucyd. 1. l. c. 115 Plut. vit. Peric. such SECT. II, WAR BETWEEN SAMOS AND MILETUS. 15 such motive was necessary : the Athenian government would of course take connisance of the cause ; and such a requisition as might be ex pected, was accordingly sent to the Samian ad ministration, to answer by deputies at Athens to the charges urged against them.

The Samians, unwilling to submit their claim to the arbitration of those who they knew were always systemati cally adverse to the aristocratical interest, refused to send any deputies. A fleet of forty trireme gallies, however, brought them to immediate sub mission ; their government was changed to a de mocracy, in which those who had headed the opposition of course took the lead; and to insure permanent acquiescence from the aristocratical party, fifty men and fifty boys, of the first families of the iland, were taken as hostages, and placed under an Athenian guard in the iland of Lemnos. What Herodotus mentions, as an observation applicable generally, we may reddily believe was on this occasion experienced in Samos, ' that the lower people were most unpleasant associates to the nobles1.' A number of these, unable to support the oppression to which they found them selves exposed, quitted the iland, and applied to Pissuthnes, satrap of Sardis, from whom they found a favorable reception.

At the same time they maintained a correspondence with those of their party remaining in Samos, and they ingaged in their interest the city of Byzantium, itself a subject-ally of Athens. Collecting then about seven hundred auxiliary soldiers, they crossed by night . Xvtoixripi.x uxa^Turarot. Herod. 1. 7- c. 156. CHAP XIII. Thucyd. 1.1. c. 116, 117. night the narrow channel which separates Samos from the continent, and being joined by their friends, they surprized and overpowered the new administration. Without delay they proceeded to Lemnos, and so well conducted their enter prize, that they carried off their hostages, together with the Athenian guard set over them. To win more effectually the favor of the satrap, the Athe nian prisoners were presented to him. Receiving then assurance of assistance from Byzantium, and being not without hopes from Lacedæmon, they prepared to prosecute their success by immediately undertaking an expedition against Miletus.

Information of these transactions arriving quickly at Athens, Pericles, with nine others, according to the antient military constitution, joined with him in command, hastened to Samos with a fleet of sixty trireme gallies. Sixteen of these were detached, some to Chios and Lesbos, to require the assistance of the squadrons of those ilands, the rest to the Carian coast, to look out for a Phenician fleet in the Persian service, which was expected to support the Samians. Pericles with the remaining forty-four ships met the Sa mian fleet of seventy, returning from Miletus, and defeated it. Being soon after joined by forty more gallies from Athens, and twenty-five from Chios and Lesbos, he debarked his infantry on the iland of Samos, and laid siege to the city of the same name, by land and sea. Intel ligence meanwhile arriving that the fleet from Phenicia was approaching, Pericles went with sixty of his gallies to Caunus in Caria; apparently SECT II.

Thucyd. 1. 1. c. 41 WAR BETWEEN SAMOS AND MILETUS. 17 rently apprehensive for his small squadron there. The Samians, under the conduct of the able Me lissus, (who, as was not unusual in that age, united the characters of philosopher and military com mander) hastened to profit from his absence. Issuing unexpectedly from the harbor with their fleet, they attacked the Athenian naval camp, which was unfortified, destroyed the ships sta tioned as an advanced guard', and then defeated the rest of the fleet, hastily formed for action against them. Becoming thus masters of the sea, during fourteen days they had all opportunity for carrying supplies into the town. Meanwhile an assembly of deputies from the states of the Peloponnesian confederacy was held at Sparta, to consider whether the democratical party in Samos should be protected in what, according to Grecian political tenets extensively held in that age, was rebellion*.

The Corinthians, yet weak from the consequences of their last war with Athens, principally decided the assembly to the rejection of the proposal. Indeed, unless an invasion of Attica by land might have been effectual, the 3 Tij œpotp vy.ax'iSas tavi : for which may be consulted Scheffer's treatise de Militia Navali, 1. 3. c. 4. p. 108. tho he is not very satisfactory. I would not however undervalue his laborious compilation, which may often guard against the supposition of what was not, where it fails to inform what was. 1 Ministers from Corinth, afterward giving an account to the Athenian assembly of what had passed at Sparla upon the occasion mentioned in the text, affirmed that their deputies had asserted the light of every leading city to punish its allies: -rol; 9-peTs'fs:/? ivu,y.ux"1^ aiiii tii« xuhd^tn. 1 IiUC.su. 1. 1. c. 43.

VOL. III. C C IT A P. XIII. the confederacy had not means to carry it into execution ; for its naval strength was very unequal to a contention with that of Athens. The Samians, thus disappointed of assistance from Peloponnesus, were weakly supported by the satrap, and the promised succour from Byzantium was delayed. The return of Pericles therefore compelled them to confine themselves within their harbor : and shortly a reinforcement arrived to him, which might have inabled a less skilful commander to overbear opposition ; forty gallies from Attica, under Thucydides, Agnon, and Phormion5, were followed by twenty more under Tlepolemus and Anticles, while thirty came from Chios and Lesbos. The Samians made one vain attempt to cut off a part of this formidable naval force ; and then, in the ninth month from the commencement of the siege, they capitu lated : their ships of war were surrendered, their fortifications were destroyed, they bound them selves to the payment of a sum of money by in stalment for the expences of the war, and they gave hostages as pledges of their fidelity to the soverein commonwealth of Athens.

The Byzan tines, not Waiting the approach of the coercing fleet, 5 The historian not having distinguished the Thucydides here spoken of, by the mention of his father's name, it remains in doubt who he was. Some have supposed him the historian himself; others, the son of Melesias, once the opponent of Pericles, now reconciled to him; while others have imagined a third person of the name, nowhere else mentioned in his tory. No certainty can be had, and the matter is not im portant ; but the first supposition appears to me far the most probable. Agnon and Phormion become, in the course of the history, farther known to us. FUNERAL SOLEMNITY. 1 q fleet, sent their request to be readmitted to their sect. former terms of subjection, which was granted. v_JJ__, This rebellion, alarming and troublesome at the time to the administration of Athens, otherwise little disturbed the internal peace of the commonwealth; and in the event contributed rather to strengthen its command over its dependencies.

Pericles took occasion from it to acquire fresh popularity. On the return of the armament to Athens, the accustomed solemnities in honor of those who had fallen in the war were performed with new splendor ; and in speaking the funeral oration, he exerted the powers of his eloquence very highly to the gratification of the people. As he descended from the bema, even the women presented him with chaplets; an idea derived from the ceremonies of the public games, where the crowning with a chaplet was the distinction of the victors, and, as something approaching to divine honor, was held among the highest tokens of admiration, esteem, and respect.