DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0226
2io WAR MONUMENTS IN DELPHI
Meton escaped taking part in the Athenian expedition to
Syracuse in the Peloponnesian War. When he could not
get his name taken out of the list of those liable to serve
in any other way, he feigned madness, and set fire to his
house, which was near to the Poikile Stoa. He succeeded
in deceiving the archons, and was exempted from military
service, and was rightly called the most cunning deceiver
of antiquity. Odysseus could not fool Palamedes when,
to escape from going on the expedition to Troy, he feigned
madness, but Meton humbugged a whole people.1 An
author of the fourth century, Aeneas, gives full information
about the tricks employed in warfare, and the fully developed
system of espionage. Of special interest is his description,
of the different ways in which letters can be - smuggled into
hostile lines. One can either cover the incriminating
message on a writing-tablet with a new layer of wax, and
provide it with a text giving no information, or use materials
by which the characters become visible when put in water.
One can use various kinds of cypher, of which a secret
system with letters divided on a twenty-four-sided die is
specially recommended, or miniature writing on lead-rolls
which women can carry in their ear-rings.2
" Thus were fulfilled the plans of Zeus," says Euripides
of the Trojan battles,8 " that Mother Earth might be
relieved of her superfluity of men." Then, as now, child-
less parents wept over " divinely sent loss of sons," or
they mourned like the mothers in another tragedy of Euri-
pides 4 : " Alas I how is it all wasted, the care I devoted
to my children, the painful joy of childbirth and the
motherly nursing, the long sleepless nights, when their
dear little faces were pressed against my cheeks."
The driving force which kept up the madness was the
hatred between peoples, which was vigorously fanned into
flame. This bursts out in the Andromache of Euripides
(445) in accents which remind one of the polemic of modern
war. 'Oh! you inhabitants of Sparta, you most hated
of all living men ! You deceitful councillors, you masters
of lying, you weavers of disasters ! You who never go the
’ Aelian, Varia Historia, xiii. 12. 2 Aeneas Tacticus, especially c. 31.
3 Helena, 39. 4 Supplices, 1135.
Meton escaped taking part in the Athenian expedition to
Syracuse in the Peloponnesian War. When he could not
get his name taken out of the list of those liable to serve
in any other way, he feigned madness, and set fire to his
house, which was near to the Poikile Stoa. He succeeded
in deceiving the archons, and was exempted from military
service, and was rightly called the most cunning deceiver
of antiquity. Odysseus could not fool Palamedes when,
to escape from going on the expedition to Troy, he feigned
madness, but Meton humbugged a whole people.1 An
author of the fourth century, Aeneas, gives full information
about the tricks employed in warfare, and the fully developed
system of espionage. Of special interest is his description,
of the different ways in which letters can be - smuggled into
hostile lines. One can either cover the incriminating
message on a writing-tablet with a new layer of wax, and
provide it with a text giving no information, or use materials
by which the characters become visible when put in water.
One can use various kinds of cypher, of which a secret
system with letters divided on a twenty-four-sided die is
specially recommended, or miniature writing on lead-rolls
which women can carry in their ear-rings.2
" Thus were fulfilled the plans of Zeus," says Euripides
of the Trojan battles,8 " that Mother Earth might be
relieved of her superfluity of men." Then, as now, child-
less parents wept over " divinely sent loss of sons," or
they mourned like the mothers in another tragedy of Euri-
pides 4 : " Alas I how is it all wasted, the care I devoted
to my children, the painful joy of childbirth and the
motherly nursing, the long sleepless nights, when their
dear little faces were pressed against my cheeks."
The driving force which kept up the madness was the
hatred between peoples, which was vigorously fanned into
flame. This bursts out in the Andromache of Euripides
(445) in accents which remind one of the polemic of modern
war. 'Oh! you inhabitants of Sparta, you most hated
of all living men ! You deceitful councillors, you masters
of lying, you weavers of disasters ! You who never go the
’ Aelian, Varia Historia, xiii. 12. 2 Aeneas Tacticus, especially c. 31.
3 Helena, 39. 4 Supplices, 1135.